Since those hours of Mary’s love and her subsequent falseness, my life had been a queer series of ups and downs, as it must ever be in journalistic London. Many dreary days of changeful care had come and gone since then.
I sat silent, thinking, with her letter still open in my hand.
“Why are you so confoundedly glum, old man?” Dick asked. “What’s your screed about? Duns in the offing?”
“No. It’s nothing,” I answered evasively, smiling.
“Then don’t look so down in the mouth,” he urged. “Have a peg, and pull yourself together.” He had been in India, and consequently termed a whisky-and-soda a “peg.” The origin of that expression is a little abstruse, but is supposed to refer pointedly to the pegs in one’s coffin.
I thrust the letter into my pocket, helped myself to a drink, and lit a cigarette.
“It’s a really first-class sensation,” Dick said, again referring to the curious affair. “Pity I can’t publish something of it to-morrow. It’s a good thing chucked away.”
“Yes,” I replied. “But Patterson has some object in imposing secrecy on us.”
“Of course,” he answered thoughtfully.
There was a pause. We both smoked on. Not a sound penetrated there save the solemn ticking of the clock and the distant strains of a piano in some man’s rooms across the square.
“Do you know, Frank,” my companion said after some reflection, and looking at me with a rather curious expression – “do you know that I have some strange misgivings?”
“Misgivings!” I echoed. “Of what?”
“Well,” he said, “did anything strike you as strange in Patterson’s manner?”
“To tell the truth,” I answered, “something did. His attitude was unusual – quite unusual, to-night.”
“He’s a funny Johnnie. That story of the snake on the pavement – isn’t it rather too strange to be believed?”
“At first sight it appears extraordinary, but remember that in the laboratory upstairs we found other snakes. The occupier of the house evidently went in for the reptiles as pets.”
“I quite agree with you there,” he said. “But there are certain circumstances in the case which have aroused my suspicion, old chap. Of all the curious cases I’ve ever investigated while I’ve been on the Comet, this is the most astounding from every point of view, and I, for one, shan’t rest until we’ve fully solved the problem.”
“In that you’ll have my heartiest assistance,” I said. “All the time I can spare away from the office I’ll devote to helping you.”
“Good,” Dick exclaimed heartily, refilling his pipe. “Between us we ought to find out something, for you and I can get at the bottom of things as soon as most people.”
“The two strangest features of this case,” I pointed out, “are first the telephonic message, and secondly, the disappearance of the first woman we found.”
“And those cards!”
“And that penny wrapped so carefully in paper!” I added. “Yes, there are fully a dozen extraordinary features connected with the affair. The whole business is an absolute puzzle.”
“Tell me, old chap,” Dick said, after a pause, “what causes you to suspect Patterson?”
“I don’t suspect him,” I answered quickly. “No. I merely think that he has not told the exact truth of the first discovery of the crime, that’s all.”
“Exactly my own opinion,” responded Dick. “He’s concealing some very important fact from us – for what purpose we can’t yet tell. There’s more in this than we surmise. Of that I feel absolutely confident.”
“The snake story is a little too good,” I said, rather surprised that his suspicions should have been aroused, for I had not related to him my conversation with Patterson and his very lame excuse for not making a report of the discovery at the police-station. What had aroused Dick’s suspicions I was extremely puzzled to know. But he was a shrewd, clever fellow, whose greatest delight was the investigation of crime and the obtaining of those “revelations” which middle-class London so eagerly devours.
“A very happy invention of an ingenious mind, my dear fellow,” exclaimed the Mystery-monger. “Depend upon it, Patterson, being already aware that there were snakes in that house, invented the story, knowing that when the place was searched it would appear quite circumstantial.”
“Then you think that he’s not in absolute ignorance of who lived there?” I exclaimed, surprised at my friend’s startling theory.
Dick nodded.
“I shouldn’t be surprised if it be proved that he knew all along who the dead man is.”
“Why?”
“Well, I noticed that he never once looked at that man’s face. It was he who covered it with a handkerchief, as though the sight of the white countenance appalled him.”
“Come come,” I said, “proceed. You’ll say that he’s the guilty one next.”
“Ah! no, my dear fellow,” he hastened to reassure me. “You quite misunderstand my meaning. I hold the theory that in life these people were friends of Patterson’s, that’s all.”
“What makes you suspect such a thing?”
“Well, I watched our friend very closely this evening, and that’s the conclusion I’ve arrived at.”
“You really think that he is concealing facts which might throw light on the affair?” I exclaimed, much surprised.
“Yes,” he answered, “I feel certain of it – absolutely certain.”
Chapter Six
What I Saw in the Park
For a long time, sitting by the open window and looking out upon the starry night, we discussed the grim affair in all its details. The piano had stopped its tinkling, a dead silence had fallen upon the old-world square, one of the relics of bygone London, and the clock upon the hall had struck one o’clock with that solemnity which does not fail to impress even the most dissipated resident of Gray’s. As a bachelor abode Gray’s Inn is as comfortable and convenient a spot as there is in London, for there is always a quiet, restful air within; the grey, smoke-stained houses open on airy squares, and until a couple of years ago, quite a large colony of rooks made their home in the great old trees. It is an oasis of peace and repose in the very centre of that gigantic fevered city, where the whirl of daily life is unceasing, where in the east and south toiling millions struggle fiercely for their bread, while in the west is greater wealth and extravagance than in all the world besides.
“I think,” said Dick at last, after he had put forth one or two theories, “that if we manage to get to the bottom of this affair we shall discover some very startling facts.”
“That’s absolutely certain,” I answered. “The disappearance of the fair girl, and the substitution of the other, is in itself a fact absolutely unique in the annals of crime. Whoever effected