It is one of these which I am permitted to here relate.
On the day in question I played golf at Sunningdale, for I had been some months abroad-living in a back street in Brest, as a matter of fact – and was now on leave at home. I dined at the golf-club, and about ten o’clock that night entered my rooms in Shaftesbury Avenue, where I found a telegram lying upon the table.
It had been despatched from the Brighton station at Victoria at six-thirty, and read.
Am at Webster’s. Come to me at once. Cannot come to you. – DICK.
By this message I was greatly puzzled. Webster’s was a small private hotel in which I knew Usborne had sometimes hiden himself under the name of Mr Clarke, for we are often compelled to assume fictitious names, and also to keep queer company.
Why had he so suddenly gone into hiding? What had occurred?
At once I took a cab along Victoria Street and alighted before the house, which was to all intents and purposes a private one, save for the lamp outside which stated it to be an hotel.
The black-bearded little manager, whom I had once met before, told me that my friend had arrived there at noon and taken a room, but at two o’clock he had gone out and had not returned.
“And he left no message for me?” I asked.
“None, sir.”
“Did he bring any luggage?”
“Mr Clarke seldom brings any luggage,” was the man’s reply. “He generally just sleeps here, and leaves his baggage in a railway cloakroom.”
I was puzzled. If Dick wished to see me so urgently he would surely have remained at the hotel. He was aware I was going out to golf, although I had not told him where I intended playing.
While we were speaking I saw a chambermaid pass, and then it occurred to me to suggest that my friend might have returned unobserved. He might even be awaiting me in his room. He had said that he was unable to come to me, which appeared that he feared to go forth lest he should be recognised.
I knew that Dick Usborne, whose ingenuity and daring were unequalled by any in our service, was a marked man.
Both the manager and the chambermaid expressed themselves confident that Mr Clarke had not returned, but at last I induced the girl to ascend to his room and ascertain.
From where I stood in the hall I heard her knock and then try the door.
She rattled it and called to him. By that I knew it was locked – on the inside.
Instantly I ran up the stairs and, banging at the door called my comrade by name. But there was no response.
The key was still in the lock on the other side, so a few minutes later we burst open the door by force and rushed into the dark room.
The manager lit the gas-jet, and by its dim light a startling sight was presented. Lying near the fireplace, in a half-crouching position, face downwards, was Dick Usborne. Quickly I turned him over and touched his face. The contact thrilled me. He was stone dead!
His eyes, still open, were glazed and stared horribly, his strong hands were clenched, his jaw had dropped, and it was plain, by the coutortion of the body, that he had expired in agony.
Quickly suspicious of foul play, I made a rapid examination of the body. But I could find no wound or anything to account for death. A doctor, hastily summoned, was equally without any clue to the cause of death.
“Suicide, I should think!” he exclaimed when he had finished his examination. “By poison, most probably; but there is no trace of it about the mouth.”
Then, turning to the police-inspector who had just entered, he added:
“The door was locked on the inside. It must, therefore, have been suicide.”
“The gentleman was a friend of yours, I believe, sir?” asked the inspector, addressing me.
I replied in the affirmative, but declared that he was certainly not the man to commit suicide.
“There’s been foul play-of that I’m positive!” I declared emphatically.
“But he locked himself in,” the hotel manager argued. “He must have re-entered unobserved.”
“He was waiting here for me. He wished to speak to me,” I replied.
The theory held by all present, however, was that it was suicide; therefore the inspector expressed his intention of having the body conveyed to the Pimlico mortuary to await the usual post-mortem.
I then took him aside downstairs, and telling him in confidence who I was, and what office my dead friend held, I said:
“I must ask you, inspector, to lock up the room and leave everything undisturbed until I have made a few inquiries myself. The public must be allowed to believe it a case of suicide; but before we take any action I must consult my Chief. You, on your part, will please inform Superintendent Hutchinson, of the C.I. Department at Scotland Yard, that I am making investigations. That will be sufficient. He will understand.”
“Very well, sir,” replied the inspector; and a few moments later I left the house in a taxi. Each member of the Secret Service is a detective by instinct, and I suppose I was no exception.
Half an hour later I was seated with General Kennedy in his cosy little library in Curzon Street explaining briefly my startling discovery.
“That’s most remarkable!” he cried, greatly upset at hearing of our poor colleagues’s death. “Captain Usborne brought the man Gunther here just after nine, and we had breakfast together. Then he left, promising to return at three to again take charge of the stranger. He arrived about a quarter past three, and both he and the German left in a four-wheeler. That is the last I saw of either of them.”
“Gunther was to leave to-night. Has he gone?” I asked.
“Who knows?” exclaimed the shrewd, grey-headed little man, who, besides being a distinguished General, was Director of the British Secret Service.
“We must find him,” I said. Then after a moment’s reflection I added: “I must go to Liverpool Street Station at once.”
“I cannot see what you can discover,” replied the General. “If Gunther has left he would not be noticed in a crowded train. If he left London he’s already on the North Sea by this time,” he added, glancing up at the clock.
“Usborne has been assassinated, sir,” I declared with emphasis. “He was my best friend. We have often been in tight corners on the Continent together. May I be permitted to pursue the investigation myself?”
“By all means, if you really believe it was not a case of suicide.”
“It was not-of that I’m quite certain.”
I was suspicious of Gunther. The German might have been an impostor after all. Yet at Webster’s Dick had not been seen with any companion. He had simply gone there alone in order to wait for me.
For what reason? Ay, that was the question.
With all haste I drove down to Liverpool Street. On my way I took from my pocket a slip of paper – the receipt from a tourist-agency for the first-class return ticket between London and Berlin which I had sent to Gunther. It bore the number of the German’s ticket. At the inspector’s office I was shown all the tickets collected of departing passengers by the boat-train, and among them found the German’s voucher for the journey from Liverpool Street to Parkeston Quay.
I had at least cleared up one point. Herr Gunther had left London.
On returning to the dark little hotel just after midnight I found a man I knew awaiting me-Detective-Inspector Barker, who had been sent to me by Superintendent Hutchinson, the uniformed police having now been withdrawn from the house.
Alone, in the small sitting-room, we took counsel. Barker I knew to be a very clever investigator of crime, his speciality being the tracing and arrest of alien criminals who seek asylum in London, and for whose extradition their own countries apply.
“I’ve seen the body of the unfortunate gentleman,” he said. “But I can detect no suspicious circumstances. Indeed, for aught I can see, he might have locked himself in and died of natural causes. Have you any theory-of enemies, for example?”
“Enemies!” I cried. “Why, Dick Usborne was the most daring agent in our service. It was he who discovered and exposed that clever German agent Schultz, who tried to secure the plan of the new
