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<h2>CHAPTER XV CLEARING THE AIR</h2> Winter was far too strong a man to remain long buried in the pit of humiliation into which Furneaux, aided unwittingly by Clarke, had cast him. The sounds of Furneaux's jaunty footsteps had barely died away before he shoved aside the papers on which he had been engaged previously, and reached across the table for a box of cigars. He took one, and shoved the box towards Clarke, whose face was still glistening in evidence of his rush from Marlborough Street police-station. "Here, you crack-pate!" he said, "smoke; it may clear your silly head." "But I can't repeat too often that Janoc has confessed—confessed!" and Clarke's voice rose almost to a squeal on that final word. "So has his sister confessed. In an hour or two, when the silence and horror of a cell have done their work, we shall have Osborne confessing, too. Oh, man, man, can't you see that Furneaux has twisted each of us round his little finger?" "But—sir——" "Yes, I know," cried Winter, in a fume of wrath [pg 266] and smoke. "Believe these foreign idiots and we shall be hearing of a masked tribunal, glistening with daggers, a brace of revolvers in every belt—a dozen or more infuriated conspirators, cloaked in gaberdines, gathered in a West End flat, while a red-headed woman harangues them. Furneaux has fooled us, I tell you—deliberately brought the Yard into discredit—made us the laughing-stock of the public. Oh, I shall never——" He pulled himself up, for Clarke was listening with the ears of a rabbit. Luckily, the detective's ideas were too self-concentrated to extract much food for thought from these disjointed outpourings. "I don't wish to seem wanting in respect, sir," he said doggedly, "but have you forgotten the diary? Why, Rose de Bercy herself wrote that she would be killed either by C. E. F. or Janoc. Now——" "Did she mention Janoc?" interrupted Winter sharply. "In what passage? I certainly have forgotten that." Clarke, stubborn as a mule, stuck to his point, though he felt that he had committed himself. "Perhaps I did wrong," he growled savagely, "but I couldn't help myself. You were against me all along, sir—now, weren't you?" No answer. Winter waited, and did not even look at him. "What was I to do?" he went on in desperation. "You took me off the job just as I was getting [pg 267] keen in it. Then I happened upon Janoc, and found his sister, and when I came across that blacked-out name in the diary I scraped it and sponged it until I could read what was written beneath. The name was Janoc!" "Was it?" said Winter, gazing at him at last with a species of contempt. "And to throw dust in my eyes—in the eyes of your superior officer—you inked it out again?" "You wouldn't believe," muttered Clarke. "Why, you don't know half this story. I haven't told you yet how I found the daggers——" "You don't say," mocked Winter. "But I do, I did," cried Clarke, beside himself with excitement. "I took them out of Janoc's lodgings, and put them in a cab. I would have them in my hands this minute if some d—d thing hadn't occurred, some trick of fate——" Winter stooped and unlocked a drawer in his writing-desk. "Are these your daggers?" he demanded, though Clarke was shrewd enough, if in possession of his usual senses, to have caught the note of suppressed astonishment in the Chief Inspector's voice, since this was the first he had heard of Furneaux's deliberate pilfering of the weapons from his colleague. But something was singing in Clarke's ears, and his eyes were glued on the blades resting there in the drawer. Denial was impossible. He recognized [pg 268] them instantly, and all his assurance fled from that moment. "Well, there!" he murmured, in a curiously broken voice. "I give in! I'm done! I'm a baby at this game. Next thing, I suppose, I'll be asked to resign—me, who found 'em, and the diary, and the letter telling Janoc not to kill her—yet." He was looking so fixedly at the two daggers that he failed to see the smile of relief that flitted over Winter's face. Now, more than ever, the Chief Inspector realized that he was dealing with one of the most complex and subtle crimes which had come within his twenty years of experience. He was well versed in Furneaux's sardonic humor, and the close friendship that had existed between them ever since the little Jersey man joined the Criminal Investigation Department had alone stopped him from resenting it. It was clear now to his quick intelligence that Furneaux had actually planned nearly every discovery which either he himself or Clarke had made. Why? He could not answer. He was moving through a fog, blind-folded, with hands tied behind his back. Search where he would, he could not find a motive, unless, indeed, Furneaux was impelled by that strangest of all motives, a desire to convict himself. At any rate, he did not want Clarke to tread on the delicate ground that must now be covered before Furneaux was arrested, and the happy accident which had unlocked Clarke's tongue with regard [pg 269] to the diary would serve admirably to keep him well under control. "Now, look here, Inspector Clarke," said Winter severely, after a pause that left the other in wretched suspense, "you have erred badly in this matter. For once, I am willing to overlook it—because—because you fancied you had a grievance. But, remember this—never again! Lack of candor is fatal to the best interests of the service. It is for me to decide which cases you shall take up and which you shall leave alone. You know perfectly well that if, by chance, information reaches you with regard to any inquiry which may prove useful to the man in charge of it, it is your duty to tell him everything. I say no more now. You understand me fully, I have no doubt. You must take it from me, without question or protest, that neither Janoc nor his sister was responsible for that crime. They may have been mixed up in it—in some manner now hidden from me—but they had no share in it personally. Still, seeing that you have worked so hard, I don't object to your presence while I prove that I am right. Come with me now to Marlborough Street. Mr. Osborne must be set at liberty, of course, but I shall confront your Anarchist friends with one another, and then you will see for yourself my grounds for being so positive as to their innocence." "But you yourself arrested Pauline, sir," Clarke ventured to say. "Don't be an ass!" was the cool rejoinder. [pg 270] "Could I refuse to arrest her? Suppose you told me now that you had killed the Frenchwoman, wouldn't I be compelled to arrest you?" "Ha!" laughed Clarke, in solemn mirth, "what about C. E. F.? Wouldn't it be funny if he owned up to it?" Winter answered not a word. He was busy locking the drawer and rolling down the front of the desk. But Clarke did not really mean what he had said. His mind was dwelling on the inscrutable mystery of the daggers which he had last held in his hands in Soho and now knew to be reposing in a locked desk in Scotland Yard. "Would you mind telling me, sir, how you managed to get hold of 'em?" he asked. Winter did not pretend ignorance. "You will be surprised to hear that I myself took them, disinterred them, from the poor creature's grave in Kensal Green Cemetery," he said. Clarke's jaw dropped in the most abject amazement. The thing had a supernatural sound. He felt himself bewitched. "From her grave?" he repeated. "Yes." "But who put 'em there?" "Ah," said the other with a new note of sternness in his voice, "who but the murderer? But come, we are wasting time—that unfortunate Osborne must be half-demented. I suppose the Marlborough Street people will let him out on my authority. [pg 271] If not, I must get an order from the Commissioner. By gad, there will be a fiendish rumpus about this business before it is all settled!" Clarke shivered. He saw a certain well-belovd detective inspector figuring prominently in that "rumpus," and he was in no mind to seek a new career after passing the best part of his life in the C. I. D. But at Marlborough Street another shock awaited the Chief. He and Clarke were entering the street in a taxi when Furneaux crooked a finger at him from the pavement. Winter could not, nay, he dared not, ignore that demand for an interview. "Stop here!" he said to Clarke. Then he sprang out, and approached Furneaux. "Well?" he snapped, "have you made up your mind to end this tragic farce?" "I am not its chief buffoon," sneered Furneaux. "In fact, I am mainly a looker-on, but I do appreciate its good points to the full." Winter waved aside these absurdities. "I have come to free Mr. Osborne," he said. "I was rather hoping that your own sense of fair dealing, if you have any left——" "Exactly what I thought," broke in the other. "That is why I am here. I hate correcting your mistakes, because I fancy it does you good to discover them for yourself. Still, it is a pity to spoil a good cause. Mere professional pride forces me to warn you against liberating Osborne." [pg 272] "Man alive, you try me beyond endurance. Do you believe I don't know the truth—that Rose de Bercy was your wife—that you were in that museum before the murder—that you.... Oh, Furneaux, you wring it from me. Get a pistol, man, before it is too late." "You mean that?" cried Furneaux, his eyes gleaming with a new fire. "Heaven knows I do!" "You want to be my friend, then, after all?" "Friend! If you realized half the torture——" "Pity!" mused Furneaux aloud. "Why didn't you speak sooner? So you would rather I committed suicide than be in your hands a prisoner?" Winter then awoke to the consciousness that this extraordinary conversation was taking place in a crowded thoroughfare, within a stone's throw of a police-station in which lay three people charged with having committed the very crime he was tacitly accusing Furneaux of, while Clarke's ferret eyes must be resting on them with a suspicion already half-formed. "I can say no more," he muttered gruffly. "One must forego friendship when duty bars the way. But if you have a grain of humanity left in your soul, come with me and release that unhappy young man——" Some gush of emotion wrung Furneaux's face as if with a spasm of physical pain. He held out his right hand. [pg 273] "Winter, forgive me, I have misjudged you," he said. "Is it good-by?" came the passionate question. "No, not good-by. It is an alliance, Winter, a wiping of the slate. You don't understand, perhaps, that we are both to blame. But you can take my hand, old man. There is no stain of blood on it. I did not murder my wife. I am her avenger, her pitiless, implacable avenger—so pitiless, so implacable, that I may have erred in my harshness. For Heaven's sake, Winter, believe me, and take my hand!" The man's magnetism was irresistible. Despite the crushing weight of proof accumulated against him, the claims of old friendship were not to be ignored. Winter took the proffered hand and squeezed it with a vehemence that not only showed the tension of his feelings but also brought tears of real anguish to Furneaux's eyes. "I only asked you for a friendly grip, Winter," he complained. "You have been more than kind. No matter what happens, don't offer to shake hands with me again for twelve months at least." There was no comprehending him, and Winter abandoned the effort. Moreover, Clarke's puzzled brows were bent on them. "An alliance implies confidence," he said, and the official mask fell on his bluff features. "If you can honestly——" [pg 274] Furneaux laughed, with just a faint touch of that impish humor that the other knew so well. "Not Winter, but Didymus!" he cried. "Well, then, let us proceed to the confounding of poor Clarke. Peste! he deserves a better fate, for he has worked like a Trojan. But leave Osborne to me. Have no fear—I shall explain, a little to him, all to you." Clarke writhed with jealousy when Winter beckoned to him. While his chief was paying the cabman, he jeered at Furneaux. "I had a notion——" he began, but the other caught his arm confidentially. "I was just telling the guv'nor how much we owe to you in this Feldisham Mansions affair," he said. "You were on the right track all the time. You've the keenest nose in the Yard, Clarke. You can smell an Anarchist through the stoutest wall ever built. Now, not a word! You'll soon see how important your investigations have been." Clarke was overwhelmed by a new flood. Never before had Furneaux praised him, unless in some ironic phrase that galled the more because he did not always extract its hidden meaning. He blinked with astonishment. With a newborn trust, which he would have failed ignominiously to explain in words, Winter led his colleagues to Marlborough Street police-station. There, after a brief but earnest colloquy with the [pg 275] station inspector, he asked that Janoc and his sister should be brought to the inspector's office. Janoc came first, pale, languid, high-strung, but evidently prepared to be led to his death that instant. He looked at the four men, three in plain clothes and one in uniform, with a superb air of dignity, almost of superiority; in silence he awaited the inquisition which he supposed he would be compelled to undergo, but when no word was spoken—when even that phantom of evil, Clarke, paid no heed to him, he grew manifestly uneasy. At last steps were heard, the door opened, and Pauline Dessaulx entered. Of course, this brother and sister were Gauls to the finger-tips. Each screamed, each flew to the other's arms; they raved; they wept, and laughed, and uttered incoherent words of utmost affection. Winter indulged them a few seconds. Then he broke in on their transports. "Now, Janoc," he said brusquely, "have done with this acting! Why have you given the police so much trouble?" "Monsieur, I swear——" "Oh, have done with your swearing! Your sister didn't kill Mademoiselle de Bercy. She wouldn't kill a fly. Come, Pauline, own up!" "Monsieur," faltered the girl, "I—I——" "You took the guilt on your shoulders in order to shield your brother?" Wild-eyed, distraught, she looked from the face [pg 276] of the man who seemed to peer into her very soul to that other face so dear to her. She knew not what to say. Was this stern-visaged representative of the law merely torturing her with a false hope? Dared she say "Yes," or must she persist in self-accusation? "Janoc," thundered Winter, "you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Don't you see how she is suffering for your sake? Tell her, then, that you are as innocent as she of this murder?" The dreamer, the man who would reform an evil world by force, had the one great quality demanded of a leader—he knew a man when he met him. He turned now to Pauline. "My sister," he said in French, "this gentleman can be trusted. He is no trickster. I had no hand in the slaying of the traitress, just though her death might be." "Ah, Dieu merci!" she breathed, and fainted. The police matron was summoned, and the Frenchwoman soon regained consciousness. Meanwhile, Janoc admitted readily enough that he did really believe in his sister's acceptance of the dread mission imposed on her by the revolutionary party in Russia. "Rose de Bercy was condemned, and my sweet Pauline, alas! was deputed to be her executioner," he said. "We had waited long for the hour, and the dagger was ready, though I, too, distrusted my sister's courage. Then came an urgent letter from St. Petersburg that the traitress was respited until [pg 277] a certain list found among her papers was checked——" "Found?" questioned Winter. "By Pauline," said Janoc. "Ah, stolen?" Janoc brushed aside the substituted word as a quibble. "Conceive my horror when I heard of the murder!" he cried with hands flung wide and eyes that rolled. "I was sure that Pauline had mistaken the instructions——" "Where is the St. Petersburg letter?" broke in Furneaux. "Sapristi! You will scarce credit. It was taken from me by a man—a Russian agent he must have been—one night in the Fraternal Club, Soho——" "Clarke, produce it," said Furneaux, grinning. Clarke flushed, grew white, nervously thumbed some papers in a pocketbook, and handed to Winter the letter which commenced: "St. Petersburg says ..." and ended: "You will see to it that she to whose hands vengeance has been intrusted shall fail on the 3d." Winter read, and frowned. Furneaux, too, read. "The 3d!" he muttered. "Just Heaven, what a fatal date to her!" "What was I to think?" continued Janoc. "Antonio shared my view. He met Pauline at the Exhibition, and was ready, if necessary, to vouch for her presence there at the time Rose de Bercy went to [pg 278] her reckoning; but he is not in the inner—he had not heard of the Petersburg order." "Yet he, and the rest of your gang, were prepared to let Mr. Osborne hang for this crime," said Winter, surveying the conspirator with a condemning eye. But his menace or scorn was alike to Janoc, who threw out his arms again. "Cré nom!" he cried, "why not? Is he not a rich bourgeois like the rest? He and his class have crushed us without mercy for many a century. What matter if he were hanged by mistake? He could be spared—my Pauline could not. He is merely a rich one, my Pauline is a martyr to the cause!" "Listen to me, Janoc," said Winter fiercely. "Spout what rubbish you please in your rotten club, but if ever you dare again to plot—even to plot, mind you—any sort of crime against life or property in this free country, I shall crush you like a beetle—like a beetle, do you hear, you wretched—insect! Now, get out!" "Monsieur, my sister?" "Wait outside there till she comes. Then leave England, the pair of you, or you will try what hard labor in a British prison can do for your theories." Janoc bowed. "Monsieur," he said, "a prison has made me what I am." Pauline was candid as her brother. She had, in truth, misunderstood the respite given to her mistress, and meant to kill her on the night of the 3d. The [pg 279] visit to the Exhibition was of her own contriving. She had got rid of her English acquaintance, the cook, very easily after meeting Antonio by appointment. Then she left him, without giving a reason, and hurried back to the mansions, where, owing to her intimate knowledge of the internal arrangements, she counted on entering and leaving the flat unseen. She did actually succeed in her mission, but found Rose de Bercy lying dead. On the floor, close to the body, was a dagger, and she had no doubt whatever that her brother had acted in her stead, so she picked up the weapon, secreted it with the dagger given her in readiness for the crime, and took the first opportunity of hiding herself, lest the mere fact that Janoc was seen in her company should draw suspicion towards him. "Ah, but the lace? What of the piece of blood-stained lace?" demanded Furneaux. "I wished to make sure, monsieur," was the astounding reply. "Had she not been dead, but merely wounded, I—Eh, bien! I tore her dress open, in order to feel if her heart was beating, and the bit of lace remained in my hand. I was so excited that I hardly knew what I was doing. I took it away. Afterwards, when Antonio said that the police were cooling in their chase of Osborne, I gave it to him; he told me he could use it to good effect." "Phew!" breathed Winter, "you're a pretty lot of cutthroats, I must say. Why did you keep the daggers and the diary, sweet maid?" [pg 280] "The knife that rid us of a traitress was sacred. I thought the diary might be useful to the—to our friends." "Yet you gave it to Mr. Clarke without any demur?" The girl shot a look at Clarke in which fright was mingled with hatred. "He—he—I was afraid of him," she stammered. Winter opened the door. "There is your brother," he said. "Be off, both of you. Take my advice and leave England to-night." They went forth, hand in hand, in no wise cast down by the loathing they had inspired. Clarke looked far more miserable than they, for by their going he had lost the prize of his life. "Now for Osborne," whispered Furneaux. "Leave him to me, Winter. Trust me implicitly for five minutes—that is all." Osborne was brought in by the station inspector, that human ledger who would record without an unnecessary word the name of the Prime Minister or the Archbishop of Canterbury on any charge preferred against either by a responsible member of the force. The young American was calm now, completely self-possessed, disdainful of any ignominy that might be inflicted on him. He did not even glance at Furneaux, but nodded to Winter. "Your assurances are seemingly of little value," he said coldly. [pg 281] "Mr. Winter is quite blameless," snapped Furneaux, obviously nettled by the implied reproof. "Please attend to me, Mr. Osborne—this affair rests wholly between you and me. Learn now, for the first time, I imagine, that Rose de Bercy was my wife." Osborne did truly start at hearing that remarkable statement. Clarke's mouth literally fell open; even the uniformed inspector was stirred, and began to pare a quill pen with a phenomenally sharp knife, this being the only sign of excitement he had ever been known to exhibit. "Yes, unhappily for her and me, we were married in Paris soon after she ran away from home," said Furneaux. "I—I thought—we should be happy. She had rare qualities, Mr. Osborne; perhaps you discovered some of them, and they fascinated you as they fascinated me. But—she had others, which I learnt to my sorrow, while you were spared. I cannot explain further at this moment. I have only to say that you are as free from the guilt of her death—as I am!" Winter alone was conscious of a queer note in the little man's voice as he dwelt on the comparison. He seemed to be searching for some simile of wildest improbability, and to have hit upon himself as supplying it. But Osborne was in no mood for bewilderment. He cared absolutely nothing about present or future while the horrible past still held the pall it had thrown on his prospects of bliss with Rosalind. [pg 282] "In that event, one might ask why I am here," he said quietly. "Not that I am concerned in the solving of the riddle. You have done your worst, Mr. Furneaux. You can inflict no deeper injury on me. If you have any other vile purpose to serve by telling me these things, by all means go right ahead." Furneaux's eyes glinted, and his wizened cheeks showed some token of color, but he kept his voice marvelously under control. "In time you will come to thank me, Mr. Osborne," he said. "To-day you are bitter, and I am not surprised at it, but you could never have been happy in your marriage with Miss Rosalind Marsh while the shadow of suspicion clung to you. Please do not forget that the world believes you killed Rose de Bercy. If you walked forth now into Regent Street, and the word went around that you were there, a thousand people would mob you in a minute, while ten thousand would be prepared to lynch you within ten minutes. I have played with you, I admit—with others, too, and now I am sorry—to a certain extent. But in this case, I was at once detective, and judge, and executioner. If you wantonly transferred your love from the dead woman to the living one, I cared not a straw what you suffered or how heavily you were punished. That phase has passed. To-day you have justified yourself. Within twenty-four hours you will be free to marry Rosalind Marsh, because your name will have lost the smirch now [pg 283] placed on it, while your promise to Hylda Prout will be dissolved. But for twenty-four hours you must remain here, apparently a prisoner, in reality as much at liberty as any man in London. Yes, I vouch for my words——" for at last wonder and hope were dawning in Osborne's eyes—"my chief, Mr. Winter, will tell you that I have never spoken in this manner without making good what I have said—never, I repeat. If I could spare you the necessity of passing a night in a cell I would do so; but I cannot. You are the decoy duck for the wild creature that I mean to lay hands on before another day has closed. Make yourself as comfortable as possible—the inspector will see to that—but I must keep you here, a prisoner in all outward semblance. Are you willing?" "For Heaven's sake——" began Osborne. "For Rosalind's sake, too," said Furneaux gravely. "No, I can answer no questions. She has more to bear than you. She does not know what to believe, whom to trust, whereas you have my solemn assurance that all will soon be well with both you and her. You see, I am not craving your forgiveness—yet. It suffices that I have forgiven you, since your tribulation will end quickly, whereas mine remains for the rest of my days. I did love Rose de Bercy: you did not.... Ah, bah! I am growing sentimental. Winter, have you ever seen me weep? No; then gag me if you hear me talking in this strain again. Come, I have much to tell you. [pg 284] Good-day, Mr. Osborne. The hours will soon fly; by this time to-morrow you will be gay, light-hearted, ready to shout your joy from the housetops—ready even to admit that a detective may be bothered with that useless incubus—a heart." Osborne took a step towards him, but Furneaux sprang out and banged the door. Winter caught the millionaire by the shoulder. "I am as thoroughly in the dark as you," he said. "Perhaps not, though. I have a glimmer of light; you, too, will begin to see dimly when you have collected your thoughts. But you must let Furneaux have his way. It may not be your way—it certainly is not mine—but he never fails when he promises, and, at any rate, you must now be sure that no manner of doubt rests in the minds of the police where you are concerned. It is possible, after Furneaux and I have gone into this thing fully, that you may be released to-night——" "Mr. Winter," cried Osborne, in whose veins the blood was coursing tumultuously, "let that strange man justify his words concerning Miss Marsh, and I shall remain here a month if that will help." <hr class="hr2" /> [pg 285] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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