The Riddle of the Spinning Wheel Part 11

"Very well--if you wish," she said quietly, with an arch glance at him; but as she went something white fluttered to the ground in the wake of her, and Cleek, waiting until she had gone, closed the door softly, and then bent down and whisked it up.

It was a handkerchief--a mere wisp of gossamer, with d.u.c.h.esse lace edge, and the name _Paula_ written in embroidery across one corner of its fragile square.

A little twisted smile flitted across his face as he looked at it, and then suddenly his mouth went grim. This was obviously the handkerchief in question--and she had had it upon her person every moment of the time! So _that_ excuse was a false one, from the start-out. Then, too, a woman who could look archly at another man over her own husband's dead body was surely no woman at all, but a harpy in woman's guise. It was ghoulish, horrible!... And if the excuse were false, what did she come for--in the early hours of the morning, when servants were only just astir in the other wing of the house, and she knew that there was that dead Thing who had been her husband to be confronted? Would a woman face a murdered man for a mere handkerchief?... She would lose a thousand such sooner, from what _he_ knew of the feminine s.e.x.

No, there was some other reason, and that a secret one. Was it the will?

But that was already gone. Was it to remove some distinguishing clue which she feared might be found to connect _her_ with this crime?

What was it?

CHAPTER XI

A NEW CLUE

It was a silent, horror-haunted breakfast-table that morning at which, however, every member of the family appeared, as though driven downstairs for the mere comfort of being among familiar things, and with one another, in this time of tragedy. Cleek partook of breakfast with them, but the black looks which Ross directed at him would have made a weaker man lose his appet.i.te.

He smiled to himself now and again, missing nothing of what went on about him, yet seeming, indeed, to see nothing at all but his own plate, which was plentifully filled in response to a hearty appet.i.te.

He found Cynthia Debenham a bonny, red-cheeked country girl of the best type, athletic and muscular as a boy, and very obvious in her expressions, as just such a normally healthy girl of her generation usually is. Her cousin, Catherine Dowd, was on the contrary a black-haired witch with slanting eyes and close mouth and the finely chiselled nostrils of a thoroughbred mare. He did not take to her upon sight. There was so much concealed behind those closed lips, so much that was secretive in the whole type of her. But she was obviously very fond of them all, and upon excellent terms with every member of that ill-a.s.sorted family. So that at least Miss Dowd of the black locks was endowed with the mixing spirit, which was very much in her favour.

Cyril, large-eyed and serious, sent his glance roving from one face to another, as though seeking for the secret of this horrible thing that had taken place here in the midst of them, and Cleek could not refrain from a pang of pity for the white-faced boy. He looked so frightened and miserable, and now and again his eyes roved up into Ross's face with something of inquiry in them, as though he felt that this big stepbrother must surely hold the key to the tragic happenings of last night.

Ross, indeed, ate nothing and said less, although his fiancee did all in her power to bring some sort of a smile into his morose face. While upon the other side of him Maud Duggan sat in a silence which was fraught with all the dreadful happenings of that dreadful night, showing a face to the world which spoke mutely of the fact that sleep had not visited her during the long dark hours. Lady Paula alone tried to make some sort of desultory conversation, aimed at random at each member of the party, and missing its mark each time.

It was as though a pall had been dropped over them, shutting out the possibility of speech.

Breakfast at length over, Cleek took the situation quietly in hand, and turning toward them in the open doorway, made his desires known.

"If you will all be so kind as to step into the library in an hour's time," he said blandly, "I should like to reconstruct the scene of last night's tragedy in the presence of all those who took part in it.... No, Miss Duggan, you need not be afraid. Your father's body will have been removed by then. But if any one of you have any knowledge whatever to impart to me--representing, as I do, Scotland Yard in the absence of Mr.

Narkom (who is already upon his way here), I shall be only too pleased to speak with you in the little ante-room close by. I may use that as a sort of office, for the time being, may I not, Lady Paula? You've no objections, I trust?"

She shook her head at him, flashing him a killing glance from under her full lids. The flattery of his choice of her as princ.i.p.al of the bereft family pleased her immensely.

"None whatever."

"Thanks very much."

Then he withdrew to the said ante-room, took out pen and paper, and began figuring out something upon it which caused him not a little worry, by the look of his face.

Five minutes brought a gentle tap upon the door, and without raising his head from his work he called, "Come in."

Catherine Dowd stood in the aperture, looking more like the Mona Lisa than he had ever seen a living person do before. There was something of the same inscrutable smile lingering upon her lips, the same mysterious impa.s.sivity in her quiet countenance.

"I've brought you something, Mr. Deland," she said in a soft purring voice. "Something which I imagine has great bearings upon last night's tragedy and which I found hidden in the left-hand curtain of the window.

It was stuck carelessly into the inner lining of the green silk, and hung there. Here it is."

Cleek was on his feet in an instant, face alert. She handed him the object, and then nodded at his exclamation of surprise.

"Yes. A stiletto. And in the face of the fact that Sir Andrew was stabbed as well as shot, something of importance."

"I should think so, indeed!" Cleek's face fairly radiated excitement as he bent over the object that lay in his open palm, touching it with light, nimb fingers. "Gad! yes! A stiletto--and a South American one at that! See the curiously square blade? If that isn't the identical instrument that stabbed Sir Andrew's breast, I'll eat my hat! Miss Dowd, you have brought me a clue which may lead to the tracing of the murderer himself--or one of 'em, as there must have been two. Now, tell exactly the circ.u.mstances in which you found it, and why you kept the fact hidden until now?"

She came a little nearer to him and leaned against the edge of the desk-top, a sort of secretive nonchalance in her att.i.tude.

"I don't say everything I know, Mr. Deland," she said smoothly. "For a person who tells everything he knows leaves nothing within to show that he has anything of interest left for the next person who comes along. It was shortly after the tragedy had taken place. Everything, as of course you know, was absolutely in confusion. People rushing about here, there, and everywhere, as though they had gone mad, which indeed they must surely have done in such tragic circ.u.mstances. I was as bad as the rest, and with Cynthia searched the room for any clues or anything which might lead to the tracing of the murderer. I had just gone to the open window and----"

"Oho!" said Cleek in two different tones, "so the window was open, was it?"

"Yes--about halfway up from the bottom. The centre one, Mr. Deland.

Someone had asked me to shut it--it was Ross, I think, poor distracted boy!--which I immediately proceeded to do, and brushed against the curtains--the big green plush ones which hang at the outer edges of the bay window--when something clattered lightly to the floor. Cynthia was at the other side, looking out into the darkness, everyone else was occupied with Sir Andrew himself, so I bent down quickly and picked the thing up. And there it is."

Yes, there it undoubtedly was. And undoubtedly too, the weapon which had stabbed Sir Andrew so cruelly, if Cleek knew aught of such things. He frowned a moment over it, and then looked up into Miss Dowd's dark face through narrowed lids.

"And you know to whom it belongs?"

"I cannot say for certain, but I fancy it is Lady Paula's. She had one similar, I know, but whether it is the same one I am not prepared to say."

"Showing yourself a very wise young lady," put in Cleek with a smile.

She acknowledged the compliment gracefully.

"And that you are a very gallant gentleman, Mr. Deland--in spite of your somewhat unusual role," she supplemented. Then, becoming serious again, "But don't you think it--well, queer, that if this were the instrument which stabbed Sir Andrew, that there should be no mark of stain upon it, no blood of any sort? The blade when I found it was absolutely clean."

"H'm. Yes. Rather extraordinary. Unless the murderer had time to wipe it upon anything, Miss Dowd, before consigning it to the curtains. And now, another question: What made you keep the thing secret?"

She hesitated a moment, as though uncertain what to answer, then, blushing faintly, confronted him.

"I have often seen that thing in use in the Duggan household. It has laid claim to many a theatrical bout upon an impromptu stage. It has cut pages of books, and slit edges of papers, and----"

"All the more reason why there should have been some significance to every member of the family in it, Miss Dowd."

"That's one up to you--certainly. But you see the last person I had seen using it, the day before yesterday, when I was here with Cynthia, spending the afternoon, was--really, I'd rather not say, Mr. Deland."

"I'm afraid you must, Miss Dowd."

Came a moment's hesitation; meanwhile Cleek watched her narrowly. He saw the colour come and go in her ivory-tinted face, saw the light that came into her eyes at mention of the name which followed, and drew his own immediate conclusions.

"Oh, very well, then. There can be no harm in your knowing. It was Ross Duggan himself. He had been reading a new book which he had sent to London for--'Poisons and Potions of Other Times', I think it was called--and used that very same stiletto to slit the pages with. But that was a couple of days ago, Mr. Deland. Who used it since, I couldn't tell. Or how it got in those curtains, either."

"I see. And that's all you have to tell me?"

Cleek's voice was normal, though he was not a little startled at the news she had imparted to him. Ross, indeed--and reading the musty old book upon "Poisons and Potions", a replica of which stood upon his own study bookshelf in his rooms in Clarges Street, and every word of which he knew by heart! H'm. Strange literature for a young man of normal tastes. And the thing had been in his possession then. Gad! All roads began to lead to Rome with a vengeance! And surely Ross Duggan had the greatest motive for the crime of any one of that strange and unhappy family. And Sir Andrew had been killed, they said, before the name was altered in that will--which at the moment was missing from its hiding-place.

He looked up suddenly into Miss Dowd's eyes. Perhaps this very secretive young woman who was so deeply in love with Ross Duggan as to spirit away clues which she felt might incriminate him under the very noses of his unsuspecting family could enlighten him with regard to that doc.u.ment.