"Quite so; I can understand your natural objection to that, but still I don"t see your line of argument. I should not have cared to question Lanyon"s courage to Lanyon"s face while he was living. Why should you suppose that such a man as Geoffrey Fleming was capable of such a thing as, as you put it, actually frightening him to death? I should say it was rather the other way about. I have seen Fleming turn green, with what looked very much like funk, at the sight of Lanyon."
Mr. Jackson for some moments smoked in silence.
"If you had seen Geoffrey Fleming under the circ.u.mstances in which I did, you would understand better what it is I mean."
"But, my dear Jackson, if you will forgive my saying so, it seems to me that you don"t shew to great advantage in your own story. Have you communicated the fact of your having been robbed to the police?"
"I have."
"And have you furnished them with the numbers of the notes which were taken?"
"I have."
"Then, in that case, I shouldn"t be surprised if Mr. Fleming were brought to book any hour of any day. You"ll find he has been lying close in London all the time--he soon had enough of Ceylon."
A new comer joined the group of talkers--Frank Osborne. They noticed, as he seated himself, how much he seemed to have aged of late and how particularly shabby he seemed just then. The first remark which he made took them all aback.
"Geoff Fleming"s dead."
"Dead!" cried Mr. Philpotts, who was sitting next to Mr. Osborne.
"Yes--dead. I"ve heard from Deecie. He died three weeks ago."
"Three weeks ago!"
"On the day on which Lanyon died."
Mr. Cathcart turned to Mr. Jackson, with a smile.
"Then that knocks on the head your theory about his having frightened Lanyon to death; and how about your interview with him--eh Jackson?"
Mr. Jackson did not answer. He suddenly went white. An intervention came from an unexpected quarter--from Mr. Philpotts.
"It seems to me that you are rather taking things for granted, Cathcart. I take leave to inform you that I saw Geoffrey Fleming, perhaps less than half-an-hour before Jackson did."
Mr. Cathcart stared.
"You saw him!--Philpotts!"
Then Mr. Bloxham arose and spoke.
"Yes, and I saw him, too--didn"t I, Philpott"s?"
Any tendency on the part of the auditors to smile was checked by the tone of exceeding bitterness in which Frank Osborne was also moved to testify.
"And I--I saw him, too!--Geoff!--dear old boy!"
"Deecie says that there were two strange things about Geoff"s death. He was struck by a fit of apoplexy. He was dead within the hour. Soon after he died, the servant came running to say that the bed was empty on which the body had been lying. Deecie went to see. He says that, when he got into the room, Geoff was back again upon the bed, but it was plain enough that he had moved. His clothes and hair were in disorder, his fists were clenched, and there was a look upon his face which had not been there at the moment of his death, and which, Deecie says, seemed a look partly of rage and partly of triumph.
"I have been calculating the difference between Cingalese and Greenwich time. It must have been between three and four o"clock when the servant went running to say that Geoff"s body was not upon the bed--it was about that time that Lanyon died."
He paused--and then continued--
"The other strange thing that happened was this. Deecie says that the day after Geoff died a telegram came for him, which, of course, he opened. It was an Australian wire, and purported to come from the Melbourne sporting man of whom I told you." He turned to Mr. Philpotts.
"It ran, "Remittance to hand. It comes in rather a miscellaneous form.
Thanks all the same." Deecie can only suppose that Geoff had managed, in some way, to procure the four hundred pounds which he had lost and couldn"t pay, and had also managed, in some way, to send it on to Melbourne."
There was silence when Frank Osborne ceased to speak--silence which was broken in a somewhat startling fashion.
"Who"s that touched me?" suddenly exclaimed Mr. Cathcart, springing from his seat.
They stared.
"Touched you!" said someone. "No one"s within half a mile of you.
You"re dreaming, my dear fellow."
Considering the provocation was so slight, Mr. Cathcart seemed strangely moved.
"Don"t tell me that I"m dreaming--someone touched me on the shoulder!--What"s that?"
"That" was the sound of laughter proceeding from the, apparently, vacant seat. As if inspired by a common impulse, the listeners simultaneously moved back.
"That"s Fleming"s chair," said Mr. Philpotts, beneath his breath.
Nelly
CHAPTER I
"Why!" Mr. Gibbs paused. He gave a little gasp. He bent still closer.
Then the words came with a rush: "It"s Nelly!"
He glanced at the catalogue. "No. 259--"St.i.tch! St.i.tch!
St.i.tch!"--Philip Bodenham." It was a small canvas, representing the interior of an ill-furnished apartment in which a woman sat, on a rickety chair, at a rickety table, sewing. The picture was an ill.u.s.tration of "The Song of the Shirt."
Mr. Gibbs gazed at the woman"s face depicted on the canvas, with gaping eyes.
"It"s Nelly!" he repeated. There was a catch in his voice. "Nelly!"
He tore himself away as if he were loth to leave the woman who sat there sewing. He went to the price list which the Academicians keep in the lobby. He turned the leaves. The picture was unsold. The artist had appraised it at a modest figure. Mr. Gibbs bought it there and then.
Then he turned to his catalogue to discover the artist"s address. Mr.
Bodenham lived in Manresa Road, Chelsea.
Not many minutes after a cab drove up to the Manresa Studios. Mr. Gibbs knocked at a door on the panels of which was inscribed Mr. Bodenham"s name.
"Come in!" cried a voice.