by Sax Rohmer
“Yes?”
“Until Sir Eric was hanged for the murder of his cousin!”
“Gatton! What do you mean?”
“He is the last of the Coverlys!” answered Gatton simply. “There would be no further danger of any one paying off the mortgage.”
“Danger?”
“Exactly. There is some secret at Friar’s Park — or at the Bell House — which necessitates the property remaining in the possession of Dr. Damar Greefe — as it has virtually remained since Sir Burnham’s death! So much is clear, and although Eric Coverly has persisted in his obstinate silence, one of my assistants who has been at work on the late Sir Marcus’s papers made a discovery yesterday, which together with what I had learned from Mr. Hardacre and your code message, brought me down to Crossleys post haste.”
“What was this discovery?”
“An invitation from Dr. Damar Greefe, dated only a short time after the death of Sir Burnham, to Sir Marcus, asking him to visit Friar’s Park! The doctor explained that the state of Lady Coverly’s health made it impossible for her to entertain, but he assured Sir Marcus that she was anxious to see him and to heal any breach which might exist between them. Most significant of all, the Eurasian proposed that Sir Marcus should put up here!”
“At the Abbey Inn?”
“Exactly. Now the ‘best room’ of the inn is that which you have been occupying — and it is that which Sir Marcus would have occupied had he accepted the doctor’s invitation. Listen then: all these clews seemed to point to Friar’s Park, but the receipt of your message mentioning one Damar Greefe as being a suspicious party, and asking me to look up his record, quite tipped the scales. I saw, frankly, that you had made a false move, but nevertheless it served my purpose, and I determined to look into the Crossleys end of the inquiry personally, without giving Dr. Damar Greefe reason to suspect that I was in any way associated with the matter.
“I picked up one or two hints from the county police as to the geography as well as the ‘notables’ of the neighborhood; and the plan which you put into execution to-night, I had adopted last night!”
“What! You visited Friar’s Park?”
“I did. But I did not enter through the French window. It never occurred to me that it would be unfastened! I had come provided with a neat set of burglars’ tools (and a warrant for use if necessary) and I broke into the kitchen! I found, as you afterwards found, that the place had obviously been deserted for a long time. I was badly puzzled. But my search was more detailed than yours. I climbed up to the top of the tower!”
“To the top of the tower!”
“Yes. I’ll tell you what I found there in a minute. But, briefly, beyond learning that the story of the invalid Lady Coverly was a myth, I discovered nothing likely to help the inquiry. I seriously debated the idea of putting Dr. Damar Greefe under arrest; but finally I determined to watch him for a time without showing my hand. I had the good fortune to meet him this morning here at the Abbey Inn! Also, I saw your mysterious lady visitor! Lastly, I got into conversation with the man, Hawkins, who was accompanied by your friend, the mute!
“Leaving this dangerous pair, I made a rush for the Bell House, thinking I saw my opportunity to examine it unmolested. I was too late, though. One of my assistants warned me of the Eurasian’s return just as I was about to enter.
“I watched the house all day. But it was not until some time after dusk that the Eurasian came out. He went to Friar’s Park — and I followed him!”
“What! You were there to-night!”
“I was! I dogged Dr. Damar Greefe, determined to learn the nature of the business which brought him to Friar’s Park at such an hour. I may add that it was only by the merest accident or good luck that I fathomed it after all. I had no idea into what part of the building he had gone, but, knowing that he was somewhere inside, I watched from the shrubbery. In fact, I was still in the grounds when you arrived!”
“Then it was you I saw on the tower!”
“Oh, no, it was not! I had thoroughly examined the tower on my previous visit, and what I found there had puzzled me badly. In fact it was not until your admirable withdrawal from Friar’s Park to-night that the horrible explanation dawned upon me ...and I realized that the object of inviting Sir Marcus to Upper Crossleys was to ‘remove’ him! The first plan failed, of course; he never came. He went back again on duty to Russia, I believe — for a time. But when he returned — a second was adopted, at the Red House. However — the murder-machine erected in accordance with the earlier plan was still there—”
“Where?” I cried in bewilderment.
“On the tower of Friar’s Park! It was the appearance of Damar Greefe on the platform of the tower, armed with binoculars, which awakened me to the ghastly truth. The device, never used in the case of Sir Marcus, was not to be wasted, but was to be employed to remove a dangerous obstacle from the conspirator’s path! I had left the car near Crossleys, you see, and never in my life have I run as I ran after you to-night!”
“But, Gatton, what did you find on the tower — and what connection exists between the tower and the explosion which occurred here to-night?”
“This: a sort of small howitzer — I think of Krupp’s manufacture, but you would be better able to judge than I — is mounted on the platform of the tower! I examined it, Mr. Addison, last night, and like a fool concluded that it had been used at some time for a local celebration and never dismounted! It was trained — as I remembered nearly too late — and laid at a certain elevation in such a way that it was evidently never meant to be moved. Yet at the time the significance of this did not strike me. How the range was found so exactly we shall probably never know; but the truth suddenly burst upon me as you made off through the bushes and as Dr. Damar Greefe came out and began to peer through his glasses — that it was mechanically set in such a manner that it could drop a projectile into the window above the porch of the Abbey Inn!”
“Good God! It’s hardly credible!”
“It isn’t, I admit. But weather conditions favored him; there wasn’t a breath of wind. And that he succeeded is proved by the fact that at the present moment your room below is probably still full of poison gas! Of course, it may not have been a gas-shell; he may have relied, as well he might do, on the burst! But I’m taking no chances. You can well imagine that failing a knowledge of the arrangement on the tower, no explanation of the mystery would ever have been found! A thunder-bolt would be the popular theory, and if any fragments of shell were found who would ever know from where it had been fired?”
“Gatton,” I said, “I owe you my life. But why did this fiend try to murder me?”
Gatton smiled.
“I have a theory, Mr. Addison,” he replied, “and it is this: I believe he thought that the indiscretion of a certain mysterious lady would bring about his ruin. If I am not mistaken, she has already gone far to put his neck in a halter; and he was determined to nip this latest adventure in the bud by removing the object of her—”
I felt myself changing color, and:
“For heaven’s sake say no more!” I interrupted. “It is a gruesome and horrible thought! Yet, perhaps you are right. What must we do, Gatton? These people have rendered the neighborhood uninhabitable for themselves, now, and—”
Dimly to my ears came the sound of a gun-shot.
“And have fled!” cried Gatton, springing up. “Quick! we must chance the gas!”
“Why? What was that shot?”
“A signal! Dr. Damar Greefe and ‘the cat’ have escaped!”
He raced out across the landing, amid a chorus of frightened inquiries from the inn staff. I followed him into a front room, and:
“This comes of turning my attention elsewhere for half an hour!” he cried angrily. “I seem to be cursed with fools for assistants!”
Throwing up the window, he leaned out. I stood at his elbow; and as I looked I saw a great red glow rising from the distant woods. The sound of a car approaching at headlong
speed reached my ears, and at the same moment I saw the headlights.
“Hullo, there!” cried Gatton. “Blythe! Petersham!”
The car stopped, and a cry came back:
“We’ve lost him, sir!... and the Bell House is in flames!”
CHAPTER XXI IN LONDON AGAIN
“Then the sudden change in the police attitude towards Eric,” said Isobel, “is not due to any discoveries which you or Inspector Gatton have made at Friar’s Park?”
“That I cannot say,” I replied. “We have made certain discoveries as I have already told you, but whilst they distinctly point to some criminal whose identity is not yet fully established, unfortunately I cannot say that in a legal sense they clear Coverly.”
Isobel, as I had thought at the first moment of our meeting, looked very tired and had that pathetic expression of appeal in her eyes which had hurt me so much when first it had appeared there on the morning after the tragedy. She was palpably ill at ease, and I had small cause to wonder at this. Although a veiled paragraph (in which I thought I could detect the hand of Gatton) had appeared in the press on the previous day, briefly stating that evidence had been volunteered by Sir Eric Coverly which had led to an entirely new line of police inquiry, the item of news — which had naturally excited wide-spread interest — had never been amplified. Amid the alarms and excursions which had terminated my visit to Upper Crossleys, Gatton I supposed had forgotten to refer to this matter; but I did not doubt that the paragraph was an inspired one issued from Scotland Yard.
My friend’s object in circulating this statement was not by any means evident to me, but as I expected to see him later that day I hoped to be able to obtain from him some explanation of his new tactics.
Many hours had elapsed since, with the flames of the burning Bell House reddening the night behind me, and throwing into lurid relief the fir-groves surrounding Dr. Damar Greefe’s mysterious stronghold, I had been borne along the road towards London. That Gatton had hoped for much from a detailed search of the Eurasian’s establishment, I knew, for I had not forgotten his anger at the appearance of the flames above the tree tops which had told of the foiling of his plans.
Under cover of the conflagration the cunning Eurasian had escaped. Every possible means had been taken to intercept him, and whilst Gatton, inspired by I know not what hopes, had hastened to the burning Bell House, I had set out in the police car in pursuit of Dr. Damar Greefe accompanied by Detective-Sergeant Blythe — upon whom, apparently, the onus of the fiasco rested.
In despite of these measures, the hunted man had made good his retreat; and Blythe and I had entered the outskirts of London without once sighting the car in which Dannar Greefe had fled.
No communication reached me on the following morning, and I found myself, consumed with impatient curiosity, temporarily out of touch with Gatton. Then, shortly after mid-day, came a telegram:
“Endeavor induce Sir Eric come to your house eight to-night. Will meet him there. Gatton.”
Welcoming any ground for action — since to remain passive at such a time was torture — I called at once at Coverly’s chambers. He was out. But I left an urgent written message for him, and in the hope of finding him with Isobel, hurried to her flat. He had not been there that day, however; and now I could only hope that he would return to his rooms in time to keep the appointment. For that Gatton had some good reason for suggesting the meeting I did not doubt.
Gatton and I were now agreed that Dr. Damar Greefe, if not directly responsible for the death of Sir Marcus, at least had been an accessory to his murder. At any rate he had shown his hand; firstly, in the attempted assault upon myself by his Nubian servant and secondly, by the devilish device whereby he had propelled some sort of gas projectile (for this we now knew it to have been) from the tower of Friar’s Park into my room at the Abbey Inn. I had, then, become obnoxious to him; he evidently regarded my continued existence as a menace to his own.
Two explanations of his attitude presented themselves: one, that my inquiries had led me daily nearer to the heart of the mystery; or, two, that the doctor’s mysterious associate, the possessor of the green eyes, had adopted an attitude towards myself which the Eurasian had counted sooner or later as certain to compromise him. In short, whilst it was sufficiently evident to me that these mysterious people residing at Upper Crossleys were the criminals for whom New Scotland Yard was searching, no definite link between their admittedly dangerous activities and the crime we sought to unravel, had yet been brought to light.
On the other hand, whilst it was not feasible to suppose that any relationship existed between Sir Eric, the new baronet, and the Eurasian, or the woman associated with the Eurasian, I was quite well aware that, equally, there was no evidence to show that such an association did not exist.
I longed to be able to offer some consolation to Isobel, who at this time was passing through days and nights of dreadful apprehension; but beyond imparting to her some of my own personal convictions, I was unable to say honestly that the complicity of Coverly in the murder was definitely and legally disproved.
“If only he would break his absurd silence,” she said suddenly. “This ridiculous suspicion which still seems to be entertained in some quarters would be removed of course; but his every act since the night of the tragedy has only intensified it.”
She sat facing me on the settee, her hands locked in her lap, and:
“Do you refer to any new act of his,” I asked, “with which I am not at present acquainted?”
She nodded slowly.
“Yes,” she said; “but I can only tell you in confidence, for it is something which Inspector Gatton does not know.”
“Please tell me,” I urged; “for you are aware that I have no other object but the clearing of Coverly in the eyes of the police and the public.”
“Well,” she continued, with hesitation, “last night he lodged with me a copy of a declaration which he assured me cleared him entirely. But he imposed an extraordinary condition.”
“What was that?” I asked with interest.
“It was only to be used in the event of the worst happening!” she said.
“What do you mean? In the event of his being put on trial for murder?”
Isobel nodded.
“I suppose so,” she said sadly; “it seems madness, doesn’t it?”
“Absolute madness!” I agreed. “If he is in a position to establish an alibi why not do it now and be done with the whole unsavory business?”
“That is exactly what I pointed out to him, but he was adamant on the matter and became dreadfully irritable and excited. I did not dare to press the point, so of course—” She shrugged her shoulders resignedly.
Was it a selfish joy, I wonder, which possessed me as I noted the restrained impatience with which Isobel spoke of Coverly? I suppose it was, and perhaps it was even indefensible; yet I record it, desiring to be perfectly honest with myself and with others. Nevertheless, in the near future I was to regret the sentiments which at that moment I entertained towards Coverly. But how was I to know in my poor human blindness that his innocence would soon be established in the eyes of the world by other means than the publication of the statement which he had so strangely placed with Isobel?
Since, excepting the telegram, no communication had reached me from Gatton, I could only assume that he had discovered nothing in the ruins of the Bell House of sufficient importance to justify a report. Doubtless he had reported to New Scotland Yard, but that his discoveries, if any, had not resulted in an arrest, was painfully evident.
My latest contribution to the Planet had been in the nature of a discursive essay rather than an informative article, although I had enlivened it with some account of my experiences at Upper Crossleys. But at the moment that I had set pen to paper I had realized the difficulty of expressing, within the scope of a newspaper contribution, the peculiar conditions which ruled in that oddly deserted village. And at Gatton’s request I had been most guarded in my tre
atment of the two abortive attempts made upon my own life by the Eurasian doctor.
The appeal in Isobel’s eyes, as I have said, was very difficult to resist, but after all I had little substantial consolation to offer; and in the circumstances I shall be understood, I think, when I say that it was with an odd sense of relief that I finally took my departure from her flat. To long for the right to comfort a woman as only a lover may do, and to suspect that this sweet privilege might have been his for the asking, is a torture which no man can suffer unmoved.
Anticipating, almost hourly, a further message from Gatton, I went first to the Planet offices, but although I lunched at the club and returned later, no news reached me there; whereupon, I proceeded to my cottage. As I walked down the high-street of the onetime village, passing that police-box at which (so far as my part in it was concerned) the first scenes of the drama actually had been laid, I was seized with wonder on reflecting that all these episodes, strange and tragic, had been crowded into so short a space of time.
An officer was on duty there as on the night when I had first made acquaintance with the green eyes of the woman of mystery; but I did not know the man and I walked on deep in meditation, until, arriving at the Red House, other and dreadful reflections were aroused by the sight of that deserted building.
There were no spectators to-day, for the first excitement aroused by the crime had begun to subside, and I did not even notice a constable posted there. Whereby I concluded that the investigations at the Red House had been terminated and that no more was hoped for from an examination of those premises.
Coates was awaiting me as I entered my cottage with the news that Inspector Gatton had telephoned an hour before from Crossleys, confirming his telegram and stating that he would call immediately he arrived in London. This was stimulating, and I only regretted that I had not been at home personally to speak to him. Then:
“Sir Eric Coverly also rang up, sir,” continued Coates, “at about three o’clock and said that he would be calling this evening at eight in accordance with your request.”