The Master Detective Part 50

she asked.

"Certainly not. You are so reckless a person you have, no doubt, courage to face any unpleasant consequence which may arise."

"I have wit enough to know that prevention is better than cure," she returned. "Within an hour, Mr. Wigan, my confederates and all who could possibly witness against me will be on board this yacht. How long some of them will remain on board I have not yet decided."

She was evidently not afraid. Her plans must be very complete.

"As I cannot be allowed to live, a sketch of your career would interest me. It would serve to pa.s.s the time."

"The past does not concern me, the future does," she answered. "You may appreciate my general idea of making things safe. I fancy this yacht will be cast away on a lonely spot on the French coast. I know the spot, and I expect one or two persons will be drowned. That will be quite natural, won't it? Should the accident chance to be heard of at Folkestone, it will be surmised that I am drowned. Bodies do not always come ash.o.r.e, you know. One thing is quite certain; Mrs. Selborne and all trace of her will have disappeared."

"It is rather a diabolical scheme," I said.

"I regret the necessity. I daresay you have sometimes done the same when a victim of your cleverness has come to the gallows."

She got up and walked away from me, but she did not cease to watch me. I wondered if she would fire should I venture to shout.

It was a long hour, but presently there came the distinct dip of oars. In spite of my unenviable position I felt excited. I thought there were two boats. Naturally there would be. The dinghy was small; crew and confederates could not have got into it.

There was the rattle of oars in the rowlocks, then a man climbed on deck, others coming quickly after him, and in that moment Mrs. Selborne swung round and fired. The bullet struck the woodwork of the skylight close to my head. I doubt if I shall ever be so near death again until my hour actually sounds.

Her arm was struck up before she could fire again, and a familiar voice was shouting:

"It's all right, Wigan. The lady completes the business. We have got the lot."

Christopher Quarles had come aboard with the police, those in the dinghy wearing the coats and caps the crew had worn, so that any one watching on the yacht for their return might be deceived.

The prisoners were left in the hands of the police, and a motor took Quarles and myself back to Folkestone. He told me the whole story before we slept that night.

The lonely house on Romney Marsh had been bought by Wibley some months ago in the name of Reynolds. He had let it be known that, after certain alterations had been made, he was coming to live there, so it was natural that a couple of men, looking like painters, should presently arrive and be constantly about the place. If three or four men were seen there on occasion no one was likely to be curious.

Watching Wibley when he came down to Hythe, Quarles found he had a liking for motoring on the Dymchurch Road. He saw him pull up one morning to speak to a man on the roadside. He did the same thing on the following morning, but it was a different man, and Quarles recognized young Squires.

Squires afterwards went to this empty house, and Quarles speedily had men on the Marsh watching it night and day. It looked as if the house were the gang's meeting-place. Either another coup was being prepared, or an escape was being arranged.

During a hurried visit to town the professor had seen my letter to Zena, and this had given him a clue.

"It was the name Selborne," Quarles explained. "I told you, Wigan, that Wibley's daughter--or supposed daughter--was not with him in Hamps.h.i.+re.

Her whereabouts worried me. I could not forget that a woman had taken part in our capture during the chalice case. While I was in Hamps.h.i.+re I spent half a day in Gilbert White's village. His 'Natural History of Selborne' has always delighted me. Selborne. If you were going to take a false name, Wigan, and your G.o.dfathers had not called you Murray, only James, what would you do? As likely as not you would take the name of some place with which you were familiar. In itself the idea was not convincing, but it brought me to your hotel at Folkestone, and then I was certain. Do you remember the woman Squires spoke to on the night he led us into that trap?"

"It was too dark to see her face," I said.

"I mean the way she stood," said Quarles, "with her arms akimbo; so did the masked woman in the cellar, and when I saw Mrs. Selborne on the lawn she did the same. The pose is peculiar. When a woman falls into this att.i.tude you will find she either rests her knuckles on her hips, or grasps her waist with open hands, the thumbs behind the four finger in front. This woman doesn't. She grasps her waist with the thumbs in front, a man's way rather than a woman's. Her presence there suggested, another hotel robbery; the yacht suggested a means of escape for the gang, apparently gathering at the empty house. Since Mrs. Selborne had paid you so much attention, I guessed she knew who you were, and thought you were on duty, posing as an invalid. I thought it likely your presence would prevent the robbery, but she took every precaution that you should go with her to-day, storm or s.h.i.+ne, eh, Wigan? We have had the gla.s.ses on the yacht all day, and when the crew landed to-night we caught them.

Then we went to the house, Wigan. Got them all, and I believe the whole of the six months' spoil."

"Why didn't you put me on my guard?" I asked.

"Well, Wigan, I think you would have scouted the idea. You were fascinated, you know. In any case, you could not have helped watching her for confirmation or to prove me wrong; she would have noted the change in you, grown suspicious, and might have ruined everything at the eleventh hour. Unless I am much mistaken we shall discover that the woman was the brains of the gang."

So it proved when the trial came on, and in another direction Quarles was correct.

Squires was Mason's son. The lad had cut himself loose from his old companions, and had only meant to warn his father. He knew where he was likely to find him, but meeting the man and woman unexpectedly, he was frightened into trapping us.

There can be little doubt that it was intended to cast away the yacht as Mrs. Selborne had explained to me, and to drown those who were not meant to share in the spoil, but who knew too much to be allowed to go free. I should certainly have been amongst the missing, and young Squires, too, probably.

I shall always remember this case because--no, Zena and I did not quarrel exactly, but she was very much annoyed about Mrs. Selborne.

CHAPTER XV

THE SOLUTION OF THE GRANGE PARK MYSTERY

I really had some difficulty in convincing Zena that I had not fallen in love with Mrs. Selborne, and Quarles seemed to think it humorous to also express doubt on the subject. The professor is unconsciously humorous on occasion, but when he tries to be funny he only succeeds in being pathetic.

I got so tired of his humor one evening that I left Chelsea much earlier than usual, telling Zena that I should not come again until I heard from her that she was ready to go and choose furniture, I heard next day.

We were to be married in two months' time and had taken a house near Grange Park, and I have always thought it curious that my first introduction to the neighborhood, so to speak, should be as a detective, and not in the role of a newly married man.

It happened in this way.

Just before two o'clock one morning Constable Poulton turned into Rose Avenue, Grange Park. He was pa.s.sing Clarence Lodge, the residence of Mrs.

Crosland, when the front door opened suddenly and a girl came running down the drive, calling to him.

"The burglars," she said, "and I am afraid my brother hay shot one of them."

He certainly had. Poulton found the man lying crumpled up at the bottom of the stairs. He blew his whistle to summon another officer, and after searching the house they communicated with headquarters.

Grange Park, as many of you may know, is an estate which was developed some years ago in the Northwest of London, on land belonging to the Chisholm family. It got into the hands of a responsible firm of builders, and artistic, well-built houses were erected which attracted people of considerable means. It wasn't possible to live in Grange Park on a small income.

A few months ago the sedate tranquillity of the neighborhood had been broken by an astonis.h.i.+ng series of burglaries, which had occurred in rapid succession. Half a dozen houses were entered; valuables, chiefly jewelry, worth many thousands of pounds, had been taken, and not a single arrest, even on suspicion, had been made. The known gangs had been carefully shadowed without results, and not a trace of the stolen property had been discovered. The thieves had evidently known where to go for their spoil, not only the right houses but the exact spot where the spoil was kept. There had been no bungling; indeed, in some cases, it was doubtful how an entrance had been effected. Not in a single instance had the inmates been aroused or alarmed, no thief had been seen or heard upon the premises, nor had the police noticed any suspicious looking persons about the estate.

The investigation of these robberies was finally entrusted to me, and I suppose the empty room in Chelsea had never been used more often and with less result than over the Grange Park burglaries. It was not only one chance we had had of getting at the truth, for half a dozen houses had been broken into; and it was not the lack of clues which bothered us so much as the number of them. The thieves seemed to have scattered clues in every direction, yet not one of them led to any definite result.

Like the rest of us, Christopher Quarles had his weaknesses. Whenever he failed to elucidate a mystery he was always able to show that the fault was not his, but somebody else's; either too long a time had elapsed before he was consulted, or some meddlesome fool had touched things and confused the evidence, or even that something supernatural had been at work. Once, at least, according to the professor, I had played the part of meddlesome fool, and one of my weaknesses being a short temper, it had required all Zena's tact to keep us from quarreling on that occasion. It came almost as a shock, therefore, when, after a long discussion one evening, he suddenly jumped up and exclaimed: "I'm beaten, Wigan, utterly beaten," and did not proceed to lay the responsibility for his failure on any one.

Upon the receipt of Constable Poulton's message, I was sent for at once, and it was still early morning when I roused Quarles and we went to Grange Park. I do not think I have ever seen the professor so excited.

Mrs. Crosland had a son and daughter and a nephew living with her. It was the daughter who had run down the drive and called Poulton. There were four servants, a butler and two women in the house and a chauffeur who lived over the garage. There was besides a nurse, for Mrs. Crosland was an invalid, often confined to her bed and even at her best only able to get about with difficulty. She suffered from some acute form of rheumatism and was tied to her bed at this time.

The son's version of the tragedy was simple and straightforward. Hearing a noise, he had taken his revolver--always kept handy since the burglaries--and had reached the top of the stairs when his sister Helen came out of her room. She had also heard some one moving. They went down together to the landing at the angle of the staircase. He did not see any one in the hall, nor was there any sound just then. He called out "Who's there?" The answer was a bullet, which struck the wall behind them. Then Crosland fired down into the hall, but at random. He saw no one, but as a fact he shot the man through the head.

"Do you think the man was alone?" I asked.

"In the hall, yes; but I feel convinced there was some one else in the house who escaped," Crosland answered. "My sister and I had not moved from the landing when Hollis, the butler, and one of the women servants came hastily from their rooms. Then I went down and switched on the light. The man was lying just as the constable found him. I never saw him move. When my sister realized he was dead she became excited, and before I knew what she was doing, she had opened the front door and run down the drive. The constable happened to be pa.s.sing the gate at the moment."

"What time elapsed between the firing of the shots and the entrance of the constable?" I asked.