The Master Detective Part 16

Quarles undid a small brown paper parcel--I had wondered what he had brought with him--and produced the pierrot's hat.

"That is Henley's, I suppose?"

Watson looked at it.

"Undoubtedly. There is an 'H' in it, you see. We all put our initial in like that so that we should know our own."

"Now, can you suggest why Henley was wearing his dress?" asked Quarles.

"That has puzzled us all," Watson answered. "I am inclined to think the doctor is wrong as regards the time he had been dead. The last we saw of Henley was when we left the tent that night. He was not coming back with us, he was going straight to the station. He was a long time changing, and I told him he would have to hurry to catch his train."

"Is there such a late train up?"

"Only during the summer."

"And none of you went down to the tent until the evening of the next day?"

They all replied in the negative.

"We are perhaps fortunate in being able to substantiate the denial," said Watson. "We all drove to Craybourne and spent the day there, starting soon after ten and not getting back until six."

"And in the ordinary way Henley would have gone with you?"

"Certainly. It was only just before the performance that evening that he announced his journey to town. He said it was a matter of business."

"One more question," said Quarles, "a delicate one, but you will forgive it because you are as desirous of clearing up this mystery as any one.

Have you any reason to suppose poor Henley was in love?"

"I have no reason to think so," said Watson.

"Nor you, Miss Travers?" said Quarles, turning to Sister Penelope.

"He certainly was not in love with me."

"I ask the question just to clear the ground," said the professor after a short pause, and rising as he spoke. "The man whose place Henley took might have fallen in love with one of you young ladies, and if he thought Henley had supplanted him he might have taken a mad revenge. Such things do happen."

"There was nothing of that sort," said Mrs. Watson. "Russell, that was the other man, has gone on a voyage for his health. Only a week ago I had a picture postcard from him from a port in South America."

"That absolutely squashes the very germ of the theory," said the professor with a smile. "Sometime I hope to enjoy your charming entertainment again, and to hear you play, Miss Day. I hope it won't be Bach. Good-by."

As we walked back to the hotel I asked Quarles why he had not suggested that Henley might be in love with Miss Day instead of Miss Travers.

"My dear Wigan, you have yourself said she is undoubtedly a lady. Can you imagine her allowing a man like the dead man to have anything to do with her?"

"Circ.u.mstances have thrown them into each other's company," I answered.

"In such a small circle she could hardly avoid him."

"I am inclined to think the company will get on better without him,"

he answered.

To my astonishment the professor insisted on going back to town that afternoon. No, he was not giving up the case, but he wanted to be in Chelsea to think it out, and to see if Zena had got any foolish questions to ask. This was Sat.u.r.day, and on Monday I received a telegram from him, requesting me to come to town. It was important. Of course I went, and the three of us adjourned to the empty room.

"I am sorry to bring you off the Beverley affair, Wigan, but I think we ought to settle this pierrot business."

"Then you have formed a theory?"

"Oh, yes, and it is for you to prove whether I am right or wrong. If my theory be correct, it is rather a simple case, although it appears complicated. We will accept the doctor's statement that the man had been murdered that day, and not on the previous night. He was done to death, therefore, during the morning probably, when for some reason he had visited the tent, and for some reason had put on his pierrot's dress.

Watson is inclined to think that the doctor is wrong as regards time, but we may dismiss his opinion. The dead man's face had no make-up on it; had the murder been committed on the previous night before he had got out of his costume, the grease paint would have been still on him."

"I think that conclusion is open to argument," I said.

"I base the conclusion rather on the doctor's opinion than on the paint," said Quarles. "Now, it seems to follow that Henley's tale about being called to town was false, was apparently told for the purpose of getting out of the excursion with his comrades; and we may fairly a.s.sume that his visit to the tent was for some purpose which he did not want his companions to know anything about."

"Why did he put on the dress?" said Zena.

"That is her persistent question, Wigan, and she also asks another almost as persistently: Why, in spite of friendly words concerning Henley, should they look upon the dead body with such repugnance?"

"You make too much of that idea of mine, as I have said before," I objected.

"Let me put it another way," said Quarles. "How was it possible for them to show so little concern about a comrade they liked! They might screw themselves up to go through their performance and hide their sorrow from the public, but in private one would have expected to find them depressed. I hardly think they showed great sorrow while we were with them."

"They did not, certainly."

"May I say that Watson and Miss Day seemed the least concerned, and even venture a step further and guess that they were the two who seemed to you to look upon the dead man with repugnance?"

I admitted that this was the case, and it was then that Zena, having heard the whole story from her grandfather, accused me of lingering in the tent that night for the purpose of seeing Sister Pomona again.

"Now, two points as we go," said Quarles, interrupting our little side-spar. "Miss Day volunteered no statement when I talked of love.

Could she have made an unqualified denial I think she would have done so.

I did not ask her a direct question on purpose; I thought she would be more likely to answer an indirect one. Her silence, I fancy, was the answer. In view of what the landlady told us, I think we are safe in a.s.suming that Henley admired her, and that she was aware of the fact. The second point is Watson's defense of the men who had been in prison, his hobby, as his wife called it. We will come back to both these points in a moment. Let us consider the dead man first. The face was evidently that of a fast liver, not that of a decent man such as Watson spoke of; the throat and neck were not of the kind one expects in a singer, but, of course, we must not argue too much from this; the hands showed breed, certainly, but they had never been used to tw.a.n.g the strings of a banjo or guitar."

"But Watson distinctly said--"

"And the hat with 'H' in it had never fitted the dead man," said Quarles.

"Oh, I remember perfectly what Watson said, and, moreover, I believe I heard a good many of his thoughts which were not put into words--you can hear thoughts, you know, only it is with such delicacy that the very idea of hearing seems too heavy and materialistic to describe the sensation.

Watson said the hat was Henley's, he also said that Henley played these instruments; but the pierrots all wore hats that fitted, well-made hats, and for this reason each of them marked his hat, and the skin at the finger tips of a banjo player always hardens. The dead man was certainly not Brother Pythagoras, and so far the deduction is simple."

I made no comment.

"Now it is obvious since these entertainers agreed that it was the body of their comrade, they are in a conspiracy to deceive. Why? More than one complicated reason might be found, but let us remain simple. They knew who the dead man was, and because of what they knew of him concluded that their comrade was responsible for his death. Have you any fault to find with that deduction, Wigan?"

"I don't think it follows," I said.

"If they did not know the dead man, if they had nothing to conceal, why did they allow it to be supposed that the dead man was Henley?" said Queries. "There would be no object. They were running a risk for nothing.

As it was, their action protected Henley. No one was likely to question their identification. The dead man would be buried as Henley, and there would be an end of the matter."

"But the dead man might be identified by his friends," I said.

"Evidently they thought it worth while to run that risk, knowing perhaps that it was not a very great one. Apparently it was not, for up to now no one has made anxious inquiries for the dead man."