Read Ebook: Railway Adventures and Anecdotes: Extending over More Than Fifty Years by Pike Richard Editor

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Ebook has 174 lines and 6969 words, and 4 pages

"Every evening!" replied the landlady, promptly.

"She must have been eccentric!" was Gebb's comment on this reply.

"Very eccentric, sir. I don't think she was quite right here." And the landlady tapped her head significantly.

"A Crazy Jane?" questioned Lackland.

"What the devil does that mean?" said Gebb, with surly amazement.

"Only the devil knows," retorted Lackland, grimly; "but if that jade is hiding anything of importance the sooner we get it out of her the better. You're a bit of a lawyer, Gebb, so I'll bring back Mrs. Presk, and you'll examine her!"

"No!" said Gebb, detaining his friend; "let her go now. I'll get the truth out of her to-morrow."

"I'll grin and bear it, I suppose!" retorted the other; "but I'll work my hardest to be given the handling of this affair, for it strikes me that it will prove a sight more difficult than either of us guesses. This room's a rum one, ain't it? And that pack of cards aren't there for nothing. Then there is the dead woman's dress, and the landlady's queer conduct. Oh, you can bet, inspector, there's a jolly lot more in these things than meets the eye, and I'm the man to find out what they all mean."

"You can blow your own trumpet, I see!" said Lackland, dryly.

Gebb laughed, in nowise embarrassed. "My trumpeter's dead from over-work," he replied coolly. "If I don't praise myself no one else will. However, I'll see to-morrow if the big wigs will let me run this show in my own way. Now you go and look round the house, Lackland, and leave me here to examine the room."

"What about the body?" asked the inspector, dominated by Gebb's strong will.

"We'll let it lie here as it is, until the doctor comes. I told that policeman who brought Mrs. Presk to the station to knock up an M.D."

"You're a good fellow--too good to get your monkey up for nothing. You let me look after this murder myself. I'll do you a good turn some other time."

"Well, I'll let you have your own way for once. You're no fool, I will say," muttered Lackland, and withdrew to look through the house. He knew that Gebb was very clever, and in his heart was not unwilling to avail himself of the detective's assistance. Therefore, he left him to his own devices, and set out to seek Mrs. Presk in the kitchen. Having found her, he made her show him the house, but judiciously refrained from commenting on her late conduct. He left the elucidation of that to Gebb.

Left to himself, the detective examined the dead woman and the room with minute attention to detail, keeping up a running commentary the while on his discoveries. He had a habit of talking aloud when alone, as if to emphasize his opinions, and, while examining the boudoir, soliloquized with appropriate actions like a stage-player.

"The furniture is quite in order," he murmured, his keen eyes roving hither and thither. "Therefore there can have been no struggle. The murderer was no intruder, but was expected. A visitor! perhaps a friend! He--let me presume the criminal to be a man--he no doubt entered, and was kindly received by the deceased. Here is a bottle, and two glasses with wine in each; so the two were friendly enough to drink in company. There is a chair on either side of this table whereon the cards are laid out The dead body remains in the one nearest the wall; so I expect the visitor sat in the other with his back to the door. Were they playing cards? I think not, as in that case the whole pack would not be laid out in this fashion. I have it!" cried Gebb, smiting his open palm with his fist, "the visitor was telling Miss Ligram's fortune. He placed the cards in that position and told her to draw one. She drew the ace of spades, which yet lies in her lap, and when face to face with the omen of death he killed her."

Here the detective paused to consider if he was correct in assuming the assassin to be a man. Fortune-telling--especially by cards--is usually indulged in by the other sex. But would a woman, however cruel, have so brutally strangled her unsuspecting hostess, and--as it may be assumed--friend? Gebb examined the chair on which the visitor had sat, and found traces of tobacco ash.

"Cigarette ash?" he pronounced it after an examination, "the quality is fine and quantity small. The visitor was a man and he was smoking. H'm! That is not like a professional fortune-teller. Such a one would be too desirous of impressing his dupe to spoil the gravity of the situation by smoking. The man must have been a friend, and he probably told the woman's fortune in this way to throw her off her guard. Let us look further."

The chair in which the dead body was lying, stood some little distance from the hangings of the wall. These, as Gebb discovered on further examination, had been draped back with a cord to reveal a small oil painting; but the cord--which had a loop at either end to slip over a brass nail, concealed beneath the hangings of satin--had been deftly removed from its peg, and flung round the victim's neck. On the floor behind the chair Gebb picked up a half-burnt cigarette, which had smouldered out. With this in his hand he returned to the centre of the room and looked once more at the cards. These attracted him strangely.

"Without doubt the fortune-telling was a trick," he said aloud. "The man set out the cards, and while his victim was selecting one he lighted a cigarette, and rose to stroll round the room. Not suspecting any danger--which shows, by the way, that she must have trusted him--his victim let him pass behind her chair. While there, he slipped the loops of the cord off the nail. Then when she turned up the death-card--a pure coincidence, no doubt--he threw the cord over her head and choked her before the poor wretch had time to call out for assistance. He then robbed the body at his leisure, and left the house. It's as clear as day."

Presuming that the murderer had gone out by the front door, Gebb left the room and went into the passage. To his surprise he found that the front door was locked, but, as the detective noted, not bolted.

"He must have locked it after he left the house," thought Gebb, "and no doubt did so to prevent intrusion and a too sudden discovery of his crime. I expect he threw away the key when outside. In the front garden most probably; I'll look."

Before he could put his design into execution, which he intended doing by passing out the back way, Mrs. Presk arrived downstairs with the intelligence that Inspector Lackland was still searching the upper portion of the house for traces of the assassin, but could find nothing and no one. "So," said she, "I expect the wretch ran away after killing poor Miss Ligram."

"Did he?" said Mrs. Presk, with a stare; "now that's queer."

"Why?" asked the detective, sharply.

"Because Miss Ligram always kept the front door locked, and the key in her pocket. That was one of her queer ways which I never could abide."

Without a word Gebb returned to the Yellow Boudoir, and searched in the pocket of the dead woman. Sure enough he found therein a large key which Mrs. Presk immediately declared to be that of the front door. Gebb was puzzled, as this discovery upset much of his previous reasoning.

"In that case the man could not have cleared out by the front," he said, "as not having the key he could not lock the door after him. Let us see the back door; he may have escaped in that direction."

"The back door was locked," said Mrs. Presk, promptly. "I had the key in my pocket when I went to the lecture."

"Was the door locked when you returned?" asked Gebb, more puzzled than ever.

"Yes, sir, it was. I had no thought that anything was wrong until I came upstairs and saw the corpse; though, to be sure," added Mrs. Presk, suddenly, "I fancied it strange that the lights should be burning so late in Miss Ligram's boudoir. I saw them from the road, you know, Mr. Gebb; and the sight gave me a turn, I can tell you."

"He must have got out through a back window," murmured Gebb.

"Indeed, he didn't, sir. When I brought 'Tilda out of her faint in the kitchen I looked at all the windows in the basement; they are all bolted and barred proper. 'Tilda and me's both careful on account of burglars."

Gebb pinched his chin and shook his head in a perplexed manner; after which he walked to the window of the yellow room and examined it carefully. It was fastened by a snick, the position of which showed that the window was closed, and could not have been used as an exit.

"Let alone the danger of the cove being seen by a chance policeman, and taken up as a burglar," mused Gebb, "what about the upstairs windows, Mrs. Presk?"

"They're all locked, sir. Mr. Inspector examined every one."

"Then the man must be in the house still," was Gebb's final conclusion.

"He isn't," insisted Mrs. Presk, with a startled glance over her shoulder; "we've looked under all the beds, and into all the rooms and cupboards. Unless he is like a sparrow on the house-top, I don't know where he can be."

"Well, there doesn't seem any way by which he could get out," said Gebb, in a vexed tone. "Did you hear any sound in the house when you arrived home?"

"No, I didn't, sir. I went up to see if Miss Ligram was ill, as I noticed that her room was lighted up, then I saw the corpse, and called 'Tilda, who ran up and fainted. She ain't got my nerves, Mr. Gebb."

"Did you lock the back door when you came in?"

"Lawks, no, sir! 'Tilda and me was in such a flurry to see if Miss Ligram was ill that we just left the door anyhow.

"When you went upstairs was the door closed to?"

"I think so," replied Mrs. Presk, after a pause, "for 'Tilda banged it to; but it wasn't locked, I'll take my dying word on that."

"When you came for the police did you leave by that door?"

"Yes, I did; by the back door, as Miss Ligram kept the front one locked."

"Was it closed when you went out?"

Mrs. Presk looked up suddenly, rather alarmed. "No sir, it wasn't," said she in startled tones, "It was--as you might say--ajar."

"Aha!" said Gebb, triumphantly, "then you may depend upon it, Mrs. Presk, that when you came home the assassin was in the house."

"In the house!" gasped Mrs. Presk. "Lor, sir! it ain't possible."

"Yes! he did not know where to find the front-door key; and discovering that the back door was locked, he just hid himself in the kitchen until you and the servant went upstairs to look on his handiwork. Then he slipped out to escape the consequences."

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