The Day of Temptation. Le Queux William
the metropolis, and whose friends had not been traced. Pinned against the grey-painted walls were several printed notices offering rewards, some with portraits of absconding persons, others with crude woodcuts of stolen jewels. It was a bare, carpetless loom, but eminently business-like.
“Well,” the inspector was saying to the constable as he leant back in his chair, “there’s some mystery about the affair, you think – eh? Are there any signs of murder?”
“No, sir,” the man answered. “At present the doctor has discovered nothing.”
“Then, until he has, our Department can’t deal with it,” replied the detective. “Why has your Inspector sent you up here?”
“Because it’s so mysterious, I suppose, sir.”
“She may have had a fit – most probable, I should think. Until the doctor has certified, I don’t see any necessity to stir. It’s more than possible that when the man who left her at the Criterion reads of her death in the papers, he’ll come forward, identify her, and clear himself.” Then, turning to the cabman, he asked, “What sort of a man was he – an Englishman?”
“Well, I really don’t know, sir. He spoke to the dead girl in her own language, yet I thought, when he spoke to his friend at the station, that his English was that of a foreigner. Besides, he looked like a Frenchman, for he wore a large bow for a tie, which no Englishman wears.”
“You think him a foreigner because of his tie – eh?” the detective observed, smiling. “Now, if you had noticed his boots with a critical eye, you might perhaps have accurately determined his nationality. Look at a man’s boots next time.”
Then, taking up his pen, he drew a piece of pale yellow official paper before him, noted the number of the cabman’s badge, inquired his name and address, and asked several questions, afterwards dismissing both men with the observation that until a verdict had been given in the Coroner’s Court, he saw no reason to institute further inquiries.
Two days later the inquest was held in a small room at St. Martin’s Town Hall, the handsome building overlooking Trafalgar Square, and, as may be imagined, was largely attended by representatives of the Press. All the sensationalism of London evening journalism had, during the two days intervening, been let loose upon the mysterious affair, and the remarkable “latest details” had been “worked up” into an amazing, but utterly fictitious story. One paper, in its excess of zeal to outdistance all its rivals in sensationalism, had hinted that the dead woman was actually the daughter of an Imperial House, and this had aroused public curiosity to fever-heat.
When the usual formalities of constituting the Court had been completed, the jury had viewed the body, and the cabman had related his strange story, the Coroner, himself a medical man, dark-bearded and middle-aged, commenced a close cross-examination.
“Was it French or Italian the lady spoke?” he asked.
“I don’t know the difference, sir,” the cabman admitted. “The man with her spoke just as quickly as she did.”
“Was there anything curious in the demeanour of either of them?”
“I noticed nothing strange. The gentleman told me to drive along Pall Mall and the Haymarket, or of course I’d ’ave taken the proper route, up Charin’ Cross Road and Leicester Square.”
“You would recognise this gentleman again, I suppose?” the Coroner asked.
“I’d know him among a thousand,” the man promptly replied.
Inspector Elmes, who was present on behalf of the Criminal Investigation Department, asked several questions through the Coroner, when the latter afterwards resumed his cross-examination.
“You have told us,” he said, “that just before entering the cab the gentleman was accosted by a friend. Did you overhear any of their conversation?”
“I heard the missing man address the other as ‘Major,’” the cabman replied. “He introduced the Major to the lady, but I was unable to catch either of their names. The two men seemed very glad to meet, but, on the other hand, my gentleman seemed in a great hurry to get away.”
“You are certain that this man you know as the Major did not arrive by the same train, eh?” asked the Coroner, glancing sharply up from the paper whereon he was writing the depositions of this important witness.
“I am certain; for I noticed him lounging up and down the platform fully ’arf an hour before the train came in.”
“Then you think he must have been awaiting his friend?”
“No doubt he was, sir, for as soon as I drove the lady and gentleman away, he, too, started to walk out of the station.”
Then the Coroner, having written a few more words upon the foolscap before him, turned to the jury, exclaiming – “This last statement of the witness, gentlemen, seems, to say the least, curious.”
In an instant all present were on tip-toe with excitement, wondering what startling facts were likely to be revealed.
Chapter Four
“The Major.”
No further questions were put to the cab-driver at this juncture, but medical evidence was at once taken. Breathless stillness pervaded the court, for the statement about to be made would put an end to all rumour, and the truth would be known.
When the dapper elderly man had stepped up to the table and been sworn, the Coroner, in the quick, business-like tone which he always assumed toward his fellow medical men, said —
“You are Doctor Charles Wyllie, house-surgeon, Charing Cross Hospital?”
“I am,” the other answered in a correspondingly dry tone.
“The woman was brought to the hospital, I suppose?”
“Yes, the police brought her, but she had already been dead about three-quarters of an hour. There were no external marks of violence, and her appearance was as though she had died suddenly from natural causes. In conjunction with Doctor Henderson, I yesterday made a careful post-mortem. The body is that of a healthy woman of about twenty-three, evidently an Italian. There was no trace whatever of organic disease. From what I noticed when the body was brought to the hospital, however, I asked the police to let it remain untouched until I was ready to make a post-mortem.”
“Did you discover anything which might lead to suspicion of foul play?” inquired the Coroner.
“I made several rather curious discoveries,” the doctor answered, whereat those in court shifted uneasily, prepared for some thrilling story of how the woman was murdered. “First, she undoubtedly died from paralysis of the heart. Secondly, I found around the left ankle a curious tattoo-mark in the form of a serpent with its tail in its mouth. It is beautifully executed, evidently by an expert tattooist. Thirdly, there was a white mark upon the left breast, no doubt the scar of a knife-wound, which I judged to have been inflicted about two years ago. The knife was probably a long narrow-bladed one, and the bone had prevented the blow proving fatal.”
“Then a previous attempt had been made upon her life, you think?” asked the Coroner, astonished.
“There is no doubt about it,” the doctor answered. “Such a wound could never have been caused by accident. It had no doubt received careful surgical attention, judging from the cicatrice.”
“But this had nothing to do with her death?” the Coroner suggested.
“Nothing whatever,” replied the doctor. “The appearance of the body gives no indication of foul play.”
“Then you assign death to natural causes – eh?”
“No, I do not,” responded Dr Wyllie deliberately, after a slight pause. “The woman was murdered.”
These words produced a great sensation in the breathlessly silent court.
“By what means?”
“That I have utterly failed to discover. All appearances point to the fact that the deceased lost consciousness almost