Samuel Boyd of Catchpole Square: A Mystery

It was not an easy task, partly in consequence of his inexperience at this kind of work, and partly because of the bulging of the large bottle of water under his waistcoat. But Dick was not to be beaten; not only were all the latent forces of his mind in full play, but all the latent forces of his body, and though his hands were chafed in the execution of the task, and the perspiration streamed down his face, he reached the top of the wall in safety, and with the bottle unbroken.

"Bravo, Dick," he gasped, pausing to recover his breath. "Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, I hope Humpty Dumpty won't have a bad fall. Take care of yourself, Dick, for my sake."

Drawing up the rope he reversed the grapnel, fixed it tight, let the rope drop on the inner side of the wall, and slid nimbly down.

He looked around. There were windows at the back, most of them masked with inside shutters, as they had been for years. To each of the six houses there was a back yard, and each yard was separated from its neighbour on either side by a wall as high as high as that which enclosed them all in the rear. Thus Dick found himself shut out from the world, as it were, with little likelihood of his movements being detected from any of the houses except the one he intended to break into-and that was as still and lifeless as death itself.

"Now, my lad," he said, "just to put life into you, for this desert of Sahara is enough to give any man the blue devils, I'll treat you to a drink. Is it agreed to? Passed unanimously."

Then came the difficult task of unhooking the grapnel, for it would never do to leave it on the wall. He made several futile attempts to loosen and bring it down, and had he not discovered in a corner a forked pole which at some remote period had probably been used as a clothes' prop, there would have been nothing for it but to leave it there and run the risk of discovery. With the aid of the pole, however, he succeeded in unhooking it, so suddenly that it fell to the ground with a crash and nearly gave him a crack on the head.

Gathering up the rope and slinging it over his arm, Dick searched for a means of effecting an entrance into the house. From the evidences of decay all around he judged that no use had been made of the back of the premises for a considerable time past; during his service with Samuel Boyd he had had no acquaintance of the rooms which looked out upon the yard, his duties confining him to the office in which the secretarial work was done. Above a door, which he tried in vain to open, was a small window which seemed less secure than the others; and when he reached up to it (standing on a rickety bench against the wall), this proved to be the case; but though the frame rattled when he shook it he saw no means of getting out of the difficulty except by breaking a pane of glass. Half measures would not serve now, and he adopted this bold expedient, pausing to listen, when the shattered glass fell upon the floor within, whether the crash had raised an alarm. There was no indication of it.

Passing his hand through the aperture he managed to unfasten the window and to raise the sash. Much more difficult was it to raise his body to the level of the window; he had no safe foothold, the rickety bench upon which he stood threatened every moment to fall to pieces, and indeed in his violent efforts this actually happened, and he was left clinging to the window-sill by his fingers and nails; by a desperate effort he got his knees upon the sill, and tumbled or scrambled into a small dark room. He could not now proceed without a light, and he congratulated himself again on his forethought in bringing candles and matches, for Dick was not a smoker, and these articles might easily have been overlooked.

Having obtained a light he took a survey of the room. The walls were bare, and there was no furniture in it. Casting his eyes upon the floor he was horrified to see it stained with fresh red blood upon which he was treading. He was so startled that he involuntarily pressed his left hand upon his heart, and raised his right hand, in which he held the lighted candle, in anticipation of a sudden attack. Then he discovered that he had cut that hand, and that the blood on the floor was his own. In his excitement he had not felt the pain of the wound. Wrapping his handkerchief round it, and drawing a deep breath of relief, he opened a door at the end of the room, and emerged into a passage, with a staircase leading to the rooms above. Ascending, he passed through another door which shut off this staircase from the better parts of the house, and found himself on a landing with which he was familiar, for on this floor was situated the office in which he used to work, another staircase at the end of the landing leading down to the front entrance. He knew now where he was, and in which direction to proceed.

All his movements had been made with extreme caution, and almost at every step he took he paused and prepared for a surprise. But he was not interrupted in any way, and there was nothing to indicate that he was not master of the situation. It troubled him to observe that his footsteps left traces of blood behind them; these dark stains conveyed a suggestion that he had been engaged in a guilty deed. "Do I look like a murderer?" he thought. "I feel like one."

Before he entered the office he descended to the ground floor passage to ascertain if the street door was fast, and he was surprised to see the key lying on the mat. It was a sign of some significance, for had Samuel Boyd left his house for any length of time he would most certainly have locked the door from the outside and taken the key with him. But, assuming that this was not the case, why was not the key in the lock, and assuming, further, that Samuel Boyd had retired to rest, why was not the door bolted and chained?

Confused by the thought, Dick turned the key in the lock, opened the door an inch or two, and looked out upon Catchpole Square. All was silent and still. Dark clouds were scudding across the sky, with a heavy-hearted presage in them; such was the impression the gloom of night produced upon Dick. He reclosed and locked the door, and returned to the passage above.

When he turned the handle of the office door and entered the room in which he used to work he could hear the beating of his heart. In the dim light he could almost fancy that his skeleton was sitting on the old stool at the desk; but no being, human or spectral, with the exception of himself was there. Against the walls and in the corners lay the strange medley of articles which gave so singular a character to the apartment. There were no signs of confusion or disturbance; everything was in order. The drawers in desk and tables were closed, the safe in its old position, and to all appearance untampered with; beneath a paperweight of Japanese metal, representing a hideous mask, lay some papers which Dick did not stop to examine. Some of the articles in the collection had not been there during his term of service. The wine and the grand pianoforte were new to him. But who was that sitting in a chair, dressed in a flowered gaberdine?

"I beg your pardon," stammered Dick.

The figure did not answer him, and approaching nearer with stealthy steps he beheld the wax figure of the Chinaman, in an attitude of collapse, as it had fallen into the chair on the night of the 1st of March, when it was shot through the heart.

"In heaven's name how came you here?" muttered Dick. "Speak up like a man, in pigeon-English if you like."

He could scarcely have been more amazed had the figure lifted its head and addressed him. A sense of tragedy weighed heavily upon his spirits, and the air seemed charged with significance and dreadful import. The occurrences of the last twenty-four hours: the disappearance of Abel Death, his wife's agonised appeal at the police station, Florence's flight from home, the discovery of her handkerchief in Catchpole Square, even-unreasonable as was the inclusion-the visit of Dr. Vinsen to the Death family-all seemed to converge to one point in this room, with its deathlike stillness, and to the strong probability of their explanation being found there. It partook more of a fancy from a madman's brain than that of a sane person, and yet Dick, candle in hand, peered in all directions for a clue to the elucidation of these mysteries. That he saw none did not weaken the impression under which he laboured. The dusky figures of knight and lady in the hangings of tapestry, the quaint carvings of man and beast on the mantel and fireplace, the paintings of flying angels on the ceiling, mocked and gibed at him whichever way he turned, and tended to increase the fever of his blood.

There were three communicating doors in the apartment-one leading to the passage, one to Mr. Boyd's bedroom, one to a room which had always been kept locked. Against the wall between that room and the office the grand piano was placed, and Dick recollected that in his time a large screen had been there, covering the space now occupied by the back of the piano. Very cautiously and slowly he opened the door of the bedroom. Wrought to a pitch of intense excitement it was not surprising that his hand shook-to such an extent, indeed, had he lost control of himself that the candle dropped to the ground and was extinguished. He was plunged in darkness.

In the brief glance he had directed to the bed he fancied he had seen the outline of a sleeping form, and as he knelt to search for the candle he called aloud, "Mr. Boyd!" and trembled at the sound of his voice. "Mr. Boyd! Mr. Boyd!" he called again in louder tones, and his heated fancy created a muffled echo of the name, "Mr. Boyd! Mr. Boyd!" Finding the candle he relighted it, and rising to his feet, slowly approached the bed.

A dumb form was there, its back towards him. The bed was in the middle of the room, the head against the wall. Treading very gently he passed to the other side, and bending forward, with the candle in his upstretched hand, he saw a man's face-the face of Samuel Boyd, cold and dead!

CHAPTER XXI

THE CHAMBER OF DEATH

He reeled back in horror, but even in that one moment of discovery the necessity of preserving self-control forced itself upon him, and he became calm. The first real step in the mystery was taken, and all his powers of sober reason were needed to consider what would follow, and in what way the dread discovery would affect the beings he held most dear. Fortifying himself with a sip of brandy, and putting into a candlestick the candle he had held in his hand, he turned down the sheets to ascertain how the hard master he had served-the man in whose breast had dwelt no spark of compassion for any living creature-had met his death. There was no blood on the bedclothes, no stab or bullet in the dead man's body. On his face was an expression of suffering, as of one who had died in pain, and his neck was discoloured, as though a hand had tightly pressed it. But this might have been his own act in the agony of the death struggle, and his presence in his bed went far to prove that his end had been a natural one. A closer examination, however, dispelled this theory. The marks on his throat could scarcely have been made by himself, for his arms lay by his side in a natural position. Undoubtedly there had been violence done. By whom?

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