Read Ebook: The Master Detective: Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles by Brebner Percy James

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Ebook has 2508 lines and 91324 words, and 51 pages

"Two pieces of lead," murmured Quarles.

"A case! Have you got interested in a case, dear? I am glad. What is the mystery, Murray?"

"Where is the key of my room, Zena?" Quarles asked.

She took it from the drawer in a cabinet.

"I am not going to begin again," said the professor, "but this--this is an exception. Come with us, Zena. Come and ask some of your absurd questions. I wonder whether my brain is atrophied. There are cleverer criminals than there used to be in my time, are there, Wigan? We shall see."

He led the way to the empty room at the back of the house, muttering to himself the while, and Zena and I smiled at each other behind his back as we followed him. He was like an old dog on the trail again, and I did not believe for a moment this case would be an exception.

"Tell the story, Wigan," he said when we were seated. "All the details, mind, great and small."

So I went through the facts again.

"I made a careful study of the house and garden," I went on. "The Lodge is a corner house, the garden is small, and a garage with an opening into the other road--Connaught Road--has been built there. A 'Napier' car was in the garage."

"Did you see the chauffeur?" asked Quarles.

"Yes. The car had not been used for a week. I could find no trace of an entry having been made from the garden, but the latch of one of the French windows of the drawing-room was unfastened. When I saw it this window could be pushed open from outside. No one seems to have undone it that morning, so the fact is significant."

Quarles nodded.

"Besides the servants only five people slept in the house that night--Lady Rusholm, her son, two elderly ladies--cousins of Sir Grenville's who had come from Yorkshire for the funeral--and a Mr. Thompson, a friend of the family who was staying in the house when Sir Grenville died."

"Who closed the windows after the body was taken to the drawing-room?" asked Quarles.

"One of the undertaker's men."

"Is he positive he fastened them?"

"He is, but under the circumstances he is not anxious to swear to it."

"And the door of the room, had that been kept locked?"

"Yes. The key was in Sir Arthur's possession."

"Who first entered the room this morning?"

"Sir Arthur when he took in two or three wreaths which arrived late last night. The room was just as it had been left on the previous day. The wreaths and crosses were not disarranged in any way."

"And there were only two pieces of lead in the coffin when it was opened?" queried Zena.

"A large lump and a small one," I answered.

"Couldn't they have been packed in such a way that they would not have slipped?"

"Of course they could. No doubt that was the intention, but the work was badly done because the thieves did it hurriedly," I answered.

"One of your foolish questions, Zena," said Quarles, looking keenly at her. He always declared that her foolish inquiries put him on the right road.

"It is a good thing the lead did slip, or the gruesome theft might never have been discovered," she said.

"Was the coffin a very elaborate one?" Quarles asked, after nodding an acquiescence to Zena's remark.

"No, quite a plain one."

"Has the drawing-room more than one door?"

"Only one into the hall. There is a small room out of the drawing-room--a small drawing-room in fact. Lady Rusholm does her correspondence there. It can only be reached by going through the large room, and the door between the rooms was locked. Sir Arthur got the key from his mother and opened the door for me."

"What could any one want with a dead body?" asked Zena.

"If we could answer that question we should be nearing the end of the affair," said Quarles. "Years ago there were two men--Burke and Hare--who--"

"Oh, the day of resurrectionists is past," I said.

"Don't be so dogmatic," returned Quarles sharply. "A corpse has been stolen; can you suggest any use a corpse can be put to if it is not to serve some anatomical or medical purpose? Remember, Wigan, that mentally and materially there is always a tendency to move in a circle. What has been will be again--altered according to environment--but practically the same. Always start with the assumption that a similar case has happened before. Our difficulties would be much greater if Solomon had been wrong, and there were constantly new things under the sun. Undoubtedly there are some interesting points in this case. Have you arrived at a theory?"

"No, at least only a very vague one. Sir Arthur seems certain that his father had no enemies, and my theory would require an enemy; some one who, having failed to injure him in life, had found an opportunity of wreaking vengeance on the dead clay by preventing the body having Christian burial."

"That is a very interesting idea, Wigan; go on."

"I daresay you remember that the Rusholm baronetcy caused some excitement about twenty years ago. The papers have recalled it in connection with Sir Grenville's death. Sir John Rusholm--the baronet at that time--was a very old man, and during the two years before his death several relations died. He had no son living, so the heir was a nephew, the son of a much younger brother who had gone to Australia and died there. This nephew had not been heard of for a long time, and as soon as he became the heir, Sir John advertised for him in the Australian papers. There was no answer, and the Yorkshire Rusholms, who are poor, expected to inherit. Then at the very time when Sir John was on his death-bed news came of the nephew. He had been in India for some years, had proposed there, had married and had a son. There had been so many lives between him and the title that he had thought nothing about it until a chance acquaintance had shown him the advertisement in an old Australian paper. He wrote that he was starting for England at once, but Sir John was dead when he arrived. That is how Sir Grenville came into the property."

"Was his claim disputed?" asked Zena.

"Oh, no, there was no question about it. He had family papers which only the nephew could possibly have, and you may depend the Yorkshire Rusholms would have found a flaw in the title if they could. Their disappointment must have been great, and if I could discover that Sir Grenville had an enemy amongst them--some relation he had refused to help, for instance--I should want to know all about him."

"Yours is a very interesting idea," said Quarles. "Do you happen to know who Lady Rusholm was?"

"The daughter of a tea planter in Ceylon. Her social success here has been very great, as you know."

"A very charming woman I should say," said the professor. "I saw her once--not many months ago. She was distributing the prizes at a technical institute in North London. I remember how well she spoke, and what an exceedingly poor second the chairman was in spite of his being a Member of Parliament. You have got a constable at The Lodge, I suppose?"

"Good. You and I will go there to-morrow. I'll be your assistant, Wigan--say an expert in finger prints. I'll meet you outside The Lodge at ten o'clock. There are so many clues in this case, the difficulty is to know which one to follow, I must have a few quiet hours to decide."

I smiled. It was like Quarles to make such a statement, especially after I had declared that criminals were becoming cleverer. Never were clues more conspicuous by their absence, I imagine. I was, however, delighted to have the professor's help. It was like old times.

The next morning I met Quarles in Queen's Square, and his appearance was proof of his enthusiasm. He posed as rather a feeble, inquisitive old man who could talk of nothing but finger prints and their significance. Sir Arthur was evidently not impressed with his ability to solve any mystery. When we entered the drawing-room he seemed lost in admiration of the apartment, and did not even glance at the open coffin which stood on the trestles. He walked to the window, drew aside the blind, and looked into the garden. Then he looked into the small room.

"No other exit here but the window. An entrance might have been made by that window."

"The door between the two rooms was locked," said Sir Arthur. "I had to get the key from my mother when Mr. Wigan wanted to go in. It is my mother's special room, but she had been so occupied in nursing my father that she had not used it for more than a week."

Then Quarles looked at the wreaths, wanted to know which ones had been left near the coffin when the room was locked for the night, and the wreaths which Sir Arthur pointed out he examined carefully. Then he pointed to a large cross lying on an armchair.

"Has that one been there all the time?"

Sir Arthur explained that two or three wreaths had come late in the evening. He had himself brought them into the room on the morning of the funeral. That cross was one of them.

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