The Sign of the Stranger
Page 5
do not usually give their real names, hence we knewthat Bond was assumed. Indeed, in pawnbroking the name of the personoffering the pledge is never even asked, the assistant filling up thevoucher in any name that comes to him.
While the others were making careful examination of the maker's name andnumber of the dead man's watch, I chanced to hold his waistcoat in myhand, when between my fingers I felt something like a letter. In aninstant I was prompted to take possession of it secretly, and this Imanaged to do, first crushing it into the palm of my hand, thentransferring it to my pocket.
Was it possible that the crisp paper so cunningly concealed in thelining of the waistcoat contained a clue? My heart beat quickly, and Ilonged to escape from the place and examine it in secret. If Lolita hadactually been present at the tragedy and had any connection with it, myduty was surely to conceal the fact. She had admitted that she was indeadly peril, and I had promised to assist her; therefore, by securingany clue and hiding it from the police, I was assuredly acting in herinterest.
I had already managed to secure the ring surreptitiously from the deadman's finger before the body had been removed from the spot where we haddiscovered it, and as neither Warr nor the others had noticed it, I heldit as a probable clue which I intended should be my secret alone.
"He was evidently struck with a long thin knife," remarked Pink, amuscular, clean-shaven man who was extremely popular in the district, akeen sportsman and something of an epicure. He had probed the wound andascertained that its direction had been only too accurate. "Whoever didit," he declared, "knew exactly where to strike. I daresay he fellwithout a cry. The knife was very sharp, too," he went on, examiningone of the black horn buttons of the young man's jacket-cuff. "You seeit grazed this as he raised his arm to ward off the blow and shaved offa tiny piece, just as a razor might. The coroner will want to see this.I'll get Newman over, and we'll make a proper post-mortem in themorning."
Pink was a clever surgeon who masked his capabilities behind aneasy-going good-humour. His poor patients were often convulsed by hisamusing remarks, while at the houses of the county people he was alwaysa welcome guest on account of his inexhaustible fund of droll stories,his shrewd wit, and his outspoken appreciation of a good dinner. Hisodd ways were the idiosyncrasies of genius, for without doubt he was asexpert a surgeon as there was outside Harley Street, and I myself hadheard praise of him from the mouths of certain London men with big"names."
The manner in which he examined the unfortunate young man who had sosuddenly fallen a victim of an assassin showed that he was intenselyinterested. He grunted once or twice and sniffed suspiciously, and withsome gusto took a pinch of snuff from his heavy silver box. Then,having carefully examined the man's right hand, he turned to me again,saying, as he pointed to it--
"That's strange, Woodhouse, isn't it?"
"What?" I inquired, detecting nothing.
"Can't you see. His hand is clenched. He grasped something just at themoment when he was struck."
"Well?"
He held the lantern closer to the cold stiff hand, and pointing to thethumb that was closely clenched upon the fingers, said--
"Can't you see anything there?"
I looked, and then for the first time detected that beneath the thumbwas something white--a tiny piece of white fur!
"That's out of a woman's jacket, or boa, or something," he declared,gradually disengaging it, and placing it in the hollow of his hand forcloser inspection. "There are one or two black hairs with it, showingit, I believe, to be ermine fur--a woman who wore some garment ofermine."
"Are you certain?" I gasped.
"Almost--but not quite until I put it beneath the microscope. Then I'llbe able to tell for certain. But surely it couldn't have been a womanwho killed him?"
"It looks very much like it, sir," remarked Knight, who had been gazingeagerly over the doctor's shoulder.
"Then what woman?" asked Warr, glancing across at me.
I held my breath. A silence fell between us. The mystery was of such acharacter that neither of us dare advance any further theory.
For my own part, however, the discovery of this tiny piece of fur wasdirectly suspicious, and went much to confirm my belief that Lolita hadbeen at the spot where the tragedy had been enacted, for I nowrecollected that sometimes when she went out after dinner she put on awide ermine boa with long ends to cover her shoulders, a very handsomepiece of fur that had been brought for her from Petersburg when theyoung Countess of Stanchester went to visit the Grand-Duchess Paul inthe previous winter.
Was it possible that the poor young fellow had clutched at it in hisdying grasp? Or had he seized the fur garment of some other woman?
Yet, I recollected, furs are not usually worn in mid-August save just tothrow over a dinner-gown as protection from chills when the damp isrising after the heat of the day.
On the other hand, I tried to convince myself that the cry was not thatof the sweet-eyed woman I loved; nevertheless, such thought was in vain.I knew that voice far too well to have been mistaken.
For quite an hour Pink continued his investigations as keenly andmethodically as any practised detective, for he rather prided himselfupon the manner in which he made discoveries about persons, andfrequently astounded his patients by his knowledge of their actions andmovements, which they believed only known to themselves. At last,however, he exhausted all the points possible to investigate without apost-mortem, and just as the church clock struck three we came forth,Warr locking the door of the outhouse, while Knight left us to ride onhis bicycle into Northampton to report to the headquarters of theconstabulary.
Pink's way lay past my house, for he lived in a big, square, comfortablehouse about a quarter of a mile out of the village, on the London road,and as we walked together up the silent street, he suddenly said--
"Do you know, Woodhouse, I have a firm belief that the young fellow hasbeen murdered by some woman! We must search the spot early in themorning and see if we can't find some footprints, or other traces.Fortunately, it's damp in that hollow, and a woman's heel would leave awell-defined mark. Will you be ready at seven to go back there withme?"
The suggestion had never occurred to me, and my heart stood still when Ireflected what tell-tale traces might there be left. But I strove toshow no dismay, merely answering--
"Certainly. I'll be ready. We may discover something to give thepolice a clue."
"Police!" he cried. "They're useless. We shall have a swarm ofthick-headed bunglers over here to-morrow. If they sent one smart mandown from Scotland Yard they might do some good. But the plain-clothesmen of the local constabulary haven't sufficient practice in seriouscrime to pursue any clever methods of investigation."
"Well, then, at seven," I exclaimed, for we had just reached my gate,and I was anxious to get to my own room and ascertain the nature of thepaper I had managed to secure from the lining of the dead man'swaistcoat.
"That's an appointment," he said, and as I turned and entered myold-fashioned, ivy-covered house with my latch-key, he pursued his wayup the short steep hill towards his home.
Within my own cosy sitting-room the green-shaded reading-lamp was stillburning, and Mrs Dawson, my attentive housekeeper, had placed myslippers ready in their accustomed corner. But throwing off my lightovercoat I cast myself instantly into my favourite grandfather chair,and drew from my pocket the clue I had surreptitiously stolen.
The piece of paper was pale blue, and as I opened it a cry of dismayinvoluntarily escaped me.
What was inscribed upon it was so strange!
CHAPTER FIVE.
REVEALS THREE CURIOUS FACTS.
There was no writing on the carefully-concealed scrap of paper. Onlyfive rows of numerals, written in a fine feminine hand and arranged inthe following manner:--
63 26 59 69 65 56 65 33 59 35 65 44 49 55 22 59 57 46 78 63 23 98 59 39 46 67 82 45 58 35 54 45 46 26 78 75 68 75 49 64 22 86 48 73 78 45 62 45 76 47 64 66 85 44 78 48 73 78 58 62
I turned the paper over, utterly puzzled. It was certainly some cipher,but of a kind of which I knew nothing. Ciphers may of course be veryeasily constructed and yet defy solution. This appeared to be one ofthose. What hidden message it contained, I had no idea, save that itwas certain to be something of importance and that some other person wasin possession of the secret of the decipher, or its recipient would nothave concealed it where he did.
If I could only read it, a clue to the dead man's identity would nodoubt be revealed. But as I glanced at those puzzling rows of numeralsI felt that to endeavour to learn their secret was but a vain hope. Ihad expected to find upon that scrap of paper some intelligible letter,and was sorely disappointed at what I had discovered.
The further I pushed my inquiries, the more mysterious the