THE TRAGEDY AT BROOKBEND COTTAGE
"Max," said Mr. Carlyle, when Parkinson had closed the door behindhim, "this is Lieutenant Hollyer, whom you consented to see."
"To hear," corrected Carrados, smiling straight into the healthy andrather embarrassed face of the stranger before him. "Mr. Hollyer knowsof my disability?"
"Mr. Carlyle told me," said the young man, "but, as a matter of fact,I had heard of you before, Mr. Carrados, from one of our men. It wasin connection with the foundering of the _Ivan Saratov_."
Carrados wagged his head in good-humoured resignation.
"And the owners were sworn to inviolable secrecy!" he exclaimed."Well, it is inevitable, I suppose. Not another scuttling case, Mr.Hollyer?"
"No, mine is quite a private matter," replied the lieutenant. "Mysister, Mrs. Creake--but Mr. Carlyle would tell you better than I can.He knows all about it."
"No, no; Carlyle is a professional. Let me have it in the rough, Mr.Hollyer. My ears are my eyes, you know."
"Very well, sir. I can tell you what there is to tell, right enough,but I feel that when all's said and done it must sound very little toanother, although it seems important to me."
"We have occasionally found trifles of significance ourselves," saidCarrados encouragingly. "Don't let that deter you."
This was the essence of Lieutenant Hollyer's narrative:
"I have a sister, Millicent, who is married to a man called Creake.She is about twenty-eight now and he is at least fifteen years older.Neither my mother (who has since died) nor I cared very much aboutCreake. We had nothing particular against him, except, perhaps, themoderate disparity of age, but none of us appeared to have anything incommon. He was a dark, taciturn man, and his moody silence froze upconversation. As a result, of course, we didn't see much of eachother."
"This, you must understand, was four or five years ago, Max,"interposed Mr. Carlyle officiously.
Carrados maintained an uncompromising silence. Mr. Carlyle blew hisnose and contrived to impart a hurt significance into the operation.Then Lieutenant Hollyer continued:
"Millicent married Creake after a very short engagement. It was afrightfully subdued wedding--more like a funeral to me. The manprofessed to have no relations and apparently he had scarcely anyfriends or business acquaintances. He was an agent for something orother and had an office off Holborn. I suppose he made a living out ofit then, although we knew practically nothing of his private affairs,but I gather that it has been going down since, and I suspect that forthe past few years they have been getting along almost entirely onMillicent's little income. You would like the particulars of that?"
"Please," assented Carrados.
"When our father died about seven years ago, he left three thousandpounds. It was invested in Canadian stock and brought in a little overa hundred a year. By his will my mother was to have the income of thatfor life and on her death it was to pass to Millicent, subject to thepayment of a lump sum of five hundred pounds to me. But my fatherprivately suggested to me that if I should have no particular use forthe money at the time, he would propose my letting Millicent have theincome of it until I did want it, as she would not be particularlywell off. You see, Mr. Carrados, a great deal more had been spent onmy education and advancement than on her; I had my pay, and, ofcourse, I could look out for myself better than a girl could."
"Quite so," agreed Carrados.
"Therefore I did nothing about that," continued the lieutenant. "Threeyears ago I was over again but I did not see much of them. They wereliving in lodgings. That was the only time since the marriage that Ihave seen them until last week. In the meanwhile our mother had diedand Millicent had been receiving her income. She wrote me severalletters at the time. Otherwise we did not correspond much, but about ayear ago she sent me their new address--Brookbend Cottage, MullingCommon--a house that they had taken. When I got two months' leave Iinvited myself there as a matter of course, fully expecting to staymost of my time with them, but I made an excuse to get away after aweek. The place was dismal and unendurable, the whole life andatmosphere indescribably depressing." He looked round with an instinctof caution, leaned forward earnestly, and dropped his voice. "Mr.Carrados, it is my absolute conviction that Creake is only waiting fora favourable opportunity to murder Millicent."
"Go on," said Carrados quietly. "A week of the depressing surroundingsof Brookbend Cottage would not alone convince you of that, Mr.Hollyer."
"I am not so sure," declared Hollyer doubtfully. "There was a feelingof suspicion and--before me--polite hatred that would have gone a goodway towards it. All the same there _was_ something more definite.Millicent told me this the day after I went there. There is no doubtthat a few months ago Creake deliberately planned to poison her withsome weed-killer. She told me the circumstances in a rather distressedmoment, but afterwards she refused to speak of it again--even weaklydenied it--and, as a matter of fact, it was with the greatest ofdifficulty that I could get her at any time to talk about her husbandor his affairs. The gist of it was that she had the strongestsuspicion that Creake doctored a bottle of stout which he expected shewould drink for her supper when she was alone. The weed-killer,properly labelled, but also in a beer bottle, was kept with othermiscellaneous liquids in the same cupboard as the beer but on a highshelf. When he found that it had miscarried he poured away themixture, washed out the bottle and put in the dregs from another.There is no doubt in my mind that if he had come back and foundMillicent dead or dying he would have contrived it to appear that shehad made a mistake in the dark and drunk some of the poison before shefound out."
"Yes," assented Carrados. "The open way; the safe way."
"You must understand that they live in a very small style, Mr.Carrados, and Millicent is almost entirely in the man's power. Theonly servant they have is a woman who comes in for a few hours everyday. The house is lonely and secluded. Creake is sometimes away fordays and nights at a time, and Millicent, either through pride orindifference, seems to have dropped off all her old friends and tohave made no others. He might poison her, bury the body in the garden,and be a thousand miles away before anyone began even to inquire abouther. What am I to do, Mr. Carrados?"
"He is less likely to try poison than some other means now," ponderedCarrados. "That having failed, his wife will always be on her guard.He may know, or at least suspect, that others know. No. ... Thecommon-sense precaution would be for your sister to leave the man, Mr.Hollyer. She will not?"
"No," admitted Hollyer, "she will not. I at once urged that." Theyoung man struggled with some hesitation for a moment and then blurtedout: "The fact is, Mr. Carrados, I don't understand Millicent. She isnot the girl she was. She hates Creake and treats him with a silentcontempt that eats into their lives like acid, and yet she is sojealous of him that she will let nothing short of death part them. Itis a horrible life they lead. I stood it for a week and I must say,much as I dislike my brother-in-law, that he has something to put upwith. If only he got into a passion like a man and killed her itwouldn't be altogether incomprehensible."
"That does not concern us," said Carrados. "In a game of this kind onehas to take sides and we have taken ours. It remains for us to seethat our side wins. You mentioned jealousy, Mr. Hollyer. Have you anyidea whether Mrs. Creake has real ground for it?"
"I should have told you that," replied Lieutenant Hollyer. "I happenedto strike up with a newspaper man whose office is in the same block asCreake's. When I mentioned the name he grinned. 'Creake,' he said,'oh, he's the man with the romantic typist, isn't he?' 'Well, he's mybrother-in-law,' I replied. 'What about the typist?' Then the chapshut up like a knife. 'No, no,' he said, 'I didn't know he wasmarried. I don't want to get mixed up in anything of that sort. I onlysaid that he had a typist. Well, what of that? So have we; so haseveryone.' There was nothing more to be got out of him, but the remarkand the grin meant--well, about as usual, Mr. Carrados."
Carrados turned to his friend.
"I suppose you know all about the typist
by now, Louis?"
"We have had her under efficient observation, Max," replied Mr.Carlyle with severe dignity.
"Is she unmarried?"
"Yes; so far as ordinary repute goes, she is."
"That is all that is essential for the moment. Mr. Hollyer opens upthree excellent reasons why this man might wish to dispose of hiswife. If we accept the suggestion of poisoning--though we have only ajealous woman's suspicion for it--we add to the wish thedetermination. Well, we will go forward on that. Have you got aphotograph of Mr. Creake?"
The lieutenant