CHAPTER XXXI
She was there already; sitting far back at the end of one of the narrowwooden side benches with the shadow of the gate's moss-grown roof and ofthe big cypress above it partly screening her, her shrinking positionevincing a desire to escape general observation as clearly as her paleface and nervously drumming hand betrayed a state of extreme agitation.
She rose as Cleek lifted the latch and came in, and advanced to meet himwith both hands outstretched in greeting and a rich colour staining allher face.
"I knew that you would come--I was as certain of it as I am now thisminute," she said with a little embarrassed laugh, then dropped her eyesand said no more, for he had taken those two hands in his and washolding them tightly and looking at her with an expression that was halfa reproach and half a caress.
"I am glad you did not doubt," he said, with an odd, wistful littlesmile. "It is good to know one's friends have faith in one, Miss Lorne.I had almost come to believe that you had forgotten me."
"Because I did not write? Oh, but I could not--indeed I could not. Ihave been spending days and nights in a house of mourning--Lady Chepstowgave me leave of absence; and my heart was so full I did not write evento her. I have been trying to soothe and to comfort a distracted girl, ahalf-crazed old man, a bereft and horribly smitten family. I have beendoing all in my power to put hope and courage into the heart of adespairing and most unhappy lover."
"Meaning Captain Morford?"
"Yes. He has been almost beside himself. And since this last blowfell.... Oh, I had been so sure that it would not, that between us allwe would manage to avert it; yet in spite of everything it did fall--itdid!--and if I live to be a hundred I shall never forget it."
"Calm yourself, Miss Lorne. You are shaking like a leaf. Try to tell meplainly what it is that has happened; what the danger is that threatensthis--er--Captain Morford."
"Oh, nothing threatens _him_, personally," she replied. "He says hecould stand it better if it were only that; and I believe him--I trulydo. The thing that nearly drives him out of his mind is the thought thatone day she--the girl he loves--the girl he is to marry--the girl forwhose dear sake he stands ready to give up so much--the thought that oneday _her_ turn will come, that one day she, too, will be stricken downas mother and brothers have been is almost driving him frantic."
"Mother and brothers?--_brothers_?" Cleek looked up sharply, and therewas a curious break in his voice, a yet more curious brightening of hiseyes. "Miss Lorne, am I to understand that this Captain Morford isengaged to a girl who has _brothers_?"
"Yes. That is--no. She has 'brothers' no longer. There is only one leftliving now, Mr. Cleek, only one. Ah, think of it! of that whole familyof six persons, but three are left: Miriam, Flora, and Ronald."
"Miriam, Flora, and ... Miss Lorne, will you tell me please the name ofthe lady to whom Captain Morford is engaged?"
"Why Miriam Comstock, of course--did I forget to mention it?"
"I think so," said Cleek; and shook out a little jerky laugh, and stoodlooking at her foolishly; not quite knowing what to do with his feet andhands. But suddenly--"Oh come, let's have the case--let's have it atonce," he broke out impetuously. "Tell me what it is, what I'm to do forthis Captain Morford, and I'll do it if mortal man can."
"And no mortal man can if you cannot--I've faith enough in you forthat," she began, then stopped short and sucked in her breath, and creptback to the extreme end of the lich-gate and stood shaking and verypale. Someone had come suddenly round the angle of the church and wasmoving up the road that ran past the gate.
"Please--no--let me get away as quickly as possible," she said in aswift whisper as Cleek, startled by the change in her, made an eagerstep forward. "It is known that I have been with them--theComstocks--and it is all so mysterious and awful.... Oh, who can tellwhose hand it may be? who may be spying? or what? It is best that Ishould give no hint that assistance has been asked for; best that nobodyshould see me talking with _you_--Mr. Narkom says that it is."
"Mr. Narkom?"
"Yes. He was in the neighbourhood accidentally. He called last night. Itold him and he was glad that I had sent for you. He is over there, onthe other side of the churchyard. Oh, please will you go to him? CaptainMorford is within easy call and has agreed to come when he is wanted. Dogo, do go quickly, Mr. Cleek. There's someone coming up the road and Iam horribly frightened."
"But why? It is merely a farm labourer," said Cleek, glancing throughthe open side of the lich-gate and down the road. "You can see that foryourself."
"Yes, but--who knows? who can tell? There is no clue to the actualperson and he is so cunning, so crafty--Oh, please, will you go?Afterward, if you like, we can meet here again. To-day I am toofrightened to stay."
He saw that she was in a state of extreme nervous terror; that it wouldbe cruel to subject her to any further suffering, and without one moreword, walked past her into the Churchyard and made his way over thegreen ridge that rose immediately behind the building and down the slopebeyond until he came to the extreme other side. And there in the shadeof a thickly grown spinney, he found Mr. Marverick Narkom sitting withhis back against a beech-tree smoking a nerve-soothing cigar andexpectantly awaiting him.
"My dear fellow, I never was so glad," he said, tossing away his smokeand jumping up as Cleek appeared. "Happy coincidence my motoring downhere--eh, what? Wife in these parts visiting. Rum, my turning up justafter Miss Lorne had written you and at a time when we both are needed,wasn't it?"
"Very," said Cleek, pulling out a cigarette and stretching himself fulllength upon the ground. "Would as soon have expected to run foul of aspecimen of the Great Auk endeavouring to rear a family in theneighbourhood of Trafalgar Square. Well, what's it now, Mr. Narkom?--I'mtold you know the details. A match please, if you have one. Thanks verymuch. Now then let's have the facts. What sort of a case is it?"
"The knottiest in all my experience, the strangest that even you haveever handled," replied the Superintendent, impressively. "It's amurder--three murders, in fact, with a possible fourth and a fifth inthe near future if the diabolical rascal who is at the bottom of itisn't pulled up sharp and his amazing _modus operandi_ discovered.
"The case will interest you, my dear chap; it is so startlingly originalin its methods of procedure, so complex, so weird, and so appallinglymysterious. Conceive if you can, my dear fellow, an individual sosupernaturally cunning that he not only kills without a trace, but killsin the presence of watchers--kills whilst the victim is in the very armsof those watchers! And yet escapes, unseen, unknown, without a clue totell when, where, or how he entered the room or left it; when, where, orhow he struck the blow, or why; yet did strike it, despite the sleeplessvigil of a man who not only sat up all night with the victim, but heldhim in his arms to be sure that nobody could get at him; nobody so muchas approach him without his guardian's knowledge!"
Cleek twitched round sharply and sat up, leaning upon his elbow andlooking at Narkom as though he doubted his sanity.
"Let me have that again!" he said in sharp, crisp tones. "A man killedwhilst another man held him--held him in his arms--and watched over him,and yet the other man saw nothing of the murderer? Is that what yousaid?"
"That's it, precisely. Only I must tell you that, in the instance whenthe victim was held in the arms of the person watching him, it was not aman that was killed, but a boy. There had been a man killed, however,four weeks previously in the same house, in the same mysterious manner,and by the same unknown agency. A month earlier a woman, too, had beendone to death there in the same way. The man was the brother of thatboy, and the woman was the mother of both."
Cleek moved so quickly that he might fairly have been said to flash froma sitting to a standing position, and then began to feel round in hispockets for his cigarette case with a nervous sort of haste, whichNarkom knew and understood.
"Ah," he said, in a tone of satisfaction, "I thought the case wouldinterest you. You've been down in the dumps lately and needed something
to buck you up a bit. I told Captain Morford that this would be sure todo it. Heard of him, haven't you? Extremely nice chap. Home on leavefrom Bombay. Only recently got his captaincy. Grandson and heir to thatfine old snob, Sir Gilbert Morford, who's known everywhere as 'TheTitled Teapot.' You know, 'Morford & Morford's Unrivalled Tea.' Knightedfor something or other--the Lord knows what or why--and puts on moreside over his tin-plate title than Royalty itself. The Captain is adecent sort, however. He'll give you the full particulars of thisastounding case. Wait a bit. I'll call him"--pausing a moment to put thefirst two fingers of each hand into his mouth and blow out a shrill,ear-splitting whistle. "That'll fetch him! He'll be here before you cansay Jack Robinson!"
He wasn't, of course; but you couldn't have said it half a hundred timesbefore he was; or, at least, before Cleek, startled by a rustling of theboughs, glanced round and saw a tall, fairish young man who had no morethe appearance of a soldier than a currant has of a gooseberry. Helooked more like a bank clerk than anything else that Cleek could thinkof at the minute, and a none too prepossessing bank clerk at that, forNature had not been any too lavish of her gifts as regards personalattractiveness, seeming to prefer to make up for her miserliness in thebestowal of good looks by an absolute prodigality in the gifts ofears--ears as big as an oyster-shell and so prominent that they seemedeven larger than they were, and that is saying a great deal.
Still, unprepossessing as the man was, there was a certain charm ofmanner about him and a certain attractiveness in his voice Cleekdiscovered when he was introduced to him and found himself being "sizedup," so to speak, by a pair of keen grey eyes.
"Now let us have the details of the case, if you please, Captain," saidCleek, coming to the point of the interview with as little beating aboutthe bush as possible. "Mr. Narkom has given me a vague idea of thenature of it, but I want something more than that, of course. I am toldthat three persons in one family have been done to death in a mostmysterious manner, and without any clue to the assassin or his motive;indeed that the hand which strikes strikes even in the presence ofothers, yet remains unknown and invisible. Frankly, I never heard of butone instance which at all resembles this or--No, Mr. Narkom, it isnothing that ever came your way, no affair that has happened since youand I first met, sir. It was a long time ago--eight or ten years, to beexact--and a good many miles from England. The cases were somewhatsimilar, judging from the scanty outline you have given me, and--What'sthat? No, the criminal was never apprehended. He got away, and hismethods were never generally known. Even if they had been, they were notthose which any desperado might have emulated, any tyro practised. Theyrequired a certain knowledge of anatomy, chemical action--even surgery.I don't believe that ten people in the world knew about the thing atthat time. I stumbled upon what I believed was the solution of themystery whilst I was taking a course of chemistry for--well, for thepurpose of demonstrating the possibility of manufacturing preciousstones of a size and weight to make them a profitable--er--speculation.The science in medicine was not so advanced in those days as it is now,and when I ventured to suggest to certain doctors what I believed tohave been the cause of the mysterious deaths and the _modus operandi_ ofthe murderer, I simply got laughed at for my pains. I felt prettycertain of my facts, however, and pretty certain of the man who wasguilty. Pardon? No, not alive now; that fellow had his brains blown outin a bar-room brawl before I left New Zealand."
"New Zealand?" struck in Captain Morford agitatedly. "I say, that's arum go, isn't it, Mr. Narkom. New Zealand is where the Comstocks comefrom--or, rather, the father and mother did."
"By Jove! Cleek, that looks suspicious, old chap," chimed in Narkom."Don't think, do you, that there can possibly be any connection betweenthe two cases? In other words, that that fellow you suspected in NewZealand didn't really die after all?"
"Shortly, the chemist? Not a doubt about his death, Mr. Narkom. I was inthe bar-room when he was killed. Three bullets went through his head,and he was as dead as Napoleon Bonaparte by the time he struck thefloor. The methods may be the same, but not the man--there is not theghost of possibility of there being any connection between the two. Butlet us give the Captain a chance to explain the case. When, where, andhow did these mysterious murders begin, Captain, if you please?"
"At Lilac Lodge, over Windsor way," replied the Captain, trying toanswer all three questions at once. "They started about a week after theComstocks went to live there. And the thing was so appalling, the placeseemed so certainly under a curse, that although he had paid a goodround sum for it, and had spent a pot of money having the housedecorated and the garden laid out just as Miriam and her mother fanciedit--Miriam is Miss Comstock, my fiancee, Mr. Cleek--nothing would induceMr. Harmstead to stop in it another hour after the second murderoccurred."
"Mr. Harmstead! Who is Mr. Harmstead, Captain?"
"The late Mrs. Comstock's bachelor uncle--a very rich old chap, who wasonce a sheep-farmer in New Zealand, and afterwards in Australia. Mrs.Comstock hadn't seen him since she was a very little girl until he cameto England some few months ago to settle down and to take care of herchildren and her."
"How did it happen that she hadn't seen him in all that time? I take itthere must have been some good reason, Captain?"
"Yes, rather. You see it was like this: The Harmsteads--Mrs. Comstockwas a Harmstead by birth, and Uncle Phil was her father's onlybrother--the Harmsteads had never been well to-do as a family: indeednone of them but dear old Uncle Phil ever had a hundred pounds theycould call their own, so when Miss Harmstead's father died, which wasabout eight months after his brother left New Zealand and went toAustralia, she married a young joiner and cabinet-maker, GeorgeComstock, to whom she had long been engaged, and a few weeks later,fancying there would be a better chance for advancement in his trade inEngland than out there, Mr. Comstock sold out what few belongings he hadin the world and brought his wife over here."
"Oh, I see. Then of course she had no opportunity of seeing her uncleuntil he came here?"
"No, not a ghost of one. She corresponded with him for a time,however--wrote him after the first child was born--and christened'Philip' in honour of him. In those days it used to take six months toget a letter to Australia, and another six to get word back, so the babywas more than a year old when Uncle Phil wrote that if he didn't marryin the meantime and have a son of his own--which was very unlikely--hewould make young Phil his heir and come out after him, too, one of thesefine days."
"One moment. Was the person you allude to as 'Young Phil' one of thesons that was murdered?"
"Yes. He was the first victim, poor, chap!"
"Oh, I see!" said Cleek. "I see! So there is money in the background,eh? Well go on. What next? Hear any more from Uncle Phil after that?"
"Oh, yes--for a long time. Miriam and Flora were born, and word of theirarrival in the world was sent out to him before the final letter foryears and years reached them. In that letter he wrote that he was doingbetter and better every year, and getting so rich that he didn't havetime to do anything but just stop where he was and 'gather in theshekels.' There'd be enough for all when he did come, however, and hewas altering his will so that in case anything should happen to youngPhil--'which God forbid,' he wrote--the girls would come next, and so onto all the heirs of his niece. After that letter years went by, andnever another one. They, thinking that he had married after all--for inhis last letter he had spoken of a young widow who had lately beenengaged to fill the post of housekeeper at his ranch--gave up all hopewhen after three times writing no reply came, and finally desistedentirely. He says, however, that it was just the other way about. Thathe did write--wrote six or seven times--but could get no reply; and ashe afterwards found the housekeeper in question a designing anddeceitful person, and shipped her off about her business, he makes nodoubt that she received and destroyed Mrs. Comstock's letter to him andburnt his to her, hoping, no doubt, to inveigle him into marrying her."
"Quite likely, if she were a designing woman," commented Cleek. "But go
on, please. What next?"
"Oh, years of hardship, during which Mr. Comstock died and his widow hadto earn their own living unaided. Young Phil got a post as bookkeeper,Flora taught music and painting, Mrs. Comstock did needlework, andMiriam became a governess in the family of a distant connection of mygrandfather, Sir Gilbert Morford. That's where and how I met her, Mr.Cleek, and--Well, that's another story!" his cheeks reddening and aflash of fire coming into his eyes. "My grandfather says he will 'chuckme out neck and crop' if I marry her; but it does not matter--I will!"
"Yes, you will--if the cut of that chin stands for anything," commentedCleek. "Well, to get on: the Comstocks were down in the deeps, and nohope of hearing any more from Australia and Uncle Phil, eh? What next?"
"Why, all of a sudden he dropped in on them, bless his bully oldheart!--and then good-bye to hard times and any more struggling forthem. He'd been in England searching for them for seven months before hefound them; but when he did find them there was a time! Inside of tenhours, the whole world was changed for them. Made the boys and the girlsgive up their positions and come home to live with him and their mother,poured money out by the handful, bought Lilac Lodge and fitted it uplike a little palace, dressed his niece and her daughters like queens,and settled down with them to what seemed about to be a life of gloriousand luxurious ease, and in the midst of all this peace and plenty,brightness and hope, the first blow fell. Mrs. Comstock, going to bed atnight in perfect health, was found in the morning stone-dead! Of course,as no doctor could give a death certificate when none had been inattendance upon her, the Law stepped in, the coroner held an inquest, anautopsy was decided upon, and the result of it was a deeper and moreamazing mystery than ever. She had died--but from what? Every organ wasfound to be in a thoroughly healthy condition. The heart was sound, thelungs betrayed no sign of an anesthetic, the blood and kidneys not thefaintest trace of poison--everything about her was perfectly normal. Shehad not died through drugs, she had not died through strangulation,suffocation, electrical shock, or failure of the heart. She had not beenstabbed, she had not been shot, she had not succumbed to any mortaldisease--yet there she was, stone-dead, slain by something which no onecould trace and for which Science could find no name."
Narkom opened his lips to speak, but Cleek signalled him to silence, andstood studying the Captain from under down-drawn brows, looking andlistening and thoughtfully rubbing his thumb and forefinger up and downhis chin.