THE MAN WHO LOST A FINGER
An examination of local records produced no satisfactory result.
Margaret Stuart had died at a farm three miles out of Beverley Manor,
and the farm had changed hands twice since the date of her death.
“Twenty years ago?” said the farmer whom Larry interviewed. “Why,
twenty years ago this place was a sort of nursing home. It was run by
a woman who took in invalids.”
Where the woman is, he could not say. She was not a local woman. He
thought he had heard she was dead.
“I’ve been racking my brains to recall her name,” said the farmer. “I
told the gentleman yesterday that he’d best go to Somerset House----”
“A gentleman here yesterday?” said Larry quickly. “Was there somebody
inquiring yesterday?”
“Yes, sir, a man from London,” said the farmer. “He came down in a car
and offered me fifty pounds if I could tell him the name of the woman
who kept this place as a home, and a hundred pounds if I could give
him any information about a lady that died here twenty-two years ago.
A lady named Stuart.”
“Oh, indeed?” said Larry, alert now. Nobody from Scotland Yard had
made the inquiries, he was well aware. “What was this gentleman like
who called yesterday?” he asked.
“Rather a tall man,” said the farmer. “I didn’t see his face properly
because he had his overcoat buttoned up to his chin. But I did notice
that he’d lost the little finger on his left hand.”
On their way back to London both Larry and Diana Ward were absorbed in
their own thoughts. The car was threading through the traffic of
Westminster Bridge Road before Larry made any reference to their
visit.
“Who is in such a frantic hurry to discover all about the Stuarts,” he
asked, “and will give fifty pounds for information? And who is his
daughter Clarissa, and how can he have a daughter Clarissa, when his
only daughter lies at Beverley Manor?”
“You inquired at the stonemason’s when we came through Beverley.
Didn’t they tell you anything?” asked the girl.
He nodded.
“The stone was put up by order of Mr. Stuart, who was in the habit of
coming to the churchyard every day to sit beside the grave. The
memorial was ordered two months ago, and the stone was seen and
approved by Gordon Stuart only last week.”
He bit his lip thoughtfully.
“Between last week and the night of his murder Stuart must have
discovered that he had another child.” He shook his head. “That sort
of thing doesn’t happen,” he said decisively, “not in real life,
anyway.”
He spent ten minutes with the Commissioner, and afterwards went into
the City, and the girl did not see him till seven o’clock that night.
She had had instructions from him that she was not to wait, as it was
a Saturday and her office hours ended at one. But she was sitting at
her desk, reading, when he came in, and he was so elated that he did
not reprove her.
“I’ve got it!” he said exultantly.
“The murderer?” she asked with a start.
“No, no, the story of Stuart. Has there been any reply to my
cablegram?”
Diana shook her head.
“It doesn’t matter very much,” he said briskly as he paced the office.
“I’ve secured the registration of the marriage. It occurred in August,
1907, and was celebrated at a church in Highgate. Don’t you see what
happened?”
“I don’t quite see,” she said slowly.
“Well, I’ll tell you. Gordon Stuart, a young man at the time, was on a
visit to this country. I have found that he stayed at the Cecil Hotel
from June to August, 1907. He married the girl, whose name was
Margaret Wilson, and returned to the Cecil Hotel alone in March, ’08.
There is a record there that he left for Canada two days after he came
back to the hotel. They keep a book in which they write down the
addresses to which letters should be forwarded, and there was no
difficulty whatever in tracing his movements so far. Then I went to
see the vicar of the church where he was married; and here I had a
great find.”
He paused, rumpled his hair, and frowned.
“I really should like to know who is that tall man who has lost the
little finger of his left hand,” he said irritably.
“Why?” she asked in surprise.
“He had been there a day before me,” said Larry, and then, shaking off
his annoyance: “Here is the story--the story told by Stuart to the
vicar, whom he met in the Strand on the day before he sailed for
Canada, never to return until he came back eight or nine months ago.
“The vicar married him, and remembered the circumstances very well. He
said Stuart was a very nervous and somewhat conceited man, who lived
in terror of his father, a rich landowner in Canada. Stuart confessed
to him, over a cup of tea which they had together at the Cecil, that
he was leaving his wife and going back to Canada to break the news of
his marriage to his father. He was in considerable doubt as to what
his father would say, or, to be more exact, he had no doubt whatever
that the old man would kick up a shine. The impression left on the
vicar’s mind was that the old man would disinherit him. To cut a long
story short, he said he was leaving London the next day, and at the
first opportunity he should tell his father, and then he would return
for his wife.
“There’s no doubt in my mind,” Larry went on, “that Stuart did not
tell his father, that he kept the secret of his marriage carefully
hidden, and in a panic at being found out, he broke off all
communication with his wife.”
The girl shook her head.
“One doesn’t want to judge the dead too harshly,” she said, “but it
was not a manly thing to do.”
“I agree,” said Larry. “It wasn’t sporting. He must have left his wife
a considerable sum of money. At any rate, when the vicar saw her she
was in comfortable circumstances and gave him that impression. Stuart
left in March. In June, 1908, three months later, his child was
born--the child he never saw, and about whom in all probability he
never heard until years of remorse worked upon him and he came back to
England to find his wife and establish her in the position to which
she was entitled.
“He must have employed an inquiry agent. And the end of his quest was
a discovery in the churchyard of Beverley Manor--the grave of his wife
and his only child.”
“What about Clarissa?” asked the girl, and Larry shrugged.
“That is Mystery No. 2 which has got to be cleared up.”
She was silent, this thoughtful girl, and her pretty brows were
wrinkled in perplexity. Presently she put down the pen she had been so
assiduously biting, and looked across at him with a slow, triumphant
smile, a smile which found a ready response in his face.
“You’ve solved it?” he asked eagerly, and she nodded. “You’ve solved
the mystery of Clarissa?”
“I think it’s one of the easiest of the problems to solve,” she said
calmly, “and I must have been silly not to have thought of it before.
Have you the registration of birth?”
“I haven’t got that; we’re making a search for it to-morrow,” said
Larry.
“I can save you the trouble,” replied Diana Ward. “Clarissa is the
other twin daughter.”
“Twins!” gasped Larry, and the girl nodded, her eyes dancing with
merriment at his surprise.
“Obviously,” she said. “Poor Mrs. Stuart had twin daughters. One of
them died; the other is Clarissa, of whom Stuart learnt, perhaps, in
the last few hours of his life.”
Larry looked at her in awe.
“When you are Chief Commissioneress of the Metropolitan Police,” he
said, “I shall be very obliged to you if you make me your secretary. I
feel I have a lot to learn.”