"Oh, at the very instant the body was discovered, my dear chap. It could hardly have been overlooked for so much as an instant, for the slender chain upon which they had formerly hung was lying across the body, the setting of the gems had been prised open and the diamond removed."
"Singular circumstances, both."
"In what way, Cleek?"
"Well, for one thing, it shows that the assassin must have had plenty of time and a very good reason for taking the stones without their setting. If he hadn't, he'd have grabbed the thing and done that elsewhere. Must have taken them to the light for the purpose and laid them down upon some firm, hard surface; you can't pick a diamond out of a good setting without some little difficulty, Mr. Narkom, and certainly not in the palm of your hand. Why, then, should the assassin have brought the chain back after that operation and laid it upon the body of the victim? Rather looks as if he wanted the fact that the stones had disappeared to be apparent at first glance. Any other jewels stolen at the same time?"
"No; only the Siva stones."
"Hum-m-m! And the noosed rope that was about the neck of the murdered woman; what was that like? Something that had been brought from outside the house or something that could be picked up within it?"
"As a matter of fact, my dear fellow, it was part of the bellrope that belonged to that very room. It had been cut off and converted into a noose."
"Oho!" said Cleek. "I see – I see!" Then, after a moment: "Pull down the blinds of the limousine, will you, Mr. Narkom?" he added as he bent and picked up the kit-bag. "I want to do a little bit in the way of a change; and, if you are proceeding directly to the scene of the murder – "
"I am, dear chap. Any idea, Cleek?"
"Bushels. Tell you if they're worth anything after I've seen the body. If they are – Well, I shall either have the Siva stones in my hand before eight o'clock to-night, or – "
"Yes, old chap? Or what?"
"Or the Hindu's got 'em and they're already out of the country for good and all. And – Mr. Narkom, 'George Headland' will do, if you please."
II
Lennard having slackened the speed of the motor considerably, and in addition taken two or three wide curves out of the direct line, it was quite half-past four when the limousine stopped in front of the Glossop residence, about which a curious collection of morbid-minded people had gathered. There alighted therefrom, first the superintendent, and then the over-dressed figure with the lank, fair hair and the fresh-coloured, insipid countenance of as perfect a specimen of the genus sap-head as you could pick up anywhere between John o' Groat's and Land's End. A flower was in his buttonhole, a monocle in his eye, and the gold head of his jointed walking-stick was sucked into the red eyelet of his puckered-up lips.
"Oh, yez! Oh, yez!" sang out derisively a bedraggled female on the edge of the crowd as this utterly unrecognizable edition of Cleek stepped out upon the pavement. "Oh, yez! Oh, yez! 'Ere's to give notice! Them's the bright sparks wot rides in motor-cars, them is, and my poor 'usband a hoofin' of it all the dies of 'is blessed life!"
"Move on, now – move on!" cautioned the constable on guard, waving her aside and making a clear passage for the superintendent and his companion across the pavement and up the steps. And a moment later Cleek was in the house, in the morning-room, in the presence of Captain Harvey Glossop, his wife, and the young Duke of Heatherlands.
The lady was a pale, fragile-looking woman of about three-and-twenty, very beautiful, very well bred, low-voiced, and altogether charming. Her husband was some five or six years her senior, a genial, kindly man with a winning smile, an engaging personality, and the manners of one used to the good things of life and, like all people who really are used to them, making no boast of it and putting on no "side" whatsoever. As for the young duke – well, he was just an impetuous, hot-headed, hot-tongued, lovable boy, the kind of chap who, in a moment of temper, would swear to have your heart's blood, but, if you stumbled and fell the next moment, would risk breaking his neck to get to you and help you and offer you his last shilling to cab it home.
"Well, here I am, you see, Mr. Narkom," blurted out his impulsive Grace as the superintendent and Cleek came in. "If any of your lot want me they won't have to hunt me up and they won't find me funking it, no matter how black it looks for me. I didn't kill her, I didn't even get to see her; and anybody that says I did, lies – that's all!"
"My dear Heatherlands," protested the captain, "don't work yourself up into such a pitch of excitement. I don't suppose Mr. Narkom has come here to arrest you. It is just as black with regard to that mysterious Hindu fellow, remember. Perhaps a little blacker when you come to recall how suddenly and mysteriously he has disappeared. And, certainly, his motive looks quite as strong as yours."
"I haven't any motive – I never did have one, and I take it beastly unkind of you to say that, Glossop!" blurted out the young duke impetuously. "Just because I'm hard up is no reason why I should commit murder and robbery. What could I want with the Siva stones? I couldn't sell them, could I, marked things that every diamond dealer in the world knows? Oh, yes, I know what people say: I could have turned them over to the Hindu and claimed the reward; that perhaps I did and that that's why this particular Hindu has disappeared. But it's not true. I didn't have anything to do with it. I didn't get into the room at all last night. And even if I had I couldn't have bolted it on the inside after I'd left it, could I? If you and your lot want me, Mr. Narkom, I'm here, and I'll face every charge they can bring against me."
"Pardon me, your Grace, but I'm not here for the purpose of apprehending anybody," replied Narkom suavely. "My errand is of a totally different sort, I assure you. Captain Glossop, allow me to make you acquainted with a great friend of mine, Mr. George Headland. Mr. Headland is an amateur investigator of criminal matters, and he has taken a fancy to look into the details of this one. It may be that he will stumble upon something of importance – who knows? And in such an affair as this I deem it best to leave no stone unturned, no chance untried."
"Quite so, Mr. Narkom, quite so," agreed the captain. "Mr. Headland, I am delighted to meet you, though, of course, I should have preferred to do so under happier circumstances."
"Thanks very much," said Cleek with an inane drawl, but a quick, searching look out of the corner of his eye at the young duke. "Awfully good of you to say so, I'm sure. Your Grace, pleased to meet you. Charmed, Mrs. Glossop. Yes, thanks, I will have a cup of tea. So nice of you to suggest it."
"Must be rather interesting work, this looking into criminal matters on your own initiative, Mr. Headwood – pardon, Headland, is it? Do forgive me, but I have a most abominable memory for names," said the captain. "Believe me, I shall be willing to give you any possible assistance that I can in the present unhappy case."
"Thanks – jolly kind of you, and I very much appreciate it, I assure you," returned Cleek in his best "blithering idiot" fashion. "Should be ever so much obliged if you'd – er – permit me to view the scene of the tragedy and the – er – body of the deceased, don't you know. Of course, Mr. Narkom has said I may, but – er – after all, an Englishman's house is his castle and all that, so it's only polite to ask."
"Oh, certainly, do so by all means, Mr. Headland. You will excuse my saying it, but I doubt if you will find any clues there, however, for the regular officials have already been over the ground."
"Searched the room, have they, in quest of the diamonds? Thieves do funny things sometimes, you know, and it's just possible that they got in a funk and hid the things instead of taking them away."
"Well, of all the blessed id – " began the young duke, looking over at him disgustedly; and then discreetly stopped and left the term unfinished.
"I fancy, my dear Headland," interposed Narkom, "I neglected to tell you that the captain had my men search the place from top to bottom, go through every cupboard, into every nook and corner, turn out the servants' boxes – even his own and Mrs. Glossop's, as well – so that it is certain the jewels could not have been concealed anywhere about the premises either by accident or design. Nothing was found – nothing. The Siva stones have utterly and completely disappeared."
"And no other jewels besides?"
"Not a solitary one, Mr. Headland."
"Rum sort of a thief, wasn't it, to cut off with only half the booty? The duchess must have had lots of other jewels and there were Mrs. Glossop's, too. Those superb rings of yours, for instance, madam, fancy a burglar getting in and not paying his respects to those. Pardon me – " Her hand a-glitter with splendid flashing diamonds was resting on the edge of the tea table. He bent over and looked at them closely. Naturally she resented this under the circumstances, but though her cheeks flushed she let the hand rest where it was until he had studied it to his heart's content.
"May I say, Mr. Headland, that all her Grace's jewels have been identified by her banker, to whose care the police have returned them," she said with just the shadow of an indignant note in her low, sweet voice. "These have been in my possession for years, thank you. A thousand people can testify to that; and the insinuation is not nice."
"My dear madam, I assure you I had not the slightest thought – "
"Very likely not. As a matter of fact, I don't see how you could, Mr. Headland; but under these distressing and extraordinary circumstances it was an unhappy attention and a most suggestive one. Pray say no more about it. You are at liberty, Mr. Narkom, to show Mr. Headland over the house whenever he chooses to investigate it."
And as he chose to investigate it at that moment the superintendent led the way to the death chamber forthwith.
"I say, old chap, that was a bit thick, and no mistake," whispered Narkom as they went up the stairs. "To be talking about the dead woman's jewels and then to stoop and examine Mrs. Glossop's own – a woman worth millions!"
"Clear your mind of the idea that I meant to suggest anything of that sort at all, Mr. Narkom," Cleek replied. "It was the beauty of the rings themselves that appealed to me – that, and the wonder of the circumstances."
"Circumstances? What circumstances?"
"Two very extraordinary ones. First: why a woman of such evident taste, breeding, and position as Mrs. Glossop should choose to load her fingers with diamond rings in the daytime; and, second, why she should choose this particular day of all others to do so."
"Possibly she neglected to take them off when she went to bed last night and, in the excitement of the things which have happened since, has thought no more about them. But here's the room at last. Still on duty, I see, Hammond." This to the plain-clothes officer before the door of the death chamber. "Yes, going in; thanks. Come along, Headland."
Then the improvised door opened, closed again, and Cleek and the superintendent stood in the presence of it – the silent, immutable It which yesterday had been a living woman. Cleek went over and looked at the quiet figure, particularly at the wounds on the arms, both of them close to the shoulder, and immediately below the larger, muscle, then turned and looked round the room. It was richly appointed, indeed, the suite had been especially fitted up for her Grace's occupancy, and was, as might have been expected in such a house, in extremely good taste from the rich, dull-coloured Indian carpet to the French paper on the walls. This was a striped paper in two tones of white, one glazed slightly, the other dull, like two ribbons – a white velvet and a white silk one – drawn straight down over its surface from ceiling to floor at regular distances of half a yard apart. He admired that paper, and it interested him!
"Here, you see, old chap, not a possibility of anybody getting in or out save by the door which we ourselves have just entered," said Narkom, opening one door which led into a dressing-room, another leading to a spacious and richly appointed sitting-room, and a third which gave access to a porcelain bath set in a marble-floored, marble-walled apartment lighted and aired by a window of painted glass. "All windows and all doors locked on the inside when the body was found, and everything as you see it now; no furniture upset, no sign of a struggle. There is the bell-rope that was cut; there the noose that was made from it; and there on the dressing-table the bedroom candles that were found burning just as the maid left them when she went out and met the young duke coming up the stairs."
Cleek walked over and looked at the candles.
"If I remember correctly, Mr. Narkom," he said, "I believe you told me that her Grace retired to this room at half-past eleven, and that something like twelve or fifteen minutes later the young duke came up for the purpose of speaking to her. That would make it somewhere in the close neighbourhood of a quarter to twelve when the maid left her mistress; and it was three o'clock in the morning, was it not, when the murder was discovered? Hum-m-m! Singular, most singular, amazingly so!"
"What?"
"The condition of these two candles. Look at them," said he, taking one out of the silver holder and extending it for Narkom's examination. "One would suppose that candles which had been burning for three hours and a quarter would be fairly well consumed, Mr. Narkom; yet, look at these. They are hardly an inch shorter than the regulation length, so that they cannot have burned for more than a quarter of an hour at most! Now, granting that the duchess herself burnt them for ten minutes in undressing and imbibing her nightly whisky-and-water – and that would just about tally with the young duke's assertion that the door was locked and her Grace in bed when he reached the room – that would leave them to have been burning for just five minutes when the cook, Godwin, says she discovered the light shining under the door and through the keyhole."
"By George, you're right. We must have a word with that cook, Cleek. Either she lied about the time, or else – Great Scott, man! What if she, that cook, that Godwin woman, had a hand in it – was herself in league with the murderer – even let him out of the house before she gave the alarm? Good heaven, Cleek, we mustn't let that woman get away!"
"She won't – if she's guilty. I'll tell you that for certain if you can manage to find out what preparations, if any, have as yet been made for the duchess's funeral."
"But, man alive, what can that have to do with it?"
"Perhaps a great deal; perhaps nothing at all. Just slip downstairs, will you, and, without giving the subject away, or mentioning anything about the candles, do a little quiet 'pumping' of the young duke. See if he knows, or has any plans. I seem to fancy that I have heard somewhere of a splendid mausoleum being built by the Dowager Duchess of Heatherlands and the young duke will know if it's so or not. Pump him, I'll stop here until you return."
It was a full twenty minutes before the superintendent got the information he wanted and came back with it.
"Well?" said Cleek, as he came in. "There is a mausoleum being built, is there not?"
"Yes. The murdered woman has been having it built for the past five or six months for the express purpose of having herself and her late husband entombed there, apart from all other Heatherlands and with all the pomp of dead royalty. The structure will not be completed for quite another half year. In the meantime, as this tragical affair has disorganised all arrangements and the body cannot be interred in the mausoleum until its completion, and it would be difficult to get an order to disinter it if it were once underground, Captain Glossop has consented to have it placed for a time in the new and as yet unused vault which he had erected last month in Brompton Cemetery."
"'A friend in need is a friend indeed,'" quoted Cleek sententiously; then, after a moment, "Mr. Narkom," he said.
"Yes, old chap?"
"Let's go down and have another cup of tea, I want to have a word or two with the young duke."
"My dear fellow! Good heaven, do you think – "
"No; I've got past 'thinking.' I know one thing, however; for I've been poking about while you were away. The cook's room is just over this one, but the cook didn't do it. A five-foot woman can't reach up and cut down eight and a half feet of bell-rope, and – look, see! She wouldn't be likely to do it with the blade of a safety razor if she could!"
III
The little gathering in the drawing-room had not undergone much in the way of a change since they left it Cleek and the superintendent saw when they returned. The tea things had been removed, for the young duke's peppery temper was still in the ascendant and he was parading his six-feet-one of vigorous young manhood up and down the floor in a manner which wasn't the best thing in the world for the white-and-green Persian carpet. The tall captain sat on a low sofa beside his beautiful wife, who thoughtfully turned her rings on her fingers and followed with grave, sad-looking eyes the constantly pacing figure of the restless duke.
"My dear fellow, of course neither Amy nor I believe," the captain was saying, as Cleek and Narkom made their reappearance; "but the thing is, can you make others as disbelieving when your unhappy condition is so well known and her Grace's maid positively swears that the door was not locked, and – Ah, here you are again, Mr. Narkom, and your good friend the amateur investigator with you."
"Amateur fiddlesticks!" blurted out the young duke, with a short, derisive laugh. "Fellow who doesn't know any better than to look for jewels that are not lost, and look for them on a lady's fingers at that! By Jove, you know, Glossop, if it had been my wife! – But there! you easy-going fellows will swallow anything for the sake of keeping peace. Well, Mr. Crime Investigator, found out who did it yet, eh?"
"Perhaps not exactly," replied Cleek, moving over toward the sofa; "but I've found out who didn't do it, and that's something."
"Oh, yes, decidedly!" flung back the duke, with another sarcastic laugh. "Wonderfully brainy, that! Not more than two or three million people in Great Britain who could tell you that Napoleon didn't do it, and the Black Prince didn't do it, and it's twopence to a teacup that Shakespeare hadn't any hand in it at all. You'll be out-Cleeking Cleek by the time you've sucked the head off that cane. Well, whatever other amazing thing have you 'unearthed'? What's next – eh?"
"Only this," said Cleek quietly, making a feint of dropping his cane and stooping to recover it. Then he moved like a quick-leaping animal. There was a sharp metallic "click-click," a frightened scream from Mrs. Glossop, a half-indignant, wholly excited roar from the captain, and the duke, glancing toward them, saw that they both had got to their feet in a sort of panic and were standing there, white, quaking, and handcuffed together.
"Good Lord!" began the duke. "Look here, Mr. Narkom – I say! This idiot's out of his head."
"More than out of it!" swung in the captain furiously. "To people in our position! Good God! I can stand a fool as far as any man can, Mr. Narkom, but when it comes to this – Look here, you, Mr. Woodhead, or Thickhead, or whatever your infernal name is – "
"Call a spade a spade, my dear captain. The name is Cleek, if you can't remember my other."
"Cleek!" The duke repeated it with a sort of gulp; the captain spat it out as though it were something red-hot, and the captain's wife merely whined it and fainted.
"Yes, Captain – Cleek! Oh, I've got you, my friend, got you foul!" said Cleek in reply. "All but ruined by the failure of the gold reefs and the milling and mining companies last autumn, weren't you, and have been playing a bluff game and living on your credit ever since? A pretty little scheme you two beauties hatched up between you to get the old duchess into your clutches, to rob her of the Siva stones, and to have Mrs. Glossop and your Hindu ally slip over to India with them and claim the reward before the truth of your financial condition leaked out! Oh, yes; I've got you, my friend, got you tight and fast.
"And, Captain, I've got something more as well! I've got the place where the panel slides in the striped wall-paper and leads to the wardrobe with the false back in your own room; I've got your private papers; I've got the safety razor-blade, and I've got the hiding-place of the Siva stones as well! Humph! Fainted like any other human brute when he's pushed to the wall! That's right, Hammond; call the constable in from outside and take the pair of them away. Oh, don't waste any pity on them, your Grace," as the duke moved impulsively toward the stricken and defeated pair. "They wouldn't have hesitated to hang you if they could have turned the evidence your way and saved their own wretched skins – and all for a pair of rose-pink diamonds that are red enough now, God knows. What's that? Where are they? Where you must get a surgeon to abstract them, for I wouldn't touch them for millions, your Grace. They are hidden in the body itself, embedded in the flesh, jammed out of sight through those cuts in the arms and embedded under the muscles!"
"Good heaven, how horrible!"
"Yes, isn't it? Oh, they laid their plans well, those two, and they laid them together. The body would not be put underground for a long, long time, and when it was the Siva stones would not go to earth with it. There was the specially constructed vault at Brompton, their private property. They would get the stones while the body lay there, and nobody would be a whit the wiser.
"Ring for a glass of wine, your Grace, and after you have steadied your nerves I'll take you upstairs and show you something. In the captain's room there's a wardrobe which has a false back, and behind that is a sliding panel, its joining hidden by the stripes of the wall-paper, which leads into the old duchess's bedroom. That is how they got in and got out again and left every door and window locked on the inside. When they had finished their work, they lit the candles, and the rest you know. If there is anything to joy over in this appalling affair, find it in this fact: I am convinced that the dowager duchess died intestate. That being so, and she having no other living relatives, her property will no doubt be divided equally, by order of the Crown, between three persons: yourself, for one, and those two poor, homeless creatures, Tom Spender and his sister, for the others; and as it amounts to several millions sterling, dark days are over for you and for them forever!"
* * * * *
"How did I find it out?" said Cleek, answering Narkom's question, as they drove home through the shadows of evening together. "Well, I think I first got a suspicion of the captain and his wife when you told me about the cut bell-rope, because, you see, it is hardly likely that anybody could get into the room and cut that without disturbing the old lady, and, as she didn't cry out, I came to the conclusion that that somebody must certainly be some one she knew and trusted, and whose presence in the room would not be unusual. That at once suggested Mrs. Glossop, and the possibility of the lady saying that she had heard a noise, and had come up and found the door unlocked. The captain, who would make his entrance unheard while they were talking, would cut the rope, throw the noose round the victim's neck while she was off guard, and the rest would follow easily.
"But I could find no motive and could get no actual clue until I looked at the lady's rings. Clearly the putting of them on was an attempt to accentuate the presumed fact of their great wealth by exhibiting open evidence of how richly the lady was dowered with jewels and how little she need covet those of others. I got upon the trail of the true state of affairs when I examined those rings and found that they were simply paste, close imitations of the splendid originals which she had no doubt long since been obliged either to pawn or sell.
"As for the hiding-place of the Siva stones, the fact of the utterly unnecessary wounds in the arms – unnecessary as helping the assassin to kill her, I mean – gave me the first hint of that. Afterward, when I saw the body, and noticed the position of those wounds, I was sure of it. That is where Glossop bungled. They could not have come about in any struggle or any possible effort of the deceased to protect herself by throwing up her arms, for they were in the wrong position, for one thing, and they were deep, clean-cut punctures, for another, and – My corner at last! The riddle is solved, Mr. Narkom. Good-night."