Part 41 (1/2)

”Yes, Cleek, my friend; Cleek, ladies and gentlemen all. And now that the mask is off, let me tell you a short little story which--no!

Pardon, Mr. Essington, don't leave the room, please. I wish you, too, to hear.”

”Wasn't going to leave it--only going to shut the door.”

”Ah, I see. Allow me. It is now, ladies and gentlemen, exactly fourteen days since our friend Doctor O'Malley here, coming up from Portsmouth on his motorcycle after attending a patient who that day had died, was overcome by the extreme heat and the exertion of trying to fight off a belligerent magpie which flew out of the woods and persistently attacked him, and, falling to the ground, lost consciousness. When he regained it, he was in the Charing Cross Hospital, and all that he knew of his being there was that a motorist who had picked him and his cycle up on the road had carried him there and turned him over to the authorities. He himself was unable, however, to place the exact locality in which he was travelling at the time of the accident, otherwise we should not have had that extremely interesting advertis.e.m.e.nt which Mr. Essington read out this evening. For the doctor had lost a small black bag containing something extremely valuable, which he was carrying at the time and which supplies the solution to this interesting riddle.

How, do you ask? Come with me--all of you--to Mr. Carruthers'

room, where his little lords.h.i.+p is sleeping, and learn that for yourselves.”

They rose at his word and followed him upstairs; and there, in a dimly lit room, the sleeping child lay with an old rag doll hugged up close to him, its painted face resting in the curve of his little neck.

”You want to know from where proceed these mysterious attacks--who and what it is that harms the child?” said Cleek as he went forward on tiptoe and, gently withdrawing the doll, held it up. ”Here it is, then--this is the culprit: this thing here! You want to know how? Then by this means--look! See!” He thrust the blade of a pocket knife into the doll and with one sweep ripped it open, and dipping in his fingers drew from cotton wool and rags with which the thing was stuffed a slim, close-stoppered gla.s.s vial in which something that glowed and gave off constant sparks of light s.h.i.+mmered and burnt with a restless fire.

”Is this it, Doctor?” he said, holding the thing up.

”Yes! Oh, my G.o.d, yes!” he cried out as he clutched at it. ”A wonder of the heavens, sure, that the child wasn't disfigured for life or perhaps kilt forever. A half grain of it--a half grain of radium, ladies and gentlemen--enough to burn a hole through the divvle himself, if he lay long enough agin it.”

”Radium!” The word was voiced on every side, and the two women and two men crowded close to look at the thing. ”Radium in the doll?

Radium? I say, Deland--I mean to say, Mr. Cleek--in G.o.d's name, who could have put the cursed thing there?”

”Your magpie, Mr. Essington,” replied Cleek, and with that brief preface told of Martha, the nurse, and of the torn doll and of the magpie that flew into the room while the girl was away.

”The wretched thing must have picked it up when the doctor fell and lost consciousness and the open bag lay unguarded,” he said.

”And with its propensity for stealing and hiding things it flew with it into the nursery and hid it in the torn doll. Martha did not see it, of course, when she sewed the doll up, but the scratch she received from the magpie presented a raw surface to the action of the mineral and its effect was instant and most violent. What's that? No, Mr. Carruthers--no one is guilty; no one has even tried to injure his lords.h.i.+p. Chance only is to blame--and Chance cannot be punished. As for the rest, do me a favour, dear friend, in place of any other kind of reward. Look to it that this young chap here gets enough out of the income of the estate to continue his course at Oxford and--that's all.”

It was not, however; for while he was still speaking a strange and even startling interruption occurred.

A liveried servant, pus.h.i.+ng the door open gently, stepped into the room bearing a small silver salver upon which a letter lay.

”Well, upon my word, Johnston, this is rather an original sort of performance, isn't it?” exclaimed Carruthers, indignant over the intrusion.

”I beg your pardon, sir, but I did knock,” he apologized. ”I knocked twice, in fact, but no one seemed to hear; and as I had been told it was a matter of more than life and death, I presumed. Letter for Lieutenant Deland, sir. A gentleman of the name of Narkom--in a motor, sir--at the door--asked me to deliver it at once and under any and all circ.u.mstances.”

Cleek looked at the letter, saw that it was enclosed in a plain unaddressed envelope, asked to be excused, and stepped out into the pa.s.sage with it.

That Narkom should have come for him like this--should have risked the upsetting of a case by appearing before he knew if it was settled or, indeed, likely to be--could mean but one thing: that his errand was one of overwhelming importance, of more moment than anything else in the world.

He tore off the envelope with hands that shook, and spread open the sheet of paper it contained.

There was but one single line upon it; but that line, penned in that hand, would have called him from the world's end.

”_Come to me at once. Ailsa_,” he read--and was on his way downstairs like a shot.

In the lower hall the butler stood, holding his hat and coat ready for him to jump into them at once.

”My--er--young servant--quick as you can!” said Cleek, grabbing the hat and hurrying into the coat.

”Already outside, sir--in the motor with the gentleman,” the butler gave back; then opened the door and stepped aside, holding it back for him and bowing deferentially; and the light of the hall, streaking out into the night, showed a flight of shallow steps, the blue limousine at the foot of them--with Lennard in the driver's seat and Dollops beside him--and standing on the lowest step of all Mr. Narkom holding open the car's door and looking curiously pale and solemn.