"Ah!" the man murmured. "That puts a different aspect on matters."
"Oh, quite. Mr. Wrede was killed by a dog he had abused."
"Lao-Tzu has said," returned Liang, "that he who abuses the weak is eventually destroyed by his own weakness."
Vance inclined his head in polite agreement.
"Some day," he said, "I hope the wisdom of the Tâo Teh King will penetrate to our western civilization. . . . But, handicapped as we are by lack of knowledge of the profound wisdom of the Orient, I can only ask you to help us in our present dilemma. . . . Will you tell us what happened--or, rather, what you saw--when you returned to this house between eight and nine Wednesday night?"
Liang moved slightly in his chair and let his eyes rest searchingly on Vance. He hesitated before he spoke, drawing deeply on the cigarette Vance had given him.
"It was exactly eight," he began in an even voice. "When I entered the kitchen I heard voices here in the library. Mr. Wrede and Mr. Archer Coe were talking. They were angry. I tried not to listen, but their voices rose until they penetrated even to my bedroom. Mr. Coe was protesting violently, and Mr. Wrede was becoming more angry every second. I heard a scuffle, a startled ejaculation, and a noise as if something heavy had fallen to the floor. A brief silence ensued--and I thought I detected a tinkling sound like broken china. Then another silence. A few moments later I heard some one pass stealthily through the kitchen, and go out the rear door. I waited in my bedroom for perhaps fifteen minutes, asking myself if I should interfere with matters which did not concern me; and then I decided that, in loyalty to my employer, I should investigate the situation.
"So I came forth and looked in the library here. The room was empty, but the small table in front of the davenport was upset. I put it on its feet; then returned to the kitchen and read for perhaps an hour. But something seemed to trouble me--I did not like the fact that Mr. Wrede had not gone out the front door, but went out so stealthily through the kitchen. I went upstairs to Mr. Coe's bedroom and knocked on the door. There was no answer. I knocked again. Still there was no answer. I tried the door. It was unbolted; and when I opened it, I saw Mr. Coe seated in his chair, apparently asleep. But I did not like the color of his face. I went to him and touched him, but he did not move--and I knew he was dead. . . . I came out of the room, closed the door, and returned to the kitchen.
"I asked myself what was best for me to do, and decided that since no one knew I had returned to the house I would go away and come back much later that night. So I went--to some friends of mine. When I returned at about midnight, I made unnecessary noise, so that any one in the house would hear me returning. After a while I came again into this library and looked round very carefully, for I could not understand what had happened that night. I found the poker lying on the hearth, and there was blood on it. I also found the dagger in the large Yung Chêng Ting yao vase on the table there. I had a definite feeling that both of these articles were left here for some special purpose, and it occurred to me that if a murder had been committed that night, it was I who was supposed to take the blame. . . ."
"You are quite right, Mr. Liang. I think that both weapons were left here in order to involve you."
"I did not quite understand the situation," the Chinaman continued. "But I felt that it might be safer for me if I took the poker and the dagger and hid them. I could see the possibilities of a case being built up against me, if the weapons were found in the library, especially as it might be proved that I had been here at the time. Moreover, the dagger is Chinese, and it could be easily ascertained that I was not in sympathy with the means Mr. Archer Coe used in depriving my country of its rightful antiques."
"Yes," nodded Vance. "That was no doubt the intention of the murderer. . . . And so, when you had the opportunity, you placed both weapons in the room upstairs?"
"That is true," Liang admitted. "I placed them there when the butler sent me to Miss Lake's room the next morning. Perhaps if I had realized how serious the situation was and had understood all of its complications, I might have acted differently. I do not yet understand the mechanism of the crime. The physical misunderstanding, so to speak, between Mr. Wrede and Mr. Archer Coe took place in this library, and yet his dead body was in his bedroom upstairs."
"There was no possibility," inquired Vance, "that Mr. Wrede could have assisted Mr. Coe upstairs, after the mêlée?"
"Oh, no." Liang was quite emphatic. "Within a few moments of the encounter here in the library, Mr. Wrede came out through the kitchen, surreptitiously, and departed through the rear door."
"How can you be sure it was Wrede, Mr. Liang, if you did not see him?" Vance asked.
The Chinaman gave a slow smile.
"In my country the senses are more acute than in the Occident. I had heard Mr. Wrede move about this house too often not to know his step and sense his presence." Liang paused and looked at Vance. "And may I be permitted now to ask a question of you?"
Vance bowed acquiescence.
"Ask me any question you care to, Mr. Liang, and I will try to be as frank as you have been."
"How, then, did you know that I was aware of the crime on the night it was committed?"
"There were several indications, Mr. Liang," Vance replied; "but it was you yourself who told me as much--by a slip of the tongue. When I first spoke to you, the next morning, you mentioned a tragedy; and when I asked you how you knew there had been a tragedy, you replied you had heard Gamble telephoning--while you were preparing breakfast."
Liang looked at Vance for a moment, a puzzled expression in his eyes. Then a faint smile appeared slowly on his mouth.
"I understand now," he said. "I had already prepared the breakfast when the butler telephoned, for he discovered the crime when he was taking Mr. Coe's breakfast to him. . . . Yes, I gave myself away, but it took a clever man to grasp the error."
Vance acknowledged the compliment.
"And now I shall ask you another question, Mr. Liang. Why were you pretending to work in the kitchen at three o'clock yesterday morning, after the attack on Mr. Grassi?"
The Chinaman looked up shrewdly. "Pretending?"
"The ink was quite dry on the papers you had so neatly arranged on the kitchen table."
A slow smile again spread over Liang's ascetic mouth.
"I was afraid, afterwards," he said, "that you might have noticed that. . . . The fact is, Mr. Vance, I was standing guard. At about half-past two that morning, I was awakened by a slight sound. It was a key being inserted softly into the rear door. I sleep lightly--and I am sensitive to sounds. I listened, and some one opened the door and passed through the kitchen into the butler's pantry and the dining-room, and on into the library--"
"You recognized the footsteps?"
"Oh, yes. The person who came in so softly was Mr. Wrede. . . . I naturally did not trust him, knowing what I did, and I hoped that I could trap him in some way. So I rose, dressed, turned on all the lights in the kitchen, and took my post at the table--as if I were working. Fifteen minutes later, I heard Mr. Wrede come back softly into the butler's pantry and then retreat again toward this room. I knew that he had seen the lights in the kitchen and was afraid to enter. I did not hear the front door open--which is the only other means of egress except the windows--and I decided to stand my ground.
"A little later I heard Mr. Grassi call out, and then I heard the butler telephoning. Even so, I thought it best to remain in the kitchen, for it occurred to me that Mr. Wrede might still be hiding in the house, waiting for a chance to escape through the rear door. When you came into the kitchen and informed me of the attack on Mr. Grassi, I suggested the den window. I could not see how else Mr. Wrede could have gone out of the house."
Liang looked up sadly.
"I am sorry my efforts were not more successful, but at least I made it difficult for Mr. Wrede."
Vance got up and put out his cigarette.
"You've helped us no end," he said. "You've clarified many things. We are most grat
eful."
He walked to Liang and held out his hand. The Chinaman took it and bowed.
CHAPTER XX
THE STARTLING TRUTH
(Saturday, October 13; 6.30 p. m.)
When Liang had gone out, Vance sent Gamble for Hilda Lake. As soon as she entered the library, Vance informed her that Wrede was dead.
She looked at him a moment, lifted her eyebrows, shrugged slightly, and said: "It is no great loss to the world."
"Furthermore," Vance went on, "I believe that Mr. Wrede murdered your uncles and attempted the life of Mr. Grassi."
"I would not be in the least surprised," the young woman commented coldly. "I have suspected all along that he murdered Uncle Archer--but I could not quite see how he accomplished it. Have you learned his modus operandi?"
Vance shook his head.
"No, Miss Lake," he admitted. "That's a part of the problem still to be solved."
"But why," she asked, "should he kill Uncle Brisbane? Uncle Brisbane was his ally."
"That's another phase of the problem that must be worked out. There was an error--a miscalculation--somewhere."
"I can understand," Hilda Lake remarked, "why he should attempt Mr. Grassi's life. Mr. Wrede was intensely jealous of Mr. Grassi."
"All clever, scheming men with a sense of their own inferiority," said Vance, "are inclined toward intense jealousy. . . . But there's a particular thought that has entered my mind this evening, and I shall ask you about it.--Tell me, Miss Lake, what reason would Brisbane have had for killing Archer?"
Vance's question amazed me, and when I glanced at Markham and Heath, I saw that they, too, were startled. But Hilda Lake accepted it as if it had been the most casual and conventional of queries.
"Oh, various reasons," she answered calmly. "There was a deep antagonism between the two. Uncle Brisbane had many ideas and many ambitions, but he was always handicapped by the fact that Uncle Archer controlled all the money. There was, therefore, the money motive. Again, Uncle Brisbane did not feel that Uncle Archer had treated me fairly, and he was quite anxious for me to marry Mr. Wrede. Uncle Archer, as you know, was violently opposed to the marriage."
"And you, Miss Lake?"
"Oh," she returned offhandedly, "I thought the marriage might be rather a good thing. Mr. Wrede was a comforting kind of soul who wouldn't have bothered me in the slightest--and I was tremendously desirous of escaping from this queer household. I knew all his faults, but as long as they didn't interfere with me--"
"Perhaps," suggested Vance, "the arrival of Mr. Grassi changed your mind a bit?"
For the first time during my acquaintance with Hilda Lake, I noticed a soft, feminine expression come into her eyes. She glanced down as if embarrassed.
"Perhaps, as you say," she replied in a low voice, "the arrival of Mr. Grassi changed my mind."
Vance stood up.
"I hope, Miss Lake," he said, "that you will both be very happy."
We dined at Vance's apartment that night. Both Vance and Markham were troubled, for the case had not had a satisfactory ending,--there were many things that had been left unexplained; there were many links in the chain of evidence which had not been found. But before the night was over there were no longer any mysteries: each step in this monstrous crime, and each perplexing and contradictory factor, had been clarified.
The final elucidation came in a most unexpected manner. We were sitting in Vance's library talking, after dinner.
"I'm not satisfied," grumbled Markham. "There are too many factors in this case which I cannot understand and which have not been satisfactorily explained. Why should Wrede have murdered Brisbane? How did that revolver get in Archer's hand--and why the bullet in his head, long after he was dead? Why the carefully bolted door and all the technical thought that went into the bolting of the door? . . ."
Vance smoked in doleful silence for a while.
"It's dashed mystifyin'," he muttered. "What I can't understand is how Archer got upstairs after he had been stabbed in the library. There's little doubt, after Liang's story, that the bloody work was done downstairs."
"I'm not so sure you're right about that, Vance," submitted Markham. "If your theory is correct, you must logically admit the proposition that a dead man walked upstairs."
Vance inclined his head.
"I realize that," he said thoughtfully. Then he leapt to his feet and stood before Markham, tense and animated. "A dead man walked upstairs," he repeated in a strained, hushed voice. "That's it! That's the answer to everything. . . . Yes, Markham,"--he nodded with curious significance--"a dead man walked upstairs!"
Markham looked up at him with benevolent concern.
"Come, come, Vance," he said, in a kindly, paternal tone. "This case has upset you. Take a good stiff nightcap and go to bed--"
"No, no, Markham," Vance cut in, his eyes staring straight ahead. "That's just what happened the other night. Archer Coe--already a dead man--walked upstairs. And--what is even more terrible, Markham--he didn't know he was dead!"
Vance turned quickly and went to a set of thick quarto volumes on the lower shelf of one of his bookcases. He ran his finger along the books until he came to volume "E." He turned the pages and found what he was looking for. Then he glanced down the column of fine type.
"Listen, Markham," he said. "Here's a historical case of a dead person walking." He read from the encyclopædia: "'Elizabeth (Amélie Eugénie), 1837-1898, consort of Francis Joseph, emperor of Austria, a daughter of Duke Maximilian Joseph of Bavaria and Louisa Wilhelmina, was born on the 24th of December, 1837, at Lake Starnberg. . . .'" He turned the page. "But here's the passage regarding her death: 'Elizabeth spent much of her time traveling through Europe and at the palace she had built in Corfu. On the 10th of September, 1898, she was walking through the streets of Geneva with her entourage, from her hotel to the steamer, when an anarchist, named Luigi Luccheni, ran suddenly into the roadway and stabbed her in the back, with a shoemaker's awl. The police immediately pounced upon the man and were about to drag him away, when the Empress stayed them and gave the order that they should release him. "He has not injured me," she said, "and I wish, on this occasion, to forgive him." She continued her walk to the steamer, which was more than half a mile distant, and made a farewell speech to her subjects from the deck. She then retired to her cabin and lay down. Several hours later she was found dead. Luccheni had actually stabbed her without her being aware of it, and she had died hours later of an internal hemorrhage. This crime was the final misfortune which came to the Austrian emperor, and all Europe was aroused to a state of intense indignation.'"
Vance closed the book and threw it to one side.
"Now do you see what I mean, Markham?" he asked. "A dead person often does strange things without knowing he is dead. . . . But wait a minute. I have another book here--"
He went to another bookcase, and, after a moment's search, pulled out a black, gold-lettered volume.
"Here's a rare book, Markham,--'An Old Gate of England,' by A. G. Bradley.* . . . There's a passage in it I want to read to you. As I remember, it was in the chapter on Rye." He turned the pages. "The passage relates, as I recall, to the Duke of Cumberland's visit to Rye when he made an inspection of the defenses of the neighborhood and was entertained by Mr. Lamb who was still mayor. . . . Ah, here it is--I hope I don't bore you: 'These particulars have been kindly given me by almost the only living representative of the Lamb-Grebell families--which have otherwise died out in Rye. In regard to the Grebell murder, which took place from this house, my informant gives some particulars, unknown to the local chroniclers, in part at least, that are physiologically interesting. Mr. Grebell had been supping with his brother-in-law Lamb, and having some business in the town borrowed his scarlet overcoat. On returning late through the church-yard, he felt some one push heavily as he thought against him, and merely remarking "Get away, you drunken hound," passed on to Lamb House, quite unconcerned. He duly reported the incident, but as the family were going to b
ed, said he felt so tired that, instead of going home, he would have a sleep in the arm-chair by the fire. In the morning he was found dead, with a stab in the back, which had caused internal bleeding.† . . .' Do you see, Markham? Do you recall what Doctor Doremus said? 'An internal hemorrhage'! That's the whole story--that's the key to everything. That's how Archer could have been killed in the library and still have walked upstairs."
*A. G. Bradley: "An Old Gate of England" ("The English Countryside Series"), published by Robert Scott, London, 1917.
† Bradley, "An Old Gate of England," p. 64.
Markham stood up and walked back and forth across the room.
"Good God!" His words were scarcely audible. "So that's the explanation! No wonder we couldn't understand the things that happened there that night. Unbelievable!"
Vance had sunk back into his chair, relaxed. He took a deep inspiration, like a man who had suddenly found a friendly settlement in the midst of a hostile jungle.
"Really, Markham," he said with a slight upward glance, taking out his case of beloved Régies, "I'll never forgive you for this--never! It was you who guessed the solution. And I knew it all the time, but I couldn't correlate my knowledge."
Markham came to a sudden halt.
"What do you mean by saying that I guessed the solution?"
"Didn't you say," asked Vance mildly, "that the only way one could explain the circumstances was by the assumption that a dead man walked upstairs? . . . No, Markham, I am sure I shall never forgive you."
Markham sat down and muttered a disgusted oath. He smoked a while in silence.
"The internal hemorrhage explains many things," he admitted finally. "But I still don't understand Brisbane's death, and the bolted door."
"And yet, d' ye see," returned Vance, "it all fits in perfectly, now that we have the key."
He lay back in his chair and stretched his legs. He took several puffs on his cigarette and half closed his eyes.
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