A Mysterious Disappearance Part 54

At last he became vaguely aware that people were staring at him. Fearful lest some acquaintance should recognize and accost him he hailed a hansom and drove to Victoria Street.

All the way the heavy beat of the horse's feet served to distract his thoughts. He forced himself to count the quick paces, and tried hard to accommodate the numerals of two or more syllables to the rapidity of the animal's trot. He failed in this, but in the failure found relief.

Nevertheless, though the horse was willing and the driver eager to oblige a fare who gave a "good" address, the time seemed interminable until the cab stopped in front of his door.

Once arrived there, he slowly ascended the stairs to his own flat, told Smith to pay the cabman half-a-crown and to admit no one, and threw himself into a chair.

At last he was face to face with the troublous demon who possessed him in Lincoln's Inn, struggled with him through the crowd, and travelled with him in the hansom. Phyllis Browne should have her answer sooner than he had expected.

The man who murdered Lady d.y.k.e was her own husband.

"Oh, heavens!" moaned Bruce, as he swayed restlessly to and fro in his chair, "is it possible?"

He sat there for hours. Smith entered, turned on the lights and suggested tea, but received an impatient dismissal.

After another long interval Smith appeared again, to announce that Mr.

White had called.

"Did you not say I was out?" said Claude, his hollow tones and haggard air startling his faithful servitor considerably.

"Yes, sir--oh yes, sir. But that's no use with Mr. White. 'E said as 'ow 'e were sure you were in."

"Ask him to oblige me by coming again--to-morrow. I am very ill. I really cannot see him."

Smith left the room only to return and say: "Mr. White says, sir, 'is business is of the _hutmost_ himportance. 'E can't leave it; and 'e says you will be very sorry afterwards if you don't see 'im now."

"Oh, so be it," cried Bruce, turning to a spirit-stand to seek sustenance in a stiff gla.s.s of brandy. "Send him in."

Quite awed by circ.u.mstances, Smith admitted the detective and closed the door upon the two men, who stood looking at each other without a word of greeting or explanation.

CHAPTER XXVII

MR. WHITE'S METHOD

The policeman spoke first. "Has Jane Harding been here, then?" he said.

His words conveyed no meaning to his hearer.

They were so incongruous, so ridiculously unreasoning, that Bruce laughed hysterically.

"You must have seen her," cried the detective excitedly. "I know you have learned the truth, and in no other way that I can imagine could it have reached you."

"Learnt what truth?"

"That Sir Charles d.y.k.e himself is at the bottom of all this business."

"Indeed. How have you blundered upon that solution?"

"Mr. Bruce, this time I am right, and you know it. It was Sir Charles d.y.k.e who killed his wife. n.o.body else had anything else to do with it, so far as I can guess. But if you haven't seen Jane Harding, I wonder how you found out."

"You are speaking in riddles. Pray explain yourself."

"If Sir Charles d.y.k.e had not been out of town, the riddle would have been answered by this time in the easiest way, as I should have locked him up."

"Excellent. You remain faithful to tradition."

"Mr. Bruce, please don't try to humbug me, for the sake of your friend.

I am quite in earnest. I have come to you for advice. Sir Charles d.y.k.e is guilty enough."

"And what do you want me to do?"

"To help me to adopt the proper course. The whole thing seems so astounding that I can hardly trust my own senses. I spoke hastily just now. I would not have touched Sir Charles before consulting you. I was never in such a mixed-up condition in my life."

Whatever the source of his information, the detective had evidently arrived at the same conclusion as Bruce himself. There was nothing for it but to endeavor to reason out the situation calmly and follow the best method of dealing with it suggested by their joint intelligence.

Claude motioned the detective to a chair, imposed silence by a look, and summoned Smith. He was faint from want of food. With returning equanimity he resolved first to restore his strength, as he would need all his powers to wrestle with events before he slept that night.

Mr. White, nothing loth, joined him in a simple meal, and by tacit consent no reference was made to the one engrossing topic in their thoughts until the table was cleared.

"And now, Mr. White," demanded the barrister, "what have you found out?"

"During the last two days," he replied, "I have been unsuccessfully trying to trace Colonel Montgomery. No matter what I did I failed. I got hold of several of Mrs. Hillmer's tradespeople, but she always paid her bills with her own cheques, and none of them had ever heard of a Colonel Montgomery. That furniture business puzzled me a lot--the change of the drawing-room set from one flat to another on November 7, I mean. So I discovered the address of the people who supplied the new articles to Mrs. Hillmer--"

"How?"

"Through the maid, Dobson. Mrs. Hillmer has given her notice to leave, and the girl is furious about it, as she appears to have had a very easy place there. I think it came to Mrs. Hillmer's ears that she talked to me."

"I see. Proceed."

"Here I hit upon a slight clue. It was a gentleman who ordered the new furniture, and directed the transfer of the articles replaced from No.

61 to No. 12 Raleigh Mansions. He did this early in the morning of November 7, and the foreman in charge of the job remembered that there was some bother about it, as neither Mrs. Hillmer nor Mr. Corbett, as Mensmore used to be called, knew anything about it. But the gentleman came the same morning and explained matters. It struck the foreman as funny that there should be such a fearful hurry about refurnishing a drawing-room, for the gentleman did not care what the cost was so long as the job was carried out at express speed. Another odd thing was that Mrs. Hillmer paid for the articles, though she had not ordered them nor did she appear to want them. The man was quite sure that Mensmore's first knowledge of the affair came with the arrival of the first batch of articles from Mrs. Hillmer's flat, but he could only describe the mysterious agent as being a regular swell. He afterwards identified a portrait of Sir Charles d.y.k.e as being exactly like the man he had seen, if not the man himself."

"How did you come to have a portrait of Sir Charles in your possession?"

"That appears later," said the detective, full of professional pride at the undoubtedly smart manner in which he had manipulated his facts once they were placed in order before him.

"Of course," he went on, "I jumped at the conclusion that the stranger was this Colonel Montgomery. Then, while closely questioning the maid about the events of November 7, she suddenly remembered that she lost an old skirt and coat about that time. They had vanished from her room, and she had never laid eyes on them since. This set me thinking. I confronted her with the clothes worn by Lady d.y.k.e when she was found in the river, and I'm jiggered if Dobson didn't recognize them at once as being her missing property. Now, wasn't that a rum go?"

"It certainly was," said Bruce, who was piecing together the story of the murder in his mind as each additional detail came to light.

"Naturally I thought harder than ever after that. It then occurred to me that Jane Harding must have had some powerful reasons for so suddenly shutting up about the identification of her mistress's underclothing.

She was right enough, as we know, in regard to the skirt and coat, but she admitted to me that the linen on the dead body was just the same as Lady d.y.k.e's. Curiously enough, it was not marked by initials, crest, or laundry-mark, and I ascertained months ago that owing to some fad of her ladyship's, all the family washing was done on the estate in Yorkshire.

This explained the absence of the otherwise inevitable laundry-mark."

"Thus far you are coherence itself."