The Stowmarket Mystery by Louis Tracy (best classic books of all time TXT) 📕

Externally it was exactly like its neighbours, dull, soiled, pinched, old curtains, worn blinds, blistered paint. He knew that if he walked inside he would tread on a strip of oilcloth, once gay in red and yellow squares, but now worn to a dirty grey uniformity. In the “hall” he would encounter a rickety hat-stand faced by an ancient print entitled “Idle Hours,” and depicting two ladies, reclining on rocks, attired in tremendous skirts, tight jackets, and diminutive straw hats perched between their forehead and chignons—in the middle distance a fat urchin, all hat and frills, staring stupidly at the ocean.

In the front sitting-room he would encounter horse-hair chairs, frayed carpet, and more early Victorian prints; in the back sitting-room more frayed carpet, more prints, and possibly a bed.

Nothing very mysterious or awe-inspiring about 37 Middle Street, yet the barrister was loth to leave the place. The scent of the chase was in his nostrils. He had “found.”

He was tempted to boldly approach and frame some excuse—a hunt for lodgings, an inquiry for a missing friend, anything to gain admittance and learn something, however meagre in result, of the occupants.

He reviewed the facts calmly. To attempt, at such an hour, to glean information from the sharp-tongued young person who had just admitted herself with a latchkey, was to court failure and suspicion. He must bide his time. Winter was an adept in ferreting out facts concerning these localities and their denizens. To Winter the inquiry must be left.

He stopped at the further end of the street, lit a cigar, and walked back.

He had again passed No. 37, giving a casual glance to the second floor front window, in which a light illumined the blind, when he became aware that a man was approaching from the Kennington Park Road. Otherwise the street was empty.

The lamp opposite No. 37 did not throw its beams far into the gloom, but the advancing figure instantly enlisted Brett’s attention.

The man was tall and strongly built. He moved with the ease of an athlete. He walked with a long, swinging stride, yet carried himself erect He was attired in a navy blue serge suit and a bowler hat.

The two were rapidly nearing each other.

At ten yards’ distance Brett knew that the other man was he whom he sought, the murderer of Sir Alan Hume-Frazer, the human ogre whose mission on earth seemed to be the extinction of all who bore that fated name.

It is idle to deny that Brett was startled by this unexpected rencontre. Not until he made the discovery did he remember that he was carrying the stick rescued from the mud of Northumberland Avenue.

The knowledge gave him an additional thrill. Though he could be cool enough in exciting circumstances, though his quiet courage had more than once saved his life in moments of extreme peril, though physically he was more than able to hold his own with, say, the average professional boxer, he fully understood that the individual now about to pass within a stride could kill him with ridiculous ease.

Would this dangerous personage recognise his own stick?—that was the question.

If he did, Brett could already see himself describing a parabola in the air, could hear his skull crashing against the pavement. He even went so far as to sit with the coroner’s jury and bring in a verdict of “Accidental Death.”

In no sense did Brett exaggerate the risk he encountered. The individual who could stab Sir Alan to death with a knife like a toy, hurl a stalwart sailor into the middle of a street without perceptible effort, and bring down a horse and cab at the precise instant and in the exact spot determined upon after a second’s thought, was no ordinary opponent.

Their eyes met.

Truly a fiendish-looking Hume-Frazer, a Satanic impersonation of a fine human type. For the first and only time in his life Brett regretted that he did not carry a revolver when engaged in his semi-professional affairs.

The barrister, be it stated, wore the conventional frock-coat and tall hat of society. His was a face once seen not easily forgotten, the outlines classic and finely chiselled, the habitual expression thoughtful, preoccupied, the prevalent idea conveyed being tenacious strength. Quite an unusual person in Middle Street, Kennington.

They passed.

Brett swung the stick carelessly in his left hand, but not so carelessly that on the least sign of a hostile movement he would be unable to dash it viciously at his possible adversary’s eyes.

He remembered the advice of an old cavalry officer: “Always give ’em the point between the eyes. They come head first, and you reach ’em at the earliest moment.”

Nevertheless, he experienced a quick quiver down his spine when the other man deliberately stopped and looked after him. He did not turn his head, but he could “feel” that vicious glance travelling over him, could hear the unspoken question: “Now, I wonder who you are, and what you want here?”

He staggered slightly, recovered his balance, and went on. It was a masterpiece of suggestiveness, not overdone, a mere wink of intoxication, as it were.

It sufficed. Such an explanation accounts for many things in London.

The watcher resumed his interrupted progress. Brett crossed the street and deliberately knocked at the door of a house in which the ground floor was illuminated.

Someone peeped through a blind, the door opened as far as a rattling chain would permit.

“Good evening,” said Brett.

“What do you want?” demanded a suspicious woman.

“Mr. Smith—Mr. Horatio Smith.”

“He doesn’t live here.”

“Dear me! Isn’t this 76 Middle Street?”

“Yes; all the same, there’s no Smiths here.”

The door slammed; but the barrister had attained his object. The other man had entered No. 37.

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In the Kennington Park Road he hailed hansom and drove home. Winter awaited him, for Smith now admitted the detective without demur should his master be absent.

The barrister walked to a sideboard, produced a decanter of brandy, and helped himself to a stiff dose.

“Ah,” he said pleasantly, “our American cousins call it a ‘corpse reviver,’ but a corpse could not do that, could he, Winter?”

“I know a few corpses that would like to try. But what is up, sir? I have not often seen you in need of stimulants.”

“I am most unfeignedly glad to give you the opportunity. Winter, suppose, some time to-morrow, you were told that the body of Reginald Brett, Esq., barrister-at-law, and a well-known amateur investigator of crime, had been picked up shortly after midnight in the Kennington district, whilst the medical evidence showed that death was caused by a fractured skull, the result of a fall, there being no other marks of violence on the person, what would you have thought?”

“It all depends upon the additional facts that came to light.”

“I will tell them to you. You were aware that I had quitted the hotel, because you called there?”

“Yes.”

“Whom did you see?”

“Mr. David. He said that you were angry with Mrs. Capella, for no earthly reason that he could make out. He further informed me that she had followed you when you left the room, and had not returned, being presumably in her own apartment.”

“Anything further?”

“Mr. Hume asked Miss Layton to go and see if Mrs. Capella had retired for the night. Miss Layton came back, looking rather scared, with the information that Mrs. Capella had dressed and gone out. After a little further talk we came to the conclusion that you were both together. Was that so?”

Brett had commenced his cross-examination with the intention of humorously proving to Winter that he (the detective) would suspect the wrong person of committing the imagined murder. Now he straightened himself, and continued in deadly earnest:

“When did you leave the hotel?”

“About 10.15.”

“Had not Mrs. Capella returned?”

“Not a sign of her. Miss Layton was alarmed, both the men furious, Mr. Robert particularly so. I did not see any use in remaining there; thought, in fact, I ought to obey orders and await you here, so here I am.”

The barrister scribbled on a card: “Is Mrs. C. at home?” He rang for Smith, and said:

“Take a cab to Mr. Hume’s hotel. Give him that card, and bring me the answer. If you and the cabman must have a drink together, kindly defer the function until after your return.”

Smith took such jibes in good part. He knew full well that to attempt to argue with his master would produce a list of previous convictions.

Then Brett proceeded to amaze Winter in his turn, giving him a full, true, and complete history of events since his parting from Mrs. Capella in the corridor.

He had barely finished the recital when Smith returned with a note:

“Yes; she came in at 10.45, and has since retired for the night. She says that her head ached, that she wanted to be alone, and went for a long walk. Seemed rather to resent our anxiety. Helen and I will be glad when we are all safely away from London. D.H.”

The barrister pondered over this communication for a long time.

“I fear,” he said at last, “that I came away from Middle Street a few minutes too soon. To tell the truth, I was in an abject state of fear. Next time I meet Mr. Frazer the Third I will be ready for him.”

“Is he really so like the others that he might be mistaken for one of them?”

“In a sense, yes. He has the same figure, general conformation, and features. But in other respects he is utterly different. Have you ever seen a great actor in the role of Mephistopheles?”

“I don’t remember. My favourite villain was Barry Sullivan as Richard III.”

Brett laughed hysterically.

“Let me speak more plainly. You have, no doubt, a vague picture in your mind of a certain gentleman of the highest descent who is popularly credited with the possession of horns, hoofs, and a barbed tail?”

“I’ve heard of him.”

“Very well. You will see someone very like him, minus the adornments aforesaid, when you set eyes on the principal occupant of 37 Middle Street.”

Winter slowly assimilated this description. Then he inquired:

“Why did you say just now that you came away from Middle Street a few minutes too soon?”

“Where did Mrs. Capella go when she left the hotel?”

“If she went to visit the man you met, then she is acting in collision with her brother’s murderer, and she knows it.”

“That is a hard thing to say, Winter.”

“It is a harder thing to credit, sir; but one cannot reject all evidence, merely because it happens to be straightforward and not hypothetical.”

“Winter, you are sneering at me.”

“No; I am only trying to make you admit the tendency of facts discovered by yourself. There is a period in all criminal investigation when deductive reasoning becomes inductive.”

“Now I have got you,” cried Brett “I thought I recognised the source of your new-born philosophy in the first postulate. The second convinces me. You have been reading ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue.’”

“The book is in my pocket,” admitted Winter.

“I recommend you to transfer it to your head. It should be issued departmentally as a supplement to the Police Code. But let us waste no more time. To-morrow we have much to accomplish.”

“I am all attention.”

“In the first place, Mrs. Capella is leaving London for the North. She must not be regarded in our operations. The woman is weighted with a secret. I am sorry for her. I prefer to allow events as supplied by others to unravel the skein. Secondly, Jiro and his wife, and all who visit them, or whom they visit, must be watched incessantly. Get all the force required for this operation in its fullest sense. You, with one trusted associate, must keep a close eye on No. 37 Middle Street. On no account obtrude yourself personally into affairs there. Rather miss twenty opportunities than scare that man by one false move. Do you understand me thoroughly?”

“I am to see and not be seen. If I cannot do the one without the other, I must do neither.”

“Exactly. What