Chapter XIIII here set down in order of their date several extracts from Peters’ letters to his mother written from Saigon in the years 1878 to 1880.First Extract:“I have a new acquaintance, one Willie Cartwright, a young fellow who was at Oxford just after me. I spend a good deal of time with him because of talking Oxford shop and because he is fond of books; at least he was brought up among them, and reads the books he thinks he ought to read. I have not got very much in common with him, for he is a narrow-shouldered, bilious-looking, unathletic fellow, with no instinct of sport in him; but he is a welcome addition to my circle, because he is refined—in a negative way at least—and most of my friends’ conversation here is—well, not refined, and it becomes a bore.”Second Extract:“How curious that you should have known some of young Cartwright’s people, for it is W. V. Cartwright. I thought they must have lost their money since I heard of him at Oxford. Yes, I will try to ‘take care of him’ a little, as you say, but really, though he is quiet and not sociable among men, he is by no means a timid youth, and he has quite got the name of a shrewd business man already.”Third Extract:“I am rather sorry about Willie Cartwright. He seems to have got into the hands of a fellow named Longhurst, who has lately turned up here, no one knows why. He, Longhurst, is a rough customer whom no one seems to know anything about, except that he has been in Australia. He has been a mining engineer, and seems to know also a lot about tropical forestry. He has wonderful yarns of the discoveries he has made in the Philippines, the Dutch Indies and all over the shop. I should not believe his yarns, but he seems to have made a little money somehow. Well, Cartwright now talks of becoming a partner with him in some wild-cat venture, and I am afraid he will get let in. He says himself he thinks Longhurst will try to do him. He had much better stick to his humdrum business here, which will give him a living at any rate, and perhaps enable him to retire comfortably when he is, say, forty-five, young enough to enjoy life, though one does age soon in this climate.”Fourth Extract:“Cartwright and Longhurst have actually gone off together. Parker, whom Cartwright was with, is very sick about it. . . . By the way, I ought to confess I was quite wrong about Longhurst. I have seen a good deal of him since, and found him a very kind fellow, with an extraordinary simplicity about him in spite of all his varied experiences. I generally assume that when a man is spoken of as a rough diamond, the roughness is a too obvious fact, and the diamond a polite hypothesis, but I was wrong in Longhurst’s case. Also I think you may reassure C.’s aunt about the chances of his being swindled. In strict confidence I think the chances are the other way. MacAndrew, the lawyer here, told me a story he had no business to tell about the agreement between . . .” (Part of letter lost.)This was all. Peters before long was moved to Java; and the letters to his mother ceased soon after, for she died.Not long afterwards I got Bryanston’s answer to my letter of enquiry to him. He told me little but things of which by this time I was sure. “C.” was Cartwright (William V. Cartwright, he called him), and was, he conjectured, the man whom Peters connected with Longhurst’s death. He would be glad to tell me at any time anything that he could, but he was off now for a sea voyage which the state of his health made necessary (a long absence immediately before accounted for some delay in his answering me), and at present he could think of nothing to tell me but what I should see in Peters’ letter to him, of which he was keeping the original and now enclosed a copy.The important part of the letter enclosed was as follows: “I have a question to ask you which perhaps you will answer this time by return of post. Never mind my previous question about the old Assyrians. You will remember the time in 1882 when you were at Nagasaki, and you will remember Longhurst’s being there and his sailing. After his disappearance it got about naturally that he sailed in that unhappy ship theWilliam the Silent, which went down in a cyclone. Now I have a distinct recollection that when I met you, some months after that, you told me that you had seen Longhurst with Cartwright at Nagasaki, that you saw them off, and that they both sailed together in the same ship. I have forgotten the name of the ship you mentioned, but it was a ship with some female name, and it belonged to your people. Will you please tell me at once if my recollection is right. As for my reason for asking, I expect I told you fully my reasons for believing that Longhurst died by some foul play. I may have told you the suspicion which I had as to who did it. It was a suspicion for which I was sorry afterwards, for I saw reason to think it quite unfounded. But I have just seen a man, whom I need not name, who must have known when and how Longhurst sailed from Nagasaki; and he astonished me by saying that he sailed in theWilliam the Silent. Now one of three things: either I have got muddled in my recollection as to what you said, or, which I can hardly believe, I was mistaken in my identification of the body which I exhumed from the tomb which the chiefs showed me, or I was right in both points, and then a conclusion seems to follow which I shrink very much from drawing. There is one other matter of fact which I suspect and which I can easily verify, which would absolutely fix the guilt on the man I allude to, but I want to make quite sure from you that my memory is right as to Longhurst’s sailing. A suspicion of my man’s guilt came to me as I have said, long ago, but after making some enquiries I dismissed it summarily, for I have, or ought to have, a sort of hereditary friendship with him.”So then my hypothesis had been further put to the test of facts, and again some of the points which I had guessed had proved to be true. It was no longer only a fanciful imagination of my own, but a suspicion which any sane man with the facts before him must feel, and feel very strongly. There was more than enough evidence for any sensible historian, for a lawyer there was still none at all.In September the time came that we were to leave Long Wilton for good. We then moved to a country parish, which, though deep in the country, is yet very near to London (and I thenceforward often came to town). Naturally leaving one parish and getting into another, not to speak of the change of house, filled my whole time with work to be finished now or never, and with arrangements which must instantly be set on foot for future work.Before the close of the year 1896 (I think it was late in October, anyway it was some time after I had settled into my new parish), a further record of the sort for which I have been looking came to light. It was my business as executor to sell certain securities which had belonged to Peters, and for a long time there was a difficulty in finding with whom those securities were lodged. Eventually, however, they were found in the hands of the firm who had been his agents while he was absent in the East, and in sending them to me, the firm sent also a packet which they told me had been deposited with them for safe keeping in the year 1884, on the occasion of a brief visit home which Peters had made. The packet was a large envelope on which was written “Notes on the affair of L.” On opening it I found first two maps drawn by Peters. The one was a rough copy of a map of the island Sulu, in the Philippines. The other a map on larger scale, very carefully drawn, apparently from Peters’ own survey, of a small portion of the island. It was inscribed “Chart showing the spot where the tomb of a dead white man was shown me by the two chiefs”. Next I found a number of sheets taken out of Peters’ journal, kept in the year 1882 in the months of July and August. From this it appeared that Peters had at that time accompanied one Dr. Kuyper, who seemed to have been a naturalist, upon a cruise in the Philippines, and that they had come to a village upon the coast of the island, where the Filipinos informed them that a month or so before, a European, they thought an Englishman, had come down from somewhere inland, with several Malay and Chinese servants, and had requested assistance in burying the body of his companion. The dead man, he stated, had been killed by a fall from some rocks. The Filipino chiefs had told Peters that the servants, who had not been present when the fall took place, were much excited, and seemed suspicious about it, but that the manner and the answers of the European traveller had allayed their own suspicion. Something, however, seems to have aroused suspicion in Peters and Kuyper, for they disinterred the body. Peters’ journal proceeded to record certain facts about the body, the clothing, etc. (in particular the fact that a finger was missing on one hand), which had led Peters to identify the body as that of his former acquaintance, Longhurst. He recorded also that they had found two bullets from a revolver in the back of the head, and he made a note as to the size and pattern of revolver which these bullets would fit. Full enquiries were made by Peters and Kuyper as to the movements of the surviving traveller, who was presumably the murderer, and he appeared to have sailed, the day after his arrival, in a Chinese junk, which took him up at a point which was indicated on the chart. Peters had recorded also the description which the Filipinos gave of this visitor, and it was plain to me that there were points in the description which tallied with the appearance of Vane-Cartwright. It seemed, though the journal after this point was fragmentary, that Peters and Kuyper proceeded immediately afterwards to Manilla, very likely to communicate their discovery to the officers of justice. There was nothing more in the journal itself which it is worth while to repeat here.Next I found a considerable number of notes, which were in large part unintelligible to me and perhaps to any one except the man who made them. There were many abbreviations in them, and very often they were illegible. They included descriptions of a number of people with outlandish names, and particulars as to where and how it was supposed they were to be found. Unfortunately, it was just in these particulars that the abbreviations and illegibility made the difficulties of the reader most serious. There were also recorded the movements, or a great part of the movements, of a personage called “X.” in the months June to September in the year 1882.Further, on a separate sheet of paper, I found an indication of the reason why Peters had desisted from his pursuit of that person X. whom I thought myself able to identify. This sheet of paper was headed “Description given me of the convict Arkell executed at Singapore in November, 1882”. The description corresponded very well with that given in the journal of the presumable murderer of Longhurst, and so far as it went it seemed to show that the convict Arkell might well have been confused with the successful and respected financier, William Vane-Cartwright. At the foot of the paper was a note, with the dates queried, as to the time when Arkell had been, as he seems to have been, on the island of Sulu.There was also among these papers one which began, “These, so far as I can recollect them, are the facts told me by MacAndrew in regard to the agreements made in 1880 between X. and L.” MacAndrew’s story had apparently related to changes made in the draft of the agreement, at the instance of X., which MacAndrew evidently thought that L. had not understood. The note seemed to have been finished in haste and to have left out some important facts, which Peters no doubt carried in his memory. A lawyer, among my friends, tells me that without these facts it is impossible to be certain what exactly was the trick which “X.” played upon “L.,” and that it is even possible to suppose that there was no dishonesty at all in his proceedings.
I here set down in order of their date several extracts from Peters’ letters to his mother written from Saigon in the years 1878 to 1880.
First Extract:“I have a new acquaintance, one Willie Cartwright, a young fellow who was at Oxford just after me. I spend a good deal of time with him because of talking Oxford shop and because he is fond of books; at least he was brought up among them, and reads the books he thinks he ought to read. I have not got very much in common with him, for he is a narrow-shouldered, bilious-looking, unathletic fellow, with no instinct of sport in him; but he is a welcome addition to my circle, because he is refined—in a negative way at least—and most of my friends’ conversation here is—well, not refined, and it becomes a bore.”
Second Extract:“How curious that you should have known some of young Cartwright’s people, for it is W. V. Cartwright. I thought they must have lost their money since I heard of him at Oxford. Yes, I will try to ‘take care of him’ a little, as you say, but really, though he is quiet and not sociable among men, he is by no means a timid youth, and he has quite got the name of a shrewd business man already.”
Third Extract:“I am rather sorry about Willie Cartwright. He seems to have got into the hands of a fellow named Longhurst, who has lately turned up here, no one knows why. He, Longhurst, is a rough customer whom no one seems to know anything about, except that he has been in Australia. He has been a mining engineer, and seems to know also a lot about tropical forestry. He has wonderful yarns of the discoveries he has made in the Philippines, the Dutch Indies and all over the shop. I should not believe his yarns, but he seems to have made a little money somehow. Well, Cartwright now talks of becoming a partner with him in some wild-cat venture, and I am afraid he will get let in. He says himself he thinks Longhurst will try to do him. He had much better stick to his humdrum business here, which will give him a living at any rate, and perhaps enable him to retire comfortably when he is, say, forty-five, young enough to enjoy life, though one does age soon in this climate.”
Fourth Extract:“Cartwright and Longhurst have actually gone off together. Parker, whom Cartwright was with, is very sick about it. . . . By the way, I ought to confess I was quite wrong about Longhurst. I have seen a good deal of him since, and found him a very kind fellow, with an extraordinary simplicity about him in spite of all his varied experiences. I generally assume that when a man is spoken of as a rough diamond, the roughness is a too obvious fact, and the diamond a polite hypothesis, but I was wrong in Longhurst’s case. Also I think you may reassure C.’s aunt about the chances of his being swindled. In strict confidence I think the chances are the other way. MacAndrew, the lawyer here, told me a story he had no business to tell about the agreement between . . .” (Part of letter lost.)
This was all. Peters before long was moved to Java; and the letters to his mother ceased soon after, for she died.
Not long afterwards I got Bryanston’s answer to my letter of enquiry to him. He told me little but things of which by this time I was sure. “C.” was Cartwright (William V. Cartwright, he called him), and was, he conjectured, the man whom Peters connected with Longhurst’s death. He would be glad to tell me at any time anything that he could, but he was off now for a sea voyage which the state of his health made necessary (a long absence immediately before accounted for some delay in his answering me), and at present he could think of nothing to tell me but what I should see in Peters’ letter to him, of which he was keeping the original and now enclosed a copy.
The important part of the letter enclosed was as follows: “I have a question to ask you which perhaps you will answer this time by return of post. Never mind my previous question about the old Assyrians. You will remember the time in 1882 when you were at Nagasaki, and you will remember Longhurst’s being there and his sailing. After his disappearance it got about naturally that he sailed in that unhappy ship theWilliam the Silent, which went down in a cyclone. Now I have a distinct recollection that when I met you, some months after that, you told me that you had seen Longhurst with Cartwright at Nagasaki, that you saw them off, and that they both sailed together in the same ship. I have forgotten the name of the ship you mentioned, but it was a ship with some female name, and it belonged to your people. Will you please tell me at once if my recollection is right. As for my reason for asking, I expect I told you fully my reasons for believing that Longhurst died by some foul play. I may have told you the suspicion which I had as to who did it. It was a suspicion for which I was sorry afterwards, for I saw reason to think it quite unfounded. But I have just seen a man, whom I need not name, who must have known when and how Longhurst sailed from Nagasaki; and he astonished me by saying that he sailed in theWilliam the Silent. Now one of three things: either I have got muddled in my recollection as to what you said, or, which I can hardly believe, I was mistaken in my identification of the body which I exhumed from the tomb which the chiefs showed me, or I was right in both points, and then a conclusion seems to follow which I shrink very much from drawing. There is one other matter of fact which I suspect and which I can easily verify, which would absolutely fix the guilt on the man I allude to, but I want to make quite sure from you that my memory is right as to Longhurst’s sailing. A suspicion of my man’s guilt came to me as I have said, long ago, but after making some enquiries I dismissed it summarily, for I have, or ought to have, a sort of hereditary friendship with him.”
So then my hypothesis had been further put to the test of facts, and again some of the points which I had guessed had proved to be true. It was no longer only a fanciful imagination of my own, but a suspicion which any sane man with the facts before him must feel, and feel very strongly. There was more than enough evidence for any sensible historian, for a lawyer there was still none at all.
In September the time came that we were to leave Long Wilton for good. We then moved to a country parish, which, though deep in the country, is yet very near to London (and I thenceforward often came to town). Naturally leaving one parish and getting into another, not to speak of the change of house, filled my whole time with work to be finished now or never, and with arrangements which must instantly be set on foot for future work.
Before the close of the year 1896 (I think it was late in October, anyway it was some time after I had settled into my new parish), a further record of the sort for which I have been looking came to light. It was my business as executor to sell certain securities which had belonged to Peters, and for a long time there was a difficulty in finding with whom those securities were lodged. Eventually, however, they were found in the hands of the firm who had been his agents while he was absent in the East, and in sending them to me, the firm sent also a packet which they told me had been deposited with them for safe keeping in the year 1884, on the occasion of a brief visit home which Peters had made. The packet was a large envelope on which was written “Notes on the affair of L.” On opening it I found first two maps drawn by Peters. The one was a rough copy of a map of the island Sulu, in the Philippines. The other a map on larger scale, very carefully drawn, apparently from Peters’ own survey, of a small portion of the island. It was inscribed “Chart showing the spot where the tomb of a dead white man was shown me by the two chiefs”. Next I found a number of sheets taken out of Peters’ journal, kept in the year 1882 in the months of July and August. From this it appeared that Peters had at that time accompanied one Dr. Kuyper, who seemed to have been a naturalist, upon a cruise in the Philippines, and that they had come to a village upon the coast of the island, where the Filipinos informed them that a month or so before, a European, they thought an Englishman, had come down from somewhere inland, with several Malay and Chinese servants, and had requested assistance in burying the body of his companion. The dead man, he stated, had been killed by a fall from some rocks. The Filipino chiefs had told Peters that the servants, who had not been present when the fall took place, were much excited, and seemed suspicious about it, but that the manner and the answers of the European traveller had allayed their own suspicion. Something, however, seems to have aroused suspicion in Peters and Kuyper, for they disinterred the body. Peters’ journal proceeded to record certain facts about the body, the clothing, etc. (in particular the fact that a finger was missing on one hand), which had led Peters to identify the body as that of his former acquaintance, Longhurst. He recorded also that they had found two bullets from a revolver in the back of the head, and he made a note as to the size and pattern of revolver which these bullets would fit. Full enquiries were made by Peters and Kuyper as to the movements of the surviving traveller, who was presumably the murderer, and he appeared to have sailed, the day after his arrival, in a Chinese junk, which took him up at a point which was indicated on the chart. Peters had recorded also the description which the Filipinos gave of this visitor, and it was plain to me that there were points in the description which tallied with the appearance of Vane-Cartwright. It seemed, though the journal after this point was fragmentary, that Peters and Kuyper proceeded immediately afterwards to Manilla, very likely to communicate their discovery to the officers of justice. There was nothing more in the journal itself which it is worth while to repeat here.
Next I found a considerable number of notes, which were in large part unintelligible to me and perhaps to any one except the man who made them. There were many abbreviations in them, and very often they were illegible. They included descriptions of a number of people with outlandish names, and particulars as to where and how it was supposed they were to be found. Unfortunately, it was just in these particulars that the abbreviations and illegibility made the difficulties of the reader most serious. There were also recorded the movements, or a great part of the movements, of a personage called “X.” in the months June to September in the year 1882.
Further, on a separate sheet of paper, I found an indication of the reason why Peters had desisted from his pursuit of that person X. whom I thought myself able to identify. This sheet of paper was headed “Description given me of the convict Arkell executed at Singapore in November, 1882”. The description corresponded very well with that given in the journal of the presumable murderer of Longhurst, and so far as it went it seemed to show that the convict Arkell might well have been confused with the successful and respected financier, William Vane-Cartwright. At the foot of the paper was a note, with the dates queried, as to the time when Arkell had been, as he seems to have been, on the island of Sulu.
There was also among these papers one which began, “These, so far as I can recollect them, are the facts told me by MacAndrew in regard to the agreements made in 1880 between X. and L.” MacAndrew’s story had apparently related to changes made in the draft of the agreement, at the instance of X., which MacAndrew evidently thought that L. had not understood. The note seemed to have been finished in haste and to have left out some important facts, which Peters no doubt carried in his memory. A lawyer, among my friends, tells me that without these facts it is impossible to be certain what exactly was the trick which “X.” played upon “L.,” and that it is even possible to suppose that there was no dishonesty at all in his proceedings.