CHAPTER V
THE MISSING BLADE

On that same morning of the meeting on the sands at Tormouth, Inspector Clarke, walking southward down St. Martin's Lane toward Scotland Yard, had a shock. Clarke was hardly at the moment in his best mood, for to the natural vinegar of his temperament a drop of lemon, or of gall, had been added within the last few days. That morning at breakfast he had explained matters with a sour mouth to Mrs. Clarke.

"Oh, it was all a made-up job between Winter and Furneaux, and I was only put on to the Anarchists to make room for Furneaux – that was it. The two Anarchists weren't up to any mischief – 'Anarchists' was all a blind, that's what 'Anarchists' was. But that's the way things are run now in the Yard, and there's no fair play going any more. Furneaux must have Feldisham Mansions, of course; Furneaux this, and Furneaux that – of course. But wait: he hasn't solved it yet! and he isn't going to; no, and I haven't done with it yet, not by a long way… Now, where do you buy these eggs? Just look at this one."

The fact was, now that the two Anarchists, Descartes and Janoc, had been deported by the Court, and were gone, Clarke suddenly woke to find himself disillusioned, dull, excluded from the fun of the chase. But, as he passed down St. Martin's Lane that morning, his underlooking eyes, ever on the prowl for the "confidence men" who haunt the West End, saw a sight that made him doubt if he was awake. There, in a little by-street to the east, under the three balls of a pawnbroker's, he saw, or dreamt that he saw – Émile Janoc! – Janoc, whom he knew to be in Holland, and Janoc was so deep, so lost, in talk with a girl, that he could not see Clarke standing there, looking at him.

And Clarke knew the girl, too! It was Bertha Seward, the late cook of the murdered actress, Rose de Bercy.

Could he be mistaken as to Janoc? he asked himself. Could two men be so striking to the eye, and so alike – the lank figure, stooping; the long wavering legs, the clothes hanging loose on him; the scraggy throat with the bone in it; the hair, black and plenteous as the raven's breast, draping the sallow-dark face; the eyes so haggard, hungry, unresting. Few men were so picturesque: few so greasy, repellent. And there could be no mistake as to Bertha Seward – a small, thin creature, with whitish hair, and little Chinese eyes that seemed to twinkle with fun – it was she!

And how earnest was the talk!

Clarke saw Janoc clasp his two long hands together, and turn up his eyes to the sky, seeming to beseech the girl or, through her, the heavens. Then he offered her money, which she refused; but, when he cajoled and insisted, she took it, smiling. Shaking hands, they parted, and Janoc looked after Bertha Seward as she hurried, with a sort of stealthy haste, towards the Strand. Then he turned, and found himself face to face with Clarke.

For a full half-minute they looked contemplatively, eye to eye, at one another.

"Janoc?" said Clarke.

"That is my name for one moment, sare," said Janoc politely in a very peculiar though fluent English: "and the yours, sare?"

"Unless you have a very bad memory you know mine! How on earth come you to be here, Émile Janoc?"

"England is free country, sare," said Janoc with a shrug; "I see not the why I must render you account of movement. Only I tell you this time, because you are so singular familiarly with my name of family, you deceive yourself as to my little name. I have, it is true, a brother named Émile – "

Clarke looked with a hard eye at him. The resemblance, if they were two, was certainly very strong. Since it seemed all but impossible that Émile Janoc should be in England, he accepted the statement grudgingly.

"Perhaps you wouldn't mind letting me see your papers?" he asked.

Janoc bowed.

"That I will do with big pleasure, sare," he said, and produced a passport recently viséd in Holland, by which it appeared that his name was not Émile, but Gaston.

They parted with a bow on Janoc's side and a nod on Clarke's; but Clarke was puzzled.

"Something queer about this," he thought. "I'll keep my eye on him… What was he doing talking like that —so earnest– to the actress's cook? Suppose she was murdered by Anarchists? It is certain that she was more or less mixed up with them – more, perhaps, than is known. Why did those two come over the night after her murder? – for it's clear that they had no design against the Tsar. I'll look into it on my own. Easy, now, Clarke, my boy, and may be you'll come out ahead of Furneaux, Winter, and all the lot in the end."

When he arrived at his Chief's office in the Yard, he mentioned to Winter his curious encounter with the other Janoc, but said not a word of Bertha Seward, since the affair of the murder was no longer his business, officially.

Winter paid little heed to Janoc, whether Émile or Gaston, for Furneaux was there with him, and the two were head to head, discussing the murder, and the second sitting of the inquest was soon to come. Indeed, Clarke heard Winter say to Furneaux:

"I promised Mr. Osborne to give some sort of excuse to his servants for his flight from home. I was so busy that I forgot it. Perhaps you will see to that, too, for me."

"Glad you mentioned it. I intended going there at once," Furneaux said in that subdued tone which seemed to have all at once come upon him since Rose de Bercy was found lying dead in Feldisham Mansions.

"Well, then, from henceforth everything is in your hands," said Winter. "Here I hand you over our dumb witness" – and he held out to Furneaux the blood-soiled ax-head of flint that had battered Rose de Bercy's face.

He was not sure – he wondered afterwards whether it was positively a fact – but he fancied that for the tenth part of a second Furneaux shrank from taking, from touching, that object of horror – a notion so odd and fantastic that it affected Winter as if he had fancied that the poker had lifted its head for the tenth part of a second. But almost before the conceit took form, Furneaux was coolly placing the celt in his breast-pocket, and standing up to go.

Furneaux drove straight, as he had said, to Mayfair, and soon was being ushered into Osborne's library, where he found Miss Prout, the secretary, with her hat on, busy opening and sorting the morning's correspondence.

He introduced himself, sat beside her, and, while she continued with her work, told her what had happened – how Osborne had been advised to disappear till the popular gale of ill-will got stilled a little.

"Ah, that's how it was," the girl said, lifting interested eyes to his. "I was wondering," and she pinned two letters together with the neatness of method and order.

Furneaux sat lingeringly with her, listening to an aviary of linnets that prattled to the bright sunlight that flooded the library, and asking himself whether he had ever seen hair so glaringly red as the lady secretary's – a great mass of it that wrapped her head like a flame.

"And where has Mr. Osborne gone to?" she murmured, making a note in shorthand on the back of one little bundle of correspondence.

"Somewhere by the coast – I think," said Furneaux.

"West coast? East coast?"

"He didn't write to me: he wrote to my Chief" – for, though Furneaux well knew where Osborne was, his retreat was a secret.

The girl went on with her work, plying the paper-knife, now jotting down a memorandum, now placing two or more kindred letters together: for every hospital and institution wrote to Osborne, everyone who wanted money for a new flying machine, or had a dog or a hunter to sell, or intended to dine and speechify, and send round the hat.

"It's quite a large batch of correspondence," Furneaux remarked.

"Half of these," the girl said, "are letters of abuse from people who never heard Mr. Osborne's name till the day after that poor woman was killed. All England has convicted him before he is tried. It seems unfair."

"Yes, no doubt. But 'to understand is to pardon,' as the proverb says. They have to think something, and when there is only one thing for them to think, they think it – meaning well. It will blow over in time. Don't you worry."

"Oh, I! – What do I care what forty millions of vermin choose to say or think?"

She pouted her pretty lips saucily.

"Forty – millions – of vermin," cried Furneaux; "that's worse than Carlyle."

Hylda Prout's swift hands plied among her papers. She made no answer; and Furneaux suddenly stood up.

"Well, you will mention to the valet and the others how the matter stands as to Mr. Osborne. He is simply avoiding the crowd – that is all. Good-day."

Hylda Prout rose, too, and Furneaux saw now how tall she was, well-formed and lithe, with a somewhat small face framed in that nest of red hair. Her complexion was spoiled and splashed with freckles, but otherwise she was dainty-featured and pretty – mouth, nose, chin, tiny, all except the wide-open eyes.

"So," she said to Furneaux as she put out her hand, "you won't let me know where Mr. Osborne is? I may want to write to him on business."

"Why, didn't I tell you that he didn't write to me?"

"That was only a blind."

"Dear me! A blind… It is the truth, Miss Prout."

"Tell that to someone else."

"What, don't you like the truth?"

"All right, keep the information to yourself, then."

"Good-by – I mustn't allow myself to dally in this charming room with the linnets, the sunlight, and the lady."

For a few seconds she seemed to hesitate. Then she said suddenly: "Yes, it's very nice in here. That door there leads into the morning room, and that one yonder, at the side – "

Her voice dropped and stopped; Furneaux appeared hardly to have heard, or, if hearing, to be merely making conversation.

"Yes, it leads where?" he asked, looking at her. Now, her eyes, too, dropped, and she murmured:

"Into the museum."

"The – ! Well, naturally, Mr. Osborne is a connoisseur – quite so, only I rather expected you to say 'a picture gallery.' Is it – open to inspection? Can one – ?"

"It is open, certainly: the door is not locked, But there's nothing much – "

"Oh, do let me have a look around, and come with me, if it will not take long. No one is more interested in curios than I."

"I – will, if you like," said the girl with a strange note of confidence in her voice, and led the way into the museum.

Furneaux found himself in a room, small, but full of riches. On a central table were several illuminated missals and old Hoch-Deutsch MSS., some ancient timepieces, and a collection of enameled watches of Limoges. Around the walls, open or in cabinets, were arms, blades of Toledo, minerals arranged on narrow shelves, an embalmed chieftain's head from Mexico, and many other bizarre objects.

Hylda Prout knew the name and history of every one, and murmured an explanation as Furneaux bent in scrutiny.

"Those are what are called 'celts,'" she said; "they are not very uncommon, and are found in every country – made of flint, mostly, and used as ax-heads by the ancients. These rough ones on this side are called Palæolithic – five hundred thousand years old, some of them; and these finer ones on this side are Neolithic, not quite so old – though there isn't much to choose in antiquity when it comes to hundreds of thousands! Strange to say, one of the Neolithic ones has been missing for some days – I don't know whether Mr. Osborne has given it away or not?"

The fact that one was missing was, indeed, quite obvious, for the celts stood in a row, stuck in holes drilled in the shelf; and right in the midst of the rank gaped one empty hole, a dumb little mouth that yet spoke.

"Yes, curious things," said Furneaux, bending meditatively over them. "I remember seeing pictures of them in books. Every one of these stones is stained with blood."

"Blood!" cried the girl in a startled way.

"Well, they were used in war and the chase, weren't they? Every one of them has given agony, every one would be red, if we saw it in its true color."

Red was also the color of Furneaux's cheek-bones at the moment – red as hectic; and he was conscious of it, as he was conscious also that his eyes were wildly alight. Hence, he continued a long time bending over the "celts" so that Miss Prout might not see his face. His voice, however, was calm, since he habitually spoke in jerky, clipped syllables that betrayed either no emotion or too much.

When he turned round, it was to move straight to a little rack on the left, in which glittered a fine array of daggers – Japanese kokatanas, punals of Salamanca, cangiars of Morocco, bowie-knives of old California, some with squat blades, coming quickly to a point, some long and thin to transfix the body, others meant to cut and gash, each with its label of minute writing.

Furneaux's eye had duly noted them before, but he had passed them without stopping. Now, after seeing the celts, he went back to them.

To his surprise, Miss Prout did not come with him. She stood looking on the ground, her lower lip somewhat protruded, silent, obviously distrait.

"And these, Miss Prout?" chirped he, "are they of high value?"

She neither answered nor moved.

"Perhaps you haven't studied their history?" ventured Furneaux again.

Now, all at once, she moved to the rack of daggers, and without saying a word, tapped with the fore-finger of her right hand, and kept on tapping, a vacant hole in the rack, though her eyes peered deeply into Furneaux's face. And for the first time Furneaux made acquaintance with the real splendor of her eyes – eyes that lived in sleep, torpid like the dormouse; but when they woke, woke to such a lambency of passion that they fascinated and commanded like the basilisk's.

With eyes so alight she now kept peering at Furneaux, standing tall above him, tapping at the empty hole.

"Oh, I see," muttered Furneaux, his eyes, too, alight like live coals, "there's an article missing here, also – one from the celts, one from the daggers."

"He is innocent!" suddenly cried Hylda Prout, in a tempest of passionate reproach.

"She loves him," thought Furneaux.

And the girl thought: "He knew before now that these things were missing. His acting would deceive every man, but not every woman. How glad I am that I drew him on!"

Now, though the fact of the discovery of the celt by Inspector Clarke under the dead actress's piano had not been published in the papers, the fact that she had been stabbed through the eye by a long blade with blunt edges was known to all the world. There was nothing strange in this fierce outburst of Osborne's trusted secretary, nor that tears should spring to her eyes.

"Mr. Furneaux, he is innocent," she wailed in a frenzy. "Oh, he is! You noticed me hesitate just now to bring you in here: well, this was the reason – this, this, this – " she tapped with her forefinger on the empty hole – "for I knew that you would see this, and I knew that you would be jumping to some terrible conclusion as to Mr. Osborne."

"Conclusion, no," murmured Furneaux comfortingly – "I avoid conclusions as traps for the unwary. Interesting, of course, that's all. Tell me what you know, and fear nothing. Conclusion, you say! I don't jump to conclusions. Tell me what was the shape of the dagger that has disappeared."

She was silent again for many seconds. She was wrung with doubt, whether to speak or not to speak.

At last she voiced her agony.

"Either I must refuse to say, or I must tell the truth – and if I tell the truth, you will think – "

She stopped again, all her repose of manner fled.

"You don't know what I will think," put in Furneaux. "Sometimes I think the most unexpected things. The best way is to give me the plain facts. The question is, whether the blade that has gone from there was shaped like the one supposed to have committed the crime in the flat?"

"It was labeled 'Saracen Stiletto: about 1150,'" muttered the girl brokenly, looking Furneaux straight in the face, though the fire was now dead in her eyes. "It had a square bone handle, with a crescent carved on one of the four faces – a longish, thin blade, like a skewer, only not round – with blunt-edged corners to it."

Furneaux took up a little tube containing radium from a table at his hand, looked at it, and put it down again.

Hylda Prout was too distraught to see that his hand shook a little. It was half a minute before he spoke.

"Well, all that proves nothing, though it is of interest, of course," he said nonchalantly. "How long has that stiletto been lying there?"

"Since – since I entered Mr. Osborne's employment, twelve months ago."

"And you first noticed that it was gone – when?"

"On the second afternoon after the murder, when I noticed that the celt, too, was gone."

"The second – I see."

"I wondered what had become of them! I could imagine that Mr. Osborne might have given the celt to some friend. But the stiletto was so rare a thing – I couldn't think that he would give that. I assumed – I assume – that they were stolen. But, then, by whom?"

"That's the question," said Furneaux.