Chapter Twenty Four
A Further Tangle
Certainly, this was a most remarkable development. I listened without comment.
Yet when Faulkner had given me, at the luncheon table, all the details by way of “explanation,” as he put it, the tangle seemed even greater than before he had begun.
The will, dated three years previously, had been drawn up by a well-known firm of London lawyers. It was quite in order, and the testator’s name was Whichelo, Samuel Whichelo, formerly of Mexico City, merchant, but then resident at Wimbledon Common. The testator, who had been unmarried, left a few legacies to friends and servants, but practically the whole of his fortune he bequeathed entirely to Frank Faulkner, “in return for the considerable service he once rendered me.”
Faulkner had handed me a copy of the will – it was quite a short will. When I came to this sentence I naturally looked up.
“Ah!” I said, “then there is a method in the testator’s madness. But I thought you told me you had never even heard his name.”
“Until yesterday I never had heard it.”
“Then what was this ‘considerable service’ he says you rendered him?”
“Well, I’ll tell you,” he said. “Years ago, when I was knocking about the world – I was then about twenty – I chanced to find myself, one night, in the China Town of San Francisco. I had a friend with me, about my own age. Foolishly, we were exploring at night, alone – that is, without an interpreter or guide of any sort, which is about as risky a thing as any ordinary unarmed European can do in San Francisco, where you may still, I believe, find the scum of all the nations. Suddenly we heard a cry. A man was calling, ‘
Au secours! Au secours
!’ Without stopping to think, I rushed in the direction whence the cry came. It was repeated. It was in a house which I recognised, at a glance, as an establishment of doubtful repute. I must tell you that when I was twenty I was considered a first-rate boxer, and it may have been the confidence I felt in my ability to defend myself that made me rush, without hesitation, into that Chinese den. Cards and chits were scattered about the tables and on the floor, and nine or ten Chinamen were in the room, struggling furiously with a tall, dark man of powerful build, who was being rapidly overcome owing to the number of his assailants. Chinese oaths were flying about freely, and I saw a knife-blade flash suddenly into the air.”
He paused for a second, then continued —
“My blood was up. I felt as I feel sometimes now, that I didn’t care for anything or any one or what might happen to me. I rushed at the nearest Chinaman like a maniac – I believe he thought I was one. My first blow knocked him silly. Then, right and left I hit out. I was in perfect condition at that time. Down went the Chinamen one after another, as my blows caught them on the chin – I used to be famous for that chin-blow, I ‘specialised’ in it, so to speak. I detest boasting. I tell this only to you, because I think it may amuse you and explain my windfall. In less than two minutes I had stretched five of the Chinamen senseless with that chin-blow, and the remaining three or four, seized with panic, fled.”
“What then?” I asked.
“At once I led the man who had called for help out into the street. I saw he was pretty badly hurt, so with the help of my friend, who had now joined me again, I got him out of China Town, expecting to be set upon at any moment by friends of those Chinamen, thirsting for revenge. Though he had called ‘
Au secours
!’ he was not French, it seemed. He was British Portuguese, though he lived in Mexico, he told me later. We got him to the hospital. ‘I must have your name – I must have your name,’ he exclaimed quite excitedly, as I was leaving, I remember. ‘You have rendered me a service I shall never forget – never. You must come and see me to-morrow.’ I told him I could not do that, as I was leaving early next morning for Raymund, on my way to the Yosemite Valley. But I said I hoped we might meet again some day, and, as he insisted upon my doing so, I gave him a card with my address – my London club address. It was at the club that I found, yesterday morning, the communication from his lawyers.”
“And by Gad!” I exclaimed enthusiastically, “you deserve this ‘bit of luck,’ as you call it, Frank. I think you acted splendidly!”
“Oh, for Heaven’s sake don’t become emotional, old chap,” he said hurriedly. “If you knew how I hate gush, you wouldn’t.”
“It isn’t gush,” I answered. “What wouldn’t I have given to see you buckling up those Chinamen one after another. Splendid!”
I turned to Violet.
“I congratulate you,” I said, taking her hand, “on marrying a real man. I think the two of you are the pluckiest pair I have ever met. It will be long before I forget that incident on the roof of Château d’Uzerche. But for you, neither Frank nor I would be alive to-day.”
“Nor the Baronne, nor Dago Paulton,” she added mischievously. “Oh, yes, I am a heroine! A heroine to save such very precious lives!”
“Are you not grateful to the Baronne?” I asked quickly. “After all, she did adopt you, and bring you up.”
“Yes,” the girl answered, with a swift, reproachful glance, “she adopted me and brought me up, but only that I might help to further her own ends. She didn’t adopt me out of affection, I can assure you.”
I saw that I had again trodden upon thin ice, so I quickly changed the topic.
“But the great mystery,” I said, addressing Faulkner, “is not yet solved. How on earth did Whichelo’s will, leaving you this fortune, come to be in the safe in Château d’Uzerche, in the Basses Alpes? When did Whichelo die?”
“Four months ago. The lawyers distinctly remember him making a will, but he had never returned it to them, and, since his death, they had been trying to find it. They even advertised for it.”
“To whom would his fortune have gone, had he died intestate?” I inquired suddenly.
“To his younger brother, Henry. From what the lawyers tell me, this brother of his must be a peculiar man. His life appears to be a mystery. He is, however, known to be intimate with your friend, Sir Charles Thorold. Sir Charles and he were in Mexico together ten years ago, the lawyers tell me, and were there again about three years ago.”
“Who are the lawyers who wrote to you?” something prompted me to ask.
“You mean about the will? Oh, a firm in Lincoln’s Inn, Spink and Peters.”
Instantly I thought of old Taylor.
“Ah,” I said, “I have heard of them. Thorold has had some business dealings with them. By the way – who opened the safe?”
“The French police. It seems, that since the fire, neither Dago Paulton nor the Baronne de Coudron have shown any signs of life. Even the insurance people have not been written to by them.”
“Paulton and the Baronne are probably afraid of being arrested,” I said at once.
We talked a little longer, but Faulkner seemed unable to throw any further light on the mystery of the will being found in the safe, and the lawyers were equally in the dark. Probably they would never have heard of the will had the French police not communicated with them.
“Oh, I have another bit of news for you,” Faulkner said suddenly. “Sir Charles Thorold is to return to Houghton.”
“My father going back to Houghton!” Vera exclaimed, amazed. “Why, who told you that? I’ve heard nothing of it.”
“Read it in the newspaper this morning,” Faulkner answered. “I have the paper here – in my pocket.”
He tugged out of his coat-pocket a copy of a morning paper, unfolded it, and presently found the announcement.
“There it is,” he said, passing the paper to her, with his finger on the paragraph.
The announcement ran as follows —
“We are able to state that Sir Charles and Lady Thorold have decided to return to their country residence, Houghton Park, in Rutland, which has been vacant since the mysterious affair when the body of Sir Charles’ butler was discovered in the lake at Houghton, and the chauffeur from Oakham was shot dead by an unknown assassin. The news is creating considerable interest throughout the county.”
“What an astonishing thing!” I exclaimed. “Really, one may cease being surprised at anything. I wonder how ‘the county’ will receive them. I prophecy that the majority of Rutland society will cut them dead, after what has happened.”
“Why should they?” Faulkner asked, in surprise. “There’s no reason why they should,” I answered “I only say they will. You don’t know Rutland county people – or you wouldn’t ask.”
Vera’s lunch-party had proved a great success. The four of us had been in the best of spirits. And yet, once, at least, during the meal, Paulton’s face, dark, threatening, floated into my imagination, and again I heard that ominous threat he had uttered in Paris that night, the last words I had heard him speak —
“I shall be even with you soon, in a way you don’t expect.”
Where was he at this moment? What plot was he hatching? Had he left Paris? Was he in London? Would he and the Baronne try to get Violet away from Faulkner by force?
Though now we were all so light-hearted, I could not help thinking of Paulton and the Baronne, and wondering what their next clever move would be. It was not to be supposed they would remain dormant. They were probably lying “doggo,” in order to spring with greater force.
During the same week I looked in again at Rodney Street on my policeman, who expressed himself delighted to see me. Some days had now passed since I had forced my way into the house in Belgrave Street during the night. I was wondering what had happened there since; whether lights had been seen again; whether anybody else had been into the place; or if the body and the gold had been removed.
When he had pushed forward his most comfortable chair, and I had seated myself in it, the constable said: “I have some news for you to-day, sir.”
“News?” I exclaimed. “What kind of news?”
“Well, simply this, sir. All them sacks of money has been removed, but the mummy has been left just where it was. The police have possession of it now.”
“When did they take possession of it?” I asked quickly, starting up.
“Yesterday. Mr Spink, in whose hands the house is during Sir Charles Thorold’s absence, went there. I see him when he comes out, and I never in my life see a man look so white and scared. He found the body lying there, of course, also all the furniture pushed about, and the great hole cut in the ceiling. When he came out he was as terrible pale, and shivering with excitement. It was about three in the afternoon. He called me at once, and I went in with the man on point-duty. Everything was much as when you and me saw it, sir, only there wasn’t no money.”
“Then of course Whichelo and Sir Charles have taken it away. I wonder at their leaving the body, though. Such a give-away, isn’t it? Did the police find out how the men entered and left the house?”
“I found that out, sir – quite by charnce. There’s a way into a cellar we didn’t know of, and that cellar leads into the cellar of the house adjoining, which is empty. That’s the way they went in and out. It was easy to see as how somebody had been to and fro that way.”
“Do the police know anything of the money?” I asked. “Didn’t they see any sign of it at all?”
“No, sir. Nor Mr Spink didn’t neither.”
“Do they suspect who has been into the house?”
“No, sir, they ain’t got no idea. And about the body and how it got there, they are quite at sea.” Sauntering along Victoria Street, Westminster, half-an-hour later, the thought occurred to me to look in on my doctor, David Agnew, who was also my old personal friend.
For some days I had not been well. A feeling of lassitude had come over me, also loss of appetite. Agnew was generally able to prescribe for my simple ailments.
He was a bright, genial fellow, and merely to meet him seemed to do one good. None would have taken him for the celebrated bacteriologist he was, for I – and I think most people – usually picture a bacteriologist as a cadaverous, ascetic, preternaturally solemn individual, with a bald head, wrinkled brow, and large, gold-rimmed spectacles. It was Thorold who had introduced me to Agnew many years before, and many and many a time had the three of us dined together.
At first I was told that the doctor was “not at home,” but upon sending in my card, I was immediately admitted.
The shock I received upon entering Agnew’s consulting-room, I am not likely to forget. Instead of the hearty greeting I had expected, I was faced by a man whose staring eyes spoke terror. It was Agnew, but I saw at once that something terrible must have happened.
He was pacing the room with his handkerchief to his mouth when I entered. He turned at once, and came over to me.
“Ashton,” he said abruptly, taking my hand in both his own, and gripping it so that I almost cried out, “I have an awful thing to tell you – you are the one man in whom I can confide in this crisis, and I am truly glad you’ve come. I feel I must tell some one. I shall go mad if I don’t.”
His expression appalled me.
“What is it? What?” I exclaimed. “For Heaven’s sake don’t look at me like this!”
“I must tell you, I must,” he gasped. “Our mutual, our dear friend, Charles Thorold, was in here an hour ago. I had been called out for five minutes, but he said he would wait. As I had a patient in here, Gregory, my man, showed Thorold into the room upstairs – my laboratory. In an open box on the table were several little glass tubes containing bacilli – different sorts of bacilli that I’ve been cultivating. It seems that Charles, with fatal curiosity, picked up one of these tubes to examine it. The glass of the tube is very thin. One of them broke in his hand – ah! What catastrophe could be more complete? It’s terrible… horrible!” He stopped abruptly, unable to go on.
“Well? Why so terrible! Tell me!” I exclaimed.
He pulled himself together with an effort.
“That tube contained a cultivation of pneumonic plague,” he exclaimed huskily, “one of the deadliest microbes known. The blood-serum in which I had grown the germs fell upon his hands. Not suspecting the danger, he actually wiped it off with his handkerchief! I did not return until a quarter of an hour afterwards. The evil was then beyond remedy. He became infected!”
“Phew! What will happen now?”
“Happen? In a few days at most he will be dead! There are no recoveries from pneumonic plague – that most terrible contagious disease so well-known in Eastern Siberia and Japan. There is no hope for him. None. You hear – none!”
“By Gad!” I gasped, horrified. “You can’t mean it. Where is Thorold now?”
“In isolation at St. George’s hospital. I sent him there at once. Oh! Heaven, it is too terrible to think of – and my fault, all my fault for leaving the tube there!”
I tried to calm him, but he was quite beside himself.
I halted, astounded at the gravity of the situation.
Chapter Twenty Five
Towards the Truth
Though I hated to cause pain to Vera, I realised that I must immediately tell her. The thought of breaking the terrible news to her upset me, yet the thing had to be faced.
Never shall I forget those awful moments. I had tried to break the news gently, but how can such tragic news be broken “gently”? That conventional word is surely a mockery when used in such a connexion.
She was devoted to her parents. What seemed to trouble her now more than anything else, was the fact that we did not know her mother’s whereabouts, and so could not inform her of the frightful
contretemps
.
“Try not to worry, dearest,” I said, placing my hand tenderly upon her shoulder, and kissing her upon the lips in an endeavour to soothe her. “We are bound very soon to find out where she is.”
“Yes,” she retorted bitterly, “and by that time – by that time poor father may be dead!”
She was silent for a few moments, then she said —
“The only thought that comforts me, dear, a little, is that, if he should die, the living lie will die with him. He is so good, so kind, so self-sacrificing, that I think he would be quite ready to die if he thought his death would relieve us of the fearful tension of these last horrible years. My dear, dear father! Ah, how stormy has his life been! Does he know what you have just told me – I mean, that he cannot live?”
“No,” I replied.
She began to weep bitterly again, and I did my best to calm her, and kissed her again. I told her he did not know the danger, which was the truth. Agnew had only told him the germs would probably make him very ill for awhile.
The house-physician at the hospital had not broken the actual truth to him – the truth that, infected with such deadly germs he was doomed to death. Perhaps I ought not to have told Vera the whole ghastly truth. Yet, upon carefully considering the matter, I had decided that frankness would be better.
“I will telephone to St. George’s,” I said, a little later, “and ask for the latest news. You’d better not go to see him until the house-physician gives you leave. He asked me to tell you that.”
The reply was satisfactory. Sir Charles was not in pain, the hall-porter said. He was slightly feverish. That was all. What grim consolation!
Two eager days passed. Still Lady Thorold showed no sign of life. I had telephoned to Messrs Spink and Peters. Also I had telegraphed to Houghton Park, as it was said Lady Thorold intended to return there. But to no purpose. One thing that surprised me was that Whichelo had not been to the hospital. Where was he during these days? Had he, too, not heard of the calamity?
“You have not heard the exciting news,” I said to Faulkner, when I met him outside the Devonshire on the way to his club.
“What exciting news?” he inquired, in his cool phlegmatic way. “You get excited so easily, Dick, if you will forgive my saying so.”
He listened with interest to the news, and when I had done talking, he said quite calmly —
“Curious to relate, I saw the Baroness, Paulton and Henderson not ten minutes ago.”
“Saw them!” I gasped. “Where?”
“In Piccadilly, not thirty yards from here. They turned up Dover Street, and went down in the tube lift.”
“Are you positive?”
“Quite. I couldn’t well forget them. They were walking together, laughing and chatting as though nothing were amiss. I admire that kind of nerve.”
Meanwhile, the newspapers were full of the remarkable discovery of the mummified man in Sir Charles Thorold’s house in Belgrave Street. The hole cut in the ceiling gave rise to all sorts of wild surmises.
It did not, however, occur to any of the reporters that the body might have been hidden between the ceiling and the floor.
What the newspapers worried about most was the mummy’s age. Experts put their heads together, and put on their spectacles. Some were of the opinion that it must be centuries old. Sir Charles, the one man who might have thrown some light upon it could not, of course, be questioned. Only one medical expert, an old professor, differed from his
confrères
. A wizened little man, himself not unlike a mummy, he maintained, in the face of scientific ridicule, that the mummy found in Belgrave Street had been dead “less than twenty years.” Further, he pronounced that the method of embalming was a process uncommon in this country or in Egypt, but still in vogue in China and in Mexico. He believed the body to be, he said, that of a man of middle-age, a Spaniard, or possibly a Mexican.
The news of Sir Charles’ condition was more satisfactory that evening, inasmuch as the sister at the hospital told me, when I called, that he was still no worse. Perhaps, after all, Dr Agnew had been mistaken. Oh, how I hoped he had been, for my own sake, almost as much as for my darling’s.
“I think,” I said to Vera, whose spirits rose a little when she heard my report, “that to-morrow morning I will run down to Oakham, to have another look at Houghton.”
“What on earth for?” she exclaimed, in a tone of surprise. “I intended asking father to-day, when I saw him at the hospital, if the report that he intended returning to Houghton were true. He seemed so hot and restless however, that I decided not to ask him until to-morrow. I do believe he is going to get better, don’t you? But now, tell me what good do you think you will do by going out to Houghton?”
“Good?” I answered. “I don’t expect or intend to do good. No, it is merely that something – I can’t tell you what – prompts me to go again to see the place.”
“How silly!” Vera declared, as I thought rather rudely. Modern girls are so dreadfully outspoken. I do sometimes wish we were back in the days when a matron would raise her hands in dismay and exclaim: “Oh, fie!” or “Oh, la!” when a young girl did aught that seemed to her “unladylike.”
Yet, in spite of Vera’s remonstrance, I caught a train to Oakham early next morning. Sir Charles had had a restless night, the hospital porter told me on the telephone, before I started, but his condition was surprisingly satisfactory.
Then I rang up Dr Agnew.
“Don’t you think he may, after all, recover?” I inquired eagerly.
In reply the doctor said he “only hoped and trusted that he might.” More than that, he would not tell me. I gathered, therefore, that he still had serious fears.
I arrived at the
Stag’s Head
, in Oakham, in time for lunch. Directly after lunch I started out for Houghton in a hired car.
What a lot had happened, I reflected, as in the same car in which the chauffeur had been shot, we purred down the main street, since I had last set out along that road. What a number of stirring incidents had occurred – incidents crowded into the space of a few weeks. But at last they seemed to be coming to an end. That thought relieved me a good deal. Ah, if only – if only Thorold would recover!
The drive to Houghton from Oakham was a pretty one, past woods and rich grazing pastures until suddenly, turning into the great lodge-gates, we went for nearly a quarter of a mile up the old beech avenue to where stood the old Elizabethan house, a large, rambling pile of stone, so full of historic associations.
On pulling up at the ancient portico, I found to my surprise, the front door ajar. I pushed it open and entered. There was nobody in the big stone hall – how well I remembered the last day when we had all had tea there after hunting, and that fateful message from the butler that “Mr Smithson” had called to see Sir Charles. I made my way into the drawing-rooms, then into the morning-room, and afterwards into the dining-room. The doors were all unlocked, but the rooms were empty. It was while making my way towards the kitchen quarters that I heard footsteps somewhere in the house.
They were coming down the back stairs.
I waited at the foot of