# The Bartenstein Case/Chapter 19

CHAPTER IV
THE PRIVATE STAIR
Having announced his intention of going straight to the determining event of things, Inspector Dwayne immediately set about doing it, and when he had given some instructions to Mitchell about a further visit to Marks's shop that evening, with particulars of what he wished him to do there in certain eventualities, he began another stage of his campaign in an eminently wise and practical manner—by going to dine. He knew of a good and quiet restaurant in the neighbourhood of the Haymarket, where a truly English dinner could be had amidst peaceful surroundings, to the accompaniment of a bottle of sound claret, and he went there and had it, and afterwards took his time over a cigar, and a cup of coffee, and the evening newspaper; and during the hour and a half which he spent in this way he did not waste a single thought on the Bartenstein case, but resolutely kept his mind clear of it.
But when the Inspector finally emerged into the life of the streets again he was keener and ​more resolved than ever, and once more his brain went actively to work. It was approaching dusk when he mounted an omnibus in Piccadilly, and quite dusk when he left it near Knightsbridge. He finished and threw away his cigar as he came to Princes Gate—with it went the shreds of the evening's recreation. "Now," said Inspector Dwayne, "for business."
He had two objects in view that night. The first was to make another examination of Marcus Bartenstein's study; the second to see the woman who had given Miss Oxenham what she believed to be a clue to the real murderer. Inspector Dwayne was already convinced that that was the real clue; he remembered now what Berridge, alias Grandfather Punctuality, had said to Lauderdale as he left Marks's shop. The words might be taken as meaning a belief that the younger man had committed the crime, and a congratulation thereon. Inspector Dwayne now placed another and a sinister meaning on them. Taking everything into consideration, he had come to the conclusion that Berridge had some cause of hatred, amounting to a fiendish malice, against Bartenstein, and that, having gained access to his room, probably by the turret staircase, he had stabbed him to death with the weapon, which was as much a mystery as the murder.
The Bartenstein household was still in the same state as on the fatal night, for the dead man, whose body had that day been viewed by the jury at the preliminary and formal stage of the ​inquest, was still to be buried, and lay, grim and awful, in the picture-gallery. Inspector Dwayne, admitted by the butler, immediately recognized the atmosphere of death, and was glad, case-hardened as he was to most things, that he had not to pass days and nights in the late millionaire's mansion.
"Mr. Behrens is in the dining-room with Mr. Cunningham, sir," said the butler, mentioning the names of Bartenstein's solicitor and his secretary. "Perhaps you'd like to see them?"
Inspector Dwayne had no particular reason for seeing these gentlemen, as he knew quite well what his own object in visiting Princes Gate was, but he allowed the butler to show him into their presence, and exchanged greetings with them.
"Any further progress, Dwayne?" inquired the solicitor, a young gentleman of great self-assurance and an inordinate amount of jewellery. "I notice your people are remarkably reticent—there's scarcely a word been said so far by you before either Coroner or magistrate. What's keeping you back so? The case is as plain as a pikestaff and you ought to finish it and get the fellow hanged within a month."
"There never was a case yet that was as plain as a pikestaff, Mr. Behrens," retorted Inspector Dwayne.
Mr. Behrens shrugged his shoulders, helped himself to another glass of sherry from the decanter which stood before him, and, having ​drunk it off, said that the house was dismal and he should be glad to be outside it.
"However, the fortunate residuary legatee will rouse it up!" he said, drawing on his heliotrope gloves and pulling down his cuffs. "Egad, Cunningham, he's a lucky fellow, young Rosenbaum, eh? No such luck for us, my boy, more's the pity."
"Is Mr. Rosenbaum the sole heir, sir?" inquired the Inspector.
"Well, he's not sole heir, nor any sort of heir, Dwayne, don't you know? But he's sole residuary legatee under Mr. Bartenstein's will, which I prepared. He takes everything beyond legacies. I had a cablegram from Mr. Rosenbaum this afternoon," he continued grandly. "He sails from Cape Town this evening, and in the meantime I am in full charge. Anything I can do for you before I go, Dwayne?"
"Nothing, thank you, Mr. Behrens," replied the Inspector. "I merely wish to have another look at the study—if there's anything I want. to know, Mr. Cunningham will be kind enough to tell me all he can."
"Well, so long then," said Mr. Behrens. "Though why on earth you want to waste your time here for, or anywhere else, in this case, I don't know! As I said before, the case is as plain as a pikestaff, but you chaps from the Yard delight in making as many bites at a cherry as ever you can. However, I suppose you must do something for your money."
​With these polite remarks Mr. Behrens fitted on his glossy hat at a swaggering angle and, having picked up an umbrella which looked as if it had never been unrolled, took himself away in great self-approval, while Inspector Dwayne and the secretary went upstairs to the murdered man's study.
In this room, the scene of so strange a tragedy, nothing had been changed or moved. It was exactly as it had been when Inspector Dwayne entered it on the morning of the discovery—except that the body was not there. Seals had certainly been placed on a private safe and on some of the locked drawers of the dead man's desk, but otherwise there was nothing to show that the room was not ready for its old occupant, who might be expected to enter it any moment. And yet there was the atmosphere of death and desolation in it, and on the thick pile of the velvet hearthrug there was a dark stain which showed where Marcus Bartenstein's life-blood had poured itself away.
"There are one or two things I wanted to ask you, Mr. Cunningham," said Inspector Dwayne as he and the secretary stood looking round the room, neither of them unmindful that its late master's dead body lay not very far away from them. "Whatever Mr. Behrens may think, this case is not all plain sailing, and there are several strange features in it which I should be glad to clear up. You live in the house, don't you?"
"Oh yes," replied Cunningham.
​"Then I suppose you were pretty conversant with Mr. Bartenstein's habits?" said the Inspector.
"No, I can't say that," the secretary answered hesitatingly. "I was—and I wasn't. During the hours which Mr. Bartenstein spent here—for he did some business here as well as in the City—I, of course, saw a good deal of him, but I had fixed hours of my own, and he always saw that they were kept. I mean to say, he never infringed on my leisure time, except under very pressing circumstances. It was very rarely, for instance, that he ever required me in an evening if he happened to be at home."
"I suppose," said the Inspector, "that this suite of three rooms was really his business part of the house?"
"Quite so," replied the secretary. "There is a library and study downstairs. But after he came back from the House he always used this room; a light supper was always laid out for him here, and I know that he often worked here until far into the night."
"How do you know that?" asked Inspector Dwayne.
"Well, for more than one reason, but for one especially," replied Cunningham. "I have a suite of rooms on the next floor, and my windows command a view of these. I suffer a good deal from insomnia and very often am awake at two and three o'clock in the morning. I have often—in fact, constantly—seen Mr. Bartenstein's ​lights burning at those hours. And in a morning he has often handed me letters to post, or documents to prepare, which I know he must have worked at during the night."
"Now look here," said Inspector Dwayne, pointing to the curtained door, "that door and stair leads down to the garden. Do you know whether Bartenstein ever used that way to let late callers out, instead of taking them downstairs to the hall entrance?"
"Oh, certainly he did!" answered Cunningham. "He would let his own friends out that way."
"Have you ever known that way used at night?" asked the Inspector. "You say you have seen his windows lighted when you were looking out—have you ever chanced to see him let anybody out that way?"
"Yes, I have—three or four times," replied the secretary.
"Quite by accident?"
"Quite by chance, of course."
"Men or women?" asked the Inspector.
Cunningham seemed to consider this question carefully.
"Well," he answered after a pause, "there was one occasion when I fancied that the person he let out was a woman. But you must remember that it was night, and that the path to the private entrance in the garden wall is under a sort of verandah—a pergola, really—rather thickly shaded, so that I could not be certain. Nor ​could I tell from the voice, for they were conversing in very low tones."
"Ah, then you could hear as well as see!" exclaimed the Inspector.
"I always keep my windows wide open," replied Cunningham, "and when I can't sleep I sit at one of them. It's the only thing I can do. I can't read in bed."
"Then you've heard him and other people talking?" asked Inspector Dwayne.
"Oh, frequently! There was never anything particular in their conversation," said the secretary. "They seemed to have been having a drink and a smoke together. I took them to be some of his friends from the House or from the City. There was generally a motor or a hansom waiting in the side street then."
"I suppose you saw most of his callers during the morning here?" asked the Inspector.
"Unless he admitted them by the private door, which he could do, because at the wall entrance there is an electric bell and a speaking-tube which communicates with this apparatus on the desk," said Cunningham.
"Well, now, did you ever see a queer, antiquary-looking sort of chap here, an old man in rusty-black clothes———?"
"Several times," interrupted Cunningham. "But Mr. Bartenstein always admitted him by the private way."
"Did you ever know his business?" asked the Inspector.
​"I had an idea he used to bring curios for Mr. Bartenstein's inspection," said the secretary. "But Mr. Bartenstein never said anything to me of them, or of him."
Inspector Dwayne had now finished all his questions, and he expressed a wish to go down the private stair into the garden. As the keys were already in his possession, this was easily accomplished, and he and the secretary soon stood in the garden. The Inspector looked about him in the gloom. "Let's see," he said. "That small house there at the end of the garden, behind the holly hedge, is the coachman's, isn't it?"
"It is," answered Cunningham.
"I wonder if they'd mind my having a look at this garden from their upper windows?" said Inspector Dwayne.
The secretary said he felt quite sure there would be no objection, and offered to ask per- mission. They walked down the garden to the cottage door and knocked.
In another moment the door opened and a woman appeared on the threshold. And Inspector Dwayne knew, by sure intuition, that he was face to face with the mysterious informant who had given the artificial eye to Millicent Oxenham.