 CHAPTER 1 THE FEN CHURCH STREET MYSTERY The man in the corner pushed aside his glass and lent across the table. Mysteries, he commented, there is no such thing as a mystery in connection with any crime provided intelligence is brought to bear upon its investigation. Very much astonished, Polly Burton looked over the top of her newspaper and fixed a pair of very severe, coldly inquiring brown eyes upon him. She had disapproved of the man from the instant when he shuffled across the shop and sat down opposite to her at the same marble-top table which already held her large coffee, three pence, a roll-and-butter, two pence, and plate of tongue, six pence. Now this particular corner, this very same table, that special view of the magnificent marble hall, known as the Norfolk Street branch of the aerated bread company's depots, were Polly's own corner, table, and view. Here she had partaken of eleven penny-worths of luncheon and one penny-worth of daily information, ever since that glorious, never-to-be-forgotten day when she was enrolled on the staff of the Evening Observer—we'll call it that, if you please—and became a member of that illustrious and world-famed organization known as the British Press. She was a personality, was Miss Burton of the Evening Observer, her cards were printed thus, Miss Mary J. Burton, Evening Observer. She had interviewed Miss Ellen Terry and the Bishop of Madagascar, Mr. Seymour Hicks, and the Chief Commissioner of Police. She had been present at the last Marble House Garden Party, in the cloakroom, that is to say, where she caught sight of Lady Thingamy's hat, Miss What You May Call It's Sunshade, and of various other things, modistical or fashionable, all of which were duly described under the heading, Royalty in Dress, in the early afternoon edition of the Evening Observer. The article itself is signed M. J. B., and is to be found in the files of that leading half-penny-worth. For these reasons, and for various others too, Polly felt irate with the man in the corner, and told him so with her eyes, so plainly as any pair of brown eyes can speak. She had been reading an article in the Daily Telegraph. The article was palpitatingly interesting. Had Polly been commenting audibly upon it? Certain it is that the man over there had spoken in direct answer to her thoughts. She looked at him and frowned. The next moment she smiled, Miss Burton of the Evening Observer had a keen sense of humor, which two years' association with the British press had not succeeded in destroying, and the appearance of the man was sufficient to tickle the most ultra-morose fancy. Polly thought to herself that she had never seen anyone so pale, so thin, with such funny, light-colored hair, brushed very smooth across the top of a very obviously bold crown. He looked so timid and nervous as he fidgeted incessantly with a piece of string, his long, lean and trembling fingers, tying and untying it into knots of wonderful and complicated proportions. Having carefully studied every detail of the quaint personality, Polly felt more amiable. And yet, she remarked kindly but authoritatively, this article in an otherwise well-informed journal will tell you that, even within the last year, no fewer than six crimes have completely baffled the police, and the perpetrators of them are still at large. Pardon me, he said gently, I never for a moment ventured to suggest that there were no mysteries to the police. I merely remarked that there were none where intelligence was brought to bear upon the investigation of crime. Not even in the Fenchurch Street Mystery, I suppose? She asked sarcastically, least of all in the so-called Fenchurch Street Mystery, he replied quietly. Now the Fenchurch Street Mystery, as that extraordinary crime had popularly been called, had puzzled, as Polly well knew, the brains of every thinking man and woman for the last twelve months. It had puzzled her not inconsiderably. She had been interested, fascinated. She had studied the case, formed her own theories, thought about it all often, and often had even written one or two letters to the press on the subject, suggesting, arguing, hinting at possibilities and probabilities, adducing proofs which other amateur detectives were equally ready to refute. The attitude of that timid man in the corner, therefore, was peculiarly exasperating, and she retorted with sarcasm destined to completely annihilate herself complacent into locator. What a pity it is, in that case, that you do not offer your priceless services to our misguided, though well-meaning police. Isn't it? He replied with perfect good humor. Well, you know, for one thing I doubt if they would accept them, and in the second place my inclinations and my duty would, were I to become an active member of the detective force, nearly always be in direct conflict. As often as not, my sympathies go to the criminal, who is clever and astute enough to lead our entire police force by the nose. I don't know how much of the case you remember, he went on quietly. It certainly at first began even to puzzle me. On the twelfth of last December a woman, poorly dressed, but with an unmistakable air of having seen better days, gave information at Scotland Yard of the disappearance of her husband, William Kershaw, of no occupation, and apparently of no fixed abode. She was accompanied by a friend, a fat, oily-looking German, and between them they told a tale which set the police immediately on the move. It appears that on the tenth of December, at about three o'clock in the afternoon, Carl Mueller, the German, called on his friend William Kershaw for the purpose of collecting a small debt, some ten pounds or so, which the latter owed him. On arriving at the squalid lodging in Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square, he found William Kershaw in a state of wild excitement and his wife in tears. Mueller attempted to state the object of his visit, but Kershaw, with wild gestures, waved him aside, and, in his own words, laborgasted him by asking him point-blank for another loan of two pounds, which some he declared would be the means of a speedy fortune for himself and the friend who would help him in his need. After a quarter of an hour spent in obscure hints, Kershaw, finding the cautious German, objure it, decided to let him into the secret plan which he averred would place thousands into their hands. Instinctively Polly had put down her paper, the mild stranger with his nervous air and timid watery eyes, at a peculiar way of telling his tale, which somehow fascinated her. I don't know, he resumed, if you remember the story which the German told to the police, and which was corroborated in every detail by the wife or widow. Briefly it was this. From thirty years previously Kershaw, then twenty years of age, and a medical student at one of the London hospitals, had a chum named Barker with whom he roomed together with another. The latter, so it appears, brought home one evening a very considerable sum of money, which he had won on the turf, and the following morning he was found murdered in his bed. Kershaw, fortunately for himself, was able to prove a conclusive alibi. He had spent a night on duty at the hospital. As for Barker, he had disappeared, that is to say, as far as the police were concerned, but not as far as the watchful eyes of his friend Kershaw were able to spy, at least so the latter said. Barker was cleverly contrived to get away out of the country, and after sundry vicitudes finally settled down at Vatavastak in eastern Siberia, where, under the assumed name of Smytherst, he built up an enormous fortune by trading in furs. Now mind you, everyone knows Smytherst, the Siberian millionaire, Kershaw's story that he had once been called Barker, and had committed a murder thirty years ago, was never proved, was it? I am merely telling you what Kershaw said to his friend the German and to his wife on that memorable afternoon of December the 10th. According to him, Smytherst had made one gigantic mistake in his clever career. He had on four occasions written to his late friend William Kershaw. Two of these letters had no bearing on the case, since they were written more than twenty-five years ago, and Kershaw, more over, had lost them, so he said, long ago. According to him, however, the first of these letters was written when Smytherst, alias Barker, had spent all the money he had obtained from the crime, and found himself destitute in New York. Kershaw, then in fairly prosperous circumstances, sent him a ten-pound note for the sake of all times. The second, when the tables had turned, and Kershaw had begun to go downhill, Smytherst, as he then already called himself, sent his William friend fifty pounds. After that, as Müller gathered, Kershaw had made sundry demands on Smytherst's ever-increasing purse, and had accompanied these demands by various threats, which, considering the distant country in which the millionaire lived, were worse than feudal. But now the climax had come, and Kershaw, after a final moment of hesitation, handed over to his German friend the two last letters purporting to have been written by Smytherst, and which, if you remember, played such an important part in that mysterious story of this extraordinary crime. I have a copy of both these letters here, out of the man in the corner, as he took out a piece of paper from a very worn-out pocket-book, and, unfolding it very deliberately, he began to read. Sir, your preposterous demands for money are wholly unwarrantable. I have already helped you quite as much as you deserve. However, for the sake of all times, and because you once helped me when I was in terrible difficulty, I am willing to once more let you impose upon my good nature. A friend of mine here, a Russian merchant, to whom I have sold my business, starts in a few days for an extended tour to many European and Asiatic ports in his yacht, and has invited me to accompany him as far as England. Being tired of foreign parts and desirous of seeing the old country once again, after thirty years' absence, I have decided to accept his invitation. I don't know when we may actually be in Europe, but I promise you that as soon as we touch a suitable port, I will write to you again, making an appointment for you to see me in London. But remember, if your demands are too preposterous, I will not for a moment listen to them, and that I am the last man in the world to submit to persistent and unwarranted blackmail. I am, sir, yours truly, Francis Smythhurst. The second letter was dated from Southampton, continued the old man in the corner calmly, and, curiously enough, was the only letter which Kershaw professed to have received from Smythhurst, of which he had kept the envelope, and which was dated. It was quite brief, he added, referring much more to his piece of paper. Dear sir, referring to my letter of a few weeks ago, I wish to inform you that the Zarskoe Celo will touch at Tilbury on Tuesday next, the tenth. I shall land there, and immediately go up to London by the first train I can get. If you like, you may meet me at Fenchurch Street Station in the first-class waiting room in the late afternoon. Since I surmise that after thirty years' absence my face may not be familiar to you, I may as well tell you that you will recognize me by a heavy astrakhan fur coat which I shall wear together with a cap of the same. You may then introduce yourself to me, and I will personally listen to what you may have to say. Yours faithfully, Francis Smythhurst. It was this last letter which caused William Kershaw's excitement and his wife's tears. In the German's own word he was walking up and down the room like a wild beast gesticulating wildly and muttering sundry exclamations. Mrs. Kershaw, however, was full of apprehension. She mistrusted the man from foreign parts, who, according to her husband's story, had already won crime upon his conscience, who might, she feared, risk another in order to be rid of a dangerous enemy, woman-like she thought the scheme a dishonorable one, but the law she knew is severe on the blackmailer. The Assygnation might be a cunning trap. In any case it was a curious one, why, she argued, did not Smythhurst elect to see Kershaw at his hotel the following day. A thousand whys and wherefores made her anxious, but the fat German had been won over by Kershaw's visions of untold gold held tantalizingly before his eyes. He had lent the necessary two pounds, with which his friend intended to tidy himself up a bit before he went to meet his friend the millionaire. Half an hour afterwards Kershaw left his lodgings, and that was the last the unfortunate woman saw of her husband, or Mueller, the German, of his friend. Anxiously his wife waited that night, but he did not return. The next day she seems to have spent in making purposeless and feudal inquiries about the neighborhood of Fenchurch Street, and on the twelfth she went to Scotland Yard, gave what particulars she knew, and placed in the hands of the police the two letters written by Smythhurst. CHAPTER II A Millionaire in the Dock. The man in the corner had finished his glass of milk. His watery blue eyes looked across at Miss Polly Burton's eager little face, from which all traces of severity had now been chased away by an obvious and intense excitement. It was only on the thirty-first, he resumed, after a while, that a body decomposed past all recognition was found by two lighter men in the bottom of a disused barge. She had been moored at one time at the foot of those dark flights of steps, which lead down between tall warehouses to the river in the east end of London. I have a photograph of the place here," he added, selecting one out of his pocket and placing it before Polly. The actual barge, you see, had already been removed when I took this snapshot, but you will realize what a perfect place this alley is for the purpose of one man cutting another's throat in comfort and without fear of detection. The body, as I said, was decomposed beyond all recognition. It had probably been there eleven days, but sundry articles, such as a silver ring and a tie pin, were recognizable and were identified by Mrs. Kershaw as belonging to her husband. She, of course, was loud in denouncing Smithhurst, and the police had no doubt a very strong case against him. For two days after the discovery of the body in the barge, the Siberian millionaire, as he was already popularly called by enterprising interviewers, was arrested in his luxurious suite of rooms at the Hotel Cecil. To confess the truth, at this point I was not a little puzzled. Mrs. Kershaw's story and Smithhurst's letters had both found their way into the papers, and following my usual method, mind you I am only an amateur, I tried to reason out a case for the love of the thing, I sought about for a motive for the crime which the police declared Smithhurst had committed. To effectually get rid of a dangerous blackmailer was the generally accepted theory. Well, did it ever strike you how paltry that motive really was? Miss Polly had to confess, however, that it had never struck her in that light. Surely a man who has succeeded in building up an immense fortune by his own individual efforts was not the sort of fool to believe that he had anything to fear from a man like Kershaw. He must have known that Kershaw had no damning proofs against him, not enough to hang him, anyway. Have you ever seen Smithhurst? He added, as he once more fumbled in his pocketbook. Polly replied that she had seen Smithhurst's picture in the illustrated papers at the time. Then he added, placing a small photograph before her. What strikes you most about the face? Well, I think it's strange, astonished expression, due to the total absence of eyebrows and the funny foreign cut of the hair. So close that it almost looks as if it had been shaved. Exactly. That is what struck me most when I elbowed my way into the court that morning and first caught sight of the millionaire in the dock. He was a tall, soldierly-looking man, upright in stature, his face very bronzed and tanned. He wore neither mustache nor beard. His hair was cropped quite close to his head, like a Frenchman's. But of course, what was so very remarkable about him was that total absence of eyebrows and even eyelashes, which gave the face such a peculiar appearance, as you say, a perpetually astonished look. He seemed, however, wonderfully calm. He had been accommodated with a chair in the dock, being a millionaire, and chatted pleasantly with his lawyer, Sir Arthur Inglewood, in the intervals between the calling of the several witnesses for the prosecution, whilst during the examination of these witnesses, he sat quite placidly, with his head shaded by his hand. Mueller and Mrs. Kershaw repeated the story which they had already told to the police. I think you said that you were not able, owing to the pressure of work, to go to the court that day, and hear the case, so perhaps you have no recollection of Mrs. Kershaw. No? Ah, well. Here is a snapshot I managed to get of her once. That is her, exactly as she stood in the box, overdressed in elaborate crepe, with a bonnet which once had contained pink roses, and to which a remnant of pink petals still clung obtrusively amidst the deep black. She would not look at the prisoner, and turned her head resolutely towards the magistrate. I fancy she had been fond of that vagabond husband of hers, an enormous wedding ring encircled her finger, and that, too, was swathed in black. She firmly believed that Kershaw's murderer sat there in the dock, and she literally flaunted her grief before him. I was indescribably sorry for her. As for Mueller, he was just fat, oily, pompous, conscious of his own importance as a witness. His fat fingers covered with brass rings gripped the two incriminating letters which he had identified. They were his passports, as it were, to a delightful land of importance and notoriety. Sir Arthur Inglewood, I think, disappointed him by stating that he had no questions to ask of him. Mueller had been brimful of answers, ready with the most perfect indictment, the most elaborate accusations against the bloated millionaire who had decoyed his dear friend Kershaw and murdered him in heaven-nose-what-and-out-of-the-way corner of the East End. After this, however, the excitement grew apace. Mueller had been dismissed, and had retired from the court altogether, leading away Mrs. Kershaw, who had completely broken down. Constable D. 21 was giving evidence as to the arrest in the meanwhile. The prisoner, he said, had seemed completely taken by surprise, not understanding the cause or history of the accusation against him. However, when put in full possession of the facts and realizing no doubt the absolute futility of any resistance, he had quietly enough followed the Constable into the cab. No one at the fashionable and crowded hotel Cecil had even suspected that anything unusual had occurred. Then a gigantic sigh of expectancy came up from every one of the spectators. The fun was about to begin. James Buckland, a porter at Fenchurch Street railway station, had just sworn to tell all the truth, et cetera. After all, it did not amount to much. He said that at six o'clock in the afternoon of December the tenth, in the midst of one of the densest fogs he ever remembers, the 5.5 from Tilbury steamed into the station, being just about an hour late. He was on the arrival platform, and was hailed by a passenger in the first-class carriage. He could see very little of him beyond an enormous black fur coat and a traveling cap of fur also. The passenger had a quantity of luggage all marked F.S., and he directed James Buckland to place it all upon a four-wheel cab with the exception of a small handbag which he carried himself. Having seen that all his luggage was safely bestowed, the stranger in the fur coat paid the porter, and telling the cab men to wait until he returned, he walked away in the direction of the waiting rooms, still carrying his small handbag. I stayed for a bit, added James Buckland, talking to the driver about the fog in that, then I went about my business, seeing that the local from south-end had been signaled. The prosecution insisted most strongly upon the hour that the stranger in the fur coat, having seen to his luggage, walked away towards the waiting rooms. The porter was emphatic. It was not a minute later than six-fifteen, he averred. Sir Arthur Inglewood still had no question to ask, and the driver of the cab was called. He corroborated the evidence of James Buckland as to the hour when the gentleman in the fur coat had engaged him, and having filled his cab in and out with luggage, had told him to wait. And the cabbie did wait. He waited in the dense fog until he was tired, until he seriously thought of depositing all the luggage in the lost property office, and of looking out for another fare. Waited until at last, at a quarter before nine, whom should he see walking hurriedly towards his cab but the gentleman in the fur coat in cap, who got in quickly and told the driver to take him at once to the hotel Cecil. This cabbie declared had occurred at a quarter before nine. Still, Sir Arthur Inglewood made no comment, and Mr. Francis Smithers in the crowded stuffy court had calmly dropped to sleep. The next witness, Constable Thomas Taylor, had noticed a shabbily dressed individual with shaggy hair and beard loathing about the station and waiting rooms in the afternoon of December the 10th. He seemed to be watching the arrival platform of the Tilbury in south-end trains. Two separate and independent witnesses, cleverly unearthed by the police, had seen this same shabbily dressed individual stroll into the first-class waiting room at about six-fifteen on Wednesday December the 10th, and go straight up to a gentleman in a heavy fur coat and cap, who had also just come into the room. The two talked together for a while, no one heard what they said, but presently they walked off together, no one seemed to know in which direction. Francis Smithers was rousing himself from his apathy. He whispered to his lawyer, who nodded with a bland smile of encouragement. The employees of the hotel Cecil gave evidence as to the arrival of Mr. Smithers at about nine-thirty p.m. on Wednesday December the 10th in a cab with a quantity of luggage, and this closed the case for the prosecution. Everybody in that court already saw Smithers mounting the gallows. His uninterested curiosity which caused the elegant audience to wait in here what Sir Arthur Inglewood had to say. He, of course, is the most fashionable man in the law at the present moment. His lolling attitudes, his drawing speech, are quite the rage, and imitated by the gilded youth of society. Even at this moment when the Siberian millionaire's neck literally and metaphorically hung in the balance, an expectant titter went round the fair spectators as Sir Arthur stretched out his loose limbs and lounged across the table. He waited to make his effect, Sir Arthur is a born actor, and there is no doubt that he made it when in his slowest, most drawly tones. He said quietly, with regard to this alleged murder of one William Kershaw, on Wednesday December the 10th between six fifteen and eight forty-five p.m., your honour, I now propose to call two witnesses who saw this same William Kershaw alive on Tuesday afternoon, December the 16th, that is to say six days after the supposed murder. It was as if a bombshell had exploded in the court. Even his honour was aghast, and I am sure the lady next to me only recovered from the shock of the surprise in order to wonder whether she needed to put off her dinner party after all. As for me, added the man in the corner, with that strange mixture of nervousness and self-complacency which had set Miss Polly Burton wondering, well, you see, I had made up my mind long ago where the hitch lay in this particular case, and I was not so surprised as some of the others. Perhaps you remember the wonderful development of the case, which so completely mystified the police, and in fact everybody except myself. Turiani and a waiter at his hotel in the commercial road both deposed that at about three-thirty p.m. on December the 10th, a shabbily dressed individual lulled into the coffee room and ordered some tea. He was pleasant enough and talkative, told the waiter that his name was William Kershaw, that very soon all London would be talking about him as he was about, through an unexpected stroke of good fortune, to become a very rich man, and so on and so on, nonsense without end. When he had finished his tea he lulled out again, but no sooner had he disappeared down a turning of the road than the waiter discovered an old umbrella left behind accidentally by the shabby, talkative individual. As is the custom in his highly respectable restaurant, Senor Turiani put the umbrella carefully away in his office on the chance of his customer calling to claim it when he had discovered his loss. And sure enough, nearly a week later, on Tuesday the sixteenth, at about one p.m., the same shabbily dressed individual called and asked for his umbrella. He had some lunch, chatted once again to the waiter. Senor Turiani and the waiter gave a description of William Kershaw, which coincided exactly with that given by Mrs. Kershaw of her husband. Oddly enough he seemed to be a very absent-minded sort of person, for on this second occasion no sooner had he left than the waiter found a pocketbook in the coffee room underneath the table. It contained sundry letters and bills, all addressed to William Kershaw. This pocketbook was produced, and Carl Mueller, who had returned to the court, easily identified it as having belonged to his dear and lamented friend, William. This was the first blow to the case against the accused. It was a pretty stiff one, you will admit. Already it had begun to collapse like a house of cards. Still there was the assignation and the undisputed meeting between Smithers and Kershaw, and those two-and-a-half hours of a foggy evening to satisfactorily account for. The man in the corner made a long pause, keeping the girl on tenor hooks. He had fidgeted with his bit of string till there was not an inch of it free from the most complicated and elaborate knots. I assure you, he resumed at last, that at that very moment the whole mystery was to me as clear as daylight. I only marveled how his honour could waste his time and mine by putting what he thought were searching questions to the accused relating to his past. Francis Smithers, who had quite shaken off his somnolence, spoke with a curious nasal twang and with an almost imperceptible sous-saint of foreign accent. He calmly denied Kershaw's version of his past, declared that he had never been called barker, and certainly never been mixed up in any murder case thirty years ago. But you knew this man Kershaw, persisted his honour, since you wrote to him? Pardon me, your honour," said the accused quietly, I have never to my knowledge seen this man Kershaw, and I can swear that I never wrote to him. Never wrote to him, retorted his honour warningly, that is a strange assertion to make when I have two of your letters to him in my hands at the present moment. I never wrote those letters, your honour," persisted the accused quietly, they are not in my handwriting. Which we can easily prove, came in Sir Arthur Inglewood's drawly tones, as he handed up a packet to his honour. Here are a number of letters written by my client, since he has landed in this country, some of which were written under my very eyes. As Sir Arthur Inglewood had said, this could be easily proved, and the prisoner at his honour's request scribbled a few lines together with his signature, several times upon a sheet of note paper. It was easy to read upon the magistrate's astounded countenance that there was not the slightest similarity in the two hand writings. A fresh mystery had cropped up, who then had made the assignation with William Kershaw at Fenchurch Street railway station, the prisoner gave a fairly satisfactory account of the employment of his time since his landing in England. I came over on the Tarskoselo, he said, a yacht belonging to a friend of mine. When we arrived at the mouth of the Thames, there was such a dense fog that it was twenty-four hours before it was thought safe for me to land. My friend, who is a Russian, would not land at all. He was regularly frightened at this land of fogs. He was going on to Madeira immediately. I actually landed on Tuesday, the tenth, and took a train at once for town. I did see to my luggage and a cab as the porter and driver told your honour, then I tried to find my way up to a refreshment room where I could get a glass of wine. I drifted into the waiting room, and there I was accosted by a shabbily dressed individual who began telling me a piteous tale. Who he was, I do not know. He said he was an old soldier who had served his country faithfully and had been left to starve. He begged of me to accompany him to his lodgings, where I could see his wife and starving children, and verify the truth and piteousness of his tale. Well, your honour, added the prisoner with noble frankness. It was my first day in the old country. I had come back after thirty years with my pockets full of gold, and this was the first sad tale I had heard. But I am a business man, and did not want to be exactly done in the eye. I followed the man through the fog out into the streets. He walked silently by my side for a time. I had not a notion where I was. Suddenly I turned to him with some question, and realized in a moment that my gentleman had given me the slip. Nothing probably that I would not part with my money till I had seen the starving wife and children. He left me to my fate, and went in search of more willing pate. The place where I found myself was dismal and deserted. I could see no trace of cab or omnibus. I retraced my steps and tried to find my way back to the station, only to find myself in worse and more deserted neighbourhoods. I became hopelessly lost and fogged. I don't wonder that two and a half hours elapsed while I thus wandered on in the dark and deserted streets. My sole astonishment is that I ever found the station at all that night, or rather close to it a policeman who showed me the way. But how do you account for Kershaw knowing all your movements still persisted his honour, and is knowing the exact date of your arrival in England how do you account for these two letters, in fact? I cannot account for it or them, your honour," replied the prisoner quietly. I have proven to you, have I not, that I never wrote those letters, and that the man, or Kershaw, is his name, was not murdered by me? Can you tell me of anyone here or abroad, who might have heard of your movements, or of the date of your arrival? My late employees at Vodavastok, of course, knew of my departure, but none of them could have written these letters, since none of them know a word of English. Then you can throw no light upon these mysterious letters, you cannot help the police in any way towards the clearing up of this strange affair. The affair is as mysterious to me as to your honour, and to the police of this country. Francis Methurst was discharged, of course. There was no semblance of evidence against him sufficient to commit him for trial. The two overwhelming points of his defence which had completely routed the prosecution were, firstly, the proof that he had never written the letters making the assignation, and secondly, the fact that the man supposed to have been murdered on the tenth was seen to be alive and well on the sixteenth, but then, who in the world was the mysterious individual who had apprised Kershaw of the movements of Smethers, the millionaire? CHAPTER III. his deduction. The old man in the corner cocked his funny thin head on one side and looked at Polly, then he took up his beloved bit of string and deliberately untied every knot he had made in it, when it was quite smooth he laid it out upon the table. I will take you, if you like, point by point along the line of reasoning which I followed myself and which will inevitably lead you, as it led me, to the only possible solution of the mystery. First, take this point, he said with nervous restlessness, once more taking up his bit of string, and forming, with each point raised, a series of knots which would have shamed a navigating instructor. Obviously it was impossible for Kershaw not to have been acquainted with Smethers, since he was fully apprised of the latter's arrival in England by two letters. Now it was clear to me from the first that no one could have written those two letters except Smethers. You will argue that those two letters were proved not to have been written by the man in the dock, exactly. Remember Kershaw was a careless man, he had lost both envelopes. To him they were insignificant. Now it was never disproved that those letters were written by Smethers. But, suggested Polly, wait a minute, he interrupted, while not number two appeared upon the scene. It was proved that six days after the murder William Kershaw was alive, and visited the Toriani Hotel, where already he was known and where he conveniently left a pocketbook behind, so that there should be no mistake as to his identity, but it was never questioned where Mr. Francis Smethers, the millionaire, happened to spend that very same afternoon. Surely you don't mean, gasped the girl. One moment please, he added triumphantly. How did it all come about that the landlord of the Toriani Hotel was brought into court at all? How did Sir Arthur Inglewood, or rather his client, know that William Kershaw had on those two memorable occasions visited the hotel, and that its landlord could bring such convincing evidence forward that would forever exonerate the millionaire from the imputation of murder? Surely I argued, the usual means the police. The police had kept the whole affair very dark until the arrest at the hotel Cecil. They did not put into the papers the usual, if anyone happens to know of the whereabouts, etc., etc., had the landlord of that hotel heard of the disappearance of Kershaw through the usual channels, he would have put himself in communication with the police. Sir Arthur Inglewood produced him. How did Sir Arthur Inglewood come on his track? Surely you don't mean, point number four. He resumed imperturbably. Mrs. Kershaw was never requested to produce a specimen of her husband's handwriting. Why? Because the police, clever as you say they are, never started on the right tack. They believed William Kershaw to have been murdered. They looked for William Kershaw. On December 31st, what was presumed to be the body of William Kershaw was found by two lettermen. I have shown you a photograph of the place where it was found. Dark and deserted it is in all conscience, is it not? Just the place where a bully and a coward could decoy an unsuspecting stranger, murder him first, then rob him of his valuables, his papers, his very identity, and leave him there to rot. The body was found in a disused barge which had been moored some time against the wall at the foot of these steps. It was in the last stages of decomposition, and of course could not be identified, but the police would have it that it was the body of William Kershaw. It never entered their heads that it was the body of Francis Smethurst, and that William Kershaw was his murderer. Ah! It was cleverly, artistically conceived. Kershaw is a genius. Think of it all. His disguise. Kershaw had a shaggy beard, hair, and mustache. He shaved up to his very eyebrows. No wonder that even his wife did not recognize him across the court, and remember she never saw much of his face while he stood in the dock. Kershaw was shabby, slouchy, he stooped. Smethurst, the millionaire, might have served in the Prussian Army. Then that lovely trait about going to revisit the Toriani Hotel. Just a few days' grace in order to purchase mustache and beard and wig, exactly similar to what he had himself shaved off. Making up to look like himself, splendid. Then leaving the pocketbook behind, he, he, he. Kershaw was not murdered, of course not. He called at the Toriani Hotel six days after the murder, whilst Mr. Smethurst, the millionaire, hobnob in the park with duchesses, hanged such a man, fi. He fumbled for his hat, with nervous trembling fingers, he held it deferentially in his hand whilst he rose from the table. Polly watched him as he strode up to the desk and paid two pence for his glass of milk and his bun. Soon he disappeared through the shop, while she still found herself hopelessly bewildered, with a number of snapshot photographs before her, still staring at a long piece of string, smothered from end to end in a series of knots, as bewildering, as irritating, as puzzling as the man who had lately sat in the corner. CHAPTER IV. THE ROBERRY IN FILLAMORE TERRORS Whether Miss Polly Burton really did expect to see the man in the corner that Saturday afternoon, toward difficult to say, certain it is that when she found her way to the table close by the window and realized that he was not there, she felt conscious of an overwhelming sense of disappointment, and yet during the whole of the week she had, with more pride than wisdom, avoided this particular ABC shop. I thought you would not keep away very long, so to quiet voice close to her ear. She nearly lost her balance. Where in the world had he come from? She certainly had not heard the slightest sound, and yet there he sat in the corner, like a veritable jack in the box. His mild blue eyes staring apologetically at her, his nervous fingers toying with the inevitable bit of string. The waitress brought him his glass of milk and a cheesecake. He ate it in silence, while his piece of string lay idly beside him on the table. When he had finished, he fumbled in his capacious pockets and drew out the inevitable pocket-book. Placing a small photograph before the girl, he said quietly, That is the back of the houses in Fillamore Terrace, which overlook Adam and Eve Muse. She looked at the photograph, then at him, with the kindly look of indulgent expectancy. You will notice that the row of back gardens have each an exit into the Muse. These Muse are built in the shape of a capital F. The photograph is taken, looking straight down the short horizontal line, which ends, as you see, in a cul-de-sac. The bottom of the vertical line turns into Fillamore Terrace, and the end of the upper long horizontal line into High Street, Kensington. Now, on that particular night, or rather early morning, of January 15th, Constable D. 21, having turned into the Muse from Fillamore Terrace, stood for a moment at the angle formed by the long vertical artery of the Muse and the short horizontal one, which, as I observed before, looks unto the back gardens of the Terrace houses and ends in a cul-de-sac. How long D. 21 stood at that particular corner he could not exactly say, but he thinks it must have been three or four minutes before he noticed a suspicious looking individual shambling along under the shadow of the garden walls. He was working his way cautiously in the direction of the cul-de-sac, and D. 21, also keeping well within the shadow, went noiselessly after him. He had almost overtaken him, was, in fact, not more than thirty yards from him, when from out of one of the two end houses, number 22 Fillamore Terrace, in fact, a man, in nothing but his night-shirt, rushed out excitedly, and, before D. 21 had time to intervene, literally threw himself upon the suspected individual, rolling over and over with him on the hard cobblestones, and frantically shrieking, Thief! Thief! Police! It was some time before the Constable succeeded in rescuing the tramp from the excited grip of his assailant, and several minutes before he could make himself heard. There, there, that'll do, he managed to say at last. He gave the man in the shirt a vigorous shove, which silenced him for the moment. Leave the man alone now, you mustn't make that noise this time of night, waking up all the folks. The unfortunate tramp, who, in the meanwhile, had managed to get onto his feet again, made no attempt to get away. Probably he thought he would stand but a poor chance. But the man in the shirt had partly recovered his power of speech, and was now blurting out jerky, half-intelligible sentences. I have been robbed, robbed, I, that is, my master, Mr. Knopf. The desk is open, the diamond's gone, all in my charge, and now there are stolen. That's the Thief, I'll swear, I heard him, not three minutes ago. Rush downstairs. The door into the garden was smashed. I ran across the garden. He was sneaking about here still. Thief! Thief! Police! Diamonds! Constable, don't let him go. Constable, if you let him go. Now, then, that'll do, admonished D-21. As soon as he could get a word in, stop that row, will you? The man in the shirt was gradually recovering from his excitement. Can I give this man in charge? He asked. What for? Bergerly, in housebreaking, I heard him, I tell you. He must have Mr. Knopf's diamonds about him at this moment. Where is Mr. Knopf? Out of town, groaned the man in the shirt. He went to Brighton last night and left me in charge, and now the thief has been and— The tramp shrugged his shoulders, and suddenly, without a word, he quietly began taking off his coat and waistcoat. These he handed across to the Constable. Eagerly the man in the shirt fell on them, and turned the ragged pockets inside out. From one of the windows a hilarious voice made some facetious remark, as the tramp, with equal solemnity, began divesting himself of his nether garments. Now then, stop that nonsense, pronounced D-21 severely. What were you doing here this time of night, anyway? The streets of London is free to the public, ain't they? queried the tramp. This don't lead nowhere, my man. Then I've lost my way, that's all, growled the man surly, and perhaps you'll let me get along now. By this time a couple of Constables had appeared upon the scene. D-21 had no intention of losing sight of his friend the tramp, and the man in the shirt had again made a dash for the ladder's collar at the bare idea that he should be allowed to get along. I think D-21 was alive to the humour of the situation. He suggested that Robertson, the man in the night shirt, should go in and get some clothes on, whilst he himself would wait for the Inspector and the Detective, whom D-15 would send round from the station immediately. Poor Robertson's teeth were chattering with cold. He had a violent fit of sneezing as D-21 hurried him into the house. The ladder, with another Constable, remained to watch the burglar premises from back and front, and D-15 took the wretched tramp to the station, with a view to sending an Inspector and a Detective round immediately. When the two ladder-gentlemen arrived at number twenty-two, Fillmore Terrace, they found poor old Robertson in bed shivering and still quite blue. He had got himself a hot drink, but his eyes were streaming and his voice was terribly husky. D-21 had stationed himself in the dining-room, where Robertson had pointed the desk out to him, with its broken lock and scattered contents. Robertson between his nieces gave what account he could of the events which happened immediately before the robbery. His master, Mr. Ferdinand Knopf, he said, was a diamond merchant and a bachelor. He himself had been in Mr. Knopf's employ for over fifteen years, and was his only indoor servant. A charwoman came every day to do the housework. Last night Mr. Knopf dined at the house of Mr. Shipman at number twenty-six lower down. Mr. Shipman is the great jeweler who has his place of business and South Audley Street. By the last post there was a letter with the brightened postmark and marked urgent for Mr. Knopf, and he, Robertson, was just wondering if he should run over to number twenty-six with it when his master returned. He gave one glance at the contents of the letter, asked for his ABC Railway Guide, and ordered him, Robertson, to pack his bag at once and fetch him a cab. I guessed what it was, continued Robertson, after another violent fit of sneezing, Mr. Knopf has a brother, Mr. Amiel Knopf, to whom he is very much attached, and who is a great invalid, he generally goes about from one seaside place to another. He is now at Brighton and has recently been very ill. If he will take the trouble to go downstairs I think he will still find the letter lying on the whole table. I read it after Mr. Knopf left. It was not from his brother, but from a gentleman who signed himself J. Collins M.D. I don't remember the exact words, but, of course, you'll be able to read the letter, Mr. J. Collins said he had been called in very suddenly to see Mr. Amiel Knopf, who, he added, had not many more hours to live, and had begged of the doctor to communicate at once with his brother in London. Before leaving Mr. Knopf warned me that there were some valuables in his desk, diamonds mostly, and told me to be particularly careful about locking up the house. He often has left me like this in charge of his premises, and usually there have been diamonds in his desk, for Mr. Knopf has no regular city office as he is a commercial traveller. This briefly was the gist of the matter which Robertson related to the inspector with many repetitions and persistent volubility. The detective and inspector, before returning to the station with their report, thought they would call it number twenty-six on Mr. Shipman, the great jeweler. You remember, of course, added the man in the corner, dreamily contemplating his bit of string, the exciting developments of this extraordinary case. Mr. Arthur Shipman is the head of the firm of Shipman and company, the Wealthy Jewelers. He is a widower, and lives very quietly by himself in his own old-fashioned way in the small Kensington house, leaving it to his two married sons to keep up the style and swagger befitting the representatives of so Wealthy a firm. I have only known Mr. Knopf for a very little while, he explained to the detectives. He sold me two or three stones once or twice, I think, but we are both single men and we have often dined together. Last night he dined with me. He had that afternoon received a very fine consignment of Brazilian diamonds, as he told me, and knowing how beset I am with collars at my business place, he had brought the stones with him, hoping, perhaps, to do a bit of trade over the nuts and wine. I bought twenty-five thousand pounds worth of him, added the jeweler, as if he were speaking of so many far things, and gave him a check across the dinner-table for that amount. I think we were both pleased with our bargain, and we had a final bottle of forty-eight port over it together. Mr. Knopf left me at about nine-thirty, for he knows I go very early to bed, and I took my new stock upstairs with me and locked it up in the safe. I certainly heard nothing of the noise in the muse last night. I sleep on the second floor, in front of the house, and this is the first I have heard of poor Mr. Knopf's loss. At this point of his narrative Mr. Shipman very suddenly paused, and his face became very pale. With a hasty word of excuse he unceremoniously left the room, and the detective heard him running quickly upstairs. Less than two minutes later Mr. Shipman returned. There was no need for him to speak. Both the detective and the inspector guessed the truth in a moment by the look upon his face. The diamonds he guessed I have been robbed. CHAPTER V A NIGHT'S ADVENTURE Now I must tell you, continued the man in the corner, that after I had read the account of the double robbery which appeared in the early afternoon papers, I set to work and had a good think. Yes, he added with a smile, noting Polly's look at the bit of string on which he was still at work. Yes, aided by this small adjunct to continued thought, I made notes as to how I should proceed to discover the clever thief who had carried off a small fortune in a single night. Of course my methods are not those of a London detective. He has his own way of going to work. The one who was conducting the case questioned the unfortunate jeweler very closely about his servants and his household generally. I have three servants, explained Mr. Shipman, two of whom have been with me for many years. One, the housemaid, is a fairly newcomer. She has been here about six months. She came recommended by a friend and bore an excellent character. She and the parlor made room together. The cook, who knew me when I was a schoolboy, sleeps alone. All three servants sleep on the floor above. I lock the jewels up in the safe, which stands in the dressing room. My keys and watch I placed as usual beside my bed. As a rule I am a fairly light sleeper. I cannot understand how it could have happened, but you had better come up and have a look at the safe. The key must have been abstracted from my bedside. The safe opened and the keys replaced, all while I was fast asleep. Though I had no occasion to look into the safe until just now, I should have discovered my loss before going to business, or I intended to take the diamonds away with me. The detective and the inspector went up to have a look at the safe. The lock had in no way been tampered with. It had been opened with its own key. The detective spoke of chloroform, but Mr. Shipman declared that when he woken the morning at about half past seven, there was no smell of chloroform in the room. However, the proceedings of the daring thief certainly pointed to the use of an anesthetic. An examination of the premises brought to light, the fact that the burglar had, as in Mr. Noff's house, used the glass panel door from the garden as a means of entrance, but in this instance he had carefully cut out the pane of glass with a diamond, slipped the bolts, turned the key, and walked in. Which among your servants knew that you had diamonds in your house last night, Mr. Shipman? asked the detective. Not one, I should say, replied the jeweler, though perhaps the parlor maid, whilst waiting at table, may have heard me in Mr. Noff discussing our bargain. Would you object to my searching all your servants' boxes? Certainly not. They would not object either, I am sure. They are perfectly honest. The searching of servants' belongings is invariably a useless proceeding, added the man in the corner, with a shrug of the shoulders. Not one, not even a latter-day domestic, would be fool enough to keep stolen property in the house. However, the usual farce was gone through, with more or less protest on the part of Mr. Shipman's servants, and with the usual results. The jeweler could give no further information, the detective and the inspector, to do them justice, did their work of investigation minutely, and what is more intelligently. It seemed evident from their deductions that the burglar had commenced proceedings on No. 26 Philomore Terrace, and had then gone on, probably climbing over the garden walls between the houses to No. 22, where he was almost caught in the act by Robertson. The facts were simple enough, but the mystery remained as to the individual who had managed to glean the information of the presence of the diamonds in both the houses, and the means with which he had adopted to get that information. It was obvious that the Thief or Thieves knew more about Mr. Knopf's affairs than Mr. Shipman's, since they had known how to use Mr. Amiel Knopf's name in order to get his brother out of the way. It was now nearly ten o'clock, and the detectives having taken leave of Mr. Shipman went back to No. 22, in order to ascertain whether Mr. Knopf had come back. The door was opened by the old charwoman, who said that her master had returned, and was having some breakfast in the dining-room. Mr. Ferdinand Knopf was a middle-aged man with sallow complexion, black hair and beard, of obvious Hebrew extraction. He spoke with a marked foreign accent, but very courteously, to the two officials, who he begged would excuse him if he went on with his breakfast. I was fully prepared to hear the bad news, he explained, which my man Robertson told me when I arrived. The letter I got last night was a bogus one. There is no such person as J. Collins, M.D. My brother had never felt better in his life. You will, I am sure, very soon trace the cunning writer of that epistle. Ah! But I was in a rage, I can tell you, when I got to the Metropole at Brighton and found that Amiel, my brother, had never heard of any Dr. Collins. The last train to town had gone, although I raced back to the station as hard as I could. Our old Robertson, he has a terrible cold. Ah! Yes, my loss! It is, for me, a very serious one. If I had not made that lucky bargain with Mr. Shipman last night, I should perhaps, at this moment, be a ruined man. The stones I had yesterday were firstly some magnificent Brazilians. These I sold to Mr. Shipman, mostly. Then I had some very good cape diamonds, all gone, and some quite special petitions of wonderful work and finish, and trusted me to sail by a great French house. I tell you, sir, my loss will be nearly ten thousand pounds altogether. I sell on commission, and, of course, have to make good the loss. He was evidently trying to bear up manfully, and as a businessman should, under his sad fate, he refused in any way to attach the slightest blame to his old and faithful servant Robertson, who had caught, perhaps, his death of a cold in his zeal for his absent master. As for any hint of suspicion falling even remotely upon the man, the very idea appeared to Mr. Knopf absolutely preposterous. With regard to the old charwoman, Mr. Knopf certainly knew nothing about her, beyond the fact that she had been recommended to him by one of the trade's people in the neighborhood, and seemed perfectly honest, respectable, and sober. About the tramp Mr. Knopf knew still less, nor could he imagine how he, or in fact anybody else, could possibly know that he happened to have diamonds in his house that night. This certainly seemed to be the great hitch in the case. Mr. Ferdinand Knopf, at the instance of the police, later on went to the station, and had a look at the suspected tramp. He declared that he had never set eyes on him before. Mr. Shipman, on his way home from business in the afternoon, had done likewise, and made a similar statement. Brought before the magistrate, the tramp gave but a poor account of himself. He gave a name and address, which latter, of course, proved to be false. After that he absolutely refused to speak. He seemed not to care whether he was kept in custody or not. When even the police realized that, for the present at any rate, nothing could be got out of the suspected tramp. Mr. Francis Howard, the detective who had charged the case, though he would not admit it even to himself, was at his wit's ends. You must remember that the burglary, through its very simplicity, was an exceedingly mysterious affair. The constable, D. twenty-one, who had stood in Adam and Eve Muse, presumably while Mr. Knopf's house was being robbed, had seen no one turn out from the cul-de-sac into the main passage of the Muse. The stables, which immediately faced the back entrance of Philomore Terrace houses, were all private ones belonging to residents in the neighborhood. The coachmen, their families, and all the grooms who slept in the stables were rigidly watched and questioned. One and all had seen nothing, heard nothing, until Robertson's shrieks had roused them from their sleep. As for the letter from Brighton, it was absolutely commonplace, and written upon note-paper which the detective, with Machiavellian, cunning, traced to a station or shop in West Street. But the trade at that particular shop was a very brisk one. Scores of people had bought no paper there, similar to that on which the supposed doctor had written his tricky letter. The handwriting was cramped, perhaps a disguised one, in any case except under very exceptional circumstances it could afford no clue to the identity of the thief. Needless to say, the tramp, when told to write his name, wrote a totally different and absolutely uneducated hand. Matter stood, however, in the same persistently mysterious state when a small discovery was made which suggested to Mr. Fransard Howard an idea which, if properly carried out, would, he hoped, inevitably bring the cunning burglar safely within the grasp of the police. That was the discovery of a few of Mr. Knopf's diamonds, continued the man in the corner, after a slight pause, evidently trampled into the ground by the thief whilst making his hurried exit through the garden of No. 22 Philomore Terrace. At the end of this garden there was a small studio, which had been built by a former owner of the house, and behind it a small piece of waste-ground about seven feet square which had once been a rookery, and is still filled with large, loose stones, in the shadow of which earwigs and woodlice, innumerable, have made a happy hunting-ground. It was Robertson who, two days after the robbery, having need of a large stone for some household purpose or other, dislodged one from that piece of waste-ground, and found a few shining pebbles beneath it. Mr. Knopf took them round to the police station himself immediately, and identified the stones of some of his Parisian ones. Later on the detective went to view the place where the find had been made, and there conceived the plan upon which he built big, cherished hopes. Acting upon the advice of Mr. Francis Howard, the police decided to let the anonymous tramp out of his safe retreat within the station, and to allow him to wander whether so-ever he chose. A good idea, perhaps, the presumption being that, sooner or later, if the man was in any way mixed up with the cunning thieves, he would either rejoin his comrades, or even lead the police to where the remnant of his hoard lay hidden. Needless to say, his footsteps were to be literally dogged. The wretched tramp on his discharge wandered out of the yard, wrapping his thin coat round his shoulders, for it was a bitterly cold afternoon. He began operations by turning into the town hall tavern for a good feed in a copious drink. Mr. Francis Howard noted that he seemed to eye every passerby with suspicion, but he seemed to enjoy his dinner, and sat some time over his bottle of wine. It was close upon four o'clock when he left the tavern, and then began for the indefagable Mr. Howard one of the most wearisome and uninteresting chases through the mazes of the London streets he ever remembers to have made. Up Notting Hill, down the slums of Nottingdale, along the high street, beyond Hammersmith, and through Shepherd's Bush, did that anonymous tramp lead the unfortunate detective, never hurrying himself, stopping every now and then at a public house to get a drink, whither Mr. Howard did not always care to follow him. In spite of his fatigue, Mr. Francis Howard's hopes rose with every half hour of this weary tramp. The man was obviously striving to kill time. He seemed to feel no weariness, but walked on and on, perhaps suspecting that he was being followed. At last, with a beating heart, though half perished with cold, and with terribly sore feet, the detective began to realize that the tramp was gradually working his way back towards Kensington. It was then close upon eleven o'clock at night. Once or twice the man had walked up and down the high street, from St. Paul's school to Derry and Tom's shops and back again. He had looked down one or two of the side streets, and, at last, he turned into Philomore Terrace. He seemed in no hurry. He even stopped once in the middle of the road, trying to light a pipe, which, as there was a high east wind, took him some considerable time. Then he leisurely sauntered down the street, and turned into Adam and Eve Muse, with Mr. Francis Howard now close at his heels. Acting upon the detective's instructions, there were several men in plain clothes ready to his call in the immediate neighbourhood. Two stood within the shadow of the steps of the congregational church at the corner of the Muse. Others were stationed well within a soft call. Only therefore had the hair turned into the cul-de-sac at the back of Philomore Terrace, then, at a slight sound for Mr. Francis Howard, every egress was barred to him, and he was caught like a rat in a trap. As soon as the tramp had advanced some thirty yards or so, the whole length of this part of the Muse is about one hundred yards, and was lost in the shadow, Mr. Francis Howard directed four or five of his men to proceed cautiously up the Muse, whilst the same number were to form a line all along the front of Philomore Terrace between the Muse and the High Street. Remember, the back garden walls threw long and dense shadows, but the silhouette of the man would be clearly outlined if he made any attempt at climbing over them. Mr. Howard felt quite sure that the thief was bent on recovering the stolen goods, which no doubt he had hidden in the rear of one of the houses. He would be caught in flagrant delicto, and with a heavy sentence hovering over him he would probably be induced to name his accomplice. Mr. Francis Howard was thoroughly enjoying himself. The minutes sped on, absolute silence in spite of the presence of so many men reigned in the dark and deserted Muse. Of course this night's adventure was never allowed to get into the papers, added the man in the corner with his mild smile. Had the plan been successful we should have heard all about it, with a long eulogistic article as to the stuteness of our police. But as it was, well, the tramp sauntered up the Muse and there he remained for ought Mr. Francis Howard or the other constables could ever explain. The earth of the shadows swallowed him up. No one saw him climb one of the garden walls. No one heard him break open a door. He had retreated within the shadow of the garden walls, and was seen or heard of no more. One of the servants in the Philomore Terrace houses must have belonged to the gang, said Polly with quick decision. Ah, yes, but which, said the man in the corner, making a beautiful knot in his bit of string? I can assure you that the police left not a stone unturned once more to catch sight of that tramp whom they had had in custody for two days, but not a trace of him could they find, nor of the diamonds, from that day to this. CHAPTER VI. ALL HE KNEW. The tramp was missing, continued the old man in the corner, and Mr. Francis Howard tried to find the missing tramp. Going round to the front and seeing the lights at number twenty-six still in he called upon Mr. Shipman. The jeweler had had a few friends to dinner, and was giving them whiskies and sodas before saying good night. The servants had just finished washing up and were waiting to go to bed. Neither they nor Mr. Shipman nor his guests had seen or heard anything of the suspicious individual. Mr. Francis Howard went on to see Mr. Ferdinand Knopf. This gentleman was having his warm bath, preparatory to going to bed, so Robertson told the detective. However, Mr. Knopf insisted on talking to Mr. Howard through his bathroom door. Mr. Knopf thanked him for all the trouble he was taking, and felt sure that he and Mr. Shipman would soon recover possession of their diamonds thanks to the persevering detective. He he he laughed the man in the corner. Poor Mr. Howard, he persevered but got no further, no, nor anyone else for that matter. Even I might not be able to convict the thieves if I told all I knew to the police. Now, follow my reasoning point by point, he added eagerly. Who knew the presence of the diamonds in the house of Mr. Shipman and Mr. Knopf? Firstly, he said, putting up an ugly, claw-like finger, Mr. Shipman, then Mr. Knopf, then presumably the man Robertson. And the tramp? Said Polly. Leave the tramp alone for the present since he has vanished and tank point number two. Mr. Shipman was drugged. That was pretty obvious. No man under ordinary circumstances would, without making, have his keys abstracted and then replaced at his own bedside. Mr. Howard suggested that the thief was armed with some anesthetic. But how did the thief get into Mr. Shipman's room without waking him from his natural sleep? Is it not simpler to suppose that the thief had taken the precaution to drug the jeweler before the ladder went to bed? But wait a minute and take point number three. Though there was every proof that Mr. Shipman had been in possession of twenty-five thousand pounds worth of goods since Mr. Knopf had a check from him for that amount, there was no proof that in Mr. Knopf's house there was even an odd stone worth of sovereign. And then again went the scarecrow getting more and more excited. Did it ever strike you or anybody else that at no time, while the tramp was in custody, while all that searching examination was being gone on with, no one ever saw Mr. Knopf and his men Robertson together at the same time? Ah, he continued, while suddenly the young girl seemed to see the whole thing as in a vision, they did not forget a single detail. Follow me with them point by point. Two cunning scoundrels, geniuses they could be called, well provided with some ill-gotten funds, but determined on a grand coup. They play at respectability for six months, say. One is the master, the other the servant. They take a house in the same street as their intended victim, make friends with him, accomplish one or two credible but very small business transactions, always drawing on the reserve funds which might have even amounted to a few hundreds and a bit of credit. Then the Brazilian diamonds and the Parisians, which remember were so perfect that they required chemical testing to be detected. The Parisian stones are sold, not in business, of course, in the evening after dinner and a good deal of wine. Mr. Knopf's Brazilians were beautiful, perfect. Mr. Knopf was a well-known diamond merchant. Mr. Shipman bought, but with the morning would have come sober sense, the cheque stopped before it could have been presented, the swindler caught. No, those exquisite Parisians were never intended to rest in Mr. Shipman's safe until the morning. That last bottle of forty-eight port with the aid of a powerful soporific ensured that Mr. Shipman would sleep undisturbed during the night. Ah! Remember all the details they were so admirable. The letter posted in Brighton by the cutting rogue to himself, the smashed desk, the broken pane of glass in his own house. The man Robertson on the watch, while Knopf himself in ragged clothing, found his way into number twenty-six. If Constable D. twenty-one had not appeared upon the scene, that exciting comedy in the early morning would not have been enacted, as it was, in the supposed fight Mr. Shipman's diamonds passed from the hands of the tramp into those of his accomplice. Then later on, Robertson ill in bed while his master was supposed to have returned. By the way, it never struck anybody that no one saw Mr. Knopf come home, though he surely would have driven up in a cab. Then the double part played by one man for the next two days. It certainly never struck either the police or the inspector. Remember they only saw Robertson when in bed with a streaming cold, but Knopf had to be out of jail as soon as possible. The dual role could not be kept up for long. Hence the story of the diamonds found in the garden of number twenty-two. The cutting rogues guessed that the usual plan would be acted upon, and the suspected thief allowed to visit the scene where his horde lay hidden. It had all been foreseen, and Robertson must have been constantly on the watch. The tramp stopped, mind you, in Philomorterus for some moments lighting a pipe. The accomplice then was fully on the alert. He slipped the bolts of the back garden gate. Five minutes later Knopf was in the house, in a hot bath, getting rid of the disguise of our friend the tramp. Remember that again, here the detective did not actually see him. The next morning Mr. Knopf, black hair and beard and all, was himself again. The whole trick lay in one simple art, which those two cunning rascals knew to absolute perfection, the art of impersonating one another. They are brothers, presumably, twin brothers, I should say. But Mr. Knopf, suggested Polly, well, look in the trade's directory. You will see F. Knopf and company, diamond merchants, of some city address. Ask about the firm among the trade. You will hear that it is firmly established on a sound financial basis. He he he, and it deserves to be, added the man in the corner, as calling for the waitress he received his ticket, and taking up his shabby hat took himself and his bit of string rapidly out of the room. End of chapters five and six. Chapter seven 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 seven The York Mystery The man in the corner looked quite cheerful that morning. He had had two glasses of milk, and had even gone to the extravagance of an extra cheesecake. Polly knew that he was itching to talk police and murders, for he cast furtive glances at her from time to time, produced a bit of string, tied and untied it into scores of complicated knots, and finally, bringing out his pocketbook, he placed two or three photographs before her. Do you know who that is? He asked, pointing to one of these. The girl looked at the face in the picture. It was that of a woman, not exactly pretty, but very gentle and childlike, with a strange, pathetic look in the large eyes, which was wonderfully appealing. That was Lady Arthur Skelmerton, he said, and in the flash, there flitted before Polly's mind the weird and tragic history which had broken this loving woman's heart. Lady Arthur Skelmerton. That name recalled one of the most bewildering, most mysterious passages in the annals of undiscovered crimes. Yes, it was sad, wasn't it? he commented in answer to Polly's thoughts. Another case which, but for idiotic blunders on the part of the police, must have stood clear as daylight before the public and satisfied general anxiety. Would you object to my recapitulating its preliminary details? She said nothing, so he continued without waiting further for a reply. It all occurred during the York Racing Week, a time which brings to the quiet cathedral city its quota of shady characters, who congregate wherever money and wits happen to fly away from their owners. Lord Arthur Skelmerton, a very well-known figure in London society and in racing circles, had rented one of the fine houses which overlooked the race course. He had entered Peppercorn by St. Hermann Notre-Dame for the great Ebor handicap. Peppercorn was the winner of the new market and his chances for the Ebor were considered a practical certainty. If you have ever been to York you will have noticed the fine houses, which have their drive and front entrances in the road called the Mount, and the gardens of which extend as far as the race course, commanding a lovely view over the entire track. It was one of these houses called the Elms, which Lord Arthur Skelmerton had rented for the summer. Lady Arthur came down some little time before the racing week with her servants. She had no children, but she had many relatives and friends in York, since she was the daughter of old Sir John Eddy, the Cocoa Manufacturer, a rigid Quaker who, it was generally said, kept the tightest possible hold on his own purse strings, and looked with marked disfavor upon his aristocratic son-in-laws fondness for gaming tables and betting books. As a matter of fact, Maud Eddy had married the handsome young lieutenant in the Hussars quite against her father's wishes. But she was an only child, and after a good deal of demure and grumbling, Sir John, who idolized his daughter, gave way to her whim, and a reluctant consent to the marriage was rung from him. But as a Yorkshireman he was far too shrew to man of the world not to know that love played but a very small part in persuading a Duke's son to marry the daughter of a Cocoa Manufacturer, and as long as he lived, he determined that since his daughter was being wed because of her wealth, that wealth should at least secure her own happiness. He refused to give Lady Arthur any capital which, in spite of the most carefully worded settlements, would inevitably, sooner or later, have found its way into the pockets of Lord Arthur's racing friends. But he made his daughter a very handsome allowance, a mountain to over three thousand pounds a year, which enabled her to keep up an establishment befitting her new rank. A great many of these facts, intimate enough as they are, leaked out, you see, during that period of intense excitement which followed the murder of Charles Lavender and when the public eye was fixed searchingly upon Lord Arthur Skelmerton, probing all the inner details of his idle, useless life. It soon became a matter of common gossip that poor little Lady Arthur continued to worship her handsome husband in spite of his obvious neglect and not having as yet presented him with an heir, she settled herself down into a life of humble apology for her Poblian existence, atoning for it by condoning all his faults and forgiving all his vices, even to the extent of cloaking them before the prying eyes of Sir John, who was persuaded to look upon his son-in-law as a paragon of all the domestic virtues and a perfect model of a husband. Among Lord Arthur Skelmerton's many expensive tastes, there was certainly that for horse flesh and cards. After some successful betting at the beginning of his married life, he had started a racing stable which it was generally believed, as he was very lucky, was a regular source of income to him. Peppercorn, however, after his brilliant performances at Newmarket, did not continue to fulfill his master's expectations. His collapse at York was attributed to the hardness of the course and to various other causes, but its immediate effect was to put Lord Arthur Skelmerton in what is properly called a tight place, for he had backed his horse for all he was worth, and must have stood to lose considerably over five thousand pounds on that one day. The collapse of the favorite and the grand victory of King Cole, a rank outsider, on the other hand, had proved a golden harvest for the bookmakers, and all the York hotels were busy with dinners and suppers given by the confraternity of the turf to celebrate the happy occasion. The next day was Friday, one of the few important racing events, after which the brilliant and the shady throng which had flocked into the venerable city for the week would fly to more congenial climbs, and leave it with its final minster and its ancient walls as sleepy, as quiet as before. Lord Arthur Skelmerton also intended to leave York on the Saturday, and on the Friday night he gave a farewell bachelor dinner party at the Elms at which Lady Arthur did not appear. After dinner the gentlemen settled down to bridge, with pretty stiff points you may be sure. It had just struck eleven at the Minster Tower, when Constable's Macnaught and Murphy, who were patrolling the race-course, were startled by loud cries of murder and police. Quickly ascertaining once these cries proceeded, they hurried on at a gallop and came up, quite close to the boundary of Lord Arthur Skelmerton's grounds, upon a group of three men, two of whom seemed to be wrestling vigorously with one another, whilst the third was lying face downwards on the ground. As soon as the Constables drew near, one of the wrestlers shouted more vigorously, and with a certain tone of authority, Here you fellows, hurry up sharp, this brute is giving me the slip. But the brute did not seem inclined to do anything of the sort, he certainly extricated himself with a violent jerk from his assailant's grasp, but made no attempt to run away. The Constables had quickly dismounted whilst he who had shouted for help originally added more quietly. My name is Skelmerton, this is the boundary of my property, I was smoking a cigar at the pavilion over there with a friend, when I heard loud voices followed by a cry and a groan. I hurried down the steps and saw this poor fellow lying on the ground, with a knife sticking between his shoulder blades, and his murderer, he added, pointing to the man who stood quietly by with Constable McNaught's firm grip upon his shoulder, still stooping over the body of his victim. I was too late, I fear, to save the latter, but just in time to grapple with the assassin. It's a lie, here interrupted the man, hoarsely. I didn't do it, Constable, I swear I didn't do it. I saw him fall. I was coming along a couple of hundred yards away and I tried to see if the poor fellow was dead, I swear I didn't do it. You'll have to explain that to the inspector presently my man, was Constable McNaught's quiet comment, and still vigorously protesting his innocence, the accused allowed himself to be led away, and the body was conveyed to the station, pending further identification. The next morning the papers were full of the tragedy, a column and a half of the York Herald was devoted to an account of Lord Arthur Skelmerton's plucky capture of the assassin. The latter had continued to declare his innocence, but had remarked it appears with grim humor that he quite saw he was in a tight place, out of which, however, he would find it easy to extricate himself. He had stated to the police that the deceased name was Charles Lavender, a well-known bookmaker, which fact was soon verified, for many of the murdered man's pals were still in the city. So far the most pushing of newspaper reporters had been unable to glean further information from the police. No one doubted, however, but that the man in charge, who gave his name as George Higgins, had killed the bookmaker for purposes of robbery. The inquest had been fixed for Tuesday after the murder. Lord Arthur had been obliged to stay in York a few days as his evidence would be needed. That fact gave the case, perhaps, a certain amount of interest as far as York and London's society were concerned. Charles Lavender, moreover, was well known on the turf, but no bombshell exploding beneath the walls of the ancient cathedral city could have more astonished its inhabitants than the news which, at about five in the afternoon on the day of the inquest, spread like wildfire throughout the town. That news was that the inquest had concluded at three o'clock with a verdict of willful murder against some person or persons unknown, and that two hours later the police had arrested Lord Arthur Skelmerton at his private residence, the Elms, and charged him on a warrant with the murder of Charles Lavender, the bookmaker. CHAPTER VIII THE CAPITAL CHARGE The police it appears instinctively feeling that some mystery lurked round the death of the bookmaker and his supposed murderer's quiet protestations of innocence had taken a very considerable amount of trouble in collecting all the evidence they could for the inquest, which might throw some light upon Charles Lavender's life, previous to his tragic end. Thus it was that a very large array of witnesses was brought before the coroner, chief among whom was, of course, Lord Arthur Skelmerton. The first witnesses called were the two constables, who deposed that, just as the church clocks in the neighborhood were striking eleven, they had heard the cries for help, had ridden to the spot once the sounds proceeded, and had found the prisoner in the tight grasp of Lord Arthur Skelmerton, who at once accused the man of murder, and gave him in charge. Both constables gave the same version of the incident, and both were positive as to the time when it occurred. Medical evidence went to prove that the deceased had been stabbed from behind between the shoulder blades whilst he was walking, that the wound was inflicted by a large hunting-knife which was produced and which had been left sticking in the wound. That the wound was inflicted by a large hunting-knife which was produced and which had been left sticking in the wound. Lord Arthur Skelmerton was then called, and substantially repeated what he had already told the constables. He stated, namely, that on the night in question he had some gentlemen friends to dinner, and afterwards bridge was played. He himself was not playing much, and that a few minutes before eleven he strolled out with a cigar as far as the pavilion at the end of his garden. He then heard the voices, the cry and the groan previously described by him, and managed to hold the murderer down until the arrival of the constables. At this point the police proposed to call a witness, James Terry by name and a bookmaker by profession, who had been chiefly instrumental in identifying the deceased a pal of his. It was his evidence which first introduced that element of sensation into the case which culminated in the wildly exciting arrest of a Duke's son upon a capital charge. It appears that on the evening after the e-bore Terry and Lavender were in the bar of the Black Swan Hotel having drinks. I had done pretty well over peppercorn's fiasco, he explained, but poor old Lavender was very much down in the dumps. He had held only a few very small bets against the favorite, and the rest of the day had been a poor one with him. I asked him if he had any bets with the owner of peppercorn, and he told me that he only held one for less than five hundred pounds. I laughed, and said that if he held one for five thousand pounds it would make no difference, as from what I had heard from the other fellows, Lord Arthur Scalmarton must be about stumped. Lavender seemed terribly put out at this, and swore he would get that five hundred pounds out of Lord Arthur if no one else got another penny from him. It's the only money I've made today, he says to me, I mean to get it. You won't, I says. I will, he says. You will have to look pretty sharp about it then, I says, for everyone will be wanting to get something, and first come, first served. Oh, he'll serve me right enough, never you mind, says Lavender to me, with a laugh. If he don't pay up willingly, I've got that in my pocket, which will make him sit up and open my lady's eyes and serve John Eddie's too about their precious noble Lord. Then he seemed to think he had gone too far, and wouldn't say anything more to me about that affair. I saw him on the course the next day, I asked him if he had got his five hundred pounds. He said, no, but I shall get it today. Lord Arthur Skelmerton, after having given his own evidence, had left the court. It was therefore impossible to know how he would take this account, which threw so serious a light upon an association with the dead man, of which he himself had said nothing. Nothing could shake James Terry's accounts of the facts he had placed before the jury, and when the police informed the coroner that they had proposed to place George Higgins himself in the witness box, as his evidence would prove, as it were, a compliment and corollary of that of Terry, the jury very eagerly assented. If James Terry, the bookmaker, loud, floored, vulgar, was an unprepossessing individual, certainly George Higgins, who was still under the accusation of murder, was ten thousand times more so. None too clean, slouchy, obsequious yet insolent, he was the very personification of the cad who haunts the race course, and who lives not so much by his own wits, as by the lack of them in others. He described himself as a turf commission agent, whatever that may be. He stated that about six o'clock on the Friday afternoon, when the race course was still full of people, all harrying after the day's excitements, he himself happened to be standing close to the hedge, which marks the boundary of Lord Arthur Skelmerton's grounds. There is a pavilion there at the end of the garden, he explained, on a slightly elevated ground, and he could hear and see a group of ladies and gentlemen having tea. Some steps lead down a little to the left of the garden onto the course, and presently he noticed at the bottom of these steps Lord Arthur Skelmerton and Charles Lavender standing talking together. He knew both the gentlemen by sight, but he could not see them very well, as they were both partly hidden by the hedge. He was quite sure that the gentlemen had not seen him, and he could not help overhearing some of their conversation. "'That's my last word, Lavender,' Lord Arthur was saying very quietly, "'I haven't got the money, and I can't pay you now. You'll have to wait.' "'Wait! I can't wait,' said old Lavender in reply. "'I've got my engagements to meet, same as you. I'm not going to risk being posted up as a defaulter while you hold five hundred pounds of my money. You'd better give it to me now or,' but Lord Arthur interrupted him very quietly and said, "'Yes, my good man, or—' Or I'll let Sir John have a good look at that little bill I had of yours a couple of years ago. If you'll remember, my lord, it has got at the bottom of it Sir John's signature in your handwriting. Perhaps Sir John, or perhaps my lady, would pay me something for that little bill. If not, the police can have a squint at it. "'I've held my tongue long enough, and—' "'Look here, Lavender,' said Lord Arthur. "'Do you know what this little game of yours is called, in law?' "'Yes, and I don't care,' says Lavender. "'If I don't have that five hundred pounds, I'm a ruined man. If you ruin me, I'll do for you, and we shall be quits. That's my last word.' He was talking very loudly, and I thought some of Lord Arthur's friends up in the Vavilion must have heard. He thought so too, I think, for he said quickly. If you don't hold your confounded tongue, I'll give you in charge for blackmail this instant. "'You wouldn't dare,' says Lavender, and he began to laugh. But just then a lady from the top of the step says, "'Your tea is getting cold.'" And Lord Arthur turned to go. But just before he went, Lavender says to him, "'I'll come back to-night. You'll have the money, then.'" George Higgins, it appears, after he had heard this interesting conversation, pondered as to whether he should not turn what he knew into some sort of profit. Being a gentleman who lives entirely by his wits, this type of knowledge forms his chief source of income. As a preliminary to future moves, he decided not to lose sight of Lavender for the rest of the day. Lavender went and had dinner at the black swan, explained Mr. George Higgins, and I, after I had had a bite myself, waited outside till I saw him come out. At about ten o'clock I was rewarded from my trouble. He told the Hall Porter to get him a fly, and he jumped into it. I could not hear what direction he gave the driver, but the fly certainly drove off towards the race course. Now I was interested in this little affair, continued the witness, and I couldn't afford a fly. I started to run. Of course I couldn't keep up with it, but I thought I knew which way my gentlemen had gone. I made straight for the race course and for the hedge at the bottom of Lord Arthur Skelmerton's grounds. It was rather a dark night, and there was a slight drizzle. I couldn't see more than about a hundred yards before me. All at once it seemed to me as if I heard Lavender's voice talking loudly in the distance. I hurried forward and suddenly saw a group of two figures, mere blurs in the darkness, for one instant at a distance of about fifty yards from where I was. The next moment one figure had fallen forward and the other had disappeared. I ran to the spot, only to find the body of the murdered man lying on the ground. I stooped to see if I could be of any use to him, and immediately I was collared from behind by Lord Arthur himself. You may imagine, said the man in the corner, how keen was the excitement of that moment in court. Governor and jury alike literally hung breathless on every word that shabby, vulgar individual uttered. You see, by itself, his evidence would have been worth very little, but coming on the top of that given by James Terry, its significance, more its truth, had become glaringly apparent. Closely cross-examined he adhered strictly to his statement, and having finished his evidence, George Higgins remained in charge of the constables, and the next witness of importance was called up. This was Mr. Chips, the senior footman in the employment of Lord Arthur Skelmerton. He deposed that at about ten-thirty on the Friday evening a party drove up to the Elms in a fly, and asked to see Lord Arthur. On being told that his lordship had company, he seemed terribly put out. I asked the party to give me his card, continued Mr. Chips, as I didn't know, perhaps, that his lordship might wish to see him, but I kept him standing at the all door, and I didn't all together like his looks. I took the card in. His lordship and the gentleman was playing cards in the smoking-room, and as soon as I could do so without disturbing his lordship, I gave him the party's card. What a name was there on the card! Here interrupted the corner. I couldn't say now, sir, replied Mr. Chips. I don't really remember. It was a name I had never seen before, but I see so many visiting cards one way and the other in his lordship's all, that I can't remember all the names. Then after a few minutes waiting you gave his lordship the card. What happened then? His lordship didn't seem at all pleased, said Mr. Chips, with much guarded dignity. But finally he said, show him into the library, chips, I'll see him, and he got up from the card table, saying to the gentleman, go on without me, I'll be back in a minute or two. I was about to open the door for his lordship when my lady came into the room, and then his lordship suddenly changed his mind like and said to me, tell that man I'm busy and can't see him. And he sat down again at the card table. I went back to the all and told the party his lordship wouldn't see him. He said, oh, it doesn't matter, and went away quite quiet like. Do you recollect at all at what time that was, asked one of the jury. Yes, sir. While I was waiting to speak to his lordship, I looked at the clock, sir. It was twenty past ten, sir. There was one more significant fact in connection with the case, which tended still more to excite the curiosity of the public at the time, and still further to bewilder the police later on, and that fact was mentioned by Chips and his evidence. The knife, namely, with which Charles Lavender had been stabbed, and which, remember, had been left in the wound, was now produced in court. After a little hesitation, Chips identified it as the property of his master, Lord Arthur Skelmerton. Can you wonder, then, that the jury absolutely refused to bring in a verdict against George Hagans? There was, really, beyond Lord Arthur Skelmerton's testimony not one particle of evidence against him, whilst, as the day wore on and witness after witness was called up, suspicion ripened in the minds of all those present that the murderer could be no other than Lord Arthur Skelmerton himself. The knife was, of course, the strongest piece of circumstantial evidence, and no doubt the police hoped to collect a great deal more now that they held a clue in their hands. Directly after the verdict, therefore, which was guardedly directed against some person unknown, the police obtained a warrant, and later on arrested Lord Arthur in his own house. The sensation, of course, was tremendous. First before he was brought up before the magistrate, the approach to the court was thronged. His friends, mostly ladies, were all eager, you see, to watch the dashing society man in so terrible a position. There was universal sympathy for Lady Arthur, who was in a very precarious state of health. Her worship of her worthless husband was well known, small wonder that his final and awful misdeed had practically broken her heart. The last bulletin issue, just after his arrest, stated that her ladyship was not expected to live. She was then in a comatose condition, and all hope had perforce to be abandoned. At last the prisoner was brought in. He looked very pale, perhaps, but otherwise kept up the bearing of a high-bred gentleman. He was accompanied by his solicitor, Sir Marmar Duke Ingersoll, who was evidently talking to him in quiet, reassuring tones. Mr. Buchanan prosecuted for the treasury, and certainly his indictment was terrific, according to him, but one decision could be arrived at, namely, that the accused in the dock had, in a moment of passion, and perhaps of fear, killed the blackmailer, who threatened him with disclosures which might forever have ruined him socially, and having committed the deed and fearing its consequences, probably realizing that the patrolling constables might catch sight of his retreating figure, he had availed himself of George Hagen's presence on the spot to loudly accuse him of the murder. Having concluded his able speech, Mr. Buchanan called his witnesses, and the evidence which on second hearing seemed more damning than ever, was all gone through again. Sir Marmar Duke had no question to ask of the witnesses for the prosecution. He stared at them placidly through his gold-room spectacles. Then he was ready to call his own for the defense. Colonel McIntosh, R.A., was the first. He was present at the bachelor's party given by Lord Arthur the night of the murder. His evidence tended at first to corroborate that of chips the footmen with regard to Lord Arthur's orders to show the visitor into the library, and his counter-order as soon as his wife came into the room. "'Do you not think it's strange, Colonel?' asked Mr. Buchanan, that Lord Arthur should so suddenly have changed his mind about seeing his visitor. "'Well, not exactly strange,' said the Colonel, a fine manly, soldierly figure who looked curiously out of his element in the witness-box. I don't think that it is very rare occurrence for racing men to have certain acquaintances whom they would not wish their wives to know anything about. Then it did not strike you that Lord Arthur Scummerton had some reason for not wishing his wife to know of that particular visitor's presence in his house? I don't think that I gave the matter the slightest serious consideration,' was the Colonel's guarded reply. Mr. Buchanan did not press the point and allowed the witness to conclude his statements. I had finished my turn at Bridge, he said, and went out into the garden to smoke a cigar. Lord Arthur Scummerton joined me a few minutes later, and we were sitting in the pavilion when I heard a loud and, as I thought, threatening voice from the other side of the hedge. I did not catch the words, but Lord Arthur said to me, "'There seems to be a row down there. I'll go and have a look and see what it is.' I tried to dissuade him, and certainly made no attempt to follow him, but not more than half a minute could have elapsed before I heard a cry and a groan. Then Lord Arthur's footsteps hurring down the wooden stairs, which lead on to the race-course. "'You may imagine,' said the man in the corner, what severe cross-examination the gallant Colonel had to undergo, in order that his assertions might in some way be shaken by the prosecution. But with military precision and frigid calm he repeated his important statements amidst a general silence, through which you could have heard the proverbial pin. He had heard the threatening voice while sitting with Lord Arthur Scummerton. Then came the cry and groan, and after that Lord Arthur's steps down the stairs. He himself thought of following to see what had happened, but it was a very dark night, and he did not know the grounds very well. While trying to find his way to the garden steps he heard Lord Arthur's cry for help, the tramp of the patrolling Constable's horses, and subsequently the whole scene between Lord Arthur, the man Higgins, and the Constables. When he finally found his way to the stairs Lord Arthur was returning in order to send a groom for police assistance. The witness stuck to his points as he had to his guns at Becfrontine a year ago. Nothing could shake him, and Sir Marmaduke looked triumphantly across at his opposing colleague. With the gallant Colonel's statements the edifice of the prosecution certainly began to collapse. You see, there was not a particle of evidence to show that the accused had met and spoken to the deceased after the latter's visit at the front door of the Elms. He told Chips that he wouldn't see the visitor, and Chips went into the hall directly and showed Lavender out the way he came. No assignation could have been made, no hint could have been given by the murdered man to Lord Arthur that he would go round to the back entrance and wish to see him there. Few other guests of Lord Arthur swore positively that after Chips had announced the visitor their host stayed at the car table until a quarter to eleven when evidently he went out to join Colonel McIntosh in the garden. Sir Marmaduke's speech was clever in the extreme. Bit by bit he demolished that tower of strength, the case against the accused, facing his defense entirely upon the evidence of Lord Arthur Scalmerton's guests that night. Until ten forty-five Lord Arthur was playing cards. A quarter of an hour later the police were on the scene and the murder had been committed. In the meanwhile Colonel McIntosh's evidence proved conclusively that the accused had been sitting with him smoking a cigar. It was obvious therefore, clear as daylight, concluded the great lawyer that his client was entitled to a full discharge, nay more he thought that the police should have been more careful before they harrowed up public feeling by arresting a high-born gentleman on such insufficient evidence as they had brought forward. The question of the knife remained certainly, but Sir Marmaduke passed over it with guarded eloquence. Placing that strange question in the category of those inexplicable coincidences which tend to puzzle the ableist detectives and cause them to commit such unpardonable blunders as the present one had been. After all, the footmen may have been mistaken. The pattern of that knife was not an exclusive one and he, on behalf of his client, flatly denied that it had ever belonged to him. Well, continued the man in the corner, with the chuckle peculiar to him in moments of excitement. The noble prisoner was discharged. Perhaps it would be invidious to say that he left the court without a stain on his character, for I dare say you know from experience that the crime known as the York mystery has never been satisfactorily cleared up. Many people shook their heads dubiously when they remembered that, after all, Charles Lavender was killed with a knife which one witness had sworn belonged to Lord Arthur. Others again reverted to the original theory that George Higgins was the murderer, that he and James Terry had concocted the story of Lavender's attempt at blackmail on Lord Arthur and that the murder had been committed for the sole purpose of robbery. Be that as it may, the police have not so far been able to collect sufficient evidence against Higgins or Terry, and the crime has been classed by press and public alike in the category of so-called impenetrable mysteries. Chapter 9 A Broken-hearted Woman The man in the corner called for another glass of milk and drank it down slowly before he resumed. Now Lord Arthur lives mostly abroad, he said. His poor, suffering wife died the day after he was liberated by the magistrate. She never recovered consciousness, even sufficiently to hear the joyful news that the man she loved so well was innocent after all. Mystery, he added as if in answer to Polly's own thought, the murder of that man was never a mystery to me. I cannot understand how the police could have been so blind when every one of the witnesses, both for the prosecution and defense, practically pointed all the time to the one guilty person. What do you think of it all yourself? I think the case so bewildering," she replied, that I do not see one single clear point in it. You don't," he said excitedly, while the bony fingers fidgeted again with that inevitable bit of string. You don't see that there is one point clear which to me was the key of the whole thing? Lavender was murdered, wasn't he? Lord Arthur did not kill him. He had at least in Colonel Macintosh an unimpeachable witness to prove that he could not have committed that murder, and yet, he added with slow, exciting emphasis, marking each sentence with a knot, and yet he deliberately tries to throw the guilt upon a man who obviously was also innocent, now why? He may have thought him guilty, or wished to shield or cover the retreat of one he knew to be guilty. I don't understand. Think of someone," he said excitedly, someone whose desire would be as great as that of Sir Arthur to silence a scandal around that gentleman's name. Someone who, unknown perhaps to Lord Arthur, had overheard the same conversation which George Higgins related to the police and the magistrate, someone who, whilst Chips was taking Lavender's card into his master, had a few minutes' time wherein to make an assignation with Lavender, promising him money no doubt in exchange for the compromising bills. Surely, you don't mean," gassed Polly. Point number one, he interrupted quietly, utterly missed by the police. George Higgins in his deposition stated that at the most animated stage of Lavender's conversation with Lord Arthur, and when the bookmaker's tone of voice became loud and threatening, a voice from the top of the steps interrupted that conversation, saying, your tea is getting cold. Yes, but," she argued. Wait a minute, for there is point number two. That voice was a lady's voice. Now I did exactly what the police should have done, but did not to. I went to have a look from the racecourse side at those garden steps, which to my mind are such important factors in the discovery of this crime. I found only about a dozen rather low steps. Anyone standing on the top must have heard every word Charles Lavender uttered the moment he raised his voice. Even then! Very well, you grant that," he said excitedly. Then there was the great, the all-important point which, oddly enough, the prosecution never for a moment took into consideration. When Chips, the footman, first told Lavender that Lord Arthur could not see him, the bookmaker was terribly put out. Chips then goes to speak to his master, a few minutes elapsed, and when the footman once again tells Lavender that his lordship won't see him, the latter says, very well, and seems to treat the matter with complete indifference. Obviously therefore something must have happened in between to alter the bookmaker's frame of mind. Well, what had happened? Think over all the evidence and you will see that one thing only had occurred in the interval, namely, Lady Arthur's advent into the room. In order to go into the smoking room she must have crossed the hall, she must have seen Lavender, in that brief interval she must have realized that the man was persistent, and therefore a living danger to her husband. Remember women have done strange things, they are a far greater puzzle to the student of human nature than the sterner less complex sex has ever been. As I argued before, as the police should have argued all along, why did Lord Arthur deliberately accuse an innocent man of murder, if not to shield the guilty one? Remember Lady Arthur may have been discovered, the man, George Higgins, may have caught sight of her before she had time to make good her retreat, his attention as well as that of the constables had to be diverted, Lord Arthur acted on the blind impulse of saving his wife at any cost. She may have been met by Colonel McIntosh, argued Polly, perhaps she was, he said, who knows, the gallant Colonel had to swear to his friend's innocence, he could do that in all conscience. After that his duty was accomplished, no innocent man was suffering for the guilty, the knife which had belonged to Lord Arthur would always save George Higgins, for a time it had pointed to the husband, fortunately never to the wife, poor thing she died probably of a broken heart, but women when they love think only of one object on earth, the one who is beloved. To me the whole thing was clear from the very first, when I read the account of the murder, the knife stabbing, didn't I know enough of English crime not to be certain at once that no English man, be he Ruffian from the gutter or be he Duke son ever stabs his victim in the back, Italians, French, Spaniards do it, if you will, and women of most nations, and Englishman's instinct is to strike and not to stab. George Higgins or Lord Arthur Skemerton would have knocked their victim down, the woman only would lie and wait until the enemy's back was turned, she knows her weakness and she does not mean to miss. Take it over, there is not one flaw in my argument, but the police never thought the matter out, perhaps in this case it was just as well. He had gone and left Miss Polly Burton, still staring at the photograph of a pretty gentle looking woman, with a decided willful curve round the mouth, and a strange unaccountable look in the large pathetic eyes, and the little journalist felt quite thankful that in this case the murder of Charles Lavender, the bookmaker, cowardly wicked as it was, had remained a mystery to the police and the public. End of Chapter 8 and 9