by Sax Rohmer
“She has but just hurried off to London, doctor,” he said, to my surprise. “A telegram from the solicitors rendered her immediate departure unavoidable.”
“She has sustained this dreadful blow with exemplary fortitude,” I replied. “Are you sure she was strong enough for travel?”
“I myself escorted her to the station; and Mrs. Grierson, the late baronet’s sister, has accompanied her to London.”
“By the way,” I said, “whilst I remember — was Sir Jeffrey carrying a cane at the time of his death?”
“He had with him a heavy ash stick, as usual, when we parted at Sotheby’s, doctor; but, of course, he may have left it there, as he had a large parcel to take.”
“Ah! that parcel! You can no doubt enlighten me, Mr. Damopolon? What, roughly, were the dimensions of this Burmese idol?”
“The monkey? I don’t think it was actually an idol, doctor; it was, rather, a grotesque ornament. Oh, it was about the size of a small Moorish ape, hollow, and weighing perhaps six or seven pounds.”
“Was it upon a pedestal?”
“No. It was completely modelled, even to the soles of the feet and the nails.”
“Extraordinary!” I muttered. “Uncanny!”
Some little while longer I remained, and then set out, my doubts in no measure cleared up, for the cottage. To my surprise — for I had no idea that I had tarried so long — dusk was come. I will frankly confess it — I experienced a thrill of supernatural dread at the thought that my path led close beside Black Gap. However, it was a glorious evening, and I should have plenty of light for my return journey. I walked briskly across the moorpath toward the scene of the mysterious crime, hoping that I should find East returned when I gained the cottage.
Perhaps in a wandering life I have known more thrilling moments than some men; but never while memory serves shall I forget that, when, coming abreast of the coppice, and glancing hurriedly into the shadow of the trees ... I saw a crouching figure looking out at me!
Speech momentarily failed me; I stood rooted to the spot. Then:
“All right, old man!” I heard. “Shall be with you in a moment!”
It was East!
Fear changed to the wildest astonishment. Carrying a strange-looking bundle, he came out and joined me on the path.
“Did I frighten you?”
“Is it necessary to ask!” I cried. “But — whatever were you doing there by the Black Gap?”
“Fishing! Look what I have caught!”
He held up for my inspection the object which he carried, by means of two loops of stout cord bound about it. It was a large china figure of an ape!
“The blue monkey!” he snapped. “Come! I am going to The Warrens.”
IV
Again I sat in the fine old library of The Warrens. At the further end of the long, book-laden table, facing me, sat East; Mr. Damopolon occupied a chair on the right, and midway between us, in the centre of the table, presiding over that strange meeting, was the fateful blue monkey.
“You see, Mr. Damopolon,” said East, “I knew that Sir Jeffrey was carrying this thing” — he indicated the image— “at the time of his death, and, since it had disappeared, I assumed at first that it had been the motive of the crime. Sir Jeffrey had money and other valuables upon him; therefore we were obviously dealing with no ordinary thief.
“Accordingly, I made inquiries respecting the history of the thing, and found that it possessed but little market value and next to no historical importance. It was of comparatively modern Chinese workmanship, and Sir Jeffrey had bought it, apparently, because it amused him, though why he should have taken the trouble to carry it home, heaven only knows. My first idea — that the curio was a very rare and costly piece — was thus knocked on the head.
“I sought another motive for a crime so horrible and, by a stroke of intuition, I found one. You may not have had an opportunity of studying the mysterious tracks which so puzzled us, Mr. Damopolon, before they were obliterated, but my friend, the doctor, will bear me out. They commenced, then, close beside the body of the murdered man, and they were, as I now perceive, made by the feet of this blue monstrosity upon the table here!”
“Impossible,” murmured the secretary incredulously.
“So it appeared to me at the time, when, although I had not then seen the image of the monkey, I perceived, by the absolutely regular character of the impressions, that they were made, not by a living creature, but by the model of one which had been firmly pressed into the soft ground at slightly varying intervals. Since no footprints other than those of Sir Jeffrey were to be found in the vicinity, I was unable to account for the presence of the person who had made these impressions. I devoted myself to a close scrutiny of those footprints of Sir Jeffrey’s which led up to the scene of the attack. It became apparent, immediately, that some one had followed him ... some one who crept silently along behind the unsuspecting victim ... some one so clever that he placed his feet almost exactly in the marks made by the baronet!
“Good! I had accounted for the presence of the murderer. He struck Sir Jeffrey with some heavy implement, but failed to stun him. Then began the struggle, which so churned up the ground that all tracks were lost. The murderer prevailed. He was a man of wonderful nerve. Never once did he place his foot upon virgin ground; not one imprint by which he might be identified did he leave behind him!”
“Then how,” inquired Damopolon, who was hanging upon every word, “did he leave the scene if — —”
“Listen,” snapped East. “I found by the body the torn paper in which the china image had been wrapped — but no string! I went all the way to London to learn if the parcel had been tied with string and if Sir Jeffrey had been carrying a stick!”
“But surely,” said Damopolon, “I could have saved you the journey, since I was with the late baronet immediately before he set out for home.”
“Quite so — but I had another reason for my visit.”
East shot a sudden glance from Damopolon to myself, and there ensued a moment of electric silence.
“Beside the track made by the feet of the image,” he resumed slowly, “I found a series of wedge-shaped holes, one on either side of each monkey-impression. Do you follow me, Mr. Damopolon?”
“Perfectly,” replied the Greek, taking up and lighting a cigarette. “Wedge-shaped holes, you say?”
“They were the clue for which I sought! I saw it all! The china ape had been used as a stepping-stone! The cunning criminal had thus gained the firm ground in the coppice without leaving a footprint behind!...”
“But, my dear East,” I interrupted, “I cannot follow you. He stepped from beside the body on to the image, which he had placed at a convenient distance?”
“Yes. Then, by means of loops of string — see, they are still attached! — he lifted it forward with his feet — —”
“But — —”
“Supporting his weight upon two sticks — Sir Jeffrey’s and his own! Hence the wedge-shaped holes beside the track! He had actually reached firm ground when his own stick snapped off short, and he made the fatal error of leaving the fragment and the ferrule, imbedded in the hole! Here is the fragment!”
On the table East laid a fragment of an ebony cane, broken off short some three inches above the nickel ferrule.
“Ebony is so brittle, is it not, Mr. Damopolon?” he said.
“It is indeed,” agreed Damopolon, standing up as though he believed East to have finished.
“Yet this stick was made of a particularly fine piece,” added East. “Carter!” he cried loudly.
The library door opened ... and Detective Sergeant Carter, of New Scotland Yard, entered, carrying a broken ebony stick. Damopolon dropped his cigarette, and, whilst he stooped to recover it:
“Carter and I went fishing this afternoon,” said East, “in the Black Gap. The criminal had sought to hide the broken cane — which bears his monogram — and also the image. He had tied them together, filled the im
age with clay, and dropped them into the water. Fortunately, they stuck upon an outstanding mass of weeds, and we did not fish in vain. Is there any point, Mr. Damopolon, which I have not made clear? I don’t know what implement you used to strike Sir Jeffrey, nor do I know what you did with his ash-stick!...”
Clutching wildly at the table, I rose to my feet, my gaze set amazedly upon the man thus accused, upon the man I had called my friend, upon the man who owed so much to the dead baronet. And he?... He tossed his cigarette into the hearth and shrugged his shoulders. But, now, I saw that he was deathly pale. He began speaking, in a hoarse, mechanical voice:
“I struck him with a broken elm branch,” he said. “His hat saved him. I completed the matter with my bare hands. I was desperate. You need not tell me that Olive — Miss Baird — has confessed to our secret marriage, nor shall I weary you with the many reasons I had to hate her father and the pressing need I had for the fortune which she inherits at his death. It is finished; I have lost, and — —”
“Carter!” cried East. “Quick! quick!”
But though the detective, who had been edging nearer and nearer to the speaker, now sprang upon him with the leap of a panther, he was too late. The sound of a muffled shot echoed through The Warrens, and the Greek fell with an appalling crash fully over the library table, so that the blue monkey slid across its polished surface and was shattered to bits upon the oaken floor!
The Riddle of Ragstaff
I
“Well, Harry, my boy, and what’s the latest news from Venice?”
Harry Lorian stretched his long legs and lay back in his chair.
“I had a letter from the governor this morning, Colonel. He appears to be filling his portfolio with studies of windows and doorways and stair-rails and the other domestic necessities dear to his architectural soul!”
Colonel Reynor laughed in his short, gruff way, as my friend, Lorian, gazing sleepily about the quaint old hall in which we sat, but always bringing his gaze to one point — a certain door — blew rings of smoke straightly upward.
“I suppose,” said our host, the Colonel, “most of the material will be used for the forthcoming book?”
“I suppose so,” drawled Lorian, glancing for the twentieth time at the yet vacant doorway by the stair-foot. “The idea of architects and artists and other constitutionally languid people, having to write books, fills my soul with black horror.”
“He had a glorious time with our old panelling, Harry,” laughed the Colonel, waving his cigar vaguely toward the panelled walls and nooks which gradually were receding into the twilight.
“Yes,” said my friend. “He was here quite an unconscionable time — even for an old school chum of the proprietor. I hope you counted the spoons when he left!”
Lorian’s disrespectful references to Sir Julius, his father, were characteristic; for he reverences that famous artist with the double love of a son and a pupil.
“Of course we did,” chuckled Reynor. “Nothing missing, my boy!”
“That’s funny,” drawled Lorian. “Because if he didn’t steal it from here I can’t imagine from where he stole it!”
“Stole what, Harry?”
“Whatever some chap broke into his studio for last night!”
“Eh!” cried the Colonel, sitting suddenly very upright. “Into your father’s studio? Burglars?”
“Suppose so,” was the reply. “They took nothing that I was aware to be in his possession, though the place was ransacked. I naturally concluded that they had taken something that I was unaware to be in his —— Ah!”
Sybil Reynor entered by the door which, for the past twenty minutes, had been the focus of Lorian’s gaze. The gathering dusk precluded the possibility of my seeing with certainty, but I think her face flushed as her dark eyes rested upon my friend. Her beauty is not of the kind which needs deceptive half-lights to perfect it, but there in the dimness, as she came towards us, she looked very lovely and divinely graceful. I did not envy Lorian his good fortune; but I suppressed a sigh when I saw how my existence had escaped the girl’s notice and how the world in her eyes, contained only a Henry Lorian, R.I.
Her mother entered shortly afterwards and a general conversation arose, which continued until the arrival of Ralph Edie and his sister. They were accompanied by Felix Hulme; and their advent completed the small party expected at Ragstaff Park.
“You late arrivals,” said Lorian, “have only just time to dress, unless you want to miss everything but the nuts!”
“Oh, Harry!” said Mrs. Reynor, “you are as bad as your father!”
“Worse,” said Lorian promptly. “I am altogether more rude and have a bigger appetite!”
With such seeming trivialities, then, opened the drama of Ragstaff, the drama in which Fate had cast four of us for leading rôles.
II
Following dinner, the men — or, as my friend has it, “the gunners” — drifted into the hall. The hall at Ragstaff Park is fitted as a smoking lounge. It dates back to Tudor days and affords some magnificent examples of mediæval panelling. At every point the eye meets the device of a man with a ragged staff — from which the place derives its name, and which is the crest of the Reynors.
A conversation took place to which, at the time, I attached small importance, but which, later, assumed a certain significance.
“Extraordinary business,” said Felix Hulme— “that attempted burglary at Sir Julius’s studio last night.”
“Yes,” replied Lorian. “Who told you?”
Hulme appeared to be confused by the abrupt question.
“Oh,” he replied, “I heard of it from Baxter, who has the next studio, you know.”
“When did you see Baxter?” asked Lorian casually.
“This morning.”
“I suppose,” said Colonel Reynor to my friend, “a number of your father’s drawings are there?”
“Yes,” answered Lorian slowly; “but the more valuable ones I have at my own studio, including those intended for use in his book.”
Something in his tone caused me to glance hard at him.
“You don’t think they were the burglar’s objective?” I suggested.
“Hardly,” was the reply. “They would be worthless to a thief.”
“First I’ve heard of this attempt, Lorian,” said Edie. “Anything missing?”
“No. The thing is an utter mystery. There were some odds and ends lying about which no ordinary burglar could very well have overlooked.”
“If any loss had been sustained,” said the Colonel, half jestingly, “I should have put it down to the Riddle!”
“Don’t quite follow you. Colonel,” remarked Edie. “What riddle?”
“The family Riddle of the Ragstaffs,” explained Lorian. “You’ve seen it — over there by the staircase.”
“Oh!” exclaimed the other, “you mean that inscription on the panel — which means nothing in particular? Yes, I have examined it several times. But why should it affect the fortunes of Sir Julius?”
“You see,” was the Colonel’s reply, “we have a tradition in the family, Edie, that the Riddle brings us luck, but brings misfortune to anyone else who has it in his possession. It’s never been copied before; but I let Lorian — Sir Julius — make a drawing of it for his forthcoming book on Decorative Wood-carving. I don’t know,” he added smilingly, “if the mysterious influence follows the copy or only appertains to the original.”
“Let us have another look at it,” said Edie. “It has acquired a new interest!”
The whole party of us passed idly across the hall to the foot of the great staircase. From the direction of the drawing-room proceeded the softly played strains of the Duetto from Cavalleria. I knew Sybil Reynor was the player, and I saw Lorian glance impatiently in the direction of the door. Hulme detected the glance, too, and an expression rested momentarily upon his handsome face which I found myself at a loss to define.
“You see,” said the Colonel, holding a candle
close to the time-blackened panel, “it is a meaningless piece of mediæval doggerel roughly carved in the wood. The oak-leaf border is very fine, so your father tells me, Harry” — to Lorian— “but it is probably the work of another hand, as is the man and ragged staff which form the shield at the top.”
“Has it ever occurred to you,” asked Hulme, “that the writing might be of a very much later date — late Stuart, for instance?”
“No,” replied the Colonel abruptly, and turned away. “I am sure it is earlier than that.”
I was not the only member of the party who noticed the curt tone of his reply; and when we had all retired for the night I lingered in Lorian’s room and reverted to the matter.
“Is the late Stuart period a sore point with the Colonel?” I asked.
Lorian, who was in an unusually thoughtful mood, lighted his pipe and nodded.
“It is said,” he explained, “that a Reynor at about that time turned buccaneer and became the terror of the two Atlantics! I don’t know what possessed Hulme to say such a thing. Probably he doesn’t know about the piratical page in the family records, however. He’s a strange chap.”
“He is,” I agreed. “Everybody seems to know him, yet nobody knows anything about him. I first met him at the Travellers’ Club. I was unaware, until I came down here this time, that the Colonel was one of his friends.”
“Edie brought him down first,” replied Lorian. “But I think Hulme had met Sybil — Miss Reynor — in London, before. I may be a silly ass, but somehow I distrust the chap — always have. He seems to know altogether too much about other people’s affairs.”
I mentally added that he also took too great an interest in a certain young lady to suit Lorian’s taste. We chatted upon various matters — principally upon the manners, customs, and manifold beauties of Sybil Reynor — until my friend’s pipe went out. Then I bade him good night and went to my own room.
