The Hand in the Dark
she was murdered."
This piece of news was so unexpected that it caught Merrington off his
guard.
"A jewel robbery as well as murder!" he ejaculated, in something like
dismay.
"It looks like it. You will be able to form a better judgment when I
have told you all the circumstances of the discovery."
Merrington had long ago convinced himself that the case he had worked up
against Hazel Rath did not admit of the slightest possibility of doubt;
and, like all obstinate men, he adhered to his convictions with
additional strength in the face of anything tending to weaken them. As
he recovered from his surprise at the private detective's piece of news,
he listened to his account of the opening of the jewel-case with the
wary air of one seeking a loop-hole in an unexpected obstacle. Before
Colwyn had finished he had found it in the belief that Hazel Rath, and
nobody else, had stolen the missing jewels.
"This girl is a thief as well as a murderer," was the manner in which he
expressed his opinion when Colwyn had ceased speaking. "She has stolen
the necklace."
"She may have done so, but it is too great an assumption to make without
proof," returned Colwyn. "You must be perfectly well aware, Mr.
Merrington, that this belated discovery is of the utmost importance to
the Crown case, one way or the other. If you can prove that Hazel Rath
stole the necklace, it gives you an unassailable case against her. If
the necklace was stolen by somebody else, you are confronted with a new
and strange aspect of this murder."
"Not to the extent of lessening the strength of the case against this
girl," replied Merrington doggedly. "She was seen going to the staircase
leading to Mrs. Heredith's room just before the murder; her brooch was
found upstairs in the room; and the revolver and her handkerchief were
found concealed in her mother's rooms. Add to that, her silence under
accusation, and it is impossible to get away from the belief that she,
and nobody else, murdered Mrs. Heredith."
"I am not attempting to controvert your theory or contradict your
facts," rejoined Colwyn coldly. "My visit is to bring under your notice
a fresh fact in the case which needs investigation. Whether that fact
squares with your own theory or not, it is too important to be
disregarded or overlooked. That is why I left the moat-house immediately
I discovered it. I felt that you had been ignorantly misled, and that it
was only right you should be told without delay."
Merrington was conscious of that evanescent feeling which men call
gratitude. His impulse of thankfulness towards the man opposite him was
all the keener for the realization that he would not have acted so
generously if he had been in Colwyn's place. But his gratitude was
speedily swallowed up by the knowledge that he had been led astray, and
his anger was mingled with the determination to find a scapegoat.
"I am obliged to you for your information, although I do not attach
quite so much importance to it as you do," was his careful rejoinder.
"But I certainly blame Detective Caldew for not finding it out before
you did. He made the original inquiries at the moat-house, and he seems
to have made them very carelessly. He said nothing to the Chief
Constable of Sussex or myself, when we arrived, about a jewel-case,
locked or open."
"He didn't know himself."
"It was his duty to inquire. When he assured us, on the authority of
Miss Heredith, that nothing was missing, I naturally assumed that he had
made the proper inquiries. But I thank you for letting me know, and I
shall, of course, have investigations made. But I should like to know
why young Heredith interfered and brought you into the case?"
"For one thing, he has a strong belief in Hazel Rath's innocence."
"Mere sentiment," replied Merrington contemptuously. "Perhaps he's still
sweet on the girl."
"There is more than that in it. There's the question of the revolver. Of
course you are aware that he identified the revolver with which his wife
was shot as the property of Captain Nepcote, a guest at the moat-house
who left on the afternoon of the day on which Mrs. Heredith was
murdered. Heredith does not accept your theory of the way in which Hazel
Rath is supposed to have obtained the revolver. He does not think that
Nepcote left the revolver behind him at the moat-house. He told Caldew
this, but Caldew said the ownership of the revolver was a matter of no
consequence."
"Caldew's a fool if he said that, and I wish I'd never allowed him to
meddle in the case," replied Merrington forcibly. "I've had the police
court proceedings against the girl put back for a week till the question
of the ownership of the revolver could be settled. Now that it is
decided I shall have Nepcote interviewed and questioned without delay."
"Before you try to trace the missing necklace?" The faint inflection of
surprise in Colwyn's voice might have escaped a quicker ear than
Merrington's.
"Scotland Yard will trace the necklace fast enough," he confidently
declared. "I like to take things in their proper order. The next thing
to do is to ascertain whether Nepcote left his revolver behind him at
the moat-house, though I have not the least doubt that he did. The
necklace is really a minor consideration. It merely provides another
motive for the murder--cupidity as well as jealousy."
"Is that the way you regard it?" A less thick-skinned man than
Merrington would this time have caught something more than surprise in
the other's tone.
"Is there any other way of looking at it?"
"I would not like to venture an opinion in this case without more
knowledge than I have at present," returned Colwyn in sober accents.
"But so far as I have gone into it I should say that there are several
things which seem to require more explanation. Nepcote's own actions
seem to call for some investigation."
"You are surely not suggesting that Nepcote had anything to do with the
murder or the robbery of the pearls?" said Merrington in an astonished
voice. "That is quite impossible. He left the moat-house in the
afternoon before the murder was committed, and went over to France that
night."
"He didn't go to France that night. He stayed in London, and did not
return to France until the following day."
Merrington was obviously startled at this unexpected information.
"This is news to me," he said gravely. "Where did you learn it?"
"From the War Office this morning. There is no possibility of mistake.
Nepcote was in London on the night of the murder."
"He probably has an explanation, but what you have just told me is an
additional reason for seeing and questioning Nepcote without delay, even
if I have to send a man to France for the job."
"It will not be necessary for you to do that. Nepcote returned to London
two days ago--sent over on some special mission. I ascertained that fact
also from my friend at the War Office."
Merrington glanced at a small clock which stood on the desk in front of
him.
"I will go immediately and see him myself," he said.
"I should like to accompany you."
"I shall be delighted to have you," replied Merrington with complete
untruth. "I have Nepcote's address included in the list of guests who
were at the moat-house at the time of the murder," he added, opening his
pocket-book and hastily scanning it. "Ah, here it is--10 Sherryman
Street. I'll send for a taxi-cab. Is there anything I can do for you in
return for your kindness in bringing me this information?"
"I should be obliged if you would lend me a copy of the coroner's
depositions in the Heredith case."
"With pleasure." Merrington touched a bell, and instructed the policeman
who answered it to bring a typescript of the Heredith murder depositions
and the revolver which figured as an exhibit in the case. "And tell
somebody to call a taxi, Johnson," he added.
When Merrington and Colwyn emerged from the swing doors of the entrance
a few moments later, a taxi-cab was waiting at the bottom of the stone
steps, with a pockmarked driver leaning against the door of the vehicle,
gazing moodily over the Thames Embankment. He received Merrington's
instructions morosely, cranked his cab wearily, and was soon threading
his way through the mazes of Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly Circus with
a contemptuous disregard for traffic regulations, due to his prompt
recognition of the fact that he was carrying a high official of Scotland
Yard who was above rules of the road regulated by mere police
constables. He skimmed in a hazardous way along Regent Street, dipped
into the network of narrower streets which lay between that haunt of the
fox and the geese and Baker Street, and finally stopped abruptly outside
a tall house which was one of a row in a quiet street which led into the
highly fashionable locality of Sherryman Square.
Sherryman Street, in which the taxi-cab had stopped, was an offshoot and
snobbish mean relation of Sherryman Square, which housed a duke, an
ex-prime minister, and a fugitive king, to say nothing of several lesser
notabilities, such as a High Court Judge or two, several baronets, and a
war-time profiteer whose brand-new peerage had descended in the last
heavy downpour of kingly honours. Because of their proximity to these
great ones of the earth, the inhabitants of Sherryman Street assumed all
the airs of exclusiveness which distinguished the residents of the
superior neighbourhood, and parasitical house agents spoke of it with
great respect because one end opened into the rarefied atmosphere of the
Square. It was true that the other end was close to a slum, and there
was a mews across the way, but these were small drawbacks compared to
the social advantages.
Sherryman Street was full of gaunt, narrow houses, with prim fronts and
narrow railed windows, let in segments, flats, and bachelor apartments.
Number 10 was as like its fellows as one drab soul resembles another.
Superintendent Merrington's ring at the doorbell brought forth an
elderly woman with an expressionless face surmounted by a frilled white
cap. She informed them in an expressionless voice that Captain Nepcote's
apartments were on the second floor. Having said this much, she
disappeared into a small lobby room off the entrance hall, leaving them
free to enter.
A knock at the entrance door of the second-floor flat brought forth a
manservant whose smart bearing and precision of manner suggested
military training. He cautiously informed Superintendent Merrington, in
reply to his question, that he was not sure if Captain Nepcote was at
home, but he would go and see.
"Who shall I say, sir?" he asked, in unconscious contradiction of his
statement.
Merrington stopped further parleying by impatiently pushing past the
servant into the room.
"Go and tell your master I want to see him," he said, seating himself.
The servant looked angrily at the burly figure on the slender chair, and
then, as though realizing his inability to eject him, he left the room
without further speech.
The room they had entered was furnished in a style which suggested that
its occupier had sufficient means or credit to gratify his tastes, which
obviously soared no higher than racehorses and chorus girls. Pictures of
the former adorned the wall in oak; the latter smirked at the beholder
from silver frames on small tables. The room was handsomely furnished in
a masculine way, although there was the suggestion of a feminine touch
in the vases on the mantelpiece and some clusters of flowers in a bowl.
The door opened to admit a young man, who advanced towards his visitors
with a questioning glance. His appearance, though military, was far from
suggesting the sordid warfare of the trenches. He was well-groomed and
handsome, and wore his spotless uniform with that touch of distinction