CHAPTER VII.

WITHHELD FROM THE PUBLIC

When at noon next day Maidee Lambton again called at Wansey Street she found Uncle John wearing dark spectacles and complaining of his eyes.

“I had to go to the doctor this morning,” he told her, “and he ordered me to wear these ugly things.”

“Only for a time, I hope,” exclaimed the girl anxiously.

“For a month or two, at least,” he said. “See! I have to have the blinds half-down. It is so annoying not to be able to read. Books were my only pleasure, and now even they are debarred me,” added the old fellow dolefully.

Then the girl explained how she had questioned Burgess, but he had refused to satisfy her curiosity. The faithful servant had told her that it had been his master’s dying wish that the record should be destroyed, which meant that he desired to preserve his secret. At her ladyship’s orders he had handed the paper to the police, who would, no doubt, regard it as confidential.

She had rebuked Burgess for his silence, but the latter had declared it to be his duty, at the same time expressing regret at being unable to comply with her request.

“Then the fellow would tell you nothing--eh?” growled the old man, a mysterious figure in his dark, steel-rimmed spectacles.

“He refused. I argued with him, but he remained obdurate. He merely said that the paper contained a clue to the assassin.”

John Ambrose started perceptibly.

“Did he actually say that?” he gasped. “What else did he tell you?”

“Nothing more, except that the man in Pimlico was a secret friend of my uncle.”

“Did he tell you anything concerning the man in question--anything contained in your uncle’s statement?”

“No. Whatever he knows he is keeping strictly to himself.”

“He has a motive in doing so.”

“Oh, yes! He believes he is serving his master’s interests.”

“Bosh!” cried the old fellow impatiently. “He must be made to speak. You must compel him to tell you what that record contained. Use your powers of persuasion.”

“I have done so all I could--but he refused. He was devoted to Sir George.”

“I know--I know that. And if we could but let him see that we are working in the interests of justice, he would tell us everything.”

“But how can we?” asked the girl. “How can we, when we are working in such secrecy?”

For a moment the old man was silent.

“Yes,” he repeated at last; “we are working in secret. But, until we know what revelations Sir George made before his death, we are, unfortunately, unable to move.”

“How can we learn?”

“You alone can induce Burgess to speak,” said the old man seriously. “You must use all your woman’s tact. Approach him again this evening--after you have returned from the inquest. Come back again to me to-night, and tell me what you have discovered.”

Then, after a further conversation, the old man giving the girl certain directions, she re-entered the taxi, and returned to Carlton House Terrace.

At three o’clock the narrow, gloomy coroner’s court at Westminster was crowded, for, owing to the hints of suicide, considerable public interest had been aroused by the death of Sir George Ravenscourt. An eager crowd of reporters and their messengers were present, while, mixing with the general public, were several famous police officers.

Evidence of identification having been given by Miss Irene Lambton, the butler Burgess, in his best black suit, went into the witness-box, and described how he had discovered his master dying. No mention was made of the baronet’s last wish or of the unfinished manuscript left upon the writing-table. The brief evidence had been carefully prepared by the police.

In answer to the foreman of the jury--a little, bald-headed man--the butler stated that he had heard the front door close, and as his master did not ring, he entered the library to see if he required anything. On making the tragic discovery, he alarmed the household and telephoned to the police.

The next witness was Inspector Medland, who told the court that he had been summoned by telephone, and, on proceeding to the house, found the deceased lying dead in his library.

“There was evidence that he had fallen from the chair at the writing-table,” he added. “At first we could find no reason, but my assistant, Detective-Sergeant Wagner, will give further evidence.”

Wagner, on going into the box, produced a hypodermic syringe, which, he stated, had been found behind a chair, and had probably been used by the deceased to put an end to his life.

The syringe having been duly identified by Burgess as one missing from a case in his master’s dressing-room, the coroner asked the expectant jury if they had any questions to put.

“I would like to know, sir, whether the police have ascertained whether there was any motive which might lead Sir George to take his own life--any financial trouble, for instance?” asked one of them.

“I’m afraid we are not here to discover motives,” the coroner replied quickly. “We have merely to decide the cause of death--whether by natural causes, accident, wilful murder, or suicide. Call the divisional surgeon.”

The doctor, sharp-eyed, dapper man, who held his silk hat in his hand, stepped into the box, and, taking the oath with a professional air, stated that he was called by the police, and found Sir George dead.

“He had been dead about half an hour--not more,” added the doctor.

“And, in your opinion, what was the cause of death?”

“I made a post-mortem. Death was due to poison--injected.”

“Could a syringe such as the one just shown have produced death?” asked the coroner, looking up from the depositions he had been carefully writing on sheets of blue official foolscap.

“Certainly. I understand that Sir George was, unfortunately, in the habit of having recourse to drugs. It was probably an overdose, wilfully taken.”

“Any questions to ask the doctor?” inquired the coroner sharply of the jury. “The deceased seems to have taken a double dose of morphia.”

There was no response. The twelve respectable tradesmen of the city of Westminster were apparently quite satisfied.

“I will ask you, gentlemen of the jury,” said the coroner, addressing them, “having heard the evidence available, to return what verdict you honestly believe to be the true one. I might, perhaps, point out that we have had evidence of a hypodermic syringe being found in Sir George’s library--an unusual place for it--and that, as you have seen, it undoubtedly contained a deadly drug. If you consider this, in conjunction with what you have heard, sufficient proof that deceased died by his own hand, then you will return a verdict to that effect--wilful or accidental. If, on the contrary, you do not accept the evidence, then perhaps you may wish to adjourn the inquiry. For my own part,” he added, carelessly placing down his pen, “I have no hesitation in deciding at what verdict I, as a juryman, would arrive.”

“Neither have we, I think, sir,” remarked the foreman, glancing inquiringly along the line of his colleagues. “There can be no doubt that the unfortunate case is one of suicide while temporarily insane.”

“Then may I take that as your verdict, gentlemen?” asked the coroner, with a brisk, businesslike air. The jury agreed without a single dissentient.

Then, five minutes later, the court of inquiry rose, and everyone filed out into the street.

Two hours afterwards, in that same sombre room, where the gas was now lit, and where another jury had been empanelled, the same coroner held an inquiry into the death of Richard Goodrick, late of 78, Charlwood Street, Pimlico.

Only two reporters were present, and the attendance of the general public was small. There had been no mention of the death in the papers; indeed, the only notice given of it to the public was upon the formal baize-covered notice-board hanging in the coroner’s office in Victoria Street, whereon the hours of inquests are recorded for the information of all who care to attend.

But the same police officers who had attended the inquest upon Sir George Ravenscourt were present, several of them seated upon the benches with the public.

Not more than thirty persons were present; but among them, sitting alone at the extreme back of the court, half in the shadow, was an elderly, clean-shaven man in neat brown overcoat and velvet collar. He wore dog-skin gloves, and his hair was parted down the back in the dandified fashion of the early ’sixties. Apparently he had dropped in out of mere curiosity, and quickly became intensely attracted by the seriousness of the investigation.

Yet in his eyes was a crafty, sinister expression, about his mouth a strange hardness, while his gloved fingers twitched nervously as he sat impatiently awaiting the opening of the inquiry.

None--perhaps not even Maidee herself--would have recognised in that smartly-dressed old gentleman the shabby and negligent Uncle John, the man who lived in that meagre, obscure lodging off the Walworth Road. And yet it was he!

He had actually come there, boldly and openly, to listen to the curious story of Richard Goodrick’s decease!

Unnoticed he sat while the formalities of swearing in the jury were proceeded with. Yet a close observer might have detected his keen apprehension of what might be forthcoming.

Inspector Medland, brisk and active as before, was present, and was the first witness after the jury had viewed the body of the eccentric recluse of Pimlico.

“From information received,” he deposed, “I went, on the morning of the eighteenth, to 78, Charlwood Street, Pimlico, where I saw the deceased lying in a back room on the ground floor. He was dead. I searched the room, and on making inquiry found that he was a person of somewhat eccentric habits. He had lived as lodger in the house in question for eighteen years, but, according to information I have gathered, he has of late experienced some difficulty in paying his rent.”

“Ah! financial difficulties!” exclaimed the coroner. “The old story--eh?”

“I think so, sir.”

“Poison, I understand?” remarked the coroner casually.

“Yes, sir. I produce a bottle,” and he handed in a small phial. “It has contained chloral.”

Old John Ambrose sat breathless and open-mouthed. How much did the police really know?

Mrs. Ayres then gave some details regarding her lodger’s idiosyncrasies, telling the jury how, on the evening of the tragic affair, he was absent--which was quite unusual.

“I suppose you’ve seen that bottle before--eh?” asked the coroner, to which the talkative woman replied in the affirmative, chattering on with many reminiscences of “poor Mr. Goodrick.”

The coroner, however, cut her short, and asked for the medical evidence, which was to the effect that death had been due to chloral.

“Suicide, I suppose?” asked the coroner in his dry, matter-of-fact way.

In reply to this the doctor merely shrugged his shoulders.

“Apparently this old man became reduced in circumstances,” remarked the coroner, turning to the jury. “We have it in evidence that he was proud and independent, and extremely punctilious regarding his payments. His poverty probably preyed upon his mind, as it does on some men. But, of course, it is for you, gentlemen, to say how deceased came by his death--whether accidentally, or by his own hand.”

The divisional surgeon had left the witness-box, and the evidence had been concluded. An obscure, unknown man, living in a back street in Pimlico, had been found dead. The affair was devoid of any public interest, for the police had allowed no word to leak out regarding the strange connection between the two crimes. They were carefully concealing the facts so as not to arouse the suspicion of the real culprit.

The worthy jury, ignorant of the truth, therefore, without hesitation, returned a verdict of suicide, little dreaming that they were investigating as strange a tragedy as ever puzzled the Metropolitan Police.

The reporters rose, and left in disappointment that the case had furnished no “copy” to take the eye of a news-editor. The neat, clean-shaven old man in the corner breathed more freely and rose with a low chuckle, making his way out into the street.

“Goodrick’s secret is still safe--_still safe_!” he murmured to himself as he made his way through the darkness and falling rain in the direction of Westminster Bridge. “Yet I must still be careful--very careful, or I may betray myself to Maidee. Woman’s intuition is far keener than man’s. I may be able to fool the police, to trick them, and to evade them. But Maidee is a far more difficult problem. Yet, fortunately for me, the only man who spoke with Richard Goodrick--the only man who knew his secret--is dead--dead!”

And he laughed aloud in intense satisfaction as, approaching the bridge, he bent his head to the tearing, winter wind sweeping up the Thames.

“I wonder whether she suspects anything,” he added between his teeth. “I wonder--I wonder if I am acting the part sufficiently well?”