The Mystery of M. Felix. B. L. Farjeon
back to twelve, so that you won't be fixed to a half-hour or so. The clock stopped while you was getting your supper-beer, of course. Likewise I stop my watch, and put the hands back to about the same time. Now, what do I do when Wigg calls me here? I hear what you, ma'am, have to say about the street-door being open and a man running out and almost upsetting you, and I make tracks after him. I don't catch him, and then I come back here, and that brings us up to this very minute. Plain sailing, so far. You'll bear it in mind, you and Wigg, won't you?"
"I've got it," said Wigg, "at my fingers' ends."
"So 'ave I," said Mrs. Middlemore.
"But what are you going to do now?" asked Constable Wigg.
"To find the cat," replied Constable Nightingale.
"Going to take it up?" This, with a fine touch of sarcasm.
"No, Wigg," said Constable Nightingale, speaking very seriously. "I want to make sure where it got that red color from, because, not to put too fine a point on it, it's blood."
Mrs. Middlemore uttered a stifled scream, and clapped her hands on her hips.
"That," continued Constable Nightingale, in a tone of severity to his brother constable, "is what I had in my mind and you didn't have in yours. Why, if you look with only half an eye at them stains on the floor, you can't mistake 'em."
"Oh, dear, oh, dear," moaned Mrs. Middlemore, "we shall all be murdered in our beds?"
"Nothing of the sort, my dear," said Constable Nightingale; "we'll look after you. Pull yourself together, there's a good soul, and answer me one or two questions. I know that Mr. Felix comes home late sometimes."
"Very often, very often."
"And that, as well as being generous with his money, he likes his pleasures. Now, are you sure he was at home when you went out for your beer?"
"I'm certain of it."
"And that he did not go out before you come back?"
"How can I tell you that?"
"Of course. A stupid question. But, at all events, he ain't the sort of man to go out in such a storm as this?"
"Not 'im. He's too fond of his comforts."
"Does he ever ring for you in the middle of the night--at such a time as this, for instance?"
"Never."
"Has he ever been took ill in the night, and rung you up?"
"Never."
"Do you ever go up to his room without being summoned?"
"It's more than I dare. I should lose the best customer I ever had in my life. He made things as clear as can be when he first come into the 'ouse. 'Never,' he ses to me, 'under any circumstances whatever, let me see you going upstairs to my rooms unless I call you. Never let me ketch you prying about. If I do, you shall 'ear of it in a way you won't like.'"
Constable Nightingale was silent a few moments, and then he said, briskly, "Let's us go and hunt up that cat."
But although they searched the basement through they could not find it.
"Perhaps," suggested Constable Wigg, "it got out of the house when we opened the street-door just now."
"Perhaps," assented Constable Nightingale, laconically.
Then they ascended the stairs to the ground floor, Constable Nightingale examining very carefully the marks of the cat's paws on the oilcloth.
"Do you see, Mrs. Middlemore? Blood. There's no mistaking it. And I'm hanged if it doesn't go upstairs to the first floor."
"You're not going up, Mr. Nightingale?" asked Mrs. Middlemore, under her breath, laying her hand on his arm.
"If I know myself," said Constable Nightingale, patting her hand, "I am. Whatever happens, it's my duty and Wigg's to get at the bottom of this. What else did you call us in for?"
"To be sure," said Mrs. Middlemore, helplessly, "but if you have any feeling for me, speak low."
"I will, my dear. My feelings for you well you must know, but this is not the time. Look here at this stain, and this, and this. The spectre cat has been up these stairs. Puss, puss, puss, puss! Not likely that it'll answer; it's got the cunning of a fox. That's Mr. Felix's room, if my eyes don't deceive me."
"Yes, it is."
"But it don't look the same door as the one I have been through; it ain't the first time I've been here, you know. Where's the keyhole? I'll take my oath there was a keyhole when I last saw the door."
"The key 'ole's 'id. That brass plate covers it; it's a patent spring, and he fixes it some'ow from the inside; he presses something, and it slides down; then he turns a screw, and makes it tight."
"Can anyone do it but him?"
"I don't think they can; it's 'is own idea, he ses."
"See how we're getting on, Wigg. No one can work that brass plate but him; that shows he's at home." He knocked at the door, and called "Mr. Felix, Mr. Felix!"
"He'll give me notice to leave," said Mrs. Middlemore, "I'm sure he will. He's the last man in the world to be broke in upon like this."
"Leave it to me, my dear," said Constable Nightingale, "I'll make it all right with him. What did he say to me when I was on this beat? I told you, you remember, Wigg. 'Constable,' says he, 'you're on night duty here.' 'Yes, sir,' I answers. 'Very good,' says he, 'I live in this house, and I always make it a point to look after them as looks after me.' That was a straight tip, and I'm looking after him now. Mr. Felix, Mr. Felix!"
But though he called again and again, and rapped at the door twenty times, he received no answer from within the room.
"It's singular," he said, knitting his brows. "He must be a sound sleeper, must Mr. Felix. I'll try again."
He continued to knock and call "loud enough," as he declared, "to rouse the dead," but no response came to the anxious little group on the landing.
"There's not only no keyhole," said Constable Nightingale, "but there's no handle to take hold of. The door's for all the world like a safe without a knob. Mr. Felix, Mr. Felix, Mr. Felix! Don't you hear us, sir? I've got something particular to say to you."
For all the effect he produced he might have spoken to a stone wall, and he and Constable Wigg and Mrs. Middlemore stood looking helplessly at each other.
"I tell you what it is," he said, tightening his belt, "this has got beyond a joke. What with the silence, and the bloodstains, and the man with the red handkercher round his neck as run out of the house while Wigg and me was talking together outside, there's more in this than meets the eye. Now, Mrs. Middlemore, there's no occasion for us to speak low any more; it's wearing to the throat. Have you got any doubt at all that the brass plate there couldn't be fixed as it is unless somebody was inside the room?"
"I'm certain of it, Mr. Nightingale, I'm certain of it."
"Then Mr. Felix, or somebody else, must be there, and if he's alive couldn't help hearing us, unless he's took a sleeping draught of twenty-horse power. There's a bell wire up there; Wigg, give me a back."
Constable Wigg stooped, and Constable Nightingale stood on his back and reached the wire, which he pulled smartly for so long a time that Constable Wigg's back gave way, and brought Constable Nightingale to the ground somewhat unexpectedly. Certainly every person in the house possessed of the sense of hearing must have heard the bell, which had a peculiar resonant ring, and seemed on this occasion to have a hundred ghostly echoes which proclaimed themselves incontinently from attic to basement. No well-behaved echo would have displayed such a lack of method.
"Oughtn't that to rouse him?" asked Constable Nightingale.
"It ought to," replied Mrs. Middlemore, "if----" and then suddenly paused, the "if" frozen on her tongue.