Books: Ranson\'s Folly

R >> Richard Harding Davis >> Ranson\'s Folly

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16

"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 watch-dog over the
Princess, and how do we know but that, when the moment came, the
watch-dog 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 anyone
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.

"Lyle stopped, with an exclamation of chagrin.

"'How stupid of me!' he exclaimed. He turned quickly and pointed to a
narrow slit cut in the brass plate of the front door. 'The house has
a private letter-box,' he said, 'and I had not thought to look in it!
If we had gone out as we came in, by the window, I would never have
seen it. The moment I entered the house I should have thought of
securing the letters which came this morning. I have been grossly
careless.' He stepped back into the hall and pulled at the lid of the
letter-box, which hung on the inside of the door, but it was tightly
locked. At the same moment the postman came up the steps holding a
letter. Without a word, Lyle took it from his hand and began to
examine it. It was addressed to the Princess Zichy, and on the back
of the envelope was the name of a West End dressmaker.

"'That is of no use to me,' Lyle said. He took out his card and
showed it to the postman. 'I am Inspector Lyle from Scotland Yard,'
he said. 'The people in this house are under arrest. Everything it
contains is now in my keeping. Did you deliver any other letters here
this morning?'

"The man looked frightened, but answered, promptly, that he was now
upon his third round. He had made one postal delivery at seven that
morning and another at eleven.

"'How many letters did you leave here?' Lyle asked.

"'About six altogether,' the man answered.

"'Did you put them through the door into the letter-box?'

"The postman said, 'Yes, I always slip them into the box, and ring
and go away. The servants collect them from the inside.'

"'Have you noticed if any of the letters you leave here bear a
Russian postage-stamp?' Lyle asked.

"'The man answered, 'Oh, yes, sir, a great many.'

"'From the same person, would you say?'

"'The writing seems to be the same,' the man answered. 'They come
regularly about once a week--one of those I delivered this morning
had a Russian postmark.'

"'That will do,' said Lyle, eagerly. 'Thank you, thank you very
much.'

"He ran back into the hall, and, pulling out his penknife, began to
pick at the lock of the letter-box.

"'I have been supremely careless,' he said, in great excitement.
'Twice before when people I wanted had flown from a house I have been
able to follow them by putting a guard over their mailbox. These
letters, which arrive regularly every week from Russia in the same
handwriting, they can come but from one person. At least, we shall
now know the name of the master of this house. Undoubtedly, it is one
of his letters that the man placed here this morning. We may make a
most important discovery.'

"As he was talking he was picking at the lock with his knife, but he
was so impatient to reach the letters that he pressed too heavily on
the blade and it broke in his hand. I took a step backward and drove
my heel into the lock, and burst it open. The lid flew back, and we
pressed forward, and each ran his hand down into the letter-box. For
a moment we were both too startled to move. The box was empty.

"I do not know how long we stood, staring stupidly at each other, but
it was Lyle who was the first to recover. He seized me by the arm and
pointed excitedly into the empty box.

"'Do you appreciate what that means?' he cried. 'It means that
someone has been here ahead of us. Someone has entered this house not
three hours before we came, since eleven o'clock this morning.'

"'It was the Russian servant!' I exclaimed.

"'The Russian servant has been under arrest at Scotland Yard,' Lyle
cried. 'He could not have taken the letters. Lord Arthur has been in
his cot at the hospital. That is his alibi. There is someone else,
someone we do not suspect. and that someone is the murderer. He came
back here either to obtain those letters because he knew they would
convict him, or to remove something he had left here at the time of
the murder, something incriminating--the weapon, perhaps, or some
personal article; a cigarette-case, a handkerchief with his name upon
it, or a pair of gloves. Whatever it was, it must have been damning
evidence against him to have made him take so desperate a chance.'

"'How do we know,' I whispered, 'that he is not hidden here now?'

"'No, I'll swear he is not,' Lyle answered. 'I may have bungled in
some things, but I have searched this house thoroughly.
Nevertheless,' he added, 'we must go over it again, from the cellar
to the roof. We have the real clew now, and we must forget the others
and work only it.' As he spoke he began again to search the drawing-
room, turning over even the books on the tables and the music on the
piano.

"'Whoever the man is,' he said, over his shoulder, 'we know that he
has a key to the front door and a key to the letter-box. That shows
us he is either an inmate of the house or that he comes here when he
wishes. The Russian says that he was the only servant in the house.
Certainly, we have found no evidence to show that any other servant
slept here. There could be but one other person who would possess a
key to the house and the letter-box--and he lives in St. Petersburg.
At the time of the murder he was two thousand miles away.' Lyle
interrupted himself, suddenly, with a sharp cry, and turned upon me,
with his eyes flashing. 'But was he?' he cried. 'Was he? How do we
know that last night he was not in London, in this very house when
Zichy and Chetney met?'

"He stood, staring at me without seeing me, muttering, and arguing
with himself.

"'Don't speak to me,' he cried, as I ventured to interrupt him. 'I
can see it now. It is all plain. It was not the servant, but his
master, the Russian himself, and it was he who came back for the
letters! He came back for them because he knew they would convict
him. We must find them. We must have those letters. If we find the
one with the Russian postmark, we shall have found the murderer.' He
spoke like a madman, and as he spoke he ran around the room, with one
hand held out in front of him as you have seen a mind-reader at a
theatre seeking for something hidden in the stalls. He pulled the old
letters from the writing-desk, and ran them over as swiftly as a
gambler deals out cards; he dropped on his knees before the fireplace
and dragged out the dead coals with his bare fingers, and then, with
a low, worried cry, like a hound on a scent, he ran back to the
waste-paper basket and, lifting the papers from it, shook them out
upon the floor. Instantly, he gave a shout of triumph, and,
separating a number of torn pieces from the others, held them up
before me.

"'Look!' he cried. 'Do you see? Here are five letters, torn across in
two places. The Russian did not stop to read them, for, as you see,
he has left them still sealed. I have been wrong. He did not return
for the letters. He could not have known their value. He must have
returned for some other reason, and, as he was leaving, saw the
letter-box, and, taking out the letters, held them together--so--and
tore them twice across, and then, as the fire had gone out, tossed
them into this basket. Look!' he cried, 'here in the upper corner of
this piece is a Russian stamp. This is his own letter--unopened!'

"We examined the Russian stamp and found it had been cancelled in St.
Petersburg four days ago. The back of the envelope bore the postmark
of the branch-station in upper Sloane Street, and was dated this
morning. The envelope was of official, blue paper, and we had no
difficulty in finding the other two parts of it. We drew the torn
pieces of the letter from them and joined them together, side by
side. There were but two lines of writing, and this was the message:
'I leave Petersburg on the night-train, and I shall see you at Trevor
Terrace, after dinner, Monday evening.'

"'That was last night!' Lyle cried. 'He arrived twelve hours ahead of
his letter--but it came in time--it came in time to hang him!'"

The Baronet struck the table with his hand.

"The name!" he demanded. "How was it signed? What was the man's
name?"

The young Solicitor rose to his feet and, leaning forward, stretched
out his arm. "There was no name," he cried. "The letter was signed
with only two initials. But engraved at the top of the sheet was the
man's address. That address was 'THE AMERICAN EMBASSY, ST.
PETERSBURG, BUREAU OF THE NAVAL ATTACHE,' and the initials," he
shouted, his voice rising into an exultant and bitter cry, "were
those of the gentleman who sits opposite who told us that he was the
first to find the murdered bodies, the Naval Attache to Russia,
Lieutenant Sears!"

A strained and awful hush followed the Solicitor's words, which
seemed to vibrate like a twanging bowstring that had just hurled its
bolt. Sir Andrew, pale and staring, drew away, with an exclamation of
repulsion. His eyes were fastened upon the Naval Attache with
fascinated horror. But the American emitted a sigh of great content,
and sank, comfortably, into the arms of his chair. He clapped his
hands, softly, together.

"Capital!" he murmured. "I give you my word I never guessed what you
were driving at. You fooled ME, I'll be hanged if you didn't--you
certainly fooled me."

The man with the pearl stud leaned forward, with a nervous gesture.
"Hush! be careful!" he whispered. But at that instant, for the third
time, a servant, hastening through the room, handed him a piece of
paper which he scanned eagerly. The message on the paper read, "The
light over the Commons is out. The House has risen."

The man with the black pearl gave a mighty shout, and tossed the
paper from him upon the table.

"Hurrah!" he cried. "The House is up! We've won!" He caught up his
glass, and slapped the Naval Attache, violently, upon the shoulder.
He nodded joyously at him, at the Solicitor, and at the Queen's
Messenger. "Gentlemen, to you!" he cried; "my thanks and my
congratulations!" He drank deep from the glass, and breathed forth a
long sigh of satisfaction and relief.

"But I say," protested the Queen's Messenger, shaking his finger,
violently, at the Solicitor, "that story won't do. You didn't play
fair--and--and you talked so fast I couldn't make out what it was all
about. I'll bet you that evidence wouldn't hold in a court of law--
you couldn't hang a cat on such evidence. Your story is condemned
tommy-rot. Now, my story might have happened, my story bore the mark-
-"

In the joy of creation, the story-tellers had forgotten their
audience, until a sudden exclamation from Sir Andrew caused them to
turn, guiltily, toward him. His face was knit with lines of anger,
doubt, and amazement.

"What does this mean?" he cried. "Is this a jest, or are you mad? If
you know this man is a murderer, why is he at large? Is this a game
you have been playing? Explain yourselves at once. What does it
mean?"

The American, with first a glance at the others, rose and bowed,
courteously.

"I am not a murderer, Sir Andrew, believe me," he said; "you need not
be alarmed. As a matter of fact, at this moment I am much more afraid
of you than you could possibly be of me. I beg you, please to be
indulgent. I assure you, we meant no disrespect. We have been
matching stories, that is all, pretending that we are people we are
not, endeavoring to entertain you with better detective-tales than,
for instance, the last one you read, 'The Great Rand Robbery.'"

The Baronet brushed his hand, nervously, across his forehead.

"Do you mean to tell me," he exclaimed, "that none of this has
happened? That Lord Chetney is not dead, that his Solicitor did not
find a letter of yours, written from your post in Petersburg, and
that just now, when he charged you with murder, he was in jest?"

"I am really very sorry," said the American, "but you see, sir, he
could not have found a letter written by me in St. Petersburg because
I have never been in Petersburg. Until this week, I have never been
outside of my own country. I am not a naval officer. I am a writer of
short stories. And to-night, when this gentleman told me that you
were fond of detective-stories, I thought it would be amusing to tell
you one of my own--one I had just mapped out this afternoon."

"But Lord Chetney IS a real person," interrupted the Baronet, "and he
did go to Africa two years ago, and he was supposed to have died
there, and his brother, Lord Arthur, has been the heir. And yesterday
Chetney did return. I read it in the papers."

"So did I," assented the American, soothingly; "and it struck me as
being a very good plot for a story. I mean his unexpected return from
the dead, and the probable disappointment of the younger brother. So
I decided that the younger brother had better murder the older one.
The Princess Zichy I invented out of a clear sky. The fog I did not
have to invent. Since last night I know all that there is to know
about a London fog. I was lost in one for three hours."

The Baronet turned, grimly, upon the Queen's Messenger.

"But this gentleman," he protested, "he is not a writer of short
stories; he is a member of the Foreign Office. I have often seen him
in Whitehall, and, according to him, the Princess Zichy is not an
invention. He says she is very well known, that she tried to rob
him."

The servant of the Foreign Office looked, unhappily, at the Cabinet
Minister, and puffed, nervously, on his cigar.

"It's true, Sir Andrew, that I am a Queen's Messenger," he said,
appealingly, "and a Russian woman once did try to rob a Queen's
Messenger in a railway carriage--only it did not happen to me, but to
a pal of mine. The only Russian princess I ever knew called herself
Zabrisky. You may have seen her. She used to do a dive from the roof
of the Aquarium."

Sir Andrew, with a snort of indignation, fronted the young Solicitor.

"And I suppose yours was a cock-and-bull story, too," he said. "Of
course, it must have been, since Lord Chetney is not dead. But don't
tell me," he protested, "that you are not Chudleigh's son either."

"I'm sorry," said the youngest member, smiling, in some
embarrassment, "but my name is not Chudleigh. I assure you, though,
that I know the family very well, and that I am on very good terms
with them."

"You should be!" exclaimed the Baronet; "and, judging from the
liberties you take with the Chetneys, you had better be on very good
terms with them, too."

The young man leaned back and glanced toward the servants at the far
end of the room.

"It has been so long since I have been in the Club," he said, "that I
doubt if even the waiters remember me. Perhaps Joseph may," he added.
"Joseph!" he called, and at the word a servant stepped briskly
forward.

The young man pointed to the stuffed head of a great lion which was
suspended above the fireplace.

"Joseph," he said, "I want you to tell these gentlemen who shot that
lion. Who presented it to the Grill?"

Joseph, unused to acting as master of ceremonies to members of the
Club, shifted, nervously, from one foot to the other.

"Why, you--you did," he stammered.

"Of course I did!" exclaimed the young man. "I mean, what is the name
of the man who shot it? Tell the gentlemen who I am. They wouldn't
believe me."

"Who you are, my lord?" said Joseph. "You are Lord Edam's son, the
Earl of Chetney."

"You must admit," said Lord Chetney, when the noise had died away,
"that I couldn't remain dead while my little brother was accused of
murder. I had to do something. Family pride demanded it. Now, Arthur,
as the younger brother, can't afford to be squeamish, but,
personally, I should hate to have a brother of mine hanged for
murder."

"You certainly showed no scruples against hanging me," said the
American, "but, in the face of your evidence, I admit my guilt, and I
sentence myself to pay the full penalty of the law as we are made to
pay it in my own country. The order of this court is," he announced,
"that Joseph shall bring me a wine-card, and that I sign it for five
bottles of the Club's best champagne."

"Oh, no!" protested the man with the pearl stud, "it is not for YOU
to sign it. In my opinion, it is Sir Andrew who should pay the costs.
It is time you knew," he said, turning to that gentleman, "that,
unconsciously, you have been the victim of what I may call a
patriotic conspiracy. These stories have had a more serious purpose
than merely to amuse. They have been told with the worthy object of
detaining you from the House of Commons. I must explain to you that,
all through this evening, I have had a servant waiting in Trafalgar
Square with instructions to bring me word as soon as the light over
the House of Commons had ceased to burn. The light is now out, and
the object for which we plotted is attained."

The Baronet glanced, keenly, at the man with the black pearl, and
then, quickly, at his watch. The smile disappeared from his lips, and
his face was set in stern and forbidding lines.

"And may I know," he asked, icily, "what was the object of your
plot?"

"A most worthy one," the other retorted. "Our object was to keep you
from advocating the expenditure of many millions of the people's
money upon more battle-ships. In a word, we have been working
together to prevent you from passing the Navy Increase Bill."

Sir Andrew's face bloomed with brilliant color. His body shook with
suppressed emotion.

"My dear sir!" he cried, "you should spend more time at the House and
less at your Club. The Navy Bill was brought up on its third reading
at eight o'clock this evening. I spoke for three hours in its favor.
My only reason for wishing to return again to the House to-night was
to sup on the terrace with my old friend, Admiral Simons; for my work
at the House was completed five hours ago, when the Navy Increase
Bill was passed by an overwhelming majority."

The Baronet rose and bowed. "I have to thank you, sir," he said, "for
a most interesting evening."

The American shoved the wine-card which Joseph had given him toward
the gentleman with the black pearl.

"You sign it," he said.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16