The Agony Column Part 8

CHAPTER VI

The last peace Sunday London was to know in many weary months went by, a tense and anxious day. Early on Monday the fifth letter from the young man of the Agony Column arrived, and when the girl from Texas read it she knew that under no circ.u.mstances could she leave London now.

It ran:

DEAR LADY FROM HOME: I call you that because the word home has for me, this hot afternoon in London, about the sweetest sound word ever had. I can see, when I close my eyes, Broadway at midday; Fifth Avenue, gay and colorful, even with all the best people away; Was.h.i.+ngton Square, cool under the trees, lovely and desirable despite the presence everywhere of alien neighbors from the district to the South. I long for home with an ardent longing; never was London so cruel, so hopeless, so drab, in my eyes. For, as I write this, a constable sits at my elbow, and he and I are shortly to start for Scotland Yard. I have been arrested as a suspect in the case of Captain Fraser-Freer's murder!

I predicted last night that this was to be a red-letter day in the history of that case, and I also saw myself an unwilling actor in the drama. But little did I suspect the series of astonis.h.i.+ng events that was to come with the morning; little did I dream that the net I have been dreading would to-day engulf me. I can scarcely blame Inspector Bray for holding me; what I can not understand is why Colonel Hughes--

But you want, of course, the whole story from the beginning; and I shall give it to you. At eleven o'clock this morning a constable called on me at my rooms and informed me that I was wanted at once by the Chief Inspector at the Yard.

We climbed--the constable and I--a narrow stone stairway somewhere at the back of New Scotland Yard, and so came to the inspector's room.

Bray was waiting for us, smiling and confident. I remember--silly as the detail is--that he wore in his b.u.t.tonhole a white rose. His manner of greeting me was more genial than usual. He began by informing me that the police had apprehended the man who, they believed, was guilty of the captain's murder.

"There is one detail to be cleared up," he said. "You told me the other night that it was shortly after seven o'clock when you heard the sounds of struggle in the room above you. You were somewhat excited at the time, and under similar circ.u.mstances men have been known to make mistakes. Have you considered the matter since? Is it not possible that you were in error in regard to the hour?"

I recalled Hughes' advice to humor the inspector; and I said that, having thought it over, I was not quite sure. It might have been earlier than seven--say six-thirty.

"Exactly," said Bray. He seemed rather pleased. "The natural stress of the moment--I understand. Wilkinson, bring in your prisoner. The constable addressed turned and left the room, coming back a moment later with Lieutenant Norman Fraser-Freer. The boy was pale; I could see at a glance that he had not slept for several nights.

"Lieutenant," said Bray very sharply, "will you tell me--is it true that your brother, the late captain, had loaned you a large sum of money a year or so ago?"

"Quite true," answered the lieutenant in a low voice.

"You and he had quarreled about the amount of money you spent?"

"Yes."

"By his death you became the sole heir of your father, the general. Your position with the money-lenders was quite altered. Am I right?"

"I fancy so."

"Last Thursday afternoon you went to the Army and Navy Stores and purchased a revolver. You already had your service weapon, but to shoot a man with a bullet from that would be to make the hunt of the police for the murderer absurdly simple."

The boy made no answer.

"Let us suppose," Bray went on, "that last Thursday evening at half after six you called on your brother in his rooms at Adelphi Terrace.

There was an argument about money. You became enraged. You saw him and him alone between you and the fortune you needed so badly. Then--I am only supposing--you noticed on his table an odd knife he had brought from India--safer--more silent--than a gun. You seized it--"

"Why suppose?" the boy broke in. "I'm not trying to conceal anything.

You're right--I did it! I killed my brother! Now let us get the whole business over as soon as may be."

Into the face of Inspector Bray there came at that moment a look that has puzzling me ever since--a look that has recurred to my mind again and again,--in the stress and storm of this eventful day. It was only too evident that this confession came to him as a shock. I presume so easy a victory seemed hollow to him; he was wis.h.i.+ng the boy had put up a fight. Policemen are probably like that.

"My boy," he said, "I am sorry for you. My course is clear. If you will go with one of my men--"

It was at this point that the door of the inspector's room opened and Colonel Hughes, cool and smiling, walked in. Bray chuckled at sight of the military man.

"Ah, Colonel," he cried, "you make a good entrance! This morning, when I discovered that I had the honor of having you a.s.sociated with me in the search for the captain's murderer, you were foolish enough to make a little wager--"

"I remember," Hughes answered. "A scarab pin against--a Homburg hat."

"Precisely," said Bray. "You wagered that you, and not I, would discover the guilty man. Well, Colonel, you owe me a scarab. Lieutenant Norman Fraser-Freer has just told me that he killed his brother, and I was on the point of taking down his full confession."

"Indeed!" replied Hughes calmly. "Interesting--most interesting! But before we consider the wager lost--before you force the lieutenant to confess in full--I should like the floor."

"Certainly," smiled Bray.

"When you were kind enough to let me have two of your men this morning,"

said Hughes, "I told you I contemplated the arrest of a lady. I have brought that lady to Scotland Yard with me." He stepped to the door, opened it and beckoned. A tall, blonde handsome woman of about thirty-five entered; and instantly to my nostrils came the p.r.o.nounced odor of lilacs. "Allow me, Inspector," went on the colonel, "to introduce to you the Countess Sophie de Graf, late of Berlin, late of Delhi and Rangoon, now of 17 Leitrim Grove, Battersea Park Road."

The woman faced Bray; and there was a terrified, hunted look in her eyes.

"You are the inspector?" she asked.

"I am," said Bray.

"And a man--I can see that," she went on, her flas.h.i.+ng angrily at Hughes. "I appeal to you to protect me from the brutal questioning of this--this fiend."

"You are hardly complimentary, Countess," Hughes smiled. "But I am willing to forgive you if you will tell the inspector the story that you have recently related to me."

The woman shut her lips tightly and for a long moment gazed into the eyes of Inspector Bray.

"He"--she said at last, nodding in the direction of Colonel Hughes--"he got it out of me--how, I don't know."

"Got what out of you?" Bray's little eyes were blinking.

"At six-thirty o'clock last Thursday evening," said the woman, "I went to the rooms of Captain Fraser-Freer, in Adelphi Terrace. An argument arose. I seized from his table an Indian dagger that was lying there--I stabbed him just above the heart!"

In that room in Scotland Yard a tense silence fell. For the first time we were all conscious of a tiny clock on the inspector's desk, for it ticked now with a loudness sudden and startling. I gazed at the faces about me. Bray's showed a momentary surprise--then the mask fell again.

Lieutenant Fraser-Freer was plainly amazed. On the face of Colonel Hughes I saw what struck me as an open sneer.

"Go on, Countess," he smiled.

She shrugged her shoulders and turned toward him a disdainful back. Her eyes were all for Bray.

"It's very brief, the story," she said hastily--I thought almost apologetically. "I had known the captain in Rangoon. My husband was in business there--an exporter of rice--and Captain Fraser-Freer came often to our house. We--he was a charming man, the captain--"

"Go on!" ordered Hughes.

"We fell desperately in love," said the countess. "When he returned to England, though supposedly on a furlough, he told me he would never return to Rangoon. He expected a transfer to Egypt. So it was arranged that I should desert my husband and follow on the next boat. I did so--believing in the captain--thinking he really cared for me--I gave up everything for him. And then--"

Her voice broke and she took out a handkerchief. Again that odor of lilacs in the room.

"For a time I saw the captain often in London; and then I began to notice a change. Back among his own kind, with the lonely days in India a mere memory--he seemed no longer to--to care for me. Then--last Thursday morning--he called on me to tell me that he was through; that he would never see me again--in fact, that he was to marry a girl of his own people who had been waiting--"