 CHAPTER 19-19 Conflicting Evidence By the time the public had been able to think over James Farbarn's evidence a certain disquietude and unrest had begun to make itself felt both in the bank itself and among those of our detective force who had charge of the case. The newspaper spoke of the matter with very obvious caution and warned all the readers to await the further development of this sad case. While the manager of the English provident bank lay in such a precarious condition of health, it was impossible to arrive at any definite knowledge as to what the thief had actually made away with. The chief cashier, however, estimated the loss at about five thousand pounds in gold and notes of the bank money. That was, of course, on the assumption that Mr. Ireland had no private money or valuables of his own in the safe. Mind you, at this point public sympathy was much stirred in favour of the poor man who lay ill, perhaps dying, and yet whom, strangely enough, suspicion had already slightly touched with its poisoned wing. Suspicion is a strong word, perhaps, to use at this point in the story. No one suspected anybody at present. James Farbarn had told his story and had vowed that some thief with false keys must have sneaked through the house into the inner office. Public excitement, you will remember, lost nothing by waiting. Hardly had we all had time to wonder over the night watchman's singular evidence and pending further and fuller detail to check our growing sympathy for the man who was ill. Then the sensational side of this mysterious case culminated in one extraordinary, absolutely unexpected fact. Mrs. Ireland, after a twenty-four hours untarring watch beside her husband's sick bed, had at last been approached by the detective, and been asked to reply to a few simple questions, and thus helped to throw some light on the mystery, which had caused Mr. Ireland's illness and her own consequent anxiety. She professed herself quite ready to reply to any questions put to her, and she literally astounded both Inspector and Detective when she firmly and emphatically declared that James Farbarn must have been dreaming or asleep when he thought he saw her in the doorway at ten o'clock that night, and fancied he heard her voice. She may or may not have been down in the hall at that particular hour, for she usually ran down herself to see if the last post had brought any letters, but most certainly she had neither seen nor spoken to Mr. Ireland at that hour, for Mr. Ireland had gone out an hour before, she herself having seen him to the front door. Never for a moment did she swerve from this extraordinary statement. She spoke to James Farbarn in the presence of the detective, and told him he must absolutely have been mistaken that she had not seen Mr. Ireland and that she had not spoken to him. One other person was questioned by the police, and that was Mr. Robert Ireland, the manager's eldest son. It was presumed that he would know something of his father's affairs, the idea having now taken firm hold of the detective's mind that perhaps grave financial difficulties had tempted the unfortunate manager to appropriate some of the firm's money. Mr. Robert Ireland, however, could not say very much. His father did not confide in him to the extent of telling him all his private affairs, but money never seemed scarce at home, certainly, and Mr. Ireland had, to his son's knowledge, not a single extravagant habit. He himself had been dining out with a friend on that memorable evening, and had gone on with him to the Oxford Music Hall. He met his father on the doorstep of the bank at about eleven-thirty p.m., and they went in together. There certainly was nothing remarkable about Mr. Ireland then, his son avert. He appeared in no way excited, and bade his son good night quite cheerfully. There was the extraordinary, the remarkable hitch, continued the man in the corner, laxing more and more excited every moment, the public, who is at times very dense, saw it clearly nevertheless. Of course, every one at once jumped to the natural conclusion that Mrs. Ireland was telling a lie. A noble lie, a self-sacrificing lie, a lie endowed with all the virtues if you like, but still a lie. She was trying to save her husband, and was going the wrong way to work. James Fairborn, after all, could not have dreamt quite all that he declared he had seen and heard. No one suspected James Fairborn. There was no occasion to do that. To begin with, he was a great heavy scotchman with obviously no powers of invention, such as Mrs. Ireland's strange assertion credited him with. Moreover, the theft of the banknotes could not have been of the slightest use to him. But remember, there was the hitch. Without it, the public mind would already have condemned the sick man upstairs, without hope of rehabilitation. This fact struck everyone. Granting that Mr. Ireland had gone into his office at ten minutes to ten o'clock at night, for the purpose of extracting five thousand pounds worth of notes and gold from the bank safe, whilst giving the theft the appearance of a night burglary, granting that he was disturbed in his nefarious project by his wife, who, failing to persuade him to make restitution, took his side boldly, and very clumsily attempted to rescue him out of his difficult position. Why should he, at nine o'clock the following morning, fall in a dead fate and get cerebral congestion, at sight of a defalcation he knew had occurred? One might simulate a fainting fit, but no one can assume a high temperature and a congestion, which the most ordinary practitioner who happened to be called in, would soon see were nonexistent. Mr. Ireland, according to James Fairbarn's evidence, must have gone out soon after the theft, come in again with his son an hour and a half later, talk to him, gone quietly to bed, and waited for nine hours before he fell ill at the sight of his own crime. It was not logical, you will admit. Unfortunately the poor man himself was unable to give any explanation of the night's tragic adventures. He was still very weak, and though under strong suspicion he was left by the doctor's orders an absolute ignorance of the heavy charges which were gradually accumulating against him. He had made many anxious inquiries from all who had access to his bedside as to the result of the investigation and the probable speedy capture of the burglars, but everyone had strict orders to inform him merely that the police so far had no clue of any kind. You will admit, as everyone did, that there was something very pathetic about the unfortunate man's position, so helpless to defend himself it defends there was against so much overwhelming evidence. That is why I think public sympathy remained with him. Still it was terrible to think of his wife, presumably knowing him to be guilty, and anxiously waiting whilst dreading the moment when restored to health he would have to face the doubts, the suspicions, probably the open accusations which were fast rising up around him. CHAPTER XX. An Alibi. It was close on six weeks before the doctor at last allowed his patient to attend to the grave business which had prostrated him for so long. In the meantime among the many people who directly or indirectly were made to suffer in this mysterious affair no one, I think, was more pitied and more genuinely sympathized with than Robert Ireland, the manager's eldest son. You remember that he had been clerk in the bank? Well, naturally the moment suspicion began to fasten on his father his position in the business became untenable. I think everyone was very kind to him. Mr. Sutherland French, who was made acting manager during Mr. Lewis Ireland's regrettable absence, did everything in his power to show his goodwill and sympathy to the young man. But I don't think that he or anyone else was much astonished when, after Mrs. Ireland's extraordinary attitude in the case had become public property, he quietly intimated to the acting manager that he had determined to sever his connection with the bank. The best of recommendations was, of course, placed at his disposal, and it was finally understood that, as soon as his father was completely restored to health and would no longer require his presence in London, he would try to obtain employment somewhere abroad. He spoke of a new volunteer corps organized for military policing of the new colonies, and truth to tell, no one could blame him that he should wish to leave far behind him all London banking connections. The son's attitude certainly did not tend to ameliorate the father's position. It was pretty evident that his own family had ceased to hope in the poor manager's innocence. And yet he was absolutely innocent. You must remember how the fact was clearly demonstrated as soon as the poor man was able to say a word for himself, and he said it to some purpose too. Mr. Ireland was, and is, very fond of music. On the evening in question, while sitting in his club, he saw in one of the daily papers the announcement of a peculiarly attractive program at the Queen's Hall concert. He was not dressed, but nevertheless felt in an irresistible desire to hear one or two of these attractive musical items, and he strolled down to the hall. Now, this sort of alibi is usually very difficult to prove, but Dame Fortune, oddly enough, favored Mr. Ireland on this occasion, probably to compensate him for the hard knocks she had been dealing with him pretty freely of late. It appears that there was some difficulty about his seat, which was sold to him at the box office, in which he, nevertheless, found wrongfully occupied by a determined lady who refused to move. The management had to be appealed to. The attendants also remembered not only the incident, but also the face and appearance of the gentleman who was the innocent cause of the altercation. As soon as Mr. Ireland could speak for himself, he mentioned the incident and the persons who had been witness to it. He was identified by them, to the amazement it must be confessed, of police and public alike, who had comfortably decided that no one could be guilty except the manager of the Provident Bank himself. Moreover, Mr. Ireland was a fairly wealthy man, with a good balance at the Union Bank, and plenty of private means, the result of years of Provident living. He had but to prove that if he really had been in need of an immediate five thousand pounds, which was all the amount extracted from the bank safe that night, he had plenty of securities on which he could, at an hour's notice, have raised twice that sum. His life insurances had been fully paid up. He had not a debt which a five-pound note could not easily have covered. On the fatal night he certainly did remember asking the watchman not to bolt the door to his office, as he thought he might have one or two letters to write when he came home. But later on he had forgotten all about this. After the concert he met his son in Oxford Street, just outside the house, and thought no more about the office, the door of which was shut, and presented no unusual appearance. Mr. Ireland absolutely denied having been in his office at the hour when James Fairborn positively asserted he heard Mrs. Ireland say in an astonished tone of voice, Why, Lewis, what in the world are you doing here? It became pretty clear, therefore, that James Fairborn's view of the manager's wife had been a mere vision. Mr. Ireland gave up his position as manager of the English provident. Both he and his wife felt no doubt that on the whole, perhaps, there had been too much talk, too much scandal connected with their name, to be altogether advantageous to the bank. Moreover, Mr. Ireland's health was not so good as it had been. He has a pretty house now at Sittingbourne, and muses himself during his leisure hours with amateur horticulture, an I who alone in London besides the persons directly connected with this mysterious affair, know the true solution of the enigma, often wonder how much of it is known to the ex-manager of the English provident bank. The man in the corner had been silent for some time. Miss Polly Burton, in her presumption, had made up her mind, at the commencement of his tale, to listen attentively to every point of the evidence in connection with the case which he recapitulated before her, and to follow the point in order to try and arrive at a conclusion of her own, and overwell the antediluvian scarecrow with her sujocity. She said nothing, or she had arrived at no conclusion, the case puzzled everyone and had amazed the public in its various stages, from the moment when opinion began to cast doubt on Mr. Ireland's honesty, to that when his integrity was proved beyond a doubt. One or two people had suspected Mrs. Ireland to have been the actual thief, but that idea had soon to be abandoned. Mrs. Ireland had all the money she wanted. The theft occurred six months ago, and not a single bank note was ever traced to her pocket. Moreover, she must have had an accomplice, since someone else was in the manager's room that night, and if that someone else was her accomplice, why did she risk betraying him by speaking loudly in the presence of James Fairbarn, when it would have been so much simpler to turn out the light and plunge the hall into darkness? You are altogether on the wrong track, sounded a sharp voice and direct answer to Polly's thoughts, altogether wrong. If you want to acquire my method of induction and improve your reasoning power, you must follow my system. First think of the one absolutely undisputed positive fact. You must have a starting point, and not go wandering about in the realms of suppositions. But there are no positive facts, she said irritably. You don't say so, he said quietly. Do you not call it a positive fact that the bank safe was robbed of five thousand pounds on the evening of March twenty-fifth before eleven thirty p.m.? Yes, that is all which is positive, and... Do you not call it a positive fact, he interrupted quietly, at the lock of the safe not being picked, it must have been opened by its own key? I know that, she rejoined crossly, and that is why everyone agreed that James Fairbarn could not possibly... And do you not call it a positive fact, then, that James Fairbarn could not possibly, etc., etc., seeing that the glass partition door was locked from the inside? Mrs. Ireland herself let James Fairbarn into her husband's office, when she saw him lying fainting before the open safe. Of course that was a positive fact, and so was the one that proved to any thinking mind that if the safe was opened with a key it could only have been done by a person having access to that key. But the man in the private office, exactly, the man in the private office, enumerate his points, if you please, said the funny creature, marking each point with one of his favourite knots. He was a man who might that night have had access to the key of the safe, unsuspected by the manager, or even his wife, and a man for whom Mrs. Ireland was willing to tell a downright lie. Are there many men for whom a woman of the better middle class and an English woman would be ready to perjure herself? Surely not. She might do it for her husband, the public thought she had. It never struck them that she might have done it for her son. Her son! exclaimed Polly. Ah, she was a clever woman, he ejaculated enthusiastically, one with courage and presence of mind, which I don't think I have ever seen equalled. She runs downstairs before going to bed in order to see whether the last post has brought any letters. She sees the door of her husband's office ajar. She pushes it open, and there, by the sudden flash of a hastily struck match, she realizes in a moment that a thief stands before the open safe, and in that thief she has already recognized her son. At that very moment she hears the watchman's step approaching the partition. There is no time to warn her son, she does not know the glass door is locked. James Fairbarn may switch on the electric light and see the young man in the very act of robbing his employer's safe. One thing alone can reassure the watchman. One person alone had the right to be there at that hour of the night, and without hesitation she pronounces her husband's name. Mind you, I firmly believe that at the time the poor woman only wished to gain time, that she had every hope that her son had not yet had the opportunity to lay so heavy a guilt upon his conscience. What passed between mother and son we shall never know, but this much we do know, that the young villain made off with his booty and trusted that his mother would never betray him. Poor woman, what a night of it she must have spent, but she was clever and far seeing. She knew that her husband's character could not suffer through her action. Accordingly she took the only course open to her to save her son even from his father's wrath, and boldly denied James Fairbarn's statement. Of course she was fully aware that her husband could easily clear himself, and the worst that could be said of her was that she had thought him guilty and had tried to save him. She trusted to the future to clear her of any charge of complicity in the theft. By now everyone has forgotten most of the circumstances. The police are still watching the career of James Fairbarn and Mrs Ireland's expenditure. As you know, not a single note so far has been traced to her. Against that one or two of the notes have found their way back to England. No one realizes how easy it is to cash English banknotes at the smaller Argentes-Changes abroad. The changers are only too glad to get them. What do they care where they came from as long as they are genuine? And a week or two later, Michel Lechanger could not swear who tendered him any one particular note. You see, young Robert Ireland went abroad. He will come back some day having made a fortune. There's his photo, and this is his mother, a clever woman, wasn't she? And before Polly had time to reply he was gone. She really had never seen any one move across the room so quickly, but he always left an interesting trail behind, a piece of string knotted from end to end, and a few photos. End of chapters 19 and 20, chapters 21 and 22 of The Old Man in the Corner. This is a LibriVox recording, while LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Old Man in the Corner by Baroness Orzee, chapter 21, The Dublin Mystery. I always thought that the history of that forged will was about as interesting as any I had read, said the man in the Corner of that day. He had been silent for some time and was meditatively sorting and looking through a packet of small photographs in his pocketbook. Polly guessed that some of these would presently be placed before her for inspection, and she had not long to wait. That is Old Brooks, he said, pointing to one of the photographs, Millionaire Brooks, as he was called, and these are his two sons, Percival and Murray. It was a curious case, wasn't it? Personally, I don't wonder that the police were completely at sea. If a member of that highly estimable force happened to be as clever as the clever author of that forged will, we should have very few undetected crimes in this country. That is why I always tried to persuade you to give our poor ignorant police the benefit of your great insight and wisdom, said Polly with a smile. I know, he said blandly, you have been most kind in that way, but I am only an amateur. Crime interests me only when it resembles a clever game of chess, with many intricate moves which all tend to one solution, the check-mating of the antagonist, the detective force of the country. Now confess that in the Dublin mystery, the clever police there were absolutely check-mated. Absolutely. Just as the public was, there were actually two crimes committed in one city which have completely baffled detection, the murder of Patrick Weatherhead, the lawyer, and the forged will of millionaire Brooks. There are not many millionaires in Ireland, no wonder old Brooks was a notability in his way, since his business, baking curing, I believe it is, is said to be worth over two million pounds of solid money. His younger son, Murray, was a refined, highly educated man and was, moreover, the apple of his father's eye, as he was the spoiled darling of Dublin society. Good-looking, a splendid dancer and a perfect writer, he was the acknowledged catch of the matrimonial market of Ireland, and many a very aristocratic house was opened hospitably to the favourite son of the millionaire. Of course, Percival Brooks, the eldest son, would inherit the bulk of the old man's property, and also probably the larger share in the business. He, too, was good-looking. More so than his brother. He, too, rode, danced, and talked well, but it was many years ago that mamas with marriageable daughters had given up all hopes of Percival Brooks as a probable son-in-law. That young man's infatuation, for Maisie Fortescue, a lady of undoubted charm, but very doubtful antecedents, who had astonished the London and Dublin music halls with her extravagant dances, was too well-known and too old-established to encourage any hopes in other quarters. Whether Percival Brooks would ever marry Maisie Fortescue was thought to be very doubtful. Old Brooks had the full disposal of all his wealth, and it would have fared ill with Percival if he introduced an undesirable wife into the magnificent Fitzwilliam Place establishment. That is how matters stood, continued the man in the corner, when Dublin society one morning learned, with deep regret in dismay, that old Brooks had died very suddenly at his residence, after only a few hours' illness. At first it was generally understood that he had had an apoplectic stroke. Anyway, he had been at business hail and hearty as ever the day before his death, which occurred late on the evening of February 1st. It was the morning papers of February 2nd which told the sad news to their readers, and it was those self-same papers which on that eventful morning contained another even more startling piece of news that proved the prelude to a series of sensations, such as tranquil, placid Dublin had not experienced for many years. This was that on that very afternoon which saw the death of Dublin's greatest millionaire, Mr. Patrick Wethered, his solicitor, was murdered in Phoenix Park at five o'clock in the afternoon, while actually walking to his own house from his visit to his client in Fitzwilliam Place. Patrick Wethered was as well known as the proverbial town pump. His mysterious and tragic death filled all Dublin with dismay. The lawyer, who was a man of sixty years of age, had been struck on the back of the head by a heavy stick, garreted, and subsequently robbed, for neither money, watch, nor pocketbook, were found upon his person. Whilst the police soon gathered from Patrick Wethered's household that he had left home at two o'clock that afternoon, carrying both watch and pocketbook, and undoubtedly money as well. An inquest was held, and a verdict of willful murder was found against some person or person's unknown. But Dublin had not exhausted its stock of sensations yet. Millionaire Brooks had been buried with dew-pump and magnificence, and his will had been proved, his business and personality being estimated at two million five hundred thousand pounds by Percival Gordon Brooks, his eldest son and sole executor. The younger son, Murray, who had devoted the best years of his life to being a friend and companion to his father, while Percival ran after ballet dancers and musical stars, Murray, who had avowedly been the apple of his father's eye in consequence, was left with a miserly pittance of three hundred pounds a year and no share whatever in the gigantic business of Brooks and son's bacon curers of Dublin. Something had evidently happened within the precincts of the Brooks Town mansion, which the public and Dublin society tried in vain to fathom. Elderly mamas and blushing debutants were already thinking of the best means whereby next season they might more easily show the cold shoulder to young Murray Brooks, who had so suddenly become a hopeless detrimental in the marriage market when all these sensations terminated in one gigantic, overwhelming bit of scandal, which for the next three months furnished food for gossip in every drawing room in Dublin. Mr. Murray Brooks, namely, had entered a claim for probate of a will, made by his father in 1891, declaring that the later will made the very day of his father's death and proved by his brother as sole executor was null and void that will being a forgery. CHAPTER XXII FORGERY The facts that transpired in connection with this extraordinary case were sufficiently mysterious to puzzle everybody. As I told you before, all Mr. Brooks' friends never quite grasped the idea that the old man should so completely have cut off his favorite son with the proverbial shilling. You see, Percival had always been a thorn in the old man's flesh. Horse racing, gambling, theaters, and music halls were, in the old pork butcher's eyes, so many deadly sins which his son committed every day of his life, and all the Fitzwilliam Place household could testify to the many embitter quarrels which had arisen between father and son over the latter's gambling or racing debts. Many people asserted that Brooks would sooner have left his money to charitable institutions than seen it squandered upon the brightest stars that adorned the music hall stage. The case came up for hearing early in the autumn. In the meanwhile, Percival Brooks had given up his racecourse associates, settled down in the Fitzwilliam Place mansion, and conducted his father's business without a manager, but with all the energy and forethought which he had previously devoted to more unworthy causes. Murray had elected not to stay on in the old house. No doubt associations were of too painful and recent a nature. He was boarding with the family of a Mr. Wilson Hibbert, who was the late Patrick Weatherids, the murdered lawyer's partner. They were quiet, homely people who lived in a very pokey little house in Kilkenny Street, and poor Murray must, in spite of his grief, have felt very bitterly for the change from his luxurious quarters in his father's mansion to his present tiny room and homely meals. Percival Brooks, who was now drawing an income of over a hundred thousand a year, was very severely criticized for adhering so strictly to the letter of his father's will, and only paying his brother that paltry three hundred pounds a year, which was very literally but the crumbs off his own magnificent dinner table. The issue of that contested will case was therefore awaited with eager interest in the meanwhile the police who at first seemed fairly loquacious on the subject of the murder of Mr. Patrick Weathered suddenly became strangely reticent, and by their very reticence aroused a certain amount of uneasiness in the public mind, until one day the Irish Times published the following extraordinary enigmatic paragraph. We hear on authority, which cannot be questioned, that certain extraordinary developments are expected in connection with the brutal murder of our distinguished townsman, Mr. Weathered. The police in fact are vainly trying to keep it secret that they hold a clue which is as important as it is sensational, and that they only await the impending issue of a well-known litigation in the probate court to effect an arrest. The Dublin public flocked to the court to hear the arguments in the Great Will case. I myself journeyed down to Dublin. As soon as I succeeded in fighting my way to the densely crowded court, I took stock of the various actors in the drama, which I as a spectator was prepared to enjoy. There were Percival Brooks and Murray his brother, the two litigants, both good-looking and well dressed, and both striving, by keeping up a running conversation with their lawyer, to appear unconcerned and confident of the issue. With Percival Brooks was Henry Orenmore, the eminent Irish KC, whilst Walter Hibbert, a rising young barrister, the son of Wilson Hibbert, appeared for Murray. The will of which the latter claimed probate was one dated 1891, and had been made by Mr. Brooks during a severe illness which threatened to end his days. This will had been deposited in the hands of Messers Weathered and Hibbert, solicitors to the deceased, and by it Mr. Brooks left his personality equally divided between his two sons, but had left his business entirely to his youngest son, was at charge of two thousand pounds a year upon it payable to Percival. You see that Murray Brooks therefore had a very deep interest in that second will being found null and void. Old Mr. Hibbert had very ably instructed his son, and Walter Hibbert's opening speech was exceedingly clever. He would show, he said, on behalf of his client, that the will dated February 1st, 1908 could never have been made by the late Mr. Brooks, as it was absolutely contrary to his avowed intentions, and that if the late Mr. Brooks did on the day in question make any fresh will at all, it certainly was not the one proved by Mr. Percival Brooks, for that was absolutely a forgery from beginning to end. Mr. Walter Hibbert proposed to call several witnesses in support of both these points. On the other hand, Mr. Henry Orenmore, K. C., very ably and courteously replied that he too had several witnesses to prove that Mr. Brooks certainly did make a will on the day in question, and that whatever his intentions may have been in the past, he must have modified them on the day of his death, for the will proved by Mr. Percival Brooks was found after his death under his pillow, duly signed and witnessed, and in every way legal. Then the battle began in sober earnest. There were a great many witnesses to be called on both sides, their evidence being of more or less importance, chiefly less. But the interest centered round the prosaic figure of John O'Neill, the butler at Fitzwilliam Place, who had been at Mr. Brooks' family for thirty years. I was clearing away my breakfast-things, said John, when I heard the master's voice in the study close by, while my he was that angry, I could hear the words disgrace, and villain, and liar, and ballet dancer, and one or two other ugly words as applied to some female lady, which I would not like to repeat. At first I did not take much notice, as I was quite used to hearing my poor dear master having words with Mr. Percival. So I went downstairs carrying my breakfast things, but I had just started cleaning my silver when the study bell goes ringing violently, and I hear Mr. Percival's voice shouting in the hall, John, quick, send for Dr. Mulligan at once, your master is not well, send one of the men, and you come up and help me to get Mr. Brooks to bed. I sent one of the grooms for the doctor, continued John, who seemed still affected by the recollection of his poor master, to whom he had evidently been very much detached, and I went up to see Mr. Brooks. I found him lying on the study floor, his head supported in Mr. Percival's arms. My father has fallen in a faint, said the young master, help me to get him up to his room before Dr. Mulligan comes. Mr. Percival looked very white and upset, which was only natural, and when we had gotten my poor master to bed, I asked if I should not go and break the news to Mr. Murray, who had gone to business an hour ago. However, before Mr. Percival had time to give me an order, the doctor came. I thought I had seen death plainly writ in my master's face, and when I showed the doctor out an hour later, and he told me that he would be back directly, I knew that the end was near. Mr. Brooks rang for me a minute or two later. He told me to send it once for Mr. Weatherhead or else for Mr. Hibbard, if Mr. Weatherhead could not come. I haven't many hours to live, John, he says to me. My heart is broke. The doctor says my heart is broke. A man shouldn't marry and have children, John, for they will sooner or later break his heart. I was so upset I couldn't speak, but I sent round at once for Mr. Weatherhead, who came himself just about three o'clock that afternoon. After he had been with my master about an hour, I was called in, and Mr. Weatherhead said to me that Mr. Brooks wished me and one other of us servants to witness that he had signed a paper which was on a table by his bedside. I called Pat Mooney the head footman, and before us both, Mr. Brooks put his name at the bottom of that paper. Then Mr. Weatherhead gave me the pen and told me to write my name as a witness, and that Pat Mooney was to do the same. After that, we were both told that we could go. The old butler went on to explain that he was present in his late master's room on the following day when the undertakers, who had come to lay the dead man out, found a paper underneath his pillow. John O'Neill, who recognized the paper as the one to which he had appended his signature the day before, took it to Mr. Percival and gave it into his hands. In answer to Mr. Walter Hibbert, John asserted positively that he took the paper from the undertaker's hand and went straight with it to Mr. Percival's room. He was alone, said John. I gave him the paper. He just glanced at it, and I thought he looked rather astonished, but he said nothing, and I at once left the room. When you say that you recognize the paper as the one which you had senior master signed the day before, how did you actually recognize that it was the same paper? asked Mr. Hibbert amidst breathless interest on the part of the spectators. I narrowly observed the witness's face. It looked exactly the same paper to me, sir, replied John somewhat vaguely. Did you look at the contents then? No, sir, certainly not. Had you done so the day before? No, sir, only at my master's signature. Then you only thought by the outside look of the paper that it was the same? It looked the same thing, sir, persisted John obstinately. You see, continued the man in the corner, leaning eagerly forward across the narrow marble table, the contention of Murray Brooks' advisor was that Mr. Brooks, having made a will and hidden it, for some reason or other under his pillow, that will had fallen through the means related by John O'Neill into the hands of Mr. Percival Brooks, who had destroyed it and substituted a forged one in its place, which adjudged the whole of Mr. Brooks millions to himself. It was a terrible and very daring accusation directed against a gentleman who, in spite of his many wild oats sowed in early youth, was a prominent and important figure in Irish high life. All those present were aghast at what they heard, and the whispered comments I could hear around me showed that public opinion, at least, did not uphold Mr. Murray Brooks' daring accusation against his brother. But John O'Neill had not finished his evidence, and Mr. Walter Hibbert had a bit of sensation still up his sleeve. He had namely produced a paper, the will proved by Mr. Percival Brooks, and had asked John O'Neill if once again he recognized the paper. Certainly, sir, said John unhesitatingly, that is the one the undertaker found under my poor dead master's pillow in which I took to Mr. Percival's room immediately. Then the paper was unfolded and placed before the witness. Now, Mr. O'Neill, will you tell me if that is your signature? John looked at it for a moment, then he said, Excuse me, sir, and produced a pair of spectacles which he carefully adjusted before he again examined the paper. Then he thoughtfully shook his head. It don't much look like my writing, sir, he said at last. That is to say, he added, by way of elucidating the matter, it does look like my writing, but then I don't think it is. There was at that moment a look in Mr. Percival Brooks' face, continued the man in the corner quietly, which then and there gave me the whole history of that quarrel, that illness of Mr. Brooks, of the Will, I, and of the murder of Patrick Weatherhead, too. All I wondered at was how every one of those learned counsel on both sides did not get the clue just the same as I did, but went on arguing, specifying, cross-examining for nearly a week, until they arrived at the one conclusion which was inevitable from the very first, namely, that the Will was a forgery, a gross, clumsy, idiotic forgery, since both John O'Neill and Pat Mooney, the two witnesses, absolutely repudiated the signatures as their own. The only successful bit of calligraphy the forger had done was the signature of old Mr. Brooks. It was a very curious fact, and one which undoubtedly aided the forger in accomplishing his work quickly, that Mr. Weatherhead, the lawyer, having no doubt realized that Mr. Brooks had not many moments in life to spare, had not drawn up the usual engrossed, magnificent document, dear to the lawyer heart, but had used for his client's will one of those regular printed forms which can be purchased at any stationers. Mr. Percival Brooks, of course, flatly denied the serious allegation brought against him. He admitted that the butler had brought him the document the morning after his father's death, and that he, certainly, on glancing at it, had been very much astonished to see that that document was his father's will. Against that he declared that its contents did not astonish him in the slightest degree, that he himself knew of the testator's intentions, that he certainly thought his father had entrusted the will to the care of Mr. Weatherhead, who did all his business for him. I only very cursively glanced at the signature, he concluded, speaking in a perfectly calm, clear voice. You must understand that the thought of forgery was very far from my mind, and that my father's signature is exceedingly well imitated if indeed it is not his own, which I am not at all prepared to believe. As for the two witnesses' signatures, I don't think I had ever seen them before. I took the document to Messers Barxton and Maud, who had often done business for me before, and they assured me that the will was in perfect form and order. Asked why he had not entrusted the will to his father's solicitors, he replied, for the very simple reason that exactly half an hour before the will was placed in my hands, I had read that Mr. Patrick Weatherhead had been murdered the night before. Mr. Hibbert, the junior partner, was not personally known to me. After that, for form's sake, a good deal of expert evidence was heard on the subject of the dead man's signature. But that was quite unanimous, and merely went to corroborate what had already been established beyond a doubt, namely, that the will dated February 1st, 1908, was a forgery, and probate of the will dated 1891 was therefore granted to Mr. Murray Brooks, the sole executor mentioned therein. CHAPTER XXIII. A memorable day. Two days later the police applied for a warrant for the arrest of Mr. Percival Brooks on a charge of forgery. The crown prosecuted, and Mr. Brooks had again the support of Mr. Ornmore, the eminent K.C. Perfectly calm, like a man conscious of his own innocence, and unable to grasp the idea that justice does sometimes miscarry, Mr. Brooks, the son of the millionaire, himself still the possessor of a very large fortune under the former will, stood up in the dock on that memorable day in October 1908, which still no doubt lives in the memory of his many friends. All the evidence with regard to Mr. Brooks' last moments and the Forge will was gone through over again. That will, it was the contention of the crown, had been forged so entirely in favor of the accused, cutting out everyone else, that obviously no one but the beneficiary under that false will would have had any motive in forging it. Very pale and with a frown between his deep set, handsome Irish eyes, Percival Brooks listened to this large volume of evidence piled up against him by the crown. At times he held brief consultations with Mr. Ornmore, who seemed as cool as a cucumber. Have you ever seen Ornmore in court? He is a character worthy of Dickens. His pronounced brogue, his fat, podgy, clean-shaven face, his not always immaculately clean large hands, have often delighted the caricaturist. As it very soon transpired during that memorable magisterial inquiry, he relied for a verdict in favor of his client upon two main points, and he had concentrated all his skill upon making these two points as telling as he possibly could. The first point was the question of time. John O'Neill, cross examined by Ornmore, stated without hesitation that he had given the will to Mr. Percival at eleven o'clock in the morning. And now the eminent K.C. brought forward and placed in the witness box the very lawyers into whose hands the accused had then immediately placed the will. Now Mr. Markston, a very well-known solicitor of King Street, declared positively that Mr. Percival Brooks was in his office, at a quarter before twelve, two of his clerks testified at the same time exactly, and it was impossible, contended Mr. Ornmore, that within three-quarters of an hour Mr. Brooks could have gone to a stationers, bought a will-form, copied Mr. Weatherhead's writing, his father's signature, and that of John O'Neill and Pat Mooney. Such a thing might have been planned, arranged, practiced, and ultimately, after a great deal of trouble, successfully carried out, but human intelligence could not grasp the other as a possibility. Still the judge wavered. The eminent K.C. had shaken but not shattered his belief in the prisoner's guilt. But there was one more point, and this Ornmore, with the skill of a dramatist, had reserved for the fall of the curtain. He noted every sign in the judge's face. He guessed that his client was not yet absolutely safe. Then only did he produce his last two witnesses. One of them was Mary Sullivan, one of the housemates in the Fitzwilliam mansion. She had been sent up by the Cooke at a quarter-past four o'clock on the afternoon of February 1st with some hot water, which the nurse had ordered for the master's room. Just as she was about to knock at the door, Mr. Weatherhead was coming out of the room. Mary stopped with the tray in her hand, and at the door Mr. Weatherhead turned and said quite loudly, Now don't fret, don't be anxious, do try and be calm. Your will is safe in my pocket. Nothing can change it or alter one word of it but yourself. It was, of course, a very ticklish point in law whether the housemate's evidence could be accepted. You see, she was quoting the words of a man since dead, spoken to another man, also dead. There is no doubt that had there been very strong evidence on the other side against Percival Brooks, Mary Sullivan's would have counted for nothing. But, as I told you before, the judge's belief in the prisoner's guilt was already very seriously shaken, and now the final blow aimed at it by Mr. Ornmore shattered his last lingering doubts. Dr. Mulligan, namely, had been placed by Mr. Ornmore into the witness box. He was a medical man of unimpeachable authority, in fact absolutely at the head of his profession in Dublin. What he said practically corroborated Mary Sullivan's testimony. He had gone in to see Mr. Brooks at half-past four, and understood from him that his lawyer had just left him. Mr. Brooks certainly, though terribly weak, was calm and more composed. He was dying from a sudden heart attack, and Dr. Mulligan foresaw the almost immediate end. But he was still conscious, and managed to murmur feebly, I feel much easier in my mind now, doctor, and have made my will, whether it has been—he's got it in his pocket, it is safe there, safe from that—but the words died on his lips, and after that he spoke but little. He saw his two sons before he died, but hardly knew them or even looked at them. You see, concluded the man in the corner, you see that the prosecution was bound to collapse. Ornmore did not give it a leg to stand on. The will was forged, it is true, forged in the favour of Percival Brooks and of no one else, forged for him and for his benefit. Whether he knew and connived at the forgery was never proved, or, as far as I know, even hinted, but it was impossible to go against all the evidence which pointed that, as far as the act itself was concerned, he at least was innocent. You see, Dr. Mulligan's evidence was not to be shaken, Mary Sullivan's was equally strong. There were two witnesses swearing positively that old Brooks's will was in Mr. Weatherhead's keeping when that gentleman left the Fitzwilliam mansion at a quarter past four. At five o'clock in the afternoon the lawyer was found dead in Phoenix Park. Between a quarter past four and eight o'clock in the evening, Percival Brooks never left the house. That was subsequently proved by Ornmore up to the hilt and beyond a doubt. Since the will found under old Brooks's pillow was a forged will, where then was the will he did make, and which Weatherhead carried away with him in his pocket? Stolen, of course, said Polly, by those who murdered and robbed him. It may have been of no value to them, but they naturally would destroy it lest it might prove a clue against them. Then you think it was mere coincidence, he asked excitedly. What? That Weatherhead was murdered and robbed at the very moment that he carried the will in his pocket whilst another was being forged in its place? It certainly would be very curious if it were a coincidence, she said musingly. Very, he repeated with biting sarcasm, whilst nervously his bony fingers played with the inevitable bit of string. Very curious indeed. Just think of the whole thing. There was the old man and all his wealth, and two sons, one to whom he is devoted, and the other with whom he does nothing but quarrel. One day there is another of these quarrels, but more violent, more terrible than any that have previously occurred, with the result that the father, heartbroken by it all, has an attack of apoplexy, and practically dies of a broken heart. After that he alters his will, and subsequently a will is proved which turns out to be a forgery. Now everybody, police, press, and public alike, at once jumped to the conclusion that, as Percival Brooks benefits by that forged will, Percival Brooks must be the forger. Seek for him whom the crime benefits is your own axiom, argued the girl. I beg your pardon? Percival Brooks benefited to the tune of two million pounds. I beg your pardon, he did nothing of the sort. He was left with less than half the share that his younger brother inherited. Now yes, but that was a former will, and that forged will was so clumsily executed, the signature so carelessly imitated, that the forgery was bound to come to light. Did that never strike you? Yes, but there is no but, he interrupted. It was all as clear as daylight to me from the very first. The quarrel with the old man, which broke his heart, was not with his eldest son, with whom he was used to quarrelling, but with the second son whom he idolized, in whom he believed. Don't you remember how John O'Neill heard the words liar and deceit? Percival Brooks had never deceived his father. His sins were all on the surface. Murray had led a quiet life, had panned her to his father, and fallen upon him, until, like most hypocrites, he at last got found out. Who knows what ugly gambling debt or debt of honor suddenly revealed to old Brooks was the cause of that last and deadly quarrel. You remember that it was Percival, who remained beside his father and carried him up to his room? Where was Murray throughout that long and painful day, when his father lay dying, heed the idolized son, the apple of the old man's eye? You never hear his name mentioned as being present there all that day, but he knew that he had offended his father mortally, and that his father meant to cut him off with a shilling. He knew that Mr. Weatherhead had been sent for, that Weatherhead left the house soon after four o'clock. And here the cleverness of the man comes in. Having lain in wait for Weatherhead and knocked him on the back of the head with a stick, he could not very well make that will disappear altogether. There remained the faint chance of some other witnesses knowing that Mr. Brooks had made a fresh will. Mr. Weatherhead's partner, his clerk, are one of the confidential servants in the house. Therefore, a will must be discovered after the old man's death. Now Murray Brooks was not an expert forger. It takes years of training to become that. A forged will executed by himself would be sure to be found out, yes, that's it, sure to be found out. The forgery would be palpable, let it be palpable, and then it will be found out, branded as such, and the original will of 1891 so favorable to the young Blackard's interest would be held as valid. Was it devilry or merely additional caution which prompted Murray to pen that forged will so glaringly in Percival's favor? It is impossible to say. Anyhow, it was the cleverest touch in that marvelously devised crime. To plan that evil deed was great. To execute it was easy enough. He had several hours' leisure in which to do it. Then at night it was simplicity itself to slip the document under the dead man's pillow. Sacrilege caused us no shudder to such natures as Murray Brooks. The rest of the drama you know already. But Percival Brooks? The jury returned a verdict of not guilty. There was no evidence against him. But the money, surely the scoundrel does not have the enjoyment of it still? No. He enjoyed it for a time. But he died about three months ago and forgot to take the precaution of making a will. So his brother Percival has got the business after all. If you ever go to Dublin, I should order some of Brooks Bacon if I were you. It is very good. Chapter 24 An Unparalleled Outrage Do you care for the seaside? Asked the man in the corner when he had finished his lunch. I don't mean the seaside at Austin or Truvill. But honest English seaside, with negro minstrels, three shilling excursionists, and dirty expensive furnished apartments, where they charge you a shilling for lighting the haul gas on Sundays, and six pence on other evenings. Do you care for that? I prefer the country. Ah, perhaps it is preferable. Personally, I only liked one of our English seaside resorts once, and that was for a week when Edward Skinner was up before the magistrate, charged with what was known as the Brighton Outrage. I don't know if you remember that memorable day in Brighton, memorable for that elegant town which deals more in amusements than mysteries, when Mr. Francis Morton, one of its most noted residents, disappeared. Yes, disappeared as completely as any vanishing lady in a music hall. He was wealthy, at a fine house, servants, a wife and children, and he disappeared. There was no getting away from that. Mr. Francis Morton lived with his wife in one of the large houses in Sussex Square at the Kemptown end of Brighton. Mrs. Morton was well known for her Americanisms, her swagger dinner parties, and beautiful Paris gowns. She was the daughter of one of the many American millionaires. I think her father was a Chicago pork butcher, who conveniently provide wealthy wives for English gentlemen. And she had married Mr. Francis Morton a few years ago, and brought him her quarter of a million, for no other reason but that she fell in love with him. He was neither good-looking nor distinguished. In fact, he was one of those men who seemed to have city stamped all over their person. He was a gentleman of very regular habits, going up to London every morning on business, and returning every afternoon by the husband's train. So regular was he in these habits that all the servants at the Sussex Square House were portrayed into actual gossip over the fact that on Wednesday, March 17th, the master was not home for dinner. Hales, the butler, remarked that the mistress seemed a bit anxious and didn't eat much food. The evening wore on, and Mr. Morton did not appear. At nine o'clock the young footman was dispatched to the station to make inquiries whether his master had been seen there in the afternoon, or whether, which heaven forbid, there had been an accident on the line. The young man interviewed two or three porters, the bookstall boy and the ticket clerk. All were agreed that Mr. Morton did not go up to London during the day. No one had seen him within the precincts of the station. There certainly had been no accident reported either on the up or down line. But the morning of the eighteenth came with its initial postman's knock, but neither Mr. Morton nor any sign or news from him. Mrs. Morton, who evidently had spent a sleepless night, for she looked sadly changed and haggard, sent a wire to the hall-porter at the large building in Cannon Street, where her husband had his office. An hour later she had the reply. Not seen, Mr. Morton, all day yesterday, not here today. By the afternoon everyone in Brighton knew that a fellow resident had mysteriously disappeared from or in the city. A couple of days, then another elapsed, and still no sign of Mr. Morton. The police were doing their best. The gentleman was so well known in Brighton, as he had been a resident two years, that it was not difficult to firmly establish the one fact that he had not left the city, since no one saw him in the station on the morning of the seventeenth, nor at any time since then. Mild excitement prevailed throughout the town. At first the newspapers took the matter somewhat chakously. Where, as Mr. Morton was the usual placard on the evening's contents bills, but after three days had gone by and the worthy Brighton resident was still missing, while Mrs. Morton was seen to look more haggard and care-worn every day, mild excitement gave place to anxiety. There were vague hints now as to foul play. The news had leaked out that the missing gentleman was carrying a large sum of money on the day of his disappearance. There were also vague rumors of a scandal not unconnected with Mrs. Morton herself and her own past history, which in her anxiety for her husband she had been forced to reveal to the detective inspector in charge of the case. Then on Saturday the news which the late evening papers contained was this. Acting on certain information received, the police today forced an entrance into one of the rooms of Russell House, a high-class furnished apartment on the King's Parade, and there they discovered our missing distinguished townsman, Mr. Francis Morton, who had been robbed and subsequently locked up in that room since Wednesday the seventeenth. When discovered he was in the last stages of inination. He was tied into an armchair with ropes, a thick wool shawl had been wound round his mouth, and it is a positive marvel that, left thus without food and very little air, the unfortunate gentleman survived the horrors of these four days of incarceration. He has been conveyed to his residence in Sussex Square, and we are pleased to say that Dr. Mellish, who was in attendance, has declared his patient to be out of serious danger, and that, with care and rest, he will be soon quite himself again. At the same time our readers will learn, with unmixed satisfaction, that the police of our city, with their usual acuteness and activity, have already discovered the identity and whereabouts of the cowardly Ruffian who committed this unparalleled outrage. Chapter 25 The Prisoner I really don't know, continued the man in the corner blandly, what it was that interested me in the case from the very first. Certainly it had nothing very out of the way or mysterious about it, but I journeyed down to Brighton nevertheless, as I felt that something deeper and more subtle lay behind that extraordinary assault, following a robbery, no doubt. I must tell you that the police had allowed it to be freely circulated abroad, that they held a clue. It had been easy enough to ascertain who the lodger was who had rented the furnished room in Russell House. His name was supposed to be Edward Skinner, and he had taken the room about a fortnight ago, but had gone away ostensibly for two or three days on the very day of Mr. Morton's mysterious disappearance. It was on the twentieth that Mr. Morton was found, and thirty-six hours later the public were gratified to hear that Mr. Edward Skinner had been traced to London and arrested on the charge of assault upon the person of Mr. Francis Morton, and of robbing him of the sum of ten thousand pounds. Then a further sensation was added to the already bewildering case by the startling announcement that Mr. Francis Morton refused to prosecute. Of course the treasury took up the case and subpoenaed Mr. Morton as a witness, so that gentleman, if he wished to hush the matter up, or had been in any way terrorized into a promise of doing so, gained nothing by his refusal, except an additional amount of curiosity in the public mind and further sensation around the mysterious case. It was all this, you see, which had interested me and brought me down to Brighton on March twenty-third to see the prisoner Edward Skinner arraign before the beak. I must say that he was a very ordinary looking individual. Fair of ruddy complexion with snub nose and the beginning of a bald place on the top of his head, he too looked the embodiment of a prosperous, stodgy, city-gen. I took a quick survey of the witnesses present, and guessed that the handsome, stylish woman sitting next to Mr. Reginald Pipis, the noted lawyer for the crown, was Mrs. Morton. There was a large crowd in court, and I heard whispered comments among the feminine portion thereof, as to the beauty of Mrs. Morton's gown, the value of her large picture hat, and the magnificence of her diamond rings. The police gave all the evidence required with regard to the finding of Mr. Morton in the room at Russell House, and also to the arrest of Skinner at the Langham Hotel in London. It appears that the prisoner seemed completely taken aback at the charge preferred against him, and declared that though he knew Mr. Francis Morton slightly in business, he knew nothing as to his private life. Prisoners stated, continued Inspector Buckle, that he was not even aware Mr. Morton lived in Brighton, but I have evidence here, which I will place before your honour, to prove that the prisoner was seen in the company of Mr. Morton at 9.30 o'clock on the morning of the assault. Cross-examined by Mr. Matthew Quiller, the detective inspector admitted that prisoner merely said that he did not know that Mr. Morton was a resident of Brighton. He never denied having met him there. The witness, or rather witnesses, referred to by the police, were two Brighton tradesmen who knew Mr. Morton by sight and had seen him on the morning of the 17th, walking with the accused. In this instance Mr. Quiller had no questions to ask of the witnesses, and it was generally understood that the prisoner did not wish to contradict their statement. Constable Hartrich told the story of the finding of the unfortunate Mr. Morton after his four days in incarceration. The Constable had been sent round by the chief inspector after certain information given by Mrs. Chapman, the landlady of Russell House. He had found the door locked and forced it open. Mr. Morton was in an armchair with several yards of rope wound loosely round him. He was almost unconscious, and there was a thick wool shawl tied round his mouth which must have deadened any cry or groan the poor gentleman might have uttered. But, as a matter of fact, the Constable was under the impression that Mr. Morton had been either drugged or stunned in some way at first, which had left him weak and faint and prevented him from making himself heard or extricating himself from his bonds, which were very clumsily, evidently very hastily, wound round his body. The medical officer who was called in, and also Dr. Melish, who attended Mr. Morton, both said that he seemed dazed by some stupefying drug and also, of course, terribly weak and faint with the want of food. The first witness of real importance was Mrs. Chapman, the proprietress of Russell House, whose original information to the police led to the discovery of Mr. Morton. In answer to Mr. Pippus, she said that on March 1st the accused called at her house and gave his name as Mr. Edward Skinner. He required, he said, a furnished room at a moderate rental for a permanency, with full attendance when he was in, but he added that he would often be away for two or three days or even longer at a time. He told me that he was a traveler for a tea-house, continued Mrs. Chapman, and I showed him the front room on the third floor as he did not want to pay more than twelve shillings a week. I asked him for a reference, but he put three sovereigns in my hand and said with a laugh that he supposed paying for his room a month in advance was sufficient reference. If I didn't like him after that, I could give him a week's notice to quit. You did not think of asking him the name of the firm for which he traveled? asked Mr. Pippus. No, I was quite satisfied as he paid me for the room. The next day he sent in his luggage and took possession of the room. He went out most mornings on business, but was always in Brighton for Saturday and Sunday. On the 16th he told me that he was going to Liverpool for a couple of days. He slept in the house that night and went off early on the 17th, taking his Port Montau with him. At what time did he leave? asked Mr. Pippus. I couldn't say exactly, replied Mrs. Chapman with some hesitation. You see, this is the off-season here. None of my rooms are let, except the one to Mr. Skinner, and I have only one servant. I keep four during the summer-autumn and winter season. She added with conscious pride, fearing that her former statement might prejudice the reputation of Russell House. I thought I had heard Mr. Skinner go out about nine o'clock, but about an hour later the girl and I were both in the basement, and we heard the front door open and shut with a bang and then a step in the hall. That's Mr. Skinner, said Mary. So it is, I said. Why, I had thought he'd gone an hour ago. He did go out then, says Mary, for he left his bedroom door open and I went in to do his bed and tie to his room. Just go and see if that's him, Mary, I said, and Mary ran up to the hall and up the stairs and came back to tell me that it was Mr. Skinner all right enough. He had gone straight up to his room. Mary didn't see him, but he had another gentleman with him as she could hear them talking in Mr. Skinner's room. Then you can't tell us at what time the prisoner left the house finally. No, that I can't. I went out shopping soon after that. When I came in it was twelve o'clock. I went up to the third floor and found that Mr. Skinner had locked his door and taken the key with him. As I knew Mary had already done the room I did not trouble more about it, though I did think it's strange for a gentleman to lock up his room and not leave the key with me. And, of course, you heard no noise of any kind in the room then? No, not that day nor the next. But on the third day Mary and I both thought we heard a funny sound. I said that Mr. Skinner had left his window open and it was the blind flapping against the window pane. But when we heard the funny noise again I put my ear to the keyhole and I thought I could hear a groan. I was very frightened and sent Mary for the police. Mrs. Chapman had nothing more of interest to say. The prisoner certainly was her lodger. She had last seen him on the evening of the sixteenth, going up to his room with his candle. Mary, the servant, had much the same story to relate as her mistress. I think it was him right enough, said Mary, guardedly. I didn't see him. But I went up to his land and stopped a moment outside his door. I could hear loud voices in the room, gentlemen talking. I suppose you would not do such a thing as listen, Mary, queried Mr. Peepis with a smile. No, sir, said Mary with a bland smile. I didn't catch what the gentlemen said, but one of them spoke so loud I thought they must be quarreling. Mr. Skinner was the only person in possession of a latch key, I presume. No one else could have come in without ringing at the door. Oh, no, sir. That was all. So far you see the case was progressing splendidly for the crown against the prisoner. The contention, of course, was that Skinner had met Mr. Morton, brought him home with him, assaulted, drugged, and gagged and bound him, and finally robbed him of whatever money he had in his possession, which according to certain affidavits, which presently would be placed before the magistrate, amounted to ten thousand pounds in notes. But in all this there still remained the great element of mystery for which the public and the magistrate would demand an explanation, namely, what were the relationships between Mr. Morton and Skinner, which had induced the former to refuse the prosecution of the man who had not only robbed him, but had so nearly succeeded in leaving him to die a terrible and lingering death. Mr. Morton was too ill as yet to appear in person. Dr. Mellish had absolutely forbidden his patient to undergo the fatigue and excitement of giving evidence himself in court that day. But his depositions had been taken at his bedside, were sworn to by him, and were now placed before the magistrate by the prosecuting council, and the facts they revealed were certainly as remarkable as they were brief and enigmatic. As they were read by Mr. Pipis, an odd and expectant hush seemed to descend over the large crowd gathered there, and all necks were strained eagerly forward to catch a glimpse of a tall elegant woman, faultlessly dressed and wearing exquisite jewelry, but whose handsome face wore as the prosecuting council read her husband's deposition a more and more ashen hue. This, your honor, is the statement made upon oath by Mr. Francis Morton, commenced Mr. Pipis, in that loud, sonorous voice of his, which sounds so impressive in a crowded and hushed court. I was obliged, for certain reasons which I refuse to disclose, to make a payment of a large sum of money to a man whom I did not know and have never seen. It was in a manner of which my wife was cognizant, in which had entirely to do with her own affairs. I was merely the go-between, as I thought it was not fit that she should see to this matter herself. The individual in question had made certain demands of which she kept me in ignorance as long as she could, not wishing to unnecessarily worry me. At last she decided to place the whole matter before me, and I agreed with her that it would be best to satisfy the man's demands. Then I wrote to that individual, whose name I do not wish to disclose, addressing the letter as my wife directed me to do to the Brighton Post Office, saying that I was ready to pay the ten thousand pounds to him at any place or time and in what manner he might appoint. I received a reply which bore the Brighton Postmark, and which desired me to be outside Furnivals the Drapers in West Street at nine thirty on the morning of March seventeenth, and to bring the money, ten thousand pounds, in Bank of England Notes. On the sixteenth my wife gave me a check for that amount, and I cashed it at her bank, Birds in Fleet Street. At half-past nine the following morning I was at the appointed place. An individual wearing a gray overcoat, bowler hat, and red tie accosted me by name, and requested me to walk as far as his lodgings in the King's Parade. I followed him. Neither of us spoke. He stopped at a house which bore the name Russell House, in which I shall be able to swear to as soon as I am able to go out. He let himself in with a latch key, and asked me to follow him up to his room on the third floor. I thought I noticed when we were in the room that he locked the door. However, I had nothing of any value about me except the ten thousand pounds which I was ready to give him. We had not exchanged the slightest word. I gave him the notes, and he folded them and put them in his pocket-book. Then I turned towards the door, and without the slightest warning I felt myself suddenly gripped by the shoulder, while a handkerchief was pressed to my nose and mouth. I struggled as best I could, but the handkerchief was saturated with chloroform, and I soon lost consciousness. I hazily remember the man saying to me in short, jerky sentences, spoken at intervals, while I was still weakly struggling. What a fool you must think me, my dear sir. Did you really think that I was going to let you quietly walk out of here straight to the police station, eh? Such dodges have been done before, I know, when a man's silence has to be brought for money. Find out who he is, see where he lives, give him the money, then inform against him. No you don't, not this time. I am off to the containing with his ten thousand pounds, and I can get to New Haven in time for the midday boat, so you'll have to keep quiet until I am the other side of the channel, my friend. You won't be much inconvenienced. My landlady will hear your groans presently and release you, so you'll be all right. There, now drink this, that's better. He forced something bitter down my throat, then I remember nothing more. When I regained consciousness I was sitting in an armchair with some rope tied round me and a wool shawl round my mouth. I hadn't the strength to make the slightest effort to disentangle myself or to utter a scream. I felt terribly sick and faint. Mr. Reginald Peepe has had finished reading, and no one in that crowded court had thought of uttering a sound. The magistrate's eyes were fixed upon the handsome lady in the magnificent gown, who was mopping her eyes with a dainty lace handkerchief. The extraordinary narrative of the victim of so daring an outrage had kept everyone in suspense. One thing was still expected to make the measure of sensation as full as it had ever been over any criminal case, and that was Mrs. Morton's evidence. She was called by the prosecuting council, and slowly, gracefully, she entered the witness box. There was no doubt that she had felt keenly the tortures which her husband had undergone, and also the humiliation of seeing her name dragged forcibly into this ugly blackmailing scandal. Closely questioned by Mr. Reginald Peepe's, she was forced to admit that the man who blackmailed her was connected with her early life in a way which would have brought terrible disgrace upon her and upon her children. The story she told amidst many tears and sobs, and much use of her beautiful lace handkerchief and marringed hands, was exceedingly pathetic. It appears that when she was barely seventeen, she was inveigled into a secret marriage with one of those foreign adventurers who swarm in every country, and who styled himself, Con Armand de la Trémure. He seems to have been a blackherd of unusually low pattern, for after he had extracted from her some two hundred pounds of her pin money and a few diamond brooches, he left her one fine day, with a laconic word to say that he was sailing for Europe by the Argentine and would not be back for some time. She was in love with the brute, poor young soul, for when a week later she read that the Argentina was wrecked and presumably every soul on board had perished, she wept very many bitter tears over her early widowhood. Fortunately her father, a very wealthy pork butcher of Chicago, had known nothing of his daughter's culpable foolishness. Four years later he took her to London where she met Mr. Francis Morton and married him. She led six or seven years of very happy married life when one day, like a thunderbolt from a clear blue sky, she received a typewritten letter signed Armand de la Trémure, full of protestations of undying love, telling a long and pathetic tale of years of suffering in a foreign land, wither he had drifted after having been rescued almost miraculously from the wreck of the Argentina and where he never had been able to scrape a sufficient amount of money to pay for his passage home. At last fate had favoured him. He had, after many vicitudes, found the whereabouts of his dear wife and was now ready to forgive all that was past and take her to his loving arms once again. What followed was the usual course of events when there was a black guard and a fool of a woman. She was terrorised and did not dare to tell her husband for some time. She corresponded with the Cont de la Trémure, begging him for her sake and in memory of the past not to attempt to see her. She found him amenable to reason in the shape of several hundred pounds which passed through the Brighton Post Office into his hands. At last, one day, by accident, Mr. Morton came across one of the Cont de la Trémure's interesting letters. She confessed everything, throwing herself upon her husband's mercy. Now, Mr. Francis Morton was a businessman who viewed life practically and soberly. He liked his wife who kept him in luxury and wished to keep her, whereas the Cont de la Trémure seemed willing enough to give her up for a consideration. Mrs. Morton, who had the sole and absolute control of her fortune, on the other hand, was willing enough to pay the price and hush up the scandal which she believed, since she was a bit of a fool, would land her in prison for bigamy. Mr. Francis Morton wrote to the Cont de la Trémure that his wife was ready to pay him the sum of ten thousand pounds, which he demanded in payment for her absolute liberty, and his own complete disappearance out of her life now and forever. The appointment was made, and Mr. Morton left his house at nine a.m. on March 17th, with the ten thousand pounds in his pocket. The public and the magistrate had hung breathless upon her words. There was nothing but sympathy felt for this handsome woman, whose her out had been more sinned against than sinning, and whose grave his fault seems to have been a total lack of intelligence in dealing with her own life. But I can assure you of one thing, that in no case within my recollection was there ever such a sensation in a court as when the magistrate, after a few minutes' silence, said gently to Mrs. Morton. And now, Mrs. Morton, will you kindly look at the prisoner and tell me if in him you recognize your former husband? And she, without even turning to look at the accused, said quietly, Oh, no, Your Honor, of course that man is not the Conte de la Trumul. I can assure you that the situation was quite dramatic, continued the man in the corner, whilst his funny, claw-like hands took up a bit of string with renewed feverishness. In answer to further questions from the magistrate, she declared that she had never seen the accused. He might have been the go-between, however, that she could not say. The letters she received were all typewritten, but signed Armand de la Trumul, and certainly the signature was identical with that on the letters she used to receive from him years ago, all of which she had kept. And did it never strike you, asked the magistrate with a smile, that the letters you received might be forgeries? How could they be? she replied decisively. No one knew of my marriage to the Conte de la Trumul, no one in England certainly. And besides, if someone did know the Conte intimately enough to forge his handwriting and to blackmail me, why should that someone have waited all these years? I have been married seven years, Your Honor. That was true enough, and there the matter rested as far as she was concerned. But the identity of Mr. Francis Morton's assailant had to be finally established, of course, before the prisoner was committed for trial. Dr. Mellish promised that Mr. Morton would be allowed to come to court for half an hour and identify the accused on the following day, and the case was adjourned until then. The accused was led away between two constables, Bale being refused, and Brighton had perforced to moderate its impatience until the Wednesday. On that day the court was crowded to overflowing. Actors, playwrights, literary men of all sorts had fought for admission to study for themselves the various phrases and faces in connection with the case. Mrs. Morton was not present when the prisoner, quiet and self-possessed, was brought in and placed in the dock. His solicitor was with him, and a sensational defense was expected. Presently there was a stir in the court, and that certain sound, half Russell, half Psy, which preludes an expected palpitating event. Mr. Morton, pale, thin, wearing yet in his hollow eyes the stamp of those five days of suffering, walked into court, leaning on the arm of his doctor. Mrs. Morton was not with him. He was at once accommodated with a chair in the witness-box, and the magistrate, after a few words of kindly sympathy, asked him if he had anything to add to his written statement. On Mr. Morton replying in the negative, the magistrate added, And now, Mr. Morton, will you kindly look at the accused in the dock and tell me whether you recognized the person who took you to the room in Russell House and then assaulted you? Slowly the sick man turned towards the prisoner and looked at him. Then he shook his head and replied quietly, No, sir, that certainly was not the man. You are quite sure? asked the magistrate in amazement, while the crowd literally gasped with wonder. I swear it, asserted Mr. Morton. Can you describe the man who assaulted you? Certainly. He was dark of swarthy complexion, tall, thin with bushy eyebrows, and thick black hair and short beard. He spoke English with just the faintest suspicion of a foreign accent. The prisoner, as I told you before, was English in every feature, English in his ruddy complexion, and absolutely English in his speech. After that the case for the prosecution began to collapse. Everyone had expected a sensational defense, and Mr. Matthew Quiller, counsel for Skinner, fully justified all these expectations. He had no fewer than four witnesses present who swore positively that at 9.45 on the morning of Wednesday, March 17th, the prisoner was in the express train, leaving Brighton for Victoria. Not being endowed with the gift of being in two places at once, and Mr. Morton having added the whole weight of his own evidence in Mr. Edward Skinner's favor, that gentleman was once more remanded by the magistrate, pending further investigation by the police, bail being allowed this time in two sureties of fifty pounds each. Chapter 27 Two Blackbirds Tell me what you think of it, said the man in the corner, seeing that Polly remained silent and puzzled. Well, she replied dubiously, I suppose that the so-called Armand de la Trémul's story was true in substance, that he did not perish on the Argentina, but drifted home and blackmailed his former wife. Doesn't it strike you that there are at least two very strong points against that theory, he asked, making two gigantic knots in his piece of string? Two? Yes, in the first place, if the blackmailer was the Quant de la Trémul returned to life, why should he have been content to take ten thousand pounds from a lady who was his lawful wife, and who could keep him in luxury for the rest of his natural life upon her large fortune, which was close upon a quarter of a million? The real Quant de la Trémul, remember, had never found it difficult to get money out of his wife during their brief married life, whatever Mr. Morton's subsequent experience in the same direction might have been. And secondly, why should he have typewritten his letters to his wife? Because that was a point which, to my mind, the police never made the most of. Now, my experience in criminal cases has invariably been that when a typewritten letter figures in one, that letter is a forgery. It is not very difficult to imitate a signature, but it is a jolly sight more difficult to imitate a handwriting throughout an entire letter. Then do you think, I think if you will allow me, he interrupted excitedly, that we will go through the points, the sensible, tangible points of the case. Firstly, Mr. Morton disappears with ten thousand pounds in his pocket for four entire days. At the end of that time he is discovered loosely tied to an armchair and a wool shawl around his mouth. Secondly, a man named Skinner is accused of the outrage. Mr. Morton, although he himself is able, mind you, to furnish the best defense possible for Skinner, by denying his identity with the man who assaulted him, refuses to prosecute. Why? He did not wish to drag his wife's name into the case. He must have known that the Crown would take up the case. Then again, how is it no one saw him in the company of the Swarthie foreigner he described? Two witnesses did see Mr. Morton in company with Skinner, argued Polly. Yes, at 920 in West Street. That would give Edward Skinner time to catch the 945 at the station and to entrust Mr. Morton with the latch key of Russell House remarked the man in the corner dryly. What nonsense! Polly ejaculated. Nonsense is it, he said, tugging wildly at his bit of string. Is it nonsense to affirm that if a man wants to make sure that his victim shall not escape, he does not usually wind rope loosely around his figure, nor does he throw a wool shawl lightly around his mouth. The police were idiotic beyond words. They themselves discovered that Morton was so loosely fastened to his chair that very little movement would have disentangled him, and yet it never struck them that nothing was easier for that particular type of scoundrel to sit down in an armchair and wind a few yards of rope around himself than having wrapped a wool shawl around his throat to slip his two arms inside the ropes. But what object would a man in Mr. Morton's position have for playing such extraordinary pranks? Ah, the motive, there you are. What do I always tell you? Seek the motive. Now what was Mr. Morton's position? He was the husband of a lady who owned a quarter of a million of money, not one penny of which he could touch without her consent, as it was settled on herself, and who, after the terrible way in which he had been plundered and then abandoned in her early youth, no doubt kept a very tight hold upon the purse strings. Mr. Morton's subsequent life has proved that he had certain expensive, not altogether avowable tastes. One day he discovers the old love letters of Le Con Amont de la Trémule. Then he lays his plans. He typewrites a letter, forges the signature of the erstwhile count, and awaits events. The fish does rise to the bait. He gets sundry bits of money, and his success makes him daring. He looks round him for an accomplice, clever, unscrupulous, greedy, and selects Mr. Edward Skinner, probably some former pal of his wild oats days. The plan was very neat, you must confess. Mr. Skinner takes the room in Russell House and studies all the manners and customs of his landlady and her servant. He then draws the full attention of the police upon himself. He meets Morton in West Street, then disappears ostensibly after the assault. In the meanwhile, Morton goes to Russell House. He walks upstairs, talks loudly in the room, then makes elaborate preparations for his comedy. Why, he nearly died of starvation! That, I daresay, was not part of his reckoning. He thought, no doubt, that Mrs. Chapman or the servant would discover and rescue him pretty soon. He meant to appear just a little faint, and endured quietly the first twenty-four hours of inanation. But the excitement and want of food told on him more than he expected. After twenty-four hours he turned very giddy and sick, and falling from one fainting fit into another was unable to give the alarm. However, he is all right again now, and concludes his part of a downright blacker to perfection. Under the plea that his conscience does not allow him to live with a lady whose first husband is still alive, he has taken a bachelor flat in London, and only pays afternoon calls on his wife in Brighton. But presently he will tire of his bachelor life and will return to his wife, and I'll guarantee that the Conte de Temul will never be heard of again. And that afternoon the man in the corner left Ms. Polly Burton alone with a couple of photos of two uninteresting, stodgy, quiet-looking men, Morton and Skinner, who, if the old scarecrow was right in his theories, were a pair of the finest blackers unhung. By this time Ms. Polly Burton had become quite accustomed to her extraordinary vis-à-vis in the corner. He was always there when she arrived in the self-same corner, dressed in one of his remarkable Czech tweed suits. He seldom said good morning, and invariably when she appeared he began to fidget with increasing nervousness with some tattered and naughty piece of string. Were you ever interested in the regents' park murder? He asked her one day. Polly replied that she had forgotten most of the particulars connected with that curious murder, but that she fully remembered the stir and flutter it had caused in a certain section of London society. The racing and gambling set particularly you mean, he said. All the persons implicated in the murder, directly or indirectly, were of the type commonly called society men, or men about town, lost the Hairwood Club in Hanover Square, round which centered all the scandal in connection with the murder, was one of the smartest clubs in London. Probably the doings of the Hairwood Club, which was essentially a gambling club, would forever have remained officially absent from the knowledge of the police authorities, but for the murder in Regents' Park, and the revelations which came to light in connection with it. I dare say you know the quiet square that lies between Portland Place and the Regents' Park, and is called Park Crescent at its south end, and subsequently Park Square East and West. The Marlbone Road, with all its heavy traffic, cuts straight across the large square and its pretty gardens, but the latter are connected together by a tunnel under the road, and of course you must remember that the new tube station in the south portion of the square had not yet been planned. February 6th, 1907, was a very foggy night. Nevertheless, Mr. Aaron Cohen of 30 Park Square West, at two o'clock in the morning, having finally pocketed the heavy winnings which he had just swept off the green table of the Hairwood Club, started to walk home alone. An hour later most of the inhabitants of Park Square West were aroused from their peaceful slumbers by the sounds of a violent altercation in the road. A man's angry voice was heard shouting violently for a minute or two, and was followed immediately by frantic screams of police and murder. Then there was the double sharp report of firearms and nothing more. The fog was very dense, and as you no doubt have experienced yourself, it is very difficult to locate sound in a fog. Nevertheless, not more than a minute or two had elapsed before Constable F. 18, the point policeman at the corner of Marlebone Road, arrived on the scene, and having first of all whistled for any of his comrades on the beat, began to grope his way about in the fog, more confused and effectually assisted by contradictory directions from the inhabitants of the houses close by, who were nearly falling out of the upper windows as they shouted out to Constable, by the railings, policemen, higher up the road, no, lower down. It was on this side of the pavement, I am sure. No, the other. At last it was another policeman, F. 22, who turning into Park Square West from the north side, almost stumbled upon the body of a man lying on the pavement with his head against the railings of the square. By this time quite a little crowd of people from the different houses in the road had come down. Curious to know what had actually happened. The policeman turned the strong light of his bullseye lantern on the unfortunate man's face. It looks as if he's been strangled, don't it? he murmured to his comrade, and he pointed to the swollen tongue, the eyes half out of their sockets, bloodshot and congested, the purple almost black hue of the face. At this point one of the spectators, more callous to horrors, peered curiously into the dead man's face. He uttered an exclamation of astonishment, why surely it's Mr. Cohen from Number 30. The mention of a name familiar down the length of the street had cost two or three other men to come forward and to look more closely into the horribly distorted mask of the murdered man. Our next-door neighbor undoubtedly asserted Mr. Ellison a young barrister residing at Number 31. What in the world was he doing in this foggy night all alone and on foot? asked somebody else. He usually came home very late. I fancy he belonged to some gambling club in town. I dare say he couldn't get a cab to bring him out here. Mind you, I don't know much about him. We only knew him to nod to. Poor beggar! It looks almost like an old-fashioned case of garroting. Anyway, the black early murderer, whoever he was, wanted to make sure he had killed his man, added Constable F-18, as he picked up an object from the pavement. Here's the revolver with two cartridges missing. You gentlemen heard the report just now? He don't seem to have hit him, though. The poor bloke was strangled, no doubt. And tried to shoot his assailant, obviously, asserted the young barrister with authority. If he succeeded in hitting the brute there might be a chance of tracing the way he went, but not in the fog. Soon, however, the appearance of the Inspector, Detective, and Medical Officer, who had quickly been informed of the tragedy, put an end to further discussion. The bell at Number 30 was rung, and the servants, all four of them women, were asked to look at the body. Amidst tears of horror and screams of fright they all recognized in the murdered man their master, Mr. Aaron Cohen. He was there for convey to his own room, panting the coroner's inquest. The police had a pretty difficult task, you will admit. There were so very few indications to go by, and at first, literally no clue. The inquest revealed practically nothing. Very little was known in the neighborhood about Mr. Aaron Cohen and his affairs. His female servants did not even know the name or whereabouts of the various clubs he frequented. He had an office in Throgmorton Street, and went to business every day. He dined at home and sometimes had friends to dinner. When he was alone he invariably went to the club, where he stayed until the small hours of the morning. The night of the murder he had gone out at about nine o'clock. That was the last his servants had seen of him. With regard to the revolver, all four servants saw positively that they had never seen it before, and that unless Mr. Cohen had bought it that very day it did not belong to their master. Beyond that no trace whatever of the murderer had been found, but on the morning after the crime a couple of keys linked together by a short metal chain were found close to a gate at the opposite end of the square, that which immediately phased Portland Place. These were proved to be, firstly, Mr. Cohen's latch-key, and secondly, his gate-key of the square. It was therefore presumed that the murderer, having accomplished his failed design, and ransacked his victim's pockets, had found the keys and made good his escape by slipping into the square, cutting into the tunnel and out again by the further gate. He then took the precaution not to carry the keys with him any further, but threw them away and disappeared in the fog. The jury returned a verdict of willful murder against some person or persons unknown, and the police were put on their metal to discover the unknown and daring murderer. The result of their investigations, conducted with marvelous skill by Mr. William Fisher, led about a week after the crime to the sensational arrest of one of London's smartest young bucks. The case Mr. Fisher had got up against the accused briefly amounted to this. On the night of February 6th, soon after midnight, play began to run very high at the Hairwood Club in Hanover Square. Mr. Aaron Cohen held the bank at roulette against some twenty or thirty of his friends, mostly young fellows with no wits and plenty of money. The bank was winning heavily, and it appears that this was the third consecutive night on which Mr. Aaron Cohen had gone home richer by several hundreds than he had been at the start of play. Young John Ashley, who is the son of a very worthy county gentleman, who is MFH somewhere in the Midlands, was losing heavily, and in his case also it appears that it was the third consecutive night that Fortune had turned her face against him. Remember, continued the man in the corner, that when I tell you all these details and facts I am giving you the combined evidence of several witnesses which it took many days to collect and to classify. It appears that young Mr. Ashley, though very popular in society, was generally believed to be in what is vulgarly termed low water, up to his eyes in debt, and mortally afraid of his dad, whose younger son he was, and who had, on one occasion, threatened to ship him off to Australia with a five pound note in his pocket if he made any further extravagant calls upon his paternal indulgence. It was also evident to all John Ashley's many companions that the worthy MFH held the purse-strings in a very tight grip. The young man, bitten with the desire to cut a smart figure in the circles in which he moved, had often recourse to the varying fortunes which now and again smiled upon him across the green tables in the Hairwood Club. Be that as it may, the general consensus of opinion at the club was that young Ashley had changed his last pony before he sat down to a turn of roulette with Aaron Cohen on that particular night of February 6th. It appears that all his friends, conspicuous among whom was Mr. Walter Hatharrell, tried their very best to dissuade him from pitting his luck against that of Cohen, who had been having a most unprecedented run of good fortune. But young Ashley, heated with wine, exasperated at his own bad luck, would listen to no one. He tossed one five pound note after another on the board. He borrowed from those who would lend, then played on parole for a while. Finally at half-past one in the morning, after a run of nineteen on the red, the young man found himself without a penny in his pockets, and owing a debt, gambling debt, a debt of honour of fifteen hundred pounds to Mr. Aaron Cohen. Now we must render this much maligned gentleman that justice which was persistently denied to him by press and public alike. It was positively asserted by all those present that Mr. Cohen himself repeatedly tried to induce young Mr. Ashley to give up playing. He himself was in a delicate position in the matter, as he was the winner, and once or twice the taunt had risen to the young man's lips, accusing the holder of the bank of the wish to retire on a competence before the break in his luck. Mr. Aaron Cohen, smoking the best of Havana's, had finally shrugged his shoulders and said, as you please. But at half-past one he had had enough of the player, who always lost and never paid, never could pay so Mr. Cohen probably believed. He therefore, at that hour, refused to accept Mr. John Ashley's promissory stakes any longer. A very few heated words ensued, quickly checked by the management, who were ever on the alert to avoid the least suspicion of scandal. In the meanwhile, Mr. Hatharell, with great good sense, persuaded young Ashley to leave the club and all its temptations and go home, if possible, to bed. The friendship of the two young men, which was very well known in society, consisted chiefly it appears, in Walter Hatharell being the willing companion and helpmate of John Ashley in his mad and extravagant pranks. But tonight the latter, apparently tardily sobered by his terrible and heavy losses, allowed himself to be led away by his friend from the scene of his disasters. It was then about twenty minutes to two. Here the situation becomes interesting, continued the man in the corner in his nervous way. No wonder that the police interrogated at least a dozen witnesses before they were quite satisfied that every statement was conclusively proved. Walter Hatharell, after about ten minutes' absence, that is to say, at ten minutes to two, returned to the club room. In reply to several inquiries he said that he had parted with his friend at the corner of New Bond Street since he seemed anxious to be alone, and that Ashley said he would take a turn down Piccadilly before going home. He thought a walk would do him good. At two o'clock or thereabouts Mr. Aaron Cohen, satisfied with his evening's work, gave up his position at the bank and, pocketing his heavy winnings, started on his homeward walk, while Mr. Walter Hatharell left the club half an hour later. At three o'clock precisely the cries of murder and the report of firearms were heard in Park Square West, and Mr. Aaron Cohen was found strangled outside the garden railings. CHAPTER 29 THE MOTIVE Now at first sight the murder in the region's park appeared both to police and public as one of those silly, clumsy crimes, obviously the work of a novice, and absolutely purposeless, seeing that it could but inevitably lead its perpetrators without any difficulty to the gallows. You see, a motive had been established. Seek him whom the crime benefits, say our French confraire. But there was something more than that. Constable James Funnell, on his beat, turned from Portland Place into Park Crescent a few minutes after he had heard the clock at Holy Trinity Church, Merrill Bone, strike half-past two. The fog at that moment was perhaps not quite so dense as it was later on in the morning, and the policeman saw two gentlemen in overcoats and top hats, leaning arm-in-arm against the railings of the square close to the gate. He could not, of course, distinguish their faces because of the fog, but he heard one of them saying to the other, It is but a question of time, Mr. Cohen, I know my father will pay the money for me and you will lose nothing by waiting. To this the other apparently made no reply, and the constable passed on. When he returned to the same spot after having walked over his beat, the two gentlemen had gone, but later on it was near this very gate that the two keys referred to at the inquest had been found. Another interesting fact, added the man in the corner, with one of those sarcastic smiles of his which Polly could not quite explain, was the finding of the revolver upon the scene of the crime. That revolver, shown to Mr. Ashley's valet, was sworn to by him as being the property of his master. All these facts made, of course, a very remarkable, so far quite unbroken chain of circumstantial evidence against Mr. John Ashley. No wonder therefore that the police thoroughly satisfied with Mr. Fisher's work and their own, applied for a warrant against the young man and arrested him in his rooms in Clarge's street exactly a week after the committal of the crime. As a matter of fact, you know, experience has invariably taught me that when a murderer seems particularly foolish and clumsy, and proofs against him seem particularly damning. That is the time when the police should be most guarded against pitfalls. Now in this case, if John Ashley had indeed committed the murder in Regent's Park, in the manner suggested by the police, he would have been a criminal in more senses than one, for idiocy of that kind is to my mind worse than many crimes. The prosecution brought its witnesses up in triumphal array one after another. There were the members of the Hairwood Club who had seen the prisoner's excited condition after his heavy gambling losses to Mr. Aaron Cohen. There was Mr. Hathorrell, who, in spite of his friendship for Ashley, was bound to admit that he had parted from him at the corner of Bond Street at twenty minutes to two, and had not seen him again till his return home at five a.m. Then came the evidence of Arthur Chip's John Ashley's valet. It proved of a very sensational character. He deposed that on the night in question his master came home at about ten minutes to two. Chip's had then not yet gone to bed. Five minutes later Mr. Ashley went out again, telling the valet not to sit up for him. Chip's could not say at what time either of the young gentlemen had come home. That short visit home, presumably to fetch the revolver, was thought to be very important, and Mr. John Ashley's friends felt that his case was practically hopeless. The valet's evidence and that of James Funnell, the constable who had overheard the conversation near the park railings, were certainly the two most damning proofs against the accused. I assure you, I was having a rare old time that day. There were two faces in court to watch, which was the greatest treat I had had for many a day. One of these was Mr. John Ashley's. Here's his photo. Short, dark, dapper, a little racy in style, but otherwise he looks a son of a well-to-do farmer. He was very quiet and placid in court, and addressed a few words now and again to his solicitor. He listened gravely and with an occasional shrug of the shoulders to the recital of the crime such as the police had reconstructed it before an excited and horrified audience. Mr. John Ashley, driven to madness and frenzy by terrible financial difficulties, had first of all gone home in search of a weapon, then waylaid Mr. Aaron Cohen, somewhere on that gentleman's way home. The young man had begged for delay. Mr. Cohen, perhaps, was obdurate. But Ashley followed him with his importunities almost to his door. There, seeing his creditor determined at last to cut short the painful interview, he had seized the unfortunate man at an unguarded moment from behind and strangled him. Then fearing that his dastardly work was not fully accomplished, he had shot twice at the already dead body, missing it both times from sheer nervous excitement. The murderer then must have emptied his victim's pockets, and finding the key of the garden thought that it would be a safe way of evading capture by cutting across the squares under the tunnel and sew through the more distant gate which faced Portland Place. The loss of the revolver was one of those unforeseen accidents which a retributive providence places in the path of the miscreant, delivering him by his own act of folly into the hands of human justice. Mr. John Ashley, however, did not appear the least bit impressed by the recital of his crime. He had not engaged the services of one of the most eminent lawyers, expert at extracting contradictions from witnesses by skillful cross-examinations. Oh, dear me, no! He had been contented with those of a dull, prosy, very second-rate limb of the law, who, as he called his witnesses, was completely innocent of any desire to create a sensation. He rose quietly from his seat and amidst breathless silence called the first of three witnesses on behalf of his client. He called three, but he could have produced twelve, gentlemen members of the Ashton Club in Great Portland Street, all of whom swore that at three o'clock in the morning of February 6, that is to say, at the very moment when the cries of murder roused the inhabitants of Park Square West and the crime was being committed, Mr. John Ashley was sitting quietly in the club rooms of the Ashton, playing bridge with three witnesses. He had come in a few minutes before three, as the whole porter of the club testified, and stayed for about an hour and a half. I need not tell you that this undoubted, this fully proved alibi was a positive bombshell in the stronghold of the prosecution. The most accomplished criminal could not possibly be in two places at once, and though the Ashton Club transgresses in many ways against the gambling laws of our very moral country, yet its members belong to the best, most unimpeachable classes of society. Mr. Ashley had been seen and spoken to at the very moment of the crime by at least a dozen gentlemen whose testimony was absolutely above suspicion. Mr. John Ashley's conduct throughout this astonishing phase of the inquiry remained perfectly calm and correct. It was no doubt the consciousness of being able to prove his innocence with such absolute conclusion that had steadied his nerves throughout the proceedings. His answers to the magistrate were clear and simple, even on the ticklish subject of the revolver. I left the club, sir, he explained, fully determined to speak with Mr. Cohen alone in order to ask him for a delay in the settlement of my debt to him. You will understand that I should not care to do this in the presence of other gentlemen. I went home for a minute or two, not in order to fetch a revolver as the police assert, for I always carry a revolver about with me in foggy weather, but in order to see if a very important business letter had come for me in my absence. Then I went out again and met Mr. Aaron Cohen not far from the Hairwood Club. I walked the greater part of the way with him and our conversation was of the most amicable character. We parted at the top of Portland Place near the gate of the square, where the policeman saw us. Mr. Cohen then had the intention of cutting across the square as being a shorter way to his own house. I thought the square looked dark and dangerous in the fog, especially as Mr. Cohen was carrying a large sum of money. We had a short discussion on the subject, and finally I persuaded him to take my revolver, as I was going home only through very frequented streets, and moreover carried nothing that was worth stealing. After a little demure Mr. Cohen accepted the loan of my revolver, and that is how it came to be found on the actual scene of the crime. Finally I parted from Mr. Cohen a very few minutes after I had heard the church clock striking a quarter before three. I was at the Oxford Street end of Great Portland Street at five minutes to three, and it takes at least ten minutes to walk from where I was to the Ashton Club. This explanation was all the more credible, mind you, because the question of the revolver had never been very satisfactorily explained by the prosecution. A man who has effectually strangled his victim would not discharge two shots of his revolver, for apparently no other purpose than that of rousing the attention of the nearest passer-by. It was far more likely that it was Mr. Cohen who shot, perhaps wildly into the air, when suddenly attacked from behind. Mr. Ashley's explanation, therefore, was not only plausible, it was the only possible one. You will understand, therefore, how it was, that after nearly half an hour's examination, the magistrate, the police, and the public were alike pleased to proclaim that the accused left the court without a stain upon his character. CHAPTER XXIII. FRIENDS. Yes, interrupted Polly eagerly, since for once her acumen had been at least as sharp as his, but suspicion of that horrible crime only shifted its taint from one friend to another. And, of course, I know, but that's just it, he quietly interrupted. You don't know. Mr. Walter Hatherrell, of course, you mean. So did everyone else, at once. The friend, weak and willing, committing a crime on behalf of his cowardly, yet more assertive friend who had tempted him to evil. It was a good theory, and was held pretty generally, I fancy, even by the police. I say even, because they worked really hard in order to build up a case against young Hatherrell, but the great difficulty was that of time. At the hour when the policeman had seen the two men outside Park Square together, Walter Hatherrell was still sitting in the Hairwood Club, which he never left until twenty minutes to two. Had he wished to waylay and rob Aaron Cohen, he would not have waited surely till the time when presumably the latter would have already reached home. Moreover, twenty minutes was an incredibly short time in which to walk from Hanover Square to Regent's Park without the chance of cutting across the squares to look for a man whose whereabouts you could not determine to within twenty yards or so, to have an argument with him, murder him, and ransack his pockets. And then there was the total absence of motive. But, said Polly meditatively, for she remembered now that the Regent's Park murder, as it had been popularly called, was one of those which had remained as impenetrable a mystery as any other crime had ever been in the annals of the police. The man in the corner cocked his funny birdlike head well to one side and looked at her, highly amused evidently at her perplexity. You do not see how that murder was committed, he asked with a grin. Polly was bound to admit that she did not. If you had happened to have been in Mr. John Ashley's predicament, he persisted, you do not see how you could conveniently have done away with Mr. Aaron Cohen, pocketed his winnings, and then led the police of your country entirely by the nose by proving an indisputable alibi. I could not arrange conveniently, she retorted, to be in two different places half a mile apart, at one in the same time. No, I quite admit that you could not do this unless you also had a friend. A friend, but you say, I say that I admired Mr. John Ashley, for his was the head which planned the whole thing, but he could not have accomplished the fascinating and terrible drama without the help of willing and able hands. Even then, she protested. Point number one, he began excitedly, fidgeting with his inevitable piece of string. John Ashley and his friend Walter Hatherrell leave the club together, and together decide on the plan of campaign. Hatherrell returns to the club, and Ashley goes to fetch the revolver, the revolver which played such an important part in the drama, but not the part assigned to it by the police. Now try to follow Ashley closely as he dogs Aaron Cohen's footsteps. Do you believe that he entered into conversation with him, that he walked by his side, that he asked for delay? No. He sneaked behind him and caught him by the throat, as the garadiers used to do in the fog. Cohen was apoplectic, and Ashley is young and powerful. Moreover, he meant to kill. But the two men talk together outside the square gates, protested Polly, one of whom was Cohen, and the other Ashley. Pardon me, he said, jumping up in his seat like a monkey on a stick. There were not two men talking outside the square gates. According to the testimony of James Funnell, the constable, two men were leaning arm in arm against the railings, and one man was talking. Then you think that, at the hour when James Funnell heard Holy Trinity clocks striking half past two, Aaron Cohen was already dead. Look how simple the whole thing is, he added eagerly, and how easy after that. Easy, but oh dear me, how wonderfully, how stupendously clever. As soon as James Funnell has passed on, John Ashley, having opened the gate, lifts the body of Aaron Cohen in his arms, and carries him across the square. The square is deserted, of course, but the way is easy enough, and we must presume that Ashley had been in it before. Anyway, there was no fear of meeting anyone. In the meantime, Hathor El has left the club. As fast as his athletic legs can carry him, he rushes along Oxford Street in Portland Place. It had been arranged between the two miscreants that the square gate should be left on the latch. Close on Ashley's heels now, Hathor El too cuts across the square and reaches the further gate in good time to give his confederate a hand in disposing the body against the railings. Then, without another instant's delay, Ashley runs back across the gardens, straight to the Ashton Club, throwing away the keys of the dead man on the very spot where he had made it a point of being seen and heard by a passerby. Hathor El gives his friend six or seven minutes start, then he begins the altercation, which lasts two or three minutes, and finally rouses the neighborhood with cries of murder and report of pistol in order to establish that the crime was committed at the hour when its perpetrator has already made out an indisputable alibi. I don't know what you think of it all, of course, added the funny creature as he fumbled for his coat and gloves, but I call the planning of that murder on the part of novices, mind you, one of the cleverest pieces of strategy I have ever come across. It is one of those cases where there is no possibility, whatever now, of bringing the crime home to its perpetrator or his abetter. They have not left a single proof behind them. They foresaw everything, and each acted his part with a coolness and courage which, applied to a great and good cause, would have made fine statesmen of them both. As it is, I fear, they are just a pair of young blackards who have escaped human justice and have only deserved the full and ungrudging admiration of yours very sincerely. He had gone. Polly wanted to call him back, but his meager person was no longer visible through the glass door. There were many things she would have wished to ask of him. What were his proofs, his facts? His were theories, after all, and yet somehow she felt that he had solved once again one of the darkest mysteries of great criminal London. End of chapters 29 and 30 Chapter 31 of The Old Man in the Corner This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org The Old Man in the Corner by Baroness Orsey Chapter 31 The Degenville Peerage The man in the corner rubbed his chin thoughtfully and looked out upon the busy street below. I suppose, he said, there is some truth in the saying that Providence watches over bank rubs, kittens, and lawyers. I didn't know there was such a saying, replied Polly, with guarded dignity. Isn't there? Perhaps I am misquoting. Anyway, there should be. Kittens, it seems, live and thrive through social and domestic upheavals, which would annihilate a self-supporting Tomcat. And today I read in the morning papers the account of a noble lord's bankruptcy and in the society ones that of his visit at the house of a cabinet minister, where he is the most honored guest. As for lawyers, when Providence had exhausted all other means of securing their welfare, it brought forth the peerage cases. I believe, as a matter of fact, that this special dispensation of Providence, as you call it, requires more technical knowledge than any other legal complication that comes before the law courts, she said, and also a great deal more money in the client's pocket than any other complication. Now take the Brockelsby peerage case. Have you any idea how much money was spent over that soap bubble, which only burst after many hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds went in lawyers and counsel's fees? I suppose a great deal of money was spent on both sides, she replied, until that sudden awful issue, which settled the dispute effectually, he interrupted with a dry chuckle. Of course, it is very doubtful if any reputable solicitor would have taken up the case. Timothy Beddingfield, the Birmingham lawyer, is a gentleman who, well, has had some misfortunes, shall we say? He is still on the rolls, mind you, but I doubt if any case would have its chances improved by his conducting it. Against that there is just this to be said, that some of these old peerages have such peculiar histories, and own such wonderful archives, that a claim is always worth investigating, you never know what may be the rights of it. I believe that, at first, everyone laughed over the pretensions of the honourable Robert Ingram to Genville to the joint title and part revenues of the old barony of Genville, but obviously he might have got his case. It certainly sounded almost like a fairytale, this claim based upon the supposed validity of an ancient document over four hundred years old. It was then that a medieval lord to Genville, more endowed with muscle than common sense, became during his turbulent existence much embarrassed and hopelessly puzzled through the presentation made to him by his lady of twin-born sons. His embarrassment chiefly arose from the fact that my lady's attendants, while ministering to the comfort of the mother, had in a moment of absent-mindedness so placed the two infants in their cot that subsequently no one, not even, perhaps least of all, the mother could tell which was the one who had been the first to make his appearance into this troublesome and puzzling world. After many years of cogitation during which the lord to Genville approached nearer to the grave and his sons to man's estate, he gave up trying to solve the riddle as to which of the twins should succeed to his title and revenues. He appealed to his liege lord and king, Edward, fourth of that name, and with the latter's august sanction he drew up a certain document, wherein he enacted that both his sons should, after his death, share his titles and goodly revenues, and that the first son born in wedlock of either father should subsequently be the sole heir. In this document was also added that if in future time should any lords to Genville be similarly afflicted with twin sons who had equal rights to be considered the eldest born, the same rule should apply as to the succession. Subsequently a lord to Genville was created Earl of Brockelsby by one of the Stuart Kings, but for four hundred years after its enactment the extraordinary deed of succession remained a mere tradition, the countesses of Brockelsby having, seemingly, no predilection for twins. But in 1878 the mistress of Brockelsby Castle presented her lord with twin born sons. Fortunately in modern times science is more wide awake and attendance more careful, the twin brothers did not get mixed up, and one of them was styled Vicent Trillement and was heir to the earldom whilst the other, born two hours later, was that fascinating dashing young guardsman, well known at Hurlingham, Goodwood, London, and in his own county the honourable Robert Ingram to Genville. It certainly was an evil day for this brilliant young scion of the ancient race when he lent an ear to Timothy Beddingfield. This man and his family before him had been solicitors to the earls of Brockelsby for many generations, but Timothy, owing to certain irregularities, had forfeited the confidence of his client, the late Earl. He was still in practice in Birmingham, however, and of course knew the ancient family tradition annant the twin succession, whether he was prompted by revenge or merely self-advertisement no one knows. Certain it is that he did advise the honourable Robert to Genville, who apparently had more debts than he conveniently could pay and more extravagant taste than he could gratify on a younger son's portion, to lay acclaim on his father's death to the joint title and a moiety of the revenues of the ancient barony of Genville, that claim being based upon the validity of the fifteenth-century document. You may gather how extensive were the pretensions of the honourable Robert from the fact that the greater part of Edspiston is now built upon land belonging to the old barony. Anyway, it was the last straw in an ocean of debt and difficulties, and I have no doubt that Beddingfield had not much trouble in persuading the honourable Robert to commence litigation at once. The young Earl of Brockelsby's attitude, however, remained one of absolute quietude in his nine points of the law. He was in possession both of the title and of the document. It was for the other side to force him to produce the one or to share the other. It was at this stage of the proceedings that the honourable Robert was advised to marry in order to secure, if possible, the first male heir of the next generation, since the young Earl himself was still a bachelor. A suitable fiancée was found for him by his friends in the person of Miss Mabel Brandon, the daughter of a rich Birmingham manufacturer, and the marriage was fixed to take place at Birmingham on Thursday, September 15th, 1907. On the thirteenth, the honourable Robert Ingram Degenville arrived at the Castle Hotel in New Street for his wedding, and on the fourteenth, at eight o'clock in the morning, he was discovered lying on the floor of his bedroom, murdered. The sensation which the awful and unexpected sequel to the Degenville-Peerage case caused in the minds of the friends of both litigants was quite unparalleled. I don't think any crime of modern times created quite so much stir in all classes of society. Birmingham was wild with excitement, and the employees of the Castle Hotel had great difficulty in keeping off the eager and inquisitive crowd who thronged daily to the hall, vainly hoping to gather details of news relating to the terrible tragedy. At present there was but little to tell. The shrieks of the chambermaid, who had gone into the honourable Robert's room with his shaving-water at eight o'clock, had attracted some of the waiters. Soon the manager and his secretary came up and immediately sent for the police. It seemed, at first sight, as if the young man had been the victim of a homicidal maniac, so brutal had been the way in which he had been assassinated. The head and body were battered and bruised by some heavy stick or poker, almost past human shape, as if the murderer had wished to rake some awful vengeance upon the body of his victim. In fact, it would be impossible to recount the gruesome aspect of that room and of the murdered man's body, such as the police and the medical officer took note of that day. It was supposed that the murderer had been committed the evening before, as the victim was dressed in his evening clothes, and all the lights in the room had been left fully turned on. Robbery also must have had a large share in the miscreant's motives. For the drawers and cupboards, the portmanteau and dressing-bag had been ransacked as if in search of valuables. On the floor there lay a pocket-book torn in half, and only containing a few letters addressed to the Honorable Robert de Genville. The Earl of Brocklesby, next of Kintons of Deceased, was also telegraphed for. He drove over from Brocklesby Castle, which is about seven miles from Birmingham. He was terribly affected by the awfulness of the tragedy and offered a liberal reward to stimulate the activity of the police in search of the miscreant. The inquest was fixed for the seventeenth, three days later, and the public was left wondering where the solution lay of the terrible and gruesome murder at the Castle Hotel.