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Updated: May 19, 2025
Suddenly, as if a curtain had been raised, the details of what I now perceived to be a fiendishly cunning murder were revealed to me. "According to his own account, Knox," resumed Harley, "Major Ragstaff regularly passed along that street with military punctuality at the same hour every night. You may take it for granted that the murderer was well aware of this.
Harley glanced at me in rather an odd way, and then: "There will be no bill, Major Ragstaff," he said; "but if I can see any possible line of inquiry I will pursue it and report the result to you." "What do you make of it, Harley?" I asked. Paul Harley returned a work of reference to its shelf and stood staring absently across the study.
"Quite so," he continued. "I am aware that Major Ragstaff is your father." He turned to me: "Do you recognize the touch of genius at last?" Then, again addressing Lady Ireton: "You naturally suggested to your companion that he should look out of the window in order to learn what was taking place. The next thing you knew was that he had fallen into the street below?"
"I am always naturally pleased to see clients, Major Ragstaff," said Harley, "but a certain amount of routine is necessary even in civilian life. You had not advised me of your visit, and it is contrary to my custom to discuss business after five o'clock." As Harley spoke the Major glared at him continuously, and then: "I've seen you in India!" he roared; "damme!
Bampton's employers testified to a hitherto blameless character, and as the charge was not pressed the man was dismissed with a caution." Having read the paragraph, Harley glanced at the Major with a puzzled expression. "The point of this quite escapes me," he confessed. "Is that so?" said Major Ragstaff. "Is that so, sir? Perhaps you will be good enough to read this."
My friend, standing before the fireplace, his hands in his pockets and his pipe in his mouth, nodded brusquely. "I am Paul Harley," he said. "Won't you sit down?" Major Ragstaff, glancing angrily at Innes as the latter left the study, tossed his stick and gloves on to a settee, and drawing up a chair seated himself stiffly upon it as though he were in a saddle.
"That's what I'm here for!" cried Major Ragstaff. "In the first place, then, I am the party, although I saw to it that my name was kept out of print, whom the drunken lunatic assaulted." Harley, pipe in hand, stared at the speaker perplexedly. "Understand me," continued the Major, "I am the person I, Jack Ragstaff he assaulted.
Pitched on his skull marvel he wasn't killed outright!" A faint expression of interest began to creep into Harley's glance, and: "I understand you to mean, Major Ragstaff," he said deliberately, "that while your struggle with the drunken man was in progress Mr. De Lana fell out of a neighbouring window into the street?" "Right!" shouted the Major. "Right, sir!" "Do you know this Mr. De Lana?"
His investigation of the case of the man with the shaven skull afforded an instance of this, and even more notable was his first meeting with Major Jack Ragstaff of the Cavalry Club, a meeting which took place after the office had been closed, but which led to the unmasking of perhaps the most cunning murderer in the annals of crime.
But I never shall until the crook-back dealer in humanity has met his just deserts." "Hallo! Innes," said Paul Harley as his secretary entered. "Someone is making a devil of a row outside." "This is the offender, Mr. Harley," said Innes, and handed my friend a visiting card. Glancing at the card, Harley read aloud: "Major J. E. P. Ragstaff, Cavalry Club."
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