he drew my attention to the exquisite hands twined with the roots and foliage of rare plants, the crumbled hair, and the enfolding studio-curtain of sea-green velvet glittering with flecks of rainbow porcelain.
Beyond all question, she had been thrown from a height—from the balcony—after first being stolen from the drawing-room!
Again I screamed, and lurched forward. Two of the servants lifted me to a standing position and stood on either side for support.
“How did this happen?” Robesart asked abruptly. “Tell us, Mr. Vaughan.”
Thus suddenly addressed, I must have swooned. The shock had completely wrecked my nerves. My tongue was stiff; my head seemed to pound with a sledgehammer’s precision.
“I do not know,” I heard myself saying in an unfamiliar voice. “This is the first I have seen her since my brother Harmon left for New York at four o’clock.”
“How, then, did you know of her destruction and the place?” Robesart continued.
His eyes were gleaming at me with an intensity that roused my fury. I felt in his glance and in the tone of his blunt questioning all the shafts and spear-points of accusation.
I glanced at him with stubborn defiance, but said nothing.
“When you opened the door to us, a halfhour ago, you stated that ‘Diana was gone,’ and you brought us here where she lies,” the detective explained patiently. “Therefore, the natural question to ask you is, how did you learn of all this?”
“I surmised it!” I replied, cautioned by the brutal menace in his tone. “I didn’t know positively!”
Robesart turned to Lunston, the butler. “When did you last see this statue in its accustomed place, Lunston?”
“Directly after tea, sir!” was the answer. “I was carrying the silver tray, sir, and I saw she had been moved to the conservatory.”
“Was there any one else in the house beside the servants?”
“No one, sir!”
“Certainly no enemy, no suspicious stranger?”
Lunston denied such a possibility.
“But there was a strange man!” I shouted, enraged. “I know there was, for I saw him. I met him face to face— I talked with him. If these hirelings here had tended their duties and taken charge of the house instead of crying ‘Thief!’ and racing away four strong, they might have caught him easily.”
“I assure you, Mr. Vaughan,” Robesart declared earnestly, “if any human being besides yourself was inside the house when these men left it, he has not yet escaped. Every door, every window from roof to cellar was locked, and locked on the inside—excepting the front door which has been constantly guarded; every door, every window is still locked on the inside according to last investigation. The chef, Pierre, had the presence of mind to order all this done before giving the alarm—
“Perhaps you’d care to hear their version of the affair, Mr. Vaughan,” he continued. “According to their joint testimony, the four servants were gathered in the kitchen at dusk previous to the serving of dinner. While there they were terrified by a series of crashes that came from the open conservatory where they had last seen you at work on a small clay model of the ‘Diana.’
“Pierre and Lunston ventured immediately into the reception-hall. The front door stood wide open, and as they passed they heard a heavy thud outside as of a mass of stone falling from a height. Together they examined the conservatory. There was no sign of human presence, though they had every reason to believe you were hiding there.”
“They lie!” I screamed, but the detective raised his hand imperatively and I held my breath.
“They found the conservatory much disturbed. Plants had been knocked down and trampled upon; jardinieres and flower-pots lay crushed among heaps of black earth. There had been a struggle, a fight to a finish, but the principals were missing. ‘Diana’ was gone from her pedestal; even the velvet draperies of her niche were gone. They searched every room and as they went along closed every door and window.
“Lunston hastened to the telephone and Dombey to the garage that he might run out the car and pick up the first policeman he met. The car, however, had gone wrong. It could not be started till a quarter-hour later when, with the greatest possible despatch, they brought me here. And,” he added, rising, “here I stay till I find my man.”
“He was in the house!” I exclaimed in shrill treble. “I saw him, studio-togs and all!” Robesart stared at my blanched face. “You’re not well, Mr. Vaughan!” he said with sudden concern.
Immediately the terrific pains in my forehead returned. They were carrying her in from the terrace—reverently as though she were human dead, and I shrieked like a maniac and tore the air with clawlike fingers.
However, they grappled with me and poured a stimulant down my throat, and in time the agony passed. I recognized Robesart beside me.
“The man in the mirror!” I cried.
“Have you found him?”
He shook his head thoughtfully.
“No person, strange or otherwise, has been in the house, save ourselves,” he replied. “The place has been thoroughly searched. However, I wish you to describe the fellow7 in detail. You say he wore studio-clothes?”
“Yes, yes.” I replied in eager haste, and then I frankly met his gaze and told him all I remembered. During the recital Robesart stood motionless, staring at me till I was fully conscious of the great, silent question in his piercing gaze.
“But there was no mysterious vandal!” he blurted out. “There was no strange man in the whole affair from start to finish! He is merely a creature of your imagination.”
“What?” I roared, leaping to my feet, snarling with anger. “Do you mean—”
“Candidly now, Mr. Vaughan, why did you steal and destroy the famous ‘Diana’?” Robesart asked forcefully.
“Destroy the ‘Diana’!” I howled. “How dare you—”
“Your forehead—the brand on your forehead!” he cried dramatically, “Your victim was marble, but she put the murderer’s mark upon you that all men may see and beware!”
I clapped my hand to my head, bewildered, fearful. A wound! A great wound where the flesh had been broken! I could actually feel it. The pain of it was almost intolerable—how odd that I had not noticed it before. Small wonder that Robesart suspected me—
Again I lost consciousness and for a long time lay like one dead. At last Robesart roused me.
“Mr. Vaughan,” he said with great solemnity, “while you were sleeping I phoned your brother and physician in New York. Dr. Rossmore has known your family for generations and your own personal history from the day of your birth, and I may add that neither are surprised at to-night’s affair!”
“You mean,” I raved, “that hey have been expecting this thing of me?”
“They
