by Fergus Hume
“I shall ask my father to see you,” she said quickly; “wait here!” and without consulting Mrs. Bolstreath she went impulsively to her father’s study, while Mrs. Brown dabbed her eyes with the handkerchief and called down blessings on her young head.
Dan believed the story of the lost son, but doubted the tale of starvation, as Mrs. Brown looked too stout to have been without food for any length of time. He looked hard at her face, which was more wrinkled than a fat woman’s should be; although such lines might be ascribed to grief. She wept profusely and was so overcome with sorrow that she let down a ragged veil when she saw Dan’s eager gaze. The young gentleman, she observed, could not understand a mother’s feelings, or he would not make a show of her by inquisitive glances. The remark was somewhat irrelevant, and the action of letting down the veil unnecessary, but much might be pardoned to a woman so obviously afflicted.
Dan was about to excuse his inquiring looks, when Lillian danced back with the joyful information that her father would see Mrs. Brown for a few minutes if she went in at once. “And I have asked him to help you,” said the girl, patting the fearful woman’s shoulder, as she passed to the motor-car. “Oh! it’s past eight o’clock. Dan, we’ll never be in time.”
“The musical comedy doesn’t begin until nine,” Halliday assured her, and in a few minutes the three of them were comfortably seated in the luxurious car, which whirled at break-neck speed towards the Strand.
Of course Lillian and Dan took every advantage of the opportunity, seeing that Mrs. Bolstreath was sympathetic enough to close her eyes to their philanderings. They talked all the way to the Curtain Theatre; they talked all through the musical comedy; and talked all the way back to the house at Hampstead. Mrs. Bolstreath, knowing that the young couple would not have another opportunity for uninterrupted love-making, and being entirely in favour of the match, attended to the stage and left them to whisper unreproved. She could not see why Dan, whom Lillian had loved since the pair had played together as children, should be set aside in favour of a dry-as-dust barrister, even though he had lately come into a fortune and a title. “But of course,” said Mrs. Bolstreath between the acts, “if you could only invent a perfect flying-machine, they would make you a duke or something and give you a large income. Then you could marry.”
“What are you talking about, Bolly darling?” asked Lillian, much puzzled, as she could not be supposed to know what was going on inside her friend’s head.
“About you and Dan, dear. He has no money and—”
“I shall make heaps and heaps of money,” said Dan, sturdily; “aviation is full of paying possibilities, and the nation that first obtains command of the air will rule the world. I’m no fool!”
“You’re a commoner,” snapped Mrs. Bolstreath quickly, “and unless, as I said, you are made a duke for inventing a perfect aeroplane, Lord Curberry is certainly a better match for Lillian.”
“He’s as dull as tombs,” said Miss Moon with her pretty nose in the air.
“You can’t expect to have everything, my dear child.”
“I can expect to have Dan,” retorted Lillian decidedly, whereat Dan whispered sweet words and squeezed his darling’s gloved hand.
“Well,” said Mrs. Bolstreath, as the curtain rose on the second act, “I’ll do my best to help you since I believe in young love and true love. Hush, children, people are looking! Attend to the stage.”
Dan and Lillian did their best to follow her advice and sat demurely in the box side by side, watching the heroine flirt in a duet with the hero, both giving vent to their feelings in a lively musical number. But they really took little interest in “The Happy Bachelor!” as the piece was called, in spite of the pretty girls and the picturesque scenery. They were together and that was all they cared about, and although a dark cloud of parental opposition hovered over them, they were not yet enveloped in its gloom. And after all, since Mrs. Bolstreath was strongly prejudiced in their favour, Lillian hoped that she might induce Sir Charles to change his mind concerning Lord Curberry. He loved his daughter dearly and would not like to see her unhappy, as she certainly would be if compelled to marry any one but The One. Lillian said this to Mrs. Bolstreath and to Dan several times on the way home, and they entirely agreed with her.
“Although I haven’t much influence with Sir Charles,” Mrs. Bolstreath warned them, “and he is fond of having his own way.”
“He always does what I ask,” said Lillian confidently. “Why, although he was so busy this evening, he saw Mrs. Brown when I pleaded for her.”
“He couldn’t resist you,” whispered Dan fondly; “no one could.”
Mrs. Bolstreath argued this point, saying that Lillian was Sir Charles’s daughter, and fathers could not be expected to feel like lovers. She also mentioned that she was jeopardising her situation by advocating the match, which was certainly a bad one from a financial point of view, and would probably be turned out of doors as an old romantic fool. The lovers assured her she was the most sensible of women and that if she was turned out of doors they would take her into the cottage where they proposed to reside like two turtle doves. Then came laughter and kisses and the feeling that the world was not such a bad place after all. It was a very merry trio that alighted at the door of Moon’s great Hampstead mansion.
Then came a shock, the worse for being wholly unexpected. At the door the three were met by Marcus Penn, who was Moon’s secretary. He looked leaner and more haggard than ever, and his general attitude was that of the bearer of evil news. Dan and Lillian and Mrs. Bolstreath stared at him in amazement. “You may as well know the worst at once, Miss Moon,” said Penn, his lips quivering with nervousness, “your father is dead. He has been murdered.”
Chapter II. A COMPLETE MYSTERY
It was Mrs. Bolstreath who carried Lillian upstairs in her stout arms, for when Penn made his brusque announcement the girl fainted straight away, which was very natural considering the horror of the information. Dan remained behind to tell the secretary that he was several kinds of fool, since no one but a superfine ass would blurt out so terrible a story to a delicate girl. Not that Penn had told much, for Lillian had become unconscious the moment her bewildered brain grasped that the father she had left a few hours earlier in good health and spirits was now a corpse. But he told more to Dan, and mentioned that Mr. Durwin was in the library wherein the death had taken place.
“Mr. Durwin? Who is Mr. Durwin?” asked Dan trying to collect his sense, which had been scattered by the dreadful news.
“An official from Scotland Yard; I told you so after dinner,” said Penn in an injured tone; “he came to see Sir Charles by appointment at nine o’clock and found him a corpse.”
“Sir Charles was alive when we left shortly after eight,” remarked Dan sharply; “at a quarter-past eight, to be precise. What took place in the meantime?”
“Obviously the violent death of Sir Charles,” faltered the secretary.
“What evidence have you to show that he died by violence?” asked Halliday.
“Mr. Durwin called in a doctor, and he says that Sir Charles has been poisoned,” blurted out Penn uneasily. “I believe that woman—Mrs. Brown she called herself—poisoned him. She left the house at a quarter to nine, so the footman says, for he let her out, and—”
“It is impossible that a complete stranger should poison Sir Charles,” interrupted Dan impatiently; “she would not have the chance.”
“She was alone with Sir Charles for thirty minutes, more or less,” said Penn tartly; “she had every chance and she took it.”
“But how could she induce Sir Charles to drink poison?”
“She didn’t induce him to drink anything. The doctor says that the scratch at the back of the dead man’s neck—”
“Here!” Dan roughly pushed the secretary aside, becoming impatient of the scrappy way in which he detailed what had happened. “Let me go to the library for myself and see what has happened. Sir Charles can’t be dead.”
&nb
sp; “It’s twelve o’clock now,” retorted Penn, stepping aside, “and he’s been dead quite three hours, as the doctor will tell you.”
Before the man finished his sentence, Dan, scarcely grasping the situation, so rapidly had it evolved, ran through the hall towards the back of the spacious house, where the library was situated. He dashed into the large and luxuriously furnished room and collided with a police officer, who promptly took him by the shoulder. There were three other men in the room, who turned from the corpse they were looking at when they heard the noise of Halliday’s abrupt entrance. The foremost man, and the one who spoke first, was short and stout and arrayed in uniform, with cold grey eyes, and a hard mouth.
“What’s this—what’s this?” he demanded in a raucous voice. “Who are you?”
“My name is Halliday,” said Dan hurriedly. “I am engaged to Miss Moon and we have just returned from the theatre to hear—to hear—” He caught sight of Moon’s body seated in the desk-chair and drooping limply over the table. “Oh, it is true, then! He is dead. Good heavens! Who murdered him?”
“How do you know that Sir Charles has been murdered?” asked the officer sternly.
“Mr. Penn, the secretary, told me just now in the hall,” said Dan, shaking himself free of the policeman. “He blurted it out like a fool, and Miss Moon has fainted. Mrs. Bolstreath has taken her upstairs. But how did it come about? Who found the body, and—”
“I found the body,” interrupted one of the other men, who was tall and calm-faced, with a bald head and a heavy iron-grey moustache, perfectly clothed in fashionable evening-dress, and somewhat imperious in his manner of speaking. “I had an appointment with Sir Charles at nine o’clock and came here to find him, as you now see him”—he waved his hand towards the desk—“the doctor will tell you how he died.”
“By poison,” said the third man, who was dark, young, unobtrusive and retiring in manner. “You see this deep scratch on the back of the neck. In that way the poison was administered. I take it that Sir Charles was bending over his desk and the person who committed the crime scratched him with some very sharp instrument impregnated with poison.”
“Mrs. Brown!” gasped Dan, staring at the heavy swollen body of his late guardian, who, only a few hours back, had been in perfect health.
The three men glanced at one another as he said the name, and even the policeman on guard at the door looked interested. The individual in uniform spoke with his cold eyes on Dan’s agitated face. “What do you know of Mrs. Brown, Mr. Halliday?” he demanded abruptly.
“Don’t you know that a woman of that name called here?”
“Yes. The secretary, Mr. Penn, told us that Miss Moon induced her father to see a certain Mrs. Brown, who claimed that her son had been drowned while working on one of the steamers owned by Sir Charles. You saw her also I believe?”
“I was in the hall when Miss Moon went to induce her father to see the poor woman. That was about a quarter past eight o’clock.”
“And Mrs. Brown—as we have found from inquiry—left the house at a quarter to nine. Do you think she is guilty?”
“I can’t say. Didn’t the footman see the body—that is, if Mrs. Brown committed the crime—when he came to show her out? Sir Charles would naturally ring his bell when the interview was over, and the footman would come to conduct her to the door.”
“Sir Charles never rang his bell!” said the officer, drily. “Mrs. Brown passed through the entrance hall at a quarter to nine o’clock, and mentioned to the footman—quite unnecessarily, I think—that Sir Charles had given her money. He let her out of the house. Naturally, the footman, not hearing any bell, did not enter this room, nor—so far as any one else is concerned—did a single person. Only when Mr. Durwin—”
“I came at nine o’clock,” interrupted the bald-headed man imperiously, “to keep my appointment. The footman told Mr. Penn, who took me to Sir Charles. He knocked but there was no answer, so he opened the door and we saw this.” He again waved his hand towards the body.
“Does Mr. Penn know nothing?” asked Halliday, doubtfully.
“No,” answered the other. “Inspector Tenson has questioned him carefully in my presence. Mr. Penn says that he brought Sir Charles his spectacles from the dining-room before you left for the theatre with the two ladies, and then was sent to his own room by his employer to write the usual letters. He remained there until nine o’clock when he was called out to receive me, and we know that Mr. Penn speaks truly, for the typewriting girl who was typing Sir Charles’s letters to Mr. Penn’s dictation, says that he did not leave the room all the time.”
“May I look at the body?” asked Dan approaching the desk, and on receiving an affirmative reply from Durwin, bent over the dead.
The corpse was much swollen, the face indeed being greatly bloated, while the deep scratch on the nape of the neck looked venomous and angry. Yet it was a slight wound to bring about so great a catastrophe, and the poison must have been very deadly and swift; deadly because apparently Sir Charles had no time to move before it did its work, and swift because he could not even have called for assistance, which he surely would have done had he been able to keep his senses. Dan mentioned this to the watchful doctor, who nodded.
“I can’t say for certain,” he remarked cautiously, “but I fancy that snake-poison has been used. That will be seen to, when the post-mortem is made.”
“And this fly?” Halliday pointed to an insect which was just behind the left ear of the dead man.
“Fly!” echoed Inspector Tenson in surprise, and hastily advancing to look. “A fly in November. Impossible! Yet it is a fly, and dead. If not,” he swept the neck of the corpse with his curved hand, “it would get away. H’m! Now I wonder what this means? Get me a magnifying glass.”
There was not much difficulty in procuring one, as such an article lay on the desk itself; being used, no doubt, by Sir Charles to aid his failing sight when he examined important documents. Tenson inspected the fly and removed it—took it to a near electric light and examined it. Then he came back and examined the place behind the left ear whence he had removed it.
“It’s been gummed on,” he declared in surprise—a surprise which was also visible in the faces of the other men; “you can see the glistening spot on the skin, and the fly’s legs are sticky.” He balanced the fly on his little finger as he spoke. “I am sure they are sticky, although it is hard to say with such a small insect. However,” he carefully put away the fly in a silver match-box, “we’ll have this examined under a more powerful glass. You are all witnesses, gentlemen, that a fly was found near the wound which caused Sir Charles Moon’s death.”
“And the scent? What about the scent?” Dan sniffed as he spoke and then bent his nose to the dead man. “It seems to come from the clothes.”
“Scent!” echoed Durwin sharply, and sniffed. “Yes, I observed that scent. But I did not take any notice of it.”
“Nor did I,” said the doctor. “I noticed it also.”
“And I,” followed on the Inspector, “and why should we take notice of it, Mr. Halliday? Many men use scent.”
“Sir Charles never did,” said Dan emphatically; “he hated scents of all kinds even when women used them. He certainly would never have used them himself. I’ll swear to that.”
“Then this scent assumes importance.” Durwin sniffed again, and held his aquiline nose high. “It is fainter now. But I smelt it very strongly when I first came in and looked at the body. A strange perfume it is.”
The three men tried to realise the peculiar odour of the scent, and became aware that it was rich and heavy and sickly, and somewhat drowsy in its suggestion.
“A kind of thing to render a man sleepy,” said Dan, musingly.
“Or insensible,” said Inspector Tenson hastily, and put his nose to the dead man’s chin and mouth. He shook his head as he straightened himself. “I fancied from your observation, Mr. Halliday, that the scent might have been used as a kind of chloroform, but
there’s no smell about the face. It comes from the clothes,” he sniffed again; “yes, it certainly comes from the clothes. Did you smell this scent on Mrs. Brown?” he demanded, suddenly.
“No, I did not,” admitted Halliday promptly, “otherwise I should certainly have noted it. I have a keen sense of smell. Mrs. Bolstreath and Lil—I mean Miss Moon—might have noticed it, however.”
At that moment, as if in answer to her name, the door opened suddenly and Lillian brushed past the policeman in a headlong entrance into the library. Her fair hair was in disorder, her face was bloodless, and her eyes were staring and wild. Behind her came Mrs. Bolstreath hurriedly, evidently trying to restrain her. But the girl would not be restrained, and rushed forward scattering the small group round the dead, to fling herself on the body.
“Oh, Father, Father!” she sobbed, burying her face on the shoulder of her dearly-loved parent. “How awful it is. Oh, my heart will break. How shall I ever get over it. Father! Father! Father!”
She wept and wailed so violently that the four men were touched by her great grief. Both Mr. Durwin and Inspector Tenson had daughters of their own, while the young doctor was engaged. They could feel for her thoroughly, and no one made any attempt to remove her from the body until Mrs. Bolstreath stepped forward. “Lillian, darling. Lillian, my child,” she said soothingly, and tried to lead the poor girl away.
But Lillian only clung closer to her beloved dead. “No! No! Let me alone. I can’t leave him. Poor, dear Father—oh, I shall die!”
“Dear,” said Mrs. Bolstreath, raising her firmly but kindly, “your father is not there, but in heaven! Only the clay remains.”
“It is all I have. And Father was so good, so kind—oh, who can have killed him in this cruel way?” She looked round with streaming eyes.
“We think that a Mrs. Brown—” began the Inspector, only to be answered by a loud cry from the distraught girl.
“Mrs. Brown! Then I have killed Father! I have killed him! I persuaded him to see the woman, because she was in trouble. And she killed him—oh, the wretch—the—the—oh—oh! What had I done to her that she should rob me of my dear, kind father?” and she cried bitterly in her old friend’s tender arms.
