The Agony Column Part 3

"My G.o.d, sir!" said Walters, a servant even now.

And at last I write that sentence: Captain Fraser-Freer of the Indian Army lay dead on the floor, a smile that was almost a sneer on his handsome English face!

The horror of it is strong with me now as I sit in the silent morning in this room of mine which is so like the one in which the captain died. He had been stabbed just over the heart, and my first thought was of that odd Indian knife which I had seen lying on his study table. I turned quickly to seek it, but it was gone. And as I looked at the table it came to me that here in this dusty room there must be finger prints--many finger prints.

The room was quite in order, despite those sounds of struggle. One or two odd matters met my eye. On the table stood a box from a florist in Bond Street. The lid had been removed and I saw that the box contained a number of white asters. Beside the box lay a scarf-pin--an emerald scarab. And not far from the captain's body lay what is known--owing to the German city where it is made--as a Homburg hat.

I recalled that it is most important at such times that nothing be disturbed, and I turned to old Walters. His face was like this paper on which I write; his knees trembled beneath him.

"Walters," said I, "we must leave things just as they are until the police arrive. Come with me while I notify Scotland Yard."

"Very good, sir," said Walters.

We went down then to the telephone in the lower hall, and I called up the Yard. I was told that an inspector would come at once and I went back to my room to wait for him.

You can well imagine the feelings that were mine as I waited. Before this mystery should be solved, I foresaw that I might be involved to a degree that was unpleasant if not dangerous. Walters would remember that I first came here as one acquainted with the captain. He had noted, I felt sure, the lack of intimacy between the captain and myself, once the former arrived from India. He would no doubt testify that I had been most anxious to obtain lodgings in the same house with Fraser-Freer.

Then there was the matter of my letter from Archie. I must keep that secret, I felt sure. Lastly, there was not a living soul to back me up in my story of the quarrel that preceded the captain's death, of the man who escaped by way of the garden.

Alas, thought I, even the most stupid policeman can not fail to look upon me with the eye of suspicion!

In about twenty minutes three men arrived from Scotland Yard. By that time I had worked myself up into a state of absurd nervousness. I heard Walters let them in; heard them climb the stairs and walk about in the room overhead. In a short time Walters knocked at my door and told me that Chief Inspector Bray desired to speak to me. As I preceded the servant up the stairs I felt toward him as an accused murderer must feel toward the witness who has it in his power to swear his life away.

He was a big active man--Bray; blond as are so many Englishmen. His every move spoke efficiency. Trying to act as unconcerned as an innocent man should--but failing miserably, I fear--I related to him my story of the voices, the struggle, and the heavy man who had got by me in the hall and later climbed our gate. He listened without comment. At the end he said:

"You were acquainted with the captain?"

"Slightly," I told him. Archie's letter kept popping into my mind, frightening me. "I had just met him--that is all; through a friend of his--Archibald Enwright was the name."

"Is Enwright in London to vouch for you?"

"I'm afraid not. I last heard of him in Interlaken."

"Yes? How did you happen to take rooms in this house?"

"The first time I called to see the captain he had not yet arrived from India. I was looking for lodgings and I took a great fancy to the garden here."

It sounded silly, put like that. I wasn't surprised that the inspector eyed me with scorn. But I rather wished he hadn't.

Bray began to walk about the room, ignoring me.

"White asters; scarab pin; Homburg hat," he detailed, pausing before the table where those strange exhibits lay.

A constable came forward carrying newspapers in his hand.

"What is it?" Bray asked.

"The Daily Mail, sir," said the constable. "The issues of July twenty-seventh, twenty-eighth, twenty-ninth and thirtieth."

Bray took the papers in his hand, glanced at them and tossed them contemptuously into a waste-basket. He turned to Walters.

"Sorry, sir," said Walters; "but I was so taken aback! Nothing like this has ever happened to me before. I'll go at once--"

"No," replied Bray sharply. "Never mind. I'll attend to it--"

There was a knock at the door. Bray called "Come!" and a slender boy, frail but with a military bearing, entered.

"h.e.l.lo, Walters!" he said, smiling. "What's up? I-"

He stopped suddenly as his eyes fell upon the divan where Fraser-Freer lay. In an instant he was at the dead man's side.

"Stephen!" he cried in anguish.

"Who are you?" demanded the inspector--rather rudely, I thought.

"It's the captain's brother, sir," put in Walters. "Lieutenant Norman Fraser-Freer, of the Royal Fusiliers."

There fell a silence.

"A great calamity, sir--" began Walters to the boy.

I have rarely seen any one so overcome as young Fraser-Freer. Watching him, it seemed to me that the affection existing between him and the man on the divan must have been a beautiful thing. He turned away from his brother at last, and Walters sought to give him some idea of what had happened.

"You will pardon me, gentlemen," said the lieutenant. "This has been a terrible shock! I didn't dream, of course--I just dropped in for a word with--with him. And now--"

We said nothing. We let him apologize, as a true Englishman must, for his public display of emotion.

"I'm sorry," Bray remarked in a moment, his eyes still s.h.i.+fting about the room--"especially as England may soon have great need of men like the captain. Now, gentlemen, I want to say this: I am the Chief of the Special Branch at the Yard. This is no ordinary murder. For reasons I can not disclose--and, I may add, for the best interests of the empire--news of the captain's tragic death must be kept for the present out of the newspapers. I mean, of course, the manner of his going. A mere death notice, you understand--the inference being that it was a natural taking off."

"I understand," said the lieutenant, as one who knows more than he tells.

"Thank you," said Bray. "I shall leave you to attend to the matter, as far as your family is concerned. You will take charge of the body. As for the rest of you, I forbid you to mention this matter outside."

And now Bray stood looking, with a puzzled air, at me.

"You are an American?" he said, and I judged he did not care for Americans.

"I am," I told him.

"Know any one at your consulate?" he demanded.

Thank heaven, I did! There is an under-secretary there named Watson--I went to college with him. I mentioned him to Bray.

"Very good," said the inspector. "You are free to go. But you must understand that you are an important witness in this case, and if you attempt to leave London you will be locked up."

So I came back to my rooms, horribly entangled in a mystery that is little to my liking. I have been sitting here in my study for some time, going over it again and again. There have been many footsteps on the stairs, many voices in the hall.

Waiting here for the dawn, I have come to be very sorry for the cold handsome captain. After all, he was a man; his very tread on the floor above, which it shall never hear again, told me that.

What does it all mean? Who was the man in the hall, the man who had argued so loudly, who had struck so surely with that queer Indian knife?