The Circular Study Read online

  CHAPTER III.

  THE MUTE SERVITOR.

  Meanwhile the man who, to all appearance, had just re-enacted beforethem the tragedy which had so lately taken place in this room, rose tohis feet, and, with a dazed air as unlike his former violent expressionas possible, stooped for the glass he had let fall, and was carrying itout when Mr. Gryce called to him:

  "Wait, man! You needn't take that glass away. We first want to hear howyour master comes to be lying here dead."

  It was a demand calculated to startle any man. But this one showedhimself totally unmoved by it, and was passing on when Styles laid adetaining hand on his shoulder.

  "Stop!" said he. "What do you mean by sliding off like this? Don't youhear the gentleman speaking to you?"

  This time the appeal told. The glass fell again from the man's hand,mingling its clink (for it struck the floor this time and broke) withthe cry he gave--which was not exactly a cry either, but an odd soundbetween a moan and a shriek. He had caught sight of the men who wereseeking to detain him, and his haggard look and cringing form showedthat he realized at last the terrors of his position. Next minute hesought to escape, but Styles, gripping him more firmly, dragged him backto where Mr. Gryce stood beside the bearskin rug on which lay the formof his dead master.

  Instantly, at the sight of this recumbent figure, another change tookplace in the entrapped butler. Joy--that most hellish of passions in thepresence of violence and death--illumined his wandering eye anddistorted his mouth; and, seeking no disguise for the satisfaction hefelt, he uttered a low but thrilling laugh, which rang in unholy echothrough the room.

  Mr. Gryce, moved in spite of himself by an abhorrence which theirresponsible condition of this man seemed only to emphasize, waitedtill the last faint sounds of this diabolical mirth had died away in thehigh recesses of the space above. Then, fixing the glittering eye ofthis strange creature with his own, which, as we know, so seldom dweltupon that of his fellow-beings, he sternly said:

  "There now! Speak! Who killed this man? You were in the house with him,and should know."

  The butler's lips opened and a string of strange gutturals poured forth,while with his one disengaged hand (for the other was held to his sideby Styles) he touched his ears and his lips, and violently shook hishead.

  There was but one interpretation to be given to this. The man was deafand dumb.

  The shock of this discovery was too much for Styles. His hand fell fromthe other's arms, and the man, finding himself free, withdrew to hisformer place in the room, where he proceeded to enact again and withincreased vivacity first the killing of and then the mourning for hismaster, which but a few moments before had made so suggestive animpression upon them. This done, he stood waiting, but this time withthat gleam of infernal joy in the depths of his quick, restless eyeswhich made his very presence in this room of death seem a sacrilege andhorror.

  Styles could not stand it. "Can't you speak?" he shouted. "Can't youhear?"

  The man only smiled, an evil and gloating smile, which Mr. Gryce thoughtit his duty to cut short.

  "Take him away!" he cried. "Examine him carefully for blood marks. I amgoing up to the room where you saw him first. He is too nearly linked tothis crime not to carry some trace of it away with him."

  But for once even this time-tried detective found himself at fault. Nomarks were found on the old servant, nor could they discover in therooms above any signs by which this one remaining occupant of the housecould be directly associated with the crime which had taken place withinit. Thereupon Mr. Gryce grew very thoughtful and entered upon anotherexamination of the two rooms which to his mind held all the clews thatwould ever be given to this strange crime.

  The result was meagre, and he was just losing himself again incontemplation of the upturned face, whose fixed mouth and hauntingexpression told such a story of suffering and determination, when therecame from the dim recesses above his head a cry, which, forming itselfinto two words, rang down with startling clearness in this mostunexpected of appeals:

  "Remember Evelyn!"

  Remember Evelyn! Who was Evelyn? And to whom did this voice belong, in ahouse which had already been ransacked in vain for other occupants? Itseemed to come from the roof, and, sure enough, when Mr. Gryce looked uphe saw, swinging in a cage strung up nearly to the top of one of thewindows I have mentioned, an English starling, which, in seemingrecognition of the attention it had drawn upon itself, craned its neckas Mr. Gryce looked up, and shrieked again, with fiercer insistence thanbefore:

  "Remember Evelyn!"

  It was the last uncanny touch in a series of uncanny experiences. Withan odd sense of nightmare upon him, Mr. Gryce leaned forward on thestudy table in his effort to obtain a better view of this bird, when,without warning, the white light, which since his last contact with theelectrical apparatus had spread itself through the room, changed againto green, and he realized that he had unintentionally pressed a buttonand thus brought into action another slide in the curious lamp over hishead.

  Annoyed, for these changing hues offered a problem he was as yet tooabsorbed in other matters to make any attempt to solve, he left thevicinity of the table, and was about to leave the room when he heardStyles's voice rise from the adjoining antechamber, where Styles waskeeping guard over the old butler:

  "Shall I let him go, Mr. Gryce? He seems very uneasy; not dangerous, youknow, but anxious; as if he had forgotten something or recalled someunfulfilled duty."

  "Yes, let him go," was the detective's quick reply. "Only watch andfollow him. Every movement he makes is of interest. Unconsciously he maybe giving us invaluable clews." And he approached the door to note forhimself what the man might do.

  "Remember Evelyn!" rang out the startling cry from above, as thedetective passed between the curtains. Irresistibly he looked back andup. To whom was this appeal from a bird's throat so imperativelyaddressed? To him or to the man on the floor beneath, whose ears wereforever closed? It might be a matter of little consequence, and it mightbe one involving the very secret of this tragedy. But whether importantor not, he could pay no heed to it at this juncture, for the old butler,coming from the front hall whither he had hurried on being released byStyles, was at that moment approaching him, carrying in one hand hismaster's hat and in the other his master's umbrella.

  Not knowing what this new movement might mean, Mr. Gryce paused where hewas and waited for the man to advance. Seeing this, the mute, to whoseface and bearing had returned the respectful immobility of the trainedservant, handed over the articles he had brought, and then noiselessly,and with the air of one who had performed an expected service, retreatedto his old place in the antechamber, where he sat down again and fellalmost immediately into his former dazed condition.

  "Humph! mind quite lost, memory uncertain, testimony valueless," werethe dissatisfied reflections of the disappointed detective as hereplaced Mr. Adams's hat and umbrella on the hall rack. "Has he beenbrought to this state by the tragedy which has just taken place here, oris his present insane condition its precursor and cause?" Mr. Grycemight have found some answer to this question in his own mind if, atthat moment, the fitful clanging of the front door bell, which hadhitherto testified to the impatience of the curious crowd outside, hadnot been broken into by an authoritative knock which at once put an endto all self-communing.

  The coroner, or some equally important person, was at hand, and thedetective's golden hour was over.