CHAPTER XXII
DAMNING EVIDENCE
They found Dollops waiting in the little squared-in courtyard which leddown to the dungeons, and in a state bordering upon hysteria from theexcitement of all those exciting things which had just come to pass.
He blurted out his story of Jarvis's practical joke and its ultimateconsequences in a helter-skelter fashion, anxious to get on to this newdevelopment, and except for a "By James!" from Mr. Narkom and a nod ofthe head from Cleek, pursued his course without interruption.
"And when we'd walked a mile or so over them 'ills and dahn inter thedales, Minnie ups and says ter me, 'Come an' 'ave a drink, Ginger-snap!'And er course I was nuffin' loaf, as they s'y (though what bread 'as todo with it I niver could tell). So we comes upon a pub in a little bitof a shanty built of timber dahn in the nest of the 'ills, and she tykesme by the arm and pulls me inter it."
"And what did you find there, Dollops?" put in Cleek, with a smile forthe lad's poetical expression.
"A bit of a bar full of Scotties wot looked as though they'd come 'omefrom a funeril, from the h'expression of their fyces," he returnedemphatically. "Them Scotties do take their pleasure sadly, not 'arf! Nota blinkin' one of 'em got a bit er jollyin' left in 'em. ''Ello,Minnie-gairl,' they s'ys to 'er wen we come in, 'who's the noo mon yeken?'--talkin' in their silly langwidge wot an Englishman can'tunnerstand. 'Pal o' mine,' s'ys Minnie, pert-like, 'come ter visit fer alittle time. Gen'leman's st'yin' at the Castle.'
"'Where that there wee beetie o' crrime has taken place?' puts in asandy-'eaded feller wiv beetling brows an' a complexion like a bit erred granite. 'Yes,' says Minnie. 'Then better give 'im a wee drappierter warrm 'is freetened hearrt!'"
Dollops paused a moment, and Cleek threw back his head and gave vent toa smothered laugh.
"You'll be the death of me yet, lad," he remarked merrily, "with yourCockney and 'Scotch' rolled into one. But let's hear the end of thestory. What happened then?"
"They giv me a drink, Guv'nor, of very strong whisky it were, an' when Iasked 'em where it come from an 'oo made it, thinkin' I'd lay in abottle or two fer when we gets back ter Clarges Street, a feller wotjust come in (an' a bit tight 'e were, too) slaps me on the back andsays, 'Hoo noo, laddie? It's frae the valley, under the little brookiesand amangst th' gravel.'"
"And what did you say, Dollops?"
"I told him in good old English ter go tell that ter the marines andstow the gaff, and he ups and larfs at me, and he says, says 'e, 'I'llshow ye if I speak the truith or no.' And then a lot o' 'em says,'Hoots' and 'toots' and 'nah,' as though they was monkeys in the zoo,and set up such a gabbling as you never 'eared of, and the end of it wasthat ole Barmy tykes me by the arm and pushes me through the door. 'Comefrom Lunnon, does yer?' he says ter me. 'Well, then, never any tellin'but ye can gie us a han' wi' disposin' of our wares.' And with that heups and pulls Minnie along with him, in spite of them uvvers, and off wegoes dahn th' 'ill inter a deep sort of gravel-pit, and there--theblinkin' thing was, sir, as large as life and twice as nateril!"
"My dear chap!--what the dickens does he mean, Cleek?" threw in Mr.Narkom at this juncture.
"Simply what he says. And it was there, was it, Dollops?"
"It were, sir"; Dollops's tone was portentous with mystery; "and what'smore, there was that black-eyed Dago feller wiv the chase-me look andthe hearf-brush moustache, talkin' fifteen ter the dozen in sevindifferent langwidges, and makin' more noise than all the rest of 'em puttogether."
"Gad! you've surely found out something, Dollops, and done a good day'swork, bless your heart," said Cleek admiringly, slipping his armthrough the boy's on one side and through Mr. Narkom's on the other."Well, it's to the gravel-pit with the lot of us this evening--at leastfor you and me, Dollops. You had better remain here at the Castle, Mr.Narkom, while we're gone. And meet me at midnight under the big gate.But let's not be seen, Dollops, else the fat will be in the fire with avengeance. Anything else?"
Dollops bent nearer to the man he loved best in all the world, and puthis mouth close up against Cleek's ear.
"One uvver fing, sir--an' wot I calls the piece of resisters," he saidin a low voice. "As I comes aw'y, 'oo should I see a-runnin' dahn the'ill, side by side with Dicky-Dago, but that there young feller as theycalls Cyril (sickenin' sissy sort er nyme ter give a chap, too!), an' Ijumps back inter the bushes wiv Minnie clinging ter me arm, an' waitstill they've gorn parst. An' I 'ears the youngster s'y you nyme--'Mr.Deland,' he says, an' 'clever'--and then summink else, wot I didn't'ear, but wot made Dicky-Dago give out a sort er garsp and gurgle in 'isfroat, an' says something which sounded like a Russian patent medicine,an'--that's all."
"And a very good 'all', too, Dollops," ejaculated Cleek, giving theboy's arm a squeeze. "You have surely done your share of unravelling inthis case, at all events. What do you say about it, Mr. Narkom?...There'll be a nice five-pound note to add to that growing account ofyours for this night's job, I promise you.... And so Cyril is mixed upin it, too-- _Cyril!_ That boy! Gad! what does it mean, eh? And inleague with those scoundrels.... 'Ten o'clock for bedtime,' says he, sofrankly. Ten o'clock! And the young underhanded rascal roaming thecountryside just before that in company with an Italian of questionablecharacter! Looks bad, every way you look at it. And with Lady Paula'sactions and secret meetings taken into account as well, puts a prettyblack face upon _their_ little share in last night's tragedy. Now, Iwonder if this Dago, as Dollops calls him, is a lover of the lady's orwhat?... Gad! Mr. Narkom, what's your opinion?"
The Superintendent waited a moment, and cleared his throat, and when hespoke his voice was emphatic and a trifle bored.
"No two questions about it, to my way of thinking," said he quietly, asthey traversed the darkness together. "That Captain Macdonald did thething--because of those footprints of his outside the window--and as hecouldn't or wouldn't give the reason of why he was in the grounds herelast night at that identical time. And the person he was shielding wasobviously Lady Paula. She, too, has been involved in this, thoughwhether in the actual murder or not, I'm not prepared to say. And RossDuggan, too. I imagine the whole thing is a put-up job; don't you,Cleek?"
"I can't rightly say," returned Cleek in an uncertain tone. "Sometimesit points one way and sometimes another. And I'm inclined to agree withyou where Lady Paula is concerned. She knows a good deal more than shesays, and is wily--deuced wily, as all drug-takers are. And the motivewould be there all right, judging from what Maud Duggan told me was theshare which Sir Andrew had apportioned out for his widow and her boy.She'll double that easily enough. But to _kill_ for such a thing seemsincredible--though I've known of worse crimes for less reason than that.But Ross Duggan's is the greatest motive of all, taking intoconsideration just when the thing happened--_before_ his name waserased, you must remember, Mr. Narkom, and as he's a dabster atelectricity and the only person with an air-pistol in the house ...well, circumstantial evidence looks pretty black against him, doesn'tit?"
"It certainly does." Mr. Narkom's voice was a trifle apologetic. "Well,I hardly know what to think, Cleek. And you're such a beggar forstringing evidence together, and never forgetting it! And there's such adickens of a lot of evidence in this case that a chap gets horriblyinvolved, and his memory is likely to play him tricks. And then thatItalian chap whom Dollops has seen such a lot of to-day--where does hecome in?"
"Right into the midst of the whole caboosh," returned Cleekenigmatically, "and don't you make any mistake about that, my friend.Dicky-Dago, to use Dollops's name, is one of the prime movers in thislittle inheritance game, and in another one also. A dollar to a ducat heknows the whole thing, and Tweed Coat's with him."
"Who the dickens is Tweed Coat?"
"The gentleman whom Dollops so aptly described a few moments ago,"returned Cleek quietly. "Perhaps you didn't notice Ross Duggan's coatthis morning, Mr. Narkom? No? Well, it was made of a very sweetlysmelling cloth called Harris tweed; and when Dollops described the onehe saw to me this evening, I recognized
it at once."
"Then Tweed Coat is Ross Duggan, Cleek?"
Mr. Narkom's voice was a trifle shrill. Cleek's eyes met his squarely,and his eyebrows went up.
"Who else?" he said.