A murmur of astonishment ran through the court as the witness made his last reply, and those most closely interested in him turned and looked at each other with obvious amazement. And for a moment Mr. Millington-Bywater seemed to be at a loss; in the next he bent forward toward the witness-box and fixed the man standing there with a piercing look.
"Do you seriously tell us, on your oath, that these papers—your papers, if you are what you claim to be—were stolen from you many years ago, and have only just been restored to you?" he asked. "On your oath, mind!"
"I do tell you so," answered the witness quietly. "I am on oath."
The magistrate glanced at Mr. Millington-Bywater.
"What is the relevancy of this—in relation to the prisoner and the charge against him?" he inquired. "You have some point, of course?"
"The relevancy is this, Your Worship," replied Mr. Millington-Bywater: "Our contention is that the papers referred to were until recently in the custody of John Ashton, the murdered man—I can put a witness in the box who can give absolute proof of that, a highly reputable witness, who is present,—and that John Ashton was certainly murdered by some person or persons who, for purposes of their own, wished to gain possession of them. Now, we know that they are in possession of the present witness, or rather, of his solicitors, to whom he has handed them. I mean to prove that Ashton was murdered in the way, and for the reason I suggest, and that accordingly the prisoner is absolutely innocent of the charge brought against him. I should therefore like to ask this witness to tell us how he regained possession of these papers, for I am convinced that in what he can tell us lies the secret of Ashton's murder. Now," he continued, turning again to the witness as the magistrate nodded assent, "we will assume for the time being that you are what you represent yourself to be—the Lord Marketstoke who disappeared from England thirty-five years ago. You have just heard what I said to His Worship—about these papers, and what I put forward as regards their connection with the murder of John Ashton? Will you tell us how you lost those papers, and more particularly, how you recently regained possession of them? You see the immense, the vital importance of this to the unfortunate young fellow in the dock?"
"Who," answered the witness with a calm smile, "is quite and utterly mistaken in thinking that he knew me in America, for I have certainly never set foot in America, neither North nor South, in my life! I am very much surprised indeed to be forced into publicity as I have been this morning—I came here as a merely curious spectator and had no idea whatever that I should be called into this box. But if any evidence of mine can establish, or help to establish, the prisoner's innocence, I will give it only too gladly."
"Much obliged to you, sir," said Mr. Millington-Bywater, who, in Viner's opinion, was evidently impressed by the witness's straightforward tone and candid demeanour.
"Well, if you will tell us—in your own way—about these papers, now—always remembering that we have absolute proof that until recently they were in the possession of John Ashton? Let me preface whatever you choose to tell us with a question: Do you know that they were in possession of John Ashton?"
"I have no more idea or knowledge of whose hands they were in, and had been in, for many years, until they were restored to me, than the man in the moon has!" affirmed the witness. "I'll tell you the whole story—willingly: I could have told it yesterday to certain gentlemen, whom I see present, if they had not treated me as an impostor as soon as they saw me. Well,"—here he folded his hands on the ledge of the witness-box, and quietly fixing his eyes on the examining counsel, proceeded to speak in a calm, conversational tone—"the story is this: I left England about five-and-thirty years ago after certain domestic unpleasantnesses which I felt so much that I determined to give up all connection with my family and to start an absolutely new life of my own. I went away to Australia and landed there under the name of Wickham. I had a certain amount of money which had come to me from my mother. I speculated with it on my arrival, somewhat foolishly, no doubt, and I lost it—every penny.
"So then I was obliged to work for my living. I went up country, and for some time worked as a miner in the Bendigo district. I had been working in this way perhaps fourteen months when an accident occurred in the mine at which I was engaged. There was a serious fall of earth and masonry; two or three of my fellow-workers were killed on the spot, and I was taken up for dead. I was removed to a local hospital—there had been some serious injury to my head and spine, but I still had life in me, and I was brought round. But I remained in hospital, in a sort of semiconscious state, for a long time—months. When I went back, after my discharge, to my quarters—nothing but a rough shanty which I had shared with many other men—all my possessions had vanished. Among them, of course, were the papers I had kept, and a packet of letters written to me by my mother when I was a schoolboy at Eton.
"Of course, I knew at once what had happened—some one of my mates, believing me to be dead, had appropriated all my belongings and gone off with them. There was nothing at all to be wondered at in that—it was the usual thing in such a society. And I knew there was nothing to do but to accept my loss philosophically."
"Did you make no effort to recover your possessions?" asked Mr.Millington-Bywater.
"No," answered the witness with a quiet smile. "I didn't! I knew too much of the habits of men in mining centers to waste time in that way. A great many men had left that particular camp during my illness—it would have been impossible to trace each one. No—after all, I had left England in order to lose my identity, and now, of course, it was gone. I went away into quite another part of the country—into Queensland. I began trading in Brisbane, and I did very well there, and remained there many years. Then I went farther south, to Sydney—and I did very well there too. It was in Sydney, years after that, that I saw the advertisements in the newspapers, English and Colonial, setting forth that my father was dead, and asking for news of myself. I took no notice of them—I had not the least desire to return to England, no wish for the title, and I was quite content that my youngest brother should get that and the estates. So I did nothing; nobody knew who I really was—"
"One moment!" said Mr. Millington-Bywater. "While you were at the mining-camp, in the Bendigo district, did you ever reveal your secret to any of your fellow-miners?"
"Never!" answered the witness. "I never revealed it to a living soul until I told my solicitor there, Mr. Methley, after my recent arrival in London."
"But of course, whoever stole your letters and so on, would discover, or guess at, the truth?" suggested Mr. Millington-Bywater.
"Oh, of course, of course!" said the witness. "Well as I was saying, I did nothing—except to keep an eye on the papers. I saw in due course that leave to presume my death had been given, and that my younger brother had assumed the title, and administered the estate, and I was quite content. The fact was, I was at that time doing exceedingly well, and I was too much interested in my doings to care about what was going on in England. All my life," continued the witness, with a slight smile, "I have had a—I had better call it a weakness—for speculating; and when I had got a goodly sum of money together by my trading venture in Brisbane and Sydney, I began speculating again, in Melbourne chiefly. And—to cut my story short—last year I had one of my periodic bad turns of fortune: I lost a lot of money. Now, I am, as you see, getting on in life, over sixty—and it occurred to me that if I came over to England and convinced my nephew, the present holder of the title and estates, that I am really who I am, he would not be averse—we have always been a generous family—to giving me enough to settle down on in Australia for the rest of my days. Perhaps I had better say at once, since we are making matters so very public, that I do not want the title, nor the estate; I will be quite candid and say what I do want—enough to let me live in proper comfort in Australia, whither I shall again repair as soon as I settle my affairs here."
Mr. Millington-Bywater glanced at the magistrate and then at the witness.
"Well, now, these papers?" he said. "You didn't bring them to London with you?"
"Of course not!" answered the witness. "I had not seen or heard of them for thirty-two years! No I relied, on coming to this country, on other things to prove my identity, such as my knowledge of Marketstoke and Ellingham, my thorough acquaintance with the family history, my recollection of people I had known, like Mr. Carless, Mr. Driver, and their clerk, Mr. Portlethwaite, and on the fact that I lost this finger through a shooting accident when I was a boy, at Ellingham. Curiously," he added with another smile, "these things don't seem to have much weight. But no! I had no papers when I landed here."
"How did they come into your possession, then?" asked Mr. Millington-Bywater. "That is what we most earnestly desire to know. Let me impress upon you, sir, that this is the most serious and fateful question I can possibly put to you! How did you get them?"
"And—from whom?" said the magistrate. "From whom?"
The witness shook his head.
"I can tell you exactly how I got them," he answered. "But I can't tell you from whom, for I don't know! What I can tell you is this: When I arrived at Tilbury from Melbourne, I asked a fellow-passenger with whom I came along to London if he could tell me of a quiet, good hotel in the neighbourhood of the parks—he recommended the Belfield, in Lancaster Gate. I went there and put myself up, and from it I went out and about a good deal, looking up old haunts. I also lunched and dined a good many times at some of the new restaurants which had sprung into being since I left London. I mention this to show you that I was where I could be seen and noticed, as I evidently was. One afternoon, while I was sitting in the smoking-room at my hotel, the page-boy came in with a letter on his tray, approached me, and said that it had been brought by a district messenger. It was addressed simply, 'Mr. Cave'—the name by which I had registered at the hotel—and was sealed; the inclosure, on a half-sheet of note-paper, was typewritten. I have it here," continued the witness, producing a pocketbook and taking out an envelope. "I will read its contents, and I shall be glad to let any one concerned see it. There is no address and no date, and it says this: 'If you wish to recover the papers and letters which were lost by you when you went into hospital at Wirra-Worra, Bendigo, thirty-two years ago, be at the Speke Monument in Kensington Gardens at five o'clock this afternoon.' There was no signature."
Another murmur of intense and excited interest ran round the court as the witness handed the letter up to the magistrate, who, after looking it over, passed it on to the counsel below. They, in their turn, showed it to Mr. Carless, Mr. Pawle and Lord Ellingham, Mr. Pawle, showing it to Viner, whispered in his ear:
"If this man's telling the truth," he said, "this is the most extraordinary story I ever heard in my life."
"It seems to me that it is the truth!" muttered Viner. "And I'm pretty certain that at last we're on the way-to finding out who killed Ashton. But let's hear the end."
Mr. Millington-Bywater handed the letter back with a polite bow—it was very obvious to more than one observer that he had by this time quite accepted the witness as what he claimed to be.
"You kept the appointment?" he asked.
"I did, indeed!" exclaimed the witness. "As much out of greatly excited curiosity as anything! It seemed to me a most extraordinary thing that papers stolen from me in Australia thirty-two years ago should be returned to me in London! Yes, I walked down to the Speke Monument. I saw no one about there but a heavily veiled woman who walked about on one side of the obelisk while I patrolled the other. Eventually she approached me, and at once asked me if I had kept secret the receipt of the mysterious letter? I assured her that I had. She then told me that she was the ambassadress of the people who had my letters and papers, and who had seen and recognized me in London and tracked me to my hotel. She was empowered to negotiate with me for the handing over of the papers. There were stipulations. I was to give my solemn word of honour that I would not follow her, or cause her to be followed. I was not to ask questions. And I was to give a post-dated check on the bank at which I had opened an account in London, on receipt of the papers. The check was to be post-dated one month; it was to be made out to bearer, and the amount was ten thousand pounds. I agreed!"
"You really agreed!" exclaimed Mr. Millington-Bywater.
"I agreed! I wanted my papers. We parted, with an agreement that we were to meet two days later at the same place. I was there—so was the woman. She handed me a parcel, and I immediately took it to an adjacent seat and examined it. Everything that I could remember was there, with two exceptions. The packet of letters from my mother, to which I referred just now, was missing; so was a certain locket, which had belonged to her, and of which I had taken great care since her death, up to the time of my accident in the mining-camp. I pointed out these omissions to the woman: she answered that the papers which she had handed over were all that had been in her principal's possession. Thereupon I gave her the check which had been agreed upon, and we parted."
"And that is all you know of her?" asked Mr. Millington-Bywater.
"All!"
"Can you describe her?"
"A tallish, rather well-built woman, but so veiled that I could see nothing of her features; it was, moreover, nearly dark on both occasions. From her speech and manner, she was, I should say, a woman of education and refinement."
"Did you try to trace her, or her principals, through the district messenger who brought the letter?"
"Certainly not! I told you, just now, that I gave my word of honour: I couldn't."
Mr. Millington-Bywater turned to the magistrate.
"I can, if Your Worship desires it, put a witness in the box who can prove beyond doubt that the papers of which we have just heard this remarkable story, were recently in the possession of John Ashton," he said. "He is Mr. Cecil Perkwite, of the Middle Temple—a member of my own profession."
But the magistrate, who appeared unusually thoughtful, shook his head.
"After what we have heard," he said, "I think we had better adjourn. The prisoner will be remanded—as before—for another week."
When the magistrate had left the bench, and the court was humming with the murmur of tongues suddenly let free, Mr. Pawle forced his way to the side of the last witness.
"Whoever you are, sir," he said, "there's one thing certain—nobody but you can supply the solution of the mystery about Ashton's death! Come with me and Carless at once."
The man whose extraordinary story had excited such intense interest had become the object of universal attention. Hyde, hitherto the centre of attraction, was already forgotten, and instead of people going away from the court to canvass his guilt or his innocence, they surged round the witness whose testimony, strange and unexpected, had so altered the probabilities of the case. It was with difficulty that Methley got his client away into a private room; there they were joined by Mr. Carless, Mr. Pawle, Mr. Perkwite, Lord Ellingham and Viner, and behind a locked door these men looked at each other and at this centre of interest with the air of those to whom something extraordinary has just been told. After a moment of silence Mr. Carless spoke, addressing the man whose story had brought matters to an undeniable crisis.
"I am sure," he said gravely, and with a side glance at Lord Ellingham, "that if your story is true, sir,—and after what we have just heard, I am beginning to think that my first conclusions may have been wrong ones,—no one will welcome your reappearance more warmly than the young gentleman whom you will turn out of title and property! But you must see for yourself that your claims must be thoroughly investigated—and as what you have now just told affects other people, and we must invite you to full discussion, I propose that, for the time being, we address you as Mr. Cave."
The claimant smiled, and nodded genially to the young man whose uncle he alleged himself to be.
"I wish to remain Mr. Cave," he said. "I don't want to turn my nephew out of title and property, so long as he will do something for his old uncle. Call me Mr. Cave, by all means."
"We must talk—and at once," said Mr. Carless. "There are several points arising out of your evidence on which you must give me information. Whoever is at the back of that woman who handed you those papers is probably the murderer of John Ashton—and that is what must be got at. Now, where can we have a conference—immediately?—Your office, Methley, is not far away, I think."
"My house is nearer," said Viner. "Come—we shall be perfectly quiet in my study, and there will be nothing to interrupt us. Let us go now."
A police official let them out by a side-door, and Viner and Mr. Pawle led the way through some side-streets to Markendale Square, the others coming behind, conversing eagerly about the events of the morning. Mr. Pawle, on his part, was full of excitement.
"If we can only trace that woman, Viner!" he exclaimed. "That's the next thing! Get hold of her, whoever she is, and then—ah, we shall be in sight of the finishing-part."
"What about tracing the whole lot through the check he has given?" suggested Viner. "Wouldn't that be a good way?"
"We should have to wait nearly a month," answered Mr. Pawle. "And even then it would be difficult—simple though it seems at first sight. There are folk who deal in post-dated checks, remember! This may have been dealt with already—aye, and that diamond too; and the man who has got the proceeds may already be many a mile away. Deep, cunning folk they are who have been in this, Viner. And now—speed is the thing!"
Viner led his guests into his library, and as he placed chairs for them round a centre table, an idea struck him.
"I have a suggestion to make," he said with a shy smile at the legal men. "My aunt, Miss Penkridge, who lives with me, is an unusually sharp, shrewd woman. She has taken vast interest in this affair, and I have kept her posted up in all its details. She was in court just now and heard Mr. Cave's story. If no one has any objection, I should like her to be present at our deliberations—as a mysterious woman has entered into the case, Miss Penkridge may be able to suggest something."
"Excellent idea!" exclaimed Mr. Carless. "A shrewd woman is worth her weight in gold! By all means bring Miss Penkridge in—she may, as you say, make some suggestion."
Miss Penkridge, fetched into the room and duly introduced, lost no time in making a suggestion of an eminently practical nature—that as all these gentlemen had been cooped up in that stuffy police-court for two or three hours, they would be none the worse for a glass of wine, and she immediately disappeared, jingling a bunch of keys, to reappear a few minutes later in charge of the parlour-maid carrying decanters and glasses.
"A very comfortable suggestion, that, ma'am," observed Mr. Carless, bowing to his hostess over a glass of old sherry. "Your intuition does you credit! But now, gentlemen, and Miss Penkridge, straight to business! Mr. Cave, the first question I want to put to you is this: on what date did you receive the letter which you exhibited in court this morning?"
Mr. Cave produced a small pocket diary and turned over its pages.
"I can tell you that," he answered. "I made a note of it at the time. It was—yes, here we are—on the twenty-first of November."
"And you received these papers, I think you said, two days later?"
"Yes—on the twenty-third. Here is the entry."
Mr. Carless looked round at the assembled faces.
"John Ashton was murdered on the night of the twenty-second of November," he remarked significantly. "Therefore he had not been murdered when the veiled woman first met Mr. Cave for the first time, and he had been murdered when she met Mr. Cave the second time!"
There was a silence as significant as Mr. Carless' tone upon this—broken at last by Mr. Cave.
"If I may say a word or two," he remarked diffidently. "I don't understand matters about this John Ashton. The barrister who asked me questions—Mr. Millington-Bywater, is it—said that he, or somebody, had positive proof that Mr. Ashton had my papers in his possession for some time previous to his death. Is that really so?"
Mr. Carless pointed to Mr. Perkwite.
"This is the gentleman whom Mr. Millington-Bywater could have put in the box this morning to prove that," he replied. "Mr. Perkwite, of the Middle Temple—a barrister-at-law, Mr. Cave. Mr. Perkwite met Mr. Ashton some three months ago at Marseilles, and Mr. Ashton then not only asked his advice about the Ellingham affair, alleging that he knew the missing Lord Marketstoke, but showed him the papers which you have recently deposited with Mr. Methley here—which papers, Ashton alleged, were intrusted to him by Lord Marketstoke on his deathbed. Ashton, according to Mr. Perkwite, took particular care of these papers, and always carried them about with him in a pocketbook."
Mr. Cave appeared to be much exercised in thought on hearing this.
"It is, of course, absurd to say that Lord Marketstoke —myself!—intrusted papers to any one on his deathbed, since I am very much alive," he said. "But it is, equally of course, quite possible that Ashton had my papers. Who was Ashton?"
"A man who had lived in Australia for some thirty-five or forty years at least," replied Mr. Carless, "and who recently returned to England and settled down in London, in this very square. He lived chiefly in Melbourne, but we have heard that for some four or five years he was somewhere up country. You never heard of him out there? He was evidently well known in Melbourne."
"No, I never heard of him," replied Mr. Cave. "But I don't know Melbourne very well; I know Sydney and Brisbane better. However, an idea strikes me—Ashton may have had something to do with the purloining of my letters and effects at Wirra-Worra, when I met with the accident I told you of."
"So far as we are aware," remarked Mr. Carless, "Ashton was an eminently respectable man!"
"So far as you know!" said Mr. Cave. "There is a good deal in the saving clause, I think. I have known a good many men in Australia who were highly respectable in the last stages of life who had been anything but that in their earlier ones! Of what class was this Ashton?"
"I met him, occasionally," said Methley, "though I never knew who he was until after his death. He was a very pleasant, kindly, good-humoured man—but," he added, "I should say, from his speech and manners, a man who had risen from a somewhat humble position of life. I remember noticing his hands—they were the hands of a man who at some period had done hard manual labour."
Mr. Cave smiled knowingly.
"There you are!" he said. "He had probably been a miner! Taking everything into consideration, I am inclined to believe that he was most likely one of the men, or the man, who stole my papers thirty-two years ago."
"There may be something in this," remarked Mr. Pawle, glancing uneasily at Mr. Carless. "It is a fact that the packet of letters to which Mr. Cave referred this morning as having been written by the Countess of Ellingham to Lord Marketstoke when a boy at school, was found by Mr. Viner and myself in Ashton's house, and that the locket which he also mentioned is in existence—facts which Mr. Cave will doubtless be glad to know of. But," added the old lawyer, shaking his head, "what does all this imply? That Ashton, of whom up to now we have heard nothing but good, was not only a thief, but an impostor who was endeavouring, or meant to endeavour, to palm off a bogus claimant on people, who, but for Mr. Cave's appearance and evidence, would certainly have been deceived! It is most amazing."
"Don't forget," said Viner quietly, "that Mr. Perkwite says that Ashton showed him at Marseilles a certain marriage certificate and a birth certificate."
Mr. Carless started.
"Ah!" he exclaimed. "I had forgotten that. Um! However, don't let us forget, just now, that our main object in meeting was to do something towards tracking these people who gave Mr. Cave these papers. Now, Mr. Cave, you got no information out of the woman?"
"None!" answered Mr. Cave. "I was not to ask questions, you remember."
"You took her for a gentlewoman?"
"Yes—from her speech and manner."
"Did she imply to you that she was an intermediary?"
"Yes—she spoke of some one, indefinitely, you know, for whom she was acting."
"And she told you, I think, that you had been recognized, inLondon, since your arrival, by some one who had known you inAustralia years before?"
"Yes—certainly she told me that."
"Just let me look at that typewritten letter again, will you?" asked Mr.Carless. "It seems impossible, but we might get something out of that."
Mr. Cave handed the letter over, and once more it was passed from hand to hand: finally it fell into the hands of Miss Penkridge, who began to examine it with obvious curiosity.
"Afraid there's nothing to be got out of that!" sighed Mr. Carless. "The rogues were cunning enough to typewrite the message—if there'd been any handwriting, now, we might have had a chance! You say there was nothing on the envelope but your name, Mr. Cave?"
Mr. Cave opened his pocketbook again.
"There is the envelope," he said. "Nothing butMr. Cave, as you see—that is also typewritten."
Miss Penkridge picked up the envelope as Mr. Cave tossed it across the table. She appeared to examine it carefully, but suddenly she turned to Mr. Carless.
"Thereisa clue in these things!" she exclaimed. "A plain clue! One that's plain enough to me, anyway. I could follow it up. I don't know whether you gentlemen can."
Mr. Carless, who had, up to that point, treated Miss Penkridge with good-humoured condescension, turned sharply upon her.
"What do you mean, ma'am?" he asked. "You really see something in—in a typewritten letter?"
"A great deal!" answered Miss Penkridge. "And in the stationery on which it's typed, and in the envelope in which it's inclosed. Now look here: This letter has been typed on a half-sheet of notepaper. Hold the half-sheet up to the light—what do you see? One half of the name and address of the stationer who supplied it, in watermark. What is that one half?"
Mr. Carless held the paper to the light and saw on the top line, … "sforth,"on the middle line, … "nd Stationer" and, … "n Hill" on the bottom line.
"My nephew there," went on Miss Penkridge, "knows what that would be, in full, if the other half of the sheet were here. It would be precisely what it is under the flap of this envelope—there you are! 'Bigglesforth, Bookseller and Stationer, Craven Hill.'Everybody in this district knows Bigglesforth—we get our stationery from him. Now, Bigglesforth has not such a very big business in really expensive notepaper like this—the other half of the sheet, of course, would have a finely engraved address on it—and you can trace the owner of this paper through him, with patience and trouble.
"But here's a still better clue! Look at this typewritten letter. In it, the letterooccurs with frequency. Now, notice—the letter is broken, imperfect; the top left-hand curve has been chipped off. Do you mean to tell me that with time and trouble and patience you can't find out to whom that machine belongs? Taking the fact that this half-sheet of notepaper came from Bigglesforth's, of Craven Hill," concluded Miss Penkridge with emphasis, "I should say that this document—so important—came from somebody who doesn't live a million miles from here!"
Mr. Carless had followed Miss Penkridge with admiring attention, and he now rose to his feet.
"Ma'am," he exclaimed, "Mr. Viner's notion of having you to join our council has proved invaluable! I'll have that clue followed up instantly! Gentlemen, we can do no more just now—let us separate. Mr. Cave—you'll continue to be heard of at the Belfield Hotel?"
"I shall be at your service any time, Mr. Carless," responded Mr. Cave."A telephone message will bring me at once to Lincoln's Inn Fields."
The assembly broke up, and Viner was left alone with Miss Penkridge.
"That was clever of you!" he said, admiringly. "I should never have noticed that. But—there are a lot of typewriting machines in London!"
"Not so many owned by customers of Bigglesforth's!" retorted MissPenkridge. "I'd work it out, if I were a detective!"
The parlour-maid looked in and attracted Viner's attention.
"Mr. Felpham wants you at the telephone, sir," she said.
Events had crowded so thick and fast upon Viner during the last day or two, that he went to the telephone fully expecting to hear of some new development. But he was scarcely prepared for his solicitor's first words.
"Viner!" said Felpham, whose voice betrayed his excitement. "Is that manCave still with you?"
"No!" answered Viner. "Why?"
"Listen carefully," responded Felpham. "In spite of all he asserts, and his long tale this morning at the police-court, I believe he's a rank impostor! I've just had another talk with Hyde."
"Well?" demanded Viner.
"Hyde," answered Felpham, "persists that he's not mistaken. He swears that the man is Nugent Starr. He says there's no doubt of it! And he's told me of another actor, a man named George Bellingham, who's now somewhere in London, who can positively identify him as Starr. I'm going to find Bellingham this afternoon—there's some deep-laid plot in all this, and that fellow had been cleverly coached in the event of his being unexpectedly tackled…. Viner!"
"Well—I'm listening carefully," replied Viner.
"Where's this man gone?" demanded Felpham.
"To his hotel, I should think," answered Viner. "He left here just before one."
"Listen!" said Felpham. "Do you think it would be wise to post NewScotland Yard on to him—detectives, you know?"
Viner considered swiftly. In the rush of events he had forgotten that Carless had already given instructions for the watching of the pseudo Mr. Cave.
"Why not find this man Bellingham first?" he suggested. "If he can prove, positively, that the fellow is Nugent Starr, you'd have something definite to work on. Where can Bellingham be found?"
"Hyde's given me the address of a theatrical agent in Bedford Street who's likely to know of his whereabouts," replied Felpham. "I'm going over there at once. Hyde saw Bellingham in town three weeks ago."
"Let me know at once," said Viner. "If you find Bellingham, take him to the Belfield Hotel and contrive to show him the man. Call me up later."
He went away from his telephone and sought Miss Penkridge, whom he found in her room, arraying herself for out of doors.
"Here's a new development!" he exclaimed, shutting the door on them. "Felpham's just telephoned to say that Hyde persists that the man who calls himself Cave is Nugent Starr! In that case, he won't—"
Miss Penkridge interrupted her nephew with a sniff.
"My dear Richard," she said, with a note of contemptuous impatience, "in a case like this, you don't know who's who or who isn't who! It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if the man turns out to be Nugent Starr."
"How did he come by such a straight tale, then?" asked Viner doubtfully.
"Carefully prepared—in case of need," declared Miss Penkridge as she tied her bonnet-strings with a decisive tug. "The whole thing's a plant!"
"That's what Felpham says," remarked Viner. "But—where are you going?" he broke off as Miss Penkridge, seizing an umbrella, started for the door. "Lunch is just going in."
"My lunch can wait—I've had a biscuit and a glass of sherry," asserted Miss Penkridge. "I'm going round to Bigglesforth the stationer's, to follow up that clue I suggested just now. I dare say I can do a bit of detective work as well as another, and in my opinion, Richard, there's no time to be lost. I have been blessed and endowed," continued Miss Penkridge, as she laid hold of the door-handle, "with exceedingly acute perceptions, and I saw something when I made that suggestion which I'm quite sure none of you men, with all your brains, saw!"
"What?" demanded Viner.
"I saw that my suggestion wasn't at all pleasing to the man who calls himself Cave!" exclaimed Miss Penkridge. "It was only a flash of his eye, a sudden droop at the corners of his lips—but I saw! And I saw something else, too—that he got away as quickly as ever he could after I'd made that suggestion."
Viner looked at his aunt with amused wonder. He thought she was unduly suspicious, and Miss Penkridge guessed his thoughts.
"You'll see," she said as she opened the door.
"There are going to be strange revelations, Richard Viner, my boy! You said at the beginning of this that you'd suddenly got plunged into the middle of things—well, in my opinion, we're now coming to the end of things, and I'm going to do my bit to bring it about."
With that Miss Penkridge sailed away, her step determined and her head high, and Viner, pondering many matters, went downstairs to entertain his visitors, the unlucky Hyde's sisters, with stories of the morning's proceedings and hopes of their brother's speedy acquittal. The poor ladies were of that temperament which makes its possessors clutch eagerly at any straw of hope floating on the sea of trouble, and they listened eagerly to all that their host could tell.
"Langton has an excellent memory!" declared the elder Miss Hyde. "Don't you remember, sister, what a quantity of poetical pieces he knew by heart when he was quite a child?"
"Before he was seven years of age!" said the younger sister. "And at ten he could recite the whole of the trial scene from 'The Merchant of Venice.' Oh, yes, he always had a marvellous memory! If Langton says he remembers this man in America, dear Mr. Viner, I am sure Langton will be right, and that this is the man. But what a very dreadful person to utter such terrible falsehoods!"
"And on oath!" said the elder Miss Hyde, solemnly. "On oath, sister!"
"Sad!" murmured the younger lady. "Most sad! We find London life very disturbing, dear Mr. Viner, after our quiet country existence."
"There are certainly some disturbing elements in it," admitted Viner.
Just then came another interruption; for the second time since his return from the police-court, he was summoned to the telephone. To his great surprise, the voice that hailed him was Mrs. Killenhall's.
"Is that Mr. Viner?" the voice demanded in its usual brisk, clear tones.
"Yes," answered Viner. "Is that Mrs. Killenhall?"
"Yes!" came the prompt reply. "Mr. Viner, can you be so very kind? Miss Wickham and I have come down to the City on some business connected with Mr. Ashton, and we do so want somebody's help. Can you run down at once and join us? So sorry to trouble you, but we really do want a gentleman here."
"Certainly!" responded Viner. "I'll come to you at once. But where are you?"
"Come to 23 Mirrapore Street, off Whitechapel Road," answered Mrs. Killenhall. "There is some one here who knew Mr. Ashton, and I should like you to see him. Can you come at once? And have you the address right?"
"A moment—repeat it, please," replied Viner, pulling out a memorandum book. He noted the address and spoke again: "I'll be there in half an hour, Mrs. Killenhall," he said. "Sooner, if it's possible."
"Thank you so much," responded Mrs. Killenhall's steady voice. "So good of you—good-bye for the present, then."
"Good-bye," said Viner. He hurried away into the hall, snatched up a hat, and letting himself out of the house, ran to the nearest cab-stand and beckoned to a chauffeur who often took him about. "I want to get along to Mirrapore Street, Whitechapel Road," he said, as he sprang into the car. "Do you know whereabouts it is?"
The chauffeur knitted his brows and shook his head.
"There's a sight of small streets running off Whitechapel Road, both sides, sir," he answered. "It'll be one of them—I'll find it. Mirrapore Street? Right, sir."
"Get there as quickly as possible," said Viner. "The quicker the better."
It was not until he had gone a good half of his journey that Viner began to wonder whatever it was that had taken Miss Wickham and her chaperon down to the far boundaries of the City—or, indeed, farther. Mrs. Killenhall had said the City, but Viner knew his London well enough to know that Whitechapel Road lies without the City confines. She had said, too, that a man who knew Mr. Ashton was there with her and Miss Wickham—what man, wondered Viner, and what doing in a district like that toward which he was speeding?
The chauffeur did the run to Whitechapel Road in unusually good time; it was little more than two o'clock when the car passed the parish church. But the man had gone from one end of the road to the other, from the end of High Street to the beginning of Mile End Road, without success, when he stopped and looked in at his passenger.
"Can't see no street of that name on either side, Mr. Viner," he said."Have you got it right, sir?"
"That's the name given me," answered Viner. He pointed to a policeman slowly patrolling the side walk. "Ask him," he said. "He'll know."
The policeman, duly questioned, seemed surprised at first; then recollection evidently awoke in him.
"Mirrypoor Street?" he said. "Oh, yes! Second to your left, third to the right—nice sort o' street for a car like yours to go into, too!"
Viner overheard this and put his head out of the window.
"Why?" he demanded.
The policeman, quick to recognize a superior person, touched his helmet and stepped off the curb toward his questioner.
"Pretty low quarter down there, sir," he said, with a significant glance in the direction concerned. "If you've business that way, I should advise you to look after yourself—some queer places down those streets, sir."
"Thanks," responded Viner with a grim smile. "Go on, driver, as quick as you can, and stop at the corner of the street."
The car swung out of Whitechapel Road into a long, dismal street, the shabbiness of which increased the further the main thoroughfare was left behind; and Viner, looking right and left, saw that the small streets running off that which he was traversing were still more dismal, still more shabby. Suddenly the car twisted to the right and stopped, and Viner was aware of a long, narrow street, more gloomy than the rest, wherein various doubtful-looking individuals moved about, and groups of poorly clad children played in the gutters.
"All right," he said as he got down from the car, and the chauffeur made a grimace at the unlovely vista. "Look here—I don't want you to wait here. Go back to Whitechapel Road and hang about the end of the street we've just come down. I'll come back there to you."
"Not afraid of going down here alone, then, sir?" asked the chauffeur."It's a bit as that policeman said."
"I'm all right," repeated Viner. "You go back and wait. I may be some time. I mayn't be long."
He turned away down the street—and in spite of his declaration, he felt that this was certainly the most doubtful place he had ever been in. There were evil and sinister faces on the sidewalks; evil and sinister eyes looking out of dirty windows; here and there a silent-footed figure went by him in the gloom of the December day with the soft step of a wild animal; here and there, men leaning against the wall, glared suspiciously at him or fixed rapacious eyes on his good clothes. There were shops in this street such as Viner had never seen the like of—shops wherein coarse, dreadful looking food was exposed for sale; and there were public-houses from which came the odour of cheap gin and bad beer and rank tobacco; an atmosphere of fried fish and something far worse hung heavily above the dirty pavements, and at every step he took Viner asked himself the same question—what on earth could Miss Wickham and Mrs. Killenhall be doing in this wretched neighbourhood?
Suddenly he came to the house he wanted—Number 23. It was just like all the other houses, of sombre grey brick, except for the fact that it looked somewhat cleaner than the rest, was furnished with blinds and curtains, and in the front downstairs window had a lower wire blind, on which was worked in tarnished gilt letters, the wordSurgery. On the door was a brass plate, also tarnished, across which ran three lines in black:
"Dr. Martincole.Attendance: 3 to 6 p. m.Saturdays. 5 to 9.30 p. m."
Before Viner took the bell in hand, he glanced at the houses which flanked this East-end surgery. One was a poor-looking, meanly equipped chemist's shop; the other a second-hand clothing establishment. And comforting himself with the thought that if need arose the apparently fairly respectable proprietors of these places might reasonably be called upon for assistance, he rang the bell of Number 23 and awaited the opening of the door with considerable curiosity.
The door was opened by Mrs. Killenhall herself, and Viner's quick eye failed to notice anything in her air or manner that denoted uneasiness. She smiled and motioned him to enter, shutting the door after him as he stepped into the narrow entrance hall.
"So very good of you to come, Mr. Viner, and so quickly," she said. "You found your way all right?"
"Yes, but I'm a good deal surprised to find you and Miss Wickham in this neighbourhood," answered Viner. "This is a queer place, Mrs. Killenhall. I hope—"
"Oh, we're all right!" said Mrs. Killenhall, with a reassuring smile. "It is certainly a queer neighbourhood, but Dr. Martincole is an old friend of mine, and we're safe enough under his roof. He'll be here in a few minutes, and then—"
"This man who knew Mr. Ashton?" interrupted Viner. "Where is he?"
"Dr. Martincole will bring him in," said Mrs. Killenhall, "Come upstairs,Mr. Viner."
Viner noticed that the house through which he was led was very quiet, and larger than he should have guessed at from the street frontage. From what he could see, it was well furnished, but dark and gloomy; gloomy, too, was a back room, high up the stairs, into which Mrs. Killenhall presently showed him. There, looking somewhat anxious, sat Miss Wickham, alone.
"Here's Mr. Viner," said Mrs. Killenhall. "I'll tell Dr. Martincole he's come."
She motioned Viner to a chair and went out. But the next instant Viner swung quickly round. As the door closed, he had heard the unmistakable click of a patent lock.
Unknown to those who had taken part in the conference at Viner's house, unknown even to Carless, who in the multiplicity of his engagements, had forgotten the instructions which he had given on the previous afternoon to Portlethwaite, a strict watch was being kept on the man around whom all the events of that morning had centred. Portlethwaite, after Methley and his client had left Carless and Driver's office, had given certain instructions to one of his fellow-clerks, a man named Millwaters, in whose prowess as a spy he had unlimited belief. Millwaters was a fellow of experience. He possessed all the qualities of a sleuth-hound and was not easily baffled in difficult adventures. In his time he had watched erring husbands and doubtful wives; he had followed more than one high-placed wrong-doer running away from the consequences of forgery or embezzlement; he had conducted secret investigations into the behaviour of persons about whom his employers wanted to know something. In person and appearance he was eminently fitted for his job—a little, inconspicuous, plain-featured man who contrived to look as if he never saw anything. And to him, knowing that he was to be thoroughly depended upon, Portlethwaite had given precise orders.
"You'll go up to Lancaster Gate tonight, Millwaters, and get a good look at that chap," Portlethwaite had told him. "Take plenty of money—I'll speak to the cashier about that—and be prepared for anything, even to following, if he bolts. Once you've seen him, you're not to lose sight of him; make sure of him last thing today and first thing tomorrow. Follow him wherever he goes, make a note of wherever he goes, and particularly of whoever he meets. And if there's need, ring me up here, and let's know what's happening, or if you want assistance."
There was no need for Millwaters to promise faithful compliance; Portlethwaite knew well enough that to put him on a trail was equivalent to putting a hound on the scent of a fox or a terrier to the run of a rat. And that evening, Millwaters, who had clever ways of his own, made himself well acquainted with the so-called Mr. Cave's appearance, and assured himself that his man had gone peacefully to rest at his hotel, and he had seen him again before breakfast next morning and had been in quiet and unobtrusive attendance upon him when, later, he visited Methley's office and subsequently walked away with Methley to the police-court. And Millwaters was in the police-court, meditatively sucking peppermint lozenges in a corner, when Mr. Cave was unexpectedly asked to give evidence; he was there, too, until Mr. Cave left the court.
Cave's remarkable story ran off Millwaters' mentality like raindrops off a steep roof. It mattered nothing to him. He did not care the value of a brass button if Cave was Earl of Ellingham or Duke of Ditchmoor; his job was to keep his eye on him, whoever he was. And so when Viner and his party went round to Markendale Square, Millwaters slunk along in their rear, and at a corner of the Square he remained, lounging about, until his quarry reappeared. Two or three of the other men came out with Cave, but Millwaters noticed that Cave immediately separated from them. He was evidently impressing upon them that he was in a great hurry about something or other, and sped away from them, Millwaters's cold eye upon him. And within a minute Millwaters had observed what seemed to him highly suspicious circumstance—Cave, on leaving the others, had shot off down a side-street in the direction of Lancaster Gate, but as soon as he was out of sight of Markendale Square, had doubled in his tracks, hurried down another turning and sped away as fast as he could walk towards Paddington Station.
Millwaters, shorter in the leg than the tall man in front, had to hurry to keep him in sight, but he was never far behind as Cave hastened along Craven Road and made for the terminus. Once or twice in this chase the quarry lifted a hand to an approaching taxicab, only to find each was engaged; it was not until he and his pursuer were in front of the Great Western Hotel that Cave found an empty cab, hailed it, and sprang in. Millwaters grinned quietly at that; he was used to this sort of chase, and he had memorized car and number before Cave had been driven off. It was a mere detail to charter the next, and to give a quiet word and wink to its chauffeur, who was opening its door for Millwaters when a third person came gently alongside and tapped the clerk's shoulder. Millwaters turned sharply and encountered Mr. Perkwite's shrewd eyes.
"All right, Millwaters!" said the barrister. "I know what you're after!I'm after the same bird. We'll go together."
Millwaters knew Mr. Perkwite very well as a promising young barrister whom Carless and Driver sometimes favoured with briefs. Mr. Perkwite's presence did not disturb him; he moved into the farther corner, and Mr. Perkwite slipped inside. The car moved off in pursuit of the one in front.
"So you're on that game, Mr. Perkwite?" remarked Millwaters. "Ah! And who might have got you on to it, if one may ask?"
"You know that I was at your people's office yesterday?" said Perkwite.
"Saw you there," replied Millwaters.
"It was about this business," said the barrister. "Did you see me in the police-court this morning?"
"I did—listening for all you were worth," answered the clerk.
"And I dare say you saw me go with the rest of them to Mr. Viner's, inMarkendale Square?" said Perkwite.
"Right again, sir," assented Millwaters. "I did."
"This fellow in front," observed Perkwite, "made some statements at Viner's, in answer to your principal, Mr. Carless, which incline me to the opinion that he's an impostor in spite of his carefully concocted stories."
"Shouldn't wonder, Mr. Perkwite." said Millwaters. "But that's not my business. My job is to keep him under observation."
"That's what I set out to do when I came out of Viner's," said the barrister. "He's up to something. He assured us as we left the house that he'd a most pressing engagement at his hotel in Lancaster Gate; the next minute, happening to glance down a side-street, I saw him cutting off in the direction of Paddington. And now he's evidently making for the City."
"Well, I'm after him," remarked Millwaters. He leaned out of his window, called the chauffeur, and gave him some further instructions. "Intelligent chap, this, Mr. Perkwite," he said as he sat down again. "He understands—some of 'em are poor hands at this sort of game."
"You're a pretty good hand yourself, I think?" suggested the barrister, with a smile.
"Ought to be," said Millwaters. "Had plenty of experience, anyway."
It seemed to Perkwite that his companion kept no particular observation on the car in front as it sped along to and through the northern edge of the City and beyond. But Millwaters woke to action as their own car progressed up Whitechapel Road, and suddenly he gave a warning word to the barrister and a smart tap on the window behind their driver. The car came to a halt by the curb; and Millwaters, slipping out, pushed some money into the man's hand and drew Perkwite amongst the people who were crowding the sidewalk. The barrister looked in front and around and seemed at a loss.
"Where is he?" he asked. "Hang it, I've lost him!"
"I haven't!" said Millwaters. "He left his car before we left ours. Our man knew what he was after—he slowed up and passed him until I saw where he went." He twisted Perkwite round and pointed to the mouth of a street which they had just passed.
"He's gone down there," he said. "Nice neighbourhood, too! I know something of it. Now, Mr. Perkwite, if you please, we'll separate. You take the right of that street—I'll take the left. Keep a look out for my gentleman's Homburg hat—grey, with a black band—and keep the tail of your eye on me, too."
Cave's headgear was easily followed down the squalid street. Its owner went swiftly ahead, with Millwaters in pursuit on one pavement, and the barrister on the other, until he finally turned into a narrower and shabbier thoroughfare. Then the clerk hurried across the road, attracted Perkwite's attention, winked at him as he passed without checking his pace, and whispered two or three words.
"Wait—by the street-corner!"
Perkwite pulled up, and Millwaters went down the dismal street in pursuit of the Homburg hat. This excellent indication of its owner's presence suddenly vanished from Perkwite's sight, and presently Millwaters came back.
"Ran him to earth—for the time being, anyway," he said. "He's gone into a surgery down there—a Dr. Martincole's. Number 23—brass plate on door—next to a drug-shop. Suspicious sort of spot, altogether."
"Well?" demanded Perkwite. "What next? You know best, Millwaters."
The clerk jerked a thumb down the side of the dismal street on which they were standing.
"There's a public-house down there," he said, "almost opposite this surgery. Fairly decent place for this neighbourhood—bar-parlour looking out on the street. Better slip in there and look quietly out. But remember, Mr. Perkwite—don't seem to be watching anything. We're just going in for a bottle of ale, and talking business together.
"Whatever you recommend," said Perkwite.
He followed his companion down the street to the tavern, a joyless and shabby place, the bar-parlour of which, a dark and smoke-stained room was just then empty, and looked over its torn half-blind across the way.
"Certainly a queer place for a man who professes to be a peer of the realm to visit!" he muttered. "Well, now, what do you propose to do, Millwaters?"
"Hang about here and watch," whispered the clerk. "Look out!"
A face, heavy and bloated, appeared at a hatch-window at the back of the room, and a gruff voice made itself heard.
"Any orders, gents?"
"Two bottles o' Bass, gov'nor," responded Millwaters promptly, dropping into colloquial Cockney speech. He turned to Perkwite and winked. "Well, an' wot abaht this 'ere bit o' business as I've come rahnd abaht, Mister?" he went on, nudging his companion, in free-and-easy style.
"Yer see, it's this ere wy wiv us—if yer can let us have that there stuff reasonable, d'yer see—" He drew Perkwite over to the window and began to whisper, "That'll satisfy him," he said with a sharp glance at the little room behind the hatch where the landlord was drawing corks. "He'll think we're doing a bit of trade, so we've nothing to do but stand in this window and keep an eye on the street. Out of this I'm not going till I see whether that fellow comes out or stops in!"
Some time had passed, and Millwaters had been obliged to repeat his order for bottled Bass before anything took place in the street outside. Suddenly he touched his companion's elbow.
"Here's a taxicab coming along and slowing up for somewhere about here," he whispered. "And—Lord, if there aren't two ladies in it—in a spot like this! And—whew!" he went on excitedly. "Do you see 'em, Mr. Perkwite? The young un's Miss Wickham, who came to our office about this Ashton affair. I don't know who the old un is—but she evidently knows her way."
The berry-faced landlord had now shut down the hatch, and his two bar-parlour customers were alone and unobserved. Perkwite drew away from the window, pulling Millwaters by the sleeve.
"Careful!" he said. "There's something seriously wrong here, Millwaters! What's Miss Wickham being brought down here for? See, they've gone into that surgery, and the car's going off. Look here—we've got to do something, and at once!"
But Millwaters shook his head.
"Not my job, Mr. Perkwite!" he answered. "My business is with the man—Cave! I've nothing to do with Miss Wickham, sir, nor with the old lady that's taken her in there. Cave's my mark! Queer that the young lady's gone there, no doubt, but—no affair of mine."
"It's going to be an affair of mine, then," said Perkwite. "I'm going off to the police!"
Millwaters put out a detaining hand.
"Don't, Mr. Perkwite!" he said. "To get police into a quarter like this is as bad as putting a light to dry straw. I'll tell you a better plan than that, sir—find the nearest telephone-box and call up our people—call Mr. Carless, tell him what you've seen and get him to come down and bring somebody with him. That'll be far better than calling the police in."
"Give me your telephone-number, then," said Perkwite, "and keep a strict watch while I'm away."
Millwaters repeated some figures and a letter, and Perkwite ran off up the street and toward the Whitechapel Road, anxiously seeking for a telephone booth. It was not until he had got into the main thoroughfare that he found one; he then had some slight delay in getting in communication with Carless and Driver's office; twenty minutes had elapsed by the time he got back to the dismal street. At its corner he encountered Millwaters, lounging about hands in pockets. Millwaters wagged his head.
"Here's another queer go!" he said. "There's been another arrival atNumber 23—not five minutes since. Another of our little lot!"
"Who?" demanded Perkwite.
"Viner!" replied Millwaters. "Came peeping and perking along the street, took a glimpse of the premises and the adjacent purlieus, rang at Number 23, and was let in by—the party that came with Miss Wickham! Now, whatever can he be doing there, Mr. Perkwite?"
"Whatever can any of them be doing there!" muttered Perkwite. "Viner! What business can he have in this place? It seems—by George, Millwaters," he suddenly exclaimed, "what if this is some infernal plant—trap—something of that sort? Do you know, in spite of what you say, I really think we ought to get hold of the nearest police and tell them—"
"Wait, Mr. Perkwite!" counselled Millwaters. "Our governor is a pretty cute and smart sort, and he's vastly interested in this Miss Wickham; so Portlethwaite and he'll be on their way down here now, hot foot; and with help, too, if he thinks she's in any danger. Now,hecan go straight to that door and demand to see her, and—"
"Why can't we?" interrupted Perkwite. "I'd do it! Lord, man, she may be in real peril—"
"Not while Viner's in there," said Millwaters quietly. "I might possibly have gone and rung the bell myself, but for that. But Viner's in there—wait!"
And Perkwite waited, chafing, at the corner of the dismal street, until a quarter of an hour had passed. Then a car came hurrying along and pulled up as Millwaters and his companion were reached, and from it sprang Mr. Carless, Lord Ellingham and two men in plain-clothes, at the sight of whom Perkwite heaved a huge sigh of intense relief.