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The Master Detective

P >> Percy James Brebner >> The Master Detective




He left me without waiting to be questioned. I was annoyed, and was
pretty certain that he had overlooked one important fact. Surely Lanning
must have realized how dangerous it was to give such a note to Quarles?
Knowing the story Winbush could tell, he would not have been deceived by
the statement that the letter was intended for Mademoiselle Duplaix. He
was far too clever for that. He and Winbush were no doubt working
together, and the man's story was no doubt part of an arranged scheme. It
seemed to me that the immediate recognition of the second scent was
suspicious. The man was probably prepared for the test.

I thought it likely that Quarles had met his match this time, and I did
not expect to see Richard Lanning at the station.

However, he was there with Mr. Nixon.

"Are they both in it?" I asked Quarles as we watched them.

"No, I don't think so," was his doubtful answer.

We were still watching them as they spoke to the guard, when I started
and called the professor's attention to a tall, military-looking man who
was hurrying along the platform.

"That is the young man at the Silesian Embassy," I said. "He is evidently
going back. Are we to see Mademoiselle Duplaix come along next?"

"We are only concerned with Lanning for the present," Quarles answered,
"and we have got to travel in the same carriage with him and Nixon. I
expect they have tipped the guard to get a carriage to themselves. You
must use your authority with him, Wigan, and show him that we are
Scotland Yard men. Suggest that he put us into the carriage at the last
moment with many apologies because there is no room elsewhere. In these
disguises they will not recognize us."

The two Englishmen and the Silesian did not approach each other, and
apparently were quite ignorant of the fact that they were traveling by
the same train. I made the necessary arrangements with the guard, and
just as the train was starting we were bundled into the carriage, Quarles
blowing and puffing in a most natural manner.

"Sorry," he panted, speaking in broken English; "it is a train quite
full, and I say to the man I must go. He put us in here. I am grieved to
disturb you."

Nixon said it didn't matter, but Lanning looked annoyed.

Quarles talked to me chiefly about a wife he was returning to at Bohn. He
became almost maudlin in his sentiment, and at intervals he raised his
voice sufficiently to allow our traveling companions to overhear the
conversation.

Presently Quarles leaned towards me in a confidential manner, and said in
a whisper which was intentionally loud enough for the others to hear:

"From Bohn I go to Silesia to see the new flying machine."

"What flying machine?" I asked.

"Ah, it was a secret what Silesia have got hold of. It was wonderful. I
myself tell you so, and I know. I--"

"What do you know about it?"

Lanning was leaning from his corner looking at Quarles.

"Steady," said the professor. "If your hand does not from your pocket
come in one blink of an eye you are a dead man. This is a big matter."

Quarles had covered him with a revolver, and following his lead I
covered Nixon.

For a moment it was a tableau, not a sound nor a movement in the
carriage.

"As you say, it is a big matter," said Lanning, taking his hand from
his pocket.

He was for diplomacy rather than force, or perhaps he was a coward at
heart. Nixon showed more courage and was quicker in his movements. His
revolver was halfway out before I had slid along the seat and had my
weapon at his head.

"It is of no use," said Quarles. "It is not by accident we are here. We
know, no matter how, but we know for certain that the plans of a
wonderful aeroplane which cannot come to harm, and a model of it, are
traveling by this train to-night. We came here to take them. We are sorry
to disturb you, but it is necessary."

Lanning laughed.

"Would it astonish you to hear we are after the very same things?"

"It would, because I tell you they are in this carriage."

"Where?" asked Lanning, still laughing.

"There, in that big portmanteau." And Quarles pointed to one on the rack
above Nixon's head.

I was only just in time to bring my weapon down on Nixon's wrist as he
whipped out his revolver.

"Hold him, Wigan; he is dangerous," said Quarles, speaking in his natural
voice. "We will have a look in that portmanteau, Mr. Lanning."

The plans and the model in its wooden case were there. Lanning was too
dumbfounded to ask questions, and Nixon offered no explanation just then.
I had wrested the revolver from him, and he sat there in silence.

"It was very cleverly thought out, Mr. Nixon," said Quarles. "You see,
Mr. Lanning, your friend, having stolen these things, intended to allow
time to elapse before attempting to get them out of the country, but his
hand was forced when Mademoiselle Duplaix telephoned to you. The
foreigner who called upon her for the plans puzzled him. There was
something in the plot he did not understand. Two things were clear to
him, however; first, that he must act without delay, and secondly, that
mademoiselle's visitor would implicate her and cause us to make minute
inquiries in her direction--that a false trail was laid, in fact. So,
aware that he would find difficulty at the ports, he carefully suggested
to your mind that a journey to Silesia would be a useful move. Your
mission would be known at the ports, and you and your friend would pass
through without special examination."

"That is so," said Lanning.

"And you would have been cleverly fooled," said Quarles, "As for
Mademoiselle Duplaix, I confess I should have watched her keenly had I
not been the mysterious foreigner."

"But my note to her?" said Lanning.

"Was exceedingly useful, but I used it to get the truth out of Winbush,"
and Quarles told the man-servant's story in detail. "Winbush, you see,
was in a dazed condition, and was deceived. In the dark Nixon pretended
to be you. I suppose it was a sudden inspiration when he found himself
disturbed, and his instructions to Winbush stopped your servant from
questioning you. Had he done so a suspicion concerning your friend might
have been aroused in your mind. Winbush, however, went a little beyond
his instructions, and said he thought a woman was present, because of a
perfume he noticed when he first entered the room. That particular
perfume is used by Mademoiselle Duplaix, and I should hazard a guess that
Mr. Nixon had stolen her handkerchief that evening, not a criminal
offense, but a matter of flirtation."

"But he was at Lady Chilcot's, and left there with me," said Lanning.

"If he has kept his program. I expect you will find some consecutive
places in it blank. Until this afternoon, Mr. Lanning, I confess that I
was uncertain whether you had been your own burglar or not, for it was
evident to me that your man knew something. I was convinced you were
innocent when you wrote that note for me, I rather wonder Mr. Nixon did
not realize the danger, but I suppose he felt confident that
Mademoiselle's visitor had entirely put me on the wrong trail. I do not
think Mademoiselle Duplaix is in any way a party to the theft, but I
think it is up to Mr. Nixon to make this quite clear."

It is only doing Perry Nixon justice to say that he did clear up this
point, but not by word of mouth.

At Harwich he ingeniously gave us the slip, but in a letter to Lanning,
received from Paris a week later, he said that he alone was responsible
for the theft, and that neither Mademoiselle Duplaix nor any one else had
any hand in it, nor any knowledge of it.

From some remarks Lanning had let fall he concluded that some important
development had occurred in the stabilizing of flying machines--a matter
his employers were interested in--and he had watched his friend's
movements. He guessed that secret experiments had been tried that day
when he saw Lanning take the wooden case to his flat, and during the
evening he had slipped away from Lady Chilcot's dance, returning when he
had deposited the model and the plans in a safe place.

He did not say where this safe place was, and since he had persistently
suggested that either France or Germany had pulled the strings of the
robbery, he was probably working for neither of these countries.

Shortly afterwards Richard Lanning's engagement to Miss Chilcot was
announced, and I imagine he is still working to perfect a stabilizer,
for, although the model appears to have done all that was required of it,
the actual machine proved defective, I understand.




CHAPTER VIII

THE AFFAIR OF THE CONTESSA'S PEARLS


I think it was when talking about the stolen model that Quarles made the
paradoxical statement that facts are not always the best evidence. I
argued the point, and remained entirely of an opposite opinion until I
had to investigate the case of a pair of pearl earrings, and then I was
driven into thinking there was something in Quarles's statement. It was
altogether a curious a if air, and showed the professor in a new light
which caused Zena and myself some trouble.

The Contessa di Castalani occupied rooms at one of the big West End
hotels, a self-contained suite, consisting of a sitting-room, two
bedrooms, and vestibule. She had her child with her, a little girl of
about three years old, and a French maid named Angélique.

Returning to the hotel one afternoon unexpectedly, she met, but took no
particular notice of, two men in the corridor which led to her suite.
Hotel servants she supposed them to be, and, as she entered the little
vestibule Angélique came from the contessa's bedroom. There was no reason
why she should not go in there; in fact, she carried a reason in her
hand. She had been to get a clean frock for the child. The one she had
worn on the previous day was too soiled to put on.

That evening the contessa wished to wear a special pair of pearl
earrings, but when she went to get the little leather case which
contained the pearls, it was missing.

Although her boxes and drawers were not much disarranged, it was quite
evident to her that they had been searched, but nothing else had been
taken apparently.

It did not occur to her to suspect the maid, partly, no doubt, because
she remembered the men in the corridor, and she immediately sent for
the manager.

The police were called in. The men in the corridor could not be accounted
for, but a search resulted in the finding of the leather case under the
bed. The earrings had gone.

Naturally police suspicion fell on the French maid, but the contessa
absolutely refused such an explanation. Angélique, who was passionately
fond of her and of the child, would not do such a thing.

The case looked simple enough, but it proved to be one in which facts did
not constitute the best evidence. Indeed, they proved somewhat
misleading.

Beautiful, romantic, eccentric, superstitious, and most unfortunate
according to her own account, the Contessa di Castalani was the sensation
of a whole London season.

As a dancer of a bizarre kind, she had set Paris nodding to the rhythm of
her movements and raving about the beauty of her eyes and hair. Her
reputation had preceded her to London, and when she appeared at the
Regency it was universally admitted that she far surpassed everything
that had been said about her.

The press had duly informed the public that Castalani was one of the
oldest and most honored names in Italy. There had been a Castalani in the
Medici time, a close friend of the magnificent Lorenzo, it was asserted.
One paper declared that a Castalani had worn the triple tiara, which a
learned don of Oxford took the trouble to write and deny. And it would
appear that no one who had ever borne the name had been altogether
unimportant.

How the family, resident in Pisa, liked this publicity, I do not know.
They made no movement to repudiate this daughter of their house, and I
have no reason whatever to doubt that the lady had a perfect right to her
title. I never heard any scandalous tale about her which even seemed
true, and if she and her husband were happier going each their own way,
it was their affair.

So much mystery was woven round her during her appearances in the
European capitals, that I do not guarantee the correctness of my
statements when I say she was of humble origin, a Russian gipsy, I have
heard, seen in a Hungarian village by young Castalani, who immediately
fell in love with her and married her.

Although in the course of this investigation I saw her many times and she
talked a great deal about herself, she was always vague when she was
dealing with facts.

I am only concerned with her appearance in London. She attracted
overflowing houses to the Regency. A real live countess performing
bizarre and daring dances was undoubtedly the attraction to some, the
woman's splendid beauty charmed others, while a third section could talk
of nothing but her wonderful jewelry.

At least two foolish young peers were said to be in love with her, and
there were tales of a well-known Cabinet Minister constantly occupying a
stall at the Regency when he ought to have been in his seat in the House.

Had I not taken Christopher Quarles and Zena to the Regency one evening I
should probably never have known anything further of the contessa, but it
so happened that the professor was very much attracted by her.

He went to the Regency three times in one week to study the inward
significance of her dances, he declared. He treated me to a learned
discourse concerning them, and was furious when one journal, slightly
puritanical in tone, perhaps, said that they were generally unedifying,
and in one case, at any rate, immodest.

Zena and I began by laughing at the professor, but he did not like it. He
was quite serious in his admiration, and declared that nothing would
afford him greater pleasure than an introduction to the dancer.

To his delight he got what he wanted, and incidentally solved one of the
most curious cases we have ever been engaged in together.

In the ordinary way the case would never have come into my hands. It was
at Quarles's instigation that I asked to be employed upon it, and since
small and insignificant affairs are sometimes ramifications of big
mysteries, no surprise was caused by my request.

I have not the slightest hesitation in saying that it was the
introduction to the woman which interested Quarles rather than her
pearls. Indeed, he appeared to think of nothing else beyond making
himself agreeable.

It seemed to me she was just as interested in him, talked about herself
in a naive kind of way, and was delighted when her little girl, Nella,
took a tremendous fancy to the professor, demanding to be taken on his
knee and to have his undivided attention.

Christopher Quarles, in fact, presented quite an unfamiliar side of his
character to me, and I do not think he would have bothered about the
pearls at all but for the fact that the contessa was superstitious
about them.

"They were given to me by a Hungarian count," she said in her pretty
broken English; "just two pearls. I had them made into earrings. It was
the best way I could wear them. They are perfect, and they have a
history. They were a thank-offering to some idol in Burmah, but were
afterwards sold or stolen--I do not know which. It does not matter; it
was a very long time ago; but what does matter is that they bring good
luck. I shall be nothing without them, do you see?"

"That I will not believe! You will always be--"

"Beautiful," she said before Quarles could complete the sentence. "Ah,
yes, I know that. I have been told that when I cease to be beautiful I
shall cease to live. A gipsy in Budapest told me so. But what is beauty
if you have no luck?"

"When were they given to you?" Quarles asked.

"A year after I married. Listen, I will tell you a secret. It was the
beginning of the little difference with my husband. He was jealous."

"It was natural."

"No, it was not," she answered. "My Hungarian friend, he loved me of
course. That is the natural part. I was born like that. Some women are.
It is not their fault. It just is so, and yet people think evil and say,
shocking! It is in their own mind--the evil--and nowhere else, and I say
'basta,' and go my way, caring not at all. Why, every night in my
dressing room at the Regency there is a pile of letters--like that, and
flowers. The room is full of them--all from people who love me--and I do
not know one of them. I like it, but it makes no difference to me. I told
my husband that it was nothing, but no, he went on being jealous. He was
very foolish, but I think some day he will grow sensible. Then I shall
very likely say it is too late. The world has said it loves me, and that
is better than one Castalani. You do not know the Castalanis?"

"No."

"Ah, they are what you call thoughtful for themselves, very high, and
very few people are quite as good, so we had little quarrels, and then a
big one, because he said he would throw my pearls into the Arno. I hid
them, and he could not find them. If he had found them and thrown them
away I would have killed him."

Quarles nodded, as if such a tragedy would have been the most natural
thing possible.

"His mother made it worse," the contessa went on, "so we have one fierce
quarrel and I speak my mind. I say a great deal when I speak my mind, and
I am not nice then. I went away with my little girl. It was very
unfortunate, but what could I do? I love dancing, so I go on the stage,
and--and I have lost my pearls. See, there is the case, but it is empty."

Quarles looked at it, but I was sure he was not thinking of what he was
doing, and he did not even ask the most obvious questions.

I did that, and received scant answers. She was not a bit
interested in me.

"My pearls," she went on, "I want my pearls. There are some women
pearls love. I am one. When I wear them a little while they are alive.
The colors in them glow and palpitate. They are never dull then. I do
not wear them always, only on certain days--on feasts, and when I am
very happy."

"We must find them," said Quarles.

"Of course. That is why I come to know you, isn't it?"

The professor was full of her as we left the hotel.

"A most charming woman," he said.

"I doubt if you will find her so when you fail to restore her pearls."

"I shall restore them," he said, with that splendid confidence which
sometimes characterized him, but, having no faith in his judgment on this
occasion, I went my own way. I searched the maid's boxes and found that
she had purloined many of the contessa's things--garments which had
hardly been worn, silk scarves, laces--in fact, anything which took her
fancy, and which her mistress would not be likely to miss. Of the two men
in the corridor I could find no trace. The manager said there were no
workmen about the hotel at that time, and the only description I could
get from the contessa was so vague that it would have fitted anybody from
the Prime Minister to the old bootlace-seller at the end of the street.
One of the hotel servants was confident that he had seen the French maid
speak to a man in the street outside the hotel on more than one occasion,
but he was not inclined to swear to anything. However, the French maid
was finally arrested on suspicion.

I knew that Quarles had been to see the contessa once or twice by
himself, and when I went to the Brunswick Hotel on the day after
Angélique's arrest, I found him there.

"Ah, you have taken an innocent woman," the contessa exclaimed.

"I think not."

"What you think does not matter at all, it is what I know. I asked her,
and she said she had not taken the pearls. Voila! She would not tell me
anything that was not true."

"But, contessa--"

"I say there is no evidence against her. You just find two or three of
my stupid things in her room, but that is nothing. French maids always
take things like that--one expects it. But I am not angry. You think what
is quite--quite silly, but you do something which is quite right." And
then, turning to the professor, she went on, "But you--you do nothing at
all. You come to tea. You come and look at me, and think me very
beautiful, which is quite nice and very well, but it does not give me
back my pearls."

"It will," said Quarles.

"I have no opinion. I only know I have not the pearls. I gave you the
empty case. I want it back with the earrings in it. I have heard that
Monsieur Quarles is very clever--that he finds out everything, but--"

"It takes time, contessa," he said, rising. "There is one thing I want to
see before I go."

"What is that?" she asked.

"The dress the maid was wearing that afternoon, and if she wore an apron
I want to see that too."

The contessa fetched them, and for some minutes Quarles examined
them closely.

I did not think he had started a theory. I thought the contessa's words
had merely stung him into doing something. He had probably come to the
conclusion that he had been making rather a fool of himself.

However, he was theoretical enough that night in the empty room at
Chelsea.

"I think the arrest was a mistake, Wigan," he began.

"Surely you are not influenced by the contessa's opinion?"

"Well, she probably knows more about French maids than you do. I am
inclined to trust a woman's intuition sometimes. The contessa is
delightfully vague. It is part of her great charm, and it is in
everything she does and says. She tells you something, but her real
meaning you can only guess at. She dances, but the steps she ought to do
and doesn't are the ones which really contain the meaning."

"Can she possibly be more vague, dear, than you are at the present
moment?" laughed Zena.

"I think this is a case in which one must try to get into the contessa's
atmosphere before any result is possible. You will agree, Wigan, that her
point of view is peculiar."

"I should call it idiotic," I answered.

"Your opinion is all cut and dried, I presume?"

"Absolutely," I answered. "I believe the maid took the jewels and handed
them to her confederates who were waiting in the corridor."

"It is possible," said Quarles, "but it seems curious that the contessa
should return just in time to see, not only the men in the corridor, but
also the maid leaving her room. Have you considered why only the earrings
were stolen?"

"There was nothing else to steal," I answered.

"Why, everybody has talked of her jewels!" Zena exclaimed.

"All sham."

"Who told you so?" asked Quarles.

"The maid."

"She didn't suggest the pearls were sham?"

"No."

"That was thoughtless of her, since suspicion rests upon her. I am not
much surprised to hear that the much-talked-of jewelry is sham. There is
a vein of wisdom in the contessa, and we shall probably find she has put
her jewelry into safe keeping, and wears paste because it has just as
good an effect across the footlights. I should judge her wise enough not
to take risks, and to have an eye for the future. It was only her
superstition, and the fact that she wore the earrings fairly constantly,
which prevented her depositing them in a safe place too. Zena asked me
yesterday whether I should consider her a careless person. What do you
think, Wigan?"

"It occurred to me that she might have put the case away when it was
empty and carelessly put the pearls somewhere else," said Zena.

"Such, a vague kind of person is capable of anything," I returned. "But
there is no doubt that a search in her room was made, and it is
significant that things were not tossed about anyhow, as one would expect
had a stranger made that search."

"True," said Quarles, "but if the maid took them there would have been no
disarrangement at all. She would have known where to look. If she had
wanted to suggest ordinary thieves she would have thrown things into
disorder on purpose."

"Naturally she did not know exactly where to look," I said.

"Why not? The contessa evidently trusts her implicitly. In any case, I
fancy we are drawn back to the supposition that the contessa is careless.
When Zena asked the question, I was reminded of one or two
inconsistencies in her surroundings. I should not call her orderly. Her
carelessness must form part of my theory."

"I am surprised to hear you have formed one," I said.

"I have found the woman far more interesting than the pearls," he
admitted, "but I am pledged to return the earrings, Wigan. You will find
her smile of delight an excellent reward."

I shrugged my shoulders a little irritably.

"Now I will propose three propositions against yours. First, the jewels
belonged to an idol, and were either sold or stolen--the contessa does
not know which. Such things are not usually sold, so we may assume they
were stolen. Their disappearance from the hotel may mean that they have
merely been recovered. The idea is romantic, but such happenings do
occur. Your French maid may have been pressed into the plot either
through fear or by bribery."

"My facts would fit that theory," I said.

"Secondly, the husband may be concerned," Quarles went on. "There may be
real love underlying his jealousy, he may think that if he can obtain
possession of the pearls his wife will return to him. Again, your French
maid may have been employed to this end."

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