The Sign of the Stranger. William Le Queux
did it,” he declared, “knew exactly where to strike. I daresay he fell without a cry. The knife was very sharp, too,” he went on, examining one of the black horn buttons of the young man’s jacket-cuff. “You see it grazed this as he raised his arm to ward off the blow and shaved off a tiny piece, just as a razor might. The coroner will want to see this. I’ll get Newman over, and we’ll make a proper post-mortem in the morning.”
Pink was a clever surgeon who masked his capabilities behind an easy-going good-humour. His poor patients were often convulsed by his amusing remarks, while at the houses of the county people he was always a welcome guest on account of his inexhaustible fund of droll stories, his shrewd wit, and his outspoken appreciation of a good dinner. His odd ways were the idiosyncrasies of genius, for without doubt he was as expert a surgeon as there was outside Harley Street, and I myself had heard praise of him from the mouths of certain London men with big “names.”
The manner in which he examined the unfortunate young man who had so suddenly fallen a victim of an assassin showed that he was intensely interested. He grunted once or twice and sniffed suspiciously, and with some gusto took a pinch of snuff from his heavy silver box. Then, having carefully examined the man’s right hand, he turned to me again, saying, as he pointed to it—
“That’s strange, Woodhouse, isn’t it?”
“What?” I inquired, detecting nothing.
“Can’t you see. His hand is clenched. He grasped something just at the moment when he was struck.”
“Well?”
He held the lantern closer to the cold stiff hand, and pointing to the thumb that was closely clenched upon the fingers, said—
“Can’t you see anything there?”
I looked, and then for the first time detected that beneath the thumb was something white—a tiny piece of white fur!
“That’s out of a woman’s jacket, or boa, or something,” he declared, gradually disengaging it, and placing it in the hollow of his hand for closer inspection. “There are one or two black hairs with it, showing it, I believe, to be ermine fur—a woman who wore some garment of ermine.”
“Are you certain?” I gasped.
“Almost—but not quite until I put it beneath the microscope. Then I’ll be able to tell for certain. But surely it couldn’t have been a woman who killed him?”
“It looks very much like it, sir,” remarked Knight, who had been gazing eagerly over the doctor’s shoulder.
“Then what woman?” asked Warr, glancing across at me.
I held my breath. A silence fell between us. The mystery was of such a character that neither of us dare advance any further theory.
For my own part, however, the discovery of this tiny piece of fur was directly suspicious, and went much to confirm my belief that Lolita had been at the spot where the tragedy had been enacted, for I now recollected that sometimes when she went out after dinner she put on a wide ermine boa with long ends to cover her shoulders, a very handsome piece of fur that had been brought for her from Petersburg when the young Countess of Stanchester went to visit the Grand-Duchess Paul in the previous winter.
Was it possible that the poor young fellow had clutched at it in his dying grasp? Or had he seized the fur garment of some other woman?
Yet, I recollected, furs are not usually worn in mid-August save just to throw over a dinner-gown as protection from chills when the damp is rising after the heat of the day.
On the other hand, I tried to convince myself that the cry was not that of the sweet-eyed woman I loved; nevertheless, such thought was in vain. I knew that voice far too well to have been mistaken.
For quite an hour Pink continued his investigations as keenly and methodically as any practised detective, for he rather prided himself upon the manner in which he made discoveries about persons, and frequently astounded his patients by his knowledge of their actions and movements, which they believed only known to themselves. At last, however, he exhausted all the points possible to investigate without a post-mortem, and just as the church clock struck three we came forth, Warr locking the door of the outhouse, while Knight left us to ride on his bicycle into Northampton to report to the headquarters of the constabulary.
Pink’s way lay past my house, for he lived in a big, square, comfortable house about a quarter of a mile out of the village, on the London road, and as we walked together up the silent street, he suddenly said—
“Do you know, Woodhouse, I have a firm belief that the young fellow has been murdered by some woman! We must search the spot early in the morning and see if we can’t find some footprints, or other traces. Fortunately, it’s damp in that hollow, and a woman’s heel would leave a well-defined mark. Will you be ready at seven to go back there with me?”
The suggestion had never occurred to me, and my heart stood still when I reflected what tell-tale traces might there be left. But I strove to show no dismay, merely answering—
“Certainly. I’ll be ready. We may discover something to give the police a clue.”
“Police!” he cried. “They’re useless. We shall have a swarm of thick-headed bunglers over here to-morrow. If they sent one smart man down from Scotland Yard they might do some good. But the plain-clothes men of the local constabulary haven’t sufficient practice in serious crime to pursue any clever methods of investigation.”
“Well, then, at seven,” I exclaimed, for we had just reached my gate, and I was anxious to get to my own room and ascertain the nature of the paper I had managed to secure from the lining of the dead man’s waistcoat.
“That’s an appointment,” he said, and as I turned and entered my old-fashioned, ivy-covered house with my latch-key, he pursued his way up the short steep hill towards his home.
Within my own cosy sitting-room the green-shaded reading-lamp was still burning, and Mrs. Dawson, my attentive housekeeper, had placed my slippers ready in their accustomed corner. But throwing off my light overcoat I cast myself instantly into my favourite grandfather chair, and drew from my pocket the clue I had surreptitiously stolen.
The piece of paper was pale blue, and as I opened it a cry of dismay involuntarily escaped me.
What was inscribed upon it was so strange!
Chapter Five.
Reveals Three Curious Facts.
There was no writing on the carefully-concealed scrap of paper. Only five rows of numerals, written in a fine feminine hand and arranged in the following manner:—
63 26 59 69 65 56 65 33 59 35 65 44
49 55 22 59 57 46 78 63 23 98 59 39
46 67 82 45 58 35 54 45 46 26 78 75
68 75 49 64 22 86 48 73 78 45 62 45
76 47 64 66 85 44 78 48 73 78 58 62
I turned the paper over, utterly puzzled. It was certainly some cipher, but of a kind of which I knew nothing. Ciphers may of course be very easily constructed and yet defy solution. This appeared to be one of those. What hidden message it contained, I had no idea, save that it was certain to be something of importance and that some other person was in possession of the secret of the decipher, or its recipient would not have concealed it where he did.
If I could only read it, a clue to the dead man’s identity would no doubt be revealed. But as I glanced at those puzzling rows of numerals I felt that to endeavour to learn their secret was but a vain hope. I had expected to find upon that scrap of paper some intelligible letter, and was sorely disappointed at what I had discovered.
The