“I have come, madam,” he said, “to know what is the matter. To know why my name is written across your garden. Not amicably either.”
He spoke grimly, for the thing had hit him. It is impossible to describe the effect produced on the mind by that quiet and sunny garden scene, the frame for a stunning and brutal personality. The evening air was still, and the grass was golden in the place where the little flowers he studied cried to heaven for his blood.
“You know I must not turn round,” said the lady; “every afternoon till the stroke of six I must keep my face turned to the street.”
Some queer and unusual inspiration made the prosaic soldier resolute to accept these outrageous riddles without surprise.
“It is almost six,” he said; and even as he spoke the barbaric copper clock upon the wall clanged the first stroke of the hour. At the sixth the lady sprang up and turned on the Major one of the queerest and yet most attractive faces he had ever seen in his life; open, and yet tantalising, the face of an elf.
“That makes the third year I have waited,” she cried. “This is an anniversary. The waiting almost makes one wish the frightful thing would happen once and for all.”
And even as she spoke, a sudden rending cry broke the stillness. From low down on the pavement of the dim street (it was already twilight) a voice cried out with a raucous and merciless distinctness:
“Major Brown, Major Brown, where does the jackal dwell?”
Brown was decisive and silent in action. He strode to the front door and looked out. There was no sign of life in the blue gloaming of the street, where one or two lamps were beginning to light their lemon sparks. On returning, he found the lady in green trembling.
“It is the end,” she cried, with shaking lips; “it may be death for both of us. Whenever – ”
But even as she spoke her speech was cloven by another hoarse proclamation from the dark street, again horribly articulate.
“Major Brown, Major Brown, how did the jackal die?”
Brown dashed out of the door and down the steps, but again he was frustrated; there was no figure in sight, and the street was far too long and empty for the shouter to have run away. Even the rational Major was a little shaken as he returned in a certain time to the drawing-room. Scarcely had he done so than the terrific voice came:
“Major Brown, Major Brown, where did – ”
Brown was in the street almost at a bound, and he was in time – in time to see something which at first glance froze the blood. The cries appeared to come from a decapitated head resting on the pavement.
The next moment the pale Major understood. It was the head of a man thrust through the coal-hole in the street. The next moment, again, it had vanished, and Major Brown turned to the lady. “Where’s your coal-cellar?” he said, and stepped out into the passage.
She looked at him with wild grey eyes. “You will not go down,” she cried, “alone, into the dark hole, with that beast?”
“Is this the way?” replied Brown, and descended the kitchen stairs three at a time. He flung open the door of a black cavity and stepped in, feeling in his pocket for matches. As his right hand was thus occupied, a pair of great slimy hands came out of the darkness, hands clearly belonging to a man of gigantic stature, and seized him by the back of the head. They forced him down, down in the suffocating darkness, a brutal image of destiny. But the Major’s head, though upside down, was perfectly clear and intellectual. He gave quietly under the pressure until he had slid down almost to his hands and knees. Then finding the knees of the invisible monster within a foot of him, he simply put out one of his long, bony, and skilful hands, and gripping the leg by a muscle pulled it off the ground and laid the huge living man, with a crash, along the floor. He strove to rise, but Brown was on top like a cat. They rolled over and over. Big as the man was, he had evidently now no desire but to escape; he made sprawls hither and thither to get past the Major to the door, but that tenacious person had him hard by the coat collar and hung with the other hand to a beam. At length there came a strain in holding back this human bull, a strain under which Brown expected his hand to rend and part from the arm. But something else rent and parted; and the dim fat figure of the giant vanished out of the cellar, leaving the torn coat in the Major’s hand; the only fruit of his adventure and the only clue to the mystery. For when he went up and out at the front door, the lady, the rich hangings, and the whole equipment of the house had disappeared. It had only bare boards and whitewashed walls.
“The lady was in the conspiracy, of course,” said Rupert, nodding. Major Brown turned brick red. “I beg your pardon,” he said, “I think not.”
Rupert raised his eyebrows and looked at him for a moment, but said nothing. When next he spoke he asked:
“Was there anything in the pockets of the coat?”
“There was sevenpence halfpenny in coppers and a threepenny-bit,” said the Major carefully; “there was a cigarette-holder, a piece of string, and this letter,” and he laid it on the table. It ran as follows:
Dear Mr Plover,
I am annoyed to hear that some delay has occurred in the arrangements re Major Brown. Please see that he is attacked as per arrangement tomorrow The coal-cellar, of course.
Yours faithfully, P. G. Northover.
Rupert Grant was leaning forward listening with hawk-like eyes. He cut in:
“Is it dated from anywhere?”
“No – oh, yes!” replied Brown, glancing upon the paper; “14 Tanner’s Court, North – ”
Rupert sprang up and struck his hands together.
“Then why are we hanging here? Let’s get along. Basil, lend me your revolver.”
Basil was staring into the embers like a man in a trance; and it was some time before he answered:
“I don’t think you’ll need it.”
“Perhaps not,” said Rupert, getting into his fur coat. “One never knows. But going down a dark court to see criminals – ”
“Do you think they are criminals?” asked his brother.
Rupert laughed stoutly. “Giving orders to a subordinate to strangle a harmless stranger in a coal-cellar may strike you as a very blameless experiment, but – ”
“Do you think they wanted to strangle the Major?” asked Basil, in the same distant and monotonous voice.
“My dear fellow, you’ve been asleep. Look at the letter.”
“I am looking at the letter,” said the mad judge calmly; though, as a matter of fact, he was looking at the fire. “I don’t think it’s the sort of letter one criminal would write to another.”
“My dear boy, you are glorious,” cried Rupert, turning round, with laughter in his blue bright eyes. “Your methods amaze me. Why, there is the letter. It is written, and it does give orders for a crime. You might as well say that the Nelson Column was not at all the sort of thing that was likely to be set up in Trafalgar Square.”
Basil Grant shook all over with a sort of silent laughter, but did not otherwise move.
“That’s rather good,” he said; “but, of course, logic like that’s not what is really wanted. It’s a question of spiritual atmosphere. It’s not a criminal letter.”
“It is. It’s a matter of fact,” cried the other in an agony of reasonableness.
“Facts,” murmured Basil, like one mentioning some strange, far-off animals, “how facts obscure the truth. I may be silly – in fact, I’m off my head – but I never could believe in that man – what’s his name, in those capital stories? – Sherlock Holmes. Every detail points to something, certainly; but generally to the wrong thing. Facts point in all directions, it seems to me, like