CHAPTER XII
The chauffeur proved that he could "streak it" as close to the margin ofthe speed limit as the law dared wink at, even in the case of thewell-known red limousine, and in a little over ten minutes pulled upbefore the park gates. Narkom jumped out, beckoned Sir Henry to followhim, and together they hurried into the grounds in quest of Cleek.
Where the famous tulip beds made splotches of brilliant colour againstthe clear emerald of the closely clipped grass they came upon him--asolitary figure in the garb of the elderly seaman, "Captain Burbage, ofClarges Street"--seated on one of the garden benches, his hands foldedover the knob of his thick walking-stick and his chin resting upon them,staring fixedly at the gorgeous flowers and apparently deaf and blind toall else.
He was not, however; for as the superintendent approached he, withoutaltering his gaze or his attitude in the slightest particle, said withthe utmost calmness: "Superb, are they not, my friend? What a pity theyshould be scentless. It is as though Heaven had created a butterfly anddeprived it of the secret of flight. Walk on, please, without addressingme. I am quite friendly with that policeman yonder and I do not wish himto suspect that the elderly gentleman he is so kind to is in any wayconnected with The Yard. Examine the tulips. That's right. You came inyour limousine, of course? Where is it?"
"Just outside the gates, at the end of the path on the right," repliedNarkom, halting with Sir Henry and appearing to be wholly absorbed inpointing out the different varieties of tulips.
"Good," replied Cleek, apparently taking not the slightest notice. "I'lltoddle on presently, and when you return from inspecting the flowers youwill find me inside the motor awaiting you."
"Do, old chap--and please hurry; time is everything in this case. Let meintroduce you to your client. (Keep looking at the flowers, please, SirHenry.) I have the honour to make you acquainted with Sir Henry Wilding,Cleek; he needs you, my dear fellow."
"Delighted--in both instances. My compliments, Sir Henry. By any chancethat Sir Henry Wilding whose mare, Black Riot, is the favourite for nextWednesday's Derby?"
"Yes--that very man, Mr. Cleek; and if--"
"Don't get excited and don't turn, please; our friend the policeman islooking this way. What's the case? One of 'nobbling'? Somebody trying toget at the mare?"
"Yes. A desperate 'somebody,' who doesn't stop even at murder. A verydevil incarnate who seems to possess the power of invisibility, and whostrikes in the dark. Save me, Mr. Cleek! All I've got in the world is atstake, and if anything happens to Black Riot, I'm a ruined man."
"Yar-r-r!" yawned the elderly sea captain, rising and stretching. "I dobelieve, constable, I've been asleep. Warm weather, this, for May. Aglorious week for Epsom. Shan't see you to-morrow, I'm afraid. Perhapsshan't see you until Thursday. Here, take that, my lad, and havehalf-a-crown's worth on Black Riot for the Derby; she'll win it, sure."
"Thanky, sir. Good luck to you, sir."
"Same to you, my lad. Good day." Then the old gentleman in the top hatand white spats moved slowly away, passed down the tree-shaded walk,passed the romping children, passed the Princess Louise's statue ofQueen Victoria, and, after a moment, vanished. Ten minutes later, whenNarkom and Sir Henry returned to the waiting motor, they found himseated within it awaiting them, as he had promised. Giving Lennardorders to drive about slowly in the least frequented quarters, whilethey talked, the superintendent got in with Sir Henry, and opened fireon the "case" without further delay.
"My dear Cleek," he said, "as you appear to know all about Sir Henry andhis famous mare, there's no need to go into that part of the subject, soI may as well begin by telling you at once that Sir Henry has come up totown for the express purpose of getting you to go down to his place inSuffolk to-night in company with him, as his only hope of outwitting adiabolical agency which has set out to get at the horse and put it outof commission before Derby Day, and in the most mysterious, the mostinscrutable manner ever heard of, my dear chap. Already one groom whosat up to watch with her has been killed, another hopelessly paralysed,and to-night Logan, the mare's trainer, is to sit up with her in theeffort to baulk the almost superhuman rascal who is at the bottom of itall. Conceive if you can, my dear fellow, a power so crafty, sodiabolical, that it gets into a locked and guarded stable, gets in, mydear Cleek, despite four men constantly pacing back and forth beforeeach and every window and door that leads into the place and with agroom on guard inside, and then gets out again in the same mysteriousmanner without having been seen or heard by a living soul. In additionto all the windows being small and covered with a grille of iron, a factwhich would make it impossible for anyone to get in or out once thedoors were closed and guarded, Sir Henry himself will tell you that thestable has been ransacked from top to bottom, every hole and everycorner probed into, and not a living creature of any sort discovered.Yet only last night the groom, Tolliver, was set upon inside the placeand killed outright in his efforts to protect the horse; killed, Cleek,with four men patrolling outside, and willing to swear--each and everyone of them--that nothing and no one, either man, woman, child or beast,passed them going in or getting out from sunset until dawn."
"Hum-m-m!" said Cleek, sucking in his lower lip. "Mysterious, to say theleast. Was there no struggle? Did the men on guard hear no cry?"
"In the case of the first groom, Murple, the one that wasparalysed--no," said Sir Henry, as the question was addressed to him."But in the case of Tolliver--yes. The men heard him cry out, heard himcall out 'Help!' but by the time they could get the doors open it wasall over. He was lying doubled up before the entrance to Black Riot'sstall, with his face to the floor, as dead as Julius Caesar, poorfellow, and not a sign of anybody anywhere."
"And the horse? Did anybody get at that?"
"No; for the best of reasons. As soon as these attacks began, Mr. Cleek,I sent up to London. A gang of twenty-four men came down, with steelplates, steel joists, steel posts, and in seven hours' time Black Riot'sbox was converted into a sort of safe, to which I alone hold the key theinstant it is locked up for the night. A steel grille about half a footdeep, and so tightly meshed that nothing bigger than a mouse could passthrough, runs all round the enclosure close to the top of the walls, andthis supplies ventilation. When the door is closed at night, itautomatically connects itself with an electric gong in my own bedroom,so that the slightest attempt to open it, or even to touch it, wouldhammer out an alarm close to my head."
"Has it ever done so?"
"Yes--last night, when Tolliver was killed."
"How killed, Sir Henry? Stabbed or shot?"
"Neither. He appeared to have been strangled, poor fellow, and to havedied in most awful agony."
"Strangled? But, my dear sir, that would hardly have been possible in soshort a time. You say your men heard him call out for help. Granted thatit took them a full minute--and it probably did not take them halfone--to open the doors and come to his assistance, he would not be stonedead in so short a time; and he was stone dead when they got in, Ibelieve you said?"
"Yes. God knows what killed him--the coroner will find that out, nodoubt--but there was no blood shed and no mark upon him that I couldsee."
"Hum-m-m! Was there any mark on the door of the steel stall?"
"Yes. A long scratch, somewhat semi-circular, and sweeping downwards atthe lower extremity. It began close to the lock and ended about a footand a half lower."
"Undoubtedly, you see, Cleek," put in Narkom, "someone tried to force anentrance to the steel room and get at the mare, but the prompt arrivalof the men on guard outside the stable prevented his doing so."
Cleek made no response. Just at that moment the limousine was glidingpast a building whose courtyard was one blaze of parrot tulips, and, hiseye caught by the flaming colours, he was staring at them andreflectively rubbing his thumb and forefinger up and down his chin.After a moment, however:
"Tell me something, Sir Henry," he said abruptly. "Is anybody interestedin your not putting Black Riot into the field on Derby Day? An
ybody withwhom you have a personal acquaintance, I mean, for of course I knowthere are other owners who would be glad enough to see him scratched.But is there anybody who would have a particular interest in yourfailure?"
"Yes--one. Major Lambson-Bowles, owner of Minnow. Minnow's secondfavourite, as perhaps you know. It would delight Lambson-Bowles to seeme 'go under'; and as I'm so certain of Black Riot that I've mortgagedevery stick and stone I have in the world to back her, I should go underif anything happened to the mare. That would suit Lambson-Bowles down tothe ground."
"Bad blood between you, then?"
"Yes--very. The fellow's a brute, and--I thrashed him once, as hedeserved, the bounder. It may interest you to know that my only sisterwas his first wife. He led her a dog's life, poor girl, and death was amerciful release to her. Twelve months ago he married a rich Americanwoman--widow of a man who made millions in hides and leather. That'swhen Lambson-Bowles took up racing, and how he got the money to keep astud. Had the beastly bad taste, too, to come down to Suffolk--within agunshot of Wilding Hall--take Elmslie Manor, the biggest and grandestplace in the neighbourhood, and cut a dash under my very nose, as itwere."
"Oho!" said Cleek; "then the major is a neighbour as well as a rival forthe Derby plate. I see! I see!"
"No, you don't--altogether," said Sir Henry quickly. "Lambson-Bowles isa brute and a bounder in many ways, but--well, I don't believe he islow-down enough to do this sort of thing--and with murder attached toit, too--although he did try to bribe poor Tolliver to leave me. Offeredmy trainer double wages, too, to chuck me and take up his horses."
"Oh, he did that, did he? Sure of it, Sir Henry?"
"Absolutely. Saw the letter he wrote to Logan."
"Hum-m-m! Feel that you can rely on Logan, do you?"
"To the last gasp. He's as true to me as my own shadow. If you wantproof of it, Mr. Cleek, he's going to sit in the stable and keep guardhimself to-night--in the face of what happened to Murple and Tolliver."
"Murple is the groom who was paralysed, is he not?" said Cleek, after amoment. "Singular thing, that. What paralysed him, do you think?"
"Heaven knows. He might just as well have been killed as poor Tolliverwas, for he'll never be any use again, the doctors say. Some injury tothe spinal column, and with it a curious affection of the throat andtongue. He can neither swallow nor speak. Nourishment has to beadministered by tube, and the tongue is horribly swollen."
"I'm of the opinion, Cleek," put in Narkom, "that strangulation ismerely part of the procedure of the rascal who makes these diabolicalnocturnal visits. In other words, that he is armed with somequick-acting infernal poison, which he forces into the mouths of hisvictims. That paralysis of the muscles of the throat is one of thesymptoms of prussic acid poisoning, you must remember."
"I do remember, Mr. Narkom," replied Cleek enigmatically. "My memory ismuch stimulated by these details, I assure you. I gather from them that,whatever is administered, Murple did not get quite so much of it asTolliver, or he, too, would be dead. Sir Henry"--he turned again to thebaronet--"do you trust everybody else connected with your establishmentas much as you trust Logan?"
"Yes. There's not a servant connected with the hall that hasn't been inmy service for years, and all are loyal to me."
"May I ask who else is in the house besides the servants?"
"My wife, Lady Wilding, for one; her cousin, Mr. Sharpless, who is on avisit to us, for another; and, for a third, my uncle, the Rev. AmbroseSmeer, the famous revivalist."
"Mr. Smeer does not approve of the race track, of course?"
"No, he does not. He is absurdly 'narrow' on some subjects, and 'sport'of all sorts is one of them. But, beyond that, he is a dear, lovable oldfellow, of whom I am amazingly fond."
"Hum-m-m! And Lady Wilding and Mr. Sharpless--do they, too, disapproveof racing?"
"Quite to the contrary. Both are enthusiastic upon the subject, and bothhave the utmost faith in Black Riot's certainty of winning. Lady Wildingis something more than attached to the mare; and as for Mr. Sharpless,he is so upset over these rascally attempts that every morning when thesteel room is opened and the animal taken out, although nothing everhappens in the daylight, he won't let her get out of his sight for asingle instant until she is groomed and locked up for the night. He isso incensed, so worked up over this diabolical business, that I verilybelieve if he caught any stranger coming near the mare he'd shoot him inhis tracks."
"Hum-m-m!" said Cleek abstractedly, and then sat silent for a long time,staring at his spats and moving one thumb slowly round the breadth ofthe other, his fingers interlaced and his lower lip pushed upwards overthe one above.
"There, that's the case, Cleek," said Narkom, after a time. "Do you makeanything out of it?"
"Yes," he replied; "I make a good deal out of it, Mr. Narkom, but, likethe language of the man who stepped on the banana skin, it isn't fit forpublication. One question more, Sir Henry. Heaven forbid it, of course,but if anything should happen to Logan to-night, whom would you put onguard over the horse to-morrow?"
"Do you think I could persuade anybody if a third man perished?" saidthe baronet, answering one question with another. "I don't believethere's a groom in England who'd take the risk for love or money. Therewould be nothing for it but to do the watching myself. What's that? Doit? Certainly, I'd do it! Everybody that knows me knows that."
"Ah, I see!" said Cleek, and lapsed into silence again.
"But you'll come, won't you?" exclaimed Sir Henry agitatedly. "It won'thappen if you take up the case; Mr. Narkom tells me he is sure of that.Come with me, Mr. Cleek. My motor is waiting at the garage. Come backwith me, for God's sake--for humanity's sake--and get to the bottom ofthe thing."
"Yes," said Cleek in reply. "Give Lennard the address of the garage,please; and--Mr. Narkom!"
"Yes, old chap?"
"Pull up at the first grocer's shop you see, will you, and buy me acouple of pounds of the best white flour that's milled; and if you can'tmanage to get me either a sieve or a flour dredger, a tin pepper-potwill do!"