Christopher Quarles Part 17

"We have got to follow her and not be seen," said Quarles.

There was some difficulty in doing so, for she was evidently careful not to be followed. She went to the station, and by District Railway to Victoria, and to a house in the Buckingham Palace Road.

"We must find out whom it is she comes to visit here, Wigan," said Quarles. "We will wait a few minutes, and then you must insure that we are shown up without being announced. I do not fancy we shall meet with any resistance."

The woman who opened the door to us showed no desire for secrecy. The lady who had just come in did not live there, she explained. If I wanted to see her, would I send in my name? It was not until I told her that I was a detective that she led the way to the first floor, and we entered the room unannounced.

In an armchair sat an elderly woman, and from a chair at her side Martha Wakeling rose quickly. Quarles had entered the room first, and she did not notice me in the doorway.

"What is the meaning of this intrusion?" she asked.

"It is a surprise to find you in London," I said, coming forward.

"You! Yes, my sister is----"

Quarles had crossed toward the woman in the arm-chair.

"I am glad to see the journey has not hurt you, Mrs. Jardine," he said quietly.

It was a bow drawn at a venture, but Martha Wakeling's little cry of consternation was enough to prove that Quarles was right.

The arrest of Mrs. Jardine for the murder of her companion created a sensation, and I am doubtful whether the plea of insanity which saved her from the gallows and sent her to a criminal lunatic asylum was altogether justified.

The method in her madness was so extraordinary that the result of the trial would have been different, I fancy, had not Martha Wakeling's courage and care of her mistress aroused everybody's sympathy.

Martha Wakeling knew little of her mistress's past, but she had always known that she was not such an invalid as she pretended to be. If she chose to live that kind of life, it was n.o.body's business but her own, and the servant never suspected that she was afraid of being seen by some of her former a.s.sociates.

Martha's story made it clear that Mrs. Jardine had nursed a great hatred for her husband's family, especially for her nephew, the son of the man who had made the accusations against her. Her will, her every action in the tragedy, pointed to premeditation. She chose the time when Dr. Hawes was away, and, saying it would be an excellent joke to mislead a young doctor, she arranged that Mrs. Harrison should take her place when Dolman came. The companion could not refuse, very possibly enjoyed the joke.

Martha Wakeling knew of this arrangement, thought it silly, but never suspected any sinister intention.

In the middle of the night her mistress woke her up, and told her that she had killed Mrs. Harrison. Mrs. Jardine was excited, and explained that everyone would suppose that she herself had been murdered, and that her will and papers, and her nephew's impecunious position, would certainly bring the crime home to him. This was her revenge. She was mad; Martha was convinced of that. Mrs. Jardine never seemed in doubt that her servant, who was the only person who knew the truth, would help her. Mrs. Jardine intended to go away that night, and when the affair was over Martha would join her, and they could go and live quietly somewhere. She did not want her husband's money--she had enough of her own, and, since by her will it would come to Martha, there was no difficulty. Martha refused to be a party to such a crime, and succeeded in showing her mistress that she was in danger. Even if the body was taken for Mrs. Jardine, it was Mrs. Harrison who would be suspected, not Thomas Jardine. Poor Mrs. Harrison was dead, nothing could alter that, and Martha schemed to protect her mistress. She so far entered into her plan as to let it be supposed that the dead woman was Mrs. Jardine. Since the companion would not be found, the hue and cry would be after her. All that day her mistress was concealed in the house, as much afraid now as she had been exultant before, and in the evening Martha got her a lodging in Buckingham Palace Road.

Afterward she intended to take her away to some place where they were not known and look after her. Three times she had been to see her, fearful that her mistress might betray herself. And she had written to Thomas Jardine to warn him that his aunt had made no secret of her hatred, and that it might be said he had killed her. That communication Thomas Jardine had thought wise to keep to himself--for the present, at any rate--fully alive to the fact that, since he was drunk and quite unable to prove an alibi on the fatal night, and that it was not proved that the companion had committed a motiveless crime, he was in danger of arrest.

Zena had said it was curious the tragedy should happen while Dr. Hawes was away, and the professor declared it was this remark which had led him to believe that the dead woman was Mrs. Harrison and not Mrs.

Jardine. On this supposition the att.i.tude of Martha Wakeling was understandable. She might naturally wish to protect her mistress, and she was the only person who could help her in the deception.

The fact that I had given her a reason to suppose that I suspected the nephew would show her the necessity of warning him, and at the same time she would attempt to throw all the suspicion on Mrs. Harrison, who was past suffering.

This was Quarles's theory, and he had found the fact to support it in the handwriting of the store's order.

CHAPTER VII

THE DEATH-TRAP IN THE TUDOR ROOM

I had not been to Chelsea for some weeks--indeed, I had not been in town, business having kept me in the country--and I returned to find a letter from Quarles which had been waiting for me for three days.

Several cases were in my hands just then--affairs of no great difficulty nor any particular interest--and only in one case had I had any worry. This trouble was due, not so much to the case itself as to the fact that it had brought me in contact with another detective named Baines, who would persist in treating me as a rival. He was as irritating as Quarles himself could be on occasion, and was entirely without the professor's genius. To be candid, I may admit Baines had some excuse. Circ.u.mstances brought me into the affair at the eleventh hour, and he was afraid I should reap where he had planted.

It was a strange business from first to last, and one I am never likely to forget.

A man, riding across an open piece of country near Aylesbury early one morning, came upon a motor cyclist lying near his machine on the roadside. The machine had been reduced to sc.r.a.p-iron. The man, who was dressed in overalls, seemed to have been killed outright by a blow on the head. Since the man still wore his goggles, and there was no sign of a struggle, Baines argued, and reasonably, I think, that death was not the result of foul play. That he had been run into by a motor car, and that the people in the car had either not stopped to see what damage was done, or, having seen it, feared to give information, was perhaps giving too loose a rein to imagination.

However, this was Baines's idea; and he had succeeded in hearing of a car with only one man in it which had been driven through Aylesbury at a furious pace on the night when a second and similar tragedy occurred, this time near Saffron Walden.

The man had been killed in the same fashion, he wore goggles and overalls, and the machine was smashed, though not so completely.

Neither of the men had been identified. In the first case, there might be a reason for this, as the man was a foreigner. In the second case, the man was an Englishman. Both the machines were old patterns, and of a cheap make, carried fict.i.tious numbers, and Baines had been unable to find out where they had been purchased.

He held to his theory of the car, but was now inclined to think that the cyclists had been purposely driven into. Granted a certain shape of bonnet--and the car driven through Aylesbury appeared to have this shape--he contended that, in endeavoring to avoid the collision, a cyclist would be struck in exactly the manner indicated by the appearance of the head. He was therefore busy trying to trace a devil-mad motorist.

The discovery of a dead chauffeur on a lonely road near Newbury now brought me into the affair. He had apparently been killed in precisely the same manner as the victims of the Aylesbury and Saffron Walden tragedies; and so I was brought in contact with Baines. From the first he scorned my arguments and suggestions. It seemed to me that this third tragedy went to disprove his theory of a madly driven motor car, but he insisted that it was only a further proof. Was it not possible, he asked, that the mad owner of the car, believing that his chauffeur knew the truth, had killed him to protect himself? I asked him how he supposed the car had been driven at the chauffeur in order to injure him, exactly as it had injured men on cycles. When Baines answered that the chauffeur was probably on a cycle at the time, I wanted to know why, in this case, the motorist had gathered up the broken machine and taken it away. In short, we quarreled over the affair, and Baines was furious when I was able to prove that in neither case was the wrecked cycle a complete machine. True, in one case, only some trivial pieces were missing which might have been driven into the ground by the force of the fall; but in the other an important part was wanting, without which the machine could not have been driven.

I came to the conclusion that there had been foul play, that the broken machines were a blind, and that the men had been brought to the places where they were found after they were dead.

I returned to London to pursue inquiries in this direction, and found the letter from Quarles asking me to go and see him as soon as possible.

I went to Chelsea that evening, and was shown into the dining-room.

The professor looked a little old to-night, I thought.

"Very glad to see you, Wigan. I want your help."

"I shall be delighted to give it, you have helped me so often. Your granddaughter is well, I trust?"

"Yes, she is away. She has taken a situation."

"A situation!" I exclaimed.

"The world hasn't much use for a professor of philosophy in these days, and that leads to financial difficulty for the professor,"

Quarles answered. "You glance round at the luxury of this room, I notice, and I can guess your thoughts. Selfish old brute, you are saying to yourself. But it was the child's wish, and we bide our time.

She is made much of where she is. I think it is my loneliness which deserves most pity. Besides, there is no disgrace in honest work, either for man or woman."

Something of challenge was in his tone, and I hastened to agree with him. In a sense, the information was not unpleasant to me. Life was not to be all luxury for Zena Quarles. The social standing of a detective, however successful he may be, is not very high, and the necessity for her to work seemed to bring us nearer together. The value of what I could offer her was increased, and a spirit of hopefulness took possession of me.

"But I didn't ask you here to pity either Zena or myself," Quarles went on, after a pause. "I daresay you have heard of Mrs. Barrymore?"

"I have."

"She advertised for a private secretary, and Zena answered the advertis.e.m.e.nt. When a woman goes deeply into philanthropic work, visits hospitals, rescue homes, and the like, she often does it to fill a life which would otherwise be empty. Not to Mrs. Barrymore. She is a society woman as well, is to be met here, there and everywhere.