Whatsoever a Man Soweth Part 20

"They've opened a place under the floor, across there," explained the doctor, pointing to the corner where the carpet was still laid back from the boards.

She raised herself quickly upon her elbow and glanced in the direction indicated, staring straight at the spot with a look of terror in her eyes. No word escaped her lips. Her jaws seemed again fixed, her breath held, her fingers clenched into the palms.

She realised that the secret hiding-place had been discovered.

"What have they taken?" she gasped, in a low, terrified tone, when at last she found tongue.

"Apparently everything," I replied. "The place is empty."

"Empty!" she echoed, raising herself to her feet with an effort, but reeling unsteadily back to the couch, for her head was still swimming after the effects of the chloroform. "The fiends!" she cried.

"And poor Jane. How is she?"

"I much regret, madam, that the chloroform administered to her has had a fatal effect," said the doctor, gravely.

"Dead! Jane dead?"

"Yes. They've killed her," declared the inspector. "It's wilful murder, that's what it is, mum. Therefore, if you can give us any information as to who these ruffians may be we'll be very glad. We must arrest them at all costs. Who do you think they might be?"

But Mrs Parham, although a strange look crossed her white, haggard features, made no response to the officer's question.

"Poor Jane! Poor Jane--the brutes!" she kept on repeating, her wild eyes staring across to where the body of the dead maid-servant was lying.

From her manner I felt convinced that she suspected who the intruders were, now that she knew that their motive had been to search in that secret cavity beneath the floor of the drawing-room, and possess themselves of something concealed there.

Would she denounce them?

The inspector again questioned her, but her answers were evasive.

"My husband is in the country," she explained. "He is very often away, for his business often takes him on the Continent, to Paris and Amsterdam."

"But how do you think these men got into the house?" the officer asked.

"I notice that the inner gla.s.s door of the hall closes with a latch which can only be opened from the inside. Therefore, if they had entered the front door with a false key they could not have pa.s.sed the inner door."

This fact was interesting, and one which I had entirely overlooked.

"I have no idea how they could have entered. Perhaps by a window."

"Or perhaps by the servants' entrance," Lane suggested.

"They couldn't have got in that way, mum, because they'd have to pa.s.s through the kitchen, and cook was there all the time. Besides, we're always very careful that that door is never left ajar."

"It's evident that they were concealed in the house," I remarked, recollecting that tall shadowy figure that had crossed the room on tip-toe at the instant that the blind had been lowered.

"Of course," agreed the inspector. "But what we want to know is whether this lady has any suspicion of anyone to whose advantage it would be to obtain possession of what was concealed there."

"I don't know what was in there," she declared, in a weak, nervous voice. "My husband made the place himself a few months ago, as he often has valuable jewellery here. In the City he has a strong room, of course, but here he deemed it best to make a secret hiding-place rather than have a fire-proof safe, which is always discussed by servants, and the knowledge of which in a private house so soon becomes common property."

"Then he used to keep valuables there?" asked the inspector.

"I believe so, but I never looked inside. It opened with a spring, the secret of which he alone knew."

"Who made it? The man who constructed it knew the secret, no doubt. He may be one of those implicated."

"The piece of board with the spring he brought home with him from Paris one day. It was made there, he said. The steel box was made somewhere in Chelsea."

"And who fitted the board so evenly?"

"He did himself. He is an amateur cabinetmaker, and at one time used to make furniture. He made that table over there," she added, pointing to a small round table standing near the corner where was the secret cavity.

"Then no workman was actually employed in fitting it up?" remarked the inspector, disappointedly.

"No. He did it himself, so that n.o.body should know. And he would not even let me know the secret of the spring."

"Which showed some distrust," remarked the inspector. "He evidently possessed something there which he did not wish you to see."

"Yes. That, however, is not surprising," she remarked. "Many husbands have secrets--family affairs and such like--with which they hesitate to trouble their wives."

"Certainly," he said, glancing dubiously at me, and no doubt recollecting that gruesome object now in the doctor's pocket. "But it seems very strange that thieves should come here so boldly, attack both you and the maid-servant, and go straight to that secret hiding-place if there was not some very strong motive. They evidently knew there was something there--something of which they desired to obtain possession."

"But they didn't know the secret of the spring, for they prised it open."

I placed my hand in my overcoat pocket, and it came in contact with the portrait which I had succeeded in taking--the picture of the dead unknown.

Why had it been kept in such a prominent position in her room? I longed to question her, but at that moment was unable.

The mystery of the murderous attack in which the maid had lost her life; the mystery of that tall, thin man who crept across the apartment; the mystery of the theft; the mystery of the human eye, were all enigmas utterly beyond solution.

I took Laking aside and obtained a promise from him not to explain the circ.u.mstances under which we had met. Then to Mrs Parham I introduced myself later as a casual pa.s.ser-by who had been alarmed by the startling discovery. I did this because I intended to call again and make the acquaintance of her husband.

Half an hour later, after all inquiry of Mrs Parham had failed to elicit a single fact regarding any person who might have a motive for the outrage and robbery, I left the house, and walked down the dark, deserted suburban thoroughfare accompanied by the police inspector, who was on his way back to the station to telegraph the curious facts to Scotland Yard.

"Well?" I asked, when we were out in the roadway, "and what do you make of the affair?"

"What do I think? Why, the lady is lying. She knows who did it, but fears to tell us the truth. There was something hidden under the floor which those people intended to get, and got it. Mark me! She dare not speak, otherwise she'll ruin her own reputation. When we fathom the mystery of to-night it will be found to be a very interesting one, depend upon it."

"Then you really suspect her?" I remarked. "Yes, I suspect her. She has some secret from her husband--and she fears that through this robbery he may learn the truth."

"You know Mr Parham, perhaps--I mean you know something about him?"

"Well, yes," he answered, smiling curiously. "We happen to know Mr Parham--and if what I suspect is true, then the affair of to-night is not surprising. Wait and see. The real facts, when they come to light, will very probably amaze you."

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

BY WHICH SYBIL EXPLAINS SOMETHING.

Three weeks went by--dull, dreary weeks of constant anxiety. With the a.s.sistance of Eric--to whom I had, of course, explained the tragic incident in the home of John Parham--I was ever on the alert, compelled to go down to Neate Street at infrequent intervals in secret from Eric and pose for a few hours in the daytime as the husband of little Mrs Morton.

Poor Tibbie led a dreary life in that drab mean street. Mrs Williams was kind and pleasant, pitying the young wife so constantly separated from her husband. But if my work took me away, well, she ought not to grumble, the good woman declared. There were lots of compositors out of work she had heard, now that those linotypes were so universally adopted. And so she cheered Tibbie up, and the latter sought distraction by doing fancy needlework.