Christopher Quarles Part 40

"The window was found closed," I said, "but there is little significance in that. If pulled to from the outside it fastens itself.

"And cannot be opened from the outside, I observe," said Quarles. "How about the garden door, yonder?"

The house was a corner one. There was a small square of garden, and in the high wall was a door, an exit into a side road.

"It was locked," I answered.

"So, unless the retreating person had a key, he would have to climb the wall," the professor remarked. "That would require some agility."

"The person who committed so savage a murder would be likely to have sufficient strength for that," I said.

"Quite so," Quarles returned thoughtfully, crossing to a leather-covered sofa and looking at it carefully.

"Shall we interview the servants?" he said, after a pause.

The man who had found his master that morning was calmer now, and told us a coherent story. Mr. Seligmann had arrived home just before midnight on Sat.u.r.day. They had expected him earlier in the evening. As he entered the study, he said he was returning to Maidenhead as soon as he had looked through his letters. He had a cottage on the river, where he and Mrs. Seligmann had been for the past two or three weeks, and the master had paid these flying visits to Hampstead more than once. The man had gone to bed after taking in the tray with the gla.s.ses. It was his custom to put two or three gla.s.ses on the tray.

There was no one with Mr. Seligmann. The study had not been opened on Sunday. When he entered it this morning his master was dead in the chair, and the man had immediately sent for the police. He had also telegraphed to Mrs. Seligmann.

"Was it usual not to open the room when Mr. Seligmann was away?" I asked.

"On Sundays, yes. Other days it would be opened."

"It wasn't necessary for you to sit up until your master had gone?"

"No. He constantly left his motor in the side road and went out through the garden. He had a key of the door."

"Was the electric light on in the hall on Sunday morning?"

"No; but I didn't switch it off on Sat.u.r.day. I left it because two of the servants were finishing some work in the kitchen--hat tr.i.m.m.i.n.g.

They were having the Sunday off. They ought to be back directly."

"You supposed the motor was waiting in the side road ready to take your master to Maidenhead," said Quarles. "Would it be in charge of a chauffeur?"

"Yes, sir."

"When your master left by the garden was it not thought advisable to see that the study window was securely fastened? I see there are shutters."

"Yes, but I have never seen them closed. The master often sat up late after we had all gone to bed, and he never shut them. I suppose he considered the high garden wall sufficient protection."

"Did anyone come to see your master that night?"

"No."

In this particular the man was wrong. When, a few minutes later, the two women servants returned, one of them--the housemaid--said she had answered a ring at the bell after the man servant had gone to bed. It was a young lady. She gave no name, but said that Mr. Seligmann was expecting her. This was true, for the master had had her shown in at once.

"He told me not to wait. He would show her out himself."

"What was the lady like?" I asked.

"Rather tall and well dressed. She wore a veil, so I could not see her face very clearly."

"Was she alone?" asked Quarles.

"Yes."

"Quite alone?" the professor insisted. "She didn't turn to speak to anyone as she entered the house?"

"No."

"Did you switch off the light in the hall?"

"I may have done. I do not remember."

"So late a visitor surprised you, of course?"

"Only because the master was to be in the house so short a time. He has a great deal to do with professional people, so we often get late visitors--after the theaters are over. The mistress----"

She stopped. There was the soft purring of a motor at the front door, and a moment later the sharp ring of a bell.

"That is the mistress," she said.

The door was opened, and a woman came in swiftly, young, beautiful, and, even in her agitated movements, full of grace.

"Tell me! Tell me!" she said, turning toward Quarles and myself, as if a man's strength were necessary to her just then. Quarles told her with a gentleness which I had not often seen in him.

"I must see him," she said.

We tried to dissuade her, but she insisted, so we went with her. The dead man lay on a sofa, a handkerchief over his face. His wife lifted the covering herself and for a moment stood motionless. Then she swayed and would have fallen had I not caught her. My touch seemed to strengthen her, and, with a low cry, she rushed out of the room.

From the moment she had entered the house I had been trying to remember where I had seen her before. Perhaps it was some involuntary movement as she left the room which made me remember. She was the famous Hungarian dancer we had seen on Sat.u.r.day at the opera.

"Did you know she was Seligmann's wife, professor?"

"No," he answered, almost as if his ignorance annoyed him.

"I'm going back to Chelsea. He had a visitor, you see, Wigan, and a woman. There is nothing more to say at present. I dare say you will be able to see Mrs. Seligmann presently; ask her two things: Did she expect her husband to join her at Maidenhead in the small hours of Sunday morning? Does she know of any woman, a singer possibly, who has been worrying her husband to get her an engagement?"

The importance of finding the woman who had visited Seligmann was obvious, but it seemed impossible that a woman could have accomplished so savage a murder. Seligmann was a powerful man and would not prove an easy victim. Evidently the professor did not believe her solely responsible by the precise way in which he had asked the housemaid whether the woman was alone.

In the afternoon I saw Mrs. Seligmann for a few moments. She told me that she and her husband had come to town together on Sat.u.r.day. He had arranged to go to Hampstead after the opera, not to keep any particular appointment as far as she knew, and she had expected him to come on to Maidenhead afterward. She had gone back there after the opera. People constantly asked him to help them, but she could not conceive who her husband's visitor that night was.

In answer to my question how her husband intended to get to Maidenhead, she said by taxi. He often did so after sending her off in the motor.

When I left her I visited the nearest cab rank, and had confirmation of her statement. A driver told me he had taken Mr. Seligmann to Maidenhead once or twice. Seligmann would stop and tell him if he were on the rank at a certain time there would be a good job for him. He has also been to the house to call for him sometimes. On Sat.u.r.day he had not seen him, nor could I find any other driver who had. Of course, he might have engaged a taxi elsewhere, but, as it was not his habit to do so, the presumption was that he had not intended to go to Maidenhead that night.

Quarles had talked about criminals' mistakes, but I did not expect a murderer to be so careless as to hire a cab in the immediate neighborhood. I found, however, that three drivers had been engaged by solitary women that night. The description of the first woman did not correspond with the housemaid's, the second was not late enough to be Seligmann's visitor, but the third seemed worth attention. She had been driven to Chelsea, to a block of flats called River Mansions, and, interviewing the hall-porter later in the afternoon, I found that a Miss Wickham, who shared a flat there with a lady named Ross, had come home early on Sunday morning. She might be a singer, but the man thought she was an actress.

"Is she in now?" I asked.