Читать книгу The House of the Schemers - Fred M. White - Страница 13

Table of Contents

A pleased expression passed over Burles's face. Here was an important clue that he would never have discovered for himself. He had taken pretty good stock of the shadow on the blind the night before, but the peculiarity of the woman's comb had escaped him. But he was quite sure now that it was the same woman.

"You have been of the greatest possible service to me, Miss Lefroy," he said. "But for you I should most certainly have missed a most important piece of evidence. We shall have to consider the thing in a new light altogether. Lady Altamont says that the victim of the outrage is an utter stranger to her——"

"But surely you don't believe such a ridiculous thing as that?" Ailsa said.

"Not quite," Burles admitted. "But one can never quite tell. I find it best, as a rule, to believe people till I prove their statements to be false. But there are circumstances in this case that alter one's deductions. You see, I know what kind of character Lady Altamont bears. Still I should have found it very difficult to prove that her ladyship knew nothing of the stranger. Now I know better. That 'stranger' was in Lady Altamont's house early in the evening, she was seated in a room leading from Lady Altamont's boudoir and drinking champagne with some person unknown. Therefore, we must take it for granted that Lady Altamont knows who her visitor is. It is worth knowing this. Only I am going to keep this knowledge to myself."

"You were going to say something just now about a ring," Ailsa suggested.

"Oh, yes; I had quite forgotten that for a moment. Your clever discovery put the thing clean out of my head. The ring you saw on the hand of John Stern. It does not in the least matter who John Stern is for the moment. We can come to that later. You said that the ring was exactly similar to one worn by your guardian. Was it like this?"

Very quietly Burles produced a unique piece of jewelry from his pocket. He laid it on the table so that Ailsa could examine it carefully, which she did. He wanted to be quite sure that there was no mistake. In every respect it was identical with the one usually worn by Archibald Colville. It was all very puzzling.

"I regarded that ring as unique," Ailsa said; "indeed, my guardian has always told me so. More than once he has permitted me to examine it carefully. Anything that is artistic and beautiful always interests me. And the more I look at the ring the more I feel sure it is the same one—the engraving on the inside of the three coils is identical. And yet it can't be the same, for Mr. Colville never removes the ring."

"Unless it has recently been removed by force," Burles said significantly.

"No, I should say not. Less than an hour ago I had to take in a telegram to my guardian's room. He was in bed, and he asked me to read it to him. He spoke quite in his usual level, emotionless voice. If any violence had been offered him, he would never have been so quiet and self-contained. Unless something has happened within the last half-hour——"

"You can disabuse your mind of that," Burles hastened to say. "Emphatically, this is not the ring belonging to Mr. Archibald Colville. I took it from the hand of the woman who has been nearly murdered next door. It was tightly clasped in her palm, and only a minute flash of the diamonds showed. It seemed to me to be an important clue, so I removed it. Of course, I need not ask you to keep this a profound secret."

"Then there are two, if not three, of those rings," Ailsa exclaimed. "My guardian has one, the man called Stern has another, and here is the third. It is very amazing."

"Perhaps not quite so amazing as on the first blush it would seem," Burles replied. "There is no reason why there should not be two of these rings. Very few things are absolutely unique. But there is no occasion for there to be a third. My theory in that this ring is the one that you saw on the finger of the man called John Stern."

Ailsa started. Her mind had been framing something of the same kind.

"This is what I mean," said Burles, gravely regarding the ring on the table. "John Stern knew the secrets of this house. He was searching for the panel leading to next door. He did not find it, but he managed to get into the house all the same. My idea is that John Stern is the man that you saw in the boudoir after the lights were put out—the man who was locked in the inner room. His unfortunate victim was there already, they had a bottle of champagne together. There was a struggle or something of that kind, and that is why I found the ring in the woman's hand."

Ailsa did not care to contest this theory. It seemed quite logical.

"I can't make it all out," she said. "Can you explain to me how that room altered from a luxuriously-furnished apartment to a dingy receptacle for a woman's clothes? But perhaps you will say that I'm getting on too fast. Is that some of the confetti?"

Ailsa asked the question quite abruptly. Two or three of the tiny, gaudy little discs lay on the table by the side of the ring. Burles nodded as Ailsa picked them up in a fit of idle curiosity. There was not much chance of a clue being found here. All the same, Ailsa's face lightened.

"This is rather curious," she said. "The only time I have ever been abroad was at the Nice carnival one year. It was the spring that my father died. I was in the thick of that riot, indeed I have some confetti that I have preserved as a memento ever since. But that confetti was made of paper. This is not paper at all, but something much heavier. It looks to me as if it were rice or starch or something of that kind, coloured. Did you ever see anything quite like it before, Inspector Burles?"

Burles was fain to admit that he had not. It seemed to him that Ailsa had missed her vocation and that she should have been a detective. The more he came to examine the confetti the more sure he was that it was not of the ordinary variety.

"There is some suggestion of the theatre about it," he said. "The stuff is heavy, and inclined to stick. Made for some special purpose, I should say. We will imagine the comic man in some musical comedy, if you like, emerging from a wedding or something of that kind covered with this stuff. That is what is called 'business,' I believe. We are getting on, Miss Lefroy. Thanks more to your acumen than mine."

"We had better gather all this stuff we can find," Ailsa suggested. "Oh, there is another point which I had almost forgotten. You will, of course, remember that wonderful fan. When my curiosity led me back into the boudoir once more I found there. It was lying on the table, and I held it to the light to make sure. Now, the fan was so valuable that the woman was not in the least likely to leave it about. And we know that the door leading into the inner room where the woman was locked. How did the fan come to be transferred from one room to another? Was that done before the crime took place or after? You may possibly think that this has an important bearing on the case. This is for you to decide. But it is pretty certain that somebody knew of that woman's presence—somebody who had the keys of both doors, or the fan would have been found by the side of the injured woman. Let us collect all the stray confetti."

Burles agreed. He had already formed a plan for discovering where that particular make of confetti came from. In the excitement of the moment the ring lay neglected on the table. It did not take long to gather up the scraps of tell-tale confetti, and once more Ailsa and her visitor were in the studio again. There were signs about the house as if somebody was moving, a fact that Ailsa pointed out to Burles.

"I shall have to leave you," he said. "I do not desire that your old servant should find me here. Strange that that aged servitor should know of that secret door! If you will give me the ring——"

"I haven't the ring," Ailsa replied. "It was placed on the table there by those pieces of confetti. You will recollect that I laid it down."

Burles did recollect it; he also remembered vividly that he had had left it on the table. But there was no sign of it now. Vainly the inspector searched his pockets, in vain Ailsa did the same. But both were quite sure that it had been left on the table in the excitement of the moment. In the circumstances there was only one thing possible—somebody had stolen in during their absence and purloined the ring. It seemed incredible, but there it was.

"This is disturbing," Ailsa said. "There is nobody in the house besides my guardian and old Susan. And they could not have been here at all. To make sure, I will go and see."

Ailsa sped from the room, only to return with the information a minute later that Mr. Colville was still in bed and that old Susan had not left her room as yet. All the same, the ring was gone, and it could only have vanished by human agency. It was rather disturbing to think that perhaps the whole of that private conversation had been overheard.

"This is maddening," Burles said, with a quick indrawing of his breath, "Really, a most disturbing element in the case. I must go now; indeed, I have stayed here far too long already. Miss Lefroy, I will ask you to watch carefully. Pretend that you are not more than usually interested in what is going on, but keep your eyes open. I will see that you get an appointment to meet Miss Wanless this afternoon. And I will not fail to let you know when I desire to see you again. Will you close that door behind me?"

Burles vanished into the boudoir, and Ailsa carefully closed the panel behind him. She was anxious and disturbed now that she was once more alone; the loss of that ring was an event that frightened her. It was so mysterious and audacious.

There was nobody in the house, so far as Ailsa could discover. She heard old Susan come down presently, muttering and talking to herself. The woman had not recovered yet, evidently. As she came down the stairs she walked in a confused way into the studio. Ailsa, coming from one of the corridors, saw this move and wondered. She crept in just in time to see Susan pick up a packet from the floor and place it on the table. It was an envelope with a seal in red upon it; something seemed to stand out inside the cover.

"Where did you get this thing from? And why do you put it here?" Ailsa demanded.

There was a cunning flash in Susan's eyes, then her face grew wooden and expressionless once more.

"Ask no questions and you'll be told no lies," she said. "Leastwise, I don't quite mean that. Only keep your mouth shut or he'll kill me. Don't let him know that I have had anything to do with it. I picked the parcel up on the landing. I saw it was addressed to you, and so I brought it in here. But don't let him know or he'll kill me."

The woman was evidently under the spell of a great fear. Without another word she shuffled away down the stairs. With a feeling of curiosity Ailsa tore open the envelope. The writing was for her, but she had never seen it before. It ran:

"If you care for the memory of Ronald Braybrooke, if you would save him and those he loves from lasting disgrace, I pray you call at the above address and ask for John Stern without delay. Heaven will bless your kindness. And as evidence that I am in deadly earnest I ask you to look at the enclosed."

Ailsa started. The address was 16, High-street, Chelsea—the address of the mysterious letter in the boudoir of the equally mysterious telegram. And from inside the envelope, to Ailsa's utter astonishment, there dropped—the missing ring!