Chapter Seven. What Ash Knew

The shock caused me by this discovery was indescribable.

My first action on recovering was to alarm those in the house, but it was found that Ash, Roddy’s man, was absent.

The three occupants of the other chambers, men I knew, entered, and endeavoured to restore their friend to consciousness. But all efforts were in vain. A doctor from Burlington Street was quickly fetched, and after a brief examination pronounced that life had been extinct about half an hour, but there being no sign of violence he could make no surmise as to the cause of death without a post-mortem.

Roddy had evidently been sitting beside the fire reading the newspaper and smoking when he expired, for at his side his cigar had dropped and burned a hole in the carpet, while the newspaper was still between his stiffening fingers.

A detective and a constable were very soon on the scene, but as the doctor expressed an opinion that it was a case of sudden death, most probably from syncope, the appearance of the body leading to that conclusion, the plain-clothes officer merely made a few notes, and awaited with me the return of the man Ash, in order to question him.

In the meantime the others left the presence of the dead, and I had an opportunity of glancing round the place. I was well acquainted with Roddy’s chambers, for I often smoked with him of an evening, therefore I knew their arrangement almost as well as I knew that of my own. But this discovery was to me a staggering blow. Over the mantel-shelf was a mirror, and stuck in its frame were a truly miscellaneous collection of cards of invitation for all sorts and descriptions of festivities. One card, however, attracted my attention as being unusual, and I took it down to examine it. It was not a card of invitation, but a small, oblong piece of pasteboard ruled in parallel squares, each column being headed by the letter “N,” alternate with the letter “R.” In the squares were hurriedly scribbled a curious collection of numbers.

At first I could not recollect where I had seen a similar card before, but it suddenly dawned upon me that it was one of those used by professional gamblers at Monte Carlo, to record the numbers which come up at the roulette-table, the “R” standing for Rouge, and the “N” for Noir. The discovery was interesting. I carefully examined the pencilled figures, and saw they were in Roddy’s own hand.

Did not this bear out Aline’s allegation that he had been to Monte Carlo?

I said nothing to the detective, but replaced the card in the frame of the mirror.

The detective strolled around the other rooms in an aimless sort of way, and when he returned I asked—

“What is your opinion of this affair?”

“I really don’t know, sir,” he answered in a puzzled tone. “It may be suicide.”

“Suicide!” I gasped, recollecting Aline’s declaration. “What causes you to surmise that?”

“From the fact that the valet is absent,” he answered. “The gentleman, if he desired to take his own life, would naturally send his servant out on an errand.”

“But the cigar on the carpet? How do you account for that?” I inquired. “If he meant to deliberately take his life he would instinctively cast his lighted cigar into the fire.”

The officer was silent. He was a keen, shrewd, clean-shaven man of about forty, whose name I afterwards learnt was Priestly.

“Your argument is a sound one,” he answered after a long pause. “But when a man is suffering from temporary insanity, there is no accounting for his actions. Of course, it’s by no means evident that your friend has committed suicide, because there is absolutely no trace of such a thing. Nevertheless, I merely tell you my suspicion. We shall know the truth to-morrow, when the doctor has made his post-mortem. At the station, when I go back, I’ll give orders for the removal of the body to the mortuary. I presume that you will communicate the news to his friends. You said, I think, that his uncle was the Duke of Chester, and that he was a Member of Parliament. Are his parents alive?”

“No. Both are dead,” I answered, glancing again around the room, bewildered because of Aline’s strange statements only an hour before.

Could she, I wondered, have known of this? Yet when I remembered the doctor’s assertion that poor Roddy had not been dead half an hour, it seemed plain that at the time she had alleged he had committed suicide at Monte Carlo he was still alive and well.

The room was undisturbed. Nothing appeared out of place. In the window looking down into Duke Street, that quiet thoroughfare so near the noisy bustle of Piccadilly, and yet so secluded and eminently respectable, stood the writing-table, which he set up after his election, in order to attend to his correspondence. “I must send some letters to my constituents and to the local papers now and then,” he laughingly explained when I chaffed him about it. “Scarcely a day goes past but what I have to write, excusing myself from being present at some local tea-fight or distribution of school-prizes. To every sixpenny muffin-tussle I’m expected to give my patronage, so that they can stick my name in red letters on the bill announcing the event. Politics are a hollow farce.”

His words all came back to me now as I glanced at that table. I recollected how merry and light-hearted he had been then, careless of everybody, without a single thought of the morrow. Yet of late a change had certainly come upon him. In my ignorance I had attributed it to the weight of his Parliamentary honours, knowing that he cared nothing about politics, and had been forced into them by his uncle. Yet there might have been an ulterior cause, I reflected. Aline herself might have been the cause of his recent melancholy and despair.

She had evidently known him better than I had imagined.

Upon the table I noticed lying a large blue envelope, somewhat soiled, as if it had been carried in his pocket for a long time. It was linen-lined, and had therefore resisted friction, and instead of wearing out had become almost black.

I took it up and drew out the contents, a cabinet photograph and a sheet of blank paper.

I turned the picture over and glanced at it. It was a portrait of Aline!

She had been taken in a décolleté dress, a handsome evening costume, which gave her an entirely different character from the plain dress she had worn when we had first met. It was a handsome bodice, beautifully trimmed; and her face, still childlike in its innocence, peered out upon me with a tantalising smile. Around her slim throat was a necklet consisting of half a dozen rows of seed-pearls, from which some thirty amethysts of graduated sizes were suspended, a delicate necklet probably of Indian workmanship. The photograph was beautifully taken by the first of the Paris photographers.

There was no address on the envelope; the sheet of note-paper was quite plain. Without doubt this picture had been in his possession some considerable time.

The detective, who had covered the dead man’s face with a handkerchief, had passed into the bedroom and was searching the chest of drawers, merely out of curiosity, I suppose, when my eyes caught sight of a scrap of paper in the fireplace, and I picked it up. It was half-charred, but I smoothed it out, and then found it to be a portion of a torn letter. Three words only remained; but they were words which were exceedingly curious. They were “expose her true...” The letter had been torn in fragments and carefully burned even to this fragment, but it had only half consumed, and probably fallen from the bars.

At first I was prompted to hand it to the detective; but on reflection resolved to retain it. I alone held a key to the mystery, and was resolved to act independently with care and caution in an endeavour to elucidate the extraordinary affair.

In a few moments the officer made his re-appearance, saying—

“It’s strange, very strange, that the valet doesn’t come back. If he’s not here very soon, I shall commence to suspect him of having some hand in the affair.” Then, after a pause, during which his eyes were fixed upon the man whose face was hidden, he added, “I wonder whether, after all, a crime has been committed?”

“That remains for you to discover,” I replied. “There seems no outward sign of such a thing. The doctor has found no mark of violence.”

“True,” he said shrewdly. Then, with his eyes fixed upon the carpet, he suddenly exclaimed, “Ah! what’s this?” and bending, picked up something which he placed in the hollow of his hand, exposing it to my view.

It was a purely feminine object. A tiny pearl button from a woman’s glove.

“A lady’s been here recently, that’s very evident. We must find out who she was.”

“A lady!” I gasped, wondering in an instant whether Aline had called upon him.

“The outer door is open all day, I think you said,” he went on.

“Yes.”

“In that case it is probable that if she came during this man Ash’s absence, nobody would see her.”

“Very probably,” I said. “We can only wait until Ash returns.”

“But it’s already half an hour since you made the discovery, and nearly an hour since the gentleman died; yet the man has not returned,” the detective observed dubiously.

At that moment we heard a footstep on the stair, but instead of the dead man’s valet, an inspector in uniform entered. The detective briefly explained the circumstances in a dry, business-like tone, the inspector walked through the rooms with his hands behind his back, and after a survey of the place, and a promise to send some men to remove the body to the mortuary, left again.

So startling had been the discovery, and so curious the whole of the events of that morning, that I had scarcely felt any grief at the loss of my friend. It did not seem really true that Roddy Morgan, my very best chum, was actually dead; cut off in a moment in the prime of his manhood by some mysterious, but fatal, cause, which even the doctor had not yet decided.

As the minutes passed, slowly ticked out by the clock upon the mantel-shelf, I could not help sharing with the detective some doubts regarding Ash. Had he absconded?

If murder had actually been committed, then robbery was not the object of the crime, for on the writing-table were lying a couple of five-pound notes open, without any attempt at concealment. Roddy was always a careless fellow over money matters.

At last, at nearly half-past two, we heard the click of a key in the latch, and there entered the man whom we had been awaiting so long.

He walked straight into the sitting-room, but when he saw us, drew back quickly in surprise, muttering—

“I beg pardon, gentlemen.”

“No, come in,” the detective said, and as he obeyed his eyes fell upon his master, reclining there with his face covered with the silk handkerchief.

“Good heavens, sir, what’s happened?” he gasped, pale in alarm.

“A very serious catastrophe,” the officer answered. “Your master is dead!”

“Dead!” he gasped, his clean-shaven face pallid in fright. “Dead! He can’t be!”

“Look for yourself,” the detective said. “He expired about noon.”

Ash moved forward, and raising the handkerchief with trembling fingers, gazed upon the cold, set face of the man whom he had for years served so faithfully and well.

“What can you tell us regarding the affair?” asked the detective, with his dark eyes set full upon the agitated man.

“Nothing, sir. I know nothing,” he answered.

“Explain what your master was doing when you left, and why you went out.”

“About eleven o’clock, when I was polishing his boots in the kitchen, he called me,” answered the man, without hesitation. “He gave me a note, and told me to go to the departure platform of King’s Cross Station, and wait under the clock there for a youngish lady, who would wear a bunch of white flowers in her breast. I was to ask her if she expected him, and if so, to give her the letter. I took a cab there, waited at the spot he indicated for two whole hours, but saw no one answering the description; therefore I returned.”

“And the note?” asked the officer.

“Here it is,” answered Ash, placing his hand in his coat-pocket, and producing a letter.

The detective took it eagerly.

“It is not addressed,” he remarked in surprise. Then, tearing it open, he took out the single sheet of note-paper.

There was no writing upon it. The paper was perfectly blank.

“This complicates matters,” he said, turning to me. “The unknown lady who had made the appointment at King’s Cross evidently wished for an answer in the affirmative or negative. This was the latter. A blank sheet of paper, denoting that there was nothing to add.”

“Extraordinary!” I ejaculated. Then addressing Ash, I asked: “When you left your master what was he doing?”

“Sitting at the table, sir. He had his cheque-book open, for just before I went out he gave me a cheque for my month’s wages. They were overdue a week, and I was hard up; so I asked for them.”

“Did he hesitate to give you them, or did he make any remarks to lead you to think he was financially embarrassed?” I inquired.

“Not at all, sir. He had forgotten, and added an extra sovereign because he had kept me waiting. My master always had plenty of money, sir.”

“Do you remember him going to Monte Carlo?” I asked.

“No, sir. Once I heard him tell Captain Hamilton that he’d been there, but it isn’t since I’ve been employed by him.”

“How long is that?”

“Nine years next May, sir.”

“And have you had no holiday?”

“Of course I have, sir. Sometimes a week, sometimes a fortnight; and last year he gave me a month.”

“What time of the year was it?”

“In February. He went up to Aberdeen, and told me there was no need for me to go, and that I could shut up the chambers and have a holiday. I did, and went down to Norfolk to visit the friends of the girl I’m engaged to.”

“And he was gone a month?”

“Yes. A few days over a month.”

“You had letters from him, I suppose?” I suggested.

“Only one, about four or five days after he had left.”

“Then for aught you know he may have left Aberdeen and gone to Monte Carlo?” I said.

“Of course he may have done, sir. But he told me nothing about it.”

“Did you notice anything unusual about his manner when he came back to town?”

“He seemed nervous; especially when I’ve gone in to him to announce a lady visitor. He seemed to fear that some lady would call whom he didn’t want to see.”

“But he often took ladies to the Gallery down at the House,” I remarked, for Roddy was never so happy as when escorting two or three ladies over the House, or giving them tea on the long terrace beside the Thames. He was essentially a lady’s man.

“Yes, sir. But there was one he used to describe to me, and he told me often that if she ever came I was to tell her that he had left London.”

“What was she like?” asked the officer, pricking up his ears.

“Well,” replied Ash, after some reflection, “as far as I could make out, she was about twenty or so; very good-looking, and generally dressed in black. Of course, I never saw her, for she never called.”

The description he had given answered exactly to that of Aline. The mystery had become more complicated than I had anticipated. The next fact to ascertain was the cause of death.

“Why have you made these inquiries regarding Monte Carlo?” the detective asked me. “Did he go there?”

“I believe so,” I replied. “Of course, it is not proved, but I suspect that when he went to Aberdeen he afterwards went secretly to the Riviera.”

“Why secretly?”

“Ah! that I’m unable to tell,” I answered, resolved to keep the knowledge I possessed to myself. But pointing to the card in the frame of the mirror I explained that that was a gambling-card used only at Monte Carlo, and that the figures were in my friend’s handwriting.

The officer took it down interestedly, carefully scrutinised it, asked several questions regarding it, and then replaced it in the position it had occupied.

All three of us went to the writing-table, and the officer quickly discovered the cheque-book. Opening it he found by the counterfoil that what Ash had said about his cheque for wages was correct, but, further, that another cheque had been torn out after his, and that the counterfoil remained blank.

“This is suspicious,” the detective observed quickly. “It looks very much as if there’s been a robbery. We must stop the cheque at the bank,” and he scribbled down the number of the counterfoil.

“If a robbery has been committed, then my friend has been murdered,” I said.

“That’s more than likely,” replied the officer. “The story Ash tells us is certainly remarkable, and increases the mystery. If we can find this lady who made the appointment at King’s Cross, we should no doubt learn something which might throw some light on the affair. Personally, I am inclined to disbelieve the theory that death has been due to natural causes. In view of the facts before us, either suicide or murder seem much more feasible theories. Yet we must remember that a man who would deliberately send his man out before committing suicide would also fasten the door. You found it open.”

This circumstance had not before occurred to me. Yes, a man who intended to take his own life would not have left the door open.

Ash, hearing our argument, at once declared that he had closed the door when he had gone out. Therefore, it seemed proved that Roddy had received a visitor during the absence of his valet.