by Sax Rohmer
“Excuse me, sir,” he said — and cleared his throat.
“Yes, Coates?”
“About half an hour ago, sir, the dogs all around started howling, sir. I thought I’d better mention it, as Inspector Gatton asked me this morning if I had ever heard the dogs howling.”
I looked at him straightly.
“Inspector Gatton asked you thus?”
“He did, sir. So I have reported the occurrence, Good night, sir.”
“Good night, Coates,” I replied.
But for long enough after his departure I sat there in the armchair in my study, thinking over this seemingly trivial occurrence. From where I sat I could see the light shining upon the gilt-lettered title of Maspero’s “Egyptian Art” — and my thoughts promised to be ill bedfellows.
Contrary to custom, I slept that night with closed windows! And although I awakened twice, once at two o’clock and again at four, thinking that I had heard the mournful signal of the dogs, nothing but my own uneasy imagination disturbed my slumbers.
Breakfast despatched, and my correspondence dealt with, I sent Coates to the garage for my little car, and since I should have another companion, left him behind, and myself drove to Isobel’s flat. Woman-like, she was not nearly ready, and there was much bustling on the part of the repentant Marie — who had been retained in spite of her share in the tragedy of Sir Marcus’s death — before we finally set out for Mrs. Wentworth’s.
Isobel was very silent on the way, but once I intercepted a sidelong glance and felt my heart leaping madly when she blushed.
Mrs. Wentworth made me very welcome as had ever been her way. She was an eccentric, but embarrassingly straightforward old lady; and if I had heeded her simple motherly counsel in the past all might have been different.
She bore Isobel off to her room, leaving me to my own devices, for she had never observed any ceremony towards me in all the years that I had known her, but had taught me to make myself at home beneath her hospitable roof. I knew, too, because she had never troubled to disguise the fact, that she regarded Isobel and me as made for one another. Isobel’s engagement to poor Eric Coverly, Mrs. Wentworth had all along regarded as a ghastly farce, and I can never forget her reception of me on the occasion of my first visit after returning from Mesopotamia.
Half an hour or so elapsed, then, before Isobel returned; and, although she came into the room confidently enough, the old tension reasserted itself immediately. I felt that commonplaces would choke me. And although to this day I cannot condone my behavior, for the good of my soul I must confess the truth.
I took her in my arms, held her fast and kissed her.
An overwhelming consciousness of guilt came to me even as her lips met mine, and, releasing her, I turned aside, groaning.
“Isobel!” I said hoarsely— “Isobel, forgive me! I was a cad, a villain... to him. But — it was inevitable. Try to forget that I was so weak. But, Isobel—”
I felt her hand trembling on my arm.
“We must both try to forget, Jack,” she whispered.
I grasped her hands and looked eagerly — indeed I think wildly — into her eyes.
“Because my life is over if I lose you,” I said, “I suppose I was mad for a moment. Tell me that one day — when it is fit and proper that you should do so — you will give me a hearing, and I will perform any penance you choose. I acted like a blackguard.”
“Stop!” she commanded softly.
She raised her eyes, and her grave, sweet glance cooled the fever which consumed me and brought a great and abiding peace to my heart.
“You were no more to blame than I!” she said. “And because — I understand, it is not hard to forgive. I don’t try to excuse myself, but even if — he — had lived, I could never have gone on with it, after his ... suspicions. Oh, Jack! why did you leave me to make that awful mistake?”
“My dearest,” I replied, “God knows I have suffered for it.”
“Please,” she said, and her voice faltered, “help me to be fair to ... him. Never — never — speak to me again — like that ... until—”
But the sentence was never completed; for at this moment in bustled Aunt Alison — in appearance a white-haired, rosy-faced little matron, very brisk in her movements and very shrewd-eyed. A dear old lady, dearer than ever to me in that she had tried so hard to bring Isobel and my laggard self together. She had, as usual, more to say than could be said in the time at her disposal. As we proceeded to the dining-room:
“Now then, you boys and girls, I’m starving, if you’re not. What a time I’ve had with cook, not knowing when you might be here. Cook’s leaving to be married: I’m afraid she’s neglected this sea-kale. Dear, dear! what love will do for people’s minds, to be sure. Put your hair straight, Isobel, dear, or Mary will think Jack has been kissing you! I saw her kiss the postman yesterday. Mary, I mean! You’re eating like a pigeon, Jack! Gracious me! Where’s the pepper? Mary! Ring the bell, Isobel. I must speak to that postman; he’s made Mary forget to put any pepper in the cruet, and any one might have seen them. It isn’t respectable!”
“Dear Aunt Alison!” I said, as the active old lady ran out (Mary not being promptly enough in attendance). “She loves to keep running in and out like a waiter! What a friend she has been to me, Isobel! You could not be in better company at such a time.”
“She’s a darling!” agreed Isobel, and when I met her glance across the table she blushed entrancingly.
Then, in a moment, tears were in her eyes; and knowing of whom she was thinking, I sat abashed — guilty and repentant. I had transgressed against the murdered man; and there and then I made a solemn, silent vow that no word of love again should pass my lips until the fit and proper time of mourning was over. Because I faithfully kept this vow, I dare to hope that my sin is forgiven me.
Luncheon at that homely house, with Isobel, was an unalloyed delight; and I regretted every passing minute which brought me nearer to the time when I must depart. But when at last I said good-by it was a new world upon which I looked — a new life upon which I entered. I have said that to-day I venture to hope my poor human transgression is forgiven me. Yet it did not go unpunished. Little did I dream, in my strange new happiness, how soon I was to return to that house — how soon I was to know the deadliest terror of my life.
CHAPTER XXIV A CONFERENCE — INTERRUPTED
“The case has narrowed down,” said Gatton, “from my point of view, into the quest of one man—”
“Dr. Damar Greefe!”
“Precisely. You have asked me what I found at Friar’s Park and the Bell House, and I can answer you very briefly. Nothing! The latter place, had quite obviously been fired in a systematic and deliberate way. I suspect that the contents of the rooms had been soaked with petrol. It burned to a shell and then collapsed. At the present moment it is merely a mound of smoking ashes.
“Of course, the local fire-brigade was hopelessly ill-equipped, but even with the most up-to-date appliances I doubt if the conflagration could have been extinguished. The men watching the house were thrown quite off their guard when flames began to leap out of the windows: hence, the escape of Damar Greefe.”
“You are sure he did escape?”
Gatton stared at me grimly.
“To whom do you suppose you are indebted for the telephone trick?” he asked. “Besides — Blythe, the fool, actually heard the car at the moment that it came out on to the highroad! Oh, they bungled the thing villainously. My Marathon feat saved your life, Mr. Addison, but it looks like losing me the case! We have the Hawkins couple. But, although a graceless pair, they were more dupes than knaves. I am convinced, personally, that neither of them suspected that Lady Burnham Coverly was dead. Damar Greefe had represented to them that she had lost her reason.”
“Good heavens! what a scheme!”
“What a scheme, indeed. Hawkins seems to have considered that his duty — which was merely to keep intruders out of the park — was dictated by necessity. He
thought that if Lady Coverly’s real condition became known she would be removed to a madhouse! He also thought that a nurse was in attendance.”
“A nurse!”
“Yes. He assured me that he had heard and seen her! Mrs. Hawkins also was certain on the point. Neither of them were ever allowed in the house, by the way. But Damar Greefe paid them well — and they were satisfied. The identity of the ‘nurse’ is evident, I think?”
“Perfectly evident. But how was poor Lady Coverly disposed of — and why this elaborate secrecy?”
“Well,” replied Gatton slowly— “out of the multitude of notes which I have compiled upon the case, I have worked out a sort of summary, and it amounts to this: The whole series of outrages turns upon something in the financial arrangements of the late Sir Burnham of benefit to the Eurasian doctor. It may be that Damar Greefe had some secret locked up in the Bell House which he could not very well remove, and that the greatest peril he feared was the taking over of the Park property by an heir. I assume he had complete authority over the late Lady Burnham; and his object in concealing her death (for our investigations at Friar’s Park have definitely established the fact that no one had resided there for twelve months at least) was clearly this: he hoped to carry on the pretense of attending upon the invalid until—”
“Until there was no heir to the property remaining alive!” I interrupted excitedly. “Exactly, Gatton! That is my own theory, too!
“We have now received,” continued the Inspector, “some particulars concerning the circumstances of Roger Coverly’s death in Basle. Whilst there was no direct evidence of foul play (and at that time at any rate no reason to suspect it) I am convinced that the local physician who attended him at the hotel and the specialist who was sent for post-haste from Zurich were by no means agreed as to the cause of death.
“The symptoms were apparently not unlike those which would be caused by a snake-bite, for instance; but naturally one does not look for poisonous snakes in Switzerland. There was some sort of inflammation of the skin apparently” — he consulted a page of his note-book— “which might have been eczema or something similar, of course, but which according to medical evidence had no apparent connection with the cause of his death. This was given in the certificate simply as syncope — although there did not appear to be any hereditary cardiac trouble or anything of the kind to account for a young fellow of that age dying suddenly of heart failure. And there had been nothing in his life during his sojourn at Basle which would help to clear up the mystery.
“However, no doubt seems to have arisen at the time, as you can well understand; nevertheless, I, personally, count the death of Roger Coverly as the first of the outrages to be laid to the credit of Dr. Damar Greefe!”
“The object of the whole thing is still completely dark to me,” I declared.
“In a sense it is dark to me,” replied Gatton; “but considering that the boy died at a time when the health of his father, Sir Burnham, was already giving cause for anxiety, I maintain that he was removed because his inheritance of Friar’s Park was feared — by some one. The invitation from Dr. Damar Greefe to Sir Marcus is a very significant piece of evidence, of course; and when we consider that it reached Sir Marcus within a very short time of his return from Russia, the conclusion is obvious.
“He inherited the title on the death of Sir Burnham, whilst he was on service in Archangel. Being in Russia, I conclude that he was not accessible from the Eurasian doctor’s point of view. Directly he became accessible, this invitation arrived; and it is perfectly clear that the fate intended for him was that which so nearly befell yourself! Remember, I have seen the gun mounted on the tower of Friar’s Park and I assure you it was not placed there yesterday. In short, I have no doubt that it was put there in anticipation of Sir Marcus’s visit and only employed in your case as a sort of afterthought.
“The Red House plot was the next move on the part of the Eurasian, and it succeeded almost faultlessly. The accident at the docks prevented the scheme being carried out in all its details, but it did not entirely dislocate the murderer’s arrangements, for it left us with no better clew to his identity than the statuette of the cat.”
“The presence of that statuette calls for some explanation, Gatton,” I said.
Gatton very carefully lighted his pipe.
“That is true,” he admitted, “but I will come to this side of the case later; at present I am summing up the evidence against Damar Greefe — who is certainly the acting partner in this series of outrages against the members of the house of Coverly. Observe the ingenuity of the Red House plot.
“He hoped by this not only to bring about the death of Sir Marcus, but also, by conviction for his murder, the death of the next heir, Mr. Eric Coverly! In fact, so well was his plan conducted, that even now — although we know poor Sir Eric to have been innocent — you will note that he has been unable to establish an alibi even by a full confession of his movements on the night of the crime! In other words, if he had not fallen a victim to the precipitancy of his enemies, to-day his name would be under as black a cloud as ever. It was with the idea of clearing him that I caused those paragraphs to be distributed to the press, in which I anticipated the existence of such a confession as he had actually made — but, I may add, of one more convincing than that which we heard Miss Merlin read.”
“Do you mean, Gatton,” I said, looking hard at him, “that by professing to have established the innocence of Eric Coverly, you hoped to draw down upon him the renewed activities of his enemies?”
Gatton looked rather guilty, but:
“I do admit it!” he said. “Nevertheless he did not fall a victim to this trap which I had laid for him in his own best interests. After all, you must admit that his death was an accident; for he suffered the penalty of your misdeeds.”
“My misdeeds!” I cried.
Gatton smiled grimly.
“I say misdeeds,” he continued— “although they were not conscious on your part. But it is fairly evident, I think, that whereas the unknown partner of Dr. Damar Greefe was an active enemy of the Coverlys (witness the evidence of ‘the voice’ and of the cat statuette), it is to Dr. Damar Greefe himself that you are indebted for the three attempts on your life; the first two at Upper Crossleys and the third here in your own home by the simple but deadly expedient of substituting for your own ‘phone the duplicate one which previously had been employed so successfully at the Red House! He hoped to remove a dangerous obstacle from his path and a menace to this safety.”
“But, my dear Gatton, why should he regard me as a menace more deadly than you, for instance?”
“The reason is very plain,” answered Gatton. “I don’t think he paid you the compliment of regarding your investigations as likely to prove more successful than my own, but I do think that he apprehended danger from the indiscretions of his lady accomplice.”
“Do you refer to the woman who visited me at the Abbey Inn?”
“I do,” said Gatton shortly, “and to the woman who visited you here and stole the statuette of Bâst! The history of Edward Hines and his predecessor, which you have so admirably summarized, points to the presence in the Upper Crossleys neighborhood of such a character as we have been seeking ever since your experience here (I refer to the cat-eyes which looked in through the window).”
“I begin to see, Gatton,” I said slowly.
“With what object this unknown woman visited you at the Abbey Inn I cannot conjecture, but doubtless this would have been revealed had not her visit been interrupted and terminated by the appearance of the Eurasian doctor upon the scene. From your own account she recognized that she had committed an indiscretion by coming there, and of the doctor’s anger — which he was quite unable to conceal — you have told me. Note also that the next episode was your being followed by Cassim, the Nubian, undoubtedly with murderous intent. Then, recognizing that he had hopelessly compromised himself, the Eurasian took desperate means to silence you for ever.”
“He did,” I said, “and came very near to succeeding. But to return, Gatton, to this problem of the image of Bâst. You see, the figure of a cat was painted upon the case in which Sir Marcus’s body was found and the image of a cat was discovered inside the case. Then, you will not have overlooked the significance of the fact that Edward Hines was the recipient of a present from his unknown friend which also took the form of a gold figure of a cat, and which I found, when I examined it, to be of ancient Egyptian workmanship.”
“Right!” said Gatton, and emphatically bringing his open hand down upon the table: “I said at the very beginning of the case, Mr. Addison, that it turned upon the history of this Egyptian goddess, and I think my theory has been substantiated at every point.”
“It has, Inspector,” I agreed; “but I don’t know that the fact enlightens us very much; for it merely indicates that the man whom you declare to be the central figure of the conspiracy is only a secondary figure, and that all we know about the person whom we may regard as the prime mover is that she is a woman — apparently possessing supernormal eyes which glitter in the dark. She is also associated in some way with the figure of Bâst. What is her relation to Dr. Damar Greefe and in what way is she interested in the destruction of the Coverly family?”
Gatton smoked in silence for a while, staring at me reflectively, then:
“If we knew that, Mr. Addison,” he said, “we should know all there is to know about ‘the Oritoga mystery.’ But I think we should have advanced a long step towards this information if we could apprehend the Eurasian. Of course we have gathered up all the ragged details of the Red House incident: I refer to the carter who delivered the crate and collected it in the morning, of the caterer who supplied the supper and so forth. As I had fully expected, none of the evidence helped us at all.”
