Part 5 (1/2)

A clatter of hasty footsteps came along the drive and up the steps to the veranda, and Narkom, in a state of violent excitement, stood beside him.

”All right,” he said, answering Cleek's inquiring glance. ”I headed the taxi off and set Dollops to work as you suggested--and a blessed good thing I did, too, otherwise we might have lost valuable clues.”

”There _were_ footsteps then?”

”Footsteps? Great Scott, yes, heaps of them: the absolute continuation of those which led me and my men to this house. But the madness of the thing, the puzzle of the thing! No man on earth can run away in two directions, yet there the blessed things are, going down the road at full tilt and coming back up it again still on a dead run. Two lines of them, old chap, one going and the other returning and both pa.s.sing by the gate of this house. By it, do you hear?--_by_ it, and never once turning in; yet in the garden we have found marks that correspond with them to the fraction of a hair, and we know positively that the fellow _did_ come in here. It licks me, Cleek--it positively licks me. It's beyond all reason.”

”Yes,” admitted Cleek, thinking of the green satin dress. ”It is, Mr.

Narkom, it certainly is.”

”Dollops will bring the drawings he's making to you as soon as he has covered all the ground,” resumed the superintendent almost immediately.

”Clever young dog that and no mistake. But to return to our muttons, old chap. Did you get anything out of this poor fellow? Any clue to the party who a.s.saulted him?”

”None. He doesn't know. For one thing, the mist prevented him seeing his a.s.sailant, and for another, he was first shot down by some one who was running toward him and answered his challenge with a bullet, and then pounced upon by somebody else who was behind him and floored him with the hammer. I take it that the person who was running and who fired the shot was advancing toward him from this direction--was, in fact, the actual a.s.sa.s.sin--and that having discharged the pistol and caused this poor fellow to whistle a call for a.s.sistance to the constable in Mulberry Lane, he was put to it to get out of the box in which he found himself by those two things. To escape across the Common meant to be pursued by the constable and driven across the track of one of the other keepers; so he took the bold hazard of putting on this poor chap's coat, cap, and badge and playing at joining in the hue and cry in the manner he did. Is that”--turning to the dying man--”the truth of it?”

The keeper could only nod--he was now too far gone to make any verbal response, and even the administering of another dose of brandy failed to whip up his expiring strength.

”I'm afraid we shall never get any more out of him, poor fellow,” said Cleek feelingly. ”He is lapsing into unconsciousness, you see. Raise him a bit, make him a little more comfortable if pos---- Quick! Catch his head, Mr. Narkom! Don't let it strike the boards. Gone!--a good true servant of the public gone! And the blackguard that killed him still at large!”

Then he gently folded the useless hands and closed down the sightless eyes, and shaking out the coat which Petrie had bundled into a pillow, spread it over the dead man and was very, very still for a little time.

”There's a widow--and some little nippers, Mr. Narkom,” he said when he at length rose to his feet. ”Find them out for me, will you? And if you can see your way to offer a good substantial reward for the clearing up of this case and the capture of the criminal, I'll pull it off and you may pay that reward to the mother of this man's children.”

”Cleek, my dear fellow! How ridiculously quixotic. What on earth can you be thinking about?”

”A woman, Mr. Narkom--just a woman--and a few little nippers ... who might take the wrong road as--well, as somebody I know of took it once--if there wasn't a hand to help them or a friend to guide. That's all, dear friend, that's all!”

Lifting his hat to that silent, covered figure, he turned and walked away. But at the foot of the steps leading down to the mist and darkness of the drive he came to a halt; and there Narkom, following almost instantly, joined him again.

”My dear fellow, of all the impulsive, of all the amazing men,” he began; but got no further, for Cleek's upthrown hand checked him.

”We won't go into that, Mr. Narkom,” he said. ”We'll stick to the case, please. I've got something to tell you that you haven't heard as yet.

Something that that poor dead chap did manage to tell me. A woman--a lady--was out there on the Common to-night and paid him not to disclose the fact.”

”Great Scott! My dear fellow, you don't surely mean to hint that by any possibility that poor child, Lady Katharine Fordham----”

”No, I do not. The lady in question was neither Lady Katharine Fordham, who, you tell me, wore a white satin dress to-night, nor yet Miss Ailsa Lorne, whose frock you say was of gauzy pink. The lady in question wore, I understand, a gown of very pale green satin with what I take to have been several diamond ornaments upon the corsage; furthermore, a delicate but very distinct odour of violets clung about her.”

”Good Lord!”

”No wonder you are surprised, Mr. Narkom. Ladies dressed in that fas.h.i.+on are not, as a general thing, given to wandering about Wimbledon Common either by night or by day, and the presence of this particular one is curious, to say the least of it. I am of the opinion, however, that she was no stranger to the Common keeper, otherwise he would have hurried her into the shelter the instant she offered to bribe him, whistled up the constable in Mulberry Lane, and given her in charge as a suspicious character. Then there is another side to the affair which we must not overlook. An entertainment was in progress at Clavering Close to-night, and there must have been quite a number of ladies present dressed in gala attire. But if your exclamation means that you have no recollection of seeing one who wore a gown of pale green satin----”

”It doesn't!” rapped in Narkom excitedly. ”It was the absurdity, the madness, the--the utter impossibility of the thing. That she--she of all women----! What rot!”

”Oho!” said Cleek, with a strong, rising inflection. ”Then there _was_ such a gown in the rooms at Clavering Close to-night, eh? And you do remember the lady that wore it?”

”Remember her? There's n.o.body I should be likely to remember better. It was Lady Clavering herself!”