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Read Ebook: The Sign of Silence by Le Queux William
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Ebook has 1991 lines and 72949 words, and 40 pages
"She might have had a key," I hazarded.
"Might--but not very likely," he said. "No, my firm conviction is that the man you know as Sir Digby Kemsley struck the fatal blow, and took the knife away with him."
I shrugged my shoulders, but did not reply.
Inside the station, we passed into the long room devoted to the officers of the Criminal Investigation Department attached to the division, and there met two sergeants who had given evidence.
I was shown the photograph of the dead unknown, calm, and even pretty, just as I had seen her lying stretched in Digby's room.
"The medical evidence was curious, Mr. Royle, wasn't it?" Edwards remarked. "That triangular knife ought not to be very difficult to trace. There surely are not many of them about."
"No," I replied faintly, for the recollection of one which I had seen only a few days prior to the tragic occurrence--the one with the arms of the Medici carved upon its hilt, arose vividly before me.
To me, alas! the awful truth was now plain.
My suspicion regarding the culprit had, by the doctor's evidence, become entirely confirmed.
I set my jaws hard in agony of mind. What was a mystery of London was to me no longer a mystery!
THE PIECE OF CONVICTION.
The morning of the tenth of January was one of those of gloom and darkness which are, on occasions, the blots upon London's reputation.
There seemed no fog, only a heavy, threatening cloud of night fell suddenly upon the city, and at three o'clock it might have been midnight. Streets, shops, and offices were lit everywhere, and buses and taxis compelled to light up, while in the atmosphere was a sulphurous odour with a black deposit which caused the eyes to smart and the lungs to irritate.
Londoners know those periods of unpleasant darkness only too well.
I was sitting in my room in Albemarle Street, watching Haines, who was cleaning a piece of old silver I had bought at an auction on the previous day. The collecting of old silver is, I may say, my hobby, and the piece was a very fine old Italian reliquary, about ten inches in height, with the Sicilian mark of the seventeenth century.
Haines, under my tuition, had become an expert and careful cleaner of silver, and I was watching and exhorting him to exercise the greatest care, as the ornamentation was thin, and some of the scrollwork around the top extremely fragile. It had, according to the inscription at its base, contained a bone of a certain saint--a local saint of Palermo it seemed--but the relic had disappeared long ago. Yet the silver case which, for centuries, had stood upon an altar somewhere, was a really exquisite piece of the silversmith's art.
Suddenly the telephone-bell rang, and on answering it I heard Phrida's voice asking--
"I say, Teddy, is that you? Why haven't you been over since Thursday?"
I started, recollecting that I had not been to Cromwell Road since the afternoon of the inquest--three days ago.
"Dear, do forgive me," I craved. "I--I've been so horribly busy. Had to be at the works each day."
"But you might have been over in the evening," she responded in a tone of complaint. "You remember you promised to take me to the St. James's last night, and I expected you."
"Oh, dearest, I'm so sorry," I said. "But I've been awfully worried, you know. Do forgive me!"
"Yes, I know!" she answered. "Well, I'll forgive you if you'll run over now and take me to tea at the Leslies. I've ordered the car for four o'clock. Will that suit you?"
The Leslies! They were snobbish folk with whom I had but little in common. Yet what could I do but agree?
And then my well-beloved rang off.
When I got down to Cromwell Road just before four o'clock, the darkness had not lifted.
My feelings as I passed along the big, old-fashioned hall and up the thickly-carpeted stairs to the drawing-room were mixed ones of doubt, and yet of deep affection.
Fresh in my memory was the doctor's evidence that the crime in Harrington Gardens had been committed with a thin, triangular knife--a knife such as that I had often seen lying upon the old-fashioned, walnut what-not in the corner of the room I was just about to enter. I had known it lying in the same place for years.
Was it still there?
Purposely, because I felt that it could no longer be there, I had refrained from calling upon my love, and now, when I paused and turned the handle of the drawing-room door, I hardly dared to cast my eyes upon that antiquated piece of furniture.
Phrida, who was sitting with her hat and coat already on, jumped up gaily to meet me.
"Oh, you really are prompt, Teddy!" she cried with a flush of pleasure.
Then, as I bent over her mother's hand, the latter said--
"You're quite a stranger, Mr. Royle. I expect you have been very upset over the curious disappearance of your friend. We've searched the papers every day, but could find nothing whatever about it."
Phrida had turned towards the fire, her pretty head bent as she buttoned her glove.
"No," I replied. "Up to the present the newspapers are in complete ignorance of the affair. But no doubt they'll learn all about it before long."
Then, crossing the room to pick up a magazine lying upon a chair, I halted against the old walnut what-not.
Yes, the mediaeval poignard was still lying there, just as I had always seen it!
Had it been used, and afterwards replaced?
I scarcely dared to glance at it, lest I should betray any unusual interest. I felt that Phrida's eyes were watching me, that she suspected my knowledge.
I took up the magazine idly, glanced at it, and, replacing it, returned to her side.
"Well," she asked, "are you ready?"
And then together we descended to the car.
All the way up to Abbey Road she hardly spoke. She seemed unusually pale and haggard. I asked her what was the matter, but she only replied in a faint, unnatural voice--
"Matter? Why nothing--nothing, I assure you, Teddy!"
I did not reply. I gazed upon the pretty, pale-faced figure at my side in wonder and yet in fear. I loved her--ah! I loved her well and truly, with all my soul. Yet was it possible that by means of that knife lying there so openly in that West-End drawing-room a woman's life had been treacherously taken.
Had my friend Digby, the fugitive, actually committed the crime?
When I put the whole matter clearly and with common-sense before myself, I was bound to admit that I had a strong belief of his innocence.
What would those finger-prints reveal?
The thought held me breathless. Yes, to satisfy myself I would surreptitiously secure finger-prints of my well-beloved and then in secret compare them with those found in Sir Digby's rooms.
But how? I was reflecting as the car passed by Apsley House and into the Park on its way to St. John's Wood.
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