THE MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF ELTON CARLYLE
"Won't 'old another blessed thing, sir," said Dollops, regretfully, trying hard to stuff a bundle of highly coloured ties and a cocoa-nut into a Gladstone bag already filled to overflowing.
Cleek, shirt-sleeves turned up, kneeling before a similar bag, looked up with a quizzical smile on his face.
"It certainly won't hold any more cocoanuts, you voracious young monkey," he said with an amused laugh. "I should say you've got enough things in there to last for a month at the Pole, instead of a couple of days on a houseboat. Hurry and get strapped up, or—who knows?—we shall have Mr. Narkom popping in with another case."
Dollops hurried up at once, gasping as he did so, "If he does, I'll eat my 'at. Lor' lumme, sir! but we ain't goin' to be done out of this 'oliday, are we?"
Cleek shook his head. But even as he opened his mouth to speak there came a sound which caused Dollops to assume a most dejected expression—a very ordinary sound, too, a hastily driven motor being sharply drawn up to the curb.
Cleek sprang to his feet.
"Lennard! A ducat to a guinea but it's Lennard!" he muttered under his breath, as Dollops, with the ease of an acrobat, took a flying leap over both bags to the window and peeped through the curtains.
It did not need his heartfelt groan of despair to tell Cleek that his conjecture was right, and the sound of hurried footsteps in the passage outside warned him of Mr. Narkom's approach only a minute before the door was thrown open and that gentleman stood in the doorway, breathless, but beaming complacently.
"Thank Heaven I'm in time, old chap," said he with a sigh of relief, advancing toward Cleek.
"Sorry we can't reciprocate the feeling, Mr. Narkom," said Cleek with a rueful smile; "but we can't, can we, Dollops? It's too bad, you interloper. I've ordered the taxi, there's a boat waiting for us out Hampton Court way, and in another quarter of an hour——" He stopped significantly, and threw out his hand with a gesture indicative of the most utter despair.
Mr. Narkom nodded.
"It is hard lines," he agreed, "and I wouldn't worry you, only it's something very important. And if you fail me——"
"Well, old friend, you want me, and here I am. I suppose you are going to carry me off, so where do we go, and when?"
"Now, if you will," said Mr. Narkom. "I've got one car here, and Petrie and Hammond have gone off with another, made up so as to take followers off our trail. I want to catch the one o'clock from Waterloo," he said, consulting his watch, "and unless we hurry, there's no chance."
"Waterloo? Too far for us to go in the limousine, then?" said Cleek, picking up his light overcoat.
"Yes, it's just beyond Portsmouth, as a matter of fact, and we shan't be down there even now until late in the evening, but——"
"But me no buts," threw in Cleek with a little laugh. "Let's be off. Now, then, Dollops."
He gave the boy a few hurried instructions, turned upon his heel, seized Mr. Narkom by his substantial arm, and went clattering down the stairs like a schoolboy on the first day of the holidays.
"Now fire away," he said as he seated himself in the limousine beside the Superintendent, and drew out his cigarette-case. "Is the matter really a very important one?"
"I should think it is," was the emphatic reply. "I had the tip from a very high personage indeed to give the matter close attention. The actual client is a gentleman of considerable wealth and social standing. You may possibly have heard of him. He is Brian Desmond, the only son of the wealthiest banker in the kingdom, and recently made head of his father's firm."
"Of course I have heard of him," said Cleek with a nod. "Who hasn't? Wasn't that the man who owned 'Black Prince,' the last Derby winner? Not only has he been famous for outdoor sports, but no one can forget the fuss made in the papers over his marriage two years ago with the most beautiful débutante of the season, Lady Beryl Summerton."
"That's the man," said the Superintendent. "But all his sporting days—and ways—are over, for since he has become head of the great banking business he has devoted all his time to straight finance and hard work. Every day he spends at the provincial office in Portsmouth, near which is his country seat."
"Another case of Prince Hal, eh?" said Cleek, thoughtfully. "All right, old chap, don't worry over your history dates now—go ahead. What's wrong? I saw his cousin, Elton Carlyle, last week. He hasn't given up his sporting proclivities, because he was walking down Bond Street with a bookie, I'll stake my life on that."
"Poor chap!" said Mr. Narkom, softly. "The news of Elton Carlyle's death came to me this morning. It's been murder—cunning, crafty, diabolically planned murder. And there is no clue as to how the murderer got into the house unseen, much less how he managed to chloroform a man to death without a sign of a struggle. Yet the man evidently died last night. Mr. Desmond sent off for the police, and wrote me fullest particulars."
"Very thoughtful of him," said Cleek, pinching up his chin. "Should have thought he would have been too upset to have got a letter off in time to catch the post. That special midnight mail, I presume? H'm!"
"Yes," agreed the Superintendent. "I never thought of that, I was so glad to get all the facts. I had been in communication with him over the robberies all last week, and was going down when——"
Cleek sat up suddenly.
"What's that?" he snapped. "Robberies? What has been stolen from where?"
"So far, only gold has been taken, but now——Here's Waterloo, and the rest must be kept until we are in the train. What's that? Get the tickets and join you on the platform afterward. All right. And the coach next to the engine if I can manage it? Anything you say goes."
With this the Superintendent jumped nimbly out of the car and, with some instructions to Lennard, hastily made for the booking-office. There were evidently a goodly number of people going to Portsmouth, and Mr. Narkom frowned and fretted impatiently as he had to take his place in the queue. He noted with some alarm the presence of one man who was obviously of French birth, and but for the fact that this person took his ticket for a station some fifty miles from Portsmouth, the Superintendent would have given the fact more attention.
To his disgust there were no signs of Cleek on the platform, and he was still more angered by discovering that there was no empty carriage to be obtained. As a final reason for exasperation the carriage behind the engine was not only marked "Engaged" but was occupied by another Frenchman, an individual with long hair and Vandyke beard, who was leaning out of the window imploring every guard who came within hearing to tell him if "zis was ze right train for Dovaire." As he should have been going in exactly the opposite direction, and had been told so by every official on the platform, and as he still continued to argue the question in perfect French, they had, one and all, given him up in despair.
Mr. Narkom was also in despair as he saw the gate of the platform shut against a surging crowd of people who had arrived too late, and still there was no sign of Cleek.
That his ally had failed him intentionally he would not believe, and he halted disconsolately just outside the Frenchman's reserved carriage. The man had opened the door as if uncertain whether or not to get out at the last moment, and then as the whistle sounded, a guard, his green flag aloft, bundled both the Frenchman and Mr. Narkom unceremoniously into the same carriage, and bade them "Fight it out" between them.
Another shrill whistle, and the train moved out of the station, and Mr. Narkom, to the accompaniment of shrill vituperations from his French fellow-passenger, sank down into the opposite corner, the image of gloomy despair.
"Poor old chap! Sorry to——"
But the soft, laughing voice got no further, for with an acrobatic leap, worthy of Dollops himself, the Superintendent fairly hurled himself on his companion and tugged at his square black beard.
"Cleek!" said he in a voice that held some anger and a great deal of relief. "I might have known it, but what a scare you gave me!"
"You'd have had a worse one, my friend, if you had kept your eyes open, as I did," answered Cleek with a little shrug of disgust. "From the limousine I saw him. No less a person than Gustave Borelle, Margot's half-brother. What do you think of that?"
Mr. Narkom's brain flew to the booking-office, and his cheeks paled.
"The Frenchman in the queue!" he ejaculated, mopping his forehead with a silk handkerchief and looking the picture of pathetic despair. "I noticed him, old chap, but he booked his ticket to Tarrington, so I felt assured."
"Let's hope it's only pure coincidence," said Cleek, thoughtfully. "Of course, he may have recognized the Yard car, and then again he may not. Anyhow, I don't think he would have recognized me in that get-up. Well, my friend, weren't you telling me something about a series of robberies in this precious new case of yours?"
The professional light came into the Superintendent's face, even as the anxious one went out of it.
"'Pon my soul," he said, briskly, "I was nearly forgetting what I was travelling for! Yes, robberies from a time-lock safe, in the study of Mr. Brian Desmond, at Desmond House. I expect you know the sort of thing."
"H'm, yes," said Cleek. "I ought to," he added, smiling a trifle sadly, "considering the amount of trouble I used to have in opening them. But that's another story. Anyhow, I know the apparatus; and one belongs to Mr. Desmond, eh? And money has been taken from it despite the time-lock precautions. Blown, I suppose?"
"No," replied Mr. Narkom with a grim smile. "For weeks and weeks sums of money have been disappearing from this safe overnight, and the mechanism of the lock has been absolutely intact, without scratch or blemish. The money has been put in at night, after the bridge parties are over."
"What's that?" rapped out Cleek. "Bridge parties? What has that hard-working, pleasure-shunning, late sportsman-banker, Brian Desmond, got to do with bridge parties?"
"He doesn't play himself. They are his wife's affair. Lady Beryl is devoted to the game. She gave up everything when she married Desmond—she might have married a duke, by the way—friends, parents, hobbies, all except bridge. That she still continued, having people down for the week-end solely to play."
"Oho! And where does Elton Carlyle come in in this pleasant little ménage? Is he the tame cat of the house, or master of the revels?"
"Well, something like that," admitted Mr. Narkom with a nod, "though he was called Brian's secretary. He was always a man-about-town, but he and Brian were inseparable. Now, on top of these robberies comes the news this morning of the murder of Elton Carlyle and the disappearance of the Eugenie pearl."
Cleek suddenly showed tremendous interest.
"What's that? What's that?" he rapped out. "You don't mean to say that any fool man bought that ill-fated jewel at Christie's last week? But yes, of course, he did, I remember now. Never anything but trouble has followed in the wake of that unhappy bauble of vanity since it first put in its appearance. It belonged originally to the Duchess Amelia Eugenie, from whom it acquired its name. Some stones seem to reflect the unhappiness of their various owners, and this pearl is the very embodiment of ill-luck. Desmond, I should think, with superstitious Irish blood in his veins, might have thought twice before he gave his wife such a jewel as that!"
"Well, he didn't," snorted Mr. Narkom, "and now it's gone."
For a time there was silence in the compartment. Neither spoke, neither stirred. Then suddenly Cleek jerked himself upright.
"Then that's what they're after!" said he with a crooked little smile. "I wonder. I wonder. It might be, and yet, Margot's no fool—no fool!"
With that he relapsed into silence again, a silence which lasted almost until the express landed them at Portsmouth Station.