Cleek of Scotland Yard Part 41

"Yes, Cleek, my friend; Cleek, ladies and gentlemen all. And now that the mask is off, let me tell you a short little story which--no!

Pardon, Mr. Essington, don't leave the room, please. I wish you, too, to hear."

"Wasn't going to leave it--only going to shut the door."

"Ah, I see. Allow me. It is now, ladies and gentlemen, exactly fourteen days since our friend Doctor O'Malley here, coming up from Portsmouth on his motorcycle after attending a patient who that day had died, was overcome by the extreme heat and the exertion of trying to fight off a belligerent magpie which flew out of the woods and persistently attacked him, and, falling to the ground, lost consciousness. When he regained it, he was in the Charing Cross Hospital, and all that he knew of his being there was that a motorist who had picked him and his cycle up on the road had carried him there and turned him over to the authorities. He himself was unable, however, to place the exact locality in which he was travelling at the time of the accident, otherwise we should not have had that extremely interesting advertis.e.m.e.nt which Mr. Essington read out this evening. For the doctor had lost a small black bag containing something extremely valuable, which he was carrying at the time and which supplies the solution to this interesting riddle.

How, do you ask? Come with me--all of you--to Mr. Carruthers'

room, where his little lordship is sleeping, and learn that for yourselves."

They rose at his word and followed him upstairs; and there, in a dimly lit room, the sleeping child lay with an old rag doll hugged up close to him, its painted face resting in the curve of his little neck.

"You want to know from where proceed these mysterious attacks--who and what it is that harms the child?" said Cleek as he went forward on tiptoe and, gently withdrawing the doll, held it up. "Here it is, then--this is the culprit: this thing here! You want to know how? Then by this means--look! See!" He thrust the blade of a pocket knife into the doll and with one sweep ripped it open, and dipping in his fingers drew from cotton wool and rags with which the thing was stuffed a slim, close-stoppered gla.s.s vial in which something that glowed and gave off constant sparks of light shimmered and burnt with a restless fire.

"Is this it, Doctor?" he said, holding the thing up.

"Yes! Oh, my G.o.d, yes!" he cried out as he clutched at it. "A wonder of the heavens, sure, that the child wasn't disfigured for life or perhaps kilt forever. A half grain of it--a half grain of radium, ladies and gentlemen--enough to burn a hole through the divvle himself, if he lay long enough agin it."

"Radium!" The word was voiced on every side, and the two women and two men crowded close to look at the thing. "Radium in the doll?

Radium? I say, Deland--I mean to say, Mr. Cleek--in G.o.d's name, who could have put the cursed thing there?"

"Your magpie, Mr. Essington," replied Cleek, and with that brief preface told of Martha, the nurse, and of the torn doll and of the magpie that flew into the room while the girl was away.

"The wretched thing must have picked it up when the doctor fell and lost consciousness and the open bag lay unguarded," he said.

"And with its propensity for stealing and hiding things it flew with it into the nursery and hid it in the torn doll. Martha did not see it, of course, when she sewed the doll up, but the scratch she received from the magpie presented a raw surface to the action of the mineral and its effect was instant and most violent. What's that? No, Mr. Carruthers--no one is guilty; no one has even tried to injure his lordship. Chance only is to blame--and Chance cannot be punished. As for the rest, do me a favour, dear friend, in place of any other kind of reward. Look to it that this young chap here gets enough out of the income of the estate to continue his course at Oxford and--that's all."

It was not, however; for while he was still speaking a strange and even startling interruption occurred.

A liveried servant, pushing the door open gently, stepped into the room bearing a small silver salver upon which a letter lay.

"Well, upon my word, Johnston, this is rather an original sort of performance, isn't it?" exclaimed Carruthers, indignant over the intrusion.

"I beg your pardon, sir, but I did knock," he apologized. "I knocked twice, in fact, but no one seemed to hear; and as I had been told it was a matter of more than life and death, I presumed. Letter for Lieutenant Deland, sir. A gentleman of the name of Narkom--in a motor, sir--at the door--asked me to deliver it at once and under any and all circ.u.mstances."

Cleek looked at the letter, saw that it was enclosed in a plain unaddressed envelope, asked to be excused, and stepped out into the pa.s.sage with it.

That Narkom should have come for him like this--should have risked the upsetting of a case by appearing before he knew if it was settled or, indeed, likely to be--could mean but one thing: that his errand was one of overwhelming importance, of more moment than anything else in the world.

He tore off the envelope with hands that shook, and spread open the sheet of paper it contained.

There was but one single line upon it; but that line, penned in that hand, would have called him from the world's end.

"_Come to me at once. Ailsa_," he read--and was on his way downstairs like a shot.

In the lower hall the butler stood, holding his hat and coat ready for him to jump into them at once.

"My--er--young servant--quick as you can!" said Cleek, grabbing the hat and hurrying into the coat.

"Already outside, sir--in the motor with the gentleman," the butler gave back; then opened the door and stepped aside, holding it back for him and bowing deferentially; and the light of the hall, streaking out into the night, showed a flight of shallow steps, the blue limousine at the foot of them--with Lennard in the driver's seat and Dollops beside him--and standing on the lowest step of all Mr. Narkom holding open the car's door and looking curiously pale and solemn.

"What is it? Is she hurt? Has anything happened to her?" Cleek jumbled the three questions into one unbroken breath as he came running down the steps and caught at the superintendent's arm.

"Speak up! Don't stand looking at me like a dumb thing! Is anything wrong with Miss Lorne?"

"Nothing--nothing at all."

"Thank G.o.d! Then why? Why? For what reason has she sent for me? Where is she? Speak up!"

"In town. Waiting for you. At the Mauravanian emba.s.sy."

"At the--Good G.o.d! How comes she to be _there_?"

"I took her. You told me if anything happened to you that I thought she ought to know--Please get in and let us be off, sir--Sire--whichever it ought to be. I don't know the proper form of address. I've never had any personal dealings with royalty before."

The hand that rested on his arm tightened its grip the very instant that word royalty pa.s.sed his lips. Now it relaxed suddenly, dropped away, and he scarcely recognized the voice that spoke next, so unlike to Cleek's it was, so thick was the tremulous note that pulsated through it.

"Royalty?" it repeated. "Speak up, please. What have you found out?

What do you know of me that you make use of that term?"

"What everybody in the world will know by to-morrow. Count Irma has told! Count Irma has come, as the special envoy of the people, for Queen Karma's son! For the King they want! For you!" flung out Narkom, getting excited as he proceeded. "It's all out at last and--I know now. Everybody does. I'm to lose you. Mauravania is to take you from me after all. A palace is to have you--not the Yard. Get in, please, sir--Sire--your Majesty. Get in. They're waiting for you at the emba.s.sy. Get in and go! Good luck to you! G.o.d bless you! I mean that. It's just about going to break my heart, Cleek, but I mean it every word! Mind the step, Sire. Make room for me on the seat there, you two; and then off to the emba.s.sy as fast as you can streak it, Lennard. His Majesty is all ready to start."

"Not yet, please," a voice said quietly; then a hand reached out from the interior of the limousine, dropped upon Mr. Narkom's shoulder and, tightening there, drew him over the step and into the car.

"Your old seat, my friend. Here beside me. My memory is not a short one and my affections not fickle. All right _now_, Lennard. Let her go!"

Then the door closed with a smack, the limousine came round with a swing, and, just as in those other days when it was the Law that called, not the trumpet-peal from a throne, the car went bounding off at the good old mile-a-minute clip on its fly-away race for London.

It ended, that race, in front of the Mauravanian emba.s.sy; and Cleek's love for the spectacular must have come near to being surfeited that night, for the building was one blaze of light, one glamour of flags and flowers and festooned bunting; and looking up the steps, down which a crimson carpet ran across the pavement to the very kerbstone, he could see a double line of soldiers in the glittering white-and-silver of the Mauravanian Royal Guard,--plumed and helmeted--standing with swords at salute waiting to receive him; and over the arched doorway the royal arms emblazoned, and above them--picked out in winking gas-jets--a wreath of laurel surrounding the monogram M. R., which stood for Maximilian Rex, aflame against a marble background.

"Here we are at last, sir," said Narkom as the car stopped (he had learned, by this time, that "Sire" belonged to the stage and the Middle Ages), and, alighting, held back the door that Cleek might get out.

Afterward he declared that that was the proudest moment of his life; for if it was not the proudest of Cleek's, his looks belied him. For, as his foot touched the crimson carpet, a band within swung into the stately measure of the Mauravanian National Anthem, an escort came down the hall and down the steps and lined up on either side of him, and if ever man looked proud of his inheritance, that man was he.

He went on up the steps and down the long hall with a chorus of "Vivat Maximilian! Vivat le roi!" following him and the sound of the National Anthem ringing in his ears; then, all of a moment, the escort fell back, doors opened, he found himself in a room that blazed with lights, that echoed with the sound of many vivats, the stir of many bodies, and looking about saw that he was surrounded by a kneeling gathering and that one man in particular was at his feet, sobbing.

He looked down and saw that that man was Irma, and smiled and put out his hand.

The count bent over and touched it with his lips.

"Majesty, I never forgot! Majesty, I worked for it, fought for it ever since that night!" he said. "I would have fought for it ever if it need have been. But it was not. See, it was not. It was G.o.d's will and it was our people's."

"My people's!" Cleek repeated, his head going back, his eyes lighting with a pride and a happiness beyond all telling. "Oh, Mauravania!

Dear land. Dear country. Mine again!"

But hardly had the ecstasy of that thought laid its spell upon him when there came another not less divine, and his eyes went round the gathering in quest of one who should be here--at his side--to share this glorious moment with him.

She had come for that purpose--Narkom had said so. Where was she, then? Why did she hold herself in the background at such a time as this?

He saw her at that very moment. The gathering had risen and she with them--holding aloof at the far end of the room. There was a smile on her lips, but even at that distance he could see that she was very, very pale and that there was a shadow of pain in her dear eyes.