The club of masks

Inspector Charles presented himself at the house in Montague Street while Sir Frank and I were at breakfast the next morning. My chief ordered him to be shown in to us.

The Inspector’s manner struck me as rather more reserved than it had been yesterday. It very quickly appeared that he was acting under instructions not received from the medical adviser of the Home Office.

“The Chief Commissioner is anxious to know if you have any report to make as to the cause of death in this Domino Club affair,” he began by saying, as soon as he had sat down.

Tarleton frowned slightly. Then he laid down his knife and fork and faced the Inspector.

“I don’t expect to complete my report for some time yet. I have certain inquiries to make which may take anything from a few days to several months.”

Captain Charles looked astonished, as he well might.

“Then it isn’t a simple case of opium-poisoning?”

“It isn’t a simple case, certainly. I don’t say that opium was not administered. By the way, I should be glad if you could find out for me what disguise the Crown Prince was wearing when he went to the Club.”

The Captain drew himself up.

“I ascertained that yesterday. He wore a plain black domino with a hood.”

“Ah! Rather like Weathered’s costume, then?”

I could have answered that question better than Charles, I thought. There had been more than one black domino worn at the fatal dance, but none that had any real semblance to Weathered’s remarkable costume. The pointed peak with the two eye-slits in the cloth instead of a mask had plainly distinguished the founder of the Club from everyone else present. Of course I dared not offer my testimony as a witness. I did not think it prudent even to make a remark. Tarleton might have an object in putting forward this particular view.

It quickly appeared what his object was.

“I don’t think the Commissioner is much inclined to follow up that clue,” Captain Charles said coldly. “They seem to think in the Foreign Office that it would do harm to let any idea get abroad that the Crown Prince was aimed at. It would look as if London wasn’t a safe place for foreign royalties to visit.”

The physician shrugged his shoulders impatiently.

“That has nothing to do with me, Captain Charles. It will be time enough for the Foreign Office to make their view prevail when we have something definite to go upon. At present I am dealing with the cause of death. I want the police, if they can, to find out if the Bolshevik authorities have ever resorted to poison, and if so, what poison they use. I imagine they have no restrictions on opium, and I should be particularly glad to get hold of samples of the opium that is coming into Russia from China just now.”

The Inspector pulled a long face.

“I’ll tell the Commissioner what you say, Sir Frank, of course. But I’m afraid he won’t much like the idea of the inquiry being dragged out. His theory is that death was accidental, the only object being to get hold of the keys of the safe. And if there isn’t going to be any public prosecution, he wants to close the Club as soon as possible, and send the woman Bonnell out of the country.”

For once I saw Tarleton really angry.

“I trust Sir Hercules will recognize that it is for me to decide whether the death was accidental, and that he will take no such steps until he has received my report through the Home Office. Unless you can undertake that he will hold his hand for the present I must communicate with Sir James Ponsonby at once.”

Charles gave way instantly.

“There’s no need for that, Sir Frank, I’m sure. Sir Hercules McNaught wouldn’t think of acting contrary to your opinion without consulting you first. It doesn’t look to him as if the case could be carried much further; that’s all.”

“We are only at the beginning of the inquiry,” was the firm answer. “You haven’t yet completed your search among the costumiers.”

The Inspector shook his head despondently.

“We have pretty well exhausted the list of costumiers, and there is nothing worth reporting, sir. At least the Commissioner thinks it absurd to attach any importance to Miss Neobard’s presence. He says she would have had much better opportunities of getting hold of her step-father’s keys at home.”

My chief glanced at me. It was the same objection that he had made himself.

“We can’t hear anything of a leopard skin,” Charles pursued. “You may remember, sir, that you expressed the opinion that the leopardess costume would turn out to be a private one. And the only Zenobia costume we can trace was furnished a year ago.”

I stole a glance at the consultant. His keen eyes were no longer on me.

“To whom was it furnished?” he asked quietly.

The Inspector took out a note-book and opened it.

“To the Lady Violet Bredwardine, Grosvenor Place.”

At last the name had been pronounced, the name that I had so much dreaded to hear on the lips of the police. Fortunately I had known that it was coming. I had braced my nerves to meet the shock, and I managed to preserve an air of complete indifference while I faced the speaker.

“Well?”

Tarleton spoke a little sharply. Captain Charles looked at him in mild wonder.

“Well?” the specialist repeated impatiently. “What have you ascertained about Lady Violet Bredwardine?”

Charles was plainly put out by the question.

“Her ladyship is the daughter of the Earl of Ledbury. She is quite young—hardly of age. Sir Hercules McNaught has met her in society.” His manner conveyed that there was some impropriety in making Lady Violet’s name the subject of discussion. The day before I had been inclined to feel some contempt for the worthy Captain, but now I was only grateful for his stolid front.

My chief took a very different view, unfortunately.

“And is that all you have thought it worth while to find out? A peerage would have told us as much as that. I have no doubt that Sir Hercules has met many members of the Domino Club in society. It doesn’t follow that they are to be excluded from the investigation.”

This time the Inspector did not attempt to conceal his mortification.

“I beg your pardon, Sir Frank. Do you mean that Lady Violet Bredwardine is a member of the Domino Club? I hadn’t the slightest reason to suppose so.”

It was the consultant’s turn to show surprise. He stared at me.

“Surely her name was on the list I asked you to furnish to Captain Charles? I have a distinct recollection of it.”

I received the question, for which I had been waiting, with perfect coolness.

“I seem to recollect it too, sir.”

The Inspector was already turning over the pages of his note-book. He looked up at us in triumph.

“I made a copy of the list exactly as I received it, Sir Frank, and the name is not here. I am prepared to swear that her ladyship’s name was not included.”

Tarleton turned to me.

“Will you be good enough to bring me the list I gave you to copy. It looks as though some slip had been made.”

I had not ventured to destroy the document. To have done so would have been to expose myself to a serious rebuke, without serving any useful purpose. Tarleton was not the man to forget such a name as Lady Violet’s—one of the first that had attracted his attention among those that appeared in Weathered’s appointment-book with a number attached to them. All I had hoped to do was to keep the police off her track for a few hours, and that object had now been achieved.

The list was actually in my breast pocket, but I went up to my room as though to fetch it, and returned, carrying it in my hand. I put on an apologetic air as I handed it to my chief.

“The name is certainly here, sir. I can only suppose that I must have left it out of the copy I made for Captain Charles.”

Tarleton let me off more lightly than I expected.

“Either you or the Captain left it out, that’s clear,” he said gruffly. “The point is that Lady Violet was not only a member of the Club; she was also one of Weathered’s patients, which means that she may have been in his power, and she was one of those to whom he had given a special number for some reason that we have still to find out. Perhaps she may be able to tell us.”

I could scarcely suppress a shiver. This point had never occurred to me. I pictured to myself the question being put to the unhappy girl, and tortured myself with wondering what would be her reply.

The Inspector’s attitude had undergone a considerable change as he listened to Tarleton’s information. Evidently he realized that the police authorities had been rather hasty in coming to the conclusion that the inquiry was at an end.

“What you tell me makes a great difference, sir,” he observed regretfully. “I’ve no doubt the Commissioner will see the necessity of going further into the case, on this evidence.”

“There are many reasons for going into it further,” the specialist returned. “You may tell the Commissioner from me that I suspect a book has been taken from Dr. Weathered’s safe containing the names and confidential confessions of his patients, and it is of the utmost importance that that book should be traced. Until we know that it is destroyed the reputations of innocent people will be in danger. You may also tell him that there is grave reason to fear that some unscrupulous person in London is in possession of a supply of deadly poison, unknown to science at present; and unless that person can be discovered and the poison taken out of his or her possession, it may be used to commit more murders than one.”

Captain Charles’s expression was almost humble.

“You may rely on the Commissioner’s giving you all the assistance in his power, Sir Frank, I’m certain. I’ll follow up Lady Violet Bredwardine without delay, if that will meet your views.”

“Thank you. There are two things I should like you to report to me the moment you know them: Lady Violet’s present address, and where she was yesterday night.”

The Inspector scribbled two lines in his note-book, and hurried off.

Meanwhile my position was becoming more difficult every hour. I had to look on and see the toils closing round one whom I would have given my life to protect, without daring to show the least sign of personal interest in her fate. My own peril, serious as it was, affected me but little in comparison with hers. I can honestly say that I should have been ready to draw suspicion on myself if I could have screened her by so doing. But the very reverse was the case, as I knew too well. The only course open to me was to hold my tongue, to keep a strict guard on myself, and to watch for any chance that might present itself of diverting suspicion from either of us.

I was afraid to commit myself by any expression of opinion on the case as it stood against Lady Violet, but I thought I might venture to remind my chief that she was not the only person implicated. He had dismissed Sarah Neobard altogether from the inquiry, or so it seemed, but the mysterious Leopardess remained to be identified. I ventured on a question.

“Do you think, Sir Frank, there is any chance of the police getting on the trail of the woman who wore the leopard skin? According to the waiter’s evidence she was the one who showed most hostility to Weathered. She refused to dance with him, you may remember. Somehow Gerard gave me the impression that she was his only real enemy.”

I was gratified by Tarleton’s quick response.

“You are perfectly right, Cassilis. That is the very point I was considering before you spoke. In my opinion there is very little likelihood of Charles tracing that woman. I think you and I must try our hand.”

I need scarcely say how delighted I was at this prospect. At last I should be able to devote myself to serving my chief without any dread of the result.

“Will it be possible to trace the leopard skin?” I asked. “There are not many taxidermists in London, are there? I have only heard of one. We might go round to them, and find out if any skins have passed through their hands recently. What strikes me is that all the skins I have seen have been mounted as rugs. I shouldn’t think that unmounted skins could be very common—skins that could be made part of a costume.”

My chief had punctuated these suggestions with a series of approving nods. At the close he spoke.

“Very good indeed, Cassilis. You have the makings of a detective, I can see. And now let me explain to you where I see a chance of success. You may put the taxidermists on one side. Leopard skins are such perishable things, and the climates in which leopards are killed are so treacherous, that the skins have to be roughly cured on the spot if they are to be preserved. And they are too common to be the object of much care afterwards as a rule. The chances are against any particular skin having passed through the hands of a taxidermist in London unless it was to be mounted as a rug.”

I felt very small as I listened to this reduction of my ideas to nothing. The specialist had not done.

“I don’t think it would be at all hopeful to try to trace the skin, therefore. But I think it quite possible to trace something else. Do you remember what else about the costume the man Gerard described?”

“Do you mean the necklace—of leopard’s claws?” I responded in doubt.

“Yes. I see you don’t grasp the significance of the claws. I must tell you that the natives of the countries where leopards are found look upon the claws as having a magical virtue. They place a great value on them, and take them from the dead leopard at the first opportunity they find. It is almost impossible for the white man who shoots a leopard to secure the claws. I doubt if more than one entire set of claws comes to England in a year. Now you see that in my opinion we have a very much greater chance of tracing the claws than the skin.”

I was fairly puzzled. I could follow Tarleton’s reasoning, of course, but I could not imagine how he meant to proceed.

“These claws must have been brought home, according to my idea, by a sportsman and traveller of experience, who knew the ways of the natives, and was able to baffle them. Men of that class are not very numerous, and most of them have published books of their travels. I am going to spend the rest of the morning in going to the libraries and publishers; and I want you to spend it in the Natural History Museum at South Kensington.”

There was no occasion for me to express the admiration I sincerely felt for my chief’s knowledge and resource. I waited in silent wonder for his instructions.

“I am not an expert in zoölogy,” he said modestly. “I know, of course, that leopards, or animals closely resembling leopards, are found along the tropical zone. They are called jaguars in South America, I believe, and panthers elsewhere. At all events their skins are sufficiently like the true leopard’s to be called leopard skins by an ignorant man like Gerard. What I want you to do is to ascertain if such animals occur in the East Indian archipelago, and particularly in the Island of Sumatra.”

It was a curious direction. What was there in the circumstances of the case to turn Sir Frank’s mind to one part of the tropics rather than another, and to one particular island? Perhaps it showed some dullness on my part; I can only confess that I had not the least idea of his motive.

“Sumatra,” he repeated in a meditative tone, “almost the largest island in the world, and yet the least known. Nominally it is a Dutch possession, but the Dutch have never subjugated it. They have never thoroughly penetrated the interior. The natives have been too fierce for them to subdue. They occupy one or two points on the coast, I fancy, but that is all. There was a Sultan of Acheen who fought with them at one time. I don’t think he was really conquered. A very interesting field for an explorer willing to take his life in his hand.”

And still I failed to grasp the mysterious connection between the vast unknown island lying on the Equator and the tragedy I had all but witnessed in a night club of London.

“You can take my card,” the specialist added. “You will find the people at the Museum most obliging. If they have the information they will give it to you willingly.”

I took the card, and the Piccadilly Tube from Russell Square soon landed me at South Kensington. As Sir Frank Tarleton had foretold, the staff of the Natural History Museum received it with all respect, and showed themselves ready to give all the information they possessed. The gentleman who took me in hand was confident that there were leopards in Sumatra; nevertheless, when it came to the question of positive evidence he found some difficulty in putting his hand on any.

“You have struck the least-known area in the world, you see,” he pointed out. “We know the fauna of the Malay Peninsula, and of Java and all the other East Indian islands as far as the Philippines, and one has always taken it for granted that the fauna of Sumatra corresponded with that of the neighbouring area north of the Wallace line. But if you ask me for an official declaration that leopards are to be found in the island I don’t think I can give it off-hand. We might be able to get the information by writing to The Hague. Or you might find it in some book of travels in the British Museum Library.”

“Sir Frank Tarleton is searching in the Library at this moment, I believe,” I said incautiously.

My guide opened his eyes.

“You surprise me. I had no idea that Sir Frank was so much interested in natural history. I have always associated his name with toxicology.”

The light burst on me at last. I understood the true reason for my chief’s extreme interest in following up the clue of the leopard’s claws, and for his turning his special attention to the region of the earth least known to science. He had perceived a connection overlooked by me between the rare necklace worn by the unknown woman in the Domino Club and the gray powder contained in the small glass bottle in his private safe. He was on the search for some other product of Sumatra besides its leopards. He expected to trace the secret drug whose presence the effects of the opium had concealed.