| This site is full of FREE ebooks - Check them out at our Home page - Project Gutenberg Australia |
Title: Skin O' My Tooth Author: Baroness Orczy * A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook * eBook No.: 0301211h.html Language: English Date first posted: August 2003 Date most recently updated: August 2003 Project Gutenberg of Australia eBooks are created from printed editions which are in the public domain in Australia, unless a copyright notice is included. We do NOT keep any eBooks in compliance with a particular paper edition. Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing this file. This eBook is made available at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg of Australia License which may be viewed online at http://gutenberg.net.au/licence.html To contact Project Gutenberg of Australia go to http://gutenberg.net.au --------------------------------------------------------------------------
GO TO Project Gutenberg of Australia HOME PAGE
WE all called him "Skin o' my Tooth": his friends, who were few; his clients, who were many, and I, his confidential clerk, solus-- and very proud I am to hold that position. I believe, as a matter of fact, that his enemies--and their name is legion--call him Patrick Mulligan; but to us all who know him as he is, "Skin o' my Tooth" he always was, from the day that he got a verdict of "Not guilty" out of the jury who tried James Tovey, "the Dartmouth murderer." Tovey hadn't many teeth, but it was by the skin of those few molars of his that he escaped the gallows; not thanks to the pleading of his counsel, but all thanks to the evidence collected by Patrick Mulligan, his lawyer.
Of course, Skin o' my Tooth is not popular among his colleagues; there is much prejudice and petty spite in all professions, and the Law is not exempt from this general rule.
Everyone knows that Skin o' my Tooth is totally unacquainted with the use of kid gloves. He works for the best of his client; let the other side look to themselves, I say.
Funny--looking man, too, old Skin o' my Tooth--fat and rosy and comfortable as an Irish pig, with a face as stodgy as a boiled currant dumpling. His hair, I believe, would be red if he gave it a chance at all, but he wears it cropped so close to his bulky head that he looks bald in some lights. Then, we all know that gentle smile of his, and that trick of casting down his eyes which gives him a look that is best described by the word "coy"; that trick is always a danger--signal to the other side.
Now, in the case of Edward Kelly, everyone will admit that that young man came nearer being hanged for murder than any of us would care for.
But this is how it all happened.
On Tuesday, September 3rd, Mary Mills and John Craddock-- who were walking through the Saltashe Woods--came across the body of a man lying near the pond, in a pool of blood. Mary, of course, screamed, and would have fled; but John, manfully conquering the feeling of sickness which threatened to overcome him too, went up to the body to get a closer view of the face. To his horror he recognised Mr. Jeremiah Whadcoat, a well--known, respectable resident of Pashet. The unfortunate man seemed to John Craddock to be quite dead; still, he thought it best to despatch Mary at once for Doctor Howden, and also to the police--station; whilst he, with really commendable courage, elected to remain beside the body alone.
It appears that about half an hour after Mary had left him, John thought that he detected a slight movement in the rigid body, which he had propped up against his knee, and that the wounded man uttered a scarcely audible sigh and then murmured a few words. The young man bent forward eagerly, striving with all his might to catch what these words might be. According to his subsequent evidence before the coroner's jury, Mr. Whadcoat then opened his eyes, and murmured quite distinctly--
"The letter...Kelly...Edward...the other." After that all seemed over, for the face became more rigid and more ashen in colour than before.
It was past six o'clock before the doctor and the inspector, with two constables and a stretcher from Pashet police--station, appeared upon the scene and relieved John Craddock of his lonely watch. Mr. Whadcoat had not spoken again, and the doctor pronounced life to be extinct. The body was quietly removed to Mr. Whadcoat's house in Pashet, Mary Mills having already volunteered for the painful task of breaking the news to Miss Amelia, Mr. Whadcoat's sister, who lived with him.
The unfortunate man was cashier to Messrs. Kelly and Co., the great wine merchants; so Mr. Kelly, of Saltashe Park, also Mr. Edward Kelly, of Wood Cottage, were apprised of the sad event.
At this stage the tragic affair seemed wrapped up in the most profound mystery. Mr. Jeremiah Whadcoat was not known to possess a single enemy, and he certainly was not sufficiently endowed with worldly wealth to tempt the highway robber. So far the police had found nothing on the scene of the crime which: could lead to a clue--footsteps of every shape and size leading in every direction, a few empty cartridges here and there; all of which meant nothing, since Saltashe Woods are full of game, and both Mr. Kelly and Mr. Edward Kelly had had shooting parties within the last few days.
The public understood that permission had been obtained from Mr. Kelly to drag the pond, and, not knowing what to think or fear, it awaited the day of the inquest with eager excitement.
I believe that that inquest was one of the most memorable in the annals of a coroner's court. There was a large crowd, of course, for the little town of Pashet was a mass of seething curiosity.
The expert evidence of Dr. Howden, assisted by the divisional surgeon, was certainly very curious. Both learned gentlemen gave it as their opinion that deceased met his death through the discharge of small shot fired from a rifle at a distance of not more than a couple of yards. All the shot had lodged close together in the heart, and the flesh round the wound was slightly charred.
The police, on the other hand, had quite a tit--bit of sensation ready for the eager public. They had dragged the pond and had found the carcass of a dog. The beast had evidently been shot with the same rifle which had ended poor Mr. Whadcoat's days, the divisional surgeon, who had examined the carcass, having pronounced the wound--which was in the side--to be exactly similar in character. A final blow dealt on the animal's head with the butt--end of the rifle, however, had been the ultimate cause of its death. As the medical officer gave this sensational bit of evidence, a sudden and dead silence fell over all in that crowded court, for it had leaked out earlier in the day that the dead dog found in the pond was "Rags," Mr. Edward Kelly's well - known black retriever.
In the midst of that silence, Miss Amelia Whadcoat--the sister of the deceased gentleman--stepped forward, dressed in deep black, and holding a letter, which she handed to the coroner.
"It came under cover, addressed to me," she explained, "on the Tuesday evening."
The coroner, half in hesitation, turned the square envelope between his fingers. At last he read aloud--
"To the Coroner and Jury at the inquest, should a fatal accident occur to me this (Tuesday) afternoon, in Saltashe Wood."
Then he tore open the envelope. Immediately everyone noticed the look of boundless astonishment which spread over his face. There was a moment of breathless silent expectation among the crowd, while Miss Amelia stood quietly with her hands demurely folded over her gingham umbrella and her swollen eyes fixed anxiously upon that letter.
At last the coroner, turning to the jury, said--
"Gentlemen, this letter is addressed to you as well as to myself. I am, therefore, bound to acquaint you of its contents; but I must, of course, warn you not to allow your minds to be unduly influenced, however strange these few words may seem to you. The letter is dated from Ivy Lodge, Pashet, Tuesday, September 3rd, and signed 'Jeremiah Whadcoat.' It says: 'Mr. Coroner and Gentlemen of the Jury,--I beg to inform you that on this day, at 2.30 p.m., I am starting to walk to Saltashe, there to see Mr. Kerhoet and Mr. Kelly on important business. Mr. Edward Kelly has desired me to meet him by the pond in Saltashe Woods, on my way. He knows of the business which takes me to Saltashe. He and I had a violent quarrel at the office on the subject last night, and he has every reason for wishing that I should never speak of it to Mr. Kelly and to Mr. Kerhoet. Last night he threatened to knock me down. If any serious accident happen to me, let Mr. Edward Kelly account for his actions.'"
A deadly silence followed, and then a muttered curse from somewhere among the crowd.
"This is damnable!"
And Mr. Edward Kelly, young, good--looking, but, at this moment, as pale as death, pushed his way forward among the spectators.
He wanted to speak, but the coroner waved him aside in his most official manner, while Miss Amelia Whadcoat demurely concluded her evidence. Personally, she knew nothing of her brother's quarrel with Mr. Edward Kelly. She did not even know that he was going to Saltashe Woods on that fatal afternoon. Then she retired, and Mr. Edward Kelly was called.
Questioned by the coroner, he admitted the quarrel spoken of by the deceased, admitted meeting him by the pond in Saltashe Woods, but emphatically denied having the slightest ill--feeling against "Old Whadcoat," as he called him, and, above all, having the faintest desire for wishing to silence him for ever.
"The whole thing is a ghastly mistake or a weird joke," he declared firmly.
"But the quarrel?" persisted the coroner.
"I don't deny it," retorted the young man. "It was the result of a preposterous accusation old Whadcoat saw fit to level against me."
"But why should you meet him clandestinely in the Woods?"
"It was not a clandestine meeting. I knew that he intended walking to Saltashe from Pashet through the Woods; a road from my house cuts the direction which he would be bound to follow, exactly at right angles. I wished to speak to him, and it saved me a journey all the way to Pashet, or him one down to my house. I met him at half--past three. We had about fifteen minutes talk; then I left him and went back home."
"What was he doing when you left him?" asked the coroner, with distinct sarcasm.
"He had sat down on a tree stump and was smoking his pipe."
"You had your gun with you, of course, on this expedition through the Woods?"
"I seldom go out without my gun this time of year."
"Quite so," assented the coroner grimly. "But what about your dog, who was found with its head battered in, close to the very spot where lay the body of the deceased?"
"Poor old Rags strayed away that morning. I did not see him at all that day. He certainly was not with me when I went to meet old Whadcoat."
The rapidly spoken questions and answers had been listened to by the public and the jury with breathless interest. No one uttered a sound, but all were watching that the handsome young man, who seemed, with every word he uttered, to incriminate himself more and more. The quarrel, the assignation, the gun he was carrying; he denied nothing but he did protest his innocence with all his might.
One or two people had heard the report of a gun whilst walking on one or other of the roads that skirt Saltashe Woods, but their evidence as to the precise hour was unfortunately rather vague. Reports of guns in Saltashe Woods were very frequent, and no one had taken particular notice. On the other hand, the only witness who had seen Mr. Edward Kelly entering the wood was not ready to swear whether he had his dog with him or not.
Though it had been fully expected ever since Jeremiah Whadcoat's posthumous epistle had been read, the verdict of "Wilful murder against Edward St. John Kelly" found the whole population of Pashet positively aghast. Brother of Mr. Kelly, of Saltashe Park, the accused was one of the most popular figures in this part of Hertfordshire. When his subsequent arrest became generally known in London, as well as in his own county, horror, amazement, and incredulity were quite universal.
II.
THE day after that memorable inquest and sensational arrest--namely, on the Saturday, I arrived at our dingy old office in Finsbury Square at about twelve o'clock, after I had seen to some business at Somerset House for my esteemed employer.
I found Skin o' my Tooth curled up in his arm--chair before a small fire--as the day was wet and cold--just like a great fat and frowsy dog. He waited until I had given him a full report of what I had been doing, then he said to me--
"I have just had a visit from Mr. Kelly, of Saltashe Park."
I was not astonished. That case of murder in the Saltashe Woods was just one of those which inevitably drifted into the hands of Skin o' my Tooth. Though the whole aspect of it was remarkably clear, instinctively one scented a mystery somewhere.
"I suppose, sir, that it was on Mr. Edward Kelly's behalf?"
"Your penetration, Muggins, my boy, surpasses human understanding."
(My name is Alexander Stanislaus Mullins, but Skin o' my Tooth will have his little joke).
"You are going to undertake the case, sir?"
"I am going to get Edward Kelly out of the hole his own stupidity has placed him in."
"It will be by the skin of his teeth if you do, sir, the evidence against him is positively crushing," I muttered.
"A miss is as good as a mile, where the hangman's rope is concerned, Muggins. But you had better call a hansom; we can go down to Pashet this afternoon. Edward Kelly is out on bail, and Mr. Kelly tells me that I shall find him at Wood Cottage. I must get out of him the history of his quarrel with the murdered man."
"Mr. Kelly did not know it?"
"Well, anyway, he seemed to think it best that the accused should tell me his own version of it. In any case, both Mr. Kelly and his wife are devoured with anxiety about this brother, who seems to have been a bit of a scapegrace all his life."
There was no time to say more then, as we found that, by hurrying, we could catch the 1.5 p.m. train to Pashet. We found Mr. Edward Kelly at Wood Cottage, a pretty little house on the outskirts of Saltashe Woods. He had been told of our likely visit by his brother. He certainly looked terribly ill and like a man overweighted by fate and circumstances.
But he did protest his innocence, loudly and emphatically.
"I am the victim of the most damnable circumstances, Mr. Mulligan," he said; "but I swear to you that I am incapable of such a horrible deed."
"I always take it for granted, Mr. Kelly," said Skin o' my Tooth blandly, "that my client is innocent. If the reverse is the case, I prefer not to know it. But you have to appear before the magistrate on Monday. I must get a certain amount of evidence on your behalf, in order to obtain the remand I want. So will you try and tell me, as concisely and as clearly as possible, what passed between you and Mr. Whadcoat the day before the murder? I understand that there was a quarrel."
"Old Whadcoat saw fit to accuse me of certain defalcations in the firm's banking account, of which I was totally innocent," began Mr. Edward Kelly quietly. "As you know, my brother and I are agents in England for M. de Kerhoet's champagne. Whadcoat was our cashier and book-- keeper. Twice a year we pay over into M. de Kerhoet's bank in Paris the money derived from the sale of his wines, after deducting our commission. In the meanwhile, we have jointly the full control of the money--that is to say, all cheques paid to the firm have to be endorsed by us both, and all cheques drawn on the firm must bear both our signatures.
"It was just a month before the half--yearly settlement of accounts. Whadcoat, it appears, went down to the bank, got the cancelled cheques, and discovered that some £10,000, the whole of the credit balance due next month to M. de Kerhoet, had been drawn out of the bank, the amounts not having been debited in the books.
"To my intense amazement, he showed me these cheques, and then and there accused me of having forged my brother's name and appropriated the firm's money to my own use. You see, he knew of certain unavowed extravagances of mine which had often landed me in financial difficulties more or less serious, and which are the real cause of my being forced to live in Wood Cottage whilst my brother can keep up a line establishment at Saltashe Park. But the accusation was preposterous, and I was furious with him. I looked at the cheques. My signature certainly was perfectly imitated, that of my brother perhaps a little less so. They were 'bearer' cheques, made out in a replica of old Whadcoat's handwriting to 'M. de Kerhoet,' and endorsed at the back in a small, pointed, foreign hand.
"Old Whadcoat persisted in his accusations, and very high words ensued between us. I believe I did threaten to knock him down if he did not shut up. Anyway, he told me that he would go over the next afternoon to Saltashe Park to expose me before my brother and M. de Kerhoet, who was staying there on a visit to England for the shooting.
"I left him then, meaning to go myself that same evening to Saltashe Park and see my brother about it; but on my journey home, certain curious suspicions with regard to old Whadcoat himself crept up in my mind, and then and there I determined to try and see him again and to talk the matter over more dispassionately with him, in what I thought would be his own interests. My intention was to make, of course, my brother acquainted with the whole matter at once, but to leave M. de Kerhoet out of the question for the present; so I wired to Whadcoat in the morning to make the assignation which has proved such a terrible mistake."
Edward Kelly added that he left Jeremiah Whadcoat, after his interview with him by the pond, in as excited a frame of mind as before. Fearing that his own handwriting on the cheques might entail serious consequences to himself, nothing would do but M. de Kerhoet as well as Mr. Kelly must, be told of the whole thing immediately.
"When I left him," concluded the young man, "he was sitting on a tree stump by the pond, smoking his pipe and I walked away towards Wood Cottage."
"Do you know what became of the cheques?" asked Skin o' my Tooth.
"Old Whadcoat had them in his pocket when I left him. I conclude, as there has been no mention of them by the police, that they have not been found."
There was so much simplicity and straight forwardness in Edward Kelly's narrative that I, for one, was ready to believe every word of it. But Skin o' my Tooth's face was inscrutable. He sat in a low chair with his hands folded before him, his eyes shut and a general air of polite imbecility about his whole unwieldy person. I could see that our client was viewing him with a certain amount of irritability.
"Well, Mr. Mulligan?" he said at last, with nervous impatience.
"Well, sir," replied Skin o' my Tooth, "it strikes me that what with your quarrel with the deceased, the assignation in the Woods, his posthumous denunciation of you as his assassin, and his dying words, we have about as complete a case as we could wish."
"Sir------"
"In all cases of this sort, my dear sir," continued Skin o' my Tooth quietly, "the great thing is to keep absolutely cool. If you are innocent--remember, I do not doubt it for a moment--then I will bring that crime home to its perpetrator. Justice never miscarries--at least, when I have I guidance of it in my hands."
It would be impossible to render the tone of supreme conceit with which Skin o' my Tooth made this last assertion; but it had the desired effect, for Edward Kelly brightened up visibly as he said--
"I have implicit faith in you, Mr. Mulligan. When shall I see you again?"
"On Monday, before the magistrate. I can get that remand for you, I think, and then we shall have a free hand. Now we had better get along; I want to have a quiet think over this affair."
III.
ON the Monday, Edward Kelly was formally charged before the beak; and I must say that when I then heard the formidable array of circumstantial evidence which the police had collected against our client, I sadly began to fear that not even by the skin of his teeth would Edward Kelly escape from the awful hole in which he was literally wallowing. However, Skin o' my Tooth hammered away at the police evidence with regard to the dog. The prosecution made a great point of the fact that Mr. Whadcoat and Rags had been killed by the same rifle and at the same time and place, and the one point in Edward Kelly's favour was that neither his servants at Wood Cottage, nor the witness who saw him enter the wood, could swear that the dog was with him on that day. On the strength of that, and for the purpose of collecting further evidence with regard to the dog, Skin o' my Tooth finally succeeded in obtaining a remand until the following Friday.
Personally, I thought that there was quite sufficient evidence for hanging any man, without the testimony of the dead dog, but I am quite aware that my opinion counts for very little.
"Now, Muggins," said Skin o' my Tooth to me later in the day, "the fun is about to begin. You go down to Coutts's this afternoon and find out all about those cheques which caused the quarrel, and by whom they were presented. Don't mix the police up in our affairs, whatever you do. If there is anything you can't manage, get Fairburn to help you; he is discretion itself and hates the regular force. Beyond that, try and work alone."
I had done more difficult jobs than that before now, and Skin o' my Tooth knows he can rely on me. I left him curled up in an arm-- chair with a French novel in his hand and started on my quest. I got to Coutts's just before closing time, saw the chief cashier and explained my errand and its importance to him, asking for his kind help in the matter. He was courteous in the extreme, and within a few moments I had ascertained from him that cheques on Kelly and Co.'s account, perfectly en règle, and made out to "E. de Kerhoet, or Bearer," had been cashed on certain dates which he gave me. They were in each instance presented by a commissionaire in uniform, who brought a card--"M. Edouard de Kerhoet," with "Please give bearer amount in £5 notes," scribbled in pencil in the same handwriting as the endorsement on the cheques.
"The amounts varied between £1,200 and £3,000," continued the cashier, still referring to his book. "Being 'bearer' cheques, and signed in the usual manner, we had no occasion to doubt them, and of course we cashed them. The first cheque was drawn on July 3rd, and the last on August 29th."
The cashier added one more detail which fairly staggered me--namely, that the commissionaire wore a cap with "Kelly and Co." embroidered upon it. If necessary, there were plenty of cashiers and clerks at the bank who could identify him. He was a tall man of marked foreign appearance, with heavy black hair, beard and moustache cut very trim. On one occasion when he left, he dropped a bit of paper which contained the name "Van Wort, Turf Commission Agent, Flushing, Holland."
I thanked the cashier and took my leave.
When I got back to the office, I found Skin o' my Tooth placidly sleeping in his big arm--chair. I had had a hard day and was dead tired, and for the moment when I saw him there, looking so fat, so pink, and so comfortable, well--I have a great respect for him, but I really felt quite angry.
However, I told him what I had done.
"Capital! Capital, Muggins!" he ejaculated languidly. "But, by Jove! that's a clever rascal. That touch about the name on the cap is peculiarly happy and daring. It completely allayed the suspicions of the cashiers at Coutts's. Now, listen, Muggins," he added, with that sudden, quick - changing mood of his which in a moment transformed him from the lazy, apathetic Irish lawyer to the weird human bloodhound who scents the track. "That foreign commissionaire is a disguise, of course; the cap hides the edge of the wig and shades the brow, the black beard and moustache conceal the mouth and chin, the foreign accent disguises the voice. We may take it, therefore, that the thief and his ambassador are one and the same person--a man, moreover, well known at Coutts's, since disguise was necessary. Do you follow me, Muggins? And remember, the motive is there. The man who defrauded Kelly and Co. is the same who murdered Whadcoat later on. Whadcoat was effectually silenced, the tell--tale cheques have evidently been destroyed. There would have been silence and mystery over the whole scandal, until the defalcations could be made good, but for Whadcoat's letter to the coroner and his dying words: 'The letter...Kelly...Edward...the other ....' "He paused suddenly and seemed lost in thought, then he muttered--
"It's that confounded dog I can't quite make out!... Did Edward Kelly, after all..."
It was that great "after all!" which had puzzled me all along. "Was Edward Kelly guilty, after all?" I had asked myself that question a hundred times a day. Then, as I was silent--lost in conjectures over this extraordinary, seemingly impenetrable mystery--he suddenly jumped up and shouted----
"By Jove! I've got it, Muggins! 'The other.' What a fool I have been! Go to bed, boy; I want a rest too. Tomorrow will be time enough to think about 'the other.'"
IV.
FROM that moment Skin o' my Tooth was a transformed being. He always is when he has got a case "well in hand," as he calls it. He certainly possesses a weird faculty for following up the trail of blood. Once he holds what he believes to be a clue, his whole appearance changes; his great, fat body seems, as it were, to crouch together ready for a spring and there is a wild quiver about his nostrils which palpably suggests the bloodhound, only his eyes remain inscrutably hidden beneath their thick fleshy lids.
It was twelve o'clock the next day when our train steamed into Pashet station. We had a fly from there and drove down to Saltashe Park, the lordly country seat of Mr. Kelly.
At the door, Skin o' my Tooth asked for the master of the house; but hearing that he was out, he requested that his card might be taken in to Mrs. Kelly. The next moment we were ushered into a luxuriously furnished library, full of books and flowers, and with deep mullioned windows opening out upon a Queen Anne terrace.
The mistress of the house, an exceedingly beautiful woman, received us with every mark of eagerness and cordiality.
She welcomed us--or, rather, my esteemed employer--most effusively; and when we were all seated, she asked many questions about Mr. Edward Kelly, to which Skin o' my Tooth replied as often as she allowed him to get a word in.
"Oh, Mr. Mulligan," she said finally, "I am so glad that you asked to see me. I have been positively ill and devoured with anxiety about my brother--in--law. My husband thinks that I upset myself and only get hopelessly wretched if I read about it all in the papers, so he won't allow me to see one now; but, I assure you, the uncertainty is killing me, as I feel sure that Mr. Kelly is trying to comfort me and to make Edward's case appear more hopeful than it is."
Skin o' my Tooth gravely shook his head. "It could not very well be more hopeless," he said.
"You can't mean that?" she said, while tears gathered in her eyes. "He is innocent, Mr. Mulligan. I swear he is innocent. You don't know him. He never would do anything so vile."
"I quite believe that, my dear lady; but unfortunately circumstances are terribly against him. Even his dead dog, Rags, speaks in dumb eloquence in his master's condemnation."
"Rags!" she exclaimed in astonishment--"what can the poor doggie have to do with this awful tragedy? Poor old thing! it lost its way the very morning that the terrible catastrophe occurred. M. de Kerhoet was staying here that day, and I had taken him for a drive to Hitching before luncheon. On the way home I saw Rags in the road, looking very sorry for himself. I took him in the carriage with me and brought him home."
Skin o' my Tooth looked politely interested, but I hardly liked to breathe; it seemed to me that a fellow creature's life was even now hanging in the balance.
"Rags knew us all here just as well as it did its own master," continued Mrs. Kelly, "and when my husband went out with his gun in the afternoon, Rags followed him, whilst M. de Kerhoet and I went on to a garden--party."
"And what happened to Rags after that?" asked Skin o' my Tooth. "To tell you the truth, the awful tragedy I heard of that afternoon drove poor Rags out of my mind; then the next day, I am thankful to say, M. de Kerhoet left us and went back to Paris. I did hear something about the poor dog being drowned in the pond; he was a shocking rover, and really more trouble than pleasure to his master."
Mrs. Kelly was sitting with her back to the great mullioned windows; she could not, therefore, see her husband, who seemed to have just walked across the terrace and to paused a moment, with his hand on the open window, before entering the room. Whether he had heard what his wife was saying, I did not know, certain it is that his face looked very white and set.
"I remember now," continued Mrs. Kelly innocently, "seeing my husband put away Rags' collar the other day in his bureau. I dare say Edward will be glad to have it later on, when all this horrid business is over. You must tell him that we have got it quite safe."
I all but uttered an exclamation then. It seemed too horrible to bear this young wife so hopelessly and innocently denouncing her own husband with every word she uttered. I looked up at the motionless figure still standing in the window. Skin o' my Tooth, who sat immediately facing it, seemed to make an almost imperceptible sign of warning. Mr. Kelly then retired as silently as he had come.
Two minutes later he entered the room by the door. He seemed absolutely calm and collected, and held out his hand to Skin o' my Tooth, who took it without the slightest hesitation; then Mr. Kelly turned to his wife and said quietly--
"You will forgive me, won't you, dear, if I take Mr. Mulligan into my study? There are one or two points I want to discuss with him over a cigar."
"Oh! I'll run away," she said gaily. "I must dress for luncheon. You'll stay, won't you, Mr. Mulligan? No? I am so sorry! Well, good-- bye; and mind you bring better news next time."
She was gone, and we three men were left alone. I offered to leave the room, but Mr. Kelly motioned me to stay.
"The servants would wonder," he said icily, "and it really does not matter."
Then he turned to Skin o' my Tooth and said quietly--
"I suppose that you came here today for the express purpose of setting a trap for my wife; and she fell into it, poor soul! not knowing that she was damning her own husband. Of course, you did your duty by your client. Now, what is your next move?"
"To place Mrs. Kelly in the witness--box on my client's behalf, and make her repeat the story she told us today," replied Skin o' my Tooth with equal calm.
"And after that?"
"After that, you must look to yourself, Mr. Kelly. I am not a detective, and you know best whether you have anything to fear when once the attention of the police is directed upon yourself. I shall obtain Mr. Edward Kelly's discharge tomorrow, of course. Backed by Mrs. Kelly's testimony, and, if need be, that of Mr. Kerhoet, in Paris, I can now prove that the dog could not have been shot by my client, since it was following you on the afternoon that the murder was committed. Since the chief point in the theory of the prosecution lies in the fact that Mr. Whadcoat and the dog were shot on the same day and with the same rifle, and seeing that the animal's collar was known to be in your possession the day following the crime, my client is absolutely sure to obtain a full discharge and to be allowed to leave the court without a stain upon his character."
Mr. Kelly had listened to Skin o' my Tooth's quiet explanation without betraying the slightest emotion; then he said--
"Thank you, Mr. Mulligan. I think I quite understand the situation. Personally, I feel that it is entirely for the best; life under certain conditions become abominable torture, and I have no strength left with which to combat fate. I did kill old Whadcoat in a moment of unreasoning fear, just as I killed Rags because he made too much noise; but, by Heaven! I had no intention to kill the old man, and I certainly would never have allowed my brother to suffer seriously under an unjust accusation. I firmly believed that justice could not miscarry; and while I thought that you were sharp enough to save him, I also reckoned that I had been clever enough to shield myself from every side."
He paused a moment and then continued; just like a man who for a long time has been burdened with a secret and is suddenly made almost happy by confiding it to a stranger.
"I had had many losses on the turf," he said, "and had made my loses good by defrauding our firm. It was a long and laborious plan, very carefully laid; but I was always clever with my pen, and my brother's signature and Whadcoat's writing were easy enough to imitate. Then, one day, I found an old uniform in the cellar at the office--my father used to keep a commissionaire when he had the business. It was about my size and gave me the idea for the disguise. It all worked right, and I knew that I could make my defalcations good at the bank very soon. It was a positive thunderbolt when, on the Tuesday morning, I received a letter from old Whadcoat, telling me that he was coming over to Saltashe that afternoon to see M. de Kerhoet and myself about a terrible discovery which he had just made. I knew he would walk through the Woods, and I found him sitting near the pond, smoking, alone. I only meant to persuade him to hold his tongue and say nothing to M. de Kerhoet for the present. But he was obstinate; he guessed that I was guilty; he threatened me with disclosure, like the fool he was, and I had to kill him.... in self-- defence."
Somehow, although he undoubtedly was a great criminal, I could not help sympathising with this man. The beautiful house we were in, all the luxury and comfort with which he was outwardly surrounded, seemed such terrible mockery beside the moral tortures he must have endured. I was quite glad when he had finished speaking, and Skin o' my Tooth was able presently to take his leave.
Only a few hours later, the evening papers were full of the sensational suicide of Mr. Kelly in his Library at Saltashe Park. Almost at the same time that this astonishing news was published in the Press, the authorities at Scotland Yard had received a written confession, signed by Mr. Kelly, in which he confessed to having caused the death of Mr. Jeremiah Whadcoat in Saltashe Woods, by the accidental discharge of his gun.
A little frightened at first of any complications that might arise, he had said nothing about the accident at the time; then, when his own brother became implicated in the tragedy, and he felt how terrible his own position would be if he now made a tardy confession, the matter began to prey upon his mind until it became so unhinged that he sought, in death, solace from his mental agony.
"That man was a genius," was Skin o' my Tooth's comment upon this confession. "Strange that he should have lost his nerve at the last, for I feel sure that the crime would never have been brought absolutely home to him; at any rate, I could have got him off. What do you think, Muggins?"
And I quite agreed with Skin o' my Tooth.
II
THE CASE OF THE SICILIAN PRINCE
I DOUBT whether full credit was given to Skin o' my Tooth for the solution of that mysterious incident in the Saltashe Woods, which he-- and no one else--brought about. Personally, I firmly believe that Kelly, of Saltashe Park, would have allowed his brother to hang, sooner than confess, if Skin o' my Tooth had not succeeded in absolutely cornering him. Now, in the case of the Sicilian Prince, no one could deny--but perhaps I had better say how it all happened.
The Swanborough tragedy was filling all London and provincial papers with its gruesome mysteries. Early on Tuesday morning, March 18th, the body of a man, shockingly mutilated, was found on the level crossing, just below the Swanborough station of the London and North--Western Railway. It is always difficult to dwell on the grim details which are the usual accompaniment to this type of drama; suffice it to say, in this instance, that the body was found lying straight along the metals, so that the passing express had gone clean over the trunk and face. What mutilation the train had left unaccomplished had been completed by the sparks from the engine. The face was unrecognizable, the hair had been singed, the flesh on hands and neck had been charred. The peculiar position of the body, so carefully laid down, with the feet pointing towards Swanborough station, and the head towards Bletchley, disposed of any theory of accident that may at first have suggested itself. Moreover, some articles of clothing--a coat and waistcoat--were subsequently found lying in a field close by. It was clearly either a case of murder--the unfortunate man having, presumably, been rendered unconscious and then placed on the metals--or one of deliberate suicide.
The grim tragedy immediately assumed the appearance of complete mystery. Though Swanborough is but a tiny, straggling village, and this part of Buckinghamshire but scantily populated, no one seemed to have missed a relative or friend, or to recognize the clothes that were found lying in the field nor those that were upon the mutilated body. The police had published a description of these clothes and articles, and of the body, as far as this could be done. The unfortunate man seemed to be about thirty--five years of age, five feet nine inches in height, and of slight build. He was evidently in the habit of wearing a green silk shade over one eye, for one was found lying on the ground quite close to the head; the right forearm showed a very recent wound caused by the burning of some acid--probably vitriol.
The people of Swanborough, however, in spite of the horrible gruesomeness of the tragedy, seemed to take very little interest in the elucidation of its mysteries; perhaps, too, they had the average English yokel's horror of having anything to do with the police. Be that as it may, it was not until the following day that a more enlightened or more enterprising villager bethought himself of walking to the police station and informing the inspector there that "maybe the murdered man was Mrs. Stockton's lodger."
It appears that Mrs. Stockton, who rented a small cottage not far from the railway, had had a lodger on and off for the past six months. No one in the village had ever seen him; if he ever went outside the cottage, he must have done so at nights; but young Stockton had sometimes talked to the neighbours about his mother's lodger. He was a foreigner, he said, "and no end of a swell," with a name no decent body could pronounce, as it was about half a yard long. He was certainly very odd in his ways, for he used to go away quite suddenly and not come home for a week or so on end. Mrs. Stockton never knew where he went to; and then he would turn up again, mostly in the very early mornings.
Life in rural districts is wonderfully self--centred; still, the police thought it odd that this tardy information did not come from Mrs. Stockton herself or from her son, if, indeed, her lodger were missing just now. The detective--inspector immediately went down to the cottage. Finding the door locked, and getting no answer to his repeated knocks, he forced his way in, followed by two constables.
Parlour and kitchen were empty, but up on the floor above, in one of the three little bedrooms, the men found the unfortunate woman lying in bed with her throat cut. There was no sign or trace anywhere of young Stockton.
The mystery, of course, had deepened more and more. Nothing in the cottage seemed to have been touched; there were even a couple of sovereigns and some silver lying in a money--box. So far it appeared that two purposeless and shocking murders had been committed probably within a few moments of each other, as Mrs. Stockton had evidently been dead a good many hours. The detective--inspector instituted immediate inquiries in the neighbourhood on the subject of young Stockton, who certainly had unaccountably disappeared. It seems that he was a platelayer by trade, lately in the employ of the North--Western Railway, but recently dismissed owing to ill--conduct.
A description of the missing man was telegraphed to every police and railway station in the kingdom, but so far not a trace of him had been found. The theory of the police was that he had boarded the very train which had mangled the body of his victim, and then dropped off it again a good deal farther down the line. Whether he had murdered the "foreign swell" for purposes of robbery, and killed his mother in order to get rid of an inconvenient witness, was, of course, a mere matter of conjecture; certain it is that he had vanished, almost as if the earth had swallowed him up.
II
From the first, Skin o' my Tooth was greatly interested in the Swanborough tragedy. The enigmatic personality of one of the victims, the veil of complete mystery which the murderer had succeeded in throwing over his crime, the "foreign swell" who lived in the English cottage, all appealed to my chief's love for what was dramatic and mysterious.
It was on the afternoon of the 20th, just after I had come in with the evening papers, that there was a timid rap at the outer office door. I went to open it, and, to my amazement, saw before me the daintiest vision that had ever graced our fusty old office in Finsbury Square. I had never seen such a lovely young girl. She could not have been more than seventeen or eighteen, and she was exquisitely dressed in something soft and black, and wore the daintiest pair of shoes I had ever set eyes on. She asked me if she could speak to Mr. Mulligan immediately. It was such an unusual thing for us to receive visits from charming young ladies that for the moment I quite forgot to ask her name.
However, Skin o' my Tooth was quite ready to receive her, whoever she was, and the next moment I had shown the lady into the private office. She walked up to my esteemed employer and held out a daintily gloved hand to him.
"My name is quite unknown to you, Mr. Mulligan," she began. "I am Miss Marion Calvert, and I would not have ventured to come like this to your office without any introduction, and all alone, but I want the best possible legal advice, and----"
"Yes?"
"My friend, Miss Morton, who is engaged to Mr. Edward Kelly, of Saltashe Park, told me all about you once, a long time ago, and how much you had done for Mr. Kelly. I remember then making up my mind that if ever I were in trouble and wanted a lawyer, I would come to you; and now----"
She had undone her furs and seated herself beside the desk. Skin o' my Tooth gave me a wink. I knew what that meant. I was to sit in my usual corner behind the wooden partition--a position which my chief poetically called "behind the arras"--and take shorthand notes of everything the lady said.
"Mr. Mulligan," she resumed very abruptly, "I was engaged to Prince Sieronna, who was murdered the other day on the railway near Swanborough."
"Then, indeed, you are in trouble," said Skin o' my Tooth very gently, " and that is why you have come to consult me. Tell me, what can I do for you?"
"I am afraid that my story will seem a very foolish one to you. I was only a schoolgirl then. It was six months ago," she explained with touching naivete. "I had just left school, and was going down to Buckinghamshire with one of the governesses to stay with my uncle, Mr. Percival Lake, and his wife, when I first met Prince Sieronna. It was in the train between Euston and Swanborough, and he was so kind and attentive, and oh! so interesting. He told me that he was a Sicilian, and he talked about Italy and about Fascismo, and the Sicilians who had suffered in the war. He himself was an exile from the country he loved so well, because he had taken part in an anti--Fascist rising. He had large estates, but they were temporarily confiscated by Signer Mussolini; so he had to come to England, which he loved, and he lived in a small cottage amidst roses and lilies, and dreamt there of Italy and her liberty.
"You may imagine how delighted I was when he told me that this ideal cottage was in Swanborough, close to where my uncle lived, for I had hopes then that I should see him again. Well, Mr. Mulligan, I won't bore you with all the details of what was the happiest time of my life. Mrs. Lake was kindness itself, but she kept rather a strict eye over my movements. However, very soon I discovered that I could always slip out in the evenings, while she went to sleep over her game of patience, and then I used to meet Amadeo-- Prince Sieronna--in the fields at the bottom of the garden. Very soon we had both realized that we loved one another passionately."
"But surely your uncle----?" suggested Skin o' my Tooth.
"My uncle was away during the first fortnight of my stay in Swanborough. When he came, things were very much altered. Someone--one of the servants, perhaps--had evidently spied upon me and had told him of my meetings with Prince Sieronna, for he read me a long lecture on the subject of foreign adventurers and English girls with money, and forbade me ever to see this Sicilian Prince again. Of course, I was obliged to obey him then, as he kept a pretty sharp lookout over my movements, and I saw nothing of Amadeo for a week; but the moment Mr. Lake went back to town we were able to resume our happy evening meetings in the fields.
"This went on for some time, during which my love for my future husband grew with every obstacle my uncle placed in my way. But Mr. Lake was often obliged to be absent from home on business, and you may be sure that Amadeo and I made the most of these happy intervals. We had agreed that we should be married as soon as I was of age and free to do as I pleased.
"During all this time, Mr. Mulligan, I was in absolute ignorance of my future financial position, and Amadeo, with a delicacy that was positively sublime, and which put to shame Mr. Lake's cynical insinuations, had never asked me any questions on the subject. I knew vaguely that my father had left me some money, under the trusteeship of Mr. Lake, and I concluded that I should have the use of my small fortune when I came of age.
"To my astonishment, however, on my eighteenth birthday, which was the ninth of this month, my uncle informed me that by the terms of my father's will I was now to become sole mistress of about £20,000 which he had left me. The next day Mr. Lake took me up to his office in London and rendered me an account of his guardianship; he then placed into my hands a large packet, which contained my £20,000 worth of securities, chiefly railway and mining shares, he said, and told me that I was free now to do with them what I pleased. It had been ostensibly arranged that I should stay in London a few days with some school friends of mine, but, secretly, Amadeo and I had planned to spend long, happy days together. I took a room in Victoria Street, and he used to come up from Swanborough in the mornings sometimes, and we would go out to see the sights of London. We meant to get married almost immediately and go and live abroad. What with my money and the revenues from Amadeo's estates which Signer Mussolini was about to restore to him, we would be able to live, not only in comfort, but even in luxury."
She paused. It seemed as if she could not continue her narrative; so far it had been one of simple, delicate love romance, in which only the mysterious personality of the foreign adventurer appeared as a dim presage of coming evil; now, for the first time since the terrible tragedy occurred, the young girl--little more than a child--found herself forced to speak of it to a stranger, and her very nerves must have quivered at the ordeal. But Skin o' my Tooth did not speak. He sat in the shadow, watching the play of every emotion upon the delicately chiselled face before him.
"Last Monday, Mr. Mulligan," she resumed at last, with an effort at self--control, "Amadeo went down to Swanborough in the afternoon, after having spent the day in town with me. He meant to settle what small accounts he had in the village and stay in London until our marriage. I was sitting quietly at tea at a shop yesterday when I heard someone close to me read aloud from a newspaper the account of the mysterious tragedy at Swanborough. A man had been found killed on the level crossing, his body and head shockingly mutilated. A description of his clothes followed--one or two articles found near the body. Oh, it was terrible, Mr. Mulligan! From those descriptions I knew that the murdered man must be my fiance, Prince Sieronna."
There was a long silence in the fusty old office. Skin o' my Tooth was giving the young girl time to recover herself, when he said quietly: "It must indeed have been hard to bear in your peculiarly isolated position. But you have not yet told me how I can be of service to you."
"Oh! it's about the money, Mr. Mulligan--my whole fortune. Prince Sieronna had charge of it all, of course, and now I am penniless."
"You need have no fear; we can easily trace those securities for you; the thief won't be able to negotiate them."
"Oh, the securities!" she said naively; " they were all sold."
"Indeed?" was Skin o' my Tooth's very dry comment.
"Yes. At Amadeo's suggestion I instructed the brokers, Messrs. Furnival and Co., to sell my shares for me. They sent me a cheque for £20,000, which I endorsed, and Prince Sieronna cashed the cheque. He had all the money in notes, and he told me to write my name at the back of each. On the Monday we went round together to several foreign banks, where we changed our English notes into foreign money. You see, we intended to live in Paris, and meant to start for France almost immediately."
I wished then that I could have caught a glimpse of Skin o' my Tooth's face; as it is, I thought I heard the peculiar low whistle he usually gives when a point in a case particularly strikes his fancy.
"I see," he said at last. "And that money? Did the Prince carry it about with him?"
"He gave me fifty pounds, as I meant to go shopping after he left me; the remainder he kept in his pocket--book."
"H'm! Life's strange ironies!"
But, fortunately for her many illusions, the young girl did not catch the drift of this last remark, for she said with great vehemence: "You see now, Mr. Mulligan, that there could be no question of accident or suicide. Prince Sieronna was murdered and robbed, and I have come to you so that you may help me to track his murderer."
"I will do my best," said Skin o' my Tooth, with a smile; " and at the same time we must hope to track your lost fortune for you. But I think that is all I need trouble you about this afternoon. Where are you staying?"
"I am still at 182, Victoria Street."
"Then I can easily communicate with you. I will see the detective--inspector in charge of the case, and, of course, let him know about the money, which should be found in the murderer's possession. Was the money French or Italian?"
She shook her head.
"I really couldn't tell you. You see, Amadeo saw to everything."
Skin o' my Tooth sighed. So much naiveté and blind confidence would be ridiculous were it not sublime.
Five minutes later I had shown the lady downstairs, and when I returned I found Skin o' my Tooth lounging in his big armchair.
"It was a case of biter bit with a vengeance, wasn't it, sir?" I said, with a laugh, whilst I carefully collected my notes. "This so-- called Prince seems to have been as complete a scoundrel as the man who murdered him."
"Muggins, you're an ass!" was the only comment my esteemed employer made during the whole of the rest of that afternoon.
III
In the meanwhile the evening papers had brought no further news of the Swanborough mystery. No trace of the missing platelayer had been found, and it was pretty clear that at the inquest, which was fixed for tomorrow (Friday), the police would have no important evidence to add to the scanty scraps already collected and published.
"The local authorities will resent my interference in this case," said Skin o' my Tooth to me; " but I must chance that. If I leave them to blunder on as they have done over this murder, I shall never get Miss Calvert's money for her, for the scoundrel will succeed in slipping through our fingers."
He sent me down to Scotland Yard the next morning to make the necessary declaration with regard to Prince Sieronna's antecedents as related to us by Miss Calvert, and also to the missing quantity of foreign money. The detective--inspector who was watching the case was greatly excited to hear my news.
"This gives us the motive for the crime," he said, "and the foreign money in the possession of an uneducated Buckinghamshire yokel like Stockton is sure to lead to his discovery and speedy arrest. At any rate, the local people have asked for one of our men, so now that we have so much fresh data I will send Mason, who is very capable, down to Swanborough. I will give him instructions to place himself at Mr. Mulligan's disposal should he require any local information."
When I went back to the office I found the car at the door and Skin o' my Tooth waiting for me with his hat on.
"Come down to Swanborough with me, Muggins," he said. " I have worked out this case in my own mind, and I want to ascertain, by studying the geography of the place, whether I am right or wrong."
We went down to Swanborough, and during the whole of the run Skin o' my Tooth never spoke a word. He sat leaning back in the car with that funny little smile of his playing round the corners of his fat mouth, and the thick lids drooping as if in semi--somnolence. But every now and then I caught a flash, a steely, almost cruel look, in his lazy blue eyes, and then his nostrils would quiver like those of a hound who has just found a scent. I knew those symptoms well. I had seen them in him whenever the sharp and astute lawyer was for the time being merged in the tracker of crime. Skin o' my Tooth had all the instincts of a bloodhound. Placed face to face with a murder, he would follow the trail of the assassin with almost superhuman cunning. He did not deduce, he seldom reasoned; he felt the criminal. I believe firmly that he scented him.
When we drew up outside the small country station a little after 2 p.m., we found that Mason, the detective, who was personally known to Skin o' my Tooth, had already come down by train. He was standing talking to the booking clerk when my chief went up to speak to him.
I think that he was none too pleased to see a lawyer mixed up in a case which he no doubt considered strictly the business of the police; but Skin o' my Tooth seemed to have armed himself for the afternoon with a limitless fund of Irish urbanity.
"I won't detain you long, Mason," he said, with a bland smile. "I should presently like to have a look at the body with you; and in the meanwhile, I dare say, while we walk through the village you will put me au fait of the latest news in connection with this interesting case."
"There is very little news," said Mason, with marked impatience. "The case is a very troublesome one, and if it is meddled with I don't believe we shall ever get at the rights of it."
"I see that you were having a chat with the young booking clerk here," said Skin o' my Tooth, quietly ignoring the detective's rudeness. "I wonder what his impression was of the Sicilian Prince. So few people seem to have seen him; but he always travelled up and down by train, so, of course, at the railway station they must have known him by sight."
"The porters and the booking clerk only saw him once, and that was on the Monday, when he came down by an afternoon train, and one man saw him soon after eleven the same evening. It was just after the last slow train had gone through, and they were closing the booking office; he was then walking along the line with young Stockton towards the level crossing."
"What sort of a looking man was he?"
"Oh, a regular foreigner, it appears, with thick black hair falling back over his forehead, and a heavy black moustache. He had a huge scar right across the left side of his face--from a wound, I suppose. They say it looked like a sabre cut, and it seems to have injured his eye as well, for he wore a guard over the left one. Anyway, he is quite unrecognizable now," he added grimly.
Mason had led the way along the platform while he was talking, and we had followed him. He was now walking along the railway line, about two paces in front of us. On our left a tall and neat hedge fenced off a field, and some two hundred yards ahead was the level crossing, where a road cut the line at right angles.
About twenty yards from the level crossing there was a wide gap in the hedge. Mason pointed this out to us.
"It is supposed that Stockton enticed his victim into the field under some pretext or other and rendered him unconscious there; then he dragged him on to the metals; at any rate, that is where the murdered man's coat and waistcoat were found; whether he took them off himself or whether Stockton took them off after he killed him, and why, remain a puzzle."
"A puzzle indeed," Skin o' my Tooth assented blandly.
"This gap," Mason went on, "Mr. Lake tells me, used to be quite a small one. It has obviously been broken and widened quite recently."
"Mr. Lake?" queried Skin o' my Tooth.
"Mr. Percival Lake. This field is his property; his house and grounds are at the opposite end of it."
"Oh! Ah, yes! I am glad to hear that, as I should like to call on Mr. Lake before I leave Swanborough today."
We had come to a standstill on the very spot where the awful and gruesome murder of the mysterious foreign prince had been perpetrated. Skin o' my Tooth was looking at the surroundings and at the ground before him, and every now and then I could hear him snorting, and caught sight of that weird and quick flash in his eyes which gave his jovial, fat face such a cruel look. Then, without word or warning, he suddenly darted through the gap in the hedge into the field beyond. With an impatient shrug of shoulders Mason followed him, and I brought up the rear.
It was mid--December, and the ground was as hard as nails; a few patches of dead grass only showed here und there. We were in a field of about thirty acres, triangular in shape, with the same tall hedge surrounding it, and the house and grounds forming its apex. A road ran on either side of it, converging on the other side of the house.
The afternoon had rapidly drawn in. It was past three o'clock, and a thick mist had descended. Mason followed, with evident and unconcealed ill--humour, Skin o' my Tooth's peregrinations through that field. At first he had offered certain hints and volunteered some information, but at last he seemed to have resigned himself to the part of a bad--tempered man in charge of a lunatic.
We walked straight across the field to where the house and its thick shrubbery formed its extreme boundary. There, too, a small gate led to a cottage and tiny garden, which occupied a piece of ground that seemed to have been sliced out of Mr. Lake's property.
"It is Mrs. Stockton's cottage," explained Mason, in answer to Skin o' my Tooth's inquiry. Quite close to the gate there was a tool - shed, which seemed to interest Skin o' my Tooth immensely, for he lighted match after match in order to examine it inside and out. However, he expressed no desire to view the interior of the cottage, and at last, when I was quite numb with fatigue and cold, he turned to Mason and said quietly: "I am quite ready to go to the station now and have a look at the body."
For a moment I thought that Mason meant to go on strike, but evidently he had had his orders, or perhaps he, too, began to feel, as I had done so often, that curious magnetic influence of Skin o' my Tooth's personality, which commands obedience at strange moments and in strange places. Be that as it may, he refrained from making any remark, but, passing through the gate and cottage garden, he went out into the road. About five minutes' brisk and silent walk brought us to the village and then on to the little police station. Still without a word, Mason led the way into an inner room. There upon a deal table, and covered over with a sheet, lay the body of the murdered man.
IV
It is not often--thank Heaven for that!--that I have to go through such unpleasant moments in my faithful adherence to my duty towards my employer. I shall never forget the terrible feeling of sickly horror which overcame me when Skin o' my Tooth so quietly lifted the sheet which covered the dead man. The whole scene is even now vividly impressed upon my mind--the small, low--raftered room, the electric light from the ceiling throwing its glitter upon the gruesome thing oh which I dared not look, and upon the strange, bulky figure, so marvellously impressive at this moment, of my chief. Mason stood close by in the shadow. I could see that even he did not care to cast too long a look at the hopelessly mutilated face of the murdered man. Skin o' my Tooth, however, was quite unmoved. He had dropped the sheet, and calmly, one by one, he took up each garment from the pile of clothes which lay neatly folded beside the body.
"These were found upon the deceased, I understand?" he asked. The detective nodded.
"All," he replied, " except the coat and waistcoat in the field and the gloves, which were in the grip of the hand."
"And which this man could never have worn," commented Skin o' my Tooth dryly, " though they are quite old; they are two sizes too small for the hand."
There was a silence again for a few moments; then Skin o' my Tooth, having carefully examined each individual garment, put the last one down; then, placing his hand upon the pile, he said: "I hope for your sake, Mason--and for mine, too, for that matter, since it would save argument--that you have arrived at the only possible and complete solution of the so--called mystery."
"The only mystery in this matter," retorted Mason gruffly, "is the real personality of the deceased. We know who murdered him all right enough, though we don't know where the murderer may be at the present moment."
"The personality of the deceased is no mystery to me. He was a young man named Stockton, a platelayer by trade, and an inhabitant of this village," said Skin o' my Tooth, making this extraordinary announcement as if he were stating the most obvious and commonplace fact.
Mason shrugged his shoulders and looked almost appealingly at me, as if he wanted me to take charge of this raving lunatic.
"The only thing that puzzles me," continued Skin o' my Tooth imperturbably, "is that it never struck any of you gentlemen in charge of this case how very badly some of these clothes must have fitted this man."
"People don't always have their clothes cut by a London tailor," muttered Mason sarcastically.
"Undoubtedly. But in this case the fit is so erratic; while the trousers would be at least three inches too short, the coat sleeves would be much too long. This man could not have had these gloves on at all; and every time he wore these boots, which are not new, he must have endured positive torture, yet he has no corns on his feet."
"The clothes might have been a scratch lot, bought at a second--hand clothes shop," suggested Mason.
"A man does not buy second--hand boots that are much too small for him."
"What is your idea, then?"
"That they are another man's clothes," said Skin o' my Tooth quietly.
"But--"
"Note one thing more. The suit of clothes are good, such as a gentleman might wear; boots, gloves, hat--all are of an expensive kind; but the underclothes are of the commonest and coarsest make."
"That often happens," muttered Mason obstinately.
"It certainly in itself would mean but little were it not for the fact that with almost superhuman cunning everything has been devised in order to completely destroy the identity of the victim. From the clothes every tag and some buttons have been removed which might bear the tailor's name; on the forearm vitriol was used, in order, obviously, to obliterate some mark-- tattoo, perhaps--which might have made the body recognizable, whilst the same corrosive substance destroyed the finger and toe nails, which might have told a tale."
The accepted theory is that deceased was engaged in some work which necessitated the use of sulphuric acid."
"That might account for the corroded finger--nails, if the man was particularly careless, but not for the wound on the forearm nor for the condition of the toe--nails. Think of it all carefully, Mason, and then bear in mind the fact that the only person who might by chance have identified the body, in spite of its mutilation, was also murdered."
"You mean Mrs. Stockton?"
"The mother, undoubtedly," replied Skin o' my Tooth quietly. "Surely you see for yourself now that the body we have here before us is that of Stockton, the platelayer, whereas it is this so--called Prince Sieronna, this arch--scoundrel, thief, liar, and assassin, who so far has escaped the vigilance of the police."
"You may be right," murmured Mason, convinced, as I could see, in spite of himself, with the firm logic of Skin o' my Tooth's arguments; "but, as far as I can see, you have not by any means solved our difficulty. It was quite one thing to hunt for a Buckinghamshire yokel who would be trying to pass a quantity of foreign money and could not speak any language but his own, and quite another to search through the continent of Europe now for a foreigner, of whose real appearance I presume even your client, his sweetheart, is ignorant."
"You won't have to search through the continent of Europe, my man," said Skin o' my Tooth, with a jovial laugh. "You just apply-- as quickly as you can, too, for the gentleman may slip through your fingers yet - for a search warrant and warrant for arrest of Mr. Percival Lake, of Swanborough. You will find most of the £20,000 there in foreign money, Italian or French. That money belongs to my client, Miss Marion Calvert, who will file affidavits to this effect tomorrow."
"You are mad!" retorted Mason.
"Mad, am I?" laughed Skin o' my Tooth jovially. "Why, man, you know as well as I do by now that I am right. Why, I guessed the trick the moment Miss Calvert told me her pathetic little history; then I came down here, and I saw how admirably the geography of the place was adapted to that arch-- villain's infamous plot for robbing his young ward. Why, you have only to remember three points to realize how absolutely right I am. Point number one: whenever Mr. Percival Lake was at home Miss Calvert could never see her sweetheart. The moment he was supposed to go back to town she found him at the trysting--place in the field; but always at night, remember, when the disguise, the scar, the black hair, would more easily deceive the young girl. It was only when he had got her money absolutely in his possession that he became more audacious and saw her in London in broad daylight."
"I have always thought that that scar and the thick, black hair meant a disguise," muttered Mason. "Some people are so clever at making--up, and Mr. Lake is a little bald and clean--shaved."
"The change of costume was so easy of execution with that convenient little tool--shed in his own shrubbery, secluded from all eyes and, until recently, fitted with a good lock and key, which have since, very obviously, been removed. Why, nothing in the world could be more easy than for an arch--scoundrel like that man Lake ostensibly to leave for town in the evening, carrying his bag, and, walking through his field, to spend the night in the tool--shed, and emerge therefrom in the very early morning as Prince Sieronna; then to reverse this performance whenever the foreign adventurer had to resume his original part of Mr. Percival Lake, Miss Calvert's stern guardian. Add to this point number two--that the man who played the trick on Miss Calvert must have known all about her financial position and the full terms of her father's will, by which she came of age at eighteen."
"That certainly brings it nearer home to Lake than ever. And your third point, Mr. Mulligan?"
"That this so--called foreigner was supposed to have gone up to London from Swanborough very frequently during the week, when he met Miss Calvert in town nearly every day, and helped her to transfer her English securities into foreign money, and yet no one at the Swanborough railway station had ever seen him before the night of the murder. Then, he wished to show himself, openly, in the company of the platelayer, so that, when he had murdered Stockton and dressed up his body in his own cast--off disguise, everyone should fancy that they recognised in the mangled remains the personality of the Sicilian Prince. He did the murder at dead of night, of course, and in the privacy of his own fields; he used vitriol where the marks of identification might reveal the platelayer; then he murdered Mrs. Stockton and slipped home quietly to bed. I dare say his wife was an accomplice. Some women are very loyal or very obedient to their husbands. But come along Muggins," he said, suddenly altering the tone of his voice and turning to me, " we must be up in town by 6.30 and it can't be far off that now; besides which, Mason will want to think all this over."
"No, I shan't, sir," said Mason firmly. "I am going up to Swanborough police station at once."
"What for?"
"To deliver my report and to get a warrant for the arrest of Percival Lake."
Everyone remembers the arrest of Mr. Percival Lake on a double charge of murder. In his safe at his house in Swanborough were found French and Italian notes amounting in value to about £20,000. Tracked to earth, the scoundrel made but a poor defence. Fortunately for his relations, since he was well connected, he died of sudden heart failure during the subsequent magisterial inquiry, and was never committed for trial.
This all happened three years ago. Miss Calvert is married now, and has evidently forgotten her former passionate love for the mysterious Sicilian patriot.
IV.
THE DUFFIELD PEERAGE CASE.
IT was through the merest coincidence that Skin o' my Tooth got mixed up with this remarkable case, which brought him suddenly into such great prominence before the public, and was really the foundation--stone of his subsequent more fortunate career. In those days--it seems very long ago now--money was often very tight at the Finsbury Square office; it was spent as soon as earned, for Skin o' my Tooth never learnt its value, principally, I think, because be never exerted himself to earn it. The gentle art of self-- advertisement was totally unknown to him, even in its most elementary stages, and had I not made friends with the sub--editor of the Surrey Post, and got him to insert that excellent puff, beginning: "Mr. Patrick Mulligan, the most eminent and learned lawyer on criminal cases, is now in our midst," etc., etc., no doubt the Duffield Peerage Case would have drifted into other far less competent hands, and Heaven only knows what the upshot of it all would have been.
We had gone down to Guildford in connection with the Wingfield Will Case, and finding the sweet little Surrey town peculiarly attractive, Skin o' my Tooth had decided to stay on for a few days, and, under the pretence that he would feel lonely, he insisted on my remaining with him. We had spent a week of delightful idleness, and my chief had devoured a large supply of his favourite French novels, when the murder of Mr. Sibbald Thursby, a noted solicitor of Guildford, threw the whole town into a veritable state of uproar. From the very first the wildest rumours were circulated on the subject of this appalling tragedy, and it became really difficult to sift the real facts from the innumerable surmises and embellishments indulged in by the imaginative reporter of the Surrey Post. The truth however, as far as I ultimately succeeded in gathering it for the benefit of my chief, who seemed interested in the case, was briefly this:--
Mr. Sibbald Thursby had an office where he transacted his business in Guildford High Street, but he lived in a tiny house just outside the town, on the Dorking Road; his household consisting of himself and a man and his wife named Upjohn, who shared the duties of cook, gardener, maid and man of all works between them. On Friday last the Upjohns went upstairs to bed as usual at 9.30 o'clock, leaving their master at work in his study on the ground floor. This room had windows opening out on to the small garden at the back, and a little conservatory leading to it. Mr. Thursby always bolted the windows and locked the conservatory the last thing before going to bed. The Upjohns heard someone knocking at the front door some ten minutes after they went upstairs, but both having already got into bed, they seem to have been too lazy to get up. Whether Mr. Thursby himself let his belated visitor in or not, they could not say, for they heard nothing, and very soon were both sleeping the sleep of the just.
But next morning, when Mrs. Upjohn went into the study, she was horrified to find her master lying on his side across the threshold of the conservatory door; his clothes--the clothes he was wearing the night before--were covered with blood, his face was obviously that of the dead. Upjohn, summoned by his wife's screams, quickly ran into Guildford for the doctor and the police: the former pronounced life to be extinct, Mr. Thursby's throat having been cut from ear to ear, obviously with the short, curve-- bladed knife found in the conservatory. There had been no time even for a short struggle for his life on the part of the unfortunate solicitor. According to the theory immediately formed by the police, he had been attacked with extraordinary suddenness and fury; practically at the very moment when he was opening the conservatory door in order to let the assassin in. The latter must at once have gripped his victim by the throat, smothering his screams, and only used the knife when the poor man was already senseless. In failing backwards, Thursby had seized the portière curtain and dragged it down with him in his fall, otherwise nothing was disturbed in the room. The windows were found carefully bolted; the lamp even had been extinguished. The few little articles of silver and bits of valuable china in the cabinets were left untouched; the unfortunate man's watch and chain, the loose cash in his pocket, were found intact; and to the police the crime seemed as purposeless as it was mysterious.
At the inquest, which was held on the following Tuesday, a verdict of "Wilful murder against some person or persons unknown" was returned, and the public had perforce to rest satisfied that everything was being done to throw light upon this tragic and awful affair. But gradually a rumour, more persistent and positive, and less vague than others, began to find general credence. The Surrey Post had brought the news that a lady--a stranger to Guildford--had gone to the police to request the return of certain papers which had been in the charge of Mr. Sibbald Thursby, and for which she held a receipt signed by him. Rumour went on to assert that a search was made for these papers, and that they had not been found, but that one of the constables, when he was carefully surveying the room where Mr. Thursby was murdered, had discovered a handful of ashes of burned papers in the grate. Twenty--four hours later, the news had spread throughout England like wildfire that the lady whose papers had so unaccountably disappeared claimed to be the lawful wife of the Earl of Duffield, and that those papers were of paramount importance to the legal aspect of her claim and that of her son.
Skin o' my Tooth had stayed on at Guildford all these days, chiefly because the case interested him from the very first; with his unerring instinct in criminal matters, he had scented a mysterious complication, long before the many rumours anent the lady claimant had taken definite shape.
"I imagine Lord Duffield won't enjoy this washing of all his family linen in public, which seems to me quite inevitable," he said to me one morning, when he had read his Surrey Post.
We had just finished the excellent breakfast provided by the Crown Hotel, and Skin o' my Tooth had suggested the advisability of my running up to town to get him a batch of French novels, when one of the waiters came up to our table, with a great air of importance and mystery, and holding a card upon a salver.
"His Lordship is in his carriage," he murmured with the respect befitting so important an event, "and desires to have a few minutes' interview with Mr. Mulligan."
I glanced at the card, which bore the name "The Earl of Duffield," while Skin o' my Tooth quietly intimated to the waiter that he would see his Lordship in the sitting--room.
Lord Duffield was a stout, florid, jovial--looking man of about fifty, decidedly military and precise in his dress and general bearing, but at the present moment obviously labouring under a strong emotion which he was making vigorous efforts to conceal.
"Mr. Mulligan, I believe," he said.
"That is my name," replied Skin o' my Tooth. "To what can I ascribe the honour of this visit?"
"I read your name in the local papers, Mr. Mulligan, but of course I had heard of you before, in connection--er--with criminal cases. The present instance--but," he added, looking somewhat dubiously at my humble personality, "this gentleman--?"
"My confidential clerk, Lord Duffield. You need have no fear of speaking before him."
Satisfied on that point, Lord Duffield sat down, then he said abruptly--
"It is about this murder of Sibbald Thursby. The turn this affair has taken forces me to place the matter, as far as I am concerned, into the hands of a lawyer. Our own family solicitor is too old and has never had any experience of this sort; whereas you--"
"I am entirely at your disposal."
"To make the matter clear to you, I shall have to take you back some thirty years, when I, a young subaltern in a line regiment quartered in Simla, had no prospects of ever inheriting this title and property. When I was barely twenty, I fell in love, like the young fool I was, with a noted beauty of Simla, a Miss Patricia O'Rourke, whose reputation already at that time was none too enviable. After a brief courtship, I married her, in the very teeth of strenuous opposition on the part of all my friends; and less than six months after my marriage I had undoubted proofs that Miss O'Rourke was of more evil character than even Simla had suspected, for at the time she married me she had a husband still living--a man named Henry Mitchell, as great a blackguard, I believe, as ever trod the earth.
"Half crazy with grief and the humiliation of it all, I at last succeeded in obtaining sick leave, and soon sailed for England determined, if possible, to turn my back for ever on the woman who had blighted my life, and on the scene of my folly and my shame.
"Well, Mr. Mulligan, I dare say that experience has taught you that grief at twenty is soon forgotten. Within a year of that saddest period of my life, my uncle, the late Earl of Duffield, lost his only son, and I became his heir. He obtained for me an exchange into the Coldstream Guards, and soon after that I married Miss Angela Hutton, the daughter of America's great copper king. The following year my uncle died, I inherited the title and property, and then my son Oswald was born, and I became a widower.
"In the meanwhile, Miss O'Rourke, or Mrs. Mitchell, had disappeared from Simla. No one knew where she had gone to; some of my friends thought that she was dead.
"I was obliged to tell you all this, Mr. Mulligan," resumed Lord Duffield after a slight pause, "so that you may better understand my position at the present moment. Remember that I have been during all these years under the firm impression that my marriage with Patricia O'Rourke was an illegal one, and that our son born of that union was not legitimate. I had what I considered ample proofs that Henry Mitchell was alive at the time that she married me. When I taxed her with the crime of bigamy, she not only did not deny it, but calmly told me to go my way if I liked. Now, after thirty years she has once more appeared upon the arena of my life. Not only that, but she has come forward with a claim--a strong claim for herself and her son. She has obtained affidavits, sworn to by people of unimpeachable position testifying to the death of Henry Mitchell in Teheran--where he had settled down in business - three clear days before her marriage to me.
"After thirty years?" commented Skin o' my Tooth in astonishment.
"She went to see Sibbald Thursby, who, as you know, perhaps, was the most noted lawyer in Guildford. He was a very old and very intimate friend of mine. She put all the facts before him and showed him all her papers. He came and told me himself that the affidavits were perfectly en règle, duly signed and witnessed by the British Consul in Teheran; one had been sworn by Dr. Smollett, a leading English medical man, who attended on Henry Mitchell in his last illness."
"But why thirty years?"
"Well, it appears that she had all along been morally convinced that Henry Mitchell had died before our marriage; but she had lost trace of him for some months, and had been unable to obtain the necessary proofs to convince me of his death. However, when I left her, she resolutely set to work to obtain these proofs; but by the time she had succeeded, some years had elapsed, and she also had lost sight of me. She did not know that Lieutenant Adrian Payton had become the Earl of Duffield, you see. A mere accident revealed this fact to her, and, immediately realising her duty to her son, she then set sail for England."
"Mr. Thursby, I understand, as a lawyer, thought well of the lady's claim?"
"He thought that there could be no two opinions on the subject."
"There usually are, though, in law," said Skin o' my Tooth, with a smile.
"Yes! And you may be sure that I did not mean to allow my son Oswald to lose his rights and become nameless without a struggle. But Sibbald Thursby had shown me the affidavits which my wife--I suppose I must call her that--had given in his charge, and I am bound to confess that her case seemed remarkably clear. Still, I meant to fight to the bitter end--then -----"
"Then? And now?"
"Now? Have you forgotten what has happened? Sibbald Thursby has been murdered, and those same papers have been stolen or destroyed."
"According to you, by whom?" asked Skin o' my Tooth quietly.
"Ah! Heaven only knows! Look at me, Mr. Mulligan. Am I capable of such a crime? And yet public opinion has already built a veritable scaffolding of base insinuations against me and my son Oswald. My wife has gathered round her a veritable army of partisans; the London papers utter scarcely veiled accusations, and the people of this county cut me in the street."
"But what about your son, Viscount Dottridge, I mean?"
"What about him, Mr. Mulligan? I tell you there is an infamous conspiracy against him. He went out on the afternoon preceding Sibbald Thursby's death to pay a visit to some friends about twenty miles the other side of Guildford. He was on his bicycle, and rode home late in the evening. Just outside Guildford his tyre punctured badly; he was still five miles from Duffield, so he elected to have that puncture mended in the town sooner than walk his machine home. He left his bicycle at Rashleigh's, in the High Street, then thought he would kill time by having a chat with Sibbald Thursby. He went round to "The Cottage." It was then a little before ten. He knocked at the front door, but receiving no answer, he went away again and went for a stroll in the lanes until his machine was mended. He called for it at Rashleigh's at a quarter past ten; it was then ready, and he rode home."
"Yes. And------?"
"And while he stood for a moment irresolute upon Sibbald Thursby's doorstep, a couple of workmen saw him, and have informed the police of this fact. If you have read the local paper this morning, Mr. Mulligan, you will have noticed that they announce 'Sensational Developments in the Guildford Mystery.' That sensation will be, I take it, that my son Oswald will be accused of having murdered Sibbald Thursby, in order to destroy the papers which would have robbed him of his inheritance."
"Of which crime you assert that he is innocent. Pray do not misunderstand me. Mine is at present an open mind; I have only followed the case very superficially. Since you have honoured me with your confidence, I will, of course, go very fully into the matter. Your position from a legal point of view is secure for the moment. Failing the proofs that Henry Mitchell was dead at the time of your marriage with Miss Patricia O'Rourke, your proofs that he only died after the marriage hold good and make your position unassailable. In that way, the murderer of Mr. Sibbald Thursby has certainly done you--or, rather, your son--a good turn, for the lady may perhaps never succeed in getting her proofs together again. Teheran is such a long way off, and the creditable English witnesses are probably dead or dispersed by now. But, of course, there is public opinion, and no doubt you yourself cannot estimate at the present moment how far it will force your hand."
Lord Duffield groaned. "At present," he said, "I only seem to care about the danger to my son Oswald."
"Quite so; and if you will allow me, I will now at once see the detective--inspector in charge of the case, and you may rest assured that everything that can be done, will be done to throw daylight upon these unfortunate events."
Lord Duffield seemed as if he would like to prolong the interview. He looked to me as if he had something on his mind which he could not bring himself to tell, even to his lawyer. Skin o' my Tooth, with his keen insight, also noted the struggle, I am sure, for he waited silently for a moment or two. However, after a brief pause, Lord Duffield rose, shook hands with my chief, nodded to me, and with a few parting instructions he finally left the room.
II.
I DON'T suppose that even Lord Duffield realised how very strong public opinion was already against him in this matter. The lady--small blame to her--had made it her business to let the whole town know the full history of her case, and I must my that, as it now stood, it did not redound to the credit of the noble lord and his son. The detective--inspector, on whom Skin o' my Tooth called that same afternoon, was quite convinced that Lord Duffield and his son had planned and executed the destruction of the documents. The murder, he admitted, might not have been intended, but merely committed as an act of self--defence, when the noble thieves had found their friend awake and alert, instead of in bed, as they had supposed. There was no doubt that Viscount Dottridge was seen to loiter round "The Cottage" at about ten o'clock at night. The Upjohns were firm in their statement that they had heard a noise at the front door at about that time. The theory of the police was that the young man had then gone round to the garden and tried the conservatory door; Mr. Thursby, hearing a noise, had gone to see what the noise was, and was probably gripped by the throat before he could utter a scream.
"Personally, Mr. Mulligan, I have very little doubt that his Lordship was in this game, somehow," concluded the detective--inspector at the end of our interview with him; but I think you will agree with me that the position is remarkably difficult. What in the world am I to do? Duty is duty, and there must not be one law for the rich and another for the poor. The matter can't be hushed up now. Lady Duffield--I suppose she is that, really--won't allow the matter to rest. As long as she remains in the country, she will keep public opinion well stirred up. I wish she could be persuaded to leave the matter alone now. Even if we succeed in proving a charge of murder against Viscount Dottridge, it won't give her son any better chance to make good his claim, will it, sir?"
"Certainly not," replied Skin o' my Tooth; "and you have put the matter in a nutshell. As you say, it would be far better if the lady vacated the place and left you a free hand to hush up the scandal or not, according to the discretion of your chiefs."
It was clear from this interview that the detective-- inspector did not know how to act. Torn between his respect for the title and position of the Earl of Duffield, and his own sense of duty in view of the many proofs in favour of Viscount Dottridge's guilt, he was certainly inclined to wait, at any rate until public opinion literally forced the hand of his chiefs.
But in the meanwhile, Skin o' my Tooth had announced to me his intention of seeing the lady who seemed to be the real centre of the many tragic events of the past few days.
We walked round to the "Duffield Arms," where we understood that she was staying, and two minutes later we were shown into the private sitting--room which she occupied at the hotel.
I must say that I looked with some interest at the woman round whom such exciting events seemed to have gathered. Though she must have been nearly fifty years of age certainly, there was even now a wonderful amount of fascination about her entire personality, and a power of magic in her blue eyes. Her son, whom she introduced to us as Viscount Dottridge, was with her when we came into the room, and it was quite impossible not to be struck immediately with the distinct resemblance which he bore to his father. Legally or not, this young man was undoubtedly the son of the Earl of Duffield. Nature had taken special care to prove that fact, at any rate; and my sympathies immediately went out to him and to his beautiful mother, for there was no doubt that Luck had treated them very roughly.
She received my chief very graciously, and, bidding him be seated, she listened with a smile to what I may term the presentation of his credentials.
"I am Lord Duffield's legal adviser in this matter," he said; "but I think I may safely say that I am the friend of both parties. Whilst I serve my client to the best of my ability, I have every desire-- believe me--to be of service to you and to your son."
She shrugged her shoulders.
"I have been a fool, Mr. Mulligan," she said. "I ought never to have parted with those papers. Now I fear that no one can help me."
"Surely you are wrong. There is no reason why the lost papers should not be replaced. It certainly may take some years and------"
"Money," she interrupted impatiently, "which I have not got. Those who murdered Mr. Thursby and stole the papers knew what they were about. They have left me absolutely helpless; and even if the perpetrator of the dastardly outrage were punished with the full rigour of the law, I should still see my son ousted from his rights."
"Would you mind telling me the exact contents of the papers you considered most valuable to the furtherance of your cause?"
I thought she looked at him a little suspiciously then; but evidently reassured by his genial smile, she said--
"There were two sworn statements made--one by a Dr. Smollett, who was a well--known English doctor in Teheran, the other by an English nurse named Dawson; both these persons were with Henry Mitchell at the time of his death, and remembered all the circumstances connected with it. Dr. Smollett is dead now. As for the nurse, I have lost sight of her for ten years; it is very doubtful if I could ever trace her."
"But surely these statements were made before the resident British Consul at Teheran?"
"Oh, yes! of course they were. Sir William Courteen was Consul at the time. He subsequently became Governor of the Gold Coast, and died, if you remember, some three years ago."
"Fate has indeed dealt harshly with you," murmured Skin o' my Tooth with genuine sympathy.
"To tell you the truth, it never struck me at first that Lord Duffield would contest my just rights. When I understood that Mr. Thursby was a personal friend of my husband's, I left my papers in his hands, thinking that no doubt he would show them to Lord Duffield, who, feeling the unimpeachable justice of my claim, would resign himself to the inevitable and give willingly to my son, and his, what, after all, is his due."
"That being a very unlikely contingency now, Lady Duffield, might I ask you what you intend to do?"
"Failing my rights, Mr. Mulligan, which I suppose from what you say will now never be granted to me, I can always fall back on that barren enjoyment--revenge. Yes, revenge!" she added with sudden vehemence. "He would deprive me of my position and leave my son nameless? I tell you, Mr. Mulligan, that with Heaven's help I will so rouse public feeling against him that, when his son has been hanged for the murder of Sibbald Thursby, he in his turn will have to flee this country as a pariah and an outcast, for no honest man henceforth will shake him by the hand."
She had spoken with so much vindictive fury that I felt a cold shiver creeping down my back. Skin o' my Tooth, smiling blandly, was obviously smitten by the fire of her magnificent blue eyes.
"I think," he said, "you will reconsider your very severe mandate."
"Never."
"Surely, if my client realised that you had certain undoubted claim upon him--I only speak without prejudice; but you have a son, and revenge, though sweet, might not prove very useful in his career."
"I never looked upon it in that light," she said coldly, and rising from her chair, as if she wished to end the interview.
"You would not care to name a figure?" suggested Skin o' my Tooth insinuatingly--"without prejudice--"
For the first time during the interview she turned to her son and seemed to consult him with a look, but he shook his head very energetically.
"Not now," she said to Skin o' my Tooth, and then, with a charming smile, she intimated that she wished the interview to cease.
"You will, in any case, always find me at your service," concluded my chief blandly, as we finally took our leave.
III.
AS the days wore on, the mystery the Guildford tragedy seemed to deepen more and more. We had another interview with Lord Duffield, at which his son--the only son he would acknowledge--was present, and I must say that seeing those two men, typical of the English, country--bred, but high-- born gentlemen, it was almost impossible to conceive that they could lend their hand to the dastardly murder of an old friend. Skin o' my Tooth had received overtures on the part of the claimants, who seemed to have finally realised that revenge was but sorry pleasure, and expressed themselves ready to accept a monetary compromise in return for their permanent residence out of England.
To my intense astonishment Lord Duffield fell in readily with this arrangement, which, after all, was nothing but a bribe, and first gave me the idea that perhaps he and his son had something on their conscience. It is quite certain that a constrained feeling seemed to exist between father and son. Undoubtedly I often caught Lord Dottridge casting furtive glances at his father, and once or twice Lord Duffield looked long and searchingly at his son, then sighed and turned his head away.
I don't pretend to any deep insight into human nature, but it certainly struck me that these two men had begun almost to suspect one another. And no wonder! Who else but they had any interest in destroying the papers which would have made good the cause of the claimants? And I had seen the detective--inspector that morning, and knew that the police, forced into it by public opinion, egged on by the claimants, and convinced that they held sufficient proofs, had at last decided to apply for a warrant for the arrest of Viscount Dottridge.
That same afternoon Skin o' my Tooth at last obtained leave to go over "The Cottage." The police--who always resent outside interference in such matters--had so far on some pretext or other, always refused permission. But my chief was on his mettle. Lord Duffield had promised him £10,000 if he succeeded in elucidating the mystery and in averting the disgrace which threatened him and his son. Today, at last, Skin o' my Tooth was able, not only to make a vigorous effort towards obtaining that substantial reward, but also to indulge his passion for ferreting out the mysteries which lurk around a crime. I don't think I ever remember seeing his weird faculties more fully in evidence than over the elucidation of the Guildford tragedy-- that faculty which literally made him feel the criminal before he held any clue to his guilt.
The late Mr. Sibbald Thursby had been buried the day after the inquest, but in his house everything had been left just as it was the night of the appalling tragedy. The Upjohns had gone, refusing to sleep another night in a place where so terrible a murder had been committed, and as we let ourselves in by the front door our footsteps echoed weirdly within the deserted house. We were accompanied by two constables who, however, took but little interest in Skin o' my Tooth's wild ramblings through the tiny garden, the conservatory, and the study. It seemed as if he expected the ground to give him the final key to the mystery, of which he already had studied the lock; he was walking along with his eyes glued to the floor, his hands buried in the capacious pockets of his ill--fitting coat, and every now and then I could hear him muttering to himself--
"There must be a bit, only a bit--there always is."
Then at last he seemed to have found what he wanted, for he darted forward towards a fine large palm, all dead and dry now for want of water, which stood in an ornamental pot close to the grate. Inside the pot, and covered with dust and mud, there glimmered a piece of paper. Skin o' my Tooth seized it as if it had been a most precious piece of jewellery; then furtively he thrust it in his pocket, and signed to me to hold my tongue, as the constables had just come into the room.
After this short episode, Skin o' my Tooth expressed himself satisfied with all he had seen, and together we returned to the hotel.
Once alone in the privacy of our sitting--room, he took the dirty piece of treasure from his pocket, carefully knocked the dust out of it, and then spread it out smoothly before him on the table.
"You mayn't think it, Muggins," he said, but this piece of dirty paper is worth an earldom and a good many other things besides, including the life of a man, who without this wee scrap would very probably have ended on the gallows. It is also worth £10,000 to me."
Eagerly I looked over his shoulder. The scrap of paper was about the size of my hand, and had obviously been torn off another larger sheet. The words I could decipher were: "...ry Mitchell...anuary 22nd, 1871...my presence," and lower down, what was evidently a signature written in a different hand, "...nor Dawson."
"And what is it, sir?" I asked.
"What an ass you are, Muggins!" he said impatiently. "Can't you see that this is all that is left of one of the affidavits which proved that Henry Mitchell died on the 22nd of January, 1871, or three days before Adrian Payton married Patricia O'Rourke? The signature is that of the nurse Dawson, who swore this particular affidavit."
"But it's no use in this state, is it, sir?"
"Oh, yes, Muggins. An affidavit is always useful, even in this condition. You look out a train for me. Early tomorrow morning I am going up to town with this scrap of paper."
He would not tell me anything more then, and the next morning he went up to town and stayed away all day. I saw the detective--inspector in the afternoon, who told me that the warrant for the arrest of Lord Dottridge was actually out, but that he had had a wire in the morning from Scotland Yard "to await further instructions."
"I fancy," he added with a grin, "that Mr. Mulligan has not deserved his nickname this time. He can't get Lord Dottridge out of this hole, not even by the skin of his teeth."
In the evening, however, Skin o' my Tooth came home, dead tired and triumphant. I met him at the station, and together we immediately proceeded to the police--station.
"I have been waiting to see you, Mr. Mulligan," said the inspector. "We cannot delay any longer, and to--night we must execute the warrant against Lord Dottridge."
"You can throw that warrant into the fire, inspector," replied Skin o' my Tooth quietly, "and tomorrow you can apply for another. You'll have to be pretty quick, too, as I fancy your game smells a rat already and may yet slip through your fingers."
"What do you mean?"
"Only this. When you kindly allowed me to view the scene of the interesting murder case you have had on hand, it was my good fortune to come across this interesting document."
And Skin o' my Tooth once more carefully unfolded that dirty scrap of paper on which he had set such store.
What in the world is this?" asked the inspector.
"That is the very question put to me under the same circumstances by my clerk, Mr. Alexander Stanislaus Mullins. The paper, inspector, is all that is left of one of the affidavits which were to prove the legality of certain claims made by a charming lady and her son. You will notice the signature, '...nor Dawson.' I may tell you that the lady in question had lost sight since ten years of nurse Dawson, who attended upon her husband in his last illness. This illness occurred thirty years ago. We have no official knowledge as to when this affidavit was filed, beyond the fact that it was more than years ago; but if you will examine very carefully the paper on which it was written, you will notice a remarkably interesting fact."
And Skin o' my Tooth held up that dirty scrap of paper against the lamp, allowing the light to show through it. In the extreme corner, the water--mark, "C. & Sons," became clearly visible.
"Looking through the list of English paper--makers," continued my chief, quietly pointing at this with his thick finger, "I came across the name of Clitheroe and Sons, of 29, Tooley Street, London. This afternoon I interviewed the manager of that firm, who informed me that the lettering of the water--mark in this particular bit of paper indicated that it was manufactured by Clitheroe and Sons in 1899."
"I don't understand," gasped the inspector, staring with all his might first at the dirty bit of paper and then at the unwieldy, bulky figure of Skin o' my Tooth, as he quietly revealed the key to the mystery which had so long puzzled the astute detective.
"Yet it is very simple," he said, with one of his bland smiles. "Personally, I had suspected it all along, from the moment that I first saw Lord Duffield and his son, and realised that they had--if I may so express it--not the brains to carry out so daring, a crime successfully. Had that very amiable, but not otherwise brilliant, young man committed that murder, believe me, he would have left plenty of evidence of his guilt. The fact that you yourself, in spite of your acumen, had been unable to really bring the crime home to him, showed me that a cleverer head than his, and a subtler mind, had been at work: but until you favoured me with a permission to view "The Cottage," I had not a single indication on which to work. When I first saw the lady, I realised that hers might have been the head; my instinct told me that her son's was the hand; but there seemed such a total lack of motive, the whole theory seemed so topsy--turvy, that I hesitated even to follow it up. Then you courteously allowed me to view the scene on which the crime itself was committed. At once the fact struck me very forcibly that whoever had come on that fateful night to steal the affidavits knew where to lay his hand on them. Nothing in the room or in the desk had been disturbed, and yet obviously the murderer would turn down the lamp as low as possible immediately his nefarious deed was done, lest the light from windows should reveal his presence. Then, again, you know, no doubt as well as I do, how seldom it is that a murderer does not leave a single trace or clue behind him. That is most fortunate in the cause of justice, otherwise many crimes would remain unpunished. I reckoned in this instance that a man after committing what I presupposed would be his first crime, would necessarily have his nerves very much on the jar. His hand, presumably, would shake, and in tearing up the papers by the very much subdued light of the lamp, and in the presence, of his victim lying dead on the door it is impossible, I say, that some scrap should not have escaped his trembling hands - you know how paper flutters--and lodged itself momentarily out of sight, ready to reappear as a damning witness against him."
The inspector was silent. I could see that he was hanging breathless upon Skin o' my Tooth's lips. And I, too, saw it all now before me, even before my chief gave us the final explanation of his unanswerable logic.
"In ascertaining the fact that this paper was manufactured two years ago, whilst purporting to have been written on and signed more than ten years previously, it became clear to me that the affidavits setting forth Miss Patricia O'Rourke's, alias Mrs. Henry Mitchell's, claim were a pack of forgeries. From this conclusion to the understanding of her clever plan was but a quick mental problem. After all, it was simple enough. Having forged the documents, she entrusted them to Sibbald Thursby. Then her son chose his opportunity, the best he could find, to steal and destroy them. After that she hoped so to rouse public indignation against Lord Duffield by openly accusing him of the theft that he would either throw up the sponge altogether and recognise her rights, or at worst pay her a handsome compensation to clear out of the country and leave him alone. Remember, she all but succeeded. You yourself suggested this alternative as the simplest solution of the difficulty, and Lord Duffield was quite ready to fall in with these views."
"But as it is," suggested the inspector at last, "do you think we shall be able to bring the crime home to these people? They seem to have been very clever."
"You could bring the accusation of forgery and fraud undoubtedly home to her. You might succeed in proving the murder against her son, but I don't think that you will get a chance of doing either."
"Why not?"
"I think you will find your birds flown already."
"That would be tantamount to an acknowledgment of guilt, and then we could overtake them wherever they may have fled."
"It certainly is an acknowledgment of guilt, as you say," concluded Skin o' my Tooth, rising from his chair and stretching his great, loose limbs; "but personally, I do not think that you will overtake them if they have succeeded in making good their escape."
Skin o' my Tooth's prophecy proved to be correct. The detective--inspector, I think, has remained convinced to this day that my esteemed employer was not altogether innocent in the matter of the escape of Mrs. Henry Mitchell and her son from the clutches of the law. They had left for London that very evening, and thence had gone to Dover, where all trace of them had ostensibly vanished. I believe that their lucky escape from justice cost Lord Duffield a pretty penny, but, of course, he felt that enough family dirty linen had been washed in public, and he was willing to pay a good sum to save even an illegitimate son from the gallows.
IV
THE KAZAN PEARLS
You are quite right there: Skin o' my Tooth did have everything to do with the unravelling of that complicated knot which the sensational press at the time called the Great Pearl Mystery, and my opinion-- which is shared by many in authority--is that but for the activities and courage of my chief, a grave miscarriage of justice would have been perpetrated.
What happened was this: the Countess Zakreoski, an American lady married to a Russian of great wealth, late of the household of the murdered Tsar, had dined one evening with her husband at the Majestic, their host being the Honble. Morley--Everitt, son of the Countess' first husband, who was Lord Everitt of Eode, and brother of the present peer. Mr. Morley--Everitt was a very popular and smart young man about town, and a devoted attendant upon his stepmother, whom he helped in her entertainments and to whom he acted as a kind of secretary and factotum in her magnificent house in Belgrave Square. She, in return, kept him lavishly supplied with money, and the two were more like actual mother and son to each other than is usually the case with children of a former marriage.
The dinner party in question consisted, in addition to the Count and Countess Zakreoski and the host, of the Marquis and Marquise de San Felice of the Italian Embassy, Lady Dewin, who was a connection of the Everitts, Madame Hypnos, a Greek lady, friend of Countess Zakreoski, and of a certain Major Gilroy Straker, lately come over from Australia, on some business or other connected with Empire products; he had brought letters of introduction from well--known people in Australia, to other equally well--known people in London. The party stayed on till rather late, and then went home in two motors, the one a large Rolls--Royce belonging to Count and Countess Zakreoski, and the other, a small Essex, belonging to Mr. Morley--Everitt. The latter took Lady Dewin and Madame Hypnos with him, the others all went in the Rolls-- Royce.
On that occasion the Countess Zakreoski wore--as she often did--the famous Kazan pearls, an heirloom of great value and historical interest, around which many a Russian romance has been woven: the pearls have been the envy and admiration of every jewel expert in Europe and America ever since they were first brought out of the family strong--room by Count Zakreoski and presented to his bride, the present Countess.
They consisted of three ropes, magnificent in size and lustre and perfectly matched; their value was said to be incalculable. They were insured for £60,000.
The Countess only discovered the loss of her pearls when she got home, and her maid helped to divest her of her cloak. I won't, of course, recapitulate all the details of the search which was immediately instituted, inside and outside the house, in the garage and the motor; there were telephone calls to the Majestic, to the police, to the chauffeur, and half the night was spent in setting the machinery going towards the recovery of the priceless gems. Subsequently as much as £10,000 reward was offered, and amateur as well as professional detectives were employed by the score, not only in England, of course, but all over Europe and America.
But all these efforts were of no avail. Day followed day and no news of the missing pearls. The police was hopeful still, but the public shrugged their shoulders and marvelled what the thief could hope for except the reward, as surely such remarkable gems would not easily be marketable.
The loss, or rather theft, of the Kazan pearls was however, only the first phase of an extraordinary tragedy, wherein accident and coincidence played their several sinister parts. It was about a fortnight later, and the sensation about the Kazan pearls had vanished in favour of a world--famed prize fight, when Madame Hypnos, who had many friends in London society, was found murdered in the flat which she occupied in Curzon Street, Mayfair.
The flat consists of three rooms and bathroom opening on a narrow passage; two of the rooms, bedroom and sitting--room, communicate with one another, the third is just a small kitchenette. The unfortunate woman's body was found lying on the floor of the sitting--room. She had been stabbed in the back with a large curved knife of Eastern design, which lay close beside her. The discovery was made by a Mr. and Mrs. Mortimer who had a flat on the same floor. They had been at the theatre, and on returning home had heard a fearful row going on in Madame Hypnos' flat. They paused for a moment or two on the landing in order to listen, and they heard Madame's voice shouting repeatedly:
"You shan't! you shan't!"
However, they felt that it was no business of theirs, and after a while they went unconcernedly into their own flat. About five minutes later they heard an awful shriek. Mrs. Mortimer was in the kitchenette at the moment, heating up some cocoa, while her husband was in the bedroom changing his shoes. For a moment she felt paralyzed with horror. Suddenly she heard the front door of the flat across the landing open and close, and footsteps clambering downstairs. Then only did she put down the saucepan which she had been handling and ran to her husband. He, too, had heard the shriek and was debating in his mind what he should do when his wife ran in to him. Together they went out on the landing. The well of the stairs was in total darkness, which was odd, because one light was always kept up on each landing all through the night. These lights were controlled by a single switch in the main entrance hall, and someone must have turned that off after the Mortimers had gone into their flat. The man's first instinct was to run downstairs as fast as darkness would allow and turn the lights up again. When he came back to his own landing he found his wife almost swooning with terror. She was speechless and with trembling hand was pointing in the direction of Madame Hypnos' flat, from whence could be heard at intervals heartrending groans.
This time without pausing to think, Mr. Mortimer ran into his own flat, got a poker, smashed the stained--glass panel of the door of Madame Hypnos' flat, put his hand through the hole, and turned the handle of the door. The wretched woman, who was lying in a pool of blood, was even then drawing her last breath.
Mr. Mortimer sent his wife back to her own rooms and ran down to rouse the hall--porter and sent him for the police.
On the face of it, robbery appeared to have been the primary motive of the crime, because every article of furniture in the place had been ransacked: drawers had been pulled open and locks smashed; the mattress and pillows on the bed, as well as upholstery, had been ripped up, and with the same knife, probably, that had finally done the deed.
Inspector Richards, one of the most able men of the C.I.D., was at once put in charge of the case. A few facts immediately jumped to the eyes, others appeared there and then to obscure the main issue. One thing was certain, the murderer had been on familiar terms with his victim: the flat had not been broken into. Whoever it was who had come to visit Madame Hypnos that evening had been let in by her in the ordinary way. She kept no servant of her own; as a matter of fact, no one kept a servant in these little flats, which were what are known now as "service flats." The visitor had been made welcome by Madame: there was a half--bottle of whisky and siphon on one of the tables; two tumblers which had contained whisky stood on the mantelpiece, together with an empty cigarette box, and there were a couple of ash--trays filled with dead matches and cigarette ends.
But the great disappointment that confronted Richards was the total absence of finger--prints other than those of the murdered woman herself. These, strangely enough, appeared on both the tumblers that stood upon the mantelpiece, and also--though here they were very much blurred--upon the handle of the knife with which the crime had been committed. But beyond that, nowhere, although Richards, who is as keen after a clue of that sort as a bloodhound after a trail, put every single article in that flat to the finger-- print test.
What he soon discovered, however, was the actual motive of the crime. To begin with, there was, lying close beside the fender, a torn and crumpled copy of The Times. It looked as if the reader had thrown the paper down in a fit of rage and stamped upon it. Richards smoothed out the creases and looked at the date; it was a week old. The page that lay uppermost was the front one, and there in flaring letters in the personal column was the advertisement of the assessors, offering £10,000 reward for the recovery of the Kazan pearls.
This gave Richards the clue of what the thief or thieves had been after. With more deliberation than he or they had displayed, he set to work to search the flat, and it was after three hours' minute search, when he had almost given up hope, that he chanced to turn over a gallipot that contained washing soda, and there, hidden underneath the soda, was a handful of pearls, some clinging to their string, others loose--one of the three ropes of the Kazan pearls.
Richards now was hot on the scent; inquiries from the hall--porter of the flats and also the other occupants of the block brought to light the fact that Madame Hypnos received many visitors--mostly in the evenings, and mostly men; the hall--porter thought that Madame was usually on the lookout for them; anyway, he never saw them halt on the landing. It seemed as if her front door would always be left ajar, so that the visitors could just push it open and walk in. Asked to describe some of these visitors, the man hesitated. He never, he said, saw any of them very clearly. One gentleman, he thought, had a black beard and curly black hair; he wore a slouch hat and an overcoat with the collar turned up to his ears. Another wore a heavy white cavalry moustache. He was lame and very stout. Madame had not been in the flats very long, and the hall--porter had not had time, as yet, apparently, to take stock of her visitors. But there was one young gentleman who had recently come once or twice to the flat. Mr. and Mrs. Mortimer had seen him too; he was young and tall, they said, with fair, curly hair and blue eyes and small toothbrush moustache. The first time this young man called was about three weeks ago, and he came quite openly and asked the hall--porter if Madame Hypnos lived there. After which Mr. and Mrs. Mortimer volunteered the information that on the evening of the tragedy that same young man had called at the flat; they were just off to the theatre when he got out of a taxi outside their front door. They took that same taxi on to the theatre. It was then a quarter past eight.
The taxi, advertised for by the police, was easily enough traced. The chauffeur said that he had originally been taken up by a gentleman outside the Dominions Club in Hanover Square and had driven him to a block of flats in Curzon Street, Mayfair, where a lady and gentleman had taken him to the Duke of York's Theatre. Inquiries at the Dominions Club elicited the fact that one of the members, a certain Major Gilroy Straker, had been one of the party at the Majestic when the Countess Zakreoski lost her pearls. He always kept a room, it seems, at the Dominions Club, having been one of its founders and therefore privileged. He was summoned to give evidence at the inquest, identified by the taxi--driver, the hall--porter of the flats, and Mr. and Mrs. Mortimer, and even before he had begun to give evidence the police obtained a search warrant against him, and amongst his effects in his room at the Dominions Club they found the Kazan ropes of pearls, with the one row broken and about fifty or sixty pearls missing.
II
At the close of his evidence Major Gilroy Straker was arrested, and the verdict of the coroner's jury was one of wilful murder against him. His arrest created a great sensation in London, more particularly in the little coterie that had taken him up. It was a very smart coterie, by the way, one chiefly made up of wealthy foreigners who had either made their home in England or were passing through. Countess Zakreoski and her husband were among its leaders; they had relations and friends all over Europe and America; no foreigner of distinction ever came to London without an introduction to the popular couple. They would sponsor the ladies and married couples, and Mr. Morley--Everitt would introduce the bachelors to the smart clubs in London. In this instance both the Zakreoskis and Mr. Morley--Everitt felt that they owed an apology to their friends for the introduction of Major Straker to this charmed circle. He had come to London with introductions to the Countess from friends of hers in Sydney, and she had, as it were, passed him on to Mr. Morley--Everitt, her stepson. The latter had been more than kind in seeing to it that the young colonial, who, by the way, had served with distinction with the A.E.F., had a good time in London. This was an easy task, as the Major was good looking and an excellent dancer, and he had been made very welcome. With regard to Madame Hypnos, matters were not quite so simple. It seems that Countess Zakreoski had only been kind to her at the request of Major Straker: she had only had her once to tea at her own house, and Mr. Morley--Everitt had--again at Major Straker's request--very kindly asked her to be of the party that night at the Majestic. On inquiry it turned out that neither Mr. Morley--Everitt nor Count and Countess Zakreoski, nor any of the party that night, knew anything about Madame Hypnos beyond the fact that she was a friend of Major Straker.
Skin o' my Tooth, I must tell you, was from the first very much interested in this case: he always had a wonderful flair for intricacies and problems long before they cropped up in evidence. He and I went daily to Bow Street to hear the Australian Major give an account of how he came to be in possession of two ropes of pearls belonging to the Countess Zakreoski, whilst the third rope, or a part of it, was found in the flat of a lady whom he had visited the very evening on which she came by a violent death.
Of course, to most people his history appeared so curious as to be unbelievable. No wonder that the police turned his statements inside out and that the magistrate had no option but to commit him for trial. What Major Straker had told the police, the coroner, and the magistrate was this:
He had arrived in England, he said, about three months ago from Australia, where he had been managing director of a firm of wool merchants in Sydney. He had gone out to Austral