CHAPTER XXVI
"Good morning, my friend. I hope I haven't taken you too much bysurprise," he said, as the limousine sprang into activity theinstant he closed the door, and settled himself down beside thesuperintendent.
"Not more than usual, dear chap. But I shall never get quite used tosome of your little tricks. Gad! You're the most abnormally promptbeggar that ever existed, I do believe. You absolutely break allrecords."
"Well, I certainly came within a hair's breadth of losing myreputation this morning, then," he answered cheerily, as he fumbledin his pockets for a match. "It was a hard pull to cover thedistance and get through the business in time, I can tell you,with the brief margin I had. But fortunately----Here! Take chargeof that, will you? And read it over while I'm getting a light."
"That" was a long legal-looking envelope which he had whisked out ofhis pocket and tossed into Narkom's lap.
"'Royal British Life Assurance Society,'" repeated he, readingoff the single line printed on the upper left-hand corner of theenvelope. "What the dickens----I say, is it a policy?"
"Aha!" assented Cleek, with his mouth full of smoke. "The medico whoput me through my paces, some time ago, reported me sound in wind andlimb, and warranted not to bite, shy, or kick over the traces, and Iwas duly ordered to turn up at the London office before noon on agiven day to sign up (and pay down) and receive that interestingdocument, otherwise my application would be void, et cetera. This,as it happens, is the 'given day' in question; and as the officedoesn't open for business before ten A. M., and there wasn't theleast likelihood of my being able to get back to it before noon,when you were calling for me--'there you have the whole thing in anutshell,' as the old woman said when she poisoned the filberts."
Meanwhile, Narkom had opened the envelope and glanced over thedocument it contained. He now sat up with a jerk and voiced a cry ofamazement.
"Good Lord, deliver us!" he exclaimed. "In favour of Dollops!"
"Yes," said Cleek. "He's a faithful little monkey and--I've nothingelse to leave him. There's always a chance, you know--with Margot'slot and Waldemar's. I shouldn't like to think of the boy being forcedback into the streets if--anything should happen to me."
"Well, I'll be----What a man! What a man! Cleek, my dear, dearfriend--my comrade--my pal----"
"Chuck it! Scotland Yard with the snuffles is enough to make thegods shriek, you dear old footler! Why, God bless your old soul,I----Brakes on! Let's talk about the new limousine. She's a beauty,isn't she? Locker, mirror: just like the old red one, and----Hello!I say, you are taking me into the country, I perceive; we've leftthe town behind us."
"Yes; we're bound for Darsham."
"Darsham? That's in Suffolk, isn't it? And about ninety-five milesfrom Liverpool Street Station, as the crow flies. So our littlebusiness to-day is to be an out-of-town affair, eh? Well, let's haveit. What's the case? Burglary?"
"No--murder. Happened last night. Got the news over the telephonethis morning. Nearly bowled me over when I heard it, by James! for Isaw the man alive--in town--only the day before yesterday. It's amurder of a peculiarly cunning and cleverly contrived character,Cleek, with no apparent motive, and absolutely no clue as to whatmeans the assassin used to kill his victim, nor how he managed to getin and out of the place in which the crime was committed. Thereisn't the slightest mark on the body. The man was not shot, notstabbed, not poisoned, nor did he die from natural causes. There isno trace of a struggle, yet the victim's face shows that he died ingreat agony, and was beyond all question the object of a murderousattack."
"Hum-m!" said Cleek, stroking his chin. "Sounds interesting, at allevents. Let's have the facts of the case, please. But first, who wasthe victim? Anybody of importance?"
"Of very great importance--in the financial world," replied Narkom."He is--or, rather, was--an American multi-millionaire; inventor,to speak by the card, of numerous electrical devices which broughthim wealth beyond the dreams of avarice, and carried his fame allover the civilized world. You will, no doubt, have heard of him. Hisname is Jefferson P. Drake."
"Oho!" said Cleek, arching his eyebrows. "That man, eh? Oh, yes, I'veheard of him often enough--very nearly everybody in England has bythis time. Chap who conceived the idea of bettering the conditionsof the poor by erecting art galleries that were to be filled andsupported out of the rates and, more or less modestly, to be knownby the donor's name. That's the man, isn't it?"
"Yes, that's the man."
"Just so. Stop a bit! Let's brush up my memory a trifle. OfEnglish extraction, wasn't he? And, having made his money in hisown native country, came to that of his father to spend it? Hadsocial aspirations, too, I believe; and, while rather vulgar inhis habits and tastes, was exceedingly warm-hearted--indeed,actually lovable--and made up for his own lack of education byspending barrels of money upon that of his son. Came to Englandsomething more than a year ago, if I remember rightly; bought a fineold place down in Suffolk, and proceeded forthwith to modernize itafter the most approved American ideas--steam heat, electriclights, a refrigerating plant for the purpose of supplying the iceand the creams and the frozen sweets so necessary to the Americanpalate; all that sort of thing, and set out forthwith to establishhimself as a sumptuous entertainer on the very largest possiblescale. That's the 'lay of the land,' isn't it?"
"Yes, that's it precisely. The estate he purchased was HeatheringtonHall, formerly Lord Fallowfield's place. The entail was brokenages ago, but no Fallowfield ever attempted to part with the placeuntil his present lordship's time. And although he has but onechild, a daughter, I don't suppose that he would have been temptedto do so, either, but that he was badly crippled--almost ruined,in fact--last year by unlucky speculations in the stock market, withthe result that it was either sell out to Jefferson P. Drake or besold out by his creditors. Naturally, he chose the former course.That it turned out to be a most excellent thing for him you willunderstand when I tell you that Drake conceived an almost violentliking for him and his daughter, Lady Marjorie Wynde, and not onlyinsisted upon their remaining at Heatherington Hall as his guestsin perpetuity, but designed eventually to bring the property backinto the possession of the original 'line' by a marriage betweenLady Marjorie and his son."
"Effective if not very original," commented Cleek, with one of hiscurious one-sided smiles. "And how did the parties most concernedview this promising little plan? Were they agreeable to thearrangement?"
"Not they. As a matter of fact, both have what you may call a 'heartinterest' elsewhere. Lady Marjorie, who, although she is somewhatof a 'Yes, papa,' and 'Please, papa,' young lady, and could, nodoubt, be induced to sacrifice herself for the family good, is, itappears, engaged to a young lieutenant who will one day come infor money, but hasn't more than enough to pay his mess bills atpresent, I believe. As for young Jim Drake--why, matters were evenworse with _him_. It turns out that he'd found the girl _he_ wantedbefore he left the States, and it took him just about twenty secondsto make his father understand that he'd be shot, hanged, drawn,quartered, or even reduced to mincemeat, before he'd give up thatgirl or marry any other, at any time or at any cost, from now tothe Judgment Day."
"Bravo!" said Cleek, slapping his palms together. "That's the spirit.That's the boy for my money, Mr. Narkom! Get a good woman and stickto her, through thick and thin, at all hazards and at any cost. Thejockey who 'swaps horses' in the middle of a race never yet camefirst under the wire nor won a thing worth having. Well, what wasthe result of this plain speaking on the young man's part? Pleasantor unpleasant?"
"Oh, decidedly unpleasant. The father flew into a rage, swore by allthat was holy, and by a great deal that wasn't, that he'd cut himoff 'without one red cent,' whatever that may mean, if he evermarried that particular girl; and as that particular girl--who isas poor as Job's turkey, by the way--happened by sheer perversityof fortune to have landed in England that very day, in companywith an eminent literary person whose secretary she had been forsome two or three years past, away marched the son, took out aspec
ial license, and married her on the spot."
"Well done, independence! I like that boy more than ever, Mr. Narkom.What followed? Did the father relent, or did he invite the pair ofthem to clear out and hoe their own row in future?"
"He did neither; he simply ignored their existence. Young Drakebrought his wife down to Suffolk and took rooms at a village inn,and then set out to interview his father. When he arrived at theHall he was told by the lodgekeeper that strangers weren't admitted,and, on his asking to have his name sent in, was informed thatthe lodgekeeper had 'never heard of no sich person as Mr. JamesDrake--that there wasn't none, and that the master said there neverhad been, neither'--and promptly double-locked the gates. What youngJames Drake did after that it appears that nobody knows, for nobodysaw him again until this morning; and it was only yesterday, Imust tell you, that he made that unsuccessful attempt to get into theplace to see his father. _He_ says, however, that he spent the timein going over to Ipswich and back in the hope of seeing a friendthere to whom he might apply for work. He says, too, that when hegot there he found that that friend--an American acquaintance--hadgiven up his rooms the day before, and rushed off to Italy inanswer to a cable from his sister; or so, at least, the landladytold him."
"Which, of course, the landlady can be relied upon to corroborate ifthere is any question regarding the matter? Is there?"
"Well, he seems to think that there may be. He's the client, youmust know. It was he that gave me the details over the telephone,and asked me to put you on the case. As he says himself, it'seasy enough to prove about his having gone to Ipswich to see hisfriend, but it isn't so easy to prove about his coming back in themanner he did. It seems he was too late for any return train, that hehadn't money enough left in the world to waste any by taking aprivate conveyance, so he walked back; and that, as it's a goodishstretch of country, and he didn't know the way, and couldn't atnight find anybody to ask, he lost himself more than once, with theconsequence that it was daylight when he got back to the inn, wherehis frightened wife sat awaiting him, never having gone to bed norclosed an eye all night, poor girl, fearing that some accident hadbefallen him. But, be that as it may, Cleek, during those hours hewas absent his father was mysteriously murdered in a round box ofa room in which he had locked himself, and to which, owing tostructural arrangements, it would seem impossible for anything tohave entered; and, as young Drake rightly says, the worst of it isthat the murder followed so close upon the heels of his quarreland promised disinheritance, that his father had no time to alterthe will which left him sole heir to everything; so that possiblypeople will talk."
"Undoubtedly," agreed Cleek. "And yet you said there was no motiveand absolutely no clue. M' yes! I wonder if I shall like thisindependent young gentleman quite so well after I have seen him."
"Oh, my dear fellow! Good heavens, man, you can't possibly think ofsuspecting him. Remember, it is he himself who brings the case--thatthe Yard would never have had anything to do with it but for him."
"Quite so. But the local constabulary would; and the simplest wayto blind a jackass is to throw dust in his eyes. They are naturalborn actors, the Americans; they are good schemers and fine planners.Their native game is 'bluff,' and they are very, very careful inthe matter of detail."
Then he pinched up his chin and sat silent for a moment, watchingthe green fields and the pleasant farmlands as the limousine wentpelting steadily on.