Here let me mention that I have fancied since that I recognised the
ill-looking foreigner who was with me at the inn and in the train. I
recognised him in a chemist’s shop in a very fashionable shopping
street. I think it would be libellous to name the street. The
telegraphic address which my wife sent to Callaghan was the
telegraphic address of that fashionable chemist’s shop.
I had intended to take leave of Callaghan for the time upon our
arrival at the station, but I found that this was not to be done, for
Callaghan was determined to obey almost to the letter my wife’s behest
to him, not to leave me. He took me to luncheon at a restaurant, and
then prevailed upon me to come with him by one of our fast trains to
my own house, collect there all the papers which I possessed bearing
on the affair of Peters, and bring them to his chambers, where he was
resolved I should at present stay.
When we arrived there, I was for starting at once to seek out the
doctor who had been at Long Wilton, but I was practically overpowered
and sent to bed, after handing over to Callaghan, amongst other
papers, the notes which Peters had made as to the death of Longhurst.
After some hours Callaghan entered my room to tell me that dinner
would be ready in half an hour, that I might get up for it if I liked,
or have it brought to my bedroom. He then turned on me reproachfully.
“Why had I not shown him these papers long ago, when he came to stay
with me?” I was at a loss for an answer, for in fact when I had told
him of my suspicions and my reasons for them, I had done the thing by
halves, because my want of confidence in him lingered.
“Well, well,” said my good-natured friend, “I daresay I can guess the
reason. But these papers explain much to me. You never told me it was
the island of Sulu on which Peters discovered the body, or that he
went there with Dr. Kuyper. I had heard the name of that island and
the doctor before—on the last night of Peters’ life while you were
talking music with Thalberg.”
Next morning I set off early to see the doctor who had been at Long
Wilton. Callaghan, who at first seemed to think it his duty to be with
me everywhere, gave way and consented to go upon some business of his
own about which he was very mysterious; but he put me in the charge of
his servant, a man singularly fitted to be his servant, an Irishman
and an old soldier, who, I discovered, had made himself very useful to
him in his spying upon Thalberg, having entered into a close and I
daresay bibulous friendship with one of Thalberg’s clerks. My new
guardian so far relaxed his precautions as to allow me to be alone
with the doctor in his consulting-room; he otherwise looked after me
as though he thought me a child, and from the very look of him one
could see that I was well protected, though indeed I hardly imagined
then that the perils which beset me at Crondall would follow me
through the streets of London.
I asked the doctor kindly to give me all his recollections as to what
occurred in Peters’ bedroom while he was there. He told me little but
what was of a professional nature, and he informed me rather dryly
that he made it his practice on all occasions to observe only what
concerned him professionally. I therefore put to him with very little
hope the main question which I had come to ask—Had he observed
anything about the windows. “Certainly,” he said, “that, as it
happens, is a professional matter with me. I never enter a sickroom
without glancing at the windows, and I did so from force of habit this
time, though” (and he laughed with an ugly sense of humour) “it didn’t
matter much, as no fresh air could have revived that patient; but the
windows were shut, and (for I often notice that too) they were tight
shut and latched.” “Are you certain,” I said, “that both of them were
latched?” “Certain,” he answered; “they were both latched when I came
into the room, and they were latched when I went out, for I happened
to have looked again. You see that, once one has the habit of noticing
a certain kind of thing, one always notices it and remembers it
easily, however little else one may see.” I asked him then whether he
happened to remember the order in which the persons who had then been
in the room left it. About this he was not so certain, but he had an
impression that only two persons were left in the room after him.
These were the police-sergeant, who held the door open for a moment
while Vane-Cartwright lingered, and who locked it when they had all
left. I may say at once that this was afterwards confirmed by the
police-sergeant, who added that Vane-Cartwright was standing somewhere
not far from the window in question.
I returned by appointment to Callaghan’s chambers some time before
eleven. I was immediately taken out by him again upon an errand which
he refused to explain. We arrived at length at an office in the City
which from the name on the door proved to be that of Mr. Thalberg,
Solicitor and Commissioner for Oaths. We were ushered into Mr.
Thalberg’s private room, and it immediately appeared that Callaghan
had come to give instructions for the making of his will. He explained
my being there by saying there was a point in his will about which he
desired to consult both of us. I was thus compelled to be present at
what for a while struck me as a very tedious farce. Callaghan, after
consulting Mr. Thalberg upon the very elementary question whether or
not he thought it an advisable thing that a man should make a will,
and after beating about the bush in various other ways, went on to
detail quite an extraordinary number of bequests, some of them
personal, some of a charitable kind, which he desired to make. There
was a bequest, for example, of the Sèvres porcelain in his chambers to
his cousin, Lady Belinda McConnell (there was no Sèvres porcelain in
his chambers, and I have never had the curiosity to look up Lady
Belinda McConnell in the Peerage). So he went on, disposing, I should
think, of a great deal more property than he possessed, till at last
the will appeared to be complete in outline, when he seemed suddenly
to bethink him of the really difficult matter for which he had desired
my presence. By this time, I should say, it had begun to dawn upon me
that the pretended will-making was not quite so idle a performance as
I had at first thought. Callaghan must in the course of it have
produced on a person, who knew him only slightly, the impression of a
good-natured, eccentric fellow, wholly without cunning and altogether
unformidable. This was one point gained, but moreover, Mr. Thalberg
was rapidly falling into that nervous and helpless condition into
which a weak man of business can generally be thrown by the unkind
expedient of wasting his time. It now appeared that the real subject
on which Mr. Thalberg and I were to be consulted was the disposal of
Callaghan’s papers in the event of his death. Callaghan explained that
he would leave behind him if he died (and he felt, he said, that he
might die suddenly) a great quantity of literary work which he should
be sorry should perish. He would leave all his papers to the
discretion of certain literary executors (he thought these would
perhaps be Mr. George Meredith and Mr. Ruskin), but there were memoirs
among them relating to a sad affair in which persons living, including
Mr. Thalberg and myself, were in a manner concerned. He referred to
the lamented death of Mr. Peters, the circumstances connected with
which had been for him a matter of profound and he trusted not
unprofitable study. He felt that in any directions he might leave in
regard to these memoirs it was only fair that he should consult the
gentlemen present. Mr. Thalberg by this time was in a great state of
expectation, when Callaghan pulled out his watch and, observing that
it was later than he thought, asked if there was a Directory in the
office, that he might find the address of a certain person to whom he
must telegraph to put off an appointment with him. A clerk brought the
London Directory from an outside room, and was about to retire. “Stop
a moment, Mr. Clerk, if you don’t mind,” said Callaghan, and he
slightly edged back his chair, so as to block the clerk’s going out,
“perhaps it is the Suburban Directory that I want. Let us just look,”
and he began turning over the leaves. “Ferndale Avenue,” he said,
“that’s not it; Ferndale Terrace—you see, Mr. Thalberg,” he said, “I
would like to talk this matter out with you before I go—Ferndale
Crescent—right side, No. 43, 44, No.” (all this time his finger was
running down a column under the letter B in the Trades Directory) “45,
46, 47; I thought he was thereabouts. Here’s the name,” he said. “You
see, Mr. Thalberg, your own movements, if they were not explained,
would look rather curious—47, 49, no, that’s not it—look rather
curious, as I was saying, in connexion with that murder of Peters—look
ugly, you know—51 Ferndale Crescent, that’s it. Thank you, Mr. Clerk,”
and he shut the Directory with a bang and handed it back to the clerk
with a bow, and made way for him to leave the room.
Mr. Thalberg bounded from his chair and collapsed into it again.
“Stop, Mr. Manson,” he cried to the clerk, “you must be present at
whatever else this gentleman may have to say.” He sat for a moment
breathing hard, more I thought with alarm than with anger. He did not
seem to me to have any presence of mind or any of the intellectual
attributes, at any rate, of guile, and I could not help wondering as I
watched him, whether this really was the man whom Vane-Cartwright
chose for his agent in employments of much delicacy. “Do you come here
to blackmail me, sir?” cried Mr. Thalberg, forcing himself to assume a
voice and air of fury. There was never seen anything more innocent or
more surprised and pained than the countenance of Callaghan as he
replied. He was amazed that his motive could be so misunderstood; it
was the simple fact that what he was forced in his memoirs to relate
might hereafter suggest suspicions of every one who was in the
neighbourhood of the crime, himself and his friend Mr. Driver in
particular, and, though in a less degree of course, Mr. Thalberg. He
was giving Mr. Thalberg precisely the same opportunity as he had given
to Mr. Driver, of explaining those passages in his (Callaghan’s)
record, which might seem to him to require explanation. Here he
appealed to me (and I confess I backed him up) as to whether he had
not approached me in precisely the same way. Mr. Thalberg appeared to
pass again under the spell of his eccentric visitor’s childlike
innocence, and sat patiently but with an air of increasing discomfort
while Callaghan ran on: “You see, in your case, Mr. Thalberg, it’s not
only your presence at Long Wilton, which was for golf of course,
wasn’t it?—only you went away because of the snow. There is that
correspondence with a Dutch legal gentleman at Batavia which occurred
a little afterwards, or a little before was it? And there were the
messages which I think you sent (though perhaps that was not you) to
Bagdad. Of course I shall easily understand if you do not care to
enlighten me for the purpose of my memoirs which no one may care to
read. Pray tell me if it is so. I daresay it’s enough for you that
your correspondence and movements will of course be fully explained
at the trial.” “What trial?” exclaimed Thalberg, quite aghast. It
was Callaghan’s turn to be astonished. Was it possible that Mr.
Thalberg had not heard the news, which was already in two or three
evening papers, that there was a warrant out for the arrest of
Vane-Cartwright, and that it was rumoured that he had been arrested in
an attempt to escape from the country.
In Mr. Thalberg’s countenance increased anguish now struggled
ludicrously with the suspicion, which even he could not wholly put
aside, that he was being played upon in some monstrous way. He began
some uncertain words and desisted, and looked to his clerk
appealingly. That gentleman (not, I believe, the same that had fallen
under the sway of Callaghan’s faithful servant) seemed the incarnation
of the most solid respectability. He was, I should judge, of the age
at which he might think of retiring upon a well-earned competence, and
he gave Thalberg no help, desiring, I should think, to hear the
fullest explanation of the startling and terrible hint which had been
thrown out before him against his master’s character. While Thalberg
sat irresolute, Callaghan drew a bow at a venture. “At least, Mr.
Thalberg,” he said, “I thought you might like to tell me the results
of your interview with Dr. Verschoyle when you went to Homburg to see
him.” “Sir,” said Thalberg, making a final effort, “do you imagine
that I shall tell you what passed at an interview to which I went upon
my client’s business.” “Thank you, Mr. Thalberg,” said Callaghan. “I
am interested to know that you went to Homburg on your client’s
business (I thought it might have been for the gout), and that you did
see Dr. Verschoyle, for I had not known that till you told me. I did
know, however, about that correspondence with Madrid in the Spanish
Consul’s cipher, and I knew that the enquiries you made through him
were really addressed to an influential person at Manilla.”
At this point Mr. Thalberg abruptly went over, with horse, foot and
artillery, to the enemy. He assured Callaghan of his perfect readiness
to answer fully any questions he might ask about his relations with
Vane-Cartwright, and if he might he would tell him how they began.
This is what it came to. Thalberg had been partner to a lawyer who was
Longhurst’s solicitor. In the early part of 1882, when Longhurst had
spent a month in England, he had consulted Thalberg’s partner about
some matters that troubled him in regard to his partnership with
Vane-Cartwright. Thalberg could not remember (so at least he said) the
precise complaint which Longhurst had laid before his partner, except
that it related to Vane-Cartwright’s having got concessions and
acquired property for himself which Longhurst considered (without
foundation, as Thalberg supposed) should have belonged to the
partnership. Nor did Thalberg know the advice which had been given
Longhurst. He had heard no more of him beyond the mere report that he
had been drowned, till, after his death, Vane-Cartwright, whom
Thalberg had not previously known, came to London and employed the
firm to find out various members of Longhurst’s family who were still
living, and to whom he now behaved with great generosity. Since then
Thalberg had been, as we knew, solicitor of a company which
Vane-Cartwright had founded, and had occasionally done for him private
law work of a quite unexciting nature. But in the middle of January of
last year, 1896, Thalberg had been instructed by Vane-Cartwright to
make for him with the utmost privacy certain enquiries. One was of a
person in Bagdad, as to the identity and previous history of a certain
Mr. Bryanston; one concerned a certain Dr. Kuyper, a physician and
scientist in Batavia, who, it was ascertained, was now dead. Another
was, as Callaghan knew, addressed to a correspondent in Madrid, but
Thalberg declared that this enquiry went no further than to ascertain
the name and address of the person who then filled the office of
Public Prosecutor or, I think, Minister of Justice in the Philippines.
I ventured to ask the name; it was a name that I had seen before in
those notes of Peters’. Lastly, there was an enquiry in regard to Dr.
Verschoyle. Thalberg had been instructed if possible to obtain an
interview with this gentleman before a certain date. The purpose of
the interview, he declared, was to obtain from him some notes and
journals which would be of use in the foundation of a new mission in
the Philippines, under the auspices of the Society for the Propagation
of the Gospel, a project in which Vane-Cartwright appeared, he said,
to be keenly interested (and indeed it was the fact that he had
previously patronised missionary societies). The object of Thalberg’s
visit to Long Wilton was this. He had been told to repair there
without fail by the date on which he actually came, and to inform
Vane-Cartwright by word of mouth of the result, if any, of his
enquiries. That result had been, shortly: that Bryanston was the man
who had at one time been at Nagasaki; that Kuyper was dead; that the
Minister of Justice (or whatever the precise office was) at Manilla
was the person already alluded to; and that Verschoyle was abroad and
had lately been at Siena, but had departed abruptly some weeks
before—for Germany, it was thought, but he had left no address behind
him. All this Thalberg had duly reported to Vane-Cartwright in Peters’
house the afternoon before the murder occurred. And what all this
taught Vane-Cartwright, though in part obscure, is in part obvious. It
taught him that no letter from Verschoyle to Peters need at present be
expected. It taught him that a letter from Bryanston, which must be
expected, might be dangerous and must be intercepted. It taught him
that Peters would remain inactive only till that letter reached his
hands. It taught him also that if Peters were put to silence, Kuyper,
the other European who had seen that body in Sulu, could tell no
tales.
After Peters’ death, Thalberg, still acting under instructions, had
had an interview with Dr. Verschoyle at Homburg, to which he had
traced him, and had taken with him a letter written on the paper of
the S.P.G., and signed, as he believed, by the secretary of that
society. (It has since appeared that the secretary had no knowledge of
such a letter.) Dr. Verschoyle delivered to him some journals which
he, Thalberg, never read, for transmission to Vane-Cartwright, to whom
he duly delivered them. That, he said, was all that he knew of the
subjects on which Callaghan sought information. He denied all
knowledge of further communications made on behalf of Vane-Cartwright
with that important official in the Philippines; but he appeared to me
somewhat nervous in answering Callaghan’s questions on this matter,
and anxious to appease him with the prospect that he might be able,
through friends of his, to ascertain what communications of this
nature had actually taken place.
It was curious to how many questions suggested to us by what he had
said he could give no answer. Indeed he informed us, with an air of
moral self-complacency, that he thought it a very sound maxim for a
professional man to know as little as possible of things which it was
not his business to know. I guessed that perhaps his strict observance
of this precept was the thing which had commended him to the service
of Vane-Cartwright, but I really do believe that Mr. Thalberg knew
nothing behind the facts which he now thought it convenient to himself
to reveal.
However that may be, he made no secret of anything which he could
disclose without injury to himself. We had got from him, or I ought to
say Callaghan had got from him, evidence which might serve to show
plainly enough that Vane-Cartwright was aware of Peters’ suspicions
and concerned himself greatly about them, and, content with this, we
were preparing to go when Mr. Thalberg stopped us saying that there
was one important matter of which we had not asked him yet, and
perhaps should be surprised to know that he could tell us anything. I
have omitted to say that in the course of the conversation he had
heard something from us about the things which had led to
Vane-Cartwright’s being suspected. We had told him in substance the
story about the tracks, and were much surprised to find that he
appeared wholly ignorant of the charge that had been brought against
Trethewy. He now told us a fact which had a great bearing upon the
history of those tracks. He asked us whether or not Peters’ grounds
could be seen from the upper rooms of the hotel. I said that no doubt
they could, for the hotel was only too visible from those grounds. He
then stated that having confined himself to his bedroom until it was
time for him to start for his train, he had at a certain hour noticed
a man walking across Peters’ field (for from his description it was
plain to me that it was Peters’ field, and plain further that the man
was walking pretty much where those tracks were made). This man, even
at that distance, he recognised as Vane-Cartwright; he recognised him
by his fur coat and a cap which Ellen Trethewy had seen him in, and by
some peculiarity about his gait which he knew well. The man was also
swinging his stick in Vane-Cartwright’s own particular manner. The
distance was considerable, but I knew that it would be possible for a
clear-sighted man to recognise at that distance any one whom he knew
very well. The hour which Thalberg named corresponded with what Ellen
Trethewy had told me.