CHAPTER I.
THE DISCOVERY.

      I stood on the white, silent road some minutes, waiting for my friend. At length grew tired of waiting, and determined to explore the place without him.

      To my surprise, when I applied the key which the house agent had given me to the door the wall, it turned fruitlessly the lock: the door was already open. I passed through, and found that the bolt had been drawn back and secured by a catch. The last person who had visited the premises had simply pulled the door to behind him, and the bolt being fastened back, the door had remained open.

      On my right was a flagged passage leading to a side door in the house. Before me was the old house itself, one of those ancient dwellings of which very few are now to be found within twenty miles of London. The deep mullioned windows, high gables, many-shaped chimneys, and, above all, toe wild overgrowth of creepers, bushes, and shrubs surrounding it, supplied countless charming bits for the pencil or the brush.

      "How pleased Marvell will be with this," I said to myself, I ascended the steps at the front entrance and opened the main door.

      It was merely idle curiosity that led me to explore the house, for we did not mean to take it, merely to use it for sketching purposes. The rooms seemed in no way remarkable, and I passed rapidly from one to another. At the farther end of the hall was a baize-covered door, which I supposed led to the surgery, for I knew the house had been last inhabited by a medical man — Dr. Blacklock. I opened the door, which led to a dimly lighted passage. On my right was another door, which I also opened; I was now in the surgery.

      The light streamed full on my face from two large windows, and I saw something black lying on the floor.

      "Hallo!" I cried aloud; "what's this — a woman?"

      It was the figure of woman lying all in s heap, as if she had stumbled off the bench — a fixed bench which ran along one side of the room. I supposed that she was tipsy, or had fallen down in a fit.

      "What is the matter?" I asked, trying to lift her. She was as heavy as lead. I looked at her face and uttered a scream — a loud cry of terror. The face was almost black; she was dead!

      A moment I stood trembling with horror. Then I tried lift the body on the bench, but I could not. The woman seemed be between forty and fifty years age. She was plainly but respectably dressed. Over one arm hung a worn black-leather bag or reticule; in her right hand she held a nosegay of withered roses. An awful expression of pain, anger, and defiance was on the dead woman's face.

      A strong shudder ran through me as I looked at it, and I felt though I must get into the open air, or I should faint. Looking around, I saw that it was not necessary for me go back the way I had come. There was a second door, which led apparently to the flagged passage which I had noticed. I opened the door, which was secured with a patent lock, and stepped out, closing the door behind me.

      Slowly I walked away from the spot round t lie front of the house, where the sun was shining. Before long I heard a rapid step coming to me. It was Marvell.

      "What a charming old place!" he called out. "But what's the matter, Munro? You look as if you'd seen a ghost. You're as white as a sheet."

      In a few words I told him what had discovered in the empty house; and Marvell would hardly believe me till he had seen the dead woman with his own eyes.

      "Why, how did she come here?" he exclaimed.

      "That's the mystery — one of them, I should say. How did she die? I don't see any sign of a wound. There's no blood on the floor."

      "Not a drop. But didn't you open the door with the key the agent gave you?"

      "Yes, it was locked; but I found the door in the garden wall open. Never mind. It for the police to find out who she is, and how she came by her death. We must go and tell them at once."

      Between us we managed to lift the poor creature's body up on the bench, and then went straight to the police office.

      Of course the affair made a great sensation in the little town of Hanbury, and as the house where the body had been found was only about a mile from the town, a curious crowd haunted the place for the rest of the week. Next day it was stated that a woman was missing from a house in Dalton, and the London police sent down to Hanbury two persons who knew the missing woman. They identified the body at once. The deceased woman, they said, was named Pudsey. She was a widow, and she had rented a fair-sized house in Kensington, the greater part of which she had let out in lodgings. Her only known relation was a daughter, who, it seemed, had gone a situation as a milliner in Newcastle-on-Tyne some months before, and had not been home since.

      Of course I attended the inquest, and gave evidence to the finding of the body. It did not seem quite clear how the house had been entered. The hedge surrounding the garden had evidently been broken through at one place. This would be easy for any one who knew the premises, and it would be equally easy for any one inside the inclosure to open the garden door. But there were signs of the house itself having been broken into. All this was mentioned by the police officer who had charge of the proceedings.

      A specialist had been sent for to inquire into the cause of death, and this gentleman said that the state of the blood showed clearly that death was due to some powerful poison, such as those with which certain savages tip their arrows. The poison had been introduced into the system through a small puncture on the wrist of the right hand, where a bluish mark remained to mark the spot. Death had occurred at least twenty-four hours before the body had been found.

      It was tolerably plain that some one had enticed this poor woman to the lonely, empty house, and had there murdered her in this strange fashion, and decamped, without leaving a single trace of his presence. And accordingly the jury brought in a verdict of "Wilful murder against some person or persons unknown."

      It was necessary that the funeral should take place at once, and the arrangements were completed before the police had succeeded in discovering the address of Mrs. Pudsey's daughter. The poor woman was buried in Hanbury churchyard, and none but strangers like myself followed her to the grave.

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CHAPTER II.
A CLUE IS FOUND.

      The excitement caused by the discovery of this crime had one good result. It roused my poor friend, Hugh Marvell, from the depression under which he had been labouring for some weeks. He and I were fast friends — true brothers of the brush; and I had long known that he was cherishing a hopeless passion for a girl whom he had met at a ball. Miss Florence St. Helier was the daughter of a famous physician who had been made a baronet, and she was far beyond the reach of a nameless and penniless artist.

      One day the poor fellow came to my studio almost distracted. He had heard that Florence St. Helier was at length definitely engaged to one of her father's acquaintances, a young doctor whose fortune lay his brains, named Ironside. The news turned out to be true; and Marvell fell into a state of such deep melancholy that I became alarmed for his sanity.

      In order to provide him with change of scene at a moderate outlay, I had proposed that we should visit all the old houses we find near London, and make sketches of them. It was in this way we had gone to see Hanbury Grange, as the empty house was called. Marvell was greatly interested in the mysterious crime which had been committed there; but as all chance of discovering the murderer faded away, he relapsed into his old melancholy.

      We had not yet left Hanbury, when one evening, as we sauntered together down the lane that led to the churchyard, we met a young woman with a baby in her arms. She had a face that was beautiful in its sweetness; and I could well imagine that as a maiden, she must have been lovely. She was dressed in very ordinary attire, yet without any of the marks of poverty. As we approached, she stood still, evidently meaning to speak us.

      "Can you tell me, sir, where Mrs. Pudsey's grave is?" she said to Marvell. "I've been trying to find it, but I can't."

      "It is not easy to tell you; but if you come with me, I will show you the spot," answered my friend.

      The girl thanked him and walked on by his side, while I dropped behind.

      "May I ask your name?" said Marvell.

      The stranger blushed and hesitated.

      "Are you Mrs. Pudsey's daughter?" he asked, without further preface.

      "Yes, sir, I am," answered the girl. "It was only yesterday that I found out what had happened. But, oh, sir," she burst out, "you don't think my poor mother was murdered, do you?"

      "I'm afraid it is too true," said Marvell, gravely; "and I think that you could help us to discover the criminal."

      "I, sir?" exclaimed the woman, in evident surprise; "that I'm sure I couldn't. It's eight mouths since I left home; and I — I can't imagine who can have my mother, if anybody hurt her."

      Something in the girl's tone struck me as peculiar. It almost seemed if she were defending herself; as if she were protesting too loudly her inability to avenge her mother's blood. The same thought had occurred to Marvell, for he glanced sharply at the girl as he said —

      "You can at least give me the name of some one who was not on good terms with your mother, or some one who had something to gain by her death."

      "No, sir. She hadn't an enemy in the world that I know of, and she had no money to leave."

      "But it must have been in some one's interest to get her out of the way?"

      "So it would seem, sir. You said you would show me the grave." (By this time we had reached the burying ground.)

      "Just one other question first. Did you ever hear your mother speak of Hanbury?"

      "No — never."

      "Not of having been here, or of friends she had here?"

      "Never."

      The girl's voice had an honest ring, but her eyes fell beneath friend's searching look. This, however, might be due to her modesty and her grief. Evidently it was impossible to question her further. Marvell pointed out to her the spot she was seeking, and, taking my arm, walked slowly away.

      "Munro," he said, gravely, "if I am not very much mistaken, that girl know or suspects more than she will allow."

      "What! You do not suspect that child, for she is hardly more —"

      "To be a murderess? No. And yet her answers seemed to be wanting in frankness."

      I glanced *back. The poor girl had laid her baby on the turf, and had fallen on her knees at the foot of the grave. We could see that she was weeping bitterly.

      "Come away," I said, impatiently; "we cannot intrude on the poor thing's grief. After all. it is no business of ours to unearth Mrs. Pudsey's murderer."

      Marvell made no reply, and we set out on our way home. We were still a mile or two from our lodgings, when it began to rain; and so heavy was the downpour that, before the distance was accomplished, we were wet through.

      Having reached our temporary home and changed our wet clothes, we sat down to supper. After supper we filled our pipes; and, as I was searching my pocket for my box of vestas, I found and pulled out a latchkey — one which I was sure did not belong to me — a latchkey a steel ring, with a small key of peculiar shape also hanging on the ring.

      "How do I come to have your latchkey in my pocket?" I asked, tossing the thing over to Marvell.

      "My latchkey. This isn't mine."

      "Isn't it? Then it must belong to our landlady." I rang the bell, and asked the question. No; our landlady assured us that the key did not belong to her, nor to any member of her family.

      "It very odd," I remarked.

      "Very," said Marvell, with a strange look on his face. "Do you know what key this is?"

      "No. Do you?"

      "It is the key of the empty house!"

      "Impossible!"

      "It is so. These are the clothes, I remember, you had on day you discovered the murder. Have you worn them since? I think not."

      "Wait!" I cried. "I have it! When I first discovered the body, I felt as if I were going to faint, and went out of doors by the nearest way, through the door that opens from the surgery into the garden. I was quite giddy at the time; and I have no doubt that I closed the door behind me, and finding a latchkey in the door, I slipped it into my pocket mechanically, literally without thinking what I was doing. The murderer, in the excitement of that awful moment, hurried away from the scene of his crime, forgetting that he had not removed the key from the door. It seems to me, Marvell, that whoever puts his hand on the owner of this key, puts his hand on Mrs. Pudsey's murderer."

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CHAPTER III.
THE POISON LOCKET.

      Of course I handed the latchkey, or rather the two keys, which I had found, to the police the following morning; and two days afterwards Marvell and I returned to London.

      Further reflection had made me agree with my friend in thinking that the girl we had met in the churchyard lane — Mrs. Pudsey's daughter — could furnish the police with valuable information; and thought it better to write to the authorities at Scotland Yard, and tell them of our meeting with the girl; asking at the same time whether they had succeeded in finding her address. The answer was that all efforts trace Miss Pudsey in Newcastle had failed; and that, as months bad elapsed since she left home, it was not thought likely that she had had anything to do with the crime, or that she would be able to throw any light upon it.

      Some weeks passed. Marvell gradually relapsed into the melancholy from which he had formerly been suffering; and it was chiefly with a view to rouse his interest, and draw out of himself, that I proposed to him one day we should run down to Hanbury, and ascertain whether the police had made any progress in their investigations concerning the key.

      As I expected, the superintendent of police, when I put my question, shook his head with a smile of superior wisdom.

      "What can you make of a key?" he said; "any one may have a key."

      "But very few persons, I should think, could have had this particular key," I suggested.

      "Well, now — there's the house agent, a most respectable man, married; family all grown up and doing well. He can't have had that key of yours. Then there's the owner, an old gentleman living in Italy, who never saw the place in his life. Then there's the last tenant, Dr. Blacklock. He lived in the house twenty-eight years. He is retired now; stays at Lewisham, quite by himself. If you suspect him, well, all I can say is, you'll never get anybody in Hanbury to believe you. He was liked and respected by everybody."

      "Did sell his practice?" I asked.

      "Yes, sir; and the gentleman who bought it, Mr. Meybrick, took a new house close to the town, as his bride thought the Grange was gloomy. But he could never have anything to do with the keys of a house he never lived in."

      "And he could hardly have purloined a key before Dr. Blacklock left, on purpose to commit murder some two years afterwards," put in Marvell.

      I got possession of the keys, promising to hand them back to the police if they should require them; and Marvell and I walked back to the station.

      "This is an interesting case," said my companion. "Suppose we try to solve it?"

      "I am quite willing," I answered; "but I hardly see what can do. The police are at fault."

      "They seem to have taken no trouble about the matter," said Marvell. "I mean to go and see Dr. Blacklock. It seems to me all but certain that the key belonged to him, and that it must have been carried away him, or by one of his servants, perhaps, when he left Hanbury."

      We returned to London, ran down to Lewisham, and called on Dr. Blacklock.

      He was a pleasant, intelligent, white-haired man, well over seventy. To our surprise the doctor declared that he had never before seen the latchkey I had taken from the door of the surgery at Hanbury Orange. "The keys belonging to the door were longer," he said, than the one I showed him.

      "And you will admit, gentlemen," he added, "that after carrying a latchkey for some thirty years, one must have a tolerably accurate idea of what it is like. But if you want corroborative evidence I can furnish you with it. Here is a gentleman coming up the avenue who was my assistant for two years. If his recollection coincides with mine, you will agree that I am right."

      We had hardly time make suitable reply, when a tall man with sallow, complexion, piercing dark eyes, and a full black beard entered the room.

      Dr. Blacklock introduced us in such a slip-shod way I did not catch the stranger's name, and handed him the latchkey, which had not been removed from its ring. The new comer darted a keen look at Dr. Blacklock, at me, and at my friend, and then bent over the keys, as if to examine them very carefully. I happened to glance at Marvell. He had turned deadly pale.

      "No, I don't recognise the keys at all," said Dr. Blacklock's late assistant, in a distinct, measured tone.

      "You won't guess what house they say that latchkey belongs to? The house we lived in at Hanbury, the one in which the dead body was found!" cried the old doctor.

      The gentleman shook his head.

      "You used to have a latchkey for the surgery door, but it was longer than this, wasn't it?"

      "Yes," answered the gentleman whose name I had not caught. "I feel sure the surgery latchkey was longer."

      We remained after this for a few minutes, during which Marvell, I saw, was impatient to get away.

      At length we took our leave.

      "I can't bear to sit in the same room with that man," said Marvell, clutching my arm.

      "Why? Who is he?"

      "Didn't you hear his name. He is Dr. Ironside, the man who is to marry —"

      I understood, and gave my friend's arm a sympathetic squeeze by way of reply.

      "What are you going to do now?" he enquired.

      "Throw this key into the Thames," said I. As I spoke I felt for in my pocket, and could not find it.

      "Have you got it?" I asked, plunging my hand into my other pocket.

      "Got what?" asked Marvell. "The key? Not I! I never touched it."

      "I must have left it the table," I said, "or dropped it on the floor, or Dr. Blacklock may have it, or Dr. Ironside," and I began to walk rapidly back to the house, anxious to regain possession of the little bit of metal which I had just said I would fling into the Thames.

      "I needn't go back with you." said Marvell to me, "but watch that man Ironside sharply, and see if he drops the key and pretends to find it for you."

      I started and hurried on faster than before. What could Marvell mean by that? I wondered. That Dr. Ironside might have quietly picked up the key from the table, under cover of our leave-taking? — that he had an interest in getting possession of it, and, not daring to retain it, would return it secretly by pretending to find it?

      Then Marvell suspected Dr. Ironside of being Mrs. Pudsey's murderer! But then, I reflected, the doctor was my friend's successful rival. Besides, the idea was absurd. What interest could a well-to-do, fashionable doctor have in the death of a plain, middle-aged woman, like Mrs. Pudsey? I determined, however, that I would watch Dr. Ironside closely, and if saw reason to think that he had tried secretly to gain possession of the key, I would mention the circumstance to the police. After all, he was one of the very few persons who might conceivably have committed the crime, one of the very few who might have retained possession of a key for the surgery door.

      The two doctors were still together when I re-entered the house. I explained my loss; and, as I kept a corner of my eye on Dr. Ironside while I hunted about, I distinctly saw him slip the key down on the floor behind a hassock, and then pick it up.

      That night I went to Scotland Yard, and communicated suspicions to the Chief Commissioner of Police.

      About a week afterwards I received a note from the detective in charge of the case, a man named Tobin, asking me to go with him to Dr. Ironside's house next day, and identify the key I had found, upon which I bad made a private mark. I did not relish the job, and yet I was curious, indeed anxious, to know what had been discovered.

      A few yards from the house the detective met me. Two constables were loitering along not far behind him.

      "I wanted you to see what these keys will open, so that you could swear to it," he said.

      A few steps brought us to Dr. Ironside's house. The detective pulled out a latchkey, inserted it in the patent lock, and coolly opened the door half an inch, closing it again immediately.

      "Do you recognise the key?" he whispered to me, holding to me with his left hand, as he rang the bell.

      "It is the same," said I.

      In less than a minute we were shown into the doctor's consulting room. He looked up as we entered.

      My companion walked up him.

      "May I ask if these are your keys?" he inquired, gravely.

      The doctor turned a shade paler as he glanced at me, and answered, sharply, "I have already told this person that they are not."

      "Odd; for one of them opens your front door. The other opens the desk of your writing table."

      The wretched man tried to speak. He could not.

      The officer coolly inserted the small key in the lock of the desk, and turned it round.

      "That is nothing," stammered out Dr. Ironside. "Keys often open locks which they were never intended to open."

      He drew out one of the drawers of the table as he spoke, and put in his hand. The detective appeared not to notice him. Quietly the doctor withdrew his hand from the drawer.

      "What have you got there, sir?" cried the detective, seizing his hand.

      "Stop wretch! You have killed me!"

      The officer relaxed bis grasp. The doctor opened his fingers, and a tiny thing like a locket, made of steel, fell on the carpet.

      "What is this?" asked the detective, picking it up.

      "Show it to me — on the pale of your hand," said the doctor.

      The man did so, and the doctor made a furious dash at his hand, trying, as it seemed me, to squeeze his captor's hand over the locket. The police-officer, however easily threw off the doctor's grasp, and dropped the mysterious locket on the ground.

      "You are my prisoner," said the detective, calmly.

      "It doesn't matter," said the other, with equal calmness. "I shall be a dead man in less than twenty-four hours. Without intending it, you have rendered me a service."

      Every effort was made to save the guilty man's life, but in vain. The steel locket was filled with a virulent poison — as deadly as the poison of the rattlesnake. It was furnished on one side with tiny needle-like points, which pierced the skin without inflicting any pain worth noticing, and which, being hollow, admitted the poison into the veins of the person whose skin had been pierced.

      It was clear that Dr. Ironside had forgotten to give up his latchkey when he left Hanbury Grange, and he had accidentally discovered that it would open the door of his own house. He had accordingly used his own latchkey to gain admittance to the surgery; and having enticed his victim to enter the place, he had offered her some roses, shaking hands with her at the same time, and in so doing had pressed the poisoned locket upon her wrist. Mrs. Pudsey, thinking merely that the thorns of the roses had pricked her, had not been alarmed. And then, we conjectured, he had remained talking to her until the paralysis, induced by the poison, set in, and prevented her from leaving the house.

      As for the motive of the crime, a little inquiry (now that we had got on the right track) soon made that only too plain. There was little wonder that the police could not find Miss Pudsey at Newcastle. She had never been there. She had eloped with Dr. Ironside, who, at one time, had had rooms in her mother's house. Mrs. Pudsey had insisted on a marriage taking place, and the doctor had, in his turn, insisted on its being kept profound secret. But, long since, he had grown tired of his gentle, stupid, uncultured bride; and, having fallen madly in love with Miss St. Helier, he determined to risk everything and marry her. It was not from his wife, but from his mother-in-law, that danger threatened him. No doubt she had discovered his intentions, and had intended to denounce him. The locket (either a relic of bygone ages, or a modern imitation of some such relic) had suggested to the doctor a means of carrying out his murderous design in silence and in secret.

      Florence St. Heller never knew the true cause of her lover's sudden death; and, of course, time lessened the violence her sorrow. Two years have passed since then; and Marvell, I can see, it not without hope that he may yet gain the object of his desires. He has taken Ironside's young widow and her child under his care. She is certain, he tells me, to marry again. I could not but think that she had some suspicions as to the way in which her mother came by her end. But she never knew for certain that her husband was a murderer; nor did any one ever tell her that he himself fell a victim to deadly power of the poisoned locket.