A Mysterious Disappearance

“I sympathize with you!” cried Bruce. “But the first thing you must learn in this country is to keep dry cigars for your visitors. Our respective tastes differ in that respect.”

“I guess I’ll cotton to you, stranger; but I’m tired holding this pistol.”

“Put it away, then. I tell you it is not wanted. White, listen to me. You have hit upon the wrong man.”

“Wrong man!” cried the detective, feeling more confident in the barrister’s presence. “Why, I’ve had a cable about him from New York.”

“Possibly; but you’re mistaken, nevertheless. Mr. Corbett has not been within five thousand miles of England for years, possibly not in his life.”

“Bully for you, stranger!” broke in Corbett.

“Then who is Mr. Sydney H. Corbett whom you believe, as well as I, to be the murderer of Lady Dyke?”

“Steady, White. The last time I saw you I appealed to you to go slow. The man whom you want, simply because he happens to be the real occupant of these rooms, is at present travelling to London as fast he can from Florence, and his sister, Mrs. Hillmer, is with him.”

“Florence! Mrs. Hillmer!” gasped the policeman. “I’ve just arranged to have her watched there.”

“Your arrangements, though admirable, are somewhat late in the day.”

“Then what is her brother’s name?”

“Albert Mensmore. For some reason, hidden at this moment, he lived here under the name of the gentleman who has, I see, been giving you a practical lesson in the art of not jumping at conclusions.”

“Have you known this long?”

“For some weeks.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I have no definite reason for connecting Mensmore with Lady Dyke’s death. If I had, his action in returning to London the moment he hears of the charge would shake my belief.”

“Who told him?”

“Mrs. Hillmer.”

“Oh, this business is quite beyond me. I can’t fathom it a little bit.”

And White sank dejectedly to his chair again.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, gentlemen,” said Corbett, pocketing his revolver; “but it dawns upon me that I shan’t be required to shoot anybody or sleep in jail to-night.”

“Why didn’t you answer my questions properly, and save all this nonsense?”

“I’ll tell you why, sir. The name of a friend of mine has been mentioned. Albert Mensmore has been more than a brother to me. I allowed you meant mischief to him, as you thought you were talking to him all the time. I don’t know much about you, but I hope that your first action would not be to give away your chum if he is in trouble.”

The detective did not answer, though his look of astonishment at Corbett’s declaration of motive was eloquent enough.

“Before we quit this business,” went on the American, “let me say one thing. Any man who tells you that Albert Mensmore murdered a woman is telling you a lie. I don’t know anything about this Lady Dyke, or how she may have died, but I do know my friend. He’s good in a tight place, but, to think of him killing a woman – Jehosh, it’s sickening.”

Mrs. Robinson burst in, with face aflame.

“Is this palaverin’ to go on all night?” she demanded angrily. “Here’s the dinner sphilin’, after all me worry and bother, with the head of me vexed to know who is the masther and who ishn’t.”

“All right, mother,” laughed Corbett. “Bring in the whole caboodle.”

“Mr. Corbett,” said Bruce, “I hope you will come and have lunch with me to-morrow, at this address,” handing him a card. “I want to have a long talk with you. Mr. White, if you come with me I will explain a good deal to you of which you are now in ignorance.”

“Surely, Mr. Corbett will answer a few questions first,” said the detective.

“Don’t you think you have troubled him sufficiently for this evening? Besides, he can tell us nothing. All the explanation is really due to him, and I propose to give it to him to-morrow. Come, White, this time I promise you that a considerable portion of your inquiry shall be cleared up, and I do not speak without foundation, as you have often learned hitherto.”

So the mysterious Sydney H. Corbett was left in undisturbed possession of his flat and his dinner, while the trio passed out into the quietude of the streets.

CHAPTER XXI

HOW LADY DYKE LEFT RALEIGH MANSIONS

Mr. White was actually inclined to preserve silence while they walked to Victoria Street. The events of the preceding hour had not exactly conduced to the maintenance, in the eyes of his brother officer, of that pre-eminent sagacity which he invariably claimed.

His companion rubbed in this phase of the matter by saying: “I should think, Jim, you will give Raleigh Mansions wide berth for some time to come, after making two bad breaks there.”

But it was no part of Bruce’s scheme that the detective should be rendered desperate by repeated failures. “It is not Mr. White’s fault,” he said, “that these errors have occurred. They are rather the result of his pertinacity in leaving no clue unsolved which promises to lead to success. When this case ends, if ever it does end, I feel sure he will admit that he has never before encountered so much difficulty in unravelling the most complex problems within his experience.”

“That is so,” chimed in the senior detective. “The thing that beats me in this affair is the want of a beginning, so to speak. One would imagine it the work of a lunatic if Lady Dyke herself had not contributed so curiously to the mystery of her disappearance.”

“There you are, White; that is the true scent. Find the motive and we find the murderer, if Lady Dyke was wilfully put to death.”

“If she was, Mr. Bruce? Have you any doubt about it?”

“There cannot be certainty when we are groping in the dark. But the gloom is passing; we are on the eve of a discovery.”

At Bruce’s residence White’s colleague left him. Soon the barrister and the policeman were sitting snugly before a good fire.

There Claude took him step by step through each branch of his inquiry as it is known to the reader.

He omitted nothing. The discovery of Jane Harding and of Mensmore, the latter’s transactions with Dodge & Co., his dramatic coup at Monte Carlo and its attendant love episode – all these were exhaustively described. He enlarged upon Mrs. Hillmer’s anxiety when the tragedy became known to her, and did not forget Sir Charles Dyke’s amazement at the suggestion that his old playmate might prove to be responsible for the death of his wife.

He produced the waxen moulds of the piece of iron found on the body at Putney, and the ornamental scroll from which it had been taken.

At this bit of evidence Mr. White’s complacency forsook him. Thus far he had experienced a feeling of resentment against Bruce for having concealed from him so much that was material to their investigation.

But when he realized that a powerful link in the chain of events had all along been placidly resting before his eyes his distress was evident, and the barrister came to his rescue.

“You are not to blame, White,” he said, “for having failed to note many things which I have now told you. You are the slave of a system. Your method works admirably for the detection of commonplace crime, but as soon as the higher region of romance is reached it is as much out of place as a steam-roller in a lady’s boudoir. Look at the remarkable series of crimes the English police have failed to solve of late, merely because some bizarre element had intruded itself at the outset. Have you ever read any of the works of Edgar Allan Poe?”

The detective answered in the affirmative. “The Murders of the Rue Morgue” and “The Mystery of Marie Roget” were familiar to him.

“Well,” went on Bruce, “there you have the accurate samples of my meaning. Poe would not have been puzzled for an hour by the vagaries of Jack the Ripper. He would have said at once – most certainly after the third or fourth in the series of murders – ‘This is the work of an athletic lunatic, with a morbid love of anatomy and a morbid hatred of a certain class of women. Seek for him among young men who have pestered doctors with outrageous theories, and who possess weak-minded or imbecile relatives.’ Then, again, take the murder on the South-Western Railway. Do you think Poe would have gone questioning bar-tenders or inquiring into abortive love affairs? Not he! Jealous swains do not carry pestles about with them to slay their sweethearts, nor do they choose a four-minutes’ interval between suburban stations for frenzied avowals of their passion. Here you have the clear trail of a clever lunatic, dropping from the skies, as it were, and disappearing in the same erratic manner. That is why I tell you most emphatically that neither you nor I have yet the remotest conception as to who really killed Lady Dyke.”