THE MYSTERY OF THE "ROSE OF FIRE"
Some few days later, Mr. Narkom, breathing noisily and obviously hard pressed for time, pushed open the door of Cleek's apartment on Portman Square and carefully inserted his head into the room. His face lighted up and he drew a deep sigh of relief as he caught sight of Cleek, reclining in an easy-chair and apparently day-dreaming.
He glanced up as the Superintendent entered.
"Well, for once you have caught me napping, Mr. Narkom," he said. "I was so deep in thought, I never heard a sound. But sit down, old friend. You look worried."
"I am," admitted the Superintendent. "I was on pins and needles for fear this gorgeous day might have drawn you up the river, and I didn't dare use the public telephone."
"Which tells me very plainly that you have not come directly from the Yard. So I may assume it is a case of some importance that has brought you here in post haste," said Cleek.
"It is indeed," said Narkom, "and it is a case connected with jewels.
"You remember that young American chap I pointed out in a motor last week—the fellow who came over about the Panama Canal, intending to go back, but wound up by getting engaged to an English girl and settling down here...?"
"Anthony Winton, do you mean? Yes, of course I do. If my memory holds right, he is the son of a California millionaire, and with a pretty taste in jewels. Made a hobby of outlandish settings, photographs were in the Connoisseur. The woman who marries him will never go short of unique jewels. Wasn't he to have been married to-day, by the way, according to the papers?"
"'Was' is the correct word, Cleek," said Narkom in a hushed tone. "There will be no wedding for him, poor chap. The man has been murdered——"
"Murdered!" Cleek interrupted, sitting up suddenly. "Winton murdered! How? When?"
"Last night," said Narkom. "Robbery is supposed to have been the motive, and suspicion points in half-a-dozen directions."
"What has been stolen, something from his collection?"
"Yes. As you yourself said, he had a mania for queer jewels, and the one that is missing is the queerest of the lot—rubies mounted on a stem. A Burmese thing, known as the 'Rose of Fire,' made of priceless pigeon-blood rubies, and supposed to have been stolen from the temple of Buddha in Mandalay.
"I was told it was a rose with ruby petals and emerald stem and worth thousands."
"Of course; everyone knows of it. Thousands won't replace it," said Cleek. "Its historical value alone makes it priceless. It is supposed to have belonged to Buddha himself. But to come back to Winton. How was he killed? Stabbed? Shot?"
"I can't say for certain," said Narkom, "save that he was certainly not shot or stabbed. There is no mark or blemish on the body at all. All that is positive, according to the doctor, who did not arrive until after his death, is that he had been asphyxiated by some unknown fumes. He was found by his servant, who says he heard him struggling with an assailant, but when he forced the door in, the room was empty, the windows shut, and he was only just in time to reach his master and hear him say with his last gasp 'Death's Head!' Then he fell back, dead as the skeleton to which he pointed."
"'Death's Head'," repeated Cleek, knitting his brows. "Does anybody know what he meant?"
"Not unless he was still thinking of his words with Miss Parradine, the bride-to-be."
"What had she to do with it?" asked Cleek.
"A great deal, I should say. As you know, Winton had queer taste in jewels and it seems that he had had some of his finest diamonds mounted in skull-and-crossbones brooches as his present to the bride and as bridesmaid gifts. He was obsessed with breaking superstitions—insisted on sitting down thirteen at table when possible, had the knives crossed, had skull and crossbones on his notepaper and cutlery. He defied, in fact, every legend and superstition known, even to having a skeleton present at the table."
"H'm, cheerful companion! Every man has some whim, but for a young man all this was peculiar, to say the least of it. I suppose he wanted his future wife to indulge in the same tricks, eh?"
"Yes, that's just it, Cleek, and evidently she resisted. Anyhow, with the exception of Calvert, the valet, she was the last person to see him alive last night. She arrived unexpectedly during the evening, and was shown in to him. It seems that they were not entirely on the best of terms. Both have, or had I suppose I must say, strong wills, and Miss Parradine was obviously in a furious temper, for Calvert declared that he heard her voice raised high and shrill more than once. He even goes further than that, for he swears that as he was passing the door, just before she flung herself out, flushed with rage and mortification, he heard her say distinctly: 'I won't have it. I'd sooner see you a skull and crossbones yourself than ask such a thing'."
"Humph," commented Cleek. "I wonder if Calvert is to be trusted. Sure he wasn't making the words fit those of the dying man? Possibly Miss Parradine was angry at the gift and carried away by temper. Vanity plays a great part with women at the best of times, and a wedding, after all, is a trying experience."
"In this case vanity, or rather wealth, plays the chief part, I fear, Cleek, for to all accounts the lady only consented to the marriage because of the pressure brought to bear upon her by her family, and secondly because of her own love of precious stones. According to the marriage settlements, on his death all jewels go to her."
"Oho!" said Cleek in two different inflections.
"The lady herself," continued Mr. Narkom, "was really engaged to a neighbouring land-owner, Robert Bristol, but she had to give him up. Probably Winton had a financial hold over her father. Anyhow, the marriage was hastened, and Winton had decided to take his bride back to America before settling down here."
"And where did the murder take place—in London?" queried Cleek, diving for his cigarette-case.
"No, in Essex, in the village of Grays, where Winton had leased a very old solidly built manor house, and had had his jewel collection, which he made while travelling from place to place, transferred to the big picture gallery there. This collection included the famous 'Rose of Fire'."
"H'm. I see. And considering that the Burmese priests will never rest till they regain that holy relic, it was positively asking for trouble. The Death's Head, sign of the skull and crossbones, is an emblem of one of their rites, I believe, and if one of them were in the neighbourhood, might Winton not have recognized the instigator of his death? The hypothesis is rather far-fetched, I admit, but still——Well, continue with the story, please. How long had the lady left before Calvert began to suspect trouble?"
"About ten minutes. As a matter of fact, she let herself out, apparently. Calvert was called away by the telephone down another passage, and when he came back she was gone. He took the 'phone message to Mr. Winton and found the door locked. According to him, he called, and at last broke in the door on hearing a funny scuffling noise inside, but getting no answer to his knocks found his master dying, and later discovered the loss of the 'Rose of Fire' from his table. That is as far as I can get."
"How was it that Miss Parradine was able to make such an inopportune call? Does she live in Grays, too?"
"Yes, she does. She is, as you doubtless are aware, the daughter of Colonel Parradine, late of the Bengal Lancers, and——"
"Stop a moment," cut in Cleek, sharply. "It isn't often my memory fails me. Wasn't it about '74 when the Bengal Lancers were stationed at Mandalay? I seem to remember some yarns about ragging. If I am not wrong, I expect it must have been that same Colonel, or Captain Parradine as he then was, who nearly got cashiered. Is he still up to high jinks?"
"Well, he acts pretty queerly," said Narkom, "according to Winton's butler, Wills. It was he, by the way, who went flying off for the doctor when they found that the telephone was out of order at the same time as the lights."
"What's that? The lights wrong?"
"Yes, he said, and Calvert, too, that every light in the place went out just as Calvert got into the room. Then they flashed on again, and that's how he looked for the jewels, directly he saw his master was dead, in order to find whether they had been stolen."
"Very thoughtful of him," put in Cleek, pinching up his chin. "Very!"
"Yes, and that's not the only funny thing. Nothing else but the 'Rose' was missing, although other stones of the collection were there. Winton had evidently been polishing or looking at them. You would have thought the thief would have cleared the lot."
"Possibly! And yet, too, he might have banked on one single jewel not being missed immediately and let him get a good start away."
"But to come back to Colonel Parradine," said Narkom. "Wills tells me he met him half-way down the lane as he was going for the doctor either very ill and shaken or much the worse for drink. His clothes were dusty and awry as if he had had a fall, and that's how he accounted for his condition. He said he had been knocked down by a motor on his way from the station. But there were scratches on his face and hands which gave him the appearance of having dropped from a high window rather than of having been in a motor accident. As Winton's gallery is a sheer drop of thirty feet from the ground, you can imagine it looks strange. Anyhow, Wills told him what had happened and left the Colonel to come on to the Manor Lodge as best he could."
"Looks bad, I must say. Still, if he had had any hand in it, he would hardly have been hanging about the lane near the scene of the murder. But you never know. Anyhow, it's easy to round up someone who saw or heard of that accident. It remains to be seen what the Colonel has to say. Any possibility of his secreting the jewel himself?"
"Hardly," said Narkom. "Considering that he drew my attention to its loss. Besides, to make things worse, I phoned through to headquarters on my way up and learned that some loose rubies were pawned in London at nine o'clock this morning by a woman who answers vaguely a description of Miss Parradine herself."
"That looks worst of all," said Cleek. "Give me five minutes to jump into another suit, Mr. Narkom, and we'll see what Mr. George Headland can do."