The Riddle of the Spinning Wheel Part 23

"And a very good 'all', too, Dollops," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Cleek, giving the boy's arm a squeeze. "You have surely done your share of unravelling in this 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 of yours for this night's job, I promise you.... And so Cyril is mixed up in it, too-- _Cyril!_ That boy! Gad! what does it mean, eh? And in league with those scoundrels.... 'Ten o'clock for bedtime,' says he, so frankly. Ten o'clock! And the young underhanded rascal roaming the countryside just before that in company with an Italian of questionable character! Looks bad, every way you look at it. And with Lady Paula's actions and secret meetings taken into account as well, puts a pretty black face upon _their_ little share in last night's tragedy. Now, I wonder if this Dago, as Dollops calls him, is a lover of the lady's or what?... Gad! Mr. Narkom, what's your opinion?"

The Superintendent waited a moment, and cleared his throat, and when he spoke his voice was emphatic and a trifle bored.

"No two questions about it, to my way of thinking," said he quietly, as they traversed the darkness together. "That Captain Macdonald did the thing--because of those footprints of his outside the window--and as he couldn't or wouldn't give the reason of why he was in the grounds here last night at that identical time. And the person he was s.h.i.+elding was obviously Lady Paula. She, too, has been involved in this, though whether in the actual murder or not, I'm not prepared to say. And Ross Duggan, 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. "Sometimes it points one way and sometimes another. And I'm inclined to agree with you where Lady Paula is concerned. She knows a good deal more than she says, and is wily--deuced wily, as all drug-takers are. And the motive would be there all right, judging from what Maud Duggan told me was the share 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 seems incredible--though I've known of worse crimes for less reason than that.

But Ross Duggan's is the greatest motive of all, taking into consideration just when the thing happened--_before_ his name was erased, you must remember, Mr. Narkom, and as he's a dabster at electricity and the only person with an air-pistol in the house ...

well, circ.u.mstantial evidence looks pretty black against him, doesn't it?"

"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 for stringing evidence together, and never forgetting it! And there's such a d.i.c.kens of a lot of evidence in this case that a chap gets horribly involved, and his memory is likely to play him tricks. And then that Italian chap whom Dollops has seen such a lot of to-day--where does he come in?"

"Right into the midst of the whole caboosh," returned Cleek enigmatically, "and don't you make any mistake about that, my friend.

d.i.c.ky-Dago, to use Dollops's name, is one of the prime movers in this little inheritance game, and in another one also. A dollar to a ducat he knows the whole thing, and Tweed Coat's with him."

"Who the d.i.c.kens 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 coat this morning, Mr. Narkom? No? Well, it was made of a very sweetly smelling cloth called Harris tweed; and when Dollops described the one he 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.

CHAPTER XXIII

A STARTLING DeNOUEMENT

And so it came about that Dollops and Cleek, both wearing dark suits (procured in Cleek's case at the Three Fishers, and from his own dressing-bag), and with caps pulled down over their faces and false moustaches decorating their upper lips as a protection against unforeseen discovery, made their way out in the clear moonlight toward that "gravel pit" of which Dollops had spoken, and padded soft-footedly down the hill toward the little "shanty" to which Dollops guided them, and after a quick glance at it, pushed on into the darkness of the night; down, down, down into the valley--to the thing that lay there revealed in the moon's rays, and which in the face of the to-morrow's sun would have vanished like the picture upon an exposed camera film.

But to-night--to-night they could see the whole panorama of it, lying close to the earth, concealed behind a huge furze-bush upon the hillside, stomachs flat against the face of it, eyes sharpened upon that identical spot which told so much to them of what they sought. Perhaps a dozen men worked there--perhaps more--coats off, s.h.i.+rt-sleeves rolled up--big, bonny men of brawn and muscle, come of a stock as tough as the granite of the hillside itself and hardened by the keen winds and the keener air of the Highlands that had given them birth.

"Giants!" whispered Dollops awe-inspiringly, his lips close against Cleek's ear.

"_Thieves!_" responded Cleek, with a quick intake of the breath. "Gad!

they're a lot, Dollops! And if they caught us up here, hidden away, our chances would be exactly nil. Where's your friend Balmy, eh?"

"Dahn there--under that big flare, sir--'im wiv the blue s.h.i.+rt and the red neck-cloth. Likely lookin' blighter, ain't 'e?"

"H'm. Not very. Not a sound, boy! There's a couple of 'em coming this way. Got it in barrels, have they? Gad! I'd like to have a look at one of those homely articles. I'll swear there's a false bottom to it, if I know anything of this kind of trickery.... h.e.l.lo!--there's Tweed Coat!"

"Tweed Coat," thus named, pa.s.sed a stone's throw in front of them, his arm linked with another man's, his head downbent. But Cleek had seen the moonlight upon his face, and knew his man at last. Ross Duggan had worn that coat this morning, or one so like it that even he, hawk-eyed detective that he was, could have told no difference between them. The moonlight struck upon the white bosom of his evening-dress s.h.i.+rt, making it s.h.i.+ne like a strip of ivory, and at something which his companion said to him, he caught it close together, and turned the collar of the jacket up about his throat.

First the handkerchief so plainly marked "R. D." and now this! But that such a man should be mixed up in a thing of this sort, an illicit thing which was against all laws and regulations of the land that had borne him, made Cleek's mouth go grim. The handkerchief, the coat; and now--the man. That little chain was completed, and every link welded together. At least some part of the mystery was clear at last.

The pair pa.s.sed close against them where they lay in the darkness, so close that Cleek's fingers might have reached out and caught at the other's trouser-leg and tripped him. But the time was not yet ripe for arrests. Better let the thing go unsuspected until to-morrow afternoon, and then, when the Coroner's Inquest was at hand, rally them all together in the library once more, and make the final settlement.

Here was only a part of the thing, not the whole thing itself, and if he knew one of his men, he did not yet feel certain of the other. The night should bring that uncertainty into clarity if possible.

The darkness hid the couple from view at length, and when their footsteps had died away into silence, Cleek touched Dollops upon the shoulder and commenced wriggling upon his stomach down toward the next furze-bush, and out into the open, lying flat as Indians do, until they had slid the distance between the two clumps of shrubs, and lay concealed, some twelve feet nearer to the scene of operations.

"See anything of your Dago friend?" whispered Cleek, after they had watched for a while in silence at this hive of living industry which, when the dawn had penetrated through the veil of night, would have pa.s.sed out of sight and vision as though it were a mirage of their own imagining.

Dollops's voice was barely above a breath.

"Yessir. Just dahn there ter the right. Feller wiv the big black moustache. Slim-'ipped Johnny in the dark suit. Got blinkers on 'im like black velvet from wot I sees. Proper furriner--the dirty dog! Find 'im, sir?"

"Not yet. Oh! yes, I see! H'm. An _Italian_ all right. But what the d.i.c.kens is an Italian doing in these outlandish parts? And what attraction can this peris.h.i.+ng climate have for people of their ilk?

First the Lady of the Castle--and now this one. Unless.... Gad! there might be some connection between 'em. Did you find any trace of Captain Macdonald's handwriting, Dollops, to show me?"

"Yessir. Got a letter from 'is groom. Pinched it while we was a-talkin'.

'E showed it ter me, an' it's in me pocket. Summink wrong _there_, Gov'nor?"

"So wrong that it will take more than a little explaining upon the gentleman's part to put it right, my lad," responded Cleek in a whisper.

"I want to see that letter--badly. But it will have to wait until we are back again at the house. And we'll be back in a jiffy. I'm satisfied with the result of this night's work, in this direction, at any rate, Dollops. You've done well--better than I could have done in similar circ.u.mstances, and I'm downright pleased with you!"

"Lor', sir!" Dollops's voice was choking with joyful emotion. "If yer goes and frows any more buckets at me, me chest will expand that big wiv pride as they'll be spottin' us in a trick--strite they will! But I'm glad I've made up for that footlin' mistyke over the lydy.... Gawd!

Look, Guv'nor--look! 'Oo's this a-comin' now? A woman--strike me pink, if it ain't! And a lydy, too, from the cut of 'er. Now, 'oo in 'eavin's nyme is _she_?"

His pointing finger brought Cleek's eyes instantly into the line of it, and Cleek's face in the moonlight went suddenly pale. Dollops's eyes rested on the grim mask of his face, palely visible from the moon's rays. Then, at a sign from Cleek, he ducked his own head into the gra.s.s and lay motionless, as his master had already done.

And by the sound of the soft footsteps, coming from somewhere behind them, Cleek and his companion knew that the woman had reached the spot where they were lying hidden under the great clump of gorse. Then a hand reached down and touched Cleek softly upon the shoulder, and a woman's voice spoke into the darkness with a tender inflection; and at sound of it every nerve in his body tightened like wire for the tensity of the situation.

"Ross," said the woman's voice tenderly, "Ross dear, get up--get up! I followed you here to-night, because I--I wanted to talk with you-- I _had_ to talk with you, to tell you something! I simply had to. But I've been a fool to break parole, as you have done, with that man with the hawk eyes in the Castle even at this minute. But so much hangs upon it--Ross, so much! Look up and speak to me, and, whoever your companion is, tell him to go away until we have had a word together. Look up, look up--_do_!"

CHAPTER XXIV

HARE AND HOUNDS

To say that Cleek was startled was to underestimate the matter altogether. Here was a pretty kettle of fish indeed! It took exactly three seconds for him to act, and to act in such an extraordinary fas.h.i.+on as to call forth a gasp from Dollops, whose head was still half ducked, with one arm upthrown to hide it from the woman's eyes, and to register in his loyal heart the fact that this master whom he served was a miracle-worker indeed.

For Cleek's hand had flashed up in the darkness and taken the moustache from his lip, and as the woman still continued to plead with him in her soft voice Dollops, peering through the upthrown arm, saw the features of the man he loved writhe suddenly as though they had been made of rubber, saw him twitch up his hand and m.u.f.fle his coat-collar about his neck, and then realized with a gasp that here at his side lay such a fair representative of Ross Duggan as might even be mistaken for that gentleman in this dark hour of the night.

And from the lips of this astonis.h.i.+ng person proceeded Ross Duggan's voice, with its curious clipped Scotch inflection and the little habit of clearing the throat which was so indicative of the man, and which Dollops--trained as he was by Cleek's quick observation--had already noticed for himself in the couple of times he had seen and listened unseen to the gentleman.

He saw Cleek get to his feet, and twitch his shoulders up and his cap down, as he faced the lady in her thin dark wrap through which the glimmer of some light satiny material showed like a line of fire.

"My dear girl," said Ross Duggan's voice a trifle testily, "what a fool you are to come out here at this time--if you'll excuse my saying so!