CHAPTER IX
THE MYSTERY OF THE STEEL ROOM
"Oh, blow!" said Dollops disgustedly, as the telephone bell jingled. "Abody never gets a square meal in this house now that that blessedthing's been put in!" Then he laid down his knife and fork, scuttledupstairs to the instrument, and unhooked the receiver. "'Ullo! Wot's therumpus?" he shouted into it. "Yus, this is Captain Burbage's. Wot? No,he ain't in. Dunno when he will be. Dunno where he is. Who is it aswants him? If there's any message----"
The sound of some one whistling softly the opening bars of the nationalanthem at the other end of the wire cut in upon his words and filled himwith a sudden deep and startled interest.
"Oh, s'help me!" he said, with a sort of gasp. "The Yard!" Then,lowering his voice to a shrill whisper, "That you, Mr. Narkom? Beg yerpardon, sir. Yus, it's me--Dollops. Wot? No, sir. Went out two hoursago. Gone to Kensington Palace Gardens. Tulips is out, and you couldn'thold him indoors with a chain at tulip time. Yus, sir--top hat, grayspats; same's the captain always wears, sir."
Narkom, at the other end of the line, called back: "If I miss him, if hecomes in without seeing me, tell him to wait; I'll be round beforethree. Good-bye!" then hung up the receiver and turned to the gentlemanwho stood by the window on the other side of the private officeagitatedly twirling the end of his thick gray-threaded moustache withone hand, while with the other he drummed a nervous tattoo upon thebroad oaken sill. "Not at home, Sir Henry; but fortunately I know whereto find him with but little loss of time," he said, and pressed twiceupon an electric button beside his desk. "My motor will be at the doorin a couple of minutes, and with ordinary luck we ought to be able topick him up inside of the next half hour."
Sir Henry--Sir Henry Wilding, Bart., to give him his full name andtitle--a handsome, well-set-up man of about forty years of age, wellgroomed, and with the upright bearing which comes of military training,twisted round on his heel at this and gave the superintendent an almostgrateful look.
"I hope so, God knows, I hope so, Mr. Narkom," he said agitatedly. "Timeis the one important thing at present. The suspense and uncertainty aregetting on my nerves so horribly that the very minutes seem endless.Remember, there are only three days before the race, and if thoserascals, whoever they are, get at Black Riot before then, God help me,that's all! And if this man Cleek can't probe the diabolical mystery,they _will_ get at her, too, and put Logan where they put Tolliver, thebrutes!"
"You may trust Cleek to see that they don't, Sir Henry. It is just thekind of case he will glory in; and if Black Riot is all that you believeher, you'll carry off the Derby plate in spite of these enterprisinggentry who---- Hallo! here's the motor. Clap on your hat, Sir Henry, andcome along. Mind the step! Kensington Palace Gardens, Lennard--and asfast as you can streak it."
The chauffeur proved that he could "streak it" as close to the margin ofthe speed limits as the law dared wink at, even in the case of thewell-known red limousine, and in a little over twenty minutes pulled upbefore the park gates. Narkom jumped out, beckoned Sir Henry to followhim, and together they hurried into the grounds in quest of Cleek.
Where the famous tulip beds made splotches of brilliant colour againstthe clear emerald of the closely clipped grass they came upon him, asolitary figure in the garb of the elderly seaman, "Captain Burbage, ofClarges Street," seated on one of the garden benches, his hands foldedover the knob of his thick walking-stick and his chin resting upon them,staring fixedly at the gorgeous flowers and apparently deaf and blind toall else.
He was not, however, for as the superintendent approached withoutaltering his gaze or his attitude in the slightest particle, he saidwith the utmost calmness: "Superb, are they not, my friend? What a pitythey should be scentless. It is as though Heaven had created a butterflyand deprived it of the secret of flight. Walk on, please, withoutaddressing me. I am quite friendly with that policeman yonder, and I donot wish him to suspect that the elderly gentleman he is so kind to isin any way connected with the Yard. Examine the tulips. That's right.You came in your limousine, of course? Where is it?"
"Just outside the gates, at the end of the path on the right," repliedNarkom, halting with Sir Henry and appearing to be wholly absorbed inpointing out the different varieties of tulips.
"Good," replied Cleek, apparently taking not the slightest notice. "I'lltoddle on presently, and when you return from inspecting the flowers youwill find me inside the motor awaiting you."
"Do, old chap, and please hurry; time is everything in this case. Let meintroduce you to your client. (Keep looking at the flowers, please, SirHenry.) I have the honour to make you acquainted with Sir Henry Wilding,Cleek; he needs you, my dear fellow."
"Delighted--in both instances. My compliments, Sir Henry. By any chancethat Sir Henry Wilding whose mare, Black Riot, is the favourite for nextWednesday's Derby?"
"Yes, that very man, Mr. Cleek; and if----"
"Don't get excited and don't turn, please; our friend the policeman islooking this way. What's the case? One of 'nobbling'? Somebody trying toget at the mare?"
"Yes. A desperate 'somebody,' who doesn't stop even at murder. A verydevil incarnate who seems to possess the power of invisibility and whostrikes in the dark. Save me, Mr. Cleek! All I've got in the world is atstake, and if anything happens to Black Riot, I'm a ruined man."
"Yar-r-r!" yawned the elderly sea captain, rising and stretching. "I dobelieve, constable, I've been asleep. Warm weather this for May. Aglorious week for Epsom. Shan't see you to-morrow, I'm afraid. Perhapsshan't see you until Thursday. Here, take that, my lad, and havehalf-a-crown's worth on Black Riot for the Derby; she'll win it, sure."
"Thanky, sir. Good luck to you, sir."
"Same to you, my lad. Good day." Then the old gentleman in the top hatand gray spats moved slowly away, passed down the tree-shaded walk,passed the romping children, passed the Princess Louise's statue ofQueen Victoria, and, after a moment, vanished. Ten minutes later, whenNarkom and Sir Henry returned to the waiting motor, they found himseated within it awaiting them, as he had promised. Giving Lennardorders to drive about slowly in the least frequented quarters, whilethey talked, the superintendent got in with Sir Henry, and opened fireon the "case" without further delay.
"My dear Cleek," he said, "as you appear to know all about Sir Henry andhis famous mare, there's no need to go into that part of the subject,so I may as well begin by telling you at once that Sir Henry has come upto town for the express purpose of getting you to go down to his placein Suffolk to-night in company with him. You are his only hope ofoutwitting a diabolical agency which has set out to get at the horse andput it out of commission before Derby Day, and in the most mysterious,the most inscrutable manner ever heard of, my dear chap. Already onegroom who sat up to watch with her has been killed, another hopelesslyparalysed, and to-night Logan, the mare's trainer, is to sit up with herin the effort to baulk the almost superhuman rascal who is at the bottomof it all. Conceive, if you can, my dear fellow, a power so crafty, sodiabolical, that it gets into a locked and guarded stable, gets in, mydear Cleek, despite four men constantly pacing back and forth beforeeach and every window and door that leads into the place and with agroom on guard inside, and then gets out again in the same mysteriousmanner without having been seen or heard by a living soul. In additionto all the windows being small and covered with a grille of iron, a factwhich would make it impossible for any one to get in or out once thedoors were closed and guarded, Sir Henry himself will tell you that thestable has been ransacked from top to bottom, every hole and everycorner probed into, and not a living creature of any sort discovered.Yet only last night the groom, Tolliver, was set upon inside the placeand killed outright in his efforts to protect the horse; killed, Cleek,with four men patrolling outside, and willing to swear, each and everyone of them, that nothing and no one, either man, woman, child, orbeast, passed them going in or getting out from sunset until dawn."
"Hum-m-m!" said Cleek, sucking in his lower lip. "Mysterious, to say theleast. Was there
no struggle? Did the men on guard hear no cry?"
"In the case of the first groom, Murple, the one that wasparalysed--no," said Sir Henry, as the question was addressed to him."But in the case of Tolliver--yes. The men heard him cry out, heard himcall out 'help!' but by the time they could get the doors open it wasall over. He was lying doubled up before the entrance to Black Riot'sstall, with his face to the floor, as dead as Julius Caesar, poor fellow,and not a sign of anybody anywhere."
"And the horse? Did anybody get at that?"
"No; for the best of reasons. As soon as these attacks began, Mr. Cleek,I sent up to London. A gang of twenty-four men came down, with steelplates, steel joists, steel posts, and in seven hours' time Black Riot'sbox was converted into a sort of safe, to which I alone hold the key theinstant it is locked up for the night. A steel grille about half a footdeep, and so tightly meshed that nothing bigger than a mouse could passthrough, runs all round the enclosure close to the top of the walls, andthis supplies ventilation. When the door is closed at night, itautomatically connects itself with an electric gong in my own bedroom,so that the slightest attempt to open it, or even to touch it, wouldhammer out an alarm close to my head."
"Has it ever done so?"
"Yes, last night, when Tolliver was killed."
"How killed, Sir Henry? Stabbed or shot?"
"Neither. He appeared to have been strangled, poor fellow, and to havedied in most awful agony."
"Strangled! But, my dear sir, that would hardly have been possible in soshort a time. You say your men heard him call out for help. Granted thatit took them a full minute--and it probably did not take them halfone--to open the doors and come to his assistance, he would not be stonedead in so short a time; and he was stone dead when they got in, Ibelieve you said?"
"Yes. God knows what killed him, the coroner will find that out, nodoubt, but there was no blood shed and no mark upon him that I couldsee."
"Hum-m-m! Was there any mark on the door of the steel stall?"
"Yes. A long scratch, somewhat semi-circular, and sweeping downward atthe lower extremity. It began close to the lock and ended about a footand a half lower."
"Undoubtedly, you see, Cleek," put in Narkom, "some one tried to forcean entrance to the steel room and get at the mare, but the promptarrival of the men on guard outside the stable prevented his doing so."
Cleek made no response. Just at that moment the limousine was glidingpast a building whose courtyard was one blaze of parrot tulips, and, hiseye caught by the flaming colours, he was staring at them andreflectively rubbing his thumb and forefinger up and down his chin.After a moment, however:
"Tell me something, Sir Henry," he said abruptly. "Is anybody interestedin your not putting Black Riot into the field on Derby Day? Anybody withwhom you have a personal acquaintance, I mean, for of course I knowthere are other owners who would be glad enough to see him scratched.But is there anybody who would have a particular interest in yourfailure?"
"Yes--one: Major Lambson-Bowles, owner of Minnow. Minnow's secondfavourite, as perhaps you know. It would delight Lambson-Bowles to seeme 'go under'; and, as I'm so certain of Black Riot that I've mortgagedevery stick and stone I have in the world to back her, I should go underif anything happed to the mare. That would suit Lambson-Bowles down tothe ground."
"Bad blood between you, then?"
"Yes, very. The fellow's a brute, and--I thrashed him once, as hedeserved, the bounder. It may interest you to know that my only sisterwas his first wife. He led her a dog's life, poor girl, and death was amerciful release to her. Twelve months ago he married a rich Americanwoman, widow of a man who made millions in hides and leather. That'swhen Lambson-Bowles took up racing and how he got the money to keep astud. Had the beastly bad taste, too, to come down to Suffolk--within agunshot of Wilding Hall--take Elmslie Manor, the biggest place in theneighbourhood, and cut a dash under my very nose, as it were."
"Oho!" said Cleek; "then the major is a neighbour as well as a rival forthe Derby plate. I see! I see!"
"No, you don't--altogether," said Sir Henry quickly. "Lambson-Bowles isa brute and a bounder in many ways, but--well, I don't believe he islow-down enough to do this sort of thing, and with murder attached toit, too, although he did try to bribe poor Tolliver to leave me. Offeredmy trainer double wages, too, to chuck me and take up his horses."
"Oh, he did that, did he? Sure of it, Sir Henry?"
"Absolutely. Saw the letter he wrote to Logan."
"Hum-m-m! Feel that you can rely on Logan, do you?"
"To the last grasp. He's as true to me as my own shadow. If you wantproof of it, Mr. Cleek, he's going to sit in the stable and keep guardhimself to-night, in the face of what happened to Murple and Tolliver."
"Murple is the groom who was paralysed, is he not?" said Cleek, after amoment. "Singular thing that. What paralysed him, do you think?"
"Heavens knows. He might just as well have been killed as poor Tolliverwas, for he'll never be any use again, the doctors say. Some injury tothe spinal column, and with it a curious affection of the throat andtongue. He can neither swallow nor speak. Nourishment has to beadministered by tube, and the tongue is horribly swollen."
"I am of the opinion, Cleek," put in Narkom, "that strangulation ismerely part of the procedure of the rascal who makes these diabolicalnocturnal visits. In other words, that he is armed with somequick-acting infernal poison, which he forces into the mouths of hisvictims. That paralysis of the muscles of the throat is one of thesymptoms of prussic acid poisoning, you must remember."
"I do remember, Mr. Narkom," replied Cleek enigmatically. "My memory ismuch stimulated by these details, I assure you. I gather from them that,whatever is administered, Murple did not get quite so much of it asTolliver, or he, too, would be dead. Sir Henry"--he turned again to thebaronet--"do you trust everybody else connected with your establishmentas much as you trust Logan?"
"Yes. There's not a servant connected with the hall that hasn't been inmy service for years, and all are loyal to me."
"May I ask who else is in the house besides the servants?"
"My wife, Lady Wilding, for one; her cousin, Mr. Sharpless, who is on avisit to us, for another; and for a third, my uncle, the Rev. AmbroseSmeer, the famous revivalist."
"Mr. Smeer does not approve of the race track, of course?"
"No, he does not. He is absurdly 'narrow' on some subjects, and 'sport'of all sorts is one of them. But, beyond that, he is a dear, lovable,old fellow, of whom I am amazingly fond."
"Hum-m-m! And Lady Wilding and Mr. Sharpless, do they, too, disapproveof racing?"
"Quite to the contrary. Both are enthusiastic upon the subject and bothhave the utmost faith in Black Riot's certainty of winning. Lady Wildingis something more than attached to the mare; and as for Mr. Sharpless,he is so upset over these rascally attempts that every morning when thesteel room is opened and the animal taken out, although nothing everhappens in the daylight, he won't let her get out of his sight for asingle instant until she is groomed and locked up for the night. He isso incensed, so worked up over this diabolical business, that I verilybelieve if he caught any stranger coming near the mare he'd shoot him inhis tracks."
"Hum-m-m!" said Cleek abstractedly, and then sat silent for a long timestaring at his spats and moving one thumb slowly round the breadth ofthe other, his fingers interlaced and his lower lip pushed upward overthe one above.
"There, that's the case, Cleek," said Narkom, after a time. "Do you makeanything out of it?"
"Yes," he replied; "I make a good deal out of it, Mr. Narkom, but, likethe language of the man who stepped on the banana skin, it isn't fit forpublication. One question more, Sir Henry. Heaven forbid it, of course,but if anything should happen to Logan to-night, who would you put onguard over the horse to-morrow?"
"Do you think I could persuade anybody if a third man perished?" saidthe baronet, answering one question with another. "I don't believethere's a groom in England who'd take the risk for love or money. Therewoul
d be nothing for it but to do the watching myself. What's that? Doit? Certainly, I'd do it! Everybody that knows me knows that."
"Ah, I see!" said Cleek, and lapsed into silence again.
"But you'll come, won't you?" exclaimed Sir Henry agitatedly. "It won'thappen if you take up the case; Mr. Narkom tells me he is sure of that.Come with me, Mr. Cleek. My motor is waiting at the garage. Come backwith me, for God's sake, for humanity's sake, and get at the bottom ofthe thing."
"Yes," said Cleek in reply. "Give Lennard the address of the garage,please; and--Mr. Narkom?"
"Yes, old chap?"
"Pull up at the first grocer's shop you see, will you, and buy me acouple of pounds of the best white flour that's milled; and if you can'tmanage to get me either a sieve or a flour dredger, a tin pepper-potwill do!"
II
It was two o'clock when Sir Henry Wilding's motor turned its back uponthe outskirts of London, and it was a quarter past seven when it whirledup to the stables of Wilding Hall, and the baronet and his gray-headed,bespectacled and gray-spatted companion alighted, having taken fivehours and a quarter to make a journey which the trains which run dailybetween Liverpool Street and Darsham make in four.
As a matter of fact, however, they really had outstripped the train, butit had been Cleek's pleasure to make two calls on the way, one atSaxmundham, where the paralysed Murple lay in the infirmary of the localpractitioner, the other at the mortuary where the body of Tolliver wasretained, awaiting the sitting of the coroner. Both the dead and thestill living man Cleek had subjected to a critical personal examination,but whether either furnished him with any suggested clue he did not say.The only remark he made upon the subject was when Sir Henry, on hearingfrom Murple's wife that the doctor had said he would probably not lastthe week out, had inquired if the woman knew where to "put her hand onthe receipt for the payment of the last premium, so that her claimcould be sent in to the life assurance company without delay when theend came."
"Tell me something, Sir Henry," said Cleek, when he heard that, andnoticed how gratefully the woman looked at the baronet when she replied,"Yes, Sir Henry, God bless you, sir!" "Tell me, if it is not animpertinent question, did you take out an insurance policy on Murple'slife and pay the premium on it yourself? I gathered the idea that youdid from the manner in which the woman spoke to you."
"Yes, I did," replied Sir Henry. "As a matter of fact, I take out asimilar policy, payable to the widow, for every married man I employ inconnection with my racing stud."
"May I ask why?"
"Well, for one thing, they usually are too poor and have too manychildren to support to be able to take it out for themselves, andexercising racers has a good many risks. Then, for another thing, I'm afirm believer in the policy of life assurance. It's just so much moneylaid up in safety, and one never knows what may happen."
"Then it is fair," said Cleek, "to suppose, in that case, that you havetaken out one on your own life?"
"Yes--rather! And a whacking big one, too."
"And Lady Wilding is, of course, the beneficiary?"
"Certainly. There are no children, you know. As a matter of fact, wehave been married only seven months. Before the date of my wedding thepolicy was in my Uncle Ambrose's, the Rev. Mr. Smeer's, favour."
"Ah, I see!" said Cleek reflectively. Then fell to thinking deeply overthe subject, and was still thinking of it when the motor whizzed intothe stableyard at Wilding Hall and brought him into contact for thefirst time with the trainer, Logan. He didn't much fancy Logan at firstblush, and Logan didn't fancy him at all at any time.
"Hur!" he said disgustedly, in a stage aside to his master as Cleekstood on the threshold of the stable, with his head thrown back and hischin at an angle, sniffing the air somewhat after the manner of abird-dog. "Hur! If un's the best Scotland Yard could let out to ye, sir,a half-baked old softy like that, the rest of 'em must be a blessed poorlot, Ah'm thinkin'. What's un doin' now, the noodle?--snuffin' the airlike he did not understand the smell of it! He'd not be expectin' astable to be scented with eau de cologne, would he? What's un name,sir?"
"Cleek."
"Hur! Sounds like a golf-stick an' Ah've no doubt he's got a head likeone: main thick and with a twist in un. I dunna like 'tecs, Sir Henry,and I dunna like this one especial. Who's to tell as he aren't in withthey devils as is after Black Riot? Naw! I dunna like him at all."
Meantime, serenely unconscious of the displeasure he had excited inLogan's breast, Cleek went on sniffing the air and "poking about," as hephrased it, in all corners of the stable; and when, a moment later, SirHenry went in and joined him, he was standing before the door of thesteel room examining the curving scratch of which the baronet hadspoken.
"What do you make of it, Mr. Cleek?"
"Not much in the way of a clue, Sir Henry, a clue to any possibleintruder, I mean. If your artistic soul hadn't rebelled against baresteel, which would, of course, have soon rusted in thisammonia-impregnated atmosphere, and led you to put a coat of paint overthe metal, there would have been no mark at all, the thing is so slight.I am of the opinion that Tolliver himself caused it. In short, that itwas made by either a pin or a cuff button in his wristband when he wasattacked and fell. But enlighten me upon a puzzling point, Sir Henry:What do you use coriander and oil of sassafras for in a stable?"
"Coriander? Oil of sassafras? I don't know what the dickens they are.Have you found such things here?"
"No; simply smelt them. The combination is not usual--indeed, I know ofbut one race in the world who make any use of it, and they merely for apurpose which, of course, could not possibly exist here, unless----"
He allowed the rest of the sentence to go by default, and, turning,looked all round the place. For the first time he seemed to noticesomething unusual for the equipment of a stable, and regarded it withsilent interest. It was nothing more nor less than a box, covered withsheets of virgin cork, and standing on the floor just under one of thewindows, where the light and air could get to a weird-looking,rubbery-leaved, orchid-like plant, covered with ligulated scarletblossoms which grew within it.
"Sir Henry," he said, after a moment, "may I ask how long it is sinceyou were in South America?"
"I? Never was there in my life, Mr. Cleek--never."
"Ah! Then who connected with the hall has been?"
"Oh, I see what you are driving at," said Sir Henry, following thedirection of his gaze. "That Patagonian plant, eh? That belonged to poorTolliver. He had a strange fancy for ferns and rock plants and things ofthat description, and as that particular specimen happens to be one thatdoes better in the atmosphere of a stable than elsewhere, he kept it inhere."
"Who told him that it does better in the atmosphere of a stable?"
"Lady Wilding's cousin, Mr. Sharpless. It was he who gave Tolliver theplant."
"Oho! Then Mr. Sharpless has been to South America, has he?"
"Why, yes. As a matter of fact, he comes from there; so also does LadyWilding. I should have thought you would have remembered that, Mr.Cleek, when---- But perhaps you have never heard? She--they--that is,"stammering confusedly and colouring to the temples, "up to seven monthsago, Mr. Cleek, Lady Wilding was on the--er--music-hall stage. She andMr. Sharpless were known as 'Signor Morando and La Belle Creole' andthey did a living statue turn together. It was highly artistic; peopleraved; I--er--fell in love with the lady and--that's all!"
But it wasn't; for Cleek, reading between the lines, saw that the madinfatuation which had brought the lady a title and an over-generoushusband had simmered down as such things always do sooner or later andthat the marriage was very far from being a happy one. As a matter offact, he learned later that the county, to a woman, had refused toaccept Lady Wilding; that her ladyship, chafing under this ostracism,was for having a number of her old professional friends come down tovisit her and make a time of it, and that, on Sir Henry's objecting, aviolent quarrel had ensued, and the Rev. Ambrose Smeer had come down tothe hall in the effort to make peace. And he learned some
thing else thatnight which gave him food for deep reflection: the Rev. Ambrose Smeer,too, had been to South America. When he met that gentleman, in spite ofthe fact that Sir Henry thought so highly of him, and it was known thathis revival meetings had done a world of good, Cleek did not fancy theRev. Ambrose Smeer any more than he fancied the trainer, Logan.
But to return to the present. By this time the late-falling twilight ofMay had begun to close in, and presently--as the day was now done andthe night approaching--Logan led in Black Riot from the paddock,followed by a slim, sallow-featured, small-moustached man, bearing ashotgun, and dressed in gray tweeds. Sir Henry, who, it was plain tosee, had a liking for the man, introduced this newcomer to Cleek as theSouth American, Mr. Andrew Sharpless.
"That's the English of it, Mr. Cleek," said the latter jovially, butwith an undoubted Spanish twist to the tongue. "I wouldn't have you riskbreaking your jaw with the Brazilian original. Delighted to meet you,sir. I hope to Heaven you will get at the bottom of this diabolicalthing. What do you think, Henry? Lambson-Bowles's jockey was over inthis neighbourhood this afternoon. Trying to see how Black Riot shapes,of course, the bounder! Fortunately, I saw him skulking along on theother side of the hedge, and gave him two minutes in which to makehimself scarce. If he hadn't, if he had come a step nearer to the mare,I'd have shot him down like a dog. That's right, Logan, put her up forthe night, old chap, and I'll get out your bedding."
"Aye," said Logan, through his clamped teeth, "and God help man or devilthat comes a-nigh her this night. God help him, Lunnon Mister, that'sall Ah say!" Then he passed into the steel room with the mare, attendedher for the night, and, coming out a minute or two later, locked her upand gave Sir Henry the key.
"Broke her and trained her, Ah did; and willin' to die for her, Ah am,if Ah can't pull un through no other way," he said, pausing before Cleekand giving him a black look. "A Derby winner her's cut out for, LunnonMister, and a Derby winner her's goin' to be, in spite of all theLambson-Bowleses and the low-down horse-nobblers in Christendom!" Thenhe switched round and walked over to Sharpless, who had taken a pillowand a bundle of blankets from the convenient cupboard, and was making abed of them on the floor at the foot of the locked steel door.
"Thanky, sir, 'bliged to un, sir," said Logan, as Sharpless hung up theshotgun and, with a word to the baronet, excused himself and went in todress for dinner. Then he faced round again on Cleek, who was once moresniffing the air, and pointed to the rude bed: "There's where Ted Logansleeps this night--there!" he went on suddenly; "and them as tries toget at Black Riot comes to grips with me first, me and the shotgun Mr.Sharpless has left Ah. And if Ah shoot, Lunnon Mister, Ah shoot tokill!"
Cleek turned to the baronet.
"Do me a favour, Sir Henry," he said. "For reasons of my own, I want tobe in this stable alone for the next ten minutes, and after that let noone come into it until morning. I won't be accountable for this man'slife if he stops in here to-night, and for his sake, as well as for yourown, I want you to forbid him to do so."
Logan seemed to go nearly mad with rage at this.
"Ah won't listen to it! Ah will stop here, Ah will! Ah will!" he criedout in a passion. "Who comes ull find Ah here waitin' to come to gripswith un. Ah won't stop out--Ah won't! Don't un listen to Lunnon Mister,Sir Henry, for God's sake, don't!"
"I am afraid I must, in this instance, Logan. You are far toosuspicious, my good fellow. Mr. Cleek doesn't want to 'get at' the mare;he wants to protect her; to keep anybody else from getting at her, sojoin the guard outside if you are so eager. You must let him have hisway." And, in spite of all Logan's pleading, Cleek did have his way.
Protesting, swearing, almost weeping, the trainer was turned out and thedoors closed, leaving Cleek alone in the stable; and the last Logan andSir Henry saw of him until he came out and rejoined them he was standingin the middle of the floor, with his hands on both hips, staring fixedlyat the impromptu bed in front of the steel-room door.
"Put on the guard now and see that nobody goes into the place untilmorning, Sir Henry," he said, when he came out and rejoined them someminutes later. "Logan, you silly fellow, you'll do no good fightingagainst Fate. Make the best of it and stop where you are."
That night Cleek met Lady Wilding for the first time. He found her whathe afterward termed "a splendid animal," beautiful, statuesque, more ofJuno than of Venus, and freely endowed with the languorous temperamentand the splendid earthy loveliness which grows nowhere but undertropical skies and in the shadow of palm groves and the flame of cactusflowers. She showed him but scant courtesy, however, for she was but apoor hostess, and after dinner carried her cousin away to thebilliard-room, and left her husband to entertain the Rev. Ambrose andthe detective as best he could. Cleek needed but little entertaining,however, for in spite of his serenity he was full of the case on hand,and kept wandering in and out of the house and upstairs and down untileleven o'clock came and bed claimed him with the rest.
His last wakeful recollection was of the clock in the lower corridorstriking the first quarter after eleven; then sleep claimed him, and heknew no more until all the stillness was suddenly shattered by aloud-voiced gong hammering out an alarm and the sound of people tumblingout of bed and scurrying about in a panic of fright. He jumped out ofbed, pulled on his clothing, and rushed out into the hall, only to findit alive with startled people, and at their head Sir Henry, with adressing-gown thrown on over his pyjamas and a bedroom candle in hisshaking hand.
"The stable!" he cried out excitedly. "Come on, come on, for God's sake.Some one has touched the door of the steel room; and yet the place wasleft empty, empty!"
But it was no longer empty, as they found out when they reached it, forthe doors had been flung open, the men who had been left on guardoutside the stables were now inside it, the electric lights were in fullblaze, the shotgun still hanging where Sharpless had left it, theimpromptu bed was tumbled and tossed in a man's death agony, and at thefoot of the steel door Logan lay, curled up in a heap and stone dead!
"He would get in, Sir Henry; he'd have shot one or the other of us if wehadn't let him," said one of the outer guards, as Sir Henry and Cleekappeared. "He would lie before the door and watch, sir, he simply would;and God have mercy on him, poor chap; he was faithful to the last!"
"And the last might not have come for years, the fool, if he had onlyobeyed," said Cleek; then lapsed into silence and stood staring at adust of white flour on the red-tiled floor and at a thin wavering linethat broke the even surface of it.
III
It was perhaps two minutes later when the entire household, mistress,guests, and servants alike, came trooping across the open space betweenthe hall and the stables in a state of semi-deshabille, but in thatbrief space of time friendly hands had reverently lifted the body of thedead man from its place before the steel door, and Sir Henry wasnervously fitting the key to the lock in a frantic effort to get in andsee if Black Riot was safe.
"_Dios!_ what is it? What has happened?" cried Lady Wilding, as she camehurrying in, followed closely by Sharpless and the Rev. Ambrose Smeer.Then, catching sight of Logan's body, she gave a little scream andcovered her eyes. "The trainer, Andrew, the trainer now!" she went onhalf hysterically. "Another death--another! Surely they have got thewretch at last?"
"The mare! The mare, Henry! Is she safe?" exclaimed Sharpless excitedly,as he whirled away from his cousin's side and bore down upon thebaronet. "Give me the key, you're too nervous." And, taking it from him,unlocked the steel room and passed swiftly into it.
In another instant Black Riot was led out, uninjured, untouched, in thevery pink of condition and, in spite of the tragedy and the dead man'spresence, one or two of the guards were so carried away that theyessayed a cheer.
"Stop that! Stop it instantly!" rapped out Sir Henry, facing round uponthem. "What's a horse, even the best, beside the loss of an honest lifelike that?" and flung out a shaking hand in the direction of dead Logan."It will be the story of last night over again, of course? You h
eard hisscream, heard his fall, but he was dead when you got to him--dead--andyou found no one here?"
"Not a soul, Sir Henry. The doors were all locked; no grille is missingfrom any window; no one is in the loft; no one in any of the stalls; noone in any crook or corner of the place."
"Send for the constable, the justice of the peace, anybody!" chimed inthe Rev. Ambrose Smeer at this. "Henry, will you never be warned; nevertake these awful lessons to heart? This sinful practice of racing horsesfor money----"
"Oh, hush, hush! Don't preach me a sermon now, uncle," interposed SirHenry. "My heart's torn, my mind crazed by this abominable thing. Poorold Logan! Poor, faithful old chap! Oh!" He whirled and looked over atCleek, who still stood inactive, staring at the flour-dusted floor. "Andthey said that no mystery was too great for you to get at the bottom ofit, no riddle too complex for you to find the answer? Can't you dosomething? Can't you suggest something? Can't you see any glimmer oflight at all?"
Cleek looked up, and that curious smile which Narkom knew so well, andwould have known had he been there was the "danger signal," looped upone corner of his mouth.
"I fancy it is _all_ 'light,' Sir Henry," he said. "I may be wrong, butI fancy it is merely a question of comparative height. Do I puzzle youby that? Well, let me explain. Lady Wilding there is one height, Mr.Sharpless is another, and I am a third; and if they two were to placethemselves side by side, and, say, about four inches apart, and I wereto stand immediately behind them, the difference would be most apparent.There you are. Do you grasp it?"
"Not in the least."
"Bothered if I do either," supplemented Sharpless. "It all sounds liketommy rot to me."
"Does it?" said Cleek. "Then let me explain it by illustration," and hewalked quietly toward them. "Lady Wilding, will you oblige me bystanding here? Thank you very much. Now, if you please, Mr. Sharpless,will you stand beside her ladyship while I take up my place hereimmediately behind you both? That's it exactly. A little nearer,please--just a little, so that your left elbow touches her ladyship'sright. Now then," his two hands moved briskly, there was a click-click;and then: "There you are; that explains it, my good Mr. and Mrs. FilippoBucarelli; explains it completely!"
And as he stepped aside on saying this, those who were watching, thosewho heard Lady Wilding's scream and Mr. Sharpless's snarling oath andsaw them vainly try to spring apart and dart away, saw also that a steelhandcuff was on the woman's right wrist, its mate on the man's left one,and that they were firmly chained together.
"In the name of heaven, man," began Sir Henry, appalled by this, andgrowing red and white by rapid turns.
"I fancy that heaven has very little to do with this precious pair, SirHenry," interposed Cleek. "You want the two people who are accountablefor these diabolical crimes, and there they stand."
"What! Do you mean to tell me that Sharpless, that my wife----"
"Don't give the lady a title to which she has not and never had anylegal right, Sir Henry. If it had ever occurred to you to emulate myexample to-night and search the lady's effects, you would have foundthat she was christened Enriqua Dolores Torjada, and that she wasmarried to Senor Filippo Bucarelli here, at Valparaiso in Chili, threeyears ago, and that her marriage to you was merely a clever littlescheme to get hold of a pot of money and share it with her rascallyhusband."
"It's a lie!" snarled out the male prisoner. "It's an infernalpoliceman's lie! You never found any such thing!"
"Pardon me, but I did," replied Cleek serenely. "And what's more, Ifound the little phial of coriander and oil of sassafras in your room,senor, and I shall finish off the Mynga Worm in another ten minutes!"
Bucarelli and his wife gave a mingled cry, and, chained together thoughthey were, made a wild bolt for the door; only, however, to be met onthe threshold by the local constable to whom Cleek had dispatched a notesome hours previously.
"Thank you, Mr. Philpotts; you are very prompt," he said. "There areyour prisoners nicely trussed and waiting for you. Take them away, weare quite done with them here. Sir Henry"--he turned to the baronet--"ifBlack Riot is fitted to win the Derby she will win it and you need haveno more fear for her safety. No one has ever for one moment tried to getat her. You yourself were the one that precious pair were after, and thebait was your life assurance. By killing off the watchers over BlackRiot one by one they knew that there would come a time, when, being ableto get no one else to take the risk of guarding the horse and sleepingon that bed before the steel-room door, you would do it yourself; andwhen that time came they would have had you."
"But how? By what means?"
"By one of the most diabolical imaginable. Among the reptiles ofPatagonia, Sir Henry, there is one, a species of black adder, known inthe country as the Mynga Worm whose bite is more deadly than that of therattler or the copperhead, and as rapid in its action as prussic aciditself. It has, too, a great velocity of movement and a peculiar powerof springing and hurling itself upon its prey. The Patagonians are abarbarous people in the main and, like all barbarous people, arevengeful, cunning, and subtle. A favourite revenge of theirs uponunsuspecting enemies is to get within touch of them and secretly tosmear a mixture of coriander and oil of sassafras upon some part oftheir bodies, and then either to lure or drive them into the forest. Bya peculiar arrangement of Mother Nature this mixture has a fascination,a maddening effect upon the Mynga Worm, just as a red rag has on a bull,and, enraged by the scent, it finds the spot smeared with it anddelivers its deadly bite."
"Good heaven! How horrible! And you mean to tell me----"
"That they employed one of those deadly reptiles in this case? Yes, SirHenry. I suspected it the very moment I smelt the odour of the corianderand sassafras, but I suspected that an animal or a reptile of some kindwas at the bottom of the mystery at a prior period. That is why I wantedthe flour. Look! Do you see where I sifted it over this spot near thePatagonian plant? And do you see those serpentine tracks through themiddle of it? The Mynga Worm is there in that box, at the roots of thatplant. Now see!"
He caught up a horse blanket, spread it on the floor, lifted the box andplant, set them down in the middle of it and, with a quick gathering upof the ends of the blanket, converted it into a bag and tied it roundwith a hitching strap.
"Get spades, forks, anything, and dig a hole outside in the paddock," hewent on. "Make a deep hole, a yard deep at the least--then get somestraw, some paraffin, turpentine, anything that will burn furiously andquickly, and we will soon finish the little beast."
The servants flew to obey, and when the hole was dug, he carried the bagout and lowered it carefully into it, covered it with straw, drenchedthis with a gallon or more of lamp oil, and rapidly applied a match toit and sprang back.
A moment later those who were watching saw a small black snake make anineffectual effort to leap out of the blazing mass, fall back into theflames, and disappear forever.
* * * * *
"The method of procedure?" said Cleek, answering the baronet's query asthe latter was pouring out what he called "a nerve settler" prior tofollowing the Rev. Ambrose's example and going to bed. "Very cunning,and yet very, very simple, Sir Henry. Bucarelli made a practice, as Isaw this evening, of helping the chosen watcher to make his bed on thefloor in front of the door to the steel room, but during the time he wasremoving the blankets from the cupboard his plan was to smear them withthe coriander and sassafras and so arrange the top blanket that when thewatcher lay down, the stuff touched his neck or throat and made that thepoint of attack for the snake, whose fang makes a small round spot notbigger than the end of a knitting needle, which is easily passed over bythose not used to looking for such a thing. There was such a spot onTolliver's throat; such another at the base of Murple's skull, and thereis a third in poor Logan's left temple. No, no more, please; this isquite enough. Success to Black Riot and the Derby! The riddle is solved,Sir Henry. Good-night!"