The Riddle of the Frozen Flame Part 10

"Tell you the truth, Mr. Headland, I can't fit the description in anywhere among the people here," he said after a pause. "Dimmock's fairish-though he has got a moustache, but it's a military one, and Borkins is, of course, smooth shaven. The other men are clean-shaved, too, except for old Doughty, the head gardener, and he wears a full, gray beard. Why?"

Cleek shook his head.

"Nothing important. I was only just wondering. Now then, Lake, you'll be late if you loiter any longer, and our-er-friends will be waiting. Good-bye, Sir Nigel, and good luck. Lunch at one-fifteen, I take it?"

He swung upon his heel and linked his arm with Mr. Narkom's, then, taking his cap from a peg on the hall stand, clapped it on his head and went down and out to the task that awaited him, and a discovery which was, to say the least of it, startling in the extreme.

They walked for some time in comparative silence, puffing at their cigarettes. Then of a sudden, Cleek spoke.

"I say, old man, you'll want to keep a close look-out upon your own personal safety," he said, abruptly, wheeling round and meeting his friend full in the eyes.

"What d'you mean, C-Headland?"

"What I say. Someone's got wind of our real purpose here. I have a grave suspicion that that Borkins was listening at my door last evening when I was talking to Dollops. Later-well, somebody or other tried to get me in bed. But I was one too many for him-"

"My dear Cleek!"

"Mr. Lake, I beg of you-not so loud!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Cleek. "There are ears everywhere, which you as a policeman ought to know. Do remember my name and don't go losing any sleep over me. I can take care of myself, all right. But I had to do it pretty energetically last night. A thoughtful visitor stabbed the pillow I'd placed in bed instead of my humble self, and cut an incision three inches deep. Hit the mattress, too!"

"Headland, my G.o.d-!"

"Now, don't take on so. I tell you I can take care of myself, but you do the same. No one in the house knows a word about it, and I don't intend that they shall. The less said the better, in a case like this. Only those Frozen Flames are trying to eat up something that is either very serious or very money-making. One thing or the other.... h.e.l.lo, here we are! Mornin' Petrie; mornin' Hammond. All ready for the search I see."

The two constables, clad in plain clothes and accompanied by Dollops, were holding in their hands long pitchforks which looked more as if they were ready for haymaking than for the gruesome task ahead of them all. Petrie carried upon his arm a roll of rope. They swung into step behind the detectives, across the uneven, marshy ground.

It was a chilly morning, and inclined to rain. Across the flat horizon the mist hung in wraithlike forms of cloudy gray, and the deep gra.s.s into which they plunged their feet was beaded with dew. For a time they walked on quietly until they had gone perhaps a quarter of a mile. Then Cleek halted.

"Better separate here," he said, waving his arm out across the sweep of flat country. "Dollops, you take the right with Petrie. Hammond, you'd better try the left. Mr. Narkom and I will go straight ahead together. Any discovery made, just give the usual signal."

They separated at once, their feet upon the thick marshy ground leaving numberless footprints in the moist rank gra.s.s, which crushed under them like wet hay. Their heads were bent, their eyes fixed upon the ground, their faces bearing a look of utter concentration. Cleek watched them moving slowly across the wide, flat reaches of the Fens, stopping now and then to poke among the rank marsh-gra.s.s, and prod into the earth, and then turned to Mr. Narkom.

"Good fellows-those three," he said with a smile. "What more can you ask than that? Straight ahead for us, Mr. Narkom. Sir Nigel tells me the patch of charred gra.s.s lies in a direct line with the edge of the Fens where we started our search. I'm keen to have a look at it."

Mr. Narkom nodded, and walked on, poking here and there with his stout walking stick. Cleek did likewise. They rarely spoke, simply pushed and poked and trod the gra.s.s down; searching, searching, searching, as had those other men upon the night of Dacre Wynne's disappearance. But they had searched in vain for any clue which would lead to the elucidation of the mystery.

Suddenly Cleek stopped. He pointed a little ahead of him with his walking stick.

"There you are!" said he briskly. "The patch of charred gra.s.s." He strode up to it, stopped and bent his eyes upon it, then suddenly exclaimed: "Look here! Below at the roots the fresh gra.s.s is springing up in little tender green shoots. That patch'll disappear shortly. And"-he stopped and sucked in his breath, wheeling round upon Mr. Narkom-"when you come to think of it, why shouldn't it have grown up already? There's been time enough since the man Wynne's disappearance to cover up all those singed ends in a new growth. Can't be that it's done on purpose, and yet-why is it still here?"

"Perhaps some sign or something," suggested Mr. Narkom.

"Possibly, something of the sort. And if we have signs then there must be something human behind all this talk of supernatural agents," returned Cleek. "Let us take it that this patch of charred gra.s.s hides something, or marks the way to something, something buried underneath it, or lying near by. Eh-what's that?"

"That" was a cat-call ringing out across the misty silences from the direction in which Dollops and Petrie had gone.

"They've found something!" cried out Mr. Narkom, in a hoa.r.s.e whisper of excitement.

"Obviously. Well, this other thing will wait. We'll go after them."

The two of them hastened off in the direction of the repeated cat-call, and soon came upon Dollops bending over something, his eyes rather scared, just as Hammond arrived from the other direction in answer to the summons. Petrie, too, appeared rather nervous. As Cleek came up to them, his eyes fell upon the ground, and he stopped stock still.

"Gad!... Where did you find it?"

"Here, sir; half buried, but with the 'ead a-stickin' out!" returned Petrie. "Dollops and I pulled it out and-and 'ere it is."

Cleek glanced down at the body of a heavily built man, clad in evening clothes, and already in an advanced state of decomposition. "Looks like it was that chap Wynne," he said, in a matter-of-fact tone. "Answers the description all right. The other man was short and red-headed. And the evening clothes are well cut from what I can see. Must have been a handsome chap-once.... Well, we'll have to get this very gruesome find back to the Towers as quickly as possible. Got your oilskin with you, Petrie?"

"Yessir!" Petrie miraculously produced the roll from under his tunic and spread the sheet out. Then they lifted up the body and wrapped it about so that the covering hid the awfulness of it from view. Mr. Narkom mopped his forehead with his handkerchief.

"Cinnamon, Cleek!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, breathlessly. "Pretty awful, isn't it? Was it much hidden, Petrie? Funny the other people didn't find it when they searched!"

"No, sir-plain as a pikestaff!" returned Petrie importantly, for he felt the burden of responsibility and hoped that this would mean promotion. Dollops, who was by no means a regular member of the force, simply looked at Cleek with considerable pride fighting through the natural horror that the find had given birth to.

"Funny thing!" broke in Cleek at this juncture. "The only solution must be that the body was placed there some time after death.... Leave it a little longer, boys, and we'll have a further search in this direction. We may come upon poor Collins in a similar fas.h.i.+on-though thank Heaven his disappearance didn't happen quite so long ago."

They took a few steps farther in the same direction and-stopped simultaneously. Before their eyes lay the figure of Collins, in his discreet black clothes, his red head against a tuffet of moss, and a bullet wound in his temple.

"G.o.d!" said Cleek, softly, and sucked in his breath. "Two of 'em. And like this!... Looks like a plant, doesn't it? Poor chap!... And yet Merriton declared that he, as well as others, had searched every inch of this ground over and over again. Seems fishy. To find 'em both here-so close together.... Let's have a look at the other poor chap.... Hmm. Bullet wound through the right temple, too. Small-calibre revolver."

He bent down and examined the head carefully through his magnifying gla.s.s, then got slowly to his feet.

"Well, Mr. Narkom," said he, steadily, "nothing to be done at present, but to get these bodies back to the Towers. After that they can take 'em to the village mortuary if they like. But I've one or two things I'd like to ask you Merriton, and one or two things I want to examine. Gad! it's a beastly task, boys. That sheet's big enough, thank fortune! Cross the pitchforks, Petrie, and make a sort of stretcher out of them, that way. That's right. Now then, forward.... Gad! what a morning!"

But if he had known just exactly what the rest of that morning was to bring forth, indeed before lunch was served at one-fifteen, he might have hesitated to pa.s.s judgment upon it so soon.

Slowly the cavalcade wended its way across the rank gra.s.s....

CHAPTER XIV

THE SPIN OF THE WHEEL

Merriton stood at the study window, looking out, and pulling at his cigar with an air of profound meditation. Upon the hearth-rug Doctor Bartholomew, clad in baggy tweeds, stood tugging at his beard and watched the man's back with kindly, troubled eyes.

"Don't like it, Nigel, my boy; don't like it at all!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, suddenly, in his close-clipped fas.h.i.+on. "These detectives are the very devil to pay. Get 'em in one's house and they're like doctors-including, of course, my humble self-difficult to get out. Part of the profession, my boy. But a beastly nuisance. Seems to me I'd rather have the mystery than the men. Simpler, anyway. And fees, you know, are heavy."

Merriton swung round upon his heel suddenly, his brows like a thunder cloud.

"I don't care a d.a.m.n about that," he broke out angrily. "Let 'em take every penny I've got, so long as they solve the thing! But I can't get away from it-I just can't. Hangs over me night and day like the sword of Damocles! Until the mystery of Wynne's disappearance is cleared up, I tell you 'Toinette and I can't marry. She feels the same. And-and-we've the house all ready, you know, everything fixed and in order, except this. When poor old Collins disappeared, too, I found I'd reached my limit. So here these detectives are, and, on the whole, jolly decent chaps I find 'em."

Doctor Bartholomew shrugged his shoulders as if to say, "Have it your own way, my boy." But what he really did say was:

"What are their names?"

"Young chap's Headland-George or John Headland, I don't remember quite which. Other one's Lake-Gregory Lake."

"H'm. Good name that, Nigel. Ought to be some brains behind it. But I never did pin my faith on policemen, you know, boy. Scotland Yard's made so many mistakes that if it hadn't been for that chap Cleek, they'd have ruined themselves altogether. Now, he's a man, if you like! Pity you couldn't get him while you're about it."

The impulse to tell who "George Headland" really was to this firm friend who had been more than a father to him, even in the old days, and who had made a point of dropping down upon him, informally, ever since the trouble over Dacre Wynne's disappearance, took hold of Nigel. But he shook it off. He had given his word. And if he could not tell 'Toinette, then no other soul in the universe should know. So he simply tossed his shoulders, and, going back to the window, looked out of it, to hide the something of triumph which had stolen into his face.