Part 36 (2/2)
”Oh, do have a little care, signor! The bull in a china-shop is alone like this.” And he turned his back upon this stupid blunderer, even though Cleek was profuse in his apologies, and looked as sorry as he declared. After a time, however, he went off on another tack, for his quick-travelling glance had shown him Mr. Narkom in the house across the pa.s.sage, and he turned on his heel and walked away rapidly.
”Tell you what it is: it's this blessed glare of light that's accountable,” he said. ”A body's likely to stumble over anything with the light streaming into the place in this fas.h.i.+on. What you want in here is a bit of shade--like this.”
Here he crossed the room hastily and, reaching up, pulled down the long window blind with a sudden jerk. But before either Trent or the Italian could offer any objection to this interference with the conditions under which the waxworker chose to conduct his labours, he seemed, himself, to realize that the proceeding did not mend matters, and, releasing his hold upon the blind, let the spring of the roller carry it up again to its original position. As he did this he said with a peculiarly asinine air:
”That's a bit worse than the other, by Jip! Makes the blessed place too dashed dark altogether; so it's not the light that's to blame after all.”
”I should have thought even a fool might have known that!” gave back the waxworker, almost savagely. ”The light is poor enough as it is. Look for yourself. It is only the afterglow--and even that is already declining. _Pouffe!_” And here, as if in disgust too great for words, he blew the breath from his lips with a sharp, short gust, and facing about again went back to his work on the tableau.
Cleek made no response; nor yet did Trent. By this time even he had begun to think that accident more than brains must have been at the bottom of the man's many successes; that he was, in reality, nothing more than a blundering muddler; and, after another ten minutes of putting up with his crazy methods, had just made up his mind to appeal to Narkom for the aid of another detective, when the end which was all along being prepared came with such a rush that it fairly made his head swim.
All that he was ever able clearly to recall of it was that there came a sudden sound of clattering footsteps rus.h.i.+ng pell-mell up the staircase; that the part.i.tion door was flung open abruptly to admit Mr. Maverick Narkom, with three or four of the firm's employees pressing close upon his heels; that the superintendent had but just cried out excitedly, ”Yes, man, _yes!_” when there arose a wild clatter of falling figures, a snarl, a scuffle, a cry, and that, when he faced round in the direction of it, there was the Lucknow tableau piled up in a heap of fallen scenery and smashed waxworks, and in the middle of the ruin there was the ”signor” lying on his back with a band of steel upon each wrist, and over him Cleek, with a knee on the man's chest and the look of a fury in his eyes, crying aloud: ”Come out of it! Come out of it, you brute-beast! Your little dodge has failed!”
And hard on the heels of that shock Mr. Trent received another. For of a sudden he saw Cleek pluck a wig from the man's head and leave a white line showing above the place where the joining paste once had met the grease paint with which the fellow's face was coloured, and heard him say as he tossed that wig toward him and rose, ”Out of your own stage properties, Mr. Trent--borrowed to be returned like this.”
”Heaven above, man,” said Trent in utter bewilderment, ”what's the meaning of it all? Who is that man, then, since it's clear he's not Loti?”
”A very excellent actor in his day, Mr. Trent; his name is James Colliver,” replied Cleek. ”I came to this place fully convinced that Loti had murdered him; I now know that he murdered Loti, and that to that crime he has added a yet more abominable one by killing his own son!”
”It's a lie! It's a lie! I didn't! I didn't! I never saw the boy!”
screeched out Colliver in a very panic of terror. ”I've never killed any one. Loti sold out to me! Loti went back to France. I p.a.w.ned the jewels to get the money to pay him to go.”
”Oh, no, you didn't, my friend,” said Cleek. ”You performed that operation to shut Felix Murchison's mouth--the one man who could swear, and did swear, that James Colliver never left this building on the day of his disappearance, and who probably would have said more if you hadn't made it worth his while to shut his mouth and to disappear. You and I know, my friend, that Loti was the last man on this earth with whom you could come to terms upon anything. He had publicly declared that he would have your life, and he'd have kept his word if you hadn't turned the tables and killed him. You stole his wife, and you were never even man enough to marry her even though she had borne you a son and clung to you to the end, poor wretch! You killed Loti, and you killed your own son. No doubt he is better off, poor little chap, to be dead and gone rather than to live with the shadow of illegitimacy upon him; and no doubt, either, that when he came up here yesterday to meet Giuseppe Loti, he saw what I saw to-day, and knew you as I knew you then--the scar on the wrist, which was one of the marks of identification given me at the time I was sent to hunt you up! And you killed him to shut his mouth.”
”I didn't! I didn't!” he protested wildly. ”I never saw him. He wasn't here. The women in the house across the way will swear that they saw the empty room.”
”Not now!” declared Cleek, with emphasis. ”I've convinced them to the contrary. Mr. Trent, let a couple of your men come over here and take charge of this fellow, please, and I will convince you as well. That's right, my lads. Lay hold of the beggar and don't let him get a chance to make a dash for the stairs. Got him fast, have you?
Good! Now then, Mr. James Colliver, _this_ is what those deluded women saw--this little dodge, which is going to help Jack Ketch to come into his own.”
Speaking, he walked rapidly across to the long blind, pulled it down to its full length, then with a wrench tore it wholly from the roller and whirled it over, so that they who were within could now see the outer side.
It bore, painted upon it, a perfect representation of the interior of the gla.s.s-room, even to the little spindle-legged table with a vase of pink roses upon it which _now_ stood at that room's far end.
”A clever idea, Colliver, and a good piece of painting,” he said.
”It took me in once--last August--just as it took in Mrs. Sherman and her daughter yesterday. The mistiness of the lace curtains falling over it lent just the effect of 'distance' that was required to perfect the illusion and to prevent anybody from detecting the paint. As for the boy----Gently, lads, gently! Don't let the beggar in his struggles make you step on that 'dead soldier.' Under the thick coating of wax a human body lies--the boy's! Hullo! Gone off his balance, eh, at the knowledge that the game is entirely up?”
This as Colliver, with a terrible cry, collapsed suddenly and fell to the floor shrieking and grovelling. ”They are a cowardly lot these brute-beast men when it comes to the wall and the final corner. Mr. Trent, break this to Miss Larue as gently as you can.
She has suffered a great deal, poor girl, and it is bound to be a shock. She doesn't know that the woman he called his wife never really was his wife; she doesn't know about Loti or his threat.
If she had she'd have told me, and I might have got on the trail in the first case instead of waiting to pick it up like this.”
He paused and held up his hand. Through all this Colliver had not once ceased grovelling and screaming; but it was not his cries that had drawn that gesture from Cleek. It was the sound of some one racing at top speed up the outer stairs, and with it the jar of many excited voices mingled in a babble of utter confusion.
The door of the gla.s.s-room swung inward abruptly, and the head bookkeeper looked in, with a crowd of clerks behind him.
”Mr. Trent, sir, whatever is the matter? Is anybody hurt? I never heard such screams. The whole place is ringing with them and there's a crowd gathering about the door.”
Cleek left the junior partner to explain the situation, stepped to the side of the gla.s.s-room, looked down, saw that the statement was quite true, and--stepped sharply back again.
”We shall have to defer removing our prisoner until it gets dark, I fancy, Mr. Narkom,” he said, serenely. ”And with Mr. Trent's permission we will make use of the door leading into the alley at the back when that time comes. Bookkeeper!”
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