CHAPTER II
"Five men, eh?" said Cleek, glancing up at Mr. Narkom, who for twoor three minutes past had been giving him a sketchy outline of thecase in hand. "A goodish many that. And all inside of the past sixweeks, you say? No wonder the papers have been hammering the Yard,if, as you suggest, they were not accidental deaths. Sure they arenot?"
"As sure as I am that I'm speaking to you at this minute. I hadmy doubts in the beginning--there seemed so little to connect theseparate tragedies--but when case after case followed with exactly,or nearly exactly, the same details in every instance, one simply_had_ to suspect foul play."
"Naturally. Even a donkey must know that there's food about if hesmells thistles. Begin at the beginning, please. How did the affairstart? When and where?"
"In the neighbourhood of Hampstead Heath at two o'clock in themorning. The constable on duty in the district came upon a man cladonly in pajamas lying face downward under the wall surrounding acorner house--still warm but as dead as Queen Anne."
"In his pajamas, eh?" said Cleek, reaching for a fresh slice oftoast. "Pretty clear evidence that that poor beggar's trouble,whatever it was, must have overtaken him in bed and that that bed waseither in the vicinity of the spot where he was found, or else theman had been carried in a closed vehicle to the place where theconstable discovered him. A chap can't walk far in that kind of aget-up without attracting attention. And the body was warm, yousay, when found. Hum-m! Any vehicle seen or heard in the vicinity ofthe spot just previously?"
"Not the ghost of one. The night was very still, and the constablemust have heard if either cab, auto, carriage, or dray had passed inany direction whatsoever. He is positive that none did. Naturally,he thought, as you suggested just now, that the man must have comefrom some house in the neighbourhood. Investigation, however,proved that he did not--in short, that nobody could be found whohad ever seen him before. Indeed, it is hardly likely that hecould have been sleeping in any of the surrounding houses, forthe neighbourhood is a very good one, and the man had the appearanceof being a person of the labouring class."
"Any marks on the clothing or body?"
"Not one--beyond a tattooed heart on the left forearm, which causedthe coroner to come to the conclusion later that the man had at sometime been either a soldier or a sailor."
"Why?"
"The tattooing was evidently of foreign origin, he said, fromthe skilful manner in which it had been performed and the brilliantcolour of the pigments used. Beyond that, the body bore noblemish. The man had not been stabbed, he had not been shot, and apost-mortem examination of the viscera proved conclusively that hehad not been poisoned. Neither had he been strangled, etherized,drowned, or bludgeoned, for the brain was in no way injured and thelungs were in a healthy condition. It was noticed, however, that thepassages of the throat and nose were unduly red, and that there was aslightly distended condition of the bowels. This latter, however,was set down by the physicians as the natural condition followingenteric, from which it was positive that the man had recentlysuffered. They attributed the slightly inflamed condition of thenasal passage and throat to his having either swallowed or snuffedup something--camphor or something of that sort--to allay theprogress of the enteric, although even by analysis they were unableto discover a trace of camphor or indeed of any foreign substancewhatsoever. The body was held in the public mortuary for severaldays awaiting identification, but nobody came forward to claim it; soit was eventually buried in the usual way and a verdict of 'FoundDead' entered in the archives against the number given to it. Thematter had excited but little comment on the part of the public orthe newspapers, and would never have been recalled but for theastonishing fact that just two nights after the burial a second manwas found under precisely similar circumstances--only that thissecond man was clad in boots, undervest, and trousers. He wasfound in a sort of gulley (down which, from the marks on theside, he had evidently fallen), behind some furze bushes at a farand little frequented part of the heath. An autopsy establishedthe fact that this man had died in a precisely similar manner to thefirst, but, what was more startling, that he had evidentlypre-deceased that first victim by several days; for, when found,decomposition had already set in."
"Hum-m-m! I see!" said Cleek, arching his brows and stirring his tearather slowly. "A clear case of what Paddy would term 'the secondfellow being the first one.' Go on, please. What next?"
"Oh, a perfect fever of excitement, of course; for it now becameevident that a crime had been committed in both instances; andthe Press made a great to-do over it. Within the course of thenext fortnight it was positively frothing, throwing panic into thepublic mind by the wholesale, and whipping up people's fears like amadman stirring a salad; for, by that time a third body had beenfound--under some furze bushes, upward of half a mile distant fromwhere the second had been discovered. Like the first body, thisone was wearing night clothes; but it was in an even more advancedstate of decomposition than the second, showing that the man musthave died long before either of them!"
"Oho!" said Cleek, with a strong rising inflection. "What ablundering idiot! Our assassin is evidently a raw hand at thegame, Mr. Narkom, and not, as I had begun to fancy, either aprofessional or the appointed agent of some secret society followinga process of extermination against certain marked men. Neitherthe secret agent nor the professional bandit would be guilty ofthe extreme folly of operating several times in the same locality,be assured; and here is this muddling amateur letting himself belulled into a feeling of security by the failure of anybody todiscover the bodies of the first victims, and then going at itagain in the same place and the same way. For it is fair to assume,I daresay, that the fourth man was discovered under preciselysimilar circumstances to the first."
"Not exactly--very like them, but not exactly like them, Cleek. As amatter of fact, he was alive when found. I didn't credit the reportwhen I first heard it (a newspaper man brought it to me), and sentPetrie to investigate the truth of it."
"Why didn't you believe the report?"
"Because it seemed so wildly improbable. And, besides, they hadhatched up so many yarns, those newspaper reporters, since theaffair began. According to this fellow, a tramp, crossing the heathin quest of a place to sleep, had been frightened half out of hiswits by hearing a voice which _he_ described as being like the voiceof some one strangling, calling out in the darkness, 'Sapphires!Sapphires!' and a few moments later, when, as the reporter said, thetramp told him, he was scuttling away in a panic, he came suddenlyupon the figure of a man who was dancing round and round like awhirling dervish, with his mouth wide open, his tongue hangingout, and the forefinger of each hand stuck in his nostril as if----"
"What's that? What's that?" Cleek's voice flicked in like the crackof a whip. "Good God! Dancing round in circles? His mouth open? Histongue hanging out? His fingers thrust into his nostrils? Was thatwhat you said?"
"Yes. Why? Do you see anything promising in that fact, Cleek? Itseems to excite you."
"Never mind about that. Stick to the subject. Was that report foundto be correct, then?"
"In a measure, yes. Only, of course, one had to take the tramp'sassertion that the man had been calling out 'Sapphires' uponfaith, for when discovered and conveyed to the hospital, he was in acomatose condition and beyond making any sound at all. He died,without recovering consciousness, about twenty minutes afterPetrie's arrival; and, although the doctors performed a post-mortemimmediately after the breath had left his body, there was not atrace of anything to be found that differed in the slightest fromthe other cases. Heart, brain, liver, lungs--all were in a healthycondition, and beyond the reddened throat and the signs of recententeric there was nothing abnormal."
"But his lips--his lips, Mr. Narkom? Was there a smear of earth uponthem? Was he lying on his face when found? Were his fingers clenchedin the grass? Did it look as if he had been biting the soil?"
"Yes," replied Narkom. "As a matter of fact there was both earth andgrass in the mouth. The doctors removed it
carefully, examined itunder the microscope, even subjected it to chemical test in the hopeof discovering some foreign substance mixed with the mass, but failedutterly to discover a single trace."
"Of course, of course! It would be gone like a breath, gone like apassing cloud if it were that."
"If it were what? Cleek, my dear fellow! Good Lord! you don't meanto tell me you've got a clue?"
"Perhaps--perhaps--don't worry me!" he made answer testily; then roseand walked over to the window and stood there alone, pinching hischin between his thumb and forefinger and staring fixedly at thingsbeyond. After a time, however:
"Yes, it could be that--assuredly it could be that," he said in alow-sunk voice, as if answering a query. "But in England--in thisfar land. In Malay, yes; in Ceylon, certainly. And sapphires,too--sapphires! Hum-m-m! They mine them there. One man had travelledin foreign parts and been tattooed by natives. So that the selfsamecountry----Just so! Of course! Of course! But who? But how? And inEngland?"
His voice dropped off. He stood for a minute or so in absolutesilence, drumming noiselessly with his finger tips upon thewindow-sill, then turned abruptly and spoke to Mr. Narkom.
"Go on with the story, please," he said. "There was a fifth man, Ibelieve. When and how did his end come?"
"Like the others, for the most part, but with one startlingdifference: instead of being undressed, nothing had been removed buthis collar and boots. He was killed on the night I started withDollops for the Continent in quest of you; and his was the secondbody that was not actually found _on_ the heath. Like the first man,he was found under the wall which surrounds Lemmingham House."
"Lemmingham House? What's that--a hotel or a private residence?"
"A private residence, owned and occupied by Mr. JamesBarrington-Edwards."
"Any relation to that Captain Barrington-Edwards who was cashieredfrom the army some twenty years ago for 'conduct unbecoming anofficer and a gentleman'?"
"The same man!"
"Oho! the same man, eh?" Cleek's tone was full of sudden interest."Stop a bit! Let me put my thinking box into operation. CaptainBarrington-Edwards--hum-m-m! That little military unpleasantnesshappened out in Ceylon, did it not? The gentleman had a fancy forconjuring tricks, I believe; even went so far as to study themfirsthand under the tutelage of native fakirs, and was subsequentlycaught cheating at cards. That's the man, isn't it?"
"Yes," said Narkom, "that's the man. I'll have something startlingto tell you in connection with him presently, but not in connectionwith that card-cheating scandal. He always swore that he was innocentof that. In fact, that it was a put-up job by one of the otherofficers for the sake of ruining him."
"Yes, I know--they all say that. It's the only thing they can say."
"Still, I always believed him, Cleek. He's been a prettystraightforward man in all my dealings with him, and I've hadseveral. Besides which, he is highly respected these days. Then,too, there's the fact that the fellow he said put up the job againsthim for the sake of blackening him in the eyes of his sweetheart,eventually married the girl, so it does look rather fishy.However, although it ruined Barrington-Edwards for the time being,and embittered him so that he never married, he certainly hadthe satisfaction of knowing that the fellow who had caused thistrouble turned out an absolute rotter, spent all his wife's money andbrought her down to absolute beggary, whereas, if she'd stuck toBarrington-Edwards she'd have been a wealthy woman indeed,to-day. He's worth half a million at the least calculation."
"How's that? Somebody die and leave him a fortune?"
"No. He had a little of his own. Speculated, while he was in theEast, in precious stones and land which he had reason to believelikely to produce them; succeeded beyond his wildest hopes, and isto-day head of the firm of Barrington-Edwards, Morpeth & Firmin,the biggest dealers in precious stones that Hatton Garden can boastof."
"Oho!" said Cleek. "I see! I see!" and screwed round on his heeland looked out of the window again. Then, after a moment: "And Mr.Barrington-Edwards lives in the neighbourhood of Hampstead Heath,does he?" he asked quite calmly. "Alone?"
"No. With his nephew and heir, young Mr. Archer Blaine, a deadsister's only child. As a matter of fact, it was Mr. Archer Blainehimself who discovered the body of the fifth victim. Coming home ata quarter to one from a visit to an old college friend, he foundthe man lying stone dead in the shadow of the wall surroundingLemmingham House, and, of course, lost no time in dashing indoorsfor a police whistle and summoning the constable on point duty inthe district. The body was at once given in charge of a hastilysummoned detachment from the Yard and conveyed to the Hampsteadmortuary, where it still lies awaiting identification."
"Been photographed?"
"Not as yet. Of course it will be--as were the other four--prior tothe time of burial should nobody turn up to claim it. But in thisinstance we have great hopes that identification _will_ take place onthe strength of a marked peculiarity. The man is web-footed and----"
"The man is _what_?" rapped in Cleek excitedly.
"Web-footed," repeated Narkom. "The several toes are attached one tothe other by a thin membrane, after the manner of a duck's feet; andon the left foot there is a peculiar horny protuberance like----"
"Like a rudimentary sixth toe!" interrupted Cleek, fairly flingingthe eager query at him. "It is, eh? Well, by the Eternal! I onceknew a fellow--years ago, in the Far East--whose feet were malformedlike that; and if by any possibility----Stop a bit! A word more.Is that man a big fellow--broad shouldered, muscular, and about fortyor forty-five years of age?"
"You've described him to a T, dear chap. There is, however, a certainother peculiarity which you have not mentioned, though that, ofcourse, maybe a recent acquirement. The palm of the right hand----"
"Wait a bit! Wait a bit!" interposed Cleek, a trifle irritably. Hehad swung away from the window and was now walking up and down theroom with short nervous steps, his chin pinched up between his thumband forefinger, his brows knotted, and his eyes fixed upon the floor.
"Saffragam--Jaffna--Trincomalee! In all three of them--in all three!"he said, putting his running thoughts into muttered words. "Andnow a dead man sticks his fingers in his nostrils and talks ofsapphires. Sapphires, eh? And the Saffragam district stuck thickwith them as spangles on a Nautch girl's veil. The Bareva for aducat! The Bareva Reef or I'm a Dutchman! And Barrington-Edwardswas in that with the rest. So was Peabody; so was Miles; and so,too, were Lieutenant Edgburn and the Spaniard, Juan Alvarez. Eight ofthem, b'gad--eight! And I was ass enough to forget, idiot enoughnot to catch the connection until I heard again of Jim Peabody'sweb foot! But wait! Stop--there should be another marked foot ifthis is indeed a clue to the riddle, and so----"
He stopped short in his restless pacing and faced round on Mr. Narkom.
"Tell me something," he said in a sharp staccato. "The four otherdead men--did any among them have an injured foot--the left or theright, I forget which--from which all toes but the big one had beentorn off by a crocodile's bite, so that in life the fellow musthave limped a little when he walked? Did any of the dead men bear amark like that?"
"No," said Narkom. "The feet of all the others were normal in everyparticular."
"Hum-m-m! That's a bit of a setback. And I am either on the wrongtrack or Alvarez is still alive. What's that? Oh, it doesn't matter;a mere fancy of mine, that's all. Now let us get back to our mutton,please. You were going to tell me something about the right handof the man with the web foot. What was it?"
"The palm bore certain curious hieroglyphics traced upon it in brightpurple."
"Hieroglyphics, eh? That doesn't look quite so promising," said Cleekin a disappointed tone. "It is quite possible that there may be morethan one web-footed man in the world, so of course----Hum-m-m! Whatwere these hieroglyphics, Mr. Narkom? Can you describe them?"
"I can do better, my dear chap," replied the superintendent, dippinginto an inner pocket and bringing forth a brown leather case. "Itook an accurate tracing of them from the dead hand this m
orning,and--there you are. That's what's on his palm, Cleek, close to thebase of the forefinger running diagonally across it."
Cleek took the slip of tracing paper and carried it to the window,for the twilight was deepening and the room was filling with shadows.In the middle of the thin, transparent sheet was traced this:
[Illustration of a handwritten message]
He turned it up and down, he held it to the light and studied itfor a moment or two in perplexed silence, then of a sudden he facedround, and Narkom could see that his eyes were shining and that thecurious one-sided smile, peculiar unto him, was looping up his cheek.
"My friend," he said, answering the eager query in thesuperintendent's look, "this is yet another vindication of Poe'stheory that things least hidden are best hidden, and that the mostcomplex mysteries are those which are based on the simplestprinciples. With your permission, I'll keep this"--tucking thetracing into his pocket--"and afterward I will go to the mortuaryand inspect the original. Meantime, I will go so far as to tellyou that I know the motive for these murders, I know the means, andif you will give me forty-eight hours to solve the riddle, at theend of that time I'll know the man. I will even go farther andtell you the names of the victims; and all on the evidence of yourneat little tracing. The web-footed man was one, James Peabody, afarrier, at one time attached to the Blue Cavalry at Trincomalee,Ceylon. Another was Joseph Miles, an Irishman, bitten early withthe 'wanderlust' which takes men everywhere, and in making rollingstones of them, suffers them to gather no moss. Still another--andprobably, from the tattoo mark on his arm, the first victimfound--was Thomas Hart, ablebodied seaman, formerly in serviceon the P & O line; the remaining two were Alexander McCurdy, aScotchman, and T. Jenkins Quegg, a Yankee. The latter, however,was a naturalized Englishman, and both were privates in her lateMajesty's army and honourably discharged."
"Cleek, my dear fellow, are you a magician?" said Narkom, sinkinginto a chair, overcome.
"Oh, no, my friend, merely a man with a memory, that's all; and Ihappen to remember a curious little 'pool' that was made up of eightmen. Five of them are dead. The other three are Juan Alvarez, aSpaniard, that Lieutenant Edgburn who married and beggared the girlCaptain Barrington-Edwards lost when he was disgraced, and lastof all the ex-Captain Barrington-Edwards himself. Gently, gently, myfriend. Don't excite yourself. All these murders have been committedwith a definite purpose in view, with a devil's instrument, andfor the devil's own stake--riches. Those riches, Mr. Narkom, wereto come in the shape of precious stones, the glorious sapphires ofCeylon. And five of the eight men who were to reap the harvest ofthem died mysteriously in the vicinity of Lemmingham House."
"Cleek! My hat!" Narkom sprang up as he spoke, and then sat downagain in a sort of panic. "And he--Barrington-Edwards, the man thatlives there--_deals_ in precious stones. Then that man----"
"Gently, my friend, gently--don't bang away at the first rabbit thatbolts out of the hole--it may be a wee one and you'll lose the buckthat follows. _Two_ men live in that house, remember; Mr. ArcherBlaine is Mr. Barrington-Edwards' heir as well as his nephew and--whoknows?"