The Sleuth of St. James's Square, Melville Davisson Post [learn to read activity book .txt] 📗

The girl paused a moment, then she went on

“I suppose things had gone so for about a fortnight when your sister, Lady Monteith, wrote that she had seen Sir Henry with us—Mr. Meadows and me—in the motor. I have to shatter a pleasant fancy about that chaperonage! That was the only time Sir Henry was ever with us.

“It came about like this: It was Thursday morning about nine o'clock, I think, when Sir Henry, popped in at the Ritz. He was full of some amazing mystery that had turned up at Benton Court, a country house belonging to the Duke of Dorset, up the Thames beyond Richmond. He wanted to go there at once. He was fuming because an under secretary had his motor, and he couldn't catch up with him.

“I told him he could have 'our' motor. He laughed. And I telephoned Mr. Meadows to come over and take him up. Sir Henry asked me to go along. So that's how Lady Monteith happened to see the three of us crowded into the seat of the big roadster.”

The girl went on in her deliberate, even voice

“Sir Henry was boiling full of the mystery. He got us all excited by the time we arrived at Benton Court. I think Mr. Meadows was as keen about the thing as Sir Henry. They were both immensely worked up. It was an amazing thing!”

“You see, Benton Court is a little house of the Georgian period. It has been closed up for ages, and now, all at once, the most mysterious things began to happen in it.

“A local inspector, a very reliable man named Millson, passing that way on his bicycle, saw a man lying on the doorstep. He also saw some one running away. It was early in the morning, just before daybreak.

“Millson saw only the man's back, but he could distinguish the color of his clothes. He was wearing a blue coat and reddish-brown trousers. Millson said he could hardly make out the blue coat in the darkness, but he could distinctly see the reddish brown color of the man's trousers. He was very positive about this. Mr. Meadows and Sir Henry pressed him pretty hard, but he was firm about it. He could make out that the coat was blue, and he could see very distinctly that the trousers were reddish-brown.

“But the extraordinary thing came a little later. Millson hurried to a telephone to get Scotland Yard, then he returned to Benton Court; but when he got back the dead man had disappeared.

“He insists that he was not away beyond five minutes, but within that time the dead man had vanished. Millson could find no trace of him. That's the mystery that sent us tearing up there with Mr. Meadows and Sir Henry transformed into eager sleuths.

“We found the approaches to the house under a patrol from Scotland Yard. But nobody had gone in. The inspector was waiting for Sir Henry.”

The old man stood like an image, and the aged woman sat in her chair like a figure in basalt.

But the girl ran on with a sort of eager unconcern: “Sir Henry and Mr. Meadows took the whole thing in charge. The door had been broken open. They examined the marks about the fractures very carefully; then they went inside. There were some naked footprints. They were small, as of a little, cramped foot, and they seemed to be tracked in blood on the hard oak floor. There was a wax candle partly burned on the table. And that's all there was.

“There were some tracks in the dust of the floor, but they were not very clearly outlined, and Sir Henry thought nothing could be made of them.

“It was awfully exciting. I went about behind the two men. Sir Henry talked all the time. Mr. Meadows was quite as much interested, but he didn't say anything. He seemed to say less as the thing went on.

“They went over everything—the ground outside and every inch of the house. Then they put everybody out and sat down by a table in the room where the footprints were.

“Sir Henry had been awfully careful. He had a big lens with which to examine the marks of the bloody footprints. He was like a man on the trail of a buried treasure. He shouted over everything, thrust his glass into Mr. Meadows' hand and bade him verify what he had seen. His ardor was infectious. I caught it myself.

“Mr. Meadows, in his quiet manner, was just as much concerned in unraveling the thing as Sir Henry. I never had so wild a time in all my life. Finally, when Sir Henry put everybody else out and closed the door, and the three of us sat down at the table to try to untangle the thing, I very nearly screamed with excitement. Mr. Meadows sat with his arms folded, not saying a word; but Sir Henry went ahead with his explanation.”

The girl looked like a vivid portrait, the soft colors of her gown and all the cool, vivid extravagancies of youth distinguished in her. Her words indicated fervor and excited energy; but they were not evidenced in her face or manner. She was cool and lovely. One would have thought that she recounted the inanities of a curate's tea party.

The aged man, in the khaki uniform of a major of yeomanry, remained in his position at the window. The old woman sat with her implacable face, unchanging like a thing insensible and inorganic.

This unsympathetic aspect about the girl did not seem to disturb her. She went on:

“The thing was thrilling. It was better than any theater—the three of us at the old mahogany table in the room, and the Scotland Yard patrol outside.

“Sir Henry was bubbling over with his theory. 'I read this riddle like a printed page,' he said. 'It will be the work of a little band of expert cracksmen that the Continent has kindly sent us. We have had some samples of their work in Brompton Road. They are professional crooks of a high order—very clever at breaking in a door, and, like all the criminal groups that we get without an invitation from over the Channel, these crooks have absolutely no regard for human life.'

“That's the way Sir Henry led off with his explanation. Of course he had all that Scotland Yard knew about criminal groups to start him right. It was a good deal to have the identity of the criminal agents selected out; but I didn't see how he was going to manage to explain the mystery from the evidence. I was wild to hear him. Mr. Meadows was quite as interested, I thought, although he didn't say a word.

“Sir Henry nodded, as though he took the American's confirmation as a thing that followed. 'We are at the scene,' he said, 'of one of the most treacherous acts of all criminal drama. I mean the “doing in,” as our criminals call it, of the unprofessional accomplice. It's a regulation piece of business with the hard-and-fast criminal organizations of the Continent, like the Nervi of Marseilles, or the Lecca of Paris.

“'They take in a house servant, a shopkeeper's watchman, or a bank guard to help them in some big haul. Then they lure him into some abandoned house, under a pretense of dividing