The Seven Secrets

by William Le Queux

  CHAPTER VI.

  IN WHICH I MAKE A DISCOVERY.

  Having explained who I was, I followed the men in and assisted them inmaking a careful and minute examination of the place.

  Search for the weapon with which the crime had been committed provedfruitless; hence it was plain that the murderer had carried it away.There were no signs whatever of a struggle, and nothing to indicatethat the blow had been struck by any burglar with a motive ofsilencing the prostrate man.

  The room was a large front one on the first floor, with two Frenchwindows opening upon a balcony formed by the big square portico. Bothwere found to be secured, not only by the latches, but also by longscrews as an extra precaution against thieves, old Mr. Courtenay, likemany other elderly people, being extremely nervous of midnightintruders. The bedroom itself was well furnished in genuine Sheraton,which he had brought up from his palatial home in Devonshire, for theold man denied himself no personal comfort. The easy chair in which hehad sat when I had paid my visit was still in its place at thefireside, with the footstool just as he had left it; the drawers whichwe opened one after another showed no sign of having been rummaged,and the sum result of our investigations was absolutely _nil_.

  "It looks very much as though someone in the house had done it,"whispered the inspector seriously to me, having first glanced at thedoor to ascertain that it was closed.

  "Yes," I admitted, "appearances certainly do point to that."

  "Who was the young lady who met us downstairs?" inquired the detectivesergeant, producing a small note-book and pencil.

  "Miss Ethelwynn Mivart, sister to Mrs. Courtenay."

  "And is Mrs. Courtenay at home?" he inquired, making a note of thename.

  "No. We have sent for her. She's staying with friends in London."

  "Hulloa! There's an iron safe here!" exclaimed one of the menrummaging at the opposite side of the room. He had pulled away a chestof drawers from the wall, revealing what I had never noticed before,the door of a small fireproof safe built into the wall.

  "Is it locked?" inquired the inspector.

  The man, after trying the knob and examining the keyhole, replied inthe affirmative.

  "Keeps his deeds and jewellery there, I suppose," remarked one of theother detectives. "He seems to have been very much afraid of burglars.I wonder whether he had any reason for that?"

  "Like many old men he was a trifle eccentric," I replied. "Thievesonce broke into his country house years ago, I believe, and hetherefore entertained a horror of them."

  We all examined the keyhole of the safe, but there was certainly noevidence to show that it had been tampered with. On the contrary, thelittle oval brass plate which closed the hole was rusty, and had notapparently been touched for weeks.

  While they were searching in other parts of the room I directed myattention to the position and appearance of my late patient. He waslying on his right side with one arm slightly raised in quite anatural attitude for one sleeping. His features, although the pallorof death was upon them and they were relaxed, showed no sign ofsuffering. The blow had been unerring, and had no doubt penetrated tothe heart. The crime had been committed swiftly, and the murderer hadescaped unseen and unheard.

  The eider-down quilt, a rich one of Gobelin blue satin, had scarcelybeen disturbed, and save for the small spot of blood upon the sheet,traces of a terrible crime were in no way apparent.

  While, however, I stood at the bedside, at the same spot most probablywhere the murderer had stood, I suddenly felt something uneven betweenthe sole of my boot and the carpet. So intent was I upon theexamination I was making that at first my attention was not attractedby it, but on stepping on it a second time I looked down and sawsomething white, which I quickly picked up.

  The instant I saw it I closed my hand and hid it from view.

  Then I glanced furtively around, and seeing that my action had beenunobserved I quickly transferred it to my vest pocket, covering themovement by taking out my watch to glance at it.

  I confess that my heart beat quickly, and in all probability thecolour at that moment had left my face, for I had, by sheer accident,discovered a clue.

  To examine it there was impossible, for of such a character was itthat I had no intention, as yet, to arouse the suspicions of thepolice. I intended at the earliest moment to apprise my friend, AmblerJevons, of the facts and with him pursue an entirely independentinquiry.

  Scarcely had I safely pocketed the little object I had picked up fromwhere the murderer must have stood when the inspector went out uponthe landing and called to the constable in the hall:

  "Four-sixty-two, lock that door and come up here a moment."

  "Yes, sir," answered a gruff voice from below, and in a few momentsthe constable entered, closing the door after him.

  "How many times have you passed this house on your beat to-night,four-sixty-two?" inquired the inspector.

  "About eight, sir. My beat's along the Richmond Road, from the LionGate down to the museum, and then around the back streets."

  "Saw nothing?"

  "I saw a man come out of this house hurriedly, soon after I came onduty. I was standing on the opposite side, under the wall of theGardens. The lady what's downstairs let him out and told him to fetchthe doctor quickly."

  "Ah! Short, the servant," I observed.

  "Where is he?" asked the inspector, while the detective with the readynote-book scribbled down the name.

  "He came to fetch me, and Miss Mivart has now sent him to fetch hersister. He was the first to make the discovery."

  "Oh, was he?" exclaimed the detective-sergeant, with some suspicion."It's rather a pity that he's been sent out again. He might be able totell us something."

  "He'll be back in an hour, I should think."

  "Yes, but every hour is of consequence in a matter of this sort,"remarked the sergeant. "Look here, Davidson," he added, turning to oneof the plain-clothes men, "just go round to the station and send awire to the Yard, asking for extra assistance. Give them a briefoutline of the case. They'll probably send down Franks or Moreland. IfI'm not mistaken, there's a good deal more in this mystery than meetsthe eye."

  The man addressed obeyed promptly, and left.

  "What do you know of the servants here?" asked the inspector of theconstable.

  "Not much, sir. Six-forty-eight walks out with the cook, I've heard.She's a respectable woman. Her father's a lighterman at Kew Bridge. Iknow 'em all here by sight, of course. But there's nothing againstthem, to my knowledge, and I've been a constable in this sub-divisionfor eighteen years."

  "The man--what's his name?--Short. Do you know him?"

  "Yes, sir. I've often seen him in the 'Star and Garter' at KewBridge."

  "Drinks?"

  "Not much, sir. He was fined over at Brentford six months ago forletting a dog go unmuzzled. His greatest friend is one of thegardeners at the Palace--a man named Burford, a most respectablefellow."

  "Then there's no suspicion of anyone as yet?" remarked the inspector,with an air of dissatisfaction. In criminal mysteries the police oftenbungle from the outset, and to me it appeared as though, having noclue, they were bent on manufacturing one.

  I felt in my vest pocket and touched the little object with a feelingof secret satisfaction. How I longed to be alone for five minutes inorder to investigate it!

  The inspector, having dismissed the constable and sent him back to hispost to unlock the door for the detective to pass out, next turned hisattention to the servants and the remainder of the house. With thatobject we all descended to the dining-room.

  Ethelwynn met us at the foot of the stairs, still wearing the shawlabout her head and shoulders. She placed a trembling hand upon my armas I passed, asking in a low anxious voice:

  "Have you found anything, Ralph? Tell me."

  "No, nothing," I replied, and then passed into the dining-room, wherethe nurse and domestics had been assembled.

  The nurse, a plain matter-of-fact woman, was the first person to bequest
ioned. She explained to us how she had given her patient his lastdose of medicine at half-past eleven, just after Miss Mivart hadwished her good-night and retired to her room. Previously she had beendown in the drawing-room chatting with the young lady. The man Shortwas then upstairs with his master.

  "Was the deceased gentleman aware of his wife's absence?" theinspector asked presently.

  "Yes. He remarked to me that it was time she returned. I presume thatShort had told him."

  "What time was this?"

  "Oh! about half-past ten, I should think," replied Nurse Kate. "Hesaid something about it being a bad night to go out to a theatre, andhoped she would not take cold."

  "He was not angry?"

  "Not in the least. He was never angry when she went to town. He usedto say to me, 'My wife's a young woman, nurse. She wants a littleamusement sometimes, and I'm sure I don't begrudge it to her.'"

  This puzzled me quite as much as it puzzled the detective. I hadcertainly been under the impression that husband and wife hadquarrelled over the latter's frequent absences from home. Indeed, in ahousehold where the wife is young and the husband elderly, quarrels ofthat character are almost sure to occur sooner or later. As a doctor Iknew the causes of domestic infelicity in a good many homes. Men in myprofession see a good deal, and hear more. Every doctor could unfoldstrange tales of queer households if he were not debarred by the bondof professional secrecy.

  "You heard no noise during the night?" inquired the inspector.

  "None. I'm a light sleeper as a rule, and wake at the slightestsound," the woman replied. "But I heard absolutely nothing."

  "Anyone, in order to enter the dead man's room, must have passed yourdoor, I think?"

  "Yes, and what's more, the light was burning and my door was ajar. Ialways kept it so in order to hear if my patient wanted anything."

  "Then the murderer could see you as he stood on the landing?"

  "No. There's a screen at the end of my bed. He could not see far intothe room. But I shudder to think that to-night I've had an assassin adozen feet from me while I slept," she added.

  Finding that she could throw no light upon the mysterious affair, theofficer turned his attention to the four frightened domestics, each inturn.

  All, save one, declared that they heard not a single sound. The oneexception was Alice, the under housemaid, a young fair-haired girl,who stated that during the night she had distinctly heard a sound likethe low creaking of light shoes on the landing below where they slept.

  This first aroused our interest, but on full reflection it seemed soutterly improbable that an assassin would wear a pair of creaky bootswhen on such an errand that we were inclined to disregard the girl'sstatement as a piece of imagination. The feminine mind is much givento fiction on occasions of tragic events.

  But the girl over and over again asserted that she had heard it. Sheslept alone in a small room at the top of the second flight of stairsand had heard the sound quite distinctly.

  "When you heard it what did you do?"

  "I lay and listened."

  "For how long?"

  "Oh, quite a quarter of an hour, I should think. It was just beforehalf-past one when I heard the noise, for the church clock struckalmost immediately afterwards. The sound of the movement was such as Ihad never before heard at night, and at first I felt frightened. But Ialways lock my door, therefore I felt secure. The noise was just likesomeone creeping along very slowly, with one boot creaking."

  "But if it was so loud that you could hear it with your door closed,it is strange that no one else heard it," the detective-sergeantremarked dubiously.

  "I don't care what anybody else heard, I heard it quite plainly," thegirl asserted.

  "How long did it continue?" asked the detective.

  "Oh, only just as though someone was stealing along the corridor. Weoften hear movements at nights, because Short is always astir at twoo'clock, giving the master his medicine. If it hadn't ha' been for thecreaking I should not have taken notice of it. But I lay quite wideawake for over half an hour--until Short came banging at our doors,telling us to get up at once, as we were wanted downstairs."

  "Well," exclaimed the inspector, "now, I want to ask all of you a verysimple question, and wish to obtain an honest and truthful reply. Wasany door or window left unfastened when you went to bed?"

  "No, sir," the cook replied promptly. "I always go round myself, andsee that everything is fastened."

  "The front door, for example?"

  "I bolted it at Miss Ethelwynn's orders."

  "At what time?"

  "One o'clock. She told me to wait up till then, and if mistress didnot return I was to lock up and go to bed."

  "Then the tragedy must have been enacted about half an hour later?"

  "I think so, sir."

  "You haven't examined the doors and windows to see if any have beenforced?"

  "As far as I can see, they are just as I left them when I went to bed,sir."

  "That's strange--very strange," remarked the inspector, turning to us."We must make an examination and satisfy ourselves."

  The point was one that was most important in the conduct of theinquiry. If all doors and windows were still locked, then the assassinwas one of that strange household.

  Led by the cook, the officers began a round of the lower premises. Oneof the detectives borrowed the constable's bull's-eye and, accompaniedby a second officer, went outside to make an examination of thewindow sashes, while we remained inside assisting them in their searchfor any marks.

  Ethelwynn had been called aside by one of the detectives, and wasanswering some questions addressed to her, therefore for an instant Ifound myself alone. It was the moment I had been waiting for, tosecretly examine the clue I had obtained.

  I was near the door of the morning room, and for a second slippedinside and switched on the electric light.

  Then I took from my vest pocket the tiny little object I had found andcarefully examined it.

  My heart stood still. My eyes riveted themselves upon it. The mysterywas solved.

  I alone knew the truth!