the window of my bedroom, just on the other side of the wall. In here, look, see!” And she opened a door to the right and led them in, touching a key that flashed an electric lamp into radiance and illuminated the entire room.
It was a large room furnished in dull oak and dark green after the stately, sombre style of a Gothic chapel, and at one end there was a curtained recess leading to a large bow window. At the other there was a sort of altar banked high with white flowers, and at the side there was a huge canopied bed over the head of which hung an immense crucifix fastened to the wall that backed upon the oratory. It was a majestic thing, that crucifix, richly carved and exquisitely designed. Cleek went nearer and looked at it, his artistic eye captured by the beauty of it; and Miss Valmond, noting his interest, smiled.
“My brother brought me that from Rome,” she said. “Is it not divine, Mr. Headland?”
“Yes,” he said. “But you must be more careful of it, I fear, Miss Valmond. Is it not chipping? Look! Isn’t this a piece of it?” He bent and picked a tiny curled sliver of wood from the narrow space between the two down-filled pillows of the bed, holding it out to her upon his palm. But, of a sudden, he smiled, lifted the sliver to his nose, smelt it, and cast it away. “The laugh is on me, I fear – it’s only a cedar paring from a lead pencil. And now, please, I’d like to investigate the window.”
She led him to it at once, explaining where she stood on the eventful night; where she had seen the two figures pass, and where was the wall door through which the dying man had been thrust.
“I wish I might see that door clearer,” said Cleek; for night had fallen and the moon was not yet up. “Don’t happen to have such a thing as a telescope or an opera glass, do you, Miss Valmond?”
“My brother has a pair of field glasses downstairs in his room. Shall I run and fetch them for you?”
“I’d be very grateful if you would,” said Cleek; and a moment after she had gone. “Run down and get my sketching materials out of the locker, will you, Mr. Narkom?” he added. “I want to make a diagram of that house and garden.” Then he sat down on the window-seat and for five whole minutes was alone.
The field glasses and the sketching materials were brought, the garden door examined and the diagram made, Miss Valmond and Narkom standing by and watching eagerly the whole proceeding.
“That’s all!” said Cleek, after a time, brushing the charcoal dust from his fingers, and snapping the elastic band over the sketch book. “I know my man at last, Mr. Narkom. Give me until ten o’clock to-morrow night, and then, if Miss Valmond will let us in here again, I’ll capture Barrington-Edwards red-handed.”
“You are sure of him, then?”
“As sure as I am that I’m alive. I’ll lay a trap that will catch him. I promise you that. So if Miss Valmond will let us in here again – ”
“Yes, Mr. Headland, I will.”
“Good! Then let us say at ten o’clock to-morrow night – here in this room; you, I, your brother, Mr. Narkom – all concerned!” said Cleek. “At ten to the tick, remember. Now come along, Mr. Narkom, and let me be about weaving the snare that shall pull this Mr. Barrington-Edwards to the scaffold.” Speaking, he bowed to Miss Valmond, and taking Mr. Narkom’s arm, passed out and went down the stairs to prepare for the last great act of tragedy.
CHAPTER IV
At ten to the tick on the following night, he had said, and at ten to the tick he was there – the old red limousine whirling him up to the door in company with Mr. Narkom, there to be admitted by Miss Valmond’s brother.
“My dear Mr. Headland, I have been on thorns ever since I heard,” said he. “I hope and pray it is right, this assistance we are giving. But tell me, please – have you succeeded in your plans? Are you sure they will not fail?”
“To both questions, yes, Mr. Valmond. We’ll have our man to-night. Now, if you please, where is your sister?”
“Upstairs – in her own room – with my mother. We tried to get the mater to bed, but she is very fractious to-night and will not let Rose out of her sight for a single instant. But she will not hamper your plans, I’m sure. Come quickly, please – this way.” Here he led them on and up until they stood in Miss Valmond’s bedroom and in Miss Valmond’s presence again. She was there by the window, her imbecile mother sitting at her feet with her face in her daughter’s lap, that daughter’s solicitous hand gently stroking her tumbled hair, and no light but that of the moon through the broad window illuminating the hushed and stately room.
“I keep my word, you see, Miss Valmond,” said Cleek, as he entered. “And in five minutes’ time if you watch from that window you all shall see a thing that will amaze you.”
“You have run the wretched man down, then, Mr. Headland?”
“Yes – to the last ditch, to the wall itself,” he answered, making room for her brother to get by him and make a place for himself at the window. “Oh, it’s a pretty little game he’s been playing, that gentleman, and it dates back twenty years ago when he was kicked out of his regiment in Ceylon.”
“In Ceylon! I – er – God bless my soul, was he ever in Ceylon, Mr. Headland?”
“Yes, Mr. Valmond, he was. It was at a time when there was what you might call a sapphire fever raging there, and precious stones were being unearthed in every unheard-of quarter. He got the fever with the rest, but he hadn’t much money, so when he fell in with a lot of fellows who had heard of a Cingalese, one Bareva Singh, who had a reef to sell in the Saffragam district, they made a pool between them and bought the blessed thing, calling it after the man they had purchased it from, the Bareva Reef, setting out like a party of donkeys to mine it for themselves, and expecting to pull out sapphires by the bucketful.”
“Dear me, dear me, how very extraordinary! Of course they didn’t? Or – did they?”
“No, they didn’t. A month’s work convinced them that the ground was as empty of treasure as an eggshell, so they abandoned it, separated, and went their several ways. A few months ago, however, it was discovered that if they had had the implements to mine deeper, their dream would have been realized, for the reef was a perfect bed of sapphires – and eight men held an equal share in it. The scheme, then, was to get rid of these men, secretly, one by one; for one – perhaps two men – to get the deeds held by the others; to pretend that they had been purchased from the original owners, and to prevent by murder those original owners from – ”
He stopped suddenly and switched round. Miss Valmond had risen and so had her mother. He was on the pair of them like a leaping cat; there was a sharp click-click, a snarl, and a scream, and one end of a handcuff was on the wrist of each.
“Got you, Miss Rosie Edgburn! Got you, Señor Juan Alvarez!” he rapped out sharply; then in a louder tone, as the Reverend Horace made a bolt for the door: “Stop him, nab him, Mr. Narkom! Quick! Played sir, played. Come in, Petrie; come in, Hammond. Gentlemen, here they are, all three of them: Lieutenant Eric Edgburn, his daughter Rose, and Señor Juan Alvarez, the three brute beasts who sent five men to their death for the sake of a lode of sapphires and the devil’s lust for gain!”
“It’s a lie!” flung out the girl who had been known as Rose Valmond.
“Oh, no, it’s not, you vixen! You loathsome creature that prostituted holy things and made a shield of religion to carry on a vampire’s deeds. Look here, you beast of blasphemy: I know the secret of this,” he said, and walked over and laid his hand on the crucifix at the head of the bed. “Petrie! round into the oratory with you. There’s a nob at the side of the prayer desk – press it when I shout. Oh, no, Miss Edgburn; no, I shan’t dance circles nor put my fingers into my nose, nor bite the dust and die. Look how I dare it all. Now Petrie, now!”
And lo! as he spoke, out of the nostrils of the figure on the cross there rushed downward two streams of white vapour which beat upon the pillows and upon him, smothering both in white dust.
“Face powder, Miss Edgburn, only face powder from your own little case