Part 2 (1/2)
CHAPTER THREE
THE SHADOW THAT LAY BEHIND
It had but just gone midnight when the car slowed down before the house in Clarges Street. Here in company with his faithful henchman, Dollops, and attended upon by an elderly housekeeper and a deaf-and-dumb maid of all work, there dwelt--under the name and guise of ”Captain Horatio Burbage,” a superannuated seaman--that strange and original genius who chose to call himself ”Hamilton Cleek,” but who was known to the police of two continents by the sobriquet of ”The Man of the Forty Faces.”
In the merest fraction of a minute Narkom was out of the limousine, had crossed the narrow pavement, mounted the three shallow steps, and was standing in the shadow of a pillared porch, punching a signal on the b.u.t.ton of an electric bell. In all he could not have been kept waiting more than a minute, but it seemed forty times that length when he at last heard a bolt slip, and saw, in the gap of the open door, the figure of a slim, red-headed youth arrayed in a bed quilt, a suit of pink flannelette pajamas, and a pair of white canvas tennis shoes.
”Come in, sir, come in quick!” this young man whispered, in the broadest of c.o.c.kney accents, as he opened the door just wide enough for Narkom to sidle into the semi-dark pa.s.sage.
”Where's your master, Dollops?” put in the superintendent. ”Speak up! Is he in? I've got to see him at once!”
The voice which answered came, not from Dollops, but from the dark top of the dim staircase.
”Come up, Mr. Narkom,” it said. ”I thought that young beggar had gone to bed ages ago and was just coming down myself to let you in. Come along up. You know the way.”
Narkom acted upon the invitation so promptly that he was up the stairs and in the cozy, curtained, and lamp-lit room which Cleek called his den almost as quickly as his host himself. In fact, Cleek had scarcely time to sweep into the drawer of his writing table a little pile of something which looked like a collection of odds and ends of jewellery, bits of faded ribbon, and time-stained letters, and turn the key upon them, before the police official was at the door.
”Hullo!” said Cleek in a tone of surprise and deep interest as the superintendent came fairly lurching into the room. ”What's in the wind, Mr. Narkom? You look fairly bowled. Whisky and soda there--at your elbow--help yourself. I presume it is a case--nothing else would bring you here at this time and in such a state. What kind is it? And for whom? Some friend of yours or for the Yard?”
”For both, I'm afraid,” replied Narkom, pouring out a stiff peg of whisky and nervously gulping it down between words. ”G.o.d knows I hope it may be only for the Yard, but considering what I know----Get your hat and coat. Come with me at once, Cleek. It's a murder--a mystery after your own heart. Lennard's below with the limousine. Come quickly, do, there's a dear chap. I'll tell you all about it on the way. The thing's only just been done--within the hour--out Wimbledon way.”
”I might have guessed that, Mr. Narkom, considering that you were to mingle duty with pleasure and spend the evening at Wimbledon with your old friend, Sir Philip Clavering,” replied Cleek, rising at once.
”Certainly I will go with you. Did you ever know the time when I wouldn't do all that I could to help the best friend I ever had--yourself? And if it is, as you hint, likely to be in the interest of the friend of _my_ friend----”
”I'm not so sure of that, Cleek. G.o.d knows I hope it's a mistaken idea of mine; but when you have heard, when you have seen, how abominably things point to that dear boy of Clavering's and to the girl that dead fellow was conspiring with her father to take away from him----”
”Oho!” interjected Cleek, with a strong rising inflection. ”So there is that element in the case, eh?--love and a woman in distress! Give me a minute to throw a few things together and I am with you, my friend.”
”Thanks, old chap, I knew I could rely upon you! But don't stop to bother about a disguise, Cleek, it's too dark for anybody to see that it isn't 'the Captain' that's going out; and besides, there's everything of that sort in the limousine, you know. The street is as dark as a pocket, and there's n.o.body likely to be on the watch at this hour.”
The curious one-sided smile so characteristic of the man looped up the corner of Cleek's mouth; his features seemed to writhe, a strange, indefinable change to come over them as he put into operation his peculiar birth gift; and an instant later, but that he had not stirred one step and his clothing was still the same, one might have thought that a totally different man was in the room.
”Will it matter _who_ watches?” he said, with just a suspicion of vanity over the achievement. ”It will be--let us see--yes, a French gentleman whom we shall call 'Monsieur Georges de Lesparre' to-night, Mr. Narkom.
A French gentleman with a penchant for investigating criminal affairs, and who comes to you with the strong recommendation of the Parisian police department. Now cut down to the limousine and wait for me, I'll join you presently. And, Mr. Narkom?”
”Yes, old chap?”
”As you go out, give Dollops directions where and how to get to the scene of the tragedy, and tell him to follow us in a taxi as expeditiously as possible.”
”Oh, Molly 'Awkins! There ain't no rest for the wicked and no feedin'
for the 'ungry this side of Kensal Green--and precious little on the other!” sighed Dollops when he received this message. ”Not four weeks it ain't since I was drug off in the middle of my lunch to go Cingalee huntin' in Soho for them bounders wot was after Lady Chepstow's 'Sacred Son,' and now here I am pulled out of my blessed pajamas in the middle of the night to go 'Tickle Tootsying' in the bally fog at Wimbledon!
Well, all right, sir. Where the gov'ner goes, I goes, bless his 'eart; so you can look for me as soon as I can get out of these Eytalian pants.”
Narkom made no comment; merely went down and out to the waiting limousine and took his seat in it, full of a racking, nervous impatience that was like a consuming fire; and there Cleek found him, ten minutes later, when he jumped in with his kit bag and gave the signal which set Lennard to speeding the car back on its way to the scene of the mysterious tragedy.
”Pull down the blinds and turn up the light, Mr. Narkom, so I can make a few necessary changes on the way,” he said, opening the locker and groping round in the depths of it as the limousine scudded around the corner and tore off up Picadilly. ”You can give me the particulars of the case while I'm making up. Come on--let's have them. How did the affair begin, and where?”
Narkom detailed the occurrences of the night with the utmost clearness, from the moment when the shot and the cry attracted Lennard's attention to that when the ghastly discovery was made in the semi-ruined cottage.