Читать книгу DETECTIVE CLEEK'S GOVERNMENT CASES (Vintage Mystery Series) - Thomas W. Hanshew - Страница 8

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HOW did I come to suspect the young hunchback?" said Cleek, as they rushed through the coolness of the summer night, leaving Sir Lionel Calmount still dazed with the unexpected revelation of human duplicity, but happy, too, in the relief from all future danger.

"Well, as a matter of fact, I did not give him a thought; his feeble body and innocent look stood him in good stead, as he had invariably banked on. It was only when I came near him and caught the familiar scent, that I knew, and when I saw the marks on his finger I was certain. What's that, Mr. Narkom? What marks? Why, of the Chatterton; and the odour is peculiarly clinging. That is the stuff with which he had joined the flexible electric wire round the picture. Still, I didn't know but what he was an innocent tool of the captain's, until he mentioned that medical book. If you carry your mind back, dear friend, you will remember that he said the captain had taken it from the library. The book was certainly missing from there, but it happened to be in his room, and not the captain's. That's where the point comes in. The rest followed naturally." He looked out as the car turned into the station from whence the London express would whisk them to the metropolis and back into the maelstrom of that evening's pleasure seekers. Lennard and the limousine were to come on at their leisure. Briskly the little party took their places in the train and prepared for a somewhat lengthy journey.

"I think an evening out will do us all good," said Ailsa, presently, with a little sigh, "and Lady Chepstow — Mrs. Hawkesley I mean (somehow, the old title still fits her best), she, I know, will be only too glad of a change. Suppose you come back to dinner, and take us out afterward?"

"The very thing," put in Mr. Narkom briskly. "Berkely Square is, if I remember rightly, on Petrie's beat this week, and I shall feel safer if I know you are under his eye. And, as I have promised myself a night off with Mrs. Narkom " He smiled at Cleek, who nodded back at him happily. Seated by Ailsa's side, with her hand lying in the crook of his arm, the world spelt happiness complete. Even Count Irma and the menace of the Apaches were far distant. He lived for the moment in the lap of a glorious reality.

The journey's end reached at last, he saw Ailsa safely into a taxi, and promised to be with her in a short half hour. Then bidding good-bye to Mr. Narkom he turned on his heel and forged ahead through the stream of traffic that surged in and out of Charing Cross station. Foreigners there were always in plenty, but to Cleek, absorbed though he was in the narrow escape of the woman who represented the whole sum of human happiness to him, there seemed an ever-increasing number of Frenchmen in the moving medley of humanity. It brought a frown to his brows, and his mouth puckered into a network of tiny creases that boded ill for any one who might cross his path and his temper at that particular moment.

But long before he had reached the safety of Clarges Street the magic of London had exerted its soothing power; the old philosophical outlook returned and the grimness departed, for, after all, and despite everything, God was in his heaven, as the poet sang, and "all's right with the world."

Of a sudden he gave out a happy laugh and swung round the corner of the street, glancing up at the house wherein he had taken up his lodging till he and Ailsa should find themselves a more suitable apartment. At the very thought of what was to follow, his heart sang with happiness. But in his room all was dark; no light met him on the landing, the place was silent and deserted. Dollops had not yet returned.

On the table in the dining-room stood the remains of a meal that would have been ruinous to the strongest of digestions — a menu in which Dutch cheese, pickled walnuts, jam puffs, and monkey nuts figured conspicuously. Cleek laughed aloud at the sight of the disordered table.

"Only an ostrich could digest " he commenced, but the sentence died on his lips unfinished. Of a sudden his mouth fell open, he screwed round at the sound of the door being opened cautiously, and Dollops's face, the colour of new dough, peered in on him in the half light, like an eerie spirit.

"Gawd's truth, guv'nor, it is you, is it? I've got back!" ejaculated that individual with a sigh of relief. "Thank the Lord for that! I wasn't in 'arf a funk since those blessed foreign johnnies went through this place only this afternoon! Look at it, sir, look at it! Fair makes you sick!"

Cleek did "look at it," as Dollops switched on another electric, and the curious, one-sided smile travelled up his face.

That something had been "wanted" was more than evident, for every article had been turned out of drawer and box and lay in one disordered heap in the centre of the floor.

"What were they after?" he rapped out sharply.

"Lumme, that's what I asked, when I saw 'em wiv my own blessed peepers," Dollops gave back excitedly. "But I gives 'em the slip when they was ready to be off again and 'id in a cupboard. And 'ere I am."

But Cleek had vanished through the open door leading into his bedroom, and Dollops's voice came to him dimmed by the distance. "Them blooming Apaches," said he angrily, "they're all over the place, and buzzing like a nest of hornets."

Cleek gave out a little laugh and peered at him through the open door.

"Well, what of that? Surely you're getting used to them by this time? All you've got to do is to see that these rooms are kept locked while I'm away. Though what in the name of fortune should make Count Irma desire to go through my property like this?"

Speaking, he drove his hand into the pocket of the coat he had worn all day, his fingers touched a little metal object, and in a sudden fever of enlightenment he grew very still. It was no less than a ring, the false ring of Maurevania, which Mr. Narkom had withdrawn from the dead finger that had given him such an agony of anguish.

"Oho!" said he, a curious look passing across his grim face. "He looked for the proof of his crime, did he? So, Count Irma, there are others besides myself who will demand a reckoning for this day's work."

He replaced the ring in his dress-coat pocket, and completed his toilet in silence.

Ten minutes later, leaving Dollops on the watch, and as alert as a terrier over a rat hole, Cleek sallied forth, his own nerves keyed up to conceit pitch by the presence of an ever-increasing danger. Few would have recognized in the immaculately clad gentleman who took his seat at Mrs. Hawkesley's dinner table a short while later the effeminate young officer who had so lately looked upon the borderland of tragedy and averted a still greater one by the power of his wonderful mind; and only those few could be numbered as the ones who knew.