CHAPTER FIVE
THE RIDDLE OF THE NIGHT
Before Mr. Narkom could ask any questions, the sound of excited voicesand hasty footsteps coming up the drive and making toward the lonelyhouse drove all other thoughts from his head.
"Come along," he whispered to Cleek. "It's Hammond and Petrie returningfrom the keeper's shelter on the Common. I know their voices. And theyhave unearthed something startling or they wouldn't be talking soexcitedly."
They had, indeed, as he learned when he hurried out and intercepted themat the cottage steps; for between them they were supporting a manstripped of coat, waistcoat, and hat, and wearing bound round his head abloodstained handkerchief. His bearded face was bruised and battered,his shirt and trousers were covered with mud, and he was so weak fromloss of blood that it was next to impossible for him to stand alone.
"Sir," broke out Hammond, as they came up with Mr. Narkom and pausedwith this unexpected newcomer before him, "I don't know whether thatFrench mounseer is a wizard or not, but he copped the lay at the firstguess, Mr. Narkom, and foreigner or not I take off my blessed hat tohim. Here's what we found when we got to the shelter, sir--this hereparty, knocked senseless, tied up like a trussed fowl, and tucked out ofsight under the gorse bushes nigh the shelter. Coat, cap, badge, andtruncheon all gone, sir--nicked by that dare-devil who took us in sonicely down there at the old railway arch. The murderer himself he were,I'll lay my life; for look here, sir, here's what he most brained thispoor chap with--a hammer, sir--look! And a hammer was used, wasn't it,to spike that dead man to the wall? Had him, Mr. Narkom, had the rascalin our very hands, that's what we did, sir, and then like a parcel ofchuckleheads we went and let him go."
"It is a trick that has succeeded with others besides yourselves," saidCleek, who had been bending over the injured man. He looked up at Narkomsignificantly. "Monsieur, I expect my assistant here any minute now.Would it not be as well to report this shocking affair to the localauthorities?"
"Certainly, monsieur!" agreed Narkom, who had forgotten that Dollopsmight arrive now at any moment.
"What about this poor chap here, sir?" interposed Petrie. "He's in adesperately bad way. Oughtn't we to take him with us, and turn him overto the hospital folk?"
"Non--that is, not yet, my friend," softly interposed Cleek. "Your goodsuperintendent and I will look after him for a little time. There is aquestion or two to ask. He will bear the strain of talking now betterthan he might be able to do later. Notify the hospital officials as youpass through the town proper, and have an ambulance sent out. That'sall. You may go."
"Well, so help me," began the indignant Petrie, then discreetly shut upand went. A moment later the limousine had whizzed away into the mistand darkness with the three men, and Cleek and Narkom were alone withthe injured keeper.
"I expect that is Dollops in his taxi," whispered Cleek. "I thought Iheard the sound of a motor. That will obliterate every track if youdon't stop him. Head him off if you can, dear chap, and set him to workdirectly you have dismissed the taxi. Tell Dollops to measure and make adrawing of every footmark in and about the place. Quickly, please,before it is too late."
Mr. Narkom hurried off and vanished in the mist, leaving his ally alonewith the dying man, for that he was dying there could be no question.
A bullet had gone through his body; a hammer had battered in the back ofhis head; he was but partly conscious--with frequent lapses intocomplete insensibility--and the marvel was not that he occasionallyuttered some wandering, half-coherent sentences, but that he was able tospeak at all.
"My poor chap," Cleek said feelingly, as he administered a stimulant bywhich the keeper's flagging energies were whipped up. "Try tospeak--try to answer a question or two--try--for a woman's sake."
"A woman's?" he mumbled feebly. "Aye, my poor wife-- Gawd 'elp her--herand the kiddies! And me a-goin' 'ome, sir--me a-gettin' of my death likethis for jist a-doin' of my duty--doin' of it honest and true, sir, forking and country!"
"And both letting you face the nightly peril of it unarmed!" said Cleekbitterly; then, passionately: "Will you wake up, England? Will you wakeup and do justice by these men who give their lives that you may sleepin peace, and who, with a badge and a truncheon and two willing hands,must fight your criminal classes and keep law and order for you?"
"Aye--some day, may like--some day, sir," mumbled the dwindling voice;then it trailed off and sank sobbingly away, and Cleek had to administermore brandy to bolster up his fading strength.
"A word," he said eagerly, the hammering of his heart getting into hisvoice and making it unsteady. "Just one word, but much depends upon it.Tell me--now--before anybody comes: Who did it? Man or woman?"
"I dunno, sir-- I didn't see. The mist was thick. Whoever it was, comeat me from behind. But there was two--there must have been two--one as Iheard a-runnin' toward me when I challenged, sir, and--and got shot downlike a dog; and 'tother as come at me in the back when I sang out'Murder' and blew my whistle for help. But men or women, whichever itmay a-been, I never see, sir, never. But one woman _was_ on the Commonto-night. A lady, sir--oh, yes, a lady indeed."
"A lady? Speak to me--quickly--my friend is returning. What did thatlady wear? Was it a pink dress? Or couldn't you see?"
"Oh, yes, I could see--she came near me--she spoke in passing. She gaveme a bit of money, sir, and asked me not to mention about her bein' outthere to-night and me havin' met her. But it wasn't a pink dress, sir;it was green--all shiny pale green satin with sparklin' things on thebosom and smellin' like a field o' voylits on a mornin' in May!"
The sense of unspeakable thankfulness that Cleek experienced uponhearing that the dress of this unknown "lady" was not pink, was lost ina twinkling in one of utter and overwhelming surprise at learning thatit was _green_! Pink, white, and green, here were three evening dressescalled into the snare of this night's mystery; and yet a _third_ womannow involved. White satin, that had been Lady Katharine Fordham's gownto-night; pink chiffon, that had been Ailsa Lorne's. Who then was thewearer of the pale green satin gown? Here was the riddle of the nighttaking yet another perplexing turn.
A clatter of hasty footsteps came along the drive and up the steps tothe veranda, and Narkom, in a state of violent excitement, stood besidehim.
"All right," he said, answering Cleek's inquiring glance. "I headed thetaxi off and set Dollops to work as you suggested--and a blessed goodthing I did, too, otherwise we might have lost valuable clues."
"There _were_ footsteps then?"
"Footsteps? Great Scott, yes, heaps of them: the absolute continuationof those which led me and my men to this house. But the madness of thething, the puzzle of the thing! No man on earth can run away in twodirections, yet there the blessed things are, going down the road atfull tilt and coming back up it again still on a dead run. Two lines ofthem, old chap, one going and the other returning and both passing bythe gate of this house. By it, do you hear?--_by_ it, and never onceturning in; yet in the garden we have found marks that correspond withthem to the fraction of a hair, and we know positively that the fellow_did_ come in here. It licks me, Cleek--it positively licks me. It'sbeyond all reason."
"Yes," admitted Cleek, thinking of the green satin dress. "It is, Mr.Narkom, it certainly is."
"Dollops will bring the drawings he's making to you as soon as he hascovered all the ground," resumed the superintendent almost immediately."Clever young dog that and no mistake. But to return to our muttons, oldchap. Did you get anything out of this poor fellow? Any clue to theparty who assaulted him?"
"None. He doesn't know. For one thing, the mist prevented him seeing hisassailant, and for another, he was first shot down by some one who wasrunning toward him and answered his challenge with a bullet, and thenpounced upon by somebody else who was behind him and floored him withthe hammer. I take it that the person who was running and who fired theshot was advancing toward him from this direction--was, in fact, theactual assassin--and that having discharged the pistol and caused thispoor fel
low to whistle a call for assistance to the constable inMulberry Lane, he was put to it to get out of the box in which he foundhimself by those two things. To escape across the Common meant to bepursued by the constable and driven across the track of one of the otherkeepers; so he took the bold hazard of putting on this poor chap's coat,cap, and badge and playing at joining in the hue and cry in the mannerhe did. Is that"--turning to the dying man--"the truth of it?"
The keeper could only nod--he was now too far gone to make any verbalresponse, and even the administering of another dose of brandy failed towhip up his expiring strength.
"I'm afraid we shall never get any more out of him, poor fellow," saidCleek feelingly. "He is lapsing into unconsciousness, you see. Raise hima bit, make him a little more comfortable if pos---- Quick! Catch hishead, Mr. Narkom! Don't let it strike the boards. Gone!--a good trueservant of the public gone! And the blackguard that killed him still atlarge!"
Then he gently folded the useless hands and closed down the sightlesseyes, and shaking out the coat which Petrie had bundled into a pillow,spread it over the dead man and was very, very still for a little time.
"There's a widow--and some little nippers, Mr. Narkom," he said when heat length rose to his feet. "Find them out for me, will you? And if youcan see your way to offer a good substantial reward for the clearing upof this case and the capture of the criminal, I'll pull it off and youmay pay that reward to the mother of this man's children."
"Cleek, my dear fellow! How ridiculously quixotic. What on earth can yoube thinking about?"
"A woman, Mr. Narkom--just a woman--and a few little nippers ... whomight take the wrong road as--well, as somebody I know of took itonce--if there wasn't a hand to help them or a friend to guide. That'sall, dear friend, that's all!"
Lifting his hat to that silent, covered figure, he turned and walkedaway. But at the foot of the steps leading down to the mist and darknessof the drive he came to a halt; and there Narkom, following almostinstantly, joined him again.
"My dear fellow, of all the impulsive, of all the amazing men," hebegan; but got no further, for Cleek's upthrown hand checked him.
"We won't go into that, Mr. Narkom," he said. "We'll stick to the case,please. I've got something to tell you that you haven't heard as yet.Something that that poor dead chap did manage to tell me. A woman--alady--was out there on the Common to-night and paid him not to disclosethe fact."
"Great Scott! My dear fellow, you don't surely mean to hint that by anypossibility that poor child, Lady Katharine Fordham----"
"No, I do not. The lady in question was neither Lady Katharine Fordham,who, you tell me, wore a white satin dress to-night, nor yet Miss AilsaLorne, whose frock you say was of gauzy pink. The lady in question wore,I understand, a gown of very pale green satin with what I take to havebeen several diamond ornaments upon the corsage; furthermore, a delicatebut very distinct odour of violets clung about her."
"Good Lord!"
"No wonder you are surprised, Mr. Narkom. Ladies dressed in that fashionare not, as a general thing, given to wandering about Wimbledon Commoneither by night or by day, and the presence of this particular one iscurious, to say the least of it. I am of the opinion, however, that shewas no stranger to the Common keeper, otherwise he would have hurriedher into the shelter the instant she offered to bribe him, whistled upthe constable in Mulberry Lane, and given her in charge as a suspiciouscharacter. Then there is another side to the affair which we must notoverlook. An entertainment was in progress at Clavering Close to-night,and there must have been quite a number of ladies present dressed ingala attire. But if your exclamation means that you have norecollection of seeing one who wore a gown of pale green satin----"
"It doesn't!" rapped in Narkom excitedly. "It was the absurdity, themadness, the--the utter impossibility of the thing. That she--she of allwomen----! What rot!"
"Oho!" said Cleek, with a strong, rising inflection. "Then there _was_such a gown in the rooms at Clavering Close to-night, eh? And you doremember the lady that wore it?"
"Remember her? There's nobody I should be likely to remember better. Itwas Lady Clavering herself!"
"Whew-w! The hostess?"
"Yes. Sir Philip's wife--young Geoff's stepmother; one of the sweetest,gentlest, most womanly women that ever lived. And to suggest that she... either the fellow must have deliberately lied or his statement wasthe delusion of a dying man. It couldn't have happened--it simplycouldn't, Cleek. Why, man, her ladyship was there--at the Close--when Ileft. It was she who put that jewel into my hand and asked me to leaveit at Wuthering Grange when----"
He stopped, biting his words off short and laying a nervous grip onCleek's arm; and Cleek, facing about abruptly, leaned forward into themist and darkness, listening.
For of a sudden, a babble of angry voices, mingled with the sounds of ascuffle, had risen from the road beyond the gates, and hard on theheels of it there now rang forth sharply the shrill tones of Dollopscrying out at the top of his voice:
"None o' yer larks, now! Got yer! Gov'ner! Mr. Narkom! This way! Comequick, will yer? I've copped the bounder. Out here in the bushes underthis blessed wall!"