"If the name's Parker, would you mind asking the servant--in here?"

A gesture supplied the words he had omitted in his sentence. He held the door open so that Gladys could speak to the maid who was coming along the hall. She did so, also in lowered tones.

"If that's a person of the name of Parker show him at once in here."

She withdrew; the inspector shut the door; there was a pause; no one spoke; each of the three stood and listened. They could hear the front door opened and steps coming along the hall. Then the dining-room door was opened by a maid, who announced:

"Mr. Parker."

There entered the little man who had followed the example set by Rodney of getting out of the train in Redhill Tunnel.

CHAPTER XXIII

NECESSARY CREDENTIALS

The moment he appeared Rodney knew that he had been expecting him; that somewhere at the back of his mind there had been a feeling that it was he who was coming. His impulse was to take him by the throat and crush the life out of him before he had a chance of saying a word; which was the impulse of a badly frightened man. But he seldom lost his presence of mind for long; and, on that occasion, he had it again almost as soon as it had gone; indeed, within the same second he was smiling at himself for having allowed himself to be disposed towards such cra.s.s folly.

So far as Rodney was able to judge the little man was clad just as he had been on Sunday evening--in the same shabby tweed suit, the old unbrushed boots, with the same suggestion about him that he might easily have been improved by a more intimate acquaintance with soap and water. He had his hat in one hand, and with the other he rubbed his scrubby chin. No one could have seemed more at his ease. Without offering any sort of greeting he immediately proceeded to address the inspector, while the maid was still closing the door, in that thin, unmusical, penetrating voice which Rodney had so much disliked.

"So you are there, Harlow, are you? I wondered if you'd have sense enough to come."

He rounded off his sentence with the sn.i.g.g.e.r which had so jarred on the young man's sensitive nerves, and which affected Gladys so unpleasantly that, with what seemed to be a start of repulsion, she moved closer to her lover's side. The stranger noted the movement, and commented on it--again with the uncomfortable sn.i.g.g.e.r.

"That's right; get as close as you can; he'll keep you safe; anyone will be safe who gets close enough to him. You're Miss Patterson; I could tell you anywhere by your likeness to your father. You're not the kind of girl I care about, any more than he was the kind of man.

Who's the youngster? Now, there is someone worth looking at; why, he's as handsome as paint, and of quite unusual force of character for so young a man. Miss Patterson, the girl who gets him for a lover will have a lover of a kind of which she has no notion. He's a most remarkable young man."

"With a view, perhaps, of checking the stranger's volubility, the inspector administered what was possibly meant for a rebuke.

"If you would confine yourself to the business which has brought you here, sir, it would be as well. Are you Mr. Parker?"

"I am; Philip Walter Augustus Parker--a lot of name for a man of my size."

"You sent me a letter last night from Beckenham?"

"I did."

"Stating that Mr. Graham Patterson did not commit suicide."

"Exactly."

"But was murdered?"

"He was."

"You went on to say that if I were here this afternoon you would point out to me the murderer."

"I will."

"Point him out."

"I am."

"I thought so."

"I knew you did. I saw on your intelligent visage that you knew what was coming. You have some experience of cranks who accuse themselves of crimes of which they are innocent; you take it for granted that I am one of them, which shows what a dunce you are. I am a lunatic.

That's right, Harlow, smile again. I knew that would tickle you. A policeman's sense of humour is his own."

"It is necessary, Mr. Parker, that I should warn you that anything you say will be taken down and used against you."

"Quite right, Harlow; take it down; but as for using it against me, that's absurd. The law does not punish lunatics; whatever they may do it holds them guiltless. I'm an example of the inadequacy of the law to protect the public from what I may describe as the lunatic at large. It is not sufficiently recognised that there is an order of dementia which may at any time develop into homicidal mania, and that, therefore, a lunatic, unless he is kept in safe keeping, may kill, with impunity, whom he pleases--as I have done. I have killed Graham Patterson; yet no one may venture to kill me. My life is more sacred than that of a sane man in the eyes of the law."

The inspector looked at the girl significantly.

"I think, Miss Patterson, that I had better deal with Mr. Parker alone."

"And, Miss Patterson, I think not. What I am about to say will be found of interest not only by you, but also by--that extraordinary young man. Harlow, your duty is to take down what I am about to say in writing; don't exceed it. Shut the door. Miss Patterson will stay where she is."

The inspector looked at the lady, as if for instructions. As she gave no sign, beyond drawing a little closer to her lover, he shut the door, which he had opened a few inches. Mr. Parker beamed at him with a grotesque little air of triumph.

"There, Harlow--you see! Now attend to me. Suppose, before I go any further, we all sit down; my tale may take some minutes; I don't want anyone to get tired of standing. You won't? Very good--then stand.

There are plenty of chairs, and very comfortable some of them seem; but, of course, I don't propose to force you to occupy them if you would rather not. Now--attention! To begin at the beginning."

Again he indulged in the uncomfortable sort of laughter which, more than anything else, revealed the disorder of the creature's mind.

"On Sunday evening I bolted from my keeper, one Metcalf, in whose charge I have been for six or seven months, and of whom I was tired to extinction--an unclubable fellow who never talks unless he has something to say. I left Brighton station on the 9.10 train. Until the train started I was the sole occupant of a first-cla.s.s carriage, at which I was not displeased. I had some idea of committing suicide myself. Life, I a.s.sure you, has little to offer me. I am just sane enough to know that I never shall be saner. There's a wall--a wall which I shall never climb, and which shuts me out--from I don't know what. If I were left alone--I so seldom am; they won't leave me alone!--here would be an excellent opportunity to consider the best way out of it. You may fancy, then, what my feelings were when, just as the train was starting, another pa.s.senger entered--bundled in by an extremely officious porter. He would never have caught the train if it hadn't been for the porter--in which case he would have been still alive--so that one may say, logically, the porter killed him. The fellow certainly ought to be punished."

He waved his hat with a gesture which was possibly intended to represent the execution of the porter in question.

"The man who had entered my compartment, Miss Patterson, was your father--in every respect a most objectionable person, combining in himself nearly everything that I most object to--bloated, overfed, nearly drunk, horrible to contemplate. He sat there perspiring, puffing, panting, gasping for breath; I half expected he would have a fit. But, instead of having a fit, before the train had gone very far he was asleep, fast asleep. Could any conduct have been more disgusting?--drunken sleep! With a man of my stamp at the other end of the carriage, could anything have been more insulting? And he snored--such snores! I declare to you he made more noise than the train did; if that extraordinary young man had been in the next compartment he'd have heard him. And his jaw dropped open--it was that gave me the idea. Who is it says that trifles light as air lead to I don't know what? It was that trifle which led to my killing your father, Miss Patterson."

Again the cackling giggle, which made the girl try to draw still nearer to her lover, as if the thing were possible.

"Some time before I had come into possession of quite a quant.i.ty of pota.s.sium cyanide; I won't say how--I had. The artfulness of lunatics is proverbial, and I'm as artful as any of them; on that point I refer you to Metcalf, as well as to others who have had me in their charge, both in asylums and out of them--they'll tell you! It was in the form of tabloids, looking just like sweeties, in a nice little silver box; enough to kill a street. I had meant to use it to kill myself, but at the sight of that dreadful man, with his bulging mouth, I thought--why not use it to kill him? Pop one into his mouth, and the trick was done! I moved inch by inch and foot by foot along the seat towards his end of the carriage; he still snored on, paying no attention of any sort to me; he was a horrid, vulgar man. At last I was right in front of him; I might have been ten miles away for all he knew. How he snored, and how his jaws did gape! I had the silver box in one hand and a tabloid between the finger and thumb of the other, and I leaned forward and popped it into his open mouth."

Mr. Parker ill.u.s.trated his words by his gestures, with the air of one who was telling an amusing tale.

"Oh, what a change came over him! You should have seen it! He snored the tabloid right down his throat, and he gave a great gasp and was dead. He had not even waked; I am sure that he never knew I was on the seat in front of him, or that I was in the carriage at all. There was his huge carcase bolt upright in front of me, and I knew that he would never snore any more. It made me feel quite odd; it was all so sudden and so funny. I daresay it would have made that extraordinary young man feel odd, eh?"

He looked up at Rodney with a leer which made his mean, wrinkled face all at once seem b.e.s.t.i.a.l. But he never faltered in his story, which he told with a sn.i.g.g.e.ring relish which lent it a quality of horror which no display of dramatic, conscience-stricken intensity could possibly have done.

"My idea had been to tell the porters all about it the first time the train stopped; it would have been funny to see the fuss they'd have made; I shouldn't have cared. But it so happened that the signal was against us, and the train stopped in the middle of Redhill tunnel."

The inspector allowed no hint to escape him of what he knew or did not know. He kept his eyes fastened on the little man, as if his wish were not so much to follow his actual words, but to see something which might be behind them.