The Mammoth Book of Locked-Room Mysteries And Impossible Crimes

which would lead one to select him from out a thousand, as a man of cool and desperate character.

“My Lynde’s voluntary surrender is not the least astonishing feature of this affair; for, had he preserved silence he would, beyond a doubt, have escaped even suspicion. The murder was planned and executed with such deliberate skill, that there is little or no evidence to complicate him. In truth, there is no evidence against him, excepting his own confession, which is meagre and confusing enough. He freely acknowledges the crime, but stubbornly refuses to enter into any details. He expresses a desire to be hanged immediately!

“How Mr Lynde entered the chamber, and by what means he left it, after committing the deed, and why he cruelly killed a lady with whom he had had (as we gather from the testimony) no previous acquaintance – are enigmas which still perplex the public mind, and will not let curiosity sleep. These facts, however, will probably be brought to light during the impending trial. In the meantime, we await the denouement with interest.”

IV

On the afternoon following this disclosure, the door of my cell turned on its hinges, and Julius Kenneth entered.

In his presence I ought to have trembled; but I was calm and collected. He, feverish and dangerous.

“You received my note?”

“Yes; and have come here, as you requested.” I waved him to a chair, which he refused to take. Stood leaning on the back of it.

“You of course know, Mr Kenneth, that I have refused to reveal the circumstances connected with the death of Mary Ware? I wished to make the confession to you alone.”

He regarded me for a moment from beneath his shaggy eyebrows.

“Well?”

“But even to you I will assign no reason for the course I pursued. It was necessary that Mary Ware should die.”

“Well?”

“I decided that she should die in her chamber, and to that end I purloined her night-key.”

Julius Kenneth looked through and through me, as I spoke.

“On Friday night after she had gone to the theatre, I entered the hall- door by means of the key, and stole unobserved to her room, where I secreted myself under the bed, or in that small clothes-press near the stove – I forget which. Sometime between eleven and twelve o’clock, Mary Ware returned. While she was in the act of lighting the gas, I pressed a handkerchief, saturated with chloroform, over her mouth. You know the effect of chloroform? I will, at this point spare you further detail, merely remarking that I threw my gloves and the handkerchief in the stove; but I’m afraid there was not fire enough to consume them.”

Kenneth walked up and down the cell greatly agitated; then seated himself on the foot of the bed.

“Curse you!”

“Are you listening to me, Mr Kenneth?”

“Yes!”

“I extinguished the light, and proceeded to make my escape from the room, which I did in a manner so simple that the detectives, through their desire to ferret out wonderful things, will never discover it, unless, indeed, you betray me. The night, you will recollect, was foggy; it was impossible to discern an object at four yards distance – this was fortunate for me. I raised the window-sash and let myself out cautiously, holding on by the sill, until my feet touched on the moulding which caps the window below. I then drew down the sash. By standing on the extreme left of the cornice, I was able to reach the tin water-spout of the adjacent building, and by that I descended to the sidewalk.”

The man glowered at me like a tiger, his eyes green and golden with excitement: I have since wondered that he did not tear me to pieces.

“On gaining the street,” I continued coolly, “I found that I had brought the knife with me. It should have been left in the chamber – it would have given the whole thing the aspect of suicide. It was too late to repair the blunder, so I threw the knife-”

“Into the river!” exclaimed Kenneth, involuntarily.

And then I smiled.

“How did you know it was I!” he shrieked.

“Hush! they will overhear you in the corridor. It was as plain as day. I knew it before I had been five minutes in the room. First, because you shrank instinctively from the corpse, though you seemed to be caressing it. Secondly, when I looked into the stove, I saw a glove and handkerchief, partly consumed; and then I instantly accounted for the faint close smell which had affected me before the room was ventilated. It was chloroform. Thirdly, when I went to open the window. I noticed that the paint was scraped off the brackets which held the spout to the next house. This conduit had been newly painted two days previously – I watched the man at work; the paint on the brackets was thicker than anywhere else, and had not dried. On looking at your feet, which I did critically, while speaking to you, I saw that the leather on the inner side of each boot was slightly chafed, paint-marked. It is a way of mine to put this and that together!”

“If you intend to betray me-”

“O, no, but I don’t or I should not be here – alone with you. I am, as you may allow, not quite a fool.”

“Indeed, sir, you are as subtle as-”

“Yes, I wouldn’t mention him.”

“Who?”

“The devil.”

Kenneth mused.

“May I ask, Mr Lynde, what you intend to do?”

“Certainly – remain here.”

“I don’t understand you,” said Kenneth with an air of perplexity.

“If you will listen patiently, you shall learn why I have acknowledged this deed, why I would bear the penalty. I believe there are vast, intense sensations from which we are excluded, by the conventional fear of a certain kind of death. Now, this pleasure, this ecstasy, this something, I don’t know what, which I have striven for all my days, is known only to a privileged few – innocent men, who, through some oversight of the law, are hanged by the neck! How rich is Nature in compensations! Some men are born to be hung, some have hanging thrust upon them, and some (as I hope to do) achieve hanging. It appears ages since I commenced watching for an opportunity like this. Worlds could not tempt me to divulge your guilt, nor could worlds have tempted me to commit your crime, for a man’s conscience should be at ease to enjoy, to the utmost, this delicious death! Our interview is at an end, Mr Kenneth. I held it my duty to say this much to you.”

And I turned my back on him.

“One word, Mr Lynde.”

Kenneth came to my side, and laid a heavy hand on my shoulder, that red right hand, which all the tears of the angels cannot make white again.

“Did you send this to me last month?” asked Kenneth, holding up a slip of paper on which was scrawled, Watch them – in my handwriting.

“Yes,” I answered.