Collected works of j s f.., p.773
Collected Works of J S Fletcher, page 773
‘What would you say this man was?’
‘None of them, sir!’
‘What, then?’
‘Can’t say, sir. Some sort that I don’t know.’
‘Have you ever driven a Russian, Trotter?’
‘Not to my knowledge, sir.’
‘Nor a Pole?’
‘Not that I know of, sir.’
‘At any rate, you feel sure that this man we’ve been talking of, whom you drove from Oxford Street to Liverpool Street last Thursday midnight was a foreigner of some sort?’
‘That’s my impression, sir.’
At this stage of the proceedings the coroner, after some consultation with the police authorities, adjourned the further hearing for ten days.
IV
CHANEY THREW DOWN his newspaper just as I laid mine aside. He turned to me with a characteristic grunt — expressive of pronounced conviction.
‘Um!’ he said. ‘I don’t think there’s much doubt about all that, Camberwell! Mrs. Goodge met him!’
‘You think that was the original murderer?’ I said.
‘I see nothing else that would explain matters,’ he answered. ‘I figure it out this way. In the man she saw in the bar of the Marquis of Manby Mrs. Goodge recognized the man she’d seen leaving her flats on the night of Mrs. Clayton’s murder. She followed him out, and accosted him. No doubt they began an argument. What is it likely the man would say under the circumstances? At first he’d deny her accusation, point-blank: he’d say that he was never there at all. She’d stick to it — she was the sort of woman who could be obstinate and who’d let anybody see that she meant what she said; probably she threatened to stick to him and hand him over to the first policeman they met. Then he’d begin to temporize with her. Probably he’d admit that he did leave the flats that night, but that he’d been calling on a friend there. Then he no doubt tried the other dodge — squaring Mrs. Goodge. Very likely — I should say certainly — he offered her money to keep her mouth shut: he would do that without admitting any guilt. Now, from what we saw of Mrs. Goodge, I don’t think she’d object to being squared — whatever her daughter may say. And there’s the undoubted fact — Mrs. Goodge was found with five and twenty pounds in Bank of England notes in her hand. Who gave them to her? This man, of course!’
‘Why didn’t he re-possess himself of them?’ I asked.
‘Probably because Mehta came along before he’d time to do so,’ replied Chaney. ‘And, of course, as soon as he’d finished Mehta, he’d want to clear out quick. But the fact that he did leave them seems to indicate to me that he was a man to whom five and twenty pounds was of no importance — a rich man. Anyway, after settling Mehta at the foot of the stairs, he wasn’t returning to his first victim for the sake of recovering a few banknotes. Or — he may have forgotten them in his excitement — if such a fellow can feel excitement. But, in any case, he cleared out, and made off and round a corner or two into Berners Street.’
‘You think he was the man who hailed the taxi-cab driver?’ I said.
‘I do! And I’ll tell you what I think about that. I think it was all a piece of bluff — sheer acting. He asked to go to Liverpool Street Station — bluff!’
‘But he did go there!’ I pointed out.
‘He didn’t. He stopped the cab at the corner of New Broad Street and Liverpool Street, with some muttered remark about walking. But he didn’t walk across to Liverpool Street Station — the big station, at any rate. The taxi-cab man, turning his cab, saw him slink into the Metropolitan — the Underground! Why? Because he was going back on his tracks — going back to the West End! Clever dodge, Camberwell! The fellow had figured things out. He knew that Mrs. Goodge and the Hindu would be found dead, murdered. He knew that he’d been in the Marquis of Manby when Mrs. Goodge was there, and had probably been seen with Mrs. Goodge. He also knew that these last murders would be linked with that of Mrs. Clayton and that of Hannington, and that somebody of foreign appearance, in black hat, black clothes, white muffler would be looked for. Very well! — let them have some clue that will make them look for him in the East End. So — to Liverpool Street. But — I think he went back west when he’d once got down to the Underground. And it’s in the West End that we’ll look for him!’
‘Chaney!’ said I. ‘Who do you think he is?’
‘Who do I think he is?’ he exclaimed. ‘Why, Crowther, of course! Who else? But — who is Crowther?’
‘Do you think he’s Paley?’ I asked ‘Do you — really?’
‘I can say more about that when I’ve heard what that clerk of ours has to tell us,’ he answered. ‘He’ll have some sort of a report to make. Paley? — ah, I shouldn’t be surprised. I reckon that chap’s capable of anything. But if it is Paley — if Paley’s Crowther — I should like to know Paley’s real motive for indulging in what’s becoming wholesale murder. He — the murderer, whoever he really is — is an expert at cracking his victims’ skulls, Camberwell! And look here, do you remember what the old gentleman at Monte Carlo told us about Crowther? — that he carried an old-fashioned life-preserver on him, always? Well, from my knowledge of such things, I should say that every one of these victims, Hannington, Mrs. Crowther, Mrs. Goodge, the Hindu, was finished off in that way. With one good blow, delivered in the right place! Camberwell! — we’ve got to find this chap and make sure that he swings!’
‘What are we going to do when we get to Victoria?’ I asked.
‘We’ll go straight to Lord Cheverdale and give in our report,’ he answered. ‘But listen! Our interview with Lord Cheverdale has got to be with him, in private, and not with him and Paley. With Paley we will have nothing to do. And we must be careful about what we tell Lord Cheverdale. I think he’s a man of honour, and if we pledge him to secrecy, he’ll respect our confidence. But still, there are things we must not tell him — at present.’
‘Such as — what?’ I asked.
‘Well, leave it to me — but in particular, we must not, on any account whatever, tell him that the man Crowther, wherever he is, and under whatever name he now goes by, can be identified by that tattoo mark we heard of — —’
‘The Black Dragon!’ I exclaimed. ‘Ah! — I’d forgotten it!’
‘I hadn’t!’ he said grimly. ‘Not likely. We keep that matter to ourselves, Camberwell, until — —’
He paused, and turning to the window, looked out on the Kentish fields with an inscrutable smile.
‘Until — when?’ I asked.
‘Until the right moment comes!’ he answered. ‘It’s coming!’
PART FIVE. THE SWIMMING-POOL
I
WE FOUND LORD Cheverdale alone: he sat at the head of his dinner-table in solitary state, a dish of walnuts and a decanter of port before him. He seemed to be in more genial and expansive mood than we had hitherto found usual with him and sent his butler for more port and glasses. Indeed, he appeared somewhat pleased to have company.
‘Had to dine alone to-night,’ he said, with a grin that seemed to spring from some thought that struck him as humorous. ‘Daughter staying with friends, and Paley away for a day or two on business of his own. Any news?’
‘We have a good deal to tell your lordship,’ replied Chaney. He waited until the butler had discharged his office and gone away, and then bent towards our employer with an air that suggested secrecy. ‘A great deal!’ he continued. ‘And we are very anxious that whatever we tell should be treated by our lordship in absolute confidence.’
‘No other ears than mine, eh?’, suggested Lord Cheverdale.
‘No other ears than your lordship’s,’ assented Chaney. ‘Your lordship has employed our confidential services, and we are most particular that whatever we now tell your lordship should not be repeated to anyone. The fact is,’ he continued, ‘we have secured most important evidence, and while we are bound to reveal it to your lordship, as our employer, we feel that it would be highly dangerous to the success of our plans if any third party knew of it.’
‘Yes, yes!’ said his lordship. ‘Understand exactly — not a word to anybody!’
‘Not even, if your lordship pleases, to your secretary, Mr. Paley,’ remarked Chaney. ‘When we say no one, we mean no one!’
‘Yes, yes — quite so!’ said Lord Cheverdale. ‘Well, now, where have you got to?’
Chaney set to work on his story. He had a natural gift of telling a clear, consecutive story in plain and lucid language, without waste of words. Lord Cheverdale, because of his business training was a good listener; I could see from the expression of his keen old eyes and his characteristically hard and grim lips that he was following every point. And Chaney made his points in sequence — the discovery of the marriage certificate of Frank Crowther and Alice Holroyd; the enquiries of Milthwaite, Mentone, Monte Carlo, and Paris, and their result; the probabilities that the murders of Hannington, Mrs. Crowther, or Clayton, Mrs. Goodge and the Hindu student were the work of the same hand; and finally that we felt convinced that Crowther was either the actual murderer or had some hand in the murders. But one thing Chaney did not tell Lord Cheverdale the story of the tattooed serpent or dragon found round Crowther’s arm — that, for reasons of his own, he kept to himself.
Lord Cheverdale, keeping a strict silence till the end of Chaney’s report, broke it with a sharp question.
‘Who do you suppose this man Crowther to be?’
Chaney shook his head.
‘My lord, we have nothing on which to found any supposition!’ replied Chaney, keeping back any suspicions he might have. ‘We don’t know who he is!’
Lord Cheverdale put the tips of his fingers together and assumed a judicial attitude. I could see that his naturally acute wits were working.
‘You have no doubt that the woman who called herself Mrs. Clayton at Little Custom Street was, in reality, Mrs. Crowther, formerly Alice Holroyd?’ he asked.
‘None!’ said Chaney.
‘You ascertained that Alice Holroyd was well known to Hannington when he was on the Milthwaite Observer and she employed at the Angel Hotel there?’
‘That we ascertained, beyond question.’
‘That explains why Mrs. Crowther, formerly Alice Holroyd, visited Hannington at the Sentinel office, eh?’
‘We think it’s an ample explanation, my lord. She went to seek his aid.’
‘In what?’
‘As we’ve told your lordship, she’d recognized her missing husband in a man of whom she’d had a momentary glimpse in Paris. We think she went to Hannington to ask him to help her to find this man in London. Probably the man — Crowther — is now a man of wealth and position. These adventurers, my lord, have strange ups and downs.’
Lord Cheverdale tapped the table in front of him.
‘Hannington and the woman were murdered — probably by the same hand — within an hour or two of each other!’ he said. ‘That means that the man you’re thinking of — let’s suppose it was Crowther — had found out that the woman had told her story to Hannington, and that Hannington might let it out to the world. How had the man found it out?’
‘That, my lord, is, of course, a mystery,’ replied Chaney. ‘We don’t know how he had found it out. But there’s the fact that — —’
Lord Cheverdale lifted a finger.
‘A moment! Hannington, you remember, was murdered in my grounds. Evidently he was on his way to me. Why should he come to me with this business? — which was not of public interest.’
‘Pardon me, my lord, but it may have been of public interest,’ said Chaney. ‘My own particular theory is this. I think the man Crowther, in the course of the up-and-down career which all adventurers have, is now probably a well-to-do-man, and possibly a public man, or employed in some important capacity. I think, too, that since his desertion of his wife, he has probably contracted a bigamous marriage. If Hannington knew this, he, as a newspaper editor, would feel it a matter of public interest and would naturally want to consult you about it — as being proprietor of his paper.’
Lord Cheverdale thought in silence for a few minutes.
‘You think that Hannington, through his conversation with Mrs. Crowther, found that her missing husband was a man of some importance and known to him?’
‘Yes!’
‘Now, why do you think that Hannington set off to see me about it?’
‘I can answer that at once, my lord! I think that Hannington knew that your lordship also knew the man! — knew of him.’
‘Knew of him, perhaps — knew him, I doubt! I have a very small circle of acquaintances. He may be, as you say, a public man. But to turn back — how, during that evening, did the man — again let’s call him Crowther — how did Crowther find out that his wife had been to Hannington?’
‘Mrs. Crowther may have been watched, my lord. And — there may have been an accomplice.’
Lord Cheverdale rose from his chair and began to pace the room.
‘It comes to this,’ he said, after a pause. ‘Your theory is that Hannington and Mrs. Crowther were murdered because they knew a secret which would, if divulged, have upset all Crowther’s schemes; that Mrs. Goodge was afterwards murdered because she recognized Crowther, and that Mehta, the young Hindu gentleman, was murdered because he appeared on the scene at the moment of Mrs. Goodge’s murder. Is that it?’
‘That, my lord, is it, or about it,’ replied Chaney.
‘But you have evidence as to the appearance of the man seen by Mrs. Goodge, and afterwards by other people,’ remarked Lord Cheverdale. ‘A man of middle height, in dark clothing, black slouch hat, white muffler — —’
‘Your lordship will pardon me for interrupting you to point out that nobody, nobody whatever, can say that he or she has seen this man!’ said Chaney. ‘I mean — nobody has seen his face, or, at least, only the top of it! He has always been so muffled up that not one of the people who have been questioned can say whether he is dark or fair, or even if he is clean-shaven or bearded!’
Again Lord Cheverdale paced the room, thinking.
‘There must be somebody who knows something!’ he said at last. ‘Somebody — somewhere!’
‘Exactly, my lord!’ agreed Chaney. ‘There always is somebody who knows a lot in these cases. But the difficulty is to get such people to come forward!’
‘I’m a rich man,’ observed his lordship. ‘I can make it worth anybody’s while to tell. Would it be of use to offer a reward?’
‘It might,’ replied Chaney.
‘Let it be done, then,’ said Lord Cheverdale. ‘You can draw up the offer. How would you put it?’
‘That ought to be very carefully considered, my lord,’ answered Chaney. ‘What I should suggest is that nothing whatever is said about the murder part of the business. There’s an official police notice out for that already. What I should suggest is that we advertise for information as to the whereabouts, at present, of Frank Crowther, at one time resident in Milthwaite, and who was married at Milthwaite Registry office to Alice Holroyd.’
‘Where would you put such an advertisement?’ enquired Lord Cheverdale.
‘In The Times, the principal London dailies, and in the leading provincial newspapers,’ replied Chaney.
‘Offering a reward?’ asked his lordship.
‘I shouldn’t mention any particular amount, my lord. It will be sufficient to say that a handsome reward — to be agreed upon — will be paid to anyone giving the information we ask for. I daren’t say,’ continued Chaney, ‘that this will produce any result, but it’s a way of finding Crowther. Somebody may know something about him.’
‘Let it be done — see to it at once,’ said Lord Cheverdale. ‘Do whatever seems best to you. Of course, you know, your theories aren’t those of the official lot at Scotland Yard — oh, dear me, no! They still stick to the political murder idea — only more so since that poor caretaker woman and the Hindu were murdered. They’re convinced of it!’
‘The official police, my lord, don’t know what we know,’ remarked Chaney, quietly. ‘We shall have to tell them sooner or later, but at present they aren’t in possession of our information. No one is but your lordship. And your lordship will remember our bargain as to secrecy?’
‘Oh, yes, yes, yes!’ agreed Lord Cheverdale. ‘Bargain’s a bargain with me. Don’t quite understand your reason for secrecy, but never mind — get on with it!’
II
CHIPPENDALE WAS THE next person we wanted to see, and Chippendale, on his coming to the office on the following morning, was eager to give in his report.
‘I haven’t had such bad luck, sir,’ he answered in response to Chaney’s first question. ‘I got in with ’em pretty thick at Cheverdale Lodge, and I jolly soon settled two points. First of all, there’s no doubt whatever that from the time that the old gentleman — Lord Cheverdale, I mean — finished the game of piquet he was having with him and went off to bed, nobody in the household can say exactly where Paley was. And second, there’s no doubt either that — —’
‘Stop there, my lad!’ said Chaney. ‘A detail! — you say that from the time Lord Cheverdale left him for his bed, nobody can say where Paley was. But — till when?’
‘Sorry, sir,’ responded Chippendale, penitently. ‘Until Harris, running to tell of what he’d discovered in the shrubbery, found him in the library, reading a book.’
‘Go on with your second point,’ said Chaney.
‘This,’ continued Chippendale. ‘There’s also no doubt that as soon as Paley had ‘phoned the police, he cleared out, saying to the butler and Harris that he must break the news to — but there, at that point, there’s difference of opinion, or of evidence, between Harris and the butler. Harris says that Paley said he must break the news to Hannington’s relations. The butler says that Paley didn’t say “relations”; he said “our people” — by which the butler thought he meant the Sentinel. However, Harris sticks to it that it was “relations”. On the other hand, the butler’s equally certain he’s right — it was “our people”.’
