Christopher Quarles: College Professor and Master Detective

"I do not know where he is," she answered firmly, though her lips quivered.

"Still, you may know enough to help me to clear his name," said Quarles.

"You mean – but he told me himself."

"Ah, that is what I mean," said Quarles. "You can tell me something. Take my word for it, you will be doing Ewing a service by telling me what you know."

The professor looked exceedingly benevolent, and his tone was persuasive. It was so necessary to obtain information that the means were justified – one cannot be sentimental in detective work – yet I pitied the woman.

"You know that Mr. Ewing was dismissed from the bank – and why?" she said.

Quarles nodded.

"He did not tell me at first. He wrote to me, saying he had been sent out of town on business. I had no suspicion that anything was wrong. Some days later I received a telegram asking me to meet him near Victoria. It was then he told me of his dismissal. He had supposed that he would not be prosecuted, but the bank had, after all, decided to make an example of him. He had gone away to hide himself. A friend was helping him to get out of the country, and – "

"Who was the friend?" asked Quarles.

"Frederick would not say. He had promised not to tell anyone who he was; indeed, he had promised not to hold any communication with anyone. The latter promise he had broken by meeting me. We were – we are engaged. I would not take back my freedom. He will write to me presently, and then I shall join him wherever he is."

"That was before the great robbery of the bank," said Quarles.

"Days before," she answered.

"And you do not know where he is now?"

"No."

I had pitied her, now I could not help admiring her. Of course, the story was a fabrication. She had met Quarles on his own ground, and beaten him. She had seen through his persuasive manner, and in a few words had entirely dissociated her lover from the robbery, and shown the futility of attempting to find him. The professor did not let her see his disappointment.

"Most useful information, Miss Yerbury," he said. "I am sure you will not regret having told me the truth."

He was silent for a little while, as we went back to the station, and then he said suddenly:

"A queer story, Wigan."

"Clever!" I answered.

"Extremely clever. We have a curious rogue to deal with, the motive obscure. There's a very strange mental twist somewhere."

"And we're no nearer a solution of the problem," I said.

"Anyway, we'll visit the bank again to-morrow. Eleven o'clock, Wigan. Until then I want to be alone. Good night!"

We could not see Mr. Wickstead at once when we went to the bank next day, and although the general manager apologized for keeping us waiting, he was evidently very busy, and wanted to be rid of us as quickly as possible.

"I'm afraid you don't make much progress," he said. "My directors are beginning to say that the publicity is worse than the loss."

"We go slowly," I answered; "but for the general safety publicity is necessary in an affair of this kind."

"We will not detain you," said Quarles. "I can see we have come at an inconvenient time. Just one question. Had the locks of the strong-room doors been repaired recently?"

"No. They were in excellent order."

"It has not even been necessary to have new keys made?"

"No."

Quarles rose, and thanked him; then, as he reached the door, he paused.

"Oh, it may interest you to know that we have got on the track of Frederick Ewing," he said.

"Then there has been some progress. I am glad. Still, I am afraid Ewing will not be able to throw much light on this affair. Where is he?"

"Abroad," Quarles answered. "We expect to have definite information this afternoon. It is often easier to find criminals when they go abroad than when they remain hidden in England."

When we were outside the bank Quarles began to chuckle.

"It doesn't do to let these fellows think we are doing nothing, Wigan; and, in a sense, we have got on Ewing's track. We have found the woman. Isn't that always considered the great point?"

"This seems to be one of the exceptions which are supposed to prove the rule," I answered.

"We'll get back to Chelsea. I daresay Zena can give us some lunch."

From that moment until the three of us retired to the empty room after lunch Quarles would not talk about the case, but when we were in the empty room he began at once.

"Zena from the first suggested that we must find Frederick Ewing," said Quarles; "and her intuition was right. We know – at least I think we may take it as an established fact – that a very expert gang has been at work in London during the past few months, and it was reasonable to assume that this robbery was their work, with the help of someone connected with the bank. Practically speaking, it would have been impossible without inside and absolutely accurate information. A process of elimination left Ewing as the likely person to give this help. We need not go over all the difficulties the gang would have to contend with; they were many, not the least being the successful removal of the spoil; but I asked myself whether this gang was not a sort of obsession with us, whether the robbery might not have been a one-man job. You will remember I questioned the general manager on the possibility of Ewing being alone in the strong-rooms, and whether the gold might not have been removed by degrees. He laughed at the idea, but ridicule never yet made me give up a theory. I looked for something to support my theory, and I found many things. The action of the explosive had been peculiar. The manner of the damage was not quite what one would have expected from gelignite, or some equally powerful preparation. Further, why was Coulsdon found in the outer safe? It is reasonable to suppose that he was rendered insensible before the explosion took place, or he might have heard it. Why, then, should he be dragged into the safe? A gang would not have troubled to do this, but, if the job were a one-man affair, the thief might reasonably want to keep his eye upon the porter in case he should recover consciousness. Now, to come back to the explosion, it seemed to me that so far as the door of the inner strong-room was concerned it had not been locked, at any rate not fully locked, when the explosion took place. Was there any support to this theory to be found? Yes. I will show you presently the débris I picked out of the lock. It contains portions – small, but quite recognizable – of a key, not polished, as would be the case if used constantly, but rough. This suggested that duplicate keys had been made. That key, Wigan, I believe, was in the lock when the explosion took place. It was blown to pieces by the explosion, but the burglar must have discovered his mistake, and gathered up the pieces, for I could discover nothing either on the strong-room floor or in the passage without. I found another support to my theory in the window on the roof. Someone had got out as well as in – got out, Wigan, to hide, and got in again when the moment for action had come."

"But – "

"I haven't finished yet," said Quarles, interrupting me. "Obviously one man couldn't remove all that gold and get it away from the city that night. The robber, with the duplicate keys he had in his possession, could go to that strong-room when he liked; all he had to do was to take the precaution that he was not seen. A very few visits sufficed, no doubt; but on each occasion he brought away some spoil with him, which he concealed, I imagine, somewhere in the bank, where he could easily get at it. The robbery extended over a period of time, that is my point, and whether dummy bags were substituted for those taken, or a bag was gradually emptied, does not matter."

"But, my dear professor, your ingenious theory overlooks the fact that, if it were true, there would be no use for the final catastrophe – for attacking the porter and blowing up the strong-room."

"Ah! that brings me to the mental attitude of the thief. I think we shall find that an inspection of those strong-rooms was imminent, and the thief was anxious, first, to make a last addition to his store, and, secondly, to suggest the work of a gang, and so minimize all risk to himself. Besides – "

The professor paused. There was a knock at the door, and the servant brought in a telegram. Quarles opened it and read it.

"Besides, one has to consider the mental twist a man may have," he went on. "We shall probably find in this case that at the back of the robbery was an awful dread of the future, of the helplessness and poverty that might come into it, an abnormal morbidness which so constantly drives men to strange actions."

"But how could Ewing manage to conceal himself in the bank, or get into it even? Everybody knew him, everybody probably knew of his dismissal."

"How about the window in the roof?" said Quarles, handing me the telegram, and I read: "Left early this afternoon; returned home."

"That refers to the general manager, Mr. Wickstead," said Quarles. "Probably he does not intend to remain at home, but we may catch him there. I have a man watching him. I thought my statement that we had traced Ewing would frighten him. He is the thief, Wigan. He is also the friend Ewing spoke about to Ursula Yerbury. Don't you see the cleverness? He helped Ewing out of the country, after frightening him by saying that a prosecution had been decided upon; sent him somewhere where he was not likely to hear of the robbery, and tried to throw dust in our eyes by expressing pity for him and a belief in his innocence."

"If you are right, what a villain!" I exclaimed.

"An abnormal dread of the future, Wigan; I think we shall find that is at the bottom of it, and we shall probably find also that the whole of the spoil is intact. The law, of course, cannot enter into these curious mental attitudes. Come! I think we shall provide a sensation for the world of finance."

The arrest of Mr. Wickstead when he was on the point of bolting, and his subsequent confession, certainly made a sensation; and, as Quarles had surmised, the whole of the money and the jewels were found concealed in Mr. Wickstead's house.

The manner of the robbery was much as Quarles had imagined it, and there is little doubt that Wickstead was in an abnormal mental condition. But he was not mad, and was sentenced to a long term of imprisonment.

It was a sad case altogether, the only bright spot in it being the marriage of Ursula Yerbury to the man she had trusted, in spite of his lapse from the path of rectitude.

CHAPTER XIII

THE WILL OF THE ECCENTRIC MR. FRISBY

I have said that, owing to Quarles's dislike of publicity, I was constantly receiving praise which I did not merit; but in the curious affair of Mr. Frisby's will, although I received substantial benefits, the professor was obliged to put up with the eulogy. The case was never in my hands professionally; indeed, strictly speaking, there was no case for the police to deal with. All I really did was to use my position to clear away difficulties and give Quarles a clear field for his investigations. He declared that he went into the thing for the sake of the reward which was offered, but it was undoubtedly the intricacy of the problem which attracted him.

I will tell Mr. Frisby's history as a connected narrative at once; but, of course, the theory was not complete when Quarles decided to attempt the solution of the difficulty. We got the outline from newspaper paragraphs and comments; but some of the details, such as the tenor of Mr. Frisby's letter to his nephew, were only filled in after we had taken up the case seriously.

James Frisby, a native of Boston, in Lincolnshire, was apparently a very ordinary young man indeed. He was a clerk in the office of a solicitor in the town, named Giles, and in his leisure hours was inclined to consort with the most undesirable companions, and to be a too frequent visitor to the public-house bars. Without his doing anything very outrageous, the position of black sheep of his family was assigned to him, and a too puritanical spirit, perhaps, had judged him to be well on the downward path, when a girl named Edith Turner, the daughter of a small but prosperous farmer at Spilsby, came into his circle. According to all accounts, she was the sort of girl any man might fall in love with; exactly what she saw in James Frisby was not so apparent. However, there was undoubtedly mutual affection; but the girl's family strongly objected to the friendship, and the girl herself was not to be persuaded to act in opposition to her father's wishes. Frisby pleaded, made all sorts of promises for the future, and, when these proved of no avail, he threw up his situation and went to Australia.

There was evidently more in him than people gave him credit for. Some twenty-five years afterward he returned to Boston an exceedingly wealthy man, and an eccentric one. He immediately entered into negotiations to purchase the Towers, a large house some three miles out of Boston on the Spilsby Road. It had stood empty a long time, and he spent an immense amount of money upon alterations and in furnishing it, giving no information to anyone concerning himself or his intentions.

Twenty-five years had brought many changes. The old town nestling, and dozing a little perhaps, under the great church with its high tower, a landmark far across the fen country and out to sea, was much the same; but a new generation of people lived in it. Frisby's friends had gone, were dead or scattered about the world, and he had only one relation living, a nephew, the son of an elder sister. Frisby Morton was in business in London, was married and doing fairly well, and had so lost touch with his native place that he heard nothing about his uncle's return until James Frisby had settled at the Towers.

Five or six years after Frisby had left Boston, Edith Turner had become Edith Oglethorpe, the wife of a farmer. There was nothing to show that she had grieved very much for her first lover, no suggestion that she had not been a happy wife and mother. Both she and her husband were dead when Frisby returned, and their later years had been clouded with misfortune. Bad harvests and ill-luck had eaten up their savings, and they had been able to do very little for their only son. They appear to have had many ambitions for him, all of which remained unfulfilled.

James Frisby found the lad, then between seventeen and eighteen, in a grocer's shop in Wide Bargate, one of the main thoroughfares of the town, and at once proposed to adopt him. It was natural that Frisby should be interested in the son of the woman he had loved; it was natural, too, that the boy should jump at the prospect which opened out to him, but it was curious how quickly these two came to love each other. For Frisby probably there was in the son something of what he had loved in the mother; and the lad, no doubt, saw in the man all those good and lovable qualities which Frisby took no trouble to exhibit to the world.

A tutor came to the Towers; in due course young Oglethorpe went to Cambridge, and came home to be the constant companion of his adopted father. Such a life would have been bad for most young men, but Edward Oglethorpe appeared to be an exception to the rule. He had everybody's good word, not because of his wealthy position, but for his own sake. That he would come into all Frisby's money no one doubted.

There are few who are not attracted by wealth, and it was only natural that Frisby Morton should take an early opportunity of making himself known to his uncle. He was his only kith and kin; he might reasonably hope to reap some advantage from his wealthy relative. Whether he approached his uncle in too open a manner, or whether James Frisby had something against his sister or brother-in-law, some injury which he had nursed all these years and had not forgiven, was not known. The one thing certain was that Frisby disliked his nephew and took some trouble to make his adopted son dislike him too. Morton persistently paid flying visits to the Towers, getting small welcome, and on one occasion there was a quarrel, entirely of his uncle's making, Morton declared. That there was some truth in this seemed probable, for shortly afterward James Frisby wrote to him. It may be he considered the letter a sort of apology. He said frankly that he did not like him, and that he didn't want to have anything more to do with him.

"It isn't your fault, and it isn't mine. It just happens," he wrote. "Still, I do realize that you are my nephew, I do understand that you have some reason for thinking that you have a claim upon me. That I am a rich man is my attraction for you. I know it; you need not scruple to admit it. My money will all go to my adopted son, Edward Oglethorpe; but, as I have said, you are my nephew, and the enclosed check recognizes the relationship, and pays for it. Please understand that it is all you will ever get."

The ungracious tone of the letter lost some of its sting by reason of the largeness of the check, which was for ten thousand pounds. Morton's credit was none too strong, so it suited his purpose to make no secret of the gift. To one or two persons in Boston he showed Mr. Frisby's letter, which suggested that he realized the finality of the transaction, and seemed content to drop his uncle's acquaintance. Whether he really gave up all hope of further advantage was another matter.

James Frisby's death, which occurred about ten years after his return to England, caused a sensation not only in Lincolnshire, but throughout the country. When he was taken ill it was not thought that anything serious was the matter with him, but a stroke followed, and the doctor pronounced his condition to be grave. Oglethorpe immediately telegraphed to Morton. Apparently he had not troubled either to like or dislike him, and thought it only right that the nephew should know of his uncle's condition. That Morton had received ten thousand pounds he was aware, but he knew nothing of the letter which accompanied the gift, or he might have hesitated to send for him. Morton came to the Towers and stayed there. His uncle had lost all power of speech, hardly seemed to recognize those about him, yet it was evident that something troubled him. They thought it was the light in the room. They darkened it, and, that having no effect, they increased it, but failed to satisfy the old man, who worked his hands backward and forward as if he were wringing them at the inability of those by his bedside to comprehend him. In this manner James Frisby passed out of life.

The first note of sensation came quickly. No will could be found, and it was soon rumored that no will had been made. Mr. Giles, the chief solicitor in Boston, son of the Giles in whose office Mr. Frisby had started life, had no will in his possession, nor had any other solicitor in the town; and the advertisements which appeared in the London and provincial papers failed to produce any solicitor who had. Diligent search in the house was without result. Not only was there no will, but there was not even a scrap of paper of any kind to indicate what the old man's wishes were. Mr. Giles, with an eye to business in the future, made himself agreeable to Frisby Morton, who, if no will were forthcoming, would come into the property as next of kin. The general opinion was that no will had been made, but a servant at the Towers declared that he and another servant had witnessed their master's signature to some document soon after Edward Oglethorpe had come there to live. The other witness had recently left the Towers, but was easily found in Lincoln. That they had witnessed the signature to a will neither of them could affirm; their master had not said what the document was, but they had supposed it was his will. They both agreed as to what the paper was like. Moreover, the man who had taken another situation in Lincoln gave an item of information which added to the sensation. Some little time after he had witnessed the signature, he chanced to meet Mr. Frisby Morton in Boston, and in the course of conversation had mentioned what he had done. He could not say that Mr. Morton was particularly interested, but he asked several questions about Mr. Frisby and young Mr. Oglethorpe. Gossip in a provincial town, especially when it concerns an affair which everyone is talking about, is apt to become a serious matter. It did in this case. It only required someone to say that Morton had been told of a will for someone else to suggest that he might know where the will was at the present moment. This gossip found its way into Mr. Giles's office, and the solicitor gave immediate advice to his client. Frisby Morton was furious. Rumors of libel actions were in the air, not one but many, and Morton declared that the foul insinuation could only have come from one source, and expressed his conviction that Oglethorpe was responsible for it. Oglethorpe, in his turn, was indignant at being considered capable of such a thing, and put himself into the hands of Messrs. Lacey, a London firm of solicitors. It was by their advice that a reward of a thousand pounds was offered to anyone who should find the will, or should give such information as would lead to its discovery.

It was the publication of this reward which attracted Quarles's attention.

"A thousand pounds, Wigan," he remarked. "Shall we go for it?"

I laughed; I thought he was joking.

"You are not busy, are you; you could give the time?" he queried.

"It is hardly in my line, is it?"

"Money is in everybody's line," he returned. "A thousand divided by three is three hundred and thirty-three pounds six shillings and eight pence. Zena shall go with us. Let's get Bradshaw."

Two days later we were in Boston, comfortably housed at an old-fashioned hostelry called the Heron. Before leaving London I had got the outline of the case, and a few hours in Boston enabled me to fill in the details of the story as I have set it down here.

We had a small sitting-room at the Heron, as crammed full of furniture as the room in Chelsea was empty.

"Who could really think in a room like this?" said Quarles.

"I don't know whether it's the fault of the room," I answered, "but I have no ideas at all about this affair."

Zena laughed.

"Oh! there are plenty of ideas to be had; the most obvious is that Mr. Frisby never made a will. That would be my verdict but for one fact: we have an eccentric to deal with."

Quarles looked at her fixedly.

"The man who could send ten thousand pounds to his nephew in the way he did would hardly be likely to leave any chance open of his ever getting a penny more," Zena said. "If he hadn't made a will before, I think he would have sat down and made it the moment after drawing that check."

"The room doesn't affect her, Wigan," said the professor. "There's something in the argument, but I shall have to get a lonely walk before I can see anything clearly. An eccentric; yes, I think that is a point to bear in mind."

Quarles had his walk before breakfast next day, and afterward he and I called upon Mr. Giles. The solicitor was evidently not pleased to see us. Since the reward had been offered by Edward Oglethorpe he looked upon us as antagonists; but as the professor argued, in his most suave manner, the finding of the will, if it existed, must be a satisfaction to everybody, and might save immense trouble in the future. Possibly Mr. Giles did not perceive the cynicism in this argument.

"There is no will," he said with conviction.

"Do you imagine the servants' statement to be a fabrication, then?"

"No, but a man wants his signature witnessed to other documents besides a will. The fact that servants witnessed this document, whatever it was, suggests a careless and haphazard way of doing business, a tendency to leave things to the last moment. I believe Mr. Frisby was that kind of man, and he would be quite likely to put off making his will until it was too late."

"It is possible," said Quarles.

"Probable, sir, almost a certainty. If there is a will I shall be more surprised than I have been at anything in my professional career."

"Naturally, your conviction greatly impresses me," said Quarles.

"Why, sir, his manner on his deathbed confirms my view," the solicitor went on. "He was speechless, practically unconscious, yet undoubtedly troubled about something. He had left his will too late, sir; that was the trouble, depend upon it."

"Your client – I think you act for Mr. Morton – will profit by the omission. I suppose there is no doubt whatever that, if a will were found, he would not be mentioned in it. He had already received his money, I understand."