"Better leave the car here and put the lights out," he counselled. "And Miss Trevert should stay if the doctor here would remain to look after her ..."

"You think there'll be a sc.r.a.p?" whispered the doctor.

"With a man like Marbran," returned the Chief, "you never know what may happen ..."

"Zere will be no faight," commented the Dutch police officer in lugubrious accents, "my vriends, ve are too laite ..."

But the Chief insisted that Mary should stay behind and the doctor agreed to act as her escort. Then in single file the party proceeded up the drive, Robin in front, then the Dutchman, after him the Chief, and Mr. Manderton in the rear.

They walked on the gra.s.s edging the avenue. On the wet turf their feet made no sound. When they came in view of the house, they saw it was in darkness. No light shone in any window, and the only sound to be heard was the melancholy patter of the rain drops on the laurel bushes. When they saw the porch looking black before them, they left the gra.s.s and stepped gently across the drive, the gravel crunching softly beneath their feet. Robin led the way boldly under the porch and laid a hand on the doork.n.o.b. The door opened easily and the next moment the four men were in the hall.

As Robin moved to the wall to find the electric light switch, a torch was silently thrust into his hand.

"Better have this, sir," whispered Manderton. "I have my finger on the switch now, but we'd best wait to put the light up until we know where they are. Where do we go first?"

"Into the sitting-room," Robin returned.

Switching the torch on and off only as he required it, he crept silently over the heavy carpet to the door of the room in which that morning he had come upon Mary. Manderton remained at the switch in the hall whilst the other two men followed Robin through the door.

The room was in darkness. It struck chill; for the fire had gone out.

The beam of the torch flitting from wall to wall showed the room to be empty.

"I don't believe there's a soul in the house," whispered the Chief to Robin.

"Ve are too laite; I have said it!" muttered the Dutchman.

"There is another room leading out of this," replied Robin, turning the torch on to the blue curtain covering the door leading into the office.

"We'll have a look in there and then try upstairs. Manderton will give us warning if anybody comes down ..."

So saying he drew the curtain aside and pushed open the door. Instantly a gush of cold air blew the curtain back in his face. Before he could disentangle himself the door slammed to with a crash that shook the house.

"That's done it!" muttered the Chief.

The three men stood and listened. They heard the dripping of the rain, the soughing of the wind, but no sound of human kind came to their ears.

"The place is empty," whispered the Chief. "They've cleared ..."

"It is too laite; I have said it." The Dutchman spoke in a hoa.r.s.e ba.s.s.

"We'll go in here, anyway," answered Robin, lifting up the curtain again. "They may have heard us and be hiding ..."

He opened the door, steadying it with his foot. The curtain flapped wildly round them as they crossed the threshold. The broad white beam of the electric torch swung from window to desk, from desk to safe.

"The door over there is open," exclaimed the Chief; "that's the way they've gone."

Suddenly he clutched Robin's arm.

"Steady," he whispered, "look there ... in the doorway ... there's somebody moving ... quick, the torch!"

The light flashed across the room, blazed for an instant on a window-pane, then picked out a man's form swaying in the doorway. He had his back to the room and was rocking gently to and fro with the wind which they felt cold on their faces.

"It's only a coat and trousers hanging in the door ..." began Robin.

Then, with a suddenness which pained the eyes, the room was flooded with light. The Dutch detective stepped from the electric light switch and moved to the open door.

"Too laite!" he cried, shaking his head; "have I not tell you?"

Suspended by a strip of coloured stuff, the body of Mr. Jeekes dangled from the cross-beam of the door. The corpse oscillated in the breeze, silhouetted against an oblong of black sky, turning this way and that, loose, unnatural, horrible, and, as the body, twisting gently, faced the room, it gave a glimpse of startling eyes, swollen, empurpled features, protruding tongue.

Without the least trace of emotion the black-bearded detective picked up a rush-bottom chair and gathering up the corpse by its collar hoisted it up without an effort so that the feet rested on the chair. Then, producing a clasp-knife, he mounted the chair and, with a vigorous slash, cut the coloured strip which had been fastened to a staple projecting from the brickwork above the door on the outside of the house.

He caught the body in his arms and laid it face upwards on the matting which covered the floor. He busied himself for an instant at the neck, then rose with a twisted strip of coloured material in his hand.

"His braces," he remarked, "very common. The stool what he has stood upon and knocked avay, she lies outsaide! My vriends, ve are too laite!"

The doctor, fetched in haste by Manderton, examined the body. The man had been dead, he said, for several hours. Mary remained in the hall with Manderton while Robin and the Dutch detective went over the house.

There was no trace either of Marbran or of the chauffeur. In the two bedrooms which showed signs of occupation the beds had been made up, but the ward-robes were empty.

"Marbran's made a bolt for it," said Robin, coming into the office where he had left the Chief, "and taken everything with him ..."

"I gathered as much," answered that astute gentleman, pointing at the fireplace. A pile of charred paper filled the grate. "There's nothing here, and I think we can wipe Mr. Victor Marbran off the slate. I doubt if we shall see him again. At any rate we can leave him to the tender mercies of our black-bearded friend here. As for us, I don't really see that there is anything more to detain us here ..."

"But," remarked Robin, looking at the still figure on the floor, the face now mercifully covered by the doctor's white handkerchief, "surely this is a confession of guilt. Has he left nothing behind in writing? No account of the crime?"

"Not a thing," responded the Chief, "and I've been through every drawer. Even the safe is open ... and empty!"

"But how does it happen then," asked Robin, "that Marbran has legged it while Jeekes here ..."

"Marbran left him in the lurch," the Chief broke in decisively. "I think that's clear. While you were upstairs with our Dutch friend, I went through the dead man's pockets. He had no money, Greve, except a few coppers and a little Dutch change. He had not even got a return ticket to London. Which makes me think that Master Jeekes had left old England for good."

"Another thing that puzzles me," remarked Robin, "is how Jeekes knew that Miss Trevert had a letter to you, sir? Or, for a matter of that, how he knew that she had gone to Rotterdam at all?"

"That's not hard to answer," said Mr. Manderton, who had just entered the room. "On Sunday night Jeekes rang up Harkings from his club and asked to speak to Miss Trevert. Bude told him she had gone away. Jeekes then asked to speak to Sir Horace Trevert, who told him that his sister had gone to Rotterdam. Jeekes takes the first available train in the morning, recognizes Miss Trevert on the way across, and tags her to her hotel in Rotterdam. The next morning he follows her again, shadows her to Sir ... to this gentleman's rooms, and there, as we know, contrived by a trick to see to whom she had a letter."

"But why did he not attempt to get the letter away from her as soon as she arrived? Miss Trevert never suspected Jeekes. She might have shown him the letter if he'd asked her for it ..."

The detective shook his head sagely.

"Jeekes was pretty 'cute," he said. "Before letting the girl know he was in Rotterdam, he wanted to find out what she wanted here and whom she knew. Remember, he had no means of knowing if the girl suspected him or not ..."

"So he devised this trick of impersonating Mr. Schulz on the telephone, eh?"

"Bah!" broke in the Chief; "I bet that was Marbran's idea. Look at Jeekes's face and tell me if you see in it any feature indicating the bold, ingenious will to try a bluff like that. I never knew this fellow here. But I know Marbran, a resolute, undaunted type. You can take it from me, Marbran directed--Jeekes merely carried out instructions. What do you say, Manderton?"

But the detective had retired into his sh.e.l.l again.

"If you will come to Harkings with me the day after to-morrow, sir, I shall hope to show you exactly how Mr. Parrish met his death ..."

"No, no, Manderton," responded the Chief; "I can't leave here for a bit.