The Mikado Jewel. Fergus Hume

dear!--you might have knocked me down with a feather. I was fit for nothing, and it was Sammy who sent for the police. Fancy! how good of him, my dear, seeing that he had the success of his drama on his mind. And it is a very great success, I can----"

      "What did Bunson say?" demanded Patricia, keeping Mrs. Sellars to the point from which, confused by trouble, she constantly strayed.

      "He met me and the rest at the door, my dear, when we came back from the theatre at eleven," replied Mrs. Sellars, trying to calm herself. "His face was as white as a clown's, but it was fear and not chalk with Bunson. He and Matilda and Sarah and Eliza got back at a quarter to eleven, so that the supper might be seen to. And no one has eaten the supper," cried Mrs. Sellars, again going off at a tangent. "Such a lovely supper, too! We expected to have such a happy evening, and here is Martha lying on her bed a gory corpse, with all the bedrooms upset by the villain!"

      "What villain?"

      "Him who murdered poor Martha, whoever he is, the scoundrel. He first stabbed Martha in the drawing-room, and then hunted all through the bedrooms, making hay, as the boys say, in every one. Just look at your own, my dear."

      Miss Carrol had already done so, but she had hitherto believed that the open drawers, with their tumbled contents, the disordered wardrobe, and the displaced furniture, had been the work of Mrs. Sellars. "I thought you had done this when you were attending to me."

      "But why should I?" demanded Mrs. Sellars, somewhat tartly. "It wouldn't have done you any good to have pulled your room to pieces in this way. The police say he wanted something."

      "Who wanted something?"

      "The caitiff who robbed Martha of her life," retorted the ex-actress in her best theatrical manner. "He murdered the poor dear for something, and as it wasn't on her--whatever it is--he searched the house. Whether he got it or not--whatever it is--I can't say, nor can anyone else. But he went out by the front door, in spite of the drawing-room middle window being unfastened, and where he's gone no one knows."

      "The middle drawing-room window could not have been unfastened," said Patricia, raising her dripping face from the basin. "Bunson locked it before he went to the theatre."

      "Well, then, it must have been opened since, my dear, for the latch is undone, and it has been pushed up a little way from the bottom. Martha couldn't have done it, as her foot was so bad she couldn't have left the sofa. I daresay the villain did it."

      "He could scarcely have opened the window from the outside," said Patricia.

      Mrs. Sellars shook her head mournfully. "I'm not so sure of that, my dear," was her reply. "The balcony runs along the front of all three windows, and as they are old and shaky, like all the house, he could easily have slipped a knife between the upper and lower sashes and pressed back the snick."

      "But in that case Mrs. Pentreddle, thinking a burglar was trying to get in, would have shrieked for assistance," argued Miss Carrol.

      "Who would hear her?" asked Mrs. Sellars very pertinently. "There was no one in the house, and I daresay no one in the road, as scarcely anyone comes along so far as this; on a foggy night, too. Who would come here on a foggy night? No. The villain found poor Martha all alone and stuck her like a pig. You shouldn't have left her."

      "She asked me to."

      "She asked you to?" repeated Mrs. Sellars, her round eyes growing rounder with astonishment. "Asked you to what?"

      "To go on an errand, and"----Patricia checked herself, as it was unnecessary to repeat her story twice, and she wished to tell it in the presence of the police-officer. "It's too long to tell you now," she said hastily, and looked in the glass to see that her hair was in order. "Come downstairs, and let me see the man in charge of the case."

      "Oh!" wailed Mrs. Sellars, submitting to be led out of the room. "Oh, that I should have lived to hear Martha called a case! And Bunson called her 'the remains.' Such an insult!"

      "What did Bunson say exactly?" inquired Patricia quickly.

      "He said that he and Matilda and Sarah and Eliza came round by the back and entered the house by the kitchen. While Matilda made up the fire and put on the kettle, Bunson went up to the dining-room to see if the supper was all right. Nothing was disturbed, so he went to look into the drawing-room, expecting to see Martha and you. But he only found Martha lying dead and icy cold on the sofa, covered with blood from her jugular vein. She never did have much blood, poor dear!" sobbed Mrs. Sellars; "but what she had she lost, for she died from losing it, too hurriedly."

      "And what else did----"

      "There's nothing else," interrupted Mrs. Sellars, waving her arms in a dramatic manner. "Everyone's upset and can't eat and can't go to bed, and they're all sitting in the dining-room, because Inspector Harkness won't let them sit in the drawing-room."

      "Is Inspector Harkness the man I am to see?"

      "Yes. He's in the drawing-room, and told me to bring you to him as soon as you could stand. He saw the cabman who brought you, and asked him where you had entered the cab. The man said at Hyde Park Corner about half-past eleven, which may or may not be true, for I can't understand what you should be doing there at this time of night."

      "It's quite true," said Miss Carrol quietly. "I lost myself in the fog."

      "But why did you leave the house?"

      "I shall explain that to Inspector Harkness. Dear Ma," Patricia patted the disturbed old woman's shoulder kindly, "don't cry so. I assure you I have nothing to do with the death of poor Mrs. Pentreddle."

      "I never thought for one minute you had, my dear," said the poor landlady. "All the same, Martha is as dead as a door-nail. She is now with her late husband I expect, though it can't be a very pleasant place where such a rascal has gone to. Not that I want to say anything bad against them that are gone, for we may be the same to-morrow," and so poor Mrs. Sellars, quite incoherent with grief and bewilderment, maundered on aimlessly.

      Patricia was invited to enter the drawing-room by a jovial-looking man, whose would-be military air did not suit his looks. He was stout, red-faced, grey-haired and bluff in his manner, resembling the typical John Bull more than anything else. He tried to be stiff, but failed in his buckram civilities when he forgot that he was Inspector Harkness and remembered that he was primarily a human being. Miss Carrol was so pretty and graceful in spite of her white face and drooping air, the result of fatigue, that the officer beamed on her approvingly. But having placed a chair for her, and one for Mrs. Sellars, who was to be present at the interview, he became aware that he had his duty to perform, and looked as stern as he possibly could.

      "Now, young lady," he said, arranging some papers, and getting ready to take notes, "what do you know of this matter?"

      "Nothing," said Patricia, coolly and decisively. She was now quite her own clever, ready-witted self, as the difficulties of her position had acted upon her like a tonic. In spite of Inspector Harkness's suave demeanour, she was fully aware that he would not hesitate to arrest her, if he believed she was in any way inculpated. Her curt answer rather annoyed him.

      "Nothing," he repeated sharply. "That is rather a strange denial to make, in the face of the fact that you were the last person who saw this unfortunate lady alive. Do you deny that, Miss Carrol?"

      "No. Why should I? I was with Mrs. Pentreddle from the time Mrs. Sellars left with the others for the Curtain Theatre----"

      "Half-past six, as we thought the house would be full," interpolated Ma sadly.

      --"until nearly half-past eight o'clock," finished Patricia calmly.

      "And after that?" asked Harkness, noting down this fact and acknowledgment.

      "I was wandering about Hyde Park, lost in the fogs until half-past eleven."

      "What took you to Hyde Park on this night?"

      "Mrs. Pentreddle asked me to go on an errand for her."

      "What was the errand?"

      "What