Читать книгу The Case for the Crown - Fred M. White - Страница 11

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"Surely a strange request, sir," the inspector said.

"An unreasonable one, if you like," Archenfield replied. "But still, such things have been done, and I will guarantee a safe return to-morrow morning. I am sorry I can't tell you why I want it, but I am working up Mrs. Molyneux's case, and I think you will believe me when I say that I regard the request as essential."

"Very well, sir. It's rather a risk, of course, but if you will give me a receipt for the ring, you can have it, on the distinct understanding that I have it back to-morrow."

Archenfield gave the desired receipt, and departed a little while latter with the ring in his pocket. Outside in the street he stopped and laid his hand earnestly on Snow's shoulder.

"This is a most important piece of evidence," he said. "I cannot tell you what it means now, but you shall know all in good time. I have gone a long way towards solving the mystery. Now, Mr. Snow, will you do me another favour? Will you take me as far as the Red House, and introduce me to Mrs. Molyneux. I want you to convince her that I am her friend, and that I have taken up her case out of sheer sympathy and because of the bond between us. Then you might leave us together for a little while, if you don't mind."

The blinds were all down at the Red House. The place had a forlorn and deserted appearance, save for a gardener or two going about their work as usual. A neat maidservant in trim black and white answered the door to the visitors that Mrs. Molyneux was lying down and too prostrate to see any one. But Snow was persistent, and a few moments later Archenfield found himself in the darkened library shaking hands with Mrs. Molyneux, who seemed to listen at first quite indifferently to what Snow was saying. But she brightened up presently when she heard who Archenfield was, and there was something like animation in those splendid eyes of hers.

"Oh, of course, I know Mr. Archenfield very well by name," she said. "It is really very good of you to come here like this, to try and cheer me up at a moment when I feel as if I had not a friend in the world. But you can't help me, Mr. Archenfield, indeed, you can't. Nothing can help me now. I must go through this to the bitter end. I must stand in the dock charged with the murder of the man who was my husband and yet whom I loathed and despised as everybody knows. My story is public property. My name has been dragged in the mud; even the little children in the streets pity me. And yet heavens knows I did my best for that unhappy man—"

"I don't think we need go into that now," Archenfield said gently. "I came here to see if I could help you—in fact, I know I can help you. I came here because your case is very like mine, and because I have been quite successful in one or two similar instances. I want you to feel that, Mrs. Molyneux. I want you to feel that I am heart and soul on your side, and that I am convinced of your innocence. Would you mind answering me a few questions?"

Cecil Molyneux looked up languidly.

"You are very good and kind," she said. "But I am afraid that it is quite useless."

"All the same, you never know," Snow pointed out. "If you don't mind, I'll leave you two together."

Archenfield lay back in his chair and glanced with some curiosity round the darkened library. It rather surprised him to find so fine a collection of books in the house of a man who was devoted entirely to outdoor amusements. He did not comment on the fact; that would come presently.

"Now, I want you to make an effort, Mrs. Molyneux. I want to ask you a good many apparently trivial questions, though from my point of view they are anything but trivial."

"I will do my best," Cecil said wearily.

"Very well, then. In the first place, how many servants have you—indoor servants, I mean?"

"Six altogether. Cook, housemaid, parlour-maid, scullery maid, together with Barton the butler and my own woman."

"We will leave the women out altogether for the moment. The butler now, how long have you had him?"

"Barton was here in my husband's father's time. The domestic servants about two years. My maid has been with me for six months."

"May I ask where she came from?"

"Really, I don't know. She came from a London registry office, and I took her on the recommendation of a lady whose husband was in the English Diplomatic Service in China."

Archenfield drew a long, quiet breath.

"Then the woman has been in service in China?"

"For two years, I believe. But you don't suspect Judith Carr, do you? That is impossible."

"I didn't say I suspected anybody," Archenfield said. "I told you I should ask you a lot of trivial questions, and you must not attach importance to them. And now I come to a more delicate subject. Your husband's habits."

"They were notorious," Cecil said a little coldly.

"Yes, yes, I quite understand that. But really, I must ask you to be quite candid with me. Your husband was an outdoor man, wasn't he?"

"Up to six months ago, yes. He used to play golf and attend race meetings and boxing entertainments in London. But for the last six months he has hardly been outside the house. During that time he has been drinking heavily. You must have heard all the sordid details at the inquest this morning."

"Don't be impatient with me," Archenfield said gently. "Now, didn't it strike you as a strange thing that a man who has always lived out of doors should suddenly elect to make himself a prisoner? Why didn't he go out? Was he afraid of anything?"

Cecil Molyneux sat up suddenly,

"Do you know," she said, "that I have asked myself that question more than once. I thought it was fancy, but about six months ago a strange man came here late one night, a man who looked like a foreigner, but gave no name. He saw my husband, and when he had gone I noticed a great change in Robert. From that moment he began to drink more heavily, and I don't think he was really properly sober from that hour to the day of his death."

Archenfield smiled as if he were pleased.

"Thank you," he said. "Your husband had no intimate friends, I suppose?"

"Not lately; in fact, my husband seemed to have a morbid dislike of visitors. With the exception of a man called Flint—Mr. Stephen Flint—"

"And who may he be?" Archenfield asked.

"Well, really, I can't tell you. He is a great racing man who lives in Oxley, and I believe calls himself manager of a racing stable. But he is the sort of person I dislike exceedingly, and I never met him if I could help it. Whenever he came to dinner I never came downstairs."

"Still, that doesn't prove anything against him," Archenfield said. "A man may be vulgar and dissipated, and yet be anything but a criminal. But, from what I can gather, this man Flint spent a lot of time here."

"He was here every day, sometimes twice a day. And I believe, too, that he has spent a good deal of his time in China. But I—I can't be sure."

Archenfield rose from his chair.

"You have been very kind and attentive," he said. "And I don't think I'll trouble you any further now. I shall probably come again to-morrow with further questions, and in the meantime you might give your servants a hint that the house is to be placed at my disposal whenever I want to have a look as it. You have a month before you, and in that time much may happen. Now, Mrs. Molyneux. I am going to make a request that you may regard as strange. But it is not strange at all. I have the strongest reason for making it. You will be lonely here, and it is essential that you have a certain amount of exercise. Now, I want you to come over to my house and spend the week-end with us. My wife's sister looks after the place, and she will be pleased to see you, I know, because she takes the greatest interest in these cases of mine. She is a Chinese lady, who has had an English education, as my wife had, and you will find her very sympathetic and charming. She will come on Friday with the car and fetch you. And now, would you think it strange if I asked you to leave me here alone for half an hour? You won't mind?"

Cecil Molyneux shook hands with this new friend of hers, and slowly left the room. Archenfield made a tour of the library shelves and took down presently a richly-bound volume that he opened at a certain place. Then he strolled out into the hall, and from thence into the porch. On one of the stone pillars some apparently idle person had scratched with a piece of chalk what appeared to be a rude drawing of a bird with a ring about its neck. It was only a mere outline that any idle errand boy might have perpetrated, but still there was a suggestion of the draughtsman about it. Making sure that he was alone Archenfield took a magnifying glass from his pocket, and examined the chalk marks with the closest attention. Then he replaced the glass in his pocket, and recrossed the hall in the direction of the library.

He was looking grave enough now, grave and alert with that peculiar electric spark gleaming in those blue eyes of his. Then he bent over the open volume on the library table and fluttered the pages of the book rapidly. It was apparently a volume of foreign travel with the name of its well known author on the back. It was a book filled here and there with pages of Chinese characters, and at the top of one of these pages was a pen-and-ink sketch of something that looked like a bird, three birds, in fact, very similar, though more finished than the rude outline in chalk on the porch. Very rapidly Archenfield ran his finger down the lines of Chinese characters.

"The League of the Three Fishers," he murmured. "The Three Fishers, beyond the shadow of a doubt. This is going to be a much bigger thing than I anticipated."