Okewood of the Secret Service Part 7

"I got her out of this quick," replied Mr. Marigold, "she's had a bad shock, poor girl, though she gave her evidence clearly enough for all that... as far as it goes and that's not much. Some friends near by have taken her in! The doctor has given her some bromide and says she's got to be kept quiet..."

"What's her story!" queried the Chief.

"She can't throw much light on the business. She and her father reached home from the theatre about a quarter past twelve, had a bit of supper in the dining-room and went up to bed before one o'clock. Miss Mackwayte saw her father go into his room, which is next to hers, and shut the door. The next thing she knows is that she woke up suddenly with some kind of a loud noise in her ears... that was the report of the pistol, I've no doubt... she thought for a minute it was an air raid. Then suddenly a hand was pressed over her mouth, something was crammed into her mouth and she was firmly strapped down to the bed."

"Did she see the man?" asked Desmond.

"She didn't see anything from first to last," answered the detective, "as far as she is concerned it might have been a woman or a black man who trussed her up. It was quite dark in her bedroom and this burglar fellow, after binding and gagging her, fastened a bandage across her eyes into the bargain. She says she heard him moving about her room and then creep out very softly.

The next thing she knew was Mrs. Chugg arriving at her bedside this morning."

"What time did this attack take place?" asked the Chief.

"She has no idea," answered the detective. "She couldn't see her watch and they haven't got a striking clock in the house."

"But can she make no guess!"

"Well, she says she thinks it was several hours before Mrs. Chugg arrived in the morning... as much as three hours, she thinks!"

"And what time did Mrs. Chugg arrive!"

"At half-past six!"

"About Mackwayte... how long was he dead when they found him?

What does the doctor say?"

"About three hours approximately, but you know, they can't always tell to an hour or so!"

"Well," said the Chief slowly, "it looks as if one might figure the murder as having been committed some time between 3 and 3.30 a.m."

"My idea exactly," said Mr. Marigold. "Shall we go upstairs?"

He conducted the Chief and Desmond up the short flight of stairs to the first story. He pushed open the first door he came to.

"Mackwayte's room, on the back," he said, "bed slept in, as you see, old gentleman's clothes on a chair--obviously he was disturbed by some noise made by the burglar and came out to see what was doing! And here," he indicated a door adjoining, "is Miss Mackwayte's room, on the front; as you observe. They don't use the two rooms on the second floor, except for box-rooms... one's full of old Mackwayte's theatre trunks and stuff. They keep no servant; Mrs. Chugg comes in each morning and stays all day.

She goes away after supper every evening."

Desmond found himself looking into a plainly furnished but dainty bedroom with white furniture and a good deal of chintz about.

There were some photographs and pictures hanging on the walls.

The room was spotlessly clean and very tidy.

Desmond remarked on this, asking if the police had put the room straight.

Mr. Marigold looked quite shocked.

"Oh, no, everything is just as it was when Mrs. Chugg found Miss Mackwayte this morning. There's Miss Mackwayte's gloves and handbag on the toilet-table just as she left 'em last night. I wouldn't let her touch her clothes even. She went over to Mrs.

Appleby's in her dressing-gown, in a taxi."

"Then Master Burglar didn't burgle this room?" asked the Chief.

"Nothing touched, not even the girl's money," replied Marigold.

"Then why did he come up here at all?" asked Desmond.

"Obviously, the old gentleman disturbed him," was the detective's reply. "Barney got scared and shot the old gentleman, then came up here to make sure that the daughter would not give him away before he could make his escape. He must have known the report of the gun would wake her up."

"But are there no clues or finger-prints or anything of that kind here, Marigold?" asked the Chief.

"Not a finger-print anywhere," responded the other, "men like Barney are born wise to the fingerprint business, sir."

He dipped a finger and thumb into his waistcoat pocket.

"Clues? Well, I've got one little souvenir here which I daresay a writer of detective stories would make a good bit of."

He held in his hand a piece of paper folded flat. He unfolded it and disclosed a loop of dark hair.

"There!" he said mockingly, straightening out the hair and holding it up in the light. "That's calculated to set one's thoughts running all over the place, isn't it? That piece of hair was caught in the buckle of one of the straps with which Miss Mackwayte was bound to the bed. Miss Mackwayte, I would point out, has brown hair. Whose hair do you think that is?"

Desmond looked closely at the strand of hair in the detective's fingers. It was long and fine and glossy and jetblack.

The Chief laughed and shook his head.

"Haven't an idea, Marigold," he answered, "Barney's, I should imagine, that is, if he goes about with black ringlets falling round his shoulders."

"Barney?" echoed the detective. "Barney's as bald as I am.

Besides, if you saw his sheet, you'd realize that he has got into the habit of wearing his hair short!"

He carefully rolled the strand of hair up, replaced it in its paper and stowed it in his waistcoat pocket.

"It just shows how easily one is misled in a matter of this kind," he went on. "Supposing Barney hadn't got himself nabbed, supposing I hadn't been able to find out from Miss Mackwayte her movements on the night previous to the murder, that strand of hair might have led me on a fine wild goose chase!"

"But, d.a.m.n it, Marigold," exclaimed the Chief, laughing, "you haven't told us whose hair it is?"

"Why, Nur-el-Din's, of course!"

The smile froze on the Chief's lips, the laughter died out of his eyes. Desmond was amazed at the change in the man. The languid interest he had taken in the different details of the crime vanished. Something seemed to tighten up suddenly in his face and manner.

"Why Nur-el-Din?" he asked curtly.

Mr. Marigold glanced quickly at him. Desmond remarked that the detective was sensible of the change too.

"Simply because Miss Mackwayte spent some time in the dancer's dressing-room last night, sir," he replied quietly, "she probably sat at her dressing-table and picked up this hair in hers or in her veil or something and it dropped on the bed where one of Master Barney's buckles caught it up."

He spoke carelessly but Desmond noticed that he kept a watchful eye on the other.

The Chief did not answer. He seemed to have relapsed into the preoccupied mood in which Desmond had found him that morning.

"I was going to suggest, sir," said Mr. Marigold diffidently, "if you had the time, you might care to look in at the Yard, and see the prisoner. I don't mind telling you that he is swearing by all the tribes of Judah that he's innocent of the murder of old Mackwayte. He's got an amazing yarn... perhaps you'd like to hear it!"

Mr. Marigold suddenly began to interest Desmond. His proposal was put forward so modestly that one would have thought the last thing he believed possible was that the Chief should acquiesce in his suggestion. Yet Desmond had the feeling that the detective was far from being so disinterested as he wished to seem. It struck Desmond that the case was more complicated than Mr.