A Mysterious Disappearance

“Oh, that’s our way of putting it. Following him, it means.”

“Suppose the French police don’t succeed in catching him?”

“We will get him at Raleigh Mansions. He is sure to think that Lady Dyke’s fate has never been determined, and he will return when the inquiry has blown over, to all appearance.”

“You have quite made up your mind, then, that Sydney H. Corbett is the murderer?”

“It looks uncommonly like it. At any rate, he knows something about it. If not, why did he bolt to France two days after the crime? Why has he concealed his identity? Why does he take pains to receive his correspondence in the manner he has adopted? And, by Jove! suppose he isn’t in Monte Carlo at all, but in London all the time!”

The inspector glowed with his sudden inspiration, but Bruce kept him to the lower level of realities.

“Corbett is, or was, in Monte Carlo. Of that you may be sure. He, and none other, got the letters sent to the Hotel du Cercle. I cannot for the life of me imagine why he did not take the last one. But let us look at what we know. Lady Dyke, we will say, went to Corbett’s chambers, secretly and of her own accord. That may be taken as fairly established. Thence there is a blank in our intelligence until she appears as a hardly recognizable corpse, stuffed by hands beneath an old drain-pipe in the Thames at Putney. How do you fill up that gap, Mr. White?”

“Simply enough. Corbett, or some other person, persuaded her to voluntarily accompany him to Putney. She was killed there, and not in London. It would be almost a matter of impossibility for any man to have conveyed her lifeless body from Raleigh Mansions to Putney without attracting some notice. One man could not do it. Several might, but it is madness to imagine that a number of people would join together for the purpose of killing this poor lady.”

“The seemingly impossible is often accomplished.”

“Do you really believe, then, that she met her death in London?”

“I have quite an open mind on the question.”

“You forget that she had resolved early that day to visit her sister at Richmond, and Putney is on the direct road. What more reasonable than to assume – ”

“Beware of assumptions! You are assuming all the time that Corbett was a principal in her murder.”

“Very well, Mr. Bruce. Then I ask you straight out if you don’t agree with me?”

“I do not.”

This declaration astounded the barrister himself. Often the mere utterance of one’s thoughts is a surprise. Speech seems to stiffen the wavering outlines of reflection, and the new creation may differ essentially from its embryo. It was so with Bruce in this instance.

Ever since Mr. White’s arrival had aroused him from the positive stupor caused by the stock-broker’s unwitting revelation, Claude Bruce had been slowly but definitely deciding that Mensmore did not kill Lady Dyke. He had seen him, unprepared, facing death as preferable to dishonor. At such moments a man’s soul is laid bare. With the shadow of a crime upon his conscience Mensmore’s actions could not have been so genuine and straightforward as they undoubtedly were.

Mensmore, of course, might in some way be bound up with the mystery surrounding Lady Dyke’s movements. His very utterance in Bruce’s room at the Hotel du Cercle implied as much. That was another matter. It would receive his (Bruce’s) most earnest attention. But the major hypothesis, so quickly jumped at by the police, needed much more substantiation than it had yet obtained.

That it was plausible was demonstrated by the barrister’s readiness to adopt it at the outset. Even now that his impulse to fasten the crime on Mensmore had weakened he wondered at his eagerness to defend him.

The detective was even more surprised.

“I don’t see how you can take that view,” he cried. “Corbett’s behavior is, to say the least, unaccountable. If he is an innocent man, then he must be a foolish one. Besides, why should he necessarily be innocent? This is the first gleam of light we have had in a very dark business, and I mean to follow it up.”

The vindictive emphasis of his tone showed that the detective was annoyed at the other’s impassive attitude. He even went so far as to dimly evolve a theory that the barrister wished to throw him off Corbett’s trail on account of his sympathy for Mrs. Hillmer, but Claude rapidly dispelled this notion.

“You are here, I suppose, to ask my advice in pursuance of our understanding that we are working together in the matter, as it were?” he said.

“Well, something of the kind, sir.”

“Then I recommend that we see the inside of that closed flat in Raleigh Mansions at the earliest moment.”

“Do you mean by a search warrant?”

“Certainly not. Do you want the whole neighborhood to know of it? You have probably heard of locks being picked before to-day. You and I, and none other, must have a quiet look around the place without anyone being the wiser.”

Mr. White hesitated, but the prospect was attractive. “I think I can manage it,” he said, smiling reflectively. “Will six this evening suit?”

“Admirably.”

“Then I will call for you.”

After a parting glance at Smith, who returned it, nose in air, the inspector ran down the stairs, murmuring, “Blest if I can understand Mr. Bruce. But this is a good move. We may learn something.”

CHAPTER XIV

NO 12 RALEIGH MANSIONS

When the door of Corbett’s or Mensmore’s flat swung open before the skilful application of a skeleton key, a gust of cold air swept from the interior blackness, and whirled an accumulation of dust down the stairs.

It is curious how a disused house seems to bottle up, as it were, an atmospheric accumulation which always seeks to escape at the first available moment. Emptiness is more than a mere word; it has life and the power of growth. A residence closed for a week is less depressing than if it has not been inhabited for a month. If the period of neglect be lengthened into a year, the sense of dreariness is magnified immeasurably.

In this instance, the mysterious abode might have been the abiding-place of disembodied spirits, so cold was its aspect, so uninviting the dim vista that sprung into uncertain vision under the flickering rays of a wax vesta struck by the detectives.

But neither the policeman nor his companion was a nervous subject.

They entered at once, closed the door by its latch, and, aided by other matches, found the switch of the electric light.

In this brighter radiance the indefinable vanished. The flat became a cosy, fairly well appointed bachelor’s “diggings,” neglected and untidy, yet not without a semblance of comfort, which only needed the presence of a sturdy housemaid and a fire to be converted into the ordinary chambers with which the locality abounds.

Their first care was to draw down all the blinds, the neglect of which housewifely proceeding argued the careless departure of a mere male when the place was vacated.

A rapid preliminary survey followed, and drew from Bruce the remark:

“Furnished by a woman, but occupied by a man.”

Mr. White agreed, but he didn’t know why, so he put a tentative question on the point.

“Don’t you see,” said Bruce, “that the carpets match the upholstery of the furniture, that the beds have valances, that the spare bedroom for a guest is even more elaborate than that used by the tenant, that care has been taken in fitting up the kitchen, and taste displayed in the selection of pieces of bric-a-brac? Only a woman attends to these things. On the other hand, a card tray has been used as a receptacle for a cigar ash, the pictures – no woman ever buys a picture – have been picked up promiscuously from shops where they sell sporting prints, and the sides of the mantelpieces are chipped by having feet propped against them. There are plenty of other signs, but these suffice.”

Thenceforth the two men devoted themselves to their task, each after his kind.

The representative of Scotland Yard hunted for documents, photographs, torn envelopes; he looked at the covers of books to see if they were inscribed; he opened every drawer, ransacked every corner, peered into the interior of jars, pots, and ovens; appraised the value of furniture, noted its age, and was specially zealous in studying the appearance of the only bedroom which had been occupied so far as he could judge.

Bruce, having given a casual glance around, entered the sitting-room, selected the most comfortable chair, and proceeded to envelope himself in smoke.

He had not spent two minutes in Mensmore’s flat before he made a striking discovery.

The dwelling consisted of a central passage, dividing two equal portions from the other. That on the right contained a drawing-room and a large bedroom, with dressing-room attached. On the left were another bedroom, a dining-room, a kitchen, and a store-room. At the end of the passage, which terminated in the transverse corridor, were the bathroom, a pantry, and a small room, empty now, but apparently designed for a servant’s bedroom.

The furniture, as has been stated, was good in quality and sufficient for its purposes. But the fact which immediately impressed this skilled observer was that the arrangement of the sitting-room differed essentially from the other details of the flat.