Читать книгу DETECTIVE CLEEK'S GOVERNMENT CASES (Vintage Mystery Series) - Thomas W. Hanshew - Страница 6

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IT WAS exactly five o'clock in the afternoon, and the sun was beginning to think of retiring from business, when a dusty, travel-stained limousine drew up at the lodge gates of Calmount Castle like a snorting, puffing horse, and demanded entrance.

"Who are you and what do you want?" demanded the shambling old gatekeeper, in a cracked voice.

"We want Sir Lionel Calmount," threw in Mr. Narkom excitedly. "Open the gates, my good fellow, as quickly as you can. The matter is urgent, cannot be delayed." But the "good fellow" was in no great hurry to accede to this demand. He hemmed and hawed for some moments, scratching his thatch of white hair with a horny hand, so that Cleek felt, in the unnecessary delay, a strong desire to leap out and shake the sense into him. But at sight of the flash of gold in Mr. Narkom's palm his actions quickened. The transferring of that same gold piece to his hand caused immediate obedience, and the limousine was soon gliding comfortably up the long drive toward Calmount Castle, and the fulfilment of at least one part of the quest that had brought them here.

The great front door stood wide open, and in the frame of it was a tall, erect, white-haired gentleman staring down at them blankly from beneath shaggy eyebrows. Cleek stepped forward, and removed his hat.

"Sir Lionel Calmount?" he said politely. "We come on account of Maurevania. Will you give us a hearing?" He thrust out the Maurevanian ring, and at sight of it the old man changed colour.

"If you have much to say," said he, leading the way to a small drawing-room at the rear of the building. "What do you want with me, sir? And what is the business you have come upon?"

"I want the release of your prisoner, Miss Ailsa Lorne," rapped out Cleek sharply, meeting the keen eyes with his own. "She is under the protection of the British Government, and Scotland Yard has come to take possession of her and bring her safely back home."

Sir Lionel clicked his teeth together.

"Impossible! Miss Lorne is . . . well, to speak perfectly plainly, she is not in possession of her senses, sir. She is mad."

"Mad! Not unless you have driven her insane with your atrocities. For God's sake, let us see her, lest I do you an unjust injury, Sir Lionel. I beg of you to take me to her at once!"

The old man switched round and looked at him keenly.

"Who are you, that you ask this of me?"

"Deland, Lieutenant Deland," Cleek made answer, "and responsible for the safety of the lady you have so foully injured!"

Sir Lionel's ruddy face went dough white; he shut his hands together and breathed hard. "Injured?" he bleated incredulously. "Injured, my dear sir? I have done Miss Lorne no personal injury, I assure you. She has greatly endeared herself to my wife and to me by her gentleness of disposition, and we feel only a great grief at the terrible thing that has deprived her of her mind. But as for any personal injury; you speak in riddles."

Mr. Narkom looked at Cleek; Cleek looked at Mr. Narkom. The old man's words rang true. There was a great light shining in Cleek's eyes.

"If you will come this way," went on Sir Lionel, and the two men followed him silently through a long hallway, into what was probably the music room, for at one end of it stood an organ and at the other a piano. Seated before it, playing softly to herself, was Ailsa, with her dear hand unblemished, but bare of the ring that Cleek had first put upon her finger many months before. She looked up, and seeing Cleek dressed as she had seen him so often, rose to her feet and came running toward him.

"Lieutenant Deland!" she cried, putting out her hands impulsively, "this is indeed a surprise. So you discovered me, and come to take me back home again? Why, and you, too, Mr. Narkom? Ah, but this is too good to be true!"

With a little ejaculation of relief Cleek caught the small hands in his.

Mr. Narkom drew the attention of Sir Lionel, and tactfully contrived to leave the two together.

"Count Irma came for me," whispered Ailsa, under cover of the conversation. "He told me you had sent for me to come to the Embassy, and I was to send on your ring as a sign that I was well; an officer in another car took my message to you while I packed. Luckily they never noticed my new leather-covered travelling basket for the pigeons that you gave me. Dear things! They did not know of what invaluable use they were to prove, otherwise they would have taken it from me. But I smuggled it into the back of the car, and contrived to get it out when no one was looking. Then I was driven straight here, and Sir Lionel and his wife were told I was mad! Mad, mind you!"

Cleek pressed her hands in his, too thankful at her escape to care aught for his own danger.

"Come, let us get away," he said. And Narkom turned at the same time. "I must get back to London, Sir Lionel. I think I have convinced you that you have been fooled and deceived. How serious the consequences might have been I need scarcely say. But if Count Irma returns "

"He will be refused admittance," said Sir Lionel sternly. "I am not to be made a catspaw, as he will see. You and your friend are as safe here as in the King's palace itself. It is late. I beg you to stay, if only for the night."

Narkom looked at his ally dubiously, but Cleek was gazing in turn at Ailsa, and it seemed to him as if her eyes signalled "Yes." And accordingly, some five minutes later, the dazed but delighted Lennard was being led off for a welcome meal and rest, while a party of five were soon seated round the dining table, Cleek laughing as happily as if Maurevania and all its troubles were at the bottom of the sea, now that he knew Ailsa was safe, and that the whole thing was but a malicious plot to entrap him.

An onlooker would have deemed it the most commonplace of country dinners, for it was not until dessert was reached that anything untoward occurred.

Just as the door opened to admit the butler with this course, the house rang from end to end with the sound of laughter, harsh, malicious, utterly mad. Lady Calmount looked at her husband with blanched cheeks. Then she sprang to her feet; she was shaking as if with the ague.

"Lionel, Lionel, that dreadful laughter again!" she cried hysterically, forgetting all else but her terror, her unutterable fear. "Oh, my boy, my boy! God help us all! What is to be done?"

Sir Lionel laid a steadying hand upon her arm. His own face was pale, but he remembered the presence of strangers, and sought to calm her.

"Hush, hush, my dear!" he said persuasively, pressing her back. "It is some servant, some trick. You must not pay any attention to it. What's that, Miss Lorne? Smelling salts? Oh, thank you very much. That will be best. There, there!" He smoothed Lady Calmount's pale cheeks with a tender hand, his own face as white as hers.

Ailsa looked up at Cleek. Then she nodded her head.

"Tell him, dear Lady Calmount, tell the lieutenant. He can help you, if any one can," she said softly in her low, sweet voice. "What is the meaning of that awful laughter? I heard it last night, and I really thought you had a mad person under your roof. So if there is anything to tell. . . ."

"Oh, there is, there is!" broke in Lady Calmount despairingly. "You tell them, Lionel; I can't. I can only think of my boy's danger; he is coming to his death, I know he is, and it is too late to stop him! Oh, it is cruel, cruel! What shall I do? What shall I do?"

There was a pregnant silence; then, with a look of mute pity at his wife, Sir Lionel cleared his throat.

"This must be all inexplicable to you, Lieutenant Deland," he began haltingly, wiping his face with a silk handkerchief, "but I will try to explain. We are in very great trouble. Within the year both my younger sons have been killed, I might say murdered, in some mysterious, diabolical manner by some agent that works by supernatural powers; there is no other possible explanation. They have been done to death, though showing no sign of wound or poison, just as that laughing gypsy swore that the sons of our house should die, when she cursed them root and branch."

"Hallo! Hallo! what's that?" said Cleek, sitting up sharply, and dropping his table napkin. "A gypsy's curse and the sons of the family dying mysteriously ! That's melodramatic, surely!"

"God help us! It is indeed," said Sir Lionel. "There is only my eldest son left now. He has been abroad, or else Heaven knows but what he, too, might now be lying with his ill-fated brothers. It is all so inexplicable, and yet so appallingly true! You can understand how I dread to see Edward enter the castle gates."

Cleek pulled down his brows and pinched up his chin.

"Hum-m-m! I can quite believe it," said he. "But what has the curse to do with that sound we have just heard? For I presume that you have no insane inmate. "

"No, no! That is the forerunner of death — her gypsy ladyship's laughter. I will try to explain. As you, perhaps, know, we are a very old family, one of the first to bear arms with King Richard the Lion-hearted in the Holy War, and we have been settled here in this castle more generations than I can count upon my fingers. Our menfolk have always married women of their own class."

"Noblesse oblige" murmured Cleek, with a whimsical smile, as he met Mr. Narkom's eye.

"Exactly," murmured Sir Lionel approvingly. "All except one. Sir Humphry Calmount, in seventeen-sixty-something, made a second marriage, and mated with a beautiful gypsy girl. It was believed that she was of Spanish descent, but, as a matter of fact, she was one of a travelling band of gypsies who settled on the waste lands just outside the castle gates. Well, to cut a long story short, Humphry Calmount fell in love with her and married her. For a time all went well. Her portrait was painted by "

"Sir Peter Lely," interposed Cleek. "Of course, of course! I remember now. 'The Laughing Girl' was the title he gave it. I saw a print of it only a short time ago."

"Yes," said Sir Lionel, with a shudder. "Her laughter rang incessantly through the old walls, and he got to hate it, just as we do to this day. Well, one day, in a fit of rage, he struck her, and I believe a fearful scene followed. It ended in the lady pulling out a dagger and stabbing herself. Just before she died she cursed the house up and down and ended by declaring that whenever her laughter rang through the castle some disaster should befall one of its sons."

"Hum-m-m!" said Cleek, "am I right in presuming that at different times a wild death, that is to say, a sudden death, has occurred, Sir Lionel?"

"At least once in every generation."

"But a coincidence, surely," threw in Ailsa, her eyes on Cleek's face. "I cannot believe that a dying woman's utterance could have any effect, after all these hundreds of years. Can you, Lieutenant?"

"That's what Wentworth says," moaned Lady Calmount, wiping her eyes with a wisp of real lace, gossamer as a fairy's cobweb. "He is my nephew, you know, Lieutenant Deland, and our heir, after Edward, to the family estates. He has had trouble, poor fellow, and is staying with us for the present, until his plans are more settled."

Cleek's mouth grew grim. Yes, he had heard of the "poor fellow's" trouble. It had something to do with card playing, with a prompt resignation from the army following shortly after.

"Tell me," said he quietly, addressing Sir Lionel, who was watching him with great intentness,"was he here when your two sons died? I do not wish to probe into family affairs, but only, if you will permit me, to help you to unravel this strange affair. And a few facts are necessary. Was Captain Calmount here with you at that time?"

Sir Lionel bowed his head.

"He was. But why do you ask? He was our great prop and comfort."

"You called in the police, of course?" said Cleek, apparently ignoring the last sentence.

"Well, no," admitted Sir Lionel, turning scarlet. "The fact is, as Wentworth said, neither of the lads was over-strong, and Dr. Marsh had advised them to be kept quiet; for that reason they were allowed the run of the house, and spent a great deal of their time in the picture gallery." Cleek lifted his chin. His face wore a curious look.

"Tell me," said he, "did they er — meet their death in the picture gallery — at the same time?"

"Within six months of each other. Harold fretted terribly, and he must have had a fatal attack of heart failure, for his heart was naturally weak; he probably just managed to crawl to the picture when death overtook him. Dr. Marsh was very good to us, and Wentworth did what we all considered to be for the best. I see you are suspecting my nephew of having some connection with that foul deed. I tell you it is impossible. He cared more for those two younger lads than Edward himself; indeed, that is what they quarrelled about." He stopped short, as if regretting having spoken.

"What's that? They quarrelled? What about?" Cleek demanded imperatively.

"Wentworth never did get on with Edward, from boyhood upward," put in Lady Calmount. "But he did care for my poor darlings, and in his brusque way he blamed Edward for going abroad on a pleasure trip, the very one, in fact, from which he is now returning. If anything happens to him -" She stopped abruptly, and let the rest of the sentence go by default.

But Cleek got to his feet, and rubbed his hands together, smiling a little. "I should like to have a look at Her Laughing Ladyship, if it's not too late and it wouldn't trouble you too much, Sir Lionel," he said.

"Certainly, certainly," replied Sir Lionel, and promptly led the way into a long, comparatively narrow gallery, in the middle of which, in fact, right opposite to the door, was a picture, roped off from too close inspection by a dark red, silken rope.

Sir Lionel held up a candle, and proceeded quickly to light others.

"So that's her Laughing Ladyship, is it?" said Cleek, gazing curiously up at the brilliant Spanish beauty smiling down into his eyes.

"You beauty, you!" he apostrophized her. "Have you lured those boys to their death, or is it a trap?" His eyes wandered first to Sir Lionel, who appeared to be watching him almost too eagerly, then around the gallery. Then he turned:

"Nothing to be learned here to-night, Sir Lionel. So it's no use wasting any more time. I don't mind having another look round in the daylight. 'Pon my word I don't wonder you get superstitious up here. Let's get down into the light again. I feel quite creepy."

"I very rarely come here myself," said Sir Lionel, with a bitter laugh. "The place has hateful memories." He stopped suddenly and shook his head. Then, snuffing the candles about the spot, turned on his heel and led the way downstairs once more.

As they passed the music-room door, there came the rich strains of the organ playing the grand choral, "Now Praise We All Our God," so that the house was filled with the sound.

Cleek paused and lifted his head. "A grand thing," he said softly, "a great and grand thing; and the man who can play like that is fit for the angels indeed."

"And that is as true a thing as was ever spoken," put in the baronet, with a sigh of genuine delight. "It is Gaston Calmount, a distant cousin, who lives with us. Poor lad, he is humpbacked, but he is as dear to us as a son."

"Another prop, eh?"

But Sir Lionel did not hear. He had opened the door, and now, coming toward them from the organ, was the figure of the hunchback, with a face that was as beautiful as the angels he emulated.

"Uncle Lal!" he murmured tenderly, his softtoned voice shaking with emotion, "I heard the laughter; I heard, I tell you. Surely now you will take action? You will not let our own Edward be murdered by that devil incarnate! You will not, you will not!"

"Hush, hush, Gaston," struck in Sir Lionel hurriedly. Then, as the boy drew back, ashamed of his outburst, and sent a startled look up into Cleek's face, he explained: "These gentlemen are detectives, Gaston. This is Lieutenant Deland, and he is going to try to protect our lad." "The police! Oh, thank God!" The boy — for he looked but little more, although he must have reached manhood some time before — fairly flung himself at Cleek, and laid a trembling hand upon his arm. "Oh, save us, Lieutenant! Save us!" he cried despairingly, "before he kills us all. It is Wentworth's hand that has done the dastardly deed. It is his wicked desire to become master here that is at the root of it. He has hushed up the first two, but, mark my words, Edward will be killed in some way or other. It is not for nothing that he has been poring over the medical books in the library. Oh, yes, I know; I watched. I may have done wrong, but Edward is as dear to me as though he were my own brother, and if anything happens to him "

Cleek gave vent to a low whistle of surprise. "Medical books, eh? Queer literature that for an officer, Sir Lionel!"

"I've heard of queerer," broke in Sir Lionel fiercely, with a sudden display of temper. "I can't believe it, and I won't. It is one of Gaston's foolish notions, simply because he hates Wentworth. That is all it is."

"Steady, steady," said Cleek softly, with a quick smile. " Circumstantial evidence isn't the best rod to lean on, though I'm inclined to think you're right. Anyhow, we're all safe for to-night, and, to tell you the truth, Sir Lionel, I'm getting deuced tired. I... I..." he turned suddenly, sniffed the air, then gave vent to a tremendous sneeze. "There's a draught somewhere. I think, if you would make my adieux to the ladies, I would like to retire."

"Certainly, certainly." The baronet hurried off, as if glad to escape from further parley with so curious an individual. And, left to himself, Cleek turned to the bowed figure of the hunchback, and laid a hand upon his shoulder.

" My dear young sir," said he briskly, " why didn't you wait till you got me alone before breaking out like that? So you want Mr. Edward to escape death, do you?"

The other looked up.

"Then you believe it, too," he said abruptly, not answering the question.

"Don't see a shadow of doubt," responded Cleek. "You leave it to me."

Then, turning upon his heel, he yawned wearily, wished the boy a sleepy "Good-night," and followed Mr. Narkom up the broad staircase to their allotted rooms.