But for once even this time-tried detective found himself at fault. No
marks were found on the old servant, nor could they discover in the
rooms above any signs by which this one remaining occupant of the house
could be directly associated with the crime which had taken place within
it. Thereupon Mr. Gryce grew very thoughtful and entered upon another
examination of the two rooms which to his mind held all the clews that
would ever be given to this strange crime.
The result was meagre, and he was just losing himself again in
contemplation of the upturned face, whose fixed mouth and haunting
expression told such a story of suffering and determination, when there
came from the dim recesses above his head a cry, which, forming itself
into two words, rang down with startling clearness in this most
unexpected of appeals:
"Remember Evelyn!"
Remember Evelyn! Who was Evelyn? And to whom did this voice belong, in a
house which had already been ransacked in vain for other occupants? It
seemed to come from the roof, and, sure enough, when Mr. Gryce looked up
he saw, swinging in a cage strung up nearly to the top of one of the
windows I have mentioned, an English starling, which, in seeming
recognition of the attention it had drawn upon itself, craned its neck
as Mr. Gryce looked up, and shrieked again, with fiercer insistence than
before:
"Remember Evelyn!"
It was the last uncanny touch in a series of uncanny experiences. With
an odd sense of nightmare upon him, Mr. Gryce leaned forward on the
study table in his effort to obtain a better view of this bird, when,
without warning, the white light, which since his last contact with the
electrical apparatus had spread itself through the room, changed again
to green, and he realized that he had unintentionally pressed a button
and thus brought into action another slide in the curious lamp over his
head.
Annoyed, for these changing hues offered a problem he was as yet too
absorbed in other matters to make any attempt to solve, he left the
vicinity of the table, and was about to leave the room when he heard
Styles's voice rise from the adjoining antechamber, where Styles was
keeping guard over the old butler:
"Shall I let him go, Mr. Gryce? He seems very uneasy; not dangerous, you
know, but anxious; as if he had forgotten something or recalled some
unfulfilled duty."
"Yes, let him go," was the detective's quick reply. "Only watch and
follow him. Every movement he makes is of interest. Unconsciously he may
be giving us invaluable clews." And he approached the door to note for
himself what the man might do.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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