The House Opposite: A Mystery

“Why, you have seen him,” I said; “he was the short, clean-shaven man who stood beside me, and afterwards followed you out.”

“Really!” he exclaimed; “I wish I had known that; I have always taken a great interest in the man. He has cleared up some pretty mysterious crimes.”

“I am sure he would be only too delighted to meet you. He’s quite a nice fellow, too, and terribly keen about this murder,” I added, bringing the conversation back to the point I wanted discussed.

“Yes?” said Mr. Stuart. “Of course, I am interested in it, too; but I confess that to have a thing like that occur in a building where one lives is really most unpleasant. I have been pestered to death by reporters.”

“Well, I assure you I am not one,” I said, with a laugh; “but, all the same, I should like to ask you a few questions.”

“What are they?” he cautiously inquired.

“Do your butler and his wife get along well together?”

“Why do you want to know?” he asked, in his turn. I told him what had just happened. He smiled.

“Oh, that doesn’t mean anything. Celestin is insanely jealous of his wife, whom he regards as the most fascinating of her sex, and has a habit of watching her, I believe, so as to guard against a possible lover.”

“Do they quarrel much?”

“Not lately, I am glad to say. About a year ago it got so bad that I was forced to tell them that if I heard them doing so again, I should dismiss them both.”

“Dear me, was it as bad as that?”

“Why, yes. One evening, when I came home, I heard shrieks coming from the kitchen, and, on investigating, found Celestin busily engaged in chastising his wife!”

“Really?”

“Yes, and the funniest thing is, that she did not seem to mind it much, although she must have been black and blue from the beating he gave her. It was some trouble about a cousin, I believe; but, as they are both excellent servants, I thought it best not to inquire too particularly into the business.”

“And have they been on amicable terms since then?”

“Oh, yes. And, curiously enough, their behaviour to each other is positively lover-like. Even in the old days, she would flirt and he would beat her, and then they would bill and coo for a month. At least, so I judged from the little I saw of them.”

I was now anxious to be off, but he seemed to have overcome his aversion or distrust, and detained me for some time longer, discussing the tragedy.

When I reached the Rosemere, I found McGorry sitting in his private office, and remarkably glad to see me. I offered him a cigar, and we sat down to a comfortable smoke. At first, we talked of nothing but the murder, but at last I managed to bring the conversation around to gossip about the different people in the building. This was no easy matter, for the fellow considered it either impolitic or disloyal to discuss his tenants, but, luckily, when I broached the subject of the Argots, he unbosomed himself. He assured me that they were most objectionable people, and he couldn’t see why Mr. Stuart wanted to employ Dagos, as he called them. He told me that the woman was always having men hanging around, and that her husband was very violent and jealous.

“But they have stopped quarrelling, I hear.”

“Stopped, is it?” he exclaimed with fine scorn. “I suppose Mr. Stuart told you that. Little he knows about it. They darsn’t make a noise when he’s about. But Argot’s been terrible to her lately. Why, they made such a row that I had to go in there the other day and tell him if he didn’t shut up I’d complain to Mr. Stuart. He glared at me, but they’ve been quieter since then. I guess she’s a bad lot, and deserves what she gets, or else she wouldn’t stand it.”

“I say, McGorry, you have seen nothing of a straw hat, have you?”

“Lord! Hasn’t Mr. Merritt been bothering me to death about that hat? No, I haven’t found one.”

That was all I could get out of him. Not much, but still something.

Returning to my office, I sat for a long time pondering over all I had seen and heard that morning, and the longer I thought the more likely did it seem that the corpse was that of some lover of Madame Argot’s whom her husband had killed in an attack of jealous frenzy. I had never for a moment considered the possibility of the body being Greywood’s, and Merritt thought the objections to its being that of the vanished Brown equally insurmountable. I was, therefore, forced to believe in the presence on that fatal Tuesday of yet another man. That he had not entered by the front door was certain; very well, then, he must have come in by the back one. Of course, that there should have been three people answering to the same description in the building at the time when the murder occurred seemed an incredible conglomeration of circumstances, but had not the detective himself suggested such a possibility? The most serious objections to the supposition that Argot had murdered the man were: first, the smallness of the wound, and, secondly, the distance of the place where the body was found from Stuart’s apartment. The first difficulty I disposed of easily. Merritt had failed to convince me that a hat-pin had caused the fellow’s death, and I thought it much more likely that the ornament found on the corpse was a simple bauble which had nothing to do with the tragedy. Now, a small stiletto—or, hold, I had it—a skewer! A skewer was a much more likely weapon than a hat-pin, anyhow, besides being just the sort of a thing a butler would find ready to his hand.

The next objection was more difficult to meet, yet it did not seem impossible that, having killed the man, Argot should, with his wife’s connivance, have secreted him in one of the closets which his master never opened, and then (having procured a duplicate key) have carried the body, in the wee small hours of the morning, up the three flights of stairs, and laid it in the empty apartment.

Thoroughly satisfied with this theory, I went off to lunch.

CHAPTER X

THE MISSING HAT

THAT very evening, as I was sitting quietly in my office, trying to divert my mind from the murder by reading, my boy came in and told me that there was a lady in the waiting-room who wanted to see me. There was something so peculiar about the way he imparted this very commonplace information that my curiosity was aroused; but I refrained from questioning him, and curtly bade him show the lady in.

When she appeared I was no longer surprised at his manner, for a more strange and melodramatic figure I have seldom seen, even on the stage. The woman was tall and draped, or rather shrouded, in a long, black cloak, and a thick black veil was drawn down over her face. Her costume, especially considering the excessive heat, and that the clock pointed to 9.15, was alone enough to excite comment; but to a singularity in dress she added an even greater singularity of manner. She entered the room hesitatingly, and paused near the threshold to glance apprehensively about her, as if fearing the presence of some hidden enemy. The woman must be mad, I thought, as I motioned her to a chair and sat down opposite to her.

With a theatrical gesture, she threw back her veil, and to my astonishment I recognised the handsome, rotund features of—Madame Argot! She smiled, evidently enjoying my bewilderment.

“Meestair Docteur, I no disturb you?” she inquired.

“Certainly not, madame; what can I do for you?”

“Ah, meestair,” she whispered, looking towards the door, “I so afraid zat my ’usban’ ’e come back and fin’ me gone; ’e terribly angry!”

“Why should he be angry?” I asked.

“He no like me to speak viz you. He no vant me to show you zis,” she answered, pointing mysteriously to her left shoulder.

“What is it that he doesn’t want me to see?”

“I go show you,” and, opening her dress, she disclosed two terrible bruises, each as large as the palm of my hand; “and zat is not all,” she continued, and, as she turned round, I saw that a deep gash disfigured one of her shoulder-blades.

I was really shocked.

“How did this happen?” I inquired.

“Oh, I fall,” she said, smiling coquettishly at me.

“A very queer fall,” I muttered.

The wound was several days old and not serious, but, owing to neglect, had got into a very bad condition.

“Ah, zat is better,” she exclaimed, with a sigh of relief, when I had thoroughly cleansed the cut. I was just preparing to bandage it up, when she stopped me.

“No, meestair; not zat! My ’usban’, ’e see zat, ’e know I come here, and zen ’e angry. Ze vashin’ and ze salve zey make me better!”

“But look here, my good woman,” I exclaimed, indignantly; “do you mean to say that your husband is such a brute that he objects to your having your wound dressed—a wound that you got in such a peculiar way, too?”

Her manner changed instantly; she drew herself haughtily up, and began buttoning up her dress.

“My ’usban’ ’e no brute; ’e verra nice man; ’e love’ me verra much.”

“Really!”