CHAPTER XXII.

THE MAN WHO WAS DEAF

He carried her to a sofa and laid her down, and presently she opened her eyes.

“I am an awful idiot,” she said, trying to rise, but he laid his hand on her shoulder.

“You must lie there a little while. What is the trouble?”

“The room is a little close, I think,” she said.

The room was stuffy: Larry had noticed it when he came in, and as the landlady pulled up the window, she apologized.

“I’m always telling the servants to keep this room aired, and they never do,” she said. “It’s like a furnace. I am very sorry.”

Larry had seen many fainting women, but never before had such a phenomenon occasioned him so much alarm.

“I don’t remember doing such a stupid thing before,” said the girl at last, sitting up.

“You had better go home,” said Larry solemnly.

She was still very white, but the cup of tea which the landlady brought in revived her.

“I’m not going home,” she said firmly. “I am going with you to Todd’s. You promised me I should, and as soon as I get into the air I shall be all right. If you were to take me a drive around Regent’s Park--it’s quite near--I should be as well as ever.”

They made the slow round of the outer circle and the colour came back to her face.

“Was it this morning you told me I was overdoing it?” smiled Larry. “My young friend, you are in danger of a breakdown.”

She shook her head.

“I shall be very hurt if you insist upon that. I am not so stupid that I would go on if I wasn’t fit,” she said. “That undignified collapse into your arms will not occur again. Besides,” she said mischievously, “if I am liable to having a fit on the mat, don’t you think it would be better if you were with me than if I were by myself in my room?”

“There’s something in that,” said Larry. “But I’m not so sure that visiting Todd’s is the best way of spending an afternoon. It’s very smelly, and the sights are not quite pleasant.”

“They will not worry me,” she answered quietly. “Please, please let me go!”

He reached over and took her hand and she did not resist this attention.

“You can go just where you like, Diana,” he said, “and--and--as far as you like!”

By now his own flustered feelings had calmed, and he remembered that he had not asked to see the novel wedding ring of Emma, the charwoman. Nor had he made the inquiries which he would have made but for the dramatic interruption of Diana’s collapse.

He drove the girl back to Piccadilly, and they lunched together, and then they went on to Scotland Yard. In the restaurant he had telephoned to Harvey, and Harvey had renewed the distress of Mrs. Portland by another visit. He was waiting for Larry at the Yard in Room 47 when they returned.

“I’ve traced Emma,” he said, and his tone was so serious that Larry knew that he was not wrong in giving importance to the interview which the charwoman had with Stuart. “She lives, or lived, in Camden Town,” said Harvey. “She lodges with an Army pensioner and his wife.”

“Well, have you seen her?”

“No, sir, I haven’t seen her. She’s no longer there,” said Harvey. “She has not been home since the night following the Stuart murder.”

Larry made a little grimace.

“That is the real end and the real clue of this crime,” he said. “Emma the charwoman is going to supply us with a considerable amount of information. Did she take away her things from her lodgings?” he asked.

“No, sir,” replied Harvey. “That is the curious circumstance. The woman neither told her friends that she was leaving, nor did she take any of her clothing or her belongings with her.”

“Put her on the list,” said Larry, “and warn all stations. No news of Blind Jake?”

“No, sir.”

“Nor Fred?”

“No, sir.”

“To the already overburdened vigilance of the Metropolitan Constabulary--poor chaps,” said Larry with a smile, “we will add the name of Miss Clarissa Stuart. Young, pretty, and smartly dressed, probably staying in a good-class hotel. Put a comb through those places where a woman of wealth is likely to be, and report.”

Harvey lifted his hat and went out, and Larry walked slowly to his desk and stood for a while looking down at it disapprovingly.

“I don’t know why I am given a table in this office,” he said. “I never sit at it.” Nevertheless, he dropped down in his chair and glanced across at the girl. “Well, Miss Ward,” he said, “you have a further mystery to add to the others. Emma has disappeared as unexpectedly as Flash Fred or as Stuart, and the man who persuaded Emma to go was the man who nearly persuaded Mrs. Weldon to depart this life.”

“Blind Jake?” she asked.

“That is the lad,” he replied. “A terrible figure. I can’t think of him without a shudder.”

“What a confession for a detective to make!” she scoffed. “Of course you can think of him--he’s human!”

“And a very sore human, too,” smiled Larry. “For Flash Fred was fairly useful with a knife in the days when I was trailing him for carving up Leroux, a rival of his.”

“Do you think they have caught him?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“No, Fred has gone to earth. He’s gone because he’s afraid they’ll catch him.”

“Then he is not in with them?”

“Fred?” He laughed. “Not Fred. Fred’s a lone wolf and plays a lone hand. He preys upon the virtuous and the wicked alike. One of his many boasts is that he has never been a member of a gang, and I dare say that is why he has so far escaped, or partially escaped, the consequence of his rascality. He is in London,” he mused, “and I have an idea we shall see him again very soon.”

How soon he could not guess.

He worked for an hour, and seemed oblivious both of Diana’s presence and the looks she shot across at him--glances which were intended to remind him that he was taking her to Todd’s.

He covered sheet after sheet of paper, for it was his practice to write down his cases in narrative form; dovetailing the cause to the effect. They were curious-looking documents, these “statements” of his, abounding in marginal notes and interlinear corrections. Presently he finished writing, dropping the last sheet and slipping the paper into a drawer. Then he got up and stretched himself. He walked to the window and looked out. It was late afternoon and he could glimpse a wonderful picture of the Thames Embankment, a vista of blue bridges spanning a leaden stream, of dim spires looming through the eastern haze, of a long line of green where the trees shaded the broad sidewalk, of chocolate-coloured tram-cars that flashed to and fro--a fragment of London, recognizable even to those who had never seen the great city, or throbbed to its ceaseless pulsations.

Larry Holt scratched his nose unromantically and turned a dubious look to the waiting girl.

“If you still want to go to Todd’s, I’ll take you,” he said. “This is the hour I’d promised myself the pleasure of a visit.”

A car took them to the end of Lissom Grove, and they walked down Lissom Lane, which was a cul-de-sac opening from the bigger thoroughfare. Two plain-clothes police officers, who were waiting, joined them, and the party stepped to the side of the street opposite that on which the Home was situated.

“What is the place next door?” asked Larry, nodding at a black-looking house with shuttered windows.

“It used to be a laundry,” said the policeman. “There’s a yard and a shed at the back.”

“Laundry?” said the girl thoughtfully. “Do you remember that it was a laundry van that was outside my flat that night they tried to carry me off?”

“By Jimmy!” said Larry. “So it was!”

“It couldn’t have been this laundry, miss,” said the policeman. “It has not been doing business for twelve months. They went bankrupt, and somebody bought up the business but doesn’t seem to have made a start yet.”

“Those gates lead to the yard, I presume?” said Larry, pointing.

“Yes, sir. I haven’t seen a motor-van come out of there, and I don’t even know that they have one,” said the policeman. “But nowadays, when there are so many motor vehicles about, it is impossible to keep track of them.”

Larry went up the steps and knocked at the door, and the same little old man opened.

“Four people!” he yelled. “All strangers! What do you want?”

“I want to see Mr. Dearborn,” said Larry.

“Oh, yes, sir, you are the gentleman that came on Sunday morning at six a.m.,” said the little man, and went pattering down the long passage. “Come this way!” he bawled. “All of you. Four of them, sir!”

The Rev. John Dearborn came out of his study to meet the party, and ushered them in.

“Mr. Holt? I think I recognized your voice,” he said. His little dictating machine was spinning, and there was a thick pad of typed manuscript on his table. He put his hand lovingly upon it as he passed to his chair. “I have a gentleman who comes in to read for me in the evening,” he said, as though guessing Larry’s thoughts. “Now what is the object of to-night’s visit?” he asked. “Have you found your Blind Jake?”

“I have met him without finding him,” replied Larry grimly. “I merely want to see over the house. I have brought a lady with me.”

“How interesting!” said the Rev. John Dearborn, rising.

The girl held out her hand instinctively, and the man took it.

“I shall be most happy to show you round. You have some other friends?”

Larry introduced them, and together they went up the stairs, John Dearborn leading the way.

“We will start at the top of the house this time,” he said humorously. “Our friend Lew is still in his cubicle.”

“Aren’t you afraid to keep a man here who is not quite right in his head?”

“He is very weak,” said John Dearborn, “and I haven’t the heart to send him to the infirmary. I fear that I must do so sooner or later.”

Larry had the girl by his side on the landing, and lowering his voice he asked:

“Do you want to see this old man? He is rather----” He did not finish his sentence.

“I want to see him--yes,” she said. “You forget that I was nurse in an institute for the blind.”

Dearborn led the way to the cubicle. No lights shone, though there were electric globes on every landing. The blind needed no lights, thought Larry.

The old man in the cubicle lay quietly on his back, his hands folded patiently. He was no longer talking and was, indeed, much calmer than when Larry had seen him last.

“How are you to-day?” asked Larry.

The man made no reply. It was the girl who laid her hand upon his shoulder.

“Are you feeling better?” she asked, and the man started round.

“Who’s that? Is that you, Jim?” he asked. “Have you got any supper?”

“Are you feeling better?” said Diana.

“And bring me a mug of tea, will you?” said Lew, and lay over on his back and resumed the same attitude of resignation in which they had found him.

The girl stooped and looked closely at the old man; and, sensing her presence, he put up his hand and touched her face.

“Is that a lady?” he said.

And then Dearborn pressed past them and caught the man’s hand in his.

“Are you better to-day, Lew?” he said, and the man winked.

“All right, sir,” he replied. “I’m feeling fine, thank you.”

Diana Ward walked out of the cubicle, her eyes fixed absently on space, and Larry joined her.

“What is the matter?” he asked.

“That man is dead,” she said.

“Dead?” he repeated in amazement. “Of course he’s not dead.”

She nodded her head.

“Diana, I don’t understand you,” said Larry. He thought for a moment that her fainting fit had affected her mind and that she was talking light-headedly.

“Dead,” she repeated, and her voice had a passionate thrill which made him gasp. “As effectively dead as if he were lying cold and lifeless on that bed. Oh, it’s cruel, cruel!”

John Dearborn and the detectives were still in the cubicle discussing the invalid.

“What do you mean, Diana?” he asked.

“Don’t you see? I’ve seen it happen once before,” she said in a low voice that shook. “There were little black marks on the man’s ear. Those are powder marks. He has been deafened.”

“Deafened?” he whispered, still not grasping the significance of the revelation.

“You told me something of what this man said when you saw him on Sunday,” she said, speaking rapidly and almost in a whisper, “and now I see what has happened. This man has had a shotgun discharged near both ears, and he is dead.”

“But I don’t understand.”

“Do you realize,” she asked, and she spoke slowly now, “what it means to be blind and deaf?”

“Good God!” he gasped.

“That is what has happened to the man they call Lew. Some persons, who for their own purpose desire to spare his life, have made him incapable of testifying against them.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” she said, “that he is the man who wrote the Braille message found in Gordon Stuart’s pocket.”