Cleek of Scotland Yard Part 7

How it distressed her, to tell again this story which might take away a human life, was manifest from the trembling of her sweet voice, the painful twitching of her tender mouth, and the tears that rose so readily to her soft eyes.

"Oh, Mr. Headland, I can hardly reconcile myself to having done it even yet," she said pathetically. "I do not know this Mr.

Barrington-Edwards but by sight, and it seems such a horrible thing to rise up against a stranger like that. But I couldn't keep it any longer; I felt that to do so would be equivalent to sharing his guilt, and the thought that if I kept silent I might possibly be paving the way to the sacrifice of other innocent lives almost drove me out of my mind."

"I can quite understand your feelings, Miss Valmond," said Cleek, touched to the very heart by the deep distress of her. "But may I say I think you have done right? I never yet knew Heaven to be anything but tender to those who do their duty, and you certainly have done yours--to yourself, to your fellow creatures, and to G.o.d!"

Before she could make any response to this, footsteps sounded from the outer pa.s.sage, and a deep, rich, masculine voice said, "Rose, Rose dear, I am ready now," and almost in the same moment a tall, well-set-up man in priestly clothing crossed the threshold and entered the room. He stopped short as he saw the others and made a hasty apology.

"Oh, pardon me," he said. "I did not know that you had visitors, dear, otherwise----Eh, what? Mr. Narkom, is it not?"

"Yes, Mr. Valmond," replied the superintendent, holding out a welcoming hand. "It is I, and this is my friend and a.s.sistant, Mr.

George Headland. We have just been talking with your sister over her trying experience."

"Terrible--terrible is the proper word, Mr. Narkom. Like you, I never heard of it until to-day. It shocked me to the very soul, you may believe. Delighted to meet you, Mr. Headland. A new disciple, eh, Mr. Narkom? Another follower in the footsteps of the great Cleek? By the way, I see you have lost touch with that amazing man. I saw your advertis.e.m.e.nt in the paper the other day. Any clue to his whereabouts as yet?"

"Not the slightest!"

"Ah, that's too bad. From what I have heard of him he would have made short work of this present case had he been available. But pray pardon me if I rush off, my time is very limited. Rose, dear, I am going to visit Father Burns this evening and shall stop at the orphanage on the way, so if you have the customary parcel for the children----"

"It is upstairs, in my oratory, dear," she interposed. "Come with me--if the gentlemen will excuse us for a moment--and I will get it for you."

"May we not all go up, Miss Valmond?" interposed Cleek. "I should like, if you do not mind, to get a view of the garden of Lemmingham House from the window where you were standing that night, and to have you explain the positions of the two men if you will."

"Yes, certainly--come, by all means," she replied, and led the way forthwith. They had scarcely gone halfway down the pa.s.sage to the staircase, however, when they came abreast of the open doorway of a room, dimly lit by a shaded lamp, wherein an elderly woman sat huddled up in a deep chair, with her shaking head bowed over hands that moved restlessly and aimlessly--after the uneasy manner of an idiot's--and the shape of whose face could be but faintly seen through the veil of white hair that fell loosely over it.

Cleek had barely time to recall Narkom's statement regarding the semi-imbecile mother, when Miss Valmond gave a little cry of wonder and ran into the room.

"Why, mother!" she said in her gentle way, "whatever are you doing down here, dearest? I thought you were still asleep in the oratory.

When did you come down?"

The imbecile merely mumbled and muttered, and shook her nodding head, neither answering nor taking any notice whatsoever.

"It is one of her bad nights," explained Miss Valmond, as she came out and rejoined them. "We can do nothing with her when she is like this. Horace, you will have to come home earlier than usual to-night and help me to get her to bed." Then she went on, leading the way upstairs, until they came at length to a sort of sanctuary where Madonna faces looked down from sombre niches, and wax lights burnt with a scented flame on a draped and cushioned prie dieu.

Here Miss Valmond, who was in the lead, went in, and, taking a paper-wrapped parcel from beside the little altar, came back and put it in her brother's hand and sent him on his way.

"Was it from there you saw the occurrence, Miss Valmond?" asked Cleek, looking past her into "the dim religious light" of the sanctuary.

"Oh, no," she made reply. "From the window of my bedroom, just on the other side of the wall. In here, look, see!" And she opened a door to the right and led them in, touching a key that flashed an electric lamp into radiance and illuminated the entire room.

It was a large room furnished in dull oak and dark green after the stately, sombre style of a Gothic chapel, and at one end there was a curtained recess leading to a large bow window. At the other there was a sort of altar banked high with white flowers, and at the side there was a huge canopied bed over the head of which hung an immense crucifix fastened to the wall that backed upon the oratory. It was a majestic thing, that crucifix, richly carved and exquisitely designed. Cleek went nearer and looked at it, his artistic eye captured by the beauty of it; and Miss Valmond, noting his interest, smiled.

"My brother brought me that from Rome," she said. "Is it not divine, Mr. Headland?"

"Yes," he said. "But you must be more careful of it, I fear, Miss Valmond. Is it not chipping? Look! Isn't this a piece of it?" He bent and picked a tiny curled sliver of wood from the narrow s.p.a.ce between the two down-filled pillows of the bed, holding it out to her upon his palm. But, of a sudden, he smiled, lifted the sliver to his nose, smelt it, and cast it away. "The laugh is on me, I fear--it's only a cedar paring from a lead pencil. And now, please, I'd like to investigate the window."

She led him to it at once, explaining where she stood on the eventful night; where she had seen the two figures pa.s.s, and where was the wall door through which the dying man had been thrust.

"I wish I might see that door clearer," said Cleek; for night had fallen and the moon was not yet up. "Don't happen to have such a thing as a telescope or an opera gla.s.s, do you, Miss Valmond?"

"My brother has a pair of field gla.s.ses downstairs in his room. Shall I run and fetch them for you?"

"I'd be very grateful if you would," said Cleek; and a moment after she had gone. "Run down and get my sketching materials out of the locker, will you, Mr. Narkom?" he added. "I want to make a diagram of that house and garden." Then he sat down on the window-seat and for five whole minutes was alone.

The field gla.s.ses and the sketching materials were brought, the garden door examined and the diagram made, Miss Valmond and Narkom standing by and watching eagerly the whole proceeding.

"That's all!" said Cleek, after a time, brushing the charcoal dust from his fingers, and snapping the elastic band over the sketch book. "I know my man at last, Mr. Narkom. Give me until ten o'clock to-morrow night, and then, if Miss Valmond will let us in here again, I'll capture Barrington-Edwards red-handed."

"You are sure of him, then?"

"As sure as I am that I'm alive. I'll lay a trap that will catch him.

I promise you that. So if Miss Valmond will let us in here again----"

"Yes, Mr. Headland, I will."

"Good! Then let us say at ten o'clock to-morrow night--here in this room; you, I, your brother, Mr. Narkom--all concerned!" said Cleek. "At ten to the tick, remember. Now come along, Mr. Narkom, and let me be about weaving the snare that shall pull this Mr.

Barrington-Edwards to the scaffold." Speaking, he bowed to Miss Valmond, and taking Mr. Narkom's arm, pa.s.sed out and went down the stairs to prepare for the last great act of tragedy.

CHAPTER IV

At ten to the tick on the following night, he had said, and at ten to the tick he was there--the old red limousine whirling him up to the door in company with Mr. Narkom, there to be admitted by Miss Valmond's brother.

"My dear Mr. Headland, I have been on thorns ever since I heard,"

said he. "I hope and pray it is right, this a.s.sistance we are giving.

But tell me, please--have you succeeded in your plans? Are you sure they will not fail?"

"To both questions, yes, Mr. Valmond. We'll have our man to-night.

Now, if you please, where is your sister?"

"Upstairs--in her own room--with my mother. We tried to get the mater to bed, but she is very fractious to-night and will not let Rose out of her sight for a single instant. But she will not hamper your plans, I'm sure. Come quickly, please--this way." Here he led them on and up until they stood in Miss Valmond's bedroom and in Miss Valmond's presence again. She was there by the window, her imbecile mother sitting at her feet with her face in her daughter's lap, that daughter's solicitous hand gently stroking her tumbled hair, and no light but that of the moon through the broad window illuminating the hushed and stately room.

"I keep my word, you see, Miss Valmond," said Cleek, as he entered.

"And in five minutes' time if you watch from that window you all shall see a thing that will amaze you."

"You have run the wretched man down, then, Mr. Headland?"

"Yes--to the last ditch, to the wall itself," he answered, making room for her brother to get by him and make a place for himself at the window. "Oh, it's a pretty little game he's been playing, that gentleman, and it dates back twenty years ago when he was kicked out of his regiment in Ceylon."

"In Ceylon! I--er--G.o.d bless my soul, was he ever in Ceylon, Mr.

Headland?"

"Yes, Mr. Valmond, he was. It was at a time when there was what you might call a sapphire fever raging there, and precious stones were being unearthed in every unheard-of quarter. He got the fever with the rest, but he hadn't much money, so when he fell in with a lot of fellows who had heard of a Cingalese, one Bareva Singh, who had a reef to sell in the Saffragam district, they made a pool between them and bought the blessed thing, calling it after the man they had purchased it from, the Bareva Reef, setting out like a party of donkeys to mine it for themselves, and expecting to pull out sapphires by the bucketful."

"Dear me, dear me, how very extraordinary! Of course they didn't?

Or--did they?"