Book: Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces

T >> Thomas W. Hanshew >> Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces




"Hum-m-m!" said Cleek, sucking in his lower lip. "Mysterious, to say the
least. Was there no struggle? Did the men on guard hear no cry?"

"In the case of the first groom, Murple, the one that was
paralysed--no," said Sir Henry, as the question was addressed to him.
"But in the case of Tolliver--yes. The men heard him cry out, heard him
call out 'Help!' but by the time they could get the doors open it was
all over. He was lying doubled up before the entrance to Black Riot's
stall, with his face to the floor, as dead as Julius Caesar, poor
fellow, and not a sign of anybody anywhere."

"And the horse? Did anybody get at that?"

"No; for the best of reasons. As soon as these attacks began, Mr.
Cleek, I sent up to London. A gang of twenty-four men came down, with
steel plates, steel joists, steel posts, and in seven hours' time Black
Riot's box was converted into a sort of safe, to which I alone hold the
key the instant it is locked up for the night. A steel grille about half
a foot deep, and so tightly meshed that nothing bigger than a mouse
could pass through, runs all round the enclosure close to the top of the
walls, and this supplies ventilation. When the door is closed at night,
it automatically connects itself with an electric gong in my own
bedroom, so that the slightest attempt to open it, or even to touch it,
would hammer out an alarm close to my head."

"Has it ever done so?"

"Yes--last night, when Tolliver was killed."

"How killed, Sir Henry? Stabbed or shot?"

"Neither. He appeared to have been strangled, poor fellow, and to have
died in most awful agony."

"Strangled? But, my dear sir, that would hardly have been possible in so
short a time. You say your men heard him call out for help. Granted that
it took them a full minute--and it probably did not take them half
one--to open the doors and come to his assistance, he would not be stone
dead in so short a time; and he was stone dead when they got in, I
believe you said?"

"Yes. God knows what killed him--the coroner will find that out, no
doubt--but there was no blood shed and no mark upon him that I could
see."

"Hum-m-m! Was there any mark on the door of the steel stall?"

"Yes. A long scratch, somewhat semi-circular, and sweeping downwards at
the lower extremity. It began close to the lock and ended about a foot
and a half lower."

"Undoubtedly, you see, Cleek," put in Narkom, "someone tried to force an
entrance to the steel room and get at the mare, but the prompt arrival
of the men on guard outside the stable prevented his doing so."

Cleek made no response. Just at that moment the limousine was gliding
past a building whose courtyard was one blaze of parrot tulips, and,
his eye caught by the flaming colours, he was staring at them and
reflectively rubbing his thumb and forefinger up and down his chin.
After a moment, however:

"Tell me something, Sir Henry," he said abruptly. "Is anybody interested
in your not putting Black Riot into the field on Derby Day? Anybody with
whom you have a personal acquaintance, I mean, for of course I know
there are other owners who would be glad enough to see him scratched.
But is there anybody who would have a particular interest in your
failure?"

"Yes--one. Major Lambson-Bowles, owner of Minnow. Minnow's second
favourite, as perhaps you know. It would delight Lambson-Bowles to see
me 'go under'; and as I'm so certain of Black Riot that I've mortgaged
every stick and stone I have in the world to back her, I should go under
if anything happened to the mare. That would suit Lambson-Bowles down to
the ground."

"Bad blood between you, then?"

"Yes--very. The fellow's a brute, and--I thrashed him once, as he
deserved, the bounder. It may interest you to know that my only sister
was his first wife. He led her a dog's life, poor girl, and death was a
merciful release to her. Twelve months ago he married a rich American
woman--widow of a man who made millions in hides and leather. That's
when Lambson-Bowles took up racing, and how he got the money to keep a
stud. Had the beastly bad taste, too, to come down to Suffolk--within a
gunshot of Wilding Hall--take Elmslie Manor, the biggest and grandest
place in the neighbourhood, and cut a dash under my very nose, as it
were."

"Oho!" said Cleek; "then the major is a neighbour as well as a rival for
the Derby plate. I see! I see!"

"No, you don't--altogether," said Sir Henry quickly. "Lambson-Bowles is
a brute and a bounder in many ways, but--well, I don't believe he is
low-down enough to do this sort of thing--and with murder attached to
it, too--although he did try to bribe poor Tolliver to leave me. Offered
my trainer double wages, too, to chuck me and take up his horses."

"Oh, he did that, did he? Sure of it, Sir Henry?"

"Absolutely. Saw the letter he wrote to Logan."

"Hum-m-m! Feel that you can rely on Logan, do you?"

"To the last gasp. He's as true to me as my own shadow. If you want
proof of it, Mr. Cleek, he's going to sit in the stable and keep guard
himself to-night--in the face of what happened to Murple and Tolliver."

"Murple is the groom who was paralysed, is he not?" said Cleek, after a
moment. "Singular thing, that. What paralysed him, do you think?"

"Heaven knows. He might just as well have been killed as poor Tolliver
was, for he'll never be any use again, the doctors say. Some injury to
the spinal column, and with it a curious affection of the throat and
tongue. He can neither swallow nor speak. Nourishment has to be
administered by tube, and the tongue is horribly swollen."

"I'm of the opinion, Cleek," put in Narkom, "that strangulation is
merely part of the procedure of the rascal who makes these diabolical
nocturnal visits. In other words, that he is armed with some
quick-acting infernal poison, which he forces into the mouths of his
victims. That paralysis of the muscles of the throat is one of the
symptoms of prussic acid poisoning, you must remember."

"I do remember, Mr. Narkom," replied Cleek enigmatically. "My memory is
much stimulated by these details, I assure you. I gather from them that,
whatever is administered, Murple did not get quite so much of it as
Tolliver, or he, too, would be dead. Sir Henry"--he turned again to the
baronet--"do you trust everybody else connected with your establishment
as much as you trust Logan?"

"Yes. There's not a servant connected with the hall that hasn't been in
my service for years, and all are loyal to me."

"May I ask who else is in the house besides the servants?"

"My wife, Lady Wilding, for one; her cousin, Mr. Sharpless, who is on a
visit to us, for another; and, for a third, my uncle, the Rev. Ambrose
Smeer, the famous revivalist."

"Mr. Smeer does not approve of the race track, of course?"

"No, he does not. He is absurdly 'narrow' on some subjects, and 'sport'
of all sorts is one of them. But, beyond that, he is a dear, lovable old
fellow, of whom I am amazingly fond."

"Hum-m-m! And Lady Wilding and Mr. Sharpless--do they, too, disapprove
of racing?"

"Quite to the contrary. Both are enthusiastic upon the subject, and both
have the utmost faith in Black Riot's certainty of winning. Lady Wilding
is something more than attached to the mare; and as for Mr. Sharpless,
he is so upset over these rascally attempts that every morning when the
steel room is opened and the animal taken out, although nothing ever
happens in the daylight, he won't let her get out of his sight for a
single instant until she is groomed and locked up for the night. He is
so incensed, so worked up over this diabolical business, that I verily
believe if he caught any stranger coming near the mare he'd shoot him in
his tracks."

"Hum-m-m!" said Cleek abstractedly, and then sat silent for a long time,
staring at his spats and moving one thumb slowly round the breadth of
the other, his fingers interlaced and his lower lip pushed upwards over
the one above.

"There, that's the case, Cleek," said Narkom, after a time. "Do you make
anything out of it?"

"Yes," he replied; "I make a good deal out of it, Mr. Narkom, but, like
the language of the man who stepped on the banana skin, it isn't fit for
publication. One question more, Sir Henry. Heaven forbid it, of course,
but if anything should happen to Logan to-night, whom would you put on
guard over the horse to-morrow?"

"Do you think I could persuade anybody if a third man perished?" said
the baronet, answering one question with another. "I don't believe
there's a groom in England who'd take the risk for love or money. There
would be nothing for it but to do the watching myself. What's that? Do
it? Certainly, I'd do it! Everybody that knows me knows that."

"Ah, I see!" said Cleek, and lapsed into silence again.

"But you'll come, won't you?" exclaimed Sir Henry agitatedly. "It won't
happen if you take up the case; Mr. Narkom tells me he is sure of that.
Come with me, Mr. Cleek. My motor is waiting at the garage. Come back
with me, for God's sake--for humanity's sake--and get to the bottom of
the thing."

"Yes," said Cleek in reply. "Give Lennard the address of the garage,
please; and--Mr. Narkom!"

"Yes, old chap?"

"Pull up at the first grocer's shop you see, will you, and buy me a
couple of pounds of the best white flour that's milled; and if you can't
manage to get me either a sieve or a flour dredger, a tin pepper-pot
will do!"




CHAPTER XIII


It was two o'clock when Sir Henry Wilding's motor turned its back upon
the outskirts of London, and it was a quarter past seven when it whirled
up to the stables of Wilding Hall, and the baronet and his grey-headed,
bespectacled and white-spatted companion alighted, having taken five
hours and a quarter to make a journey which the trains which run daily
between Liverpool Street and Darsham make in four.

As a matter of fact, however, they really had outstripped the train, but
it had been Cleek's pleasure to make two calls on the way, one at
Saxmundham, where the paralysed Murple lay in the infirmary of the local
practitioner, the other at the mortuary where the body of Tolliver was
retained, awaiting the sitting of the coroner. Both the dead and the
still living man Cleek had subjected to a critical personal examination,
but whether either furnished him with any suggested clue he did not say;
indeed, the only remark he made upon the subject was when Sir Henry, on
hearing from Murple's wife that the doctor had said he would probably
not last the week out, had inquired if the woman knew where to "put her
hand on the receipt for the payment of the last premium, so that her
claim could be sent into the life assurance company without delay when
the end came."

"Tell me something, Sir Henry," said Cleek when he heard that, and
noticed how gratefully the woman looked at the baronet when she replied,
"Yes, Sir Henry, God bless you, sir!" "Tell me, if it is not an
impertinent question, did you take out an insurance policy on Murple's
life and pay the premium on it yourself? I gathered the idea that you
did from the manner in which the woman spoke to you."

"Yes, I did," replied Sir Henry. "As a matter of fact, I take out a
similar policy--payable to the widow--for every married man I employ in
connection with my racing stud."

"May I ask why?"

"Well, for one thing, they usually are too poor and have too many
children to support to be able to take it out for themselves, and
exercising racers has a good many risks. Then, for another thing, I'm a
firm believer in the policy of life assurance. It's just so much money
laid up in safety, and one never knows what may happen."

"Then it is fair," said Cleek, "to suppose, in that case, that you have
taken out one on your own life?"

"Yes--rather! And a whacking big one, too."

"And Lady Wilding is, of course, the beneficiary?"

"Certainly. There are no children, you know. As a matter of fact, we
have been married only seven months. Before the date of my wedding the
policy was in my uncle Ambrose's--the Rev. Mr. Smeer's--favour."

"Ah, I see!" said Cleek reflectively. Then fell to thinking deeply over
the subject, and was still thinking of it when the motor whizzed into
the stable yard at Wilding Hall and brought him into contact for the
first time with the trainer, Logan. He didn't much fancy Logan at first
blush--and Logan didn't fancy him at all at any time.

"Hur!" he said disgustedly, in a stage aside to his master, as Cleek
stood on the threshold of the stable, with his head thrown back and his
chin at an angle, sniffing the air somewhat after the manner of a
bird-dog. "Hur! If un's the best Scotland Yard could let out to ye,
sir--a half-baked old softy like that!--the rest of 'em must be a
blessed poor lot, Ah'm thinkin'. What's un doin' now, the
noodle?--snuffin' the air like he did not understand the smell of it!
He'd not be expectin' a stable to be scented with eau de cologne, would
he? What's un name, sir?"

"Cleek."

"Hur! Sounds like a golf-stick--an' Ah've no doubt he's got a head like
one: main thick and with a twist in un. I dunna like 'tecs, Sir Henry,
and I dunna like this one especial. Who's to tell as he aren't in with
they devils as is after Black Riot? Naw! I dunna like him at all."

Meantime, serenely unconscious of the displeasure he had excited in
Logan's breast, Cleek went on sniffing the air and "poking about," as he
phrased it, in all corners of the stable; and when, a moment later, Sir
Henry went in and joined him, he was standing before the door of the
steel room examining the curving scratch of which the baronet had
spoken.

"What do you make of it, Mr. Cleek?"

"Not much in the way of a clue, Sir Henry--a clue to any possible
intruder, I mean. If your artistic soul hadn't rebelled against bare
steel--which would, of course, have soon rusted in this
ammonia-impregnated atmosphere--and led you to put a coat of paint over
the metal, there would have been no mark at all, the thing is so slight.
I am of the opinion that Tolliver himself caused it. In short, that it
was made by either a pin or a cuff button in his wristband when he was
attacked and fell. But, enlighten me upon a puzzling point, Sir Henry:
What do you use coriander and oil of sassafras for in a stable?"

"Coriander? Oil of sassafras? I don't know what the dickens they are.
Have you found such things here?"

"No; simply smelt them. The combination is not usual--indeed, I know of
but one race in the world who make any use of it, and they merely for a
purpose which, of course, could not possibly exist here, unless--"

He allowed the rest of the sentence to go by default, and turning,
looked all round the place. For the first time he seemed to notice
something unusual for the equipment of a stable, and regarded it with
silent interest. It was nothing more nor less than a box, covered with
sheets of virgin cork, and standing on the floor just under one of the
windows, where the light and air could get to a weird-looking,
rubbery-leaved, orchid-like plant, covered with ligulated scarlet
blossoms which grew within it.

"Sir Henry," he said, after a moment, "may I ask how long it is since
you were in South America?"

"I? Never was there in my life, Mr. Cleek--never."

"Ah! Then who connected with the hall has been?"

"Oh, I see what you are driving at," said Sir Henry, following the
direction of his gaze. "That Patagonian plant, eh? That belonged to poor
Tolliver. He had a strange fancy for ferns and rock plants and things of
that description, and as that particular specimen happens to be one that
does better in the atmosphere of a stable than elsewhere, he kept it in
here."

"Who told him that it does better in the atmosphere of a stable?"

"Lady Wilding's cousin, Mr. Sharpless. It was he who gave Tolliver the
plant."

"Oho! Then Mr. Sharpless has been to South America, has he?"

"Why, yes. As a matter of fact, he comes from there; so also does Lady
Wilding. I should have thought you would have remembered that, Mr.
Cleek, when--But perhaps you have never heard? She--they--that is,"
stammering confusedly and colouring to the temples, "up to seven months
ago, Mr. Cleek, Lady Wilding was on the--er--music-hall stage. She and
Mr. Sharpless were known as 'Signor Morando and La Belle Creole'--they
did a living statue turn together. It was highly artistic; people raved;
I--er--fell in love with the lady and--that's all!"

But it wasn't; for Cleek, reading between the lines, saw that the mad
infatuation which had brought the lady a title and an over-generous
husband had simmered down--as such things always do sooner or later--and
that the marriage was very far from being a happy one. As a matter of
fact, he learned later that the county, to a woman, had refused to
accept Lady Wilding; that her ladyship, chafing under this ostracism,
was for having a number of her old professional friends come down to
visit her and make a time of it, and that, on Sir Henry's objecting, a
violent quarrel had ensued, and the Rev. Ambrose Smeer had come down to
the hall in the effort to make peace. And he learned something else that
night which gave him food for deep reflection: the Rev. Ambrose Smeer,
too, had been to South America, and when he met that gentleman--well, in
spite of the fact that Sir Henry thought so highly of him, and it was
known that his revival meetings had done a world of good, Cleek did not
fancy the Rev. Ambrose Smeer any more than he fancied the trainer,
Logan.

But to return to the present. By this time the late falling twilight of
May had begun to close in, and presently--as the day was now done and
the night approaching--Logan led in Black Riot from the paddock,
followed by a slim, sallow-featured, small-moustached man, bearing a
shotgun, and dressed in grey tweeds. Sir Henry, who, it was plain to
see, had a liking for the man, introduced this newcomer to Cleek as the
South American, Mr. Andrew Sharpless.

"That's the English of it, Mr. Cleek," said the latter jovially, but
with an undoubted Spanish twist to the tongue. "I wouldn't have you risk
breaking your jaw with the Brazilian original. Delighted to meet you,
sir. I hope to Heaven you will get at the bottom of this diabolical
thing. What do you think, Henry? Lambson-Bowles's jockey was over in
this neighbourhood this afternoon. Trying to see how Black Riot shapes,
of course, the bounder! Fortunately I saw him skulking along on the
other side of the hedge, and gave him two minutes in which to make
himself scarce. If he hadn't, if he had come a step nearer to the mare,
I'd have shot him down like a dog. That's right, Logan, put her up for
the night, old chap, and I'll get out your bedding."

"Aye," said Logan, through his clamped teeth, "and God help man or devil
that comes a-nigh her this night--God help him, Lunnon Mister, that's
all Ah say!" Then he passed into the steel room with the mare, attended
her for the night, and coming out a minute or two later, locked her up
and gave Sir Henry the key.

"Broke her and trained her, Ah did; and willin' to die for her, Ah am,
if Ah can't pull un through no other way," he said, pausing before Cleek
and giving him a black look, "A Derby winner her's cut out for, Lunnon
Mister, and a Derby winner her's goin' to be, in spite of all the
Lambson-Bowleses and the low-down horse-nobblers in Christendom!" Then
he switched round and walked over to Sharpless, who had taken a pillow
and a bundle of blankets from a convenient cupboard, and was making a
bed of them on the floor at the foot of the locked steel door.

"Thanky, sir, 'bliged to un, sir," said Logan as Sharpless hung up the
shotgun and, with a word to the baronet, excused himself and went in to
dress for dinner. Then he faced round again on Cleek, who was once more
sniffing the air, and pointed to the rude bed: "There's where Ted Logan
sleeps this night--there!" he went on suddenly; "and them as tries to
get at Black Riot comes to grips with me first, me and the shotgun Mr.
Sharpless has left Ah. And if Ah shoot, Lunnon Mister, Ah shoot to
kill!"

"Do me a favour, Sir Henry," said Cleek. "For reasons of my own, I want
to be in this stable alone for the next ten minutes, and after that let
no one come into it until morning. I won't be accountable for this man's
life if he stops in here to-night, and for his sake, as well as for your
own, I want you to forbid him to do so."

Logan seemed to go nearly mad with rage at this.

"Ah won't listen to it! Ah will stop here--Ah will! Ah will!" he cried
out in a passion. "Who comes ull find Ah here waitin' to come to grips
with un. Ah won't stop out--Ah won't! Don't un listen to Lunnon Mister,
Sir Henry--for God's sake, don't!"

"I am afraid I must in this instance, Logan. You are far too suspicious,
my good fellow. Mr. Cleek doesn't want to 'get at' the mare; he wants to
protect her; to keep anybody else from getting at her, so--join the
guard outside if you are so eager. You must let him have his way." And,
in spite of all Logan's pleading, Cleek did have his way.

Protesting, swearing, almost weeping, the trainer was turned out and the
doors closed, leaving Cleek alone in the stable; and the last Logan and
Sir Henry saw of him until he came out and rejoined them he was standing
in the middle of the floor, with his hands on both hips, staring fixedly
at the impromptu bed in front of the steel-room door.

"Put on the guard now and see that nobody goes into the place until
morning, Sir Henry," he said when he came out and rejoined them some
minutes later. "Logan, you silly fellow, you'll do no good fighting
against Fate. Make the best of it and stop where you are."




CHAPTER XIV


That night Cleek met Lady Wilding for the first time. He found her what
he afterwards termed "a splendid animal," beautiful, statuesque, more of
Juno than of Venus, and freely endowed with the languorous temperament
and the splendid earthy loveliness which grows nowhere but under
tropical skies and in the shadow of palm groves and the flame of cactus
flowers. She showed him but scant courtesy, however, for she was but a
poor hostess, and after dinner carried her cousin away to the
billiard-room, and left her husband to entertain the Rev. Ambrose and
the detective as best he could. Cleek needed but little entertaining,
however, for in spite of his serenity he was full of the case on hand,
and kept wandering in and out of the house and upstairs and down until
eleven o'clock came and bed claimed him with the rest.

His last wakeful recollection was of the clock in the lower corridor
striking the first quarter after eleven; then sleep claimed him, and he
knew no more until all the stillness was suddenly shattered by a
loud-voiced gong hammering out an alarm and the sound of people tumbling
out of bed and scurrying about in a panic of fright. He jumped out of
bed, pulled on his clothing, and rushed out into the hall, only to find
it alive with people, and at their head Sir Henry, with a dressing-gown
thrown on over his pyjamas and a bedroom candle in his shaking hand.

"The stable!" he cried out excitedly. "Come on, come on, for God's sake!
Someone has touched the door of the steel room; and yet the place was
left empty--empty!"

But it was no longer empty, as they found out when they reached it, for
the doors had been flung open, the men who had been left on guard
outside the stables were now inside it, the electric lights were in full
blaze, the shotgun still hanging where Sharpless had left it, the
impromptu bed was tumbled and tossed in a man's death agony, and at the
foot of the steel door Logan lay, curled up in a heap and stone dead!

"He would get in, Sir Henry, he'd have shot one or the other of us if we
hadn't let him," said one of the outer guards as Sir Henry and Cleek
appeared. "He would lie before the door and watch, sir--he simply would;
and God have mercy on him, poor chap; he was faithful to the last!"

"And the last might not have come for years, the fool, if he had only
obeyed," said Cleek; then lapsed into silence and stood staring at a
dust of white flour on the red-tiled floor and at a thin wavering line
that broke the even surface of it.

It was perhaps two minutes later when the entire household--mistress,
guests, and servants alike--came trooping across the open space between
the hall and the stables in a state of semi-deshabille, but in that
brief space of time friendly hands had reverently lifted the body of the
dead man from its place before the steel door, and Sir Henry was
nervously fitting the key to the lock in a frantic effort to get in and
see if Black Riot was safe.

"Dios! what is it? What has happened?" cried Lady Wilding as she came
hurrying in, followed closely by Sharpless and the Rev. Ambrose Smeer.
Then, catching sight of Logan's body, she gave a little scream and
covered her eyes. "The trainer, Andrew, the trainer now!" she went on
half hysterically. "Another death--another! Surely they have got the
wretch at last?"

"The mare! The mare, Henry! Is she safe?" exclaimed Sharpless excitedly
as he whirled away from his cousin's side and bore down upon the
baronet. "Give me the key--you're too nervous." And, taking it from him,
unlocked the steel room and passed swiftly into it.

Copyright (c) 2007. knowncrafts.net. All rights reserved.