In the Fog Read online

separated from the Princess even before he wentto Central Africa, and that, moreover, while at Cairo on his way south,he had learned certain facts concerning her life there during theprevious season, which made it impossible for him to ever wish to seeher again. Their separation was final and complete.

  "'She deceived me cruelly,' he said; 'I cannot tell you how cruelly.During the two years when I was trying to obtain my father's consent toour marriage she was in love with a Russian diplomat. During all thattime he was secretly visiting her here in London, and her trip to Cairowas only an excuse to meet him there.'

  "'Yet you are here with her tonight,' Arthur protested, 'only a fewhours after your return.'

  "'That is easily explained,' Chetney answered. 'As I finished dinnertonight at the hotel, I received a note from her from this address. Init she said she had but just learned of my arrival, and begged meto come to her at once. She wrote that she was in great and presenttrouble, dying of an incurable illness, and without friends or money.She begged me, for the sake of old times, to come to her assistance.During the last two years in the jungle all my former feeling for Ziehyhas utterly passed away, but no one could have dismissed the appeal shemade in that letter. So I came here, and found her, as you have seenher, quite as beautiful as she ever was, in very good health, and, fromthe look of the house, in no need of money.

  "'I asked her what she meant by writing me that she was dying in agarret, and she laughed, and said she had done so because she wasafraid, unless I thought she needed help, I would not try to see her.That was where we were when you arrived. And now,' Chetney added, 'Iwill say good-by to her, and you had better return home. No, you cantrust me, I shall follow you at once. She has no influence over me now,but I believe, in spite of the way she has used me, that she is, afterher queer fashion, still fond of me, and when she learns that thisgood-by is final there may be a scene, and it is not fair to her thatyou should be here. So, go home at once, and tell the governor that Iam following you in ten minutes.' "'That,' said Arthur, 'is the way weparted. I never left him on more friendly terms. I was happy to see himalive again, I was happy to think he had returned in time to make up hisquarrel with my father, and I was happy that at last he was shut of thatwoman. I was never better pleased with him in my life.' He turned toInspector Lyle, who was sitting at the foot of the bed taking notes ofall he told us.

  "'Why in the name of common sense,' he cried, 'should I have chosen thatmoment of all others to send my brother back to the grave!' For a momentthe Inspector did not answer him. I do not know if any of you gentlemenare acquainted with Inspector Lyle, but if you are not, I can assure youthat he is a very remarkable man. Our firm often applies to him for aid,and he has never failed us; my father has the greatest possible respectfor him. Where he has the advantage over the ordinary police official isin the fact that he possesses imagination. He imagines himself to be thecriminal, imagines how he would act under the same circumstances, andhe imagines to such purpose that he generally finds the man he wants. Ihave often told Lyle that if he had not been a detective he would havemade a great success as a poet, or a playwright.

  "When Arthur turned on him Lyle hesitated for a moment, and then toldhim exactly what was the case against him.

  "'Ever since your brother was reported as having died in Africa,' hesaid, 'your Lordship has been collecting money on post obits. LordChetney's arrival last night turned them into waste paper. You weresuddenly in debt for thousands of pounds--for much more than you couldever possibly pay. No one knew that you and your brother had met atMadame Zichy's. But you knew that your father was not expected tooutlive the night, and that if your brother were dead also, you wouldbe saved from complete ruin, and that you would become the Marquis ofEdam.'

  "'Oh, that is how you have worked it out, is it?' Arthur cried. 'And forme to become Lord Edam was it necessary that the woman should die, too!'

  "'They will say,' Lyle answered, 'that she was a witness to themurder--that she would have told.'

  "'Then why did I not kill the servant as well!' Arthur said.

  "'He was asleep, and saw nothing.'

  "'And you believe _that?_' Arthur demanded.

  "'It is not a question of what I believe,' Lyle said gravely. 'It is aquestion for your peers.'

  "'The man is insolent!' Arthur cried. 'The thing is monstrous!Horrible!'

  "Before we could stop him he sprang out of his cot and began pullingon his clothes. When the nurses tried to hold him down, he fought withthem.

  "'Do you think you can keep me here,' he shouted, 'when they areplotting to hang me? I am going with you to that house!' he cried atLyle. 'When you find those bodies I shall be beside you. It is my right.He is my brother. He has been murdered, and I can tell you who murderedhim. That woman murdered him. She first ruined his life, and now shehas killed him. For the last five years she has been plotting to makeherself his wife, and last night, when he told her he had discoveredthe truth about the Russian, and that she would never see him again, sheflew into a passion and stabbed him, and then, in terror of the gallows,killed herself. She murdered him, I tell you, and I promise you that wewill find the knife she used near her--perhaps still in her hand. Whatwill you say to that?'

  "Lyle turned his head away and stared down at the floor. 'I might say,'he answered, 'that you placed it there.'

  "Arthur gave a cry of anger and sprang at him, and then pitched forwardinto his arms. The blood was running from the cut under the bandage, andhe had fainted. Lyle carried him back to the bed again, and we left himwith the police and the doctors, and drove at once to the address he hadgiven us. We found the house not three minutes' walk from St. George'sHospital. It stands in Trevor Terrace, that little row of houses setback from Knightsbridge, with one end in Hill Street.

  "As we left the hospital Lyle had said to me, 'You must not blame me fortreating him as I did. All is fair in this work, and if by angering thatboy I could have made him commit himself I was right in trying to do so;though, I assure you, no one would be better pleased than myself if Icould prove his theory to be correct. But we cannot tell. Everythingdepends upon what we see for ourselves within the next few minutes.'

  "When we reached the house, Lyle broke open the fastenings of one of thewindows on the ground floor, and, hidden by the trees in the garden, wescrambled in. We found ourselves in the reception-room, which was thefirst room on the right of the hall. The gas was still burning behindthe colored glass and red silk shades, and when the daylight streamed inafter us it gave the hall a hideously dissipated look, like the foyer ofa theatre at a matinee, or the entrance to an all-day gambling hell. Thehouse was oppressively silent, and because we knew why it was so silentwe spoke in whispers. When Lyle turned the handle of the drawing-roomdoor, I felt as though some one had put his hand upon my throat. ButI followed close at his shoulder, and saw, in the subdued light ofmany-tinted lamps, the body of Chetney at the foot of the divan, just asLieutenant Sears had described it. In the drawing-room we found the bodyof the Princess Zichy, her arms thrown out, and the blood from herheart frozen in a tiny line across her bare shoulder. But neither of us,although we searched the floor on our hands and knees, could find theweapon which had killed her.

  We found the body of the Princess Zichy]

  "'For Arthur's sake,' I said, 'I would have given a thousand pounds ifwe had found the knife in her hand, as he said we would.'

  "'That we have not found it there,' Lyle answered, 'is to my mind thestrongest proof that he is telling the truth, that he left the housebefore the murder took place. He is not a fool, and had he stabbed hisbrother and this woman, he would have seen that by placing the knifenear her he could help to make it appear as if she had killed Chetneyand then committed suicide. Besides, Lord Arthur insisted that theevidence in his behalf would be our finding the knife here. He would nothave urged that if he knew we would _not_ find it, if he knew he himselfhad carried it away. This is no suicide. A suicide does not rise andhide the weapon with which he kills himself, and then lie down a
gain.No, this has been a double murder, and we must look outside of the housefor the murderer.'

  "While he was speaking Lyle and I had been searching every corner,studying the details of each room. I was so afraid that, without tellingme, he would make some deductions prejudicial to Arthur, that I neverleft his side. I was determined to see everything that he saw, and, ifpossible, to prevent his interpreting it in the wrong way. He finallyfinished his examination, and we sat down together in the drawing-room,and he took out his notebook and read aloud all that Mr. Sears had toldhim of the murder and what we had just learned