The Red Symbol. Ironside John

man never turned up, nor had he been there while I was absent, as I elicited by a casual inquiry of Jenkins as to whether any one had called.

      I told him when I returned from the Cayleys that I was going away in the morning, and he came to lend a hand with the packing and clearing up.

      “No, sir, not a soul’s been; the street door was shut all morning. I’d rather be rung up a dozen times than have bad characters prowling about on the staircase. There’s a lot of wrong ’uns round about Westminster! Seems quieter than usual up here to-day, don’t it, sir? With all the residentials away, except you.”

      “Why, is Cassavetti away, too?” I asked, looking up.

      “I think he must be, sir, for I haven’t seen or heard anything of him. But I don’t do for him as I do for you and the other gents. He does for himself, and won’t let me have a key, or the run of his rooms. His tenancy’s up in a week or two, and a pretty state we shall find ’em in, I expect! We shan’t miss him like we miss you, sir. Shall you be long away this time?”

      “Can’t say, Jenkins. It may be one month or six—or forever,” I added, remembering Carson’s fate.

      “Oh, don’t say that, sir,” remonstrated Jenkins.

      “I wonder if Mr. Cassavetti is out. I’d like to say good-bye to him,” I resumed presently. “Go up and ring, there’s a good chap, Jenkins. And if he’s there, you might ask him to come down.”

      It struck me that I might at least ascertain from Cassavetti what he knew of Anne. Why hadn’t I thought of that before?

      Jenkins departed on his errand, and half a minute later I heard a yell that brought me to my feet with a bound.

      “Hello, what’s up?” I called, and rushed up the stairs, to meet Jenkins at the top, white and shaking.

      “Look there, sir,” he stammered. “What is it? ’Twasn’t there this morning, when I turned the lights out, I’ll swear!”

      He pointed to the door-sill, through which was oozing a sluggish, sinister-looking stream of dark red fluid.

      “It’s—it’s blood!” he whispered.

      I had seen that at the first glance.

      “Shall I go for the police?”

      “No,” I said sharply. “He may be only wounded.”

      I went and hammered at the door, avoiding contact with that horrible little pool.

      “Cassavetti! Cassavetti! Are you within, man?” I shouted; but there was no answer.

      “Stand aside. I’m going to break the lock,” I cried.

      I flung myself, shoulder first, against the lock, and caught at the lintel to save myself from falling, as the lock gave and the door swung inwards,—to rebound from something that it struck against.

      I pushed it open again, entered sideways through the aperture, and beckoned Jenkins to follow.

      Huddled up in a heap, almost behind the door, was the body of a man; the face with its staring eyes was upturned to the light.

      It was Cassavetti himself, dead; stabbed to the heart.

CHAPTER VII

       Table of Contents

A RED-HAIRED WOMAN!

       Table of Contents

      I bent over the corpse and touched the forehead tentatively with my finger-tips. It was stone cold. The man must have been dead many hours.

      “Come on; we must send for the police; pull yourself together, man!” I said to Jenkins, who seemed half-paralyzed with fear and horror.

      We squeezed back through the small opening, and I gently closed the door, and gripping Jenkins by the arm, marched him down the stairs to my rooms. He was trembling like a leaf, and scarcely able to stand alone.

      “We’ve never had such a thing happen before,” he kept mumbling helplessly, over and over again.

      I bade him have some whiskey, if he could find any, and remain there to keep an eye on the staircase, while I went across to Scotland Yard; for, through some inexplicable pig-headedness on the part of the police authorities, not even the headquarters was on the telephone.

      The Abbey bells were ringing for afternoon service, and there were many people about, churchgoers and holiday makers in their Sunday clothes. The contrast between the sunny streets, with their cheerful crowds, and the silent sinister tragedy of the scene I had just left struck me forcibly.

      If I had sent Jenkins on the errand, I guess he would have created quite a sensation. That is why I went myself; and I doubt if any one saw anything unusual about me, as I threaded my way quietly through the throng at Whitehall corner, where the ’buses stop to take up passengers.

      A minute or two later I was in an inspector’s room at “the Yard,” giving my information to a little man who heard me out almost in silence, watching me keenly the while.

      I imagine that I appeared quite calm. I could hear my own voice stating the bald facts succinctly, but, to my ears, it sounded like the voice of some one else, for it was with a great effort that I retained my composure. I knew that this strange and terrible event which I had been the one to discover was only another link in the chain of circumstances, which, so far as my knowledge went, began less than twenty-four hours ago; a chain that threatened to fetter me, or the girl I loved. For my own safety I cared nothing. My one thought was to protect Anne, who must be, either fortuitously, or of her own will, involved in this tangled web of intrigue.

      I should, of course, be subjected to cross-examination, and, on my way to Scotland Yard, I had decided just what I meant to reveal. I would have to relate how I encountered the old Russian, when he mistook my flat for Cassavetti’s; but of the portrait in his possession, of our subsequent interview, and of the incident of the river steps, I would say nothing.

      For the present I merely stated how Jenkins and I had discovered the fact that a murder had been committed.

      “I dined in company with Mr. Cassavetti last night,” I continued. “But before that—”

      I was going to mention the mysterious Russian; but my auditor checked me.

      “Half a minute, Mr. Wynn,” he said, as he filled in some words on a form, and handed it to a police officer waiting inside the door. The man took the paper, saluted, and went out.

      “I gather that you did not search the rooms? That when you found the man lying dead there, you simply came out and left everything as it was?”

      “Yes. I saw at once we could do nothing; the poor fellow was cold and rigid.”

      I felt that I spoke dully, mechanically; but the horror of the thing was so strongly upon me, that, if I had relaxed the self-restraint I was exerting, I think I should have collapsed altogether. This business-like little official, who had received the news that a murder had been committed as calmly as if I had merely told him some one had tried to pick my pocket, could not imagine and must not suspect the significance this ghastly discovery held for me, or the maddening conjectures that were flashing across my mind.

      “I wish every one would act as sensibly; it would save us a lot of trouble;” he remarked, closing his note-book, and stowing it, and his fountain pen, in his breast-pocket. “I will return with you now; my men will be there before we are, and the divisional surgeon won’t be long after us.”