Chapter 7

KIND'S OPINIONS

"You!" cried the doctor, staggering back, and scarcely able to believe his eyes. "Good Lord, Herries!"

"Yes! Herries," said the accused man, with a swift glance at the door to see that it was well-closed. "But don't speak too loud, my dear fellow, we never know what ears may be about."

"Oh, we're safe enough here," remarked Kind, who was bending over his wife. "What with the mists, and the rain, and the cold, no one will venture out this night into so dismal a meadow. That peeler at the inn was half asleep when we came away."

"You speak quite different to what you did," said Browne, puzzled.

"I'm a detective for the time being," rejoined Kind, coolly, "and recall some of my decent lingo. When I'm a Cheap-jack again, I'll slip back into the Whitechapel vernacular. I've been an actor in my time, and know how to suit my language to my _r�le_ for the time being," and again he bent over his sleeping wife.

"You here," muttered Browne taking Herries' hand, and devouring his thin, haggard face with his eyes, "I am glad, and yet----" he shook his head in a doubtful way, recalling his promise to Trent.

"You think that I should not have run away?"

"It looks like guilt, Herries."

"What! Do you believe----?"

"Would I take your hand, if I believed that you were guilty?" interrupted the doctor sharply. "That I am here, should show you that I have the most implicit confidence in your innocence."

"Ah!" said Herries, rather sadly, "but you came to see Mrs. Kind."

"And you wouldn't have come," put in Sweetlips over his shoulder, "if Elspeth had not whispered when we came out that Mr. Herries wanted to see you."

"You can trust me," said Browne, rather huffily, "and in any case, I presume you would not have sacrificed your wife's life to save Herries' neck."

"He has saved her," said Kind, looking at the young man with his heart in his honest eyes.

"What do you mean?" asked Browne, coming to the bed-side and stooping over the woman, who seemed to be in a sound sleep.

"Mr. Herries is a doctor. He came here, and sucked the stuff from her throat in the nick of time. But for his bravery, my poor Rachel would have been dead." Kind wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his jacket, and again looked at Herries. "I'll give my life up to finding the man who killed your uncle, so that you may be saved."

"Can you do that?" asked Herries sadly. "It seems to me that the evidence is so strong----"

"So it is,--so it is. But I have been searching the death-chamber and your room at the inn. I have found other evidence which may be of value."

"Oh!" Herries clenched his hands, eagerly, "what is it?"

"One moment," interposed Browne, in a low voice, so as not to disturb the patient. "Let us do things in order. What about Mrs. Kind?"

"She's all right, and will be much better when she wakes up," said Herries. "The stuff is out of her throat; it's a diphtheritic case."

"What have you done?"

Herries in an undertone rapidly gave details of his treatment, and the other doctor approved with nods.

"She would have been dead, but for you," he said, emphatically. "But how did you manage to escape?"

"Elspeth!" said Herries, and would have explained, but that Kind beckoned them to the far end of the caravan, near the door, and pointed to a couple of stools.

"Let us talk low," murmured the ex-detective. "For after all, there may be spies about, and besides, I don't want Rachel disturbed."

"Fancy telling that to medical men," laughed Browne, softly.

Kind, relieved in his mind that Rachel's life was safe, smiled also, and placed two stools and an old chair close together. When the doctors were seated, he got out glasses, and a bottle of whisky, and the three had drinks, which, under the circumstances, they very much needed. While Kind was preparing his hospitality, Browne glanced round the narrow space of the caravan.

It was oblong, with a high roof, and excellently fitted up, something after the style of a cabin at sea, that is, with a due regard to economy of space. The arched roof and deal walls were painted yellow. From the former dangled various articles of merchandise, such as Kind sold, and the latter were decorated with pictures cut from various papers, and pasted on the wood in every available corner. At one end was a door divided into two pieces, so that the upper or lower half could be opened at will. Facing this, and placed sideways was the bed, or rather the bunk, in which Rachel was sleeping. It was comfortable enough, and gay with red curtains. Against one wall was the leaf of a table fastened with iron rods, and the other wall supported a cupboard in which food was stored. Two hooks immediately above the heads of the trio, and near the door, showed that Kind slung a hammock for his own sleeping accommodation. The whole place was clean and neat, and Browne thought that many people were worse housed than these imitation gipsies. They followed the example of the Tartar tribes, and in their wheeled dwelling moved about from place to place, at home everywhere, and picking up their living in all quarters.

"But," said Browne, thoughtfully sipping his whisky, "if anyone enters the caravan, Herries will be discovered."

"We can hide him," said Kind, cunningly.

"Where?" asked the doctor, staring round the confined space. "I don't see any hiding-place."

"Nor does anyone else, or it wouldn't be a hiding-place. But we can trust you, doctor, and----" Kind stooped and gave a hard twist to one of the iron rods which supported the side table. At once the floor of the vehicle parted in the middle, and displayed an oblong, shallow space where a man, with some discomfort, could lie at full length. "I had that made," added the Cheap-jack, "after my own design. I haven't been in the detective force for nothing, and thought that it wouldn't be a bad idea to have a place where I could hide things from thieves. All my best goods were stowed there, but I shifted them when Mr. Herries came. While he was being hunted for, far and wide, he was lying there as snug as a pig."

"Very ingenious," said Browne, while Kind closed the hiding-place in the same manner in which he had opened it, "but I don't know how Herries did come here?"

"Elspeth saved me, bless her," said the young man, his blue eyes lighting up. "When she heard how ill Mrs. Kind was, and Trent refused to let me see her, even under escort, she came out and interviewed my friend here," he indicated the Cheap-jack, "and said that she would bring me. Then she returned to the inn, and went up to my room to----"

"She didn't see you," interposed Browne, recalling the policeman's account of Elspeth weeping at his feet for admission.

"No. That would have given her design away. She pretended to weep and knelt down to ask the policeman guarding the door to let her in. Then she slipped a note under the door, and went away without suspicion. The note said that the two rustics on guard under the window would be taken away in half an hour--that I was to drop from the window, and go to the fence. There Kind would be waiting to guide me to a hiding-place. I expect Elspeth got the two watchers to go into the tap-room by promising them drink. When the coast was clear, I opened the window softly and dropped. Kind was at the fence, and grasping my hand hurried me away in the mist to this place. Here, I first attended to Mrs. Kind, and----"

"And saved her life," said the Cheap-jack bursting with gratitude. "He sucked the stuff from her throat, doctor. Then I hid him under the floor, having first shifted the goods. He came out to see that Rachel was getting along all right, and I whistled 'Garryowen' to let him know I was coming with you."

"How did you know that I was coming?" Browne asked Herries.

"Elspeth came here to ask me if I would like to see you," explained the young man. "Of course I did, as I knew that I could trust you. Then she went back, and told Kind, and----"

"Oh, that was what she whispered to you in the tap-room," said the doctor, glancing at the Cheap-jack. "H'm! Well, I suppose you may trust me, Herries. All the same, I told Trent that if I chanced on you I would persuade you to give yourself up and send a wire telling him that you had done so."

"Browne, would you betray me?"

"No, of course I wouldn't," snapped the doctor, savagely. "All the same, this running away will not do you any good."

"Browne," said Herries, much agitated, "if I had stopped, I would have been condemned on the evidence which Trent discovered. That man will never let me have a fair trial. He is dead against me."

"Because he can't see further than his nose," retorted the doctor. "He is sorry for you in a way, but he seems to have made up his mind that you are guilty."

"And that being the case, how can I hope to get free?"

"You can prove----"

"I can prove nothing," interrupted Herries despairingly. "I was in the next room, and my uncle was murdered. The razor, the pocket-book and the key of Sir Simon's bedroom were in my possession, and stains of blood were on my shirt sleeve. In the face of such evidence, how can I prove my innocence? I have nothing but my bare word."

"But cannot anyone give evidence in your favour?"

"Michael Gowrie might."

"Humph. I hear that the old scoundrel was at the 'Marsh Inn.' Trent told me. I remember him in Edinburgh ages ago. I wonder if he----"

"No," said Herries, emphatically, "Gowrie is an old scamp, but he would not commit a crime."

"Well, I don't know. It seems that Sir Simon brought some money with him in gold and notes. Gowrie was always a money-grubber."

"Yes, but even he would not have the nerve to cut a man's throat and then incriminate me, who had done him no harm."

"A man will do much to get money and to save himself," said the doctor sententiously. "What do you think Mr. Kind?"

The Cheap-jack who had been in a brown study, woke up at the direct question.

"I have never met the man you call Gowrie," he said, after a thoughtful pause, "but he is as innocent as Mr. Herries here."

"How can you be sure of that?"

"Because, from what I discovered in the death-room, I am sure that Sir Simon was murdered by the man who passed out in his fur coat, and who masqueraded as him to get away."

"What did you discover?" asked Herries, quickly.

"Several things. The window was open----"

"Mrs. Narby might have done that, to air the room," said Herries.

"People don't generally air the room, with a dead body within it," said Kind dryly, "and certainly a close-fisted woman like Mrs. Narby would not risk her furniture being spoilt by the incoming mist. No! that window was opened by the man who climbed up to murder Sir Simon, and as the dressing-table was before it, no one looked until I did."

"How do you know that a man climbed up?"

"How else did the man who escaped in the fur coat--the true assassin--enter?" questioned Kind, sharply.

"Sir Simon expected him. He might have gone down to the front door of the inn, and let him enter, after all were in bed."

"No. Sir Simon had his own reasons for keeping the appointment with this man dark, and knew also that this man Gowrie--as I learned from Trent--slept in the tap-room. To have admitted his friend in that way, would have aroused the suspicions of Gowrie, and there might have been trouble."

"Gowrie might have seen the admission of the stranger, and have been bribed to go away," suggested the doctor, who still held to the belief that his old tutor was implicated in some way.

"No," said Kind again, "and I'll tell you why. I found a red silk handkerchief pinned across the window of Sir Simon's bedroom."

"As a sort of signal. Eh?"

"Yes. From what I have gathered, this is what happened. Sir Simon came to the 'Marsh Inn' from Tarhaven to meet someone, who was blackmailing him."

"But, Kind," said Herries, quickly, "I knew very little of my uncle and did not get on well with him, but he was an honest man, and not the kind of person to be blackmailed."

"And I, who knew Sir Simon intimately, as his doctor," added Browne, "can add my protest to that assumption. Sir Simon was a straightforward man, if a trifle close-fisted. He certainly would not lay himself open to blackmail."

"Sir Simon was a millionaire," said Kind in his driest manner, "and those sort of people do not invariably make their money honestly."

"My uncle was perfectly honest," insisted Herries resolutely.

"I admire you for sticking up for him," said Kind, sarcastically, "especially as he was so hard on you, Mr. Herries. All the same, if it was not a case of blackmail, why didn't Sir Simon see this man at his own house? Why should he come to a lonely little inn with a large sum of money? Why should he be so anxious to see this stranger, that having retired he placed a red handkerchief in the window, and put a candle behind it by way of a signal? Answer me these questions."

"It _does_ seem strange," muttered Browne, thoughtfully.

"So strange that there can only be one explanation," retorted the Cheap-jack decisively. "This man, whomsoever he was, could not get to the inn at the appointed time, which was eight o'clock. He came very late, before twelve in fact----"

"Why not after twelve?" asked Herries.

"Because, as Dr. Browne here will tell you, the millionaire was murdered somewhere about midnight."

"I cannot be quite sure," put in Browne hastily. "I made only a superficial examination of the body."

"Well, we'll say midnight, as you cannot be very far out of your reckoning."

"I certainly think that either at midnight, or shortly afterwards, Sir Simon was killed."

"Then that fixes the time. The stranger must have arrived before midnight, as the pair might have had a talk before the murder."

"No," said Browne, quickly, "Sir Simon was, I think, from the orderly way in which the bedclothes were placed, murdered in his sleep."

"Good," said Kind quite unruffled, "let us say that. The man climbed up to the window, which was left open by Sir Simon with the signal of the red handkerchief, and killed the millionaire."

"There is no difficulty about climbing," said Herries thoughtfully, "for when Mrs. Narby found that the door was locked she insisted that Elspeth should climb up the trellis-work."

"Ah," said Kind with satisfaction, "that makes the mode of entry more certain. I have not seen the trellis-work, as I have not visited the inn for more than nine months. Mrs. Narby must have had it put up later. But the man must have been a light, active fellow to climb up so slight a ladder. He got in at the window, for the table was moved aside, as if to let him enter,--perhaps by Sir Simon, unless he was asleep."

"But why couldn't Sir Simon go to the downstairs front door?"

"I told you," said the Cheap-jack with a gesture of impatience. "He wanted to keep the man's visit dark, and knew that Gowrie was in the tap-room. Of course all this is theory, but to-morrow I'll examine the trellis-work, and if I find it broken, for the lightest and most active man might break parts of it, I'll be certain that my theory is absolutely true."

"We'll take it as true," said Browne, "well?"

"Well," echoed Kind, reflectively, "the stranger enters, and finds, as you say, Sir Simon asleep. He sees the money on the table, or perhaps guesses that it is in the pocket-book."

"How do you know that?"

"I found a table with writing materials near the bed," said Kind, "and several sheets of paper had been used, as some were torn up. Sir Simon had been making calculations. I know that, because some of the torn pieces had figures on them. Sir Simon evidently was trying to calculate how much or how little he could give his blackmailing friend. The man, however, saw the gold, and at once made for it. Sir Simon woke, and would have made an outcry. But the stranger seeing him awake does not give him time to cry out, but cuts his throat at once."

"How could the stranger see in the dark?" asked Browne, sarcastically.

"You forget," said Kind gravely, "that the candle was on the dressing-table. Sir Simon left it there, lighted, to shine through the red handkerchief, else what was the use of the handkerchief at all?"

"Yes, yes, I see that," said Herries, eagerly, "go on."

"The deed being done, the stranger waits in the room until daybreak, and then, knowing how Sir Simon was to leave the inn, put on the dead man's fur coat and boldly walked out with his plunder."

"Why didn't he escape again by the window?"

"Ah, that is one of the things which I wish to find out."

"And what about the incrimination of Herries?" asked the doctor, sceptically.

"Do you smoke cigarettes?" asked the Cheap-jack, turning suddenly on Herries.

"Yes,--sometimes."

"Did you smoke one at the inn?"

"No. I haven't had a cigarette in my lips for quite three months. I hadn't the money to buy them, and so took to a pipe. Why?"

"Then the man who murdered Sir Simon entered the room--your room--to incriminate you. After emptying the pocket-book, he took that and the razor into your room. You were sound asleep, worn out, as I was told by Elspeth----"

"That's quite true, and old Gowrie gave me a glass of toddy to make me sleep the sounder."

"Oh," said Kind in a peculiar tone, and considered; after a time he went on, but did not say why he had made the exclamation. "Well, then, the murderer smeared your shirt sleeve, and left the razor on the bed, and the pocket-book under it. Then he retired to the death-room and waited till dawn. When ready to go, he locked the door of the room in which the dead man lay, and put the key in your room."

"But how do you know that he was in my room at all?" asked Herries, somewhat annoyed by all this theory.

Kind asked another question.

"Did Sir Simon smoke?"

"No," said Browne, "he never smoked in his life."

"In that case," Kind fished out the stump of a cigarette, "what do you make of that? I found it in your room, Mr. Herries."

The young man took the cigarette, which was burnt down half way, and examined it carefully. Then he smelt it.

"Periquette tobacco?" said he thoughtfully, "comes from France,--from Algiers,--from----"

"Tangiers," interposed Kind, taking the cigarette, "see,--this cigarette is marked 'Tangerian.' I have never seen one like that in England. It might have come from France, or from Algiers or Tangiers, but one thing we can be certain of, that the murderer came from foreign parts only a short time ago. A man doesn't keep cigarettes for months, unless he has a large quantity. The murderer may have had a quantity, but the chances are that he hadn't. In fact," Kind leaned back with the air of a man, who has made up his mind, "I believe that the man came from a ship and was a sailor, else why should he have displayed such activity in climbing up to a window."

"It's all theory," said Browne, shaking his head disconsolately.

"The cigarette isn't."

"No. All the same, I don't see how you are going to find this man."

"That must be your task, doctor."

"Mine?" Browne jumped up.

"Yes. Mr. Herries must stop here for the present. Later, when I have found the man, he can give himself up. You, doctor, know Miss Maud Tedder, the daughter of the deceased?"

"Yes."

"Then go and see her at Tarhaven. Ask her questions, for in Sir Simon's past life will be found the reason for his murder."

"But if it was blackmail, and I am bound to say that it looks like it,--and if the meeting was kept secret, I don't see what Miss Tedder will know."

"Ah, I must leave the hunting of the man to your cleverness," said Kind. "You have the entry of the house at Tarhaven and can prosecute your enquiries without suspicion. I can't do that, but while you are working at Tarhaven, I'll search round here, and I daresay I'll learn something worth knowing."

Browne nodded.

"I'll do my best," he said. "I'll call and see Miss Tedder to-morrow, and question her."

"And tell her," said Herries in a low voice, "that the man who loved her is in danger."

"I daresay she'll know that to-night from Trent," said Browne calmly. "Do you love her now, Herries?"

"No. She treated me very badly."

"Just what a girl like that would do. She has no heart; she is a penny doll, full of whims and fancies, with a passion for rank and fine clothes. Humph! She'll be able to indulge now, as she will undoubtedly have something like fifty thousand a year. But perhaps, for the sake of auld lang syne," he added clapping his friend on the shoulder, "she may spend some of the money in saving you."

"I'll do that," said Kind sharply, and with a glance in the direction of his still sleeping wife. "Nothing I can do is too much for the man who gave me back my Rachel."

"You will stay here, of course?" Browne asked Herries, looking at the floor, where the hiding-place was concealed.

"Yes. I am guided by Kind, who thinks it best."

"Meantime, I do," said the Cheap-jack, "later, when we are sure of our ground, you can give yourself up. But to surrender now, would be to put a rope round your neck. Trent is a blundering ass."

"I quite agree with you," said Browne heartily. "Well, good-bye, Herries, I must return to the inn, and to-morrow, I'll see Miss Tedder at Tarhaven. And Gowrie?"

"I'll find him," said Kind, quickly, "he certainly may be able to help, and he will too. Elspeth will make him!"

"How do you know?"

"Elspeth said that she was Gowrie's daughter," said Kind briefly. "The man is unknown to me, but Elspeth will find him."