Christopher Quarles Part 5

In the darkness before the dawn the man moved about the shed again, and presently I heard him go.

"Patience!" whispered Quarles, as I started up to go after him. "He will not run away."

His calmness almost exasperated me, but he would answer no questions until we had returned to our hotel and had breakfast.

"My dear Wigan," he said, when at last he condescended to talk, "it was Zena who first set me on the right road, when she remarked that a man who had walked in a ditch carrying a bag would arrest attention.

Two points were suggested--first, that the man might not have far to go to reach a place of safety; secondly, that he had come prepared to take a head away with him. A mere speculation, you may say, but it set me putting questions to myself. Why should a head be required? What kind of man would be likely to want a head? A theory took shape in my brain, and I hunted up the history of the well-to-do people who lived in the neighborhood of Withan. My theory required a man who had traveled, who was elderly, who could be connected with the case in France two years ago. I found such a man in Sir Henry Buckingham. I told you I was not certain of my theory. I was doubtful about it after I had watched Sir Henry for a whole morning on the bench. I sought for some peculiarity in his manner, and found none. Yet his history coincided with my theory. You know nothing about him, I suppose?"

"Nothing."

"Rather an interesting career, but with an hereditary taint in it,"

Quarles went on. "His mother was eccentric. Her husband was rich enough to have her looked after at home; had she been a poorer person she would have died in a madhouse. Religious mania hers was, and her son has inherited it in a curious fas.h.i.+on. In the year intervening between the Normandy crime and this one Sir Henry was in Rome, where he was very ill, delirious, and not expected to live, so there was no similar crime that year. But he was in Normandy at the time of the murder there, motoring, and usually alone."

"How have you learnt all this?"

"He is important enough to have some of his doings chronicled, and he wrote some interesting articles for a country gentlemen's newspaper about his Normandy tour--nature studies, and such like. Another point, both these murders happened at the time of the full moon. I am not absolutely sure, but I think you will find that for the last half-dozen years Sir Henry has not been in England in January."

"You think----"

"I think there would have been other heads missing if he had been,"

Quarles answered. "He was sane enough to be somewhere where he was not known when this time of the year came round. At the full moon he is always queer--witness last night; but he is only dangerous in January--dangerous, I mean, without provocation. To preserve his secret, I have little doubt he would go to any length; that is why I warned you to be ready to shoot when we went upon our journey of discovery. Now this year he was in England; illness had kept him to his house yonder, but he was well enough to get out at the fatal time, and the insane desire proved irresistible. He was cunning too. He must know everybody in the neighborhood, yet the man he killed was unknown.

We shall find presently, I have no doubt, that the victim was some wanderer returning unexpectedly to friends in Withan. That would account for the foreign cut of his clothes. Sir Henry, waiting in the wood, perhaps for hours, may have allowed others to pa.s.s before this man came. He realized that he was a stranger, and attacked him."

"But the head?"

"Was among those hanging over the fire. Sir Henry was for many years in Borneo, Wigan, and for a large part of the time was up-country helping to put down the head-hunting which still existed there, and still does exist, according to all accounts, when the natives think they can escape detection. The horrible custom proved too much for his diseased brain, and fascinated him. You see how my theory grew. Then I looked for the actual proof, which we found last night. The long shed in that pit is built exactly as the Dyaks of Borneo build theirs--a whole village living on communal terms under one roof. The stone slab for the fire is the same, and over it the Dyaks hang the treasured heads, just as we saw them last night. Now you had better go and see the police, Wigan. Don't drag me into it. I am going back to London by the midday train."

The arrest of Sir Henry Buckingham caused an enormous sensation.

He was subsequently put into a lunatic asylum, where he died not many months afterward. Fortunately he had no children to run the risk of madness in their turn, and neither his wife nor any of the servants knew anything of the concealed pit where he went to revel in his insane delight.

Hidden under the long shed the heads were found--six of them, five so hideously shriveled that identification was altogether impossible.

The sixth was less shriveled, was the only English one, and, perhaps, had we shown it in Withan, some old person might have recognized a lost son believed to be still wandering the world.

It was thought better not to do so, and the ident.i.ty of Sir Henry's last victim remains a mystery.

CHAPTER III

THE MYSTERY OF THE CIRCULAR COUNTERS

However obscure a mystery may be, there is always some point or circ.u.mstance which, if rightly interpreted, will lead to its solution.

Even in those crimes which have never been elucidated this point exists, only it has never been duly appreciated. It is this key-clew, as I may call it, for which the detective first looks, and, since few crimes, if any, are committed without some definite reason, it is most frequently found in the motive.

His almost superhuman power of recognizing this key-clew was the foundation of Christopher Quarles's success, and his solution of the mysterious burglaries which caused such speculation for a time was not the least of his achievements.

Sir Joseph Maynard, the eminent physician of Harley Street, had given a small dinner party one evening. The guests left early, and soon after midnight the household had retired.

Neither Sir Joseph nor Lady Maynard nor any of the servants were disturbed during the night, but next morning it was found that burglars had entered. They had got in by a pa.s.sage window at the back--not a very difficult matter--and had evidently gone to the dining room and helped themselves to spirits from a tantalus which was on the sideboard. Three gla.s.ses, with a little of the liquor left in them, were on the table, and near them were some biscuit crumbs.

There were several silver articles on the sideboard, but these had not been touched.

The burglars appeared to have given all their attention to Sir Joseph's room, which was in a state of confusion. Two cupboards and every drawer had been turned out and the contents thrown about in all directions. A safe which stood in a corner had been broken open. It was a large safe, but of an old-fas.h.i.+oned type, presenting little difficulty to experts. In it, besides papers and about seventy pounds in gold in a canvas bag, Sir Joseph had a considerable amount of silver, presentations which had been made to him, and some unique specimens of the Queen Anne period. All this silver was upon the floor, also the bag of money intact.

So far as Sir Joseph could tell, not a thing had been taken. Half a dozen cigarette-ends had been thrown down upon the carpet, and a small box containing some round counters lay broken by the writing-table. It looked as if the box had been knocked down and trodden on by mistake, for the counters were in a little heap close to the broken fragments.

It appeared that the burglars must have been disturbed and had made off without securing their booty.

This was the obvious explanation, but it did not satisfy me. I questioned Sir Joseph about his papers. Had he any doc.u.ment which, for private or public reasons, someone might be anxious to obtain? He said he had not, was inclined to laugh at my question, and proceeded to inform me that he had no family skeleton, had no part in any Government secret, had never been in touch with any mysterious society, and had no papers giving any valuable details of scientific experiments upon which he was engaged.

Of course the thieves might have been disturbed, but there were certain points against this idea. No one had moved about the house during the night, so apparently there had been nothing to disturb them. The silver on the floor was scattered, not gathered together ready to take away as I should have expected to find it, and it looked as if it had been thrown aside carelessly, as though it were not what the thieves were in search of; and surely, had they left in a hurry, the bag of money would have been taken. Moreover, the cigarette-ends and the dirty gla.s.ses suggested a certain leisurely method of going to work, and men of this kind would not be easily frightened.

The cigarette-ends puzzled me. They were of a cheap American brand, had not been taken from Sir Joseph's box, which contained only Turkish ones, and, although they had apparently been thrown down carelessly, there was no ash upon the carpet nor anywhere else. They looked like old ends rather than the remains of cigarettes smoked last night. If my idea were correct, it would mean that they had been put there on purpose to mislead.

I examined the three gla.s.ses on the dining-room table; there was the stain of lips at the rim of one, but not of the other two. Only one had been drunk out of, and probably a little of the liquid had been emptied out of this into the other two. On inquiry, one of the servants told me that only a very little of the spirit had been taken.

She also said there was only one biscuit left in the box last night, and it was there now; therefore a few crumbs from the box must have been purposely scattered on the tablecloth.

This was the story I told to Professor Quarles and his granddaughter.

I went to him at once, feeling that the case was just one of those in which his theoretical method was likely to be useful. By doing so I certainly saved one valuable life, possibly more than one.

That he was interested was shown by our adjournment to the empty room, and he did not ask a question until I had finished my story.

"What is the opinion you have formed about it, Wigan?" he said.

"I think there was only one burglar, but for some reason he thought it important that it should be believed there were more."

"A very important point, and a reasonable conclusion, I fancy," said Quarles. "If you are right, it narrows the sphere of inquiry--narrows it very much, taken with the other facts of the case."

"Exactly," I answered. "There is a suggestion to my mind of amateurishness in the affair. I grant the safe was not a difficult one to break open, but it had not been done in a very expert manner. The cigarette-ends, the dirty gla.s.ses, and the biscuit crumbs seem to me rather gratuitous deceptions, and----"

"Wait," said Quarles. "You a.s.sume a little too much. They would have deceived nine men out of ten--you happen to be the tenth man. Amateur or not, we have to deal with a very smart man, so don't underestimate the enemy, Wigan. a.s.suming this to be the work of an amateur, to what definite point does it lead you?"

"To this question," I replied. "Did Sir Joseph Maynard burgle his own house?"

"Why should you think so?"

"His manner was curious. Then there is only his own statement that nothing has been taken. But supposing he wished to get rid of papers, or of something else which was in his possession and for which he was responsible to others, a burglary would be an easy way out of the difficulty."

"Would he not have robbed himself of something to make the affair more plausible?" said Quarles.

"The amateur constantly overlooks the obvious," I answered.

The professor shook his head.

"Besides, Wigan, if he wanted to suggest that some important doc.u.ment had been stolen, that is just the one thing he would mention."