Cleek of Scotland Yard: Detective Stories
Page 28
CHAPTER XXVII
"Suppose, now, that you have succeeded in putting the cart beforethe horse, Mr. Narkom," Cleek said suddenly, "you proceed to giveme, not the ramifications of the case, but the case itself. Youhave repeatedly spoken of the murder having taken place in someplace which is difficult of access and under most mystifyingcircumstances. Now, if you don't mind, I should like to hear whatthose circumstances are."
"All right, old chap, I'll give you the details as briefly aspossible. In the first place, you must know that Heatherington Hallis a very ancient place, dating back, indeed, to those pleasanttimes when a nobleman's home had to be something of a fortress aswell, if he didn't want to wake up some fine morning and find hisplace 'sacked,' his roof burnt over his head, and himself and hislady either held for ransom or freed from any possibility of having'headaches' thereafter. Now, a round tower with only one door bywhich to enter, and no windows other than narrow slits, throughwhich the bowmen could discharge their shafts at an attacking partywithout exposing themselves to the dangers of a return fire, was theusual means of defence adopted--you'll see dozens of them in Suffolk,dear chap, but whether for reasons of economy or merely to carryout some theory of his own, the first lord of Heatherington Halldid not stick to the general plan.
"In brief, instead of building a tall tower rising from the grounditself, he chose to erect upon the roof of the west wing of thebuilding a lower but more commodious one than was customary. Thatis to say, that while his tower was less than half the height ofany other in the country, its circumference was twice as great,and, by reason of the double supply of bowman's slits, equally aseffective in withstanding a siege; and, indeed, doubly difficult toassault, as before an invading force could get to the door of theplace it would have to fight its way up through the main buildingto reach the level of it.
"Now, owing to the peculiarity of its construction--it is not morethan eighteen feet high--the fact that it contained but one circularroom, and all those bowman slits in the walls of it, this unusual'tower' gained an equally unusual name for itself, and becameknown everywhere as the 'Stone Drum of Heatherington,' and is evenmentioned by that name in the _Inquisitio Eliensis_ of the "DomesdayBook," which, as you doubtless know, is the particular volume ofthat remarkable work which records the survey, et cetera, of thecounties of Cambridge, Hertford, Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, andHuntingdon."
"I see," said Cleek, with an amused twinkle in his eye. "You aregetting on, Mr. Narkom. We shall have you lecturing on archaeologyone of these fine days. But to return to our mutton--or, rather,our stone drum--was it in that place, then, that the murder wascommitted?"
"Yes. It is one of the few, very few, parts of the building towhich Mr. Jefferson P. Drake did nothing in the way of modernizing,and added nothing in the way of 'improvements.' That, probably,was because, as it stood, it offered him a quiet, secluded, andexclusive retreat for the carrying on of his experiments; forwealth had brought with it no inclination to retire, and he remainedto the last in the lists of the world's active forces. As a generalthing, he did not do much in the way of burning the midnight oil,but conducted most of his experiments in the daytime. But lastnight was an exception. It may be that the news of his son'sappeal to the lodgekeeper that afternoon had upset him, for he wasrestless and preoccupied all the evening, Lord Fallowfield says--or,at least, so young Drake reports him as having said--and instead ofretiring with the rest of the house party when bedtime came andhis Japanese valet carried up his customary carafe of ice-water----"
"Oh, he has a Japanese valet, has he? But, of course, in these daysno American gentleman with any pretence to distinction whatsoeverwould be without one. Go on, please. His Japanese valet carried upthe ice-water, and--then what?"
"Then he suddenly announced his intention of going into the StoneDrum and working for a few hours. Lord Fallowfield, it appears, triedhis best to dissuade him, but to no purpose."
"Why did he do that? Or don't you know?"
"Yes. I asked that very question myself. I was told that it wasbecause his lordship saw very plainly that he was labouring understrong mental excitement, and he thought that rest would be thebest thing for him in the circumstances. Then, too, his lordshipand he are warmly attached to each other. In fact, the earl wasas fond of him as if he had been a brother. As well he ought to be,by James! when you recollect that before he got the idea into hishead of marrying his son to Lady Marjorie he added a codicil to hiswill bequeathing the place to Lord Fallowfield, together with allthe acres and acres of land he had added to it, and all the arttreasures he had collected, absolutely free from death duties."
"Oho!" said Cleek, then smiled and pinched his chin and said no more.
"Well, it appears that when his lordship found that he couldn'tmake the stubborn old johnnie change his mind, he accompanied him tothe Stone Drum, together with the valet, to see that everything wasas it should be, and that nothing was wanting that might tend to thecomfort and convenience of a night worker. When there was nothingmore that could be done, the valet was dismissed, his lordshipsaid good-night to his friend and left him there alone, hearing, ashe passed along the railed walk over the roof of the wing to thebuilding proper (a matter of some twenty-odd feet) the sound ofthe bolt being shot, the bar put on, and the key being turned asMr. Drake locked himself in.
"What happened from that moment, Cleek, nobody knows. At seveno'clock this morning the valet, going to his master's room withhis shaving-water, found that he had never gone to bed at all,and, on hastening to the Stone Drum, found that a light was stillburning within and faintly illuminating the bowman's slits; butalthough he knocked on the door and called again and again to hismaster, he could get no answer. Alarmed, he aroused the entirehousehold; but despite the fact that a dozen persons endeavoured toget word from the man within, not so much as a whisper rewardedthem. The bolt was still 'shot,' the bar still on, the key stillturned on the inner side of the door, so they could force no entryto the place; and it was never until the village blacksmith hadbeen called in and his sledge had battered down the age-weakenedmasonry in which that door was set that any man knew for certainwhat that burning light and that unbroken silence portended. When,however, they finally got into the place there lay the once famousinventor at full length on the oaken floor close to the barreddoor, as dead as George Washington, and with never a sign of whatkilled him either on the body or in any part of the place. Yetthe first look at his distorted features was sufficient to provethat he had died in agony, and the position of the corpse showedclearly that when the end came he was endeavouring to get to thedoor."
"Heart failure, possibly," said Cleek.
"Not a hope of it," replied Narkom. "A doctor was sent forimmediately; fortunately one of the most famous surgeons in Englandhappened to be in the neighbourhood at the time--called down fromtown to perform an operation. He is willing, so young Mr. Draketells me, to stake his professional reputation that the man'sheart was as sound as a guinea; that he had not imbibed one dropof anything poisonous; that he had not been asphyxiated, as, ofcourse, he couldn't have been, for the bowman's slits in the wallgave free ventilation to the place, if nothing more; that he hadnot been shot, stabbed, or bludgeoned, but, nevertheless, he haddied by violence, and that violence was not, and could not be,attributed to suicide, for there was everything to prove to thecontrary. In short, that whatever had attacked him had done sounexpectedly and while he was busy at his work-table, for therewas the chair lying on its back before it, just as it had fallenover when he jumped up from his seat, and there on the 'working plan'he was drawing up was the pen lying on a blob of India ink, justas it had dropped from his hand when he was stricken. Somemurderous force had entered that room, and passed out of itagain, leaving the door barred, bolted, and locked upon theinside. Some weapon had been used, and yet no weapon was there andno trace upon the body to indicate what its character might be.Indeed, everything in the room was precisely as it had been whenLord Fallowfield walked out last night and left him, beyond thefact of
the overturned chair and a little puddle of clear waterlying about a yard or so from the work-table and, owing to thewaxing and polishing, not yet absorbed by the wood of the floor. Asno one could account for the presence of that, and as it was theonly thing there which might offer a possible clue to the mystery,the doctor took a small sample of that water and analyzed it. Itwas simply plain, everyday, common, or garden pure water, andnothing more, without the slightest trace of any foreign matter orof any poisonous substance in it whatsoever. There, old chap,that's the 'case'--that's the little riddle you're asked to comedown and solve. What do you make of it, eh?"
"Tell you better when I've seen Mr. James Drake and Lord Fallowfieldand--the doctor," said Cleek, and would say no more than that forthe present.