The Riddle of the Night

"My dear Cleek, could you be sure of that?" ventured Narkom. "I know the kind of stuff you mean. But few Englishmen use it these days, though I remember it was once very popular. It comes in light brown shades for fair people, as well as in black for dark ones; and the Count was extremely fair, almost flaxen. Could you be positive then that what you smelt was not on his hair or moustache? If he had used the light sort it would not show, remember."

"My dear Mr. Narkom, have you so poor an opinion of my methods that you fancy I would be likely to be slipshod in my examination, and to pass over so important a possibility as that? The man had brilliantine on his hair and moustache, and the latter had been dressed with curling irons! Believe me, when we find who put those marks upon him, we shall find some one who is addicted to the use of black cosmetic of the kind which I have mentioned."

And afterward, when the rush of events had crowded yet more important ones from his mind, Mr. Maverick Narkom remembered those words and set that statement down in his diary as another proof of the amazing thoroughness and the shrewd far-sightedness of this remarkable man.

CHAPTER EIGHT

AILSA LORNE

Mrs. Raynor positively jumped as the premonitory knock trembled on the door before Johnston the butler opened it and entered. Ordinarily she was but little given to "nerves" and was by no means easily startled, but this morning was a decided exception to the rule. And why not? You don't get called up out of your bed every morning to learn that a gentleman who had been walking about your tulip beds yesterday afternoon had been barbarously murdered during the night in a house but a few yards away. Nor is it pleasant to face the likelihood of getting your name and your residence mentioned in the daily papers in connection with a police affair, and to know that before nightfall every groom, washerwoman, and chambermaid within a fifty-mile radius will have read exactly what the interior of your home is like, exactly what you wore when "our representative" called, and will know a good deal more about you than you ever knew about yourself.

"Begging pardon, madam, but a gentleman – " began Johnston, but was suffered to get no further.

"If it is a reporter I will not see him," interrupted his mistress with a decisive wave of the hand. "You know very well that your master and Mr. Harry have gone over to the scene of the abominable affair to ascertain if there is or is not any likelihood of its being a case of mistaken identity; and you ought to know better, Johnston, than to admit strangers of any sort during their absence."

"Your pardon, madam, but nobody has called – at least at the door," replied Johnston with grave politeness. "The gentleman in question is asking over the telephone to speak with Miss Lorne."

"With me?" exclaimed Ailsa, turning around in the recess of the big bay window of the morning room where she had been standing with her arm about Lady Katharine Fordham and looking anxiously down the drive which led to the Grange gates. "Did you say that somebody was asking over the telephone for me, Johnston? Thank you! I will answer the call directly."

"My dear, do you think that wise? Do you think it discreet?" said Mrs. Raynor rather anxiously. "Consider what risks you run. It may be a reporter – I am told that they are up to all sorts of tricks – and to be trapped into giving an interview in spite of one's self – Dearest, you must not let yourself be dragged into this abominable affair."

"I think it will be a clever man who can do that against my will – and over the telephone," replied Ailsa gayly. "I shan't be gone more than a minute or two, Kathie dear; and while I'm away, you might get your hat and be ready for a stroll in the grounds when I come back. And you, too, Mrs. Raynor, if you will. The weather is glorious, and one might as well spend the time waiting for the General's and Mr. Harry's return in the open air as cooped up here at half-past nine o'clock on a brilliant April morning."

"My dear, you are wonderful, positively wonderful," said Mrs. Raynor admiringly. "How do you maintain your composure under such trying circumstances? Look at Katharine and me – both of us shaking like the proverbial aspen leaf and looking as washed out as though neither of us had slept a wink all night; and you as fresh and serene as the morning itself. No, I don't think I will go out, thank you. There may be people with cameras you know; and to be snapshotted for the edification of the readers of some abominable halfpenny paper – "

Ailsa did not wait to hear the conclusion of the remark, but slipped out, went hastily to the library and the telephone, and lost not a moment in making her presence known to the caller at the other end of the line. She had barely spoken three words into the receiver, however, when she gave a little start, eyes and lips were involved in a radiant smile, and her face became all red and warm with sudden blushes.

"Yes, yes, of course I recognize your voice!" she said in answer to a query unheard by any ears but hers. "How wonderful you are! You find out everything. I had meant to write and tell you, but we came up so unexpectedly and – What! Yes, I can hear you very distinctly. Pardon? Yes. I am listening." Then letting her voice drop off into silence she stood very, very still, with ever-widening eyes, lips parted, and a look of great seriousness steadily settling down over her paling countenance.

She had said that she would be absent for but a minute or two; it was five or six, however, before she came back, to find Lady Katharine and Mrs. Raynor just as she had left them.

"No, it wasn't a reporter," she said gayly in response to Mrs. Raynor's inquiring look. "It was a dear old friend" – blushing rosily – "a Mr. Philip Barch, whom I first met through my uncle, Sir Horace Wyvern, in the days before his second marriage. Mr. Barch has asked if he may be permitted to call this morning, and I have taken the liberty of saying that he may."

"Take a further one, dear, and ask him to stop to luncheon when he comes," said Mrs. Raynor. "When a girl blushes like that over the mere mentioning of a man's name – Oh, well, I wasn't always fifty-two, my dear, and I flatter myself that I know the duties of a hostess."

Miss Lorne's only response was another and a yet more radiant blush and an immediate return to the side of the slim, dark girl standing in the recess of the window.

"Kathie, you are positively lazy," she said. "You haven't budged an inch since I left, and I distinctly asked you to get your hat."

"I know it," admitted Lady Katharine. "But, Ailsa, dear, I simply couldn't. I am afraid Uncle John and Harry may return, and you know how anxious I am."

"Still, Kathie, staying in will make no difference," said Ailsa gently, "and you will soon know when they arrive."

Reluctantly Lady Katharine let herself be piloted through the open French windows and out into the grounds, ablaze with flowers.

"I should think Geoffrey would be here, too," said Ailsa, with a swift glance at her companion's pale face. "He must have heard the news by this time, but something has evidently delayed him."

A wave of scarlet surged into Lady Katharine's face.

"Oh, if only he would!" she muttered. "I am so tired – "

"I daresay, dear," said Ailsa sympathetically. "You did not sleep well, darling, did you?"

"Yes, but I did – that's just the strange thing," said Lady Katharine quickly. "What made you think not, Ailsa?"

"Well, for one thing, I thought I heard your door open and shut in the night. I came within an ace of getting up to see whether you were ill, but fell asleep again myself."

Her companion looked puzzled. "It must have been a mistake on your part, Ailsa. I fell asleep almost directly my head touched the pillow, and slept like a log until morning. But don't let's talk about last night." She turned impulsively to Ailsa, her voice thrilling with emotion. "It's no use," she said. "I simply can't feel sorry over it. I know I ought. Death is always horrible, and such a death!" She shuddered involuntarily. "But you don't know what a release it is to me. If this had not happened, I think I should have died – "

Ailsa pressed her arm in silent sympathy, but before she could speak Mrs. Raynor appeared on the scene. She had guarded herself against attacks of possible snapshotters by carrying an open parasol, and Ailsa was glad to change the topic of conversation.

It was some twenty minutes later, when they were still strolling in the gardens, that a taxicab halted at the lodge gates, and they saw a tall, slim figure arrayed in an exceedingly well-cut morning suit, with a rose in his buttonhole and shiny top hat on his closely cropped fair head, advancing up the drive toward them with that easy grace and perfect poise which mutely stands sponsor for the thing called breeding.

"My dears!" began Mrs. Raynor admiringly, "what a distinguished looking man!" She had time to say no more, for Ailsa, with a face like a rose, had gone to meet the newcomer – who quickened his steps at sight of her and was now well within earshot – and was greeting him as a woman greets but one man ever.

"My dear," said Mrs. Raynor to Lady Katharine, in a carefully lowered tone, "if I know anything, you will be parting with that dear girl's companionship for good and all before the summer is over. Look at the man's eyes: they are positively devouring her. Of course we shall have to remain to welcome him, but I think we shall earn their gratitude if we leave them to themselves as soon as we decently can."

A few minutes later the opportunity to do this was offered her; and having lingered just long enough to be introduced to "Mr. Philip Barch" and to become even more impressed with him at close quarters as not only a man good to look at, but as an apt and easy conversationalist, she suddenly remembered that she and Lady Katharine had promised to gather some hyacinths for the lunch table, and forthwith spirited her away.

Cleek followed her with his eyes as long as she remained in sight, then he turned to Ailsa. "A very tender and sensitive girl I should say, Miss Lorne, although she bears herself so well under the cross of last night's tragedy. I see by your manner of looking at her that you are attached to her in many ways."

"Not in many, but in all, Mr. Cleek. She is the dearest girl in the world."

"We won't go into that, otherwise we should disagree for the first time in the whole course of our acquaintance. Let me thank you for adhering so closely to all that I asked over the telephone. I didn't mean to, at first. My original idea was to come here unknown to all, even to you; but when I came to think over it, it seemed so disloyal, so underhanded, as if I didn't trust you in all things, always– that I simply couldn't bring myself to do it."

She looked up at him with grave sweet eyes – the eyes that had lit him back from the path to destruction, that would light him up to the gates of heaven evermore – and smiled on him, bewildered.

"I am afraid I do not follow you," she said. "I don't quite grasp what you mean. Oh!" with sudden fear, "if you thought from my cry of surprise when I recognized your voice over the telephone, that I was not glad – Why, I was going to write to you this morning. But I expected it to be Geoffrey Clavering asking for Kathie, you know – "

The name brought a ridge between Cleek's brows as of a sudden disconcerting thought.

"Geoffrey Clavering? But he has been over here, this morning, has he not?" he asked anxiously.

"No, he has not, and that is what seems so strange," said Ailsa.

"Did he write no note to Lady Katharine then – send her no message, Miss Lorne?"

"No. I see that surprises you, Mr. Cleek, as, to be perfectly frank with you, it surprises me. I can't make it out. I know that his whole life is bound up in Kathie, as hers is bound up in him. I know that it nearly drove him frantic when he was told their engagement would have to come to an end; so one would naturally think that when there is a rumour that the man who came between them is dead – And he must have heard by this time."

"Miss Lorne, let me tell you something," said Cleek gravely. "Geoffrey Clavering does know of the murder. He has known of it since twelve o'clock last night, to my certain knowledge."

"Mr. Cleek! And yet he has made no move to communicate with Lady Katharine! But" – with sudden hopefulness – "perhaps he wishes to make absolutely sure; perhaps the identity of the murdered man is not yet wholly established! Perhaps it is not really the Count de Louvisan after all."

"It is the Count de Louvisan, Miss Lorne! That was settled beyond all question last night."

"And Geoffrey Clavering knew it then?"

"And Geoffrey Clavering knew it then – yes! The man slain is, or rather was, the one known as the Count de Louvisan; on his dead body numbers whose total make up the sum of nine were marked; and – I fancy you remember what Geoffrey Clavering threatened when the fellow went to Clavering Close last night."

Ailsa looked at him, her eyes dilating, the colour draining slowly out of her cheeks and lips. It was impossible not to grasp the significance of these two circumstances, one of which – the mysterious markings on the dead man's body – she now heard of for the first time.

"Oh, Mr. Cleek, oh!" she said faintly. "You surely can't think – A dear lovable boy like that! You can't believe that Geoffrey Clavering had anything to do with it?"

"I hope not, for, frankly, I like the boy. But one thing is certain: if he didn't kill the man, he knows who did; knows, too, that there is a woman implicated in the crime."

"A woman! Oh, Mr. Cleek, a – a woman?"

"Yes – perhaps two women!"

"Women and – and a deed of violence, a deed of horror, like that? No! Women couldn't. They would be fiends, not women. I hold too high an estimate of my sex to let you call them that! And for him, for Geoffrey Clavering, there is but one woman in all the world! Even you shan't hint it of her! No, not even you."

"Hush! I am hinting nothing. Now that I have seen Lady Katharine I would almost as soon think evil of you as of her."

There was a little summerhouse close at hand. He saw that she was faint, shocked, overcome, and gently led her to it, loathing himself that even for one moment he had brought pain within touch of her.

"Who knows better than I how false appearances may be?" he said. "Who should be less likely to take suspicious circumstances for proof?"

"Oh, but to suspect, even to suspect, Kathie – the dearest and the sweetest girl on earth."

"Again I dispute that!" he threw back with repressed vehemence. "And again I declare that I am not swayed by facts, black as they may be, black as they undoubtedly are. If I believed, should I come here and openly tell you of these things? My duty is to the law. Should I not carry proofs there if I believed that they were proofs? But my faith is as a rock. Shall I prove it to you? Then look! I know that you will tell me the truth; and it is because of that, because in my heart I know it is a truth which you can and will face openly and with no cause for fear, that I have declined to hold this thing of sufficient importance to be called a clue, and as such to be handed over to the police. Miss Lorne – Ailsa – tell me, will you – have you ever seen this thing before?"

While he was speaking his hand had gone to his pocket and come forth tightly shut. Now he opened his closed fingers and let her see that there was a scrap of pink chiffon edged with rose coloured stitchery lying on his open palm. Her eyes, fixed earnestly upon his face heretofore, dropped to the gauzy fragment held out to her, and a ridge dug itself between her level brows.

CHAPTER NINE

BLIND GROPING

Ailsa Lorne gave a little start as she examined the fragment.

"I thought at first that it was torn from my own dress," she said frankly, looking up at him, "for, as it happens, I was wearing a pink dress, but not quite of this shade. I will show it to you if you like."

"There is no need, Miss Lorne," said Cleek, his eyes shining. "If you tell me that you were not at Gleer Cottage last night, then there is no more to be said," and with a little laugh of sheer happiness he carefully replaced the bit of chiffon in his pocketbook. "Just one more question, please, Miss Lorne. Tell me: has Lady Katharine a certain kind of bracelet to which there is attached a small capsule by a link of gold, and which smells adorably of violets?"

"Yes. Anybody that knows her could tell you that. Her father, Lord St. Ulmer, brought it to her from South America. He had her name and the St. Ulmer arms engraved upon it. At least, upon what you have called the 'capsule,' which contains some highly concentrated perfume that makes the whole room fragrant whenever she removes a tiny gold stopper from the delightful thing."

"Thank you! I supposed as much. Now will you tell me, Miss Lorne, how long it is since Lady Katharine lost that little golden capsule from her bracelet? Was it, as I am hoping, on the day when you visited Gleer Cottage in company with her, or since?"

"What a strange question. She hasn't lost it at all. At least, she has made no mention of having done so, as I am sure she would if it had been lost. Always, of course, providing it wasn't lost without her knowledge. At any rate, she wore it last night when we went to Clavering Close. I know that, because I remarked at the time that she had better let a jeweller look at it, as the ring of the scent globe was very nearly worn through."

"Was that before you left the Grange or after?"

"After – a long while after – at Clavering Close; in fact, while we were taking off our wraps preparatory to going down to the drawing-room."

"Hum-m-m!" said Cleek, puckering up his lips and looking grave. "You are establishing a very unpleasant fact by that statement. It proves that, in spite of your belief to the contrary, Lady Katharine revisited Gleer Cottage last night, and that, too, after the affair at Clavering Close."

"How perfectly absurd! Why, she wasn't out of my sight for a single instant."

"Nevertheless, she certainly visited Gleer Cottage last night," repeated Cleek with calm persistence. "I know that beyond all possible doubt, Miss Lorne; for I myself found the capsule of that bracelet there, crushed and broken, but still showing that the St. Ulmer arms and the name 'Katharine' had been engraved upon it. Don't look at me like that, please, or you will make me hate myself for having to tell you this."

"But I tell you it is impossible," she still protested. "I tell you she was never out of my sight for one instant from the time we left this house to the time we returned. No, not for one, Mr. Cleek, up to the very moment she left me to go to bed."

"Just so. But after that?"

"After that? After – " she began; and then stopped, and grew very pale and very, very still, for there had come to her a recollection of that moment when, as she had said, she fancied she heard Lady Katharine's door open and shut in the night when all the house was still.

"And after that?" repeated Cleek, driving the question home.

"How should I know?" she gave back, in something akin to panic. "How could I? We do not sleep together. But" – with sudden brightening – "this I do know, however: the bracelet was still on her wrist and the scent globe still attached to it, even then. I saw it with my own eyes."

"A clear proof that, as the capsule was dropped after that time, she left the house last night without your knowledge, Miss Lorne."

"I can't believe it; I will not believe it!" protested Ailsa loyally. "I know that she did not! I know!"

"How?"

"It is likely that you have not heard it, but Katharine is an accomplished violoncellist, Mr. Cleek. She loves her instrument, and in times of sorrow or distress she flies to it for comfort, and plays and plays until her nerves are soothed. Last night, after she left me, I heard her playing in her room."

"For long?"

"No. Of a sudden something went snap and the music ceased. She opened her door and called across the passage to me: 'Ailsa, pray for me. I am so wretched, so abandoned by fortune, that even the solace of my 'cello is denied me. I have broken the A-string and have not another in the house. Good-night, dear. I wish I could break the String of Life as easily!' After that she closed and locked the door, and I heard her go to bed."

The A-string!

Cleek turned away his head and took his chin between his thumb and forefinger. The A-string! And it was with a noose of catgut that the Count de Louvisan had been strangled!

"I'll not believe that she left the house," went on Miss Lorne. "She is the soul of honour, the very embodiment of truth, and she told me herself that she 'slept like a log until morning.' If she had gone out after I left her, after I fell asleep – "

"It could be proved and proved easily," interposed Cleek. "The night was moist and foggy, the roads were wet and muddy. Her clothes, the hem of her skirt, the state of her shoes – But I will not ask you to play the spy upon your friend, Miss Lorne."

"Nor would I do it!" she flashed back spiritedly; then stopped and gave a little excited exclamation and laid a shaking hand upon Cleek's sleeve. An automobile had swung suddenly into view in the drive leading up from the gates to the house, and in it were two men: one white of hair and snowy of beard but as erect as a statue; the other slim and young and fashionably dressed, and so clearly of the order "Johnnie" that he who ran might read. The General and his son had returned from their visit to Gleer Cottage.

Miss Lorne made that fact clear to Cleek in a few words.

"Now we shall have the full account of everything in Harry Raynor's original and detestable style," she whispered. "You are so shrewd in guessing riddles, Mr. Cleek, tell me, if you can, why it is that lions so often breed asses, and that heroes so often father clowns? If you were to search the world you could find no truer gentleman, in speech, in manner, in instincts, in everything, than dear old General Raynor; and yet, if you were to search it thrice over, you could find no greater cad than his son."

"From what I can see at this distance he certainly does look like a fine example of the genus bounder, I must confess," said Cleek. "You do not appear to have much of an opinion of the young man, Miss Lorne."

"I have not. I detest him! I never did care for 'scented' men; and when they come down to the 'curling iron' and the 'dye stick' they are simply abominable!"

"The 'dye stick'?"

"Yes. You mustn't be deceived by that waxed and delicately darkened moustache of Mr. Harry Raynor's, Mr. Cleek. It would be as sandy as his hair if the wretched little dandy didn't darken it with black cosmetic because he is ashamed of the cow colour which nature so appropriately bestowed upon it."

Cleek screwed round on his heel and looked at Mr. Harry Raynor with renewed interest.

"I suppose I ought not to have said that," she continued, "but I do detest him so. I think I had better run and tell Kathie that they have come back, but I will not keep you waiting many minutes." She smiled brightly at Cleek, and with a little nod ran lightly off, leaving him to await her return.

But, despite his interest in Mr. Harry Raynor, Cleek dropped discreetly out of sight and into one of the many winding paths with which the grounds abounded. A few minutes' gentle stroll along this particular one brought him to the rear of the house, and before he quite realized it he found himself within the precincts of the stable. The yard itself was deserted save for a single groom who was evidently hard at work polishing a boot, and which, judging from the muddy appearance of its companion, must have proved no easy task.

Cleek gave one look at the expensively cut article of footgear, then he lounged across the yard.

"That's a pretty tough job, isn't it?" said he offhandedly. The groom looked up, but meeting the visitor's disarming smile, only gave vent to a grunt.

"Should think it is a tough job," he muttered. "They're his lordship's boots, an' 'ow 'e comes to make 'em in such a state beats me to fits. Fair caked with mud, and 'im in bed with a sprained ankle. It's that valet of 'is, I s'pose – " He broke off, then looked questioningly at Cleek.