The Indian Bangle. Fergus Hume

by the police. He is apparently a gentleman, and may be said, therefore, to have occupied a certain social position. It is fair to assume that he has friends and acquaintances who will recognize some, if not all, of the characteristics put forth in the description. Further, he probably has a home if not relatives somewhere in the kingdom, and if he does not return within a reasonable time, inquiries will doubtless be made. It is probably by some such means as this that the deceased will be identified. Once that is done, there may be some chance of capturing his murderer.

      "It is remarkable that the deceased's clothes smelled of sandal-wood. This is essentially an Eastern perfume, and a man, especially a gentleman living in England, would hardly be in the habit of using it. We are not aware, indeed, if it is used even in the East as a scent, though many nations of the Far East, such as the Indians and the Chinese--particularly the latter--make chests of sandal-wood. If, then, this unknown man had at any time lived in the East, it is possible he might have been in the habit of keeping his clothes in such a chest, which would account for the odour detected by Inspector Jain.

      "This clue is slight; still it is tangible, and it is moreover possible to assume from it that the unknown man came from the East, and further, that his arrival in England must have been comparatively recent, since, had he been here for any length of time he would surely have exchanged this cumbersome box for the portmanteau of Western civilization. We suggest, therefore, to the police that, supposing, of course, nothing be forthcoming from the deceased's relatives or friends, a thorough search be made through the shipping offices and the neighbourhood of the docks for the existence of any passenger answering to the description of the deceased, who might recently have disembarked from one of our great liners.

      "Again, we say, the clue is a slight one; but in such a case as this no fact, however insignificant, is unimportant, and the most slender circumstance may, if rigorously followed up, ultimately lead to results wholly unlooked for and disproportionate to it.

      "Here, then, is a splendid opportunity for our detectives to cover themselves with glory, and, by the capture of the perpetrator, to prevent this--one of the most terrible crimes of recent days--from being relegated to the already too well-filled limbo of unfathomable mysteries."

THE STORY

       Table of Contents

THE FIRST SCENE: AT CASTERWELL.

       Table of Contents

       CHAPTER I.

      DAVID AND JONATHAN.

      Towards the first week in July two young men were seated in a smoking-carriage on the midday express from Paddington to Reading. They were alone in the compartment, and at the moment there existed between them that peculiar silence of sympathy which can be only the outcome of a perfect friendship. The Jonathan of the pair was slim, tall, and dark, with a military uprightness of bearing, and a somewhat haughty expression on his clean-shaven face. His David was younger in years, but considerably greater in size, and like his namesake of Judah, was ruddy and of a fair countenance. The one was an eager, anxious, highly-strung Celt, with his Irish impulse and impetuosity trained into well-nigh complete obedience by years of experience; the other a phlegmatic Saxon, of small brain and much muscle. Jonathan's nineteenth-century name was Laurence Mallow. David answered to the title of Lord Aldean. They had been tutor and pupil respectively, and they were still fast friends. The elder possessing the stronger and more imperious will, continued to control the younger.

      Mallow was not popular, nor did he wish to be so. He chose to be feared rather than loved. He was brilliantly clever, and, therefore, had many admirers; on the other hand, his intolerance of stupidity lost him many friends, so that to his expressed satisfaction he moved more or less isolated amid a crowd of fair-spoken, back-biting acquaintances. And yet perhaps it was a knowledge of the guarded manner in which he was received that made him cling the more to the solitary friend he possessed. People thought and people said that there was but little about good-natured, thick-headed Aldean to attract the brilliant young Irishman. There were those who went so far as to hint that the boy's title and wealth explained all that, albeit Mallow was well-nigh aggressively independent.

      Left an orphan with comparatively little money at an early age, he had won prizes and taken scholarships at a great public school, and had maintained himself at Oxford by these early efforts. He left the University with a full brain and empty pockets, and he had undertaken the tutorship of Aldean to gain breathing-time while he cast around him for choice of a career. When Aldean came of age, Mallow left him, a fair enough scholar and an admirable athlete, and went himself to London. He became a journalist and a power with his pen. He attached himself to a weekly publication of high aim and small circulation, conducted by a genius who had failed to profit by his pen because he could not write obviously enough for the taste of the general public.

      Mallow became one of the props of this journal. When it failed, by reason of its too lofty aims, he went to India to write letters about the incomprehensible East, for a newspaper. A while after he returned, and published a novel which was much condemned and widely circulated. At the present time, having netted a few hundreds out of the book, he was going down to Casterwell to stay with Aldean, and to renew his friendship with Olive Bellairs, whom he loved ardently, though--knowing full well that she was engaged to a certain Mr. Carson--hopelessly, in his own peculiar, wrong-headed way.

      Aldean, who was now twenty-four, and as good-naturedly stupid as ever, was in truth more akin to Goliath than to David. He was a gigantic son of Anak, considerably over six feet in height, and as wide as a church door. He was sparing of his words, and he usually assented to whatever was said to him as the safest way out of an argument. But in spite of his lack of conversation, and the rareness with which he gave expression to such ideas as he possessed, he had a fund of shrewd common sense, which, in his position, was worth far more to him than genius would have been. It was with all his heart and soul that he admired Mallow, and the very naiveté with which he would express his admiration endeared him to the young Irishman. Habitually Mallow's tongue was razor-like in its acerbity, but Aldean--though he took full advantage of the friendship between them, and spoke pretty plainly when he judged his lordship deserved correction--he invariably spared where he would have spared none else. They had indeed established their friendship on a very durable basis, by the extremely simple process of shutting their eyes to one another's faults and opening them very wide to one another's virtues. The young Irishman had his brilliant flashes of silence. It was on these occasions that he found Aldean so agreeable a companion--in fact, the boy was as a pet dog to Mallow; agreeable company, and not given to criticism.

      "Aldean!"

      "Eh yes, what?" asked his lordship, looking up from Ally Sloper.

      "Have you read the account of this Athelstane Place murder?"

      "Yes--fellow killed with a knitting-needle, isn't it?"

      "Yes, thrust into the heart--devilish queer case. The Morning Planet seems to think the unfortunate beggar came from India."

      "Who told the 'M.P.' so?"

      "No one, apparently; it is a theory based on the fact that the man's clothes smelled of sandal-wood."

      "Bosh! there's plenty of sandal-wood in England."

      "No doubt; but Englishmen are not by way of scenting their clothes with it. I shouldn't be surprised to find that the Planet was right. At all events it's some sort of clue."

      Aldean shook his head. "I thought you said it was a theory?"

      "So it is; but a theory may develop into a clue," retorted Mallow, lighting another cigarette. "If only I had the time, there is