The Middle of Things

Another murmur of intense and excited interest ran round the court as the witness handed the letter up to the magistrate, who, after looking it over, passed it on to the counsel below. They, in their turn, showed it to Mr. Carless, Mr. Pawle and Lord Ellingham, Mr. Pawle, showing it to Viner, whispered in his ear:

"If this man's telling the truth," he said, "this is the most extraordinary story I ever heard in my life."

"It seems to me that it is the truth!" muttered Viner. "And I'm pretty certain that at last we're on the way-to finding out who killed Ashton. But let's hear the end."

Mr. Millington-Bywater handed the letter back with a polite bow—it was very obvious to more than one observer that he had by this time quite accepted the witness as what he claimed to be.

"You kept the appointment?" he asked.

"I did, indeed!" exclaimed the witness. "As much out of greatly excited curiosity as anything! It seemed to me a most extraordinary thing that papers stolen from me in Australia thirty-two years ago should be returned to me in London! Yes, I walked down to the Speke Monument. I saw no one about there but a heavily veiled woman who walked about on one side of the obelisk while I patrolled the other. Eventually she approached me, and at once asked me if I had kept secret the receipt of the mysterious letter? I assured her that I had. She then told me that she was the ambassadress of the people who had my letters and papers, and who had seen and recognized me in London and tracked me to my hotel. She was empowered to negotiate with me for the handing over of the papers. There were stipulations. I was to give my solemn word of honour that I would not follow her, or cause her to be followed. I was not to ask questions. And I was to give a post-dated check on the bank at which I had opened an account in London, on receipt of the papers. The check was to be post-dated one month; it was to be made out to bearer, and the amount was ten thousand pounds. I agreed!"

"You really agreed!" exclaimed Mr. Millington-Bywater.

"I agreed! I wanted my papers. We parted, with an agreement that we were to meet two days later at the same place. I was there—so was the woman. She handed me a parcel, and I immediately took it to an adjacent seat and examined it. Everything that I could remember was there, with two exceptions. The packet of letters from my mother, to which I referred just now, was missing; so was a certain locket, which had belonged to her, and of which I had taken great care since her death, up to the time of my accident in the mining-camp. I pointed out these omissions to the woman: she answered that the papers which she had handed over were all that had been in her principal's possession. Thereupon I gave her the check which had been agreed upon, and we parted."

"And that is all you know of her?" asked Mr. Millington-Bywater.

"All!"

"Can you describe her?"

"A tallish, rather well-built woman, but so veiled that I could see nothing of her features; it was, moreover, nearly dark on both occasions. From her speech and manner, she was, I should say, a woman of education and refinement."

"Did you try to trace her, or her principals, through the district messenger who brought the letter?"

"Certainly not! I told you, just now, that I gave my word of honour: I couldn't."

Mr. Millington-Bywater turned to the magistrate.

"I can, if Your Worship desires it, put a witness in the box who can prove beyond doubt that the papers of which we have just heard this remarkable story, were recently in the possession of John Ashton," he said. "He is Mr. Cecil Perkwite, of the Middle Temple—a member of my own profession."

But the magistrate, who appeared unusually thoughtful, shook his head.

"After what we have heard," he said, "I think we had better adjourn. The prisoner will be remanded—as before—for another week."

When the magistrate had left the bench, and the court was humming with the murmur of tongues suddenly let free, Mr. Pawle forced his way to the side of the last witness.

"Whoever you are, sir," he said, "there's one thing certain—nobody but you can supply the solution of the mystery about Ashton's death! Come with me and Carless at once."

CHAPTER XXIV

THE BROKEN LETTER

The man whose extraordinary story had excited such intense interest had become the object of universal attention. Hyde, hitherto the centre of attraction, was already forgotten, and instead of people going away from the court to canvass his guilt or his innocence, they surged round the witness whose testimony, strange and unexpected, had so altered the probabilities of the case. It was with difficulty that Methley got his client away into a private room; there they were joined by Mr. Carless, Mr. Pawle, Mr. Perkwite, Lord Ellingham and Viner, and behind a locked door these men looked at each other and at this centre of interest with the air of those to whom something extraordinary has just been told. After a moment of silence Mr. Carless spoke, addressing the man whose story had brought matters to an undeniable crisis.

"I am sure," he said gravely, and with a side glance at Lord Ellingham, "that if your story is true, sir,—and after what we have just heard, I am beginning to think that my first conclusions may have been wrong ones,—no one will welcome your reappearance more warmly than the young gentleman whom you will turn out of title and property! But you must see for yourself that your claims must be thoroughly investigated—and as what you have now just told affects other people, and we must invite you to full discussion, I propose that, for the time being, we address you as Mr. Cave."

The claimant smiled, and nodded genially to the young man whose uncle he alleged himself to be.

"I wish to remain Mr. Cave," he said. "I don't want to turn my nephew out of title and property, so long as he will do something for his old uncle. Call me Mr. Cave, by all means."

"We must talk—and at once," said Mr. Carless. "There are several points arising out of your evidence on which you must give me information. Whoever is at the back of that woman who handed you those papers is probably the murderer of John Ashton—and that is what must be got at. Now, where can we have a conference—immediately?—Your office, Methley, is not far away, I think."

"My house is nearer," said Viner. "Come—we shall be perfectly quiet in my study, and there will be nothing to interrupt us. Let us go now."

A police official let them out by a side-door, and Viner and Mr. Pawle led the way through some side-streets to Markendale Square, the others coming behind, conversing eagerly about the events of the morning. Mr. Pawle, on his part, was full of excitement.

"If we can only trace that woman, Viner!" he exclaimed. "That's the next thing! Get hold of her, whoever she is, and then—ah, we shall be in sight of the finishing-part."

"What about tracing the whole lot through the check he has given?" suggested Viner. "Wouldn't that be a good way?"

"We should have to wait nearly a month," answered Mr. Pawle. "And even then it would be difficult—simple though it seems at first sight. There are folk who deal in post-dated checks, remember! This may have been dealt with already—aye, and that diamond too; and the man who has got the proceeds may already be many a mile away. Deep, cunning folk they are who have been in this, Viner. And now—speed is the thing!"

Viner led his guests into his library, and as he placed chairs for them round a centre table, an idea struck him.

"I have a suggestion to make," he said with a shy smile at the legal men. "My aunt, Miss Penkridge, who lives with me, is an unusually sharp, shrewd woman. She has taken vast interest in this affair, and I have kept her posted up in all its details. She was in court just now and heard Mr. Cave's story. If no one has any objection, I should like her to be present at our deliberations—as a mysterious woman has entered into the case, Miss Penkridge may be able to suggest something."

"Excellent idea!" exclaimed Mr. Carless. "A shrewd woman is worth her weight in gold! By all means bring Miss Penkridge in—she may, as you say, make some suggestion."

Miss Penkridge, fetched into the room and duly introduced, lost no time in making a suggestion of an eminently practical nature—that as all these gentlemen had been cooped up in that stuffy police-court for two or three hours, they would be none the worse for a glass of wine, and she immediately disappeared, jingling a bunch of keys, to reappear a few minutes later in charge of the parlour-maid carrying decanters and glasses.

"A very comfortable suggestion, that, ma'am," observed Mr. Carless, bowing to his hostess over a glass of old sherry. "Your intuition does you credit! But now, gentlemen, and Miss Penkridge, straight to business! Mr. Cave, the first question I want to put to you is this: on what date did you receive the letter which you exhibited in court this morning?"

Mr. Cave produced a small pocket diary and turned over its pages.

"I can tell you that," he answered. "I made a note of it at the time. It was—yes, here we are—on the twenty-first of November."

"And you received these papers, I think you said, two days later?"

"Yes—on the twenty-third. Here is the entry."

Mr. Carless looked round at the assembled faces.

"John Ashton was murdered on the night of the twenty-second of November," he remarked significantly. "Therefore he had not been murdered when the veiled woman first met Mr. Cave for the first time, and he had been murdered when she met Mr. Cave the second time!"

There was a silence as significant as Mr. Carless' tone upon this—broken at last by Mr. Cave.

"If I may say a word or two," he remarked diffidently. "I don't understand matters about this John Ashton. The barrister who asked me questions—Mr. Millington-Bywater, is it—said that he, or somebody, had positive proof that Mr. Ashton had my papers in his possession for some time previous to his death. Is that really so?"

Mr. Carless pointed to Mr. Perkwite.

"This is the gentleman whom Mr. Millington-Bywater could have put in the box this morning to prove that," he replied. "Mr. Perkwite, of the Middle Temple—a barrister-at-law, Mr. Cave. Mr. Perkwite met Mr. Ashton some three months ago at Marseilles, and Mr. Ashton then not only asked his advice about the Ellingham affair, alleging that he knew the missing Lord Marketstoke, but showed him the papers which you have recently deposited with Mr. Methley here—which papers, Ashton alleged, were intrusted to him by Lord Marketstoke on his deathbed. Ashton, according to Mr. Perkwite, took particular care of these papers, and always carried them about with him in a pocketbook."

Mr. Cave appeared to be much exercised in thought on hearing this.

"It is, of course, absurd to say that Lord Marketstoke —myself!—intrusted papers to any one on his deathbed, since I am very much alive," he said. "But it is, equally of course, quite possible that Ashton had my papers. Who was Ashton?"

"A man who had lived in Australia for some thirty-five or forty years at least," replied Mr. Carless, "and who recently returned to England and settled down in London, in this very square. He lived chiefly in Melbourne, but we have heard that for some four or five years he was somewhere up country. You never heard of him out there? He was evidently well known in Melbourne."

"No, I never heard of him," replied Mr. Cave. "But I don't know Melbourne very well; I know Sydney and Brisbane better. However, an idea strikes me—Ashton may have had something to do with the purloining of my letters and effects at Wirra-Worra, when I met with the accident I told you of."

"So far as we are aware," remarked Mr. Carless, "Ashton was an eminently respectable man!"

"So far as you know!" said Mr. Cave. "There is a good deal in the saving clause, I think. I have known a good many men in Australia who were highly respectable in the last stages of life who had been anything but that in their earlier ones! Of what class was this Ashton?"

"I met him, occasionally," said Methley, "though I never knew who he was until after his death. He was a very pleasant, kindly, good-humoured man—but," he added, "I should say, from his speech and manners, a man who had risen from a somewhat humble position of life. I remember noticing his hands—they were the hands of a man who at some period had done hard manual labour."

Mr. Cave smiled knowingly.

"There you are!" he said. "He had probably been a miner! Taking everything into consideration, I am inclined to believe that he was most likely one of the men, or the man, who stole my papers thirty-two years ago."

"There may be something in this," remarked Mr. Pawle, glancing uneasily at Mr. Carless. "It is a fact that the packet of letters to which Mr. Cave referred this morning as having been written by the Countess of Ellingham to Lord Marketstoke when a boy at school, was found by Mr. Viner and myself in Ashton's house, and that the locket which he also mentioned is in existence—facts which Mr. Cave will doubtless be glad to know of. But," added the old lawyer, shaking his head, "what does all this imply? That Ashton, of whom up to now we have heard nothing but good, was not only a thief, but an impostor who was endeavouring, or meant to endeavour, to palm off a bogus claimant on people, who, but for Mr. Cave's appearance and evidence, would certainly have been deceived! It is most amazing."

"Don't forget," said Viner quietly, "that Mr. Perkwite says that Ashton showed him at Marseilles a certain marriage certificate and a birth certificate."

Mr. Carless started.

"Ah!" he exclaimed. "I had forgotten that. Um! However, don't let us forget, just now, that our main object in meeting was to do something towards tracking these people who gave Mr. Cave these papers. Now, Mr. Cave, you got no information out of the woman?"

"None!" answered Mr. Cave. "I was not to ask questions, you remember."

"You took her for a gentlewoman?"

"Yes—from her speech and manner."

"Did she imply to you that she was an intermediary?"

"Yes—she spoke of some one, indefinitely, you know, for whom she was acting."

"And she told you, I think, that you had been recognized, in London, since your arrival, by some one who had known you in Australia years before?"

"Yes—certainly she told me that."

"Just let me look at that typewritten letter again, will you?" asked Mr.

Carless. "It seems impossible, but we might get something out of that."

Mr. Cave handed the letter over, and once more it was passed from hand to hand: finally it fell into the hands of Miss Penkridge, who began to examine it with obvious curiosity.

"Afraid there's nothing to be got out of that!" sighed Mr. Carless. "The rogues were cunning enough to typewrite the message—if there'd been any handwriting, now, we might have had a chance! You say there was nothing on the envelope but your name, Mr. Cave?"

Mr. Cave opened his pocketbook again.

"There is the envelope," he said. "Nothing but Mr. Cave, as you see—that is also typewritten."

Miss Penkridge picked up the envelope as Mr. Cave tossed it across the table. She appeared to examine it carefully, but suddenly she turned to Mr. Carless.

"There is a clue in these things!" she exclaimed. "A plain clue! One that's plain enough to me, anyway. I could follow it up. I don't know whether you gentlemen can."

Mr. Carless, who had, up to that point, treated Miss Penkridge with good-humoured condescension, turned sharply upon her.

"What do you mean, ma'am?" he asked. "You really see something in—in a typewritten letter?"

"A great deal!" answered Miss Penkridge. "And in the stationery on which it's typed, and in the envelope in which it's inclosed. Now look here: This letter has been typed on a half-sheet of notepaper. Hold the half-sheet up to the light—what do you see? One half of the name and address of the stationer who supplied it, in watermark. What is that one half?"

Mr. Carless held the paper to the light and saw on the top line, … "sforth," on the middle line, … "nd Stationer" and, … "n Hill" on the bottom line.

"My nephew there," went on Miss Penkridge, "knows what that would be, in full, if the other half of the sheet were here. It would be precisely what it is under the flap of this envelope—there you are! 'Bigglesforth, Bookseller and Stationer, Craven Hill.' Everybody in this district knows Bigglesforth—we get our stationery from him. Now, Bigglesforth has not such a very big business in really expensive notepaper like this—the other half of the sheet, of course, would have a finely engraved address on it—and you can trace the owner of this paper through him, with patience and trouble.

"But here's a still better clue! Look at this typewritten letter. In it, the letter o occurs with frequency. Now, notice—the letter is broken, imperfect; the top left-hand curve has been chipped off. Do you mean to tell me that with time and trouble and patience you can't find out to whom that machine belongs? Taking the fact that this half-sheet of notepaper came from Bigglesforth's, of Craven Hill," concluded Miss Penkridge with emphasis, "I should say that this document—so important—came from somebody who doesn't live a million miles from here!"

Mr. Carless had followed Miss Penkridge with admiring attention, and he now rose to his feet.

"Ma'am," he exclaimed, "Mr. Viner's notion of having you to join our council has proved invaluable! I'll have that clue followed up instantly! Gentlemen, we can do no more just now—let us separate. Mr. Cave—you'll continue to be heard of at the Belfield Hotel?"

"I shall be at your service any time, Mr. Carless," responded Mr. Cave.

"A telephone message will bring me at once to Lincoln's Inn Fields."

The assembly broke up, and Viner was left alone with Miss Penkridge.

"That was clever of you!" he said, admiringly. "I should never have noticed that. But—there are a lot of typewriting machines in London!"

"Not so many owned by customers of Bigglesforth's!" retorted Miss Penkridge. "I'd work it out, if I were a detective!"

The parlour-maid looked in and attracted Viner's attention.

"Mr. Felpham wants you at the telephone, sir," she said.

CHAPTER XXV

THROUGH THE TELEPHONE

Events had crowded so thick and fast upon Viner during the last day or two, that he went to the telephone fully expecting to hear of some new development. But he was scarcely prepared for his solicitor's first words.

"Viner!" said Felpham, whose voice betrayed his excitement. "Is that man Cave still with you?"

"No!" answered Viner. "Why?"

"Listen carefully," responded Felpham. "In spite of all he asserts, and his long tale this morning at the police-court, I believe he's a rank impostor! I've just had another talk with Hyde."

"Well?" demanded Viner.

"Hyde," answered Felpham, "persists that he's not mistaken. He swears that the man is Nugent Starr. He says there's no doubt of it! And he's told me of another actor, a man named George Bellingham, who's now somewhere in London, who can positively identify him as Starr. I'm going to find Bellingham this afternoon—there's some deep-laid plot in all this, and that fellow had been cleverly coached in the event of his being unexpectedly tackled…. Viner!"

"Well—I'm listening carefully," replied Viner.

"Where's this man gone?" demanded Felpham.

"To his hotel, I should think," answered Viner. "He left here just before one."

"Listen!" said Felpham. "Do you think it would be wise to post New Scotland Yard on to him—detectives, you know?"

Viner considered swiftly. In the rush of events he had forgotten that Carless had already given instructions for the watching of the pseudo Mr. Cave.

"Why not find this man Bellingham first?" he suggested. "If he can prove, positively, that the fellow is Nugent Starr, you'd have something definite to work on. Where can Bellingham be found?"

"Hyde's given me the address of a theatrical agent in Bedford Street who's likely to know of his whereabouts," replied Felpham. "I'm going over there at once. Hyde saw Bellingham in town three weeks ago."

"Let me know at once," said Viner. "If you find Bellingham, take him to the Belfield Hotel and contrive to show him the man. Call me up later."

He went away from his telephone and sought Miss Penkridge, whom he found in her room, arraying herself for out of doors.

"Here's a new development!" he exclaimed, shutting the door on them. "Felpham's just telephoned to say that Hyde persists that the man who calls himself Cave is Nugent Starr! In that case, he won't—"

Miss Penkridge interrupted her nephew with a sniff.

"My dear Richard," she said, with a note of contemptuous impatience, "in a case like this, you don't know who's who or who isn't who! It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if the man turns out to be Nugent Starr."

"How did he come by such a straight tale, then?" asked Viner doubtfully.

"Carefully prepared—in case of need," declared Miss Penkridge as she tied her bonnet-strings with a decisive tug. "The whole thing's a plant!"

"That's what Felpham says," remarked Viner. "But—where are you going?" he broke off as Miss Penkridge, seizing an umbrella, started for the door. "Lunch is just going in."

"My lunch can wait—I've had a biscuit and a glass of sherry," asserted Miss Penkridge. "I'm going round to Bigglesforth the stationer's, to follow up that clue I suggested just now. I dare say I can do a bit of detective work as well as another, and in my opinion, Richard, there's no time to be lost. I have been blessed and endowed," continued Miss Penkridge, as she laid hold of the door-handle, "with exceedingly acute perceptions, and I saw something when I made that suggestion which I'm quite sure none of you men, with all your brains, saw!"

"What?" demanded Viner.

"I saw that my suggestion wasn't at all pleasing to the man who calls himself Cave!" exclaimed Miss Penkridge. "It was only a flash of his eye, a sudden droop at the corners of his lips—but I saw! And I saw something else, too—that he got away as quickly as ever he could after I'd made that suggestion."

Viner looked at his aunt with amused wonder. He thought she was unduly suspicious, and Miss Penkridge guessed his thoughts.

"You'll see," she said as she opened the door.

"There are going to be strange revelations, Richard Viner, my boy! You said at the beginning of this that you'd suddenly got plunged into the middle of things—well, in my opinion, we're now coming to the end of things, and I'm going to do my bit to bring it about."

With that Miss Penkridge sailed away, her step determined and her head high, and Viner, pondering many matters, went downstairs to entertain his visitors, the unlucky Hyde's sisters, with stories of the morning's proceedings and hopes of their brother's speedy acquittal. The poor ladies were of that temperament which makes its possessors clutch eagerly at any straw of hope floating on the sea of trouble, and they listened eagerly to all that their host could tell.

"Langton has an excellent memory!" declared the elder Miss Hyde. "Don't you remember, sister, what a quantity of poetical pieces he knew by heart when he was quite a child?"

"Before he was seven years of age!" said the younger sister. "And at ten he could recite the whole of the trial scene from 'The Merchant of Venice.' Oh, yes, he always had a marvellous memory! If Langton says he remembers this man in America, dear Mr. Viner, I am sure Langton will be right, and that this is the man. But what a very dreadful person to utter such terrible falsehoods!"

"And on oath!" said the elder Miss Hyde, solemnly. "On oath, sister!"

"Sad!" murmured the younger lady. "Most sad! We find London life very disturbing, dear Mr. Viner, after our quiet country existence."

"There are certainly some disturbing elements in it," admitted Viner.

Just then came another interruption; for the second time since his return from the police-court, he was summoned to the telephone. To his great surprise, the voice that hailed him was Mrs. Killenhall's.

"Is that Mr. Viner?" the voice demanded in its usual brisk, clear tones.

"Yes," answered Viner. "Is that Mrs. Killenhall?"