Four Max Carrados Detective Stories

by Ernest Bramah

lightning is sovaried in its effects that whatever he did or did not do would beright. He is in the impregnable position of the body showing all thesymptoms of death by lightning shock and nothing else but lightning toaccount for it--a dilated eye, heart contracted in systole, bloodlesslungs shrunk to a third the normal weight, and all the rest of it.When he has removed a few outward traces of his work Creake mightquite safely 'discover' his dead wife and rush off for the nearestdoctor. Or he may have decided to arrange a convincing alibi, andcreep away, leaving the discovery to another. We shall never know; hewill make no confession."

  "I wish it was well over," admitted Hollyer, "I'm not particularlyjumpy, but this gives me a touch of the creeps."

  "Three more hours at the worst, lieutenant," said Carrados cheerfully."Ah-ha, something is coming through now."

  He went to the telephone and received a message from one quarter; thenmade another connection and talked for a few minutes with someoneelse.

  "Everything working smoothly," he remarked between times over hisshoulder. "Your sister has gone to bed, Mr. Hollyer."

  Then he turned to the house telephone and distributed his orders.

  "So we," he concluded, "must get up."

  By the time they were ready a large closed motor car was waiting. Thelieutenant thought he recognised Parkinson in the well-swathed formbeside the driver, but there was no temptation to linger for a secondon the steps. Already the stinging rain had lashed the drive into thesemblance of a frothy estuary; all round the lightning jagged itscourse through the incessant tremulous glow of more distant lightning,while the thunder only ceased its muttering to turn at close quartersand crackle viciously.

  "One of the few things I regret missing," remarked Carradostranquilly; "but I hear a good deal of colour in it."

  The car slushed its way down to the gate, lurched a little heavilyacross the dip into the road, and, steadying as it came upon thestraight, began to hum contentedly along the deserted highway.

  "We are not going direct?" suddenly inquired Hollyer, after they hadtravelled perhaps half-a-dozen miles. The night was bewildering enoughbut he had the sailor's gift for location.

  "No; through Hunscott Green and then by a field-path to the orchard atthe back," replied Carrados. "Keep a sharp look out for the man withthe lantern about here, Harris," he called through the tube.

  "Something flashing just ahead, sir," came the reply, and the carslowed down and stopped.

  Carrados dropped the near window as a man in glistening waterproofstepped from the shelter of a lich-gate and approached.

  "Inspector Beedel, sir," said the stranger, looking into the car.

  "Quite right, Inspector," said Carrados. "Get in."

  "I have a man with me, sir."

  "We can find room for him as well."

  "We are very wet."

  "So shall we all be soon."

  The lieutenant changed his seat and the two burly forms took placesside by side. In less than five minutes the car stopped again, thistime in a grassy country lane.

  "Now we have to face it," announced Carrados. "The inspector will showus the way."

  The car slid round and disappeared into the night, while Beedel ledthe party to a stile in the hedge. A couple of fields brought them tothe Brookbend boundary. There a figure stood out of the black foliage,exchanged a few words with their guide and piloted them along theshadows of the orchard to the back door of the house.

  "You will find a broken pane near the catch of the scullery window,"said the blind man.

  "Right, sir," replied the inspector. "I have it. Now who goesthrough?"

  "Mr. Hollyer will open the door for us. I'm afraid you must take offyour boots and all wet things, Lieutenant. We cannot risk a singlespot inside."

  They waited until the back door opened, then each one divested himselfin a similar manner and passed into the kitchen, where the remains ofa fire still burned. The man from the orchard gathered together thediscarded garments and disappeared again.

  Carrados turned to the lieutenant.

  "A rather delicate job for you now, Mr. Hollyer. I want you to go upto your sister, wake her, and get her into another room with as littlefuss as possible. Tell her as much as you think fit and let herunderstand that her very life depends on absolute stillness when sheis alone. Don't be unduly hurried, but not a glimmer of a light,please."

  Ten minutes passed by the measure of the battered old alarum on thedresser shelf before the young man returned.

  "I've had rather a time of it," he reported, with a nervous laugh,"but I think it will be all right now. She is in the spare room."

  "Then we will take our places. You and Parkinson come with me to thebedroom. Inspector, you have your own arrangements. Mr. Carlyle willbe with you."

  They dispersed silently about the house. Hollyer glancedapprehensively at the door of the spare room as they passed it, butwithin was as quiet as the grave. Their room lay at the other end ofthe passage.

  "You may as well take your place in the bed now, Hollyer," directedCarrados when they were inside and the door closed. "Keep well downamong the clothes. Creake has to get up on the balcony, you know, andhe will probably peep through the window, but he dare come no farther.Then when he begins to throw up stones slip on this dressing-gown ofyour sister's. I'll tell you what to do after."

  The next sixty minutes drew out into the longest hour that thelieutenant had ever known. Occasionally he heard a whisper passbetween the two men who stood behind the window curtains, but he couldsee nothing. Then Carrados threw a guarded remark in his direction.

  "He is in the garden now."

  Something scraped slightly against the outer wall. But the night wasfull of wilder sounds, and in the house the furniture and the boardscreaked and sprung between the yawling of the wind among the chimneys,the rattle of the thunder and the pelting of the rain. It was a timeto quicken the steadiest pulse, and when the crucial moment came, whena pebble suddenly rang against the pane with a sound that the tensewaiting magnified into a shivering crash, Hollyer leapt from the bedon the instant.

  "Easy, easy," warned Carrados feelingly. "We will wait for anotherknock." He passed something across. "Here is a rubber glove. I havecut the wire but you had better put it on. Stand just for a moment atthe window, move the catch so that it can blow open a little, and dropimmediately. Now."

  Another stone had rattled against the glass. For Hollyer to go throughhis part was the work merely of seconds, and with a few touchesCarrados spread the dressing-gown to more effective disguise about theextended form. But an unforeseen and in the circumstances ratherhorrible interval followed, for Creake, in accordance with some detailof his never-revealed plan, continued to shower missile after missileagainst the panes until even the unimpressionable Parkinson shivered.

  "The last act," whispered Carrados, a moment after the throwing hadceased. "He has gone round to the back. Keep as you are. We take covernow." He pressed behind the arras of an extemporized wardrobe, and thespirit of emptiness and desolation seemed once more to reign over thelonely house.

  From half-a-dozen places of concealment ears were straining to catchthe first guiding sound. He moved very stealthily, burdened, perhaps,by some strange scruple in the presence of the tragedy that he had notfeared to contrive, paused for a moment at the bedroom door, thenopened it very quietly, and in the fickle light read the consummationof his hopes.

  "At last!" they heard the sharp whisper drawn from his relief. "Atlast!"

  He took another step and two shadows seemed to fall upon him frombehind, one on either side. With primitive instinct a cry of terrorand surprise escaped him as he made a desperate movement to wrenchhimself free, and for a short second he almost succeeded in draggingone hand into a pocket. Then his wrists slowly came together and thehandcuffs closed.

  "I am Inspector Beedel," said the man on his right side. "You arecharged with the attempted murder of your wife, Millicent Creake."

  "You are mad," retorted the miserable creature, falling
into adesperate calmness. "She has been struck by lightning."

  "No, you blackguard, she hasn't," wrathfully exclaimed hisbrother-in-law, jumping up. "Would you like to see her?"

  "I also have to warn you," continued the inspector impassively, "thatanything you say may be used as evidence against you."

  A startled cry from the farther end of the passage arrested theirattention.

  "Mr. Carrados," called Hollyer, "oh, come at once."

  At the open door of the other bedroom stood the lieutenant, his eyesstill turned towards something in the room beyond, a little emptybottle in his hand.

  "Dead!" he exclaimed