The Mystery Queen | Page 6

few hours earlier in good health and spirits was now a corpse. But he told more to Dan, and mentioned that Mr. Durwin was in the library wherein the death had taken place.
"Mr. Durwin? Who is Mr. Durwin?" asked Dan trying to collect his sense, which had been scattered by the dreadful news.
"An official from Scotland Yard; I told you so after dinner," said Penn in an injured tone; "he came to see Sir Charles by appointment at nine o'clock and found him a corpse."
"Sir Charles was alive when we left shortly after eight," remarked Dan sharply; "at a quarter-past eight, to be precise. What took place in the meantime?"
"Obviously the violent death of Sir Charles," faltered the secretary.
"What evidence have you to show that he died by violence?" asked Halliday.
"Mr. Durwin called in a doctor, and he says that Sir Charles has been poisoned," blurted out Penn uneasily. "I believe that woman--Mrs. Brown she called herself--poisoned him. She left the house at a quarter to nine, so the footman says, for he let her out, and--"
"It is impossible that a complete stranger should poison Sir Charles," interrupted Dan impatiently; "she would not have the chance."
"She was alone with Sir Charles for thirty minutes, more or less," said Penn tartly; "she had every chance and she took it."
"But how could she induce Sir Charles to drink poison?"
"She didn't induce him to drink anything. The doctor says that the scratch at the back of the dead man's neck--"
"Here!" Dan roughly pushed the secretary aside, becoming impatient of the scrappy way in which he detailed what had happened. "Let me go to the library for myself and see what has happened. Sir Charles can't be dead."
"It's twelve o'clock now," retorted Penn, stepping aside, "and he's been dead quite three hours, as the doctor will tell you."
Before the man finished his sentence, Dan, scarcely grasping the situation, so rapidly had it evolved, ran through the hall towards the back of the spacious house, where the library was situated. He dashed into the large and luxuriously furnished room and collided with a police officer, who promptly took him by the shoulder. There were three other men in the room, who turned from the corpse they were looking at when they heard the noise of Halliday's abrupt entrance. The foremost man, and the one who spoke first, was short and stout and arrayed in uniform, with cold grey eyes, and a hard mouth.
"What's this--what's this?" he demanded in a raucous voice. "Who are you?"
"My name is Halliday," said Dan hurriedly. "I am engaged to Miss Moon and we have just returned from the theatre to hear--to hear--" He caught sight of Moon's body seated in the desk-chair and drooping limply over the table. "Oh, it is true, then! He is dead. Good heavens! Who murdered him?"
"How do you know that Sir Charles has been murdered?" asked the officer sternly.
"Mr. Penn, the secretary, told me just now in the hall," said Dan, shaking himself free of the policeman. "He blurted it out like a fool, and Miss Moon has fainted. Mrs. Bolstreath has taken her upstairs. But how did it come about? Who found the body, and--"
"I found the body," interrupted one of the other men, who was tall and calm-faced, with a bald head and a heavy iron-grey moustache, perfectly clothed in fashionable evening-dress, and somewhat imperious in his manner of speaking. "I had an appointment with Sir Charles at nine o'clock and came here to find him, as you now see him"--he waved his hand towards the desk--"the doctor will tell you how he died."
"By poison," said the third man, who was dark, young, unobtrusive and retiring in manner. "You see this deep scratch on the back of the neck. In that way the poison was administered. I take it that Sir Charles was bending over his desk and the person who committed the crime scratched him with some very sharp instrument impregnated with poison."
"Mrs. Brown!" gasped Dan, staring at the heavy swollen body of his late guardian, who, only a few hours back, had been in perfect health.
The three men glanced at one another as he said the name, and even the policeman on guard at the door looked interested. The individual in uniform spoke with his cold eyes on Dan's agitated face. "What do you know of Mrs. Brown, Mr. Halliday?" he demanded abruptly.
"Don't you know that a woman of that name called here?"
"Yes. The secretary, Mr. Penn, told us that Miss Moon induced her father to see a certain Mrs. Brown, who claimed that her son had been drowned while working on one of the steamers owned by Sir Charles. You saw her also I believe?"
"I was in the hall when Miss Moon went to induce her father to see the