Part 7
"It isn't particularly pressing _now,_" replied Dorcas, looking at the clock on the mantelpiece, "but it will be at midnight, for at that hour I have to be under a lamp-post in Berkeley Square."
"Under a lamp-post in Berkeley Square at midnight! Then I'm sure Paul will agree with me that it _is_ a case for my assistance. I'm to be under that lamp-post with Dorcas, am I not, Paul?"
Paul smiled. "That's for Dorcas to say, old fellow. She knows her business better than we do. But we'll leave the lamp-post for further consideration. Let us have the case, Dorcas."
"It is simple so far," said the famous lady detective, "but none the less mysterious for that. The lady who has just left me is the wife of Mr. Judkins Barraclough."
"What--the mysterious millionaire, who three years ago fell apparently from the clouds and descended on London in a shower of gold?--the Crœsus who seems to have discovered the royal road to the perpetual paragraph?"
"The same."
"Then the lady I met at the gate was Lady Anna Barraclough. He married her about a year ago. She was a young widow. Her first husband ran through all his money on the turf and left her very badly off when he died at the age of seven-and-twenty of--let me see, what did they call it?--typhoid, I think."
"Quite right," said Dorcas, "your account agrees with the short sketch of her career Lady Anna Barraclough has already given me."
"What could she have married a man like Judkins Barraclough for?--his money, I suppose. He must be five-and-forty, and he has all the worst qualities of the ostentatious parvenu. Is it about him that she has come to you?"
"Yes, poor girl--for she is only five-and-twenty now--she made me feel quite sorry for her when she told me her story. She has had a terrible experience of marriage. Her first husband she loved, and he spent every shilling of her money as well as his own. When Mr. Judkins Barraclough met her she was dependent on a married brother, the Earl of Dashton, whose wife detested her. When the millionaire proposed to her, the poor girl, worried and embittered by the constant humiliation of her dependent position, accepted his offer in the recklessness of despair. She didn't expect to be happy with a man whom she felt it was impossible she could ever love, but at least she hoped for peace. And now--guess why she has come to me to-night."
"To get a divorce, I should think. It would be about the best thing you _could_ get for her, if all I hear of Mr. Judkins Barraclough's manners and habits is correct. I suppose he married her because he thought a wife who was a lady of title would be a good advertisement for him. _Is_ it to get a divorce she has come to you?"
"No, Lady Anna has a haunting suspicion that the man she married is not her legal husband--that he had a wife living when he married her."
"Then if she thinks that why doesn't she go to the police?"
Dorcas shook her head. "You forget the man is a millionaire living in Berkeley Square--the police would hardly take up a charge against him made by his wife merely because she _suspects._ 'If I am really this man's wife,' said Lady Anna, 'I have no right to go to the police, for he is my husband. I have come to you to find out everything for me first. Oh, if you can only tell me that I am a free woman, that I owe no further allegiance to this wretch whom I despise--whom I loathe--you will have done me the greatest service one woman can do for another!' Poor girl! It was a cry from the heart. I felt sorry for her, and I promised that I would do anything I could to ease her mind, or, at any rate, to put an end to the dreadful state of suspicion and uncertainty in which she is at present living. Oh!" said Dorcas, with a shudder, "how horrible it must be, to have to go about before the world with a smiling face bearing the name of a man you detest--to have to submit alike to the curses and the caresses of a man whom in your heart you believe to be the husband of another woman!"
"And what is your idea?" I said, looking scrutinisingly at Dorcas's face.
"To-night I shall start on my voyage of discovery. I shall see Mr. Judkins Barraclough, the famous millionaire, and then I shall begin to trace him back and back until I find out----"
"What?"
"Who he was before he arrived in London from South America and set up as a millionaire."
"But you say Lady Anna Barraclough suspects her husband of being a bigamist--what has put such an unpleasant idea into her head?"
"Something that has occurred lately. Mr. Judkins Barraclough, who has been coarse and cruel for some time past, has suddenly altered his demeanour. He has lost all his old over-bearing brutality. He is nervous, and has evidently something on his mind. One night her ladyship retired late to her own apartment, which is separated from her husband's by his dressing-room. At two in the morning she heard the front door close, and a few minutes later she heard her husband enter the dressing-room. It seemed to her that he must be in pain, for she distinctly heard him every now and then utter a low groan.
"She rose and went quietly into the dressing-room and found Mr. Judkins Barraclough washing a wound in his right arm with Condy. Lady Anna Barraclough saw at once that the wound looked like a bite--the marks of teeth were distinctly visible.
"Mr. Judkins Barraclough stammered out an explanation. A savage dog had attacked him as he was coming through a back street on his way home. He had raised his umbrella to beat it off, and it had flown at him and fastened its teeth in his arm. Then, somewhat angrily, he told his wife to go back to her own room; he was all right.
"Instantly Lady Anna Barraclough's suspicions were aroused. If a dog had bitten him her husband would have gone to a doctor's at once and had the wound dressed. Why should he come home and attend to it himself? There was only one solution--that the bite had been received under circumstances which he would be unable to explain satisfactorily."
"Ah," said Paul, "it is a woman who bites as a rule, not a man."
"Yes," replied Dorcas, "that was her ladyship's idea. Her husband had been bitten by a woman, and a woman only bites when she is mad with rage and her hands are being held.
"Since that night Mr. Judkins Barraclough had been out nearly all day and has not returned till late. But he has not ordered his carriage to take or fetch him on one single occasion. These circumstances aroused her ladyship's suspicions that something was wrong, and that there was trouble in which a woman was concerned. Her husband had evidently quarrelled with one who had attacked him.
"The attack--and what else could the bitten arm suggest?--would hardly be that of a mistress. A millionaire is not so shabbily treated in his gallantries, because a millionaire of the Judkins Barraclough type is only attractive on account of his wealth, and to bite a millionaire's arm is not exactly the way to retain his good graces. The man's altered demeanour, his evident fear of _something,_ the bitten arm, the long absences from home, and the non-employment of the carriages and horses all point, in Lady Anna's idea, to one thing--the power of some woman to interfere with him, perhaps to ruin him. Supposing in the old days, before he became wealthy, this man had a wife whom he had left in poverty, and she had discovered him, a wealthy bigamist, that would account for everything. But," said Dorcas, quietly, "supper's ready, and after supper I must be off."
Paul lifted his sightless eyes to his wife's face.
"There's a little invitation I should like you to give our guest to-night," he said, "I'm sure he'd like it, and I'm sure he deserves it."
"And what is that, dear?"
"Mrs. Dorcas Dene requests the pleasure of Mr. Saxon's company at 11.45 for midnight, underneath the lamp-post immediately opposite the residence of Mr. Judkins Barraclough, in Berkeley Square."
Dorcas laughed quite a ringing little laugh.
"Of course, if _you_ wish it, dear," she said.
Then turning to me with a quick resumption of her former seriousness of expression, she added:
"Honestly I shall be glad of your company. From what her ladyship has told me I don't think this South American millionaire is exactly the sort of wild animal for a woman to hunt alone."
* * * * * * *
It was half-past twelve when a hansom drove up to the door of No. --, Berkeley Square, and a gentleman with a long, loose summer overcoat got out and paid the cabman and ran up the steps.
Dorcas had told me that Mr. Barraclough would probably arrive in a cab, as for several nights recently he had not ordered the carriage to meet him anywhere, so Lady Anna had informed her.
Mr. Barraclough had let himself in with the latchkey before the cabman had pocketed his fare and picked up his reins to drive away.
"Now," said Dorcas, "we must find out where that man took Mr. Barraclough up. It is somewhere he doesn't want known. That is the reason he doesn't order his carriage to fetch him. It may be only a street corner. But wherever it is, it is the first step backwards towards the goal that lies far away in the past."
"But we can't tell the cabman to take us to where he picked his fare up, can we?" I said, hesitatingly.
"Leave that to me," replied Dorcas. "You call the cabman."
I obeyed, and the cabman turned his horse round and drew up to the kerb. Dorcas got half way in and then got out again and looked at the horse.
"You've been driving too fast, cabman," she said; "why, your poor horse is breathing quite hard."
"Lor' bless you, ma'am!" said the cabman, "that's nothing--that's his natural breathing! Why, he only come out of the yard half an hour ago, and I've only had one fare."
"One fare? It must have been a good journey by the look of the horse."
Then turning to me, she said:
"Don't let us take this cab--we'll get another--the horse is done up."
"Well, I'm blowed!" exclaimed the cabman. "That's a good one. Why, how far do you think the horse has come?"
"Oh," said Dorcas, "perhaps from Hampstead or Brixton."
"Hampstead or Brixton!" exclaimed the driver, wrathfully. "This here horse came out of the yard in St. Pancras just afore twelve o'clock, and a gent hailed me as was coming out of a house in Burton Crescent, and I drove him here, and that's all the work my horse has done to-night."
"Oh, very well," said Dorcas. Then turning to me, she said:
"Give the man a shilling and let him go. I'm not going to ride behind that horse."
The man took the shilling and drove off, muttering to himself, and Dorcas and I strolled a little way along.
"He came out of a house in Burton Crescent," she muttered; "that's something."
"Why didn't you ask him which house?"
"Too risky. The man might think something was up and find Barraclough to-morrow and tell him, in hope of a reward. But I took the man's number in case I want him later."
"Very well. What are you going to do now?" I asked. "Are you going home?"
"No--let us go to Burton Crescent."
"What on earth's the good of that? You can't find out the house Mr. Barraclough came out of to-night. There's not the slightest clue."
"There may be. Did you notice that when he put his umbrella up to stop the cabman he held it in his left hand?"
"Well?"
"When he got out he shifted his umbrella to his right hand, and felt with his left hand in his left pocket for the silver. Mr. Judkins Barraclough is still feeling the effects of that bitten right arm."
"Possibly--probably. But how on earth can his being temporarily left-handed guide us to the particular house he came out of in Burton Crescent?"
"I don't say it will--but it may. Let us go."
We took a cab, and got out at the end of Burton Crescent. We walked entirely round it, Dorcas Dene going up the steps of each house in turn, and examining them carefully.
Suddenly she uttered a little cry of delight.
"This is the house," she exclaimed. "Look!"
She pointed to three or four rose leaves lying on the steps of No. ---.
I looked at them bewildered, remembering that when Mr. Barraclough got out of the cab he had a large rose in the button-hole of his overcoat.
"I see the leaves," I said. "But what on earth made you imagine they would be there, and--and where does the left hand come in?"
"It's very simple," replied Dorcas. "I looked at Mr. Judkins Barraclough very carefully when he got out of the cab, and I noticed that the rose in his buttonhole was rather dilapidated. It had evidently been in contact with something, and several of the leaves were gone. Of course they might have dropped accidentally, but I instantly evolved a theory to account for the missing leaves. I glanced inside the cab while I was looking the horse up and down, there weren't any leaves there, so he hadn't crushed his rose in getting into it. If he had, some of the leaves would have fallen on the matting. I noticed that he used his left hand. The probability was that he hailed the cab with the umbrella in his left hand. The cabman said he was coming out of the house when he hailed him, so he would be on the steps at the time. Now, if you lifted your left hand hurriedly, as if hailing a cab that was passing, you would probably bring your arm up against the left side of your overcoat. Your arm would probably brush against a flower if you had one as large as a rose, and particularly if it projected as far forward as Mr. Barraclough's did. I said to myself, 'He might have knocked the leaves off that rose when he hailed the cab on a door-step in Burton Crescent.' My surmise fortunately turns out to be correct. Here are the rose leaves, and therefore this is the house."
"It's wonderful!" I said, "but after all, it's just one chance in a thousand."
"It is that one chance," replied Dorcas, quietly, "that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred brings the criminal into the hands of justice. Chance is the most successful detective the world has ever known."
Dorcas stepped back and looked up at the house.
"There are no lights anywhere," she said, "but we'll see what the inhabitants are like."
She seized the bell and rang it violently, and then gave a loud double knock. There was no sound inside the house. We waited a few minutes, then Dorcas knocked again, this time loud enough to wake up everybody in the Crescent. Still no one came, and the house remained in darkness.
"I'll try again," she said. "I'm sure to wake the people up on one side or other, and they'll think, perhaps, it's their knocker, and look out of the window."
Dorcas knocked this time for fully a couple of minutes, and at last she produced the desired effect.
A third floor window in the next house opened, and a woman put her head out.
"What's the good of your knocking there, a-frightening people out of their seven senses;" she called out angrily. "What do you want?"
"Mr. Robinson," replied Dorcas. "A relative of his is dying, and I've come to fetch him."
"You've come to the wrong house, then," said the woman, snappishly. "There ain't no Mr. Robinson there, 'cos the house is empty. Leastways, there ain't nobody sleepin' there."
"But Mr. Robinson was here this evening," replied Dorcas, unabashed.
"Oh, you mean the gent as has taken the place and ain't moved in yet, perhaps--I don't know his name. He ain't there now, I tell you. He only comes there now and then, and nobody's living there, and the tradespeople don't call. If you can't believe me, ask a policeman, only for goodness' sake leave off knocking. You're making yourself a noosance to the neighbourhood."
Dorcas thanked her informant, and we moved away. "Good-night," said Dorcas, as we got to the corner. "I'll take a cab and go home now. Mr. Barraclough is renting an empty house. I must find out why he does so."
"When shall we do that?"
"The day after to-morrow. I must have a couple of days to myself now. If you've nothing to do, come to Oak Tree Road in the evening the day after to-morrow, at ten o'clock."
I assured Dorcas that I should be delighted. I saw her into a cab, and wished her good-night, and went home, wondering to myself what on earth a millionaire with a magnificent establishment in Berkeley Square could want with an empty house in Burton Crescent.
* * * * * * *
During the afternoon of the appointed day I received a telegram-- "Come evening dress. Dorcas."
When I arrived at Oak Tree Road at ten o'clock in the evening, I found Dorcas busily engaged in trying the wick of a dark lantern, and on the floor beside her lay an open brown paper parcel filled with goloshes.
"Good gracious," I exclaimed, "are you going burgling?"
"Something very like it," she replied, lighting the lantern to satisfy herself that it was all right. "Just try on those goloshes and see if any of them will fit over your boots."
"But what do I want with goloshes? It's a perfectly dry night."
"You are going burgling with me--that is, of course, if you are not afraid."
"Burgling in evening dress!" I exclaimed. "I'm not afraid to do anything that you tell me is right, but I haven't been brought up to the profession, you know."
I selected a pair of goloshes which I thought likely to suit, and found they fitted over my boots perfectly.
"That's all right--put them in that bag," said Dorcas, pointing to a black bag on the sofa. Then she blew the lamp out, and fastening it to a leather belt, fitted it round her waist.
"You look like a female policeman," I exclaimed, "but you're not going through the streets with that on!"
"Nobody will see it under my long cloak. Here is a box of silent matches, put that in the bag too."
I obeyed mechanically.
"Now," said Dorcas. "come to supper. Paul is in the dining-room waiting for us. We don't start till twelve."
"But where are we going?"
"To look over that empty house in Burton Crescent," replied Dorcas, quite calmly. "I have seen Lady Anna Barraclough to-day. Her husband wears his keys on a chain. The chances are that the key he uses to let himself into Burton Crescent will be on the bunch. He wouldn't carry it loose for fear of leaving it in his pocket when he changed his clothes, and perhaps forgetting it just when he wanted it. I shall have his keys directly he is asleep to-night, so Heaven grant him sweet repose directly he lays his head on the pillow. I reckon on having his keys before two o'clock in the morning."
"But how will you manage it?"
"I have arranged it with her ladyship. They occupy, you remember, two rooms separated by Mr. Barraclough's dressing-room. There he leaves all his clothes for his valet to brush and attend to in the morning. After he is asleep, Lady Barraclough will go quietly into the dressing-room from her room, and detach the keys from the chain, which is attached to his braces. I shall be on the opposite side of the square in a four-wheel cab, which will be driven by a cabman whom I frequently engage and whom I can trust. Sitting in the cab I shall avoid the attention of the policeman, who might otherwise wonder why you and I were loitering about so long in one place. But from the cab I shall be watching the windows of No. --, Berkeley Square. When I see a corner of the blind pulled up in Lady Barraclough's room, and a lighted candle shown for a moment, I shall know she has the keys."
"Yes," I said, "that's all very well. But how is she going to give you the keys?"
"She isn't--she is going to give them to you."
"To me!" I exclaimed; "where?--when?--how?"
"You will be strolling about smoking a cigar. Being in evening dress you will not attract the notice of any inquisitive policeman, should one happen to be about. You will watch for that signal, too, and when you see it, you will go up the steps of No. -- as if you were going to ring to be let in.
"Lady Anna will come quietly downstairs, open the door, and give you the keys. Then you will walk away quietly into Piccadilly. My cab will follow and stop opposite Walsingham House. Then you will get in and we shall drive to the top of Burton Crescent. Our cabman will wait for us round the corner."
"In case of our having to make a run for it?"
"No--because at five o'clock in the morning Lady Anna Barraclough will creep downstairs again and feel in the letter box."
"What for--a note from you?"
"No--the keys. You will put them there when we have done with them. Then she will go back into her husband's dressing-room, fasten them on to the chain on his braces again, and he will get up in the morning and see them and never dream that they have been having a 'night out.'"
"And suppose the key of the house isn't on the bunch?"
"Then we shall have had our journey for nothing. But the reasonable supposition is that it will be. Now come to supper, and make a good one, for we have a rough night's work before us."
* * * * * * *
Two hours later a light flashed in a second floor window of No. --, Berkeley Square, and with a beating heart I went up the steps. The door opened quietly, and a woman's hand came cautiously through the opening and touched mine. I clutched the keys, slipped them into my pocket, and strode away in the direction of Piccadilly.
When the four-wheel cab stopped I got in and gave the keys to Dorcas. "So far, so good," she said. "Now with average luck we shall get into that empty house without attracting attention, and discover the millionaire's secret."
Dorcas was holding the keys up to the light that came through the cab window and examining them carefully.
"There are two latchkeys at any rate," she said. "Let us hope that one of them will unlock the cupboard in which Mr. Judkins Barraclough keeps his skeleton."
_VIII. THE EMPTY HOUSE_
As the cab made its way towards Burton Crescent I am not ashamed to confess that I had misgivings as to the success of our enterprise. Not having been brought up to burglary, I contemplated with something akin to nervousness my début as a "cracksman," and I pictured to myself the awkward predicament in which we should find ourselves if we were discovered by a watchful policeman, creeping about a house with goloshes over our boots and a dark lantern and silent matches in our possession.
I put the point to Dorcas. As we had probably the key of the house in Burton Crescent with us, why should we compromise our position by taking the implements of burglary with us?
"Because," said Dorcas, "it is better to be over-cautious than over-bold in my profession. If there _should_ be anyone in the house I want to _see_ them before they hear me, and that is why I have taken precautions with our boots and with our light."
"Do you think Mr. Barraclough has visited the house since we were there?"
"Yes; I watched the house for a short time last evening. A dark-complexioned, white-haired old gentleman, with a closely cropped white moustache and gold spectacles, let himself in about nine o'clock. No such person came out again. But towards midnight the door was opened, and a gentleman in a long grey overcoat came out. That person I did not see enter; but of course that is not conclusive, as I only commenced to watch about eight in the evening."
"And the person who came out was----?"
"Judkins Barraclough."
"Do you think the dark old man will be in the house to-night?"
"No," said Dorcas, in an emphatic tone, "I don't! But I have some more interesting information gathered during the last two days round the neighbourhood. The local tradespeople, who are always on the watch when the 'To Let' is taken out of the windows of a house, saw a van at the door delivering goods one day last week. The person who was superintending the disposal of the goods was an old gentleman with very white hair and gold spectacles, and a closely-cropped, white moustache. His face and hands were very dark, and he looked like a native of India in European clothes. The baker's man, seeing the door open and cases being delivered, presented his master's card. The Indian gentleman replied in excellent English that the family would not be coming in for a month or six weeks."