In the Fog
Page 5
explorer of whomthis gentleman was just speaking. I mean the Earl of Chetney. The otherwas the name of his brother, Lord Arthur Chetney."
The men at the table fell back as though a trapdoor had fallen open attheir feet.
"Lord Chetney!" they exclaimed in chorus. They glanced at each other andback to the American with every expression of concern and disbelief.
"It is impossible!" cried the Baronet. "Why, my dear sir, young Chetneyonly arrived from Africa yesterday. It was so stated in the eveningpapers."
The jaw of the American set in a resolute square, and he pressed hislips together.
"You are perfectly right, sir," he said, "Lord Chetney did arrive inLondon yesterday morning, and yesterday night I found his dead body."
The youngest member present was the first to recover. He seemed muchless concerned over the identity of the murdered man than at theinterruption of the narrative.
"Oh, please let him go on!" he cried. "What happened then? You say youfound two visiting cards. How do you know which card was that of themurdered man?"
The American, before he answered, waited until the chorus ofexclamations had ceased. Then he continued as though he had not beeninterrupted.
"The instant I read the names upon the cards," he said, "I ran to thescreen and, kneeling beside the dead man, began a search through hispockets. My hand at once fell upon a card-case, and I found on allthe cards it contained the title of the Earl of Chetney. His watch andcigarette-case also bore his name. These evidences, and the fact of hisbronzed skin, and that his cheekbones were worn with fever, convincedme that the dead man was the African explorer, and the boy who had fledpast me in the night was Arthur, his younger brother.
"I was so intent upon my search that I had forgotten the servant, andI was still on my knees when I heard a cry behind me. I turned, and sawthe man gazing down at the body in abject horror.
"Before I could rise, he gave another cry of terror, and, flinginghimself into the hall, raced toward the door to the street. I leapedafter him, shouting to him to halt, but before I could reach the hall hehad torn open the door, and I saw him spring out into the yellow fog. Icleared the steps in a jump and ran down the garden walk but just asthe gate clicked in front of me. I had it open on the instant, and,following the sound of the man's footsteps, I raced after him across theopen street. He, also, could hear me, and he instantly stopped running,and there was absolute silence. He was so near that I almost fancied Icould hear him panting, and I held my own breath to listen. But I coulddistinguish nothing but the dripping of the mist about us, and from faroff the music of the Hungarian band, which I had heard when I first lostmyself.
"All I could see was the square of light from the door I had left openbehind me, and a lamp in the hall beyond it flickering in the draught.But even as I watched it, the flame of the lamp was blown violently toand fro, and the door, caught in the same current of air, closed slowly.I knew if it shut I could not again enter the house, and I rushed madlytoward it. I believe I even shouted out, as though it were somethinghuman which I could compel to obey me, and then I caught my foot againstthe curb and smashed into the sidewalk. When I rose to my feet I wasdizzy and half stunned, and though I thought then that I was movingtoward the door, I know now that I probably turned directly from it;for, as I groped about in the night, calling frantically for the police,my fingers touched nothing but the dripping fog, and the iron railingsfor which I sought seemed to have melted away. For many minutes I beatthe mist with my arms like one at blind man's buff, turning sharply incircles, cursing aloud at my stupidity and crying continually for help.At last a voice answered me from the fog, and I found myself held in thecircle of a policeman's lantern.
"That is the end of my adventure. What I have to tell you now is what Ilearned from the police.
"At the station-house to which the man guided me I related what you havejust heard. I told them that the house they must at once find was oneset back from the street within a radius of two hundred yards fromthe Knightsbridge Barracks, that within fifty yards of it some one wasgiving a dance to the music of a Hungarian band, and that the railingsbefore it were as high as a man's waist and filed to a point. With thatto work upon, twenty men were at once ordered out into the fog to searchfor the house, and Inspector Lyle himself was despatched to the home ofLord Edam, Chetney's father, with a warrant for Lord Arthur's arrest. Iwas thanked and dismissed on my own recognizance.
"This morning, Inspector Lyle called on me, and from him I learned thepolice theory of the scene I have just described.
"Apparently I had wandered very far in the fog, for up to noon to-daythe house had not been found, nor had they been able to arrest LordArthur. He did not return to his father's house last night, and there isno trace of him; but from what the police knew of the past lives of thepeople I found in that lost house, they have evolved a theory, and theirtheory is that the murders were committed by Lord Arthur.
"The infatuation of his elder brother, Lord Chetney, for a Russianprincess, so Inspector Lyle tells me, is well known to every one. Abouttwo years ago the Princess Zichy, as she calls herself, and he wereconstantly together, and Chetney informed his friends that they wereabout to be married. The woman was notorious in two continents, and whenLord Edam heard of his son's infatuation he appealed to the police forher record.
"It is through his having applied to them that they know so muchconcerning her and her relations with the Chetneys. From the police LordEdam learned that Madame Zichy had once been a spy in the employ of theRussian Third Section, but that lately she had been repudiated by herown government and was living by her wits, by blackmail, and by herbeauty. Lord Edam laid this record before his son, but Chetney eitherknew it already or the woman persuaded him not to believe in it, and thefather and son parted in great anger. Two days later the marquis alteredhis will, leaving all of his money to the younger brother, Arthur.
"The title and some of the landed property he could not keep fromChetney, but he swore if his son saw the woman again that the willshould stand as it was, and he would be left without a penny.
"This was about eighteen months ago, when apparently Chetney tired ofthe Princess, and suddenly went off to shoot and explore in CentralAfrica. No word came from him, except that twice he was reported ashaving died of fever in the jungle, and finally two traders reachedthe coast who said they had seen his body. This was accepted by allas conclusive, and young Arthur was recognized as the heir to the Edammillions. On the strength of this supposition he at once began to borrowenormous sums from the money lenders. This is of great importance, asthe police believe it was these debts which drove him to the murder ofhis brother. Yesterday, as you know, Lord Chetney suddenly returned fromthe grave, and it was the fact that for two years he had been consideredas dead which lent such importance to his return and which gave riseto those columns of detail concerning him which appeared in all theafternoon papers. But, obviously, during his absence he had not tired ofthe Princess Zichy, for we know that a few hours after he reached Londonhe sought her out. His brother, who had also learned of his reappearancethrough the papers, probably suspected which would be the house he wouldfirst visit, and followed him there, arriving, so the Russian servanttells us, while the two were at coffee in the drawing-room. ThePrincess, then, we also learn from the servant, withdrew to thedining-room, leaving the brothers together. What happened one can onlyguess.
"Lord Arthur knew now that when it was discovered he was no longer theheir, the money-lenders would come down upon him. The police believethat he at once sought out his brother to beg for money to cover thepost-obits, but that, considering the sum he needed was several hundredsof thousands of pounds, Chetney refused to give it him. No one knewthat Arthur had gone to seek out his brother. They were alone. It ispossible, then, that in a passion of disappointment, and crazed withthe disgrace which he saw before him, young Arthur made himself the heirbeyond further question. The death of his brother would have availednothing if the woman remained alive. It is then possible th
at he crossedthe hall, and with the same weapon which made him Lord Edam's heirdestroyed the solitary witness to the murder. The only other personwho could have seen it was sleeping in a drunken stupor, to which factundoubtedly he owed his life. And yet," concluded the Naval Attache,leaning forward and marking each word with his finger, "Lord Arthurblundered fatally. In his haste he left the door of the house open, sogiving access to the first passer-by, and he forgot that when he enteredit he had handed his card to the servant. That piece of paper may yetsend him to the gallows. In the mean time he has disappeared completely,and somewhere, in one of the millions of streets of this great capital,in a locked and empty house, lies the body of his brother, and of thewoman his brother loved, undiscovered, unburied, and with their murderunavenged."
In the discussion which followed the conclusion