CHAPTER V
On the morrow, Mrs. Bawdrey made known the rather surprising piece ofnews that Mr. Rickaby had written her a note to say that he had receiveda communication of such vital importance that he had been obliged toleave the house that morning before anybody was up, and might not beable to return to it for several days.
"No very great hardship in that, my dear," commented Mrs. Somerby-Miles,"for a more stupid and uninteresting person I never encountered. Fancy!he never even offered to assist the gentlemen to get poor Mr. Bawdreyupstairs last night. How is the poor old dear this morning, darling?Better?"
"Yes--much," said Mrs. Bawdrey, in reply. "Doctor Phillipson came to thehouse before four o'clock, and brought some wonderful new medicine thathas simply worked wonders. Of course, he will have to stop in bed and beperfectly quiet for three or four days; but, although the attack was byfar the worst he has ever had, the doctor feels quite confident that hewill pull him safely through."
Now although, in the light of her apparent affection for her agedhusband, she ought, one would have thought, to be exceedingly happy overthis, it was distinctly noticeable that she was nervous and ill at ease,that there was a hunted look in her eyes, and that, as the day wore on,these things seemed to be accentuated. More than that, there seemedadded proof of the truth of young Bawdrey's assertion that she andCaptain Travers were in league with each other, for that day they wereconstantly together, constantly getting off into out-of-the-way places,and constantly talking in an undertone of something that seemed to worrythem.
Even when dinner was over, and the whole party adjourned to thedrawing-room for coffee, and the lady ought, in all conscience, to havegiven herself wholly up to the entertainment of her guests it wasobservable that she devoted most of her time to whispered confidenceswith Captain Travers, that they kept going to the window and looking upat the sky, as if worried and annoyed that the twilight should be solong in fading and the night in coming on. But worse than this, at teno'clock Captain Travers made an excuse of having letters to write, andleft the room, and it was scarcely six minutes later that she followedsuit.
But the Captain had not gone to write letters, as it had happened.Instead, he had gone straight to the morning-room, an apartmentimmediately behind that in which the elder Mr. Bawdrey's collection washoused, and from which a broad French window opened out upon thegrounds, and it might have caused a scandal had it been known that Mrs.Bawdrey joined him there one minute after leaving the drawing-room.
"It is the time, Walter, it is the time!" she said, in a breathless sortof way, as she closed the door and moved across the room to where hestood, a dimly seen figure in the dim light. "God help and pity me! butI am so nervous, I hardly know how to contain myself. The note said atten to-night in the morning-room, and it is ten now. The hour is here,Walter, the hour is here!"
"So is the man, Mrs. Bawdrey," answered a low voice from the outerdarkness; then a figure lifted itself above the screening shrubs justbeyond the ledge of the open window, and Cleek stepped into the room.
She gave a little hysterical cry and reached out her hands to him.
"Oh, I am so glad to see you, even though you hint at such awful things,I am so glad, so glad!" she said. "I almost died when I read your note.To think that it is murder--murder! And but for you he might be deadeven now. You will like to know that the doctor brought the stuff yousent by him--brought it at once--and my darling is better--better."
Before Cleek could venture any reply to this, Captain Travers stalkedacross the room and gripped his hand.
"And so you are that great man Cleek, are you?" he said. "Bully boy!Bully boy! And to think that all the time it wasn't some mysteriousnatural affliction; to think that it was crime--murder--poison. Whatpoison, man, what poison--what?"
"Ayupee, or, as it is variously called in the several islands of theEastern Archipelago, Pohon-Upas, Antjar, and Ipo," said Cleek, in reply."The deadly venom which the Malays use in poisoning the heads of theirarrows."
"What! that awful stuff!" said Mrs. Bawdrey, with a little shudderingcry. "And someone in this house--" Her voice broke. She plucked atCleek's sleeve and looked up at him in an agony of entreaty. "Who?" sheimplored. "Who in this house could? You said you would tellto-night--you said you would. Oh, who could have the heart? Ah! Who? Itis true, if you have not heard it, that once upon a time there was badblood between Mr. Murdock and him--that Mr. Murdock is a familyconnection; but even he, oh, even he--Tell me--tell me, Mr. Cleek!"
"Mrs. Bawdrey, I can't just yet," he made reply. "In my heart I am ascertain of it as though the criminal had confessed; but I am waiting fora sign, and, until that comes, absolute proof is not possible. That itwill come, and may, indeed, come at any moment now that it is quitedark, I am very certain. When it does--"
He stopped and threw up a warning hand. As he spoke a queer thuddingsound struck one dull note through the stillness of the house. He stood,bent forward, listening, absolutely breathless; then, on the other sideof the wall, there rippled and rolled a something that was like thesound of a struggle between two voiceless animals, and--the sign that heawaited had come!
"Follow me--quickly, as noiselessly as you can. Let no one hear, let noone see!" he said in a breath of excitement. Then he sprang cat-like tothe door, whirled it open, scudded round the angle of the passage to theentrance of the room where the fraudulent collection was kept, and wentin with the silent fleetness of a panther. And a moment later, whenCaptain Travers and Mrs. Bawdrey swung in through the door and joinedhim, they came upon a horrifying sight.
For there, leaning against the open door of the case where the skeletonof the nine-fingered man hung, was Dollops, bleeding and faint, and witha score of tooth-marks on his neck and throat, and on the floor at hisfeet Cleek was kneeling on the writhing figure of a man, who bit andtore and snarled like a cornered wolf and fought with teeth and feet andhands alike in the wild effort to get free from the grip of destiny. Alocked handcuff clamped one wrist, and from it swung, at the end of theconnecting chain, its unlocked mate; the marks of Dollops' fists were onhis lips and cheeks, and at the foot of the case, where the hangingskeleton doddered and shook to the vibration of the floor, lay ashattered phial of deep-blue glass.
"Got you, you hound!" said Cleek, through his teeth as he wrenched theman's two wrists together and snapped the other handcuff into place."You beast of ingratitude--you Judas! Kissing and betraying like anyother Iscariot! And a dear old man like that! Look here, Mrs. Bawdrey;look here Captain Travers; what do you think of a little rat like this?"
They came forward at his word, and, looking down, saw that the figure hewas bending over was the figure of Philip Bawdrey.
"Oh!" gulped Mrs. Bawdrey, and then shut her two hands over her eyes andfell away weak and shivering. "Oh, Mr. Cleek, it can't be--it can't! Todo a thing like that?"
"Oh, he'd have done worse, the little reptile, if he hadn't been pulledup short," said Cleek in reply. "He'd have hanged you for it, if it hadgone the way he planned. You look in your boxes; you, too, CaptainTravers. I'll wager each of you finds a phial of Ayupee hidden amongthem somewhere. Came in to put more of the cursed stuff on the ninthfinger of the skeleton, so that it would be ready for the next time,didn't he, Dollops?"
"Yes, Gov'nor. I waited for him behind the case just as you told me to,sir, and when he ups and slips the finger of the skilligan into the neckof the bottle, I nips out and whacks the bracelet on him. But he was tooquick for me, sir, so I only got one on; and then, the hound, he turnson me like a blessed hyena, sir, and begins a-chawin' of me windpipe. Isay, Gov'nor, take off his silver wristlets, will you, sir, and lemmehave jist ten minutes with him on my own? Five for me, sir, and five forhis poor old dad!"
"Not I," said Cleek. "I wouldn't let you soil those honest hands ofyours on his vile little body, Dollops. Thought you had a noodle to dealwith, didn't you, Mr. Philip Bawdrey? Thought you could lead me by thenose, and push me into finding those phials just where you wanted themfound, didn't you?
Well, you've got a few more thoughts coming. Lookhere, Captain Travers: what do you think of this fellow's little game?Tried to take me in about you and Mrs. Bawdrey being lovers, and tryingto do away with him and his father to get the old man's money."
"Why, the contemptible little hound! Bless my soul, man, I'm engaged toMrs. Bawdrey's cousin. And as for his stepmother--why, she threw thelittle worm over as soon as he began making love to her, and tried tomake her take up with him by telling her how much he'd be worth when hisfather died."
"I guessed as much. I didn't fancy him from the first moment; and he wasso blessed eager to have me begin by suspecting you two, that I smelt arat at once. Oh, but he's been crafty enough in other things. Puttingthat devilish stuff on the ninth finger of the skeleton, and neverlosing an opportunity to get his poor old father to handle it and showit to people. It's a strong, irritant poison--sap of the upas-tree isthe base of it--producing first an irritation of the skin, then ablister, and, when that broke, communicating the poison directly to theblood every time the skeleton hand touched it. A weak solution at first,so that the decline would be natural, the growth of the malady gradual.But if I'd found that phial in your room last night, as he hoped andbelieved I had done--well, look for yourself. The finger of the skeletonis thick with the beastly, gummy stuff to-night. Double strength, ofcourse. The next time his father touched it he'd have died beforemorning. And the old chap fairly worshipping him. I suspected him, andsuspected what the stuff that was being used really was from thebeginning. Last night I drugged him, and then--I knew."
"Knew, Mr. Cleek? Why, how could you?"
"The most virulent poisons have their remedial uses, Captain," he madereply. "You can kill a man with strychnine; you can put him in his gravewith arsenic; you can also use both these powerful agents to cure and tosave, in their proper proportions and in the proper way. The same ruleapplies to Ayupee. Properly diluted and properly used, it is one of themost powerful agents for the relief, and, in some cases, the cure, ofBright's disease of the kidneys. But the Government guards this unholydrug most carefully. You can't get a drop of it in Java for love ormoney, unless on the order of a recognized physician; and you can'tbring it into the ports of England unless backed by that physician'ssworn statement and the official stamp of the Javanese authorities. Aman undeniably afflicted with Bright's disease could get thesethings--no other could. Well, I wanted to know who had succeeded ingetting Ayupee into this country and into this house. Last night Idrugged every man in it, and--I found out."
"But how?"
"By finding the one who could not sleep stretched out at full length.One of the strongest symptoms of Bright's disease is a tendency to drawthe knees up close to the body in sleep, Captain, and to twist the armsabove the head. Of all the men under this roof, this man here was theonly one who slept like that last night!" He paused and looked down atthe scowling, sullen creature on the floor. "You wretched little cur!"he said, with a gesture of unspeakable contempt. "And all for the sakeof an old man's money! If I did my duty, I'd gaol you. But if I did, itwould be punishing the innocent for the crimes of the guilty. It wouldkill that dear old man to learn this; and so he's not going to learn it,and the law's not going to get its own." He twitched out his hand, andsomething tinkled on the floor. "Get up!" he said sharply. "There's thekey of the handcuffs; take it and set yourself free. Do you know what'sgoing to happen to you? To-morrow morning Dr. Phillipson is going toexamine you, and to report that you'll be a dead man in a year's time ifyou stop another week in this country. You are going out of it, and youare going to stop out of it. Do you understand? _Stop_ out of it to theend of your days. For if ever you put foot in it again I'll handle youas a terrier handles a rat! Dollops!"
"Yes, Gov'nor?"
"My things packed and ready?"
"Yes, sir. And all waitin' in the arbour, sir, as you told me to have'em."
"Good lad! Get them, and we'll catch the first train back. Mrs. Bawdrey,my best respects. Captain, all good luck to you," said Cleek--and swungout into the darkness and the moist, warm fragrance of the night; hismental poise a bit unsteady, his nerves raw. It was not in him to havestopped longer, to have remained under the same roof with a monster likeyoung Bawdrey and keep his temper in check.