The Riddle of the Spinning Wheel Part 27

"I'm afraid I have. Several of them. And yet--I don't know. Anyhow, I want you all to come along to the library again this morning--and for the last time. After to-day you ought not to be put to any further worry and inconvenience, my dear young lady. But what I want _you_ to do is to a.s.semble all the members of the immediate household together for me, and tell them I've discovered a perfectly new clue altogether--and from a perfectly new person--someone who, so far as you or I know, has never even entered the house at all, at any time. So you see, that's not such bad news, is it?"

At these words her head came up upon the slim column of her neck, and she looked into his face with suddenly bright eyes.

"You mean to say that--you mean to say that you can prove that neither Ross nor--Captain Macdonald is guilty of that terrible crime?" she gave out in a shrill voice, shutting her hands together in her emotion, and breathing hard. "Oh, Mr. Deland, if you have only found out _that_----"

"Not quite so fast, please," he responded a trifle sternly. "I'm afraid I can't give you any of the facts yet. Only I want you to know that--in one direction, at any rate--you may have some cause to hope. That is, of course, if my deductions are correct. It all depends. Even a policeman can make a mistake--isn't that so, Mr. Narkom?--and find himself led away upon a false scent. It depends a lot upon the wiliness of the fox he's in pursuit of. And in this case, when there's a--animal's a female, one has the disadvantage of the woman's intuitive faculties and natural gifts of deceit. 'The female of the species'--you know what Kipling said, of course? That sounds rude, doesn't it? But it's amazingly true, all the same--yourself, I'm sure, always excepted."

She made no answer to the little sally other than to pa.s.s a pale hand across a paler forehead, and pat a piece of dark hair into place, with that little gesture of forlornness which went straight to Cleek's heart.

"Then you have nothing more to tell me, Mr. Deland? Nothing for me to build my hopes on save that a new element has entered the case----"

"Together with an old element--yes," responded Cleek softly, with a stab at his heart for her pathetic appearance. "Just that. No more. I can tell nothing until I have you all there before me, and then--well, perhaps I shall be able to unravel the mystery for you, and put an end to your sufferings in _that_ direction, at any rate. Would you be good enough, as you're pa.s.sing, to ask the constable on duty outside the library door to come to me a moment? Mr. Narkom and I want to question him about one or two things. There's another one _inside_ the room, so there's no chance of any one getting in and falsifying clues while he's away. Thanks very much."

She pa.s.sed out, pale-faced, utterly forlorn, and the sagging droop of her shoulders sent another stab of pity through Cleek's heart, while Mr.

Narkom--tender-hearted as a chicken, as he himself often put it--blew his nose loudly and pa.s.sed the handkerchief surrept.i.tiously across his eyes, and turned a sad face to his famous ally's.

"Poor girl, Cl--Deland, poor, poor, unhappy girl! It goes to my heart to see any woman so desolate as that. And a good-looking woman, too! She feels the whole wretched affair keenly. And if you'd only explained to me some of those wonderful theories of yours and given me some inkling of what you're going to say to 'em, I might have been a bit of help to her, you know. Human sympathy's a comforting thing----"

"But not always so comforting when it emanates from the police, who will probably wring her heart dry," returned Cleek with a twisted smile. "No, no, my friend. Bless your tender heart for the kind thought, but in this case it's up to me to tread warily. And the least suspicious glance cast at a guilty party, the least flutter of eyelid or brow in expression of one's knowledge--and the cat would be out of the bag, and all our trouble taken for nothing. I'm going to play 'possum to-day and lay low.

And you've just got to forgive me beforehand and put up with it. I've no doubt your own theories coincide with mine but---- Here's P. C. Mackay.

Good morning, Constable. Mr. Narkom and I just wanted to have a few words with you, with reference to what arrangements you made for me last night. You followed out my instructions?"

P. C. Mackay, who was a slight, wiry, light-rooted chap, and so chosen by Cleek for the very work he had been given to do, nodded his head, and his hand came to the salute.

"I did that, sir."

"Good. No names mentioned, Constable ... but you found some clues there, I take it?"

"Yessir. _This._" He looked from side to side of the room, as though uncertain how to produce the clue in case of discovery. But the door was shut, and only they four were within the confines of the small place.

Then he put his hand into his breast-pocket and drew forth a little bit of crimson-covered flexible electric wire.

Cleek's face fell a little.

"That all?"

"Yessir--except for a photograph of a young wummun. It was hidden in a carved wood box on the dressin' table. I brought it along in case you might find some use for it. Here it is."

Speaking, he drew the bit of pasteboard from his pocket and handed it across to Cleek, who bent his eyes upon it, gave a little start at something which was written across it in bold capitals and underscored three times, gazed a moment at the pictured face, and then promptly opened his pocketbook and placed it within.

"Very good, Constable. Mr. Narkom, you will do me a personal favour if you arrange for P. C. Mackay's promotion. He did good work last night, and it must not be forgotten. You may go, Constable."

"Thank you, sir."

The man saluted smartly, grinned all over his ruddy Scotch face at the word "promotion," and went back to his position outside the library door, his head in the clouds and his heart longing for the time when he could impart this wonderful knowledge to his Maggie, and see her blue eyes brighten.

Meanwhile Cleek, the door shut once more, dived down into his pocket and produced the little bit of red electric wire which he had picked up in the library that first day before the tragedy had taken place, when Maud Duggan was showing him over the house. He fingered it idly, and then showed Mr. Narkom the two pieces spread upon his open palm.

"Not much in that, I'm afraid. Just the ordinary kind of wire which everyone uses, and with nothing to show any peculiarities," he said, speaking half to himself and half to the Superintendent. "Both cut with a sharp knife, obviously. Now, if they mated evenly--and gad! they _do_ mate!" He brought them together and dovetailed the two frayed ends one against the other until the edges met in a perfectly even line. "That's a funny thing! A deuced funny thing! But they belong to each other as much as two twin souls belong. They're one and the same piece. Gad! and with the photograph of the estimable young woman--it proves it without a doubt!"

"Proves what, my dear chap?"

Mr. Narkom's voice was a trifle testy. The whole affair of that morning had got upon his nerves. In the first place, he had had to get up too early after a broken night, and in the second, Cleek hadn't given him time to digest his meal, and then the whole higgledy-piggledy of Cleek's words, from which he could make neither head nor tail, served to irritate him still further.

Cleek laid a hand upon the Superintendent's arm, and spoke in his most coaxing voice.

"Have patience with me, dear friend, as you have done before, and as you will have to do again," he said softly. "It isn't that I don't trust you--haven't I trusted you with life itself before now, and never found you wanting?--but it is that at present my theories are in somewhat of a muddle, and it's only keeping my own counsel that's going to help me to disentangle them."

"I know, I know, old chap," returned the Superintendent, casting aside his rancour at this apology from the man who was his best friend, with his usual heartiness. "I'm a slow-thinking old beggar, and somehow your lightning sketches get the better of my patience. But I'll back you to unravel the knot every time. Think you've come to the end, then?"

"I fancy so. With a little bit of bold guesswork thrown in to make equal measure. That must always be reckoned in the bargain, you know. But if I haven't found the person or persons who have murdered Sir Andrew in that cold-blooded and diabolically clever manner, then my name's not--Arthur Deland. And I know as much about the methods of sleuth-hounds as my old boot!"

So saying, he fell to examining the photograph again, and tossing the two pieces of flexible wire up and down in the palm of one hand, and muttering to himself like a lunatic, while Dollops and Mr. Narkom, in silence, could do nothing more but wonder and look on.

CHAPTER XXVII

WHAT HAPPENED IN THE LIBRARY

It was exactly eleven o'clock, and the various clocks in the house were chiming the hour out from every nook and corner of the Castle when Cleek, followed by Dollops and Mr. Narkom, made his way to the library, and found a.s.sembled there all the members of that ill-fated family--as well as those others who had perforce been obliged to stay there over-night at his orders--and with a polite "good morning" and a stiff little bow, took his place in the midst of them and glanced around.

They were a wan, white-faced lot. Lady Paula's black eyes were ringed with violet, Maud Duggan's face was pinched and old-looking in the morning light, as though the night had seen no sleep for _her_ (which was true), Johanna McCall's little peaked face was pale as ivory, and her eyes looked heavy-lidded, as though she had cried overmuch in the still watches (which was true also), while Cynthia Debenham and Catherine Dowd sat with set faces and angry eyes, watching him as though deadly afraid of what he might say or do next. Ross Duggan's countenance was as lined as an old man's; Captain Macdonald showed by the flare of nostrils and flash of eye that his temper was still as hot as his tongue, and not improved for the keeping; and little Cyril--who slipped in a moment or two late, with Tavish bringing up the rear--had the look of a boy who was scared half out of his wits.

And scared badly he was, too. Trembling hands showed it; trembling lips showed it still more. Cleek's eyes narrowed down as he glanced at the boy's set face, and he found it hard to give him even so much as a welcoming smile. Like mother like son--that boy. As wily as you make 'em. And untrustworthy, too. He was not so fond of Master Cyril, now that he knew more of him, as he had been at first meeting.

When they were all seated, with P. C. Mackay keeping watch over the door and another constable on the outside of it, Cleek turned to them and let the queer little one-sided smile so indicative of the man travel up his face.

"Well, my friends," said he in his smooth, low-pitched voice, "I promised you something when I saw you again, and I'm here to fulfil that promise. The riddle of Sir Andrew's death is a riddle no longer. If you will have patience for a short time I shall explain a few things to you, and then----"

"You know who killed my husband, then? You know?--you know?" bleated out Lady Paula, starting to her feet with white face and hands clasped close against her breast. "You have found out the secret of his murder, Mr. Deland?"

"Yes--and I know who his murderer was, too, Lady Paula," returned Cleek sharply. "Sit down, Mr. Duggan, I beg of you. The door is guarded, as you can see--both outside and in--and perhaps it might be as well if I added caution to care and turned the key in the door--so." Speaking, he crossed the room in rapid strides, locked the door, and dropped the key into his pocket. "Prevention is better than cure, you know. Yes, Lady Paula, I know who murdered Sir Andrew, and I know how it was done. A dastardly deed at best--an abominable crime upon humanity in return for a family wrong. The old question of a vendetta--though of so recent a date as to be a mere matter of seventeen years back. You have been married that long, have you not? You are surprised, I see. Well, I confess it, so was I. And when you mix up such other unpleasant ingredients as a woman's ill-timed ambition, a blackmailer, and the green-eyed G.o.d jealousy, you find a very unpleasant mess of pottage indeed."

He spoke in his own way, unravelling the riddle in that leisurely fas.h.i.+on for which he was famous; but to those over-charged minds and hearts that surrounded him he seemed much like a cat playing with a mouse--and enjoying its fruitless efforts at escape.

"But the murderer--who?--who?" gave out Maud Duggan in a suddenly shrill voice, as a little silence held for a moment in that still room. "Tell us that, Mr. Deland, I implore you----"

"In good time, Miss Duggan. First of all, the ways and means. Look!--see that spinning wheel. There stands your guilty party in that innocent guise. The hand that guided that wheel killed Sir Andrew as surely as I am standing here. And how? An air-pistol. And who owns an air-pistol in this place but Mr. Ross Duggan?"

"It's a lie--a d.a.m.ned lie! And I'll have you to law for it, too!" Ross Duggan started to his feet, face crimson, hands knotted, eyes flas.h.i.+ng at this plain implication of himself. "d.a.m.n you, whoever you are!--it's a lie! I did not kill my father! I swear it upon the sacred book itself!

I did not kill him!"

Cleek held up a detaining hand.

"And who, may I ask, said you did, my fiery young friend?" he returned suavely. "If you will give me a little time to tell my story in my own way, I shall be extremely obliged. You stand self-confessed as the owner of an air-pistol. That we have proof of. The rest will follow in due course. But here is the instrument of death--this simple little spinning wheel, which, wired by electricity as it is, and with the pistol hidden inside that wheel with diabolical ingenuity, caused the death of your father. And who among you, may I ask, has such a perfect knowledge of electricity as to equip the thing like that?"

Again there was silence; meanwhile each looked at the other and the same name framed itself unconsciously upon every lip ... Ross Duggan. It was not spoken aloud, but Cleek could read it as he looked about him. Then Lady Paula spoke.