wrapped up; nay, the rich booty had been deliberately opened out and
displayed, as it were, so that the overturning of the bag, when John the
keybearer in an access of riotous extravagance lifted it up and strewed
its contents broadcast on the floor, was like the looting of a
smuggler's den, or the realization of a speculator's dream, or the
bursting of an Aladdin's cave, or something incredibly lavish and
bizarre. Bank-notes fluttered down and lay about in all directions,
relays of sovereigns rolled away like so much dross, bonds and scrip for
thousands and tens of thousands clogged the downpouring stream of
jewellery and unset gems. A yellow stone the size of a four-pound weight
and twice as heavy dropped plump upon the canon's toes and sent him
hopping and grimacing to the wall. A ruby-hilted kris cut across the
manager's wrist as he strove to arrest the splendid rout. Still the
miraculous cornucopia deluged the ground, with its pattering, ringing,
bumping, crinkling, rolling, fluttering produce until, like the final
tableau of some spectacular ballet, it ended with a golden rain that
masked the details of the heap beneath a glittering veil of yellow sand.
"My dust!" gasped Draycott.
"My fivers, by golly!" ejaculated the bookmaker, initiating a plunge
among the spoil.
"My Japanese bonds, coupons and all, and--yes, even the manuscript of my
work on 'Polyphyletic Bridal Customs among the mid-Pleistocene Cave
Men.' Hah!" Something approaching a cachinnation of delight closed the
professor's contribution to the pandemonium, and eyewitnesses afterwards
declared that for a moment the dignified scientist stood on one foot in
the opening movement of a can-can.
"My wife's diamonds, thank heaven!" cried Sir Benjamin, with the air of
a schoolboy who was very well out of a swishing.
"But what does it mean?" demanded the bewildered canon. "Here are my
family heirlooms--a few decent pearls, my grandfather's collection of
camei and other trifles--but who----?"
"Perhaps this offers some explanation," suggested Mr Carlyle, unpinning
an envelope that had been secured to the lining of the bag. "It is
addressed 'To Seven Rich Sinners.' Shall I read it for you?"
For some reason the response was not unanimous, but it was sufficient.
Mr Carlyle cut open the envelope.
"MY DEAR FRIENDS,--Aren't you glad? Aren't you happy at this
moment? Ah yes; but not with the true joy of regeneration that
alone can bring lightness to the afflicted soul. Pause while
there is yet time. Cast off the burden of your sinful lusts,
for what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole
world and lose his own soul? (Mark, chap. viii., v. 36.)
"Oh, my friends, you have had an all-fired narrow squeak. Up
till the Friday in last week I held your wealth in the hollow
of my ungodly hand and rejoiced in my nefarious cunning, but on
that day as I with my guilty female accomplice stood listening
with worldly amusement to the testimony of a converted brother
at a meeting of the Salvation Army on Clapham Common, the
gospel light suddenly shone into our rebellious souls and then
and there we found salvation. Hallelujah!
"What we have done to complete the unrighteous scheme upon
which we had laboured for months has only been for your own
good, dear friends that you are, though as yet divided from us
by your carnal lusts. Let this be a lesson to you. Sell all you
have and give it to the poor--through the organization of the
Salvation Army by preference--and thereby lay up for yourselves
treasures where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt and where
thieves do not break through and steal. (Matthew, chap, vi., v.
20.)
"Yours in good works,
"PRIVATE HENRY, THE SALVATIONIST.
"_P.S._ (in haste).--I may as well inform you that no crib is
really uncrackable, though the Cyrus J. Coy Co.'s Safe Deposit
on West 24th Street, N.Y., comes nearest the kernel. And even
that I could work to the bare rock if I took hold of the job
with both hands--that is to say I could have done in my sinful
days. As for you, I should recommend you to change your T. A.
to 'Peanut.'
"U. K. G."
"There sounds a streak of the old Adam in that postscript, Mr Carlyle,"
whispered Inspector Beedel, who had just arrived in time to hear the
letter read.
THE TILLING SHAW MYSTERY
"I will see Miss George now," assented Carrados. Parkinson retired and
Greatorex looked round from his chair. The morning "clearing-up" was
still in progress.
"Shall I go?" he inquired.
"Not unless the lady desires it. I don't know her at all."
The secretary was not unobservant and he had profited from his
association with Mr Carrados. Without more ado, he began to get his
papers quietly together.
The door opened and a girl of about twenty came eagerly yet half
timorously into the room. Her eyes for a moment swept Carrados with an
anxious scrutiny. Then, with a slight shade of disappointment, she
noticed that they were not alone.
"I have come direct from Oakshire to see you, Mr Carrados," she
announced, in a quick, nervous voice that was evidently the outcome of a
desperate resolution to be brave and explicit. "The matter is a
dreadfully important one to me and I should very much prefer to tell it
to you alone."
There was no need for Carrados to turn towards his secretary; that
discriminating young gentleman was already on his way. Miss George
flashed him a shy look of thanks and filled in the moment with a timid
survey of the room.
"Is it something that you think I can help you with?"
"I had hoped so. I had heard in a roundabout way of your wonderful
power--ought I to tell you how--does it matter?"
"Not in the least if it has nothing to do with the case," replied
Carrados.
"When this dreadful thing happened I instinctively thought of you. I
felt sure that I ought to come and get you to help me at once. But I--I
have very little money, Mr Carrados, only a few pounds, and I am not so
childish as not to know that very clever men require large fees. Then
when I got here my heart sank, for I saw at once from your house and
position that what seemed little even to me would be ridiculous to
you--that if you did help me it would be purely out of kindness of heart
and generosity."
"Suppose you tell me what the circumstances are," suggested Carrados
cautiously. Then, to afford an opening, he added: "You have recently
gone into mourning, I see."
"See!" exclaimed the girl almost sharply. "Then you are not blind?"
"Oh yes," he replied; "only I use the familiar expression, partly from
custom, partly because it sounds unnecessarily pedantic to say, 'I
deduce from certain observations.'"
"I beg your pardon. I suppose I was startled not so much by the
expression as by your knowledge. I ought to have been prepared. But I am
already wasting your time and I came so determined to be business-like.
I got a copy of the local paper on the way, because I thought that the
account in it would be clearer to you than I could tell it. Shall I read
it?"
"Please; if that was your intention."
"It is _The Stinbridge Herald_," explained the girl, taking a closely
folded newspaper from the handbag which she carried. "Stinbridge is our
nearest town--about six miles from Tilling Shaw, where we live. This is
the account:
"'MYSTERIOUS TRAGEDY AT TILLING
"'WELL-KNOWN AGRICULTURALIST ATTEMPTS MURDER
AND COMMITS SUICIDE
"'The districts of Great Tilling, Tilling Shaw and the
immediate neighbourhood were thrown into a state of unusual
excitement on Thursday last by the report of a tragedy in their
midst such as has rarely marked the annals of our law-abiding
country-side.
"'A _Herald_ representative was early on the scene, and his
inquiries elucidated the fact that it was only too true that in
this case rumour had not exaggerated the circumstances, rather
the reverse indeed.
"'On the afternoon of the day in question, Mr Frank Whitmarsh,
of High Barn, presented himself at Barony, the residence of his
uncle, Mr William Whitmarsh, with the intention of seeing him
in reference to a dispute that was pending between them. This
is understood to be connected with an alleged trespass in
pursuit of game, each relative claiming exclusive sporting
rights over a piece of water known as Hunstan Mere.
"'On this occasion the elder gentleman was not at home and Mr
Frank Whitmarsh, after waiting for some time, departed, leaving
a message to the effect that he would return, and, according to
one report, "have it out with Uncle William," later in the
evening.
"'This resolution he unfortunately kept. Returning about
eight-forty-five P.M. he found his uncle in and for some time
the two men remained together in the dining-room. What actually
passed between them has not yet transpired, but it is said that
for half-an-hour there had been nothing to indicate to the
other occupants of the house that anything unusual was in
progress when suddenly two shots rang out in rapid succession.
Mrs Lawrence, the housekeeper at Barony, and a servant were the
soonest on the spot, and, conquering the natural terror that
for a moment held them outside the now silent room, they
summoned up courage to throw open the door and to enter. The
first thing that met their eyes was the body of Mr Frank
Whitmarsh lying on the floor almost at their feet. In their
distressed state it was immediately assumed by the horrified
women that he was dead, or at least seriously wounded, but a
closer examination revealed the fact that the gentleman had
experienced an almost miraculous escape. At the time of the
tragedy he was wearing a large old-fashioned silver watch; and
in this the bullet intended for his heart was found, literally
embedded deep in the works. The second shot had, however,
effected its purpose, for at the other side of the room, still
seated at the table, was Mr William Whitmarsh, already quite
dead, with a terrible wound in his head and the weapon, a
large-bore revolver of obsolete pattern, lying at his feet.
"'Mr Frank Whitmarsh subsequently explained that the shock of
the attack, and the dreadful appearance presented by his uncle
when, immediately afterwards, he turned his hand against
himself, must have caused him to faint.
"'Readers of _The Herald_ will join in our expression of
sympathy for all members of the Whitmarsh family, and in our
congratulations to Mr Frank Whitmarsh on his providential
escape.
"'The inquest is fixed for Monday and it is anticipated that
the funeral will take place on the following day.'"
"That is all," concluded Miss George.
"All that is in the paper," amended Carrados.
"It is the same everywhere--'attempted murder and suicide'--that is what
everyone accepts as a matter of course," went on the girl quickly. "How
do they know that my father tried to kill Frank, or that he killed
himself? How can they know, Mr Carrados?"
"Your father, Miss George?"
"Yes. My name is Madeline Whitmarsh. At home everyone looks at me as if
I was an object of mingled pity and reproach. I thought that they might
know the name here, so I gave the first that came into my head. I think
it is a street I was directed along. Besides, I don't want it to be
known that I came to see you in any case."
"Why?"
Much of the girl's conscious nervousness had stiffened into an attitude
of unconscious hardness. Grief takes many forms, and whatever she had
been before, the tragic episode had left Miss Whitmarsh a little hurt
and cynical.
"You are a man living in a town and can do as you like. I am a girl
living in the country and have therefore to do largely as my neighbours
like. For me to set up my opinion against popular feeling would
constitute no small offence; to question its justice would be held to be
adding outrageous insult to enormous injury."
"So far I am unable to go beyond the newspaper account. On the face of
it, your father--with what provocation of course I do not know--did
attempt this Mr Frank Whitmarsh's life and then take his own. You imply
another version. What reason have you?"
"That is the terrible part of it," exclaimed the girl, with rising
distress. "It was that which made me so afraid of coming to you,
although I felt that I must, for I dreaded that when you asked me for
proofs and I could give you none you would refuse to help me. We were
not even in time to hear him speak, and yet I know, _know_ with absolute
conviction, that my father would not have done this. There are things
that you cannot explain, Mr Carrados, and--well, there is an end of it."
Her voice sank to an absent-minded whisper.
"Everyone will condemn him now that he cannot defend himself, and yet he
could not even have had the revolver that was found at his feet."
"What is that?" demanded Carrados sharply. "Do you mean that?"
"Mean what?" she asked, with the blankness of one who has lost the
thread of her own thoughts.
"What you said about the revolver--that your father could not have had
it?"
"The revolver?" she repeated half wearily; "oh yes. It was a heavy,
old-fashioned affair. It had been lying in a drawer of his desk for more
than ten years because once a dog came into the orchard in broad
daylight light and worried half-a-dozen lambs before anyone could do
anything."
"Yes, but why could he not have it on Thursday?"
"I noticed that it was gone. After Frank had left in the afternoon I
went into the room where he had been waiting, to finish dusting. The
paper says the dining-room, but it was really papa's business-room and
no one else used it. Then when I was dusting the desk I saw that the
revolver was no longer there."
"You had occasion to open the drawer?"
"It is really a very old bureau and none of the drawers fit closely.
Dust lies on the ledges and you always have to open them a little to
dust properly. They were never kept locked."
"Possibly your father had taken the revolver with him."
"No. I had seen it there after he had gone. He rode to Stinbridge
immediately after lunch and did not return until nearly eight. After he
left I went to dust his room. It was then that I saw it. I was doing the
desk when Frank knocked and interrupted me. That is how I came to be
there twice."
"But you said that you had no proof, Miss Whitmarsh," Carrados reminded
her, with deep seriousness. "Do you not recognize the importance--the
deadly importance--that this one shred of evidence may assume?"
"Does it?" she replied simply. "I am afraid that I am rather dull just
now. All yesterday I was absolutely dazed; I could not do the most
ordinary things. I found myself looking at the clock for minutes
together, yet absolutely incapable of grasping what time it was. In the
same way I know that it struck me as being funny about the revolver but
I always had to give it up. It was as though everything was there but
things would not fit in."
"You are sure, absolutely sure, that you saw the revolver there after
your father had left, and missed it before he returned?"
"Oh yes," said the girl quickly; "I remember realizing how curious it
was at the time. Besides there is something else. I so often had things
to ask papa about when he was out of the house that I got into the way
of making little notes to remind me later. This morning I found on my
dressing-table one that I had written on Thursday afternoon."
"About this weapon?"
"Yes; to ask him what could have become of it."
Carrados made a further inquiry, and this was Madeline Whitmarsh's
account of affairs existing between the two branches of the family:
Until the time of William Whitmarsh, father of the William Whitmarsh
just deceased, the properties of Barony and High Barn had formed one
estate, descending from a William senior to a William junior down a
moderately long line of yeomen Whitmarshes. Through the influence of his
second wife this William senior divided the property, leaving Barony
with its four hundred acres of good land to William junior, and High
Barn, with which went three hundred acres of poor land, to his other
son, father of the Frank implicated in the recent tragedy. But though
divided, the two farms still had one common link. Beneath their growing
corn and varied pasturage lay, it was generally admitted, a seam of coal
at a depth and of a thickness that would render its working a paying
venture. Even in William the Divider's time, when the idea was new,
money in plenty would have been forthcoming, but he would have none of
it, and when he died his will contained a provision restraining either
son from mining or exploiting his land for mineral without the consent
and co-operation of the other.
This restriction became a legacy of hate. The brothers were only
half-brothers and William having suffered unforgettably at the hands of
his step-mother had old scores to pay off. Quite comfortably prosperous
on his own rich farm, and quite satisfied with the excellent shooting
and the congenial life, he had not the slightest desire to increase his
wealth. He had the old dour, peasant-like instinct to cling to the house
and the land of his forefathers. From this position no argument moved
him.
In the meanwhile, on the other side of the new boundary fence, Frank
senior was growing poorer year by year. To his periodical entreaties
that William would agree to shafts being sunk on High Barn he received
an emphatic "Never in my time!" The poor man argued, besought,
threatened and swore; the prosperous one shook his head and grinned.
Carrados did not need to hear the local saying: "Half brothers: whole
haters; like the Whitmarshes," to read the situation.
"Of course I do not really understand the business part of it," said
Madeline, "and many people blamed poor papa, especially when Uncle Frank
drank himself to death. But I know that it was not mere obstinacy. He
loved the undisturbed, peaceful land just as it was, and his father had
wished it to remain the same. Collieries would bring swarms of strange
men into the neighbourhood, poachers and trespassers, he said. The smoke
and dust would ruin the land for miles round and drive away the game,
and in the end, if the work did not turn out profitable, we should all
be much worse off than before."
"Does the restriction lapse now; will Mr Frank junior be able to mine?"
"It will now lie with Frank and my brother William, just as it did
before with their fathers. I should expect Willie to be quite
favourable. He is more--modern."
"You have not spoken of your brother."
"I have two. Bob, the younger, is in Mexico," she explained; "and Willie
in Canada with an engineering firm. They did not get on very well with
papa and they went away."
It did not require preternatural observation to deduce that the late
William Whitmarsh had been "a little difficult."
"When Uncle Frank died, less than six months ago, Frank came back to
High Barn from South Africa. He had been away about two years."
"Possibly he did not get on well with his father?"
Madeline smiled sadly.
"I am afraid that no two Whitmarsh men ever did get on well together,"
she admitted.
"Your father and young Frank, for instance?"
"Their lands adjoin; there were always quarrels and disputes," she
replied. "Then Frank had his father's grievance over again."
"He wished to mine?"
"Yes. He told me that he had had experience of coal in Natal."
"There was no absolute ostracism between you then? You were to some
extent friends?"
"Scarcely." She appeared to reflect. "Acquaintances.... We met
occasionally, of course, at people's houses."
"You did not visit High Barn?"
"Oh no."
"But there was no particular reason why you should not?"
"Why do you ask me that?" she demanded quickly, and in a tone that was
quite incompatible with the simple inquiry. Then, recognizing the fact,
she added, with shamefaced penitence: "I beg your pardon, Mr Carrados. I
am afraid that my nerves have gone to pieces since Thursday. The most
ordinary things affect me inexplicably."
"That is a common experience in such circumstances," said Carrados
reassuringly. "Where were you at the time of the tragedy?"
"I was in my bedroom, which is rather high up, changing. I had driven
down to the village, to give an order, and had just returned. Mrs
Lawrence told me that she had been afraid there might be quarrelling,
but no one would ever have dreamed of this, and then came a loud shot
and then, after a few seconds, another not so loud, and we rushed to the
door--she and Mary first--and everything was absolutely still."
"A loud shot _and then another not so loud_?"
"Yes; I noticed that even at the time. I happened to speak to Mrs
Lawrence of it afterwards and then she also remembered that it had been
like that."
Afterwards Carrados often recalled with grim pleasantry that the two
absolutely vital points in the fabric of circumstantial evidence that
was to exonerate her father and fasten the guilt upon another had
dropped from the girl's lips utterly by chance. But at the moment the
facts themselves monopolized his attention.
"You are not disappointed that I can tell you so little?" she asked
timidly.
"Scarcely," he replied. "A suicide who could not have had the weapon he
dies by, a victim who is miraculously preserved by an opportune watch,
and two shots from the same pistol that differ materially in volume, all
taken together do not admit of disappointment."
"I am very stupid," she said. "I do not seem able to follow things. But
you will come and clear my father's name?"
"I will come," he replied. "Beyond that who shall prophesy?"
It had been arranged between them that the girl should return at once,
while Carrados would travel down to Great Tilling late that same
afternoon and put up at the local fishing inn. In the evening he would
call at Barony, where Madeline would accept him as a distant connexion
of the family. The arrangement was only for the benefit of the domestics
and any casual visitor who might be present, for there was no
possibility of a near relation being in attendance. Nor was there any
appreciable danger of either his name or person being recognized in
those parts, a consideration that seemed to have some weight with the
girl, for, more than once, she entreated him not to disclose to anyone
his real business there until he had arrived at a definite conclusion.
It was nine o'clock, but still just light enough to distinguish the
prominent features of the landscape, when Carrados, accompanied by
Parkinson, reached Barony. The house, as described by the man-servant,
was a substantial grey stone building, very plain, very square, very
exposed to the four winds. It had not even a porch to break the flat
surface, and here and there in the line of its three solid storeys a
window had been built up by some frugal, tax-evading Whitmarsh of a
hundred years ago.
"Sombre enough," commented Carrados, "but the connexion between
environment and crime is not yet capable of analysis. We get murders in
brand-new suburban villas and the virtues, light-heartedness and
good-fellowship, in moated granges. What should you say about it, eh,
Parkinson?"
"I should say it was damp, sir," observed Parkinson, with his wisest
air.
Madeline Whitmarsh herself opened the door. She took them down the long
flagged hall to the dining-room, a cheerful enough apartment whatever
its exterior might forebode.
"I am glad you have come now, Mr Carrados," she said hurriedly, when the
door was closed. "Sergeant Brewster is here from Stinbridge police
station to make some arrangements for the inquest. It is to be held at
the schools here on Monday. He says that he must take the revolver with
him to produce. Do you want to see it before he goes?"
"I should like to," replied Carrados.
"Will you come into papa's room then? He is there."
The sergeant was at the table, making notes in his pocket-book, when
they entered. An old-fashioned revolver lay before him.
"This gentleman has come a long way on hearing about poor papa," said
the girl. "He would like to see the revolver before you take it, Mr
Brewster."
"Good-evening, sir," said Brewster. "It's a bad business that brings us
here."
Carrados "looked" round the room and returned the policeman's greeting.
Madeline hesitated for a moment, and then, picking up the weapon, put it
into the blind man's hand.
"A bit out of date, sir," remarked Brewster, with a nod. "But in good
order yet, I find."
"An early French make, I should say; one of Lefaucheux's probably," said
Carrados. "You have removed the cartridges?"
"Why, yes," admitted the sergeant, producing a matchbox from his pocket.
"They're pin-fire, you see, and I'm not too fond of carrying a thing
like that loaded in my pocket as I'm riding a young horse."
"Quite so," agreed Carrados, fingering the cartridges. "I wonder if you
happened to mark the order of these in the chambers?"
"That was scarcely necessary, sir. Two, together, had been fired; the
other four had not."
"I once knew a case--possibly I read of it--where a pack of cards lay on
the floor. It was a murder case and the guilt or innocence of an accused
man depended on the relative positions of the fifty-first and
fifty-second cards."
"I think you must have read of that, sir," replied Brewster,
endeavouring to implicate first Miss Whitmarsh and then Parkinson in his
meaning smile. "However, this is straightforward enough."
"Then, of course, you have not thought it worth while to look for
anything else?"
"I have noted all the facts that have any bearing on the case. Were you
referring to any particular point, sir?"