Читать книгу The Tragedy of the Silver Moon - Arthur Gask - Страница 4

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ONE afternoon about three weeks after the mysterious happening to Benjamin Husson, a young woman came out of Professor Starbank's rooms, looking as if she had been crying. She walked quickly down the Edgware Road in the direction of Hyde Park, without noticing that a man was following her.

Reaching the park, she walked across the grass to an unoccupied seat under some trees and sat down. Then she began mopping her eyes with her handkerchief. Well and fashionably dressed, she was obviously of the better classes. She appeared to be about twenty-two or twenty-three years of age, and was undeniably good-looking, with aristocratic features and beautiful, long-lashed grey eyes. She sobbed quietly to herself.

Presently she heard footsteps close beside her and, glancing quickly up, saw to her great discomfiture that a man was proceeding to seat himself down near to her. She looked at him frowningly, but in no wise disconcerted, he raised his hat and spoke.

"Please forgive my speaking to you," he said very quietly and as if with the utmost respect, "but I see you are distressed about something, and am wondering if I can be of any service to you."

She reddened furiously at the effrontery of a perfect stranger in daring to address her, and was obviously upon the point of making some stinging retort, when something in the man's manner and appearance seemed suddenly to arrest her anger. He looked so harmless and inoffensive and had such a kind face. He was elderly, too, and undoubtedly a gentleman.

He went on gently, "No, please don't be angry with me, but I happened to see you coming out of Professor Starbank's and you looked to me as if very troubled." He bowed gravely. "I assure you that is the only reason why I have ventured to follow you."

The girl spoke fiercely. "Do you know Professor Starbank? Is he a friend of yours?"

The stranger shook his head. "No, he is no friend of mine and I have never spoken to him." He spoke sadly, "Indeed, I should not think he would have any friends, for I believe him to be an evil man."

"Evil!" exclaimed the girl with a catch in her breath. Her voice choked. "He is a devil!"

The stranger spoke more gently than ever. "Then, if he is intending to do you any harm, I will prevent it." He nodded reassuringly. "If necessary I can exert great influence over him."

"My God, then save me from him!" burst out the girl piteously. Her voice broke. "He is bringing ruin upon our lives!"

"Tell me about it," urged the stranger persuasively, "and I promise you I will put everything right. Then, you will go home comforted, and be able to sleep in peace. No, no, I don't want to know your name or where you live. Only just tell me how this man is intending to harm you. That is all"—he smiled his gentle smile—"and then I'll leave you and it will be as if we had never met, except"—he nodded solemnly—"that you will know your trouble has been taken from you."

The girl hesitated, but only for a moment. A strange urge was possessing her to tell her innermost secrets to this man. His eyes, calm and gentle though they were, seemed nevertheless to be piercing her through and through. Her words came with an irresistible rush.

"Two years ago," she panted, "Professor Starbank came to learn a secret of my sister's, and she has been living in deadly fear of him ever since. He has been continually extorting money from her, and has taken almost her last shilling. Now he has heard she is going to be married in three weeks' time and he threatens to write an anonymous letter to the man she is going to marry, unless she gives him £500"—her voice broke again—"and that she cannot do."

"Did he go to her to tell her that?" asked the stranger.

"No, he knows where we live, but he's never been to our house. He telephoned to her this morning, ordering her to come and see him, but I went instead. No, he's never even written. He's always telephoned."

"And does anyone besides you and Professor Starbank know your sister's secret?" asked the stranger.

The girl shook her head. "No, no one," she replied. She turned away her eyes. "Another man knew it once, but he died suddenly more than two years ago in an accident." Her voice shook. "If he had not been killed all this would never have happened."

The stranger regarded her thoughtfully. "And when have you to give Professor Starbank this money?"

"Within the next fortnight, and if it is not brought to him he says he'll write that letter."

For a long moment the stranger's eyes held hers and she felt she could not turn her face away. Then he spoke very solemnly.

"Well, I tell you he shall never write it now, neither will he ever telephone to you again." He was silent for a few moments and then went on. "Still, in these days before you are"—he corrected himself quickly—"before your sister is married, if you are ever troubled and come to doubt what I am telling you"—he took a letter out of his pocket and tearing off a corner of the envelope pencilled on it quickly—"then ring up that number and I'll speak to you again. Ask for the master if it is not my voice you hear." He smiled once more. "But I shall only have to tell you all is well."

"Oh, thank you so much!" exclaimed the girl brokenly. She looked very troubled. "But how shall I know he is not striking at us in the dark? How shall I know what he is doing until these three dreadful weeks have passed?"

"Because they will not be dreadful weeks," smiled the stranger. "They will be very happy weeks for you, and that is how you will know the shadow has passed from your life." He rose up to his feet to go. "No, you will not need to telephone me. I can see that. You trust me, and that is how it should be between friends."

The girl could hear herself speaking, but it seemed to her that it was not her own words she heard. "I do trust you," she said. "I believe you absolutely"—she could hardly get out her words—"but I do not understand why."

"And do not try to understand," said the stranger. "The ways of understanding are not destined for you. Your life is to be only of this world. You will love and bear children and know great happiness in your time." He raised his hat. "Good-bye, I will come to you every night in your dreams and see to it that you sleep well."

With parted lips and staring eyes the girl watched him walk briskly up the path until he was lost among the crowd by the Marble Arch.

Then she heaved a big sigh, and smiled, a very pretty-smile, although her face was still showing traces of her recent emotion.

"Am I mad or just a fool?" she asked herself. She nodded. "At any rate, I'm hungry, and that's a good sign. I'll go to the kiosk and get a bun and a cup of tea."

Later that same afternoon a new patient came to consult Professor Starbank. He said he had rheumatism in his legs and thought massage would do them good. Of course the Professor thought so too, and noting that his patient was well dressed, after a brief examination gave it as his opinion that a course of the inevitable Red Ray would be advisable as well.

But the patient said he would have only ordinary massage and so Starbank, after stating the fee would be half a guinea each time, proceeded to give him his first treatment straight away.

Then very soon the Professor found himself feeling most annoyed. Not only was he angry that he was not receiving the higher fee of a Red Ray treatment, but also he did not like the patient staring at him so hard. Indeed, it seemed the man never took his eyes off him the whole time the massage was going on, and Starbank had strong objections to being stared at. If there was any staring to be done he preferred to do it himself. Hard staring, he believed, always gave him an ascendancy over people, particularly so if they were at all of a nervous disposition. Once, this man actually caught his eyes and held them, and he was not able to draw them away until the man lowered his own.

He felt unduly tired, too, after he had gone, and for some reason he could not explain, was rather hoping he would not turn up again, as had been suggested, the following day. He was half wondering if the man were a police spy, although from his general appearance he had certainly not looked like one.

Leaving the Professor's rooms, the patient called in at a newsagent's shop to buy an evening paper and, while waiting to be attended to—there were several other customers in the shop at the time—proceeded to turn over the pages of an illustrated weekly journal, lying upon the counter.

Then he did not start, but only smiled rather sadly when his eyes fell upon the photograph of a very pretty girl, and he read underneath she was Miss Eleanor Thyra Whipple, and going to be married on the 26th to the Honourable Ian Inverary, second son of Lord Darmuire.

The photograph was that of the girl with whom he had been talking in the park.

The following day Gilbert Larose, the one-time well-known international detective, but now retired, and married for the last seven years to Helen Ardane, the wealthy widow of Sir Charles Ardane of Carmel Abbey in Norfolk, received a very extraordinary letter by the mid-day post.

It was typed and gave no address, and the sender called himself "Retribution." It was dated the previous day and had been posted in a north-west district of London. It read:

DEAR SIR,

Quite recently I happened to overhear two men discussing the many wonderful successes you were supposed to have achieved when you were a detective attached to the Criminal Investigation Department of Scotland Yard. They said you were possessed of a sixth sense and this enabled you, as it were by instinct, to track down the perpetrator of any crime. They stated, also, it was your boast that when a murder had been committed, no matter how far away the murderer had taken himself, you could yet see the shadow he had left upon the wall.

But pride is unseemly and goes before a fall. So I will put you to the test. What the law will stigmatise as a murder will be committed within the next few days, and I challenge you to lay your hands upon the murderer. The so-called victim will be a man, and he will be found dead one morning in a room upon the ground floor of a building in Edgware Road. Do not flatter yourself, however, that his death is being brought about to provide you with an occasion to exhibit your vaunted powers. On the contrary, he dies because he is an evil man and adding to the sorrows of the world. You are only being forewarned of this happening to bring home to you how vain and empty is your boasting and, perhaps, render you a little more humble.

RETRIBUTION

.

Larose read the letter twice and then handed it to his wife. "What do you think of this, dear?" he asked.

Helen Larose, a handsome and aristocratic-looking woman in the middle thirties, read it through and frowned. "I don't think whoever wrote it is serious," she said, as she handed it back to her husband. "Most likely it's someone we know well, and he's going to have a joke with you about it when he next meets you."

Larose smiled. "But I don't think so," he commented. "Somehow, it rings true to me. It doesn't strike me at all as a joking letter." He went on thoughtfully, "You know, Helen, I've noticed all my life that when a man commits a crime, as long as he's not found out, he's rather proud of it. He wants an audience, just like a man who thinks he's written a good play." He tapped the letter with his finger. "So, although the writer here is gibing at me for a boast, which by the by I have never made, he is really boasting himself." He shook his head suddenly. "But wait a minute. I'll read it again. An idea has come to me."

So he read it again, this time out aloud, and very slowly. Then he gave his verdict with a rather puzzled frown. "No, I don't think this fellow's boasting. He seems a little bit above that. He's a crank I should say, and imagines it is his mission to inflict punishment upon the chap whom he writes he is going to murder, and punishment upon me because he's heard I've been boasting."

"But do you really believe he's going to commit a murder?" asked Helen Larose incredulously.

"I think he's going to try to. Yes, I really believe he's going to attempt it or there wouldn't be any point in his writing to me. As I say, I don't look upon this letter as a joke. The writer means business."

"Then send the letter on to Inspector Stone. You said you were going to write to him to-day."

Larose nodded. "So I will, and won't dear old Charlie crinkle up his nose in scorn? He'll take it as a joke, as you do. Yes, I'll write to him straight away, and I'll tell him, too, that after Thursday I'll be up in town at the Semiris if he should want to ring me up and give me the news." He laughed. "That'll make him more scornful than ever."

So the next morning Chief Inspector Stone, one of the Big Four at Scotland Yard, ran his eyes down the anonymous letter, and not so psychologically minded as his one-time colleague and all-time friend, Gilbert Larose, curled his lips into the expected contemptuous smile.

It was just like Gilbert to take such a letter seriously, he told himself. With all his charming personality, Gilbert had always been a bit of a vain fellow, and he would now be taking it for granted his reputation had been so great that it was going to be for ever green in everybody's minds. So of course, he would take it for granted that any imaginary criminal such as the writer of this absurd letter would approach him, as still being the greatest master in the detection of crime. Yes, Gilbert was a dear fellow, but there could be no denying he thought a lot of himself at times. This letter was all bosh, and someone was just trying to get a rise out of Larose. That was all.

But two mornings later just before nine o'clock the stout chief inspector rang up the Semiris hotel in a state of great excitement.

It happened that he got speech with Larose so quickly that it almost seemed the latter had been waiting at the other end of the wire.

"Gilbert, you were right," he called out breathlessly. "The fellow who wrote you that letter has done as he said he would. Word's just come in that a man's been found murdered in a room upon the ground floor of a house in Edgware Road."

"Good God!" exclaimed Larose. "Who is the man?"

"An irregular practitioner of medicine. A quack and a bad egg who's been under police suspicion for a lot of things for a long time. Now do you want to come? All right, but are you quite ready? Then, I'll call for you at once. I can't wait even five minutes."

So very soon Larose, among a small group of detectives, was standing over the body of Paris Starbank. It was not a pleasant sight to see.

Death had come to him in his consulting-room and there were all signs that it had been a violent one.

He was lying hunched up upon the floor in front of his desk. His eyes were staring horribly, his jaw had dropped, and his face was an ugly colour.

"Dr. Miles should be here any minute," announced Inspector Tullock. "I don't know why he's keeping us waiting for so long." He nodded in the direction of the corpse. "But there seems no doubt whatever about what's happened. He was throttled when sitting in that chair. Someone came up behind him and choked the life out of him. He was killed yesterday evening. He's stiff as a board."

"The nurses found him when they came in the morning?" asked Chief Inspector Stone.

"One of them did, the younger one, Clara Jones. She says she came in about three minutes before the other one, exactly at half-past eight. They both have a latch-key, but she states she is nearly always here first."

"Anything taken from the rooms?" asked Stone, glancing round and noting there was no sign of any disturbance anywhere except by the desk.

"Not that we've found out so far," replied Inspector Tullock. "Still, we haven't looked round thoroughly yet. One thing, the place was not broken into. The windows were all bolted, with the safety catches down and the back door was locked. No, unless this Starbank let his murderer in himself, the man came in with a key."

It was well on to half-past nine before the apologetic police-surgeon arrived. In his wake another man followed closely. The surgeon very quickly gave it as his opinion that Starbank had undoubtedly been throttled.

"The thyroid cartilage has been crushed," he said, "and there are those bruises on the throat and neck." He frowned. "There are some rather puzzling features about it, though, but we shall know everything after the autopsy. Oh, yes, he must have struggled, but it's funny he did so little with his legs. With that rug there, exactly as you say you found it, he obviously did not kick much. Well, that's all I can say now. Good morning!" and he bustled out of the room.

Everyone was expecting the man who had arrived with him to leave too, but instead, he continued to stare with a white face and awed expression at the body.

"Dr. Miles is going off, sir," said Inspector Tullock, thinking the man had been so preoccupied that he had not noticed the police-surgeon's departure from the room.

But he had to address the man a second time before he engaged his attention. Then the man, as if rather startled, asked, "What doctor?"

"Dr. Miles," repeated the inspector. He frowned and added sharply, "Didn't you come with him?"

The man shook his head. "No, I don't know him. I came by myself. I just walked in to make an appointment with Professor Starbank"—his eyes wandered back to the body, now being lifted up and laid upon a couch, and he added a little sadly—"but now he won't be able to give me one."

Inspector Tullock exploded. "You've no business to be here. How did you pass the constable at the door?"

The man was most conciliatory. "I followed that gentleman who's just said how Professor Starbank died. We both arrived at the door together, and the policeman let us in."

"Then you clear out at once," ordered Tullock angrily. "You've no——" but the man looked at him intently and the words died on his lips.

The man turned to go, but apparently hearing a voice at the other side of the room addressing someone loudly as "Mr. Larose," he stopped again, and with a quick movement looked in the direction from which the voice had come.

"Which is Mr. Larose?" he asked quietly of the inspector, as if quite oblivious of the fact that he was under that gentleman's severe displeasure.

"The one by the window," replied the inspector with a politeness for which he wanted to kick himself afterwards.

For a long moment the man stared at the one-time international detective and then with an expressionless face he turned away and left both the room and the house.

That night Larose and Chief Inspector Stone were discussing the happenings of the day in the latter's room in Scotland Yard.

"Not much to help us, Gilbert," sighed the stout inspector, "nothing taken from the rooms, the place not broken into, and no strange finger-marks where we wanted to find them. As for motive"—he shrugged his shoulders—"well, making his living as he did, there might have been a score and more of folks wishing him dead."

"But those finger-marks were peculiar!" commented Larose. "Starbank's all over the chair, and all about the desk! One would have thought, with the throttler having been so busy there, that he would have wiped things clean in case he should leave any of his own about."

Stone nodded. "Yes, and he didn't work in gloves either, as evidenced where his nails indented Starbank's neck and throat." He frowned. "Now I had a talk with the surgeon who did the post-mortem about those nail-marks, and he says now that the violence there was not sufficient to cause the man's death, but that he died rather from a paralytic spasm of the throat, blocking the entry of air into his lungs. He says he's very puzzled."

"If his heart had been weak," supplemented Larose, "one could have understood his dying from shock, but it was quite all right, so we are told."

"Perfectly all right," nodded Stone. "Starbank was a strong and healthy man, cut off in the very prime of life."

A short silence followed and then Stone went on: "Well, let us sum up what we know"—he heaved another big sigh—"although it's precious little. Still, certain things stand out quite clearly. The nurses went off together that evening leaving Starbank, as they'd often done, to write some letters. Then in the middle of writing the first one we must presume he was called upon to open the door to a late arrival, someone he knew quite well and——"

"The caller was not a patient," interrupted Larose. "He was a friend."

"Certainly," agreed Stone, "because when he had let the man in he went on writing his letter. Then, I should have said, he was attacked when actually writing if it hadn't been he had just finished a sentence and laid down his fountain-pen. It was he who laid down his pen, because there were only his finger-marks on it, and it was put neatly to one side." He made a grimace. "Now, what else do we know?"

"That he was killed," nodded Larose, "and his murderer let himself out of the house leaving not the slightest sign of his having been there, except the dead body he left behind."

"Exactly," agreed Stone, "and that's as far as we can get." He spoke briskly. "Now, Gilbert, have you got any ideas?"

Larose nodded. "Only that the letter to the Paddington police, informing them where the body of that man Husson was to be found, and the one sent to me about the intended murder of Starbank were both written by the same person. I am sure of it."

"And how do you make that out?" frowned Stone.

"Because they would neither of them have been written but for Starbank. They both feature Starbank. The first one tells where he has hidden the body, and the second predicts his own death. They are like two instalments of a serial story."

Stone frowned harder than ever. "You mean that the writer murdered Starbank because he realised Starbank was in some way responsible for the death of Husson, and, at any rate, had robbed him of the money he was carrying about."

"Yes," nodded Larose. "I take it the murderer was a friend of Husson rather than an enemy of Starbank. I mean he was not an enemy of the quack until the latter had maltreated his friend."

"But he must have been an intimate of Starbank to have known he had hidden the body and where it had been put."

Larose shook his head vexatiously. "That's what I can't understand and I don't attempt to explain it; but I am certain those two letters came from the same man and so it will be among Husson's friends that we shall find the murderer."

Then among the friends of the meek little rent-collector an intensive inquiry was instituted, his wife giving the names of all of whom her husband ever spoke. It appeared they were practically all members of the Bayswater Theosophical Society, but Larose, approaching them under an assumed name, was speedily of opinion that none of them would have had anything to do with the murder of Paris Starbank.

Rather contrary to what he had expected, they appeared to be just ordinary men and women, earnest and thoughtful and by no means of the eccentric natures he had been expecting they would be.

They had all been very shocked at what had happened to the fellow member of their society, but could throw no light on the mystery surrounding his death. He had been particularly well known to them all, for voluntarily, he had taken upon himself the duty of looking after the little hall in which they met.

Of course Larose never made any direct mention of Professor Starbank, but, all the same, by adroit questioning he tried to find out if any of them knew of anyone else who had any acquaintance with the quack. He drew blank, however, every time, and as day by day went by he became the more and more disheartened.

The following week he returned home, having dejectedly admitted to Inspector Stone that, as with the officers of the Criminal Investigation Department of Scotland Yard, he could throw no light at all upon the murder of Paris Starbank. He confessed frankly that he was beaten.