pink petals still clung obtrusively amidst the deep black.
"She would not look at the prisoner, and turned her head resolutely towards the
magistrate. I fancy she had been fond of that vagabond husband of hers: an
enormous wedding-ring encircled her finger, and that, too, was swathed in black.
She firmly believed that Kershaw's murderer sat there in the dock, and she
literally flaunted her grief before him.
"I was indescribably sorry for her. As for M?ller, he was just fat, oily,
pompous, conscious of his own importance as a witness; big fat fingers, covered
with brass rings, gripped the two incriminating letters, which he had
identified. They were his passports, as it were, to a delightful land of
importance and notoriety. Sir Arthur Inglewood, I think, disappointed him by
stating that he had no questions to ask of him. M?ller had been brimful of
answers, ready with the most perfect indictment, the most elaborate accusations
against the bloated millionaire who had decoyed his dear friend Kershaw, and
murdered him in Heaven knows what an out-of-the-way corner of the East End.
"After this, however, the excitement grew apace. M?ller had been dismissed, and
had retired from the court altogether, leading away Mrs. Kershaw, who had
completely broken down.
"Constable D 21 was giving evidence as to the arrest in the meanwhile. The
prisoner, he said, had seemed completely taken by surprise, not understanding
the cause or history of the accusation against him; however, when put in full
possession of the facts, and realizing, no doubt, the absolute futility of any
resistance, he had quietly enough followed the constable into the cab. No one at
the fashionable and crowded Hotel Cecil had even suspected that anything unusual
had occurred.
"Then a gigantic sigh of expectancy came from every one of the spectators. The '
fun ' was about to begin. James Buckland, a porter at Fenchurch Street railway
station, had just sworn to tell all the truth, etc. After all, it did not amount
to much. He said that at six o'clock in the afternoon of December the 10th, in
the midst of one of the densest fogs he ever remembers, the 6.5 from Tilbury
steamed into the station, being just about an hour late. He was on the arrival
platform, and was hailed by a passenger in a first-class carriage. He could see
very little of him beyond an enormous black fur coat and a travelling cap of fur
also.
"The passenger had a quantity of luggage, all marked F. S., and he directed
James Buckland to place it all upon a four-wheel cab, with the exception of a
small hand-bag, which he carried himself. Having seen that all his luggage was
safely bestowed, the stranger in the fur coat paid the porter, and, telling the
cabman to wait until he returned, he walked away in the direction of the
waiting-rooms, still carrying his small hand-bag.
"'I stayed for a bit,' added James Buckland, ' talking to the driver about the
fog and that; then I went about my business, seein' that the local from Southend
'ad been signalled.'
"The prosecution insisted most strongly upon the hour when the stranger in the
fur coat, having seen to his luggage, walked away towards the waiting-rooms. The
porter was emphatic. 'It was not a minute later than 6.15,' he averred.
"Sir Arthur Inglewood still had no questions to ask, and the driver of the cab
was called.
"He corroborated the evidence of James Buckland as to the hour when the
gentleman in the fur coat had engaged him, and having filled his cab in and out
with luggage, had told him to wait. And cabby did wait. He waited in the dense
fog?until he was tired, until he seriously thought of depositing all the luggage
in the lost property office, and of looking out for another fare?waited until at
last, at a quarter before nine, whom should he see walking hurriedly towards his
cab but the gentleman in the fur coat and cap, who got in quickly and told the
driver to take him at once to the Hotel Cecil. This, cabby declared, had
occurred at a quarter before nine. Still Sir Arthur Inglewood made no comment,
and Mr. Francis Smethurst, in the crowded, stuffy court, had calmly dropped to
sleep.
"The next witness, Constable Thomas Taylor, had noticed a shabbily dressed
individual, with shaggy hair and beard, loafing about the station and
waiting-rooms in the afternoon of December the 10th. He seemed to be watching
the arrival platform of the Tilbury and Southend trains.
"Two separate and independent witnesses, cleverly unearthed by the police, had
seen this same shabbily dressed individual stroll into the first-class
waiting-room at about 6.15 on Wednesday, December the 10th, and go straight up
to a gentleman in a heavy fur coat and cap, who had also just come into the
room. The two talked together for a while; no one heard what they said, but
presently they walked off together. No one seemed to know in which direction.
"Francis Smethurst was rousing himself from his apathy; he whispered to his
lawyer, who nodded with a bland smile of encouragement. The employ?s the Hotel
Cecil gave evidence as to the arrival of Mr. Smethurst at about 9.30 p.m. on
Wednesday, December the 10th, in a cab, with a quantity of luggage; and this
closed the case for the prosecution.
"Everybody in that court already saw Smethurst mounting the gallows. It was
uninterested curiosity which caused the elegant audience to wait and hear what
Sir Arthur Inglewood had to say. He, of course, is the most fashionable man in
the law at the present moment. His lolling attitudes, his drawling speech, are
quite the rage, and imitated by the gilded youth of society.
" Even at this moment, when the Siberian millionaire s neck literally and
metaphorically hung in the balance, an expectant titter went round the fair
spectators as Sir Arthur stretched out his long loose limbs and lounged across
the table. He waited to make his effect?Sir Arthur is a born actor?and there is
no doubt that he made it, when in his slowest, most drawly tones he said quietly
"'With regard to this alleged murder of one William Kershaw, on Wednesday,
December the 10th, between 6.15 and 8.45 p.m., your Honour, I now propose to
call two witnesses, who saw this same William Kershaw alive on Tuesday
afternoon, December the 16th, that is to say, six days after the supposed
murder.'
"It was as if a bombshell had exploded in the court. Even his Honour was aghast,
and I am sure the lady next to me only recovered from the shock of the surprise
in order to wonder whether she need put off her dinner party after all.
"As for me," added the man in the corner, with that strange mixture of
nervousness and self-complacency which had set Miss Polly Burton wondering,
"well, you see, I had made up my mind long ago where the hitch lay in this
particular case, and I was not so surprised as some of the others.
"Perhaps you remember the wonderful development of the case, which so completely
mystified the police?and in fact everybody except myself. Torriani and a waiter
at his hotel in the Commercial Road both deposed that at about 3.30 p.m
. on
December the 10th a shabbily dressed individual lolled into the coffee-room and
ordered some tea. He was pleasant enough and talkative, told the waiter that his
name was William Kershaw, that very soon all London would be talking about him,
as he was about, through an unexpected stroke of good fortune, to become a very
rich man, and so on, and so on, nonsense without end.
"When he had finished his tea he lolled out again, but no sooner had he
disappeared down a turning of the road than the waiter discovered an old
umbrella, left behind accidentally by the shabby, talkative individual. As is
the custom in his highly respectable restaurant, Signor Torriani put the
umbrella carefully away in his office, on the chance of his customer calling to
claim it when he had discovered his loss. And sure enough nearly a week later,
on Tuesday, the 16th, at about 1 p.m., the same shabbily dressed individual
called and asked for his umbrella. He had some lunch, and chatted once again to
the waiter. Signor Torriani and the waiter gave a description of William
Kershaw, which coincided exactly with that given by Mrs. Kershaw of her husband.
"Oddly enough he seemed to be a very absent-minded sort of person, for on this
second occasion, no sooner had he left than the waiter found a pocket-book in
the coffee-room, underneath the table. It contained sundry letters and bills,
all addressed to William Kershaw. This pocket-book was produced, and Karl
M?ller, who had returned to the court, easily identified it as having belonged
to his dear and lamented friend 'Villiam.'
"This was the first blow to the case against the accused. It was a pretty stiff
one, you will admit. Already it had begun to collapse like a house of cards.
Still, there was the assignation, and the undisputed meeting between Smethurst
and Kershaw, and those two and a half hours of a foggy evening to satisfactorily
account for." The man in the corner made a long pause, keeping the girl on
tenterhooks. He had fidgeted with his bit of string till there WSnot an inch of
it free from the most complicated and elaborate knots.
"I assure you," he resumed at last, "that at that very moment the whole mystery
was, to me, as clear as daylight. I only marvelled how his Honour could waste
his time and mine by putting what he thought were searching questions to the
accused relating to his past. Francis Smethurst, who had quite shaken off his
somnolence, spoke with a curious nasal twang, and with an almost imperceptible
soup?n of foreign accent. He calmly denied Kershaw s version of his past;
declared that he had never been called Barker, and had certainly never been
mixed up in any murder case thirty years ago.
"'But you knew this man Kershaw,' persisted his Honour, 'since you wrote to him?
'
"'Pardon me, your Honour,' said the accused quietly, 'I have never, to my
knowledge, seen this man Kershaw, and I can swear that I never wrote to him.'
"'Never wrote to him?' retorted his Honour warningly. 'That is a strange
assertion to make when I have two of your letters to him in my hands at the
present moment.
"'I never wrote those letters, your Honour,' persisted the accused quietly,
'they are not in my handwriting.'
"'Which we can easily prove,' came in Sir Arthur Inglewood's drawly tones, as he
handed up a packet to his Honour; 'here are a number of letters written by my
client since he has landed in this country, and some of which were written under
my very eyes.'
"As Sir Arthur Inglewood had said, this could be easily proved, and the
prisoner, at his Honour's request, scribbled a few lines, together with his
signature, several times upon a sheet of note-paper. It was easy to read upon
the magistrate's astounded countenance, that there was not the slightest
similarity in the two handwritings.
"A fresh mystery had cropped up. Who, then, had made the assignation with
William Kershaw at Fenchurch Street railway station? The prisoner gave a fairly
satisfactory account of the employment of his time since his landing in England.
"'I came over on the Tsarskoe Selo,' he said, 'a yacht belonging to a friend of
mine. When we arrived at the mouth of the Thames there was such a dense fog that
it was twenty-four hours before it was thought safe for me to land. My friend,
who is a Russian, would not land at all; he was regularly frightened at this
land of fogs. He was going on to Madeira immediately.
"'I actually landed on Tuesday, the 10th, and took a train at once for town. I
did see to my luggage and a cab, as the porter and driver told your Honour; then
I tried to find my way to a refreshment-room, where I could get a glass of wine.
I drifted into the waiting-room, and there I was accosted by a shabbily dressed
individual, who began telling me a piteous tale. Who he was I do not know. He
said he was an old soldier who had served his country faithfully, and then been
left to starve. He, begged of me to accompany him to his lodgings, where I could
see his wife and starving children, and verify the truth and piteousness of his
tale.
"'Well, your Honour,' added the prisoner with noble frankness, 'it was my first
day in the old country. I had come back after thirty years with my pockets full
of gold, and this was the first sad tale I had heard; but I am a business man,
and did not want to be exactly "done" in the eye. I followed my man through the
fog, out into the streets. He walked silently by my side for a time. I had not a
notion where I was.
"'Suddenly I turned to him with some question, and realized in a moment that my
gentleman had given me the slip. Finding, probably, that I would not part with
my money till I had seen the starving wife and children, he left me to my fate,
and went in search of more willing bait.
"'The place where I found myself was dismal and deserted. I could see no trace
of cab or omnibus. I retraced my steps and tried to find my way back to the
station, only to find myself in worse and more deserted neighbourhoods. I became
hopelessly lost and fogged. I don't wonder that two and a half hours elapsed
while I thus wandered on in the dark and deserted streets; my sole astonishment
is that I ever found the station at all that night, or rather close to it a
policeman, who showed me the way.'
"'But how do you account for Kershaw knowing all your movements?' still
persisted his Honour, 'and his knowing the exact date of your arrival in
England? How do you account for these two letters, in fact? '
"'I cannot account for it or them, your Honour,' replied the prisoner quietly.
'I have proved to you, have I not, that I never wrote those letters, and that
the man?er?Karshaw is his name??was not murdered by me?'
"'Can you tell me of anyone here or abroad who might have heard of your
movements, and of the date of your arrival?'
"'My late employ?s at Vladivostok, of course, knew of my departure, but none of
them could have written these letters, since none of them know a word of
English.'
"'Then you can throw no light upon these mysterious
letters? You cannot help the
police in any way towards the clearing up of this strange affair?'
"'The affair is as mysterious to me as to your Honour, and to the police of this
country.'
"Francis Smethurst was discharged, of course; there was no semblance of evidence
against him sufficient to commit him for trial. The two overwhelming points of
his defence which had completely routed the prosecution were, firstly, the proof
that he had never written the letters making the assignation, and secondly, the
fact that the man supposed to have been murdered on the 10th was seen to be
alive and well on the 16th. But then, who in the world was the mysterious
individual who had apprised Kershaw of the movements of Smethurst, the
millionaire?"
CHAPTER III. HIS DEDUCTION
THE man in the corner cocked his funny thin head on one side and looked at
Polly; then he took up his beloved bit of string and deliberately untied every
knot he had made in it. When it was quite smooth he laid it out upon the table.
"I will take you, if you like, point by point along the line of reasoning which
I followed myself, and which will inevitably lead you, as it led me, to the only
possible solution of the mystery.
"First take this point," he said with nervous restlessness, once more taking up
his bit of string, and forming with each point raised a series of knots which
would have shamed a navigating instructor, "obviously it was impossible for
Kershaw not to have been acquainted with Smethurst, since he was fully apprised
of the latter's arrival in England by two letters. Now it was clear to me from
the first that no one could have written those two letters except Smethurst. You
will argue that those letters were proved not to have been written by the man in
the dock. Exactly. Remember, Kershaw was a careless man?he had lost both
envelopes. To him they were insignificant. Now it was never disproved that those
letters were written by Smethurst."
"But?" suggested Polly.
"Wait a minute," he interrupted, while knot number two appeared upon the scene,
"it was proved that six days after the murder, William Kershaw was alive, and
visited the Torriani Hotel, where already he was known, and where he
conveniently left a pocket-book behind, so that there should be no mistake as to
his identity; but it was never questioned where Mr. Francis Smethurst, the
millionaire, happened to spend that very same afternoon."
"Surely, you don't mean???" gasped the girl.
"One moment, please," he added triumphantly. "How did it come about that the
landlord of the Torriani Hotel was brought into court at all? How did Sir Arthur
Inglewood, or rather his client, know that William Kershaw had on those two
memorable occasions visited the hotel, and that its landlord could bring such
convincing evidence forward that would for ever exonerate the millionaire from
the imputation of murder?"
"Surely," I argued, "the usual means, the police??" "The police had kept the
whole affair very dark until the arrest at the Hotel Cecil. They did not put
into the papers the usual: ' If anyone happens to know of the whereabouts, etc.
etc.' Had the landlord of that hotel heard of the disappearance of Kershaw
through the usual channels, he would have put himself in communication with the
police. Sir Arthur Inglewood produced him. How did Sir Arthur Inglewood come on
his track?"
"Surely, you don't mean???"
"Point number four," he resumed imperturbably, "Mrs. Kershaw was never requested
to produce a specimen of her husband's handwriting. Why? Because the police,
clever as you say they are, never started on the right tack. They believed
William Kershaw to have been murdered; they looked for William Kershaw.
"On December the 31st, what was presumed to be the body of William Kershaw was
found by two lightermen: I have shown you a photograph of the place where it was