Chapter XVIII: The Four Letters

“How can we tell?” asked the Norwegian as he stood beside that ugly stain upon the carpet.

“It could not have been suicide?” suggested Owen Odd.

“Impossible. Both doctors have unhesitatingly pronounced it a case of murder. The victim was struck down from behind, they declare, and very considerable force must have been used,” was the reply. “After the despatch of the telegram it is probable that the young Russian destroyed a quantity of papers, for, as you see, in the stove yonder there has been a fire, and there still remains a quantity of tinder, all of which will to-morrow be carefully examined by the police.”

Both Englishmen turned, and saw inside the open door of the high, tiled stove a quantity of burnt paper.

“It is as though he wanted to get rid of some documents that were incriminating,” declared the doctor to his friend.

“Exactly. Yet what had he possibly to fear? He was crossing to England in a few hours,” Dick said.

“He probably did not wish to take them to London. He no doubt had reason.”

The round-faced official interrupted, whereupon the hotel manager added:

“The police theory is that the documents were burned by the assassin.”

“Most probably,” exclaimed Jervoise.

“Yet shortly afterwards, when he ordered some tea, the waiter says that in the room there was a strong smell of burning paper, combined with a curious choking odour, like some chemical—which he had never before smelt in all his life.”

“Then that would surely lend colour to the theory that he himself destroyed the papers,” remarked Owen.

The fat commissary elevated his broad shoulders with an expression of stupefaction.

“A chambermaid, passing along the corridor about five o’clock, declares that she heard voices in this room,” went on the hotel manager, “and believed that Madame had returned. One voice, she asserts, was a female one. But,” he added, “the servants are scared, and therefore one cannot believe all the statements that have been made.”

“Was that the last known of Mr. Grinevitch?” inquired Owen.

“Yes, except that he again descended to the bureau, and, obtaining a copy of the _Petit Parisien_, returned to his room.”

“After the lady’s voice was heard there?”

“Yes, ten minutes afterwards. That is why we disbelieve the chambermaid. The police have closely questioned her, and now discount her allegation. She is not now certain whether it was a woman or only the young gentleman speaking aloud to himself. At any rate, when he came down for the newspaper, I spoke to him, and he was perfectly calm. ‘I may be out when my wife returns,’ he said. ‘If I am, kindly tell her I have only gone along to the telegraph office and will be back immediately.’ He ascended again in the lift, and that was the last I saw of him alive.”

“What else is known?” anxiously inquired Dick, his blanched face drawn and haggard.

“Nothing—or practically nothing,” was the prompt reply. “Madame returned in a fiacre just after six. As she passed through the hall I noticed that she seemed very flurried, and anxious to get upstairs. I spoke to her, giving her her husband’s message, but she scarcely heeded me, and flew upstairs without waiting for the lift. She dashed along the corridor and opened the door. Then a loud, piercing shriek alarmed us, and the terrible truth was quickly apparent. I was called instantly, and on entering here my eyes met a ghastly scene. The poor fellow was lying beside the couch over there, with life extinct, while on the floor beside him his girl-bride had fallen in a dead swoon.”

“And was no stranger seen to enter or leave the hotel?” asked Owen with knit brows.

“Absolutely nobody.”

“How many entrances are there here?”

“Only one—by the main hall. There is, of course, a kitchen entrance, but it is shut off from the visitors by a locked door, the key of which hangs in my office. The door has been examined, and has not been unlocked.”

“And the only visitor was the young lady in mourning?”

“She was the only visitor. Of that we are quite certain.”

“Then who committed the crime?” asked Jervoise.

“Ah! that is an absolute and complete mystery—one which is rendered even the more remarkable by certain extraordinary facts which have been discovered since the grim occurrence.”

“And what are they?” demanded the young Hammersmith doctor.

“Several,” replied the hotel manager. “One is, perhaps, more curious than all the rest. You will recollect that the deceased gentleman, before his death, sent our messenger with a note to a certain person named Nystrom. That note was not delivered. But the police have just ascertained that the man in question is an adventurer who is wanted in Copenhagen on a very serious charge, and whose arrest was only this afternoon applied for by telegram by the Danish police.”

“Curious.”

“The authorities believe that the note sent by the unfortunate man was a preconcerted signal, or warning.”

At that moment two police officers in uniform entered the room, and handed to the commissary several letters.

“Ah! here are the letters I sent to the post office to be registered this evening—the letters which Mr. Grinevitch brought down to me after his wife’s departure!” exclaimed the manager. “See, they are all addressed to persons in Russia. It is fortunate that they had not been despatched.”

The fat commissary laid the three sealed letters upon the table, and, taking his penknife, slit them all open, being eagerly watched by all assembled.

“Zo!” he ejaculated as he took out the contents of the first.

“Extraordinary! The same as the mysterious letter to Nystrom!” exclaimed the hotel manager.

And to the two Englishmen were exhibited three sheets of the hotel notepaper—blank!

“Most curious!” declared Odd, turning again to his friend. “What can they all mean?”

“Who knows?” replied Jervoise in a hoarse, inert voice. “That there’s no suspicion against anyone is also very strange. The destroying of papers, the sudden resolve to cross to England, and the unwelcome visit of the woman in black, all point to suicide. And yet——”

“It was murder—crafty and deliberate murder, I tell you,” the manager declared. “The poor young man was, according to both doctors and police, struck treacherously in the back as he was seated at the little escritoire over there. He rose, reeled across to the spot where that stain appears on the carpet, and in his dying agony dragged himself here to the sofa. It is their belief that in his dying moments he was trying to reach the window in order to call for assistance.”

“I see no sign of any struggle,” Owen Odd said, glancing around the scene of the tragedy.

“There was none,” answered the Norwegian. “He was struck down before he could turn to defend himself. He probably never even saw his assailant.”

Dick Jervoise pursed his hot lips. There was a strange, stony look upon his countenance—a look which his friend Odd had never seen there before. Was it possible that he knew something more about the tragedy than the police knew? Was it possible that he had, on that same afternoon, met Thyra in secret?

He recollected the strange glance in the girl’s eyes when he had entered to where she sat—that look of undisguised terror—of abhorrence.

Yes. Dick was concealing from him some facts which, if divulged, would place that amazing affair in a very different light. Of that he felt convinced.

Knowing his friend so well, and being acquainted with his every mood, he saw quite plainly that he was strenuously endeavouring to conceal some knowledge which he possessed.

Was he shielding the woman with those wonderful grey eyes? Or was he withholding, for his own purposes, a guilty secret?

The pale cheeks with just a spot of colour in the centre, the dry, half-parted lips, the contracted brows, the haggard deep-set eyes, were all most unusual to Richard Jervoise. Besides, had he not been absent from the Grand Hotel during the whole time of the bride’s absence from her husband?

But why should he sit in judgment upon his friend—his oldest, his dearest friend, he reflected. No. A thousand times no. He would believe nothing against him, even if the suspicion were so strong—even if, after the first shock, it was Dick whom the bereaved bride had summoned.

He set his teeth, steeling himself against all that horrible suspicion. Within himself he declared that Dick could in no way be an accessory to the fact of that most terrible and mysterious crime.

“And what is now being done?” asked Owen of the hotel manager.

“Everything that is possible,” he replied. “The police have removed the body. The scene was a most painful and tragic one. When the poor young lady recovered consciousness after the shock, she returned to the body of her husband and refused to leave him. She believed him to be still alive, and, kneeling by him, made all sorts of strange and wild statements.”

“What did she say?” gasped Dick in breathless anxiety.

“Oh, all sorts of curious things. She made an allegation against some man, but would not name him. She said she knew now who was her husband’s enemy.”

“Then the police are in possession of some suspicious fact?” exclaimed Owen with a side glance at his friend.

“The doctors did not consider her in a fit state to be questioned. Her statements were so very contradictory.”

Jervoise breathed again. He longed to get away from that room where the floor still bore traces of the horrible crime.

“But,” the young doctor went on, “what are the police doing? Surely it is known by what means the assassin gained access to Grinevitch’s room?”

“We cannot tell,” answered the thin-faced Norwegian. “The hall-porter saw no stranger enter or leave, though he was at his post the whole time. Neither did the servants see anyone go into the room, even though several of them, their curiosity aroused by the happenings of the previous couple of hours, were almost constantly on the watch. There were whispers among the servants that the bridal pair had quarrelled; hence the whole staff on this floor had become instantly inquisitive, as was but natural. Yet the assassination was committed swiftly and surely by invisible hands.”

“Could anyone have climbed up from the street—or come along the balcony?” Owen suggested.

“See for yourself,” replied the other, throwing open one of the long windows.

Both men, followed by Dick, stepped out upon the spacious balcony into the rain. But at a glance all saw that entrance by the window was entirely out of the question.

“No,” Owen said, reassured. “The assassin must have entered by yonder door, for if the victim had been sitting writing, then the murderer could have crept across the carpet noiselessly and struck the blow ere the other could realise his danger.”

“That is exactly the police theory. They are doing all in their power to obtain some clue. Already they have taken away certain things—the door knobs, as you see, and other small articles—in the hope of finding fingerprints. The whole of the Christiania detective force are at this moment engaged in trying to solve the mystery, and endeavouring to trace Nystrom and the dead man’s unknown visitor. You can do nothing, gentlemen, I fear—nothing except to try and console the poor young lady. Let us return to her.” And the hotel manager led the way back to the room where Thyra was still sitting silent, crushed, lifeless.

The grey-bearded doctor stood near the window, looking out gloomily upon the wet night.

As they entered he held up a warning finger. They halted.

In the slim girl-widow’s grey eyes they detected a strange, wild expression as her gaze fell upon Dick Jervoise.

“Ah!” she gasped with sudden surprise, stretching forth both her thin, white hands. “You—Mr. Jervoise! I—I must speak to you—alone! Come in for a few moments, and send all these people away. I—I want to speak with you—alone!”

Owen and Dick exchanged glances. Then the grave-faced doctor, who had been watching her, spoke something in Norwegian, and all withdrew—all save Richard Jervoise.

They closed the door softly, leaving the pair alone. The Englishman stood in the centre of the room trembling, staring, pale as death, his chin sunk upon his breast. To her he dare not lift his stony eyes; he dare not utter a single word.

For several moments there was dead unbroken silence.

Then, bending forward and looking straight at him with those great, wide-open eyes, she said in a hard, distinct voice:

“Mr. Jervoise, you lied to me! _I know the truth!_”