The Bittermeads Mystery Part 3

Dunn agreed and asked one or two more questions about the details of the accident to old Mr. Clive, in which he seemed very interested.

But he did not get much more information about that concerning which his new friend evidently knew very little. However, he gave Dunn a few more facts concerning Mr. John Clive, as that he was unmarried, was said to be very wealthy, and had the reputation of being something of a ladies'

man.

A little further on they parted, and Dunn took a side road which he calculated should lead him back to Bittermeads.

"It may be pure coincidence," he mused as he walked slowly in a very troubled and doubtful mood. "But if so, it's a very queer one, and if it isn't, it seems to me Mr. John Clive might as well put his head in a lion's jaws as pay visits at Bittermeads. But of course he can't have the least suspicion of the truth--if it is the truth. If I hadn't lost my temper like a fool when he whacked out at me like that I might have been able to warn him, or find out something useful perhaps. And his father killed recently in an accident--is that a coincidence, too, I wonder?"

He pa.s.sed his hand across his forehead on which a light sweat stood, though he was not a man easily affected, for he had seen and endured many things.

His mind was very full of strange and troubled thoughts as at last he came back to Bittermeads, where, leaning with his elbows on the garden gate, he stood for a long time, watching the dark and silent house and thinking of that scene of which he had been a spectator when John Clive and the girl had stood together on the veranda in the light of the gas from the hall and had bidden each other good night.

"It seems," he mused, "as though the last that was seen of poor Charley must have been just like that. It was just such a dark night as this when Simpson saw him. He was standing on that veranda when Simpson recognized him by the light of the gas behind, and a girl was bidding him good night--a very pretty girl, too, Simpson said."

Silent and immobile he stood there a long time, not so much now as one who watched, but rather as if deep in thought, for his head was bent and supported on his hands and his eyes were fixed on the ground.

"As for this John Clive," he muttered presently, rousing himself. "I suppose that must be a coincidence, but it's queer, and queer the father should have died--like that."

He broke off, shuddering slightly, as though at thoughts too awful to be endured, and pus.h.i.+ng open the gate, he walked slowly up the gravel path towards the house, round which he began to walk, going very slowly and cautiously and often pausing as if he wished to make as close examination of the place as the darkness would permit.

More by habit than because he thought there was any need of it, he moved always with that extreme and wonderful dexterity of quietness he could a.s.sume at will, and as he turned the corner of the building and came behind it, his quick ear, trained by many an emergency to pick out the least unusual sound, caught a faint, continued scratching noise, so faint and low it might well have pa.s.sed unnoticed.

All at once he understood and realized that some one quite close at hand was stealthily cutting out the gla.s.s from one of the panes of a ground-floor window.

CHAPTER IV. A WOMAN WEEPS

Cautiously he glided nearer, moving as noiselessly as any shadow, seeming indeed but one shadow the more in the heavy surrounding darkness.

The persistent scratching noise continued, and Dunn was now so close he could have put out his hand and touched the shoulder of the man who was causing it and who still, intent and busy, had not the least idea of the other's proximity.

A faint smile touched Dunn's lips. The situation seemed not to be without a grim humour, for if one-half of what he suspected were true, one might as sensibly and safely attempt to break into the condemned cell at Pentonville Gaol as into this quiet house.

But then, was it perhaps possible that this fellow, working away so unconcernedly, within arm's-length of him, was in reality one of them, seeking to obtain admittance in this way for some reason of his own, some private treachery, it might be, or some dispute? To Dunn that did not seem likely. More probably the fellow was merely an ordinary burglar--some local pract.i.tioner of the housebreaking art, perhaps--whose ill-fortune it was to have hit upon this house to rob without his having the least idea of the nature of the place he was trying to enter.

"He might prove a useful recruit for them, though," Dunn thought, and a sudden idea flashed into his mind, vivid and startling.

For one moment he thought intently, weighing in his mind this idea that had come to him so suddenly. He was not blind to the risks it involved, but his eager temperament always inclined him to the most direct and often to the most dangerous course. His mind was made up, his plan of action decided.

The scratching of the burglar's tool upon the gla.s.s ceased. Already he had smeared treacle over the square of gla.s.s he intended to remove and had covered it with paper so as to be able to take it out easily and in one piece without the risk of falling fragments betraying him.

Through the gap thus made he thrust his arm and made sure there were no alarms fitted and no obstacles in the way of his easy entrance.

Cautiously he unfastened the window and cautiously and silently lifted the sash, and when he had done so he paused and listened for a s.p.a.ce to make sure no one was stirring and that no alarm had been caused within the house.

Still very cautiously and with the utmost precaution to avoid making even the least noise, he put one knee upon the window-sill, preparatory to climbing in, and as he did so Dunn touched him lightly on the shoulder.

"Well, my man, what are you up to?" he said softly. And without a word, without giving the least warning, the burglar, a man evidently of determination and resource, swung round and aimed at Dunn's head a tremendous blow with the heavy iron jemmy he held in his right hand.

But Dunn was not unprepared for an attack and those bright, keen eyes of his seemed able to see as well in the dark as in the light. He threw up his left hand and caught the other's wrist before that deadly blow he aimed could descend and at the same instant he dashed his own clenched fist full into the burglar's face.

As it happened, more by good luck than intended aim, the blow took him on the point of the chin. He dropped instantly, collapsing in on himself as falls a pole-axed bullock, and lay, unconscious, in a crumpled heap on the ground.

For a little Dunn waited, crouching above him and listening for the least sound to show that their brief scuffle had been heard.

But it had all pa.s.sed nearly as silently as quickly. Within the house everything remained silent, there was no sound audible, no gleam of light to show that any of the inmates had been disturbed.

Taking from his pocket a small electric flash-lamp Dunn turned its light on his victim.

He seemed a man of middle age with a brutal, heavy-jawed face and a low, receding forehead. His lips, a little apart, showed yellow, irregular teeth, of which two at the front of the lower jaw had been broken, and the scar of an old wound, running from the corner of his left eye down to the centre of his cheek, added to the sinister and forbidding aspect he bore.

His build was heavy and powerful and near by, where he had dropped it when he fell, lay the jemmy with which he had struck at Dunn. It was a heavy, ugly-looking thing, about two feet in length and with one end nearly as sharp as that of a chisel.

Dunn picked it up and felt it thoughtfully.

"Just as well I got my blow in first," he mused. "If he had landed that fairly on my skull I don't think anything else in this world would ever have interested me any more."

Stooping over the unconscious man, he felt in his pockets and found an ugly-looking revolver, fully loaded, a handful of cartridges, a coil of thin rope, an electric torch, a tiny dark lantern no bigger than a match-box, and so arranged that the single drop of light it permitted to escape fell on one spot only, a bunch of curiously-shaped wires Dunn rightly guessed to be skeleton keys used for opening locks quietly, together with some tobacco, a pipe, a little money, and a few other personal belongings of no special interest or significance.

These Dunn replaced where he had found them, but the revolver, the rope, the torch, the dark lantern, and the bunch of wires he took possession of.

He noticed also that the man was wearing rubber-soled boots and rubber gloves, and these last he also kept. Stooping, he lifted the unconscious man on to his shoulder and carried him with perfect ease and at a quick pace out of the garden and across the road to the common opposite, where, in a convenient spot, behind some furze bushes, he laid him down.

"When he comes round," Dunn muttered. "He won't know where he is or what's happened, and probably his one idea will be to clear off as quickly as possible. I don't suppose he'll interfere with me at all."

Then a new idea seemed to strike him, and he hurriedly removed his own coat and trousers and boots and exchanged them for those the burglar was wearing.

They were not a good fit, but he could get them on and the idea in his mind was that if the police of the district began searching, as very likely they would, for Mr. John Clive's a.s.sailant, and if they had discovered any clues in the shape of footprints or torn bits of clothing or b.u.t.tons--and Dunn knew his attire had suffered considerably during the struggle--then it would be as well that such clues should lead not to him, but to this other man, who, if he were innocent on that score, had at any rate been guilty of attempting to carry out a much worse offence.

"I'm afraid your luck's out, old chap," Dunn muttered, apostrophizing the unconscious man. "But you did your best to brain me, and that gives me a sort of right to make you useful. Besides, if the police do run you in, it won't mean anything worse than a few questions it'll be your own fault if you can't answer. Anyhow, I can't afford to run the risk of some blundering fool of a policeman trying to arrest me for a.s.saulting the local magnate."

Much relieved in mind, for he had been greatly worried by a fear that this encounter with John Clive might lead to highly inconvenient legal proceedings, he left the unlucky burglar lying in the shelter of the furze bushes and returned to the house.

All was as he had left it, the open window gaped widely, almost inviting entrance, and he climbed silently within. The apartment in which he found himself was apparently the drawing-room and he felt his way cautiously and slowly across it, moving with infinite care so as to avoid making even the least noise.

Reaching the door, he opened it and went out into the hall. All was dark and silent. He permitted himself here to flash on his electric torch for a moment, and he saw that the hall was s.p.a.cious and used as a lounge, for there were several chairs cl.u.s.tered in its centre, opposite the fireplace. There were two or three doors opening from it, and almost opposite where he stood were the stairs, a broad flight leading to a wide landing above.

Still with the same extreme silence and care, he began to ascend these stairs and when he was about half-way up he became aware of a faint and strange sound that came trembling through the silence and stillness of the night.

What it was he could not imagine. He listened for a time and then resumed his silent progress with even more care than previously, and only when he reached the landing did he understand that this faint and low sound he heard was caused by a woman weeping very softly in one of the rooms near by.

Silently he crossed the landing in the direction whence the sound seemed to come. Now, too, he saw a thread of light showing beneath a door at a little distance, and when he crept up to it and listened he could hear for certain that it was from within this room that there came the sound of m.u.f.fled, pa.s.sionate weeping.

The door was closed, but he turned the handle so carefully that he made not the least sound and very cautiously he began to push the door back, the tiniest fraction of an inch at a time, so that even one watching closely could never have said that it moved.

When, after a long time, during which the m.u.f.fled weeping never ceased, he had it open an inch or two, he leaned forward and peeped within.