A Master of Deception

"Can I say half a dozen words with you, Miss Patterson, in private?"

She led the way to the first room to which they came, which chanced to be the dining-room, she entering first, then Rodney, the inspector last. When he was in he shut the door and stood up against it.

"I said, Miss Patterson, in private."

The inspector had an eye on Rodney.

"We are in private; you can say anything you wish to say before this gentleman. This is Mr. Elmore, to whom I am shortly to be married."

"Mr. Elmore?"

As the officer echoed the name the two men's glances met. In the inspector's eyes there was an expression of eager curiosity, as if he were taken by surprise; Rodney's quick perceptions told him that while his name, and probably more than his name, was known to the other, for some cause he was the last person he had expected to see; the man was studying him with an interest which he did not attempt to conceal. The young man, on his side, was regarding the inspector as if he found him amusing.

"Well, inspector, when you have quite finished staring at Mr. Elmore, perhaps you will tell me what it is you have to say."

The girl's candid allusion to the peculiarity which it seemed she had noticed in his manner had the effect of bringing the officer back to a consciousness of what he was doing.

"Was I staring? I beg Mr. Elmore's pardon-and yours, Miss Patterson. I was only thinking that, under the circumstances, it is a fortunate accident that Mr. Elmore should be present."

"You have omitted to state what are the circumstances to which you allude."

"I will proceed to supply that omission at once, Miss Patterson. You will probably think that they are strange ones; and, indeed, they are; but you will, of course, understand that I am only here in pursuance of my duty. I have come in consequence of a letter which I received this morning. I will read it to you."

He took an envelope from a fat pocket-book.

"It bears no address, and is not dated; but the envelope shows that it was posted last night at Beckenham.

"'To Inspector Harlow.

"'Sir, – Mr. Graham Patterson did not commit suicide; he was murdered.

"'If you can make it convenient to be at Mr. Graham Patterson's late residence, No. 90, Russell Square, to-morrow, Wednesday, afternoon at 3.30, I will be there also, and will point out to you the murderer.

"'Your obedient servant,"'Philip Walter Augustus Parker.'"

Silence followed when the inspector ceased to read. The officer was engaged in folding the letter and returning it to its envelope; Gladys looked as if she were too startled to give ready utterance to her feelings in words. Rodney was possibly trying to associate someone of whom he had heard with the name of Parker-and failing. His memory did not often play him tricks; he was pretty sure that no one of that name was known to him. The inspector was the first to speak.

"You will, of course, perceive, Miss Patterson, that the probabilities are that this letter is a hoax; the signature, Philip Walter Augustus Parker, in itself suggests a hoax. Then there is the absence of an address. And, of course, we have the verdict of the coroner's jury, and the evidence on which it was found. I am quite prepared to learn that I have come to Russell Square, and troubled you with my presence, for nothing. But at the same time, in my position, I did not feel justified in not coming, on the very off-chance of making the acquaintance of Philip Walter Augustus Parker. It is now on the stroke of half-past three; we will give him a few minutes' grace, after which-if, as I expect will be the case, there are still no signs of him-I'll take myself off, with apologies, Miss Patterson. But should he by any strange chance put in an appearance, I would ask you to have him at once shown in here."

Hardly had the inspector done speaking than there was the sound of an electric bell and a rat-tat-tat at the front door. The trio in the dining-room could scarcely have seemed more startled had they been suddenly confronted by a ghost. The inspector's voice sank to a whisper.

"If the name's Parker, would you mind asking the servant-in here?"

A gesture supplied the words he had omitted in his sentence. He held the door open so that Gladys could speak to the maid who was coming along the hall. She did so, also in lowered tones.

"If that's a person of the name of Parker show him at once in here."

She withdrew; the inspector shut the door; there was a pause; no one spoke; each of the three stood and listened. They could hear the front door opened and steps coming along the hall. Then the dining-room door was opened by a maid, who announced:

"Mr. Parker."

There entered the little man who had followed the example set by Rodney of getting out of the train in Redhill Tunnel.

CHAPTER XXIII

NECESSARY CREDENTIALS

The moment he appeared Rodney knew that he had been expecting him; that somewhere at the back of his mind there had been a feeling that it was he who was coming. His impulse was to take him by the throat and crush the life out of him before he had a chance of saying a word; which was the impulse of a badly frightened man. But he seldom lost his presence of mind for long; and, on that occasion, he had it again almost as soon as it had gone; indeed, within the same second he was smiling at himself for having allowed himself to be disposed towards such crass folly.

So far as Rodney was able to judge the little man was clad just as he had been on Sunday evening-in the same shabby tweed suit, the old unbrushed boots, with the same suggestion about him that he might easily have been improved by a more intimate acquaintance with soap and water. He had his hat in one hand, and with the other he rubbed his scrubby chin. No one could have seemed more at his ease. Without offering any sort of greeting he immediately proceeded to address the inspector, while the maid was still closing the door, in that thin, unmusical, penetrating voice which Rodney had so much disliked.

"So you are there, Harlow, are you? I wondered if you'd have sense enough to come."

He rounded off his sentence with the snigger which had so jarred on the young man's sensitive nerves, and which affected Gladys so unpleasantly that, with what seemed to be a start of repulsion, she moved closer to her lover's side. The stranger noted the movement, and commented on it-again with the uncomfortable snigger.

"That's right; get as close as you can; he'll keep you safe; anyone will be safe who gets close enough to him. You're Miss Patterson; I could tell you anywhere by your likeness to your father. You're not the kind of girl I care about, any more than he was the kind of man. Who's the youngster? Now, there is someone worth looking at; why, he's as handsome as paint, and of quite unusual force of character for so young a man. Miss Patterson, the girl who gets him for a lover will have a lover of a kind of which she has no notion. He's a most remarkable young man."

With a view, perhaps, of checking the stranger's volubility, the inspector administered what was possibly meant for a rebuke.

"If you would confine yourself to the business which has brought you here, sir, it would be as well. Are you Mr. Parker?"

"I am; Philip Walter Augustus Parker-a lot of name for a man of my size."

"You sent me a letter last night from Beckenham?"

"I did."

"Stating that Mr. Graham Patterson did not commit suicide."

"Exactly."

"But was murdered?"

"He was."

"You went on to say that if I were here this afternoon you would point out to me the murderer."

"I will."

"Point him out."

"I am."

"I thought so."

"I knew you did. I saw on your intelligent visage that you knew what was coming. You have some experience of cranks who accuse themselves of crimes of which they are innocent; you take it for granted that I am one of them, which shows what a dunce you are. I am a lunatic. That's right, Harlow, smile again. I knew that would tickle you. A policeman's sense of humour is his own."

"It is necessary, Mr. Parker, that I should warn you that anything you say will be taken down and used against you."

"Quite right, Harlow; take it down; but as for using it against me, that's absurd. The law does not punish lunatics; whatever they may do it holds them guiltless. I'm an example of the inadequacy of the law to protect the public from what I may describe as the lunatic at large. It is not sufficiently recognised that there is an order of dementia which may at any time develop into homicidal mania, and that, therefore, a lunatic, unless he is kept in safe keeping, may kill, with impunity, whom he pleases-as I have done. I have killed Graham Patterson; yet no one may venture to kill me. My life is more sacred than that of a sane man in the eyes of the law."

The inspector looked at the girl significantly.

"I think, Miss Patterson, that I had better deal with Mr. Parker alone."

"And, Miss Patterson, I think not. What I am about to say will be found of interest not only by you, but also by-that extraordinary young man. Harlow, your duty is to take down what I am about to say in writing; don't exceed it. Shut the door. Miss Patterson will stay where she is."

The inspector looked at the lady, as if for instructions. As she gave no sign, beyond drawing a little closer to her lover, he shut the door, which he had opened a few inches. Mr. Parker beamed at him with a grotesque little air of triumph.

"There, Harlow-you see! Now attend to me. Suppose, before I go any further, we all sit down; my tale may take some minutes; I don't want anyone to get tired of standing. You won't? Very good-then stand. There are plenty of chairs, and very comfortable some of them seem; but, of course, I don't propose to force you to occupy them if you would rather not. Now-attention! To begin at the beginning."

Again he indulged in the uncomfortable sort of laughter which, more than anything else, revealed the disorder of the creature's mind.

"On Sunday evening I bolted from my keeper, one Metcalf, in whose charge I have been for six or seven months, and of whom I was tired to extinction-an unclubable fellow who never talks unless he has something to say. I left Brighton station on the 9.10 train. Until the train started I was the sole occupant of a first-class carriage, at which I was not displeased. I had some idea of committing suicide myself. Life, I assure you, has little to offer me. I am just sane enough to know that I never shall be saner. There's a wall-a wall which I shall never climb, and which shuts me out-from I don't know what. If I were left alone-I so seldom am; they won't leave me alone! – here would be an excellent opportunity to consider the best way out of it. You may fancy, then, what my feelings were when, just as the train was starting, another passenger entered-bundled in by an extremely officious porter. He would never have caught the train if it hadn't been for the porter-in which case he would have been still alive-so that one may say, logically, the porter killed him. The fellow certainly ought to be punished."

He waved his hat with a gesture which was possibly intended to represent the execution of the porter in question.

"The man who had entered my compartment, Miss Patterson, was your father-in every respect a most objectionable person, combining in himself nearly everything that I most object to-bloated, overfed, nearly drunk, horrible to contemplate. He sat there perspiring, puffing, panting, gasping for breath; I half expected he would have a fit. But, instead of having a fit, before the train had gone very far he was asleep, fast asleep. Could any conduct have been more disgusting? – drunken sleep! With a man of my stamp at the other end of the carriage, could anything have been more insulting? And he snored-such snores! I declare to you he made more noise than the train did; if that extraordinary young man had been in the next compartment he'd have heard him. And his jaw dropped open-it was that gave me the idea. Who is it says that trifles light as air lead to I don't know what? It was that trifle which led to my killing your father, Miss Patterson."

Again the cackling giggle, which made the girl try to draw still nearer to her lover, as if the thing were possible.

"Some time before I had come into possession of quite a quantity of potassium cyanide; I won't say how-I had. The artfulness of lunatics is proverbial, and I'm as artful as any of them; on that point I refer you to Metcalf, as well as to others who have had me in their charge, both in asylums and out of them-they'll tell you! It was in the form of tabloids, looking just like sweeties, in a nice little silver box; enough to kill a street. I had meant to use it to kill myself, but at the sight of that dreadful man, with his bulging mouth, I thought-why not use it to kill him? Pop one into his mouth, and the trick was done! I moved inch by inch and foot by foot along the seat towards his end of the carriage; he still snored on, paying no attention of any sort to me; he was a horrid, vulgar man. At last I was right in front of him; I might have been ten miles away for all he knew. How he snored, and how his jaws did gape! I had the silver box in one hand and a tabloid between the finger and thumb of the other, and I leaned forward and popped it into his open mouth."

Mr. Parker illustrated his words by his gestures, with the air of one who was telling an amusing tale.

"Oh, what a change came over him! You should have seen it! He snored the tabloid right down his throat, and he gave a great gasp and was dead. He had not even waked; I am sure that he never knew I was on the seat in front of him, or that I was in the carriage at all. There was his huge carcase bolt upright in front of me, and I knew that he would never snore any more. It made me feel quite odd; it was all so sudden and so funny. I daresay it would have made that extraordinary young man feel odd, eh?"

He looked up at Rodney with a leer which made his mean, wrinkled face all at once seem bestial. But he never faltered in his story, which he told with a sniggering relish which lent it a quality of horror which no display of dramatic, conscience-stricken intensity could possibly have done.

"My idea had been to tell the porters all about it the first time the train stopped; it would have been funny to see the fuss they'd have made; I shouldn't have cared. But it so happened that the signal was against us, and the train stopped in the middle of Redhill tunnel."

The inspector allowed no hint to escape him of what he knew or did not know. He kept his eyes fastened on the little man, as if his wish were not so much to follow his actual words, but to see something which might be behind them.

"When it stopped I had another idea, quite as brilliant as the first. Why should I go through the nuisance of a trial for murder? With a little management, if this objectionable person were found in a carriage by himself, it might be taken for granted that he had committed suicide, which would be too funny. So I put the silver box open in his fingers, slipped out of the carriage into the tunnel-in the darkness no one saw me-waited for the train to go, then walked after it, out of the tunnel, up the banks, across the fields to Redhill Station; had a drink or two, which I was in want of; went on by the 10.40, until at Croydon I was joined by Metcalf, who had got there first. For the rest of the tale refer to him."

Continuing, Mr. Parker seemed to address his remarks particularly to Rodney:

"You never would have thought that it could be so easy to kill a man, and have it brought in as suicide, would you? When I read the report of the inquest in the papers, I was amazed to find how easy it really was. Then it occurred to me that as, of course, he had been murdered-I knew that-why shouldn't I communicate with the police, after all? No harm would come to me; lunatics are protected by the law. It would be different if he had been murdered by-you; you would quite certainly be hung. I shall go to Broadmoor. I have rather a fancy for Broadmoor. I am told that they are all of them lunatics there; I should like to see. At any rate, they have all of them done something; no lunatic I've met ever did anything worth doing. They must be interesting people. But certain credentials are necessary for Broadmoor, and now I think I've earned them. If the part I've played in this little affair of Graham Patterson doesn't qualify me for Broadmoor, then I should very much like to know what would. Eh, young man, eh?"

CHAPTER XXIV

LOVERS PARTING

Inspector Harlow having gone, with Mr. Parker as close companion, the lovers being again alone together, it was pretty plain that they were conscious that, since entering the house, the situation had materially changed. Rodney, try how he might, could not erase from his mind, so quickly as he wished, the impression that he had been assisting at some hideous nightmare. He had supposed, at the sight of the little man, that his accuser had come into the room. His nerves were strained in the expectation that every moment the charge would be made. Even as the instants passed, and he began to see the drift of the tale which the man was telling, inventing it as he went on, he had a feeling that he was only playing with him as a cat does with a mouse, and that, just when it seemed least likely, he would right-about-face and, perhaps with that diabolical snigger of his, place the onus of the guilt on him. Now that the fellow had actually gone, a self-accused prisoner in the inspector's charge, the feeling that he was still taking part in some fantastic drama seemed stronger than ever.

Gladys, on her side, when at last she broke the curious silence, which prevailed longer than either of them supposed after they had been left together, quickly showed that she was obsessed by a mood in which he did not know her, in which, as it were, she had slipped out of his reach.

"Rodney, do you think that what that man said is true?"

"He seemed to give chapter and verse for most of it."

"But if it's true-dad didn't take his own life!"

"If it's true."

"But don't you see what a difference that makes?"

"Of course it makes a difference; but in what sense do you mean?"

"In every sense-every sense! Do you think-that while he's being buried-I should be here-if I had known that he was murdered? He was my father."

"In any case he was that."

"Not in any case, not in any case! I may have got him all wrong! I may have misjudged! I may-I don't know what I mayn't have done. There's the letter!"

"What letter?"

"To Mr. Wilkes. You said, when he wrote it, he was mad, and that taking his own life proved it. I thought so. But, if he didn't take his own life, what then?" Rodney made an effort to regain his self-possession, and partially succeeded.

"My dear Gladys, the whole business is a bad one, whichever way you look at it. We are to be married on Monday."

"Monday? Married-to you?"

The knowledge of women on which he was apt to pride himself ought to have warned him that this was not the same girl as the one with whom he had come back from lunch in the cab. But at the moment he was not yet quite himself; his perception was at fault. He made a mistake.

"My dear Gladys, you are perfectly well aware that the arrangement, as it stands at present, is that we are to be married on Monday. I was merely about to suggest that, as it would seem that this whole unfortunate affair is likely to prove too much, we should be married to-morrow instead, and then we shall be able to get out of this unpleasant atmosphere at the earliest possible moment."

"Stop! stop!"

She shouted at rather than spoke to him.

"Perhaps I shall not be married to you at all."

He stared at her in genuine amazement.

"Gladys! What are you talking about? What do you mean?"

"I don't know what I mean; I almost hope I never may know."

"My dear child; that wretched man."

"Have you ever seen him before?"

"Seen whom?"

"You know quite well. That-wretched man."

"So far as I'm aware, never in my life. What makes you ask such a question?"

"Are you sure? Do you swear it?"

"How can a man swear to a thing like that? But I do swear that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, I have never seen him before."

"Then how came it that he knew you so well?"

"Knew me so well? Gladys! What are you dreaming about? Why, he never even addressed me by name."

"No, I noticed that; but he addressed you all the same. Most of what he said was especially addressed to you, as if he knew that you would understand."

"What are you driving at?"

"What's more, he saw that I was afraid of you."

"Afraid? You? Why, you could hardly have snuggled closer."

"That was because I was afraid to let you know how afraid of you I was."

"Gladys! Has that creature turned your brain?"

"I-I don't know. Oh, if I could only say a few words to dad-if I only could!"

"What would they be?"

"I would-ask him-how-he died."

"You have two stories offered for your choice. Are you content with neither?"

"Rodney, if my father were standing here now, and his spirit may be, would you tell me, in his presence, that you don't know why he disliked you?"

"Are you going into that all over again? To what end?"

"What does that man know of you? What does he know?"

"How can I tell what a half-witted man knows of me, or thinks he knows? Certainly he knows nothing to my discredit."

"Rodney-don't."

"Don't what?"

"You know! You do know! I can see in your eyes you know! Please go!"

"Sweetheart!"

"Don't-speak to me-like that-now. Go!"

"You surely are not in earnest. You cannot wish me to leave you before this extraordinary misunderstanding which has so inexplicably sprung up is cleared away. Tell me what is in your mind-frankly, all! I quite understand how this wretched man, Parker, may have turned your thoughts into unexpected currents and filled you with miserable doubts. I assure you he has upset me more than I care to tell you."

"I know that he upset you! I felt you were upset when I was so close to you. I can see it now."

If for the moment he was disconcerted-and the lady's manner was disconcerting-he slurred it over with creditable skill.

"Come, Gladys; let's try to get back to where we were-to perfect understanding. Tell me your doubts, no matter how insoluble they may seem to you. I promise you I'll solve them."

"I'm sure you will; I feel you could solve anything, but I am afraid of your solution."

Before he had an inkling of her intention she had passed rapidly across the floor and from the room.

"Gladys!" he exclaimed.

But it was too late; she had gone. He stood staring at the door through which she had vanished, irresolute. Should he follow her, possibly to her bedroom, and entreat her for a hearing? For once in his life he had been taken wholly unawares; he had not suspected that this Gladys was in the Gladys he had known. Often a man lives to a ripe old age, ignorant how many women are contained in the one woman he knows best. Then, as if unwittingly, his fingers strayed to the pocket in which were the proceeds of the cheque he had cashed while Gladys, without in the cab, had supposed him to have gone into the bank for his letter-case. Apparently the touch decided him; often a little thing brought him to an instant decision. Without making any further effort to gain the lady's ear, he buttoned his coat across his chest, took his hat and stick from off the table, and quietly left the house.

CHAPTER XXV

STELLA'S BETROTHAL FEAST

That evening Rodney Elmore was at a dinner given at a famous restaurant in honour of his engagement to Stella Austin, quite a different sort of meal from that at which he had assisted at the Misses Claughton's house in Kensington. If in his manner there was an unusual touch of nervousness, it was not unbecoming; the bride that was to be was not entirely herself. He met her as, with her father and mother, she entered the hall. She said to him, as he fell in by her side:

"I did hope, Rodney, that you would have come to fetch me."

"My dear, it's only by the skin of my teeth that I've got here myself! Do you think that I wouldn't have come if I could?"

She said nothing in reply, but as she passed towards the ladies' cloak-room there was a look on her face which almost suggested tears. Her mother's manner, as she greeted him, was not too genial: