The Riddle of the Purple Emperor. Hanshew Mary E.
especial benefit.
"A bit touched, if yer asks me, sir," said Mr. Roberts as he puffed away contentedly at the cigar Cleek had offered him. "Never the same, so I've heard tell, since she was jilted thirty years ago by old Squire Brenton – Sir Edgar's father, that is – fine proper man he were, too, and when he found Miss Marion had a temper of her own, he up and cleared out. Next thing any one knows he comes back with his wife, a pretty slip of a thing, and our Sir Edgar a crowing baby. Miss Marion shut herself up then, and wouldn't 'ave a servant in the place except old Timms and his wife, as I said just now. There's no one to go near her, and I don't think Mr. Gunga Dall would visit her again in a hurry after the way she treated him. Nice old scene he had with 'er."
"Hello, what's that?" said Cleek, suddenly. "A 'scene'? How and where? – or perhaps you don't know?"
"As it happens, I do," said Constable Roberts, pompously. "My young Jim, the little varmint, chose that day to play truant, and at the identical moment that the old girl – lady, I mean, beggin' yer pardon, sir – pitched him into the water – "
"Into the water?" echoed Cleek incredulously. "A lady pitched a gentleman into the water, Constable – "
"Well, she did, anyway, and Jim said the way the gent cussed was a reg'lar lesson to 'im."
"Fluent English, eh?" said Cleek.
"Re-markable sir, for a pore benighted 'eathen. It's wonderful, that's wot I calls it, but it all came of 'im a wanting to go a fishing – "
"Fishing – a Hindoo go fishing?" Cleek's brows came together in a heavy frown and his eyes narrowed down to pin points at this remarkable statement.
"Yes, sir, you know the grounds of Cheyne Court slope right down to the river, and there is a fine bit of water there. According to my Jim, he went to ask the old lady's permission first, but getting no answer to all his knocks at the front door, he takes kind of French leave, as yer might say, and goes down to the spot, and starts in to fish. Well, sir, as I takes it, the old lady saw 'im from a hupper window and down she comes and abuses 'im like a pickpocket. Gunga he tried to pacify her, but she up and pushed him in, and as I said before, Jim's been a 'oly terror at language ever since! Not but it's any wonder, sir, cold water's not up to much at the best of times, and when you're an Indian and chucked in, so to speak, it's enough to make anybody's gorge rise. But I don't say but what the gent isn't as nice a man as you'd want to meet in a day's walk."
Cleek made no reply, but his brows twitched now and again and his mouth tightened, as he faced this startling problem. Here was a motive for revenge sure enough and something more, too. Why on earth would a Hindoo, presumably a Brahmin of high caste, to whom the taking of life in any form, however lowly, is an unforgivable sin, why would he pretend to want to fish, unless it were to spy on the land, and he be on the track of that ill-fated jewel the "Purple Emperor"? That the Indians would go so far as to kill Miss Cheyne Cleek did not believe, and yet – his mind harked back to that dark, bearded face in its white shroud.
"Hm," he said, casually. "Fine, bearded man I suppose?" They were fast approaching the gates of Cheyne Court once more as he spoke, and the constable swung round in his seat and looked at him.
"What, Gunga Dall, sir?" said he, a note of surprise in his tones. "Not 'e sir, not a blessed 'air on his face. Comes down often to the village for a drink, too, regular pleasant gent as wouldn't 'urt a fly. No, sir, 'e wouldn't do a baby no 'arm Mr. Gunga Dall wouldn't, an' if you're a thinking that 'e's 'ad any part in it – Oh, no, sir! I'd stake my life on it I would. Nearly there, ain't we? I pity that pore young thing fast asleep in the house with the corpse. Bit of a risk to leave 'er, sir, wasn't it?"
"I couldn't help myself," flung back Cleek irritably, for had not the same thought been torturing him ever since he had sped down the drive? "I should have had to tell her if I woke her up, poor child, and she was too dead-beat to stir for the next couple of hours."
"Not too dead-beat not to get a light, anyway," said Constable Roberts, pointing in the direction of the house, and as Cleek raised his eyes from the steering wheel he saw a sight that caused the machine to swerve wildly in consequence. For the dark deserted house over which he had wandered barely half an hour before, leaving it tenanted by a sleeping girl and the body of the only relative she had possessed in the world, was now gaily lit from top to bottom and from behind the blinds of one of the rooms could be seen the be-capped head of a maid.
"The devils have come back!" Cleek cried as he put on greater speed than ever. "There's not a moment to be lost. Lord send she's safe. Hurry, man, for God's sake, hurry!"
But there was no need to tell Constable Roberts to "hurry," for fully alive now to the urgency of the case he was already panting his way up the front steps.
"Locked," snapped Cleek as his fingers felt for the handle. "Get back to the rear. You go to the right. I'll try the ball room window."
Switching on his heel, he was gone before the ponderous body of Constable Roberts had recovered its breath. It was pitch dark now, and once out of range of the brilliant motor-lamps, the house was shrouded in a mantle of blackness. But Cleek had his electric torch and as he sped swiftly on his course he swung its light against shrubs and windows.
Turning the corner of the wall, he came within sight of the ball room window once more and reached it in the twinkling of an eyelash. To his dismay he found it not only locked, but what was even more terrifying by reason of its significance, shuttered and barred from within!
Cleek gave vent to a little cry indicative of mild despair and brought out his torch, letting its tiny searchlight fall upon the smooth lawn in front of him. It could do little more than throw a weak circle of light a few feet into the depths of the trees leaving all beyond and upon either side doubly dark in contrast. But for this Cleek cared nothing, for even as the light streamed out and flung that circle into the impinging mist, there moved across it the figure of a woman with a scarf of gold lace thrown over her head, from beneath which fell a shower of dark, unbound hair. It effectively concealed her face, and almost covered her shoulders wrapped in scarlet satin.
Satin in March! And a woman! She was the second woman he had seen cross the lawn that night, the one an hour or so ago, in white, and now this one in scarlet. The thing was so uncanny, so totally unexpected, that Cleek's brain positively reeled. In a flash she was gone.
He turned to follow in pursuit, but as he switched on his heel, it was to come face to face with the panting, breathless figure of Mr. Roberts.
"Ev – every door – fastened, sir," he said, his breath coming in great gasps. "What on earth's the matter, I dunno. But that's the gospel truth, and I'll swear to it!"
"Nothing else to do but to attack the front then," said Cleek. "Come on, Constable. No time to be wasted."
CHAPTER IV
THE HOUSE OF SHADOWS
Constable Roberts did "come on" and at a speed highly commendable, considering his portly build. Cleek, passing the long French windows through which he had obtained entry but an hour before, stopped to ascertain that they, too, were now bolted and barred.
Snapping on their electric torches they tore up the short flight of steps leading to the front door.
"Someone has made good use of their time," Cleek whispered, as he thought how easily he had entered with Lady Margaret such a short while before. "There's no use trying to force this door and the windows are now shuttered and barred. The only thing to do is to try knocking them up."
A second later Mr. Roberts sent a valiant peal resounding through the house and both men listened tensely for any response. One, two, perhaps five minutes passed; the echoes of their blows had died away into silence, and the flash of their torches showed to each of them only the other's strained expectant face. Neither eye nor ear could detect any signs of movement within.
"How we're to get in beats me," said Constable Roberts with a frown puckering his bushy brows. "We'll have to break in, in the name of the law."
And as though that very name had in itself something of the supernatural, there came a sound, a rustle, a step within the house, and the nerves of both men were near to snapping point. They stood a moment listening,