3-2“HALF A DOZEN ROLLS OF LINOLEUM”
He dismissed his cab at the police station. Within he had no difficulty in procuring a direction to Trennatt, the nurseryman, and a short walk brought him to the place. A fairly high wall, topped with broken glass, bounded the nursery garden next the road, and in the wall were two gates, one a wide double one for the admission of vehicles, and the other a smaller one of open pales, for ordinary visitors. The garden stood sheltered by higher ground behind, whereon stood a good-sized house, just visible among the trees that surrounded it. Hewitt walked along by the side of the wall. Soon he came to where the ground of the nursery garden appeared to be divided from that of the house by a most extraordinarily high hedge extending a couple of feet above the top of the wall itself. Stepping back, the better to note this hedge, Hewitt became conscious of two large boards, directly facing each other, with scarcely four feet space between them, one erected on a post in the ground of the house, and the other similarly elevated from that of the nursery, each being inscribed in large letters,“Trespassers will be prosecuted.”Hewitt smiled and passed on; here plainly was a neighbour’s quarrel of long standing, for neither board was by any means new. The wall continued, and keeping by it Hewitt made the entire circuit of the large house and its grounds, and arrived once more at that part of the wall that enclosed the nursery garden. Just here, and near the wider gate, the upper part of a cottage was visible, standing within the wall, and evidently the residence of the nurseryman. It carried a conspicuous board with the legend, “H. M. Trennatt, Nurseryman.” The large house and the nursery stood entirely apart from other houses or enclosures, and it would seem that the nursery ground had at some time been cut off from the grounds attached to the house.
Hewitt stood for a moment thoughtfully, and then walked back to the outer gate of the house on the rise. It was a high iron gate, and as Hewitt perceived, it was bolted at the bottom. Within the garden showed a neglected and weed-choked appearance, such as one associates with the garden of a house that has stood long empty.
A little way off a policeman walked. Hewitt accosted him and spoke of the house. “I was wondering if it might happen to be to let,” he said. “Do you know?”
“No, sir,” the policeman replied, “it ain’t; though anyone might almost think it, to look at the garden. That’s a Mr. Fuller as lives there—and a rum ’un too.”
“Oh, he’s a rum ’un, is he? Keeps himself shut up, perhaps?”
“Yes, sir. On’y ’as one old woman, deaf as a post, for servant, and never lets nobody into the place. It’s a rare game sometimes with the milkman. The milkman, he comes and rings that there bell, but the old gal’s so deaf she never ’ears it. Then the milkman, he just slips ’is ’and through the gate rails, lifts the bolt and goes and bangs at the door. Old Fuller runs out and swears a good ’un. The old gal comes out, and old Fuller swears at ’er, and she turns round and swears back like anything. She don’t care for ’im—not a bit. Then when he ain’t ’avin’ a row with the milkman and the old gal he goes down the garden and rows with the old nurseryman there down the ’ill. He jores the nurseryman from ’is side o’ the hedge, and the nurseryman he jores back at the top of ’is voice. I’ve stood out there ten minutes together and nearly bust myself a-laughin’ at them gray-’eaded old fellers a-callin’ each other everythink they can think of; you can ’ear ’em ’alf over the parish. Why, each of ’em’s ’ad a board painted, ‘Trespassers will be Prosecuted,’ and stuck ’em up facin’ each other, so as to keep up the row.”
“Very funny, no doubt.”
“Funny? I believe you, sir. Why, it’s quite a treat sometimes on a dull beat like this. Why, what’s that? Blowed if I don’t think they’re beginning again now. Yes, they are. Well, my beat’s the other way.”
There was a sound of angry voices in the direction of the nursery ground, and Hewitt made toward it. Just where the hedge peeped over the wall the altercation was plain to hear.
“You’re an old vagabond, and I’ll indict you for a nuisance.”
“You’re an old thief, and you’d like to turn me out of house and home, wouldn’t you? Indict away, you greedy old scoundrel!”
These and similar endearments, punctuated by growls and snorts, came distinctly from over the wall, accompanied by a certain scraping, brushing sound, as though each neighbour were madly attempting to scale the hedge and personally bang the other.
Hewitt hastened round to the front of the nursery garden and quietly tried first the wide gate and next the small one. Both were fastened securely. But in the manner of the milkman at the gate of the house above, Hewitt slipped his hand between the open slats of the small gate and slid the night-latch that held it. Within the quarrel ran high as Hewitt stepped quietly into the garden. He trod on the narrow grass borders of the beds for quietness’ sake, till presently only a line of shrubs divided him from the clamorous nurseryman. Stooping and looking through an opening which gave him a back view, Hewitt observed that the brushing and scraping noise proceeded, not from angry scramblings, but from the forcing through an inadequate opening in the hedge of some piece of machinery which the nurseryman was most amicably passing to his neighbour at the same time as he assailed him with savage abuse, and received a full return in kind. It appeared to consist of a number of coils of metal pipe, not unlike those sometimes used in heating apparatus, and was as yet only a very little way through. Something else, of bright copper, lay on the garden-bed at the foot of the hedge, but intervening plants concealed its shape.
3-3“FORCING THROUGH THE HEDGE SOME PIECE OF MACHINERY.”
Hewitt turned quickly away and made towards the greenhouses, keeping tall shrubs as much as possible between himself and the cottage, and looking sharply about him. Here and there about the garden were stand-pipes, each carrying a tap at its upper end and placed conveniently for irrigation. These in particular Hewitt scrutinised, and presently, as he neared a large wooden outhouse close by the large gate, turned his attention to one backed by a thick shrub. When the thick undergrowth of the shrub was pushed aside a small stone slab, black and dirty, was disclosed, and this Hewitt lifted, uncovering a square hole six or eight inches across, from the foreside of which the stand-pipe rose.
3-4THE STAND-PIPE IN THE NURSERY GARDEN.
The row went cheerily on over by the hedge, and neither Trennatt nor his neighbour saw Hewitt, feeling with his hand, discover two stop-cocks and a branch pipe in the hole, nor saw him try them both. Hewitt, however, was satisfied, and saw his case plain. He rose and made his way back toward the small gate. He was scarce half-way there when the straining of the hedge ceased, and before he reached it the last insult had been hurled, the quarrel ceased, and Trennatt approached. Hewitt immediately turned his back to the gate, and looking about him inquiringly hemmed aloud as though to attract attention. The nurseryman promptly burst round a corner crying, “Who’s that? who’s that, eh? What d’ye want, eh?”
“Why,” answered Hewitt in a tone of mild surprise, “is it so uncommon to have a customer drop in?”
“I’d ha’ sworn that gate was fastened,” the old man said, looking about him suspiciously.
“That would have been rash; I had no difficulty in opening it. Come, can’t you sell me a button-hole?”
The old man led the way to a greenhouse, but as he went he growled again, “I’d ha’ sworn I shut that gate.”
“Perhaps you forgot,” Hewitt suggested. “You have had a little excitement with your neighbour, haven’t you?”
Trennatt stopped and turned round, darting a keen glance into Hewitt’s face. “Yes,” he answered angrily, “I have. He’s an old villain. He’d like to turn me out of here, after being here all my life-and a lot o’ good the ground ’ud be to him if he kep’ it like he keeps his own! And look there!” He dragged Hewitt toward the “Trespassers” boards. “Goes and sticks up a board like that looking over my hedge! As though I wanted to go over among his weeds! So I stuck up another in front of it, and now they can stare each other out o’ countenance. Buttonhole, you said, sir, eh?”
The old man saw Hewitt off the premises with great care, and the latter, flower in coat, made straight for the nearest post-office and despatched a telegram. Then he stood for some little while outside the post-office deep in thought, and in the end returned to the gate of the house above the nursery.
With much circumspection he opened the gate and entered the grounds. But instead of approaching the house he turned immediately to the left, behind trees and shrubs, making for the side nearest the nursery. Soon he reached a long, low wooden shed. The door was only secured by a button, and turning this he gazed into the dark interior. Now he had not noticed that close after him a woman had entered the gate, and that that woman was Mrs. Geldard. She would have made for the house, but catching sight of Hewitt, followed him swiftly and quietly over the long grass. Thus it came to pass that his first apprisal of the lady’s presence was a sharp drive in the back, which pitched him down the step to the low floor of what he had just perceived to be merely a tool-house, after which the door was shut and buttoned behind him.
3-5“HIS FIRST APPRISAL OF THE LADY’S PRESENCE WAS A SHARPDRIVE IN THE BACK.”
“Perhaps you’ll be more careful in future,” came Mrs. Geldard’s angry voice from without, “how you go making mischief between husband and wife and poking your nose into people’s affairs. Such fellows as you ought to be well punished.”
Hewitt laughed softly. Mrs. Geldard had evidently changed her mind. The door presented no difficulty; a fairly vigorous push dislodged the button entirely, and he walked back to the outer gate chuckling quietly. In the distance he heard Mrs. Geldard in shrill altercation with the deaf old woman. “It’s no good you a-talking,” the old woman was saying. “I can’t hear. Nobody ain’t allowed in this here place, so you must get out. Out you go, now!” Outside the gate Hewitt met me.
III
My own adventures had been simple. I had secured a back seat on the roof of the omnibus whereon Emma Trennatt travelled south from the Bank, from which I could easily observe where she alighted. When she did so I followed, and found to my astonishment that her destination was no other than the Geldards’ private house at Camberwell—as I remembered from the address on the visitor’s slip which Mrs. Geldard had handed in at Hewitt’s office a couple of days before. She handed a letter to the maid who opened the door, and soon after, in response to a message by the same maid, entered the house. Presently the maid reappeared, bonneted, and hurried off, to return in a few minutes in a cab with another following behind. Almost immediately Mrs. Geldard emerged in company with Emma Trennatt. She hurried the girl into one of the cabs, and I heard her repeat loudly twice the address of Hewitt’s office, once to the girl and once to the cabman. Now it seemed plain to me that to follow Emma Trennatt farther would be waste of time, for she was off to Hewitt’s office, where Kerrett would learn her message. And knowing where a message would find Hewitt sooner than at his office, I judged it well to tell Mrs. Geldard of the fact. I approached, therefore, as she was entering the other cab, and began to explain, when she cut me short. “You go and tell your master to attend to his own business as soon as he pleases, for not a shilling does he get from me. He ought to be ashamed of himself, sowing dissension between man and wife for the sake of what he can make out of it, and so ought you.”
I bowed with what grace I might, and retired. The other cab had gone, so I set forth to find one for myself at the nearest rank. I could think of nothing better to do than to make for Crouch End Police Station and endeavour to find Hewitt. Soon after my cab emerged north of the city I became conscious of another cab, whose driver I fancied I recognised, and which kept ahead all along the route. In fact it was Mrs. Geldard’s cab, and presently it dawned upon me that we must both be bound for the same place. When it became quite clear that Crouch End was the destination of the lady I instructed my driver to disregard the police-station and follow the cab in front. Thus I arrived at Mr. Fuller’s house just behind Mrs. Geldard, and thus, waiting at the gate, I met Hewitt as he emerged.
“Hullo, Brett!” he said. “Condole with me. Mrs. Geldard has changed her mind, and considers me a pernicious creature anxious to make mischief between her and her husband; I’m very much afraid I shan’t get my fee.”
“No,” I answered, “she told me you wouldn’t.”
We compared notes, and Hewitt laughed heartily. “The appearance of Emma Trennatt at Geldard’s office this morning is explained,” he said. “She went first with a message from Geldard to Mrs. Geldard at Camberwell, explaining his absence and imploring her not to talk of it or make a disturbance. Mrs. Geldard had gone off to town, and Emma Trennatt was told that she had gone to Geldard’s office. There she went, and then we first saw her. She found nobody at the office, and after a minute or two of irresolution returned to Camberwell, and then succeeded in delivering her message, as you saw. Mrs. Geldard is apparently satisfied with her husband’s explanation. But I’m afraid the revenue officers won’t approve of it.”
“The revenue officers?”
“Yes. It’s a case of illicit distilling—and a big case, I fancy. I’ve wired to Somerset House, and no doubt men are on their way here now. But Mrs. Geldard’s up at the house, so we’d better hurry up to the police station and have a few sent from there. Come along. The whole thing’s very clever, and a most uncommonly big thing. If I know all about it—and I think I do—Geldard and his partners have been turning out untaxed spirit by the hundred gallons for a long time past. Geldard is the practical man, the engineer, and probably erected the whole apparatus himself in that house on the hill. The spirit is brought down by a pipe laid a very little way under the garden surface, and carried into one of the irrigation stand-pipes in the nursery ground. There’s a quiet little hole behind the pipe with a couple of stop-cocks—one to shut off the water when necessary, the other to do the same with the spirit. When the stopcocks are right you just turn the tap at the top of the pipe and you get water or whisky, as the case may be. Fuller, the man up at the house, attends to the still, with such assistance as the deaf old woman can give him. Trennatt, down below, draws off the liquor ready to be carried away. These two keep up an ostentatious appearance of being at unending feud to blind suspicion. Our as yet ungreeted friend Geldard, guiding spirit of the whole thing, comes disguised as a carter with an apparent cart-load of linoleum, and carries away the manufactured stuff. In the pleasing language of Geldard and Co., ‘smoke,’ as alluded to in the note you saw, means whisky. Something has been wrong with the apparatus lately, and it has been leaking badly. Geldard has been at work on it, patching, but ineffectually. ‘What you did was no good’ said the charming Emma in the note, as you will remember. ‘Uncle was anxious.’ And justifiably so, because not only does a leak of spirit mean a waste, but it means a smell, which some sharp revenue man might sniff. Moreover, if there is a leak, the liquid runs somewhere at random, and with any sudden increase in volume attention might easily be attracted. It was so bad that ‘F.’ (Fuller) thought Geldard must light another pipe (start another still) or give up smoking (distilling) for a bit. There is the explanation of the note. ‘To-morrow, to carry’ probably means that he is to call with his cart—the cart in whose society Geldard becomes Cookson—to remove a quantity of spirit. He is not to come late because people are expected on floral business. The crosses, Ithink,will be found to indicate the amount of liquid to be moved. But that we shall see. Anyhow, Geldard got there yesterday and had a busy day loading up, and then set to repairing. The damage was worse than supposed, and an urgent thing. Result, Geldard works into early morning, has a sleep in the place, where he may be called at any moment, and starts again early this morning. New parts have to be ordered, and these are delivered at Trennatt’s to-day and passed through the hedge. Meantime Geldard sends a message to his wife explaining things, and the result you’ve seen.”
At the police station a telegram had already been received from Somerset House. That was enough for Hewitt, who had discharged his duty as a citizen and now dropped the case. We left the police and the revenue officers to deal with the matter and travelled back to town.
“Yes,” said Hewitt on the way, after each had fully described his day’s experiences, “it seemed pretty plain that Geldard left his office by the back way in disguise, and there were things that hinted what that disguise was. The pipes were noticeable. They were quite unnecessarily dirty, and partly from dirty fingers. Pipes smoked by a man in his office would never look like that. They had been smoked out of doors by a man with dirty hands, and hands and pipes would be in keeping with the rest of the man’s appearance. It was noticeable that he had left not only his clothes and hat, but his boots behind him. They were quite plain though good boots, and would be quite in keeping with any dress but that of a labourer or some such man in his working clothes. Moreover, the partly-smoked cigars were probably thrown aside because they would appear inconsistent with Geldard’s changed dress. The contents of the pockets in the clothes left behind, too, told the same tale. The cheap watch and the necessary keys, pocketbook and pocket-knife were taken, but the articles of luxury, the russia leather card-case, the sovereign purse and so on, were left. Then we came on the receipts for stable-rent. Suggestion—perhaps the disguise was that of a carter.
“Then there was the coach-house. Plainly, if Geldard took the trouble thus to disguise himself, and thus to hide his occupation even from his wife, he had some very good reason for secrecy. Now the goods which a man would be likely to carry secretly in a cart or van, as a regular piece of business, would probably be either stolen or smuggled. When I examined those pieces of linoleum, I became convinced that they were intended merely as receptacles for some other sort of article altogether. They were old, and had evidently been thus rolled for a very long period. They appeared to have been exposed to weather, but on the outside only. Moreover they were all of one size and shape, each forming a long, hollow cylinder, with plenty of interior room. Now from this it was plainly unlikely that they were intended to holdstolengoods. Stolen goods are not apt to be always of one size and shape, adaptable to a cylindrical recess. Perhaps they were smuggled. Now the only goods profitable to be smuggled nowadays are tobacco and spirits, and plainly these rolls of linoleum would be excellent receptacles for either. Tobacco could be packed inside the rolls and the ends stopped artistically with narrow rolls of linoleum. Spirits could be contained in metal cylinders exactly fitting the cavity, and the ends filled in the same way as for tobacco. But for tobacco a smart man would probably make his linoleum rolls of different sizes, for the sake of a more innocent appearance, while for spirits it would be a convenience to have vessels of uniform measure, to save trouble in quicker delivery and calculation of quantity. Bearing these things in mind, I went in search of the gentle nurseryman at Crouch End. My general survey of the nursery ground and the house behind it inspired me with the notion that the situation and arrangement were most admirably adapted for the working of a large illicit still—a form of misdemeanour, let me tell you, that is much more common nowadays than is generally supposed. I remembered Geldard’s engineering experience, and I heard something of the odd manners of Mr. Fuller; my theory of a traffic in untaxed spirits became strengthened. But why a nursery? Was this a mere accident of the design? There were commonly irrigation pipes about nurseries, and an extra one might easily be made to carry whisky. With this in mind I visited the nursery with the result you know of. The stand-pipe I tested (which was where I expected—handy to the vehicle-entrance) could produce simple New River water or raw whisky at command of one of two stop-cocks. My duty was plain. As you know, I am a citizen first and an investigator after, and I find the advantage of it in my frequent intercourse with the police and other authorities. As soon as I could get away I telegraphed to Somerset House. But then I grew perplexed on a point of conduct. I was commissioned by Mrs. Geldard. It scarcely seemed the loyal thing to put my client’s husband in gaol because of what I had learnt in course of work on her behalf. I decided to give him, and nobody else, a sporting chance. If I could possibly get at him in the time at my disposal, by himself, so that no accomplice should get the benefit of my warning, I would give him a plain hint to run; then he could take his chance. I returned to the place and began to work round the grounds, examining the place as I went; but at the very first outhouse I put my head into I was surprised in the rear by Mrs. Geldard coming in hot haste to stop me and rescue her husband. She most unmistakably gave me the sack, and so now the police may catch Geldard or not, as their luck may be.”
They did catch him. In the next day’s papers a report of a great capture of illicit distillers occupied a prominent place. The prisoners were James Fuller, Henry Matthew Trennatt, Sarah Blatten, a deaf woman, Samuel Geldard, and his wife Rebecca Geldard. The two women were found on the premises in violent altercation when the officers arrived, a few minutes after Hewitt and I had left the police station on our way home. It was considered by far the greatest haul for the revenue authorities since the seizure of the famous ship’s boiler on a wagon in the East End stuffed full of tobacco, after that same ship’s boiler had made about a dozen voyages to the Continent and back “for repair.” Geldard was found dressed as a workman, carrying out extensive alterations and repairs to the still. And a light van was found in a shed belonging to the nursery loaded with seventeen rolls of linoleum, each enclosing a cylinder containing two gallons of spirits, and packed at each end with narrow linoleum rolls. It will be remembered that seventeen was the number of crosses at the foot of Emma Trennatt’s note.
3-6THE PRISONERS.
The subsequent raids on a number of obscure public-houses in different parts of London, in consequence of information gathered on the occasion of the Geldard capture, resulted in the seizure of a large quantity of secreted spirit for which no permit could be shown. It demonstrated also the extent of Geldard’s connection, and indicated plainly what was done with the spirit when he had carted it away from Crouch End. Some of the public-houses in question must have acquired a notoriety among the neighbours for frequent purchases of linoleum.
OF this case I personally saw nothing beyond the first advent in Hewitt’s office of Mr. Horace Bowyer, who put the case in his hands, and then I merely saw Mr. Bowyer’s back as I passed downstairs from my rooms. But I noted the case in full detail after Hewitt’s return from Ireland, as it seemed to me one not entirely without interest, if only as an exemplar of the fatal ease with which a man may unwittingly dig a pit for his own feet—a pit from which there is no climbing out.
A few moments after I had seen the stranger disappear into Hewitt’s office, Kerrett brought to Hewitt in his inner room a visitor’s slip announcing the arrival on urgent business of Mr. Horace Bowyer. That the visitor was in a hurry was plain from a hasty rattling of the closed wicket in the outer room where Mr. Bowyer was evidently making impatient attempts to follow his announcement in person. Hewitt showed himself at the door and invited Mr. Bowyer to enter, which he did, as soon as Kerrett had released the wicket, with much impetuosity. He was a stout, florid gentleman with a loud voice and a large stare.
“Mr. Hewitt,” he said, “I must claim your immediate attention to a business of the utmost gravity. Will you please consider yourself commissioned, wholly regardless of expense, to set aside whatever you may have in hand and devote yourself to the case I shall put in your hands?”
“Certainly not,” Hewitt replied with a slight smile. “What I have in hand are matters which I have engaged to attend to, and no mere compensation for loss of fees could persuade me to leave my clients in the lurch, else what would prevent some other gentleman coming here to-morrow with a bigger fee than yours and bribing me away from you?”
“But this—this is a most serious thing, Mr. Hewitt. A matter of life or death—it is indeed!”
“Quite so,” Hewitt replied; “but there are a thousand such matters at this moment pending of which you and I know nothing, and there are also two or three more of which you know nothing, but on which I am at work. So that it becomes a question of practicability. If you will tell me your business I can judge whether or not I may be able to accept your commission concurrently with those I have in hand. Some operations take months of constant attention; some can be conducted intermittently; others still are a mere matter of a few days—many of hours simply.”
“I will tell you then,” Mr. Bowyer replied. “In the first place, will you have the kindness to read that? It is a cutting from theStandard’scolumn of news from the provinces of two days ago.”
Hewitt took the cutting and read as follows:—
“The epidemic of small-pox in County Mayo, Ireland, shows few signs of abating. The spread of the disease has been very remarkable considering the widely-scattered nature of the population, though there can be no doubt that the market-towns are the centres of infection, and that it is from these that the germs of contagion are carried into the country by people from all parts who resort thither on market days. In many cases the disease has assumed a particularly malignant form, and deaths have been very rapid and numerous. The comparatively few medical men available are sadly overworked, owing largely to the distances separating their different patients. Among those who have succumbed within the last few days is Mr. Algernon Rewse, a young English gentleman who has been staying with a friend at a cottage a few miles from Cullanin, on a fishing excursion.”
4-1ALGERNON REWSE.
Hewitt placed the cutting on the table at his side. “Yes?” he said inquiringly. “It is to Mr. Algernon Rewse’s death you wish to draw my attention?”
“It is,” Mr. Bowyer answered; “and the reason I come to you is that I very much suspect—more than suspect, indeed—that Mr. Algernon Rewse hasnotdied by small-pox, but has been murdered—murdered cold-bloodedly, and for the most sordid motives, by the friend who has been sharing his holiday.”
“In what way do you suppose him to have been murdered?”
“That I cannot say—that, indeed, I want you to find out, among other things—chiefly, perhaps, the murderer himself, who has made off.”
“And your own status in the matter,” queried Hewitt, “is that of—?”
“I am trustee under a will by which Mr. Rewse would have benefited considerably had he lived but a month or two longer. That circumstance indeed lies rather near the root of the matter. The thing stood thus. Under the will I speak of—that of young Rewse’s uncle, a very old friend of mine in his lifetime—the money lay in trust till the young fellow should attain twenty-five years of age. His younger sister, Miss Mary Rewse, was also benefited, but to a much smaller extent. She was to come into her property also on attaining the age of twenty-five, or on her marriage, whichever event happened first. It was further provided that in case either of these young people died before coming into the inheritance, his or her share should go to the survivor. I want you particularly to remember this. You will observe that now, in consequence of young Algernon Rewse’s death, barely two months before his twenty-fifth birthday, the whole of the very large property—all personalty, and free from any tie or restriction—which would otherwise have been his, will, in the regular course, pass, on her twenty-fifth birthday,or on her marriage,to Miss Mary Rewse, whose own legacy was comparatively trifling. You will understand the importance of this when I tell you that the man whom I suspect of causing Algernon Rewse’s death, and who has been his companion on his otherwise lonely holiday, is engaged to be married to Miss Rewse.”
Mr. Bowyer paused at this, but Hewitt only raised his eyebrows and nodded.
“I have never particularly liked the man,” Mr. Bowyer went on. “He never seemed to have much to say for himself. I like a man who holds up his head and opens his mouth. I don’t believe in the sort of modesty that he showed so much of—it isn’t genuine. A man can’t afford to be genuinely meek and retiring who has his way to make in the world—and he was clever enough to knowthat.”
“He is poor, then?” Hewitt asked.
“Oh yes, poor enough. His name, by the bye, is Main—Stanley Main—and he is a medical man. He hasn’t been practising, except as assistant, since he became qualified, the reason being, I understand, that he couldn’t afford to buy a good practice. He is the person who will profit by young Rewse’s death—or at any rate who intended to; but we will see about that. As for Mary, poor girl, she wouldn’t have lost her brother for fifty fortunes.”
“As to the circumstances of the death, now?”
“Yes, yes, I am coming to that. Young Algernon Rewse, you must know, had rather run down in health, and Main persuaded him that he wanted a change. I don’t know what it was altogether, but Rewse seemed to have been having his own little love troubles and that sort of thing, you know. He’d been engaged, I think, or very nearly so, and the young lady died, and so on. Well, as I said, he had run down and got into low health and spirits, and no doubt a change of some sort would have done him good. This Stanley Main always seemed to have a great influence over the poor boy—he was about four or five years older than Rewse—and somehow he persuaded him to go away, the two together, to some outlandish wilderness of a place in the West of Ireland for salmon-fishing. It seemed to me at the time rather a ridiculous sort of place to go to, but Main had his way, and they went. There was a cottage—rather a good sort of cottage, I believe, for the district—which some friend of Main’s, once a landowner in the district, had put up as a convenient box for salmon-fishing, and they rented it. Not long after they got there this epidemic of small-pox got about in the district—though that, I believe, has had little to do with poor young Rewse’s death. All appeared to go well until a day over a week ago, when Mrs. Rewse received this letter from Main.” Mr. Bowyer handed Martin Hewitt a letter, written in an irregular and broken hand, as though of a person writing under stress of extreme agitation. It ran thus:—
“My dear Mrs. Rewse,—
“You will probably have heard through the newspapers—indeed I think Algernon has told you in his letters—that a very bad epidemic of small-pox is abroad in this district. I am deeply grieved to have to tell you that Algernon himself has taken the disease in a rather bad form. He showed the first symptoms to-day (Tuesday), and he is now in bed in the cottage. It is fortunate that I, as a medical man, happen to be on the spot, as the nearest local doctor is five miles off at Cullanin, and he is working and travelling night and day as it is. I have my little medicine chest with me, and can get whatever else is necessary from Cullanin, so that everything is being done for Algernon that is possible, and I hope to bring him up to scratch in good health soon, though of course the disease is a dangerous one. Pray don’t unnecessarily alarm yourself, and don’t think about coming over here, or anything of that sort. You can do no good, and will only run risk yourself. I will take care to let you know how things go on, so please don’t attempt to come. The journey is long and would be very trying to you, and you would have no place to stay at nearer than Cullanin, which is quite a centre of infection. I will write again to-morrow.
“Yours most sincerely,
“Stanley Main.”
Not only did the handwriting of this letter show signs of agitation, but here and there words had been repeated, and sometimes a letter had been omitted. Hewitt placed the letter on the table by the newspaper cutting, and Mr. Bowyer proceeded.
“Another letter followed on the next day,” he said, handing it to Hewitt as he spoke; “a short one, as you see; not written with quite such signs of agitation. It merely says that Rewse is very bad, and repeats the former entreaties that his mother will not think of going to him.” Hewitt glanced at the letter and placed it with the other, while Mr. Bowyer continued: “Notwithstanding Main’s persistent anxiety that she should stay at home, Mrs. Rewse, who was of course terribly worried about her only son, had almost made up her mind, in spite of her very delicate health, to start for Ireland, when she received a third letter announcing Algernon’s death. Here it is. It is certainly the sort of letter that one might expect to be written in such circumstances, and yet there seems to me at least a certain air of disingenuousness about the wording. There are, as you see, the usual condolences, and so forth. The disease was of the malignant type, it says, which is terribly rapid in its action, often carrying off the patient even before the eruption has time to form. Then—and this is a thing I wish you especially to note—there is once more a repetition of his desire that neither the young man’s mother nor his sister shall come to Ireland. The funeral must take place immediately, he says, under arrangements made by the local authorities, and before they could reach the spot. Now doesn’t this obtrusive anxiety of his that no connection of young Rewse’s should be near him during his illness, nor even at the funeral, strike you as rather singular?”
“Well, possibly it is; though it may easily be nothing but zeal for the health of Mrs. Rewse and her daughter. As a matter of fact, what Main says is very plausible. They could do no sort of good in the circumstances, and might easily run into danger themselves, to say nothing of the fatigue of the journey and general nervous upset. Mrs. Rewse is in weak health, I think you said?”
“Yes, she’s almost an invalid, in fact; she is subject to heart disease. But tell me now, as an entirely impartial observer, doesn’t it seem to you that there is a very forced, unreal sort of tone in all these letters?”
“Perhaps one may notice something of the sort, but fifty things may cause that. The case from the beginning may have been worse than he made it out. What ensued on the receipt of this letter?”
“Mrs. Rewse was prostrated, of course. Her daughter communicated with me as a friend of the family, and that is how I heard of the whole thing for the first time. I saw the letters, and it seemed to me, looking at all the circumstances of the case, that somebody at least ought to go over and make certain that everything was as it should be. Here was this poor young man, staying in a lonely cottage with the only man in the world who had any reason to desire his death, or any profit to gain by it, and he had a very great inducement indeed. Moreover he was a medical man,carrying his medicine chest with him,remember, as he says himself in his letter. In this situation Rewse suddenly dies, with nobody about him, so far as there is anything to show, but Main himself. As his medical attendant it would be Main who would certify and register the death, and no matter what foul play might have taken place he would be safe as long as nobody was on the spot to make searching inquiries—might easily escape even then, in fact. When one man is likely to profit much by the death of another a doctor’s medicine chest is likely to supply but too easy a means to his end.”
“Did you say anything of your suspicions to the ladies?”
“Well—well, I hinted perhaps—no more than hinted, you know. But they wouldn’t hear of it—got indignant, and ‘took on’ as people call it, worse than ever, so that I had to smooth them over. But since it seemed somebody’s duty to see into the matter a little more closely, and there seemed to be nobody to do it but myself, I started off that very evening by the night mail. I was in Dublin early the next morning, and spent that day getting across Ireland. The nearest station was ten miles from Cullanin, and that, as you remember, was five miles from the cottage, so that I drove over on the morning of the following day. I must say Main appeared very much taken aback at seeing me. His manner was nervous and apprehensive, and made me more suspicious than ever. The body had been buried, of course, a couple of days or more. I asked a few rather searching questions about the illness, and so forth, and his answers became positively confused. He had burned the clothes that Rewse was wearing at the time the disease first showed itself, he said, as well as all the bedclothes, since there was no really efficient means of disinfection at hand. His story in the main was that he had gone off to Cullanin one morning on foot to see about a top joint of a fishing-rod that was to be repaired. When he returned early in the afternoon he found Algernon Rewse sickening of small-pox, at once put him to bed, and there nursed him till he died. I wanted to know, of course, why no other medical man had been called in. He said that there was only one available, and it was doubtful if he could have been got at even a day’s notice, so overworked was he; moreover he said this man, with his hurry and over-strain, could never have given the patient such efficient attention as he himself, who had nothing else to do. After a while I put it to him plainly that it would at any rate have been more prudent to have had the body at least inspected by some independent doctor, considering the fact that he was likely to profit so largely by young Rewse’s death, and I suggested that with an exhumation order it might not be too late now, as a matter of justice to himself. The effect of that convinced me. The man gasped and turned blue with terror. It was a full minute, I should think, before he could collect himself sufficiently to attempt to dissuade me from doing what I had hinted at. He did so as soon as he could by every argument he could think of—entreated me, in fact, almost desperately. That decided me. I said that after what he had said, and particularly in view of his whole manner and bearing, I should insist, by every means in my power, on having the body properly examined, and I went off at once to Cullanin to set the telegraph going, and see whatever local authority might be proper. When I returned in the afternoon Stanley Main had packed his bag and vanished, and I have not heard nor seen anything of him since. I stayed in the neighbourhood that day and the next, and left for London in the evening. By the help of my solicitors proper representations were made at the Home Office, and, especially in view of Main’s flight, a prompt order was made for exhumation and medical examination preliminary to an inquest. I am expecting to hear that the disinterment has been effected to-day. What I want you to do, of course, is chiefly to find Main. The Irish constabulary in that district are fine big men, and no doubt most excellent in quelling a faction fight or shutting up a shebeen, but I doubt their efficiency in anything requiring much more finesse. Perhaps also you may be able to find out something of the means by which the murder—it is plain it is one—was committed. It is quite possible that Main may have adopted some means to give the body the appearance, even to a medical man, of death from small-pox.”
“That,” Hewitt said, “is scarcely likely, else, indeed, why did he not take care that another doctor should see the body before the burial? That would have secured him. But that is not a thing one can deceive a doctor over. Of course in the circumstances exhumation is desirable, but if the caseisone of small-pox, I don’t envy the medical man who is to examine. At any rate the business is, I should imagine, not likely to be a very long one, and I can take it in hand at once. I will leave to-night for Ireland by the 6.30 train from Euston.”
“Very good. I shall go over myself, of course. If anything comes to my knowledge in the meanwhile, of course I’ll let you know.”
An hour or two after this a cab stopped at the door, and a young lady dressed in black sent in her name and a minute later was shown into Hewitt’s room. It was Miss Mary Rewse. She wore a heavy veil, and all she said she uttered in evidently deep distress of mind. Hewitt did what he could to calm her, and waited patiently.
At length she said: “I felt that I must come to you, Mr. Hewitt, and yet now that I am here I don’t know what to say. Is it the fact that Mr. Bowyer has commissioned you to investigate the circumstances of my poor brother’s death, and to discover the whereabouts of Mr. Main?”
“Yes, Miss Rewse, that is the fact. Can you tell me anything that will help me?”
“No, no, Mr. Hewitt, I fear not. But it is such a dreadful thing, and Mr. Bowyer is—I’m afraid he is so much prejudiced against Mr. Main that I felt I ought to do something—to say something at least to prevent you entering on the case with your mind made up that he has been guilty of such an awful thing. He is really quite incapable of it, I assure you.”
“Pray, Miss Rewse,” Hewitt replied, “don’t allow that apprehension to disturb you. If Mr. Main is, as you say, incapable of such an act as perhaps he is suspected of, you may rest assured no harm will come to him. So far as I am concerned, at any rate, I enter the case with a perfectly open mind. A man in my profession who accepted prejudices at the beginning of a case would have very poor results to show indeed. As yet I have no opinion, no theory, no prejudice—nothing indeed but a bare outline of facts. I shall derive no opinion and no theory from anything but a consideration of the actual circumstances and evidences on the spot. I quite understand the relation in which Mr. Main stands in regard to yourself and your family. Have you heard from him lately?”
“Not since the letter informing us of my brother’s death.”
“Before then?”
Miss Rewse hesitated.
“Yes,” she said, “we corresponded. But—but there was really nothing—the letters were of a personal and private sort—they were—”
“Yes, yes, of course,” Hewitt answered, with his eyes fixed keenly on the veil which Miss Rewse still kept down. “Of course I understand that. Then there is nothing else you can tell me?”
“No, I fear not. I can only implore you to remember that no matter what you may see and hear, no matter what the evidence may be, I am sure, sure,surethat poor Stanley could never do such a thing.” And Miss Rewse buried her face in her hands.
Hewitt kept his eyes on the lady, though he smiled slightly, and asked, “How long have you known Mr. Main?”
4-2“‘HOW LONG HAVE YOU KNOWN MR. MAIN?’”
“For some five or six years now. My poor brother knew him at school, though, of course, they were in different forms, Mr. Main being the elder.”
“Were they always on good terms?”
“They were always like brothers.”
Little more was said. Hewitt condoled with Miss Rewse as well as he might, and she presently took her departure. Even as she descended the stairs a messenger came with a short note from Mr. Bowyer enclosing a telegram just received from Cullanin. The telegram ran thus:—
Body exhumed. Death from shot-wound. No trace of small-pox. Nothing yet heard of Main. Have communicated with coroner.—O’Reilly.
II
Hewitt and Mr. Bowyer travelled towards Mayo together, Mr. Bowyer restless and loquacious on the subject of the business in hand, and Hewitt rather bored thereby. He resolutely declined to offer an opinion on any single detail of the case till he had examined the available evidence, and his occasional remarks on matters of general interest, the scenery and so forth, struck his companion, unused to business of the sort which had occasioned the journey, as strangely cold-blooded and indifferent. Telegrams had been sent ordering that no disarrangement of the contents of the cottage was to be allowed pending their arrival, and Hewitt well knew that nothing more was practicable till the site was reached. At Ballymaine, where the train was left at last, they stayed for the night, and left early the next morning for Cullanin, where a meeting with Dr. O’Reilly at the mortuary had been appointed. There the body lay stripped of its shroud, calm and gray, and beginning to grow ugly, with a scarcely noticeable breach in the flesh of the left breast.
“The wound has been thoroughly cleansed, closed and stopped with a carbolic plug before interment,” Dr. O’Reilly said. He was a middle-aged, grizzled man, with a face whereon many recent sleepless nights had left their traces. “I have not thought it necessary to do anything in the way of dissection. The bullet is not present, it has passed clean through the body, between the ribs both back and front, piercing the heart on its way. The death must have been instantaneous.”
Hewitt quickly examined the two wounds, back and front, as the doctor turned the body over, and then asked: “Perhaps, Dr. O’Reilly, you have had some experience of a gunshot wound before this?”
The doctor smiled grimly. “I think so,” he answered, with just enough of brogue in his words to hint his nationality and no more. “I was an army surgeon for a good many years before I came to Cullanin, and saw service in Ashanti and in India.”
“Come then,” Hewitt said, “you’re an expert. Would it have been possible for the shot to have been fired from behind?”
“Oh, no. See! the bullet entering makes a wound of quite a different character from that of the bullet leaving.”
“Have you any idea of the weapon used?”
“A large revolver, I should think; perhaps of the regulation size; that is, I should judge the bullet to have been a conical one of about the size fitted to such a weapon—smaller than that from a rifle.”
“Can you form an idea of from what distance the shot was fired?”
Dr. O’Reilly shook his head. “The clothes have all been burned,” he said, “and the wound has been washed, otherwise one might have looked for powder blackening.”
“Did you know either the dead man or Dr. Main personally?”
“Only very slightly. I may say I saw just such a pistol as might cause that sort of wound in Main’s hands the day before he gave out that Rewse had been attacked by small-pox. I drove past the cottage as he stood in the doorway with it in his hand. He had the breach opened, and seemed to be either loading or unloading it—which it was I couldn’t say.”
“Very good, doctor, that may be important. Now is there any single circumstance, incident or conjecture that you can tell me of in regard to this case that you have not already mentioned?”
Doctor O’Reilly thought for a moment, and replied in the negative. “I heard, of course,” he said, “of the reported new case of small-pox, and that Main had taken the case in hand himself. I was indeed relieved to hear it, for I had already more on my hands than one man can safely be expected to attend to. The cottage was fairly isolated, and there could have been nothing gained by removal to an asylum—indeed there was practically no accommodation. So far as I can make out nobody seems to have seen young Rewse, alive or dead, after Main had announced that he had the small-pox. He seems to have done everything himself, laying out the body and all, and you may be pretty sure that none of the strangers about was particularly anxious to have anything to do with it. The undertaker (there is only one here, and he is down with the small-pox himself now) was as much overworked as I was myself, and was glad enough to send off a coffin by a market cart and leave the laying out and screwing down to Main, since he had got those orders. Main made out the death certificate himself, and, since he was trebly qualified, everything seemed in order.”
“The certificate merely attributed the death to small-pox, I take it, with no qualifying remarks?”
“Small-pox simply.”
Hewitt and Mr. Bowyer bade Dr. O’Reilly good-morning, and their car was turned in the direction of the cottage where Algernon Rewse had met his death. At the Town Hall in the market-place, however, Hewitt stopped the car and set his watch by the public clock. “This is more than half an hour before London time,” he said, “and we mustn’t be at odds with the natives about the time.”
As he spoke Dr. O’Reilly came running up breathlessly. “I’ve just heard something,” he said. “Three men heard a shot in the cottage as they were passing, last Tuesday week.”
“Where are the men?”
“I don’t know at the moment; but they can be found. Shall I set about it?”
“If you possibly can,” Hewitt said, “you will help us enormously. Can you send them messages to be at the cottage as soon as they can get there to-day? Tell them they shall have half a sovereign apiece.”
“Right, I will. Good-day.”
“Tuesday week,” said Mr. Bowyer as they drove off; “that was the date of Main’s first letter, and the day on which, by his account, Rewse was taken ill. Then if that was the shot that killed Rewse, he must have been lying dead in the place while Main was writing those letters reporting his sickness to his mother. The cold-blooded scoundrel!”
“Yes,” Hewitt replied, “I think it probable in any case that Tuesday was the day that Rewse was shot. It wouldn’t have been safe for Main to write the mother lying letters about the small-pox before. Rewse might have written home in the meantime, or something might have occurred to postpone Main’s plans, and then there would be impossible explanations required.”
Over a very bad road they jolted on, and in the end arrived where the road, now become a mere path, passed a tumble-down old farmhouse.
“This is where the woman lives who cooked and cleaned house for Rewse and Main,” Mr. Bowyer said. “There is the cottage, scarce a hundred yards off, a little to the right of the track.”
“Well,” replied Hewitt, “suppose we stop here and ask her a few questions? I like to get the evidence of all the witnesses as soon as possible. It simplifies subsequent work wonderfully.”
They alighted, and Mr. Bowyer roared through the open door and tapped with his stick. In reply to his summons, a decent-looking woman of perhaps fifty, but wrinkled beyond her age, and better dressed than any woman Hewitt had seen since leaving Cullanin, appeared from the hinder buildings and curtsied pleasantly.
“Good-morning, Mrs. Hurley, good-morning,” Mr. Bowyer said, “this is Mr. Martin Hewitt, a gentleman from London, who is going to look into this shocking murder of our young friend, Mr. Rewse, and sift it to the bottom. He would like you to tell him something, Mrs. Hurley.”
The woman curtsied again. “An’ it’s the jintleman is welcome, sor, sad doin’s as ut is.” She had a low, pleasing voice, much in contrast with her unattractive appearance, and characterised by the softest and broadest brogue imaginable. “Will ye not come in? Mother av Hiven! An’ thim two livin’ together, an’ fishin’ an’ readin’ an’ all, like brothers! An’ trut’ ut is, he was a foine young jintleman, indade, indade!”
“I suppose, Mrs. Hurley,” Hewitt said, “you’ve seen as much of the life of those two gentlemen here as anybody?”
“True ut is, sor; none more—nor as much.”
“Did you ever hear of anybody being on bad terms with Mr. Rewse—anybody at all, Mr. Main or another?”
“Niver a soul in all Mayo. How could ye? Such a foine young jintleman, an’ fair-spoken an’ all.”
“Tell me all that happened on the day that you heard that Mr. Rewse was ill—Tuesday week.”
“In the mornin’, sor, ’twas much as ord’nary. I was over there at half afther sivin, an’ ’twas half an hour afther that I cud hear the jintlemen dhressin’. They tuk their breakfast—though Mr. Rewse’s was a small wan. It was half afther nine that Mr. Main wint off walkin’ to Cullanin, Mr. Rewse stayin’ in, havin’ letthers to write. Half an hour later I came away mesilf. Later than that (it was nigh elivin) I wint across for a pail from the yard, an’ then, through the windy as I passed I saw the dear young jintleman sittin’ writin’ at the table calm an’ peaceful—an’ saw him no more in this warrl’.”
“And after that?”
“Afther that, sor, I came back wid the pail, an’ saw nor heard no more till two o’clock, whin Mr. Main came back from Cullanin.”
“Did you see him as he came back?”
“That I did, sor, as I stud there nailin’ the fence where the pig bruk ut. I’d been there an’ had me oi down the road lookin’ for him an hour past, expectin’ he might be bringin’ somethin’ for me to cook for their dinner. An’ more by token he gave me the toime from his watch, set by the Town Hall clock.”
“And was it two o’clock?”
“It was that to the sthroke, an’ me own ould clock was right too whin I wint to set ut. An’—”
“One moment; may I see your clock?”
Mrs. Hurley turned and shut an open door which had concealed an old hanging clock. Hewitt produced his watch and compared the time. “Still right, I see, Mrs. Hurley,” he said; “your clock, keeps excellent time.”