"We have solved the mystery of Godfrey Pavely's death!"
Such were the words with which Sir Angus Kinross greeted Lord St. Amant,
when the latter, arriving at his rooms, found the Commissioner of Police
already there.
"D'you mean that you've run Fernando Apra to earth?"
The speaker felt relieved, and at the same time rather discomfited. He
had not associated the Commissioner of Police's summons with that now
half-forgotten, painful story. Godfrey Pavely had vanished out of his
mind, as he had vanished out of every one else's mind in the
neighbourhood of Pewsbury, and in the last few months when Sir Angus and
Lord St. Amant had met they had seldom alluded to the strange occurrence
which had first made them become friends.
But now, seeing that the other looked at him with a singular look of
hesitation, there came a slight feeling of apprehension over St. Angus's
host.
"Have you actually got the man here, in England? If so, I suppose poor
Mrs. Pavely is bound to have a certain amount of fresh trouble in
connection with the affair?"
"We have not got the man who called himself Fernando Apra, and we are
never likely to have him. In fact, I regard it as certain that we shall
not even be able to connect him directly with the murder--for murder it
certainly was, St. Amant."
"Murder?"
Lord St. Amant repeated the word reluctantly, doubtfully. He was
beginning to feel more and more apprehensive. There was something so
strange and so sombre in the glance with which the Commissioner of
Police accompanied his words.
During that fortnight when they had so constantly seen one another last
year, Sir Angus had never once looked surprised, annoyed--or even put
out! There had been about him a certain imperturbability, both of temper
and of manner. He now looked infinitely more disturbed than he had done
even at the moment when he had first seen Godfrey Pavely's dead body
sitting up in Fernando Apra's sinister-looking office.
"Yes," he went on in a low, incisive voice, "it was murder right enough!
And we already hold a warrant, which will be executed the day after
to-morrow, this next Friday----"
He waited a moment, then uttered very deliberately the words: "It is a
warrant for the arrest of Mr. Oliver Tropenell on the charge of having
murdered Mr. Godfrey Pavely on or about the 5th of last January."
"I--I don't understand what you mean! Surely Oliver Tropenell was not
masquerading as Fernando Apra?" exclaimed Lord St. Amant. "If one can
believe a mass of quite disinterested evidence, the two men were utterly
unlike!"
"That is so, and there was of course a man who masqueraded, and
masqueraded most successfully, both in Paris and in London, as Fernando
Apra. That man, St. Amant, was----"
Lord St. Amant bent forward eagerly while his mind, his still vigorous,
intelligent, acute mind, darted this way and that. What name--whose
name--was Sir Angus going to utter?
He was not long left in suspense.
"That man," said Sir Angus slowly, impressively, "was Mrs. Pavely's
brother, a certain Gilbert Baynton, who is, we are informed, the
business partner of Mr. Tropenell in Mexico. It was _he_ who masqueraded
as Fernando Apra. But it was not he who actually fired the pistol shot
which killed Godfrey Pavely----"
When he had heard the name Gilbert Baynton, it was as if a great light
had suddenly burst in on Lord St. Amant's brain. In spite of everything
he felt a sharp thrill of relief.
"Good God!" he exclaimed. "There's been a terrible mistake--but it's one
that I can set right in a very few minutes. Believe me, you're on the
wrong track altogether! If murder there was--murder, and not
manslaughter, which I venture to think much more probable--then Gilbert
Baynton was Godfrey Pavely's murderer. The two men hated one another. It
all comes back to me--not only had they a quarrel years ago, but that
same quarrel was renewed not long before Godfrey Pavely's disappearance.
Nothing--_nothing_--would induce me to believe that Oliver Tropenell is
a murderer!"
"I'm afraid you'll soon be brought round to believe it," said Sir Angus
ruefully. "I am of course well aware of what you say concerning Gilbert
Baynton's relations to his brother-in-law. We've already found all that
out, especially as we had a willing witness close to our hand.
Unfortunately--I say unfortunately, St. Amant, for of course I know he
is a thorough bad hat--we have irrefutable evidence that this man
Baynton did _not_ commit the murder. He was certainly in Paris at the
time when Godfrey Pavely was killed in London."
Sir Angus took a turn up and down the room--then he came back to where
the other man was sitting.
"You can take it from me, St. Amant, that there has never been, in the
whole history of criminal jurisprudence, so far as I am acquainted with
it, any crime planned out with such infinite care, ingenuity,
and--and--well, yes, I must say it, a kind of almost diabolical cunning.
So true is that that----" He took another turn up and down the room, and
then once more he came and stood before his friend: "Well, I consider
the murderer has a very good sporting chance of getting off--scot free!
He will be able to command the best legal advice as well as the best
intellects at the Criminal Bar--that he himself has no mean intellect he
has proved over this business. Yes, I shouldn't be in the least
surprised if he managed to scrape through! More fortunate than most of
his kind, he has a new country to which he will be able to retire with
the widow of the man he murdered--if she can be brought to believe in
him. And, mind you, women can be brought to believe _anything_ of those
they love, or at any rate, they can be brought to _seem_ to believe
anything!"
He waited a moment, and then added abruptly, "I formed the opinion that
Mrs. Pavely was a very unusual woman, St. Amant."
"But you don't think--surely you don't think----"
"No, no----" Sir Angus was very decided. "I certainly don't think Mrs.
Pavely was in any way concerned in this appalling plot. And mind
you--ill as I think of him, I must admit that Oliver Tropenell's a brave
man. He did the job himself--even if he was helped by his friend."
He waited a moment. Somehow St. Amant was taking the news far more to
heart than he had expected.
"I'll tell you everything in time, but it's a long, complicated story;
and of course I'm trusting entirely to your honour in the matter. What I
tell you now must never go beyond these four walls."
Sir Angus sat down, and Lord St. Amant listened, half of his brain
acutely, sensitively alive to the story that was being told him--the
other half in a kind of stupor of grief, of shame, and of horror. That
second half of his brain was dominated by one name, one thought, one
heart-beat--Letty, the dear, the beloved woman who had just promised to
marry him, to bring him the solace of her care and companionship in the
evening of his days....
* * * * *
"Apart from certain most cleverly devised breaks in the story--to which
I shall make allusion presently--Oliver Tropenell's best chance lies in
the absence of adequate motive. Why should this millionaire wish to
murder a man who, as he will easily be able to prove, was not only an
intimate friend, but also a connection of his own? Our answer to that
question will be to put in these two anonymous letters."
Sir Angus took out of his pocket the two letters which had caused poor
Godfrey Pavely such acute discomfort just a year before.
Lord St. Amant read them through, carefully, in silence.
"Still, as I daresay you know, judges look very much askance at
anonymous letters, and especially in a trial for murder. Also these
prove so _very_ little--the more so that there seems to have been no
talk at all about Tropenell and Mrs. Pavely in the neighbourhood. She
bears, and has always borne, a very high character. As for these
letters, they were evidently written by a woman--and by an educated
woman. Any one familiar with disguised handwriting could tell you _that_
much. Of course I have my own theory as to who wrote them."
Lord St. Amant nodded. "Yes, so have I."
"Still, I'm not bound to give my theory to either side, am I? I foresee
that very probably these letters will remain anonymous. A great many
people who think themselves clever will put them down to some dismissed
servant.
"The fact that Mr. Tropenell left England for Mexico so soon after the
discovery of Mr. Pavely's body is a good point on his side. The judge
will argue, above all the jury will argue, that if he had been in love
with Mrs. Pavely--if he had loved her, that is, with a guilty
passion--he would not have left her just after she had become a widow.
Nothing compelled him to do so. It has been suggested, but from a person
who does not intend to go into the witness-box if she can help it, that
Tropenell and Mrs. Pavely are now secretly engaged. My answer to that
is--why shouldn't they be? Many a man has married his best friend's
widow without any one supposing that he committed murder in order to
attain that satisfaction!"
"Have you proof--irrefutable proof--pointing to the guilt of Oliver
Tropenell?"
"What is irrefutable proof? It can be proved that Oliver Tropenell spent
many weeks on the Continent in the company of the man who undoubtedly
masqueraded as Fernando Apra, and that for a certain portion of that
time the two men exchanged identities. Nothing can shake that portion of
the evidence. But there is no record of the two having met, later, in
London--I mean during the time when the net was certainly being drawn
round Godfrey Pavely. And, as I said before, Gilbert Baynton--_alias_
Fernando Apra--has an absolute alibi. He was certainly in Paris on the
day when all trace of Pavely was lost. There seems no doubt at all that
the evidence of the London hotel manager was most artfully arranged for.
The man's story was given in good faith, but the incident occurred a
full week before Mr. Pavely was done to death."
"But where does Tropenell come in?"
"As to the movements of Mr. Oliver Tropenell, we have not been quite so
fortunate in tracing them. But even so, we have evidence that during the
fateful three days on one of which the murder was certainly committed,
he was staying in London, having just arrived from the Continent. I
personally have no doubt at all that it was on Thursday, January the
5th, that, lured by a cleverly concocted letter signed 'Fernando Apra,'
the hapless Pavely went to Duke House to find Tropenell lying in wait
for him. The two men may have had words--they probably _did_ have
words. But whatever passed--and look at it as you may, St. Amant--it was
deliberate murder."
Lord St. Amant stood up. His turn had come to astound the Commissioner
of Police.
"Yes," he said, "yes, if your theory is correct, Kinross, it was
deliberate murder--to me far the more terrible fact, because the
murderer will soon be my stepson. I am to be married to Mrs. Tropenell
by special licence next week."
And as the Commissioner of Police, transfixed with surprise, remained
silent, the other went on, speaking rather quietly and coldly, "It is
only fair on my part to tell you this. Indeed, perhaps I ought to have
told you at once--I mean when I first gathered the purport of what you
wished to say to me."
Sir Angus shook his head. He was filled with a great pity, as well as a
great admiration, for the man--who now looked such an old man--standing
there facing him.
"Look here," he said slowly. "I oughtn't perhaps to make such a
suggestion to you--but we've become friends, St. Amant. That is why I
venture to advise you that before this next Friday you should get these
two unfortunate ladies, Mrs. Tropenell and Mrs. Pavely, out of the
country. Take them away--hide them away--in France or in Spain! If you
do that they will be spared a fathomless measure of anguish and of
shame. The presence of neither of them is essential to the course of
justice, and if they remain in England they will certainly each be
called as witnesses, in which case Mrs. Pavely will go through--well, I
can only describe it as _hell_. It is not as if the presence of either
of them would be really beneficial to Oliver Tropenell."
"Can you say that quite truly about his mother?" asked Lord St. Amant
searchingly.
Sir Angus looked up with a very troubled expression of face.
"No, I fear I can't," he answered, frankly, "for if Mrs. Tropenell can
bring herself to believe her son absolutely innocent, then, in the hands
of a skilful counsel, I have to admit that her evidence might be of
great sentimental value to Tropenell. But the same cannot be said of
Mrs. Pavely's presence in the witness-box. Whichever way you look at it,
Mrs. Pavely's presence is bound to be, in a judicial sense, detrimental
to the man in the dock. She is, if I may say so, St. Amant, a singularly
attractive woman, and ten out of every twelve of the men in Court would
probably regard her as providing a very adequate 'motive'!"
There was a pause, and then Sir Angus began again:
"What would you say to our persuading Mrs. Pavely to leave England for a
while, leaving only Mrs. Tropenell to face the music?"
"Mrs. Pavely," said Lord St. Amant thoughtfully, "would probably refuse
to leave England. I think, I fear, that she loves Oliver
Tropenell--passionately."
He added abruptly, "Are you having him watched?"
Sir Angus cleared his throat. "Well, no, not exactly _watched_. We are
of course aware that he has been staying with you for the past week, and
that he is going back to Freshley Manor--is it to-morrow, or the day
after to-morrow? I take it that he would probably prefer to be arrested
in his mother's house."
A feeling of sick horror came over the other man's heart. "I--I suppose
so," he muttered.
And then Sir Angus Kinross dropped his voice: "You really know this man
and I don't. Do you think it advisable that he should be prepared for
what is coming--that _you_, for instance, St. Amant----"
"Do you mean," exclaimed Lord St. Amant, "that I may--warn him?"
The other nodded. "Yes, that is what I suggest that you should do. I
take it that we can be quite sure that he will do nothing mad or
foolish--that he will not try to get away, for instance? It would be
quite useless, and I need hardly point out that it would ruin his
chances--later. I think you are at liberty to tell him, as from yourself
of course, that you have reason to think he has a sporting chance, St.
Amant. But I am trusting, not only to your honour, but to your secrecy
and--and discretion."
The other nodded gravely. "Tropenell's not the sort of man to run away."
"No, I don't think he is--once he knows the game is up," answered the
Commissioner of Police a trifle grimly.