Thomas W. Hanshew

“ The murderer himself he were, I'll lay my life; for look here, sir, here's what he most brained this poor chap with—a hammer, sir—look! And a hammer was used, wasn't it, to spike that dead man to the wall? Had him, Mr. Narkom, had the rascal in our very hands, that's what we did, sir, and then like a parcel of chuckleheads we went and let him go."
"It is a trick that has succeeded with others besides yourselves," said Cleek, who had been bending over the injured man. He looked up at Narkom significantly. ”

“ He turned and got out of the room, out of the house, and forged back through the darkness toward the spot where the limousine waited.
Halfway up the lane Narkom overtook him.
"Cleek, dear chap," he said, plucking him by the sleeve, "in the name of heaven, what is to be done now? The man is my friend. He believes in her; he loves her; and on my soul I believe that she loves him. Dear old chap, isn't there something better and nobler than human justice, something higher than the laws of man?"
"Yes," said Cleek, "a great deal higher. There's God and there's humanity. ”

“ Narkom and his zealous assistants had rushed wildly on, coming forth at last from the old railway arch into the narrow lane without so much as catching a glimpse or finding the slightest trace of either victim or murderer.
But that they had not all been deceived by an hallucination of the night, received proof from the triumphant discovery of Sergeant Petrie, who, with the aid of his torch and the bull's-eye lantern of Constable Mellish, had found the unmistakable traces of hurried footsteps on the soft, yielding earth.
"Lummy, sir! the place is alive with 'em," ejaculated Mellish. ”

“ Perhaps he knew of the unearthing of the buried clothing. Perhaps he knew that there was proof the murderer had been traced to Wuthering Grange, and knowing, realized the necessity for diverting suspicion from himself, if he were guilty? But, guilty or innocent, principal or accessory, this one thing was certain: last night a murder had been committed; last night a dead man had been spiked to the wall in true Apache fashion; and this Mr. Harry Raynor, who was casting slurs upon his own father, was hand and glove with the Apache queen! ”

“ He turned and put out his hand suddenly, and the General, with a little choking sound, put his own into it and breathed hard. There was a curious misty something lurking in his eyes.
Cleek smiled.
"Good-night!" he said softly, "and good-bye. Mr. Narkom and I will motor back to town, and perhaps on our way will make a point of calling at Clavering Close and break the news to Lady Katharine of her erstwhile father's death. She cannot grieve deeply, poor girl, for that which she has never known—a father's devotion, or a father's love; but it will end her suspense. ”

“ What was it the dying Common keeper had said? "All shiny pale green satin, sir, with sparklin' things on her bosom, and smellin' like a field of voylits in the month of May!"
He did not need Ailsa Lorne to point her out to him after this. He knew without anybody telling him; knew in that first moment, as surely as he ever lived to know in moments yet to come, that this veiled and night-hidden woman who stood there by the garden door keeping tryst with a man was she who had been out on the Common last night: Sir Philip Clavering's wife! ”

“ Last night, when he had found the golden capsule with the name of Katharine upon it, and had given Mr. Narkom a brief history of the famous Huile Violette and the methods of the grande dames of old, he had declared that he knew of but one woman who ever had worn one of those antique scent bracelets, and knew of her wearing it simply because he himself had stolen it from a famous collection and given it to her. To-night that identical bracelet, with the scent globe and the stopper cut from an emerald, was in his hand again! Margot's bracelet in the pocket of Harry Raynor's coat! ”

“ The distance between the gates of Gleer Cottage and the porch wherein lay the body of the dead keeper was by no means a short one, but at the first sound of Dollops's voice the two men sped down the centre of the dark, mist-wrapped drive and out into the lane, their electric pocket torches sending two brilliant streams of light in front of them. ”

“ Look sharp! He's making for the railway arch!"
"All right, mate. I'm here!" another male voice flung back. "He won't get past me, the blighter!"
Instantly there struck out the swift-measured sound of heavily shod feet racing at top speed up the mist-shrouded lane, and rapidly increasing the distance between the unseen runner and the standing limousine.
No need to tell either Narkom or his men that the man whose steps they heard was a constable, for there is a distinctive note, to ears that are trained, rung out by the heavy, cumbersome boots which folly accords to the British policeman. ”

“ Geoff did not reply; he could not. As if the sight of that slow-moving figure, linked with the realization which had now come upon him, had wrought a curious numbing effect upon mind and heart alike, he simply stood there, breathing hard, and looked, and looked, and looked, but said no single word. Even Dollops could see that there was a glint of something wet and shining in the crease beside his eye, and that, in spite of tears, he smiled as a man might smile if he had waked to find that all the world was his. It was Ailsa that made the first sound, spoke the first word. ”

“ Ulmer, or Paul Berton, had been left handcuffed and bound by ropes to the bedpost, but he had managed to evade his bondage sufficiently to get to a drawer in which must have been a loaded revolver, and he had thus set himself free.
"Let the dead past bury its dead," said Cleek quietly. "The world need only know that one impostor killed another, and finally shot himself when the law discovered the truth."
He bent down and swiftly removed the handcuffs from the still figure, and the General gave vent to a deep sigh of relief just as the startled servants came flocking up the staircase. ”

“ The one clean-lived, clean-minded, honour's very self. The other a wastrel, a sot, a liar, the consort of evil women and disreputable men, a poor, paltry worm living in an oak tree's shade.
And to-night the General had wondered why the police should be coming to Wuthering Grange; what trail from last night's tragedy led to the threshold of this house! Yet, while he sat here reading, his own son—— Heigho! "'Tis a mad world, my masters," a mad, mad world indeed. Poor old chap! Poor, blind, unsuspecting old chap, sitting here all alone and reading! ”

“ Narkom—just a woman—and a few little nippers ... who might take the wrong road as—well, as somebody I know of took it once—if there wasn't a hand to help them or a friend to guide. That's all, dear friend, that's all!"
Lifting his hat to that silent, covered figure, he turned and walked away. But at the foot of the steps leading down to the mist and darkness of the drive he came to a halt; and there Narkom, following almost instantly, joined him again.
"My dear fellow, of all the impulsive, of all the amazing men," he began; but got no further, for Cleek's upthrown hand checked him. ”

“ There is a distinct odour of violets in the room; so that unless that unhappy man yonder was of the kind that scents itself, we may set it down that a woman has been in here."
"A woman? But no woman could do a thing like that," pointing to the position of the dead man. "Nor," after sniffing the air repeatedly, "do I notice anything of the odour which you speak."
"Nor me nuther, sir," put in the constable.
"Still, the odour is here," returned Cleek. "And—no! it does not emanate from the dead man. There is scent on him to be sure, but it is not the scent of violets. ”

“ But there was nothing; neither man nor beast, neither shade nor shadow; only the loneliness and the mist and the soft "plick-plick!" of the dropping moisture.
The five minutes became eight, ten, a dozen, without the slightest change in anything. Then, all of a sudden, Lennard's tense nerves gave a sort of jump and a swift prickle flashed up his spine and through his hair. A sound had come—a rustle—a step—a movement. Not from the direction in which he was looking, however, but from the lane beyond the arch and behind the limousine. ”

“ Impudently taking hold of him before he could reply or resent the familiarity, Cleek moved the General's forearm up as if to see the swelling of the biceps.
"That's what I call muscle!" he exclaimed. "What a wrist! What a fist to floor a man or—— Hullo! been flooring some one since I left you, General? Big green smudge on your cuff, as if you'd been up against a mossy wall? Didn't get into a scrap with Sir Philip after I left you, did you, eh?" ”

“ A light flashed into Cleek's face as he repeated the name, and rising into his eyes, made them positively radiant. "Ailsa Lorne, Mr. Narkom? You surely do not mean to tell me that Ailsa Lorne is in Wimbledon?"
"Yes, certainly I do. My dear fellow, how the name seems to interest you. But I remember: you know the lady, of course."
Know her? Know the woman whose eyes had lit the way back from those old days of crime to the higher and the better things, the woman who had been his redemption in this world, and would, perhaps, be his salvation in the one to come? ”

“ Thingamy, this is a beastly caddish trick altogether, jumping on a man in the dark and giving him no chance to defend himself."
"Unfortunately, the law cannot allow itself to study the niceties of etiquette, my dear sir," replied Cleek. "It has to go on the principle that the end justifies the means, and it must always be prepared to accept risks. I, as one of its representatives, am, as I have told you, quite ready to accept one now; so if you will give me your word of honour not to make any outcry, the gag can be dispensed with." ”

“ Cleek smiled. Oho! That was it, eh? Well, there was a thoughtful ally and no mistake! Knowing full well that it would be awkward for him to be put off into some inconvenient wing of the house, should he have cause to leave it secretly and to communicate with Dollops and Narkom at any time, she had taken this step to serve and to assist him. What a woman! What a gem of a woman she was!
His thoughts worked rapidly, and his mind was made up in a twinkling. ”

“ He, too, was a visitor to Gleer Cottage last night. And he went, as you went, my friend, determined to be rid of the danger of Count Franz de Louvisan's tongue, even if he had to descend to crime to do it."
"St. Ulmer! St. Ulmer!" repeated the General with an air of bewilderment. "Why should he? What reason could he have for dreading the man?"
"A very good one, as you will see when I explain to you that St. Ulmer, as you call him, has no more right to the title than I myself!"
"An impostor!" gasped both the General and Mr. Narkom with one voice.
"Yes, an impostor," said Cleek quietly. ”

“ However many his years, they could not have totalled more than five and thirty at most, and ghastly as he was now, in life he must have been strikingly handsome: fair of hair and moustache, lean of loin and broad of shoulder, and with that subtle something about him which mutely stands sponsor for the thing called birth.
He was clad in a long gray topcoat of fine texture and fashionable cut—a coat unbuttoned and flung open by the same furious hand which had rent and torn at the suit of evening clothes he wore beneath. ”

“ The woman has paid and paid and paid, as erring women must always do; but if I can help it, she shall pay no longer. I tell you I will compound a felony that her secret may be kept."
"And I'll assist you in it, old chap; I'll compound it with you!" said Narkom with quiet impressiveness. "Not because the man is my friend, Cleek, but because—oh, well, because the woman is a woman!"
"And they have a hard road to travel at best," supplemented Cleek. "So let's give a sorely tried one a lift and a bit of sunlight on the long, dark way! ”

“ The woman's footsteps had ceased abruptly, brought to a sudden halt by the ring of others—the nervous, heavy-heeled, fast-falling steps of an excited man coming across the drawbridge and into the ruin at a pace which was almost a run; and that man [Pg 121] had no more than come into range of the woman's vision when the thin, eager voice of Lady Katharine Fordham sounded and made the situation clear.
It was a tryst—the lovers' meeting upon which Cleek had built such high hopes and upon which he had blundered by the merest fluke. ”

“ Raynor and the General upon the scene, with Harry Raynor in their wake, gave a different atmosphere, so to speak, to Cleek's thoughts, and he threw himself, heart and soul, into getting into the good graces of the family. He did not much fancy Mr. Harry Raynor, who was too self-assertive to be pleasant company to a matured man of the world, and just at the age which may be best described in the quotation, "young enough to know everything." ”

“ And me a-goin' 'ome, sir—me a-gettin' of my death like this for jist a-doin' of my duty—doin' of it honest and true, sir, for king and country!"
"And both letting you face the nightly peril of it unarmed!" said Cleek bitterly; then, passionately: "Will you wake up, England? Will you wake up and do justice by these men who give their lives that you may sleep in peace, and who, with a badge and a truncheon and two willing hands, must fight your criminal classes and keep law and order for you?" ”

“ Cleek laughed to himself as they took the angle path again. "I know the secret of the universe at last, my lad," he said softly. "The way to heaven is through a good woman's eyes!" Then he laughed again, and spoke no more until they were at their journey's end.
"Now, then, my embryo Vidocq," he began, halting in the shadow of the wall angle and laying a gentle hand on Dollops's shoulder, "a word or two with you. I think you told me earlier in the evening that Mr. Narkom had gone back to town, did you not? Did he say if he'd be returning to Wimbledon to-night or not? ”