The Seven Secrets. Le Queux William

Somehow I could not rid myself of the suspicion that the man was lying. To my professional eye the weapon with which the wound had been inflicted was the one which he admitted had been in his possession.

      The story that he had unlocked the door and gone in search of the assassin struck the inspector, as it did myself, as a distinctly lame tale.

      I longed for the opening of the telegraph office, so that I might summon my friend Jevons to my aid. He revelled in mysteries, and if the present one admitted of solution I felt confident that he would solve it.

      CHAPTER VIII.

      AMBLER JEVONS IS INQUISITIVE

      People were about me the whole time. Hence I had no opportunity of re-examining the little object I had picked up from the spot where the murderer must have stood.

      When morning dawned two detectives from Scotland Yard arrived, made notes of the circumstances, examined the open window in the conservatory, hazarded a few wise remarks, and closely scrutinised the dagger in the hall.

      Ethelwynn had taken her sister to a friend in the vicinity, accompanied by the nurse and the cook. The house was now in the possession of the police, and it had already become known in the neighbourhood that old Mr. Courtenay was dead. In all probability early passers-by, men on their way to work, had noticed a constable in uniform enter or leave, and that had excited public curiosity. I hoped that Ambler Jevons would not delay, for I intended that he should be first in the field. If ever he had had a good mystery before him this certainly was one. I knew how keen was his scent for clues, and how carefully and ingeniously he worked when assisting the police to get at the bottom of any such affair.

      He came a little after nine in hot haste, having driven from Hammersmith in a hansom. I was upstairs when I heard his deep cheery voice crying to the inspector from Scotland Yard:

      “Hulloa, Thorpe. What’s occurred? My friend Doctor Boyd has just wired to me.”

      “Murder,” responded the inspector. “You’ll find the doctor somewhere about. He’ll explain it all to you. Queer case – very queer case, sir, it seems.”

      “Is that you, Ambler?” I called over the banisters. “Come up here.”

      He came up breathlessly, two steps at a time, and gripping my hand, asked:

      “Who’s been murdered?”

      “Old Mr. Courtenay.”

      “The devil!” he ejaculated.

      “A most mysterious affair,” I went on. “They called me soon after three, and I came down here, only to find the poor old gentleman stone dead – stabbed to the heart.”

      “Let me see him,” my friend said in a sharp business-like tone, which showed that he intended to lose no time in sifting the matter. He had his own peculiar methods of getting at the bottom of a mystery. He worked independently, and although he assisted the police and was therefore always welcomed by them, his efforts were always apart, and generally marked by cunning ingenuity and swift logical reasoning that were alike remarkable and marvellous.

      I gave him a brief terse outline of the tragedy, and then, unlocking the door of the room where the dead man still lay in the same position as when discovered, allowed him in.

      The place was in darkness, so I drew up the Venetian blinds, letting in the grey depressing light of the wintry morning.

      He advanced to the bed, stood in the exact spot where I had stood, and where without doubt the murderer had stood, and folding his arms gazed straight and long upon the dead man’s features.

      Then he gave vent to a kind of dissatisfied grunt, and turned down the coverlet in order to examine the wound, while I stood by his side in silence.

      Suddenly he swung round on his heel, and measured the paces between the bed and the door. Then he went to the window and looked out; afterwards making a tour of the room slowly, his dark eyes searching everywhere. He did not open his lips in the presence of the dead. He only examined everything, swiftly and yet carefully, opening the door slowly and closing it just as slowly, in order to see whether it creaked or not.

      It creaked when closed very slowly. The creaking was evidently what the under-housemaid had heard and believed to be the creaking of boots. The murderer, finding that it creaked, had probably closed it by degrees; hence it gave a series of creaks, which to the girl had sounded in the silence of the night like those of new boots.

      Ambler Jevons had, almost at the opening of his inquiry, cleared up one point which had puzzled us.

      When he had concluded his examination of the room and re-covered the dead face with the sheet, we emerged into the corridor. Then I told him of the servant’s statement.

      “Boots!” he echoed in a tone of impatience. “Would a murderer wear creaking boots? It was the door, of course. It opens noiselessly, but when closed quietly it creaks. Curious, however, that he should have risked the creaking and the awakening of the household in order to close it. He had some strong motive in doing so.”

      “He evidently had a motive in the crime,” I remarked. “If we could only discover it, we might perhaps fix upon the assassin.”

      “Yes,” he exclaimed, thoughtfully. “But to tell the truth, Ralph, old chap, the fact which is puzzling me most of all at this moment is that extraordinary foreboding of evil which you confessed to me the day before yesterday. You had your suspicions aroused, somehow. Cudgel your brains, and think what induced that very curious presage of evil.”

      “I’ve tried and tried over again, but I can fix on nothing. Only yesterday afternoon, when Sir Bernard incidentally mentioned old Mr. Courtenay, it suddenly occurred to me that the curious excitement within me had some connection with him. Of course he was a patient, and I may have studied his case and given a lot of thought to it, but that wouldn’t account for such an oppression as that from which I’ve been suffering.”

      “You certainly did have the blues badly the night before last,” he said frankly. “And by some unaccountable manner your curious feeling was an intuition of this tragic occurrence. Very odd and mysterious, to say the least.”

      “Uncanny, I call it,” I declared.

      “Yes, I agree with you,” he answered. “It is an uncanny affair altogether. Tell me about the ladies. Where are they?”

      I explained how Mrs. Courtenay had been absent, and how she had been prostrated by the news of his death.

      He stroked his moustache slowly, deeply reflecting.

      “Then at present she doesn’t know that he’s been murdered? She thinks that he was taken ill, and expired suddenly?”

      “Exactly.”

      And I went on to describe the wild scene which followed my admission that her husband was dead. I explained it to him in detail, for I saw that his thoughts were following in the same channel as my own. We both pitied the unfortunate woman. My friend knew her well, for he had often accompanied me there and had spent the evening with us. Ethelwynn liked him for his careless Bohemianism, and for the fund of stories always at his command. Sometimes he used to entertain us for hours together, relating details of mysteries upon which he had at one time or another been engaged. Women are always fond of mysteries, and he often held both of them breathless by his vivid narratives.

      Thorpe, the detective from Scotland Yard, a big, sturdily-built, middle-aged man, whose hair was tinged with grey, and whose round, rosy face made him appear the picture of good health, joined us a moment later. In a low, mysterious tone he explained to my friend the circumstance of Short having admitted possession of the knife hanging in the hall.

      In it Ambler Jevons at once scented a clue.

      “I never liked that fellow!” he exclaimed, turning to me. “My impression has always been that he was a sneak, and told old Courtenay everything that went on, either in drawing-room or kitchen.”

      Thorpe, continuing, explained how the back door had been found unfastened, and how Short had admitted unfastening it in order to go forth to seek the assassin.

      “A