The Yellow Claw. Arthur Henry Sarsfield Ward
“What time is your appointment?”
“Ten o’clock,” replied Dunbar. “I am meeting Mr. Debnam—the late Mr. Vernon’s solicitor. There is something in it. Damme! I am sure of it!”
“Something in what?”
“The fact that Mr. Vernon died yesterday evening, and that his wife was murdered at midnight.”
“What have you told the press?”
“As little as possible, but you will see that the early editions will all be screaming for the arrest of Soames.”
“I shouldn’t wonder. He would be a useful man to have; but he’s probably out of London now.”
“I think not. He’s more likely to wait for instructions from his principal.”
“His principal?”
“Certainly. You don’t think Soames did the murder, do you?”
“No; but he’s obviously an accessory.”
“I’m not so sure even of that.”
“Then why did he bolt?”
“Because he had a guilty conscience.”
“Yes,” agreed Sowerby; “it does turn out that way sometimes. At any rate, Stringer is after him, but he’s got next to nothing to go upon. Has any reply been received from Mrs. Leroux in Paris?”
“No,” answered Dunbar, frowning thoughtfully. “Her husband’s wire would reach her first thing this morning; I am expecting to hear of a reply at any moment.”
“They’re a funny couple, altogether,” said Sowerby. “I can’t imagine myself standing for Mrs. Sowerby spending her week-ends in Paris. Asking for trouble, I call it!”
“It does seem a daft arrangement,” agreed Dunbar; “but then, as you say, they’re a funny couple.”
“I never saw such a bundle of nerves in all my life!” …
“Leroux?”
Sowerby nodded.
“I suppose,” he said, “it’s the artistic temperament! If Mrs. Leroux has got it, too, I don’t wonder that they get fed up with one another’s company.”
“That’s about the secret of it. And now, I shall be glad, Sowerby, if you will be after that taxi-man again. Report at one o’clock. I shall be here.”
With his hand on the door-knob: “By the way,” said Sowerby, “who the blazes is Mr. King?”
Inspector Dunbar looked up.
“Mr. King,” he replied slowly, “is the solution of the mystery.”
VII
The Man in the Limousine
THE house of the late Horace Vernon was a modern villa of prosperous appearance; but, on this sunny September morning, a palpable atmosphere of gloom seemed to overlie it. This made itself perceptible even to the toughened and unimpressionable nerves of Inspector Dunbar. As he mounted the five steps leading up to the door, glancing meanwhile at the lowered blinds at the windows, he wondered if, failing these evidences and his own private knowledge of the facts, he should have recognized that the hand of tragedy had placed its mark upon this house. But when the door was opened by a white-faced servant, he told himself that he should, for a veritable miasma of death seemed to come out to meet him, to envelop him.
Within, proceeded a subdued activity: somber figures moved upon the staircase; and Inspector Dunbar, having presented his card, presently found himself in a well-appointed library.
At the table, whereon were spread a number of documents, sat a lean, clean-shaven, sallow-faced man, wearing gold-rimmed pince-nez; a man whose demeanor of business-like gloom was most admirably adapted to that place and occasion. This was Mr. Debnam, the solicitor. He gravely waved the detective to an armchair, adjusted his pince-nez, and coughed, introductorily.
“Your communication, Inspector,” he began (he had the kind of voice which seems to be buried in sawdust packing), “was brought to me this morning, and has disturbed me immeasurably, unspeakably.”
“You have been to view the body, sir?”
“One of my clerks, who knew Mrs. Vernon, has just returned to this house to report that he has identified her.”
“I should have preferred you to have gone yourself, sir,” began Dunbar, taking out his notebook.
“My state of health, Inspector,” said the solicitor, “renders it undesirable that I should submit myself to an ordeal so unnecessary—so wholly unnecessary.”
“Very good!” muttered Dunbar, making an entry in his book; “your clerk, then, whom I can see in a moment, identifies the murdered woman as Mrs. Vernon. What was her Christian name?”
“Iris—Iris Mary Vernon.”
Inspector Dunbar made a note of the fact.
“And now,” he said, “you will have read the copy of that portion of my report which I submitted to you this morning—acting upon information supplied by Miss Helen Cumberly?”
“Yes, yes, Inspector, I have read it—but, by the way, I do not know Miss Cumberly.”
“Miss Cumberly,” explained the detective, “is the daughter of Dr. Cumberly, the Harley Street physician. She lives with her father in the flat above that of Mr. Leroux. She saw the body by accident—and recognized it as that of a lady who had been named to her at the last Arts Ball.”
“Ah!” said Debnam, “yes—I see—at the Arts Ball, Inspector. This is a mysterious and a very ghastly case.”
“It is indeed, sir,” agreed Dunbar. “Can you throw any light upon the presence of Mrs. Vernon at Mr. Leroux’s flat on the very night of her husband’s death?”
“I can—and I cannot,” answered the solicitor, leaning back in the chair and again adjusting his pince-nez, in the manner of a man having important matters—and gloomy, very gloomy, matters—to communicate.
“Good!” said the inspector, and prepared to listen.
“You see,” continued Debnam, “the late Mrs. Vernon was not actually residing with her husband at the date of his death.”
“Indeed!”
“Ostensibly”—the solicitor shook a lean forefinger at his vis-a-vis—“ostensibly, Inspector, she was visiting her sister in Scotland.”
Inspector Dunbar sat up very straight, his brows drawn down over the tawny eyes.
“These visits were of frequent occurrence, and usually of about a week’s duration. Mr. Vernon, my late client, a man—I’ll not deny it—of inconstant affections (you understand me, Inspector?), did not greatly concern himself with his wife’s movements. She belonged to a smart Bohemian set, and—to use a popular figure of speech—burnt the candle at both ends; late dances, night clubs, bridge parties, and other feverish pursuits, possibly taken up as a result of the—shall I say cooling?—of her husband’s affections” …
“There was another woman in the case?”
“I fear so, Inspector; in fact, I am sure of it: but to return to Mrs. Vernon. My client provided her with ample funds; and I, myself, have expressed to him astonishment respecting her expenditures in Scotland. I understand that her sister was in comparatively poor circumstances, and I went so far as to point out to Mr. Vernon that one hundred pounds was—shall I say an excessive?—outlay upon a week’s sojourn in Auchterander, Perth.”
“A hundred pounds!”
“One hundred