The Riddle of the Purple Emperor

"Now, my friend," said the man, as he pushed Cleek roughly into a stout kitchen chair. "What have you done with the girl? Come, out with it! We've no intention of having dangerous witnesses against us. Tell us where that girl is, and we'll let you off with your life. But if you don't – "

Cleek looked as surprised as he honestly felt.

"What girl?" he asked, bluntly.

"Now, then, none of your tricks," snarled the woman with a nasty laugh. "You know right enough, the girl you drove here and came back in such a precious stew about afterwards! Lord, how we took you in! A proper old 'do' it was."

She laughed hysterically. "The clever devil! He was a bit too clever, eh? Didn't get over me, though." Her voice broke, and it was evident that she had already been drinking heavily.

The man, seeing this, interrupted her.

"Stow it, Aggie, my girl," said he with an oath. "We've had enough of that. Now, then, you tell us quick or it will be the worst for you."

"If you mean Lady Margaret Cheyne," Cleek said in a calm voice, "you know more about her than I do. She was in your hands!"

"Yes, and safe and sound, too!" snarled Aggie. "What we want to know is who broke in 'ere and took 'er away? You're the only person wot's bin actually near the place, so it's no use your denying it."

Cleek shook his head, and favoured her with a bewildered smile.

"I do, and I give you my oath. I have not seen her since I left her asleep in the chair upstairs," he responded. "I wish to God I had! We've been searching for her long enough, goodness knows!"

The man stared at the woman and the woman stared at the man. There was dismay written large on both their faces. It looked as if a mistake had been made after all.

"What are you going to do now?" asked Aggie in a breathless whisper. "I don't believe it – still – "

"Believe it or not, I'm going to finish him," growled the man in response. "Dead men tell no tales, my girl, and her precious ladyship won't do us no harm. And as for other things – "

Their laughter filled the vaulted chamber, sending the echoes chasing back and forth. Cleek's heart sank like lead. So this was to be the end. This. After all his escapes, all his plans for the precious future with Ailsa. His soul was sick within him.

"Come, let's have one more drink of the old girl's wine. Pretty good taste, too, and then we'll put this johnny to sleep for good," went on the man in a calm, steady voice as though the task of putting people to sleep for good was an easy matter.

"Are you sure it's safe to leave 'im?" asked Aggie. "There might have been someone else on the watch."

"Not a soul, my dear. Come on!"

Still laughing, they passed into the inner room, leaving Cleek trussed up like a fowl upon the floor and utterly helpless to assist himself.

In his anxiety to find the girl whom he had driven all unconsciously into danger, Cleek had had no thought for himself, and he felt that any help that Dollops might bring would be too late to save him. The studded door swung back on its hinges, and all was as silent as the grave it would so soon become.

Two minutes passed, three – five – perhaps ten, and still the quiet was unbroken. Cleek, his eyes strained toward the window which he would have given worlds to be able to reach or drag himself to, waited like a mouse in a trap.

Suddenly an odd gleam of sunlight came through the dust-laden, begrimed window, and as it did so, it lit up two tiny shreds of substance which caused Cleek's heart to leap to his throat. With his unmistakable gift of memory, he knew from whence they came, he knew now many things.

He knew how Lady Margaret had escaped and also, if his memory served him rightly, the identity of the person who had assisted her, though for what ends it was impossible to know.

Suddenly on his reverie a sound broke at last and Cleek braced himself for the end. To die like this – like a rat in a trap with no chance to fight for one's self! Well, it was Fate, and he could not quarrel with it.

But this was no sound of triumphant captor, rather of someone moving down the stone passage with the greatest of caution. It was so faint that ears less keen than his might not have detected it. And at first he thought it was the man come to finish his task or even Aggie, his companion. Yet at the first soft footfall he knew it was neither of them. Then inch by inch the door pushed its way open until it was wide enough to allow the slight body of Dollops to pass through.

At the sight of his master he leapt forward and whipping out a knife cut the bond that bound him.

Cleek stretched his head luxuriously.

"Dollops, lad, that was a narrow shave," he said with a sudden little laugh. But the boy's face was grave.

"Quick, sir, for the land's sake. I know a new way out," he whispered, as he dragged away the chair. "They've drunken themselves blind, but any minute – quick, sir – come on – come, do!"

Cleek did come on, and after one grab at the window, switched on his heel and sped swiftly and noiselessly in the wake of Dollops. Not so noiselessly, however, but what some faint sound must have penetrated even the wine-fuddled brains of the man and woman, for there came the sound of swift footsteps, a yell of disappointment, then the patter of pursuing feet which stumbled uncertainly. To Cleek it seemed as if they must be caught and would have to fight for it. So affecting the quick, heavy tones of Mr. Narkom he shouted lustily at the top of his voice, and the house rang with the echoes.

"Come on, lads, we'll find him yet! Down this passage, and here they are."

And he tramped the stones with his boots till the passage resounded as with the feet of many men. It was a chance throw, but it had the desired effect, for with a smothered yell the two turned and fled back to the wine-cellar. Dollops caught Cleek quickly by the arm.

"Let's get out, sir. Don't stop to catch them till we gets help," pleaded he, and Cleek, realizing the futility of attempting to capture these two members of the Pentacle Gang if he knew anything, single-handed and unarmed as he was, did as he was bidden. Together they left the big house by Dollops' new egress, a biggish pantry window standing conveniently open, and so reached the safety of the grounds. Despite the rush, Cleek had contrived to snatch at the two fragments clinging to the cellar window ledge, and a little smile crossed his face as Dollops uttered words of remorse at having let his precious master into the trap alone.

Cleek squeezed his arm with an impulsive gesture.

"Dollops," he said, softly. "Be quiet. You've put one more thread into my hands, and you've saved my life into the bargain. If that's not enough for one afternoon, then you're a greedier chap than I thought."

Dollops gulped loudly in answer and seizing Cleek's hand, squeezed it tightly in both his own.

It was not until they had arrived safely at the Hampton Arms and were in the company of Mr. Narkom himself that Dollops gave vent to his relief.

The Superintendent gasped when he heard their story. "This must be the rest of the gang," he said, "but how and where they get to puzzles me!"

"So it does me," threw in Cleek, quietly. "There is evidently some unknown hiding place. What's that? Go back now with you to catch them? No, no, Mr. Narkom, surely you will give them more credit than that. My little trick succeeded, but they will not stop to be caught like rats in a trap. A stronger guard must be kept in future, and I will take care not to be caught napping myself. By the way, I suppose that you have seen the authorities about the inquest."

Mr. Narkom nodded vigorously.

"Yes, it is fixed for to-morrow, at the house itself," he said.

CHAPTER XIX

THE TWIN SCARVES

To say that the village went mad with excitement when the bodies of the two victims, man and woman, were laid side by side in the great ballroom of Cheyne Court was to underestimate the case altogether. The villagers were literally crazed for the time being, and when news reached them, as such news will, that an inquest was to be held in that identical spot in a day or two, daft was no name for their condition at all.

Cleek himself would have smiled at the rumours which were rife.

So a revolver had been found beside the body of the murdered man who had so successfully impersonated the Honourable Miss Cheyne herself, had it? And – what? No, it couldn't be possible! Mrs. So-and-So had whispered that that identical revolver was the property of Sir Edgar himself! It was too much to believe; too horrible to think about! That little Master Edgar whom they had watched grow up from a toddling babe of two, prattling to his nurse on their walks through the village, and winning their hearts with the sweetness of his manner, that that child should have grown up and become a murderer. The thought was impossible.

When the day of the inquest finally arrived, all Hampton turned out and put in an appearance at Cheyne Court.

To tell the exact truth, Cleek's own mind was suffused for the time being with something that closely resembled doubt as regards Sir Edgar's innocence in the whole awful affair. Circumstantial evidence he had always regarded as a spider's web of coincidence to be brushed aside with the broom of a man's reason. But, somehow, this was different.

He took his stand at the back of the great ballroom, and watched with keen eyes and saddened heart, while the coroner put forth the case in all its bald appallingness.

In a sort of dream he heard that gentleman impart to the jury gathered there for the purposes of justice the colossal fact that they were met together to inquire primarily into the death of an unknown man, whose identification, up to the present, they had wholly failed to establish.

Cleek shifted upon his feet and cast a quick glance over to the other side of the room, where Bobby Wynne and his sister Jennifer stood together, listening with unveiled interest. If they were in no way connected with it, their morbid curiosity in the affair sickened him. But if they were—

Watching the scene, as a mere spectator (he had particularly requested Mr. Narkom to make arrangements that he should not be called in any official capacity) Cleek felt that he could more clearly review the situation.

Constable Roberts was the first witness to be called. He told, briefly, of his encounter with the young "military gent," who had fetched him in a car at 10 o'clock on March 11th, and dragged him forth upon what proved eventually to be nothing more than a wild-goose chase. The lady whom the young gent had said was lying dead was alive, "and very much alive, sir!" added the constable with some conviction, "and 'e was as took in as wot I was meself."

Cleek nodded at this, and the little one-sided smile slid slowly up his face at this unconscious admission.

The coroner also nodded.

"Indeed," he said, in proper judicial manner, "and did you meet no one then upon the return journey, Mr. Roberts?"

"Er – er – " Roberts began, staring confusedly round the room, and turning red, "that is, no one as is any bearings upon the case, so to speak – not suspicious at all wasn't, sir, and – and – "

But the Coroner's voice broke in upon his flounderings with sharp incisiveness.

"That isn't altogether your affair, Mr. Roberts," he said, concisely, "the meting out of justice lies in other hands, and whether he was a suspicious character or not remains, of course, to be seen. The point is, who was it?"

A sort of grayness dropped down like a veil over the policeman's ruddy countenance, he drew in his breath with a little gasp, and passed a hand over his perspiring forehead.

"The gentleman wot I saw was Sir Edgar Brenton," he said, suddenly, in a strangled voice, "but what 'e 'as to do with it, beats me. For 'e was coming back from the station – "

"How do you know that?"

"Because 'e said so," responded the constable, decisively.

The simplicity of the statement, and the utter belief in the man's voice, brought a sudden look of sympathy flashing across Cleek's countenance. It was the finest tribute to the character of the young man that he could receive. The Coroner's voice broke in upon Cleek's thoughts.

"You may stand down," he said. And the Constable stood down with a look of relief upon his countenance.

The second witness was Dr. Verrall, pale-faced and calm, but with an odd look in his eyes that caused Cleek to watch him closely. Right through his evidence he gave the impression of saying only just as much as was absolutely necessary, and of keeping something back. But upon one point he was clear.

"Your first belief, then," the Coroner said, quietly, "was that the deceased was shot by the revolver at his side?"

"Yes."

"And afterward?"

"Afterward, unmistakable traces were pointed out by Inspector Headland who was on the scene when I arrived, and I came to the conclusion that he had undoubtedly been poisoned by prussic acid compressed into a tabloid by the use of magnesia."

A quiver of interest swept over the assembled audience. Poisoned! Then perhaps Sir Edgar —

"Was it possible for the man to have taken it himself; committed suicide, in fact?" put in the Coroner, breaking in upon the thought that was in every heart.

"No. There were finger-marks upon his neck showing that he had been seized, and the poisoned pellet pushed forcibly down his throat. Death must have taken place almost immediately."

The Coroner cleared his throat.

"Would it be possible to identify the finger-prints, Dr. Verrall?" he asked. For the fraction of a second there was no reply. The doctor hesitated, coughed affectedly, and passed his hand across his mouth. Then:

"Hardly," he responded in a cool, clear voice. "Death had taken place fully an hour or so before. They were evidently long, slender fingers, but that was all that could be gathered."

"H'mn! Slender, eh? A woman's possibly?"

Something like fear came into the doctor's face, and was gone again in a twinkling.

"Certainly not!" he snapped back with a sudden show of vehemence. "They were decidedly those of a man. Besides, there were the marks of a heavy seal ring upon the throat."

A seal ring? Like a flash the thought telegraphed itself over the long, crowded room. Cleek gave a hasty glance backward over his shoulder, and encountered the eye of Sir Edgar Brenton standing near the doorway, with his pale-faced mother beside him.

But other eyes than Cleek's were looking in his direction now. A seal ring? And Sir Edgar's seal had been upon his finger ever since he attained his majority! Every member of the village community recollected his delighted pleasure when that day came round… And there were marks of a seal ring upon the murdered man's throat.

"And where was the revolver found?" the Coroner inquired.

"Close by the dead man's side. He had been dead quite a long time before he was shot, and rigour mortis was already setting in. Whoever fired the shot sent it into a dead man's breast."

"Quite so… And I understand that this is the revolver in question." He held up a little dark metal object that caught the light in one vivid bar along its slim barrel.

Dr. Verrall bowed his head.

"That is so," he said, calmly.

"And do you know to whom it belongs?"

"I cannot say."

There was a hushed silence fraught with a sort of stalking terror that sent every heart beating and every pulse drumming with the awful thought of what might be.

Then:

"That will do for the present, Dr. Verrall. Thank you very much," came in the same clear tones and the crowd heaved a sigh of relief. Who would be the next to be called?

The next to be called proved to be no less a person than Mr. Maverick Narkom himself, who in his concise fashion related for the edification of all present how he and his colleague, Mr. George Headland, of Scotland Yard, had together discovered the body.

"Were there any signs of a struggle?" asked the Coroner, quietly, with a little added show of respect for the dignity of his witness's position.

"Yes," responded Mr. Narkom, excitedly. "Decidedly there were. That was evidenced by the scrap of torn lace found in the dead man's hand, and – "

"Torn lace?" echoed someone involuntarily aloud. Then there was a woman in it, after all!

Mr. Narkom mopped his forehead with a handkerchief and glanced about him.

"Yes, torn lace, gold lace," he reiterated.

"Can you identify it?"

There was a momentary hesitation; meanwhile, Cleek's eyes sought his and Cleek's lips seemed to say: "Be careful. Keep Lady Margaret out of it if you can," and Mr. Narkom responded to that appeal with surprising alacrity.

"I can't say that I can," he said with a slight smile and a shake of the head.

But the Coroner had not done with the subject yet. He held the little fragment of gold high above his head, and then handed it round the table.

"Can any one identify it?" he asked, and all eyes went instantly in its direction. There was no response, only, as Cleek looked, a queer, shocked sort of expression came over Sir Edgar's countenance.

Just as Cleek's face dropped into lines of concentrated thought there came the sound of a voice somewhat high-pitched and clear, with the carefully accurate accent of a foreigner. Cleek whipped round to see the slim, turbaned figure of Gunga Dall standing far back in the room.

"If I may be so permitted," he said in the bland, smooth fashion of his, as the crowd instinctively parted and made way for him to come to the front, "I should like to identify that scrap of gold lace."

Identify it? The hush that came over the room could almost be felt, it was so intense, so absolute.

"We shall be pleased to receive your evidence," broke in the Coroner, shortly; he, like Sir Edgar, had no partiality for "niggers."

There was a sort of polite regret upon Gunga Dall's dark features. He shrugged his shoulders and spread out his hands, with a little pucker of the lips that bespoke dislike of the task he had in hand.

"I am sorry to say that it is the property of Lady Margaret Cheyne," he said, serenely.

There was a moment of tense silence. You could have heard a pin drop in the ballroom.

Cleek sucked in his breath and stood a moment eyeing the Hindoo. If that were so – but the thought was too utterly horrible to be longer entertained.

There followed the sound of a little cry echoing across the crowded room. Cleek's eyes went in the direction of it, and saw that Lady Brenton had gone dead white, and that her lips were pinched and blue. Sir Edgar, in a sort of mad abandonment, was pushing his way up through the audience, his eyes flashing, his fists clenched, the red blood flaring in his face, and all his virile young manhood up in defence of the woman he loved.

"Say that again, you damned liar, and I'll thrash you within an inch of your precious life!" he shouted. "You can't prove it – you absolutely can't, I say! It isn't her scarf at all – "

"And I say it is!" responded Gunga Dall with an unpleasant little laugh. "Because I happened to have given it to her myself and – "

"You take care what you're saying," returned Sir Edgar in a passion of white heat. "You dare to suggest that you've given her presents."

The Coroner's upraised hand silenced him.

"If you please," he began, "permit Mr. Dall to continue with his evidence without interruption. This is hardly the time or the place, Sir Edgar, for the airing of one's particular – er – differences. You say the scarf belongs to Lady Margaret Cheyne, Mr. Dall?"

"I do. For I myself gave it to her. I met her on the journey over from Boulogne to Folkestone, and I happened to show the scarf to her. She admired it, and on the impulse of the moment I pressed her to accept it. It was one of a pair."

Of a pair, eh? So there was the loophole of escape for Lady Margaret after all. Cleek's head went up.

The coroner leant a little forward in his seat and stared up into the Hindoo's impassive countenance.

"And where, may I ask, is the other?" he inquired.

The blow fell unexpectedly, but with more force in consequence.

For even as Gunga Dall commenced to speak there followed a little commotion at the back of the room. Someone had fainted, there was a hushed call for smelling salts and brandy.

"The other scarf is, or was," said the Hindoo, quietly, "in the possession of Lady Brenton, to whom I gave it last week!"

It was like a thunderbolt in the quiet room. Cleek snatched up his hat and ran over to where Mr. Narkom stood.

"You've got to close this inquiry before it goes any further," he whispered, hurriedly. "We've got to make more investigations before that nigger's assertion is allowed to carry any weight with the evidence. We've got to close this inquiry at once, my friend!"

Mr. Narkom nodded, then crossed over to the Coroner and spoke to him in a low, hurried voice.

That gentleman seemed to acquiesce in whatever statement the Superintendent made, and shortly afterward declared the case postponed.

Slowly the people began to file out of the room in twos and threes, but even as they did so came the sound of a terrible moaning, the sound that Cleek had heard so many times before, but from whence it issued, was impossible to tell. Long drawn out and wailing as a dog's death-howl, it floated over the room, striking fear into every heart by its very ghastliness. What was it? What could it be?

Horrified, the listeners looked at one another in blank dismay. Even Mr. Narkom's usually ruddy countenance had undergone a change as the sound came to his ears. Supernatural or not it acted like a charm, for in another minute the room was cleared and Cleek, Mr. Narkom and the Coroner stood alone.

"Strange thing, isn't it?" said that gentleman, as he fetched his hat and moved over toward the door in the act of following upon the heels of his jury-men.

Mr. Narkom nodded.

"Very. Coming along, Headland?"

"No, not just for a moment or two. I want to look round for myself if you don't mind. Just an odd fancy, don't you know! But don't wait for me, Mr. Narkom. I'll see you later on."

Even as they left, once again there sounded that uncanny wail, seeming to come from the very depths of the earth. Cleek felt that he was alone in a haunted house.

CHAPTER XX

A TWISTED CLUE

Before another quarter of an hour had passed Cleek was the sole inmate of Cheyne Court. He sat with shoulders hunched up and head thrust forward, seeking to pierce the cloud that hung over the heads of the two young people to both of whom he had been undeniably attracted.

He was as anxious to restore Lady Margaret to the arms of her lover as Sir Edgar himself and it was only because he felt that the discovery of the Purple Emperor would be bound up in some inexplicable manner with the girl herself that he had striven to elucidate the puzzle.

He had contrived to get the inquest postponed for a week, for he felt instinctively that had the case been left to take its course, a verdict against Sir Edgar Brenton of wilful murder would have been the result. Like a flash had come back to him the words of Ailsa Lorne about Sir Edgar's purchase of prussic acid to poison an old dog. And after all, it had never been used; at least not for that purpose! Had it then been only a blind? Had the desperate lover conceived the plot to murder the woman whom he believed to stand in the way of his marriage with Lady Margaret? Impossible! Yet love is a strange madness. And what had he been doing with the revolver in his pocket on that first night? Where, too, did Miss Jennifer and her idiot of a brother come into the puzzle, and Lady Brenton? Cleek pinched up his chin and stood a moment looking out of the window across the stretch of straggling, unkempt lawn that lay beyond it. He was seated in the wide window seat of the ballroom that had been the scene of the dual tragedy. All at once his trained ears caught the sound of a footfall on the path outside the window. Not a man's foot, either! What woman was it that would remain behind in this place of ill omen? Noiselessly he raised his head and looked out of the window, but he was unable to see any one. He listened intently, then, of a sudden, twitched up his head with a jerk, and crouched forward.