CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
BAFFLED
Levendale paused at this point of his story, and looked round thecircle of attentive faces. He was quick to notice that two men werewatching him with particularly close attention--one was Ayscough, theother, the old solicitor. And as he resumed his account he glancedmeaningly at Mr. Killick.
"I daresay some of you would like to question me--and Stephen Purvis,too--on what I've already told you?" he said. "You're welcome to askany questions you like--any of you--when I've done. But--let mefinish--for then perhaps you'll fully understand what we were at.
"Purvis and I walked up and down in Oxford and Cambridge Terrace forsome time--discussing the situation. The more I considered the matter,the more I was certain that my first theory was right--the Chinaman hadgot the diamond and the bank-notes. I was aware of these two Chinamenas tenants of Multenius's furnished house--as a matter of fact, I hadbeen present, at the shop in Praed Street, on one of my two visitsthere when they concluded their arrangements with him. What I nowthought was this--one of them had called on the old man to do somebusiness, or to pay the rent, and had found him in a fit, or dead, asthe result of one, had seen the diamond and the money on the table,placed there in readiness for Purvis's coming, and had possessedhimself of both and made off. Purvis agreed with me. And--both Purvisand myself are well acquainted with the characteristic peculiarities,and idiosyncrasies of Chinamen!--we knew with what we had to deal.Therefore we knew what we had to do. We wanted the diamond and mymoney. And since we were uncomfortably aware of the craft and subtletyof the thief who'd got both we knew we should have to use craftourselves--and of no common sort. Therefore we decided that the verylast thing we should think of would be an immediate appeal to thepolice.
"Now, you police officials may, nay, will!--say that we ought to havegone straight to you, especially as this was a case of murder. But weknew nothing about it being a case of murder. We had seen no signs ofviolence on the old man--I knew him to be very feeble, and I believedhe had been suddenly struck over by paralysis, or something of thatsort. I reckoned matters up, carefully. It was plain that DanielMultenius had been left alone in house and shop--that his granddaughterwas out on some errand or other. Therefore, no one knew of the diamondand the money. We did not want any one to know. If we had gone to thepolice and told our tale, the news would have spread, and wouldcertainly have reached the Chinaman's ears. We knew well enough that ifwe were to get our property back the thief must not be alarmed--theremust be nothing in the newspapers next morning. The Chinaman must notknow that the real owners of the diamond and the bank-notes suspectedhim--he must not know that information about his booty was likely to begiven to the police. He must be left to believe--for some hours at anyrate--that what he had possessed himself of was the property of a deadman who could not tell anything. But there was my book in that deadman's parlour! It was impossible to go back and fetch it. It wasequally impossible that it should not attract attention. DanielMultenius's granddaughter, whom I believed to be a very sharp youngwoman, would notice it, and would know that it had come into the placeduring her absence. I thought hard over that problem--and finally Idrafted an advertisement and sent it off to an agency with instructionsto insert it in every morning newspaper in London next day. Why?Because I wanted to draw a red herring across the trail!--I wanted, forthe time being, to set up a theory that some man or other had foundthat book in the omnibus, had called in at Multenius's to sell or pawnit, had found the old man alone, and had assaulted and robbed him. Allthis was with a view to hoodwinking the Chinaman. Anything must bedone, anything!--to keep him ignorant that Purvis and I knew the realtruth.
"But--what did we intend to do? I tell you, not being aware that oldDaniel Multenius had met his death by violence, we did not give onesecond's thought to that aspect and side of the affair--we concentratedon the recovery of our property. I knew the house in which theseChinese lived. That evening, Purvis and I went there. We have both beenaccustomed, in our time, to various secret dealings and manoeuvres, andwe entered the grounds of that house without any one being the wiser.It did not take long to convince us that the house was empty. Itremained empty that night--Purvis kept guard over it, in an outhouse inthe garden. No one either entered or left it between our going to itand Purvis coming away from it next morning--he stayed there, watchinguntil it was time to keep an appointment with me in Hyde Park. Before Imet him, I had been called upon by Detective Ayscough, Mr. Rubinstein,and Mr. Lauriston--they know what I said to them. I could not at thattime say anything else--I had my own concerns to think of.
"When Purvis and I met we had another consultation, and we determined,in view of all the revelations which had come out and had beenpublished in the papers, that the suspicion cast on young Mr. Lauristonwas the very best thing that could happen for us; it would reassure ourChinaman. And we made up our minds that the house in Maida Vale wouldnot be found untenanted that night, and we arranged to meet there ateleven o'clock. We felt so sure that our man would have read all thenews in the papers, and would feel safe, and that we should find him.But, mark you, we had no idea as to which of the two Chinamen it wasthat we wanted. Of one fact, however, we were certain--whichever it wasthat I had seen slip round the corner of Iron Gate Wharf the previousday, whether it was Chang Li or Chen Li, he would have kept his secretto himself! The thing was--to get into that house; to get intoconversation with both; to decide which was the guilty man, andthen--to take our own course. We knew what to do--and we went fullyprepared.
"Now we come to this--our second visit to the house in Maida Vale. Tobe exact, it was between eleven and twelve on the second night afterthe disappearance of the diamond. As on the previous night, we gainedaccess to the garden by the door at the back--that, on each occasion,was unfastened, while the gate giving access to the road in Maida Valewas securely locked. And, as on the previous night, we quickly foundthat up to then at any rate, the house was empty. But not so thegarden! While I was looking round the further side of the house, Purvistook a careful look round the garden. And presently he came to me anddrew away to the asphalted path which runs from the front gate to thefront door. The moon had risen above the houses and trees--and in itslight he pointed to bloodstains. It did not take a second look,gentlemen, to see that they were recent--in fact, fresh. Somebody hadbeen murdered in that garden not many minutes--literally,minutes!--before our arrival. And within two minutes more we found themurdered man lying behind some shrubbery on the left of the path. Iknew him for the younger of the two Chinese--the man called Chen Li.
"This discovery, of course, made us aware that we were now face to facewith a new development. We were not long in arriving at a conclusionabout that. Chang Li had found out that his friend had become possessedof these valuable--he might have discovered the matter of the diamond,or of the bank-notes or both--how was immaterial. But we wereconvinced, putting everything together, that he had made thisdiscovery, had probably laid in wait for Chen Li as he returned homethat night, had run a knife into him as he went up the garden, haddragged the body into the shrubbery, possessed himself of the loot, andmade off. And now we were face to face with what was going, as we knew,to be the stiffest part of our work--the finding of Chang Li. We set towork on that without a moment's delay.
"I have told you that Purvis and I have a pretty accurate knowledge ofChinamen; we have both had deep and intimate experience of them andtheir ways. I, personally, know a good deal of the Chinese Colony inLondon: I have done business with Chinamen, both in London and SouthAfrica, for years. I had a good idea of what Chang Li's procedure wouldbe. He would hide--if need be, for months, until the first heat of thehue and cry which he knew would be sure to be raised, would have cooleddown. There are several underground warrens--so to speak--in the EastEnd, in which he could go to earth, comfortably and safely, until therewas a chance of slipping out of the country unobserved. I know alreadyof some of them. I would get to know of others.
"Purvis and I got on that track--such as it
was, at once. We went alongto the East End there and then--before morning I had shaved off mybeard and mustache, disguised myself in old clothes, and was beginningmy work. First thing next morning I did two things--one was to cause atelegram to be sent from Spring Street to my butler explaining myprobable absence; the other to secretly warn the Bank of England aboutthe bank-notes. But I had no expectation that Chang Li would try tonegotiate those--all his energies, I knew, would be concentrated on thediamond. Nevertheless, he might try--and would, if hetried--succeed--in changing one note, and it was as well to take thatprecaution.
"Now then, next day, Purvis and I being, in our different ways, at workin the East End, we heard the news about the Praed Street tradesman,Parslett. That seemed to me remarkable proof of my theory. As thesuccessive editions of the newspapers came out during that day, andnext day, we learnt all about the Parslett affair. I saw through it atonce. Parslett, being next-door neighbour to Daniel Multenius, hadprobably seen Chen Li--whom we now believed to have been the actualthief--slip away from Multenius's door, and, when the news of Daniel'sdeath came out, had put two and two together, and, knowing where theChinamen lived, had gone to the house in Maida Vale to blackmail them.I guessed what had happened then--Parslett, to quieten him for themoment, had been put off with fifty pounds in gold, and promisedmore--and he had also been skilfully poisoned in such a fashion that hewould get safely away from the premises but die before he got home. Andwhen he was safe away, Chang Li had murdered Chen Li, and made off.So--as I still think--all our theories were correct, and the only thingto do was to find Chang."
But here Levendale paused, glanced at Stephen Purvis, and spread outhis hands with a gesture which indicated failure and disappointment.His glance moved from Stephen Purvis to the police officials.
"All no good!" he exclaimed. "It's useless to deny it. I have been inevery Chinese den and haunt in East London--I'm certain that Chang Liis nowhere down there. I have spent money like water--employed Chineseand Easterns on whom I could depend--there isn't a trace of him! Andso--we gave up last night. Purvis and I--baffled. We've come to youpolice people--"
"You should have done that before, Mr. Levendale," said the Inspectorseverely. "You haven't given us much credit, I think, and if you'd toldall this at first--"
Before the Inspector could say more, a constable tapped at the door andput his head into the room. His eyes sought Ayscough.
"There's a young gentleman--foreigner--asking for you, Mr. Ayscough,"he said. "Wants to see you at once--name of Mr. Yada."