Читать книгу Detective Hamilton Cleek's Cases - 5 Murder Mysteries in One Premium Edition - Thomas W. Hanshew - Страница 22

After all, the imaginative reporter had not been so far out when he figured those mysterious markings upon the dead man's shirt bosom to read "63 Essex Row," an address where one Ferdinand Lovetski once did manufacture a certain kind of blacking for boots, shoes, etc. Not that they really did stand for that, of course, or that this ingenious person had done anything more than work out as a solution to the riddle of the marks a name and an address that were eventually to come into the case—as they now had done—but in a totally different manner from what the author of the theory intended or supposed.

Of two things Cleek was certain beyond all question of error. First: that the dead man was not Ferdinand Lovetski—not in any way connected with Ferdinand Lovetski to be precise; second: that the markings on the shirt were not made with "Jetanola" or any other kind of blacking; and ingenious as the theory was, he was willing to stake his life that those marks no more stood for 63 Essex Row than they did for 21 Park Lane. For one thing, what would be the sense of smearing them on the dead man's shirt bosom if they merely stood for that? It was all very well for that imaginative reporter to suggest that it was a sign given by the assassin to the whole anarchistical brotherhood that a debt of vengeance had been paid and a traitor punished; but the brotherhood did not need any such sign. If the man were Lovetski it would know of his death without any such silly nonsense as that. It knew the men it "marked," and it knew when those men died, and by whose hand, too; and it did not go about placarding its victims with clues to their identity or signs of whose hands had directed the exterminating blow.

And Ferdinand Lovetski it never had "marked"—never had issued any death sentence against, never had sought to punish, never, indeed, had taken any interest in—for the simple reason that, as Cleek knew, the man had been in his grave these seven years past! He knew that beyond all question; for in those dark other times that lay behind him forever—in his old "Vanishing Cracksman" days, in those repented years when he and Margot had cast their lot together and he had been the chosen consort of the queen of the Apaches—in those wild times Lovetski, down on his luck, bankrupt through dissipation, a thief by nature, and a lazy vagabond at heart, had joined the Apaches and become one of them. Not for long, however. Within six months word had come to him of the death of a relative in his native Russia, and of a little property that was now his by right of inheritance; and he was for saying good-bye to his new colleagues and journeying on to Moscow to claim his little fortune. But the law of the Apaches is the law of the commonwealth, and Margot and her band had demanded the usual division. Lovetski had rebelled against it; he had sworn that he would not share; that what was his should remain his only as long as he lived and—it did. But five days later his knife-jagged body was fished out of the Seine and lay in the morgue awaiting identification; Margot went thrice to see it before it went into the trench with others that were set down in the records as unknown.

That was seven years ago; and now here was Lord St. Ulmer, or some one in his room, burning labels that had to do with the days when that dead man was in honest business, and had lost it simply through dissipation after the police had discovered that 63 Essex Row was used in part as a meeting place for several "wanted" aliens, and had raided it and closed it up.

Lovetski had never belonged to the brotherhood; he had never even known that they met under that roof until the time of the raid; but he had been arrested with every other inmate of the house, held as a suspect to await examination at the hands of a magistrate, and in the meantime his business had gone to the dogs. After that drink got him, and acquaintances made in the place of detention became associates and pals. It was only a step from that to the Apaches, and from the Apaches to the Seine and the trench; and the little fortune in Russia was never claimed.

And now this Lord St. Ulmer was burning labels that once had been the property of that man, was he? And burning them at this particular period, of all others, when somebody, who evidently had some undesirable knowledge regarding him, had been mysteriously done to death and the Yard was out on the trail of the crime!

What did that mean? How did Lord St. Ulmer come into possession of those labels? And having come into possession of them, why had he suddenly become anxious to get rid of them?

What few paltry effects Lovetski had possessed when he joined the Apaches were left in the room he hired from old Marise—Madame Serpice's mother—at the inn of the "Twisted Arm." The Apaches had gone through them, and voted them not worth ten sous the lot—and very probably they were not. Still there might have been letters, and there might have been some unused labels; fellows of that sort would be apt to keep things of that kind merely to back up maudlin boasts of former standing. And if there had been, if this Lord St. Ulmer had come into possession of things that were left in the secret haunts of the Apaches—— Decidedly it would be an advantage to get a look at his lordship, and that, too, as expeditiously as possible.

A footman's waistcoat—merely that. He had one, that he knew; but was it in the kit bag? He went over and reopened the bag, and examined its contents. Good old Dollops! What strokes of inspiration the chap sometimes had! There it was, the regulation thing—the stripes, perhaps, a trifle broader than those the General's servants wore, but quite near enough to pass muster with a stranger. Now, then, upon what pretext? How? When? Hullo! What was that? The dinner gong, by Jupiter!

Certainly! The very thing. "Master wishes to know if there is any especial dish your lordship fancies, or shall I bring up just what cook has prepared?" That would do the trick to a turn; and he need be only four or five minutes late in going down to join his host and the ladies.

He whisked off his coat, waistcoat, and necktie, and made the change in a twinkling. Another and more subtle "change"—yet made even quicker—altered his countenance so completely that not one trace of likeness to Mr. Philip Barch remained. A moment later he had passed swiftly out of the room and was tapping upon Lord St. Ulmer's door.