The Riddle of the Purple Emperor

Cleek twitched back his shoulders and shook his head.

"No, dear. She is sound asleep in the dining room; locked in. I did not want to rouse her until I had got the police in charge. When I have I will bring her back to you."

"Let me come with you," said Ailsa swiftly.

But this Cleek would not allow, for the tongues of village gossips are bitter things to fight.

"No, dear, I cannot permit that," he responded, looking down into her soft, misty eyes. "You understand, of course. And the child is perfectly safe, and will not wake for some time. Time enough for your charitable instincts to awaken when I bring her back to you. Now I must go."

CHAPTER III

IN THE DARK

Cleek drove the car out into the lane with an impetus and speed that would have broken the heart of any police official.

"She is bound to sleep," muttered Cleek, as he bent his hand on the steering wheel, for his heart was sick at the thought of Lady Margaret. "She won't waken yet; not if I know anything of tired human nature. And I could – could not take Ailsa there!"

He found the village police-station, which was quite a simple matter. To convince Constable Roberts of the gravity of the situation was another thing altogether, and Cleek's story of the empty house and the murdered woman was viewed with gravest suspicion.

"Lor bless yer, sir, but 'er ladyship was down 'ere only this afternoon," said that gentleman with an air of dull finality, which made Cleek, his nerves on edge, long to shake some of the stupid self-satisfaction from his ponderous body.

"Quite possible, my friend," he said sharply, "but that doesn't prevent her from having been murdered in the meantime, and by a woman at that, does it? And I want you to come at once."

At any moment Lady Margaret might wake and find herself a prisoner. Then the fat would be in the fire with a vengeance. There was not a moment to be lost. Not a single moment, and apparently this fool of a policeman who didn't know his profession and what it entailed any more than the veriest schoolboy —

"A woman, Lord's sake, what makes you say that, sir?" gasped the constable, breaking in on his train of thought. "How does yer know?"

"Because I saw her," responded Cleek, irritably. "And if seeing isn't believing then my name's not – Lieutenant Deland."

He did not add, however, that there was something about the clinging white figure that he had seen that had given him a sudden feeling that it might be a man– or had that beard been simply a trick of his imagination? It was hard to tell.

"She wore a white, clinging robe, at least it looked like that, and a kind of turban. I had only a glimpse, but it was not the figure of a servant, of that I am sure," he went on after a pause. The constable stood gaping at him in open-mouthed amazement.

"Yes, you may well be sure of that," said he finally with a little grin. "There's precious few servants up in that house, I can tell you. Why, it would break the old lady's heart to think there was someone in that house eating anything without paying for it first."

"Hmm. Close as that, eh? And do you mean to tell me that that Miss Cheyne lived in that deserted barn without another soul to keep her company?"

The constable nodded his head with evident relish. Giving information was a great deal more in his line than receiving it.

"I do that!" he said confidentially. "She used to have old Timms and his wife, sort of combination gardener and 'ousekeeper as you might put it, but when they dies of rheumatism last year, one followin' on t'other, she just 'ad one of the village women occasionally. No, it certainly wouldn't be any servant.

"Talking of turbans, though, it might be one of them Indian chaps wots just come lately in the neighbourhood," the constable continued with a sudden spark of actual intelligence – the first, by the way, he had shown. "Can't abide niggers, myself, but there's no accounting for tastes, and – "

"What's that? Do you mean to tell me there are Hindoos here?" Cleek's voice trailed away into silence, for fresh in his memory was the recollection of the scent he had noticed when he first entered the house. He remembered what it was now. It was jasmine, of course, and jasmine was the favourite scent of the Calcutta bazaars. So that was it, was it? A shrouded woman, eh? A shrouded fiddlesticks! If the Hindoos were in the neighbourhood they were there for no good purpose.

But the constable was getting garrulous.

"Lor' bless yer 'eart, sir, the place reeks of them niggers!" said he with a little self-conscious laugh. "Come from Mr. Gunga Dall's place 'tother side of the village, they do. Not but what he isn't a pleasant sort of gent, only as I says – "

"Yes, yes," said Cleek, "we'll hear all about that later. We can talk as we go, constable, so long as we do go. I want you to see the murdered woman and identify her, and if it is Miss Cheyne – "

"You'll never make me believe anybody's killed Miss Cheyne not so long as I'm a-livin'," threw in the constable with a shake of his head. "Why, there ain't a valyble left in the place. But I'll come, o' course, sir. A matter o' dooty. So if you'll give me time to put on my coat and tell the missus to keep my bit of supper warm I'll come along and hinvestigate."

Cleek made no further comment. He merely went back to the waiting limousine and took his seat in it, full of a nervous impatience. Again and yet again his mind went back to that shadowy figure that had crossed the lawn, and to the sweet, insidious scent of jasmine that had assailed his nostrils. Hindoos were certainly at the bottom of this murder; and he had left that helpless young girl at their mercy! What a fool he had been! They would come back, that was certain, to finish their hellish work of revenge – a revenge that had taken two hundred years to consummate.

It was little wonder that his impatience had grown almost unbearable when Constable Roberts booted, belted, and helmetted in all the majesty of the law issued from his house and clambered into the car beside him. The constable's air was more civil and obsequious as he took in the luxury of his surroundings, and as they whisked onward into the darkness he gave forth all the knowledge he possessed of the Cheyne family for Cleek's especial benefit.

"A bit touched, if yer asks me, sir," said Mr. Roberts as he puffed away contentedly at the cigar Cleek had offered him. "Never the same, so I've heard tell, since she was jilted thirty years ago by old Squire Brenton – Sir Edgar's father, that is – fine proper man he were, too, and when he found Miss Marion had a temper of her own, he up and cleared out. Next thing any one knows he comes back with his wife, a pretty slip of a thing, and our Sir Edgar a crowing baby. Miss Marion shut herself up then, and wouldn't 'ave a servant in the place except old Timms and his wife, as I said just now. There's no one to go near her, and I don't think Mr. Gunga Dall would visit her again in a hurry after the way she treated him. Nice old scene he had with 'er."

"Hello, what's that?" said Cleek, suddenly. "A 'scene'? How and where? – or perhaps you don't know?"

"As it happens, I do," said Constable Roberts, pompously. "My young Jim, the little varmint, chose that day to play truant, and at the identical moment that the old girl – lady, I mean, beggin' yer pardon, sir – pitched him into the water – "

"Into the water?" echoed Cleek incredulously. "A lady pitched a gentleman into the water, Constable – "

"Well, she did, anyway, and Jim said the way the gent cussed was a reg'lar lesson to 'im."

"Fluent English, eh?" said Cleek.

"Re-markable sir, for a pore benighted 'eathen. It's wonderful, that's wot I calls it, but it all came of 'im a wanting to go a fishing – "

"Fishing – a Hindoo go fishing?" Cleek's brows came together in a heavy frown and his eyes narrowed down to pin points at this remarkable statement.

"Yes, sir, you know the grounds of Cheyne Court slope right down to the river, and there is a fine bit of water there. According to my Jim, he went to ask the old lady's permission first, but getting no answer to all his knocks at the front door, he takes kind of French leave, as yer might say, and goes down to the spot, and starts in to fish. Well, sir, as I takes it, the old lady saw 'im from a hupper window and down she comes and abuses 'im like a pickpocket. Gunga he tried to pacify her, but she up and pushed him in, and as I said before, Jim's been a 'oly terror at language ever since! Not but it's any wonder, sir, cold water's not up to much at the best of times, and when you're an Indian and chucked in, so to speak, it's enough to make anybody's gorge rise. But I don't say but what the gent isn't as nice a man as you'd want to meet in a day's walk."

Cleek made no reply, but his brows twitched now and again and his mouth tightened, as he faced this startling problem. Here was a motive for revenge sure enough and something more, too. Why on earth would a Hindoo, presumably a Brahmin of high caste, to whom the taking of life in any form, however lowly, is an unforgivable sin, why would he pretend to want to fish, unless it were to spy on the land, and he be on the track of that ill-fated jewel the "Purple Emperor"? That the Indians would go so far as to kill Miss Cheyne Cleek did not believe, and yet – his mind harked back to that dark, bearded face in its white shroud.

"Hm," he said, casually. "Fine, bearded man I suppose?" They were fast approaching the gates of Cheyne Court once more as he spoke, and the constable swung round in his seat and looked at him.

"What, Gunga Dall, sir?" said he, a note of surprise in his tones. "Not 'e sir, not a blessed 'air on his face. Comes down often to the village for a drink, too, regular pleasant gent as wouldn't 'urt a fly. No, sir, 'e wouldn't do a baby no 'arm Mr. Gunga Dall wouldn't, an' if you're a thinking that 'e's 'ad any part in it – Oh, no, sir! I'd stake my life on it I would. Nearly there, ain't we? I pity that pore young thing fast asleep in the house with the corpse. Bit of a risk to leave 'er, sir, wasn't it?"

"I couldn't help myself," flung back Cleek irritably, for had not the same thought been torturing him ever since he had sped down the drive? "I should have had to tell her if I woke her up, poor child, and she was too dead-beat to stir for the next couple of hours."

"Not too dead-beat not to get a light, anyway," said Constable Roberts, pointing in the direction of the house, and as Cleek raised his eyes from the steering wheel he saw a sight that caused the machine to swerve wildly in consequence. For the dark deserted house over which he had wandered barely half an hour before, leaving it tenanted by a sleeping girl and the body of the only relative she had possessed in the world, was now gaily lit from top to bottom and from behind the blinds of one of the rooms could be seen the be-capped head of a maid.

"The devils have come back!" Cleek cried as he put on greater speed than ever. "There's not a moment to be lost. Lord send she's safe. Hurry, man, for God's sake, hurry!"

But there was no need to tell Constable Roberts to "hurry," for fully alive now to the urgency of the case he was already panting his way up the front steps.

"Locked," snapped Cleek as his fingers felt for the handle. "Get back to the rear. You go to the right. I'll try the ball room window."

Switching on his heel, he was gone before the ponderous body of Constable Roberts had recovered its breath. It was pitch dark now, and once out of range of the brilliant motor-lamps, the house was shrouded in a mantle of blackness. But Cleek had his electric torch and as he sped swiftly on his course he swung its light against shrubs and windows.

Turning the corner of the wall, he came within sight of the ball room window once more and reached it in the twinkling of an eyelash. To his dismay he found it not only locked, but what was even more terrifying by reason of its significance, shuttered and barred from within!

Cleek gave vent to a little cry indicative of mild despair and brought out his torch, letting its tiny searchlight fall upon the smooth lawn in front of him. It could do little more than throw a weak circle of light a few feet into the depths of the trees leaving all beyond and upon either side doubly dark in contrast. But for this Cleek cared nothing, for even as the light streamed out and flung that circle into the impinging mist, there moved across it the figure of a woman with a scarf of gold lace thrown over her head, from beneath which fell a shower of dark, unbound hair. It effectively concealed her face, and almost covered her shoulders wrapped in scarlet satin.

Satin in March! And a woman! She was the second woman he had seen cross the lawn that night, the one an hour or so ago, in white, and now this one in scarlet. The thing was so uncanny, so totally unexpected, that Cleek's brain positively reeled. In a flash she was gone.