Part 9

"Does it matter?" I exclaimed. "It is hardly likely that Mr. Judkins Barraclough came here to wash bottles. That may have been done by the former tenants."

"No, bottles have been scraped here recently. Fragments of the pulped paper are still in the sink, and that chisel is probably one of the tools that the Indian gentleman ordered from the ironmonger's."

"Well, whatever the bottle contained we can't find it out here," I said.

"No, let's go into the front kitchen."

In the front kitchen there were two cupboards and a kitchen dresser. The cupboards were not quite empty--on one shelf was a packet of coffee and a bag of sugar. On the kitchen dresser was a brown paper package open at one end. It contained eleven boxes of ordinary matches--the twelfth half empty, was lying on one of the dresser shelves.

"The coffee bothers me," said Dorcas, "but the matches show that this is where the bottle washer lighted his candles of an evening. The candles themselves can't be far off."

She looked at the dresser drawers. They had round wooden painted handles. She turned the light of the bull's-eye on to each handle. Then she touched the handle of the top left-hand drawer.

"This is one he uses," she said.

"How can you tell that?" I said, gazing curiously on the handle, and failing to see any indication which could have guided Dorcas in her selection.

"Look at this handle carefully," she said, "and you will see a tiny atom of paper still adhering to it. The person who washed bottles has come from the sink with a wet hand and opened that drawer. A scrap of the label has adhered to his hand and come off on the drawer handle, as he grasped it to pull it open. And now I am sure that the person who washed the bottles and opened this drawer was Mr. Judkins Barraclough."

I stared at Dorcas in amazement. "How can the drawer handle tell you that?" I exclaimed.

"You remember that Barraclough's right arm was evidently too painful to use, and he was using his left the night we saw him get out of the cab. Well, the rusty chisel was thrown after use on the left-hand side of the sink, and here the drawer has been pulled open with the left hand."

"Surely a left hand doesn't mark itself on a drawer handle."

"No, but this drawer stuck and was difficult to open. The person trying it rested one hand--a wet and dirty one--on the dresser. See, here are five dirty finger-marks on the _right-hand_ side of the drawer."

I looked where Dorcas had pointed, and indications were undoubtedly there. Dorcas had some difficulty in pulling the drawer open, and had to rest her own hand on the dresser. She tried with her left hand, and her right hand then fell exactly on the finger-marks.

When the drawer at last yielded we looked eagerly inside it. There were two packets of common candles and back in the corner of the drawer half a dozen small bottles similar to the one we had found empty in the sink.

Dorcas drew them out and examined them carefully. "All red labels, you see, with 'Poison' printed on them, 'Hydrate of Chloral' written above. They have all been purchased from different chemists--though one doesn't have to sign for chloral. Mr. Judkins Barraclough is using chloral for some purpose in this house, and after each bottle is used he removes the label."

"Why should he do that?"

"Well, he may not think it wise to leave empty labelled chloral bottles about. He is a cunning man, and is guarding against contingencies."

"But what can he be doing with chloral here--in an empty house?"

"We may find out before we leave it. At any rate, let us see if he uses any of the upper rooms."

"We haven't searched the coal cellar yet," I said, suddenly recollecting the Euston-square mystery, and the discovery of the corpse of the poor "Canterbury Belle."

"To get to the coal cellar you have to go out into the area in these houses," replied Dorcas. "He wouldn't do that."

"The wine cellar, then?"

Dorcas shook her head. "I looked at the door of that as we came by. It was ajar. If there was anything to conceal there it would be shut and locked."

"But the cases of brandy----"

"May be there--we'll go and see."

The wine cellar was small and filled with old rubbish evidently left behind by the last tenants.

But the brandy cases were there. One was opened and the lid off. There were only six bottles left. The straw envelopes of the other six lay on the floor.

"Where are the empty bottles?" I said. "We ought to look for them."

"Yes--that is what we will do next. I have an idea they are upstairs."

"Why?"

"As we came down the kitchen stairs I noticed a short straw lying on one of them. When the bottle was being taken out of the straw envelope in the cellar a loose straw or two caught on the clothes of the person handling it. As he went up the stairs the straw became disengaged by the action of walking and fell. We've searched the parlours carefully--now let us go upstairs to the first floor."

There were two doors on the first floor. We tried the front room one first and found it unlocked and the room quite empty.

"Now for the back room," said Dorcas.

We went out on to the landing and tried the back room door. _It was locked._

"If there is anything more to be found it will be here," exclaimed Dorcas, her face, which had been pale until now, suddenly flushing with excitement.

"What can we do?--burst the door open?"

"Yes--I came prepared for emergencies."

Dorcas produced an instrument which is technically known as a "jemmy" from her bag and handed it to me.

I had once burst open a door, but I was not a skilled workman, so it was a good ten minutes before the door yielded, bursting open with a crash and tearing away with it a portion of the lock, which fell with a clatter to the ground.

As the door fell it seemed as though there was an echo of it downstairs.

"What's that?" exclaimed Dorcas. "It sounded like the front door shutting."

"Nonsense," I said, "it's the echo--the house is empty."

Dorcas had turned her lantern on the staircase, and was peering over the balustrade. All was silent as the grave.

"I must have been mistaken," she said. "Good heavens, there can't have been someone in the house all this time--someone who has slipped past us and escaped. If I thought that I----"

She paused and uttered a little cry. She had turned the lantern right round, and it lit up the room, the door of which we had just burst open.

As the light of the bull's-eye dimly illuminated the apartment an extraordinary sight met our eyes. The centre of the room was entirely occupied by what looked like a huge wire cage. Wire netting nearly six feet high was stretched from side to side of the room on ropes which were fastened in the walls by iron rings. Across the inside, at the top and bottom of what was practically a wired-off passage was wire netting of the same height securely fixed and lashed firmly in its place, and to prevent the occupant of the cage from climbing over the top it was roofed in with a double thickness of coarse sacking securely fastened to the wirework. The floor was covered with indiarubber mats nailed down to keep them in place.

"Good gracious!" I exclaimed. "Is it a menagerie, or a cage for some wild animal, or what?"

Suddenly Dorcas grasped my arm, and put her finger to her lips. In one corner of the cage, on a rug, covered over by a scarlet blanket, lay a woman.

"She must be dead!" I exclaimed, starting back with horror. "Only a corpse could sleep through the crash of that door."

"No," said Dorcas, creeping up close to the wire netting. "She is breathing--see, the blanket rises and falls."

"What can it mean? Is she some mad woman whom Barraclough is keeping here?"

Dorcas did not answer. She was gazing earnestly at the face of the sleeper. It was the face of a woman of about forty--a dark woman who must once have been strikingly handsome. Dorcas let the light fall upon it for a minute or two, but the sleeper made no movement. Her breathing was strangely heavy. Suddenly Dorcas touched my arm and pointed to an open bottle which stood near the rug.

"Brandy," she said. "That's where the six bottles have gone to."

"Is she in a drunken stupor, do you think?"

"Drunken, perhaps, is hardly the word," replied Dorcas; "you forget the empty chloral bottles."

"You think that the chloral is for her?"

"Yes; this woman is under the influence of it now. A man or a woman who takes chloral would sleep through an earthquake. A drunken man or woman would certainly have been startled by the noise we made just now. In some mysterious way she has been got into this house, and is being kept here a prisoner by Mr. Judkins Barraclough. He probably dissolves a dose of chloral and puts it into each bottle of brandy he brings to the poor creature."

"What can be the object of that?"

"The chloral is given, I take it, with the same object as this wire cage has been built around her (probably while she lay helpless and insensible under the influence of the drug)--to keep her from making a noise, shouting or beating against the walls, or going to the windows and attracting the attention of the neighbours. The man who has got this woman in his power comes here daily, but probably only after dark, and has to leave her alone at night and for many hours during the day. She is caged in to keep her from beating the walls, and she is dosed with chloral in order to keep her from moving about or making the slightest noise."

"And the object?"

"To let her kill herself with the brandy."

"Then why the chloral?--that sends her to sleep and prevents her from drinking as much as she would."

"If she were left with the brandy alone she would become violent and be able to shriek. She might in an access of delirium tear down her cage and get free. No--kept here without food and with a plentiful supply of brandy she will die slowly of alcoholic poisoning. But she must die quietly--hence the chloral."

"What an infamous villain!"

"Yes, and a desperate one. This is the woman who bit him that night. There must have been a violent struggle after he got her here. This woman is probably his first wife. There cannot be any other reason for Mr. Barraclough's mysterious proceedings."

"But now we have found her," I exclaimed, "what do you propose to do?"

"We must break through this netting, and try to rouse her first," replied Dorcas. "Her gaoler doesn't go near her--see here is where he evidently picks up the corner of the network to put in the bottles of drugged brandy. The nail has been pulled out and hammered in again several times."

Dorcas went to the shutters, which were closed, and wrenched off the iron bar. "Take this," she said, "and break the netting down sufficiently for us to get in. It will make less noise than forcing out the staples."

I took the bar, and several violent blows broke the lower portion of the cage loose from the fastenings in the floor. Then I pulled it up sufficiently high to allow Dorcas to crawl underneath.

"This must be the woman whose clothes are downstairs in the cupboard," I said. "Fancy a woman reduced to such poverty as that-- the wife of a millionaire. Why, she must have been a homeless outcast."

Dorcas had gone to the sleeping woman's side. Gently she turned down the top of the scarlet blanket. Then she started back in astonishment. The woman was fully dressed in clothes of the best quality.

Dorcas lifted the almost lifeless arm from the sleeper's side and pointed to her fingers. On one was a worn wedding-ring, and above it a diamond ring. A gold bangle set with jewels was round her wrist.

"What does it mean?" said Dorcas, knitting her brows. "The rags concealed in the cupboard downstairs never belonged to _this_ woman."

At that moment a church clock struck five.

"Quick!" cried Dorcas, thrusting Mr. Barraclough's keys through the broken wirework into my hand. "You must go. The cab will be waiting in Mabledon Place. Go to Berkeley Square at once and put the keys in the letter-box. I wouldn't have that man suspect anything for all the money in the world!"

"And you?"

"I shall stay here. Come back as soon as you can. Ring the bell gently and I will let you in. Ah! wait a moment!"

She tore a leaf from her note-book, and scribbled something in lead pencil, then folded it, and gave it to me. It was addressed to a doctor in Endsleigh Gardens.

"It's close by; call there on your way. Ring the doctor up and give him this. He is an old friend of mine and will come at once. Then go to Berkeley Square as fast as the horse can take you, and put the keys in the letter-box."

There was nothing for it but to obey. When I closed the door of No. --- softly behind me it was broad daylight, and the birds were singing gaily in the trees.

As I reached the pavement I involuntarily turned back to take a parting glance at the closely shuttered house in which I had left Dorcas Dene alone with the caged woman.

As I did so I suddenly became aware of something which rooted me to the spot, and paralysed me beyond the power of uttering a cry.

Crouching in the shadow of the next doorway was a dark man with white hair, a closely-cropped white moustache, and gold spectacles.

_IX. THE CLOTHES IN THE CUPBOARD_

I stood for a moment paralysed. Could it be possible that standing there watching me as I emerged from the house in Burton Crescent was the mysterious Indian whom Dorcas Dene believed to be no other than Judkins Barraclough himself? Judkins Barraclough in a false wig and a moustache and a pair of gold spectacles.

Then suddenly I recollected the sound we had heard as of the shutting of the front door. Someone _had_ been in the house at the time. Someone had slipped past when we were in the front room, and as the door of the room in which the drugged woman lay yielded with a crash, that person had crept out into the street.

And that person was the man with the white hair and moustache, whose dark eyes were gleaming at me through his gold spectacles now.

What was I to do? To seize the Indian and call for the police? I hesitated to do that without Dorcas's authority. I went up the step of No. ---, and rang the bell gently.

In a moment I heard Dorcas's voice saying, "Who's there?"

"Openly quickly!" I exclaimed. "It is I."

The door opened and I dashed into the hall and gasped out that the Indian was there--outside--what should I do?

Dorcas frowned. "There was someone in the house, then!" she exclaimed "Oh, if I had only known it! But go to the doctor at once, and then get back with those keys."

"And the Indian?"

"Will probably get at Judkins Barraclough at the earliest opportunity and warn him."

"You don't think the Indian is Barraclough disguised, now, then?"

"No--that's impossible. I've been off the track a little, but I'm on it right enough now. Get away now, every minute is of value."

Dorcas shut the door and I went down the steps again.

I looked about for the Indian. While I was talking to Dorcas he had slipped out of the doorway and disappeared. I found the cab waiting, drove to the doctor in Endsleigh Gardens, left the note, and then told the cabman to drive me with all speed to the top of Berkeley Square.

It was half-past five when I slipped the keys quietly into Mr. Barraclough's letter box. It was six o'clock when the cab stopped again in Mabledon Place.

There were one or two people passing through the Crescent--people on the way to work. Outside some of the houses sleepy-looking girls were shaking the mats and beginning the household duties of the day.

A policeman passed me and bade me good morning. I returned his salutation and walked past No. --- to the end of the Crescent. When I looked round he had sauntered away, and I returned and rang the bell.

Dorcas greeted me with a smile.

"Come along," she said, "come and have some coffee, for you must be faint."

"But the woman?"

"The doctor is with her and is bringing her round. I hope presently she will be able to give us a little information."

Dorcas led the way and I followed her. To my astonishment, instead of going downstairs, where I presumed the coffee would be waiting for us, she went upstairs to the second floor.

Dorcas opened a door and I found myself in a little back room that had evidently been inhabited. On a small Oriental table was a French coffee-making machine, and underneath it a spirit lamp. In the corner lay a couple of Oriental rugs, and on a small table by the side of it a box of cigarettes.

"I've taken the liberty of using Mr. Aleem Mohammed's private apartments," said Dorcas. "He evidently furnished them for himself before he made his preparations for a lady visitor below."

"Then he was here all the time?"

"I don't think he was here that night when we nearly knocked the neighbourhood up. But he probably came in later, and he was certainly here last night when we were examining the house. It was only when we began to make a noise that he became aware of our presence. When he heard the locked door of the room on the first floor go, he let himself out, and kept watch from the outside."

"Why?"

"Probably to see what we were going to do."

"But Judkins Barraclough we know has the key of the house. How did the Indian get in?"

"That's simple," replied Dorcas. "They had a latchkey each."

I flung myself down on the rugs and drank the coffee which Dorcas had made.

The coffee revived my drooping energies, and set my brain working again. If the Indian was living in the house and had escaped, what was there to prove that not he but Barraclough was the person who was helping the unhappy creature downstairs to her death?

I asked Dorcas.

"There is no doubt in my mind that Barraclough is the principal, and the Indian only an accomplice," she replied. "But we're not going to let the Indian escape."

"We have done so."

"No. Scotland Yard has him in hand."

"Scotland Yard?"

"Yes; directly the doctor came, which was almost immediately after he received my note, I went out and sent a message. Hark! there's a knock at the door."

Dorcas ran downstairs bidding me follow her. She opened the front door, and a handsome foreign-looking dark man, of about eight-and-thirty, stepped into the hall, and politely raised his hat.

"Ah, Mr. Stromberg, I am glad," exclaimed Dorcas, shaking hands heartily with the new arrival. "I was wondering who would be on duty. Allow me to introduce my friend Mr. Saxon. Mr. Saxon, this is Inspector Stromberg, of the Criminal Investigation Department."

The inspector bowed and smiled.

"I am always delighted to work with the famous Dorcas Dene," he said to me. "My only regret is that she is not one of us." Then turning to Dorcas, he said, "And now what is the mystery we are to have the pleasure of unravelling together this time?"

"The mystery is, I hope, already unravelled," replied Dorcas demurely, "but I must not go any farther with it. It is now a matter for the police."

"And the particulars?"

Clearly and concisely Dorcas gave the famous detective officer the details of the great Barraclough mystery.

When she had finished the Inspector rose and grasped Dorcas warmly by the hand.

"My dear Mrs. Dene," he said, "you have done wonders. Of course, I must take charge of the case now as it is practically an attempt to murder, but I shall do nothing without your approval. The woman is in charge of the doctor still, I presume?"

"Yes. He will call me as soon as she is able to converse coherently."

"And Mr. Judkins Barraclough--what is your idea of the time to make the arrest?"

"To-night."

"To-night?--but why give him so much law as that?"

"I am very much interested in some ragged feminine garments concealed in a cupboard here. I want to find out what object Barraclough can have in keeping them there." She added something in a whisper that I was evidently not intended to hear. The great man looked grave.

"It is a desperate thing to do," he said.

"I am afraid that unless we find the Indian and get him to turn Queen's Evidence, the mere fact of Barraclough having a latchkey will not bring the attempted murder home to him. I like to clear up my cases thoroughly, and I confess that these pauper rags completely baffle me. By the bye, you acted on my information with regard to the Indian?"

"Yes," said the Inspector. "What was your idea in asking me to have enquiries made at the post-offices you named?"

"They are the only ones within reasonable distance which are opened before eight in the morning. My idea was that the man would go to a telegraph office and send a warning wire to Barraclough. You sent a messenger to the receiving offices near Berkeley Square?"

"Yes; no telegram will be delivered to Barraclough without our knowledge of its contents."

"That's all right," said Dorcas, "and of course, by some unaccountable accident, that telegram won't reach Mr. Barraclough."

Inspector Stromberg shrugged his shoulders.

"The Post Office is a sacred institution in this country," he said. "The police do not tamper with letters and telegrams."

"No," said Dorcas, sweetly, "but sometimes accidents happen--a careless clerk, for instance, puts a wrong address on the envelope and that causes somebody else to open the telegram _after_ the boy has gone."

The Inspector gazed at Dorcas admiringly.

A door on the first floor opened, and a voice called "Mrs. Dene."

Presently she came down again.

"The woman is better and able to talk. But the doctor says that for many reasons it would be as well to get her to a hospital at once."

"Very well," said the Inspector. "Perhaps your friend will go and get a four-wheel cab?"

I took the hint and went out. There were plenty of cabs near St. Pancras, and I was back with one in about five minutes.

Wrapped in a blanket and a rug, which we brought down from the Indian's room, the doctor, myself, and Stromberg carried the woman, rescued from a lingering death, out of the house, and got her into the cab without attracting the attention of anyone but a small boy who was delivering newspapers. The doctor drove away with his patient, and we returned to the house, Dorcas taking the Inspector upstairs to see the cage and the Indian's apartment.