The Lighted Way Part 30

Mr. Jarvis, who was collecting the letters, nodded.

"It's many months since I've heard him come in whistling," he declared.

Arnold, in the outer office, received his chief's morning salutation with some surprise. Mr. Weatherley was certainly, to all appearance, in excellent spirits.

"Glad to see your late hours don't make any difference in the morning, Chetwode," he said, pleasantly. "You seem to be seeing quite a good deal of the wife, eh?"

Arnold was almost dumbfounded. Any reference to the events of the preceding evening was, for the moment, beyond him. Mr. Weatherley calmly hung up his silk hat, took out the violets from the b.u.t.ton-hole of his overcoat and carried them to his desk.

"Come along, Jarvis," he invited, as the latter entered with a rustling heap of correspondence. "We'll sort the letters as quickly as possible this morning. You come on the other side, Chetwode, and catch hold of those which we keep to deal with together. Those Mr.

Jarvis can handle, I'll just initial. Let me see--you're sure those bills of lading are in order, Jarvis?"

Mr. Jarvis plunged into a few particulars, to which his chief listened with keen attention. For half an hour or so they worked without a pause. Mr. Weatherley was quite at his best. His instructions were sage, and his grasp of every detail referred to in the various letters was lucid and complete. When at last Mr. Jarvis left with his pile, he did not hesitate to spread the good news. Mr.

Weatherley had got over his fit of depression, from whatever cause it had arisen; a misunderstanding with his wife, perhaps, or a certain amount of weariness entailed by his new manner of living. At all events, something had happened to set matters right. Mr. Jarvis was quite fluent upon the subject, and every one started his day's work with renewed energy.

Mr. Weatherley's energy did not evaporate with the departure of his confidential clerk. He motioned Arnold to a chair, and for another three-quarters of an hour he dictated replies to the letters which he had sorted out for personal supervision. When at last this was done, he leaned back in his seat, fetched out a box of cigars, carefully selected one and lit it.

"Now you had better get over to your corner and grind that lot out, Chetwode," he said pleasantly. "How are you getting on with the typing, eh?"

"I am getting quicker," Arnold replied, still wondering whether the whole events of last week had not been a dream. "I think, with a little more practice, I shall be able to go quite fast enough."

"Just so," his employer a.s.sented. "By the bye, is it my fancy, or weren't you reading the newspaper when I came in? No time for newspapers, you know, after nine o'clock."

Arnold rose to his feet. This was more than he could bear!

"I am sorry if I seemed inattentive, sir," he said. "Under the circ.u.mstances, I could not help dwelling a little over this paragraph. Perhaps you will look at it yourself, sir?"

He brought it over to the desk. Mr. Weatherley put on his spectacles with great care and drew the paper towards him.

"Hm!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "My eyesight isn't so good as it was, Chetwode, and your beastly ha'penny papers have such small print. Read it out to me--read it out to me while I smoke."

He leaned back in his padded chair, his hands folded in front of him, his cigar in the corner of his mouth. Arnold smoothed the paper out and read:

TERRIBLE DEATH OF AN UNKNOWN MAN.

FOUND DEAD IN A TAXICAB.

Early this morning, a taxicab driver entered the police station at Finchley Road North, and alleged that a pa.s.senger whom he had picked up some short time before, was dead. Inspector Challis, who was on duty at the time, hastened out to the vehicle and found that the driver's statement was apparently true. The deceased was carried into the police station and a doctor was sent for. The chauffeur's statement was that about midnight he was hailed in the Grove End Road, Hampstead, by four men, one of whom, evidently the deceased, he imagined to be the worse for drink. Two of them entered the taxicab, and one of the others directed him to drive to Finchley. After some distance, however, the driver happened to glance inside, and saw that only one of his pa.s.sengers was there. He at once stopped the vehicle, looked in at the window, and, finding that the man was unconscious, drove on to the police station.

Later information seems to point to foul play, and there is no doubt whatever that an outrage has been committed.

There was a wound upon the deceased's forehead, which the doctor p.r.o.nounces as the cause of death, and which had evidently been dealt within the last hour or so with some blunt instrument. The taxicab driver has been detained, and a full description of the murdered man's companions has been issued to the police. It is understood that nothing was found upon the deceased likely to help towards his identification.

Arnold looked up as he finished. Mr. Weatherley was still smoking.

He seemed, indeed, very little disturbed.

"A sensational story, that, Chetwode," he remarked. "You're not supposing, are you, that it was the same man who broke into my house last night?"

"I know that it was, sir," Arnold replied.

"You know that it was," Mr. Weatherley repeated, slowly. "Come, what do you mean by that?"

"I mean that after I left your house last night, sir," Arnold explained, "I realized the impossibility of that man having been carried down your drive and out into the road, with a policeman on duty directly opposite, and a cabstand within a few yards. I happened to remember that there was an empty house next door, and it struck me that it might be worth while examining the premises."

Mr. Weatherley withdrew the cigar from his mouth.

"You did that, eh?"

"I did," Arnold admitted. "I made my way to the back, and I found a light in the room which presumably had been the kitchen. From a c.h.i.n.k in the boarded-up window I saw several men in the room, including the man whom we discovered in your wife's boudoir, and who had been spirited away. He was lying motionless upon the table, and one of the others was apparently trying to restore him. When they found that it was useless, they took him off with them by the back way into Grove Lane. I saw two of them enter a taxicab and the other two make off."

"And what did you do then?" Mr. Weatherley asked.

"I went and told Count Sabatini what I had seen," Arnold replied.

"And after that?"

"I went home."

"You told no one else but Count Sabatini?" Mr. Weatherley persisted.

"No one," Arnold answered. "I bought a paper on my way to business this morning, and read what I have just read to you."

"You haven't been rus.h.i.+ng about ringing up to give information, or anything of that sort?"

"I have done nothing," Arnold a.s.serted. "I waited to lay the matter before you."

Mr. Weatherley knocked the ash from his cigar, and, discovering that it was out, carefully relit it.

"Chetwode," he said, "I have advanced you from something a little better than an office-boy, very rapidly, because it seemed to me that you had qualities. The time has arrived to test them. The secret of success in life is minding your own business. I am going to ask you to mind your own business in this matter."

"You mean," Arnold asked, "that you do not wish me to give any information, to say anything about last night?"

"I do not wish my name, or the name of my wife, or the name of my house, to be a.s.sociated with this affair at all," Mr. Weatherley replied. "Mrs. Weatherley would be very much upset and it is, besides, entirely unnecessary."

Arnold hesitated for a moment.

"It is a serious matter, sir, if you will permit me to say so," he said slowly. "The man was murdered--that seems to be clear--and, from what you and I know, it certainly seems that he was murdered in your house."

Mr. Weatherley shook his head.

"That is not my impression," he declared. "The man was found dead in Mrs. Weatherley's boudoir, but there was no one in the house or apparently within reach who was either likely to have committed such a crime, or who even could possibly have done so. On the other hand, there are this man's companions, desperate fellows, no doubt, within fifty yards all the time. My own impression is that he was killed first and then placed in the spot where he was found. However that may be, I don't want my house made the rendezvous of all the interviewers and sightseers in the neighborhood. You and I will keep our counsel, Arnold Chetwode."

"Might I ask," Arnold said, "if you knew this man--if you had ever come into contact with him or seen him before?"

"Certainly not," Mr. Weatherley replied. "What business could I possibly have with a person of that description? He seems to have been, if not an habitual criminal himself, at least an a.s.sociate of criminals, and he was without doubt a foreigner. Between you and me, Chetwode, I haven't the least doubt that the fellow was one of a gang of the worst cla.s.s of burglars. Wherever he got that blow from, it was probably no more than he deserved."

"But, Mr. Weatherley," Arnold protested, "don't you think that you ought to have an investigation among your household?"

"My dear young fellow," Mr. Weatherley answered, testily, "I keep no men-servants at all except old Groves, who's as meek-spirited as a baby, and a footman whom my wife has just engaged, and who was out for the evening. A blow such as the paper describes was certainly never struck by a woman, and there was just as certainly no other man in my house. There is nothing to inquire about. As a matter of fact, I am not curious. The man is dead and there's an end of it."

"You will bear in mind, sir," Arnold said, "that if it comes to light afterwards, as it very probably may, that the man was first discovered in Mrs. Weatherley's boudoir, the scandal and gossip will be a great deal worse than if you came forward and told the whole truth now."