The Riddle of the Frozen Flame, Mary E. Hanshew and Thomas W. Hanshew [reading fiction .txt] 📗

disappearance to cover up all those singed ends in a new growth. Can't be that it's done on purpose, and yet—why is it still here?"

"Perhaps some sign or something," suggested Mr. Narkom.

"Possibly, something of the sort. And if we have signs then there must be something human behind all this talk of supernatural agents," returned Cleek. "Let us take it that this patch of charred grass hides something, or marks the way to something, something buried underneath it, or lying near by. Eh—what's that?"

"That" was a cat-call ringing out across the misty silences from the direction in which Dollops and Petrie had gone.

"They've found something!" cried out Mr. Narkom, in a hoarse whisper of excitement.

"Obviously. Well, this other thing will wait. We'll go after them."

The two of them hastened off in the direction of the repeated cat-call, and soon came upon Dollops bending over something, his eyes rather scared, just as Hammond arrived from the other direction in answer to the summons. Petrie, too, appeared rather nervous. As Cleek came up to them, his eyes fell upon the ground, and he stopped stock still.

"Gad!... Where did you find it?"

"Here, sir; half buried, but with the 'ead a-stickin' out!" returned Petrie. "Dollops and I pulled it out and—and 'ere it is."

Cleek glanced down at the body of a heavily built man, clad in evening clothes, and already in an advanced state of decomposition. "Looks like it was that chap Wynne," he said, in a matter-of-fact tone. "Answers the description all right. The other man was short and red-headed. And the evening clothes are well cut from what I can see. Must have been a handsome chap—once.... Well, we'll have to get this very gruesome find back to the Towers as quickly as possible. Got your oilskin with you, Petrie?"

"Yessir!" Petrie miraculously produced the roll from under his tunic and spread the sheet out. Then they lifted up the body and wrapped it about so that the covering hid the awfulness of it from view. Mr. Narkom mopped his forehead with his handkerchief.

"Cinnamon, Cleek!" he ejaculated, breathlessly. "Pretty awful, isn't it? Was it much hidden, Petrie? Funny the other people didn't find it when they searched!"

"No, sir—plain as a pikestaff!" returned Petrie importantly, for he felt the burden of responsibility and hoped that this would mean promotion. Dollops, who was by no means a regular member of the force, simply looked at Cleek with considerable pride fighting through the natural horror that the find had given birth to.

"Funny thing!" broke in Cleek at this juncture. "The only solution must be that the body was placed there some time after death.... Leave it a little longer, boys, and we'll have a further search in this direction. We may come upon poor Collins in a similar fashion—though thank Heaven his disappearance didn't happen quite so long ago."

They took a few steps farther in the same direction and—stopped simultaneously. Before their eyes lay the figure of Collins, in his discreet black clothes, his red head against a tuffet of moss, and a bullet wound in his temple.

"God!" said Cleek, softly, and sucked in his breath. "Two of 'em. And like this!... Looks like a plant, doesn't it? Poor chap!... And yet Merriton declared that he, as well as others, had searched every inch of this ground over and over again. Seems fishy. To find 'em both here—so close together.... Let's have a look at the other poor chap.... Hmm. Bullet wound through the right temple, too. Small-calibre revolver."

He bent down and examined the head carefully through his magnifying glass, then got slowly to his feet.

"Well, Mr. Narkom," said he, steadily, "nothing to be done at present, but to get these bodies back to the Towers. After that they can take 'em to the village mortuary if they like. But I've one or two things I'd like to ask you Merriton, and one or two things I want to examine. Gad! it's a beastly task, boys. That sheet's big enough, thank fortune! Cross the pitchforks, Petrie, and make a sort of stretcher out of them, that way. That's right. Now then, forward.... Gad! what a morning!"

But if he had known just exactly what the rest of that morning was to bring forth, indeed before lunch was served at one-fifteen, he might have hesitated to pass judgment upon it so soon.

Slowly the cavalcade wended its way across the rank grass....

CHAPTER XIV THE SPIN OF THE WHEEL

Merriton stood at the study window, looking out, and pulling at his cigar with an air of profound meditation. Upon the hearth-rug Doctor Bartholomew, clad in baggy tweeds, stood tugging at his beard and watched the man's back with kindly, troubled eyes.

"Don't like it, Nigel, my boy; don't like it at all!" he ejaculated, suddenly, in his close-clipped fashion. "These detectives are the very devil to pay. Get 'em in one's house and they're like doctors—including, of course, my humble self—difficult to get out. Part of the profession, my boy. But a beastly nuisance. Seems to me I'd rather have the mystery than the men. Simpler, anyway. And fees, you know, are heavy."

Merriton swung round upon his heel suddenly, his brows like a thunder cloud.

"I don't care a damn about that," he broke out angrily. "Let 'em take every penny I've got, so long as they solve the thing! But I can't get away from it—I just can't. Hangs over me night and day like the sword of Damocles! Until the mystery of Wynne's disappearance is cleared up, I tell you 'Toinette and I can't marry. She feels the same. And—and—we've the house all ready, you know, everything fixed and in order, except this. When poor old Collins disappeared, too, I found I'd reached my limit. So here these detectives are, and, on the whole, jolly decent chaps I find 'em."

Doctor Bartholomew shrugged his shoulders as if to say, "Have it your own way, my boy." But what he really did say was:

"What are their names?"

"Young chap's Headland—George or John Headland, I don't remember quite which. Other one's Lake—Gregory Lake."

"H'm. Good name that, Nigel. Ought to be some brains behind it. But I never did pin my faith on policemen, you know, boy. Scotland Yard's made so many mistakes that if it hadn't been for that chap Cleek, they'd have ruined themselves altogether. Now, he's a man, if you like! Pity you couldn't get him while you're about it."

The impulse to tell who "George Headland" really was to this firm friend who had been more than a father to him, even in the old days, and who had made a point of dropping down upon him, informally, ever since the trouble over Dacre Wynne's disappearance, took hold of Nigel. But he shook it off. He had given his word. And if he could not tell 'Toinette, then no other soul in the universe should know. So he simply tossed his shoulders, and, going back to the window, looked out of it, to hide the something of triumph which had stolen into his face.

Truth to tell, he was obsessed with a feeling that something was going to happen, and happen soon. The premonition, to one who was not used to such things, carried all the more conviction. With Cleek on the track—anything might happen. Cleek was a man for whom things never stood still, and his amazing brain was concentrated upon this problem as it had been concentrated—successfully—upon others. Merriton had a feeling that it was only a matter of time.

Then, just as he was standing there, humming something softly beneath his breath, the cavalcade, headed by Cleek and Mr. Narkom, rather grim and silent, reached the gateway. Behind them—Merriton gave a sudden cry which brought the doctor to his side—behind them three men were carrying something—something bulky and large and wrapped in a black oilskin tarpaulin. And one of the men was Headland's servant, Dollops! He recognized that, even as his inner consciousness told him that his "something" was about to happen now.

"Gad! they've found the body," he exclaimed, in a hoarse, excited voice, fairly running to the front door and throwing it open with a crash that rang through the old house from floor to rafters, and brought Borkins scuttling up the kitchen stairs at a pace that was ill-befitting his age and dignity. Merriton gave him a curt order.

"Have the morning-room door thrown open and the sofa pulled out from against the wall. My friends have been for a walk across the Fens, and have found something. You can see them coming up the drive. What d'you make of it?"

"Gawd! a haccident, Sir Nigel," said Borkins, in a shaky voice. "'Adn't I better tell Mrs. Mummery to put the blue bedroom in order and 'ave plenty of 'ot water?..."

"No." Merriton was running down the front steps and flung the answer back over his shoulder. "Can't you use your eyes? It's a body, you fool—a body!"

Borkins gasped a moment, and then stood still, his thin lips sucked in, his face unpleasant to see. He was alone in the hallway, for Doctor Bartholomew's fat figure was waddling in Merriton's wake.

He put up his fist and shook it in their direction.

"Pity it ain't your body, young upstart that you are!" he muttered beneath his breath, and turned toward the morning room.

Meanwhile Merriton had reached the solemn little party and was walking back beside Cleek, his face chalky, the pupils of his eyes a trifle dilated with excitement.

"Found 'em? Found 'em both, you say, Mr. Headland?" he kept on repeating over and over again, as they mounted the steps together. "Good God! What a strange—what a peculiar thing! I'll swear there was no sight nor sign of them when I've tramped over the Fens dozens of times. I don't know what to make of it, I don't indeed!"

"Oh, we'll make something of it all right," returned Cleek, with a sharp look at him, for there was one thing he wanted to find out, and he meant to do that as soon as possible. "Two and two, you know, put together properly, always make four. It's only the fools of the world that add wrong. If you'd had as much practice as I've had in dealing with humanity, you'd find it was an ever-increasing astonishment to see the way things dovetail in.... Who's this, by the way?"

He jerked his head in the direction of the doctor, who had stopped at the foot of the steps and waited for them to come up to him.

"Oh, a very old friend of mine, Mr. Headland. Doctor Bartholomew. Has a very big practice in town, but a trifle eccentric, as you can see at first glance."

Cleek sent his keen eyes over the odd-looking figure in the worn tweeds.

"I see. Then can you tell me how he finds time to run down here at leisure and visit you? Seems to me a man with a big practice never has enough time to work it in. At least, that has been my experience of doctors."

Merriton flushed angrily at the tone. He whipped his head round and met Cleek's cool gaze hotly.

"I know you're down here to investigate the case, but I don't think there's any reason for you to start suspecting my friends," he retorted, his eyes flashing. "Doctor Bartholomew has a partner, if you want to know. And also he's supposed to be retired. But he carries on for the love of the thing. Best man ever breathed—remember that!"

Cleek smiled to himself at the sudden onslaught. The young pepper-pot! Yet he liked him for the loyal defence of his friend, nevertheless. There were all too few creatures in the world who found it impossible to suspect those whom they cared for, and who cared for them.

"Sorry to have given any offence, I'm sure," he said, smoothly. "None was meant, right enough, Sir Nigel. But a policeman has an unpleasant duty, you know. He's got to keep his eyes and his ears open. So if you find mine open too far, any time, just tip me the wink and I'll shut 'em up again."

"Oh, that's all right," said Merriton, mollified, and a trifle shamefaced at the outburst. Then, with an effort to turn the conversation: "But think of findin' 'em both, Mr.—er—Headland! Were they—very awful?"

"Pretty awful," returned Cleek, quietly; "eh, Mr. Lake?"

"God bless my soul—yes!" threw in that gentleman, with a shudder. "Now then, boys, if you don't mind—" He took the attitude of a casual acquaintance with his two assistants who helped to bear the burden. "Come along inside. This way—that's it. Where did you say, Merriton? Into the morning room? All right. Ah, Borkins has been getting things ready, I see. That couch is a broad one. Good thing, as there are two of 'em."

"Two of 'em, sir?" exclaimed Borkins, suddenly throwing up his hands, his eyes wide with horror.