He glanced at his watch.
“Nearly eleven,” he said. “But
sleep seems a waste of time— apart from
its dangers.”
We heard a bell ring. A few moments later followed
a knock at the room door.
“Come in!” I cried.
A girl entered with a telegram addressed to Smith.
His jaw looked very square in the lamplight, and his
eyes shone like steel as he took it from her and opened
the envelope. He glanced at the form, stood up
and passed it to me, reaching for his hat, which lay
upon my writing-table.
“God help us, Petrie!” he said.
This was the message:
“Sir Lionel Barton murdered. Meet me at
his house at once.—Weymouth, inspector.”
Although we avoided all unnecessary delay, it was
close upon midnight when our cab swung round into
a darkly shadowed avenue, at the farther end of which,
as seen through a tunnel, the moonlight glittered
upon the windows of Rowan House, Sir Lionel Barton’s
home.
Stepping out before the porch of the long, squat building,
I saw that it was banked in, as Smith had said, by
trees and shrubs. The facade showed mantled in
the strange exotic creeper which he had mentioned,
and the air was pungent with an odor of decaying vegetation,
with which mingled the heavy perfume of the little
nocturnal red flowers which bloomed luxuriantly upon
the creeper.
The place looked a veritable wilderness, and when
we were admitted to the hall by Inspector Weymouth
I saw that the interior was in keeping with the exterior,
for the hall was constructed from the model of some
apartment in an Assyrian temple, and the squat columns,
the low seats, the hangings, all were eloquent of
neglect, being thickly dust-coated. The musty
smell, too, was almost as pronounced here as outside,
beneath the trees.
To a library, whose contents overflowed in many literary
torrents upon the floor, the detective conducted us.
“Good heavens!” I cried, “what’s
that?”
Something leaped from the top of the bookcase, ambled
silently across the littered carpet, and passed from
the library like a golden streak. I stood looking
after it with startled eyes. Inspector Weymouth
laughed dryly.
“It’s a young puma, or a civet-cat, or
something, Doctor,” he said. “This
house is full of surprises—and mysteries.”
His voice was not quite steady, I thought, and he
carefully closed the door ere proceeding further.
“Where is he?” asked Nayland Smith harshly.
“How was it done?”
Weymouth sat down and lighted a cigar which I offered
him.
“I thought you would like to hear what led up
to it—so far as we know— before
seeing him?”
Smith nodded.
“Well,” continued the Inspector, “the
man you arranged to send down from the Yard got here
all right and took up a post in the road outside,
where he could command a good view of the gates.
He saw and heard nothing, until going on for half-past
ten, when a young lady turned up and went in.”
