In the Fog, Richard Harding Davis [best selling autobiographies .TXT] 📗

added, ‘we must go over it again, from the cellar to the roof. We have the real clew now, and we must forget the others and work only it.’ As he spoke he began again to search the drawing-room, turning over even the books on the tables and the music on the piano. “‘Whoever the man is,’ he said over his shoulder, ‘we know that he has a key to the front door and a key to the letter-box. That shows us he is either an inmate of the house or that he comes here when he wishes. The Russian says that he was the only servant in the house. Certainly we have found no evidence to show that any other servant slept here. There could be but one other person who would possess a key to the house and the letter-box—and he lives in St. Petersburg. At the time of the murder he was two thousand miles away.’ Lyle interrupted himself suddenly with a sharp cry and turned upon me with his eyes flashing. ‘But was he?’ he cried. ‘Was he? How do we know that last night he was not in London, in this very house when Zichy and Chetney met?’

“He stood staring at me without seeing me, muttering, and arguing with himself.

“‘Don’t speak to me,’ he cried, as I ventured to interrupt him. ‘I can see it now. It is all plain. It was not the servant, but his master, the Russian himself, and it was he who came back for the letters! He came back for them because he knew they would convict him. We must find them. We must have those letters. If we find the one with the Russian postmark, we shall have found the murderer.’ He spoke like a madman, and as he spoke he ran around the room with one hand held out in front of him as you have seen a mind-reader at a theatre seeking for something hidden in the stalls. He pulled the old letters from the writing-desk, and ran them over as swiftly as a gambler deals out cards; he dropped on his knees before the fireplace and dragged out the dead coals with his bare fingers, and then with a low, worried cry, like a hound on a scent, he ran back to the waste-paper basket and, lifting the papers from it, shook them out upon the floor. Instantly he gave a shout of triumph, and, separating a number of torn pieces from the others, held them up before me.

“‘Look!’ he cried. ‘Do you see? Here are five letters, torn across in two places. The Russian did not stop to read them, for, as you see, he has left them still sealed. I have been wrong. He did not return for the letters. He could not have known their value. He must have returned for some other reason, and, as he was leaving, saw the letter-box, and taking out the letters, held them together—so—and tore them twice across, and then, as the fire had gone out, tossed them into this basket. Look!’ he cried, ‘here in the upper corner of this piece is a Russian stamp. This is his own letter—unopened!’

“We examined the Russian stamp and found it had been cancelled in St. Petersburg four days ago. The back of the envelope bore the postmark of the branch station in upper Sloane Street, and was dated this morning. The envelope was of official blue paper and we had no difficulty in finding the two other parts of it. We drew the torn pieces of the letter from them and joined them together side by side. There were but two lines of writing, and this was the message: ‘I leave Petersburg on the night train, and I shall see you at Trevor Terrace after dinner Monday evening.’

“‘That was last night!’ Lyle cried. ‘He arrived twelve hours ahead of his letter—but it came in time—it came in time to hang him!’”

The Baronet struck the table with his hand.

“The name!” he demanded. “How was it signed? What was the man’s name!”

The young Solicitor rose to his feet and, leaning forward, stretched out his arm. “There was no name,” he cried. “The letter was signed with only two initials. But engraved at the top of the sheet was the man’s address. That address was ‘THE AMERICAN EMBASSY, ST. PETERSBURG, BUREAU or THE NAVAL ATTACHE,’ and the initials,” he shouted, his voice rising into an exultant and bitter cry, “were those of the gentleman who sits opposite who told us that he was the first to find the murdered bodies, the Naval Attache to Russia, Lieutenant Sears!”

A strained and awful hush followed the Solicitor’s words, which seemed to vibrate like a twanging bowstring that had just hurled its bolt. Sir Andrew, pale and staring, drew away with an exclamation of repulsion. His eyes were fastened upon the Naval Attache with fascinated horror. But the American emitted a sigh of great content, and sank comfortably into the arms of his chair. He clapped his hands softly together.

“Capital!” he murmured. “I give you my word I never guessed what you were driving at. You fooled me, I’ll be hanged if you didn’t—you certainly fooled me.”

The man with the pearl stud leaned forward with a nervous gesture. “Hush! be careful!” he whispered. But at that instant, for the third time, a servant, hastening through the room, handed him a piece of paper which he scanned eagerly. The message on the paper read, “The light over the Commons is out. The House has risen.”

The man with the black pearl gave a mighty shout, and tossed the paper from him upon the table.

“Hurrah!” he cried. “The House is up! We’ve won!” He caught up his glass, and slapped the Naval Attache violently upon the shoulder. He nodded joyously at him, at the Solicitor, and at the Queen’s Messenger. “Gentlemen, to you!” he cried; “my thanks and my congratulations!” He drank deep from the glass, and breathed forth a long sigh of satisfaction and relief.

“But I say,” protested the Queen’s Messenger, shaking his finger violently at the Solicitor, “that story won’t do. You didn’t play fair—and—and you talked so fast I couldn’t make out what it was all about. I’ll bet you that evidence wouldn’t hold in a court of law—you couldn’t hang a cat on such evidence. Your story is condemned tommy-rot. Now my story might have happened, my story bore the mark—”

In the joy of creation the story-tellers had forgotten their audience, until a sudden exclamation from Sir Andrew caused them to turn guiltily toward him. His face was knit with lines of anger, doubt, and amazement.

“What does this mean!” he cried. “Is this a jest, or are you mad? If you know this man is a murderer, why is he at large? Is this a game you have been playing? Explain yourselves at once. What does it mean?”

The American, with first a glance at the others, rose and bowed courteously.

“I am not a murderer, Sir Andrew, believe me,” he said; “you need not be alarmed. As a matter of fact, at this moment I am much more afraid of you than you could possibly be of me. I beg you please to be indulgent. I assure you, we meant no disrespect. We have been matching stories, that is all, pretending that we are people we are not, endeavoring to entertain you with better detective tales than, for instance, the last one you read, ‘The Great Rand Robbery.’”

The Baronet brushed his hand nervously across his forehead.

“Do you mean to tell me,” he exclaimed, “that none of this has happened? That