The Riddle of the Spinning Wheel Part 10

And I'd like it if you could just find it in your heart to stay here with me for a moment or two, and acquaint me with the facts. Your sister has told me the rough outline, and----"

"My sister?" His voice showed the surprise which this news elicited.

"How did you see her, then?"

"That is a long story, which you shall hear some other time. At present she simply sent for me in a very quick and excellent manner, and I came at once. The worthy Sergeant and his men followed.... Now, Sergeant, place your men as I told you, and I'll get on to the business of examination. I only want to get a rough idea of the true method of death, and glean what clues I can for Mr. Narkom, who will arrive in the morning.... And, gad!" He glanced up at the huge clock which was ticking away the minutes and hours with sonorous voice. "It's getting on that way now. Now, Sergeant, if you can get one of your men to give me a hand with the body----"

Speaking, he moved it gently, until it lay half upon the pedestal desk-top, so that the light shone full upon the ghastly face, and rolled it tenderly over. There was a thin trickle of blood still oozing thickly from the left side of the breast, where the fine puncture of some almost needle-like instrument showed how successfully it had done its horrible duty. Cleek tore away the coat and waistcoat, stripped back the s.h.i.+rt from the frail body, and examined the wound through his little gla.s.s. In size it was no more than what might have been caused by a heavy bodkin, and in depth--so deep that it had no doubt punctured the inner walls of the heart, and, if successful in this method, caused immediate death to its victim.

He looked up quickly into Ross's downbent face, his own rather grim.

"A stiletto wound," he gave out in the sharp staccato of excitement.

"See that fine, clean-cut edge? I've seen similar ones in Italy and in the southern parts of America. The blade's squarish, not flat as in the cases of most daggers. And it is amazingly sharp. That blow would cause a death-wound, undoubtedly. But I understand there was a shot fired as well--from an air-pistol, I imagine, as there was no sound. Now, the question is, where is that bullet, and from what direction was the shot fired? That'll tell us a lot."

Ross Duggan's face changed suddenly, as though a shadow had pa.s.sed over it.

"That's the question, Mr. Deland," he replied in a tense voice. "If we could find out that, we could find out a good deal. But why this double crime should have been committed, Heaven alone can tell. My father had many enemies--but none who would have stooped to kill him--of that I am positive. And it is obvious that two have tried to do so. Look, here is the wound in the temple, just above the left eye. And it has gone clean through the head. Poor old Dad! Poor, misguided old Dad! How I hate that woman Paula and all her wiles and ways! If any one's at fault in this dastardly business, Mr. Deland, you can count upon _her_! Her father swung for a similar crime (she doesn't know I know that) and if she has done this terrible thing she, too, shall swing, as he did! Whoever has done this cruel, wicked thing, Mr. Deland, shall be brought to justice, if I have to scour the world over for the murderer."

"Ah--who? That is the question, my friend," returned Cleek quietly, stooping over the bowed white head with its thatch of snowy hair, and tracing the path of the bullet through it in his mind's eye. "H'm! Went through here and came out-- Gad! here's the puncture! Right here! So that somewhere in this room that bullet has lodged itself, and when that is found we shall have our finger upon the pulse of this dreadful tragedy more surely than we know.... Heigho! It's two-thirty, and in this semi-darkness little to be done until the morning sends us its kindly rays. So we must leave things as they are for the present, and later go over the whole thing with clear heads and rested minds....

Sergeant, I put you in charge. A man outside of the window there, please, and another one in this room, and still another outside the door, and if any one tries to get in or out, blow your whistle and I'll be with you in a jiffy.... Come, Mr. Duggan. You're looking terribly white and f.a.gged. Let's have a whisky-and-soda--if you'd be so good as to extend your hospitality so far--and then I'll make myself a shake-down in the next room, if you've no objection. I've given orders for no one to be allowed to leave the house until morning and until parole is given to do so, so you need have no fear of one of the murderers escaping."

"I-- I---- What's that you say?" stammered out Ross, swinging round and looking at Cleek with drawn brows and flas.h.i.+ng eyes. "You've given orders in _my_ house! I say, you know, this is a bit thick; and--and who the d.i.c.kens do you think would have done the thing in this place, may I ask? You're rather overstepping the bounds of common hospitality, Mr.

Deland, in your role of private detective. And I must ask you to leave the ordering of things to _me_."

"And that, I am afraid, is exactly what I can't do, my friend," replied Cleek serenely, with a crooked smile. "Simply because, according to your somewhat one-eyed and one-sided English law, every one is a suspect until he is proved innocent. You, your sister, your stepmother, even your fiancee--who, I suppose, is spending the night here with her cousin Miss Dowd, under the present circ.u.mstances as my orders were issued a little earlier in the evening--every member of this household comes under the unwilling stigma of a possible perpetrator of this crime."

"d.a.m.n it!-- I say--how dare you----"

"We policemen dare everything, Mr. Duggan, because that is our duty, you know," he responded smoothly. "And, besides, there's one thing more.

Someone here has an air-pistol, and the owner of that has got to be found. I've an inkling, supplemented by a few words dropped by your sister, but we'll let that pa.s.s. Only, the owner of the air-gun is not going to escape this house to-night. That's all, I fancy. Sergeant, good-night. Or, rather, good morning. You'll call me if necessary, won't you? I shall be in the very next room. And-- Mr. Duggan, if you don't happen to have that whisky handy, you needn't bother. I've a flask in my pocket."

CHAPTER X

THE WOMAN IN THE CASE?

There was no call during the long watches of the night, no untoward happenings of any sort. Cleek, sleeping with one eye open, rose now and again and crept silent-footed out into the pa.s.sage, doing a little bit of listening in upon his own account. But nothing of any moment happened. And so when at length the house was astir, and the sound of servants with their brushes and brooms began to make their usual early-morning clamour, he shook himself awake, got to his feet, and went off into the bathroom, where Ross Duggan's safety-razor worked wonders with his over-night beard, and a wash under the cold-water tap still more.

Returning, he stopped at the door of that chamber of tragedy where the one-time master of all this vast inheritance of stone and moorland lay, Death wiping from his aged face every line and leaving it as smooth as a child's.

"I want to have a little poke round for myself," he told the constable on duty outside the door, who instantly let him in, as became a representative of Scotland Yard. "You might send someone up to the Inn of the Three Fishers with this note, and see that it gets delivered immediately into the hands of a chap named Dollops. It's important."

"Very good, sir."

"And in the meantime, I'll see that no one enters this room, I promise you. Inspector Petrie himself will be around presently. And Superintendent Narkom should be with us at twelve o'clock or thereabouts."

Left alone, therefore, in the early morning sunlight of that perfect June day, Cleek made his way into the still room, closed the door behind him, and then, glancing up, caught sight of the stolid back of the constable on duty outside of the courtyard window, and not being wishful to enter into conversation with him, began to poke about of his own accord.

But the room held little or no clues for him to go upon. Not in the first rough glance, at any rate. Over by the window, where it had stood upon the previous day, when Maud Duggan had shown it to him, stood the spinning wheel, innocently incongruous indeed in this room of Death. He gave it a casual glance, and then turned to the desk-top where a pile of papers lay scattered in some disarray upon its leather surface.

Cleek ran his fingers quickly through these, glancing at each of them in turn.

"He was just about to alter the will, was he? Well, if that were so, the will should be here now--and it isn't," he said to himself, with suddenly up--flung brows. "Queer thing! Unless someone put it away. I'll try the drawers. There should be no secrets from a detective, my poor misguided friend, and if the drawers don't answer to my fingers, I'm going to search your pockets for the key--though to steal from the dead is a ghoulish business at the best of times.... h.e.l.lo, h.e.l.lo! Locked, of course! Brrrh! I don't fancy the task at all, but I mean to have my little look-in before any of the other members of the family get downstairs for their breakfast. So here goes."

Still mentally talking to himself, Cleek went over to the Thing that had once been Sir Andrew Duggan, and plunged his hands in the trousers'

pockets without more ado. A bunch of keys rewarded the search. He ran them over adroitly in his fingers; chose one which he thought would fit the lock of the drawers, found it didn't fit, chose another, and this time was more successful. For the top left-hand drawer of that handsomely carved desk slid noiselessly open for him, stopped automatically, and gave a funny little click. In a moment he had slid down on his knees beside that gruesome figure which so impeded his progress, and slipped his fingers up under the drawer (which was half full of papers and so allowed him to do so), touched something which felt like a b.u.t.ton, and _was_ a b.u.t.ton. Then the drawer came forward in his hand, and revealed at back of it another one, which at a touch of that b.u.t.ton had dropped its front panel so that it formed a pigeon-hole.

As he peered into the recesses of this, he saw a bundle of yellowed papers tied about with a faded piece of pink ribbon, and immediately drew them forth into the light.

"Whew! What a beastly dust! Well, I've met this kind of a desk before, so fortunately you're no closed book to me, my friend," he apostrophized it, as a powder of dust flew over his fingers as he touched the packet.

"Here's something which wants looking into, so I'll appropriate it now, and have a squint at it later. Secretive old chap he was, then! With his secret drawers and all! Looks like a bundle of old love-letters to all intents and purposes, but written on paper that one would hardly have called suitable for such tender epistles. Commonest kind of note-paper--village note-paper." He drew a sheet from the packet and held it up to the light. "And with a water-mark of a crown and anchor.... h.e.l.lo! bit of an illiterate lady, wasn't she, who penned these lines! For the spelling's pretty shaky. And signed _Jeannette_....

H'm. Some pretty little amour which has held such savour as to be preserved in this form until after death--poor old fellow! Well, I'll look into it later. Couldn't have been from the first Lady Duggan, for _her_ name was Edith. Miss Duggan herself told me that. And ...

Jeannette! Now, I wonder...."

But what he wondered was never recorded at that time, for just then came the sound of a soft footstep upon the hall without, the rattle of a door-handle and the gentle opening of the door itself; and Cleek had just time to whisk away the packet, and a.s.sume an appearance of stolid nonchalance, when someone came into the room on silently shod feet, stepped a few paces forward, and then, seeing him, gave out a little shriek and shut her two hands over her breast spasmodically.

"Oh!--_how_ you startled me!" gave out Lady Paula breathlessly, as she recognized who the intruder was. "What can you be doing here, Mr.

Deland? The police ... this awful tragedy."

Cleek bowed and came toward her with outstretched hand.

"My dear Lady Paula," he said suavely, "I represent the police myself.

I happen to have taken up criminology many years ago, and came up here to Scotland upon a little holiday. This terrible thing that has happened brought me immediately here to do my duty and to give what little help I could to you all in your bereavement. And so here I am. I beg of you, don't stay in this apartment now. It is no place for a lady--particularly a lady so highly strung and nervous as yourself."

"But how--did you ever--come to hear about it?" she demanded, stepping back a pace or two, with her eyes carefully avoiding that Thing which lay huddled there before them--mute reminder of all the terrors that had happened the night before. "How could you have known, Mr. Deland----"

"I mentioned the fact of my profession to your stepdaughter yesterday, and she immediately summoned me here. And, of course, I came. Anything which I can do...."

"Thank you. But there is nothing--nothing! I came in now because last night I--dropped my handkerchief, and it was one which I very much value, because my dear husband gave it to me upon the anniversary of our wedding-day. d.u.c.h.esse lace, Mr. Deland, and with my name embroidered across the corner. And I knew, if the police found it, that I--I should never get it back again. Everything, you see, becomes a clue, doesn't it? But it seems not to be here."

Her agitation was very apparent, and Cleek mentally registered the fact that the excuse was a tame one, and utterly untrue.

"No," he said, "it isn't here, Lady Paula. And, as you say, if it were, I could not give it to you. Go back to your room, I beg, and lie down.

You look ghastly pale; and after breakfast I shall have need of your help, believe me. So go, please. And leave me to this gruesome vigil alone.... Oh, by the way, do you happen to remember, during last night's many and terrible happenings, whether the will which Sir Andrew was about to alter (I have the facts of the case, you see, from Miss Duggan herself) was put away by any member of the family? Because it isn't here, you know."

He swept his hand out across the desk-top in an expressive gesture. Her face flushed rosily, and something like a startled light, half of gladness, half of fear, showed in her wide, velvety eyes. But she shook her head.

"It was never touched--to my knowledge," she said emphatically. "And I happen to remember that fact, for in the confusion of everything that followed, when we were looking at my poor, poor husband, it fell to the ground, and Maud picked it up again and laid it over there, under those other things that my husband had been looking into. I noted the fact, even in my despair, as one does note these little trivial things in the midst of a great trouble, Mr. Deland. But it _was_ there-- I am positive. And you can't find it now?"

"No, Lady Paula."

"Oh! Then undoubtedly Maud has hidden it away somewhere, in case I might _steal_ it, I suppose, and so do her precious brother out of his inheritance, if such a thing were possible."

The venom in her voice was like the bite of a serpent--positively poisonous, and Cleek gave her a quick, keen look.

"Hardly that, Lady Paula. And--well, I don't happen to be well up on these matters at all, the law, y'know, and all that--only the law of criminals, and that's an altogether different thing. No doubt one of the family has put it away. It will turn up in time. Now, please go away before the rest of the constables arrive. You will want every atom of your strength to see this appalling thing through, believe me, and therefore I insist that you harbour it."

She smiled up at him sadly, and turned upon her heel, her trailing pink negligee whisking across the thickly carpeted floor like the tail of some sinuous snake, weighted as it was with one heavy beaded ta.s.sel.