This House to Let

“What do you know of Number 1 °Cathcart Square, except what you gleaned from the newspapers?” demanded her brother sternly. “How can you be implicated in the murder of the unknown man whom Carrie mistook for me?”

“But Carrie did not mistake him for you,” wailed Iris. “She told me afterwards that the idea suggested itself in a flash, and when she read the newspaper she was not sure whether it was you who had crept in there, according to the evidence, and made away with yourself, through fear of the police.”

“Leave Carrie out of it for the moment,” said Davis. “Whatever she did was well thought out. Of course, we both know her object was to identify me, if possible, and put Scotland Yard off the scent. What we want to know is, how did you come to be acquainted with the house? What do you mean by saying that, if further investigations are made, you might be dragged in?”

“I was there on four occasions: on the last a few days before the murder, or suicide, whatever it was.”

Davis gasped, and Carrie lifted her hands in horror. What did this confession mean? It was impossible that this slim, weak girl had herself been the murderess, could have killed a big, powerful man of the same build as the supposed Davis, with those slim, weak hands.

She saw the horror in their faces, and hastened to reassure them. “Oh no, not that, I swear to you. I am no more a murderess than you were a murderer, Reggie. But if the whole thing is raked up, and the man whom I believe it to be, accurately identified this time, things might look very black for me.”

Davis lifted her from her kneeling position, and placed her in an easy-chair. “Calm yourself, and tell us the whole story of why and how you came to be in Cathcart Square at all.”

Iris waited a few moments till the convulsive sobbing ceased. She spoke with little occasional gasps, but it was very evident it was a relief to unbosom herself.

“It is a very long story,” she began tremulously.

“If the telling of it lasts till midnight, we must have it,” said her brother in an inflexible voice.

And compelled by his resolute manner, the girl, whom they had always regarded as a frivolous butterfly, embarked upon her strange and thrilling narrative.

“It all arose out of the sale of those letters I spoke to you about. Carrie just now asked me the name of the man who wrote them. Well, I didn’t get further than Roddie, which doesn’t carry you very far. If it had not been for your threat of going to Scotland Yard, I should have stopped at that. A still tongue makes a wise head, you know.”

They could quite believe that. In spite of her ceaseless chatter, Iris had always been very reticent about her own affairs. She had seen next to nothing of her brother for a few years, not very much of Carrie Masters. And, on these occasions, she had always avoided, in a marked manner, any allusion to her private affairs.

“I told you of a soppy young chap who started to make love to me last year. I didn’t care a snap for him, but he was very persistent, and at last wrote me most urgent letters imploring me to be his wife. His full name was Roderick Murchison, a member of the great brewing family; his father has been dead for some time, he died during the War, and Roddie came in for tons of money, although he was not the eldest son. I don’t know if you have ever heard of him?”

No, neither Davis nor Carrie had known of the existence of such a young man. They had a hazy idea that there was a big brewing firm of that name, that was all.

“Well, as I say, I didn’t care a snap for him, although he was awfully good and generous, overwhelmed me with, all kinds of lovely presents: rings, bracelets, fur coats, etc. In our life, you know, one accepts these things from the mugs who are gone on us without attaching very much importance to the fact.” It was evident that Miss Iris had struck out her own line of life, and made a very good thing out of it.

“Well, then, Roddie began to grow desperate, and declared he couldn’t live without me. It was all so genuine that at last I began to think seriously of it. There were tons of money, and although I didn’t cotton much to the sort of life I should have to lead as his wife, still there were worse things than being Mrs Roderick Murchison, with the future well assured, and a handsome settlement.”

Davis and his elder sister exchanged wondering glances. So this butterfly little girl, whom they had always regarded as rather shallow and feather-brained, had had this wonderful chance of marrying a gentleman and a rich man.

“It was difficult to bring myself up to the scratch, in spite of the advantages, for he was so soft and soppy that he irritated me in a thousand-and-one ways, and I knew in a very short time I should grow to hate and despise him. Then one night, after a very excellent champagne supper at the ‘Excelsior,’ he got me in a yielding mood, and I promised to marry him.”

Brother and sister could only marvel at the girl’s extraordinary good fortune, reluctant as she seemed to avail herself of it.

“He told me that before he went to bed that night he wrote to his family acquainting them with the news, anticipating fully their objections, but expressing his strong determination to brook no interference or remonstrance. You see he was his own master, nobody could take his money away from him, and he didn’t care whether his relatives were offended or not.”

“And how did the family take it?” queried Davis.

“I am coming to that,” replied Iris. She was growing much calmer now. It was a relief to unburden her secret to an audience whom she could trust. For she was sure that neither her brother nor sister would ever allow her to put herself into real danger.

“I am coming to that,” she repeated. “A few days after he had written those letters, one to his widowed mother, one to his elder brother, who had inherited the bulk of the big fortune, the elder brother called upon me in my flat. He was a very handsome, well-set-up man, although he had been through a good deal in the War. He was very like you, Reggie.”

“Ah,” ejaculated Mr Davis. He looked at Carrie, keenly watching her sister, with a glance that suggested they would soon be coming to the real pith of this rambling confession.

“He begged the favour of a short conversation. He was perfectly open and above-board. He told me straight he was Roddie’s elder brother, and that his name was Hugh Murchison. He pointed out to me very kindly that his brother was an impetuous young ass – a judgment which I privately endorsed – that Roddie had been infatuated, in his short day, with quite a number of other girls, although, perhaps, not to the same extent as with me.” Iris, getting back rapidly into her light mind, let her volatile and easily impressed nature peep out in her next words.

“Oh, Hugh Murchison was a darling, so quiet, so sensible, and so strong. If he had been fool enough to ask me to marry him, I would not have given him up for seven thousand pounds.”

“But you were prepared to chuck Roddie for that?” suggested her brother quietly.

“I think I let him go a bit too cheap,” answered the fair Iris in a reflective voice. “Many girls have got more than I asked for compromising a breach of promise. But to tell the absolute truth, Hugh Murchison hypnotised me a bit. He was so quiet and yet so strong that I felt he could twist me round his little finger.”

“We want to get to Cathcart Square,” interjected Davis a little impatiently. “We don’t seem to be near it yet.”

“I must tell my story my own way, it is no use driving me,” replied Iris, pouting a little. “Well, as I tell you, he called that day at my flat – that was the beginning of negotiations. Where were we to meet to discuss details? I couldn’t have him at my flat, because Roddie was always popping in and out. He couldn’t have me at his hotel, because nobody knew whom we might come across, and Roddie was always coming there. He said he would think out a plan and telephone or wire me.”

“Ah,” said Carrie, with a sigh of relief: she was a very practical person. “Now, I suppose we are coming to it.”

Iris, heedless of the interruption, went on with her story.

“Next day he ’phoned me up, and after ascertaining that I was quite alone, told me to meet him at 1 °Cathcart Square to resume our conversation.”

“Why, in the name of all that is wonderful – ” began Reginald Davis, but his sister motioned him to silence.

“Don’t interrupt, please, you will know everything in a few minutes. I went to Number 1 °Cathcart Square at the time appointed. He opened the door himself. It was a big house in an old-fashioned square, ages old, I should say, and in the front court was an agent’s board, intimating that this particular house was to let, furnished.”

“I know Cathcart Square well, it’s in an old-world quarter of Kensington,” interrupted Davis. He added grimly, “I know it well, although I did not have the misfortune to commit suicide there.”

“He told me a very funny story. The afternoon of the day before, he had been up to Kensington to visit an old nurse of the family who lived near by. He had strolled round to Cathcart Square to fill up an idle half-hour. He had been struck by the appearance of the house, and loitered before it, when suddenly the door opened, and a somewhat bibulous-looking caretaker came out.”

Davis indulged in a sigh of relief. “We are really coming to it now, then?”

“Yes, you are coming to it. He told me a sudden idea had occurred to him. Here would be a quiet little spot for our meetings, a place where Roddie would never dream of following us. He accosted the caretaker, evidently a drunken and corrupt creature. He explained that he wanted to rent a couple of rooms where he could receive a certain visitor he was expecting in the course of the next week or fortnight. It was no use going to the house agents for that, they would turn down such a proposition. The caretaker, with a couple of five-pound notes in his hand, took an intelligent view of the situation. He gave Hugh a key, and intimated that, if he had sufficient notice, he would make himself scarce on the occasions when the visitor was expected.”

“Of all the mad things – ” began Davis, but his sister for the second time motioned her brother to silence.

“Not quite so mad as you think. I fancy I can see into his mind. We could have met at a dozen different restaurants in London, but Roddie was here, there and everywhere: at any moment he might have come across us. He would never get as far as Kensington.” David nodded his sagacious head. “I think I see. Go on.”

“I met him there, in all four times, the last meeting was a few days before the tragedy.”

“And what took place at that meeting?”

“He paid me the seven thousand pounds in notes. I signed a paper agreeing to give Roddie up. I carried out my bargain. I wrote Roddie that same night, giving him his dismissal, and assuring him that nothing he could urge would induce me to reconsider my determination. He sent me frantic telegrams the next day, but I replied to the same effect. After taking his seven thousand pounds, I could not break faith with Hugh, could I?”

Davis was not quite sure that Iris would not break faith with anybody if it suited her purpose. But clearly Hugh Murchison had subjugated her to the extent of respecting an honourable bargain. No doubt she had fallen in love with him, so far as a person of her shallow temperament could fall in love.

“And what has become of Roddie?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t care. He has bored me to extinction for over nine months. I am glad to be shut of him.”

Davis put a question. “You say Hugh Murchison paid you in notes. What have you done with them? His bank will have the numbers.”

“Will they?” cried Iris, the frightened look again coming into her eyes; she knew nothing of business methods. “I paid them into my own account. Now, you see, if you rake this up I might be implicated.”

“Your opinion is, then, that the man found in Number 1 °Cathcart Square was Hugh Murchison?”

“I am as nearly sure as I can be, after reading the caretaker’s evidence. He had some other stunt on beside my own. I was not the only visitor he received.”

Davis thought deeply before he spoke. “If I have him dug up, and he is identified by those who know him, a lot will come to light. Your notes will be traced, for one thing.”

“I am afraid of everything, Reggie. For the love of Heaven, let him rest where he is.” Caroline Masters breathed softly to herself. “You were half in love with him, or perhaps three-quarters, and you don’t want to know the real truth. Oh, you miserable little, paltry soul!”

And then a sudden thought came to Davis. “Now, Iris, you could never think very clearly about things when they got a little bit complicated. You are quite sure the last occasion on which you saw him was a few days before the discovery of the body?”

“I will swear to it,” cried Iris firmly.

“The date of his cheque, which the Bank has, will show that. He probably cashed it himself on the day he paid you, any way the day before. Now, on the day preceding and the day following that tragedy, can you prove where you were?”

Iris began to see light. “Of course I can. The day after I had the notes, I got up a sprained ankle, an obliging doctor, an old (or rather young) friend of mine, sent a certificate to the theatre. I motored down to Brighton with Johnny Lascelles – who, by the way, used to make Roddie fearfully jealous. We joined a jolly little party at ‘The Old Ship.’ I came back the day after the discovery in Cathcart Square.”

Davis rose and gave a great shout: “You have witnesses who can swear to that?”

“Of course,” answered Iris, not even yet comprehending the full drift of the question. “Johnny Lascelles motored me there and drove me back. Then there was Cissy Monteith, Katie Havard, Jack Legard and others who were with me all the time.”

“You silly little idiot,” cried Reginald Davis. “And what the deuce do you mean by saying that you might be implicated?”

“The notes,” she faltered. “My meeting him alone in that empty house. They might suggest I murdered him, if you say he was murdered.”

Davis smote his forehead in impotent anger at her denseness. “How could you have murdered him when you were at Brighton all the time?”

He smote the palms of his hands together.

“I will find out who the dead man was, and also the man who forged my name to that letter to the Coroner.”

He turned to his sister: “As for you, young woman, it may be you will have a bad quarter of an hour, if it all comes out about Roddie. But never mind, you will have a splendid advertisement. The next bunch of letters you get hold of, the price will be twice seven thousand pounds.”

Chapter Twenty Two

The following morning Reginald Davis, resolved to unearth the mystery of 1 °Cathcart Square, stood in the private room of Mr Bryant of Scotland Yard.

He had easily overcome his younger sister’s scruples, her terror at having to give evidence in a court of justice, and being forced to disclose certain transactions not too creditable to herself. She had come to see from the point of view artfully suggested by Davis, that, on the whole, it would be a very good advertisement. It might even take her from her place in the chorus to a small acting part, and then her fortune would be made. She might be able to come across another rich man whom she would like well enough to marry, a man quite different from the somewhat invertebrate Roddie.

Bryant looked up from his papers, and regarded the young man with his keen and steady gaze. Davis’s good looks, and frank air impressed him favourably.

“Well, my man, what do you want with me? I don’t usually see strangers who approach me in such a mysterious fashion. You would neither state your name nor business, only said vaguely that you wanted to interview me on a matter of great urgency.”

“I wished to keep my business for your private ear, sir. Can you throw your mind back to a certain gruesome affair that happened at 1 °Cathcart Square?”

“Certainly, although I was not in charge of the matter. The man was identified as Reginald Davis, who was wanted on a charge of murder, the circumstantial evidence against him being very strong; the verdict returned was one of suicide. If I recollect rightly, he had broken a pane of glass in one of the back windows of the house, unhasped the latch of the window, and cut his throat upstairs after he got inside. The facts were accepted at the time as conclusive evidence of his guilt.”

“And you recollect, sir, what happened a short time ago with regard to the crime of which Reginald Davis was accused?”

“Perfectly. The real criminal has confessed. And this poor devil, overwhelmed no doubt by the circumstantial evidence which told so strongly against him, acted too hastily.”

“If the police had caught him, he would probably have been hanged by now,” said Davis a little bitterly.

Mr Bryant looked a little uneasy. “I should say it is more than probable from what I remember of the case; well, you know, the law makes mistakes at times, I will admit.”

“And juries at inquests make mistakes at times, also,” remarked Davis quietly. “This particular jury made a mistake. The dead man was no more Reginald Davis than you are.”

It was not easy to startle Mr Bryant, he had been through too many strange experiences for that, but he exhibited a mild surprise as he put the question: “And what authority have you for saying that?”

“I think you will admit the best. I, who stand before you, am the Reginald Davis who was wanted on that false charge of murder, and branded by that intelligent jury as a suicide.”

“You can prove this, of course. I mean that you are the real Reginald Davis.”

“Of course I can, sir; I can bring a dozen witnesses, if necessary, half of whom have known me since a boy.”

Needless to say that a man of Bryant’s experience did not, as a rule, believe one quarter of what he was told. But this man’s face – this man’s tones – convinced him that he was listening to the truth.

He rose from his chair. “Wait here a moment, please, while I hunt up the particulars of this case. As I told you just now, I was not in charge of it, and I should like to refresh my memory as to certain details.”

He came back after a few moments. “I know it all now, from A to Z. You were identified by a married sister, a Mrs Masters, who gave some details of your career, which did not seem to have been a very healthy one. She was also shown a letter which you were supposed to have written to the Coroner, and she believed it to be in your handwriting. This wants some explanation, I think, Mr Davis, to call you by the name which you say is your right one.”

“Quite so, sir,” answered Reginald composedly. “It certainly requires a good deal of explanation, but if you will listen to me with a little patience, I think I can convince you that the thing is more natural than it appears.” The Inspector threw himself back in his chair: “I have no doubt it was your sister who identified you, but how did she come to mistake the actual suicide for you?”

And Mr Davis gave the explanation which Bryant might believe or not, or believe in part, as he chose.

“My sister Caroline was deeply attached to me. She was in despair when she heard that I was suspected of murder, and was being hunted by the police. As day after day, week after week, went by, and there was no news of my capture, she got it firmly fixed in her mind that I had committed suicide. She hunted the newspapers every morning to find some paragraph that would confirm her fears. And then one day she read about what had happened at Cathcart Square.”

Mr Bryant was now deeply interested. He leaned forward in his chair, and his attitude betokened his eagerness.

“It is possible that her mind had become a little unhinged by her anxiety. She expected to find me, and she found a man who might have passed for my twin brother. So she tells me now that I have revealed myself, for, of course, I lay very low until this belated confession of the real murderer.”

Bryant only made a brief comment on this particular portion of the narrative which Davis was twisting about with some skill. Of course, Mrs Masters had not been deceived by the accidental resemblance, but in pretending to be she had given that brother a new lease of life.

“You say that the man was so like you that the sister, who had known you from childhood, was ready to swear he was her brother?”

“There is no doubt, sir, that at the time her mind was clouded. She went there expecting to find me, and as a not altogether unnatural result, she found what she expected.”

“We will let that pass,” said the Inspector drily. “No doubt, under extraordinary circumstances, strange hallucinations are apt to occur. It was very fortunate for you that your sister made that mistake, and that it was accepted. As you admitted just now, if you had been caught and tried it would have gone very hardly with you.”

Whatever Bryant thought in his own mind, it was evident that he was prepared to admit that Mrs Masters had acted in good faith when she swore that the dead man was her brother. Davis could see there would be no trouble on that score.

“Now we come to the letter,” pursued Davis. “I questioned my sister very closely about that last night. She says she was so overwhelmed with the discovery that she read that letter through a mist, as it were, but she is positive that it closely resembled my handwriting.”

“Another hallucination, I suppose, or an accidental resemblance. Well, if you will leave a specimen of your own calligraphy with us, we can compare them,” said Bryant.

“And I suppose, sir, you will have the body exhumed, for the purpose of discovering who the man really was?”

“I suppose so,” replied the Inspector a little unwillingly. “Although I don’t expect we shall ever find out. Nobody came forward at the time when your sister made that mistake. Is it likely anybody will come forward now? Some poor derelict, weary of life I suppose, without kith or kin to claim him at the end. There are scores of suicides in the year, Mr Davis, who are buried unidentified.”

He added, after a moment’s pause: “Of course, before taking any such steps, we must formally prove, from unimpeachable testimony, that not only are you Reginald Davis, but the particular Reginald Davis who was falsely accused of murder.”

“I quite understand,” answered Davis a little stiffly. “Before I leave this room, I will indicate the quarters where you can obtain the information you want.”

“Then, when I have verified that, I will ask you to come and see me again.” Bryant’s manner as he said these words, indicated that the interview was at an end.

But Davis kept his seat, he had not finished yet.

“May I take the liberty of detaining you for a few moments longer, sir, to impress upon you the importance of having that body exhumed? You may be correct in your theory it is that of some poor derelict, but I have a different theory altogether.”

The Inspector looked sharply at him, and drew a deep breath. “Ah, then, you have some knowledge of something: your visit to me has been leading up to this, eh?”

“No actual knowledge, sir, but a surmise that has, I venture to think, some foundation. I have two sisters. The elder one I have already spoken of to you.”

There was a slight note of sarcasm in the Inspector’s voice as he replied, “Yes, Mrs Masters, whose fortunate mistake was of such excellent service to you, during the time you were waiting for the real criminal’s confession.” Davis did not suffer himself to resent this. Of course, a man of the world like Bryant did not believe in this camouflaged story. Mrs Masters was a clever young woman, and had taken advantage of an accidental resemblance to get her brother out of jeopardy.

“My other sister, Iris Deane, is in the chorus of the Frivolity Theatre. I don’t suppose you have ever heard of her?”

Mr Bryant shook his head. He knew a great deal about all classes of criminals, but young ladies in the chorus of the Frivolity, or any other theatre, were not in his line.

“She was at Mrs Masters’s house last night. She came over especially to welcome me, on my re-introduction to the world which I was supposed to have quitted. She made to us a very startling confession, and that confession is intimately associated with the events at Cathcart Square.”

And this time, Bryant was genuinely surprised, and was at no pains to conceal it. Reginald Davis – he was beginning to believe in the man’s identity now – was evidently a member of a very remarkable family.