Capital Crimes: London Mysteries

by Martin Edwards

  The girl’s distress was evident; she seemed bewildered by the sudden shock of the news which she had learnt from Mrs Green, too bewildered to know what to say, think, or do. Mrs Green said something. I fancy she was urging the girl to come into her house, but before the girl could reply another taxi-cab drew up in front of the house, from which still another woman alighted. This was a very gorgeous person indeed, very tall and big, dressed in the very latest fashion. The fact that she wore a veil rather obscured her mouth, but I saw enough of it for my purpose. She was all warmth and enthusiasm.

  ‘My dear Freda,’ she began. I could fancy the affectionate emotion which was in her voice. ‘Of all the lucky things, to have come on you like this. You poor, dear darling, to think that you have only just come home—to this!—without the slightest warning of what you were coming to.’

  It was, perhaps, small wonder that the girl burst into tears. There was quite a little scene on the pavement. Mrs Green was apparently urging her to go into her house, a suggestion which the new-comer did not endorse.

  ‘My dear Freda,’ she said—if here and there I missed a word because of that veil of hers, I did my best to fill in the hiatuses—‘you must come home at once with me. A little bird whispered that you would be here to-day, so I simply had to come in the hope of catching you. And now that Providence has brought me here in the very nick of time, I am not going to lose sight of you for a single instant. I will tell you everything there is to tell when we get home. If you only knew how anxious Harold has been. Have your luggage put on my cab and we’ll start at once.’

  ‘But can’t I get into my own home?’

  ‘My dear, I believe the police have the keys and they’ve locked the whole place up. When you’ve heard what I have to tell you, you’ll know what it will be best for you to do. Come, let’s lose no more time. Driver, put the young lady’s luggage upon my cab.’

  The driver did. The cab, with the gorgeous lady and the girl in it, departed. The other was about to start when I hailed it. The position was developing along unexpected lines. So far as I could recollect there had been no mention at the inquest of a daughter. It seemed terrible that she should come back in this haphazard way from a pleasure jaunt to find both her parents dead, and her own home shut by the police against her. I could quite understand how news from London might never reach a remote French village. I wondered who the lady might be who had turned up at such a very opportune moment. I thought, as I was making investigations of my own, that it might be worth my while to see where that fine lady was taking her. I asked the driver of my cab to keep the other in sight. He did. The vehicle in front took us right across London, but we never lost sight of it; my driver did it very well.

  The cab ahead led us to Warwick Gardens, Kensington, stopping before an old-fashioned, detached house, guarded in front, as it were, by lofty iron railings. My cab drove on; the occupants of the other cab got out. My driver took me home. I, at that time, had a flat in Sloane Gardens. I had made a note of the address of the house at which that other cab had stopped. I looked it up in the directory. According to that encyclopædia of knowledge the tenant’s name was Harold Cleaver. I found the news a little startling. According to Dr George Evans that was the name of the fair-haired man whom I had seen saying how easy it was to use a snake as an instrument of murder while crossing on the boat from Ryde to Portsmouth. Matters were beginning to take rather a peculiar shape. My search for the person who had sent me that specimen of the Viperidœ was taking me where I had never expected to go. I had to collect my thoughts, to put two and two together, from such facts as I had collected to draw—in spite of what I had said to Dr Evans—my own deductions.

  On a certain day Dr George Evans missed a snake which, the night before, had been in his possession—a very deadly snake. Only a few persons knew that he had it; they knew what a very dangerous thing it was to handle. A few days before, Mr Harold Cleaver, a well-known taxidermist, had brought back a case of stuffed snakes which he had been preparing under the doctor’s direction for exhibition in a museum of natural history. The doctor had shown him the West African snake. Mr Cleaver had regarded it with singular interest. It appeared that he knew more about it than the doctor himself. He spoke of some of its peculiarities, pointing out that though it was a very deadly creature, whose bite was instantly fatal, yet it scarcely left any mark, and the poison it had injected into its victim’s body vanished almost directly it had done its work, leaving practically no traces behind.

  How the snake was taken the doctor was unable to determine. He kept it in a glass case; the case was left, the snake was gone. He thought at first that in some inexplicable way the creature had escaped, and had some very anxious minutes while searching for its whereabouts. After a while he came to the conclusion that its escape, unassisted, was impossible. It is true that the case was found open, but the creature was so small—less than ten inches long—and so slender that it could be concealed in a bouquet consisting of four roses, that the idea that, unaided, it would force the case open was absurd.

  The doctor’s ophidians were housed in a sort of conservatory, which was heated by hot air. Close observation led him to suspect that the door which opened into the garden had been tampered with. Since it was extremely unlikely that a thief would care to enter a building which contained such singular inmates, he was content, at night, simply to turn the key in the lock of the outer door. When he looked into the matter he found that the key was missing. He could not remember if he had locked it the previous night, which was Sunday. What had become of the key he could not learn—he never learned. The door was locked; he had to summon a locksmith to open it. It was an ordinary lock, the workman had no trouble in finding another key to fit it. The door was open.

  Dr Evans said nothing about his loss. The members of his household were already sufficiently nervous on the subject of his pets; he had difficulty in getting servants to stay. If he had mentioned that a dangerous snake was missing, quite possibly his staff would have left him on the spot. Snakes are not popular; no maid would like to run the remote risk of finding a particularly deadly specimen between her sheets at night. A few days afterwards Mr and Mrs Le Blanc were found dead in their beds. The more Dr Evans read about the Finchley puzzle, the more uncomfortable he grew. At one time he nearly applied for leave to view the bodies. He had received from his friend a very vivid account of how the negro had looked whom that little snake had slain. He was haunted by a gruesome notion that Mr and Mrs Le Blanc would be found to look very much as that black man had done. He remembered what Mr Cleaver had said about the snake leaving no marks, and the vanishing of all traces of poison from its victim’s body.

  Then he told himself it was absurd; the whole notion was too far-fetched. He did not know what had become of his snake; strange things had happened to his specimens before, which he had not plumbed to their deepest depths. How could that missing reptile have played such a prominent part in that Finchley puzzle? So, in spite of his first impulses, he said nothing, and he did nothing, until I appeared upon the scene.

  Now I was confronted with the new fact that when they died the Le Blancs were alone in the house, not only because they were without a servant, but also because their daughter was visiting friends in some remote part of France. Somebody must have known of this; quite possibly some one knew her address, yet no communication was made to her until she stumbled on the truth on her return. It also looked as if some one knew that she was coming back. That gorgeous lady had talked about the whisper of a little bird, but little birds do not impart information which enables people to appear on the scene quite so pat as she had done.

  There was one new fact, or series of facts; but there was still another, and that was the most curious of all. The gorgeous lady was presumably a relative of Mr Harold Cleaver; she had actually taken Miss Le Blanc to a house of which he was the tenant.

  So, to string facts together, the case stood thus: Mr Cleaver
shows interest in a snake with whose deadly properties he is better acquainted than its owner; that snake vanishes; shortly afterwards two people die in a lonely house without any doctor being able to give an adequate explanation of the cause of death; Dr George Evans almost applies for permission to view their bodies, but is restrained because there is nothing to show what has become of his snake, because he has no reason to associate his interference with any act of Mr Cleaver’s, because he has no notion that Mr Cleaver has any acquaintance with the Le Blancs. Then, all at once, I discovered that he must have some acquaintance with the dead husband and wife, because their only daughter is taken to his house.

  There was the man on the boat. He was Mr Harold Cleaver. Was it not possible that he was the unnamed person whom the man in the promenade had said had the fidgets because he had given himself away to me? Quite possibly he knew very much more about me than I did about him. If, having something on his mind, having said what he did say to his companion on the boat, seeing me, all at once, sitting there and watching him, might he not jump to the conclusion that I was there for a purpose, and that, inadvertently, he had supplied me with the missing clue? He had certainly vanished with remarkable rapidity. Dr Evans thought he recognized the snake. If it had been used in Hill Avenue, and the man who had used it had afterwards had reason to suspect that I was aware of the fact, might he not, in desperation, have sent it on to me, to do again what it had done at The Elms?

  At this point I drew a long breath. Once more events seemed to be shaping themselves after a fashion of which I had never dreamt, as I had learned they had a trick of doing. I might, and probably should, never have concerned myself with the Finchley puzzle had it not been that the criminal’s conscience caused him to make a horrible attempt to destroy a peril which only existed in his own guilty imagination. I should never have touched the business had my hand not been forced in such a fashion. Now that I had been compelled to move I would not stop until I had seen the matter through.

  As the day went on I paid another visit to the neighbourhood of Warwick Gardens, certain vague ideas floating through my head which I had a notion to develop. But when I got in sight of the house at which Miss Le Blanc had taken refuge, they went by the board. I had gone by rail to Earl’s Court Station, and from thence had proceeded on foot. As I entered Warwick Gardens I saw an old-fashioned four-wheeler cab approaching, on the top of which was piled a quantity of luggage. A feminine head protruded from the window, giving directions to the driver. It was when I saw that head and that luggage that, all in an instant, an idea came to me. I hastened forward; I stopped the cab; I addressed the feminine head.

  ‘Pardon me, but are you the new maid who is expected at Mr Cleaver’s?’

  ‘I am,’ she said. ‘I am Eliza Saunders, the new house-parlourmaid. Are you from Mr Cleaver’s?’

  ‘Will you allow me to get in the cab with you for one moment? I have something to say to you which is of very great importance.’

  She allowed me, not too willingly, but she at least offered no active resistance. About an hour afterwards a second four-wheeled cab drew up at the servants’ entrance of Mr Cleaver’s house, from which I descended. I flatter myself I was a good deal altered. I rang the servants’ bell and announced myself as Eliza Saunders.

  ‘That’s all right,’ the maid said. ‘Come in; we expected you before this.’ So I went in.

  Presently I was taken to a room upstairs—in the roof—a minute, scantily furnished apartment, in which, if there was only a tiny window, there were two beds.

  ‘That’s for you and me,’ said the maid who had answered my ring. ‘It isn’t a large room, but we at least do have a bed each, and that’s something. You’d better be as quick as you can and come downstairs. Miss Cleaver is sure to want to see you when she comes in.’

  I was not afraid of Miss Cleaver. I had learned that she was Mr Harold’s sister, and that the brother and sister formed the household, together with a Miss Le Blanc, who had arrived earlier in the day as a guest. I had made myself up to resemble the real Eliza Saunders as nearly as I could. I had little doubt that so far as appearance went I should be able to pass muster with the lady; it was from her brother’s keen eyes that I feared detection. I was put to the test almost directly. As I went downstairs there was a knock and ring at the front door, and the maid who was to be my room mate informed me that I should have to answer the door. I answered it, to find on the doorstep the fair-haired man whom I had seen talking on the boat, and, of all persons in the world, the man whom I had seen leaning over the partition in the promenade.

  To find myself so suddenly confronting such a pair was rather nerve-shaking. I had not the slightest doubt that together they had planned the attack upon my life, and deemed it extremely probable that if they penetrated my identity I should find myself in a very parlous position. Luckily, neither of them so much as glanced at me. They came into the hall; and both marched off and disappeared through a door which was at the other end of the hall.

  ‘What an escape!’ I told myself. I found that I was positively trembling. ‘Don’t be an idiot,’ I added. ‘How are you going to get even with that pretty pair if you shake at the mere sight of them?’

  A few minutes afterwards Miss Cleaver entered by the same door, which I opened to admit her. With her was Miss Le Blanc; apparently they had been out to buy mourning, for the girl was attired from head to foot in black. Miss Cleaver looked me up and down, as I never had been looked at before.

  ‘So you’ve come.’ Her manner was distinctly curt. ‘I thought you were taller and not so thin. I hope you are strong. I will talk to you in the morning; in the meanwhile the housemaid will give you an idea of what your duties are.’

  I said nothing; plainly I was not expected to. The two ladies passed up the stairs, and I was left with a feeling that I did not like being talked to in quite that tone. I wondered what the room was into which Mr Cleaver had vanished with his companion. It might have been by accident that, instead of returning to the kitchen I found myself in what I took to be the drawing-room. It opened into a conservatory, which I entered for purposes of exploration. It was rather spacious; in the centre was a bed which was full of magnificent Maréchal Niel roses. The sight of them gave me quite a shock. Had four of them been sent to me that morning? Proceeding a little farther I came upon a window which looked into a room in which were Mr Cleaver and the man of the promenade. Had I taken another step they must have seen me. As it was I drew up just in time, where I could see them without their having the faintest notion that they were observed. The man of the promenade was drinking something out of a tumbler. As he removed it from his lips I saw him say—

  ‘Any news of the fair Judith?’

  Mr Cleaver was less courteous.

  ‘Darn her, none; at least, as far as I know.’

  ‘The roses reached her?’ The speaker grinned.

  ‘So far as I know, unless something happened to them on the way. In which case, something probably happened to a Post Office official. It would be quite in the order of things if something did. Luck is on her side.’

  ‘I shall believe it if she gets off this time; she certainly can have had no warning, and she couldn’t possibly guess what was in that box, and you say that what was in it was quick enough.’

  ‘No mistake about that; it would probably be at her as soon as she had the lid off; one touch on the hand, wrist, anywhere, would be enough.’

  ‘That young woman has got on your nerves.’

  ‘She has, and she’ll keep there till I’ve got on hers, once and for ever. I doubt if there’s anything I wouldn’t do which would result in wiping her off the face of the earth.’

  ‘I believe you,’ said the man of the promenade.

  And I believed him also. As I drew away from the window—for the two men had moved, and I had certainly no wish to be discovered at that particular moment—I told myself, not for the first
time, that I would not stick at a trifle to dispose of him; my presence there proved it. Shortly afterwards, as I was on the landing of the floor above, the door of that room opened, and the two men came out. Mr Cleaver himself opened the front door and said good-bye to his companion on the doorstep. When he had gone Mr Cleaver came upstairs; he went into what I had learnt was his bedroom. I hurried to the apartment half of which was mine, then I hurried down again, bearing in a piece of tissue paper the body of the snake which had sprung at me from among those Maréchal Niel roses. I went into the conservatory; I cut four roses; the French window which opened into the room in which the two men had been sitting was open. I passed through it. On a table in the centre I placed those roses with the snake in full sight on the top of them, and I left it there.

  It was perhaps half an hour afterwards when a bell sounded in the kitchen, which I was informed came from Mr Cleaver’s study, and it was my duty to attend to it. I started to do my duty with my heart beating a little faster than it is wont to do. I knocked at the door, a voice bade me enter. I went in. Mr Harold Cleaver was dressed for dinner; in his black suit he seemed fairer than ever. It needed but a moment’s glance to see that he was in a state of agitation. A paper was lying on the table in the centre of the room; I wondered if what I had placed there was underneath it.

  ‘Who are you? ’ he asked.

  ‘I am the new house-parlourmaid, Eliza Saunders.’

  ‘Indeed? Come a little farther into the room, Eliza Saunders, I should like to have a look at you.’

  I hesitated. He had his hand on an oblong box. I moved a little farther into the room; we eyed each other. He spoke again.

  ‘Come a little closer, I can’t quite see you.’

  I knew better. I vaguely wondered why he kept his hand upon that oblong box, as if it contained something precious. I was not afraid of him; the sight of him seemed to serve as a tonic, to brace me up. He might not know it, but I knew that his hour had come. I went right forward and I lifted the paper off the table. As I had expected, the four roses and the snake were underneath.