The bathroom was the only apartment which possess anything resembling a door—a twofold screen and—as he pressed this back, he felt some thing which prevented its wider extension. He slipped into the room and flashed his lamp in the space behind the screen. There stiff in death with glazed eyes and lolling tongue lay a great gaunt dog, his yellow fangs exposed in a last grimace.
About the neck was a collar and attached to that, a few links of broken chain. T. X. mounted the steps thoughtfully and passed out to the kitchen.
Did Belinda Mary stab Kara or kill the dog? That she killed one hound or the other was certain. That she killed both was possible.
XV
After a busy and sleepless night he came down to report to the Chief Commissioner the next morning. The evening newspaper bills were filled with the “Chelsea Sensation” but the information given was of a meagre character.
Since Fisher had disappeared, many of the details which could have been secured by the enterprising pressmen were missing. There was no reference to the visit of Mr. Gathercole and in self-defence the press had fallen back upon a statement, which at an earlier period had crept into the newspapers in one of those chatty paragraphs which begin “I saw my friend Kara at Giros” and end with a brief but inaccurate summary of his hobbies. The paragraph had been to the effect that Mr. Kara had been in fear of his life for some time, as a result of a blood feud which existed between himself and another Albanian family. Small wonder, therefore, the murder was everywhere referred to as “the political crime of the century.”
“So far,” reported T. X. to his superior, “I have been unable to trace either Gathercole or the valet. The only thing we know about Gathercole is that he sent his article to The Times with his card. The servants of his Club are very vague as to his whereabouts. He is a very eccentric man, who only comes in occasionally, and the steward whom I interviewed says that it frequently happened that Gathercole arrived and departed without anybody being aware of the fact. We have been to his old lodgings in Lincoln’s Inn, but apparently he sold up there before he went away to the wilds of Patagonia and relinquished his tenancy.
“The only clue I have is that a man answering to some extent to his description left by the eleven o’clock train for Paris last night.”
“You have seen the secretary of course,” said the Chief.
It was a question which T. X. had been dreading.
“Gone too,” he answered shortly; “in fact she has not been seen since 5:30 yesterday evening.”
Sir George leant back in his chair and rumpled his thick grey hair.
“The only person who seems to have remained,” he said with heavy sarcasm, “was Kara himself. Would you like me to put somebody else on this case—it isn’t exactly your job—or will you carry it on?”
“I prefer to carry it on, sir,” said T. X. firmly.
“Have you found out anything more about Kara?”
T. X. nodded.
“All that I have discovered about him is eminently discreditable,” he said. “He seems to have had an ambition to occupy a very important position in Albania. To this end he had bribed and subsidized the Turkish and Albanian officials and had a fairly large following in that country. Bartholomew tells me that Kara had already sounded him as to the possibility of the British Government recognising a fait accompli in Albania and had been inducing him to use his influence with the Cabinet to recognize the consequence of any revolution. There is no doubt whatever that Kara has engineered all the political assassinations which have been such a feature in the news from Albania during this past year. We also found in the house very large sums of money and documents which we have handed over to the Foreign Office for decoding.”
Sir George thought for a long time.
Then he said, “I have an idea that if you find your secretary you will be halfway to solving the mystery.”
T. X. went out from the office in anything but a joyous mood. He was on his way to lunch when he remembered his promise to call upon John Lexman.
Could Lexman supply a key which would unravel this tragic tangle? He leant out of his taxicab and redirected the driver. It happened that the cab drove up to the door of the Great Midland Hotel as John Lexman was coming out.
“Come and lunch with me,” said T. X. “I suppose you’ve heard all the news.”
“I read about Kara being killed, if that’s what you mean,” said the other. “It was rather a coincidence that I should have been discussing the matter last night at the very moment when his telephone bell rang—I wish to heaven you hadn’t been in this,” he said fretfully.
“Why?” asked the astonished Assistant Commissioner, “and what do you mean by ‘in it’?”
“In the concrete sense I wish you had not been present when I returned,” said the other moodily, “I wanted to be finished with the whole sordid business without in any way involving my friends.”
“I think you are too sensitive,” laughed the other, clapping him on the shoulder. “I want you to unburden yourself to me, my dear chap, and tell me anything you can that will help me to clear up this mystery.”
John Lexman looked straight ahead with a worried frown.
“I would do almost anything for you, T. X.,” he said quietly, “the more so since I know how good you were to Grace, but I can’t help you in this matter. I hated Kara living, I hate him dead,” he cried, and there was a passion in his voice which was unmistakable; “he was the vilest thing that ever drew the breath of life. There was no
