DETECTIVE HAMILTON CLEEK: 8 Thriller Classics in One Premium Edition. Thomas W. Hanshew
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attracted by that good soul; for, although her hair was streaked with gray, and her figure was of the “sack of flour” order, and her eyes were assisted in their offices by a pair of steel-bowed spectacles, her face was still youthful in contour, and Mr. Narkom, looking at her, concluded that at twenty-four or twenty-five she must have been a remarkably pretty and remarkably fascinating woman. What Cleek’s thoughts were upon that subject it is impossible to record; for he merely gave her one look on coming into the room, and then took no further notice of her whatsoever.
“Indeed, Mr. Headland, I am glad—I am very, very glad—that fortune has sent you into this neighbourhood at this terrible time,” said Miss Renfrew when Cleek was introduced. “I do not wish to say anything disparaging of Mr. Nippers, but you can see for yourself how unfitted such men as he and his assistant are to handle an affair of this importance. Indeed, I cannot rid my mind of the thought that if more competent police were on duty here the murder would not have happened. In short, that the assassin, whoever he maybe, counted upon the blundering methods of these men as his passport to safety.”
“My own thought precisely,” said Cleek. “Mr. Nippers has given me a brief outline of the affair—would you mind giving me the full details, Miss Renfrew? At what hour did Mr. Nosworth go into his laboratory? Or don’t you know, exactly?”
“Yes, I know to the fraction of a moment, Mr. Headland. I was looking at my watch at the time. It was exactly eight minutes past seven. We had been going over the monthly accounts together, when he suddenly got up, and without a word walked through that door over there. It leads to a covered passage connecting the house proper with the laboratory. That, as you may have heard, is a circular building with a castellated top. It was built wholly and solely for the carrying on of his experiments. There is but one floor and one window—a very small one about six feet from the ground, and on the side of the Round House which looks away from this building. Nothing but the door to that is on this side, light being supplied to the interior by a roof made entirely of heavy corrugated glass.”
“I see. Then the place is like a huge tube.”
“Exactly—and lined entirely with chilled steel. Such few wooden appliances as are necessary for the equipment of the place are thickly coated with asbestos. I made no comment when my uncle rose and walked in there without a word. I never did. For the past six or seven months he had been absorbed in working out the details of a new invention; and I had become used to his jumping up like that and leaving me. We never have supper in this house—my uncle always called it a useless extravagance. Instead, we defer tea until six o’clock and make that the final meal of the day. It was exactly five minutes to seven when I finished my accounts, and as I had had a hard day of it, I decided to go to bed early, after having first taken a walk as far as the old bridge where I hoped that somebody would be waiting for me.”
“I know,” said Cleek, gently. “I have heard the story. It would be Mr. Charles Drummond, would it not?”
“Yes. He was not there, however. Something must have prevented his coming.”
“Hum-m-m! Go on, please.”
“Before leaving the house, it occurred to me that I ought to look into the laboratory and see if there was anything my uncle would be likely to need for the night, as I intended to go straightway to bed on my return. I did so. He was sitting at his desk, immediately under the one window of which I have spoken, and with his back to me, when I looked in. He answered my inquiry with a curt ‘No—nothing. Get out and don’t worry me!’ I immediately shut the door and left him, returning here by way of the covered passage and going upstairs to make some necessary changes in my dress for the walk to the old bridge. When I came down, ready for my journey, I looked at the clock on the mantel over there. It was exactly seventeen minutes to eight o’clock. I had been a little longer in dressing than I had anticipated being; so, in order to save time in getting to the trysting place, I concluded to make a short cut by going out of the rear door and crossing diagonally through our grounds instead of going by the public highway as usual. I had scarcely more than crossed the threshold when I ran plump into Constable Gorham. As he is rather a favourite with good Mrs. Armroyd here, I fancied that he had been paying her a visit, and was just coming away from the kitchen. Instead, he rather startled me by stating that he had seen something which he thought best to come round and investigate. In short, that, as he was patrolling the highway, he had seen a man vault over the wall of our grounds and, bending down, dart out of sight like a hare. He was almost positive that that man was Sir Ralph Droger. Of course that frightened me almost out of my wits.”
“Why?”
“There was bad blood between my uncle and Sir Ralph Droger—bitter, bad blood. As you perhaps know, my uncle held this ground on a life lease from the Droger estate. That is to say, so long as he lived or refused to vacate that lease, no Droger could oust him nor yet lift one spadeful of earth from the property.”
“Does Sir Ralph desire to do either?”
“He desires to do both. Borings secretly made have manifested the fact that both Barnsley thick-coal and iron ore underlie the place. Sir Ralph wishes to tear down the Round House and this building and to begin mining operations. My uncle, who has been offered the full value of every stick and stone, has always obstinately refused to budge one inch or to lessen the lease by one half hour. ‘It is for the term of my life,’ he has always said, ‘and for the term of my life I’ll hold it!’”
“Oho!” said Cleek; and then puckered up his lips as if about to whistle.
“Under such circumstances,” went on Miss Renfrew, “it was only natural that I should be horribly frightened, and only too willing to act upon the constable’s suggestion that we at once look into the Round House and see if everything was right with my uncle.”
“Why should the constable suggest that?”
“Everybody in the neighbourhood knows of the bitter ill feeling existing between the two men; so, of course, it was only natural.”
“Hum-m-m! Yes! Just so. Did you act on Constable Gorham’s suggestion, then?”
“Yes. I led the way in here and then up the covered passage to the laboratory and opened the door. My uncle was sitting exactly as he had been when I looked in before—his back to me and his face to the window—but although he did not turn, it was evident that he was annoyed by my disturbing him, for he growled angrily, ‘What the devil are you coming in here and disturbing me like this for, Jane? Get out and leave me alone.’”
“Hum-m-m!” said Cleek, drawing down his brows and pinching his chin. “Any mirrors in the Round House?”
“Mirrors? No, certainly not, Mr. Headland. Why?”
“Nothing—only that I was wondering, if as you say, he never turned and you never spoke, how in the world he knew that it really was you, that’s all.”
“Oh, I see what you mean,” said Miss Renfrew, knotting up her brows. “It does seem a little peculiar when one looks at it in that way. I never thought of it before. Neither can I explain it, Mr. Headland, any more than to say that I suppose he took it for granted. And, as it happened, he was right. Besides, as you will remember, I had intruded upon him only a short time before.”
“Quite so,” said Cleek. “That’s what makes it appear stranger than ever. Under the circumstances one might have expected him to say not ‘What are you coming in here for,’ but, ‘What are you coming in for again.’ Still, of course, there’s no accounting for little lapses like that. Go on, please—what next?”
“Why, of course I immediately explained what Constable Gorham had said, and why I had looked in. To which he replied, ‘The man’s an ass. Get out!’ Upon which I closed the door, and the constable and I went away at once.”
“Constable there with you during it all, then?”
“Yes, certainly—in the covered passage, just behind me. He saw and heard everything; though, of course, neither of us actually entered the laboratory itself. There was really no necessity when we knew that my uncle was safe