Collected works of j s f.., p.751
Collected Works of J S Fletcher, page 751
THE EFFECT OF Mr. Pelterfield’s dramatic announcement on Mr. Nicholas was instant. He had been given a seat in the dock and had sat there meekly, his eyes cast on the floor; never once had he looked up since Pelterfield began to speak. But now, after one wild stare at his accuser, he dropped his head forward into his hands and let out a groan that was audible all over the court. Miss Starr jumped up from her seat, near me, as if to go to him, and at a word from the Chairman of the Magistrates the police surgeon, there in readiness to give evidence, moved across the dock. But Mr. Nicholas waved him away.
“Go on-let him go on!” he said audibly. “I knew it would come out! Let him say his say!”
And Mr. Pelterfield went on, his voice suaver and smoother than ever; its tone was even apologetic.
“From a very early stage of the proceedings resultant on the discovery of Ogden’s identity,” he said, “the police felt it to be incumbent on them to investigate his past. Thanks to the perseverance of Detective-Sergeant Willerton, attached to the police force at Havering St. Michael, I am now in possession of a great many facts relating to Ogden and am able to throw some light on at any rate the later stages of his career. Ogden was known to the police and especially to those connected with the turf. He first came under their notice some years ago, when he was sent to prison for welching at an obscure race-meeting in the north of England. At one time or another he served various short terms of imprisonment for similar or kindred offences. He appears to have made a living by nefarious practices such as thimble-rigging, the three-card trick, and other illegal so-called games. Now and then he figured as a tout, and sometimes as a tipster; I have evidence of his having been in trouble at Newmarket, at Ascot, and at Goodwood. Finally he got five years’ penal servitude for fraud in connexion with a scheme which his ingenuity had evolved for the cheating of a well-known firm of turf commission agents. He served the major portion of his sentence at the convict prison at Marshurst. And at Marshurst he made the acquaintance-he had, at any rate, abundant opportunities of doing so-of one Charles Norton, who was serving a term of three years’ penal servitude as a result of his conviction as a director of the famous-or infamous-Aurora Financial Corporation, which, it will be remembered, crashed suddenly some years ago. All the directors-five, I think-of that corporation were arrested, tried, found guilty of fraud, and sentenced to terms of penal servitude varying from ten to three years. Charles Norton was one of the two directors who received the minor sentences; it was pleaded on his behalf that he was a mere cat’s paw, a figure-head. I am not going outside my province when I say that I think this was so-Norton appears to have been entirely misled, influenced, and even cheated by the leading spirit amongst his fellow directors, the man who got ten years. But Norton was technically guilty, and he got three years, and served it at Marshurst, where, as I have said, Ogden was serving his sentence of five. Now, who was Charles Norton? I shall produce evidence to prove, conclusively, that Charles Norton is Christopher Nicholas, now before you, charged with Ogden’s murder!”
Mr. Pelterfield paused-probably on purpose to let this sink into the minds of all who heard him. But he went on again, almost immediately, and this time there was a more business-like tone about his voice.
“I have already said that I shall bring forward evidence to prove that Ogden had been systematically blackmailing Mr. Nicholas for some time. One of the witnesses I am going to call is Mr. Nicholas’s butler, Hoiler, who will prove that on one occasion Ogden accosted Mr. Nicholas at Claridge’s Hotel-that may have been, and probably was, the first time that the two men met since their release from Marshurst. There can be little doubt that from that time onward Ogden continually got money out of Mr. Nicholas; little doubt, either, that he got it to a considerable amount. Detective-Sergeant Willerton has earmarked Ogden’s banking account-at the time of his death this man, who had no occupation and lived what Mrs. Pettigo, his landlady, called the life of a gentleman, had a balance of well over two thousand pounds. Everything we have discovered points to the fact that he had got all this out of the man he was blackmailing. But up to April 17th last, he appears to have made all his demands by post. On April 17th, however, he came to his victim in person. He wanted fifteen hundred pounds ready cash. We know that he got it. We know a great deal about what happened on April 17th: we know that in the morning Mr. Nicholas and Ogden met, and what took place between them. And the theory of the prosecution is that at some hour of the evening of that day they met again, by appointment, in Wrides Park, and that there, in the wood known as Middle Spinney, Mr. Nicholas, losing his self-control and probably maddened by the drink which, to drown his sorrows, he had taken too freely, ran his persecutor through the body and killed him!”
I looked at Chaney when Mr. Pelterfield had finished. His face had lengthened and he shook his head as the barrister sat down.
“Strong line, Mr. Camberwell!” he whispered. “I wish we’d found that Swiss walking-stick! Of course, I’d no idea that Nicholas was Norton!-I remember that case well enough, though I wasn’t in it. I suppose there’s no doubt of what Pelterfield says?-that Nicholas is Norton?”
There was no doubt about it at all-when one heard the evidence. We heard a lot of evidence; we spent the rest of the morning and all the afternoon in listening to evidence in support of Mr. Pelterfield’s opening statement. I think the most damning thing of the whole lot was the unmistakable evidence that Ogden had systematically blackmailed Mr. Nicholas, and of that particular sort of testimony Hoiler’s was certainly not the least important. I could not make out how the prosecution had got hold of Hoiler at all, but there he was. He betrayed great reluctance, and even went the length of protesting against being questioned and cross-questioned about his master’s affairs, but he had to tell, and he told…just what he told me about the encounter outside Claridge’s. And just as Hoiler was obliged to speak, so we all were-Jeeves, myself, Welman, everybody who had already given evidence at the inquest. It made up a damning body of evidence against Mr. Nicholas.
Chancellor had engaged an eminent counsel to represent his client, and this gentleman did his best in cross-examining witnesses. But when the case for the prosecution was completed, he offered no defence. His client, he said, reserved his defence and pleaded not guilty. And therewith Mr. Nicholas was formally committed to take his trial at the next ensuing assizes.
Chaney stopped at Wrides Park that night, and he and I, after dinner, reviewed the whole situation with a view to our next proceedings. Since hearing Pelterfield’s revelations Chaney had become somewhat grave and anxious.
“Unless we can prove that Nicholas did not take out the sword-stick that evening, he’s in a bad way,” he remarked. “If he did kill Ogden, the argument that he’d had so much alcohol that he didn’t know what he was doing won’t avail him at all. But how can we prove it? Finding the other stick won’t prove it!”
“Not even if we prove-conclusively-that it was the Swiss stick he took?” I asked.
“Ah, well, that might!” he agreed. “But it’s a question of-if! If! If we could only prove-conclusively, as you say-that Mr. Nicholas did not take out that sword-stick, and that he never met Ogden that evening, why, then, there’s an end of the case against him! But the job is-proving it. It’s a queer thing to me that nobody ever saw him that night, except Welman. If he was wandering about, you’d think he must have been seen. I wonder if anybody’s keeping anything dark? There’s a certain thing we might try, Mr. Camberwell. The press!”
“Newspapers?” I said.
“Why, not exactly newspapers,” he answered, “though, to be sure, publicity’s a good thing. No, I was meaning the printing-press, a local one. Couldn’t you draw up an appeal to anybody who knows anything, any little thing, anything whatever, about Mr. Nicholas’s movements that night, to come forward and tell what he or she knows? You see, Mr. Camberwell, it’s this way-I’ve had some experience of these country-folk, and I’ve found that they’re very reticent about telling anything that they may happen to know in cases like this. They’re afraid of being mixed up in anything that has to do with the police. I’ve known, oh, a score of instances in which what’s seemed to be an unsolvable mystery could have been cleared up in five minutes if only somebody had spoken who wouldn’t.”
“What about making it worth the informant’s while?” I suggested.
“Well, a reward always attracts,” he replied. “And it also always does another thing-it brings forward people who really haven’t anything to tell, though they fancy they have, and also people who deliberately invent some information in the hope of its being swallowed. If a reward is offered, the best thing is not to name any precise sum, but to say that the informant will be suitably rewarded. I suppose there’d be no difficulty about giving a reward in this case?”
“I think I can guarantee that,” said I. “What do you suggest, then?”
“You draw up a notice,” he answered. “We’ll get it printed in the form of a handbill and have it distributed all around this neighbourhood and posted up in any likely place. And we can send copies to the papers and ask them to take notice of it. It may produce something, you know.”
Between us we evolved the following-it seemed to me somewhat vague, but Chaney pronounced it to be just the thing:
The friends of Mr. Nicholas, of Wrides Park, will be grateful to any one who happened to see Mr. Nicholas at any time during the evening of April 17 th last if he or she will come forward with any information of which they are possessed. A handsome reward will be paid to anyone who can give any particulars as to Mr. Nicholas’s whereabouts or movements that evening. All communications, which will be regarded as strictly confidential, should be addressed to Mr. Ronald Camberwell, Wrides Park, near Havering St. Michael, Surrey.
We got a few hundred copies of this production set up and struck off by a local printer, and made arrangements for their distribution at every house and cottage in the neighbourhood; we also had some small posters printed in bold type and got a bill-poster to fix them on blank walls, gate-posts, and likely public places. To do the thing thoroughly, I sent copies of the handbill to all the local newspapers, with a covering note begging the editors to draw attention to our effort. And, this done, I sat down to wait for any news-and at the end of the fifth day I was still waiting.
Then, on the morning of the sixth, I got some. It came in the form of a letter written on a scrap of dirty paper enclosed in a cheap, flimsy envelope. It had no date, but it bore an address-The Union Workhouse Infirmary, Penchester. And it ran as follows:
DEAR SIR,
Having read your appeal on behalf of Mr. Nicholas in the Penchester and Southern Counties Herald, I beg to say that I believe I can give some information which may be of use to you. I am unfortunately unable to call on you, as, being in bad health, consequent upon long unemployment, I have been obliged to seek shelter in the above-mentioned institution. As the matter appears to be of importance, I have obtained permission for you to see me at any hour of the day on which you can make it convenient to call. The information I can give is of a nature that cannot be written in a letter, as the necessary explanation would be of too lengthy a nature.
Yours respectfully,
CHARLES BURRIDGE
Chaney came in just as I had finished reading this letter, and I handed it to him without comment. He ran rapidly over it.
“Educated man, evidently,” he said. “Well written; well expressed. Some chap down on his luck, no doubt. Wonder what he was doing in these parts on the night of April 17th?”
“You think it worth inquiring into?” I asked.
“Anything’s worth inquiring into!” he answered. “Anything! You never know what you mayn’t learn, Penchester, eh? Now, how far away is Penchester?”
“About thirty-five to forty miles,” I replied.
“Plenty of cars here, Mr. Camberwell, aren’t there?” he said. “Let’s have a good one and get there as soon as we can. This may be little; it may be much. But let’s know what it is.”
There was no difficulty about getting one of Mr. Nicholas’s best cars, and within half an hour Chaney and I were off.
“I’m curious to know what this may be,” he said, as we turned out of the park into the high road. “Odd that the first response to our handbill should come from forty miles away. Lay anything this correspondent of yours is a tramp! But that doesn’t matter. Any other communications, Mr. Camberwell?”
“Not one!” I replied. “The local result is nothing!”
“All the more reason why we should see this man immediately,” he remarked. “We can soon tell what it’s worth, this information of his.”
We were in Penchester within the hour and a half, and just before noon were admitted to the infirmary from which the letter had been sent. There we were taken to the bedside of a sick man-the sort of man who had obviously seen better days.
CHAPTER XV. STEPS FORWARD
WITHIN A VERY few minutes Chaney and I knew that our journey to Penchester was not going to be fruitless. Burridge, a quiet, well-spoken man, had not only something to tell, but was plainly one whose word was to be relied on. His account of himself, frankly given, was a not uncommon one. Thrown out of work by no fault of his own, he had been going from one town to another seeking employment. On the evening of April 17th he was completing the last stage of a day’s journey which he intended to terminate at Havering St. Michael, where he meant to sleep for the night. Then something happened to him-what it was he told us in plain unaffected fashion.
“As you gentlemen come from near Havering St. Michael,” he said, “you’ll know that some little way outside the town, on the west side, there’s a roadside hotel or tavern, called the Wagon and Horses. I was approaching that, from the west, about (I should say, though I’m not definitely certain) nine or half past nine, when I saw a man in front of me behaving in a very curious fashion. When I first saw him, he was on the foot-path on the opposite side of the road to that on which the hotel stands. There was no one else about, nobody standing at the hotel doors; the blinds and curtains were drawn in the windows. There are two lamps in front of the hotel and they throw a lot of light, but within its circle there was nobody and nothing to be seen. I mention this point-nobody in view-because it made the man’s behaviour all the queerer. When I first saw him, he was dancing up and down on the foot-path, shaking his fist-at somebody across the road, I thought. But there wasn’t anybody! Nor was there anybody to be seen in the windows of the hotel. Just before I came up to him, he changed his tactics. He had been shaking his left hand at somebody or something across the road; now he raised a stick which was in his left hand and began gesticulating with it in the same direction, slashing it savagely through the air, as if he were beating the life out of somebody! And, just as I came close to him-of course, he never saw me-the stick flew out of his hand across the road!”
“Ah!” exclaimed Chaney, giving me a look. “Lost it, eh?”
“It flew clean away from his hand,” replied Burridge, “he was slashing so violently with it. But the road was well lighted there, and I saw where the stick went, and I ran across and picked it up and, coming back, handed it to him. And I took a good look at him as I did so.”
“Describe him, then,” said Chaney.
“A tallish, thinnish gentleman, slightly bearded, rather care-worn and very pale, and, to tell you the truth, either, in my opinion, a bit mad or terribly excited. He was breathing fast and heavily, and he stared or glared at me when I offered him the stick, as if he didn’t understand what I was doing. But he took it.”
“He took it?”
“Yes, he took it. And for a second or two he stood staring at me, in silence. Then, all of a sudden, he thrust his hand in his pocket, pulled something out, and pushed it into my hand. It was some silver-seven or eight shillings. The instant he’d done that, he turned on his heel and walked off, very fast, in the opposite direction-I mean, he turned towards the way by which I’d come. I walked a few yards towards Havering St. Michael; then I turned and looked after him. I watched him go along the road a little way; then he suddenly twisted sharply round and, coming back, made for the hotel. As he neared it, he came full into the light of the two lamps, and I saw that he was still flourishing the stick about, though not so wildly as before.”
“Well?” inquired Chaney, as Burridge stopped. “And then?”
“That’s all,” replied Burridge. “He went into the hotel.”
“You saw him enter?”
“I saw him enter; oh, yes.”
“Carrying the stick?”
“Carrying the stick, certainly.”
“Well, now, look here,” said Chaney; “you’re a more than usually intelligent man, I’m sure, and no doubt an observant one. When you picked up that stick, you were in the full spread of the light from the two lamps you’ve spoken of, weren’t you? So you could see the stick clearly, plainly? Very well-did you notice anything particular about it?”
“Yes,” replied Burridge, promptly, and with a smile. “I did! It had the name FLUELEN carved on it, beneath another carving of edelweiss.”
“Now, what made you particularly notice that?” demanded Chaney.
“The fact that once, when I was better off, I had a week’s holiday at Lucerne,” answered Burridge. “Fluelen is at the bottom of the lake-I went there. I saw sticks similar to this sold there. In fact, I once had one of my own.”
Chaney drew me away to a corner of the room in which this interview took place.
“This is a real good find, Mr. Camberwell!” he said. “Now look here-before we go, we ought to get this man’s statement embodied in an affidavit. And there’s another thing-you’ll feel justified in promising him some reward?”
“He can certainly count on that!” I said.
“Then let’s tell him so and ask him if he’ll make his statement again before a commissioner of oaths,” he answered. “We can easily arrange for that at once. Burridge,” he continued, when he returned to the bedside, “you’ll be well rewarded for the information you’ve given. But now just tell me-you’ve no objection to give it again before a lawyer-an affidavit, you know? You know what that means?”
