The Riddle of the Spinning Wheel

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 fiancée 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 principal 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 impassivity 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 circumstances 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 attitude.

"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 circumstances. 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 document.

"Tell me," he said rapidly, "did you see anything of the will – after the tragedy took place?"

She nodded.

"Yes. It was lying upon the table in front of Sir Andrew, and when the lights went up again, I saw it from my place at the back of him. I saw it distinctly. Why? Has anything happened to it? Lady Paula picked it up once, I remember, and glanced at it; then she put it down again, I think. But my mind was distracted in another direction and I don't remember anything more concerning it. It's not gone, is it? Surely Ross can't be done out of his inheritance that way? Oh, if that woman…"

The venom in her voice was appalling to Cleek. There was something inscrutable and oddly snake-like in the methods this young woman employed. It repulsed while it fascinated. And no doubt she could strike with a poisoned tongue upon aggravation.

"Well," said he, "I didn't happen to see it there this morning, Miss Dowd, but no doubt it had been put away for safety. I have had no opportunity of interviewing any one but Miss Duggan – and now yourself" (he made no mention of his early morning visit from Lady Paula), "and probably it has a very meek and mild solution."

"I hope so, indeed. I'll be going now, Mr. Deland. You think I did right about the stiletto? – knowing the bad blood which lies between Lady Paula and Ross? It wouldn't do, you know, to place any possible weapon in that woman's hands. She'd use it for her own ends immediately."

"As you would do also, my dear young lady," registered Cleek silently as she left the room. "Gad! Well, here's evidence for us to investigate, anyhow. She's a strange mixture, that girl, and one who would stop at nothing… By George! no, but she wouldn't, even for the sort of love that her kind would give a man! And it was his inheritance which was in jeopardy, don't forget that!.. It's a pretty kettle of fish, indeed! And this Ross Duggan seems to have half the countryside in love with him! That's the third woman, including his affianced bride. His is surely the deadly kind that they all fall for! Well, I'm glad the inheritance isn't mine, at any rate. There is no fury like the fury of a woman scorned – and a chap can't marry three women at the same time, and live within the law… If he ever did live within the law – in the face of —that– which I saw in the dungeon! But I can't somehow credit him – And yet, who else?.. Hello, there's Rhea's bell, and Mr. Narkom, I'll dare swear. Well, I'll be glad enough to see his rotundity, bless him! – more glad than I had at first imagined."

And that's exactly who it proved to be. Rhea's bell was certainly useful, that was one thing. It did keep tally of every incoming visitor. And with that huge, high, iron-spiked wall which surrounded the grounds of Aygon Castle so utterly insurmountable, surely the murderers couldn't have got away very easily last night. Whew! Cleek whistled suddenly, and sat up. He hadn't thought of that! Then the murderers must be here in this household, or in the grounds of the place still – unless Rhea's bell had acquainted the family of their entrance or exit through the great gate.

But the gate had been ajar last night! And he had met Captain Macdonald prowling around on that nocturnal visit of his just after the time when the murder must have taken place. Then who set the gate ajar? Someone in the house, of course! Someone who knew about the thing —beforehand… That opened up another avenue. He'd ask Miss Duggan. Perhaps it hadn't been opened especially for him, then? Perhaps it had been opened for – someone else. It certainly gave one to think, as the French say.

And he was thinking to such good cause that he did not hear the door of the ante-room open, nor the voice of the butler Jorkins repeat a name, and it was with genuine astonishment that he sprang to his feet and saw the portly figure of the Superintendent standing before him.

CHAPTER XII

CLEEK MAKES A STARTLING ASSERTION

Cleek and Mr. Narkom spent a busy fifteen minutes. Meanwhile, the Superintendent learned of the tragedy which had taken place and of what evidence Cleek had got together for him, had a cursory look round the library and at the body itself (which they examined more minutely), and generally took a survey of the whole appalling affair.

"Cinnamon!" ejaculated the Superintendent for the thirty-third time since the recital of the thing. "It's a teaser, I swear! If someone in the house hasn't done it, who the dickens has? When your wire came for me to run up here, yesterday, I was up to my eyes in work. But I knew you wouldn't send unless you really wanted me, and when you do that – "

He stopped speaking and let the rest of the sentence go by default. But Cleek had seen, and Cleek knew. The friendliness in their two pairs of eyes deepened to a fellowship which is rare – and good to see.

"I know, old chap. But we mustn't go wandering down those particular primrose paths just now. You're a bully old boy, and I'd back you against every other man in the kingdom. And you've been a sort of a guardian angel and a blithering idiot all rolled into one! And that's a combination which I for one, have strong leanings for!.. Now, then, what about it?"

What, indeed! He swung around in his tracks, hands out-thrown, and surveyed the Superintendent with tilted head and narrowed eyes. "Any ideas, eh?"

"Not a single, at the moment. Have you?"

"Oh – several. But they're too uncertain at present for utterance. There's one thing I do know: That if I could find out certain items that went to the laundry from this household last week I'd know a great deal more than I do now. And I'd be able to nail – someone – with a good share in this beastly business. Also… You saw Dollops, of course?"

"Yes. Young beggar! – he was on tenterhooks. Afraid some ghostly lady had caught you last night and hugged you to death, or some such rubbish. Until I assured him that your biceps were equal to all the ghosts in the world. Yes, I saw Dollops, all right. And he said he'd got work to do for you, or something. Some constable had called with a note early in the morning…"

Cleek looked up quickly from a survey of the window-sill.

"Yes – yes. Had he discovered what I asked him to?"

There was a sort of dumb tolerance in the Superintendent's unimaginative countenance. He shrugged his shoulders off-handedly.

"My dear chap," he responded, "here's his identical message, only I can't imitate his inimitable accent. 'Tell the Guv'ner, sir, as that there "Crahn and Anchor" wot he wants ter know abaht is an inmate of the post-office!..' Now, if you can make any sense out of that, Cleek…"

"Deland, my dear chap, Deland, I beg of you!" interposed Cleek hastily, whirling about with upraised hands. "Not a soul in the place knows who I really am. Even Highland fastnesses, you know, have their leaking spots – and I'll show you one of 'em by-and-by that'll make you sit up!.. But he did get it, the young beggar! Well, well, well! that points nearer home, anyway, and it'll be something to go on… What's that? A clue? Well, perhaps, and perhaps not. Anyhow, it's not clue enough at present to hang any ideas on. But the stiletto's done the thing in one instance, and the air-pistol in the other. But how? – but where? – but – " Then he whirled around suddenly and stood a moment looking at the spinning wheel as though, of a sudden, it had actually come to life of its own accord, and then darting forward scanned the spindle. "H'm. Perhaps not the stiletto – perhaps this, and the peasant-girl story to make a cloak of! The points are much the same – stiletto or spindle? But – which?"

"What the dickens are you mumbling over?" threw in Mr. Narkom at this juncture, as Cleek stood surveying this instrument of a by-gone year, and pinching his chin between thumb and forefinger thoughtfully the while. "Spindle? You don't suppose the spindle of that thing could have anything to do with it, eh?"

"Stranger things have happened, my dear friend, though I'm inclined to think that in this case they have not!" responded Cleek serenely. "The spindle theory is thin – deuced thin. But it's often in the thinnest material that the thickest things are hid… Now, if we could only find the bloodstained article with which the stiletto was wiped, we'd settle that question once and for all. I – Gad! yes, I remember now! I'll ask her later on what they were. H'm – ah! That's possibly where it is."

But Mr. Narkom's patience was running a close race with his curiosity, and both in the same direction. He gave an exasperated sigh and rubbed the top of his bald head disconsolately.

"You're the most amazin' beggar," he gave out finally, in a tense voice. "Mumbling away like a lunatic, of laundry-bills and spinning wheels and 'crowns and anchors' which are 'inmates of village post-offices,' and I don't know what all! If I didn't know something about you, I'd say you'd gone suddenly balmy, and light out for little old London before you turned your hand on me! But you might let a chap have an inkling – "

"When you've been in this house as long as I have, you'll have more than an inkling – you'll probably know," returned Cleek with a little laugh. "But, look here, my friend, we've got to get the body out of here – presto! – or we'll be having the ladies fainting away and upsetting the apple cart with a vengeance! They're due in here inside of a quarter of an hour, when I'm going to give a little 'turn' of the whole thing again, and see if we can't reconstruct it a bit. The constable outside will lend a hand. Here, Peters!"

"Yessir?"

"Get your friend from the outside window for a moment and give a hand to get – This – out of the room before the ladies come. I want to reconstruct the whole affair in the presence of all concerned. And we'll take away all the gruesomeness that's possible… Poor old chap! Poor old tight-fisted laird! Eh, man, but you've got a sterner judge to face now than ever you were yourself! And this time Justice has to be done, and no gainsaying the fact, either!"

The unpleasant task was barely finished before the sound of footsteps and the humming of many voices in the hallway without told those within that the family were reassembling for the "performance." Cleek, with a hasty glance to see that all was right, threw wide the door.

"Come in, come in," he said in a pleasant, friendly voice. "There's nothing now to be seen but that which all may see, Lady Paula, so neither you nor Miss Duggan nor any other member of the party need fear. If you will all kindly take your places exactly as you took them last night, I'd be immensely grateful. At any rate, Mr. Narkom here" – he introduced him to the assembly with a slight bow – "will be able to get some kind of an idea of exactly how things were when the – tragedy happened. Hello! Where's Miss – Miss – er – McCall? Wasn't she a member of the party, too?"

Lady Paula entered the room with a rustling of soft black silk, and came toward him with sadly smiling countenance.

"I hardly thought, you know, that you would require her presence, Mr. Deland, and so I told her she might attend to her duties instead. But of course if you wish – "

"I do wish – "

"Then she shall be immediately sent for. Maud, my dear, will you kindly call her?"

Maud, thus addressed, turned silently away and went out of the room, but in a few moments was back again, the slim, shrinking form of the girl following closely behind her.

Cleek came toward her and smiled down into her pale face.

"If you would be so kind, Miss McCall, as to take up your position as it was last night when – when the murder was committed, I should be exceedingly grateful. Thanks very much. You really needn't be so frightened, you know. It's only a sort of grim dress rehearsal after the show instead of before. Just to get some sort of idea.

"Now, then, Sir Andrew, I take it, sat here in this chair" – he seated himself forthwith at the desk, and looked about him. "And you, Mr. Duggan, were in the centre, opposite, with your sister here at your left. You were at your husband's right hand, a little way back, Lady Paula? Oh, I see – just halfway behind his chair, in case he might need you. Of course, of course. The right position for a lord's lady to be… Now, let me see. You, Miss Dowd, stood at the left hand, right back against the wall, with Miss Debenham on your left – oh, a little forward, eh? And Miss McCall on the other side of her. That's it. Now, I suppose, we are all in our places. Now, Mr. Narkom, if you'd be so good as to take up my present position and represent the ill-fated gentleman for one moment, I'll hop up and look about a bit. The scene's set, and we'll try and reconstruct the drama from anything any one would like to tell me. I believe one of the windows was open, was it not, Lady Paula?"

He turned to her so swiftly that she was taken back, and in her nervousness went a shade pale under her olive tan.

"I – don't know, Mr. Deland. I really never noticed…"

"But I did." It was Catherine Dowd who spoke, a note of decision in her clear voice. "The centre window was open, Mr. Deland – from the bottom. Wide open."

"Yes – of course it was," Maud Duggan broke in excitedly. "I remember noticing how the curtains blew while poor Father was speaking. Don't you, Ross?"

He shook his head miserably.

"I don't remember anything but what actually took place," he returned, in a low, unhappy voice. "I was so furious, Maud; you must remember the ignominy of – of Father calling in everyone like this to see my name struck out of the will! If he'd done it in private, even, it would not have been so bad, but in front of others, people who were not of our family" – his glance travelled from Johanna's mouse-like countenance to the inscrutable Catherine's. "It – it seemed hardly cricket to me, and I was boiling over. I wish to God I hadn't been! It would have made it much easier to bear – now!"

"My poor Ross!"

Cynthia's voice, very low and tender, crept across to him, and he gave her a weary smile in acknowledgment.

"Well, now," said Cleek evenly, "let's start away at this wretched affair. Mr. Duggan, you were the only other gentleman present besides your father. Perhaps you will tell me how things went. The ladies look somewhat pale. It's rather an ordeal, I'm afraid, but a very necessary one. Your father, I understand, seated himself and began to denounce you in a loud voice, and you – "

"Retaliated, Mr. Deland. Yes, I'm afraid I did. Poor old Dad! But I was pretty well strung up. And then, just as he had sat down again – he was standing up before, waving his fist in the air and calling me all sorts of names" – his voice broke a tone or two and then recovered itself – "just as he had taken up the pen and was about to scratch out my name and substitute my sister's, out went the lights; we were plunged immediately into utter darkness, and in the midst of it – "

"We heard distinctly the sound of the spinning wheel, humming just as the Peasant Girl said it would hum upon the approaching death of any male member of the family," supplemented Maud Duggan feverishly and with much excitement. "Hum-hum-hum! it went, Mr. Deland; then there was a swishing sound as of someone moving hurriedly – a sort of half-gasp – a – a – oh! how shall I describe it? – "

"A whizz and a whirr, and then the lights came up and there lay Sir Andrew in his chair – dead."

The finale came from Catherine Dowd, who spoke in a low, tense voice, every note of which sounded in that quiet room, and made the atmosphere vibrate with the feeling of it.

"My God!"

The exclamation came from Lady Paula's and Mr. Narkom's lips simultaneously, but from very different causes. For the lady had gone suddenly white as death and fallen back against the wall, both hands pressed to her face and her shoulders shaking.