Part 21 (1/2)
The cab drove off. For a moment I stood looking after it, in a state of dreamy incert.i.tude, then turned and slowly retraced my steps. Reopening the door of my chambers with my key, I returned to my study and sat down at the table to endeavour to arrange the facts of what I recognized to be a really amazing episode. The adventure, trifling though it seemed, undoubtedly held some hidden significance that at present was not apparent to me. In accordance with the excellent custom of my friend, Paul Harley, I prepared to make notes of the occurrence while the facts were still fresh in my memory. At the moment that I was about to begin, I made an astounding discovery.
Although I had been absent only a few minutes, and had locked my door behind me, the pigtail was gone!
I sat quite still, listening intently. The woman's story of the yellow man on the stairs suddenly a.s.sumed a totally different aspect--a new and sinister aspect. Could it be that the pigtail was at the bottom of the mystery?--could it be that some murderous Chinaman who had been lurking in hiding, waiting his opportunity, had in some way gained access to my chambers during that brief absence? If so, was he gone?
From the table drawer I took out a revolver, ascertained that it was fully loaded, and turning up light after light as I proceeded, conducted a room-to-room search. It was without result; there was absolutely nothing to indicate that anyone had surrept.i.tiously entered or departed from my chambers.
I returned to the study and sat gazing at the revolver lying on the blotting-pad before me. Perhaps my mind worked slowly, but I think that fully fifteen minutes must have pa.s.sed before it dawned on me that the explanation not only of the missing pigtail but of the other incidents of the night, was simple enough. The yellow man had been a fabrication, and my dark-eyed visitor had not been in quest of ”Raphael Philips,” but in quest of the pigtail: and her quest had been successful!
”What a hopeless fool I am!” I cried, and banged my fist down upon the table, ”there was no yellow man at all--there was-----”
My door bell rang. I sprang nervously to my feet, glanced at the revolver on the table--and finally dropped it into my coat pocket ere going out and opening the door.
On the landing stood a police constable and an officer in plain clothes.
”Your name is Malcolm Knox?” asked the constable, glancing at a note-book which he held in his hand.
”It is,” I replied.
”You are required to come at once to Bow Street to identify a woman who was found murdered in a taxi-cab in the Strand about eleven o'clock to-night.”
I suppressed an exclamation of horror; I felt myself turning pale.
”But what has it to do------”
”The driver stated she came from your chambers, for you saw her off, and her last words to you were 'Good night, Mr. Knox, I am sincerely sorry to have given you all this trouble.' Is that correct, sir?”
The constable, who had read out the information in an official voice, now looked at me, as I stood there stupefied.
”It is,” I said blankly. ”I'll come at once.” It would seem that I had misjudged my unfortunate visitor: her story of the yellow man on the stair had apparently been not a fabrication, but a gruesome fact!
III
HOW I REGAINED IT
My ghastly duty was performed; I had identified the dreadful thing, which less than an hour before had been a strikingly beautiful woman, as my mysterious visitor. The police were palpably disappointed at the sparsity of my knowledge respecting her. In fact, had it not chanced that Detective Sergeant Durham was in the station, I think they would have doubted the accuracy of my story.
As a man of some experience in such matters, I fully recognized its improbability, but beyond relating the circ.u.mstances leading up to my possession of the pigtail and the events which had ensued, I could do no more in the matter. The weird relic had not been found on the dead woman, nor in the cab.
Now the unsavoury business was finished, and I walked along Bow Street, racking my mind for the master-key to this mystery in which I was become enmeshed. How I longed to rush off to Harley's rooms in Chancery Lane and to tell him the whole story! But my friend was a thousand miles away--and I had to see the thing out alone.
That the pigtail was some sacred relic stolen from a Chinese temple and sought for by its fanatical custodians was a theory which persistently intruded itself. But I could find no place in that hypothesis for the beautiful Jewess; and that she was intimately concerned I did not doubt.
A cool survey of the facts rendered it fairly evident that it was she and none other who had stolen the pigtail from my rooms. Some third party--possibly the ”yellow man” of whom she had spoken--had in turn stolen it from her, strangling her in the process.
The police theory of the murder (and I was prepared to accept it) was that the a.s.sa.s.sin had been crouching in hiding behind or beside the cab--or even within the dark interior. He had leaped in and attacked the woman at the moment that the taxi-man had started his engine; if already inside, the deed had proven even easier. Then, during some block in the traffic, he had slipped out unseen, leaving the body of the victim to be discovered when the cab pulled up at the hotel.
I knew of only one place in London where I might hope to obtain useful information, and for that place I was making now. It was Malay Jack's, whence I had been bound on the previous night when my strange meeting with the seaman who then possessed the pigtail had led to a change of plan. The sc.u.m of the Asiatic population always come at one time or another to Jack's, and I hoped by dint of a little patience to achieve what the police had now apparently despaired of achieving--the discovery of the a.s.sa.s.sin.