"Of course the moment one understands that one set of papers was spurious, it is easily concluded that all the others were forgeries. And the late Sir Alfred Carysfort, anxious only to obliterate every vestige of that early marriage of his, unwittingly played into the hands of those two scoundrels by destroying all the correspondence that he had ever had with Shap.
"Think it all over, you will see that I am right. Look at this paragraph again in theEvening Post, does it not bear out what I say?"
The paragraph in the evening paper to which the Old Man in the Corner was pointing read as follows:
"Among the passengers on the Dutch linerStadt Rotterdamis Mr. Felix Shap, the hero of a recent celebrated case. He is returning to Batavia, having, through a misadventure which has remained an impenetrable mystery to this day, been deprived of all the proofs that would have established his claim to a substantial share of the profits in the Shap Fuelettes Company. Fortunately Mr. Shap had enlisted so many sympathies in England that his friends had no difficulty in collecting a considerable sum of money which was presented to him on his departure in the form of a purse and as a compensation for the ill-luck which has attended him since he set foot in this country. Mr. Shap will now be able to take abroad with him the assurance that British public opinion is always on the side of the victims of an adverse and unmerited fate."
"Yes!" the funny creature concluded with a cackle, "until the victims are found out to be rogues. Mr. Felix Shap and his friend, Mr. Julian Lloyd, will be found out some day."
The next moment he had gone with that rapidity which was so characteristic of him, and I might have thought that he was just a spook who had come to visit me whilst I dozed over my cup of tea, only that on the table by the side of an empty glass was a piece of string adorned with a series of complicated knots.
"Did you ever make up your mind about that Brudenell Court affair?" the Old Man in the Corner said to me that day.
"No," I replied. "As far as I am concerned the death of Colonel Forburg has remained a complete mystery."
"You don't think," he insisted, "that Morley Thrall was guilty?"
"Well," I said, "I don't know what to think."
"Then don't do it," he rejoined, with a chuckle, "if you don't know what to think, then it's best not to think at all. At any rate wait until I have told you exactly what did happen—not as it was reported in the newspapers, but in the sequence in which the various incidents occurred.
"On Christmas Eve, last year, while the family were at dinner, there was a sudden commotion and cries of 'Stop, thief!' issuing from the back premises of Brudenell Court, the country seat of a certain Colonel Forburg. The butler ran in excitedly to say that Julia Mason, one of the maids, was drawing down the blinds in one of the first-floor rooms, when she saw a man fiddling with the shutters of the French window in the smoking-room downstairs. She at once gave the alarm, whereupon the man bolted across the garden in the direction of the five-acre field. The Colonel and his stepson, as well as two male guests who were dining with them, immediately jumped up and hurried out to help in the chase. It was a very dark night, people were running to and fro, and for a few moments there was a great deal of noise and confusion, through which two pistol-shots in close succession were distinctly heard.
"The ladies—amongst whom was Miss Monica Glenluce, the Colonel's stepdaughter—had remained in the dining-room, and the dinner was kept waiting, pending the return of the gentlemen. They straggled in one by one, all except the Colonel. The ladies eagerly asked for news; the gentlemen could not say much—the night was very dark and they had just waited about outside until some of the indoor men who had given chase came back with the news that the thief had been caught.
"This news was confirmed by young Glenluce, Miss Monica's brother, who was the last to return. He had actually witnessed the capture. The thief had bolted straight across the five-acre meadow, but doubled back before he reached the stables, turned sharply to the right through the kitchen garden, and then jumped over the boundary wall of the grounds into the lane beyond, where he fell straight into the arms of the local constable who happened to be passing by.
"Young Glenluce had great fun out of the chase; he had guessed the man's purpose, and instead of running after him across the meadow, he had gone round it, and had reached the boundary wall only a few seconds after the thief had scaled it. There was some talk about the gunshots that had been heard, and every one supposed that Colonel Forburg, who was a violent-tempered man, had snatched up a revolver before giving chase to the burglar, and had taken a potshot at him; it was fortunate that he had missed him.
"The incident would then have been closed and the interrupted dinner proceeded with, but for the fact that the host had not yet returned. Nothing was thought of this at first, for it was generally supposed that the Colonel had been kept talking by one of his men, or perhaps by the constable who had effected the capture; it was only when close on half an hour had gone by that Miss Monica became impatient. She got the butler to telephone both to the stables and the lodge, but the Colonel had not been seen at either place, either during or after the incident with the burglar; communication with the police station brought the same result; nothing had been seen or heard of the Colonel.
"Genuinely alarmed now, Miss Monica gave orders for the grounds to be searched; it was just possible that the Colonel had fallen whilst running, and was lying somewhere, helpless in the dark, perhaps unconscious.... Every one began recalling those pistol-shots and a vague sense of tragedy spread over the entire house. Monica blamed herself for not having thought of all this before.
"A search party went out at once; for a while stable-lanterns and electric-torches gleamed through the darkness and past the shrubberies. Then suddenly there were calls for help, the wandering lights centred in one spot, somewhere in the middle of the five-acre meadow near the big elm tree. Obviously there had been an accident. Monica ran to the front door, followed by all the guests. Through the darkness a group of men were seen slowly wending their way towards the house; one man was running ahead, it was the chauffeur. Young Glenluce, half guessing that something sinister had occurred, went forward to meet him.
"What had happened was indeed as tragic as it was mysterious; the search party had found the Colonel lying full-length in the meadow. His clothes were saturated with blood; he had been shot in the breast and was apparently dead. Close by a revolver had been picked up. It was impossible to keep the terrible news from Miss Monica. Her brother broke the news to her. She bore up with marvellous calm, and it was she who at once gave the necessary orders to have her stepfather's body taken upstairs and to fetch both the doctor and the police.
"In the meanwhile the guests had gone back into the house. They stood about in groups, awestruck and whispering. They did not care to finish their dinner, or to go up to their rooms, as in all probability they would be required when the police came to make enquiries. Monica and Gerald Glenluce had gone to sit in the smoking-room.
"It was the most horrible Christmas Eve any one in that house had ever experienced."
"Murder committed from any other motive than that of robbery," the Old Man in the Corner went on after a moment's pause, "always excites the interest of the public. There is nearly always an element of mystery about it, and it invariably suggests possibilities of romance. In this case, of course, there was no question of robbery. After Colonel Forburg fell, shot, as it transpired, at close range and full in the breast, his clothes were left untouched; there was loose silver in his trousers pocket, a few treasury notes in his letter-case, and he was wearing a gold watch and chain and a fine pearl stud.
"The motive of the crime was therefore enmity or revenge, and here the police were at once confronted with a great difficulty. Not, mind you, the difficulty of finding a man who hated the Colonel sufficiently to kill him, but that of choosing among his many enemies one who was most likely to have committed such a terrible crime. He was the best-hated man in the county. Known as 'Remount Forburg,' he was generally supposed to have made his fortune in some shady transactions connected with the Remount Department of the War Office during the Boer War, more than twenty years ago.
"His first wife was said to have died of a broken heart, and he had no children of his own; some ten years ago he had married a widow with two young children. She had a considerable fortune of her own, and when she died she left it in trust for her children, but she directed that her husband should be the sole guardian of Monica and Gerald until they came of age; moreover, she left him the interest of the whole of the capital amount for so long as they were in his house and unmarried. After his death the money would revert unconditionally to them.
"Of course it was a foolish, one might say a criminal will, and one obviously made under the influence of her husband. One can only suppose that the poor woman had died without knowing anything of 'Remount Forburg's' character. Since her death his violent temper and insufferable arrogance had alienated from the children every friend they ever had. Only some chance acquaintances ever came anywhere near Brudenell Court now. Naturally every one said that the Colonel's behaviour was part of a scheme for keeping suitors away from his stepdaughter Monica, who was a very beautiful girl; as for Gerald Glenluce, Monica's younger brother, he had been sadly disfigured when he was a schoolboy through a fall against a sharp object that had broken his nose and somewhat mysteriously deprived him of the sight of one eye.
"Those who had suffered most from Colonel Forburg's violent tempers declared that the boy's face had been smashed in by a blow from a stick, and that the stick had been wielded by his stepfather. Be that as it may, Gerald Glenluce had remained, in consequence of this disfigurement, a shy, retiring, silent boy, who neither played games nor rode to hounds and had no idea how to handle a gun; but he was essentially the Colonel's favourite. Where Forburg was harsh and dictatorial with every one else, he would always unbend to Gerald, and was almost gentle and affectionate toward him. Perhaps an occasional twinge of remorse had something to do with this soft side of his disagreeable character.
"Certainly that softness did not extend to Monica. He made the girl's life almost unbearable with his violence which amounted almost to brutality. The girl hated him and openly said so. Her one desire was to get away from Brudenell Court by any possible means. But owing to her mother's foolish will she had no money of her own, and the few friends she had were not sufficiently rich, or sufficiently disinterested, to give her a home away from her stepfather, nor would the Colonel, for a matter of that, have given his consent to her living away from him.
"As for marriage, it was a difficult question. Young men fought shy of any family connection with 'Remount Forburg.' The latter's nickname was bad enough, but there were rumours of secrets more unavowable still in the past history of the Colonel. Certain it is that though Monica excited admiration wherever she went, and though one or two of her admirers did go to the length of openly courting her, the courtship never matured into an actual engagement. Something or other always occurred to cool off the ardour of the wooers. Suddenly they would either go on a big-game shooting expedition, or on a tour round the world, or merely find that country air did not suit them. There would perhaps be a scene of fond farewell, but Monica would always understand that the farewell was a definite one, and, as she was an intelligent as well as a fascinating girl, she put two and two together, and observed that these farewell scenes were invariably preceded by a long interview behind closed doors between her stepfather and her admirer of the moment.
"Small wonder then that she hated the Colonel. She hated him as much as she loved her brother. A great affection had, especially of late, developed between these two; it was a love born of an affinity of trouble and sense of injustice. On Gerald's part there was also an element of protection towards his beautiful sister; the fact that he was so avowedly the spoilt son of his irascible stepfather enabled him many a time to stand between Monica and the Colonel's unbridled temper.
"Latterly, however, some brightness and romance had been introduced into the drab existence of Monica Glenluce by the discreet courtship of her latest admirer, Mr. Morley Thrall. Mr. Thrall was a wealthy man, not too young and of independent position, who presumably did not care whether county society would cut him or no in consequence of his marriage with the stepdaughter of 'Remount Forburg.'
"Subsequent events showed that he had observed the greatest discretion while he was courting Monica. No one knew that there was an understanding between him and the girl, least of all the Colonel. Mr. Morley Thrall came, not too frequently, to Brudenell Court; while there he appeared to devote most of his attention to his host and to Gerald, and to take little if any notice of Monica. She had probably given him a hint of rocks ahead, and he had succeeded in avoiding the momentous interview with the Colonel which Monica had learned to look on with dread.
"Mr. Morley Thrall had been asked to stay at Brudenell Court for Christmas, the other guests being a Major Rawstone, with his wife and daughter, Rachel. They were all at dinner on that memorable Christmas Eve when the tragedy occurred, and all the men hurried out of the dining-room in the wake of their host when first the burglary alarm was given.
"Thus did matters stand at Brudenell Court when, directly after the holidays, Jim Peyton, a groom recently in the employ of Colonel Forburg, was brought before the magistrates charged with the murder of his former master. There was a pretty stiff case against him too. It seems that he had lately been dismissed by Colonel Forburg for drunkenness, and that before dismissing him the Colonel had given him a thrashing which apparently was well deserved, because while he was drunk he very nearly set fire to the stables, and an awful disaster was only averted by the timely arrival of the Colonel himself upon the scene.
"Be that as it may, the man went away swearing vengeance. Subsequently he took out a summons for assault against Colonel Forburg and only got one shilling damages. This had occurred a week before Christmas. There were several witnesses there who could swear to the threatening language used by Peyton on more than one occasion since then, and of course he had been caught in the very act of trying to break into the house through the French window of the smoking-room.
"On the other hand, the revolver with which 'Remount Forburg' had been shot, and which was found close to the body with two empty chambers, was identified as the Colonel's own property, one which he always kept, loaded, in a drawer of his desk in the smoking-room. And—this is the interesting point—the shutters of the smoking-room were found by the police inspector, who examined them subsequently, to be bolted on the inside, just as they had been left earlier in the evening by the footman whose business it was to see to the fastening of windows and shutters on the ground floor.
"This fact—the shutters being bolted on the inside—was confirmed by Miss Monica Glenluce, who had been the first to go into the smoking-room after the tragic event. Her brother joined her subsequently. Both of these witnesses said that the room looked absolutely undisturbed, the shutters were bolted, the drawer of the desk was closed: they had remained in the room until after the visit of the police inspector.
"After the positive evidence of these two witnesses, the police prosecution had of necessity to fall back on the far-fetched theory that Colonel Forburg himself, before he hurried out in order to join in the chase against the burglar, had run into the smoking-room and picked up his revolver, and that, having overtaken Peyton, he had threatened him; that Peyton had then jumped on him, wrenched the weapon out of his hand and shot him. It was a far-fetched theory certainly, and one which the defence quickly upset. Gerald Glenluce for one was distinctly under the impression that the Colonel ran from the dining-room straight out into the garden, and the young footman who was watching the fun from the front door, and saw the Colonel run out, was equally sure that he had not a revolver in his hand.
"Peyton got six months hard for attempted house-breaking, there really was no evidence against him to justify the more serious charge; but when the charge of murder was withdrawn, it left the mystery of 'Remount Forburg's' tragic end seemingly more impenetrable than before. Nevertheless the coroner and jury laboured conscientiously at the inquest. No stone was to be left unturned to bring the murder of 'Remount Forburg' to justice, and in this laudable effort the coroner had the able and unqualified assistance of Miss Glenluce. However bitter her feelings may have been in the past towards her stepfather while he lived, she seemed determined that his murderer should not go unpunished. Nay more, there appeared to be in all her actions during this terrible time a strange note of vindictiveness and animosity, as if the unknown man who had rid her of an arrogant and brutal tyrant had really done her a lasting injury.
"It was entirely through her energy and exertions that certain witnesses were induced to come forward and give what turned out to be highly sensational evidence. The police who were convinced that James Peyton was guilty had turned all their investigations in the direction of proving their theories; Miss Monica, on the other hand, had seemingly made up her mind that the murderer was to be sought for inside the house; it even appeared as if she had certain suspicions which she only desired to confirm. To this end she had questioned and cross-questioned every one who was in the house on that fatal night, well knowing how reluctant some people are to be mixed up in any way with police proceedings. But at last she had forced two persons to speak, and it was on the first day of the inquest that at last a glimmer of light was thrown upon the mysterious tragedy.
"After the medical evidence which went to establish beyond a doubt that Colonel Forburg died from a gunshot wound inflicted at close range, both balls having penetrated the heart, Miss Glenluce was called. Replying to the coroner, who had put certain questions to her with regard to the Colonel's state of mind just before the tragedy, she said that he appeared to have a premonition that something untoward was about to happen. When the butler ran into the dining-room saying that a burglar had been seen trying to break into the house, the Colonel had jumped up from the table at once.
"'I did the same,' Miss Monica went on, 'as I was genuinely alarmed; but my stepfather, in his peremptory way, ordered me to sit still. "I believe," he said to me, with a funny laugh, "that it's a put-up job. It's some friend of Thrall's giving him a hand." I could not, of course, understand what he meant by that, and I looked at Mr. Thrall for an explanation. I must add that Mr. Thrall had been extraordinarily moody all through dinner; he appeared flushed, and I noticed particularly that he never spoke either to my step-father, to my brother, or to me. However at the moment I failed to catch his eye, and the very next second he was out of the room, on the heels of Colonel Forburg.'
"This was remarkable evidence to say the least of it, but nevertheless it was confirmed by two witnesses who heard the Colonel make that strange remark: one was Rachel Rawstone, the young friend who was dining at Brudenell Court that Christmas Eve, and the other was Gerald Glenluce. Of course, by this time the public was getting very excited: they were like so many hounds heading for a scent, and the jury was beginning to show signs of that obstinate prejudice which culminated in a ridiculous verdict. But there was more to come. Thanks again to Miss Monica's insistence, the footman at Brudenell Court, a lad named Cambalt, had been induced to come forward with a story which he had evidently intended to keep hidden within his bosom, if possible. He gave his evidence with obvious reluctance and in a scarcely audible voice. It was generally noticed, however, that Miss Monica urged him frequently to speak up.
"Cambalt deposed that just before dinner on Christmas Eve, he had gone in to tidy the smoking-room before the gentlemen came down from dressing. As he opened the door he saw Mr. Morley Thrall standing in the middle of the room facing Colonel Forburg who was seated at his desk. Young Mr. Glenluce was standing near the mantelpiece with one foot on the fender, staring into the fire. Mr. Thrall, according to witness, was livid with rage.
"''E took a step forward like,' Cambalt went on, amidst breathless silence on the part of the public and jury alike, 'and 'e raised 'is fist. But the Colonel 'e just laughed, then 'e opened the drawer of the desk and took out a revolver and showed it to Mr. Thrall and says: "'Ere y'are, there's a revolver 'andy, any way." Then Mr. Thrall 'e swore like anything, and says: "You blackguard! You d—— scoundrel! You ought to be shot like the cur you are." I thought he would strike the Colonel, but young Mr. Glenluce 'e just stepped quickly in between the two gentlemen and 'e says: "Look 'ere, Thrall, I won't put up with this! You jess get out!" Then one of the gentlemen seed me, and Mr. Thrall 'e walked out of the room.'
"'And what happened after he had gone?' the coroner asked.
"'Oh!' the witness replied, 'the Colonel 'e threw the revolver back into the drawer and laughed sarcastic like. Then 'e 'eld out 'is 'and to Mr. Gerald, and says: "Thanks, my boy. You did 'elp me to get rid of that ruffian." After that,' Cambalt concluded, 'I got on with my work, and the gentlemen took no notice of me.'
"This witness was very much pressed with questions as to what happened later on when the burglary alarm was given and the gentlemen all hurried out of the house. Cambalt was in the hall at the time and he made straight for the front door to see some of the fun. He said that the Colonel was out first, and the other three gentlemen, Mr. Gerald, Mr. Rawstone and Mr. Morley Thrall went out after him; Mr. Thrall was the last to go outside; he ran across the garden in the direction of the five-acre field. Major Rawstone remained somewhere near the house, but it was a very dark night, and he, Cambalt, soon lost sight of the gentlemen. Presently, however, Mr. Thrall came back toward the house. It was a few minutes after the shots had been fired and witness heard Mr. Thrall say to Major Rawstone: 'I suppose it's that fool Forburg potting away at the burglar; hell get himself into trouble, if he doesn't look out.' Soon after that Mr. Gerald came running back with the news that the burglar had fallen into the arms of a passing constable and Cambalt then returned to his duties in the dining-room.
"As you see," the Old Man in the Corner went on glibly, "this witness's evidence was certainly sensational. The jury, which was composed of farm labourers, with the local butcher as foreman, had by now fully made up its silly mind that Mr. Morley Thrall had taken the opportunity of sneaking into the smoking-room, snatching up the revolver, and shooting 'Remount Forburg,' whom he hated because the Colonel was opposing his marriage with Miss Monica. It was all as clear as daylight to those dunderheads, and from that moment they simply would not listen to any more evidence. They had made up their minds; they were ready with their verdict and it was: Manslaughter against Morley Thrall. Not murder, you see! The dolts who had all of them suffered from 'Remount Forburg's' arrogance and violent temper would not admit that killing such vermin was a capital crime.
"What I am telling you would be unbelievable if it were not a positive fact. It is no use quoting British justice and dilating on the absolute fairness of trial by jury. A coroner's inquest fortunately is not a trial. The verdict of a coroner's jury, such as the one which sat on the Brudenell Court affair, though it may have very unpleasant consequences for an innocent person, cannot have fatal results. In this case it cast a stigma on a gentleman of high position and repute, and the following day Mr. Morley Thrall, himself J.P., was brought up before his brother magistrates on an ignominious charge.
"It is not often," the Old Man in the Corner resumed after a while, "that so serious a charge is preferred against a gentleman of Mr. Morley Thrall's social position, and I am afraid that the best of us are snobbish enough to be more interested in a gentleman criminal than in an ordinary Bill Sykes.
"I happened to be present at that magisterial enquiry when Mr. Morley Thrall, J.P., was brought in between two warders, looking quite calm and self-possessed. Every one of us there noticed that when he first came in, and in fact throughout that trying enquiry, his eyes sought to meet those of Miss Glenluce who sat at the solicitor's table; but whenever she chanced to look his way, she quickly averted her gaze again, and turned her head away with a contemptuous shrug. Gerald Glenluce, on the other hand, made pathetic efforts at showing sympathy with the accused, but he was of such unprepossessing appearance and was so shy and awkward that it was small wonder Morley Thrall took little if any notice of him.
"Very soon we got going. I must tell you, first of all, that the whole point of the evidence rested upon a question of time. If the accused took the revolver out of the desk in the smoking-room, when did he do it? The footman, Cambalt, reiterated the statement which he had made at the inquest. He was, of course, pressed to say definitely whether after the quarrel between Mr. Morley Thrall and the Colonel which he had witnessed, and before every one went in to dinner, Mr. Thrall might have gone back to the smoking-room and extracted the revolver from the drawer of the desk; but Cambalt said positively that he did not think this was possible. He himself, after he had tidied the smoking-room, had been in and out of the hall preparing to serve dinner. The door of the smoking-room gave on the hall, between the dining-room and the passage leading to the kitchens. If any one had gone in or out of the smoking-room at that time, Cambalt must have seen them.
"At this point Miss Glenluce was seen to lean forward and to say something in a whisper to the Clerk of the Justices, who in his turn whispered to the chairman on the Bench, and a moment or two later that gentleman asked the witness:
"'Are you absolutely prepared to swear that no one went in or out of the smoking-room while you were making ready to serve dinner?7
"Then, as the young man seemed to hesitate, the magistrate added more emphatically:
"Think now! You were busy with your usual avocations; there would have been nothing extraordinary in one of the gentlemen going in or out of the smoking-room at that hour. Do you really believe and are you prepared to swear that such a very ordinary incident would have impressed itself indelibly upon your mind?'
"Thus pressed and admonished, Cambalt retrenched himself behind a vague: 'No, sir! I shouldn't like to swear one way or the other.'
"Whereat Miss Monica threw a defiant look at the accused, who, however, did not as much as wink an eyelid in response.
"Presently when that lady herself was called, no one could fail to notice that she, like the coroner's jury the previous day, had absolutely made up her mind that Morley Thrall was guilty, otherwise her attitude of open hostility toward him would have been quite inexplicable. She dwelt at full length on the fact that Mr. Thrall had paid her marked attention for months, and that he had asked her to marry him. She had given him her consent, and between them they had decided to keep their engagement a secret until after she, Monica, had attained her twenty-first birthday, when she would be free to marry whom she chose.
"'Unfortunately,' the witness went on, suddenly assuming a dry, pursed-up manner, 'Colonel Forburg got wind of this. He was always very much set against my marrying at all, and between tea and dinner on Christmas Eve he and I had some very sharp words together on the subject, at the end of which my stepfather said very determinedly: "Christmas or no Christmas, the fellow shall leave my house by the first available train to-morrow, and to-night I am going to give him a piece of my mind."'
"Just for a moment after Miss Glenluce had finished speaking, the accused seemed to depart from his attitude of dignity and reserve, and an indignant 'Oh!' quickly repressed, escaped his lips. The public by this time was dead against him. They are just like sheep, as you know, and the verdict of the coroner's jury had prejudiced them from the start, and the police, aided by Miss Glenluce, had certainly built up a formidable case against the unfortunate man. Every one felt that the motive for the crime was fully established already. 'Remount Forburg' had had a violent quarrel with Morley Thrall, then had turned him out of the house, and the latter, furious at being separated from the girl he loved, had killed the man who stood in his way.
"I should be talking until to-morrow morning were I to give you in detail all the evidence that was adduced in support of the prosecution. The accused listened to it all with perfect calm. He stood with arms folded, his eyes fixed on nothing. The 'Oh!' of indignation did not again cross his lips, nor did he look once at Miss Monica Glenluce. I can assure you that at one moment that day things were looking very black against him.
"Fortunately for him, however, he had a very clever lawyer to defend him in the person of his distinguished cousin, Sir Evelyn Thrall. The latter, by amazingly clever cross-examination of the servants and guests at Brudenell Court, had succeeded in establishing the fact that at no time, from the moment that the burglary alarm was given until after the two revolver shots had been heard, was the accused completely out of sight of some one or other of the witnesses. He was the last to leave the dining-room. Mrs. Rawstone and her daughter testified to that. He had stayed behind one moment after the other three gentlemen had gone out in order to say a few words to Monica Glenluce. Miss Rawstone was standing inside the dining-room door and she was quite positive that Mr. Thrall went straight out into the garden.
"On the other hand Major Rawstone saw him in the forecourt coming away from the five-acre meadow only a very few moments after the shots were fired, and gave it absolutely as his opinion that it would have been impossible for the accused to have fired those shots. This is where the question of time came in.
"'When a man who bears a spotless reputation,' Major Rawstone argued, 'finds that he has killed a fellow creature, he would necessarily pause a moment, horror-struck with what he has done; whether the deed was premeditated or involuntary he would at least try and ascertain if life was really extinct. It is inconceivable that any man save an habitual and therefore callous criminal, would just throw down his weapon and with absolute calm, hands in pocket and without a tremor in his voice, make a casual remark to a friend. Now I saw Mr. Morley Thrall perhaps two minutes after the shots were fired; in that time he could not have walked from the centre of the field to the forecourt where I was standing; and he had not been running as his voice was absolutely clear and he came walking towards me with his hands in his pockets.'
"As was only to be expected, Sir Evelyn Thrall made the most of Major Rawstone's evidence, and I may say that it was chiefly on the strength of it that the charge of murder against the accused was withdrawn, even though the Clerk to the Magistrates, perpetually egged on by Miss Glenluce, did his best to upset Major Rawstone. When the lady found that this could not be done, she tried to switch back to the idea that accused had abstracted the revolver out of the smoking-room before dinner and immediately after his quarrel with Colonel Forburg. The footman Cambalt's evidence on this point had been somewhat discounted by his refusing to state positively that no one could have gone into the smoking-room at that time without his seeing them. But against this theory there was always the argument—of which Sir Evelyn Thrall made the most as you know—that before dinner the accused could not have known that there would be an alarm of burglary which would give him the opportunity of waylaying the Colonel in the open field. With equal skill, too, Sir Evelyn brought forward evidence to bear out the statement made by the accused on the matter of his quarrel with Colonel Forburg.
"'Just before dinner,' Mr. Thrall stated, 'Colonel Forburg told me he had something to say to me in private. I followed him into the smoking-room, and there he gave me certain information with regard to his past life, and also with regard to Miss Glenluce's parentage, which made it absolutely impossible for me, in spite of the deep regard which I have for that lady, to offer her marriage. Miss Glenluce is the innocent victim of tragic circumstances in the past, and Forburg was just an unmitigated blackguard, and I told him so, but I had my family to consider and very reluctantly I came to the conclusion that I could not introduce any relation of Colonel Forburg into its circle. Colonel Forburg did not stand in the way of my marrying his stepdaughter; it was I who most reluctantly withdrew.'
"Whilst the accused was cross-examined upon this statement, and he gave his answers in firm, dignified tones, Miss Monica never took her eyes off him, and surely if looks could kill, Mr. Morley Thrall would not at that moment have escaped with his life, so full of deadly hatred and contempt was her gaze. The accused had signed a much fuller statement than the one which he made in open court; it contained a detailed account of his interview with Colonel Forburg, and of the circumstances which finally induced him to give up all thoughts of asking Miss Glenluce to be his wife.
"These facts were not made public at the time for the sake of Miss Monica and of the unfortunate, Gerald, but it seems that the transactions which had earned for the Colonel the sobriquet of 'Remount Forburg' were so disreputable and so dishonest that not only was he cashiered from the army, but he served a term of imprisonment for treason, fraud, and embezzlement. He had no right to be styled Colonel any longer, and quite recently had been threatened with prosecution if he persisted in making further use of his army rank.
"But this was not all the trouble. It seems that in his career of improbity he had been associated with a man named Nosdel, a man of Dutch extraction whom he had known in South Africa. This man was subsequently hanged for a particularly brutal murder, and it was his widow who was 'Remount Forburg's' second wife, and the mother of Monica and of Gerald, who had been given the fancy name of Glenluce.
"Obviously a man in Mr. Morley Thrall's position could not marry into such a family, and it appears that whenever there was a question of a suitor for Monica, 'Remount Forburg' would tell the aspirant the whole story of his own shady past and, above all, that of Monica's father. Sir Evelyn Thrall had been clever enough to discover one or two gentlemen who had had the same experience as his cousin Morley; they, too, just before their courtship came to a head had had a momentous interview with 'Remount Forburg,' who found this means of choking off any further desire for matrimony on the part of a man who had family connections to consider. But it was very obvious that Mr. Morley Thrall had no motive for killing 'Remount Forburg'; he would have left Brudenell Court that very evening, he said, only that young Glenluce had begged him, for Monica's sake, not to make a scene; anyway, he was leaving the house the next day and had no intention of ever darkening its doors again.
"Poor Monica Glenluce or Nosdel, ignorant of the hideous cloud that hung over her entire life, ignorant, too, of what had passed between her stepfather and Mr. Morley Thrall, felt nothing but hatred and contempt for the man whose love, she believed, had proved as unstable as that of any of her other admirers. For charity's sake one must suppose that she really thought him guilty at first, and hoped that when the clouds had rolled by he would return to her more ardent than before. Presumably he found means to make her understand that all was irrevocably at an end between them as far as he was concerned, whereupon her regard for him turned to bitterness and desire for revenge.
"And, indeed, but for the cleverness of a distinguished lawyer, poor Morley Thrall might have found himself the victim of a judicial error brought about by the deliberate enmity of a woman. Had he been committed for trial, she would have had more time at her disposal to manufacture evidence against him, which I am convinced she had a mind to do."
"As it is," I now put in tentatively, for the Old Man in the Corner had been silent for some little while, "the withdrawal of the charge of murder against Morley Thrall did not help to clear up the mystery of 'Remount Forburg's' tragic death."
"Not so far as the public is concerned," he retorted dryly.
"You have a theory?" I asked.
"Not a theory," he replied. "I know who killed 'Remount Forburg.'"
"How do you know?" I riposted.
"By logic and inference," he said. "As it was proved that Morley Thrall did not kill him, and that Miss Monica could not have done it, as the ladies did not join in the chase after the burglar, I looked about me for the only other person in whose interest it was to put that blackguard out of the way."
"You mean——?"
"I mean the boy Gerald, of course. Openly and before the other witness, Cambalt, he stood up for his stepfather against Thrall who was not measuring his words, but just think how the knowledge which he had gained about his own parentage and that of his sister must have rankled in his mind. He must have come to the conclusion that while this man—his stepfather—lived, there would be no chance for him to make friends, no chance for the sister whom he loved ever to have a home, a life of her own. Whether that interview on Christmas Eve was the first inkling which he had of the real past history of his own and Forburg's family, it is impossible to say. Probably he had suspicions of it before, when, one by one, Monica's suitors fell away after certain private interviews with the Colonel. Morley Thrall must have been a last hope, and that, too, was dashed to the ground by the same infamous means.
"I am not prepared to say that the boy got hold of the revolver that night with the deliberate intention of killing his stepfather at the earliest opportunity; he may have run into the smoking-room to snatch up the weapon, only with a view to using it against the burglar; certain it is that he overtook 'Remount Forburg' in the five-acre field and that he shot him then and there. Remember that the night was very dark, and that there was a great deal of running about and of confusion. The boy was young enough and nimble enough after he had thrown down the revolver to run across the field and then to go back to the house by a roundabout way. It is easy enough in a case like that to cover one's tracks, and, of course, no one suspected anything at the time. Even the sound of firing created but little astonishment; it was so very much on the cards that the Colonel would use a revolver without the slightest hesitation against a man who had been trying to break into his house. It was just the sort of revenge that a man of Gerald's temperament—disfigured, shy, silent and self-absorbed—would seek against one whom he considered the fount of all his wrongs."
"But," I objected, "how could young Glenluce run into the smoking-room, pick up the revolver out of a drawer, and run back through the hall with servants and guests standing about? Some one would be sure to see him."
"No one saw him," the funny creature retorted, "for he did it at the moment of the greatest confusion. The butler had run in with the news of the burglary, the Colonel jumped up and ran out through the hall, the guests had not yet made up their minds what to do. In moments like this there are always just a few seconds of pandemonium, quite sufficient for a boy like Gerald to make a dash for the smoking-room."
"But after that——"
"He took the revolver out of the drawer and ran out through the French window."
"But the shutters were found to be bolted on the inside," I argued, "when they were examined by the police inspector."
"So they were," he admitted. "Miss Monica had already been in there with young Gerald. They had seen to the shutters."
"Then you think that Monica knew?"
"Of course she did."
"Then her desire to prove Morley Thrall guilty——"
"Was partly hatred of him, and partly the desire to shield her brother," the funny creature concluded as he collected traps, his bit of string and his huge umbrella. "Think it over; you will see that I am right. I am sorry for those two, aren't you? But they are selling Brudenell Court, I understand, and their mother's fortune has become theirs absolutely. They will go abroad together, make a home for themselves, and one day, perhaps, everything will be forgotten, and a new era of happiness will arise for the innocent, now that the guilty has been so signally punished. But it was an interesting case. Don't you agree with me?"
"I suppose that is a form of snobbishness," the Old Man in the Corner began abruptly.
I gave such a jump that I nearly upset the contents of a cup of boiling tea which I was conveying to my mouth. As it was, I scalded my tongue and nearly choked.
"What is?" I queried with a frown, for I was really vexed with the creature. I had no idea he was there at all. But he only smiled and concluded his speech, quite unperturbed.
"... that creates additional interest in a crime when it concerns people of wealth or rank."
"Snobbishness," I rejoined, "of course it's snobbishness! And when the little suburban madam has finished reading about Lady Stickinthemud's reception at Claridge's she likes to turn to Lord Tomnoodle's prospective sojourn in gaol."
"You were thinking of the disappearance of the Australian millionaire?" he asked blandly.
"I don't know that I was," I retorted.
"But of course you were. How could any journalist worthy of the name fail to be interested in that intricate case?"
"I suppose you have your theory—as usual?"
"It is not a theory," the creature replied, with that fatuous smile of his which always irritated me; "it is a certainty."
Then, as he became silent, absorbed in the contemplation of a wonderfully complicated knot in his beloved bit of string, I said with gracious condescension:
"You may talk about it, if you like."
He did like, fortunately for me, because, frankly, I could not see daylight in that maze of intrigue, adventure and possibly crime, which was described by the Press as "The Mystery of the White Carnation."
"The events were interesting from the outset," he began after a while, whilst I settled down to listen, "and so were various actors in the society drama. Chief amongst these was, of course, Captain Shillington, an Australian ex-officer, commonly reputed to be a millionaire, who, with his mother and sister, rented Mexfield House in Somerset Street, Mayfair, the summer before last. It appears that Lord Mexfield's younger son, the Honorable Henry Buckley, who was an incorrigible rake and whom his father had sent on a tour round the world in order to keep him temporarily out of mischief, not to say out of gaol, had met a married brother of Captain Shillington's out in the Antipodes, they had been very kind to him, and so on, with the result that when came the following London season the family turned up in England, and, after spending a couple of days at the Savoy, they moved into the Mexfields' house in Somerset Street.
"Lord and Lady Mexfield were abroad that year, and Henry Buckley and his sister Angela were living with an aunt who had a small house somewhere in Mayfair.
"Although the Shillingtons were reputed to be very wealthy, they appeared to be very quiet, simple folk, and it certainly seemed rather strange that they should have gone to the expense of a house in town, when obviously they had no social ambitions and did not mean to entertain. As a matter of fact, as far as Mrs. Shillington and her daughter were concerned, nobody could have lived a quieter, more retiring life than they did. Mrs. Shillington was an invalid and hardly ever went outside her front door, and the girl Marion seemed to be suffering from a perpetual cold in the head. They seemed to be in a chronic state of servant trouble. Mrs. Shillington was dreadfully irritable, and one set of servants after another were engaged only to leave without notice after a few days. The one faithful servant who remained was a snuffy old man who came to them about a month after they moved into Mexfield House. He and a charwoman did all the work of cooking and valeting and so on. Presumably the old man could not have got a situation elsewhere as his appearance was very unprepossessing, and therefore he was willing to put up with what the servants' registry offices would term 'a very uncomfortable situation.'
"Captain Shillington, the hero of the tragic adventure, on the other hand, went about quite a good deal. He was certainly voted to be rather strait-laced, not to say priggish, but he was very good-looking and a fine dancer. Henry Buckley introduced him to some of his smart friends and Lady Angela constituted him her dancing partner. The partnership soon developed into warmer friendship and presently it was given out that Lady Angela Buckley, only daughter of the Earl and Countess of Mexfield, was engaged to Captain Denver Shillington, the Australian millionaire. Lady Angela confided to her friends that her fiancé was the owner of immense estates in Western Australia, on a portion of which rich deposits of gold had lately been discovered. He certainly had plenty of money to spend, and on one occasion he actually paid Henry Buckley's gambling debts to the tune of two or three hundred pounds.
"On the whole, society pronounced the match a suitable one. Lady Angela Buckley was no longer in her first youth, whilst her brother, to whom she was really devoted, would be all the better for a somewhat puritanical, strait-laced and, above all, wealthy brother-in-law."
"That, then, was the position," the Old Man in the Corner continued after a while, "and the date of Lady Angela Buckley's marriage to Captain Denver Shillington had been actually fixed when the public was startled one afternoon towards the end of the summer by the sensational news in all the evening papers: 'Mysterious disappearance of a millionaire.' This highly coloured description applied, as it turned out, to Captain Shillington, the fiancé of Lady Angela Buckley. It seems that during the course of that same morning a young lady, apparently in deep distress and suffering from a streaming cold in the head, had called at Scotland Yard. She gave her name and address as Marion Shillington, of Mexfield House, Somerset Street, Mayfair, and stated that she and her mother were in the greatest possible anxiety owing to the disappearance of her brother, Captain Denver Shillington. They had last seen him on the previous Friday evening at about nine o'clock when he left home in order to pick up his fiancée, Lady Angela Buckley, whom he was escorting that night to a reception in Grosvenor Square. He was wearing full evening dress and a soft hat. Miss Shillington couldn't say whether he had any money in his pockets. She thought that probably he was carrying a gold cigarette case, which Lady Angela had given him, but, as a matter of fact, he never wore any jewellery.
"No one in the house had heard him come in again that night, and his bed had not been slept in. Questioned by the police, Miss Shillington explained that neither she nor her mother felt any alarm at first because there had been some talk of Captain Shillington going away with his fiancée to stay with friends over the week-end, somewhere near Newmarket. It was only this morning, Wednesday, that Mrs. Shillington first began to worry when there was still no sign or letter from him. 'My brother is a very good son,' Miss Shillington continued, explaining to the police, 'and always very considerate to mother. It was so unlike him to leave us without news all this while and not let us know when to expect him home. So I rang up Lady Angela Buckley, who is his fiancée, to see if I could get news through her, as I could see mother was beginning to get anxious. Mr. Henry Buckley, Lady Angela's brother, answered the 'phone. I asked after his sister and he told me that she was staying on in the country a day or two longer. He himself had come back to town the previous night. I then asked him, quite casually, if he knew whether Denver—that's my brother—would be returning with Angela. And his answer to me was, "Denver? Why, I haven't seen him since Friday. And I can tell you that he is in for a row with Angela. She was furious with him that he never wrote once to her while she was away." I was so upset that I hung up the receiver and just sat there wondering what to do next. But Mr. Buckley rang up a moment or two later and asked quite cheerily if there was anything wrong. "Good old Square-toes!" he said, meaning my brother, whom he always used to chaff by calling him "Square-toes," "don't tell me he has gone off on the spree without letting you know. I say, that's too bad of him, though. But I shouldn't be anxious if I were you. Boys, you know, Miss Shillington, will be boys, and I like old Square-toes all the better for it."'
"Miss Shillington," the Old Man in the Corner went on, "was as usual suffering from a streaming cold, and between spluttering and crying, she had reduced two or three handkerchiefs to wet balls. At best she was no beauty, and with a red nose and streaming eyes she presented a most pitiable spectacle. 'I made Mr. Buckley assure me once more,' she said, 'that he had seen nothing of Denver since Friday. That night he and Lady Angela and Denver were at a reception in Grosvenor Square. They all left about the same time. Angela and Denver went, presumably, straight home; at any rate, he, Mr. Buckley, saw nothing more of them after they got into their car. He himself went to spend an hour or two at his club and came home about two a.m. The next morning, after breakfast, he drove his sister out to Tatchford, near Newmarket, where they spent the week-end with some friends. And that was all Mr. Buckley could say to me,' Miss Shillington concluded, vigorously blowing her nose: 'He came home last night from Tatchford, and was expecting Lady Angela in a couple of days. Denver had not been at Tatchford at all, and he had not once written to Angela all the while she was away.'
"Of course the police inspector to whom Miss Shillington related all these facts had a great many questions to put to her. For one thing he wanted to know whether she had been in communication with Lady Angela Buckley since this morning.
"'No,' the girl replied, 'I have not, and so far, I haven't said anything to mother. As soon as I felt strong enough I put on my things and came along here.'
"Then the inspector wanted to know if she knew of any friends or acquaintances of her brother's with whom he might have gone off for a week-end jaunt without saying anything about it, either at home or to his fiancée. He put the questions as delicately as he could, but the sister flared up with indignation. It seems that the Captain's conduct had always been irreproachable. He was a model son, a model brother, and deeply in love with Lady Angela. Miss Shillington also refused to believe that he could have been enticed to a place of ill-fame and robbed by one of the usual confidence tricksters.
"'My brother is exceptionally shrewd,' she declared, 'and a splendid business man. Though he is not yet thirty, he has built up an enormous fortune out in Australia, and administers his estates himself to the admiration of every one who knows him. He is not the sort of man who could be fooled in that way.'
"But beyond all this, and beyond giving a detailed description of her brother's appearance, the poor girl had very little to say, and the detective who was put in charge of the case could only assure her that enquiries would at once be instituted in every possible direction, and that the police would keep her informed of everything that was being done. Obviously, the person most likely to be able to throw some light upon the mystery was Lady Angela Buckley, but as you know, the advent of this charming lady upon the scene only helped to complicate matters. It appears that Henry Buckley, delighted at what he jocosely called, 'Old "Square-toes" falling from grace,' had rung up his sister in order to tell her the startling news over the telephone. Lady Angela being a very modern young woman, her brother thought that she might storm for a bit but in the end see the humorous side of the situation. But not at all! Lady Angela took the affair entirelyau tragique. Over the telephone she only exclaimed, 'Great Lord!' but at one o'clock in the afternoon she arrived at the flat, having taken the first train up to town and not even waiting for her maid to pack her things. Mr. Henry Buckley was just going out to lunch. Without condescending to explain anything, his sister dragged him off then and there to Scotland Yard. 'Something has happened to Denver,' was all that she would say. 'Something dreadful, I am sure.' In vain did her brother protest that she would only be making a fool of herself by rushing to the police like this, that old Square-toes had only gone on the spree, and that, anyway, she ought to consult with the Shillingtons before doing anything silly; Lady Angela would not listen to reason. 'You don't know! You don't know!' she kept on reiterating with ever-increasing agitation. 'He has been murdered, I tell you. Murdered!'
"By the time that the pair arrived at Scotland Yard, Lady Angela was in a state bordering on hysterics, and her brother appeared both sulky and perplexed. They saw the same Inspector who had interviewed Miss Shillington, and certainly his amazement was no whit less than that of Mr. Henry Buckley when Lady Angela having mentioned the disappearance of Captain Denver Shillington, said abruptly, 'Yes, he has disappeared, and incidentally, he had my pearls in his pocket.' The Inspector made no immediate comment; men of his calling are used to those kinds of surprises, but Henry Buckley gave a gasp of horror.
"'Your pearls?' he exclaimed. 'What pearls? Not——?'
"'Yes,' Lady Angela rejoined, coolly. 'The Glenarm pearls. All of them!'
"'But——' Henry Buckley stammered, wide-eyed and white to the lips.
"His sister threw him what appeared to be a warning glance, then she turned once more to the police inspector.
"'My brother is upset,' she said calmly, 'because he knows that the pearls are of immense value. The late Lord Glenarm left them to me in his will. He made a huge fortune by a successful speculation in sugar. He had no daughters of his own, and late in life he married my mother's sister. He was my godfather, and when he first bought the pearls and gave them to his wife as a wedding present, he said that after her death and his they should belong to me. They were valued for probate at twenty-five thousand pounds.'
"Henry Buckley was still speechless, and it was in answer to several questions put to her by the Inspector that Lady Angela gave the full history, as far as she knew it, of the disappearance of her pearls.
"'I was going to spend the week-end with some friends at Tatchford, near Newmarket,' she said. 'My brother at first had decided not to come with me. On the Friday evening I went with Captain Shillington to a ball at the Duchess of Flint's in Grosvenor Square. I wore my pearls; on the way home in the car, Captain Shillington appeared very anxious as to what I should do about the pearls whilst I was away. He wanted me to take them to the bank first thing in the morning before I left. But I knew I couldn't do this, because my train was at nine-fifty from Liverpool Street. Captain Shillington had once or twice before shown anxiety about the pearls and urged me to keep them at the bank when I was not wearing them, but he had never been so insistent as that night.'
"Lady Angela appeared to hesitate for a moment or two. She glanced at her brother with a curious expression, both of anxiety and contempt. It seemed as if she were trying to make up her mind to say something that was very difficult, to put in so many words. The Inspector sat silent and impassive, waiting for her to continue her story, and at last she did make up her mind to speak.
"'I had a safe in the flat,' she went on, glibly, 'where I keep my jewellery, but Captain Shillington did not seem satisfied. He argued and argued, and at last he persuaded me to let him have the pearls while I was away and he would deposit them at his own bank until my return.'
"Presumably at this point the lady caught an expression on the face of the Inspector which displeased her, for she added with becoming dignity, 'I am engaged to be married to Captain Denver Shillington.'
"'My God!' Henry Buckley exclaimed at this point, and with a groan he buried his face in his hands.
"Mind you," the Old Man in the Corner proceeded, after a moment's pause, "the public had no information as to the exact words, and so on, that passed between Lady Angela, her brother Henry, and the officials of Scotland Yard. All that I am telling you, and what I am still about to tell you, came out bit by bit in the papers. Sensation-lovers were immensely interested in the case from the outset, because, although both public and police are familiar enough with the tragi-comedy of the good-looking young blackguard who gets confiding females to entrust him with their little bits of jewellery, this was the first time that the confidence trick had been played by a well-known man about town—reputed wealthy, since he had gone to the length of paying a friend's gambling debts—on a society lady who was not in her first youth and must presumably have had some knowledge of the world she lived in.
"Lady Angela had concluded her statements by saying that during the drive home in the car she took off her pearls and handed them to her fiancé, who slipped them into his pocket just as they were, although when presently the car drew up at her door she suggested running up to her room to get the case for them. The Captain, however, declared this to be unnecessary. What he said was, 'I will sleep with them under my pillow to-night, and to-morrow morning first thing I will take them round to the bank for you.' After this he said good-night. Lady Angela let herself into the house with her latchkey, and Captain Shillington then dismissed the car, saying that he would enjoy a bit of a walk as the rooms at Grosvenor Square had been so desperately hot.
"And it was at this point," the Old Man in the Corner now said with deliberate emphasis as he worked away at an exceptionally intricate knot in his beloved bit of string, "it was at this point that certain facts leaked out which lent to the whole case a sinister aspect.
"It appears that on the Saturday morning at break of day one of the boats belonging to the Thames District Police found a grey Homburg hat floating under one of the old steamship landing stages and, stuck to one of the wooden piles close by, a man's silk scarf. There was no name inside the hat or any other clue as to the owner's identity, but both the scarf, which had once been white or light grey, and the hat were terribly soiled and torn, and both were stained with blood. The police had tried on the quiet to trace the owner of the hat and scarf but without success. After Lady Angela had told her story of the missing pearls, the things were shown to Miss Shillington, who at once identified the hat as belonging to her brother; the scarf, however, she knew nothing about.
"But this was not by any means all. It appears that for some reason which was never quite clear, Captain Shillington, after he said good-night to Lady Angela, altered his mind about the proposed walk. It may have started to rain, or he may not, after all, have liked the idea of walking about the streets at night with twenty-five thousand pounds' worth of pearls in his pocket. Be that as it may, he hailed a passing taxi and drove to Mexfield House. The driver came forward voluntarily in answer to an advertisement put in the papers by the police. He stated that he remembered the circumstance quite well because of what followed. He remembered taking up a fare outside Stanhope Gate and being ordered to drive to Mexfield House in Somerset Street. When he slowed down close to Mexfield House he noticed a man with his hands in his pockets lounging under the doorway of one of the houses close by. As far as he could see the man was in evening dress and wore a light overcoat. He had on a silk hat tilted right over his eyes so that only the lower part of his face was visible, and he had a white or pale grey scarf tied loosely round his neck. The chauffeur also noticed that he had a large white flower, probably a carnation, in his buttonhole. After the taxi-man had put down his fare he drove off, and as he did so he saw the man in the light overcoat step out from under the doorway, where he had been lounging, and turn in the direction of Mexfield House. What happened after that he didn't know, as he drove away without taking further notice, but the police were already in touch with another man who had been watching that night in Somerset Street, where a portion of the road was up for repair. This man, whose name, I think, was William Rugger, remembered quite distinctly seeing a 'swell' in a light overcoat and wearing a light-coloured scarf round his neck, loafing around Mexfield House. He remembered the taxi drawing up and a gentleman getting out of it, whereupon the one in the light overcoat and the scarf went up to him and said, 'Hullo, Denver!' at which the other gent, the one who had come in the taxi, appeared very surprised, for Rugger heard him say, 'Good Lord, Henry, what are you doing here?'
"Rugger didn't hear any more because the gentleman in the light overcoat then took the other one by the arm and together the pair of them walked away down the street. When they had gone Rugger noticed a large white carnation lying on the pavement; he picked it up and subsequently took it home to his missis.
"You may imagine what a stir and excitement this story—which pretty soon leaked out in all its details—caused amongst the public. It seems that although neither the taxi-driver nor the man Rugger had seen the face of the man who had stepped out from under a neighbouring doorway and accosted Captain Shillington, they were both of them quite positive that he was in evening dress, and that he wore a silk hat, a light overcoat, and had a pale grey or white scarf wound round his neck. And besides that, there was the white carnation. But, of course, the crux of the whole evidence was Rugger's assertion that he heard one gentleman—the one who got out of the cab—say to the other in tones of great surprise, 'Good Lord, Henry, what are you doing here?' Questioned again and again he never wavered in this statement. He heard the name Henry quite distinctly and it stuck in his mind because his eldest boy was Henry. He was also asked whether the gentleman, who had stepped out of the taxi—obviously Captain Shillington, since the other had called to him, 'Hullo, Denver'—walked away reluctantly or willingly when he was thus summarily taken hold of by the arm. Rugger was under the impression that he walked away reluctantly; he freed his arm once, but the other got hold of him again, and, though Rugger did not catch the actual words, he certainly thought that the two gentlemen were quarrelling.
"And thus public opinion, which at first had been dead against the Australian Captain, now went equally dead against Henry Buckley. Ugly stories were current of his extravagance, his gambling debts, his addiction to drink. People who knew him remembered one or two ugly pages in his life's history: altercations with the police, raids on gambling clubs of which he was a prominent member; there was even a fraudulent bankruptcy which had been the original cause of his being sent out to Australia by his harassed parents until the worst of the clouds had rolled by.
"The only thing that told in his favour, as far as the public was concerned, was the bitter vindictiveness displayed against him by Miss Shillington. That the girl had cause for bitterness was not to be denied. For a time, at any rate, public opinion had branded her brother as a common trickster and a thief, and she and her mother had no doubt suffered terribly under the stigma; in consequence of this, Mrs. Shillington's health, always in a precarious state, had completely broken down and the old lady had taken to her bed, not suffering from any particular disease, but just from debility of mind and body, obstinately refusing to see a doctor, declaring that nothing would cure her except the return of her son.
"And on the top of all that came the growing conviction that the son never would return and that he had been foully murdered for the sake of Lady Angela's pearls, which he so foolishly was carrying in his pocket that night. No wonder, then, that his sister Marion felt bitter against the people who were the original cause of all these disasters; no wonder that she threw herself heart and soul into the search for evidence against the man whom she sincerely believed to be guilty of a most hideous crime.
"It was mainly due to her that the police came on the track of William Rugger, the night-watchman, and through the latter that the driver of the taxi-cab was advertised for, because Rugger remembered seeing the gentleman alight from a taxi outside Mexfield House. But Miss Shillington's valuable assistance in the matter of investigation went even further than that. She at last prevailed upon the old man-servant at Mexfield House to come forward like a man and to speak the truth. He was a poor creature, not really old, probably not more than fifty, but timid and almost abject. He had at first declined to make any statement whatever, declaring that he had nothing to say. To every question put to him by the police, he gave the one answer, 'I saw nothing, sir, I 'eard nothing. I went to bed as usual on the Friday night. The Captain 'e never expected me to sit up for 'im when 'e was out to parties, and I never 'ear 'im come in, as I sleep at the top of the 'ouse. No, sir, I didn't 'ear nothing that night. The last I seed of the Captain was at nine o'clock, when 'e got into the car and said good-night to me.' When he was shown the blood-stained hat, he burst out crying, and said, 'Yes, sir! Yes, sir! That is the Captain's 'at. My Lord! What 'as become of 'im?' He also failed to identify the scarf as being his master's property.
"Then one day Miss Shillington, still suffering from a cold in the head, but otherwise very business-like and brisk, arrived at Scotland Yard with the man—James Rose was his name—in tow. By what means she had persuaded him to speak the truth at last no one ever knew, but in a tremulous voice and shaken with nervousness, he did tell what he swore to be the truth. 'I must 'ave dropped to sleep in the dining-room,' he said. 'I was very tired that evening, and I remember after I 'ad cleared supper away I just felt as 'ow I couldn't stand on my legs any longer, and I sat down in an armchair and must 'ave dozed off. What woke me was the front-door bell which rings in the 'all as well as in the basement. I looked at the clock, it was past midnight. Captain forgot 'is key, that's what I thought. Lucky I 'adn't gone to bed, or I should never 'ave 'eard 'im. Funny 'is forgetting 'is key, I thought. Never done such a thing before, I thought, and went to open the door for 'im. But it wasn't the Captain,' Rose went on, his voice getting more and more husky as no doubt he realised the deadly importance of what he was about to say. 'No, it wasn't the Captain,' he reiterated, and shook his head in a doleful manner.
"'Who was it?' the Inspector demanded.
"'The young gentleman who sometimes came to the 'ouse,' Rose repeated under his breath. 'Mr. 'Enery Buckley it was, sir. Yes, Mr. 'Enery, that's 'oo it was.'
"'What did he say?' Rose was asked.
"''E asked if the Captain was in, and I said no, not as I knew, but I would go and see. So up I went to the Captain's room and saw 'e wasn't there. Not yet. And I told Mr. 'Enery so when I came down again.'
"'Then what happened?'
"'Mr. 'Enery 'e told me that 'e wouldn't wait and that I was to tell the Captain 'e 'ad called, and that 'e would call again in 'arf an hour. I said that I was going to bed and I wouldn't probably see the Captain. 'E might be ever so late. Then Mr. 'Enery 'e just said, "Very good," and "Never mind," and "Good-night, Rose," 'e said, and then I let 'im out.'
"'Well? And what happened after that?'
"'I don't know, sir,' the old man concluded. 'I went to bed and I never seed the Captain again, nor yet Mr. 'Enery—not from that day to this, sir. No, not again, sir.' And Rose once more shook his head in the same doleful manner. Of course the police were very down on him for keeping back this valuable piece of information, and they were even inclined to look with suspicion upon the man. They wanted to know something about his antecedents and why he seemed so frightened of facing the police authorities. Fortunately for him, however, Miss Shillington could give them all the information they wanted. She said that James Rose had been for years in the service of a Mrs. O'Shea, who was a great friend of Mrs. Shillington's. When Mrs. O'Shea died she left him a hundred pounds. But the poor thing had never been very strong, and he was nothing to look at, he couldn't get another place, and the hundred pounds vanished bit by bit. About a month ago Mrs. Shillington, who was requiring a man-servant, advertised for one in theDaily Mail. Rose answered the advertisement, and though the poor thing in the meanwhile had gone terribly downhill physically, Mrs. Shillington, remembering how honest and respectable he had always been when he was in Mrs. O'Shea's service, engaged him out of compassion and for the sake of old times. Miss Shillington gave him an excellent character and the police were satisfied.
"I think," the Old Man in the Corner said, amorously contemplating a marvellously intricate knot, which he had just made in his bit of string, "I think that the police were mainly satisfied because at last they felt that 'they had made out a case.' From that moment the detectives and inspectors in charge became absolutely convinced that Henry Buckley had enticed Captain Denver Shillington to some place of evil fame close to the river and there, in collusion probably with other disreputable characters, had robbed and murdered him. To say the least, the case looked black enough against Buckley. His fast living, his mountain of debt, the absence in him of moral rectitude as proved by his fraudulent bankruptcy, all told against him; and now it was definitely proved that he had sought out and actually been in the company of Captain Shillington the night that the latter disappeared. A light grey overcoat similar to the one described by Rugger and by the chauffeur as worn by the gentleman who was loafing in Somerset Street was found to be a part of his wardrobe; no one could swear, however, as to the scarf, but it turned out that he never went out in the evening without wearing a large, white carnation in his button-hole.
"The fact that he had not stated from the beginning that he had called at Mexfield House that night, and subsequently met the missing man and walked away with him, naturally told terribly against him. Obviously the man lost his head. Questioned by the police, he tried at first to deny the whole thing: he declared that the man with the white carnation and the light-coloured scarf was some other man whose name happened to be Henry, and he tried to upset Rose's evidence by declaring that the man lied and that he had never called at Mexfield House that night. But, unfortunately for him, he had taken a taxi from his club to the house, the taxi-driver was found, and the noose was further tightened round the Honourable Henry Buckley's neck. In vain did he assert after that that Denver Shillington had told him to call at Mexfield House at a quarter-past midnight on that fatal Friday. He was no longer believed. He admitted that he was in financial difficulties, and that he had spoken about these to Captain Shillington earlier in the evening. He admitted, tardily enough, that he went to Mexfield House hoping that Denver would give him some money in order to wipe out his most pressing debts. When he found that the Captain had not yet come home, he left a message with the man-servant and thought he would go on to the club for a little while and return later to see Shillington. Unfortunately, he drank rather heavily whilst he was at the club and never thought any more either about his money worries or about the Captain. In fact, he remembered nothing very clearly beyond the fact that he went home, in the small hours and went straight to bed.