CHAPTER II
A CRY IN THE MORNING
I was thoroughly tired out by my long day in the open, and I must havegone to sleep at once. It seemed to me that I was disturbed, during thenight, by the sound of voices without my door, and the movements ofpeople in the hallway, but I presume it was merely a dream. Just beforedaybreak, however, I found myself suffering somewhat from the cold, andgot up to close one of the windows, to shut off the draught. I had justturned toward the bed again, when I heard from the room across the hall,the one occupied by Mr. Ashton, a sudden and terrible cry as of someonein mortal agony, followed by the sound of a heavy body falling upon thefloor. I also fancied I heard the quick closing of a door or window,but of this I could not be sure. With a foreboding of tragedy heavilyupon me, I hastily threw on some clothes and ran into the hall, callingloudly for help. Opposite me was the door of Mr. Ashton's room. I rushedto it, and tried the knob, but found it locked. For some time I vainlyattempted to force open the door, meanwhile repeating my cries.Presently Major Temple came running through the hallway, followed by hisdaughter and several of the servants. Miss Temple had thrown on a longsilk Chinese wrapper and even in the dim light of the hall I could nothelp observing the ghastly pallor of her face.
"What's wrong here?" cried Major Temple, excitedly.
"I do not know, Sir," I replied, gravely enough. "I heard a cry whichseemed to come from Mr. Ashton's room, but I find his door locked."
"BREAK IT IN," CRIED MAJOR TEMPLE, "BREAK IT IN."]
"Break it in," cried Major Temple; "break it in at once." At his words,one of the servants and myself threw our combined weight against thedoor, and after several attempts, the fastening gave way, and we wereprecipitated headlong into the room. It was dark, and it seemed to methat the air was heavy and lifeless. We drew back into the hall as oneof the servants came running up with a candle, and Major Temple, takingit, advanced into the room, closely followed by myself. At first oureyes did not take in the scene revealed by the flickering candlelight,but in a few moments the gruesome sight before us caused both MajorTemple and myself to recoil sharply toward the doorway. Upon the floorlay Robert Ashton in his nightclothes, his head in a pool of blood, hishands outstretched before him, his face ghastly with terror. The Majorat once ordered the servants to keep out of the room, then turned to hisdaughter and in a low voice requested her to retire. She did so atonce, in a state of terrible excitement. He then closed the door behindus, and, after lighting the gas, we proceeded to examine the body.Ashton was dead, although death had apparently occurred but a short timebefore as his body was still warm. In the top of his head was found adeep circular wound, apparently made by some heavy, sharp-pointedinstrument, but there were no other marks of violence, no other woundsof any sort upon the body. I examined the wound in the head carefully,but could not imagine any weapon which would have left such a mark. Andthen the wonder of the situation began to dawn upon me. The roomcontained, besides the door by which we had entered, three windows, twofacing to the south and one to the west. All three were tightly closedand securely fastened with heavy bolts on the inside. There wasabsolutely no other means of entrance to the room whatever, except thedoor which we had broken open and a rapid examination of this showed methat it had been bolted upon the inside, and the catch into which thebolt slid upon the door-jamb had been torn from its fastenings by theeffort we had used in forcing it open. I turned to Major Temple inamazement, and found that he was engaged in systematically searching Mr.Ashton's gladstone bag, which lay upon a chair near the bed. He examinedeach article in detail, heedless of the grim and silent figure upon thefloor beside him, and, when he had concluded, bent over the prostrateform of the dead man and began a hurried search of his person and thesurrounding floor. I observed him in astonishment. "The police mustnever find it," I heard him mutter; "the police must never find it." Herose to his feet with an exclamation of disappointment. "Where can itbe?" he muttered, half to himself, apparently forgetful of my presence.He looked about the room and then with a sudden cry dashed at a tablenear the window. I followed his movements and saw upon the table thesmall, green leather case from which Ashton had produced the emerald atdinner the night before. Major Temple took up the case with a sigh ofrelief, and hastily opened it, then dashed it to the floor with an oath.The case was empty.
"It's gone!" he fairly screamed. "My God, it's gone!"
"Impossible," I said, gravely. "The windows are all tightly shut andbolted. We had to break in the door. No one could have entered or leftthis room since Mr. Ashton came into it."
"Nonsense!" Major Temple snorted, angrily. "Do you suppose Ashtonsmashed in his own skull by way of amusement?"
He turned to the bed and began to search it closely, removing thepillows, feeling beneath the mattresses, even taking the candle andexamining the floor foot by foot. Once more he went over the contents ofthe portmanteau, then again examined the clothing of the dead man, butall to no purpose. The emerald Buddha was as clearly and evidently goneas though it had vanished into the surrounding ether.
During this search, I had been vainly trying to put together someintelligent solution of this remarkable affair. There was clearly nopossibility that Ashton had inflicted this wound upon himself infalling, yet the supposition that someone had entered the room fromwithout seemed nullified by the bolted door and windows. I proceeded tocloser examination of the matter.
The body lay with its head toward the window in the west wall of theroom, and some six or eight feet from the window, and an even greaterdistance from the walls on either side. There was no piece of furniture,no heavy object, anywhere near at hand. I looked again at the queer,round conical hole in the top of the dead man's head. It had evidentlybeen delivered from above. I glanced up, and saw only the dim, unbrokenexpanse of the ceiling above me, papered in white. I turned, absolutelynonplused, to Major Temple, who stood staring with protruding eyes atsomething upon the floor near one of the windows. He picked it up, andhanded it to me. "What do you make of that?" he asked, in a startledvoice, handing me what appeared to be a small piece of tough Chinesepaper. Upon it was inscribed, in black, a single Chinese letter. Iglanced at it, then handed it back, with the remark that I could makenothing of it.
"It is the symbol of the god," he said, "the Buddha. The same sign wasengraved upon the base of the emerald figure, and I saw it in the templeat Ping Yang, upon the temple decorations. What is it doing here?" Thenhis face lighted up with a sudden idea. He rushed to the door, andopened it. "Gibson," he called peremptorily, to his man without, "findLi Min and bring him here at once. Don't let him out of your sight for amoment."
The man was gone ten minutes or more, during which time Major Templewalked excitedly up and down the room, muttering continually somethingabout the police.
"They must be notified," I said, at last. He turned to me with a queer,half-frightened look. "They can do no good, no good, whatever," hecried. "This is the work of one of the Chinese secret societies. Theyare the cleverest criminals in the world. I have lived among them, and Iknow."
"Even the cleverest criminals in the world couldn't bolt a door orwindow from the outside," I said.
"Do not be too sure of that. I have known them to do things equallystrange. By inserting a thin steel wedge between the edge of the doorand the jamb they might with infinite patience work the bolt to oneside or the other. This fellow, Li Min, I brought from China with me. Heis one of the most faithful servants I have ever known. He belongs tothe higher orders of society--I mean that he is not of the peasant orcoolie class. He represented to me that he was suspected of belonging tothe Reform Association, the enemies of the prevailing order of things,and was obliged to leave the country to save his head. I do not know, Ido not know--possibly he may have been sent to watch. They knew in PingYang that I was after the emerald Buddha. Who knows? They are an amazingpeople--an amazing people." He turned to me suddenly. "Did you hear anyfootsteps or other noises in the hallway during the night?"
I told him that I th
ought I had, but that I could not be sure, that mysleep had been troubled, but that I had only awakened a few minutesbefore I heard Ashton's cry. At this moment Gibson returned, with ascared look on his face. Li Min, he reported, had disappeared. No onehad seen him since the night before. His room had apparently beenoccupied, but the Chinaman was nowhere to be found.
"The police must be notified at once," I urged.
"I will attend to it," said the Major. "First we must have some coffee."
He closed the door of the room carefully, after we left it, and, takingthe key from the lock--it had evidently not been used by Mr. Ashton thenight before--locked the door from the outside and ordered Gibson toremain in the hallway without and allow no one to approach.
We finished dressing and then had a hurried cup of coffee and somemuffins in the breakfast-room. It was by now nearly eight o'clock, and Isuggested to Major Temple that if he wished, I would drive into Exeterwith one of his men, notify the police and at the same time get myluggage.
I assured him that I had no desire to inflict myself upon him further asa guest, but that the murder of Ashton and the necessity of my appearingas a witness at the forthcoming inquest made it imperative that I shouldremain upon the scene until the police were satisfied to have me depart.At my mention of the police the Major showed great uneasiness, asbefore.
"You need not say anything about the--the emerald," he said, slowly; "itwould only create unnecessary talk and trouble."
"I'm afraid I must," I replied. "It is evidently the sole motive for themurder--it has disappeared, and unless the police are apprised of itspart in the case, I fail to see how they can intelligently proceed intheir attempts to unravel the mystery."
He shook his head slowly. "What a pity!" he remarked. "What a pity! Ifthe stone is ever found now, the authorities will hold it as theproperty of the dead man or his relations, if indeed he has any. And itwould have been the crowning glory of my collection." It was evidentthat Major Temple was far more concerned over the loss of the emeraldthan over the death of Robert Ashton. "But they will never findit--never!" he concluded with a cunning smile, and an assurance thatstartled me. I wondered for a moment whether Major Temple knew moreabout the mysterious death of Robert Ashton than appeared upon thesurface, but, recollecting his excited search of the dead man'sbelongings, dismissed the idea as absurd. It recurred, however, fromtime to time during my short drive to Exeter, and the thought came to methat if Major Temple could in any way have caused or been cognizant ofthe death of Robert Ashton from without the room--without enteringit--his first act after doing so would naturally have been to search forthe emerald in the hope of securing it before the police had beensummoned to take charge of the case. I regretted that I had notexamined the floor of the attic above, to determine whether anycarefully fitted trap door, or hidden chimney or other opening to theinterior of the room below existed. I also felt that it was imperativethat a careful examination of the walls, as well as of the groundoutside beneath the three windows, should be made without delay. It waseven possible, I conjectured, that a clever thief could have in some waycut out one of the window panes, making an opening through which thewindow might have been opened and subsequently rebolted, though just howthe glass could then have been replaced was a problem I was not preparedto solve. There was no question, however, that Robert Ashton was dead,and that whoever had inflicted that deadly wound upon his head, and madeaway with the emerald Buddha, must have entered the room in some way. Iwas not yet prepared to base any hypotheses upon the supernatural. As Iconcluded these reflections, we entered the town by way of Sidwellstreet and I stopped at the Half Moon and secured my luggage. We thendrove to the police headquarters and I explained the case hurriedly tothe Chief Constable, omitting all details except those pertainingdirectly to Mr. Ashton's death. The Chief Constable sent one of his meninto an inner room, who returned in a moment with a small, keen-looking,ferret-faced man of some forty-eight or fifty years of age, with grayhair, sharp gray eyes and a smooth-shaven face. He introduced him to meas Sergeant McQuade, of Scotland Yard, who it seemed, happened to be inthe city upon some counterfeiting case or other, and suggested that heaccompany me back to the house. We had driven in Major Temple's highIrish cart, and, putting the man behind, I took the reins and withSergeant McQuade beside me, started back in the direction of The Oaks.We had scarcely left the limits of the town behind us, when I noticed afigure in blue plodding slowly along the muddy road ahead of us, in thesame direction as ourselves, and Jones, the groom upon the drag behindme said, in a low voice as we drew alongside, that it was Li Min, MajorTemple's Chinese servant, whose sudden disappearance earlier in themorning had caused so much excitement. The Chinaman looked at us with ablandly innocent face and, nodding pleasantly, bade us good morning. Istopped the cart and ordered Jones to get down and accompany him back tothe house, and on no account to let him out of his sight. As we drove onI explained all the circumstances of the case in detail to SergeantMcQuade, and informed him of my reason for placing Jones as guard overthe Chinaman. No sooner had I done so than the Sergeant, in someexcitement, requested me to return with him to Exeter at once. I did notinquire into his reasons for this step, but turned my horse's head oncemore toward the town, the Sergeant meanwhile plying me with questions,many of which I regretted my inability to answer to his satisfaction.They related principally to the exact time at which the murder hadoccurred, and how soon the disappearance of Li Min had been discovered.I decided at once that the detective had concluded that Li Min hadcommitted the murder and had then hurried off to Exeter to place theemerald Buddha in the hands of some of his countrymen in the town, andwas now proceeding leisurely back with some plausible story and acarefully arranged alibi to explain his absence from the house. Imentioned my conclusions to the Sergeant and saw from his reply that myassumption was correct. "I hope we are not too late," he exclaimed as hesuggested my urging the horse to greater speed. "It is absolutelynecessary that we prevent any Chinaman from leaving the town until thismatter is cleared up. I'm afraid however, that they have a good startof us. There is a train to London at eight, and, if our man got away onthat, it will be no easy matter to reach him."
"Of course you can telegraph ahead," I ventured.
"Of course." The detective smiled. "But the train is not an express, andthere are a dozen stations within fifty miles of here where anyone couldleave the train before I can get word along the line." He looked at hiswatch. "It is now ten minutes of nine. I am sorry that you did notnotify the police at once." I made no reply, not wishing to prejudicethe detective against Major Temple by explaining my desire to do thisvery thing and the latter's disinclination to have it done. We hadreached police headquarters by this time, and the Sergeant disappearedwithin for perhaps five minutes, then quickly rejoined me and directedme to drive to the Queen Street Station. I waited here for him quite along time and at last he came back with a face expressive of muchdissatisfaction. "Two of them went up on the eight train," he growled."One of them the clerk in the booking office remembers as keeping alaundry in Frog Street. The other he had never seen. They took ticketsfor London, third class." He swung himself into the seat beside me andsat in silence all the way to the house, evidently thinking deeply.
When we arrived at The Oaks, very soon after, we found the Major waitingimpatiently for us in the hall. Jones and Li Min had arrived, and theMajor had subjected the latter, he informed us, to a severecross-examination, with the result that the Chinaman had denied allknowledge of Mr. Ashton's death and explained his absence from the houseby saying that he had gone into town the night before to see his brotherwho had recently arrived from China, and, knowing the habit of thehousehold to breakfast very late, had supposed his return at nineo'clock would pass unnoticed. I made Major Temple acquainted withSergeant McQuade, and we proceeded at once to the room where lay allthat now remained of the unfortunate Robert Ashton.
The Green God Page 2
