The Seven Secrets. Le Queux William
only just as though someone was stealing along the corridor. We often hear movements at nights, because Short is always astir at two o’clock, giving the master his medicine. If it hadn’t ha’ been for the creaking I should not have taken notice of it. But I lay quite wide awake 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 very simple question, and wish to obtain an honest and truthful reply. Was any door or window left unfastened when you went to bed?”
“No, sir,” the cook replied promptly. “I always go round myself, and see 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 did not 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 been forced?”
“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 the inquiry. If all doors and windows were still locked, then the assassin was one of that strange household.
Led by the cook, the officers began a round of the lower premises. One of the detectives borrowed the constable’s bull’s-eye and, accompanied by a second officer, went outside to make an examination of the window sashes, while we remained inside assisting them in their search for any marks.
Ethelwynn had been called aside by one of the detectives, and was answering some questions addressed to her, therefore for an instant I found myself alone. It was the moment I had been waiting for, to secretly examine the clue I had obtained.
I was near the door of the morning room, and for a second slipped inside and switched on the electric light.
Then I took from my vest pocket the tiny little object I had found and carefully examined it.
My heart stood still. My eyes riveted themselves upon it. The mystery was solved.
I alone knew the truth!
CHAPTER VII.
THE MAN SHORT AND HIS STORY
A light footstep sounded behind me, and scarcely had I time to thrust the little object hastily back into my pocket when my well-beloved entered in search of me.
“What do the police think, Ralph?” she asked eagerly. “Have they any clue? Do tell me.”
“They have no clue,” I answered, in a voice which I fear sounded hard and somewhat abrupt.
Then I turned from her, as though fully occupied with the investigations at which I was assisting, and went past her, leaving her standing alone.
The police were busy examining the doors and windows of the back premises, kitchens, scullery, and pantry, but could find no evidence of any lock or fastening having been tampered with. The house, I must explain, was a large detached red brick one, standing in a lawn that was quite spacious for a suburban house, and around it ran an asphalte path which diverged from the right hand corner of the building and ran in two parts to the road, one a semi-circular drive which came up to the portico from the road, and the other, a tradesmen’s path, that ran to the opposite extremity of the property.
From the back kitchen a door led out upon this asphalted tradesmen’s path, and as I rejoined the searchers some discussion was in progress as to whether the door in question had been secured. The detective-sergeant had found it unbolted and unlocked, but the cook most positively asserted that she had both locked and bolted it at half-past ten, when the under housemaid had come in from her “evening out.” None of the servants, however, recollected having undone the door either before the alarm or after. Perhaps Short had done so, but he was absent, in search of the dead man’s widow.
The police certainly spared no pains in their search. They turned the whole place upside down. One man on his hands and knees, and carrying a candle, carefully examined the blue stair-carpet to see if he could find the marks of unusual feet. It was wet outside, and if an intruder had been there, there would probably remain marks of muddy feet. He found many, but they were those of the constable and detectives. Hence the point was beyond solution.
The drawing-room, the dining-room, the morning-room, and the big conservatory were all closely inspected, but without any satisfactory result. My love followed us everywhere, white-faced and nervous, with the cream chenille shawl still over her shoulders. She had hastily put up her wealth of dark hair, and now wore the shawl wrapped lightly about her.
That shawl attracted me. I managed to speak with her alone for a moment, asking her quite an unimportant question, but nevertheless with a distinct object. As we stood there I placed my hand upon her shoulder – and upon the shawl. It was for that very reason – in order to feel the texture of the silk – that I returned to her.
The contact of my hand with the silk was convincing. I turned from her once again, and rejoined the shrewd men whose object it was to fasten the guilt upon the assassin.
Presently we heard the welcome sound of cab wheels outside, and a few minutes later young Mrs. Courtenay, wild eyed and breathless, rushed into the hall and dashed headlong up the stairs. I, however, barred her passage.
“Let me pass!” she cried wildly. “Short has told me he is worse and has asked for me. Let me pass!”
“No, Mary, not so quickly. Let me tell you something,” I answered gravely, placing my hand firmly upon her arm. The police were again re-examining the back premises below, and only Ethelwynn was present at the top of the stairs, where I arrested her progress to the dead man’s room.
“But is there danger?” she demanded anxiously. “Tell me.”
“The crisis is over,” I responded ambiguously. “But is not your absence to-night rather unusual?”
“It was entirely my own fault,” she admitted. “I shall never forgive myself for this neglect. After the theatre we had supper at the Savoy, and I lost my last train. Dolly Henniker, of course, asked me to stay, and I could not refuse.” Then glancing from my face to that of her sister she asked: “Why do you both look so strange? Tell me,” she shrieked. “Tell me the worst. Is he – is he dead?”
I nodded in the affirmative.
For a second she stood dumb, then gave vent to a long wail, and would have fallen senseless if I had not caught her in my arms and laid her back upon the long settee placed in an alcove on the landing. She, like all the others, had dressed hurriedly. Her hair was dishevelled beneath her hat, but her disordered dress was concealed by her long ulster heavily lined with silver fox, a magnificent garment which her doting husband had purchased through a friend at Moscow, and presented to her as a birthday gift.
From her manner it was only too plain that she was filled with remorse. I really pitied her, for she was a light-hearted, flighty, little woman who loved gaiety, and, without an evil thought, had no doubt allowed her friends to draw her into that round of amusement. They sympathised with her – as every woman who marries an old man is sympathised with – and they gave her what pleasures they could. Alas! that such a clanship between women so often proves fatal to domestic happiness. Judged from a logical point of view it was merely natural that young Mrs. Courtenay should, after a year or two with an invalid husband, aged and eccentric, beat her wings against the bars. She was a pretty woman, almost as pretty as her sister, but two years older, with fair hair, blue eyes, and a pink and white, almost doll-like complexion. Indeed, I knew quite well that she had long had a host of admirers, and that just prior to her marriage with Courtenay it