THE STORYTELLER.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 193, 18 September 1909, Page 3

THE STORYTELLER.

THE ADVENTURE OF THE COFFEE POT. SEXTON BLAKE SOLVES THE GREAT THAMES MYSTERY. It was nearly midnight. The crescent of the moon hung low over the trets massed about Richmond. The stars eeemed to hang suspended by filmy threads of gold from a heaven whose purple, slumbrous distances seemed to the man lying back in a lazily-drifting Canadian canoe to open out each second into more mysterious, intenser depths. Suddenly there rang a shriek so startling that Sexton Blake sat abruptly erect, his hands clenching his paddle. Rfght abreast of him, on the north bank, a garden ran down to the water's edge, and behind a fringe of trees rose the dark, lightless outline of a villa. Almost overhanging the water, a pavilion, shrouded in trees, rose up, the brass ball on its top glowing like Arc beneath the moonlight. The shriek had come from that gloom-girdled pavilion, or from that pilla all wrapped in darkness. Every pulse and nerve in Blake's body was tense and quivering. Almost unconsciously, he drove bis canoe with a couple of vigorous strokes towards the willows whose frondage trailed into the water a little to the left of the pavilion. The current insetting by the bank, drew his canoe beneath the trailing frondage of the willows, towards the pool of moon-washed water directly beneath the window of the pavilion. lie was yet under the willows when, suddenly, he was aware that the window of the pavilion had been furtively thrust outwards. He caught a glimpse of an arm a long, bare, extraordinarily crooked and scraggy arm—hurling something in his direction. Before he could realise what the something was, it had (mitten him in the centre of his forehead, hurling him backwards. Then a red mist rushed in on him. and he lost all consciousness. I When he came back to himself, he I found that his canoe was hooked on to I a police-boat, and the white, gleaming I face of an inspector was bending over, him, He sat up, gazing a little wildly i towards the bank, now fifty yards distant. Of villa, garden, pavilion, there was no trace. "You seem to have had an accident, Mr. Blake," said the police inspector. "We found you adrift, with your paddle gone, and quite unconscious." "And the garden with the pavilion, and that appalling shriek?" said Blak?. The inspector looked at him curiously. "The only garden with a pavilion near here is a mile above Richmond," he said, "and we're a good mile below it. Taki a drink out of this flask, and tell us what's happened." Blake obeyed gratefully. He told of the cry, and the missile thrown at hira, and as he did so his eyes wandered to the bottom of the canoe. "By Jove," he cried, "and here the missile is I That's rummy! A little brown coffee-pot!" , ■' "You'd recognise the place again, of, course?" said the inspector. "We'll lake you in tow, nod run you back to investigate, if you like." Blake was regarding the inside of the little brown coffee-pot with a fascinated gaze. He shook his head slowly, and there was a curiously intent gleam in his eyes as they met the inspector's glance. "I think that would be rather premature," he said; "but 111 be grateful if you'll run me into Chelsea. I'll sleep on this matter and look into it further in the morning." On reaching Chelsea, Blake spent half .".n hour in gathering up, with infinite care, the scattered grains of sodden coffee-dregs that bespattered the bottom of the boat. He refrained with great scrupulousness from touching them with | his hands, but gathered them up on the point of his knife,, and placed them laboriously in an envelope, which he bestowed in a pocket-book. It was not sleep that Blake sought on arriving at his rooms. He spent the remainder of the night in his laboratory, and when, at seven o'clock, he emerged from his bath, and sent his landlady for a cab, his face had a grim and stern expression on it that foreboded a disagreeable surprise for someone or other. ■He searched his morning paper with '. much eagerness, and his teeth snapped I together with a little click as his eyes encountered a headline read-p-r, "Unfortunate Tragedy at Richmond." "We regret," the report stated, "to | announce the death of Mr. Fordham : Baxter, the well-known explorer. Shortly after midnight the unfortunate gentleman was found lying lifeless on the terrace of his charming house above Richmond. The explanation of his death was only too obvious, for, lying near him, with its head crushed, was a coral snake, which, it can only be surmised, had escaped from the reptile house which it was one of the unhappy man's hobbies to stock with a collection of the most venomous snakes. His collect! )n, indeed, was unique; and there can be no doubt that he met his death by the bite of the deadly coral snake found near him. A certain element of mystery is, however, not absent from the case;* 'or, despite the doctor's assurance that ins cause of death 'was snake-venom, no mark of a bite could be found on the dead man's body. His tragic end is the more sad as he teas to be married next ■week. The body was found by his friend Professor Dudley, who was staying at the villa, and who immediately summoned medical aid." a It was nearly nine o'clock when Blaice rang the bell at Rosebank, the residence of Mi - . Baxter. A grave-faced batltt opened the door and curtly asked his j business. Blake slipped half-a-sovereign into his hand. "I want a little information from you," he said. "I am no stranger* to the distress you arc all naturally feeling; but Mr. Baxter was almost a public man, and the Press is naturally anxious for details." " \ * ":fli j "Oh, if you are a newspaper man," said the butler, opening the door wider to admit him, "my hinstructions are to give hevery information." Blake threw a cautious glance round the hall. "There ain't no one 'ere,'' said the butler, in a patronising tone. "Professor Dudley's" gorn out to make arrangements with my poor master's solicitors about the funeral. There's only me in the 'ouse." "Mr. Baxter had no other servants, then?" asked Blake. "Only me," replied the butler. "I did • for 'im and valeted 'im, and the charwoman came of the mornings. He wis a vtrv i independent gentleman and often as not Vd cook 'is own meah when 'e wasn't going to town." "At what time did you last see him alive?" asked Blake. "Eight o'clock of the hevenin'," said the butler. "After I'd served 'im and his friend Professor Dudley with dinner, I went hout for the night to visit my brother, who's lyin' sick in Camberw»!l, and I didn't get back till this mornin'." "Then you don't know how Mr. Baxter spent the evening?" asked Blake. "No, sir, I don't," replied the. butler. "But, hordinnrily, he and the professor would go, to the pavilion in the garden and play chess; and it's certain they was there last night, for the chessmen are out on the board, and the ash-trays are full of cigarette-ends." "I suppose he took his coffee there after dinner?" said Slake. The Sutler looked at him curiously. I "Now, it's funny you should ask that, sir," he said. "My master was a great coffee-'rinker. Six or seven cups a night he'd take, reglar. I've never kno^.,. him miss. He'd make it him--If on a little stove down in the pavi- . or sometimes the professor would ■aake it. But last night they couldn't 'ave 'ad it, for the cups ain't used; and what's, puzzled me is that the little brown coffee-pot the master set such store by isn't to be found anywhere, though I've looked for it 'igh and low." "About these snakes, now," said Blake. "Have you any idea how they could get out?' ' "I've been puzzlin' my 'cad over that the last four hours," said the butler. "The maste r must 'ave taken one out. The glass over their cages is all right, and'no is he wire nctlin' over the glass. They couldn't 'ave gut out of themselves." "You say 'tliev,'" said Blake, with a keen glance. '"Was more than one snake found?" "No; there wasn't. - ' said the btitler. "But there's two missin' from the cage; and. tboucrh I've searched all around the garden, I'm blest if I can find the other." Blake's eyc« gleamed. ("I should like to set) the snake tint was found"he said. "And I should like to see Mr. Baxter's body." Blake examined the dead reptile carefully. The tread was crushed out of all ■shape: but he laid it open with n knife, and his face betraved extraordinary excitement as lie' pointed with the tip of tie knife to the empty maw.

"You 'will observe," he said drily "why no mark of a puncture was founi on the body of your dead master. Tin snake's tongue and gall-bag have botl ; been removed." The butler turned pale. "What ever does it mean, sir?" b< whispered hoarsely. ''lt means," said Blake quietly, "thai your master was murdered, and thai you have got to help me find hie murderer. Sow, lead me to the room wheio his body lies." Blake spent but a couple of minutes there. But his action was sigaificant. Thu dead man's face was toiuoi'icd, an J his muuth gaped awry. Blake bent over it, sniffed at the lips, and examined the strong, rather discolored teeth through a powerful lens. With the point of his forceps he removed several small brown grains from between the front teeth, and laid them on a sheet of paper. "Your master took his coffee in the Turkish fashion?" he said. "That's correct, sir," said the butler. "He'd let it boil up three times, till the grains was all afloat in the coffee." "You see," said Blake, pointing to the grains on the paper, "that he did take coffee last night, and that, for some reason the coffee-pot has been suppressed and the coffee-cups washed." "What are we getfin 1 at?" muttered the butler, through chattering teeth. "Mr. Baxter was reputed a wealthy man," said Blake. "Do you know how he left his fortune, or who would benefit by his death?" "He made no secret of that, sir," said the butler. "The day after he was engaged to Miss Stirling —and a nicer young lady never breathed—he made 'ls will, and left 'er everything. I 'eard 'im with my own ears tellin' Mr. Dudley so." "The professor was a very close friend of his, then?" asked Blake. "The closest," Baid the butler. "They was like brothers." Blake eyed the man narrowly. There was a certain reserve in his tone thai seemed to contradict his -words. But he did not pursue the matter. I would like to see the pavilion and the garden," he said. The visit, however, was barren of rcI suit. The butler had tidied and swept I out the pavilion, and any history it might have told was effaced. The gravI ellcd pathway beneath the avenue of I trees running from the pavilion to the | lesselated terrace in front of the hou&e ; was bard as flags, and revealed to his close search no trace of footprints. He was nonplussed. But his suspicions of foul play were confirmed by the discovery of the mutilated maw of the snake, and clinched by the evidence of the coffee in the dead man's mouth; and he had not a doubt that the analysis of these grains would betray the same traces of venomous poison which he had demonstrated during the early hours of the morning to be present in the coffee-pot which had been so mysteriously flung into the night by that bared, crooked arm. "You had better keep your mouili shut on what I have told you," he said to the butler,-as he paused at the door, on the point of taking his departure. "By the way. what time will the professor be back?" "I don't expect him back, sir," said the butler. "He took his bag away willi him. and he said he was going on 10 the museum after he had seen the so,icitors. And I shouldn't be surprised if he went down tn Hastings to break the news to Miss Stirling, as the younj; lady's staying there with her mother." "He is a friend of hers, then, too?" asked Blake, in a negligent tone. "In my hopinion," said the butler, in a tone startlingly vindictive, "he's always been a sight too friendly to 'cr, feein' as she was engaged to my poor master. 'E could - never keep 'ia eyes off 'er, not for a minit. And the master was none too pleased, either; though Miss Stirling just laughed about it when 'e spoke to 'cr one day about 'er eneouragin' 'im. The poor thing,' sen ohe. "E's so crooked and wizened and kind, 'ow could I 'dp bein' nice to 'im?'" "Is he deformed, then?" asked Blake, in a voice so curiously vibrant that the butler gaped at him. "'tTnchbacked," he said, recovering himself beneath Blake's steely glance, "with one foot twisted and one arm crooked as a dog's hind leg." "That is very unfortunate for him," said Blake, and, rejoining his cab, he wn« driven to the station. An hour later, with a neat parcel under his arm, he entered the South Kensington Museum, and asked for Profe?*or Dudley. "You're just in time, Mr. Blake," said the porter, ''for he's sent for a cab to take 'im to Charing Cross, oh 'is way to Hastings, and 'ere 'e comes now?' "Good - morning, professor!" aid Blake, accosting him. "My name is Blake —Scxto n Blake, detective—and I desire a few minutes' conversation with you in private on a matter of most urgent importance." , . Professor Dudley gave him a sharp glance, and Blake noted that his figure grew suddenly tense, and that his misshapen, knottv hand gripped on the bag he was carrying till the knuckles showed white as chalk. But his voice was even anil emotionless as he replied a little testily: "I'm sure I don't know what business you can have with me. I have just time to catch my train, so " "With your permission, I will accompany you in your cab," said Blake. Tie strode along by the professor's side, and climbed into the hansom aftar hi".. "Well, what is it?" snapped the professor, in a distinctly disagreeable tone. "I have come to return you this," said Blake menacingly, and with a switt gesture he tore the wrapper off the parcel he was carrying and held up before the professor's eyes the little brown coffee-pot. '. "You fool!" he snarled, turning on Blake the furious gaze of a trappod lvnx. "You can prove nothing nothing!" "You mistake, professor," said Blako composedly. "I saw your bared am throw that coffee-pot out of the pavilion window a few minutes after Baxter gave his death shriek. You, unfortunately for you, left among the dregs in the coffee-pot the end of one of the fangs of the coral snake, whose venomsac you removed, and administered to the betrothed of the woman you coveted. I have not the slightest doubt that I shall find in your bag, or on your person, such corroborative evidence as—shall we say—the gall-bag and fangs of the other snake you removed from the cage. Ah. I see from your face that I am right!" He put up his hand and opened the trap. "Go to Bow Street Police Station,' cabbie!" he said.—Answers.