I agreed readily enough, for, unfortunately, my professional duties were not onerous.
“Good man!” he cried, wringing my hand in his impetuous way. “We start now.”
“What, tonight?”
“Tonight! I had thought of turning in, I must admit. I have not dared to sleep for forty-eight hours, except in fifteen-minute stretches. But there is one move that must be made tonight and immediately. I must warn Sir Crichton Davey.”
“Sir Crichton Davey—of the India—”
“Petrie, he is a doomed man! Unless he follows my instructions without question, without hesitation—before Heaven, nothing can save him! I do not know when the blow will fall, how it will fall, nor from whence, but I know that my first duty is to warn him. Let us walk down to the corner of the common and get a taxi.”
How strangely does the adventurous intrude upon the humdrum; for, when it intrudes at all, more often than not its intrusion is sudden and unlooked for. Today, we may seek for romance and fail to find it: unsought, it lies in wait for us at most prosaic corners of life’s highway.
The drive that night, though it divided the drably commonplace from the wildly bizarre—though it was the bridge between the ordinary and the outré—has left no impression upon my mind. Into the heart of a weird mystery the cab bore me; and in reviewing my memories of those days I wonder that the busy thoroughfares through which we passed did not display before my eyes signs and portents—warnings.
It was not so. I recall nothing of the route and little of import that passed between us (we both were strangely silent, I think) until we were come to our journey’s end. Then:
“What’s this?” muttered my friend hoarsely.
Constables were moving on a little crowd of curious idlers who pressed about the steps of Sir Crichton Davey’s house and sought to peer in at the open door. Without waiting for the cab to draw up to the curb, Nayland Smith recklessly leaped out and I followed close at his heels.
“What has happened?” he demanded breathlessly of a constable.
The latter glanced at him doubtfully, but something in his voice and bearing commanded respect.
“Sir Crichton Davey has been killed, sir.”
Smith lurched back as though he had received a physical blow, and clutched my shoulder convulsively. Beneath the heavy tan his face had blanched, and his eyes were set in a stare of horror.
“My God!” he whispered. “I am too late!”
With clenched fists he turned and, pressing through the group of loungers, bounded up the steps. In the hall a man who unmistakably was a Scotland Yard official stood talking to a footman. Other members of the household were moving about, more or less aimlessly, and the chilly hand of King Fear had touched one and all, for, as they came and went, they glanced ever over their shoulders, as if each shadow cloaked a menace, and listened, as it seemed, for some sound which they dreaded to hear. Smith strode up to the detective and showed him a card, upon glancing at which the Scotland Yard man said something in a low voice, and, nodding, touched his hat to Smith in a respectful manner.
A few brief questions and answers, and, in gloomy silence, we followed the detective up the heavily carpeted stair, along a corridor lined with pictures and busts, and into a large library. A group of people were in this room, and one, in whom I recognized Chalmers Cleeve, of Harley Street, was bending over a motionless form stretched upon a couch. Another door communicated with a small study, and through the opening I could see a man on all fours examining the carpet. The uncomfortable sense of hush, the group about the physician, the bizarre figure crawling, beetle-like, across the inner room, and the grim hub, around which all this ominous activity turned, made up a scene that etched itself indelibly on my mind.
As we entered Dr. Cleeve straightened himself, frowning thoughtfully.
“Frankly, I do not care to venture any opinion at present regarding the immediate cause of death,” he said. “Sir Crichton was addicted to cocaine, but there are indications which are not in accordance with cocaine-poisoning. I fear that only a postmortem can establish the facts—if,” he added, “we ever arrive at them. A most mysterious case!”
Smith stepping forward and engaging the famous pathologist in conversation, I seized the opportunity to examine Sir Crichton’s body.
The dead man was in evening dress, but wore an old smoking-jacket. He had been of spare but hardy build, with thin, aquiline features, which now were oddly puffy, as were his clenched hands. I pushed back his sleeve, and saw the marks of the hypodermic syringe upon his left arm. Quite mechanically I turned my attention to the right arm. It was unscarred, but on the back of the hand was a faint red mark, not unlike the imprint of painted lips. I examined it closely, and even tried to rub it off, but it evidently was caused by some morbid process of local inflammation, if it were not a birthmark.
Turning to a pale young man whom I had understood to be Sir Crichton’s private secretary, I drew his attention to this mark, and inquired if it were constitutional. “It is not, sir,” answered Dr. Cleeve, overhearing my question. “I have already made that inquiry. Does it suggest anything to your mind? I must confess that it affords me no assistance.”
“Nothing,” I replied. “It is most curious.”
“Excuse me, Mr. Burboyne,” said Smith, now turning to the secretary, “but Inspector Weymouth will tell you that I act with authority. I understand that Sir Crichton was—seized with illness in his study?”
“Yes—at half-past ten. I was working here in the library, and he inside, as was our custom.”
“The communicating door was kept closed?”
“Yes, always. It was open for a minute or less about ten twenty-five, when a message came for Sir Crichton. I took
