The Riddle of the Night

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

HOW THE TRUTH WAS TOLD

In the closed and curtained library General Raynor paced up and down, silent, anxious, alone, his nerves raw, his face haggard, his eyes brightening with expectancy every time a breeze shook or bellied the draperies hanging over the open window, but dimming again when they sagged back into position without anything coming of their disturbance.

"Waiting, you see," said Cleek in a whisper as he and Narkom emerged from the screen of the trees, and saw the chink of light made by the wind-blown curtains, and the shadow which moved back and forth and momentarily blotted it. "Poor old chap! He must be suffering torments. Come on! Step lightly! Make no noise until we are at the window's ledge. This is the end of his waiting at last!"

Evidently the General was of that opinion, also, when, a few moments later, he heard a footstep on the gravel, and, halting to listen and to make sure, heard that footstep come on and up the terrace steps. With a quick intaking of the breath and a whispered, "Is it you? Is it you at last?" he moved fleetly to the window, twitched aside the curtains, and let the guarded light streak outward into the night.

It fell full upon two men – Cleek and Narkom – standing within an arm's reach of the indrawn sashes and the divided drapery.

A flash of sudden pallor, followed quickly by an angry flush, passed over the General's face as he saw and recognized Cleek.

"Really, Mr. Barch, this is carrying your little pleasantries too far," he rapped out in a voice that had a little tremble in it. "Will you allow me to say that we are not accustomed to guests who get up and prowl about the place at all hours of the night, and turn up suddenly at half-past one in the morning with uninvited acquaintances."

"Quite so," said Cleek, "but the law is no respecter of any man's convenience, General."

"The law? The law?" The General's sudden fright was pitiful. He dropped back a step under the shock of the thing, and all the colour drained out of his lips and cheeks. "What utter absurdity! What have I to do with the law? What have you, Mr. Barch?"

"Cleek, if you want the truth of it, General – Cleek of the Forty Faces, Cleek of Scotland Yard. It's time to lay aside the mask of 'Philip Barch' forever."

"Cleek? Cleek?" The General's cry was scarcely more than a shrill whisper. "God! You that man? You? And all the time you have been here in my house. Oh, my God! is this the end?"

"Yes, I fear it is, General," said Cleek in reply, as he stepped past him and moved into the room. "If you dance to the devil's music in your youth, my friend, be sure he will come round with the hat in the days of your age! Last night one of the follies of your youth came to its inevitable end: last night a man was murdered who – Stop! Doors won't lead a man out of his retribution. Come away from that one. The gentleman who is with me, General, is Mr. Maverick Narkom, superintendent of Scotland Yard. Isn't that enough to show you how impossible it is to evade what is to be? Besides, why should you want to get out of the room? It's not your life that's in danger, it's your honour; and there's no need to make any attempt to prevent either your wife or your son learning that when both are deep in the drugged sleep to which you sent them."

"My God!" The General collapsed into a chair.

"That's right," said Cleek. "Sit down to it, General, for it is likely to be a strength-sapping time. I've something to say to you; and Mr. Narkom has still something to hear. But first, for the sake of emergencies, and to have things handy if required, allow me to take a certain precaution."

As he spoke he moved over to the window, and switched the curtains over them.

"General," he said, facing about again, "the laws of society, the laws which prevail in civilized communities, are pretty rotten things. If a woman errs in her youth she pays for it all her whole life long – in sorrow, in tears, in never-ceasing disgrace. If the same law prevailed for both sexes, and men had to pay for the sins of their youth as women must for theirs, how many of them think you would be out of sackcloth to-day? Atonement is for the man, never for the woman. For Eve, youth must stand always as a time of purity, unspotted by a single sin. For Adam, it stands only as a time of folly that may be brushed aside and of sin that may be outlived. Probably you were no worse in the days of your youth, General, than ninety-nine men out of every hundred, but – " He gave his shoulders a shrug, and broke off.

But of a sudden he reached round and took a packet of letters from the tail pockets of his evening coat, and threw them to the stricken man.

"Carry those things to Lady Clavering and let her burn them with her own hands," he said. "They are letters which caused last night's crime – the letters of Mademoiselle Marise de Morcerf, a pretty school-girl, who wrote them in all innocence to Lieutenant Raynor out there in Malta, all those years ago. They were stolen by the man who was christened under the name of Anatole de Vellon, and died under that of Count Franz de Louvisan."

The General plucked up the letters with a wild sort of eagerness and sat forward in his chair, breathing hard.

"You know then, you know?" he said, in a shaking voice, the pallor on his face deepening until he was absolutely ghastly. "Is there, then, no keeping anything from you, that you are able to unearth secrets such as this – things that no one but our two wretched selves knew in all the world? And you know how that man, that De Louvisan, had blackmailed her?"

"Yes, General, I know. But the source of my knowledge is by no means so miraculous as you seem to fancy. It came in part from those letters and in part from your guest, Lord St. Ulmer."

"St. Ulmer? St. Ulmer? What can he know of this? He is in no way concerned. He is little better than a stranger to me, despite his relationship to my wife."

"Nevertheless, he knows more than you fancy, General. He, too, was a visitor to Gleer Cottage last night. And he went, as you went, my friend, determined to be rid of the danger of Count Franz de Louvisan's tongue, even if he had to descend to crime to do it."

"St. Ulmer! St. Ulmer!" repeated the General with an air of bewilderment. "Why should he? What reason could he have for dreading the man?"

"A very good one, as you will see when I explain to you that St. Ulmer, as you call him, has no more right to the title than I myself!"

"An impostor!" gasped both the General and Mr. Narkom with one voice.

"Yes, an impostor," said Cleek quietly. "I recognized him directly I was able to get face to face with him. He was known as Paul the Panther, though Paul Berton is his name, an Apache, a boon companion of Margot, the queen of the Apaches, and of Anatole de Villon, a cousin of the greatest scoundrel in Paris. This man Paul had been valet to the real Lord St. Ulmer, probably engaged in Paris, and went with him to the Argentine. With him also Paul took the effects and credentials of another Apache, Ferdinand Lovetski, the maker of that special blacking, 'Jetanola.' He had been killed for refusing to give up to the Apaches his little fortune, and accordingly, Anatole annexed it without the permission of Margot, and hence brought down on him her wrath. He managed to slip away with his master, and whether he had any hand in killing him in the Argentine, heaven alone knows. What is certain is that he decided to return to Europe and finally to England as Lord St. Ulmer, and in this he succeeded. The old solicitor had died. Both you and your wife had seen but little of St. Ulmer in later years, so that, armed with all the papers and his own quick wits, it was not so difficult as you would have imagined. Had it not been for the stray meeting with Anatole de Villon, who was himself masquerading here as the Count de Louvisan, all would have gone well. As it was, one rogue threatened the other, and De Louvisan held the trump cards. It was his plan to marry Lady Katharine, and St. Ulmer had to submit, for fear not only that he should be betrayed to the police as an impostor, but in case Anatole should give him up to Margot. He played on Lady Katharine's feelings, therefore, so as to make her give up young Clavering and marry the count. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, at the last minute De Louvisan quarrelled with him; he had some other plans, he said, connected with letters – "

"Good heavens! I see now," gasped the General. "De Louvisan played a double game. Those letters were mine. He had contrived to steal them from me in Malta. There is really no harm in them, but Marise – Lady Clavering – and I, had fancied ourselves in love many years ago, and she was afraid, needlessly perhaps, that Sir Philip Clavering, who is the very soul of honour himself, would disown her and cut the friendship between him and myself. We had each found our true mates, and it was an unutterable shock to both to find that this wretch had threatened to inform Sir Philip, or else hand over the letters to Margot to publish at her will. I nearly went mad when Marise told me that she was going to meet him. I think I went off my head for a few minutes; at any rate, I did one of those unaccountable things for which people who have mental lapses are noted. It was after bedtime, long after, when the message arrived, and struck all my thoughts into a bewildering sort of chaos. I remember hanging up the receiver and turning to the door, but from that moment there is a blank until I found myself standing before the dressing mirror in my own room, not in the act of disrobing, as I ought properly to have been doing at that hour and in that place, but dressing myself as if for dinner! I think you are aware of the fact that I use black cosmetic on my moustache, Mr. Cleek? When that mental lapse passed and I came to myself, there I was with my hair freshly combed and in the very act of applying the cosmetic to my moustache. I don't know how I got into the room or when – everything is a blank to me.

"A not unusual thing under the circumstances, General. These sudden shocks produce effects of that sort frequently. You were not really accountable, not really aware of what you did, or why – that, I suppose, is the explanation of how, when you came to think of going to the cottage and facing the man, you ran out of the house with the stick of cosmetic still in your hand. You did, did you not?"

"Yes, although I was not aware of it until I arrived at the place."

"Hum-m-m! So I imagined. And the A-string? How did you come to take that?"

"The A-string, Mr. Cleek?"

"Yes, the bit of catgut. Shall I be out in my reckoning, General, if I say that as you crept out of the house something fell either on your head or your hands, something which proved to be a long thick piece of catgut, and that, without realizing what you were doing, or why, you carried that, too, with you?"

"Good heavens, how do you know these things? Nobody, nobody on God's earth could have told you that, Mr. Cleek, for no living soul was there. But that is exactly what did happen. When I got into the cottage and found Lady Clavering – "

"With a pink gauze petticoat under a pale green satin dress?"

"Yes. When I got there and found her in conversation with that wretch, why, those two things – the cosmetic and the catgut – were still in my hand. I had no use for them, of course, and as soon as I realized that I was holding them I threw them aside."

"So I supposed," said Cleek. "And the assassin found them there, although he might have had one of the articles upon his person; not likely, but he might, for he, too, uses it."

"The assassin?" The General looked at him sharply. "You know that, too? Who is he? What was his motive? Why did he spike that body to the wall?"

"We will come to that in good time, General," replied Cleek. "For the present let us stick to your connection with the case, please. After you had given your promise to Lady Clavering not to return to Gleer Cottage, why, may I ask, did you break it and go back?"

"I have told you in a measure, Mr. Cleek. I went back to make one last effort to move the man to pity. He must have been making use of the time for some purpose of his own, not counting upon my coming back, for as I returned to the house I caught the distant sound of a hammer being used, and he was savagely out of temper when he saw me. Springing at me like a wild animal, he cried out: 'Spying, were you? Damn you, I'll brain you before you can give away what you saw. She shan't get shut of me that way; nor shall you!' I ducked down under the sweep of the blow he aimed at me, so that it whizzed past my head and the impetus of it carried him half round; then, as he wheeled and gathered himself for a second stroke, I half straightened and came at him with an upper cut that landed squarely on the peak of his jaw and carried him off his feet. He went up and over, and the back of his head landed against the edge of the mantelpiece and stunned him. He dropped like a log. I thought for the instant I had killed him, but a moment's examination convinced me that he was only stunned; indeed, was already showing signs of reviving; and I should certainly have stopped to see the matter out but that I was sure I heard somebody moving in the garden, so as quickly as I could, I got out and flew for dear life. I saw nobody and I heard nobody all the way back to this house, and you can guess my surprise when this morning brought news of the tragedy. I should have said to myself that I had killed the man had he been found as I left him; but when I not only heard, but went and saw for myself, that he had been found nailed to the wall and marked with mysterious figures, I knew that some one else had slain him; and life has been a nightmare of terror and suspense ever since."

"I can well believe it," said Cleek. "You have paid dearly for all your follies, General. But that is to be expected, for it is written, my friend, that he who breaks must pay. The laws of God are no more fixed in that respect than are the laws of man; and I, as the instrument of those man-made laws – " He shrugged his shoulders, and threw out both hands with a sweeping and expressive movement. "Murder has been done," he went on. "The law demands a life for a life, and my duty to the law is to hang the murderer of that man, even though the victim may have merited death twenty times over and the world be well rid of him. General" – he swung suddenly away from the chair against which he had all the time been leaning with his back to it and his face toward the room – "General, the law demands of the man-hunter that he shall be a thing of iron, cold, passionless, inflexible, a mere machine for the carrying out of its mandates, the probing of its riddles, the fulfilment of its retribution. It allows him to possess no private sentiments, to make no hero of a murderer, even though his crime be in the interest of others, and of itself brings good out of evil."

The General looked up at him, awed and silent. A strange and terrible impressiveness was in Cleek's voice.

"General," he went on after a brief pause, "the bringing to justice of the Count de Louvisan's murderer must inevitably entail the exposure of Lady Clavering's secret and yours. That I would spare both you and her, if I could. The anguish you two have suffered I would let be the only thing that comes out of this crime if it were mine to say; but I am the instrument of the law, and I must obey its dictates. I cannot shield the assassin, and I cannot shield you or her ladyship if this case has to be brought up before the courts. General, I know the murderer and I know the motive. It was a great one, that I grant you; and the carrying of it out was one of craft and cunning.

"As you have guessed, it was Paul Berton, alias St. Ulmer, who committed both crimes; the killing of the keeper and De Louvisan. As you said just now, Anatole had been playing a double game, and he had threatened to throw over Lady Katharine and reveal the truth of the impostorship to Margot, thus earning his forgiveness from her for the stealing of that other property, and if possible marrying her and sharing her rule. St. Ulmer came to the cottage in those few minutes before you and Lady Clavering put in an appearance. He saw afterward what you did not see – namely, what De Louvisan did in those few minutes you were absent. He saw, too, that length of catgut which you dropped, and when you rushed out, leaving the man unconscious, Paul Berton, or St. Ulmer, flashed into the room, caught that up and strangled the fellow where he lay. He spiked him to the wall with the very hammer the hound had assailed you with, and he would have accomplished all he had set out to do but for an accident. De Louvisan, or Anatole, had taken up a board and hidden the letters beneath the floor. Paul had seen him do it and meant to get them. But the noise he had made, he fancied, had attracted the attention of either a constable or a Common keeper, for he heard the sound of some one stealing through the garden. That was Lady Katharine Fordham walking in her sleep, poor girl. He had no time to lose, so caught up the stick of cosmetic you had dropped, and scrawled those figures on the dead man's shirt – "

"Their meaning, Cleek?" cried Narkom. "What was it?"

"A very simple one. Part of the Apache cipher. I remembered it afterward, and translated it thus:

"You see he meant that if Margot should arrive on the scene, she should know that it was he, Paul, who had avenged the gang and hidden the letters. By this he meant to win his own pardon from Margot. As it happened, she had already taken fright and left the country. The numbers counted to nine, and I reckoned that Paul, noting this fact, must have trusted to luck to Margot being sharp enough to take it as a measurement of some kind. I took it to be nine boards, and was right, as you know.

"He would probably have gone back for the letters afterward, but he had no time; he fled across the Common, headlong into the arms of the Common keeper, whom he shot at and knocked senseless, making use of the man's clothing, as we know. These he buried later in the old ruin, and there you will find them, General."

An exclamation burst from the lips of General Raynor, followed by the sound of something more startling, that of a pistol shot.

"God! What was that!" the General breathed in a frightened whisper at the sound of the explosion.

"The end of De Louvisan's murderer, General, I hope, and the everlasting shutting of the door on Lady Clavering's secret and yours," said Cleek. "Come quickly, before the servants arrive on the scene."

He led the way out of the room, and up the stairs to where was Lord St. Ulmer's room. Cleek opened the door with the key which had evidently reposed in his own pocket. A strange sight met their eyes. It was evident that St. Ulmer, or Paul Berton, had been left handcuffed and bound by ropes to the bedpost, but he had managed to evade his bondage sufficiently to get to a drawer in which must have been a loaded revolver, and he had thus set himself free.

"Let the dead past bury its dead," said Cleek quietly. "The world need only know that one impostor killed another, and finally shot himself when the law discovered the truth."

He bent down and swiftly removed the handcuffs from the still figure, and the General gave vent to a deep sigh of relief just as the startled servants came flocking up the staircase.

The riddle of the night had been solved, and their secret lay buried in the grave.

It was an hour afterward. In the seclusion of the General's study, he and Narkom and Cleek sat talking over the events of the night.

"You must not accord me too much honour, General," said Cleek. "For after all I did not ferret out the entire truth until I came face to face with Paul Berton, who told me the facts, under force, it is true. It was, as I have already explained, he who killed the poor Common keeper when that unfortunate man interrupted his headlong dash for freedom. Then, General, borrowing a leaf from the book of a certain person known as the 'Vanishing Cracksman,' with whom he had had some dealings in other days, he leaped upon the unfortunate man, beat him to the ground, and hastily robbed him of his uniform. You know the rest: the assassin's blows were perhaps harder than he had intended, and so another life was added to the list. I confess I was puzzled at first by Lady Katharine's part in the affair and the ermine cloak, as I knew there were at least two women on the Common that night. But I managed to look into Mrs. Raynor's room in one of my rambles, and there I saw an ermine cloak soiled at the edges. The maid told me, unconscious of doing either harm or good, that she had just fetched it from Lady Katharine's room, as she had borrowed it a couple of days ago. I had already made up my mind after overhearing a certain interview between the lovers, that Lady Katharine must have acquired the habit of walking in her sleep, and so that part of the mystery was made clear. But I am afraid I have given you an unpleasant time, General, and I have had to spy about a good deal. However, I think we may agree with the immortal Shakespeare that after all, 'All's well that ends well.'"