Читать книгу Again the Three Just Men - Edgar Wallace - Страница 4

Table of Contents

“Murder, my dear Manfred, is the most accidental of crimes,” said Leon Gonsalez, removing his big shell-rimmed glasses and looking across the breakfast-table with that whimsical earnestness which was ever a delight to the handsome genius who directed the operations of the Three Just Men.

“Poiccart used to say that murder was a tangible expression of hysteria.” He smiled. “But why this grisly breakfast-table topic?”

Gonsalez put on his glasses again and returned, apparently, to his study of the morning newspaper. He did not wilfully ignore the question, but his mind, as George Manfred knew, was so completely occupied by his reflections that he neither heard the query nor, for the matter of that, was he reading the newspaper. Presently he spoke again.

“Eighty per cent. of the men who are charged with murder are making their appearance in a criminal court for the first time,” he said; “therefore, murderers as a class are not criminals—I speak, of course, of the Anglo-Saxon murderer. Latin and Teutonic criminal classes supply sixty per cent. of the murderers in France, Italy, and the Germanic State. They are fascinating people, George, fascinating!”

His face lighted up with enthusiasm, and George Manfred surveyed him with amusement.

“I have never been able to take so detached a view of those gentlemen,” he said. “To me they are completely horrible—for is not murder the apotheosis of injustice?” he asked.

“I suppose so,” said Gonsalez vacantly.

“What started this line of thought?” asked Manfred, rolling his serviette.

“I met a true murderer type last night,” answered the other calmly. “He asked me for a match and smiled when I gave it to him. A perfect set of teeth, my dear George, perfect—except——”

“Except?”

“The canine teeth were unusually large and long, the eyes deep-set and amazingly level, the face anamorphic—which latter fact is not necessarily criminal.”

“Sounds rather an ogre to me,” said Manfred.

“On the contrary,” Gonsalez hastened to correct the impression, “he was quite good-looking. None but a student would have noticed the irregularity of the face. Oh, no, he was most presentable.”

He explained the circumstances of the meeting. He had been to a concert the night before—not that he loved music, but because he wished to study the effect of music upon certain types of people. He had returned with hieroglyphics scribbled all over his programme, and had sat up half the night elaborating his notes.

“He is the son of Professor Tableman. He is not on good terms with his father, who apparently disapproves of his choice of fiancée, and he loathes his cousin,” added Gonsalez simply.

Manfred laughed aloud.

“You amusing person! And did he tell you all this of his own free will, or did you hypnotise him and extract the information? You haven’t asked me what I did last night.”

Gonsalez was lighting a cigarette slowly and thoughtfully.

“He is nearly two metres—to be exact, six feet two inches—in height, powerfully built, with shoulders like that!” He held the cigarette in one hand and the burning match in the other to indicate the breadth of the young man. “He has big, strong hands and plays football for the United Hospitals. I beg your pardon, Manfred; where were you last night?”

“At Scotland Yard,” said Manfred; but if he expected to produce a sensation he was to be disappointed. Probably knowing his Leon, he anticipated no such result.

“An interesting building,” said Gonsalez. “The architect should have turned the western façade southward—though its furtive entrances are in keeping with its character. You had no difficulty in making friends?”

“None. My work in connection with the Spanish Criminal Code and my monograph on Dactylology secured me admission to the Chief.”

Manfred was known in London as “Señor Fuentes,” an eminent writer on criminology, and in their rôles of Spanish scientists both men bore the most compelling of credentials from the Spanish Minister of Justice. Manfred had made his home in Spain for many years. Gonsalez was a native of that country, and the third of the famous Four—there had not been a fourth for twenty years—Poiccart, the stout and gentle, seldom left his big garden in Cordoba.

To him Leon Gonsalez referred when he spoke.

“You must write and tell our dear friend Poiccart,” he said. “He will be interested. I had a letter from him this morning. Two new litters of little pigs have come to bless his establishment, and his orange-trees are in blossom.”

He chuckled to himself, and then suddenly became serious.

“They took you to their bosom, these policemen?”

Manfred nodded.

“They are very kind and charming. We are lunching with one of the Assistant Commissioners, Mr. Reginald Fare, to-morrow. British police methods have improved tremendously since we were in London before, Leon. The finger-print department is a model of efficiency, and their new men are remarkably clever.”

“They will hang us yet,” said the cheerful Leon.

“I think not!” replied his companion.

The lunch at the Ritz-Carlton was, for Gonsalez especially, a most pleasant function. Mr. Fare, the middle-aged Commissioner, was, in addition to being a charming gentleman, a very able scientist. The views and observations of Marro, Lombroso, Fere, Mantegazza and Ellis flew from one side of the table to the other.

“To the habitual criminal the world is an immense prison, alternating with an immense jag,” said Fare. “That isn’t my description, but one a hundred years old. The habitual criminal is an easy man to deal with. It is when you come to the non-criminal classes, the murderers, the accidental embezzlers——”

“Exactly!” said Gonsalez. “Now my contention is——”

He was not to express his view, for a footman had brought an envelope to the Commissioner, and he interrupted Gonsalez with an apology to open and read its contents.

“H’m!” he said. “That is a curious coincidence ...”

He looked at Manfred thoughtfully.

“You were saying the other night that you would like to watch Scotland Yard at work close at hand, and I promised you that I would give you the first opportunity which presented—your chance has come!”

He had beckoned the waiter and paid his bill before he spoke again.

“I shall not disdain to draw upon your ripe experience,” he said, “for it is possible we may need all the assistance we can get in this case.”

“What is it?” asked Manfred, as the Commissioner’s car threaded the traffic at Hyde Park Corner.

“A man has been found dead in extraordinary circumstances,” said the Commissioner. “He holds rather a prominent position in the scientific world—a Professor Tableman—you probably know the name.”

“Tableman?” said Gonsalez, his eyes opening wide. “Well, that is extraordinary! You were talking of coincidences, Mr. Fare. Now I will tell you of another.”

He related his meeting with the son of the Professor on the previous night.

“Personally,” Gonsalez went on, “I look upon all coincidences as part of normal intercourse. It is a coincidence that if you receive a bill requiring payment, you receive two or more during the day, and that if you receive a cheque by the first post, be sure you will receive a cheque by your second or third post. Some day I shall devote my mind to the investigation of that phenomenon.”

“Professor Tableman lives in Chelsea. Some years ago he purchased his house from an artist, and had the roomy studio converted into a laboratory. He was a lecturer in physics and chemistry at the Bloomsbury University,” explained Fare, though he need not have done so, for Manfred recalled the name; “and he was also a man of considerable means.”

“I knew the Professor and dined with him about a month ago,” said Fare. “He had had some trouble with his son. Tableman was an arbitrary, unyielding old man—one of those types of Christians who worship the historical figures of the Old Testament, but never seem to get to the second book.”

They arrived at the house, a handsome modern structure in one of the streets abutting upon King’s Road, and apparently the news of the tragedy had not leaked out, for the usual crowd of morbid loungers had not gathered. A detective was waiting for them, and conducted the Commissioner along a covered passage-way running by the side of the house, and up a flight of steps directly into the studio. There was nothing unusual about the room save that it was very light, for one of the walls was a huge window and the sloping roof was also of glass. Broad benches ran the length of two walls, and a big table occupied the centre of the room, all these being covered with scientific apparatus, whilst two long shelves above the benches were filled with bottles and jars, apparently containing chemicals.

A sad-faced, good-looking young man rose from a chair as they entered.

“I am John Munsey,” he said, “the Professor’s nephew. You remember me, Mr. Fare? I used to assist my uncle in his experiments.”

Fare nodded. His eyes were occupied with the figure that lay upon the ground, between table and bench.

“I have not moved the Professor,” said the young man in a low voice. “The detectives who came moved him slightly to assist the doctor in making his examination, but he has been left practically where he fell.”

The body was that of an old man, tall and spare, and on the grey face was an unmistakable look of agony and terror.

“It looks like a case of strangling,” said Fare. “Has any rope or cord been found?”

“No, sir,” replied the young man. “That was the view which the detectives reached, and we made a very thorough search of the laboratory.”

Gonsalez was kneeling by the body, looking with dispassionate interest at the lean neck. About the throat was a band of blue about four inches deep, and he thought at first that it was a material bandage of some diaphanous stuff, but on close inspection he saw that it was merely the discoloration of the skin. Then his keen eyes rose to the table, near where the Professor fell.

“What is that?” he asked. He pointed to a small green bottle by the side of which was an empty glass.

“It is a bottle of crème de menthe,” said the youth; “my uncle took a glass usually before retiring.”

“May I?” asked Leon, and Fare nodded.

Gonsalez picked up the glass and smelt it, then held it to the light.

“This glass was not used for liqueur last night, so he was killed before he drank,” the Commissioner said. “I’d like to hear the whole story from you, Mr. Munsey. You sleep on the premises, I presume?”

After giving a few instructions to the detectives, the Commissioner followed the young man into a room which was evidently the late Professor’s library.

“I have been my uncle’s assistant and secretary for three years,” he said, “and we have always been on the most affectionate terms. It was my uncle’s practice to spend the morning in his library, the whole of the afternoon either in his laboratory or at his office at the University, and he invariably spent the hours between dinner and bedtime working at his experiments.”

“Did he dine at home?” asked Fare.

“Invariably,” replied Mr. Munsey, “unless he had an evening lecture or there was a meeting of one of the societies with which he was connected, and in that case he dined at the Royal Society’s Club in St. James’s Street.

“My uncle, as you probably know, Mr. Fare, has had a serious disagreement with his son, Stephen Tableman, and my cousin and very good friend. I have done my best to reconcile them, and when, twelve months ago, my uncle sent for me in this very room, and told me that he had altered his will and left the whole of his property to me and had cut his son entirely from his inheritance, I was greatly distressed. I went immediately to Stephen and begged him to lose no time in reconciling himself with the old man. Stephen just laughed and said he didn’t care about the Professor’s money, and that, sooner than give up Miss Faber—it was about his engagement that the quarrel occurred—he would cheerfully live on the small sum of money which his mother left him. I came back and saw the Professor, and begged him to restore Stephen to his will. I admit”—he half smiled—“that I expected and would appreciate a small legacy. I am following the same scientific course as the Professor followed in his early days, and I have ambitions to carry on his work. But the Professor would have none of my suggestion. He raved and stormed at me, and I thought it would be discreet to drop the subject, which I did. Nevertheless, I lost no opportunity of putting in a word for Stephen, and last week, when the Professor was in an unusually amiable frame of mind, I raised the whole question again, and he agreed to see Stephen. They met in the laboratory; I was not present, but I believe that there was a terrible row. When I came in, Stephen had gone, and Mr. Tableman was livid with rage. Apparently, he had again insisted upon Stephen giving up his fiancée, and Stephen had refused point-blank.”

“How did Stephen arrive at the laboratory?” asked Gonsalez. “May I ask that question, Mr. Fare?”

The Commissioner nodded.

“He entered by the side passage. Very few people who come to the house on purely scientific business enter the house.”

“Then access to the laboratory is possible at all hours?”

“Until the very last thing at night, when the gate is locked,” said the young man. “You see, Uncle used to take a little constitutional before going to bed, and he preferred using that entrance.”

“Was the gate locked last night?”

John Munsey shook his head.

“No,” he said quietly. “That was one of the first things I investigated. The gate was unfastened and ajar. It is not so much of a gate as an iron grille, as you probably observed.”

“Go on,” nodded Mr. Fare.

“Well, the Professor gradually cooled down, and for two or three days he was very thoughtful, and, I thought, a little sad. On Monday—what is to-day? Thursday?—yes, it was on Monday, he said to me: ‘John, let’s have a little talk about Steve. Do you think I have treated him very badly?’ ‘I think you were rather unreasonable, Uncle,’ I said. ‘Perhaps I was,’ he replied. ‘She must be a very fine girl for Stephen to risk poverty for her sake.’ That was the opportunity I had been praying for, and I think I urged Stephen’s case with an eloquence which he would have commended. The upshot of it was that the old man weakened and sent a wire to Stephen, asking him to see him last night. It must have been a struggle for the Professor to have got over his objection to Miss Faber; he was a fanatic on the question of heredity——”

“Heredity?” interrupted Manfred quickly. “What was wrong with Miss Faber?”

“I don’t know,” shrugged the other, “but the Professor had heard rumours that her father had died in an inebriates’ home. I believe those rumours were baseless.”

“What happened last night?” asked Fare.

“I understand that Stephen came,” said Munsey. “I kept carefully out of the way; in fact, I spent my time in my room, writing off some arrears of correspondence. I came downstairs about half-past eleven, but the Professor had not returned. Looking from this window, you can see the wall of the laboratory, and as the lights were still on, I thought that the Professor’s conversation had been protracted, and, hoping that the best results might come from this interview, I went to bed. It was earlier than I go as a rule, but it was quite usual for me to go to bed even without saying good-night to the Professor.

“I was awakened at eight in the morning by the housekeeper, who told me that the Professor was not in his room. Here, again, this was not an unusual circumstance. Sometimes the Professor would work very late in the laboratory, and then throw himself into an armchair and go off to sleep. It was a habit on which I had remonstrated as plainly as I dared; but he was not a man who bore criticism with equanimity.

“I got into my dressing-gown and my slippers, and went along to the laboratory, which is reached, as you know, by the way we came in here. It was then that I discovered him on the floor, and he was quite dead.”

“Was the door of the laboratory open?” asked Gonsalez.

“It was ajar.”

“And the gate also was ajar?”

Munsey nodded.

“You heard no sound of quarrelling?”

“None.”

There was a knock, and Munsey walked to the door.

“It is Stephen,” he said, and a second later Stephen Tableman, escorted by two detectives, came into the room. His big face was pale, and when he greeted his cousin with a little smile, Manfred saw the extraordinary “canines,” big and cruel-looking. The other teeth were of normal size, but these pointed fangs were notably abnormal.

Stephen Tableman was a young giant, and, observing those great hands of his, Manfred bit his lip thoughtfully.

“You have heard the sad news, Mr. Tableman?”

“Yes, sir,” said Stephen in a shaking voice. “Can I see my father?”

“In a little time,” said Fare, and his voice was hard. “I want you to tell me when you saw your father last.”

“I saw him alive last night,” said Stephen Tableman quickly. “I came by appointment to the laboratory, and we had a long talk.”

“How long were you there with him?”

“About two hours, as near as I can guess.”

“Was the conversation of a friendly character?”

“Very,” said Stephen emphatically. “For the first time since over a year ago”—he hesitated—“we discussed a certain subject rationally.”

“The subject being your fiancée, Miss Faber?”

Stephen looked at the interrogator steadily.

“That was the subject, Mr. Fare,” he replied quietly.

“Did you discuss any other matters?”

Stephen hesitated.

“We discussed money,” he said. “My father cut off my allowance, and I have been rather short; in fact, I have been overdrawn at my bank, and he promised to make that right, and also spoke about—the future.”

“About his will?”

“Yes, sir, he spoke about altering his will.” He looked across at Munsey, and again he smiled. “My cousin has been a most persistent advocate, and I can’t thank him half enough for his loyalty to me in those dark times,” he said.

“When you left the laboratory, did you go out by the side entrance?”

Stephen nodded.

“And did you close the door behind you?”

“My father closed the door,” he said. “I distinctly remember hearing the click of the lock as I was going up the alley-way.”

“Can the door be opened from outside?”

“Yes,” said Stephen; “there is a lock which has only one key, and that is in my father’s possession—I think I am right, John?”

John Munsey nodded.

“So that, if he closed the door behind you, it could only be opened again by somebody in the laboratory—himself, for example?”

Stephen looked puzzled.

“I don’t quite understand the meaning of this inquiry,” he said. “The detective told me that my father has been found dead. What was the cause?”

“I think he was strangled,” said Fare quietly, and the young man took a step back.

“Strangled!” he whispered. “But he hadn’t an enemy in the world.”

“That we shall discover.” Fare’s voice was dry and businesslike. “You can go now, Mr. Tableman.”

After a moment’s hesitation the big fellow swung across the room through a door in the direction of the laboratory. He came back after an absence of a quarter of an hour, and his face was deathly white.

“Horrible, horrible!” he muttered. “My poor father!”

“You are on the way to being a doctor, Mr. Tableman? I believe you are at the Middlesex Hospital,” said Fare. “Do you agree with me that your father was strangled?”

The other nodded.

“It looks that way,” he said, speaking with difficulty. “I couldn’t conduct an examination as if he had been—somebody else, but it looks that way.”

The two men walked back to their lodgings. Manfred thought best when his muscles were most active. Their walk was in silence, each being busy with his own thoughts.

“You observed the canines?” asked Leon with quiet triumph after a while.

“I observed, too, his obvious distress,” said Manfred, and Leon chuckled.

“It is evident that you have not read friend Mantegazza’s admirable monograph on the ‘Physiology of Pain,’ ” he said smugly—Leon was delightfully smug at times—“nor examined his most admirable tables on the ‘Synonyms of Expression,’ or otherwise you would be aware that the expression of sorrow is undistinguishable from the expression of remorse.”

Manfred looked down at his friend with that quiet smile of his.

“Anybody who did not know you, Leon, would say that you were convinced that Professor Tableman was strangled by his son.”

“After a heated quarrel,” said Gonsalez complacently.

“When young Tableman had gone, you inspected the laboratory. Did you discover anything?”

“Nothing more than I expected to find,” said Gonsalez. “There were the usual air apparatus, the inevitable liquid-air still, the ever-to-be-expected electric crucibles. The inspection was superfluous, I admit, for I knew exactly how the murder was committed—for murder it was—the moment I came into the laboratory and saw the thermos flask and the pad of cotton-wool.”

Suddenly he frowned and stopped dead.

“Santa Miranda!” he ejaculated. Gonsalez always swore by this non-existent saint. “I had forgotten!”

He looked up and down the street.

“There is a place from whence we can telephone,” he said. “Will you come with me, or shall I leave you here?”

“I am consumed with curiosity,” said Manfred.

They went into the shop, and Gonsalez gave a number. Manfred did not ask him how he knew it, because he too had read the number which was written on the telephone disc that stood on the late Professor’s table.

“Is that you, Mr. Munsey?” asked Gonsalez. “It is I. You remember I have just come from you? ... Yes, I thought you would recognise my voice. I want to ask you, where are the Professor’s spectacles?”

There was a moment’s silence.

“The Professor’s spectacles?” said Munsey’s voice. “Why, they’re with him, aren’t they?”

“They were not on the body or near it,” said Gonsalez. “Will you see if they are in his room? I’ll hold the line.”

He waited, humming a little aria from “El Perro Chico,” a light opera which had its day in Madrid fifteen years before; and presently he directed his attention again to the instrument.

“In his bedroom, were they? Thank you very much.”

He hung up the receiver. He did not explain the conversation to Manfred, nor did Manfred expect him to, for Leon Gonsalez dearly loved a mystery. All he permitted himself to say was:

“Canine teeth!”

And this seemed to amuse him very much.

When Gonsalez came to breakfast the next morning, the waiter informed him that Manfred had gone out early. George came in about ten minutes after the other had commenced breakfast, and Leon Gonsalez looked up.

“You puzzle me when your face is so mask-like, George,” he said. “I don’t know whether you’re particularly amused or particularly depressed.”

“A little of the one and a little of the other,” said Manfred, sitting down to breakfast. “I have been to Fleet Street to examine the files of the sporting press.”

“The sporting press?” repeated Gonsalez, staring at him; and Manfred nodded.

“Incidentally, I met Fare. No trace of poison has been found in the body, and no other sign of violence. They are arresting Stephen Tableman to-day.”

“I was afraid of that,” said Gonsalez gravely. “But why the sporting press, George?”

Manfred did not answer the question, but went on:

“Fare is quite certain that the murder was committed by Stephen Tableman. His theory is that there was a quarrel, and that the young man lost his temper and choked his father. Apparently the examination of the body proved that extraordinary violence must have been used—every bloodvessel in the neck is congested. Fare also told me that at first the doctor suspected poison, but there is no sign of any drug to be discovered, and the doctors say that the drug that would cause that death with such symptoms is unknown. It makes it worse for Stephen Tableman, because for the past few months he has been concentrating his studies upon obscure poisons.”

Gonsalez stretched back in his chair, his hands in his pockets.

“Well, whether he committed that murder or not,” he said after a while, “he is certain to commit a murder sooner or later. I remember once a doctor in Barcelona who had such teeth. He was a devout Christian, a popular man, a bachelor, and had plenty of money, and there seemed no reason in the world why he should murder anybody, and yet he did. He murdered another doctor who threatened to expose some error he made in an operation. I tell you, George, with teeth like that——” He paused and frowned thoughtfully. “My dear George,” he said, “I am going to ask Fare if he will allow me the privilege of spending a few hours alone in Professor Tableman’s laboratory.”

“Why on earth——” began Manfred, and checked himself. “Why, of course, you have a reason, Leon. As a rule I find no difficulty in solving such mysteries as these. But in this case I am puzzled, though I have confidence that you have already unravelled what mystery there is. There are certain features about the business which are particularly baffling. Why should the old man be wearing thick gloves——”

Gonsalez sprang to his feet, his eyes blazing.

“What a fool! What a fool!” he almost shouted. “I didn’t see those. Are you sure, George?” he asked eagerly. “He had thick gloves? Are you certain?”

Manfred nodded, smiling his surprise at the other’s perturbation.

“That’s it!” Gonsalez snapped his fingers. “I knew there was some error in my calculations! Thick woollen gloves, weren’t they?” He became suddenly thoughtful. “Now, I wonder how the devil he induced the old man to put ’em on?” he said, half to himself.

The request to Mr. Fare was granted, and the two men went together to the laboratory. John Munsey was waiting for them.

“I discovered those spectacles by my uncle’s bedside,” he said as soon as he saw them.

“Oh, the spectacles?” said Leon absently. “May I see them?” He took them in his hand. “Your uncle was very short-sighted. How did they come to leave his possession, I wonder?”

“I think he went up to his bedroom to change; he usually did after dinner,” explained Mr. Munsey. “And he must have left them there. He usually kept an emergency pair in the laboratory, but for some reason or other he doesn’t seem to have put them on. Do you wish to be alone in the laboratory?” he asked.

“I would rather,” said Leon. “Perhaps you would entertain my friend whilst I look round?”

Left alone, he locked the door that communicated between the laboratory and the house, and his first search was for the spectacles that the old man usually wore when he was working.

Characteristically enough, he went straight to the place where they were—a big galvanised ash-pan by the side of the steps leading up to the laboratory. He found them in fragments, the horn rims broken in two places. He collected what he could, and returned to the laboratory, and, laying them on the bench, he took up the telephone.

The laboratory had a direct connection with the exchange, and after five minutes’ waiting, Gonsalez found himself in communication with Stephen Tableman.

“Yes, sir,” was the surprised reply. “My father wore his glasses throughout the interview.”

“Thank you, that is all,” said Gonsalez, and hung up the ’phone.

Then he went to one of the apparatus in a corner of the laboratory and worked steadily for an hour and a half. At the end of that time he went to the telephone again. Another half-hour passed, and then he pulled from his pocket a pair of thick woollen gloves, and unlocking the door leading to the house, called Manfred.

“Ask Mr. Munsey to come,” he said.

“Your friend is interested in science,” said Mr. Munsey as he accompanied Manfred along the passage.

“I think he is one of the cleverest in his own particular line,” said Manfred.

He came into the laboratory ahead of Munsey, and to his surprise Gonsalez was standing near the table, holding in his hand a small liqueur glass filled with an almost colourless liquid. Almost colourless, but there was a blue tinge to it, and to Manfred’s amazement a faint mist was rising from its surface.

Manfred stared at him, and then he saw that the hands of Leon Gonsalez were enclosed in thick woollen gloves.

“Have you finished?” smiled Mr. Munsey as he came from behind Manfred; and then he saw Leon and smiled no more. His face went drawn and haggard, his eyes narrowed, and Manfred heard his laboured breathing.

“Have a drink, my friend?” said Leon pleasantly. “A beautiful drink. You’d mistake it for crème de menthe or any old liqueur—especially if you were a short-sighted, absent-minded old man and somebody had purloined your spectacles.”

“What do you mean?” asked Munsey hoarsely. “I—I don’t understand you.”

“I promise you that this drink is innocuous, that it contains no poison whatever, that it is as pure as the air you breathe,” Gonsalez went on.

“Damn you!” yelled Munsey; but before he could leap at his tormentor, Manfred had caught him and slung him to the ground.

“I have telephoned for the excellent Mr. Fare, and he will be here soon, and also Mr. Stephen Tableland. Ah, here they are.”

There was a tap at the door.

“Will you open, please, my dear George? I do not think our young friend will move. If he does, I will throw the contents of this glass in his face.”

Fare came in, followed by Stephen, and with them an officer from Scotland Yard.

“There is your prisoner, Mr. Fare,” said Gonsalez. “And here is the means by which Mr. John Munsey encompassed the death of his uncle—decided thereto, I guess, by the fact that his uncle had been reconciled with Stephen Tableland, and that the will which he had so carefully manœuvred was to be altered in Stephen Tableland’s favour.”

“That’s a lie!” gasped John Munsey. “I worked for you—you know I did, Stephen. I did my best for you——”

“All part of the general scheme of deception—again I am guessing,” said Gonsalez. “If I am wrong, drink this. It is the liquid your uncle drank on the night of his death.”

“What is it?” demanded Fare quickly.

“Ask him,” smiled Gonsalez, nodding to the man.

John Munsey turned on his heels and walked to the door, and the police officer who had accompanied Fare followed him.

“And now I will tell you what it is,” said Gonsalez. “It is liquid air!”

“Liquid air!” said the Commissioner. “Why, what do you mean? How can a man be poisoned with liquid air?”

“Professor Tableland was not poisoned. Liquid air is a fluid obtained by reducing the temperature of air to two hundred and seventy degrees below zero. Scientists use the liquid for experiments, and it is usually kept in a thermos flask, the mouth of which is stopped with cotton-wool, because, as you know, there would be danger of a blow-up if the air was confined.”

“Good God!” gasped Tableland in horror. “Then that blue mark about my father’s throat——?”

“He was frozen to death. At least, his throat was frozen solid the second that liquid was taken. Your father was in the habit of drinking a liqueur before he went to bed, and there is no doubt that, after you had left, Munsey gave the Professor a glassful of liquid air and by some means induced him to put on gloves.”

“Why did he do that? Oh, of course, the cold,” said Manfred.

Gonsalez nodded.

“Without gloves he would have detected immediately the stuff he was handling. What artifice Munsey used we may never know. It is certain he himself must have been wearing gloves at the time. After your father’s death he then began to prepare evidence to incriminate somebody else. The Professor had probably put away his glasses preparatory to going to bed, and the murderer, like myself, overlooked the fact that the body was still wearing gloves.

“My own theory,” said Gonsalez later, “is that Munsey has been working for years to oust his cousin from his father’s affections. He probably invented the story of the dipsomaniac father of Miss Faber.”

Young Tableland had come to their lodgings, and now Gonsalez had a shock. Something he said had surprised a laugh from Stephen, and Gonsalez stared at him.

“Your—your teeth?” he stammered.

Stephen flushed.

“My teeth?” he repeated, puzzled.

“You had two enormous canines when I saw you last,” said Gonsalez. “You remember, Manfred?” he said, and he was really agitated. “I told you——”

He was interrupted by a burst of laughter from the young student.

“Oh, they were false,” he said awkwardly. “They were knocked out at a Rugger match, and Benson, who’s a fellow in our dental department and is an awfully good chap, though a pretty poor dentist, undertook to make me two to fill the deficiency. They looked terrible, didn’t they? I don’t wonder your noticing them. I got two new ones put in by another dentist.”

“It happened on the thirteenth of September last year. I read about it in the sporting press,” said Manfred, and Gonsalez fixed him with a reproachful glance.

“You see, my dear Leon”—Manfred laid his hand on the other’s shoulder—“I knew they were false, just as you knew they were canines.”

When they were alone, Manfred said:

“Talking about canines——”

“Let us talk about something else!” snapped Leon.