Part 5

“Oh yes; very nice house and good position--Mrs Severe, that is to say. You will remember that she obtained a divorce from her husband four or five years ago. I’ve turned up the particulars and it wasn’t what you’d call a bad case as things go, but the lady seemed determined, and in the end Severe didn’t defend. She had five or six hundred a year of her own, but he had nothing beyond his salary, and he threw his position up then, and ever since he has been going steadily down. He’s almost on the last rung now and picks up his living casual.”

“What’s the case against him?”

“Well, it scarcely amounts to a case as yet because there is no evidence of his being seen with the child, nor is there anything to connect him with her after the disappearance. Still, it is a working hypothesis. If it was the act of a tramp or a maniac, experience goes to show that we should have found her, dead or alive, by now. Mrs Severe is all for it being her husband. Of course the decree gave her the custody of Marie. Severe asked to be allowed to see her occasionally, and at first a servant took the child to have tea with him once a month. That was at his rooms. Then he asked to be met in one of the parks or at a gallery. He hadn’t got so much as a room then, you see, sir. At last the servant reported that he had grown so shabby as to shame her that the child should be seen with him, though she did say that he was always sober and very kind to Marie, bringing her a little toy or something even when he didn’t seem to have sixpence for himself. After that the visits were stopped altogether. Then about a month ago these two, husband and wife, met accidentally in the street. Severe said that he hoped to be doing a bit better soon, and asked for the visits to be continued. How it would have gone I cannot say, but Mrs Severe happened to have a friend with her, an American lady called Miss Julp, who seems to be living with her now, and the middle-aged female--she’s a hard sister, that Cornelia Julp, I should say--pushed her way into the conversation and gave her views on his conduct until Severe must have had some trouble with his hands. Finally Mrs Severe had an unfortunate impulse to end the discussion by giving her husband a bank-note. She says she got the most awful look she ever saw on any face. Then Severe very deliberately tore up the note, dropped the pieces down a gutter grid that they were standing near, dusted his fingers on his handkerchief, raised his hat and walked away without another word. That was the last she saw of him, but she professes to have been afraid of something happening ever since.”

“Then something happens, and so, of course, it must be Severe?” suggested Carrados.

“It does look a bit like that so far, I must admit, sir,” assented the Inspector. “Still, Mrs Severe’s opinions aren’t quite all. Severe’s account of his movements on the afternoon in question--say between twelve-thirty and four in particular--are not satisfactory. Latterly he has been occupying a miserable room off Red Lion Street. He went out at twelve and returned about five--that he doesn’t deny. Says he spent the time walking about the streets and in the Holborn news-room, but can mention no one who saw him during those five hours. On the other hand, a porter at Swanstead station identifies him as a passenger who alighted there from the 1.17 that afternoon.”

“From a newspaper likeness?”

“In the first instance, Mr Carrados. Afterwards in person.”

“Did they speak, or is it merely visual?”

“Only from what he saw of him.”

“Struck, I suppose, by the remarkable fact that the passenger wore a hat and a tie--as shown in the picture; or inspired to notice him closely by something indescribably suggestive in the passenger’s way of giving up his ticket? It may be all right, Beedel, I admit, but I heartily distrust the weight of importance that these casual identifications are being given on vital points nowadays. Are you satisfied with this yourself?”

“Only as corroborative, sir. Until we find the girl or some trace of her we’re bound to make casts in the hope of picking up a line. Well, then there’s the letter Mrs Severe received.”

“Have you that with you?”

The Inspector took up the wallet that he had not yet returned to his pocket and selected another enclosure.

“It’s a very unusual form,” he commented as he handed the envelope to Mr Carrados and waited for his opinion.

The blind man passed his finger-tips across the paper and at once understood the point of singularity. The lines were printed, but not in consecutive form, every letter being on a little separate square of paper. It was evident that they had been cut out from some other sheet and then pasted on the envelope to form the address.

“London, E.C., 5.30 P.M., 15th May,” read Carrados from the postmark.

“The day of the kidnapping. There is a train from Swanstead arriving at Lambeth Bridge at 4.47,” remarked Beedel.

“What was your porter doing when that left?”

“He was off duty, sir.”

Carrados took out the enclosure and read it off as he had already done the envelope, but with a more deliberative touch, for the print was smaller. The type and the paper were suggestive of a newspaper origin. In most cases whole words had been found available.

“Do not be alarmed,” ran the patchwork message. “The girl is in good hands. Only risk lies in pressing search. Wait and she will return uninjured.”

“You have identified the newspaper?”

“Yes; it is all cut from _The Times_ of May the 13th. The printing on the back of the words fixes it absolutely. Premeditated, Mr Carrados.”

“The whole incident points to that. The date of the newspaper means little, but the deliberate selection of words, the careful way they have been cut out and aligned, taken in conjunction with the time the child disappeared and the time that this was posted--yes, I think you may assume premeditation, Inspector.”

“Stationery of the commonest description; immediate return to London, and the method of a man who used this print because he feared that under any disguise his handwriting might be recognised.”

Carrados nodded.

“Severe cannot hope to retain the child, of course,” he remarked casually. “What motive do you infer?”

“Mrs Severe is convinced that it is to distress her, out of revenge.”

“And this letter is to reassure her?”

The Inspector bit his lip as he smiled at the quiet thrust.

“It might also be to influence her towards suspending search,” he suggested.

“At all events I dare say that it has reassured her?”

“In a certain way, yes, it has. It has enabled us to establish that the act is not one of casual lust or vagabondage. There is an alternative that we naturally did not suggest to her.”

“And that is?”

“Another Thelby Wood case, Mr Carrados. The maniacal infatuation of someone who would be the last to be suspected. Some man of good position, a friend and neighbour possibly, who sees this beautiful young creature--the school friend of his own daughters or sitting before him in church it may be--and becomes the slave of his diseased imagination until he is prepared to risk everything for that one overpowering object. A primitive man for the time, one may say, or, even worse, a satyr or a gorilla.”

“I wonder,” observed Carrados thoughtfully, “if you also have ever felt that you would like to drop it and become a monk, Inspector. Or a stylite on a pole.”

Beedel laughed softly and then rubbed his chin in the same contemplative spirit.

“I think I know what you mean, sir,” he admitted. “It’s a black page. But,” he added with wholesome philosophy, “after all, it _is_ only a page in a longish book. And if I was in a monastery there’d be one or two more things done that I’ve helped to keep undone.”

“Including the cracking of my head, Inspector? Very true. We must take the world as we find it and ourselves as we are. And I wish that I could agree with you about Severe. It would be a more endurable outlook: spite and revenge are at least decent human motives. Unfortunately, the only hint I can offer is a negative one.” He indicated the printed cuttings on the sheet that Beedel had submitted to him. “This photo-mountant costs about sixpence a pot, but you can buy a bottle of gum for a penny.”

“Well, sir,” said Beedel, “I did think of having that examined, but I waited for you to see the letter as it stood. After all, it didn’t strike me as a point one could put much reliance on.”

“Quite right,” assented Mr Carrados, “there is nothing personal or definite in it. It may suggest a photographer, amateur or professional, but it would be preposterous to assume so much from this alone. Severe, even, may have----There are hundreds of chances. I should disregard it for the moment.”

“There is nothing more to be got from the letter?”

“There may be, but it is rather elusive at present. What has been done with it?”

“I received it from Mrs Severe and it has been in my possession ever since.”

“You haven’t submitted it to a chemist for any purpose?”

“No, sir. I gave a copy of the wording to some newspaper gentlemen, but no one but myself has handled it.”

“Very good. Now if you care to leave it with me for a few days----”

Inspector Beedel expressed his immediate willingness and would have added his tribute of obligation for Mr Carrados’s service, but the blind man cut him short.

“Don’t rely on anything, Inspector,” he warned him. “I am afraid that this resolves itself into a game of chance. Just one touch of luck may give us a winning point, or it may go the other way. In any case there is no reason why I should not motor round by Swanstead one of these days when I am out. If anything fresh turns up before you hear from me you had better telephone me. Now exactly where did this happen?”

The actual facts surrounding the disappearance of Marie Severe constituted the real mystery of the case. Arling Avenue, Swanstead, was one of those leisurely suburban roads where it is impossible to imagine anything happening hurriedly from the delivery of an occasional telegram to the activity of the local builder. Houses, detached houses each surrounded by its rood or more of garden, had been built here and there along its length at one time or another, but even the most modern one had now become matured, and the vacant plots between them had reverted from the condition of “eligible sites” into very passable fields of buttercups and daisies again, so that Arling Avenue remained a pleasant and exclusive thoroughfare. One side of the road was entirely unbuilt on and afforded the prospect of a level meadow where hay was made and real animals grazed in due season. The inhabitants of Arling Avenue never failed to point out to visitors this evidence of undeniable rurality. It even figured in the prospectus of Homewood, the Arling Avenue day school for girls and little boys which the Misses Chibwell had carried on with equal success and inconspicuousness until the Severe affair suddenly brought them into the glare of a terrifying publicity.

Mrs Severe’s house, The Hollies, was the first in the road, as the road was generally regarded--that is to say, from the direction of the station. Beedel picked up a loose sheet of paper and scored it heavily with a plan of the neighbourhood as he explained the position with some minuteness. Next to The Hollies came Arling Lodge. After Arling Lodge there was one of the vacant plots of ground before the next house was reached, but between the Lodge and the vacant plot was a broad grassy opening, unfenced towards the road, and here the Inspector’s pencil underlined the deepest significance, culminating in an ominous X about the centre of the space. Originally the opening had doubtless marked the projection of another road, but the scheme had come to nothing. Occasionally a little band of exploring children with the fictitious optimism of youth pecked among its rank and tangled growth in the affectation of hoping to find blackberries there; once in a while a passing chair-mender or travelling tinker regarded it favourably for the scene of his midday siesta, but its only legitimate use seemed to be that of affording access to the side door of Arling Lodge garden. The Inspector pencilled in the garden door as an afterthought, with the parenthesis that it was seldom used and always kept locked. Then he followed out the Avenue as far as the school, indicating all the houses and other features. The whole distance traversed did not exceed two hundred yards.

A few minutes before two o’clock on the afternoon of her disappearance Marie Severe set out as usual for Miss Chibwell’s school. Since the incident of the unfortunate encounter with her former husband Mrs Severe had considered it necessary to exercise a peculiar vigilance over her only child. Thenceforward Marie never went out alone; never, with the exception of the short walk to school and back, that is to say, for in that quiet straight road, in the full light of day, it was ridiculous to imagine that anything could happen. It was ridiculous, but all the same the vaguely uneasy woman generally walked to the garden gate with the little girl and watched her until the diminished figure passed, with a last gay wave of hand or satchel, out of her sight into the school-yard.

“That’s how it would have been on this occasion,” narrated Beedel, “only just as they got to the garden gate a tradesman whom Mrs Severe wanted to speak with drove up and passed in by the back way. The lady looked along the avenue, and as it happened at that moment Miss Chibwell was standing in the road by her gate. No one else was in sight, so it isn’t to be wondered at that Mrs Severe went back to the house immediately without another thought.

“That was the last that has been seen of Marie. As a matter of fact, Miss Chibwell turned back into her garden almost as soon as Mrs Severe did. When the child did not appear for the afternoon school the mistress thought nothing of it. She is a little short-sighted and although she had seen the two at their gate she concluded that they were going out together somewhere. Consequently it was not until four o’clock, when Marie did not return home, that the alarm was raised.”

Continuous narration was not congenial to Inspector Beedel’s mental attitude. He made frequent pauses as though to invite cross-examination. Sometimes Carrados ignored the opening, at others he found it more convenient to comply.

“The inference is that someone was waiting in this space just beyond Arling Lodge?” he now contributed.

“I think it is reasonable to assume that, sir. Premeditated, we both admit. Doubtless a favourable opportunity was being looked for and there it was. At all events there”--he tapped the X as the paper lay beneath Carrados’s hand--“there is the very last trace that we can rely on.”

“The scent, you mean?”

“Yes, Mr Carrados. We got one of our dogs down the next morning and put him on the trail. We gave him the scent of a boot and from the gate he brought us without a pause to where I have marked this X. There the line ended. There can be no doubt that from that point the girl had been picked up and carried. That is a very remarkable thing. It could scarcely have been done openly past the houses. The fences on all sides are of such a nature that it is incredible for any man to have got an unwilling or insensible burden of that sort over without at least laying it down in the process. If our dog is to be trusted, it wasn’t laid down. Some sort of a vehicle remains. We find no recent wheel-marks and no one seems to have seen anything that would answer about at that time.”

“You are determined to mystify me, Inspector,” smiled Carrados.

“I’m that way myself, sir,” said the detective.

“And I know you too well to ask if you have done this and that----”

“I’ve done everything,” admitted Beedel modestly.

“Is this X spot commanded by any of the houses? Here is Arling Lodge----”

“There is one window overlooking, but now the trees are too much out for anything to be seen. Besides, it’s only a passage window. Dr Ellerslie took me up there himself to settle the point.”

“Ellerslie--Dr Ellerslie?”

“The gentleman who lives there. At least he doesn’t live altogether there, as I understand that he has it for a week-end place. Boating, I believe, sir. His regular practice is in town.”

“Harley Street? Prescott Ellerslie, do you know?”

“That is the same, Mr Carrados.”

“Oh, a very well-known man. He has a great reputation as an operator for peritonitis. Nothing less than fifty guineas a time, Inspector.” Perhaps the fee did not greatly impress Mr Carrados, but he doubtless judged that it would interest Inspector Beedel. “And this house on the other side--Lyncote?”

“A retired Indian army colonel lives there--Colonel Doige.”

“I mean as regards overlooking the spot.”

“No; it is quite cut off from there. It cannot be seen.”

Carrados’s interpreting finger stopped lightly over a detail of the plan that it was again exploring. The Inspector’s pencil had now added a line of dots leading from The Hollies gate to the X.

“The line the dog took,” Beedel explained, following the other’s movement. “You notice that the girl turned sharply out of the avenue into this opening at right angles.”

“I was just considering that.”

“Something took her attention suddenly or someone called her there--I wonder what, Mr Carrados.”

“I wonder,” echoed the blind man, raising the anonymous letter to his face again.

Mr Carrados frequently professed to find inspiration in the surroundings of light and brilliance to which his physical sense was dead, but when he wished to go about his work with everyone else at a notable disadvantage he not unnaturally chose the dark. It was therefore night when, in accordance with his promise to Beedel, he motored round by Swanstead, or, more exactly, it was morning, for the clock in the square ivied tower of the parish church struck two as the car switchbacked over the humped bridge from Middlesex into Surrey.

“This will do, Harris; wait here,” he said a little later. He knew that there were trees above and wide open spaces on both sides. The station lay just beyond, and from the station to Arling Avenue was a negligible step. Even at that hour Arling Avenue might have been awake to the intrusion of an alien car of rather noticeable proportions.

The adaptable Harris picked out Mr Carrados’s most substantial rug and went to sleep, to dream of a wayside cycle shop and tea-rooms where he could devote himself to pedigree Wyandottes. With Parkinson at his elbow Carrados walked slowly on to Arling Avenue. What was lacking on Beedel’s plan Parkinson’s eyes supplied; on a subtler plane, in the moist, warm night, full of quiet sounds and earthy odours, other details were filled in like the work of a lightning cartoonist before the blind man’s understanding.

They walked the length of the avenue once and then returned to the grassy opening where the last trace of Marie Severe had evaporated.

“I will stay here. You walk on back to the highroad and wait for me. I may be some time. If I want you, you will hear the whistle.”

“Very good, sir.” Parkinson knew of old that there were times when his master would have no human eye upon him as he went about his work, and with a magnificent stolidity the man had not a particle of curiosity. It did not even occur to him to wonder. But for nearly half-an-hour the more inquiring creatures of the night looked down--or up, according to their natures--to observe the strange attitudes and quiet persistence of the disturber of the solitude as he crossed and recrossed their little domain, studied its boundaries, and explored every corner of its miniature thickets. A single petal picked up near the locked door to the garden of Arling Lodge seemed a small return for such perseverance, but it is to be presumed that the patient search had not been in vain, for it was immediately after the discovery that Carrados left the opening, and with the cool effrontery that marked his methods he opened the front gate of Dr Ellerslie’s garden and made his way with slow but unerring insight along the boundary wall.

“A blind man,” he had once replied to Mr Carlyle’s nervous remonstrance--“a blind man carries on his face a sufficient excuse for every indiscretion.”

It was nearly three o’clock when, by the light of the street lamp at the corner of the avenue and the highroad, Parkinson saw his master approaching. But to the patient and excellent servitor’s disappointment Carrados at that moment turned back and retraced his steps in the same leisurely manner. As a matter of fact, a new consideration had occurred to the blind man and he continued to pace up and down the footpath as he considered it.

“Oh, sir!”

He stopped at once, but betraying no surprise, without the start which few can restrain when addressed suddenly in the dark. It was always dark to him, but was it ever sudden? Was he indeed ignorant of the obscure figure that had appeared at the gate during his perambulation?

“I have seen you walking up and down at this hour and I wondered--I wondered whether you had any news.”

“Who are you?” he asked.

“I am Mrs Severe. My little girl Marie disappeared from here two weeks ago. You must surely know about it; everybody does.”

“Yes, I know,” he admitted. “Inspector Beedel told me.”

“Oh, Inspector Beedel!” There was obvious disappointment in her voice. “He is very kind and promises--but nothing comes of it, and the days go on, the days go on,” she repeated tragically.

“Ida! Ida!” Someone was calling from one of the upper windows, but Carrados was speaking also and Mrs Severe merely waved her hand back towards the house without responding.

“Your little girl was very fond of flowers?”

“Oh yes, indeed.” The pleasant recollection dwarfed the poor lady’s present sense of calamity and for a moment she was quite bright. “She loved them. She would bury her face in a bunch of flowers and drink their scent. She almost lived in the garden. They were more to her than toys or dolls, I am sure. But how do you know?”

“I only guessed.”

“Ida! Ida!” The rather insistent, nasally querulous voice was raised again and this time Mrs Severe replied.

“Yes, dear, immediately,” she called back, still lingering, however, to discover whether she had anything to hope from this outlandish visitant.

“Had Marie been ill recently?” Carrados detained her with the question.

“Ill! Oh no.” The reply was instant and emphatic. It was almost--if one could credit a mother’s pride in her child’s health being carried to such a length--it was almost resentful.

“Nothing that required the services of a doctor?”

“Marie never requires the services of a doctor.” The tone, distant and constrained, made it clear that Mrs Severe had given up any expectations in this quarter. “My child, I am glad to say, does not know what illness means,” she added deliberately.

“Ida! Oh, here you are.” The very unromantically accoutred form of a keen-visaged, middle-aged female, padding heavily in bedroom slippers along the garden walk, gave its quietus to the situation. “What a scare you gave me, dearie. Why, whoever----”

“Good-night,” said Mrs Severe, turning from the gate.

Carrados raised his hat and resumed his interrupted stroll. He had not sought the interview and he made no effort to prolong it, for there was little to be got from that source.

“A strange flare of maternal pride,” he remarked in his usual detached fashion as he rejoined Parkinson.

About five o’clock on the same day--five o’clock in the afternoon, let it be understood--Inspector Beedel was called to the telephone.

“Oh, nothing fresh so far, Mr Carrados,” he reported when he identified his caller. “I shan’t forget to let you know whenever there is.”

“But I think that possibly there is,” replied Mr Carrados. “Or at least there might be if you went down to Arling Lodge and insisted on seeing the child who slept there last night.”