The Riddle of the Purple Emperor

Cleek smiled approvingly and followed his two companions into the house, perfectly content to leave the care of the outside to Dollops. Already he could hear Sir Edgar impetuously racing from floor to floor, making the oak rafters ring with Lady Margaret's name. But no sight or sound of her rewarded his efforts.

Mr. Narkom, pulling down shutter after shutter, let in the gorgeous light of day, but it was soon evident that the house was empty. Neither servants nor mistress rewarded their search. Neither did subsequent tapping and close scrutiny reveal a panel or trap-door. No cornered criminal was to be found; no gagged and bound figure of the girl they sought. There was nothing but the scamper of frightened mice behind the wainscoting. Miss Cheyne had disappeared before their very eyes, mysteriously, inexplicably, but disappeared nevertheless!

As they stood in the empty ballroom, its walls lined with age-old portraits, the furniture dusty and moth-eaten, there came a sound that made even Cleek, to whom it was no stranger, shudder. It was a low, horrible moaning which seemed to permeate the whole house.

For a moment they stood rooted to the spot in horrified silence, then Sir Edgar spoke in a quaking whisper:

"Heavens above! what is it?"

Nobody answered him, for it was a question impossible to answer. All they could do was to search the house again from garret to basement, but Miss Cheyne had apparently disappeared as mysteriously as her niece. Whether by her own will or not, it was impossible to say.

Back once more on the terrace they were compelled to own themselves beaten, and Cleek and Mr. Narkom looked at one another in sympathetic dismay at this set-back to their plans. They both had counted on coming face to face with the eccentric guardian of the girl whose life was in such evident danger. Suddenly Sir Edgar gave a little startled exclamation and turning in the direction of his gaze they saw the figure of a fair and slender woman running toward them.

As she drew near, Cleek's heart gave a little leap of delight, for it was the woman who meant more to him than all the world. A second later he quickened his steps to meet her.

"Oh, I am so worried!" Ailsa said swiftly. "I am thankful I have found you at last. It is that poor girl you drove home that night, Lady Margaret Cheyne, you know. I have tried so many times to see her. I have called and called, but have always been refused admittance. Now this morning I was in the lane when I saw Lady Margaret at a window and she dropped this scrap of paper. See!" She handed Cleek a little screwed-up piece of paper on which was scrawled "Miss Lorne, save me! Margaret." "She was snatched away before I could call to her. What does it mean?" asked Ailsa, wistfully looking from one face to the other.

"I should not be surprised if that dangerous stone, the Purple Emperor, is at the bottom of it all," said Cleek.

Sir Edgar took the scrap of paper from Ailsa's fingers, and read it slowly through. Then he cried vehemently:

"I'll save her, if I commit murder fifty times over."

As he spoke, he plunged along the lane, the ill-fated words lingering in their minds long after he had disappeared.

"It's an absolute mystery at present," said Cleek softly, his chin pinched up in his hand. "There must be some way of getting in and out of that house which we haven't yet fathomed, and I'd like to have a shot at finding it. I think, too, we shall have to keep an eye on our young friend, Sir Edgar, or he will be getting into trouble. Never fear, Ailsa," he added, gently, "I will save the little girl somehow, but I mean to give myself the pleasure of walking back with you first."

The walk was but a brief one, and Cleek on his return to the inn sent an urgent message to the Towers asking Sir Edgar to come down to him. He meant to keep a watchful eye on his movements and prevent further trouble if possible.

Dollops returned half an hour later with the disconcerting news that the master had gone up to town.

Cleek switched on his heel, alert and surprised.

"Gone!" he said excitedly "What does that mean? Does he think he is going to find Lady Margaret wandering about Piccadilly Circus? Well, anyhow, he is safe up there out of reach of doing any mad tricks. Ah, if I could only find the secret of that house I'd go a long way toward restoring that child."

"Well, if you don't find it I'll bet a tanner to a fresh herrin' no one will, guv'nor," exclaimed Dollops indignantly. "There ain't no one in the world wot's got your kind o' brains, and that's a fact. You'll find the secret out all right, sir, if yer only has patience. And in the meantime, if yer don't want me any more, I'll just pop along to the restaurant and have a sandwich, for I'm that empty you can hear me ribs rattle!"

He left the room, and Cleek sat alone, trying to puzzle out the whole awful affair. But it was like some jig-saw puzzle in which all the pieces were odd, and he did not hold the key to the solution.

CHAPTER X

A SHOT IN THE DARK

The case was one that fascinated Cleek, and as it seemed absolutely certain that Sir Edgar would not venture back within the precincts of home that night, both he and Mr. Narkom prepared to make another investigation of Cheyne Court. Constable Roberts and Dollops were patrolling the forked lanes, and thanks to the latter's supply of "tickle tootsies" as he persisted in terming them and which were really an ingenious invention of his own consisting of slabs of brown paper well smothered with molasses, there was no fear of any one being able to approach without being seen.

A brisk two minutes' walk brought them to the picturesque house with its ivy-wrapped walls, dark Gothic windows, and quaintly carved chimney-pots. A medieval appearance was strengthened by a deep moat, long since dried up, but which gave it the air of an old-world castle. A ruined drawbridge completed the resemblance, though the actual date of its erection was certainly not in the bygone ages.

Cleek and Mr. Narkom had hardly approached the western side, where Constable Roberts had been stationed on guard, when that official came rushing toward them, breathing hard with excitement, his eyes nearly starting from his head.

"A shot, sir," he gasped. "As true as I'm 'ere, I heard a shot fired from somewhere, and a man rushed by me in the lane down there, waving his arms wildly, and then 'e vanished."

"Couldn't you catch a glimpse of him?" rapped out Cleek briskly. "What was he, a labourer, gentleman, or what?"

"Couldn't say, sir. I had turned my back, and was looking up at the blessed house, when I 'ears the sound of a shot, be'ind me it seemed, and round I spins, and next I knows was my helmet knocked down on my 'ead, and a man sprinting down the lane for dear life. By the time I'd got it lifted, 'e was gone."

"H'm! Sure it was a man?" asked Cleek, as the three men came out once more into the lane.

"Well!" said the police-constable, startled by this new hypothesis. "Now you speak, sir – the footsteps was light enough and there was a precious fine scent."

Before he could volunteer any further ideas, he caught sight of something which apparently drove them all from his head.

In his excitement he gripped the arm of Mr. Narkom, oblivious for the time being of their relative positions. "Look, sir," he said, "blest if there ain't somebody got into the 'ouse now, though 'ow they've bin and done it, beats me!"

Only a minute before the house had loomed up dark and cheerless, without a single sign of habitation. Now in the lower room known both by Cleek and the superintendent to be the dining room, someone was obviously walking about with a light held in one hand. For a moment all three stood stock-still gaping at one another in blank amazement, then Cleek spoke.

"Come on," said he, through clenched teeth, "not a sound if you can help it, and look if there are any strange footprints."

"The place is alive with footprints!" ejaculated Constable Roberts, as he turned the light of his bull's-eye downward and it revealed unmistakable traces on the soft, yielding earth. They led right up to the edge of the marble terrace. "Look, sir, this is the way he come down the lane, up this path and straight ahead. Come on!"

Straight down the narrow path they went without break or interruption, shielded by the overshadowing trees, their eyes bent on the countless footprints which followed each other down the centre in one long unbroken line leading right to the house.

Suddenly at the front steps they stopped short, and Cleek and Narkom stopped also, for from the steps they took another direction altogether, wheeling about sharply and leading toward the terrace where they seemed to terminate.

But Constable Roberts was keenly on the look-out, being a dutiful policeman if a trifle slow.

"Here they are again, sir," he whispered, pointing to the left along the terrace where, since the previous night's rain, the thick dust had evidently been laid. "See, 'ere's where 'e went, right over this blessed wall. Ten chances to one but what 'e's cut 'isself with all that broken glass at the top. Fancy finding broken glass on a marble bannister!" He snorted under his breath as he lifted himself over the low balustrade after pushing the glass aside. "Mind 'ow you come, gents. Fair copped him out, as sure as guns is guns. Better let me go first, 'e's in there right enough. You can see the light moving about."

A single look was enough to convince Cleek and Mr. Narkom of the truth of the constable's words, and in an instant they had sprung up, gripped the edge of the wall, scrambled over it and dropped down on the marble terrace beneath. In the room, of which Sir Edgar had acknowledged breaking the glass of the window, thin, wavering lines of constantly shifting light could be seen through the chinks of the wooden shutters. But so well had the wooden barriers been nailed up, that it was impossible to see anything more than this shifting streak of light, and Cleek, abandoning the attempt, led a swift flight round to the back of the building. To the intense astonishment of them all they found a small side door, not only unlocked, but ajar. Through this they made their way down a passage and up into the hall to the dining room. The thin streak of light beneath the door told them that their quarry was still there, run to earth at last. They stopped for a moment, their nerves strung to breaking point, their hearts beating wildly as they thought of what lay before them.

Only for a brief second they paused, then Cleek's head went up.

"Now," he whispered, and in they went, with a rush that sent the old panelled door crashing back on its hinges with a queer sort of groan.

But again, as on the previous day, no figure at bay rose to fight them. Once more only the squeal and rustle of countless mice behind the oak-panelled walls came to their listening ears.

To all appearances the dining room was exactly in the same condition as when Cleek had first entered it with the girl they now were seeking so strenuously. The room was empty. A guttering candle contrasted strangely with the rich polished mahogany of the table on which it had been placed, but its faint light revealed no living thing.

They stared at one another in mute astonishment, then Cleek switched on his electric torch and swept it from ceiling to floor.

It swung around like a miniature searchlight, then stopped abruptly, and ejaculations of horror fell from the lips of the watching men.

On the hearth-rug on the opposite side of the room from where they stood, half hidden by the great divan chair, lay the figure of a woman. The life-blood was oozing from a gun-wound above the breast and it needed only one brief glance to tell them that she was already past their aid! Blankly they stared into each other's faces as recognition came.

"Miss Cheyne!"

Hideous fact though it was, there could be no doubt as to her identity. The golden, curled hair, the beringed hands were identically the same as Cleek had seen, and it seemed to his almost dazed senses, seen in the same position – just a month ago in the ballroom! It was the same woman who had driven the constable and himself away, barely an hour after that dreadful discovery and certainly the same who had glared at them so threateningly on the previous day!

Yet here she was in an apparently empty house.

For a moment all three men stood staring in appalled silence.

Then Constable Roberts backed shudderingly away.

"The Lord deliver us," he said in a quaking whisper. "It's Miss Cheyne herself, sir, and dead just as the young officer said a month ago."

At any other time Cleek would have noted this compliment paid to his disguise, but now he stood staring down at the grimly grotesque figure, all the colour drained from his lips and cheeks.

"How and when did she come back? Where did she hide herself yesterday?" said Constable Roberts, in hushed, awed tones. Nobody answered him. Nobody seemed to have heard. For Cleek and Mr. Narkom the discovery threatened to possess an even more tragic importance. In the finding of this woman shot to the heart they recognized that the deed threatened by Sir Edgar Brenton but a few short hours ago had now indeed been committed.

"Good Heavens!" gasped out Mr. Narkom at last, his lips dry, his voice tense and strained, "and so we came too late. No wonder we waited in vain. Poor boy, poor boy, the mystery is at an end."

"On the contrary, my friend," flung back Cleek sharply, a bright spot of colour showing in each cheek, "I venture to think it has only just begun. Constable Roberts, search this house first, then mount guard. Don't let any one enter or leave it. If any living man or woman comes near, arrest them, no matter who they are. But don't leave the place unguarded for a single instant. A doctor must be fetched and Dollops must find him.

"Thank goodness Sir Edgar is in London and can supply an alibi," he added, almost under his breath.

But Constable Roberts turned on his heel as he caught the words, the ruddy colour deserting his face, leaving it white and strained.

"Beggin' your pardon, sir, but that's just what 'e ain't. I passed the station on my way here, and there was Sir Edgar 'imself on top of the steps. 'E must 'ave come in by the 9:10 train and 'e didn't see me, but I see 'im as plain as life. Lord pray someone else saw 'im, too!"

Speaking, he turned and left the room, and as Mr. Narkom gazed at Cleek, their mutual feeling showed only too visibly on their white, tense faces.

So the unhappy boy had taken matters into his own hands after all. That matter was only too clear. He might have gone to town, true enough, but only waited there long enough for it to get dark, that he might be free and undisturbed in his task of revenge.

"There's no help for it, Cleek," said the Superintendent with a little shrug of despair. "I would have given one hundred pounds to have prevented it, but – "

His voice trailed off and he let the rest of the sentence go by default. Without further comment he turned and hurried out of the room. Already he could hear Constable Roberts tramping from floor to floor in a vain search for something in the nature of a murderer, and could not help thinking once more as he went out into the blackness of the night of the tragedy that this hot-headed boy had brought upon his house.

Cleek followed slowly. It took him but a second to get back into the lane, but there was no sign of Dollops, nor did the familiar hoot of a night-owl, Cleek's favourite signal, bring forth any reply. Dollops indeed had vanished as if the earth had opened and swallowed him up.

CHAPTER XI

A TERRIBLE DISCOVERY

Meanwhile Dollops, obedient to Cleek's behest, had been patrolling round Cheyne Court, and was getting exceedingly tired of that proceeding.

He had been two or three times round the building when he saw the figure of Constable Roberts travelling swiftly away from the house, but receiving no signal, like the faithful watchdog he was, he remained at his post, facing the back of the house. Five minutes passed, and there was no sound of any kind save the rustling of the branches swayed by the wind, and the soft drip of moisture from the trees. Still he stood there, watchful, keen, with every nerve alert for sight or sound.

Five minutes became ten – fifteen – twenty, then, of a sudden, Dollops' nerves gave a sort of jump and a swift prickle flashed down through the soft down of hair upon his neck. For a sound had come at last, a quick, grating sound as of a window being opened. He stood on tiptoe and flashed the light of his latest and most treasured possession, a powerful electric torch, all round him.

As the light streamed forth and he flung a shifting circle before him, there moved across it the figure of a woman, clad in scarlet, her hair floating over her shoulders and over the intervening space there stole a strange sweet smell of jasmine.

A woman here, at this hour, and under such strange circumstances! The thing was so startling that it was little wonder Dollops stood as if turned to stone. She was gone so soon, just glimmering across the circle of light and then vanishing into the darkness as suddenly as she had appeared, that for a brief second he lost his nerve, believing that he had seen the apparition said by the superstitious villagers to haunt the grounds. Indeed, as if to make this illusion even more real, there came an unearthly wailing moan from the earth beneath his feet, a sound that would have chilled even stronger nerves than Dollops', tired with the strain of waiting.

With a yell the lad turned and fled down the lane in pursuit of the speeding figure.

At the end of the path, however, winded and spent, he stopped short, and as his eyes pierced the gloom in search of his prey, for the second time that night, his limbs shook beneath him. Looking in all directions he had turned back and had caught a glimpse of the windows of Cheyne Court. Here he saw a sight that caused his strained nerves to tremble like live wires. Something was happening in the old house at last! Over the low-lying porch half covered with ivy was a great landing window, one of those which had been kept religiously closed, but was now wide open, and on the sill of it there appeared the startlingly clear figure of a woman. She was young, fair-haired, and clad in white with a gold lace scarf round her head. Lightly and cautiously she balanced herself on the sill and as lightly let herself down till she reached the ground.

But the terrible sound of a few minutes before had startled others besides poor Dollops. Mr. Narkom, unable to find him, had returned to Cleek, whereupon Constable Roberts, who had found the house empty as regards any human being, had been duly dispatched to the village in the opposite direction to find Dr. Verrall.

Left to themselves once more, Cleek and Mr. Narkom proceeded to investigate. The Constable had been gone about ten minutes or so when the sound of that unearthly wail caused both men to falter in their work.

"What, in Heaven's name, is it? Supernatural or human?" exclaimed the Superintendent.

"Neither," rapped out Cleek. "I'll look into that next, but at present I – " he threw up his head and sniffed violently at the air. "Yes, it's as I thought. That woman's been here again."

Switching on his heel, he walked over to the dead woman, made a thorough examination, and the queer little smile fluttered for a moment up his cheek. Suddenly he bent down and sniffed at her dress, the lace ruffles on her sleeves, even the dead fingertips, all of which he subjected also to the closest scrutiny.

Suddenly, too, he rose to his feet, and stood looking down, first at the body itself, and then at a little shining object that lay near by.

"Hmn," he said musingly, "as I thought, two people at least and one of them a woman at that – "

"Cleek, my dear fellow!" murmured Mr. Narkom, who had at last succeeded in lighting a couple of lamps and some wax candles which made the room a little less gloomy.

"The scent first," flung back that gentleman quickly. "The place reeks of Huile de jasmin, while this," he pointed to the silent figure, "is a speaking witness, even though dead." A grim smile flickered over his mobile features as he stood, his lower lip sucked in, his chin pinched hard between his finger and thumb. "If there isn't a very great surprise in store for the good people of Hampton shortly I'll miss my guess."

"Cleek!" Mr. Narkom was in a very tremour of excitement. "You have discovered something. Tell me; what is it?"

"All in good time, my dear friend, remember the old proverb 'set a thief to catch a thief'! We'll see what our good friend Dr. Verrall has to say, and if I am not mistaken, here he comes."

And come he did, for a sound of voices and hurried footsteps introduced him to their presence.

"What is this?" said Dr. Verrall to the Superintendent, whose identity had evidently been impressed on him by Roberts who hovered obsequiously in the background. Of Cleek he took no notice, having apparently taken an unaccountable dislike to the man who had tried so hard to pump him, on the excuse of a servant's fit of indigestion but a night or two ago.

"What is this the man tells me? Miss Cheyne, the Honourable Miss Cheyne," he corrected himself as if the dead lady herself had reproved him for thus forgetting her title, "has been murdered. It is impossible!"

"Not so impossible," interposed Cleek smoothly, his eyes narrowing down to mere slits as he noted the doctor's white face and unconsciously trembling fingers, "as not to be the actual fact, Doctor." He made mental comment of the doctor's agitation. It was strange to find the man so upset over the death of an eccentric stranger even if she had been a patient of his. And how was it he was so quickly on the spot? Aloud, however, he continued blandly: "She has been murdered some time, too, Doctor – "

With a little cry of horror, Dr. Verrall passed to the body and bent over it for a minute. "Humm," he said, meditatingly. "Dead, but within a couple of hours, I should say."

But Mr. Narkom struck in upon him.

"Impossible," said he, involuntarily, looking over at Cleek, "why, we heard the shot – you and I, not half an hour ago."

"The doctor is quite right, Mr. Narkom," Cleek replied, an undercurrent of mockery in his voice. "The corpse – " Dr. Verrall started a little.

"This is the Honourable Miss Cheyne, sir," he said with a quick look of contempt at the policeman.

"Pardon me, Doctor," was the smooth reply. "The Honourable Miss Cheyne has been dead nearly a month. I said she had been dead a long time. This," he flung out his foot in scorn, "well, don't you think you had better remove the wig first?"

"What do you mean?" gasped the Superintendent. Then, without waiting for a reply, he bent down and touched almost fearfully the mass of golden hair. It moved under his fingers and with one twitch came away in his shaking hand, revealing the sleek, close-cropped head of a man, of which the particularly noticeable feature was a narrow, sloping forehead.

A sudden smile looped up the corner of Cleek's mouth as he turned to the astonished group about him with a little theatrical gesture. There was a sort of triumph in his eyes.

"As I thought," he said. He turned suddenly round on the horrified constable, his voice and features those of the young Lieutenant Deland. "It was not such a wild-goose chase that night a month ago, after all, eh?" he said briskly. "Lieutenant Deland, you know, Constable. Miss Cheyne was lying dead in that room, and this rascal took her clothes and her place. Heaven help that poor girl!" he added gravely, while both Mr. Narkom and the constable gazed from him to the grotesque figure, almost dazed by the sudden turn of events.

Almost as startled as his companions, the doctor tore away the clothes, revealing the slim body of a man about forty years of age, revealing, too, something that caused Mr. Narkom to lay a shaking hand upon Cleek's arm.

"You see what that is, don't you?" he gasped. "Look at his arm. It bears the sign of the pentacle. He's a member of the gang, at any rate."

Cleek stood still a moment, thinking.

"Yes," Cleek replied in a low voice. "The Purple Emperor has much to answer for."

"There is something clenched in his hand," said the doctor, who had proceeded with his task. "Bring the light nearer, please."