CHAPTER XVIII
The queer little one-sided smile cocked up the corner of Cleek'smouth. "Sure of that, Sir Charles?" he inquired placidly. "Sure thatshe was not? I am told, it is true, that she left the note sayingshe was going to drown herself, and disappeared four nights ago; I amalso told that since the date of Mr. Beachman's suspension thisplace has been under constant guard night and day, but I have _not_been told, however, that any of the guards saw her leave the place.No, no, no! Don't jump to conclusions so readily, gentlemen. Shewill be out of it now,--out and never likely to return; the news ofthat miscarried message would warn her that something was wrong,and she would be 'up and out of it' like a darting swallow. Thequestion is, how and when did she get out? Let's have in the guardand see."
The sentries were brought in one after the other and questioned. Atno time since they were first put on guard, they declared--at _notime_, either by day or by night--had any living creature enteredor left the house up to now, except the Admiral Superintendent, hissecretary, the auditor, and the nurse who had been summoned to lookafter the stricken girl. To that they one and all were willing totake solemn oath.
There is an old French proverb which says: "He that protests too muchleads to the truth in spite of himself." It was the last man to becalled who did this.
"No, sir, nobody passed, either in or out, I'll take my dying oathto that," asserted he, his feelings riled up by the thought that thisconstant questioning of his statement was a slur upon his devotionto his duty. "There aren't nobody going to hint as I'm a slacker asdon't know what he's a-doing of, or a blessed mug that don't obeyorders; no, sir--no fear! Sir Charles's orders was, 'Nobody in orout' and nobody in or out it was; my hat! yuss! Why, sir"--turningto the dock master--"you must 'a' known; he must 'a' told you. Iwouldn't allow even young Master Reggie in last night when he camea-pleading to be let in to get the school books he'd left behind."
"When he _what_?" almost roared the dock master, fairly jumping."Good lord, Marshall, have you gone off your head? Do you mean toclaim that you saw my boy here--last night?"
"Certainly, sir. Just after that awful clap of thunder it was--sayabout eight or ten minutes after; and what with that and the darknessand the way the wind was howling, I never see nor heard nothingof him coming till I got to the door, and there he was--in themlight-coloured knickers and the pulled-down wideawake hat I'd seenhim wear dozens of times--with his coat collar turned up and adrippin' umbrella over his head, making like he was going up thesteps to try and get in. 'Who's there?' as I sings to him, though Ineedn't, for the little light was streaking out through the windowsshowed me what he was wearing and who it was well enough. 'It'sme--Master Reggie, Marshall,' he says. 'I've come to get my schoolbooks. I left 'em behind in the hurry, and father says he's sureyou'll let me go in and get 'em.' 'Oh, does he?' says I. 'Well,I'm surprised at him and at you, too, Master Reggie, a-thinking I'dgo against orders. Word is that nobody gets in; and nobody _does_,even the king hisself, till them orders is changed. So you just comeaway from that door, and trot right away back to your pa,' I says tohim, 'and ask him from me what kind of a sentry he thinks BillMarshall is.' Which sets him a-snivelling and a-pleading till Ihas to take him by the shoulder, and fair drag him away before Icould get him to go as he'd been told."
"Well done, Sophie!" exclaimed Cleek. "Gad! what a creature ofresource the woman is, and what an actress she would make, thevixen! No need to ask you if your son really did come over herelast night, Mr. Beachman; your surprise and indignation have answeredfor you."
"I should think it would, by George!" rapped out the dock master."What sort of an insane man must you have thought me, Marshall, tocredit such a thing as that? As if I'd have been likely to let adelicate fifteen-year-old boy go out on an errand of any kind in abeast of a storm like last night's, much less tell him that he wasto ask a sentry, _in my name_, to disobey his orders. Good God!gentlemen, it's simply monstrous! Why, look here, Sir Charles; lookhere, Mr. Cleek! Even if I'd been guilty of such a thing, and theboy was willing to go out, he couldn't have done it to save hislife. The poor little chap met with an accident last night and he'sbeen in bed ever since. He was going down the stairs on his way todinner when that terrific clap of thunder came, and the blessedthing startled him so much that, in the pitch darkness, he missedhis footing, fell clear to the bottom of the staircase, and brokehis collar bone."
"Poor little lad! Too bad, too bad!" sympathized Sir Charles,feelingly, and, possibly, would have said more but that Cleek'svoice broke in softly, but with a curiously sharp note underlyingits sleekness.
"In the pitch darkness, Mr. Beachman?" it inquired. "The pitchdarkness of a public hotel _at dinner time_? Isn't that ratherextraordinary?"
"It would be, under any other circumstances, sir, but that infernalclap of thunder interfered in some way with the electric current,and every blessed light in the hotel went smack out--whisk! likethat!--and left the place as black as a pocket. Everybody thoughtfor the moment that the wires must have fused, but it turned outthat there was nothing the matter with them--only that the currenthad been interrupted for a bit--for the lights winked on again assuddenly as they had winked out."
"By Jupiter!" Cleek cracked out the two words like the snapping of awhip lash, then quickly turned round on his heel and looked straightand intently at the telegraph operator.
"Speak up--quick!" he said in the sharp staccato of excitement. "I amtold that when that crash came and the diverted message began therewas a force that almost knocked you off your stool. Is that true?"
"Yes, sir," the man replied, "perfectly true. It was somethingterrific. The Lord only knows what it would have been if I'd beentouching the instrument."
"You'd have been as dead as Julius Caesar!" flung back Cleek. "Nowonder she cut away to see what was wrong, the vixen! No wonder thelights went out! Mr. Narkom, the limousine--quick! Come along, SirCharles; come along, Mr. Beachman--come along at once!"
"Where, Mr. Cleek--where?"
"To the top floor of the house next door to the Ocean Billow Hotel,Sir Charles, to see 'Miss Greta Hilmann's' precious pensioners,"he made answer, rather excitedly. "Unless I am wofully mistaken,gentlemen, one part of this little riddle is already solved, andthe very elements have conspired to protect England to become herfoeman's executioner."
He was not mistaken--not in any point with regard to that house andthe part it had played in this peculiar case--for, when they visitedit and demanded in the name of the law the right to enter and tointerview "the bedridden woman and the crippled girl who occupied thetop floor," they were met with the announcement that no such personsdwelt there, nor had ever done so.
"It is let to an invalid, it is true," the landlady, a motherly,unsuspecting old soul, told them when they made the demand. "Butit is a gentleman, not a lady. A professional gentleman, Ibelieve--artist or sculptor, something of that sort--and never untillast night has anybody been with him but his niece, who makesoccasional calls. Last night, however, a nephew came--just for amoment; indeed, it seemed to me that he had no more than goneupstairs before he came down again and went out. Pardon? No,nobody has called to-day, neither has the gentleman left his room.But he often sleeps until late."
He was sleeping forever this time. For when they came to mountthe stairs and force open the door of the room, there, under ahalf-opened skylight, a dead man lay, one screwed-up, contractedhand still clutching the end of a flex, which went up and out to thetelegraph wires overhead. On a table beside the body a fused andutterly demolished telegraph instrument stood; and it was evidentfrom the scrap of flex still clinging to this that it had onceformed part of that which the dead hand held; that it had snappedsomehow, and that the man was attempting to re-attach it to theinstrument when death overtook him.
"Gentlemen, the wire tapper--Boris Borovonski!" said Cleek, as hebent over and looked at him. "Step here, Mr. Beachman, and tell meif this is not the man who played the part of 'Miss Greta Hilmann's'interesting papa."
"Yes, yes!" decla
red the dock master excitedly, after he, too, hadbent over and looked into the dead face. "It is the very man, sir,the very one! But who--but why--but how?" He then looked upward ina puzzled way to where the flex went up and out through the skylightand, threading through a maze of wires, hooked itself fast to one.
"Electrocuted," said Cleek, answering that inquiring glance. "A fewthousand volts--a flash of flame through heart and head and limbs,and then this! See his little game, Mr. Narkom? See it, do you, SirCharles? He was taking the message from the tapped wire with thatflex, and the fragment that reached the telegraph office only gotthrough when the flex snapped. The furious gale did that, no doubt,whipping it away from its moorings, so to speak, and letting themessage flash on before he could prevent it.
"Can't you read the rest when you look up and see that otherwire--the thick one with the insulated coating torn and frayed bycontact with the chimney's rough edge? It is not hard to reconstructthe tragedy when one sees that. When the flex snapped he jumped upand grabbed it, and was in the very act of again attaching it to theinstrument when he became his own executioner. Look for yourself.The wild wind must either have blown the flex against the bared wireof the electric light or the bared wire against the flex--that weshall never know--and in the winking of an eye he was annihilated.
"No wonder the lights in the hotel went out, Mr. Beachman. The wholestrength of the current was short-circuited through this man's body,and it crumpled him up as a glove crumples when it is cast in thefire. But the dead hand, which had recovered the broken flex, stillheld it, you see, and no more of the 'tapped' message went down thedockyard wire. So long as that message continued, so long as theinstrument which sent it continued to send it, it was 'received'here--a mere silent, unrecorded, impotent thrill locked up in thegrip of a dead man's hand.
"And look there--the pile of burnt paper beside the fused instrumentand the cinder of a matchbox against it. The force which obliteratedlife in him infused it into the 'dipped' heads of those little woodensticks, and flashed them into flame. So long as there was anythingfor that flame to feed upon it continued its work, you see, andSophie Borovonski found nothing to take away with her, after all.Gentlemen, the State secrets that were stolen will remain England'sown--the records were burnt, and the dead cannot betray."