CHAPTER III
In the early hours of the morning a tragic little party was assembled inthe study at Beston Priory. John Lexman, white and haggard, sat on thesofa with his wife by his side. Immediate authority as represented bya village constable was on duty in the passage outside, whilst T. X.sitting at the table with a writing pad and a pencil was briefly notingthe evidence.
The author had sketched the events of the day. He had described hisinterview with the money-lender the day before and the arrival of theletter.
"You have the letter!" asked T. X.
John Lexman nodded.
"I am glad of that," said the other with a sigh of relief, "that willsave you from a great deal of unpleasantness, my poor old chap. Tell mewhat happened afterward."
"I reached the village," said John Lexman, "and passed through it. Therewas nobody about, the rain was still falling very heavily and indeed Ididn't meet a single soul all the evening. I reached the place appointedabout five minutes before time. It was the corner of Eastbourne Roadon the station side and there I found Vassalaro waiting. I was ratherashamed of myself at meeting him at all under these conditions, but Iwas very keen on his not coming to the house for I was afraid it wouldupset Grace. What made it all the more ridiculous was this infernalpistol which was in my pocket banging against my side with every step Itook as though to nudge me to an understanding of my folly."
"Where did you meet Vassalaro?" asked T. X.
"He was on the other side of the Eastbourne Road and crossed the roadto meet me. At first he was very pleasant though a little agitated butafterward he began to behave in a most extraordinary manner as though hewas lashing himself up into a fury which he didn't feel. I promised hima substantial amount on account, but he grew worse and worse and then,suddenly, before I realised what he was doing, he was brandishing arevolver in my face and uttering the most extraordinary threats. Then itwas I remembered Kara's warning."
"Kara," said T. X. quickly.
"A man I know and who was responsible for introducing me to Vassalaro.He is immensely wealthy."
"I see," said T. X., "go on."
"I remembered this warning," the other proceeded, "and I thought itworth while trying it out to see if it had any effect upon the littleman. I pulled the pistol from my pocket and pointed it at him, but thatonly seemed to make it--and then I pressed the trigger....
"To my horror four shots exploded before I could recover sufficientself-possession to loosen my hold of the butt. He fell without a word.I dropped the revolver and knelt by his side. I could tell he wasdangerously wounded, and indeed I knew at that moment that nothing wouldsave him. My pistol had been pointed in the region of his heart...."
He shuddered, dropping his face in his hands, and the girl by his side,encircling his shoulder with a protecting arm, murmured something in hisear. Presently he recovered.
"He wasn't quite dead. I heard him murmur something but I wasn't ableto distinguish what he said. I went straight to the village and told theconstable and had the body removed."
T. X. rose from the table and walked to the door and opened it.
"Come in, constable," he said, and when the man made his appearance,"I suppose you were very careful in removing this body, and you tookeverything which was lying about in the immediate vicinity'?"
"Yes, sir," replied the man, "I took his hat and his walkingstick, ifthat's what you mean."
"And the revolver!" asked T. X.
The man shook his head.
"There warn't any revolver, sir, except the pistol which Mr. Lexmanhad."
He fumbled in his pocket and pulled it out gingerly, and T. X. took itfrom him.
"I'll look after your prisoner; you go down to the village, get any helpyou can and make a most careful search in the place where this manwas killed and bring me the revolver which you will discover. You'llprobably find it in a ditch by the side of the road. I'll give asovereign to the man who finds it."
The constable touched his hat and went out.
"It looks rather a weird case to me," said T. X., as he came back to thetable, "can't you see the unusual features yourself, Lexman! It isn'tunusual for you to owe money and it isn't unusual for the usurer todemand the return of that money, but in this case he is asking forit before it was due, and further than that he was demanding it withthreats. It is not the practice of the average money lender to go afterhis clients with a loaded revolver. Another peculiar thing is that if hewished to blackmail you, that is to say, bring you into contempt inthe eyes of your friends, why did he choose to meet you in a dark andunfrequented road, and not in your house where the moral pressure wouldbe greatest? Also, why did he write you a threatening letter which wouldcertainly bring him into the grip of the law and would have saved you agreat deal of unpleasantness if he had decided upon taking action!"
He tapped his white teeth with the end of his pencil and then suddenly,
"I think I'll see that letter," he said.
John Lexman rose from the sofa, crossed to the safe, unlocked it andwas unlocking the steel drawer in which he had placed the incriminatingdocument. His hand was on the key when T. X. noticed the look ofsurprise on his face.
"What is it!" asked the detective suddenly.
"This drawer feels very hot," said John,--he looked round as though tomeasure the distance between the safe and the fire.
T. X. laid his hand upon the front of the drawer. It was indeed warm.
"Open it," said T. X., and Lexman turned the key and pulled the draweropen.
As he did so, the whole contents burst up in a quick blaze of flame. Itdied down immediately and left only a little coil of smoke that flowedfrom the safe into the room.
"Don't touch anything inside," said T. X. quickly.
He lifted the drawer carefully and placed it under the light. In thebottom was no more than a few crumpled white ashes and a blister ofpaint where the flame had caught the side.
"I see," said T. X. slowly.
He saw something more than that handful of ashes, he saw the deadlyperil in which his friend was standing. Here was one half of theevidence in Lexman's favour gone, irredeemably.
"The letter was written on a paper which was specially prepared by achemical process which disintegrated the moment the paper was exposedto the air. Probably if you delayed putting the letter in the draweranother five minutes, you would have seen it burn before your eyes. Asit was, it was smouldering before you had turned the key of the box. Theenvelope!"
"Kara burnt it," said Lexman in a low voice, "I remember seeing him takeit up from the table and throw it in the fire."
T. X. nodded.
"There remains the other half of the evidence," he said grimly, and whenan hour later, the village constable returned to report that in spiteof his most careful search he had failed to discover the dead man'srevolver, his anticipations were realized.
The next morning John Lexman was lodged in Lewes gaol on a charge ofwilful murder.
A telegram brought Mansus from London to Beston Tracey, and T. X.received him in the library.
"I sent for you, Mansus, because I suffer from the illusion that youhave more brains than most of the people in my department, and that'snot saying much."
"I am very grateful to you, sir, for putting me right withCommissioner," began Mansus, but T. X. stopped him.
"It is the duty of every head of departments," he said oracularly, "toshield the incompetence of his subordinates. It is only by the adoptionof some such method that the decencies of the public life can beobserved. Now get down to this." He gave a sketch of the case from startto finish in as brief a space of time as possible.
"The evidence against Mr. Lexman is very heavy," he said. "He borrowedmoney from this man, and on the man's body were found particulars of thevery Promissory Note which Lexman signed. Why he should have brought itwith him, I cannot say. Anyhow I doubt very much whether Mr. Lexman willget a jury to accept his version. Our only chance is to find the Greek'srevolver--I don't think there's a
ny very great chance, but if we are tobe successful we must make a search at once."
Before he went out he had an interview with Grace. The dark shadowsunder her eyes told of a sleepless night. She was unusually pale andsurprisingly calm.
"I think there are one or two things I ought to tell you," she said, asshe led the way into the drawing room, closing the door behind him.
"And they concern Mr. Kara, I think," said T. X.
She looked at him startled.
"How did you know that?"
"I know nothing."
He hesitated on the brink of a flippant claim of omniscience, butrealizing in time the agony she must be suffering he checked his naturaldesire.
"I really know nothing," he continued, "but I guess a lot," and that wasas near to the truth as you might expect T. X. to reach on the spur ofthe moment.
She began without preliminary.
"In the first place I must tell you that Mr. Kara once asked me to marryhim, and for reasons which I will give you, I am dreadfully afraid ofhim."
She described without reserve the meeting at Salonika and Kara'sextravagant rage and told of the attempt which had been made upon her.
"Does John know this?" asked T. X.
She shook her head sadly.
"I wish I had told him now," she said. "Oh, how I wish I had!" She wrungher hands in an ecstasy of sorrow and remorse.
T. X. looked at her sympathetically. Then he asked,
"Did Mr. Kara ever discuss your husband's financial position with you!"
"Never."
"How did John Lexman happen to meet Vassalaro!"
"I can tell you that," she answered, "the first time we met Mr. Karain England was when we were staying at Babbacombe on a summerholiday--which was really a prolongation of our honeymoon. Mr. Kara cameto stay at the same hotel. I think Mr. Vassalaro must have been therebefore; at any rate they knew one another and after Kara's introductionto my husband the rest was easy.
"Can I do anything for John!" she asked piteously.
T. X. shook his head.
"So far as your story is concerned, I don't think you will advantage himby telling it," he said. "There is nothing whatever to connect Kara withthis business and you would only give your husband a great deal of pain.I'll do the best I can."
He held out his hand and she grasped it and somehow at that momentthere came to T. X. Meredith a new courage, a new faith and a greaterdetermination than ever to solve this troublesome mystery.
He found Mansus waiting for him in a car outside and in a few minutesthey were at the scene of the tragedy. A curious little knot ofspectators had gathered, looking with morbid interest at the place wherethe body had been found. There was a local policeman on duty and to himwas deputed the ungracious task of warning his fellow villagers to keeptheir distance. The ground had already been searched very carefully. Thetwo roads crossed almost at right angles and at the corner of the crossthus formed, the hedges were broken, admitting to a field which hadevidently been used as a pasture by an adjoining dairy farm. Some roughattempt had been made to close the gap with barbed wire, but it waspossible to step over the drooping strands with little or no difficulty.It was to this gap that T. X. devoted his principal attention. All thefields had been carefully examined without result, the four drains whichwere merely the connecting pipes between ditches at the sides of thecrossroads had been swept out and only the broken hedge and its tangleof bushes behind offered any prospect of the new search being rewarded.
"Hullo!" said Mansus, suddenly, and stooping down he picked up somethingfrom the ground.
T. X. took it in his hand.
It was unmistakably a revolver cartridge. He marked the spot whereit had been found by jamming his walking stick into the ground andcontinued his search, but without success.
"I am afraid we shall find nothing more here," said T. X., after halfan hour's further search. He stood with his chin in his hand, a frown onhis face.
"Mansus," he said, "suppose there were three people here, Lexman, themoney lender and a third witness. And suppose this third person for somereason unknown was interested in what took place between the two men andhe wanted to watch unobserved. Isn't it likely that if he, as I think,instigated the meeting, he would have chosen this place because thisparticular hedge gave him a chance of seeing without being seen?"
Mansus thought.
"He could have seen just as well from either of the other hedges, withless chance of detection," he said, after a long pause.
T. X. grinned.
"You have the makings of a brain," he said admiringly. "I agree withyou. Always remember that, Mansus. That there was one occasion in yourlife when T. X. Meredith and you thought alike."
Mansus smiled a little feebly.
"Of course from the point of view of the observer this was the worstplace possible, so whoever came here, if they did come here, droppingrevolver bullets about, must have chosen the spot because it wasget-at-able from another direction. Obviously he couldn't come down theroad and climb in without attracting the attention of the Greek who waswaiting for Mr. Lexman. We may suppose there is a gate farther along theroad, we may suppose that he entered that gate, came along the field bythe side of the hedge and that somewhere between here and the gate, hethrew away his cigar."
"His cigar!" said Mansus in surprise.
"His cigar," repeated T. X., "if he was alone, he would keep his cigaralight until the very last moment."
"He might have thrown it into the road," said Mansus.
"Don't jibber," said T. X., and led the way along the hedge. From wherethey stood they could see the gate which led on to the road about ahundred yards further on. Within a dozen yards of that gate, T. X. foundwhat he had been searching for, a half-smoked cigar. It was sodden withrain and he picked it up tenderly.
"A good cigar, if I am any judge," he said, "cut with a penknife, andsmoked through a holder."
They reached the gate and passed through. Here they were on the roadagain and this they followed until they reached another cross road thatto the left inclining southward to the new Eastbourne Road and that tothe westward looking back to the Lewes-Eastbourne railway. The rain hadobliterated much that T. X. was looking for, but presently he found afaint indication of a car wheel.
"This is where she turned and backed," he said, and walked slowly to theroad on the left, "and this is where she stood. There is the grease fromher engine."
He stooped down and moved forward in the attitude of a Russian dancer,"And here are the wax matches which the chauffeur struck," he counted,"one, two, three, four, five, six, allow three for each cigarette on aboisterous night like last night, that makes three cigarettes. Here isa cigarette end, Mansus, Gold Flake brand," he said, as he examined itcarefully, "and a Gold Flake brand smokes for twelve minutes in normalweather, but about eight minutes in gusty weather. A car was here forabout twenty-four minutes--what do you think of that, Mansus?"
"A good bit of reasoning, T. X.," said the other calmly, "if it happensto be the car you're looking for."
"I am looking for any old car," said T. X.
He found no other trace of car wheels though he carefully followedup the little lane until it reached the main road. After that it washopeless to search because rain had fallen in the night and in the earlyhours of the morning. He drove his assistant to the railway station intime to catch the train at one o'clock to London.
"You will go straight to Cadogan Square and arrest the chauffeur of Mr.Kara," he said.
"Upon what charge!" asked Mansus hurriedly.
When it came to the step which T. X. thought fit to take in thepursuance of his duty, Mansus was beyond surprise.
"You can charge him with anything you like," said T. X., with finecarelessness, "probably something will occur to you on your way up totown. As a matter of fact the chauffeur has been called unexpectedlyaway to Greece and has probably left by this morning's train for theContinent. If that is so, we can do nothing, because the boat will haveleft
Dover and will have landed him at Boulogne, but if by any luck youget him, keep him busy until I get back."
T. X. himself was a busy man that day, and it was not until night wasfalling that he again turned to Beston Tracey to find a telegram waitingfor him. He opened it and read,
"Chauffeur's name, Goole. Formerly waiter English Club, Constantinople.Left for east by early train this morning, his mother being ill."
"His mother ill," said T. X. contemptuously, "how very feeble,--I shouldhave thought Kara could have gone one better than that."
He was in John Lexman's study as the door opened and the maid announced,"Mr. Remington Kara."