CHAPTER XXX
It was five and after when the superintendent, pale and shakingwith excitement, came up the long drive from the Hall gates andfound Cleek lounging in the doorway of the house, placidly smokinga cigarette and twirling a little ball of crumpled newspaper in hishand.
"Right was I, Mr. Narkom?" he queried smilingly.
"Good God, yes! Right as rain, old chap. Been carrying it for upwardof a twelvemonth, and no doubt waiting for an opportunity to strike."
"Good! And while you have been attending to your little part of thebusiness I've been looking out for mine, dear friend. Look!" saidCleek, and opened up the little ball of paper sufficiently to showwhat looked like a cut-glass scent bottle belonging to a lady'sdressing-bag close stoppered with a metal plug sealed round withcandle wax. "Woorali, my friend; and enough in it to kill an army.Come along--we've got to the bottom of the thing, let us go up and'report.' The gentlemen will be getting anxious."
They were; for on reaching the armoury they found young Drake andLord Fallowfield showing strong traces of the mental strain underwhich they were labouring and talking agitatedly with Lady MarjorieWynde, who had, in the interim, come up and joined them, and washerself apparently in need of something to sustain and to strengthenher; for Ojeebi was standing by with an extended salver, from whichshe had just lifted to her lips a glass of port.
"Good God! I never was so glad to see anybody in my life, gentlemen,"broke out young Drake as they appeared. "It's beyond the hour youasked for--ages beyond--and my nerves are almost pricking their waythrough my skin. Mr. Cleek--Mr. Narkom--speak up, for heaven'ssake. Have you succeeded in finding out anything?"
"We've done better than that, Mr. Drake," replied Cleek, "for wehave succeeded in finding out everything. Look sharp there, Mr.Narkom, and shut that door. Lady Marjorie looks as if she were goingto faint, and we don't want a whole houseful of servants piling inhere. That's it. Back against the door, please; her ladyship seems onthe point of crumpling up."
"No, no, I'm not; indeed, I'm not!" protested Lady Marjorie witha forced smile and a feeble effort to hold her galloping nerves incheck. "I am excited and very much upset, of course, but I am reallymuch stronger than you would think. Still, if you would rather Ishould leave the room, Mr. Cleek----"
"Oh, by no means, your ladyship. I know how anxious you are to learnthe result of my investigations. And, by that token, somebody elseis anxious, too--the doctor. Call him in, will you, Mr. Drake? He isstill with the others in the Stone Drum, I assume."
He was; and he came out of it with them at young Drake's call, andjoined the party in the armoury.
"Doctor," said Cleek, looking up as he came in, "we've got to thepuzzle's unpicking, and I thought you'd be interested to hear theresult. I was right about the substance employed, for I've foundthe stuff and I've nailed the guilty party. It was woorali, andthe reason why there was no trace of a weapon was because theblessed thing melted. It was an icicle, my friend, an icicle withits point steeped in woorali, and if you want to know how it didits work--why, it was shot in there from the cross-bow hangingon the wall immediately behind me, and the person who shot it inwas so short that a chair was necessary to get up to the bowman'sslit when----No, you don't, my beauty! There's a gentleman with anoose waiting to pay his respects to all such beasts as you!"
Speaking, he sprang with a sharp, flashing movement that was liketo nothing so much as the leap of a pouncing cat, and immediatelythere was a yap and a screech, a yell and a struggle, a click ofclamping handcuffs, and a scuffle of writhing limbs, and a momentlater they that were watching saw him rise with a laugh, and stand,with his hands on his hips, looking down at Ojeebi lying crumpledup in a heap, with gyves on his wrists and panic in his eyes, atthe foot of the guarded door.
"Well, my pleasant-faced, agreeable little demon, it'll be many along day before the spirits of your ancestors welcome you back toNippon!" Cleek said as the panic-stricken Jap, realizing what wasbefore him, began to shriek and shriek until his brain and nervessank into a collapse and he fainted where he lay. "I've got you andI've got the woorali. I went through your trunk and found it--as Iknew I should from the moment I clapped eyes upon you. If the lawsof the country are so lax that they make it possible for you to dowhat you have done, they also are stringent enough to make you paythe price of it with your yellow little neck!"
"In the name of heaven, Mr. Cleek," spoke up young Drake, breakingsilence suddenly, "what can the boy have done? You speak as if itwere he that murdered my father; but, man, why should he? What hadhe to gain? What motive could a harmless little chap like this havefor killing the man he served?"
"The strongest in the world, my friend--the greed of gain!" saidCleek. "What he could not do in your father's land it is possiblefor him to do in this one, which foolishly allows its subjects toinsure even the life of its ruler without his will, knowledge, orconsent. For nearly a twelvemonth this little brute has been carryinga heavy insurance upon the life of Jefferson P. Drake; but, thankGod, he'll never live to collect it. What's that, Doctor? How didI find that out? By the simplest means possible, my dear sir.
"For a reason which concerns nobody but myself, I dropped in atthe Guildford office of the Royal British Life Assurance Societyin the latter part of last May, and upon that occasion I markedthe singular circumstance that a Japanese was then paying thepremium of an already existing policy. Why I speak of it as asingular circumstance, and why I let myself be impressed by it, liein the fact that, as the Japanese regard their dead ancestorswith absolute veneration and the privilege of being united withthem a boon which makes death glorious, life assurance is notpopular with them, since it seems to be insulting their ancestorsand makes joining them tainted with the odour of baser things.Consequently, I felt pretty certain that it was some other lifethan his own he was there to pay the regularly recurring premiumupon. The chances are, Doctor, that in the ordinary run of things Ishould never have thought of that man or that circumstance again.But it so happens that I have a very good memory for faces andevents, so when I came down here to investigate this case, and inthe late Mr. Drake's valet saw that Japanese man again--voila! Ishould have been an idiot not to put two and two together.
"The remainder, a telegram inquiring if an insurance upon the lifeof Jefferson P. Drake, the famous inventor, had been effected byanybody but the man himself, settled the thing beyond question. Asfor the rest, it is easy enough to explain. Your remark that thelittle puddle found upon the floor of the Stone Drum appeared to youto bear a distinct resemblance to the water resulting from meltedsnow, added to what I already knew regarding the refrigeratingplant installed here, put me on the track of the ice; and as thesmall spot on the temple was of so minute a character, I knew thatthe weapon must have been pointed. A pointed weapon of ice leaves butone conclusion possible, Doctor. I have since learned from the manin charge of the refrigerating plant that this yellow blob ofiniquity here was much taken by the icicles which the process ofrefrigeration caused to accumulate in the place and upon themachine itself during rotation, and that last night shortlyafter twelve o'clock he came down and broke off and carried awaythree of them. How I came to know what motive power he employedto launch the poisoned shaft can be explained in a word. Most of theweapons--indeed, all but one--hanging on the wall of this armouryare lightly coated with dust, showing that it must be a week ormore since any housemaid's work was attended to in this particularquarter. One of them is not dusty. Furthermore, when I took itdown for the purpose of examining it I discovered that, althoughsmeared with ink or paint to make it look as old as the others, thebowstring was of fresh catgut, and there was a suspicious dampnessabout the 'catch,' which suggested either wet hands or the partialmelting, under the heat of living flesh, of the 'shaft,' which hadbeen an icicle. That's all, Doctor; that's all, Mr. Drake; that'squite all, Lord Fallowfield. A good, true-hearted young chapwill get both the girl he wants and the inheritance which should behis by right; a good, true friend will get back the ancestral homehe lost th
rough misfortune and has regained through chance, and apatient and faithful lady will, in all probability, get the manshe loves without now having to wait until he comes into a deadman's shoes. Lady Marjorie, my compliments. Doctor, my bestrespects, and gentlemen all--good afternoon."
And here with that weakness for the theatrical which was hisbesetting sin, he bowed to them with his hat laid over his heart, andwalked out of the room.