The Secret House

"At any rate no harm can be done by interviewing this cloistered Mr. Moole, or by inspecting the house," he said.

He arrived in Great Bradley in the early part of the afternoon, and drove straight away to the Secret House. The flyman put him down at some distance from the big entrance gate, and he made a careful and cautious reconnaissance of the vicinity. The house was a notable one. It made no pretence at architectural beauty, standing back from the road, and in the very centre of a fairly uncultivated patch of ground. All that afternoon he measured and observed the peculiarities of the approach, the lie of the ground, the entrances, and the exits, and had obtained too a cautious and careful observation of the great electrical power house, which stood in a clump of trees about a hundred yards from the house itself.

The next morning he paid a more open visit. This time his fly put him down at the gateway of the house, and he moved slowly up the gravel pathway to the big front entrance door. He glanced at the tip of the power house chimney which showed over the trees, and shook his head in some doubt. He had furtively inspected the enormous plant which the eccentric owner of the Secret House had found it necessary to lay down.

"Big enough to run an electric railway," was his mental comment. He had seen, too, the one-eyed engineer, a saturnine man with a disfiguring scar down one side of his face, and a trick of showing his teeth on one side of his mouth when he smiled.

T. B. would have pursued his investigations further, but suddenly he had felt something click under his feet, as he stood peering in at the window, and instantly a gong had clanged, and a shutter dropped noiselessly behind the window, cutting off all further view.

T. B. had retired hastily and had cleared the gates just before they swung to, obviously operated by somebody in the power house.

His present visit was less furtive and it was in broad daylight, with two detectives ostentatiously posted at the gates, that he made his call – for he took no unnecessary risks.

He walked up the four broad marble steps to the portico of the house, and wiped his feet upon a curious metal mat as he pressed the bell. The door itself was half hidden by a hanging curtain, such as one may see screening the halls of suburban houses, made up of brightly coloured beads or lengths of bamboo. In this case it was made by suspending thousands of steel beads upon fine wire strings from a rod above the door. It gave the impression that the entrance itself was of steel, but when in answer to his summons the door was opened, the chick looped itself up on either side in the manner of a stage curtain, and it seemed to work automatically on the opening of the door.

There stood in the entrance a tall man, with a broad white face and expressionless eyes. He was dressed soberly in black, and had the restrained and deferential attitude of the superior man-servant.

"I am Mr. Smith, of Scotland Yard," said T. B. briefly, "and I wish to see Mr. Moole."

The man in black looked dubious.

"Will you come in?" he asked, and T. B. was shown into a large comfortably furnished sitting-room.

"I am afraid you can't see Mr. Moole," said the man, as he closed the door behind him; "he is, as you probably know, a partial invalid, but if there is anything I can do – "

"You can take me to Mr. Moole," said T. B. with a smile; "short of that – nothing."

The man hesitated.

"If you insist," he began.

The detective nodded.

"I am his secretary and his doctor – Doctor Fall," the other introduced himself, "and it may mean trouble for me – perhaps you will tell me your business?"

"My business is with Mr. Moole."

The doctor bowed.

"Come this way," he said, and he led the detective across the broad hall. He opened a plain door, and disclosed a small lift, standing aside for the other to enter.

"After you," said T. B. politely.

Dr. Fall smiled and entered, and T. B. Smith followed.

The lift shot swiftly upward and came to a rest at the third floor.

It was not unlike an hotel, thought T. B., in the general arrangement of the place.

Two carpeted corridors ran left and right, and the wall before him was punctured with doorways at regular intervals. His guide led him to the left, to the end of the passage, and opened the big rosewood door which faced him. Inside was another door. This he opened, and entered a big apartment and T. B. followed. The room contained scarcely any furniture. The panelling on the walls was of polished myrtle; a square of deep blue carpet of heavy pile was set exactly in the centre, and upon this stood a silver bedstead. But it was not the furnishing or the rich little gilt table by the bedside or the hanging electrolier which attracted T. B.'s attention; rather his eyes fell instantly upon the man on the bed.

A man with an odd yellow face, who, with his steady unwinking eyes might have been a figure of wax save for the regular rise and fall of his breast, and the spasmodic twitching of his lips. T. B. judged him to be somewhere in the neighbourhood of seventy, and, if anything, older. His face was without expression; his eyes, which turned upon the intruder, were bright and beady.

"This is Mr. Moole," said the suave secretary. "I am afraid if you talk to him you will get little in the way of information."

T. B. stepped to the side of the bed and looked down. He nodded his head in greeting, but the other made no response.

"How are you, Mr. Moole?" said T. B. gently. "I have come down from London to see you."

There was still no response from the shrunken figure under the bedclothes.

"What is your name?" asked T. B. after a while.

For an instant a gleam of intelligence came to the eyes of the wreck. His mouth opened tremulously and a husky voice answered him.

"Jim Moole," it croaked, "poor old Jim Moole; ain't done nobody harm."

Then his eyes turned fearfully to the man at T. B.'s side; the old lips came tightly together and no further encouragement from T. B. could make him speak again.

A little later T. B. was ushered out of the room.

"You agree with me," said the doctor smoothly, "Mr. Moole is not in a position to carry on a very long conversation."

T. B. nodded.

"I quite agree," he said, pleasantly. "An American millionaire – Mr. Moole – is he not?"

Dr. Fall inclined his head. His black eyes never left T. B.'s face.

"An American millionaire," he repeated.

"He does not talk like an American," said T. B.; "even making allowances that one must for his mental condition, there is no inducement to accept the phenomenon."

"Which phenomenon?" asked the other, quickly.

"That which causes an American millionaire, a man probably of some refinement and education, at any rate of some lingual characteristics, to talk like a Somerset farm labourer."

"What do you mean?" asked the other harshly.

"Just what I say," said T. B. Smith; "he has the burr of a man who has been brought up in Somerset. He is obviously one who has had very little education. My impression of him does not coincide with your description."

"I think, Mr. Smith," said the other, quietly, "that you have had very little acquaintance with people who are mentally deficient, otherwise you would know that those unfortunate fellow-creatures of ours who are so afflicted are very frequently as unrecognizable from their speech as from their actions."

He led the way to the lift door, but T. B. declined its service.

"I would rather walk down," he said.

He wanted to be better acquainted with this house, to have a larger knowledge of its topography than the ascent and descent by means of an electric lift would allow him. Dr. Fall offered no objection, and led the way down the red carpeted stairs.