in the early hours of the morning a tragic little party wasassembled in the study at beston priory. john lexman, white andhaggard, sat on the sofa with his wife by his side. immediateauthority as represented by a village constable was on duty in thepassage outside, whilst t. x. sitting at the table with a writingpad and a pencil was briefly noting the evidence.
the author had sketched the events of the day. he had describedhis interview with the money-lender the day before and the arrivalof the letter.
"you have the letter!" asked t. x.
john lexman nodded.
"i am glad of that," said the other with a sigh of relief, "thatwill save you from a great deal of unpleasantness, my poor oldchap. tell me what happened afterward.""i reached the village," said john lexman, "and passed through it.
there was nobody about, the rain was still falling very heavilyand indeed i didn't meet a single soul all the evening. i reachedthe place appointed about five minutes before time. it was thecorner of eastbourne road on the station side and there i foundvassalaro waiting. i was rather ashamed of myself at meeting himat all under these conditions, but i was very keen on his notcoming to the house for i was afraid it would upset grace. whatmade it all the more ridiculous was this infernal pistol which wasin my pocket banging against my side with every step i took asthough to nudge me to an understanding of my folly.""where did you meet vassalaro?" asked t. x.
"he was on the other side of the eastbourne road and crossed theroad to meet me. at first he was very pleasant though a littleagitated but afterward he began to behave in a most extraordinarymanner as though he was lashing himself up into a fury which hedidn't feel. i promised him a substantial amount on account, buthe grew worse and worse and then, suddenly, before i realised whathe was doing, he was brandishing a revolver in my face anduttering the most extraordinary threats. then it was i rememberedkara's warning.""kara," said t. x. quickly.
"a man i know and who was responsible for introducing me tovassalaro. he is immensely wealthy.""i see," said t. x., "go on.""i remembered this warning," the other proceeded, "and i thoughtit worth while trying it out to see if it had any effect upon thelittle man. i pulled the pistol from my pocket and pointed it athim, but that only seemed to make it - and then i pressed thetrigger . . . .
"to my horror four shots exploded before i could recoversufficient self-possession to loosen my hold of the butt. he fellwithout a word. i dropped the revolver and knelt by his side. icould tell he was dangerously wounded, and indeed i knew at thatmoment that nothing would save him. my pistol had been pointed inthe region of his heart . . . . "he shuddered, dropping his face in his hands, and the girl by hisside, encircling his shoulder with a protecting arm, murmuredsomething in his ear. presently he recovered.
"he wasn't quite dead. i heard him murmur something but i wasn'table to distinguish what he said. i went straight to the villageand told the constable and had the body removed."t. x. rose from the table and walked to the door and opened it.
"come in, constable," he said, and when the man made hisappearance, "i suppose you were very careful in removing thisbody, and you took everything which was lying about in theimmediate ate vicinity'?""yes, sir," replied the man, "i took his hat and his walkingstick,if that's what you mean.""and the revolver!" asked t. x.
the man shook his head.
"there warn't any revolver, sir, except the pistol which mr.
lexman had."he fumbled in his pocket and pulled it out gingerly, and t. x.
took it from him.
"i'll look after your prisoner; you go down to the village, getany help you can and make a most careful search in the place wherethis man was killed and bring me the revolver which you willdiscover. you'll probably find it in a ditch by the side of theroad. i'll give a sovereign to the man who finds it."the constable touched his hat and went out.
"it looks rather a weird case to me," said t. x., as he came backto the table, "can't you see the unusual features yourself,lexman! it isn't unusual for you to owe money and it isn'tunusual for the usurer to demand the return of that money, but inthis case he is asking for it before it was due, and further thanthat he was demanding it with threats. it is not the practice ofthe average money lender to go after his clients with a loadedrevolver. another peculiar thing is that if he wished toblackmail you, that is to say, bring you into contempt in the eyesof your friends, why did he choose to meet you in a dark andunfrequented road, and not in your house where the moral pressurewould be greatest? also, why did he write you a threateningletter which would certainly bring him into the grip of the lawand would have saved you a great deal of unpleasantness if he haddecided upon taking action!"he tapped his white teeth with the end of his pencil and thensuddenly,"i think i'll see that letter," he said.
john lexman rose from the sofa, crossed to the safe, unlocked itand was unlocking the steel drawer in which he had placed theincriminating document. his hand was on the key when t. x.
noticed the look of surprise on his face.
"what is it!" asked the detective suddenly.
"this drawer feels very hot," said john, - he looked round asthough to measure the distance between the safe and the fire.
t. x. laid his hand upon the front of the drawer. it was indeedwarm.
"open it," said t. x., and lexman turned the key and pulled thedrawer open.
as he did so, the whole contents burst up in a quick blaze offlame. it died down immediately and left only a little coil ofsmoke that flowed from the safe into the room.
"don't touch anything inside," said t. x. quickly.
he lifted the drawer carefully and placed it under the light. inthe bottom was no more than a few crumpled white ashes and ablister of paint where the flame had caught the side.
"i see," said t. x. slowly.
he saw something more than that handful of ashes, he saw thedeadly peril in which his friend was standing. here was one halfof the evidence in lexman's favour gone, irredeemably.
"the letter was written on a paper which was specially prepared bya chemical process which disintegrated the moment the paper wasexposed to the air. probably if you delayed putting the letter inthe drawer another five minutes, you would have seen it burnbefore your eyes. as it was, it was smouldering before you hadturned the key of the box. the envelope!""kara burnt it," said lexman in a low voice, "i remember seeinghim take it up from the table and throw it in the fire."t. x. nodded.
"there remains the other half of the evidence," he said grimly,and when an hour later, the village constable returned to reportthat in spite of his most careful search he had failed to discoverthe dead man's revolver, his anticipations were realized.
the next morning john lexman was lodged in lewes gaol on a chargeof wilful murder.
a telegram brought mansus from london to beston tracey, and t. x.
received him in the library.
"i sent for you, mansus, because i suffer from the illusion thatyou have more brains than most of the people in my department, andthat's not saying much.""i am very grateful to you, sir, for putting me right withcommissioner," began mansus, but t. x. stopped him.
"it is the duty of every head of departments," he said oracularly,"to shield the incompetence of his subordinates. it is only bythe adoption of some such method that the decencies of the publiclife can be observed. now get down to this." he gave a sketch ofthe case from start to finish in as brief a space of time aspossible.
"the evidence against mr. lexman is very heavy," he said. "heborrowed money from this man, and on the man's body were foundparticulars of the very promissory note which lexman signed. whyhe should have brought it with him, i cannot say. anyhow i doubtvery much whether mr. lexman will get a jury to accept hisversion. our only chance is to find the greek's revolver - idon't think there's any very great chance, but if we are to besuccessful we must make a search at once."before he went out he had an interview with grace. the darkshadows under her eyes told of a sleepless night. she wasunusually pale and surprisingly calm.
"i think there are one or two things i ought to tell you," shesaid, as she led the way into the drawing room, closing the doorbehind him.
"and they concern mr. kara, i think," said t. x.
she looked at him startled.
"how did you know that?""i know nothing."he hesitated on the brink of a flippant claim of omniscience, butrealizing in time the agony she must be suffering he checked hisnatural desire.
"i really know nothing," he continued, "but i guess a lot," andthat was as near to the truth as you might expect t. x. to reachon the spur of the moment.
she began without preliminary.
"in the first place i must tell you that mr. kara once asked me tomarry him, and for reasons which i will give you, i am dreadfullyafraid of him."she described without reserve the meeting at salonika and kara'sextravagant rage and told of the attempt which had been made uponher.
"does john know this?" asked t. x.
she shook her head sadly.
"i wish i had told him now," she said. "oh, how i wish i had!"she wrung her hands in an ecstasy of sorrow and remorse.
t. x. looked at her sympathetically. then he asked,"did mr. kara ever discuss your husband's financial position withyou!""never.""how did john lexman happen to meet vassalaro!""i can tell you that," she answered, "the first time we met mr.
kara in england was when we were staying at babbacombe on a summerholiday - which was really a prolongation of our honeymoon. mr.
kara came to stay at the same hotel. i think mr. vassalaro musthave been there before; at any rate they knew one another andafter kara's introduction to my husband the rest was easy.
"can i do anything for john!" she asked piteously.
t. x. shook his head.
"so far as your story is concerned, i don't think you willadvantage him by telling it," he said. "there is nothing whateverto connect kara with this business and you would only give yourhusband a great deal of pain. i'll do the best i can."he held out his hand and she grasped it and somehow at that momentthere came to t. x. meredith a new courage, a new faith and agreater determination than ever to solve this troublesome mystery.
he found mansus waiting for him in a car outside and in a fewminutes they were at the scene of the tragedy. a curious littleknot of spectators had gathered, looking with morbid interest atthe place where the body had been found. there was a localpoliceman on duty and to him was deputed the ungracious task ofwarning his fellow villagers to keep their distance. the groundhad already been searched very carefully. the two roads crossedalmost at right angles and at the corner of the cross thus formed,the hedges were broken, admitting to a field which had evidentlybeen used as a pasture by an adjoining dairy farm. some roughattempt had been made to close the gap with barbed wire, but itwas possible to step over the drooping strands with little or nodifficulty. it was to this gap that t. x. devoted his principalattention. all the fields had been carefully examined withoutresult, the four drains which were merely the connecting pipesbetween ditches at the sides of the crossroads had been swept outand only the broken hedge and its tangle of bushes behind offeredany prospect of the new search being rewarded.
"hullo!" said mansus, suddenly, and stooping down he picked upsomething from the ground.
t. x. took it in his hand.
it was unmistakably a revolver cartridge. he marked the spotwhere it had been found by jamming his walking stick into theground and continued his search, but without success.
"i am afraid we shall find nothing more here," said t. x., afterhalf an hour's further search. he stood with his chin in hishand, a frown on his face.
"mansus," he said, "suppose there were three people here, lexman,the money lender and a third witness. and suppose this thirdperson for some reason unknown was interested in what took placebetween the two men and he wanted to watch unobserved. isn't itlikely that if he, as i think, instigated the meeting, he wouldhave chosen this place because this particular hedge gave him achance of seeing without being seen?"mansus thought.
"he could have seen just as well from either of the other hedges,with less chance of detection," he said, after a long pause.
t. x. grinned.
"you have the makings of a brain," he said admiringly. "i agreewith you. always remember that, mansus. that there was oneoccasion in your life when t. x. meredith and you thought alike."mansus smiled a little feebly.
"of course from the point of view of the observer this was theworst place possible, so whoever came here, if they did come here,dropping revolver bullets about, must have chosen the spot becauseit was get-at-able from another direction. obviously he couldn'tcome down the road and climb in without attracting the attentionof the greek who was waiting for mr. lexman. we may suppose thereis a gate farther along the road, we may suppose that he enteredthat gate, came along the field by the side of the hedge and thatsomewhere between here and the gate, he threw away his cigar.""his cigar!" said mansus in surprise.
"his cigar," repeated t. x., "if he was alone, he would keep hiscigar alight until the very last moment.""he might have thrown it into the road," said mansus.
"don't jibber," said t. x., and led the way along the hedge. fromwhere they stood they could see the gate which led on to the roadabout a hundred yards further on. within a dozen yards of thatgate, t. x. found what he had been searching for, a half-smokedcigar. it was sodden with rain and he picked it up tenderly.
"a good cigar, if i am any judge," he said, "cut with a penknife,and smoked through a holder."they reached the gate and passed through. here they were on theroad again and this they followed until they reached another crossroad that to the left inclining southward to the new eastbourneroad and that to the westward looking back to the lewes-eastbournerailway. the rain had obliterated much that t. x. was lookingfor, but presently he found a faint indication of a car wheel.
"this is where she turned and backed," he said, and walked slowlyto the road on the left, "and this is where she stood. there isthe grease from her engine."he stooped down and moved forward in the attitude of a russiandancer, "and here are the wax matches which the chauffeur struck,"he counted, "one, two, three, four, five, six, allow three foreach cigarette on a boisterous night like last night, that makesthree cigarettes. here is a cigarette end, mansus, gold flakebrand," he said, as he examined it carefully, "and a gold flakebrand smokes for twelve minutes in normal weather, but about eightminutes in gusty weather. a car was here for about twenty-fourminutes - what do you think of that, mansus?""a good bit of reasoning, t. x.," said the other calmly, "if ithappens to be the car you're looking for.""i am looking for any old car," said t. x.
he found no other trace of car wheels though he carefully followedup the little lane until it reached the main road. after that itwas hopeless to search because rain had fallen in the night and inthe early hours of the morning. he drove his assistant to therailway station in time to catch the train at one o'clock tolondon.
"you will go straight to cadogan square and arrest the chauffeurof mr. kara," he said.
"upon what charge!" asked mansus hurriedly.
when it came to the step which t. x. thought fit to take in thepursuance of his duty, mansus was beyond surprise.
"you can charge him with anything you like," said t. x., with finecarelessness, "probably something will occur to you on your way upto town. as a matter of fact the chauffeur has been calledunexpectedly away to greece and has probably left by thismorning's train for the continent. if that is so, we can donothing, because the boat will have left dover and will havelanded him at boulogne, but if by any luck you get him, keep himbusy until i get back."t. x. himself was a busy man that day, and it was not until nightwas falling that he again turned to beston tracey to find atelegram waiting for him. he opened it and read,"chauffeur's name, goole. formerly waiter english club,constantinople. left for east by early train this morning, hismother being ill.""his mother ill," said t. x. contemptuously, "how very feeble, - ishould have thought kara could have gone one better than that."he was in john lexman's study as the door opened and the maidannounced, "mr. remington kara."
