THE CLUB OF MASKS

The Club of Masks

By ALLEN UPWARD

A. L. BURT COMPANY
Publishers New York
Published by arrangement with J. B. Lippincott Company
Printed in U. S. A.

COPYRIGHT, 1926, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY

Copyright in Great Britain under the title of The Domino Club

CONTENTS

THE CLUB OF MASKS

CHAPTER I
ON HIS MAJESTY’S SERVICE

I had only just let myself into the hall of the quiet house in the respectable street beside the British Museum when my ear was startled by the subdued shrilling of the telephone bell overhead. Whether this was the first time it had sounded, or whether that alarming call was being repeated for the second or third time, I had no means of knowing, as I turned hurriedly to fasten the front door behind me. Cautiously, and yet as swiftly as I dared, I shot the bolts and began speeding on tiptoe up the two flights of stairs between me and safety from detection. The night telephone was placed beside my bed on the second floor, but Sir Frank Tarleton slept on the same landing; and unless I could reach my room and still that persistent ringing before it penetrated through his slumber I ran the risk of meeting him coming out to find why it was not answered. And not for much, not for very much, would I have had the great consultant see me returning to his house at an hour when daylight was already flooding the deserted streets of the still sleeping city.

There was something ominous in the continuous peal that sounded louder and louder in my ears with every step I made towards it. It seemed as though the unknown caller must know of my predicament and be bent on exposing me. I clutched the rail of the banisters to steady myself as I panted up those interminable stairs in the darkness, and my feet felt clogged like those of one in a nightmare as I lifted them from step to step; all the while racking my brains for some excuse to offer for the breach of duty I had been guilty of in spending the night elsewhere. For my real excuse, the only one that could have tempted me to betray my chief’s confidence, could never be disclosed.

The darkness all around me seemed to be vibrating with the merciless clamour overhead as I toiled through those tense moments. My knees trembled under me, and my heart well-nigh stopped beating, as my head reached the level of the last landing and I turned my eyes desperately to the physician’s door in search of any sign that he had been aroused.

No sign as yet, thank Heaven! Five more stairs, three lightning strides to my own door, and he would never know of the secret errand that had taken me away from my post that night.

At last my agony was ended. I stood breathless on the topmost stair, darted past Sir Frank’s room, not daring to pause and listen for any movement from within, and clutched the handle of my own door, summoning all my nerve to open and close it again so rapidly as to permit the least possible sound to escape. An instant later and I had reached the telephone and silenced its urgent voice, and was beginning to draw my breath freely for the first time since I had reached the house.

Then, after a few deep gasps, I hailed the caller.

“Inspector Charles of Scotland Yard speaking,” came grimly over the wire. “Who is there?”

There was nothing to startle me in the fact that the police were calling so imperatively. Tarleton was the greatest living authority on poisons; it was to pursue his researches in their mysterious history that he lived in the unfashionable neighbourhood of the Museum; and the Home Office treated him with a confidence which they placed in no other of their advisers. Neither was there any cause for uneasiness in the Inspector’s cautious question. Very many of the calls that came to that unpretending house in that quiet corner of London had a certain character of furtiveness, and the callers showed the same anxiety to make sure whom they were speaking with.

My usual response came to my lips mechanically. “This is Dr. Cassilis, Sir Frank Tarleton’s confidential assistant. The doctor is asleep.”

There was a pause before the caller spoke again. There was nothing alarming to me in that, either. I had grown accustomed to the pause during my first few weeks under the roof of the great consultant. Few of those who needed his services liked to disclose their business to a deputy.

“Please have him waked immediately. He is wanted as soon as possible—on His Majesty’s service.”

The request was peremptory, nevertheless I was not inclined to give way to it at once. The police formula made no difference to me. I was His Majesty’s servant as much as my chief, and it was for me, and not for the Inspector, to decide which of us was to take the case. At the same time I began casting off my clothes so as to be ready to go in and rouse Tarleton if it became necessary; and one hand was busy with my necktie and collar while the other held the telephone mouthpiece to my lips.

“My instructions are not to disturb Sir Frank unless I am satisfied that the case is urgent, and that I can’t deal with it myself,” I said firmly. “I must ask you to tell me something more.”

There was another pause before the caller spoke again, and I took advantage of it to wrench off my collar and throw my waistcoat after my coat onto the floor. When the wire buzzed again the first words that reached my ear nearly caused me to drop the tube from my fingers.

“I am speaking from the Domino Club, Vincent Studios, Tarifa Road, Chelsea. There was a masked dance here this night, and one of the dancers has been found dead, apparently poisoned.”

And now I might well find myself trembling all over, and have to lean against the wall to recover myself. I only just succeeded in keeping back a cry of consternation. For it was to go to that underground club, with its dark reputation, and its strange character of mingled fashion and depravity, that I had been tempted to quit my post that night. I had been one of those masked dancers, jostling with I knew not whom under the shadowy lights and in the curtained recesses of the pretended studio in London’s nearest approach to a Quartier Latin. I could recall the scene in the after-midnight hours, the sea of black silk-covered faces thronging under the crimson lamp-shades, the bizarre confusion of costumes, monks and Crusaders, columbines and queens, the swish of silk and tinkling of swords and bracelets, and the incessant flood of whispers that had made me think of the scene in Milton’s pandemonium when the assembly of fallen angels are suddenly deprived of speech and changed into hissing serpents.

I had used the greatest precautions in coming and going. I had no reason to think that there was any real likelihood of my presence there being discovered. But a cold fear laid hold of me as I steadied my nerves to deal with the Police Inspector who had so unexpectedly conjured up a spectre on the scene of that past revelry. It was doubly imperative now that I should make no mistake, and above all that I should get rid of every sign that I had not passed the night in my own bed.

I was fast unbuttoning my shirt as I spoke again to the waiting police officer.

“I’m afraid I can’t awake Sir Frank for that. It seems to be a case that he will expect me to attend myself. Is there anything peculiar about the medical symptoms? What does your local surgeon say?”

Inspector Charles at last revealed the true reason for his persistence in demanding the attendance of my chief.

“I haven’t called in our local surgeon. There doesn’t seem anything mysterious about the cause of death. It looks to me like a simple case of opium-poisoning, very likely a suicide. But the case must be disposed of in camera if possible, for the sake of the people in high places connected with the club. My information is that there was a royalty present at this dance, the Crown Prince of——”

Whether purposely or not, the speaker let his voice drop so low that I failed to catch the final word. But I had heard enough. There could be no more doubt that Tarleton must be informed. It was a bare possibility that the victim might prove to be the foreign Royal Highness himself. Failing that, it might at least be someone who had been mistaken for him by the assassin. In any case I could thank my stars for the intimation that the case was likely to be hushed up on his account. Provided that I could efface every sign of my nocturnal expedition, I ought to have nothing now to dread.

I bade the officer wait, and tore off my remaining garments, slipped into my sleeping-suit and dressing-gown, and rumpled my hair to give myself the look of one just roused from sleep. Then and not before, I ventured out upon the landing to face my chief.

As I did so I was chilled by another shock. I saw a thin line of light under the door in front of me. Sir Frank Tarleton was awake.

I don’t think I can be accused of cowardice for feeling as I did during those desperate moments. It was not only my worldly fortune that was at stake; there were peculiar circumstances which made it doubly shameful on my part to be false to the trust put in me by the great specialist. They went back to the day when I began to attend his lectures on forensic medicine at the University College in Gower Street. I had already taken my medical degree in the University of London with a view to becoming a public analyst, and I had been anxious to profit by the Professor’s unique knowledge of poisons. From the first I had attracted his favourable notice; my papers had won his praise; and he had invited me to call on him, and admitted me to his friendship. Then, at the end of the year’s course, he had overwhelmed me by an offer so much beyond my hopes that I could scarcely yet believe in my good luck.

I can see him now, the whole scene is clear before me, the brisk figure with its face of intense thought, crowned by a shock of unkempt gray hair, standing over me on the hearth-rug of his dingy consulting-room on the ground floor in Montague Street. He was following his quaint habit of swinging his magnificent gold repeater in front of him by its shabby scrap of ribbon, while he gave me the amazing news.

“I’ve decided to take an assistant, Cassilis. I have passed my sixtieth birthday, and though my work interests me as much as ever, I mean to spare myself a little more in future. I don’t intend to turn out in the middle of the night because a bilious duchess fancies that someone has bribed her French maid to poison her. And I’ve told them at the Home Office—I suppose you know I’m their principal consultant—that I won’t be sent down to Cornwall one day and to Cumberland the next every time a coroner lets himself be puzzled by a simple case of strychnine or arsenic. It’s work for a younger man.”

He waved the watch towards me as he went on.

“Sir James Ponsonby—that’s the Permanent Under Secretary—has consented to my having a deputy, and I’m submitting your name.”

I recall my sensations as he stopped abruptly and bent his keen eyes on me from beneath their bushy roof of eyebrow to see how the proposal struck me. I had gasped for breath then as I was gasping now. At the age of twenty-five, only just qualified for my profession, I was to be lifted at one step out of the struggling crowd into a position which was already success, and which I should only have to make proper use of to attain in time the same eminence as my patron.

My answer must have been incoherent. But Tarleton interrupted it with a jerk of his gold repeater, which, I can remember, almost made me duck my head.

“I’m paying you what most of the men in our profession would consider a doubtful compliment when I tell you that you seem to me to be a young man with imagination, Cassilis. And that is what’s wanted in my work. It isn’t doctor’s work really so much as detective’s. It’s not only symptoms I have to look for, but motives. There was a touch in your very first paper that showed me you could think for yourself, and speculate. And speculation is the master key of science, although all your second-rate men decry it. It’s the old fable of the fox who had lost his tail. Not having any imagination themselves, they would like to forbid it to everyone. The Trade Unions rule the world to-day, and they are all trying to reduce the intelligence of mankind to the lowest common denominator.”

He had spoken with a certain bitterness which it was easy for me to understand. Eminent as he was, unquestioned as his authority had now become, I knew that Tarleton was not popular with the medical profession. His baronetcy had been given late, and given grudgingly. Perhaps he had recognized in me something that reminded him of his own youth, and had taken a generous resolution to help me in consequence. Certainly his treatment of me since had been more like that of a father than an employer.

He had said a good deal more that I hadn’t forgotten and that I was least likely to forget just then. His manner had been very grave as he dwelt upon the confidential character of a great deal of his work.

“If you are to assist me in my most important cases, and to qualify yourself for succeeding me later on, as I hope you will, you must learn to be more discreet than in almost any other line of life. You will find yourself in possession of secrets that compromise the honour of great families; men in the highest positions will hold their reputations at your mercy; the safety of the State itself may sometimes depend on your silence. I know of at least one man sitting in the House of Lords who owes his peerage to an undiscovered murder; and what is more, he knows of my knowledge. I make it a rule if possible never to go into any company where he is likely to be present, and he takes the same care to avoid me. But if he ever thought it necessary to his safety, that man would no more hesitate about taking my life than he did about taking his nephew’s—a boy twelve years old.”

No doubt Tarleton had gauged my disposition pretty well before he chose me for his assistant, and he knew that I should be more attracted than repelled by such hints as that. My blood tingled at the prospect opening before me. The days of Richard III and the Bloody Tower seemed to have come again. And I was to be behind the scenes tracing the midnight assassin at his work in the heart of modern London, and in the very purlieus of her palaces. It was enough to sate the greediest imagination.

“I mustn’t conceal from you,” my kindly chief had gone on to tell me, “that I have had to overcome strong objections to your appointment. Sir James Ponsonby considers that you are very young to be entrusted with such serious responsibilities. You can’t wonder if the Home Office has taken some precautions. I submitted your name a month ago, and I only received permission to make you the offer yesterday. I have very little doubt that you have been under observation most of the time between.”

This was the part of the conversation that had come back to me most vividly that night when I was struggling frantically towards the accusing bell.

For the whole sting in the communication that my memory thrust so pitilessly before me was in the last condition, the very condition I had been driven to break that night.

I had been less dismayed than most men of my age perhaps—particularly most medical students—would have been by learning that my life had been under the microscope for a month. I had nothing very serious to reproach myself with. The memory of a secret love affair, an unhappy one, alas! had served to keep me clear of the most dangerous of all the snares that life sets for youth. It was my good luck never to have tasted, and never to have felt the wish to taste, anything in the way of alcohol, and to be able to sit with nothing stronger than a cup of strong coffee in front of me in the midst of the most riotous company. I believe it was this exceptional merit that turned the scale in my favour with Sir James Ponsonby. Gambling had equally little appeal for me, and I took no interest whatever in that noble animal the horse. My real vice was love of excitement for its own sake. One prize-fight had more attraction for me than a hundred cricket-matches. It was in search of sensation that I was drawn into the night life of London. I was haunted by the mystery of silent streets and shadowed courts. Like Stevenson, I felt that life ought to be a series of adventures beginning in Leicester Square. The Press Club and the Chelsea Art Club were the two poles of my romantic sphere, and I revelled in the society of men who seemed to me to be leading lives more mysterious than mine.

It appeared that this was the weakness which stood in my way with the Government Department I was to serve. Tarleton had ceased to swing his watch, and had given me a very meaning glance as he came to the decisive point.

“Sir James has made it a condition of your appointment that it shall be a resident one. You will have to take up your quarters with me. I shall have a telephone installed in your room for you to take the night calls. And I shall depend on you not to trouble me with them unless I am really wanted.”

My face must have fallen as I listened to this stipulation, for I saw an answering shade on the doctor’s brow. I felt that a good deal of the gilt would be taken off the gingerbread if I had to surrender my personal freedom and abandon my favourite haunts to lead a regular life under my employer’s roof, and under his surveillance; for, of course, that was what it came to. My chief inducement to take up the career of an analyst instead of a general practitioner had been the greater freedom I should enjoy. I had dreaded the idea of having to settle in a provincial town or a prim residential suburb, where I should have to keep regular hours, go to church in a black coat on Sundays, act as sidesman, and generally put on all the airs of respectability. It would be almost as great a wrench to give up my artist and journalist friends, in whose company I had had such jolly times, and go to bed every night just as the real day was beginning, under the watchful eyes of my chief.

I fancy Sir Frank himself felt some sympathy with me, though he was too wise to express it.

“A man must expect to be judged to some extent by the company he keeps,” he had hinted. “You can’t expect the head of a Department like the Home Office to feel easy at the idea of entrusting important secrets to a young man who spends his nights, I won’t say in disreputable company, but at all events in circles where a good many adventurers are found. These people”—the bitter note came back into his voice—“these people hate the shoulders on which they have climbed. They govern the empire which the Raleighs and the Clives have gained for them, but they don’t want any more Clives and Raleighs. They threw Burton away; they wouldn’t use Gordon till it was too late—Faugh!” He swallowed his disgust with an effort, and became almost stern. “Now, my boy, this is a great opportunity for you, and you must take it. You must forget that you are a genius, and put your neck into the collar for a few years. At the end of that time you will have a reputation, and you can do what you like within reasonable limits. I expect you to trust yourself to me.”

And, of course, I had. He had taken me to the Home Office and formally presented me to the Under Secretary, and I found myself appointed an Assistant Medical Adviser, detailed for duty under the orders of Sir Frank Tarleton, with a salary that seemed riches in advance.

Perhaps I had found my work a little disappointing since. The night calls had not been numerous, and they had grown fewer after the first month or two, as though Tarleton’s clients or patients, I hardly know which to call them, had found out that it was no use expecting him to turn out any longer, if the case was one that I could deal with. Most of my time was passed in the laboratory in Montague Street, carrying out analyses under his directions, and improving my knowledge of rare poisons, of which he had formed what was probably the finest collection in the world. But of really sensational cases, involving criminal suspicion and mystery, there had not been one before that fateful summons from the Domino Club.

But I dared not hesitate longer in delivering it. Every moment now would only make matters worse. I crossed the landing and knocked firmly on the closed door.

The answer was instantaneous—“Come in!”

I obeyed, to find myself in the full glare of the electric light over the bed, in which Tarleton was sitting upright, his beloved repeater in one hand, while he gazed at me questioningly from beneath his knitted brows.

“I first heard the telephone nine minutes ago. You have taken some time to answer it.”

CHAPTER II
THE EVIDENCE OF MADAME BONNELL

Instead of excusing myself I thought it the best plan to plunge into the account of what had taken place at the Domino Club, in the hope that it would absorb his mind. The alert physician made only one comment as I finished.

“A case for Inspector Charles is pretty sure to be a case for me; but you didn’t know that.” He was out of bed the next moment.

“Please tell him I am coming at once, and order round my car. And be ready yourself as soon as you can.”

I needed no injunction to make haste. I was in a fever to be back at the scene of that masked revel, and find out what had happened there. I congratulated myself on the care I had taken to cover my own tracks. I had left the doctor’s house and returned to it in my ordinary clothes. Not a soul in the Domino Club, except the member from whom I had obtained a ticket of admission, could have the least idea of my identity. So far as I could see I was absolutely secure from discovery. But it had been a dangerous game to play, and Tarleton was a dangerous man to play against. With all his kindness for me I trembled at the thought of coming within the range of his uncanny powers of detection.

As soon as I had dispatched his messages, and put a pot of coffee on to boil over a little spirit stove, I sluiced my head in cold water, and got into my clothes again as quickly as I had got out of them. I was ready with a steaming cup of coffee for my chief as he came out of his room, and was rewarded by the heartiness with which he gulped it down. His square leather bag, fitted with everything likely to be needed for the treatment of a poisoning case, was always kept ready in his bedroom, and he had it in his hand. I relieved him of it not presuming to bring my own; and we found the car waiting for us when we opened the front door.

As we rolled through the streets, just beginning to show signs of life, Tarleton acquainted me with the personality of Inspector Charles.

“He’s a retired Army man; he likes to be called Captain Charles. He’s also the younger son of a peer but he doesn’t like that noticed. His family are silly enough to object to his being in the police, and he drops the Honourable on their account. But of course it’s known in the Yard, and he gets most of the society jobs in consequence. I suppose they think he’s more likely to know his way about among the big people. But if you ask me, I think an experienced valet knows ten times more. You’ll find Charles straight, and you’ll find him thorough, but you needn’t expect him to see an inch beyond his own nose.”

This was comfortable for me. But the next words of my chief gave me an awkward jar.

“By the way, you ought to be able to tell me something about the place we’re going to—what is it?—the Domino Club. It sounds like the sort of night haunt the Home Office objected to so much when I asked for you as my assistant.”

I had to make up my mind in a hurry. To tell the truth was out of the question. It was not only my own honour and safety that were at stake; there was another for whose sake my presence at that fatal dance must be concealed. I was on the point of denying all knowledge of the club when it struck me that I might be betrayed into some unconscious movement in going through the premises, or some thoughtless remark, which would reveal to a keen intelligence like Tarleton’s that I had been there before.

I made an effort to seem as if I had been searching my memory.

“Yes,” I said slowly, “now you speak of it I remember having been there. But I am not sure that I am free to say anything about it. My impression is that there was an implied pledge of secrecy. Everyone wore a mask and a disguise of some sort. It was supposed to be a place where people in very high positions could let themselves go in security. I was told there were sometimes judges present, and I rather think Cabinet Ministers, as well as peeresses, and so forth.”

The specialist nodded gravely. “I expect the authorities knew what they were doing when they told Charles to call for me. We shall see whether he has found out who the man is that has been poisoned.”

“He didn’t say it was a man,” I ventured to suggest.

Sir Frank pursed his lips, but made no answer. He took out his gold repeater and began swinging it slowly, a sure sign that he was following out some train of thought.

In another quarter of an hour the car drew up in one of the old-fashioned streets of Chelsea between King Street and the Fulham Road, at the entrance to the curious building or group of buildings that bore the name of Vincent Studios.

The place resembled a rabbit warren. A short flight of steps led down from the street pavement into a dark, cavernous hall with doors opening out of it on three sides. Behind most of these doors were the studios of artists—one or two of them known to me—studios as cavernous if not as dark as the hall, and ending in glass doors that opened on mysterious gardens or garden yards overgrown with nasturtiums and other plants that seem to love the grime and cinders of suburban London. In the background one was aware of gray piles of timber, as of a mountain range closing a landscape. Some forgotten builder, perhaps, had died, leaving those stacks behind him, and his heirs had never discovered their existence, so that they had been left to the possession of the rats.

At the far end of the entrance cavern two doors side by side still bore the name of artists, one of whom had lately blossomed into an Academician and been transplanted to the sunnier region of Bedford Park, while the other had exchanged the brush for some more promising weapon in what, I fear, had been a losing fight with Fortune. Only the initiated knew that the door still bearing the name of J. Loftus, A.R.A., was now that of the Domino Club; while its companion, from which the name of Yelverton had been roughly effaced, served as a back door for the use of the tradesmen and servants of the club, and also for such members as had reasons of their own for not coming through the streets in fancy costume. For their benefit a row of small dressing-rooms had been fitted up, in which they could transform themselves from sober moths into bright artificial butterflies and back again.

In front of the club entrance an officer in plain clothes was stationed who recognized Sir Frank with a respectful salute.

“You will find Inspector Charles inside, sir,” he said, opening the door for us.

We found ourselves in a dark narrow passage empty of everything but cloak- and hat-pegs. A door at the further end opened straight into the dancing-room.

The former studio had been decorated in a fashion evidently meant to recall the Arabian Nights Entertainment. Vistas of Moorish arches and fountains playing among palms and oleanders had been painted on the walls. At intervals wooden columns had been set up to support curtains of gauze embroidered so as to afford a half concealment to the nooks that they enclosed. The whole place was still suffused with the lurid glow of a series of red lanterns hanging from the roof. But a glass door at the further end had been thrown open to admit the daylight, and where it reached the crimson glow became haggard and spectral and the whole place had the air of an old woman’s face from which the paint had peeled in streaks, revealing the wrinkles and sharp bones beneath.

Inspector Charles, tall, upright, and looking the personification of law and order, stood beside one of the curtained alcoves close to the garden door, and invited us with a solemn gesture to approach.

This was the moment I had been dreading. I endeavoured to keep my face passive, and give no sign of recognition, as I came behind my chief and took my first glance at the spectacle the Inspector had to show us.

Within the curtains, stretched at full length on a low divan, was a figure attired as an Inquisitor. The black robe was folded carefully round him, but the peaked hood with its two eye-slits had been thrust back over the head, so that the face was fully exposed. It was a striking face in every way, the face of a man of fifty or thereabout in the full possession of his powers. The forehead was intellectual; the eyes, wide open but glazed in the death stare, must have been full and penetrating in life; the nose and chin were strongly carved; only the lips showed a certain looseness, as of over-ripened fruit, that seemed to hint at something evil underlying the dignity and strength manifested in the rest of the face.

I scanned that prostrate figure with painful curiosity. The costume was only too familiar; I had had ample opportunity of observing it during the night that had just elapsed. But the face was as strange to me as it was to either of the other two who stood and gazed beside me. Even the eyes, unnaturally dilated by the drug, seemed to bear little likeness to those that had peered through the holes in the black hood when I last looked on the sombre shape in life.

The Inspector spoke briefly, addressing himself to my companion.

“This is how he was found when they came in to put out the lights after everyone was gone as they supposed. They thought at first that he was in a drunken sleep, and tried to rouse him by shaking. When they failed, they went to bring Madame Bonnell, the proprietress of the club. They dared not uncover the face without her authority; the rules of the club are so strict on that point. She laid back the hood herself, and saw at once that he was dead. After that she rang us up, and saw that the body was not touched till I got here. I thought it best not to touch it myself till you came.”

Clear, succinct, containing the bare facts and nothing more, such was the report of Inspector Charles. It was evident that no better man could have been put in charge of an affair in dealing with which prudence was the most essential requisite.

The great physician received the statement with a nod of satisfaction.

“You suggested to Dr. Cassilis over the wire that it looked like a case of opium-poisoning,” was his first remark.

Captain Charles favoured me with a cautious glance, in which I read some disapproval of my youthful appearance.

“I thought an opiate must have been the cause of death, Sir Frank, because there was no sign of a struggle nor of any suffering. He seemed to have died in his sleep.”

Again the consultant gave an approving nod. All this time he had not once removed his eyes from the pallid face on which a leaden tinge had become visible. Now he turned to me.

“What do you say, Cassilis?”

I shook my head. There was something in the case that puzzled me.

“I agree with Captain Charles to some extent. The appearances are consistent with opium-poisoning. But——” I turned to the Inspector—“can you tell us the hour at which the body was found with life extinct?”

Captain Charles consulted his watch. Tarleton’s fingers were already pinching the shabby ribbon of his repeater, and it was going to and fro with the slow movement of a pendulum.

“It is now half-past six. I got here soon after five. It must have been about half-past four when the body was found.”

I looked questioningly at the great specialist.

“Unless the opiate was given very early, in which case the effect would surely have been noticed by someone, it must have been a very powerful dose to produce death so soon. I should be inclined to suspect some weakness in the heart, or some other derangement, to account for such rapid action. I don’t like the colour of the skin.”

“Ah! You see that?” Tarleton bent over the dead face in grave scrutiny for some moments. Then he straightened himself up.

“And now, who is this man?” he asked the Inspector.

“His name is Wilson, so the proprietress says. But she seems to know very little about him.”

“Wilson?” The doctor repeated the name with a sceptical intonation. “That is the sort of name that man would be likely to give himself in a place of this kind, I should think. Can I see the proprietress?”

Captain Charles went out in quest of her. He was no sooner gone than my chief whispered quickly in my ear, “Not another word about the cause of death before anybody else. I blame myself for asking your opinion. I underrated your powers of observation. Hush!”

I looked round to see a capable middle-aged Frenchwoman dressed in black silk, emerging from a portière across the room. Very capable and businesslike she looked, with her well-arranged hair and commanding black eyes, and well-preserved face and figure, and that amazing air of respectability which only a Frenchwoman can keep up in an atmosphere charged with evil. In Madame Bonnell’s presence vice was deprived of its impropriety, and even murder took on the character of a business mischance about which the less fuss made the better.

Madame had obviously employed her time since the discovery of this particular mischance in making the best of her personal appearance. She greeted us with affability.

Even Tarleton, I thought, was softened by her graceful and yet dignified deportment. In a moment we seemed to become four friends engaged in a confidential talk over a matter of common interest. It was Madame who induced me to sit down.

“You understand, no doubt, Madame, that we are not here with any hostile purpose,” the representative of the Home Office began. “If it is possible to dispose of this matter privately, without involving you or your establishment in any scandal, I shall be glad.”

The explanation seemed unnecessary. Madame Bonnell by her manner refused to perceive the possibility of her being involved in scandal, or in anything else inconsistent with the character of a respectable business woman.

“You have identified the deceased, I understand, by the name of Wilson. Have you any idea whether that was his real name, or an assumed one?”

Madame Bonnell had no idea. Madame Bonnell was desolated by having no idea, since the amiable Sir Frank seemed to wish her to have one. Monsieur the late Wilson had introduced himself to her originally under that name, and she had never inquired if he had any other.

Madame succeeded in conveying to us that she was not in the habit of inconveniencing her patrons by inquiries of any sort, or of distracting her own mind by curiosity on any subject except their ability to pay her.

Under the polished surface of indifference I nevertheless thought I could detect in the proprietress of the Domino Club a consciousness that she was being examined by the representatives of the law about a serious business, and that it would not be prudent on her part to withhold any material information. It must have been clear to her that candour was her best policy, up to a certain point at all events.

To Tarleton’s next question, how she came to make the acquaintance of the dead man, she made a pretty full reply. Monsieur Wilson had introduced himself to her a year or two before, when she was managing a small restaurant in Soho, in a street in which there is more than one small restaurant, and the restaurants are patronized by more than one class of customers. It was Monsieur Wilson who had proposed to her that she should exchange her position there for the more profitable one of proprietress of a fashionable night club. Monsieur had offered to provide the funds required for starting such a club, and had undertaken to make it fashionable, and in both respects he had kept his word. All the first members of the club had been brought by him, and he had gone on introducing others since. Madame avowed that she was under a debt to Monsieur Wilson, which she could not easily repay. She made an effort to repay it, as she spoke, with tears for his fate, but the dividend forthcoming did not strike me as a heavy one. By this time, doubtless, the Domino Club was fairly on its feet, and in no great need of the dead man’s further support.

Madame Bonnell’s evidence so far had only served to deepen the mystery instead of lightening it. Who was this unknown Wilson? Why should he have wanted to start a night club, and what was the influence that had enabled him to fill it with so many members drawn from the highest social ranks? The chief part in the examination had been taken by the physician, Inspector Charles intervening mostly to secure dates and addresses for his note-book after the meticulous fashion of the law. At length I took advantage of a break to put a question which had been in my mind for some time.

“These people whom Wilson, if that was his name, brought into the club must have been his friends, apparently. So far as one can see the club was entirely composed of his personal friends and other friends of theirs. Doesn’t that make it more probable that he took poison himself than that anyone else gave it to him?”

I threw out the suggestion generally, and my three companions all turned and stared at me as though it took them by surprise, although it was an obvious alternative. The physician said nothing, but the compression of his brows told me plainly that he had rejected such a theory. Captain Charles made a fatal objection.

“After he had founded the club and done everything to make it a success, why should he have come to it to commit suicide—the very thing that would damage it most?”

Madame Bonnell became genuinely agitated for the first time.

“But of course that will not be known!” she exclaimed sharply. “You sir,” she appealed to Tarleton, “you will know how to contrive that this unfortunate shall be taken elsewhere. Think of the scandal if it should be known that a crime was committed in the presence of the Crown Prince!”

Evidently His Royal Highness was a strong card in Madame’s estimation, and one which she could rely on to win her game. Perhaps it was not the first time in her business experience that she had found the police disposed to shut their eyes to awkward incidents in which great personages were involved.

The consultant of the Home Office looked by no means yielding.

“I have not yet decided what course I shall recommend the authorities to take,” he said. “Have you anything to say in answer to Dr. Cassilis? Is he right in assuming that everyone present here last night must have been Wilson’s friend?”

Thus pressed, Madame Bonnell presented the appearance of an unwilling witness, who hesitates to speak for fear of the consequences to himself.

“As long as I believe that no proceedings will be taken against the Club, which is my property, everything I know, my suspicions even, are at the service of the police,” she replied cautiously.

It was a bargain which the astute Frenchwoman was proposing openly to the authorities. Tarleton shrugged his shoulders. He was the last man to commit himself to anything of the kind.

“The moment I am satisfied that you are withholding any information that bears on the case I shall advise the police to close this place, and apply for your deportation as an alien, Madame Bonnell.”

The capable Frenchwoman saw that she had made a false step. She retracted it immediately in admirable distress.

“But Monsieur must pardon me! I am bewildered by the situation in which I find myself. I do not understand the Britannic law. I am ready to throw myself on Monsieur’s consideration. What is it that he would have me say?”

The physician looked at his watch.

“I am waiting for your answer to Dr. Cassilis.”

Madame Bonnell gave me an appealing look, of which I thought it best to take no notice. I had seen nothing of her during the time I had spent at the dance, and I was confident that she was quite ignorant of my presence at it. She found herself compelled to speak without assistance.

“The Doctor Cassilis is mistaken,” she said at last, with an air of weighing each word before she uttered it. “Monsieur Wilson was acquainted with the people whom he introduced here, undoubtedly, but they were not all his friends. On the contrary, some of them were his enemies, and he went in fear of them. Even in mortal fear.”

It was the revelation Tarleton seemed to have been anticipating. He gave the short, satisfied nod I knew so well.

“Go on,” he commanded. “Explain how you knew this.”

“In effect I knew it because he told me so himself. He took me into his confidence in order to ask for my protection. He feared this very thing that has happened. He instructed me to pour out everything he was to drink with my own hands, and to send it to him by the waiter he thought he could trust—Gerard.”

“Now I think we have some real information,” the specialist observed. “Be good enough to send for Gerard, if you please.”

CHAPTER III
THE EVIDENCE OF THE DEAD

At this point I began to feel a touch of nervousness. I had faced the proprietress of the Domino Club without any, because she had not seen me even in my disguise. But the waiters had been going to and fro throughout the night. I had given orders once or twice, and I could not feel certain that my voice would not be recognized. I told myself that my fear was fanciful, and that the last thing that could occur to anyone’s mind was that a representative of the Home Office, engaged in the investigation, had himself been present on the scene of the crime, if crime it was. But none the less I resolved to do nothing to attract the waiter’s notice, if I could help it.

I saw Tarleton frown as Madame Bonnell returned with her servant. He gave her an authoritative nod.

“Thank you, Madame. I won’t detain you while I am questioning this man.”

The prudent Frenchwoman concealed any vexation she may have felt, and instantly retired, leaving Gerard alone with us.

He was as much the type of the discreet waiter as Madame was of the discreet manageress. If he had only possessed side-whiskers he would have been the perfect waiter of the French stage. But he was a good deal younger than Madame, and showed less self-possession. His eyes searched us nervously in turn as though he were looking for someone to propitiate. The physician read his rather white face with one swift glance, and came to his relief.

“You are not under any suspicion, Gerard. Provided you tell the truth, you have nothing to fear.”

The waiter braced himself up with a visible effort. Not, I fancied, that he had any objection to tell the truth, but that it was a rather novel exercise for him. From that moment he neglected the Inspector and me to concentrate his efforts to propitiate on Sir Frank.

“I hear that the man who is dead trusted you. Did he trust you with his real name?”

“Never, sir.” Gerard spread out his two hands to show their emptiness of knowledge. “I knew nothing of him except what I learned from Madame.”

“And that was?”

The waiter looked apprehensive. No doubt the idea crossed his mind that it might be awkward if his account contradicted hers.

“That was very little indeed, sir. She told me to treat him as proprietor. He never paid for what he consumed. I supposed that he was Madame’s partner.”

“Were you the only man who waited on him?”

“For the last four months or six months, yes, sir. He made it his request to Madame and to me that I should bring him everything he ordered.”

“Did he tell you why?”

“Yes, he said to me that I was to carry his glass of wine or his cup of coffee very carefully. ‘See that you do not spill it, and see that nothing is spilled into it by the way’—those were his words, sir, as nearly as I can recollect.”

“What did you think when he said that?”

Gerard’s expressive hands mutely protested that it was not their business to think.

“I do what I am ordered to do, sir, without thinking too much. But Monsieur Wilson himself explained his motive to me. He said, ‘I do not like to have practical jokes played on me, and I fancy there are some practical jokers in the cercle.’”

“Did he say cercle or club?”

“Monsieur, he always spoke to me in French. He had spent much time in Paris, he told me once. I believe——” Gerard interrupted himself, as though doubtful whether his belief would be acceptable as evidence. It struck me that he had been a witness in a court of law at some time or other.

Tarleton threw him a friendly nod. “Go on; tell me what you believe.”

“I think,” Gerard corrected himself, “that perhaps Monsieur Wilson founded this club in order to escape the necessity for going to Paris to amuse himself.”

The examiner moved his head doubtfully.

“You think he had some business, then, which made it necessary for him to remain in London.”

“But I am sure of it!” The waiter’s tone became confident. “Business that assisted him in establishing the club, even. The great people who came here were his customers rather than his personal friends; such is my idea.”

Tarleton turned an approving face to us.

“I think that this man knows what he is talking about. We are dealing with something very daring and very dark. Did you ever guess what the business was?”

The question was darted out suddenly. But the little Frenchman manifested no uneasiness. The doctor’s praise seemed to have given him confidence.

“I supposed sometimes that it was not a lawful business, sir.” He lowered his voice a little and glanced behind him as if to make sure that his employer was not within hearing. “I fancied that Monsieur Wilson might be the proprietor of an establishment for the reception of ladies who did not wish to become mothers.”

I could not resist a slight shudder as the gruesome hint came glibly from the lips of the pasty-faced waiter. He did not look the kind of man who would have made any objection to a post in such an establishment.

“Some of the ladies whom he introduced here had the air of being afraid of him, I thought,” Gerard added by way of confirmation.

Inspector Charles had begun to take notes of this evidence. He now straightened himself up, and looked at Tarleton.

“Wouldn’t it be well to search his clothes, Sir Frank? We might find an address, perhaps?”

“In another minute. Is there any question you would like to put, Cassilis?”

I had to make a call on my courage, as Gerard faced towards me in readiness to be addressed. His figure was not less familiar to me than that of the masked Inquisitor had been. I was now to see whether my voice would sound familiar to him. I dared not modify my usual tone with Tarleton’s keen ears listening.

“We have heard that a royal personage was here last night,” I said slowly and distinctly, and then paused to note the effect.

At my first words Gerard’s watery eyes grew wider for an instant and I feared the worst. Some note must have been struck in the echoing cells of his memory. But the next moment reassured me. Out of the many hundred voices with which a waiter’s memory must be stored, how should he be able to identify one which he had heard say scarcely a dozen words? The man’s face was a perfect blank again before I went on.

“Can you tell us if there were any other strangers present?” I asked boldly. And turning to my chief and the Inspector, I explained, “It seems to me just possible that an attempt may have been planned on the life of the Crown Prince, and that this man may have been mistaken for him.”

Tarleton did not reject this suggestion so decidedly as the theory of suicide. I saw a thoughtful expression come on his face, as though he was engaged in trying to adjust the idea with another one previously in his mind. Captain Charles took up the scent quite eagerly.

“Do you know what disguise His Royal Highness was wearing?” he demanded.

The waiter hesitated and then shook his head.

“I had my suspicion, sir, but Madame can tell you for certain.”

The Inspector was satisfied with the answer. But Tarleton’s voice rang out sharply.

“Let us have your suspicion, please.”

Gerard had the air of a man who had committed himself, and regrets it.

“Milor,”—he had been sharp enough to notice the Inspector’s use of a title in addressing the consultant—“I particularly noticed one person who appeared to me a stranger who did not very well know his way about the club, and who appeared to have some business with Monsieur Wilson.”

“Ah!” Tarleton’s deep breath told me that he felt himself on a real trail. “And how was this person disguised?”

“The disguise was an extraordinary one, milor. It was that which first attracted my notice. It was at once the costume of a man and of a woman. That is to say, the upper part was that of a warrior in armour, and the lower part was a woman’s skirt.”

“Joan of Arc,” exclaimed Charles.

The Frenchman shrank in horror. “But, monsieur, it could not have been Sainte Jeanne! For instance, the helmet was Roman.”

“Neither did she wear a skirt with her armour,” the physician added quietly. “It must have been meant for Zenobia.”

The Inspector’s face showed so clearly that he had never heard of the famous Queen of Palmyra that I should have been amused if I had not been on the rack of suspense. Fortunately, Tarleton was now engrossed in his new line of inquiry.

“In spite of this feminine disguise, in spite of the skirt, you recognized that this stranger was a man, it seems?”

The eloquent hands protested again. “But no, milor; I said I had my suspicion, that is all. Madame——”

The doctor cut him short.

“You thought this person, Zenobia, had some business with Wilson. Tell me, how many persons knew that Wilson wore that disguise last night?”

He turned and pointed to the dead body which lay full in view from where we were seated. Gerard let his eyes follow the gesture and withdrew them with a sickly twinge.

“Everyone knew it, I think. It was the disguise he wore invariably in the club. It was as if he came here to meet his clients, and it was necessary for them to know that they were speaking to him.”

Sir Frank Tarleton nodded more than once this time. He evidently felt himself to be getting a firm grip on the problem. I admired the sagacity he had shown in transferring his examination from the proprietress of the club to the waiter. Gerard was proving a much easier witness to deal with than Madame Bonnell. He had not so much at stake.

“And now,” the consultant pursued, “perhaps you can tell us if there were any other persons who showed a desire to meet Wilson last night?”

Gerard brightened up visibly.

“But certainly, milor. There was one in particular who never seemed to take her eyes off him. She danced with him time after time, and when she was not dancing with him herself she watched those who did.”

“And how was she dressed?”

“Milor, she was hardly dressed at all.” Gerard may have feared another irreverent guess from Captain Charles, for he added quickly: “I heard Monsieur address her as Salome.”

The Inspector was again busy with his note-book. But Sir Frank struck me as not being quite so deeply interested in Salome as he had been in Zenobia.

“And there was also a lady whose costume it is not easy to describe.” Gerard was going on of his own accord now, as though his interest had been kindled in the inquiry. “Part of it was a leopard skin. And she wore a necklace composed of claws of the same beast, as I imagined. In my own mind I called her the Leopardess. Without doubt, her costume was that of an East Indian princess.”

Tarleton’s interest seemed to revive again at the description of the Leopardess. Yet it was impossible to be sure that he was not playing a part to conceal his true opinion of all this from the witness.

“And this lady, did she dance much with Wilson?”

Gerard gave his head an emphatic shake.

“She did not dance with him at all, although he asked her more than once. I am sure of it. I was surprised, for it was not often that he was refused. I saw him speaking to her very earnestly, even threateningly, but it was no use. And she left early, long before the dance was over.”

The examiner shrugged his shoulders. I wondered that he did not point out to the man that a woman who had left early could hardly have played any part in the tragedy. But I was beginning to grasp that it was his method to listen much and speak little when he was face to face with a mystery.

The next moment he had dismissed Gerard abruptly, and risen to his feet. He crossed over to the corpse, followed by Charles and myself, and gazed intently on the exposed face. The slight leaden tinge I had remarked was more noticeable already, and in addition there was a slight roughness of the skin which I understood still less. I took care this time not to make any remark on it.

The specialist’s attention was concentrated on the features and expression of the dead man. After a moment or two he slowly shook his head.

“No,” he pronounced, “that is not the face of a man degraded enough for such a business as the waiter supposed. It is not the face of an adventurer. This was a man of the world, in a good position, able to meet with the people whom he brought to this place on a footing of equality. His motives were not sordid, perhaps, in the first place. We are dealing with a Tiberius rather than a Tigellinus, I think.”

I don’t fancy those names had much more meaning for Captain Charles than Zenobia’s. But he acquiesced respectfully in the judgment.

“From all that we have heard about the Domino Club at Scotland Yard there has never been the slightest suggestion of crime about it,” he observed. “One of the judges of the High Court is a member of it. He has the reputation of being pretty fond of women, but he certainly wouldn’t be mixed up with anything shady.”

“Shaded, but not shady, eh?” Tarleton returned with a curl of the lip. “But come, it is time to see if the dead has any evidence to give about himself.”

Thrusting his gold repeater carelessly into his pocket, he deftly stripped the body of its long Inquisitor’s robe. Underneath was revealed an evening suit of fine material and faultless cut with a white silk waistcoat and soft-fronted shirt. They were the clothes of a man of good position, as Sir Frank had said, and a man accustomed to respect himself. A Bohemian would scarcely have troubled to dress himself so carefully beneath a domino.

Captain Charles viewed this correct attire with the approval of a military man. “A gentleman as you guessed, Sir Frank.”

“As I inferred,” the doctor responded sharply, “I never guess.” His capable fingers were already exploring the pockets of the corpse. Most of them seemed to be empty, but presently he extracted a silver matchbox from the waistcoat, and opened it. A low sound like a suppressed whistle came from his tight lips as he shook out on the palm of his hand two pellets the size of small peas.

Of all my experiences on that eventful night, or rather morning, this was the most amazing. Only by a strong effort was I able to keep my astonishment within due bounds. Although I had thrown out the suggestion of suicide, the last thing I had expected was to find poison on the dead man’s person.

My chief passed me one of the pellets, and put the other first to his nostrils and then to the tip of his tongue.

“Well?” He motioned to me to imitate his action.

There could be no doubt about the result of the test. “Opium in a highly concentrated form, and soluble,” I whispered hoarsely.

We exchanged looks of intense surprise. The Inspector on his part was evidently surprised by our attitude.

“Then Dr. Cassilis was right after all,” he said, staring at us. “It was suicide?”

The great consultant smiled at him indulgently.

“I am sure that this discovery has made Dr. Cassilis renounce that theory,” he answered. “A man who was accustomed to take opium in such doses as these would have to take a terrible quantity to kill himself. And this box, is nearly full.”

My brain was buzzing while he spoke. Utter darkness seemed to be settling down on my mind. I gazed at my chief in stupefaction greater than the Inspector’s.

“The problem for Dr. Cassilis and myself is this,” he continued, addressing his explanation to Captain Charles, although I realized that he was speaking at least as much for my benefit. “The corpse shows all the usual symptoms of poisoning by opium. But if the deceased had accustomed his system to opium it is not easy to understand how anyone could have given him enough to produce death. The dose must have been enormous, and he must have detected the taste at once in any ordinary medium such as a cup of coffee.”

I just managed to nod my head with assent.

“The inference I am inclined to draw at the moment,” the specialist concluded, “is that Wilson was not a taker of the drug and that these pellets were not intended for himself. I think it is more probable that he carried them as weapons of self-defense. Perhaps Salome would have been given one last night if her jealousy had carried her too far, perhaps Zenobia. And perhaps the Leopardess left so early because she had been given one.”

My brain seemed to resume its normal clearness as the doctor spoke. There was really nothing very extraordinary in the coincidence, if he was right. After all, opium was the drug which it was natural for anyone to use in such circumstances. It was practically tasteless, its effects were easily mistaken for those of alcohol even by the victim, till it was too late for him to resist them. And the character of the Domino Club was such, and its members came to it in such secrecy, that one of them might be carried home in a narcotic sleep, and die before wakening from it, without his death ever being traced to the place where he had been.

While these reflections were coming to compose my mind Tarleton was renewing his investigation of the dead man’s pockets. This time the result was negative, so far as I could see. It gave a start to me and to the Inspector when the doctor suddenly raised himself with a look of triumph and exclaimed, “I see it!”

Charles bent forward with a bewildered gaze. I held my breath. The next sentence was decisive.

“There are no keys—not even a latchkey. Whoever drugged him took his keys, and took them for a purpose.” He turned on the startled Inspector, and issued his commands like a general on a battlefield ordering an advance all along the line. “Ring up your people and find out if they have received a report of any house being entered during the night or early this morning. And ask them to send a man round the theatrical costumiers to find out if any of them have supplied costumes lately of a Zenobia and a Salome and an Eastern one with a leopard skin. Though I doubt if you will hear anything about the last. It sounds like one made up privately. Meanwhile we will ask Madame Bonnell to give us some breakfast.”

Madame was charmed to give us breakfast. Gerard’s report of his examination must have impressed her favourably. It was clear by this time that the great Sir Frank Tarleton could be trusted to conduct the investigation with prudence, and not to bring any unnecessary publicity on the Domino Club. She beamed satisfaction when he informed her that he hoped to learn Wilson’s address within the next few minutes, and to have the body removed thither for the inquest. In her absence he added to his instructions to Charles:

“I think, Captain Charles that it will be well if you can go yourself to the Foreign Office and ascertain through them if this Crown Prince actually was present last night. They will feel more confidence in you than in one of the ordinary police.”

The Honourable Captain looked pleased. “Do you think it is possible that his life was aimed at, after all, Sir Frank?” he added with deference.

Sir Frank shook his head. “That possibility is disposed of by the abstraction of the keys. The solution of the mystery lies there. But it is just possible that the thief chose his occasion; that he relied on the Prince’s presence to screen him from too close an inquiry. At all events I find it difficult to accept too many coincidences in the case.”

I thought I might venture to raise a different point.

“Madame Bonnell had ample time to search the body and remove anything she pleased before Captain Charles came.”

My chief shook his head good-naturedly.

“I haven’t too high an opinion of Madame’s ethical code, but I think sufficiently well of her intelligence to feel pretty sure that if she had had any use for her partner’s keys they would have been back in his pocket before Captain Charles heard that he was dead.”

The remark was unanswerable as far as I was concerned. A moment later the expected message came through from Scotland Yard.

The house of Doctor Weathered, of Warwick Street, Cavendish Square, had been entered during the night, and his safe had been found open, with his bunch of keys in it. And the doctor himself was missing.

CHAPTER IV
THE OPENED SAFE

Inspector Charles, I could see, was deeply impressed by the sagacity with which Tarleton had solved the riddle of the dead man’s identity. It was a very simple step, but it is precisely the simple ideas that generally escape the trained mind of the official.

“Doctor Weathered,” the Captain pronounced slowly. “I suppose there is no doubt of that being Wilson’s real name.”

“Very little doubt, I should say,” my chief responded. “What do you think, Cassilis?”

I endeavoured to take a judicial tone.

“I don’t see much room for hesitation. Here is a man without his keys, and there are the keys without the man. Besides, it all corresponds with what you said, Sir Frank, about the dead man’s appearance. A fashionable West End physician is just what I should expect him to be. And no one would be in a better position to introduce people of good position to a club of this kind.”

The Inspector’s face had become overcast with doubt while I was speaking.

“That’s all very well,” he demurred, “but we have been hearing a lot about Wilson’s being afraid of enemies, and taking precautions about what he drank; and now it turns out to be a simple case of burglary.”

Tarleton consulted me by a look. I just lifted my shoulders in answer without speaking. Mine was a difficult part to play just then. On the one hand, I did not wish my chief to think me wanting in brains; on the other, I dreaded above all things betraying any previous knowledge of anything connected with the mystery.

Fortunately he appeared to approve of my reserve. “We may be able to understand that better when we get to Warwick Street,” he said to Charles. “The next thing for us to do is to go round there and send some member of the household here to identify the deceased.”

To this course there could be no opposition. The plain-clothes man was called in and placed in charge of the corpse with strict instructions to let no one approach it unless he came with a written authority from Sir Frank or the Inspector. Then the three of us entered the doctor’s car and drove towards Cavendish Square.

On the way my chief said to me, “It is curious that I can’t call to mind ever having heard of a Dr. Weathered. He must have been a man of high standing in the profession, apparently; probably a consultant; and yet his name is quite strange to me. Do you happen to have heard it at any time?”

It was a difficult question for me. I dared not tell a lie which accident might expose at any moment; but still less dared I tell the whole truth.

“I have heard the name,” I replied, speaking as slowly as possible to give myself time to frame the least compromising answer. “Perhaps I ought to say that I heard it from one of his patients in the course of a confidential communication, so that I hardly know how far I am justified in making any use of what I heard.”

Tarleton promptly raised his hand.

“Not another word,” he enjoined to my intense relief. But my relief was qualified when he proceeded. “A confidence made to a medical man is as sacred in my view as a confession made to a priest. You will understand that, Captain Charles, I am sure. We must not ask Dr. Cassilis to tell us anything more.”

Captain Charles assented rather reluctantly I thought. His original disapproval of me seemed to revive at the same time. He stole furtive glances at me now and then, as though he were wondering whether it was prudent on his part to keep such doubtful company.

The gold repeater in Tarleton’s fingers kept time to his meditations till the car drew up in front of a smart house in a smart street in the region most favoured by Court physicians and the big-wigs of the medical profession, a class for whom I knew that my eccentric chief felt a very moderate respect. The house was brightly painted, and the windows were garnished with boxes of scarlet geraniums and blue lobelias. The brass plate on the door was burnished to shine like glass, and the steps were a dazzling white. Nothing could have been further removed from any suggestion of secret practices or unhallowed consultations.

The man who opened the door to us matched the exterior of the house as far as his own exterior was concerned. He was young and clean-shaven, his hair was beautifully brushed, and his neat clothes were as new and well-fitting as those of the man whom we had left lying in the alcove at the Domino Club. The face itself was that of a simple, harmless young man, incapable of suspecting either his master or his master’s patients. It was impossible to think that he had ever been aware of anything strange or doubtful in his environment, so innocent and fresh was his whole aspect. The very nervousness with which he received us was the nervousness of youth and inexperience finding itself in the presence of unexpected trouble.

Inspector Charles briefly announced his name and official character, and those of my chief, not deeming me worthy of individual mention. Tarleton promptly took the youthful butler in hand.

“Have the police been here before?” was his first question.

Simmons, as he turned out to be named, said that they had. The constable on the beat had noticed that the front door was ajar about five o’clock that morning, and had promptly roused the household. He, Simmons, had been first on the spot, and had begun by supposing that his master had omitted to make the door fast on his return. He knew that the doctor had gone out overnight, though he had no idea where. He went out pretty often, and was generally rather late in coming home. However, the policeman had insisted on his going to see if Dr. Weathered was upstairs; and he had found his room empty and the bed undisturbed.

On that, the officer had come in to search the premises, beginning with the doctor’s consulting-room, in which there was a safe. There the first sight that met their eyes was the door of the safe standing wide open. The key was in the keyhole, with the whole bunch, including the latchkey, dangling from it.

“And what had been taken from the safe?” Tarleton asked, calling my attention with a significant glance.

“Nothing,” was the surprising answer. “I mean nothing as far as we could see. We opened the drawers in which the doctor used to put his fees till he paid them into the bank, and they were full, one full of notes and the other of silver. The doctor’s lowest fee was three guineas,” the doctor’s man added with some pride.

“Take us to that room,” my chief commanded.

Simmons obeyed without hesitation. My heart was beating so loudly in my ears that I could not overcome the childish fear that it might be heard by others, in spite of my medical knowledge to the contrary. I fell back and let my companions go into the room without me while I collected myself before joining them.

Yet there was nothing in Dr. Weathered’s professional sanctum to inspire dismay.

The room in which he received his patients was as bright and as well appointed as everything else in the establishment. A handsome walnut writing-table was lightly strewn with medical books and papers, relieved by a handsome china bowl full of roses. The patient’s chair was luxuriously cushioned with yellow silk, and the doctor’s own chair was a handsome one upholstered in tooled morocco leather. There was only one bookcase, and its appearance was more suited to a drawing-room than a professional man’s study. The frame was richly inlaid with ornamental woods, and the glass doors were protected by gilt wires. A small marble group of Eros and Psyche stood on the top, flanked by Chinese dragons. Elsewhere the walls of the room were hung with charming water-colours, most of them of a rather sensuous description, depicting youths and maidens bathing in pools, and scenes of love and jealousy.

Tarleton took in every detail with one of those swift, searching looks of his which seemed to penetrate to some inner meaning beneath the surface of all he saw. Finally, his eye rested on the corner in which a safe about three feet high, painted to look like oxydized silver, was clamped on a supporting stand of ebony.

“You have locked the safe, I see. Where are the keys?”

The sudden demand agitated the nervous butler.

“Miss Sarah has them,” he stuttered. “At least she took them away when she locked up the safe. Perhaps she’s given them to her mother—to Mrs. Weathered.”

Sir Frank opened his eyes. I think we all did. Somehow it seemed incongruous that the founder of the Domino Club should be a married man.

“Is there a Mrs. Weathered then?”

“Why, yes, sir.” Simmons showed as much surprise as we had. “Would you like to see her, Sir Frank?” He seemed rather eager to get away and fetch his mistress to deal with us.

The consultant restrained him by an imperative gesture.

“One moment, if you please. You haven’t told us what happened after you had found the safe open. Did you go to call Mrs. Weathered?”

“I should have gone, sir, but Miss Sarah came down and found us looking into the safe. So I left it to her.”

Again the man made a movement as if to escape, and again the specialist arrested him.

“What brought her down? Did she know what had happened?”

Simmons seemed honestly confused. “I really can’t tell you, sir. I suppose one of the servants must have gone upstairs and told her. They were all about.”

Tarleton nodded. “Go on. When she came in what did she do?”

“She was rather angry sir, at first. She thought the doctor had come home in a great hurry to fetch something for someone who was ill, and had rushed off again, and forgotten to lock the safe and take his keys. She said we had no business to look inside in his absence. And she locked the safe herself, and sent the policeman away, saying no doubt Dr. Weathered would be back again presently. But that was more than four hours ago, and there’s been no sign of him yet, sir.”

It was evident that Simmons considered his young mistress had been over-confident. We, who knew it so much better than he did could only sympathize with his feelings. Sir Frank made no further effort to detain him.

“Very well. You can let Mrs. Weathered know we are here, and say that I shall be glad to speak with her as soon as possible.”

When the butler had gone he turned to me.

“What do you make of this room, Cassilis? What sort of diseases do you think were treated here?”

I thought it best to glance at the pictures and the marble group before expressing my opinion.

“Not very serious ones I should say,” I answered lightly.