Part 8

"Give the man a shilling and let him go. I'm not going to ride behind that horse."

The man took the shilling and drove off, muttering to himself, and Dorcas and I strolled a little way along.

"He came out of a house in Burton Crescent," she muttered; "that's something."

"Why didn't you ask him which house?"

"Too risky. The man might think something was up and find Barraclough to-morrow and tell him, in hope of a reward. But I took the man's number in case I want him later."

"Very well. What are you going to do now?" I asked. "Are you going home?"

"No--let us go to Burton Crescent."

"What on earth's the good of that? You can't find out the house Mr. Barraclough came out of to-night. There's not the slightest clue."

"There may be. Did you notice that when he put his umbrella up to stop the cabman he held it in his left hand?"

"Well?"

"When he got out he shifted his umbrella to his right hand, and felt with his left hand in his left pocket for the silver. Mr. Judkins Barraclough is still feeling the effects of that bitten right arm."

"Possibly--probably. But how on earth can his being temporarily left-handed guide us to the particular house he came out of in Burton Crescent?"

"I don't say it will--but it may. Let us go."

We took a cab, and got out at the end of Burton Crescent. We walked entirely round it, Dorcas Dene going up the steps of each house in turn, and examining them carefully.

Suddenly she uttered a little cry of delight.

"This is the house," she exclaimed. "Look!"

She pointed to three or four rose leaves lying on the steps of No. ---.

I looked at them bewildered, remembering that when Mr. Barraclough got out of the cab he had a large rose in the button-hole of his overcoat.

"I see the leaves," I said. "But what on earth made you imagine they would be there, and--and where does the left hand come in?"

"It's very simple," replied Dorcas. "I looked at Mr. Judkins Barraclough very carefully when he got out of the cab, and I noticed that the rose in his buttonhole was rather dilapidated. It had evidently been in contact with something, and several of the leaves were gone. Of course they might have dropped accidentally, but I instantly evolved a theory to account for the missing leaves. I glanced inside the cab while I was looking the horse up and down, there weren't any leaves there, so he hadn't crushed his rose in getting into it. If he had, some of the leaves would have fallen on the matting. I noticed that he used his left hand. The probability was that he hailed the cab with the umbrella in his left hand. The cabman said he was coming out of the house when he hailed him, so he would be on the steps at the time. Now, if you lifted your left hand hurriedly, as if hailing a cab that was passing, you would probably bring your arm up against the left side of your overcoat. Your arm would probably brush against a flower if you had one as large as a rose, and particularly if it projected as far forward as Mr. Barraclough's did. I said to myself, 'He might have knocked the leaves off that rose when he hailed the cab on a door-step in Burton Crescent.' My surmise fortunately turns out to be correct. Here are the rose leaves, and therefore this is the house."

"It's wonderful!" I said, "but after all, it's just one chance in a thousand."

"It is that one chance," replied Dorcas, quietly, "that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred brings the criminal into the hands of justice. Chance is the most successful detective the world has ever known."

Dorcas stepped back and looked up at the house.

"There are no lights anywhere," she said, "but we'll see what the inhabitants are like."

She seized the bell and rang it violently, and then gave a loud double knock. There was no sound inside the house. We waited a few minutes, then Dorcas knocked again, this time loud enough to wake up everybody in the Crescent. Still no one came, and the house remained in darkness.

"I'll try again," she said. "I'm sure to wake the people up on one side or other, and they'll think, perhaps, it's their knocker, and look out of the window."

Dorcas knocked this time for fully a couple of minutes, and at last she produced the desired effect.

A third floor window in the next house opened, and a woman put her head out.

"What's the good of your knocking there, a-frightening people out of their seven senses;" she called out angrily. "What do you want?"

"Mr. Robinson," replied Dorcas. "A relative of his is dying, and I've come to fetch him."

"You've come to the wrong house, then," said the woman, snappishly. "There ain't no Mr. Robinson there, 'cos the house is empty. Leastways, there ain't nobody sleepin' there."

"But Mr. Robinson was here this evening," replied Dorcas, unabashed.

"Oh, you mean the gent as has taken the place and ain't moved in yet, perhaps--I don't know his name. He ain't there now, I tell you. He only comes there now and then, and nobody's living there, and the tradespeople don't call. If you can't believe me, ask a policeman, only for goodness' sake leave off knocking. You're making yourself a noosance to the neighbourhood."

Dorcas thanked her informant, and we moved away. "Good-night," said Dorcas, as we got to the corner. "I'll take a cab and go home now. Mr. Barraclough is renting an empty house. I must find out why he does so."

"When shall we do that?"

"The day after to-morrow. I must have a couple of days to myself now. If you've nothing to do, come to Oak Tree Road in the evening the day after to-morrow, at ten o'clock."

I assured Dorcas that I should be delighted. I saw her into a cab, and wished her good-night, and went home, wondering to myself what on earth a millionaire with a magnificent establishment in Berkeley Square could want with an empty house in Burton Crescent.

* * * * * * *

During the afternoon of the appointed day I received a telegram-- "Come evening dress. Dorcas."

When I arrived at Oak Tree Road at ten o'clock in the evening, I found Dorcas busily engaged in trying the wick of a dark lantern, and on the floor beside her lay an open brown paper parcel filled with goloshes.

"Good gracious," I exclaimed, "are you going burgling?"

"Something very like it," she replied, lighting the lantern to satisfy herself that it was all right. "Just try on those goloshes and see if any of them will fit over your boots."

"But what do I want with goloshes? It's a perfectly dry night."

"You are going burgling with me--that is, of course, if you are not afraid."

"Burgling in evening dress!" I exclaimed. "I'm not afraid to do anything that you tell me is right, but I haven't been brought up to the profession, you know."

I selected a pair of goloshes which I thought likely to suit, and found they fitted over my boots perfectly.

"That's all right--put them in that bag," said Dorcas, pointing to a black bag on the sofa. Then she blew the lamp out, and fastening it to a leather belt, fitted it round her waist.

"You look like a female policeman," I exclaimed, "but you're not going through the streets with that on!"

"Nobody will see it under my long cloak. Here is a box of silent matches, put that in the bag too."

I obeyed mechanically.

"Now," said Dorcas. "come to supper. Paul is in the dining-room waiting for us. We don't start till twelve."

"But where are we going?"

"To look over that empty house in Burton Crescent," replied Dorcas, quite calmly. "I have seen Lady Anna Barraclough to-day. Her husband wears his keys on a chain. The chances are that the key he uses to let himself into Burton Crescent will be on the bunch. He wouldn't carry it loose for fear of leaving it in his pocket when he changed his clothes, and perhaps forgetting it just when he wanted it. I shall have his keys directly he is asleep to-night, so Heaven grant him sweet repose directly he lays his head on the pillow. I reckon on having his keys before two o'clock in the morning."

"But how will you manage it?"

"I have arranged it with her ladyship. They occupy, you remember, two rooms separated by Mr. Barraclough's dressing-room. There he leaves all his clothes for his valet to brush and attend to in the morning. After he is asleep, Lady Barraclough will go quietly into the dressing-room from her room, and detach the keys from the chain, which is attached to his braces. I shall be on the opposite side of the square in a four-wheel cab, which will be driven by a cabman whom I frequently engage and whom I can trust. Sitting in the cab I shall avoid the attention of the policeman, who might otherwise wonder why you and I were loitering about so long in one place. But from the cab I shall be watching the windows of No. --, Berkeley Square. When I see a corner of the blind pulled up in Lady Barraclough's room, and a lighted candle shown for a moment, I shall know she has the keys."

"Yes," I said, "that's all very well. But how is she going to give you the keys?"

"She isn't--she is going to give them to you."

"To me!" I exclaimed; "where?--when?--how?"

"You will be strolling about smoking a cigar. Being in evening dress you will not attract the notice of any inquisitive policeman, should one happen to be about. You will watch for that signal, too, and when you see it, you will go up the steps of No. -- as if you were going to ring to be let in.

"Lady Anna will come quietly downstairs, open the door, and give you the keys. Then you will walk away quietly into Piccadilly. My cab will follow and stop opposite Walsingham House. Then you will get in and we shall drive to the top of Burton Crescent. Our cabman will wait for us round the corner."

"In case of our having to make a run for it?"

"No--because at five o'clock in the morning Lady Anna Barraclough will creep downstairs again and feel in the letter box."

"What for--a note from you?"

"No--the keys. You will put them there when we have done with them. Then she will go back into her husband's dressing-room, fasten them on to the chain on his braces again, and he will get up in the morning and see them and never dream that they have been having a 'night out.'"

"And suppose the key of the house isn't on the bunch?"

"Then we shall have had our journey for nothing. But the reasonable supposition is that it will be. Now come to supper, and make a good one, for we have a rough night's work before us."

* * * * * * *

Two hours later a light flashed in a second floor window of No. --, Berkeley Square, and with a beating heart I went up the steps. The door opened quietly, and a woman's hand came cautiously through the opening and touched mine. I clutched the keys, slipped them into my pocket, and strode away in the direction of Piccadilly.

When the four-wheel cab stopped I got in and gave the keys to Dorcas. "So far, so good," she said. "Now with average luck we shall get into that empty house without attracting attention, and discover the millionaire's secret."

Dorcas was holding the keys up to the light that came through the cab window and examining them carefully.

"There are two latchkeys at any rate," she said. "Let us hope that one of them will unlock the cupboard in which Mr. Judkins Barraclough keeps his skeleton."

_VIII. THE EMPTY HOUSE_

As the cab made its way towards Burton Crescent I am not ashamed to confess that I had misgivings as to the success of our enterprise. Not having been brought up to burglary, I contemplated with something akin to nervousness my début as a "cracksman," and I pictured to myself the awkward predicament in which we should find ourselves if we were discovered by a watchful policeman, creeping about a house with goloshes over our boots and a dark lantern and silent matches in our possession.

I put the point to Dorcas. As we had probably the key of the house in Burton Crescent with us, why should we compromise our position by taking the implements of burglary with us?

"Because," said Dorcas, "it is better to be over-cautious than over-bold in my profession. If there _should_ be anyone in the house I want to _see_ them before they hear me, and that is why I have taken precautions with our boots and with our light."

"Do you think Mr. Barraclough has visited the house since we were there?"

"Yes; I watched the house for a short time last evening. A dark-complexioned, white-haired old gentleman, with a closely cropped white moustache and gold spectacles, let himself in about nine o'clock. No such person came out again. But towards midnight the door was opened, and a gentleman in a long grey overcoat came out. That person I did not see enter; but of course that is not conclusive, as I only commenced to watch about eight in the evening."

"And the person who came out was----?"

"Judkins Barraclough."

"Do you think the dark old man will be in the house to-night?"

"No," said Dorcas, in an emphatic tone, "I don't! But I have some more interesting information gathered during the last two days round the neighbourhood. The local tradespeople, who are always on the watch when the 'To Let' is taken out of the windows of a house, saw a van at the door delivering goods one day last week. The person who was superintending the disposal of the goods was an old gentleman with very white hair and gold spectacles, and a closely-cropped, white moustache. His face and hands were very dark, and he looked like a native of India in European clothes. The baker's man, seeing the door open and cases being delivered, presented his master's card. The Indian gentleman replied in excellent English that the family would not be coming in for a month or six weeks."

"Then this Indian gentleman must be the dark man you saw go in. Have you any clue to his identity?"

"I have ascertained certain particulars concerning him. To find out who delivered the goods at Burton Crescent was my next object. It is the general custom for policemen to take the name on a van that is delivering or removing goods from a house. Many robberies have been traced in this way. The constable on duty in the neighbourhood at that time was able to tell me to whom the van belonged. I went at once to a retired police sergeant whom I frequently employ to make ordinary private inquiries, and gave him instructions to find out where the van took the goods from, and if possible what they were.

"In a few hours he sent me his report. The van had brought two cases of brandy from a firm of wine merchants; hammers, saws, nails, etc., from an ironmonger's; half a dozen large indiarubber mats, and several rolls of wire netting. All these things, it was found, had been purchased and paid for by a white-haired gentleman in gold spectacles, having the appearance of a native of India. He gave his name and address as Mr. Aleem Mohammed, No. ---, Burton Crescent."

"Well, you can soon find out who Mr. Aleem Mohammed is by the numbers of the notes he paid to the house agents. Banknotes are always useful clues."

"Mr. Aleem Mohammed has evidently thought of that," replied Dorcas. "I _have_ traced the notes. They were obtained at a money-changer's at Charing Cross, by a gentleman answering to our Indian friend's description. He gave sovereigns for them. I have also been to the house agents. The house was let to Mr. Aleem Mohammed, who had paid a year's rent in advance in bank-notes, having no one in this country to whom he could refer."

"Don't you think," I said, after a pause, "the whole business may be capable of a very simple explanation? After all, Barraclough hailed a cab from the doorstep, and the cab drove him direct to his own residence. Would he, if he were mixed up in any crime in connection with this house, establish a direct trail?"

"I have been thinking that out myself," replied Dorcas; "but I am inclined to believe it was one of those slips that very cunning people do make occasionally. Coming out late at night, there was nobody about, and he hailed a cab barely thinking what he was doing, and said, 'Berkeley Square.' He stopped it as his own door with his umbrella mechanically, as one is in the habit of doing."

"And the Indian gentleman?"

"I believe is Barraclough. He is a dark man, browned with the sun of South America. He could easily carry a white wig and a false moustache and a pair of gold spectacles in a Gladstone bag coming out of the house at night. When he goes into it in the daylight as the Indian he can have that light overcoat and his flower in the same bag."

"But the night we saw him he had no bag."

"No; but he might easily have had the wig and moustache in his overcoat pocket. At any rate, I am pretty sure that Aleem Mohammed and Judkins Barraclough are the same person."

"That is your theory, but you may be wrong."

"Of course--I am not infallible."

The cab stopped suddenly. We had reached Mabledon Place, where the man had orders to pull up. We got out and Dorcas gave him instructions to wait for us where he was, saying we might be a couple of hours or more.

Taking the black bag with us, we made our way towards the Crescent, which was quite deserted. Dorcas took her goloshes out of the bag and put them on, and handed me mine, just as we got close to the house. Glancing round to see no one was about, she went noiselessly up the steps and tried the latchkeys. The first did not fit. It was probably the key of Berkeley Square. The second, to our intense relief, fitted perfectly. In a moment we were inside the hall and had closed the door noiselessly behind us.

Dorcas, taking the dark lantern from her belt, struck a silent match and lighted the wick.

The hall was bare, the stairs were uncarpeted, the whole atmosphere of the house suggested that it was uninhabited.

The keys were on the outside of the doors of the two rooms on the ground floor.

We opened the door of the front parlour. It was quite bare. Dorcas looked about it in every direction.

Then she turned the tap of the gas on. There was no sound.

"Gas cut off and meter taken away when last tenant left," said Dorcas. "The occupant must have used candles or a lamp."

"There's nothing in that," I said. "A good many people prefer them."

"Quite so. _I_ hope he used candles. But let us have a peep at the next room."

Dorcas went first and opened the door of the back parlour.

The room was empty.

Dorcas looked carefully round it, then turned the light of the bull's-eye to the floor. Suddenly she stooped down.

"He's used this room," she said; "see, here is the tallow trail."

She pointed to some small blobs of tallow grease near the doors of a cupboard, which was in one corner of the room.

"He has used candles here," she said. "The candle has stood some time on the floor and guttered. That was while the person who had been carrying it was busy with both hands inside this cupboard."

The cupboard was locked, but the lock was a paltry one, and drawing a little instrument from the bag Dorcas soon had it open.

"How odd to take the trouble to lock up such rubbish as this!" exclaimed Dorcas, drawing out a bundle of ragged female clothing.

I stared at the articles as Dorcas held them up.

"Good gracious!" I said. "These are the clothes of some wretched creature who must have been in the last stage of poverty. The dress is ragged and mud-stained, the old red flannel petticoat almost in ribbons, the bonnet battered and black with grease. Faugh! put the things down."

Dorcas was not inclined to abandon her find so readily, but presently she put the rags slowly back in the cupboard. "I wonder what he's done with the body?" she said quietly.

I must confess that when Dorcas said that, I had an uncomfortable, creepy sensation. Could it be possible that such a wretched creature as these locked-up rags had once belonged to had been done to death in an empty house by the millionaire of Berkeley Square?

Dorcas must have divined my thoughts. "Are you wondering if the body of the woman who wore these things is concealed on the premises?" she said.

"Something of the sort was in my mind."

"And I don't know what to think," said Dorcas. "If the body is buried, why on earth were not these accusing rags buried with it?"

We went downstairs, and as we walked through the silent, deserted passages of the basement, I felt suspiciously uncomfortable. A rat ran squeaking behind the wainscot, and I am ashamed to say that in my overwrought nervous condition I couldn't help giving a little cry of alarm.

I tried to excuse my cowardice to Dorcas, but she stopped me.

"Don't apologise," she said. "I am a great deal more afraid of rats than I am of human beings."

We had passed into the back kitchen or scullery.

"He has been here," she said.

"How do you know?"

"By the tallow trail. The guttering candle has left its traces here."

She pointed out three blobs of tallow on the edge of the sink, and turned the light of the bull's-eye full on the trap. Then she passed her hand carefully over the surface and drew it away. A few exceedingly small damp atoms of pulpy water adhered to her palm. Dorcas examined the atoms carefully. "Probably red on one side and white on the other," she said. "I wonder where the bottles are?"

"What bottles?"

There were two short wooden shelves on each side of the sink. From the one on the left-hand side Dorcas took a chisel. It was evidently new, by the handle, but the edge was slightly rusty.

"The bottles that the labels have been scraped from with this chisel," she said. "The labels have been damped at the sink. It is the wet on the label that has rusted the chisel."

Suddenly she stooped down, and let the lantern flash round the room. Something among some rubbish in one corner attracted her attention. It was a small empty bottle, about the size of the bottles in which chemists sell toothache tincture. She picked the bottle up and examined it carefully.

"It has been washed out," she said, "and there is nothing to tell us what it contained."