Chapter Fourteen. Relates what we Discovered.

While the doctor occupied himself with restoring the mistress of the house to consciousness, I stood by watching, and then turned to the window abstractedly, and awaiting my opportunity, succeeded in transferring the photograph of the dead unknown to my overcoat pocket.

Suddenly the housemaid, on returning to the room with some water, pointed to a corner, exclaiming,—

“Why? Look there, sir!”

We all glanced in the direction she indicated, and noticed that from the corner of the room the blue carpet had been torn up, and lay back disclosing about a foot of flooring.

Quickly I bent down to examine it, and found to my surprise that one of the boards had been cut across about nine inches from the wainscoting, and was hinged, so that it could be pulled up. There had evidently been a strong fastening which had been forced, for the wood was newly splintered.

After some little difficulty I pulled it up, revealing a small box-like cavity lined with sheet-iron, well designed in order to hide plate or valuables secretly and securely. I placed my hand down, but could feel nothing. It was empty. The men, whoever they were, knew of that secret hiding-place, and had taken whatever it had contained.

I struck a vesta in order to examine the place more closely, and the others grouped eagerly around me, when I distinguished at the bottom of the box a further flap, which I lifted, and saw something concealed in the false bottom. It was a small red morocco jewel-case about four inches square, which I opened very carefully.

Next instant those around me with one breath gave vent to exclamations of surprise and horror. And well they might.

The object which the jewel-case contained was truly startling. I stood staring at it amazed. Since that moment when I had stood with Sybil in the Long Gallery at Ryhall every hour seemed to bring with it some fresh mystery, or some gruesome problem.

That jewel-case contained a most curious and uncommon object, a dark and somewhat shrivelled, but yet well-preserved, human eye!

The doctor, leaving the unconscious woman’s side, took it from me, and putting on his pince-nez examined it long and carefully beneath the light.

It was a horrid thing, the white bloodshot, and the pupil a dark leaden grey.

“It’s a man’s eye,” declared the doctor, after long and very careful scrutiny. “It was removed by somebody unskilled in anatomy, and has been treated with some preservative. There’s mystery here,” he added, looking round at the scared faces of those grouped around him.

“I wonder if the men wanted to get hold of that?” the constable suggested, a theory which Lane and the housemaid at once declared to be a sound one. “At any rate,” he added, “I think I’d better report the affair at the station. They’ll certainly want to make some inquiry about that eye.”

“For the present I’ll take possession of it,” said the doctor, replacing the ghastly-looking little object in the velvet-lined case, and closing it with a snap.

Then he returned to Mrs Parham, who a few minutes afterwards stirred slightly, while her eyelids quivered. It was a good sign, as he pointed out, and ten minutes later the poor lady opened her eyes and looked wonderingly around.

“Remain quiet, madam,” the doctor urged in a gentle voice. “You are not very well.”

“No,” she gasped faintly. “I—I don’t think I—”

Then her jaws became fixed. She could not conclude the sentence, and lapsed again into unconsciousness.

The constable had sent Lane round to the police station, and an inspector, entering the room, was told what had occurred, and was shown the human eye.

When he saw it he knit his brows. Like ourselves, he scented tragedy, especially as the poor girl Jane was lying dead.

The inspector was also shown the secret cavity beneath the carpet. He examined the windows of all the rooms on the ground floor, made a tour of the exterior of the house, and closely questioned all the servants.

The absence of the master of the house somewhat puzzled him, for the cook explained that Mr Parham returned from the country two days before and remained at home all the afternoon, packed another big travelling bag and left again about seven o’clock, telling his wife that he had to go to Birmingham.

When, a little later, we returned to the drawing-room we found Mrs Parham propped up with pillows and attended by the doctor and the housemaid. She was talking with them, and looked at me inquiringly as I entered with the inspector. She probably took me for a police officer in plain clothes.

“I was sitting at the piano playing when Jane entered and drew down one of the blinds,” she said, in a low voice, speaking with some difficulty. “Then she switched on the light and drew down the other blind. At that instant I heard a movement behind me, and turning I saw a man, but next moment something was slipped over my head and eyes. I struggled and at the same time heard Jane cry out. While my assailant held me tightly I heard Jane struggling, therefore there must have been two men in the room at least. A few moments later I lost consciousness and know nothing else until I found you all here standing around me. What has happened?” she inquired, in a refined voice, looking from the doctor across to me.

“We don’t quite know yet, mum,” answered the police inspector. “It seems as though the men were thieves who being disturbed slipped away.”

“Thieves!” she gasped, open-mouthed. “Have they taken anything?”

“We can’t make out. When you feel a little better you must come round the house with us.”

“They’ve opened a place under the floor, across there,” explained the doctor, pointing to the corner where the carpet was still laid back from the boards.

She raised herself quickly upon her elbow and glanced in the direction indicated, staring straight at the spot with a look of terror in her eyes. No word escaped her lips. Her jaws seemed again fixed, her breath held, her fingers clenched into the palms.

She realised that the secret hiding-place had been discovered.

“What have they taken?” she gasped, in a low, terrified tone, when at last she found tongue.

“Apparently everything,” I replied. “The place is empty.”

“Empty!” she echoed, raising herself to her feet with an effort, but reeling unsteadily back to the couch, for her head was still swimming after the effects of the chloroform. “The fiends!” she cried.

“And poor Jane. How is she?”

“I much regret, madam, that the chloroform administered to her has had a fatal effect,” said the doctor, gravely.

“Dead! Jane dead?”

“Yes. They’ve killed her,” declared the inspector. “It’s wilful murder, that’s what it is, mum. Therefore, if you can give us any information as to who these ruffians may be we’ll be very glad. We must arrest them at all costs. Who do you think they might be?”

But Mrs Parham, although a strange look crossed her white, haggard features, made no response to the officer’s question.

“Poor Jane! Poor Jane—the brutes!” she kept on repeating, her wild eyes staring across to where the body of the dead maid-servant was lying.

From her manner I felt convinced that she suspected who the intruders were, now that she knew that their motive had been to search in that secret cavity beneath the floor of the drawing-room, and possess themselves of something concealed there.

Would she denounce them?

The inspector again questioned her, but her answers were evasive.

“My husband is in the country,” she explained. “He is very often away, for his business often takes him on the Continent, to Paris and Amsterdam.”

“But how do you think these men got into the house?” the officer asked. “I notice that the inner glass door of the hall closes with a latch which can only be opened from the inside. Therefore, if they had entered the front door with a false key they could not have passed the inner door.”

This fact was interesting, and one which I had entirely overlooked.

“I have no idea how they could have entered. Perhaps by a window.”

“Or perhaps by the servants’ entrance,” Lane suggested.

“They couldn’t have got in that way, mum, because they’d have to pass through the kitchen, and cook was there all the time. Besides, we’re always very careful that that door is never left ajar.”

“It’s evident that they were concealed in the house,” I remarked, recollecting that tall shadowy figure that had crossed the room on tip-toe at the instant that the blind had been lowered.

“Of course,” agreed the inspector. “But what we want to know is whether this lady has any suspicion of anyone to whose advantage it would be to obtain possession of what was concealed there.”

“I don’t know what was in there,” she declared, in a weak, nervous voice. “My husband made the place himself a few months ago, as he often has valuable jewellery here. In the City he has a strong room, of course, but here he deemed it best to make a secret hiding-place rather than have a fire-proof safe, which is always discussed by servants, and the knowledge of which in a private house so soon becomes common property.”

“Then he used to keep valuables there?” asked the inspector.

“I believe so, but I never looked inside. It opened with a spring, the secret of which he alone knew.”

“Who made it? The man who constructed it knew the secret, no doubt. He may be one of those implicated.”

“The piece of board with the spring he brought home with him from Paris one day. It was made there, he said. The steel box was made somewhere in Chelsea.”

“And who fitted the board so evenly?”

“He did himself. He is an amateur cabinetmaker, and at one time used to make furniture. He made that table over there,” she added, pointing to a small round table standing near the corner where was the secret cavity.

“Then no workman was actually employed in fitting it up?” remarked the inspector, disappointedly.

“No. He did it himself, so that nobody should know. And he would not even let me know the secret of the spring.”

“Which showed some distrust,” remarked the inspector. “He evidently possessed something there which he did not wish you to see.”

“Yes. That, however, is not surprising,” she remarked. “Many husbands have secrets—family affairs and such like—with which they hesitate to trouble their wives.”

“Certainly,” he said, glancing dubiously at me, and no doubt recollecting that gruesome object now in the doctor’s pocket. “But it seems very strange that thieves should come here so boldly, attack both you and the maid-servant, and go straight to that secret hiding-place if there was not some very strong motive. They evidently knew there was something there—something of which they desired to obtain possession.”

“But they didn’t know the secret of the spring, for they prised it open.”

I placed my hand in my overcoat pocket, and it came in contact with the portrait which I had succeeded in taking—the picture of the dead unknown.

Why had it been kept in such a prominent position in her room? I longed to question her, but at that moment was unable.

The mystery of the murderous attack in which the maid had lost her life; the mystery of that tall, thin man who crept across the apartment; the mystery of the theft; the mystery of the human eye, were all enigmas utterly beyond solution.

I took Laking aside and obtained a promise from him not to explain the circumstances under which we had met. Then to Mrs Parham I introduced myself later as a casual passer-by who had been alarmed by the startling discovery. I did this because I intended to call again and make the acquaintance of her husband.

Half an hour later, after all inquiry of Mrs Parham had failed to elicit a single fact regarding any person who might have a motive for the outrage and robbery, I left the house, and walked down the dark, deserted suburban thoroughfare accompanied by the police inspector, who was on his way back to the station to telegraph the curious facts to Scotland Yard.

“Well?” I asked, when we were out in the roadway, “and what do you make of the affair?”

“What do I think? Why, the lady is lying. She knows who did it, but fears to tell us the truth. There was something hidden under the floor which those people intended to get, and got it. Mark me! She dare not speak, otherwise she’ll ruin her own reputation. When we fathom the mystery of to-night it will be found to be a very interesting one, depend upon it.”

“Then you really suspect her?” I remarked. “Yes, I suspect her. She has some secret from her husband—and she fears that through this robbery he may learn the truth.”

“You know Mr Parham, perhaps—I mean you know something about him?”

“Well, yes,” he answered, smiling curiously. “We happen to know Mr Parham—and if what I suspect is true, then the affair of to-night is not surprising. Wait and see. The real facts, when they come to light, will very probably amaze you.”