Читать книгу Christopher Quarles: College Professor and Master Detective - Percy James Brebner - Страница 4

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I soon fell into the habit of going to see Professor Quarles. As an excuse I talked over cases with him, but he seldom volunteered an opinion, often was obviously uninterested. Truth to tell, I was not there for his opinion, but to see his granddaughter. A detective in love sounds something like an absurdity, but such was my case, and, since Zena's manner did not suggest that she was particularly interested in me, my love affair seemed rather a hopeless one.

My association with Christopher Quarles has, however, led to the solution of some strange mysteries, and, since my own achievements are sufficiently well known, I may confine myself to those cases which, single-handed, I should have failed to solve. I know that in many of them I was credited with having unraveled the mystery, but this was only because Professor Quarles persisted in remaining in the background. If I did the spade work, the deductions were his.

They were all cases with peculiar features in them, and it was never as a detective that Quarles approached them. He was often as astonished at my acumen in following a clew as I was at his marvelous theories, which seemed so absurd to begin with yet proved correct in the end.

Perhaps his curious power was never more noticeable than in the case of the Withan murder.

A farmer returning from Medworth, the neighboring market town, one night in January, was within a quarter of a mile of Withan village when his horse suddenly shied and turned into the ditch.

During the afternoon there had been a fall of snow, sufficient to cover the ground to a depth of an inch or so, and in places it had drifted to a depth of two feet or more. By evening the clouds had gone, the moon sailed in a clear sky, and, looking round to find the cause of his horse's unusual behavior, the farmer saw a man lying on a heap of snow under the opposite hedge.

He was dead—more, he was headless.

It was not until some days later that the case came into my hands, and in the interval the local authorities had not been idle. It was noted that the man was poorly dressed, that his hands proved he was used to manual labor, but there was no mark either on his body or on his clothing, nor any papers in his pockets to lead to his identification. So far as could be ascertained, nobody was missing in Withan or Medworth. It seemed probable that the murderer had come upon his victim secretly, that the foul deed had been committed with horrible expedition, otherwise the victim, although not a strong man, would have made some struggle for his life, and apparently no struggle had taken place.

Footprints, nearly obliterated, were traceable to a wood on the opposite side of the road, but no one seemed to have left the wood in any direction. From this fact it was argued that the murder had been committed early in the afternoon, soon after the storm began, and that snow had hidden the murderer's tracks from the wood. That snow had drifted on to the dead body seemed to establish this theory.

Why had the murderer taken the head with him? There were many fantastic answers to the question. Some of the country folk, easily superstitious, suggested that it must be the work of the devil, others put it down to an escaped lunatic, while others again thought it might be the work of some doctor who wanted to study the brain.

The authorities believed that it had been removed to prevent identification, and would be found buried in the wood. It was not found, however, and the countryside was in a state bordering on panic.

For a few days the Withan murder seemed unique in atrocities, and then came a communication from the French police. Some two years ago an almost identical murder had been committed outside a village in Normandy. In this case also the head was missing, and nothing had been found upon the body to identify the victim. He was well dressed, and a man who would be likely to carry papers with him, but nothing was found, and the murder had remained a mystery.

These were the points known and conjectured when the case came into my hands, and my investigations added little to them.

One point, however, impressed me. I felt convinced that the man's clothes, which were shown to me, had not been made in England. They were poor, worn almost threadbare, but they had once been fairly good, and the cut was not English. That it was French I could not possibly affirm, but it might be, and so I fashioned a fragile link with the Normandy crime.

On this occasion I went to Quarles with the object of interesting him in the Withan case, and he forestalled me by beginning to talk about it the moment I entered the room.

Here I may mention a fact which I had not discovered at first. Whenever he was interested in a case I was always taken into his empty room; at other times we were in the dining-room or the drawing-room. It was the empty room on this occasion, and Zena remained with us.

I went carefully through the case point by point, and he made no comment until I had finished.

"The foreign cut of the clothes may be of importance," he said. "I am not sure. Is this wood you mention of any great extent?"

"No, it runs beside the road for two or three hundred yards."

"Toward Withan?"

"No; it was near the Withan end of it that the dead man was found."

"Any traces that the head was carried to the wood?"

"The local authorities say, 'Yes,' and not a trace afterward. The ground in the wood was searched at the time, and I have been over it carefully since. Through one part of the wood there runs a ditch, which is continued as a division between two fields which form part of the farm land behind the wood. By walking along this the murderer might have left the wood without leaving tracks behind him."

"A good point, Wigan. And where would that ditch lead him?"

"Eventually to the high road, which runs almost at right angles to the Withan road."

"Much water in the ditch?" asked Quarles.

"Half a foot when I went there. It may have been less at the time of the murder. The early part of January was dry, you will remember."

"There was a moon that night, wasn't there?"

"Full, or near it," I returned.

"And how soon was the alarm raised along the countryside?"

"That night. It was about eight o'clock when the body was found, and after going to the village the farmer returned to Medworth for the police."

"A man who had walked a considerable distance in a ditch would be wet and muddy," said Zena, "and if he were met on the road carrying a bag he would arrest attention."

"Why carrying a bag?" asked Quarles.

"With the head in it," she answered.

"That's another good point, Wigan," chuckled Quarles.

"Of course, the head may be buried in the wood," said Zena.

Quarles looked at me inquiringly.

"I searched the wood with that idea in my mind," I said. "One or two doubtful places I had dug up. I think the murderer must have taken the head with him."

"To bury somewhere else?" asked Quarles.

"Perhaps not," I answered.

"A mad doctor bent on brain experiments—is that your theory, Wigan?"

"Not necessarily a doctor, but some homicidal maniac who is also responsible for the Normandy murder. The likeness between the two crimes can hardly be a coincidence."

"What was the date of the French murder?"

"January the seventeenth."

"Nearly the same date as the English one," said Zena.

"Two years intervening," I returned.

"Wigan, it would be interesting to know if a similar murder occurred anywhere in the intervening year at that date," said Quarles.

"You have a theory, professor?"

"An outlandish one which would make you laugh. No, no; I do not like being laughed at. I never mention my theories until I have some facts to support them. I am interested in this case. Perhaps I shall go to Withan."

There was nothing more to be got out of the professor just then, and I departed.

I took the trouble to make inquiry whether any similar crime had happened in England in the January of the preceding year, and had the same inquiry made in France. There was no record of any murder bearing the slightest resemblance to the Withan tragedy.

A few days later Quarles telegraphed me to meet him at Kings Cross, and we traveled North together.

"Wait," he said when I began to question him. "I am not sure yet. My theory seems absurd. We are going to find out if it is."

We took rooms at a hotel in Medworth, Quarles explaining that our investigations might take some days.

Next morning, instead of going to Withan as I had expected, he took me to the police court, and seemed to find much amusement in listening to some commonplace cases, and was not very complimentary in his remarks about the bench of magistrates. The next afternoon he arranged a drive. I thought we were going to Withan, but we turned away from the village, and presently Quarles stopped the carriage.

"How far are we from Withan?" he asked the driver.

"Five or six miles. The road winds a lot. It's a deal nearer as the crow flies."

"You need not wait for us, driver. My friend and I are going to walk back."

The coachman pocketed his money and drove away.

"Couldn't keep him waiting all night, as we may have to do," said Quarles. "Mind you, Wigan, I'm very doubtful about my theory; at least, I am not certain that I shall find the facts I want. A few hours will settle it one way or the other."

After walking along the road for about a mile Quarles scrambled through a hedge into a wood by the roadside.

"We're trespassers, but we must take our chance. Should we meet anyone, blame me. Say I am a doddering old fool who would walk under the trees and you were obliged to come to see that I didn't get into any mischief. Do you go armed?"

"Always," I answered.

"I do sometimes," he said, tapping his pocket. "We might come up against danger if my theory is correct. If I tell you to shoot—shoot, and quickly. Your life is likely to depend upon it. And keep your ears open to make sure no one is following us."

He had become keen, like a dog on the trail, and, old as he was, seemed incapable of fatigue. Whether he had studied the topography of the neighborhood I cannot say, but he did not hesitate in his direction until he reached a high knoll which was clear of the wood and commanded a considerable view.

We were trespassers in a private park. To our right was a large house, only partially seen through its screen of trees, but it was evidently mellow with age. To our left, toward what was evidently the extremity of the park, was hilly ground, which had been allowed to run wild.

To this Quarles pointed.

"That is our way," he said. "We'll use what cover we can."

We plunged into the wood again, and were soon in the wilderness, forcing our way, sometimes with considerable difficulty, through the undergrowth. Once or twice the professor gave me a warning gesture, but he did not speak. He had evidently some definite goal, and I was conscious of excitement as I followed him.

For an hour or more he turned this way and that, exploring every little ravine he could discover, grunting his disappointment each time he failed to find what he was looking for.

"I said I wasn't certain," he whispered when our path had led us into a damp hollow which looked as if it had not been visited by man for centuries. "My theory seems—and yet this is such a likely place. There must be a way."

He was going forward again. The hollow was surrounded by perpendicular walls of sand and chalk; it was a pit, in fact, which Nature had filled with vegetation. The way we had come seemed the only way into it.

"Ah! this looks promising," Quarles said suddenly.

In a corner of the wall, or, to be more precise, filling up a rent in it, was a shed, roughly built, but with a door secured by a very business-like lock.

"I think the shed is climbable," said Quarles. "Let's get on the roof. I am not so young as I was, so help me up."

It was not much help he wanted. In a few moments we were on the roof.

"As I thought," he said. "Do you see?"

The shed, with its slanting roof, served to block a narrow, overgrown path between two precipitous chalk walls.

"We'll go carefully," said Quarles. "There may be worse than poachers' traps here."

Without help from me he dropped from the roof, and I followed him.

The natural passage was winding, and about fifty yards long, and opened into another pit of some size. A pit I call it, but it was as much a cave as a pit, part of it running deeply into the earth, and only about a third of it being open to the sky. The cave part had a rough, sandy floor, and here was a long shed of peculiar construction. It was raised on piles, about eight feet high; the front part formed a kind of open veranda, the back part being closed in. The roof was thatched with bark and dried bracken, and against one end of the veranda was a notched tree trunk, serving as a ladder.

"As I expected," said Quarles, with some excitement. "We must get onto the veranda for a moment. I think we are alone here, but keep your ears open."

The shed was evidently used sometimes. There was a stone slab which had served as a fireplace, and from a beam above hung a short chain, on which a pot could easily be fixed.

"We'll get away quickly," said Quarles. "Patience, Wigan. I believe we are going to witness a wonderful thing."

"When?"

"In about thirty hours' time."

The professor's sense of direction was marvelous. Having reclimbed the shed which blocked the entrance to this concealed pit, he made practically a straight line for the place at which we had entered the wood from the road.

"I daresay one would be allowed to see over the house, but perhaps it is as well not to ask," he said. "We can do that later. I'm tired, Wigan; but it was safer not to keep the carriage."

Try as I would, I could get no explanation out of him either that night or next day. He was always as secret as the grave until he had proved his theory, and then he seemed anxious to forget the whole affair, and shrank from publicity. That is how it came about that I obtained credit which I did not deserve.

"We go there again this evening," he said after lunch next day; "so a restful afternoon will suit us."

It was getting dark when we set out, and again Quarles's unerring sense of locality astonished me. He led the way without hesitation. This time he took more precaution not to make a sound when climbing over the shed into the narrow path.

"I think we are first, but great care is necessary," he whispered.

We crept forward and concealed ourselves among the scrub vegetation which grew in that part of the pit which was open to the sky. It was dark, the long shed barely discernible, but the professor was particular about our position.

"We may have to creep a little nearer presently," he whispered. "From here we can do so. Silence, Wigan, and don't be astonished at anything."

The waiting seemed long. Moonlight was presently above us, throwing the cave part of the pit into greater shadow than ever.

I cannot attempt to say how long we had waited in utter silence when Quarles touched my arm. Someone was coming, and with no particular stealth. Whoever it was seemed quite satisfied that the night was empty of danger. I heard footsteps on the raised floor of the shed—a man's step, and only one man's. I heard him moving about for some time. I think he came down the ladder once and went up again. Then there was a light and sudden tiny flames. In the dark he had evidently got fuel, and had started a fire on the stone slab.

As the flames brightened I watched his restless figure. He was not a young man. I caught a glimpse of white hair, but he took no position in which I could see his face clearly. He was short, thick-set, and quick in his movements.

From somewhere at the back of the shed he pushed forward a block of wood, and, standing on this, he fixed something to the short chain I had noted yesterday. When he got down again I saw that a bundle was suspended over the fire, not a pot, and it was too high for the flames or much of the heat to reach it, only the smoke curled about it.

Then the man moved the wooden block to the side of the fire and sat down facing us, the flickering flames throwing a red glow over him.

"Wigan, do you see?" whispered Quarles.

"Not clearly."

"We'll go nearer. Carefully."

From our new point of view I looked again. The man's face was familiar, but just then I could not remember who he was. It was the bundle hanging over the fire which fascinated me.

Tied together, and secured in a network of string, were five or six human heads, blackened, shriveled faces, which seemed to grin horribly as they swung deeply from side to side, lit up by the flicker of the flames.

"Do you see, Wigan?" Quarles asked again.

"Yes."

"And the man?"

"Who is he?"

"On the bench yesterday. Sir Henry Buckingham. Don't you remember?"

For an hour—two, three, I don't know how long—that horrible bundle swung over the fire, and the man sat on his block of wood, staring straight before him. I had a great desire to rush from my hiding-place and seize him, and I waited, expecting some further revelation, listening for other footsteps. None came. The fire flickered lower and went out. The moon had set, and the cold of the early morning got into my bones.

In the darkness before the dawn the man moved about the shed again, and presently I heard him go.

"Patience!" whispered Quarles, as I started up to go after him. "He will not run away."

His calmness almost exasperated me, but he would answer no questions until we had returned to our hotel and had breakfast.

"My dear Wigan," he said, when at last he condescended to talk, "it was Zena who first set me on the right road, when she remarked that a man who had walked in a ditch carrying a bag would arrest attention. Two points were suggested—first, that the man might not have far to go to reach a place of safety; secondly, that he had come prepared to take a head away with him. A mere speculation, you may say, but it set me putting questions to myself. Why should a head be required? What kind of man would be likely to want a head? A theory took shape in my brain, and I hunted up the history of the well-to-do people who lived in the neighborhood of Withan. My theory required a man who had traveled, who was elderly, who could be connected with the case in France two years ago. I found such a man in Sir Henry Buckingham. I told you I was not certain of my theory. I was doubtful about it after I had watched Sir Henry for a whole morning on the bench. I sought for some peculiarity in his manner, and found none. Yet his history coincided with my theory. You know nothing about him, I suppose?"

"Nothing."

"Rather an interesting career, but with an hereditary taint in it," Quarles went on. "His mother was eccentric. Her husband was rich enough to have her looked after at home; had she been a poorer person she would have died in a madhouse. Religious mania hers was, and her son has inherited it in a curious fashion. In the year intervening between the Normandy crime and this one Sir Henry was in Rome, where he was very ill, delirious, and not expected to live, so there was no similar crime that year. But he was in Normandy at the time of the murder there, motoring, and usually alone."

"How have you learnt all this?"

"He is important enough to have some of his doings chronicled, and he wrote some interesting articles for a country gentlemen's newspaper about his Normandy tour—nature studies, and such like. Another point, both these murders happened at the time of the full moon. I am not absolutely sure, but I think you will find that for the last half-dozen years Sir Henry has not been in England in January."

"You think——"

"I think there would have been other heads missing if he had been," Quarles answered. "He was sane enough to be somewhere where he was not known when this time of the year came round. At the full moon he is always queer—witness last night; but he is only dangerous in January—dangerous, I mean, without provocation. To preserve his secret, I have little doubt he would go to any length; that is why I warned you to be ready to shoot when we went upon our journey of discovery. Now this year he was in England; illness had kept him to his house yonder, but he was well enough to get out at the fatal time, and the insane desire proved irresistible. He was cunning too. He must know everybody in the neighborhood, yet the man he killed was unknown. We shall find presently, I have no doubt, that the victim was some wanderer returning unexpectedly to friends in Withan. That would account for the foreign cut of his clothes. Sir Henry, waiting in the wood, perhaps for hours, may have allowed others to pass before this man came. He realized that he was a stranger, and attacked him."

"But the head?"

"Was among those hanging over the fire. Sir Henry was for many years in Borneo, Wigan, and for a large part of the time was up-country helping to put down the head-hunting which still existed there, and still does exist, according to all accounts, when the natives think they can escape detection. The horrible custom proved too much for his diseased brain, and fascinated him. You see how my theory grew. Then I looked for the actual proof, which we found last night. The long shed in that pit is built exactly as the Dyaks of Borneo build theirs—a whole village living on communal terms under one roof. The stone slab for the fire is the same, and over it the Dyaks hang the treasured heads, just as we saw them last night. Now you had better go and see the police, Wigan. Don't drag me into it. I am going back to London by the midday train."

The arrest of Sir Henry Buckingham caused an enormous sensation.

He was subsequently put into a lunatic asylum, where he died not many months afterward. Fortunately he had no children to run the risk of madness in their turn, and neither his wife nor any of the servants knew anything of the concealed pit where he went to revel in his insane delight.

Hidden under the long shed the heads were found—six of them, five so hideously shriveled that identification was altogether impossible.

The sixth was less shriveled, was the only English one, and, perhaps, had we shown it in Withan, some old person might have recognized a lost son believed to be still wandering the world.

It was thought better not to do so, and the identity of Sir Henry's last victim remains a mystery.