________________________________________________
_ After a busy and sleepless night he came down to report to the
Chief Commissioner the next morning. The evening newspaper bills
were filled with the "Chelsea Sensation" but the information given
was of a meagre character.
Since Fisher had disappeared, many of the details which could have
been secured by the enterprising pressmen were missing. There was
no reference to the visit of Mr. Gathercole and in self-defence
the press had fallen back upon a statement, which at an earlier
period had crept into the newspapers in one of those chatty
paragraphs which begin "I saw my friend Kara at Giros" and end
with a brief but inaccurate summary of his hobbies. The paragraph
had been to the effect that Mr. Kara had been in fear of his life
for some time, as a result of a blood feud which existed between
himself and another Albanian family. Small wonder, therefore, the
murder was everywhere referred to as "the political crime of the
century."
"So far," reported T. X. to his superior, "I have been unable to
trace either Gathercole or the valet. The only thing we know
about Gathercole is that he sent his article to The Times with his
card. The servants of his Club are very vague as to his
whereabouts. He is a very eccentric man, who only comes in
occasionally, and the steward whom I interviewed says that it
frequently happened that Gathercole arrived and departed without
anybody being aware of the fact. We have been to his old lodgings
in Lincoln's Inn, but apparently he sold up there before he went
away to the wilds of Patagonia and relinquished his tenancy.
"The only clue I have is that a man answering to some extent to
his description left by the eleven o'clock train for Paris last
night."
"You have seen the secretary of course," said the Chief.
It was a question which T. X. had been dreading.
"Gone too," he answered shortly; "in fact she has not been seen
since 5:30 yesterday evening."
Sir George leant back in his chair and rumpled his thick grey
hair.
"The only person who seems to have remained," he said with heavy
sarcasm, "was Kara himself. Would you like me to put somebody
else on this case - it isn't exactly your job - or will you carry
it on?"
"I prefer to carry it on, sir," said T. X. firmly.
"Have you found out anything more about Kara?"
T. X. nodded.
"All that I have discovered about him is eminently discreditable,"
he said. "He seems to have had an ambition to occupy a very
important position in Albania. To this end he had bribed and
subsidized the Turkish and Albanian officials and had a fairly
large following in that country. Bartholomew tells me that Kara
had already sounded him as to the possibility of the British
Government recognising a fait accompli in Albania and had been
inducing him to use his influence with the Cabinet to recognize
the consequence of any revolution. There is no doubt whatever
that Kara has engineered all the political assassinations which
have been such a feature in the news from Albania during this past
year. We also found in the house very large sums of money and
documents which we have handed over to the Foreign Office for
decoding."
Sir George thought for a long time.
Then he said, "I have an idea that if you find your secretary you
will be half way to solving the mystery."
T. X. went out from the office in anything but a joyous mood. He
was on his way to lunch when he remembered his promise to call
upon John Lexman.
Could Lexman supply a key which would unravel this tragic tangle?
He leant out of his taxi-cab and redirected the driver. It
happened that the cab drove up to the door of the Great Midland
Hotel as John Lexman was coming out.
"Come and lunch with me," said T. X. "I suppose you've heard all
the news."
"I read about Kara being killed, if that's what you mean," said
the other. "It was rather a coincidence that I should have been
discussing the matter last night at the very moment when his
telephone bell rang - I wish to heaven you hadn't been in this,"
he said fretfully.
"Why?" asked the astonished Assistant Commissioner, "and what do
you mean by 'in it'?"
"In the concrete sense I wish you had not been present when I
returned," said the other moodily, "I wanted to be finished with
the whole sordid business without in any way involving my
friends."
"I think you are too sensitive," laughed the other, clapping him
on the shoulder. "I want you to unburden yourself to me, my dear
chap, and tell me anything you can that will help me to clear up
this mystery."
John Lexman looked straight ahead with a worried frown.
"I would do almost anything for you, T. X.," he said quietly, "the
more so since I know how good you were to Grace, but I can't help
you in this matter. I hated Kara living, I hate him dead," he
cried, and there was a passion in his voice which was
unmistakable; "he was the vilest thing that ever drew the breath
of life. There was no villainy too despicable, no cruelty so
horrid but that he gloried in it. If ever the devil were
incarnate on earth he took the shape and the form of Remington
Kara. He died too merciful a death by all accounts. But if there
is a God, this man will suffer for his crimes in hell through all
eternity."
T. X. looked at him in astonishment. The hate in the man's face
took his breath away. Never before had he experienced or
witnessed such a vehemence of loathing.
"What did Kara do to you?" he demanded.
The other looked out of the window.
"I am sorry," he said in a milder tone; "that is my weakness.
Some day I will tell you the whole story but for the moment it
were better that it were not told. I will tell you this," he
turned round and faced the detective squarely, "Kara tortured and
killed my wife."
T. X. said no more.
Half way through lunch he returned indirectly to the subject.
"Do you know Gathercole?" he asked.
T. X. nodded.
"I think you asked me that question once before, or perhaps it was
somebody else. Yes, I know him, rather an eccentric man with an
artificial arm."
"That's the cove," said T. X. with a little sigh; "he's one of the
few men I want to meet just now."
"Why?"
"Because he was apparently the last man to see Kara alive."
John Lexman looked at the other with an impatient jerk of his
shoulders.
"You don't suspect Gathercole, do you?" he asked.
"Hardly," said the other drily; "in the first place the man that
committed this murder had two hands and needed them both. No, I
only want to ask that gentleman the subject of his conversation.
I also want to know who was in the room with Kara when Gathercole
went in."
"H'm," said John Lexman.
"Even if I found who the third person was, I am still puzzled as
to how they got out and fastened the heavy latch behind them. Now
in the old days, Lexman," he said good humouredly, "you would have
made a fine mystery story out of this. How would you have made
your man escape?"
Lexman thought for a while.
"Have you examined the safe!" he asked.
"Yes," said the other.
"Was there very much in it?"
T. X. looked at him in astonishment.
"Just the ordinary books and things. Why do you ask?"
"Suppose there were two doors to that safe, one on the outside of
the room and one on the inside, would it be possible to pass
through the safe and go down the wall?"
"I have thought of that," said T. X.
"Of course," said Lexman, leaning back and toying with a
salt-spoon, "in writing a story where one hasn't got to deal with
the absolute possibilities, one could always have made Kara have a
safe of that character in order to make his escape in the event of
danger. He might keep a rope ladder stored inside, open the back
door, throw out his ladder to a friend and by some trick
arrangement could detach the ladder and allow the door to swing to
again."
"A very ingenious idea," said T. X., "but unfortunately it doesn't
work in this case. I have seen the makers of the safe and there
is nothing very eccentric about it except the fact that it is
mounted as it is. Can you offer another suggestion?"
John Lexman thought again.
"I will not suggest trap doors, or secret panels or anything so
banal," he said, "nor mysterious springs in the wall which, when
touched, reveal secret staircases."
He smiled slightly.
"In my early days, I must confess I, was rather keen upon that
sort of thing, but age has brought experience and I have
discovered the impossibility of bringing an architect to one's way
of thinking even in so commonplace a matter as the position of a
scullery. It would be much more difficult to induce him to
construct a house with double walls and secret chambers."
T. X. waited patiently.
"There is a possibility, of course," said Lexman slowly, "that the
steel latch may have been raised by somebody outside by some
ingenious magnetic arrangement and lowered in a similar manner."
"I have thought about it," said T. X. triumphantly, "and I have
made the most elaborate tests only this morning. It is quite
impossible to raise the steel latch because once it is dropped it
cannot be raised again except by means of the knob, the pulling of
which releases the catch which holds the bar securely in its
place. Try another one, John."
John Lexman threw back his head in a noiseless laugh.
"Why I should be helping you to discover the murderer of Kara is
beyond my understanding," he said, "but I will give you another
theory, at the same time warning you that I may be putting you off
the track. For God knows I have more reason to murder Kara than
any man in the world."
He thought a while.
"The chimney was of course impossible?"
"There was a big fire burning in the grate," explained T. X.; "so
big indeed that the room was stifling."
John Lexman nodded.
"That was Kara's way," he said; "as a matter of fact I know the
suggestion about magnetism in the steel bar was impossible,
because I was friendly with Kara when he had that bar put in and
pretty well know the mechanism, although I had forgotten it for
the moment. What is your own theory, by the way?"
T. X. pursed his lips.
"My theory isn't very clearly formed," he said cautiously, "but so
far as it goes, it is that Kara was lying on the bed probably
reading one of the books which were found by the bedside when his
assailant suddenly came upon him. Kara seized the telephone to
call for assistance and was promptly killed."
Again there was silence.
"That is a theory," said John Lexman. with his curious
deliberation of speech, "but as I say I refuse to be definite -
have you found the weapon?"
T. X. shook his head.
"Were there any peculiar features about the room which astonished
you, and which you have not told me?"
T. X. hesitated.
"There were two candles," he said, "one in the middle of the room
and one under the bed. That in the middle of the room was a small
Christmas candle, the one under the bed was the ordinary candle of
commerce evidently roughly cut and probably cut in the room. We
found traces of candle chips on the floor and it is evident to me
that the portion which was cut off was thrown into the fire, for
here again we have a trace of grease."
Lexman nodded.
"Anything further?" he asked.
"The smaller candle was twisted into a sort of corkscrew shape."
"The Clue of the Twisted Candle," mused John Lexman "that's a very
good title - Kara hated candles."
"Why?"
Lexman leant back in his chair, selected a cigarette from a silver
case.
"In my wanderings," he said, "I have been to many strange places.
I have been to the country which you probably do not know, and
which the traveller who writes books about countries seldom
visits. There are queer little villages perched on the spurs of
the bleakest hills you ever saw. I have lived with communities
which acknowledge no king and no government. These have their
laws handed down to them from father to son - it is a nation
without a written language. They administer their laws rigidly
and drastically. The punishments they award are cruel - inhuman.
I have seen, the woman taken in adultery stoned to death as in the
best Biblical traditions, and I have seen the thief blinded."
T. X. shivered.
"I have seen the false witness stand up in a barbaric market place
whilst his tongue was torn from him. Sometimes the Turks or the
piebald governments of the state sent down a few gendarmes and
tried a sort of sporadic administration of the country. It
usually ended in the representative of the law lapsing into
barbarism, or else disappearing from the face of the earth, with a
whole community of murderers eager to testify, with singular
unanimity, to the fact that he had either committed suicide or had
gone off with the wife of one of the townsmen.
"In some of these communities the candle plays a big part. It is
not the candle of commerce as you know it, but a dip made from
mutton fat. Strap three between the fingers of your hands and
keep the hand rigid with two flat pieces of wood; then let the
candles burn down lower and lower - can you imagine? Or set a
candle in a gunpowder trail and lead the trail to a well-oiled
heap of shavings thoughtfully heaped about your naked feet. Or a
candle fixed to the shaved head of a man - there are hundreds of
variations and the candle plays a part in all of them. I don't
know which Kara had cause to hate the worst, but I know one or two
that he has employed."
"Was he as bad as that?" asked T. X.
John Lexman laughed.
"You don't know how bad he was," he said.
Towards the end of the luncheon the waiter brought a note in to T.
X. which had been sent on from his office.
"Dear Mr. Meredith,
"In. answer to your enquiry I believe my daughter is in London,
but I did not know it until this morning. My banker informs me
that my daughter called at the bank this morning and drew a
considerable sum of money from her private account, but where she
has gone and what she is doing with the money I do not know. I
need hardly tell you that I am very worried about this matter and
I should be glad if you could explain what it is all about."
It was signed "William Bartholomew."
T. X. groaned.
"If I had only had the sense to go to the bank this morning, I
should have seen her," he said. "I'm going to lose my job over
this."
The other looked troubled.
"You don't seriously mean that"
"Not exactly," smiled T. X., "but I don't think the Chief is very
pleased with me just now. You see I have butted into this
business without any authority - it isn't exactly in my
department. But you have not given me your theory about the
candles."
"I have no theory to offer," said the other, folding up his
serviette; "the candles suggest a typical Albanian murder. I do
not say that it was so, I merely say that by their presence they
suggest a crime of this character."
With this T. X. had to be content.
If it were not his business to interest himself in commonplace
murder - though this hardly fitted such a description - it was
part of the peculiar function which his department exercised to
restore to Lady Bartholomew a certain very elaborate snuff-box
which he discovered in the safe.
Letters had been found amongst his papers which made clear the
part which Kara had played. Though he had not been a vulgar
blackmailer he had retained his hold, not only upon this
particular property of Lady Bartholomew, but upon certain other
articles which were discovered, with no other object, apparently,
than to compel influence from quarters likely to be of assistance
to him in his schemes.
The inquest on the murdered man which the Assistant Commissioner
attended produced nothing in the shape of evidence and the
coroner's verdict of "murder against some person or persons
unknown" was only to be expected.
T. X. spent a very busy and a very tiring week tracing elusive
clues which led him nowhere. He had a letter from John Lexman
announcing the fact that he intended leaving for the United
States. He had received a very good offer from a firm of magazine
publishers in New York and was going out to take up the
appointment.
Meredith's plans were now in fair shape. He had decided upon the
line of action he would take and in the pursuance of this he
interviewed his Chief and the Minister of Justice.
"Yes, I have heard from my daughter," said that great man
uncomfortably, "and really she has placed me in a most
embarrassing position. I cannot tell you, Mr. Meredith, exactly
in what manner she has done this, but I can assure you she has."
"Can I see her letter or telegram?" asked T. X.
"I am afraid that is impossible," said the other solemnly; "she
begged me to keep her communication very secret. I have written
to my wife and asked her to come home. I feel the constant strain
to which I am being subjected is more than human man can endure."
"I suppose," said T. X. patiently, "it is impossible for you to
tell me to what address you have replied?"
"To no address," answered the other and corrected himself
hurriedly; "that is to say I only received the telegram - the
message this morning and there is no address - to reply to."
"I see," said T. X.
That afternoon he instructed his secretary.
"I want a copy of all the agony advertisements in to-morrow's
papers and in the last editions of the evening papers - have them
ready for me tomorrow morning when I come."
They were waiting for him when he reached the office at nine
o'clock the next day and he went through them carefully.
Presently he found the message he was seeking.
B. M. You place me awkward position. Very thoughtless. Have
received package addressed your mother which have placed in
mother's sitting-room. Cannot understand why you want me to go
away week-end and give servants holiday but have done so. Shall
require very full explanation. Matter gone far enough. Father.
"This," said T. X. exultantly, as he read the advertisement, "is
where I get busy." _
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