Part 6 (1/2)
However, although it ruined Barrington-Edwards for the time being, and embittered him so that he never married, he certainly had the satisfaction of knowing that the fellow who had caused this trouble turned out an absolute rotter, spent all his wife's money and brought her down to absolute beggary, whereas, if she'd stuck to Barrington-Edwards she'd have been a wealthy woman indeed, to-day. He's worth half a million at the least calculation.”
”How's that? Somebody die and leave him a fortune?”
”No. He had a little of his own. Speculated, while he was in the East, in precious stones and land which he had reason to believe likely to produce them; succeeded beyond his wildest hopes, and is to-day head of the firm of Barrington-Edwards, Morpeth & Firmin, the biggest dealers in precious stones that Hatton Garden can boast of.”
”Oho!” said Cleek. ”I see! I see!” and screwed round on his heel and looked out of the window again. Then, after a moment: ”And Mr.
Barrington-Edwards lives in the neighbourhood of Hampstead Heath, does he?” he asked quite calmly. ”Alone?”
”No. With his nephew and heir, young Mr. Archer Blaine, a dead sister's only child. As a matter of fact, it was Mr. Archer Blaine himself who discovered the body of the fifth victim. Coming home at a quarter to one from a visit to an old college friend, he found the man lying stone dead in the shadow of the wall surrounding Lemmingham House, and, of course, lost no time in das.h.i.+ng indoors for a police whistle and summoning the constable on point duty in the district. The body was at once given in charge of a hastily summoned detachment from the Yard and conveyed to the Hampstead mortuary, where it still lies awaiting identification.”
”Been photographed?”
”Not as yet. Of course it will be--as were the other four--prior to the time of burial should n.o.body turn up to claim it. But in this instance we have great hopes that identification _will_ take place on the strength of a marked peculiarity. The man is web-footed and----”
”The man is _what_?” rapped in Cleek excitedly.
”Web-footed,” repeated Narkom. ”The several toes are attached one to the other by a thin membrane, after the manner of a duck's feet; and on the left foot there is a peculiar h.o.r.n.y protuberance like----”
”Like a rudimentary sixth toe!” interrupted Cleek, fairly flinging the eager query at him. ”It is, eh? Well, by the Eternal! I once knew a fellow--years ago, in the Far East--whose feet were malformed like that; and if by any possibility----Stop a bit! A word more.
Is that man a big fellow--broad shouldered, muscular, and about forty or forty-five years of age?”
”You've described him to a T, dear chap. There is, however, a certain other peculiarity which you have not mentioned, though that, of course, maybe a recent acquirement. The palm of the right hand----”
”Wait a bit! Wait a bit!” interposed Cleek, a trifle irritably. He had swung away from the window and was now walking up and down the room with short nervous steps, his chin pinched up between his thumb and forefinger, his brows knotted, and his eyes fixed upon the floor.
”Saffragam--Jaffna--Trincomalee! In all three of them--in all three!”
he said, putting his running thoughts into muttered words. ”And now a dead man sticks his fingers in his nostrils and talks of sapphires. Sapphires, eh? And the Saffragam district stuck thick with them as spangles on a Nautch girl's veil. The Bareva for a ducat! The Bareva Reef or I'm a Dutchman! And Barrington-Edwards was in that with the rest. So was Peabody; so was Miles; and so, too, were Lieutenant Edgburn and the Spaniard, Juan Alvarez. Eight of them, b'gad--eight! And I was a.s.s enough to forget, idiot enough not to catch the connection until I heard again of Jim Peabody's web foot! But wait! Stop--there should be another marked foot if this is indeed a clue to the riddle, and so----”
He stopped short in his restless pacing and faced round on Mr. Narkom.
”Tell me something,” he said in a sharp staccato. ”The four other dead men--did any among them have an injured foot--the left or the right, I forget which--from which all toes but the big one had been torn off by a crocodile's bite, so that in life the fellow must have limped a little when he walked? Did any of the dead men bear a mark like that?”
”No,” said Narkom. ”The feet of all the others were normal in every particular.”
”Hum-m-m! That's a bit of a setback. And I am either on the wrong track or Alvarez is still alive. What's that? Oh, it doesn't matter; a mere fancy of mine, that's all. Now let us get back to our mutton, please. You were going to tell me something about the right hand of the man with the web foot. What was it?”
”The palm bore certain curious hieroglyphics traced upon it in bright purple.”
”Hieroglyphics, eh? That doesn't look quite so promising,” said Cleek in a disappointed tone. ”It is quite possible that there may be more than one web-footed man in the world, so of course----Hum-m-m! What were these hieroglyphics, Mr. Narkom? Can you describe them?”
”I can do better, my dear chap,” replied the superintendent, dipping into an inner pocket and bringing forth a brown leather case. ”I took an accurate tracing of them from the dead hand this morning, and--there you are. That's what's on his palm, Cleek, close to the base of the forefinger running diagonally across it.”
Cleek took the slip of tracing paper and carried it to the window, for the twilight was deepening and the room was filling with shadows.
In the middle of the thin, transparent sheet was traced this:
[Ill.u.s.tration of a handwritten message]
He turned it up and down, he held it to the light and studied it for a moment or two in perplexed silence, then of a sudden he faced round, and Narkom could see that his eyes were s.h.i.+ning and that the curious one-sided smile, peculiar unto him, was looping up his cheek.