CHAPTER XXXIV
The little house of Dalehampton was something more than a mere house ofgrief, they found, when the long drive came to an end and Cleek and histwo companions entered it, for the very spirit of desolation and despairseemed to have taken up its abode there; and, like an Incarnate Woe,Miss Comstock paced through the hush and darkness, hour in and hour out,as she had been doing since daybreak.
"My darling, you mustn't--you really mustn't, dear. You'll lose yourmind if you brood over the thing like this," said the Captain, flying toher the very instant they arrived; and, disregarding the presence of histwo companions, caught her in his arms and kissed her. "Miriam, dearest,don't! It breaks my heart. I know it's awful; but do try to havestrength and hope. I am sure we shall get at the bottom of the thingnow--sure that there will be no more--that this is truly the end. Thesegentlemen are from Scotland Yard, dearest, and they say it surely willbe."
"Heaven knows I hope so," replied Miss Comstock, acknowledging theintroduction to Cleek and Narkom by a gentle inclination of the head."But indeed, I can't hope, Jim--indeed, I cannot, gentlemen. The tenthof next month will take its toll as the tenth of this one has done. Ifeel persuaded that it will. For who can fight a thing unseen andunknown?"
Her grief was so great, her despair so hopeless, that Cleek forboreattempting to assuage either by any words of sympathy or promise. Heseemed to feel that hers was an anguish upon which even the kindliestwords must fall only as an intrusion, and the heart of the man--thatcuriously created heart, which at times could be savage even to thepoint of brutality, and again tender and sympathetic as anywoman's--went out to her in one great surge of human feeling. And twominutes later--when all the Law's grim business of inquiry and inquesthad been carried out by Narkom, and she, in obedience to his expresseddesire, led them to the room where the dead boy lay--that wave ofsympathetic feeling broke over his soul again. For the gentle opening ofthe door had shown him a small, dimly lit room, a kneeling figure, bentof back and bowed of head, that leant over a little white bed in a veryagony of tearless woe.
"He can hardly tear himself away for an instant--he loved him so!" shesaid in a quavering whisper to Cleek. "Must we disturb him? It seemsalmost cruel."
"I know it," he whispered back; "but the place must be searched in questof possible clues, Miss Comstock. The--the little boy, too, must beexamined, and it would be crueller still if he were to stay and seethings like that. Lead him out if you can. It will be for a few minutesonly. Tell him so--tell him he can come back then." And turned his faceaway from that woeful picture as she went over and spoke to thesorrowing old man.
"Uncle!" she said softly. "Uncle Phil! You must come away for a littletime, dear. It is necessary."
"Oh, I can't, Mirry--I can't, lovie, dear!" he answered without liftinghis head or loosening his folded hands. "My bonnie, my bonnie, that Iloved so well! Ah, let me have him while I may, Mirry--they'll take himfrom me soon enough--soon enough, my bonnie boy!"
"But, dearest, you must. The--the Law has stepped in. Gentlemen fromScotland Yard are here. Jim has brought them. They must have the roomfor a little time. There--there's the window to be examined, you know;and if they can find out anything--"
"I'll give them the half of all I have in the world!" broke in the oldman with a little burst of tears. "Tell them that. The half ofeverything--everything--if they can get at the creature. If they canfind out. But"--collapsing suddenly, with his elbows on his knees andhis face between his hands--"they can't, they can't; nobody can! Itkills and kills and kills; and God help us! we all shall go the sameway! It will be my turn, too, some time soon. I wish it were mine now. Iwish it had been mine long ago--before I lost my bonnie own!"
"Takes it hard, poor old chap, doesn't he?" whispered Narkom, glancinground and getting something of a shock when he saw that Cleek, who amoment before had appeared to be almost on the verge of tears, was nowfumbling in his coat pockets, and, with indrawn lips and knotted brows,was scowling--absolutely scowling--in the direction where CaptainMorford stood, biting his lips and drumming with his finger nails uponthe edge of the washstand. But Cleek made no reply. Instead, he walkedquickly across to the Captain's side, stretched forth his hand, took upa tablet of soap, turned it over, laid it down again, stepped to thewindow, stepped back, and laid a firm hand on the young man's shoulder.
"Captain," he said suddenly, in sharp, crisp tones, that soundedpainfully harsh after the old man's broken cries, "Captain, there's alittle game of cards called 'Bluff,' and it's an excellent amusement ifyou don't get caught at it. We shan't have to go any further with thesearch for clues in this case; but I think I shall have to ask you, myfriend, a few little questions in private, and in the interests of agentleman called Jack Ketch!"
This unexpected outburst produced something like a panic. Miss Comstock,hearing the words, cried out, put both hands to her temples, as thoughher head were reeling; old Mr. Harmstead straightened suddenly and flunga look of blank amazement across the room; and the Captain, twitchingaway from the man who gripped him, went first deathly white and then redas any beet.
"Good God!" he gulped. "You--I--Look here, I say now, what does thismean? What the dickens are you talking about?"
"Bluff, Captain! Simply 'bluff'!" responded Cleek serenely. "And as Isaid before, it's a clever little game. Stand where you are--keep an eyeon him, Mr. Narkom. What I've got to say to you, my friend, we'll talkabout in private, and after I have assisted Miss Comstock to lead heruncle out of the room."
With that he swung away from the Captain's side and went over to that ofthe old man.
"Come, Mr. Harmstead, let me help you to rise," he began; then stoppedas the old man put up a knotted and twisted hand in supplication andprotested agitatedly: "But--but, sir, I do not want to go. Good Heaven!What can you be hinting against that poor, dear boy? Surely you do notmean--you cannot mean--"
"That the little game of 'Bluff' has worked, Dr. Finch, and you'll neverdraw a revolver on me," rapped in Cleek, giving him a backward push thatcarried him to the floor, and in the twinkling of an eye he had pouncedupon him like a cat and was saying, as he snapped the handcuffs upon hiswrists: "Got you, you brute-beast; got you tight and fast! Do youremember Hamilton, the medical student, in New Zealand, eight years ago?Do you? Well, that's the man you're dealing with now!"
The man, struggling and kicking, biting and clawing like any othercornered wild cat, flung out a cry of utter despair at this, andcollapsed suddenly; and in the winking of an eye Cleek's hands hadflashed into the two pockets of the dressing-gown the fellow waswearing, and flashed out again with a revolver in one and a shiningnickel thing in the other.
"Got your 'bark,' doctor, and got your 'bite' as well!" he said, as herose to his feet. "You'd have put a bullet through me at the first word,wouldn't you, but for that little 'bluff' of suspecting and arrestinganother man? Captain, look to Miss Comstock--I think she has fainted.You wanted the murderer of Mrs. Comstock and her children, didn't you?Well, here he is, the rascal!"
"Good God! Then it--it's not a mistake? You mean it--mean it? And UnclePhil! You accuse Uncle Phil?"
"Uncle Nothing!" flung back Cleek with a sort of laugh--and, hazarding aguess which afterwards was proved to be the truth--"I'll lay my life,Captain, that when you apply to the Australian authorities you will findthat old Mr. Philip Harmstead is in his grave; that he was attended inhis last illness by one Dr. Frederick Finch, to whom his fortune wouldrevert in the event of Mrs. Comstock and her children dying. Finch isthe fellow's name--isn't it, doctor, eh?"
"Finch?" repeated the Captain. "Good Heaven! Why that was the name ofthe woman who was old Mr. Harmstead's housekeeper--you know, the widow Itold you about to-night."
"Oho!" said Cleek. "That's possibly where the threads join and thislittle game begins. Or perhaps it may really be said to begin againwhere Shorty, the chemist, died, and the celebrated Spofford mysteryended--eh, doctor? Look here, Captain, look here, Mr. Narkom, youremember what I told you this morning about tha
t case in New Zealandwhich so strongly resembled this one? That was the Spofford mystery. Doyou remember what I said about hitting upon a theory and offering it tothe medical fraternity, only to get laughed at for my pains? Well, itwas to this man, Dr. Frederick Finch, I advanced that theory, and it wasDr. Frederick Finch who jeered at it, but has now made deadly use of it,the hound. Do you want to know how he killed his victims, and what heused? Look at this thing that you saw me take from the pocket of hisdressing-gown. It is a hypodermic syringe, but there is nothing init--there never has been anything in it. Air was his poison--air hisshaft of death; and he killed by injecting it into the veins of hisvictims. The result of air coming into contact with the circulatingblood of a human being is the formation of a blood-clot, and death isinstantaneous the instant the clot reaches either the brain or theheart! That was his method. But thank God it's done with for ever now,and the next tenth day of the month will pass over this stricken familyand leave it unscathed!"
* * * * *
"How did I know the man?" said Cleek, answering Narkom's query, as theycame down the Tor-side afoot and forged on in the direction ofLyntonhurst Old Church--whither Captain Morford and the limousine hadlong ago preceded them--with the low-dropped sun behind them andlengthening shadows streaming on before. "Well, as a matter of fact, Inever did know him until I actually touched him. I was certain of themethod, of course; but the man--no. I got my first suspicion of 'UnclePhil' when I heard him speak. I knew I had heard that voice somewhere,and I realised that it was much too young a voice for a man whoappeared--and must be, if he were the real 'Uncle Phil'--extremely old;but it was only when I saw his hand, and the peculiar knotted andtwisted little finger that I really knew who he was. What's that? Thesoap? Well, of course I knew that if, as I suspected, someone in thehouse was the real culprit, an attempt would be made to make it look asthough the criminal entered from without, so naturally the window wouldbe opened, and something of some sort would be smeared on thesill--something that wouldn't blow away and wouldn't wash off in theevent of a sudden rainstorm coming up. Soap would do--and soap is alwayshandy in a bedroom. I knew whose hand had made the smear as soon as Ilooked at the cake of soap in 'Uncle Phil's' room--it was badly rubbedon one side where it had been scraped over the stone coping and alongthe outer edge of the sill where--Pardon me: this is the turning--Ileave you here. Pick me up at the inn of the Three Desires in an hour'stime, please, and we'll motor back to town together. So long!"
And swung round into the branching lane and down the green slope, andround under the shadow of Lyntonhurst Old Church to the quiet countryroad and the lich-gate where Ailsa Lorne was waiting.