The Whispering Lane/Chapter 18
CHAPTER XVIII
AN AMAZING ADMISSION
Early the next morning Inspector Trant, accompanied by Hustings and the boy, travelled back to Wessbury with his prisoner. Camp also attached himself to the party, commissioned by the Scotland Yard authorities to aid the Tarhaven official in solving the riddle of Slanton’s death. It still remained one, notwithstanding the capture and unmasking of Rackham. The man, sullen and silent, doggedly refused to explain either his own doings, or those of Mrs. Jerr. He was as dumb as the Sphinx and as tantalizing.
This being the case, it was necessary to confront him with his master, who obviously knew more about the mysterious old lady than he had hitherto admitted. Seeing that Rackham had turned out to be none other than the pseudo Wu Ti, it was certain that, unless More chose to risk instant arrest, he would be forced to recant his denial of Mrs. Jerr as being other than a mere business acquaintance. The stubborn fact that he had permitted his servant to act as her servant suggested an intimate friendship, possibly a conspiracy. Also, Rackham had disguised himself as a Chinaman: a masquerade of which More could scarcely plead ignorance.
Altogether Trant was half-glad, half-sad, when considering the result of the night’s doings. Glad, as it would seem that a clue to the truth of the Fryfeld murder had been found; sad, since that clue somehow involved his benefactor in the dreadful business. The Inspector had never forgotten More’s ready help in the hour of need, and dearly wished to repay him for his generous assistance. Here was his opportunity, but one difficult to seize. Left to himself, he could have, and would have, strained a point to protect the old man to whom he owed so much. But, as things were, the case was not now wholly in his hands. Camp, representing central authority, would assuredly not permit the hushing up of a felony upon sentimental grounds; so it was extremely probable that More would have to face the worst.
And that worst was surely coming to him, as the discovery in Old Wung’s den strongly suggested. The death of Slanton in Fryfeld—the ghostly happenings in Wessbury—the picking up of the scarf-pin in the second village, thus connecting it with the first, and the identity of Rackham with Wu Ti, which linked More and Mrs. Jerr indissolubly: these proven facts could scarcely be whiffed away as mere coincidences. The kindly nature of the man revolted against the stern demand of duty, which was compelling him to deal officially with his twenty-years-back patron.
“The pity of it! The pity of it!” he groaned, pinching his chin, worryingly, and shaking his head.
“Halloo! What’s up?” inquired Dick, overhearing these sounds of woe.
The Inspector did not answer immediately, and indeed shrank from giving one, unwilling to lay bare his troubled mind. Along with Jimmy and the lawyer he occupied a reserved compartment in a first-class carriage, while Camp and an underling guarded the prisoner in the one adjoining. He could thus speak freely, and finally did so, remembering that Hustings was engaged to marry the suspected man’s daughter. “I am hoping against hope that More will clear himself. He was good to me, so I desire to be good to him. But I don’t see—I can’t see how” he stopped abruptly, again shaking his head.
“Nor do I!” replied Dick, catching the idea. “More is up to the neck in it, and will have no easy task to explain his doings. I think he is insane, myself.”
“Why?” Trant looked up with a gleam of hope.
“Because a sane man usually has a motive for his actions, even the maddest. But More—what motive could he possibly have to kill Slanton? I ask you?”
“He did not do that. Slanton was killed at Fryfeld.”
“True. But More, indirectly, brought about the man’s death.”
“No! No! Mrs. Jerr, if you like.”
“Or Rackham, who disguised himself to serve Mrs. Jerr. In either case, More is implicated, and deeply. He must be at the bottom of the trouble.”
“Might be!” Trant flicked an irritable thumb against his teeth. “The motive! H’m! What about Rackham’s belief that Slanton’s neglect brought about the death of his young master? You reported to me that he hinted as much. This being so, Rackham”
“More, also,” broke in the lawyer, rapidly, “he loved his son beyond anything on earth, and therefore would be willing to join Rackham in any scheme of revenge. But would the two go so far as to kill the man?”
“They didn’t kill him,” denied the Inspector again, “so far as we know.”
“Precisely! So far as we know, and there you have the crux of the matter. Also, admitting any motive for revenge on the part of these men—say the one you suggest—what has Mrs. Jerr to do with the affair?” Dick, warming to his subject, spoke volubly. “Then there is Miss Danby to be considered. Why should the body of her enemy be found in her grounds to implicate a woman, for whom these men had no ill-feeling? Indeed, Rackham asserted that Miss Danby did her best to nurse young More back to health. If your theory of revenge is a feasible one, Miss Danby must be included as a victim as well as Slanton. No, Trant. It is Mrs. Jerr!”
“H’m! You said a short time ago that More was at the bottom of the trouble.”
“I repeat it and along with Rackham and that infernal old woman. But it is impossible, at present, to make head or tail of the business. I am floundering in a quagmire, Trant—so are you.” Dick clutched his head despairingly. “Oh, Mrs. Jerr! Mrs. Jerr! Who the devil is Mrs. Jerr?” he chanted, rhythmically.
Equally perplexed, the officer pinched his chin, and his eyes wandered absently to Jimmy, curled up comfortably in the corner of the compartment, like a bright eyed fox. The boy’s arm was in a sling, and, along with some blood he had lost much of his vivid colouring. But his looks were eager as he listened intently to the conversation, evidently biding his time to intervene. Trant all at once remembered that Jimmy had promised to tell his secrets when Wu Ti was arrested, and reminded him of the fact. “Go on, youngster. Who is Mrs. Jerr?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
The officer frowned, “More evasion—more fencing?” he inquired, tartly.
“No, sir,” Jimmy sat up alertly and spoke frankly, “I know much, but not all. It is this way, gentlemen. When Mr. Chane occupied the bungalow, I saw a lot of him as he was hail-fellow-well-met with most of us, but I saw next to nothing of Rackham, his servant, who kept very much to himself and rarely came into the village.”
Trant nodded to Dick, “Webb said much the same thing, if you remember.”
“Oh, everyone thought Rackham something of a mystery because he stayed away from the village,” went on Jimmy, easily, “worked in the garden mostly, and always dodged out of people’s way, I only got near him once myself, and noticed the scar on his cheek. It was growing dark at the moment and I couldn’t see his face very clearly; but I noticed the scar and fixed it in my mind, as a mark whereby I should know him again.”
“Why should you want to know him again?” asked Dick, bluntly.
“Because I was suspicious about his keeping himself to himself, sir.”
“That wasn’t any of your business, youngster.”
“No, sir,” Jimmy turned to answer the Inspector, “it was my imagination—my curiosity—my desire to find out what people are thinking and doing and saying. Rackham puzzled me, so I watched Rackham,” ended the lad, frankly.
“No wonder Mrs. Jerr called you a meddlesome brat,” said Hustings, laughing.
“Oh, she didn’t think me one when she engaged me to weed her garden. And Rackham, as Wu Ti, never suspected that I had my eye on him, so he didn’t warn the old dame. Anyhow, when Mrs. Jerr rented the bungalow, I was employed to look after the garden, run errands into the village and clean the motor-cycle. A jack-of-all trades, gentlemen, and master of none.”
“Don’t be too humble,” advised Trant, dryly, “you were a master-spy, anyhow.”
“Oh, I didn’t suspect anything then,” admitted Jimmy, wincing a trifle at the epithet which no intelligence-officer admires. “At that time, I only thought of Mrs. Jerr as a kindly old lady, and Wu Ti as a genuine Heathen Chinee, devoted to the Manchu Dynasty.”
“Why that last?”
“Because he wore a pig-tail, which is the sign of servitude to the Tartar Emperors of Pekin. Most Chinamen grow their hair like us Westerners now, so I fancied that Wu Ti clung to the Old Regime, like—like Old Wung.”
“You must have been reading Wells’s Outline of History,” was the tribute Dick paid to Jimmy’s display of learning, “get on with it.”
“Yes, sir. One evening I went back to the bungalow, lateish, to get my cap, which I had left behind after finishing my work. And—you know, Mr. Hustings, how Mrs. Jerr lighted up that sitting-room so brightly?”
“The seven lamps, not mentioned by Ruskin. Yes.”
“Well, the place was blazing with lights as usual, and they were flaring through the pulled-down blinds. Although it was a sultry evening the doors were closed also, so I stole up to a near window to find out, if possible, why the two had shut themselves up so tightly.”
“You are a human sleuth, Jimmy,” commented the Inspector, admiringly.
The lad smiled at the compliment. “The blind of this window wasn’t pulled wholly to the bottom, so, by stooping, I could just get a glimpse of the room. As usual, Mrs. Jerr was knitting in her deep arm-chair, and Wu Ti was standing beside her talking and gesticulating violently. Then I got a shock, and must have made some noise, for Wu Ti turned his face towards the window. That was enough for me. I bolted, and he never saw me.”
“What about the shock?”
“Wu Ti hadn’t his pig-tail on; nor his face—I mean his Mongolian face. He was Rackham. I saw the scar plainly when he looked towards the window. In one hand he was swinging the skull-cap with the pig-tail attached to the back, and the false face to the front, while he gesticulated with the other. So now you know, gentlemen, how I managed to pull the whole thing off with one sharp tug. It was a mask.”
“And a clever one,” struck in the Inspector, nodding emphatically. “That gold-beater’s skin, with a trifle of oil rubbed over it and a touch or two of paint, when clinging to the face would deceive anyone. But I doubt if it deceived Wung,” he added, with an after-thought, “or Slanton.”
“I had not heard that name when I spotted Rackham’s disguise,” said Jimmy, yawning, for he was still languid from loss of blood. “What bothered me was why he should pass as a Chinaman to serve Mrs. Jerr, when he was Mr. Chane’s servant. From that moment I began to suspect her respectability: wondering if she might not have something to do with the Voice in the Whispering Lane.”
“Why did you connect her with that?”
“Well, sir, the Voice was heard for the first time shortly after Mrs. Jerr rented the bungalow. Also on several occasions I caught sight of Wu Ti in the lane, after dark. He was on the prowl while you were calling on the old lady if you remember, Mr. Hustings. Finally, although everyone else was scared, he wasn’t, she wasn’t. So I made sure that it was a trick. I don’t know how it was managed,” mourned the boy, disconsolately, “in spite of my searching everywhere. Yes! In the trees, up the banks, along the banks, even in the mud.”
“The Voice has ceased since Chane arrived,” suggested Dick, using the name most familiar to the lad. “That is another hint, indicating Mrs. Jerr as being responsible for the business. But her reason?”
“Now we come to theories,” Jimmy shrugged his shoulders; “mine is, that Slanton being a Spiritualist, the trick was put about to lure him to Wessbury. Consider, gentlemen! Of all the many ghost-hunters who came, he was the only one who never went away. When you mentioned his name, Mr. Hustings, and, from Miss More’s description, recognized the scarf-pin, I immediately connected Mrs. Jerr with the matter. And for that reason I did not say anything about Rackham being Wu Ti, until now. I wished to make my two and two a very positive four.”
“If you had told me this when Mr. Hustings brought you to my office”
“I should have queered my pitch, Inspector,” interrupted Jimmy, bluntly, “my idea was to present you with a complete irrefragable case, before explaining upon what grounds I built my suspicions. Only by working on my own could I get my chance of being taken up by you, sir.”
“Well, you’ve managed that all right, youngster. But the case”
“Is wholly in your hands now, sir. I step out, having no more evidence.”
“Still your idea—?”
“My imagination, Inspector. Well, sir, it suggests that Mrs. Jerr and Rackham got hold of Slanton by using the Whispering Lane trick, drugged him, tattooed him, and then carted him in the side-car of the motor cycle to Fryfeld. If Miss Danby didn’t strangle him, then Rackham, who brought him to the wood, climbed the wall when she was frightened away, and finished Slanton off.”
“If so, why didn’t he finish him off in Wessbury?”
“In that case, Miss Danby wouldn’t have been implicated, and undoubtedly it was intended that she should be brought into the matter. But, Lord, Lord, what’s the use of building castles on sandy foundations,” wailed Jimmy sadly, “it’s all guess-work.”
“You may guess truly, laddie. What you suggest is feasible in the face of Rackham’s openly expressed hatred of Slanton.”
“All theory—potshots—gropings in the darkness,” shrugged the boy, whose master-mind was as insistent as that of Socrates, upon the need of absolutely truthful knowledge. “What about Mrs. Jerr? Did she know and hate Slanton? Then there is Mr. Chane—I mean Mr. More—did he”
Dick intervened sharply, “How do you know that Mr. Chane is Mr. More?”
“The Inspector mentioned it at the inn last night, sir.”
“So I did,” grunted Trant, ruefully, “for a little pitcher you have uncommonly long ears, youngster.”
“My ears and eyes and wits are my fortune, sir,” said the boy with his usual polite impudence, as the train slowed down into Chelmsford.
On the platform and in the bus there was nothing particular about the party to attract unusual attention. Prior to leaving London, Rackham had been transformed from an easterner to a westerner: Camp and his assistant were in plain clothes, while Trant still wore his borrowed suit. When they arrived in Wessbury passers-by did certainly glance at them curiously, but as they did not put their curiosity into words, or action, the five men walked quietly through the village and down the sunken lane. Five—because Dick lingered behind to see that Aileen did not follow. Assured within himself that there would be an unpleasant scene, he objected to the girl’s presence, lest she should witness the arrest of her father. Unable to guess what defence More would make, Hustings felt certain that Trant would be forced into such drastic action, and he wished to spare the poor child the pain of witnessing the degradation.
“Miss More, sir,” said the landlady, who came immediately to meet him. “Oh, she has gone to Tarhaven. Went this morning early.”
“Why?” Dick was taken aback by this intelligence.
“There’s a letter to explain, Mr. Hustings,” Mrs. Webb produced the missive and gave it into his hands. “I think a friend of hers is ill—dying.”
Paying no attention to this prattle, Dick stepped out of the inn and read the letter while following Trant and his party to the bungalow. Aileen wrote that she was leaving immediately for Tarhaven, having received a telegram, containing panic information regarding Edith’s hopeless condition. “I must be by my darling’s bed-side to hold her dear hand as she passes away,” went on the hurried writing. “The shame of this false accusation has killed her. Oh, Dick, if you love me, do, do, do find out who murdered that Beast, so that my poor Edith can die in peace. And follow—follow quickly. She may live until you arrive. I am so distracted that I can scarcely hold the pen. My gentle, loving Edith. Oh come, come—come at once!” and the woeful epistle concluded with a hastily scrawled signature, betraying only too truly the tempestuous emotions of the writer.
Dick felt relieved that the girl should thus have been removed from uncomfortable surroundings but regretted the cause. Yet it was idle to grieve. Whether Miss Danby was innocent or guilty, she could not live. The malignant cancer, accelerated by worried brooding, would surely kill her: the sooner the better, so that the poor creature might be released from appalling pain. Dear as she was to Aileen, the girl would scarcely wish her to linger on in agony. Things were better as they were. Death promised more happiness than life.
But the wretched woman would certainly die easier if assured that her name was cleared. Dick, walking down the lane, fervently hoped that the truth might indicate the so-called culprit as the inoffensive victim of circumstances. The examination of More might result in such an admission. But would the man risk making that inculpating acknowledgment, if it endangered his own safety? And if he did chance the revelation, would Aileen welcome Edith’s salvation at the cost of her father’s condemnation? In either case the girl was bound to suffer. It was with a sore heart that Hustings entered the bungalow. Far from being bettered by recent discoveries, things were new worse than ever.
In that well-remembered room, wherein Mrs. Jerr had sat and knitted amidst the brilliance of many lights, Dick found More standing at bay, although, outwardly, there was no sign that he considered his position so final. The light-haired, light-complexioned little fellow, neatly dressed as usual, stood smilingly on the hearth-rug, facing his ordeal with dauntless composure. Rackham, backed against the front window, stood, still grimly silent, between Camp and the other detective; while Inspector Trant occupied a chair, near the one in which Jimmy was ensconced. The stage was thus set for the concluding scene of Destiny’s tragedy, and Destiny’s puppets were interpreting her climax. More broke off a flippant speech when the new-comer appeared. “Ha, Mr. Hustings, you are just in time to hear a most exciting story.”
“I know it,” said Dick, coldly stern and seating himself at Trant’s elbow.
“And believe it apparently, going by your demeanour.”
“Yes!”
“What!” More waved his hands with airy contempt. “Rackham’s masquerade—the opium den—the girl fighting for her burglar lover, and the exciting chase over the house-tops? A shilling shocker of the best. Ha! Ha!”
“You have left out the most interesting detail,” observed the Inspector, in dry tones, “Slanton’s murder.”
“Stale news—stale news, I read all about that in the newspapers. By the way, Mr. Hustings, have you not brought my daughter to listen to these entertaining fairy tales?”
“Aileen has gone to Tarhaven,” said Dick, gravely, “to Miss Danby’s death-bed.”
More’s face clouded, partly remorsefully, partly defiantly, “Poor woman, let us hope she is guiltless.”
“You ought to know,” growled Trant, allowing the man to talk in the hope of catching him tripping.
“I don’t know. On my honour, I don’t know. Why come to me with these tales of Slanton’s death—of Miss Danby’s wrong-doing? I know nothing.”
“Not even why Rackham disguised himself as Mrs. Jerr’s servant?” inquired the officer, ironically.
“Oh!” More heaved up his shoulders and spread out his hands in quite a foreign way to intimate ignorance, “that is Rackham’s business. Why ask me?”
“I do ask you!” Trant rose menacingly and advanced towards the mocking little creature, “and I require a satisfactory answer.”
“Suppose I decline to gratify you?”
“In that case,”—the Inspector produced a document—“here is a warrant for your arrest, as an accessory before or after the fact.”
“Very interesting. Execute your warrant by all means.”
Trant called More’s bluff immediately, “I arrest you in the name of”
“Wait!” without flinching the cornered man jerked away the hand laid on his shoulder, “Don’t be in such a confounded hurry,” he glanced towards his servant. “Rackham?”
“It’s in your hands, sir,” said the man, answering the silent question.
“But you, Rackham, you?”
“I am not ashamed of my part in the business, sir.”
More chuckled, rubbing his hands with glee, “Staunch friend. No wonder you were trusted by my Roderick,” he faced his accusers. “So you think you’ve got me? Not so. If I chose to keep silent, you could bring nothing home to me. But I admit that Rackham is in your nets. And for Rackham’s sake”
“No! No!” cried the servant, vehemently, “think of yourself, sir.”
“I think of Roderick,” More drew himself up with dignity, and his face became cruelly grim. “All the world shall know what I did for Roderick’s sake: how a father can revenge his son. You approve, Rackham?”
“Yes, sir. Thoroughly!”
More nodded, faced Trant and tapped his chest. “You want to know who Mrs. Jerr is. Behold her. I, gentlemen, am Mrs. Jerr.”