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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Unravelled Knots, by Baroness Orczy
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<body>
<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 68237 ***</div>

<h1>
<br /><br />
UNRAVELLED KNOTS
</h1>

<p><br /></p>

<p class="t3">
BY
</p>

<p class="t2">
BARONESS ORCZY
</p>

<p><br /><br /></p>

<p class="t3">
NEW YORK
<br /><br />
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
</p>

<p><br /><br /><br /></p>

<p class="t4">
  COPYRIGHT, 1923, 1924, 1925, AND 1926,<br />
  BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY<br />
</p>

<p><br /></p>

<p class="t4">
  COPYRIGHT, 1924,<br />
  BY THE METROPOLITAN MAGAZINE COMPANY<br />
<br />
  UNRAVELLED KNOTS<br />
<br />
  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA<br />
</p>

<p><br /><br /><br /></p>

<p class="t3b">
CONTENTS
</p>

<p><br /></p>

<p class="noindent">
I <a href="#chap01">THE MYSTERY OF THE KHAKI TUNIC</a>
</p>

<p class="noindent">
II <a href="#chap02">THE MYSTERY OF THE INGRES MASTERPIECE</a>
</p>

<p class="noindent">
III <a href="#chap03">THE MYSTERY OF THE PEARL NECKLACE</a>
</p>

<p class="noindent">
IV <a href="#chap04">THE MYSTERY OF THE RUSSIAN PRINCE</a>
</p>

<p class="noindent">
V <a href="#chap05">THE MYSTERIOUS TRAGEDY IN BISHOP'S ROAD</a>
</p>

<p class="noindent">
VI <a href="#chap06">THE MYSTERY OF THE DOG'S TOOTH CLIFF</a>
</p>

<p class="noindent">
VII <a href="#chap07">THE TYTHERTON CASE</a>
</p>

<p class="noindent">
VIII <a href="#chap08">THE MYSTERY OF BRUDENELL COURT</a>
</p>

<p class="noindent">
IX <a href="#chap09">THE MYSTERY OF THE WHITE CARNATION</a>
</p>

<p class="noindent">
X <a href="#chap10">THE MYSTERY OF THE MONTMARTRE HAT</a>
</p>

<p class="noindent">
XI <a href="#chap11">THE MISER OF MAIDA VALE</a>
</p>

<p class="noindent">
XII <a href="#chap12">THE FULTON GARDENS MYSTERY</a>
</p>

<p class="noindent">
XIII <a href="#chap13">A MOORLAND TRAGEDY</a>
</p>

<p><br /><br /><br /></p>

<p class="noindent">
  By BARONESS ORCZY<br />
</p>

<p class="noindent">
  UNRAVELLED KNOTS<br />
  PIMPERNEL AND ROSEMARY<br />
  THE HONOURABLE JIM<br />
  THE TRIUMPH OF THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL<br />
  NICOLETTE<br />
  CASTLES IN THE AIR<br />
  THE FIRST SIR PERCY<br />
  HIS MAJESTY'S WELL-BELOVED<br />
  THE LEAGUE OF THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL<br />
  FLOWER O' THE LILY<br />
  THE MAN IN GREY<br />
  LORD TONY'S WIFE<br />
  LEATHERFACE<br />
  THE BRONZE EAGLE<br />
  A BRIDE OF THE PLAINS<br />
  THE LAUGHING CAVALIER<br />
  "UNTO CAESAR"<br />
  EL DORADO<br />
  MEADOWSWEET<br />
  THE NOBLE ROGUE<br />
  THE HEART OF A WOMAN<br />
  PETTICOAT RULE<br />
</p>

<p class="noindent">
  <i>New York: George H. Doran Company</i><br />
</p>

<p><br /><br /><br /></p>

<p><a id="chap01"></a></p>

<p class="t2">
UNRAVELLED KNOTS
</p>

<p><br /><br /></p>

<h3>
I
<br /><br />
THE MYSTERY OF THE KHAKI TUNIC
</h3>

<p><br /></p>

<h4>
§1
</h4>

<p>
I cannot pretend to say how it all happened.
I can but relate what occurred, leaving those of
my friends who are versed in psychic matters to
find a plausible explanation for the fact that on that
horrible foggy afternoon I chanced to walk into that
blameless teashop at that particular hour.
</p>

<p>
Now, I had not been inside a teashop for years,
and I had almost ceased to think of the Old Man in the
Corner&mdash;the weird, spook-like creature with the
baggy trousers, the huge horn-rimmed spectacles, and
the thin claw-like hands that went on fidgeting, fidgeting,
fidgeting with a piece of string, tying it with nervy
deliberation into innumerable and complicated knots.
</p>

<p>
And yet, when I walked into that teashop and saw
him sitting in the corner by the fire, I was hardly
conscious of surprise, but I did not think that he
would recognise me.  So I sat down at the next table
to him, and when I thought that he was most intent
on fidgeting with his piece of string, I stole
surreptitious glances at him.  The years seemed to have
passed him by; he was just the same; his face no
more wrinkled; his fingers were as agile and restless
as they had been when last I saw him twenty years
ago.
</p>

<p>
Then all at once he spoke, just as he used to do,
in the same cracked voice with the dry, ironic
chuckle.
</p>

<p>
"One of the most interesting cases it has ever been
my good fortune to investigate," he said.  I had not
realised that he had seen me, and I gave such a
startled jump that I spilt half a cup of tea on my
frock.  With a long, bony finger he was pointing to
a copy of the <i>Express Post</i>, which lay beside his plate,
and almost against my will my eyes wandered to the
flaring headline: "The Mystery of the Khaki Tunic."
</p>

<p>
Then I looked up inquiringly at my pixy-like interlocutor.
It never occurred to me to make a conventional
little speech about the lapse of time since last
we met; for the moment I had the feeling as if I
had seen him the day before.
</p>

<p>
"You are still interested in criminology, then?" I
asked.
</p>

<p>
"More than ever," he replied with a bland smile,
"and this case has given me some of the most
delightful moments I have ever experienced in connection
with my studies.  I have watched the police committing
one blunder after another, and to-day, when
they are completely baffled and the public has started
to write letters to the papers about another undetected
crime and another criminal at large, I am having the
time of my life."
</p>

<p>
"Of course, you have made up your mind," I
retorted with what I felt was withering sarcasm.
</p>

<p>
"I have arrived at the only possible solution of
the mystery," he replied, unperturbed, "and you will
do the same when I have put the facts clearly and
logically before you.  As for the police, let 'em
flounder," he went on complacently.  "For me it has
been an exciting drama to watch from beginning to
end.  Every one of the characters in it stands out
before me like a clear-cut cameo.
</p>

<p>
"There was Miss Mary Clarke, a quiet, middle-aged
woman who rented Hardacres from Lord Foremeere.
She had taken the place soon after the
Armistice, and ran a poultry farm there on a small
scale with the occasional assistance of her brother
Arthur, an ex-officer in the East Glebeshires, a young
man who had an excellent war-record, but who
seemed, like so many other young men of his kind,
to have fallen into somewhat shiftless and lazy ways
since the glorious peace.
</p>

<p>
"No doubt you know the geography of the place.
The halfpenny papers have been full of maps and
plans of Hardacres.  It is rather a lonely house on
the road between Langford and Barchester, about
three-quarters of a mile from Meere village.  Meere
Court is another half-mile or so farther on, the house
hidden by clumps of stately trees, above which can
be perceived the towers of Barchester Cathedral.
</p>

<p>
"Very little seems to have been known about Miss
Clarke in the neighbourhood; she seemed to be fairly
well-to-do and undoubtedly a cut above the village
folk, but, equally obviously, she did not belong to
the county set.  Nor did she encourage visitors, not
even the vicar; she seldom went to church, and
neither went to parties nor ever asked any one to
tea; she did most of her shopping herself, in Meere,
and sold her poultry and eggs to Mr. Brook, the
local dealer, who served all the best houses for miles
around.  Every morning at seven o'clock a girl from
the village, named Emily Baker, came in to do the
housework at Hardacres, and left again after the
mid-day dinner.  Once a week regularly, Miss Clarke
called at Meere Court.  Always on a Friday.  She
walked over in the afternoon, whatever the weather,
brought a large basket of eggs with her, and was
shown, without ever being kept waiting, straight into
Lady Foremeere's sitting-room.  The interview lasted
about ten minutes, sometimes more, and then she
would be shown out again.
</p>

<p>
"Mind you," the funny creature went on glibly, and
raising a long, pointed finger to emphasise his words,
"no one seems to have thought that there was
anything mysterious about Miss Clarke.  The fact that
'she kept 'erself to 'erself' was not in itself a sign
of anything odd about her.  People, especially women,
in outlying country districts, often lead very
self-centred, lonely lives; they arouse a certain amount
of curiosity when they first arrive in the neighbourhood,
but after a while gossip dies out if it is not fed,
and the hermit's estrangement from village life is
tacitly accepted.
</p>

<p>
"On the other hand, Miss Clarke's brother Arthur
was exceedingly gregarious.  He was a crack tennis
player and an excellent dancer, and these two
accomplishments procured him his entrée into the best
houses in the county&mdash;houses which, before the war,
when people were more fastidious in the choice of
their guests, would no doubt have not been quite so
freely opened to him.
</p>

<p>
"It was common gossip that Arthur was deeply in
love with April St. Jude, Lord Foremeere's beautiful
daughter by a previous marriage, but public opinion
was unanimous in the assertion that there never could
be any question of marriage between an extemporary
gentleman without money or property of any kind
and the society beauty who had been courted by some
of the smartest and richest men in London.
</p>

<p>
"Nor did Arthur Clarke enjoy the best of reputations
in the neighbourhood.  He was over-fond of
betting and loafing about the public-houses of
Barchester.  People said, that he might help his sister in
the farm more than he did, seeing that he did not
appear to have a sixpence of his own, and that she
gave him bed and board, but as he was very good-looking
and could make himself very agreeable if he
chose, the women, at any rate, smiled at his misdeeds
and were content to call Arthur 'rather wild, but not
really a bad boy.'
</p>

<p>
"Then came the tragedy.
</p>

<p>
"On the twenty-eighth of December last, when
Emily Baker came to work as usual, she was rather
surprised not to see or hear Miss Clarke moving
about the place.  As a rule she was out in the yard
by the time Emily arrived; the chickens would have
had their hot mash and the empty pans would have
been left for Emily to wash up.  But this morning
nothing.  In the girl's own words there was a creepy
kind of lonely feeling about the house.  She knew
that Mr. Clarke was not at home.  The day before
the servants at Meere Court had their annual
Christmas party, and Mr. Clarke had been asked to help
with the tree and to entertain the children.  He had
announced his intention of putting up afterwards at
the Deanery Hotel for the night, a thing he was rather
fond of doing whenever he was asked out to parties
and did not know what time he might be able to get
away.
</p>

<p>
"Emily, when she arrived, had found the front door
on the latch, as usual, therefore, she reflected, Miss
Clarke must have been downstairs and drawn the
bolts.  But where could she be now?  Never, never
would she have gone out before feeding her chickens,
on such a cold morning, too!
</p>

<p>
"At this point Emily gave up reflecting, and proceeded
to action.  She went up to her mistress's room.
It was empty, and the bed had not been slept in.
Genuinely alarmed now, she ran down again, her next
objective being the parlour.  The door was, as usual,
locked on the outside, but, contrary to precedent, the
key was not in the lock; thinking it had dropped out,
the girl searched for it, but in vain, and at one
moment, when she moved the small mat which stood
before the door of the locked room, she at once
became aware of an over-powering smell of gas.
</p>

<p>
"This proved the death-blow to Emily's fortitude;
she took to her heels and ran out of the house and
down the road toward the village, nor did she halt
until she came to the local police-station, where she
gave as coherent an account as she could of the
terrible state of things at Hardacres.
</p>

<p>
"You will remember that when the police broke
open the door of the parlour, the first thing they saw
was the body of Miss Clarke lying full-length on the
floor.  The poor woman was quite dead, suffocated
by the poisonous fumes of gas which was fully
turned on in the old-fashioned chandelier above her
head.  The one window had been carefully latched,
and the thick curtains closely drawn together; the
chimney had been stuffed up with newspaper and
paper had been thrust into every aperture so as to
exclude the slightest possible breath of air.  There
was a wad of it in the keyhole, and the mat on the
landing outside had been carefully arranged against
the door with the same sinister object.
</p>

<p>
"The news spread like wildfire and soon the entire
neighbourhood was gloating over a sensation the like
of which had not come its way for generations past."
</p>

<p><br /></p>

<h4>
§2
</h4>

<p>
"The London evening papers got hold of the story
for their noonday edition," the Old Man in the Corner
went on, after a slight pause, "and I with my passion
for the enigmatical and the perplexing, made up my
mind then and there to probe the mystery on my own
account, because I knew well enough that this was just
the sort of case which would send the county police
blundering all over the wrong track.
</p>

<p>
"I arrived at Barchester on the Tuesday, in time
for the inquest, but nothing of much importance
transpired that day.  Medical evidence went to prove
that the deceased had first been struck on the back
of the head by some heavy instrument, a weighted
stick or something of the sort, which had no doubt
stunned her, but she actually died of gas poisoning,
which she inhaled in large quantities while she was
half-conscious.  The medical officer went on to say
that Miss Clarke must have been dead twelve hours
or more when he was called in by the police at about
eight o'clock in the morning.
</p>

<p>
"After this, a couple of neighbours testified to
having seen Miss Clarke at her front door at about
half-past five the previous evening.  It was a very
dark night, if you remember, and a thick Scotch mist
was falling.  When the neighbours went by, Miss
Clarke had apparently just introduced a visitor into
her house, the gas was alight in the small hall, and
they had vaguely perceived the outline of a man or
woman, they could not swear which, in a huge coat,
standing for a moment immediately behind Miss
Clarke; the neighbours also heard Miss Clarke's voice
speaking to her visitor, but what she said they could
not distinguish.  The weather was so atrocious that
every one who was abroad that night hurried along
without taking much notice of what went on around.
</p>

<p>
"Evidence of a more or less formal character followed,
and the inquest was then adjourned until the
Friday, every one going away with the feeling that
sensational developments were already in the air.
</p>

<p>
"And the developments came tumbling in thick and
fast.  To begin with, it appears that Arthur Clarke,
when first questioned by the police, had made a
somewhat lame statement.
</p>

<p>
"'I was asked,' he said, 'to help with the servants'
Christmas party at Meere Court.  I walked over to
Barchester at about three o'clock in the afternoon,
with my suit-case, as I was going to spend the night
at the Deanery Hotel.  I went on to Meere Court
soon after half-past three, and stayed until past seven;
after which I walked back to the Deanery, had some
dinner, and went early to bed.  I never knew that
anything had happened to my sister until the police
telephoned to me soon after eight o'clock the next
morning.  And,' he added, 'that's all about it!'
</p>

<p>
"But it certainly was not 'all about it,' because
several of the servants at Meere Court who were asked
at what time Mr. Clarke went away that night, said
that he must have gone very soon after five o'clock.
They all finished their tea about that time, and then
the gramophone was set going for dancing; they were
quite sure that they had not seen Mr. Clarke after
that.
</p>

<p>
"On the other hand, Miss St. Jude said that the
servants were mistaken; they were far too deeply
engrossed in their own amusements to be at all
reliable in their statements.  As a matter of fact,
Mr. Clarke went away, as he said, at about seven o'clock;
she herself had danced with him most of the time,
and said good-night to him in the hall at a few
minutes after seven.
</p>

<p>
"Here was a neat little complication, do you see&mdash;a
direct conflict of evidence at the very outset of this
mysterious case.  Can you wonder that amateur
detectives already shrugged their shoulders and raised
their eyebrows, declaring that the Hon. April St. Jude
was obviously in love with Arthur Clarke, and was
trying to shield him, well knowing that he had
something to hide.
</p>

<p>
"Of course the police themselves were very reticent,
but even they could not keep people from gossiping.
And gossip, I can assure you, had enough and to spare
to feed on.  At first, of course, the crime had seemed
entirely motiveless.  The deceased had not an enemy,
or, as far as that goes, many acquaintances in the world.
In the drawer of the desk, in the parlour, the sum of
twenty pounds odd in notes and cash were found, and
in a little box by the side of the money poor Mary
Clarke's little bits of jewellery.
</p>

<p>
"But twenty-four hours later no one could remain
in doubt as to the assassin's purpose.  You will
remember that on the day following the adjourned
inquest there had arrived from the depths of Yorkshire
an old sister of the deceased, a respectable spinster,
to whom Arthur himself, it seems, had communicated
the terrible news.  She had come to Barchester for the
funeral.  This elder Miss Clarke, Euphemia by name,
though she could not say much that was informative,
did, at any rate, throw light upon one dark passage
in her sister's history.
</p>

<p>
"'For the past four years,' she told the police, 'my
sister had an allowance of four pounds a week from
a member of the aristocracy.  I did not know much
about her affairs, but I do know that she had a packet
of letters on which she set great store.  What these
letters were I have not the slightest idea, nor do I
know what Mary ultimately did with them.  On one
occasion, before she was actually settled at Hardacres,
she met me in London and asked me to take care of
this packet for her, and she told me then that they
were very valuable.  I also know that she and my
brother Arthur had most heated arguments together
on the subject of these letters.  Arthur was always
wanting her to give them up to him, and she always
refused.  On one occasion she told me that she could,
if she wanted, sell that packet of letters for five
thousand pounds.  "Why on earth don't you?" I asked
her.  But she replied: "Oh, Arthur would only get
the money out of me!  It's better as it is."'
</p>

<p>
"This story, as you may well imagine, gave food
enough for gossip; at once a romance was woven of
blackmail and drama of love and passion, whilst the
name of a certain great lady in the neighbourhood, to
whom Miss Clarke had been in the habit of paying
mysterious weekly visits, already was on everybody's
lips.
</p>

<p>
"And then the climax came.  By evening it had
transpired that in Arthur Clarke's room at Hardacres,
the detectives had found an old khaki tunic stuffed
away at the bottom of a drawer, and in the pocket
of the tunic the key of the locked parlour door.  It
was an officer's tunic, which had at some time had its
buttons and badges taken off; its right sleeve was so
torn that it was nearly out at its armhole; the cuff
was all crumpled, as if it had been crushed in a damp,
hot hand, and there was a small piece of the cloth
torn clean out of it.  And I will leave you to guess
the importance of this fact&mdash;in the tightly-clenched
hand of the murdered woman was found the small
piece of khaki cloth which corresponded to a hair's-breadth
with the missing bit in the sleeve of the tunic.
</p>

<p>
"After that the man in the street shook his head
and declared that Arthur Clarke was as good as hung
already."
</p>

<p><br /></p>

<h4>
§3
</h4>

<p>
The Old Man in the Corner had drawn out of his
capacious pocket a fresh piece of string.  And now
his claw-like fingers started to work on it with
feverish intentness.  I watched him, fascinated, well
knowing that his keen mind was just as busy with the
Hardacres mystery as were his hands in the fashioning of
some intricate and complicated knot.
</p>

<p>
"I am not," he said after a while, "going to give you
an elaborate description of the inquest and of the
crowds that collected both inside and out of the
court-room, hoping to get a glimpse of the principal actors
in the exciting drama.  By now, of course, all those
who had talked of the crime being without apparent
motive had effectually been silenced.  To every amateur
detective, as well as to the professional, the
murderer and his nefarious object appeared absolutely
revealed to the light of day.  Every indication, every
scrap of evidence collected up to this hour, both direct
and circumstantial, pointed to Arthur Clarke as the
murderer of his sister.  There were the letters, which
were alleged to be worth five thousand pounds, to the
mysterious member of the aristocracy who was paying
Miss Clarke a weekly pittance, obviously in order to
silence her; there was the strong love motive&mdash;the
young man in love with the girl far above him in
station and wanting to get hold of a large sum of money,
no doubt, to embark on some profitable business which
might help him in his wooing; and there, above all,
was the damning bit of khaki cloth in the murdered
woman's hand, and the tunic with the key of the locked
door in its pocket found in a drawer in Clarke's own
room.
</p>

<p>
"No, indeed, the inquest was not likely to be a dull
affair, more especially as no one doubted what the
verdict would be, whilst a good many people anticipated
that Clarke would at once be arrested on the coroner's
warrant and committed for trial at the next assizes on
the capital charge.
</p>

<p>
"But though we all knew that the inquest would not
be dull, yet we were not prepared for the surprises
which were in store for us, and which will render that
inquest a memorable one in the annals of criminal
investigation.  To begin with we already knew that
Arthur Clarke had now the assistance of Mr. Markham,
one of the leading solicitors of Barchester, in
his difficult position.  Acting on that gentleman's advice
Clarke had amplified the statement which he had
originally made as to his movements on the fatal
afternoon.  This amplified statement he now reiterated
on oath, and though frankly no one believed him,
we were bound to admit that if he could substantiate
it, an extraordinary complication would arise, which
though it might not eventually clear him altogether,
in the minds of thinking people, would at any rate
give him the benefit of the doubt.  What he now
stated was in substance this:
</p>

<p>
"'The servants at Meere Court,' he said, 'are quite
right when they say that I left the party soon after
five o'clock.  I was rather tired, and after a last
dance with Miss St. Jude, I went upstairs to pay my
respects to Lady Foremeere.  Her ladyship, however,
kept me talking for some considerable time on one
subject and another, until, to my astonishment, I saw
that it was close on seven o'clock, when I hastily
took my leave.
</p>

<p>
"'While I was looking for my coat in the hall, I
remember that Lord Foremeere came out of the
smoking-room and asked me if I knew whether the
party downstairs had broken up.  "These things are
such a bore," he said, "but I will see if I can get one
of them to come up and show you out."  I told his
lordship not to trouble.  However, he rang the bell,
and presently the butler, Spinks, came through from
the servants' quarters, and his lordship then went
upstairs, I think.  A minute or two later Miss St. Jude
came, also from the servants' quarters; she sent
Spinks away, telling him that she would look after
me; we talked together for a few moments, and then
I said good-night, and went straight back to the hotel.'
</p>

<p>
"Now we had already learned from both the hall-porter
and the head waiter at the Deanery that Mr. Clarke
was back at the hotel soon after seven o'clock,
that he had his dinner in the restaurant at half-past,
and that after spending an hour or so in the lounge
after dinner, he went up to his room, and did not go
out again until the following morning.  Therefore, all
that was needed now was a confirmatory statement
from Lady Foremeere to prove Arthur Clarke's
innocence, because in that case every hour of his time
would be accounted for, from half-past three onwards,
whilst Miss Clarke was actually seen alive by two
neighbours when she introduced a visitor into her
house at half-past five.
</p>

<p>
"The question would then resolve itself into, Who
was that visitor? leaving the more important one of
the khaki tunic as a baffling mystery, rather than as
damning evidence.
</p>

<p>
"The entire courtroom was on the tiptoe of expectation
when Lady Foremeere was formally called.  I
can assure you that the ubiquitous pin could have
been heard to drop during the brief moment's silence
when the elegant Society woman stood up and disposed
her exquisite sable cape about her shoulders and then
swore to tell the whole truth and nothing but the
truth.
</p>

<p>
"She answered the coroner's questions in a clear,
audible voice, and never wavered in her assertions.
She said that her step-daughter had come up to her
boudoir and asked her if she would see Mr. Arthur
Clarke for a few moments; he had something very
important to say to her.
</p>

<p>
"'I was rather surprised at the strange request,'
Lady Foremeere continued with the utmost composure,
'and suggested that Mr. Clarke should make his
important communication to Lord Foremeere, but my
step-daughter insisted, and to please her I agreed.  I
thought that I would get my husband to be present
at this mysterious interview, but his lordship was
having a short rest in the smoking-room, so on second
consideration I decided not to disturb him.
</p>

<p>
"'A minute or two later, Mr.&mdash;er&mdash;Clarke presented
himself, and at once I realised that he had had too
much to drink.  He talked wildly about his desire
to marry Miss St. Jude, and very excitedly about
some compromising letters which he alleged were in
his possession, and which he threatened to show to
Lord Foremeere if I did not at once give him so many
thousand pounds.  Naturally, I ordered him out of
the place.  But he wouldn't go for a long time; he
got more and more incoherent and excited, and it was
not until I threatened to fetch Lord Foremeere
immediately that he sobered down and finally went away.
He had been in my room about half an hour.'
</p>

<p>
"'About half an hour?' was the coroner's earnest
comment on this amazing piece of evidence, 'But
Mr. Clarke said that when he left your ladyship it was
close on seven.'
</p>

<p>
"'Mr.&mdash;er&mdash;Clarke is in error,' her ladyship
asserted firmly.  'The clock had just struck half-past
five when I succeeded in ridding myself of him.'
</p>

<p>
"You can easily imagine how great was the excitement
at this moment and how intensified it became
when Lord Foremeere gave evidence in his turn and
further confused the issues.  He began by corroborating
Arthur Clarke's statement about his having
spoken to him in the hall at <i>seven o'clock</i>.  It was
almost unbelievable!  Everybody gasped and the
coroner almost gave a jump:
</p>

<p>
"'But her ladyship has just told us,' he said, 'that
Clarke left her at half-past five!'
</p>

<p>
"'That, no doubt, is accurate,' Lord Foremeere
rejoined in his stiff, prim manner, 'since her ladyship
said so.  All I know is that I was asleep in front of
the fire in the smoking-room when I heard a loud
bang issuing from the hall.  I went to see what it was
and there I certainly saw Clarke.  He was just coming
through the glass door which divides the outside
vestibule from the hall, and he appeared to me to
have come straight out of the wet and to have left his
hat and coat in the outer vestibule.'
</p>

<p>
"'But,' the coroner insisted, 'what made your
lordship think that he had come from outside?'
</p>

<p>
"'Well, for one thing his face and hands were quite
wet, and he was wiping them with his handkerchief
when I first caught sight of him.  His boots, too, were
wet, and so were the edges of his trousers.  And then,
as I said, he was coming into the hall from the outer
vestibule, and it was the banging of the front door
which had roused me.'
</p>

<p>
"'And the hour then was?'
</p>

<p>
"'The clock had not long since struck seven.  But
my butler will be able to confirm this.'
</p>

<p>
"And Spinks the butler did confirm this portion
of his lordship's statement, though he could say
nothing about Mr. Clarke's boots being wet, nor did he
help Mr. Clarke on with his coat and hat, or open
the door for him.  Miss St. Jude had practically
followed Spinks into the hall, and had at once dismissed
him, saying she would look after Mr. Clarke.  His
lordship in the meanwhile had gone upstairs, and
Spinks went back into the servants' hall.
</p>

<p>
"Of course, Miss St. Jude was called.  You remember
that she had previously stated that Clarke had
only left the party at about seven o'clock, that she
herself had danced with him most of the time until
then, and finally said good-bye to him in the hall.
But as this statement was not even corroborated by
Clarke's own assertions, and entirely contradicted by
both Lord and Lady Foremeere's evidence, she was
fortunately advised not to repeat it on oath.  But she
hotly denied the suggestion that Clarke had come in
from outside when she said good-bye to him in the
hall.  She saw him put on his hat and coat, and they
were quite dry.  But nobody felt that her evidence
was of any value because she would naturally do her
utmost to help her sweetheart.
</p>

<p>
"Finally, one of the most interesting moments in
that memorable inquiry was reached when Lady Foremeere
was recalled and asked to state what she knew
of Miss Clarke's antecedents.
</p>

<p>
"'Very little,' she replied.  'I only knew her in
France when she worked under me in a hospital.  I
was very ill at one time and she nursed me devotedly;
ever since that I helped her financially as much as I
could.'
</p>

<p>
"'You made her a weekly allowance?' her ladyship
was asked.
</p>

<p>
"'Not exactly,' she replied.  'I just bought her eggs
and poultry at a higher figure than she would get from
any one else.'
</p>

<p>
"'Do you know anything about some letters that
she thought were so valuable?'
</p>

<p>
"'Oh, yes!' the lady replied with a kindly smile.
'Mary had a collection of autograph letters which
she had collected whilst she was nursing in France.
Among them were some by august, and others by very
distinguished, personages.  She had the idea that these
were extraordinarily valuable.'
</p>

<p>
"'Do you know what became of those letters?'
</p>

<p>
"'No,' her ladyship replied, 'I do not know.'
</p>

<p>
"'But there were other letters, were there not?' the
coroner insisted, 'in which you yourself were
interested?  The ones Mr. Clarke spoke to you about?'
</p>

<p>
"'They existed only in Mr. Clarke's imagination, I
fancy,' Lady Foremeere replied, 'but he was in such
a highly excited state that afternoon that I really
could not quite make out what it was that he desired
to sell to me.'
</p>

<p>
"Lady Foremeere spoke very quietly and very simply,
without a single note of spite or acerbity in her
soft, musical voice.  One felt that she was stating
quite simple facts that rather bored her, but to which
she did not attach any importance.  And later on
when Miss Euphemia Clarke retold the story of the
packet of letters and of the quarrels which the
deceased and her brother had about them, and when the
damning evidence of the khaki tunic stood out like
an avenging Nemesis pointing at the unfortunate young
man, those in court who had imagination, saw&mdash;positively
saw&mdash;the hangman's rope tightening around
his neck."
</p>

<p><br /></p>

<h4>
§4
</h4>

<p>
"And yet the verdict was one of wilful murder
against some person or persons unknown," I said,
after a slight pause, waiting for the funny creature
to take up his narrative again.
</p>

<p>
"Yes," he replied, "Arthur Clarke has been cleared
of every suspicion.  He left the court a free man.  His
innocence was proved beyond question through what
every one thought was the most damnatory piece of
evidence against him&mdash;the evidence of the khaki tunic.
The khaki tunic exonerated Arthur Clarke as completely
as the most skilful defender could do.  Because
it did not fit him.  Arthur Clarke was a rather heavy,
full-grown, broad-shouldered man, the khaki tunic
would only fit a slim lad of eighteen.  Clarke had
admitted the tunic was his, but he had never thought of
examining it, and certainly, not of trying it on.  It
was Miss St. Jude who thought of that.  Trust a woman
in love for getting an inspiration.
</p>

<p>
"When she was called at the end of the day to
affirm the statements which she had previously made
to the police and realised that these statements of
hers were actually in contradiction with Clarke's own
assertions, she worked herself up into a state bordering
on hysteria, in the midst of which she caught sight
of the khaki tunic on the coroner's table.  Of course,
she, like every one else in the neighbourhood, knew all
about the tunic, but when April St. Jude actually saw
it with her own eyes and realised what its existence
meant to her sweetheart, she gave a wild shriek.
</p>

<p>
"'I'll not believe it,' she cried, 'I'll not believe it.
It can't be.  It is not Arthur's tunic at all.'  Then
her eyes dilated, her voice sank to a hoarse whisper,
and with a trembling hand she pointed at the tunic.
'Why,' she murmured, 'it is so small&mdash;so small!
Arthur!  Where is Arthur?  Why does he not show
them all that he never could have worn that tunic?'
</p>

<p>
"Proverbially there is but a narrow dividing line
between tragedy and farce: While some people shuddered
and gasped and men literally held their breath,
marvelling what would happen next, quite a number of
women fell into hysterical giggling.  Of course you
remember what happened.  The papers have told you
all about it.  Arthur Clarke was made to try on the
khaki tunic, and he could not even get his arms into
the sleeves.  Under no circumstances could he ever
have worn that particular tunic.  It was several sizes
too small for him.  Then he examined it closely and
recognised it as one he wore in his school O.T.C. when
he was a lad.  When he was originally confronted with
it, he explained, he was so upset, so genuinely terrified
at the consequences of certain follies which he
undoubtedly had committed, that he could hardly see out
of his eyes.  The tunic was shown to him, and he had
admitted that it was his, for he had quite a collection
of old tunics which he had always kept.  But for the
moment he had forgotten the one which he had worn
more than eight years ago at school.
</p>

<p>
"And so the khaki tunic, instead of condemning
Clarke, had entirely cleared him, for it now became
quite evident that the miscreant who had committed
the dastardly murder had added this hideous act to
his greater crime, and deliberately set to work to
fasten the guilt on an innocent man.  He had gone
up to Clarke's room, opened the wardrobe, picked up
a likely garment, no doubt tearing a piece of cloth
out of it whilst so doing, and thus getting the fiendish
idea of inserting that piece of khaki between the
fingers of the murdered woman.  Finally, after
locking the parlour door, he put the key in the pocket
of the tunic and stuffed the latter in the bottom of
a drawer.
</p>

<p>
"It was a clever and cruel trick which well nigh
succeeded in hanging an innocent man.  As it is, it has
enveloped the affair in an almost impenetrable mystery.
I say 'almost' because I know who killed Miss
Clarke, even though the public has thrown out an
erroneous conjecture.  'It was Lady Foremeere,' they
say, 'who killed Miss Clarke.'  But at once comes the
question: 'How could she?' And the query: 'When?'
</p>

<p>
"Arthur Clarke says he was with her until seven,
and after that hour there were several members of her
household who waited upon her, notably her maid
who it seems came up to dress her at about that time,
and she and Lord Foremeere sat down to dinner as
usual at eight o'clock.
</p>

<p>
"That there had been one or two dark passages in
Lady Foremeere's life, prior to her marriage four
years ago, and that Miss Clarke was murdered for the
sake of letters which were in some way connected with
her ladyship were the only actual undisputable facts
in that mysterious case.  That it was not Arthur
Clarke who killed his sister has been indubitably
proved; that a great deal of the evidence was
contradictory every one has admitted.  And if the police
do not act on certain suggestions which I have made
to them, the Hardacres murder will remain a mystery
to the public to the end of time."
</p>

<p>
"And what are those suggestions?" I asked, without
the slightest vestige of irony, for, much against my
will, the man's personality exercised a curious
fascination over me.
</p>

<p>
"To keep an eye on Lord Foremeere," the funny
creature replied with his dry chuckle, "and see when
and how he finally disposes of a wet coat, a dripping
hat and soaked boots, which he has succeeded in
keeping concealed somewhere in the smoking-room, away
from the prying eyes even of his own valet."
</p>

<p>
"You mean&mdash;&mdash;" I asked, with an involuntary gasp.
</p>

<p>
"Yes," he replied.  "I mean that it was Lord Foremeere
who murdered Miss Clarke for the sake of those
letters which apparently contained matter that was
highly compromising to his wife.
</p>

<p>
"Everything to my mind points to him as the
murderer.  Whether he knew all along of the existence of
the compromising letters, or whether he first knew of
this through the conversation between her ladyship
and Clarke the day of the servants' party, it is
impossible to say; certain it is that he did overhear
that conversation and that he made up his mind to end
the impossible situation then and there, and to put a
stop once and for all to any further attempt at blackmail.
</p>

<p>
"It was easy enough for him on that day to pass
in and out of the house unperceived.  No doubt his
primary object in going to Hardacres was to purchase
the letters from Miss Clarke, money down; perhaps
she proved obstinate, perhaps he merely thought that
dead men tell no tales.  This we shall never know.
</p>

<p>
"After the hideous deed, which must have revolted
his otherwise fastidious senses, he must have become
conscious of an overwhelming hatred for the man
who had, as it were, pushed him into crime, and my
belief is that the elaborate <i>mise en scène</i> of the khaki
tunic, and the circumstantial lie that when he came
out of the smoking-room Arthur Clarke had obviously
just come in from outside was invented, not so
much with the object of averting any suspicion from
himself, as with the passionate desire to be revenged
on Clarke.
</p>

<p>
"Think it over," the Old Man in the Corner concluded,
as he stuffed his beloved bit of string into his
capacious pocket; "time, opportunity, motive, all are
in favour of my theory, so do not be surprised if the
early editions of to-morrow's evening papers contain
the final sensation in this interesting case."
</p>

<p>
He was gone before I could say another word, and
all that I saw of him was his spook-like figure
disappearing through the swing-door.  There was no one now
in the place, so a moment or two later I too paid my
bill and went away.
</p>

<p><br /></p>

<h4>
§5
</h4>

<p>
The Old Man in the Corner proved to be right in
the end.  At eleven o'clock the next morning the street
corners were full of newspaper placards with the
flaring headlines: "Sudden death of Lord Foremeere."
</p>

<p>
It was reported that on the previous evening his
lordship was examining a new automatic which he
had just bought and explaining the mechanism to his
valet.  At one moment he actually made the remark:
"It is all right, it isn't loaded," but apparently there
was one cartridge left in one of the chambers.  His
lordship, it seems, was looking straight down the
barrel and his finger must accidentally have touched
the trigger; anyway, according to the valet's story,
there was a sudden explosion, and Lord Foremeere
fell shot right between the eyes.
</p>

<p>
The verdict at the inquest was, of course, one of
accidental death, the coroner and jury expressing the
greatest possible sympathy with Lady Foremeere and
Miss St. Jude.  It was only subsequently that one or
two facts came to light which appeared obscure and
unimportant to the man in the street, but which for
me, in the light of my conversation with the Old Man
in the Corner, bore special significance.
</p>

<p>
It seems that an hour or two before the accident,
the chief superintendent of police had called with two
constables at Meere Court and were closeted for a
considerable time with Lord Foremeere in the smoking-room.
And Spinks, the butler, who subsequently let
the three men out, noticed that one of the constables
was carrying a coat and a hat, which Spinks knew were
old ones belonging to his lordship.
</p>

<p>
Then I knew that the funny creature in the loud
check tweeds and baggy trousers had found the true
solution of the Hardacres mystery.
</p>

<p>
Oh, and you wish to know what was the sequel
to the pretty love story between April St. Jude and
Arthur Clarke.  Well, you know, she married Amos
Rottenberg, the New York banker, last year, and
Clarke runs a successful garage now somewhere in
the North.  A kind friend must have lent him the
capital wherewith to make a start.  I can make a
shrewd guess who that kind friend was.
</p>

<p><br /><br /><br /></p>

<p><a id="chap02"></a></p>

<h3>
II
<br /><br />
THE MYSTERY OF THE INGRES MASTERPIECE
</h3>

<p><br /></p>

<h4>
§1
</h4>

<p>
I did not see the Old Man in the Corner for
several weeks after that strange meeting in the
blameless teashop.  The exigencies of my work
kept me busy, and somehow the sensational suicide of
Lord Foremeere which had appeared like the logical
sequence of the spook-like creature's deductions, had
left a painful impression on my mind.  Entirely
illogically, I admit, I felt that the Old Man in the
Corner had had something to do with the tragedy.
</p>

<p>
But when in March of that year we were all thrilled
by the mystery of the valuable Ingres picture, and
wherever one went one heard conjectures and explanations
of that extraordinary case, my thoughts very
naturally reverted to the funny creature and his bit
of string, and I found myself often wondering what
his explanation of what seemed a truly impenetrable
mystery could possibly be.
</p>

<p>
The facts certainly were very puzzling in themselves.
When first I was deputed by the <i>Express Post</i> to put
them clearly and succinctly before its readers, I found
the task strangely difficult; this, for the simple reason
that I myself could not see daylight through it all, and
often did I stand in front of the admirable
reproduction which I possess of the Ingres "La Fiancée"
wondering if those smiling lips would not presently speak
and tell me how an original and exquisite picture could
possibly have been at two different places at one and
the same time.
</p>

<p>
For that, in truth, was the depth of the puzzle.  We
will, if you please, call the original owners of the
picture the Duc and Duchesse Paul de Rochechouart.
That, of course, is not their name, but, as you all know
who they really are, it matters not what I call them
for the purpose of recording their singular adventure.
</p>

<p>
His Grace had early in life married a Swedish lady
of great talent and singular beauty.  She was an artist
of no mean order, having exhibited pictures of merit
both at the Paris Salon and at the Royal Academy in
London; she was also an accomplished musician, and
had published one or two very charming volumes of
poetry.
</p>

<p>
The Duke and his wife were devoted to one another;
they lived for the greater part of the year at their
beautiful château on the Oise, not far from Chantilly,
and here they entertained a great deal, more after the
homely and hospitable manner of English country
houses than in the more formal fashion.  Here, too,
they had collected some rare furniture, tapestries, and
objects of art and vertu, amongst which certain
highly-prized pictures of the French School of the Nineteenth
Century.
</p>

<p>
The war, we may imagine, left the Duc de Rochechouart
and his charming wife a good deal poorer, as
it left most other people in France, and soon it became
known amongst the art dealers of London, Paris and
New York that they had decided to sell one or two
of their most valuable pictures; foremost amongst
these was the celebrated "La Fiancée" by Ingres.
</p>

<p>
Immediately there was what is technically known
as a ramp after the picture.  Dealers travelled
backwards and forwards from all the great Continental
cities to the château on the Oise to view the picture.
Offers were made for it by cable, telegram and
telephone, and the whole art world was kept in a flutter
over what certainly promised to be a sensational deal.
</p>

<p>
Alas! as with most of the beautiful possessions of
this impoverished old world, the coveted prize was
destined to go to the country that had the longest
purse.  A certain Mr. Aaron Jacobs, the Chicago
multi-millionaire, presently cabled an offer of half a
million dollars for the picture, an offer which, rumour
had it, the Duc de Rochechouart had since accepted.
Mr. Jacobs was said to be a charming, highly-cultured
man, a great art connoisseur and a great art lover, and
presently one heard that he had already set sail for
Europe with the intention of fetching away his
newly-acquired treasure himself.
</p>

<p>
On the very day following Mr. Jacobs's arrival as
the guest of the Duc and Duchesse de Rochechouart
at the latter's château, the world-famous picture was
stolen in broad daylight by a thief or thieves who
contrived to make away with their booty without leaving
the slightest clue, so it was said, that might put the
police on their track.  The picture was cut clean out
of the frame, an operation which must have taken at
least two or three minutes.  It always used to hang
above the tall chimneypiece in the Duchesse's studio,
but that self-same morning it had been lifted down and
placed on an easel in the dining-hall, no doubt for
closer inspection by the purchaser.  This easel stood in
a corner of the hall, close to one of the great windows
that overlooked the gardens of the château.
</p>

<p>
The amazing point in this daring theft was that a
garden fête and tennis tournament were in progress at
the time.  A crowd of guests was spread all over the
lawns and grounds in full view of the windows of the
hall, and, as far as the preliminary investigations were
able to establish, there were not more than twenty or
twenty-five minutes at most during which some servant
or other inmate of the château had not either actually
been through the hall or had occasion to observe the
windows.
</p>

<p>
The dining-hall itself has monumental doors which
open on the great central vestibule, and immediately
facing it similar doors give on the library.  The
marble vestibule runs right through the centre of the main
building, it has both a front and a garden entrance,
and all the reception rooms open out of it, right and
left.  Close to the front door entrance is one of the
main ways into the kitchens and offices.
</p>

<p>
Now right away until half-past four on that fateful
afternoon the servants were up and down the vestibule,
busy with arrangements for tea which they were
serving outside on the lawns.  The tennis tournament
was then drawing to a close, the Duchesse was on the
lawn with her guests, dispensing tea, and at half-past
four precisely the Duc de Rochechouart came into the
château by way of the garden entrance, went across
the vestibule and into the library to fetch the prizes
which were to be distributed to the victors in the
tournament, and which were locked up in his desk.  The
doors of the dining-hall were wide open and the Duc
walking past them peeped into the room.  The picture
was in its place then, and he gave a glance at it as
he passed, conscious of a pang of regret at the thought
that he must needs part with this precious treasure.
It took the Duc some little time to sort the prizes, and
as in the meanwhile the afternoon post had come in
and a few letters had been laid on his desk, he could
not resist the desire to glance through his correspondence.
On the whole he thought that he might have
been in the library about a quarter of an hour or
perhaps more.  He had closed the door when he entered
the room, and when he came out again he certainly
noticed that the doors of the dining-hall were shut.
But there was nothing in this to arouse his suspicions,
and with the neatly tied parcels containing the prizes
under his arm, he recrossed the vestibule and went
once more into the garden.
</p>

<p>
At five o'clock M. Amédé, the chief butler, had
occasion to go into the dining-hall to fetch a particular
silver tray which he required.  He owned to being
astonished at finding the doors closed, because he had
been past them a quarter of an hour before that and
they were wide open then.  However, he entered the
room without any serious misgivings, but the next
moment he nearly fainted with horror at sight of the
empty frame upon the easel.  The very first glance
had indeed revealed the nefarious deed.  The picture
had not been moved out of its frame, it was the canvas
that had been cut.  M. Amédé, however, knowing
what was due to his own dignity did not disturb the
entire household then and there; he made his way
quietly back into the garden where the distribution of
prizes after the tournament was taking place and,
seizing a favourable opportunity, he caught M. le Duc's
eye and imparted to him the awful news.
</p>

<p>
Even so nothing was said until after the guests had
departed.  By the Duc's orders the doors leading into
the dining-hall were locked, and to various enquiries
after the masterpiece made by inquisitive ladies, the
evasive answer was given that the picture was in the
hands of the packers.
</p>

<p>
There remained the house party, which, of course,
included Mr. Aaron Jacobs.  There were also several
ladies and gentlemen staying at the château, and
before they all went up to their rooms to dress for
dinner, they were told what had happened.  In the
meanwhile the police had already been sent for, and M. le
Commissaire was conducting his preliminary investigations.
The rooms and belongings of all the servants
were searched, and, with the consent of the guests
themselves, this search was extended to their rooms.
A work of art worth half a million dollars could not
thus be allowed to disappear and the thief to remain
undetected for the sake of social conventions, and as
the law stands in France any man may be guilty of
a crime until he be proved innocent.
</p>

<p><br /></p>

<h4>
§2
</h4>

<p>
The theft of the Ingres masterpiece was one of those
cases which interest the public in every civilised
country, and here in England where most people are bitten
with the craze for criminal investigation it created
quite a sensation in its way.
</p>

<p>
I remember that when we all realised for the first
time that the picture had in very truth disappeared,
and that the French police, despite its much vaunted
acumen, had entirely failed to find the slightest trace
of the thief, we at once began to look about for a
romantic solution of the mystery.  M. le Duc de
Rochechouart and his pretty Duchesse had above all our
deepest sympathy, for it had very soon transpired that
neither the Ingres masterpiece, nor indeed any of the
Duc's valuable collection of art works, was insured.
This fact seems almost incredible to English minds,
with whom every kind of insurance is part and parcel
of the ordinary household routine.  But abroad the
system is not nearly so far-reaching or so extended,
and there are numberless households in every degree
of the social scale who never dream of spending money
on insurances save, perhaps, against fire.
</p>

<p>
Be that as it may, the fact remained that "La
Fiancée" was not insured against theft, and that
through the action of an unknown miscreant the Duc
and Duchesse de Rochechouart would, unless the
police did ultimately succeed in tracing the stolen
masterpiece, find themselves the poorer by half a million
dollars.  With their usual lack of logic, readers of the
halfpenny Press promptly turned their attention to
Mr. Aaron Jacobs, the intending purchaser.  Being a
Chicago multi-millionaire does not, it appears, render a
man immune from the temptation of acquiring by
dishonest means the things which he covets.  Anyway,
the public decided that Mr. Jacobs was not so rich
as he was reputed to be, but that, on the other hand,
being as greedy for the possession of European works
of art as any ogre for human flesh, he had stolen the
picture which he could not afford to buy; and ten, or
mayhap fifteen years hence, when the story of the
mysterious theft will have been consigned to oblivion,
Mr. Jacobs would display the masterpiece in his
gallery.  How this was to be accomplished without the
subsequent intervention of the police those wiseacres
did not attempt to explain.
</p>

<p>
The mystery remained impenetrable for close on two
years.  Many other sensations, criminal or otherwise,
had, during that time, driven the affair of the Ingres
masterpiece out of the public mind.  Then suddenly
the whole story was revived and in a manner which
proved far more exciting than any one had surmised.
It was linked&mdash;though the European public did not
know this&mdash;with the death in July, 1919, of Charles
B. Tupper, the head of one of the greatest cinematograph
organisations in the States&mdash;a man who for the
past few years had controlled over two thousand
theatres, and had made millions in his day.  Some time
during the war he had married the well-known cinema
star, Anita Hodgkins, a beautiful entirely uneducated
girl who hailed from Upper Tooting.  The will of
Mr. Charles B. Tupper was proved for a fabulous sum,
and, as soon as his affairs were settled, Mrs. Tupper,
who presumably had remained Cockney at heart as
well as in speech, set sail for England with the
intention of settling down once more in the country of her
birth.  She bought Holt Manor, a magnificent house in
Buckinghamshire, sent for all her splendid furniture
and belongings from America, and, early in 1920, when
her palatial residence was ready for occupation, she
married Lord Polchester, a decadent young nincompoop,
who was said to have fallen in love with her
when he first saw her on the screen.
</p>

<p>
Presumably Mrs. Anita Tupper <i>née</i> Hodgkins
hugged herself with the belief that once she was styled
my lady she would automatically become a social star
as she had been a cinema one in the past.  But in this
harmless ambition she was at first disappointed.
Though she had furnished her new house lavishly,
though paragraphs appeared in all the halfpenny and
weekly Press giving details of the sumptuous
establishment of which the new Lady Polchester was queen,
though she appeared during the London season of 1920
at several official functions and went to an evening
Court that year, wearing pearls that might have been
envied by an empress, she found that in Buckinghamshire
the best people were shy of calling on her, and
the bits of pasteboard that were from time to time
left at her door came chiefly from the neighbouring
doctors, parsons, or retired London tradespeople, or
from mothers with marriageable daughters who looked
forward to parties at the big house and consequent
possible matrimonial prizes.
</p>

<p>
This went on for a time and then Lady Polchester,
wishing no doubt to test the intentions of the county
towards her, launched out invitations for a garden
party!  The invitations included the London friends
she had recently made, and a special train from
Paddington was to bring those friends to the party.
Among these was Mr. Aaron Jacobs.  He had known
the late Charles B. Tupper over in the States, and had
met Lady Polchester more recently at one of the great
functions at the United States Embassy in London.
She had interested him with a glowing account of her
splendid collection of works of art, of pictures and
antique furniture which she had inherited from her first
husband and which now adorned her house in
Buckinghamshire, and when she asked him down to her
party he readily accepted, more I imagine out of
curiosity to see the objects in which he was as keenly
interested as ever than from a desire to establish closer
acquaintanceship with the lady.
</p>

<p>
The garden party at Holt Manor, as the place was
called, does not appear to have been a great social
success.  For one thing it rained the whole afternoon,
and the military band engaged for the occasion proved
too noisy for indoor entertainment.  But some of the
guests were greatly interested in the really magnificent
collection of furniture, tapestries, pictures and
works of art which adorned the mansion, and after
tea Lady Polchester graciously conducted them all over
the house, pointing out herself the most notable pieces
in the collection and never failing to mention the price
at which the late Mr. Charles B. Tupper purchased the
work of art in question.
</p>

<p>
And that is when the sensation occurred.  Following
their hostess, the guests had already seen and duly
admired two really magnificent Van Dycks that hung
in the hall, when she turned to them and said, with a
flourish of her plentifully be-gemmed hands:
</p>

<p>
"You must come into the library and see the picture
for which Mr. Tupper gave over half a million dollars.
I never knew I had it, as he never had it taken
out of its case, and I never saw it until this year when
it came over with all my other things from our house
in New York.  Lord Polchester had it unpacked and
hung in the library.  I don't care much about it
myself, and the late Mr. Tupper hadn't the time to enjoy
his purchase, because he died two days after the
picture arrived in New York, and, as I say, he never had
it unpacked.  He bought it for use in a commercial
undertaking which he had in mind at one time, then the
scheme fell through, and I am sure I never thought
any more about the old picture."
</p>

<p>
With that she led the way into the library, a
nobly-proportioned room lined with books in choice bindings,
and with a beautiful Adam chimneypiece, above which
hung a picture.
</p>

<p>
Of course there were some people present who had
never heard of the stolen Ingres, but there must have
been a few who, as they entered the room, must literally
have gasped with astonishment, for there it
certainly was.  "La Fiancée" with her marvellously
painted Eastern draperies, her exquisitely drawn limbs
and enigmatic smile, was smiling down from the canvas,
just as if she had every right to be in the house
of the ex-cinema star, and as if there had not been a
gigantic fuss about her throughout the whole art world
of Europe.
</p>

<p>
We may take it that the person by far the most
astonished at that moment was Mr. Aaron Jacobs.
But he was too thoroughly a gentleman and too much
a man of the world to betray his feelings then, and I
suppose that those who, like himself, had thought they
recognised the stolen masterpiece, did not like to say
anything either until they were more sure: English
people in all grades of society being proverbially averse
to being what they call "mixed up" in any kind of a
fuss.  Certain it is that nothing was said at the
moment to disturb Lady Polchester's complacent
equanimity, and after a while the party broke up and the
guests departed.
</p>

<p>
Of course people thought that Mr. Aaron Jacobs
should have informed Lord Polchester of his intentions
before he went to the police.  But Lord Polchester
was such a nonentity in his own household, such a
frivolous fool, and, moreover, addicted to drink and
violent fits of temper, that those who knew him easily
realised how a sensible business man like Mr. Aaron
Jacobs would avoid any personal explanation with
him.
</p>

<p>
Mr. Jacobs went straight to the police that self-same
evening, and the next day Lady Polchester had a
visit from Detective Purley, one of the ablest as he
was one of the most tactful men on the staff.  But
indeed he had need of all his tact in face of the
infuriated cinema star when that lady realised the object of
his visit.
</p>

<p>
"How dared they come and ask her such impertinent
questions?" she stormed.  "Did they imagine she
had stolen a beastly picture which she would as soon
throw on the dust heap as look at again?  She, who
could buy up all the pictures in any gallery and not
feel the pinch..." and so on and so on.  The
unfortunate Purley had a very unpleasant quarter of an
hour, but after a while he succeeded in pacifying the
irate lady and got her to listen calmly to what he had
to say.
</p>

<p>
He managed to make her understand that without
casting the slightest aspersion upon her honourability
or that of the late Charles B. Tupper, there was no
getting away from the fact that the picture now
hanging in the library of Holt Manor was the property of
the Duc de Rochechouart from whose house in France
it was stolen over two years before&mdash;to be quite
accurate it was stolen on July twenty-fifth, 1919.
</p>

<p>
"Then," retorted the lady, by no means convinced
or mollified, "I can prove you all to be liars, for the
late Mr. Charles B. Tupper bought the old thing long
before that.  He had been on the Continent in the
spring of 1919 and landed in New York again on
May eighteenth.  He told me then that he had made
some interesting purchases in Europe, amongst them
there was a picture for which he had paid half a
million dollars.  I scolded him about it, as I thought he
was throwing his money away on such stuff, but he
said that he wanted to make use of the picture for
some wonderful advertising scheme he had in his mind,
so I said no more about it.  But that is the picture
you say was stolen from some duke or other in July,
when I tell you that it had been shipped for New York
a month at least before that."
</p>

<p>
Perhaps at this point Detective Purley failed to
conceal altogether a slight look of incredulity, for Lady
Polchester turned on him once more like a fury.
</p>

<p>
"So you still think I stole the dirty old picture, do
you?" she cried, using further language that is quite
unprintable, "and you think that I am such a ninny
and that I will give it up simply because you are
trying to bully me.  But I won't, so there!  I can prove
the truth of every word I say, and I don't care if I
have to spend another million dollars to put your old
duke in prison for talking such rot about me."
</p>

<p>
Once again Purley's tact had to come into play, and
after a while he succeeded in soothing the lady's
outraged feelings.  With infinite patience he gradually
got her to view the matter more calmly and above all
not to look upon him as an enemy, but as a friend
whose one desire was to throw light upon what
certainly seemed an extraordinary mystery.
</p>

<p>
"Very well, then," she said, after a while, "I'll tell
you all I can.  I don't know when the picture was
shipped from Europe but I do know that a case
addressed to Mr. Charles B. Tupper and marked
'valuable picture with great care' was delivered at our
house in New York on July eighteenth.  I can't
mistake the date because Mr. Tupper was already very
ill when the case arrived and he died two days later,
that is on July twentieth, 1919.  That you can
ascertain easily enough, can't you?" Lady Polchester
added tartly.  Then as Purley offered no comment she
went on more quietly:
</p>

<p>
"That's all right, then.  Now let me tell you that the
case containing this picture was in my house two days
before Mr. Tupper died, and that I never had it
undone until a couple of months ago, here in this house.
I had it shipped from New York, not along with all
my things, but by itself; and there is the lawyer over
there, Mr. George F. Topham, who can tell you all
about the case.  I was too upset what with Mr. Tupper's
illness and then his death, and the will and the
whole bag of tricks to trouble much about it myself,
but I told the lawyer that it contained a picture for
which Mr. Tupper had paid half a million dollars, and
it was put down for probate for that amount; the
lawyer took charge of the old thing, and he can swear,
and lots of other people over in the States can swear
that the case was never undone.  And the shipping
company can swear that it never was touched whilst it
was in their charge.  They delivered it here and their
men opened the case for us and helped us to place the
picture.
</p>

<p>
"And now," concluded Lady Polchester, not because
she had nothing more to say but presumably because
she was out of breath, "now perhaps you'll tell me
how a picture which was over in New York on the
eighteenth of July can have been stolen from France
on the twenty-fifth; and if you can't tell me that, then
I'll trouble you to clear out of my house, for I've no
use for Nosey Parkers about the place."
</p>

<p>
The unfortunate Purley had certainly, by all
accounts, rather a rough time of it with the lady.  Nor
could he arrive at any satisfactory arrangement with
her.  Needless to say that she absolutely refused to
give up the picture unless she were forced to do so by
law, and even then, she dared say, she could make it
very unpleasant for some people.
</p>

<p><br /></p>

<h4>
§3
</h4>

<p>
The next event of any importance in this extraordinary
case was the action brought by the Duc and
Duchesse de Rochechouart here in England against
Lady Polchester for illegal detention of their property.
</p>

<p>
It very soon transpired that several witnesses had
come over from the States in order to corroborate tie
lady's assertions with regard to her rightful ownership
of the picture, and the public was once more on the
tiptoe of expectation.
</p>

<p>
The case came on for hearing in March and lasted
only two days.  The picture was in court and was
identified first by the Duc and Duchesse de
Rochechouart and then by two or three experts as the
genuine work of Ingres: "La Fiancée" known throughout
the entire art world as having been purchased by the
Duc's grandfather from the artist himself in 1850,
and having been in the family uninterruptedly ever
since.  The Duc himself had last seen it in his own
château at half-past four on the afternoon of July
twenty-fifth, 1919.
</p>

<p>
A well-known peculiarity about the masterpiece was
that it had originally been painted on a somewhat
larger canvas, and that the artist himself, at the
request of the original purchaser, had it cut smaller and
re-strained on a smaller stretcher; this alteration was,
of course, distinctly visible on the picture.  The frame
was new; it was admittedly purchased by Lady
Polchester recently.  When the picture came into her
possession it was unframed.
</p>

<p>
On that lady's behalf on the other hand there was a
formidable array of witnesses, foremost amongst these
being Mr. Anthony Kleeberger, who was the late
Charles B. Tupper's secretary and manager.  He was
the first to throw some light on the original
transaction, whereby "La Fiancée" first came into his
employer's possession.
</p>

<p>
"Mr. Tupper," he explained, "was the inventor of
a new process of colour photography which he desired
to test and then to advertise all over the world by
means of reproduction from some world-famous
masterpiece, and when during the spring of 1919 I
accompanied him to Europe, one of the objects he had
in mind was the purchase of a picture suitable for his
purpose.  It pretty soon was known all over the art
world of the Continent what we were after and that
Mr. Tupper was prepared to pay a big price for his
choice.  You would be surprised if I were to tell you
of some of the offers we had in Vienna, in London,
even in Rome.
</p>

<p>
"At last, when we were staying in Paris, Mr. Tupper
came to me one day and told me he had at last
found the very picture he wanted.  He had gone to the
studio of a picture restorer who had written to him
and offered him a genuine Ingres.  He had seen the
picture and liked it, and had agreed to give the owner
half a million dollars for it.  I thought this a terrific
price and frankly I was a little doubtful whether my
employer had a sufficient knowledge of art to enter
into a transaction of this sort.  I feared that he might
be badly had, and buying some spurious imitation
rather than a masterpiece.  But Mr. Tupper was
always a queer man in business.  Once he had made up
his mind there was no arguing with him.  'I like the
picture,' was all that he ever said to me in response
to some timid suggestion on my part that he should
seek expert advice, 'and I have agreed to buy it for
half a million dollars, simply because the fellow would
not part with it for less.  I believe it to be genuine.
But if it is not I don't care.  It will answer my
purpose and there it is.'
</p>

<p>
"He then gave me instructions to see about the packing
and forwarding of the picture and this I did.  I
must say that I had terrible misgivings about the whole
affair.  I certainly thought the picture magnificent, but
of course I am no judge.  It had a worthless frame
around it which I discarded in order to facilitate the
packing.  The picture restorer's studio was up a back
street in the Montmartre quarter.  He and his wife
saw to the packing themselves.  I never saw anybody
else in the place.  I arranged for the forwarding of
the case, for the insurance and so on, and I myself
handed over to the vendor, whose name was given to
me as Matthieu Vignard, five hundred thousand-dollar
bills in the name and on account of my employer,
Mr. Charles B. Tupper.  Of course, I presumed that the
snuffy old man and his blousey wife were acting for
some personage who desired to remain unknown, and
as time went on and there was no talk in the art world
or in the newspapers then about any great masterpiece
being stolen, I soon forgot my misgivings, and a couple
of months later I set out on Mr. Tupper's business for
Central America where I remained for close on two
years.
</p>

<p>
"Half the time during those years I was up country
in Costa Rica, Venezuela and so on where newspapers
are scarce, and when the hue and cry was after a
picture stolen from the house of the Duc de Rochechouart,
I knew nothing about it.  But this picture now in
court is certainly the one which Mr. Tupper bought
in Paris at the end of June, 1919, and which I myself
saw packed and nailed down in its case and forwarded
to New York where it arrived two days before
Mr. Tupper's death."
</p>

<p>
That was the substance of Mr. Kleeberger's evidence,
by far the most important heard on the first day of
the action.  After that the testimony of other
witnesses went to confirm the whole story.  There was the
well-known New York solicitor, Mr. George F. Topham,
who took charge of the picture after the death
of his client, Mr. Tupper, and the managing director
of the Nebraska Safe Deposit Company where it was
stored until Lady Polchester sent for it.  There were
the managers of the shipping companies who forwarded
the picture from Paris to New York in June-July, 1919,
and from New York to Holt Manor in the following
year, and there were the removal men and servants
who saw the picture unpacked and taken into the
library at the Manor.
</p>

<p>
It took two days to go through all that evidence, but
it was never either conflicting or doubtful.  Yet the
one supreme, mysterious contradiction remained,
namely, that the picture now in court, the wonderful
Ingres masterpiece, was bought by Mr. Tupper in
Paris in June, 1919, and then and there shipped over
to him to New York, and that, nevertheless, it was
stated never to have left the Duc de Rochechouart's
possession from the day when his grandfather bought
it more than seventy years ago until that memorable
twenty-fifth of July, 1919, when it was stolen on the
very day it was about to pass into the possession of
Mr. Aaron Jacobs.  One felt one's head reeling when
one thought out this amazing puzzle, and the decision
of the learned judge was awaited with palpitating
curiosity.
</p>

<p>
But after the second day of the action, just before
it was adjourned, counsel on both sides were able to
announce that their respective clients had come to an
exceedingly satisfactory arrangement.  All aspersions
as to the honourability of the late Charles B. Tupper
or of Lady Polchester would be publicly withdrawn
and a notice to that effect would appear in all the
leading newspapers of London, Paris and New York; and
Lady Polchester would now remain in undisputed
possession of the Ingres masterpiece, having paid its
rightful owner the Duc de Rochechouart the sum of one
hundred and twenty thousand pounds for it.
</p>

<p>
So both parties we may take it were completely
satisfied; at one time it had looked as if the unfortunate
duke would be done both out of his picture and out
of the money, and another as if Lady Polchester would
be so defrauded.  But now all was well and the learned
judge declared himself pleased with the agreement.
Not so the public who were left to face a mystery
which every one felt would never now be cleared up.
</p>

<p>
I for one felt completely at sea, so much so indeed
that my thoughts instinctively flew to the curious
creature in the blameless tea-shop who I felt sure would
have a theory of his own which would account for
what was puzzling us all.
</p>

<p>
And a day or two later I saw him, weaving a fantastic
design of knots in a piece of string.  He saw
that I wished to hear his explanation of the mystery
of the Ingres masterpiece, but he kept me on tenter-hooks
for some time, wearing out my patience with
his sharp, sarcastic comments.
</p>

<p>
"Do you admit," he asked me at one time, with his
exasperating chuckle, "that the Ingres masterpiece
could have been in two places at one and the same
time?"
</p>

<p>
"No, of course," I replied, "I do not admit such
nonsense."
</p>

<p>
"Very well, then," he resumed, "what is the logical
conclusion?"
</p>

<p>
"That there were two pictures," I said coldly.
</p>

<p>
"Of course there were two pictures.  And as the
great Mr. Ingres did not presumably paint his masterpiece
in duplicate, we must take it that one picture was
the original and the other the copy."
</p>

<p>
Now it was my turn to grow sarcastic and I retorted
drily:
</p>

<p>
"Having done that, we are no nearer a solution of
the mystery than we were before."
</p>

<p>
"Are we not?" he rejoined with a cackle like an old
hen.  "Now it seems to me that when we have admitted
that one of the pictures was a copy of the other,
and when we know that the picture which Mr. Charles
B. Tupper bought was the original, because that was
the one that was produced in court, we must come to
the conclusion that the one which was stolen from the
château in France could only have been the copy."
</p>

<p>
"Why, yes," I admitted, "but then again we have
been told that the grandfather of the present Duc de
Rochechouart bought the picture from the artist
himself, and that it has been in the uninterrupted
possession of his family ever since."
</p>

<p>
"And I am willing to admit that the picture was in
the uninterrupted possession of the Duc de Rochechouart
until the present holder of the title or some
one who had access to it in the same way as himself
sold it to Mr. Charles B. Tupper in June, 1919."
</p>

<p>
"But you don't mean&mdash;&mdash;"
</p>

<p>
"Surely," the funny creature went on with his dry
cackle, "it was not such a very difficult little bit of
dishonesty to perpetrate, seeing that Mme. la Duchesse
was such an accomplished artist.  Can you not imagine
the lady being like many of us, very short of money,
and then hearing of Mr. Charles B. Tupper, the
American business man who was searching Europe through
for a world-famous masterpiece; can you not see her
during one of her husband's pleasure trips to Paris or
elsewhere setting to work to make an exact replica
of 'La Fiancée'?  We know that it always hung in her
studio until the day when it was moved to the dining-hall.
Think how easy it was for her to substitute her
own copy for the original.  The only difficulty would
be the conveying of the picture to Paris, but an artist
knows how to take a canvas off its stretcher, to roll it
up and re-strain it.
</p>

<p>
"Here I think that she must have had a confederate,
probably some down-at-heel friend of her artistic days,
a man whom she paid lavishly both for his help and
his silence.  Who that man was I suppose we shall
never know.  The so-called Matthieu Vignard and his
'blousey wife,' as Mr. Kleeberger picturesquely
described her, have completely disappeared; no trace of
them was ever found.  They hired the studio at
Montmartre for one month, paid the concierge the rent in
advance, and at the end of that time they decamped
and have never been heard of since, but unless I am
much mistaken, they must at the present moment be
carrying on a very lucrative little blackmailing
business, because it must have been Vignard who conveyed
the picture to Paris in the same way as we know it
was he who first approached Charles B. Tupper and
ultimately sold him the picture."
</p>

<p>
"But surely," I objected, for the funny creature had
paused a moment, and I could not deny that his
arguments were sound, "surely it would have been more
practical to have sold the copy&mdash;which we suppose
must have been perfect&mdash;to Mr. Tupper who was a
layman and an outsider, and to have kept the original
in the château, as the Duc was even then negotiating
for its sale, and most of the art dealers were coming
to have a look at it."
</p>

<p>
He did not reply immediately but remained for a
while deeply absorbed in the contemplation of his
beloved bit of string.
</p>

<p>
"That," he admitted with complacent condescension,
"would be a sound argument if we admit at once that
the Duchesse knew for a certainty that her husband
intended to sell 'La Fiancée.'  But my contention is
that at the time that she sold the picture to Mr. Tupper
she had no idea that the Duc had any such intentions.
No doubt when she knew this for a fact, she
must have been beside herself with horror; no doubt
also that she had a hard fight with her own terror
before she made a clean breast of her misdeed to her
husband.  Apparently she did not do this until the
very last moment, until the day when the picture was
actually taken out of her studio and placed upon an
easel in the dining-hall for closer inspection.  Then
discovery was imminent and we must suppose that she
made a full confession.
</p>

<p>
"The Duc, like a gallant gentleman, at once set his
wits thinking how best to save his wife's reputation
without endangering his own.  To have admitted to
Mr. Aaron Jacobs and to the other experts and art
dealers who had come to see the masterpiece that a
Duc de Rochechouart was trying to sell a spurious
imitation whilst having already disposed of the original
was, of course, unthinkable; and thus the idea
presented itself to their Graces that the copy must be
made to disappear effectually.  A favourable
circumstance for the success of this scheme was the garden
fête which was to take place that afternoon, when the
house would be full of guests, of strangers and of
servants, when surveillance would be slack and the
comings and goings of the master of the house would
easily pass unperceived.
</p>

<p>
"The Duc, in my opinion, chose the one quarter of
an hour when he was alone in the house to cut the
picture out of its frame.  He then hid the canvas
sufficiently skilfully that it was never found.  Probably he
thought at the time that there the matter would end,
but equally probably he never gave the future another
thought.  His own position was unassailable seeing he
was not insured against loss, and it was the present
alone that mattered: the fact that a Duc de Rochechouart
was trying to sell a spurious picture for half
a million dollars.  To many French men and women
ever since the war, America is a far country, and no
doubt the Duc and Duchesse both hoped that the whole
transaction, including the Ingres masterpiece, would
soon lie buried somewhere at the bottom of the sea.
</p>

<p>
"Fate and Lady Polchester proved too strong for
them; they ordained that 'La Fiancée' should be
brought back to Europe, and that the whole of its
exciting history be revived.  But fate proved kind in the
end, and I think that you will agree with me that two
such daring and resourceful adventurers as their Graces
deserve the extra half million dollars which, thanks
to Lady Polchester's generosity and ostentation, they
got so unexpected.
</p>

<p>
"Soon afterwards you will remember that the Duc
and Duchesse de Rochechouart sold their château on
the Oise together with the bulk of their collection of
pictures and furniture.
</p>

<p>
"They now live in Sweden, I understand, where the
Duchesse has many friends and relations and where
the law of libel will not trouble you much if you
publish my deductions in your valuable magazine.
</p>

<p>
"Think it all out," the Old Man in the Corner
concluded glibly, "and from every point of view, and you
will see that there is not a single flaw in my argument.
I have given you the only possible solution of the
mystery of the Ingres masterpiece."
</p>

<p>
"You may be right&mdash;&mdash;" I murmured thoughtfully.
</p>

<p>
"I know I am," he answered dryly.
</p>

<p><br /><br /><br /></p>

<p><a id="chap03"></a></p>

<h3>
III
<br /><br />
THE MYSTERY OF THE PEARL NECKLACE
</h3>

<p><br /></p>

<h4>
§1
</h4>

<p>
The Old Man in the Corner had a very curious
theory about that mysterious affair of the
pearl necklace, and though it all occurred a
few years ago, I am tempted to put his deductions
down on record, because, as far as I know, neither
the police of this or any other country, nor the
public, have ever found a satisfactory solution for what
was undoubtedly a strange and mystifying adventure.
</p>

<p>
I remembered the case quite well when first he
spoke to me about it one afternoon in what had
become my favourite tea-haunt in Fleet Street; the only
thing I was not quite certain of was the identity of
the august personage to whom the pearl necklace was
to be presented.  I did know, of course, that she
belonged to one of the reigning families of Europe
and that she had been an active and somewhat
hotheaded and bitter opponent of the Communist
movement in her own country, in consequence of which
both she and her exalted husband had been the
object of more than one murderous attack by the other
side.
</p>

<p>
It was on the occasion of the august lady's almost
miraculous escape from a peculiarly well-planned and
brutal assault that a number of ladies in England
subscribed the sum of fifteen thousand pounds for
the purchase of an exquisite pearl necklace to be
presented to her as a congratulatory gift.
</p>

<p>
Rightly or wrongly, the donors of this princely
gift feared that a certain well-known political
organisation on the Continent would strive by every means
in its power, fair or foul, to prevent this token of
English good-will from reaching the recipient, and
also, as it chanced to happen, there had been during
the past few months a large number of thefts of
valuables on Continental railways, and it became a
question who should be entrusted by the committee
of subscribers with the perilous risk of taking the
necklace over for presentation; the trouble being
further enhanced by the fact that in those days the
Insurance Companies barred one or two European
countries from their comprehensive policies against theft
and petty larceny, and that it was to one of those
countries thus barred that the bearer of the fifteen
thousand pound necklace would have to journey.
</p>

<p>
Imagine the excitement, the anxiety, which reigned
in the hearts of the thousands of middle-class English
women who had subscribed their mite to the gift!
Their committee sat behind closed doors discussing the
claims of various volunteers who were ready to undertake
the journey: these worthy folk were quite convinced
that certain well-known leaders of anarchical
organisations would be on the lookout for the booty
and would have special facilities for the theft of it at
the frontier during the course of those endless
customs and passport formalities for which that
particular country was ever famous.
</p>

<p>
Finally the committee's choice fell upon a certain
Captain Arthur Saunders, nephew of Sir Montague
Bowden, who was chairman of the ladies' committee.
Captain Saunders had, it seems, travelled abroad a
great deal, and his wife was foreign&mdash;Swedish so it was
understood; it was thought that if he went abroad
now in the company of his wife, the object of their
journey might be thought to be a visit to Mrs. Saunders's
relations, and the conveying of the pearl
necklace to its destination might thus remain more
or less a secret.
</p>

<p>
The choice was approved of by all the subscribers,
and it was decided that Captain and Mrs. Saunders.
should start by the ten a.m. train for Paris on the
sixteenth of March.  Captain Saunders was to call
the previous afternoon at a certain bank in Charing
Cross, where the necklace was deposited, and there
receive it as an almost sacred trust from the hands
of the manager.  Further, it was arranged that
Mrs. Saunders should, immediately on arrival in Paris,
send a wire to Mrs. Berners, a great friend of hers
who was the secretary of the committee, and in fact
that she should keep the committee informed of
Captain Saunders's well-being at all the more important
points of their journey.
</p>

<p>
And thus they started.
</p>

<p>
But no news came from Paris on the sixteenth.
At first no anxiety was felt on that score, every one
being ready to surmise that the Calais-Paris train
had been late in, and that the Saunderses had perhaps
only barely time to clear their luggage at the
customs and catch the train de luxe which would take
them on, via Cologne, without a chance of sending
the promised telegram.  But soon after midday of
the seventeenth, Sir Montague Bowden had a wire
from Mrs. Saunders from Paris saying: "Arthur
disappeared since last night.  Desperately anxious.
Please come at once.  Have booked room for you
here.  Mary.  Hotel Majestic."
</p>

<p>
The news was terrifying; however, Sir Montague
Bowden, with commendable zeal, at once wired to
Mary announcing his immediate departure for Paris,
and as it was then too late for him to catch the
afternoon Continental train, he started by the evening one,
travelling all night and arriving at the Hotel Majestic
in the early morning.
</p>

<p>
As soon as he had had a bath and some breakfast
he went in search of information.  He found
that the French police already had the "affaire" in
hand, but that they had not so far the slightest clue
to the mysterious disappearance of le Capitaine
Saunders.  He found the management of the Majestic
in a state of offended dignity, and Mrs. Saunders, in
one that verged on hysteria, but fortunately, he also
found at the hotel a Mr. Haasberg, brother of
Mrs. Saunders, a Swedish business man of remarkable
coolness and clearness of judgment, who promptly
put him <i>au fait</i> with what had occurred.
</p>

<p>
It seems that Mr. Haasberg was settled in
business in Paris, and that he had hoped to catch a
glimpse of his sister and brother-in-law on the
evening of the sixteenth at the Gare du Nord on their
way through to the East, but that on that very morning
he had received a telegram from Mary asking him to
book a couple of rooms&mdash;a bedroom and a sitting-room&mdash;for
one night for them at the Hotel Majestic.
This Mr. Haasberg did, glad enough that he would
see something more of his sister than he had been
led to hope.
</p>

<p>
On the afternoon of the sixteenth he was kept late
at business, and was unable to meet the Saunderses
at the station, but towards nine o'clock he walked
round to the Majestic, hoping to find them in.  Their
room was on the third floor.  Mr. Haasberg went up
in the lift, and as soon as he reached No. 301 he
became aware of a buzz of conversation coming from
within, which, however, ceased as soon as he had
pushed open the door.
</p>

<p>
On entering the room he saw that Captain Saunders
had a visitor, a tall, thick-set man, who wore an
old-fashioned, heavy moustache and large, gold-rimmed
spectacles.  At sight of Mr. Haasberg the man clapped
his hat&mdash;a bowler&mdash;on his head, pulled his coat-collar
over his ears, and with a hasty: "Well, s'long,
old man.  I'll wait till to-morrow!" spoken with a
strong foreign accent, he walked rapidly out of the
room and down the corridor.
</p>

<p>
Haasberg stood for a moment in the doorway to
watch the disappearing personage, but he did this
without any ulterior motive or thought of suspicion;
then he turned back into the room and greeted his
brother-in-law.
</p>

<p>
Saunders seemed to Haasberg to be nervous and
ill-at-ease; in response to the latter's inquiry after
Mary, he explained that she had remained in her
room as he had a man to see on business.  Haasberg
made some casual remark about this visitor, and then
Mary Saunders came in.  She, too, appeared troubled
and agitated, and as soon as she had greeted her
brother, she turned to her husband and asked very
eagerly:
</p>

<p>
"Well, has he gone?"
</p>

<p>
Saunders, giving a significant glance in Haasberg's
direction, replied with an obvious effort at indifference:
</p>

<p>
"Yes, yes, he's gone.  But he said he would be
back to-morrow."
</p>

<p>
At which Mary seemed to give a sigh of relief.
</p>

<p>
Scenting some uncomfortable mystery, Haasberg
questioned her, and also Saunders, about their visitor,
but could not elicit any satisfactory explanation.
</p>

<p>
"Oh, there is nothing mysterious about old
Pasquier," was all that either of them would say.
</p>

<p>
"He is an old pal of Arthur's," Mary added lightly,
"but he is such an awful bore that I got Arthur to
say that I was out, so that he might get rid of him
more quickly."
</p>

<p>
Somehow Haasberg felt that these explanations
were very lame.  He could not get it out of his head,
that there was something mysterious about the
visitor, and knowing the purpose of the Saunderses'
journey, he thought it as well to give them a very
serious word of warning about Continental hotels
generally, and to suggest that they should, after this
stay in Paris, go straight through in the train de luxe
and never halt again until the fifteen thousand pound
necklace was safely in the hands of the august lady
for whom it was intended.  But both Arthur and
Mary laughed at these words of warning.
</p>

<p>
"My dear fellow," Arthur said, seemingly rather
in a huff, "we are not such mugs as you think us.
Mary and I have travelled on the Continent at least
as much as you have, and are fully alive to the
dangers attendant upon our mission.  As a matter of fact,
the moment we arrived, I gave the necklace in its
own padlocked tin box, just as I brought it over from
England, in charge of the hotel management, who
immediately locked it up in their strong-room, so even
if good old Pasquier had designs on it&mdash;which I can
assure you he has not&mdash;he would stand no chance of
getting hold of it.  And now, sit down, there's a good
chap, and talk of something else."
</p>

<p>
Only half reassured, Haasberg sat down and had
a chat.  But he did not stay long.  Mary was obviously
tired, and soon said good-night.  Arthur offered
to accompany his brother-in-law to the latter's
lodgings in the Rue de Moncigny.
</p>

<p>
"I would like a walk," he said, "before going to bed."
</p>

<p>
So the two men walked out together, and Haasberg
finally said good-night to Arthur just outside his
own lodgings.  It was then close upon ten o'clock.
The little party had agreed to spend the next day
together, as the train de luxe did not go until the
evening, and Haasberg had promised to take a holiday
from business.  Before going to bed he attended
to some urgent correspondence, and had just finished
a letter when his telephone bell rang.  To his horror
he heard his sister's voice speaking.
</p>

<p>
"Don't keep Arthur up so late, Herman," she said.
"I am dog tired, and can't go to sleep until he returns."
</p>

<p>
"Arthur?" he replied.  "But Arthur left me at my
door two hours ago!"
</p>

<p>
"He has not returned," she insisted, "and I am
getting anxious."
</p>

<p>
"Of course you are, but he can't be long now.  He
must have turned into a café and forgot the time.
Do ring me up as soon as he comes in."
</p>

<p>
Unable to rest, however, and once more vaguely
anxious, Haasberg went hastily back to the Majestic.
He found Mary nearly distracted with anxiety, and
as he himself felt anything but reassured, he did not
know how to comfort her.
</p>

<p>
At one time he went down into the hall to ascertain
whether anything was known on the hotel about
Saunders's movements earlier in the evening; but at
this hour of the night there were only the night porter
and the watchman about, and they knew nothing of
what had occurred before they came on duty.
</p>

<p>
There was nothing for it but to await the morning
as calmly as possible.  This was difficult enough, as
Mary Saunders was evidently in a terrible state of
agitation.  She was quite certain that something tragic
had happened to her husband, but Haasberg tried in
vain to get her to speak of the mysterious visitor
who had from the first aroused his own suspicions.
Mary persisted in asserting that the visitor was just
an old pal of Arthur's and that no suspicion of any
kind could possibly rest upon him.
</p>

<p>
In the early morning Haasberg went off to the
nearest commissariat of police.  They took the
matter in hand without delay, and within the hour had
obtained some valuable information from the personnel
of the hotel.  To begin with, it was established
that at about ten minutes past ten the previous
evening, that is to say a quarter of an hour or so after
Haasberg had parted from Arthur Saunders outside
his own lodgings, the latter had returned to the
Majestic, and at once asked for the tin box which he
had deposited in the bureau.  There was some
difficulty in acceding to his request, because the clerk
who was in charge of the keys of the strong-room
could not at once be found.  However, M. le Capitaine
was so insistent that search was made for the clerk, who
presently appeared with the keys, and after the usual
formalities, handed over the tin box to Saunders, who
signed a receipt for it in the book.  Haasberg had
since then identified the signature which was quite
clear and incontestable.
</p>

<p>
Saunders then went upstairs, refusing to take the
lift, and five minutes later he came down again,
nodded to the hall porter, and went out of the hotel.
No one had seen him since, but during the course
of the morning, the valet on the fourth floor had
found an empty tin box in the gentlemen's cloakroom.
This box was produced, and to her unutterable
horror Mary Saunders recognised it as the one
which had held the pearl necklace.
</p>

<p>
The whole of this evidence as it gradually came to
light was a staggering blow both to Mary and to
Haasberg himself, because until this moment neither of
them had thought that the necklace was in jeopardy:
they both believed that it was safely locked up in the
strong-room of the hotel.
</p>

<p>
Haasberg now feared the worst.  He blamed himself
terribly for not having made more certain of the
mysterious visitor's identity.  He had not yet come
to the point of accusing his brother-in-law in his mind
of a conspiracy to steal the necklace, but frankly, at
this stage, he did not know what to think.  Saunders's
conduct had&mdash;to say the least&mdash;been throughout
extremely puzzling.  Why had he elected to spend the
night in Paris, when all arrangements had been made
for him and his wife to travel straight through?  Who
was the mysterious visitor with the walrus moustache,
vaguely referred to by both Arthur and Mary as "old
Pasquier"?  And above all why had Arthur withdrawn
the necklace from the hotel strong-room where
it was quite safe, and, with it in his pocket, walked
about the streets of Paris at that hour of the night?
</p>

<p>
Haasberg was quite convinced that "old Pasquier"
knew something about the whole affair, but, strangely
enough, Mary persisted in asserting that he was quite
harmless and an old friend of Arthur's who was
beyond suspicion.  When further pressed with questions,
she declared that she had no idea where the man
lodged, and that, in fact, she believed that he had
left Paris the self-same evening <i>en route</i> for Brussels,
where he was settled in business.
</p>

<p>
Enquiry amongst the personnel of the hotel revealed
the fact that Captain Saunders's visitor had been
seen by the hall porter when he came soon after
half-past eight, and asked whether le Capitaine
Saunders had finished dinner; his question being
answered in the affirmative, he went upstairs, refusing
to take the lift.  Half an hour or so later he was seen
by one of the waiters in the lounge hurriedly crossing
the hall, and finally by the two boys in attendance
at the swing doors when he went out of the hotel.
All agreed that the man was very tall and thick-set,
that he wore a heavy moustache and a pair of
gold-rimmed spectacles.  He had on a bowler hat and an
overcoat with the collar pulled right up to his ears.
The hall porter, who himself spoke English fairly
well, was under the impression that the man was not
English, although he made his enquiries in that language.
</p>

<p>
In addition to all these investigations, the
commissaire de police, on his second visit to the hotel,
was able to assure Haasberg that all the commissariats
in and around Paris had been communicated
with by telephone so as to ascertain whether any man
answering to Saunders's description had been injured
during the night in a street accident, and taken in
somewhere for shelter; also that a description of the
necklace had already been sent round to all the
Monts-de-Piété throughout the country.  The police
were also sharply on the lookout for the man with
the walrus moustache, but so far without success.
</p>

<p>
And Mary Saunders obstinately persisted in her
denial of any knowledge about him.  "Arthur," she said,
"sometimes saw 'old Pasquier' in London"; but she
did not know anything about him, neither what his
nationality was, nor where he lodged.  She did not know
when he had left London, nor where he could be
found in Paris.  All that she knew, so she said, was
that his name was Pasquier, and that he was in business
in Brussels; she therefore concluded that he was
Belgian.
</p>

<p>
Even to her own brother she would not say more,
although he succeeded in making her understand how
strange her attitude must appear both to the police
and to her friends, and what harm she was doing to
her husband, but at this she burst into floods of
tears and swore that she knew nothing about Pasquier's
whereabouts, and that she believed him to be
innocent of any attempt to steal the necklace or to
injure Arthur.
</p>

<p>
There was nothing more to be said for the present
and Haasberg sent the telegram in his sister's name
to Sir Montague Bowden because he felt that some one
less busy than himself should look after the affair and
be a comfort to Mary, whose mental condition
appeared pitiable in the extreme.
</p>

<p>
In this first interview he was able to assure Sir
Montague that everything had been done to trace the
whereabouts of Arthur Saunders, and also of the
necklace of which the unfortunate man had been the
custodian; and it was actually while the two men were
talking the whole case over that Haasberg received an
intimation from the police that they believed the
missing man had been found: at any rate would Monsieur
give himself the trouble to come round to the
commissariat at once.
</p>

<p>
This, of course, Haasberg did, accompanied by Sir
Montague, and at the commissariat to their horror they
found the unfortunate Saunders in a terrible condition.
Briefly the commissaire explained to them that
about a quarter past ten last night an <i>agent de police</i>,
making his rounds, saw a man crouching in the angle
of a narrow blind alley that leads out of the Rue de
Moncigny.  On being shaken up by the agent the man
struggled to his feet, but he appeared quite dazed and
unable to reply to any questions that were put to him.
He was then conveyed to the nearest commissariat,
where he spent the night.
</p>

<p>
He was obviously suffering from loss of memory,
and could give no account of himself, nor were any
papers of identification found upon him, not even a
visiting card, but close behind him, on the pavement
where he was crouching, the <i>agent</i> had picked up a
handkerchief which was saturated with chloroform.
The handkerchief bore the initials A.S.  The man,
of course, was Arthur Saunders.  What had happened
to him it was impossible to ascertain.  He certainly
did not appear to be physically hurt, although from
time to time when Mr. Haasberg or Sir Montague
tried to question him, he passed his hand across the
back of his head, and an expression of pathetic
puzzlement came into his eyes.
</p>

<p>
His two friends, after the usual formalities of
identification, were allowed to take him back to the
Hotel Majestic where he was restored to the arms
of his anxious wife; the English doctor, hastily
summoned, could not find any trace of injury about the
body, only the head appeared rather tender when
touched.  The doctor's theory was that Saunders had
probably been sandbagged first, and then rendered
more completely insensible by means of the
chloroformed handkerchief, and that excitement, anxiety
and the blow on the head had caused temporary loss
of memory which quietude and good nursing would
soon put right.
</p>

<p>
In the meanwhile, of the fifteen thousand pound
necklace there was not the slightest trace.
</p>

<p><br /></p>

<h4>
§2
</h4>

<p>
Unfortunately the disappearance of so valuable a
piece of jewellery was one of those cases that could
not be kept from public knowledge.  The matter was
of course in the hands of the French police and they
had put themselves in communication with their
English confrères, and the consternation&mdash;not to say the
indignation&mdash;amongst the good ladies who had
subscribed the money for the gift to the august lady was
unbounded.
</p>

<p>
Everybody was blaming everybody else; the choice
of Captain Saunders as the accredited messenger was
now severely criticised; pointed questions were asked
as to his antecedents, as to his wife's foreign relations,
and it was soon found that very little was known
about either.
</p>

<p>
Of course everybody knew that he was Sir
Montague Bowden's nephew, and that, thanks to his
uncle's influence, he had obtained a remunerative and
rather important post in the office of one of the big
Insurance Companies.  But what his career had been
before that no one knew.  Some people said that he
had fought in South Africa and later on had been
correspondent for one of the great dailies during the
Russo-Japanese war; altogether there seemed no doubt
that he had been something of a rolling stone.
</p>

<p>
Rather tardily the committee was taken severely to
task for having entrusted so important a mission to a
man who was either a coward or a thief, or both, for
at first no one doubted that Saunders had met a
confederate in Paris and had handed over the necklace to
him, whilst he himself enacted a farce of being
waylaid, chloroformed and robbed, and subsequently of
losing his memory.
</p>

<p>
But presently another version of the mystery was
started by some amateur detective, and it found
credence with quite a good many people.  This was that
Sir Montague Bowden had connived at the theft with
Mrs. Saunders's relations; that the man with the
walrus moustache did not exist at all or was in very truth
a harmless old friend of Captain Saunders, and that
it was Haasberg who had induced his brother-in-law
to withdraw the necklace from the hotel strong-room
and to bring it to the Rue de Moncigny; that in fact
it was that same perfidious Swede who had waylaid
the credulous Englishman, chloroformed and robbed
him of the precious necklace.
</p>

<p>
In the meanwhile the police in England had, of
course, been communicated with by their French
confrères, but before they could move in the matter
or enjoin discretion on all concerned, an enterprising
young man on the staff of the <i>Express Post</i> had interviewed
Miss Elizabeth Spicer, who was the parlour-maid
at the Saunderses' flat in Sloane Street.
</p>

<p>
That young lady, it seems, had something to say
about a gentleman named Pasquier, who was not an
infrequent visitor at the flat.  She described him as
a fine, tall gentleman, who wore large gold-rimmed
spectacles, and a full military moustache.  It seems
that the last time Miss Elizabeth saw him was two
days before her master and mistress's departure for
abroad.  Mr. Pasquier called late that evening and
stayed till past ten o'clock.  When Elizabeth was
rung for in order to show him out, he was saying
good-bye to the captain in the hall, and she heard him
say, "in his funny foreign way," as she put it:
</p>

<p>
"Well, I shall be in Paris as soon as you.  Tink
it over, my friend."
</p>

<p>
And on the top of that came a story told by Henry
Tidy, Sir Montague Bowden's butler.  According to
him Captain Saunders called at Sir Montague Bowden's
house in Lowndes Street on the afternoon of the
fifteenth.  The two gentlemen remained closeted
together in the library for nearly an hour, when Tidy
was summoned to show the visitor out.  Sir Montague,
it seems, went to the front door with his
nephew, and as the latter finally wished him
good-bye, Sir Montague said to him:
</p>

<p>
"My dear boy, you can take it from me that there's
nothing to worry about, and in any case I am afraid
that it is too late to make any fresh arrangements."
</p>

<p>
"It's because of Mary," the captain rejoined.  "She
has made herself quite ill over it."
</p>

<p>
"The journey will do her good," Sir Montague
went on pleasantly, "but if I were you I would have
a good talk with your brother-in-law.  He must know
his Paris well.  Take my advice and spend the night
at the Majestic.  You can always get rooms there."
</p>

<p>
This conversation Tidy heard quite distinctly, and
he related the whole incident both to the journalist
and to the police.  After that the amateur investigators
of crime were divided into two camps: there
were those who persisted in thinking that Pasquier
and Saunders, and probably Mrs. Saunders also, had
conspired together to steal the necklace, and that
Saunders had acted the farce of being waylaid and
robbed, and losing his memory; they based their
deductions on Elizabeth Spicer's evidence and on Mary
Saunders's extraordinary persistence in trying to shield
the mysterious Pasquier.
</p>

<p>
But other people, getting hold of Henry Tidy's story,
deduced from it that it was indeed Sir Montague
Bowden who had planned the whole thing in
conjunction with Haasberg, since it was he who had
persuaded Saunders to spend the night in Paris, thus
giving his accomplice the opportunity of assaulting
Saunders and stealing the necklace.  To these
wise-acres "old Pasquier" was indeed a harmless old pal
of Arthur's, whose presence that evening at the
Majestic was either a fable invented by Haasberg, or
one quite innocent in purpose.  In vain did Sir
Montague try to explain away Tidy's evidence.  Arthur,
he said, had certainly called upon him that last
afternoon, but what he seemed worried about was his
wife's health; he feared that she would not be strong
enough to undertake the long journey without a
break, so Sir Montague advised him to spend the
night in Paris and in any case to talk the matter over
with Mary's brother.
</p>

<p>
The conversation overheard by Tidy could certainly
admit of this explanation, but it did not satisfy
the many amateur detectives who preferred to see a
criminal in the chairman of the committee rather than
a harmless old gentleman, as eager as themselves to
find a solution to the mystery.  And while people
argued and wrangled there was no news of the
necklace, and none of the man with the walrus moustache.
No doubt that worthy had by now shaved off his
hirsute adornment and grown a beard.  He had
certainly succeeded in evading the police; whether he had
gone to Brussels or succeeded in crossing the German
frontier no one could say, his disappearance certainly
bore out the theory of his being the guilty party with
the connivance of Saunders, as against the
Bowden-Haasberg theory.
</p>

<p>
As for the necklace it had probably been already
taken to pieces and the pearls would presently be
disposed of one by one to some unscrupulous Continental
dealers, when the first hue and cry after them had
died away.
</p>

<p>
Captain Saunders was said to be slowly recovering
from his loss of memory and subsequent breakdown.
Every one at home was waiting to hear what explanation
he would give of his amazing conduct in taking
the necklace out of the hotel strong-room late that
night and sallying forth with it into the streets of
Paris at that hour.  The explanation came after about
a fortnight of suspense in a letter from Mary to her
friend Mrs. Berners.
</p>

<p>
Arthur, she said, had told her that on the fateful
evening, after he parted from Mr. Haasberg in the
Rue de Moncigny, he had felt restless and anxious
about what the latter had told him on the subject
of foreign hotels, and he was suddenly seized with
the idea that the necklace was not safe in the care
of the management of the Majestic, because there
would come a moment when he would have to claim
the tin box, and this would probably be handed over
to him when the hall of the hotel was crowded, and
the eyes of expert thieves would then follow his every
movement.  Therefore he went back to the hotel,
claimed the tin box, and as the latter was large and
cumbersome he got rid of it in one of the cloak-rooms
of the hotel, slipped the necklace, in its velvet case,
in the pocket of his overcoat, and went out with the
intention of asking Haasberg to take care of it for
him, and only to hand it back to him when on the
following evening the train de luxe was on the point
of starting.  He had been in sight of Haasberg's
lodgings when, without the slightest warning, a dull blow
on the back of his head, coming he knew not whence,
robbed him of consciousness.
</p>

<p>
This explanation, however, was voted almost
unanimously to be very lame, and it was, on the whole,
as well that the Saunderses had decided to remain
abroad for a time.  The ladies especially&mdash;and above
all those who had put their money together for the
necklace&mdash;were very bitter against him.  On the other
hand Sir Montague Bowden was having a very rough
time of it; he had already had one or two very
unpleasant word-tussles with some outspoken friends of
his, and there was talk of a slander action that would
certainly be a <i>cause célèbre</i> when it came on.
</p>

<p>
Thus the arguments went on in endless succession
until one day&mdash;well do I remember the excitement
that spread throughout the town as soon as the
incident became known&mdash;there was a terrible row in one
of the big clubs in Piccadilly.  Sir Montague Bowden
was insulted by one of his fellow members: he was
called a thief, and asked what share he was getting
out of the sale of the necklace.  Of course the man
who spoke in this unwarranted fashion was drunk at
the time, but nevertheless it was a terrible position for
Sir Montague, because as his opponent grew more and
more abusive and he himself more and more indignant,
he realised that he had practically no friends who
would stand by him in the dispute.  Some of the
members tried to stop the row, and others appeared
indifferent, but no one sided with him, or returned abuse
for abuse on his behalf.
</p>

<p>
It was in the very midst of this most unedifying
scene&mdash;one perhaps unparalleled in the annals of
London club life&mdash;that a club servant entered the
room, and handed a telegram to Sir Montague Bowden.
</p>

<p>
Even the most sceptical there, and those whose
brains were almost fuddled with the wrangling and the
noise, declared afterwards that a mysterious Providence
had ordained that the telegram should arrive at
that precise moment.  It had been sent to Sir
Montague's private house in Lowndes Street; his secretary
had opened it and sent it on to the club.  As soon as
Sir Montague had mastered its contents he communicated
them to the members of the club, and it seems
that there never had been such excitement displayed
in any assembly of sober Englishmen as was shown in
that club room on this momentous occasion.
</p>

<p>
The telegram had come all the way from the other
end of Europe, and had been sent by the august lady
in whose hands the priceless necklace, about which
there was so much pother in England and France,
had just been safely placed.  It ran thus:
</p>

<p><br /></p>

<p>
"Deeply touched by exquisite present just received
through kind offices of Captain Saunders, from
English ladies.  Kind thoughts and beautiful necklace
equally precious.  Kindly convey my grateful thanks
to all subscribers."
</p>

<p><br /></p>

<p>
Having read out the telegram, Sir Montague
Bowden demanded an apology from those who had
impugned his honour, and I understand that he got an
unqualified one.  After that, male tongues were let
loose; the wildest conjectures flew about as to the
probable solution of what appeared a more curious mystery
than ever.  By evening the papers had got hold of
the incident, and all those who were interested in
the affair shook their heads and looked portentously
wise.
</p>

<p>
But the hero of the hour was certainly Captain
Saunders.  From having been voted either a knave or
a fool, or both, he was declared all at once to be
possessed of all the qualities which had made England
great: prudence, astuteness, and tenacity.  However,
as a matter of fact, nobody knew what had actually
happened; the august lady had the necklace and
Captain Saunders was returning to England without a stain
on his character, but as to how these two eminently
satisfactory results had come about not even the
wise-acres could say.  Captain and Mrs. Saunders arrived
in England a few days later; every one was agog with
curiosity, and the poor things had hardly stepped out
of the train before they were besieged by newspaper
men and pressed with questions.
</p>

<p>
The next morning the <i>Express Post</i> and the <i>Daily
Thunderer</i> came out with exclusive interviews with
Captain Saunders, who had made no secret of the
extraordinary adventure which had once more placed
him in possession of the necklace.  It seems that he
and his wife on coming out of the Madeleine Church
on Easter Sunday were hustled at the top of the
steps by a man whose face they did not see, and who
pushed past them very hastily and roughly.  Arthur
Saunders at once thought of his pockets, and looked
to see if his notecase had not disappeared.  To his
boundless astonishment his hand came in contact
with a long, hard parcel in the outside pocket of his
overcoat, and this parcel proved to be the velvet case
containing the missing necklace.
</p>

<p>
Both he and his wife were flabbergasted at this
discovery, and, scarcely believing in this amazing piece
of good luck, they managed with the help of
Mr. Haasberg, despite its being Easter Sunday, to obtain
an interview with one of the great jewellers in the
Rue de la Paix, who, well knowing the history of the
missing necklace, was able to assure them that they
had indeed been lucky enough to regain possession
of their treasure.  That same evening they left by
the train de luxe, having been fortunate enough to
secure seats; needless to say that the necklace was
safely stowed away inside Captain Saunders's breast
pocket.
</p>

<p>
All was indeed well that ended so well.  But the
history of the disappearance and reappearance of the
pearl necklace has remained a baffling mystery to this
day.  Neither the Saunderses nor Mr. Haasberg ever
departed one iota from the circumstantial story which
they had originally told, and no one ever heard
another word about the man with the walrus moustache
and the gold-rimmed spectacles: the French
police are still after him in connection with the assault
on le Capitaine Saunders, but no trace of him was
ever found.
</p>

<p>
To some people this was a conclusive proof of
guilt, but then, having stolen the necklace, why should
he have restored it?  Though the pearls were very
beautiful and there were a great number of them
beautifully matched, there was nothing abnormal about
them either in size or colour; there never could be any
difficulty for an expert thief to dispose of the pearls
to Continental dealers.  The same argument would of
course apply to Mr. Haasberg, whom some wiseacres
still persisted in accusing.  If he stole the necklace
why should he have restored it?  Nothing could be
easier than for a business man who travelled a great
deal on the Continent to sell a parcel of pearls.  And
there always remained the unanswered question: Why
did Saunders take the pearls out of the strong-room,
and where was he taking them to when he was
assaulted and robbed?
</p>

<p>
Did the man with the walrus moustache really call
at the Majestic that night?  And if he was innocent,
why did he disappear?  Why, why, why?
</p>

<p><br /></p>

<h4>
§3
</h4>

<p>
The case had very much interested me at the time,
but the mystery was a nine days' wonder as far as
I was concerned, and soon far more important matters
than the temporary disappearance of a few rows
of pearls occupied public attention.
</p>

<p>
It was really only last year when I renewed my
acquaintance with the Old Man in the Corner, that
I bethought myself once more of the mystery of the
pearl necklace, and I felt the desire to hear what the
spook-like creature's theory was upon the subject.
</p>

<p>
"The pearl necklace?" he said with a cackle.  "Ah,
yes, it caused a good bit of stir in its day.  But
people talked such a lot of irresponsible nonsense
that thinking minds had not a chance of arriving at
a sensible conclusion."
</p>

<p>
"No," I rejoined amiably.  "But you did."
</p>

<p>
"Yes, you are right there," he replied, "I knew
well enough where the puzzle lay, but it was not my
business to put the police on the right track.  And if
I had I should have been the cause of making two
innocent and clever people suffer more severely than
the guilty party."
</p>

<p>
"Will you condescend to explain?" I asked, with
an indulgent smile.
</p>

<p>
"Why should I not?" he retorted, and once again
his thin fingers started to work on the inevitable piece
of string.  "It all lies in a nutshell, and is easily
understandable if we realise that 'old Pasquier,' the man
with the walrus moustache, was not the friend of the
Saunderses, but their enemy."
</p>

<p>
I frowned.  "Their enemy?"
</p>

<p>
"An old pal shall we say?" he retorted, "who knew
something in the past history of one or the other of
them that they did not wish their newest friends to
know: really a blackmailer who, under the guise of
comradeship, sat not infrequently at their fireside,
watching an opportunity for extorting a heavy price
for his silence and his good-will.  Thus he could worm
himself into their confidence; he knew their private
life; he heard about the necklace, and decided that
here was the long sought for opportunity at last.
</p>

<p>
"Think it all over and you will see how well the
pieces of that jig-saw puzzle fit together and make a
perfect picture.  Pasquier calls on the Saunderses a day
or two before their departure and springs his infamous
proposal upon them then.  For the time being Arthur
succeeds in giving him the slip, his journey is not yet
... the necklace is not yet in his possession ... but
he knows the true quality of the blackmailer now,
and he is on the alert.
</p>

<p>
"He begins by going to Sir Montague Bowden and
begging him to entrust the mission to somebody else.
Judging by the butler's evidence, he even makes a
clean breast of his troubles to Sir Montague who,
however, makes light of them and advises consultation
with Mr. Haasberg, who perhaps would undertake
the journey.  In any case it is too late to make
fresh arrangements at this hour.  Very reluctantly
now, and hoping for the best, the Saunderses make a
start.  But the blackmailer, too, is on the alert, he
has succeeded in spying upon them and in tracing
them to the Majestic in Paris.  The situation now has
become terribly serious, for the blackmailer has
thrown off the mask and demands the necklace under
threats which apparently the Saunderses did not dare
defy.
</p>

<p>
"But they are both clever and resourceful, and as
soon as Haasberg's arrival rids them temporarily
their tormentor, they put their heads together and
invent a plot which was destined to free them for ever
from the threats of Pasquier and at the same time
would enable them to honour the trust which had been
placed in them by the committee.  In any case, they
had until the morrow to make up their minds.
Remember the words which Mr. Haasberg overheard on
the part of Pasquier: 'S'long, old man.  I'll wait till
to-morrow!'  Anyway, Pasquier must have gone off
that evening confident that he had Captain Saunders
entirely in his power, and that the wretched man
would on the morrow hand over the necklace without
demur.
</p>

<p>
"Whether Arthur Saunders confided in Haasberg or
not is doubtful.  Personally I think not.  I believe that
he and Mary did the whole thing between them.  Arthur
having parted from his brother-in-law went back
to the hotel, took the necklace out of the strong-room
and then left it in Mary's charge.  He threw the tin
box away, there where it would surely be found again.
Then he went as far as the Rue de Moncigny and
crouched, seemingly unconscious, in the blind alley,
having previously taken the precaution of saturating
his handkerchief with chloroform.
</p>

<p>
"Thus the two clever conspirators cut the ground
from under the blackmailer's feet, for the latter now
had the police after him for an assault, which he
might find very difficult to disprove, even if he cleared
himself of the charge of having stolen the necklace.
Anyway he would remain a discredited man, and his
threats would in the future be defied, because if he
dared come out in the open after that, public feeling
would be so bitter against him for a crime which he
had not committed that he would never be listened
to if he tried to do Captain Saunders an injury.  And
it was with a view of keeping public indignation at
boiling pitch against the supposed thief that the
Saunderses kept up the comedy for so long.  To my
mind that was a very clever move.  Then they came
out with the story of the restoration of the necklace
and became the heroes of the hour.
</p>

<p>
"Think it over," the funny creature went on, as he
finally stuffed his bit of string back into his pocket
and rose from the table, "think it over and you will
realise at once that everything happened just as I have
related, and that it is the only theory that fits in with
the facts that are known; you'll also agree with me, I
think, that Captain and Mrs. Saunders chose the one
way of ridding themselves effectually of a dangerous
blackmailer.  The police were after him for a long
time, as they still believed that he had something to do
with the theft of the necklace and with the assault on
M. le Capitaine Saunders.  But presently 1914 came
along and what became of the man with the walrus
moustache no one ever knew.  What his nationality
was was never stated at the time, but whatever it was,
it would, I imagine, be a bar against his obtaining a
visa on his passport for the purpose of visiting
England and blackmailing Arthur Saunders.
</p>

<p>
"But it was a curious case."
</p>

<p><br /><br /><br /></p>

<p><a id="chap04"></a></p>

<h3>
IV
<br /><br />
THE MYSTERY OF THE RUSSIAN PRINCE
</h3>

<p><br /></p>

<h4>
§1
</h4>

<p>
There had been a great deal of talk about that
time, in newspapers and amongst the public,
of the difficulty an inexperienced criminal finds
in disposing of the evidences of his crime&mdash;notably of
course of the body of his victim.  In no case perhaps
was this difficulty so completely overcome&mdash;at any rate
as far as was publicly known&mdash;as in that of the murder
of the individual known as Prince Orsoff.  I am thus
qualifying his title because as a matter of fact the
larger public never believed that he was a genuine
Prince&mdash;Russian or otherwise&mdash;and that even if he had
not come by such a violent and tragic death the Smithsons
would never have seen either their ten thousand
pounds again or poor Louisa's aristocratic bridegroom.
</p>

<p>
I had been thinking a great deal about this mysterious
affair, indeed it had been discussed at most of
the literary and journalistic clubs as a possible subject
for a romance or drama, and it was with deliberate
intent that I walked over to Fleet Street one afternoon,
in order to catch the Old Man in the Corner in his
accustomed teashop, and get him to give me his views
on the subject of the mystery that to this very day
surrounds the murder of the Russian Prince.
</p>

<p>
"Let me just put the whole case before you," the
funny creature began as soon as I had led him to talk
upon the subject, "as far as it was known to the
general public.  It all occurred in Folkestone, you
remember, where the wedding of Louisa Smithson, the
daughter of a late retired grocer, to a Russian Prince
whom she had met abroad, was the talk of the town.
</p>

<p>
"It was on a lovely day in May, and the wedding
ceremony was to take place at Holy Trinity Church.
The Smithsons&mdash;mother and daughter&mdash;especially since
they had come into a fortune, were very well known in
Folkestone, and there was a large crowd of relatives
and friends inside the church and another out in the
street to watch the arrival of guests and to see the
bride.  There were camera men and newspaper men,
and hundreds of idlers and visitors, and the police
had much ado to keep the crowd in order.
</p>

<p>
"Mrs. Smithson had already arrived looking
gorgeous in what I understand is known as amethyst
crêpe-de-chine, and there was a marvellous array of
Bond Street gowns and gorgeous headgears, all of
which kept the lookers-on fully occupied during the
traditional quarter of an hour's grace usually accorded
to the bride.
</p>

<p>
"But presently those fifteen minutes became twenty,
the clergy had long since arrived, the guests had all
assembled, the bridesmaids were waiting in the porch:
but there was no bridegroom.  Neither he nor his best
man had arrived; and now it was half an hour after
the time appointed for the ceremony, and, oh, horror! the
bride's car was in sight.  The bride in church
waiting for the bridegroom!&mdash;such an outrage had not been
witnessed in Folkestone within the memory of the
oldest inhabitants.
</p>

<p>
"One of the guests went at once to break the news
to the elderly relative who had arranged to give the
bride away, and who was with her in the car, whilst
another, a Mr. Sutherland Ford, jumped into the first
available taxi, having volunteered to go to the station
in order to ascertain whether there had been any
breakdown on the line, as the bridegroom was coming down
by train from London with his best man.
</p>

<p>
"The bride, hastily apprised of the extraordinary
contretemps, remained in the car, with the blinds pulled
down, well concealed from the prying eyes of the
crowd, whilst the fashionable guests, relatives and
friends had perforce to possess their soul in patience.
</p>

<p>
"And presently the news fell like a bombshell in the
midst of this lively throng.  A taxi drove up, and from
it alighted first Mr. Sutherland Ford, who had
volunteered to go to the station for information, and then
John and Henry Carter, the two latter beautifully got
up in frock-coats, striped trousers, top hats, and
flowers in their buttonholes, looking obviously like
belated wedding guests.  But still no bridegroom, and no
best man.
</p>

<p>
"The three gentlemen, paying no heed to the shower
of questions that assailed them, as soon as they had
jumped out of the taxi ran straight into the church,
leaving every one's curiosity unsatisfied and public
excitement at fever pitch.
</p>

<p>
"'It was John and Henry Carter,' the ladies whispered
agitatedly; 'fancy their being asked to the wedding!'
</p>

<p>
"And those who were in the know whispered to those
who were less favoured that young Henry had at one
time been engaged to Louisa Smithson, before she
met her Russian Prince, and that when she threw him
over he was in such dire despair that his friends thought
he would commit suicide.
</p>

<p>
"A moment or two later Mrs. Smithson was seen
hurriedly coming out of church, her face pale and
drawn, and her beautiful hat all awry.  She made
straight for the bride's car, stepped into it, and the car
immediately drove off, whilst the wedding guests
trooped out of the church, and the terrible news spread
like wildfire through the crowd, and was presently all
over the town.
</p>

<p>
"It seems that when the midday train, London to
Folkestone, stopped at Swanley Junction, two passengers
who were about to enter a first-class compartment
in one of the corridor carriages were horrified
to find it in a terrible state of disorder.  They hastily
called the guard, and on examination the carriage
looked indeed as if it had been the scene of a violent
struggle: the door on the off side was unlatched, two
of the window straps were wrenched off, the
anti-macassars were torn off the cushions, one of the
luggage racks was broken, and the net hung down in
strips, and over some of the cushions were marks
unmistakably made by a blood-stained hand.
</p>

<p>
"The guard immediately locked the compartment
and sent for the local police.  No one was allowed in
or out of the station until every passenger on the
train had satisfied the police as to his or her identity.
Thus the train was held up for over two hours whilst
preliminary investigations were going on.
</p>

<p>
"There appeared no doubt that a terrible murder
had been committed, and telephonic communication
all along the line presently established the fact that it
must have been done somewhere in the neighbourhood
of Sydenham Hill, because a group of men who were
at work on the 'up' side of the line at Penge, when
the down train came out of the tunnel noticed that
the door of one of the first-class carriages was open.
It swung to again just before the train steamed through
the station.
</p>

<p>
"A preliminary search was at once made in and about
the tunnel; it revealed on the platform of Sydenham
Hill station a first-class single ticket of that day's
issue, London to Folkestone, crushed and stained with
blood, and on the permanent way, close to the entrance
of the tunnel on the Penge side, a soft black hat, and a
broken pair of pince-nez.  But as to the identity of
the victim there was for the moment no clue.
</p>

<p>
"After a couple of wearisome and anxious hours
the passengers were allowed to proceed on their
journey.  Among these passengers, it appears, were John
and Henry Carter, who were on their way to the Smithson
wedding.  Until they arrived in Folkestone they
had no more idea than the police who the victim of
the mysterious train murder was: but in the station
they caught side of Mr. Sutherland Ford, whom they
knew slightly.  Mr. Ford was making agitated
enquiries as to any possible accident on the line.  The
Carters put him <i>au fait</i> of what had occurred, and
as there was no sign of the Russian Prince amongst
the passengers who had just arrived, all three men
came to the horrifying conclusion that it was indeed
the bridegroom elect who had been murdered.
</p>

<p>
"They communicated at once with the police, and
there were more investigations and telephonic
messages up and down the line before the Carters and
Mr. Ford were at last allowed to proceed to the church
and break the awful news to those most directly
concerned.
</p>

<p>
"And in this tragic fashion did Louisa Smithson's
wedding-day draw to its end; nor, as far as the public
was concerned, was the mystery of that terrible murder
ever satisfactorily cleared up.  The local police worked
very hard and very systematically, but, though
presently they also had the help of one of the ablest
detectives from Scotland Yard, nothing was seen or found
that gave the slightest clue either as to the means
which the murderer or murderers adopted for removing
the body of their victim, or in what manner they
made good their escape.  The body of the Russian
Prince was never found, and, as far as the public
knows, the murderer is still at large; and although, as
time went on, many strange facts came to light, they
only helped to plunge that extraordinary crime into
darker mystery."
</p>

<p><br /></p>

<h4>
§2
</h4>

<p>
"The facts in themselves were curious enough, you
will admit," the Old Man in the Corner went on after
a while.  "Many of these were never known to the
public, whilst others found their way into the columns
of the halfpenny Press, who battened on the 'Mystery
of the Russian Prince' for weeks on end, and, as far as
the unfortunate Smithsons were concerned, there was
not a reader of the <i>Express Post</i> and kindred
newspapers who did not know the whole of their family
history.
</p>

<p>
"It seems that Louisa Smithson is the daughter of
a grocer in Folkestone, who had retired from business
just before the War, and with his wife and his only
child led a meagre and obscure existence in a tiny house
in Warren Avenue somewhere near the tram road.
They were always supposed to be very poor, but
suddenly old Smithson died and it turned out that he had
been a miser, for he left the handsome little fortune of
fifteen thousand pounds to be equally divided between
his daughter and his widow.
</p>

<p>
"At once Mrs. Smithson and Louisa found themselves
the centre of an admiring throng of friends and
relatives all eager to help them spend their money for
their especial benefit; but Mrs. Smithson was shrewd
enough not to allow herself to be exploited by those
who in the past had never condescended to more than
a bowing acquaintance with her.  She turned her back
on most of those sycophants, but at the same time she
was determined to do the best for herself and for
Louisa, and to this end she admitted into her councils
her sister, Margaret Penny, who was saleswoman at
a fashionable shop in London, and who immediately
advised a journey up to town so that the question of
clothes might at once be satisfactorily settled.
</p>

<p>
"In addition to valuable advice on that score, this
Miss Penny seems to have succeeded in completely
turning her sister's head.  Certain it is that Mrs. Smithson
left Folkestone a quiet, sensible, motherly woman,
and that she returned, six weeks later, an arrogant,
ill-mannered parvenue, who seemed to think that the
possession of a few thousand pounds entitled her to ride
rough-shod over the feelings and sentiments of those
who had less money than herself.
</p>

<p>
"She began by taking a suite of rooms at the
Splendide Hotel for herself, her daughter, and her maid.
Then she sold her house in Warren Avenue, bought a
car, and, though she and Louisa were of course in deep
mourning, they were to be seen everywhere in wonderful
Bond Street dresses and marvellous feathered hats.
Finally, they announced their intention of spending
the coming winter on the Riviera, probably Monte
Carlo.
</p>

<p>
"All this extravagant behaviour made some people
smile, others shrugged their shoulders and predicted
disaster: but there was one who suffered acutely
through this change in the fortune of the Smithsons.
This was Henry Carter, a young clerk employed in an
insurance office in London.  He and his brother were
Folkestone men, sons of a local tailor in a very small
way of business, who had been one of old Smithson's
rare friends.  The elder Carter boy had long since cut
his stick and was said to be earning a living in
London by free-lance journalism.  The younger one,
Henry, remained to help his father with the tailoring.
He was a constant visitor in the little house in Warren
Avenue, and presently became engaged to Louisa.
There could be no question of an immediate marriage,
of course, as Henry had neither money nor prospects.
However, presently old Carter died, the tailoring
business was sold for a couple of hundred pounds, and
Henry went up to London to join his brother and to
seek his fortune.  Presently he obtained a post in an
insurance office, but his engagement to Louisa
subsisted: the young people were known to be deeply in
love with one another, and Henry spent most weekends
and all his holidays in Folkestone in order to be
near his girl.
</p>

<p>
"Then came the change in the fortune of the Smithsons,
and an immediate coolness in Louisa's manner
toward young Henry.  It was all very well in the past
to be engaged to the son of a jobbing tailor, while
one was poor oneself, and one had neither wit nor good
looks, but now...!
</p>

<p>
"In fact already when they were in London Mrs. Smithson
had intimated to Henry Carter that his visits
were none too welcome, and when he appealed to Louisa
she put him off with a few curt words.  The young
man was in despair, and, indeed, his brother actually
feared at one time that he would commit suicide.
</p>

<p>
"It was soon after Christmas of that same year that
the curtain was rung up on the first act of the
mysterious tragedy which was destined to throw a blight for
ever after upon the life of Louisa Smithson.  It began
with the departure of herself and her mother for the
Continent, where they intended to remain until the
end of March.  For the first few weeks their friends
had no news of them, but presently Miss Margaret
Penny, who had kept up a desultory correspondence
with a pal of hers in Folkestone, started to give
glowing accounts of the Smithsons' doings in Monte Carlo.
</p>

<p>
"They were staying at the Hotel de Paris, paying
two hundred francs a day for their rooms alone.  They
were lunching and dining out every day of the week.
They had been introduced to one or two of the august
personages who usually graced the Riviera with their
presence at this time of year, and they had met a
number of interesting people.  According to Miss Penny's
account, Louisa Smithson was being greatly admired,
and, in fact, several titled gentlemen of various
nationalities had professed themselves deeply enamoured of
her.
</p>

<p>
"All this Miss Penny recounted in her letters to her
friends with a wealth of detail and a marvellous
profusion of adjectives, and finally in one of her letters
there was mention of a certain Russian grandee&mdash;Prince
Orsoff by name&mdash;who was paying Louisa
marked attention.  He, also, was staying at the Paris,
appeared very wealthy, and was obviously of very high
rank for he never mixed with the crowd which was
more than usually brilliant this year in Monte Carlo.
This exclusiveness on his part was all the more flattering
to the Smithsons, and, when he apprised them of
his intention to spend the season in London, they had
asked him to come and visit them in Folkestone, where
Mrs. Smithson intended to take a house presently and
there to entertain lavishly during the summer.
</p>

<p>
"After this preliminary announcement from Miss
Penny, Louisa herself wrote a letter to Henry Carter.
It was quite a pleasant chatty letter, telling him of
their marvellous doings abroad and of her own social
successes.  It did not do more, however, than vaguely
hint at the Russian prince, his distinguished appearance
and obvious wealth.  Nevertheless it plunged the
unfortunate young man into the utmost depths of
despair, and according to his brother John's subsequent
account, the latter had a terrible time with young
Henry that winter.  John himself was very busy with
journalistic work which kept him away sometimes for
days and weeks on end from the little home in London
which the two brothers had set up for themselves with
the money derived from the sale of the tailoring
business.  And Henry's state of mind did at times
seriously alarm his brother, for he would either threaten
to do away with himself, or vow that he would be even
with that accursed foreigner.
</p>

<p>
"At the end of March, the Smithsons returned to
England.  During the interval Mrs. Smithson had made
all arrangements for taking The Towers, a magnificently
furnished house facing the Leas at Folkestone,
and here she and Louisa installed themselves preparatory
to launching their invitations for the various tea
and tennis parties, dinners and dances which they
proposed to give during the summer.
</p>

<p>
"One might really quite truthfully say that the eyes
of all Folkestone were fixed upon the two ladies.
Their Paris dresses, their hats, their jewellery, was the
chief subject of conversation at tea-tables, and of
course every one was talking about the Russian Prince,
who&mdash;Mrs. Smithson had confided this to a bosom
friend&mdash;was coming over to England for the express
purpose of proposing to Louisa.
</p>

<p>
"There was quite a flutter of excitement on a
memorable Friday afternoon when it was rumoured
that Henry Carter had come down for a week-end, and
had put up at a small hotel down by the harbour.  Of
course, he had come to see Louisa Smithson; every one
knew that, and no doubt he wished to make a final
appeal to her love for him which could not be entirely
dead yet.
</p>

<p>
"Within twenty-four hours, however, it was common
gossip that young Henry had presented himself at The
Towers and been refused admittance.  The ladies were
out, the butler said, and he did not know when they
would be home.  This was on the Saturday.  On
the Sunday Henry walked about on the Leas all the
morning, in the hope of seeing Louisa or her mother,
and as he failed to do so he called again in the early
part of the afternoon: he was told the ladies were
resting.  Later he came again, and the ladies had gone
out, and on the Monday, as presumably business called
him back to town, he left by the early-morning train
without having seen his former fiancée.  Indeed people
from that moment took it for granted that young
Henry had formally been given his congé.
</p>

<p>
"Toward the middle of April Prince Orsoff arrived
in London.  Within two days he telephoned to
Mrs. Smithson to ask her when he might come to pay his
respects.  A day was fixed, and he came to The Towers
to lunch.  He came again, and at his third visit he
formally proposed to Miss Louisa Smithson, and was
accepted.  The wedding was to take place almost
immediately, and the very next day the exciting announcement
had gone the round of the Smithsons' large circle
of friends&mdash;not only in Folkestone but also in London.
</p>

<p>
"The effect of the news appears to have been staggering
as far as the unfortunate Henry Carter was concerned.
In the picturesque language of Mrs. Hicks,
the middle-aged charlady who 'did' for the two brothers
in their little home in Chelsea, ''e carried on
something awful.'  She even went so far as to say that she
feared he might 'put 'is 'ead in the gas oven,' and that,
as Mr. John was away at the time, she took the
precaution every day when she left to turn the gas off at
the meter.
</p>

<p>
"The following week-end Henry came down to
Folkestone and again took up his quarters in the small
hotel by the harbour.  On the Saturday afternoon he
called at The Towers, and refused to take 'no' for an
answer when he asked to see Miss Smithson.  Indeed,
he seems literally to have pushed his way into the
drawing-room where the ladies were having tea.
According to statements made subsequently by the butler,
there ensued a terrible scene between Henry and his
former fiancée, at the very height of which, as luck
would have it, who should walk in but Prince Orsoff.
</p>

<p>
"That elegant gentleman, however, seems to have
behaved on that trying occasion with perfect dignity and
tact, making it his chief business to reassure the ladies,
and paying no heed to Henry's recriminations, which
presently degenerated into vulgar abuse and ended in
violent threats.  At last, with the aid of the majestic
butler, the young man was thrust out of the house, but
even on the doorstep he turned and raised a menacing
fist in the direction of Prince Orsoff and said loudly
enough for more than one person to hear:
</p>

<p>
"'Wait!  I'll be even with that &mdash;&mdash; foreigner yet!'
</p>

<p>
"It must indeed have been a terrifying scene for
two sensitive and refined ladies like Mrs. and Miss
Smithson to witness.  Later on, after the Prince
himself had taken his leave, the butler was rung for by
Mrs. Smithson who told him that under no circumstances
was Mr. Henry Carter ever to be admitted
inside The Towers.
</p>

<p>
"However, a Sunday or two afterwards, Mr. John
Carter called and Mrs. Smithson saw him.  He said
that he had come down expressly from London in
order to apologise for his brother's conduct.  Harry, he
said, was deeply contrite that he should thus have lost
control over himself, his broken heart was his only
excuse.  After all, he had been and still was deeply
in love with Louisa, and no man, worth his salt, could
see the girl he loved turning her back on him without
losing some of that equanimity which should of course
be the characteristic of every gentleman.
</p>

<p>
"In fact, Mr. John Carter spoke so well and so
persuasively that Mrs. Smithson and Louisa, who were at
bottom quite a worthy pair of women, agreed to let
bygones be bygones, and said that, if Henry would
only behave himself in the future, there was no reason
why he should not remain their friend.
</p>

<p>
"This appeared a quite satisfactory state of things,
and over in the little house in Chelsea Mrs. Hicks
gladly noted that 'Mr. 'Enry seemed more like 'isself,
afterwards.'  The very next week-end the two brothers
went down to Folkestone together, and they called at
The Towers so that Henry might offer his apologies in
person.  The two gentlemen on that occasion were
actually asked to stay to tea.
</p>

<p>
"Indeed, it seems as if Henry had entirely turned
over a new leaf, and when presently the gracious
invitation came for both brothers to come to the wedding,
they equally graciously accepted.
</p>

<p><br /></p>

<h4>
§3
</h4>

<p>
"The day fixed for the happy event was now
approaching.  The large circle of acquaintances, friends,
and hangers-on which the Smithsons had gathered
around them were all agog with excitement, wedding
presents were pouring in by every post.  A kind of
network of romance had been woven around the
personalities of the future bride, her mother, and the
Russian Prince.  The wealth of the Smithsons had been
magnified an hundredfold, and Prince Orsoff was
reputed to be a brother of the late Czar who had made
good his escape out of Russia, bringing away with him
most of the Crown jewels, which he would presently
bestow upon his wife.  And so on, <i>ad infinitum</i>.
</p>

<p>
"And upon the top of all that excitement and that
gossip, and marvellous tales akin to the Arabian
Nights, came the wedding-day with its awful
culminating tragedy.
</p>

<p>
"The Russian Prince had been murdered and his
body so cleverly disposed of that in spite of the most
strenuous efforts on the part of the police, not a trace
of it could be found.
</p>

<p>
"That robbery had been the main motive of the
crime was quickly enough established.  The
Smithsons&mdash;mother and daughter&mdash;had at once supplied the
detective in charge of the case with proofs as to that.
</p>

<p>
"It seems that as soon as the unfortunate Prince
had become engaged to Louisa, he asked that the
marriage should take place without delay.  He
explained that his dearest friend, Mr. Schumann, the
great international financier, had offered him shares
in one of the greatest post-war undertakings which
had ever been floated in Europe, and which would
bring in to the fortunate shareholders a net income of
not less than ten thousand pounds yearly for every
ten thousand pounds invested; Mr. Schumann himself
owned one-half of all the shares, and had, by a most
wonderful act of disinterested generosity, allowed his
bosom friend, Prince Orsoff, to have a few&mdash;a concession,
by the way, which he had only granted to two
other favoured personages, one being the Prince of
Wales and the other the President of the French
Republic.  Of course to receive ten thousand pounds
yearly for every ten thousand pounds invested, was too
wonderful for words; the President of the French
Republic had been so delighted with this chance of
securing a fortune that he had put two million francs into
the concern, and the Prince of Wales had put in five
hundred thousand pounds.
</p>

<p>
"And it was so wonderfully secure, as otherwise the
British Government would not have allowed the Prince
of Wales to invest such a sum of money if the
business was only speculative.  Security and fortune
beyond the dreams of thrift!  It was positively dazzling.
</p>

<p>
"No wonder that this vision of untold riches made
poor Mrs. Smithson's mouth water, the more so as she
was quite shrewd enough to realise that, at the rate
she was going, her share in the fifteen thousand pounds
left by the late worthy grocer would soon fade into
nothingness.  In the past few months she and Louisa
had spent considerably over four thousand pounds
between them, and once her daughter was married to a
quasi-royal personage, good old Mrs. Smithson did not
see herself retiring into comparative obscurity on a few
hundreds a year to be jeered at by all her friends.
</p>

<p>
"So she and Louisa talked the matter over together,
and then they talked it over with Prince Orsoff on the
occasion of his visit about ten days before the
wedding.  The Prince at first was very doubtful if the
great Mr. Schumann would be willing to make a
further sacrifice in the cause of friendship.  He was an
international financier accustomed to deal in millions;
he would not look favourably&mdash;the Prince feared&mdash;at a
few thousands.  Mrs. Smithson's entire fortune now
only consisted of about five thousand pounds; this she
was unwilling to admit to the wealthy and aristocratic
future son-in-law.  So the two ladies decided to pool
their capital and then they begged that Prince Orsoff
should ask the great Mr. Schumann whether he would
condescend to receive ten thousand pounds for investment
in Mrs. Smithson's name in his great undertaking.
</p>

<p>
"Fortunately the great financier did condescend to
do this&mdash;he really was more a philanthropist than a
business man&mdash;but, of course, he could not be kept
waiting, the money must reach him in Paris not later
than May twentieth, which was the very day fixed
for the wedding.
</p>

<p>
"It was all terribly difficult; and Mrs. Smithson was
at first in despair as she feared she could not arrange
to sell out her securities in time, and the difficulties were
increased an hundredfold because, as Prince Orsoff
explained to her, Mr. Schumann would even at the eleventh
hour refuse to allow her to participate in the huge
fortune if he found that she had talked about the affair
over in England.  The business had to be kept a
profound secret for international reasons, in fact, if any
detail relating to the business and to Mr. Schumann's
participation in it were to become known, the whole of
Europe would once more be plunged into war.
</p>

<p>
"To make a long story short, Mrs. Smithson and
Louisa sold out all their securities, amounting between
them to ten thousand pounds.  Then they went up to
London, drew the money out of their bank, changed it
themselves into French money&mdash;so as to make it more
convenient for Mr. Schumann&mdash;and handed the entire
sum over to Prince Orsoff on the eve of the wedding.
</p>

<p>
"Of course such fatuous imbecility would be unbelievable
if it did not occur so frequently: vain, silly
women, who have never moved outside their own restricted
circle, are always the ready prey of plausible
rascals.
</p>

<p>
"Anyway, in this case the Smithsons returned to
Folkestone that day, perfectly happy and with never
a thought of anything but contentment for the present
and prosperity in the future.  The wedding was to be
the next day; the bridegroom-elect was coming down
by the midday train with his best man, whom he
vaguely described as secretary to the Russian
Embassy, and the bridal pair would start for Paris by the
afternoon boat.
</p>

<p>
"All this the Smithsons related to the police
inspector in charge of the case and subsequently to the
Scotland Yard detective, with a wealth of detail and
a profusion of lamentations not unmixed with
expletives directed against the unknown assassin and thief.
For indeed there was no doubt in the minds of Louisa
and her mother that the unfortunate Prince, on whom
the girl still lavished the wealth of her trustful love,
had been murdered for the sake of the money which
he had upon his person.
</p>

<p>
"It must have amounted to millions of francs,
Mrs. Smithson declared, for he had the Prince of Wales's
money upon him also, and probably that of the
President of the French Republic, and at first she and
Louisa fastened their suspicions upon the anonymous
best man, the so-called secretary of the Russian
Embassy.  Even when they were presently made to realise
that there was no such thing as a Russian Embassy
in London these days, and that minute enquiries both
at home and abroad regarding the identity of a Prince
Orsoff led to no result whatever, they repudiated with
scorn the suggestion put forth by the police that their
beloved Russian Prince was nothing more or less than
a clever crook who had led them by the nose, and that
in all probability he had not been murdered in the train
but had succeeded in jumping out of it and making
good his escape across country.
</p>

<p>
"This the Smithson ladies would not admit for a
moment, and with commendable logic they argued that
if Prince Orsoff had been a crook and had intended to
make away with their money he could have done that
easily enough without getting into a train at Victoria
and jumping out of it at Sydenham Hill.
</p>

<p>
"Pressed with questions, however, the ladies were
forced to admit that they knew absolutely nothing
about Prince Orsoff, they had never been introduced
to any of his relations, nor had they met any of his
friends.  They did not even know where he had been
staying in London.  He was in the habit of telephoning
to Louisa every morning, and any arrangements for
his visits down to The Towers or the ladies' trips up to
town were made in that manner.  As a matter of fact
Louisa and her future husband had not met more than
a dozen times altogether, on some five or six occasions
in Monte Carlo, and not more than six in England.  It
had been a case of love at first sight.
</p>

<p>
"The question of Mr. Schumann's vast undertaking
was first discussed at The Towers.  After that the ladies
wrote to their bank to sell out their securities, and
subsequently went up to town for a couple of days to
draw out their money, change it into French currency,
and finally hand it over to Prince Orsoff.  On that
occasion he had met them at Victoria Station and taken
them to a quiet hotel in Kensington, where he had
engaged a suite of rooms for them.  All financial
matters were then settled in their private sitting-room.
</p>

<p>
"In answer to enquiries at that hotel, one or two of
the employees distinctly remembered the foreign-looking
gentleman who had called on Mrs. and Miss Smithson,
lunched with them in their sitting-room that day,
and saw them into their cab when they went away the
following afternoon.  One or two of the station porters
at Victoria also vaguely remembered a man who
answered to the description given of Prince Orsoff by the
Smithson ladies: tall, with a slight stoop, wearing
pince-nez, and with a profusion of dark, curly hair, bushy
eyebrows, long, dark moustache, and old-fashioned
imperial, which made him distinctly noticeable, he
could not very well have passed unperceived.
</p>

<p>
"Unfortunately, on the actual day of the murder, not
one man employed at Victoria Station could swear
positively to having seen him, either alone or in the
company of another foreigner; and the latter has remained
a problematical personage to this day.
</p>

<p>
"But the Smithson ladies remained firm in their
loyalty to their Russian Prince.  Had they dared they
would openly have accused Henry Carter of the murder;
as it was they threw out weird hints and
insinuations about Henry who had more than once sworn
that he would be even with his hated rival, and who
had actually travelled down in the same train as the
Prince on that fateful wedding morning, together with
his brother John, who no doubt helped him in his
nefarious deed.  I believe that the unfortunate ladies
actually spent some of the money which now they could
ill spare in employing a private detective to collect
proofs of Henry Carter's guilt.
</p>

<p>
"But not a tittle of evidence could be brought against
him.  To begin with, the train in which the murder
was supposed to have been committed was a non-stop
to Swanley.  Then how could the Carters have disposed
of the body?  The Smithsons suggested a third
miscreant as a possible confederate; but the same
objection against that theory subsisted in the shape of the
disposal of the body.  The murder&mdash;if murder there
was&mdash;occurred in broad daylight in a part of the country
that certainly was not lonely.  It was not possible
to suppose that a man would stand waiting on the
line close to Sydenham Hill station until a body was
flung out to him from the passing train, and then drag
that body about until he found a suitable place in
which to bury it: and all that without being seen by
the workmen on the line or employees on the railway,
or in fact any passer-by.  Therefore the hypothesis
that Henry Carter or his brother murdered the Russian
Prince with or without the help of a confederate was
as untenable as that the Prince had travelled from
Victoria to Sydenham Hill and there jumped out of the
train, at risk of being discovered in the act, rather than
disappear quietly in London, shave off his luxuriant
hair, or assume any other convenient disguise, until he
found an opportunity for slipping back to the Continent.
</p>

<p>
"But the Smithsons remained firm in their belief in
the genuineness of their Prince and in their conviction
that he had been murdered&mdash;if not by the Carters,
then by the mysterious secretary to the Russian
Embassy or any other Russian or German emissary, for
political reasons.
</p>

<p>
"And thus the public was confronted with the two
hypotheses, both of which led to a deadlock.  No
sensible person doubted that the so-called Russian
Prince was a crook, and that he had a confederate to
help him in his clever plot, but the mystery remained
as to how the rascal or rascals disappeared so
completely as to checkmate every investigation.  The
travelling by train that morning and setting the scene
for a supposed murder was, of course, part of the plan,
but it was the plan that was so baffling, because to an
ordinary mind that disappearance could have been
effected so much more easily and with far less risk
without the train journey.
</p>

<p>
"Of course there was not a single passenger on that
train who was not the subject of the closest watchfulness
on the part of the police, but there was not one&mdash;not
excluding the Carters&mdash;who could by any possible
chance have known that the Prince carried a large
sum of money upon his person.  He was not likely
to have confided the fact to a stranger, and the
mystery of the vanished body was always there to refute
the theory of an ordinary murderous attack for
motives of robbery."
</p>

<p><br /></p>

<h4>
§4
</h4>

<p>
The Old Man in the Corner ceased talking, and
became once more absorbed in his favourite task of
making knots in a bit of string.
</p>

<p>
"I see in the papers," I now put in thoughtfully,
"that Miss Louisa Smithson has overcome her grief for
the loss of her aristocratic lover by returning to the
plebeian one."
</p>

<p>
"Yes," the funny creature replied dryly, "she is
marrying Henry Carter.  Funny, isn't it?  But women
are queer fish!  One moment she looked on the man
as a murderer, now, by marrying him, she actually
proclaims her belief in his innocence."
</p>

<p>
"It certainly was abundantly proved," I rejoined,
"that Henry Carter could not possibly have murdered
Prince Orsoff."
</p>

<p>
"It was also abundantly proved," he retorted, "that
no one else murdered the so-called Prince."
</p>

<p>
"You think, of course, that he was an ordinary
impostor?" I asked.
</p>

<p>
"An impostor, yes," he replied, "but not an ordinary
one.  In fact I take off my hat to as clever a pair of
scamps as I have ever come across."
</p>

<p>
"A pair?"
</p>

<p>
"Why, yes!  It could not have been done alone!"
</p>

<p>
"But the police..."
</p>

<p>
"The police," the spook-like creature broke in with
a sharp cackle, "know more in this case than you give
them credit for.  They know well enough the solution
of the puzzle which appears so baffling to the public,
but they have not sufficient proof to effect an arrest.
At one time they hoped that the scoundrels would
presently make a false move and give themselves away,
in which case they could be prosecuted for defrauding
the Smithsons of ten thousand pounds, but this
eventuality has become complicated through the
master-stroke of genius which made Henry Carter marry
Louisa Smithson."
</p>

<p>
"Henry Carter?" I exclaimed.  "Then you do think
the Carters had something to do with the case?"
</p>

<p>
"They had everything to do with the case.  In fact,
they planned the whole thing in a masterly manner."
</p>

<p>
"But the Russian Prince at Monte Carlo?" I argued.
"Who was he?  If he was a confederate, where has he
disappeared to?"
</p>

<p>
"He is still engaged in free-lance journalism," the
Old Man in the Corner replied drily, "and in his
spare moments changes parcels of French currency
back into English notes."
</p>

<p>
"You mean the brother!" I ejaculated with a gasp.
</p>

<p>
"Of course I mean the brother," he retorted dryly,
"who else could have been so efficient a collaborator in
the plot?  John Carter was comparatively his own
master.  He lived with Henry in the small house in
Chelsea, waited on by a charwoman who came by the
day.  It was generally given out that his reporting
work took him frequently and for lengthened stays out
of London.  The brothers, remember, had inherited a
few hundreds from their father, while the Smithsons
had inherited a few thousands.  We must suppose that
the idea of relieving the ladies of those thousands
occurred to them as soon as they realised that Louisa,
egged on by her mother, would cold-shoulder her fiancé.
</p>

<p>
"John Carter, mind you, must be a very clever man,
else he could not have carried out all the details of the
plot with so much sang-froid.  We have been told, if
you remember, that he had early in life cut his stick
and gone to seek fortune in London, therefore the
Smithsons, who had never been out of Folkestone, did
not know him intimately.  His make-up as the Prince
must have been very good, and his histrionic powers
not to be despised: his profession and life in London
no doubt helped him in these matters.  Then, remember
also that he took very good care not to be a great
deal in the Smithsons' company&mdash;even in Monte Carlo
he only let them see him less than half a dozen times,
and as soon as he came to England he hurried on the
wedding as much as he could.
</p>

<p>
"Another fine stroke was Henry's apparent despair
at being cut out of Louisa's affections, and his threats
against his successful rival: it helped to draw suspicion
on himself&mdash;suspicion which the scoundrels took good
care could easily be disproved.  Then take a pair of
vain, credulous, unintelligent women and a smart rascal
who knows how to flatter them, and you will see how
easily the whole plot could be worked.  Finally, when
John Carter had obtained possession of the money, he
and Henry arranged the supposed tragedy in the train
and the Russian Prince's disappearance from the world
as suddenly as he had entered it."
</p>

<p>
I thought the matter over for a moment or two.  The
solution of the mystery certainly appealed to my
dramatic sense.
</p>

<p>
"But," I said at last, "one wonders why the Carters
took the trouble to arrange a scene of a supposed
murder in the train: they might quite well have been
caught in the act, and in any case it was an additional
unnecessary risk.  John Carter might quite well have
been content to shed his role of Russian Prince, without
such an elaborate setting."
</p>

<p>
"Well," he admitted, "in some ways you are right
there, but it is always difficult to gauge accurately the
mentality of a clever scoundrel.  In this case I don't
suppose that the Carters had quite made up their minds
about what they would do when they left London, but
that the plan was in their heads is proved by the hat,
pince-nez, and railway ticket which they took with
them when they started, and which, if you remember,
were found on the line: but it was probably only
because the train was comparatively empty, and they
had both time and opportunity in the non-stop train,
that they decided to carry their clever comedy through.
</p>

<p>
"Then think what an immense advantage in their
future plans would be the Smithsons' belief in the
death of their Prince.  Probably Louisa would never
have dreamed of marrying if she thought her aristocratic
lover was an impostor and still alive: she would
never have let the matter rest; her mind would for ever
have been busy with trying to trace him, and bring
him back, repentant, to her feet.  You know what
women are when they are in love with that type of
scoundrel, they cling to them with the tenacity of a
leech.  But once she believed the man to be dead,
Louisa Smithson gradually got over her grief and
Henry Carter wooed and won her on the rebound.  She
was poor now, and her friends had quickly enough
deserted her: she was touched by the fidelity of her
simple lover, and he thus consolidated his position and
made the future secure.
</p>

<p>
"Anyway," the Old Man in the Corner concluded, "I
believe that it was with a view to making a future
marriage possible between Louisa and Henry that the two
brothers organised the supposed murder.  Probably if
the train had been full and they had seen danger in the
undertaking they would not have done it.  But the
<i>mise en scène</i> was easily enough set and it certainly
was an additional safeguard.  Now in another week
or so Louisa Smithson will be Henry Carter's wife,
and presently you will find that John in London, and
Henry and his wife, will be quite comfortably off.  And
after that, whatever suspicions Mrs. Smithson may
have of the truth, her lips would have to remain sealed.
She could not very well prosecute her only child's
husband.
</p>

<p>
"And so the matter will always remain a mystery to
the public: but the police know more than they are
able to admit because they have no proof.
</p>

<p>
"And now they never will have.  But as to the
murder in the train, well!&mdash;the murdered man never
existed."
</p>

<p><br /><br /><br /></p>

<p><a id="chap05"></a></p>

<h3>
V
<br /><br />
THE MYSTERIOUS TRAGEDY IN BISHOP'S ROAD
</h3>

<p><br /></p>

<h4>
§1
</h4>

<p>
The Old Man in the Corner was in a philosophising
mood that afternoon, and all the
while that his thin, claw-like fingers fidgeted
with the inevitable piece of string, he gave vent to
various, disjointed, always sententious remarks.
</p>

<p>
Suddenly he said:
</p>

<p>
"We know, of course, that the world has gone
dancing mad!  But I doubt if the fashionable craze has
ever been responsible before for so dark a tragedy as
the death of old Sarah Levison.  What do you
think?"
</p>

<p>
"Well," I replied guardedly, for I knew that,
whatever I might say, I should draw an avalanche of
ironical remarks upon my innocent head, "I never have
known what to think, and all the accounts of that
brutal murder as they appeared in the cheaper Press
only made the obscurity all the more obscure."
</p>

<p>
"That was a wise and well-thought-out reply," the
aggravating creature retorted with a dry chuckle, "and
a non-committal one at that.  Obscurity is indeed
obscure for those who won't take the trouble to think."
</p>

<p>
"I suppose it is all quite clear to you?" I said, with
what I meant to be withering sarcasm.
</p>

<p>
"As clear as the proverbial daylight," he replied
undaunted.
</p>

<p>
"You know how old Mrs. Levison came by her
death?"
</p>

<p>
"Of course I do.  I will tell you, if you like."
</p>

<p>
"By all means.  But I am not prepared to be
convinced," I added cautiously.
</p>

<p>
"No," he admitted, "but you soon will be.  However,
before we reach that happy conclusion, I shall have to
marshal the facts before you, because a good many of
these must have escaped your attention.  Shall I
proceed?"
</p>

<p>
"If you please."
</p>

<p>
"Well, then, do you remember all the personages
in the drama?" he began.
</p>

<p>
"I think so."
</p>

<p>
"There were, of course, young Aaron Levison and
his wife, Rebecca&mdash;the latter young, pretty, fond of
pleasure, and above all of dancing, and he, a few
years older, but still in the prime of life, more of an
athlete than a business man, and yet tied to the shop
in which he carried on the trade of pawnbroking for
his mother.  The latter, an old Jewess, shrewd and
dictatorial, was the owner of the business: her son
was not even her partner, only a well-paid clerk in
her employ, and this fact we must suppose rankled
in the mind of her smart daughter-in-law.  At any
rate, we know that there was no love lost between
the two ladies; but the young couple and old
Mrs. Levison and another unmarried son lived together in
the substantial house over the shop in Bishop's
Road.
</p>

<p>
"They had three servants and we are told that they
lived well, old Mrs. Levison bearing the bulk of the
cost of housekeeping.  The younger son, Reuben, seems
to have been something of a bad egg; he held at one
time a clerkship in a bank, but was dismissed for
insobriety and laziness; then after the war he was
supposed to have bad health consequent on exposure in
the trenches, and had not done a day's work since
he was demobilised.  But in spite, or perhaps because,
of this, he was very markedly his mother's favourite;
where the old woman would stint her hard-working,
steady elder son, she would prove generous, even lavish,
toward the loafer, Reuben; and young Mrs. Levison
and he were thick as thieves.
</p>

<p>
"What money Reuben extracted out of his mother
he would spend on amusements, and his sister-in-law
was always ready to accompany him.  It was either
the cinema or dancing&mdash;oh, dancing above all!
Rebecca Levison was, it seems, a beautiful dancer, and
night after night she and Reuben would go to one
or other of the halls or hotels where dancing was
going on, and often they would not return until the
small hours of the morning.
</p>

<p>
"Aaron Levison was indulgent and easy-going
enough where his young wife was concerned: he
thought that she could come to no harm while
Reuben was there to look after her.  But old Mrs. Levison,
with the mistrust of her race for everything
that is frivolous and thriftless, thought otherwise.
She was convinced in her own mind that her beloved
Reuben was being led astray from the path of virtue
by his brother's wife, and she appears to have taken
every opportunity to impress her thoughts and her
fears upon the indulgent husband.
</p>

<p>
"It seems that one of the chief bones of contention
between the old and the young Mrs. Levison
was the question of jewellery.  Old Mrs. Levison
kept charge herself of all the articles of value that
were pawned in the shop, and every evening after
business hours Aaron would bring up all bits of
jewellery that had been brought in during the day,
and his mother would lock them up in a safe that
stood in her room close by her bedside.  The key of
the safe she always carried about with her.  For the
most part these bits of jewellery consisted of cheap
rings and brooches, but now and again some impoverished
lady or gentleman would bring more valuable
articles along for the purpose of raising a temporary
loan upon them, and at the time of the tragedy there
were some fine diamond ornaments reposing in the
safe in old Mrs. Levison's room.
</p>

<p>
"Now young Mrs. Levison had more than once
suggested that she might wear some of this fine
jewellery when she went out to balls and parties.  She
saw no harm in it, and neither, for a matter of that,
did Reuben.  Why shouldn't Rebecca wear a few
ornaments now and again if she wanted to?&mdash;they
would always be punctually returned, of course, and
they could not possibly come to any harm.  But the
very suggestion of such a thing was anathema to the
old lady, and in her flat refusal ever to gratify such
a senseless whim she had the whole-hearted support
of her eldest son: such a swerving from traditional
business integrity was not to be thought of in the
Levison household.
</p>

<p>
"On that memorable Saturday evening young Mrs. Levison
was going with her brother-in-law to one of
the big charity balls at the Kensington Town Hall,
and her great desire was to wear for the occasion a
set of diamond stars which had lately been pledged
in the shop, and which were locked up in the old
lady's safe.  Of course, Mrs. Levison refused, and it
seems that the two ladies very nearly came to blows
about this, the quarrel being all the more violent as
Reuben hotly sided with his sister-in-law against his
mother."
</p>

<p><br /></p>

<h4>
§2
</h4>

<p>
"That then was the position in the Levison household
on the day of the mysterious tragedy," the Old
Man in the Corner went on presently; "an armed
truce between the two ladies&mdash;the lovely Rebecca
sore and defiant, pining to gratify a whim which was
being denied her, and old Mrs. Levison more bitter
than usual against her, owing to Reuben's partisanship.
Egged on by Rebecca, he was furious with his
mother and vowed that he was sick of the family and
meant to cut his stick in order to be free to lead his
own life, and so on.  It was all tall-talk, of course,
as he was entirely dependent on his mother, but it
went to show the ugliness of his temper and the
domination which his brother's wife exercised over him.
Aaron, on the other hand, took no part in the quarrel,
but the servants remarked that he was unwontedly
morose all day, and that his wife was very curt and
disagreeable with him.
</p>

<p>
"Nothing, however, of any importance occurred
during the day until dinner-time, which as usual was
served in the parlour at the back of the shop at seven
o'clock.  It seems that as soon as the family sat down
to their meal, there was another violent quarrel on
some subject or other between the two ladies, Rebecca
being hotly backed up by Reuben, and Aaron taking
no part in the discussion; in the midst of the quarrel,
and following certain highly offensive words spoken by
Reuben, old Mrs. Levison got up abruptly from the
table and went upstairs to her own room which was
immediately overhead at the back of the house, next
to the drawing-room, nor did she come downstairs
again that evening.
</p>

<p>
"At half-past nine the three servants went up to
bed according to the rule of the house.  Old
Mrs. Levison, who was a real autocrat in the management
of the household, expected the girls to be down at
six every morning, but they were free to go to bed
as soon as their work was done, and half-past nine
was their usual time.
</p>

<p>
"Two of the girls slept at the top of the house, and
the housemaid, Ida Griggs by name, who also acted
as a sort of maid to old Mrs. Levison, occupied a
small slip room on the half-landing immediately above
the old lady's bedroom.  On the floor above this
there was a large bedroom at the back, and a bathroom
and dressing-room in front, all occupied by
Mr. and Mrs. Aaron, and over that the two maids' room,
and one for Mr. Reuben, and a small spare room in
which Mr. Aaron would sleep now and again when
his wife was likely to be out late and he did not want
to get his night's rest broken by her home-coming,
or if he himself was going to be late home on a holiday
night after one of those country excursions on his
bicycle of which he was immensely fond and in which
he indulged himself from time to time.
</p>

<p>
"On this fateful Saturday evening Aaron was kept
late in the shop, but he finally went up to bed soon
after ten, after he had seen to all the doors below
being bolted and barred, with the exception of the
front door which had to be left on the latch, Mrs. Aaron
having the latchkey.  Thus the house was shut
up and every one in bed by half-past ten.
</p>

<p>
"In the meanwhile the lovely Rebecca and Reuben
had dressed and gone to the ball.
</p>

<p>
"The next morning at a little before six, Ida Griggs,
the housemaid, having got up and dressed, prepared
to go downstairs: but when she went to open her
bedroom door she found it locked&mdash;locked on the
outside.  At first she thought that the other girls were
playing her a silly trick, and, presently hearing the
patter of their feet on the stairs, she pounded against
the door with her fists.  It took the others some
time to understand what was amiss, but at last they
did try the lock on the outside, and found that the
key had been turned and that Ida was indeed
locked in.
</p>

<p>
"They let her out, and then consulted what had
best be done, but for the moment it did not seem to
strike any of the girls that this locking of a door from
the outside had a sinister significance.  Anyway, they
all went down into the kitchen and Ida prepared old
Mrs. Levison's early cup of tea.  This she had to take
up every morning at half-past six; on this occasion
she went up as usual, knocked at her mistress's door,
and waited to be let in, as the old lady always slept
behind locked doors.  But no sound came from within,
though Ida knocked repeatedly and loudly called her
mistress by name.
</p>

<p>
"Soon she started screaming, and her screams
brought the household together: the two girls came
up from the kitchen, Mr. Aaron came down from the
top floor brandishing a poker, and presently
Mrs. Aaron opened her door and peeped out clad in a
filmy and exquisite nightgown, her eyes still heavy
with sleep, and her beautiful hair streaming down her
back.  But of old Mrs. Levison there was no sign.
</p>

<p>
"Mr. Aaron, genuinely alarmed, glued his ear to
the keyhole, but not a sound could he hear.  Behind
that locked door absolute silence reigned.  Fearing
the worst, he set himself the task of breaking open
the door, which after some effort and the use of a
jemmy, he succeeded in doing: and here the sight that
met his eyes filled his soul with horror, for he saw
his mother lying on the floor of her bedroom in a
pool of blood.
</p>

<p>
"Evidently an awful crime had been committed.
The unfortunate woman was fully dressed, as she had
been on the evening before; the door of the safe was
open with the key still in the lock, but no other piece
of furniture appeared to be disturbed; the one
window of the room was wide open, and the one door
had been locked on the inside; the other door, the
one which gave on the front drawing-room, being
permanently blocked by a heavy wardrobe; and below
the open window the bunch of creepers against the
wall was all broken and torn, showing plainly the way
that the miscreant had escaped.
</p>

<p>
"After a few moments of awe-stricken silence Aaron
Levison regained control of himself and at once
telephoned&mdash;first for the police and then for the doctor,
but he would not allow anything in the room to be
touched, not even his mother's dead body.
</p>

<p>
"For this precaution he was highly commended by
the police inspector who presently appeared upon
the scene, accompanied by a constable and the
divisional surgeon; the latter proceeded to examine the
body.  He stated that the unfortunate woman had
been attacked from behind, the marks of fingers being
clearly visible round her throat: in her struggle for
freedom she must have fallen backwards and in so
doing struck her head against the corner of the
marble washstand, which caused her death.
</p>

<p>
"In the meanwhile the inspector had been examining
the premises: he found that the back door which gave
on the yard and the one that gave on the front area
were barred and locked just as Mr. Aaron had left
them before he went up to bed the previous night;
on the other hand the front door was still on the
latch, young Mrs. Levison having apparently failed
to bolt it when she came home from the ball.
</p>

<p>
"In the backyard the creeper against the wall below
the window of Mrs. Levison's room was certainly
torn, and the miscreant undoubtedly made his escape
that way, but he could not have got up to the window
save with the aid of a ladder, the creeper was too
slender to have supported any man's weight, and the brick
wall of the house offered no kind of foothold even to
a cat.  The yard itself was surrounded on every side
by the backyards of contiguous houses, and against
the dividing walls there were clumps of Virginia
creeper and anæmic shrubs such as are usually found
in London backyards.
</p>

<p>
"Now neither on those walls nor on the creepers
and shrubs was there the slightest trace of a ladder
being dragged across, or even of a man having climbed
the walls or slung a rope over: there was not a twig
of shrub broken or a leaf of creeper disturbed.
</p>

<p>
"With regard to the safe, it must either have been
open at the time that the murderer attacked Mrs. Levison,
or he had found the key and opened the safe
after he had committed that awful crime.  Certainly
the contents did not appear to have been greatly
disturbed, no jewellery or other pledged goods of value
were missing: Mr. Aaron could verify this by his
books, but whether his mother had any money in the
safe he was not in a position to say.
</p>

<p>
"There was no doubt at first glance the crime did
not seem to have been an ordinary one; whether
robbery had been its motive, or its corollary, only
subsequent investigation would reveal: for the moment the
inspector contented himself with putting a few leading
questions to the various members of the household, and
subsequently questioning the neighbours.  The public,
of course, was not to know what the result of these
preliminary investigations was, but the midday papers
were in a position to assert that no one, with perhaps
the exception of Ida Griggs, had seen or heard
anything alarming during the night, and that the most
minute enquiries in the neighbourhood failed to bring
forth the slightest indication of how the murderer
effected an entrance into the house.
</p>

<p>
"The papers were also able to state that young
Mrs. Levison returned from the ball in the small hours
of the morning, but that Mr. Reuben Levison did not
sleep in the house at all that night.
</p>

<p><br /></p>

<h4>
§3
</h4>

<p>
"Fortunately for me," my eccentric friend went on
glibly, "I was up betimes that morning when the
papers came out with an early account of the mysterious
crime in Bishop's Road.  I say fortunately, because,
as you know, mysteries of that sort interest me beyond
everything, and for me there is no theatre in the world
to equal in excitement the preliminary investigations
of a well-conceived and cleverly executed crime.  I
should indeed have been bitterly disappointed had
circumstances prevented me from attending that
particular inquest.  From the first, one was conscious
of an atmosphere of mystery that hung over the events
of that night in the Bishop's Road household: here
indeed was no ordinary crime; the motive for it was
still obscure, and one instinctively felt that
somewhere in this vast city of London there lurked a
criminal of no mean intelligence who would probably
remain unpunished.
</p>

<p>
"Even the evidence of the police was not as
uninteresting as it usually is, because it established
beyond a doubt that this was not a case of common
burglary and housebreaking.  Certainly the open
window and the torn creeper suggested that the miscreant
had made his escape that way, but how he effected
an entrance into Mrs. Levison's room remained an
unsolved riddle.  The absence of any trace of a man's
passage on the surrounding walls of the backyard was
very mysterious, and it was firmly established that
the back door and the area door were secured, barred
and bolted from the inside.  A burglar might, of
course, have entered the house by the front door,
which was on the latch, using a skeleton key, but it
still remained inconceivable how he gained access into
Mrs. Levison's room.
</p>

<p>
"From the first the public had felt that there was
a background of domestic drama behind the seemingly
purposeless crime, for it did appear purposeless,
seeing that so much portable jewellery had been
left untouched in the safe.  But it was when Ida
Griggs, the housemaid, stood up in response to her
name being called that one seemed to see the
curtain going up on the first act of a terrible tragedy.
</p>

<p>
"Griggs was a colourless, youngish woman, with
thin, sallow face, round blue eyes, and thin lips, and
directly she began to speak one felt that underneath
her placid, old-maidish manner there was an
under-current of bitter spite, and even of passion.  For
some reason which probably would come to light
later on, she appeared to have conceived a hatred
for Mrs. Aaron; on the other hand she had obviously
been doggedly attached to her late mistress, and in
the evidence she dwelt at length on the quarrels
between the two ladies, especially on the scene of
violence that occurred at the dinner-table on Saturday,
and which culminated in old Mrs. Levison flouncing
out of the room.
</p>

<p>
"'Mrs. Levison was that upset,' the girl went on,
in answer to a question put to her by the coroner,
'that I thought she was going to be ill, and she says
to me that women like Mrs. Aaron were worse than
&mdash;&mdash; as they would stick at nothing to get a new gown
or a bit of jewellery.  She also says to me&mdash;&mdash;'
</p>

<p>
"But at this point the coroner checked her flow of
eloquence, as, of course, what the dead woman had
said could not be admitted as evidence.  But
nevertheless the impression remained vividly upon the
public that there had been a terrible quarrel between
those two, and of course we all knew that young
Mrs. Levison had been seen at the ball wearing those
five diamond stars; we did not need the sworn
testimony of several witnesses who were called and
interrogated on that point.  We knew that Rebecca
Levison had worn the diamond stars at the ball, and
that Police Inspector Blackshire found them on her
dressing-table the morning after the murder.
</p>

<p>
"Nor did she deny having worn them.  At the
inquest she renewed the statement which she had
already made to the police.
</p>

<p>
"'My brother-in-law, Reuben,' she said, 'was a
great favourite with his mother, and when we were
both of us ready dressed he went into Mrs. Levison's
room to say good-night to her.  He cajoled her into
letting me wear the diamond stars that night.  In
fact he always could make her do anything he really
wanted, and they parted the best of friends.'
</p>

<p>
"'At what time did you go to the ball, Mrs. Levison?'
the coroner asked.
</p>

<p>
"'My brother-in-law,' she replied, 'went out to call
a taxi at half-past nine, and he and I got into it the
moment one drew up.'
</p>

<p>
"'And Mr. Reuben Levison had been in to say
good-night to his mother just before that?'
</p>

<p>
"'Yes, about ten minutes before.'
</p>

<p>
"'And he brought you the stars then,' the coroner
insisted, 'and you put them on before he went out
to call the taxi?'
</p>

<p>
"For the fraction of a second Rebecca Levison
hesitated, but I do not think that any one in the
audience except myself noted that little fact. Then she
said quite firmly:
</p>

<p>
"'Yes, Mr. Reuben Levison told me that he had
persuaded his mother to let me wear the stars, he
handed them to me and I put them on.'
</p>

<p>
"'And that was at half-past nine?'
</p>

<p>
"Again Rebecca Levison hesitated, this time more
markedly; her face was very pale and she passed her
tongue once or twice across her lips before she gave
answer.
</p>

<p>
"'At about half-past nine,' she said, quite steadily.
</p>

<p>
"'And about what time did you come home, Mrs. Levison?'
the coroner asked her blandly.
</p>

<p>
"'It must have been close on one o'clock,' she
replied.  'The dance was a Cinderella, but we walked
part of the way home.'
</p>

<p>
"'What! in the rain?'
</p>

<p>
"'It had ceased raining when we came out of the
town hall.'
</p>

<p>
"'Mr. Reuben Levison did not accompany you all
the way?'
</p>

<p>
"'He walked with me across the Park, then he put
me into a taxicab, and I drove home alone.  I had
my latchkey.'
</p>

<p>
"'But you failed to bolt the door after you when
you returned.  How was that?'
</p>

<p>
"'I forgot, I suppose,' the lovely Rebecca replied,
with a defiant air.  'I often forget to bolt the door.'
</p>

<p>
"'And did you not see or hear anything strange
when you came in?'
</p>

<p>
"'I heard nothing.  I was rather sleepy and went
straight up to my room.  I was in bed within ten
minutes of coming in.'
</p>

<p>
"She was speaking quite firmly now, in a clear
though rather harsh voice: but that she was nervous,
not to say frightened, was very obvious.  She had a
handkerchief in her hand, with which she fidgeted
until it was nothing but a small, wet ball, and she
had a habit of standing first on one foot then on the
other, and of shifting the position of her hat.  I do
not think that there was a single member of the jury
who did not think that she was lying, and she knew
that they thought so, for now and again her fine dark
eyes would scrutinise their faces and dart glances at
them either of scorn or of anxiety.
</p>

<p>
"After a while she appeared very tired, and when
pressed by the coroner over some trifling matters, she
broke down and began to cry.  After which she was
allowed to stand down, and Mr. Reuben Levison was
called.
</p>

<p>
"I must say that I took an instinctive dislike to
him as he stood before the jury with a jaunty air of
complete self-possession.  He had a keen, yet shifty
eye, and sharp features very like a rodent.  To me
it appeared at once that he was reciting a lesson
rather than giving independent evidence.  He stated
that he had been present at dinner during the quarrel
between his mother and sister-in-law, and his mother
was certainly very angry at the moment, but later on
he went upstairs to bid her good-night.  She cried a
little and said a few hard things, but in the end she
gave way to him as she always did: she opened the
safe, got out the diamond stars and gave them to
him, making him promise to return them the very
first thing in the morning.
</p>

<p>
"'I told her,' Reuben went on glibly, 'that I would
not be home until the Monday morning.  I would see
Rebecca into a taxi after the ball, but I had the
intention of spending a couple of nights and the
intervening Sunday with a pal who had a flat at
Haverstock Hill.  I thought then that my mother would
lock the stars up again, however&mdash;she was always a
woman of her word&mdash;once she had said a thing she
would stick to it&mdash;and so as I said she gave me the
stars and Mrs. Aaron wore them that night.'
</p>

<p>
"'And you handed the stars to Mrs. Aaron at
half-past nine?'
</p>

<p>
"The coroner asked the question with the same
earnest emphasis which he had displayed when he
put it to young Mrs. Levison.  I saw Reuben's shifty
eye flash across at her, and I know that she answered
that flash with a slight drop of her eyelids.  Whereupon
he replied as readily as she had done:
</p>

<p>
"'Yes, sir, it must have been about half-past nine.'
</p>

<p>
"And I assure you that every intelligent person in
that room must have felt certain that Reuben was
lying just as Rebecca had done before him."
</p>

<p><br /></p>

<h4>
§4
</h4>

<p>
The Old Man in the Corner paused in his narrative.
He drank half a glass of milk, smacked his lips,
and for a few moments appeared intent on examining
one of the complicated knots which he had made in
his bit of string.  Then after a while he resumed.
</p>

<p>
"The one member of the Levison family," he said,
"for whom every one felt sorry was the eldest son
Aaron.  Like most men of his race he had been very
fond of his mother, not because of any affection she
may have shown him but just because she was his
mother.  He had worked hard for her all his life, and
now through her death he found himself very much
left out in the cold.  It seems that by her will the old
lady left all her savings, which, it seems, were considerable,
and a certain share in the business, to Reuben,
whilst to Aaron she only left the business nominally,
with a great many charges on it in the way of pensions
and charitable bequests and whatever was due
to Reuben.
</p>

<p>
"But here I am digressing, as the matter of the
will was not touched upon until later on, but there
is no doubt that Aaron knew from the first that it
would be Reuben who would primarily benefit by
their mother's death.  Nevertheless, he did not speak
bitterly about his brother, and nothing that he said
could be construed into possible suspicion of Reuben.
He looked just a big lump of good nature, splendidly
built, with the shoulders and gait of an athlete, but
with an expression of settled melancholy in his face,
and a dull, rather depressing voice.  Seeing him there,
gentle, almost apologetic, trying to explain away
everything that might in any way cast a reflection upon his
wife's conduct, one realised easily enough the man's
position in the family&mdash;a kind of good-natured beast
of burden, who would do all the work and never
receive a 'thank you' in return.
</p>

<p>
"He was not able to throw much light on the horrible
tragedy.  He, too, had been at the dinner-table
when the quarrel occurred, but directly after dinner
he had been obliged to return to the shop, it being
Saturday night and business very brisk.  He had only
one assistant to help him, who left at nine o'clock,
after putting up the shutters: but he himself remained
in the shop until ten o'clock to put things away and
make up the books.  He heard the taxi being called,
and his wife and brother going off to the ball; he was
not quite sure as to when that was, but he dared say
it was somewhere near half-past nine.
</p>

<p>
"As nothing of special value had been pledged that
day in the course of business, he had no occasion to
go and speak with his mother before going up to
bed and, on the whole he thought that, as she might
still be rather sore and irritable, it would be best not
to disturb her again, he did just knock at her door
and called out 'good-night, mother.'  But hearing
no reply he thought she must already have been
asleep.
</p>

<p>
"In answer to the coroner Aaron Levison further
said that he had slept in the spare room at the top
of the house for some time, as his wife was often very
late coming home, and he did not like to have his
night's rest broken.  He had gone up to bed at ten
o'clock and had neither seen nor heard anything in
the house until six o'clock in the morning when the
screams of the maid down below had roused him from
his sleep and made him jump out of bed in
double-quick time.
</p>

<p>
"Although Aaron's evidence was more or less of a
formal character, and he spoke very quietly without
any show either of swagger or of spite, one could not
help feeling that the elements of drama and of
mystery connected with this remarkable case were rather
accentuated than diminished by what he said.  Thus
one was more or less prepared for those further
developments which brought one's excitement and
interest in the case to their highest point.
</p>

<p>
"Recalled, and pressed by the coroner to try and
memorise every event, however trifling, that occurred
on that Saturday evening, Ida Griggs, the maid, said
that, soon after that she had dropped to sleep, she woke
with the feeling that she had heard some kind of noise,
but what it was she could not define: it might have
been a bang, or a thud, or a scream.  At the time she
thought nothing of it, whatever it was, because while
she lay awake for a few minutes afterwards, the house
was absolutely still; but a moment or two later she
certainly heard the window of Mrs. Levison's room
being thrown open.
</p>

<p>
"'There did not seem to you anything strange in
that?' the coroner asked her.
</p>

<p>
"'No, sir,' she replied, 'there was nothing funny
in Mrs. Levison opening her window.  I remember that
it was raining rather heavily, for I heard the patter
against the window-panes, and Mrs. Levison may have
wanted to look at the weather.  I went to sleep
directly after that and thought no more about it.'
</p>

<p>
"'And you don't know what it was that woke you
in the first instance?'
</p>

<p>
"'No, sir, I don't,' the girl replied.
</p>

<p>
"'And you did not happen to glance at the clock at
the moment?'
</p>

<p>
"'No, sir,' she said, 'I did not switch on the light.'
</p>

<p>
"But having disposed of that point, Ida Griggs had
yet another to make, and one that proved more
dramatic than anything that had gone before.
</p>

<p>
"'While I was clearing away the dinner things,' she
said, 'Mr. Reuben and Mrs. Aaron were sitting talking
in the parlour.  At half-past eight Mrs. Aaron rang for
me to take up her hot water as she was going to dress.
I took up the water for her and also for Mrs. Levison,
as I always did.  I was going to help Mrs. Levison to
undress, but she said she was not going to bed yet as
she had some accounts to go through.  She kept me
talking for a bit, then while I was with her there was
a knock at the door and I heard Mr. Reuben asking
if he might come in and say good-night.  Mrs. Levison
called out "good-night, my boy," but she would
not let Mr. Reuben come in, and I heard him go
downstairs again.
</p>

<p>
"'A quarter of an hour or so afterwards Mrs. Levison
dismissed me and I heard her locking her door
after me.  I went downstairs on my way to the kitchen:
Mrs. Aaron was in the parlour then, fully dressed
and with her cloak on; and Mr. Reuben was there, too,
talking to her.  The door was wide open, and I saw
them both and I heard Mrs. Aaron say quite spiteful
like: "So she would not even see you, the old cat!
She must have felt bad."  And Mr. Reuben he laughed
and said: "Oh well, she will have to get over it."  Then
they saw me and stopped talking, and soon afterwards
Mr. Reuben went out to call a taxi, and we girls
went up to bed.'
</p>

<p>
"'It is all a wicked lie!' here broke in a loud,
high-pitched voice, and Mrs. Aaron, trembling with
excitement, jumped to her feet.  'A lie, I say.  The woman
is spiteful, and wants to ruin me.'
</p>

<p>
"The coroner vainly demanded silence, and after a
moment or two of confusion and of passionate
resistance the lovely Rebecca was forcibly led out of the
room.  Her husband followed her, looking bigger and
more meek and apologetic than ever before; and Ida
Griggs was left to conclude her evidence in peace.
She reaffirmed all that she had said and swore
positively to the incident just as it had occurred in
Mrs. Levison's room.  Asked somewhat sharply by the
coroner why she had said nothing about all this
before, she replied that she did not wish to make
mischief, but that truth was truth, and whoever murdered
her poor mistress must swing for it, and that's all
about it.
</p>

<p>
"Nor could any cross-examination upset her: she
looked like a spiteful cat, but not like a woman who
was lying.
</p>

<p>
"Reuben Levison had sat on, serene and jaunty, all
the while that these damaging statements were being
made against him.  When he was recalled he contented
himself with flatly denying Ida Griggs's story,
and reiterating his own.
</p>

<p>
"'The girl is lying,' he said airily, 'why she does
so I don't know, but there was nothing in the world
more unlikely than that my mother should at any
time refuse to see me.  Ask any impartial witness you
like,' he went on dramatically, 'they will all tell you
that my mother worshipped me: she was not likely to
quarrel with me over a few bits of jewellery.'
</p>

<p>
"Of course Mrs. Aaron, when she was recalled,
corroborated Reuben's story.  She could not make out
why Ida should tell such lies about her.
</p>

<p>
"'But there,' she added, with tears in her beautiful
dark eyes, 'the girl always hated me.'
</p>

<p>
"Yet one more witness was heard that afternoon
whose evidence proved of great interest.  This was the
assistant in the shop, Samuel Kutz.  He could not
throw much light on the tragedy, because he had not
been out of the shop from six o'clock, when he finished
his tea, to nine, when he put up the shutters and went
away.  But he did say that, while he was having his
tea in the back parlour, old Mrs. Levison was helping
in the front shop, and Mr. Reuben was there, too,
doing nothing in particular, as was his custom.  When
witness went back to the shop Mrs. Levison went
through into the back parlour, and, as soon as she had
gone, he noticed that she had left her bag on the bureau
behind the counter.  Mr. Reuben saw it, too; he picked
up the bag, and said with a laugh: 'I'd best take it
up at once, the old girl don't like leaving this about.'  Kutz
told him he thought Mrs. Levison was in the back
parlour, but Mr. Reuben was sure she had since gone
upstairs.
</p>

<p>
"'Anyway,' concluded witness, 'he took the bag and
went upstairs with it.'
</p>

<p>
"This may have been a valuable piece of evidence
or it may not," the Old Man in the Corner went on
with a grin, "in view of the tragedy occurring so
much later, it did not appear so at the time.  But it
brought in an altogether fresh element of conjecture,
and while the police asked for an adjournment pending
fresh enquiries, the public was left to ponder over
the many puzzles and contradictions that the case
presented.  Whichever line of argument one followed, one
quickly came to a dead stop.
</p>

<p>
"There was, first of all, the question whether Reuben
Levison did cajole his mother into giving him the
diamond stars, or whether he was peremptorily refused
admittance to her room; but this was just a case of
hard swearing between one party and the other, and
here I must admit, that public opinion was inclined to
take Reuben's version of the story.  Mrs. Levison's
passionate affection for her younger son was known to
all her friends, and people thought that Ida Griggs
had lied in order to incriminate Mrs. Aaron.
</p>

<p>
"But in this she entirely failed, and here was the
first dead stop.  You will remember that she said that,
after she left Mrs. Levison, she went downstairs and
saw Mrs. Aaron and Mr. Reuben fully dressed in the
back parlour, and that afterward she heard Mr. Reuben
call a taxi: obviously, therefore, Mrs. Aaron
had the diamonds in her possession then, since she was
wearing them at the ball, and it is not conceivable
that either of those two would have gone off in the
taxi, leaving the other to force an entrance into
Mrs. Levison's room, strangle her, and steal the diamonds.
As Mrs. Aaron could not possibly have done all that in
her evening-dress, making her way afterwards from a
first floor window down into the yard by clinging to a
creeper in the pouring rain, the hideous task must have
devolved on Reuben, and even the police, wildly in
search of a criminal, could not put the theory forward
that a man would murder his mother in order that
his sister-in-law might wear a few diamond stars at a
ball.
</p>

<p>
"It was, in fact, the motive of the crime that seemed
so utterly inadequate, and therefore public argument
fell back on the theory that Reuben had stolen the
diamond stars just before dinner after he had found
his mother's handbag in the shop, and that the
subsequent murder was the result of ordinary burglary, the
miscreant having during the night entered Mrs. Levison's
room by the window while she was asleep.  It
was suggested that he had found the key of the safe
by the bedside and was in the act of ransacking the
place when Mrs. Levison woke, and the inevitable
struggle ensued resulting in the old lady's death.  The
chief argument, however, against this theory was the
fact that the unfortunate woman was still dressed when
she was attacked, and no one who knew her for the
careful, thrifty woman she was could conceive that she
would go fast asleep leaving the safe door wide open.
This, coupled with the fact that not the slightest trace
could be found anywhere in the backyard of the house,
or the adjoining yards and walls of the passage, of a
miscreant armed with a ladder, constituted another
dead stop on the road of public conjecture.
</p>

<p>
"Finally, when at the adjourned inquest Reuben
Levison was able to bring forward more than one
witness who could swear that he arrived at the ball at
the Kensington Town Hall in the company of his
sister-in-law somewhere about ten o'clock, and others who
spoke to him from time to time during the evening,
it seemed clear that he, at any rate, was innocent of
the murder.  Mr. Aaron had not gone up to bed until
ten o'clock, and, if Reuben had planned to return and
murder his mother, he could only have done so at a
later hour, when he was seen by several people at the
Kensington Town Hall.
</p>

<p>
"Subsequently the jury returned an open verdict
and that abominable crime has remained unpunished
until now.  Though it appeared so simple and crude
at first, it proved a terribly hard nut for the police to
crack.  We may say that they never did crack it.
They are absolutely convinced that Reuben Levison
and Mrs. Aaron planned to murder the old lady, but
how they did it, no one has been able to establish.  As
for proofs of their guilt, there are none and never will
be, for though they are perhaps a pair of rascals, they
are not criminals.  It is not they who murdered
Mrs. Levison."
</p>

<p>
"You think it was Ida Griggs?" I put in quickly, as
the Old Man in the Corner momentarily ceased talking.
</p>

<p>
"Ah!" he retorted, with his funny, dry cackle, "you
favour that theory, do you?"
</p>

<p>
"No, I do not," I replied.  "But I don't see&mdash;&mdash;"
</p>

<p>
"It is a foolish theory," he went on, "not only
because there was absolutely no reason why Ida Griggs
should kill her mistress&mdash;she did not rob her, nor had
she anything to gain by Mrs. Levison's death&mdash;but as
she was neither a cat, nor a night moth, she could
not possibly have ascended from a first floor window
to another window on the half-landing above, and
entered her own room that way, for we must not lose
sight of the fact that her bedroom door was the next
morning found locked on the outside, and the key left
in the lock."
</p>

<p>
"Then," I argued, "it must have been a case of
ordinary burglary."
</p>

<p>
"That has been proved impossible," he riposted&mdash;"proved
to the hilt.  No man could have climbed up
the wall of the house without a ladder, and no man
could have brought a ladder into that backyard
without leaving some trace of his passage, however slight:
against the walls, around the yard, there were
creepers and shrubs&mdash;it would be impossible to drag a
heavy ladder over those walls without breaking some
of them."
</p>

<p>
"But some one killed old Mrs. Levison," I went on
with some exasperation&mdash;"she did not strangle herself
with her own fingers."
</p>

<p>
"No, she did not do that," he admitted, with a dry
laugh.
</p>

<p>
"And if the murderer escaped through the window,
he could not vanish into thin air."
</p>

<p>
"No," he admitted again, "he could not do that."
</p>

<p>
"Well then?" I retorted.
</p>

<p>
"Well then, the murder must have been committed
by one of the inmates of the house," he said; and now
I knew that I was on the point of hearing the solution
of the mystery of the five diamond stars, because
his thin, claw-like fingers were working with feverish
rapidity upon his beloved bit of string.
</p>

<p>
"But neither Mrs. Aaron," I argued, "nor Reuben
Levison&mdash;&mdash;"
</p>

<p>
"Neither," he broke in decisively.  "We all know
that.  It was not conceivable that a woman could
commit such a murder, nor that Reuben would kill his
mother in order to gratify his sister-in-law's whim.
That, of course, was nonsense, and every proof, both
of time and circumstance, both of motive and
opportunity, was entirely in their favour.  No.  We must
look for a deeper motive for the hideous crime, a
stronger determination, and above all a more powerful
physique and easier opportunity for carrying the plot
through.  Personally, I do not believe that there was
a plot to murder; on the other hand, I do believe in
the man who idolised his young wife, and had
witnessed a deadly quarrel between her and his mother,
and I do believe in his going presently to the latter in
order to try to soothe her anger against the woman he
loved."
</p>

<p>
"You mean," I gasped, incredulous and scornful,
"that it was Aaron Levison?"
</p>

<p>
"Of course I mean that," he replied placidly.  "And
if you think over all the circumstances of the case you
will readily agree with me.  We know that Aaron
Levison loved and admired his wife; we know that he was
very athletic, and altogether an outdoor man.  Bear
these two facts in mind, and let your thoughts follow
the man after the terrible quarrel at the dinner-table.
</p>

<p>
"For a while he is busy in the shop, probably
brooding over his mother's anger and the unpleasant
consequences it might have for the lovely Rebecca.  But
presently he goes upstairs determined to speak with
his mother, to plead with her.  Dreading that Ida
Griggs, with the habit of her kind, might sneak out
of her room, and perhaps glue her ear to the keyhole,
he turns the key in the lock of the girl's bedroom door.
He knows that the interview with his mother will be
unpleasant, that hard words will be spoken against
Rebecca, and these he does not wish Ida Griggs to
hear.
</p>

<p>
"Then he knocks at his mother's door, and asks
admittance on the pretext that he has something of value
to remit to her for keeping in her safe.  She would
have no reason to refuse.  He goes in, talks to his
mother; she does not mince her words.  By now she
knows the diamond stars have been extracted from the
safe, stolen by her beloved Reuben for the adornment
of the hated daughter-in-law.
</p>

<p>
"Can't you see those two arguing over the woman
whom the man loves and whom the older woman
hates?  Can't you see the latter using words which
outrage the husband's pride and rouses his wrath till it
gets beyond his control?  Can't you see him in an
access of unreasoning passion gripping his mother by the
throat, to smother the insults hurled at his wife?&mdash;and
can you see the old woman losing her balance, and
hitting her head against the corner of the marble
wash-stand and falling&mdash;falling&mdash;whilst the son gazes down,
frantic and horror-struck at what he has done?
</p>

<p>
"Then the instinct of self-preservation is roused.
Oh, the man was cleverer than he was given credit for!
He remembers with satisfaction locking Ida Griggs's
door from the outside; and now to give the horrible
accident the appearance of ordinary burglary!  He
locks his mother's door on the inside, switches out the
light, then throws open the window.  For a youngish
man who is active and athletic the drop from a first
floor window, with the aid of a creeper on the wall,
presents but little difficulty, and when a man is faced
with a deadly peril, minor dangers do not deter him.
</p>

<p>
"Fortunately, everything has occurred before he has
bolted and barred the downstairs door for the night.
This, of course, greatly facilitates matters.  He lets
himself down through the window, jumps down into
the yard, lets himself into the house through the back
door, then closes up everything, and quietly goes
upstairs to bed.
</p>

<p>
"There has not been much noise, even his mother's
fall was practically soundless, and&mdash;poor thing!&mdash;she
had not the time to scream; the only sound was the
opening of the window; it certainly would not bring
Ida Griggs out of her bed&mdash;girls of her class are more
likely to smother their heads under their bedclothes if
any alarming noise is heard.  And so the unfortunate
man is able to sneak up to his room unseen and unheard.
</p>

<p>
"Whoever would dream of casting suspicion on him?
</p>

<p>
"He was never mixed up in any quarrel with his
mother, and he had nothing much to gain by her death.
At the inquest every one was sorry for him; but I could
not repress a feeling of admiration for the coolness and
cleverness with which he obliterated every trace of his
crime.  I imagine him carefully wiping his boots
before he went upstairs, and brushing and folding up
his clothes before he went to bed.  Cannot you?
</p>

<p>
"A clever criminal, what?" the whimsical creature
concluded, as he put his piece of string in the pocket
of his funny tweed coat.  "Think of it&mdash;you will see
that I am right.  As you say, Mrs. Levison did not
strangle herself, and a burglar from the outside could
not have vanished into thin air."
</p>

<p><br /><br /><br /></p>

<p><a id="chap06"></a></p>

<h3>
VI
<br /><br />
THE MYSTERY OF THE DOG'S TOOTH CLIFF
</h3>

<p>
The Old Man in the Corner was more than
usually loquacious that day: he had a great
deal to say on the subject of the strictures
which a learned judge levelled against the police in a
recent murder case.
</p>

<p>
"Well deserved," he concluded, with his usual
self-opinionated emphasis, "but not more so in this case
than in many others, where blunder after blunder is
committed and the time of the courts wasted without
either judge or magistrate, let alone the police,
knowing where the hitch lies."
</p>

<p>
"Of course, <i>you</i> always know," I remarked dryly.
</p>

<p>
"Nearly always," he replied, with ludicrous
self-complacence.  "Have I not proved to you over and
over again that with a little reasonable common-sense
and a minimum of logic there is no such thing as an
impenetrable mystery in criminology.  Criminology is
an exact science to which certain rules of reasoning
invariably apply.  The trouble is that so few are masters
of logic and that fewer still know how to apply its
rules.  Now take the case of that poor girl, Janet
Smith.  We are likely to see some startling developments
in it within the next two or three days.  You'll
see if we don't, and they will open the eyes of the
police and public alike to what has been clear as
daylight to me ever since the first day of the inquest."
</p>

<p>
I hastened to assure the whimsical creature that
though I was acquainted with the main circumstances
of the tragedy, I was very vague as to detail, and
that nothing would give me greater pleasure than that
he should enlighten my mind on the subject&mdash;which he
immediately proceeded to do.
</p>

<p>
"You know Broxmouth, don't you?" he began, after
a while&mdash;"on the Wessex coast.  It is a growing place,
for the scenery is superb, and the air acts on jaded
spirits like sparkling wine.  The only drawback&mdash;that
is, from an artistic point of view&mdash;to the place is that
hideous barrack-like building on the West Cliff.  It is
a huge industrial school recently erected and endowed
by the trustees of the Woodforde bequest for the benefit
of sons of temporary officers killed in the war, and
is under the presidency of no less a personage than
General Sir Arkwright Jones, who has a whole alphabet
after his name.
</p>

<p>
"The building is certainly an eyesore, and before it
came into being, Broxmouth was a real beauty spot.
If you have ever been there, you will remember that
fine walk along the edge of the cliffs, at the end of
which there is a wonderful view as far as the towers of
Barchester Cathedral.  It is called the Lovers' Walk,
and is patronised by all the young people in the
neighbourhood.  They find it romantic as well as exhilarating:
the objective is usually Kurtmoor, where there are
one or two fine hotels for plutocrats in search of rural
surroundings, and where humble folk like you and I
and the aforesaid lovers can get an excellent cup of tea
at the Wheatsheaf in the main village street.
</p>

<p>
"But it is a daylight walk, for the path is narrow
and in places the cliffs fall away, sheer and precipitous,
to the water's edge, whilst loose bits of rock have an
unpleasant trick of giving way under one's feet.  If
you were to consult one of the Broxmouth gaffers on
the advisability of taking a midnight walk to Kurtmoor,
he would most certainly shake his head and tell
you to wait till the next day and take your walk in
the morning.  Accidents have happened there more
than once, though Broxmouth holds its tongue about
that.  Rash pedestrians have lost their footing and
tumbled down the side of the cliff before now, almost
always with fatal results.
</p>

<p>
"And so, when a couple of small boys hunting for
mussels at low tide in the early morning of May fifth
last, saw the body of a woman lying inanimate upon
the rocks at the foot of the cliffs, and reported their
discovery to the police, every one began by concluding
that nothing but an accident had occurred, and went
on to abuse the town Council for not putting up along
the more dangerous portions of the Lovers' Walk some
sort of barrier as a protection to unwary pedestrians.
</p>

<p>
"Later on, when the body was identified as that of
Miss Janet Smith, a well-known resident of Broxmouth,
public indignation waxed high: the barrier along the
edge of the Lovers' Walk became the burning question
of the hour.  But during the whole of that day the
'accident' theory was never disputed; it was only
towards evening that whispers of 'suicide' began to
circulate, to be soon followed by the more ominous ones
of 'murder.'
</p>

<p>
"And the next morning Broxmouth had the thrill
of its life when it became known throughout the town
that Captain Franklin Marston had been detained in
connection with the finding of the body of Janet Smith,
and that he would appear that day before the magistrate
on a charge of murder.
</p>

<p>
"Properly to appreciate the significance of such an
announcement, it would be necessary to be oneself a
resident of Broxmouth where the Woodforde Institute,
its affairs and its personnel are, as it were, the be-all
and end-all of all the gossip in the neighbourhood.  To
begin with the deceased was head matron of the institute,
and the man now accused of the foul crime of
having murdered her was its secretary; moreover the
secretary and the pretty young matron were known
to be very much in love with one another, and, as a
matter of fact, Broxmouth had of late been looking
forward to a very interesting wedding.  The idea of
Captain Marston&mdash;who by the way was very good-looking,
very smart, and a splendid tennis player&mdash;being
accused of murdering his sweetheart was in itself
so preposterous, so impossible, that his numerous
friends and many admirers were aghast and incredulous.
'There is some villainous plot here somewhere,'
the ladies averred, and wanted to know what Major
Gubbins's attitude was going to be under these tragic
circumstances.
</p>

<p>
"Major Gubbins, if you remember, was headmaster
of the school, and, what's more, he, too, had been very
much in love with Janet Smith, but it appeared that his
friendship with Captain Marston had prompted him to
stand aside as soon as he realised which way the girl's
affections lay.  Major Gubbins was not so popular as
the Captain, he was inclined to be off-hand and
disagreeable, so the ladies said, and, moreover, he did not
play tennis, and, with the sublime inconsequence of
your charming sex, they seemed to connect these defects
with the terrible accusation which was now weighing
upon the Major's successful rival.
</p>

<p>
"The executive of the institute consisted, in addition
to the three persons I have named, of its president,
General Sir Arkwright Jones, who, it seems, took little
if any interest in the concern.  It seemed as if, by
giving it the prestige of his name, he had done all that
he intended for the furtherance of the institute's
welfare.  Then there were the governors, a number of
amiable local gentlemen and ladies who played tennis
all day and attended innumerable tea-parties, and knew
as much about administering a big concern as a terrier
does of rabbit-rearing.
</p>

<p>
"In the midst of this official supineness, the murder
of the young matron, followed immediately by the
arrest of the secretary, had come as a bombshell, and
now wise heads began to wag and ominous murmurs
became current that for some time past there had been
something very wrong in the management of the Woodforde
Institute.  Whilst, at the call of various august
personages, money was pouring in from the benevolent
public, the commissariat was being conducted on
parsimonious lines that were a positive scandal.  The
boys were shockingly underfed, and the staff of servants
was constantly being changed because girls would
not remain on what they called a starvation régime.
</p>

<p>
"Then again, no proper accounts had been kept since
the inception of the Institute five years ago; entries
were spasmodic, irregular and unreliable; books were
never audited; no one, apparently, had the slightest
idea of profit and loss or of balances; no one knew
from week to week where the salaries and wages were
coming from, or from quarter to quarter if there would
be funds enough to meet rates and taxes; no one, in
fact, appeared to know anything about the affairs of
the Institute, least of all the secretary himself, who
had often remarked quite jocularly that he had never
in all his life known anything about book-keeping, and
that his appointment by the governors rested upon his
agreeable personality rather than upon his financial
and administrative ability.
</p>

<p>
"As you see, the Captain's position was, in consequence
of this, a very serious one; it became still more
so when presently two or three ominous facts came
to light.  To begin with, it seemed that he could give
absolutely no account of himself during the greater
part of the night of May fifth.  He had left the
Institute at about seven o'clock; he told the headmaster
then that he was going for a walk which seemed strange
as it was pouring with rain.  On the other hand the
landlady at the room where he lodged told the police
that when she herself went to bed at eleven o'clock, the
Captain had not come in: she hadn't seen him since
morning, when he went to his work, and at what time
he eventually came home she couldn't say.
</p>

<p>
"But there was worse to come: firstly, a stick was
found on the beach some thirty yards or less from
the spot where the body itself was discovered; and
secondly, the police produced a few strands of wool
which were, it seems, clinging to the poor girl's hatpin,
and which presumably were torn out of a muffler during
the brief struggle which must have occurred when she
was first attacked and before she lost her footing and
fell down the side of the cliff.
</p>

<p>
"Now the stick was identified as the property of
Captain Marston, and he had been seen on the road
with it in his hand in the early part of the evening.
He was then walking alone on the Lovers' Walk; two
Broxmouth visitors met him on their way back from
Kurtmoor.  Knowing him by sight, they passed the
time of day.  These witnesses, however, were quite sure
that Captain Marston was not then wearing a muffler,
on the other hand they were equally sure that he
carried the stick; they had noticed it as a very unusual
one, of what is known as Javanese snake-wood with a
round heavy knob and leather strap which the Captain
carried slung upon his arm.
</p>

<p>
"Of course, the matter interested me enormously; it
is not often that a person of the social and intellectual
calibre of Captain Marston stands accused of so foul
a crime.  If he was guilty, then indeed, he was one of
the vilest criminals that ever defaced God's earth, and
in the annals of crime there were few crimes more
hideous.  The poor girl, it seems, had been in love
with him right up to the end and, according to some
well-informed gossips, the wedding-day had actually
been fixed.
</p>

<p>
"The unsuccessful rival, Major Gubbins, too, was
an interesting personality, and it was difficult to
suppose that he was entirely ignorant of the events which
must of necessity have led up to the crime.  Supposedly
there had been a quarrel between the lovers;
sundry rumours were current as to this and in a vague
way those rumours connected this quarrel with the
shaky financial situation of the Institute.  But it was
all mere surmise and very contradictory; no one could
easily state what possible connection there could be
between the affairs of the Institute and the murder
of the chief matron.
</p>

<p>
"In the meanwhile the accused had been brought up
before the magistrate, and formal evidence of the
finding of the body and of the arrest was given, as well
as of the subsequent discovery of the stick, which was
identified by the two witnesses, and of the strands of
wool.  The accused was remanded until the following
Monday, bail being refused.  The inquest was held a
day or two later, and I went down to Broxmouth for it.
I remember how hot it was in that crowded court-room;
excited and perspiring humanity filled the stuffy
atmosphere with heat.  While the crowd jabbered and
fidgeted I had a good look at the chief personages
who were about to enact a thrilling drama for my
entertainment; you have seen portraits of them all in
the illustrated papers, the British army being well
represented by a trio of as fine specimens of manhood
as any one would wish to see.
</p>

<p>
"The President, General Arkwright Jones, was there
as a matter of course.  He looked worried and
annoyed that the even tenor of his pleasant existence
should have been disturbed by this tiresome event;
he is the regular type of British pre-war officer with
ruddy face and white hair, something like a nice ripe
tomato that has been packed in cotton wool.  Then
there was the headmaster, Major Gubbins, well-groomed,
impassive, immaculate in dress and bearing;
and finally the accused himself, in charge of two
warders, a fine-looking man, obviously more of a
soldier and an athlete than a clerk immersed in figures.
</p>

<p>
"Two other persons in the crowded room arrested
my attention: two women.  One of them dressed in
deep black, thin lipped, with pale round eyes and
pursed-up mouth was Miss Amelia Smith, the sister
with whom the deceased had been living, and the other
was Louisa Rumble who held the position of housekeeper
at the Woodforde Institute.  The latter was
one of the first witnesses called: and her evidence was
intensely interesting because it gave one the first clue
as to the motive which underlay the hideous crime.
The woman's testimony, you must know, bore entirely
on the question of housekeeping and of the
extraordinary scarcity of money in the richly-endowed
Institute.
</p>

<p>
"'Often and often,' said the witness, a motherly old
soul in a flamboyant bonnet, 'did I complain to Miss
Smith when she give me my weekly allowance for the
tradesmen's books: "'Tisn't enough, Miss Smith," I
says to 'er, "not to feed a family," I says, "let alone
thirty growin' boys and 'arf a dozen working girls."  But
Miss Smith she just shook 'er 'ead and says:
"Committee's orders, Mrs. Rumble, I 'ave no power."  "Why
don't you speak to the Captain?" I says to 'er,
"'e 'as the 'andling of the money, it is a scandal," I
says.  "Those boys can't live on boiled bacon an'
beans and not English nor Irish bacon it ain't neither,"
I says.  "Pore lambs!  The money I 'ave won't pay for
beef or mutton for them, Miss Smith," I says, "and
you know it."  But Miss Smith, she only shook 'er
'ead and says she would speak to the Captain about it.'
</p>

<p>
"Asked whether she knew if deceased had actually
spoken to the secretary on the subject, Mrs. Rumble
said most emphatically 'Yes!'
</p>

<p>
"'What's more, sir,' she went on, 'I can tell you
that the very day before she died, the pore lamb 'ad a
reg'lar tiff with the Captain about that there
commissariat.'
</p>

<p>
"Mrs. Rumble had stumbled a little over the word,
but strangely enough no one tittered; the importance
of the old woman's testimony was impressed upon every
mind and silenced every tongue.  All eyes were turned
in the direction of the accused.  He had flushed to the
roots of his hair, but otherwise stood quite still, with
arms folded, and a dull expression of hopelessness upon
his good-looking face.
</p>

<p>
"The coroner had asked the witness how she knew
that Miss Smith had had words with Captain Marston:
'Because I 'eard them two 'aving words, sir,'
Mrs. Rumble replied.  'I'd been in the office to get my
money and my orders from Miss Smith, and we 'ad
the usual talk about American bacon and boiled beans,
with which I don't 'old, not for growing boys; then
back I went to the kitchen, when I remembered I 'ad
forgot to speak to Miss Smith about the scullery-maid,
who'd been saucy and given notice.  So up I went again,
and I was just a-goin' to open the office door when I
'eard Miss Smith say quite loud and distinck: "It is
shameful," she says, "and I can't bear it," she says,
"and if you won't speak to the General then I will.
He is staying at the Queen's at Kurtmoor, I understand,"
she says, "and I am goin' this very night to
speak with him," she says, "as I can't spend another
night," she says, "with this on my mind."  Then I
give a genteel cough and...'
</p>

<p>
"The worthy lady had got thus far in her story when
her volubility was suddenly checked by a violent
expletive from the accused.
</p>

<p>
"'But this is damnable!' he cried, and no doubt
would have said a lot more, but a touch on his shoulder
from the warders behind him quickly recalled him to
himself.  He once more took up his outwardly calm
attitude, and Mrs. Rumble concluded her evidence
amidst silence more ominous than any riotous scene
would have been.
</p>

<p>
"'I give a genteel cough,' she resumed with unruffled
dignity, 'and opened the door.  Miss Smith, she was
all flushed and I could see that she'd been crying; but
the Captain; 'e just walked out of the room, and didn't
say not another word.'
</p>

<p>
"By this time," the Old Man in the Corner went
on dryly, "we must suppose that the amateur detectives
and the large body of unintelligent public felt
that they were being cheated.  Never had there been
so simple a case.  Here, with the testimony of
Mrs. Rumble, was the whole thing clear as daylight&mdash;motive,
quarrel, means, everything was there already.  No
chance of exercising those powers of deduction so
laboriously acquired by a systematic study of detective
fiction.  Had it not been for the position of the
accused and his popularity in Broxmouth society, all
interest in the case would have departed in the wake
of Mrs. Rumble, and at first, when Miss Amelia Smith,
sister of the deceased, was called, her appearance only
roused languid curiosity.  Miss Amelia looked what,
in fact, she was: a retired school marm, and wore the
regular hallmark of impecunious and somewhat soured
spinsterhood.
</p>

<p>
"'Janet often told me,' she said, in the course of her
evidence, 'that she was quite sure there was roguery
going on in the affairs of the Institute, because she
knew for a fact that subscriptions were constantly
pouring in from the public, far in excess of what was
being spent for the welfare of the boys.  I often used
to urge her to go straight to the governors or even to
the President himself about the whole matter, but she
would always give the same disheartened reply.
General Arkwright Jones, it seems, had made it a
condition when he accepted the presidency that he was never
to be worried about the administration of the place,
and he refused to have anything to do with the handling
of the subscriptions; as for the governors, my poor
sister declared that they cared more for tennis parties
than for the welfare of a lot of poor officers' children.'
</p>

<p>
"But a moment or two later we realised that Miss
Amelia Smith was keeping her titbit of evidence until
the end.  It seems that she had not even spoken about
it to the police, determined as she was, no doubt, to
create a sensation for once in her monotonous and
dreary life.  So now she pursed up her lips tighter
than before, and after a moment's dramatic silence, she
said:
</p>

<p>
"'The day before her death, my poor sister was very
depressed.  In the late afternoon, when she came in
for tea, I could see that she had been crying.  I
guessed, of course, what was troubling her, but I didn't
say much.  Captain Franklin Marston was in the habit
of calling for Janet in the evening, and they would
go for a walk together; at eight o'clock on that sad
evening I asked her whether Captain Marston was
coming as usual; whereupon she became quite excited,
and said: "No, no, I don't wish to see him!" and
after a while she added in a voice choked with tears:
"Never again!"
</p>

<p>
"'About a quarter of an hour later,' Miss Amelia
went on, 'Janet suddenly took up her hat and coat.  I
asked her where she was going, and she said to me: "I
don't know, but I must put an end to all this.  I must
know one way or the other."  I tried to question her
further, but she was in an obstinate mood; when I
remarked that it was raining hard she said: "That's all
right, the rain will do me good."  And when I asked
her whether she wasn't going to meet Captain Marston
after all, she just gave me a look, but she made no
reply.  And so my poor sister went out into the
darkness and the rain, and I never again saw her alive.'
</p>

<p>
"Miss Amelia paused just long enough to give true
dramatic value to her statement, and indeed there
was nothing lukewarm now about the interest which
she aroused; then she continued:
</p>

<p>
"'As the clock was striking nine I was surprised to
receive a visit from the headmaster, Major Gubbins.
He came with a message from Captain Marston to my
sister; I told him that Janet had gone out.  He
appeared vexed, and told me that the Captain would be
terribly disappointed.'
</p>

<p>
"'What was this message?' the coroner asked,
amidst breathless silence.
</p>

<p>
"'That Janet would please meet Captain Marston
at the Dog's Tooth Cliff.  He would wait for her there
until nine o'clock.'"
</p>

<p>
The Old Man in the Corner gave a short, sharp
laugh, and with loving eyes contemplated his bit of
string, in which he had just woven an elegant and
complicated knot.  Then he said:
</p>

<p>
"Now it was at the foot of the Dog's Tooth Cliff
that the dead body of Janet Smith was found and
some thirty yards further on the stick which had last
been seen in the hand of Captain Franklin Marston.
Nervous women gave a gasp, and scarcely dared to
look at the accused, for fear, no doubt, that they would
see the hangman's rope around his neck, but I took
a good look at him then.  He had uttered a loud groan
and buried his face in his hands, and I, with that
unerring intuition on which I pride myself, knew that he
was acting.  Yes, deliberately acting a part&mdash;the part
of shame and despair.  You, no doubt, would ask me
why he should have done this.  Well, you shall understand
presently.  For the moment, and to all unthinking
spectators, the attitude of despair on the part of
the accused appeared fully justified.
</p>

<p>
"Later on we heard the evidence of Major Gubbins
himself.  He said that about seven o'clock he met
Captain Marston in the hall of the Institute.
</p>

<p>
"'He appeared flushed and agitated,' the witness
went on, very reluctantly it seemed, but in answer to
pressing questions put to him by the coroner, 'and told
me he was going for a walk.  When I remarked that
it was raining hard, he retorted that the rain would do
him good.  He didn't say where he was going, but
presently he put his hand on my shoulder and said in a
tone of pleading and affection which I shall never
forget: "Old man," he said, "I want you to do something
for me.  Tell Janet that I must see her again to-night;
beg her not to deny me.  I will meet her at our usual
place on the Dog's Tooth Cliff.  Tell her I will wait
for her there until nine o'clock, whatever the weather.
But she must come.  Tell her she must."
</p>

<p>
"'Unfortunately,' the Major continued, 'I was unable
to deliver the message immediately, as I had work to
do in my office which kept me till close on nine o'clock.
Then I hurried down to the Smiths' house, and just
missed Miss Janet who, it seems, had already gone
out.'
</p>

<p>
"Asked why he had not spoken about this before, the
Major replied that he did not intend to give evidence
at all unless he was absolutely forced to do so, as a
matter of duty.  Captain Marston was his friend, and
he did not think that any man was called upon to give
what might prove damnatory evidence against his
friend.
</p>

<p>
"All this sounded very nice and very loyal until we
learned that William Peryer, batman at the Institute,
testified to having overheard violent words between the
headmaster and the secretary at the very same hour
when the latter was supposed to have made so pathetic
an appeal to his friend to deliver a message on his
behalf.  Peryer swore that the two men were quarrelling
and quarrelling bitterly.  The words he overheard
were: 'You villain!  You shall pay for this!'  But he
was so upset and so frightened that he could not
state positively which of the two gentlemen had spoken
them, but he was inclined to think that it was Major
Gubbins.
</p>

<p>
"And so the tangle grew, a tangled web that was
dexterously being woven around the secretary of the
Institute.  The two Broxmouth visitors were recalled,
and they once more swore positively to having met
Captain Marston on the Lovers' Walk at about eight
o'clock of that fateful evening.  They spoke to him
and they noticed the stick which he was carrying.
They were on their way home from Kurtmoor, and
they met the Captain some two hundred yards or so
before they came to the Dog's Tooth Cliff.  Of this
they were both quite positive.  The lady remembered
coming to the cliff a few minutes later: she was
nervous in the dark and therefore the details of the
incident impressed themselves upon her memory.
Subsequently when they were nearing home they met a lady
who might or might not have been the deceased; they
did not know her by sight and the person they met
had her hat pulled down over her eyes and the collar
of her coat up to her ears.  It was raining hard then,
and they themselves were hurrying along and paid no
attention to passers-by.
</p>

<p>
"We also heard that at about nine o'clock James
Hoggs and his wife, who live in a cottage not very far
from the Dog's Tooth Cliff, heard a terrifying scream.
They were just going to bed and closing up for the
night.  Hoggs had the front door open at the moment
and was looking at the weather.  It was raining, but
nevertheless he picked up his hat and ran out toward
the cliff.  A moment or two later he came up against
a man whom he hailed; it was very dark, but he
noticed that the man was engaged in wrapping a muffler
round his neck.  He asked him whether he had heard
a scream, but the man said: 'No, I've not!' then
hurried quickly out of sight.  As Hoggs heard nothing
more, or saw anything, he thought that perhaps, after
all, he and his missis had been mistaken, so he turned
back home and went to bed.
</p>

<p>
"I think," the Old Man in the Corner continued
thoughtfully, "that I have now put before you all
the most salient points in the chain of evidence
collected by the police against the accused.  There were
not many faulty links in the chain, you will admit.
The motive for the hideous crime was clear enough:
for there was the fraudulent secretary and the unfortunate
girl who had suspected the defalcations and was
threatening to go and denounce her lover either to the
President of the Institute or to the governors.  And
the method was equally clear: the meeting in the dark
and the rain on the lonely cliff, the muffler quickly
thrown around the victim's mouth to smother her
screams, the blow with the stick, the push over the
edge of the cliff.  The stick stood up as an incontestable
piece of evidence.  The absence from home of the
accused during the greater part of that night had been
testified by his landlady, whilst his presence on the
scene of the crime some time during the evening was
not disputed.
</p>

<p>
"As a matter of fact, the only points in the man's
favour were the strands of wool found sticking to the
girl's hatpin, and Hoggs's story of the man whom he
had seen in the dark, engaged in readjusting a muffler
around his neck.  Unfortunately Hoggs, when more
closely questioned on that subject, became incoherent
and confused, as men of his class are apt to do when
pinned down to a definite statement.
</p>

<p>
"Anyway, the accused was committed for trial on the
coroner's warrant, and, of course, reserved his defence.
You probably, like the rest of the public, kept up a
certain amount of interest in the Cliff murder, as it
was popularly called, for a time, and then allowed
your mind to dwell on other matters and forgot poor
Captain Franklin Marston who was languishing in
gaol under such a horrible accusation.  Subsequently
your interest in him revived when he was brought up
for trial the other day at the Barchester Assizes.  In
the meanwhile he had secured the services of Messrs. Charnton
and Inglewood, the noted solicitors, who had
engaged Mr. Provost Boon, K.C., to defend their
client.
</p>

<p>
"You know as well as I do what happened at the
trial, and how Mr. Boon turned the witnesses for the
Crown inside out and round about until they contradicted
themselves and one another all along the line.
The defence was conducted in a masterly fashion.  To
begin with, the worthy housekeeper, Mrs. Rumble,
after a stiff cross-examination, which lasted nearly an
hour, was forced to admit that she could not swear
positively to the exact words which she overheard
between the deceased and Captain Marston.  All that she
could swear to was that the Captain and his sweetheart
had apparently had a tiff.  Then, as to Miss Amelia
Smith's evidence; it also merely went to prove that
the lovers had had a quarrel; there was nothing whatever
to say that it was on the subject of finance, nor
that deceased had any intention either of speaking to
the President about it or of handing in her resignation
to the governors.
</p>

<p>
"Next came the question of Major Gubbins's story
of the message which he had been asked by his friend
to deliver to the deceased.  Now accused flatly denied
that story, and denied it on oath.  The whole thing, he
declared, was a fabrication on the part of the Major
who, far from being his friend, was his bitter enemy
and unsuccessful rival.  In support of this theory
William Peryer's evidence was cited as conclusive.  He
had heard the two men quarrelling at the very moment
when accused was alleged to have made a pathetic
appeal to his friend.  Peryer had heard one of them say
to the other: 'You villain!  You shall pay for this!'  And
in very truth, the unfortunate Captain was paying
for it, in humiliation and racking anxiety.
</p>

<p>
"Then there came the great, the vital question of the
stick and of the strands of wool so obviously torn out
of a muffler.  With regard to the stick, the accused had
stated that in the course of his walk he had caught
his foot against a stone and stumbled, and that the
stick had fallen out of his hand and over the edge of
the cliff.  Now this statement was certainly borne out
by the fact that, as eminent counsel reminded the jury,
the stick was found more than thirty yards away from
the body.  As for the muffler, it was a graver point
still; strands of wool were found sticking to the girl's
hatpin, and James Hoggs, after hearing a scream at
nine o'clock that evening, ran out towards the cliff and
came across a man who was engaged in readjusting a
muffler round his throat.  That was incontestable.
</p>

<p>
"Of course, Mr. Boon argued, it was easy enough
to upset a witness of the type of James Hoggs, but an
English jury's duty was not to fasten guilt on the first
man who happens to be handy, but to see justice meted
out to innocent and guilty alike.  The evidence of the
muffler, argued the eminent counsel, was proof positive
of the innocence of the accused.  The witnesses who
saw him in the Lovers' Walk on that fateful night had
declared most emphatically that he was not wearing
a muffler.  Then where was the man with the muffler?
Where was the man who was within a few yards of
the scene of the crime five minutes after James Hoggs
had heard the scream&mdash;the man who had denied hearing
the scream although both Hoggs and his wife heard
it over a quarter of a mile away?
</p>

<p>
"'Yes, gentlemen of the jury,' the eminent counsel
concluded with a dramatic gesture, 'it is the man with
the muffler who murdered the unfortunate girl.  If he
is innocent why is he not here to give evidence?  There
are no side tracks that lead to the cliffs at this point,
so the man with the muffler must have seen something
or some one; he must know something that would be
of invaluable assistance in the elucidation of this sad
mystery.  Then why does he not come forward?  I say
because he dare not.  But let the police look for him, I
say.  The accused is innocent; he is the victim of
tragic circumstances, but his whole life, his war-record,
his affection for the deceased, all proclaim him to be
guiltless of such a dastardly crime, and above all
there stands the incontestable proof of his innocence,
the muffler, gentlemen of the jury&mdash;the muffler!'
</p>

<p>
"He said a lot more than that, of course," the Old
Man in the Corner went on, chuckling dryly to himself,
"and said it a lot better than ever I can repeat it, but
I have given you the gist of what he said.  You know
the result of the trial.  The accused was acquitted,
the jury having deliberated less than a quarter of an
hour.  There was no getting away from that muffler,
even though every other circumstance pointed to
Marston as the murderer of Janet Smith.
</p>

<p>
"On the whole, his acquittal was a popular one,
although many who were present at the trial shook
their heads, and thought that if they had been on the
jury Marston would not have got off so easily, but for
the most part these sceptics were not Broxmouth
people.  In Broxmouth the Captain was personally
liked, and the proclamation of his innocence was hailed
with enthusiasm; and, what's more, those same
champions of the good-looking secretary&mdash;they were the
women mostly&mdash;looked askance on the headmaster,
who, they averred, had woven a Machiavellian net for
trapping and removing from his path for ever a hated
and successful rival.
</p>

<p>
"The police have received a perfect deluge of
anonymous communications suggesting that Major Gubbins
was identical with the mysterious man with the muffler,
but, of course, such a suggestion is perfectly
absurd, since at the very hour when James Hoggs heard
the scream, and a very few minutes before he met the
man with the muffler, Major Gubbins was paying his
belated visit to Miss Amelia Smith and delivering the
alleged message.  Even those ladies who disliked the
headmaster most cordially had to admit that he could
not very well have been in two places at the same time.
The Dog's Tooth Cliff is a good half hour's walk from
Miss Smith's house, and the Lovers' Walk itself is not
accessible to cyclists or motors.
</p>

<p>
"And thus, to all intents and purposes, the Cliff
murder has remained a mystery, but it won't be one
for long.  Have I not told you that you may expect
important developments within the next few days?
And I am seldom wrong.  Already in this evening's
paper you will have read that the entire executive of
the Woodforde Institute has placed its resignation in
the hands of the governors, that several august
personages have withdrawn their names from the list of
patrons, and that though the President has been implored
not to withdraw his name, he has proved adamant on
the subject, and even refused to recommend successors
to the headmaster, the secretary, or the matron; in
fact, he has seemingly washed his hands of the whole
concern."
</p>

<p>
"But surely," I now broke in, seeing that the Old
Man in the Corner threatened to put away his piece
of string and to leave me without the usual epilogue
to his interesting narrative, "surely General Sir
Arkwright Jones cannot be blamed for the scandal which
undoubtedly has dimmed the fortunes of the Woodforde
Institute?"
</p>

<p>
"Cannot be blamed?" the Old Man in the Corner
retorted sarcastically.  "Cannot be blamed for entering
into a conspiracy with his secretary and his head-master
to defraud the Institute, and then to silence for
ever the one voice that might have been raised in
accusation against him."
</p>

<p>
"Sir Arkwright Jones?" I exclaimed incredulously,
for indeed the idea appeared to me preposterous then,
as the General's name was almost a household word
before the catastrophe.  "Impossible!"
</p>

<p>
"Impossible!" he reiterated.  "Why?  He murdered
Janet Smith; of that you will be as convinced within
the next few days as I am at this hour.  That the three
men were in collusion I have not the shadow of doubt.
Marston only made love to Janet Smith in order to
secure her silence; but in this he failed, and the girl
boldly accused him of roguery as soon as she found
him out.  It would be inconceivable to suppose that
being the bright, intelligent girl that she admittedly
was, she could remain for ever in ignorance of the
defalcations in the books; she must and did tax her
lover of irregularities, she must have and indeed did
threaten to put the whole thing before the governors.
So much for the lovers' quarrel overheard by Mrs. Rumble.
</p>

<p>
"I believe that the fate of the poor girl was decided
on then and there by two of the scoundrels; it only
remained to consult with their other accomplice as to
the best means for carrying their hideous project
through.  Janet had announced her determination to
go to Kurtmoor that self-same evening, the only
question was which of those three miscreants would meet
her in the darkness and solitude of the Lovers' Walk.
But in order at the outset to throw dust in the
eyes of the public and the police and not appear to
be in any way associated with one another, Marston
and Gubbins made pretence of a violent quarrel which
Peryer overheard; then Gubbins, in order to make
sure that the poor girl would carry out her intention
of going over to Kurtmoor that evening, went to her
house with the supposed message from Marston, and
incidentally secured thereby his own alibi.  This made
him safe.
</p>

<p>
"Marston in the meanwhile went to arrange matters
with Arkwright Jones.  His position was, of course,
more difficult than that of Gubbins.  If there was to
be murder&mdash;and my belief is that the scoundrels had
been resolved on murder for some time before&mdash;the
first suspicion would inevitably fall on the secretary
who had kept the books and who had had the handling
of the money.  The miscreants had some sort of vague
plan in their heads: of this there can be no doubt;
they were only procrastinating, hoping against hope
that chance would continue to favour them.  But now
the hour had come, the danger was imminent; within
the next four-and-twenty hours Janet Smith, being
promised no redress on the part of the President, would
place the whole matter before the governors.  <i>Unless
she was effectually made to hold her tongue</i>.
</p>

<p>
"We can easily suppose that Marston would be clever
enough to arrange to meet Arkwright Jones, without
arousing suspicion.  We do know that soon after he
finally quarrelled with Janet Smith he walked over to
Kurtmoor; the two witnesses who spoke with him
stated that they met him whilst they themselves were
walking to Broxmouth.  It was then past eight o'clock.
Arkwright Jones had either dined at his hotel or not;
we do not know, for it never struck the police to
inquire at once how the popular General had spent his
time on that fateful evening.  You know what those
unconventional seaside places are: people spend most
of their time out of doors, and there would be nothing
strange, let alone suspicious, in any visitor going out
for an hour after dinner, even if it rained.
</p>

<p>
"Then surely you can in your mind see those two
scoundrels putting their villainous heads together, and
as suspicion of any foul play would of necessity at
once fall on Marston, Jones decided to take the hideous
onus on himself.  He went to the Dog's Tooth Cliff to
meet Janet Smith himself, and borrowed Marston's
stick to aid him in his abominable deed.  He was clever
enough, however, to throw it over the edge of the cliff
some distance away from the scene of his crime.  We
do not know, of course, whether the poor girl recognised
him, or whether he just fell on her in the dark;
she gave only one scream before she fell.
</p>

<p>
"They were clever scoundrels, we must admit, but
chance favoured them, too, especially in one thing:
she favoured them when she prompted Arkwright Jones
to put a muffler round his throat.  This one fact, as you
know, saved Marston's neck from the gallows, but
for the strands of wool in the girl's hatpin, and Hoggs's
brief view of a man manipulating a muffler, nothing but
Jones's own confession could have saved his accomplice.
Whether he would have confessed remains a riddle
which no one will ever solve.  But as to the whole
so-called mystery, I saw daylight through it the moment
I realised that Marston's despair and humiliation
during the inquest was a pretence.  If he feigned despair
it was because he desired <i>temporarily</i> to be the victim
of circumstantial evidence.  From that point to the
unravelling of the tangled skein was but a step for a
mind bent on logic."
</p>

<p>
"But," I argued, for indeed I was bewildered, and
really incredulous, "what will be the end of it all?
Surely three scoundrels like that will not go scot free.
There will be an enquiry into the affairs of the
Institute: the governors&mdash;&mdash;"
</p>

<p>
"The governors have talked of an inquiry," the
funny creature broke in, with a chuckle, "but if you
had any experience of these private charities, you would
know that the first thing their administrators wish to
avoid is publicity.  The President of the Woodforde
Institute had sufficient influence on the committee you
may be sure to stifle any suggestion of creating public
scandal by any sort of enquiry."
</p>

<p>
"But the question of the finances of the Institute is,
anyhow, public property now, and&mdash;&mdash;"
</p>

<p>
"And it will be allowed to sink into oblivion.  The
executive has resigned.  Marston and Gubbins will
leave the country, and everything will be conveniently
hushed up."
</p>

<p>
"But Arkwright Jones&mdash;" I protested.
</p>

<p>
"You see the papers regularly," he rejoined dryly;
"watch them, and you will see..."
</p>

<p>
I don't know when he went, but a moment or two
later I found myself sitting alone at the table in the
blameless teashop.  The matter interested me more
than I cared to admit, but, for once, I was not
altogether prepared to accept the funny creature's
deductions.
</p>

<p>
Twenty-four hours later, however, I had to own that
he had been right, when the following piece of
sensational news appeared in the <i>Evening Post</i>.
</p>

<p><br /></p>

<p class="t3">
  "TRAGIC SEQUEL TO THE CLIFF MURDER<br />
</p>

<p>
"An extraordinary sequel to the mysterious tragedy
of the Dog's Tooth Cliff near Broxmouth occurred last
night, when on the self-same spot where Miss Janet
Smith met her death three months ago, General Sir
Arkwright Jones lost his footing and fell a distance of two
hundred feet on to the rocks below.  It was a beautiful
moonlight evening, and the tide being low a number of
visitors were down on the beach at the time; but those
who immediately hurried to the General's assistance
found life already extinct.  The distinguished soldier,
who will be deeply mourned, must have been killed on
the spot.  Indeed now general public opinion as well
as every inhabitant of Broxmouth will bring pressure
to bear upon the Borough Council to see that a
suitable barrier is erected along the dangerous portions
of the beautiful Lovers' Walk.  The double tragedy of
this year's season renders such an erection imperative."
</p>

<p><br /></p>

<p>
I was probably the only reader of that paragraph
who guessed that the once distinguished soldier had
not come accidentally by his death.  No doubt the
police had followed up the clue of the man with the
muffler, and were actually on the track of the
miscreant, when the latter, guessing that exposure was
imminent, preferred to put an end to his own miserable
life.
</p>

<p>
I have since heard from friends at Broxmouth that
Marston has gone to the Malay States, and that
Gubbins is doing something in Germany.  Curious
creature Marston must have been!  Imagine after
Jones had returned from his infamous errand and told
him that the hideous deed was done, imagine Marston
walking back to Broxmouth along the Lovers' Walk
in the rain and the darkness, past the Dog's Tooth Cliff,
at the foot of which the body of the murdered girl lay!
I wonder what would be the views of the Old Man in
the Corner on the psychology of a man with nerve
enough for such an ordeal.
</p>

<p><br /><br /><br /></p>

<p><a id="chap07"></a></p>

<h3>
VII
<br /><br />
THE TYTHERTON CASE
</h3>

<p><br /></p>

<h4>
§1
</h4>

<p>
"What do you make of this?" the Old Man in
the Corner said to me that afternoon.  "A
curious case, is it not?"
</p>

<p>
And with his claw-like fingers he indicated the
paragraph in the <i>Evening Post</i> which I had just been
perusing with great interest.
</p>

<p>
"At best," I replied, "it is a very unpleasant business
for the Carysforts."
</p>

<p>
"And at the worst?" he retorted with a chuckle.
</p>

<p>
"Well...!" I remarked dryly.
</p>

<p>
"Do you think they are guilty?" he asked.
</p>

<p>
"I don't see who else..."
</p>

<p>
"Ah!" he broke in, with his usual lack of manners,
"that is such a stale argument.  One doesn't see who
else, therefore one makes up one's mind that so-and-so
must be guilty.  I'll lay an even bet with any one that
out of a dozen cases of miscarriage of justice, I could
point to ten that were directly due to that fallacious
reasoning.
</p>

<p>
"Now take as an example the Tytherton case, in
which you are apparently interested.  It was an
unprecedented outrage which stirred the busy provincial
town to its depths, the victim, Mr. Walter Stonebridge,
being one of its most noted solicitors.  He had his office
in Tytherton High Street, and lived in a small, detached
house on the Great West Road.  The house stood in the
middle of a small garden, and had only one story
above the ground floor; the front door opened straight
on a long, narrow hall which ran along the full depth
of the house.  On the left side of this hall there were
two doors, one leading to the drawing-room and the
other to a small morning-room.  At the end of the hall
was the staircase, and beyond it, down a couple of
steps, there was a tiny dining-room and the usual
offices.  The back door opened straight on the kitchen,
and on the floor above there were four bedrooms and
a bathroom.  Mr. Walter Stonebridge was a bachelor,
and his domestic staff consisted of a married
couple&mdash;Henning by name&mdash;who did all that was necessary for
him in the house.
</p>

<p>
"It was on the last evening of February.  The
weather was fair and bright.  The Hennings had gone
upstairs to their room as usual at ten o'clock.
Mr. Stonebridge was at the time sitting in the morning-room.
He was in the habit of sitting up late, reading
and writing.  On this occasion he told the Hennings
to close the shutters and lock the back door as usual,
but to leave the front door on the latch as he was
expecting a visitor.  The Hennings thought nothing of
that, as one or two gentlemen&mdash;friends, or sometimes
clients of Mr. Stonebridge&mdash;would now and then drop
in late to see him.  Anyway, they went contentedly
to bed.
</p>

<p>
"A little while later&mdash;they could not exactly recollect
at what hour, because they had already settled down
for the night&mdash;they heard the front-door bell, and
immediately afterwards Mr. Stonebridge's footsteps along
the hall.  Then suddenly they heard a crash followed
by what sounded like a struggle, then a smothered cry,
and finally silence.  Henning was out of bed and on
the landing with a candle in an instant, and he had
just switched on the light there when he heard
Mr. Stonebridge's voice calling up to him from below:
</p>

<p>
"It's all right, Henning.  I caught my foot in this
confounded rug.  That's all.'
</p>

<p>
"Henning looked over the bannister, and seeing
nothing he shouted down:
</p>

<p>
"'Shall I give you a 'and, sir?'
</p>

<p>
"But Mr. Stonebridge at once replied, quite cheerily:
</p>

<p>
"'No, no!  I'm all right.  You go back to bed.'
</p>

<p>
"And Henning did as he was told, nor did he or
his wife hear anything more during the night.  But in
the early morning when Mrs. Henning came downstairs
she was horror-struck to find Mr. Stonebridge in the
dining-room, lying across the table, to which he was
securely pinioned with a rope; a serviette taken out of
the sideboard drawer had been tied tightly around his
mouth and his eyes were blindfolded with his own
pocket handkerchief.
</p>

<p>
"The woman's screams brought her husband upon
the scene; together they set to work to rescue their
master from his horrible plight.  At first they thought
that he was dead, and Henning was for fetching the
police immediately, but his wife declared that
Mr. Stonebridge was just unconscious and she started to
apply certain household restoratives and made Henning
force some brandy through Mr. Stonebridge's lips.
</p>

<p>
"Presently, the poor man opened his eyes, and gave
one or two other signs of returning consciousness, but
he was still very queer and shaky.  The Hennings then
carried him upstairs, undressed him and put him to bed;
and then Henning ran for the doctor.
</p>

<p>
"Well, it was days, or in fact weeks before
Mr. Stonebridge had sufficiently recovered to give a
coherent statement of what happened to him on that
fateful night, and&mdash;which was just as much to the
point&mdash;what had happened the previous day.  The doctor had
prescribed complete rest in the interim.  The patient
had suffered from concussion and I know not what,
and those events had got so mixed up in his brain that
to try and disentangle them was such an effort that
every time he attempted it it nearly sent him into a
brain fever.  But in the meanwhile his friends had
been busy&mdash;notably, Mr. Stonebridge's head clerk,
Mr. Medburn, who was giving the police no rest.  There
was, even without the evidence of the principal witness
concerned, plenty of facts to go on, to make out a case
against the perpetrator of such a dastardly outrage.
</p>

<p>
"That robbery had been the main motive of the assault,
was easily enough established&mdash;a small fire- and
burglar-proof safe which stood in a corner of the
morning-room had been opened and ransacked.  When
examined it was found to contain only a few trinkets
which had probably a sentimental value, but were otherwise
worthless.  The key of the safe&mdash;one of a bunch&mdash;was
still in the lock, which went to prove either that
Mr. Stonebridge had the safe open when he was
attacked, or what was more likely&mdash;considering the
solicitor's well-known careful habits&mdash;that the assailant
had ransacked his victim's pockets after he had knocked
him down.  A pocket-book, torn, and containing only a
few unimportant papers, lay on the ground; there
had been a fire in the room at the time of the outrage,
and careful analysis of the ashes found in the hearth
revealed the presence of a quantity of burnt paper.
</p>

<p>
"But robbery being established as the motive of the
outrage did not greatly help matters, because, while
Mr. Stonebridge remained in such a helpless condition, it
was impossible to ascertain what booty his assailant
had carried away.  Soon, however, the first ray of light
was thrown upon what had seemed until this hour an
impenetrable mystery.
</p>

<p>
"It appears that Mr. Medburn was looking after the
business in High Street during his employer's absence,
and one morning&mdash;it was on the Monday following the
night of the outrage&mdash;he had a visit from a client, who
sent in his name as Felix Shap.  The head clerk knew
something about this client, who had recently come
over to England from somewhere abroad, in order to
make good his claim to certain royalties on what is
known as the Shap Fuelettes&mdash;a kind of cheap fuel
which was launched some time before the War by Sir
Alfred Carysfort, Bart., of Tytherton Grange, and out
of which that gentleman made an immense fortune, and
incidentally got his title thereby.
</p>

<p>
"This man, Shap&mdash;a Dutchman by birth&mdash;was, it
appears, the original inventor and patentee of these
fuelettes, and Mr. Carysfort, as he was then, had met
him out in the Dutch East Indies, and had bought the
invention from him for a certain sum down, and then
exploited it in England first and afterwards all over the
world at immense profit.  Sir Alfred Carysfort died
about a year ago, leaving a fortune of over a million
sterling, and was succeeded in the title and in the
managing-directorship of the business by his eldest son
David, a married man with a large family.  The business
had long since been turned into a private limited
liability company, the bulk of the shares being held by
the managing-director.
</p>

<p>
"The fact that the patent rights in the Shap Fuelettes
had been sold by the inventor to the late Alfred
Carysfort had never been in dispute.  It further appeared
that Felix Shap had at one time been a very promising
mining engineer, but that in consequence of incurable,
intemperate habits he had gradually drifted down the
social scale; he lost one good appointment after
another until he was just an underpaid clerk in the
office of an engineer in Batavia, whose representative in
England was Mr. Alfred Carysfort.  The latter was
on a visit to the head office in Batavia some twelve
years ago when he met Shap, who was then on his
beam-ends.  He had recently been sacked by his
employers for intemperance, and was on the fair way to
becoming one of those hopeless human derelicts who
usually end their days either on the gallows or in a
convict prison.
</p>

<p>
"But at the back of Shap's fuddled mind there had
lingered throughout his downward career the
remembrance of a certain invention which he had once
patented, and which he had always declared would one day
bring him an immense fortune; but though he had
spent quite a good deal of money in keeping up his
patent rights, he had never had the pluck and
perseverance to exploit or even to perfect his invention.
</p>

<p>
"Alfred Carysfort on the other hand, was brilliantly
clever, he was ambitious, probably none too scrupulous,
and at once he saw the immense possibilities, if properly
worked, of Shap's rough invention, and he set to work
to obtain the man's confidence, and, presumably, by
exercising certain persuasion and pressure he got the
wastrel to make over to him in exchange for a few
hundred pounds the entire patent rights in the Fuelettes.
</p>

<p>
"The transaction was, as far as that goes, perfectly
straightforward and above board; it was embodied in a
contract drawn up by an English solicitor, who was the
British Consul in Batavia at the time; nor was
it&mdash;taking everything into consideration&mdash;an unfair one.
Shap would never have done anything with his invention,
and a clean, wholesome and entirely practical fuel
would probably have been thus lost to the world; but
there remains the fact that Alfred Carysfort died a
dozen years later worth more than a million sterling,
every penny of which he had made out of an invention
for which he had originally paid less than five hundred.
</p>

<p>
"Mr. Medburn had been put in possession of these
facts some few weeks previously when Mr. Felix Shap
had first presented himself at the private house of
Mr. Stonebridge; he came armed with a letter of
introduction from a relative of Mr. Stonebridge's whom he had
met out in Java, and he was accompanied by a friend&mdash;an
American named Julian Lloyd&mdash;who was piloting
him about the place, and acting as his interpreter and
secretary, as he himself had never been in England and
spoke English very indifferently.  His passport and
papers of identification were perfectly in order; he
appeared before Mr. Stonebridge as a man still on the
right side of sixty, who certainly bore traces on his
prematurely wrinkled face and in his tired, lustreless eyes
of a life spent in dissipation rather than in work, but
otherwise he bore himself well, was well-dressed and
appeared plentifully supplied with money.
</p>

<p>
"The story that he told Mr. Stonebridge through the
intermediary of his friend, Julian Lloyd, was a very
curious one.  According to his version of various
transactions which took place between himself and the late
Sir Alfred Carysfort, the latter had, some time after
the signing of the original contract, made him a
definite promise in writing, that should the proceeds in the
business of the Shap Fuelettes exceed £10,000 in any
one year, he, Sir Alfred, would pay the original inventor,
out of his own pocket, a sum equivalent to twenty per
cent. of all such profits over and above the £10,000,
with a minimum of £200.
</p>

<p>
"Mr. Shap had brought over with him all the
correspondence relating to this promise, and, moreover, he
adduced as proof positive that Sir Alfred had looked
on that promise as binding, and had at first loyally
abided by it, the fact that until 1916 he had paid to
Mr. Felix Shap the sum of £200 every year.  These sums
had been paid half-yearly through Sir Alfred's bankers,
and acknowledgments were duly sent by Shap direct
to the bank, all of which could of course be easily
verified.  But in the year 1916 these payments suddenly
ceased.  Mr. Shap wrote repeatedly to Sir Alfred, but
never received any reply.  At first he thought that there
were certain difficulties in the way owing to the
European War, so after a while he ceased writing.  But
presently there came the Armistice.  Mr. Shap wrote
again and again, but was again met by the same
obstinate silence.
</p>

<p>
"In the meanwhile he had come to the end of his
resources; he had spent all that he had ever saved, but,
nevertheless, he was determined that as soon as he
could scrape up a sufficiency of money he would go to
England in order to establish his rights.  Then in
1922 he heard of Sir Alfred Carysfort's death.  It was
now or never if he did not mean to acquiesce silently in
the terrible wrong which was being put upon him.
Fortunately he had a good friend in Mr. Julian Lloyd,
who had helped him with money and advice, and at
last he had arrived in England.  It was for Mr. Stonebridge
to say whether the papers and correspondence
which he had brought with him were sufficient to
establish his claim in law.  Mr. Medburn remembered
Mr. Stonebridge telling him all about these matters
and emphasising the fact that Felix Shap had
undoubtedly a very strong case and that he could not
understand a man of the position of Sir Alfred Carysfort
thus wilfully repudiating his own signature.
</p>

<p>
"'There is not only the original letter,' Mr. Stonebridge
had concluded, 'making a definite promise to
pay certain sums out of his own pocket if the profits
of the company exceeded ten thousand pounds in any
one year, but there are all the covering letters from
Sir Alfred's bankers whenever they sent cheques on
his behalf to Shap&mdash;usually twice a year for sums that
varied between one hundred and one hundred and fifty
pounds.  I cannot understand it!' he had reiterated
more than once, and Mr. Medburn, who also had a
great deal of respect for the Carysforts, who were
among the wealthiest people in the county, was equally
at a loss to understand the position.
</p>

<p>
"However Mr. Stonebridge, after he had seen the
late Sir Alfred's bankers about the payments to Shap,
and consulted an expert on the subject of the all-important
letter signed by Alfred Carysfort, sought an
interview with Sir David.  From the first there seemed
to be an extraordinary amount of acrimony brought
into the dispute by both sides; this was understandable
enough on the part of Felix Shap, who felt he was
being defrauded of his just dues by men who were
literally coining money out of the product of his brain;
but the greatest bitterness really appeared to come
from the other side.
</p>

<p>
"At first Sir David Carysfort refused even to discuss
the question; he was quite sure that if his father had
made promises of payments to any one, he was the
last man in the world to repudiate such obligations.
Sir David had not yet had time to go through all his
father's papers, but he was quite convinced that
correspondence, or documents, would presently be found,
which would set at nought the original letter produced
by Mr. Shap.  But, of course, the payments to Shap
up to and including the year 1916 could not be denied;
there was the testimony of Sir Alfred's bankers
that sums in accordance with Sir Alfred's instructions,
varying between one hundred and one hundred and
fifty pounds, were paid by cheque every half year to
the order of Felix Shap in Batavia.  In 1916 these
payments automatically ceased, Sir Alfred giving no
further orders for these to be made.  Mr. Stonebridge
naturally desired to know what explanation Sir David
would give about those payments.
</p>

<p>
"At first Sir David denied all knowledge as to the
reason or object of the payments, but after a while he
must have realised that public opinion was beginning
to raise its voice on the subject, and that it was not
exactly singing the praises of Sir David Carysfort,
Bart.
</p>

<p>
"Although Mr. Stonebridge had, of course, been
discretion itself, Mr. Shap had admittedly not the same
incentive to silence, and what's more his friend,
Mr. Lloyd, made it his business to get as much publicity
for the whole affair as he could.  Paragraphs in the
local papers had begun to appear with unabated
regularity, and though there were no actual comments on
the case as a whole, no prejudging of respective merits,
there were unmistakable hints that it would be in Sir
David's interest to put dignity on one side and come
out frankly into the open with explanations and
suggestions.  Soon the London papers got hold of the
story, and you know what that means.  The Radical
Press simply battened on a story which placed a poor,
down-at-heel inventor in the light of a victim to the
insatiable greed and frank dishonesty of a high-born
profiteer.
</p>

<p>
"Whether it was pressure from outside, or from his
own family, that suddenly induced Sir David to 'come
out into the open' is not generally known; certain it is
that presently he condescended to give an explanation
of the mysterious half-yearly payments made by his
father to Felix Shap, and the explanation was so
romantic and frankly so far-fetched that most people,
especially men, refused to accept it&mdash;notably Mr. Stonebridge.
It was not the business of a lawyer to listen
to sentimental stories, least of all was it the business of
the lawyer acting on the other side.
</p>

<p>
"The story told by Sir David, namely, was this:
</p>

<p>
"The late Sir Alfred, when quite a young man, had
gone out as clerk to that same engineering firm in
Batavia, whom he represented later on; it was then that
he first met Felix Shap, who had not yet begun to go
downhill.  An intimacy sprang up between Alfred
Carysfort and Shap's sister, Berta, and the two were
secretly married in Batavia.  A year later Berta had a
son whose birth she only survived by a few hours.  The
marriage had been an unhappy one from the first, and
Carysfort was only too thankful when his firm called
him back to England and he was able to shake off the
dust of Batavia from his feet, as he hoped for ever.
He never spoke of his marriage, nor did he ever
recognise or have anything to do with his son.  By some
pecuniary arrangement entered into with Felix Shap the
latter undertook to provide for and look after the boy,
to give him his own name, and never to trouble his
brother-in-law about him again.  A deed-poll was, Sir
David believed, duly executed, and the boy assumed
the name of Alfred Shap.
</p>

<p>
"Some years later there occurred the transaction over
the Shap Fuelettes.  Alfred Carysfort had come to
Batavia on business: he had met Felix Shap again,
who by this time had become a hopeless wastrel.  The
contract for the sale of the patent rights in the Fuelettes
was duly executed, but whether, after seeing his son
once more, the call of the blood became more insistent
in the heart of Alfred Carysfort, or whether he merely
yielded to blackmail, Sir David could not say; certain
it is that after a while when the profits of the Shap
Fuelettes Company became substantial, Sir Alfred took
to sending over a couple of hundred pounds every year
to Shap for the benefit of young Alfred.  Then the war
broke out; young Alfred joined the Australian
Expeditionary Force, and was killed in Gallipoli in August,
1915.  As soon as Sir Alfred had definite news of the
boy's death, he naturally stopped all further payments
to Shap.
</p>

<p>
"The story as you see sounded plausible enough,
and if it proved to be untrue, it would reflect great
credit on Sir David's gift of imagination.  Felix Shap,
as was only to be expected, denied it from beginning to
end; the whole thing, he declared, was an impudent
falsehood, based on a semblance of truth.  It was quite
true that he had adopted and for years had cared for
his sister's son, who was subsequently killed in
Gallipoli; it was also true that Alfred Carysfort had years
ago paid some attention to his sister Berta, but there
never was any question of marriage between them,
young Carysfort deeming himself far too grand and
well-born to marry the daughter of an obscure East
Indian trader.  Berta had subsequently married a man
of mixed blood who deserted her and went off
somewhere to Argentina or Honduras&mdash;Shap did not know
where; at any rate, he was never heard of again.
</p>

<p>
"In proof of his version of the romantic story, Felix
Shap actually had a copy of his sister's marriage
certificate, as well as one or two letters written at different
times to his sister Berta by her rascally husband.  He
had, indeed, plenty of proofs for his assertions; but
when Mr. Stonebridge asked for confirmation of Sir
David's story, the latter appeared either unprepared or
unwilling to produce any, whereupon, Mr. Stonebridge,
on behalf of his client, entered an action for the
recovery of certain royalties due to him on the sales of the
Shap Fuelettes, the amount to be presently agreed on
after examination of the audited accounts.
</p>

<p>
"Thus matters stood when on that Wednesday night
in February last, Mr. Stonebridge was found gagged
and unconscious, the victim of a murderous and
inexplicable assault.
</p>

<p>
"On the Monday following, Mr. Felix Shap, accompanied
by his friend, Mr. Lloyd, called on Mr. Medburn
at the office in High Street.  They had read in the
papers certain details which had filled Shap with
apprehension; they had read that the safe in the morning-room
in Mr. Stonebridge's house had been obviously
ransacked, and that the analysis of the ashes in the
grate had revealed the presence of a large quantity of
burnt paper.
</p>

<p>
"'My friend Mr. Shap would like you to put his
mind at rest, Mr.&mdash;er&mdash;Medburn,' Mr. Lloyd said, in
an anxious, agitated tone of voice, 'that the papers
relating to his case, which he entrusted to Mr. Stonebridge,
are safely locked up in a safe at this office.'
</p>

<p>
"Unfortunately, the head clerk was not able to satisfy
Mr. Shap on that point.  Mr. Stonebridge had never
brought the papers to the office, nor had Mr. Medburn
ever seen them.  His impression was&mdash;he regretted to
say&mdash;that Mr. Stonebridge had, for the time being,
kept all papers relating to this particular case at his
private house, just as he had always seen Mr. Shap
there rather than at the office.  Of course, Mr. Medburn
hastened to assure his visitor, Mr. Stonebridge
may have kept the documents in some other secure
place; Mr. Medburn couldn't say, not having access to
all his employer's papers, and in any case he would
make a comprehensive search for the missing documents,
and if nothing was found he would at once inform
the police.
</p>

<p>
"An evening or two later the papers came out with
flaring headlines: 'Amazing Developments in the
Tytherton outrage.  Missing documents.  Sensational turn
in the Shap Fuelettes case.'  And so on.  The head
clerk had made an exhaustive search amongst his
employer's papers, but not a trace could he find of any
documents relative to Mr. Shap's case.  One and all
had disappeared: the original letter from Alfred
Carysfort promising to pay an extra twenty per cent. on
the profits of the Shap Fuelette Company under certain
conditions, the letters from the scoundrel who had
been Berta's husband, together with the copy of Berta's
marriage certificate&mdash;everything was gone, every proof
of the truth of the story which Felix Shap had come
all this way to tell.
</p>

<p><br /></p>

<h4>
§2
</h4>

<p>
"The next exciting incident," the Old Man in the
Corner continued glibly, "in this remarkably mysterious
case, was the news that Mr. Allan Carysfort, eldest
son of Sir David Carysfort, Bart., had been detained in
connection with the assault upon Mr. Stonebridge and
the disappearance of certain papers, the property of
Mr. Felix Shap of Batavia.
</p>

<p>
"Young Allan Carysfort, who was a subaltern in a
cavalry regiment, had come home from India recently,
and, as a matter of fact, he had arrived at the Grange,
the family seat just outside Tytherton, the very evening
of the outrage.  Acting upon certain information
received, the police had detained him; he was to be
brought before the magistrates on the following day;
and in the meanwhile it was generally understood that
some highly sensational evidence had been collected by
the police.
</p>

<p>
"It has been asserted that Sir David Carysfort and
his family were the last to realise how very strong
public opinion had been against them ever since Shap's
story and the loss of the documents had become
generally known.  Though there had been no hint of it in
the Press, the public loudly declared that the
Carysforts must have had something to do with the outrage,
seek him whom the crime benefits being a most excellent
adage.  But imagine the sensation when Allan
Carysfort, the eldest son of Sir David Carysfort, Bart.,
was arrested!
</p>

<p>
"Need I say that the following day when the young
man was brought before the magistrates, the court was
crowded.  Sir David was a magistrate, too, but of
course he did not sit that day.  To see his eldest son
arraigned before his brother Beaks must have been a
bitter pill for his pride to swallow.
</p>

<p>
"We had the usual formal evidence of arrest, the
medical evidence, and so on, after which we quickly
plunged into exciting business.  Mr. Stonebridge we
were soon told had made a statement.  He was not
yet strong enough to appear in person, <i>but he had
made a statement</i>, so at last the public was to be
initiated into the mysteries that surrounded the
inexplicable assault.
</p>

<p>
"'After my servants had gone to bed,' Mr. Stonebridge
had stated, 'I sat awhile reading in my study.
I was expecting a visit from Mr. Shap, as we had talked
over the possibility of a quiet chat at my house that
evening on the subject of his affairs.  He and
Mr. Lloyd, who were both of them very fond of the cinema,
were in the habit of dropping in after the show, on
their way home.  At about a quarter to eleven&mdash;I am
sure it was not later&mdash;there was a ring at the
front-door bell, and I went to open the door.  No sooner
had I done this than a shawl or muffler of some sort
was thrown over my face, and I was made to lose my
balance by the thrust of a foot between my two shins.
I came down backwards with a crash.
</p>

<p>
"'The whole thing occurred in fewer seconds than it
takes to describe; the next moment I had the sensation
of cold steel against my temple, I heard an ominous
click, and a husky voice whispered in my ear, "Your
servant is coming out of his room.  Speak to him, tell
him you are all right, or I shoot."  What could I do?  I
was utterly helpless and a revolver was held to my
temple.  The muffler was then lifted from my mouth,
I could feel the man bending over me, I could feel his
hot breath on my forehead, and a few seconds later I
heard Henning come out of his room upstairs and
switch on the light on the top landing.  "If he comes
downstairs," the voice whispered close to my ear, "I
shoot."
</p>

<p>
"'Then it was,' Mr. Stonebridge went on to say,
'that I shouted up to Henning that I had only tripped
over a rug, and that I was quite all right.  I don't think
I ever looked death so very near in the face before.
The next moment I heard Henning switch off the light
upstairs and go back to his room.  After that I
remember nothing more.  I only have a vague recollection
of a sudden terrible pain in my head; everything
else is a blank until I found myself in bed, and with
vague stirrings of memory bringing a return of that
same appalling headache.'
</p>

<p>
"The great point about Mr. Stonebridge's evidence
was that he was utterly unable to identify his assailant.
He was not even sure whether he had been attacked by
two men or one, since he had been blindfolded at the
outset, and all that he heard was a husky voice that
spoke in a whisper.  He was ready to admit that he
might have left the safe unlocked when he went to
answer the front-door bell, and he certainly had the
papers relating to Mr. Shap's case on his desk as he had
been going through them earlier in the evening.  Those
papers, therefore, had undoubtedly been burned in the
grate, and it was obvious that the theft and destruction
of those papers was the motive of the assault.
</p>

<p>
"After that we went from excitement to excitement.
We did not get it all the same day, of course; Allan
Carysfort appeared, as far as I can remember, three or
four times before the local magistrates; in between
times he was out on bail, this having been fixed
at £1,000 in two recognisances £500 each, with an
additional £500 on his own.  It seems that when he was
arrested he had made a statement, to which he had
since unreservedly subscribed.  He said that he had
arrived in London from Southampton on Monday the
twenty-sixth, and after seeing to some business in
town, he took the eight-ten P.M. train on the
twenty-eighth to Tytherton, where he arrived at nine-fifty,
having dined on board.  His father met him at the
station with the car, but it was such a beautiful moon-lit
night Sir David and himself decided that they would
walk to the Grange and then sent the car home with
a message to Lady Carysfort that they would be home
at about eleven o'clock.
</p>

<p>
"Carysfort had been asked whether it was not strange
that after being absent from home for so long, he should
have elected to put off seeing his mother till a much
later hour.
</p>

<p>
"'Not at all,' he replied.  'My father wished to put
me <i>au fait</i> of certain family matters before I actually
saw Lady Carysfort.  These matters,' he added
emphatically in reply to questions put to him by the
magistrate, 'had nothing whatever to do with financial
business, least of all were they in any relation to
Mr. Shap and his affairs.  Sir David and I,' he went on
calmly, 'walked about for a while, and then Sir David
remembered that he wished to see a friend at the
County Club.  He went in there, but I preferred to take
another turn out of doors, as I had not had a taste of
English country air for nearly two years.'
</p>

<p>
"Asked how long he had walked about Tytherton
waiting for Sir David, Carysfort thought about half an
hour, and when questioned as to the direction he had
taken, he said he really couldn't remember.
</p>

<p>
"The police of course had adduced certain witnesses
whose testimony would justify the course they had
taken in arresting a gentleman in the position of
Mr. Allan Carysfort.  There was, first of all, Felix Shap
himself and his friend Julian Lloyd.  They deposed that
at about half-past ten, or perhaps a little earlier, they
were on their way to see Mr. Stonebridge, as the latter
had expressed a wish to see them both and have another
quiet talk over a cigar and a glass of wine; Shap
and Lloyd had been to the P.P.P. cinema in High
Street, and they left just before the end to go to
Mr. Stonebridge's house.  They were within fifty yards of
it when they saw a man turn out of the nearest side
street and go up to Mr. Stonebridge's house.  The man
went through the garden gate and up to the front door.
Shap and Lloyd saw him in the act of ringing the bell.
It was then somewhere between ten-thirty and
ten-forty-five.  Mr. Stonebridge was so very much in the
habit of seeing friends, and even those clients with
whom he was intimate, late in the evenings, that
Mr. Shap and Mr. Lloyd didn't think anything of the
incident; but, at the same time, they made up their minds
to postpone their own visit to Mr. Stonebridge until
they could be quite sure of seeing him alone.  So they
turned then and there, and went straight back to the
Black Swan where they lodged.
</p>

<p>
"I may add that with commendable reserve both
these witnesses refused to identify Allan Carysfort with
Mr. Stonebridge's visitor on that memorable Wednesday
evening.  The man they saw had an overcoat and
wore a Glengarry cap.  More they could not say, as
they had not seen his face clearly.
</p>

<p>
"On the other hand the hall-porter at the County
Club, another witness for the Treasury, had no cause
for such reserve.  He said that on the evening of
February twenty-eighth, Sir David Carysfort came to the
Club a little before half-past ten.  Mr. Allan was with
him then, but he didn't come in.  The hall-porter heard
him say to Sir David: 'Very well, then!  I'll pick you
up here in about half an hour!'  And Sir David
rejoined: 'Yes; don't be late!'  Mr. Allan did return
to the Club at about eleven o'clock and the two gentlemen
then went off together.  The hall-porter
remembered the incident on that date quite distinctly, because
he recollected being much surprised at seeing Mr. Allan
Carysfort, who he thought was still abroad.
</p>

<p>
"After that there was another remand, Allan Carysfort's
solicitor having asked and obtained an adjournment
for a week.  But by this time, as you may
imagine, not only the county, but London Society too
were absolutely horror-struck.  To think that a man in
the position of the Carysforts should have stooped to
such an act, not only of violence, but of improbity, was
indeed staggering.  Nor did public opinion swerve from
this attitude one hair's breadth, even though at the
next hearing all the proofs which the police had
adduced against the accused were absolutely confuted.
</p>

<p>
"Fortunately for Carysfort, his solicitors had been
successful in finding two witnesses, Miriam Page and
Arthur Ormeley, who had seen Mr. Allan Carysfort,
whom they knew by sight, strolling by the river at a
quarter to eleven.  They&mdash;like the hall-porter of the
County Club&mdash;remembered the circumstance very
clearly, because they did not know that Mr. Allan was
home from abroad, and were astonished to see him
there.
</p>

<p>
"The point of the evidence of these witnesses was
that the river where they had seen Allan Carysfort
strolling at a quarter to eleven is at the diametrically
opposite end of the town to that where lies the Great
West Road.  Now the hall-porter had seen Allan Carysfort
outside the County Club at half-past ten and again
at eleven.  If Carysfort was strolling by the river at a
quarter to eleven, and there was no reason to impugn
the credibility of the witnesses, he could not possibly
have been the man whom Mr. Shap and Mr. Lloyd
saw ringing the bell of Mr. Stonebridge's house at
about that same hour.
</p>

<p>
"Allan Carysfort was discharged by the magistrates,
as you know.  There was no definite proof against him.
But public opinion is ever an uncertain quantity, and
it is still dead against the Carysforts.  In the public
mind two facts have remained indelibly fixed: firstly,
that the Carysforts had everything to gain by the
destruction of Felix Shap's papers and, secondly, that
there was nobody else who could possibly have
benefited by it.
</p>

<p>
"Since then also Mr. Stonebridge has made a declaration
that nothing was stolen out of his safe and pocketbook
except the papers and letters belonging to Felix
Shap.  So what would you?  Although Allan Carysfort
was discharged by the magistrates, really because
there was no tangible evidence against him, he did not
leave the court without a stain on his character.  The
stain was there, and there it is to this day.  It will take
the Carysforts years to live the scandal down; though
some friends have remained loyal, there are always the
enemies, the envious, the uncharitable, and they insist
that the two witnesses&mdash;the only two, mind you, whose
evidence did clear Allan Carysfort of suspicion&mdash;had
been bought and should not be believed, while others
simply declare that Sir David and his son employed
some ruffian to do the dirty work for them."
</p>

<p>
He gave a dry cackle, and contemplated me through
his huge horn-rimmed spectacles.
</p>

<p>
"And you are of that opinion, too, I imagine," he
said.
</p>

<p>
"Well, it seems the only likely explanation," I
replied guardedly.
</p>

<p>
"Surely you don't suppose," he retorted, "that a
business man like David Carysfort would place himself
so entirely in the hands of a ruffian that he would
for ever after be the victim of blackmail!  Why, it
would have been cheaper to buy off Felix Shap!"
</p>

<p>
"But," I rejoined, "I don't see who else had any
interest in doing away with those documents."
</p>

<p>
"I'll tell you," he rejoined dryly.  "Felix Shap himself."
</p>

<p>
"What <i>do</i> you mean?" I queried, with as much lofty
scorn as I could command.
</p>

<p>
"I mean," he replied, "that all Felix Shap's
documents were forgeries."
</p>

<p>
"Forgeries?" I exclaimed.
</p>

<p>
"Yes, spurious!  False affidavits!  Forgeries, the
lot of 'em.  My belief is that Stonebridge began to
suspect this himself, and I think he has had a narrow
escape of being murdered outright by those two rascals.
As it is, they have destroyed every proof of their
villainy, and old Stonebridge, I imagine, is content to let
things remain as they are rather than admit publicly
that he was completely taken in by two very plausible
rogues."
</p>

<p>
"But," I urged, "what about the handwriting expert?"
</p>

<p>
The funny creature laughed aloud.
</p>

<p>
"Yes!" he said, "what about the expert?  If there
had been two they would have disagreed.  And mind
you at a distance of twelve years a signature would
be difficult of absolute identification.  Every one's
handwriting undergoes certain modifications in the
course of years.  Experts," he reiterated.  "Bah!"
</p>

<p>
"But," I went on, impatiently, "I don't see the
object of the whole scheme."
</p>

<p>
"The object was blackmail," the whimsical creature
retorted, "and it has succeeded admirably.  Already
we read that Messrs. Shap and Lloyd are staying at
expensive hotels in London, that they have granted
interviews to pressmen and written articles for
half-penny newspapers.  We shall hear of them as cinema
stars presently.  They have had the most gorgeous, the
most paying publicity, and presently Sir David
Carysfort will have had enough of them and will put a few
more hundreds in their pockets just to be rid of them.
That was the object of the whole scheme, my dear
young lady!  And see how well it was carried out.
</p>

<p>
"Of course the fuddle-headed Dutchman never
thought of it.  I imagine that the whole scheme originated
in the fertile brain of Mr. Julian Lloyd.  And it
was thoroughly well thought out from the manufacture
of the documents and letters down to the assault on
the silly old country attorney.  And, mind you, the
rascals originally went to a silly country attorney; they
would have been afraid to go to a London lawyer, lest
he be too sharp for them.
</p>

<p>
"The only mistake they made were the letters purported
to be written to Berta Shap by the husband who
is supposed to have disappeared, and the copy of Berta's
marriage certificate.  It is those letters that gave me
the clue to the whole thing; old Stonebridge was too
dull to have seen through those letters.  If they were
genuine why should Felix Shap have brought them over
to England?  They had nothing whatever to do with
any contract about the Shap Fuelettes.  If they were
genuine, how could he guess that he would have to
disprove a story of a secret marriage and of young Alfred
being the son of Sir Alfred Carysfort?  By wanting to
prove too much, he, to my mind, gave himself away,
and one can but marvel that neither lawyers nor police
saw through the roguery.
</p>

<p>
"Of course the moment one understands that one set
of papers was spurious, it is easily concluded that all
the others were forgeries.  And the late Sir Alfred
Carysfort, anxious only to obliterate every vestige of
that early marriage of his, unwittingly played into the
hands of those two scoundrels by destroying all the
correspondence that he had ever had with Shap.
</p>

<p>
"Think it all over, you will see that I am right.  Look
at this paragraph again in the <i>Evening Post</i>, does it
not bear out what I say?"
</p>

<p>
The paragraph in the evening paper to which the
Old Man in the Corner was pointing read as follows:
</p>

<p>
"Among the passengers on the Dutch liner <i>Stadt
Rotterdam</i> is Mr. Felix Shap, the hero of a recent
celebrated case.  He is returning to Batavia, having,
through a misadventure which has remained an
impenetrable mystery to this day, been deprived of all the
proofs that would have established his claim to a
substantial share of the profits in the Shap Fuelettes
Company.  Fortunately Mr. Shap had enlisted so many
sympathies in England that his friends had no difficulty
in collecting a considerable sum of money which was
presented to him on his departure in the form of a
purse and as a compensation for the ill-luck which has
attended him since he set foot in this country.
Mr. Shap will now be able to take abroad with him the
assurance that British public opinion is always on the
side of the victims of an adverse and unmerited fate."
</p>

<p>
"Yes!" the funny creature concluded with a cackle,
"until the victims are found out to be rogues.
Mr. Felix Shap and his friend, Mr. Julian Lloyd, will be
found out some day."
</p>

<p>
The next moment he had gone with that rapidity
which was so characteristic of him, and I might have
thought that he was just a spook who had come to visit
me whilst I dozed over my cup of tea, only that on the
table by the side of an empty glass was a piece of
string adorned with a series of complicated knots.
</p>

<p><br /><br /><br /></p>

<p><a id="chap08"></a></p>

<h3>
VIII
<br /><br />
THE MYSTERY OF BRUDENELL COURT
</h3>

<p><br /></p>

<h4>
§1
</h4>

<p>
"Did you ever make up your mind about that
Brudenell Court affair?" the Old Man in
the Corner said to me that day.
</p>

<p>
"No," I replied.  "As far as I am concerned the
death of Colonel Forburg has remained a complete
mystery."
</p>

<p>
"You don't think," he insisted, "that Morley Thrall
was guilty?"
</p>

<p>
"Well," I said, "I don't know what to think."
</p>

<p>
"Then don't do it," he rejoined, with a chuckle, "if
you don't know what to think, then it's best not to
think at all.  At any rate wait until I have told you
exactly what did happen&mdash;not as it was reported in the
newspapers, but in the sequence in which the various
incidents occurred.
</p>

<p>
"On Christmas Eve, last year, while the family were
at dinner, there was a sudden commotion and cries of
'Stop, thief!' issuing from the back premises of
Brudenell Court, the country seat of a certain Colonel
Forburg.  The butler ran in excitedly to say that Julia
Mason, one of the maids, was drawing down the blinds
in one of the first-floor rooms, when she saw a man
fiddling with the shutters of the French window in the
smoking-room downstairs.  She at once gave the alarm,
whereupon the man bolted across the garden in the
direction of the five-acre field.  The Colonel and his
stepson, as well as two male guests who were dining
with them, immediately jumped up and hurried out to
help in the chase.  It was a very dark night, people
were running to and fro, and for a few moments there
was a great deal of noise and confusion, through which
two pistol-shots in close succession were distinctly
heard.
</p>

<p>
"The ladies&mdash;amongst whom was Miss Monica Glenluce,
the Colonel's stepdaughter&mdash;had remained in the
dining-room, and the dinner was kept waiting, pending
the return of the gentlemen.  They straggled in one
by one, all except the Colonel.  The ladies eagerly
asked for news; the gentlemen could not say much&mdash;the
night was very dark and they had just waited about
outside until some of the indoor men who had given
chase came back with the news that the thief had been
caught.
</p>

<p>
"This news was confirmed by young Glenluce, Miss
Monica's brother, who was the last to return.  He had
actually witnessed the capture.  The thief had bolted
straight across the five-acre meadow, but doubled back
before he reached the stables, turned sharply to the
right through the kitchen garden, and then jumped
over the boundary wall of the grounds into the lane
beyond, where he fell straight into the arms of the local
constable who happened to be passing by.
</p>

<p>
"Young Glenluce had great fun out of the chase; he
had guessed the man's purpose, and instead of
running after him across the meadow, he had gone round
it, and had reached the boundary wall only a few
seconds after the thief had scaled it.  There was some
talk about the gunshots that had been heard, and
every one supposed that Colonel Forburg, who was a
violent-tempered man, had snatched up a revolver
before giving chase to the burglar, and had taken a
potshot at him; it was fortunate that he had missed him.
</p>

<p>
"The incident would then have been closed and the
interrupted dinner proceeded with, but for the fact that
the host had not yet returned.  Nothing was thought of
this at first, for it was generally supposed that the
Colonel had been kept talking by one of his men, or
perhaps by the constable who had effected the capture;
it was only when close on half an hour had gone by
that Miss Monica became impatient.  She got the butler
to telephone both to the stables and the lodge, but
the Colonel had not been seen at either place, either
during or after the incident with the burglar; communication
with the police station brought the same result;
nothing had been seen or heard of the Colonel.
</p>

<p>
"Genuinely alarmed now, Miss Monica gave orders
for the grounds to be searched; it was just possible that
the Colonel had fallen whilst running, and was lying
somewhere, helpless in the dark, perhaps unconscious....
Every one began recalling those pistol-shots and a
vague sense of tragedy spread over the entire house.
Monica blamed herself for not having thought of all
this before.
</p>

<p>
"A search party went out at once; for a while stable-lanterns
and electric-torches gleamed through the darkness
and past the shrubberies.  Then suddenly there
were calls for help, the wandering lights centred in one
spot, somewhere in the middle of the five-acre meadow
near the big elm tree.  Obviously there had been an
accident.  Monica ran to the front door, followed by all
the guests.  Through the darkness a group of men
were seen slowly wending their way towards the house;
one man was running ahead, it was the chauffeur.
Young Glenluce, half guessing that something sinister
had occurred, went forward to meet him.
</p>

<p>
"What had happened was indeed as tragic as it was
mysterious; the search party had found the Colonel
lying full-length in the meadow.  His clothes were
saturated with blood; he had been shot in the breast
and was apparently dead.  Close by a revolver had
been picked up.  It was impossible to keep the terrible
news from Miss Monica.  Her brother broke the news
to her.  She bore up with marvellous calm, and it was
she who at once gave the necessary orders to have her
stepfather's body taken upstairs and to fetch both the
doctor and the police.
</p>

<p>
"In the meanwhile the guests had gone back into
the house.  They stood about in groups, awestruck
and whispering.  They did not care to finish their
dinner, or to go up to their rooms, as in all probability
they would be required when the police came to make
enquiries.  Monica and Gerald Glenluce had gone to sit
in the smoking-room.
</p>

<p>
"It was the most horrible Christmas Eve any one in
that house had ever experienced."
</p>

<p><br /></p>

<h4>
§2
</h4>

<p>
"Murder committed from any other motive than that
of robbery," the Old Man in the Corner went on after
a moment's pause, "always excites the interest of the
public.  There is nearly always an element of mystery
about it, and it invariably suggests possibilities of
romance.  In this case, of course, there was no question
of robbery.  After Colonel Forburg fell, shot, as it
transpired, at close range and full in the breast, his
clothes were left untouched; there was loose silver in
his trousers pocket, a few treasury notes in his letter-case,
and he was wearing a gold watch and chain and
a fine pearl stud.
</p>

<p>
"The motive of the crime was therefore enmity or
revenge, and here the police were at once confronted
with a great difficulty.  Not, mind you, the difficulty of
finding a man who hated the Colonel sufficiently to kill
him, but that of choosing among his many enemies
one who was most likely to have committed such a
terrible crime.  He was the best-hated man in the county.
Known as 'Remount Forburg,' he was generally supposed
to have made his fortune in some shady transactions
connected with the Remount Department of the
War Office during the Boer War, more than twenty
years ago.
</p>

<p>
"His first wife was said to have died of a broken
heart, and he had no children of his own; some ten
years ago he had married a widow with two young
children.  She had a considerable fortune of her own,
and when she died she left it in trust for her children,
but she directed that her husband should be the sole
guardian of Monica and Gerald until they came of age;
moreover, she left him the interest of the whole of the
capital amount for so long as they were in his house
and unmarried.  After his death the money would
revert unconditionally to them.
</p>

<p>
"Of course it was a foolish, one might say a criminal
will, and one obviously made under the influence of
her husband.  One can only suppose that the poor
woman had died without knowing anything of 'Remount
Forburg's' character.  Since her death his violent
temper and insufferable arrogance had alienated
from the children every friend they ever had.  Only
some chance acquaintances ever came anywhere near
Brudenell Court now.  Naturally every one said that
the Colonel's behaviour was part of a scheme for
keeping suitors away from his stepdaughter Monica, who
was a very beautiful girl; as for Gerald Glenluce,
Monica's younger brother, he had been sadly disfigured
when he was a schoolboy through a fall against a sharp
object that had broken his nose and somewhat
mysteriously deprived him of the sight of one eye.
</p>

<p>
"Those who had suffered most from Colonel Forburg's
violent tempers declared that the boy's face had
been smashed in by a blow from a stick, and that the
stick had been wielded by his stepfather.  Be that as
it may, Gerald Glenluce had remained, in consequence
of this disfigurement, a shy, retiring, silent boy, who
neither played games nor rode to hounds and had no
idea how to handle a gun; but he was essentially the
Colonel's favourite.  Where Forburg was harsh and
dictatorial with every one else, he would always unbend
to Gerald, and was almost gentle and affectionate
toward him.  Perhaps an occasional twinge of remorse
had something to do with this soft side of his
disagreeable character.
</p>

<p>
"Certainly that softness did not extend to Monica.
He made the girl's life almost unbearable with his
violence which amounted almost to brutality.  The girl
hated him and openly said so.  Her one desire was to
get away from Brudenell Court by any possible means.
But owing to her mother's foolish will she had no
money of her own, and the few friends she had were
not sufficiently rich, or sufficiently disinterested, to give
her a home away from her stepfather, nor would the
Colonel, for a matter of that, have given his consent
to her living away from him.
</p>

<p>
"As for marriage, it was a difficult question.  Young
men fought shy of any family connection with
'Remount Forburg.'  The latter's nickname was bad
enough, but there were rumours of secrets more
unavowable still in the past history of the Colonel.
Certain it is that though Monica excited admiration
wherever she went, and though one or two of her admirers
did go to the length of openly courting her, the
courtship never matured into an actual engagement.
Something or other always occurred to cool off the ardour of
the wooers.  Suddenly they would either go on a big-game
shooting expedition, or on a tour round the world,
or merely find that country air did not suit them.
There would perhaps be a scene of fond farewell, but
Monica would always understand that the farewell was
a definite one, and, as she was an intelligent as well as
a fascinating girl, she put two and two together, and
observed that these farewell scenes were invariably
preceded by a long interview behind closed doors between
her stepfather and her admirer of the moment.
</p>

<p>
"Small wonder then that she hated the Colonel.
She hated him as much as she loved her brother.  A
great affection had, especially of late, developed
between these two; it was a love born of an affinity of
trouble and sense of injustice.  On Gerald's part there
was also an element of protection towards his beautiful
sister; the fact that he was so avowedly the spoilt
son of his irascible stepfather enabled him many a time
to stand between Monica and the Colonel's unbridled
temper.
</p>

<p>
"Latterly, however, some brightness and romance
had been introduced into the drab existence of Monica
Glenluce by the discreet courtship of her latest
admirer, Mr. Morley Thrall.  Mr. Thrall was a wealthy
man, not too young and of independent position, who
presumably did not care whether county society would
cut him or no in consequence of his marriage with the
stepdaughter of 'Remount Forburg.'
</p>

<p>
"Subsequent events showed that he had observed the
greatest discretion while he was courting Monica.  No
one knew that there was an understanding between him
and the girl, least of all the Colonel.  Mr. Morley
Thrall came, not too frequently, to Brudenell Court;
while there he appeared to devote most of his attention
to his host and to Gerald, and to take little if any
notice of Monica.  She had probably given him a hint of
rocks ahead, and he had succeeded in avoiding the
momentous interview with the Colonel which Monica had
learned to look on with dread.
</p>

<p>
"Mr. Morley Thrall had been asked to stay at
Brudenell Court for Christmas, the other guests being
a Major Rawstone, with his wife and daughter, Rachel.
They were all at dinner on that memorable Christmas
Eve when the tragedy occurred, and all the men hurried
out of the dining-room in the wake of their host
when first the burglary alarm was given.
</p>

<p><br /></p>

<h4>
§3
</h4>

<p>
"Thus did matters stand at Brudenell Court when,
directly after the holidays, Jim Peyton, a groom
recently in the employ of Colonel Forburg, was brought
before the magistrates charged with the murder of his
former master.  There was a pretty stiff case against
him too.  It seems that he had lately been dismissed
by Colonel Forburg for drunkenness, and that before
dismissing him the Colonel had given him a thrashing
which apparently was well deserved, because while he
was drunk he very nearly set fire to the stables, and
an awful disaster was only averted by the timely arrival
of the Colonel himself upon the scene.
</p>

<p>
"Be that as it may, the man went away swearing
vengeance.  Subsequently he took out a summons for
assault against Colonel Forburg and only got one
shilling damages.  This had occurred a week before
Christmas.  There were several witnesses there who
could swear to the threatening language used by Peyton
on more than one occasion since then, and of course
he had been caught in the very act of trying to break
into the house through the French window of the
smoking-room.
</p>

<p>
"On the other hand, the revolver with which 'Remount
Forburg' had been shot, and which was found
close to the body with two empty chambers, was identified
as the Colonel's own property, one which he always
kept, loaded, in a drawer of his desk in the smoking-room.
And&mdash;this is the interesting point&mdash;the shutters
of the smoking-room were found by the police
inspector, who examined them subsequently, to be
bolted on the inside, just as they had been left earlier
in the evening by the footman whose business it was
to see to the fastening of windows and shutters on the
ground floor.
</p>

<p>
"This fact&mdash;the shutters being bolted on the inside&mdash;was
confirmed by Miss Monica Glenluce, who had been
the first to go into the smoking-room after the tragic
event.  Her brother joined her subsequently.  Both of
these witnesses said that the room looked absolutely
undisturbed, the shutters were bolted, the drawer of
the desk was closed: they had remained in the room
until after the visit of the police inspector.
</p>

<p>
"After the positive evidence of these two witnesses,
the police prosecution had of necessity to fall back on
the far-fetched theory that Colonel Forburg himself,
before he hurried out in order to join in the chase
against the burglar, had run into the smoking-room
and picked up his revolver, and that, having overtaken
Peyton, he had threatened him; that Peyton had then
jumped on him, wrenched the weapon out of his hand
and shot him.  It was a far-fetched theory certainly,
and one which the defence quickly upset.  Gerald
Glenluce for one was distinctly under the impression
that the Colonel ran from the dining-room straight out
into the garden, and the young footman who was watching
the fun from the front door, and saw the Colonel
run out, was equally sure that he had not a revolver
in his hand.
</p>

<p>
"Peyton got six months hard for attempted house-breaking,
there really was no evidence against him to
justify the more serious charge; but when the charge
of murder was withdrawn, it left the mystery of
'Remount Forburg's' tragic end seemingly more impenetrable
than before.  Nevertheless the coroner and jury
laboured conscientiously at the inquest.  No stone was
to be left unturned to bring the murder of 'Remount
Forburg' to justice, and in this laudable effort the
coroner had the able and unqualified assistance of Miss
Glenluce.  However bitter her feelings may have been
in the past towards her stepfather while he lived, she
seemed determined that his murderer should not go
unpunished.  Nay more, there appeared to be in all
her actions during this terrible time a strange note of
vindictiveness and animosity, as if the unknown man
who had rid her of an arrogant and brutal tyrant had
really done her a lasting injury.
</p>

<p>
"It was entirely through her energy and exertions
that certain witnesses were induced to come forward
and give what turned out to be highly sensational
evidence.  The police who were convinced that James
Peyton was guilty had turned all their investigations
in the direction of proving their theories; Miss Monica,
on the other hand, had seemingly made up her mind
that the murderer was to be sought for inside the house;
it even appeared as if she had certain suspicions which
she only desired to confirm.  To this end she had
questioned and cross-questioned every one who was in the
house on that fatal night, well knowing how reluctant
some people are to be mixed up in any way with police
proceedings.  But at last she had forced two persons
to speak, and it was on the first day of the inquest
that at last a glimmer of light was thrown upon the
mysterious tragedy.
</p>

<p>
"After the medical evidence which went to establish
beyond a doubt that Colonel Forburg died from a
gunshot wound inflicted at close range, both balls
having penetrated the heart, Miss Glenluce was called.
Replying to the coroner, who had put certain questions
to her with regard to the Colonel's state of mind just
before the tragedy, she said that he appeared to have a
premonition that something untoward was about to
happen.  When the butler ran into the dining-room
saying that a burglar had been seen trying to break into
the house, the Colonel had jumped up from the table at
once.
</p>

<p>
"'I did the same,' Miss Monica went on, 'as I was
genuinely alarmed; but my stepfather, in his peremptory
way, ordered me to sit still.  "I believe," he said
to me, with a funny laugh, "that it's a put-up job.  It's
some friend of Thrall's giving him a hand."  I could
not, of course, understand what he meant by that, and
I looked at Mr. Thrall for an explanation.  I must
add that Mr. Thrall had been extraordinarily moody
all through dinner; he appeared flushed, and I noticed
particularly that he never spoke either to my
step-father, to my brother, or to me.  However at the
moment I failed to catch his eye, and the very next second
he was out of the room, on the heels of Colonel Forburg.'
</p>

<p>
"This was remarkable evidence to say the least of
it, but nevertheless it was confirmed by two witnesses
who heard the Colonel make that strange remark: one
was Rachel Rawstone, the young friend who was dining
at Brudenell Court that Christmas Eve, and the other
was Gerald Glenluce.  Of course, by this time the
public was getting very excited: they were like so many
hounds heading for a scent, and the jury was beginning
to show signs of that obstinate prejudice which
culminated in a ridiculous verdict.  But there was more to
come.  Thanks again to Miss Monica's insistence, the
footman at Brudenell Court, a lad named Cambalt, had
been induced to come forward with a story which he
had evidently intended to keep hidden within his bosom,
if possible.  He gave his evidence with obvious reluctance
and in a scarcely audible voice.  It was generally
noticed, however, that Miss Monica urged him
frequently to speak up.
</p>

<p>
"Cambalt deposed that just before dinner on Christmas
Eve, he had gone in to tidy the smoking-room
before the gentlemen came down from dressing.  As he
opened the door he saw Mr. Morley Thrall standing in
the middle of the room facing Colonel Forburg who
was seated at his desk.  Young Mr. Glenluce was
standing near the mantelpiece with one foot on the
fender, staring into the fire.  Mr. Thrall, according to
witness, was livid with rage.
</p>

<p>
"''E took a step forward like,' Cambalt went on,
amidst breathless silence on the part of the public and
jury alike, 'and 'e raised 'is fist.  But the Colonel 'e
just laughed, then 'e opened the drawer of the desk and
took out a revolver and showed it to Mr. Thrall and
says: "'Ere y'are, there's a revolver 'andy, any way."  Then
Mr. Thrall 'e swore like anything, and says: "You
blackguard!  You d&mdash;&mdash; scoundrel!  You ought to be
shot like the cur you are."  I thought he would strike
the Colonel, but young Mr. Glenluce 'e just stepped
quickly in between the two gentlemen and 'e says:
"Look 'ere, Thrall, I won't put up with this!  You
jess get out!"  Then one of the gentlemen seed me,
and Mr. Thrall 'e walked out of the room.'
</p>

<p>
"'And what happened after he had gone?' the
coroner asked.
</p>

<p>
"'Oh!' the witness replied, 'the Colonel 'e threw the
revolver back into the drawer and laughed sarcastic
like.  Then 'e 'eld out 'is 'and to Mr. Gerald, and says:
"Thanks, my boy.  You did 'elp me to get rid of that
ruffian."  After that,' Cambalt concluded, 'I got on
with my work, and the gentlemen took no notice of me.'
</p>

<p>
"This witness was very much pressed with questions
as to what happened later on when the burglary alarm
was given and the gentlemen all hurried out of the
house.  Cambalt was in the hall at the time and he
made straight for the front door to see some of the fun.
He said that the Colonel was out first, and the other
three gentlemen, Mr. Gerald, Mr. Rawstone and
Mr. Morley Thrall went out after him; Mr. Thrall was the
last to go outside; he ran across the garden in the
direction of the five-acre field.  Major Rawstone
remained somewhere near the house, but it was a very
dark night, and he, Cambalt, soon lost sight of the
gentlemen.  Presently, however, Mr. Thrall came back
toward the house.  It was a few minutes after the
shots had been fired and witness heard Mr. Thrall say
to Major Rawstone: 'I suppose it's that fool Forburg
potting away at the burglar; hell get himself into trouble,
if he doesn't look out.'  Soon after that Mr. Gerald
came running back with the news that the burglar had
fallen into the arms of a passing constable and
Cambalt then returned to his duties in the dining-room.
</p>

<p>
"As you see," the Old Man in the Corner went on
glibly, "this witness's evidence was certainly
sensational.  The jury, which was composed of farm
labourers, with the local butcher as foreman, had by
now fully made up its silly mind that Mr. Morley
Thrall had taken the opportunity of sneaking into the
smoking-room, snatching up the revolver, and shooting
'Remount Forburg,' whom he hated because the Colonel
was opposing his marriage with Miss Monica.  It was
all as clear as daylight to those dunderheads, and from
that moment they simply would not listen to any more
evidence.  They had made up their minds; they were
ready with their verdict and it was: Manslaughter
against Morley Thrall.  Not murder, you see!  The
dolts who had all of them suffered from 'Remount
Forburg's' arrogance and violent temper would not
admit that killing such vermin was a capital crime.
</p>

<p>
"What I am telling you would be unbelievable if it
were not a positive fact.  It is no use quoting British
justice and dilating on the absolute fairness of trial by
jury.  A coroner's inquest fortunately is not a trial.
The verdict of a coroner's jury, such as the one which
sat on the Brudenell Court affair, though it may have
very unpleasant consequences for an innocent person,
cannot have fatal results.  In this case it cast a stigma
on a gentleman of high position and repute, and the
following day Mr. Morley Thrall, himself J.P., was
brought up before his brother magistrates on an
ignominious charge.
</p>

<p><br /></p>

<h4>
§4
</h4>

<p>
"It is not often," the Old Man in the Corner resumed
after a while, "that so serious a charge is preferred
against a gentleman of Mr. Morley Thrall's social
position, and I am afraid that the best of us are snobbish
enough to be more interested in a gentleman criminal
than in an ordinary Bill Sykes.
</p>

<p>
"I happened to be present at that magisterial
enquiry when Mr. Morley Thrall, J.P., was brought in
between two warders, looking quite calm and
self-possessed.  Every one of us there noticed that when he
first came in, and in fact throughout that trying
enquiry, his eyes sought to meet those of Miss Glenluce
who sat at the solicitor's table; but whenever she
chanced to look his way, she quickly averted her gaze
again, and turned her head away with a contemptuous
shrug.  Gerald Glenluce, on the other hand, made
pathetic efforts at showing sympathy with the accused,
but he was of such unprepossessing appearance and was
so shy and awkward that it was small wonder Morley
Thrall took little if any notice of him.
</p>

<p>
"Very soon we got going.  I must tell you, first of
all, that the whole point of the evidence rested upon a
question of time.  If the accused took the revolver out
of the desk in the smoking-room, when did he do it?
The footman, Cambalt, reiterated the statement which
he had made at the inquest.  He was, of course, pressed
to say definitely whether after the quarrel between
Mr. Morley Thrall and the Colonel which he had
witnessed, and before every one went in to dinner,
Mr. Thrall might have gone back to the smoking-room and
extracted the revolver from the drawer of the desk; but
Cambalt said positively that he did not think this was
possible.  He himself, after he had tidied the smoking-room,
had been in and out of the hall preparing to serve
dinner.  The door of the smoking-room gave on the
hall, between the dining-room and the passage leading
to the kitchens.  If any one had gone in or out of the
smoking-room at that time, Cambalt must have seen
them.
</p>

<p>
"At this point Miss Glenluce was seen to lean forward
and to say something in a whisper to the Clerk of the
Justices, who in his turn whispered to the chairman on
the Bench, and a moment or two later that gentleman
asked the witness:
</p>

<p>
"'Are you absolutely prepared to swear that no one
went in or out of the smoking-room while you were
making ready to serve dinner?7
</p>

<p>
"Then, as the young man seemed to hesitate, the
magistrate added more emphatically:
</p>

<p>
"Think now!  You were busy with your usual avocations;
there would have been nothing extraordinary
in one of the gentlemen going in or out of the smoking-room
at that hour.  Do you really believe and are you
prepared to swear that such a very ordinary incident
would have impressed itself indelibly upon your mind?'
</p>

<p>
"Thus pressed and admonished, Cambalt retrenched
himself behind a vague: 'No, sir!  I shouldn't like to
swear one way or the other.'
</p>

<p>
"Whereat Miss Monica threw a defiant look at the
accused, who, however, did not as much as wink an
eyelid in response.
</p>

<p>
"Presently when that lady herself was called, no
one could fail to notice that she, like the coroner's jury
the previous day, had absolutely made up her mind
that Morley Thrall was guilty, otherwise her attitude
of open hostility toward him would have been quite
inexplicable.  She dwelt at full length on the fact that
Mr. Thrall had paid her marked attention for months,
and that he had asked her to marry him.  She had given
him her consent, and between them they had decided
to keep their engagement a secret until after she,
Monica, had attained her twenty-first birthday, when she
would be free to marry whom she chose.
</p>

<p>
"'Unfortunately,' the witness went on, suddenly
assuming a dry, pursed-up manner, 'Colonel Forburg got
wind of this.  He was always very much set against my
marrying at all, and between tea and dinner on Christmas
Eve he and I had some very sharp words together
on the subject, at the end of which my stepfather said
very determinedly: "Christmas or no Christmas, the
fellow shall leave my house by the first available train
to-morrow, and to-night I am going to give him a piece
of my mind."'
</p>

<p>
"Just for a moment after Miss Glenluce had finished
speaking, the accused seemed to depart from his
attitude of dignity and reserve, and an indignant 'Oh!'
quickly repressed, escaped his lips.  The public by this
time was dead against him.  They are just like sheep, as
you know, and the verdict of the coroner's jury had
prejudiced them from the start, and the police, aided by
Miss Glenluce, had certainly built up a formidable case
against the unfortunate man.  Every one felt that the
motive for the crime was fully established already.
'Remount Forburg' had had a violent quarrel with
Morley Thrall, then had turned him out of the house,
and the latter, furious at being separated from the girl
he loved, had killed the man who stood in his way.
</p>

<p>
"I should be talking until to-morrow morning were I
to give you in detail all the evidence that was adduced
in support of the prosecution.  The accused listened to
it all with perfect calm.  He stood with arms folded, his
eyes fixed on nothing.  The 'Oh!' of indignation did
not again cross his lips, nor did he look once at Miss
Monica Glenluce.  I can assure you that at one moment
that day things were looking very black against him.
</p>

<p>
"Fortunately for him, however, he had a very clever
lawyer to defend him in the person of his distinguished
cousin, Sir Evelyn Thrall.  The latter, by amazingly
clever cross-examination of the servants and guests at
Brudenell Court, had succeeded in establishing the fact
that at no time, from the moment that the burglary
alarm was given until after the two revolver shots had
been heard, was the accused completely out of sight
of some one or other of the witnesses.  He was the last
to leave the dining-room.  Mrs. Rawstone and her
daughter testified to that.  He had stayed behind one
moment after the other three gentlemen had gone out
in order to say a few words to Monica Glenluce.  Miss
Rawstone was standing inside the dining-room door
and she was quite positive that Mr. Thrall went straight
out into the garden.
</p>

<p>
"On the other hand Major Rawstone saw him in
the forecourt coming away from the five-acre meadow
only a very few moments after the shots were fired,
and gave it absolutely as his opinion that it would have
been impossible for the accused to have fired those
shots.  This is where the question of time came in.
</p>

<p>
"'When a man who bears a spotless reputation,'
Major Rawstone argued, 'finds that he has killed a
fellow creature, he would necessarily pause a moment,
horror-struck with what he has done; whether the deed
was premeditated or involuntary he would at least try
and ascertain if life was really extinct.  It is inconceivable
that any man save an habitual and therefore callous
criminal, would just throw down his weapon and
with absolute calm, hands in pocket and without a
tremor in his voice, make a casual remark to a friend.
Now I saw Mr. Morley Thrall perhaps two minutes
after the shots were fired; in that time he could not
have walked from the centre of the field to the
forecourt where I was standing; and he had not been
running as his voice was absolutely clear and he came
walking towards me with his hands in his pockets.'
</p>

<p>
"As was only to be expected, Sir Evelyn Thrall made
the most of Major Rawstone's evidence, and I may
say that it was chiefly on the strength of it that the
charge of murder against the accused was withdrawn,
even though the Clerk to the Magistrates, perpetually
egged on by Miss Glenluce, did his best to upset Major
Rawstone.  When the lady found that this could not
be done, she tried to switch back to the idea that
accused had abstracted the revolver out of the
smoking-room before dinner and immediately after his quarrel
with Colonel Forburg.  The footman Cambalt's evidence
on this point had been somewhat discounted by
his refusing to state positively that no one could have
gone into the smoking-room at that time without his
seeing them.  But against this theory there was always
the argument&mdash;of which Sir Evelyn Thrall made the
most as you know&mdash;that before dinner the accused
could not have known that there would be an alarm
of burglary which would give him the opportunity of
waylaying the Colonel in the open field.  With equal
skill, too, Sir Evelyn brought forward evidence to bear
out the statement made by the accused on the matter
of his quarrel with Colonel Forburg.
</p>

<p>
"'Just before dinner,' Mr. Thrall stated, 'Colonel
Forburg told me he had something to say to me in
private.  I followed him into the smoking-room, and
there he gave me certain information with regard to his
past life, and also with regard to Miss Glenluce's
parentage, which made it absolutely impossible for me,
in spite of the deep regard which I have for that lady,
to offer her marriage.  Miss Glenluce is the innocent
victim of tragic circumstances in the past, and Forburg
was just an unmitigated blackguard, and I told him so,
but I had my family to consider and very reluctantly
I came to the conclusion that I could not introduce any
relation of Colonel Forburg into its circle.  Colonel
Forburg did not stand in the way of my marrying his
stepdaughter; it was I who most reluctantly withdrew.'
</p>

<p>
"Whilst the accused was cross-examined upon this
statement, and he gave his answers in firm, dignified
tones, Miss Monica never took her eyes off him, and
surely if looks could kill, Mr. Morley Thrall would not
at that moment have escaped with his life, so full of
deadly hatred and contempt was her gaze.  The accused
had signed a much fuller statement than the one which
he made in open court; it contained a detailed account
of his interview with Colonel Forburg, and of the
circumstances which finally induced him to give up all
thoughts of asking Miss Glenluce to be his wife.
</p>

<p>
"These facts were not made public at the time for
the sake of Miss Monica and of the unfortunate, Gerald,
but it seems that the transactions which had earned for
the Colonel the sobriquet of 'Remount Forburg' were
so disreputable and so dishonest that not only was he
cashiered from the army, but he served a term of
imprisonment for treason, fraud, and embezzlement.  He
had no right to be styled Colonel any longer, and quite
recently had been threatened with prosecution if he
persisted in making further use of his army rank.
</p>

<p>
"But this was not all the trouble.  It seems that in
his career of improbity he had been associated with a
man named Nosdel, a man of Dutch extraction whom
he had known in South Africa.  This man was subsequently
hanged for a particularly brutal murder, and
it was his widow who was 'Remount Forburg's' second
wife, and the mother of Monica and of Gerald, who
had been given the fancy name of Glenluce.
</p>

<p>
"Obviously a man in Mr. Morley Thrall's position
could not marry into such a family, and it appears that
whenever there was a question of a suitor for Monica,
'Remount Forburg' would tell the aspirant the whole
story of his own shady past and, above all, that of
Monica's father.  Sir Evelyn Thrall had been clever
enough to discover one or two gentlemen who had had
the same experience as his cousin Morley; they, too,
just before their courtship came to a head had had a
momentous interview with 'Remount Forburg,' who
found this means of choking off any further desire for
matrimony on the part of a man who had family
connections to consider.  But it was very obvious that
Mr. Morley Thrall had no motive for killing 'Remount
Forburg'; he would have left Brudenell Court that very
evening, he said, only that young Glenluce had begged
him, for Monica's sake, not to make a scene; anyway,
he was leaving the house the next day and had no
intention of ever darkening its doors again.
</p>

<p>
"Poor Monica Glenluce or Nosdel, ignorant of the
hideous cloud that hung over her entire life, ignorant,
too, of what had passed between her stepfather and
Mr. Morley Thrall, felt nothing but hatred and contempt
for the man whose love, she believed, had proved as
unstable as that of any of her other admirers.  For
charity's sake one must suppose that she really thought him
guilty at first, and hoped that when the clouds had
rolled by he would return to her more ardent than
before.  Presumably he found means to make her understand
that all was irrevocably at an end between them
as far as he was concerned, whereupon her regard for
him turned to bitterness and desire for revenge.
</p>

<p>
"And, indeed, but for the cleverness of a distinguished
lawyer, poor Morley Thrall might have found himself
the victim of a judicial error brought about by the
deliberate enmity of a woman.  Had he been committed
for trial, she would have had more time at her disposal
to manufacture evidence against him, which I am
convinced she had a mind to do."
</p>

<p>
"As it is," I now put in tentatively, for the Old Man
in the Corner had been silent for some little while, "the
withdrawal of the charge of murder against Morley
Thrall did not help to clear up the mystery of
'Remount Forburg's' tragic death."
</p>

<p>
"Not so far as the public is concerned," he retorted
dryly.
</p>

<p>
"You have a theory?" I asked.
</p>

<p>
"Not a theory," he replied.  "I know who killed
'Remount Forburg.'"
</p>

<p>
"How do you know?" I riposted.
</p>

<p>
"By logic and inference," he said.  "As it was proved
that Morley Thrall did not kill him, and that Miss
Monica could not have done it, as the ladies did not
join in the chase after the burglar, I looked about me
for the only other person in whose interest it was to
put that blackguard out of the way."
</p>

<p>
"You mean&mdash;&mdash;?"
</p>

<p>
"I mean the boy Gerald, of course.  Openly and
before the other witness, Cambalt, he stood up for his
stepfather against Thrall who was not measuring his
words, but just think how the knowledge which he had
gained about his own parentage and that of his sister
must have rankled in his mind.  He must have come
to the conclusion that while this man&mdash;his stepfather&mdash;lived,
there would be no chance for him to make friends,
no chance for the sister whom he loved ever to have a
home, a life of her own.  Whether that interview on
Christmas Eve was the first inkling which he had of the
real past history of his own and Forburg's family, it is
impossible to say.  Probably he had suspicions of it
before, when, one by one, Monica's suitors fell away
after certain private interviews with the Colonel.
Morley Thrall must have been a last hope, and that, too,
was dashed to the ground by the same infamous means.
</p>

<p>
"I am not prepared to say that the boy got hold of
the revolver that night with the deliberate intention of
killing his stepfather at the earliest opportunity; he
may have run into the smoking-room to snatch up the
weapon, only with a view to using it against the
burglar; certain it is that he overtook 'Remount Forburg'
in the five-acre field and that he shot him then and
there.  Remember that the night was very dark, and
that there was a great deal of running about and of
confusion.  The boy was young enough and nimble
enough after he had thrown down the revolver to run
across the field and then to go back to the house by a
roundabout way.  It is easy enough in a case like that
to cover one's tracks, and, of course, no one suspected
anything at the time.  Even the sound of firing created
but little astonishment; it was so very much on the
cards that the Colonel would use a revolver without
the slightest hesitation against a man who had been
trying to break into his house.  It was just the sort of
revenge that a man of Gerald's temperament&mdash;disfigured,
shy, silent and self-absorbed&mdash;would seek against
one whom he considered the fount of all his wrongs."
</p>

<p>
"But," I objected, "how could young Glenluce run
into the smoking-room, pick up the revolver out of a
drawer, and run back through the hall with servants
and guests standing about?  Some one would be sure
to see him."
</p>

<p>
"No one saw him," the funny creature retorted, "for
he did it at the moment of the greatest confusion.  The
butler had run in with the news of the burglary, the
Colonel jumped up and ran out through the hall, the
guests had not yet made up their minds what to do.  In
moments like this there are always just a few seconds
of pandemonium, quite sufficient for a boy like Gerald
to make a dash for the smoking-room."
</p>

<p>
"But after that&mdash;&mdash;"
</p>

<p>
"He took the revolver out of the drawer and ran out
through the French window."
</p>

<p>
"But the shutters were found to be bolted on the
inside," I argued, "when they were examined by the
police inspector."
</p>

<p>
"So they were," he admitted.  "Miss Monica had already
been in there with young Gerald.  They had seen
to the shutters."
</p>

<p>
"Then you think that Monica knew?"
</p>

<p>
"Of course she did."
</p>

<p>
"Then her desire to prove Morley Thrall guilty&mdash;&mdash;"
</p>

<p>
"Was partly hatred of him, and partly the desire to
shield her brother," the funny creature concluded as he
collected traps, his bit of string and his huge umbrella.
"Think it over; you will see that I am right.  I am
sorry for those two, aren't you?  But they are selling
Brudenell Court, I understand, and their mother's
fortune has become theirs absolutely.  They will go
abroad together, make a home for themselves, and one
day, perhaps, everything will be forgotten, and a new
era of happiness will arise for the innocent, now that
the guilty has been so signally punished.  But it was
an interesting case.  Don't you agree with me?"
</p>

<p><br /><br /><br /></p>

<p><a id="chap09"></a></p>

<h3>
IX
<br /><br />
THE MYSTERY OF THE WHITE CARNATION
</h3>

<p><br /></p>

<h4>
§1
</h4>

<p>
"I suppose that is a form of snobbishness," the
Old Man in the Corner began abruptly.
</p>

<p>
I gave such a jump that I nearly upset the
contents of a cup of boiling tea which I was conveying
to my mouth.  As it was, I scalded my tongue and
nearly choked.
</p>

<p>
"What is?" I queried with a frown, for I was really
vexed with the creature.  I had no idea he was there
at all.  But he only smiled and concluded his speech,
quite unperturbed.
</p>

<p>
"... that creates additional interest in a crime
when it concerns people of wealth or rank."
</p>

<p>
"Snobbishness," I rejoined, "of course it's
snobbishness!  And when the little suburban madam has
finished reading about Lady Stickinthemud's reception at
Claridge's she likes to turn to Lord Tomnoodle's
prospective sojourn in gaol."
</p>

<p>
"You were thinking of the disappearance of the
Australian millionaire?" he asked blandly.
</p>

<p>
"I don't know that I was," I retorted.
</p>

<p>
"But of course you were.  How could any journalist
worthy of the name fail to be interested in that
intricate case?"
</p>

<p>
"I suppose you have your theory&mdash;as usual?"
</p>

<p>
"It is not a theory," the creature replied, with that
fatuous smile of his which always irritated me; "it is
a certainty."
</p>

<p>
Then, as he became silent, absorbed in the contemplation
of a wonderfully complicated knot in his beloved
bit of string, I said with gracious condescension:
</p>

<p>
"You may talk about it, if you like."
</p>

<p>
He did like, fortunately for me, because, frankly, I
could not see daylight in that maze of intrigue,
adventure and possibly crime, which was described by the
Press as "The Mystery of the White Carnation."
</p>

<p>
"The events were interesting from the outset," he
began after a while, whilst I settled down to listen,
"and so were various actors in the society drama.
Chief amongst these was, of course, Captain Shillington,
an Australian ex-officer, commonly reputed to be a
millionaire, who, with his mother and sister, rented
Mexfield House in Somerset Street, Mayfair, the
summer before last.  It appears that Lord Mexfield's
younger son, the Honorable Henry Buckley, who was
an incorrigible rake and whom his father had sent on a
tour round the world in order to keep him temporarily
out of mischief, not to say out of gaol, had met a
married brother of Captain Shillington's out in the
Antipodes, they had been very kind to him, and so on,
with the result that when came the following London
season the family turned up in England, and, after
spending a couple of days at the Savoy, they moved
into the Mexfields' house in Somerset Street.
</p>

<p>
"Lord and Lady Mexfield were abroad that year,
and Henry Buckley and his sister Angela were living
with an aunt who had a small house somewhere in
Mayfair.
</p>

<p>
"Although the Shillingtons were reputed to be very
wealthy, they appeared to be very quiet, simple folk,
and it certainly seemed rather strange that they should
have gone to the expense of a house in town, when
obviously they had no social ambitions and did not
mean to entertain.  As a matter of fact, as far as
Mrs. Shillington and her daughter were concerned, nobody
could have lived a quieter, more retiring life than they
did.  Mrs. Shillington was an invalid and hardly ever
went outside her front door, and the girl Marion
seemed to be suffering from a perpetual cold in the
head.  They seemed to be in a chronic state of servant
trouble.  Mrs. Shillington was dreadfully irritable,
and one set of servants after another were engaged only
to leave without notice after a few days.  The one
faithful servant who remained was a snuffy old man who
came to them about a month after they moved into
Mexfield House.  He and a charwoman did all the work
of cooking and valeting and so on.  Presumably the
old man could not have got a situation elsewhere as his
appearance was very unprepossessing, and therefore
he was willing to put up with what the servants' registry
offices would term 'a very uncomfortable situation.'
</p>

<p>
"Captain Shillington, the hero of the tragic adventure,
on the other hand, went about quite a good deal.
He was certainly voted to be rather strait-laced, not to
say priggish, but he was very good-looking and a fine
dancer.  Henry Buckley introduced him to some of
his smart friends and Lady Angela constituted him her
dancing partner.  The partnership soon developed into
warmer friendship and presently it was given out that
Lady Angela Buckley, only daughter of the Earl and
Countess of Mexfield, was engaged to Captain Denver
Shillington, the Australian millionaire.  Lady Angela
confided to her friends that her fiancé was the owner
of immense estates in Western Australia, on a portion
of which rich deposits of gold had lately been
discovered.  He certainly had plenty of money to spend, and
on one occasion he actually paid Henry Buckley's
gambling debts to the tune of two or three hundred pounds.
</p>

<p>
"On the whole, society pronounced the match a
suitable one.  Lady Angela Buckley was no longer in
her first youth, whilst her brother, to whom she was
really devoted, would be all the better for a somewhat
puritanical, strait-laced and, above all, wealthy
brother-in-law."
</p>

<p><br /></p>

<h4>
§2
</h4>

<p>
"That, then, was the position," the Old Man in
the Corner continued after a while, "and the date of
Lady Angela Buckley's marriage to Captain Denver
Shillington had been actually fixed when the
public was startled one afternoon towards the end of
the summer by the sensational news in all the
evening papers: 'Mysterious disappearance of a
millionaire.'  This highly coloured description applied, as
it turned out, to Captain Shillington, the fiancé of
Lady Angela Buckley.  It seems that during the
course of that same morning a young lady, apparently
in deep distress and suffering from a streaming cold
in the head, had called at Scotland Yard.  She gave
her name and address as Marion Shillington, of Mexfield
House, Somerset Street, Mayfair, and stated that
she and her mother were in the greatest possible anxiety
owing to the disappearance of her brother, Captain
Denver Shillington.  They had last seen him on the
previous Friday evening at about nine o'clock when
he left home in order to pick up his fiancée, Lady
Angela Buckley, whom he was escorting that night to
a reception in Grosvenor Square.  He was wearing
full evening dress and a soft hat.  Miss Shillington
couldn't say whether he had any money in his pockets.
She thought that probably he was carrying a gold
cigarette case, which Lady Angela had given him, but,
as a matter of fact, he never wore any jewellery.
</p>

<p>
"No one in the house had heard him come in again
that night, and his bed had not been slept in.
Questioned by the police, Miss Shillington explained that
neither she nor her mother felt any alarm at first
because there had been some talk of Captain Shillington
going away with his fiancée to stay with friends over
the week-end, somewhere near Newmarket.  It was
only this morning, Wednesday, that Mrs. Shillington
first began to worry when there was still no sign or
letter from him.  'My brother is a very good son,' Miss
Shillington continued, explaining to the police, 'and
always very considerate to mother.  It was so unlike
him to leave us without news all this while and not let
us know when to expect him home.  So I rang up Lady
Angela Buckley, who is his fiancée, to see if I could get
news through her, as I could see mother was beginning
to get anxious.  Mr. Henry Buckley, Lady Angela's
brother, answered the 'phone.  I asked after his sister
and he told me that she was staying on in the country
a day or two longer.  He himself had come back to
town the previous night.  I then asked him, quite
casually, if he knew whether Denver&mdash;that's my
brother&mdash;would be returning with Angela.  And his
answer to me was, "Denver?  Why, I haven't seen him
since Friday.  And I can tell you that he is in for a row
with Angela.  She was furious with him that he never
wrote once to her while she was away."  I was so upset
that I hung up the receiver and just sat there
wondering what to do next.  But Mr. Buckley rang up a
moment or two later and asked quite cheerily if there
was anything wrong.  "Good old Square-toes!" he said,
meaning my brother, whom he always used to chaff by
calling him "Square-toes," "don't tell me he has gone
off on the spree without letting you know.  I say, that's
too bad of him, though.  But I shouldn't be anxious if
I were you.  Boys, you know, Miss Shillington, will
be boys, and I like old Square-toes all the better for
it."'
</p>

<p>
"Miss Shillington," the Old Man in the Corner went
on, "was as usual suffering from a streaming cold, and
between spluttering and crying, she had reduced two or
three handkerchiefs to wet balls.  At best she was no
beauty, and with a red nose and streaming eyes she
presented a most pitiable spectacle.  'I made
Mr. Buckley assure me once more,' she said, 'that he had
seen nothing of Denver since Friday.  That night he
and Lady Angela and Denver were at a reception in
Grosvenor Square.  They all left about the same time.
Angela and Denver went, presumably, straight home;
at any rate, he, Mr. Buckley, saw nothing more of
them after they got into their car.  He himself went
to spend an hour or two at his club and came home
about two a.m.  The next morning, after breakfast,
he drove his sister out to Tatchford, near Newmarket,
where they spent the week-end with some friends.
And that was all Mr. Buckley could say to me,' Miss
Shillington concluded, vigorously blowing her nose:
'He came home last night from Tatchford, and was
expecting Lady Angela in a couple of days.  Denver
had not been at Tatchford at all, and he had not once
written to Angela all the while she was away.'
</p>

<p>
"Of course the police inspector to whom Miss
Shillington related all these facts had a great many
questions to put to her.  For one thing he wanted to know
whether she had been in communication with Lady
Angela Buckley since this morning.
</p>

<p>
"'No,' the girl replied, 'I have not, and so far, I
haven't said anything to mother.  As soon as I felt
strong enough I put on my things and came along here.'
</p>

<p>
"Then the inspector wanted to know if she knew of
any friends or acquaintances of her brother's with
whom he might have gone off for a week-end jaunt
without saying anything about it, either at home or to
his fiancée.  He put the questions as delicately as he
could, but the sister flared up with indignation.  It
seems that the Captain's conduct had always been
irreproachable.  He was a model son, a model brother, and
deeply in love with Lady Angela.  Miss Shillington also
refused to believe that he could have been enticed to a
place of ill-fame and robbed by one of the usual
confidence tricksters.
</p>

<p>
"'My brother is exceptionally shrewd,' she declared,
'and a splendid business man.  Though he is not yet
thirty, he has built up an enormous fortune out in
Australia, and administers his estates himself to the
admiration of every one who knows him.  He is not the
sort of man who could be fooled in that way.'
</p>

<p>
"But beyond all this, and beyond giving a detailed
description of her brother's appearance, the poor girl
had very little to say, and the detective who was put in
charge of the case could only assure her that enquiries
would at once be instituted in every possible direction,
and that the police would keep her informed of everything
that was being done.  Obviously, the person most
likely to be able to throw some light upon the mystery
was Lady Angela Buckley, but as you know, the advent
of this charming lady upon the scene only helped to
complicate matters.  It appears that Henry Buckley,
delighted at what he jocosely called, 'Old "Square-toes"
falling from grace,' had rung up his sister in order
to tell her the startling news over the telephone.  Lady
Angela being a very modern young woman, her brother
thought that she might storm for a bit but in the end
see the humorous side of the situation.  But not at all!
Lady Angela took the affair entirely <i>au tragique</i>.  Over
the telephone she only exclaimed, 'Great Lord!' but
at one o'clock in the afternoon she arrived at the flat,
having taken the first train up to town and not even
waiting for her maid to pack her things.  Mr. Henry
Buckley was just going out to lunch.  Without
condescending to explain anything, his sister dragged him
off then and there to Scotland Yard.  'Something has
happened to Denver,' was all that she would say.
'Something dreadful, I am sure.'  In vain did her
brother protest that she would only be making a fool
of herself by rushing to the police like this, that old
Square-toes had only gone on the spree, and that,
anyway, she ought to consult with the Shillingtons before
doing anything silly; Lady Angela would not listen to
reason.  'You don't know!  You don't know!' she kept
on reiterating with ever-increasing agitation.  'He has
been murdered, I tell you.  Murdered!'
</p>

<p>
"By the time that the pair arrived at Scotland Yard,
Lady Angela was in a state bordering on hysterics, and
her brother appeared both sulky and perplexed.  They
saw the same Inspector who had interviewed Miss
Shillington, and certainly his amazement was no whit
less than that of Mr. Henry Buckley when Lady
Angela having mentioned the disappearance of Captain
Denver Shillington, said abruptly, 'Yes, he has
disappeared, and incidentally, he had my pearls in his
pocket.'  The Inspector made no immediate comment;
men of his calling are used to those kinds of surprises,
but Henry Buckley gave a gasp of horror.
</p>

<p>
"'Your pearls?' he exclaimed.  'What pearls? Not&mdash;&mdash;?'
</p>

<p>
"'Yes,' Lady Angela rejoined, coolly.  'The Glenarm
pearls.  All of them!'
</p>

<p>
"'But&mdash;&mdash;' Henry Buckley stammered, wide-eyed
and white to the lips.
</p>

<p>
"His sister threw him what appeared to be a warning
glance, then she turned once more to the police
inspector.
</p>

<p>
"'My brother is upset,' she said calmly, 'because he
knows that the pearls are of immense value.  The late
Lord Glenarm left them to me in his will.  He made a
huge fortune by a successful speculation in sugar.  He
had no daughters of his own, and late in life he married
my mother's sister.  He was my godfather, and when
he first bought the pearls and gave them to his wife as
a wedding present, he said that after her death and his
they should belong to me.  They were valued for probate
at twenty-five thousand pounds.'
</p>

<p>
"Henry Buckley was still speechless, and it was in
answer to several questions put to her by the Inspector
that Lady Angela gave the full history, as far as she
knew it, of the disappearance of her pearls.
</p>

<p>
"'I was going to spend the week-end with some
friends at Tatchford, near Newmarket,' she said.  'My
brother at first had decided not to come with me.  On
the Friday evening I went with Captain Shillington to a
ball at the Duchess of Flint's in Grosvenor Square.  I
wore my pearls; on the way home in the car, Captain
Shillington appeared very anxious as to what I should
do about the pearls whilst I was away.  He wanted
me to take them to the bank first thing in the morning
before I left.  But I knew I couldn't do this, because
my train was at nine-fifty from Liverpool Street.  Captain
Shillington had once or twice before shown anxiety
about the pearls and urged me to keep them at the
bank when I was not wearing them, but he had never
been so insistent as that night.'
</p>

<p>
"Lady Angela appeared to hesitate for a moment or
two.  She glanced at her brother with a curious
expression, both of anxiety and contempt.  It seemed as
if she were trying to make up her mind to say something
that was very difficult, to put in so many words.
The Inspector sat silent and impassive, waiting for her
to continue her story, and at last she did make up her
mind to speak.
</p>

<p>
"'I had a safe in the flat,' she went on, glibly,
'where I keep my jewellery, but Captain Shillington did
not seem satisfied.  He argued and argued, and at last
he persuaded me to let him have the pearls while I was
away and he would deposit them at his own bank until
my return.'
</p>

<p>
"Presumably at this point the lady caught an expression
on the face of the Inspector which displeased
her, for she added with becoming dignity, 'I am engaged
to be married to Captain Denver Shillington.'
</p>

<p>
"'My God!' Henry Buckley exclaimed at this point,
and with a groan he buried his face in his hands.
</p>

<p>
"Mind you," the Old Man in the Corner proceeded,
after a moment's pause, "the public had no information
as to the exact words, and so on, that passed between
Lady Angela, her brother Henry, and the officials of
Scotland Yard.  All that I am telling you, and what I
am still about to tell you, came out bit by bit in the
papers.  Sensation-lovers were immensely interested in
the case from the outset, because, although both public
and police are familiar enough with the tragi-comedy
of the good-looking young blackguard who gets
confiding females to entrust him with their little bits of
jewellery, this was the first time that the confidence
trick had been played by a well-known man about
town&mdash;reputed wealthy, since he had gone to the length
of paying a friend's gambling debts&mdash;on a society lady
who was not in her first youth and must presumably
have had some knowledge of the world she lived in.
</p>

<p>
"Lady Angela had concluded her statements by saying
that during the drive home in the car she took
off her pearls and handed them to her fiancé, who
slipped them into his pocket just as they were, although
when presently the car drew up at her door she
suggested running up to her room to get the case for them.
The Captain, however, declared this to be unnecessary.
What he said was, 'I will sleep with them under my
pillow to-night, and to-morrow morning first thing I
will take them round to the bank for you.'  After this
he said good-night.  Lady Angela let herself into the
house with her latchkey, and Captain Shillington then
dismissed the car, saying that he would enjoy a bit of
a walk as the rooms at Grosvenor Square had been so
desperately hot.
</p>

<p>
"And it was at this point," the Old Man in the
Corner now said with deliberate emphasis as he worked
away at an exceptionally intricate knot in his beloved
bit of string, "it was at this point that certain facts
leaked out which lent to the whole case a sinister aspect.
</p>

<p>
"It appears that on the Saturday morning at break
of day one of the boats belonging to the Thames
District Police found a grey Homburg hat floating under
one of the old steamship landing stages and, stuck
to one of the wooden piles close by, a man's silk scarf.
There was no name inside the hat or any other clue
as to the owner's identity, but both the scarf, which
had once been white or light grey, and the hat were
terribly soiled and torn, and both were stained with
blood.  The police had tried on the quiet to trace the
owner of the hat and scarf but without success.  After
Lady Angela had told her story of the missing pearls,
the things were shown to Miss Shillington, who at once
identified the hat as belonging to her brother; the scarf,
however, she knew nothing about.
</p>

<p>
"But this was not by any means all.  It appears that
for some reason which was never quite clear, Captain
Shillington, after he said good-night to Lady Angela,
altered his mind about the proposed walk.  It may have
started to rain, or he may not, after all, have liked the
idea of walking about the streets at night with twenty-five
thousand pounds' worth of pearls in his pocket.
Be that as it may, he hailed a passing taxi and drove
to Mexfield House.  The driver came forward voluntarily
in answer to an advertisement put in the papers
by the police.  He stated that he remembered the
circumstance quite well because of what followed.  He
remembered taking up a fare outside Stanhope Gate
and being ordered to drive to Mexfield House in
Somerset Street.  When he slowed down close to Mexfield
House he noticed a man with his hands in his pockets
lounging under the doorway of one of the houses close
by.  As far as he could see the man was in evening
dress and wore a light overcoat.  He had on a silk hat
tilted right over his eyes so that only the lower part
of his face was visible, and he had a white or pale grey
scarf tied loosely round his neck.  The chauffeur also
noticed that he had a large white flower, probably a
carnation, in his buttonhole.  After the taxi-man had put
down his fare he drove off, and as he did so he saw the
man in the light overcoat step out from under the
doorway, where he had been lounging, and turn in the
direction of Mexfield House.  What happened after
that he didn't know, as he drove away without taking
further notice, but the police were already in touch
with another man who had been watching that night in
Somerset Street, where a portion of the road was up
for repair.  This man, whose name, I think, was
William Rugger, remembered quite distinctly seeing a
'swell' in a light overcoat and wearing a light-coloured
scarf round his neck, loafing around Mexfield House.
He remembered the taxi drawing up and a gentleman
getting out of it, whereupon the one in the light
overcoat and the scarf went up to him and said, 'Hullo,
Denver!' at which the other gent, the one who had
come in the taxi, appeared very surprised, for Rugger
heard him say, 'Good Lord, Henry, what are you doing
here?'
</p>

<p>
"Rugger didn't hear any more because the gentleman
in the light overcoat then took the other one by the
arm and together the pair of them walked away down
the street.  When they had gone Rugger noticed a
large white carnation lying on the pavement; he picked
it up and subsequently took it home to his missis.
</p>

<p>
"You may imagine what a stir and excitement this
story&mdash;which pretty soon leaked out in all its
details&mdash;caused amongst the public.  It seems that although
neither the taxi-driver nor the man Rugger had seen the
face of the man who had stepped out from under a
neighbouring doorway and accosted Captain Shillington,
they were both of them quite positive that he was
in evening dress, and that he wore a silk hat, a light
overcoat, and had a pale grey or white scarf wound
round his neck.  And besides that, there was the white
carnation.  But, of course, the crux of the whole
evidence was Rugger's assertion that he heard one
gentleman&mdash;the one who got out of the cab&mdash;say to the other
in tones of great surprise, 'Good Lord, Henry, what are
you doing here?'  Questioned again and again he never
wavered in this statement.  He heard the name Henry
quite distinctly and it stuck in his mind because his
eldest boy was Henry.  He was also asked whether the
gentleman, who had stepped out of the taxi&mdash;obviously
Captain Shillington, since the other had called to him,
'Hullo, Denver'&mdash;walked away reluctantly or willingly
when he was thus summarily taken hold of by the arm.
Rugger was under the impression that he walked away
reluctantly; he freed his arm once, but the other got
hold of him again, and, though Rugger did not catch
the actual words, he certainly thought that the two
gentlemen were quarrelling.
</p>

<p>
"And thus public opinion, which at first had been
dead against the Australian Captain, now went equally
dead against Henry Buckley.  Ugly stories were current
of his extravagance, his gambling debts, his
addiction to drink.  People who knew him remembered one
or two ugly pages in his life's history: altercations with
the police, raids on gambling clubs of which he was a
prominent member; there was even a fraudulent bankruptcy
which had been the original cause of his being
sent out to Australia by his harassed parents until the
worst of the clouds had rolled by.
</p>

<p>
"The only thing that told in his favour, as far as the
public was concerned, was the bitter vindictiveness
displayed against him by Miss Shillington.  That the girl
had cause for bitterness was not to be denied.  For a
time, at any rate, public opinion had branded her
brother as a common trickster and a thief, and she and
her mother had no doubt suffered terribly under the
stigma; in consequence of this, Mrs. Shillington's
health, always in a precarious state, had completely
broken down and the old lady had taken to her bed,
not suffering from any particular disease, but just from
debility of mind and body, obstinately refusing to see
a doctor, declaring that nothing would cure her except
the return of her son.
</p>

<p>
"And on the top of all that came the growing conviction
that the son never would return and that he had
been foully murdered for the sake of Lady Angela's
pearls, which he so foolishly was carrying in his pocket
that night.  No wonder, then, that his sister Marion
felt bitter against the people who were the original
cause of all these disasters; no wonder that she threw
herself heart and soul into the search for evidence
against the man whom she sincerely believed to be
guilty of a most hideous crime.
</p>

<p>
"It was mainly due to her that the police came on the
track of William Rugger, the night-watchman, and
through the latter that the driver of the taxi-cab was
advertised for, because Rugger remembered seeing the
gentleman alight from a taxi outside Mexfield House.
But Miss Shillington's valuable assistance in the matter
of investigation went even further than that.  She at
last prevailed upon the old man-servant at Mexfield
House to come forward like a man and to speak the
truth.  He was a poor creature, not really old, probably
not more than fifty, but timid and almost abject.  He
had at first declined to make any statement whatever,
declaring that he had nothing to say.  To every
question put to him by the police, he gave the one answer,
'I saw nothing, sir, I 'eard nothing.  I went to bed as
usual on the Friday night.  The Captain 'e never
expected me to sit up for 'im when 'e was out to parties,
and I never 'ear 'im come in, as I sleep at the top of
the 'ouse.  No, sir, I didn't 'ear nothing that night.
The last I seed of the Captain was at nine o'clock, when
'e got into the car and said good-night to me.'  When
he was shown the blood-stained hat, he burst out
crying, and said, 'Yes, sir!  Yes, sir!  That is the
Captain's 'at.  My Lord!  What 'as become of 'im?'  He
also failed to identify the scarf as being his master's
property.
</p>

<p>
"Then one day Miss Shillington, still suffering from
a cold in the head, but otherwise very business-like and
brisk, arrived at Scotland Yard with the man&mdash;James
Rose was his name&mdash;in tow.  By what means she had
persuaded him to speak the truth at last no one ever
knew, but in a tremulous voice and shaken with
nervousness, he did tell what he swore to be the truth.
'I must 'ave dropped to sleep in the dining-room,' he
said.  'I was very tired that evening, and I remember
after I 'ad cleared supper away I just felt as 'ow I
couldn't stand on my legs any longer, and I sat down
in an armchair and must 'ave dozed off.  What woke
me was the front-door bell which rings in the 'all as
well as in the basement.  I looked at the clock, it was
past midnight.  Captain forgot 'is key, that's what I
thought.  Lucky I 'adn't gone to bed, or I should never
'ave 'eard 'im.  Funny 'is forgetting 'is key, I thought.
Never done such a thing before, I thought, and went
to open the door for 'im.  But it wasn't the Captain,'
Rose went on, his voice getting more and more husky
as no doubt he realised the deadly importance of what
he was about to say.  'No, it wasn't the Captain,' he
reiterated, and shook his head in a doleful manner.
</p>

<p>
"'Who was it?' the Inspector demanded.
</p>

<p>
"'The young gentleman who sometimes came to the
'ouse,' Rose repeated under his breath.  'Mr. 'Enery
Buckley it was, sir.  Yes, Mr. 'Enery, that's 'oo it was.'
</p>

<p>
"'What did he say?' Rose was asked.
</p>

<p>
"''E asked if the Captain was in, and I said no,
not as I knew, but I would go and see.  So up I went
to the Captain's room and saw 'e wasn't there.  Not
yet.  And I told Mr. 'Enery so when I came down
again.'
</p>

<p>
"'Then what happened?'
</p>

<p>
"'Mr. 'Enery 'e told me that 'e wouldn't wait and
that I was to tell the Captain 'e 'ad called, and that 'e
would call again in 'arf an hour.  I said that I was
going to bed and I wouldn't probably see the Captain.
'E might be ever so late.  Then Mr. 'Enery 'e just said,
"Very good," and "Never mind," and "Good-night,
Rose," 'e said, and then I let 'im out.'
</p>

<p>
"'Well?  And what happened after that?'
</p>

<p>
"'I don't know, sir,' the old man concluded.  'I went
to bed and I never seed the Captain again, nor yet
Mr. 'Enery&mdash;not from that day to this, sir.  No, not again,
sir.'  And Rose once more shook his head in the same
doleful manner.  Of course the police were very down
on him for keeping back this valuable piece of information,
and they were even inclined to look with suspicion
upon the man.  They wanted to know something
about his antecedents and why he seemed so frightened
of facing the police authorities.  Fortunately for him,
however, Miss Shillington could give them all the
information they wanted.  She said that James Rose had
been for years in the service of a Mrs. O'Shea, who was
a great friend of Mrs. Shillington's.  When Mrs. O'Shea
died she left him a hundred pounds.  But the poor
thing had never been very strong, and he was nothing
to look at, he couldn't get another place, and the
hundred pounds vanished bit by bit.  About a month ago
Mrs. Shillington, who was requiring a man-servant,
advertised for one in the <i>Daily Mail</i>.  Rose answered
the advertisement, and though the poor thing in the
meanwhile had gone terribly downhill physically,
Mrs. Shillington, remembering how honest and respectable
he had always been when he was in Mrs. O'Shea's
service, engaged him out of compassion and for the sake
of old times.  Miss Shillington gave him an excellent
character and the police were satisfied.
</p>

<p>
"I think," the Old Man in the Corner said, amorously
contemplating a marvellously intricate knot,
which he had just made in his bit of string, "I think
that the police were mainly satisfied because at last they
felt that 'they had made out a case.'  From that
moment the detectives and inspectors in charge became
absolutely convinced that Henry Buckley had enticed
Captain Denver Shillington to some place of evil fame
close to the river and there, in collusion probably with
other disreputable characters, had robbed and murdered
him.  To say the least, the case looked black
enough against Buckley.  His fast living, his mountain
of debt, the absence in him of moral rectitude as proved
by his fraudulent bankruptcy, all told against him;
and now it was definitely proved that he had sought
out and actually been in the company of Captain
Shillington the night that the latter disappeared.  A light
grey overcoat similar to the one described by Rugger
and by the chauffeur as worn by the gentleman who
was loafing in Somerset Street was found to be a part
of his wardrobe; no one could swear, however, as to the
scarf, but it turned out that he never went out in the
evening without wearing a large, white carnation in his
button-hole.
</p>

<p>
"The fact that he had not stated from the beginning
that he had called at Mexfield House that night, and
subsequently met the missing man and walked away
with him, naturally told terribly against him.
Obviously the man lost his head.  Questioned by the
police, he tried at first to deny the whole thing: he
declared that the man with the white carnation and the
light-coloured scarf was some other man whose name
happened to be Henry, and he tried to upset Rose's
evidence by declaring that the man lied and that he had
never called at Mexfield House that night.  But,
unfortunately for him, he had taken a taxi from his club
to the house, the taxi-driver was found, and the noose
was further tightened round the Honourable Henry
Buckley's neck.  In vain did he assert after that that
Denver Shillington had told him to call at Mexfield
House at a quarter-past midnight on that fatal Friday.
He was no longer believed.  He admitted that he was
in financial difficulties, and that he had spoken about
these to Captain Shillington earlier in the evening.  He
admitted, tardily enough, that he went to Mexfield
House hoping that Denver would give him some money
in order to wipe out his most pressing debts.  When he
found that the Captain had not yet come home, he left
a message with the man-servant and thought he would
go on to the club for a little while and return later to
see Shillington.  Unfortunately, he drank rather
heavily whilst he was at the club and never thought any
more either about his money worries or about the
Captain.  In fact, he remembered nothing very clearly
beyond the fact that he went home, in the small hours
and went straight to bed.
</p>

<p>
"He then went on to say that he woke up the next
morning with a splitting headache.  It was pouring
with rain and London was looking particularly beastly,
as he picturesquely termed it.  He recollected that his
sister Angela had planned to go down with old
Square-toes to some friends near Newmarket for the
weekend.  He, too, had been asked but had declined the
invitation, but now he began to wish he hadn't; while
he was out of town money-lenders couldn't dun him,
and a breath of country air would certainly do him
good.
</p>

<p>
"And he was just cogitating over these matters at
eight a.m. on that Saturday morning, when his sister
Angela came into his room.  'She told me,' he went on,
'that old Square-toes was unable to accompany her to
these friends in Cambridgeshire, that she didn't want
to go alone, and would I hire a car and drive her down.
She offered to pay for the car, and, as the scheme
happened to suit me, I agreed.  We drove down to
Tatchford, and on the Tuesday I had an unpleasant reminder
from one of my creditors and thought that I must get
back to see what old Square-toes would do for me.  I
got home that same evening, and the next morning
early Miss Shillington rang up and told me over the
'phone that they had heard nothing of Captain Shillington
since the previous Friday and that they were getting
anxious.  And that's all I know,' he concluded.  'I
swear that I never set eyes on Shillington after he drove
off from the Duchess of Flint's, with my sister in his
car.  I did call at Mexfield House, but it was at
Shillington's suggestion, but when the man told me that
the Captain was not yet home, I did not loaf about the
street, I went straight back to the club and then home.'
</p>

<p>
"Of course all this was very clear and very categorical,
but there were one or two doubtful points in
Buckley's statements, which the police&mdash;dead out now
to prove him guilty of murder&mdash;made the most of.
Firstly, there was his former denial on oath that he had
not called at Mexfield House that night.  It was only
when he was confronted with the testimony of the
taxi-cab driver that he made the admission.  The employees
at his club, which, by the way, was in Hanover Square,
had seen him come in at about half-past eleven.  He
went out again twenty minutes later and the hall
porter saw him hail a taxi-cab.  He was once more in the
club at half-past twelve, and it is a significant fact that
two of the younger members chaffed him subsequently
because he had not the usual white carnation in his
button-hole.
</p>

<p>
"Then again it was more than strange that on the
Friday he was so worried about his debts that he went
in the middle of the night to his friend's house in order
to try and borrow money from him, and yet when,
according to his own statements, he never even saw his
friend, off he went the very next morning to the
country, stayed away four days, and on his return did not
make any attempt seemingly to see the Captain or to
ask him for money.  Thirdly, it was equally inconceivable
that Captain Shillington should have appointed to
see Buckley at that hour of the night, however pressed
the latter might have been for money.  Why should he?
The next morning would have done just as well,
whether he meant to help him or whether he did not,
and, according to the testimony of the night-watchman,
William Rugger, when he was accosted by Buckley, he
exclaimed in tones of great surprise, 'Good Lord,
Henry, what are you doing here?'  These are not
words which a man would say to a friend whom he
had appointed to meet at this very hour.
</p>

<p>
"However, this portion of the taxi-driver's and
Rugger's testimony Buckley still strenuously denied.
He could not deny the other.  He had called at Mexfield
House and reluctantly admitted that it had been
nothing but 'blue funk' that had prompted him at first
to hold his tongue about that and then to deny the fact
altogether.
</p>

<p>
"But, above all, there was yet another fact which to
the police was more conclusive, more damning than any
other and that was that on the Wednesday morning
the Honourable Henry Buckley had called at Messrs. Foster
and Turnbull, the well-known pawnbrokers of
Oxford Street, and had pledged a pair of diamond ear-rings
and a couple of valuable bracelets there for which
he received three hundred and fifty pounds.
</p>

<p>
"Here again, if Buckley had volunteered this
statement, all might have been well, but it was the
pawnbrokers who gave information to the police.  It turned
out that the ear-rings and the two bracelets were the
property of his sister, Lady Angela.  Buckley declared
that she had given them to him, and she, very nobly,
did her best to corroborate this statement of his, but it
had become impossible to believe a word he said.  Lady
Angela's valiant efforts on his behalf were thought to
be unconvincing, and, as a matter of fact, the public
has never known from that day to this whether Henry
Buckley stole his sister's jewellery, or whether she gave
it to him voluntarily.
</p>

<p><br /></p>

<h4>
§3
</h4>

<p>
"Mind you, there can be no question but that
the police acted very injudiciously when they
actually preferred a charge of murder against Henry
Buckley.  There were two such damning flaws in
the chain of evidence that had been collected against
him that the man ought never to have been arrested.
Even the magistrate was of that opinion.  As you
know, if there is the slightest doubt about such a
serious charge, the magistrates will always commit a
man for trial and let a jury of twelve men pronounce
on the final issue rather than decide such grave
matters on their own.  But in this case there were really
no proofs.  There were deductions: the accused was a
young blackguard, a moral coward and a liar.  There
was the blood-stained scarf, the hat and the white
carnation, there was the testimony of the taxi-driver and
the night watchman that Henry Buckley had been in
the company of Captain Shillington that night, but
there was no proof that he had murdered his friend and
stolen the pearls.
</p>

<p>
"To begin with, if there had been a murder, where
was it committed, and what became of Captain Shillington's
body?  Of course, the police still hope to find
traces of it, but, as you know, they have not yet
succeeded.  Various theories are put forward that Henry
Buckley was a member of a gang of ruffians with
headquarters in some obscure corner of London close to
the river, and that he enticed the Captain there and
murdered him with the help of his criminal associates
with whom he probably shared the proceeds of the
crime.  But over a year has gone by since Shillington
disappeared and the police are no nearer finding the
body of the missing man.
</p>

<p>
"The magistrate dismissed the case against Henry
Buckley.  There was not sufficient evidence to commit
him for trial.  What told most in his favour in the end
was the question of time.  He was able to prove that he
was at his club in Hanover Square at half-past midnight
on the fateful night.  Now, according to James
Rose's testimony, it was after midnight when he, Buckley,
called at Mexfield House.  Even supposing that
Shillington had arrived in the taxi five minutes later, it
was inconceivable that a man could entice another to
an out-of-the-way part of London, murder him&mdash;even
if he left others to dispose of the body&mdash;and walk back
unconcernedly to Hanover Square, all in less than half
an hour.  Nor were the pearls or any large sum of
money ever traced to Henry Buckley.  He was just as
deeply in debt after the disappearance of Captain
Shillington as he had been before.  Now he has gone on
another tour round the world, and the Shillingtons&mdash;mother
and daughter&mdash;have given up all hopes of ever
seeing the gallant Captain, who was such a model son,
again.  A little while ago the illustrated papers
published photos of the two ladies on board a P. and
O. steamer bound for Australia, but the public had
forgotten all about Lady Angela's pearls and the
mysterious white carnation.  No one was interested in the
old lady with the white hair and stooping figure, who
was carried on board in a chair, and who obstinately
refused to be interviewed by newspaper men eager for
copy.  The case is relegated, as far as the public is
concerned, to the category of undiscovered crimes."
</p>

<p>
"But," I argued, as the Old Man in the Corner
became silent, absorbed in the untying of an intricate
knot which he had made a little while ago, "surely the
police have found out who the man was who accosted
Captain Shillington in Somerset Street that night, the
man with the light-coloured scarf, which was
subsequently found in the river by the side of the missing
man's hat, the man who called the Captain 'Denver,'
and whom the latter called 'Henry,' and was so
surprised to see.  If it was not Henry Buckley, who was
it?"
</p>

<p>
"Ah!" the exasperating creature retorted with a fatuous
smile, "who was it?  That's just the point&mdash;a point
just as dark as that a man like Captain Shillington
could be enticed at that hour of the night to an
out-of-the-way part of London, and at a moment when he
had his fiancée's jewellery worth twenty-five thousand
pounds in his pocket.  Don't you think that <i>that</i> point
is absolutely inconceivable?"
</p>

<p>
"Well," I said, "it does seem&mdash;&mdash;"
</p>

<p>
"Of course it does," he broke in eagerly.  "I ask you:
Is it likely?  At one moment we are told that Captain
Shillington was a pattern of all the virtues and that his
business acumen and abilities had earned for him not
only a fortune but the admiration of all those who knew
him; and the very next we are asked to suppose that he
would meekly allow a young blackguard, whom he
knew to be dishonest and unscrupulous, to drag him
'reluctantly' to some obscure haunt of a gang of
criminals.  Surely that should have jumped to the eyes of
any sane person who had studied the case."
</p>

<p>
"I don't suppose," I retorted, "that Captain Shillington
allowed Buckley to drag him very far.  Most
people believed at the time that he was attacked
directly he rounded the corner of Somerset Street.  There
are one or two entrances to mews just about there&mdash;&mdash;"
</p>

<p>
"Yes," the funny creature rejoined excitedly, "but
not one nearer than fifty yards from Mexfield House.
And do you think that the immaculate Australian would
have walked ten at night with young Buckley and
with those pearls in his pocket?  Why should he?
He was outside his own door.  Wouldn't he have taken
Henry into the house with him if he wished to speak to
him?  No!  No!  The whole theory is inconceivable...."
</p>

<p>
"But Captain Shillington disappeared," I argued,
"and so did the pearls, and his hat was found floating
in the river, torn and blood-stained.  You cannot deny
that."
</p>

<p>
"I certainly cannot deny," he replied, "that a blood-stained
hat will float on the water if it is thrown&mdash;say,
from a convenient bridge."
</p>

<p>
"But the scarf?" I retorted.
</p>

<p>
"A scarf will obey the same laws of Nature as a hat."
</p>

<p>
"But surely you are not going to tell me&mdash;&mdash;?"
</p>

<p>
"What?"
</p>

<p>
"That the whole thing was a confidence trick, after all?"
</p>

<p>
"I am certain that it was.  A clever one, I'll admit,
and even I was puzzled at the time.  I couldn't think
who 'Henry' could possibly be.  It wasn't young
Buckley, that was obvious.  The alibi was conclusive as to
that: the miscreants who had planned to throw dust in
the eyes of the police by trying to fasten a hideous
crime on that unfortunate young Buckley set their
stage rather too elaborately when they devised the trick
about the scarf.  By identifying the murderer with the
wearer of the scarf, they saved Buckley from the
gallows; without it, there might have remained some doubt
in the mind of some of the jury.  But, of course, it
raised a tremendous puzzle.  Who was the 'Henry' of
Somerset Street?  And was it not a curious coincidence
that he should be wearing an overcoat similar to the one
habitually worn by Henry Buckley and a white carnation,
which many friends would at once associate with
that unfortunate young man?  From the examination
of the puzzle to its solution was but a step.  I came at
once to the conclusion that here was no coincidence,
but a deliberate attempt to impersonate Henry Buckley,
the man most likely in the eyes of the public to waylay,
rob, and even murder a man whom he knew to be in
possession of valuable jewellery.  Such a deliberate
attempt, therefore, argued that Captain Shillington
himself must have been in it.  'Good Lord, Henry, what in
the world are you doing here?' was obviously intended
for any passer-by to hear in the same way that the
white carnation was intended for any chance passer-by
to pick up.  Having established the <i>mise en scène</i>, the
two scoundrels walked off, having previously provided
themselves with a blood-stained hat, which presently
Miss Shillington would identify as the property of her
brother."
</p>

<p>
"Miss Shillington?" I broke in eagerly, "then you
think that the whole Australian family was in the
conspiracy?  And what about the man Rose?"
</p>

<p>
"The whole family," he rejoined, "only consisted of
two.  Man and wife most likely."
</p>

<p>
"But the man Rose?" I insisted.
</p>

<p>
"An excellent part, alternately played with remarkable
skill by the Captain and his female accomplice."
</p>

<p>
"Do reconstruct the whole thing for me," I pleaded.
"I own that I am bewildered."
</p>

<p>
And from my bag I extracted a brand-new piece of
string which I handed to him with an engaging smile.
Nothing could have pleased the fatuous creature more.
With long, claw-like fingers twiddling the string, he
began leisurely:
</p>

<p>
"Nothing could be more simple.  Captain Shillington
takes leave of his fiancée, having her pearls in his
pocket.  It is then about half-past eleven.  Henry
Buckley has gone to his club, Shillington having
appointed to see him at Mexfield House soon after
midnight.  There is, therefore, plenty of time.  Shillington
hurries home, changes his personality into that of James
Rose, as he often has done before, and subsequently
interviews Henry Buckley on the door-step.  You can
see that, can't you?"
</p>

<p>
"Easily," I replied.
</p>

<p>
"Then as soon as he has got rid of Buckley, our
friend the Captain quits the personality of a snuffy,
middle-aged man-servant, and becomes himself once
more.  He goes back to the neighbourhood of Mayfair,
hails a taxi and drives to Mexfield House.  But in the
meanwhile the female confederate&mdash;we'll call her Miss
Shillington for convenience' sake&mdash;in male attire and
evening dress, wearing a light overcoat, a light-coloured
scarf and a white carnation in her button-hole, lounges
under a doorway in Somerset Street, waiting to play
her part.  Now do you see how simple it all is?"
</p>

<p>
"Perfectly," I admitted.  "As you said before, they
had provided themselves with a blood-stained hat,
which presently they threw into the river, together with
the scarf; and what happened after that?"
</p>

<p>
"They walked home quietly and went to bed."
</p>

<p>
"What?  Both of them? ... But the mother?"
</p>

<p>
"I don't believe in the mother," he retorted blandly.
"Do you?"
</p>

<p>
"I thought&mdash;&mdash;"
</p>

<p>
"She takes to her bed&mdash;she never sees a doctor&mdash;she
and her daughter never see any one&mdash;they have no
friends&mdash;no servants save the man Rose; put two and
two together, my dear," the funny old man concluded
as he slipped the piece of string in his pocket.  "Captain
Shillington was the only one in that house who ever
went outside the doors.  The mother never did&mdash;no one
ever saw her&mdash;the daughter had a perpetual cold in the
head&mdash;the man Rose had no one to speak for him, no
one to relate his past history, except Miss Shillington.
Where is he now?  What has become of him?  There's
nobody to enquire after him, so the police don't trouble.
The two Shillingtons&mdash;supposed to be mother and
daughter&mdash;went back to Australia last year, but not
the man Rose.  Then where is he?  But I say that the
two passengers on board that P. and O. boat were not
mother and daughter, but male and female confederates
in as fine a bit of rascality as I've ever seen.  And
the man Rose never existed.  He was just a disguise
assumed from time to time by Captain Shillington.  It
is not difficult, you know, to assume a personality of
that sort.  The police inspectors who questioned him
had never seen Captain Shillington, and dirt and
shabby clothes are very perfect disguises.  Now the
pair of them are knocking about the world somewhere,
they will dispose of the pearls to Continental dealers
not over scrupulous where a good bargain can be struck.
If you will just think of Captain Shillington
impersonating James Rose and a decrepit old woman
alternately, and of Miss Shillington impersonating Henry
Buckley on that one occasion, you will see how
conclusive are my deductions.  I have a snapshot here of
the two Australian 'ladies,' taken on board the boat.
This muffled-up bundle of bonnet and shawl is supposed
to be Mrs. Shillington; it might as well be M. Poincaré
or the Kaiser, don't you think?  And here is a
snapshot of James Rose giving evidence in the magistrate's
court.  Unfortunately, I have no photo of Captain
Shillington, or I could have shown you just how
to trace the personality of the handsome young man
about town under that of this snuffy, dirty, ill-kempt,
unwashed, and badly clothed, stooping figure of an
out-at-elbows servant."
</p>

<p>
He threw a bundle of newspaper cuttings down on
the table.  I gazed at them still puzzled, but nevertheless
convinced that he was right.  When I looked up
again, I only saw a corner of his shabby checked ulster
disappearing through the swing doors.
</p>

<p><br /><br /><br /></p>

<p><a id="chap10"></a></p>

<h3>
X
<br /><br />
THE MYSTERY OF THE MONTMARTRE HAT
</h3>

<p><br /></p>

<h4>
§1
</h4>

<p>
"It was during a foggy, rainy night in November a
couple of years ago," the Old Man in the Corner
said to me that day, "that the inhabitants of
Wicklow Lane, Southwark, were startled by a terrible
row proceeding from one of the houses down the street.
There was a lot of shouting and banging, then a couple
of pistol-shots, after that nothing more.  It was then
just after midnight.  The dwellers in Wicklow Lane
are all of them poor, they are all of them worried with
the cares of large families, small accommodation, and
irregular work, all of which we must take it make for
indifference to other people's worries, and above all,
to other people's quarrels.  Rows were not an unknown
occurrence in Wicklow Lane, not always perhaps at
dead of night and not necessarily accompanied by
pistol-shots, but nevertheless sufficiently frequent not to
arouse more than passing interest.  Half-a-dozen
tousled heads&mdash;no more&mdash;were thrust out of the windows
to ascertain what this particular row was about; but
as everything was quiet again, as no police was in
sight to whom one might give directions, and as the
mixture of rain and fog was particularly unpleasant,
the tousled heads after a few minutes disappeared
again, and once more peace reigned in Wicklow Lane.
</p>

<p>
"Of course the next morning the event of the night
was mentioned and mildly discussed, both by the men
whilst going to their work and by the ladies whilst
scrubbing their doorsteps.  Every one agreed that the
pistol-shots were fired soon after midnight, but no one
seemed to be very clear in which particular house the
row had occurred.  Two or three of the people who
lived in No. 11 and No. 15 respectively would have it
that it occurred 'next door,' but as the house next door
to them both could only be the one between them,
namely No. 13, and as No. 13 had been empty for
months, this testimony was at first strongly discounted.
</p>

<p>
"Presently, however, a helmeted and blue-coated
representative of the law came striding leisurely down the
lane.  Within a minute or two he was surrounded by
a number of excited ladies, all eager to give him their
own version of the affair.  You can see him, can't you?"
the Old Man in the Corner went on with a grin, "stalking
up the street, his thumbs thrust into his belt, his
face wearing that marvellous look of impassivity
peculiar to the force, and followed by this retinue of
gesticulating ladies, dressed in what they happened to
have picked up in neighboring 'ole clo'' shops, and by
a sprinkling of callow youths and unkempt, unshaven
men.  You can see him solemnly plying the knocker on
the dilapidated front door of No. 13, while for the
space of a minute or two the gesticulating ladies, the
youths, and the men were silent and motionless.  But
not a sound came in response to the Bobby's vigorous
knocking.  The house was silent as the grave; just
above the front door a weather-worn board, swaying
and creaking in the wind, mutely gave it out that the
lease of these desirable premises was to be sold, and
that the key could be had on application to
Messrs. J  D. Whiskin and Sons, of Newnham Road, S.E.
The ladies, with cheeks blanched under the grime,
looked aghast at one another; the youths tittered
nervously, the men swore.  No one appeared altogether
displeased.  Here was a real excitement at last to vary
the monotony of life, something that would keep
gossip alive at the White Lion for many a day to come.
The majestic representative of the law then blew his
whistle.  This broke the spell of silence and voluble
tongues started wagging again.  Soon the second
representative of the law appeared, as ponderous, as
impassive as his mate.  He was quickly put in possession
of all the known and unknown facts connected with
the mysterious occurrence.  Leaving his mate in charge,
he stalked off to get assistance.
</p>

<p>
"Well, you remember no doubt what happened after
that.  A police inspector called straightway on Messrs. Whiskin
and Sons, and elicited from them the information
that effectively No. 13 Wicklow Lane was for sale,
had been for some time, and that on the previous
morning&mdash;it was, of course, Thursday&mdash;a well-dressed
gentleman had called to make enquiries about the house.
Young Mr. Whiskin gave him the key and asked him to
be sure and return it before 1 p.m. as the office closed
early on Thursdays.  Well, the gentleman hadn't come
back yet with the key, but Mr. Whiskin was not troubling
much about that, there being nothing in the house&mdash;nor
for a matter of that in the street&mdash;likely to tempt
a thief.  Young Mr. Whiskin thought that he would be
able to identify the gentleman if he saw him again.  He
had rather a red face and a thick nose, which suggested
that he was accustomed to good living, rough ginger-coloured
hair, and a straggly ginger beard and walrus
moustache, all of which gave him rather a peculiar
appearance.  He wore a neat brown lounge-suit, a light
overcoat, and grey Homburg hat, and he was carrying
a large parcel under his arm.  Mr. Whiskin added that
he had never seen the man before or since.
</p>

<p>
"As soon as these facts became known there was
more voluntary information forthcoming.  It appears
that one or two of the residents in Wicklow Lane
remembered seeing a man in light overcoat and soft grey
hat, and carrying a parcel under his arm, enter No. 13
with a latchkey.  No one had taken 'pertikler notice,'
however, chiefly because the occurrence was not an
unusual one.  Often people would go in to look at the
empty house and come out again after inspection.
Unfortunately, too, because of this there was distinct
confusion of evidence, some witnesses declaring that the
man carried a large parcel, and that he went away
again, but not until the evening; others would have it
that he had a very small parcel, and that he wore a
bowler hat; others that the man with the bowler hat
was another person altogether, and did not call till the
evening, whilst this, again, was contradicted by
another witness who said that the man who called in the
evening had very conspicuous ginger-coloured hair and
beard, but that he certainly wore a bowler hat.  And
through this mass of conflicting evidence there was
always the fact that the fog was very thick that night
and that no one therefore was able to swear very
positively to anything.
</p>

<p>
"This, then, being all the information that could be
gathered for the moment from the outside, the police
next decided to force an entry into the empty house.
Its unlucky number justified, as you know, its sinister
reputation, because the first sight that greeted the
inspector when he entered the front room on the ground
floor was the body of a man lying in a pool of blood.
At first glance he looked like a foreigner&mdash;youngish,
and with jet-black hair and moustache.  By the side of
him there was a damp towel, also stained with blood.
Closer examination revealed the fact that he was not
dead, but he seemed in a dead faint, and the inspector
sent one of the men off at once to telephone for the
divisional surgeon.
</p>

<p>
"The wounded man was dressed in a dark suit.  He
had on a gold watch of foreign make, twenty pounds in
notes, and some loose silver in his pockets, and a letter
addressed to 'Allen Lloyd, Esq.' at an hotel at
Boulogne.  The letter was a private one, relating
unimportant family events; it was signed by a Christian
name only, and bore a London postmark, but no address.
The police inspector took charge of the letters
and the money, and as the divisional surgeon had now
arrived and was busy with the wounded man, he
proceeded to examine the premises.
</p>

<p>
"The houses in Wicklow Lane all have small yards at
the back.  These yards end in a brick wall, the other
side of which there is a railway cutting.  It was obvious
that No. 13 had been untenanted for some time.  The
dust of ages lay over window and door-frames, over
broken mantelpieces and dilapidated stoves.  There
was not a stick of anything anywhere; even the rubbish
in the basement&mdash;such as is found in every empty
house, residue left over by the last tenant&mdash;had been
picked over until there was nothing left but dust and
a few empty bottles.
</p>

<p>
"The front room in which the wounded man lay
revealed very little.  Two bullets were found lodged
in one of the walls; one, quite close to the ceiling,
suggesting that it had been fired in the air, and the other at
a height of seven feet from the ground.  The dust on
the floor had certainly been disturbed, but by how
many pairs of feet it was impossible to say.  On the
other hand, the back room on the same floor had quite
a grim tale to tell.  It gave on the small backyard with
the wall as a background, beyond which was the
railway cutting.  The window in this room was open.  In
one corner there was an ordinary sink which showed
that water had been running from the tap quite
recently; there was a small piece of soap in the sink
which had also recently been used.  On the mantelpiece
a small oak-framed mirror was propped up against the
wall and beside it on the shelf there was the remnant
of a burnt-out candle and a box of matches, half empty.
And thrown down on the floor, in a corner of the room,
were a black Inverness cape and soft black hat with
a very wide brim, such as are usually affected by
French students.
</p>

<p>
"It was, of course, difficult to reconstruct the assault
just at present, the wounded man being still in a state
of stupor and unable to give any account of himself,
but the revolver was found lying at the bottom of the
yard close to the end wall.
</p>

<p>
"In the meanwhile the divisional surgeon had
concluded his examination.  He pronounced the wound to
have been caused by one of the bullets that had
lodged in the wall of the front room.  It had been fired
at very close range, as the flesh was singed all round
the wound.  The bullet had gone right through the left
deltoid, front to back, and slightly upwards, just grazed
the top of the shoulder, and then lodged in the wall.
The surgeon was inclined to think that the wound was
self-inflicted, but this theory was thought to be
untenable, because if a man was such an obviously poor shot
he would surely have chosen some other way of putting
an end to himself, unless, indeed, he was a lunatic,
which might account for any incongruity in the known
facts, even to the noise&mdash;the shouting and the
banging&mdash;that all the neighbours agreed had preceded the
revolver shots.
</p>

<p>
"But there certainly was one fact which discounted
the attempted suicide theory, and that was the
undoubted presence of another man upon the scene&mdash;the
man with the ginger hair and the thick nose who had
called for the key at Messrs. Whiskin and Sons, and
whom several witnesses had actually seen entering the
empty house, the man with the parcel.  Now no one
saw him come out again by the front door.  He must
have been in the house when the foreigner with the
jet-black hair came and joined him, and he must have
slipped out later on in the dark, under cover of the fog
and rain, either by the front door when nobody
happened to be passing by, or over the wall and then by
the railway cutting.  Now what had brought these two
men together in an empty house, in one of the worst
slums in London?  One man was wounded; where was
the other?  Had the revolver been dropped by one of
them in his flight or flung out of the window by a
lunatic?  Was it attempted suicide by a madman, or
murder consequent on a quarrel, or blackmail?  None
of these questions was ever answered, nor was the man
with the ginger-coloured hair ever found.  There was
absolutely no clue by which he might be traced; the
earth just swallowed him up as if he had been a spook.
</p>

<p>
"Nor was the identity of the wounded man ever
satisfactorily established.  Who he was, where he came
from, who were his associates and what were his antecedents,
he never revealed.  He was detained in hospital
for a time, as he certainly was suffering from loss of
memory.  But presently they had to let him go.  He
had money and he was otherwise perfectly sane, but to
every question put to him he only answered, 'I don't
know!  I can't remember!'  He spoke English without
the slightest trace of foreign accent; all that was
foreign about him was his jet-black hair and beard.  Nor
was the history of the revolver ever traced to its source.
Where was it bought?  To whom was it sold, and by
whom?  Nobody ever knew."
</p>

<p>
"But where did the man go after he left the
hospital?" I now asked, seeing that the funny creature
looked like curling himself up in his corner and going
to sleep.  "Surely he was kept under observation when
they let him out!"
</p>

<p>
"Of course he was," he replied glibly, "and for some
time after that."
</p>

<p>
"Then where did he go," I reiterated, impatiently,
"when he was discharged from hospital?"
</p>

<p>
"He asked the way to the nearest public library and
went straight there; he looked down the columns of
the <i>Morning Post</i>, scribbled a few addresses on a scrap
of paper, then he took a taxi and drove to one of the
private hotels in Mexborough Gate, where he engaged
a room, paying a fortnight's board and lodging in
advance.  Here he lived for some considerable time.  He
was always plentifully supplied with money, he bought
himself clothes and linen, but where he got the money
from was never discovered.  For a time he was watched
both by the police and by amateur detectives eager for
copy, but nothing was ever discovered that would clear
up the mystery.  From time to time letters came for
him at the hotel in Mexborough Gate.  They were
addressed to 'Allen Lloyd, Esq.' which may or may not
have been a taken-up name.  Presumably these letters
contained remittances in cash.  They were never traced
to their source.  Anyway he always paid his weekly
bills at the hotel; but he never spoke to any one in
the place, nor, as far as could be ascertained, did he ever
meet any one or enter any house except the one he
lodged in.
</p>

<p>
"Then one fine day he left the hotel, never to return.
He went out one afternoon and nothing has been seen
or heard of him from that day to this.  The mysterious
Mr. Allen Lloyd has disappeared in the whirlpool of
London, leaving no trace of his identity.  He had paid
his bill at the hotel that very day.  He left no debts and
just a very few personal belongings behind.  To all
intents and purposes the matter was relegated in the
public mind to the category of unsolved and
unsolvable mysteries."
</p>

<p><br /></p>

<h4>
§2
</h4>

<p>
The Old Man in the Corner had paused.  From the
capacious pocket of his tweed ulster he now extracted
a thick piece of string; his claw-like fingers set to work.
The problem which police and public had never been
able to solve had, I had no doubt, presented few
difficulties to his agile brain.
</p>

<p>
"Tell me," I suggested.
</p>

<p>
He went on working away for a little while at an
intricate knot, then he said, "If you want to know more,
you will have to listen to what will seem to you an
irrelevant story."
</p>

<p>
I professed my willingness to listen to anything he
might choose to tell me.
</p>

<p>
"Very well, then," he said.  "Let me take your mind
back to that same winter two years ago.  Do you remember
the extraordinary theft of a valuable collection
of gems, the property of Sir James Narford?"
</p>

<p>
"I do."
</p>

<p>
"Do you know who Sir James Narford was?"
</p>

<p>
"I would prefer you to tell me," I replied.
</p>

<p>
"Sir James Narford," the funny creature went on
glibly, "was a young gentleman who had been employed
during the war in one of the Government departments;
he was the only son of his father who was an
impoverished Irish baronet.  Soon after the Armistice,
Sir James went to South America to visit some relations.
He must have made a very favourable impression
on one of these&mdash;an eccentric old cousin who died a very
few months later and left to his English relative a
marvellous collection of pearls and other gems.  Some of
these were of priceless value, and as is the way with
anything that is out of the common, all sorts of stories
grew around the romantic legacy.  The great worth and
marvellous beauty of the jewels were told and retold,
with many embellishments no doubt, in the English
papers.  It was asserted that the Brazilian Government
had valued them for probate at a million pounds
sterling; that there were diamonds&mdash;some still uncut&mdash;that
would make the Koh-i-noor or the Orloff look like
small bits of glass, and so on.  I daresay you can
remember some of the legends that gathered around Sir
James Narford's gems.  By the time the lucky owner
of the fabulous treasure, who had gone out again to
Brazil in order to fetch away his jewels, had returned
to England, he was the object of universal interest and
he and his gems were photographed and paragraphed
all over the place.
</p>

<p>
"But as I told you, the recipient of this princely
legacy had always been a poor man.  We may take it
that the payment of legacy duty on forty thousand
pounds' worth of gems had impoverished him still
further.  Busybodies, of course, tried to persuade him to
sell the gems; he had numberless letters from diamond
and pearl merchants, asking for permission to see them
with a view to purchase, but, naturally enough, he
didn't want to do anything in a hurry; he deposited his
treasure at the bank and then thought things over.  He
didn't want to sell, for he was inordinately proud of
his new possession and of the notoriety which it had
conferred upon him.  It was even rumoured that he had
received more than one hint from fair lips that if he
proposed marriage, the owner of such beautiful jewels
would be certain of acceptance.
</p>

<p>
"I don't know who first suggested the idea to Sir
James Narford that he should exhibit the gems for the
benefit of disabled soldiers and sailors.  It was a
splendid idea; 2s. 6d. was to be charged for
admission, and after deducting expenses of rent and
attendants, the profits were to go to that very laudable
charity.  Suitable premises were secured in Sackville
Street.  These consisted of a shop with a large plate-glass
front and a small room at the back; the entrance
was through a front door and passage, which were
common to the rest of the house, and there were two
doors in the passage, one of which gave into the shop,
and the other into the back room.  Sir James spent a
little money in getting up the place in modern style,
and he had some cases made for the display of the
gems.  The door which gave from the passage into the
shop was condemned, and a heavy piece of furniture
placed against it.  The back room was only to be used
as an office and ante-room with communicating doors
leading into the shop.
</p>

<p>
"In the daytime the gems were displayed in glass
cases ranged right and left of the shop; at night they
were locked up in a safe which stood in the middle of
the shop, facing the plate-glass window and with a
blazing electric light kept on all night, just above the
safe.  This is a very usual device with jewellers in a
smaller way of business.  The policeman on night duty
can see at once if there is anything wrong.
</p>

<p>
"Everything being ready, Sir James Narford asked a
distinguished lady friend of his to declare the show
open, and for the first fortnight&mdash;this, I must tell you,
was in October&mdash;there was a steady stream of visitors,
ladies for the most part, who came to gaze on the
much-advertised gems.  You might wonder what pleasure
there could be in looking at things one could never hope
to possess, especially at loose gems, however precious,
which, to my mind, only become beautiful when they
are mounted and set in artistic designs.  However, I do
not profess to understand feminine mentality; all I
know is that Sir James Narford declared himself on
more than one occasion satisfied with the result of his
little venture.  True that after the first fortnight the
attendance at the show fell off considerably, and a few
people did wonder why Sir James should continue to
keep it open for so long.  Those who had been most
curious to see the gems of fabulous value had flocked
in the first few days, after that there was only a very
thin sprinkling of people up from the country, or
foreigners, who paid their 2s. 6d. admission for the
sight.  But be that as it may, the jewels were certainly
getting an additional amount of advertisement, and
when presently the owner would put them for sale, as
no doubt he intended to do, they would fetch a higher
figure in consequence.  In the meanwhile Sir James
went on living very quietly in a small service flat in
George Street, waited on by a faithful servant, a man
named Ruggles, whom he had known for years.  Every
day he would stroll round to Sackville Street to look
at his treasure and to talk to one or two friends.  At six
o'clock the exhibition would be closed, and Sir James
would himself deposit all the gems into the safe, lock
up the premises, and take the keys back with him to
his flat.  He went out very little in society, and only
occasionally to his club.  His one extravagance
appeared to be a mania for travelling in all sorts of
out-of-the-way places; he had been seemingly in every
corner of Europe&mdash;in Czecho-Slovakia and Yugoslavia,
in Montenegro, Bosnia, and Bessarabia.  Before
this whenever he went off on his travels he would
take his man with him and shut up the flat, but on the
occasion which presently arose he left Ruggles in
charge of the exhibition in Sackville Street.  This was
early in November, about a fortnight after the opening
of the exhibition; and when Sir James had gone it
was Ruggles who every night at six o'clock put the
gems away in the safe and locked up the premises.  He
then made a point of going for a brisk walk, and
returned to the flat at about half-past seven, had his
supper, read his paper, and then went to bed at about
ten o'clock with the keys of the safe and of the
Sackville Street premises underneath his pillow.
</p>

<p>
"One of the staff in the flats at George Street always
got his supper ready for him&mdash;some cold meat, bread
and cheese, and half a pint of beer, which the lift-boy
invariably fetched for him from the Crown and
Sceptre round the corner.  He prepared his own breakfast
in the morning, and his other meals he took in
Sackville Street.  They were sent in from one of the
cheaper restaurants in Piccadilly.
</p>

<p>
"Every morning the charwoman who cleaned the
steps outside the block of flats in George Street would
see Ruggles come out of the house and walk away in
the direction of Sackville Street.  Even on Sundays
he would stroll round as far as the shop to see that
everything was all right.
</p>

<p>
"It was on a snowy morning in January that the
charwoman failed to see Ruggles at his accustomed
time.  As the quiet neighbourhood did not as a rule lend
itself much to gossip, the present opportunity was not
to be missed.  The charwoman, on meeting with the
lift-boy, imparted to him the priceless news that
Mr. Ruggles must either be ill or had gone and overslept
himself.  Whereupon the lift-boy was ready with the
startling information that he had just observed that one
of the glass panels in the front door of Sir James
Narford's flat was broken.  'The glass wasn't broke in the
evening, ten-thirty,' he went on to say, 'when I took
a party down who'd been visitin' Miss Jenkins.'
</p>

<p>
"It seems that Miss Jenkins was maid to a lady who
had a flat on the same floor as Sir James Narford.
But there was the length of a passage with staircase
and lift between the two flats, and neither the lady nor
the maid, when spoken to by the lift-boy about the
broken glass panel, had heard anything during the
night.  Now all this seemed very strange, more
especially as the morning hours wore on and there was
still no sign of Mr. Ruggles.  The lift-boy was kept
busy for the next hour taking the staff of the service
flats up and down in his lift, as every one wished to
have a look at the broken panel, and wanted to add
their quota of opinion as to what had gone on last night
in Sir James Narford's flat.  At ten o'clock the
housekeeper, more responsible or more enterprising than
the rest of the staff, resolved to knock at the flat door.
No answer came.  She then tried to peep through the
broken glass panel, and to apply her ear to it.  For
a time all was silence.  The charwoman, the lift-boy,
the scullery-maid, and the head housemaid stood by
on the landing, holding their breath.  Suddenly they
all gave a simultaneous gasp!  A groan&mdash;distinctly a
groan&mdash;was heard issuing from inside the flat!  The
group of watchers looked at one another in dismay.
'What's to be done?' they murmured.
</p>

<p>
"The lift-boy had the key of the flat, but as the front
door was bolted on the inside, the key in itself was no
use.  The housekeeper with the air of a general in
command about to order a deathly charge, said
resolutely, 'I shall force my way in!'  And it was the
lift-boy who gasped, awe-stricken, 'You kin put your 'and
through the broken panel, mum, and pull the bolt.'
</p>

<p>
"Somehow this bright idea which had occurred to
the lift-boy made every one there feel still more
uncomfortable.  The housekeeper, who had been so bold
a while ago, stammered something about fetching the
police, and when at that precise moment the lift-bell
rang, the head housemaid declared herself ready to
faint.  But it was only Sir James Narford who had
rung for the lift from below.  He had arrived by the
night mail from Paris, and had only his small suit-case
with him.  The lift-boy had the satisfaction of being the
first to impart the exciting news to him.  ''E took it
badly, 'e did!' was that young gentleman's comment on
Sir James's reception of the news.  Without taking the
slightest notice of the group of excited women on the
landing, Sir James went straight to his front door,
thrust his hand through the broken panel, drew back
the inside bolt, and stepped into his flat.  The next
moment the agitated crowd on the landing heard him
cry out, 'My God, Ruggles, what has happened?'  A
feeble voice which was scarcely recognisable as that
of Ruggles was then heard talking in short, jerky
sentences, and a few moments later Sir James's voice could
be distinctly heard speaking on the telephone.
</p>

<p>
"'He is telephoning for the police,' the housekeeper
solemnly announced to the staff.
</p>

<p>
"Well," the Old Man in the Corner continued after
a while, "let me shorten my tale by telling you briefly
the story which Ruggles told the police.  It did not
amount to a great deal, but such as it was it revealed a
degree of cunning and of daring in the ways of burglary
that have seldom been equalled.  Ruggles, it seems, had
as usual put away the gems in the safe and locked up
the premises in Sackville Street and then walked home
to the flat, very glad, he declared, that his responsibility
would cease before another day went by, as he expected
Sir James home from abroad the following morning.
He had his supper as usual, but when he settled down
to read his paper, he felt so sleepy that he just went and
bolted the front door, placed the keys underneath his
pillow, and went straight to bed.  He remembered nothing
more until he felt himself roughly shaken and heard
his master's voice calling to him.  It took him some
time to collect himself; he felt dazed and his head
ached terribly.  When Sir James told him that it was
past ten o'clock he could not conceive how he could
have overslept himself in this way.  Through force of
habit he put his hand under his pillow to grope for the
keys.  They had gone!  Then Sir James telephoned to
the police.  That was all that Ruggles could say.  His
condition was pitiable; alternately bemoaning his fate
and cursing himself for a fool, he knelt at his master's
feet and with hands clasped begged for forgiveness.
</p>

<p>
"'I'd have done anything in the world for Sir James,'
he kept reiterating to the police officer, 'and 'ere I've
been the ruin of 'im, just through over-sleepin'.'
</p>

<p>
"The police inspector got quite impatient with him,
and at one time, I think, he thought that the man was
acting a part.  But Sir James Narford himself indignantly
repudiated any suggestion of the sort.  'I would
trust Ruggles,' he said emphatically, 'as I would myself.
I have known him for thirty years, and he was in my
father's service before that.  I trust him with my keys,
with money, with everything.  He would have plenty of
opportunity to rob me comfortably if he had a mind.
What would a man of his class do with valuable gems?'
</p>

<p>
"All the same I fancy that the police did not altogether
lose sight of the possibility that Ruggles might
know something about the affair, but in spite of very
clever questioning and cross-questioning, his story
never varied even in the minutest detail.  All that he
added to his original statement that was of any value
was the description of a foreign visitor at Sackville
Street whom, in his own words, he 'didn't like the looks
of.'  This was a youngish man, with very sallow
complexion, jet-black hair and moustache, and wearing a
peculiar-looking caped overcoat and black soft hat with
a very wide brim, who had remained over half an hour
in the shop, apparently deeply interested in the gems.
At one time he asked Ruggles whether he might have
the glass cases opened, so that he could examine the
stones and pearls more closely.  This request Ruggles
very naturally refused.  The young man then put a
lot of questions to him: 'Where did the gems come
from?  What was their value?  Were they insured?
Where were they kept at night?  Was the safe
burglar-proof or only fireproof?' and so on.
</p>

<p>
"It seems that two ladies who were visiting the
exhibition at the same time noticed this same young man
with the sallow complexion and the jet-black hair.
They heard him questioning Ruggles and remarked
upon his foreign accent, which was neither Italian nor
Spanish; they thought he might be Portuguese.  His
clothes were certainly very outlandish.  The ladies had
noticed the caped coat, a kind of black Inverness, and
the hat <i>à la</i> Montmartre.  The presence of this
foreigner in the shop in Sackville Street became still more
significant later on, when another fact came to light&mdash;a
fact in connection with the half-pint of beer which the
lift-boy from the flats in George Street had fetched as
usual on the evening preceding the robbery, from the
Crown and Sceptre public house.  A few drops of the
beer had remained in the mug beside the remnants of
Ruggles's supper.  On examination the beer was found
to contain chloral.  The lift-boy at first was probably
too scared to throw any light on this circumstance.
He had, he declared, fetched the beer as usual from
the Crown and Sceptre, taken it up to No. 4, Sir
James Narford's flat, and put it upon the table in the
sitting-room, where Mr. Ruggles's supper was already
laid for him.  After repeated questions from the police
inspector, however, he recollected that on his way from
the public house to the flats, a gentleman accosted him
and asked him the way to Regent Street.  The boy,
holding the mug of beer in one hand, pointed out the
way with the other and probably turned his head in the
same direction as he did so.  He couldn't say for
certain.  The gentleman seemed stupid and didn't
understand the directions all at once; the boy had to repeat
them again and again, and altogether was in conversation
with the gentleman quite a while.  It was dark at
the time, but he did see that the gentleman wore a
funny sort of coat and a funny hat, and as the boy
picturesquely put it, ''E spoke queer-like, as if 'e wor
a Frenchman.'  To a lift-boy presumably every
foreigner is a Frenchman if he be not a German, and
though the lad's description of the coat and hat only
amounted to his calling them 'funny,' there seemed
little doubt but that the man who visited the shop in
Sackville Street and the one who accosted the lift-boy
in George Street were one and the same.  There was
also little doubt but that he poured the drug into the
mug of beer while the boy's head was turned away.
And finally all doubts were set at rest when the 'funny
coat and hat' were discovered tied up in a bundle in
the area of an empty house, two doors higher up the
street.
</p>

<p>
"Unfortunately, although these few facts were definitely
established, all traces of the man himself vanished
after that.  How he got into the block of flats
could not be ascertained.  He might have slipped in
after the lift-boy, while the latter went upstairs with
the beer, and concealed himself somewhere in the
basement.  It was impossible to say.  The street-door was
kept open as usual until eleven o'clock, and until that
hour the boy was in attendance at the lift; he had been
up and down several times, taking up residents or their
visitors, and while he ran to fetch the beer one of the
maids saw to the lift, if the bell rang.  At eleven o'clock
every evening the street-door was closed, but not
bolted; it was provided with a Yale lock and every
resident had one key, in case they came in late; the lift
was not worked after that hour, but there was a light
kept on every landing.  These lights the housemaid
switched off the first thing every morning when she did
the stairs, and as a matter of fact she remembered that
on that memorable morning the light on the top floor
landing&mdash;which is the landing outside Sir James
Narford's flat&mdash;was already switched off when she went to
do it.
</p>

<p>
"And those are all the facts," the Old Man in the
Corner went on slowly, while he paused in his work of
fashioning intricate knots in his beloved bit of string,
"all the facts that were ever known in connection with
the theft of Sir James Narford's gems.  Of course, as
you may well suppose, not only the official but also the
public mind at once flew to the mysterious personage,
originally found wounded in an empty house in Wicklow
Lane.  There could be no shadow of doubt that
this man and the one who visited the shop in Sackville
Street, who accosted the lift-boy, drugged Ruggles's
beer and robbed him of his keys, were one and the same.
There was the black caped coat, the Montmartre hat,
the jet-black hair and foreign look.  True, the wounded
man of Wicklow Lane spoke English without any foreign
accent, but the latter could easily be assumed.
Indeed, it all seemed plain sailing, and as soon as the
word went round about the robbery in Sackville Street
and the description was given of the foreign-looking
individual with the jet-black hair, the police thought
they had a perfectly clear case.
</p>

<p>
"A clear case, yes!" the funny creature went on, with
a grin, "but not an easy one, because when the police
called at the hotel in Mexborough Gate they learned
that the mysterious Mr. Allen Lloyd had been gone
three days.  Having paid his bill, he had walked out
of the house one dark afternoon and not been seen or
heard of since.  He went off carrying a paper parcel,
which no doubt contained the few belongings he had
bought of late.
</p>

<p>
"Of course he was the thief and a marvellous cunning
one.  Just think what it meant.  It meant, first of all,
immense presence of mind and daring to accost the
lift-boy and engage him in conversation whilst pouring a
drug into a mug of beer; then it meant sneaking into
the block of flats in George Street, breaking the glass
panel of a door, entering the flat, stealing the keys,
sneaking out of the building again, going round to
Sackville Street, watching until the police on duty had
passed by, entering the house, opening the safe,
collecting the gems&mdash;all in full view of the street, mind
you, or else in absolute darkness&mdash;then relocking the
safe and again watching for the opportunity to sneak
out of the house until the man on duty was out of sight.
Clever?  I should think it would have been clever, if
it had ever been done!"
</p>

<p>
"How do you mean, if it had ever been done?" I
ejaculated, with some impatience.  "Whoever the thief
was&mdash;and I suppose that you have your theory&mdash;he
must have done all those things."
</p>

<p>
"Oh no, he did not!" the funny creature asserted
emphatically, "he merely put all the gems away in his
own pocket after the exhibition was closed for the night,
instead of locking them up in the safe."
</p>

<p>
"Then you think it was Ruggles?" I exclaimed.
</p>

<p>
"In conjunction with his master."
</p>

<p>
"Sir James Narford?  But why?"
</p>

<p>
"For the sake of the insurance money."
</p>

<p>
"But, man alive!" I ejaculated, "that was the tragedy
of the whole thing.  I remember reading about it at the
time.  I suppose that it was either out of meanness or
because he had so little ready money, but Sir James
Narford had only insured his treasure for £20,000,
whereas the jewels&mdash;&mdash;"
</p>

<p>
"Were not worth a penny more than that," the Old
Man in the Corner broke in with his bland smile.  "The
public may have been bamboozled with tales of fabulous
value&mdash;nowadays people talk as glibly of millions
as the past generation did of thousands&mdash;but insurance
companies don't usually listen to fairy tales."
</p>

<p>
"But even so," I argued, "the jewels must have been
worth more than the insurance after all the advertisement
they got.  Why shouldn't Sir James have sold
them, rather than take the risk of stealing them?"
</p>

<p>
"But, my dear young lady," he retorted, "can't you
see that the jewels can still be sold and that they will
be&mdash;abroad&mdash;presently&mdash;one by one?  Twenty thousand
pounds insurance money is good, but you double
the amount and it is better."
</p>

<p>
"But what about the wounded man in Wicklow
Lane?" I asked.
</p>

<p>
"A red herring across the trail," he replied, with a
smile, "only with this difference, that it was dragged
across before the hounds were on the scent.  And that
is where the immense cleverness of the man comes in.
To create a personality on whom to draw suspicion of
a crime and then make that personality disappear before
the crime is committed, is as clever a bit of rascality
as I have ever seen.  It needed absolute coolness and
a knowledge of facial make-up, in both of which we
must take it Sir James Narford was a past-master.
Think then how easy everything else would be for him.
</p>

<p>
"Just let me reconstruct the whole thing for you from
beginning to end, that is from the moment when Sir
James Narford first conceived the idea of doubling
the value of his gems, and took his man Ruggles as
partner in that fine piece of rascality.  He couldn't
have done it without a partner, of course, and probably
this was not the first villainy those two scoundrels had
carried through together.  Well then, Narford having
given instructions to Ruggles and arranged certain
matters of detail with him, begins his campaign by
ostensibly starting on a journey.  He crossed over to France
probably and then back to England.  It is easy enough
for a man to disappear in crowded trains or railway
stations if there is no one on his track; easy enough for
him to stay in one hotel after another in any big town
if he chooses hotels whose proprietors have reason to
dread the police, and will not volunteer information if
any of their visitors are 'wanted.'  A month only of
such wanderings and Sir James Narford, habitually a
very dapper man, with sleek, sandy hair cropped very
close, a tiny tooth-brush moustache and shaven cheeks
and chin, can easily be transformed into one with
shaggy hair and beard and walrus moustache.  Add to
this a nose built out with grease-paint and highly
coloured, and cheeks stained a dull red, and you have the
man who called for the key of the empty house at
Messrs. Whiskin and Sons, with a parcel under his
arm, which contained the black cape and Montmartre
hat purchased abroad at some time previously, during
the course of his wanderings.  That's simple, is it not?"
the funny creature continued, while his thin, claw-like
fingers worked away feverishly at his piece of string.
"Now, all that our rascal wants is to change his clothes
and his face; so, late that evening, by preconcerted
plan, Ruggles meets him at the empty house under
cover of the fog.  Here he and his precious master
change clothes with one another.  Narford then
completes his toilet by applying to his shaggy hair and
beard one of those modern dyes that are so much
advertised for the use of ladies desiring to possess raven
locks.  And so we have the explanation of all the
conflicting evidence of the witnesses who saw a man with
a parcel, and yet were so much at variance both as to
the time when they saw him, as to his appearance, and
even as to the size of the parcel.
</p>

<p>
"Having thus <i>created</i> the personality of a foreign-looking
individual in black clothes, you will easily see
how important it was for the general scheme that the
comedy of the row and the pistol-shots in the empty
house should be enacted.  Attention had to be drawn
to the created personage, attention coupled with
mystery, and at this stage of the scheme there was not the
slightest danger of the wounded man in Wicklow Lane
being in any way connected with Sir James Narford of
George Street, Mayfair.  Time was no object.  The
mysterious Mr. Allen Lloyd of Wicklow Lane might
be detained days, weeks, even months, but he would
have to be let out some time or other.  He was
perfectly harmless apparently, and otherwise sane; he
could not be kept for ever at the country's expense.  He
was eventually discharged; went to an hotel, and lived
there quietly a while longer until he thought that the
time was ripe for complete disappearance.  In the
meanwhile we must suppose that he was in touch with
Ruggles.  Ruggles made a point of taking a brisk walk
every evening.  Well, winter evenings are dark and
London is a very crowded place.  Ruggles would bring
what money was required.  What more easy than to
meet in a crowd?
</p>

<p>
"Then at last the two rascals thought that the time
was ripe.  The mysterious Mr. Allen Lloyd disappeared
from the hotel in Mexborough Gate; he went to Sackville
Street, where he shaved off his shaggy moustache
and beard, and cut his hair once more so close that
nothing of the dyed ends could be seen.  He changed
into his own clothes, which Ruggles kept there ready
for him.  Then he slipped round to Victoria Station
and crossed over to France, only in order to return to
England, openly this time, as Sir James Narford, and
just in time to find Ruggles just aroused from a drugged
sleep and the whole flat seething with excitement.  But
it was he who in black cape and Montmartre hat visited
the shop in Sackville Street, it was Ruggles who the
following night spoke to the lift-boy, even while
Narford was procuring for himself a perfect alibi by
crossing over quite openly from France.
</p>

<p>
"Ruggles's task was, of course, much easier.  All he
had to do was to put the gems in his pocket, and these
Narford took over from him in the morning at the flat
before he telephoned for the police.  To put on the
black cape and hat and to accost the lift-boy was easy
enough on a dark, snowy night in January.  And now
all the excitement has died down.  The whole thing was
so cleverly planned that the real rascal was never
suspected.  Ruggles may have been but nothing could
really be brought up against him.  The gems haven't
been found and to all appearances he has not benefited
by the robbery.  He is just the faithful, trusted servant
of his master.
</p>

<p>
"Sir James Narford has got his money from the
Insurance Company and since then has left for abroad.
By the way," the Old Man in the Corner concluded, as
he gathered up his precious bit of string and slipped it
in the pocket of his ulster, "I heard recently that he
has bought some property in Argentina and has settled
down there permanently with his friend Ruggles.  I
think he was wise to do that, and if you care to publish
my version of that mysterious affair, you are at liberty
to do so.  I don't think that our friend would sue you
for defamation of character, and, anyway, I'll undertake
to pay damages if the case comes into court."
</p>

<p><br /><br /><br /></p>

<p><a id="chap11"></a></p>

<h3>
XI
<br /><br />
THE MISER OF MAIDA VALE
</h3>

<p><br /></p>

<h4>
§1
</h4>

<p>
"One of the most puzzling cases I ever
remember watching," the Old Man in the Corner
said to me that day, "was the one known to
the public as that of 'The Miser of Maida Vale.'  It
presented certain altogether novel features, and for
once I was willing to admit that, though the police had
a very hard nut to crack in the elucidation of the
mystery, and in the end failed to find a solution, they were
at one time very near putting their finger on the key of
the puzzle.  If they had only possessed some of that
instinct for true facts with which Nature did so kindly
endow me, there is no doubt that they would have
brought that clever criminal to book."
</p>

<p>
I wish it were in my power to convey something of
that air of ludicrous complacency with which he said
this.  I could almost hear him purring to himself, like
a lean, shabby old cat.  He had his inevitable bit of
string in his hand, and had been in rapturous
contemplation of a series of knots which he had been
fashioning until the moment when I sat down beside him and
he began to speak.  But as soon as he embarked upon
his beloved topic he turned his rapturous contemplation
on himself.  He just sat there and admired himself,
and now and again blinked at me, with such an air of
self-satisfaction that I longed to say something terribly
rude first, and then to flounce out of the place, leaving
him to admire himself at his leisure.
</p>

<p>
But, of course, this could not be.  To use the funny
creature's own verbiage, Nature had endowed me with
the journalistic instinct.  I had to listen to him; I had
to pick his brains and to get copy out of him.  The
irresistible desire to learn something new, something
that would thrill my editor, as well as my public,
compelled me to swallow my impatience, to smile at
him&mdash;somewhat wryly, perhaps&mdash;and then to beg him to
proceed.
</p>

<p>
I was all attention.
</p>

<p>
"Well," he said, still wearing an irritating air of
condescension, "do you remember the case of the old miser
of Maida Vale?"
</p>

<p>
"Only vaguely," I was willing to admit.
</p>

<p>
"It presented some very interesting features," he
went on, blandly, "and assuming that you really only
remember them vaguely, I will put them before you as
clearly as possible, in order that you may follow my
argument more easily later on.
</p>

<p>
"The victim of the mysterious tragedy was, as no
doubt you remember, an eccentric old invalid named
Thornton Ashley, the well-known naval constructor,
who had made a considerable fortune during the war
and then retired, chiefly, it was said, owing to ill-health.
He had two sons, one of whom, Charles, was a misshapen,
undersized creature, singularly unprepossessing
both in appearance and in manner, whilst the other,
Philip, was a tall, good-looking fellow, very agreeable
and popular wherever he went.  Both these young men
were bachelors, a fact which, it appears, had been for
some time a bone of contention between them and their
father.  Old Ashley was passionately fond of children,
and the one desire of his declining years was to see the
grandchildren who would ultimately enjoy the fortune
which he had accumulated.  Whilst he was ready to
admit that Charles, with his many afflictions, did not
stand much chance with the fair sex, there was no
reason at all why Philip should not marry, and there had
been more than one heated quarrel between father and
son on that one subject.
</p>

<p>
"So much so, indeed, that presently Philip cut his
stick and went to live in rooms in Jermyn Street.  He
had a few hundreds a year of his own, left to him by
a godmother.  He had been to Rugby and to Cambridge,
and had been a temporary officer in the war:
pending his obtaining some kind of job he settled down
to live the life of a smart young bachelor in town,
whilst his brother Charles was left to look after the old
man, who became more and more eccentric as his health
gradually broke up.  He sold his fine house in Hyde
Park Gardens, his motor, and the bulk of his furniture,
and moved into a cheap flat in Maida Vale, where he
promptly took to his bed, which he never left again.
His eccentricities became more and more pronounced
and his temper more and more irascible.  He took a
violent dislike to strangers, refused to see anybody
except his sons and two old friends, Mr. Oldwall, the
well-known solicitor, and Dr. Fanshawe-Bigg, who visited
him from time to time and whose orders he obstinately
refused to obey.  Worst of all, as far as the unfortunate
Charles was concerned, he became desperately mean,
denying himself (and, incidentally, his son) every
luxury, subsisting on the barest necessities, and keeping
no servant to wait on him except a daily 'char.'
</p>

<p>
"Soon his miserliness degenerated into a regular mania.
</p>

<p>
"'Charles and I are saving money for the grand-children
you are going to give me one day,' he would
say with a chuckle whenever Philip tried to reason with
him on the subject of this self-denying ordinance.
'When you have an establishment of your own,
you can invite us to come and live with you.
There will be plenty then for housekeeping, I promise
you!'
</p>

<p>
"At which the handsome Philip would laugh and
shrug his shoulders and go back to his comfortable
rooms in Jermyn Street.  But no one knew what
Charles thought about it all.  To an outsider his case
must always have appeared singularly pathetic.  He
had no money of his own and his delicate health had
made it impossible for him to take up any profession:
he could not cut his stick like his brother Philip had
done, but, truth to tell, he did not appear to wish to
do so.  Perhaps it was real fondness for his father that
made him seem contented with his lot.  Certain it is
that as time went on he became a regular slave to the
old man, waiting on him hand and foot, more hard-worked
than the daily 'char,' who put on her bonnet
and walked out of the flat every day at six o'clock when
her work was done, and who had all her Sundays to
herself.
</p>

<p>
"All the relaxation that Charles ever had were
alternate week-ends, when his brother Philip would come
over and spend Saturday to Monday in the flat taking
charge of the invalid.  On those occasions Charles
would get on an old bicycle, and with just a few
shillings in his pocket which he had saved during the past
fortnight out of the meagre housekeeping allowance
which he handled, he would go off for the day
somewhere into the country, nobody ever knew where.
Then on Monday morning he would return to the flat
in Maida Vale, ready to take up his slave's yoke, to all
appearances with a light heart.
</p>

<p>
"'Charles Ashley is wise,' the gossiping acquaintances
would say, 'he sticks to the old miser.  Thornton
Ashley can't live for ever, and Oldwall says that he is
worth close on a quarter of a million.'
</p>

<p>
"Philip, on the other hand, could have had no
illusions with regard to his father's testamentary
intentions.  The bone of contention&mdash;Philip's celibacy&mdash;was
still there, making bad blood between father and son;
more than once the old miser had said to him with a
sardonic grin: 'Let me see you married soon, my boy,
and with a growing family around you, or I tell you
that my money shall go to that fool Charles, or to the
founding of an orphan asylum or the establishment of
a matrimonial agency.'
</p>

<p>
"Mr. Oldwall, the solicitor, a very old friend of the
Ashleys, and who had seen the two boys grow up, threw
out as broad a hint to Philip on that same subject as
professional honour allowed.
</p>

<p>
"'Your father,' he said to him one day, 'has got that
mania for saving money, but otherwise he is perfectly
sane, you know.  He'll never forgive you if you don't
gratify his wish to see you married.  Hang it all, man,
there are plenty of nice girls about.  And what on earth
would poor old Charles do with a quarter of a million,
I'd like to know.'
</p>

<p>
"But for a long time Philip remained obstinate and
his friends knew well enough the cause of this
obstinacy; it had its root in a pre-war romance.  Philip
Ashley had been in love&mdash;some say that he had actually
been engaged to her&mdash;with a beautiful girl, Muriel
Balleine, the daughter of the eminent surgeon, Sir Arnold
Balleine.  The two young people were thought to be
devoted to one another.  But the lovely Muriel had, as
it turned out, another admirer in Sir Wilfred
Peet-Jackson, the wealthy shipowner, who worshipped her
in secret.  Philip Ashley and Wilfred Peet-Jackson were
great friends; they had been at school and 'Varsity
together.  In 1915 they both obtained a commission in
the Coldstreams and in 1916 Peet-Jackson was very
severely wounded.  He was sent home to be nursed by
the beautiful Muriel in her father's hospital in
Grosvenor Square.  His case had already been pronounced
hopeless, and Sir Arnold himself, as well as other
equally eminent surgeons, gave it as their opinion that
the unfortunate young man could not live more than a
few months&mdash;if that.
</p>

<p>
"We must then take it that pity and romance played
their part in the events that ensued.  Certain it is that
London society was one day thrilled to read in its
<i>Times</i> that Miss Muriel Balleine had been married
the previous morning to Sir Wilfred Peet-Jackson, the
wealthy shipowner and owner of lovely Deverill Castle
in Northamptonshire.  Her friends at once put it about
that Muriel had only yielded to a dying man's wish,
and that there was nothing mercenary or calculating in
this unexpected marriage; she probably would be a
widow within a very short time and free to return to
her original love and to marry Philip Ashley.  But in
this case, like in so many others in life, the unexpected
occurred.  Sir Wilfred Peet-Jackson did not die&mdash;not
just then.  He lived six years after the doctors had said
that he must die in six months.  He remained an
invalid and he and his beautiful wife spent their winters
in the Canaries and their summers in Switzerland, but
Muriel did not become a widow until 1922, and Philip
Ashley all that time never looked at another girl; he
was even willing to allow a fortune to slip away from
him, because he always hoped that the woman whom
he had never ceased to worship would be his wife one
day.
</p>

<p>
"Probably old Ashley knew all that; probably he
hated the idea that this one woman should spoil his
son's life for always; probably he thought that threat
of disinheritance would bring Philip back out of the
realms of romance to the realities of life.  All this we
shall never know.  The old man spoke to no one about
that, not even to Mr. Oldwall, possibly not even to
Charles.  By the time that Sir Wilfred Peet-Jackson had
died and Philip had announced his engagement to the
beautiful widow, Thornton Ashley was practically a
dying man.  However, he did have the satisfaction before
he died of hearing the good news.  Philip told him of his
engagement one Saturday in May when he came for
his usual fortnightly week-end visit.  Strangely enough,
although the old man must have been delighted at this
tardy realisation of his life's desire, he did not after
that make any difference in his mode of life.  He
remained just as irascible, just as difficult, and every bit
as mean as he had always been; he never asked to see
his future daughter-in-law, whom he had known in the
past, though she did come once or twice to see him;
nor did he encourage Philip to come and see him any
more frequently than he had done before.  The only
indication he ever gave that he was pleased with the
engagement was an obvious impatience to see the
wedding-day fixed as soon as possible, and one day he
worked himself up into a state of violent passion
because Philip told him that Lady Peet-Jackson was
bound to let a full year lapse before she married again,
out of respect for poor Wilfred's memory.
</p>

<p><br /></p>

<h4>
§2
</h4>

<p>
"Of course a good deal of gossip was concentrated
on all these events.  Although Thornton Ashley had,
for the past three years, cut himself adrift from all
social intercourse, past friends and acquaintances had not
altogether forgotten him, whilst Philip Ashley and Lady
Peet-Jackson had always been well-known figures in a
certain set in London.  It was not likely, therefore,
that their affairs would not be discussed and commented
on at tea-parties and in the clubs.  Philip Ashley was
exalted to the position of a hero.  By his marriage he
would at last grasp the fortune which he had so
obstinately and romantically evaded: true love was
obtaining its just reward, and so on.  Lady Peet-Jackson,
on the other hand, was not quite so leniently dealt with
by the gossips.  It was now generally averred that she
had originally thrown Philip Ashley over only because
Peet-Jackson was a very rich man and had a handle to
his name, and that she was only returning to her
former lover now because Thornton Ashley had already
one foot in the grave, and was reputed to be worth a
quarter of a million.
</p>

<p>
"I have a photograph here," the Old Man in the
Corner went on, and threw a bundle of newspaper cuttings
down before me, "of Lady Peet-Jackson.  As no doubt
you will admit, she is very beautiful, but the face is
hard; looking at it one feels instinctively that she is not
a woman who would stand by a man in case of trouble
or disgrace.  But it is difficult to judge from these
smudgy reproductions, and there is no doubt that
Philip Ashley was madly in love with her.  That she
had enemies, especially amongst those of her own sex,
was only natural in view of the fact that she was
exceptionally beautiful, had made one brilliant marriage,
and was on the point of making another.
</p>

<p>
"But the two romantic lovers were not the sole food
of the gossip-mongers.  There was the position of
Charles Ashley to be discussed and talked over.  What
was going to become of him?  How would he take this
change in his fortune?  If rumour, chiefly based on
Mr. Oldwall's indiscretions, was correct, he would be losing
that reputed quarter of a million if Philip's marriage
came off.  But in this case gossip had to rest satisfied
with conjectures.  No one ever saw Charles, and Philip,
when questioned about him, had apparently very little
to say.
</p>

<p>
"'Charles is a queer fish,' he would reply.  'I don't
profess to know what goes on inside him.  He seems
delighted at the prospect of my marriage, but he
doesn't say much.  He is very shy and very sensitive
about his deformity, and he won't see any one now, not
even Muriel.'
</p>

<p>
"And thus the stage was set," the funny creature
continued with a fatuous grin, "for the mysterious tragedy
which has puzzled the public and the police as much as
the friends of the chief actors in the drama.  It was
set for the scene of Philip Ashley's marriage to Muriel
Lady Peet-Jackson, which was to take place very
quietly at St. Saviour's, Warwick Road, early in the
following year.
</p>

<p>
"On the twenty-seventh of August old Thornton Ashley
died, that is to say he was found dead in his bed by
his son Charles, who had returned that morning from
his fortnightly week-end holiday.  The cause of death
was not in question at first, though Dr. Fanshawe-Bigg
was out of town at the moment, his <i>locum tenens</i> knew
all about the case, and had seen the invalid on the
Thursday preceding his death.  In accordance with the
amazing laws of this country, he gave the necessary
certificate without taking a last look at the dead man,
and Thornton Ashley would no doubt have been buried
then and there, without either fuss or ceremony, but for
the amazing events which thereupon followed one
another in quick succession.
</p>

<p>
"The funeral had been fixed for Thursday, the thirtieth,
but within twenty-four hours of the old miser's
death it had already transpired that he had indeed left
a considerable fortune, which included one or two
substantial life insurances, and that the provisions of his
will were very much as Philip Ashley and his friends
had surmised.  After sundry legacies to various charitable
institutions concerned with the care of children,
Thornton Ashley had left the residue of his personalty
to whichever of his sons was first married within a
year from the time of the testator's death, the other
son receiving an annuity of three hundred pounds.  This
clearly was aimed at Philip, as poor misshapen Charles
had always been thought to be out of the running.
Moreover, a further clause in the will directed that in
the event of both the testator's sons being still
unmarried within that given time, then the whole of the
residue was to go to Charles, with an annuity of one
hundred pounds to Philip and a sum of ten thousand
pounds for the endowment of an orphan asylum at the
discretion of the Charity Organisation Society.
</p>

<p>
"There were a few conjectures as to whether Charles
Ashley, who, by his brother's impending marriage,
would be left with a paltry three hundred pounds a
year, would contest his father's will on the grounds of
<i>non compos mentis</i>, but, as you know, it is always very
difficult in this country to upset a will, and the
provisions of this particular one were so entirely in accord
with the wishes expressed by the deceased on every
possible occasion, that the plea that he was of unsound
mind when he made it would never have been upheld,
quite apart from the fact that Mr. Oldwall, who drew
up the will and signed it as one of the witnesses, would
have repudiated any suggestion that his client was
anything but absolutely sane at the time.
</p>

<p>
"Everything then appeared quite smooth and above
board when suddenly, like a bolt from the blue, came
the demand from the Insurance Company in which the
late Mr. Thornton Ashley had a life policy for forty
thousand pounds for a <i>post-mortem</i> examination, the
company not being satisfied that the deceased had died
a natural death.  Naturally, Dr. Percy Jutt, who had
signed the death certificate, was furious, but he was
overruled by the demands of the Insurance Company,
backed by no less a person than Charles Ashley.
Indeed, it soon transpired that it was in consequence of
certain statements made by Mr. Triscott, a local solicitor,
on behalf of Charles Ashley to the general manager
of the company, that the latter took action in the matter.
</p>

<p>
"Philip Ashley, through his solicitor, Mr. Oldwall,
and backed by Dr. Jutt, might perhaps have opposed
the proceedings, but quite apart from the fact that
opposition from that quarter would have been impolitic,
it probably also would have been unsuccessful.  Anyway,
the sensation-mongers had quite a titbit to offer
to the public that afternoon; the evening papers came
out before midday with flaring headlines: 'The
mystery miser of Maida Vale.'  Also, 'Sensational
developments,' and 'Sinister Rumours.'
</p>

<p>
"By four o'clock in the afternoon some of the papers
had it that a <i>post-mortem</i> examination of the body of
the late Mr. Thornton Ashley had been conducted by
Dr. Dawson, the divisional surgeon, and that it had
revealed the fact that the old miser had not died a natural
death, traces of violence having been discovered on the
body.  It was understood that the police were already
in possession of certain facts and that the coroner of
the district would hold an inquest on Thursday, the
thirtieth, the very day on which the funeral was to have
taken place."
</p>

<p><br /></p>

<h4>
§3
</h4>

<p>
"Now I have attended many an inquest in my day,"
the Old Man in the Corner continued after a brief
pause, during which his claw-like fingers worked away
with feverish energy at his bit of string, "but seldom
have I been present at a more interesting one.  There
were so many surprises, such an unexpected turn of
events, that one was kept on tenterhooks the whole
time as to what would happen next.
</p>

<p>
"Even to those who were in the know, the witnesses
in themselves were a surprise.  Of course, every one
knew Mr. Oldwall, the solicitor and life-long friend of
old Thornton Ashley, and the divisional surgeon, whose
evidence would be interesting; then there was poor
Charles Ashley and his handsome brother, Philip, now
the owner of a magnificent fortune, whose romantic
history had more than once been paragraphed in the Press.
But what in the world had Mr. Triscott, a local lawyer
whom nobody knew, and Mrs. Trapp, a slatternly old
'char,' to do with the case?  And there was also
Dr. Percy Jutt, who had not come out of the case with
flying professional colours, and who must have cursed the
day when he undertook the position of <i>locum tenens</i> for
Dr. Fanshawe-Bigg.
</p>

<p>
"The proceedings began with the sensational evidence
of Dr. Dawson, the divisional surgeon, who had
conducted the <i>post-mortem</i>.  He stated that the
deceased had been in an advanced state of uræmia, but
this had not actually been the cause of death.  Death
was due to heart failure, caused by fright and shock,
following on violent aggression and an attempt at
strangulation.  There were marks round the throat,
and evidences of a severe blow having been dealt on
the face and cranium causing concussion.  In the
patient's weak state of health, shock and fright had
affected the heart's action with fatal results.
</p>

<p>
"All the while that the divisional surgeon gave
evidence, going into technical details which the layman
could not understand, Dr. Percy Jutt had obvious
difficulty to control himself.  He had a fidgety, nervous
way with him and was constantly biting his nails.
When he, in his turn, entered the witness-box, he was
as white as a sheet and tried to hide his nervousness
behind a dictatorial, blustering manner.  In answer to
the coroner, he explained that he had been acting as
<i>locum tenens</i> for Dr. Fanshawe-Bigg, who was away on
his holiday.  He had visited the deceased once or twice
during the past fortnight, and had last seen him on the
Thursday preceding his death.  Dr. Fanshawe-Bigg
had left him a few notes on the case.
</p>

<p>
"'I found,' he went on to explain, 'the deceased in an
advanced stage of uræmia, and there was very little
that I could do, more especially as I was made to
understand that my visits were not particularly wanted.
On the Thursday, deceased was in a very drowsy state,
this being one of the best-known symptoms of the
disease, and I didn't think that he could live much longer.
I told Mr. Charles Ashley so; at the same time, I did
not think that the end would come quite so soon.
However, I was not particularly surprised when on the
Monday morning I received a visit from Mr. Charles
Ashley who told me that his father was dead.  I found
him very difficult to understand,' Dr. Jutt continued,
in reply to a question from the coroner, 'emotion had, I
thought, addled his speech a little.  He may have tried
to tell me something in connection with his father's
death, but I was so rushed with work that morning, and,
as I say, I was fully prepared for the event, that all I
could do was to promise to come round some time during
the day, and, in the meanwhile, in order to facilitate
arrangements for the funeral, I gave the necessary
certificate.  I was entirely within my rights,' he
concluded, with somewhat aggressive emphasis, 'and, as
far as I can recollect, Mr. Charles Ashley said nothing
that in any way led me to think that there was
anything wrong.'
</p>

<p>
"Mr. Oldwall, the solicitor, was the next witness
called, and his testimony was unimportant to the main
issue.  He had drafted the late Mr. Thornton Ashley's
will in 1919, and had last seen him alive before starting
on a short holiday some time in June.  Deceased had
just heard then of his son's engagement and witness
thought him looking wonderfully better and brighter
than he had been for a long time.
</p>

<p>
"'Mr. Ashley,' the coroner asked, 'didn't say
anything to you then about any alteration to his
will?'
</p>

<p>
"'Most emphatically, no!' the witness replied.
</p>

<p>
"'Or at any time?'
</p>

<p>
"'At no time,' Mr. Oldwall asserted.
</p>

<p>
"These questions put by the coroner in quick
succession had, figuratively speaking, made every one sit
up.  Up to now the general public had not been greatly
interested, one had made up one's mind that the old
miser had kept certain sums of money, after the fashion
of his kind, underneath his mattress; that some evil-doer
had got wind of this and entered the flat when no
one was about, giving poor Thornton Ashley a fright
that had cost him his life.
</p>

<p>
"But with this reference to some possible alteration
in the will the case at once appeared more interesting.
Suddenly one felt on the alert, excitement was in the
air, and when the next witness, a middle-aged, dapper
little man, wearing spectacles, a grey suit and white
spats, stood up to answer questions put to him by the
coroner, a suppressed gasp of anticipatory delight went
round the circle of spectators.
</p>

<p>
"The witness gave his name as James Triscott,
solicitor, of Warwick Avenue.  He said that he had known
the deceased slightly, having seen him on business in
connection with the lease of 73, Malvine Mansions,
the landlord being a client of his.  On the previous
Friday, that is, the twenty-fourth, witness received a
note written in a crabbed hand and signed, 'A. Thornton
Ashley,' asking him to call at Malvine Mansions
any time during the day.  This Mr. Triscott did that
same afternoon.  The door was opened by Mr. Charles
Ashley whom he had also met once or twice before,
who showed him into the room where the deceased lay
in bed, obviously very ill, but perfectly conscious and
reasonable.
</p>

<p>
"'After some preliminary talk,' the witness went on,
'the deceased explained to me that he was troubled in
his mind about a will which he had made some four
years previously, and which had struck him of late as
being both harsh and unjust.  He desired to make a
new will, revoking the previous one.  I naturally told
him that I was entirely at his service, and he then
dictated his wishes to me.  I made notes and promised to
have the will ready for his signature by Monday.  The
thought of this delay annoyed him considerably, and he
pressed me hard to have everything ready for him by
the next day.  Unfortunately, I couldn't do that.  I
was obliged to go off into the country that evening on
business for another client, and couldn't possibly be
back before midday Saturday, when my clerk and typist
would both be gone.  All I could do was to promise
faithfully to call again on Monday at eleven o'clock
with the will quite ready for signature.  I said I would
bring my clerk with me, who could then sign as a witness.
</p>

<p>
"'I quite saw the urgency of the business,' Mr. Triscott
went on in his brisk, rather consequential way,
'as the poor old gentleman certainly looked very ill.
Before I left he asked me to let him at least have a
copy of my notes before I went away this evening.
This I was able to promise him.  I got my clerk to
copy the notes and to take them round to the flat later
on in the day.'
</p>

<p>
"I can assure you," the Old Man in the Corner said,
"that while that dapper little man was talking, you
might have heard the proverbial pin drop amongst the
public.  You see, this was the first that any one had
ever heard of any alteration in old Ashley's will, and
Mr. Triscott's evidence opened up a vista of exciting
situations that was positively dazzling.  When he
ceased speaking, you might almost have heard the
sensation-mongers licking their chops like a lot of cats
after a first bite at a succulent meal; glances were
exchanged, but not a word spoken, and presently a sigh
of eagerness went round when the coroner put the
question which every one had been anticipating:
</p>

<p>
"'Have you got the notes, Mr. Triscott, which you
took from the late Mr. Thornton Ashley's dictation?'
</p>

<p>
"At which suggestion Mr. Oldwall jumped up,
objecting that such evidence was inadmissible.  There
was some legal argument between him and the coroner,
during which Mr. Triscott, still standing in the
witness-box, beamed at his colleague and at the public
generally through his spectacles.  In the end the jury
decided the point by insisting on having the notes read
out to them.
</p>

<p>
"Briefly, by the provisions of the new will, which
was destined never to be signed, the miser left his
entire fortune, with the exception of the same trifling
legacies and of an annuity of a thousand pounds a
year to Philip, to his son Charles absolutely, in grateful
recognition for years of unflagging devotion to an
eccentric and crabbed invalid.  Mr. Triscott explained
that on the Monday morning he had the document quite
ready by eleven o'clock, and that he walked round with
it to Malvine Mansions, accompanied by his clerk.
Great was his distress when he was met at the door by
Charles Ashley, who told him that old Mr. Thornton
Ashley was dead.
</p>

<p>
"That was the substance of Mr. Triscott's evidence,
and I can assure you that even I was surprised at the
turn which events had taken.  You know what the
sensation-mongers are; within an hour of the
completion of Mr. Triscott's evidence, it was all over
London that Mr. Philip Ashley had murdered his father in
order to prevent his signing a will that would deprive
him&mdash;Philip&mdash;of a fortune.  That is the way of the
world," the funny creature added with a cynical smile.
"Philip's popularity went down like a sail when the
wind suddenly drops, and in a moment public sympathy
was all on the side of Charles, who had been done
out of a fortune by a grasping and unscrupulous
brother.
</p>

<p>
"But there was more to come.
</p>

<p>
"The next witness called was Mrs. Triscott, the wife
of the dapper little solicitor, and her presence here in
connection with the death of old Thornton Ashley
seemed as surprising at first as that of her husband
had been.  She looked a hard, rather common, but
capable woman, and after she had replied to the coroner's
preliminary questions, she plunged into her story in a
quiet, self-assured manner.  She began by explaining
that she was a trained nurse, but had given up her
profession since her marriage.  Now and again, however,
either in an emergency or to oblige a friend, she
had taken care of a patient.
</p>

<p>
"'On Friday evening last,' she continued, 'Mr. Triscott,
who was just going off into the country on business,
said to me that he had a client in the neighbourhood
who was very ill, and about whom, for certain
reasons, he felt rather anxious.  He went on to say
that he was chiefly sorry for the son, a delicate man,
who was sadly deformed.  Would I, like a good
Samaritan, go and look after the sick man during the
weekend?  It seems that the doctor had ordered absolute
rest, and Mr. Triscott feared that there might be some
trouble with another son because, as a matter of fact,
the old man had decided to alter his will.
</p>

<p>
"'I knew nothing about Mr. Thornton Ashley's
family affairs,' the witness said, in reply to a question
put to her by the coroner, and calmly ignoring the
sensation which her statement was causing, 'beyond
what I have just told you that Mr. Triscott said to
me, but I agreed to go to Malvine Mansions and see if
I could be of any use.  I arrived at the flat on Friday
evening and saw at once what the invalid was
suffering from.  I had nursed cases of uræmia before, and I
could see that the poor old man had not many more
days to live.  Still I did not think that the end was
imminent.  Mr. Charles Ashley, who had welcomed
me most effusively, looked to need careful nursing
almost as much as his father did.  He told me that he
had not slept for three nights, so I just packed him off
to bed and spent the night in an armchair in the
patient's room.
</p>

<p>
"'The next morning Mr. Philip Ashley arrived and
I was told of the arrangement whereby Mr. Charles got
a week-end holiday once a fortnight.  I welcomed the
idea for his sake, and as he seemed very anxious about
his father, and remembering what my husband had told
me, I promised that I would stay on in the flat until
his return on the Monday.  Thus only was I able to
persuade him to go off on his much-needed holiday.
Directly he had gone, however, I thought it my duty
to explain to Mr. Philip Ashley that really his father
was very ill.  He was only conscious intermittently and
that in such cases the only thing that could be done
was to keep the patient absolutely quiet.  It was the
only way, I added, to prolong life and to ensure a
painless and peaceful death.
</p>

<p>
"'Mr. Philip Ashley,' the witness continued, 'appeared
more annoyed than distressed, when I told him
this, and asked me by whose authority I was here,
keeping him out of his father's room, and so on.  He
also asked me several peremptory questions as to who
had visited his father lately, and when I told him that I
was the wife of a well-known solicitor in the neighbourhood,
he looked for a moment as if he would give way
to a violent fit of rage.  However, I suppose he thought
better of it, and presently I took him into the patient's
room, who was asleep just then, begging him on no
account to disturb the sufferer.
</p>

<p>
"'After he had seen his father, Mr. Ashley appeared
more ready to admit that I was acting for the best.
However, he asked me&mdash;rather rudely, I thought,
considering that the patient was nothing to me and I was
not getting paid for my services&mdash;how long I proposed
staying in the flat.  I told him that I would wait here
until his brother's return, which I was afraid would not
be before ten o'clock on Monday morning.  Whereupon
he picked up his hat, gave me a curt good-day, and
walked out of the flat.
</p>

<p>
"'To my astonishment,' the witness now said amidst
literally breathless silence on the part of the spectators,
'it had only just gone eight on the Monday morning,
when Mr. Philip Ashley turned up once more.  I must
say that I was rather pleased to see him.  I was
expecting Mr. Triscott home and had a lot to do in my
own house.  The patient, who had rallied wonderfully
the last two days, had just gone off into a comfortable
sleep, and as I knew that Mr. Charles would be back
soon, I felt quite justified in going off duty and
leaving Mr. Philip in charge, with strict injunctions that
he was on no account to disturb the patient.  If he
woke, he might be given a little barley-water first and
then some beef-tea, all of which I had prepared and put
ready.  My intention was directly I got home to
telephone to Dr. Jutt and ask him to look in at Malvine
Mansions some time during the morning.  Unfortunately,
when I got home I had such a lot to do, that,
frankly, I forgot to telephone to the doctor, and
before the morning was over Mr. Triscott had come
home with the news that old Mr. Thornton Ashley was
dead.'
</p>

<p>
"This," the Old Man in the Corner continued, "was
the gist of Mrs. Triscott's evidence at that memorable
inquest.  Of course, there were some dramatic incidents
during the course of her examination; glances
exchanged between Philip Ashley and Mr. Oldwall, and
between him and the dapper little Mr. Triscott.  The
latter, I must tell you, still beamed on everybody; he
looked inordinately proud of his capable, business-like
wife, and very pleased with the prominence which he
had attained through this mysterious and intricate
case.
</p>

<p><br /></p>

<h4>
§4
</h4>

<p>
"The luncheon interval gave us all a respite from the
tension that had kept our nerves strung up all
morning.  I don't think that Philip Ashley, for one, ate
much lunch that day.  I noticed, by the way, that he
and Mr. Oldwall went off together, whilst Mr. and
Mrs. Triscott took kindly charge of poor Charles.  I caught
sight of the three of them subsequently in a blameless
teashop.  Charles was indeed a pathetic picture to look
upon; he looked the sort of man who lives on his
nerves, with no flesh on his poor, misshapen bones, and
a hungry, craving expression in his eyes, as in those of
an under-fed dog.
</p>

<p>
"We had his evidence directly after luncheon.  But,
as a matter of fact, he had not much to say.  He had
last seen his father alive on the Saturday morning
when he went off on his fortnightly week-end holiday.
He had bicycled to Dorking and spent his time there
at the Running Footman, as he had often done before.
He was well known in the place.  On Monday morning
he made an early start and got to Malvine Mansions
soon after ten and let himself into the flat with his
latch-key.  He expected to find his brother or
Mrs. Triscott there, but there was no one.  He then went
into his father's room, and at first thought that the
old man was only asleep.  The blinds were down and
the room very dark.  He drew up the blind and went
back to his father's bedside.  Then only did he realise
that the old man was dead.  Though he was very
ignorant in such matters, he thought that there was
something strange about the dead man, and he tried to
explain this to Dr. Jutt.  But the latter seemed too
busy to attend to him, so when Mr. Triscott came to
call later on, he told him of this strange feeling that
troubled him.  Mr. Triscott then thought that as
Dr. Jutt seemed so indifferent about the matter, it might
be best to see the police.
</p>

<p>
"'But this,' Charles Ashley explained, 'I refused to
do, and then Mr. Triscott asked me if I knew whether
my dear father had any life insurances, and if so, in
what company.  I was able to satisfy him on that point,
as I had heard him speak with Mr. Oldwall about a
life policy he had in the Empire of India Life
Insurance Company.  Mr. Triscott then told me to leave
the matter to him, which I was only too glad to do.'
</p>

<p>
"Witness was asked if he knew anything of his
father's intentions with regard to altering his will, and
to this he gave an emphatic 'No!'  He explained that
he had taken a note from his father to Mr. Triscott on
the Friday and that he had seen Mr. Triscott when the
latter called at the flat that afternoon, but when the
coroner asked him whether he knew what passed
between his father and the lawyer on that occasion, he
again gave an emphatic 'No!'
</p>

<p>
"He had accepted gratefully Mr. Triscott's suggestion
that Mrs. Triscott should come over for the weekend
to take charge of the invalid; but he declared that
this arrangement was in no way a reflection upon his
brother.  On the whole, then, Charles Ashley made a
favourable impression upon the public and jury for his
clear and straightforward evidence.  The only time
when he hesitated&mdash;and did so very obviously&mdash;was
when the coroner asked him whether he knew of any
recent disagreement between his father and his brother
Philip, a disagreement which might have led to
Mr. Thornton Ashley's decision to alter his will.  Charles
Ashley did hesitate at this point, and, though he
was hard-pressed by the coroner, he only gave ambiguous
replies, and when he had completed his evidence,
he left one under the impression that he might have said
something if he would, and that but for his many
afflictions the coroner would probably have pressed him
much harder.
</p>

<p>
"This impression was confirmed by the evidence of
the next witness, a Mrs. Trapp, who had been the daily
'char' at Malvine Mansions.  She began by explaining
to the coroner that she had done the work at the flat
for the past two years.  At first she used to come every
morning for a couple of hours with the exception of
Sundays, but for the last two months or so she came
on the Sundays, but stayed away on the Mondays; on
Wednesdays she stayed the whole day, until about six,
as Mr. Charles always did a lot of shopping those
afternoons.
</p>

<p>
"Asked whether she remembered what happened at
the flat on the Wednesday preceding Mr. Thornton
Ashley's death, she said that she did remember quite
well Mr. Philip Ashley called; he did do that
sometimes on a Wednesday, when his brother was out.  He
stayed about an hour and, in Mrs. Trapp's picturesque
language, he and his father 'carried on awful!'
</p>

<p>
"'I couldn't 'ear what they said,' Mrs. Trapp explained,
with eager volubility, 'but I could 'ear the ole
gentleman screaming.  I 'ad 'eard 'im storm like that
at Mr. Philip once before&mdash;about a month ago.  But
Lor' bless you, Mr. Philip 'e didn't seem to care, and
on Wednesday, when I let 'im out of the flat 'e just
looked quite cheerful like.  But the ole gentleman 'e
was angry.  I 'ad to give 'im a nip o' brandy, 'e was
sort o' shaken after Mr. Philip went.'
</p>

<p>
"You see then, don't you?" the Old Man in the Corner
said with a grim chuckle, "how gradually a network
of sinister evidence was being woven around Philip
Ashley.  He himself was conscious of it, and he was
conscious also of the wave of hostility that was rising
up against him.  He looked now, not only grave, but
decidedly anxious, and he held his arms tightly crossed
over his chest, as if in the act of making a physical
effort to keep his nerves under control.
</p>

<p>
"He gave me the impression of a man who would
hate any kind of publicity, and the curious, eager looks
that were cast upon him, especially by the women, must
have been positive torture to a sensitive man.
However, he looked a handsome and manly figure as he
stood up to answer the questions put to him by the
coroner.  He said that he had arrived at the flat on
the Saturday at about mid-day, explaining to the jury
that he always came once a fortnight to be with his
father, whilst his brother Charles enjoyed a couple of
days in the country.  On this occasion, however, he was
told that his father was too ill to see him.  Charles,
however, went off on his bicycle as usual, but contrary
to precedent, a lady had apparently been left in charge
of the invalid.  Witness understood that this was
Mrs. Triscott, the wife of a neighbour, who had kindly
volunteered to stay over the week-end.  She was an
experienced nurse and would know what to do in case
the patient required anything.  For the moment he was
asleep and must not be disturbed.
</p>

<p>
"'I naturally felt very vexed,' the witness continued,
'at being kept out of my father's room, and I may have
spoken rather sharply at the moment, but I flatly deny
that I was rude to Mrs. Triscott, or that I was in a
violent rage.  I did get a glimpse of my father, as he
lay in bed, and I must say that I did not think that he
looked any worse than he had been all along.  However,
I was not going to argue the point.  I preferred
to wait until the Monday morning when my brother
would be home, and I could tackle him on the subject.'
</p>

<p>
"At this point the coroner desired to know why, in
that case, when the witness was told that his brother
would not be at the flat before ten o'clock, he turned
up there as early as half-past eight.
</p>

<p>
"'Because,' the witness replied, 'I was naturally
rather anxious to know how things were, and because I
hoped to get a day on the river with a friend, and to
make an early start if possible.  However, when I got
to the flat, Mrs. Triscott wanted to get away, and so I
agreed to stay there and wait until ten o'clock, when,
so Mrs. Triscott assured me, my brother would certainly
be home.  As a matter of fact he always used to
get home at that hour with clockwork regularity on the
Monday mornings after his holiday.  My father was
asleep, and Mrs. Triscott left me instructions what to
do in case he required anything.  At half-past nine he
woke.  I heard him stirring and I went into his room
and gave him some barley-water and sat with him for
a little while.  He seemed quite cheerful and
good-tempered, and, honestly, I did not think that he was
any worse than he had been for weeks.  Just before
ten o'clock he dropped off to sleep again.  I knew that
my brother would be in within the next half hour and,
as this would not be the first time that my father had
been left alone in the flat, I did not think that I should
be doing anything wrong by leaving him.  I went back
to my chambers and was busy making arrangements for
the day when I had a telephone message from my
brother that our father was dead.'
</p>

<p>
"Questioned by the coroner as to the disagreement
which he had had with his father on the previous
Wednesday, Mr. Philip Ashley indignantly repudiated
the idea that there was any quarrel.
</p>

<p>
"'My father,' he said, 'had a very violent temper and
a very harsh, penetrating voice.  He certainly did get
periodically angry with me whenever I explained to
him that my marriage to Lady Peet-Jackson could not,
in all decency, take place for at least another six
months.  He would storm and shriek for a little while,'
the witness went on, 'but we invariably parted the best
of friends.'"
</p>

<p>
The Old Man in the Corner paused for a little while,
leaving me both interested and puzzled.  I was trying
to piece together what I remembered of the case with
what he had just told me, and I was longing to hear his
explanation of the events which followed that memorable
inquest.  After a little while the funny creature resumed:
</p>

<p>
"I told you," he said, "that a wave of hostility had
risen in the public mind against Philip Ashley.  It came
from a sense of sympathy for the other son, who,
deformed and afflicted, had been done out of a fortune.
True that it would not have been of much use to him,
and that in the original will ample provision had been
made for his modest wants, but it now seemed as if, at
the eleventh hour, the old miser had thought to make
reparation toward the son who had given up his whole
life to him, whilst the other had led one of leisure,
independence, and gaiety.  What had caused old Thornton
Ashley thus to change his mind was never conclusively
proved; there were some rumours already current
that Philip Ashley was in debt and had appealed
to his father for money, a fatal thing to do with a miser.
But this also was never actually proved.  The only
persons who could have enlightened the jury on the
subject were Philip Ashley himself and his brother,
Charles, but each of them, for reasons of his own, chose
to remain silent.
</p>

<p>
"And now you will no doubt recall the fact which
finally determined the jury to bring in their sensational
verdict, in consequence of which Philip Ashley was
arrested on the coroner's warrant on a charge of
attempted murder.  It seemed horrible, ununderstandable,
unbelievable, but, nevertheless, a jury of twelve
men did arrive at that momentous decision after
deliberation lasting less than half an hour.  What I
believe weighed with them in the end was the fact that the
assistant who came with the divisional surgeon to
conduct the <i>post-mortem</i> found underneath the bed of the
deceased, a walking-stick with a crook-handle, and the
crumpled and torn copy of the notes for the new will
which Mr. Triscott had prepared.  Philip Ashley when
confronted with the stick admitted that it was his.  He
had missed it on the Saturday when he was leaving the
flat, as he was under the impression that he had
brought one with him; however, he did not want to
spend any more time looking for it, as he was obviously
so very much in the way.
</p>

<p>
"Now, both the charwoman and Mrs. Triscott swore
that the patient's room had been cleaned and tidied on
the Sunday, and that there was no sign of a walking-stick
in the room then.
</p>

<p><br /></p>

<h4>
§5
</h4>

<p>
"And so," the Old Man in the Corner went on, with a
cynical shrug of his lean shoulders, "Philip Ashley went
through the terrible ordeal of being hauled up before
the magistrate on the charge of having attempted to
murder his father, an old man with one foot in the
grave.  He pleaded 'Not Guilty,' and reserved his
defence.  The whole of the evidence was gone through
all over again, of course, but nothing new had
transpired.  The case was universally thought to look very
black against the accused, and no one was surprised
when he was eventually committed for trial.
</p>

<p>
"Public feeling remained distinctly hostile to him.
It was a crime so horrible and so unique you would
have thought that no one would have believed that a
well-known, well-educated man could possibly have
been guilty of it.  Probably, if the event had occurred
before the war, public opinion would have repudiated
the possibility, but so many horrible crimes have
occurred in every country these past few years that one
was just inclined to shrug one's shoulders and murmur:
'Perhaps, one never knows!'  One thing remained
beyond a doubt: old Mr. Thornton Ashley died of shock
or fright following a violent and dastardly assault,
finger-marks were discovered round his throat, and
there were evidences on his face and head that he had
been repeatedly struck with what might easily have
been the walking-stick which was found under his bed.
Add to this the weight of evidence of the new will,
about to be signed, and of the quarrel between father
and son on the previous Wednesday, and you have as
good a motive for the murder as any prosecuting counsel
might wish for.  Philip Ashley would not, of course,
hang for murder, but it was even betting that he would
get twenty years.
</p>

<p>
"Anyway, I don't think that, as things were, any one
blamed Lady Peet-Jackson for her decision.  A week
before Philip Ashley's trial came on she announced
her engagement to Lord Francis Firmour, son of the
Marquis of Ettridge, whom she subsequently married.
</p>

<p>
"But Philip Ashley was acquitted&mdash;you remember
that?  He was acquitted because Sir Arthur Inglewood
was his counsel, and Sir Arthur is the finest criminal
lawyer we possess; and, because the evidence against
him was entirely circumstantial, it was demolished by
his counsel with masterly skill.  Whatever might be
said on the subject of 'motive,' there was nothing
whatever to prove that the accused knew anything of his
father's intentions with regard to a new will; and there
was only a charwoman's word to say that he had
quarrelled with his father on that memorable Wednesday.
</p>

<p>
"On the other hand, there was Mr. Oldwall and
Dr. Fanshawe-Bigg, old friends of the deceased, both
swearing positively that Thornton Ashley had a peculiarly
shrill and loud voice, that he would often get into
passions about nothing at all, when he would scream
and storm, and yet mean nothing by it.  The only
evidence of any tangible value was the walking-stick but
even that was not enough to blast a man's life with such
a monstrous suspicion.
</p>

<p>
"Philip Ashley was acquitted, but there are not many
people who followed that case closely who believed him
altogether innocent at the time.  What Lady Peet-Jackson
thought about it no one knows.  It was for her
sake that the unfortunate man threw up the chances
of a fortune, and when it came within his grasp it still
seemed destined to evade him to the end.  In losing the
woman for whom he had been prepared to make so
many sacrifices, poor Philip lost the fortune a second
time, because, as he was not married within the
prescribed time-limit, it was Charles who inherited under
the terms of the original will.  But I think you will
agree with me that any sensitive man is well out of a
union with a hard and mercenary woman.
</p>

<p>
"And now there has been another revolution in the
wheel of Fate.  Charles Ashley died the other day in
a nursing home of heart failure, following an operation.
He died intestate, and his brother is his sole
heir.  Funny, isn't it, that Philip Ashley should get his
father's fortune in the end?  But Fate does have a
way sometimes of dealing out compensations, after she
has knocked a man about beyond his deserts.  Philip
Ashley is a rich man now, and there is a rumour, I am
told, current in the society papers, that Lady Francis
Firmour has filed a petition for divorce, and that the
proceedings will be undefended.  But can you imagine
any man marrying such a woman after all that she
made him suffer?"
</p>

<p>
Then, as the funny creature paused and appeared
entirely engrossed in the fashioning of complicated
knots in his beloved bit of string, I felt that it was my
turn to keep the ball rolling.
</p>

<p>
"Then you, for one," I said, "are quite convinced
that Philip Ashley did not know that his father
intended to make a new will, and did not try to murder
him?"
</p>

<p>
"Aren't you?" he retorted.
</p>

<p>
"Well," I rejoined, somewhat lamely, "some one did
assault the old miser, didn't they?  If it was not Philip
Ashley then it must have been just an ordinary burglar,
who thought that the old man had some money hidden
away under his mattress."
</p>

<p>
"Can't you theorise more intelligently than that?"
the tiresome creature asked in his very rude and cynical
manner.  I would gladly have slapped his face, only&mdash;I
did want to know.
</p>

<p>
"Your own theory," I retorted, choosing to ignore his
impertinence, "seek him first whom the crime benefits."
</p>

<p>
"Well, and whom did that particular crime benefit
the most?"
</p>

<p>
"Philip Ashley, of course," I replied, "but you said
yourself&mdash;&mdash;"
</p>

<p>
"Philip Ashley did not benefit by the crime," the old
scarecrow broke in, with a dry cackle.  "No, no, but
for the fact that a merciful Providence removed
Charles Ashley so very unexpectedly out of this wicked
world, Philip would still be living on a few hundreds a
year, most of which he would owe to the munificence
of his brother."
</p>

<p>
"That," I argued, "was only because that Peet-Jackson
woman threw him over, otherwise&mdash;&mdash;"
</p>

<p>
"And why did she throw him over?  Because old
Thornton Ashley died under mysterious circumstances,
and Philip Ashley was under a cloud because of it.
Any one could have foreseen that that particular
woman would throw him over the very moment that
suspicion fell upon him."
</p>

<p>
"But Charles&mdash;&mdash;" I began.
</p>

<p>
"Exactly," he broke in, excitedly, "it was Charles
who benefited by the crime.  It was he who inherited
the fortune."
</p>

<p>
"But, by the new will he would have inherited anyhow.
Then, why in the world&mdash;&mdash;"
</p>

<p>
"You surely don't believe in that new will, do you?
The way in which I marshalled the facts before you
ought to have paved the way for more intelligent
reasoning."
</p>

<p>
"But Mr. Triscott&mdash;&mdash;" I argued.
</p>

<p>
"Ah, yes," he said, "Mr. Triscott&mdash;exactly.  The
whole thing could only be done in partnership, I
admit.  But does not everything point to a partnership
in what, to my mind, is one of the ugliest crimes in our
records?  You ought to be able to follow the workings
of Charles Ashley's mind, a mind as tortuous as the
body that held it.  Let me put the facts once more
briefly before you.  While Philip obstinately remained
a bachelor, all was well.  Charles stuck to the old miser,
carefully watching over his interests lest they become
jeopardised.  But presently, Lady Peet-Jackson
became a widow and Philip gaily announced his
engagement.  From that hour Charles, of course, must have
seen the fortune on which he had already counted
slipping away irretrievably from his grasp.  Can you not
see in your mind's eye that queer, misshapen creature
setting his crooked brain to devise a way out of the
difficulty?  Can you not see the plan taking shape
gradually, forming itself slowly into a resolve&mdash;a resolve to
stop his brother's marriage at all costs?  But how?
Philip, passionately in love with Muriel Peet-Jackson,
having won her after years of waiting, was not likely
to give her up.  No, but <i>she</i> might give <i>him</i> up.  She
had done it once for the sake of ambition, she might do
it again if ... if ... well, Charles Ashley, obscure,
poor, misshapen, was not likely to find a rival who
would supplant his handsome brother in any woman's
affections.  Certainly not!  But there remained the other
possibility, the possibility that Philip, poor&mdash;or, better
still, disgraced&mdash;might cease to be a prize in the
matrimonial market.  Disgraced!  But how?  By publicity?
By crime?  Yes, by crime!  Now, can you see the plan
taking shape?
</p>

<p>
"Can you see Charles cudgelling his wits as to what
crime could most easily be fastened on a man of
Philip's personality and social position?  Probably a
chance word dropped by his father put the finishing
touch to his scheme, a chance word on the subject of a
will.  And there was the whole plan ready.  The
unsigned will, the assault on the dying man, and quarrels
there always were plenty between the peppery old miser
and his somewhat impatient son.  As for Triscott, the
dapper little local lawyer, I suppose it took some time
for Charles Ashley's crooked schemes to appear as
feasible and profitable to him.  Of course, without him
nothing could have been done, and the whole of my
theory rests upon the fact that the two men were
partners in the crime.
</p>

<p>
"Where they first met, and how they became friends,
I don't profess to know.  If I had had anything to do
with the official investigation of that crime I should
first of all have examined the servant in the Triscott
household, and found out whether or no Mr. Charles
Ashley had ever been a visitor there.  In any case, I
should have found out something about Triscott's
friends and Triscott's haunts.  I am sure that it would
then have come to light that Charles Ashley and
Mr. Triscott had constant intercourse together.
</p>

<p>
"I cannot bring myself to believe in that unsigned
will.  There was nothing whatever that led up to it,
except the supposed quarrel on the Wednesday.  But,
if that old miser did want to alter his will, why should
he have sent for a man whom he hardly knew and
whom, mind you, he would have to pay for his services,
rather than for his friend, Oldwall, who would have
done the work for nothing?  The man was a miser,
remember.  His meanness, we are told, amounted to a
mania; a miser never pays for something he can get for
nothing.  There was also another little point that
struck me during the inquest as significant.  If
Triscott was an entire stranger to Charles Ashley, why
should he have taken such a personal interest in him
and in the old man to the extent of sending his wife to
spend two whole days and nights in charge of an
invalid who was nothing to him?  Why should Mrs. Triscott
have undertaken such a thankless task in the house
of a miser, where she would get no comforts and hardly
anything to eat?  Why, I say, should the Triscotts have
done all that if they had not some vital self-interest at
stake?
</p>

<p>
"And I contend that that self-interest demanded that
one of them should be there, in the flat, on the watch,
to see that no third person was present whilst Philip
spent his time by his father's bedside&mdash;a witness, such
as Lady Peet-Jackson, perhaps, or some friend&mdash;whose
testimony might demolish the whole edifice of lies,
which had been so carefully built up.  And, did you
notice another point?  The charwoman, by a new
arrangement, was never at the flat on a Monday
morning, and that arrangement had only obtained for the
past two months.  Now why?  Charwomen stay away,
I believe, on Sundays always, but, I ask you, have you
ever heard of a charwoman having a holiday on a
Monday?"
</p>

<p>
I was bound to admit that it was unusual, whereupon
the old scarecrow went on, with excitement that grew
as rapidly as did the feverish energy of his fingers
manipulating his bit of string.
</p>

<p>
"And now propel your mind back to that same Monday
morning, when, the coast being clear, Charles Ashley,
back at the flat and alone with the old man, was
able at last to put the finishing touch to his work of
infamy.  One pressure of the fingers, one blow with the
walking-stick, and the curtain was rung down finally
on the hideous drama which he had so skilfully
invented.  Think of it all carefully and intelligently," the
Old Man in the Corner concluded, as he stuffed his
beloved bit of string into the capacious pocket of his
checked ulster, "and you will admit that there is not a
single flaw in my argument&mdash;&mdash;"
</p>

<p>
"The walking-stick," I broke in, quickly.
</p>

<p>
"Exactly," he retorted, "the walking-stick.  Charles
was quick enough to grasp the significance of that, and
on Saturday, while his brother's back was turned, he
carefully hid the walking-stick, knowing that it would
be a useful piece of evidence presently.  Do you, for
a moment, suppose," he added, dryly, "that any man
would have been such a fool as to throw his walking-stick
and the crumpled notes of the will underneath his
victim's bed?  They could not have been left there,
remember, they could not have rolled under the bed,
as the walking-stick had a crook-handle; they must
deliberately have been thrown there.
</p>

<p>
"No, no!" he said, in conclusion, "there is no flaw.
It is all as clear as daylight to any receptive intelligence,
and though human justice did err at first, and it
looked, at one time, as if the innocent alone would suffer
and the guilty enjoy the fruits of his crime, a higher
justice interposed in the end.  Charles has gone, and
Philip is in possession of the fortune which his father
desired him to have.  I only hope that his eyes are
opened at last to the true value of the beautiful Muriel's
love, and that it will be some other worthier woman
who will share his fortune and help him forget all that
he endured in the past."
</p>

<p>
"And what about the Triscotts?" I asked.
</p>

<p>
"Ah!" he said, with a sigh, "they are the wicked who
prosper, and higher justice has apparently forgotten
them, as it often does forget the evil-doer, for a time.
We must take it that they were well paid for their share
in the crime, and, if the unfortunate Charles had lived,
he probably would have been blackmailed by them and
bled white.  As it is, they have gone scot-free.  I made
a few enquiries in the neighbourhood lately and I
discovered that Mr. Triscott is selling his practice and
retiring from business.  Presently we'll hear that he has
bought himself a cottage in the country.  Then, perhaps,
your last doubt will vanish and you will be ready
to admit that I have found the true solution of the
mystery that surrounded the death of the miser of
Maida Vale."
</p>

<p>
The next moment he was gone, and I just caught
sight of the corner of his checked ulster disappearing
through the swing doors.
</p>

<p><br /><br /><br /></p>

<p><a id="chap12"></a></p>

<h3>
XII
<br /><br />
THE FULTON GARDENS MYSTERY
</h3>

<p><br /></p>

<h4>
§1
</h4>

<p>
"Are you prepared to admit," the Old Man in the
Corner said abruptly as soon as he had
finished his glass of milk, "that sympathy,
understanding, largeness of heart&mdash;what?&mdash;are invariably
the outcome of a big brain?  It is the fool who is
censorious and cruel.  Your clever man is nearly always
sympathetic.  He understands, he appreciates, he
studies motives and understands them.  During the war it
was the fools who tracked down innocent men and
women under pretence that they were spies; it was the
fools who did not understand that a German might be
just as fine a patriot as a Briton or a Frenchman if he
served his own country.  The hard, cruel man is almost
always a fool; the backbiting old maid invariably so.
</p>

<p>
"I am tempted to say this," he went on, "because I
have been thinking over that curious case which
newspaper reporters have called the Fulton Gardens
Mystery.  You remember it, don't you?"
</p>

<p>
"Yes," I said, "I do.  As a matter of fact I knew
poor old Mr. Jessup slightly, and I was terribly shocked
when I heard about that awful tragedy.  And to think
that that horrid young Leighton&mdash;&mdash;"
</p>

<p>
"Ha!" my eccentric friend broke in, with a chuckle,
"then you have held on to that theory, have you?"
</p>

<p>
"There was no other possible!" I retorted.
</p>

<p>
"But he was discharged."
</p>

<p>
I shrugged my shoulders under pretence of being
unconvinced.  As a matter of fact, all I wanted was
to make the funny creature talk.
</p>

<p>
"A flimsy <i>alibi</i>," I said coldly.
</p>

<p>
"And a want of sympathy," he rejoined.
</p>

<p>
"What has sympathy got to do with a brutal assault
on a defenceless old man?  You can't deny that
Leighton had something, at any rate, to do with it?"
</p>

<p>
"I did not mean sympathy for the guilty," he argued,
"but for the women who were the principal witnesses
in the case."
</p>

<p>
"I don't see&mdash;&mdash;" I protested.
</p>

<p>
"No, but I do.  I understood, and in a great measure
I sympathised."
</p>

<p>
At which expression of noble sentiment I burst out
laughing.  I couldn't help it.  In view of his preamble
just now his fatuous statement was funny beyond words.
</p>

<p>
"You being the clever man who understands, etcetera,"
I said, as seriously as I could, "and I the
censorious and cruel old maid who is invariably a
fool."
</p>

<p>
"You put it crudely," he rejoined complacently, "and
had you not given ample proof of your intelligence
before now I might have thought it worth while to
refute the second half of your argument.  As for the
first..."
</p>

<p>
"Hadn't you better tell me about the Fulton Gardens
Mystery?" I broke in impatiently.
</p>

<p>
"Certainly," he replied, in no way abashed.  "I have
meant to talk to you about it all along, only that you
would digress."
</p>

<p>
"<i>Pax!</i>" I retorted, and with a conciliatory smile I
handed him a beautiful bit of string.  He pounced on it
with thin hands that looked like the talons of a bird,
and he gloated on that bit of string for all the world
as on a prey.
</p>

<p>
"I dare say," he began, "that to most people the
mystery appeared baffling enough.  But to me ... Well,
there was the victim of what you very properly call
the cowardly assault, your friend&mdash;or acquaintance&mdash;Mr. Seton
Jessup, a man on the wrong side of sixty,
but very active and vigorous for his years.  He carried
on the business of pearl merchant in Fulton Gardens,
but he did not live there, as you know.  He was a
married man, had sons and daughters and a nice house
in Fitzjohn's Avenue.  He also owned the house in
Fulton Gardens, a four-storied building of the pattern
prevalent in that neighbourhood.  The ground floor,
together with the one above that, and the basement
were used by Mr. Jessup himself for his business: on
the ground floor he had his office and showroom, above
that were a couple of reception rooms, where he usually
had his lunch and saw a few privileged customers, and
in the basement there was a kitchen with scullery and
pantry, a small servants' hall, and a strong-room for
valuables.  The top story of all was let to a
surgical-instrument maker who did not sleep on the premises,
and the second floor&mdash;that is the one just below the
surgical-instrument maker and immediately above the
reception rooms&mdash;was occupied by Mrs. Tufnell, who
was cook-housekeeper to Mr. Jessup, and her niece,
Ann Weber, who acted as the house-parlourmaid.
Mrs. Tufnell's son, Mark, who was a junior clerk in the
office, did not sleep in the house.  He was considered
to be rather delicate, and lived with a family
somewhere near the Alexandra Palace.
</p>

<p>
"All these people, as you know, played important
parts in the drama that was enacted on the sixteenth of
November at No. 13, Fulton Gardens&mdash;an unlucky
number, by the way, but one which Mr. Jessup did not
change to the usual 12a when he bought the house,
because he despised all superstition.  He was a
hard-headed, prosperous business man; he worked hard
himself, and expected hard work from his employés.
Both his sons worked in the office, one as senior clerk,
and the other as showman, and in addition to young
Mark Tufnell there was another junior clerk&mdash;a rather
unsatisfactory youth named Arthur Leighton, who was
some sort of a relation of Mrs. Jessup's.  But for this
connection he never would have been kept on in the
business, as he was unpunctual, idle, and unreliable.
The housekeeper, as well as some of the neighbours,
had been scandalised lately by what was picturesquely
termed the 'goings on of that young Leighton with Ann,
the housemaid at No. 13.'
</p>

<p>
"Ann Weber was a very pretty girl, and like many
pretty girls she was fond of finery and of admiration.
As soon as she entered Mr. Jessup's service she started
a flirtation with Mark Tufnell, then she dropped him
for a while in favour of the youngest Mr. Jessup; then
she went back to Mark, and seemed really in love with
him that time until, finally, she transferred her favours
to Arthur Leighton, chiefly because he was by far the
most generous of her admirers.  He was always giving
her presents of jewellery which Mark Tufnell could not
afford, and young Jessup apparently did not care to
give her.  But she did not, by any means, confine her
flirtations to one man: indeed, it appears that she had
a marvellous facility for keeping several men hanging
about her dainty apron-strings.  She was not on the
best of terms with her aunt, chiefly because the latter
noted with some asperity that her son was far from
cured of his infatuation for the pretty housemaid.
The more she flirted with Leighton and the others the
greater did his love for her appear, and all that
Mrs. Tufnell could hope for was that Mr. Leighton would
marry Ann one day soon, when he would take her right
away and Mark would then probably make up his
mind to forget her.  Young Leighton was doing very
well in business apparently, for he always had plenty
of money to spend, whilst poor Mark had only a small
salary, and, moreover, had nothing of the smart,
dashing ways about him which had made the other man
so attractive to Ann."
</p>

<p><br /></p>

<h4>
§2
</h4>

<p>
"And now," the Old Man in the Corner continued
after a while, "we come to that sixteenth of November
when the mysterious drama occurred at No. 13, Fulton
Gardens.  As a general rule, it seems, Mr. Jessup was
in his office most evenings until seven o'clock.  His
clerks and showmen finished at six, but he would,
almost invariably, stay on an hour longer to go through
his accounts or look over his stock.  On this particular
evening, just before seven o'clock, he rang for the
housekeeper, Mrs. Tufnell, and told her that he would
be staying until quite late, and would she send him in a
cup of tea and a plate of sandwiches in about an hour's
time.  Mrs. Tufnell owned to being rather disappointed
when she had this order because her son Mark had
arranged to take her and Ann to the cinema that evening,
and now, of course, they could not leave until after
Mr. Jessup had gone, in case he wanted anything, and he
might be staying on until all hours.  However, Mark
stayed to supper, and after supper Mrs. Tufnell got
the tea and sandwiches ready and took the tray up
to Mr. Jessup herself.  Mr. Jessup was then sitting
at his desk with two or three big books in front of
him, and Mrs. Tufnell noticed that the safe in which
the cash was kept that came in after banking hours
was wide open.
</p>

<p>
"Mrs. Tufnell put down the tray, and was about
to leave the room again when Mr. Jessup spoke to her.
</p>

<p>
"'I expect Mr. Leighton back presently.  Show him
in here when he comes.  But I don't want to see
anybody else, not any of you.  Understand?'
</p>

<p>
"It seems that he said this in such a harsh and
peremptory manner that Mrs. Tufnell was not only upset,
but quite frightened.  Mr. Jessup had always been
very kind and considerate to his servants, and the
housekeeper declared that she had never been spoken
to like that before.  But we all know what that sort
of people are: they have no understanding, and unless
you are perpetually smiling at them they turn huffy
at the slightest word of impatience.  Undoubtedly
Mr. Jessup was both tired and worried, and no great stress
was laid by the police subsequently on the fact that
he had spoken harshly on this occasion.  Even to you
at this moment I dare say that this seems a trifling
circumstance, but I mention it because to my mind it had
a great deal of significance, and I think that the police
were very wrong to dismiss it quite so lightly.
</p>

<p>
"Well, to resume.  Mr. Jessup was in his office with
his books and with the safe, where he kept all the
cash that came in after banking hours, open.
Mrs. Tufnell saw and spoke to him at eight o'clock and he
was then expecting Arthur Leighton to come to him
at nine.
</p>

<p>
"No one saw him alive after that.
</p>

<p>
"The next morning Mrs. Tufnell was downstairs as
usual at a quarter to seven.  After she had lighted
the kitchen fire, done her front steps and swept the
hall she went to do the ground-floor rooms.  She told
the police afterwards that from the moment she got
up she felt that there was something wrong in the
house.  Somehow or other she was frightened; she
didn't know of what, but she was frightened.  As soon
as she had opened the office door she gave a terrified
scream.  Mr. Jessup was sitting at his desk just as
Mrs. Tufnell had seen him the night before, with his
big books in front of him and the safe door open.  But
his head had fallen forward on the desk, and his arms
were spread out over his books.  Mrs. Tufnell never
doubted for a second but that he was dead, even
before she saw the stick lying on the floor and that
horrible, horrible dull red stain which spread from the
back of the old man's head, right down to his neck
and stained his collar and the top of his coat.  Even
before she saw all that she knew that Mr. Jessup was
dead.  Terrified, she clung to the open door; she could
do nothing but stare and stare, for the room, the
furniture, the motionless figure by the desk had started
whirling round and round before her eyes, so that she
felt that at any moment she might fall down in a
dead faint.  It seemed ages before she heard Ann's
voice calling to her, asking what was the matter.  Ann
was lazy and never came downstairs before eight
o'clock.  She had apparently only just tumbled out
of bed when she heard Mrs. Tufnell's scream.  Now
she came running downstairs, with her bare feet thrust
into her slippers and a dressing-gown wrapped round
her.
</p>

<p>
"'What is it, Auntie?' she kept on asking as she ran.
'What has happened?'
</p>

<p>
"And when she reached the office door, she only gave
one look into the room and exclaimed, 'Oh, my God!
He's killed him!'
</p>

<p>
"Somehow Ann's exclamation of horror brought Mrs. Tufnell
to her senses.  With a great effort she pulled
herself together, just in time, too, to grip Ann by the
arm, or the girl would have measured her length on the
tiled floor behind her.  As it was, Mrs. Tufnell gave
her a vigorous shake:
</p>

<p>
"'What do you mean, Ann Weber?' she demanded
in a hoarse whisper.  'What do you mean?  Who has
killed him?'
</p>

<p>
"But Ann couldn't or wouldn't utter another word.
She was as white as a sheet and, staggering backwards,
she had fallen up against the bannisters at the foot of
the stairs and was clinging to them, wide-eyed, with
twitching mouth and shaking knees.
</p>

<p>
"'Pull yourself together, Ann Weber,' Mrs. Tufnell
said peremptorily, 'and run and fetch the police at
once.'
</p>

<p>
"But Ann looked as if she couldn't move.  She kept
on reiterating in a dry, meaningless manner, 'The
police!  The police,' until Mrs. Tufnell, who by now had
gathered her wits together, gave her a vigorous push
and then went upstairs to put on her bonnet.  A few
minutes later she had gone for the police.
</p>

<p><br /></p>

<h4>
§3
</h4>

<p>
"I don't know," the Old Man in the Corner went on
glibly, "whether you remember all the circumstances
which made that case such a puzzling one.  Indeed, it
well deserved the popular name that the evening papers
bestowed on it&mdash;'The Fulton Gardens Mystery'&mdash;for it
was, indeed, a mystery, and to most people it has so
remained to this day."
</p>

<p>
"Not to you," I put in, with a smile, just to humour
him, as I could see he was waiting to be buttered-up
before he would proceed with his narrative.
</p>

<p>
"No, not to me," he admitted, with his fatuous smile.
"If the members of the police force who had the case
in hand had been psychologists, they would not have
been puzzled, either.  But they were satisfied with their
own investigations and with all that was revealed at the
inquest, and they looked no further, with the result
that when the edifice of their deductions collapsed, they
had nowhere to turn.  Time had gone on, evidences had
become blurred, witnesses were less sure of themselves
and less reliable, and a certain blackguard, on whom
I for one could lay my fingers at this moment, is going
through the world scot-free.
</p>

<p>
"But let me begin by telling you the facts as they
were revealed at the inquest.  You can then form your
own conclusions, and I dare say that these will be
quite as erroneous as those arrived at by the public
and the police.
</p>

<p>
"The drama began to unfold itself when Mr. Ernest
Jessup, the younger son of the deceased gentleman, was
called.  He began by explaining that he was junior
clerk in his father's office, and that he, along with all
the other employés had remarked on the sixteenth that
the guv'nor did not seem at all like himself.  He was
irritable with everybody, and just before luncheon he
called Arthur Leighton into his office and apparently
some very hot words passed between the two.  Witness
happened to be in the hall at the moment, getting his
hat and coat, and the housemaid was standing by.
They both heard very loud voices coming from the
office.  The guv'nor was storming away at the top of
his voice.
</p>

<p>
"'That's poor Leighton getting it in the neck,'
witness remarked to Ann Weber.
</p>

<p>
"But the girl only giggled and shrugged her shoulders.
Then she said: 'Do you think so?'
</p>

<p>
"'Yes,' witness replied, 'aren't you sorry to see your
devoted admirer in such hot water?'
</p>

<p>
"Again the girl giggled and then ran away upstairs.
Mr. Leighton was not at the office the whole of that
afternoon, but witness understood, either from his
father or from his brother&mdash;he couldn't remember
which&mdash;that Leighton was to come in late that night
to interview the guv'nor.
</p>

<p>
"Witness was next questioned as to the events that
occurred at Mr. Jessup's home in Fitzjohn's Avenue,
while the terrible tragedy was enacted in Fulton
Gardens.  It seems that Mr. Jessup had an old mother who
lived in St. Albans, and that he went sometimes to
see her after business hours and stayed the night.  As
a general rule, when he intended going he would
telephone home in the course of the afternoon.  On the
sixteenth he rang up at about five o'clock and said that
he was staying late at the office&mdash;later than usual&mdash;and
they were not to wait dinner for him.  Mrs. Jessup took
this message herself, and had recognised her husband's
voice.  Then, later on in the evening&mdash;it might have
been half-past eight or nine&mdash;there was another
telephone message from the office.  Witness went to the
telephone that time.  A voice, which at first he did not
think that he recognised, said: 'Mr. Jessup has gone
to St. Albans.  He caught the 7.50, and won't be home
to-night.'  In giving evidence witness at first insisted
on the fact that he did not recognise the voice on the
telephone.  It was a man's voice, and sounded like
that of a person who was rather the worse for drink.
He asked who was speaking, and the reply came quite
clearly that time: 'Why, it's Leighton, you ass!  Don't
you know me?'  Witness then asked: 'Where are you
speaking from?' and the reply was: 'From the office,
of course.  I've had my wigging and am getting
consoled by our Annie-bird.'  Annie-bird was the name
the pretty housemaid went by among the young clerks
at the office.  Witness then hung up the receiver and
gave his mother the message.  Neither Mrs. Jessup nor
any one else in the house thought anything more about
it, as there was nothing whatever unusual about the
occurrence.  Witness only made some remarks about
Arthur Leighton having been drinking again, and there
the matter unfortunately remained until the following
morning, when witness and his brother arrived at the
office and were met with the awful news.
</p>

<p>
"Both Mrs. Jessup and Mr. Aubrey, the eldest son,
corroborated the statements made by the previous
witness with regard to the telephone messages on the
evening of the sixteenth.  Mr. Aubrey Jessup also stated
that he knew that his father was worried about some
irregularities in Arthur Leighton's accounts, and that
he meant to have it out with the young clerk in the
course of the evening.  Witness had begged his father
to let the matter rest until the next day, as Leighton, he
thought, had got the afternoon off to see a sick sister,
but the deceased had rejected the suggestion with
obvious irritation.
</p>

<p>
"'Stuff and nonsense!' he said.  'I don't believe in
that sick sister a bit.  I'll see that young blackguard
to-night.'
</p>

<p>
"The next witness was Mrs. Tufnell, who was
cook-housekeeper at Fulton Gardens.  She was a middle-aged,
capable-looking woman, with a pair of curiously
dark eyes.  I say 'curiously' because Mrs. Tufnell's
eyes had that velvety quality which is usually only
met with in southern countries.  I have seldom seen
them in England, except, perhaps, in Cornwall.  Apart
from her eyes, there was nothing either remarkable
or beautiful about Mrs. Tufnell.  She may have been
good-looking once, but that was a long time ago.
When she stood up to give evidence her face appeared
rather bloodless, weather-beaten, and distinctly hard.
She spoke quite nicely and without any of that hideous
Cockney accent one might have expected from a cook
in a City office.
</p>

<p>
"She deposed that on the sixteenth, just before the
luncheon hour, she was crossing the hall at 13, Fulton
Gardens.  The door into the office was ajar, and she
heard Mr. Jessup's voice raised, evidently in great
wrath.  Mrs. Tufnell also heard Mr. Leighton's voice,
both gentlemen, as she picturesquely put it, going at
one another hammer and tongs.  Obviously, though
she wouldn't admit it, Mrs. Tufnell stopped to listen,
but she does not seem to have understood much of
what was said.  However, a moment or two later,
Mr. Jessup went to the door in order to shut it, and while
he did so, Mrs. Tufnell heard him say quite distinctly:
</p>

<p>
"'Well, if you must go now, you must, though I
don't believe a word about your sister being ill.  But
you may go; only, understand that I expect you back
here this evening not later than nine.  I shall have gone
through the accounts by then, and...'
</p>

<p>
"At this point the door was shut and witness heard
nothing more.  But she reiterated the statements which
she had already made to the police, and which I have
just retold you, about Mr. Jessup staying late at the
office and her taking him in some sandwiches, when
he told her that he was expecting Mr. Leighton at
about nine o'clock and did not wish to be disturbed
by anybody else.  Witness was asked to repeat what
the deceased had actually said to her with reference
to this matter, and she laid great stress on Mr. Jessup's
harsh and dictatorial manner, so different, she said,
to his usual gentlemanly ways.
</p>

<p>
"'"I don't want to see anybody else&mdash;not any of
you," that's what he said,' Mrs. Tufnell replied, with
an air of dignity, and then added: 'As if Ann Weber
or I had ever thought of disturbing him when he was
at work!'
</p>

<p>
"Witness went on to relate that, after she had taken
in the tray of tea and sandwiches, she went upstairs
and found Ann Weber sitting in her room by herself.
Mark, the girl explained, had gone off, very disappointed
that they couldn't all go together to the cinema.
Mrs. Tufnell argued the point for a moment or two,
as she didn't see why Ann should have refused to go
if she wanted to see the show.  But the girl seemed
to have turned sulky.  Anyway, it was too late, she
said, as Mark had gone off by himself: he had booked
the places and didn't want to waste them, so he was
going to get another friend to go with him.
</p>

<p>
"Mrs. Tufnell then settled down to do some sewing,
and Ann turned over the pages of a stale magazine.
Mrs. Tufnell thought that she appeared restless and
agitated.  Her cheeks were flushed and at the slightest
sound she gave a startled jump.  Presently she said
that she had some silver to clean in the pantry, and
went downstairs to do it.  Some little time after that
there was a ring at the front-door bell, and Mrs. Tufnell
heard Ann going through the hall to open the door.
A quarter of an hour went by, and then another.
</p>

<p>
"Mrs. Tufnell began to wonder what Ann was up
to.  She put down her sewing and started to go
downstairs.  The first thing that struck her was that all
the lights on the stairs and landing were out; the house
appeared very silent and dark; only a glimmer came
from one of the lights downstairs in the hall at the
foot of the stairs.
</p>

<p>
"Mrs. Tufnell went down cautiously.  Strangely
enough, it did not occur to her to turn on the lights
on her way.  After she had passed the first-floor
landing she heard the sound of muffled voices coming from
the hall below.  Thinking that she recognised Ann's
voice, she called to her: 'Is that you, Ann?'  And Ann
immediately replied: 'Coming, aunt.'  'Who are you
talking to?' Mrs. Tufnell asked, and as Ann did not
answer this time, she went on: 'Is it Mr. Leighton?'  And
Ann said: 'Yes.  He is just going.'
</p>

<p>
"Mrs. Tufnell stood there, waiting.  She was half-way
down the stairs between the first floor and the hall,
and she couldn't see Ann or Mr. Leighton, but a
moment or two later she heard Ann's voice saying quite
distinctly: 'Well, good-night, Mr. Leighton, see you
to-morrow as usual.'  After which the front door was
opened, then banged to again, and presently Ann came
tripping back across the hall.
</p>

<p>
"'You go to bed now, Ann,' Mrs. Tufnell said to
her.  'I'll see Mr. Jessup off when he goes.  He won't
be long now, I dare say.'
</p>

<p>
"'Oh, but,' Ann said, 'Mr. Jessup has been gone
some time.'
</p>

<p>
"'Gone some time?' Mrs. Tufnell exclaimed.  'He
can't have been gone some time.  Why, he was
expecting Mr. Leighton, and Mr. Leighton has only just
gone.'
</p>

<p>
"Ann shrugged her shoulders.  'I can only tell you
what I know, Mrs. Tufnell,' she said acidly.  'You
can come down and see for yourself.  The office is shut
up and all the lights out.'
</p>

<p>
"'But didn't Mr. Leighton see Mr. Jessup?'
</p>

<p>
"'No, he didn't.  Mr. Jessup told Mr. Leighton to
wait, and then he went away without seeing him.'
</p>

<p>
"'That's funny,' Mrs. Tufnell remarked, dryly.
'What was Mr. Leighton doing in the house, then, all
this time?  I heard the front-door bell half an hour
ago and more.'
</p>

<p>
"'That's no business of yours, Aunt Sarah,' the girl
retorted pertly.  'And it wasn't half an hour, so there!'
</p>

<p>
"Mrs. Tufnell did not argue the point any further.
Mechanically she went downstairs and ascertained in
point of fact that the door of the office and the
show-room on the ground floor were both locked as usual,
and that the key of the office was outside in the lock.
This was entirely in accordance with custom.
Mrs. Tufnell, through force of habit, did just turn the key
and open the door of the office.  She just peeped in to
see that the lights were really all out.  Satisfied that
everything was dark she then closed and relocked the
door.  Ann, in the meanwhile, stood half-way up the
stairs watching.  Then the two women went upstairs
together.  They had only just got back in their room
when the front-door bell rang once more.
</p>

<p>
"'Now, whoever can that be?' Mrs. Tufnell exclaimed.
</p>

<p>
"'Don't trouble, aunt,' Ann said with alacrity.  'I'll
run down and see.'  Which she did.  Again it was
some time before she came back, and when she did
get back to her room, she seemed rather breathless and
agitated.
</p>

<p>
"'Some one for Mr. Jessup,' she said in answer to
Mrs. Tufnell's rather acid remark that she had been
gone a long time.  'He kept me talking ever such a
while.  I don't think he believed me when I said
Mr. Jessup had gone.'
</p>

<p>
"'Who was it?' witness asked.
</p>

<p>
"'I don't know,' the girl replied.  'I never saw him
before.'
</p>

<p>
"'Didn't you ask his name?'
</p>

<p>
"'I did.  But he said it didn't matter&mdash;he would call
again to-morrow.'
</p>

<p>
"After that the two women sat for a little while
longer, Mrs. Tufnell sewing, and Ann still rather
restlessly turning over the pages of a magazine.  At ten
o'clock they went to bed.  And that was the end of
the day as far as the household of Mr. Jessup was
concerned.
</p>

<p>
"You may well imagine that all the amateur detectives
who were present at the inquest had made up their
minds by now that Arthur Leighton had murdered
Mr. Seton Jessup, and robbed the till both before and
after the crime.  It was a simple deduction easily
arrived at and presenting the usual features.  A flirty
minx, an enamoured young man, extravagance, greed,
opportunity, and supreme temptation.  Amongst the
public there were many who did not even think it
worth while to hear further witnesses.  To their minds
the hangman's rope was already round young Leighton's
neck.  Of course, I admit that at this point it
seemed a very clear case.  It was only after this that
complications arose and soon the investigations bristled
with difficulties.
</p>

<p><br /></p>

<h4>
§4
</h4>

<p>
"After a good deal of tedious and irrelevant evidence
had been gone through the inquest was adjourned, and
the public left the court on the tiptoe of expectation
as to what the morrow would bring.  Nor was any one
disappointed, for on the morrow the mystery deepened,
even though there was plenty of sensational evidence
for newspaper reporters to feed on.
</p>

<p>
"The police, it seems, had brought forward a very
valuable witness in the person of the point policeman,
who was on duty from eight o'clock onwards on the
evening of the sixteenth at the corner of Clerkenwell
Road and Fulton Gardens.  No. 13 is only a few yards
up the street.  The man had stated, it seems, that soon
after half-past eight he had seen a man come along
Fulton Gardens from the direction of Holborn, go up
to the front door of No. 13 and ring the bell.  He was
admitted after a minute or two, and he stayed in the
house about half an hour.  It was a dark night, and
there was a slight drizzle; the witness could not swear
to the man's identity.  He was slight and of middle
height, and walked like a young man.  When he arrived
he wore a bowler hat and no overcoat, but when he
came out again he had an overcoat on and a soft
grey hat, and carried the bowler in his hand.  Witness
noticed as he walked away up Fulton Gardens towards
Finsbury this time he took off the soft hat, slipped it
into the pocket of his overcoat, and put on the bowler.
About ten minutes later, not more, another visitor
called at No. 13.  He also was slight and tallish, and
he wore an overcoat and a bowler hat.  He turned into
Fulton Gardens from Clerkenwell Road, but on the
opposite corner to the one where witness was standing.
He rang the bell and was admitted, and stayed about
twenty minutes.  He walked away in the direction of
Holborn.  Witness would not undertake to identify
either of these two visitors; he had not been close
enough to them to see their faces, and there was a
good deal of fog that night as well as the drizzle.
There was nothing suspicious looking about either of
the men.  They had walked quite openly up to the
front door, rung the bell, and been admitted.  The
only thing that had struck the constable as queer was
the way the first visitor had changed hats when he
walked away.
</p>

<p>
"Witness swore positively that no one else had gone
in or out of No. 13 that night except those two visitors.
How important this evidence was you will understand
presently.
</p>

<p>
"After this young Tufnell was called.  He was a
shy-looking fellow, with a nervous manner altogether out
of keeping with his dark expressive eyes&mdash;eyes which
he had obviously inherited from his mother and which
gave him a foreign as well as a romantic appearance.
He was said to be musical and to be a talented amateur
actor.  Every one agreed, it seems, that he had always
been a very good son to his mother until his love for
Ann Weber had absorbed all his thoughts and most
of his screw.  He explained that he was junior clerk
to Mr. Jessup, and as far as he knew had always given
satisfaction.  On the sixteenth he had also noticed
that the guv'nor was not quite himself.  He appeared
unusually curt and irritable with everybody.  Witness
had not been in the house all the evening.  When his
mother told him that neither she nor Ann could go
to the cinema with him he went off by himself, and
after the show he went straight back to his digs near
the Alexandra Palace.  He only heard of the tragedy
when he arrived at the office as usual on the morning
of the seventeenth.  His evidence would have seemed
uninteresting and unimportant but for the fact that
while he gave it he glanced now and again in the
direction where Ann Weber sat beside her aunt.  It seemed
as if he were all the time mutely asking for her
approval of what he was saying, and presently when the
coroner asked him whether he knew the cause of his
employer's irritability, he very obviously looked at Ann
before he finally said: 'No, sir, I don't!'
</p>

<p>
"After that Ann Weber was called.  Of course it
had been clear all along that she was by far the most
important witness in this mysterious case, and when
she rose from her place, looking very trim and neat
in her navy-blue coat and skirt, with a jaunty little
hat pulled over her left eye, and wearing long amber
earrings that gave her pretty face a piquant expression,
every one settled down comfortably to enjoy the
sensation of the afternoon.
</p>

<p>
"Ann, who was thoroughly self-possessed, answered
the coroner's preliminary questions quite glibly, and
when she was asked to relate what occurred at No. 13,
Fulton Gardens on the night of the sixteenth, she
plunged into her story without any hesitation or trace
of nervousness.
</p>

<p>
"'At about half-past eight,' she said, 'or it may have
been later&mdash;I won't swear as to the time&mdash;there was a
ring at the front-door bell.  I was down in the pantry,
and as I came upstairs I heard the office door being
opened.  When I got into the passage I saw Mr. Jessup
standing in the doorway of the office.  He had his
spectacles on his nose, and a pen in his hand.  He looked
as if he had just got up from his desk.'
</p>

<p>
"'"If that's young Leighton," he said to me, "tell him
I'll see him to-morrow.  I can't be bothered now."  Then
he went back into the office and shut the door.
</p>

<p>
"'I opened the door to Mr. Leighton,' witness
continued, 'and he came in looking very cold and wet.  I
told him that Mr. Jessup didn't want to see him
to-night.  He seemed very pleased at this, but he wouldn't
go away, and when I told him I was busy he said that
I couldn't be so unkind as to turn a fellow out into
the rain without giving him a drink.  Now I could see
that already Mr. Leighton he'd had a bit too much, and
I told him so quite plainly.  But there! he wouldn't
take "No" for an answer, and as it really was jolly
cold and damp I told him to go and sit down in the
servants' hall while I got him a hot toddy.  I went
down into the kitchen and put the kettle on and cut a
couple of sandwiches.  I don't know where Mr. Leighton
was during that time or what he was doing.  I
was in the kitchen some time, because I couldn't get
the kettle to boil as the fire had gone down and we
have no gas downstairs.  When I took the tray into
the servants' hall Mr. Leighton was there, and again
I told him that I didn't think he ought to have any
more whisky, but he only laughed, and was rather
impudent, so I just put the tray down, and then I thought
that I would run upstairs and see if Mr. Jessup wanted
anything.  I was rather surprised when I got to the hall
to see that all the lights up the stairs had been turned
off.  There's a switch down in the hall that turns off
the lot.  The whole house looked very dark.  There
was but a very little light that came from the lamp
at the other end of the hall, near the front door.  I
was just thinking that I would turn on the lights again
when I saw what I could have sworn was Mr. Jessup
coming out of his office.  He had already got his hat
and coat on, and when he came out of the office he
shut the door and turned the key in the lock, just as
Mr. Jessup always did.  It never struck me for a
moment that it could be anybody but him.  Though
it was dark, I recognised his hat and his overcoat,
and his own way of turning the key.  I spoke to him,'
witness continued in answer to a question put to her
by the coroner, 'but he didn't reply; he just went
straight through the hall and out by the front door.
Then after a bit Mr. Leighton came up, and I told
him Mr. Jessup had gone.  He was quite pleased, and
stopped talking in the hall for a moment, and then
aunt called to me and Mr. Leighton went away.'
</p>

<p>
"Witness was then questioned as to the other visitor
who called later that same evening, but she stated that
she had no idea who it was.  'He came about nine,'
she explained, 'and I went down to open the door.
He kept me talking ever such a time, asking all sorts
of silly questions; I didn't know how to get rid of
him, and he wouldn't leave his name.  He said he
would call again and that it didn't matter.'
</p>

<p>
"Ann Weber here gave the impression that the
unknown visitor had stopped for a flirtation with her
on the doorstep, and her smirking and pert glances
rather irritated the coroner.  He pulled her up sharply
by putting a few straight questions to her.  He wanted
to pin her down to a definite statement as to the time
when (1) she opened the door to Mr. Leighton, (2) she
saw what she thought was Mr. Jessup go out of the
house, and (3) the second visitor arrived.  Though
doubtful as to the exact time, Ann was quite sure
that the three events occurred in the order in which
she had originally related, and in this she was, of
course, corroborating the evidence of the point
policeman.  But there was the mysterious contradiction.
Ann Weber swore that Mr. Leighton followed her up
from the servants' hall just after she had seen the
mysterious individual go out by the front door.  On the
other hand, she couldn't swear what happened while
she was busy in the kitchen getting the hot toddy for
Mr. Leighton.  She had been trying to make the fire
burn up, and had rattled coals and fire-irons.  She
certainly had not heard any one using the telephone,
which was in the office, and she did not know where
Mr. Leighton was during that time.
</p>

<p>
"Nor would she say what was in her mind when
first she saw her employer lying dead over the desk
and exclaimed: 'My God!  He has killed him!'  And
when the coroner pressed her with questions she burst
into tears.  Except for this her evidence had, on the
whole, been given with extraordinary self-possession.
It was a terrible ordeal for a girl to have to stand up
before a jury and, roughly speaking, to swear away
the character of a man with whom she had been on
intimate terms....  The character, did I say?  I might
just as well have said the life, because whatever doubts
had lurked in the public mind about Arthur Leighton's
guilt, or at least complicity in the crime, those doubts
were dispelled by the girl's evidence.  For I need not
tell you, I suppose, that every man present that second
day at the inquest had already made up his mind that
Ann Weber was lying to save her sweetheart.  No one
believed in the mysterious impersonator of Mr. Jessup.
It was Arthur Leighton, they argued, who had murdered
his employer and robbed the till, and Ann Weber
knew it and had invented the story in order to drag
a red herring across the trail.
</p>

<p>
"I must say that the man himself did not make a
good impression when he was called in his turn.  As
he stepped forward with a swaggering air, and a bold
glance at coroner and jury, the interest which he
aroused was not a kindly one.  He was rather a
vulgar-looking creature, with a horsey get-up, high collar,
stock-tie, fancy waistcoat, and so on.  His hair was
of a ginger colour, his eyes light, and his face tanned.
Every one noticed that he winked at Ann Weber when
he caught her eye, and also that the girl immediately
averted her glance and almost imperceptibly shrugged
her shoulders.  Thereupon Leighton frowned and very
obviously swore under his breath.
</p>

<p>
"Questioned as to his doings on the sixteenth, he
admitted that 'the guv'nor had been waxy with him,
because,' as he put it with an indifferent swagger,
'there were a few pounds missing from the till.'  He
also admitted that he had not been looking forward
to the evening's interview, but that he had not dared
refuse to come.  In order to kill time, and to put heart
into himself, he had gone with a couple of friends to
the Café Royal in Regent Street, and they all had
whiskies and sodas till it was time for him to go to
Fulton Gardens.  His friends were to wait for him
until he returned, when they intended to have supper
together.  Witness then went to Fulton Gardens and
saw Ann Weber, who told him that the guv'nor didn't
wish to see him.  This, according to his own picturesque
language, was a little bit of all right.  He stayed
for a few minutes talking to Ann, and she gave him
a hot toddy.  He certainly didn't think he had stayed
as long as half an hour, but then, when a fellow was
talking to a pretty girl ... eh? ... what? ...
</p>

<p>
"The coroner curtly interrupted his fatuous
explanations by asking him at what time he had left his
friends, and at what time he had met them again
subsequently.  Witness was not very sure; he thought he
left the Café Royal about half-past eight, but it might
have been earlier or later.  He took a bus to the
bottom of Fulton Gardens.  It was beastly cold and
wet, and he was very grateful to Ann for giving him a
hot drink.  He denied that he had been drinking too
much, or that he had demanded the hot drink.  It
was Ann Weber who had offered to get it for him.
Jolly pretty girl, Annie-bird, and not shy.  Witness
concluded his evidence by swearing positively that he
had waited in the servants' hall all the while that Ann
Weber got him the toddy; he had followed her down,
and not gone upstairs or seen anything of Mr. Jessup
all the time he was in the house.  When he left Fulton
Gardens he tried to get a bus back to Regent Street,
but many of them were full and it was rather late
before he got back to the Café Royal.
</p>

<p>
"It was very obvious that as the coroner continued
to put question after question to him, Arthur Leighton
became vaguely conscious of the feeling of hostility
towards him which had arisen in the public mind.  He
lost something of his swagger, and his face under the
tan took on a greyish hue.  From time to time he
glanced at Ann Weber, but she obstinately looked
another way.
</p>

<p>
"Undoubtedly he felt that he was caught in a
network of damnatory evidence which he was unable to
combat.  The day ended, however, with another
adjournment; the police wanted a little more time before
taking drastic action.  The public so often blame them
for being in too great a hurry to fasten an accusation
on the flimsiest grounds that one is pleased to record
such a noteworthy instance when they really did not
leave a single stone unturned before they arrested
Arthur Leighton on the charge of murder.  They did
everything they could to find some proof of the
existence and identity of the individual whom Ann Weber
professed to have seen while Leighton was still in the
house.  But all their efforts in that direction came to
naught, whilst Leighton himself denied having had an
accomplice just as strenuously as he did his own
guilt.
</p>

<p>
"He was brought up before the magistrate, charged
with the terrible crime.  No one, the police argued,
had so strong a motive for the crime or such an
opportunity.  Alternatively, no one else could have
admitted the mysterious impersonator of Mr. Jessup into
the house, the accomplice who did the deed, whilst
Leighton engaged Ann Weber's attention, always
supposing that he did exist, which was never proved, and
which the evidence of the police constable refuted.
People who dabbled in spiritualism and that sort of
thing were pleased to think that the mysterious
personage whom the housemaid saw was the ghost of poor
old Jessup, who was then lying murdered in his office,
stricken by Leighton's hand.  But even the most
psychic-minded individual was unable to give a
satisfactory explanation for the ghost having changed
hats while he walked away from that fateful No. 13.
</p>

<p>
"Altogether the question of hats played an important
role in the drama of Leighton's arrest and final
discharge.  The magistrate did not commit him for trial,
because the case for the prosecution collapsed
suddenly like a pack of cards.  It was the question of
hats that saved Leighton's neck from the hangman's
rope.  You remember, perhaps, that in his evidence
he had stated that before starting to interview his
irate employer he had been with some friends at the
Café Royal in Regent Street, and that subsequently he
met these friends there for supper.  Well, although
it appeared impossible to establish definitely the time
when Leighton left the Café Royal to go to Fulton
Gardens, there were two or three witnesses prepared
to swear that he was back again at a quarter to ten.
Now this was very important.  It seems that his
friends, who were waiting at the Café Royal, were
getting impatient, and at twenty minutes to ten by the
clock one of them&mdash;a fellow named Richard Hurrill&mdash;said
he would go outside and see if he could see
anything of Leighton.  He strolled on as far as Piccadilly
Circus where the buses stop that come from the City,
and a minute or two later he saw Leighton step out
of one.  He seemed a little fuzzy in the head, and
Hurrill chaffed him a bit.  Then he took him by the
arm and led him back in triumph to the Café Royal.
</p>

<p>
"Now mark what followed," the funny creature went
on, whilst all at once his fingers started working away
as if for dear life on his bit of string.  "A hat&mdash;a soft
grey hat&mdash;with an overcoat wrapped round it, were
found in the area of a derelict house in Blackhorse
Road, Walthamstow, close to the waterworks, and
identified as the late Mr. Seton Jessup's overcoat and
hat.  I don't suppose that you have the least idea
where Blackhorse Road, Walthamstow, is, but let
me tell you that it is at the back of beyond in the
northeast of London.  If you remember, the point
policeman had stated that the first visitor had called
at No. 13 Fulton Gardens at half-past eight, and
stayed half an hour.  He then walked away in the
direction of Finsbury.  That visitor, the police argued,
was Arthur Leighton, who had murdered Mr. Jessup
and sent the telephone message to Fitzjohn's Avenue;
then, hearing Ann Weber moving about downstairs and
frightened at being caught by her, he had put on the
deceased's hat and coat and slipped out of the house.
Ann, however, had recognised him.  She had
involuntarily given him away when the housekeeper asked
her whom she was talking to, so she invented the
story of having seen what she thought was Mr. Jessup
in order to save her sweetheart.
</p>

<p>
"It was a logical theory enough, but here came the
evidence of the hat.  The man who walked away from
Fulton Gardens at nine o'clock, whom the point
policeman saw changing his hat in the street at that hour,
could not possibly have gone all the way to Walthamstow,
either by bus or even part of the way in a
taxi, and back again to Piccadilly Circus all in the
space of forty-five minutes.  And Leighton, mind you,
stepped out of a bus when his friend met him, and I
can tell you that the police worked their hardest to
find a taxi-man who may have picked up a fare that
night in the neighbourhood of Clerkenwell and driven
out to Walthamstow and then back to Holborn.  That
search proved entirely fruitless.  On the other hand,
Leighton had paid his bus fare from Holborn, and
the conductor vaguely recollected that he had got in
at the corner of Clerkenwell Road.  Well, that being
proved, the man couldn't have done in the time all
that the prosecution declared that he did.
</p>

<p>
"After he was discharged, the Press started violently
abusing the police for not having directed their attention
to the second visitor who called at Fulton Gardens
ten minutes or so after the first one had left.  But this
person appeared as elusive and intangible as the
mysterious wearer of Mr. Jessup's hat and coat.  The
point policeman saw him in the distance, and Ann
Weber admitted him into the house and chatted with
him for over twenty minutes.  She didn't know him,
but she declared that she could easily recognise him
if she saw him again.  For some time after that the
poor girl was constantly called upon by the police to
see, and if possible identify, the mysterious visitor.
Half the shady characters in London passed, I believe,
before her eyes during the next three months.  But
this search proved as fruitless as the other.  The
murder of Mr. Seton Jessup has remained as complete
and as baffling a mystery as any in the annals
of crime.  Many there are&mdash;you amongst the number&mdash;who
firmly believe that Arthur Leighton had, at any
rate, something to do with it.  I know that the family
of the deceased were convinced that he did.  Mr. Aubrey
Jessup, the eldest son of the deceased, who
was one of the executors under his father's will, and
who had gone through the accounts of the business,
had noted certain irregularities in Leighton's books; he
also declared that various sums which had come in on
the sixteenth after banking hours were missing from
the safe.  Moreover, young Leighton himself had
admitted that 'the guv'nor was waxy with him because a
few pounds were missing from the till.'  All these facts
no doubt had influenced the police when they applied
for a warrant for his arrest, but there was no getting
away from the evidence of that hat and coat found ten
miles and more away from the scene of the crime,
and of the bus conductor who could swear that out
of forty-five minutes which the accused had to account
for he had spent twenty in a bus."
</p>

<p>
"It is all very mysterious," I put in, because my
eccentric friend had been silent for quite a long time,
while his attention was entirely taken up by the
fashioning of a whole series of intricate knots.  "I am
afraid that I was one of those who blamed the police
for not directing their investigations sooner in the
direction of the second visitor.  He seems to me much
more mysterious than the first.  We know who the
first one was&mdash;&mdash;"
</p>

<p>
"Do we?" he retorted with a chuckle.  "Or rather,
do you?"
</p>

<p>
"Well, of course, it was Arthur Leighton," I
rejoined impatiently.  "Mrs. Tufnell saw him&mdash;&mdash;"
</p>

<p>
"She didn't," he broke in quickly.  "The house was
pitch-dark; she heard voices and she asked Ann
whether she was speaking to Mr. Leighton."
</p>

<p>
"And Ann said yes!" I riposted.
</p>

<p>
"She said yes," he admitted with an irritating
smile.
</p>

<p>
"And Leighton himself in his evidence&mdash;&mdash;"
</p>

<p>
"Leighton in his evidence," the funny creature broke
in excitedly, "admitted that he had called at the house,
he admitted that he remembered vaguely that Ann
Weber told him that Mr. Jessup had decided not to
see him, and that to celebrate the occasion he got the
girl to make him a whisky toddy.  But, apart from
these facts, he only had the haziest notions as to the
time when he came and when he left or how long
he stayed.  Nor were his precious friends at the Café
Royal any clearer on that point.  They had all of them
been drinking, and only had the haziest notion of time
until twenty minutes to ten, when they got hungry
and wanted their supper."
</p>

<p>
"But what does that prove?" I argued with an
impatient frown.
</p>

<p>
"It proves that my contention is correct; that the
first visitor was not Leighton, that it was some one
for whom Ann Weber cared more than she did for
Leighton, as she lied for his sake when she told her
aunt that she was speaking to Leighton in the hall.
The whole thing occurred just as the police supposed.
The first visitor called, and while Ann Weber was
down in the kitchen getting him something to eat and
drink, he entered the office, probably not with any
evil intention, and saw his employer sitting at his
desk with the safe containing a quantity of loose cash
invitingly open.  Let us be charitable and assume
that he yielded to sudden temptation.  Mr. Jessup's
coat, hat, and stick were lying there on a chair.  The
stick was one of those heavily-weighted ones which
men like to carry nowadays.  He seizes the stick and
strikes the old man on the head with it, then he collects
the money from the safe and thrusts it into his pockets.
At that moment Ann Weber comes up the stairs.  I
say that this man was her lover; she had returned to
him, as she did once before.  Imagine her horror first,
and then her desire&mdash;her mad desire&mdash;to save him
from the consequences of his crime.  It is her woman's
wit which first suggests the idea of telephoning to
Fitzjohn's Avenue: she who thinks of plunging the
house in darkness.  And now to get the criminal out
of the house.  It can be done in a moment, but just
then Mrs. Tufnell opens her door on the second floor
and begins to grope her way downstairs.  It is
impossible to think quickly enough how to meet this
situation.  Instinct is the only guide, and instinct
suggests impersonating the deceased, to avoid the danger
of Mrs. Tufnell peeping in at the office door.  The
criminal hastily dons his victim's hat and coat, and he
is almost through the hall when Mrs. Tufnell calls to
Ann: 'Is it Mr. Leighton?'  And Ann on the impulse
of the moment replies: 'Yes, it is!  He is just going.'  And
so the criminal escapes unseen.  But there is still
the danger of Mrs. Tufnell peeping in at the office
door, so Ann invents the story of having seen
Mr. Jessup walk out of the house some time before.  So
for the moment danger is averted; the housekeeper
does peep in at the door, but only in order to satisfy
herself that the lights are out; and the women then
go upstairs together.
</p>

<p>
"Ten minutes later there is another ring at the
bell.  This time it is Arthur Leighton, and Ann Weber
has sufficient presence of mind not to let him see that
there is anything wrong in the house.  She asks him
in, she tells him Mr. Jessup cannot see him, she gets
him a drink, and sends him off again.  I don't suppose
for a moment that at this stage she has any intention
of using him as a shield for her present sweetheart;
but undoubtedly the thought had by now crept into
her mind to utilise Leighton's admitted presence in the
house for the purpose of confusing the issues.  Nor
do I think that she had any idea that night that
Mr. Jessup was dead.  She probably thought that he had
only been stunned by a blow from the stick; hence
her exclamation when she realised the truth: 'My God,
he has killed him!'  Then only did she concentrate
all her energies and all her wits to saving her
sweetheart&mdash;even at the cost of another man.  Women
are like that sometimes," the Old Man in the
Corner went on with a chuckle, "the instinct of the
primitive woman is first of all to save her man, never
mind at whose expense.  The cave-man's instinct is to
protect his woman with his fists&mdash;but she, conscious
of physical weakness, sets her wits to work, and if
her man is in serious danger she will lie and she will
cheat&mdash;ay, and perjure herself if need be.  And those
flirtatious minxes, of which Annie-bird is a striking
example, are only cave-women with a veneer of
civilisation over them.
</p>

<p>
"She did save her man by dragging a red herring
across his trail, and she left Fate to deal with
Leighton.  Once embarked on a system of lies she had to
stick to it or her man was doomed.  Fortunately she
could rely on the other woman.  A mother's wits are
even sharper than those of a sweetheart."
</p>

<p>
"A mother?" I ejaculated.  "Then you think that
it was&mdash;&mdash;?"
</p>

<p>
"Mark Tufnell, of course," he broke in, dryly.
"Didn't you guess?  As he could not go with his
beloved to the cinema he thought he would spend a
happy evening with her.  What made him originally
go into the office we shall never know.  Some trifle
no doubt, some message for his employer&mdash;it is those
sorts of trifles that so often govern the destinies of
men.  Personally I think that he was very much in
the same boat as young Leighton: some trifling
irregularities in his accounts.  The deceased, speaking so
harshly to Mrs. Tufnell that night, first directed my
attention to young Tufnell.  He didn't want to see any
of them that night: he was irritated with Mark quite
as much as with Leighton, but out of consideration
for the housekeeper whom he valued he said little
about her son.  Perhaps he had ordered the young
man to come to his office; as I said just now, this little
point I cannot vouch for.  But if I have not succeeded
in convincing you that the first visitor at No. 13, Fulton
Gardens was Mark Tufnell, that it was he who went
out in Mr. Jessup's hat and overcoat, changed hats in
the street, and wandered out as far as Walthamstow
in order to be rid of the <i>pièces de conviction</i>, then you
are less intelligent than I have taken you to be.  Mark
Tufnell, remember, lives in the north of London; he
was supposed to have gone to the cinema that night,
therefore the people with whom he lodged thought
nothing of his coming home late."
</p>

<p>
"That poor mother!" I ejaculated, "I wonder if
she suspects the truth."
</p>

<p>
"She knows it," the funny creature said, "you may
be sure of that.  There was a bond of understanding
between those two women, and they never once
contradicted each other in their evidence.  A worthless
young blackguard has been saved from the gallows;
my sympathy is not with him, but with the women
who put up such a brave fight for his sake."
</p>

<p>
"Do you know what happened to them all
subsequently?" I asked.
</p>

<p>
"Not exactly.  But I do know that Mr. Seton Jessup
in his will left his housekeeper an annuity of £50.  I
also know that young Tufnell has gone out to
Australia, and that if you ever dine with a friend at the
Alcyon Club you will notice an exceptionally pretty
waitress who will make eyes at all the men.  Her name
is Ann Weber!"
</p>

<p><br /><br /><br /></p>

<p><a id="chap13"></a></p>

<h3>
XIII
<br /><br />
A MOORLAND TRAGEDY
</h3>

<p><br /></p>

<h4>
§1
</h4>

<p>
The Old Man in the Corner had finished his
glass of milk and ceased to munch his bun;
from the capacious pocket of his huge tweed
coat he extracted a piece of string, and for a while sat
contemplating it, with his head on one side, so like one
of those bald-headed storks at the Zoo.
</p>

<p>
"I always had a great predilection for that mystery,"
he said <i>à propos</i> of nothing at all.  "It still
fascinates me."
</p>

<p>
"What mystery?" I asked; but as usual he took no
notice of my question.
</p>

<p>
"It was more romantic than the common crimes
of to-day; in fact, I don't know if you will agree
with me, but to me it has quite an eighteenth-century
atmosphere about it."
</p>

<p>
"If you were to tell me to what particular crime
you refer," I said coldly, "I might tell you whether
I agree with you or not."
</p>

<p>
He looked at me as if he thought me an idiot, then
he rejoined dryly:
</p>

<p>
"You don't mean to say that you have never thought
of the Moorland Tragedy!"
</p>

<p>
"Yes," I said, "often!"
</p>

<p>
"And don't you think that the story is as romantic
as any you have read in fiction recently?"
</p>

<p>
"Yes, I do think that the story is romantic, but
only because of its <i>mise en scène</i>.  The same thing
might have occurred in a London slum, and then it
would have been merely sordid.  Of course, it is all
very mysterious, and I, for one, have often wondered
what has become of that Italian&mdash;I forget his name."
</p>

<p>
"Antonio Vissio.  A queer creature, wasn't he?  And
we can well imagine with what suspicion he was
regarded by the yokels in the neighbouring villages.
Yorkshire yokels!  Just think of them in connection
with an exotic creature like Vissio.  He had a curious
history, too.  His people owned a little farm somewhere
in the mountains near Santa Catarina in Liguria, and
during the war an English intelligence officer&mdash;Captain
Arnott&mdash;lodged with them for a time.  They were, it
seems, extraordinarily kind to him.  The family
consisted of a widow, two daughters, and the son,
Antonio.  As he was the only son of a widow, he was,
of course, exempt from military service, and helped
his mother to look after the farm.  His passion,
however&mdash;and one, by the way, which is very common to
Italian peasants&mdash;was shooting.  There is very little
game in that part of Italy, and it means long tramps
before you can get as much as a rabbit or a partridge;
but there was nothing that Antonio loved more than
those tramps with a gun and a dog, and when Captain
Arnott had leisure, the two of them would go off
together at daybreak and never return till late at
night.
</p>

<p>
"Some time in 1917 Captain Arnott was transferred
to another front.  He got his majority the following
year, and after the war he retired with the rank of
Lieut.-Colonel.  He hadn't seen the Vissio family for
some time, but he always retained the happiest
recollections of their kindness to him, and of Antonio's
pleasant companionship.  It was not to be wondered
at, therefore, that when, in 1919, that terrible
explosion occurred at the fort of Santa Catarina, which was
only distant a quarter of a mile from the Vissios' farm,
Colonel Arnott should at once think of his friends, and,
as he happened to be at Genoa on business at the time,
he motored over to Santa Catarina to see if he could
ascertain anything of their fate.  He found the village
a complete devastation, the isolated farms for miles
around nothing but masses of wreckage.  I don't know
how many people&mdash;men, women, and children&mdash;had
been killed, there were over two hundred injured, and
those who had escaped were herding together amongst
the ruins of their homes.  It was only by dint of
perseverance and the exercise of an iron will that Captain
Arnott succeeded at last in finding Antonio Vissio.
There was nothing left of the farm but dust and ashes.
The mother and one of the girls had been killed by
the falling in of the roof, and the younger daughter
was being taken care of by some sisters in a
neighbouring convent which had escaped total destruction.
</p>

<p>
"Antonio was left in the world all alone, homeless,
moneyless; Italy is not like England, where at times
of disaster money comes pouring at once out of the
pockets of the much-abused capitalists to help the
unfortunate.  There was no money poured out to help
poor Antonio and his kindred.
</p>

<p>
"Colonel Arnott was deeply moved at sight of the
man's loneliness.  He worked hard to try and get him
a job in England, right away from the scenes of the
disaster that must perpetually have awakened bitter
memories.  Finally he succeeded.  A friend of his,
Lord Crookhaven, who owned considerable property
in the North Riding, agreed to take Vissio as assistant
to one of his gamekeepers, a fellow named William
Topcoat.  Of course this was an ideal life for
Antonio.  He could indulge his passion for shooting to
his heart's content, and, incidentally, he would learn
something of the science of preserving, and of the game
laws as they exist in all the sporting countries.
</p>

<p>
"I don't suppose that Antonio ever realised quite
how unpopular he was from the first in his new
surroundings.  The Yorkshire yokels looked upon him as a
dago, and the fact that he had not fought in the war
did not help matters.  During the first six months he
did not speak a word of English, and even after he
had begun to pick up a sentence or two, he always
remained unsociable.  To begin with, he didn't drink:
he hated beer and said so; he didn't understand cricket,
and was bored with football.  He didn't bet, and he
was frightened of horses.  All that he cared for was
his gun; but he went about his work not only
conscientiously, but intelligently, took great interest in the
rearing of young birds, and was particularly successful
with them.
</p>

<p>
"After he had been in England a year he fell madly
in love with Winnie Gooden.  And that is how the
tragedy began.
</p>

<p><br /></p>

<h4>
§2
</h4>

<p>
"An Italian peasant's idea of love is altogether
different to that of an English yokel.  The latter will
begin by keeping company with his sweetheart: he
will walk out with her in the twilight, and sit beside
her on the stile, chewing the end of a straw and timidly
holding her hand.  Kisses are exchanged, and sighs,
and usually no end of jokes and chaff.  On the whole
the English yokel is a cheerful lover.  Not so the
Italian.  With him love is the serious drama of life;
he is always prepared for it to turn to tragedy.  His
love is overwhelming, tempestuous.  With one arm
he fondles his sweetheart, but the other hand is behind
his back, grasping a knife.
</p>

<p>
"So it was with Antonio Vissio.  Winnie Gooden was
the daughter of one of the gardeners at Markthwaite
Hall, Lord Crookhaven's residence.  She was remarkably
pretty, and I suppose that she was attracted by
the silent, rather sullen Italian, who, by the way, was
extraordinarily good-looking.  Dark eyes, a soft
creamy skin, quantities of wavy hair; every one
admitted that the two of them made a splendid pair
when they walked out together on Sunday afternoons.
Thanks to the kindness of Colonel Arnott, Vissio had
succeeded in selling the bit of land on which his farm
had stood, so he had a good bit of money, too, and
though James Gooden, the father, was said to be averse
to the idea of his daughter marrying a foreigner, it
was thought that Winnie would talk her father over
easily enough, if she really meant to have Antonio;
but people didn't think that she was seriously in love
with him.
</p>

<p>
"During the spring of 1922 Mr. Gerald Moville came
home from Argentina, where he was said to be engaged
in cattle-rearing.  He was the youngest son of Sir
Timothy Moville, whose property adjoined that of
Lord Crookhaven.  His arrival caused quite a flutter
in feminine hearts for miles around, for smart young
men are scarce in those parts, and Gerald Moville was
both good-looking and smart, a splendid dancer, a fine
tennis and bridge player, and in fact, was possessed
of the very qualities which young ladies of all classes
admire, and which were so sadly lacking in the other
young men of the neighbourhood.  The fact that he
had always been very wild, and that it was only through
joining the Air Force at the beginning of the war that
he escaped prosecution for some shady transaction in
connection with a bridge club in London, did not
seriously stand against him, at any rate with the ladies;
the men, perhaps, cold-shouldered him at first, and
he was not made an honorary member of the County
Club at Richmond, but he was welcome at all the
tea and garden parties, the dances, and the tennis
matches throughout the North Riding, and in social
matters it is, after all, the ladies who rule the roost.
</p>

<p>
"The Movilles, moreover, were big people in the
neighbourhood, whom nobody would have cared to
offend.  The eldest son was colonel commanding a
smart regiment&mdash;I forget which; one daughter had
married an eminent K.C., and the other was the wife
of a bishop; so for the sake of the family, if for no
other reason, Gerald Moville was accepted socially and
his peccadilloes, of which it seems there were more
than the one in connection with the bridge club, were
conveniently forgotten.  Besides which it was declared
that he was now a reformed character.  He had joined
the Air Force quite early in the war, been a prisoner
of the Germans until 1919, when he went out to Argentina,
where he had made good, and where, it was said,
he was making a huge fortune.  This rumour also
helped, no doubt, to make Gerald Moville popular,
even though he himself had laughingly sworn on more
than one occasion that he was not a marrying man:
he was in love with too many girls ever to settle down
with one.  He certainly was a terrible flirt, and gave
all the pretty girls of the neighbourhood a very good
time; he had hired a smart little two-seater at
Richmond, and motor-excursions, lunches at the
Wheatsheaf at Reeth, jade earrings or wrist watches&mdash;the
girls who were ready to flirt with him and to amuse
him could get anything they wanted out of him.
</p>

<p>
"But it was soon pretty evident that though Gerald
Moville flirted with many, it was Winnie Gooden
whom he admired the most.  From the first he ran
after that girl in a way that scandalised the village
gossips.  She, of course, was flattered by his attentions,
but did not show the slightest inclination to throw
Antonio over.  She was sensible enough to know that
Gerald Moville would never marry her, and she made
it very clear that though he amused her, her heart
would remain true to her Italian lover.  But here was
the trouble.  Antonio was not the man to run in
double harness.  His fiery Southern blood rose in
revolt against any thought of rivalry.  He had won
Winnie's love and meant to hold it against all comers,
and more than once in public and in private he threatened
to do for any man who came between him and Winnie.
</p>

<p>
"You would have thought that those who were in
the know would have foreseen the tragedy from the
moment that Winnie Gooden started to flirt with
Gerald Moville; nevertheless, when it did occur there
was universal surprise quite as much as horror, and
there seemed to be no one clever enough to understand
the psychological problem that was the true key
of that so-called mystery."
</p>

<p><br /></p>

<h4>
§3
</h4>

<p>
"Lord Crookhaven's property, you must know," the
Old Man in the Corner resumed after a moment's
pause, "extends right over Markthwaite Moor, which is
a lonely stretch of country, intersected by gullies, down
which, during the heavy rains in spring and autumn,
the water rushes in torrents.  There are one or two
disused stone quarries on the moor, and, except for
the shooting season, when Lord Crookhaven has an
occasional party of sportsmen to stay with him at the
Hall, who are out after the birds all day, this stretch
of country is singularly desolate.
</p>

<p>
"Topcoat's cottage, where Vissio lodged, is on the
edge of the moor on the Markthwaite side; about a
couple of miles away to the north the moor is
intersected by the secondary road which runs from Kirkby
Stephen and joins up with the main road at Richmond,
and three or four miles again to the north of the
road is the boundary wall that divides Lord Crookhaven's
property from that of his neighbour, Sir Timothy Moville.
</p>

<p>
"It was in September, 1922, that the tragedy
occurred which made Markthwaite Moor so notorious
at the time.  Topcoat was walking across the moor
in the company of the Italian, both carrying their
guns, when about half a mile away, on the further
side of the quarry known as the Poacher's Leap, the
gamekeeper spied a man who appeared to be crouching
behind some scrub.  Without much reflection he
pointed this crouching figure out to Vissio and said:
</p>

<p>
"There's a fellow who is up to no good.  After the
birds again, the damned thief.  Run along, my lad,
and see if you can't put a shot or two into his legs.'
</p>

<p>
"Topcoat swore subsequently that when he said this
he had not recognised who the crouching figure was.
But he was a very hard man where poachers were
concerned; he had been much worried with them
lately, and a day or two ago had been reprimanded
by Lord Crookhaven for want of vigilance.  This, no
doubt, irritated his temper, and made him rather
'jumpy.'
</p>

<p>
"Vissio, with his gun on his shoulder, went off in the
direction of the Poacher's Leap.  Topcoat watched
him until a bit of sharply-rising ground hid him from
sight.  A moment or two later the crouching figure
stood up, and Topcoat recognised Mr. Gerald Moville.
He had always had exceptionally fine sight, and
Mr. Moville had certain tricks of gait and movement which
were unmistakable even at that distance.  Topcoat
immediately shouted to Vissio to come back, but
apparently the Italian did not hear him; and the last thing
that the gamekeeper saw on that eventful morning was
Mr. Moville suddenly turn and walk towards the high
bit of ground behind which Vissio had just disappeared.
</p>

<p>
"And that was the last," my eccentric neighbour
concluded with a chuckle all his own, "that has been seen
up to this hour of those two men&mdash;Mr. Gerald Moville
and Antonio Vissio.  Topcoat waited for a while on
the moor, and called to the Italian several times, but
as he heard nothing in response, and as it had started
to rain heavily, he finally went home.  Vissio did not
turn up at the cottage the whole of that day, and he
did not come home that night.  The following
morning, which was a Thursday, Topcoat walked across
to the Goodens' cottage to make enquiries, but no one
had seen the Italian, and Winnie knew nothing about
him.  The gamekeeper waited until the Saturday
before he informed the police; that, of course, was a
serious delay which ought never to have occurred, but
you have to know that class of north-country yokel
intimately to appreciate this man's conduct throughout
the affair.  They all have a perfect horror of anything
to do with the police: the type of delinquency most
frequent in these parts is, of course, poaching, and the
gamekeepers on the big estates look on themselves
as the only efficient police for those cases.  Half the
time they don't turn the delinquent over to the
magistrates at all, and administer a kind of rough justice
as they think best.  They hate police interference.
</p>

<p>
"In this case we must also bear Topcoat's subsequent
statement in mind, which was that at first no
suspicion of foul play had entered his head.  He had
not heard the report of a gun, and all he feared was
that the Italian had tried to pick a quarrel with
Mr. Moville and been soundly punished for his
impertinence, and that probably he did not dare show his
face until the trouble had blown over.  Topcoat,
however, spent a couple of days scouring the moor for
the missing man, in case he had met with an accident
and was lying somewhere unable to move.  On the
second day he found Vissio's gun lying in a gully close
to the Poacher's Leap; it had not been discharged;
and the next day&mdash;that is, on the Saturday&mdash;he very
reluctantly went to the police.  Even then he made no
mention of Mr. Gerald Moville; he only said that his
assistant, an Italian named Antonio Vissio, who lodged
with him, had not been home for three days, and that
he had last seen him on Markthwaite Moor on the
previous Wednesday carrying a gun and walking in
the direction of the Poacher's Leap.  Poachers, of
course, were at once suspected; Topcoat referred
vaguely to Vissio having gone after a man whose
movements had appeared suspicious.  He was severely
blamed for having delayed so long before informing
the police; even if the Italian had not been the victim
of foul play he might, it was argued, have met with
a serious accident, and been lying for days perhaps
with a broken leg out in the cold and wet, and might
even have perished of exposure and neglect.  But this
latter theory Topcoat would not admit.  He had
scoured the moor, he declared, from end to end; if
Vissio had been lying anywhere he swore that he would
have found him.
</p>

<p>
"Another three or four days were now spent by the
police in scouring the moor, and it was only after a
last fruitless search that Topcoat mentioned the fact
that he had seen Mr. Gerald Moville the very morning
and close to the spot where Vissio disappeared: that,
as a matter of fact, he was the man after whom the
Italian had gone, and that the two must have met
somewhere near the north end of the Poacher's Leap.
</p>

<p>
"Of course, to the general public&mdash;to you, for
instance&mdash;Topcoat's attitude of reticence all this while
must seem positively criminal; but it is useless to
measure the conduct of people of that class in remote
north-country districts by the ordinary rules of
common sense.  For a man in Topcoat's position to
connect 'one of the gentry' with the disappearance of a
gamekeeper's assistant&mdash;and a foreigner at that&mdash;would
seem as preposterous as to imagine that the
King of England would go poaching on his neighbour's
estate.  It simply couldn't be, and when the D.C.C. to
whom Topcoat first made this statement rebuked
him with unusual severity, the gamekeeper turned
sulky and declared that he didn't see he had done
anything wrong.
</p>

<p>
"More than a week you see had elapsed since that
Wednesday morning when Vissio had last been seen
alive; for the past four days the police had worked
very hard, but entirely in the dark.  Now at last they
felt that they had a glimmer of light to guide them in
their search.  The public, who had taken some interest
at first in the Moorland Mystery, was beginning
to tire of reading about this fruitless search for a
missing dago.  But now, suddenly, the mystery had
taken a sensational turn.  Topcoat's statement had
found its way into the local papers, and Mr. Gerald
Moville's name was whispered in connection with the
case.  And hardly had the lovers of sensation recovered
from this first shock of surprise, when they
received another that was even more staggering.
</p>

<p>
"Mr. Gerald Moville, it seems, had left home on the
very day that Vissio disappeared, and his people were
without news of him.  Just think what this sensational
bit of news meant!  It evoked at once in the mind of
the imaginative a drama of love and jealousy, a real
romance such as is only dreamt of in the cinema, with
an Italian dago as the jealous lover, and a handsome
young Englishman as the victim of that jealousy.  The
police, holding on to this clue, turned their attention
to the investigation of Mr. Gerald Moville's movements
on the morning of that eventful Wednesday:
they had to go very tactfully to work, so as not to
cause alarm to Sir Timothy and Lady Moville.  It
seems that Mr. Gerald had on the Monday previously
announced his sudden intention to return immediately
to Argentina.  According to statements made by one
or two of the servants, he did this at breakfast one
morning after he had received a couple of official-looking
letters that bore the Buenos Ayres postmark.
Lady Moville had been very distressed at this, and she
and Sir Timothy had tried to dissuade Mr. Gerald
from going quite so soon; but he was quite determined
to go, saying that there was some trouble at the farm
which he must see to at once or it would mean a severe
loss not only to himself, but to his partner.  He finally
announced that he would have to go up to London on
the Wednesday at latest to see about getting a berth,
if possible, in a boat that left Southampton for Buenos
Ayres the following Saturday.  Preparations for his
departure were made accordingly.  On the Tuesday
the chauffeur took his luggage to Richmond and saw
to its being sent off to London in advance.  It was
addressed to the Carlton Hotel.  On the Wednesday
Mr. Gerald had breakfast at half-past six, as he wished
to make an early start; he was going to drive the
little two-seater back to the place in Richmond whence
he had hired it, and then take the train that would
take him to Dalton in time to catch the express up
to London.  He had said good-bye to his parents the
evening before, and, having tipped all the servants
lavishly, he made a start soon after seven.
</p>

<p>
"Two labourers going to their work saw the little car
speeding along the road that intersects the moor;
according to their statement there were two people in
the car, a man and a woman.  They thought that
the man who was driving might have been Mr. Moville,
but the woman had on a thick veil and they had not
particularly noticed who she was.  On the other hand,
one witness had seen the car standing unattended on
the roadside within a hundred yards of a group of
cottages, one of which was occupied by Gooden.
Whereupon Winnie was taken to task by the police.
Amidst a flood of tears she finally confessed that she
had seen Mr. Moville on the Wednesday morning.  He
had called for her in his car very early; her father
had only just gone to work, so it could not have been
much later than seven o'clock; he told her that he
had some business to attend to in Richmond, would
she like to come for a run and have lunch there with
him.  To this she willingly assented.  On the way
Mr. Moville told her that as a matter of fact he was
going away for good, and that he could not possibly
live without her.  He begged her to come away with
him; he would take her to London first, and buy her
everything she wanted in the way of clothes, and then
they would go on to Paris, and travel all over the world
and be the happiest couple on this earth.
</p>

<p>
"It seems that the girl at first was carried away
by his eloquence; she was immensely flattered and
thrilled by this romantic adventure, until something he
said, or didn't say, some expression or some
gesture&mdash;Winnie couldn't say what it was&mdash;but something
seemed to drag her back.  Probably it was just sound
Yorkshire common sense.  Anyway, she took fright,
turned a deaf ear to Gerald Moville's blandishments,
and insisted on being taken back to her father's cottage
at once.  Still to the accompaniment of a flood of
tears Winnie went on to say that Mr. Gerald 'carried
on terribly' when she finally refused to go away with
him, and he reproached her bitterly for having played
with him, all the while that she was in love with that
'dirty dago.'  But Winnie was firm, and in the end
the disappointed lover had to turn the car back and
take the girl home again.  It was then close upon nine
o'clock.  Mr. Gerald drove her to within half a mile
of her father's cottage; here she got out and walked
the rest of the way home.  She had not seen Mr. Moville
since; on the other hand, one of the neighbours
told her that soon after she went off in the car
that morning, Antonio Vissio had called at the cottage,
and seemed in a terrible way when he was told that
she had gone out with Mr. Moville.
</p>

<p>
"As you see the mystery was deepening.  Instead
of the one missing man, there were now two who had
disappeared, and the question was what had become
of Mr. Gerald Moville and his car.  Enquiries at the
garage where it belonged brought no light upon the
subject.  The car had not been returned, and nothing
had been seen in Richmond of Mr. Moville or the car.
Enquiries were then telegraphed all over the place, and
twenty-four hours later the car was traced to a small
place called Falconblane, which is about twelve miles
from Paisley, where it was left at a garage late on the
Wednesday night by a man who had never since been
to claim it.  The people at the garage could only give
a vague description of this man.  It was about eleven
o'clock, a very dark night, and just upon closing time.
The man wore a big motor coat and a cap with flaps
over the ears; he had on a pair of goggles, and the
lower part of his face looked coated with grime.  It
would be next to impossible to swear to his identity,
but the assistant who took charge of the car said that
the man spoke broken English.
</p>

<p>
"The police searched the car and found a hand-bag
containing a number of effects, such as a man would
take with him if he was going on a long train journey:
brush and comb, a novel, a couple of handkerchiefs,
and so on.  Some of these effects bore the initials
'G.M.'
</p>

<p>
"Pursuing their investigations further, the police
discovered that a man wearing a big motor coat, goggles,
and a cap with flap ears had taken a first-class ticket
for Glasgow at Beith, which is a small place on a local
branch line, in the early morning of Thursday, and
had travelled to Glasgow by the 7.05 a.m.  Glasgow
being a very busy terminus, no one appears to have
noticed him there, but one of the porters found a motor
coat, a cap, and a pair of goggles in one of the
first-class carriages on the local from Beith, and a certain
Mr. Etty, who was a gentleman's outfitter in the Station
Road, stated that he had a customer in his shop
early on Thursday morning who purchased a tweed
cap and an overcoat off the peg.  He had come in
without either hat or coat, his face and hands were
black with grime, and his hair looked covered with
coal dust.  He explained that he was an engineer who
had been engaged all night on some salvage work down
the line where there had been a breakdown, and that
he had somehow lost his coat and his cap.  He paid
for the goods with a five-pound note, which he took
from a case out of his pocket, and the case appeared
to be bulging over with notes.  Mr. Etty thought that
he might possibly be able to identify the man if he saw
him again; one thing he did note about him, and that
was that he spoke broken English.
</p>

<p>
"But from that moment, in spite of strenuous efforts
on the part of the police, all traces of the man with
the dirty face, who spoke broken English, vanished
completely.  And what's more, all trace of Mr. Gerald
Moville had also vanished.  He did not go up to
London, and all this while his luggage was at the
Carlton Hotel waiting to be claimed.  Nor was it ever
claimed by him, because about a month after that
tragic Wednesday in September the body of Mr. Gerald
Moville was found in a 'gruff' or gully about
three-quarters of a mile from the Poacher's Leap.  When I
say that the body was found, I am wrong, for it was
only a part of the body, and that, of course, was
completely decomposed.  The head was missing, and it
was never found, in spite of the most strenuous efforts
on the part of professional and amateur detectives,
and lavish expenditure of money, thought, and trouble
on the part of Sir Timothy Moville.  It lies buried,
I imagine, somewhere on the moor.  The clothes,
though sodden, were, however, still recognisable, also
the unfortunate man's wrist watch which had stopped
at five minutes past eleven, his cuff-links, and his signet
ring, which had fallen from his fleshless finger and lay
beside it in the 'gruff.'
</p>

<p>
"And about seventy yards higher up the gully a
search party found a knife of obviously foreign make,
which still bore certain stains, which scientific analysis
proved to be human blood.  That knife was identified
by Topcoat as the property of Vissio."
</p>

<p><br /></p>

<h4>
§4
</h4>

<p>
The Old Man in the Corner had been silent for a little
while, as was his habit when he reached a certain
stage of his narrative.  At such moments it always
seemed as if nothing in the world interested him, except
the fashioning of innumerable and complicated knots
in a bit of string.  It was my business to set him
talking again.
</p>

<p>
"Of course, there was an inquest after that," I said
casually.
</p>

<p>
"Yes, there was," he replied dryly, "but it revealed
nothing that the public did not already know.  A few
minor details&mdash;that was all.  For instance, it came to
light that when Mr. Moville left home on that fateful
morning he was wearing the coat, cap, and goggles
which were subsequently found in the train at Glasgow
Station.  It was easy to suppose that the murderer
had stolen these from his victim; the cap and goggles
being especially useful for purposes of disguise.  The
same supposition applies to money.  Vissio, it was
argued, had probably only a few shillings in his pocket
when in a moment of mad jealousy he killed Gerald
Moville.  That, of course, was the universally accepted
theory; it was only desperate necessity that pushed
him on to robbing the dead.  Topcoat and others who
knew Antonio well declared that he was quite
harmless except where Winnie Gooden was concerned; but
it was more than likely that that morning he was
tortured by one of his jealous fits.  He had hated Gerald
Moville from the first, and, according to the girl's own
admissions, she must have given him definite cause for
jealousy.  That very morning he had called at her
cottage and found that she had gone out with his rival.
Perhaps he knew that Moville was going away for
good.  Perhaps he guessed that he would try and
induce Winnie to go with him.  With such torturing
fears in his heart, what wonder that when he met his
rival on the lonely moor he 'saw red' and used his knife,
as Southerners, unfortunately, are only too apt to do?
</p>

<p>
"The coroner's jury returned a verdict of wilful
murder against Antonio Vissio, and the police hold a
warrant for his arrest.  But more than two years have
gone by since then, and Vissio has succeeded in eluding
the police.  For many weeks the public were deeply
interested in the mystery; the evening papers used to
come out with the headlines: 'Where is Antonio Vissio?'
and one great daily offered a reward of five hundred
pounds for information that would lead to his
apprehension.  But, as you know, it has all been in vain.
The public want to know how a man of unusual
personality and speaking broken English could possibly
lie <i>perdu</i> so long in this tight little island.
</p>

<p>
"And if he did leave the country, then how did he
do it?  He hadn't his passport with him, as that
remained with his effects at Topcoat's cottage.  How
then did he evade the passport officials at Glasgow or
any other port of embarkation?  It is done sometimes,
we all know that, and in this case Vissio had four
days' start before Topcoat gave information to the
police, but somehow the newspaper-reading public felt
that if Vissio got out of the country, something would
have betrayed him, some one would have seen him and
furnished the first clue that would lead to discovery.
</p>

<p>
"And so the disappearance of the Italian has been
classed as one of the unsolved mysteries in the annals
of crime.  But to me the only point on which I am
not absolutely clear (although even there I hold a
theory), is why Gerald Moville should have gone
wandering about the moor after he had parted from Winnie
Gooden, and when he hadn't very much time left to
catch his train, if he didn't want to miss his connection
at Dalton.  That point did strike Inspector Dodsworth
of the C.I.D., who had been sent down from London
to assist the local police in the investigation of the
crime.  I know Dodsworth very well, and he and I
discussed that point once or twice.  Of course, I was
not going to give him the key to the whole mystery&mdash;a
key, mind you, which I had discovered for myself&mdash;but
I didn't object to talking over one or two of the
minor details with the man, and I told him that in my
opinion Moville undoubtedly went out on the moor
in order to meet Vissio, and have it out with him on
the subject of Winnie.
</p>

<p>
"He wanted Winnie&mdash;badly&mdash;to come away with
him, and I believe that he was just the sort of man
who would think that he could bribe the Italian to
stand aside for him by offering him money.  I believe
those half-bred Spaniards and Portuguese out in
Argentina are a most corrupt and venal crowd, and
Gerald Moville classed Vissio amongst that lot.  I
have no doubt whatever in my mind that Moville was
walking across the moor to see if he couldn't find Vissio
in Topcoat's cottage.  It was obviously not for me
to tell the police that the Poacher's Leap is in a direct
line between that cottage and the place where the
two-seater was seen at a standstill on the roadside.
But Dodsworth had to admit that I was right on that
point."
</p>

<p>
"Then you think," I rejoined, "that Mr. Moville,
after he parted from Winnie Gooden, set out to seek
an interview with Antonio Vissio with a view to
entering into an arrangement with him about the girl?"
</p>

<p>
"Yes!" my eccentric friend assented with a nod.
</p>

<p>
"He wanted to bribe Vissio to stand aside for him?"
</p>

<p>
"Exactly."
</p>

<p>
"Then," I went on, "he met Vissio on the moor?"
</p>

<p>
"Yes!"
</p>

<p>
"Came out with his proposition?"
</p>

<p>
"Yes!"
</p>

<p>
"Which so enraged the Italian that he knocked the
other man down and finally knifed him in accordance
with the amiable custom of his country."
</p>

<p>
"No," the Old Man in the Corner retorted dryly, "I
didn't say that."
</p>

<p>
"But we know that the two men met and that&mdash;&mdash;"
</p>

<p>
"And that one of them was killed," he broke in
quickly.  "But that man was not Gerald Moville."
</p>

<p>
"He was seen," I argued, "at Falconblane, at Beith,
and at Glasgow.  The man with the dirty face, the
motor coat, and the goggles."
</p>

<p>
"Exactly," he broke in once more.  "The man in the
cap with the flap ears, and wearing motor goggles; the
man whose face and hair were, in addition, covered
with grime.  An excellent disguise; as it indeed proved
to be."
</p>

<p>
"But the foreign accent?  The man spoke broken
English."
</p>

<p>
"There are few things," he said with a sarcastic
smile, "that are easier to assume than broken English,
especially when only uneducated ears are there to
hear."
</p>

<p>
"Then you think&mdash;&mdash;"
</p>

<p>
"I don't think," he replied curtly, "I know.  I know
that Gerald Moville met the Italian on the moor, that
he quarrelled with him over Winnie Gooden, that he
knocked him down, and that Vissio was killed in the
fall.  I can see the whole scene as plainly as if I had
been there.  Can't you see Moville realising that he
had killed the man?&mdash;that inevitably suspicion would
fall on him?  Topcoat had seen him, witnesses had
seen his car in the road, he was known to be the
Italian's rival in Winnie's affections!  Already he could
feel the hangman's rope round his neck.  But we must
look on Gerald Moville as a man of resource, a man,
above all, up to many tricks for drawing a red herring
across the trail of his own delinquencies.  I will spare
you the details of what I can see in my own mind as
having happened after Moville had realised that Vissio
was dead: the stripping of the body, the exchange of
clothes down to the vest and shirt, the mutilation of
the corpse with the victim's own knife, and the dragging
of the body to a distant 'gruff,' where it must inevitably
remain hidden for days, until advanced decomposition
had set in to efface all identification marks.  Fear, no
doubt, lent ingenuity and strength to the miscreant;
and, as a matter of fact, Gerald Moville is one of the
few criminals who committed no appreciable blunder
when he set to work to obliterate all traces of his
crime; he left the knife with its tell-tale stains on the
spot, and that knife was identified as the property of
the Italian, and the head, which alone might have
betrayed him, even if the body were not found for weeks,
he took away with him to bury somewhere far
away&mdash;goodness only knows where, but somewhere between
Yorkshire and Scotland.
</p>

<p>
"I can see Gerald Moville after he had accomplished
his grim task making his way back to his car&mdash;the
loneliness of this stretch of country would be entirely in
his favour, more especially as it had begun to rain; I
can see him driving along putting mile upon mile
between himself and the scene of his crime.  At one place
he stopped&mdash;a lonely spot it must have been&mdash;where he
disposed of his gruesome burden; then on and on, past
the borders of Yorkshire, of Westmoreland and
Cumberland and into Scotland, till he came close to the
network of railway round about Paisley and Glasgow.
Falconblane, a village tucked away on a lonely bit of
country but boasting of a garage, must have seemed an
ideal spot wherein to abandon the car altogether and
take to the road, and this Moville did, trusting to the
long night, and also to luck, to further efface his traces.
Again I can see him wandering restlessly through the
dark hours of that night, not daring to enter a house
and ask for a bed, determined at all costs to obliterate
every vestige of his movements since the crime.
</p>

<p>
"Then in the morning he takes train for Glasgow,
the busiest centre wherein a man can disappear in a
crowd; in the train he takes the precaution of divesting
himself of the motor coat, the goggles and the cap, but
not of the grime that covers his face and hair.  We
know how he provided himself with a more suitable
hat and coat; we know how all through his wanderings
he kept up his broken English.  At Glasgow all traces
of him vanish; he has become a very ordinary-looking
man, wearing quite ordinary clothes, and in Glasgow
people are far too busy to take much notice of passers-by.
</p>

<p>
"We can easily conjecture how easy it was for
Moville to leave the country altogether.  He had plenty
of money, and it is never difficult for a man of resource
to leave a British port for any destination he pleases,
especially if he is of obviously British nationality.
Money, we all know, will accomplish anything, and
rogues will slip through a cordon of officials where
the respectable citizens will be chivied about and
harassed with regulations.  Moreover, we must always
bear this in mind, that the police were not on his track,
nor on that of the Italian, for that matter.  Moville
was free to come and go, and you may be sure that
he was quite clever enough not to behave in any way
that might create suspicion."
</p>

<p>
The Old Man in the Corner paused quite abruptly.
A complicated knot was absorbing his whole attention.
I felt thoughtful, meditative, and after a few minutes'
silence I put my meditations into words.
</p>

<p>
"That is all very well," I said, "but, personally, I
don't see that you have anything definite this time on
which to base your theory.  Both the men have
disappeared; the police say that Vissio killed Moville;
you assert the reverse, and declare that Moville
deliberately dressed up the body of the Italian in his
own clothes, but you have nothing more to go on for
your assertion than the police have for theirs."
</p>

<p>
"I was waiting for that," he rejoined with a dry
chuckle.  "But let me assure you that I have at least
three psychological facts to go on for my assertion,
whereas the police only go on two very superficial
matters for theirs; they base their whole argument
firstly on the clothes, watch, jewellery, and so on found
on a body that was otherwise unidentifiable, and,
secondly, on a blood-stained knife known to have belonged
to the Italian.  Now I have demonstrated to you,
have I not, how easy it was for Moville to manufacture
both these pieces of evidence.  So mark the force of
my argument," the funny creature went on, gesticulating
with his thin hands like a scarecrow blown by the
wind.  "First of all, why did Moville suddenly declare
his intention of leaving England?  In order to look
after his partner's affairs?  Not a bit of it.  He left
England because of some shady transaction out there
in Argentina which was coming to light, and because
of which he thought it best to disappear altogether for
a time.  My proof for this? you will ask.  The simple
proof that his parents accepted his disappearance for
a whole week without making any enquiries about him
either in Richmond, or London, or the shipping company
that controls the steamers to Buenos Ayres.  Can
you imagine that Sir Timothy Moville, having seen the
last of his son on the Tuesday evening, would say
and do nothing, when he was left eight days without
news; he would have enquired in London; he knew to
which hotel his son intended to go; some one would
have enquired at Richmond whether the car had been
left there.  But no!  There was not a single enquiry
made for Gerald Moville by his parents, or his brothers
and sisters, until after Topcoat had mentioned his name
to the police and the latter had started their
investigations.  And why?  Because his people knew where
he was; that is to say, they knew&mdash;or some of them
knew&mdash;that Gerald had to lie low, at any rate for a
time.  Of course his supposed death under such tragic
circumstances must have been a terrible shock to them,
but it is a remarkable fact, you will admit, that the
offer of a substantial reward for the apprehension of
the murderer did not come from Sir Timothy Moville;
it came from one of the big dailies, out for publicity.
</p>

<p>
"My whole argument rests on psychological grounds,
and in criminal cases psychology is by far the surest
guide.  Now there was not a single detail in connection
with the Moorland Tragedy that in any way suggested
the hand of a man like Antonio Vissio.  Can you see
an Italian peasant who, moreover, has lived all his
life with a gun in his hand, solemnly laying that gun
down before embarking on a quarrel with his rival?
And yet the gun was found undischarged, lying in a
gully.  Vissio was much more likely to have shouldered
it at sight of the man he hated, and shot him dead;
more especially as the Englishman would have an
enormous advantage in a hand-to-hand fight, even if
the other man had suddenly whisked out a knife.
Vissio was not the type of man who would think of
the consequence of his crime.  Maddened by jealousy,
he would kill his man at sight, but in his own country
and also in France, there would be no disgrace attached
to such a deed&mdash;no disgrace and very little punishment.
The man who last year shot the English dancing girl on
the Riviera because he thought that she was carrying
on with another man, only got five years' imprisonment;
Vissio would not realise that he would be amenable
to English law, which does not look at Homicide
quite so leniently.
</p>

<p>
"Having killed his rival, the Italian would, in all
probability, have swanked as far as the nearest village,
had a good drink to steady his nerves, and then have
boasted loudly of what he had done, certain that he
would be leniently dealt with by a judge, and
sympathised with by a jury, because of the torments of
jealousy which he had endured until he could do so no
longer.  You can't imagine such a man sawing off his
victim's head and wrapping it up in a newspaper taken
out of the dead man's pocket.
</p>

<p>
"And this brings me to the final point in my argument,
and one which ought to have struck the police
from the first: the question of the car.  How would
Vissio know that he would find Moville's car conveniently
stationed by the roadside?  He would have to
know that before he could dare walk across the moor
carrying his gruesome parcel.  Now Vissio couldn't
possibly know all that, and what's more, though he
might not have been altogether ignorant of driving, he
certainly was not expert enough to drive a car all by
himself for over a hundred miles, at top speed, and
for several hours in the dark.  To my mind, if this
fact had been driven home to the jury by a motoring
expert they never would have brought in a verdict
against Vissio, and if you think the whole matter over
you will be bound to admit that there is not a single
flaw in my argument.  From the point of view of
possibility as well as of psychology, only one man could
have committed that crime, and that was Gerald
Moville.  I suppose his unfortunate parents will know the
truth one day.  Soon, probably, when the young
miscreant is short of money and writes home for
funds.
</p>

<p>
"Or else he may return to Argentina and under
an assumed name start life anew.  They are not
over-particular there as to a man's antecedents.  They
would perhaps think all the more of him, when they
knew that where a girl is concerned he will stand no
nonsense from a rival.  Think it all over, you'll come
to the conclusion that I'm right."
</p>

<p>
He gathered up his bit of string and took his
spectacles from off his nose.  For the first time I saw his
pale, shrewd eyes looking down straight at me.
</p>

<p>
"I shan't see you again for some time," he said with
a wry smile.  "Won't you shake hands and wish me
luck?"
</p>

<p>
"Indeed I will," I replied, "but you are not going
away, are you?"
</p>

<p>
He gave a curious, short, dry chuckle:
</p>

<p>
"I am going out of England for the benefit of my
health," he said coolly.
</p>

<p>
I hadn't shaken hands with him, because the very
next moment he had turned his back on me as if he
thought better of it.  The next morning I read in
the papers a curious account of some extensive
robberies committed in the neighbourhood of Hatton
Garden.  The burglar had managed to escape, but the
police were said to hold an important clue.  A curious
feature about those robberies was the way in which
a knotted cord had been used to effect an entrance
through a skylight.  The newspaper reporters gave a
very full description of this cord: it was photographed
and reproduced in the illustrated papers.  The knots
in it were of a wonderful and intricate pattern.
</p>

<p>
They set me thinking&mdash;and wondering!
</p>

<p>
I have often been to that blameless teashop in Fleet
Street since.
</p>

<p>
But the Old Man in the Corner is never there now,
and the police have never been able to trace the large
consignment of diamonds stolen from that shop in
Hatton Garden and which has been valued at £80,000.
</p>

<p>
I wonder if I shall ever see my eccentric friend again.
</p>

<p>
Somehow I think that I shall.  And if I do, shall
I see him sitting in his accustomed corner, with his
spectacles on his nose, and his long, thin fingers
working away at a bit of string&mdash;fashioning knots&mdash;many
knots&mdash;complicated knots&mdash;like those in the cord by
the aid of which an entrance was effected into that shop
in Hatton Garden and diamonds worth £80,000 were
stolen?
</p>

<p>
I wonder!!
</p>

<p><br /><br /></p>

<p class="t3">
THE END
</p>

<p><br /><br /><br /><br /></p>

<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 68237 ***</div>
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