Cleek of Scotland Yard: Detective StoriesHanshew, Thomas W.
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Cleek of Scotland Yard: Detective Stories
Hanshew, Thomas W.
Cleek, Hamilton (Fictitious character) -- Fiction; Detective and mystery stories
"No. With his nephew and heir, young Mr. Archer Blaine, a dead
sister's only child. As a matter of fact, it was Mr. Archer Blaine
himself who discovered the body of the fifth victim. Coming home at
a quarter to one from a visit to an old college friend, he found
the man lying stone dead in the shadow of the wall surrounding
Lemmingham House, and, of course, lost no time in dashing indoors
for a police whistle and summoning the constable on point duty in
the district. The body was at once given in charge of a hastily
summoned detachment from the Yard and conveyed to the Hampstead
mortuary, where it still lies awaiting identification."
"Been photographed?"
"Not as yet. Of course it will be--as were the other four--prior to
the time of burial should nobody turn up to claim it. But in this
instance we have great hopes that identification _will_ take place on
the strength of a marked peculiarity. The man is web-footed and----"
"The man is _what_?" rapped in Cleek excitedly.
"Web-footed," repeated Narkom. "The several toes are attached one to
the other by a thin membrane, after the manner of a duck's feet; and
on the left foot there is a peculiar horny protuberance like----"
"Like a rudimentary sixth toe!" interrupted Cleek, fairly flinging
the eager query at him. "It is, eh? Well, by the Eternal! I once
knew a fellow--years ago, in the Far East--whose feet were malformed
like that; and if by any possibility----Stop a bit! A word more.
Is that man a big fellow--broad shouldered, muscular, and about forty
or forty-five years of age?"
"You've described him to a T, dear chap. There is, however, a certain
other peculiarity which you have not mentioned, though that, of
course, maybe a recent acquirement. The palm of the right hand----"
"Wait a bit! Wait a bit!" interposed Cleek, a trifle irritably. He
had swung away from the window and was now walking up and down the
room with short nervous steps, his chin pinched up between his thumb
and forefinger, his brows knotted, and his eyes fixed upon the floor.
"Saffragam--Jaffna--Trincomalee! In all three of them--in all three!"
he said, putting his running thoughts into muttered words. "And
now a dead man sticks his fingers in his nostrils and talks of
sapphires. Sapphires, eh? And the Saffragam district stuck thick
with them as spangles on a Nautch girl's veil. The Bareva for a
ducat! The Bareva Reef or I'm a Dutchman! And Barrington-Edwards
was in that with the rest. So was Peabody; so was Miles; and so,
too, were Lieutenant Edgburn and the Spaniard, Juan Alvarez. Eight of
them, b'gad--eight! And I was ass enough to forget, idiot enough
not to catch the connection until I heard again of Jim Peabody's
web foot! But wait! Stop--there should be another marked foot if
this is indeed a clue to the riddle, and so----"
He stopped short in his restless pacing and faced round on Mr. Narkom.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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