Book: Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces

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




Narkom opened his lips to speak, but Cleek signalled him to silence, and
stood studying the Captain from under down-drawn brows, looking and
listening and thoughtfully rubbing his thumb and forefinger up and down
his chin.




CHAPTER XXXII


"Of course the family was horribly shocked and upset by this sudden and
mysterious interruption to the dream of peace," went on the Captain;
"but nothing was left but to accept the verdict of 'Death from unknown
causes,' and to believe it the will of God. The body was buried a few
days later, and, comforting each other as best they could, the sorrowing
uncle and heart-broken nieces and nephews settled down to living their
lives without the one who had been the sunshine of the home, and whose
loss seemed the greatest blow that could have been dealt them. A month
passed and they were just beginning to forget details of the tragedy
when a second and equally mysterious and horrifying one occurred, and
the eldest son of the dead woman--Philip--was stricken down precisely as
his mother had been, and, as his horrified brother, sisters, and uncle
now recalled, like her, on the tenth day of the month!"

"Hum-m-m!" said Cleek, reflectively. "Rather significant, that. It was,
I assume, that circumstance which first suggested the idea of something
more than mere chance being at the back of these sudden and mysterious
deaths?"

"That and one other circumstance. The condition of the bedclothing, Mr.
Cleek, showed that in Philip's case there had been something in the
nature of a struggle before he had succumbed to the Power which had
assailed him. In other words, he had not been, as doubtless the poor
mother had, so infinitely inferior in point of strength to the murderer
as to be absolutely powerless in the wretch's grip from the very first
instant of the attack. He had fought for his life, poor fellow, but it
must have been a brief fight and death itself almost instantaneous; for
although the bedclothing was tangled round his feet in a manner which
could only have occurred in a struggle, he did not live long enough to
get off the bed itself or slide so much as one foot to the floor. He
died as his mother had died, and the verdict of the doctors and of the
coroner's jury was the same: 'Death from unknown causes'!"

"Hm-m-m!" said Cleek again. "And were all the symptoms--or, rather, the
absence of symptoms--the same?"

"Precisely. All the organs were discovered to be in a normal condition,
the blood was untainted by any suggestion of either mineral or animal
poison, the heart was sound, the lungs healthy--there was neither an
internal disturbance nor an external wound, unless one could call a
'wound' a slight, a very slight, swelling upon the left side of the
neck; a small thing, not so big as a sixpence."

"And appearing very much like the inflammation resulting from the bite
of a gnat or a spider, Captain?"

"Exactly like it, Mr. Cleek. In fact, the doctors fancied at first that
it was the result of his having been bitten by some poisonous insect,
and were for accounting for his death that way. But, of course, the
entire absence of poison in the blood soon put an end to that idea, so
it was certain that whatever he died from, it was not from a bite or a
sting of any sort."

"Clever chaps, those doctors," commented Cleek with a curious one-sided
smile. "However, they were quite correct in that, I imagine, poison,
either animal, vegetable, or mineral, was not the means of destruction.
Still, I should have thought that at this second post-mortem the
likeness of the son's case to that of the mother's would have impelled
them to extra vigilance, and resulted in a much more careful searching,
and minute examination of the viscera. If my theory is correct, I do not
suppose they would have found anything in the contents of the thorax or
the abdomen, but it is just possible that analysis of the matter removed
from the cranial cavity might have revealed a small blood-clot in the
brain."

The Captain twitched up his eyebrows and stared at him in open-mouthed
amazement.

"Of all the--By Jove! you know, this beats me! To think of your guessing
that!" he said. "As a matter of fact, that's precisely what they did do,
Mr. Cleek. But as they couldn't arrive at any conclusion nor trace a
probable cause of its origin they were more in the dark than ever.
Selwin, the local practitioner, was for putting it down as a case of
apoplexy on the strength of that small blood-clot, but as there was an
entire absence of every other symptom of apoplectic conditions the other
doctors scouted the suggestion as preposterous--pointed out the
generally healthy state of the brain and of the heart, lungs, arterial
walls, _et cetera_, as utterly refuting such a theory--and in the end
the verdict on the son was the verdict given on the mother: 'Death from
unknown causes'; and he was buried as she had been buried, with the
secret of the murder undiscovered."

"And then what, Captain?"

"What I have already told you, Mr. Cleek. Nothing under God's heaven
would or could persuade Mr. Harmstead to let his nieces and their two
surviving brothers remain another hour in that house of disaster. He
removed them from it instantly--fled the very neighbourhood, hired a
house down here--at Dalehampton; a dozen miles or so on the other side
of the Tor, yonder--and carried them there to live. The family now
consisted of Miriam and Flora, the two girls, Paul, a boy of
thirteen--old Mr. Harmstead's special pride and pet--and Ronald, a
little chap of eleven. In this new home they hoped and prayed to be free
from the horrible visitant who had made the memory of the old one a
nightmare to them, but--they couldn't forget, Mr. Cleek, what the Tenth
of each month had taken from them, and grew sick with dread at the
steady approach of the Tenth of this one."

"And as this is the Twelfth," said Cleek, "the day before yesterday
_was_ the Tenth. Did anything happen?"

"Yes," replied the Captain, his voice dropping until it was little more
than a whisper. "I tried to cheer them; Miss Lorne tried to cheer them.
We sat with them, tried to make them think that our presence there would
act as a shield and a guard--and tried to think so ourselves. But old
Mr. Harmstead took even stronger measures. 'Nothing shall touch
Paul--nothing that lives and breathes,' he said, desperately. 'I'll take
him into my room; I'll sit up with him in my arms all night!'"

"And did so?"

"Yes. At twelve o'clock, Miss Lorne, Miss Comstock, and I went in to
say good-night to him. He was sitting in a deep chair with the boy fast
asleep in his arms--sitting and looking all about him with the dumb
agony of a trapped mouse. I'll never forget how he clutched the boy to
him nor the cry he gave when the door opened to admit us, the sob of
relief when he saw it was only us. His cry and his movement awoke the
boy, but he dropped off to sleep again before I left, and was breathing
healthily and peacefully. The last look I had at the picture as I went
out, Mr. Cleek, the dear old chap was holding his pet in his arms and
smiling down into his boyish face. So he was still sitting, Miss
Comstock tells me, when she came down this morning. 'Look,' he said to
her, 'I watched him--I held him--the tenth day is past and the death
didn't get him, my bonnie!' Then called her to his side and shook the
little fellow to awaken him. It was then only that he discovered the
truth. The boy was stone-dead!"




CHAPTER XXXIII


'"There, Mr. Cleek," resumed the Captain, after he could master his
emotion. "That is the case--that is the riddle I am praying to Heaven
that you may be able to solve. What the mysterious power is, when,
where, or how it got into the room and got at the boy, God alone knows.
Mr. Harmstead will swear that he never let the little fellow out of his
arms for one solitary instant between the time of our leaving him just
after midnight, and Miss Comstock's coming in in the morning. He admits,
however, that twice during that period he fell asleep, but it was only
for a few minutes each time; and long years of being constantly alert
for possible marauders--out there in the wilds of Australia--have tended
to make his sleep so light that anything heavier than a cat's footfall
wakes him on the instant. Yet last night something--man or spirit--came
and went, and he neither heard nor saw either sound or shape from
midnight until morning. One thing I must tell you, however, which may
throw some light upon the movements of the appalling thing. Whereas Mr.
Harmstead not only closed, but locked, both of the two windows in the
room, and pinned the thick plushette curtains of them together--as Miss
Comstock and I saw them pinned when we left the room last night--when
those curtains came to be drawn this morning one of the windows was
found to be partly open, and there was a smear of something that looked
like grease across the sill and the stone coping beyond."

"Of course, of course!" commented Cleek enigmatically. "Provided my
theory is correct, I should have expected that. A thing that comes and
goes through windows must, at some period, leave some mark of its
passage. Of course that particular window opened upon a balcony or
something of that sort, didn't it?"

"No, it is a perfectly unbroken descent from the window sill to the
ground. But there's a big tree close by, and the branches of that brush
the pane of glass."

"Ah! I see! I see! All the soap dishes in the house left filled last
night and found filled this morning, captain?"

"Good heavens! I don't know. What on earth can soap dishes have to do
with it, man?"

"Possibly nothing, probably a great deal--particularly if there's found
to be a cake of soap in each. But that we can discover later. Now one
word more. Was that same minute swelling--the mark like a gnat's
bite--on the neck of the boy's body, too? And had it been on that of the
mother's as well?"

"I can't answer either question, Mr. Cleek. I don't remember to have
heard about it being remarked in the case of Mrs. Comstock's death; and
the murder of little Paul was such a horrible thing and so upset
everybody that none of us thought to look."

"An error of judgment that; however, it is one easily rectified, since
the body is not yet interred," said Cleek. "Ever read Harvey's
'Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Sanguinis,' Captain?--the volume in which
William Harvey first gave to the world at large his discovery regarding
the circulation of the blood."

"Good heavens, no! What would I be doing reading matters of that kind?
I'm not a medico, Mr. Cleek--I'm a soldier."

"I know. But, still--well, I thought it just possible that you might
have read the work, or, at least, heard something regarding the contents
of the volume. Men who have a hobby are rather given to riding it and
boring other people with discussions and dissertations upon it; and I
seem to think that I have heard it said that Sir Gilbert Morford's
greatest desire in the time of his youth was to become a medical man. In
fact, that he put in two or three years as a student at St.
Bartholomew's, and would have qualified, but that the sudden death of
his father compelled him to abandon the hope and to assume the
responsibilities of the head of the house of Morford & Morford, tea
importers, of Mincing Lane."

"Yes; that's quite correct. He bitterly resented the compulsion--the
'pitchforking of a man out of a profession into the abomination of
trade,' as he always expresses it--but of course, he was obliged to
yield, and the 'dream of his life' dropped off into nothing but a dream.
But the old love and the old recollection still linger, and, although
he no longer personally follows either trade or profession, he keeps up
his laboratory work, subscribes to every medical journal in Christendom,
and if you want to tickle his vanity or to get on the right side of him
all you have to do is to address him as 'doctor.' With all due respect
to him, he's a bit of a prig, Mr. Cleek, and hates people of no
position--'people of the lower order,' as he always terms them--as the
gentleman down under is said to hate holy water."

"So that he, naturally, would move heaven and earth to prevent his
grandson and heir from marrying a young woman of that class? I see!"
supplemented Cleek. "The dear gentleman would like the name of Morford
to go down to posterity linked to duchesses or earls' daughters, and
surrounded by a blaze of glory. Ah, it's a queer world, Captain. There
is no bitterer hater of the 'common herd' than the snob who has climbed
up from it! The snob and the sneak are closely allied, Captain, and men
of that stamp have been known to do some pretty ugly things to uphold
their pinchbeck dignity, and to keep the tinsel of the present over the
cheap gingerbread of the past."

"Good God, man! You don't surely mean to suggest--"

"Gently, gently, Captain. Your indignation does you credit; but it is
never well to have a shot at a rabbit before he's fairly out of the
hole, and you are sure that it isn't the ferret you sent in after him.
Anything in the way of a conveyance handy, Mr. Narkom?"

"Yes--the limousine. I came down in it yesterday. It's over at the Rose
and Crown."

"Good! Then perhaps Captain Morford will meet us there in a half hour's
time. Meanwhile, I've got a few things to throw into my kit-bag, and as
that's over at the Three Desires, perhaps you won't mind coming along
and giving me a hand. Then we'll run over to that house at Dalehampton
and have a look at the body of that poor little shaver as expeditiously
as possible. Will you come?"

"Yes, certainly," said Narkom; and having given a few necessary
directions to the Captain walked on and followed Cleek. He knew very
well the suggestion that he should do so was merely an excuse to have a
few words with him in private--for no man would be likely to need
another man's assistance in simply putting a few things into a bag--and
he was rather puzzled to account for Cleek's desire to say anything to
him which the Captain was not to hear. However, he kept his curiosity in
check and his tongue behind his teeth until they were on the other side
of the lich-gate and in the road leading to the Three Desires.

"There's something you want to say to me, isn't there?" he inquired.
"Something you want attended to on the quiet?"

"Yes," admitted Cleek, tersely. "There's a public telephone station a
mile or two on the other side of this place--I saw it this morning when
I was out tramping. Slip off down there, ring up the head of the
Dalehampton Constabulary, and tell him to have a man at the house ready
to pop up when wanted. I'll be long enough over my supposed 'packing' to
cover the time of your going and returning without the Captain's
knowledge."

"Without--Good Heaven! My dear Cleek, you were serious, then? You meant
it? You--you really believe that suspicion points to Sir Gilbert
Morford?"

"Not any more than it points to Sir Gilbert Morford's grandson, Mr.
Narkom."

"Good Lord! To him? To that boy? Why, man alive, what possible motive
could he have for bringing grief and anguish to Miss Comstock when he's
willing to give up a fortune to marry her?"

"Ah, but don't forget that another fortune descends to all the heirs,
male and female alike, of the late Mrs. Comstock, Mr. Narkom, and that
if the Captain's fiancee becomes, in course of time, the only surviving
child of that unfortunate lady, the Captain's sacrifice will not be such
an overpowering hardship for him, after all."

"Great Scott! I never thought of that before, Cleek--never."

"Didn't you? Well, don't think too much of it now that you have. For
circumstantial evidence is tricky and treacherous, and he mayn't be the
man, after all!"

"Mayn't be? What a beggar you are for damping a man's ardour after
you've fanned it up to the blazing point. Any light in the darkness, old
chap? Any idea of what--and how?"

"Yes," said Cleek, quietly. "If there's a mark on that poor little
shaver's neck, Mr. Narkom, I shall know the means. And if there's soap
on the window sill I shall know the man!" And then, having reached the
doorway of the inn, he dived into it and went up the staircase two steps
at a time.




CHAPTER XXXIV


The little house of Dalehampton was something more than a mere house of
grief, they found, when the long drive came to an end and Cleek and his
two companions entered it, for the very spirit of desolation and despair
seemed to have taken up its abode there; and, like an Incarnate Woe,
Miss Comstock paced through the hush and darkness, hour in and hour out,
as she had been doing since daybreak.

"My darling, you mustn't--you really mustn't, dear. You'll lose your
mind if you brood over the thing like this," said the Captain, flying to
her the very instant they arrived; and, disregarding the presence of his
two companions, caught her in his arms and kissed her. "Miriam, dearest,
don't! It breaks my heart. I know it's awful; but do try to have
strength and hope. I am sure we shall get at the bottom of the thing
now--sure that there will be no more--that this is truly the end. These
gentlemen are from Scotland Yard, dearest, and they say it surely will
be."

"Heaven knows I hope so," replied Miss Comstock, acknowledging the
introduction to Cleek and Narkom by a gentle inclination of the head.
"But indeed, I can't hope, Jim--indeed, I cannot, gentlemen. The tenth
of next month will take its toll as the tenth of this one has done. I
feel persuaded that it will. For who can fight a thing unseen and
unknown?"

Her grief was so great, her despair so hopeless, that Cleek forbore
attempting to assuage either by any words of sympathy or promise. He
seemed to feel that hers was an anguish upon which even the kindliest
words must fall only as an intrusion, and the heart of the man--that
curiously created heart, which at times could be savage even to the
point of brutality, and again tender and sympathetic as any
woman's--went out to her in one great surge of human feeling. And two
minutes later--when all the Law's grim business of inquiry and inquest
had been carried out by Narkom, and she, in obedience to his expressed
desire, led them to the room where the dead boy lay--that wave of
sympathetic feeling broke over his soul again. For the gentle opening of
the door had shown him a small, dimly lit room, a kneeling figure, bent
of back and bowed of head, that leant over a little white bed in a very
agony of tearless woe.

"He can hardly tear himself away for an instant--he loved him so!" she
said in a quavering whisper to Cleek. "Must we disturb him? It seems
almost cruel."

"I know it," he whispered back; "but the place must be searched in quest
of possible clues, Miss Comstock. The--the little boy, too, must be
examined, and it would be crueller still if he were to stay and see
things like that. Lead him out if you can. It will be for a few minutes
only. Tell him so--tell him he can come back then." And turned his face
away from that woeful picture as she went over and spoke to the
sorrowing old man.

"Uncle!" she said softly. "Uncle Phil! You must come away for a little
time, dear. It is necessary."

"Oh, I can't, Mirry--I can't, lovie, dear!" he answered without lifting
his head or loosening his folded hands. "My bonnie, my bonnie, that I
loved so well! Ah, let me have him while I may, Mirry--they'll take him
from me soon enough--soon enough, my bonnie boy!"

"But, dearest, you must. The--the Law has stepped in. Gentlemen from
Scotland Yard are here. Jim has brought them. They must have the room
for a little time. There--there's the window to be examined, you know;
and if they can find out anything--"

"I'll give them the half of all I have in the world!" broke in the old
man with a little burst of tears. "Tell them that. The half of
everything--everything--if they can get at the creature. If they can
find out. But"--collapsing suddenly, with his elbows on his knees and
his face between his hands--"they can't, they can't; nobody can! It
kills and kills and kills; and God help us! we all shall go the same
way! It will be my turn, too, some time soon. I wish it were mine now. I
wish it had been mine long ago--before I lost my bonnie own!"

"Takes it hard, poor old chap, doesn't he?" whispered Narkom, glancing
round and getting something of a shock when he saw that Cleek, who a
moment before had appeared to be almost on the verge of tears, was now
fumbling in his coat pockets, and, with indrawn lips and knotted brows,
was scowling--absolutely scowling--in the direction where Captain
Morford stood, biting his lips and drumming with his finger nails upon
the edge of the washstand. But Cleek made no reply. Instead, he walked
quickly across to the Captain's side, stretched forth his hand, took up
a tablet of soap, turned it over, laid it down again, stepped to the
window, stepped back, and laid a firm hand on the young man's shoulder.

"Captain," he said suddenly, in sharp, crisp tones, that sounded
painfully harsh after the old man's broken cries, "Captain, there's a
little game of cards called 'Bluff,' and it's an excellent amusement if
you don't get caught at it. We shan't have to go any further with the
search for clues in this case; but I think I shall have to ask you, my
friend, a few little questions in private, and in the interests of a
gentleman called Jack Ketch!"

This unexpected outburst produced something like a panic. Miss Comstock,
hearing the words, cried out, put both hands to her temples, as though
her head were reeling; old Mr. Harmstead straightened suddenly and flung
a look of blank amazement across the room; and the Captain, twitching
away from the man who gripped him, went first deathly white and then red
as any beet.

"Good God!" he gulped. "You--I--Look here, I say now, what does this
mean? What the dickens are you talking about?"

"Bluff, Captain! Simply 'bluff'!" responded Cleek serenely. "And as I
said before, it's a clever little game. Stand where you are--keep an eye
on him, Mr. Narkom. What I've got to say to you, my friend, we'll talk
about in private, and after I have assisted Miss Comstock to lead her
uncle out of the room."

With that he swung away from the Captain's side and went over to that of
the old man.

"Come, Mr. Harmstead, let me help you to rise," he began; then stopped
as the old man put up a knotted and twisted hand in supplication and
protested agitatedly: "But--but, sir, I do not want to go. Good Heaven!
What can you be hinting against that poor, dear boy? Surely you do not
mean--you cannot mean--"

"That the little game of 'Bluff' has worked, Dr. Finch, and you'll never
draw a revolver on me," rapped in Cleek, giving him a backward push that
carried him to the floor, and in the twinkling of an eye he had pounced
upon him like a cat and was saying, as he snapped the handcuffs upon his
wrists: "Got you, you brute-beast; got you tight and fast! Do you
remember Hamilton, the medical student, in New Zealand, eight years ago?
Do you? Well, that's the man you're dealing with now!"

The man, struggling and kicking, biting and clawing like any other
cornered wild cat, flung out a cry of utter despair at this, and
collapsed suddenly; and in the winking of an eye Cleek's hands had
flashed into the two pockets of the dressing-gown the fellow was
wearing, and flashed out again with a revolver in one and a shining
nickel thing in the other.

"Got your 'bark,' doctor, and got your 'bite' as well!" he said, as he
rose to his feet. "You'd have put a bullet through me at the first word,
wouldn't you, but for that little 'bluff' of suspecting and arresting
another man? Captain, look to Miss Comstock--I think she has fainted.
You wanted the murderer of Mrs. Comstock and her children, didn't you?
Well, here he is, the rascal!"

"Good God! Then it--it's not a mistake? You mean it--mean it? And Uncle
Phil! You accuse Uncle Phil?"

"Uncle Nothing!" flung back Cleek with a sort of laugh--and, hazarding a
guess which afterwards was proved to be the truth--"I'll lay my life,
Captain, that when you apply to the Australian authorities you will find
that old Mr. Philip Harmstead is in his grave; that he was attended in
his last illness by one Dr. Frederick Finch, to whom his fortune would
revert in the event of Mrs. Comstock and her children dying. Finch is
the fellow's name--isn't it, doctor, eh?"

"Finch?" repeated the Captain. "Good Heaven! Why that was the name of
the woman who was old Mr. Harmstead's housekeeper--you know, the widow I
told you about to-night."

"Oho!" said Cleek. "That's possibly where the threads join and this
little game begins. Or perhaps it may really be said to begin again
where Shorty, the chemist, died, and the celebrated Spofford mystery
ended--eh, doctor? Look here, Captain, look here, Mr. Narkom, you
remember what I told you this morning about that case in New Zealand
which so strongly resembled this one? That was the Spofford mystery. Do
you remember what I said about hitting upon a theory and offering it to
the medical fraternity, only to get laughed at for my pains? Well, it
was to this man, Dr. Frederick Finch, I advanced that theory, and it was
Dr. Frederick Finch who jeered at it, but has now made deadly use of it,
the hound. Do you want to know how he killed his victims, and what he
used? Look at this thing that you saw me take from the pocket of his
dressing-gown. It is a hypodermic syringe, but there is nothing in
it--there never has been anything in it. Air was his poison--air his
shaft of death; and he killed by injecting it into the veins of his
victims. The result of air coming into contact with the circulating
blood of a human being is the formation of a blood-clot, and death is
instantaneous the instant the clot reaches either the brain or the
heart! That was his method. But thank God it's done with for ever now,
and the next tenth day of the month will pass over this stricken family
and leave it unscathed!"

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