"No, no! I don't want to see John Minute dead! You go back. I'll bring another constable and a doctor."
He stumbled blindly along the drive into the road, and Constable Wiseman went back to the house. Frank was where he had left him,save that he had seated himself and was gazing steadfastly upon the dead man. He looked up as the policeman entered.
"What have you done?" he asked.
"The sergeant's gone for a doctor and another constable," said Wiseman gravely.
"I'm afraid they will be too late," said Frank. "He is—What's that?"
There was a distant hammering and a faint voice calling for help.
"What's that?" whispered Frank again.
The constable strode through the open doorway to the foot of the stairs and listened. The sound came from the upper story. He ran upstairs, mounting two at a time, and presently located the noise. It came from an end room, and somebody was hammering on the panels. The door was locked, but the key had been left in the lock, and this Constable Wiseman turned, flooding the dark interior with light.
"Come out!" he said, and Jasper Cole staggered out, dazed and shaking.
"Somebody hit me on the head with asandbag," he said thickly. "I heard the shot. What has happened?"
"Mr. Minute has been killed," said the policeman.
"Killed!" He fell back against the wall, his face working. "Killed!" he repeated. "Not killed!"
The constable nodded. He had found the electric switch and the passageway was illuminated.
Presently the young man mastered his emotion.
"Where is he?" he asked, and Wiseman led the way downstairs.
Jasper Cole walked into the room without a glance at Frank and bent over the dead man. For a long time he looked at him earnestly, then he turned to Frank.
"You did this!" he said. "I heard your voice and the shots! I heard you threaten him!"
Frank said nothing. He merely stared at the other, and in his eyes was a look of infinite scorn.
Mr. Saul Arthur Mann stood by the window of his office and moodily watched the traffic passing up and down this busy city street at what was the busiest hour of the day. He stood there such a long time that the girl who had sought his help thought he must have forgotten her.
May was pale, and her pallor was emphasized by the black dress she wore. The terrible happening of a week before had left its impression upon her. For her it had been a week of sleepless nights, a week's anguish of mind unspeakable. Everybody had been most kind, and Jasper was as gentle as a woman. Such was the influence that he exercised over her that she did not feel any sense of resentment against him, even though she knew that he was the principal witness for the crown.He was so sincere, so honest in his sympathy, she told herself.
He was so free from any bitterness against the man who he believed had killed his best friend and his most generous employer that she could not sustain the first feeling of resentment she had felt. Perhaps it was because her great sorrow overshadowed all other emotions; yet she was free to analyze her friendship with the man who was working day and night to send the man who loved her to a felon's doom. She could not understand herself; still less could she understand Jasper.
She looked up again at Mr. Mann as he stood by the window, his hands clasped behind him; and as she did so he turned slowly and came back to where she sat. His usually jocund face was lugubrious and worried.
"I have given more thought to this matter than I've given to any other problem I have tackled," he said. "I believe Mr. Merrill to be falsely accused, and I have one or two points to make to his counsel which, when they arebrought forward in court, will prove beyond any doubt whatever that he was innocent. I don't believe that matters are so black against him as you think. The other side will certainly bring forward the forgery and the doctored books to supply a motive for the murder. Inspector Nash is in charge of the case, and he promised to call here at four o'clock."
He looked at his watch.
"It wants three minutes. Have you any suggestion to offer?"
She shook her head.
"I can floor the prosecution," Mr. Mann went on, "but what I cannot do is to find the murderer for certain. It is obviously one of three men. It is either Sergeant Crawley, alias Smith, about whose antecedents Mr. Minute made an inquiry, or Jasper Cole, the secretary, or—"
He shrugged his shoulders.
It was not necessary to say who was the third suspect.
There came a knock at the door, and theclerk announced Inspector Nash. That stout and stoical officer gave a noncommittal nod to Mr. Mann and a smiling recognition to the girl.
"Well, you know how matters stand, Inspector," said Mr. Mann briskly, "and I thought I'd ask you to come here to-day to straighten a few things out."
"It is rather irregular, Mr. Mann," said the inspector, "but as they've no objection at headquarters, I don't mind telling you, within limits, all that I know; but I don't suppose I can tell you any more than you have found out for yourself."
"Do you really think Mr. Merrill committed this crime?" asked the girl.
The inspector raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips.
"It looks uncommonly like it, miss," he said. "We have evidence that the bank has been robbed, and it is almost certainly proved that Merrill had access to the books and was the only person in the bank who could have faked the figures and transferred the money fromone account to another without being found out. There are still one or two doubtful points to be cleared up, but there is the motive, and when you've got the motive you are three parts on your way to finding the criminal. It isn't a straightforward case by any means," he confessed, "and the more I go into it the more puzzled I am. I don't mind telling you this frankly: I have seen Constable Wiseman, who swears that at the moment the shots were fired he saw a light flash in the upper window. We have the statement of Mr. Cole that he was in his room, his employer having requested that he should make himself scarce when the nephew came, and he tells us how somebody opened the door quietly and flashed an electric torch upon him."
"What was Cole doing in the dark?" asked Mann quickly.
"He had a headache and was lying down," said the inspector. "When he saw the light he jumped up and made for it, and was immediately slugged; the door closed upon himand was locked. Between his leaving the bed and reaching the door he heard Mr. Merrill's voice threatening his uncle, and the shots. Immediately afterward he was rendered insensible."
"A curious story," said Saul Arthur Mann dryly. "A very curious story!"
The girl felt an unaccountable and altogether amazing desire to defend Jasper against the innuendo in the other's tone, and it was with difficulty that she restrained herself.
"I don't think it is a good story," said the inspector frankly; "but that is between ourselves. And then, of course," he went on, "we have the remarkable behavior of Sergeant Smith."
"Where is he?" asked Mr. Mann.
The inspector shrugged his shoulders.
"Sergeant Smith has disappeared," he said, "though I dare say we shall find him before long. He is only one; the most puzzling element of all is the fourth man concerned, the man who arrived in the motor car and whowas evidently Mr. Rex Holland. We have got a very full description of him."
"I also have a very full description of him," said Mr. Mann quietly; "but I've been unable to identify him with any of the people in my records."
"Anyway, it was his car; there is no doubt about that."
"And he was the murderer," said Mr. Mann. "I've no doubt about that, nor have you."
"I have doubts about everything," replied the inspector diplomatically.
"What was in the car?" asked the little man brightly. He was rapidly recovering his good humor.
"That I am afraid I cannot tell you," smiled the detective.
"Then I'll tell you," said Saul Arthur Mann, and, stepping up to his desk, took a memorandum from a drawer. "There were two motor rugs, two holland coats, one white, one brown. There were two sets of motor goggles. There was a package of revolver cartridges,from which six had been extracted, a leather revolver holster, a small garden trowel, and one or two other little things."
Inspector Nash swore softly under his breath.
"I'm blessed if I know how you found all that out," he said, with a little asperity in his voice. "The car was not touched or searched until we came on the scene, and, beyond myself and Sergeant Mannering of my department, nobody knows what the car contained."
Saul Arthur Mann smiled, and it was a very happy and triumphant smile.
"You see, I know!" he purred. "That is one point in Merrill's favor."
"Yes," agreed the detective, and smiled.
"Why do you smile, Mr. Nash?" asked the little man suspiciously.
"I was thinking of a county policeman who seems to have some extraordinary theories on the subject."
"Oh, you mean Wiseman," said Mann, with a grin. "I've interviewed that gentleman.There is a great detective lost in him, Inspector."
"It is lost, all right," said the detective laconically. "Wiseman is very certain that Merrill committed the crime, and I think you are going to have a difficulty in persuading a jury that he didn't. You see Merrill's story is that he came and saw his uncle, that they had a few minutes' chat together, that his uncle suddenly had an attack of faintness, and that he went out of the room into the dining room to get a glass of water. While Merrill was in the dining room he heard the shots, and came running back, still with the glass in his hand, and saw his uncle lying on the ground. I saw the glass, which was half filled.
"I was also there in time to examine the dining room and see that Mr. Merrill had spilled some of the water when he was taking it from the carafe. All that part of the story is circumstantially sound. What we cannot understand, and what a jury will never understand, is how, in the very short space of time,the murderer could have got into the room and made his escape again."
"The French windows were open," said Mr. Mann. "All the evidence that we have is to this effect, including the evidence of P. C. Wiseman."
"In those circumstances, how comes it that the constable, who, when he heard the shot, made straight for the room, did not meet the murderer escaping? He saw nobody in the grounds—"
"Except Sergeant Smith, or Crawley," interspersed Saul Arthur Mann readily. "I have reason to believe, and, indeed, reason to know, that Sergeant Smith, or Crawley, had a motive for being in the house. I supplied Mr. Minute, who was a client of mine, with certain documents, and those documents were in a safe in his bedroom. What is more likely than that this Crawley, to whom it was vitally necessary that the documents in question should be recovered, should have entered the house in search of those documents? I don't mindtelling you that they related to a fraud of which he was the author, and they were in themselves all the proof which the police would require to obtain a conviction against him. He was obviously the man who struck down Mr. Cole, and whose light the constable saw flashing in the upper window."
"In that case he cannot have been the murderer," said the detective quickly, "because the shots were fired while he was still in the room. They were almost simultaneous with the appearance of the flash at the upper window."
"H'm!" said Saul Arthur Mann, for the moment nonplussed.
"The more you go into this matter, the more complicated does it become," said the police officer, with a shake of his head, "and to my mind the clearer is the case against Merrill."
"With this reservation," interrupted the other, "that you have to account for the movements of Mr. Rex Holland, who comes on the scene ten minutes after Frank Merrill arrivesand who leaves his car. He leaves his car for a very excellent reason," he went on. "Sergeant Smith, who runs away to get assistance, meets two men of the Sussex constabulary, hurrying in response to Wiseman's whistle. One of them stands by the car, and the other comes into the house. It was, therefore, impossible for the murderer to make use of the car. Here is another point I would have you explain."
He had hoisted himself on the edge of his desk, and sat, an amusing little figure, his legs swinging a foot from the ground.
"The revolver used was a big Webley, not an easy thing to carry or conceal about your person, and undoubtedly brought to the scene of the crime by the man in the car. You will say that Merrill, who wore an overcoat, might have easily brought it in his pocket; but the absolute proof that that could not have been the case is that on his arrival by train from London, Mr. Merrill lost his ticket and very carefully searched himself, a railway inspector assisting, to discover the bit of pasteboard.He turned out everything he had in his pocket in the inspector's presence, and his overcoat—the only place where he could have concealed such a heavy weapon—was searched by the inspector himself."
The detective nodded.
"It is a very difficult case," he agreed, "and one in which I've no great heart; for, to be absolutely honest, my views are that while it might have been Merrill, the balance of proof is that it was not. That is, of course, my unofficial view, and I shall work pretty hard to secure a conviction."
"I am sure you will," said Mr. Mann heartily.
"Must the case go into the court?" asked the girl anxiously.
"There is no other way for it," replied the officer. "You see, we have arrested him, and unless something turns up the magistrate must commit him for trial on the evidence we have secured."
"Poor Frank!" she said softly.
"It is rough on him, if he is innocent," agreed Nash, "but it is lucky for him if he's guilty. My experience of crime and criminals is that it is generally the obvious man who commits that crime; only once in fifty years is he innocent, whether he is acquitted or whether he is found guilty."
He offered his hand to Mr. Mann.
"I'll be getting along now, sir," he said. "The commissioner asked me to give you all the assistance I possibly could, and I hope I have done so."
"What are you doing in the case of Jasper Cole?" asked Mann quickly.
The detective smiled.
"You ought to know, sir," he said, and was amused at his own little joke.
"Well, young lady," said Mann, turning to the girl, after the detective had gone, "I think you know how matters stand. Nash suspects Cole."
"Jasper!" she said, in shocked surprise.
"Jasper," he repeated.
"But that is impossible! He was locked in his room."
"That doesn't make it impossible. I know of fourteen distinct cases of men who committed crimes and were able to lock themselves in their rooms, leaving the key outside. There was a case of Henry Burton, coiner; there was William Francis Rector, who killed a warder while in prison and locked the cell upon himself from the inside. There was—But there; why should I bother you with instances? That kind of trick is common enough. No," he said, "it is the motive that we have to find. Do you still want me to go with you to-morrow, Miss Nuttall?" he asked.
"I should be very glad if you would," she said earnestly. "Poor, dear uncle! I didn't think I could ever enter the house again."
"I can relieve your mind about that," he said. "The will is not to be read in the house. Mr. Minute's lawyers have arranged for the reading at their offices in Lincoln's Inn Fields. I have the address here somewhere."
He fumbled in his pocket and took out a card.
"Power, Commons & Co.," he read, "194 Lincoln's Inn Fields. I will meet you there at three o'clock."
He rumpled his untidy hair with an embarrassed laugh.
"I seem to have drifted into the position of guardian to you, young lady," he said. "I can't say that it is an unpleasant task, although it is a great responsibility."
"You have been splendid, Mr. Mann," she said warmly, "and I shall never forget all you have done for me. Somehow I feel that Frank will get off; and I hope—I pray that it will not be at Jasper's expense."
He looked at her in surprise and disappointment.
"I thought—" he stopped.
"You thought I was engaged to Frank, and so I am," she said, with heightened color. "But Jasper is—I hardly know how to put it."
"I see," said Mr. Mann, though, if the truth be told, he saw nothing which enlightened him.
Punctually at three o'clock the next afternoon, they walked up the steps of the lawyers' office together. Jasper Cole was already there, and to Mr. Mann's surprise so also was Inspector Nash, who explained his presence in a few words.
"There may be something in the will which will open a new viewpoint," he said.
Mr. Power, the solicitor, an elderly man, inclined to rotundity, was introduced, and, taking his position before the fireplace, opened the proceedings with an expression of regret as to the circumstances which had brought them together.
"The will of my late client," he said, "was not drawn up by me. It is written in Mr. Minute's handwriting, and revokes the only other will, one which was prepared some four years ago and which made provisions rather different to those in the present instrument.This will"—he took a single sheet of paper out of an envelope—"was made last year and was witnessed by Thomas Wellington Crawley"—he adjusted his pince-nez and examined the signature—"late trooper of the Matabeleland mounted police, and by George Warrell, who was Mr. Minute's butler at the time. Warrell died in the Eastbourne hospital in the spring of this year."
There was a deep silence. Saul Arthur Mann's face was eagerly thrust forward, his head turned slightly to one side. Inspector Nash showed an unusual amount of interest. Both men had the same thought—a new will, witnessed by two people, one of whom was dead, and the other a fugitive from justice; what did this will contain?
It was the briefest of documents. To his ward he left the sum of two hundred thousand pounds, "a provision which was also made in the previous will, I might add," said the lawyer, and to this he added all his shares in the Gwelo Deep.
"To his nephew, Francis Merrill, he left twenty thousand pounds."
The lawyer paused and looked round the little circle, and then continued:
"The residue of my property, movable and immovable, all my furniture, leases, shares, cash at bankers, and all interests whatsoever, I bequeath to Jasper Cole, so-called, who is at present my secretary and confidential agent."
The detective and Saul Arthur Mann exchanged glances, and Nash's lips moved.
"How is that for a 'motive'?" he whispered.
The trial of Frank Merrill on the charge that he "did on the twenty-eighth day of June in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred—wilfully and wickedly kill and slay by a pistol shot John Minute" was the sensation of a season which was unusually prolific in murder trials. The trial took place at the Lewes Assizes in a crowded courtroom, and lasted, as we know, for sixteen days, five days of which were given to the examination in chief and the cross-examination of the accountants who had gone into the books of the bank.
The prosecution endeavored to establish the fact that no other person but Frank Merrill could have access to the books, and that therefore no other person could have falsified themor manipulated the transfer of moneys. It cannot be said that the prosecution had wholly succeeded; for when Brandon, the bank manager, was put into the witness box he was compelled to admit that not only Frank, but he himself and Jasper Cole, were in a position to reach the books.
The opening speech for the crown had been a masterly one. But that there were many weak points in the evidence and in the assumptions which the prosecution drew was evident to the merest tyro.
Sir George Murphy Jackson, the attorney general, who prosecuted, attempted to dispose summarily of certain conflictions, and it had to be confessed that his explanations were very plausible.
"The defense will tell us," he said, in that shrill, clarion tone of his which has made to quake the hearts of so many hostile witnesses, "that we have not accounted for the fourth man who drove up in his car ten minutes after Merrill had entered the house, and disappeared,but I am going to tell you my theory of that incident.
"Merrill had an accomplice who is not in custody, and that accomplice is Rex Holland. Merrill had planned and prepared this murder, because from some statement which his uncle had made he believed that not only was his whole future dependent upon destroying his benefactor and silencing forever the one man who knew the extent of his villainy, but he had in his cold, shrewd way accurately foreseen the exact consequence of such a shooting. It was a big criminal's big idea.
"He foresaw this trial," he said impressively; "he foresaw, gentlemen of the jury, his acquittal at your hands. He foresaw a reaction which would not only give him the woman he professes to love, but in consequence place in his hands the disposal of her considerable fortune.
"Why should he shoot John Minute? you may ask; and I reply to that question with another: What would have happened had henot shot his uncle? He would have been a ruined man. The doors of his uncle's house would have been closed to him. The legacy would have been revoked, the marriage for which he had planned so long would have been an unrealized dream.
"He knew the extent of the fortune which was coming to Miss Nuttall. Mr. Minute made two wills, in both of which he left an identical sum to his ward. The first of these, revoked by the second and containing the same provision, was witnessed by the man in the dock! He knew, too, that the Rhodesian gold mine, the shares of which were held by John Minute on the girl's behalf, was likely to prove a very rich proposition, and I suggest that the information coming to him as Mr. Minute's secretary, he deliberately suppressed that information for his own purpose.
"What had he to gain? I ask you to believe that if he is acquitted he will have achieved all that he ever hoped to achieve."
There was a little murmur in the court.Frank Merrill, leaning on the ledge of the dock, looked down at the girl in the body of the court, and their eyes met. He saw the indignation in her face and nodded with a little smile, then turned again to the counsel with that eager, half-quizzical look of interest which the girl had so often seen upon his handsome face.
"Much will be made, in the course of this trial, of the presence of another man, and the defense will endeavor to secure capital out of the fact that the man Crawley, who it was suggested was in the house for an improper purpose, has not been discovered. As to the fourth man, the driver of the motor car, there seems little doubt but that he was an accomplice of Merrill. This mysterious Rex Holland, who has been identified by Mrs. Totney, of Uckfield, spent the whole of the day wandering about Sussex, obviously having one plan in his mind, which was to arrive at Mr. Minute's house at the same time as his confederate.
"You will have the taxi-driver's evidence that when Merrill stepped down, after being driven from the station, he looked left and right, as though he were expecting somebody. The plan to some extent miscarried. The accomplice arrived ten minutes too late. On some pretext or other Merrill probably left the room. I suggest that he did not go into the dining room, but that he went out into the garden and was met by his accomplice, who handed him the weapon with which this crime was committed.
"It may be asked by the defense why the accomplice, who was presumably Rex Holland, did not himself commit the crime. I could offer two or three alternative suggestions, all of which are feasible. The deceased man was shot at close quarters, and was found in such an attitude as to suggest that he was wholly unprepared for the attack. We know that he was in some fear and that he invariably went armed; yet it is fairly certain that he made no attempt to draw his weapon, which he certainlywould have done had he been suddenly confronted by an armed stranger.
"I do not pretend that I am explaining the strange relationship between Merrill and this mysterious forger. Merrill is the only man who has seen him and has given a vague and somewhat confused description of him. 'He was a man with a short, close-clipped beard' is Merrill's description. The woman who served him with tea near Uckfield describes him as a 'youngish man with a dark mustache, but otherwise clean shaven.'
"There is no reason, of course, why he should not have removed his beard, but as against that suggestion we will call evidence to prove that the man seen driving with the murdered chauffeur was invariably a man with a mustache and no beard, so that the balance of probability is on the side of the supposition that Merrill is not telling the truth. An unknown client with a large deposit at his bank would not be likely constantly to alter his appearance. If he were a criminal, as weknow him to be, there would be another reason why he should not excite suspicion in this way."
His address covered the greater part of a day—but he returned to the scene in the garden, to the supposed meeting of the two men, and to the murder.
Saul Arthur Mann, sitting with Frank's solicitor, scratched his nose and grinned.
"I have never heard a more ingenious piece of reconstruction," he said; "though, of course, the whole thing is palpably absurd."
As a theory it was no doubt excellent; but men are not sentenced to death on theories, however ingenious they may be. Probably nobody in the court so completely admired the ingenuity as the man most affected. At the lunch interval on the day on which this theory was put forward he met his solicitor and Saul Arthur Mann in the bare room in which such interviews are permitted.
"It was really fascinating to hear him," said Frank, as he sipped the cup of tea whichthey had brought him. "I almost began to believe that I had committed the murder! But isn't it rather alarming? Will the jury take the same view?" he asked, a little troubled.
The solicitor shook his head.
"Unsupported theories of that sort do not go well with juries, and, of course, the whole story is so flimsy and so improbable that it will go for no more than a piece of clever reasoning."
"Did anybody see you at the railway station?"
Frank shook his head.
"I suppose hundreds of people saw me, but would hardly remember me."
"Was there any one on the train who knew you?"
"No," said Frank, after a moment's thought. "There were six people in my carriage until we got to Lewes, but I think I told you that, and you have not succeeded in tracing any of them."
"It is most difficult to get into touch withthose people," said the lawyer. "Think of the scores of people one travels with, without ever remembering what they looked like or how they were dressed. If you had been a woman, traveling with women, every one of your five fellow passengers would have remembered you and would have recalled your hat."
Frank laughed.
"There are certain disadvantages in being a man," he said. "How do you think the case is going?"
"They have offered no evidence yet. I think you will agree, Mr. Mann," he said respectfully, for Saul Arthur Mann was a power in legal circles.
"None at all," the little fellow agreed.
Frank recalled the first day he had seen him, with his hat perched on the back of his head and his shabby, genteel exterior.
"Oh, by Jove!" he said. "I suppose they will be trying to fasten the death of that man upon me that we saw in Gray Square."
Saul Arthur Mann nodded.
"They have not put that in the indictment," he said, "nor the case of the chauffeur. You see, your conviction will rest entirely upon this present charge, and both the other matters are subsidiary."
Frank walked thoughtfully up and down the room, his hands behind his back.
"I wonder who Rex Holland is," he said, half to himself.
"You still have your theory?" asked the lawyer, eying him keenly.
Frank nodded.
"And you still would rather not put it into words?"
"Much rather not," said Frank gravely.
He returned to the court and glanced round for the girl, but she was not there. The rest of the afternoon's proceedings, taken up as they were with the preliminaries of the case, bored him.
It was on the twelfth day of the trial that Jasper Cole stepped on to the witness stand. He was dressed in black and was paler thanusual, but he took the oath in a firm voice and answered the questions which were put to him without hesitation.
The story of Frank's quarrel with his uncle, of the forged checks, and of his own experience on the night of the crime filled the greater part of the forenoon, and it was in the afternoon when Bryan Bennett, one of the most brilliant barristers of his time, stood up to cross-examine.
"Had you any suspicion that your employer was being robbed?"
"I had a suspicion," replied Jasper.
"Did you communicate your suspicion to your employer?"
Jasper hesitated.
"No," he replied at last.
"Why do you hesitate?" asked Bennett sharply.
"Because, although I did not directly communicate my suspicions, I hinted to Mr. Minute that he should have an independent audit."
"So you thought the books were wrong?"
"I did."
"In these circumstances," asked Bennett slowly, "do you not think it was very unwise of you to touch those books yourself?"
"When did I touch them?" asked Jasper quickly.
"I suggest that on a certain night you came to the bank and remained in the bank by yourself, examining the ledgers on behalf of your employer, and that during that time you handled at least three books in which these falsifications were made."
"That is quite correct," said Jasper, after a moment's thought; "but my suspicions were general and did not apply to any particular group of books."
"But did you not think it was dangerous?"
Again the hesitation.
"It may have been foolish, and if I had known how matters were developing I should certainly not have touched them."
"You do admit that there were several periods of time from seven in the evening untilnine and from nine-thirty until eleven-fifteen when you were absolutely alone in the bank?"
"That is true," said Jasper.
"And during those periods you could, had you wished and had you been a forger, for example, or had you any reason for falsifying the entries, have made those falsifications?"
"I admit there was time," said Jasper.
"Would you describe yourself as a friend of Frank Merrill's?"
"Not a close friend," replied Jasper.
"Did you like him?"
"I cannot say that I was fond of him," was the reply.
"He was a rival of yours?"
"In what respect?"
Counsel shrugged his shoulders.
"He was very fond of Miss Nuttall."
"Yes."
"And she was fond of him?"
"Yes."
"Did you not aspire to pay your addresses to Miss Nuttall?"
Jasper Cole looked down to the girl, and May averted her eyes. Her cheeks were burning and she had a wild desire to flee from the court.
"If you mean did I love Miss Nuttall," said Jasper Cole, in his quiet, even tone, "I reply that I did."
"You even secured the active support of Mr. Minute?"
"I never urged the matter with Mr. Minute," said Jasper.
"So that if he moved on your behalf he did so without your knowledge?"
"Without my pre-knowledge," corrected the witness. "He told me afterward that he had spoken to Miss Nuttall, and I was considerably embarrassed."
"I understand you were a man of curious habits, Mr. Cole."
"We are all people of curious habits," smiled the witness.
"But you in particular. You were an Orientalist, I believe?"
"I have studied Oriental languages and customs," said Jasper shortly.
"Have you ever extended your study to the realm of hypnotism?"
"I have," replied the witness.
"Have you ever made experiments?"
"On animals, yes."
"On human beings?"
"No, I have never made experiments on human beings."
"Have you also made a study of narcotics?"
The lawyer leaned forward over the table and looked at the witness between half-closed eyes.
"I have made experiments with narcotic herbs and plants," said Jasper, after a moment's hesitation. "I think you should know that the career which was planned for me was that of a doctor, and I have always been very interested in the effects of narcotics."
"You know of a drug calledcannabis indica?" asked the counsel, consulting his paper.
"Yes; it is 'Indian hemp.'"
"Is there an infusion ofcannabis indicato be obtained?"
"I do not think there is," said the other. "I can probably enlighten you because I see now the trend of your examination. I once told Frank Merrill, many years ago, when I was very enthusiastic, that an infusion ofcannabis indica, combined with tincture of opium and hyocine, produced certain effects."
"It is inclined to sap the will power of a man or a woman who is constantly absorbing this poison in small doses?" suggested the counsel.
"That is so."
The counsel now switched off on a new tack.
"Do you know the East of London?"
"Yes, slightly."
"Do you know Silvers Rents?"
"Yes."
"Do you ever go to Silvers Rents?"
"Yes; I go there very regularly."
The readiness of the reply astonished bothFrank and the girl. She had been feeling more and more uncomfortable as the cross-examination continued, and had a feeling that she had in some way betrayed Jasper Cole's confidence. She had listened to the cross-examination which revealed Jasper as a scientist with something approaching amazement. She had known of the laboratory, but had associated the place with those entertaining experiments that an idle dabbler in chemistry might undertake.
For a moment she doubted, and searched her mind for some occasion when he had practiced his medical knowledge. Dimly she realized that therehadbeen some such occasion, and then she remembered that it had always been Jasper Cole who had concocted the strange drafts which had so relieved the headache to which, when she was a little younger, she had been something of a martyr. Could he—She struggled hard to dismiss the thought as being unworthy of her; and now, when the object of his visits to SilversRents was under examination, she found her curiosity growing.
"Why did you go to Silvers Rents?"
There was no answer.
"I will repeat my question: With what object did you go to Silvers Rents?"
"I decline to answer that question," said the man in the box coolly. "I merely tell you that I went there frequently."
"And you refuse to say why?"
"I refuse to say why," repeated the witness.
The judge on the bench made a little note.
"I put it to you," said counsel, speaking impressively, "that it was in Silvers Rents that you took on another identity."
"That is probably true," said the other, and the girl gasped; he was so cool, so self-possessed, so sure of himself.
"I suggest to you," the counsel went on, "that in those Rents Jasper Cole became Rex Holland."
There was a buzz of excitement, a suddensoft clamor of voices through which the usher's harsh demand for silence cut like a knife.
"Your suggestion is an absurd one," said Jasper, without heat, "and I presume that you are going to produce evidence to support so infamous a statement."
"What evidence I produce," said counsel, with asperity, "is a matter for me to decide."
"It is also a matter for the witness," interposed the soft voice of the judge. "As you have suggested that Holland was a party to the murder, and as you are inferring that Rex Holland is Jasper Cole, it is presumed that you will call evidence to support so serious a charge."
"I am not prepared to call evidence, my lord, and if your lordship thinks the question should not have been put I am willing to withdraw it."
The judge nodded and turned his head to the jury.
"You will consider that question as nothaving been put, gentlemen," he said. "Doubtless counsel is trying to establish the fact that one person might just as easily have been Rex Holland as another. There is no suggestion that Mr. Cole went to Silvers Rents—which I understand is in a very poor neighborhood—with any illegal intent, or that he was committing any crime or behaving in any way improperly by paying such frequent visits. There may be something in the witness's life associated with that poor house which has no bearing on the case and which he does not desire should be ventilated in this court. It happens to many of us," the judge went on, "that we have associations which it would embarrass us to reveal."
This little incident closed that portion of the cross-examination, and counsel went on to the night of the murder.
"When did you come to the house?" he asked.
"I came to the house soon after dark."
"Had you been in London?"
"Yes; I walked from Bexhill."
"It was dark when you arrived?"
"Yes, nearly dark."
"The servants had all gone out?"
"Yes."
"Was Mr. Minute pleased to see you?"
"Yes; he had expected me earlier in the day."
"Did he tell you that his nephew was coming to see him?"
"I knew that."
"You say he suggested that you should make yourself scarce?"
"Yes."
"And as you had a headache, you went upstairs and lay down on your bed?"
"Yes."
"What were you doing in Bexhill?"
"I came down from town and got into the wrong portion of the train."
A junior leaned over and whispered quickly to his leader.
"I see, I see," said the counsel petulantly."Your ticket was found at Bexhill. Have you ever seen Mr. Rex Holland?" he asked.
"Never."
"You have never met any person of that name?"
"Never."
In this tame way the cross-examination closed, as cross-examinations have a habit of doing.
By the time the final addresses of counsel had ended, and the judge had finished a masterly summing-up, there was no doubt whatever in the mind of any person in the court as to what the verdict would be. The jury was absent from the box for twenty minutes and returned a verdict of "Not guilty!"
The judge discharged Frank Merrill without comment, and he left the court a free but ruined man.
It was two months after the great trial, on a warm day in October, when Frank Merrill stepped ashore from the big white paddle boat which had carried him across Lake Leman from Lausanne, and, handing his bag to a porter, made his way to the hotel omnibus. He looked at his watch. It pointed to a quarter to four, and May was not due to arrive until half past. He went to his hotel, washed and changed and came down to the vestibule to inquire if the instructions he had telegraphed had been carried out.
May was arriving in company with Saul Arthur Mann, who was taking one of his rare holidays abroad. Frank had only seen the girl once since the day of the trial. He had come to breakfast on the following morning, and very little had been said. He was due toleave that afternoon for the Continent. He had a little money, sufficient for his needs, and Jasper Cole had offered no suggestion that he would dispute the will, in so far as it affected Frank. So he had gone abroad and had idled away two months in France, Spain, and Italy, and had then made his leisurely way back to Switzerland by way of Maggiore.
He had grown a little graver, was a little more set in his movements, but he bore upon his face no mark to indicate the mental agony through which he must have passed in that long-drawn-out and wearisome trial. So thought the girl as she came through the swing doors of the hotel, passed the obsequious hotel servants, and greeted him in the big palm court.
If she saw any change in him he remarked a development in her which was a little short of wonderful. She was at that age when the woman is breaking through the beautiful chrysalis of girlhood. In those two months a remarkable change had come over her, achange which he could not for the moment define, for this phenomenon of development had been denied to his experience.
"Why, May," he said, "you are quite old."
She laughed, and again he noticed the change. The laugh was richer, sweeter, purer than the bubbling treble he had known.
"You are not getting complimentary, are you?" she asked.
She was exquisitely dressed, and had that poise which few Englishwomen achieve. She had the art of wearing clothes, and from the flimsy crest of her toque to the tips of her little feet she was all that the most exacting critic could desire. There are well-dressed women who are no more than mannequins. There are fine ladies who cannot be mistaken for anything but fine ladies, whose dresses are a horror and an abomination and whose expressed tastes are execrable.
May Nuttall was a fine lady, finely appareled.
"When you have finished admiring me,Frank," she said, "tell us what you have been doing. But first of all let us have some tea. You know Mr. Mann?"
The little investigator beaming in the background took Frank's hand and shook it heartily. He was dressed in what he thought was an appropriate costume for a mountainous country. His boots were stout, the woolen stockings which covered his very thin legs were very woolen, and his knickerbocker suit was warranted to stand wear and tear. He had abandoned his top hat for a large golf cap, which was perched rakishly over one eye. Frank looked round apprehensively for Saul Arthur's alpenstock, and was relieved when he failed to discover one.
The girl threw off her fur wrap and unbuttoned her gloves as the waiter placed the big silver tray on the table before her.
"I'm afraid I have not much to tell," said Frank in answer to her question. "I've just been loafing around. What is your news?"
"What is my news?" she asked. "I don'tthink I have any, except that everything is going very smoothly in England, and, oh, Frank, I am so immensely rich!"
He smiled.
"The appropriate thing would be to say that I am immensely poor," he said, "but as a matter of fact I am not. I went down to Aix and won quite a lot of money."
"Won it?" she said.
He nodded with an amused little smile.
"You wouldn't have thought I was a gambler, would you?" he asked solemnly. "I don't think I am, as a matter of fact, but somehow I wanted to occupy my mind."
"I understand," she said quickly.
Another little pause while she poured out the tea, which afforded Saul Arthur Mann an opportunity of firing off fifty facts about Geneva in as many sentences.
"What has happened to Jasper?" asked Frank after a while.
The girl flushed a little.
"Oh, Jasper," she said awkwardly, "I seehim, you know. He has become more mysterious than ever, quite like one of those wicked people one reads about in sensational stories. He has a laboratory somewhere in the country, and he does quite a lot of motoring. I've seen him several times at Brighton, for instance."
Frank nodded slowly.
"I should think that he was a good driver," he said.
Saul Arthur Mann looked up and met his eye with a smile which was lost upon the girl.
"He has been kind to me," she said hesitatingly.
"Does he ever speak about—"
She shook her head.
"I don't want to think about that," she said; "please don't let us talk about it."
He knew she was referring to John Minute's death, and changed the conversation.
A few minutes later he had an opportunity of speaking with Mr. Mann.
"What is the news?" he asked.
Saul Arthur Mann looked round.
"I think we are getting near the truth," he said, dropping his voice. "One of my men has had him under observation ever since the day of the trial. There is no doubt that he is really a brilliant chemist."
"Have you a theory?"
"I have several," said Mr. Mann. "I am perfectly satisfied that the unfortunate fellow we saw together on the occasion of our first meeting was Rex Holland's servant. I was as certain that he was poisoned by a very powerful poisoning. When your trial was on the body was exhumed and examined, and the presence of that drug was discovered. It was the same as that employed in the case of the chauffeur. Obviously, Rex Holland is a clever chemist. I wanted to see you about that. He said at the trial that he had discussed such matters with you."
Frank nodded.
"We used to have quite long talks about drugs," he said. "I have recalled many ofthose conversations since the day of the trial. He even fired me with his enthusiasm, and I used to assist him in his little experiments, and obtained quite a working knowledge of these particular elements. Unfortunately I cannot remember very much, for my enthusiasm soon died, and beyond the fact that he employed hyocine and Indian hemp I have only the dimmest recollection of any of the constituents he employed."
Saul Arthur nodded energetically.
"I shall have more to tell you later, perhaps," he said, "but at present my inquiries are shaping quite nicely. He is going to be a difficult man to catch, because, if all I believe is true, he is one of the most cold-blooded and calculating men it has ever been my lot to meet—and I have met a few," he added grimly.
When he said men Frank knew that he had meant criminals.
"We are probably doing him a horrible injustice," he smiled. "Poor old Jasper!"
"You are not cut out for police work," snapped Saul Arthur Mann; "you've too many sympathies."
"I don't exactly sympathize," rejoined Frank, "but I just pity him in a way."
Again Mr. Mann looked round cautiously and again lowered his voice, which had risen.
"There is one thing I want to talk to you about. It is rather a delicate matter, Mr. Merrill," he said.
"Fire ahead!"
"It is about Miss Nuttall. She has seen a lot of our friend Jasper, and after every interview she seems to grow more and more reliant upon his help. Once or twice she has been embarrassed when I have spoken about Jasper Cole and has changed the subject."
Frank pursed his lips thoughtfully, and a hard little look came into his eyes, which did not promise well for Jasper.
"So that is it," he said, and shrugged his shoulders. "If she cares for him, it is not my business."
"But it is your business," said the other sharply. "She was fond enough of you to offer to marry you."
Further talk was cut short by the arrival of the girl. Their meeting at Geneva had been to some extent a chance one. She was going through to Chamonix to spend the winter, and Saul Arthur Mann seized the opportunity of taking a short and pleasant holiday. Hearing that Frank was in Switzerland, she had telegraphed him to meet her.
"Are you staying any time in Switzerland?" she asked him as they strolled along the beautiful quay.
"I am going back to London to-night," he replied.
"To-night," she said in surprise.
He nodded.
"But I am staying here for two or three days," she protested.
"I intended also staying for two or three days," he smiled, "but my business will not wait."
Nevertheless, she persuaded him to stay till the morrow.
They were at breakfast when the morning mail was delivered, and Frank noted that she went rapidly through the dozen letters which came to her, and she chose one for first reading. He could not help but see that that bore an English stamp, and his long acquaintance with the curious calligraphy of Jasper Cole left him in no doubt as to who was the correspondent. He saw with what eagerness she read the letter, the little look of disappointment when she turned to an inside sheet and found that it had not been filled, and his mind was made up. He had a post also, which he examined with some evidence of impatience.
"Your mail is not so nice as mine," said the girl with a smile.
"It is not nice at all," he grumbled; "the one thing I wanted, and, to be very truthful, May, the one inducement—"
"To stay over the night," she added, "was—what?"
"I have been trying to buy a house on the lake," he said, "and the infernal agent at Lausanne promised to write telling me whether my terms had been agreed to by his client."
He looked down at the table and frowned. Saul Arthur Mann had a great and extensive knowledge of human nature. He had remarked the disappointment on Frank's face, having identified also the correspondent whose letter claimed priority of attention. He knew that Frank's anger with the house agent was very likely the expression of his anger in quite another direction.
"Can I send the letter on?" suggested the girl.
"That won't help me," said Frank, with a little grimace. "I wanted to settle the business this week."
"I have it," she said. "I will open the letter and telegraph to you in Paris whether the terms are accepted or not."
Frank laughed.
"It hardly seems worth that," he said, "butI should take it as awfully kind of you if you would, May."
Saul Arthur Mann believed in his mind that Frank did not care tuppence whether the agent accepted the terms or not, but that he had taken this as a Heaven-sent opportunity for veiling his annoyance.
"You have had quite a large mail, Miss Nuttall," he said.
"I've only opened one, though. It is from Jasper," she said hurriedly.
Again both men noticed the faint flush, the strange, unusual light which came to her eyes.
"And where does Jasper write from?" asked Frank, steadying his voice.
"He writes from England, but he was going on the Continent to Holland the day he wrote," she said. "It is funny to think that he is here."
"In Switzerland?" asked Frank in surprise.
"Don't be silly," she laughed. "No, I mean on the mainland—I mean there is no sea between us."
She went crimson.
"It sounds thrilling," said Frank dryly.
She flashed round at him.
"You mustn't be horrid about Jasper," she said quickly; "he never speaks about you unkindly."
"I don't see why he should," said Frank; "but let's get off a subject which is—"
"Which is—what?" she challenged
"Which is controversial," said Frank diplomatically.
She came down to the station to see him off. As he looked out of the window, waving his farewells, he thought he had never seen a more lovely being or one more desirable.
It was in the afternoon of that day which saw Frank Merrill speeding toward the Swiss frontier and Paris that Mr. Rex Holland strode into the Palace Hotel at Montreux and seated himself at a table in the restaurant. The hour was late and the room was almost deserted. Giovanni, the head waiter, recognized him and came hurriedly across the room.
"Ah, m'sieur," he said, "you are back from England. I didn't expect you till the winter sports had started. Is Paris very dull?"
"I didn't come through Paris," said the other shortly; "there are many roads leading to Switzerland."
"But few pleasant roads, m'sieur. I have come to Montreux by all manner of ways—from Paris, through Pontarlier, through Ostend, Brussels, through the Hook of Holland and Amsterdam, but Paris is the only way for the man who is flying to this beautiful land."
The man at the table said nothing, scanning the menu carefully. He looked tired as one who had taken a very long journey.
"It may interest you to know," he said, after he had given his order and as Giovanni was turning away, "that I came by the longest route. Tell me, Giovanni, have you a man called Merrill staying at the hotel?"
"No, m'sieur," said the other. "Is he a friend of yours?"
Mr. Rex Holland smiled.
"In a sense he is a friend, in a sense he is not," he said flippantly, and offered no further enlightenment, although Giovanni waited with a deferential cock of his head.
Later, when he had finished his modest dinner, he strolled into the one long street of the town, returning to the writing room of the hotel with a number of papers which included the visitors' list, a publication printed in English, and which, as it related the comings and goings of visitors, not only to Lausanne, Montreux, and Teritet, but also to Evian and Geneva, enjoyed a fair circulation. He sat at the table, and, drawing a sheet of paper from the rack, wrote, addressed an envelope to Frank Merrill, esquire, Hotel de France, Geneva, slipped it into the hotel pillar box, and went to bed.
"There's a letter here for Frank," said the girl. "I wonder if it is from his agent."
She examined the envelope, which bore the Montreux postmark.
"I should imagine it is," said Saul Arthur Mann.
"Well, I am going to open it, anyway," said the girl. "Poor Frank! He will be in a state of suspense."
She tore open the envelope, and took out a letter. Mr. Mann saw her face go white, and the letter trembled in her hand. Without a word she passed it to him, and he read:
"Dear Frank Merrill," said the letter. "Give me another month's grace and then you may tell the whole story. Yours, Rex Holland."
Saul Arthur Mann stared at the letter with open mouth.
"What does it mean?" asked the girl in a whisper.
"It means that Merrill is shielding somebody," said the other. "It means—"
Suddenly his face lit up with excitement.
"The writing!" he gasped.
Her eyes followed his, and for a moment she did not understand; then, with a lightningsweep of her arm, she snatched the letter from his hand and crumpled it in a ball.
"The writing!" said Mr. Mann again. "I've seen it before. It is—Jasper Cole's!"
She looked at him steadily, though her face was white, and the hand which grasped the crumpled paper was shaking.
"I think you are mistaken, Mr. Mann," she said quietly.