Cleek of Scotland Yard: Detective Stories. Hanshew Thomas W.

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      “Of course, of course! It would be gone like a breath, gone like a passing cloud if it were that.”

      “If it were what? Cleek, my dear fellow! Good Lord! you don’t mean to tell me you’ve got a clue?”

      “Perhaps – perhaps – don’t worry me!” he made answer testily; then rose and walked over to the window and stood there alone, pinching his chin between his thumb and forefinger and staring fixedly at things beyond. After a time, however:

      “Yes, it could be that – assuredly it could be that,” he said in a low-sunk voice, as if answering a query. “But in England – in this far land. In Malay, yes; in Ceylon, certainly. And sapphires, too – sapphires! Hum-m-m! They mine them there. One man had travelled in foreign parts and been tattooed by natives. So that the selfsame country – Just so! Of course! Of course! But who? But how? And in England?”

      His voice dropped off. He stood for a minute or so in absolute silence, drumming noiselessly with his finger tips upon the window-sill, then turned abruptly and spoke to Mr. Narkom.

      “Go on with the story, please,” he said. “There was a fifth man, I believe. When and how did his end come?”

      “Like the others, for the most part, but with one startling difference: instead of being undressed, nothing had been removed but his collar and boots. He was killed on the night I started with Dollops for the Continent in quest of you; and his was the second body that was not actually found on the heath. Like the first man, he was found under the wall which surrounds Lemmingham House.”

      “Lemmingham House? What’s that – a hotel or a private residence?”

      “A private residence, owned and occupied by Mr. James Barrington-Edwards.”

      “Any relation to that Captain Barrington-Edwards who was cashiered from the army some twenty years ago for ‘conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman’?”

      “The same man!”

      “Oho! the same man, eh?” Cleek’s tone was full of sudden interest. “Stop a bit! Let me put my thinking box into operation. Captain Barrington-Edwards – hum-m-m! That little military unpleasantness happened out in Ceylon, did it not? The gentleman had a fancy for conjuring tricks, I believe; even went so far as to study them firsthand under the tutelage of native fakirs, and was subsequently caught cheating at cards. That’s the man, isn’t it?”

      “Yes,” said Narkom, “that’s the man. I’ll have something startling to tell you in connection with him presently, but not in connection with that card-cheating scandal. He always swore that he was innocent of that. In fact, that it was a put-up job by one of the other officers for the sake of ruining him.”

      “Yes, I know – they all say that. It’s the only thing they can say.”

      “Still, I always believed him, Cleek. He’s been a pretty straightforward man in all my dealings with him, and I’ve had several. Besides which, he is highly respected these days. Then, too, there’s the fact that the fellow he said put up the job against him for the sake of blackening him in the eyes of his sweetheart, eventually married the girl, so it does look rather fishy. However, although it ruined Barrington-Edwards for the time being, and embittered him so that he never married, he certainly had the satisfaction of knowing that the fellow who had caused this trouble turned out an absolute rotter, spent all his wife’s money and brought her down to absolute beggary, whereas, if she’d stuck to Barrington-Edwards she’d have been a wealthy woman indeed, to-day. He’s worth half a million at the least calculation.”

      “How’s that? Somebody die and leave him a fortune?”

      “No. He had a little of his own. Speculated, while he was in the East, in precious stones and land which he had reason to believe likely to produce them; succeeded beyond his wildest hopes, and is to-day head of the firm of Barrington-Edwards, Morpeth & Firmin, the biggest dealers in precious stones that Hatton Garden can boast of.”

      “Oho!” said Cleek. “I see! I see!” and screwed round on his heel and looked out of the window again. Then, after a moment: “And Mr. Barrington-Edwards lives in the neighbourhood of Hampstead Heath, does he?” he asked quite calmly. “Alone?”

      “No. With his nephew and heir, young Mr. Archer Blaine, a dead sister’s only child. As a matter of fact, it was Mr. Archer Blaine himself who discovered the body of the fifth victim. Coming home at a quarter to one from a visit to an old college friend, he found the man lying stone dead in the shadow of the wall surrounding Lemmingham House, and, of course, lost no time in dashing indoors for a police whistle and summoning the constable on point duty in the district. The body was at once given in charge of a hastily summoned detachment from the Yard and conveyed to the Hampstead mortuary, where it still lies awaiting identification.”

      “Been photographed?”

      “Not as yet. Of course it will be – as were the other four – prior to the time of burial should nobody turn up to claim it. But in this instance we have great hopes that identification will take place on the strength of a marked peculiarity. The man is web-footed and – ”

      “The man is what?” rapped in Cleek excitedly.

      “Web-footed,” repeated Narkom. “The several toes are attached one to the other by a thin membrane, after the manner of a duck’s feet; and on the left foot there is a peculiar horny protuberance like – ”

      “Like a rudimentary sixth toe!” interrupted Cleek, fairly flinging the eager query at him. “It is, eh? Well, by the Eternal! I once knew a fellow – years ago, in the Far East – whose feet were malformed like that; and if by any possibility – Stop a bit! A word more. Is that man a big fellow – broad shouldered, muscular, and about forty or forty-five years of age?”

      “You’ve described him to a T, dear chap. There is, however, a certain other peculiarity which you have not mentioned, though that, of course, maybe a recent acquirement. The palm of the right hand – ”

      “Wait a bit! Wait a bit!” interposed Cleek, a trifle irritably. He had swung away from the window and was now walking up and down the room with short nervous steps, his chin pinched up between his thumb and forefinger, his brows knotted, and his eyes fixed upon the floor.

      “Saffragam – Jaffna – Trincomalee! In all three of them – in all three!” he said, putting his running thoughts into muttered words. “And now a dead man sticks his fingers in his nostrils and talks of sapphires. Sapphires, eh? And the Saffragam district stuck thick with them as spangles on a Nautch girl’s veil. The Bareva for a ducat! The Bareva Reef or I’m a Dutchman! And Barrington-Edwards was in that with the rest. So was Peabody; so was Miles; and so, too, were Lieutenant Edgburn and the Spaniard, Juan Alvarez. Eight of them, b’gad – eight! And I was ass enough to forget, idiot enough not to catch the connection until I heard again of Jim Peabody’s web foot! But wait! Stop – there should be another marked foot if this is indeed a clue to the riddle, and so – ”

      He stopped short in his restless pacing and faced round on Mr. Narkom.

      “Tell me something,” he said in a sharp staccato. “The four other dead men – did any among them have an injured foot – the left or the right, I forget which – from which all toes but the big one had been torn off by a crocodile’s bite, so that in life the fellow must have limped a little when he walked? Did any of the dead men bear a mark like that?”

      “No,” said Narkom. “The feet of all СКАЧАТЬ