The Riddle of the Spinning Wheel Part 19

Acting upon that impulse, he rang the bell once more, summoned the maid to him, and had a little talk with her there in the shaded drawing-room, and elicited a few facts which surprised him not a little in the puzzling mesh of conflicting clues which seemed to surround him upon all sides.

CHAPTER XVIII

ENTER CYRIL

Within the s.p.a.ce of a half-hour Miss Duggan was back again in the big drawing-room, and Cleek, having had a short confidential talk with Mr.

Narkom, and gleaned a few of that good gentleman's ideas, entered the room by the French windows that led on to the terrace just as she came in by the hall door.

"h.e.l.lo!" he said with a smile. "Brought your bootmaker's department with you, eh? Now we'll really be able to establish somebody's innocence on _that_! Come, let's have a look at it."

She brought the paper to him, a sort of blank wonderment written in her eyes as they scanned his face.

"It's the strangest thing," she said with a shake of the head, "the very strangest! But every single man in this establishment has the same-size foot, Mr. Deland. There's nothing but tens among them. It seems a queer coincidence, surely!"

Cleek pursed his lips up to a whistle of amazement.

"Gad! it certainly does. Every man-jack of 'em, then? Jarvis, and Batchett, and your bailiff Tavish, and McGubbins? Every one of them?"

"What a memory you have!" she countered amazedly. "Yes, every one of them. Except Mr. Tavish. And his are elevens, he tells me."

"Didn't give away any reason for asking, I hope, Miss Duggan?" put in Cleek at this juncture, with an arching of the brows and a keen look into her upthrown face.

"Indeed I didn't. In fact, I threw them off the scent most successfully by taking a pair of Ross's boots along with me and pretending I didn't know whose they were. Batchett soon put me right. 'Them's Mr.

Ross's--Sair Ross, if ye please, m'm,' he said, using Ross's new t.i.tle (poor old boy! He won't like it a bit, either. He thinks t.i.tles are anathema!). But Mr. Tavish, of course, didn't know whose they were, nor did the old gardener, McGubbins, nor Jarvis, either. Only they said they weren't _theirs_. And then, of course, told me the sizes they took. So, you see, Mr. Deland, you can't blame Angus for _that_, can you?"

He smiled at her and shook his head.

"You've missed your vocation. You ought to have been a lady-detective, using those methods," he replied lightly. "But it's odd--deuced odd!

I'll take a look at their feet whenever I get the chance. Don't bother any more, Miss Duggan. I'll get to the bottom of this thing somehow or other, before the next few days, and don't make any mistake about that.

That's all you can do for me. So go along, and lie down and have a proper rest. I'm going to interview Mr. Narkom again. What time is tea, by the way?"

"Half-past four. If you'd like it sent to your rooms with Mr.

Narkom----"

"No, thanks; we'd prefer to take it with _you_." ("And use our eyes for ourselves," he supplemented silently.) Then, without more ado, bowed and left her, and went off in pursuit of the Superintendent, who had been spending a quiet hour investigating the scene of last night's tragedy, and trying to solve the riddle of it.

Halfway there Cleek encountered young Cyril, wandering disconsolately about, hands in pockets and head downthrown, and at sight of Cleek he fairly ran up to him, his brows black as thunder, his young mouth set into an ugly line.

"Look here," he demanded, in his shrill young voice, planting himself in Cleek's way and looking up into his face, "they've been telling me you suspect my stepbrother Ross of murdering my father last night, and I've been waiting to catch you and to tell you it's a d.a.m.ned lie!"

"Easy, easy, my young enthusiast," returned Cleek, with a throb of admiration for this fearless young person, nevertheless. "They'll never make a detective of _you_ if your methods of attack don't improve hastily. Let's hear what you're worrying over. Now, then, all over again. I'm going along this way to see the Superintendent, and you can come with me if you like."

Cyril's face went a dull brick-red at Cleek's bantering tone, and his lips twitched. He swung into step beside Cleek as they traversed the long hall toward the library.

"They've been telling me," he reiterated, "that you think my stepbrother Ross killed Father last night, and----"

"Who's 'they,' may I ask?"

"Oh--Mother--Miss Dowd, Cynthia--the whole bally lot of 'em. Said you'd threatened to arrest Ross and put--put him in prison. But it isn't true, sir, is it?"

Cleek looked down at the eager young face, and sighed.

"Partly," he returned, "and partly not. I've made no accusation, Cyril, but--things point very blackly to your brother, and it will take pretty strong evidence to say he is innocent at this juncture of the case, at any rate. There are--others--whom I doubt, but at the present moment doubts are all that can be expected of me. Certainties will follow later.... Now, look here, you can help considerably. Tell me, who's been tinkering with the electric switches in the library lately?"

Of a sudden the boy's face went red and whity by turns. Then he averted his head and pretended to inspect a fly that was crawling upon the opposite wall.

"Er--I don't really know," he replied in a confused voice. "I haven't the faintest----"

"You do!" Cleek had caught him by the shoulders and whirled him around so that eye met eye squarely, and he saw that the boy dropped his.

"Come, now. Play the game. I can't expect to find the true murderer unless you tell the truth. Listen to me, Cyril. Was it your brother Ross?"

Came a long silence, followed by a quickly drawn breath. Then:

"_I_ have."

"You? What the d.i.c.kens did you do? Tell me all about it, quickly. I found a bit of flexible wire upon the carpet yesterday morning when I was looking over the house with your stepsister, and came to the conclusion that someone had been altering the lights. And it was you, was it?"

Again the flushed cheeks and quickly drawn breath. Oh, this quixotic family!--that muddled a decent man up in trying to do his duty by their perpetual affections and efforts to s.h.i.+eld one another.

"Yes--and no. It was the day before yesterday. Ross and Mr. Tavish were in the library going over some land accounts and looking at the weekly wages bill, which is part of Ross's work for Father that he's been doing the past two years. I was there, too, mending a damaged switch which wouldn't go right, and Ross had promised to help me when his business was finished. Well, when it was done, and they had smoked a cigarette together-- Mr. Tavish is awfully popular with the whole place, you know, Mr. Deland, and Ross liked him immensely--well, as I was saying, when they'd done, they came over to me, where I was tinkering away at the switch by the wall, and while Ross explained to me what exactly was the matter, Mr. Tavish stood over us and made remarks."

"Can you remember what any of those remarks were?"

"Yes. He said he thought I was growing to be a clever youngster, with a turn for electricity which ought to drive my father nearly mad, and then he shook his head, and Ross laughed sort of uncomfortably, and agreed with him. And then Ross asked Mr. Tavish if he knew anything of electricity. 'Not a blessed thing!' Mr. Tavish said, with a loud laugh.

'I don't know the difference between a short circuit and a Bath bun.'

And of course we all laughed again, and then Ross explained a little of it to him, and he seemed to catch on awfully quick, and asked some jolly interestin' questions."

"And what were the 'jolly interestin' questions,' may I ask?"

"Oh-- I've really forgotten. Whether one could get a shock from that sort of thing when you were working at it, and Ross said you could; and electricity could kill a person instantly. And then they began to talk about electrocution and the electric chair which criminals had to sit in instead of being hanged, as they used to do in the old days. And Ross, who simply loves anything to do with the subject as much as I do, Mr.

Deland, began to explain how a man could be killed by leaving a live wire somewhere near where he could grasp hold of it, and then taking a long piece of flexible wire in his hands, he wired it along the edge of the room from the ground plug to the window, just to show what he meant by it."

"Oh, he did, did he? And what colour was the flexible wire?"

"Crimson. Usual shade. Mr. Tavish was awfully interested at what Ross did, and Ross got so enthusiastic that he carried the piece of wire up to the window and left the raw edge of the wire exposed, and when he put a piece of stuff against it, it singed up immediately, and, my word!

there _was_ a stink!"

"Naturally. And then?"

"Ross said a lot of things about the power of electricity that seemed to interest Mr. Tavish, and of course _I_ was frightfully struck, as you can imagine, and kept my ears open. And just then, who should come in but Mother, and of course Ross and all of us stowed the conversation for the time being, and Ross nipped off the length of unnecessary wire with his pincers and left Mother with Tavish to discuss some changes she wanted made in the poultry runs. She's rather interested in chickens, you know, sir."

"I see. But this was a bird of another colour, eh? What's that? No, my lad, you've said nothing to incriminate anybody, and I'll keep your confidence about this conversation, if you're worrying about it. Now, then, you'd better nip along, as it's nearly tea-time, and when I was your age clean hands were an absolute necessity even in the--er--austerity of my home! I've no doubt they're the same in yours."

"But I haven't said anything to--to incriminate Ross, have I, sir?"

reiterated Cyril anxiously. "That thing about shooting a chap with the aid of electricity--of course it couldn't be done, I suppose, and Mr.