by AnonYMous
“The sulphur medicine,” Miss Flower had said. “The same that I’ve been taking for the last fortnight.”
There was still a loophole of escape from the terrible conclusion to which Sexton Blake was being forced. He turned to Mr. Flower.
“Can you find out when this candlestick was last cleaned?” he asked.
Mr. Flower rang the bell for the housemaid.
“I cleaned it yesterday evening,” she said, in reply to the detective’s question. That settled the matter. It was Miss Flower who had admitted the burglar; who had carried the candlestick to the larder in search of food for him; who had escaped from the library—and had doubtless returned to her bed-room—when the burglar, after flinging the rug over her father’s head, had whispered, “Run—run!”
It was a horrible solution of the mystery; but suddenly another thought occurred to Blake. He went to the door, and caught the housemaid at the head of the stairs. To her he put a rapid question, and he breathed a sigh of relief at her reply.
His musings ended in a sudden start. Through the open window he saw a girlish figure stealing down the drive, and ever and anon glancing furtively behind her, as if she feared to be seen. He recognised her at a glance. It was the girl he had seen in the chemist’s shop the day before.
The detective turned to Mr. Flower.
“Will you fetch me another bottle of claret, the same as this?” he asked.
Completely mystified, Mr. Flower left the room; and the moment he had disappeared the detective stepped through the open window, and darted after Miss Flower.
“Good-morning, Miss Flower!” he said, overtaking her. “Hadn’t you better let me do it?”
She gazed at him with frightened eyes.
“Do—do what?” she faltered.
“Go to your brother,” said Sexton Blake, “and beg him to return the money which, unknown to you, he stole from his father’s desk.”
With a piteous moan, the poor girl reeled, and would have fallen if he had not caught her.
His rapid question to the housemaid had provided him with the key to the mystery. He had noted Mr. Flower’s hesitation when he described the members of his family, and the girl had told him that one had been left unmentioned—a scapegrace son, who had disappeared two years before.
The matchless brain of the detective brought him to the conclusion that, unknown to his father, the son had returned. Miss Flower had admitted him to give him food and perhaps money. While she was in the larder the scamp had abstracted the money. Miss Flower had no idea of this; that was why she had fainted when the robbery was made manifest.
“Now tell me all about it,” he said gently. And she told him—told him everything. Her brother had returned to tho village penniless and starving. He had sent her a note, begging her to grant him an interview; and after that everything had happened as the detective surmised.
“He must have yielded to a sudden temptation, and broken open the desk whilst I was in the larder,” she sobbed. “He isn’t really bad, Mr. Blake, only a bit wild; and by this time, I know, he has bitterly repented of his mad act. If only I could have seen him, before his guilt was discovered, he would have given me the bag, and all might have been well. And now it is too late—too late!”
“Not yet,” said Sexton Blake softly. “I have told nobody but you of my discoveries; and if your brother is truly repentant, all may still be well. Tell me where he is staying, then go back to the house, and leave the rest to me.”
Two hours later the detective stepped back into the library, through the open window, with a small black-leather handbag in his hand.
Mr. Flower was standing there looking abjectly miserable.
Suddenly he saw the bag.
“You—you don’t mean to say you’ve found it?” he gasped.
Sexton Blake smiled and handed him the bag.
“You’ll find all the money there,” he said, “except for a fee of twenty guineas, which I’ve taken the liberty of extracting. No; don’t-ask any questions. Rest content to have recovered your property, and accept my thanks for giving me the opportunity of tackling a very interesting problem.”
Before the astounded agent could question him further, he was trudging down the drive. At the gate he met Miss Flower.
“The bag is now in your father’s possession,” he said. “It was as you guessed, a case of a sudden temptation on your brother’s part, followed by swift remorse. So satisfied was I, in fact, of his repentance that, in order to enable him to make a fresh start in life, gave him—” he smiled and raised his hat “—some very good advice. Good-bye.”
And it was not until long afterwards that Miss Flower learned from her brother, who was then in Canada, that Sexton Blake, in addition to giving him “some very good advice,” had also given him twenty guineas.
THE TATTOOED EYE
Originally published November 21, 1908.
I.
A fortune of three millions sterling, a handsome, popular, and accomplished wife, a palace in Park Lane, a noble estate in Wiltshire—surely one would think that the man who could boast of these possessions, at the comparatively early age of forty-five, had every reason to be happy and contented with his lot. Yet it would be difficult to imagine a more miserable-looking and dejected man than Raymond Featherstone, the well-known South African magnate, at the moment when Sexton Blake’s landlady ushered him into the famous detective’s sitting-room.
“Before I tell you why I have come to consult you,” he began, “I want to ask you one question. I’m in one of the most terrible predicaments that ever a man was in, and I can’t trust my own judgment. I want your advice and help; but—but—Well, this is the question I want to ask you. If I told you I was a murderer, would you be willing to help me, or would you betray me to the police?”
Sexton Make stared at him in stupefied amazement.
“Of course I shouldn’t betray you to the police,” he said. “Any information I receive from my clients is as sacred as the secrets of the Confessional. But whether I should be willing to help you is another matter.”
“In any case, you wouldn’t reveal my information to the police?”
“Certainly not.”
The millionaire heaved a sigh of relief, and, without any further beating about the bush, plunged into his story.
“Thanks to the newspapers and illustrated magazines,” he said, “you are doubtless acquainted with the broad facts of my so-called ‘romantic career.’
“You know that I went to South Africa, practically penniless, at the age of twenty-two, and that, after wooing fortune in vain for eleven years, I finally ‘struck oil,’ as the saying is, and returned to England a millionaire in 1901. You also doubtless know that three years ago I married Lord Lingdale’s second daughter.”
The detective nodded.
“So much, in common with the general public, I already knew,” he said.
“Well, now,” said Mr. Featherstone, “during those eleven years that I was living from hand to mouth in South Africa, I met a young fellow, about the same age as myself, named Gledhill. It was in 1888, at a small mining-camp near Barkly West, that I met him. He had come out from England two years before, intent, like myself, on seeking fortune at the diamond fields. He was a fine, stalwart, fresh-complexioned fellow, and was known by the nickname of Snowflake.”
“Why?” asked Sexton Blake.
“Because he had a pearly-white patch in the centre of his left eye—the scar of some old injury, I suppose—which was supposed to resemble a snowflake in size, shape, and colour.
“As I have already told you,” continued the millionaire, “I made his acquaintance at a small mining-camp near Barkly West. We went into partnership, and one day, whilst we were working our claim—which was some distance from the camp—we had a quarrel. The matter about which we quarrelled is of no importance. It is enough t
o say that, enraged by something Snowflake said, I whipped out a revolver and shot him dead on the spot.
“As soon as I realised what I had done, my anger gave place to panic-stricken terror. Believing that nobody had witnessed my crime, I took to my heels, and never stopped running till I leached Barkly West, where I hired a Cape cart, and drove to Kimberley.
“From Kimberley I took the next train to Buluwayo. For two years I lived, more or less in hiding, in Rhodesia; then I made my way to Johannesburg, where, as you know, I laid the foundations of my present fortune. Seven years ago, as you also know, I returned to England, and three years ago I married.
“During all these years,” he continued, “I had never heard a word of suspicion that I had been responsible for Snowflake’s death, or anything to lead me to believe that anybody had witnessed my crime. About three months ago, however, my fancied security was rudely disturbed.
“Last April my butler at Park Lane fell ill, and was taken to St. George’s Hospital. My wife and I were at our country house at the time; but when we came up to town, early in May, I went to the hospital to see the butler. In the bed next to my butler lay a thin, shrivelled-looking man, whose complexion was of such a peculiar dark brown hue that I took him to be a foreigner, probably from India or Japan. I observed that he watched me narrowly whilst I was talking to my butler, and I also noticed that he averted his face whenever I happened to glance in his direction. I thought nothing of this at the time, however, and, after a quarter of an hour’s stay, I returned to my house in Park Lane.
“Six weeks later—that is to say, three months ago—I was surprised to receive a visit from this brown-faced man. He said his name was Edward Crawshaw, and in the bluntest possible fashion he explained that he had been in the neighbourhood of Barkly West in 1888, and had seen me—actually seen me—murder Snowflake. Without entering into details, I may add that he described what had happened on that fatal day so accurately and so minutely that it was impossible to doubt that he had been an eye-witness of my crime.
“He further explained that he had left South Africa some years ago, and had come to London, where ultimately be had fallen ill, and had sought admission to St. George’s Hospital. He said be had recognised me as Snowflake’s murderer the moment I had entered the ward, and he had afterwards made inquiries, and found out where I lived. Then, as soon as he had been discharged from the hospital, he had made his way to Park Lane.”
“To demand blackmail as the price of his silence?” said Sexton Blake.
“Of course. He was still very weak and ill, and his terms were that he should stay with me until be was well, and that I should then give him sufficient money to return to South Africa and set up in business as a diamond broker.”
“You accepted his terms?”
“I had no choice. I kicked at the idea of his taking up his residence at my house, but he insisted on it, and swore that he would denounce me to the police unless I agreed to his conditions in their entirety.”
“So he is now living at your house in Park Lane?”
“Yes; and from the moment he came to live there, three months ago, I have never known a moment’s peace. I am no longer master in my own house. He orders me about like a dog, and openly insults me before the servants. He gets drunk twice a day with unfailing regularity; so that I hardly dare to leave the house, lest, in a drunken fit, he should blurt out my secret. He gets no better of his illness—in fact, I think he grows worse—but be won’t hear of my sending for doctor. He spends most of his time on the couch in the library, and—”
The millionaire broke down.
“If it were only myself that had to suffer I could bear it,” he continued after an interval. “But it is breaking my wife’s heart. The blackguard talks to her in a way that makes my blood boil, and I daren’t stop him. I haven’t told my wife the truth, but she sees that I am in Crawshaw’s power, and as I said before, the strain is breaking her heart.
“I can’t stand it any longer,” he concluded, in a broken voice. “No matter what happens to me, I must make an end of this for my wife’s sake. That is why I have come to seek your advice. What do you advise me to do? Shall I go to the police and give myself up, or do you think that, if you were to see Crawshaw, you could induce him to accept a lump sum—I don’t care how much—and go away?”
The detective hesitated for a moment before he replied. It was against his principles to ally himself with a confessed murderer, yet all his sympathies were on the side of Raymond Featherstone. Moreover, there we several points in the millionaire’s story which piqued his curiosity.
“I’d like to see Crawshaw before I advise you what to do,” he said, rising to his feet. “Your car is outside, I see. Let us go to Park Lane.”
II.
Crawshaw was reclining on the couch in the library when Sexton Blake and Mr. Featherstone arrived, and, although it was only three o’clock in the afternoon, he was obviously “three sheets to the wind.”
He was, as Mr. Featherstone had described to Sexton Blake, a thin, shrivelled-up-looking man, little more than skin and bones, and his face and hands had a peculiar bronze-brown hue, that gave him the appearance of a mulatto. His features, however, were distinctly those of a pure-bred Englishman.
He looked up, resentfully and suspiciously, when Mr. Featherstone entered the room with Sexton Blake at his heels.
“This is—” began the millionaire, when Sexton Make gripped him almost fiercely by the wrist, and motioned him to silence.
“I am a doctor,” said Sexton Make to Crawshaw. “Mr. Featherstone has told me how ill you are, and he has brought me here to—”
Before he could complete the sentence, Crawshaw broke in with a torrent of foul oaths. He didn’t want to see a doctor! He refused to see a doctor! Mr. Featherstone had no right to bring a doctor to see him without his consent. And so on, and so forth.
The detective smiled indulgently, and seated himself on a chair beside the couch. He caught hold of Crawshaw’s wrist in the approved professional fashion, peered into his lace, and asked him to put out his tongue.
Crawshaw’s answer is unprintable. Pretending to be shocked, the detective rose to his feel.
“I am only wasting my time here,” he said stiffly. “It’s a pity you troubled to call me in. Good-day!”
He picked up his hat and gloves, and left the room. Mr. Featherstone, utterly bewildered, followed him to the entrance-hall.
“What—what is the meaning of this?” he inquired. “Why did you pretend to be a doctor?”
“I didn’t pretend,” said Sexton Make. “I am a duly-qualified man, although I have never practised as such.”
“But why—what—”
The millionaire made a gesture of complete mystification.
Sexton Blake smiled, and opened the door.
“I’ll explain my apparently eccentric conduct later,” he said. “in the meantime, I’m going to make a few inquiries. I’ll come back later, and when I return I hope it will be to tell you that all your troubles are at an end.”
And, before the bewildered millionaire could question him further, he strode through the door, and walked rapidly away in the direction of St. George’s Hospital.
It was growing dark when Sexton Blake returned to Park Lane, he was accompanied by an inspector of the Metropolitan Police, at the sight of whom Mr. Featherstone turned deathly pale.
“He has come to arrest me,” he said.
“Arrest you?” said Sexton Blake. “What for?”
“For the murder of Gledhill, of course.”
The inspector and the detective laughed.
“Come into the drawing-room,” said Sexton Blake, “and I’ll soon put you at your case.”
Like a man in a dream the millionaire led the way to the drawing-room.
“Now, to begin at the beginning,” said Sexton Blake, “I must tell you
first that as soon as I saw Crawshaw I perceived that he was suffering from a well-known, but somewhat rare, affection, known as Addison’s disease. I may tell you that patients who suffer from this disease grow thin and haggard, and their skin assumes a peculiar bronze-brown colour.
“The next thing I observed,” he continued, “was that Crawshaw’s left eye had been tattooed. You look surprised, but I assure you that tattooing of the eye is a very common operation.”
“For what purpose?” asked Mr. Featherstone.
“To improve the patient’s appearance, as a rule,” said Sexton Blake. “For instance, a man receives an injury to his eyes which, when the wound is healed, results in a pearly-white scar. By tattooing the scar with Indian ink it is possible to obliterate it, and to make the white patch as black as the rest of the pupil. Of course, the operation has no effect on the patient’s sight, but it removes a conspicuous disfigurement.
“Therefore,” he concluded, “as soon as I perceived that Crawshaw’s left eye had been tattooed, I knew that once upon a time he had had a white scar in the centre of that eye.”
Mr. Featherstone started.
“Do you mean to suggest—” he began.
“I don’t suggest—I know!” said Sexton Blake. “Crawshaw is Gledhill, alias Snowflake. You didn’t murder him. He recovered from the effects of four shot, and afterwards came to England. Probably, in the meantime, he lad lost all trace of you; but when he recognised you at St. George’s Hospital, and learned that you were now a millionaire, the idea occurred to him—knowing how completely his personal appearance had altered—of blackmailing you by pretending to have seen you murder Gledhill.”