damp."
"Well?" I said, not quite following him.
"That's been put there so that the victims, in falling from the greatheight, should strike against it and be rendered unconscious beforereaching the water. Look. There's a bit of white stuff on it now--likesilk from a lady's evening dress!"
And sure enough I saw at the end of that iron bar a piece of white stufffluttering in the draught, the grim relic of some unfortunate woman whohad gone unconsciously to her death! The dank, gruesome place horrifiedme. Its terrible secrets held all three of us appalled. Even Pickeringhimself shuddered.
"To explore further is quite impossible," he said. "That culvert leadsinto the main sewer, so we must leave its exploration to the sewermen.Lots of springs, of course, fall into the sewers, but the exact spots oftheir origin are unknown. They were found and connected when the sewerswere constructed, and that's all. My own opinion," he added, "is thatthis place was originally the well of an ancient house, and that theblackguards discovered it in the cellar, explored it, ascertained thatanything placed in it would be sucked down into that culvert, and thenthey opened up a way right through to the stairs."
The inspector's theory appeared to me to be a sound one.
I expressed fear of the rising of the water with the automatic flushingof the sewers, but he pointed out that where we stood must be on aslightly higher level, judging from the way the water rushed away downthe culvert, while on the side of the well there was no recent mark ofhigher water, thus bearing out his idea of a spring.
Edwards swarmed up the rope and managed to detach the piece of silk fromthe iron bar. When he handed it to us we saw that though faded anddirty it had been a piece of rich brocade, pale blue upon a creamground, while attached was a tiny edging of pale blue chiffon--from awoman's corsage, Pickering declared it to be--perhaps a scrap of thedress of the owner of that emerald necklet up above!
After a minute inspection of the grim ancient walls which rose from achannel of rock worn smooth by the action of the waters of ages,Pickering swarmed up the dangling rope, gained the ladder and climbedback again, an example which I quickly followed, although my legs wereso chilled to the bone by the icy water that at first I foundconsiderable difficulty in ascending.
Having gained the landing and been followed by Edwards, we drew up theladder, removed the settle, allowed the fatal stairs to close again, andthen bridged it over as before.
While we had been below Horton, who was a practised carpenter, hadmended the latch of the front door, so that there should be no suspicionof our entry. We all clambered across the settle, descended the stairsto the basement, and were soon engaged in searching the downstairs roomsand cellar. We had found that the communication between the head of thewell and the top of the house was a roughly-constructed shaft of boardswhen, of a sudden, while standing at the foot of the kitchen stairs wewere startled by hearing the sharp click of a key in the lock of thefront door above.
In an instant we were silent, and stood together breathless andlistening. The dark slide slipped across the bull's-eye.
It was truly an exciting moment.
Pickering, followed by Edwards and Marvin, crept noiselessly up thestairs, and while the person entering apparently had some difficultywith the lock they waited in the darkness.
I stood behind the inspector, my heart beating quickly, listeningintently. It was an exciting moment standing ready in the pitchblackness of that silent house of doom.
The latch caught, probably on account of its recent disarrangement, butat last the key lifted it, the door opened, somebody entered the hall,and quietly re-closed the door.
Next instant Pickering sprang from his hiding-place, crying,--
"I arrest you on suspicion of being implicated in certain cases ofwilful murder committed in this house!"
Horton at that same moment flashed his lamp full upon the face of theperson who had entered there so stealthily, and who, startled by thedread accusation, stood glaring like some wild animal brought to bay,but motionless as though turned to stone.
The lamp-flash revealed a white, haggard countenance. I saw it; Irecognised it!
A loud cry of horror and amazement escaped me. Was I dreaming? No. Itwas no dream, but a stern, living reality--a truth that bewildered andstaggered me utterly--a grim, awful truth which deprived me of the powerof speech.
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.
LIFTS THE VEIL.
The man under arrest was not, as I had expected, John Parham--but EricDomville!
I stood glaring at him, utterly staggered.
Then I sprang forward to greet him--to welcome him as one returned fromthe grave, but next instant drew back. His face was changed--theexpression upon it was that of terror--and of guilt!
"You are arrested," continued Pickering, in a calm, matter-of-fact way,adding that phrase of patter which is spoken each time a person is takeninto custody, "and I warn you that whatever statement you may now makewill be taken down in writing and used in evidence against you at yourtrial."
"I have no statement to make. I can do that later," faltered theunhappy man whom I had, until that moment, regarded as my warmestfriend.
The revelation struck me of a heap. At first I was unable to realisethat I was awake, and in my right senses, yet there Domville stood, witha detective on either side of him, crushed and resistless. He had noteven denied the truth of Pickering's awful allegation.
Certainly in no man had I been more deceived them in him. I had givenhim hospitality; I had confided my secrets in him because we had beenfriends ever since our youth. Indeed, he had assisted me to shieldSybil, and yet the police had charged him with implication in the grimtragedies that had undoubtedly been enacted within those silent wallswhere we now stood.
"Is this true, Domville?" I cried at last, when I found tongue."Speak."
"True!" he echoed, with a strange, sickly smile, but in a low, hoarsetone. "The police are fools. Let them do as they like. They'll soonfind out that they've got hold of the wrong man. You surely know mewell enough, Wilfrid, not to believe these fellows without proof."
"Yes," I cried, "I do, Eric. I believe you are innocent, and I'll helpyou to prove it."
Pickering smiled, saying, "At present, Mr Hughes, we must send thisgentleman round to the station. We may discuss his innocence later on."Then turning to Edwards he said in quick, peremptory tones, "Get a cab,you and Marvin, and take him round to the station. Then come back here.Tell Inspector Nicholls that I'll charge him myself when I come round."
"Yes, sir," replied the man, and ten minutes later the prisoner and thetwo detectives drove off in a four-wheeled cab.
"Pardon me, Mr Hughes," said Pickering, after he had gone, "but is itnot injudicious to presuppose that man's innocence, especially whenguilt is so plainly written on his face? Some men's faces are to us asopen as the columns of a newspaper. That man's is. He is guilty--he isone of the gang. What proof have you that he is not?"
"He is my friend," I protested.
"And may he not be a criminal at the same time? Of many of our friendswe are utterly unaware what lives they lead in secret. Charles Peace,the daring burglar, as you will probably remember, taught in aSunday-school. Therefore, never judge a man by his outward profession,either of friendship or of piety."
"But I heard the villains threaten him in that upstairs room," Iexclaimed. "He was in peril of his life."
"Because they had quarrelled--perhaps over the distribution of thespoils. Criminals more often than not quarrel over that, and in revengegive each other away to us. No, Mr Hughes, before you jump to anyconclusion in this matter just wait a bit, wait, I mean, till we'veconcluded our inquiries. Depend upon it a very different complexionwill soon be placed upon the whole affair."
Edwards and Marvin returned half an hour after wards.
"He made no statement," Edwards said. "He's one of 'em, that'scertain."
"Why?" I asked. "How are you so positive?"
"Well, sir, w
e can generally pretty well tell, you know. He was a bittoo resigned to be innocent."
Through the whole night, until the cold grey of the wintry dawn, we satin the back sitting-room, with one single bull's-eye lantern turned on,awaiting the arrival of any of the others who might make a midnightvisit there. I, of course, knew the addresses of both Parham andWinsloe, and had given them to Pickering; but he preferred that night towait, and if possible arrest them actually in that house of doom.
Just as the faint dawn began to show through the chinks of the closedshutters, and Pickering was giving his men instructions before returningto the station, we distinctly heard another key rattle in the latch.
We were all on the alert in an instant.
"We'll let him go upstairs if that's
Whatsoever a Man Soweth Page 34
