Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 4, No. 1. Whole No. 8, January 1943

The Diary of Death by Marten Cumberland

Introducing Loreto Santos, the wealthy Argentinian who turned dilettante detective, and who was the constant wonder of his friend, Inspector Comfort of the C.I.D. in London… Here is an exploit of Santos’s, in which cold deduction solves the problem of “the locked, barred door” — one of the most fascinating themes in all detective fiction.

“Confess, my brother,” said Cleta, “that you are just a little bit of a crank. You refuse to help Inspector Comfort in most of his important cases, and yet I have known you give a whole week to some trumpery affair of a broken-down actor.”

She sat down her empty coffee-cup upon the breakfast table, and rose to get a cigarette.

“Your attitude towards life is paradoxical,” she accused him.

Loreto Santos twirled round upon the music-stool and looked at his beautiful sister with laughter in his light grey eyes.

“Paradoxical!” he repeated. “Well — perhaps. But time turns our most outlandish paradoxes into truisms. When you speak of my attitude towards life you really refer to my position with regard to crime. That is very simple. Like all the best thinkers on the subject, I am concerned only with prevention, and never, or seldom, with punishment. I don’t believe in social revenge. Anyway, chiquita, my interest in crime is purely intellectual. If I can outwit and frustrate the criminal, I am interested; if the crime is already committed, I am bored. Why should I — a man of absurd wealth — play the part of policeman? No, I leave that to friend Comfort, and I go my own sweet way. As for the ‘Death Diary’ murders, they interest me, but I want a holiday. We are due at Lady Groombridge’s next week, and Comfort must play the sleuth by himself. Voilà tout.”

He turned to the piano with a shrug of his broad shoulders, as though he dismissed the whole discussion. Soon there flowed from beneath his fingers the majestic swelling strains of a choral prelude by Bach.

Cleta Santos leant back in a deep armchair, and, whilst listening appreciatively to the music, gazed with a certain wonder at her brother’s broad back.

Loreto was continually a source of perplexity to his sister, and to most of the people who came in contact with him. Born in the Argentine of Spanish parents, Loreto had been educated in England, and on the death of his parents he had made his home in Europe.

With his sister, who was many years younger than himself, Loreto had lived in several European capitals before finally settling down in London in the big house overlooking Regent’s Park. Here his vast wealth and various gifts, intellectual and artistic, together with Cleta’s beauty, had made them welcome in certain charming circles of society.

At first Loreto had lived merely as a dilettante, a fine amateur pianist who patronized various arts; then by mere chance his attention had been drawn to a certain notorious crime, and his great gifts as a criminologist had come to light.

Subsequently he had interested himself considerably in crime — crime, that is, as a battle of wits. A kind of chess problem to be worked out — and always Santos was concerned only with the anticipation of criminal events.

The man, too, was a philanthropist of the highest order, and his vast scheme for aiding first offenders upon their liberation from prison had cost him thousands. His attitude towards the criminal was, in fact, most humane, though it never degenerated into the sentimental.

Cleta, listening to his music, smiled to herself. She knew that Loreto’s mind was not entirely absorbed by his playing, for upon the otherwise bare music-holder was propped a newspaper, and it was folded at the latest report of what had become known as the “Death Diary Murders.”

It was inevitable that the conversation at Lady Groombridge’s dinner-table should turn upon the “Death Diary Murders.” The newspapers were full of the affair at the time, and probably regretted having used up their superlatives on so many minor events.

“Of course the murderer must be mad, and poor Lilian Hope was undoubtedly insane in her declining years,” declared Lady Groombridge, glaring round the table.

Lady Groombridge was one of those strong but by no means silent women whose views are invariably decided, especially when they are incorrect.

“These murders are the blind, unreasoning crimes of a lunatic,” she resumed. “They are without motive, and that is why they have baffled the police. The very cunning of them is the cunning of a lunatic.” Her keen eyes roved around the table, and fell upon Loreto Santos. “Don’t you agree with me, Mr. Santos?” she urged. “You are the expert upon these dreadful matters.”

Loreto nodded gravely.

“I think most murderers are mad,” he said. “Certainly this vendetta and these killings are insensate. There is no faintest reason for such revenge. I have seen the pages torn from poor Lilian Hope’s diary, and obviously what she wrote was merely the outpourings of a bitter and disappointed woman — a woman beside herself with illness, poverty, and suffering. There was no truth in the accusations she brought against people who had always been her loyal friends.”

A little murmur ran round the table at his words, and a voice, speaking English with a slight French accent, broke out with a question:

“Who was Lilian Hope, and what exactly are these murders you speak of?”

The questioner was Otisse — Henri Otisse, the explorer, who had just returned from the upper reaches of the Amazon. His small, dark head and yellow, sun-scorched face was turned inquiringly around, and immediately a storm of verbal explanation broke out from the assembled diners.

Through all this buzzing, Lady Groombridge’s resolute voice boomed out, and dispersed the others as a motor-horn scatters a flock of roadside chickens.

“My dear Mr. Otisse,” she exclaimed, “you are probably the only man in England who doesn’t know the whole pitiable story. Poor Lilian Hope was once one of our famous English beauties. She was a musical comedy singer, and though her voice was not really fine, her loveliness made one forget that. She was one of the first to have a picture postcard vogue, though she must have been nearly forty at that time. People would wait hours to see her get into her carriage, she was so popular. She had many exalted friends and walked with kings, and yet at the end she disappeared into obscurity and direst poverty. Some say she sold flowers in Piccadilly. It is true that she died in a miserable garret, where she had lived for years under another name.”

“But her diary?” asked Otisse, pulling at his small dark moustache. “This diary that they call in the journals the ‘Diary of Death’ — how did she come to write that, and to whom did she leave it?”

“That is the mystery,” announced Lady Groombridge. “Lilian Hope died in such obscurity that it has been impossible so far to trace the few miserable possessions that she left behind. In her last years she apparently kept a diary in which she poured out vindictive and bitter accusations against her former friends. She stated that these friends had abandoned her, scorned her, refused her the slightest assistance.

“Of course, the poor woman was beside herself with illness and want. Her friends would have helped her if they had known where she was. Lilian Hope’s wild accusations were without foundation, but they have resulted in terrible consequences. Somehow, her diary has come into the possession of an avenger, a man — if it is a man — more insane than poor Lilian Hope ever was.”

Henri Otisse nodded quickly.

“I read a little in the journals,” he said. “Someone has already killed two of these people said to have refused aid to Lilian Hope, n’est-ce pas?”

Lady Groombridge sipped her wine and glared at her attentive guests.

“Yes. Already two worthy and respectable people have been struck down by this unknown madman. Two have been killed in three months. Dr. Stapleton Clarke, a fine old man and a real philanthropist, was found shot in his study, and beside him was a page torn from Lilian Hope’s diary; a page in which she accused the poor man, in the wildest language, of callous indifference to her sufferings, and refusal to give her financial assistance. As though the old doctor would refuse anyone help, least of all a woman with whom he had once been upon terms of friendship! The writing found beside that old man’s body was hysterical and insane.

“The same thing applies to the murder of poor old Isidore Gorden. He was for years the manager of the Beaumont Theatre, and a kinder man never lived, yet he was found stabbed in the garden of his house at Maidenhead, and an equally hysterical accusation, torn from the fatal diary, lay upon his body. Apparently, too, Gorden had received pages of the ‘Death Diary’ — as the papers call it — several times before he died. Undoubtedly they were sent by the murderer to his victim, and they were enclosed in common envelopes addressed with a typewriter.”

“And others are threatened?” asked Otisse. “Has this mad avenger sent other diary pages to fresh victims?”

“One can’t tell,” replied his hostess. “Dr. Stapleton Clarke probably received pages of the diary, and it is thought he destroyed them without telling anyone about it. Lilian Hope had many friends, and she may have ranted against all of them. It is terrible. There is no knowing who may be the next victim.”

“So far there have only been two murders,” broke in one of the women guests. “And both have been committed in the last three months. The police have a theory that Lilian Hope’s diary has somehow fallen into the hands of an old lover of hers, and this man is carrying out a vendetta. They think that either this murderer has only recently acquired the ‘Death Diary’ or else that he has had it ever since Lilian Hope’s death, and that he has recently gone out of his mind. You see, only a madman would take this hysterical diary so seriously.”

Otisse demurred slightly.

“Surely a man who loved this unfortunate woman might well believe that her diary spoke the truth?” he suggested.

“Not if the man read the diary in the light of reason and common sense,” said Loreto Santos. “The diary pages found in poor Gorden’s desk were the outpourings of a pathological subject. These writings of Lilian Hope have been submitted to alienists and handwriting experts, and all the authorities are agreed that the poor woman was insane. The reputation of the murdered men was of the highest, and Lilian Hope, if she had been in her right mind, would never have accused her friends as she did. This murderer, of course, is mad.”

“Of course,” echoed Lady Groombridge. “The whole thing is a terrible tragedy. One wonders who will be next upon this mad creature’s list. There is Sir George Frame, who is joining our party to-night — he couldn’t arrive in time for dinner — now, who knows, he may be a future victim. Poor old man, he is seventy-two years of age, but he was a close friend of Lilian Hope.”

Presently the long formal dinner was at an end, and Lady Groombridge rose from the table, carrying the women with her. In the billiard-room the men lit their cigars, and Loreto looked about him curiously. Lady Groombridge was a resolute hunter of London’s “lions,” and the guests were an interesting crowd.

There was Lionel Silk, poet and author of White Heat, which had been publicly burned in America, and now cost fourteen guineas a volume. He was a slim, mild-looking man, with a bald circle in the midst of his fair hair, and a round schoolboy’s face that suggested arrested development. He looked out at the world through sleepy, lowered eyelids, and a scarlet cigarette-holder nine inches long jutted defiantly from his mouth.

Otisse, the explorer, was telling stories about China and South America to a group of men, all more or less famous or notorious. One of these was a singer named Adam Steele, “boomed” in the newspapers recently as the “Australian Caruso.” Steele was a large, bounding, energetic man, broad-shouldered and full of vitality. He had a very beautiful voice, and later, no doubt, he would be expected to sing. Lady Groombridge did not invite her guests for nothing.

Steele strolled across the room and seated himself beside Loreto. The singer had some music in his hands, and he turned to Loreto with a pleasant smile.

“I suppose I shall have to sing later on,” he confided, with a humorous grin. “I’m engaged like the extra waiters and the other hirelings. I wonder whether you would mind very much playing some accompaniments for me, Santos? I know you’re a big solo pianist, but the fact is my regular accompanist is ill. Lady Groombridge suggested that you might—”

“That lady’s word is law,” said Loreto, smiling. “Of course, I don’t claim to be an accompanist, and I’m not a very good reader. What have you got there? German Lieder — h’m! Brahms — he’s a bit tricky.”

He took the music and turned the pages quickly.

“Well, I think I can manage this for you all right.”

Steele thanked the other in his quick, impulsive way, and soon the two men were deep in a musical discussion. Loreto’s voice was soft and gravely deliberate; Steele talked excitedly, with animated gesture.

Later, when they rejoined the women, Steele sang and Loreto played indefatigably. Not only did he play the singer’s accompaniments, but he played numerous solos, and was glad afterwards to slip away to a corner of the big room for a quiet cigarette and a rest.

His sister Cleta, who had quite a nice drawing-room voice, exquisitely trained, sang some songs of old Spain, while Loreto listened appreciatively. He was sorry when the girl had finished, and Lionel Silk began to recite — or, rather, chant — some fragments from White Heat.

Seizing a favorable moment, Loreto slipped out and stole along a passage to a cool and empty smoking-room that adjoined the billiard-room.

He had just lit a fresh cigarette when a very tall old man, with white hair and a scholarly stoop, peered in through the doorway and then entered.

“Hullo!” said the old man, genially. “It’s Santos, isn’t it? Loreto Santos? Thought it was. My name’s Frame. Politician, you know.”

He seated himself opposite Loreto and continued in the same snappy, unconventional fashion.

“Couldn’t stand that Silk fellow; slipped out after you. Calls that stuff poetry! Gad! He ought to have been burnt along with his beastly books. Rotten stuff, Santos.”

With fingers that shook ever so slightly he drew out a cigar-case, whilst Loreto looked at him curiously.

At seventy-two years of age, Sir George Frame had a fine old face that still retained traces of an extremely handsome youth. The sputtering match threw a glow about the high and broad forehead, the grey eyes, still keen despite the innumerable fine lines about them, and the firm mouth. Looking at the old man’s face, Loreto understood the other’s popularity in the House, his reputation for shrewd statesmanship and vision.

“I’m very pleased to meet you, Sir George,” he said, with perfect honesty. “I fancy that you are rather more than a mere politician.”

The old man shrugged and dropped his extinguished match into an ashtray.

“I’ve tried hard,” he said. “I’ve tried hard. But the number of fools are infinite, as old Carlyle said. Anyway, it doesn’t matter now. You play the piano jolly well, Santos, but the musical number for me is ‘Nunc dimittis’. I’ve had a full life. No regrets. Seventy-three next June, but I’ll never reach it. Shut the door, my boy, will you?”

A little surprised at the abruptness of the request, Loreto nevertheless rose and closed the smoke-room door securely. When he returned to his seat he noticed that Sir George Frame had moved his chair forward until it was much nearer to that of Loreto.

“Particularly wanted to have a talk with you, Santos,” the old man resumed. “Followed your career in the papers, and read your views on crime frustration. Papers got your views wrong, of course, but I understand. You’re quite right. Modern society is the greatest criminal of all. Distribution of wealth notoriously unjust. So-called ‘justice’ a mockery. Organized society makes criminals by the hundred, and then revenges itself upon them — if they’re poor. Big thieves get off and get honors. All wrong. Prevention of crime is the great thing — not punishment.”

He paused for a moment, and looked at the firm ash on his cigar.

“I’m particularly interested in the prevention of crime,” he said, slowly, and in a different tone. “Perhaps you can guess why, Santos?”

His eyes were lifted meaningly to his listener’s face, and in a flash Loreto understood.

“Good God!” he cried. “You were a friend of Lilian Hope! You have not been threatened by—”

“Yes,” said Sir George, grimly, “I am the next on the list.”

He drew a fairly large envelope from his breast pocket and extracted some folded papers. They were dingy and faintly yellow; one edge of the paper was jagged where it had been torn from the book, and Loreto immediately recognized these sheets as pages from Lilian Hope’s fatal diary.

“Poor Lilian!” murmured the old man. “She was a wonderful creature, and I loved her once, though she never treated me too well. I had her picture — kept it for years, but my wife grew jealous. To think that she was in such poverty, and that she died in such a frame of mind!”

There was silence in the room for a moment. The old man’s cigar had gone out, and he threw it away and fumbled for another. Loreto examined the documents.

“She did once appeal to me for money, Santos,” went on the old man. “She never gave me her address, or told me how badly she was situated. She asked me to send her money to the poste restante in a big seaside resort. I wrote a letter enclosing money and asking her to let me know if she wanted more. I had no answer. I only learned a year later that my wife had intercepted the letter, and Lilian never received anything.”

He sighed faintly and dropped his second cigar into the empty grate.

“Life’s a queer thing. Mixture of comic and tragic. Poor Kitty, my wife, was always jealous, and now she’d give a great deal never to have destroyed my letter. I never heard from Lilian again; could never get in touch with her. And now there comes this bolt from the blue — this poor lunatic avenging wrongs that are purely imaginary. One poor mad soul driven on by another who is dead.”

Loreto nodded gravely.

“It is horrible and pitiably tragic,” he said. “I hope you are taking precautions, Sir George?”

The old man chuckled in grim humor.

“Precautions? What — me? My dear Santos, you don’t know me. I’m incapable of such a thing. I’m so absent-minded, I lose glasses, umbrellas, books — anything I happen to be carrying. I can’t even keep a good cigar alight. I get in wrong trains, forget to post letters, and once I delivered the wrong speech to the wrong set of people. I could never think of precautions. Besides, this sort of thing doesn’t worry me. I’ve had a full life, and I’ve had enough.

“So far from frightening me, Santos, death appears as a rather pleasant thing. It means rest — utter rest. No, I’ve lived enough. If this madman wants to get me, he’ll get me.”

“Still—” began Loreto, but he was interrupted.

“He’ll get me,” repeated Sir George. “He’s mad and cunning, and he’s not a regular criminal. That’s why the police are helpless. You know what police methods are. They can only catch the regulars. Police know all the regulars — got ’em tabbed — know their methods. Crime committed, and the regular must account for himself at the time of the crime. Then their women and pals squeal to the police. But all that sort of thing is no good against a man like this. He’s not a regular; he’s got no pals. There’s no motive and no clue. He’s mad, as Jack the Ripper was, and the police never caught Jack.”

“But if the police were warned?” suggested Loreto. “If you showed them these diary pages at once—”

The old man shook his head obstinately.

“Don’t believe in the police,” he barked. “And I don’t want them fussing about me. Matter of fact, Santos, I’m telling you all this in confidence. And I have a favor to ask you.”

A wistful note crept into his voice.

“I’d like you to take up this case,” he said. “I’d like you to try and prevent this poor devil committing more insane crimes. In particular, I would like you to protect my poor wife.”

For a moment Loreto wondered whether he had heard aright.

“Your wife?” he echoed. “Do you mean that your wife, too, is threatened?”

Sir George nodded gravely.

“Lilian hated poor Kitty more than anyone else. She has received pages from the diary that make terrible reading. The thing has knocked Kitty out. Her nerves have gone to bits, and she’s in a nursing home now, at Cambridge, near Oxsfoot. This murderer has made a definite threat, too. He says he will kill me first, and Kitty will die within a week of my decease. We had a typewritten note to that effect.

“As I’ve said, I don’t care for myself, but I do for Kitty. I’ve got nurses watching her day and night, and detectives outside, round the nursing home. But this fellow is so cunning. I don’t trust the ordinary policeman, Santos, or ordinary police methods. I wonder if you’d look after Kitty for me?”

There was something in the old man’s face and voice — something very simple and pathetic — that touched Loreto, accustomed as he was to this world’s sorrows.

“Very well,” he said, slowly, “I’ll take the thing on, Sir George, and I promise to do my best to stop this madman and put him under restraint. The thing should be comparatively easy now that we are warned in advance.”

Sir George rose to his feet and held out his hand to the younger man.

“You’re a good fellow, Santos,” he observed. “If anyone can catch this murderer, you can, but I don’t think it will be easy. In any case, thanks ever so much for taking the job on. Now I must go and say a kind word to Flora Groombridge. She’ll scold me for leaving her so long.”

Loreto pressed the long, thin hand.

“Take care of yourself,” he said, earnestly. “I’ll arrange, to-morrow, to have you looked after properly. In the meantime, be careful of strangers, and lock your bedroom door at night.”

The old man chuckled.

“I’ll ask Flora to mount guard over me,” he said. “She’d drive off fifty assassins.”

Back in the drawing-room the house-party was beginning to think of bed. Loreto talked for a time to his sister, and then she bade him good night. Most of the men were taking a final whisky-and-soda before departing, but Adam Steele was playing the fool like a big schoolboy, and trying to perform some trick with a couple of chairs, despite Lady Groombridge’s frigid stare. Around him stood some of the younger women, laughing loudly, and Lionel Silk was urging the Australian to further efforts.

Sir George Frame spoke for a time to his hostess, and was introduced to Otisse. The two men began to discuss Brazil, and the Frenchman offered to lend the other a book on that country.

Gradually the big room emptied as one by one the guests went up to bed. Acting upon impulse, Loreto went to Sir George Frame’s bedroom. The baronet had one of the best bedrooms in the house, situated upon the first floor, and he looked rather surprised when he opened the door to Loreto.

“Hullo, Santos!” he exclaimed. “Anything you want, my boy? I was just starting to undress.”

“You ought to lock your door,” said Loreto, walking into the old man’s room. “Have you a valet with you?”

“No. I didn’t bring him down. Fact is, Fletcher is a shrewd, discreet fellow, and I sent him along to Cambridge to keep an eye on the detectives who are guarding Kitty. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?”

The old man chuckled over the tag, but Loreto was making a thorough examination of the big bedroom, and assuring himself that the windows were securely fastened, and that no one was concealed in the room.

“You must be careful, Sir George,” he urged. “Remember that your life is threatened, even in this house. This room seems secure enough, but you must lock your door and bolt it.”

He added the last words as he turned towards the door and saw that there were inside bolts at the top and bottom.

“All right, my boy,” said the old man, good-humoredly. “I like to read for an hour before sleeping, and Otisse is to bring me along a book of his on Brazil. Directly he’s gone, I’ll lock, bolt, and bar. Good-night, my boy. Thanks so much.”

With this assurance Loreto had to be content. He went upstairs to his own room, but it was a long time before he could sleep.

It was very improbable that Sir George would be in danger for this one night, and to-morrow Loreto would see that the absent-minded old man was properly guarded. Yet for an hour Loreto tossed sleeplessly upon his bed, thinking of anyone who could threaten or harm Sir George Frame. The French explorer was taking a book to the baronet’s room, but Otisse was all right, and had been in Brazil when the “Death Diary Murders” were committed.

Sir George’s windows were secure; there was no way of entry except by the door, or smashing a window, which would raise an alarm.

And upon this thought Loreto fell at last into a troubled sleep, and awoke with the autumn sun streaming across his face.

It was after nine o’clock, and consequently rather late when Loreto descended to the breakfast-room. Most of the house-party had gone to tennis or the links, but Lady Groombridge herself was breakfasting, and with her were Otisse, Adam Steele, and Lionel Silk. There were also four women, among whom was Cleta, who waxed ironical about her brother’s tardiness.

“Let him be, my dear,” said Lady Groombridge, tolerantly. “He’s not the last.”

“I slept rather badly,” explained Loreto.

“I always do,” drawled Lionel Silk. “The night is such a wonderful time to dream, but one should never sleep whilst one dreams. How we waste those wonderful hours of silence and moonlight in vulgar sleep!”

Adam Steele laughed loudly.

“Silk wants a ‘Moonlight Saving Bill’,” he suggested.

“The lovers would applaud that,” said Otisse. “Really we should ask Sir George Frame to propose the Bill in Parliament.”

“By the way,” said Lady Groombridge, sharply, “Sir George is very late, and he’s usually an early riser.”

A parlormaid was in the room at the moment, and the girl put in a word.

“I have just knocked at Sir George’s door, m’lady,” she said. “I knocked hard, but I could get no answer. I noticed that his shaving water hadn’t been taken in and it was cold.”

Lady Groombridge glared at the girl and then at her guests.

“That’s strange,” she said. “You knocked hard?”

“Did you try the door?” asked Otisse, quickly.

“No, sir,” said the maid. “I just knocked.”

“I don’t like this,” said Lady Groombridge, and a note of anxiety crept into her voice as she looked about her.

A swift feeling of apprehension swept suddenly over everyone. A woman put the general thought into words.

“Sir George was a friend of Lilian Hope. Suppose—”

The men were on their feet now, and Steele’s chair overturned with a crash.

“I’ll have a look,” he cried, and, in his quick, impetuous fashion, he was out of the room and dashing up the broad staircase before the others. Loreto and Otisse were a yard behind the Australian; Silk, Lady Groombridge, and the other women brought up the rear.

In five seconds Steel was at the baronet’s bedroom door, and was rattling the handle and calling loudly.

“Sir George!” he shouted. “Sir George!”

But there was no answer, and the Australian threw himself against the door.

“It’s locked,” he panted. “I can’t move it.”

“Knock a panel in,” said Otisse, quietly. “Here, use this.”

Accustomed to alarms, the little French explorer had all his wits about him. Now he snatched from the wall a Crusader’s mace, which, with other weapons and armor, decorated the passage.

“That’s right,” boomed Lady Groombridge, “beat in the panels, Mr. Steele. Don’t hesitate.”

Thus encouraged, Adam Steele acted swiftly. Calling for elbow space, he swung his heavy weapon, and in three blows had one of the door panels in splinters. Through the jagged hole his arm went to the shoulder, and there was the click of a turning key.

“There’s a bolt at the top and bottom, Mr. Steele,” called Lady Groombridge. “Can you reach them?”

“I think so,” said Steele, straining, and red in the face.

Loreto felt a hand clutch his arm, and looked round at the pale face of Cleta.

“What do you think has happened, Loreto?” asked the girl, but before he could answer there was a metallic snapping of bolts, and the door was pushed open.

“Mon Dieu!” said Otisse, softly, and a woman suddenly screamed, for now the horrified party could see directly into the room.

And there, in the middle of the apartment, some way from his bed, lay Sir George Frame. He lay flat upon his face, one arm doubled under him, the other outstretched. One thin white hand showed upon the dark blue carpet, the fingers spread, and flattened out like a starfish.

Otisse was first beside the body, and made a quick examination.

“I’m afraid he’s dead,” said the explorer. “Stabbed with a knife in the back. Keep the women away.”

The women, in fact, after one terrified look, withdrew slowly and returned downstairs to await further news. Lady Groombridge alone remained in the room, and she was looking about her in bewilderment.

“How was this dreadful thing done?” she asked. “The windows are bolted on the inside, the chimney is impassable. Who can have done it?”

“The ‘Diary Murderer,’ ” said Santos, and pointed to a crumpled scrap of paper with one jagged edge that lay beside the body. Stooping, he picked up the diary page covered with its scrawling handwriting, and exclaimed aloud. On the paper was printed a date, the seventeenth of September.

“To-day’s date!” he cried. “This murderer certainly has method.”

“But who can have done it, and where is he?” wailed Lady Groombridge. “This room is practically sealed at all points.”

“That’s true,” cried Steele. “By Jove! The man may be hidden here now!”

He, Otisse, Silk, and the lady began to search the apartment, looking in cupboards, behind curtains, under the bed, and in the bed itself. They began with likely hiding-places, and ended by searching fantastically.

Otisse clicked his tongue in the impatient manner of a clever man who is baffled.

“But this is extraordinary,” he exclaimed. “It was humanly impossible to enter this room unless there is a secret passage.”

He turned questioningly to Lady Groombridge, but she shook her head.

“This is a modern house, built by my late husband,” she said. “I know the place thoroughly, and I can assure you there is no secret passage, and the walls are not thick enough for such trickiness.”

“But how on earth was the murder committed, then?” said Steele. “There is no sign of a weapon, and this poor old man has been stabbed with a knife.”

Lionel Silk, meanwhile, was walking about the room, tapping the walls, while Lady Groombridge glared at him.

“I tell you, Mr. Silk, there is nothing of that sort here,” she said. “If you wish, I can show you the architect’s plan of the house.”

Loreto, meanwhile, stared down at the dead man with thoughtful eyes. The body was clad in pajamas and a dressing-gown, which was open as though the garment had been put on hurriedly. A small electric reading lamp still burned beside the bed upon an occasional table, and on the bed itself was a book on Brazil by Henri Otisse. A pair of gold-rimmed spectacles were folded in the book.

Otisse came to Loreto’s side, and the Frenchman’s face was pale beneath its tan.

“This is awful, Santos,” he whispered. “How was the thing done?”

“He was reading your book,” Loreto pointed out. “Did you take it to him last night?”

“No. I met one of the maids going to bed, and I sent the book by her.” The Frenchman laughed a trifle uneasily. “You don’t suspect me of murder, Santos?”

“No,” said Loreto, quietly. “I only want to establish some definite facts. When, for example, was Frame last seen alive? Later I will interview that maid you sent with the book. I suppose you can remember her?”

“Certainly,” said Otisse. “I’ll get her now, if you like.”

“No, later will do,” replied Santos, and raised his voice. “Lady Groombridge,” he said, “I think we had better telephone the police at once. We are not likely to discover anything by looking about in this room. It is police work, anyway. Meanwhile, leave everything exactly as it is.”

“Very well, Mr. Santos,” said the lady, with surprising meekness. “This is a terribly mysterious thing! Why, a mouse couldn’t get into this room, let alone a man with a knife.”

“Perhaps it was the ghost of Lilian Hope,” said Silk, in a deep, melancholy tone. “Perhaps she still walks the earth, and avenges herself upon those who betrayed her.”

“With a knife in one hand and a diary in the other,” sneered Otisse. “It took more than a ghost to kill this poor man.”

They all left the room, and Loreto shut the broken door behind him. The local police were telephoned for, and had not been in the house long before Inspector Comfort, of the Criminal Investigation Department, arrived in a car from headquarters.

The Inspector was in charge of the “Death Diary” cases, a fact that had already added one or two grey hairs to his large round head.

He greeted Loreto as an old friend, and then began to carry out the usual police examination.

Later, as he paced a deserted croquet lawn in Lady Groombridge’s grounds, Loreto saw his sister coming towards him.

“Isn’t this awful?” asked Cleta. “That dear old man! And how was it done? The door was locked and bolted, the windows were latched, and yet Sir George was stabbed to death. Inspector Comfort can make nothing of it.”

Loreto nodded. His eyes were fixed upon a far-off pear tree, and there was an expression in them of thought and concentration that Cleta had seen before. It was a curious, detached gaze, and she had seen it in Loreto’s eyes when he was playing chess, or studying a problem.

“It is a curious business altogether,” he said, slowly, and then his tone changed. “Cleta, I am going to run up to London for a week,” he said, more briskly. “You will be all right down here, won’t you? I’m going now to make excuses to Lady Groombridge.”

The girl looked at him in surprise, but she was accustomed to these sudden decisions of his.

“I’ll be all right,” she replied. “Have you got some clue as to who did this, Loreto?”

“Quien sabe,” he answered, provokingly, and was halfway across the lawn before she could put a further question.

So for several days Loreto disappeared, and Cleta could only suppose that he was upon his mysterious business in London.

Inspector Comfort was completely baffled by the murder and by the evidence that confronted him. Apparently the door of the room had been locked and doubly bolted: the windows were latched securely upon the inside, and the chimney was impassable. There were no secret passages or sliding panels; and certainly no one had been concealed in the murdered man’s room.

Comfort found the maid who had taken Otisse’s book to Sir George Frame. This girl, scarcely seventeen years of age, was apparently the last, except the murderer, to see the baronet alive. She stated that she had taken the book along as directed. She had knocked at the door, and Sir George, in his shirt-sleeves, had opened it. He had thanked her for the book, and as she went away she heard the old man lock his bedroom door.

And yet, in the small hours of the night, someone had entered this locked and barred room and stabbed Sir George Frame to death.

The “Death Diary Murderer” had been avenged, and of his three murders this was the most mysterious. According to the doctor’s evidence, Frame had been killed some hours before the discovery of his body by Lady Groombridge’s guests.

The whole thing puzzled the unfortunate Comfort more than any crime in his experience. He studied the fatal page of the diary, which contained Lilian Hope’s usual denunciations, but told the Inspector nothing. There was the tragic parallel of the dates, but that conveyed little except to shed a light upon the workings of an unbalanced mind.

Nearly a week had passed, when the despairing police-inspector heard his telephone bell ring, and lifted the receiver to listen to Loreto’s cheerful voice.

“That you, Comfort?” asked Loreto.

“Yes. Is that Santos?”

“His very self! I say, I think I can introduce you to the ‘Death Diary Murderer’. Yes. Meet me at a quarter to eleven to-morrow morning at Oxsfoot Station. Don’t be a minute late, and bring a couple of men with you. I think our friend will want a little holding.”

There was a click as the wire was closed, and Inspector Comfort jumped to his feet and began to walk excitedly about his office.

Santos was an aggravating devil! He wouldn’t answer questions, and he would indulge in dramatic denouements, but Comfort knew that he could rely upon his eccentric friend’s promise.

The following morning, at twenty minutes to eleven, Inspector Comfort and two plain-clothes detectives arrived at Oxsfoot Railway Station. At precisely a quarter to eleven, Loreto’s big Rolls glided up to the station entrance, and Loreto himself leaned forward from the driver’s seat.

“Put your men in the back, Comfort,” he said, “and then come and sit beside me.”

A moment later, as Loreto was backing and turning his car, a laborer, on an old-fashioned bicycle, rode beside Loreto and spoke to him.

“He’s on the Cranbridge road, walking towards the Home,” said the “laborer,” and his voice was that of an educated man. “You’ve plenty of time. You can catch him up in five minutes.”

Loreto nodded his thanks and comprehension, and the big car glided forward along a narrow winding country lane.

“So it’s a man?” said Comfort, and Loreto nodded.

“A poor unbalanced devil, Comfort,” he said. “Mad, but cunning, and dangerous as a poisonous snake. The trouble is that you could meet him fifty times, and never suspect him of being mad at all. Of course, his mother was only mad on one point — the mania that she was being persecuted by her former friends.”

“His mother!” exclaimed Comfort, looking at his friend’s grim face. Loreto swung his car round a sharp corner and slowed down considerably.

“Yes, his mother,” he said, quietly. “The man you want is the son of Lilian Hope. An illegitimate son, hidden away from her closest friends. The boy was brought up at a country farm, where his mother secretly visited him during many years. Later he went abroad to the Colonies with money furnished by Lilian Hope. He lost sight of her, and for years thought her dead. Then, when he was a man of thirty, he met in London an old landlady who had known Lilian Hope in her declining years. In this way the grown son became possessed of his mother’s few poor possessions, and among them was the diary.”

Loreto’s voice grew stern, though there was a touch of sadness in his voice as he continued:

“The man had always been excitable and unbalanced. He had experienced a hard life, and his early love was for his mother. You can imagine such a man reading that terrible diary, poring over every hysterical page, noting each wild denunciation. The thing drove him mad. He kept a diary, too. He wrote pages to his dead mother, and promised her, in writing, that she should be revenged.”

“And he kept his word,” said Inspector Comfort, softly. “Who is the man?”

The lane suddenly straightened out and the hedges disappeared. At each side there now appeared a common, covered with gorse and bramble, and short grass that ran to the edge of the straight road. In the distance a pleasant red-brick house raised its chimney-pots towards the sky, and towards this house a solitary black-clad figure was walking along the road.

“There,” said Santos, with a forward jerk of his head. “That man on the road is the murderer, and the son of Lilian Hope.”

An exclamation left Comfort’s lips, and he knocked on the glass behind him to arouse the attention of his men. Rigid, and with tense face, the Inspector leaned forward, watching the black speck that grew constantly larger as the big car ran forward.

Now the pedestrian could be seen plainly, a vigorous, thick-set figure dressed in conventional black garb.

“Great snakes! It’s a clergyman!” gasped Comfort, and Loreto smiled grimly.

“Only for this occasion,” he said. “Our friend is visiting the nursing home where Lady Frame lies ill. In the next room to her the local parson is undergoing treatment. I think I see how our friend planned to get at his next victim.”

As he spoke the car crept alongside the pedestrian, and Loreto raised his voice.

“Good morning, Steele,” he cried, and the “clergyman” turned, to reveal the startled face of the “Australian Caruso,” Adam Steele.

After that things happened with extraordinary swiftness. Steele jumped back, away from the car, and his hand went to his pocket. An automatic was in his fingers when Comfort sprang from his seat and knocked the madman’s weapon into the grass. The two detectives leaped to the assistance of their chief, but even then a desperate struggle ensued before the three officers could overcome and handcuff their prisoner.

There was no doubt now about Adam Steele’s madness, and his twitching face and convulsive limbs were in Loreto’s mind for many a day after. Finally, however, he was securely handcuffed, and placed between the two detectives in the back of the car. Loreto backed the Rolls on to the common, and soon she was heading towards London at forty miles an hour.

That night Inspector Comfort sat in Loreto’s house in Regent’s Park while the Spaniard explained the whole thing to his friend.

“Steele gave himself away by being too clever,” said Santos. “He was cunning, and a brilliant opportunist, but he relied too much on his power to outwit others. He threatened to kill Lady Frame within a week of her husband, and it was easy, once I suspected him, to make quite sure of my suspicions. I preferred to take him whilst on the way to his fresh victim because, as you found, Steele had a fresh page of his mother’s diary upon him. If he had succeeded in killing Lady Frame, that page of the diary would have been found beside the unfortunate woman’s body. Steele would have got into the nursing home under pretext of visiting the clergyman who was in the next room to Lady Frame. Once he had got into the place, Steele relied on his wits to find a way of accomplishing his purpose.”

Comfort nodded.

“There was poison on him, as well as a knife. He would probably have got the old lady all right. Of course, the poor devil is quite mad, though no one seems to have noticed it. He will certainly never be hanged.”

“I suspected that the man was unbalanced when I first met him,” Loreto said. “Though, of course, I was far from thinking him mad. There are so many excitable, nervy people about in these days, and one can’t imagine they’re all homicidal lunatics. Steele was noisy and boisterous; he indulged in a fair amount of horseplay at Lady Groombridge’s, but no one thought much of it. After the murder, when I came to suspect Steele, I saw the significance of all his excitability. I went to London and burgled his house at Hampstead the same night. When I found the diary — it was stuffed at the back of his bookcase, and bound in a cover of The Three Musketeers — I was really not very surprised at all I read.”

“How did you come to suspect Steele?” asked Inspector Comfort, and Loreto smiled.

“You know, Comfort,” he said, “the easiest of all mysteries to solve are those that are considered inexplicable. I don’t want to manufacture a cheap paradox, but it is a fact that if there seems no possible way in which a thing can be done, then at least there are very few ways in which it could be done, which makes a solution all the easier.”

“Or all the more difficult,” growled Comfort. “How did Steele get into a room when the door was locked and bolted and the windows were—”

“He didn’t,” said Loreto. “He went to the door and knocked on it. When poor old careless Frame opened, Steel went in on some pretext and stabbed his victim in the back.”

“But the door was found locked and bolted!”

“By Steele himself,” said Loreto. “It was clever. The man was a brilliant opportunist, as I have said. He was first up the stairs, and first at the door. He called out to his dead victim; he rattled the door handle; he held the handle while he flung himself against the door. It was all easy, but very effective. Finally he knocked a hole in the panel and fooled with the key and bolts. I thought somehow the snap of the bolts didn’t sound quite right, but we were all excited, and Cleta was talking to me.”

“Snakes alive!” exclaimed Comfort. “He was clever. No wonder I was taken in by the evidence.”

“He was too clever,” observed Santos. “He made things too inexplicable. I think it was Whitman who advised the young to learn all they could, but ‘to reject anything that insulted their intelligence’. That locked door insulted my intelligence. I had to reject that as an acceptable fact. The windows were really barred; there was really no one concealed in the room; there were actually no sliding panels. All these things I could prove for myself, but the one thing I had to take on trust was that locked and bolted door. I had to accept Steele’s word for an impossibility. I rejected Steele’s word, and began to suspect him. He was too clever, and, thank God, there will be no more ‘Death Diary Murders’.”

“It was a good piece of deduction,” said the Inspector, judicially. “A very pretty piece of deduction.”

Loreto shook his head moodily.

“I wish I had been in time to save that poor old man,” he said.