Chapter XXXVII: The House Next Door

Richard came to a halt as Inspector Skarratt addressed him. He glanced sharply at the detective and instantly guessed his profession and his business. Skarratt smiled pleasantly and politely and drew out a card. He presented it with a slight bow.

“You will see that I am a police-officer, Mr. Shrewsbury,” he said. “I called here to make some inquiries of you, sir.”

“What is it?” asked Richard. He glanced from the card to the door, wondering vaguely why it was not opened, for he had heard Skarratt’s second and loud summons as he came along the corridor. “Has no one answered you?” he said, without waiting for Skarratt’s reply to his first question.

“I’ve knocked--loudly--twice,” he said, “and no one has appeared yet,” answered Skarratt. “Perhaps your servants are out?”

Without replying, Richard drew his key from his pocket. But on the point of inserting it in the latch, he paused and glanced at Skarratt. He had little doubt of what the detective was after, but he wanted to make sure.

“What do you want with me?” he asked brusquely.

“Very little,” replied Skarratt. “And I’ll tell you in a few words. You have doubtless read the morning papers, Mr. Shrewsbury, and so you’re aware of what took place last night at Marengo Mansions. You’ll also be aware that the woman known as Mrs. Walsingham escaped from her flat in the dress of a nun. I have information that she was seen to enter this building about dark last night, in that dress, and I cannot find that she has ever left it. And naturally I conclude that she is hiding in your rooms. I think that’s all clear, Mr. Shrewsbury?”

Richard turned and looked at Blair. And Blair made a motion of lips and eyes which said as plainly as words could have said: “Tell him!”

“Very well,” said Richard. He turned to Skarratt. “Yes,” he said, “I think your information is right. I found Mrs. Walsingham here when I came in from Paris this morning, and I left her here while I went out to get some advice from friends. Captain Blair, here, came back with me to advise her to give herself up to the police.”

“Best thing she can do, sir!” said Skarratt, heartily. “The very best thing--if she’s still there, Mr. Shrewsbury.”

“Still there?” exclaimed Richard. “What do you mean?”

Skarratt smiled.

“I’ve knocked--loudly--twice,” he said, “and no one comes. Hadn’t we better go in, Mr. Shrewsbury?”

Richard opened the outer door of his rooms with a curious presentiment of coming surprise, if not of evil. As they stepped into the hall a strange consciousness that the place was deserted came over him. He called Kedgin’s name, loudly. There was no answer, and he looked at his companions wonderingly.

“That’s queer,” he said. “I gave Kedgin strict instructions not to leave the place until I returned.”

Skarratt was already looking into one doorway after another--he passed into the servants’ part of the chambers, and came hurriedly back.

“No one there,” he said. “Where did you leave this woman, sir?”

Richard walked into the dining-room, with Skarratt at his heels, and pointed to a door.

“She was in that room,” he answered. “She had locked herself in.”

Skarratt crossed to the door which Richard had indicated and tried the handle. It turned easily; he pushed the door open and looked within the room.

“Ah!” he said. “Look here, gentlemen!”

Blair and Richard, following him, also glanced into the room from over his shoulders. And there, thrown carelessly across the rail of the bed, was the black garb of a nun, with all its accessories.

“I thought so!” exclaimed the detective, entering the room. “I thought so, gentlemen. I’m too late--she’s off! Flown!”

“But--how?” said Richard. “How?”

Skarratt glanced at Captain Blair, and turned to Richard with a dry laugh.

“How, sir?” he said. “Didn’t you leave your man to act as gaoler?”

“Yes--yes!” answered Richard. “But----”

“No buts about it, Mr. Shrewsbury,” said Skarratt. “She’s only done what prisoners in much safer places sometimes do with their gaolers--she’s got round him.”

“But I tell you,” said Richard, impatiently, “I tell you that when I left her she was ill, worn out--she said she’d been obliged to take a sleeping-draught and hadn’t got over it. She was too weary to talk to me, and----”

“Pardon me for interrupting you, sir, but I should say that was all clever acting to deceive you and get you out of the way,” said Skarratt, cynically. “No, sir--she’s got round the man. Who is he, and where did you get him?”

“His name is William Kedgin, and he was highly recommended to me by Mr. Carsdale,” answered Richard.

“No great recommendation I should think, sir,” observed Skarratt, who had been looking round the bedroom. “See here, gentlemen!--the lady’s been making up a bit for her new part,” and he picked up from the dressing-table a stick of grease-paint. “It was a mistake on her part to leave that. Now we must find out in what sort of garments she made her exit. Wasn’t this man, Kedgin married, sir, and isn’t his wife away just now?”

“Yes,” answered Richard, who was feeling by that time that he wished he had never heard of Carsdale or Mrs. Walsingham, or even of London. “Yes, that’s so in both cases.”

“Then I suppose this woman has gone off in some of Mrs. Kedgin’s clothes,” said Skarratt. “The probability is that the flight had been arranged when you got here, that they both acted to you, and that they were off very soon after your back was turned. Now then, sir, let me give you a piece of advice. I dare say you’ve plenty of portable property in these rooms?”

Richard stared at him blankly.

“Portable property?” he said. “What do you mean?”

“I mean jewellery, silver, anything worth money that’s easily carried away,” answered Skarratt, smiling in pity at the young man’s slowness of comprehension. “Perhaps, also, you’ve such matters as valuable pictures, wines, cigars, and so on.”

“Well?” said Richard.

“Then, while I pursue certain investigations of my own,” continued Skarratt, “let me advise you to have a careful look round and see if you’ve lost anything.”

And he went out of the room, with a look at Blair which was as much to imply that Richard was not fit to look after himself.

Richard sat down on the side of the bed and stared at the sombre garments which the fugitive had cast aside.

“Damn!” he said suddenly. “If that’s true about Kedgin I think I shall chuck believing in people. I thought he was a thoroughly dependable chap!”

“Come and see if it is true,” said Blair. “I don’t think there’s any doubt that Kedgin has helped this woman to get away. Where will you begin?--have you any jewellery in the place?”

Richard stared at his companion as if he could scarcely comprehend how a sane man should ask such a question.

“Only two or three thousand pounds’ worth,” he answered laconically. “I--I used to buy things on--on her advice.”

“Well, where is it?” asked Blair.

A moment later, each man knew that that was not a question which was going to be easily answered. It appeared that Richard, full of belief in the Kedgin standard of honour, had kept his valuables in a drawer in his bedroom which he confessed to leaving unlocked. The satin-lined cases were in the drawer, but pins, rings, sleeve-links, odds and ends of pearls, diamonds, and good gold, had vanished.

“Now, then, where did you keep your silver?” asked Blair, making no comment on the disappearance of the jewellery.

The silver was gone, too. Blair made no comment on that, either: he had expected it. The silence grew deep between Richard and himself as they continued their work of exploration. And the result, tabulated, was appalling. Blair, always practical, jotted things down, and handed the list to Skarratt when he made his reappearance.

_Articles of jewellery, worth approximately, £3000._
_Silver, worth £500._
_Wine, worth £300 or £400._
_Cigars, worth £200._
_Linen, worth unknown._
_Clothing, worth £100._
_Pictures and old China, £1000._

“Kedgin’s work, of course,” observed Skarratt, “but he couldn’t carry these things away with him now, you know, sir. No wonder he seemed agitated when you turned up this morning. He’s had these got off in readiness for his departure. Mrs. Walsingham most likely interrupted him last night; you interrupted him again to-day. And the probability is that she detected him, and that they made common cause together, and that they went together as soon as you were clear of the place a few hours ago. And now, gentlemen, I’ll show you how they went.”

“You’ve found that out?” said Blair.

“I think I’ve found it out,” answered Skarratt. “But come and see for yourselves.”

He led the way into the servants’ part of the flat and into the Kedgin sitting-room, where everything was neat, orderly, and comfortable. And there he went to the window and drew aside a curtain.

“Now, gentlemen,” he said, “look out there. You will see that this room looks upon a sort of small square or opening, and that this house in which we now are, and of which this flat of Mr. Shrewsbury’s forms the entire top floor, is at an angle of that square. You can also see, by looking from this corner, that the next house is empty. Now, come with me.”

Skarratt took them through other rooms to one which had been used as a box and lumber room and pointed to an iron ladder that led to a skylight in the roof. He began to climb; the others followed.

“They went this way, gentlemen,” he said. “Come up--now we step on the leads of the empty house; now we go down another ladder. And now we are in the empty house itself!”

To Blair and Richard the sense of being in a house which was empty of life struck with a cold and unpleasant feeling. Moreover, the house was obviously old and damp and malodorous; the staircases down which Skarratt led his companions creaked so much that they would not have been surprised if they had suddenly found themselves sinking through the rotten timbers. But Skarratt went cheerily onward.

“Property all coming down, gentlemen,” he said. “And time it did--there used to be some old property as bad as this where your house is now, Mr. Shrewsbury. Well, here we are now in the hall--now come to the back. Now, then, you see--here’s a side door, and it’s--open. And it admits, you see, to a passage which runs away into a side-street. That’s how they got off--in my opinion.”

“Probably,” said Blair. He looked about him with dislike. “Let’s get out of this,” he said. “It gives me the horrors.”

“Yes,” said Richard. “It’s beastly.”

Skarratt said nothing. He smiled, and led the way back up the creaking and gloomy staircase, looking about him with sharp, keen glances as he went. And suddenly, as they turned at a landing, on which the doors of the empty rooms stood half or wholly open the detective stepped back on his companions with an exclamation of horrified surprise.

“My God, gentlemen!” he said. “What--what’s that?”

Following his pointing and trembling finger, Blair and Richard glanced through an open door into a dusk-filled chamber. Through a crack in the shutters came a single shaft of light, and it fell full on a woman’s hand and arm, lying within their range of vision. Nothing else was to be seen, and for a moment the three stared. And neither hand nor arm moved.

Then, with a sudden cry of comprehension, Skarratt leapt into the room, the others after him. One tore open the shutters. And so they recognized the woman who was wanted, and saw that Kedgin had lured her into this lonely house, and had left her there--dead.