THE CLUB OF MASKS




  The Club of Masks

  By ALLEN UPWARD

  [Illustration]

  A. L. BURT COMPANY

  Publishers      New York

  Published by arrangement with J. B. Lippincott Company
  Printed in U. S. A.




COPYRIGHT, 1926, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY

_Copyright in Great Britain under the title of The Domino Club_




CONTENTS


      I   ON HIS MAJESTY’S SERVICE              7

     II   THE EVIDENCE OF MADAME BONNELL       22

    III   THE EVIDENCE OF THE DEAD             38

     IV   THE OPENED SAFE                      53

      V   DR. WEATHERED’S PATIENTS             69

     VI   THE BOOKS OF THE DOMINO CLUB         84

    VII   THE CAUSE OF DEATH                   99

   VIII   THE LEOPARD’S CLAWS                 111

     IX   SARAH NEOBARD SPEAKS OUT            125

      X   THE CASE AGAINST LADY VIOLET        140

     XI   WHAT THE CIPHER MEANT               154

    XII   PSYCHO-ANALYSIS                     170

   XIII   THE EARL OF LEDBURY INTERVENES      185

    XIV   THE UNKNOWN POISON                  201

     XV   THE LADY OF THE LEOPARD SKIN        216

    XVI   THE RED LIGHT                       233

   XVII   A SINGULAR DISMISSAL                247

  XVIII   MOTHER AND DAUGHTER                 263

    XIX   THE MEANS TO DO ILL DEEDS           279

     XX   THE FINGER-PRINT                    295




THE CLUB OF MASKS




CHAPTER I

ON HIS MAJESTY’S SERVICE


I had only just let myself into the hall of the quiet house in the
respectable street beside the British Museum when my ear was startled
by the subdued shrilling of the telephone bell overhead. Whether this
was the first time it had sounded, or whether that alarming call was
being repeated for the second or third time, I had no means of knowing,
as I turned hurriedly to fasten the front door behind me. Cautiously,
and yet as swiftly as I dared, I shot the bolts and began speeding
on tiptoe up the two flights of stairs between me and safety from
detection. The night telephone was placed beside my bed on the second
floor, but Sir Frank Tarleton slept on the same landing; and unless
I could reach my room and still that persistent ringing before it
penetrated through his slumber I ran the risk of meeting him coming out
to find why it was not answered. And not for much, not for very much,
would I have had the great consultant see me returning to his house at
an hour when daylight was already flooding the deserted streets of the
still sleeping city.

There was something ominous in the continuous peal that sounded louder
and louder in my ears with every step I made towards it. It seemed as
though the unknown caller must know of my predicament and be bent on
exposing me. I clutched the rail of the banisters to steady myself as I
panted up those interminable stairs in the darkness, and my feet felt
clogged like those of one in a nightmare as I lifted them from step to
step; all the while racking my brains for some excuse to offer for the
breach of duty I had been guilty of in spending the night elsewhere.
For my real excuse, the only one that could have tempted me to betray
my chief’s confidence, could never be disclosed.

The darkness all around me seemed to be vibrating with the merciless
clamour overhead as I toiled through those tense moments. My knees
trembled under me, and my heart well-nigh stopped beating, as my head
reached the level of the last landing and I turned my eyes desperately
to the physician’s door in search of any sign that he had been aroused.

No sign as yet, thank Heaven! Five more stairs, three lightning strides
to my own door, and he would never know of the secret errand that had
taken me away from my post that night.

At last my agony was ended. I stood breathless on the topmost stair,
darted past Sir Frank’s room, not daring to pause and listen for any
movement from within, and clutched the handle of my own door, summoning
all my nerve to open and close it again so rapidly as to permit the
least possible sound to escape. An instant later and I had reached the
telephone and silenced its urgent voice, and was beginning to draw my
breath freely for the first time since I had reached the house.

Then, after a few deep gasps, I hailed the caller.

“Inspector Charles of Scotland Yard speaking,” came grimly over the
wire. “Who is there?”

There was nothing to startle me in the fact that the police were
calling so imperatively. Tarleton was the greatest living authority on
poisons; it was to pursue his researches in their mysterious history
that he lived in the unfashionable neighbourhood of the Museum; and
the Home Office treated him with a confidence which they placed in no
other of their advisers. Neither was there any cause for uneasiness in
the Inspector’s cautious question. Very many of the calls that came to
that unpretending house in that quiet corner of London had a certain
character of furtiveness, and the callers showed the same anxiety to
make sure whom they were speaking with.

My usual response came to my lips mechanically. “This is Dr. Cassilis,
Sir Frank Tarleton’s confidential assistant. The doctor is asleep.”

There was a pause before the caller spoke again. There was nothing
alarming to me in that, either. I had grown accustomed to the pause
during my first few weeks under the roof of the great consultant. Few
of those who needed his services liked to disclose their business to a
deputy.

“Please have him waked immediately. He is wanted as soon as
possible--on His Majesty’s service.”

The request was peremptory, nevertheless I was not inclined to give
way to it at once. The police formula made no difference to me. I was
His Majesty’s servant as much as my chief, and it was for me, and not
for the Inspector, to decide which of us was to take the case. At the
same time I began casting off my clothes so as to be ready to go in and
rouse Tarleton if it became necessary; and one hand was busy with my
necktie and collar while the other held the telephone mouthpiece to my
lips.

“My instructions are not to disturb Sir Frank unless I am satisfied
that the case is urgent, and that I can’t deal with it myself,” I said
firmly. “I must ask you to tell me something more.”

There was another pause before the caller spoke again, and I took
advantage of it to wrench off my collar and throw my waistcoat after my
coat onto the floor. When the wire buzzed again the first words that
reached my ear nearly caused me to drop the tube from my fingers.

“I am speaking from the Domino Club, Vincent Studios, Tarifa Road,
Chelsea. There was a masked dance here this night, and one of the
dancers has been found dead, apparently poisoned.”

And now I might well find myself trembling all over, and have to lean
against the wall to recover myself. I only just succeeded in keeping
back a cry of consternation. For it was to go to that underground
club, with its dark reputation, and its strange character of mingled
fashion and depravity, that I had been tempted to quit my post that
night. I had been one of those masked dancers, jostling with I knew
not whom under the shadowy lights and in the curtained recesses of the
pretended studio in London’s nearest approach to a Quartier Latin. I
could recall the scene in the after-midnight hours, the sea of black
silk-covered faces thronging under the crimson lamp-shades, the bizarre
confusion of costumes, monks and Crusaders, columbines and queens, the
swish of silk and tinkling of swords and bracelets, and the incessant
flood of whispers that had made me think of the scene in Milton’s
pandemonium when the assembly of fallen angels are suddenly deprived of
speech and changed into hissing serpents.

I had used the greatest precautions in coming and going. I had no
reason to think that there was any real likelihood of my presence
there being discovered. But a cold fear laid hold of me as I steadied
my nerves to deal with the Police Inspector who had so unexpectedly
conjured up a spectre on the scene of that past revelry. It was doubly
imperative now that I should make no mistake, and above all that I
should get rid of every sign that I had not passed the night in my own
bed.

I was fast unbuttoning my shirt as I spoke again to the waiting police
officer.

“I’m afraid I can’t awake Sir Frank for that. It seems to be a case
that he will expect me to attend myself. Is there anything peculiar
about the medical symptoms? What does your local surgeon say?”

Inspector Charles at last revealed the true reason for his persistence
in demanding the attendance of my chief.

“I haven’t called in our local surgeon. There doesn’t seem anything
mysterious about the cause of death. It looks to me like a simple
case of opium-poisoning, very likely a suicide. But the case must be
disposed of _in camera_ if possible, for the sake of the people in high
places connected with the club. My information is that there was a
royalty present at this dance, the Crown Prince of----”

Whether purposely or not, the speaker let his voice drop so low that I
failed to catch the final word. But I had heard enough. There could be
no more doubt that Tarleton must be informed. It was a bare possibility
that the victim might prove to be the foreign Royal Highness himself.
Failing that, it might at least be someone who had been mistaken
for him by the assassin. In any case I could thank my stars for the
intimation that the case was likely to be hushed up on his account.
Provided that I could efface every sign of my nocturnal expedition, I
ought to have nothing now to dread.

I bade the officer wait, and tore off my remaining garments, slipped
into my sleeping-suit and dressing-gown, and rumpled my hair to give
myself the look of one just roused from sleep. Then and not before, I
ventured out upon the landing to face my chief.

As I did so I was chilled by another shock. I saw a thin line of light
under the door in front of me. Sir Frank Tarleton was awake.

I don’t think I can be accused of cowardice for feeling as I did during
those desperate moments. It was not only my worldly fortune that was at
stake; there were peculiar circumstances which made it doubly shameful
on my part to be false to the trust put in me by the great specialist.
They went back to the day when I began to attend his lectures on
forensic medicine at the University College in Gower Street. I had
already taken my medical degree in the University of London with a view
to becoming a public analyst, and I had been anxious to profit by the
Professor’s unique knowledge of poisons. From the first I had attracted
his favourable notice; my papers had won his praise; and he had invited
me to call on him, and admitted me to his friendship. Then, at the end
of the year’s course, he had overwhelmed me by an offer so much beyond
my hopes that I could scarcely yet believe in my good luck.

I can see him now, the whole scene is clear before me, the brisk figure
with its face of intense thought, crowned by a shock of unkempt gray
hair, standing over me on the hearth-rug of his dingy consulting-room
on the ground floor in Montague Street. He was following his quaint
habit of swinging his magnificent gold repeater in front of him by its
shabby scrap of ribbon, while he gave me the amazing news.

“I’ve decided to take an assistant, Cassilis. I have passed my sixtieth
birthday, and though my work interests me as much as ever, I mean to
spare myself a little more in future. I don’t intend to turn out in the
middle of the night because a bilious duchess fancies that someone has
bribed her French maid to poison her. And I’ve told them at the Home
Office--I suppose you know I’m their principal consultant--that I won’t
be sent down to Cornwall one day and to Cumberland the next every time
a coroner lets himself be puzzled by a simple case of strychnine or
arsenic. It’s work for a younger man.”

He waved the watch towards me as he went on.

“Sir James Ponsonby--that’s the Permanent Under Secretary--has
consented to my having a deputy, and I’m submitting your name.”

I recall my sensations as he stopped abruptly and bent his keen eyes
on me from beneath their bushy roof of eyebrow to see how the proposal
struck me. I had gasped for breath then as I was gasping now. At the
age of twenty-five, only just qualified for my profession, I was to be
lifted at one step out of the struggling crowd into a position which
was already success, and which I should only have to make proper use of
to attain in time the same eminence as my patron.

My answer must have been incoherent. But Tarleton interrupted it with a
jerk of his gold repeater, which, I can remember, almost made me duck
my head.

“I’m paying you what most of the men in our profession would consider
a doubtful compliment when I tell you that you seem to me to be a
young man with imagination, Cassilis. And that is what’s wanted in my
work. It isn’t doctor’s work really so much as detective’s. It’s not
only symptoms I have to look for, but motives. There was a touch in
your very first paper that showed me you could think for yourself, and
speculate. And speculation is the master key of science, although all
your second-rate men decry it. It’s the old fable of the fox who had
lost his tail. Not having any imagination themselves, they would like
to forbid it to everyone. The Trade Unions rule the world to-day, and
they are all trying to reduce the intelligence of mankind to the lowest
common denominator.”

He had spoken with a certain bitterness which it was easy for me to
understand. Eminent as he was, unquestioned as his authority had
now become, I knew that Tarleton was not popular with the medical
profession. His baronetcy had been given late, and given grudgingly.
Perhaps he had recognized in me something that reminded him of his own
youth, and had taken a generous resolution to help me in consequence.
Certainly his treatment of me since had been more like that of a father
than an employer.

He had said a good deal more that I hadn’t forgotten and that I was
least likely to forget just then. His manner had been very grave as he
dwelt upon the confidential character of a great deal of his work.

“If you are to assist me in my most important cases, and to qualify
yourself for succeeding me later on, as I hope you will, you must
learn to be more discreet than in almost any other line of life.
You will find yourself in possession of secrets that compromise the
honour of great families; men in the highest positions will hold their
reputations at your mercy; the safety of the State itself may sometimes
depend on your silence. I know of at least one man sitting in the House
of Lords who owes his peerage to an undiscovered murder; and what is
more, he knows of my knowledge. I make it a rule if possible never to
go into any company where he is likely to be present, and he takes
the same care to avoid me. But if he ever thought it necessary to his
safety, that man would no more hesitate about taking my life than he
did about taking his nephew’s--a boy twelve years old.”

No doubt Tarleton had gauged my disposition pretty well before he chose
me for his assistant, and he knew that I should be more attracted
than repelled by such hints as that. My blood tingled at the prospect
opening before me. The days of Richard III and the Bloody Tower seemed
to have come again. And I was to be behind the scenes tracing the
midnight assassin at his work in the heart of modern London, and in
the very purlieus of her palaces. It was enough to sate the greediest
imagination.

“I mustn’t conceal from you,” my kindly chief had gone on to tell me,
“that I have had to overcome strong objections to your appointment. Sir
James Ponsonby considers that you are very young to be entrusted with
such serious responsibilities. You can’t wonder if the Home Office has
taken some precautions. I submitted your name a month ago, and I only
received permission to make you the offer yesterday. I have very little
doubt that you have been under observation most of the time between.”

This was the part of the conversation that had come back to me most
vividly that night when I was struggling frantically towards the
accusing bell.

For the whole sting in the communication that my memory thrust so
pitilessly before me was in the last condition, the very condition I
had been driven to break that night.

I had been less dismayed than most men of my age perhaps--particularly
most medical students--would have been by learning that my life had
been under the microscope for a month. I had nothing very serious to
reproach myself with. The memory of a secret love affair, an unhappy
one, alas! had served to keep me clear of the most dangerous of all
the snares that life sets for youth. It was my good luck never to have
tasted, and never to have felt the wish to taste, anything in the way
of alcohol, and to be able to sit with nothing stronger than a cup of
strong coffee in front of me in the midst of the most riotous company.
I believe it was this exceptional merit that turned the scale in my
favour with Sir James Ponsonby. Gambling had equally little appeal for
me, and I took no interest whatever in that noble animal the horse.
My real vice was love of excitement for its own sake. One prize-fight
had more attraction for me than a hundred cricket-matches. It was in
search of sensation that I was drawn into the night life of London.
I was haunted by the mystery of silent streets and shadowed courts.
Like Stevenson, I felt that life ought to be a series of adventures
beginning in Leicester Square. The Press Club and the Chelsea Art Club
were the two poles of my romantic sphere, and I revelled in the society
of men who seemed to me to be leading lives more mysterious than mine.

It appeared that this was the weakness which stood in my way with the
Government Department I was to serve. Tarleton had ceased to swing
his watch, and had given me a very meaning glance as he came to the
decisive point.

“Sir James has made it a condition of your appointment that it shall
be a resident one. You will have to take up your quarters with me. I
shall have a telephone installed in your room for you to take the night
calls. And I shall depend on you not to trouble me with them unless I
am really wanted.”

My face must have fallen as I listened to this stipulation, for I saw
an answering shade on the doctor’s brow. I felt that a good deal of
the gilt would be taken off the gingerbread if I had to surrender my
personal freedom and abandon my favourite haunts to lead a regular life
under my employer’s roof, and under his surveillance; for, of course,
that was what it came to. My chief inducement to take up the career
of an analyst instead of a general practitioner had been the greater
freedom I should enjoy. I had dreaded the idea of having to settle in
a provincial town or a prim residential suburb, where I should have
to keep regular hours, go to church in a black coat on Sundays, act
as sidesman, and generally put on all the airs of respectability. It
would be almost as great a wrench to give up my artist and journalist
friends, in whose company I had had such jolly times, and go to bed
every night just as the real day was beginning, under the watchful eyes
of my chief.

I fancy Sir Frank himself felt some sympathy with me, though he was too
wise to express it.

“A man must expect to be judged to some extent by the company he
keeps,” he had hinted. “You can’t expect the head of a Department
like the Home Office to feel easy at the idea of entrusting important
secrets to a young man who spends his nights, I won’t say in
disreputable company, but at all events in circles where a good many
adventurers are found. These people”--the bitter note came back into
his voice--“these people hate the shoulders on which they have climbed.
They govern the empire which the Raleighs and the Clives have gained
for them, but they don’t want any more Clives and Raleighs. They threw
Burton away; they wouldn’t use Gordon till it was too late--Faugh!” He
swallowed his disgust with an effort, and became almost stern. “Now,
my boy, this is a great opportunity for you, and you must take it. You
must forget that you are a genius, and put your neck into the collar
for a few years. At the end of that time you will have a reputation,
and you can do what you like within reasonable limits. I expect you to
trust yourself to me.”

And, of course, I had. He had taken me to the Home Office and formally
presented me to the Under Secretary, and I found myself appointed an
Assistant Medical Adviser, detailed for duty under the orders of Sir
Frank Tarleton, with a salary that seemed riches in advance.

Perhaps I had found my work a little disappointing since. The night
calls had not been numerous, and they had grown fewer after the first
month or two, as though Tarleton’s clients or patients, I hardly know
which to call them, had found out that it was no use expecting him to
turn out any longer, if the case was one that I could deal with. Most
of my time was passed in the laboratory in Montague Street, carrying
out analyses under his directions, and improving my knowledge of rare
poisons, of which he had formed what was probably the finest collection
in the world. But of really sensational cases, involving criminal
suspicion and mystery, there had not been one before that fateful
summons from the Domino Club.

But I dared not hesitate longer in delivering it. Every moment now
would only make matters worse. I crossed the landing and knocked firmly
on the closed door.

The answer was instantaneous--“Come in!”

I obeyed, to find myself in the full glare of the electric light over
the bed, in which Tarleton was sitting upright, his beloved repeater in
one hand, while he gazed at me questioningly from beneath his knitted
brows.

“I first heard the telephone nine minutes ago. You have taken some time
to answer it.”




CHAPTER II

THE EVIDENCE OF MADAME BONNELL


Instead of excusing myself I thought it the best plan to plunge into
the account of what had taken place at the Domino Club, in the hope
that it would absorb his mind. The alert physician made only one
comment as I finished.

“A case for Inspector Charles is pretty sure to be a case for me; but
you didn’t know that.” He was out of bed the next moment.

“Please tell him I am coming at once, and order round my car. And be
ready yourself as soon as you can.”

I needed no injunction to make haste. I was in a fever to be back
at the scene of that masked revel, and find out what had happened
there. I congratulated myself on the care I had taken to cover my own
tracks. I had left the doctor’s house and returned to it in my ordinary
clothes. Not a soul in the Domino Club, except the member from whom I
had obtained a ticket of admission, could have the least idea of my
identity. So far as I could see I was absolutely secure from discovery.
But it had been a dangerous game to play, and Tarleton was a dangerous
man to play against. With all his kindness for me I trembled at the
thought of coming within the range of his uncanny powers of detection.

As soon as I had dispatched his messages, and put a pot of coffee on to
boil over a little spirit stove, I sluiced my head in cold water, and
got into my clothes again as quickly as I had got out of them. I was
ready with a steaming cup of coffee for my chief as he came out of his
room, and was rewarded by the heartiness with which he gulped it down.
His square leather bag, fitted with everything likely to be needed
for the treatment of a poisoning case, was always kept ready in his
bedroom, and he had it in his hand. I relieved him of it not presuming
to bring my own; and we found the car waiting for us when we opened the
front door.

As we rolled through the streets, just beginning to show signs of life,
Tarleton acquainted me with the personality of Inspector Charles.

“He’s a retired Army man; he likes to be called Captain Charles. He’s
also the younger son of a peer but he doesn’t like that noticed. His
family are silly enough to object to his being in the police, and he
drops the Honourable on their account. But of course it’s known in the
Yard, and he gets most of the society jobs in consequence. I suppose
they think he’s more likely to know his way about among the big people.
But if you ask me, I think an experienced valet knows ten times more.
You’ll find Charles straight, and you’ll find him thorough, but you
needn’t expect him to see an inch beyond his own nose.”

This was comfortable for me. But the next words of my chief gave me an
awkward jar.

“By the way, you ought to be able to tell me something about the place
we’re going to--what is it?--the Domino Club. It sounds like the sort
of night haunt the Home Office objected to so much when I asked for you
as my assistant.”

I had to make up my mind in a hurry. To tell the truth was out of
the question. It was not only my own honour and safety that were at
stake; there was another for whose sake my presence at that fatal dance
must be concealed. I was on the point of denying all knowledge of the
club when it struck me that I might be betrayed into some unconscious
movement in going through the premises, or some thoughtless remark,
which would reveal to a keen intelligence like Tarleton’s that I had
been there before.

I made an effort to seem as if I had been searching my memory.

“Yes,” I said slowly, “now you speak of it I remember having been
there. But I am not sure that I am free to say anything about it. My
impression is that there was an implied pledge of secrecy. Everyone
wore a mask and a disguise of some sort. It was supposed to be a
place where people in very high positions could let themselves go in
security. I was told there were sometimes judges present, and I rather
think Cabinet Ministers, as well as peeresses, and so forth.”

The specialist nodded gravely. “I expect the authorities knew what they
were doing when they told Charles to call for me. We shall see whether
he has found out who the man is that has been poisoned.”

“He didn’t say it was a man,” I ventured to suggest.

Sir Frank pursed his lips, but made no answer. He took out his gold
repeater and began swinging it slowly, a sure sign that he was
following out some train of thought.

In another quarter of an hour the car drew up in one of the
old-fashioned streets of Chelsea between King Street and the Fulham
Road, at the entrance to the curious building or group of buildings
that bore the name of Vincent Studios.

The place resembled a rabbit warren. A short flight of steps led down
from the street pavement into a dark, cavernous hall with doors opening
out of it on three sides. Behind most of these doors were the studios
of artists--one or two of them known to me--studios as cavernous if
not as dark as the hall, and ending in glass doors that opened on
mysterious gardens or garden yards overgrown with nasturtiums and other
plants that seem to love the grime and cinders of suburban London. In
the background one was aware of gray piles of timber, as of a mountain
range closing a landscape. Some forgotten builder, perhaps, had died,
leaving those stacks behind him, and his heirs had never discovered
their existence, so that they had been left to the possession of the
rats.

At the far end of the entrance cavern two doors side by side still
bore the name of artists, one of whom had lately blossomed into an
Academician and been transplanted to the sunnier region of Bedford
Park, while the other had exchanged the brush for some more promising
weapon in what, I fear, had been a losing fight with Fortune. Only
the initiated knew that the door still bearing the name of J. Loftus,
A.R.A., was now that of the Domino Club; while its companion, from
which the name of Yelverton had been roughly effaced, served as a
back door for the use of the tradesmen and servants of the club, and
also for such members as had reasons of their own for not coming
through the streets in fancy costume. For their benefit a row of small
dressing-rooms had been fitted up, in which they could transform
themselves from sober moths into bright artificial butterflies and back
again.

In front of the club entrance an officer in plain clothes was stationed
who recognized Sir Frank with a respectful salute.

“You will find Inspector Charles inside, sir,” he said, opening the
door for us.

We found ourselves in a dark narrow passage empty of everything but
cloak- and hat-pegs. A door at the further end opened straight into
the dancing-room.

The former studio had been decorated in a fashion evidently meant to
recall the Arabian Nights Entertainment. Vistas of Moorish arches and
fountains playing among palms and oleanders had been painted on the
walls. At intervals wooden columns had been set up to support curtains
of gauze embroidered so as to afford a half concealment to the nooks
that they enclosed. The whole place was still suffused with the lurid
glow of a series of red lanterns hanging from the roof. But a glass
door at the further end had been thrown open to admit the daylight, and
where it reached the crimson glow became haggard and spectral and the
whole place had the air of an old woman’s face from which the paint had
peeled in streaks, revealing the wrinkles and sharp bones beneath.

Inspector Charles, tall, upright, and looking the personification of
law and order, stood beside one of the curtained alcoves close to the
garden door, and invited us with a solemn gesture to approach.

This was the moment I had been dreading. I endeavoured to keep my face
passive, and give no sign of recognition, as I came behind my chief and
took my first glance at the spectacle the Inspector had to show us.

Within the curtains, stretched at full length on a low divan, was a
figure attired as an Inquisitor. The black robe was folded carefully
round him, but the peaked hood with its two eye-slits had been thrust
back over the head, so that the face was fully exposed. It was a
striking face in every way, the face of a man of fifty or thereabout
in the full possession of his powers. The forehead was intellectual;
the eyes, wide open but glazed in the death stare, must have been full
and penetrating in life; the nose and chin were strongly carved; only
the lips showed a certain looseness, as of over-ripened fruit, that
seemed to hint at something evil underlying the dignity and strength
manifested in the rest of the face.

I scanned that prostrate figure with painful curiosity. The costume
was only too familiar; I had had ample opportunity of observing it
during the night that had just elapsed. But the face was as strange to
me as it was to either of the other two who stood and gazed beside me.
Even the eyes, unnaturally dilated by the drug, seemed to bear little
likeness to those that had peered through the holes in the black hood
when I last looked on the sombre shape in life.

The Inspector spoke briefly, addressing himself to my companion.

“This is how he was found when they came in to put out the lights
after everyone was gone as they supposed. They thought at first that
he was in a drunken sleep, and tried to rouse him by shaking. When
they failed, they went to bring Madame Bonnell, the proprietress of
the club. They dared not uncover the face without her authority; the
rules of the club are so strict on that point. She laid back the hood
herself, and saw at once that he was dead. After that she rang us up,
and saw that the body was not touched till I got here. I thought it
best not to touch it myself till you came.”

Clear, succinct, containing the bare facts and nothing more, such
was the report of Inspector Charles. It was evident that no better
man could have been put in charge of an affair in dealing with which
prudence was the most essential requisite.

The great physician received the statement with a nod of satisfaction.

“You suggested to Dr. Cassilis over the wire that it looked like a case
of opium-poisoning,” was his first remark.

Captain Charles favoured me with a cautious glance, in which I read
some disapproval of my youthful appearance.

“I thought an opiate must have been the cause of death, Sir Frank,
because there was no sign of a struggle nor of any suffering. He seemed
to have died in his sleep.”

Again the consultant gave an approving nod. All this time he had not
once removed his eyes from the pallid face on which a leaden tinge had
become visible. Now he turned to me.

“What do you say, Cassilis?”

I shook my head. There was something in the case that puzzled me.

“I agree with Captain Charles to some extent. The appearances
are consistent with opium-poisoning. But----” I turned to the
Inspector--“can you tell us the hour at which the body was found with
life extinct?”

Captain Charles consulted his watch. Tarleton’s fingers were already
pinching the shabby ribbon of his repeater, and it was going to and fro
with the slow movement of a pendulum.

“It is now half-past six. I got here soon after five. It must have been
about half-past four when the body was found.”

I looked questioningly at the great specialist.

“Unless the opiate was given very early, in which case the effect would
surely have been noticed by someone, it must have been a very powerful
dose to produce death so soon. I should be inclined to suspect some
weakness in the heart, or some other derangement, to account for such
rapid action. I don’t like the colour of the skin.”

“Ah! You see that?” Tarleton bent over the dead face in grave scrutiny
for some moments. Then he straightened himself up.

“And now, who is this man?” he asked the Inspector.

“His name is Wilson, so the proprietress says. But she seems to know
very little about him.”

“Wilson?” The doctor repeated the name with a sceptical intonation.
“That is the sort of name that man would be likely to give himself in a
place of this kind, I should think. Can I see the proprietress?”

Captain Charles went out in quest of her. He was no sooner gone than my
chief whispered quickly in my ear, “Not another word about the cause of
death before anybody else. I blame myself for asking your opinion. I
underrated your powers of observation. Hush!”

I looked round to see a capable middle-aged Frenchwoman dressed in
black silk, emerging from a portière across the room. Very capable and
businesslike she looked, with her well-arranged hair and commanding
black eyes, and well-preserved face and figure, and that amazing air of
respectability which only a Frenchwoman can keep up in an atmosphere
charged with evil. In Madame Bonnell’s presence vice was deprived of
its impropriety, and even murder took on the character of a business
mischance about which the less fuss made the better.

Madame had obviously employed her time since the discovery of this
particular mischance in making the best of her personal appearance. She
greeted us with affability.

Even Tarleton, I thought, was softened by her graceful and yet
dignified deportment. In a moment we seemed to become four friends
engaged in a confidential talk over a matter of common interest. It was
Madame who induced me to sit down.

“You understand, no doubt, Madame, that we are not here with any
hostile purpose,” the representative of the Home Office began. “If it
is possible to dispose of this matter privately, without involving you
or your establishment in any scandal, I shall be glad.”

The explanation seemed unnecessary. Madame Bonnell by her manner
refused to perceive the possibility of her being involved in scandal,
or in anything else inconsistent with the character of a respectable
business woman.

“You have identified the deceased, I understand, by the name of Wilson.
Have you any idea whether that was his real name, or an assumed one?”

Madame Bonnell had no idea. Madame Bonnell was desolated by having
no idea, since the amiable Sir Frank seemed to wish her to have one.
Monsieur the late Wilson had introduced himself to her originally under
that name, and she had never inquired if he had any other.

Madame succeeded in conveying to us that she was not in the habit of
inconveniencing her patrons by inquiries of any sort, or of distracting
her own mind by curiosity on any subject except their ability to pay
her.

Under the polished surface of indifference I nevertheless thought I
could detect in the proprietress of the Domino Club a consciousness
that she was being examined by the representatives of the law about
a serious business, and that it would not be prudent on her part to
withhold any material information. It must have been clear to her that
candour was her best policy, up to a certain point at all events.

To Tarleton’s next question, how she came to make the acquaintance
of the dead man, she made a pretty full reply. Monsieur Wilson had
introduced himself to her a year or two before, when she was managing
a small restaurant in Soho, in a street in which there is more than
one small restaurant, and the restaurants are patronized by more than
one class of customers. It was Monsieur Wilson who had proposed to her
that she should exchange her position there for the more profitable one
of proprietress of a fashionable night club. Monsieur had offered to
provide the funds required for starting such a club, and had undertaken
to make it fashionable, and in both respects he had kept his word. All
the first members of the club had been brought by him, and he had gone
on introducing others since. Madame avowed that she was under a debt to
Monsieur Wilson, which she could not easily repay. She made an effort
to repay it, as she spoke, with tears for his fate, but the dividend
forthcoming did not strike me as a heavy one. By this time, doubtless,
the Domino Club was fairly on its feet, and in no great need of the
dead man’s further support.

Madame Bonnell’s evidence so far had only served to deepen the mystery
instead of lightening it. Who was this unknown Wilson? Why should he
have wanted to start a night club, and what was the influence that had
enabled him to fill it with so many members drawn from the highest
social ranks? The chief part in the examination had been taken by the
physician, Inspector Charles intervening mostly to secure dates and
addresses for his note-book after the meticulous fashion of the law. At
length I took advantage of a break to put a question which had been in
my mind for some time.

“These people whom Wilson, if that was his name, brought into the club
must have been his friends, apparently. So far as one can see the club
was entirely composed of his personal friends and other friends of
theirs. Doesn’t that make it more probable that he took poison himself
than that anyone else gave it to him?”

I threw out the suggestion generally, and my three companions all
turned and stared at me as though it took them by surprise, although
it was an obvious alternative. The physician said nothing, but the
compression of his brows told me plainly that he had rejected such a
theory. Captain Charles made a fatal objection.

“After he had founded the club and done everything to make it a
success, why should he have come to it to commit suicide--the very
thing that would damage it most?”

Madame Bonnell became genuinely agitated for the first time.

“But of course that will not be known!” she exclaimed sharply. “You
sir,” she appealed to Tarleton, “you will know how to contrive that
this unfortunate shall be taken elsewhere. Think of the scandal if it
should be known that a crime was committed in the presence of the Crown
Prince!”

Evidently His Royal Highness was a strong card in Madame’s estimation,
and one which she could rely on to win her game. Perhaps it was not
the first time in her business experience that she had found the
police disposed to shut their eyes to awkward incidents in which great
personages were involved.

The consultant of the Home Office looked by no means yielding.

“I have not yet decided what course I shall recommend the authorities
to take,” he said. “Have you anything to say in answer to Dr. Cassilis?
Is he right in assuming that everyone present here last night must have
been Wilson’s friend?”

Thus pressed, Madame Bonnell presented the appearance of an unwilling
witness, who hesitates to speak for fear of the consequences to himself.

“As long as I believe that no proceedings will be taken against the
Club, which is my property, everything I know, my suspicions even, are
at the service of the police,” she replied cautiously.

It was a bargain which the astute Frenchwoman was proposing openly to
the authorities. Tarleton shrugged his shoulders. He was the last man
to commit himself to anything of the kind.

“The moment I am satisfied that you are withholding any information
that bears on the case I shall advise the police to close this place,
and apply for your deportation as an alien, Madame Bonnell.”

The capable Frenchwoman saw that she had made a false step. She
retracted it immediately in admirable distress.

“But Monsieur must pardon me! I am bewildered by the situation in which
I find myself. I do not understand the Britannic law. I am ready to
throw myself on Monsieur’s consideration. What is it that he would have
me say?”

The physician looked at his watch.

“I am waiting for your answer to Dr. Cassilis.”

Madame Bonnell gave me an appealing look, of which I thought it best to
take no notice. I had seen nothing of her during the time I had spent
at the dance, and I was confident that she was quite ignorant of my
presence at it. She found herself compelled to speak without assistance.

“The Doctor Cassilis is mistaken,” she said at last, with an air
of weighing each word before she uttered it. “Monsieur Wilson was
acquainted with the people whom he introduced here, undoubtedly, but
they were not all his friends. On the contrary, some of them were his
enemies, and he went in fear of them. Even in mortal fear.”

It was the revelation Tarleton seemed to have been anticipating. He
gave the short, satisfied nod I knew so well.

“Go on,” he commanded. “Explain how you knew this.”

“In effect I knew it because he told me so himself. He took me into his
confidence in order to ask for my protection. He feared this very thing
that has happened. He instructed me to pour out everything he was to
drink with my own hands, and to send it to him by the waiter he thought
he could trust--Gerard.”

“Now I think we have some real information,” the specialist observed.
“Be good enough to send for Gerard, if you please.”




CHAPTER III

THE EVIDENCE OF THE DEAD


At this point I began to feel a touch of nervousness. I had faced the
proprietress of the Domino Club without any, because she had not seen
me even in my disguise. But the waiters had been going to and fro
throughout the night. I had given orders once or twice, and I could
not feel certain that my voice would not be recognized. I told myself
that my fear was fanciful, and that the last thing that could occur to
anyone’s mind was that a representative of the Home Office, engaged in
the investigation, had himself been present on the scene of the crime,
if crime it was. But none the less I resolved to do nothing to attract
the waiter’s notice, if I could help it.

I saw Tarleton frown as Madame Bonnell returned with her servant. He
gave her an authoritative nod.

“Thank you, Madame. I won’t detain you while I am questioning this man.”

The prudent Frenchwoman concealed any vexation she may have felt, and
instantly retired, leaving Gerard alone with us.

He was as much the type of the discreet waiter as Madame was of the
discreet manageress. If he had only possessed side-whiskers he would
have been the perfect waiter of the French stage. But he was a good
deal younger than Madame, and showed less self-possession. His eyes
searched us nervously in turn as though he were looking for someone to
propitiate. The physician read his rather white face with one swift
glance, and came to his relief.

“You are not under any suspicion, Gerard. Provided you tell the truth,
you have nothing to fear.”

The waiter braced himself up with a visible effort. Not, I fancied,
that he had any objection to tell the truth, but that it was a rather
novel exercise for him. From that moment he neglected the Inspector and
me to concentrate his efforts to propitiate on Sir Frank.

“I hear that the man who is dead trusted you. Did he trust you with his
real name?”

“Never, sir.” Gerard spread out his two hands to show their emptiness
of knowledge. “I knew nothing of him except what I learned from Madame.”

“And that was?”

The waiter looked apprehensive. No doubt the idea crossed his mind that
it might be awkward if his account contradicted hers.

“That was very little indeed, sir. She told me to treat him as
proprietor. He never paid for what he consumed. I supposed that he was
Madame’s partner.”

“Were you the only man who waited on him?”

“For the last four months or six months, yes, sir. He made it his
request to Madame and to me that I should bring him everything he
ordered.”

“Did he tell you why?”

“Yes, he said to me that I was to carry his glass of wine or his cup
of coffee very carefully. ‘See that you do not spill it, and see that
nothing is spilled into it by the way’--those were his words, sir, as
nearly as I can recollect.”

“What did you think when he said that?”

Gerard’s expressive hands mutely protested that it was not their
business to think.

“I do what I am ordered to do, sir, without thinking too much. But
Monsieur Wilson himself explained his motive to me. He said, ‘I do not
like to have practical jokes played on me, and I fancy there are some
practical jokers in the _cercle_.’”

“Did he say _cercle_ or club?”

“Monsieur, he always spoke to me in French. He had spent much time in
Paris, he told me once. I believe----” Gerard interrupted himself, as
though doubtful whether his belief would be acceptable as evidence. It
struck me that he had been a witness in a court of law at some time or
other.

Tarleton threw him a friendly nod. “Go on; tell me what you believe.”

“I think,” Gerard corrected himself, “that perhaps Monsieur Wilson
founded this club in order to escape the necessity for going to Paris
to amuse himself.”

The examiner moved his head doubtfully.

“You think he had some business, then, which made it necessary for him
to remain in London.”

“But I am sure of it!” The waiter’s tone became confident. “Business
that assisted him in establishing the club, even. The great people who
came here were his customers rather than his personal friends; such is
my idea.”

Tarleton turned an approving face to us.

“I think that this man knows what he is talking about. We are dealing
with something very daring and very dark. Did you ever guess what the
business was?”

The question was darted out suddenly. But the little Frenchman
manifested no uneasiness. The doctor’s praise seemed to have given him
confidence.

“I supposed sometimes that it was not a lawful business, sir.” He
lowered his voice a little and glanced behind him as if to make sure
that his employer was not within hearing. “I fancied that Monsieur
Wilson might be the proprietor of an establishment for the reception of
ladies who did not wish to become mothers.”

I could not resist a slight shudder as the gruesome hint came
glibly from the lips of the pasty-faced waiter. He did not look the
kind of man who would have made any objection to a post in such an
establishment.

“Some of the ladies whom he introduced here had the air of being afraid
of him, I thought,” Gerard added by way of confirmation.

Inspector Charles had begun to take notes of this evidence. He now
straightened himself up, and looked at Tarleton.

“Wouldn’t it be well to search his clothes, Sir Frank? We might find an
address, perhaps?”

“In another minute. Is there any question you would like to put,
Cassilis?”

I had to make a call on my courage, as Gerard faced towards me in
readiness to be addressed. His figure was not less familiar to me than
that of the masked Inquisitor had been. I was now to see whether my
voice would sound familiar to him. I dared not modify my usual tone
with Tarleton’s keen ears listening.

“We have heard that a royal personage was here last night,” I said
slowly and distinctly, and then paused to note the effect.

At my first words Gerard’s watery eyes grew wider for an instant and
I feared the worst. Some note must have been struck in the echoing
cells of his memory. But the next moment reassured me. Out of the many
hundred voices with which a waiter’s memory must be stored, how should
he be able to identify one which he had heard say scarcely a dozen
words? The man’s face was a perfect blank again before I went on.

“Can you tell us if there were any other strangers present?” I asked
boldly. And turning to my chief and the Inspector, I explained, “It
seems to me just possible that an attempt may have been planned on the
life of the Crown Prince, and that this man may have been mistaken for
him.”

Tarleton did not reject this suggestion so decidedly as the theory of
suicide. I saw a thoughtful expression come on his face, as though he
was engaged in trying to adjust the idea with another one previously in
his mind. Captain Charles took up the scent quite eagerly.

“Do you know what disguise His Royal Highness was wearing?” he demanded.

The waiter hesitated and then shook his head.

“I had my suspicion, sir, but Madame can tell you for certain.”

The Inspector was satisfied with the answer. But Tarleton’s voice rang
out sharply.

“Let us have your suspicion, please.”

Gerard had the air of a man who had committed himself, and regrets it.

“Milor,”--he had been sharp enough to notice the Inspector’s use of a
title in addressing the consultant--“I particularly noticed one person
who appeared to me a stranger who did not very well know his way about
the club, and who appeared to have some business with Monsieur Wilson.”

“Ah!” Tarleton’s deep breath told me that he felt himself on a real
trail. “And how was this person disguised?”

“The disguise was an extraordinary one, milor. It was that which first
attracted my notice. It was at once the costume of a man and of a
woman. That is to say, the upper part was that of a warrior in armour,
and the lower part was a woman’s skirt.”

“Joan of Arc,” exclaimed Charles.

The Frenchman shrank in horror. “But, monsieur, it could not have been
Sainte Jeanne! For instance, the helmet was Roman.”

“Neither did she wear a skirt with her armour,” the physician added
quietly. “It must have been meant for Zenobia.”

The Inspector’s face showed so clearly that he had never heard of the
famous Queen of Palmyra that I should have been amused if I had not
been on the rack of suspense. Fortunately, Tarleton was now engrossed
in his new line of inquiry.

“In spite of this feminine disguise, in spite of the skirt, you
recognized that this stranger was a man, it seems?”

The eloquent hands protested again. “But no, milor; I said I had my
suspicion, that is all. Madame----”

The doctor cut him short.

“You thought this person, Zenobia, had some business with Wilson. Tell
me, how many persons knew that Wilson wore that disguise last night?”

He turned and pointed to the dead body which lay full in view from
where we were seated. Gerard let his eyes follow the gesture and
withdrew them with a sickly twinge.

“Everyone knew it, I think. It was the disguise he wore invariably in
the club. It was as if he came here to meet his clients, and it was
necessary for them to know that they were speaking to him.”

Sir Frank Tarleton nodded more than once this time. He evidently
felt himself to be getting a firm grip on the problem. I admired
the sagacity he had shown in transferring his examination from the
proprietress of the club to the waiter. Gerard was proving a much
easier witness to deal with than Madame Bonnell. He had not so much at
stake.

“And now,” the consultant pursued, “perhaps you can tell us if there
were any other persons who showed a desire to meet Wilson last night?”

Gerard brightened up visibly.

“But certainly, milor. There was one in particular who never seemed to
take her eyes off him. She danced with him time after time, and when
she was not dancing with him herself she watched those who did.”

“And how was she dressed?”

“Milor, she was hardly dressed at all.” Gerard may have feared another
irreverent guess from Captain Charles, for he added quickly: “I heard
Monsieur address her as Salome.”

The Inspector was again busy with his note-book. But Sir Frank struck
me as not being quite so deeply interested in Salome as he had been in
Zenobia.

“And there was also a lady whose costume it is not easy to describe.”
Gerard was going on of his own accord now, as though his interest had
been kindled in the inquiry. “Part of it was a leopard skin. And she
wore a necklace composed of claws of the same beast, as I imagined. In
my own mind I called her the Leopardess. Without doubt, her costume was
that of an East Indian princess.”

Tarleton’s interest seemed to revive again at the description of the
Leopardess. Yet it was impossible to be sure that he was not playing a
part to conceal his true opinion of all this from the witness.

“And this lady, did she dance much with Wilson?”

Gerard gave his head an emphatic shake.

“She did not dance with him at all, although he asked her more than
once. I am sure of it. I was surprised, for it was not often that
he was refused. I saw him speaking to her very earnestly, even
threateningly, but it was no use. And she left early, long before the
dance was over.”

The examiner shrugged his shoulders. I wondered that he did not point
out to the man that a woman who had left early could hardly have played
any part in the tragedy. But I was beginning to grasp that it was his
method to listen much and speak little when he was face to face with a
mystery.

The next moment he had dismissed Gerard abruptly, and risen to his
feet. He crossed over to the corpse, followed by Charles and myself,
and gazed intently on the exposed face. The slight leaden tinge I had
remarked was more noticeable already, and in addition there was a
slight roughness of the skin which I understood still less. I took
care this time not to make any remark on it.

The specialist’s attention was concentrated on the features and
expression of the dead man. After a moment or two he slowly shook his
head.

“No,” he pronounced, “that is not the face of a man degraded enough
for such a business as the waiter supposed. It is not the face of an
adventurer. This was a man of the world, in a good position, able to
meet with the people whom he brought to this place on a footing of
equality. His motives were not sordid, perhaps, in the first place. We
are dealing with a Tiberius rather than a Tigellinus, I think.”

I don’t fancy those names had much more meaning for Captain Charles
than Zenobia’s. But he acquiesced respectfully in the judgment.

“From all that we have heard about the Domino Club at Scotland Yard
there has never been the slightest suggestion of crime about it,” he
observed. “One of the judges of the High Court is a member of it. He
has the reputation of being pretty fond of women, but he certainly
wouldn’t be mixed up with anything shady.”

“Shaded, but not shady, eh?” Tarleton returned with a curl of the lip.
“But come, it is time to see if the dead has any evidence to give about
himself.”

Thrusting his gold repeater carelessly into his pocket, he deftly
stripped the body of its long Inquisitor’s robe. Underneath was
revealed an evening suit of fine material and faultless cut with a
white silk waistcoat and soft-fronted shirt. They were the clothes of
a man of good position, as Sir Frank had said, and a man accustomed
to respect himself. A Bohemian would scarcely have troubled to dress
himself so carefully beneath a domino.

Captain Charles viewed this correct attire with the approval of a
military man. “A gentleman as you guessed, Sir Frank.”

“As I inferred,” the doctor responded sharply, “I never guess.” His
capable fingers were already exploring the pockets of the corpse.
Most of them seemed to be empty, but presently he extracted a silver
matchbox from the waistcoat, and opened it. A low sound like a
suppressed whistle came from his tight lips as he shook out on the palm
of his hand two pellets the size of small peas.

Of all my experiences on that eventful night, or rather morning, this
was the most amazing. Only by a strong effort was I able to keep
my astonishment within due bounds. Although I had thrown out the
suggestion of suicide, the last thing I had expected was to find poison
on the dead man’s person.

My chief passed me one of the pellets, and put the other first to his
nostrils and then to the tip of his tongue.

“Well?” He motioned to me to imitate his action.

There could be no doubt about the result of the test. “Opium in a
highly concentrated form, and soluble,” I whispered hoarsely.

We exchanged looks of intense surprise. The Inspector on his part was
evidently surprised by our attitude.

“Then Dr. Cassilis was right after all,” he said, staring at us. “It
was suicide?”

The great consultant smiled at him indulgently.

“I am sure that this discovery has made Dr. Cassilis renounce that
theory,” he answered. “A man who was accustomed to take opium in such
doses as these would have to take a terrible quantity to kill himself.
And this box, is nearly full.”

My brain was buzzing while he spoke. Utter darkness seemed to be
settling down on my mind. I gazed at my chief in stupefaction greater
than the Inspector’s.

“The problem for Dr. Cassilis and myself is this,” he continued,
addressing his explanation to Captain Charles, although I realized that
he was speaking at least as much for my benefit. “The corpse shows
all the usual symptoms of poisoning by opium. But if the deceased had
accustomed his system to opium it is not easy to understand how anyone
could have given him enough to produce death. The dose must have been
enormous, and he must have detected the taste at once in any ordinary
medium such as a cup of coffee.”

I just managed to nod my head with assent.

“The inference I am inclined to draw at the moment,” the specialist
concluded, “is that Wilson was not a taker of the drug and that these
pellets were not intended for himself. I think it is more probable
that he carried them as weapons of self-defense. Perhaps Salome would
have been given one last night if her jealousy had carried her too far,
perhaps Zenobia. And perhaps the Leopardess left so early because she
had been given one.”

My brain seemed to resume its normal clearness as the doctor spoke.
There was really nothing very extraordinary in the coincidence, if
he was right. After all, opium was the drug which it was natural for
anyone to use in such circumstances. It was practically tasteless, its
effects were easily mistaken for those of alcohol even by the victim,
till it was too late for him to resist them. And the character of the
Domino Club was such, and its members came to it in such secrecy, that
one of them might be carried home in a narcotic sleep, and die before
wakening from it, without his death ever being traced to the place
where he had been.

While these reflections were coming to compose my mind Tarleton was
renewing his investigation of the dead man’s pockets. This time the
result was negative, so far as I could see. It gave a start to me and
to the Inspector when the doctor suddenly raised himself with a look of
triumph and exclaimed, “I see it!”

Charles bent forward with a bewildered gaze. I held my breath. The next
sentence was decisive.

“There are no keys--not even a latchkey. Whoever drugged him took
his keys, and took them for a purpose.” He turned on the startled
Inspector, and issued his commands like a general on a battlefield
ordering an advance all along the line. “Ring up your people and find
out if they have received a report of any house being entered during
the night or early this morning. And ask them to send a man round the
theatrical costumiers to find out if any of them have supplied costumes
lately of a Zenobia and a Salome and an Eastern one with a leopard
skin. Though I doubt if you will hear anything about the last. It
sounds like one made up privately. Meanwhile we will ask Madame Bonnell
to give us some breakfast.”

Madame was charmed to give us breakfast. Gerard’s report of his
examination must have impressed her favourably. It was clear by this
time that the great Sir Frank Tarleton could be trusted to conduct the
investigation with prudence, and not to bring any unnecessary publicity
on the Domino Club. She beamed satisfaction when he informed her that
he hoped to learn Wilson’s address within the next few minutes, and to
have the body removed thither for the inquest. In her absence he added
to his instructions to Charles:

“I think, Captain Charles that it will be well if you can go yourself
to the Foreign Office and ascertain through them if this Crown Prince
actually was present last night. They will feel more confidence in you
than in one of the ordinary police.”

The Honourable Captain looked pleased. “Do you think it is possible
that his life was aimed at, after all, Sir Frank?” he added with
deference.

Sir Frank shook his head. “That possibility is disposed of by the
abstraction of the keys. The solution of the mystery lies there. But it
is just possible that the thief chose his occasion; that he relied on
the Prince’s presence to screen him from too close an inquiry. At all
events I find it difficult to accept too many coincidences in the case.”

I thought I might venture to raise a different point.

“Madame Bonnell had ample time to search the body and remove anything
she pleased before Captain Charles came.”

My chief shook his head good-naturedly.

“I haven’t too high an opinion of Madame’s ethical code, but I think
sufficiently well of her intelligence to feel pretty sure that if she
had had any use for her partner’s keys they would have been back in his
pocket before Captain Charles heard that he was dead.”

The remark was unanswerable as far as I was concerned. A moment later
the expected message came through from Scotland Yard.

The house of Doctor Weathered, of Warwick Street, Cavendish Square, had
been entered during the night, and his safe had been found open, with
his bunch of keys in it. And the doctor himself was missing.




CHAPTER IV

THE OPENED SAFE


Inspector Charles, I could see, was deeply impressed by the sagacity
with which Tarleton had solved the riddle of the dead man’s identity.
It was a very simple step, but it is precisely the simple ideas that
generally escape the trained mind of the official.

“Doctor Weathered,” the Captain pronounced slowly. “I suppose there is
no doubt of that being Wilson’s real name.”

“Very little doubt, I should say,” my chief responded. “What do you
think, Cassilis?”

I endeavoured to take a judicial tone.

“I don’t see much room for hesitation. Here is a man without his keys,
and there are the keys without the man. Besides, it all corresponds
with what you said, Sir Frank, about the dead man’s appearance. A
fashionable West End physician is just what I should expect him to be.
And no one would be in a better position to introduce people of good
position to a club of this kind.”

The Inspector’s face had become overcast with doubt while I was
speaking.

“That’s all very well,” he demurred, “but we have been hearing a lot
about Wilson’s being afraid of enemies, and taking precautions about
what he drank; and now it turns out to be a simple case of burglary.”

Tarleton consulted me by a look. I just lifted my shoulders in answer
without speaking. Mine was a difficult part to play just then. On the
one hand, I did not wish my chief to think me wanting in brains; on the
other, I dreaded above all things betraying any previous knowledge of
anything connected with the mystery.

Fortunately he appeared to approve of my reserve. “We may be able to
understand that better when we get to Warwick Street,” he said to
Charles. “The next thing for us to do is to go round there and send
some member of the household here to identify the deceased.”

To this course there could be no opposition. The plain-clothes man was
called in and placed in charge of the corpse with strict instructions
to let no one approach it unless he came with a written authority from
Sir Frank or the Inspector. Then the three of us entered the doctor’s
car and drove towards Cavendish Square.

On the way my chief said to me, “It is curious that I can’t call to
mind ever having heard of a Dr. Weathered. He must have been a man of
high standing in the profession, apparently; probably a consultant; and
yet his name is quite strange to me. Do you happen to have heard it at
any time?”

It was a difficult question for me. I dared not tell a lie which
accident might expose at any moment; but still less dared I tell the
whole truth.

“I have heard the name,” I replied, speaking as slowly as possible to
give myself time to frame the least compromising answer. “Perhaps I
ought to say that I heard it from one of his patients in the course
of a confidential communication, so that I hardly know how far I am
justified in making any use of what I heard.”

Tarleton promptly raised his hand.

“Not another word,” he enjoined to my intense relief. But my relief was
qualified when he proceeded. “A confidence made to a medical man is as
sacred in my view as a confession made to a priest. You will understand
that, Captain Charles, I am sure. We must not ask Dr. Cassilis to tell
us anything more.”

Captain Charles assented rather reluctantly I thought. His original
disapproval of me seemed to revive at the same time. He stole furtive
glances at me now and then, as though he were wondering whether it was
prudent on his part to keep such doubtful company.

The gold repeater in Tarleton’s fingers kept time to his meditations
till the car drew up in front of a smart house in a smart street in
the region most favoured by Court physicians and the big-wigs of the
medical profession, a class for whom I knew that my eccentric chief
felt a very moderate respect. The house was brightly painted, and
the windows were garnished with boxes of scarlet geraniums and blue
lobelias. The brass plate on the door was burnished to shine like
glass, and the steps were a dazzling white. Nothing could have been
further removed from any suggestion of secret practices or unhallowed
consultations.

The man who opened the door to us matched the exterior of the house as
far as his own exterior was concerned. He was young and clean-shaven,
his hair was beautifully brushed, and his neat clothes were as new and
well-fitting as those of the man whom we had left lying in the alcove
at the Domino Club. The face itself was that of a simple, harmless
young man, incapable of suspecting either his master or his master’s
patients. It was impossible to think that he had ever been aware of
anything strange or doubtful in his environment, so innocent and fresh
was his whole aspect. The very nervousness with which he received us
was the nervousness of youth and inexperience finding itself in the
presence of unexpected trouble.

Inspector Charles briefly announced his name and official character,
and those of my chief, not deeming me worthy of individual mention.
Tarleton promptly took the youthful butler in hand.

“Have the police been here before?” was his first question.

Simmons, as he turned out to be named, said that they had. The
constable on the beat had noticed that the front door was ajar about
five o’clock that morning, and had promptly roused the household. He,
Simmons, had been first on the spot, and had begun by supposing that
his master had omitted to make the door fast on his return. He knew
that the doctor had gone out overnight, though he had no idea where.
He went out pretty often, and was generally rather late in coming
home. However, the policeman had insisted on his going to see if Dr.
Weathered was upstairs; and he had found his room empty and the bed
undisturbed.

On that, the officer had come in to search the premises, beginning with
the doctor’s consulting-room, in which there was a safe. There the
first sight that met their eyes was the door of the safe standing wide
open. The key was in the keyhole, with the whole bunch, including the
latchkey, dangling from it.

“And what had been taken from the safe?” Tarleton asked, calling my
attention with a significant glance.

“Nothing,” was the surprising answer. “I mean nothing as far as we
could see. We opened the drawers in which the doctor used to put his
fees till he paid them into the bank, and they were full, one full
of notes and the other of silver. The doctor’s lowest fee was three
guineas,” the doctor’s man added with some pride.

“Take us to that room,” my chief commanded.

Simmons obeyed without hesitation. My heart was beating so loudly in
my ears that I could not overcome the childish fear that it might be
heard by others, in spite of my medical knowledge to the contrary. I
fell back and let my companions go into the room without me while I
collected myself before joining them.

Yet there was nothing in Dr. Weathered’s professional sanctum to
inspire dismay.

The room in which he received his patients was as bright and as well
appointed as everything else in the establishment. A handsome walnut
writing-table was lightly strewn with medical books and papers,
relieved by a handsome china bowl full of roses. The patient’s chair
was luxuriously cushioned with yellow silk, and the doctor’s own chair
was a handsome one upholstered in tooled morocco leather. There was
only one bookcase, and its appearance was more suited to a drawing-room
than a professional man’s study. The frame was richly inlaid with
ornamental woods, and the glass doors were protected by gilt wires.
A small marble group of Eros and Psyche stood on the top, flanked
by Chinese dragons. Elsewhere the walls of the room were hung with
charming water-colours, most of them of a rather sensuous description,
depicting youths and maidens bathing in pools, and scenes of love and
jealousy.

Tarleton took in every detail with one of those swift, searching looks
of his which seemed to penetrate to some inner meaning beneath the
surface of all he saw. Finally, his eye rested on the corner in which a
safe about three feet high, painted to look like oxydized silver, was
clamped on a supporting stand of ebony.

“You have locked the safe, I see. Where are the keys?”

The sudden demand agitated the nervous butler.

“Miss Sarah has them,” he stuttered. “At least she took them away when
she locked up the safe. Perhaps she’s given them to her mother--to Mrs.
Weathered.”

Sir Frank opened his eyes. I think we all did. Somehow it seemed
incongruous that the founder of the Domino Club should be a married man.

“Is there a Mrs. Weathered then?”

“Why, yes, sir.” Simmons showed as much surprise as we had. “Would you
like to see her, Sir Frank?” He seemed rather eager to get away and
fetch his mistress to deal with us.

The consultant restrained him by an imperative gesture.

“One moment, if you please. You haven’t told us what happened after you
had found the safe open. Did you go to call Mrs. Weathered?”

“I should have gone, sir, but Miss Sarah came down and found us looking
into the safe. So I left it to her.”

Again the man made a movement as if to escape, and again the specialist
arrested him.

“What brought her down? Did she know what had happened?”

Simmons seemed honestly confused. “I really can’t tell you, sir. I
suppose one of the servants must have gone upstairs and told her. They
were all about.”

Tarleton nodded. “Go on. When she came in what did she do?”

“She was rather angry sir, at first. She thought the doctor had come
home in a great hurry to fetch something for someone who was ill, and
had rushed off again, and forgotten to lock the safe and take his keys.
She said we had no business to look inside in his absence. And she
locked the safe herself, and sent the policeman away, saying no doubt
Dr. Weathered would be back again presently. But that was more than
four hours ago, and there’s been no sign of him yet, sir.”

It was evident that Simmons considered his young mistress had been
over-confident. We, who knew it so much better than he did could only
sympathize with his feelings. Sir Frank made no further effort to
detain him.

“Very well. You can let Mrs. Weathered know we are here, and say that I
shall be glad to speak with her as soon as possible.”

When the butler had gone he turned to me.

“What do you make of this room, Cassilis? What sort of diseases do you
think were treated here?”

I thought it best to glance at the pictures and the marble group before
expressing my opinion.

“Not very serious ones I should say,” I answered lightly.

My chief frowned.

“And yet one of them has proved pretty serious in its consequences,” he
observed. “You don’t agree with Miss Weathered that it was her father
who left that bunch of keys in the door of the open safe?”

I did my best to control myself as I shook my head.

“Rather curious that she should have interfered, though, instead of her
mother,” Captain Charles put in with an air of sagacity.

Tarleton threw himself into the doctor’s own chair, and taking out his
watch, began to swing it gently.

“I expect to meet with more than one curious circumstance in the course
of this inquiry,” he said lazily. “It is just possible that Weathered’s
daughter knew more about him than his wife did.” He sat up suddenly.
“But I am wasting your valuable time, Captain Charles. There is nothing
here that Cassilis and I cannot deal with. It is simply a question of
having the body identified, and brought round here, if the authorities
decide to keep the case private. You had better lose no time in
communicating with the Foreign Office and the Home Office, and letting
me know their decision. And don’t forget there are the costumes to be
traced.”

The Captain was already on the move. I fancied he was not sorry to be
released. Tarleton was too big a personality for anyone else to find
himself much more than a dummy in his company, and the Inspector’s
sense of self-importance must have suffered as long as he was in the
physician’s train.

My chief was good enough to offer me a private explanation as soon as
we were alone.

“I have every confidence in Charles’s honesty, but very little in his
tact. And this is a case that calls for very careful handling. These
people won’t tell us more than they can help if they are afraid of a
public scandal. And, on the other hand, if they know that the whole
affair is going to be hushed up they won’t tell us anything at all.”
Tarleton let his eyes rove round the walls of the room as he proceeded.
“I don’t want Charles to see the direction in which I am feeling my
way. You see, he is not my subordinate. He isn’t responsible to me for
his actions. He is quite at liberty to go to the Chief Commissioner
behind my back, and tell him whatever is in his mind, and the
Commissioner can go to Sir James Ponsonby in the same way. We must walk
warily Cassilis.”

I tried in vain to catch the doctor’s eye while he was speaking. How
much did he mean to convey by that singular warning? Was he referring
to my admission that I had heard Dr. Weathered’s name before, and
cautioning me to make no more such admissions in the Inspector’s
hearing? I felt a sick apprehension which I dared not show.

Sir Frank seemed quite unconscious of my distress. “You and I,” he
went on in a confidential way, “know that it wasn’t Weathered who
crept into this room last night, and crept out again, leaving the keys
behind. And we also know that whoever came here didn’t come for money.
I think we can both guess what he did come for--he or she.”

He darted a sudden glance at me as he uttered the last word, and he
must have seen me start. But at that instant the door opened, and we
both rose to our feet to receive the ladies coming in.

There were two of them. Mrs. Weathered was a woman of about the same
age as the man whom we had left lying in the Domino Club, but of a very
different social type. She was not vulgar in any offensive sense of
the word, but her appearance and manner were those of a woman such as
one would expect to meet in the back parlour of a shop in a provincial
town, rather than in a West End drawing-room. Her features were plain
as well as homely; her gray hair showed no trace of a skilful maid’s
art, and her fashionable dress only exposed her unfitness to wear
it. Such a wife could only be a serious handicap to an ambitious man
making his way upward in London society. It was possible to at least
understand one of the doctor’s temptations to lead a secret life which
brought him into more congenial company than his homely wife’s. Yet
there was something touching in her pale, worn face; and her mild blue
eyes searched our faces with a pitiful anxiety that convinced me that
her husband still had a hold on her affection.

Her daughter was as little like her as it was possible to be. Young
enough in years--I put her down as little more than twenty--her face
and figure were those of a ripe woman. Both were queenly. Her sombre
crown of hair and flashing eyes made me think of Judith and the tragic
heroines of old who were driven to avenge themselves on the men who
had done them wrong. She betrayed none of her mother’s anxiety. Stern,
self-possessed and courageous, she faced Sir Frank and myself with the
demeanour of the accuser rather than the accused.

Mrs. Weathered was the first to speak. Although addressing my chief as
the elder of us two, I found her turning her eyes towards me as though
more hopeful of sympathy from my youth. Her daughter on the contrary
kept her intent gaze fixed on Tarleton and seemed barely conscious of
my presence in the room.

“Have you any news for me, sir? Dr. Weathered hasn’t come back yet--not
since he was here in the early morning, and left his keys behind.”

The physician shook his head with a grave air.

“I am not sure that you are right in thinking that it was your husband
who came here and left those keys. Before I say anything more I should
like to look inside the safe.”

Mrs. Weathered turned a wondering look on her daughter, who frowned in
return.

“Why?” She demanded. “Nothing has been taken. I looked myself, and the
money was all there untouched. No burglar would have gone away without
helping himself to it, surely?”

“Perhaps it was not a burglar. It was someone who had been in your
father’s company, or he could not have obtained possession of his bunch
of keys.”

The girl drew herself up in wrath.

“Dr. Weathered is not my father sir. My mother has only been married to
him five years. My name is Neobard.”

A glimmering of the true situation came to me. The dead man had married
a widow, an unattractive one, with a daughter old enough to resent
her mother’s action and show it. There could be no reasonable doubt
that she must have had money, probably a good deal, and that her
daughter’s fortune had gone to enrich the step-father. I could pretty
well guess the whole story. A provincial doctor with more brains than
wealth had courted his rich patient to obtain the means of coming
to London and setting up as a consultant in the West End. That was
why neither Tarleton nor I had heard of him as a man distinguished
in the profession. He had risen, not by scientific merit, but by the
possession of money and an imposing manner. There were too many such
cases in the medical world.

By this time Mrs. Weathered had sat down and invited us to do the
same. But Miss Neobard remained standing, still with the same air of
suppressed indignation. Tarleton appeared not to be aware of anything
strange in her manner.

“Your step-father, then,” he corrected himself amiably. “Dr. Cassilis
and I are better acquainted with the usual contents of a doctor’s safe
than you are, I expect; and perhaps we shall be better able to judge if
anything has been taken than you.”

“I don’t think he kept any drugs in it, if that’s what you’re thinking
of,” the girl said obstinately. It was clear that she resented our
being there and was disposed to help us as little as possible.

“Indeed!” The specialist turned to Mrs. Weathered, whose face showed
some bewilderment at her daughter’s attitude. “Perhaps you can tell me,
ma’am, if your husband specialized in any particular disease, or class
of diseases.”

The pale widow glanced at her daughter as though for permission to
answer, and was met by a smile of scorn.

“I know that he takes nervous cases,” Mrs. Weathered said with a
certain hesitation. “He is a psychological expert.”

She pronounced the phrase in the tone of a person who had learnt it by
heart, and expected us to understand it better than she did herself.
Miss Neobard’s gall overflowed at the sound.

“He called himself that to begin with,” she put in sharply. “Now it is
a psychical analyst. Women come and tell him their secrets as if he
were a priest.”

A quiver in the eyelashes told me that this was the information my
chief had been expecting to receive. But his tone showed no animation
when he spoke.

“In that case I dare say Miss Neobard may be right about the drugs.
However, I must ask you to be good enough to let me have Dr.
Weathered’s keys.”

The mother was evidently divided between fear of us and fear of her
daughter to whom she appealed with another helpless look.

“By what right do you ask for them, Sir Frank? My mother is not
entitled to give up her husband’s keys without his consent. He may be
back at any moment--and then you can ask him.”

At last it was necessary to speak out. The girl’s position was
perfectly right if she was ignorant of her step-father’s fate.

“I am deeply sorry to be the bearer of bad news,” Tarleton said to the
widow. “I’m afraid you must prepare yourself to hear the worst.” He
paused for a moment. The ready tears that began to stream from the poor
woman’s eyes showed that she had not been altogether unprepared, and
the swift flash of silent exultation in her daughter’s told plainly
who it was that had prepared her. I was pleased to see her throw a
caressing arm round her mother’s neck before she spoke again.

“You mean that Dr. Weathered is dead?”

“A body has been found on certain premises in Chelsea which there is
reason to fear is his. It is part of our business here to find someone
to come round and identify him.”

A moan from the widow drew her daughter’s arm more tightly round her.
She thrust her free hand into a pocket and drew out a bunch of keys.

“Take these. And excuse me. I must take my mother to her room. I will
come back in a few minutes and go round with you to the Club.”

I was quick to open the door as the strange girl supported her mother
out of the room. I had no sooner closed it again than my chief repeated
her last words.

“The Club!--I fancy that young woman could tell us a good deal about
her step-father if she chose. And now!”

He stepped towards the safe, found the right key, and threw open the
door.

“What do you say has been taken, Cassilis?”

There could be no doubt as to the answer, although I went through the
form of looking carefully inside before I gave it.

It was the doctor’s case-book that was missing, the book containing the
secrets of the women.




CHAPTER V

DR. WEATHERED’S PATIENTS


My chief made a swift search through the safe. The cash drawers were
empty, and he gave me a significant nod.

“Miss Sarah has been through the safe since the policeman left. A
remarkable girl that, Cassilis! How did she come to know of the Domino
Club?”

I was as little able to answer the question as he was. Still, I had
formed a vague theory in my own mind.

“She rather gave me the impression of hating her step-father on her
mother’s account,” I threw out. “Mightn’t she have watched him on her
mother’s behalf?”

“That is a possible explanation, certainly,” my chief was good enough
to respond. “We are dealing with one of those family tragedies which
so seldom come to light. The ambitious man has married for money, as
the girl has seen from the first, and the woman won’t see. Then he has
found his wife in the way, and begun to neglect her. She, poor thing,
has tried to hide the situation from her child, but Sarah has found it
out for herself, and resented it. She has tried to open her mother’s
eyes, and failed; or rather the mother has concealed the fact that she
is no longer blind. Then in desperation, perhaps, the girl has gone
secretly to work to obtain proof of her step-father’s infidelity, proof
that will leave her mother no excuse for keeping her eyes shut any
longer; that will compel her to leave the man....”

The speech trailed off into a soliloquy, which became a silent one.
Suddenly he stood up grasping in his hand a square glass bottle half
full of pellets like those we had found on the corpse.

“No need for further evidence of identity than this!” he exclaimed
in triumph. “But this must be between you and me, Cassilis; I don’t
think Charles can have been altogether satisfied with the theory that
Weathered only carried these pellets to give to his enemies and this
discovery makes it still less probable. He may have administered them
for other purposes.”

I shuddered at the hint. The Domino Club took on a darker shade in my
imagination and I scarcely dared ask myself what horrors might have
been concealed by those embroidered curtains that screened its Moorish
alcoves.

Tarleton slipped the glass bottle into his coat pocket, and locked the
safe. Then he turned to survey the doctor’s table.

“Now let us reconstruct the crime provisionally,” he said. “A patient
of Weathered finds that he is in the doctor’s power and finds that
Weathered is disposed to take some base advantage of him. He has seen
the doctor recording his confession in a book, and he determines to
release himself by getting hold of that book and destroying it. He is a
member of the Domino Club; most likely he has been tempted or compelled
to join it by Weathered. He may or may not know of these pellets
and the purpose for which they are used. At all events he conceives
the plan of drugging Weathered, obtaining his keys, and coming here
to destroy the incriminating record. He carries out his purpose
successfully, so far. But in his haste and excitement he overlooks one
thing. And it is here.”

For the life of me I could not repress a start as the consultant
brought his hand down sharply on a small book that lay beside the
inkstand on the writing-table. Little need to say what it was! The
moment after Weathered’s appointment-book was lying open, and my
chief’s keen eyes were rapidly searching the pages.

I ought not to have felt so intensely anxious as I watched those bushy
eyebrows knitting themselves over a meagre list of names and dates.
The dead man’s patients had been numerous, and most of them no doubt
had come and gone without the least suspicion of anything irregular
in the doctor’s practice, and without compromising themselves by any
indiscrete confidences. What evidence could such a book afford against
anyone? Still, I was uneasy. My instinct warned me that Tarleton would
find some information that he needed in those pages. And my observation
told me presently that he had found it.

“Listen, Cassilis. Most of these appointments seem to be perfectly
innocent and normal. But there are certain names occurring more than
once that have numbers attached to them. What do you make of this?--Sir
George Castleton, 17; he has been coming once a fortnight. Mrs.
Worboise, 21; about once a month. Miss Julia Sebright, 8; she seems to
have dropped off. Colonel Gravelinas, 26; h’m. Mrs. Baker, 35; rather
more recent than the others. Lady Violet Bredwardine--what is the
matter?”

I jerked myself round towards the door of the room. “I thought I heard
someone outside.”

By a stroke of good luck someone was. The door opened as I spoke, and
Sarah Neobard appeared with a hat on ready to go out.

Tarleton quietly closed the book and placed it in his pocket under her
eyes.

“I am taking Dr. Weathered’s appointment-book, Miss Neobard. I shall
have to make inquiries about some of his patients.”

The stately Sarah’s eyes flashed vindictively. “You are welcome to any
information I can give you about them, Sir Frank. One of them is at the
bottom of this crime, you may be sure.”

Tarleton lifted his eyebrows. “We don’t yet know that it is a crime--in
that sense,” he said with an air of doubt. “Dr. Weathered seems to have
been drugged by someone who wanted to get his keys. But whoever did it
may not have meant to give a fatal dose.”

I listened anxiously. I was puzzled to understand the specialist’s
theory. Did he consider that Weathered had succumbed to a dose that
would not have killed a man in ordinary health? And if so, was his
death due to some organic weakness, as I had myself suggested when we
were viewing the corpse? Or was it possible that Weathered was in the
habit of taking the pellets found upon him, after all, and that he had
just absorbed such a quantity of the poison into his system that the
extra dose proved mortal in consequence? My experience was not enough
to enable me to form a decided opinion of my own on either of these
alternatives.

While these thoughts were passing through my mind Miss Neobard was
scrutinizing my companion’s face with suspicion.

“You are not saying what you really think, Sir Frank,” she pronounced
boldly. “He has been murdered, and you know it, but you are afraid of
shocking me by saying so outright. You needn’t mind. I look on this as
a judgment, and I have seen it coming.”

The physician gazed at her as steadily as she was gazing at him.

“Have you any objection to telling me why?”

“No. Now that my mother isn’t here I don’t care what I tell you. Dr.
Weathered never loved her, but she loved him. She wouldn’t believe
anything bad of him while he was alive, and now he’s dead I don’t want
her to hear anything that would grieve her for nothing.” She seemed
to consider for a moment what to say next. “You mustn’t think he was
altogether wicked, at all events at first. He was very clever, and he
knew that he could do well in London with my mother’s money. And he
was really interested in science. He had studied psychology for years
before he started as a nerve specialist. I believe that he meant to
practise quite respectably when he began here. It was the women who led
him astray.”

A singular statement to be made by the step-daughter who had so much
reason to hate him, and who every now and then gave me the impression
that she had hated him.

“Half the women who came to consult him, I believe, had nothing the
matter with them except a craving for excitement. He told us that
himself, though, of course, he didn’t say what kind of excitement
they craved for. He used to talk about his practice at first, and
tell us the names of some of his patients, when they were big people.
One was a duchess, another was a famous author. But after a time he
stopped talking about them. That was when he began to fall under their
influence. They sent him invitations to dinner without inviting my
mother. And he accepted them.”

One could see, as it were, the rift opening, and this keen-eyed,
strong-minded girl taking precocious notice of everything and watching
her step-father’s downward progress.

“Then he took up with this psycho-analysis, pretending he could cure
people of their troubles and change their dispositions by encouraging
them to talk to him freely. I knew he didn’t really believe in it. He
had sneered at it often enough when it first came up. He took to it
simply because it was the way to make money. I fancy the other doctors
looked down on him because of it. At all events they seemed to boycott
him. None of them ever came here, and their wives left off calling on
us. I soon saw there was something wrong.

“I tried to get my mother to do something, but she wouldn’t or
couldn’t. She had no influence over him apart from her money, and he
was making so much that he was independent of her. And she wouldn’t
leave him. She had no legal grounds, of course. Whatever went on
was carefully concealed from her. He couldn’t have afforded an open
rupture. That would have frightened off his patients.”

Sarah paused for breath, and my chief and I exchanged looks. It was
a curious revelation, and the strangest part of it was the manner in
which it was being made. The accuser seemed to be also the defender.
There was a very thoughtful wrinkle on Tarleton’s brow, as though he
was listening to more than the words that reached his ear.

All this time there had been no reference to the Domino Club. I think
we were both rather eager to learn something about that. But Miss
Neobard didn’t appear to need prompting. She came to the subject of her
own accord.

“At last we almost ceased to see anything of him. He went out night
after night, and didn’t come home till the early morning. He was a
strong man, but his health began to suffer, and I think he was taking
to drink latterly. At one time he kept nothing in the house, but lately
there was brandy in a cupboard, and I have seen him going to it in the
morning as soon as he came down. This was after he had gone to that
abominable club.”

“The Domino Club?” my chief put in quietly.

“Yes, I dare say you wonder how I came to know of it. Perhaps you think
I oughtn’t to have taken any notice of what was going on. It was my
mother’s business, really, but she was determined to see nothing, and I
had to protect her.”

The explanation was given with a touch of defiance. Was it the true
one? Was it solely zeal on her mother’s behalf that had inspired
the girl of nineteen or twenty to play the part of a detective? Or
had other motives mingled with the avowed one? A touch of feminine
curiosity, perhaps? A subtle temptation to look down into the gulf in
which the man was disappearing? Or else?...

She saw no need to tell us how she had obtained her knowledge,
apparently. I didn’t think her the kind of girl to employ an agent. She
was quite capable, I felt sure, of searching her step-father’s papers,
or following him secretly. Her object, as far as we were concerned, was
evidently to inculpate his patients even more than himself.

“It was the women,” she repeated with bitterness, “who dragged him into
it. They wanted a place in which they could have all the excitement of
a night club without the risk of meeting low-class people. There was a
Mrs. Worboise----” I glanced at my chief as I recalled the No. 21 of
the appointment-book, but his lips were firmly compressed----“I feel
convinced that she provided some of the money. But there were others,
too, plenty of them.”

I was thankful that she stopped there without mentioning more names. My
chief also seemed to think that she had said enough for the present.

“Very well, Miss Neobard. I am sure that you have acted for the best
in giving me this information, and I’m very much obliged to you. Now
suppose we drive round to the Club for you to identify the body.”

The sight of Evans, the doctor’s chauffeur, in front dried up the
girl’s flow of speech, and the drive was a silent one. Arrived at
Vincent Studios I noticed that Tarleton stood back to let the young
lady go in front, and that she took her way without hesitation towards
the door bearing the name of Loftus, A.R.A. The policeman we had
left in charge opened the door to us, and my chief again tested Miss
Neobard’s knowledge by waiting for her to precede us. But this time the
test failed.

“Where is the body?” she asked in a whisper, coming to a stand in the
narrow passage.

“This way.” Sir Frank gravely took the girl’s arm in his own and led
her straight to the spot. Whether she quivered as they approached the
alcove I could not tell, but there was no mistaking her agitation when
she caught sight of the stiff form and pallid face. A stifled cry
escaped her lips. She leaned forward impulsively, almost as if she had
been going to embrace the corpse, and then straightened herself up with
a shudder.

“How dreadful he looks!” she gasped.

There was some excuse for the exclamation, out of place as it seemed at
such a moment, and from her lips. The leaden tinge that had struck my
attention earlier in the day had deepened and spread over the face and
neck, and had become noticeable in the hands as well. The roughness was
also accentuated, giving the skin the look of crude parchment in need
of scraping before it could be written on. My experience was not enough
to tell me whether these were unusual symptoms, and remembering the
caution my chief had given me, I was careful to make no remark on them.
I watched the great expert’s face, but I might as well have watched the
dead man’s for any information it gave me. He had drawn out his golden
mascot, as it were unconsciously, and was swinging it with more than
usual deliberation as he scanned the ghastly features with an air of
the deepest abstraction.

Sarah Neobard was less successful in hiding her emotions. In spite of
the constraint she was evidently putting on herself I detected a tear
edging its way down her cheek. Perhaps her memories of the dead were
not all bitter ones. Perhaps there had been a time when he had treated
her with kindness. Perhaps--but my speculations were cut short by a
self-assertive step behind us.

All three of us turned round to see Captain Charles striding down
the deserted room. By this time the red lights had been put out. The
daylight reached everywhere, and gave the whole place an inexpressibly
dreary, discomforting look. The gauze curtains showed bare and shabby,
and the cushioned divans and couches revealed wine and coffee stains.
The floor was dusty and discoloured. A comparison occurred to me
between the dismal scene of revelry and the feelings of the revellers
themselves as they awoke next day with jaded nerves and scorched
palates and guilty recollections of their orgy.

Captain Charles was bursting with self-importance.

“I have just come from the Foreign Office,” he began, when Sir Frank
pulled him up rather peremptorily.

“Be good enough to wait a moment, Inspector.” He turned to the
distressed girl. “You identify this as the body of your step-father,
Dr. Weathered?”

She bowed faintly. “Yes--though it is fearfully changed!”

“That is sufficient. Do you feel able to go back by yourself, or would
you rather have someone to escort you?”

“I would rather be alone,” she murmured.

“Very well; then I need not keep you.” He looked away towards the
outer door of the room, but the girl stood hesitating.

“Will it--shall you--the body?” she inquired in a broken voice.

“The body must be removed to my house first for me to ascertain the
cause of death,” Tarleton said kindly. “After that I hope to arrange
for it to be buried from your house privately. Meanwhile, the less you
say to anyone the better.”

She bent her head gratefully, and I took her as far as the door of the
studios, and saw her walk away. When I got back the Inspector was in
the full flood of his report.

“I have never seen the Foreign Office more upset about anything,” he
was saying. “And the Slavonian Embassy is in a regular turmoil. It
appears that the Ambassador had no idea of where His Royal Highness
was last night. He slipped out quietly without saying anything, with
the Chancellor of Legation, Baron Novara. Baron Novara is a member of
the Domino Club; he has always looked on it as a perfectly reputable
place, a fashionable resort--in fact, like Hurlingham or the Prince’s
skating-rink; and he had no idea that he was risking anything in
bringing the Crown Prince here. At least so he says. The Ambassador
is furious and has ordered him to go home by to-night’s express and
explain matters to the King, if he can.”

My chief listened to the excited Charles with a good deal of
indifference, I thought.

“The sum and substance of it all is that they want the affair hushed
up, I suppose?”

I listened for the Inspector’s answer with an eagerness which I did my
very best to hide. I am not sure that I did hide the relief with which
I heard it.

“It _must_ be hushed up,” he cried with positive indignation. “The
Chancellor was fool enough to put in the official circular to the Press
of the Crown Prince’s movements that he was present at a dance at the
Domino Club last night.”

“That will be good news for Madame Bonnell,” the consultant observed
dryly. “Is there any idea at the Embassy that the Prince’s life was
aimed at?”

Captain Charles glanced round cautiously and lowered his voice.

“That’s the worst of it. The Bolsheviks are working their hardest to
upset the monarchy in Slavonia, and it is believed that one of their
agents in this country obtained admission to the club last night
disguised as a woman.”

“Zenobia!” I could no more keep in the ejaculation than I could still
the beating of my heart as I gave it vent.

My two companions turned sharply and looked at me, the Inspector with
a certain grudging respect, my chief with a slight frown of something
very like disdain. I bit my tongue too late.

“Zenobia seems to have made a bad guess at the Prince’s identity,”
Tarleton said mercilessly. “Unless His Royal Highness wore an
Inquisitor’s costume, too?”

The Captain’s face fell as he responded to the question.

“I didn’t inquire about that, Sir Frank,” he admitted. “I’ll go round
again and find out.”

“Do, please. It will be time enough to consider Zenobia’s part in
the mystery when we have heard from the theatrical costumiers. One
moment----” Captain Charles had taken a step towards the exit--“I
should like you to wait till I have put a question to Madame Bonnell.”

He touched the nearest bell-push as he spoke, and the Inspector and I
looked at each other with curiosity as to his purpose. The bell was
promptly answered by Gerard, and within a few moments the proprietress
of the club sailed into the room.

She was decidedly more at ease than she had been when we interviewed
her first. Touches of mourning had been added to her elegant dress,
and her whole manner had been toned down to that of a dignified lady
in distress. Tarleton appeared to meet this assumption by an added
roughness in addressing her.

“Will you be good enough to tell me the rules of the Domino Club as to
the admission of visitors?”

Madame Bonnell put her head on one side for a moment, giving herself
the air of a person who was considering whether to grant a favour.

“I see no objection to that, Sir Frank. You are Sir Frank Tarleton, are
you not?”

The question was almost impudent. The physician ignored it with a sharp
“Well?”

“Every member was entitled to one card of admission for a friend for
each dance. He was required to enter the name of the friend, and the
costume he was coming in, in the club register.”

“Let me see the register, please.”

Madame had evidently expected this demand. She drew herself up.

“The register is confidential. It contains the names of all the
members. I keep it for my private information, and I can’t show it to
anyone else.”

Tarleton turned to the Police Inspector with a shrug. “I must ask you
to do your duty, after all, I’m afraid.”

The Frenchwoman turned red with excitement.

“But what does this mean? Have you seen the papers?” She produced an
evening paper from her dress, one of those evening papers that come out
early in the forenoon. “Here it is announced that His Royal Highness
the Crown Prince of Slavonia honoured me by his presence here last
night. My club is under royal patronage, you see, gentlemen. This is
not an affair for the police.”

My chief had described Captain Charles as thorough. He showed his
quality as soon as the angry woman had spoken. First setting a whistle
to his lips, he stepped forward and placed a firm hand on her arm.

“I arrest you in the King’s name.”




CHAPTER VI

THE BOOKS OF THE DOMINO CLUB


It was at once evident that Sir Frank Tarleton had taken the measure of
his opponent accurately. As soon as she felt the police officer’s touch
Madame Bonnell’s confidence deserted her, and she collapsed in a state
of mingled panic and bewilderment.

“_Mon Dieu!_ But what have I done? What is it that I am accused of?”
She looked imploringly from Charles to Tarleton and from him to me.

It was the Inspector who answered.

“Obstructing the officers of the law in the course of their duty is the
charge at present. There may be others later on. Meanwhile I have to
caution you that anything you say will be taken down and may be used in
evidence against you.”

Madame’s reception of the stereotyped warning convinced me that this
was the first occasion on which she had come into collision with the
English law. It appeared to impress her favourably, and to dispel her
first terrors.

“But there is some mistake,” she protested. “I did not understand. I
have no wish to resist the law. I thought there was an understanding
that this misfortune should not be dealt with by the police.”

“Nonsense,” my chief interjected roughly. “It is being dealt with by
the police. They have been in possession of these premises since five
o’clock this morning--since you called them in yourself. Do you intend
to produce the register, or must we search for it?”

Madame Bonnell gave a last sigh of reluctance. Then she was all
submission. She led the way out of the dancing-hall into the adjoining
premises. Her private apartment was between the kitchen and the row of
dressing-rooms for the accommodation of the dancers who preferred to
assume their costumes on the spot. Drawn curtains on one side concealed
what was no doubt Madame’s bed; the rest of the room having the aspect
of a business man’s parlour, furnished with a roll-top desk, a typing
machine and shelves for books and correspondence. In one corner was a
cupboard with a stout door which the proprietress unlocked with a show
of eagerness, and threw open for our inspection.

The contents of the cupboard seemed innocent enough. A private ledger,
a file of accounts, a cash-box into whose contents Tarleton forbore
to pry, and, more important for our purpose, two thin volumes bound
in black leather, one of which was labelled “_Members_” and the other
“_Visitors_.” It would have been unchivalrous to speculate as to the
contents of certain little bottles and boxes on a lower shelf which had
a look of feminine elegance.

My chief pointed to the two black-bound volumes.

“Will you take charge of these books, Cassilis. We can examine them at
our leisure.”

The Frenchwoman uttered a faint groan as I stretched out my hand to
obey. I could have groaned in sympathy with her. And yet I was not in
any fear on my own account. I had no reason to think that my name would
be found in the Visitors’-book. I had been too careful for that. But
there was another name which I had only too much reason for expecting
to see in the other volume. And I cursed the proprietress in my heart
for not destroying the dangerous record while it was in her power. She
had fancied herself secure, and had cared nothing for the security of
her patrons. What did it matter to her who might be incriminated, as
long as her livelihood was not threatened? True, she had done her best
at the last moment to prevent the authorities from gaining access to
these books. But it was easy to see her self-interest in that. Those
records were part of her stock-in-trade. They gave her a hold on the
members of the club, who might be disposed to forsake it as soon as
any hint of the tragedy got abroad. In that case she had only to say
to them, “Leave the club, throw me over, and I take my books to the
newspaper offices, and sell them for what they will fetch.”

Such was the situation, so far as I could see it. Either the reputation
of the Domino Club was to be saved, and all was to go on as before;
or it would be for Madame’s benefit that the scandal should be as
widespread as possible, and that every member and visitor should pay
heavily for having his or her name kept out of it. In parting with
these two volumes she was parting with her most valuable weapons as a
blackmailer.

Whether any such considerations as these influenced my chief, I could
not tell. Outwardly he seemed to have only one end in view--the tracing
of the crime to its perpetrator. As soon as I had possessed myself of
the two books he made a sign to Captain Charles.

“It will be as well for you to lock this cupboard and keep the key for
the present. Unless there is anything that Madame Bonnell particularly
wishes to remove first.”

Madame glanced longingly at the row of mysterious little boxes and
bottles, but she prudently shook her head.

“_Merci, monsieur._ I will take nothing. I wish to have no secrets from
the police. I prefer to replace my perfumes from the shop.”

Tarleton smiled with a grudging respect. This was an adversary after
his own heart, one who knew every point in the game, and knew when
to play for safety. The Inspector locked the door and pocketed the
key with the same wooden precision with which he would have taken the
number of a taxi or arrested the Crown Prince of Slavonia.

“Is Madame Bonnell still under arrest?” he inquired stolidly.

“Not as far as I am concerned,” the physician said lightly. “My
business with Madame is over. All I have to do now is to make the
medical examination, and to wait for the result of your inquiries
elsewhere.”

A significant nod conveyed to the Inspector that there was no occasion
to let the Frenchwoman know of the search that had been set on foot
among the costumiers. It was not unlikely that the proprietress of the
club could have thrown some light on the identity of Salome and the
mysterious Leopardess, and could have told us whether the Crown Prince
had masqueraded as Zenobia, if she had chosen. But it was a good deal
more likely that any question put to her on the subject would result in
the parties being privately warned.

Inspector Charles formally released his prisoner who affected to take
the step as a matter of course. I had remarked, however, a light of
intense gratification in her black eyes when Sir Frank announced that
he had dismissed her from the case. She impressed me as the sort of
woman who could never breathe quite easily in the near neighbourhood of
the police.

The arrangements for the removal of the body were soon made. A covered
police-van was requisitioned to convey it to the retired house in
Montague Street, and the consultant and I drove on in advance, taking
the black-covered volumes with us. He talked to me quite cheerfully on
the way.

“An interesting woman, that. Her mind would be a curious study for a
psychologist--a real one, I mean, not a charlatan like this wretched
Weathered. The words right and wrong have no meaning at all for her, I
should say. She must find it difficult to understand our point of view.
In her opinion, I expect, the only thing that matters is that the name
of the Crown Prince should be kept clear of scandal. If he has chosen
to commit a murder, all that is necessary is that the King of Slavonia
should send me the Order of Saint Somebody or other, and of course the
investigation will be dropped.”

We reached the house in good time for lunch, and my kindly chief
pressed me to make a good meal.

“You are looking fagged,” he observed. “If you weren’t a teetotaller I
should prescribe a half-bottle of Burgundy. Our work is only beginning.
As soon as lunch is over I am going through the Members’-book,
comparing the names in it with those in Weathered’s appointment-book.
In that way we may get a key to the mysterious numbers.”

I did my best to conceal the apprehension with which I heard of this
intention. I could see the search narrowing by degree, and gradually
isolating a few names among which I had too much reason to fear
that one would be found which I would have given all I possessed to
exclude. I made an effort to brighten up and eat the good things before
me. The doctor knew how to make the best of life, and an excellent
digestion enabled him to enjoy the lobster mayonnaise and the tender
cutlets provided by his accomplished cook. He drank nothing stronger
than claret, but it was such claret as is not often found in private
cellars, and its perfume reached my nostrils across the table like the
breath of roses.

As soon as I thought he was sufficiently warmed and cheered to relax
a little I ventured to put the question that had been trembling on my
lips for hours.

“Is it too soon to ask if you have formed any opinion as to the cause
of death, Sir Frank?”

He looked at me rather sharply, and his bushy eyebrows drew together.

“I can form no opinion till I have made an autopsy. If you mean have I
made any conjecture, I have made several, any one of which may be right
or may be wrong. Up to a certain point I am inclined to agree with your
theory.”

“With my theory!” I was surprised into repeating.

“Yes. If you recollect, you suggested that whoever administered opium
to Weathered had no intention of causing death. The object seems to
have been to send him off into a state of unconsciousness so as to
obtain possession of his keys; and we know what the keys were wanted
for.”

“To suppress the evidence against some patient, you mean?” I faltered.

“That is one view. Another possible view is that the person who stole
the case-book wanted to obtain evidence for his own purposes. He may
have wanted to put pressure on some patient--or patients.”

“Oh, no!” The protest escaped from me almost unawares. A slight lifting
of Tarleton’s brows caused me to qualify it the next moment. “I mean
that wasn’t my theory.” I pulled myself together as I went on. “Putting
together everything we learnt from Madame Bonnell and from the waiter
and from Miss Neobard, I suspect that Weathered had become a thorough
scoundrel. My view is that he was taking advantage of the confessions
made to him as a medical man to blackmail his patients, and that one of
them was driven to desperation. She thought she could deliver herself
by obtaining access to his safe, and destroying the documents. But she
never dreamed that she was giving him a fatal dose.”

“I needn’t tell you that would be no defence in the eye of the law if
it actually was fatal,” the specialist put in grimly. “So you think it
was the work of a woman, do you?”

“The evidence, Gerard’s evidence, is to that effect, surely? He
described three women in connection with the masked Inquisitor--not one
man.”

“He described one woman as being rather like a man. He suspected
Zenobia of being His Royal Highness.”

I hardly knew what to say. If there were any chance of the waiter’s
theory being adopted by my chief, the relief to me would be as great as
to Madame Bonnell herself. But dare I hope anything of the kind? The
situation was so critical that I feared to commit myself one way or the
other. I fell back on the other point in doubt.

“Do you consider it possible, sir, that an otherwise harmless dose
of morphia might prove fatal if the person to whom it was given had
already saturated his system with opium?”

Again the specialist’s voice had a note of surprise.

“I should have thought your own knowledge was amply sufficient to
answer that question, Cassilis. In ordinary circumstances, no; quite
the contrary, the dose would fail even to produce the effect intended;
it would hardly render the victim insensible. But suppose that he had
just taken his maximum dose, and the extra quantity was administered
immediately after, then the effect might be very serious, indeed.”

Somehow I felt that I was being fenced with. Tarleton must have
perceived a lack of candour on my part in discussing the problem, and
decided to withhold his confidence for the time being. I had to remind
myself of the admissions I had been driven to make in the course of the
morning. My chief knew that I had been a visitor to the Domino Club on
one occasion. He knew that I had heard something of Dr. Weathered, and
heard it in confidence, as he supposed, or affected to believe, from a
patient of my own. He must have put two and two together by this time.
Some inkling of the truth must be in his mind. It did not call for very
much acuteness on his part to see in me the confidential adviser of
one of Weathered’s patients--perhaps one of his victims--possibly of
the very one who had administered the fatal dose, and carried off the
incriminating book.

I resolved to hold my tongue for the future. I would make no more
attempts to sound Sir Frank, and would trust to his respect for
professional secrecy to protect me from any awkward questions from him.
The resolution was easier to take than to keep.

As soon as lunch was over the consultant led the way upstairs to his
study. It appeared that the autopsy was to be postponed; the first
business was to be the examination of the books that Madame Bonnell had
been so unwilling to give up.

The physician seated himself at his massive bureau, a combination of
desk and cabinet, and drew the volume labelled “_Members_” in front of
him, while I placed myself respectfully on a chair at the side.

“The list of members isn’t a very large one,” was his first
observation. “One could hardly expect it to be. The Domino Club has
more the character of a secret society than a club; a society for the
pursuit of illicit pleasures, let us say. Whom have we here?” He opened
the book as he spoke, and ran his eye slowly down the first page. “The
Duke of Altringham--I am not surprised at seeing his name; General Sir
Francis Uppingham, K.C.B.; the Countess of Eardisley; Honourable Janet
Wilbraham; Mrs. Worboise; Sir George Castleton, Bart.--h’m, we are
beginning to come across some of the names in the appointment-book, but
I don’t see anything to account for the numbers attached to them. And
I shall be very much surprised if those numbers don’t contain the true
key to the mystery.”

He paused in reflection, and took Weathered’s diary from his pocket.
“The first thing, it seems to me, is to make out a list of the members
who were also patients, and to underline the names of those who had a
number as well. It is among them that we may expect to find Zenobia
and Salome and possibly the Leopardess as well, though her behaviour
suggests that she can hardly have been a patient. She may have been one
formerly.”

I listened anxiously. Every moment I was expecting the name which
I foresaw too surely would be found in the final list of suspects.
Suddenly Tarleton turned to me with an unexpected order.

“While I am comparing these two books you can go through the
Visitors’-book It may interest you to find the entry of your own name.”

I could not tell whether my dismay was visible to the gray eyes that
seemed to look at me with such perfect indifference. My dilemma was
truly critical. I knew, of course, that my name did not appear in the
volume I was required to search. And if I pretended to look for it
I should land myself in a series of traps. My chief would want some
explanation of its absence; and what explanation could I give? If I
said that I had been present under a false name he would naturally
expect me to tell him that name. And he would expect me to tell him
at once, before I opened the book and began the mock search. I had
barely a second in which to make up my mind. If only my own reputation,
or even my own life, had been at stake, I think I should have thrown
myself on his mercy, and come out with the whole truth. But I was held
as in an iron vice. The knowledge that the police were actively engaged
in tracing the purchasers of the costumes which had been described to
us by Gerard haunted my consciousness. I was driven in despair to tell
my first direct falsehood to my chief.

I opened the volume hurriedly as I spoke.

“I don’t think I shall find my own name here.”

“Why not?” The question came instantly, though it came in a quiet,
friendly tone.

“My recollection is that I gave some other name. I am trying to
remember what. I was rather doubtful about the character of the place,
and didn’t want to run the risk of it being known that I had been
there. I considered the name didn’t matter; I thought it was merely a
form.” I was glancing feverishly through the pages as I talked, trying
to pick out some name too common to be easily identified. “Ah, yes, I
remember now--Carter.”

I placed my finger on an entry nine months old. A Mr. Robert Carter had
been introduced on that date by a Captain Smethwick.

Much to my relief Tarleton accepted the explanation readily.

“I dare say a good many of the names in that book are equally
fictitious,” he said with good humour. “Look and see what name the
Crown Prince took last night.”

It was easily found. A Count Donau had been introduced by the
Chancellor of the Slavonian Embassy.

“Any other visitors?” the consultant asked lightly.

I read aloud one or two masculine names, but he pulled me up.

“Any ladies?”

There were two lady visitors. I read out both their names without
misgiving. One was a Lady Greatorex, the other a Mrs. Antrobus, both of
them assumed names for aught I knew.

The specialist paid little attention for the moment. He was busy with
his duplicate list. I watched him with increasing anxiety as he ticked
off name after name. At the end of half an hour he had completed his
task for the time being.

“I have here thirty-eight names of people who were both patients of
Weathered and members of the Domino Club. And all of them, without
exception, were patients first. It is clear that he started the club
for their benefit, at once to keep them under his influence, and
to confirm them in the very inclinations he pretended to relieve
them from. The man was a moral monster. If ever Satan had an active
instrument on earth this Weathered was the man. And I doubt if the law
could have touched him.”

His words almost invited me to say, “In that case the law can very well
afford to shut its eyes to his fate.”

The adviser of the Home Office shook his head. “That depends. The law
must first know what was his fate. It looks to me as though we were as
far off from knowing that as ever. We know neither how he died, nor at
whose hands, nor the motive of the assassin at present.”

“Doesn’t everything point to his death being more or less an accident?”
I ventured to plead.

“On the contrary, I should say that everything points to its being a
deliberate and deeply-planned murder.”

I gave a horrified gasp. Before I could collect myself sufficiently to
take in this formidable judgment I was saved from exposing myself by
the familiar sound of the telephone bell.

In our hasty departure from the house that morning I had neglected to
disconnect the receiver in my bedroom, and connect the one downstairs.
I sprang out of the room and upstairs, thankful for the interruption.
I was destined to receive a second shock, though a less unnerving one.
The call again came from Inspector Charles, who had just received a
report from one of his subordinates engaged on the case.

The costumier who had supplied the dress of Salome had just been found.
The costume had been delivered two days before to Miss Sarah Neobard,
Warwick Street, Cavendish Square.




CHAPTER VII

THE CAUSE OF DEATH


I waited with sickening apprehension for a few instants.

“And the others?--the Zenobia costume, has that been traced?” I was
driven to ask.

“Not yet. There are several more places to be visited.”

The respite gave me time to breathe. As I slowly descended the stairs,
my mind became absorbed in pondering the news I had just received, and
the use to which it might be put.

The figure of Salome came before me as I had seen her the night before,
pursuing the hooded Inquisitor, luring him to dance with her, and
keeping a jealous eye on his movements when he was engaged with other
partners. Astounded as I was to learn that the mysterious dancer was
no other than the dead man’s step-daughter, it did not take me long to
reconcile the intelligence with her remarkable character, as revealed
in the course of the morning’s investigations.

I began to see depths in the strange girl’s nature of which she herself
had hardly been aware. It was not only indignation on her mother’s
behalf that had prompted her to trace her step-father’s doings. It was
not merely curiosity that had brought her to the Domino Club to watch
his movements. Her fierce denunciation of the women patients whom she
had accused of depraving him had been inspired by a secret feeling of
which she was herself unconscious. The man had fascinated her unawares.
Without knowing it she had been jealous on her own account as well as
her mother’s. In a strange ignorance of her own feelings which was yet
a natural result of the relationship in which she had been brought up,
she had continued to believe herself his enemy. She had imagined that
hatred was the passion that inspired her to disguise herself and come
to watch him, to dance with him time after time, and to pursue him with
restless vigilance when he transferred his attentions to anyone else.

Meanwhile it seemed to me that this discovery offered me a chance of
diverting inquiry from myself and from one in whom I was far more
deeply interested than in Sarah Neobard. I must try to concentrate Sir
Frank Tarleton’s suspicions on Salome, and induce him to pass over the
other characters to whom his attention had been drawn by the evidence
of the waiter Gerard and the entries in the books.

I entered his study again to find him engaged in drawing up a list of
names. I let my eye steal towards the paper as I approached and my
heart sank as I read the one just written--“_Lady Violet Bredwardine_.”

“The mystery is solved, apparently,” I announced in a tone of
confidence. “The Salome costume has been traced to Miss Neobard.”

To my discomfiture the consultant merely gave the nod of one who hears
what he expected.

“Poor girl; I was afraid of it.”

He went on writing without further remark, while I dropped into a chair
and looked on with sickly apprehension. At last he looked up.

“Listen, Cassilis. I have made a complete list of the names which
appear in the members’ roll and also in the appointment-book with
numbers attached to them. We have still to find out what the numbers
mean, of course. Have you formed any theory on that point?”

I shook my head. I was honestly ignorant, and if I had been able to
make any guess I should have refrained, for fear of leading Tarleton in
the very direction I was anxious to turn him away from.

“All I can conjecture at this stage is that the numbers refer to pages
in the book that has been abstracted from the safe,” the physician said
thoughtfully. “But I confess that that explanation doesn’t satisfy
myself. My instinct tells me that these names are the names of persons
with whom Weathered had some peculiar relation, perhaps financial,
perhaps....” He paused and shook his head. “At all events, if Madame
Bonnell told us the truth in saying that he went in mortal fear of some
of his fellow-members, I am convinced that the names of those whom he
feared are in this list.”

He passed it over to me. Of the dozen names it contained more than half
were those of women. But I had no eyes for more names than one. I was
racking my brain for some convincing argument against the course which
my chief was evidently bent on following.

“Miss Neobard’s name is not in this list,” I objected. “And yet we
know now that she was present last night, and passed more time in
Weathered’s company than anyone else. And she had very strong motives
for regarding him with hatred.”

Again Tarleton exhibited signs of surprise, almost of impatience.

“It seems to me, Cassilis, that you have a good deal to learn in the
analysis of human nature, or at all events of feminine nature, if you
consider that hatred was the motive that inspired that young woman to
follow her step-father to the Domino Club last night. Hatred of the
other women who were there, if you like, but certainly not hatred of
him.”

It was difficult for me to keep up the pretence of believing in a
theory which my own judgment had already discarded. I fell back on
another point.

“What strikes me, sir, that all the persons whose names appear in your
list were old frequenters of the club. They had had many previous
opportunities of drugging Weathered. Last night was the first occasion
on which his step-daughter was present, and last night was the first
time he was attacked.”

Tarleton accepted this argument more amicably.

“Now you have made a real point. It might be a good point if there
were no other suspicious features in the case. But it is open to this
objection that your argument cuts both ways. Sarah Neobard lived in
her step-father’s house, and had every opportunity of administering
drugs to him there. Why should she have chosen the Domino Club for
such a purpose? And if her object was to obtain his keys, she might
have managed that when he was asleep at home far more easily than
anywhere else. That’s the one point we mustn’t lose sight of in this
affair--that the motive was to gain access to Weathered’s safe. Revenge
was a secondary consideration.”

I felt myself fairly cornered. Prudence compelled me to assent to my
chief’s reasoning.

“I will ask you to make a copy of this final list and send it round to
Captain Charles,” he went on to say. “The police may be able to find
out something about these twelve persons which will narrow the inquiry
down to one or two.”

I held out a hand that almost trembled for the paper, and hastened
to fold it up and slip it into my pocket. The thought had instantly
occurred to me that I might omit one name in the copy to be sent to the
police without much risk. If the omission were discovered it would be
put down to carelessness, and meanwhile time would have been gained.

Tarleton had risen to his feet.

“And now it is time to examine the body,” he said gravely.

I followed him out of the room and into the laboratory, where the
corpse lay stretched on a marble slab, ready for the surgical knife.
The sight distracted me for a time from my other anxiety. I was
profoundly puzzled by the symptoms I have described already. The
grayness I had remarked had grown deeper, and the whole surface of
the skin was corrugated by tiny wrinkles, so that it presented the
appearance of a mummy dried by the embalmer. It was impossible to
attribute these signs to the action of opium in any quantity of which I
had experimental knowledge. My heart sank as I remembered the ominous
pronouncement of my chief. If he were right, and another drug, more
deadly than opium, had been administered by an unknown hand to the
masked Inquisitor during last night’s revel, the situation would be
terrible indeed. The murder, the deeply-planned murder, as Sir Frank
had termed it in advance, would be attributed to the same hand that had
abstracted the keys and carried off the case-book from the safe.

The proceedings in which I had now to play the part of assistant were
of too gruesome a nature to be described in anything but a medical
report. It is enough to say that the general result was negative as far
as my medical knowledge went. There was no sign of any organic injury.
There was nothing in the condition of the heart to explain the fatal
event. The internal symptoms corresponded closely with the external
ones. Everything pointed to death having been brought about by the
action of a poison similar in some of its effects to opium, yet having
a peculiar influence on the interior membranes as well as on the outer
cuticle. But what that poison was I was at a loss to tell.

The specialist seemed to be as completely baffled as myself. He pursued
the examination almost in silence, only speaking from time to time to
ask me to hand him the different reagents used in testing for poisons.
It was quickly evident that none of the common poisons was present.
Anything like strychnine or arsenic was out of the question from the
first. The rapidity with which death had taken place eliminated the
possibility of germs. More subtle agents, such as belladonna and
aconite, were tested for in vain. In the midst of my overpowering
anxiety I was moved to admiration by the expert’s extraordinary skill.
All kinds of tests of which I had never heard were brought to bear;
drugs unknown to me even by name were called into requisition; minute
discolorations were examined by a powerful microscope; a galvanic
battery was applied to one organ, and the X-ray to another. And still
there was no positive result.

Hours passed away unnoticed in the laborious search. It was nearly
dinner-time when Tarleton at length straightened himself up with a look
of finality, walked across the room, and began washing his hands.

“I have now tried for every agent known to the British Pharmacopœia
that might possibly have produced death with such symptoms as those,
and not one is present,” he said with extreme gravity.

I felt myself shivering. If anyone else had been speaking I should have
thought he was attributing the death to a supernatural cause.

“There are only two possibilities left, so far as I can see,” he
continued. “One is that I am dealing with a murderer whose knowledge of
poisons is more extensive than my own.”

I shook my head in protest.

“In that case,” Tarleton went on deliberately, “he must be a foreigner.
And we must be prepared to find that the life of the Crown Prince was
aimed at, after all. The Bolsheviks are in close relation with a party
among the Chinese. It may well be that the Chinese possess the secret
of treating opium in such a way as to make it produce effects unknown
to Western science. I shall have to ask Charles to find out what
costume the Prince wore last night, and to learn a little more about
the Chancellor of the Slavonian Legation.”

He broke off for a few moments, and I breathed more freely than I had
done for many hours. He finished drying his hands before he spoke again.

“There is a second possibility. There is one drug known to me which
does in fact produce appearances exactly like those we have seen.
But it is a drug not mentioned in the Pharmacopœia, and I had every
reason to believe that I was the only person in this part of the world
who had any of it in his possession. I keep it in a sealed bottle in
my private safe, and I am now going to see if that bottle has been
tampered with, and any of the poison is missing.”

The consultant was facing me as he spoke, and his keen gray eyes were
fixed on me with an expression which might have been merely meant to
impress me with the gravity of the situation. But my conscience took
the alarm. For the first time a sickening conviction seized me that
I was being watched. I told myself that my chief had noticed signs
of confusion and dread in my behaviour, and had begun to entertain
a suspicion that I knew more about the tragedy than I had chosen to
reveal.

Now it seemed his suspicion had gone deeper. He was actually asking
himself if I had taken advantage of my opportunities as an inmate
of his house to search for a more subtle drug than morphia, and had
stooped to rob him. And although I knew myself to be innocent of any
such action, I trembled at the idea. If the bottle or any of its
contents should be missing, how could I possibly hope to exculpate
myself?

I dared not to open my lips. Tarleton, with something like a sigh,
went towards the cabinet in which his drugs were stored, took out his
bunch of keys and applied one of them to a small steel safe on an
inner shelf. I held my breath as the door swung open. He put in his
hand, took out a square glass bottle of the size known to chemists as
four-ounce, and held it up to the light.

The bottle appeared to be full of a gray powder. The glass stopper was
covered with black sealing-wax, and he bent his head over it, minutely
scrutinizing the edges of the wax, and the impression of a seal on the
flat top.

“Thank Heaven!”

I echoed the ejaculation in my thoughts as he raised his head and
looked round at me with a smile of unmistakable relief.

“It is exactly as I left it I sealed it with my own signet ring.” He
extended his little finger for me to see. “The seal is intact. If this
was the poison used, it wasn’t obtained here.”

I had reason to feel satisfied. I knew my chief’s generous nature
well enough to feel sure that he would feel remorse for his momentary
suspicion of me, and would be disposed to atone for it by shutting his
eyes to whatever else might point to my being concerned in the case. In
fact he now proceeded to give me a short holiday.

“I shan’t want you for the rest of the day, Cassilis, if you want to
go out. I think we have done all we can till we hear further from the
police. I am now going to think quietly over the problem as it stands.”

I was thankful to be released. I had certain pressing business to
attend to. But first of all I went to my own room and made a copy of
the list of names I had been charged to send to Inspector Charles. And
although the paper entrusted to me contained twelve names, the one
which I posted to Scotland Yard only contained eleven.

My own business took me to a little street within a stone’s throw of
Piccadilly Circus in which I had rented a room ever since I had taken
up my abode with Sir Frank Tarleton. It was my private retreat in which
I kept up a few friendships that I did not want my chief to know of; an
asylum in which I could resume my independence for a few hours when I
was tired of the regular life I was compelled to lead under my senior’s
eye. I had taken the room under my Christian name of Bertrand for
greater security. It was from this room that I had gone in disguise to
the Domino Club, and it was here that I had dropped my disguise again,
little dreaming that before twelve hours had passed it would have
become a precious possession.

Luckily I had taken the precaution to leave it under lock and key in an
old suit-case that I kept under the bed. As soon as I had let myself
into the room and fastened the door securely, I dragged out the case
and opened it with feverish haste. So far all was well. The costume lay
exactly as I had left it. And now what was to be done with it?

I thought out the problem carefully. I followed out in imagination the
search of the police among the theatrical costumiers. At any moment
they might come to a certain little Jew in Wardour Street, and force
him to disclose the name and address to which this very costume had
been sent more than a year ago. And the next step would surely be for
them to inquire what had become of it.

I thought then, and I think now, that I took the most prudent course in
the circumstances. I first wrote a letter. Then I locked up the case
again, labelled it, and carried it up Shaftesbury Avenue to the post
office.




CHAPTER VIII

THE LEOPARD’S CLAWS


Inspector Charles presented himself at the house in Montague Street
while Sir Frank and I were at breakfast the next morning. My chief
ordered him to be shown in to us.

The Inspector’s manner struck me as rather more reserved than it had
been yesterday. It very quickly appeared that he was acting under
instructions not received from the medical adviser of the Home Office.

“The Chief Commissioner is anxious to know if you have any report to
make as to the cause of death in this Domino Club affair,” he began by
saying, as soon as he had sat down.

Tarleton frowned slightly. Then he laid down his knife and fork and
faced the Inspector.

“I don’t expect to complete my report for some time yet. I have certain
inquiries to make which may take anything from a few days to several
months.”

Captain Charles looked astonished, as he well might.

“Then it isn’t a simple case of opium-poisoning?”

“It isn’t a simple case, certainly. I don’t say that opium was not
administered. By the way, I should be glad if you could find out for me
what disguise the Crown Prince was wearing when he went to the Club.”

The Captain drew himself up.

“I ascertained that yesterday. He wore a plain black domino with a
hood.”

“Ah! Rather like Weathered’s costume, then?”

I could have answered that question better than Charles, I thought.
There had been more than one black domino worn at the fatal dance, but
none that had any real semblance to Weathered’s remarkable costume.
The pointed peak with the two eye-slits in the cloth instead of a mask
had plainly distinguished the founder of the Club from everyone else
present. Of course I dared not offer my testimony as a witness. I did
not think it prudent even to make a remark. Tarleton might have an
object in putting forward this particular view.

It quickly appeared what his object was.

“I don’t think the Commissioner is much inclined to follow up that
clue,” Captain Charles said coldly. “They seem to think in the Foreign
Office that it would do harm to let any idea get abroad that the Crown
Prince was aimed at. It would look as if London wasn’t a safe place for
foreign royalties to visit.”

The physician shrugged his shoulders impatiently.

“That has nothing to do with me, Captain Charles. It will be time
enough for the Foreign Office to make their view prevail when we have
something definite to go upon. At present I am dealing with the cause
of death. I want the police, if they can, to find out if the Bolshevik
authorities have ever resorted to poison, and if so, what poison they
use. I imagine they have no restrictions on opium, and I should be
particularly glad to get hold of samples of the opium that is coming
into Russia from China just now.”

The Inspector pulled a long face.

“I’ll tell the Commissioner what you say, Sir Frank, of course. But I’m
afraid he won’t much like the idea of the inquiry being dragged out.
His theory is that death was accidental, the only object being to get
hold of the keys of the safe. And if there isn’t going to be any public
prosecution, he wants to close the Club as soon as possible, and send
the woman Bonnell out of the country.”

For once I saw Tarleton really angry.

“I trust Sir Hercules will recognize that it is for me to decide
whether the death was accidental, and that he will take no such steps
until he has received my report through the Home Office. Unless you can
undertake that he will hold his hand for the present I must communicate
with Sir James Ponsonby at once.”

Charles gave way instantly.

“There’s no need for that, Sir Frank, I’m sure. Sir Hercules McNaught
wouldn’t think of acting contrary to your opinion without consulting
you first. It doesn’t look to him as if the case could be carried much
further; that’s all.”

“We are only at the beginning of the inquiry,” was the firm answer.
“You haven’t yet completed your search among the costumiers.”

The Inspector shook his head despondently.

“We have pretty well exhausted the list of costumiers, and there is
nothing worth reporting, sir. At least the Commissioner thinks it
absurd to attach any importance to Miss Neobard’s presence. He says
she would have had much better opportunities of getting hold of her
step-father’s keys at home.”

My chief glanced at me. It was the same objection that he had made
himself.

“We can’t hear anything of a leopard skin,” Charles pursued. “You may
remember, sir, that you expressed the opinion that the leopardess
costume would turn out to be a private one. And the only Zenobia
costume we can trace was furnished a year ago.”

I stole a glance at the consultant. His keen eyes were no longer on me.

“To whom was it furnished?” he asked quietly.

The Inspector took out a note-book and opened it.

“To the Lady Violet Bredwardine, Grosvenor Place.”

At last the name had been pronounced, the name that I had so much
dreaded to hear on the lips of the police. Fortunately I had known that
it was coming. I had braced my nerves to meet the shock, and I managed
to preserve an air of complete indifference while I faced the speaker.

“Well?”

Tarleton spoke a little sharply. Captain Charles looked at him in mild
wonder.

“Well?” the specialist repeated impatiently. “What have you ascertained
about Lady Violet Bredwardine?”

Charles was plainly put out by the question.

“Her ladyship is the daughter of the Earl of Ledbury. She is quite
young--hardly of age. Sir Hercules McNaught has met her in society.”
His manner conveyed that there was some impropriety in making Lady
Violet’s name the subject of discussion. The day before I had been
inclined to feel some contempt for the worthy Captain, but now I was
only grateful for his stolid front.

My chief took a very different view, unfortunately.

“And is that all you have thought it worth while to find out? A peerage
would have told us as much as that. I have no doubt that Sir Hercules
has met many members of the Domino Club in society. It doesn’t follow
that they are to be excluded from the investigation.”

This time the Inspector did not attempt to conceal his mortification.

“I beg your pardon, Sir Frank. Do you mean that Lady Violet Bredwardine
is a member of the Domino Club? I hadn’t the slightest reason to
suppose so.”

It was the consultant’s turn to show surprise. He stared at me.

“Surely her name was on the list I asked you to furnish to Captain
Charles? I have a distinct recollection of it.”

I received the question, for which I had been waiting, with perfect
coolness.

“I seem to recollect it too, sir.”

The Inspector was already turning over the pages of his note-book. He
looked up at us in triumph.

“I made a copy of the list exactly as I received it, Sir Frank, and the
name is not here. I am prepared to swear that her ladyship’s name was
not included.”

Tarleton turned to me.

“Will you be good enough to bring me the list I gave you to copy. It
looks as though some slip had been made.”

I had not ventured to destroy the document. To have done so would
have been to expose myself to a serious rebuke, without serving any
useful purpose. Tarleton was not the man to forget such a name as Lady
Violet’s--one of the first that had attracted his attention among those
that appeared in Weathered’s appointment-book with a number attached to
them. All I had hoped to do was to keep the police off her track for a
few hours, and that object had now been achieved.

The list was actually in my breast pocket, but I went up to my room as
though to fetch it, and returned, carrying it in my hand. I put on an
apologetic air as I handed it to my chief.

“The name is certainly here, sir. I can only suppose that I must have
left it out of the copy I made for Captain Charles.”

Tarleton let me off more lightly than I expected.

“Either you or the Captain left it out, that’s clear,” he said gruffly.
“The point is that Lady Violet was not only a member of the Club; she
was also one of Weathered’s patients, which means that she may have
been in his power, and she was one of those to whom he had given a
special number for some reason that we have still to find out. Perhaps
she may be able to tell us.”

I could scarcely suppress a shiver. This point had never occurred to
me. I pictured to myself the question being put to the unhappy girl,
and tortured myself with wondering what would be her reply.

The Inspector’s attitude had undergone a considerable change as he
listened to Tarleton’s information. Evidently he realized that the
police authorities had been rather hasty in coming to the conclusion
that the inquiry was at an end.

“What you tell me makes a great difference, sir,” he observed
regretfully. “I’ve no doubt the Commissioner will see the necessity of
going further into the case, on this evidence.”

“There are many reasons for going into it further,” the specialist
returned. “You may tell the Commissioner from me that I suspect a
book has been taken from Dr. Weathered’s safe containing the names
and confidential confessions of his patients, and it is of the utmost
importance that that book should be traced. Until we know that it is
destroyed the reputations of innocent people will be in danger. You may
also tell him that there is grave reason to fear that some unscrupulous
person in London is in possession of a supply of deadly poison, unknown
to science at present; and unless that person can be discovered and the
poison taken out of his or her possession, it may be used to commit
more murders than one.”

Captain Charles’s expression was almost humble.

“You may rely on the Commissioner’s giving you all the assistance
in his power, Sir Frank, I’m certain. I’ll follow up Lady Violet
Bredwardine without delay, if that will meet your views.”

“Thank you. There are two things I should like you to report to me the
moment you know them: Lady Violet’s present address, and where she was
yesterday night.”

The Inspector scribbled two lines in his note-book, and hurried off.

Meanwhile my position was becoming more difficult every hour. I had to
look on and see the toils closing round one whom I would have given
my life to protect, without daring to show the least sign of personal
interest in her fate. My own peril, serious as it was, affected me but
little in comparison with hers. I can honestly say that I should have
been ready to draw suspicion on myself if I could have screened her by
so doing. But the very reverse was the case, as I knew too well. The
only course open to me was to hold my tongue, to keep a strict guard
on myself, and to watch for any chance that might present itself of
diverting suspicion from either of us.

I was afraid to commit myself by any expression of opinion on the case
as it stood against Lady Violet, but I thought I might venture to
remind my chief that she was not the only person implicated. He had
dismissed Sarah Neobard altogether from the inquiry, or so it seemed,
but the mysterious Leopardess remained to be identified. I ventured on
a question.

“Do you think, Sir Frank, there is any chance of the police getting
on the trail of the woman who wore the leopard skin? According to
the waiter’s evidence she was the one who showed most hostility to
Weathered. She refused to dance with him, you may remember. Somehow
Gerard gave me the impression that she was his only real enemy.”

I was gratified by Tarleton’s quick response.

“You are perfectly right, Cassilis. That is the very point I was
considering before you spoke. In my opinion there is very little
likelihood of Charles tracing that woman. I think you and I must try
our hand.”

I need scarcely say how delighted I was at this prospect. At last I
should be able to devote myself to serving my chief without any dread
of the result.

“Will it be possible to trace the leopard skin?” I asked. “There are
not many taxidermists in London, are there? I have only heard of one.
We might go round to them, and find out if any skins have passed
through their hands recently. What strikes me is that all the skins I
have seen have been mounted as rugs. I shouldn’t think that unmounted
skins could be very common--skins that could be made part of a costume.”

My chief had punctuated these suggestions with a series of approving
nods. At the close he spoke.

“Very good indeed, Cassilis. You have the makings of a detective, I can
see. And now let me explain to you where I see a chance of success.
You may put the taxidermists on one side. Leopard skins are such
perishable things, and the climates in which leopards are killed are
so treacherous, that the skins have to be roughly cured on the spot if
they are to be preserved. And they are too common to be the object of
much care afterwards as a rule. The chances are against any particular
skin having passed through the hands of a taxidermist in London unless
it was to be mounted as a rug.”

I felt very small as I listened to this reduction of my ideas to
nothing. The specialist had not done.

“I don’t think it would be at all hopeful to try to trace the skin,
therefore. But I think it quite possible to trace something else. Do
you remember what else about the costume the man Gerard described?”

“Do you mean the necklace--of leopard’s claws?” I responded in doubt.

“Yes. I see you don’t grasp the significance of the claws. I must tell
you that the natives of the countries where leopards are found look
upon the claws as having a magical virtue. They place a great value on
them, and take them from the dead leopard at the first opportunity they
find. It is almost impossible for the white man who shoots a leopard to
secure the claws. I doubt if more than one entire set of claws comes to
England in a year. Now you see that in my opinion we have a very much
greater chance of tracing the claws than the skin.”

I was fairly puzzled. I could follow Tarleton’s reasoning, of course,
but I could not imagine how he meant to proceed.

“These claws must have been brought home, according to my idea, by
a sportsman and traveller of experience, who knew the ways of the
natives, and was able to baffle them. Men of that class are not very
numerous, and most of them have published books of their travels. I am
going to spend the rest of the morning in going to the libraries and
publishers; and I want you to spend it in the Natural History Museum at
South Kensington.”

There was no occasion for me to express the admiration I sincerely felt
for my chief’s knowledge and resource. I waited in silent wonder for
his instructions.

“I am not an expert in zoölogy,” he said modestly. “I know, of course,
that leopards, or animals closely resembling leopards, are found along
the tropical zone. They are called jaguars in South America, I believe,
and panthers elsewhere. At all events their skins are sufficiently like
the true leopard’s to be called leopard skins by an ignorant man like
Gerard. What I want you to do is to ascertain if such animals occur in
the East Indian archipelago, and particularly in the Island of Sumatra.”

It was a curious direction. What was there in the circumstances of the
case to turn Sir Frank’s mind to one part of the tropics rather than
another, and to one particular island? Perhaps it showed some dullness
on my part; I can only confess that I had not the least idea of his
motive.

“Sumatra,” he repeated in a meditative tone, “almost the largest
island in the world, and yet the least known. Nominally it is a Dutch
possession, but the Dutch have never subjugated it. They have never
thoroughly penetrated the interior. The natives have been too fierce
for them to subdue. They occupy one or two points on the coast, I
fancy, but that is all. There was a Sultan of Acheen who fought with
them at one time. I don’t think he was really conquered. A very
interesting field for an explorer willing to take his life in his hand.”

And still I failed to grasp the mysterious connection between the
vast unknown island lying on the Equator and the tragedy I had all but
witnessed in a night club of London.

“You can take my card,” the specialist added. “You will find the people
at the Museum most obliging. If they have the information they will
give it to you willingly.”

I took the card, and the Piccadilly Tube from Russell Square soon
landed me at South Kensington. As Sir Frank Tarleton had foretold, the
staff of the Natural History Museum received it with all respect, and
showed themselves ready to give all the information they possessed. The
gentleman who took me in hand was confident that there were leopards
in Sumatra; nevertheless, when it came to the question of positive
evidence he found some difficulty in putting his hand on any.

“You have struck the least-known area in the world, you see,” he
pointed out. “We know the fauna of the Malay Peninsula, and of Java and
all the other East Indian islands as far as the Philippines, and one
has always taken it for granted that the fauna of Sumatra corresponded
with that of the neighbouring area north of the Wallace line. But if
you ask me for an official declaration that leopards are to be found in
the island I don’t think I can give it off-hand. We might be able to
get the information by writing to The Hague. Or you might find it in
some book of travels in the British Museum Library.”

“Sir Frank Tarleton is searching in the Library at this moment, I
believe,” I said incautiously.

My guide opened his eyes.

“You surprise me. I had no idea that Sir Frank was so much interested
in natural history. I have always associated his name with toxicology.”

The light burst on me at last. I understood the true reason for my
chief’s extreme interest in following up the clue of the leopard’s
claws, and for his turning his special attention to the region of the
earth least known to science. He had perceived a connection overlooked
by me between the rare necklace worn by the unknown woman in the Domino
Club and the gray powder contained in the small glass bottle in his
private safe. He was on the search for some other product of Sumatra
besides its leopards. He expected to trace the secret drug whose
presence the effects of the opium had concealed.




CHAPTER IX

SARAH NEOBARD SPEAKS OUT


When I returned to Montague Street to lunch, my host was still out, and
I had to sit down to the meal without him. No uncommon incident this,
in the case of any member of the medical profession, and especially
one liable to be summoned at any moment to cases of the most desperate
nature. Yet I was uneasy at losing sight of the great man for so
long just then. The investigation had reached a point at which I was
desperately anxious to follow his every move, in order that I might
guard the threatened girl towards whom so many signs already seemed to
point.

My lunch was nearly over when I was summoned to the telephone. I
answered the call with the expectation that Captain Charles had
obtained the information he had been asked for; and I was not
disappointed.

“You can tell Sir Frank that Lady Violet Bredwardine is down in
Herefordshire at her father’s seat, Tyberton Castle. She left London
for the Castle the day before yesterday by the noon train, so that she
can’t have been present at the Domino Club.”

I was careful to receive this intelligence as though it were news to
me. I even asked the Inspector if he was perfectly sure that his
informants were to be trusted.

“I’m perfectly sure as far as this end is concerned,” he answered in
a tone of surprise. “There is no doubt that she left by that train,
and that she hasn’t returned. And her letters are being forwarded to
Tyberton Castle. But, of course, I can’t answer for her being there
without sending someone down to make inquiries on the spot. Would Sir
Frank like me to do that?”

I hesitated. I had no reason to fear the result of such inquiries, but
I distrusted the tact of Charles and his men, and felt afraid lest
their proceedings should come to Lady Violet’s ears and frighten her.
On the whole, I thought it best to apply the brake.

“Sir Frank is out just now. I will let him have your report as soon as
he comes in, and let you know what he says. I shouldn’t think he would
want you to do anything more. It looks as though Lady Violet had a
complete alibi.”

“Oh, but----” the voice through the wire objected, “but Sir Frank’s
instructions were that I was to follow up Lady Violet. The police
were to follow up everyone on the list you sent me, and find out all
they could about them. I have a man detailed for each already. We
have ascertained that Julia Sebright is dead. Sir George Castleton is
abroad; he was last heard of in Naples, in very queer company....”

This was the sort of thing I had dreaded. At all risks I must try to
call the hounds off the trail of Violet Bredwardine’s past.

“That’s all right, so far,” I interrupted. “Of course, Sir Frank wishes
you to follow them all up as long as there is any possibility of their
being involved in the case. But when they are clearly out of it I
feel sure he wouldn’t think it right to pry into their private lives
for nothing. It would be taking an improper advantage of information
obtained from the books of their doctor. Medical etiquette is very
strict on that point, I can assure you. Sir Frank Tarleton himself
might get into trouble if it were known that he had made use of Dr.
Weathered’s books for such a purpose.”

“What is that about Sir Frank Tarleton getting into trouble?” said a
voice in my ear.

The receiver fell from my hand. I looked round to see my chief standing
at my elbow. I am a poor dissembler, I fear. I was conscious of a deep
flush as I lowered my eyes before the reproachful look in those keen
gray ones beneath their frowning brows.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” I stammered. “I was trying to explain to
Inspector Charles that it wouldn’t do to annoy Weathered’s patients
with inquiries into their private lives unless there were some grounds
for suspicion against them.”

Tarleton stepped to the telephone.

“You have heard what Dr. Cassilis said? He is perfectly right. We have
no concern with any patient of Weathered’s who is not implicated in
the murder. The moment we can dismiss them from the case they must be
let alone.”

I hardly know whether I was more astonished or delighted at this
handsome endorsement of my words. But I was not yet out of the wood. My
chief made the Inspector repeat the information he had just given to
me, and Charles naturally took the opportunity to defend himself.

Apparently the Inspector explained to Tarleton that I had not seemed
satisfied at first with his report about Lady Violet having gone to
Herefordshire before the night of the dance.

It was the physician’s turn to show surprise.

“Why did you question Lady Violet Bredwardine’s alibi, Cassilis?”

It gratified me to feel that the Inspector had done me a good turn
unawares.

“I merely thought it right to ask Captain Charles if he was quite
satisfied before I took the responsibility of reporting the alibi to
you. He offered to send a man down to make inquiries at Lord Ledbury’s
seat, and I asked him to take no further steps without your sanction.”

My chief smiled with the utmost amiability.

“Dr. Cassilis has exactly understood my views,” he said through the
telephone. “There is not the least necessity for you to trouble
yourself further about Lady Violet for the present. The person in whom
I am interested just now is Captain Armstrong, R.A. He is a Fellow
of the Royal Geographical Society, and a well-known traveller and
explorer. I shall be glad if you can let me have his present address.”

There was a brief pause. It was evident that the Inspector had been
consulting his note-book, for his reply, which I failed to catch,
provoked Tarleton to say testily, “I know, I know. He is not on the
books of the Club. I want to get in touch with him for another reason.
I think he may be of help in enabling me to decide on the cause of
death.”

As soon as Captain Charles had been disposed of, the physician came
to the luncheon table and made a hasty meal. I reported my failure to
obtain any definite proof of the existence of leopards in Sumatra, and
found that the point had lost its importance in his eyes.

“I have been to the British Museum Reading Room,” he told me. “I met
Captain Armstrong about two years ago, after reading his book on
Sumatra, but I had forgotten his name, and I had to look through the
subject index under the head of Sumatra to find it. Then I got out his
book, _Across Sumatra_, and saw from the title-page that he had also
written a book on West Africa, where everyone knows there are leopards,
so that he had plenty of opportunities of procuring skins and claws.”

The situation was becoming clearer and clearer. There was no need for
me to ask the specialist where he had procured the contents of the
glass bottle. I could see what must have happened. The explorer’s
narrative must have contained some account of an unknown poison
peculiar to the Island of Sumatra; the expert’s attention had been
drawn to it; he had approached the author, found that he had some of
the poison in his possession, and induced him to part with it. His
object now must be to find out whether Armstrong had kept any himself,
or allowed it to get into other hands.

I was so relieved at the turn the investigation was taking that I had
ceased to worry about my own connection with the tragedy. It gave me a
disagreeable shock to be reminded that there were other points to be
cleared up, when my chief spoke again.

“I think our next step now must be to interview Sarah Neobard. I
doubt if she has told us all she knows about Weathered and his woman
patients. She may be able to throw some light on the mysterious
numbers.”

The numbers in the appointment-book were as mysterious to me as
they were to him. I had been able to form no theory as to their
significance; nevertheless, I felt that danger lay in that direction.
I could not forget that a number had been attached to Violet
Bredwardine’s name, and I dreaded to learn why.

The physician was provided with a good excuse for presenting himself
again at the house in Warwick Street. It was necessary to make
arrangements for the interment of the body. He had decided, he told me,
to give a certificate that would dispense with the necessity for an
inquest, and permit of the funeral taking place without delay. For that
purpose the body was to be conveyed to the house in the small hours
when nobody was likely to be about.

It was a strong thing to do before it had yet been determined whether
the murder was to be made the subject of a public prosecution, and the
murderer brought to justice. So far as I could see, the authorities
both of the Home Office and the Foreign Office were placing entire
confidence in my chief, and had given him a free hand. I hoped
accordingly that his decision to let the funeral proceed quietly meant
that he had made up his mind against any public exposure. But on that
point he had been careful not to commit himself, and I was afraid to
show too much curiosity.

He took me round with him in the car to Warwick Street, and asked
to see Mrs. Weathered. The youthful butler eyed us with the utmost
apprehension, and showed us into the patients’ waiting-room. There we
were joined presently by the widow and her daughter.

Mrs. Weathered was in deep black. Her manner showed that she was
resigned to her husband’s fate by this time, but she was evidently
in a state of extreme nervousness, as she well might be while the
mystery was unsolved. Sarah, on the other hand, at the beginning of the
interview, was as cold and self-possessed as though her part was over,
and she had ceased to feel any personal interest in the sequel.

“I have called on you,” Tarleton explained, “to let you know officially
that I have examined into the cause of Dr. Weathered’s death, and am
prepared to certify that it was due to heart failure.”

I stared. In one sense, of course, almost every death may be said to
be due to heart failure. The question generally is what has caused the
heart to fail; and I knew perfectly well that the burial certificate
would have to be more explicit. But Mrs. Weathered showed herself quite
satisfied.

“Then it was a natural death, after all?” she exclaimed in relief.

“There is no reason why you shouldn’t regard it so,” was the answer. “I
should advise you to accept that view, and refrain from discussing the
matter with anyone. I wish to spare you the trouble and unpleasantness
of an inquest, if possible. I propose to have the body brought round
here some time to-night, or rather in the early morning; and you can
then make your own arrangements for the funeral.”

The widow clasped her hands in gratification.

“That is good of you, Sir Frank. I don’t know how to thank you.” She
looked up at her daughter, whose face was overcast. “My dear, we
couldn’t have asked for anything better. I have been dreading the
inquest more than I can say.”

Sarah’s expression was troubled. She tried to return her mother’s
pleading look with one of sympathy. Then she lifted her head, and let
her eyes rest on the consultant with quiet scorn.

“My mother has every reason to be grateful to you, Sir Frank,” she said
ungraciously. “But you haven’t told us what caused the heart to fail.”

Tarleton returned her gaze with quiet forbearance. It was in his power
to crush her with an allusion to her presence at the Domino Club in the
character of Salome, but he generously refrained from doing so in her
mother’s hearing. Already the poor woman’s face was downcast again, and
she glanced anxiously from her daughter to us.

“That is a question which Mrs. Weathered is entitled to raise if she
pleases,” the doctor said gravely. “You have just heard me advise
her not to do so. At the same time if you would like to go into the
question with me privately I am quite willing.”

“Oh, no, no!” The protest broke from the widow’s lips. She caught hold
of her daughter’s hand. “Don’t say anything more, dear. I’m sure Sir
Frank Tarleton knows best. We must do what he tells us.”

The girl compressed her lips with a strong effort. Her eye sought
Tarleton’s and I thought a signal was exchanged between them. Then he
rose to his feet.

“Very well, ma’am. I think you are acting wisely. By the way, there is
one question which you may be able to answer. In looking through Dr.
Weathered’s diary of appointments with his patients I have noticed that
some of their names are followed by numbers, and I should like to know
what that means.”

The widow received the question with an air of complete surprise.
It was impossible to doubt her declaration that she had no idea of
the existence of the curious ciphers, much less of their use. But
Sarah gave the questioner a quick look, and again I thought a secret
understanding was established between them.

The first words uttered by my chief, when we were in the car driving
away, told me what the understanding was.

“That girl means to come and see me. She isn’t satisfied; and she won’t
be without vengeance on the woman she hates.”

The prediction was promptly fulfilled. The girl must have found some
excuse for leaving the house within a few minutes after us. We had been
back less than half an hour when she was announced. She burst in upon
us like a fury.

“Sir Frank Tarleton, what does this mean? My step-father was murdered,
and you know it. You are trying to hush up the case, I suppose, because
some of the people involved in it are so high up that the police want
to let them off. There seems to be one law for the rich and another for
the poor. It’s the high-up people, the people with titles, who are the
worst. I’ve seen those numbers in the diary, and I can guess pretty
well what they mean. They’re the guilty patients, the ones who were in
his power, and had the greatest motive to murder him. If you want to
know more you had better apply to Lady Violet Bredwardine.”

It was an appalling shock. Just as I had reached the comforting
conclusion that Lady Violet’s alibi had put an end to the investigation
as far as she was concerned, this passionate girl had launched a
denunciation that threatened to drag everything to light. I turned in
consternation to my chief.

He had taken out his gold repeater and begun to swing it to and fro at
the end of its scrap of ribbon in a way that told me he was pondering
deeply on this new development of the case. He made a motion with his
hand towards me.

“Dr. Cassilis, here, can tell you that you are mistaken in thinking
that the police are trying to hush up the case, or to screen anyone
connected with it. Tell Miss Neobard what they reported to you.”

The indignant Sarah faced me in some surprise. My own surprise was
greater than hers. I was at a loss to understand Tarleton’s motive for
handing over the vindication of the police to me. Did he expect my word
to carry more weight with the excited girl than his own? Or was he
simply testing my ability to deal with a critical situation? And if so,
how far did he mean me to go? Was I to let the accuser know that the
police had been on her track as well as Lady Violet’s? I spoke in some
confusion.

“The police have made full inquiries about Lady Violet Bredwardine.
She was a patient of Dr. Weathered’s and a member of the Domino Club,
apparently. But they have ascertained that she wasn’t in London on the
night when he met his death. She was down at her father’s place in
Herefordshire.”

“I don’t believe it,” was the angry reply. “I don’t mean that you are
trying to deceive me, but the police haven’t told you the truth. I am
as certain that she was there that night as I am that I am in this
room. She was with him in the very alcove where he was found dead.”

In her wrath she had given herself away. Her statement almost amounted
to saying that she had seen them together. I looked at my chief in the
hope that he would pounce on the admission, but he contented himself
with nodding to me to go on.

“You speak very positively, Miss Neobard. May I ask you how you know
that?”

The question plainly disconcerted her. It must have opened her eyes to
the fact that she was saying too much.

“I don’t see what that has to do with it,” she answered stubbornly.
“You can ask anyone who was there. Ask them if they saw someone wearing
a Roman helmet and breastplate with a skirt underneath. That was her
disguise.”

I was staggered. The girl’s persistence irritated me, and I spoke
sharply.

“You can’t possibly know that, when she was more than a hundred miles
away at the time. Did you speak to her--to whoever it was that was
wearing that costume?”

It appeared that I had let myself go too far this time. I saw Tarleton
frown disapprovingly. Sarah Neobard gazed at me in alarm.

“I speak to her?” she echoed. “What do you mean? I wasn’t--I’m not a
member of the Club.”

A warning glance from my chief stopped the retort that was on my lips.
I was longing to tell the accuser that she had been under suspicion
herself, but I saw that in Tarleton’s opinion I was taking the wrong
line. My indignation on Violet Bredwardine’s behalf had betrayed me
into showing our cards too soon.

The girl herself seemed to feel that some explanation was needed for
her confident assertions.

“If you want to know who was wearing that disguise, ask Madame Bonnell.
She is the manager of the Club, and she can tell you everything that
went on there.”

A swift movement of the physician’s eyebrows told me that this was the
sort of admission he had been watching for. He intervened, I had little
doubt, to prevent my drawing attention to it.

“I think Miss Neobard ought to be told that the wearer of the Zenobia
costume was not the only one whose movements attracted attention on
that night.”

I was eager to take the cue. It was time to give Lady Violet’s enemy a
taste of her own medicine.

“Yes,” I said sternly, “the dancer who was seen oftenest in company
with Dr. Weathered that night wore the costume of Salome. Can you tell
us anything about her?”

For an instant Salome blanched. She was quite intelligent enough to
see the red light. She didn’t need to be told that if her movements
had attracted the notice of the police her identity could hardly fail
to come out before very long, if it hadn’t come out already. Yet she
struggled against what was coming.

“She had nothing to do with the crime. She was a friend of Dr.
Weathered’s. Her only motive for being there was to protect him from
the other women.” She spoke almost in a whisper.

“To protect him from being poisoned, do you mean? Or do you mean that
she was jealous, and wanted to prevent him from dancing with anyone but
herself?”

At last Tarleton had fired the shot which he had had in preparation.
Its effect was startling indeed. A dark red flood overspread the girl’s
face; for a moment she fought with her emotions, and the next she broke
down in a flood of tears.

“You know it was I,” she sobbed out. “You have been playing with me.
You think I am a bad woman, I suppose. But I’m not. I take Heaven to
witness that I only meant to do what was right. I never dreamed that
I had any feeling for him that--that wasn’t--that wasn’t right. I was
angry with him for the way he treated my mother. When he began to
neglect her and go after other women, pretending that they were only
his patients, I hated them. I never thought of anything else. I thought
I was doing my duty to my mother in watching him. But he found me out.
He knew everything about women. He saw that I was jealous on my own
account as well; and he set himself to soothe me. He could fascinate
any woman if he tried. He pretended to confide in me. He told me about
his patients, and complained that they wouldn’t leave him alone.
Sometimes I believed him, and thought it was their fault, and then I
thought it was his. I didn’t know what to think at last. I went there
that night to see if I could find out....”

The broken utterance ended in a wail of grief.




CHAPTER X

THE CASE AGAINST LADY VIOLET


I felt honestly sorry for the poor girl in spite of the vindictive
attitude she had taken up just before. I had no doubt that she was
quite sincere, and that she had unconsciously deceived herself as to
her real feelings up to the last moment.

Tarleton remained calm in the face of her outburst; when he spoke again
his tone was courteous but businesslike--perhaps the most considerate
one to adopt in the circumstances.

“You have told Dr. Cassilis and me very little that we weren’t prepared
to hear, and nothing that we aren’t able to understand and allow for.
But now we have to ask you for some information. In the first place I
should like to know how you obtained admission to the Domino Club.”

Sarah made an effort to collect herself. As far as I could judge she
was telling the truth, up to a certain point at all events.

“I bought a ticket of admission from Madame Bonnell.”

We both started and exchanged looks of surprise.

“Do you mean to say that anybody could get in by paying?” the
consultant asked.

Sarah shook her head.

“I don’t know that anybody could. But there didn’t seem to be much
difficulty. I think it was pretty well known, in Chelsea and in
Kensington, that you could buy a ticket from Madame Bonnell. She made a
great favour of it, but I expect that was only to keep up the price.”

“What was the price?”

“Five pounds. She entered your name in a book, and the name of some
member of the Club who was supposed to be introducing you; but whether
it was a real name or not I don’t know.”

Tarleton smiled grimly.

“I’m beginning to understand why Madame made so much fuss over giving
up her books. She must have made a good thing out of the Club in one
way and another. Did she know who you were?”

“Oh, no! At least, I didn’t tell her. I gave my name as Mrs. Antrobus.”

“I remember that name in the Visitors’-book,” I put in.

My chief nodded. “Did she say anything to you about the disguise you
were to come in?”

“Yes. She asked me what I was going to wear. I told her I hadn’t made
up my mind, and she recommended me to go to a place in Coventry Street
where I should be able to see some costumes.”

“Another little side line,” the shrewd examiner commented. “There’s not
much doubt she got a commission there. She struck me as a good woman of
business.” His face became grave once more. “And now, Miss Neobard, I
must ask you to tell us what you know about Lady Violet Bredwardine?”

It was the question I had been dreading. I dreaded the answer still
more.

The accuser flushed. “I know that she was more than a patient,” she
said in a low voice. “I know that he met her away from the house, at
other places besides the Club.”

“I’m afraid I must ask you to tell us more than that. You have
practically accused her of poisoning him. I think you must see that I
am entitled to know whether you have any grounds for throwing suspicion
on her beyond personal ill-will.”

The answer came slowly. It was with a painful effort that the girl
confessed how far her jealousy had carried her.

“I knew that he was neglecting my mother for other women. I had
known that for some time. He was almost always out at night, and he
never told us where he had been. I wanted my mother to apply for a
separation, and I thought I ought to get evidence. I followed him.”

She stopped short, her face burning and her eyes lowered towards the
ground.

“Yes? You have told us already that you followed him to the Club that
night. But you must have seen them together at other places before?”

The girl nodded. “I have seen them walking in Regent’s Park. And I
have seen them dining together at....” She whispered the name of a
restaurant in a little side street not far from Piccadilly, which is
well known to Londoners as a place to which men more often take other
people’s wives and daughters than their own.

Tarleton prudently refrained from asking his witness anything about her
own proceedings. It looked to me as though she must have placed herself
in the hands of a private inquiry agent, but if so it was evident that
she had insisted on going with him on the trail.

“Didn’t that seem as if they were friends?” was the next question.

“No!” The denial was emphatic. “He was making love to her, anyone could
see that, but she was resisting him. You could see that she hated him.”

“And yet she went about with him.”

“It was against her will, I am certain of it. She had the air of a
prisoner.”

Poor, unhappy Violet! It was hard work to control myself as I listened,
and pictured her sitting in that doubtful resort, tormented by the
vile wooing of the monster who had her in his power, while her jealous
rival, with a hired spy in attendance, gloated over her distress.

The merciless accuser went on.

“That night they dined together. I saw him try to slip a bracelet on to
her wrist. She snatched her hand away so fiercely that it fell on the
floor, and he dropped his napkin over it so as to pick it up without
the waiter seeing.”

The scene was as vividly before me as though it was passing on the
screen. The eyes of jealousy had been sharper than the waiter’s.

“Well, let us come to yesterday night. We knew before you told us that
one of the dancers wore the dress you have described. What makes you so
confident that she was Lady Violet?”

And now indeed I had reason to listen with all my ears. If this girl
convinced my chief that she was right, the position would be one of
deadly danger.

Sarah Neobard didn’t seem to understand the doubt in his mind.

“Madame Bonnell told me so.”

Tarleton gave me a stare which I returned with interest. In my
excitement I was rash enough to speak.

“She told you so? Why? How could she know herself?”

“I don’t know.” Sarah looked a little puzzled. “I suppose she knew
everything that went on in the Club. Before selling me the ticket she
asked if I knew any member. I thought the question was only put for
form’s sake, and I gave Lady Violet’s name. Afterwards I asked her if
Lady Violet was likely to be there, and if she knew what costume she
was likely to wear. She told me that she was pretty sure to come, and
that she always wore the same costume. She made me give her an extra
guinea for telling me. I could see she was the sort of woman who would
do anything for money.”

There could be no doubt that this last opinion was sound.
Unfortunately it was too late for me to act on it. I held my tongue
again, and let my chief put the next question.

“You watched her, I suppose, during the night? Did you notice nothing
peculiar about her? One of the waiters seems to have thought it was a
man.”

“A man!” The girl’s surprise was unmistakable. Her jealousy had blinded
her that time as much as it had sharpened her sight the other. “No, I
never thought of noticing anything of that sort. I hadn’t any reason
for it. I believed what I was told. And she behaved just like Lady
Violet. And he certainly believed it was she. I tried to keep them
apart, but it was no use. I saw him make her come into the alcove.
She went unwillingly, just as I should have expected. I got near, and
watched them through the curtain. He ordered coffee for both....”

She seemed to pull herself up. Was she telling a carefully framed
story, and hesitating at the last fatal point? Or was she only
shrinking from uttering the words that might condemn a fellow creature
to death?

“And?” the physician breathed gently.

Sarah braced herself up with a visible effort.

“_I saw her drop something into his cup._”

I believed it was a lie. To this hour I believe it. Sarah Neobard
and I are never likely to meet again on this earth, and I may do her
an injustice. Yet on her showing, if she was to be believed, she had
looked on at what must have seemed to her an attempt to murder, and
had not lifted a finger to save the life of the man she half hated and
half loved.

Meanwhile the charge had been made, a charge which the adviser of the
Home Office was bound to act upon, as the look he gave me clearly
showed. I seized on it as an invitation to speak.

“Did you believe that the person, whoever it was, meant to poison him?”
I asked, trying to suppress my indignation.

“What else could I believe?” She gave the answer almost rudely, so as
to show that she resented my presuming to question her.

“And you did nothing? You didn’t interfere?”

The accuser flushed angrily. She stumbled over her reply.

“What could I do? If I had made a scene she would have denied it, and
he would have taken her part. Besides, it was all over in a moment. He
had drunk his coffee before I had time to do anything.”

“Think again,” I said earnestly. “You are not on your oath. Are you
certain of what you saw? Remember that you are bringing a charge of
murder against a fellow creature, a young woman who has done you no
wrong, who, you admit yourself, was your step-father’s innocent victim.”

“I didn’t say that. I said she hated him. She can’t be innocent if she
poisoned him.”

“_If_ she poisoned him,” I repeated with emphasis. “You have heard
that she was more than a hundred miles away, according to the police
evidence. But the same evidence shows that you were there, and you
have told us as much.”

“What?” The girl almost leaped from her seat “Are you suggesting that I
had anything to do with it?”

I glanced at my chief for permission to go on. He was lying back on his
chair, his timepiece twisting between his fingers, apparently listening
with the detachment of an impartial judge.

“You compel me to point out to you the situation you are in, Miss
Neobard,” I continued. “A death has taken place, the police have
inquired into it, and they have found cause for suspicion against
certain persons. Lady Violet Bredwardine was one of those persons; you
were another. Her innocence has now been proved. Yours only rests on
your own assertion--or rather it may rest, because so far you haven’t
actually asserted it. Therefore, you have the strongest possible motive
for trying to throw suspicion on someone else; and you have been doing
so all along. Now at last you have made a direct charge, and backed it
up by stating what you say you saw through a curtain. I ask you again
if you are certain of what you say, and I ask you to be careful.”

Sarah Neobard’s face underwent a succession of changes while she
listened, from amazement to wrath and from wrath to abject fear.
Tarleton put the crown on her discomfiture.

“Although we are not policemen, and this is not a formal charge, Dr.
Cassilis is right to caution you,” he said firmly. “I shall feel at
liberty to report whatever you say to the police.”

The tables were completely turned. The triumphant accuser found herself
all at once standing in the dock. She gave us both a long deep look of
despairing hatred and dread. Then, with lips tightly closed, she got up
and walked out of the room and out of the house.

My chief gratified me with a nod and smile of approval.

“You did that very well, Cassilis; I congratulate you. I think that
young woman’s teeth have been drawn pretty effectually. It would never
have done for her to be going about accusing the police of trying to
hush up the case. She would have got some paper to take up her story,
and there would have been the devil to pay.”

“Do you think there is any chance that she was mixed up in the
business?” I asked with hesitation.

Evidently the specialist was displeased by the question.

“It is not my practice to speculate, as I think I have told you. I
prefer to confine myself to reasoning on the evidence before me. At
present the evidence points to this death being due to a certain
drug, which must have been administered during the dance by some
person who was present, and who had a motive for rendering Weathered
insensible--the death may have been due to his or her ignorance of
the power of the drug. We now have direct evidence, which may be
true, that the drug was put into his coffee by the dancer disguised as
Zenobia, and we have further evidence that that costume was supplied to
Lady Violet Bredwardine about a year ago, and was regularly worn by her
in the Domino Club.

“Add to that the appearance of her name in the list of suspects
compiled from Weathered’s diary and the Club register, and the story we
have just heard of her being pursued by Weathered and persecuted with
attentions which she resented. It is a case on which very few juries
would hesitate to convict.

“Against that we have nothing but an idle suspicion on the part of a
waiter that the wearer of the Zenobia costume on this particular night
was a man, and the police information that Lady Violet left London by
a midday train. Of course she may have got out anywhere, and been back
long before night.”

What was I to say? What ought I to do? Had the time come for me to make
the confession I had held back even more for Violet Bredwardine’s sake
than for my own? I shuddered at the thought that what I had to tell
might not exonerate her--that it might deepen the suspicion against
her, if it were believed. And suppose it should not be believed? What
excuse could I make for having put it off so long? Would not Sir Frank
Tarleton have every right to doubt me, and to think that my story was a
false one invented at the eleventh hour to save the true culprit?

There was one slender plank to cling to. I was confident that Lady
Violet’s alibi was genuine. If the question of her guilt or innocence
could be made to depend on that, I had no fear of the result.

“In that case, sir, wouldn’t it be best for the police to go down to
Herefordshire, and make sure whether she was there or not?”

To my surprise Tarleton raised the objection that had held me back
before.

“I think not. Captain Charles isn’t a particularly tactful man himself,
and we can’t trust to his employing a very tactful agent. Whether Lady
Violet is innocent or guilty she ought not to be alarmed. It seems
to me far the best course for me to go down myself, and call on her
openly.”

I was startled by the proposal. I hardly knew whether to welcome it or
not. Certainly the consultant was less likely to frighten Violet than
the police were, but on the other hand he was much more likely to find
out whatever was to be found.

“Won’t that come to the same thing?” I objected feebly. “If she knows
you have come to question her about Weathered’s death?”

“I may not have to question her about his death,” the specialist put
in sharply. “Have you forgotten the numbers in the appointment-book? I
propose to ask Lady Violet if she can explain what they signify!”

I was silenced. I could think of no possible objection to such a
course. It was clear that the explanation must be obtained from
someone, and equally clear that Lady Violet was most likely to be able
to give it. My chief’s plan was worthy of his shrewdness. He would be
killing two birds with one stone,--gaining information he needed, and
at the same time quietly testing the information of the police.

Tarleton gave me no time for further reflection.

“Just look up the trains for Hereford,” he said briskly.

I hastened to obey. “Am I coming with you, sir?”

I put the question almost without hope. I was overjoyed by the answer.

“Why, yes, I think you ought to, in fairness to the poor girl. You have
defended her very well from her enemy. I look on you as her advocate. I
think you ought to be present and help her if you can.”

He spoke with a mixture of seriousness and playfulness that left me in
doubt whether he had really noticed anything to suggest that I took a
personal interest in Lady Violet’s defence. I was glad to feel that in
any case he had no animosity against her. Even if he thought her guilty
of Weathered’s death, it was probable that he saw some excuse for the
deed.

Nothing more passed between us on the subject till we were in the
train for Hereford. During a great part of the journey the consultant
sat silent in his corner seat, with his golden pendulum swinging softly
in his hand, to the evident astonishment of the solitary passenger who
shared our compartment.

I sat opposite him, filled with bitter-sweet reflections and memories
that became more intense as we neared the little city on its rushing
river beyond the Malvern Hills. How every feature in the landscape
recalled the passionate days of yore, when I had made that journey for
the first time! Then I had travelled third-class with a knapsack on
my back, and the hopes of youth in my heart, on my way to explore the
romantic hills and vales of the borderland, the Golden Valley and the
untrodden Beacons that looked down on Breconshire. I recalled every
step of the way, from the morning on which I had turned my face to the
west and tramped out towards the wooded slopes of Blakemere, to the
hour when I had encountered in its romantic setting that figure which
became for me all that Queen Guinevere had been for Lancelot.

Less than four years had passed since then, and now I was returning to
the scene of my wrecked romance, my unforgotten secret agony; returning
in official dignity as a representative of the law charged to examine
the partner of my secret on a fearful accusation from which perhaps
only I could save her, and only at the cost of my own life.

That night I did not sleep. I passed it in wrestling with the problem,
as I tossed from side to side on my bed in the hotel where we had put
up. But before retiring for the night I had managed to escape from my
chief’s observation for a few minutes, just long enough to scribble a
brief note and despatch it to Tyberton Castle. It ran:

_Be out to-morrow morning when Sir Frank Tarleton arrives. The barn at
twelve if possible. Zenobia._




CHAPTER XI

WHAT THE CIPHER MEANT


Tyberton Castle was less than an hour’s drive from Hereford by motor.
I had to conceal my knowledge of the neighbourhood from Tarleton, who
left the arrangements in my hands, and question the man who waited on
us at breakfast as if I were entirely ignorant of where the Castle lay,
and how to reach it.

“No breakfast, no man,” was a favourite maxim of the physician’s, and
he did full justice to the fresh trout, the kidneys and bacon, and the
new-laid eggs put before us, while I had to force myself to swallow a
few mouthfuls. However, the meal was over at last, and at ten o’clock
we were seated in the car provided by the hotel, speeding along the
road I had last trodden backward with despair in my heart.

It seemed to me that every tree was eloquent and that every cottage
on the way remembered me, and wondered at my coming back. As we came
near the village I was tempted to shrink back in my corner of the car
and hide my face, lest the villagers should recognize it and greet me.
I had to tell myself that the real test would come presently. I had
never crossed the threshold of the Castle; I had never ventured into
the park in the daytime; but there is no such thing as privacy on the
country-side; every hedge has eyes and ears; and it was certain that
my comings and goings had been watched, and that every child on the
Earl of Ledbury’s estate and every servant in his house knew more about
me than his lordship did.

Tarleton was delighted with the scenery. What pleased him still more
was the absence of all traffic. We did not meet one vehicle in the
road, except a farmer’s cart.

“This is the least-known beauty spot in England,” he cried with
enthusiasm. “Those hills yonder must be in Radnorshire, a county whose
existence I have always doubted. This is the old Welsh March, where the
Britons stayed the Saxon advance at last, and kept their freedom in
Wild Wales. What a contrast between this and Tarifa Road, Chelsea!”

The reminder came just in time. I had been on the point of telling him
that King Arthur’s tomb stood on the crest of one of the hills that
overlooked the Golden Valley. I bit my lip, thankful that I hadn’t
betrayed myself.

We went through the sleepy village, bringing out one or two women with
babies in their arms to their garden gates. Then we turned into the
park and saw the rabbits scampering to the right and left as we crossed
the fern-covered slopes.

“This is a true ‘haunt of ancient peace,’” murmured the consultant
wistfully. “This is the sort of place I want to end my days in. And we
have come to disturb it, perhaps to bring disaster and disgrace. I
should be glad if we could turn back now and go away again.”

I turned to him expectantly. His words had echoed my own thoughts so
closely that I half hoped to find him ready to act upon them. But the
frown on his brow and the stern set of his mouth told me that I was
deluding myself.

The car drew up at the main entrance to the Castle. The ivy-clad ruins
to which the building owed its name were almost screened from view by
the huge red-brick front of a dull edifice dating from the reign of
George the Second. The mansion had been put up out of ostentation at
a cost from which the estate had never recovered, and every Earl of
Ledbury since had cursed his ancestor’s extravagance. I know that the
present Earl found it hard to pay the interest on his mortgages, and
that he lived in one corner of the vast house, leaving long corridors
and whole suites of rooms to the spiders and rats.

We got out, and Sir Frank Tarleton gave his card and mine to the
man who came down the steps to receive us. His suit of black was
threadbare, and his coat looked as if it had been thrust on hastily at
the sound of our approach.

“Please take our cards to Lady Violet Bredwardine, and ask her ladyship
if we can see her in private, on urgent business.”

The servant stared at the message. His eyes wandered from Tarleton to
me, and I thought there was a vague recognition in them when they met
mine. But his manner was respectful and demure.

“I’m sorry, sir, but I believe her ladyship is out. I will inquire if
you wish.”

He seemed to be hesitating whether to ask us inside. Sir Frank seized
on the opening.

“I shall be glad if you will find out when she is likely to be in. Her
ladyship is staying in the Castle, I suppose?”

“Oh, yes, sir.” The answer was given readily.

“We have come down from London on purpose to see her. They told us at
Grosvenor Place that her ladyship had come here--I think it was on
Wednesday.”

The man bowed. “That is quite right, sir. Her ladyship arrived on
Wednesday evening.”

I stole an anxious glance at my chief. It was a complete confirmation
of the Inspector’s report. If Lady Violet had arrived at the Castle in
the evening, she could not have been back in town the same night. The
alibi stood firm.

Tarleton drew out his watch as though to consult it before deciding
what to do next. Suddenly he snapped out, “There is no mistake, I
suppose? Her ladyship couldn’t have been in London on Wednesday night?”

The man was taken off his guard, and if he had been lying he could
hardly have failed to show some confusion. But the only feeling he
manifested was one of resentment at the question.

“I’m positive of what I say, sir. But her ladyship hasn’t authorized me
to answer questions about her movements.”

The consultant put on the air of a man who has made a slip.

“No, no; of course not. I meant to ask her ladyship herself.” He turned
to me. “What do you say, Cassilis? Shall we wait inside, or shall we go
for a stroll and come back again?”

I had laid my plans in the expectation that Lady Violet would be out,
and I was ready with a suggestion. I made it with my heart in my mouth.

“I think one of us ought to wait here, Sir Frank. The other might walk
round the park, and perhaps meet Lady Violet.”

Sir Frank seemed to find the proposal quite natural.

“Very good. I shall be glad to stretch my legs for an hour, so I’ll
leave you here and come back again.”

This was an unforeseen check. I had been so sure of being the one to go
out into the grounds, if I could effect the separation, that I hadn’t
thought of the alternative. My only chance now was to slip out as soon
as Tarleton’s back was turned. I looked at the servant, and fancied
that his eye rested on me with a more friendly air than on my companion.

“Would you like to wait inside, sir?” he asked.

I hesitated. But I had to choose between trusting him and trusting the
chauffeur who had driven us out from Hereford; and he had impressed me
favourably. I followed him into the Castle, while Tarleton moved off
down an avenue of beeches in the park.

The servant brought me through a dreary hall full of old suits of
armour and ancient high-backed chairs, but lacking in those little
touches of modern comfort that are needed to make such a place
home-like and attractive to the eye. He opened a door towards the
inner end, and ushered me into a gloomy library, fitted up with great
bookcases that looked as if they were never opened, stuffed with huge
leather-bound volumes of the kind that no human being any longer wants
to read. The whole room reminded me of the fairy tale of the Sleeping
Beauty in the Wood. It seemed to breathe of the eighteenth century,
as though its life had been arrested then, and no one had trodden the
faded carpet or taken down one of the dusty tomes for a hundred long
years since.

The manservant had taken up a silver plate as we passed through the
hall, and laid our cards on it. He now asked, “Shall I take these cards
to his lordship, sir?”

He must have seen me start at the question. I put my hand into my
pocket, searching his face carefully the while.

“There is no occasion for that,” I said. “Our business with her
ladyship is private, and she may not wish his lordship to be troubled
with it.” I took out a note before adding, “Perhaps you remember my
face?”

The man looked pleased. His chances of adding to his wages can’t have
been very many in that lonely mansion. It seemed to me, moreover, that
he was genuinely attached to his young mistress.

“Why, yes, sir. I did have a thought as I had seen you here before. You
were staying at the Moorfield Farm, if I rec’lect rightly, sir, three
years ago or might be four.”

I nodded, and the piece of paper passed silently from my hand to his.

“I’ve come to do a service to Lady Violet, if I can,” I told him. “Her
ladyship knows I am coming, and she has gone out to meet me. I want you
to let me out at the back of the Castle, so that I can join her; and
say nothing to the friend who has come with me, or anybody else.”

He gave me a quick look of intelligence. “I understand, sir.”

He led the way out of the library again, and along a corridor still
more deserted and dismal than the hall. It ended at a locked and barred
door which he unfastened with some effort.

“This is the way into the ruins,” he explained. “You can pass out
from them into a path that leads through the home meadows up to the
Moorfield Farm. It’s a public footpath, and if anyone sees you they’ll
think you’ve been exploring the ruins from outside.”

Nothing could have suited better with my plans. I knew the path, and
knew that at a certain point another diverged from it and led through a
well-remembered wood to the barn where I had asked Violet Bredwardine
to meet me.

I passed out into the Castle grounds and clambered over the crumbling
walls and fallen stones till I found myself on the path. And now every
step became tragical. I was treading on the ashes of the fire in which
two hearts had been scorched and branded with a mark that could never
be effaced. The grass beside the narrow footway seemed to be stained
with blood. I drew my breath in pain as I mounted the slope towards the
lonely little farm-house in which I had passed the most glorious and
the most miserable hours of my life. When I came to the gate into the
wood, I stopped and leant upon it panting, and hardly able to proceed.

The wood was haunted by ghosts more dreadful to me than any spirits
of the dead; the ghosts of passion and of pain, the ghosts of love
and hatred, of that most terrible of all hatred which is born of love
betrayed.

I shuddered as I thrust open the gate and stepped beneath the trees. A
sombre fir drooped like a weeping willow over one spot where the way
was crossed by a trickling spring that plunged and disappeared down
a steep gully choked with brambles and dark ferns. But there was a
worse point than that to pass. A tall beech sent out its roots on to
the path, and on the smooth rind of its trunk were cut two initial
letters entwined--a V and B. The very knife that had scored them there
lay in my pocket; I had never parted with it. What madness had tempted
me to blazon our secret to the inquisitive country-side? I had used
one precaution: I had cut the proclamation of our love on the side of
the trunk that was hidden from the public way. Now, when I reached
the tree, I forced a passage through the undergrowth to see how time
and weather had dealt with that vain memorial. A bitter shock awaited
me. Every vestige of the monogram had been destroyed by deep cuts and
slashes in the bark. Only a confused web of scars and scratches marked
the place. The tree’s wounds seemed to reproduce the wounds upon two
hearts.

My head drooped as I dragged myself up the rest of the ascent, and came
out of the wood on the open hillside. The view was exquisite. The hills
of three fair counties stretched away to the horizon, and at their feet
the silver Wye clasped the rich cornfields and pastures in its shining
arms. But the whole prospect was darkened over for my eyes by an
invisible cloud. I turned to the spot where, scarcely a hundred yards
away, there rose out of the bracken the high gray walls of the forsaken
barn.

Its desolation seemed symbolical. When it was built centuries ago
the surrounding land had borne crops worth harvesting instead of the
thin grass and waste of bracken that now surrounded it on all sides.
Tradition spoke of a time not remote when the hill swarmed with folk
engaged in tilling the hard soil. Their ruined cottages still lined
the lanes that crept along the crest, and peeped out of the sheltered
nooks. The virgin prairies of the New World had tempted some of them
away; others had migrated to the mining valleys whose smoke could
almost be seen from where I stood.

So the gray ancient barn stood empty, its wooden doors dangling
helpless from their rusty staples, and the wind whistling through the
narrow slits that showed like the arrow holes of a Norman keep. I made
my way across the standing bracken that rose up to my shoulders, and
gained the open doorway. But there was no one within. A solitary sheep
started up from the litter of chaff that strewed the floor, and bounded
out through an opening in the opposite wall, leaving me alone.

And now I began to repent that I had named as the meeting-place the
spot where we had parted in such misery those three years ago. I turned
with a pang from the scene, and advanced slowly towards the brow of the
hill. Just below the crest, seated on a moss-covered stone beside a
spring, I found her.

Violet Bredwardine rose and stood where she was, more like a statue
than a living woman. Her light ringlets, breaking from beneath a
quaint straw helmet, surrounded her face like a halo, and made it seem
more than ever like the face of the child angel she had seemed to me
when I saw her first. Even then there had been a wistful look in her
innocent blue eyes, as though the child angel had lost her way in this
troubled earth of ours, and was seeking pitifully for some escape. And
I dreamt--in my madness I had dreamt--that I could offer her the help
she needed, and change the sadness of her life into joy.

I strode towards her, all the old, passionate impulses of the past
flooding my heart like wine, and cried, “Violet!”

She shrank back as if I had struck her and the soft eyes flashed with
anger.

“How dare you! How dare you ask me to meet you like this?”

I stopped ashamed. In an instant my sudden emotion was chilled. I felt
myself a criminal facing my judge.

“Forgive me,” I stammered. “I was obliged to speak to you before you
saw Sir Frank Tarleton. I had to explain to you who he was and what he
was going to ask you.”

She interrupted me with a gesture of scorn. She pointed to the roof of
the barn, just visible over the crest of the slope from where we stood.

“How dared you ask me to meet you _there_? Was there no other place?”
Her voice shook. “How could you be so brutal? To remind me! To drag me
back to the one spot on earth that I was trying to forget!”

The reproach pierced me like a knife. She was right. What was I but a
brute? What else is any man in dealing with the mystery of a woman’s
heart--with those delicate fibres which our rude touch so often bruises
and rends unawares?

I could have thrown myself at her feet and begged her to trample the
life out of me. But there would have been no reparation in that; there
was none in anything that I could think of doing. It was a case of
least said soonest mended. I had to leave the wound I had given her to
heal itself, and meanwhile try to render her the only service that was
in my power.

“You can say nothing to me that I don’t deserve, nothing that is
severe enough,” I answered. “I can only plead that I was distracted by
anxiety, on your account.”

The indignation in her face turned to terror.

“What do you mean? You wrote to me that I had nothing more to fear.”

“I said, nothing more to fear from Dr. Weathered. That was all I
thought it safe to put in a letter. And when I wrote it I hoped that
I could protect you from any further trouble. But other things have
happened since. There are complications in the case that I couldn’t
explain without seeing you, and Sir Frank Tarleton has come down here
to see if you can throw light on them.”

“Sir Frank Tarleton? Who is he?”

“He is the principal medical adviser to the Home Office. I am his
assistant.”

“But I don’t understand!” She stared at me in natural wonder. “Why
should he be mixed up in it? Have you told him anything?”

“Nothing; you may be assured of that. But I must tell you what has
happened. Weathered is dead.”

“Dead.” The blue eyes expanded for a moment in a gleam of relief,
almost of exultation. The instant after they froze dreadfully.
“Bertrand! You killed him!” she whispered.

I shook my head earnestly.

“No. I should have killed him, if there had been no other way to
save you from him. And I don’t believe any honest man or woman would
have blamed me if I had. But it wasn’t necessary. My only object was
to destroy the record of your confession, the statement that had
placed you in his power. All I did was to drug him enough to make him
insensible, and take his keys. When I left the Club at three o’clock in
the morning he was still alive. He was found dead where I left him two
hours afterwards.”

Violet hardly seemed to be listening. Her eyes were still fixed on me
like two blue stones.

“You did it,” she repeated dully. “You killed him--for my sake!”

Even in the midst of the intense strain those last three words thrilled
me with secret joy. Heaven forgive me for wishing for an instant that
they were true. I could have brought myself to accept the terrible
possibility which had been haunting me ever since the voice of
Inspector Charles had told me through the telephone that Weathered was
a corpse, the possibility that I had administered a fatal dose. But I
saw that Violet was on the verge of breaking down. For her sake, far
more than for my own, I must banish that theory from the field.

“No,” I assured her again. “That is out of the question. Sir Frank
Tarleton is the greatest living authority on poisons, and he has been
engaged for the last three days in trying to ascertain the cause of
death. I have been by his side the whole time, assisting him, and I
know that his suspicions point in another direction altogether.”

I broke off to catch her in my arms as she swayed forward. I was just
in time. I laid her gently on the moss and sprinkled her face with
water from the spring, the sweet face that I would have given all I
possessed to sprinkle with kisses instead. Luckily the collapse was
only momentary. While I was still bending over her she opened her lips
to say, “Go on. Tell me everything.”

I waited till she had recovered strength enough to sit up. It would
have done harm to wait longer. It was necessary for her to know exactly
how matters stood.

“Dr. Weathered had other victims beside you, and other enemies beside
me. The police are on the trail of some of them and Sir Frank has
obtained an important clue which may lead us to the true cause of
death. But meanwhile notice has been attracted to the costume in which
I went to the Domino Club that night.”

Violet began to look frightened.

“The one I lent you?--you ought to have destroyed it!” she said
excitedly.

“It is very fortunate I didn’t,” I returned soothingly. “It has come
out that it was the costume you generally wore; and you remember that
was why you lent it to me, so that Weathered should think I was you.
Anyhow, it has been traced to you, and if you couldn’t produce it you
would be called on to account for its disappearance. Do you see that?”

“Yes, I see that. But surely if they know the costume was mine they
must believe that I was there that night. My God, do they suspect me of
the murder?”

I was agonized by her terror.

“They know you to be innocent. Your innocence has been proved,” I cried
out fiercely. “You have what the law calls an alibi; you were more
than a hundred miles away when the crime was committed--if there was
a crime. Good heavens, Violet, can you believe that I shouldn’t have
given myself up to justice the very moment it was necessary to clear
you?”

Her expression softened more than I could have hoped.

“I know that, Bertrand,” she said in a low voice. “Only I don’t
understand why you are here. What does Sir Frank Tarleton want with me?”

“He wanted two things. One was to make sure that you really were here
on Wednesday night. He is now quite satisfied of that. The other is to
ask you if you can explain something that has puzzled us in Weathered’s
appointment-book. Whenever your name appears it is followed by a
number, and we don’t know why.”

Violet lowered her eyes with a frown.

“He gave me that number to sign my letters by when I wrote to him. He
told me that it would help me to write more freely if I used a number
instead of a name.”

I started in alarm. “But why should you need that? What were the
letters about?”

The poor girl’s eyes still refused to meet mine.

“He made me tell him the whole story in letters. He said that was the
only way to get it off my mind.”

I clenched my teeth together to keep myself from uttering a word. The
doctor’s safe had been opened and his case-book destroyed uselessly.




CHAPTER XII

PSYCHO-ANALYSIS


It was one of those moments in which life seems to cast away the mask
of convention and spring upon us like a giant fanged and armed for our
destruction; one of those moments in which the bravest heart quails and
the strongest hope withers to despair.

My crime had been committed for nothing. Whether the death of that
despicable villain lay at my door or not, I did not know, and it hardly
seemed to matter any longer. Somewhere there was still in existence the
weapon with which he had terrorized his unhappy victim, and I could not
tell in what hands, nor when it might be employed to ruin her and me
together.

Weathered’s cunning scheme stood revealed in its full atrocity. His
patients had been divided into two classes. Those who had nothing
serious on their consciences, and those whom it was not worth his while
to blackmail received the ordinary treatment given to nervous patients
by respectable physicians. Those who came to him to be cured of vicious
propensities, on the other hand, were encouraged to indulge them
under his eye, under the pretence that they would thus be gradually
overcome; and those who sought relief from evil memories were bidden
to rid their mind of its secret burden in correspondence which could be
preserved for future use.

So far as I could judge he had fallen into those evil courses by
degrees. Sarah Neobard’s defence of her step-father might not be far
from the truth. I thought it likely that such a man as Weathered,
with no strong principle to keep him straight, might naturally have
deteriorated under the influence of his patients. All the precautions
with which the confessional is surrounded in Catholic churches were
wanting in this case. The doctor was probably a man without any
religious feeling, and without any real scruples on the subject of
morality. Instead of curing his patients he had let himself become
infected with their disease. The confessions he had listened to had
inflamed his own imagination, and made evil familiar to his thoughts.
In the end he had come to take a fiendish pleasure in gloating over
tales of guilty indulgence and innocence betrayed. He had delighted
in the analysis of women’s hearts; he had learned to play upon their
sensitive natures like instruments, and draw the notes of passion and
pain. The devils in hell must soothe their own torments with such music.

It was torture enough for me to think of my own tragedy, as well as
Violet’s, profaned by the coarse curiosity of a blackmailer. If I had
sinned--and I never could admit that she had sinned at all--if I had
sinned, at least I had not done so wilfully and basely, but swept away
on the overpowering flood of that tremendous impulse by which all
the planets move in heaven, and all the earth is wrapped in her green
garment, and all the birds burst into song, and all the race of man is
renewed for ever.

Our sad romance began in the purest innocence. I did not know of her
existence on that morning when I set out with a knapsack on my back
to explore the old borderland of England and Wales. I had formed no
fixed plans; I meant to walk where fancy took me, and stop when I felt
inclined; and the last thing I expected was that I should pass all
my holiday on one spot. It was not till I reached the village that I
heard of the ruins that lay hidden at the back of the Earl of Ledbury’s
stately seat, and was persuaded to turn aside and see them.

I was told that a footpath leading from the churchyard up the hill
would bring me past them, and, as far as I could make out, his lordship
had laid down no absolute rule against strangers going over them. I was
young and irresponsible enough to take the risk of being turned out as
a trespasser. I climbed over a gate padlocked and fortified with barbed
wire, crossed a meadow, and passed through a gap in the outer wall. I
had spent half an hour in scrambling over heaps of fallen masonry, and
was just beginning to descend a broken stairway up which I had climbed
for the sake of the view, when I saw standing on the grass near its
foot the loveliest girl I had ever seen.

She was watching me with the shy wonder of a child, and I came down
slowly, scarcely daring to breathe, lest she should turn and run away.
But no such thought was in her head. I seemed to her a boy, very little
older than herself, and it turned out that she had come to take me
under her protection.

When I lifted my cap, and expressed a hope that I wasn’t trespassing,
she gave me a cordial smile of a comrade in mischief.

“Yes, you are trespassing,” she said frankly, “but they won’t take any
notice if they see me speaking to you. I saw you from my window and I
came to prevent any of the servants driving you away.”

I hardly knew which was more delicious, the simplicity or the
friendliness of the child angel, as she was named already in my
thoughts. That night I heard her story from the good mistress of
the farm. She had lost her mother as soon as she was born, and, as
sometimes happens, she had lost her place in her father’s heart in
consequence. He was then a middle-aged man, his wife had been the only
woman he had ever cared for, and she had borne him no other child. Life
for him was closed. He resigned himself to let the earldom and the
encumbered estate pass to his brother, and shut himself up with his
grief in the one habitable corner of his desolate house.

Of Violet he took no more notice than he could help. His sense of
duty bade him engage a strict governess, and direct that his daughter
should be brought up to marry money, since he could leave her none.
The governess conceived that the way to attain this end was to keep
the girl in absolute seclusion till a suitable bridegroom was found,
and then to thrust her into his arms. The result was that her life had
actually been very much like that of a princess in a fairy tale who is
immured in a tower and kept from the sight of men. And I had been cast
unconsciously for the part of the fairy hero who scales the tower and
wins the maiden’s heart.

In the first confusion of the meeting I was far more tongue-tied than
she. I guessed, of course, that she must be the daughter of Lord
Ledbury, and this was the first time I had ever spoken to anyone of her
rank. I was in doubt whether to address her with the word ladyship. I
think the awe with which her rank inspired me had a great deal to do
with what followed. It lifted her so far above me in my own mind, that
I was blind to her growing love, and at first mistook my own love for
the devotion of a vassal to his queen.

She talked to me about the ruins, holding me there spell-bound till
neither of us could find more to say. At last, when I felt obliged
to come away, she asked me wistfully where I was going. And I, who
had made up my mind already not to go, if I could find any excuse for
staying in the neighbourhood, with any chance of meeting her again,
answered vaguely that I didn’t know. I was looking, I told her, for
some place where I could put up.

Her whole face brightened when I said that, and she cried eagerly,
“There is a farm-house on the hill where they take visitors in the
summer, and I don’t think they have anyone yet. I often go past it in
my walks, and I haven’t seen any strangers about.”

My heart exulted within me. There was to be no walking tour for me that
summer. When one has come within the gates of Paradise how can he want
to wander more?

And so I took off my knapsack in the honeysuckle porch of the little
farm-house, and stayed on. It chanced for our undoing that the strict
governess had gone away for her own holiday a day or two before I came,
and did not return till it was time for me to exile myself from Eden.
Violet was left alone. No callers had come to the Castle for many
years. There were no neighbours in her own station of life within many
miles. The clergyman was an old bachelor interested only in butterflies
and moths, of which he had a wonderful collection, and blind to
everything that went on in his parish. If our romance was watched, and
I have no doubt that it was watched by many curious eyes unknown to us,
none of the watchers dared to carry tales of his daughter to the Earl
of Ledbury. Violet saw her father twice a day at meals, and he never
dreamed of asking her how she spent her time between.

The golden month rolled by. The first few days each of us made believe
that our meetings were accidental. But soon we ceased to pretend that
it was chance that had led her steps up the hill and led mine down
them to the wood in which we came together. We explored the hills in
company, rousing the partridges from the corn and rabbits from the
fern. The wood-pigeons cooed and wheeled above our heads; the robins
peeped at us from the hedges and the squirrels from the trees. We stood
beside the lonely cromlech named after the mythical hero who held the
Saxon hosts at bay, and we looked down into the Golden Valley and saw
the peaks of the Welsh mountains far away. And we were happy....

Lightly, O lightly, broke upon me the knowledge that she loved me. What
I had never hoped for had come to pass. I had been content to worship
her in silence. Endymion might so have worshipped Artemis if he had
been the first to see her. Bottom, the weaver, might so have worshipped
Titania if the magic juice had touched his eyelids before hers. She
had been as unapproachable in my eyes as any inhabitant of the moonlit
world of sleep. It was with almost a pang, with a strange shrinking
of the heart, that I first perceived that she was mortal like myself,
and that I had awakened her. I seemed to have broken into a temple and
profaned the shrine.

I do not recollect that we said anything. One day when we were walking
side by side along a sunken lane that led to a little waterfall I
stooped suddenly and kissed her.

From that day we were sweethearts as openly as any rustic pair. To
her it was all as natural as the romances she had read, and she can
never have had the least suspicion of the misgivings that had vexed my
soul. She seemed surprised even when I touched on the social gulf that
separated us. She owned sorrowfully that her father would never hear of
such a match, but she evidently took it for granted that I should not
heed his opposition. I was her knight, and it was for me to overcome
every obstacle in the way. Her faith in me was perfect. All affection
for her father had been crushed out of her in childhood. She had loved
me more easily, and she loved me more passionately, because she had no
one else to love.

And what were we to do? I was barely of age. I was not qualified; I had
no means of support except a dwindling legacy that would be exhausted
by the time I was able to earn my first fee. The knights of old seem
never to have been troubled by such hindrances as these; the dragons
they vanquished were creatures who could be subdued by strength of arm;
they never had to ride into anything worse than an ogre’s castle or a
wizard’s cave. The terrors of the bank parlour and the house-agent’s
office were unknown to them; and they never had to face a baker or a
butcher armed with his weekly bill.

I put off as long as I could the pain of confessing to Violet that
these dragons in the way must take years to vanquish. And at first she
hardly grasped what it would mean to her. The mere waiting, I could
see, would cost her less than me. After all, courtship is the supreme
time of womanhood. Then she is queen indeed, and marriage is for her
dethronement. Her bridal is like the glorious pyre on which the Hindu
widow once expired in religious ecstasy. It was not until she realized
that I was going that Violet broke down.

There the burden was shifted to the other side. Delay is the suffering
of man, separation the suffering of woman. I had my work to go back to;
I had my friends and all the distractions of life in London. She had
nothing before her but her remote and solitary prison.

We had fallen into the way of meeting most often in the deserted barn.
Its situation assured us of a privacy more secure than that of the
lanes and woods. No one could approach us without being seen, and
no one ever did approach. No one could see through the openings--a
bare two inches wide in the thick wall; and no one could overhear. A
pile of bracken made our seat, and there we rested many a long summer
afternoon, the battered door thrown wide to let us count the windings
of the river far below, while we talked of all the coming years might
bring.

So it was there we met on that last afternoon to say good-bye. We had
put off till the last moment any consideration of what was to happen
next. We had made no plans to meet again. I did not even know that
Lord Ledbury had a house in London, to which Violet was taken at rare
intervals, when it happened to be without a tenant, but always under
strict guard and more for business than for pleasure. We had not even
discussed any plans for correspondence, though it was evident that I
could not write to her at her father’s house without everything coming
out. It was understood between us that my very existence must be kept
secret if it were possible. Beyond that we had not found courage to
face the situation.

And now we had to face it at last, and it was too much for us to bear.
It seemed to both of us like death. It was idle to think that we could
part like that, uncertain if ever we should meet again. It was a waste
of breath to pronounce the word good-bye when we were clinging to each
other in the desperation of young life in travail with its destiny. I
dare not try to recall that agony.... I stole across with the footstep
of a felon and closed the battered door.

When I had slain my love I understood too late what I had done. Her
anguish was a revelation to me of what her utter purity had been. We
passed out from that brief frenzy into a strange world. The sun had
fallen from our sky, and Joshua could not have called it back again. We
were two spectres in each other’s sight. I did not ask her to forgive
me--I could not forgive myself. Rather would I have begged her to
reproach me. But no such thought was in her mind. Her whole feeling was
one of horror at what she had destroyed in herself; and I was only
hateful to her as the mirror in which she had seen her unknown self.
She moved her lips to implore me never to let her see me again. She
shuddered past me, and went down the hill with the stumbling gait of a
wounded bird.

I know there are some men, and there may be some women, who will think
that I was a fool to let her go. They will tell me that I ought not to
have taken her at her word; that if I had waited, in a short time she
would have recovered, and the breach might have been patched up, and
the wound healed. I cannot tell if they are right; I only know that I
obeyed her, and fled from her neighbourhood with no hope of ever coming
back.

And so the lonely girl, left to herself with no one to confide in,
brooded over her secret till it became like a viper gnawing at her
heart. How she came to hear of the charlatan she had not told me.
Somehow or other during one of her stays in her father’s house in town,
the news reached her of the new science of psycho-analysis, and of
the practitioner who undertook to do what Macbeth longed for in vain,
to pluck from memory a rooted sorrow, and erase the writing from the
tablets of the brain.

She went to him, of course, without consulting those about her, and
from that moment she became his helpless prey. What arts he used to
beguile her it is easy to guess. At first she believed in him, and when
her suspicion began to be aroused she was already in his power, and
dared not break with him.

By this time the Earl of Ledbury and the duenna had put their heads
together and decided that Lady Violet must pass a season in London, and
be seen in the great world. In consequence she had much more liberty.
She made some girl friends whom she was allowed to go about with, and
among them were not a few who held modern notions on the rights of
girlhood, and were ready to encourage and to screen her in the courses
into which she was compelled by her taskmaster. Her most intimate
comrade willingly became a member of the Domino Club.

But not even to her most intimate friend dared Violet disclose the true
situation. While she still trusted in Weathered and believed in his
power to heal her soul of sin, she had written the whole story of our
love in letters which the scoundrel now refused to give up, except as
the price of a far worse surrender. There was only one being in the
world whom she could appeal to without the risk of further shame. And
thus we met again.

The medical directory gave her my address, and she wrote to me at
Sir Frank Tarleton’s. But her letter begged for a strictly private
interview in such urgent language that I thought it safer not to let
her come there. I asked her to meet me at the corner of Shaftesbury
Avenue, as though by accident, and I took her to the little room which
I could call my own.

Nearly four years had gone by since our tragic parting, but when we
stood face to face again they did not seem four hours. Violet’s
face changed from red to white and back again as she half held out a
trembling hand and dropped it woefully; and my hand trembled too as I
raised it to my hat. I thought it best to say nothing except the few
words necessary to explain where we were going, and she seemed glad to
keep silent till we were safely there.

The story she had to tell was so appalling, and the effort of telling
it cost her so much, that naturally a good deal was left out. Certainly
I quite failed to gather from her that Weathered had induced her
to make her confession to him in letters. I supposed that he had
taken it down from her lips. It is the familiar practice of West End
consultants, who see their patients at long intervals, to make a
careful entry of all the particulars of the case for future reference;
and I supposed that Weathered had taken advantage of this to make a
damning record in his case-book, which would be quite sufficient to
enable him to blast his victims’ reputation, although it might not be
evidence in a lawyer’s eyes.

The truth is that I was myself too agitated to go into the matter
carefully even if Violet had been in a state to be cross-examined. The
whole interview resolved itself into a series of wild outbreaks on her
part, and attempts to assure her on mine. Indeed, I hardly know that
we arrived at any clear understanding of what she was asking of me, or
what I was promising her. The one thing clear to me was that the only
way to save her would be for me to get at the doctor’s case-book and
destroy it. And to do that I must obtain his keys.

What Violet had told me about the Domino Club and their meetings in
that accursed place gave me my plan. I would do what I could not ask
her to do. All that was necessary was that I should be able to approach
Weathered without putting him on his guard. I must disguise myself in a
costume with which he was familiar, one which would allure him, and in
which I could play the part of the sought rather than the seeker. And
so the fatally easy plot took shape.

There was barely an inch between Violet and me in height, and that inch
would be concealed by the Zenobia helmet. It would not be too difficult
for me to imitate for an hour or two the lighter movements of a woman.
Weathered would be quite unsuspicious; the dress, the artificial light,
the noise and excitement of the revel would all be in my favour. The
doctor, I gathered, drank freely on these occasions; I had only to wait
till the night was advanced and the wine had done its work.

I told the distressed girl as little as possible of what I meant to
do, or to attempt. I said merely that I must meet Weathered, and that
it would be the best way for me to impersonate her for one night. She
consented readily enough--what else could she do? She told me the date
of the next dance, and undertook to send the mask and costume to my
room some days beforehand, so that I should have time to see that it
fitted, and to practice moving about with it on.

We did not bid each other any formal farewell. Nothing was said about
our next meeting, indeed I felt no confidence that there would be
another. She had been driven to appeal to me in her extremity, but she
showed no sign of having forgiven me. Rather she seemed to find every
moment painful that she passed with me. All the time she was struggling
with herself, trying to speak to me as if I were a stranger whom she
found herself obliged to trust, but continually faltering and letting
her voice die down to a broken whisper.

When I had let her out at the street door she hurried away blindly like
an escaping prisoner. And as soon as she was out of sight I hastened
round to Montague Street, and locked myself up in Tarleton’s arsenal of
poisons.




CHAPTER XIII

THE EARL OF LEDBURY INTERVENES


My first thought, when I knew that Violet’s confession was still
undestroyed, was to hide the fact from her. I must spare her the
torturing apprehensions that I felt myself. Fortunately she did not
seem to be thinking of her own danger; at all events, she put no
questions to me about the letters. Perhaps she took it for granted that
I had secured them, or that they were no longer in existence. At all
events, the possibility that they might be in other hands as dangerous
as Weathered’s did not seem to strike her at the moment. The idea that
I had murdered Weathered overpowered all her faculties.

Again and again I went over with her all that had happened.

“I don’t believe that I killed him,” I told her with the utmost
earnestness. “Surely you can trust me to know what I was doing. I am
not an ordinary doctor. I have made a special study of poisons, as the
pupil, I may say the favourite pupil, of the greatest expert alive. I
am prepared to swear to you or in any court of justice that the dose
I gave him would not have killed any man in a normal condition of
health. Sir Frank Tarleton and I both observed symptoms that point to
some other drug having been administered to Weathered. Remember that
you were not his only patient, and you are not likely to have been the
only one whose confidence he abused. The Domino Club probably swarmed
with his enemies, in fact the manageress as good as told us so. His
own step-daughter asserts that there were other women with whom he had
mysterious relations----”

“Other women!” She interrupted me with a cry of dismay. “Do you
mean--does she know anything about me?”

I recollected Sarah Neobard’s fierce denunciation, and the scene she
had described, when she sat with her hired spy in the restaurant
watching the persecuted girl. I tried to explain away my unlucky slip.

“No, no; I didn’t mean that for a moment. She told us that her
step-father had dealings with some of his women patients, and one of
the waiters in the Club described some women who were there that night.
He described me among others; that is to say, he described the costume
I was wearing. But he suspected that it was worn by a man. He must have
keen eyes.”

“Then you are under suspicion!” Her anxiety was instantly diverted from
herself to me again.

“Not at all,” I answered. “No one has the least suspicion who the
wearer of the costume really was. The police made inquiries, and all
they learned was that a similar costume had been supplied to you a year
ago. They followed up the clue, and found that you were down here on
the night, so that it must have been someone else in the Club. Now
you see why I sent it back to you. If Sir Frank Tarleton says anything
about it, all you have to do is to say that you remember having such
a costume, and offer to find it and show it to him. He and the police
will naturally believe that the one worn at the Club that night was a
duplicate.”

Violet looked a little uncertain, as she had some excuse for being. I
thought I might venture now to ask her to come back to the house to
meet my formidable chief.

“Sir Frank will be there by the time that we get down,” I said. “He has
gone for an hour’s stroll in the park.”

She put her hand to her head as she stood up and prepared to come with
me.

“Will he ask me anything else? What were you going to tell me just now?”

“The numbers,” I reminded her. “He will ask you if you know what they
meant.”

“Ah! Must I tell him that? Must he know about the letters? Will
everything come out?--O Bertrand!”

Her gasp of anguish wrung my very heart-strings.

“No!” I cried. “Don’t give way to such thoughts. You don’t know
Tarleton. He is the soul of honour. He is delicacy itself. He won’t ask
you one word more than he can help. You need tell him nothing more than
that Weathered gave you a number to use in writing to him. You can
trust Sir Frank not to ask you what the letters were about.”

“But he will know--he will know!” she sighed despairingly. And I could
say little in reply.

We found the door unlocked that led from the house into the ruins, and
we parted in the corridor, Violet going upstairs to her room while I
made my way back to the library into which I had been shown at first.
Waiting for me outside the door I found my friendly manservant.

“You’ll find the other gentleman inside,” he whispered. “He’s been back
about five minutes.”

I went in trying to look unconcerned, and found Tarleton comfortably
seated in an armchair engaged in the familiar rite of waving his mascot
to and fro as if it were a censer with which he was offering invisible
incense to the Sphinx.

“I hope I haven’t kept you waiting, sir. I have been taking a look at
the ruins of the old Castle.”

“I have had a look at them, too,” was the enigmatic answer. “Twelfth
century, I should think. One of the first castles put up by the Normans
when they began penetrating South Wales.”

I could only hope that that was the extent of his observations. I could
not bring myself to ask.

There was silence between us till Violet came into the room. The
change in her amazed me. She was rather pale but perfectly composed.
Her manner was full of courteous dignity. It was the first time that I
had seen her as the Lady Violet Bredwardine, the daughter of a noble
house, conscious of her claims to deference from strangers.

The consultant rose from his seat with every mark of respect and
consideration, and I clumsily imitated him. She was the first to speak.

“Sir Frank Tarleton?--I am told that you wish to see me on urgent
business. I am sorry that you have been kept waiting, but I had gone
out for a walk. Won’t you sit down?”

She included me in the invitation by a slight, distant bow, as she
seated herself facing us.

“It is very good of you to see me, Lady Violet.--Dr. Cassilis is my
assistant.” Another distant bow. “I have been called in as a physician
in the case of another medical man who had the honour to include you
among his patients, I believe--Dr. Weathered.”

A bow in the affirmative, still colder, if possible.

“I regret to have to inform you that Dr. Weathered has died--of heart
failure.”

A little gasp, natural enough in the circumstances. A gasp of relief in
my ears, relief at hearing the death described as natural. A gasp of
surprise, I could only hope, in the keen ears of my chief.

“Dr. Weathered’s death was rather sudden. It is desirable for the sake
of his family to dispense with an inquest if possible, but it has been
necessary to make some inquiries into his affairs, and I have had to go
through his appointment-book, the book in which he entered the names
of his patients who came to see him, you understand.”

“I understand.” Just a tremor, immediately subdued.

“Naturally your name appears in the book among others. And it happens
to be one of several that have numbers attached to them, as if for
purposes of identification. If you know, or can suggest, the reason for
that, I shall be very much obliged by your telling me.”

Violet straightened herself up and spoke very distinctly. It was clear
to me that she had prepared her answer carefully.

“I can tell you exactly. When Dr. Weathered’s patients had to write to
him about whatever he was treating them for, he gave them a number to
use instead of their own names. The letters were confidential.”

Tarleton’s face told me that he had grasped the full situation, as I
had grasped it half an hour before. He looked at me instead of her, but
he failed to hide his consternation altogether.

“What is the matter? Why do you look like that?” the startled girl
exclaimed.

The specialist pulled himself together.

“There is nothing the matter, Lady Violet. I was staggered for a moment
at the thought of what might have happened if I hadn’t taken the
precaution of coming here and questioning you. I will see that this
correspondence is destroyed unread as soon as I get back to town.
Unless, that is, it has been destroyed already. Dr. Weathered may have
burnt the letters as soon as he had read them.”

The explanation was not very happy. Poor Violet’s dignity forsook her
as she realized for the first time that the outpouring of her heart,
the record of her secret shame, were at the mercy of whatever stranger
first gained access to the dead man’s repository. She did her best to
keep her eyes from straying in my direction, but the half turn of her
head towards me before she spoke to Tarleton was enough to tell me what
she felt.

“Do you mean,” she faltered, “that there is a danger of someone finding
these letters?--someone who might make use of them?”

I had not often seen my chief at a loss, but he was plainly put out now.

“My dear young lady, there isn’t the least fear of that. It may ease
your mind if I tell you more than I intended. Dr. Weathered’s death
occurred in a club in Chelsea, and the proprietress or manager,
whichever she really is, sent for the police. They thought the death
might be due to foul play, and they have been making some inquiries.
Meanwhile, they have had their eyes on everyone who would be at all
likely to have anything to do with the case, and you may be sure that
if the doctor left any secret correspondence it will be secured and
burnt immediately.”

Violet had glanced at my face while he was speaking, and had read in
it, no doubt, that it would be her best course to appear satisfied. She
murmured a “Thank you.”

“There is one other question I should like to ask you, but I hope you
won’t think it concerns you personally. The doctor’s death took place
on Wednesday night, and as you were more than a hundred miles away, no
one supposes that you can throw any light on what took place in the
Club that night.”

He paused for a moment, as if to give her a chance of asking how he
came to know that she was so far away. But of course I had already
given her the information, and she was afraid to speak.

“But it seems that you have a double, or rather that someone was
impersonating you that night. The attention of the police was drawn to
the presence of a dancer wearing a fancy dress which the costumiers
consider to represent Zenobia, the famous Queen of Palmyra who fought
against the Romans in the third century. They made inquiries, and heard
that a similar costume had been supplied to you about a year ago.--Can
you tell me what has become of it?”

The final question was put abruptly. It was well that Violet had been
prepared for it. She kept perfectly cool; if anything, too cool. I
should have liked her to show a little more disturbance.

“I have no idea. I suppose my maid has put it away somewhere among my
things. But I will ring for her, and ask.”

“Permit me, Lady Violet.” Tarleton sprang to the bell before she was
out of her chair. It was answered by the manservant, whom her ladyship
dispatched in quest of her maid.

I watched my chief while we were waiting. I flattered myself that I had
outmanœuvred him in this direction. His lowered brows told me that he
was puzzled. He must have come down to Tyberton expecting to find the
costume missing, and to receive some made-up story to account for its
disappearance.

A woman came into the room, an elderly person, of very plain
appearance, whom I put down as Lord Ledbury’s housekeeper. I didn’t
think his lordship’s means were sufficient to provide his daughter with
a lady’s maid.

“Oh, Henderson, do you know what has become of that fancy dress of mine
with the helmet and breastplate? Can you put your hands on it?”

Henderson showed no surprise.

“Certainly, my lady. It is in the drawer at the bottom of your
ladyship’s wardrobe.”

“Just go and fetch it, will you?”

“Yes, my lady.”

She went out with the movement of a well-drilled actor, leaving me
with the uncomfortable impression that the scene had been rehearsed,
and that Tarleton could hardly miss coming to the same conclusion. He
muttered some vague expression of regret for the trouble he was giving
to Lady Violet, and then sat with his lips pursed up in rather ominous
fashion, and his eyes fixed on the door.

Henderson reappeared rather too quickly. She carried all the articles
that made up the much-talked-of costume, the paste-board armour coated
with silver paint, the flowing shirt, even the sandals which the
Wardour Street Israelite had deemed appropriate footwear for a desert
queen.

Tarleton gave them the barest glance, as they were spread out on the
table, and bowed to Violet.

“I have to thank your ladyship.”

He was in the act of rising when the door of the room was thrown open
abruptly.

The figure on the threshold presented the appearance of a man just
roused from sleep and inclined to resent the interruption of his
dreams. He was tall and thin, and seemed to hold himself upright
with an effort. His gray hairs straggled over his head in unbrushed
disorder, and his clothes hung on him as though they had been dropped
where they were in a fit of absence of mind. In spite of these signs of
neglect there was an air of dignity about him that left me in no doubt
as to his identity.

The Earl of Ledbury advanced into the room, turning a glance of
disapproval from Sir Frank Tarleton to myself, and addressed his
daughter.

“Violet, what business have you with these gentlemen?”

What excuse she would have made if it had been left to her to answer,
I don’t know. Tarleton instantly took the burden on himself.

“My business with Lady Violet is official, my lord. I am right, no
doubt, in thinking that you are the Earl of Ledbury?”

“Official?” The word sounded like a snarl. “Who are you, sir?”

“I am the principal medical adviser to the Home Office. My name is Sir
Frank Tarleton, and this gentleman is my assistant, Dr. Cassilis.”

I was already on my feet. I gave the Earl a deferential bow which only
seemed to increase his irritation.

“And may I ask what you mean, gentlemen, by coming into my house and
interviewing my daughter behind my back?”

Tarleton was not the man to let himself be addressed in that fashion.

“I think you forget yourself, my lord. The Lady Violet is of age, I
believe. We are here in the discharge of our duty, and I need not
remind your lordship that the law is not a respecter of persons.”

Lord Ledbury’s look of anger changed to one of amazement and alarm.

“Good heavens, what do you mean, sir? What has the law to do with Lady
Violet Bredwardine?”

“Very little, I hope, but it was necessary for us to see her ladyship
and put a few questions to her, for her own sake.”

The Earl turned suddenly. “Henderson, leave the room.”

“One moment, please.” The physician detained the woman by a gesture.
“Can you tell me if this costume has been where you just found it
during the whole of last week? Would it have been possible for anyone
to take it without your knowledge, send it away, and put it back again
afterwards?”

It was a fatal question, the one question I ought to have anticipated
and prepared for. Violet’s face must have betrayed her to a duller eye
than my shrewd chief’s. As for Henderson, she gazed stupidly at her
mistress in the evident need of prompting.

The irascible father could see this as plainly as ourselves.

“The truth, woman!” he thundered. “Tell the truth this instant.”

Henderson turned very red.

“I had no wish to tell anything else, my lord. The drawer wasn’t
locked, that’s all I can say. I can’t tell whether anyone might have
taken the costume out and put it back again, I’m sure.”

“Thank you. That is all I have to ask of you at present.” Nothing in
Tarleton’s tone or look showed what amount of importance he attached to
the answer he had received; and the woman, after gazing uneasily round
at us all in turn, went out of the room with a subdued mien.

What the effect was on me, I need scarcely say. The whole question
of Violet’s connection with the case had been reopened. If the astute
investigator chose to follow up the clue he would not find it difficult
to obtain evidence through the post office that a parcel large enough
to contain the incriminating costume had been received by Lady Violet
since the discovery of the crime. It might not be possible to trace it
to me as the sender, but she might be placed in such a position that
only a full confession on my part could clear her. That confession, of
course, I had been ready to make all along, the moment it could do her
the least service. My difficulty had been to make it without involving
her as what the law calls an accessory before the fact. How could my
chief, how could Inspector Charles, fail to draw the inference that we
had acted in collusion, and that she had lent me her disguise knowing
the use I meant to make of it?

The torturing problem racked my brain the whole time that Sir Frank was
explaining the situation to Lord Ledbury. The explanation was a painful
one. He did his best to soften the ugliest features, but it could
not be concealed that Lady Violet had consulted a doctor without the
knowledge of her father or her chaperon, that the doctor had died in
suspicious circumstances, and that some suspicion had attached to the
wearer of a fancy dress similar to the one spread out before us.

The shock would have been a terrible one for any father. It must have
been doubly so for a man who had lived for so many years out of the
world, ignoring the changes that had come about since his youth. The
whole story must have taken him out of his bearings. The society in
which night clubs flourish, and girls as young as Violet are found in
them, was as strange to him as it would have been to any parent of the
Victorian age.

I could see his mood turning from surprise and bewilderment into
growing fury as he listened. And his anger was no longer directed
against Tarleton and myself.

“It comes to this, that my daughter’s name is mixed up with a murder
case,” he exploded at last. “If she is not actually under suspicion her
clothes are. Violet!” The stricken girl turned beseeching eyes on him.
“Unless you can assure me that you had no more to do with this business
than I had, you shan’t pass another night under this roof.”

The injustice of it nearly stung me into speech. The Earl had done
nothing to deserve his daughter’s confidence. He had let her grow
up a stranger to him. He had handed her over to a mercenary with no
qualifications beyond those of a drill-sergeant or a prison warder. And
he was ablaze with wrath because she had grown into a living creature
with blood in her veins, instead of a wooden doll.

Violet’s eyes filled with tears.

“What do you want me to say?” she implored. “I didn’t even know that
Dr. Weathered was dead till these gentlemen told me.”

“You knew him, it seems. What did you go to him for? You haven’t been
ill.”

I began to feel anxious for myself as well as her. But she replied with
unexpected spirit.

“I went to him as a doctor. He was a nerve specialist, and I went to
him about my nerves.”

“Nerves!” His lordship spat out the word in scorn. “A girl of your age
has no business with nerves. Did you tell Miss Pollexfen that you were
suffering from nerves?”

“No.” Violet flared up with a touch of her father. “Why should I? Miss
Pollexfen is no friend of mine. I didn’t choose her for a companion.
I am old enough to decide for myself whether I want to see a doctor,
without consulting her.”

Lord Ledbury was clearly taken aback. He can have had no real suspicion
that his daughter had done anything seriously wrong, or he would hardly
have cross-examined her before us. Little as he loved her, regard for
his own good name would have made him refrain from going on.

“So you consider yourself independent, do you?” He pointed to the
clothes. “Have you lent these things--to anyone?”

I held my breath. I dared not make the least sign to Violet. And if I
had, she would not have seen it. She kept her eyes steadily fixed on
her father’s.

“Yes.” It was the wisest answer to give now that so much had come out.
A falsehood must have been detected in a few hours.

“Tell me her name.”

My heart seemed to stop beating. There was a tense pause in which the
air of the room vibrated with suspense. Then the girl slowly shook her
head.

“I cannot.”

“You mean you won’t. I command you, Violet. Do you hear?”

Her head sunk obstinately on her breast.

“I shall never tell.”




CHAPTER XIV

THE UNKNOWN POISON


I sat fascinated. This was not the Violet Bredwardine I had known. The
girl had sprung up into a woman, and the woman was making a brave fight
for me more than herself. If my name came out she would be no worse off
than she was already, as far as her connection with the death in the
Domino Club was concerned. Her father would have to know that she and
I had been friends in the past, but he need know nothing more. It was
I who stood in danger. It would be useless for me to deny that I had
drugged Weathered, and had carried off the case-book. His death would
lie at my door unless it could be proved that something had been given
to him that night in addition to opium. And it would take very strong
evidence to convince a jury that there had been anyone else concerned
in that night’s business besides me.

Whether her refusal to betray me was due only to loyalty, or to a faint
survival or revival of the love I had forfeited, I could not tell. I
only knew that my own heart was touched anew, and I longed more than
ever to redeem myself in her eyes and wipe out the past.

The Earl of Ledbury controlled his wrath with an effort. He may have
seen that it would be useless to persist just then. He may have feared
to press his daughter too far in our presence lest she should make some
admission that would bring her within reach of the law.

“Very well; if that is your attitude, you have ceased to be my
daughter. You will pack up your things and go to London by the
afternoon train. I shall wire to Miss Pollexfen to meet you, and
you can stay in my house till she has found you a home with some
respectable family; and I shall pay for your board as long as you
choose to remain with them. Beyond that I have done with you. Now go.”

Violet got up, shivering all over, to obey. Her misery was too acute
for me to indulge in selfish thoughts of what her forced emancipation
might mean for me.

The Earl turned to Sir Frank as if by an afterthought.

“Have you gentlemen anything else to ask Lady Violet before she goes?”

My chief passed on the question to me by a nod. His own expression was
one of pity. I caught at the opportunity.

“Nothing for the moment, but I presume your lordship will be willing to
let us have Lady Violet’s new address if we should want it later on.”

It was the first time I had spoken since Lord Ledbury came into the
room, and he glared at me as though resenting my presumption.

“Lady Violet is of age,” he said shortly. “I have just been reminded
of that. She is her own mistress; you had better ask her.”

Violet slowly turned and faced me. I threw all I dared of longing and
pleading for forgiveness into the look I gave her. The despair in her
eyes found a dull echo in her tone.

“I will send you my address as soon as I know it. But it will make no
difference. I....”

Her voice choked. The next moment the door had closed on her.

And now Tarleton proceeded to astonish me. I think he astonished the
Earl of Ledbury as well.

“My lord,” he said in a tone of deep gravity, “it is clear to me that
you have no idea of the danger in which your daughter stands.”

“Danger!” The Earl fairly started.

“Danger,” the consultant repeated firmly. “The man whose death has
brought us down here was an unscrupulous scoundrel. He laid traps for
women. Under the pretence of soothing their nerves he induced them
to tell him their secrets, and to write him letters containing their
inmost thoughts. There is every likelihood that he met his death at the
hands of some woman whom he had entrapped in that way, and whom he was
attempting to blackmail.”

“But what has that to do with my daughter?” his lordship burst out.
“You don’t suppose that she knew he was going to be murdered?”

“I haven’t suggested it. The evidence is to the contrary, I am glad to
see. But your daughter has been beguiled into writing to this man,
and in her innocence she has very likely written a good many things
that you would not care to see published. Those letters are still in
existence, probably, and we don’t know in whose hands. Until they are
found and destroyed Lady Violet will be at the mercy of the holder.”

“Wretched girl!” Even now the selfish father could find nothing better
to do than to blame his child.

“Who made her wretched?” Tarleton’s face wore the stern look of a
judge passing sentence. “Who drove her to confide in a stranger and
a charlatan? Who handed her over to a hired companion whom she seems
to have disliked and distrusted? Who taught her to look for sympathy
anywhere except from her own parent and in her own home?”

Never have I witnessed a rebuke better administered or with better
effect. Lord Ledbury was utterly subdued. If the condemnation had come
from a young man like myself, or from a professed preacher, he might
have tried to defend himself. But from a man of his own age, and a man
in authority, the representative of law and public opinion, it was an
unanswerable charge.

For the best part of a minute he sat silent. His face worked. Memories
of the past must have come back to him; perhaps he asked himself what
account he could give to Violet’s mother of her only child. His voice
was altered and broken when he spoke again.

“You have been very plain with me, Sir Frank. I recognize that you have
spoken as a friend--as my daughter’s friend at least, if not mine. It
may be that my treatment of her has been mistaken, although I meant it
for the best; at all events, it has turned out unfortunately. But her
good name is the first consideration now. These letters--what do you
advise me to do?”

The physician considered for a time before he spoke.

“I didn’t know of the existence of these letters when I came down here,
and the problem is one that requires thinking out. It may be that
they will give us a clue to the whole mystery. As far as I can see at
present, three things may have happened to them.”

He turned from Lord Ledbury to me as he went on.

“Weathered may have kept them in the same safe with his case-book.
In that case the person who opened the safe and carried off the book
ought to have found the letters as well. But according to my present
theory the person who took the book was the wearer of this costume--”
he pointed to the dress in front of us. “In other words, he or she was
Lady Violet’s friend. And if her friend had found any such documents
he would have destroyed them and let her know at once. In my opinion,
therefore, either he overlooked them, or they were kept in some more
secret receptacle.”

As Tarleton seemed to expect my opinion I nodded in confirmation. I
could have sworn that the safe contained no such correspondence, but
that, of course, I dared not tell him.

“The next person who seems to have had access to the safe,” said the
consultant, “was Weathered’s step-daughter. And if he had some other
hiding-place in the house she is the most likely person to have known
of it, and to have opened it since his death. Her mother, no doubt,
would have a better right to examine her husband’s papers, but she
impressed me as a weak woman, very much in her daughter’s hands. We
have to face the possibility that Lady Violet’s letters have been
found by a young woman of very determined character who has actually
denounced her ladyship to Dr. Cassilis and myself as guilty of this
man’s death.”

The Earl showed himself greatly shaken.

“But this is terrible. You, sir, and you”--he appealed to each of us in
turn--“don’t believe anything so hideous.”

“Not for one moment.” It was my chief who answered. “Our presence here
is the best proof of that. We found ourselves accused by this young
woman of hushing up the case and screening the criminal, and we came
down to obtain proof of Lady Violet’s absence from the scene of the
crime. You have nothing to fear on that score, I hope and believe. You
can trust us both not to let anyone know of the admission Lady Violet
has just made to you that she lent her costume to someone else.”

“To the actual murderer, do you mean?” the father gasped.

“Not necessarily. That point is still in doubt. As I have said, the
crime may have been committed by a woman--or a man--who had been driven
to desperation. I should be glad to think so, and to think that he or
she had seized the secret correspondence.”

“Why?” It was Lord Ledbury who put the question, but I waited for the
answer with equal curiosity.

“Because in that case we might have every hope that it would be
promptly destroyed. Such a victim would have no motive to injure her
fellow victims, and we might credit her with a sense of honour. Whereas
the step-daughter has shown a strong animus against Lady Violet, and we
know that she is not too scrupulous when her feelings are aroused. If
Miss Neobard has found these letters it may take some pressure to make
her give them up.”

The Earl wrung his hands. “My means are not large, but if any sum
within my power--” he began.

Tarleton cut him short with decision.

“That is one means which must not be resorted to, my lord. I must
make that an absolute condition. The one thing I have to ask of you
is that you will protect your daughter from any attempt that may
be made to blackmail her. Try, if you can, to win her confidence. I
strongly advise you to come up to town with her yourself. Her chaperon
has shown herself to be incompetent, and I shouldn’t let her into your
house again. Look out for some bright, sympathetic woman of the world,
and don’t engage her unless Lady Violet takes to her as a friend. And
let it be seen that your daughter is under your personal protection.
A blackmailer who would find a solitary girl an easy prey will think
twice before he threatens one who is guarded by a father in your
position. Take her with you to the theatres and picture galleries.
Believe me, as a doctor, she is in need of distraction just now. I
won’t answer for her sanity unless she can be cheered up and taken out
of herself. I will call on her, with your permission, and keep an eye
on her for a time.”

The change in the Earl of Ledbury was great indeed by now. He thanked
the consultant with emotion, and undertook to carry out all his
recommendations. He pressed us both to stay and lunch with him, but my
chief decided that we could not spare the time.

“We must get back to town as soon as possible,” he declared. “The
sooner we get on the track of the missing letters the better chance
there will be of our recovering them.”

He shook hands with the Earl very cordially at parting and his
lordship seemed to include me in his expressions of gratitude and
good-will.

When we were seated in the car going back to Hereford my chief summed
up the situation for my benefit.

“There was a possibility that Lady Violet had lent her old disguise to
a friend as a blind and come to the dance in a new one. I thought it
was on the cards that she might prove to be the Leopardess. Now I think
we may rule that out, and I am very glad of it. She is a dear girl, and
I confess she has won my heart.”

I glanced at him a little uneasily. In spite of his age, Tarleton was a
fascinating man. I had seen enough of him to know that he was popular
with women of all ages. Young women seemed to regard him as an uncle,
and became familiar with him at very short notice; and I could not be
sure that he always regarded them strictly as nieces. Glad as I was
that my chief had acquitted Violet in his mind, I was not altogether
pleased by the warmth with which he spoke.

“We may take it that she lent her dress to a friend who meant to
impersonate her. We don’t know whether the friend had a grievance of
her own against Weathered, or whether she was acting as Lady Violet’s
champion. And in the second case we can’t say whether Lady Violet knew
or guessed what her champion intended to do. You see, there is still a
serious case against the poor girl. If the police knew that she was in
Weathered’s power, and that she had lent her costume to his murderer,
they might come to a very ugly conclusion.”

“I am certain she had no idea that any crime was going to be
committed,” I spoke earnestly.

“Quite so; you feel certain of that, but Captain Charles might feel
certain of the opposite. You see now why I thought it better for us to
come down here instead of one of his men.”

I did indeed see it, and inwardly I thanked Sir Frank with all my heart.

“I think we will tell Charles that we obtained satisfactory proof that
Lady Violet was at Tyberton Castle on Wednesday night, and that her
maid found the Zenobia costume for us in her wardrobe. That ought to
make him dismiss her from the case.”

I could have asked for nothing better, so far. “And the letters?” I put
in anxiously.

“Ah! I didn’t care to tell Lord Ledbury all I feared about them. I
shouldn’t be surprised if Weathered had stored them in the Domino Club.”

I could not restrain a cry of alarm.

“Yes,” Tarleton went on, “that would be the worst case of all. Because
by this time they must be in the hands of Madame Bonnell.”

The smooth, smiling face of the Frenchwoman with its shrewd black eyes
and thin lips rose before me. As my chief had said, this was the worst
case of all.

“If that woman has them it may be some time before we hear of them,”
the specialist pursued in a meditative tone. “She may wait till the
inquiry into the death is over, and the case disposed of as far as the
police are concerned. Then the victims will each receive a discreet
letter, probably from an agent, informing them that certain letters
which appear to be in their handwriting have been found, and asking if
they wish to have them returned. There won’t be a word about money in
the first communication, you may be sure. The victims will simply be
invited to call on the agents and inspect the letters. That woman knows
her business, I fancy.”

It was horrible to think of Violet being slowly drawn into the
serpent’s coils. There would be less mercy to look for in such a woman
than in Weathered himself.

The physician moved his shoulders as if to shake off an unpleasant
burden.

“We will put that aside for the moment, and consider the question of
the murder. Everything now depends on the information I expect to find
waiting for me when we get back. If my diagnosis is correct, Weathered
died from a poison described in the book I have told you of, _Across
Sumatra_, by Captain Armstrong. The natives have some name for it which
I forget, but I have called it _Upasine_.”

“Upasine!” I repeated the name in stupefaction.

“Yes. You have heard, no doubt--everybody has heard--of the famous
upas tree. According to the tales of the old explorers, it was a tree
that exhaled a deadly vapour, so that the traveller who went to sleep
beneath its shelter never woke again. The bones of animals were found
scattered round the trunk, and they were supposed to have perished in
the same way, by going to sleep within the deadly radius.”

“But surely,” I said in astonishment, “surely no one believes that any
longer? I thought it had been proved to be a fable.”

The great expert shook his head.

“There are not many fables that haven’t some truth in them,” he
pronounced. “The legendary glories of Timbuktu were dismissed at one
time as travellers’ tales, but it turned out there was a city called
Timbuktu on the southern edge of the desert of Sahara; that it was the
great market to which the caravans from the Mediterranean coast made
their way, and even that it once possessed something like a university,
when it became a refuge for the Moors who were driven out of Spain.
The accounts of the upas tree and its fatal shadow were dismissed in
the same shallow way without any inquiry as to how they originated.
Armstrong happened to be an intelligent man, and he told me that one
of the objects of his exploration of Sumatra had been to find out the
truth about the upas.”

My incredulity began to give way before my chief’s sober words.

“He started out with the conviction that bones and corpses had been
found under some trees by some explorers, who had accepted the native
theory that the tree cast a deadly spell on all within its range. Other
travellers had tested the theory and found that it was possible to
sleep under the tree in perfect safety. And so they had treated the
whole thing as a pure fancy, without inquiring further. Armstrong did
inquire further, and perhaps you can guess what he found?”

For some moments I was hopelessly puzzled. “The leaves are poisonous,
perhaps, and the sleepers die because they have eaten them?”

“Not a bad guess. No; Armstrong discovered a minute fungus that grows
in the soil round the root of the upas tree, and apparently nowhere
else. The animals that browse on this fungus are overcome by sleep, and
die without waking. It contains a soporific poison which acts rather
like opium at first, but has a peculiar effect on the skin, which it
dries up like parchment. You were the first to draw my attention to the
parchment-like appearance of Weathered’s face, you may remember.”

I did remember. A burden was lifted from my heart by the recollection.
Whatever peril I might stand in from the law, I could assure myself at
last that I was not a murderer. The drug I had administered to Violet’s
persecutor had contained no grain of any other poison than opium. And
now I need not fear that I had given him an overdose of that. He had
died, he must have died, from the poison discovered by the explorer of
Sumatra. And that meant that he had died by some other hand than mine.

The specialist continued his explanation.

“You see now why I asked you to make no more remarks on what you saw.
Whoever used this poison probably believes that he is the only person
who possesses any, or even knows of its existence. Armstrong’s book
attracted very little notice. It was badly written, for one thing, and
there were no illustrations, a fatal omission in a book of travels
nowadays. I don’t think there was a word about this discovery in any
of the reviews. Naturally the murderer thinks that he is safe from
detection.”

“How did you come to hear of the poison?” I ventured to ask.

“In the simplest way. Captain Armstrong himself brought me a sample to
analyse.”

Of course! I could have kicked myself. Tarleton was the one man to whom
any such discoverer would be certain to come for an opinion.

“He had picked and dried a handful or two of the toadstools, as he
called them, but they had crumbled on the voyage home, and what he
brought me was dust. I detected the presence of an agent not yet known
to science, and I gave it the name of upasine. It seemed to me so
dangerous that an unknown poison should be in the hands of anyone but a
man like myself, that I asked Armstrong to sell me all he had brought
home, and he agreed to do it.”

“But in that case--your bottle was untouched?” I objected.

“True. It is clear that he deceived me. Either he had parted with some
of the poison before coming to me, and didn’t like to admit it, or else
he kept some for himself as a curiosity. If it isn’t in his possession,
I expect to hear of it in the same quarter as the leopard skin and
claws.”




CHAPTER XV

THE LADY OF THE LEOPARD SKIN


I got little more out of my chief during the rest of the journey to
town. The gold repeater came into action as soon as we were seated in
the train, and I could only wonder what was the problem that was still
baffling that keen intelligence.

To me, I confess, the solution of the mystery seemed now to be well in
sight. On our return to town I expected to find that Inspector Charles
had ascertained the present whereabouts of the explorer of Sumatra.
From him it should not be difficult to learn the identity of the
Leopardess, as I called her in my own mind; and I took it for granted
that she was a victim of Weathered’s who had delivered herself out of
his power by the use of the deadly fungus of the upas.

My one anxiety at present was the thought of the missing letters. I
wearied myself with speculating as to whose hands they had passed
into since the murder, and by what means they could be recovered and
destroyed without their contents becoming known. I was as far as ever
from seeing my way clearly when we arrived in Montague Street that
evening.

A serious disappointment waited for us there. An official envelope
stamped with the seal of New Scotland Yard lay on the table in the
hall. Before I had closed the front door Tarleton had pounced upon it,
torn it open, and scanned the note inside with an impatient scowl.

“Fool!”

He almost flung the Inspector’s communication in my face. It stated
briefly that Captain Armstrong had met his death by malarial fever
in Yucatan six months ago; and that was all. I hardly know what more
Charles could have said, since he was quite ignorant why the explorer’s
address was wanted. Tarleton sometimes failed to allow for the fact
that his assistants were not all gifted with his own quickness of
apprehension. However, I didn’t venture to defend the delinquent.

My chief’s irritation soon subsided, and as soon as we were seated at a
well-spread table he acquitted the Inspector handsomely.

“After all, I didn’t take Charles into my confidence, as I have taken
you, Cassilis. But now we must set to work in earnest. What do you
suggest as the next step?”

The question was too much for me, as I had to confess. Perhaps I was
too much worried about the letters to be able to give my mind to
anything else.

The consultant smiled good-naturedly.

“Our only clue to Captain Armstrong’s friend is his book. Books are
produced by publishers, and publishers pay royalties. By this time the
publisher of _Across Sumatra_ ought to have heard from Armstrong’s
executor. And the executor should be able to put us on the track of the
person who has come into possession of his effects.”

He paused to let this reasoning sink into my mind before he added, “I
think this greatly simplifies matters. It is much more likely that
Armstrong kept some of the upasine himself among his trophies than that
he gave it away, to a woman, above all. Depend upon it, we shall find
that it passed on his death to the lady of the leopard’s claws.”

He seemed about to say more but broke off abruptly, as though a new
thought had struck him. “She will have to be handled carefully,” was
all he said after a short silence.

It was impossible for me to listen any longer without reminding him of
the other task before us.

“Have you made any plans yet for the recovery of the letters?” I asked
anxiously.

“Ah!” He gave me a shrewd look. “You are quite right to interest
yourself in that business, my boy. It is more important to protect Lady
Violet than even to detect Weathered’s murderer. The living come before
the dead, eh? I am inclined to trust that part of the work to you.”

I suppose I must have shown some dismay. My kindly chief proceeded to
explain himself.

“We must begin with the assumption that everything that Weathered left
behind him, including his correspondence, has become the property of
his widow. If he kept these letters in his house they must be now
in her possession, unless her daughter has annexed them. I think you
should go round to Warwick Street to-morrow morning, and ask to see
Mrs. Weathered.”

I thought of the rather commonplace widow, who had appeared to be
completely dominated by her daughter, and I did not hope much from the
interview.

“I doubt if she will part with them without Miss Neobard’s consent,” I
said with hesitation. “Even if she has them.”

“Try,” the physician urged. “I should not be surprised if that woman,
quiet as she looked, was deeper in her husband’s secrets than Sarah
Neobard was, in spite of her jealousy. Still waters run deep, remember.
See her alone, if you can, and put the matter to her as a woman and a
mother. Ask her how she would feel if her own daughter had been enticed
to writing very confidential letters to a doctor, and those letters
were now in a stranger’s hands. I fancy you will get something out of
Mrs. Weathered.”

“And if I fail?”

Tarleton compressed his lips rather grimly. “In that case, one of us
may have to show her that her own daughter is not yet out of the wood.
We have both heard a confession from Sarah Neobard, and it was not made
under any pledge of secrecy.”

There the matter rested that night. The next day soon after breakfast
my chief set off to make inquiries at the publishers of _Across
Sumatra_, and I started on my difficult errand to Warwick Street.

Only my knowledge of the desperate position in which Violet had placed
herself could have nerved me to the task in front of me. It was painful
enough to have to plead for mercy from a stranger; the prospect of
having to threaten the mother with her daughter’s prosecution for a
crime of which I did not believe her guilty was so repugnant to me
that I made up my mind beforehand not to act on Tarleton’s hint. My
confidence in his sense of justice was very strong, but I felt that I
was too much in the dark myself to accept such a responsibility.

The blinds of the house were down, a circumstance which I attributed
to the presence of a corpse inside. But there was a long delay in
answering my ring, and when the youthful butler opened the door to me
his untidy dress and rough hair suggested that he did not consider
himself on duty.

“Mrs. Weathered isn’t here,” he told me, without ceremony, as soon as I
asked to see her. “The funeral took place yesterday and the ladies have
gone out of town.”

“Where have they gone?” I demanded in dismay.

The youth put on a stolid look.

“My instructions are to say that letters will be forwarded,” he
answered, with a touch of sullenness.

And I could get no more out of him. To all appearances Sarah Neobard
and her mother had fled.

As soon as I had got over my first surprise, I felt more relief than
disappointment. Tarleton himself would now have to take the matter in
hand, and I had more confidence in his power to deal with it than in
my own. When we met again at lunch time I reported my failure to him,
and he heard me with a tightening of the jaws that boded no good to the
fugitives.

“Our friend Sarah has made a mistake,” he commented. “She ought to have
known that she could not hide herself very long if the police really
wanted her. I think we can trust Captain Charles to let us know where
she is before many days have passed. I wonder what she told her mother
to persuade her to run away like that.”

Again some thought seemed to strike him which he did not see fit to
disclose to me. He shook his head doubtfully, and then sprang to his
feet and hurried to the telephone.

When he came back it was to tell me that the police had been put on the
trail of the two women. “I have told them nothing about the letters,”
he added for my consolation. “We don’t want them to get on the files of
Scotland Yard if we can help it. I have given them a hint that I have
something up my sleeve.”

He poured himself out a glass of wine and sipped it with a relish.

“I have been more fortunate than you this morning,” he resumed. “It
appears that Armstrong had another book in the press when he died,
so that his publishers have been in active communication with his
executor--or rather his executrix.”

The correction startled me. Tarleton had laid some emphasis on the
feminine termination.

“She is Armstrong’s sister, his only one. He had no other near
relations, so far as the publishers could tell me, and with his
solitary, wandering life he is not likely to have had any intimate
friends. At all events, he left everything he possessed to his sister.
I have made sure of that by looking up the will at Somerset House.”

The atmosphere seemed to become heavier as he spoke. At last the quarry
was almost in sight. If the explorer had kept any of the mysterious
poison it must have passed into his sister’s possession on his death.

“The publisher couldn’t tell me whether she was a married woman or a
widow,” the specialist continued, “but he gave me her name and address:
Mrs. Amelia Baker, Carlyle Square, Chelsea.”

“Carlyle Square!” I ejaculated. “That is within a stone’s throw of the
Domino Club.”

My chief gave me a look of mild disappointment.

“Is that the only thing that strikes you? What about the name?”

“Amelia Baker.” I repeated the name to myself. “Baker”--surely one of
the commonest of English surnames. There must be hundreds of Bakers
in the London Directory. And yet I had a dim consciousness of some
association with it that I couldn’t quite fix. Tarleton’s patience gave
out before my helplessness.

“Think? Where did you come across that name last?” He snatched out a
slip of paper from his breast pocket and passed it across the table.

It was the list of names he had given me to copy three days before,
the list of Weathered’s patients who had given numbers under which, as
we had learned since from Violet, they could write to him. And at the
bottom of the list there stood, “Mrs. Baker, 35.”

To me it looked like proof conclusive. This was Weathered’s latest
victim, to all appearance, and in making her his enemy he had at last
met his match. I remembered the waiter’s description of her at the
dance in her savage dress and savage ornaments, as though she meant
by her attire to signify that she was bent on vengeance. And now we
knew that she was in possession of a deadly drug which could be given
without fear of detection, as she might well suppose if her brother
had not told her of his dealings with the great expert. Gerard had
testified to her showing a repugnance for Weathered that looked like
hatred. The case appeared to be complete.

Something like this I said to Tarleton, carried away by my delight
at the thought that I had now no more to dread. But he did not show
himself altogether satisfied.

“There is such a thing as having too complete a case,” he remarked in
a meditative voice. “Even if we are right in believing that we have
found the Leopardess, as Gerard called her, we have still to prove that
she murdered Weathered. The waiter himself told us that she left early,
hours before he showed any symptoms of being poisoned. My instinct
tells me that there is something in this business that I don’t yet
know. There is no crime so difficult to detect as one in which a woman
is concerned. In this case I find myself surrounded by women, and every
woman is an enigma to the wisest man.--Now listen to this.”

He took out another paper from his pocket, and read aloud from it.

“This is the report of the Inspector. He has had men engaged in
looking up all the names on that list, and the moment it struck me
that Armstrong’s executrix might be the Mrs. Baker who figures there,
I asked Charles to let me know what his man had found out. Here is
what he writes: ‘Widow with independent means. Perfectly respectable.
Favourably known to local tradesmen. Keeps two servants. Interested in
scientific movements. Sister of well-known traveller. Visits freely
in Chelsea. Has friends among literary men and artists. Also fond of
animals, cats and birds. Not known to suffer from any serious form
of illness. Has been attended by local doctor for small ailments. No
connection can be traced with Weathered.’--That is the police report.”

It was a deeply disappointing one to me. My vision of the enraged woman
in her leopard costume engaged in a murderous plot against a sinister
blackmailer faded as I listened. This harmless, middle-aged woman,
living quietly on her income in a good neighbourhood, and amusing
herself with animal pets and such artistic and intellectual society as
was within her reach, failed altogether to come up to the portrait my
imagination had drawn.

Tarleton folded up the report and replaced it in his pocket. “You and I
will call on this lady presently, and see if we can find out something
more.”

I wondered what we should find. I was wondering still when the
physician’s car drew up before a house in the pleasant little square
named after Chelsea’s most famous resident since the time of Sir Thomas
More. The house was only distinguished from its neighbours by an air
of dinginess which seemed due to neglect. In spite of the two servants
kept by the owner or tenant, there was a lack of neatness both outside
and inside. The steps looked in need of scrubbing, and the paint on the
door was disfigured with blisters. The door was opened to Tarleton’s
vigorous knock and ring by a housemaid who had evidently not changed
her dress since her morning’s work was done, and the hall into which we
passed was more like an ill-kept lumber-room than the ordinary entrance
to a lady’s house.

The explorer had evidently left many treasures picked up on his travels
which his sister had taken no great pains to arrange to the best
advantage. Savage weapons of various kinds were nailed up anyhow on the
walls, one hiding another. Horns of different strange animals, either
deer or oxen, surmounted such doors as we could see. Our feet were
entangled in a draggled buffalo skin spread on the floor. The maiden
who let us in took no notice of our trouble in following her, and
offered no apology for the untidiness of the surroundings. She led the
way upstairs to the first landing and threw open the door of a front
room which was no doubt dignified with the title of drawing-room.

“I’ll tell the missus you’re here.”

With this ungracious promise, and without suggesting that we should sit
down, she shut us in and left us. Tarleton glanced round him with a
humorous expression.

“I am reminded of what someone said of a famous explorer--‘Sir ----
is admirably qualified to deal with savages because he is just as
savage as they are.’ Captain Armstrong seems to have shared the same
qualification with his sister, judging from her household.”

The drawing-room resembled a museum as ill-arranged as the hall. Cases
of stuffed birds met the eye in every corner. A badly preserved fish
of enormous size, lacking an eye, monopolized one wall; I inclined
to think it was a tarpon. The space was choked with rickety small
tables, and those pieces of furniture dear to the past generation as
chiffoniers and what-nots, every one laden with curiosities in the
way of shells, savage ornaments, beads and rude knives in sheaths of
coloured leather. But what naturally drew our attention most were
the skins that strewed the floor and made all movement well-nigh
impossible, unless by way of skips and jumps. Every known species of
Africa, I should think, was represented, except perhaps the elephant.
Two of those in sight were leopards, and my chief gave me a quick look
of triumph as he pointed them out. Neither of them, none of the skins
in fact, were mounted on cloth in the common fashion. The owner of this
weird collection could have picked one up and fastened it across her
shoulders without the least difficulty.

Mrs. Baker took some time to appear. Although we had postponed our
call till four o’clock, it is probable that her siesta had been
interrupted. Certainly she had the air of having only been roused from
sleep long enough to make a rather imperfect toilet. Her hair could
best be described as touzled, but it was of that light straw colour
that lends itself to a pleasing disorder. The face beneath was bright
and birdlike, animated by an expression of lively interest amounting
to perkiness. The dress, I can only suppose, was intended to rank as
a tea-gown, although it was strongly suggestive of a dressing-gown.
But whatever impressions of slovenliness and neglect were produced by
Mrs. Baker’s appearance and surroundings, they were almost instantly
dissipated by her manner, which was the perfection of genuine
cordiality and ease.

“I’m ashamed to have kept you waiting, Sir Frank!” she exclaimed,
grasping me warmly by the hand. “But dear me,” she proceeded before I
could speak, “if I haven’t mistaken the son for the father! How are
_you_, Sir Frank! I declare the likeness would deceive anybody.”

My chief extricated his hand from her friendly clutch with a smile.

“You flatter me, madam. Dr. Cassilis, I regret to say, is no relation
to me, though he is good enough to assist me.”

Mrs. Baker was not in the least embarrassed. Her smile at the mistake
was heartier than either of ours.

“Just like me,” she avowed good-naturedly. “If there’s a chance for me
to put my foot in it, I’m sure to do it. And I know you so well, by
name, of course. To think of all our diseases being due just to tiny
weeny insects! I’m sure everybody ought to be grateful to you.”

It was apparent that there was some slight confusion in the mind of
our hostess between Tarleton and some other scientist of equal if not
greater eminence--possibly the immortal Pasteur. Meanwhile, one thought
possessed my mind to an extent that made me indifferent to everything
else. This chatty, blundering, good-natured creature could by no
conceivable possibility be connected with the tragedy in the Domino
Club. Whatever part she had played and whether she had or had not been
present on the fateful night, it was no less than absurd to credit her
with any responsibility for Weathered’s death.

With an agility which I could only envy she skipped lightly over the
many pitfalls that bestrewed the floor, and stage-managed us both into
comfortable chairs, while she took up an attitude on a couch smothered
in cushions, which faintly recalled Thorwaldsen’s statue of Ariadne.

“I hope you will accept my condolences on Captain Armstrong’s death, if
it’s not too late,” the consultant contrived to slip in presently.

The bereaved sister brightened up. Doubtless this was the clue she had
wanted to our reason for calling on her.

“To be sure!” she exclaimed. “You knew my brother, of course. Everybody
knew him. What a man he was! The greatest explorer who ever lived, so I
think. He would have discovered America, and Livingstone, and the North
Pole, if only those other people hadn’t done it first.” Her face fell
for a moment, as she added, “He was careless in money matters, I know.
It was his open, generous nature. Did he borrow from either of you
gentlemen?”

The question was put in a tone of resignation which I understood as
soon as we had both disclaimed any such transaction with the late
Captain Armstrong.

“I am so thankful,” the loyal sister sighed. “So many of his friends
have come to me since his death was announced in the papers, and they
all brought I O U’s for money that he owed them. I have paid them all,
of course, but I had to do it out of my own money. Poor Edgar left
nothing.”

I glanced at my chief in some surprise. But he knew the world better
than I did, as his answer showed.

“I was afraid that his books hadn’t brought him in very much, valuable
as they were to science.”

Mrs. Baker shook her head. “Not one of them paid its expenses. I had to
advance the money to publish them, and I don’t suppose I shall ever get
it back.”

“You have some things to remember him by, at all events,” Tarleton
suggested. “Those leopard skins are very fine.”

“Ah, yes.” The sister brightened up again. “Everything he brought home
he gave to me. It’s a wonderful collection, isn’t it? People tell me I
ought to give it to the nation. I think I shall leave this house and
its contents to trustees as a memorial, like Carlyle’s house in Cheyne
Row, you know.”

We could only express approval of this pious intention. My chief now
came to the object of our visit.

“Captain Armstrong did me the honour to come to me some time ago, after
his return from Sumatra. He had heard of me as a student of poisons,
and he brought me a sample of one he had discovered.”

“I know the one you mean, the toadstool that grows round the upas tree.
Wasn’t that a wonderful discovery? I can tell you----” She checked
herself rather sharply, and said no more.

“I persuaded him to sell me all he had brought to England,” the
specialist remarked, without appearing to notice anything. “But it has
occurred to me since that he might have kept a little as a specimen,
and if that is so, and you are disposed to part with it, I shall be
glad.”

Mrs. Baker eyed us with a touch of uneasiness, I thought.

“I know I can trust you, Sir Frederick; and if Dr. Castle is your
assistant I suppose I can trust him too. Dear Edgar did leave me a
little bottleful, but he told me not to part with it to anyone, and not
even to let anyone know I had it.”

This was disconcerting news. I saw Tarleton’s thick eyebrows go up and
down.

“That was very sound advice,” he responded quietly. “However, your
brother trusted me, as I have said, and I hope you can do the same. I
shall be very greatly obliged if you will let me see the bottle.”

The little woman got nimbly off the couch. “After all, it will be a
relief to me to get rid of it,” she murmured. “I have always taken care
to keep it under lock and key.”

She produced a bunch of about two dozen keys from her pocket, all of
them of that common design that will open each other’s locks with ease,
and advanced to a chiffonier. “It is in here,” she informed us as she
threw back the flimsy door and thrust her head inside.

The next moment we heard a startled cry.

“The bottle is gone!”




CHAPTER XVI

THE RED LIGHT


Sir Frank and I both sprang to our feet to go to the chiffonier. But
it was useless to turn over the rubbish it contained. The bottle of
upasine was not there. And either the sister of the explorer was a
very perfect actress or she was as much surprised as I was by its
disappearance.

“Whoever can have taken it?” she cried, gazing at us as if not quite
certain that we were beyond suspicion of the theft. “Both my maids have
been with me for years, and I have never missed anything before.”

It was at moments like these that I most admired my chief. The
encounter with a new perplexity seemed to afford him the keenest
pleasure. He was like an angler who finds that he has hooked a trout
where he only expected a chub. I could see from the knitting of his
brows that he was already readjusting his ideas to this new factor in
the case, and working out a different solution.

His first step was to soothe the mistress of the house.

“If you will allow me to help you I think we may be able to get on the
track of the thief. Shall we sit down and talk it over quietly?”

Mrs. Baker, still rather distrustful, let herself be led back to her
couch. But this time she did not attempt a statuesque pose. She sat
bolt upright, turning her head from one to the other of us like a
nervous robin.

“You haven’t missed anything else, you say,” Tarleton began, “so that
it looks as though the thief must have been someone who knew what he
was taking. The question is how many of your friends knew about this
poison?”

“Not one of them,” was the positive answer. “I have never mentioned it
to a soul.”

“Think,” the doctor persisted courteously. “Remember that Captain
Armstrong mentions his discovery of it in his book, _Across Sumatra_.
Surely some of your acquaintances must have read the book and talked to
you about it?”

The little woman began to show signs of misgiving.

“I can’t remember,” she confessed.

She had shown us both already that memory was not her strong point. The
consultant prompted her gently.

“The person most likely to be interested in such a thing as a new
poison would be a scientist or a medical man.”

Mrs. Baker’s eyes sought the floor. “I am positive that my doctor
knew nothing about it. Besides, I haven’t seen him for the last six
months--not since my brother’s death.” The disclaimer was made in a
rather shaken voice, however.

“But a lady like you must have some acquaintances in the scientific
world,” the examiner insinuated. “I was under the impression that I had
heard of you as a patroness of science.”

The flattery did its work. Mrs. Baker lifted her head again and repaid
it with a gracious smile.

“I am interested in science,” she admitted. “When my poor brother
was alive I used to give At Homes for him to show his curiosities to
people. I have had as many as six Fellows of the Royal Geographical
Society at one time before now.”

“I felt sure of it. And you see your brother may easily have mentioned
this bottle, or shown it, to someone without your knowledge.”

The birdlike head wavered. “But I am certain that it hadn’t been taken
when he died. I had to make a list of everything he left for probate,
and I should have missed it if it hadn’t been there. And I have had no
At Homes since.”

It struck me that this was said rather unwillingly, under the stress of
conscience. Tarleton seemed to think the same. The look he gave to the
little woman showed me that he believed she was keeping something back.

His next question was a bombshell.

“May I ask if you have taken any interest in the science of
psycho-analysis?”

Mrs. Baker’s collapse was pitiful. If the specialist had suddenly
changed into a cobra before her eyes she could not have looked at him
with greater terror.

“What do you mean, Sir Roderick?” she faltered.

Tarleton slowly shook his head.

“My dear madam, it is time for us to leave off fencing with one
another. Dr. Cassilis and I are both incapable of betraying your
confidence and neither of us has the slightest desire to injure you.
This dangerous poison has been stolen from you, and you cannot feel
easy in your mind till you know that it has been recovered, and is in
safe hands. All we ask is your help in tracing it, and that help I am
sure you feel that you ought to give.”

He had struck the right note this time. The poor little woman took out
her handkerchief and dabbed her forehead in a distracted manner as she
nerved herself to speak.

“You are quite right, Sir Robert. I know I ought to tell you
everything, but it isn’t at all pleasant. Have you ever heard of a Dr.
Wycherley?”

The situation was too grave for these erratic names to provoke a smile.
“I have heard of Dr. Weathered,” the specialist said gravely.

“Weathered, of course! How could I have forgotten it. But I never can
remember names, Sir Herbert. He isn’t a friend of yours, I hope?”

“He never was.” Evidently she hadn’t heard of the death in the Domino
Club, and my chief didn’t think the time had yet come to tell her of
it.

Mrs. Baker gave a sigh of relief before plunging into her tale.

“It all began with my going to hear him give a lecture on
psycho-analysis at the Caxton Hall. He looked quite a distinguished
man, and he lectured beautifully. I was fascinated by the things he
said. He told us that he could look inside our minds, and see things
there that we had never dreamt of--in our subconscience, he called it.”

“Subconsciousness, yes,” Tarleton put in with the least touch of
impatience.

“I dare say that was it. He said we might have murderous propensities
without knowing it. Think of that! I might be secretly longing to kill
my dear brother, and if the propensity wasn’t found out and removed in
time, I might end by doing it. I was horrified.”

I confess I was horrified, too, as I grasped the methods by which
Weathered had drawn this harmless little creature into his toils.

“I couldn’t sleep for thinking of all the dreadful things that my
subconscience might be planning and plotting behind my back. I felt
I must know the worst, so as to be on my guard against it. I went to
consult Dr. Weathered at his house, and it was a dreadful experience.
He found out that I had a murderous propensity. And he told me that the
only way for me to rid myself of it was to write letters to him telling
him every evil thought that came into my mind.”

My chief and I looked at each other. There was no need of words to
express the idea we had in common. There could be little doubt as
to Weathered’s line of action. He had found himself dealing with a
credulous weak-minded simpleton, and he had proceeded to use the
power of suggestion. He had simply put into the poor woman’s mind
the thoughts he pretended to be driving out. The only question that
remained was whether he had gone so far as to instigate her to the
commission of a crime.

“I wrote him letter after letter,” Mrs. Baker continued. “Every time
I felt angry with one of the maids I had to let him know. Sometimes
he answered the letters, and sometimes he didn’t. When he did write
he generally asked me questions about how I was tempted to commit the
murder. That was how he found out about the poison.”

Even I had seen this coming. Tarleton no doubt had seen it some time
before, and worked up to it deliberately; but he let no sign of
satisfaction appear.

“Did he ever ask you to let him have it?” he asked. The answer
surprised me.

“No, never. He told me to be very careful never to part with it.”

“Ah, I understand. He told you to take the greatest care of it, and you
told him exactly where you kept it?”

“Yes, yes.” The explorer’s sister gazed at him in admiration. “How did
you guess that?”

“I think it is quite plain, ma’am. He didn’t want you or anyone else
to be in a position to say that he had obtained the poison from you.
With the information you gave him he could walk into the house at any
time, and take it--secretly.”

This was a development I hadn’t foreseen. Was the mystery going to
resolve itself into a case of suicide, after all? After failing to put
an end to himself by means of opium, had Weathered finally resorted
to a more certain drug? But then, in that case, why shouldn’t he have
demanded it openly from his deceived patient? Truly the riddle was
becoming more insoluble as we advanced.

Mrs. Baker was rather indignant at the suggestion that her precautions
for the security of the dangerous bottle had not been sufficient; but
the consultant brushed aside her objections almost irritably.

“Nonsense, my dear woman, that lock of yours could be picked by a
clever child of twelve. All that the thief had to do was to come to
the house when he knew you were out, give a false name to the servant,
and ask to be allowed to wait. As soon as he found himself alone in
this room he could help himself to what he wanted, and then remember an
engagement, and come away. Very likely the maid who would let him in
wouldn’t even trouble to tell you a visitor had called.”

The mistress of the house was reluctantly obliged to admit this
possibility. Tarleton folded his arms, a sign that the interview was
over as far as his interest in it was concerned, but he was good
enough to give me a chance of satisfying my curiosity.

“What do you say, Cassilis? Do you think we ought to ask Mrs. Baker to
tell us anything more?”

I thought our hostess looked as little willing as I was to leave her
story unfinished.

“Oh, but you must hear the end,” she protested. “And you mustn’t go
away without so much as a cup of tea.” She hopped lightly to the
electric bell. “I want you to know that I’m not a patient of Dr.
Weathered any longer; and I think I ought to tell you why--when the
maid is gone.”

The saving clause was prompted by a rough bang at the door, followed by
the entrance of the untidy servant. She had anticipated her mistress’s
orders, and brought in a huge tray laden with food sufficient to
satisfy a large party of hungry people. The variety of sandwiches was
amazing. Mrs. Baker’s popularity with the local tradesmen and the
success of her At Homes seemed to be fully explained.

“You will hardly believe it,” she resumed as soon as we had settled
down to a serious attack on this provender, “but Dr. Willoughby ended
by actually tempting me to commit a crime.”

It was easier for us to believe than she supposed, but I did my best to
look incredulous.

“Yes, Dr. Carstairs, he told me that the only way to get rid of my
murderous propensities was to give way to them. He advised me to kill
Samuel.”

This really was beyond my power to believe. “Samuel?” I repeated.

“Yes, my beautiful black cat, the one that slept at the foot of my bed
every night.”

Tarleton raised his head quickly.

“Did he suggest that you should give him the poison from Sumatra?” he
put in.

The explorer’s sister nodded.

The object of the advice she had received was plain enough. The
scoundrel wanted to test the effect of the poison; perhaps he felt some
doubt if it was still active. Beyond that his intentions were dark.
Such a man was quite capable of committing a murder by deputy, and he
might have designed to make an instrument of this deluded patient of
his. But, if so, there was nothing to tell us whose life he had been
aiming at. He had felt himself to be surrounded by enemies, according
to Madame Bonnell’s statement. He may have wished to provide himself
with a weapon for use in case of need.

The worthy owner of Samuel told us that she had refused to slay her pet.

“I sent him away for fear I should be tempted to kill him,” she said
with tears in her eyes. “I found him a happy home with a former maid of
mine who is married and living in the country. She writes me about him
once a month, when I send her a postal order. I shall never dare to
have him back again.”

My youthful indignation became too much for me.

“There is not the slightest reason why you shouldn’t have your cat back
to-morrow,” I said bluntly. “You are no more likely to kill it than
I am. The man was telling you a pack of lies from the beginning. Sir
Frank Tarleton will tell you the same. We have been finding out a good
deal about this man during the last few days; and you were not his only
victim.”

Mrs. Baker opened her eyes in a way that showed more offence than
gratitude. I had gone the wrong way to work to disabuse her.

“I am much obliged to you, Dr. Cassidy,” she said stiffly, “but I much
prefer to be on the safe side. We none of us know the secrets of our
own hearts, it seems to me. I consider Dr. Witheredge a cruel man, and
I have done with him; but he was extremely clever; and I am satisfied
that there is something in the science of psycho-analysis.”

Tarleton came to my rescue. “The more there is in it the more dangerous
it may be in the hands of a clever man without scruples. If you’ll
allow me to say so, I think you acted very wisely in deciding to have
nothing more to do with Dr. Weathered.”

The lady accepted this graciously, and smoothed down her ruffled
feathers. I thought I might venture on a fresh question.

“Did you know that he was the real proprietor of the Domino Club?”

“Never! You don’t say so? I understood it was run by a
Frenchwoman--Madame Bonnet.”

“You have been there, I suppose?”

“Only once. I heard so much about it that I thought I must go and see
what it was like. I was there only last Wednesday. But I didn’t stay
more than an hour. Dr. Weathell was there, disguised as an Inquisitor,
and I was so afraid of his recognizing me that I came away.”

There could be no doubt, as far as I could see, that this was the
truth. And if it was the truth the lady of the leopard skin and claws
was now ruled out of the case. Her part in it had been confined to
supplying the poison, or rather in innocently letting it be known where
it could be found. To clinch the matter I said:

“I wasn’t there, but we heard that a lady had been present who left
early. She wore the skin of a leopard, and a necklace of leopard’s
claws.”

“Yes, that was me; I went as a Leopardess,” our amiable hostess
responded with a frankness which put an end to the last doubt. She
added in a tone of quiet triumph, “I can see now that that was where my
murderous propensities came out. Why else should I have gone as a beast
of prey?”

I had to admit that she had scored off me. Anything less like a beast
of prey or a potential murderess than the bright and birdlike little
woman I have never seen.

My chief picked out one point that I had overlooked.

“Did Weathered mention the Club to you, ma’am? Or did you know this
Madame Bonnell?”

Mrs. Baker drew herself up.

“I didn’t _know_ her,” she said with emphasis. “Such a person is not
in my social circle. I knew of her. A friend of mine in Chelsea gave
me her card when I went to buy a ticket for the dance, but she was a
friend of Madame Bunner’s. It was only a form.”

The answer was equally decisive. It seemed clear to me that the only
person who could have known of the existence of the poison, and
abstracted it, was the man who had perished by it. I saw Tarleton’s
watch come out of his pocket, and its slow, steady motion told me that
his brain was already at work on the last winding of the mystery.

When we had done full justice to the refreshments put before us we
came away pledged to attend the first At Home given by our hostess,
which she explained would be as soon as she was out of mourning for
her brother. I think she had won both our hearts in spite of her
eccentricities, and we entertained no serious dread that her murderous
propensities would be indulged at our expense.

Tarleton was very silent till we were back at Montague Street. Even
when we were in his study again he did not seem much disposed to
discuss the new situation with me. For the first time since the
beginning of the investigation I had the impression that I was not
entirely in his confidence.

When I expressed my curiosity as to Weathered’s motive for stealing the
bottle of upasine he lifted his bushy eyebrows and looked at me almost
as if he were annoyed.

“We don’t know that he did steal it,” he growled. “Everyone who read
Armstrong’s book knew of his discovery, and would expect to find some
of the new poison among his belongings. And as for that little woman,
she has probably babbled about it to a dozen persons whom she has
forgotten. Her memory is like a sieve.”

The judgment struck me as harsh. Mrs. Baker certainly had a genius
for forgetting names, but so have many people whose memories are good
enough in other respects. It seemed to me that she had shown a pretty
fair recollection of her dealings with Weathered at all events; and I
said so.

Tarleton hunched himself up in his favourite armchair and growled again.

“You ask me to believe that a doctor who had stolen what he knew to
be a deadly drug, and who was actually taking precautions to prevent
himself being poisoned at the time, was careless enough to let it be
taken from him?--Well, I don’t.”

I had never known him to speak so irritably before. I sat dumb, asking
myself what was in his mind. And all at once the explanation flashed
upon me.

If he didn’t believe that Weathered had taken the fatal bottle he must
have been searching for the probable thief among Weathered’s enemies.
The last question he had put to Mrs. Baker showed that his thoughts had
turned for a moment in the direction of the Frenchwoman, who of all
others had the best opportunity to administer the poison. Who else was
left?

The one enemy of Weathered’s whom we both knew of, the one person who
had not only a reason but, it might be said, a moral right to take his
life in self-defence was Violet Bredwardine. And she had confessed to
having lent the disguise worn on the night of the murder by one who
must have been her friend, and probable champion. A dozen trifling
incidents rushed back into my mind; the specialist’s anxiety lest his
own bottle should have been tampered with; the way he had contrived--it
looked like contrivance to me now--to give me a chance of meeting
Violet alone. There could be only one meaning in it all.

My chief suspected me, had suspected me from the very first, of being
the murderer. The red light was in my eyes at last.




CHAPTER XVII

A SINGULAR DISMISSAL


Perhaps it may be wondered why I didn’t at once make a frank statement
of my part in the mystery to my kind-hearted chief and throw myself on
his mercy.

I was withheld by more than one reason. In the first place I couldn’t
feel sure that I should be believed. I had no means of proving my
innocence. The circumstantial evidence against me was as strong as
it could be. I had the strongest motive to kill the monster who was
trying to put my secret to the basest use; I had been on the spot, and
been there in disguise; and I had given him a drug which was only less
dangerous than the one that had caused his death. Who would believe
that I had stopped short there? And Sir Frank Tarleton had shown by
this time that he did not believe me. To him, as to everyone else, it
must appear evident that the man who was prepared to commit a crime in
defence of a woman would be prepared to tell a lie as well.

Then, again, the relations between my chief and me were not merely
private ones. Both of us were Government officials, and I owed my own
post to his recommendation. His official conscience might well be
different from his private one. He might be willing to make excuses for
me personally, and yet feel it his duty to report to the Department we
both served that I was no longer worthy of its confidence.

And, lastly, there was the consideration that had controlled my action
all along. My secret was Violet’s secret. To no living being had I
a right to tell it without her consent. That consent I need not say
no peril to myself would have tempted me to ask. The only question I
now put to myself was whether I ought not to put her on her guard by
letting her know what I had come to fear.

I slept, or tried to sleep, that night without coming to my decision.
In the morning Sir Frank extracted from the pile of letters beside his
plate on the breakfast-table one with an earl’s coronet on the flap of
the envelope.

He did not show me the contents, but said carelessly, “I shall be out
to lunch. Lord Ledbury is anxious to see me in John Street.”

The news decided me. Before Violet was exposed to any further
questioning from my shrewd chief she must be warned how things stood.
I couldn’t complain of not being included in the invitation. In Lord
Ledbury’s eyes naturally I was a mere subordinate, only acting under
Tarleton’s orders.

There was another letter that interested the consultant more than the
Earl’s. It came from New Scotland Yard.

“Sarah Neobard and her mother have gone abroad,” he remarked with
something like satisfaction. “Charles has sent a man after them. They
seem to have gone to Paris. You must have frightened that young woman
rather badly.”

I forced my wandering mind back to the subject of the letters. Had they
come into Sarah’s hands, and, if so, had she taken them with her? After
all, this was a more pressing matter than any danger of mine.

“Will it be possible for them to hide in Paris?” I asked anxiously.

The specialist shook his head.

“Charles knows his business--up to a certain point. Depend on it a
smart officer will have been there to meet them at the Gare du Nord, if
the French police were notified in time. I don’t think there is much
chance of two Englishwomen slipping between the fingers of the Paris
detective force.”

“Then what will be the next step?” I inquired vaguely.

“I shall leave for Paris by to-night’s mail.”

The announcement was made curtly. The day before it was I who had
been charged with this part of the case. I was to have interviewed
Mrs. Weathered and appealed to her womanly feelings on behalf of her
husband’s victims. Now it seemed that my chief had changed his mind,
and intended to see her himself. I dared not even ask if I was to go
with him. A shadow had fallen between us which it was not for me to
pierce.

I held my tongue, and went on quietly with my breakfast. The
consultant went through his mail, passing on to me such letters as I
was accustomed to deal with on his behalf--requests for appointments
and consultations with other doctors, and so forth. There was no sign
that he had withdrawn his confidence in me except when the mystery of
the Domino Club was concerned.

The meal was just over when a loud summons at the front door was
followed by the entrance of Tarleton’s man showing in Inspector Charles.

The Inspector was in a state of excitement. In his hand he carried a
newspaper which he waved at us both.

“Have you seen this morning’s paper?” he called out before the door was
closed. “The advertisement in the Agony Column?”

Tarleton glanced at me before answering, and I remembered his
prediction to Lord Ledbury as he spoke.

“What, have they got to work already? What does it say?”

Captain Charles read out from the paper in a round, commanding voice:

“Dr. Weathered, deceased. Any patients of the late Dr. Weathered
desiring to have their letters to him returned are requested to apply,
mentioning number, to Messrs. James, Halliday and James, Solicitors,
Carmichael House, Chancery Lane, E.C.4.” He did not spare us even the 4.

Sir Frank nodded approvingly. “Very well worded, very well worded,
indeed. It sounds like a perfectly respectable offer.”

It sounded so to me. But the Inspector was puzzled.

“What does it mean?” he exclaimed. “Why should they advertise? Why not
return the letters at once, or write to the patients? And why should
they want to know the exact numbers?”

“Ah, that is part of the case that I haven’t had an opportunity of
going into with you yet, Charles. Won’t you sit down. The fact is, I
have been rather expecting some approach of this kind. Dr. Cassilis and
I have ascertained that Weathered induced some of his patients to write
him letters of a rather compromising kind. The arrangement was that the
letters should be signed with a number instead of a name, probably they
bore no address. The object of this advertisement is to find out who
the writers are. The demand for money will come later.”

“Blackmail!” the Inspector gasped in horror.

“I’m afraid so. An honest person who had found such a correspondence
would have burnt it. You see now one of my reasons for not dropping the
case to oblige that Crown Prince of Slavonia.”

One of the reasons only. I had little doubt as to another. Captain
Charles looked extremely subdued.

“I had no idea of anything like this in the background, I needn’t
say, Sir Frank. I will look up these solicitors at once. Chancery
Lane--there are better addresses than that, and there are worse.
Unless you have anything else to advise.”

“I should advise you to find out what you can about the solicitors,
certainly. But I doubt if they are in possession of the letters. I
shouldn’t be surprised if the letters were in Paris by this time.”

Captain Charles struck his forehead.

“Of course! The widow has carried them abroad to be out of reach in
case of trouble. It was fortunate that we heard of their flight so
soon. We know where they are already. They have some smart men in the
Rue Jerusalem.”

“I shall be glad if you will write me a line of introduction to the
French police,” Tarleton responded. “By the way, have you secured me
that finger-print yet?”

“I have it here, Sir Frank.” The Inspector took out a substantial
pocket-book and extracted a mounted photograph, which my chief slipped
into his own pocket without giving it a glance. Charles looked as if he
were as much in the dark as I was as to the meaning of this proceeding.

“It may come in useful,” was all the consultant said. “But you were
going to tell us where Mrs. Weathered and her daughter were hiding.”

“They don’t seem to be hiding, that’s the curious part of it. Perhaps
they don’t understand the law about extradition. They’ve put up at
a respectable hotel on Cook’s list, a hotel swarming with English
tourists, the Hotel St. Catherine in the Rue Tivoli.”

Tarleton knitted his brows at this intelligence. “We don’t know yet the
reason for their flight, if it is a flight,” he observed thoughtfully.
“We have nothing against either of them so far, remember.”

He drew out his mascot and played with it gently for a minute while
Charles and I watched him in keen suspense. Suddenly he looked up and
spoke to the Inspector in a brisk voice.

“We mustn’t lose time. Some unfortunate victim may be answering that
advertisement already. Luckily, I have come across one of Weathered’s
correspondents whose letters to him were quite innocent,--that Mrs.
Baker your man reported on for me. I want you to see her at once,
using my name if necessary, and get her authority to deal with these
solicitors on her behalf. Ask for the letters first, and if they make
some excuse for not parting with them, ask who is instructing them. If
they refuse to give you their client’s name we shall know the worst.”

It seemed to me that we knew the worst already, if my chief was right.
As he had said, an honest woman, finding such letters after her
husband’s death, would have put them in the fire. It was more than ever
imperative that I should see Violet at once. She might have read the
advertisement by now, and taken it in good faith.

Directly after Captain Charles had left us I made some excuse for going
out on business, and hailed the first taxi I saw. It was still early
when I got to John Street, Mayfair, where the Earl of Ledbury’s modest
town house stood. The door was opened by the same man whom I had made a
friend of down at Tyberton, and I was careful to confirm the friendship
in the surest way. He was much more smartly dressed on this occasion,
and everything about the house indicated that Lord Ledbury had taken
Tarleton’s advice to heart, and was preparing to give his daughter her
proper position in the fashionable world.

Violet, too, was changed. Her dress was still a little lacking in those
touches which only the most expensive houses can impart, but she bore
herself quite differently. Her father’s new-born care for her had given
her confidence, and done something to banish the look of hopelessness
and resignation I had last seen on her face. I hate to confess it, but
glad as I was on her account I felt a little sorry on my own. The old
gulf between us I was beginning to hope had shrunk, but now a new one
seemed to have opened. Who was I, what was plain Bertrand Cassilis,
M.D., that he should venture to go on loving the bright star set high
above him in the social firmament?

“I think I know why you have come,” was her greeting. She did not offer
me her white hand. “They are offering to return those letters. I can’t
tell you how thankful I shall be.”

It was what I had feared. I would have given anything to leave her in
ignorance, but the risk was too great.

“Have you answered the advertisement yet?” I asked.

“Not yet. I was tempted to go there at once, but I thought I had better
consult you first. Why, is there anything wrong?”

She must have seen there was by this time from my air. Yet at that very
moment the knowledge that she had thought of me, that she had put her
trust in me and no one else, made my courage rise; and I answered her
with a boldness that surprised myself.

“Thank Heaven for that! I came here the first moment I could to warn
you to take no notice of that advertisement. It shows that they don’t
know whom the letters are from, or they would have written to you
direct. Trust me; the matter is in good hands; those letters shall
either be returned to you or destroyed unread, I swear it.”

“Thank you, Bertrand. I do trust you. I know it isn’t your fault if
they haven’t been destroyed already.”

The words rolled a great burden from my heart. I was on the point of
murmuring that I hadn’t deserved her trust, but some instinct bade me
refrain from the least reference to the past. I believed that the sad
old wound was beginning to heal, and that the best chance for both of
us was to bury the past in silence, and never to conjure up its ghost
by one single word.

Already Violet was forgetting her own trouble to think of mine. She
went on before I had found anything to say.

“But what about yourself? Has anything more been discovered about the
murder?”

It was necessary for me to tell her what I feared. “We have found what
caused Weathered’s death,” I answered. “It was a poison that only Sir
Frank Tarleton knew of. He recognized the symptoms from the first, and
now he has found out where it was obtained from.” And I briefly related
the story of the stolen bottle.

Violet looked relieved when she had heard it.

“Then he must have stolen the bottle himself. Did he commit suicide, do
you think?”

“I’m afraid that’s not what Sir Frank thinks. Unless I am mistaken he
suspects me of having taken the bottle from Mrs. Baker. His manner
towards me has quite changed. He is going to Paris to-night on the
track of the letters, but he isn’t taking me with him.”

I had alarmed her more than I meant. She uttered a cry of despair.

“Bertrand! It isn’t true! Will he have you arrested? Shall you be----”
She began to sob.

“No, no; it isn’t as bad as that. There’s not going to be any arrest if
the police can help it. Any way, I don’t believe Sir Frank would let
them arrest me. But I shall have to resign my post, I expect, and I
may have to leave the country.”

She looked at me through her tears. “That will be almost as bad, won’t
it?”

It was all I could do to keep from answering, “Not if you come with
me.” But I could not take advantage of her like that.

“I shall always have my profession,” I said. “Sir Frank has confidence
in me as a doctor, I know. But I didn’t mean to distress you like this.
I shouldn’t have said anything to you about it, but Sir Frank is coming
here to lunch to-day, and I was afraid he might find out something from
you.”

“Surely you didn’t think that,” she protested. “You don’t think I
should betray you. If you had killed that villain it would have been
for my sake. And he deserved to be killed.”

My heart glowed within me. I spoke out.

“And I would have killed him if I had seen no other way. No, I
didn’t think for a moment that you would give me away knowingly; but
Tarleton is a past master in the art of sounding people and extracting
information from them unawares. I only wanted to put you on your guard,
lest you should think that you could trust him as a friend of mine.”

“I certainly thought he was. He looked so kind and good,” Violet said
thoughtfully.

Perhaps I was a little irritated. “He impresses all women in that way,”
I said with a touch of jealousy. “I could see that he admired you.”

Violet’s eyes brightened. “I must try to make a friend of him. If I let
him see that--that I should be sorry if any harm came to anyone through
me, perhaps that may influence him.”

I ought to have been very grateful, but I’m afraid my response was
lacking in warmth.

“Don’t tell him I have been here,” I said as I rose to go. And she
smiled at me rather pathetically as she promised.

I had a rather dismal lunch by myself, wondering what was passing at
Lord Ledbury’s. When I saw Tarleton again I was staggered by his gay
appearance. He had blossomed out in a new coat and a white waistcoat
and a fancy tie. Most wonderful of all, the shabby black ribbon by
which he was so fond of swinging his watch had been replaced by a
brilliant gold chain that I had never seen before. It was evident that
he had decked himself to make an impression in John Street.

He had not long been back when we had another call from Captain
Charles. He came in looking grave, and greeted my chief with increased
respect.

“I have been to Chancery Lane, as you advised, Sir Frank, and seen the
principal. There is only one. The names in the advertisement are bogus
ones, unless he bought the good-will of some old firm going out of
business. The man’s real name is Stillman. I saw it on his notepaper.
And he strikes me as hot stuff.”

“What did he say?”

“It was just what you expected. Made an excuse for not giving me Mrs.
Baker’s letters. Said he was only authorized to hand them over to the
writer in person. And when I asked who was instructing him, said he
wasn’t authorized to give his client’s name.”

Tarleton shrugged his shoulders.

“Clever, very clever,” he repeated. “There’s nothing for you to take
hold of, so far. If you go back again with Mrs. Baker you will put him
in a corner, and very likely her letters will be given up, as they
contain nothing serious. It’s a nasty business.”

“What had we better do?”

“Do nothing till you hear from me again. I am off to Paris to-night,
and when I come back I shall know where the letters are, if I don’t
bring them back with me.”

The Inspector bowed himself out quite meekly. My curiosity prompted me
to venture on a rash question.

“Do you think it possible that Miss Neobard has the letters?”

My chief swung himself slowly round in his chair and gave me a steady
look, under which I quailed inwardly.

“I don’t think I ought to tell you, Cassilis. It seems to me that you
are an interested party.”

So my fear had been well grounded. I listened breathlessly for more.

“From the beginning of this investigation you have shown a bias that
is fatal in one who is playing the part of a detective, or aspiring
to play it. A man in your position should be absolutely impartial. He
should not let himself be swayed for a moment by personal prejudices
or personal preferences. Now you have all along showed a disposition
to screen Lady Violet Bredwardine. You have made excuses for her to
me, and you have defended her to others. At the same time you have
shown an inclination to think the worst of Sarah Neobard. And your
animus against her came out most strongly when she showed herself Lady
Violet’s enemy.”

What could I say? I was only too thankful that he had spared me any
reference to the omission of Violet’s name from the list I had copied
for Inspector Charles. That was a clear breach of duty, as I had to
admit to myself.

Sir Frank’s voice was perfectly bland as he continued:

“Lady Violet is worthy of any man’s admiration, and I am quite as
determined as you are to protect her from any dastardly use of her
correspondence. I should not have blamed you severely for anything you
might have done for her protection if you had been acting in a private
capacity. But you are here in a responsible position. You owe it to the
Home Office and to me to conduct the inquiry into this murder without
fear or favour, whatever may be the consequences, and whoever may be
guilty. You must ask yourself if you have done so.”

I am afraid I asked myself instead how much he really knew. So far he
had made no definite accusation. He had charged me with nothing but a
display of personal sympathy and antipathy, a charge which it would
have been foolish to deny.

“It is a question of temperament, it seems to me,” pursued the
consultant in the same even tones. “Sympathy is a valuable quality in
a doctor, but it is fatal in a criminal investigator. I think I made a
mistake in inviting you to enter the Government service. You would get
on better in private practice.”

The blow had fallen and I had only to make the best of it. “Of course,
I am in your hands, sir. If that is your opinion I will send in my
resignation.”

Australia, Canada, South Africa passed before my mind’s eye as I spoke,
as possible refuges for a penniless medico. I could not hope for
anything in England after being practically dismissed from the Home
Office.

My prompt offer, however, seemed to have greatly softened my judge.

“We will talk of that after I have come back from Paris,” he said
kindly. “For your own sake I don’t advise any sudden step. And there
is Lady Violet to consider. As I said before, you have acted as her
champion. Anything like a public slur on you, or an admission on your
part that you were to blame, would be certain to give her pain, even if
it didn’t reflect on her. She spoke of you to me this morning in a very
friendly way.”

Poor Violet. So she had done the very worst thing she could have done
in my interest. To praise a young man to an elderly admirer--what other
result could it have but to ensure his being driven from the field?

I was too much cast down to make any response to Sir Frank’s well-meant
advice, beyond a silent bow. He was as friendly as ever the next
minute, invited me to come to Charing Cross to see him off, and shook
my hand cordially at parting. I preferred to walk home afterwards,
dreading the dull hours till bedtime. So miserable was I that, when I
came in, I should have gone straight upstairs without looking to see
if there were any letters for me if I had not been arrested by a faint
fragrance that had many memories for me.

I looked down, and there was a delicate blue envelope beckoning me by
name.

  DEAR BERTRAND,

  I write at once to tell you that you have nothing to fear from dear
  Sir Frank. He spoke of you most highly to my father, said you had a
  distinguished career before you, and that he would not take £3,000 a
  year for your practice in a few years’ time.
                                                             Yours,
                                                                 VIOLET.





CHAPTER XVIII

MOTHER AND DAUGHTER


Sir Frank Tarleton had not given me all his reasons for not taking me
with him to Paris. One of them, as he told me afterwards, was that I
had made an enemy of Sarah Neobard, or, to put it the other way, I had
made her regard me as an enemy. My chief believed that my presence
would prevent him from obtaining any information from her or her
mother. They would think he had come on a hostile errand, and they
would obstinately hold their tongues, for fear lest anything they said
might be used by me against her.

Tarleton’s intention was to appear in the character of a friend of
Sarah’s, who did not share my suspicions and only wanted to be able to
clear her from them. He was quite frank with me about the way in which
he had spoken of me in my absence, and about everything else in which I
was interested.

He put up at his favourite hotel, the Saint Lazare, on his arrival, one
that suited him because it was near the centre of everything without
being overrun by English and Americans. He liked to be among French
people when he was in France. After the “little breakfast,” that first
delicious taste of French coffee and French bread which atones for the
stuffiness of the French railway carriage, he made his way round to
the Rue Jerusalem, where he was received with high distinction by the
head of the French police to whom his name and official standing were
well known.

The Chief presented to him Brigadier Samson, the detective who had the
two fugitives under supervision, and he undertook, at the doctor’s
request, that a formidable-looking gendarme in the showy uniform of the
French police should be stationed opposite the Hotel Saint Catherine,
in full sight from the windows, till further notice.

Another small piece of business was transacted. Tarleton laid before
the Chief the photograph he had obtained from Inspector Charles,
and invited him to find out if it corresponded with anything in his
register of finger-prints.

The hour now being reached at which the ladies might be expected to
show themselves, the visitor next went on to their hotel in the Rue
Tivoli. In the hall he found the English detective who had followed
them from London, and who had taken a room on the same floor, in the
unsuspicious character of a tourist who found himself in Paris for the
first time and was unwilling to venture far from his hotel.

“The birds are in their cage, Sir Frank,” he reported as soon as he
recognized the specialist. “I’ve been hanging about here since the
early morning and I’ve arranged with the management that they shan’t be
allowed to go out by any other way.”

Tarleton, in reply, explained why he had asked for a gendarme to be
posted across the way. “I don’t want them to know that you’re a police
officer, of course; but I may want them to know that they are being
watched by the police.”

He had hardly finished speaking when the representative of French law
appeared on the scene, a truly imposing figure with a huge moustache,
who began pacing the pavement opposite like a man who was not to be
trifled with.

The consultant asked if Mrs. Weathered had taken a private sitting-room
and finding that she had, sent up his card, on which he had scribbled
the words “_Official Confidential_.” When he was handing it into the
office, however, the detective followed him to make a correction.

“She’s not staying here under her own name. She has taken the name of
Neobard.”

He had to wait some minutes for a response. When at length he was taken
upstairs and shown into the room he found, as he had expected, Miss
Neobard alone.

“My mother asks you to excuse her, Sir Frank. She is not yet well
enough to see anyone on business. May I ask the meaning of those words
on your card?”

Sarah spoke with the utmost coolness. If she was frightened she had
evidently resolved to hide her fright under a mask of defiance.
Tarleton’s manner was one of entire friendliness.

“They mean that although I have come to see Mrs. Weathered as a
Government official, on official business, our interview will be
strictly confidential. I shall not make use of any information she may
give me, without her consent.”

The daughter looked at him doubtfully.

“Does that apply to me as well?”

Sir Frank purposely hesitated before answering.

“There is no reason why I shouldn’t have a confidential talk with you
as well, if you desire it. But at present I have only asked to see Mrs.
Weathered.”

The name seemed to irritate the girl.

“My mother has dropped the name of Weathered,” she said sharply. “In
future she desires to be known as Mrs. Neobard.”

Tarleton was struck by her tone. It conveyed to him that the change of
name had not been made with a view to concealment, but was due to some
deeper cause.

Up to now Miss Neobard had made no reference to the whereabouts of
the travellers having been so soon discovered. She now threw out the
question scornfully.

“I suppose the police are on our track, as we came here without giving
anyone our address. Is that confidential?”

“Certainly not.” The doctor was getting a little irritated by this
time. “Your leaving London while the mystery of Dr. Weathered’s death
was still unsolved was enough to provoke the suspicion of the police.
They were bound to keep you in sight.”

Sarah couldn’t very well contradict this. She lifted her head more
defiantly than ever.

“My mother can’t see you,” she repeated. “Anything you want to say to
her can be said to me.”

Sir Frank admired her courage. He tried to soften her.

“My dear Miss Neobard, I wish you would let me speak to you as a
friend. You can’t think I have come here as an enemy. If I had I should
have brought Dr. Cassilis with me. Or rather I should have sent him
instead of coming myself.”

This shot told as he had expected. It was evident that Sarah cherished
a strong resentment against me. It was a new light to her that my chief
might take a different view of the case. For the first time she looked
at him as if she thought it possible that he might be sincere.

“Dr. Cassilis has practically accused me of murder,” she said.

“Dr. Cassilis is a young man without much experience. He has let
himself become interested in the young lady you seemed to suspect. He
spoke in her defence; I don’t believe that he really thinks you had
anything to do with Dr. Weathered’s death. He went too far, of course,
and I have told him so. In fact, I have now taken him off the case.”

The defiance began to die out of Miss Neobard’s eyes. They were fine
eyes and she knew how to use them with effect.

“Does that mean that I am not under suspicion any longer?” she inquired
in a more gracious voice.

“You never have been under suspicion as far as I am concerned,” the
doctor answered a little evasively. “I feel sure you are a truthful
woman, and whatever you choose to tell me in confidence I shall
believe.”

Sarah was fairly conquered. Her voice broke down as she replied.

“I am a wicked girl, Sir Frank. I did have thoughts at one time that he
ought to die. But I never went farther than that. I swear to you on my
oath that I have no more idea how he was murdered, or who murdered him,
than you have--I mean, I have no idea at all.”

The consultant thanked her with a grave bow. “The evidence I have
obtained so far points to suicide,” he said quietly. “But I only tell
you that in confidence, to relieve your mind. Dr. Weathered carried
poison about with him.”

The step-daughter looked even more relieved than Tarleton had expected,
but a good deal surprised as well.

“I knew that he took opium sometimes,” she whispered back, “but I never
guessed that he meant to take his own life. I was afraid....” She
stopped short and shuddered.

The specialist took no notice of the suppressed hint.

“You will see now, I hope, that I haven’t come here to try and get
your mother to tell me anything about you. As a matter of fact, my
business with her has nothing to do with the murder, or whatever it
was, except indirectly. I have come in the interest of some of Dr.
Weathered’s patients and I think Mrs. Neobard may be able to help me to
obtain certain information on their behalf. I am sure you won’t wish
any evil he has done to go on after his death.”

This way of putting it appealed to what was best in Sarah Neobard.
She looked puzzled but not disposed to resist. She made another
half-hearted attempt to extract from the visitor what it was that he
had to ask her mother, but when she found him firm in insisting that he
must see Mrs. Neobard herself, she gave way, and went to fetch her.

A quarter of an hour, half an hour, passed. There must have been a
severe struggle going on in the next room, although no sounds reached
the consultant through the wall. He had laid his hand on the bell to
summon a waiter and send a peremptory message when the door at last
opened and the widow came in.

Tarleton felt convinced from the first moment that she had guessed his
business with her. Her eyes were red and her naturally pale cheeks
showed a feverish flush. She was hardly able to walk and her daughter
supported her tenderly till she was in a chair. Sarah herself was
clearly ignorant of the cause of her mother’s emotion. She glanced
wonderingly from her to Sir Frank and back again, and seemed to
be holding herself in readiness to defend her parent or to back up
Tarleton’s demand, according to her judgment of what was the right
course.

The examiner came to the point quickly.

“Miss Neobard has explained to you that this is a confidential
interview, I hope. Whatever you say to me will be a secret between
ourselves, unless you authorize me to make use of it. It is for you to
decide whether your daughter is to remain in the room, of course.”

The mother stretched out a hand and took hold of one of her
protector’s, who answered for her. “I have promised my mother to
remain.”

“Very good. I had better begin by reading you this advertisement. It
appeared in the paper yesterday.”

He read out the invitation from Messrs. James, Halliday and James to
the patients of the late Dr. Weathered to apply for the return of their
correspondence and continued:

“The solicitor who put in this advertisement refused to give the name
of the client who is instructing him. Will you tell me if it is you?”

Mrs. Neobard shook her head faintly without speaking.

“Can you tell me if your late husband left a will, and who is his
executor?”

“I can answer that question,” Sarah put in. “My mother is sole executor
and he has left everything to her. She wanted to renounce execution;
but the lawyer told her that it would be no use, as the law would make
her administrator. She is not going to take a farthing of his money, if
there is any.”

“Quite so; then Mrs. Neobard is the only person who is lawfully
entitled to deal with any papers Dr. Weathered left behind him. Can you
explain to me how these letters came to be in the possession of this
solicitor, or the person for whom he is acting?”

The flush had faded from the widow’s cheeks, leaving her very pale.

“I can’t explain,” she said in a whisper.

“Does it matter?” her daughter asked. “As long as these people get
their letters back again, what does it matter who they got them from?”

“They won’t get them; that is what matters,” the physician said
gravely. “There is a criminal behind this advertisement. I must explain
to you and to Mrs. Neobard, if she doesn’t know already, what these
letters were about.”

Very deliberately and keeping his eyes fixed on the agitated woman
all the time, Tarleton outlined the story of his discoveries. He was
careful not to mention names. He explained why the doctor’s case-book
had been taken from the safe, and why that precaution had proved
useless. The dead man’s real hold over his victims had been through the
letters he had persuaded them to write to him; those letters had been
signed with a cipher, and the object of the advertisement was to make
the writers disclose their identity so that they might be blackmailed
by the holder of their secret confessions.

The widow’s distress became pitiable as the explanation proceeded.
There could be no doubt that she was no party to the plot and hardly a
doubt that its revelation had come to her as a complete shock. As for
Sarah Neobard, her fine eyes fairly blazed with indignation.

“I never knew that such things were possible,” she exclaimed. “I don’t
believe--I can’t believe--that my step-father ever meant to use the
letters in such a way.”

At this point the consultant saw Mrs. Neobard open her eyes and look
at him wistfully, as if to ask him to take no notice of her daughter’s
tenderness for the scoundrel who had passed to his account.

“Surely you can’t think,” the girl pursued, “that my mother knew
anything about this? Mother!”--she turned to the shrinking woman--“do
you hear? You must do everything you can to help Sir Frank Tarleton to
stop this iniquity.”

Now Sir Frank knew perfectly well that it could be stopped pretty
easily by the simple step of Mrs. Neobard’s solicitors taking
proceedings in her name for the recovery of the letters. The legal
property in them, of course was vested in the writers, but until they
claimed them the executrix was entitled to their possession; and if the
Chancery Lane sharper refused to give them up or to disclose their
whereabouts he was pretty sure to be struck off the Rolls and stood
a good chance of being indicted for conspiracy. All this the adviser
of the Home Office had known from the first, but he took care to keep
the knowledge up his sleeve. For him the question of the letters was
a secondary one and he was only using it as a means of opening the
widow’s lips.

Miss Neobard suddenly stopped pleading with her mother to say to the
specialist, “I think I can guess who has those letters--Madame Bonnell!”

This was another thing about which Tarleton had entertained no doubt
since seeing the advertisement. But he received the suggestion with
every sign of disbelief.

“Madame Bonnell is the last person to whom I should think Dr. Weathered
would have trusted them,” he answered.

“She may have stolen them,” the girl persisted. “Perhaps he kept them
at the Club and she has found them since his death.”

“He kept nothing whatever at the Club except the disguise he wore at
the Club dances. I have had the premises searched carefully by the
police, and they have questioned the staff. The letters are not there
now, and there is no receptacle in which they could have been stored.”

Mrs. Neobard had been listening anxiously to this discussion. Now she
spoke.

“Who else do you think can have them?”

“That is what I want you to tell me. And I think you can.”

The widow shivered again. Her daughter looked at her with a dawning
comprehension that something was wrong.

“Mother, you must tell if you know.”

“Your husband kept these letters in a concealed cupboard of his
dressing-room,” Tarleton told her. “Your house has been searched for
a secret hiding-place and the cupboard has been found.” It was a bold
shot, but the widow’s face showed that it had hit the mark. “That
cupboard is empty now. The law presumes that you opened it, as you were
entitled and bound to do, after his death, and that you took possession
of its contents as executrix. I am here to ask you in the name of the
law what you have done with them.”

He watched Dr. Weathered’s relict very closely while he was speaking.
She seemed to be wrenched by conflicting fears. At one moment her lips
parted as if to speak, at the next they closed again more tightly than
before.

“Tell him, mother!” pleaded the girl.

The mother turned to her despairingly.

“I can’t! I daren’t! Don’t ask me to,” she cried hopelessly.

The representative of the law looked at his watch.

“If that is your last answer you must be prepared to take the
consequences, Mrs. Weathered.” He pointed dramatically to a window of
the room. “Look out of that window, Miss Neobard, and tell your mother
what you see.”

Sarah rushed to the window and gave a sharp cry. “Mother, there is
a gendarme watching the hotel!” She looked reproachfully at the
physician. “And you told me you came here as a friend!”

“I am trying to act as one. Your mother has only to tell me the truth
and I will open the window and send that man away.”

“Do you hear, mother? You won’t let me be arrested?”

Mrs. Weathered--Tarleton had meant to remind her that she was passing
under a name not legally hers--had merely shivered again when she heard
who was outside. Now she sprang out of her chair, a different woman.

“You! Arrest you! What do you mean, Sarah? What have you to do with it?
The police have come for me.”

Sarah was not less amazed and horrified than her mother.

“Nonsense; they can’t touch you,” she exclaimed. “You weren’t at the
dance that night!”

“And you were? My girl, my poor girl, what have you been doing?”

“Sir Frank Tarleton knows. I have told him everything. I think he means
to be friendly, but he can’t save me unless you speak out. She can
speak safely, can’t she?” the daughter asked imploringly. “My mother
isn’t in any danger?”

It was a question difficult to answer either way. Tarleton felt the
eyes of both women searching his face, each with the same anxiety,
though each on the other’s behalf.

“It is only right that I should let you know that Mrs. Weathered may be
in danger. The letters which ought to be in her possession may contain
the clue to your step-father’s murder.”

And now the scene became painful indeed to witness, as the mother and
daughter stood facing each other with the questions in their eyes that
they were too terrified to put. Both of them at some time had loved
the murdered man; both of them, perhaps, had come to hate him. And now
each had been shaken by a sudden revelation of the other’s hidden side.
The mother had just caught an appalling glimpse into her daughter’s
unknown relations with her step-father; the daughter had been staggered
by the suggestion that her mother might have been his mortal enemy. And
all the time, beneath these mutual dreads and suspicions it might be,
these unconscious jealousies, there prevailed, stronger than any other
feeling, that blind, unselfish love between mother and child which made
both of them eager to thrust themselves into danger in the other’s
place.

The parts had been reversed. It was Sarah who was now anxious to close
her mother’s mouth and Mrs. Weathered who showed herself determined to
speak. The skilful manipulator of human nature who had wrought up this
dramatic situation knew that he had only to wait for the _dénouement_
at which he had aimed.

He had not to wait long.

“If you have trusted Sir Frank Tarleton I can do the same,” the elder
woman said at last. “I have more to tell him than he knows. He thinks
that I only found those letters in the cupboard after my husband’s
death. I have been reading every one of them for more than a year.”

If the consultant had not quite expected to hear this he had been
expecting something more than he thought it wise to indicate just
then. He let no sign of his thoughts appear outwardly. The two women,
exhausted by the tempest of emotion they had passed through, sat down
side by side; but they kept their eyes averted from one another,
and only raised them from time to time to watch the effect of Mrs.
Weathered’s narrative on him.

“You mustn’t think that I am an inquisitive woman, Sir Frank. I didn’t
discover my husband’s secrets by prying. I never knew the existence of
the cupboard or the letters till one of the women who had been led into
writing to him came to me.”

This was news to the doctor. He pricked up his ears for the name.

“She was a Miss Sebright--Miss Julia Sebright.”

“Ah! She is dead.” Tarleton thought it sound policy to show that he
was able to check the statements made to him.

“Yes. She died soon afterwards, of a broken heart, I think. She came to
me in despair and appealed to me as Dr. Weathered’s wife to protect her
from him.”

Sir Frank got up, walked to the window, opened it and waved his hand.
The gendarme outside saluted respectfully and marched away.




CHAPTER XIX

THE MEANS TO DO ILL DEEDS


The pale, weak woman had suddenly been transformed in Tarleton’s eyes
into a heroine. He saw in her someone greater than himself. He was the
official, salaried guardian of society, called upon to run no risks
that a brave man ought to fear. But this forlorn woman, without a
friend in whom she could confide, without support from public opinion
or from the law, had taken into her trembling hands the task of
delivering her sister women from a wretch whom neither opinion nor the
law could reach.

Mrs. Neobard--she had surely earned her right to be called that
now--thanked the doctor for his impulsive action with a look. But it
was not a look of triumph. She proceeded with her story in the tone of
a loser rather than a victor.

“Miss Sebright told me that she had felt a longing to become a mother,
which she had no hope of satisfying because she suffered from a
depravity, a club foot. She had been told as a child that no man would
ever want to marry her, except for her money, and the result had been
to make her distrust every man who came near her. It was a sad story
and I’m afraid it is true of other women. Their self-distrust robs them
of the happiness within their reach, if they only knew it.”

The speaker sighed as though contrasting their fate with her own
opposite mistake.

“She told me she had come to my husband to have the longing driven out
of her mind; instead of which he had persuaded her to become the mother
of an illegitimate child, by a man whose name was not told her. The
child was never born, happily--or unhappily; I daren’t say which. But
she had written letters that disclosed what she had done, and now the
doctor was holding them over her. He hadn’t gone so far as to demand
money, but he was compelling her to come or write to him every week and
charging her high fees. She would rather have paid a lump sum to end
it. The persecution was driving her out of her mind. The poor thing
actually offered me a thousand pounds.”

It was a sickening story. Hardened as he was to the ways of criminals,
Tarleton listened to it with nausea.

“I promised to find the letters and return them to her if I could.
I had to go to work secretly. If I had said anything to my husband
it would have put him on his guard, and he would have placed the
letters somewhere out of my reach. I spied on him till I saw him
one day through the keyhole going to a cupboard in the wall of his
dressing-room,--the one you found.”

The consultant forbore to correct her by saying that the discovery had
been made by Inspector Charles.

“Of course, it was locked and I had no key that would open it. So
I went to an ironmonger’s one day when the doctor was away for the
week-end, and asked him to send a confidential man to open it. I
pretended that my husband had lost the key while he was away on a
holiday, and wanted something in the cupboard to be sent to him. I
don’t know if they believed me, but they said nothing, and they made me
a new key.”

In the same quiet way she went on, seeming to see nothing extraordinary
in the patient contrivance by which she had outwitted the schemer
who most probably looked down upon her as a simple piece of domestic
furniture.

In the cupboard she had found a mass of correspondence, by no means
all of it from women, but in almost every case containing painful and
sometimes hideous revelations of depraved and distorted natures. The
horrified woman had been obliged to leave a good deal unread. The
letters from each correspondent were neatly kept on a separate file,
marked with the number under which he or she wrote. These numbers
puzzled her at first, as they puzzled Tarleton himself, but she had
only to ask Miss Sebright for the explanation. Several numbers were
missing from the series. Either the writers must have redeemed their
rash confessions, or else they had gone abroad or died, and the papers
had become valueless.

The real difficulty before Mrs. Neobard had been to keep her promise
to Miss Sebright without the doctor’s knowing that his cupboard had
been opened. Now she saw her way. If the poor victim defied him and he
went to look for her file and found it gone, he would probably think he
had destroyed it himself by mistake.

“He wasn’t always sober when he came in at night,” the unfortunate wife
said in a tone that breathed of her past sufferings. “I felt sure he
couldn’t suspect me or anyone of taking one set of letters and leaving
all the rest. Anyhow, I decided to risk it. I took Miss Sebright’s
letters and sent them to her by registered post. She wrote thanking me
very gratefully, but telling me that she was dying and asking me to go
and see her. I went more than once. It was the sight of her sinking
into her grave under my husband’s cruelty that nerved me to go on.”

“I should have returned all the other letters now, without caring what
happened, if I had known where to send them. But I had no key to whom
the numbers stood for.”

“You would have found that if you had looked in Dr. Weathered’s
appointment-book,” Sir Frank told her.

The widow opened her eyes.

“I never thought of that! I see you know how to find out everything,
Sir Frank. Stop me if I am telling you anything you know already.”

The consultant waved his hand courteously for her to go on. Her story
had held one surprise for him already, and he foresaw that others were
to come.

“I waited. I now went to the cupboard every day when I knew I was
safe from interruption, to read any fresh letters that had arrived,
in the hope of finding something in them that would give me a clue to
the writer’s identity. At last I found one in which the writer had
put her address at the head in the usual way. I suppose she did it in
forgetfulness.”

Tarleton breathed softly while he waited for the name he was pretty
certain of hearing.

“The address was Carlyle Square, Chelsea. I looked it up in the
Directory and found she was a Mrs. Baker. Have you heard of her
before?” Mrs. Neobard gave him an imploring look.

“I knew her brother, the late Captain Armstrong,” the specialist said,
without answering the question directly. “Please tell me everything.”

Mrs. Neobard made an effort and went on.

“I was disappointed, in a sense, to find that her letters weren’t worth
returning to her. There was nothing in them that anyone could make use
of to harm her, as far as I could see. She was simply a very foolish
woman with fads. She had come to my husband out of mere curiosity,
I should think, and he had played on her weakness. He had pretended
that she was secretly longing to commit a murder; and the silly woman
believed him. She seemed rather proud of it than otherwise. I suppose
it gave her a feeling of self-importance to think of herself as a
possible Mrs. Maybrick. In one of her letters she compared herself with
Miladi in the ‘Three Musketeers.’”

It was so exactly in keeping with his own impression of the queer
little woman in Carlyle Square that Tarleton gave a nod of satisfaction.

“Ah! I see you do know her. But I suppose you won’t tell me how much
you know?”

The physician was obliged to shake his head. “You could not trust me
yourself, ma’am, if I did.”

“I suppose you are right,” she admitted regretfully. “Well, I went on
reading this Mrs. Baker’s letters on the chance of finding something
serious in them; and at last there was. He had prompted her to think
out plans for committing a murder, and she was actually sending them to
him.”

A gasp drew Tarleton’s attention to Sarah Neobard, who had sat hitherto
listening in silence. Now she seemed roused to a sense of impending
tragedy, and gazed at her mother with dilated eyes.

The widow directed a swift glance at her, and withdrew it instantly.

“You can understand my terrible position, Sir Frank. My eyes had been
opened to my husband’s character. I don’t say that he had always been
a bad man, but he had become one by now. I had the proof under my
eyes that he was a criminal, and a danger to society. And here he was
discussing plots of murder with a weak, silly woman who seemed to be
under his thumb. Judging from her letters she was quite capable of
committing a murder out of vanity, just to give herself the feeling
that she was an extraordinary person.”

The consultant did not credit this. But he was not there to defend Mrs.
Baker, and he did not want to interrupt.

“I felt that if she did commit a crime she would be doing it as my
husband’s instrument, as much as if he had hypnotized her, and that I
must find some way to prevent it. Then, while I was wondering how to
interfere, a letter came in which she said she had a bottle of poison
in her possession, a poison unknown to the medical profession, that her
brother had brought with him from Sumatra. But I expect you know about
that?”

“I know the poison you speak of, certainly. The brother sold me a
quantity of it. He professed it was all he had brought to England.”

“He deceived you, then. In the next letter she described exactly where
she kept the poison, in a chiffonier in her drawing-room within reach
of the first caller. She boasted that she kept it under lock and key,
but almost anyone could pick a lock like that, as even I could see. Of
course, I knew from that moment that the poison was within my husband’s
reach, and I felt sure he meant to take it. Why else should he have
asked about it so particularly? What did it matter to him where it was
kept, unless he wanted it himself?”

“I quite agree with you,” said the specialist, seeing that he was
expected to reply.

“Now you see where I stood. I knew that my husband was capable of
committing a murder, if he had anything to gain by it, and now I knew
that he was actually scheming to obtain a poison that couldn’t be
detected. I don’t think Mrs. Baker had an idea that her brother had
parted with some to you. She wrote as though her bottle held all there
was. And who was it that he was thinking of murdering? I couldn’t see
anyone but myself.”

“Mother!” The word burst from Sarah’s agonized lips. If she had
retained any lingering softness for the dead man it must have expired
in that cry. Her mother did not turn her head.

“I had to defend myself. I couldn’t prevent him from taking the poison
in any other way that I could think of. I went to Mrs. Baker’s house
and stole the bottle.”

“You were quite right,” the physician agreed again.

“I had no difficulty. I took a bunch of all the keys I could find in
the house, keys of wardrobes and drawers and boxes of different sizes,
and went round to the Square. I walked up and down till I had seen a
woman who looked like the mistress of the house come out, and then I
knocked, and asked to be allowed to wait upstairs. I gave some common
name.” She put her hand to her forehead. “That’s strange! I can’t
remember the name. Well, almost the first key I tried opened the
chiffonier and there stood the bottle just as she had described it I
put it into my pocket and came away.”

Whatever theory Sir Frank had formed as to the case, it had certainly
not included this incident. He had thought it possible that after
Weathered had carried off the bottle his wife had found it and taken
it in turn from him. He had never conjectured that the feeble-looking
woman had been brave and cool enough to checkmate her husband in
advance like this.

“For the moment I felt safe,” Mrs. Neobard went on steadily. “But how
long could I expect to be from such a husband as mine? He was a doctor,
and it was easy for him to obtain other poisons. He would have had to
do that in any case, I think, as it turned out. Mrs. Baker quarrelled
with him soon after, because he had advised her to kill a favourite
cat. She refused to have anything more to do with him, and as her
letters were more damaging to him than to her he had no hold on her. I
soon found that he had destroyed them.”

This was another new light for the consultant. And it prepared him for
what was to come next.

“It seemed to me that my only chance of escape was to leave him. But
what reason could I give to the world for doing so? I had nothing to
complain of as far as his treatment of me was concerned. He was always
perfectly courteous. We were on friendly terms outwardly. I couldn’t
prove that he had been unfaithful to me; I wasn’t even sure in my own
mind that he had been, yet, although the letters showed me that he was
pursuing one of his victims. What could I say? Was I to denounce him
publicly as a scoundrel, and produce the letters? I might have ruined
dozens of innocent men and women. And I might fail. I might find that
the world sided with him instead of me. I knew him well enough to
know exactly what he would do. He would say that I had spied on his
professional work, that I had pried into the secrets of his patients
and that jealousy had made me insane. And he would have found plenty of
people to believe him. A wife who betrays her husband is not likely to
be forgiven.

“If I left him I doubted if my own daughter would have come with me.”

This was the first allusion the mother had made to her daughter’s
unhappy infatuation. And it was the last one. Sarah had begun to cry
quietly. Now Mrs. Neobard put out her hand again and took her child’s.

“You won’t expect me to give you _all_ my reasons for deciding that
I must act as I did, Sir Frank. Perhaps you will think I really was
insane. I don’t know--after reading some of those letters that I found
I sometimes feel it difficult to say who is sane and who isn’t. I can
only say I thought over everything time after time, as quietly as I
could, and I always came to the same conclusion. I think what stuck
in my mind most of all was the death of poor Miss Sebright. There was
no doubt that he had murdered her, as surely as if he had given her
arsenic. I thought he ought to die.”

She said it without an effort, as though it were the most natural
conclusion in the world.

“It looked like a providence to me that I had the poison ready. It
was his own doing, you see. He had helped me to it through wanting it
himself for his own wicked ends. I had taken it in self-defence, and
there it was, ready to be used.”

The listener remembered Shakespeare’s lines, though he refrained from
quoting them:

  “How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds makes ill deeds done.”

The master of human nature had anticipated the excuse of many King
Johns. And in this case the excuse seemed genuine. In fact, the widow
did not speak as though she meant to excuse herself; she seemed to be
simply explaining the sequence of her thoughts.

“Then I came to a new difficulty, that I had never expected. I found I
couldn’t do it.”

It sounded like confession. There was far more of apology in the tone
with which she said this than there had been in her whole previous
statement. For the first time there was moisture in her eyes.

“I had believed in him once.... I had loved him.”

She broke down and ceased for a few moments. Tarleton watched her with
real pity.

“I dare say you will find it difficult to understand me, Sir Frank, but
I think most wives would. I hadn’t changed my mind. I was still quite
firm in believing that it was right to put an end to my husband, but I
had to find someone else to do it.”

The consultant nodded. It was all plain to him now. His theory had not
been very far wrong, after all.

“I decided that I must try to discover one of his victims, one of
the men who had confessed their secrets to him and were suffering
in consequence, and give the poison to him. I didn’t think of the
appointment-book, unfortunately. The only way that occurred to me of
getting in touch with the writers of the letters was to go to the
Domino Club.”

Tarleton felt astray again for the moment. There were more
complications in the case than he had even yet grasped.

“I expect you know all about the Club. My husband had started it as
a means of getting money out of his patients, but it caught on, and
became quite a fashionable resort. It brought him something like £1,000
a year. Of course, his name didn’t appear, but everyone knew he was to
be met there regularly. He never missed a dance. The nominal proprietor
of the Club was the woman who managed it for him, Madame Bonnell.”

“Yes. I knew all that. And I know Madame Bonnell.”

Mrs. Neobard’s face betrayed some apprehension.

“Know her as a friend, do you mean?” she ventured.

“I know her well enough to think she could be a very dangerous one.”

“Ah, then you _do_ know her. I wish I had!... I went to her to buy a
ticket of admission to the Club, as I wasn’t a member. I didn’t mean to
tell her who I was, but she knew somehow.”

“Madame Bonnell knew a good deal.”

“Yes, I found that out, too, before I had done with her. She was all
politeness; she pretended to think I was coming out of curiosity and
treated it as a sort of joke. She promised of her own accord not to let
Dr. Weathered know. Promised it playfully, you understand, as if it
were of no consequence whether he did or not. What she really thought I
can’t tell, but she must have suspected something and meant to get me
in her power.

“She deceived me completely. I asked her some questions about the
people who came, especially the patients. I wanted to find out which of
them came against their will, but I hoped she wouldn’t see what I was
driving at.”

A sheep might as well have tried to hoodwink a wolf, was Tarleton’s
inward comment, but he thought he had interrupted enough.

“She answered all my questions so glibly and seemed so anxious to
oblige that I was led on further and further. At last she said, ‘You
can see I am a friend, madam; why not trust me? I see you want to know
your husband’s enemies and I am willing to help you. This Club is full
of them. Every time the doctor comes here I consider he takes his life
in his hands.’

“I tried to draw back, but it was too late. She refused to let me go.
She said, ‘I must choose between you and your husband, madam. He is
my employer, he pays me well, and if anything happens to him you may
engage another manageress, and I shall lose my daily bread. If it is
your object to preserve him from danger we can work together.’

“She must have guessed pretty well by this time that I had a different
object, because she hardly waited for me to answer. Before I could
make up my mind what to say, she went on: ‘On the other hand, I have
no friendship for Dr. Weathered. Of late I have sometimes wished that
he were out of the way. The Club would do better without him in my
opinion. He is unpopular. And always I am afraid of some terrible
_esclandre_--some frightful scene or some exposure that would ruin the
Club and perhaps injure my character.’”

In spite of the gravity of the situation Sir Frank Tarleton relished
Madame’s regard for her character, though he kept his enjoyment to
himself.

“She meant me to feel that she was on my side, I could see. It seemed
to be a pure matter of business with her. She was ready to help me to
save my husband or to kill him--it didn’t matter which, provided it was
made worth her while. At the same time she let me see that I was in
her power. ‘It comes to this,’ she said at last, ‘that if you are not
going to trust me I can’t afford to trust you. You may have come here
to pump me, to find out if I deserve your husband’s confidence. In that
case I must report this conversation to him for my own protection; I
expect you to see that, madam.’”

It was all so clever, as clever as the advertisement about the letters,
Tarleton reflected. He did not wonder that Mrs. Neobard had been
overmatched.

“In the end I had to give in to her. I saw no way out, and it looked
as if she would be perfectly willing to help me on her own terms. I
undertook to transfer the whole property in the Domino Club to her on
my husband’s death, and she undertook to find one of his victims who
hated him enough to kill him, if he could do it safely, and give him
the secret poison. No one was to know where she had obtained it.

“I took the bottle to her the next day. The moment it was in her hands
she said to me, ‘I must have more than this, madam. I must have the
letters you have found. They are your justification for planning your
husband’s death, and I must have them to show in my defence if I get
into trouble for assisting you.’

“I had been weak enough to tell her nearly everything I have told
you, because I couldn’t bear to let her think that I was a bad woman
acting from evil motives. Now I repented too late. As usual, she had
a perfect answer to everything I could say. ‘It comes to this, madam,
that you have given me the means to commit a murder, and you have made
these letters your excuse. If you decline to produce them I must doubt
if they exist, and as an honest woman I shall hand this bottle over to
the police.’”

Tarleton got out of his chair. If he did not yet know all he wanted to
know, he knew all that this poor woman could tell him.

“Thank you. If I have your permission to use this information in my own
way neither you nor your daughter need fear anything more.”

The astonished woman stopped him on the way to the door.

“But after Madame Bonnell had got the letters she turned round and
refused to go on with the plot. How did my husband die?”

“I am going to ask her that.”




CHAPTER XX

THE FINGER-PRINT


When Sir Frank Tarleton walked into the room on his return from Paris
the first thing he did was to put his gold repeater to his ear and make
it ring out its musical notes. It was the sign of triumph.

He told me everything just as I have described it. Then he transfixed
me with a question.

“I expect you to be as candid with me as Mrs. Neobard has been. Did you
put this poison into Wethered’s cup along with the opium?”

It was no more than I ought to have expected; no more than I had
deserved. But it gave me a greater shock than I could have thought
possible.

“Before God I am innocent of that!” I swore.

My chief received my oath without any indication of belief or disbelief.

“I don’t blame you for anything else you did on behalf of Lady Violet,”
he said gravely. “Even if you hadn’t been in love with her, as a man
you could do no less than you did to save her from such a scoundrel.
You were right to drug him and right to destroy his case-book. But you
had no right to take his life.”

I looked him in the face. I was too proud to repeat my denial.

“That has been my greatest anxiety in the whole business, Cassilis. I
liked you; you knew it, and I think you should have confided in me.”

“It wasn’t my secret,” I pleaded.

“I suppose that was the reason: yes, I accept that. It was a mistake,
though, because you had no chance of keeping the secret. That is partly
why I think it better for you to drop this kind of work and go in for
private practice. You lack the first essential for a detective, my dear
fellow; you can hold your tongue, but you can’t hold your face.”

I’m afraid I couldn’t hold it then. It blushed in spite of me.

“I am a light sleeper, Cassilis, as you ought to know. The telephone
bell woke me some minutes before you came into the house that first
night. You moved as quietly as a mouse as soon as you heard it, but you
see I was listening before it rang the second time and I had heard you
come up to the front door and open it.”

How silly all my precautions seemed now! My chief rubbed it into me
with a touch of good humour.

“I gave you a hint that you might as well make a clean breast of it at
once, but you didn’t take it. When you came in to me with Charles’s
message your face showed me that you had something more on your mind
than having gone out without letting me know. And you gave yourself
away when you told me that you had been taken to the Domino Club by a
Captain Smethwick. There is no such name in the Army List.”

Blunder after blunder, he recounted them all. The theft of the
case-book had pointed to the thief being a doctor. The omission of
Violet’s name from the list I had copied supplied the key to my
motives, and my attack on Sarah Neobard left no doubt that I was
in love with the girl she had denounced. My kind-hearted chief had
willingly lent himself to my plans for meeting Violet at Tyberton,
though he had tried to let me see he was not quite blind. He had
followed the history of the Zenobia costume easily enough. And Violet’s
refusal to give up the name of her champion had told him more than it
had told poor, dull-witted me.

“That is my best reason for advising you to start in practice for
yourself, my boy. Consider what your prospects are with me. I am at
the top of the tree now and my salary is a bare £1,500 a year. And if
I make another £500 by my private work it’s as much as I make. That’s
not enough for an earl’s daughter to look forward to. You will make
double as a fashionable doctor. You have the most valuable gift of all
for the medical profession. You are a good listener. The people who
will come to you, the patients who really bring in money, don’t want to
be cured. They like to fancy they are ill and they want to talk about
themselves. Let ’em do it and charge them for it. With my influence and
Lord Ledbury’s you won’t have long to wait.”

I could only shake my head sorrowfully. “You are very good, sir; you
are kinder to me than I deserve. But I have no right to think that Lady
Violet will ever marry me.”

Sir Frank gave me a queer look.

“Then I tell you this--if you don’t marry her, _I will_.”

Before I could recover from the start given me by this threat he was
consulting his watch again.

“Charles ought to be here by this time. And I think he is. I shall be
glad if you will come with us, Cassilis. We are going to the Domino
Club.”

I followed him thankfully into the hall, to meet Inspector Charles
and a quietly dressed Frenchman who was briefly introduced to me as
Brigadier Samson. I took the invitation to go with them as a token that
my chief had acquitted me in his own mind at least. I was ignorant
whether I ever had been under suspicion in the Inspector’s, and I am so
still.

We drove to the Club in the taxi that had brought the two police
officers. We found it looking much more cheerful than on the last
occasion. The new proprietress had evidently determined to make it a
greater success than ever, in spite of the little cloud that had fallen
on it. There were signs of renovation going on in the hall and new
decorations had been put up in the ball-room.

The door was opened to us by the waiter Gerard, who looked as amiable
as ever, but rather more subdued. The respectful glance he gave to
Captain Charles seemed to tell of some intelligence between them.
Gerard was closely followed by another man whose salute showed me that
he was one of the Inspector’s staff, in charge of the premises.

When Gerard, who had left us in the ball-room, returned to say that
Madame Bonnell was ready to receive us, the French detective retained
his seat. The other three of us were conducted into a smartly furnished
parlour in which we found Madame enthroned in all the dignity of her
new position. She had put on mourning for her late employer, but it was
the sort of mourning a good modiste knows how to make a softener of
grief rather than a perpetuation of it.

Madame Bonnell showed no trace of nervousness at our appearance. Like a
good general, she had gauged her enemy in advance, she had anticipated
his attack, and her plans of defence had been skilfully laid out. She
received us in the manner of a courteous business woman who was only
anxious to do whatever was asked of her.

I was conscious that my chief’s keen eyes were on the look-out for any
sign of recognition between Madame and me, as I came into the room.
Fortunately she scarcely noticed me, and I think her indifference must
have finally satisfied him that we were strangers to each other.

He came straight to the point.

“We have called on you, Madame, in consequence of the advertisement
from Messrs. James, Halliday & James.”

She heard this with composure. “What advertisement is that?”

Tarleton ignored the affectation of ignorance.

“It may save time to tell you that every person known to have been in
correspondence with Dr. Weathered has been warned to take no notice of
that advertisement.” It was evidently news to her that the names of the
correspondents were known to the police, and she looked less confident
already. “Mr. Stillman has been informed that Dr. Weathered’s executrix
is the sole person entitled to deal with the letters, and he has now
consented to allow a detective officer to sit in his outer office and
refer any persons who may answer the advertisement to me. The same
officer is opening all letters addressed to the firm.”

By this time Madame Bonnell must have made up her mind that she had
little chance of making anything out of the letters and that it was
better for her to sacrifice them if she could do so without damage to
herself.

“What has all this to do with me?” she asked cautiously.

“Mrs. Weathered informs me that she placed the letters in your
possession and I am here to ask you for them.”

Madame Bonnell did some hard thinking and did it quickly, too.

“Mrs. Weathered is a madwoman. She is not responsible for her actions,
and her word is not to be believed. I am surprised that you should
expect me to take such a story seriously. If you believe I have the
letters, look for them.”

It was a gallant last stand. She must have known that every inch of the
premises had been searched already.

Tarleton smiled at her. He was beginning to warm to his work.

“If I am to take advantage of that permission, Madame, I shall have
to ask you to accompany me to Newgate Street, where there is a female
searcher. You probably carry the letters about with you.”

A sudden spark, a very ugly and dangerous spark, was kindled in the
woman’s eyes at the mention of a female searcher. It went out again
instantly. Madame folded her arms.

“If you believe what you say, it makes no difference. You say that Mrs.
Weathered gave me those letters. Why isn’t she here to ask for them
back? I have a right to keep them till she does.”

This was true, unfortunately. But Madame had just been betrayed into
revealing her weak point, about which the representative of the Home
Office had been pretty confident before. He now turned to Inspector
Charles.

“I am afraid I must leave the matter to you, Inspector.”

Captain Charles was quite ready.

“I must ask you to consider yourself my prisoner, Madame. The charge is
one of conspiring with Arthur Stillman to obtain money from various
persons by threats. Whatever you may say will be taken down and may be
used in evidence against you.”

She didn’t wait for the production of the official note-book. Her hands
were at the bosom of her dress.

“That charge is false and you know it. It is you who are using threats
to obtain these letters, to which you have no claim. You are breaking
the law, not I.”

She was right, that was the amazing part of it, entirely right. But she
handed over the letters. And she contrived to look rather anxious.

“Let me tell you that I only consented to receive those letters from
Mrs. Weathered because I saw she was a dangerous woman and I wanted to
prevent her from doing mischief. I meant to return them to the writers
the moment I knew who they were. In my position I couldn’t afford to do
otherwise. I had to think of the reputation of the Club.”

Against this there was nothing to be said. It was the second line of
defence, of course. Tarleton was not the man to waste time in assailing
it.

“Mrs. Weathered tells me she gave you something else beside those
letters.”

Madame Bonnell needed no preparation to meet this blow, which she had
clearly been expecting. She heaved a sigh, apparently one of relief.

“Ah, I am glad she has confessed that! It has been a burden on my mind.
I ought to have denounced her, I suppose, but I saw she was out of her
mind, and I was sorry for her. I thought it would be enough if I took
the poison from her and kept it in a safe place.”

This was neater than even Tarleton had expected. I saw positive respect
in his eyes.

“Then you have the poison still, Madame, untouched?”

“But yes. I placed it among my little aids to the toilet. You will find
it in the cupboard you locked up, you remember.”

“Perhaps you will oblige me by fetching it. Inspector Charles will
unlock the door for you.”

The Inspector’s face fell as he rose to escort her. Perhaps he thought
that Sir Frank was being deceived. They came back together, Charles
carrying the little bottle, which he silently handed to the specialist.

Tarleton went through the form of wetting his forefinger, taking up a
few grains of the gray powder and tasting it. His face told nothing.

“The powder now in this bottle is a harmless mixture of charcoal and
common salt. The poison that killed Dr. Weathered was upasine.”

Madame Bonnell raised her hands in admirable despair.

“_Mille tonnorres!_ That wretched woman was more mad than I thought.
She mistook this stuff for--what did you say, sir?”

The physician shook his head. “You do her an injustice. I have tested
her story and I feel no doubt that she placed the real poison in your
hands. I have seen the person from whom she took it and from whose
brother I obtained some of it myself.”

Again the first line of defence, a rather flimsy one, had been broken
through. The second line was instantly unveiled.

“I have been robbed, then, that is what you mean? Some wretch has
stolen the drug and filled up the bottle again to deceive me.”

“It looks like that, certainly.” Could I believe that this was
Tarleton speaking? His voice remained perfectly steady as he went on.
“Unfortunately, one of the Club servants, named Gerard, has told the
police a different tale.”

All at once Madame Bonnell turned very white. She began breathing in
spasms.

“His story is that you threw out hints to him that Dr. Weathered was
in danger of being poisoned, as you pretended, by enemies of his in
the Club. At a later time you bribed Gerard to say that the doctor
himself was afraid, and had given him instructions to watch over his
drinks. What really happened was that your continued hints made Gerard
watchful, and on the fatal night he did see something dropped in the
doctor’s cup by a dancer whom he described correctly. We know that it
was a harmless dose of opium, a drug to which Weathered was immune,
because he was taking it. Gerard reported what he had seen to you and
you thereupon told him that it was what you had feared but that you
had an antidote. You put this antidote, as you called it, into a fresh
cup of coffee, and made him take it to the doctor. There is no doubt in
my mind that he died in consequence of drinking it.”

Madame Bonnell’s perfect composure was gone. That angry spark had come
back into her eyes to remain there. She clenched her teeth, and her
words came through them like the click of castanets.

“Gerard is a bloody liar.”

The next instant she recollected herself. She had still a third line of
defence, a really good one this time.

“Are you going to tell that story to the world? Aha! I can tell
stories, too. I shall have a fine tale to tell about His Royal Highness
the Crown Prince of Slavonia; yes, yes. I shall tell how His Highness
came to dance with poisoners and prostitutes, and people whose minds
were fouler than any sink; and saw a murder committed under his eyes by
his partner in the dance. Is it not so? And I shall recite much from
all those letters I have read. I have a good memory, and I recite well.”

Tarleton acknowledged the strength of this position.

“You are correct in thinking that the British authorities have reasons
for not taking proceedings against you. Therefore, they propose to let
you return to your own country.”

“And give up my Club? Abandon my good fortune at its height? I am not
a very great fool, Sir Frank Tarleton.”

My chief raised a finger. Captain Charles sounded his whistle and
Brigadier Samson stepped through the door.

Slowly the woman recoiled on herself, seeming actually to grow smaller
in the act. The Brigadier gave her a careless nod.

“You have dyed your hair, Leonie Marchand, since I saw you last, but
you haven’t changed your finger-print, you know. And you are still
wanted for the murder in the Rue Lausanne.”

It was not a woman, it was a wild cat that sprang at Sir Frank with
tearing nails and spitting teeth. I was just too late, but the French
detective who knew the nature of the animal, was just in time; and
he wasn’t hampered by any false sentiment. His methods were not
particularly pleasant to watch, but they were effective. I think
Charles rather envied him.

The methods of the French criminal courts also seem to be effective.
At all events when I read the newspaper report of the trial at which
Leonie Marchand was sentenced to imprisonment for life, it contained no
hint of any scandal about any royal personage.

Sir Frank Tarleton was none the worse for the little shock he had
experienced, and for which he rather blamed himself afterwards. He
ought not to have waited to see the arrest, he admitted to me, but
he couldn’t resist the temptation to see the real woman come out. He
hadn’t liked the sight.

“It lay between Madame and you from the first, as far as I could see,”
he explained to me, as we were walking away together down Tarifa Road.
“I never believed the waiter’s story for a moment. The idea that a
man who knew his life to be in danger would go on coming to the Club
and trust to a foreign waiter to prevent him from being poisoned, was
ridiculous in my eyes. It was clear that the story had been put into
his mouth by someone; and when Madame told a similar story, about
Weathered having asked her to pour out his drinks herself, it was easy
to see who was the inventor. It was a case of cleverness over-reaching
itself. The theory that Weathered had been poisoned by one of his
patients whom he was blackmailing was quite plausible in itself; as
we know, it was very nearly being the true theory. If she had left it
there and confined herself to saying what she said to Mrs. Weathered,
that she knew he had enemies in the Club who would be glad of his
death, I might not have suspected her. But when she took such pains
to represent the whole place as a nest of assassins with herself and
Gerard as guardian angels watching over the threatened man, I began to
smell a rat.

“I had no suspicion of Mrs. Weathered; I don’t see how I could have had
at that stage. Madame Bonnell’s motives were just what would make a
woman of her stamp commit a crime. Sarah Neobard put it in a nutshell
when she said she was a woman who would do anything for money. The
Domino Club was doing well, and Weathered wasn’t necessary to it any
longer. In fact, he was beginning to be in the way. She spoke the
truth, probably, in saying that she lived in fear of a scene of some
kind. At the same time, I doubt if she would ever have ventured to
poison him herself if the means hadn’t been put into her hands. Here is
the real murderer.”

He took out the little bottle, which he had brought away with him. It
was square-shaped and made of ground glass, the sort of bottle in which
smelling salts are sold.

“I look on this case throughout as one of murder by suggestion.
Armstrong did very wrong to leave this bottle in his sister’s
possession. The very precautions she took to keep it safely, as she
thought, show that her mind was exercised by it. I shouldn’t wonder
at all if Weathered, who was a clever man in his way, actually did
detect some latent fancies in the little woman’s head as to how it
might be used, and worked on them till he convinced her that they were
serious. Then no sooner does he hear of the existence of the bottle
than it fascinates him. An unknown drug, one whose effects will defy
analysis--what a prize for a man who is fast sinking into a hardened
criminal! Remember that if Armstrong had not happened to bring a sample
of his find to me you might now be under sentence for the murder.”

I shook as I recognized the truth of what he said. Even Tarleton’s
skill might have failed to demonstrate the presence of a strange drug
unknown to the whole medical world.

“This accursed bottle next has the same effect on Mrs. Weathered.
She is a good woman and she has been a faithful wife and a forgiving
one. I believe every word of her story. I fully believe that she took
the bottle with no intention to do anything but destroy it and its
contents. But no sooner is it in her keeping than she succumbs to its
temptation. She is fascinated by the idea of the invisible death it
can deal. All kinds of motives and excuses spring up in her mind like
spectres conjured up by a magician. So she becomes a murderess in
intention, a murderess by proxy, one may say.

“Even Madame Bonnell, I think it most likely, had no idea of killing
Weathered before this bottle came into her hands. She had committed one
murder already and she seems to have had a narrow escape that time.
She was a prudent woman, too, a woman to weigh risks carefully before
taking them. I think it quite probable that her only idea at first
was to use this bottle to extort money from Mrs. Weathered. But very
quickly she was in its power. Then it was that she began weaving the
romance of Weathered’s revengeful patients, a picture only too well
founded on fact. She may have hoped to find an enemy of Weathered’s to
do the job for her; however, you saved her the trouble. She saw her
chance, and that night she had a double security. From first to last
it is evident that she trusted to the Crown Prince’s name to pull her
through everything, and in a way it did.”

“What made you think she had committed a crime in France, sir?”

“I didn’t. It was a mere shot in the dark. I asked Charles to get
her finger-print without her knowing, and I took it over to Paris on
the bare chance that she might be known to the French police. It is
fortunate that she was.”

We were in Eaton Square by this time, after coming along the King’s
Road. My chief seemed to know where he was going, but he did not tell
me till we had gone round the back of the Palace and come out in
Piccadilly. When we crossed the road my heart began to beat quicker.

The dear old man had made up his mind to pull me through, and I suspect
he did it as much for Violet’s sake as mine. He must have seen that
there was some obstacle between us, but he never asked what it was. He
only gave me one hint before we reached the house.

“No man ever won a woman yet by making the worst of himself, Cassilis.
If you haven’t anything else to be proud of, be proud of being loved
and show it.”

The Earl, whom we found at home, was more than half prepared to listen
to us. He had changed for the better, too, since he had taken Sir
Frank’s advice. He showed that he felt he owed a debt to him and
another to his daughter, and was not unwilling to discharge both. It
was my advocate who did most of the talking. He surprised and delighted
me by telling my prospective father-in-law that I needn’t throw up my
post under him just yet. “Not till he is on his feet comfortably,” he
put it.

In the end the Earl said, “Well, I will see what my daughter has to
say, Dr. Cassilis.” And he rang the bell.

When Violet came in she saw why she had been sent for, before her
father spoke. She had her answer ready when he put the question. “This
young gentleman has come here to ask me for your hand, Violet. What am
I to say to him?”

“He hasn’t asked me yet,” she whispered.

My dear chief sprang to his feet. “I think we had better leave these
young people together, my lord.”

We are together still.


THE END




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  =Black Oxen.= Gertrude Atherton. (Photoplay Ed.).
  =Blue Circle, The.= Elizabeth Jordan.
  =Bob, Son of Battle.= Alfred Olivant.
  =Box With Broken Seals, The.= E. Phillips Oppenheim.
  =Brandon of the Engineers.= Harold Bindloss.
  =Breaking Point, The.= Mary Roberts Rinehart.
  =Bridge of Kisses.= Berta Ruck.
  =Bring Me His Ears.= Clarence E. Mulford.
  =Broad Highway, The.= Jeffery Farnol.
  =Broken Barriers.= Meredith Nicholson.
  =Brown Study, The.= Grace S. Richmond.
  =Buck Peters, Ranchman.= Clarence E. Mulford.
  =Bush-Rancher, The.= Harold Bindloss.

  =Cabbages and Kings.= O. Henry.
  =Cabin Fever.= B. M. Bower.
  =Calling of Dan Matthews, The.= Harold Bell Wright.
  =Cape Cod Stories.= Joseph C. Lincoln.
  =Cap’n Dan’s Daughter.= Joseph C. Lincoln.
  =Cap’n Eri.= Joseph C. Lincoln.
  =Cap’n Warren’s Wards.= Joseph C. Lincoln.
  =Carnac’s Folly.= Gilbert Parker.
  =Cat’s Paw, The.= Natalie Sumner Lincoln.
  =Cattle.= Winnifred Eaton.
  =Certain People of Importance.= Kathleen Norris.
  =Chief Legatee, The.= Anna Katharine Green.
  =Cinema Murder, The.= E. Phillips Oppenheim.
  =City of Lilies, The.= Anthony Pryde and R. K. Weekes.
  =City of Peril, The.= Arthur Stringer.
  =Clipped Wings.= Rupert Hughes.
  =Clue of the New Pin, The.= Edgar Wallace.
  =Colorado Jim.= George Goodchild.
  =Coming of Cassidy, The.= Clarence E. Mulford.
  =Coming of the Law, The.= Chas. A. Seltzer.
  =Communicating Door, The.= Wadsworth Camp.
  =Comrades of Peril.= Randall Parrish.
  =Conquest of Canaan, The.= Booth Tarkington.
  =Contraband.= Clarence Budington Kelland.
  =Court of Inquiry, A.= Grace S. Richmond.
  =Crimson Blotter, The.= Isabel Ostrander.
  =Crimson Gardenia, The, and Other Tales of Adventure.= Rex Beach.
  =Crimson Tide, The.= Robert W. Chambers.
  =Cross Currents.= Author of “Pollyanna.”
  =Cross Pull, The.= Hal G. Evarts.
  =Cry in the Wilderness, A.= Mary E. Waller.
  =Cry of Youth, A.= Cynthia Lombardi.
  =Cup of Fury, The.= Rupert Hughes.
  =Curious Quest, The.= E. Phillips Oppenheim.
  =Curved Blades, The.= Carolyn Wells.
  =Cytherea.= Joseph Hergesheimer.

  =Damsel in Distress, A.= Pelham G. Wodehouse.
  =Dancing Star, The.= Berta Ruck.
  =Danger and Other Stories.= A. Conan Doyle.
  =Dark Hollow.= Anna Katharine Green.
  =Daughter Pays, The.= Mrs. Baillie Reynolds.
  =Depot Master, The.= Joseph C. Lincoln.
  =Desert Healer, The.= E. M. Hull.
  =Destroying Angel, The.= Louis Joseph Vance. (Photoplay Ed.).
  =Devil’s Paw, The.= E. Phillips Oppenheim.
  =Diamond Thieves, The.= Arthur Stringer.
  =Disturbing Charm, The.= Berta Ruck.
  =Donnegan.= George Owen Baxter.
  =Door of Dread, The.= Arthur Stringer.
  =Doors of the Night.= Frank L. Packard.
  =Dope.= Sax Rohmer.
  =Double Traitor, The.= E. Phillips Oppenheim.
  =Dust of the Desert.= Robert Welles Ritchie.

  =Empty Hands.= Arthur Stringer.
  =Empty Pockets.= Rupert Hughes.
  =Empty Sack, The.= Basil King.
  =Enchanted Canyon.= Honoré Willsie.
  =Enemies of Women.= V. B. Ibanez. (Photoplay Ed.).
  =Eris.= Robert W. Chambers.
  =Erskine Dale, Pioneer.= John Fox, Jr.
  =Evil Shepherd, The.= E. Phillips Oppenheim.
  =Extricating Obadiah.= Joseph C. Lincoln.
  =Eye of Zeitoon, The.= Talbot Mundy.
  =Eyes of the Blind.= Arthur Somers Roche.
  =Eyes of the World.= Harold Bell Wright.

  =Fair Harbor.= Joseph C. Lincoln.
  =Family.= Wayland Wells Williams.
  =Fathoms Deep.= Elizabeth Stancy Payne.
  =Feast of the Lanterns.= Louise Jordan Miln.
  =Fighting Chance, The.= Robert W. Chambers.
  =Fighting Shepherdess, The.= Caroline Lockhart.
  =Financier, The.= Theodore Dreiser.
  =Fire Tongue.= Sax Rohmer.
  =Flaming Jewel, The.= Robert W. Chambers.
  =Flowing Gold.= Rex Beach.
  =Forbidden Trail, The.= Honoré Willsie.
  =Forfeit, The.= Ridgwell Cullum.
  =Four Million, The.= O. Henry.
  =Foursquare.= Grace S. Richmond.
  =Four Stragglers, The.= Frank L. Packard.
  =Free Range Lanning.= George Owen Baxter.
  =From Now On.= Frank L. Packard.
  =Fur Bringers, The.= Hulbert Footner.
  =Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale.= Frank L. Packard.

  =Galusha the Magnificent.= Joseph C. Lincoln.
  =Gaspards of Pine Croft, The.= Ralph Connor.
  =Gay Year, The.= Dorothy Speare.
  =Gift of the Desert.= Randall Parrish.
  =Girl in the Mirror, The.= Elizabeth Jordan.
  =Girl from Kellers, The.= Harold Bindloss.
  =Girl Philippa, The.= Robert W. Chambers.
  =Girls at His Billet, The.= Berta Ruck.
  =Glory Rides the Range.= Ethel and James Dorrance.
  =God’s Country and the Woman.= James Oliver Curwood.
  =God’s Good Man.= Marie Corelli.
  =Going Some.= Rex Beach.
  =Gold Girl, The.= James B. Hendryx.
  =Gold-Killer.= John Prosper.
  =Golden Scorpion, The.= Sax Rohmer.
  =Golden Slipper, The.= Anna Katherine Green.
  =Golden Woman, The.= Ridgwell Cullum.
  =Gray Phantom, The.= Herman Landon.
  =Gray Phantom’s Return, The.= Herman Landon.
  =Great Impersonation, The.= E. Phillips Oppenheim.
  =Great Prince Shan, The.= E. Phillips Oppenheim.
  =Greater Love Hath No Man.= Frank L. Packard.
  =Green Eyes of Bast, The.= Sax Rohmer.
  =Green Goddess, The.= Louise Jordan Miln. (Photoplay Ed.).
  =Greyfriars Bobby.= Eleanor Atkinson.
  =Gun Brand, The.= James B. Hendryx.
  =Gun Runner, The.= Arthur Stringer.
  =Guns of the Gods.= Talbot Mundy.

  =Hand of Fu-Manchu, The.= Sax Rohmer.
  =Hand of Peril, The.= Arthur Stringer.
  =Harbor Road, The.= Sara Ware Bassett.
  =Harriet and the Piper.= Kathleen Norris.
  =Havoc.= E. Phillips Oppenheim.
  =Head of the House at Coombe, The.= Frances Hodgson Burnett.
  =Heart of the Desert, The.= Honoré Willsie.
  =Heart at the Hills, The.= John Fox. Jr.
  =Heart of the Range, The.= William Patterson White.
  =Heart of the Sunset.= Rex Beach.
  =Heart of Unaga, The.= Ridgwell Cullum.
  =Helen of the Old House.= Harold Bell Wright.
  =Hidden Places, The.= Bertrand W. Sinclair.
  =Hidden Trails.= William Patterson White.
  =Hillman, The.= E. Phillips Oppenheim.
  =Hira Singh.= Talbot Mundy.
  =His Last Bow.= A. Conan Doyle.
  =His Official Fiancee.= Berta Ruck.
  =Homeland.= Margaret Hill McCarter.
  =Homestead Ranch.= Elizabeth G. Young.
  =Honor of the Big Snows.= James Oliver Curwood.
  =Hopalong Cassidy.= Clarence E. Mulford.
  =Hound from the North, The.= Ridgwell Cullum.
  =House of the Whispering Pines, The.= Anna Katharine Green.
  =Humoresque.= Fannie Hurst.

  =Illustrious Prince, The.= E. Phillips Oppenheim.
  =In Another Girl’s Shoes.= Berta Ruck.
  =Indifference of Juliet, The.= Grace S. Richmond.
  =Infelice.= Augusta Evans Wilson.
  =Initials Only.= Anna Katharine Green.
  =Innocent.= Marie Corelli.
  =Innocent Adventuress, The.= Mary Hastings Bradley.
  =Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu, The.= Sax Rohmer.
  =In the Brooding Wild.= Ridgwell Cullum.
  =In the Onyx Lobby.= Carolyn Wells.
  =Iron Trail, The.= Rex Beach.
  =Iron Woman, The.= Margaret Deland.
  =Ishmael.= (Ill.) Mrs. Southworth.
  =Isle of Retribution.= Edison Marshall.
  =I’ve Married Marjorie.= Margaret Widdemer.
  =Ivory Trail, The.= Talbot Mundy.

  =Jacob’s Ladder.= E. Phillips Oppenheim.
  =Jean of the Lazy A.= B. M. Bower.
  =Jeanne of the Marshes.= E. Phillips Oppenheim.
  =Jeeves.= P. G. Wodehouse.

  =Lynch Lawyers.= William Patterson White.

  =McCarty Incog.= Isabel Ostrander.
  =Major, The.= Ralph Connor.
  =Maker of History, A.= E. Phillips Oppenheim.
  =Malefactor, The.= E. Phillips Oppenheim.
  =Man and Maid.= Elinor Glyn.
  =Man from Bar 20, The.= Clarence E. Mulford.
  =Man from the Bitter Roots, The.= Caroline Lockhart.
  =Man in the Moonlight, The.= Rupert S. Holland.
  =Man in the Twilight, The.= Ridgwell Cullum.
  =Man Killers, The.= Dane Coolidge.
  =Man Who Couldn’t Sleep, The.= Arthur Stringer.
  =Man’s Country.= Peter Clark Macfarlane.
  =Marqueray’s Duel.= Anthony Pryde.
  =Martin Conisby’s Vengeance.= Jeffery Farnol.
  =Mary-Gusta.= Joseph C. Lincoln.
  =Mary Wollaston.= Henry Kitchell Webster.
  =Mason of Bar X Ranch.= H. Bennett.
  =Master of Man.= Hall Caine.
  =Master Mummer, The.= E. Phillips Oppenheim.
  =Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.= A. Conan Doyle.
  =Men Who Wrought, The.= Ridgwell Cullum.
  =Meredith Mystery, The.= Natalie Sumner Lincoln.
  =Midnight of the Ranges.= George Gilbert.
  =Mine with the Iron Door, The.= Harold Bell Wright.
  =Mischief Maker, The.= E. Phillips Oppenheim.
  =Missioner, The.= E. Phillips Oppenheim.
  =Miss Million’s Maid.= Berta Ruck.
  =Money, Love and Kate.= Eleanor H. Porter.
  =Money Master, The.= Gilbert Parker.
  =Money Moon, The.= Jeffery Farnol.
  =Moonlit Way, The.= Robert W. Chambers.
  =More Limehouse Nights.= Thomas Burke.
  =More Tish.= Mary Roberts Rinehart.
  =Moreton Mystery, The.= Elizabeth Dejeans.
  =Mr. and Mrs. Sen.= Louise Jordan Miln.
  =Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo.= E. Phillips Oppenheim.
  =Mr. Pratt.= Joseph C. Lincoln.
  =Mr. Pratt’s Patients.= Joseph C. Lincoln.
  =Mrs. Red Pepper.= Grace S. Richmond.
  =Mr. Wu.= Louise Jordan Miln.
  =My Lady of the North.= Randall Parrish.
  =My Lady of the South.= Randall Parrish.
  =Mystery Girl, The.= Carolyn Wells.

  =Rider of the Golden Bar, The.= William Patterson White.
  =Rider of the King Log, The.= Holman Day.
  =Rider o’ the Stars.= R. J. Horton.
  =Riders of the Silences.= John Frederick.
  =Rilla of Ingleside.= L. M. Montgomery.
  =Rimrock Trail.= J. Allan Dunn.
  =Rise of Roscoe Paine, The.= Joseph C. Lincoln.
  =River Trail, The.= Laurie Y. Erskine.
  =Robin.= Frances Hodgson Burnett.
  =Rocks of Valpre, The.= Ethel M. Dell.
  =Rogues of the North.= Albert M. Treynor.
  =Romance of a Million Dollars, The.= Elizabeth Dejeans.
  =Rosa Mundi.= Ethel M. Dell.
  =Rose of Santa Fe, The.= Edwin L. Sabin.
  =Round the Corner in Gay Street.= Grace S. Richmond.
  =Round-Up, The.= Oscar J. Friend.
  =Rung Ho!= Talbot Mundy.
  =Rustler of Wind River, The.= G. W. Ogden.

  =St. Elmo.= (Ill. Ed.) Augusta J. Evans.
  =Sand.= Olive Wadsley.
  =Scarlet Iris, The.= Vance Thompson.
  =Scattergood Baines.= Clarence Budington Kelland.
  =Second Violin, The.= Grace S. Richmond.
  =Secret Power, The.= Marie Corelli.
  =Self-Raised.= (Ill.) Mrs. Southworth.
  =Settling of the Sage.= Hal G. Evarts.
  =Seven Ages of Woman, The.= Compton Mackenzie.
  =Seven Darlings, The.= Gouverneur Morris.
  =Seventh Man, The.= Max Brand.
  =Shadow of the East, The.= E. M. Hull. (Photoplay Ed.).
  =Shadow on the Glass, The.= Charles J. Dutton.
  =Shavings.= Joseph C. Lincoln.
  =Sheik, The.= E. M. Hull.
  =Sheila of Big Wreck Cove.= James H. Cooper.
  =Shepherd of the Hills, The.= Harold Bell Wright.
  =Shepherds of the Wild.= Edison Marshall.
  =Sheriff of Dyke Hole, The.= Ridgwell Cullum.
  =Sherry.= George Barr McCutcheon.
  =Shoe-Bar Stratton.= Joseph B. Ames.
  =Sight Unseen, and The Confession.= Mary Roberts Rinehart.
  =Silver Horde, The.= Rex Beach.
  =Silver Poppy, The.= Arthur Stringer.
  =Singing Bone, The.= R. Austin Freeman.
  =Singing Wells, The.= Roland Pertwee.





TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:


  Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

  Emboldened text is surrounded by equals signs: =bold=.

  Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

  Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

  Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.

  The list of books at the end has been rearranged so that the titles
    are in alphabetical order.