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

Mr. Narkom nodded with something of professional triumph in his look.

"Two of 'em, Borkins. And the second one, if I don't make any mistake, answers to the description of James Collins—eh, Headland?"

Cleek gave him a sudden look that spoke volumes. It came over him in a flash that Narkom had said too much; that it wasn't the casual visitor's place to know what a servant who was not there at the time of his visit looked like.

"At least—that's as far as I can make out from what Sir Nigel told me of him the other day," he supplemented, in an effort to make amends. "Now then, boys, put 'em there on the couch. Poor things! I warn you, Sir Nigel, this isn't going to be a pleasant sight, but you've got to go through with it, I'm afraid. The police'll want identification made, of course. Hadn't you better 'phone the local branch? Someone ought to be here in charge, you know."

Merriton nodded. He was so stunned at the actuality of these two men's deaths, at the knowledge that their bodies—lifeless, extinct—were here in his morning room, that he had stood like an image, making no move, no sound.

"Yes—yes," he said, rapidly, waving a hand in Borkins's direction. "See that it's done at once, please. Tell Constable Roberts to come along with a couple of his men. Very decent of these chaps to give you a hand, Mr. Lake. That's your man, Dollops, isn't it, Headland? Well, hadn't he better take 'em downstairs and give 'em a stiff whisky-and-soda? I expect the poor beggars have need of it."

Cleek held up a silencing hand.

"No," he said, firmly. "Not just yet, I think. They may be needed for evidence when the constable comes. Now...." He crossed over to where the bodies lay, and gently removed the covering. Merriton went suddenly white, while the doctor, more used to such sights, bit his lips and laid a steadying hand upon the younger man's arm.

"My God!" cried Sir Nigel, despairingly. "How did they meet their death?"

Cleek reached down a finger and gently touched a blackened spot upon Wynne's temple.

"Shot through the head, and the bullet penetrated the brain," he said, quietly. "Small-calibre revolver, too. There's your Frozen Flame for you, my friend!"

But he was hardly prepared for the event that followed. For at this statement, Merriton threw a hand out suddenly, as though warding off a blow, took a step forward and peered at that which had once been his friend—and enemy—and then gave out a strangled cry.

"Shot through the head!" he fairly shrieked, as Borkins came quietly into the room, and stopped short at the sound of his master's voice. "I tell you it's impossible—impossible! It wasn't my shot, Mr. Headland—it couldn't have been!"

CHAPTER XV A STARTLING DISCLOSURE

Cleek took a sudden step forward.

"What's that? What's that?" he rapped out, sharply. "Your shot, Sir Nigel? This is something I haven't heard of before, and it's likely to cause trouble. Explain, please!"

But Merriton was past explaining anything just then. For he had bowed his head in his hands and was sobbing in great, heart-wrung sobs with Doctor Bartholomew's arms about him, sobs that told of the nerve-strain which gave them birth, that told of the tenseness under which he had lived these last weeks. And now the thread had snapped, and all the broken, jangling nerves of the man had been loosed and torn his control to atoms.

The doctor shook him gently, but with firm fingers.

"Don't be a fool, boy—don't be a fool!" he said over and over again, as he waved the other away, and, taking out a little phial from his waistcoat pocket, dropped a dose from it into a wine-glass and forced it between the man's lips. "Don't make an ass of yourself, Nigel. The shot you fired was nothing—the mere whim of a man, whose brain had been fired by champagne and who wasn't therefore altogether responsible for his actions."

He whipped round suddenly upon Cleek, his faded eyes, with their fringe of almost white lashes, flashing like points of light from the seamed and wrinkled frame of his face.

"If you want to hear that foolish part of the story, I can give it to you," he said, sharply. "Because I happened to be there."

"You!"

"Yes—I, Mr.—er—Headland, isn't it? Ah, thanks. But the boy's unstrung, nerve-racked. He's been through too much. The whole beastly thing has made a mess of him, and he was a fool to meddle with it. Nigel Merriton fired a shot that night when Dacre Wynne disappeared, Mr. Headland; fired it after he had gone up to his room, a little over-excited with too much champagne, a little over-wrought by the scene through which he had just passed with the man who had always exercised such a sinister influence over his life."

"So Sir Nigel was no good friend of this man Wynne's, then?" remarked Cleek, quietly, as if he did not already know the fact.

The doctor looked up as though he were ready to spring upon him and tear him limb from limb.

"No!" he said, furiously, "and neither would you have been, if you'd known him. Great hulking bully that he was! I tell you, I've seen the man use his influence upon this boy here, until—fine, upstanding chap that he is (and I've known him and his people ever since he was a baby) he succeeded in making him as weak as a hysterical girl—and gloated over it, too!"

Cleek drew in a quiet breath, and gave his shoulders the very slightest of twitches, to show that he was listening.

"Very interesting, Doctor, as psychological studies of the kind go," he said, smoothly, stroking his chin and looking down at the bowed shoulders of the man in the arm chair, with something almost like sorrow in his eyes. "But we've got to get down to brass tacks, you know. This thing's serious. It's got to be proved. If it can't be—well, it's going to be mighty awkward for Sir Nigel. Now, let's hear the thing straight out from the person most interested, please. I don't like to appear thoughtless in any way, but this is a serious admission you've just made. Sir Nigel, I beg of you, tell us the story before the constable comes. It might make things easier for you in the long run."

Merriton, thus addressed, threw up his head suddenly and showed a face marked with mental anguish, dry-eyed, deathly white. He got slowly to his feet and went over to the table, leaning his hand upon it as though for support.

"Oh, well," he said, listlessly, "you might as well hear it first as last. Doctor Bartholomew's right, Mr. Headland. I did fire a shot upon the night of Dacre Wynne's disappearance, and I fired it from my bedroom window. It was like this:

"Wynne had gone, and after waiting for him to come back away past the given time, we all made up our minds to go to bed, and Tony West—a pal of mine who was one of the guests—and the Doctor here accompanied me to my room door. Dr. Bartholomew had a room next to mine. In that part of the house the walls are thin, and although my revolver (which I always carry with me, Mr. Headland, since I lived in India) is one of those almost soundless little things, still, the sound of it reached him."

"Is it of small calibre?" asked Cleek, at this juncture.

Merriton nodded gravely.

"As you say, of small calibre. You can see it for yourself. Borkins"—he turned toward the man, who was standing by the doorway, his hands hanging at his sides, his manner a trifle obsequious; "will you bring it from the left-hand drawer of my dressing table. Here is the key." He tossed over a bunch of keys and they fell with a jangling sound upon the floor at Borkins's feet.

"Very good, Sir Nigel," said the man and withdrew, leaving the door open behind him, however, as though he were afraid to lose any of the story that was being told in the quiet morning room.

When he had gone, Merriton resumed:

"I'm not a superstitious man, Mr. Headland, but that old wives' tale of the Frozen Flames, and the new one coming out every time they claimed another victim, seemed to have burnt its way into my brain. That and the champagne together, and then close upon it Dacre Wynne's foolish bet to find out what the things were. When I went up to my room, and after saying good-night to the doctor here, closed the door and locked it, I then crossed to the window and looked out at the flames. And as I looked—believe it or not, as you will—another flame suddenly sprang up at the left of the others, a flame that seemed brighter, bigger than any of the rest, a flame that bore with it the message: 'I am Dacre Wynne'."

Cleek smiled, crookedly, and went on stroking his chin.

"Rather a fanciful story that, Sir Nigel," he said, "but go on. What happened?"

"Why, I fired at the thing. I picked up my revolver and, in a sort of blind rage, fired at it through the open window; and I believe I said something like this: 'Damn it, why won't you go? I'll make you go, you maddening little devil!' though I know those weren't the identical words I spoke. As soon as the shot was fired my brain cleared. I began to feel ashamed of myself, thought what a fool I'd look in front of the boys if they heard the story; and just at that moment Doctor Bartholomew knocked at the door."

Here the doctor nodded vigorously as though to corroborate these statements, and made as if to speak.

Cleek silenced him with a gesture.

"And then—what next, Sir Nigel?"

Merriton cleared his throat before proceeding. There was a drawn look upon his face.

"The doctor said he thought he had heard a shot, and asked me what it was, and I replied: 'Nothing. Only I was potting at the flames.' This seemed to amaze him, as it would any sane man, I should think, and as no doubt it is amazing you, Mr. Headland. Amazing you and making you think, 'What a fool the fellow is, after all!' Well, I showed the doctor the revolver in my hand, and he laughingly said that he'd take it to bed with him, in case I should start potting at him by mistake. Then I got into bed, after making him promise he wouldn't breathe a word to anybody of what had occurred, as the others would be sure to laugh at me; and—that's all."

"H'm. And quite enough, too, I should say," broke in Cleek, as the man finished. "It sounds true enough, believe me, from your lips, and I know you for an honourable man; but—what sort of a credence do you think an average jury is going to place upon it? D'you think they'd believe you?" He shook his head. "Never. They'd simply laugh at the whole thing, and say you were either drunk or dreaming. People in the twentieth century don't indulge in superstition to that extent, Sir Nigel; or, at least, if they do, they let their reason govern their actions as far as possible. It's a tall story at best, if you'll forgive me for saying so."

Merriton's face went a dull, sultry red. His eyes flamed.

"Then you don't believe me?" he said, impatiently.

Cleek raised a hand.

"I don't say that for one moment," he replied. "What I say is: 'Would a judge and jury believe you?' That is the question. And my answer to it is, 'No.' You've had every provocation to take Dacre Wynne's life, so far as I can learn, every provocation, that is, that a man of unsound mentality who would stoop to murder could have to justify himself in his own eyes. Things look exceedingly black against you, Sir Nigel. You can swear to this statement as far as your part in it is concerned, Doctor Bartholomew?"

"Absolutely," said the doctor, though plainly showing that he felt it was no business of the supposed Mr. Headland's.

"Well, that's good. But if only there had been another witness, someone who actually saw this thing done, or who had heard the pistol-shot—not that I'm doubting your word at all, Doctor—it might help to elucidate matters. There is no one you know of who could have heard—and not spoken?"

At this juncture Borkins came quietly into the room, holding the little revolver in his right hand, and handed it to Cleek.

"If you please, sir," he said, impassively, and with a quick look into Merriton's grave face, "I heard. And I can speak, if the jury wants me to, I don't doubt but what my tale would be worth listenin' to, if only to add my hevidence to the rest. That man