Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces Part 26

And just at that moment the red limousine flashed up out of the darkness, the outer door whirled open and Narkom came pelting up.

"He took the bait, then, Cleek?" he cried, as he saw the manacled figure on the floor, with the "Roman senator" bending over and the policemen crowding in about it. "I guessed it when I saw the lights flash up. I've been on his heels ever since he snapped at that conveniently placed taxi after he left Miss Morrison and her father."

"You haven't brought them with you, I hope, Mr. Narkom? I wouldn't have that poor girl face the ordeal of what's to be revealed here to-night for worlds."

"No, I've not. I made a pretext of having to 'phone through to headquarters, and slipped out a moment after him. But, I say, my dear chap"-as Cleek's hands made a rapid search of the pockets of the unconscious man, and finally brought to light a folded paper-"what's that thing? What are you doing?"

"Compounding a felony in the interest of humanity," he made reply as he put the end of the paper into the flame of the candle and held it there until it was consumed. "We all do foolish things sometimes when we are young, Mr. Narkom, and-well, George Carboys was no exception when he wrote the little thing I have just burned. Let us forget all about it-Captain Morrison is heir-at-law, and that poor girl will benefit."

"There was an estate, then?"

"Yes. My cable yesterday to the head of the Persian police set all doubt upon that point at rest. Abdul ben Meerza, parting with nothing while he lived, after the manner of misers in general, left a will bequeathing something like 12,000 to George Carboys, and his executor communicated that fact to the supposed friend of both parties-Mr. Maurice Van Nant; and exactly ten days ago, so his former solicitor informed me, Mr. Maurice Van Nant visited him unexpectedly, and withdrew from his keeping a sealed packet which had been in the firm's custody for eight years. If you want to know why he withdrew it-Dollops!"

"Right you are, Gov'nor."

"Give me the sledge-hammer. Thanks! Now, Mr. Narkom, look!" And, swinging the hammer, he struck at the nymph with a force that shattered the monstrous thing to atoms; and Narkom, coming forward to look when Cleek bent over the ruin he had wrought, saw in the midst of the dust and rubbish the body of a dead man, fully clothed, and with the gap of a bullet-hole in the left temple.

Again Cleek's hands began a rapid search, and again, as before, they brought to light a paper, a little crumpled ball of paper that had been thrust into the right-hand pocket of the dead man's waistcoat, as though jammed there under the stress of strong excitement and the pressure of great haste. He smoothed it out and read it carefully, then pa.s.sed it over to Mr. Narkom.

"There!" he said, "that's how he lured him over to his death. That's the message the pigeon brought. Would any man have failed to fly to face the author of a foul lie like that?"

"Beloved Mary," the message ran, "come to me again to-night. How sweet of you to think of such a thing as the belt to get him over and to make him stop until morning! Steal out after he goes to bed, darling. I'll leave the studio window unlocked, as usual. With a thousand kisses.

"Your own devoted,

"MAURICE."

"The dog!" said Narkom fiercely. "And against a pure creature like Mary Morrison! Here, Smathers, Petrie, Hammond, take him away. Hanging's too good for a beastly cur like that!"

"How did I know that the body was inside the statue?" said Cleek, answering Narkom's query, as they drove back in the red limousine toward London and Clarges Street. "Well, as a matter of fact, I never did know for certain until he began to examine the thing to-night. From the first I felt sure he was at the bottom of the affair, that he had lured Carboys back to the house, and murdered him; but it puzzled me to think what could possibly have been done with the body. I felt pretty certain, however, when I saw that monstrous statue."

"Yes, but why?"

"My dear Mr. Narkom, you ought not to ask that question. Did it not strike you as odd that a man who was torn with grief over the disappearance of a loved friend should think of modelling any sort of a statue on that very first day, much less such an inartistic one as that? Consider: the man has never been a first-cla.s.s sculptor, it is true, but he knew the rudiments of his art, he had turned out some fairly presentable work; and that nymph was as abominably conceived and as abominably executed as if it had been the work of a raw beginner. Then there was another suspicious circ.u.mstance. Modelling clay is not exactly as cheap as dirt, Mr. Narkom. Why, then, should this man, who was confessedly as poor as the proverbial church mouse, plunge into the wild extravagance of buying half a ton of it-and at such a time? Those are the things that brought the suspicion into my mind; the certainty, however, had to be brought about beyond dispute before I could act.

"I knew that George Carboys had returned to that studio by the dry marks of muddy footprints, that were nothing like the shape of Van Nant's, which I found on the boards of the verandah and on the carpet under one of the windows; I knew, too, that it was Van Nant who had sent that pigeon. You remember when I excused myself and went back on the pretext of having forgotten my magnifying gla.s.s the other day? I did so for the purpose of looking at that fifth pigeon. I had observed something on its breast feathers which I thought, at first glance, was dry mud, as though it had fallen or brushed against something muddy in its flight. As we descended the stairs I observed that there was a similar mark on Van Nant's sleeve. I brushed against him and sc.r.a.ped off a fleck with my finger-nails. It was the dust of dried modelling clay. That on the pigeon's breast proved to be the same substance. I knew then that the hands of the person who liberated that pigeon were the hands of someone who was engaged in modelling something or handling the clay of the modeller, and-the inference was clear.

"As for the rest; when Van Nant entered that studio to-night, frightened half out of his wits at the knowledge that he would have to deal with the one detective he feared, I knew that if he approached that statue and made any attempts to examine it I should have my man, and that the hiding-place of his victim's body would be proved beyond question. When he did go to it, and did examine it-Clarges Street at last, thank fortune; for I am tired and sleepy. Stop here, Lennard; I'm getting out. Come along, Dollops. Good-night, Mr. Narkom! 'And so, to bed,' as good old Pepys says."

And pa.s.sed on, up the street, with his hand on the boy's shoulder and the stillness and the darkness enfolding them.

CHAPTER XXVII

For the next five or six weeks life ran on merrily enough for Cleek; so merrily, in fact, that Dollops came to be quite accustomed to hear him whistling about the house and to see him go up the stairs two steps at a time whenever he had occasion to mount them for any purpose whatsoever.

It would not have needed any abnormally acute mind, any process of subtle reasoning, to get at the secret of all this exuberance, this perennial flow of high spirits; indeed, one had only to watch the letter box at Number 204, Clarges Street, to get at the bottom of it instantly; for twice a week the postman dropped into it a letter addressed in an undoubtedly feminine "hand" to Captain Horatio Burbage, and invariably postmarked "Lynhaven, Devon."

Dollops had made that discovery long ago and had put his conclusions regarding it into the mournfully-uttered sentence: "A skirt's got him!" But, after one violent pang of fierce and rending jealousy, was grateful to that "skirt" for bringing happiness to the man he loved above all other things upon earth and whose welfare was the dearest of his heart's desires. Indeed, he grew, in time, to watch as eagerly for the coming of those letters as did his master himself; and he could have shouted with delight whenever he heard the postman's knock, and saw one of the regulation blue-grey envelopes drop through the slit into the wire cage on the door.

Cleek, too, was delighted when he saw them. It was nothing to him that the notes they contained were of the briefest-mere records of the state of the weather, the progress of his little lordship, the fact that Lady Chepstow wished to be remembered and that the writer was well "and hoped he, too, was." They were written by her-that was enough. He gave so much that very little sufficed him in return; and the knowledge that he had been in her mind for the five or ten minutes which it had taken to write the few lines she sent him, made him exceedingly happy.

But she was not his only correspondent in these days-not even his most frequent one. For a warm, strong friendship-first sown in those ante-Derby days-had sprung up between Sir Henry Wilding and himself and had deepened steadily into a warm feeling of comradeship and mutual esteem. Frequent letters pa.s.sed between them; and the bond of fellowship had become so strong a thing that Sir Henry never came to town without their meeting and dining together.

"Gad! you know, I can't bring myself to think of you as a police-officer, old chap!" was the way Sir Henry put it on the day when he first invited him to lunch with him at his club. "I'd about as soon think of sitting down with one of my grooms as breaking bread with one of that lot; and I shall never get it out of my head that you're a gentleman going in for this sort of thing as a hobby-never b'Gad! if I live to be a hundred."

"I hope you will come nearer to doing that than you have to guessing the truth about me," replied Cleek, with a smile. "Take my word for it, won't you?-this thing is my profession. I don't do it as a mere hobby: I live by it-I have no other means of living but by it. I am-what I am, and nothing more."

"Oh, gammon! Why not tell me at once that you are a winkle stall-keeper and be done with it? You can't tell a fish that another fish is a turnip-at least you can't and expect him to believe it. Own up, old chap. I know a man of birth when I meet him. Tell me who you are, Cleek-I'll respect it."

"I don't doubt that-the addition is superfluous."

"Then who are you? What are you, Cleek? Eh?"

"What you have called me-'Cleek.' Cleek the detective, Cleek of the Forty Faces, if you prefer it; but just 'Cleek' and nothing more. Don't get to building romances about me merely because I have the instincts of a gentleman, Sir Henry. Just simply remember that Nature does make mistakes sometimes; that she has been known to put a horse's head on a sheep's shoulders and to make a navvy's son look more royal than a prince. I am Cleek, the detective-simply Cleek. Let it go at that."

And as there was no alternative, Sir Henry did.

It made no difference in their friendship, however. Police officer or not, he liked and he respected the man, and made no visit to town without meeting and entertaining him.

So matters stood between them when on a certain Thursday in mid September he came up unexpectedly from Wilding Hall and 'phoned through to Clarges Street, asking Cleek to dine with him that night at the Club of the Two Services.

Cleek accepted the invitation gladly and was not a little surprised on arriving to find that, in this instance, dinner was to be served in a little private room and that a third party was also to partake of it.

"Dear chap, pardon me for taking you unawares," said Sir Henry, as Cleek entered the private room and found himself in the presence of a decidedly military-looking man long past middle life, "but the fact is that immediately after I had telephoned you, I encountered a friend and a-er-peculiar circ.u.mstance arose which impelled me to secure a private room and to-er-throw myself upon your good graces as it were. Let me have the pleasure, dear chap, of introducing you to my friend, Major Burnham-Seaforth. Major, you are at last in the presence of the gentleman of whom I spoke-Mr. Cleek."

"Mr. Cleek, I am delighted," said the Major, offering his hand. "I have heard your praises sung so continuously the past two hours that I feel as if I already knew you."

"Ah, you mustn't mind all that Sir Henry says," replied Cleek, as he shook hands with him. "He makes mountains out of millstones, and would panegyrize the most commonplace of men if he happened to take a fancy to him. You mustn't believe all that Sir Henry says and thinks, Major."

"I shall be happy, Mr. Cleek, if I can really hope to believe the half of it," replied the Major, enigmatically-and was prevented from saying more by the arrival of the waiter and the serving of dinner.

It was not until the meal was over and coffee and cigars had been served and the too attentive waiter had taken his departure that Cleek understood that remark or realised what it portended. But even then, it was not the Major who explained.

"My dear Cleek," said Sir Henry, lowering his voice and leaning over the table, "I hope you will not think I have taken a mean advantage of you, but I have brought the Major here to-night for a purpose. He has, in fact, come to consult you professionally; and upon my recommendation. Do you object to that, or may I go on?"

"Go on by all means," replied Cleek. "I fancy you know very well that there is nothing you might ask of me that I would not at least attempt to do, dear chap."

"Thanks very much. Well then, the Major has come, my dear Cleek, to ask you to help in unravelling a puzzle of singular and mystifying interest. Now you may or may not have heard of a Music Hall artiste-a sort of conjurer and impersonator combined-called Zyco the Magician, who was once very popular and was a.s.sisted in his illusions by a veiled but reputedly beautiful Turkish lady who was billed on the programmes and posters as 'Zuilika, the Caliph's Daughter.'"

"I remember the pair very well indeed," said Cleek. "They toured the Music Halls for years, and I saw their performance frequently. They were among the first, I believe, to produce that afterwards universal illusion known as 'The Vanishing Lady.' As I have not heard anything of them nor seen their names billed for a couple of years past, I fancy they have either retired from the profession or gone to some other part of the world. The man was not only a very clever magician, but a master of mimicry. I always believed, however, that in spite of his name he was of English birth. The woman's face I never saw, of course, as she was always veiled to the eyes after the manner of Turkish ladies. But although a good many persons suspected that her birthplace was no nearer Bagdad than Peckham, I somehow felt that she was, after all, a genuine, native-born Turk."

"You are quite right in both suspicions, Mr. Cleek," put in the Major agitatedly. "The man was an Englishman; the lady is a Turk."

"May I ask, Major, why you speak of the lady in the present tense and of the man in the past? Is he dead?"

"I hope so," responded the Major fervently. "G.o.d knows I do, Mr. Cleek.