The Crimson Blind. Fred M. White
constantly returning to them. What a splendid dramatic story they would make! And what a fascinating mystery could be woven round that gun-metal cigar-case!
By the way, where was the cigar-case? On the whole it would be just as well to lock the case away till he could discover some reasonable excuse for its possession. His mother would be pretty sure to ask where it came from, and David could not prevaricate so far as she was concerned. But the cigar-case was not to be found, and David was forced to the conclusion that he had left it in Mossa’s office.
A little annoyed with himself he took up the evening Argus. There was half a column devoted to the strange case at Downend Terrace, and just over it a late advertisement to the effect that a gun-metal cigar-case had been found and was in the hands of the police awaiting an owner.
David slipped from the house and caught a ‘bus in St. George’s Road.
At the police-station he learnt that Inspector Marley was still on the premises. Marley came forward gravely. He had a few questions to ask, but nothing to tell.
“And now perhaps you can give me some information?” David said, “You are advertising in to-night’s Argus a gun-metal cigar-case set with diamonds.”
“Ah,” Marley said, eagerly, “can you tell us anything about it?”
“Nothing beyond the fact that I hope to satisfy you that the case is mine.”
Marley stared open-mouthed at David for a moment, and then relapsed into his sapless official manner. He might have been a detective cross-examining a suspected criminal.
“Why this mystery?” David asked. “I have lost a gun-metal cigar-case set with diamonds, and I see a similar article is noted as found by the police. I lost it this morning, and I shrewdly suspect that I left it behind me at the office of Mr. Mossa.”
“The case was sent here by Mr. Mossa himself,” Marley admitted.
“Then, of course, it is mine. I had to give Mr. Mossa my opinion of him this morning, and by way of spiting me he sent that case here, hoping, perhaps, that I should not recover it. You know the case Marley—it was lying on the floor of my conservatory last night.”
“I did notice a gun-metal case there,” Marley said, cautiously.
“As a matter of fact, you called my attention to it and asked if it was mine.”
“And you said at first that it wasn’t, sir.”
“Well, you must make allowances for my then frame of mind,” David laughed. “I rather gather from your manner that somebody else has been after the case; if that is so, you are right to be reticent. Still, it is in your hands to settle the matter on the spot. All you have to do is to open the case, and if you fail to find my initials, D.S., scratched in the left-hand top corner, then I have lost my property and the other fellow has found his.”
In the same reticent fashion Marley proceeded to unlock a safe in the corner, and from thence he produced what appeared to be the identical cause of all this talk. He pulled the electric table lamp over to him and proceeded to examine the inside carefully.
“You are quite right,” he said, at length. “Your initials are here.”
“Not strange, seeing that I scratched them there last night,” said David, drily. “When? Oh, it was after you left my house last night.”
“And it has been some time in your possession, sir?”
“Oh, confound it, no. It was—well, it was a present from a friend for a little service rendered. So far as I understand, it was purchased at Lockhart’s, in North Street. No, I’ll be hanged if I answer any more of your questions, Marley. I’ll be your Aunt Sally so far as you are officially concerned. But as to yonder case, your queries are distinctly impertinent.”
Marley shook his head gravely, as one might over a promising but headstrong boy.
“Do I understand that you decline to account for the case?” he asked.
“Certainly I do. It is connected with some friends of mine to whom I rendered a service a little time back. The whole thing is and must remain an absolute secret.”
“You are placing yourself in a very delicate position, Mr. Steel.”
David started at the gravity of the tone. That something was radically wrong came upon him like a shock. And he could see pretty clearly that, without betraying confidence, he could not logically account for the possession of the cigar-case. In any case it was too much to expect that the stolid police officer would listen to so extravagant a tale for a moment.
“What on earth do you mean, man?” he cried.
“Well, it’s this way, sir,” Marley proceeded to explain. “When I pointed out the case to you lying on the floor of your conservatory last night you said it wasn’t yours. You looked at it with the eyes of a stranger, and then you said you were mistaken. From information given me last night I have been making inquiries about the cigar-case. You took it to Mr. Mossa’s, and from it you produced notes to the value of nearly £1,000 to pay off a debt. Within eight-and forty hours you had no more prospect of paying that debt than I have at this moment. Of course, you will be able to account for those notes. You can, of course?”
Marley looked eagerly at his visitor. A cold chill was playing up and down Steel’s spine. Not to save his life could he account for those notes.
“We will discuss that when the proper time comes,” he said, with fine indifference.
“As you please, sir. From information also received I took the case to Walen’s, in West Street, and asked Mr. Walen if he had seen the case before. Pressed to identify it, he handed me a glass and asked me to find the figures (say) ‘1771. x 3,’ in tiny characters on the edge. I did so by the aid of the glass, and Mr. Walen further proceeded to show me an entry in his purchasing ledger which proved that a cigar-case in gun-metal and diamonds bearing that legend had been added to the stock quite recently—a few weeks ago, in fact.”
“Well, what of that?” David asked, impatiently. “For all I know, the case might have come from Walen’s. I said it came from a friend who must needs be nameless for services equally nameless. I am not going to deny that Walen was right.”
“I have not quite finished,” Marley said, quietly. “Pressed as to when the case had been sold, Mr. Walen, without hesitation, said: ‘Yesterday, for £72 15s.’ The purchaser was a stranger, whom Mr. Walen is prepared to identify. Asked if a formal receipt had been given, Walen said that it had. And now I come to the gist of the whole matter. You saw Dr. Cross hand me a mass of papers, etc., taken from the person of the gentleman who was nearly killed in your house?”
David nodded. His breath was coming a little faster. His quick mind had run on ahead; he saw the gulf looming before him.
“Go on,” said he, hoarsely, “go on. You mean to say that—”
“That amongst the papers found in the pocket of the unfortunate stranger was a receipted bill for the very cigar-case that lies here on the table before you!”
VI. A POLICY OF SILENCE
Steel dropped into a chair and gazed at Inspector Marley with mild surprise. At the same time he was not in the least alarmed. Not that he failed to recognise the gravity of the situation, only it appealed in the first instance to the professional side of his character.
“Walen is quite sure?” he asked. “No possible doubt about that, eh?”
“Not in the least. You see, he recognised his private mark at once, and Brighton is not so prosperous a place that a man could sell a £70 cigar-case and forget all about it—that is, a second case, I mean. It’s most extraordinary.”
“Rather!