Hushed Up! A Mystery of London. Le Queux William
heel, left the room, followed by his host, who personally opened the door for him as he bade him good-night.
One hour’s grace had been given Philip Poland. After that, the blackness of death.
His blanched features were rigid as he stood staring straight before him. His enemy had betrayed him. His defiance had, alas! cost him his life.
He recollected Shuttleworth’s slowly uttered words on the night before, and his finger-nails clenched themselves into his palms. Then he passed across the square, old-fashioned hall to the study, dim-lit, save for the zone of light around the green-shaded reading-lamp; the sombre room where the old grandfather clock ticked so solemnly in the corner.
Sonia had returned to the drawing-room as he let his visitor out. He could hear her playing, and singing in her sweet contralto a tuneful French love-song, ignorant of the hideous crisis that had fallen, ignorant of the awful disaster which had overwhelmed him.
Three-quarters of an hour had passed when, stealthily on tiptoe, the girl crept into the room, and there found her father seated by the fireplace, staring in blank silence.
The long old brass-faced clock in the shadow struck three times upon its strident bell. Only fifteen minutes more, and then the police would enter and charge him with that foul crime. Then the solution of a remarkable mystery which had puzzled the whole world would be complete.
He started, and, glancing around, realized that Sonia, with her soft hand in his, was again at his side.
“Why, dad,” cried the girl in alarm, “how pale you are! Whatever ails you? What can I get you?”
“Nothing, child, nothing,” was the desperate man’s hoarse response. “I’m – I’m quite well – only a little upset at some bad news I’ve had, that’s all. But come. Let me kiss you, dear. It’s time you were in bed.”
And he drew her down until he could print a last fond caress upon her white open brow.
“But, dad,” exclaimed the girl anxiously, “I really can’t leave you. You’re not well. You’re not yourself to-night.”
As she uttered those words, Felix entered the room, saying in an agitated voice —
“May I speak with you alone, m’sieur?”
His master started violently, and, rising, went forth into the hall, where the butler, his face scared and white, whispered —
“Something terrible has occurred, m’sieur! Davis, the groom, has just found a gentleman lying dead in the drive outside. He’s been murdered, m’sieur!”
“Murdered!” gasped Poland breathlessly. “Who is he?”
“The gentleman who called upon you three-quarters of an hour ago. He’s lying dead – out yonder.”
“Where’s a lantern? Let me go and see!” cried Poland. And a few moments later master and man were standing with the groom beside the lifeless body of Henri Guertin, the great detective, the terror of all French criminals. The white countenance, with its open, staring eyes, bore a horrified expression, but the only wound that could be distinguished was a deep cut across the palm of the right hand, a clean cut, evidently inflicted by a keen-edged knife.
Davis, on his way in, had, he explained, stumbled across the body in the darkness, ten minutes before.
Philip Poland had knelt, his hand upon the dead man’s heart, when suddenly all three were startled by the sound of footsteps upon the gravel, and next moment two men loomed up into the uncertain light of the lantern.
One was tall and middle-aged, in dark tweeds and a brown hat of soft felt; the other, short and stout, wearing gold pince-nez.
A loud cry of dismay broke from Poland’s fevered lips as his eyes fell upon the latter.
“Hallo! What’s this?” cried a sharp, imperious voice in French, the voice of the man in pince-nez, as, next moment, he stood gazing down upon the dead unknown, who, strangely enough, resembled him in countenance, in dress – indeed, in every particular.
The startled men halted for a moment, speechless. The situation was staggering.
Henri Guertin stood there alive, and as he bent over the prostrate body an astounding truth became instantly revealed: the dead man had been cleverly made-up to resemble the world-renowned police official.
The reason of this was an entire mystery, although one fact became plain: he had, through posing as Guertin, been foully and swiftly assassinated.
Who was he? Was he really the man who came there to suggest suicide in preference to arrest, or had that strange suggestion been conveyed by Guertin himself?
The point was next moment decided.
“You see, m’sieur,” exclaimed Poland defiantly, turning to the great detective, “I have preferred to take my trial – to allow the public the satisfaction of a solution of the problem, rather than accept the generous terms you offered me an hour ago.”
“Terms I offered you!” cried the Frenchman. “What are you saying? I was not here an hour ago. If you have had a visitor, it must have been this impostor – this man who has lost his life because he has impersonated me!”
Philip Poland, without replying, snatched at the detective’s left hand and examined it. There was no ring upon it.
Swiftly he bent beside the victim, and there, sure enough, upon the dead white finger was revealed the curious ring he had noticed – an oval amethyst engraved with a coat-of-arms surmounted by a cardinal’s hat – the ring worn by the man who had called upon him an hour before!
THE STORY OF OWEN BIDDULPH
CHAPTER ONE
BESIDE STILL WATERS
If I make too frequent use of the first person singular in these pages, I crave forgiveness of the reader.
I have written down this strange story for two reasons: first, because I venture to believe it to be one of the most remarkable sequences of curious events that have ever occurred in a man’s life; and secondly, by so doing, I am able to prove conclusively before the world the innocence of one sadly misjudged, and also to set at rest certain scandalous tales which have arisen in consequence.
At risk of betraying certain confidences; at risk of placing myself in the unenviable position of chronicler of my own misfortunes; at risk even of defying those who have threatened my life should I dare speak the truth, I have resolved to recount the whole amazing affair, just as it occurred to me, and further, to reveal completely what has hitherto been regarded as a mystery by readers of the daily newspapers.
You already know my name – Owen Biddulph. As introduction, I suppose I ought to add that, after coming down from Oxford, I pretended to read for the Bar, just to please the dear old governor – Sir Alfred Biddulph, Knight. At the age of twenty-five, owing to his unfortunate death in the hunting-field, I found myself possessor of Carrington Court, our fine Elizabethan place in North Devon, and town-house, 64a Wilton Street, Belgrave Square, together with a comfortable income of about nine thousand a year, mostly derived from sound industrial enterprises.
My father, before his retirement, had been a Liverpool ship-owner, and, like many others of his class, had received his knighthood on the occasion of Queen Victoria’s Jubilee. My mother had been dead long since. I had but few relatives, and those mostly poor ones; therefore, on succeeding to the property, I went down to Carrington just to interview Browning, the butler, and the other servants, all of them old and faithful retainers; and then, having given up all thought of a legal career, I went abroad, in order to attain my long-desired ambition to travel, and to “see the world.”
Continental life attracted me, just as it attracts most young men. Paris, with its glare and glitter, its superficial gaiety, its bright boulevards, and its feminine beauty, is the candle to the moth of youth. I revelled in Paris just as many a thousand other young men had done before me. I knew French, Italian and German, and I was vain enough to believe that I might have within me the making of a cosmopolitan. So many young men believe that – and, alas! so