Collected works of j s f.., p.362
Collected Works of J S Fletcher, page 362
“I’ll turn it up,” observed Carver.
“By all means,” agreed Triffitt; “but I’ll give you an outline of it just now. Briefly, it was this. About eleven years ago, there was near the town of Jedburgh a man named Ferguson, who kept an old-established school for boys. He was an oldish chap, married to a woman a good deal younger than himself, and she had a bit of a reputation for being overfond of the wine of the country. According to what the Kierleys told me, old Ferguson used to use the tawse on her sometimes, and they led a sort of cat-and-dog life. Well, about the time I’m talking about, Ferguson got a new undermaster; he only kept one. This chap was an Englishman — name of Bentham — Francis Bentham, to give him his full patronymic, but I don’t know where he came from — I don’t think anybody did.”
“F. B., eh?” muttered Carver. “Same initials as — —”
“Precisely,” said Triffitt, “and — to anticipate — same man. But to proceed in due order. Old Ferguson died rather suddenly — but in quite an above-board and natural fashion, about six months after this Bentham came to him. The widow kept on the school, and retained Bentham’s services. And within half a year of the demise of her first husband, she took Bentham for her second.”
“Quick work!” remarked Carver.
“And productive of much wagging of tongues, you may bet!” said Triffitt. “Many things were said — not all of them charitable. Well, this marriage didn’t mend the lady’s manners. She still continued, now and then, to take her drops in too generous measure. Rumour had it that the successor to Ferguson followed his predecessor’s example and corrected his wife in the good, old-fashioned way. It was said that the old cat-and-dog life was started again by these two. However, before they’d been married a year, the lady ended that episode by quitting life for good. She was found one night lying at the foot of the cliff in the Kelpies’ Glen — with a broken neck.”
“Ah!” said Carver. “I begin to see.”
“Now, that Kelpies’ Glen,” continued Triffitt, “was a sort of ravine which lay between the town of Jedburgh and the school. It was traversed by a rough path which lay along the top of one side of it, amongst trees and crags. At one point, this path was on the very edge of a precipitous cliff; from that edge there was a sheer drop of some seventy or eighty feet to a bed of rocks down below, on the edge of a brawling stream. It was on these rocks that Mrs. Bentham’s body was found. She was dead enough when she was discovered, and the theory was that she had come along the path above in a drunken condition, had fallen over the low railings which fenced it in, and so had come to her death.”
“Precisely,” assented Carver, nodding his head with wise appreciation. “Her alcoholic tendencies were certainly useful factors in the case.”
“Just so — you take my meaning,” agreed Triffitt. “Well, at first nobody saw any reason to doubt this theory, for the lady had been seen staggering along that path more than once. But she had a brother, a canny Scot who was not over well pleased when he found that his sister — who had come into everything that old Ferguson left, which was a comfortable bit — had made a will not very long before her death in which she left absolutely everything to her new husband, Francis Bentham. The brother began to inquire and to investigate — and to cut the story short, within a fortnight of his wife’s death, Bentham was arrested and charged with her murder.”
“On what evidence?” asked Carver.
“Precious little!” answered Triffitt. “Indeed next to none. Still, there was some. It was proved that he was absent from the house for half an hour or so about the time that she would be coming along that path; it was also proved that certain footprints in the clay of the path were his. He contended that he had been to look for her; he proved that he had often been to look for her in that way; moreover, as to the footprints, he, like everybody in the house, constantly used that path in going to the town.”
“Aye, to be sure,” said Carver. “He’d a good case, I’m thinking.”
“He had — and so I thought at the time,” continued Triffitt. “And so a good many folks thought — and they, and I, also thought something else, I can tell you. I know what the verdict of the crowded court would have been!”
“What?” asked Carver.
“Guilty!” exclaimed Triffitt. “And so far as I’m concerned, I haven’t a doubt that the fellow pushed her over the cliff. But opinion’s neither here nor there. The only thing that mattered, my son, was the jury’s verdict!”
“And the jury’s verdict was — what?” demanded Carver.
Triffitt winked into his empty tankard and set it down with a bang.
“The jury’s verdict, my boy,” he answered, “was one that you can only get across the Border. It was ‘Not Proven’!”
CHAPTER XV
YOUNG BRAINS
CARVER, WHO HAD been listening intently to the memory of a bygone event, pushed away the remains of his frugal lunch, and shook his head as he drew out a cigarette-case.
“By gad, Triff, old man!” he said. “If I’d been that chap I’d rather have been hanged, I think. Not proven, eh? — whew! That meant — —”
“Pretty much what the folk in court and the mob outside thought,” asserted Triffitt. “That scene outside, after the trial, is one of my liveliest recollections. There was a big crowd there — chiefly women. When they heard the verdict there was such yelling and hooting as you never heard in your life! You see, they were all certain about the fellow’s guilt, and they wanted him to swing. If they could have got at him, they’d have lynched him. And do you know, he actually had the cheek to leave the court by the front entrance, and show himself to that crowd! Then there was a lively scene — stones and brickbats and the mud of the street began flying. Then the police waded in — and they gave Mr. Francis Bentham pretty clearly to understand that there must be no going home for him, or the folks would pull his roof over his head. And they forced him back into the court, and got him away out of the town on the quiet — and I reckon he’s never shown his face in that quarter of the globe since.”
“That will?” asked Carver. “Did it stand good — did he get the woman’s money?”
“He did. My aunt told me afterwards that he employed some local solicitor chap — writers, as they call ’em there — to wind everything up, convert everything into cash, for him. Oh, yes!” concluded Triffitt. “He got the estate, right enough. Not an awful lot, you know — a thousand or two — perhaps three — but enough to go adventuring with elsewhere.”
“You’re sure this is the man?” asked Carver.
“As certain as that I’m myself!” answered Triffitt. “Couldn’t mistake him — even if it is nine years ago. It’s true I was only a nipper then — sixteen or so — but I’d all my wits about me, and I was so taken with him in the dock, and with his theatrical bearing there — he’s a fine hand at posing — that I couldn’t forget or mistake him. Oh, he’s the man! I’ve often wondered what had become of him.”
“And now you find out that he’s up till recently been secretary to Jacob Herapath, M.P., and is just now doing dramatic criticism for the Magnet,” observed Carver. “Well, Triffitt, what do you make of it?”
Triffitt, who had filled and lighted an old briarwood pipe, puffed solemnly and thoughtfully for a while.
“Well,” he said, “nobody can deny that there’s a deep mystery about Jacob Herapath’s death. And knowing what I do about this Bentham or Burchill, and that he’s recently been secretary to Jacob Herapath, I’d just like to know a lot more. And — I mean to!”
“Got any plan of campaign?” asked Carver.
“I have!” affirmed Triffitt with sublime confidence. “And it’s this — I’m going to dog this thing out until I can go to our boss and tell him that I can force the hands of the police! For the police are keeping something dark, my son, and I mean to find out what it is. I got a quencher this morning from our news editor, but it’ll be the last. When I go back to the office to write out this stuff, I’m going to have that extremely rare thing with any of our lot — an interview with the old man.”
“Gad! — I thought your old man was unapproachable!” exclaimed Carver.
“To all intents and purposes, he is,” assented Triffitt. “But I’ll see him — and today. And after that — but you’ll see. Now, as to you, old man. You’re coming in with me at this, of course — not on behalf of your paper, but on your own. Work up with me, and if we’re successful, I’ll promise you a post on the Argus that’ll be worth three times what you’re getting now. I know what I’m talking about — unapproachable as our guv’nor is, I’ve sized him up, and if I make good in this affair, he’ll do anything I want. Stick to Triffitt, my son, and Triffitt’ll see you all serene!”
“Right-oh!” said Carver. “I’m on. Well, and what am I to do, first?”
“Two things,” responded Triffitt. “One of ‘em’s easy, and can be done at once. Get me — diplomatically — this man Burchill’s, or Bentham’s, present address. You know some Magnet chaps — get it out of them. Tell ’em you want to ask Burchill’s advice about some dramatic stuff — say you’ve written a play and you’re so impressed by his criticisms that you’d like to take his counsel.”
“I can do that,” replied Carver. “As a matter of fact, I’ve got a real good farce in my desk. And the next?”
“The next is — try to find out if there’s any taxi-cab driver around the Portman Square district who took a fare resembling old Herapath from anywhere about there to Kensington on the night of the murder,” said Triffitt. “There must be some chap who drove that man, and if we’ve got any brains about us we can find him. If we find him, and can get him to talk — well, we shall know something.”
“It’ll mean money,” observed Carver.
“Never mind,” said Triffitt, confident as ever. “If it comes off all right with our boss, you needn’t bother about money, my son! Now let’s be going Fleet Street way, and I’ll meet you tonight at the usual — say six o’clock.”
Arrived at the Argus office and duly seated at his own particular table, Triffitt, instead of proceeding to write out his report of the funeral ceremony of the late Jacob Herapath, M.P., wrote a note to his proprietor, which note he carefully sealed and marked “Private.” He carried this off to the great man’s confidential secretary, who stared at it and him.
“I suppose this really is of a private nature?” he asked suspiciously. “You know as well as I do that Mr. Markledew’ll make me suffer if it isn’t.”
“Soul and honour, it’s of the most private!” affirmed Triffitt, laying a hand on his heart. “And of the highest importance, too, and I’ll be eternally grateful if you’ll put it before him as soon as you can.”
The confidential secretary took another look at Triffitt, and allowed himself to be reluctantly convinced of his earnestness.
“All right!” he said. “I’ll shove it under his nose when he comes in at four o’clock.”
Triffitt went back to his work, excited, yet elated. It was no easy job to get speech of Markledew. Markledew, as everybody in Fleet Street knew, was a man in ten thousand. He was not only sole proprietor of his paper, but its editor and manager, and he ruled his office and his employees with a rod of iron — chiefly by silence. It was usually said of him that he never spoke to anybody unless he was absolutely obliged to do so — certain it was that all his orders to the various heads were given out pretty much after the fashion of a drill sergeant’s commands to a squad of well-trained, five-month recruits, and that monosyllables were much more in his mouth than even brief admonitions and explanations. If anybody ever did manage to approach Markledew, it was always with fear and trembling. A big, heavy, lumbering man, with a face that might have been carved out of granite, eyes that bored through an opposing brain, and a constant expression of absolute, yet watchful immobility, he was a trying person to tackle, and most men, when they did tackle him, felt as if they might be talking to the Sphinx and wondered if the tightly-locked lips were ever going to open. But all men who ever had anything to do with Markledew were well aware that, difficult as he was of access, you had only got to approach him with something good to be rewarded for your pains in full measure.
At ten minutes past four Triffitt, who had just finished his work, lifted his head to see a messenger-boy fling open the door of the reporter’s room and cast his eyes round. A shiver shot through Triffitt’s spine and went out of his toes with a final sting.
“Mr. Markledew wants Mr. Triffitt!”
Two or three other junior reporters who were scribbling in the room glanced at Triffitt as he leapt to obey the summons. They hastened to make kindly comments on this unheard-of episode in the day’s dull routine.
“Pale as a fair young bride!” sighed one. “Buck up, Triff! — he won’t eat you.”
“I hear your knees knocking together, Triff,” said another. “Brace yourself!”
“Markledew,” observed a third, “has decided to lay down the sceptre and to instal Triff in the chair of rule. Ave, Triffitt, Imperator! — be merciful to the rest of us.”
Triffitt consigned them to the nether regions and hurried to the presence. The presence was busied with its secretary and kept Triffitt standing for two minutes, during which space he recovered his breath. Then the presence waved away secretary and papers with one hand, turned its awful eyes upon him, and rapped out one word:
“Now!”
Triffitt breathed a fervent prayer to all his gods, summoned his resolution and his powers, and spoke. He endeavoured to use as few words as possible, to be lucid, to make his points, to show what he was after — and, driving fear away from him, he kept his own eyes steadily fixed on those penetrating organs which confronted him. And once, twice, he saw or thought he saw a light gleam of appreciation in those organs; once, he believed, the big head nodded as if in agreement. Anyhow, at the end of a quarter of an hour (unheard-of length for an interview with Markledew!) Triffitt had neither been turned out nor summarily silenced; instead, he had come to what he felt to be a good ending of his pleas and his arguments, and the great man was showing signs of speech.
“Now, attend!” said Markledew, impressively. “You’ll go on with this. You’ll follow it up on the lines you suggest. But you’ll print nothing except under my personal supervision. Make certain of your facts. Facts! — understand! Wait.”
He pulled a couple of slips of paper towards him, scribbled a line or two on each, handed them to Triffitt, and nodded at the door.
“That’ll do,” he said. “When you want me, let me know. And mind — you’ve got a fine chance, young man.”
Triffitt could have fallen on the carpet and kissed Markledew’s large boots. But knowing Markledew, he expressed his gratitude in two words and a bow, and sped out of the room. Once outside, he hastened to send the all-powerful notes. They were short and sharp, like Markledew’s manner, but to Triffitt of an inexpressible sweetness, and he walked on air as he went off to other regions to present them.
The news editor, who was by nature irascible and whom much daily worry had rendered more so, glared angrily as Triffitt marched up to his table. He pointed to a slip of proof which lay, damp and sticky, close by.
“You’ve given too much space to that Herapath funeral,” he growled. “Take it away and cut it down to three-quarters.”
Triffitt made no verbal answer. He flung Markledew’s half-sheet of notepaper before the news editor, and the news editor, seeing the great man’s sprawling caligraphy, read, wonderingly: —
“Mr. Triffitt is released from ordinary duties to pursue others under my personal supervision. J. M.”
The news editor stared at Triffitt as if that young gentleman had suddenly become an archangel.
“What’s this mean?” he demanded.
“Obvious — and sufficient,” retorted Triffitt. And he turned, hands in pockets, and strolled out, leaving the proof lying unheeded. That was the first time he had scored off his news editor, and the experience was honey-like and intoxicating. His head was higher than ever as he sought the cashier and handed Markledew’s other note to him. The cashier read it over mechanically.
“Mr. Triffitt is to draw what money he needs for a special purpose. He will account to me for it. J. M.”
The cashier calmly laid the order aside and looked at its deliverer.
“Want any now?” he asked apathetically. “How much?”
“Not at present,” replied Triffitt. “I’ll let you know when I do.”
Then he went away, got his overcoat, made a derisive and sphinx-like grin at his fellow-reporters, and left the office to find Carver.
CHAPTER XVI
NAMELESS FEAR
IF TRIFFITT HAD stayed in Kensal Green Cemetery a little longer, he would have observed that Mr. Frank Burchill’s presence at the funeral obsequies of the late Jacob Herapath was of an eminently modest, unassuming, and retiring character. He might, as an ex-secretary of the dead man, have claimed to walk abreast of Mr. Selwood, and ahead of the manager and cashier from the estate office; instead, he had taken a place in the rear ranks of the procession, and in it he remained until the close of the ceremony. Like the rest of those present, he defiled past the grave at which the chief mourners were standing, but he claimed no recognition from and gave no apparent heed to any of them; certainly none to Barthorpe Herapath. Also, like all the rest, he went away at once from the cemetery, and after him, quietly and unobtrusively, went a certain sharp-eyed person who had also been present, not as a mourner, but in the character of a casual stroller about the tombs and monuments, attracted for the moment by the imposing cortège which had followed the dead man to his grave.
