Читать книгу Unravelled Knots - Baroness Orczy - Страница 5

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“The London evening papers got hold of the story for their noonday edition,” the Man in the Corner went on after a slight pause, “and I, with my passion for the enigmatical and the perplexing, made up my mind then and there to probe the mystery on my own account, because I knew well enough that this was just the sort of case which would send the county police blundering all over the wrong track.

“I arrived at Barchester on the Tuesday in time for the inquest, but nothing of much importance transpired that day. Medical evidence went to prove that the deceased had first been struck on the back of the head by some heavy instrument, a weighted stick or something of the sort, which had no doubt stunned her; but she actually died of poisoning by gas which she had inhaled in large quantities while she was half-conscious. The medical officer went on to say that Miss Clarke must have been dead twelve hours or more when he was called in by the police at about eight o’clock in the morning. After this a couple of neighbours testified to having seen Miss Clarke at her front door at about half-past five the previous evening. It was a very dark night, if you remember, and a thick Scotch mist was falling. When the neighbours went by, Miss Clarke had apparently just introduced a visitor into her house, the gas was alight in the small hall and they had vaguely perceived the outline of a man or woman, they could not swear which, in a huge coat, standing for a moment immediately behind Miss Clarke; the neighbours also heard Miss Clarke’s voice speaking to her visitor, but what she said they could not distinguish. The weather was so atrocious that everyone who was abroad that night hurried along without taking much notice of what went on around.

“Evidence of a more or less formal character followed and the inquest was then adjourned until the Friday, everyone going away with the feeling that sensational developments were already in the air.

“And the developments came tumbling in thick and fast, To begin with, it appears that Arthur Clarke, when first questioned by the police, had made a somewhat lame statement.

‘“I was asked,’ he said, ‘to help with the servants’ Christmas party at Meere Court. I walked over to Barchester at about three o’clock in the afternoon, with my suitcase, as I was going to spend the night at the Deanery Hotel. I went on to Meere Court soon after half-past three, and stayed until past seven, after which I walked back to the Deanery, had some dinner and went early to bed. I never knew that anything had happened to my sister until the police telephoned to me soon after eight o’clock the next morning. And,’ he added, ‘that’s all about it.’

“But it certainly was not ‘all about it’, because several of the servants at Meere Court who were asked at what time Mr. Clarke went away that night, said that he must have gone very soon after five o’clock. They all finished their tea about that time, and then the gramophone was set going for dancing; they were quite sure that they had not seen Mr. Clarke after that. On the other hand Miss St. Jude said that the servants were mistaken: they were far too deeply engrossed in their own amusements to be at all reliable in their statements. As a matter of fact Mr. Clarke went away, as he said, at about seven o’clock; she herself had danced with him most of the time, and said good night to him in the hall at a few minutes after seven.

“Here was a neat little complication, do you see? A direct conflict of evidence at the very outset of this mysterious case. Can you wonder that amateur detectives already shrugged their shoulders and raised their eyebrows, declaring that the Honourable April St. Jude was obviously in love with Arthur Clarke and was trying to shield him, well knowing that he had something to hide.

“Of course the police themselves were very reticent, but even they could not stop people from gossiping. And gossip, I can assure you, had enough and to spare to feed on. At first, of course, the crime had seemed entirely motiveless. The deceased had not an enemy or, as far as that goes, many acquaintances in the world. In the drawer of the desk, in the parlour, the sum of twenty pounds odd in notes and cash was found, and in a little box by the side of the money poor Mary Clarke’s little bits of jewellery. But twenty-four hours later no one could remain in doubt as to the assassin’s purpose. You will remember that on the day following the adjourned inquest there had arrived from the depths of Yorkshire an old sister of the deceased, a respectable spinster, to whom Arthur himself, it seems, had communicated the terrible news. She had come to Barchester for the funeral. This elder Miss Clarke, Euphemia by name, though she could not say much that was informative, did at any rate throw light upon one dark passage in her sister’s history.

“‘For the past four years,’ she told the police, ‘my sister had an allowance of £4 a week from a member of the aristocracy. I did not know much about her affairs, but I do know that she had a packet of letters on which she set great store. What these letters were I have not the slightest idea, nor do I know what Mary ultimately did with them. On one occasion, before she was actually settled at “Hardacres,” she met me in London and asked me to take care of this packet for her, and she told me then that they were very valuable. I also know that she and my brother Arthur had most heated arguments together on the subject of these letters. Arthur was always wanting her to give them up to him and she always refused. On one occasion she told me that she could, if she wanted, sell that packet of letters for five thousand pounds. “Why on earth don’t you?” I asked her. But she replied: “Oh, Arthur would only get the money out of me. It’s better as it is.”‘

“This story, as you may well imagine, gave food enough for gossip; at once a romance was woven of blackmail and drama of love and passion, whilst the name of a certain great lady in the neighbourhood, to whom Miss Clarke had been in the habit of paying mysterious weekly visits, was already on everybody’s lips.

“And then the climax came. By evening it had transpired that in Arthur Clarke’s room at ‘Hardacres’ the police had found an old khaki tunic stuffed away at the bottom of a drawer, and in the pocket of the tunic the key of the locked parlour door. It was an officer’s tunic, which had at some time had its buttons and badges taken off; its right sleeve was so torn that it was nearly out of its arm hole; the cuff was all crumpled as if it had been crushed in a damp, hot hand, and there was a small piece of the cloth torn clean out of it. And― I will leave you to guess the importance of this fact― in the tightly-clenched hand of the murdered woman was found the small piece of khaki cloth which corresponded to a hair’s breadth with the missing bit in the sleeve of the tunic.

“After that the man in the street shook his head and declared that Arthur Clarke was as good as hung already.”