Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces

by Charles Felix

  CHAPTER XIV

  That night Cleek met Lady Wilding for the first time. He found her whathe afterwards termed "a splendid animal," beautiful, statuesque, more ofJuno than of Venus, and freely endowed with the languorous temperamentand the splendid earthy loveliness which grows nowhere but undertropical skies and in the shadow of palm groves and the flame of cactusflowers. She showed him but scant courtesy, however, for she was but apoor hostess, and after dinner carried her cousin away to thebilliard-room, and left her husband to entertain the Rev. Ambrose andthe detective as best he could. Cleek needed but little entertaining,however, for in spite of his serenity he was full of the case on hand,and kept wandering in and out of the house and upstairs and down untileleven o'clock came and bed claimed him with the rest.

  His last wakeful recollection was of the clock in the lower corridorstriking the first quarter after eleven; then sleep claimed him, and heknew no more until all the stillness was suddenly shattered by aloud-voiced gong hammering out an alarm and the sound of people tumblingout of bed and scurrying about in a panic of fright. He jumped out ofbed, pulled on his clothing, and rushed out into the hall, only to findit alive with people, and at their head Sir Henry, with a dressing-gownthrown on over his pyjamas and a bedroom candle in his shaking hand.

  "The stable!" he cried out excitedly. "Come on, come on, for God's sake!Someone has touched the door of the steel room; and yet the place wasleft empty--empty!"

  But it was no longer empty, as they found out when they reached it, forthe doors had been flung open, the men who had been left on guardoutside the stables were now inside it, the electric lights were in fullblaze, the shotgun still hanging where Sharpless had left it, theimpromptu bed was tumbled and tossed in a man's death agony, and at thefoot of the steel door Logan lay, curled up in a heap and stone dead!

  "He would get in, Sir Henry, he'd have shot one or the other of us if wehadn't let him," said one of the outer guards as Sir Henry and Cleekappeared. "He would lie before the door and watch, sir--he simply would;and God have mercy on him, poor chap; he was faithful to the last!"

  "And the last might not have come for years, the fool, if he had onlyobeyed," said Cleek; then lapsed into silence and stood staring at adust of white flour on the red-tiled floor and at a thin wavering linethat broke the even surface of it.

  It was perhaps two minutes later when the entire household--mistress,guests, and servants alike--came trooping across the open space betweenthe hall and the stables in a state of semi-deshabille, but in thatbrief space of time friendly hands had reverently lifted the body of thedead man from its place before the steel door, and Sir Henry wasnervously fitting the key to the lock in a frantic effort to get in andsee if Black Riot was safe.

  "Dios! what is it? What has happened?" cried Lady Wilding as she camehurrying in, followed closely by Sharpless and the Rev. Ambrose Smeer.Then, catching sight of Logan's body, she gave a little scream andcovered her eyes. "The trainer, Andrew, the trainer now!" she went onhalf hysterically. "Another death--another! Surely they have got thewretch at last?"

  "The mare! The mare, Henry! Is she safe?" exclaimed Sharpless excitedlyas he whirled away from his cousin's side and bore down upon thebaronet. "Give me the key--you're too nervous." And, taking it from him,unlocked the steel room and passed swiftly into it.

  In another instant Black Riot was led out--uninjured, untouched, in thevery pink of condition--and, in spite of the tragedy and the dead man'spresence, one or two of the guards were so carried away that theyessayed a cheer.

  "Stop that! Stop it instantly!" rapped out Sir Henry, facing round uponthem. "What's a horse--even the best--beside the loss of an honest lifelike that?" and flung out a shaking hand in the direction of dead Logan."It will be the story of last night over again, of course? You heard hisscream, heard his fall, but he was dead when you got to him--dead--andyou found no one here?"

  "Not a soul, Sir Henry. The doors were all locked; no grille is missingfrom any window; no one is in the loft; no one in any of the stalls; noone in any crook or corner of the place."

  "Send for the constable--the justice of the peace--anybody!" chimed inthe Rev. Ambrose Smeer at this. "Henry, will you never be warned, nevertake these awful lessons to heart? This sinful practice of racing horsesfor money--"

  "Oh, hush, hush! Don't preach me a sermon now, uncle," interposed SirHenry. "My heart's torn, my mind crazed by this abominable thing. Poorold Logan! Poor, faithful old chap! Oh!" He whirled and looked over atCleek, who still stood inactive, staring at the flour-dusted floor. "Andthey said that no mystery was too great for you to get to the bottom ofit, no riddle too complex for you to find the answer! Can't you dosomething? Can't you suggest something? Can't you see any glimmer oflight at all?"

  Cleek looked up, and that curious smile which Narkom knew so well--andwould have known had he been there was the "danger signal"--looped upone corner of his mouth.

  "I fancy it is _all_ 'light,' Sir Henry," he said. "I may be wrong, butI fancy it is merely a question of comparative height. Do I puzzle youby that? Well, let me explain. Lady Wilding there is one height, Mr.Sharpless is another, and I am a third; and if they two were to placethemselves side by side and, say, about four inches apart, and I were tostand immediately behind them, the difference would be most apparent.There you are. Do you grasp it?"

  "Not in the least."

  "Bothered if I do either," supplemented Sharpless. "It all sounds liketommy rot to me."

  "Does it?" said Cleek. "Then let me explain it by illustration"--and hewalked quietly towards them. "Lady Wilding, will you oblige me bystanding here? Thank you very much. Now, if you please, Mr. Sharpless,will you stand beside her ladyship while I take up my place hereimmediately behind you both? That's it exactly. A little nearer,please--just a little, so that your left elbow touches her ladyship'sright. Now then"--his two hands moved briskly, there was a click-click,and after it: "There you are--that explains it, my good Mr. and Mrs.Filippo Bucarelli; that explains it completely!"

  And as he stepped aside on saying this, those who were watching, thosewho heard Lady Wilding's scream and Mr. Sharpless's snarling oath andsaw them vainly try to spring apart and dart away, saw also that a steelhandcuff was on the woman's right wrist, its mate on the man's left one,and that they were firmly chained together.

  "In the name of Heaven, man," began Sir Henry, appalled by this, andgrowing red and white by rapid turns.

  "I fancy that Heaven has very little to do with this precious pair, SirHenry," interposed Cleek. "You want the two people who are accountablefor these diabolical crimes, and--there they stand."

  "What! Do you mean to tell me that Sharpless, that my wife--"

  "Don't give the lady a title to which she has not and never had anylegal right, Sir Henry. If it had ever occurred to you to emulate myexample to-night and search the lady's effects, you would have foundthat she was christened Enriqua Dolores Torjado, and that she wasmarried to Senor Filippo Bucarelli here, at Valparaiso, in Chili, threeyears ago, and that her marriage to you was merely a clever littlescheme to get hold of a pot of money and share it with her rascallyhusband."

  "It's a lie!" snarled out the male prisoner. "It's an infernalpoliceman's lie! You never found any such thing!"

  "Pardon me, but I did," replied Cleek serenely. "And what's more, Ifound the little phial of coriander and oil of sassafras in your room,senor, and--I shall finish off the Mynga Worm in another ten minutes!"

  Bucarelli and his wife gave a mingled cry, and, chained together thoughthey were, made a wild bolt for the door; only, however, to be met onthe threshold by the local constable, to whom Cleek had dispatched anote some hours previously.

  "Thank you, Mr. Philpotts; you are very prompt," he said. "There areyour prisoners nicely trussed and waiting for you. Take them away--weare quite done with them here. Sir Henry"--he turned to the baronet--"ifBlack Riot is fitted to win the Derby she will win it, and you need haveno more fear for her safety. No one has ever for one moment tried to getat
her. You yourself were the one that precious pair were after, and thebait was your life assurance. By killing off the watchers over BlackRiot one by one they knew that there would come a time when, being ableto get no one else to take the risk of guarding the horse and sleepingon that bed before the steel-room door, you would do it yourself; andwhen that time came they would have had you."

  "But how? By what means?"

  "By one of the most diabolical imaginable. Among the reptiles ofPatagonia, Sir Henry, there is one--a species of black adder, known inthe country as the Mynga Worm--whose bite is more deadly than that ofthe rattler or the copperhead, and as rapid in its action as prussicacid itself. It has, too, a great velocity of movement and a peculiarpower of springing and hurling itself upon its prey. The Patagonians area barbarous people in the main and, like all barbarous people, arevengeful, cunning, and subtle. A favourite revenge of theirs uponunsuspecting enemies is to get within touch of them and secretly tosmear a mixture of coriander and oil of sassafras upon some part oftheir bodies, and then either to lure or drive them into the forest; forby a peculiar arrangement of Mother Nature this mixture has afascination, a maddening effect upon the Mynga Worm--just as a red raghas on a bull--and, enraged by the scent, it finds the spot smeared withit and delivers its deadly bite."

  "Good heaven! How horrible! And you mean to tell me--"

  "That they employed one of these deadly reptiles in this case? Yes, SirHenry. I suspected it the very moment I smelt the odour of the corianderand sassafras; but I suspected that an animal or a reptile of some kindwas at the bottom of the mystery at a prior period. That is why I wantedthe flour. Look! Do you see where I sifted it over this spot near thePatagonian plant? And do you see those serpentine tracks through themiddle of it? The Mynga Worm is there--in that box, at the roots of thatplant. Now see!"

  He caught up a horse blanket, spread it on the floor, lifted the box andplant, set them down in the middle of it, and with a quick gathering upof the ends of the blanket converted it into a bag and tied it roundwith a hitching strap.

  "Get spades, forks, anything, and dig a hole outside in the paddock," hewent on. "A deep hole--a yard deep at the least--then get some straw,some paraffin, turpentine--anything that will burn furiously andquickly--and we will soon finish the little beast."

  The servants flew to obey, and when the hole was dug he carried the bagout and lowered it carefully into it, covered it with straw, drenchedthis with a gallon or more of lamp oil, and rapidly applied a match toit and sprang back.

  A moment later those who were watching saw a small black snake make anineffectual effort to leap out of the blazing mass, fall back into theflames and disappear for ever.

  "The method of procedure?" said Cleek, answering the baronet's query asthe latter was pouring out what he called "a nerve settler," prior tofollowing the Rev. Ambrose's example and going to bed. "Very cunning,and yet very, very simple, Sir Henry. Bucarelli made a practice, as Isaw this evening, of helping the chosen watcher to make his bed on thefloor in front of the door to the steel room, but during the time he wasremoving the blankets from the cupboard his plan was to smear them withthe coriander and sassafras and so arrange the top blanket that when thewatcher lay down the stuff touched his neck or throat and made that thepoint of attack for the snake, whose fangs make a small round spot notbigger than a knitting needle, which is easily passed over by those notused to looking for such a thing. There was such a spot on Tolliver'sthroat; such another at the base of Murple's skull, and there is a thirdin poor Logan's left temple. No, thank you--no more to-night, Sir Henry.Alcohol and I are never more than speaking acquaintances at the best oftimes. But if you really wish to do me a kindness--"

  "I don't think there is room to doubt that, Mr. Cleek. If I am certainof anything in this world I am certain of Black Riot's success onWednesday; and that success I feel I shall owe to you. Money can'toffset some debts, you know; and if there is anything in the world I cando, you have only to let me know."

  "Thank you," said Cleek. "Then invite me to spend to-morrow here, andgive me the freedom of those superb gardens. My senses are drunk alreadywith the scent of your hyacinths; and if I might have a day among them,I should be as near happy as makes no difference."

  He had his day--breaking it only to 'phone up to Clarges Street andquiet any possible fears upon Dollops's part--and if ever man wassatisfied, that man was he.