Christopher Quarles: College Professor and Master Detective
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"No, Jardine has not seen his aunt," I answered, still irritably.
The professor looked at Zena.
"It is curious the tragedy should happen while Dr. Hawes was away," Zena said. "What kind of man is his locum, Mr. Wigan?"
"Quite above suspicion," I answered.
"Ah, your question sets me theorizing, Zena," said Quarles, "and we have got to watch Martha Wakeling, Wigan. Yes, I am going to help you, and we'll start to-morrow morning."
We returned to the dining-room, and after a pleasant hour, during which we appeared to forget that such a place as Wimbledon existed, I left, far more of a lover than a detective.
Next morning Quarles called for me.
"We'll go to the stores first," he said. "I have a fancy to look at the items in the list sent. There might be some drug which would make Mrs. Jardine sleep more soundly."
"The list was not sent. I have it here."
"I mean the one sent in place of that," said the professor. "Of course one was sent. People who are not in the habit of having much money in the house would see that the store cupboard was replenished."
He was right. A list was shown to us, and I had some difficulty in not showing signs of excitement. The writing was the same as that on the envelope in Jardine's flat. It was peculiar writing, and I could swear to it.
"I think we shall find that Martha Wakeling wrote that," said Quarles. "If so, we establish a link between her and Jardine which neither of them has mentioned."
"But since she would profit by the crime, why should she communicate with him?"
"We are going to find out," he answered. "I presume you have not been keeping any particular watch upon Martha Wakeling?"
"No."
"Has she mentioned what she intends to do when this affair is over?"
"I think she said she would go back to her old village somewhere in Essex."
"Quite a rich woman, eh?" laughed Quarles. "But I doubt the statement about her old village. She is more likely to go where she is not known."
"You will change your opinion when you have talked to her."
"I hope to know all about her before I talk to her," Quarles returned. "We are going to Wimbledon, but not to an interview yet."
Arriving there, I went to the house to make sure that Martha Wakeling was there, and then, taking care not to be seen, joined the professor in the garden, where we hid in a shrubbery to watch anyone who came from or went to the house. It was a long wait – indeed, Quarles was rather doubtful whether anything would happen that day – but in the afternoon Martha Wakeling came out and passed into the road.
"We have got to follow her and not be seen," said Quarles.
There was some difficulty in doing so, for she was evidently careful not to be followed. She went to the station, and by District Railway to Victoria, and to a house in the Buckingham Palace Road.
"We must find out whom it is she comes to visit here, Wigan," said Quarles. "We will wait a few minutes, and then you must insure that we are shown up without being announced. I do not fancy we shall meet with any resistance."
The woman who opened the door to us showed no desire for secrecy. The lady who had just come in did not live there, she explained. If I wanted to see her, would I send in my name? It was not until I told her that I was a detective that she led the way to the first floor, and we entered the room unannounced.
In an armchair sat an elderly woman, and from a chair at her side Martha Wakeling rose quickly. Quarles had entered the room first, and she did not notice me in the doorway.
"What is the meaning of this intrusion?" she asked.
"It is a surprise to find you in London," I said, coming forward.
"You! Yes, my sister is – "
Quarles had crossed toward the woman in the arm-chair.
"I am glad to see the journey has not hurt you, Mrs. Jardine," he said quietly.
It was a bow drawn at a venture, but Martha Wakeling's little cry of consternation was enough to prove that Quarles was right.
The arrest of Mrs. Jardine for the murder of her companion created a sensation, and I am doubtful whether the plea of insanity which saved her from the gallows and sent her to a criminal lunatic asylum was altogether justified.
The method in her madness was so extraordinary that the result of the trial would have been different, I fancy, had not Martha Wakeling's courage and care of her mistress aroused everybody's sympathy.
Martha Wakeling knew little of her mistress's past, but she had always known that she was not such an invalid as she pretended to be. If she chose to live that kind of life, it was nobody's business but her own, and the servant never suspected that she was afraid of being seen by some of her former associates.
Martha's story made it clear that Mrs. Jardine had nursed a great hatred for her husband's family, especially for her nephew, the son of the man who had made the accusations against her. Her will, her every action in the tragedy, pointed to premeditation. She chose the time when Dr. Hawes was away, and, saying it would be an excellent joke to mislead a young doctor, she arranged that Mrs. Harrison should take her place when Dolman came. The companion could not refuse, very possibly enjoyed the joke.
Martha Wakeling knew of this arrangement, thought it silly, but never suspected any sinister intention.
In the middle of the night her mistress woke her up, and told her that she had killed Mrs. Harrison. Mrs. Jardine was excited, and explained that everyone would suppose that she herself had been murdered, and that her will and papers, and her nephew's impecunious position, would certainly bring the crime home to him. This was her revenge. She was mad; Martha was convinced of that. Mrs. Jardine never seemed in doubt that her servant, who was the only person who knew the truth, would help her. Mrs. Jardine intended to go away that night, and when the affair was over Martha would join her, and they could go and live quietly somewhere. She did not want her husband's money – she had enough of her own, and, since by her will it would come to Martha, there was no difficulty. Martha refused to be a party to such a crime, and succeeded in showing her mistress that she was in danger. Even if the body was taken for Mrs. Jardine, it was Mrs. Harrison who would be suspected, not Thomas Jardine. Poor Mrs. Harrison was dead, nothing could alter that, and Martha schemed to protect her mistress. She so far entered into her plan as to let it be supposed that the dead woman was Mrs. Jardine. Since the companion would not be found, the hue and cry would be after her. All that day her mistress was concealed in the house, as much afraid now as she had been exultant before, and in the evening Martha got her a lodging in Buckingham Palace Road.
Afterward she intended to take her away to some place where they were not known and look after her. Three times she had been to see her, fearful that her mistress might betray herself. And she had written to Thomas Jardine to warn him that his aunt had made no secret of her hatred, and that it might be said he had killed her. That communication Thomas Jardine had thought wise to keep to himself – for the present, at any rate – fully alive to the fact that, since he was drunk and quite unable to prove an alibi on the fatal night, and that it was not proved that the companion had committed a motiveless crime, he was in danger of arrest.
Zena had said it was curious the tragedy should happen while Dr. Hawes was away, and the professor declared it was this remark which had led him to believe that the dead woman was Mrs. Harrison and not Mrs. Jardine. On this supposition the attitude of Martha Wakeling was understandable. She might naturally wish to protect her mistress, and she was the only person who could help her in the deception.
The fact that I had given her a reason to suppose that I suspected the nephew would show her the necessity of warning him, and at the same time she would attempt to throw all the suspicion on Mrs. Harrison, who was past suffering.
This was Quarles's theory, and he had found the fact to support it in the handwriting of the store's order.
CHAPTER VII
THE DEATH-TRAP IN THE TUDOR ROOM
I had not been to Chelsea for some weeks – indeed, I had not been in town, business having kept me in the country – and I returned to find a letter from Quarles which had been waiting for me for three days.
Several cases were in my hands just then – affairs of no great difficulty nor any particular interest – and only in one case had I had any worry. This trouble was due, not so much to the case itself as to the fact that it had brought me in contact with another detective named Baines, who would persist in treating me as a rival. He was as irritating as Quarles himself could be on occasion, and was entirely without the professor's genius. To be candid, I may admit Baines had some excuse. Circumstances brought me into the affair at the eleventh hour, and he was afraid I should reap where he had planted.
It was a strange business from first to last, and one I am never likely to forget.
A man, riding across an open piece of country near Aylesbury early one morning, came upon a motor cyclist lying near his machine on the roadside. The machine had been reduced to scrap-iron. The man, who was dressed in overalls, seemed to have been killed outright by a blow on the head. Since the man still wore his goggles, and there was no sign of a struggle, Baines argued, and reasonably, I think, that death was not the result of foul play. That he had been run into by a motor car, and that the people in the car had either not stopped to see what damage was done, or, having seen it, feared to give information, was perhaps giving too loose a rein to imagination.
However, this was Baines's idea; and he had succeeded in hearing of a car with only one man in it which had been driven through Aylesbury at a furious pace on the night when a second and similar tragedy occurred, this time near Saffron Walden.
The man had been killed in the same fashion, he wore goggles and overalls, and the machine was smashed, though not so completely. Neither of the men had been identified. In the first case, there might be a reason for this, as the man was a foreigner. In the second case, the man was an Englishman. Both the machines were old patterns, and of a cheap make, carried fictitious numbers, and Baines had been unable to find out where they had been purchased.
He held to his theory of the car, but was now inclined to think that the cyclists had been purposely driven into. Granted a certain shape of bonnet – and the car driven through Aylesbury appeared to have this shape – he contended that, in endeavoring to avoid the collision, a cyclist would be struck in exactly the manner indicated by the appearance of the head. He was therefore busy trying to trace a devil-mad motorist.
The discovery of a dead chauffeur on a lonely road near Newbury now brought me into the affair. He had apparently been killed in precisely the same manner as the victims of the Aylesbury and Saffron Walden tragedies; and so I was brought in contact with Baines. From the first he scorned my arguments and suggestions. It seemed to me that this third tragedy went to disprove his theory of a madly driven motor car, but he insisted that it was only a further proof. Was it not possible, he asked, that the mad owner of the car, believing that his chauffeur knew the truth, had killed him to protect himself? I asked him how he supposed the car had been driven at the chauffeur in order to injure him, exactly as it had injured men on cycles. When Baines answered that the chauffeur was probably on a cycle at the time, I wanted to know why, in this case, the motorist had gathered up the broken machine and taken it away. In short, we quarreled over the affair, and Baines was furious when I was able to prove that in neither case was the wrecked cycle a complete machine. True, in one case, only some trivial pieces were missing which might have been driven into the ground by the force of the fall; but in the other an important part was wanting, without which the machine could not have been driven.
I came to the conclusion that there had been foul play, that the broken machines were a blind, and that the men had been brought to the places where they were found after they were dead.
I returned to London to pursue inquiries in this direction, and found the letter from Quarles asking me to go and see him as soon as possible.
I went to Chelsea that evening, and was shown into the dining-room. The professor looked a little old to-night, I thought.
"Very glad to see you, Wigan. I want your help."
"I shall be delighted to give it, you have helped me so often. Your granddaughter is well, I trust?"
"Yes, she is away. She has taken a situation."
"A situation!" I exclaimed.
"The world hasn't much use for a professor of philosophy in these days, and that leads to financial difficulty for the professor," Quarles answered. "You glance round at the luxury of this room, I notice, and I can guess your thoughts. Selfish old brute, you are saying to yourself. But it was the child's wish, and we bide our time. She is made much of where she is. I think it is my loneliness which deserves most pity. Besides, there is no disgrace in honest work, either for man or woman."
Something of challenge was in his tone, and I hastened to agree with him. In a sense, the information was not unpleasant to me. Life was not to be all luxury for Zena Quarles. The social standing of a detective, however successful he may be, is not very high, and the necessity for her to work seemed to bring us nearer together. The value of what I could offer her was increased, and a spirit of hopefulness took possession of me.
"But I didn't ask you here to pity either Zena or myself," Quarles went on, after a pause. "I daresay you have heard of Mrs. Barrymore?"
"I have."
"She advertised for a private secretary, and Zena answered the advertisement. When a woman goes deeply into philanthropic work, visits hospitals, rescue homes, and the like, she often does it to fill a life which would otherwise be empty. Not to Mrs. Barrymore. She is a society woman as well, is to be met here, there and everywhere. She is a golfer, a yachtswoman, fond of sport generally, and withal a charming hostess. It is no wonder she wants a secretary. You don't suppose I should let Zena go anywhere to be treated as a kind of housemaid, and in a way that no self-respecting servant would stand?"
"Of course not. I gather that you know Mrs. Barrymore personally?"
"I saw her once or twice when she was a child. I knew her mother."
I looked up quickly, struck by his tone.
"There is romance in every life, Wigan. Here you touch mine. Mrs. Barrymore's mother married an American. She chose him rather than me, and, although I afterwards married, I have never forgotten her. Naturally, I feel an interest in her daughter, Mrs. Barrymore, and I want your help."
"In what way?"
"I want your opinion of her."
"But I don't know her."
"You must get to know her. She puzzles me, and certain things which Zena has told me make me think I might help her. I should like to do so, if I can. We have been useful to each other, Wigan, because our methods are different. I have formed a certain opinion of Mrs. Barrymore, the result of theorizing. I shall not tell you what it is because I want your unbiased view, arrived at by your method of going to work."
"There is a mystery about her, then?"
"My dear Wigan, that is exactly what I want to find out."
"How am I to make her acquaintance?" I asked.
"Not as Murray Wigan, certainly," he said, and then he added, after a pause: "Would you mind pretending to be Zena's lover? When I saw her a few days ago I said I would suggest this way to her."
Mind? Pretend! The professor little knew how the proposal pleased me. He was offering me a part I could play to perfection.
"It is a good idea," was all I said.
"We even thought of a name for you – George Hastings – and you are a surveyor. Being in Richmond, you thought you might venture to call, not having seen Zena for some time. Mrs. Barrymore lives at Lantern House, Richmond. If you see Mrs. Barrymore, as I hope you will, and make yourself agreeable, she may give you permission to come again. I think it will work all right."
"Will to-morrow be too soon to go?" I asked.
"No."
"If I am given the chance, I will certainly go again when I can. Unfortunately, I am very busy just now."
"Ah, I haven't asked you about your work. Anything interesting?"
"One case, or, rather, three cases in one." And I told him about the cyclists and the chauffeur.
"Only wounds in the head? What kind of wounds?" he asked.
"I did not see the cyclists. I can only speak of the chauffeur from direct knowledge. The forehead, just by the margin of the hair, was bruised and the skin slightly abraded. At the base of the head behind, under the hair, there was another bruise – round, the size of half a crown. There was no swelling, no blood. I am told that the cyclists were also bruised about the temples."
"What had the doctor to say?"
"Very little in the chauffeur's case. Some severe blow had been delivered, but he could not say how. He was puzzled. When I suggested the man might have been run down by a car – quoting Baines's idea – he said it was a possible explanation. He said so, I fancy, merely because he had no other suggestion to offer."
"And the man's face, Wigan?"
"If a man could see death in some horrible shape, and his features become suddenly fixed with terror, he might look like the chauffeur did," I answered.
"He has not been identified either?"
"Not yet, but I'm hoping to trace him."
"Have you thought of one point, Wigan?" said Quarles, with some eagerness. "He may not have been a chauffeur, nor the others cyclists. They may only have worn the clothes."
"It is possible," I returned. "His hands had done manual work, but not of an arduous kind. There were curious marks on the body, a discoloration under the arms, and the skin somewhat chafed. Also, on the outer side of the arms, there were marks just above the elbows – depressions rather than discolorations. A rope bound round the body might have produced the latter."
"There would have been marks upon the chest and back as well," said Quarles.
"I do not say it was a rope," I returned. "Have you any helpful theory, professor?"
For a few moments he had seemed keen – I should not have been surprised had he suggested our going to the empty room. Now he became apathetic, loose-minded, a man incapable of concentration. I had never known Quarles quite like this before.
"I will think of it. When I read the accounts in the papers, I thought I should like to assist you," he said slowly. "But it is impossible to-night. Zena is not here. I am an incomplete machine without her. You must have realized that, Wigan, by this time."
I have intimated before that the empty room, the listening for inspiration, and Quarles's faith in Zena's questions did not impress me very much. His excuse now I took as an intimation that he wanted to be alone.
"I will call at Mrs. Barrymore's to-morrow," I said as I rose to go.
"That's right; Lantern House, Richmond. And, by the way, Mr. Hastings – that is your name, remember – my granddaughter does not call herself Zena Quarles, but Mary Corbett. I have an old friend, Mrs. Corbett, and she has lent her name and her address for letters. Mrs. Barrymore may have heard of me from her mother, and mine is not a name easily forgotten. Besides – "
"I understand. You would help Mrs. Barrymore without her knowing it."
"There may be another reason. One does not advertise his financial difficulties if he can help it."
"Professor, we are friends," I said, with some hesitation. "If you want – "
"No, no," he answered quickly, "I do not want to borrow yet. Thank you all the same, Wigan. Good night. And don't forget you are in love with Mary Corbett."
On the following afternoon I went to Richmond, having supplied myself with some surveying instruments to support the part I was to play. This was unnecessary, perhaps, but I like to be on the safe side. I was excited. I was in love, there was no pretense about it, and if I could contrive to let Zena see the reality through the pretense, so much the better.
Lantern House, which had grounds running down to the river, was large, rambling, and parts of it were very old, contemporaneous with the old Palace of Richmond, it was said. A small cupola in the central portion of the building, possibly once used for star gazing, may have suggested the name.
Zena evidently expected me, for the servant, without making any inquiry, showed me into a room opening on to the gardens at the back. Zena rose hastily from a writing-table and hurried to meet me.
"George!" she exclaimed.
I caught both her outstretched hands in mine.
"Dearest!"
She turned quickly, a color in her cheeks, and then I saw that we were not alone. A lady had risen from a chair at the end of the room, and came forward.
"This is George Hastings, Mrs. Barrymore," Zena said.
"Well, Mr. Hastings, you may kiss her if you like. I shall not be shocked," and she laughed good-humoredly. "Mary told me that you might come, and I am interested in the man she honors. So many girls make fools of themselves, and marry worthless specimens. Outwardly, I see nothing to take exception to in you. Your character – "
"I think Mary is satisfied," I said.
"So it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks, eh?"
I laughed a little awkwardly, playing my part well, I fancy, and showing just sufficient anxiety to impress Mrs. Barrymore favorably.
She was a very handsome woman, tall, athletic, and evidently addicted to sport. Yet there was nothing ungraceful about her. Her manner was gracious and attractive, her dress was charming. It was a marvel she had succeeded in remaining a widow.
"I will leave you," she said presently. "But I can only spare Mary for a very short time to-day. You know, my dear, how busy we are with the appeal for that rescue society. Don't look so disappointed, Mr. Hastings. You may come to-morrow and have tea with Mary."
"Thank you so much."
"But remember, only a few minutes to-day."
As she went out of the room, Zena gave me a warning look. I was evidently to play my part even when Mrs. Barrymore was not there.
"Was there any harm in my coming, Mary?" I asked.
"No, dear. Mrs. Barrymore is very kind to me. George, you haven't kissed me yet."
She was afraid that curious eyes might be upon us, and felt that the parts we had assumed must be played thoroughly. I think the color deepened in my own cheeks as I bent and touched her forehead with my lips. I know hers did. For me it was a lover's kiss, the first I had ever given.
"There is danger, but I am not sure what it is," she whispered, as we stood close together. And then, drawing me to a chair, she said aloud: "Tell me all you have been doing, George."
I concocted a story of my surveying work, and managed to be the lover too. If we had an audience I fancy the deception was complete.
We were not left long together. Mrs. Barrymore came back with an apology, and I departed, thinking a great deal more about Zena than of any mystery there might be about her employer. Yet, from thinking of her, I began to fear for her. What danger could there be at Lantern House?
There was some mystery – the professor had said as much – but surely he would not let his granddaughter run any risk? Still there was danger enough for Zena to take precaution that our deception should not be discovered, even to the extent of allowing me to kiss her. I passed a restless night, and was in Richmond next day long before it was possible for me to go to the house.
When I did go, I was at least an hour before my time.
I was shown into the same room as on the previous day. Mrs. Barrymore was there alone.
"You are early," she said with a smile. "Lovers are ever impatient. Did you meet Mary?"
"No. Is she out?"
"Oh, you need not go. She will be back to tea, and I am not sorry to have a quiet talk with you, Mr. Hastings. I am interested in Mary Corbett. She is nearly alone in the world, and my sympathy goes out to such women. I have worked a great deal for societies dealing with women's status and employment, and am most anxious to see a revision of the laws which at present press too heavily on my sex. Come, tell me all about yourself, your present position, your prospects – everything."