CHAPTER TWO
HOW THE CHASE ENDED
Meanwhile Mr. Narkom and his zealous assistants had rushed wildly on,coming forth at last from the old railway arch into the narrow lanewithout so much as catching a glimpse or finding the slightest trace ofeither victim or murderer.
But that they had not all been deceived by an hallucination of thenight, received proof from the triumphant discovery of Sergeant Petrie,who, with the aid of his torch and the bull's-eye lantern of ConstableMellish, had found the unmistakable traces of hurried footsteps on thesoft, yielding earth.
"Lummy, sir! the place is alive with 'em," ejaculated Mellish. "This isthe way he went, sir, down this 'ere lane, and makin' for the right ofway across the fields, like wot that shuvver of yours said, sir."
Narkom, Hammond, and Petrie were at his side before he had finishedspeaking. It was true, other footprints were there, all the lonelytree-girt road was full of them, going down the centre in one long,unbroken line. They stopped but a moment to make sure of this, then roseand dashed on in the direction which they led.
Straight on, down the middle of the thoroughfare, without break orinterruption, the foot-made trail drew them; under drippingovershadowing trees; by natural hedges and unnatural mounds where weedsand briars scrambled over piles of debris, and the light of theirtorches showed Narkom and his men the dim irregular outlines of acrumbling wall, green with moss and lichen and higher in parts than aman's head.
On and still on, the deeply dug footprints lessening not a whit in theirclearness, until, all of a moment, they swerved slightly to the left andthen abruptly stopped--stopped dead short, and after that were seen nomore!
"Here's where he went!" called out Hammond, pointing to the left asNarkom and the others, in a sort of panic, went running round andendeavouring to pick up the lost trail. "Look, sir--grass here and thewall beyond. Hopped over on to the grass, that's what he did, thenscaled the wall and 'went to earth' like an idiot in that old houseLennard told us of. Come along--quick!
"Fair copped him, sir, as sure as eggs," he added excitedly, plunging inthrough the mist and the shadow of the trees until he came to the wallin question. "Break in the wall here, coping gone, dry dust of newlycrumbled mortar on the grass. Got over here, Mr. Narkom--yes, and cuthimself doing it. Hand, most likely; for there are bits of mortar withbroken glass stuck in 'em lying about and a drop of fresh blood on thetop of the wall!"
A single look was enough, when Mr. Narkom came hurrying to his side, toverify all that had been said; and with an excited, "This way, all ofyou. Look sharp!" the superintendent sprang up, gripped the broken topof the wall, scrambled over it and dropped down into the darkness andmist upon the other side. The others followed his lead, and the nextmoment all were in the dark, walled-in enclosure in the middle of whichthe long-abandoned house known as Gleer Cottage stood. They could seenothing of it from where they were, for the mist and the crowded screenof long-neglected fruit trees shut it in as with a curtain.
"Better let me go ahead and light the way, gents," said ConstableMellish in an excited whisper, as he again unshuttered his bull's-eyeand directed its gleam upon the matted and tangled verdure. "Stout bootsand thick trousers is what's wanted to tramp a path through thesebriars; them evening clothes of yours 'ud be torn to ribbons and yourankles cut to the bone before you'd gone a dozen yards. Lummy! there'sanother of his footprints--on the edge of that flower bed there! see!Come on, come on--quick!"
Too excited and too much occupied with the work in hand to care who tookthe lead so that they got through the place and ran their quarry toearth, Narkom and the rest suffered the suburban constable to beat a wayfor them through the brambly wilderness, while with bodies bent, nervestense as wire, treading on tiptoe along the trail that was being socautiously blazed for them, they pressed on after him.
Suddenly, without hint or warning, a faint metallic "click" sounded,the light they were following went suddenly out, and before Narkom,realizing that Mellish had sprung the shutter over the flame of hislamp, could voice a whispered inquiry, the constable's body lurched backagainst his own and a shaking hand descended upon his shoulder.
"Don't move, don't speak, sir!" said Mellish's voice close to his ear."We've got him right enough. He's in the house itself, and with a light!There's a board or something put up against the window to shield it, butyou can see the light through the chinks--coming and going, sir, like ashe was carrying it about."
Startling as the statement was, when Narkom and the rest came on tiptoeto the end of the trampled path and peeped around the last screeningbush into the open beyond, they found it to be the case.
Blurred, shadowy, mist wrapped--like the ghost of a house set in aghostly garden--there stood the long-abandoned building, its blank upperwindows lost in the wrapping fog; its dreary face toward the distantroad; its bleak, unlovely side fronting the point from which Narkom andhis men now viewed it; and from one of the two side windows thinwavering lines of constantly shifting light issued from beneath theshadow of a veranda.
"Candlelight, sir, and a draught somewhere, nobody moving about,"whispered Hammond. "Window or a door open--that's what makes the lightrise and fall. What an ass! Barricaded the window and never thought tostop up the chinks. Lord, for a fellow clever enough to get away fromthe constable and the keeper in the manner he did, you'd never look foran idiot's trick like this."
Narkom might have reminded him that it was an old, old failing on thepart of the criminal class, this overlooking some trifling little pointafter a deed of almost diabolical cunning; but at present he was toomuch excited to think of anything but getting into that lighted room andnabbing his man before he slipped the leash again and escaped him.
Ducking down he led a swift but soundless flight across the open spaceuntil he and his allies were close up under the shadow of the buildingitself, where he made the rather surprising discovery that the rear doorwas unlocked. Through this they made their way down a passage, at theend of which was evidently the room they sought, for a tiny thread oflight lay between the door and the bare boards of the passage. Here theyhalted a moment, their nerves strung to breaking point and their heartshammering thickly as they now heard a faint rustling movement and anoise of tearing paper sounding from behind it.
For a moment these things alone were audible; then Narkom's hand shotupward as a silent signal; there was a concerted movement, a crash thatcarried a broken door inward and sent echoes bellowing and bounding fromlanding to landing and wall to wall, a gush of light, a scramble ofcrowding figures, a chorus of excited voices, and--the men of ScotlandYard were in the room.
But no cornered criminal rose to do battle with them, and no startledoutcry greeted their coming--nothing but the squeal and scamper offrightened rats bolting to safety behind the wainscot; a mere ripple ofsound, and after it a silence which even the intruders had not breathenough to break with any spoken word.
With peeling walls and mouldering floor the long, low-ceiled room gapedout before them, littered with fallen plaster and thick with dust andcobwebs. On the floor, in the blank space between the two boarded-upwindows, a pair of lighted candles guttered and flared, while behindthem, with arms outstretched, sleeves spiked to the wall--a humancrucifix, with lolling head and bended knees--a dead man hung, and thelight shining upon his distorted face revealed the hideous fact that hehad been strangled to death.
However many his years, they could not have totalled more than five andthirty at most, and ghastly as he was now, in life he must have beenstrikingly handsome: fair of hair and moustache, lean of loin and broadof shoulder, and with that subtle _something_ about him which mutelystands sponsor for the thing called birth.
He was clad in a long gray topcoat of fine texture and fashionablecut--a coat unbuttoned and flung open by the same furious hand which hadrent and torn at the suit of evening clothes he wore beneath.
The waistcoat was wrenched apart and a snapped watch chain dangled fromit, and on the broad expanse of shirt bosom thus exposed
there wasrudely smeared in thick black letters--as if a finger had been dippedfor the purpose in blacking or axle grease--a string of mystifyingnumerals running thus:
2 X 4 X 1 X 2]
For a moment the men who had stumbled upon this appalling sight stoodstaring at it in horrified silence; then Constable Mellish backedshudderingly away and voiced the first spoken word.
"The Lord deliver us!" he said in a quaking whisper. "_Not_ the murdererhimself, but the party as he murdered! A gent--a swell--strangled in aplace like this! Gawd help us! what was a man like that a-doing of here?And besides, the shot was fired out there--on the Common--as you knowyourselves. You heard it, didn't you?"
Nobody answered him. For Narkom and his men this horrifying discoverypossessed more startling, more mystifying, more appalling surprises thanthat which lay in the mere finding of the victim of a tragedy where theyhad been confident of running to earth the assassin alone. For in thatghastly dead thing spiked to the crumbling wall they saw again a man wholess than four hours ago had stood before them in the full flower ofhealth and strength and life.
"Good God!" gasped Hammond, laying a shaking hand upon Narkom's arm."You see who it is, don't you, sir? It's the Austrian gent who was atClavering Close to-night-- Count Whats-his-name!"
"De Louvisan--Count Franz de Louvisan," supplied Narkom agitatedly. "Thelast man in the world who _should_ have shown himself in the home of theman whose sweetheart he was taking away, despite the lady's own desiresand entreaties! And to come to such an end--to-night--in such a place asthis--after such an interview with the two people whose lives he waswrecking.... Good God!"
A thought almost too horrible to put into words lay behind that lastexcited exclamation, for his eyes had fallen on a thin catgut halter--avioloncello string--thus snatched from its innocent purpose, and throughhis mind had floated the strains of the music with which Lady KatharineFordham had amused the company but a short time before. He turnedabruptly to his men and had just opened his mouth to issue a commandwhen the darkness and silence without were riven suddenly by the hootingof a motor horn and the voice of Lennard shouting.
"Stop!" commanded Narkom, as the men made an excited step toward thedoor. "Search this house--guard it--don't let any one enter or leave ituntil I come back. If any living man comes near it, arrest him, nomatter who or what he is. But don't leave the place unguarded for asingle instant--remember that. There's only one man in the world forthis affair. Stop where you are until I return with him."
Then he flung himself out of the room, out of the house, and ran as fastas he could fly in the direction of the tooting horn. At the point wherethe branching arm of the "Y" joined the main portion of Mulberry Lane,he caught sight of two huge, glaring motor lamps coming toward himthrough the mist and darkness. In a twinkling the limousine had haltedin front of him, and Lennard was telling excitedly of that startlingexperience back there by the old railway arch.
"A woman, sir--a young and beautiful woman! And she must have hadsomething to do with this night's business, gov'ner, or why should shebe wandering about this place at such a time? Hop in quick, sir, andI'll run you back to the spot where I saw her."
At any other time, under any other circumstances, Narkom might, probablywould, have complied with that request; but now---- A woman indeed! Nowoman's hand could have nailed that grim figure to the wall of GleerCottage, at least not alone, not without assistance. This he realized;and brushing the suggestion aside, jumped into the limousine and slammedthe door upon himself.
"Drive to Clarges Street! I must see Cleek! Full speed now! Don't letthe devil himself stop you!" he cried; and in a moment they werebounding away townward at a fifty-mile clip that ate up the distancelike a cat lapping cream.