Chapter IV: Part 4

"Something that has occurred lately. Mr. Judkins Barraclough, who has been coarse and cruel for some time past, has suddenly altered his demeanour. He has lost all his old over-bearing brutality. He is nervous, and has evidently something on his mind. One night her ladyship retired late to her own apartment, which is separated from her husband's by his dressing-room. At two in the morning she heard the front door close, and a few minutes later she heard her husband enter the dressing-room. It seemed to her that he must be in pain, for she distinctly heard him every now and then utter a low groan.

"She rose and went quietly into the dressing-room and found Mr. Judkins Barraclough washing a wound in his right arm with Condy. Lady Anna Barraclough saw at once that the wound looked like a bite--the marks of teeth were distinctly visible.

"Mr. Judkins Barraclough stammered out an explanation. A savage dog had attacked him as he was coming through a back street on his way home. He had raised his umbrella to beat it off, and it had flown at him and fastened its teeth in his arm. Then, somewhat angrily, he told his wife to go back to her own room; he was all right.

"Instantly Lady Anna Barraclough's suspicions were aroused. If a dog had bitten him her husband would have gone to a doctor's at once and had the wound dressed. Why should he come home and attend to it himself? There was only one solution--that the bite had been received under circumstances which he would be unable to explain satisfactorily."

"Ah," said Paul, "it is a woman who bites as a rule, not a man."

"Yes," replied Dorcas, "that was her ladyship's idea. Her husband had been bitten by a woman, and a woman only bites when she is mad with rage and her hands are being held.

"Since that night Mr. Judkins Barraclough had been out nearly all day and has not returned till late. But he has not ordered his carriage to take or fetch him on one single occasion. These circumstances aroused her ladyship's suspicions that something was wrong, and that there was trouble in which a woman was concerned. Her husband had evidently quarrelled with one who had attacked him.

"The attack--and what else could the bitten arm suggest?--would hardly be that of a mistress. A millionaire is not so shabbily treated in his gallantries, because a millionaire of the Judkins Barraclough type is only attractive on account of his wealth, and to bite a millionaire's arm is not exactly the way to retain his good graces. The man's altered demeanour, his evident fear of _something,_ the bitten arm, the long absences from home, and the non-employment of the carriages and horses all point, in Lady Anna's idea, to one thing--the power of some woman to interfere with him, perhaps to ruin him. Supposing in the old days, before he became wealthy, this man had a wife whom he had left in poverty, and she had discovered him, a wealthy bigamist, that would account for everything. But," said Dorcas, quietly, "supper's ready, and after supper I must be off."

Paul lifted his sightless eyes to his wife's face.

"There's a little invitation I should like you to give our guest to-night," he said, "I'm sure he'd like it, and I'm sure he deserves it."

"And what is that, dear?"

"Mrs. Dorcas Dene requests the pleasure of Mr. Saxon's company at 11.45 for midnight, underneath the lamp-post immediately opposite the residence of Mr. Judkins Barraclough, in Berkeley Square."

Dorcas laughed quite a ringing little laugh.

"Of course, if _you_ wish it, dear," she said.

Then turning to me with a quick resumption of her former seriousness of expression, she added:

"Honestly I shall be glad of your company. From what her ladyship has told me I don't think this South American millionaire is exactly the sort of wild animal for a woman to hunt alone."

* * * * * * *

It was half-past twelve when a hansom drove up to the door of No. --, Berkeley Square, and a gentleman with a long, loose summer overcoat got out and paid the cabman and ran up the steps.

Dorcas had told me that Mr. Barraclough would probably arrive in a cab, as for several nights recently he had not ordered the carriage to meet him anywhere, so Lady Anna had informed her.

Mr. Barraclough had let himself in with the latchkey before the cabman had pocketed his fare and picked up his reins to drive away.

"Now," said Dorcas, "we must find out where that man took Mr. Barraclough up. It is somewhere he doesn't want known. That is the reason he doesn't order his carriage to fetch him. It may be only a street corner. But wherever it is, it is the first step backwards towards the goal that lies far away in the past."

"But we can't tell the cabman to take us to where he picked his fare up, can we?" I said, hesitatingly.

"Leave that to me," replied Dorcas. "You call the cabman."

I obeyed, and the cabman turned his horse round and drew up to the kerb. Dorcas got half way in and then got out again and looked at the horse.

"You've been driving too fast, cabman," she said; "why, your poor horse is breathing quite hard."

"Lor' bless you, ma'am!" said the cabman, "that's nothing--that's his natural breathing! Why, he only come out of the yard half an hour ago, and I've only had one fare."

"One fare? It must have been a good journey by the look of the horse."

Then turning to me, she said:

"Don't let us take this cab--we'll get another--the horse is done up."

"Well, I'm blowed!" exclaimed the cabman. "That's a good one. Why, how far do you think the horse has come?"

"Oh," said Dorcas, "perhaps from Hampstead or Brixton."

"Hampstead or Brixton!" exclaimed the driver, wrathfully. "This here horse came out of the yard in St. Pancras just afore twelve o'clock, and a gent hailed me as was coming out of a house in Burton Crescent, and I drove him here, and that's all the work my horse has done to-night."

"Oh, very well," said Dorcas. Then turning to me, she said:

"Give the man a shilling and let him go. I'm not going to ride behind that horse."

The man took the shilling and drove off, muttering to himself, and Dorcas and I strolled a little way along.

"He came out of a house in Burton Crescent," she muttered; "that's something."

"Why didn't you ask him which house?"

"Too risky. The man might think something was up and find Barraclough to-morrow and tell him, in hope of a reward. But I took the man's number in case I want him later."

"Very well. What are you going to do now?" I asked. "Are you going home?"

"No--let us go to Burton Crescent."

"What on earth's the good of that? You can't find out the house Mr. Barraclough came out of to-night. There's not the slightest clue."

"There may be. Did you notice that when he put his umbrella up to stop the cabman he held it in his left hand?"

"Well?"

"When he got out he shifted his umbrella to his right hand, and felt with his left hand in his left pocket for the silver. Mr. Judkins Barraclough is still feeling the effects of that bitten right arm."

"Possibly--probably. But how on earth can his being temporarily left-handed guide us to the particular house he came out of in Burton Crescent?"

"I don't say it will--but it may. Let us go."

We took a cab, and got out at the end of Burton Crescent. We walked entirely round it, Dorcas Dene going up the steps of each house in turn, and examining them carefully.

Suddenly she uttered a little cry of delight.

"This is the house," she exclaimed. "Look!"

She pointed to three or four rose leaves lying on the steps of No. ---.

I looked at them bewildered, remembering that when Mr. Barraclough got out of the cab he had a large rose in the button-hole of his overcoat.

"I see the leaves," I said. "But what on earth made you imagine they would be there, and--and where does the left hand come in?"

"It's very simple," replied Dorcas. "I looked at Mr. Judkins Barraclough very carefully when he got out of the cab, and I noticed that the rose in his buttonhole was rather dilapidated. It had evidently been in contact with something, and several of the leaves were gone. Of course they might have dropped accidentally, but I instantly evolved a theory to account for the missing leaves. I glanced inside the cab while I was looking the horse up and down, there weren't any leaves there, so he hadn't crushed his rose in getting into it. If he had, some of the leaves would have fallen on the matting. I noticed that he used his left hand. The probability was that he hailed the cab with the umbrella in his left hand. The cabman said he was coming out of the house when he hailed him, so he would be on the steps at the time. Now, if you lifted your left hand hurriedly, as if hailing a cab that was passing, you would probably bring your arm up against the left side of your overcoat. Your arm would probably brush against a flower if you had one as large as a rose, and particularly if it projected as far forward as Mr. Barraclough's did. I said to myself, 'He might have knocked the leaves off that rose when he hailed the cab on a door-step in Burton Crescent.' My surmise fortunately turns out to be correct. Here are the rose leaves, and therefore this is the house."

"It's wonderful!" I said, "but after all, it's just one chance in a thousand."

"It is that one chance," replied Dorcas, quietly, "that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred brings the criminal into the hands of justice. Chance is the most successful detective the world has ever known."

Dorcas stepped back and looked up at the house.

"There are no lights anywhere," she said, "but we'll see what the inhabitants are like."

She seized the bell and rang it violently, and then gave a loud double knock. There was no sound inside the house. We waited a few minutes, then Dorcas knocked again, this time loud enough to wake up everybody in the Crescent. Still no one came, and the house remained in darkness.

"I'll try again," she said. "I'm sure to wake the people up on one side or other, and they'll think, perhaps, it's their knocker, and look out of the window."

Dorcas knocked this time for fully a couple of minutes, and at last she produced the desired effect.

A third floor window in the next house opened, and a woman put her head out.

"What's the good of your knocking there, a-frightening people out of their seven senses;" she called out angrily. "What do you want?"

"Mr. Robinson," replied Dorcas. "A relative of his is dying, and I've come to fetch him."

"You've come to the wrong house, then," said the woman, snappishly. "There ain't no Mr. Robinson there, 'cos the house is empty. Leastways, there ain't nobody sleepin' there."

"But Mr. Robinson was here this evening," replied Dorcas, unabashed.

"Oh, you mean the gent as has taken the place and ain't moved in yet, perhaps--I don't know his name. He ain't there now, I tell you. He only comes there now and then, and nobody's living there, and the tradespeople don't call. If you can't believe me, ask a policeman, only for goodness' sake leave off knocking. You're making yourself a noosance to the neighbourhood."

Dorcas thanked her informant, and we moved away. "Good-night," said Dorcas, as we got to the corner. "I'll take a cab and go home now. Mr. Barraclough is renting an empty house. I must find out why he does so."

"When shall we do that?"

"The day after to-morrow. I must have a couple of days to myself now. If you've nothing to do, come to Oak Tree Road in the evening the day after to-morrow, at ten o'clock."

I assured Dorcas that I should be delighted. I saw her into a cab, and wished her good-night, and went home, wondering to myself what on earth a millionaire with a magnificent establishment in Berkeley Square could want with an empty house in Burton Crescent.

* * * * * * *

During the afternoon of the appointed day I received a telegram-- "Come evening dress. Dorcas."

When I arrived at Oak Tree Road at ten o'clock in the evening, I found Dorcas busily engaged in trying the wick of a dark lantern, and on the floor beside her lay an open brown paper parcel filled with goloshes.

"Good gracious," I exclaimed, "are you going burgling?"

"Something very like it," she replied, lighting the lantern to satisfy herself that it was all right. "Just try on those goloshes and see if any of them will fit over your boots."

"But what do I want with goloshes? It's a perfectly dry night."

"You are going burgling with me--that is, of course, if you are not afraid."

"Burgling in evening dress!" I exclaimed. "I'm not afraid to do anything that you tell me is right, but I haven't been brought up to the profession, you know."

I selected a pair of goloshes which I thought likely to suit, and found they fitted over my boots perfectly.

"That's all right--put them in that bag," said Dorcas, pointing to a black bag on the sofa. Then she blew the lamp out, and fastening it to a leather belt, fitted it round her waist.

"You look like a female policeman," I exclaimed, "but you're not going through the streets with that on!"

"Nobody will see it under my long cloak. Here is a box of silent matches, put that in the bag too."

I obeyed mechanically.

"Now," said Dorcas. "come to supper. Paul is in the dining-room waiting for us. We don't start till twelve."

"But where are we going?"

"To look over that empty house in Burton Crescent," replied Dorcas, quite calmly. "I have seen Lady Anna Barraclough to-day. Her husband wears his keys on a chain. The chances are that the key he uses to let himself into Burton Crescent will be on the bunch. He wouldn't carry it loose for fear of leaving it in his pocket when he changed his clothes, and perhaps forgetting it just when he wanted it. I shall have his keys directly he is asleep to-night, so Heaven grant him sweet repose directly he lays his head on the pillow. I reckon on having his keys before two o'clock in the morning."

"But how will you manage it?"

"I have arranged it with her ladyship. They occupy, you remember, two rooms separated by Mr. Barraclough's dressing-room. There he leaves all his clothes for his valet to brush and attend to in the morning. After he is asleep, Lady Barraclough will go quietly into the dressing-room from her room, and detach the keys from the chain, which is attached to his braces. I shall be on the opposite side of the square in a four-wheel cab, which will be driven by a cabman whom I frequently engage and whom I can trust. Sitting in the cab I shall avoid the attention of the policeman, who might otherwise wonder why you and I were loitering about so long in one place. But from the cab I shall be watching the windows of No. --, Berkeley Square. When I see a corner of the blind pulled up in Lady Barraclough's room, and a lighted candle shown for a moment, I shall know she has the keys."

"Yes," I said, "that's all very well. But how is she going to give you the keys?"

"She isn't--she is going to give them to you."

"To me!" I exclaimed; "where?--when?--how?"

"You will be strolling about smoking a cigar. Being in evening dress you will not attract the notice of any inquisitive policeman, should one happen to be about. You will watch for that signal, too, and when you see it, you will go up the steps of No. -- as if you were going to ring to be let in.

"Lady Anna will come quietly downstairs, open the door, and give you the keys. Then you will walk away quietly into Piccadilly. My cab will follow and stop opposite Walsingham House. Then you will get in and we shall drive to the top of Burton Crescent. Our cabman will wait for us round the corner."

"In case of our having to make a run for it?"

"No--because at five o'clock in the morning Lady Anna Barraclough will creep downstairs again and feel in the letter box."

"What for--a note from you?"

"No--the keys. You will put them there when we have done with them. Then she will go back into her husband's dressing-room, fasten them on to the chain on his braces again, and he will get up in the morning and see them and never dream that they have been having a 'night out.'"

"And suppose the key of the house isn't on the bunch?"

"Then we shall have had our journey for nothing. But the reasonable supposition is that it will be. Now come to supper, and make a good one, for we have a rough night's work before us."

* * * * * * *

Two hours later a light flashed in a second floor window of No. --, Berkeley Square, and with a beating heart I went up the steps. The door opened quietly, and a woman's hand came cautiously through the opening and touched mine. I clutched the keys, slipped them into my pocket, and strode away in the direction of Piccadilly.

When the four-wheel cab stopped I got in and gave the keys to Dorcas. "So far, so good," she said. "Now with average luck we shall get into that empty house without attracting attention, and discover the millionaire's secret."

Dorcas was holding the keys up to the light that came through the cab window and examining them carefully.

"There are two latchkeys at any rate," she said. "Let us hope that one of them will unlock the cupboard in which Mr. Judkins Barraclough keeps his skeleton."

_VIII. THE EMPTY HOUSE_

As the cab made its way towards Burton Crescent I am not ashamed to confess that I had misgivings as to the success of our enterprise. Not having been brought up to burglary, I contemplated with something akin to nervousness my début as a "cracksman," and I pictured to myself the awkward predicament in which we should find ourselves if we were discovered by a watchful policeman, creeping about a house with goloshes over our boots and a dark lantern and silent matches in our possession.

I put the point to Dorcas. As we had probably the key of the house in Burton Crescent with us, why should we compromise our position by taking the implements of burglary with us?

"Because," said Dorcas, "it is better to be over-cautious than over-bold in my profession. If there _should_ be anyone in the house I want to _see_ them before they hear me, and that is why I have taken precautions with our boots and with our light."

"Do you think Mr. Barraclough has visited the house since we were there?"

"Yes; I watched the house for a short time last evening. A dark-complexioned, white-haired old gentleman, with a closely cropped white moustache and gold spectacles, let himself in about nine o'clock. No such person came out again. But towards midnight the door was opened, and a gentleman in a long grey overcoat came out. That person I did not see enter; but of course that is not conclusive, as I only commenced to watch about eight in the evening."

"And the person who came out was----?"

"Judkins Barraclough."

"Do you think the dark old man will be in the house to-night?"

"No," said Dorcas, in an emphatic tone, "I don't! But I have some more interesting information gathered during the last two days round the neighbourhood. The local tradespeople, who are always on the watch when the 'To Let' is taken out of the windows of a house, saw a van at the door delivering goods one day last week. The person who was superintending the disposal of the goods was an old gentleman with very white hair and gold spectacles, and a closely-cropped, white moustache. His face and hands were very dark, and he looked like a native of India in European clothes. The baker's man, seeing the door open and cases being delivered, presented his master's card. The Indian gentleman replied in excellent English that the family would not be coming in for a month or six weeks."

"Then this Indian gentleman must be the dark man you saw go in. Have you any clue to his identity?"

"I have ascertained certain particulars concerning him. To find out who delivered the goods at Burton Crescent was my next object. It is the general custom for policemen to take the name on a van that is delivering or removing goods from a house. Many robberies have been traced in this way. The constable on duty in the neighbourhood at that time was able to tell me to whom the van belonged. I went at once to a retired police sergeant whom I frequently employ to make ordinary private inquiries, and gave him instructions to find out where the van took the goods from, and if possible what they were.

"In a few hours he sent me his report. The van had brought two cases of brandy from a firm of wine merchants; hammers, saws, nails, etc., from an ironmonger's; half a dozen large indiarubber mats, and several rolls of wire netting. All these things, it was found, had been purchased and paid for by a white-haired gentleman in gold spectacles, having the appearance of a native of India. He gave his name and address as Mr. Aleem Mohammed, No. ---, Burton Crescent."

"Well, you can soon find out who Mr. Aleem Mohammed is by the numbers of the notes he paid to the house agents. Banknotes are always useful clues."

"Mr. Aleem Mohammed has evidently thought of that," replied Dorcas. "I _have_ traced the notes. They were obtained at a money-changer's at Charing Cross, by a gentleman answering to our Indian friend's description. He gave sovereigns for them. I have also been to the house agents. The house was let to Mr. Aleem Mohammed, who had paid a year's rent in advance in bank-notes, having no one in this country to whom he could refer."

"Don't you think," I said, after a pause, "the whole business may be capable of a very simple explanation? After all, Barraclough hailed a cab from the doorstep, and the cab drove him direct to his own residence. Would he, if he were mixed up in any crime in connection with this house, establish a direct trail?"

"I have been thinking that out myself," replied Dorcas; "but I am inclined to believe it was one of those slips that very cunning people do make occasionally. Coming out late at night, there was nobody about, and he hailed a cab barely thinking what he was doing, and said, 'Berkeley Square.' He stopped it as his own door with his umbrella mechanically, as one is in the habit of doing."

"And the Indian gentleman?"

"I believe is Barraclough. He is a dark man, browned with the sun of South America. He could easily carry a white wig and a false moustache and a pair of gold spectacles in a Gladstone bag coming out of the house at night. When he goes into it in the daylight as the Indian he can have that light overcoat and his flower in the same bag."

"But the night we saw him he had no bag."

"No; but he might easily have had the wig and moustache in his overcoat pocket. At any rate, I am pretty sure that Aleem Mohammed and Judkins Barraclough are the same person."

"That is your theory, but you may be wrong."

"Of course--I am not infallible."

The cab stopped suddenly. We had reached Mabledon Place, where the man had orders to pull up. We got out and Dorcas gave him instructions to wait for us where he was, saying we might be a couple of hours or more.

Taking the black bag with us, we made our way towards the Crescent, which was quite deserted. Dorcas took her goloshes out of the bag and put them on, and handed me mine, just as we got close to the house. Glancing round to see no one was about, she went noiselessly up the steps and tried the latchkeys. The first did not fit. It was probably the key of Berkeley Square. The second, to our intense relief, fitted perfectly. In a moment we were inside the hall and had closed the door noiselessly behind us.

Dorcas, taking the dark lantern from her belt, struck a silent match and lighted the wick.

The hall was bare, the stairs were uncarpeted, the whole atmosphere of the house suggested that it was uninhabited.

The keys were on the outside of the doors of the two rooms on the ground floor.

We opened the door of the front parlour. It was quite bare. Dorcas looked about it in every direction.

Then she turned the tap of the gas on. There was no sound.

"Gas cut off and meter taken away when last tenant left," said Dorcas. "The occupant must have used candles or a lamp."

"There's nothing in that," I said. "A good many people prefer them."

"Quite so. _I_ hope he used candles. But let us have a peep at the next room."

Dorcas went first and opened the door of the back parlour.

The room was empty.

Dorcas looked carefully round it, then turned the light of the bull's-eye to the floor. Suddenly she stooped down.

"He's used this room," she said; "see, here is the tallow trail."

She pointed to some small blobs of tallow grease near the doors of a cupboard, which was in one corner of the room.

"He has used candles here," she said. "The candle has stood some time on the floor and guttered. That was while the person who had been carrying it was busy with both hands inside this cupboard."

The cupboard was locked, but the lock was a paltry one, and drawing a little instrument from the bag Dorcas soon had it open.

"How odd to take the trouble to lock up such rubbish as this!" exclaimed Dorcas, drawing out a bundle of ragged female clothing.

I stared at the articles as Dorcas held them up.

"Good gracious!" I said. "These are the clothes of some wretched creature who must have been in the last stage of poverty. The dress is ragged and mud-stained, the old red flannel petticoat almost in ribbons, the bonnet battered and black with grease. Faugh! put the things down."

Dorcas was not inclined to abandon her find so readily, but presently she put the rags slowly back in the cupboard. "I wonder what he's done with the body?" she said quietly.

I must confess that when Dorcas said that, I had an uncomfortable, creepy sensation. Could it be possible that such a wretched creature as these locked-up rags had once belonged to had been done to death in an empty house by the millionaire of Berkeley Square?

Dorcas must have divined my thoughts. "Are you wondering if the body of the woman who wore these things is concealed on the premises?" she said.

"Something of the sort was in my mind."

"And I don't know what to think," said Dorcas. "If the body is buried, why on earth were not these accusing rags buried with it?"

We went downstairs, and as we walked through the silent, deserted passages of the basement, I felt suspiciously uncomfortable. A rat ran squeaking behind the wainscot, and I am ashamed to say that in my overwrought nervous condition I couldn't help giving a little cry of alarm.

I tried to excuse my cowardice to Dorcas, but she stopped me.

"Don't apologise," she said. "I am a great deal more afraid of rats than I am of human beings."

We had passed into the back kitchen or scullery.

"He has been here," she said.

"How do you know?"

"By the tallow trail. The guttering candle has left its traces here."

She pointed out three blobs of tallow on the edge of the sink, and turned the light of the bull's-eye full on the trap. Then she passed her hand carefully over the surface and drew it away. A few exceedingly small damp atoms of pulpy water adhered to her palm. Dorcas examined the atoms carefully. "Probably red on one side and white on the other," she said. "I wonder where the bottles are?"

"What bottles?"

There were two short wooden shelves on each side of the sink. From the one on the left-hand side Dorcas took a chisel. It was evidently new, by the handle, but the edge was slightly rusty.

"The bottles that the labels have been scraped from with this chisel," she said. "The labels have been damped at the sink. It is the wet on the label that has rusted the chisel."

Suddenly she stooped down, and let the lantern flash round the room. Something among some rubbish in one corner attracted her attention. It was a small empty bottle, about the size of the bottles in which chemists sell toothache tincture. She picked the bottle up and examined it carefully.

"It has been washed out," she said, "and there is nothing to tell us what it contained."

"Does it matter?" I exclaimed. "It is hardly likely that Mr. Judkins Barraclough came here to wash bottles. That may have been done by the former tenants."

"No, bottles have been scraped here recently. Fragments of the pulped paper are still in the sink, and that chisel is probably one of the tools that the Indian gentleman ordered from the ironmonger's."

"Well, whatever the bottle contained we can't find it out here," I said.

"No, let's go into the front kitchen."

In the front kitchen there were two cupboards and a kitchen dresser. The cupboards were not quite empty--on one shelf was a packet of coffee and a bag of sugar. On the kitchen dresser was a brown paper package open at one end. It contained eleven boxes of ordinary matches--the twelfth half empty, was lying on one of the dresser shelves.

"The coffee bothers me," said Dorcas, "but the matches show that this is where the bottle washer lighted his candles of an evening. The candles themselves can't be far off."

She looked at the dresser drawers. They had round wooden painted handles. She turned the light of the bull's-eye on to each handle. Then she touched the handle of the top left-hand drawer.

"This is one he uses," she said.

"How can you tell that?" I said, gazing curiously on the handle, and failing to see any indication which could have guided Dorcas in her selection.

"Look at this handle carefully," she said, "and you will see a tiny atom of paper still adhering to it. The person who washed bottles has come from the sink with a wet hand and opened that drawer. A scrap of the label has adhered to his hand and come off on the drawer handle, as he grasped it to pull it open. And now I am sure that the person who washed the bottles and opened this drawer was Mr. Judkins Barraclough."

I stared at Dorcas in amazement. "How can the drawer handle tell you that?" I exclaimed.

"You remember that Barraclough's right arm was evidently too painful to use, and he was using his left the night we saw him get out of the cab. Well, the rusty chisel was thrown after use on the left-hand side of the sink, and here the drawer has been pulled open with the left hand."

"Surely a left hand doesn't mark itself on a drawer handle."

"No, but this drawer stuck and was difficult to open. The person trying it rested one hand--a wet and dirty one--on the dresser. See, here are five dirty finger-marks on the _right-hand_ side of the drawer."

I looked where Dorcas had pointed, and indications were undoubtedly there. Dorcas had some difficulty in pulling the drawer open, and had to rest her own hand on the dresser. She tried with her left hand, and her right hand then fell exactly on the finger-marks.

When the drawer at last yielded we looked eagerly inside it. There were two packets of common candles and back in the corner of the drawer half a dozen small bottles similar to the one we had found empty in the sink.

Dorcas drew them out and examined them carefully. "All red labels, you see, with 'Poison' printed on them, 'Hydrate of Chloral' written above. They have all been purchased from different chemists--though one doesn't have to sign for chloral. Mr. Judkins Barraclough is using chloral for some purpose in this house, and after each bottle is used he removes the label."

"Why should he do that?"

"Well, he may not think it wise to leave empty labelled chloral bottles about. He is a cunning man, and is guarding against contingencies."

"But what can he be doing with chloral here--in an empty house?"

"We may find out before we leave it. At any rate, let us see if he uses any of the upper rooms."

"We haven't searched the coal cellar yet," I said, suddenly recollecting the Euston-square mystery, and the discovery of the corpse of the poor "Canterbury Belle."

"To get to the coal cellar you have to go out into the area in these houses," replied Dorcas. "He wouldn't do that."

"The wine cellar, then?"

Dorcas shook her head. "I looked at the door of that as we came by. It was ajar. If there was anything to conceal there it would be shut and locked."

"But the cases of brandy----"

"May be there--we'll go and see."

The wine cellar was small and filled with old rubbish evidently left behind by the last tenants.

But the brandy cases were there. One was opened and the lid off. There were only six bottles left. The straw envelopes of the other six lay on the floor.

"Where are the empty bottles?" I said. "We ought to look for them."

"Yes--that is what we will do next. I have an idea they are upstairs."

"Why?"

"As we came down the kitchen stairs I noticed a short straw lying on one of them. When the bottle was being taken out of the straw envelope in the cellar a loose straw or two caught on the clothes of the person handling it. As he went up the stairs the straw became disengaged by the action of walking and fell. We've searched the parlours carefully--now let us go upstairs to the first floor."

There were two doors on the first floor. We tried the front room one first and found it unlocked and the room quite empty.

"Now for the back room," said Dorcas.

We went out on to the landing and tried the back room door. _It was locked._

"If there is anything more to be found it will be here," exclaimed Dorcas, her face, which had been pale until now, suddenly flushing with excitement.

"What can we do?--burst the door open?"

"Yes--I came prepared for emergencies."

Dorcas produced an instrument which is technically known as a "jemmy" from her bag and handed it to me.

I had once burst open a door, but I was not a skilled workman, so it was a good ten minutes before the door yielded, bursting open with a crash and tearing away with it a portion of the lock, which fell with a clatter to the ground.

As the door fell it seemed as though there was an echo of it downstairs.

"What's that?" exclaimed Dorcas. "It sounded like the front door shutting."

"Nonsense," I said, "it's the echo--the house is empty."

Dorcas had turned her lantern on the staircase, and was peering over the balustrade. All was silent as the grave.

"I must have been mistaken," she said. "Good heavens, there can't have been someone in the house all this time--someone who has slipped past us and escaped. If I thought that I----"

She paused and uttered a little cry. She had turned the lantern right round, and it lit up the room, the door of which we had just burst open.

As the light of the bull's-eye dimly illuminated the apartment an extraordinary sight met our eyes. The centre of the room was entirely occupied by what looked like a huge wire cage. Wire netting nearly six feet high was stretched from side to side of the room on ropes which were fastened in the walls by iron rings. Across the inside, at the top and bottom of what was practically a wired-off passage was wire netting of the same height securely fixed and lashed firmly in its place, and to prevent the occupant of the cage from climbing over the top it was roofed in with a double thickness of coarse sacking securely fastened to the wirework. The floor was covered with indiarubber mats nailed down to keep them in place.

"Good gracious!" I exclaimed. "Is it a menagerie, or a cage for some wild animal, or what?"

Suddenly Dorcas grasped my arm, and put her finger to her lips. In one corner of the cage, on a rug, covered over by a scarlet blanket, lay a woman.

"She must be dead!" I exclaimed, starting back with horror. "Only a corpse could sleep through the crash of that door."

"No," said Dorcas, creeping up close to the wire netting. "She is breathing--see, the blanket rises and falls."

"What can it mean? Is she some mad woman whom Barraclough is keeping here?"

Dorcas did not answer. She was gazing earnestly at the face of the sleeper. It was the face of a woman of about forty--a dark woman who must once have been strikingly handsome. Dorcas let the light fall upon it for a minute or two, but the sleeper made no movement. Her breathing was strangely heavy. Suddenly Dorcas touched my arm and pointed to an open bottle which stood near the rug.

"Brandy," she said. "That's where the six bottles have gone to."

"Is she in a drunken stupor, do you think?"

"Drunken, perhaps, is hardly the word," replied Dorcas; "you forget the empty chloral bottles."

"You think that the chloral is for her?"

"Yes; this woman is under the influence of it now. A man or a woman who takes chloral would sleep through an earthquake. A drunken man or woman would certainly have been startled by the noise we made just now. In some mysterious way she has been got into this house, and is being kept here a prisoner by Mr. Judkins Barraclough. He probably dissolves a dose of chloral and puts it into each bottle of brandy he brings to the poor creature."

"What can be the object of that?"

"The chloral is given, I take it, with the same object as this wire cage has been built around her (probably while she lay helpless and insensible under the influence of the drug)--to keep her from making a noise, shouting or beating against the walls, or going to the windows and attracting the attention of the neighbours. The man who has got this woman in his power comes here daily, but probably only after dark, and has to leave her alone at night and for many hours during the day. She is caged in to keep her from beating the walls, and she is dosed with chloral in order to keep her from moving about or making the slightest noise."

"And the object?"

"To let her kill herself with the brandy."

"Then why the chloral?--that sends her to sleep and prevents her from drinking as much as she would."

"If she were left with the brandy alone she would become violent and be able to shriek. She might in an access of delirium tear down her cage and get free. No--kept here without food and with a plentiful supply of brandy she will die slowly of alcoholic poisoning. But she must die quietly--hence the chloral."

"What an infamous villain!"

"Yes, and a desperate one. This is the woman who bit him that night. There must have been a violent struggle after he got her here. This woman is probably his first wife. There cannot be any other reason for Mr. Barraclough's mysterious proceedings."

"But now we have found her," I exclaimed, "what do you propose to do?"

"We must break through this netting, and try to rouse her first," replied Dorcas. "Her gaoler doesn't go near her--see here is where he evidently picks up the corner of the network to put in the bottles of drugged brandy. The nail has been pulled out and hammered in again several times."

Dorcas went to the shutters, which were closed, and wrenched off the iron bar. "Take this," she said, "and break the netting down sufficiently for us to get in. It will make less noise than forcing out the staples."

I took the bar, and several violent blows broke the lower portion of the cage loose from the fastenings in the floor. Then I pulled it up sufficiently high to allow Dorcas to crawl underneath.

"This must be the woman whose clothes are downstairs in the cupboard," I said. "Fancy a woman reduced to such poverty as that-- the wife of a millionaire. Why, she must have been a homeless outcast."

Dorcas had gone to the sleeping woman's side. Gently she turned down the top of the scarlet blanket. Then she started back in astonishment. The woman was fully dressed in clothes of the best quality.

Dorcas lifted the almost lifeless arm from the sleeper's side and pointed to her fingers. On one was a worn wedding-ring, and above it a diamond ring. A gold bangle set with jewels was round her wrist.

"What does it mean?" said Dorcas, knitting her brows. "The rags concealed in the cupboard downstairs never belonged to _this_ woman."

At that moment a church clock struck five.

"Quick!" cried Dorcas, thrusting Mr. Barraclough's keys through the broken wirework into my hand. "You must go. The cab will be waiting in Mabledon Place. Go to Berkeley Square at once and put the keys in the letter-box. I wouldn't have that man suspect anything for all the money in the world!"

"And you?"

"I shall stay here. Come back as soon as you can. Ring the bell gently and I will let you in. Ah! wait a moment!"

She tore a leaf from her note-book, and scribbled something in lead pencil, then folded it, and gave it to me. It was addressed to a doctor in Endsleigh Gardens.

"It's close by; call there on your way. Ring the doctor up and give him this. He is an old friend of mine and will come at once. Then go to Berkeley Square as fast as the horse can take you, and put the keys in the letter-box."

There was nothing for it but to obey. When I closed the door of No. --- softly behind me it was broad daylight, and the birds were singing gaily in the trees.

As I reached the pavement I involuntarily turned back to take a parting glance at the closely shuttered house in which I had left Dorcas Dene alone with the caged woman.

As I did so I suddenly became aware of something which rooted me to the spot, and paralysed me beyond the power of uttering a cry.

Crouching in the shadow of the next doorway was a dark man with white hair, a closely-cropped white moustache, and gold spectacles.

_IX. THE CLOTHES IN THE CUPBOARD_

I stood for a moment paralysed. Could it be possible that standing there watching me as I emerged from the house in Burton Crescent was the mysterious Indian whom Dorcas Dene believed to be no other than Judkins Barraclough himself? Judkins Barraclough in a false wig and a moustache and a pair of gold spectacles.

Then suddenly I recollected the sound we had heard as of the shutting of the front door. Someone _had_ been in the house at the time. Someone had slipped past when we were in the front room, and as the door of the room in which the drugged woman lay yielded with a crash, that person had crept out into the street.

And that person was the man with the white hair and moustache, whose dark eyes were gleaming at me through his gold spectacles now.

What was I to do? To seize the Indian and call for the police? I hesitated to do that without Dorcas's authority. I went up the step of No. ---, and rang the bell gently.

In a moment I heard Dorcas's voice saying, "Who's there?"

"Openly quickly!" I exclaimed. "It is I."

The door opened and I dashed into the hall and gasped out that the Indian was there--outside--what should I do?

Dorcas frowned. "There was someone in the house, then!" she exclaimed "Oh, if I had only known it! But go to the doctor at once, and then get back with those keys."

"And the Indian?"

"Will probably get at Judkins Barraclough at the earliest opportunity and warn him."

"You don't think the Indian is Barraclough disguised, now, then?"

"No--that's impossible. I've been off the track a little, but I'm on it right enough now. Get away now, every minute is of value."

Dorcas shut the door and I went down the steps again.

I looked about for the Indian. While I was talking to Dorcas he had slipped out of the doorway and disappeared. I found the cab waiting, drove to the doctor in Endsleigh Gardens, left the note, and then told the cabman to drive me with all speed to the top of Berkeley Square.

It was half-past five when I slipped the keys quietly into Mr. Barraclough's letter box. It was six o'clock when the cab stopped again in Mabledon Place.

There were one or two people passing through the Crescent--people on the way to work. Outside some of the houses sleepy-looking girls were shaking the mats and beginning the household duties of the day.

A policeman passed me and bade me good morning. I returned his salutation and walked past No. --- to the end of the Crescent. When I looked round he had sauntered away, and I returned and rang the bell.

Dorcas greeted me with a smile.

"Come along," she said, "come and have some coffee, for you must be faint."

"But the woman?"

"The doctor is with her and is bringing her round. I hope presently she will be able to give us a little information."

Dorcas led the way and I followed her. To my astonishment, instead of going downstairs, where I presumed the coffee would be waiting for us, she went upstairs to the second floor.

Dorcas opened a door and I found myself in a little back room that had evidently been inhabited. On a small Oriental table was a French coffee-making machine, and underneath it a spirit lamp. In the corner lay a couple of Oriental rugs, and on a small table by the side of it a box of cigarettes.

"I've taken the liberty of using Mr. Aleem Mohammed's private apartments," said Dorcas. "He evidently furnished them for himself before he made his preparations for a lady visitor below."

"Then he was here all the time?"

"I don't think he was here that night when we nearly knocked the neighbourhood up. But he probably came in later, and he was certainly here last night when we were examining the house. It was only when we began to make a noise that he became aware of our presence. When he heard the locked door of the room on the first floor go, he let himself out, and kept watch from the outside."

"Why?"

"Probably to see what we were going to do."

"But Judkins Barraclough we know has the key of the house. How did the Indian get in?"

"That's simple," replied Dorcas. "They had a latchkey each."

I flung myself down on the rugs and drank the coffee which Dorcas had made.

The coffee revived my drooping energies, and set my brain working again. If the Indian was living in the house and had escaped, what was there to prove that not he but Barraclough was the person who was helping the unhappy creature downstairs to her death?

I asked Dorcas.

"There is no doubt in my mind that Barraclough is the principal, and the Indian only an accomplice," she replied. "But we're not going to let the Indian escape."

"We have done so."

"No. Scotland Yard has him in hand."

"Scotland Yard?"

"Yes; directly the doctor came, which was almost immediately after he received my note, I went out and sent a message. Hark! there's a knock at the door."

Dorcas ran downstairs bidding me follow her. She opened the front door, and a handsome foreign-looking dark man, of about eight-and-thirty, stepped into the hall, and politely raised his hat.

"Ah, Mr. Stromberg, I am glad," exclaimed Dorcas, shaking hands heartily with the new arrival. "I was wondering who would be on duty. Allow me to introduce my friend Mr. Saxon. Mr. Saxon, this is Inspector Stromberg, of the Criminal Investigation Department."

The inspector bowed and smiled.

"I am always delighted to work with the famous Dorcas Dene," he said to me. "My only regret is that she is not one of us." Then turning to Dorcas, he said, "And now what is the mystery we are to have the pleasure of unravelling together this time?"

"The mystery is, I hope, already unravelled," replied Dorcas demurely, "but I must not go any farther with it. It is now a matter for the police."

"And the particulars?"

Clearly and concisely Dorcas gave the famous detective officer the details of the great Barraclough mystery.

When she had finished the Inspector rose and grasped Dorcas warmly by the hand.

"My dear Mrs. Dene," he said, "you have done wonders. Of course, I must take charge of the case now as it is practically an attempt to murder, but I shall do nothing without your approval. The woman is in charge of the doctor still, I presume?"

"Yes. He will call me as soon as she is able to converse coherently."

"And Mr. Judkins Barraclough--what is your idea of the time to make the arrest?"

"To-night."

"To-night?--but why give him so much law as that?"

"I am very much interested in some ragged feminine garments concealed in a cupboard here. I want to find out what object Barraclough can have in keeping them there." She added something in a whisper that I was evidently not intended to hear. The great man looked grave.

"It is a desperate thing to do," he said.

"I am afraid that unless we find the Indian and get him to turn Queen's Evidence, the mere fact of Barraclough having a latchkey will not bring the attempted murder home to him. I like to clear up my cases thoroughly, and I confess that these pauper rags completely baffle me. By the bye, you acted on my information with regard to the Indian?"

"Yes," said the Inspector. "What was your idea in asking me to have enquiries made at the post-offices you named?"

"They are the only ones within reasonable distance which are opened before eight in the morning. My idea was that the man would go to a telegraph office and send a warning wire to Barraclough. You sent a messenger to the receiving offices near Berkeley Square?"

"Yes; no telegram will be delivered to Barraclough without our knowledge of its contents."

"That's all right," said Dorcas, "and of course, by some unaccountable accident, that telegram won't reach Mr. Barraclough."

Inspector Stromberg shrugged his shoulders.

"The Post Office is a sacred institution in this country," he said. "The police do not tamper with letters and telegrams."

"No," said Dorcas, sweetly, "but sometimes accidents happen--a careless clerk, for instance, puts a wrong address on the envelope and that causes somebody else to open the telegram _after_ the boy has gone."

The Inspector gazed at Dorcas admiringly.

A door on the first floor opened, and a voice called "Mrs. Dene."

Presently she came down again.

"The woman is better and able to talk. But the doctor says that for many reasons it would be as well to get her to a hospital at once."

"Very well," said the Inspector. "Perhaps your friend will go and get a four-wheel cab?"

I took the hint and went out. There were plenty of cabs near St. Pancras, and I was back with one in about five minutes.