Books: In the Fog
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Richard Harding Davis >> In the Fog
"As I expected, the Chief was extremely chagrined when he learned of
my mistake, and that there was nothing for him to do. But I was
feeling so happy myself that I hated to have any one else miserable,
so I suggested that this attempt to steal the Czarina's necklace might
be only the first of a series of such attempts by an unscrupulous
gang, and that I might still be in danger.
"I winked at the Chief and the Chief smiled at me, and we went to Nice
together in a saloon car with a guard of twelve carabineers and twelve
plain-clothes men, and the Chief and I drank champagne all the way. We
marched together up to the hotel where the Russian Ambassador was
stopping, closely surrounded by our escort of carabineers, and
delivered the necklace with the most profound ceremony. The old
Ambassador was immensely impressed, and when we hinted that already I
had been made the object of an attack by robbers, he assured us that
his Imperial Majesty would not prove ungrateful.
"I wrote a swinging personal letter about the invaluable services of
the Chief to the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, and they gave him
enough Russian and French medals to satisfy even a French soldier. So,
though he never caught the woman, he received his just reward."
The Queen's Messenger paused and surveyed the faces of those about him
in some embarrassment.
"But the worst of it is," he added, "that the story must have got
about; for, while the Princess obtained nothing from me but a
cigar-case and five excellent cigars, a few weeks after the coronation
the Czar sent me a gold cigar-case with his monogram in diamonds. And
I don't know yet whether that was a coincidence, or whether the Czar
wanted me to know that he knew that I had been carrying the Czarina's
diamonds in my pigskin cigar-case. What do you fellows think?"
CHAPTER III
Sir Andrew rose with disapproval written in every lineament.
"I thought your story would bear upon the murder," he said. "Had I
imagined it would have nothing whatsoever to do with it I would not
have remained." He pushed back his chair and bowed stiffly. "I wish
you good night," he said.
There was a chorus of remonstrance, and under cover of this and the
Baronet's answering protests a servant for the second time slipped a
piece of paper into the hand of the gentleman with the pearl stud. He
read the lines written upon it and tore it into tiny fragments.
The youngest member, who had remained an interested but silent
listener to the tale of the Queen's Messenger, raised his hand
commandingly.
"Sir Andrew," he cried, "in justice to Lord Arthur Chetney I must ask
you to be seated. He has been accused in our hearing of a most serious
crime, and I insist that you remain until you have heard me clear his
character."
"You!" cried the Baronet.
"Yes," answered the young man briskly. "I would have spoken sooner,"
he explained, "but that I thought this gentleman"--he inclined his
head toward the Queen's Messenger--"was about to contribute some facts
of which I was ignorant. He, however, has told us nothing, and so I
will take up the tale at the point where Lieutenant Sears laid it down
and give you those details of which Lieutenant Sears is ignorant. It
seems strange to you that I should be able to add the sequel to this
story. But the coincidence is easily explained. I am the junior member
of the law firm of Chudleigh & Chudleigh. We have been solicitors for
the Chetneys for the last two hundred years. Nothing, no matter how
unimportant, which concerns Lord Edam and his two sons is unknown to
us, and naturally we are acquainted with every detail of the terrible
catastrophe of last night."
The Baronet, bewildered but eager, sank back into his chair.
"Will you be long, sir!" he demanded.
"I shall endeavor to be brief," said the young solicitor; "and," he
added, in a tone which gave his words almost the weight of a threat,
"I promise to be interesting."
"There is no need to promise that," said Sir Andrew, "I find it much
too interesting as it is." He glanced ruefully at the clock and turned
his eyes quickly from it.
"Tell the driver of that hansom," he called to the servant, "that I
take him by the hour."
"For the last three days," began young Mr. Chudleigh, "as you have
probably read in the daily papers, the Marquis of Edam has been at the
point of death, and his physicians have never left his house. Every
hour he seemed to grow weaker; but although his bodily strength is
apparently leaving him forever, his mind has remained clear and
active. Late yesterday evening word was received at our office that he
wished my father to come at once to Chetney House and to bring with
him certain papers. What these papers were is not essential; I mention
them only to explain how it was that last night I happened to be at
Lord Edam's bed-side. I accompanied my father to Chetney House, but at
the time we reached there Lord Edam was sleeping, and his physicians
refused to have him awakened. My father urged that he should be
allowed to receive Lord Edam's instructions concerning the documents,
but the physicians would not disturb him, and we all gathered in the
library to wait until he should awake of his own accord. It was about
one o'clock in the morning, while we were still there, that Inspector
Lyle and the officers from Scotland Yard came to arrest Lord Arthur on
the charge of murdering his brother. You can imagine our dismay and
distress. Like every one else, I had learned from the afternoon papers
that Lord Chetney was not dead, but that he had returned to England,
and on arriving at Chetney House I had been told that Lord Arthur had
gone to the Bath Hotel to look for his brother and to inform him that
if he wished to see their father alive he must come to him at once.
Although it was now past one o'clock, Arthur had not returned. None of
us knew where Madame Zichy lived, so we could not go to recover Lord
Chetney's body. We spent a most miserable night, hastening to the
window whenever a cab came into the square, in the hope that it was
Arthur returning, and endeavoring to explain away the facts that
pointed to him as the murderer. I am a friend of Arthur's, I was with
him at Harrow and at Oxford, and I refused to believe for an instant
that he was capable of such a crime; but as a lawyer I could not help
but see that the circumstantial evidence was strongly against him.
"Toward early morning Lord Edam awoke, and in so much better a state
of health that he refused to make the changes in the papers which he
had intended, declaring that he was no nearer death than ourselves.
Under other circumstances, this happy change in him would have
relieved us greatly, but none of us could think of anything save the
death of his elder son and of the charge which hung over Arthur.
"As long as Inspector Lyle remained in the house my father decided
that I, as one of the legal advisers of the family, should also remain
there. But there was little for either of us to do. Arthur did not
return, and nothing occurred until late this morning, when Lyle
received word that the Russian servant had been arrested. He at once
drove to Scotland Yard to question him. He came back to us in an hour,
and informed me that the servant had refused to tell anything of what
had happened the night before, or of himself, or of the Princess
Zichy. He would not even give them the address of her house.
"'He is in abject terror,' Lyle said. 'I assured him that he was not
suspected of the crime, but he would tell me nothing.'
"There were no other developments until two o'clock this afternoon,
when word was brought to us that Arthur had been found, and that he
was lying in the accident ward of St. George's Hospital. Lyle and I
drove there together, and found him propped up in bed with his head
bound in a bandage. He had been brought to the hospital the night
before by the driver of a hansom that had run over him in the fog. The
cab-horse had kicked him on the head, and he had been carried in
unconscious. There was nothing on him to tell who he was, and it was
not until he came to his senses this afternoon that the hospital
authorities had been able to send word to his people. Lyle at once
informed him that he was under arrest, and with what he was charged,
and though the inspector warned him to say nothing which might be used
against him, I, as his solicitor, instructed him to speak freely and
to tell us all he knew of the occurrences of last night. It was
evident to any one that the fact of his brother's death was of much
greater concern to him, than that he was accused of his murder.
"'That,' Arthur said contemptuously, 'that is damned nonsense. It is
monstrous and cruel. We parted better friends than we have been in
years. I will tell you all that happened--not to clear myself, but to
help you to find out the truth.' His story is as follows: Yesterday
afternoon, owing to his constant attendance on his father, he did not
look at the evening papers, and it was not until after dinner, when
the butler brought him one and told him of its contents, that he
learned that his brother was alive and at the Bath Hotel. He drove
there at once, but was told that about eight o'clock his brother had
gone out, but without giving any clew to his destination. As Chetney
had not at once come to see his father, Arthur decided that he was
still angry with him, and his mind, turning naturally to the cause of
their quarrel, determined him to look for Chetney at the home of the
Princess Zichy.
"Her house had been pointed out to him, and though he had never
visited it, he had passed it many times and knew its exact location.
He accordingly drove in that direction, as far as the fog would permit
the hansom to go, and walked the rest of the way, reaching the house
about nine o'clock. He rang, and was admitted by the Russian servant.
The man took his card into the drawing-room, and at once his brother
ran out and welcomed him. He was followed by the Princess Zichy, who
also received Arthur most cordially.
"'You brothers will have much to talk about,' she said. 'I am going to
the dining-room. When you have finished, let me know.'
"As soon as she had left them, Arthur told his brother that their
father was not expected to outlive the night, and that he must come to
him at once.
"'This is not the moment to remember your quarrel,' Arthur said to
him; 'you have come back from the dead only in time to make your peace
with him before he dies.'
"Arthur says that at this Chetney was greatly moved.
"'You entirely misunderstand me, Arthur,' he returned. 'I did not know
the governor was ill, or I would have gone to him the instant I
arrived. My only reason for not doing so was because I thought he was
still angry with me. I shall return with you immediately, as soon as I
have said good-by to the Princess. It is a final good-by. After
tonight, I shall never see her again.'
"'Do you mean that?' Arthur cried.
"'Yes,' Chetney answered. 'When I returned to London I had no
intention of seeking her again, and I am here only through a mistake.'
He then told Arthur that he had separated from the Princess even
before he went to Central Africa, and that, moreover, while at Cairo
on his way south, he had learned certain facts concerning her life
there during the previous season, which made it impossible for him to
ever wish to see her again. Their separation was final and complete.
"'She deceived me cruelly,' he said; 'I cannot tell you how cruelly.
During the two years when I was trying to obtain my father's consent to
our marriage she was in lore with a Russian diplomat. During all that
time he was secretly visiting her here in London, and her trip to Cairo
was only an excuse to meet him there.'
"'Yet you are here with her tonight,' Arthur protested, 'only a few
hours after your return.'
"'That is easily explained,' Chetney answered. 'As I finished dinner
tonight at the hotel, I received a note from her from this address. In
it she said she had but just learned of my arrival, and begged me to
come to her at once. She wrote that she was in great and present
trouble, dying of an incurable illness, and without friends or money.
She begged me, for the sake of old times, to come to her assistance.
During the last two years in the jungle all my former feeling for
Ziehy has utterly passed away, but no one could have dismissed the
appeal she made in that letter. So I came here, and found her, as you
have seen her, quite as beautiful as she ever was, in very good
health, and, from the look of the house, in no need of money.
"'I asked her what she meant by writing me that she was dying in a
garret, and she laughed, and said she had done so because she was
afraid, unless I thought she needed help, I would not try to see her.
That was where we were when you arrived. And now,' Chetney added, 'I
will say good-by to her, and you had better return home. No, you can
trust me, I shall follow you at once. She has no influence over me
now, but I believe, in spite of the way she has used me, that she is,
after her queer fashion, still fond of me, and when she learns that
this good-by is final there may be a scene, and it is not fair to her
that you should be here. So, go home at once, and tell the governor
that I am following you in ten minutes.' "'That,' said Arthur, 'is the
way we parted. I never left him on more friendly terms. I was happy to
see him alive again, I was happy to think he had returned in time to
make up his quarrel with my father, and I was happy that at last he
was shut of that woman. I was never better pleased with him in my
life.' He turned to Inspector Lyle, who was sitting at the foot of the
bed taking notes of all he told us.
"'Why in the name of common sense,' he cried, 'should I have chosen
that moment of all others to send my brother back to the grave!' For a
moment the Inspector did not answer him. I do not know if any of you
gentlemen are acquainted with Inspector Lyle, but if you are not, I
can assure you that he is a very remarkable man. Our firm often
applies to him for aid, and he has never failed us; my father has the
greatest possible respect for him. Where he has the advantage over the
ordinary police official is in the fact that he possesses imagination.
He imagines himself to be the criminal, imagines how he would act
under the same circumstances, and he imagines to such purpose that he
generally finds the man he wants. I have often told Lyle that if he
had not been a detective he would have made a great success as a poet,
or a playwright.
"When Arthur turned on him Lyle hesitated for a moment, and then told
him exactly what was the case against him.
"'Ever since your brother was reported as having died in Africa,' he
said, 'your Lordship has been collecting money on post obits. Lord
Chetney's arrival last night turned them into waste paper. You were
suddenly in debt for thousands of pounds--for much more than you could
ever possibly pay. No one knew that you and your brother had met at
Madame Zichy's. But you knew that your father was not expected to
outlive the night, and that if your brother were dead also, you would
be saved from complete ruin, and that you would become the Marquis of
Edam.'
"'Oh, that is how you have worked it out, is it?' Arthur cried. 'And
for me to become Lord Edam was it necessary that the woman should die,
too!'
"'They will say,' Lyle answered, 'that she was a witness to the murder
--that she would have told.'
"'Then why did I not kill the servant as well!' Arthur said.
"'He was asleep, and saw nothing.'
"'And you believe _that?_' Arthur demanded.
"'It is not a question of what I believe,' Lyle said gravely. 'It is a
question for your peers.'
"'The man is insolent!' Arthur cried. 'The thing is monstrous!
Horrible!'
"Before we could stop him he sprang out of his cot and began pulling
on his clothes. When the nurses tried to hold him down, he fought with
them.
"'Do you think you can keep me here,' he shouted, 'when they are
plotting to hang me? I am going with you to that house!' he cried at
Lyle. 'When you find those bodies I shall be beside you. It is my
right. He is my brother. He has been murdered, and I can tell you who
murdered him. That woman murdered him. She first ruined his life, and
now she has killed him. For the last five years she has been plotting
to make herself his wife, and last night, when he told her he had
discovered the truth about the Russian, and that she would never see
him again, she flew into a passion and stabbed him, and then, in
terror of the gallows, killed herself. She murdered him, I tell you,
and I promise you that we will find the knife she used near
her--perhaps still in her hand. What will you say to that?'
"Lyle turned his head away and stared down at the floor. 'I might
say,' he answered, 'that you placed it there.'
"Arthur gave a cry of anger and sprang at him, and then pitched
forward into his arms. The blood was running from the cut under the
bandage, and he had fainted. Lyle carried him back to the bed again,
and we left him with the police and the doctors, and drove at once to
the address he had given us. We found the house not three minutes'
walk from St. George's Hospital. It stands in Trevor Terrace, that
little row of houses set back from Knightsbridge, with one end in Hill
Street.
"As we left the hospital Lyle had said to me, 'You must not blame me
for treating him as I did. All is fair in this work, and if by
angering that boy I could have made him commit himself I was right in
trying to do so; though, I assure you, no one would be better pleased
than myself if I could prove his theory to be correct. But we cannot
tell. Everything depends upon what we see for ourselves within the
next few minutes.'
"When we reached the house, Lyle broke open the fastenings of one of
the windows on the ground floor, and, hidden by the trees in the
garden, we scrambled in. We found ourselves in the reception-room,
which was the first room on the right of the hall. The gas was still
burning behind the colored glass and red silk shades, and when the
daylight streamed in after us it gave the hall a hideously dissipated
look, like the foyer of a theatre at a matinee, or the entrance to an
all-day gambling hell. The house was oppressively silent, and because
we knew why it was so silent we spoke in whispers. When Lyle turned
the handle of the drawing-room door, I felt as though some one had put
his hand upon my throat. But I followed close at his shoulder, and
saw, in the subdued light of many-tinted lamps, the body of Chetney at
the foot of the divan, just as Lieutenant Sears had described it. In
the drawing-room we found the body of the Princess Zichy, her arms
thrown out, and the blood from her heart frozen in a tiny line across
her bare shoulder. But neither of us, although we searched the floor
on our hands and knees, could find the weapon which had killed her.
"'For Arthur's sake,' I said, 'I would have given a thousand pounds if
we had found the knife in her hand, as he said we would.'
"'That we have not found it there,' Lyle answered, 'is to my mind the
strongest proof that he is telling the truth, that he left the house
before the murder took place. He is not a fool, and had he stabbed his
brother and this woman, he would have seen that by placing the knife
near her he could help to make it appear as if she had killed Chetney
and then committed suicide. Besides, Lord Arthur insisted that the
evidence in his behalf would be our finding the knife here. He would
not have urged that if he knew we would _not_ find it, if he knew he
himself had carried it away. This is no suicide. A suicide does not
rise and hide the weapon with which he kills himself, and then lie
down again. No, this has been a double murder, and we must look
outside of the house for the murderer.'
"While he was speaking Lyle and I had been searching every corner,
studying the details of each room. I was so afraid that, without
telling me, he would make some deductions prejudicial to Arthur, that
I never left his side. I was determined to see everything that he saw,
and, if possible, to prevent his interpreting it in the wrong way. He
finally finished his examination, and we sat down together in the
drawing-room, and he took out his notebook and read aloud all that Mr.
Sears had told him of the murder and what we had just learned from
Arthur. We compared the two accounts word for word, and weighed
statement with statement, but I could not determine from anything Lyle
said which of the two versions he had decided to believe.
"'We are trying to build a house of blocks,' he exclaimed, 'with half
of the blocks missing. We have been considering two theories,' he went
on: 'one that Lord Arthur is responsible for both murders, and the
other that the dead woman in there is responsible for one of them, and
has committed suicide; but, until the Russian servant is ready to
talk, I shall refuse to believe in the guilt of either.'
"'What can you prove by him!' I asked. 'He was drunk and asleep. He
saw nothing.'
"Lyle hesitated, and then, as though he had made up his mind to be
quite frank with me, spoke freely.
"'I do not know that he was either drunk or asleep,' he answered.
'Lieutenant Sears describes him as a stupid boor. I am not satisfied
that he is not a clever actor. What was his position in this house!
What was his real duty here? Suppose it was not to guard this woman,
but to watch her. Let us imagine that it was not the woman he served,
but a master, and see where that leads us. For this house has a
master, a mysterious, absentee landlord, who lives in St. Petersburg,
the unknown Russian who came between Chetney and Zichy, and because of
whom Chetney left her. He is the man who bought this house for Madame
Zichy, who sent these rugs and curtains from St. Petersburg to furnish
it for her after his own tastes, and, I believe, it was he also who
placed the Russian servant here, ostensibly to serve the Princess, but
in reality to spy upon her. At Scotland Yard we do not know who this
gentleman is; the Russian police confess to equal ignorance concerning
him. When Lord Chetney went to Africa, Madame Zichy lived in St.
Petersburg; but there her receptions and dinners were so crowded with
members of the nobility and of the army and diplomats, that among so
many visitors the police could not learn which was the one for whom
she most greatly cared.'
"Lyle pointed at the modern French paintings and the heavy silk rugs
which hung upon the walls.
"'The unknown is a man of taste and of some fortune,' he said, 'not
the sort of man to send a stupid peasant to guard the woman he loves.
So I am not content to believe, with Mr. Sears, that the servant is a
boor. I believe him instead to be a very clever ruffian. I believe him
to be the protector of his master's honor, or, let us say, of his
master's property, whether that property be silver plate or the woman
his master loves. Last night, after Lord Arthur had gone away, the
servant was left alone in this house with Lord Chetney and Madame
Zichy. From where he sat in the hall he could hear Lord Chetney
bidding her farewell; for, if my idea of him is correct, he
understands English quite as well as you or I. Let us imagine that he
heard her entreating Chetney not to leave her, reminding him of his
former wish to marry her, and let us suppose that he hears Chetney
denounce her, and tell her that at Cairo he has learned of this
Russian admirer--the servant's master. He hears the woman declare that
she has had no admirer but himself, that this unknown Russian was, and
is, nothing to her, that there is no man she loves but him, and that
she cannot live, knowing that he is alive, without his love. Suppose
Chetney believed her, suppose his former infatuation for her returned,
and that in a moment of weakness he forgave her and took her in his
arms. That is the moment the Russian master has feared. It is to guard
against it that he has placed his watchdog over the Princess, and how
do we know but that, when the moment came, the watchdog served his
master, as he saw his duty, and killed them both? What do you think?'
Lyle demanded. 'Would not that explain both murders?'
"I was only too willing to hear any theory which pointed to any one
else as the criminal than Arthur, but Lyle's explanation was too
utterly fantastic. I told him that he certainly showed imagination,
but that he could not hang a man for what he imagined he had done.
"'No,' Lyle answered, 'but I can frighten him by telling him what I
think he has done, and now when I again question the Russian servant I
will make it quite clear to him that I believe he is the murderer. I
think that will open his mouth. A man will at least talk to defend
himself. Come,' he said, 'we must return at once to Scotland Yard and
see him. There is nothing more to do here.'
"He arose, and I followed him into the hall, and in another minute we
would have been on our way to Scotland Yard. But just as he opened the
street door a postman halted at the gate of the garden, and began
fumbling with the latch.