‘I don’t think so, sir. Morally speaking, I am prepared to swear that she is there now. Last night there was a light in her window.’
Impatiently Harding exclaimed: ‘The fact that there was a light in her window doesn’t prove that she was in the room. Haven’t you managed to get into the house?’
Regretfully Smallwood admitted that he had not.
‘I have tried, sir: and my men have tried. But these servants are extraordinary. I’ve got a young man, a very promising young fellow, who works for me: he has never failed with a housemaid yet. He is a well-set-up, good-looking young fellow, but he couldn’t make any headway with the servants at No. 69. They are different to ordinary servants.’
‘How do you mean? In what way?’
‘Well, sir, they are on their guard. Directly you begin speaking to them, passing the time of day or what not, they seem to suspect. I can’t get any information at all.’
Harding put his hands behind his head and thought with closed eyes.
‘Assume that you are right. Assume that she is in the house. Does your experience suggest any explanation?’ Suddenly he added, ‘Wait a minute. As to the people who go into the house, of course, you have found out who they are?’
The detective shook his head.
‘No one has gone into the house. Many motor-cars and broughams have drawn up: a great many cards have been left. Oh, Miss Clive knows a lot of fashionable people. But no one has absolutely entered the house.’
A burden was taken off Harding’s shoulders.
‘You’re prepared to swear that no man has gone into the house?’
‘No man, sir.’
‘You are quite sure about that?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Do you see any solution?’
‘Well, sir, there’s…one solution that suggested itself to me. But I don’t like…’
‘Oh, out with it.’
‘Mind you, sir, I’ve never seen the lady.’
‘Go on, go on,’ commanded Harding.
‘It would be a great help for me if I could see the lady.’
‘Let’s have your suspicion.’
The detective was not anxious to express it. However, at last he found words.
‘It seems to me, sir, mind you, this is only the vaguest suspicion in the world, that perhaps the lady gives way to drink. She may have drinking bouts. She may be, if I may say so, a dram drinker. You know what women are, sir; when they take to that, they will drink anything, from Eau-de-Cologne upwards. If I’m right, what more natural than when she’s under the influence of drink she should tell her servants she’s out of town.’
‘There’s nothing in that,’ answered Harding, dismissing the idea with a wave of his hand. ‘If you’d seen the lady you would know that she’s not a drunkard.’
‘They are very crafty, sir,’ said the detective, shaking his head, ‘and if it’s not drink it might be worse.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Drugs, sir. It might be drugs—morphia or cocaine, or something of the sort. When a woman does anything that one can’t make head nor tail of, it is nearly always drugs at the bottom of it. Half the women who get into trouble in the Divorce Court or in shop-lifting cases are morpho-maniacs.’
Against his will, it occurred to the K.C. that Smallwood had hit upon, at any rate, a possible solution. He drew a deep breath, and then shuddered. In his own walk of life he knew of many cases where women had ruined themselves by morphia. He had known pretty little Mrs Bernstein, the wife of the money-lender in Berkeley Square. He recalled her hideous tragedy; how she had prosecuted her best friend, Cecily Allardyce, for stealing jewels which she herself had given to the man she loved. He recollected her hideous collapse in the witness-box at the Old Bailey. He remembered the shock he had sustained on realising, perhaps, for the first time in his life, the terrible power for evil possessed by that drug. The case of Violet Tarrington, with the marvellous soprano voice, who had died in a mad-house, was of later date. So he, the eminent King’s Counsel, an acute judge of human character and of human vices, might have been deceived in the ordinary way by a woman. But for the life of him he could not call to mind any symptoms in Miriam’s conduct. She had not, as far as he knew, ever shown any symptoms of taking morphia. Anybody who has ever had the misfortune to come in contact with a morpho-maniac, anybody who has the slightest faculty of observation, knows the unmistakable signs in the eyes of a person addicted to the drug habit. However, the suggestion was so monstrous that he did not desire Smallwood to think that he accepted it, even for a moment.
‘There’s nothing in that,’ he said drily. ‘Miss Clive is not a “druggist”. I’m afraid, or rather I’m glad, that you’re on the wrong track.’
‘I hope so, sir,’ said the detective. ‘But I don’t know what else to think.’
‘By the by, have the Yard got any information about the disappearance of Miss Mingey?’
The detective shook his head: ‘Nothing, sir.’
‘You know, Smallwood, it seems to me that the police never discover anything. Every now and then a man confesses that he has committed a murder that has baffled them for years, and then the police, instead of taking his word for it, prove that the man is wrong. They are much better at proving that men have not committed murders than they are at proving that they have.’
‘The police is not what it used to be,’ the detective admitted.
‘No,’ laughed Harding, ‘not since you left the Force, eh?’
‘I didn’t mean to suggest that, sir.’
‘Oh, yes, you did. But now tell me exactly, do you see any hope of solving the mystery of No. 69? Can’t one of your men get in, as an electrical engineer, or as a waiter, or something?’
‘We’ve tried everything, sir, but the servants are…Well, they’re not like any servants I’ve ever met. You can’t get round them any how.’ Impatiently Harding rose from his chair.
‘Look here, the butler uses some public-house in the neighbourhood. Do you mean to say you can’t get into conversation with him, stand him a drink, stand him several drinks, and then pay a visit to him in the servants’ hall?’
Despairingly the detective replied: ‘I’ve tried everything, sir. With an ordinary butler it wouldn’t be any trouble to get him to have as many drinks as I would pay for. I could put him on a winner perhaps, and then I could have the run of the basement. But with this man, sir, it is no good.’
‘Have you been able to find out anything about these servants? Surely the men of the C division must know something about some one of them?’
Smallwood shook his head.
‘I’ve been working hard for a whole week, sir, over this matter, and though I say it, as perhaps shouldn’t, I’ve wasted my time. I’ve done nothing for your money.’
‘Well, well,’ replied Harding, ‘at any rate, you’re not wasting a great deal of money. Go on keeping watch. And, mind you, the moment you hear anything go to the nearest public telephone-office and telephone me either here or at my house.’
With that he dismissed the detective.
CHAPTER XXXIII
MORPHIA?
THAT afternoon, as he walked westwards, it struck him that it might be as well to go and see Clifford Oakleigh. He had a favour to ask of him.
He reached Harley Street at six-thirty and was instantly shown into the great man’s consulting-room. Without going directly to the subject, he inquired about the Emperor; and, indeed, the condition of the Emperor was the great topic of the moment.
Here was a European potentate who had come to London, and, who had, without any personal attendants of his own, taken up his quarters in a doctor’s house in Harley Street.
‘How is he doing? Do you think you’ll succeed?’
Clifford’s eyes were glittering with enthusiasm. He shook Harding’s hand.
‘My dear fellow, he’s safe! He’s cured! The leading men of London, two of them that is to say, will examine him tomorrow, and they will pronoun
ce him absolutely free of any suspicion of cancer.’
‘By Jove!’ exclaimed Harding, ‘you’re a miracle-worker!’
‘Miracles of one century are commonplaces of the next.’
‘What are you going to get for this?’
Clifford smiled his sad smile.
‘Oh, a great deal of abuse,’ he answered. ‘I shall be universally attacked because I don’t cure everybody. But do you know, I don’t think that everybody ought to be cured. There are an enormous number of people who don’t deserve to be cured. Of course, some people get more than they deserve. Don’t you run away with the idea that curing a man of cancer is to me the simplest thing in the world, that it is done without a vast expenditure of…what shall I say?…vital energy. I shall issue no recipe for the cure of cancer; a patent pill will not cure cancer; the cancer cure will not be “within the reach of all”. Do you know, Harding, that it’s quite possible that my secret will die with me?’
There was something uncanny in his enthusiasm.
‘There are moments,’ he continued, ‘when it seems to me that God has endowed me with super-human powers. I certainly can do things that no other man has ever been able to do. I have discovered secrets that I am the sadder for discovering. I often fancy that I have peered too deeply into hidden things, and it may well be that some day I shall pay the price.’
‘How do you mean?’ inquired Harding; ‘everything you have done has been for the benefit of Humanity. If you have cured the Emperor you have practically done an immense service in the cause of peace. You have saved the lives of millions.’
The great surgeon became pensive.
‘One does what one can, but what will be the verdict of posterity?’
‘Oh, confound posterity!’ cried Harding; ‘let the judge who has seen the prisoner try the case.’
‘You speak of me as a prisoner?’ asked Clifford with raised eyebrows.
‘I used a legal metaphor,’ replied the other. Then he changed the subject back to the old subject.
‘What will you get for this, Clifford?’
‘Anything I want,’ he answered; ‘I don’t know that I really want anything. This morning his Majesty suggested £50,000, a cart-load of orders and decorations, and a promise that the King would give me a peerage.’
‘Anything else?’ asked his friend, smiling.
But the other’s eyes were far away.
‘It would be a curious thing if I were to get, or rather if I were to take, no reward.’
‘Deuced curious,’ commented Harding, almost with a sneer. ‘So curious as to be pretty well inhuman.’ But he was struck with admiration at the triumph of his friend. ‘Now, then,’ he said suddenly, ‘I want you to do something for me. You know what an enormous number of drug-takers there are about.’
‘Good Heavens, yes.’
‘Now, you, with your experience, could detect the drug habit in anybody at once, couldn’t you?’
‘I don’t think I should have any doubt about a person who was in the habit of taking, say, morphia or cocaine?’
‘How would you tell?’
‘Oh, I should examine the body, wrists, ankles and knees for punctures.’
Harding interposed:
‘No, but there is some other way besides that. I don’t want you to make an examination.’
‘The eyes,’ said the surgeon, ‘are practically convincing evidence.’
‘Thank you,’ said Harding. ‘Now I want you to meet a friend of mine. I want you to talk to my friend and to give me your opinion.’
‘Yes.’
‘Will you do that?’
‘By all means. When do you want me to do it? I can come round now, if you like, anywhere.’
‘No, not now. The lady is out of town.’
‘Oh, it’s a lady?’
‘Yes. As a matter of fact,’ he added, ‘it’s Miss Clive.’
Clifford made an abrupt movement and turned away. He whistled. Then he said briefly: ‘I can’t do it.’
Harding was surprised at his refusal.
‘Good God, man, this is a matter of the greatest importance to me!’
‘And to her,’ said the surgeon. ‘If you think that she takes morphia, as you suggest, you will…break it off. That will break her heart. Why should I break the heart of a woman I’ve never seen?’
‘Because,’ answered the K.C., ‘you are my friend. You’ve never seen her. What is she to you?’
Clifford smiled.
‘The fiancée of my great friend is, theoretically, at least, a great deal to me.’
Harding became indignant.
‘Look here, no one knows better than you the agony that results to a man who’s in love with a morpho-maniac. I have my suspicions about Miss Clive. I want these suspicions cleared up.’ Clifford whistled. Then he said, deliberately, with a forefinger raised:
‘Don’t you worry. Although I’ve never seen Miss Clive—but from what I hear—I should say that she doesn’t take morphia. I’ll bet you a thousand to one in sovereigns that she’s never touched it.’
‘You really mean that?’ asked the K.C.
‘I mean it absolutely.’
‘But who is to decide whether the money is payable or not? I should like you to decide.’
‘I tell you I can’t. I won’t have anything to do with it. There are reasons which make it impossible. But she doesn’t do it.’
‘You say reasons; what do you mean?’
‘I mean that I’m not going to do it. I don’t want to do it.’
‘That’s a woman’s reason.’
Clifford put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. ‘Women are not always fools. Miss Clive, I presume, has her own reasons for loving you. You don’t scoff at them because they are a woman’s reasons.’
Harding reflected for a moment; then he said:
‘You know, Clifford, you’re a most extraordinary man. I never, for one moment, thought you would refuse this very trifling favour. I can’t understand why you have refused it. Can’t you give me a definite reason?’
Clifford answered him slowly:
‘No, I can’t. But this much I can tell you—I admit it isn’t very much to tell you. Some day you will know. Or you will never know.’
Harding stared at him. ‘In return for that valuable piece of information, Clifford, but for the fact of your being engaged in curing the Emperor of cancer I should be tempted to assault you with considerable violence.’
‘Oh, nonsense,’ replied the other, smiling. ‘Harley Street is swarming with doctors. For this matter you don’t need a specialist. Get any doctor to meet Miss Clive—any general practitioner—and in five minutes he will set your mind at rest. But don’t bother about assaulting me, old chap. Some day, as I hinted, the whole thing will be made plain. Or, as I also hinted, it will not be made plain.’
In spite of the irritation he felt towards Sir Clifford, his old friendship for that fascinating man prevented him from losing his temper. In a few seconds he was sufficiently self-composed to say with a laugh:
‘If I were to kill you, I suppose the Emperor would die?’
Clifford nodded.
As Harding left the room he said:
‘I’ve no wish to be a regicide.’
CHAPTER XXXIV
A POSSIBLE CLUE
THE daily reports he received from Smallwood were always the same. The eminent detective had no news. All efforts to communicate with the servants at No. 69 Pembroke Street proved futile. On more than one occasion Harding lost patience.
‘If you’re a detective,’ he said, ‘why the deuce don’t you detect?’
Smallwood could offer no defence except the fact that he had done his duty. He had sent one of his men, disguised as a gentleman, to call at the house, and to inquire if Miss Clive was at home. The man had been informed, in the usual way, that she was out of town.
‘Were you watching at the time?’ asked the K.C.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Did you notice
whether the servant who answered the door was slovenly, after the manner of servants when their employers are away?’
‘I noticed particularly, sir, that he seemed very spruce and, well, sir, what you call servant-like.’
‘Have you been able to find out the names of any of these servants?’
‘Oh, yes,’ answered the detective, briskly, producing a note-book from his pocket. ‘I’ve got all their names.’
‘How did you get them?’
‘Oh, in the ordinary way, sir, through the postman.’
‘Do you know anything about them?’
‘No, sir; nothing at all. That is, I do know something, in a way, about the cook. She’s been in trouble. A long time ago. That is, she wasn’t exactly in trouble, but Mary Baker was tried and acquitted at the Old Bailey.’ He continued the perusal of his notes. ‘Mary Baker was tried and acquitted for theft.’
Suddenly the K.C. sprang up.
‘Mary Baker! I seem to recollect something of that case…I was in it myself.’
He put his hand to his head, as though searching his memory.
‘Yes, yes, I remember. It was one of the first cases I ever had. I defended Mary Baker, and I got her off. But my own recollection is that she was guilty. Yes, yes, all the facts come back to me. She was accused of stealing four five-pound notes from a house in Portman Square. It was a deuce of a job to get her off. I remember that my success in that case brought me a lot of work that was very welcome in those days.’
The detective’s eyes glowed. He stretched his hand towards the barrister. Then he hesitated…
‘No, sir, I don’t suppose you would do a thing like that, sir.’
‘Like what?’ asked the other, sharply.
‘Well, sir, I think I see daylight, or a possibility of daylight. If you got that woman off and she was guilty, well, she might be willing to tell you the truth about this Miss Clive.’
At the suggestion, Harding whistled.
‘Oh, I couldn’t do anything like that.’
‘It is for you to decide, sir. But I think it’s our only chance.’
Harding sat down.
The Mayfair Mystery Page 17