Collected works of j s f.., p.746
Collected Works of J S Fletcher, page 746
“Yes!”
“You won’t tell us why?”
“No!”
“Well, you went into the park. Don’t you remember anything about that, or after that?”
“I do not-frankly!”
“Tell me this, if you please. When you parted from Dengo after giving him the money you told us of, fifteen hundred pounds in Bank of England notes, did you make an appointment to meet him anywhere that evening? Think, now!”
“No! Indeed I did not! On the contrary, I told him that he must never come near my house or me again!”
“Did he promise compliance?”
“Yes! But I didn’t know whether he would keep his word.”
“And that upset you?”
“I was naturally upset by wondering if I was to be subjected to future annoyance.”
“Well, one final question, Mr. Nicholas. Have you the least, the faintest recollection of encountering Dengo in your park that night?”
“I have not! I have no recollection of anything that happened that night after I went into the park. I remember leaving the house, but nothing else until I awoke, in my own room, next morning.”
The coroner turned from Mr. Nicholas to the officials who were grouped at the table beneath his desk, and for a minute or two held a whispered consultation with some of them. This ended in his addressing the jurymen.
“It will be most advisable to adjourn at this point,” be began. “I propose to adjourn-”
“Begging your pardon, Mr. Coroner, but us don’t hold with no adjournment!” interrupted the foreman, stoutly. “Us be brought here to give a verdict, and us be prepared to give it right now! We don’t want no more evidence, and us be unanimous and agreed upon all that’s been considered. Us wishes to say what us thinks, now, without further argufying, Mr. Coroner, as is our right and duty.”
“That’s it!” muttered two or three jurymen. “Ain’t no use in putting off, seeing as we be agreed,” remarked another. “Say the words, foreman!”
“Let me point out-” said the coroner.
But the foreman had risen to his feet.
“We be agreed upon our verdict!” he said. “We finds Mr. Nicholas not guilty-an’ ’tis the verdict of us all!”
A low ripple of laughter amongst the better-instructed spectators caused the jurymen to turn angry glances in the direction from which it came. The coroner tried to show patience.
“You are under a misapprehension, Mr. Foreman,” he said quietly. “We are not trying Mr. Nicholas, this, though a court of record, is not an assize court. We are here-you are here-to inquire into the cause of the death of the man known to us as Dengo. It will be far best to adjourn-”
“Us sees no reason for adjournment,” persisted the foreman. He turned to his fellow jurymen, and for another half-minute the twelve heads drew together.
“Us’ll agree on another rendering of that verdict, Mr. Coroner,” he said, turning again. “We finds as how this man Dengo come to his death by being stuck through his heart with that there sword, and as how Mr. Nicholas done it, but we holds him as not guilty ‘cause he didn’t know he done it!”
Amidst another murmur in court, the coroner laid down his pen.
“I can’t take that verdict!” he said, showing signs of vexation. “You can’t give such a verdict. If you believe that Mr. Nicholas killed this man you must say so in plain words.”
“Meaning that us would have to return a verdict of wilful murder?” asked the foreman suspiciously.
“If you think Mr. Nicholas killed him-yes!” replied the coroner.
“Then us shan’t do no such thing!” declared the foreman aggressively. “Us is of opinion that Mr. Nicholas stuck this fellow with his sword, and serve him right, but we don’t consider him guilty of murder ‘cause us is certain Mr. Nicholas didn’t know what he was a-doing of!”
The coroner stared at the representatives of the law; suddenly he rose in his chair. “I shall not accept that verdict!” he said firmly. “And I adjourn this inquiry until this day fortnight!”
“There’ll be no other verdict from us!” declared the foreman. “Us is entitled to our own opinions, and us knows the law, too. Us was asked for a verdict, and us has given one, and us won’t give no other!”
According to the reports in next day’s newspapers, the proceedings then ended, in confusion. But something else happened. As Mr. Nicholas, Miss Starr, and I were leaving the room, the Superintendent of Police asked Mr. Nicholas for a few minutes’ private conversation. They went into the parlour across the hall in which, according to Welman, Mr. Nicholas had stayed awhile on the night of April 17th, and from which he had carried away a bottle of whisky. Thither, five minutes later, Miss Starr and I were summoned by a policeman, who said that Mr. Nicholas wished to speak to us. Miss Starr showed no sign of alarm or of surprise; I confess that I myself went into that room unsuspicious of anything unusual having taken place. But as soon as we crossed the threshold, I saw that trouble had come. There were two or three men in the room-police officials in plain clothes-in addition to the superintendent; there, too, was Mr. Nicholas. He glanced at Miss Starr and then at me and nodded quietly.
“I am arrested!” he said, without any show of emotion. “I expected it. Rhoda,” he went on, turning to his niece, “you will see to everything while I am away. Camberwell”-turning to me-”communicate at once with my solicitor, Mr. Chancellor-you’ll find his address in the address-book on my desk-and ask him to come down here, or, rather, to the magistrate’s court at Havering St. Michael, tomorrow morning, and to be there at-what time will it be, Mr. Superintendent?”
“Half past ten, sir,” replied the superintendent, promptly. “Merely formal proceedings!”
“Half past ten, then, Camberwell,” continued Mr. Nicholas. “And-” here he turned to the superintendent again, “may I have some things sent down?” he asked. “Linen, and so on?”
“Anything you like or require, Mr. Nicholas,” said the superintendent. “Certainly!”
Mr. Nicholas gave me some instructions as to what he wanted, and presently Miss Starr and I left the room. The superintendent followed us out.
“Sorry, Miss Starr,” he said. “But I’d no option after hearing what I have done. You may rely on me to see that Mr. Nicholas is made thoroughly comfortable, and I sincerely hope he’ll be cleared; get that solicitor down, Mr. Camberwell, and do all you can. But look here, Miss Starr, I want to ask you a question-between ourselves. I may as well tell you that in the course of my inquiries I’ve found out that during the evening of that 17th April, you left the house after dinner and were out some little time. Do you mind telling me where you were?”
Miss Starr replied readily enough.
“No!” she said, “I was in the park, wandering about. I was looking for Mr. Nicholas. I knew he’d gone out, and I wanted to find him.”
“You were uneasy about him, Miss Starr?”
“Very!”
“Did you see anything of him-hear anything?”
“No! I went all round and about the park and neither saw nor heard anything of him or of anything else.”
The superintendent reflected a little. Again he turned to Miss Starr.
“I suppose you don’t know who this man Dengo really was?” he asked.
“I?” exclaimed Miss Starr. “No, indeed!”
“There’s some secret, some mystery about him and all this,” said the superintendent. He turned to me. “Get that solicitor, Mr. Camberwell!” he continued. “Probably he knows all about Mr. Nicholas’s affairs. Anyway, whether he does or not, impress upon him that he, in his turn, must impress upon Mr. Nicholas the absolute importance of clearing this up! Mr. Nicholas, Miss Starr and Mr. Camberwell, is keeping something back! And-he mustn’t.”
Miss Starr and I walked back together across the park. She preserved her usual and characteristic silence for some time; as for me, I was wondering at the cool and even phlegmatic fashion in which both she and her uncle had taken Mr. Nicholas’s sudden arrest. Mr. Nicholas, while before the coroner and his jury, had presented a pitiable spectacle; once in the hands of the police, he seemed to have regained his self-confidence in full force, and he had given his instructions to me as calmly as if he had been giving orders to Hoiler. Miss Starr was similarly cool and possessed; her uncle’s announcement when we entered the inn-parlour appeared to leave her unmoved.
“You’ll write to Mr. Chancellor at once?” she said suddenly.
“I’ve been thinking that it would be far better if I took one of the cars and went to him, at once,” I replied. “Don’t you think so?”
“No!” she answered. “Write. Because there’ll be a full report of this inquest in the papers tomorrow morning, and he can read it as he comes down. Then he’ll know what it’s all about. It’ll save the trouble of explaining matters to him.”
“I was thinking that if he came down this afternoon he might arrange bail for Mr. Nicholas,” I said.
“That’s impossible!” she answered coolly. “Don’t you know that they won’t grant bail in a murder charge?”
“I didn’t,” I replied.
“Well, they won’t-I know that much,” she said. “Write. And don’t forget to send Jeeves down to Havering with those things.”
I wrote to Mr. Chancellor, and when Miss Starr and I arrived at the police court next morning, Mr. Chancellor was there. He had a man with him, a tall, grizzled, soldierly-looking man whom he introduced as ex-Inspector Chaney.
“Mr. Chaney,” he said, “after a long and distinguished career at New Scotland Yard, is now devoting himself to a little private inquiry work. And after reading the report of the inquest on Dengo in this morning’s papers, I enlisted Mr. Chaney’s services. We shall need them. For there is some extraordinary mystery here, and it will need some unearthing if I’m not mistaken!”
The proceedings before the magistrates were merely formal and were over in five minutes. A few minutes later Mr. Chancellor, Chaney, Miss Starr, and I were closeted together in a small room at the police court, put at our disposal by the superintendent. Mr. Chancellor, a precise, elderly man, motioned us to seats round a table, and before his own chair opened out one of the morning newspapers, already marked here and there with blue pencil.
“Now,” he said, “Chaney and I have gone through this report as we came down in the train, and we want to ask you young people certain questions arising from it. And there is one question I want to put to Miss Starr at the very beginning. It is quite evident that there is some big secret in this case, known, probably, to no one but Mr. Nicholas. We must know what it is-at present Mr. Nicholas will not speak. So we must turn to you, Miss Starr, his niece. So now please tell us-who is Mr. Nicholas?”
CHAPTER VIII. EX-INSPECTOR CHANEY
I NEED HARDLY say that this direct question surprised me, coming, as it did from Mr. Nicholas’s solicitor, the very man of all men whom one would have thought to know all about him. But if it occasioned surprise in me, it produced blank amazement in Miss Starr. Her usually stolid face flushed, and she turned wide-open eyes on her questioner.
“What ever do you mean?” she exclaimed. “You ask that-you, his solicitor?”
“Precisely what I was thinking myself,” I murmured.
But Mr. Chancellor shook his head.
“I know next to nothing about Mr. Christopher Nicholas,” he said. “All I know is this: I was solicitor to his aunt, Miss Anne Nicholas, the owner of Wrides Park, a very wealthy lady. Miss Nicholas died some six years ago, having some little time before executed a will by which she left everything she possessed to her nephew, Christopher Nicholas, who, she always told me, lived, or was always travelling, abroad; he was abroad when she died. In due course, following the announcement of Miss Nicholas’s death in The Times and other newspapers, Mr. Christopher Nicholas turned up. He produced papers and documents to show who he was-and he went through the usual formalities and was put in possession of his property. And that’s all I know, except that he has employed my professional services in small matters, from time to time.”
“But what do you mean?-when you ask who he is?” inquired Miss Starr. “He’s Mr. Nicholas, of course!”
“I should have put my question in another form,” said Mr. Chancellor. “I should have asked-of you, at any rate-what is known about him. What do you, his niece, know about him? Where did he live before he came to claim his property? What did he do? Had he any profession? Again-what can you tell?-you!”
“No more than you can, Mr. Chancellor,” replied Miss Starr. “I can’t answer any one of those questions! I have gathered that he has been a great traveller, but I know no particulars.”
“What do you know about him?” persisted Mr. Chancellor. “You’re his niece-maternal niece, isn’t it? You must know something. Tell us what you can.”
“All I can tell is this,” said Miss Starr, who was obviously much puzzled. “I know-from having been told so-that my father and mother died when I was very young, so young that I don’t remember them. I was brought up by some people who took care of me till I was twelve or thirteen. Then I was sent to Anne Ethelburger’s school at Harrogate. I was there for the next five years-”
“That’s a pretty expensive place, as I happen to know,” interrupted Mr. Chancellor. “Now, who paid your fees there?”
“I don’t know,” replied Miss Starr, “but I always had plenty of pocket money.”
“Where did you spend your holidays?” inquired Mr. Chancellor.
“With the people who brought me up-Mr. and Mrs. Helston. They lived in Hampstead. No, they aren’t alive-they’re both dead,” continued Miss Starr. I always understood that they were friends of my father.”
“Well, you were at school at Harrogate till you were eighteen,” said Mr. Chancellor”. Had these Helstons died before you left?”
“Yes-they died during my last year,” said Miss Starr. “Then Mr. Nicholas came. I have never seen him before and had only just heard that there was such a person-my mother’s brother. He told me who he was-my uncle-and said that he’d just come into Miss Nicholas’s property in Surrey, and that he wanted me to live with him. And so we came to live at Wrides Park. That’s all I know, Mr. Chancellor.”
“Did he never tell you anything about his past?” inquired the solicitor. “Never say anything about his travels?”
“Not particularly. He’d sometimes mention places that he’d seen,” replied Miss Starr, “and I gathered that he’d travelled very extensively at some time or other. But he scarcely ever referred to anything that had to do with the past.”
“Do you know where he’d been living before he came into this Wrides property?” inquired Mr. Chancellor.
But Miss Starr didn’t know-she knew no more than she had told. And Mr. Chancellor turned to me.
“Do you know anything?” he asked. “You don’t?”
Well, I never expected you would, Mr. Camberwell. But now you may wonder, both of you, why I’ve been asking these questions? The reason is this-Chaney here, who is a very clever hand at this sort of thing, has read most carefully the evidence given at the inquest yesterday and he’s formed a theory which I’ll ask him to explain to you. Tell us, Chaney, exactly what’s in your mind.”
While Mr. Chancellor had talked, I had been inspecting Chaney. As I have already said, the former Scotland Yard man looked more like a soldier than a policeman; that is to say, he had that certain indefinable bearing which one associates with long and honourable service in the Army. And when he began to speak, he showed a sort of military precision, saying what he had to say in crisp, direct sentences and without any circumvention.
“I have read through this evidence twice,” he said, tapping the copy of The Times which lay, marked here and there, before him. “Some of it I have read three or four times over. I have formed certain conclusions. The primary one is this-Mr. Nicholas has a secret. There is something in his past which he does not wish anyone to know of. It is something which he desires to keep hidden. But-it was known to the man who called himself Dengo.”
“Exactly-exactly!” murmured Mr. Chancellor. “I agree, entirely.”
“Dengo, in all probability, had been blackmailing Mr. Nicholas for some time,” continued Chaney. “Previously, however, he had, I think, done his blackmailing by correspondence. But on April 17th he came to Wrides Park to do it in person. And I think that the demand he made that day-for fifteen hundred pounds in cash-was considerably in excess of previous demands. Probably his demands had increased in amount from time to time. The fact that Mr. Nicholas had always acceded to them, and that on Dengo’s arrival on April 17th Mr. Nicholas immediately went to the bank with him and drew there-from the money that Dengo asked for, proves-what? That Mr. Nicholas was in abject fear of Dengo or, to put it another way, was terrified that Dengo should split!”
“Just so-just so!” muttered Mr. Chancellor. “Highly probable-nay, certain!”
“Now,” Chaney went on, “what is the secret? Mr. Nicholas knows. Mr. Nicholas won’t tell. It may be that now that Dengo is dead, Mr. Nicholas is the only absolute possessor of the secret. But Mr. Nicholas is in danger! Evidence is strong against him. Dengo, no doubt, was murdered in the Middle Spinney in Wrides Park. Mr. Nicholas’s sword-stick, it seems certain, was the weapon used. Mr. Nicholas took the sword-stick out with him that night-that, too seems certain. Altogether, things point to Mr. Nicholas’s guilt. The men who formed the coroner’s jury yesterday, hard-headed rustics, were agreed, evidently, that Mr. Nicholas killed Dengo, but qualified their opinion by saying that Mr. Nicholas didn’t know what he was doing, I’m afraid that doesn’t help. Well, I don’t think Mr. Nicholas did kill Dengo! I don’t think Mr. Nicholas ever saw or met Dengo that night; I think Mr. Nicholas is absolutely innocent. And I think I know how Dengo came by his death.”
“Good-good!” said Mr. Chancellor. “Most interesting!”
“We must indulge in supposition,” continued Chaney. “A good deal of supposition! Now, supposing that Dengo’s knowledge of Mr. Nicholas was shared in by somebody else, some other person I’ll say what is in my mind, Mr. Chancellor-I think it more than likely that Dengo represented a combine, a gang, of two or three men, all in the secret. But I don’t think Mr. Nicholas would know that-Dengo, as mouthpiece, would be instructed, and would be cute enough on his own account, to represent himself as the sole repository. Well, now, let us indulge in a little more supposition. Dengo has been getting money, through correspondence, from Mr. Nicholas for some time, probably in modest amounts. He suddenly appears in person and demands fifteen hundred pounds in cash-I deduce from this that there were two other men in with him and that there was to be five hundred each for the three, Well, Mr. Nicholas draws fifteen hundred pounds from his bank, in Bank of England notes (we must have the numbers of these notes at once) and he hands the lot over to Dengo and parts from him. Now, then, suppose something else-suppose that one of the Dengo gang, knowing Dengo’s previous success in extracting ready money from Mr. Nicholas, and feeling confident that he’ll be equally successful on this occasion, has followed Dengo down to Havering St. Michael and Wrides Park. Supposing he tracks Dengo during the day, encounters him-and murders him for the money he has on him. Or supposing-to vary the theory-that there was more than one man concerned, that Dengo was followed by both his fellow conspirators-with, of course, the same result. This, at any rate, is what I think a very probable theory, everything considered. I feel confident that Mr. Nicholas did not commit this crime for one simple reason. It’s this-I can’t believe that a man who was in the confused condition in which Mr. Nicholas, through over-indulgence in spirit, was on the evening of the murder, would be sufficiently aware of what he was doing to hide that sword-stick in a rabbit-burrow! That, I feel sure, was the work of a man whose brain was working in a normal fashion.”
