Cleek, the Master Detective Part 11

Then he laughed the foolish, vacuous laugh of a man whose thoughts are too happy for the ba.n.a.lity of words.

It was midnight and after. In the close-curtained library of Chepstow House, Cleek, with little Lord Chepstow sleeping in his arms, sat in solemn conclave with Lady Chepstow, Captain Hawksley, and Maverick Narkom. While they talked, Ailsa, like a restless spirit, wandered to and fro, now lifting the curtains to peep out into the darkness, now listening as if her whole life's hope lay in the coming of some expected sound. And in her veins there burned a fever of suspense.

"So you failed to get the rascals, did you, Mr. Narkom?" Cleek was saying. "I feared as much; but I couldn't get word to you sooner. We blew out a fuse, Dollops and I, in that mad race to the mill, and of course we had to come home at a snail's pace afterward. I'm sorry we didn't get Margot, sorrier still that that hound Merode got away. They are bound to make more trouble before the race is run. Not for her ladyship, however, and not for this dear little chap. Their troubles are at an end, and the sacred son will be a sacred son no longer."

"Oh, Mr. Cleek, do tell me what you mean," implored Lady Chepstow. "Do tell me how----"

"Doctor Fordyce at last!" struck in Ailsa excitedly, as the door-bell and the knocker clashed and the butler's swift footsteps went along the hall. "Now we shall know, Mr. Cleek, now we shall know for certain!"

"And so shall all the world," he replied as the door opened and the doctor was ushered into the room. "I don't think you were ever so welcome anywhere or at any time before, doctor," he added with a smile.

"Come and look at this little chap. Bonny little specimen of a Britisher, isn't he?"

"Yes; but, my dear sir, I--I was under the impression that I was called to a scene of excitement; and you seem as peaceful as Eden here. The constable who came for me said it was something to do with Scotland Yard!"

"So it is, doctor. I had Mr. Narkom send for you to perform a very trifling but most important operation upon this little boy here."

"Upon Cedric!" exclaimed Lady Chepstow, rising in a panic of alarm. "An operation to be performed upon my baby boy? Oh, Mr. Cleek, in the name of Heaven----"

"No, your ladyship, in the name of Buddha. Don't be alarmed. It is only to be a trifling cut, a mere re-opening of that little wound in the thigh which you dressed and healed so successfully at Trincomalee. You made a mistake, all of you, that night when the boy was shot. The native poor Ferralt saw skulking along with the gun was not a mere tribesman and had not the very faintest thought of discharging that weapon at your little son, or, indeed, at anybody else in the world. He was the High Priest, Seydama, guardian of the holy tooth, the one living being who dared by right to touch it or to lay hands upon the shrine that contained it. Fearful, when the false rumour of that intended loot was circulated, that infidel eyes should look upon it, infidel hands profane the sacred relic, he determined to remove it from Dambool to the rock-hewn temple of Galwihara and to enshrine it there. For the purpose of giving no clue to his movements, he chose to abandon his priestly robes, to disguise himself as a common tribesman, and, the better to defeat the designs of those who might seek to tear it from him and hold it for ransom, he hid the holy tooth in the barrel of a gun. That gun was in his hands when Ferralt leaped out and brained him!"

"Dear heaven!" cried Lady Chepstow with a sudden burst of realization.

"Then that holy relic, that fetish, the sacred tooth of Buddha----"

"Is embedded in the fleshy part of the thigh of your little son!" he finished. "Enclosed, doubtless, in a sac or cyst which protective Mother Nature has wrapped round it, the tooth is there; and, for five whole years, he has been the living shrine that held it!"

And so, in truth, it proved to be. Ten minutes later the trifling operation was over, and the long-lost relic lay in the palm of the doctor's hand.

"Take it, Captain Hawksley," said Cleek, lifting it and carrying it over to him. "There is a man in Soho, one Arjeeb Noosrut, who will know it when he sees it; and there is a vast reward. Five lacs of rupees will pay off no end of debts, and a man with that balance at his banker's can't be accused of being a fortune-hunter when he asks in marriage the hand of the woman he loves. Mr. Narkom, is your motor ready? I'm a bit f.a.gged out, and Dollops, I know, is all but starving. Ladies and gentlemen, my best respects. The riddle is solved. Good-night!"

CHAPTER IV

THE CALIPH'S DAUGHTER

It was half-past ten on a wet September night when Superintendent Narkom's limousine pulled up in front of Cleek's house in Clarges Street, and the superintendent himself, disguised, as he always was when paying visits to his famous ally, stepped out and with infinite care a.s.sisted a companion to alight.

The figure of this second person, however, was so hidden by the folds of a long, thickly wadded cloak, the hem of which reached to within an inch or so of the pavement, that it would have been impossible for a pa.s.ser-by to have decided whether it was that of a man or a woman; but the manner in which it bent, added to a shuffling uncertainty of gait--a sort of "feeling the way" movement of the feet--as Mr. Narkom guided it across the pavement to the door, suggested either great age or a state of total blindness: an affliction, by the way, of such recent date that the sufferer had not yet acquired that air of confidence and that freedom of step which is Time's kind gift to the sightless.

In a very few moments, however, all doubt as to the s.e.x and the condition of the m.u.f.fled figure was set at rest, for, upon the superintendent and his companion being admitted by Dollops to the dimly-lit hall of the house, the bent figure straightened, and it was easy to see that it was not only that of a man but of a man heavily blindfolded.

"You may take off the bandage now, Major," said Narkom, as the door closed behind them and Dollops busied himself with readjusting the fastenings. "We shall find your master in his sitting-room, I suppose, my embryo Vidocq?"

"Speaking to me, sir? Lor! You ain't never went and forgot my name after all these months, have you, Mr. Narkom?" said Dollops, not understanding the allusion. "Yes, sir; you'll find him there, sir, and frisky as a spring lamb without the peas, bless his heart! Been to the weddin' of Lady Chepstow and that there Captain Hawksley this afternoon, sir, and must have enjoyed hisself, the way he's been a-whistling and a-singing ever since he come home. What a feed they must of had with all their money! It seems almost a crime to 'a' missed it. Sent wot was left to the 'orspittles, I hear, and me as flat as an autumn leaf after six months' pressin' in the family Bible."

"What! Hungry still, Dollops?"

"Hungry, sir? Lor, Mr. Narkom, a flute's a fool to me for hollowness.

I'm that empty my blessed ribs is a-shaking hands with each other; and ten minutes ago, when I et a pint of winkles, the noise as they made a-gettin' by 'em, sir, you'd a thought it was somebody a-tumbling downstairs. But they say as every dog has his day, so I'm always a-livin' in hopes, sir."

"Hopes? Hopes of what?"

"That _some_ time you'll come for the guv'ner to investigate a crime wot's been committed in a cookshop, sir--and _then_, wot ho! But," he added lugubriously, "they never comes to no violent end, them food-selling jossers; they always dies in their beds like a parcel of heathen!"

Narkom made no reply. By this time the man he had addressed as "major"

had removed the bandage from his eyes; and, beckoning him to follow, the superintendent led the way upstairs, leaving Dollops to mourn alone.

Cleek, who was sitting by a carefully shaded lamp jotting something down in his diary, closed the book and rose as the two men entered. Late as the hour was he had not yet changed the garments he had worn at Lady Chepstow's wedding in the afternoon.

"You are promptness itself, Mr. Narkom," he said gaily, as he glanced at his watch. "I am afraid that I myself overlooked the pa.s.sage of time in attending to--well, other things. You will, perhaps, be interested to learn, Mr. Narkom, that Miss Lorne has decided to remain in England."

"Indeed, my dear fellow, I never heard that she contemplated going out of it again. Did she?"

"Oh, yes; I thought you knew. Captain Hawksley has been ordered to India with his regiment. Of course, that means that, after their honeymoon, his wife and little Lord Chepstow will accompany him. They wished Miss Lorne to continue as the boy's governess and to go with them. At the last moment, however, she decided to remain in England and to seek a new post here. But, pardon me, we are neglecting your companion, Mr. Narkom.

The aftermath of previous cases cannot, I fear, be of interest to him."

"Yes, my dear chap," agreed Narkom. "Let me introduce Major Burnham-Seaforth, my dear Cleek. Major, you are at last in the presence of the one man you desire to put upon the case; if there is anything in it, be sure that he will get it out."

For just half a moment after he spoke the major's name, Narkom fancied that it seemed to have a disturbing influence upon Cleek; that there was a shadow, just a shadow of agitation suggested. But before he could put his finger upon the particular point which made this suspicion colourable, it was gone and had left no trace behind.

The major--who, by the way, was a decidedly military-looking man long past middle life--had been studying Cleek's face with a curious sort of intentness ever since he entered the room. Now he put forth his hand in acknowledgment of the introduction.

"I am delighted to have the opportunity of meeting you, Mr. Cleek," he said. "At first I thought Mr. Narkom's insistence upon my making the journey here blindfolded singularly melodramatic and absurd. I can now realize, since you are so little similar to one's preconceived idea of a police detective, that you may well wish to keep everything connected with your residence and your official capacity an inviolable secret. One does not have to be told that you are a man of birth and breeding, Mr.

Cleek. Pardon me if I ask an impertinent question. Have we by any chance met before--in society or elsewhere? There is something oddly familiar in your countenance. I can't quite seem to locate it, however."

"Then I shouldn't waste my time in endeavouring to do so, Major, if I were you," responded Cleek with the utmost _sang-froid_. "It is bound to end in nothing. Points of resemblance between persons who are in no way connected are of common occurrence. I have no position in society, no position of any sort but _this_. I am simply Cleek, the detective. I have a good memory, however, and if I had ever met you before I should not have forgotten it."

And with this non-committal response he dismissed the subject airily, waved the major to a seat, and the business of the interview began.

"My dear Cleek," Narkom began, opening fire without further parley, "the major has come to ask your aid in a case of singular and mystifying interest. You may or may not have heard of a music-hall artiste--a sort of conjuror and impersonator--called 'Zyco the Magician,' who 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. They toured the music-halls for years, and I saw their performance frequently. They were the first, I believe, to produce that afterward universal trick known as 'The Vanishing Lady.' As I have not heard anything of them nor seen their names billed for the past couple of years, 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.

My very hope in life depends upon that."

"May I ask why?"

"I am desirous of marrying his widow!"

"My dear Major, you cannot possibly be serious! A woman of that cla.s.s?"