Malcolm Sage, Detective Part 35

"He never smoked?" he asked at length.

"Never, sir, not during the whole thirty years I've been with him."

"Who cleaned the laboratory? It did not look as if it had been unswept for a week."

"No, indeed, sir," was the reply, "the professor was very particular.

He always swept it up himself each morning. It was cleaned by one of the servants once a month."

"You're sure about the sweeping-up?" Malcolm Sage enquired with a keen glance that with him always meant an important point.

"Quite certain, sir."

"That, I think, will be all."

"Thank you, sir," said the butler, rising. "Thank you for being so kind, and--and understanding, sir," and he walked a little unsteadily from the room.

"I was afraid you wouldn't get anything out of him, Mr. Sage," said Inspector Carfon, with just a suspicion of relief in his voice.

"No," remarked Malcolm Sage quietly, "nothing new; but an important corroboration of the doctor's evidence."

"What was that?"

"That it was the murderer and not Professor McMurray who ate Wednesday's breakfast, luncheon and dinner."

"Good Lord!" The inspector's jaw dropped in his astonishment.

"I suspect that for some reason or other he returned to the laboratory; that accounts for the rough marks upon the door-fastenings as if someone had first torn them off and then sought to replace them. After his second visit the murderer evidently stayed too long, and was afraid of being seen leaving the laboratory. He therefore remained until the following night, eating the professor's meals. Incidentally he knew all about his habits."

"Well, I'm blowed if he isn't a cool un!" gasped the inspector.

Malcolm Sage rose with the air of one who has concluded the business on hand.

"Can I run you back to town, Carfon?" he asked, as he walked towards the door.

"No, thank you," said the inspector. "I must go over to Strinton and see Brewitt. He's following up a clue he's got. Some tramp who was seen hanging about here for a couple of days just before the murder," he added.

"Unless he is tall and powerful, left-handed, with something more than a layman's knowledge of surgery, you had better not trouble about him," said Malcolm Sage quietly. "You might also note that the murderer belongs to the upper, or middle cla.s.s, has an iron nerve, and is strongly humanitarian."

For a moment Inspector Carfon stared at Malcolm Sage with lengthened jaw. Then suddenly he laughed, a laugh of obvious relief.

"At first I thought you were serious, Mr. Sage," he said, "till I saw what you were up to. It's just like the story-book detectives,"

and he laughed again, this time more convincingly.

Malcolm Sage shrugged his shoulders. "Let me have a description of the man when you get him," he said, "and some of the tobacco he smokes. Try him with marmalade, Carfon, and plenty of it. By the way, you make a great mistake in not reading _The Present Century_," he added. "It can be curiously instructive," and without another word he crossed the hall and, a moment later, entered his car.

"Sw.a.n.k!" murmured Inspector Carfon angrily, as he watched Tims swing the car down the drive at a dangerous rate of speed, "pure, unadulterated, brain-rotting sw.a.n.k," and he in turn pa.s.sed down the drive, determined to let Malcolm Sage see what he could do "on his own."

II

Three weeks pa.s.sed and there was no development in the McMurray Mystery. Malcolm Sage had heard nothing from Inspector Carfon, who was busily engaged in an endeavour to trace the tramp seen in the neighbourhood of "The Hollows" on the day previous to the murder.

Sir John Dene had called several times upon Malcolm Sage, whom he had come to regard as infallible, only to be told that there was no news. He made no comment; but it was obvious that he was greatly disappointed.

Interest began to wane, the newspapers devoted themselves to other "stunts," and the McMurray Mystery seemed fated to swell the list of unfathomed crimes with which, from time to time, the Press likes to twit Scotland Yard.

Suddenly the whole affair flared up anew, and Fleet Street once more devoted itself and its columns to the death of Professor James McMurray.

A brief announcement that a man of the vagrant cla.s.s had been arrested in London whilst endeavouring to sell a gold watch believed to be that of Professor McMurray, was the first spark. Later the watch was identified and the man charged with the murder. He protested his innocence, saying that he had picked up the watch by the roadside, just outside Gorling, nearly a month before. There were bloodstains upon his clothes, which he explained by saying he had been fighting with another man who had made his nose bleed.

Inspector Carfon, unable to keep a note of triumph out of his voice, had telephoned the news to Malcolm Sage, who had asked for particulars of the man, his pipe, and a specimen of his tobacco; but day after day had pa.s.sed without these being forthcoming. Finally the man, against whom the police had built up a damaging case, had been committed for trial.

Two weeks later he was found guilty at the a.s.sizes and sentenced to death.

Then it was that Malcolm Sage had written to Inspector Carfon curtly asking him to call at eleven on the following day, bringing with him the information for which he had asked. At the same time he wrote to Sir John Dene and Sir Jasper Chambers.

Punctually at eleven on the following morning the inspector called at the Malcolm Sage Bureau.

"Sorry, Mr. Sage," he said, as he entered Malcolm Sage's room, "I've been so rushed that I haven't been able to get round," and he dropped into the chair on the opposite side of the table.

Malcolm Sage pushed across the cigar box.

"That's his tobacco-box," said Inspector Carfon, placing on the table a small tin-box.

Opening it, and after a swift glance at the contents, Malcolm Sage raised it to his nose: "Cigarette-ends," he remarked without looking up.

"And that's his pipe." The inspector laid on the table a black clap pipe, with some two inches of stem attached to the bowl.

Malcolm Sage scarcely glanced at it. Pulling out a drawer he produced a small cardboard box, which he opened and pushed towards the inspector.

"That is the tobacco smoked by the murderer. The makers are prepared to swear to it."

"Where the deuce did you get it?" gasped the inspector.

"Grain by grain from the linoleum in the laboratory," replied Malcolm Sage. "That is why it was necessary to be sure it was swept each day. It also helped me to establish the man as middle or upper cla.s.s. This tobacco is expensive. What is the man like who has been condemned?"

"A regular wandering willie," replied the inspector. "Oldish chap, gives his age as sixty-one. Five foot three and a half, thin as a rake, twenty-nine inch chest. Miserable sort of devil. Says he picked up the watch about a quarter of a mile from 'The Hollows'

early one morning."

"Does he eat marmalade?"

"Eat it!" the inspector laughed. "He wolfs it. I remembered what you said and took a pound along with me to Strinton, just for fun." He looked across at Malcolm Sage a little shamefacedly. "I afterwards heard that there was only the jar and the label left; but I don't see what all this has to do with it. The fellow's got to swing for it and----"

"Carfon, you've made a fool of yourself."

The inspector started back in his chair as if someone had struck him.