"Tell them the facts, of course," I said, "and let them see the broken window-pane and examine the garden for themselves. If I hadn't supposed they were already on the way here, and if I hadn't been in such a hurry to get out and search the garden, as not to give myself a moment to think, I should have urged upon you the necessity of sending for them before. Hush! Was that a ring at the front door? I think so. Very possibly it is they."
It was—a sergeant and an ordinary constable, decent fellows, honest fellows, conscientious fellows, both of them, but not, I imagine, overburdened either of them with brains. Plainly they did not associate the attempt to enter the house with the murder. The impression they gave was that they thought a mere alarm of burglary very small beer when compared with an actual murder. Miss Clara told them that while she and I were talking, we heard the sound of falling glass below, that I had gone down and had seen a man's face at a broken window. She explained the circumstances which prevented me from following him, and added that I believed the face to be that of a man respecting whom I had laid information at Scotland Yard that very morning.
The sergeant and the constable listened to Miss Clara's statement without excitement, and when she had made an end of it expressed a wish to see the conservatory, the broken window and the garden, made a few notes, took my name and address, accepted readily the glass of whisky and water which Miss Clara suggested, but declined with equal readiness the half-crown which the same lady, by way of compensation for the trouble to which she had put them, endeavoured to press into their hands, and remarking that they had done no more than their duty, wished us good-night and so departed.
Then I turned to my hostess and unfolded my own plans.
"To tell the honest truth, Miss Carleton," I said, "I was not at all anxious to be mixed up in this new development. I shall have more than enough advertisement at the inquest, which is to be held to-morrow, on the three bodies found off Canvey, and if I am called as a witness at the inquest which will have to be held on the body of young Grant—the police and the public will begin to think my connection with both murders somewhat suspicious. If I were to have followed my inclinations I should have pretended that I was anxious to learn more of the circumstances of young Grant's murder, and should have asked you to let me slip out to see if I could pick up any news, so as to be out of the way when the police called. But a murder, a brutal murder, has been committed, and though I am still smarting from the undeserved snubbing I received when I called at Scotland Yard this morning, I should feel that I was behaving not only like a bad citizen, but as little less than a criminal, were I to keep back anything which would assist the police in their search. And now, may I get on to something else which I very much wish to say? The fact that the face I saw at the broken window was that of the Dumpling, is to me very significant. It is, you must admit, a strong confirmation of the theories I have formed, and of which I have already told you. Why did I watch Grant's house? Because if the Dumpling believed Grant to be alive, I was tolerably sure he would lose no time in putting Grant out of the way. What was the result of my watching? This—that I found someone was watching Grant's house, and not only Grant's house, but this house as well. Then came the question, Why was he watching this house? I knew from Parker that the Dumpling had planned to kidnap certain millionaires, and to hold them to ransom. Hearing on inquiry that your brother was a millionaire, I thought it not unlikely that it was he who was to have been kidnapped last night. I think so still, but I am inclined to believe that my appearance at the opium den upset the calculations of the conspirators, and so prevented them from carrying out their plans. They are still watching this house, however. Why? Because they are waiting for your brother's return so that they may learn his movements, and lay their plans accordingly.
"Then came the murder of young Grant. It may have been, or it may not have been, the work of the Dumpling and his accomplices. Personally, I haven't a moment's doubt that it was so. While all the neighbourhood is hunting for the murderer, a man tries to remove a pane of glass in your conservatory. Who is this man? Is he a burglar who, with no connection whatever with the murder, has chanced to choose this particular night to break into your house? I don't think so. He could hardly have failed to hear that a murder had just been committed in your immediate neighbourhood, and if so, would he be fool enough to select the very night when he knows the police will be wide awake and on the watch? Not likely. If he had been an ordinary burglar, he would have had his diamond with him, and would have cut out, not broken, that pane of glass. The man who broke the glass was a fugitive, and in desperate straits.
"Possibly he thought that at this hour of the night no one would be likely to come into the conservatory, and that he could lie in hiding till the hue and cry had passed. Possibly he hoped to slip through the house unobserved, and so make his way into the street from the front, in order to disarm suspicion. A man who had just committed a murder was not likely to walk boldly out of the front door of such a house as this.
"But why did the Dumpling hit upon this particular house? Was it by chance, and because it was the first which came handy when he managed to evade his pursuers by scaling a wall and lying in hiding, while they went by? I don't think so. That he did escape by scaling a wall I have very little doubt; but I believe that he made his way to the house deliberately, and with set intention. It is quite clear to me that he has designs of some sort upon this house or upon its master. Even if the design were no more than a burglary, you may be tolerably sure that so clever a criminal as he doesn't attempt to burgle a house without first acquainting himself with the position of the different rooms, and all the difficulties which would be presented in getting in and in getting out. My belief is that the Dumpling chose this house for his hiding-place deliberately. Upon this house, for some reason of his own, he is keeping a watch, and it is from this house that I must set my counter-watch for him. I have a strange presentiment that it will not be long before we shall see him here again. Someone—something—there is in this house upon whom, or upon which, he has designs. It may be its master; it may be only its master's money. To-night, if you will be so good, so very good, Miss Carleton, as to trust me thus far, I want to conceal myself in the garden. If nothing comes of it, no harm is done. If any attempt is made to enter, I shall be there to frustrate it and to give the alarm. You perhaps think my request a strange as well as a foolish one. But listen. Whether the man, looking in at the broken window-pane of the conservatory, recognised me—whether he even saw me at all, I do not know. But I saw him, and for one second's space, before the white face of him disappeared, I not only saw him, but looked him full in the eyes. And in that second I saw something else. As in a dream-tableau, I saw that same man creeping stealthily, and at the darkest, deadest hour of the night, towards the same window, and through the same garden."
CHAPTER XV.
MY FRIEND THE DUMPLING.