The Project Gutenberg eBook ofUnravelled Knots

The Project Gutenberg eBook ofUnravelled KnotsThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: Unravelled KnotsAuthor: Baroness Emmuska Orczy OrczyRelease date: June 4, 2022 [eBook #68237]Most recently updated: October 18, 2024Language: EnglishOriginal publication: United States: George H. Doran, 1923Credits: Al Haines*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNRAVELLED KNOTS ***

This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Unravelled KnotsAuthor: Baroness Emmuska Orczy OrczyRelease date: June 4, 2022 [eBook #68237]Most recently updated: October 18, 2024Language: EnglishOriginal publication: United States: George H. Doran, 1923Credits: Al Haines

Title: Unravelled Knots

Author: Baroness Emmuska Orczy Orczy

Release date: June 4, 2022 [eBook #68237]Most recently updated: October 18, 2024

Language: English

Original publication: United States: George H. Doran, 1923

Credits: Al Haines

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNRAVELLED KNOTS ***

BARONESS ORCZY

NEW YORKGEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

CONTENTS

ITHE MYSTERY OF THE KHAKI TUNIC

IITHE MYSTERY OF THE INGRES MASTERPIECE

IIITHE MYSTERY OF THE PEARL NECKLACE

IVTHE MYSTERY OF THE RUSSIAN PRINCE

VTHE MYSTERIOUS TRAGEDY IN BISHOP'S ROAD

VITHE MYSTERY OF THE DOG'S TOOTH CLIFF

VIITHE TYTHERTON CASE

VIIITHE MYSTERY OF BRUDENELL COURT

IXTHE MYSTERY OF THE WHITE CARNATION

XTHE MYSTERY OF THE MONTMARTRE HAT

XITHE MISER OF MAIDA VALE

XIITHE FULTON GARDENS MYSTERY

XIIIA MOORLAND TRAGEDY

By BARONESS ORCZY

UNRAVELLED KNOTSPIMPERNEL AND ROSEMARYTHE HONOURABLE JIMTHE TRIUMPH OF THE SCARLET PIMPERNELNICOLETTECASTLES IN THE AIRTHE FIRST SIR PERCYHIS MAJESTY'S WELL-BELOVEDTHE LEAGUE OF THE SCARLET PIMPERNELFLOWER O' THE LILYTHE MAN IN GREYLORD TONY'S WIFELEATHERFACETHE BRONZE EAGLEA BRIDE OF THE PLAINSTHE LAUGHING CAVALIER"UNTO CAESAR"EL DORADOMEADOWSWEETTHE NOBLE ROGUETHE HEART OF A WOMANPETTICOAT RULE

New York: George H. Doran Company

UNRAVELLED KNOTS

I cannot pretend to say how it all happened. I can but relate what occurred, leaving those of my friends who are versed in psychic matters to find a plausible explanation for the fact that on that horrible foggy afternoon I chanced to walk into that blameless teashop at that particular hour.

Now, I had not been inside a teashop for years, and I had almost ceased to think of the Old Man in the Corner—the weird, spook-like creature with the baggy trousers, the huge horn-rimmed spectacles, and the thin claw-like hands that went on fidgeting, fidgeting, fidgeting with a piece of string, tying it with nervy deliberation into innumerable and complicated knots.

And yet, when I walked into that teashop and saw him sitting in the corner by the fire, I was hardly conscious of surprise, but I did not think that he would recognise me. So I sat down at the next table to him, and when I thought that he was most intent on fidgeting with his piece of string, I stole surreptitious glances at him. The years seemed to have passed him by; he was just the same; his face no more wrinkled; his fingers were as agile and restless as they had been when last I saw him twenty years ago.

Then all at once he spoke, just as he used to do, in the same cracked voice with the dry, ironic chuckle.

"One of the most interesting cases it has ever been my good fortune to investigate," he said. I had not realised that he had seen me, and I gave such a startled jump that I spilt half a cup of tea on my frock. With a long, bony finger he was pointing to a copy of theExpress Post, which lay beside his plate, and almost against my will my eyes wandered to the flaring headline: "The Mystery of the Khaki Tunic."

Then I looked up inquiringly at my pixy-like interlocutor. It never occurred to me to make a conventional little speech about the lapse of time since last we met; for the moment I had the feeling as if I had seen him the day before.

"You are still interested in criminology, then?" I asked.

"More than ever," he replied with a bland smile, "and this case has given me some of the most delightful moments I have ever experienced in connection with my studies. I have watched the police committing one blunder after another, and to-day, when they are completely baffled and the public has started to write letters to the papers about another undetected crime and another criminal at large, I am having the time of my life."

"Of course, you have made up your mind," I retorted with what I felt was withering sarcasm.

"I have arrived at the only possible solution of the mystery," he replied, unperturbed, "and you will do the same when I have put the facts clearly and logically before you. As for the police, let 'em flounder," he went on complacently. "For me it has been an exciting drama to watch from beginning to end. Every one of the characters in it stands out before me like a clear-cut cameo.

"There was Miss Mary Clarke, a quiet, middle-aged woman who rented Hardacres from Lord Foremeere. She had taken the place soon after the Armistice, and ran a poultry farm there on a small scale with the occasional assistance of her brother Arthur, an ex-officer in the East Glebeshires, a young man who had an excellent war-record, but who seemed, like so many other young men of his kind, to have fallen into somewhat shiftless and lazy ways since the glorious peace.

"No doubt you know the geography of the place. The halfpenny papers have been full of maps and plans of Hardacres. It is rather a lonely house on the road between Langford and Barchester, about three-quarters of a mile from Meere village. Meere Court is another half-mile or so farther on, the house hidden by clumps of stately trees, above which can be perceived the towers of Barchester Cathedral.

"Very little seems to have been known about Miss Clarke in the neighbourhood; she seemed to be fairly well-to-do and undoubtedly a cut above the village folk, but, equally obviously, she did not belong to the county set. Nor did she encourage visitors, not even the vicar; she seldom went to church, and neither went to parties nor ever asked any one to tea; she did most of her shopping herself, in Meere, and sold her poultry and eggs to Mr. Brook, the local dealer, who served all the best houses for miles around. Every morning at seven o'clock a girl from the village, named Emily Baker, came in to do the housework at Hardacres, and left again after the mid-day dinner. Once a week regularly, Miss Clarke called at Meere Court. Always on a Friday. She walked over in the afternoon, whatever the weather, brought a large basket of eggs with her, and was shown, without ever being kept waiting, straight into Lady Foremeere's sitting-room. The interview lasted about ten minutes, sometimes more, and then she would be shown out again.

"Mind you," the funny creature went on glibly, and raising a long, pointed finger to emphasise his words, "no one seems to have thought that there was anything mysterious about Miss Clarke. The fact that 'she kept 'erself to 'erself' was not in itself a sign of anything odd about her. People, especially women, in outlying country districts, often lead very self-centred, lonely lives; they arouse a certain amount of curiosity when they first arrive in the neighbourhood, but after a while gossip dies out if it is not fed, and the hermit's estrangement from village life is tacitly accepted.

"On the other hand, Miss Clarke's brother Arthur was exceedingly gregarious. He was a crack tennis player and an excellent dancer, and these two accomplishments procured him his entrée into the best houses in the county—houses which, before the war, when people were more fastidious in the choice of their guests, would no doubt have not been quite so freely opened to him.

"It was common gossip that Arthur was deeply in love with April St. Jude, Lord Foremeere's beautiful daughter by a previous marriage, but public opinion was unanimous in the assertion that there never could be any question of marriage between an extemporary gentleman without money or property of any kind and the society beauty who had been courted by some of the smartest and richest men in London.

"Nor did Arthur Clarke enjoy the best of reputations in the neighbourhood. He was over-fond of betting and loafing about the public-houses of Barchester. People said, that he might help his sister in the farm more than he did, seeing that he did not appear to have a sixpence of his own, and that she gave him bed and board, but as he was very good-looking and could make himself very agreeable if he chose, the women, at any rate, smiled at his misdeeds and were content to call Arthur 'rather wild, but not really a bad boy.'

"Then came the tragedy.

"On the twenty-eighth of December last, when Emily Baker came to work as usual, she was rather surprised not to see or hear Miss Clarke moving about the place. As a rule she was out in the yard by the time Emily arrived; the chickens would have had their hot mash and the empty pans would have been left for Emily to wash up. But this morning nothing. In the girl's own words there was a creepy kind of lonely feeling about the house. She knew that Mr. Clarke was not at home. The day before the servants at Meere Court had their annual Christmas party, and Mr. Clarke had been asked to help with the tree and to entertain the children. He had announced his intention of putting up afterwards at the Deanery Hotel for the night, a thing he was rather fond of doing whenever he was asked out to parties and did not know what time he might be able to get away.

"Emily, when she arrived, had found the front door on the latch, as usual, therefore, she reflected, Miss Clarke must have been downstairs and drawn the bolts. But where could she be now? Never, never would she have gone out before feeding her chickens, on such a cold morning, too!

"At this point Emily gave up reflecting, and proceeded to action. She went up to her mistress's room. It was empty, and the bed had not been slept in. Genuinely alarmed now, she ran down again, her next objective being the parlour. The door was, as usual, locked on the outside, but, contrary to precedent, the key was not in the lock; thinking it had dropped out, the girl searched for it, but in vain, and at one moment, when she moved the small mat which stood before the door of the locked room, she at once became aware of an over-powering smell of gas.

"This proved the death-blow to Emily's fortitude; she took to her heels and ran out of the house and down the road toward the village, nor did she halt until she came to the local police-station, where she gave as coherent an account as she could of the terrible state of things at Hardacres.

"You will remember that when the police broke open the door of the parlour, the first thing they saw was the body of Miss Clarke lying full-length on the floor. The poor woman was quite dead, suffocated by the poisonous fumes of gas which was fully turned on in the old-fashioned chandelier above her head. The one window had been carefully latched, and the thick curtains closely drawn together; the chimney had been stuffed up with newspaper and paper had been thrust into every aperture so as to exclude the slightest possible breath of air. There was a wad of it in the keyhole, and the mat on the landing outside had been carefully arranged against the door with the same sinister object.

"The news spread like wildfire and soon the entire neighbourhood was gloating over a sensation the like of which had not come its way for generations past."

"The London evening papers got hold of the story for their noonday edition," the Old Man in the Corner went on, after a slight pause, "and I with my passion for the enigmatical and the perplexing, made up my mind then and there to probe the mystery on my own account, because I knew well enough that this was just the sort of case which would send the county police blundering all over the wrong track.

"I arrived at Barchester on the Tuesday, in time for the inquest, but nothing of much importance transpired that day. Medical evidence went to prove that the deceased had first been struck on the back of the head by some heavy instrument, a weighted stick or something of the sort, which had no doubt stunned her, but she actually died of gas poisoning, which she inhaled in large quantities while she was half-conscious. The medical officer went on to say that Miss Clarke must have been dead twelve hours or more when he was called in by the police at about eight o'clock in the morning.

"After this, a couple of neighbours testified to having seen Miss Clarke at her front door at about half-past five the previous evening. It was a very dark night, if you remember, and a thick Scotch mist was falling. When the neighbours went by, Miss Clarke had apparently just introduced a visitor into her house, the gas was alight in the small hall, and they had vaguely perceived the outline of a man or woman, they could not swear which, in a huge coat, standing for a moment immediately behind Miss Clarke; the neighbours also heard Miss Clarke's voice speaking to her visitor, but what she said they could not distinguish. The weather was so atrocious that every one who was abroad that night hurried along without taking much notice of what went on around.

"Evidence of a more or less formal character followed, and the inquest was then adjourned until the Friday, every one going away with the feeling that sensational developments were already in the air.

"And the developments came tumbling in thick and fast. To begin with, it appears that Arthur Clarke, when first questioned by the police, had made a somewhat lame statement.

"'I was asked,' he said, 'to help with the servants' Christmas party at Meere Court. I walked over to Barchester at about three o'clock in the afternoon, with my suit-case, as I was going to spend the night at the Deanery Hotel. I went on to Meere Court soon after half-past three, and stayed until past seven; after which I walked back to the Deanery, had some dinner, and went early to bed. I never knew that anything had happened to my sister until the police telephoned to me soon after eight o'clock the next morning. And,' he added, 'that's all about it!'

"But it certainly was not 'all about it,' because several of the servants at Meere Court who were asked at what time Mr. Clarke went away that night, said that he must have gone very soon after five o'clock. They all finished their tea about that time, and then the gramophone was set going for dancing; they were quite sure that they had not seen Mr. Clarke after that.

"On the other hand, Miss St. Jude said that the servants were mistaken; they were far too deeply engrossed in their own amusements to be at all reliable in their statements. As a matter of fact, Mr. Clarke went away, as he said, at about seven o'clock; she herself had danced with him most of the time, and said good-night to him in the hall at a few minutes after seven.

"Here was a neat little complication, do you see—a direct conflict of evidence at the very outset of this mysterious case. Can you wonder that amateur detectives already shrugged their shoulders and raised their eyebrows, declaring that the Hon. April St. Jude was obviously in love with Arthur Clarke, and was trying to shield him, well knowing that he had something to hide.

"Of course the police themselves were very reticent, but even they could not keep people from gossiping. And gossip, I can assure you, had enough and to spare to feed on. At first, of course, the crime had seemed entirely motiveless. The deceased had not an enemy, or, as far as that goes, many acquaintances in the world. In the drawer of the desk, in the parlour, the sum of twenty pounds odd in notes and cash were found, and in a little box by the side of the money poor Mary Clarke's little bits of jewellery.

"But twenty-four hours later no one could remain in doubt as to the assassin's purpose. You will remember that on the day following the adjourned inquest there had arrived from the depths of Yorkshire an old sister of the deceased, a respectable spinster, to whom Arthur himself, it seems, had communicated the terrible news. She had come to Barchester for the funeral. This elder Miss Clarke, Euphemia by name, though she could not say much that was informative, did, at any rate, throw light upon one dark passage in her sister's history.

"'For the past four years,' she told the police, 'my sister had an allowance of four pounds a week from a member of the aristocracy. I did not know much about her affairs, but I do know that she had a packet of letters on which she set great store. What these letters were I have not the slightest idea, nor do I know what Mary ultimately did with them. On one occasion, before she was actually settled at Hardacres, she met me in London and asked me to take care of this packet for her, and she told me then that they were very valuable. I also know that she and my brother Arthur had most heated arguments together on the subject of these letters. Arthur was always wanting her to give them up to him, and she always refused. On one occasion she told me that she could, if she wanted, sell that packet of letters for five thousand pounds. "Why on earth don't you?" I asked her. But she replied: "Oh, Arthur would only get the money out of me! It's better as it is."'

"This story, as you may well imagine, gave food enough for gossip; at once a romance was woven of blackmail and drama of love and passion, whilst the name of a certain great lady in the neighbourhood, to whom Miss Clarke had been in the habit of paying mysterious weekly visits, already was on everybody's lips.

"And then the climax came. By evening it had transpired that in Arthur Clarke's room at Hardacres, the detectives had found an old khaki tunic stuffed away at the bottom of a drawer, and in the pocket of the tunic the key of the locked parlour door. It was an officer's tunic, which had at some time had its buttons and badges taken off; its right sleeve was so torn that it was nearly out at its armhole; the cuff was all crumpled, as if it had been crushed in a damp, hot hand, and there was a small piece of the cloth torn clean out of it. And I will leave you to guess the importance of this fact—in the tightly-clenched hand of the murdered woman was found the small piece of khaki cloth which corresponded to a hair's-breadth with the missing bit in the sleeve of the tunic.

"After that the man in the street shook his head and declared that Arthur Clarke was as good as hung already."

The Old Man in the Corner had drawn out of his capacious pocket a fresh piece of string. And now his claw-like fingers started to work on it with feverish intentness. I watched him, fascinated, well knowing that his keen mind was just as busy with the Hardacres mystery as were his hands in the fashioning of some intricate and complicated knot.

"I am not," he said after a while, "going to give you an elaborate description of the inquest and of the crowds that collected both inside and out of the court-room, hoping to get a glimpse of the principal actors in the exciting drama. By now, of course, all those who had talked of the crime being without apparent motive had effectually been silenced. To every amateur detective, as well as to the professional, the murderer and his nefarious object appeared absolutely revealed to the light of day. Every indication, every scrap of evidence collected up to this hour, both direct and circumstantial, pointed to Arthur Clarke as the murderer of his sister. There were the letters, which were alleged to be worth five thousand pounds, to the mysterious member of the aristocracy who was paying Miss Clarke a weekly pittance, obviously in order to silence her; there was the strong love motive—the young man in love with the girl far above him in station and wanting to get hold of a large sum of money, no doubt, to embark on some profitable business which might help him in his wooing; and there, above all, was the damning bit of khaki cloth in the murdered woman's hand, and the tunic with the key of the locked door in its pocket found in a drawer in Clarke's own room.

"No, indeed, the inquest was not likely to be a dull affair, more especially as no one doubted what the verdict would be, whilst a good many people anticipated that Clarke would at once be arrested on the coroner's warrant and committed for trial at the next assizes on the capital charge.

"But though we all knew that the inquest would not be dull, yet we were not prepared for the surprises which were in store for us, and which will render that inquest a memorable one in the annals of criminal investigation. To begin with we already knew that Arthur Clarke had now the assistance of Mr. Markham, one of the leading solicitors of Barchester, in his difficult position. Acting on that gentleman's advice Clarke had amplified the statement which he had originally made as to his movements on the fatal afternoon. This amplified statement he now reiterated on oath, and though frankly no one believed him, we were bound to admit that if he could substantiate it, an extraordinary complication would arise, which though it might not eventually clear him altogether, in the minds of thinking people, would at any rate give him the benefit of the doubt. What he now stated was in substance this:

"'The servants at Meere Court,' he said, 'are quite right when they say that I left the party soon after five o'clock. I was rather tired, and after a last dance with Miss St. Jude, I went upstairs to pay my respects to Lady Foremeere. Her ladyship, however, kept me talking for some considerable time on one subject and another, until, to my astonishment, I saw that it was close on seven o'clock, when I hastily took my leave.

"'While I was looking for my coat in the hall, I remember that Lord Foremeere came out of the smoking-room and asked me if I knew whether the party downstairs had broken up. "These things are such a bore," he said, "but I will see if I can get one of them to come up and show you out." I told his lordship not to trouble. However, he rang the bell, and presently the butler, Spinks, came through from the servants' quarters, and his lordship then went upstairs, I think. A minute or two later Miss St. Jude came, also from the servants' quarters; she sent Spinks away, telling him that she would look after me; we talked together for a few moments, and then I said good-night, and went straight back to the hotel.'

"Now we had already learned from both the hall-porter and the head waiter at the Deanery that Mr. Clarke was back at the hotel soon after seven o'clock, that he had his dinner in the restaurant at half-past, and that after spending an hour or so in the lounge after dinner, he went up to his room, and did not go out again until the following morning. Therefore, all that was needed now was a confirmatory statement from Lady Foremeere to prove Arthur Clarke's innocence, because in that case every hour of his time would be accounted for, from half-past three onwards, whilst Miss Clarke was actually seen alive by two neighbours when she introduced a visitor into her house at half-past five.

"The question would then resolve itself into, Who was that visitor? leaving the more important one of the khaki tunic as a baffling mystery, rather than as damning evidence.

"The entire courtroom was on the tiptoe of expectation when Lady Foremeere was formally called. I can assure you that the ubiquitous pin could have been heard to drop during the brief moment's silence when the elegant Society woman stood up and disposed her exquisite sable cape about her shoulders and then swore to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

"She answered the coroner's questions in a clear, audible voice, and never wavered in her assertions. She said that her step-daughter had come up to her boudoir and asked her if she would see Mr. Arthur Clarke for a few moments; he had something very important to say to her.

"'I was rather surprised at the strange request,' Lady Foremeere continued with the utmost composure, 'and suggested that Mr. Clarke should make his important communication to Lord Foremeere, but my step-daughter insisted, and to please her I agreed. I thought that I would get my husband to be present at this mysterious interview, but his lordship was having a short rest in the smoking-room, so on second consideration I decided not to disturb him.

"'A minute or two later, Mr.—er—Clarke presented himself, and at once I realised that he had had too much to drink. He talked wildly about his desire to marry Miss St. Jude, and very excitedly about some compromising letters which he alleged were in his possession, and which he threatened to show to Lord Foremeere if I did not at once give him so many thousand pounds. Naturally, I ordered him out of the place. But he wouldn't go for a long time; he got more and more incoherent and excited, and it was not until I threatened to fetch Lord Foremeere immediately that he sobered down and finally went away. He had been in my room about half an hour.'

"'About half an hour?' was the coroner's earnest comment on this amazing piece of evidence, 'But Mr. Clarke said that when he left your ladyship it was close on seven.'

"'Mr.—er—Clarke is in error,' her ladyship asserted firmly. 'The clock had just struck half-past five when I succeeded in ridding myself of him.'

"You can easily imagine how great was the excitement at this moment and how intensified it became when Lord Foremeere gave evidence in his turn and further confused the issues. He began by corroborating Arthur Clarke's statement about his having spoken to him in the hall atseven o'clock. It was almost unbelievable! Everybody gasped and the coroner almost gave a jump:

"'But her ladyship has just told us,' he said, 'that Clarke left her at half-past five!'

"'That, no doubt, is accurate,' Lord Foremeere rejoined in his stiff, prim manner, 'since her ladyship said so. All I know is that I was asleep in front of the fire in the smoking-room when I heard a loud bang issuing from the hall. I went to see what it was and there I certainly saw Clarke. He was just coming through the glass door which divides the outside vestibule from the hall, and he appeared to me to have come straight out of the wet and to have left his hat and coat in the outer vestibule.'

"'But,' the coroner insisted, 'what made your lordship think that he had come from outside?'

"'Well, for one thing his face and hands were quite wet, and he was wiping them with his handkerchief when I first caught sight of him. His boots, too, were wet, and so were the edges of his trousers. And then, as I said, he was coming into the hall from the outer vestibule, and it was the banging of the front door which had roused me.'

"'And the hour then was?'

"'The clock had not long since struck seven. But my butler will be able to confirm this.'

"And Spinks the butler did confirm this portion of his lordship's statement, though he could say nothing about Mr. Clarke's boots being wet, nor did he help Mr. Clarke on with his coat and hat, or open the door for him. Miss St. Jude had practically followed Spinks into the hall, and had at once dismissed him, saying she would look after Mr. Clarke. His lordship in the meanwhile had gone upstairs, and Spinks went back into the servants' hall.

"Of course, Miss St. Jude was called. You remember that she had previously stated that Clarke had only left the party at about seven o'clock, that she herself had danced with him most of the time until then, and finally said good-bye to him in the hall. But as this statement was not even corroborated by Clarke's own assertions, and entirely contradicted by both Lord and Lady Foremeere's evidence, she was fortunately advised not to repeat it on oath. But she hotly denied the suggestion that Clarke had come in from outside when she said good-bye to him in the hall. She saw him put on his hat and coat, and they were quite dry. But nobody felt that her evidence was of any value because she would naturally do her utmost to help her sweetheart.

"Finally, one of the most interesting moments in that memorable inquiry was reached when Lady Foremeere was recalled and asked to state what she knew of Miss Clarke's antecedents.

"'Very little,' she replied. 'I only knew her in France when she worked under me in a hospital. I was very ill at one time and she nursed me devotedly; ever since that I helped her financially as much as I could.'

"'You made her a weekly allowance?' her ladyship was asked.

"'Not exactly,' she replied. 'I just bought her eggs and poultry at a higher figure than she would get from any one else.'

"'Do you know anything about some letters that she thought were so valuable?'

"'Oh, yes!' the lady replied with a kindly smile. 'Mary had a collection of autograph letters which she had collected whilst she was nursing in France. Among them were some by august, and others by very distinguished, personages. She had the idea that these were extraordinarily valuable.'

"'Do you know what became of those letters?'

"'No,' her ladyship replied, 'I do not know.'

"'But there were other letters, were there not?' the coroner insisted, 'in which you yourself were interested? The ones Mr. Clarke spoke to you about?'

"'They existed only in Mr. Clarke's imagination, I fancy,' Lady Foremeere replied, 'but he was in such a highly excited state that afternoon that I really could not quite make out what it was that he desired to sell to me.'

"Lady Foremeere spoke very quietly and very simply, without a single note of spite or acerbity in her soft, musical voice. One felt that she was stating quite simple facts that rather bored her, but to which she did not attach any importance. And later on when Miss Euphemia Clarke retold the story of the packet of letters and of the quarrels which the deceased and her brother had about them, and when the damning evidence of the khaki tunic stood out like an avenging Nemesis pointing at the unfortunate young man, those in court who had imagination, saw—positively saw—the hangman's rope tightening around his neck."

"And yet the verdict was one of wilful murder against some person or persons unknown," I said, after a slight pause, waiting for the funny creature to take up his narrative again.

"Yes," he replied, "Arthur Clarke has been cleared of every suspicion. He left the court a free man. His innocence was proved beyond question through what every one thought was the most damnatory piece of evidence against him—the evidence of the khaki tunic. The khaki tunic exonerated Arthur Clarke as completely as the most skilful defender could do. Because it did not fit him. Arthur Clarke was a rather heavy, full-grown, broad-shouldered man, the khaki tunic would only fit a slim lad of eighteen. Clarke had admitted the tunic was his, but he had never thought of examining it, and certainly, not of trying it on. It was Miss St. Jude who thought of that. Trust a woman in love for getting an inspiration.

"When she was called at the end of the day to affirm the statements which she had previously made to the police and realised that these statements of hers were actually in contradiction with Clarke's own assertions, she worked herself up into a state bordering on hysteria, in the midst of which she caught sight of the khaki tunic on the coroner's table. Of course, she, like every one else in the neighbourhood, knew all about the tunic, but when April St. Jude actually saw it with her own eyes and realised what its existence meant to her sweetheart, she gave a wild shriek.

"'I'll not believe it,' she cried, 'I'll not believe it. It can't be. It is not Arthur's tunic at all.' Then her eyes dilated, her voice sank to a hoarse whisper, and with a trembling hand she pointed at the tunic. 'Why,' she murmured, 'it is so small—so small! Arthur! Where is Arthur? Why does he not show them all that he never could have worn that tunic?'

"Proverbially there is but a narrow dividing line between tragedy and farce: While some people shuddered and gasped and men literally held their breath, marvelling what would happen next, quite a number of women fell into hysterical giggling. Of course you remember what happened. The papers have told you all about it. Arthur Clarke was made to try on the khaki tunic, and he could not even get his arms into the sleeves. Under no circumstances could he ever have worn that particular tunic. It was several sizes too small for him. Then he examined it closely and recognised it as one he wore in his school O.T.C. when he was a lad. When he was originally confronted with it, he explained, he was so upset, so genuinely terrified at the consequences of certain follies which he undoubtedly had committed, that he could hardly see out of his eyes. The tunic was shown to him, and he had admitted that it was his, for he had quite a collection of old tunics which he had always kept. But for the moment he had forgotten the one which he had worn more than eight years ago at school.

"And so the khaki tunic, instead of condemning Clarke, had entirely cleared him, for it now became quite evident that the miscreant who had committed the dastardly murder had added this hideous act to his greater crime, and deliberately set to work to fasten the guilt on an innocent man. He had gone up to Clarke's room, opened the wardrobe, picked up a likely garment, no doubt tearing a piece of cloth out of it whilst so doing, and thus getting the fiendish idea of inserting that piece of khaki between the fingers of the murdered woman. Finally, after locking the parlour door, he put the key in the pocket of the tunic and stuffed the latter in the bottom of a drawer.

"It was a clever and cruel trick which well nigh succeeded in hanging an innocent man. As it is, it has enveloped the affair in an almost impenetrable mystery. I say 'almost' because I know who killed Miss Clarke, even though the public has thrown out an erroneous conjecture. 'It was Lady Foremeere,' they say, 'who killed Miss Clarke.' But at once comes the question: 'How could she?' And the query: 'When?'

"Arthur Clarke says he was with her until seven, and after that hour there were several members of her household who waited upon her, notably her maid who it seems came up to dress her at about that time, and she and Lord Foremeere sat down to dinner as usual at eight o'clock.

"That there had been one or two dark passages in Lady Foremeere's life, prior to her marriage four years ago, and that Miss Clarke was murdered for the sake of letters which were in some way connected with her ladyship were the only actual undisputable facts in that mysterious case. That it was not Arthur Clarke who killed his sister has been indubitably proved; that a great deal of the evidence was contradictory every one has admitted. And if the police do not act on certain suggestions which I have made to them, the Hardacres murder will remain a mystery to the public to the end of time."

"And what are those suggestions?" I asked, without the slightest vestige of irony, for, much against my will, the man's personality exercised a curious fascination over me.

"To keep an eye on Lord Foremeere," the funny creature replied with his dry chuckle, "and see when and how he finally disposes of a wet coat, a dripping hat and soaked boots, which he has succeeded in keeping concealed somewhere in the smoking-room, away from the prying eyes even of his own valet."

"You mean——" I asked, with an involuntary gasp.

"Yes," he replied. "I mean that it was Lord Foremeere who murdered Miss Clarke for the sake of those letters which apparently contained matter that was highly compromising to his wife.

"Everything to my mind points to him as the murderer. Whether he knew all along of the existence of the compromising letters, or whether he first knew of this through the conversation between her ladyship and Clarke the day of the servants' party, it is impossible to say; certain it is that he did overhear that conversation and that he made up his mind to end the impossible situation then and there, and to put a stop once and for all to any further attempt at blackmail.

"It was easy enough for him on that day to pass in and out of the house unperceived. No doubt his primary object in going to Hardacres was to purchase the letters from Miss Clarke, money down; perhaps she proved obstinate, perhaps he merely thought that dead men tell no tales. This we shall never know.

"After the hideous deed, which must have revolted his otherwise fastidious senses, he must have become conscious of an overwhelming hatred for the man who had, as it were, pushed him into crime, and my belief is that the elaboratemise en scèneof the khaki tunic, and the circumstantial lie that when he came out of the smoking-room Arthur Clarke had obviously just come in from outside was invented, not so much with the object of averting any suspicion from himself, as with the passionate desire to be revenged on Clarke.

"Think it over," the Old Man in the Corner concluded, as he stuffed his beloved bit of string into his capacious pocket; "time, opportunity, motive, all are in favour of my theory, so do not be surprised if the early editions of to-morrow's evening papers contain the final sensation in this interesting case."

He was gone before I could say another word, and all that I saw of him was his spook-like figure disappearing through the swing-door. There was no one now in the place, so a moment or two later I too paid my bill and went away.

The Old Man in the Corner proved to be right in the end. At eleven o'clock the next morning the street corners were full of newspaper placards with the flaring headlines: "Sudden death of Lord Foremeere."

It was reported that on the previous evening his lordship was examining a new automatic which he had just bought and explaining the mechanism to his valet. At one moment he actually made the remark: "It is all right, it isn't loaded," but apparently there was one cartridge left in one of the chambers. His lordship, it seems, was looking straight down the barrel and his finger must accidentally have touched the trigger; anyway, according to the valet's story, there was a sudden explosion, and Lord Foremeere fell shot right between the eyes.

The verdict at the inquest was, of course, one of accidental death, the coroner and jury expressing the greatest possible sympathy with Lady Foremeere and Miss St. Jude. It was only subsequently that one or two facts came to light which appeared obscure and unimportant to the man in the street, but which for me, in the light of my conversation with the Old Man in the Corner, bore special significance.

It seems that an hour or two before the accident, the chief superintendent of police had called with two constables at Meere Court and were closeted for a considerable time with Lord Foremeere in the smoking-room. And Spinks, the butler, who subsequently let the three men out, noticed that one of the constables was carrying a coat and a hat, which Spinks knew were old ones belonging to his lordship.

Then I knew that the funny creature in the loud check tweeds and baggy trousers had found the true solution of the Hardacres mystery.

Oh, and you wish to know what was the sequel to the pretty love story between April St. Jude and Arthur Clarke. Well, you know, she married Amos Rottenberg, the New York banker, last year, and Clarke runs a successful garage now somewhere in the North. A kind friend must have lent him the capital wherewith to make a start. I can make a shrewd guess who that kind friend was.

I did not see the Old Man in the Corner for several weeks after that strange meeting in the blameless teashop. The exigencies of my work kept me busy, and somehow the sensational suicide of Lord Foremeere which had appeared like the logical sequence of the spook-like creature's deductions, had left a painful impression on my mind. Entirely illogically, I admit, I felt that the Old Man in the Corner had had something to do with the tragedy.

But when in March of that year we were all thrilled by the mystery of the valuable Ingres picture, and wherever one went one heard conjectures and explanations of that extraordinary case, my thoughts very naturally reverted to the funny creature and his bit of string, and I found myself often wondering what his explanation of what seemed a truly impenetrable mystery could possibly be.

The facts certainly were very puzzling in themselves. When first I was deputed by theExpress Postto put them clearly and succinctly before its readers, I found the task strangely difficult; this, for the simple reason that I myself could not see daylight through it all, and often did I stand in front of the admirable reproduction which I possess of the Ingres "La Fiancée" wondering if those smiling lips would not presently speak and tell me how an original and exquisite picture could possibly have been at two different places at one and the same time.

For that, in truth, was the depth of the puzzle. We will, if you please, call the original owners of the picture the Duc and Duchesse Paul de Rochechouart. That, of course, is not their name, but, as you all know who they really are, it matters not what I call them for the purpose of recording their singular adventure.

His Grace had early in life married a Swedish lady of great talent and singular beauty. She was an artist of no mean order, having exhibited pictures of merit both at the Paris Salon and at the Royal Academy in London; she was also an accomplished musician, and had published one or two very charming volumes of poetry.

The Duke and his wife were devoted to one another; they lived for the greater part of the year at their beautiful château on the Oise, not far from Chantilly, and here they entertained a great deal, more after the homely and hospitable manner of English country houses than in the more formal fashion. Here, too, they had collected some rare furniture, tapestries, and objects of art and vertu, amongst which certain highly-prized pictures of the French School of the Nineteenth Century.

The war, we may imagine, left the Duc de Rochechouart and his charming wife a good deal poorer, as it left most other people in France, and soon it became known amongst the art dealers of London, Paris and New York that they had decided to sell one or two of their most valuable pictures; foremost amongst these was the celebrated "La Fiancée" by Ingres.

Immediately there was what is technically known as a ramp after the picture. Dealers travelled backwards and forwards from all the great Continental cities to the château on the Oise to view the picture. Offers were made for it by cable, telegram and telephone, and the whole art world was kept in a flutter over what certainly promised to be a sensational deal.

Alas! as with most of the beautiful possessions of this impoverished old world, the coveted prize was destined to go to the country that had the longest purse. A certain Mr. Aaron Jacobs, the Chicago multi-millionaire, presently cabled an offer of half a million dollars for the picture, an offer which, rumour had it, the Duc de Rochechouart had since accepted. Mr. Jacobs was said to be a charming, highly-cultured man, a great art connoisseur and a great art lover, and presently one heard that he had already set sail for Europe with the intention of fetching away his newly-acquired treasure himself.

On the very day following Mr. Jacobs's arrival as the guest of the Duc and Duchesse de Rochechouart at the latter's château, the world-famous picture was stolen in broad daylight by a thief or thieves who contrived to make away with their booty without leaving the slightest clue, so it was said, that might put the police on their track. The picture was cut clean out of the frame, an operation which must have taken at least two or three minutes. It always used to hang above the tall chimneypiece in the Duchesse's studio, but that self-same morning it had been lifted down and placed on an easel in the dining-hall, no doubt for closer inspection by the purchaser. This easel stood in a corner of the hall, close to one of the great windows that overlooked the gardens of the château.

The amazing point in this daring theft was that a garden fête and tennis tournament were in progress at the time. A crowd of guests was spread all over the lawns and grounds in full view of the windows of the hall, and, as far as the preliminary investigations were able to establish, there were not more than twenty or twenty-five minutes at most during which some servant or other inmate of the château had not either actually been through the hall or had occasion to observe the windows.

The dining-hall itself has monumental doors which open on the great central vestibule, and immediately facing it similar doors give on the library. The marble vestibule runs right through the centre of the main building, it has both a front and a garden entrance, and all the reception rooms open out of it, right and left. Close to the front door entrance is one of the main ways into the kitchens and offices.

Now right away until half-past four on that fateful afternoon the servants were up and down the vestibule, busy with arrangements for tea which they were serving outside on the lawns. The tennis tournament was then drawing to a close, the Duchesse was on the lawn with her guests, dispensing tea, and at half-past four precisely the Duc de Rochechouart came into the château by way of the garden entrance, went across the vestibule and into the library to fetch the prizes which were to be distributed to the victors in the tournament, and which were locked up in his desk. The doors of the dining-hall were wide open and the Duc walking past them peeped into the room. The picture was in its place then, and he gave a glance at it as he passed, conscious of a pang of regret at the thought that he must needs part with this precious treasure. It took the Duc some little time to sort the prizes, and as in the meanwhile the afternoon post had come in and a few letters had been laid on his desk, he could not resist the desire to glance through his correspondence. On the whole he thought that he might have been in the library about a quarter of an hour or perhaps more. He had closed the door when he entered the room, and when he came out again he certainly noticed that the doors of the dining-hall were shut. But there was nothing in this to arouse his suspicions, and with the neatly tied parcels containing the prizes under his arm, he recrossed the vestibule and went once more into the garden.

At five o'clock M. Amédé, the chief butler, had occasion to go into the dining-hall to fetch a particular silver tray which he required. He owned to being astonished at finding the doors closed, because he had been past them a quarter of an hour before that and they were wide open then. However, he entered the room without any serious misgivings, but the next moment he nearly fainted with horror at sight of the empty frame upon the easel. The very first glance had indeed revealed the nefarious deed. The picture had not been moved out of its frame, it was the canvas that had been cut. M. Amédé, however, knowing what was due to his own dignity did not disturb the entire household then and there; he made his way quietly back into the garden where the distribution of prizes after the tournament was taking place and, seizing a favourable opportunity, he caught M. le Duc's eye and imparted to him the awful news.

Even so nothing was said until after the guests had departed. By the Duc's orders the doors leading into the dining-hall were locked, and to various enquiries after the masterpiece made by inquisitive ladies, the evasive answer was given that the picture was in the hands of the packers.

There remained the house party, which, of course, included Mr. Aaron Jacobs. There were also several ladies and gentlemen staying at the château, and before they all went up to their rooms to dress for dinner, they were told what had happened. In the meanwhile the police had already been sent for, and M. le Commissaire was conducting his preliminary investigations. The rooms and belongings of all the servants were searched, and, with the consent of the guests themselves, this search was extended to their rooms. A work of art worth half a million dollars could not thus be allowed to disappear and the thief to remain undetected for the sake of social conventions, and as the law stands in France any man may be guilty of a crime until he be proved innocent.

The theft of the Ingres masterpiece was one of those cases which interest the public in every civilised country, and here in England where most people are bitten with the craze for criminal investigation it created quite a sensation in its way.

I remember that when we all realised for the first time that the picture had in very truth disappeared, and that the French police, despite its much vaunted acumen, had entirely failed to find the slightest trace of the thief, we at once began to look about for a romantic solution of the mystery. M. le Duc de Rochechouart and his pretty Duchesse had above all our deepest sympathy, for it had very soon transpired that neither the Ingres masterpiece, nor indeed any of the Duc's valuable collection of art works, was insured. This fact seems almost incredible to English minds, with whom every kind of insurance is part and parcel of the ordinary household routine. But abroad the system is not nearly so far-reaching or so extended, and there are numberless households in every degree of the social scale who never dream of spending money on insurances save, perhaps, against fire.

Be that as it may, the fact remained that "La Fiancée" was not insured against theft, and that through the action of an unknown miscreant the Duc and Duchesse de Rochechouart would, unless the police did ultimately succeed in tracing the stolen masterpiece, find themselves the poorer by half a million dollars. With their usual lack of logic, readers of the halfpenny Press promptly turned their attention to Mr. Aaron Jacobs, the intending purchaser. Being a Chicago multi-millionaire does not, it appears, render a man immune from the temptation of acquiring by dishonest means the things which he covets. Anyway, the public decided that Mr. Jacobs was not so rich as he was reputed to be, but that, on the other hand, being as greedy for the possession of European works of art as any ogre for human flesh, he had stolen the picture which he could not afford to buy; and ten, or mayhap fifteen years hence, when the story of the mysterious theft will have been consigned to oblivion, Mr. Jacobs would display the masterpiece in his gallery. How this was to be accomplished without the subsequent intervention of the police those wiseacres did not attempt to explain.

The mystery remained impenetrable for close on two years. Many other sensations, criminal or otherwise, had, during that time, driven the affair of the Ingres masterpiece out of the public mind. Then suddenly the whole story was revived and in a manner which proved far more exciting than any one had surmised. It was linked—though the European public did not know this—with the death in July, 1919, of Charles B. Tupper, the head of one of the greatest cinematograph organisations in the States—a man who for the past few years had controlled over two thousand theatres, and had made millions in his day. Some time during the war he had married the well-known cinema star, Anita Hodgkins, a beautiful entirely uneducated girl who hailed from Upper Tooting. The will of Mr. Charles B. Tupper was proved for a fabulous sum, and, as soon as his affairs were settled, Mrs. Tupper, who presumably had remained Cockney at heart as well as in speech, set sail for England with the intention of settling down once more in the country of her birth. She bought Holt Manor, a magnificent house in Buckinghamshire, sent for all her splendid furniture and belongings from America, and, early in 1920, when her palatial residence was ready for occupation, she married Lord Polchester, a decadent young nincompoop, who was said to have fallen in love with her when he first saw her on the screen.

Presumably Mrs. Anita TuppernéeHodgkins hugged herself with the belief that once she was styled my lady she would automatically become a social star as she had been a cinema one in the past. But in this harmless ambition she was at first disappointed. Though she had furnished her new house lavishly, though paragraphs appeared in all the halfpenny and weekly Press giving details of the sumptuous establishment of which the new Lady Polchester was queen, though she appeared during the London season of 1920 at several official functions and went to an evening Court that year, wearing pearls that might have been envied by an empress, she found that in Buckinghamshire the best people were shy of calling on her, and the bits of pasteboard that were from time to time left at her door came chiefly from the neighbouring doctors, parsons, or retired London tradespeople, or from mothers with marriageable daughters who looked forward to parties at the big house and consequent possible matrimonial prizes.

This went on for a time and then Lady Polchester, wishing no doubt to test the intentions of the county towards her, launched out invitations for a garden party! The invitations included the London friends she had recently made, and a special train from Paddington was to bring those friends to the party. Among these was Mr. Aaron Jacobs. He had known the late Charles B. Tupper over in the States, and had met Lady Polchester more recently at one of the great functions at the United States Embassy in London. She had interested him with a glowing account of her splendid collection of works of art, of pictures and antique furniture which she had inherited from her first husband and which now adorned her house in Buckinghamshire, and when she asked him down to her party he readily accepted, more I imagine out of curiosity to see the objects in which he was as keenly interested as ever than from a desire to establish closer acquaintanceship with the lady.

The garden party at Holt Manor, as the place was called, does not appear to have been a great social success. For one thing it rained the whole afternoon, and the military band engaged for the occasion proved too noisy for indoor entertainment. But some of the guests were greatly interested in the really magnificent collection of furniture, tapestries, pictures and works of art which adorned the mansion, and after tea Lady Polchester graciously conducted them all over the house, pointing out herself the most notable pieces in the collection and never failing to mention the price at which the late Mr. Charles B. Tupper purchased the work of art in question.

And that is when the sensation occurred. Following their hostess, the guests had already seen and duly admired two really magnificent Van Dycks that hung in the hall, when she turned to them and said, with a flourish of her plentifully be-gemmed hands:

"You must come into the library and see the picture for which Mr. Tupper gave over half a million dollars. I never knew I had it, as he never had it taken out of its case, and I never saw it until this year when it came over with all my other things from our house in New York. Lord Polchester had it unpacked and hung in the library. I don't care much about it myself, and the late Mr. Tupper hadn't the time to enjoy his purchase, because he died two days after the picture arrived in New York, and, as I say, he never had it unpacked. He bought it for use in a commercial undertaking which he had in mind at one time, then the scheme fell through, and I am sure I never thought any more about the old picture."

With that she led the way into the library, a nobly-proportioned room lined with books in choice bindings, and with a beautiful Adam chimneypiece, above which hung a picture.

Of course there were some people present who had never heard of the stolen Ingres, but there must have been a few who, as they entered the room, must literally have gasped with astonishment, for there it certainly was. "La Fiancée" with her marvellously painted Eastern draperies, her exquisitely drawn limbs and enigmatic smile, was smiling down from the canvas, just as if she had every right to be in the house of the ex-cinema star, and as if there had not been a gigantic fuss about her throughout the whole art world of Europe.

We may take it that the person by far the most astonished at that moment was Mr. Aaron Jacobs. But he was too thoroughly a gentleman and too much a man of the world to betray his feelings then, and I suppose that those who, like himself, had thought they recognised the stolen masterpiece, did not like to say anything either until they were more sure: English people in all grades of society being proverbially averse to being what they call "mixed up" in any kind of a fuss. Certain it is that nothing was said at the moment to disturb Lady Polchester's complacent equanimity, and after a while the party broke up and the guests departed.

Of course people thought that Mr. Aaron Jacobs should have informed Lord Polchester of his intentions before he went to the police. But Lord Polchester was such a nonentity in his own household, such a frivolous fool, and, moreover, addicted to drink and violent fits of temper, that those who knew him easily realised how a sensible business man like Mr. Aaron Jacobs would avoid any personal explanation with him.

Mr. Jacobs went straight to the police that self-same evening, and the next day Lady Polchester had a visit from Detective Purley, one of the ablest as he was one of the most tactful men on the staff. But indeed he had need of all his tact in face of the infuriated cinema star when that lady realised the object of his visit.

"How dared they come and ask her such impertinent questions?" she stormed. "Did they imagine she had stolen a beastly picture which she would as soon throw on the dust heap as look at again? She, who could buy up all the pictures in any gallery and not feel the pinch..." and so on and so on. The unfortunate Purley had a very unpleasant quarter of an hour, but after a while he succeeded in pacifying the irate lady and got her to listen calmly to what he had to say.

He managed to make her understand that without casting the slightest aspersion upon her honourability or that of the late Charles B. Tupper, there was no getting away from the fact that the picture now hanging in the library of Holt Manor was the property of the Duc de Rochechouart from whose house in France it was stolen over two years before—to be quite accurate it was stolen on July twenty-fifth, 1919.

"Then," retorted the lady, by no means convinced or mollified, "I can prove you all to be liars, for the late Mr. Charles B. Tupper bought the old thing long before that. He had been on the Continent in the spring of 1919 and landed in New York again on May eighteenth. He told me then that he had made some interesting purchases in Europe, amongst them there was a picture for which he had paid half a million dollars. I scolded him about it, as I thought he was throwing his money away on such stuff, but he said that he wanted to make use of the picture for some wonderful advertising scheme he had in his mind, so I said no more about it. But that is the picture you say was stolen from some duke or other in July, when I tell you that it had been shipped for New York a month at least before that."

Perhaps at this point Detective Purley failed to conceal altogether a slight look of incredulity, for Lady Polchester turned on him once more like a fury.

"So you still think I stole the dirty old picture, do you?" she cried, using further language that is quite unprintable, "and you think that I am such a ninny and that I will give it up simply because you are trying to bully me. But I won't, so there! I can prove the truth of every word I say, and I don't care if I have to spend another million dollars to put your old duke in prison for talking such rot about me."

Once again Purley's tact had to come into play, and after a while he succeeded in soothing the lady's outraged feelings. With infinite patience he gradually got her to view the matter more calmly and above all not to look upon him as an enemy, but as a friend whose one desire was to throw light upon what certainly seemed an extraordinary mystery.

"Very well, then," she said, after a while, "I'll tell you all I can. I don't know when the picture was shipped from Europe but I do know that a case addressed to Mr. Charles B. Tupper and marked 'valuable picture with great care' was delivered at our house in New York on July eighteenth. I can't mistake the date because Mr. Tupper was already very ill when the case arrived and he died two days later, that is on July twentieth, 1919. That you can ascertain easily enough, can't you?" Lady Polchester added tartly. Then as Purley offered no comment she went on more quietly:

"That's all right, then. Now let me tell you that the case containing this picture was in my house two days before Mr. Tupper died, and that I never had it undone until a couple of months ago, here in this house. I had it shipped from New York, not along with all my things, but by itself; and there is the lawyer over there, Mr. George F. Topham, who can tell you all about the case. I was too upset what with Mr. Tupper's illness and then his death, and the will and the whole bag of tricks to trouble much about it myself, but I told the lawyer that it contained a picture for which Mr. Tupper had paid half a million dollars, and it was put down for probate for that amount; the lawyer took charge of the old thing, and he can swear, and lots of other people over in the States can swear that the case was never undone. And the shipping company can swear that it never was touched whilst it was in their charge. They delivered it here and their men opened the case for us and helped us to place the picture.

"And now," concluded Lady Polchester, not because she had nothing more to say but presumably because she was out of breath, "now perhaps you'll tell me how a picture which was over in New York on the eighteenth of July can have been stolen from France on the twenty-fifth; and if you can't tell me that, then I'll trouble you to clear out of my house, for I've no use for Nosey Parkers about the place."

The unfortunate Purley had certainly, by all accounts, rather a rough time of it with the lady. Nor could he arrive at any satisfactory arrangement with her. Needless to say that she absolutely refused to give up the picture unless she were forced to do so by law, and even then, she dared say, she could make it very unpleasant for some people.

The next event of any importance in this extraordinary case was the action brought by the Duc and Duchesse de Rochechouart here in England against Lady Polchester for illegal detention of their property.

It very soon transpired that several witnesses had come over from the States in order to corroborate tie lady's assertions with regard to her rightful ownership of the picture, and the public was once more on the tiptoe of expectation.

The case came on for hearing in March and lasted only two days. The picture was in court and was identified first by the Duc and Duchesse de Rochechouart and then by two or three experts as the genuine work of Ingres: "La Fiancée" known throughout the entire art world as having been purchased by the Duc's grandfather from the artist himself in 1850, and having been in the family uninterruptedly ever since. The Duc himself had last seen it in his own château at half-past four on the afternoon of July twenty-fifth, 1919.

A well-known peculiarity about the masterpiece was that it had originally been painted on a somewhat larger canvas, and that the artist himself, at the request of the original purchaser, had it cut smaller and re-strained on a smaller stretcher; this alteration was, of course, distinctly visible on the picture. The frame was new; it was admittedly purchased by Lady Polchester recently. When the picture came into her possession it was unframed.

On that lady's behalf on the other hand there was a formidable array of witnesses, foremost amongst these being Mr. Anthony Kleeberger, who was the late Charles B. Tupper's secretary and manager. He was the first to throw some light on the original transaction, whereby "La Fiancée" first came into his employer's possession.

"Mr. Tupper," he explained, "was the inventor of a new process of colour photography which he desired to test and then to advertise all over the world by means of reproduction from some world-famous masterpiece, and when during the spring of 1919 I accompanied him to Europe, one of the objects he had in mind was the purchase of a picture suitable for his purpose. It pretty soon was known all over the art world of the Continent what we were after and that Mr. Tupper was prepared to pay a big price for his choice. You would be surprised if I were to tell you of some of the offers we had in Vienna, in London, even in Rome.

"At last, when we were staying in Paris, Mr. Tupper came to me one day and told me he had at last found the very picture he wanted. He had gone to the studio of a picture restorer who had written to him and offered him a genuine Ingres. He had seen the picture and liked it, and had agreed to give the owner half a million dollars for it. I thought this a terrific price and frankly I was a little doubtful whether my employer had a sufficient knowledge of art to enter into a transaction of this sort. I feared that he might be badly had, and buying some spurious imitation rather than a masterpiece. But Mr. Tupper was always a queer man in business. Once he had made up his mind there was no arguing with him. 'I like the picture,' was all that he ever said to me in response to some timid suggestion on my part that he should seek expert advice, 'and I have agreed to buy it for half a million dollars, simply because the fellow would not part with it for less. I believe it to be genuine. But if it is not I don't care. It will answer my purpose and there it is.'

"He then gave me instructions to see about the packing and forwarding of the picture and this I did. I must say that I had terrible misgivings about the whole affair. I certainly thought the picture magnificent, but of course I am no judge. It had a worthless frame around it which I discarded in order to facilitate the packing. The picture restorer's studio was up a back street in the Montmartre quarter. He and his wife saw to the packing themselves. I never saw anybody else in the place. I arranged for the forwarding of the case, for the insurance and so on, and I myself handed over to the vendor, whose name was given to me as Matthieu Vignard, five hundred thousand-dollar bills in the name and on account of my employer, Mr. Charles B. Tupper. Of course, I presumed that the snuffy old man and his blousey wife were acting for some personage who desired to remain unknown, and as time went on and there was no talk in the art world or in the newspapers then about any great masterpiece being stolen, I soon forgot my misgivings, and a couple of months later I set out on Mr. Tupper's business for Central America where I remained for close on two years.

"Half the time during those years I was up country in Costa Rica, Venezuela and so on where newspapers are scarce, and when the hue and cry was after a picture stolen from the house of the Duc de Rochechouart, I knew nothing about it. But this picture now in court is certainly the one which Mr. Tupper bought in Paris at the end of June, 1919, and which I myself saw packed and nailed down in its case and forwarded to New York where it arrived two days before Mr. Tupper's death."

That was the substance of Mr. Kleeberger's evidence, by far the most important heard on the first day of the action. After that the testimony of other witnesses went to confirm the whole story. There was the well-known New York solicitor, Mr. George F. Topham, who took charge of the picture after the death of his client, Mr. Tupper, and the managing director of the Nebraska Safe Deposit Company where it was stored until Lady Polchester sent for it. There were the managers of the shipping companies who forwarded the picture from Paris to New York in June-July, 1919, and from New York to Holt Manor in the following year, and there were the removal men and servants who saw the picture unpacked and taken into the library at the Manor.

It took two days to go through all that evidence, but it was never either conflicting or doubtful. Yet the one supreme, mysterious contradiction remained, namely, that the picture now in court, the wonderful Ingres masterpiece, was bought by Mr. Tupper in Paris in June, 1919, and then and there shipped over to him to New York, and that, nevertheless, it was stated never to have left the Duc de Rochechouart's possession from the day when his grandfather bought it more than seventy years ago until that memorable twenty-fifth of July, 1919, when it was stolen on the very day it was about to pass into the possession of Mr. Aaron Jacobs. One felt one's head reeling when one thought out this amazing puzzle, and the decision of the learned judge was awaited with palpitating curiosity.

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