The Riddle of the Spinning Wheel

Maud Duggan hastened to her immediately, while Miss McCall, like the perfectly trained companion she was, produced smelling-salts from the capacious pocket of her blue serge coat-frock, and held it under her mistress's nose. A dose of brandy set the lady to rights, and her Southern emotionalism subsided when she sat down in front of the open window.

She looked up into Cleek's downbent face with wide eyes.

"I am so sorry," she said. "But it brought it all back – so dreadfully – so terribly! Oh, I shall never forget it – never! Miss McCall, my smelling-salts, again, please… Thank you. Mr. Deland, you have still – much more to proceed with?"

He nodded.

"A good deal, I'm afraid. In the first place, I must tell you that we have discovered one of the weapons – the stiletto which stabbed your husband, Lady Paula. There remains but the air-pistol – and that will not be a difficult matter, either, I imagine." He looked significantly at Ross, whose face went suddenly scarlet.

"I say – if you dare to accuse —me…"

"Not so fast, my friend; I'm accusing nobody," returned Cleek serenely, "and too much protestation often hides a guilty conscience. Please say nothing until you are questioned. It is the safest way. First – the stiletto."

He drew it from his pocket and held it aloft where they could all see it, the sunshine fighting upon its fine blade and turning it into a narrow ribbon of brilliancy.

"Can any one claim this, please?"

There was an instant's hush of amazement as all looked at the thing, as of the stillness before the storm, and then Maud Duggan hurried forward and seized it in her two hands.

"It is my stepmother's!" she exclaimed emphatically, and at the sound of her voice Lady Paula sprang to her feet, instantly upon the defense, and her faintness forgotten in this exciting moment.

"Mine – mine! Oh, of course it is mine!" she shrilled like a veritable harpy. "Every one of you would like to accuse me of this terrible crime, I suppose. Mine? – yes, it is mine. But who had it last, I ask you? That is another question to answer. Who but yourself, Maud?"

"Not yesterday, Paula."

"The day before, then – "

"It was I you lent it to the day before, if you remember, Paula," struck in Ross's voice quietly. "Please try to stick to facts as much as possible."

"Well, you, then – or your wretched sister – one or the other of you," she returned vehemently, stung out of all thought of good-breeding by the sudden appearance of this thing of ill-repute. "What does it matter, so long as it was used by one of you?"

"And you will remember, if you think back, that I myself brought it up to your boudoir and handed it to you, Paula, and I myself saw you place it in your top drawer," interposed Ross, still in that ice-cold terrible voice which is so much more horrible to bear than red-hot anger.

"You lie! – you lie!"

"He does not!" It was Johanna McCall who spoke at this juncture – Johanna, with two red spots of colour in her usually pale cheeks and her eyes fairly blazing. "I saw him do it, too – I saw you, Mr. Duggan. Don't believe what she says, Mr. Deland! It is she who lies – I swear that!"

To and fro the evil words flew like vultures seeking to peck each other's hearts out in the combat. In the sudden hush which followed this last denouncement, while Lady Paula was accumulating her forces to retaliate, Cleek held up his hand.

"Then I take it," he said, "that the stiletto is the property of Lady Paula, but that it was last used by Mr. Duggan, who returned it to Lady Paula in the presence of a witness, and she put it back into her drawer. That is correct, is it not?"

"A lie – an absolute lie!"

"Perfectly correct, Mr. Deland."

"Thank you, Mr. Duggan. At any rate, the ownership of the thing is established, which, by the way, Lady Paula, makes no assertion whatever as to incriminating you in this disastrous affair. Miss Debenham, would you mind coming over here for a moment? I would like to look at your dress – "

"My dress, Mr. Deland?"

He smiled at her with disarming frankness.

"No wonder you think I am mad, but – ah, yes! see, right here on this panel – I thought I was not mistaken. If you wouldn't mind turning round a little more toward the middle of the room, Miss Debenham – thank you – right here; those dark stains." He went down on his knees suddenly and sniffed them, rubbed them with his fingers, and then beckoned the mystified Mr. Narkom, who joined him immediately. "You see, Mr. Narkom, what it is? Rather peculiar, isn't it?"

"What the devil are you driving at?" demanded Ross at this juncture, striding around the desk and taking up a stand beside his fiancée as though to shield her from the hands of these merciless probers of human hearts. "I wish to God you and your kind had never showed up here at all, I do, indeed! You always bring trouble in your wake."

"Follow trouble, I think you mean, my friend," supplemented Cleek quietly. "The trouble is generally there first. It is our business to see that it is thrust upon – the right shoulders."

"Then Cynthia – what are you driving at now?"

There was a moment's tense silence. Then Cleek's voice sounded clearly:

"Simply this. Those three stains there – long, narrow ones – upon Miss Debenham's gown (I noticed them this morning at breakfast) are – bloodstains, Mr. Duggan —bloodstains!"

CHAPTER XIII

MR. NARKOM VOICES AN OPINION

"Bloodstains?"

Three pairs of feminine lips voiced that sinister word simultaneously: Lady Paula's, Cynthia's, and Maud Duggan's.

"But how, Mr. Deland? – But why? – And upon Cynthia's dress, too!"

"Well, I'll swear I never had anything to do with it, anyhow!" threw in Cynthia emphatically and in a voice of astonishment. "How could they be bloodstains, Mr. Deland? and how could they possibly get on my frock? Solve that question, if you please, first of all."

"Quite a simple one, Miss Debenham. Just this: The murderer – or one of them, as the case may be – entered this room by that middle window, stabbed Sir Andrew with the stiletto, stolen for the purpose, of course – then, in a frenzy lest he be discovered, caught hold of the nearest thing and wiped the bloodstained instrument upon it, and then made off as quickly as possible. You happened to be the nearest, no doubt. So you were the person chosen. Did you not feel anything at all of the action?"

She shook her head.

"Nothing that I remember. We were all so astonished when the light failed that I don't remember anything at all about it. If it was done, it was done gently – and my skirt is wide."

"And you think the murderer, the perpetrator of this wicked crime, was a man, then, Mr. Deland?" put in the soft voice of Lady Paula at this juncture.

Cleek spun around toward her, nodding emphatically.

"I do, indeed. No woman could have arranged the thing like this, Lady Paula. The electricity would have been too difficult a problem for her, in the first place, and then the shooting – "

"And how do you account for that, Mr. Deland?"

"Ah, that is a more difficult matter. How? By whose hand? We will get back to our stage rehearsal for that, I think. Mr. Narkom, would you sit down again in the chair? Thanks very much. It's only just for a moment. Now, if you ladies would take up your positions again as they were, I'd be very much obliged. Let me see. The shot entered the temple here above the left eye and passed clean through the head into the wall of the room beyond. An acute angle of fifty degrees. H'm. That would bring it to about over there and to a level with the top of that wood-panelling. Then the bullet must be located somewhere in that vicinity, from all logical reasonings. But where? Come, Mr. Narkom, just a moment. Lend me your keen eyes, will you? And we'll have a look together. It'll want careful looking, I'll warrant. But the panelling's in fine condition and shows every mark. I – Gad! and here it is too!"

His finger paused upon a slight, dark puncture in the darkness of the wood, and he whirled round and faced them all, eyes alight, face aglow, and marking the spot with his finger-nail. "Here, lend me your knife, my friend, and we'll dig it out. That will establish a pretty good clue, I can promise you. And a soundless pistol-shot – an air-gun. It ought to be easy to trace the owner of that, in desolate parts like this. Well, here goes!"

A moment's careful prodding with the point of the knife, and the thing was done. The bullet – an infinitesimal thing – fell out into the palm of his hand. Then, of a sudden, he swung around in his tracks toward them. His face was grim.

"Look here," he said, in the sharp staccato of excitement, "what I want to know is, who of this company possesses an air-gun? For that someone does I am certain. That shot must have been fired at close range – by the depth to which it was embedded in this wood. Mr. Duggan, do you happen to own an air-pistol?"

The last remnant of colour drained itself out of Ross Duggan's already pale cheeks. His eyes narrowed down to pin-points in the frame of his face. Then his chin went up.

"I do, Mr. Deland."

"H'm. I thought as much. And if you were standing there, opposite your father, and with no one at the right side of you, and only the space of the bow-window between you and the outside world – taking into consideration the enormous amount of misguided reason which you might have to commit such a terrible crime – as I said before, if you moved quickly over there, side stepping, so that the shot might miss any of the ladies opposite after passing through Sir Andrew's brain, and – if the lights failed at a given and arranged moment, and you whipped out your revolver and fired, it might bring about just this identical result."

"I … my God! man, you're not accusing me of murdering my own father, are you? You're daft – insane – idiotic!"

Cleek held up a silencing hand.

"I'm not accusing anybody, Mr. Duggan; simply reconstructing matters for the purpose of finding out the true assassins. And, as I told you last night, every one, according to English law, may be considered guilty until he be proved innocent. Suspicions seem to point heavily to you, I must say. But we've got to have more facts, of course.

"He didn't do it, Mr. Deland! Of course he didn't do it!"

Cynthia shrilled out these words suddenly, rushing toward Cleek and fastening her hands about his arm. "You're mad to suggest such a thing, to even think it! My Ross wouldn't stoop to murder for a beastly inheritance! You don't know him as I do – as all these others do. It's incredible."

"Quite true, Miss Debenham. But let's ask Mr. Narkom what he thinks of it. He's kept his peace during this session, proving himself, no doubt, a wiser man than I. Mr. Narkom, give us your views, please. Who do you think has committed this crime, according to present evidence?"

"That man!" Mr. Narkom pointed excitedly in Ross's direction, his fat face red with excitement, his forehead perspiring with the heat of his excitement. "He fired the shot. But the stiletto – that is a more difficult question."

"And you think Mr. Duggan actually did kill his father, then? No, no, sir, I beg of you, let us finish this discussion before you interrupt. It might lead to something really enlightening. You think that, Mr. Narkom? Considering the position in which the shot was fired, and the position in which Mr. Duggan himself stood last night?"

"Decidedly I do."

"H'm. I'm sorry. But I'm inclined to agree. But the evidence, I admit, is at present slight – the actual circumstantial evidence, I mean. You're not going to – arrest – him on that, I hope?"

Arrest! The fateful word fell upon that assemblage with truly sinister meaning. Arrest Ross! Arrest him! Impossible! Upon every face these thoughts might be read – except upon Lady Paula's, where, indeed, a sort of secret and hidden triumph seemed to glow like a light lit from within. Cleek flashed his eyes over every face. He paused at Lady Paula's for one moment, and then went on to Ross's – and ended up at length upon Catherine Dowd's. It was transfigured! Transfigured with hate of himself, with love of Ross: the two most intense feelings in human nature warring with each other upon it to be uppermost. That look of hatred made him positively shiver. If the woman had had any real reason for the crime, could she not have been the perpetrator of the stabbing episode? But she hadn't any reason, at least none that could be at present discovered. One would have to go deeper than that for motive.

"Well, Mr. Narkom?"

The Superintendent was looking frankly uncomfortable. Cleek's direct action in front of them all had somewhat winded him. He was not used to such out-and-out tactics, even in the methods of a man who was the most amazing beggar he had ever struck.

"I – I – well, hardly that, my dear chap," he responded awkwardly. "We've got to have more proof than that, you know. A judge won't hang a man upon the evidence of his possible position in a room when the light went out. It – it isn't feasible!"

"Well done, well done!" Cleek laughed the words softly into his ear. "So, Mr. Duggan, you are free – for the present. But understand, you are on parole and must not leave this house unaccompanied by a constable or plain-clothes man. This thing's got to be sifted to the bottom, and, what's more, it's going to be, too. And whoever has murdered that poor old man will swing for it, so help me God!"

CHAPTER XIV

IN WHICH RHEA TAKES A HAND

The silence that followed this last solemn remark of Cleek's was fraught with unknown, tremendous issues. One could have heard a pin drop in the still room. Then at last Lady Paula stirred.

"You have finished, Mr. Deland – Mr. Narkom? I may go now?"

"In one more moment, Lady Paula. There is simply the matter of the will now to be thrashed out before you disperse and leave us to work out the problem as best we may. You have, no doubt, put it away, Mr. Duggan? I didn't see it here when I investigated early this morning."

"I've done nothing of the sort, Mr. Deland."

"Oh! – is that so? I beg you pardon. Then perhaps you, Miss Duggan?"

"Certainly not. I've never laid a finger upon it!" returned she, with a shake of the head and amazement written all over her countenance. "I've never thought about it again from that moment to this! Why, of course it must have been upon the table when – when poor Father met his – death. He was just about to alter the name when the light went out."

"Then you were using the electric switch last night instead of the customary lamp, I take it?"

"Yes. Father did use it at intervals, and I suppose in this case he thought it better for seeing with. For it was certainly on. A lamp could never have failed as that light did, Mr. Deland. No doubt it would have been better if we had not used the electricity, for the dreadful thing could never have taken place then, could it?"

"And so we must put that down to Ross, and lay the whole blame upon him, at any rate!" snapped out Lady Paula in an angry voice; and Cleek thought, for a woman so shortly bereft, she was singularly well recovered from the shock – if it had ever been one in the first instance. "For if he had not installed this dreadful thing, then surely, surely my poor, poor husband would never have met with his death at all!'

"Oh, have done with your nagging, Paula!" responded Ross irritably as she ceased speaking.

And Cleek obtained silence simply by stepping into the breach himself.

"Well," he said serenely, "the will has disappeared, at any rate. No servant has touched it, I suppose? Or entered this room last night before I came, Miss Duggan?"

"None that I know of. It's peculiar, to say the least of it."

H'm. Then among this little company around and about him Cleek registered the fact that one might include a thief and a murderer. Not any too pleasant a thought, when the guilt could not definitely be fixed upon any single one. But stay! – there was the boy Cyril, and if that will had been stolen, why should not he have done it as much as anybody? He and his mother would benefit more if the will disappeared entirely than by the simple bequests which Maud Duggan had told him had been left to them. A widow had always a third share by law, that was an understood thing; and a third share of this enormous estate meant a good deal more than one at first imagined. The boy Cyril must be interviewed in due course.

Then there was another point to be taken up, the question of Captain Macdonald's presence in these grounds last night, shortly after the murder had taken place. That gentleman must account for his movements in the proper quarter. And if by any chance there were footprints outside that very window, then – b'gad! he, too, might be included in the circle of possible criminals.

He strode quickly over to the window and leaned out of it, looking down upon the flower-bed beneath it, just a matter of three feet or so, and the little walled-in courtyard that girt it about. Eh? what? There were marks in the soft earth, and plenty of 'em!

Then the assembled company fairly gasped at his next action, while Mr. Narkom, knowing him better than they did, pelted over to the window and leaned out of it. For Cleek had climbed upon the ledge and had let himself down – light as a cat – down on to the bed, and stood looking in through the window at them with serenely smiling face.

"Gad!" he ejaculated excitedly. "Well, and why not? Footprints!.. Constable, just nip along into the village, and fetch me back Captain Angus Macdonald. I want to speak to him rather particularly. Tell him it's the Law – and that he's got to come – and he'll come along pretty lively, I can promise you."

The constable nipped along forthwith, while of a sudden Maud Duggan's flushed face went white as a dead face, and her eyes fairly blazed at him.

"Captain Macdonald! Oh, it's ridiculous, Mr. Deland! – absurd! What on earth are you dragging him in for? You must be mad to think for one moment – "

Cleek held up a silencing hand before he dropped to the ground and began peering at the footprints in the soft earth through a magnifying glass.

"I don't think, Miss Duggan – it's a policeman's business to know," he retorted; and then set about his task, while those others in the fateful room crowded about the open window and stood looking down at him with blank, unhappy faces.

Carefully he measured their length with his little foot-rule and noted the size down in his pocketbook. Then he fitted one of his own slim feet into the indentation, saw that it was rather larger and broader, stepped back upon the courtyard and faced them, all clustering about him, with serene countenance.

"A fair-sized boot, ladies and gentlemen," he remarked; "quite a fair-sized boot! Number tens, if I know anything of sizes. And looks like hunting-boots, too. Evidently a chap who rides. Now, this Captain Macdonald, Lady Paula – "

"One of the finest horsemen in the country," she returned, with a shrugging of shoulders and an uplifting of brows.

"Ah! Just so. That was what I imagined when I saw – when I encountered him here in these grounds last night. Light of foot, and the proper build, too. He'll no doubt be along in the course of another three quarters of an hour (if Jameson doesn't have a dickens of a job locating him), so in the meanwhile, if Mr. Narkom is willing, we'll take a little turn together and talk over things, and then come back to you here in the allotted time. Willing, Mr. Narkom?"

"Perfectly willing."

And so it came about that, arm in arm, the two friends went off together down by the wide driveway that led to the great doors of wrought-iron which Rhea so ably guarded, and Cleek, stopping in the pathway, pointed up to the statue etched out against the sky in sinister outline, and told Mr. Narkom the story of it.

"Cinnamon! But what a magnificent thing it is!" ejaculated that gentleman with awe, when the tale was finished. "That's something to be proud of – eh, old chap? Now, if I had a fellow like that for an ancestor there'd be no living with me at all! These old families! – there's certainly something in this thing they call Birth and Race – though for the life of me I never can make it out."

"No," thought Cleek, with a smile, "you wouldn't." But he said nothing, merely passed on toward the iron gates, and seeing that they had been left ajar, clanged them to sharply behind them.

"He'll ring his great bell when the latch falls – that's his ceremonious way of welcoming the coming and speeding the parting guest," threw in Cleek with a laugh. "I'm going to shove down the latch now, so watch him, my friend. Here goes!"

He sent the door clanging to with a vigorous pull, but – not a sound rang out over the still air. Rhea had failed in his duty for once in his whole long, dutiful lifetime. Cleek spun round and looked at him, face gone suddenly blank.

"What the – that's the funniest thing! It's never failed before, except last night, when I found it conveniently ajar," he ejaculated, staring up at the sky. "Unless – perhaps it would have failed last night, too. There's no knowing. But Miss Duggan assured me positively that the thing had never been stopped. But if it had been stopped for this very happening last night, to silence the approach of an unwanted visitor, what's to prevent 'em from swaddling the clapper up – and not had time to undo it again? And yet, when the Inspector came it rang all right. No —that theory won't hold water, my friend."

"What's that you're mumbling about, Cleek?" threw in Mr. Narkom at this juncture. "Clapper swaddled up? You surely don't think the bell's been stopped for any purpose?"

"No – simply to protect the sensitive ears of the housekeeper," threw back Cleek with a contemptuous laugh; and then whirled around upon him and caught him by the shoulder. "Forgive me, old friend. My tongue scampers ahead of my heart sometimes, which is a very poor trait for a policeman to possess. What I mean to say is simply this: Up to yesterday that bell rang – even when we came here for the first time – for I have the evidence of my own ears to prove it. And now – it doesn't ring. So what's prevented it? I'm going up to see."

"Cleek, my dear fellow! – to climb that height! And in daylight, too!"

"What's the harm? say I – if you'll keep watch and tell me of approaching visitors. Here goes! Keep your eyes peeled upon the high-road, Mr. Narkom, because it wouldn't do to be seen, y'know and if any one approaches, whistle 'God Save the King,' and I'll slip into a hiding-place somewhere until the coast's clear. And don't tell any strangers who you are, will you?"

Mr. Narkom acceded to all these requests with a quick nod, took up his post by the gateway leading out upon the road, and let his startled eyes travel backward now and again at Cleek's nimble, crawling figure climbing steadily up the sides of the huge gates, like a lizard upon a wall. Up, up, up he went, scaling the height and clinging here and there to the twists of iron and bronze that made an easy foot-hold – until, just as the summit was reached, and he was standing abreast of the enormous figure and looking up into its great face, with the bell dangling from the bar of iron upon which he stood, he heard the sound of "God Save the King" floating up to him in Mr. Narkom's whistle, darted quickly through the giant's legs, and drew himself up against the back of him and – hoped for luck. The sound of two men's voices – and one of them the Superintendent's – reached him where he stood upon the narrow ledge. He recognized the other as that of the bailiff, James Tavish, whom he had encountered upon the high-road only yesterday.

Mr. Narkom dallied with him for so long, passing the time of day and making tactless inquiries about the murder, in his blunderbuss fashion ("Dear old bungler!" Cleek apostrophized him inwardly), that he began to wonder when the man would ever go. Then at length the voices ceased, and he saw Tavish's fine, well-set-up figure swing off in front of him up the driveway, and then himself slid back to the outer side of the statue, lest the bailiff look back, and waited until Mr. Narkom whistled "Coast all clear" again.

This done, Cleek swung himself down carefully, clinging on with knees and feet in a most impossible and seemingly dangerous position which brought a hasty warning from Mr. Narkom, and – found the clapper of the bell at last. It wasn't such a big bell – not much bigger than a man's head, but wrought of solid bronze, which made it almost impossible for him to swing it up on its chain to the platform upon which he hung poised above it. But somehow he managed to do the thing, and Mr. Narkom, watching with his heart in his mouth, saw his hand dive down inside of the bell and fumble there a moment. Then he heard Cleek's quick whistle of surprise as he swung the bell silently back again, and came down once more – empty-handed!