MISTAKEN IDENTITY.
To Cyril Waring himself, the arrest at Dover came as an immense
surprise; rather a surprise, indeed, than a shock just at first, for
he could only treat it as a mistaken identity. The man the police
wanted was Guy, not himself; and that Guy should have done it was
clearly incredible.
As he landed from the Ostend packet, recalled to England unexpectedly
by the announcement that the Rio Negro Diamond Mines had gone
with a crash--and no doubt involved Guy in the common ruin--Cyril
was astonished to find himself greeted on the Admiralty Pier by a
policeman, who tapped him on the shoulder with the casual remark,
"I think your name's Waring."
Cyril answered at once, "Yes, my name's Waring."
It didn't occur to him at the moment that the man meant to arrest
him.
"Then you're wanted," the minion of authority answered, seizing his
arm rather gruffly. "We've got a warrant out to-day against you,
my friend. You'd better come along with me quietly to the station."
"A warrant!" Cyril repeated, amazed, shaking off the man's hand.
"There must be some mistake somewhere."
The policeman smiled. "Oh yes," he answered briskly, with some
humour in his tone. "There's always a mistake, of course, in all
these arrests. You never get a hold of the right man just at first.
It's sure to be a case of his twin brother. But there ain't no
mistake this time, don't you fear. I knowed you at once, when I
see you, by your photograph. Though we were looking out for you, to
be sure, going the other way. But it's you all right. There ain't
a doubt about that. Warrant in the name of Guy Waring, gentleman;
wanted for the wilful murder of a man unknown, said to be one
McGregor, alias Montague Nevitt, on the 27th instant, at Mambury,
in Devonshire."
Cyril gave a sudden start at the conjunction of names, which naturally
increased his captor's suspicions. "But there IS a mistake, though,"
he said angrily, "even on your own showing. You've got the wrong
man. It's not I that am wanted. My name's Cyril Waring, and Guy is
my brother's. Though Guy can't have murdered Mr. Nevitt, either, if
it comes to that; they were most intimate friends. However, that's
neither here nor there. I'm Cyril, not Guy; I'm not your prisoner."
"Oh yes, you are, though," the officer answered, holding his arm very
tight, and calling mutely for assistance by a glance at the other
policemen. "I've got your photograph in my pocket right enough.
Here's the man we've orders to arrest at once. I suppose you won't
deny, now, that's your living image."
Cyril glanced at the photograph with another start of surprise.
Sure enough, it WAS Guy; his last new cabinet portrait. The police
must be acting under some gross misapprehension.
"That man's my brother," he said confidently, brushing the photograph
aside. "I can't understand it at all. This is extremely odd. It's
impossible my brother can even be suspected of committing murder."
The policeman smiled cynically. "Well, it ain't impossible your
brother's brother can be suspected, anyhow," he said, with a quiet
air of superior knowledge. "The good old double trick's been tried
on once too often. If I was you, I wouldn't say too much. Whatever
you say may be used as evidence at the trial against you. You just
come along quietly to the station with me--take his other arm, Jim,
that's right: no violence please, prisoner--and we'll pretty soon
find out whether you're the man we've got orders to arrest, or his
twin brother." And he winked at his ally. He was proud of having
effected the catch of the season.
"But I AM his twin brother," Cyril said, half struggling still to
release himself. "You can't take me up on that warrant, I tell you.
It's not my name. I'm not the man you've orders to look for."
"Oh, that's all right," the constable answered as before, with an
incredulous smile. "Don't you go trying to obstruct the police in
the exercise of their duty. If I can't take you up on the warrant
as it stands, well, anyhow, I can arrest you on suspicion all the
same, for looking so precious like the photograph of the man as is
wanted. Twin brothers ain't got any call, don't you know, to sit,
turn about, for one another's photographs. It hinders the administration
of justice; that's where it is. And remember, whatever you choose
to say may be used as evidence at the trial against you."
Thus adjured, Cyril yielded at last to force majeure and walked arm
in arm between the two policemen, followed by a large and admiring
crowd, to the nearest station.
But the matter was far less easily arranged than at first imagined.
An innocent man who knows his own innocence, taken up in mistake
for a brother whom he believes to be equally incapable of the crime
with which he is charged, naturally expects to find no difficulty
at all in proving his identity and escaping from custody on a false
charge of murder. But the result of a hasty examination at the station
soon effectually removed this little delusion. His own admission
that the photograph was a portrait of Guy, and his resemblance
to it in every leading particular, made the authorities decide on
the first blush of the thing this was really the man Scotland Yard
was in search of. He was trying to escape them on the ridiculous
pretext that he was in point of fact his own twin brother. The
inspector declined to let him go for the night. He wasn't going to
repeat the mistake that was made in the Lefroy case, he said very
decidedly. He would send the suspected person under escort to
Tavistock.
So to Tavistock Cyril went, uncertain as yet what all this could
mean, and ignorant of the crime with which he was charged, if indeed
any crime had been really committed. All the way down, an endless
string of questions suggested themselves one by one to his excited
mind. Was Nevitt really dead? And if so, who had killed him? Was
it suicide to escape from the monetary embarrassments brought about
by the failure of the Rio Negro Diamond Mines, or was it accident
or mischance? Or was it in fact a murder? And in any case--strangest
of all--where was Guy? Why didn't Guy come forward and court inquiry?
For as yet, of course, Cyril hadn't received his brother's letter,
with the incriminating pocket-book and the three thousand pounds;
nor indeed, for several days after, as things turned out, was there
even a possibility of his ever receiving it.
Next morning, however, when Cyril was examined before the Tavistock
magistrates, he began to realize the whole strength of the case
against him. The proceedings were purely formal, as the lawyers
said; yet they were quite enough to make Cyril's cheek turn pale
with horror. One witness after another came forward and swore to
him. The station-master at Mambury gave evidence that he had made
inquiries on the platform after Nevitt by name; the inn-keeper
deposed as to his excited behaviour when he called at the Talbot
Arms, and his recognition of McGregor as the person he was in search
of; the boy of whom Guy had inquired at the gate unhesitatingly
set down the conversation to Cyril. None of them had the faintest
doubt in his own mind--each swore--that the prisoner before the
magistrates was the self-same person who went over to Mambury on
that fatal day, and who followed Montague Nevitt down the path by
the river.
As Cyril listened, one terrible fact dawned clearer and clearer
upon his brain. Every fragment of evidence they piled up against
himself made the case against Guy look blacker and blacker.
The magistrates accepted the proofs thus tendered, and Cyril, as
yet unassisted by professional advice, was remanded accordingly
till next morning.
Just as he was about to leave the Sessions House in a tumult of
horror, fear, and suspense, somebody close by tapped him on the
shoulder gravely, after a few whispered words with the chairman
and the magistrates. Cyril turned round, and saw a burly man with
very large hands, whom he remembered to have had pointed out to
him in London, and, strange to say, by Montague Nevitt himself--as
the eminent Q.C., Mr. Gilbert Gildersleeve.
The great advocate was pale, but very sincere and earnest. Cyril
noticed his manner was completely changed. It was clear some
overmastering idea possessed his soul.
"Mr. Waring," he said, looking him full in the face, "I see you're
unrepresented. This is a case in which I take a very deep interest.
My conduct's unprofessional, I know--point-blank against all our
recognised etiquette--but perhaps you'll excuse it. Will you allow
me to undertake your defence in this matter?"
Cyril turned round to him with truly heartfelt thanks. It was a
great relief to him, alone and in doubt, and much wondering about
Guy, to hear a friendly word from whatever quarter.
And Cyril knew he was safe in Gilbert Gildersleeve's hands: the
greatest criminal lawyer of the day in England might surely be
trusted to set right such a mere little error of mistaken identity.
Though for Guy--whenever Guy gave himself up to the police--Cyril
felt the position was far more dangerous. He couldn't believe,
indeed, that Guy was guilty; yet the circumstances, he could no
longer conceal from himself, looked terribly black against him.
"You're too good," he cried, taking the lawyer's hand in his with
very fervent gratitude. "How can I thank you enough? I'm deeply
obliged to you."
"Not at all," Gilbert Gildersleeve answered, with very blanched
lips. He was ashamed of his duplicity. "You've nothing to thank me
for. This case is a simple one, and I'd like to see you out of it.
I've met your brother; and the moment I saw you I knew you weren't
he, though you're very like him. I should know you two apart wherever
I saw you."
"That's curious," Cyril cried, "for very few people know us from
one another, except the most intimate friends."
The Q.C. looked at him with a very penetrating glance. "I had
occasion to see your brother not long since," he answered slowly,
"and his features and expression fastened themselves indelibly on
my mind's eye. I should know you from him at a glance. This case,
as you say, is one of mistaken identity. That's just why I'm so
anxious to help you well through it."
And indeed, Gilbert Gildersleeve, profoundly agitated as he was,
saw in the accident a marvellous chance for himself to secure a
diversion of police attention from the real murderer. The fact was,
he had passed twenty-four hours of supreme misery. As soon as he
learned from common report that "the murderer was caught, and was
being brought to Tavistock," he took it for granted at first that
Guy hadn't gone to Africa at all, but had left by rail for the
East, and been arrested elsewhere. That belief filled him full
of excruciating terrors. For Gilbert Gildersleeve, accidental
manslaughterer as he was, was not by any means a depraved or wholly
heartless person. Big, blustering, and gruff, he was yet in essence
an honest, kind-hearted, unemotional Englishman. His one desire
now was to save his wife and daughter from further misery; and if
he could only save them, he was ready to sacrifice for the moment,
to a certain extent, Guy Waring's reputation. But if Guy Waring
himself had stood before him in the dock, he must have stepped
forward to confess. The strain would have been too great for him.
He couldn't have allowed an innocent man to be hanged in his place.
Come what might, in that case he must let his wife and daughter
go, and save the innocent by acknowledging himself guilty. So, when
he looked at the prisoner, it gave him a shock of joy to see that
fortune had once more befriended him. Thank Heaven, thank Heaven,
it wasn't the man they wanted at all. This was the other brother
of the two--Cyril, the painter, not Guy, the journalist.
In a moment the acute and experienced criminal hand recognised
that this chance told unconsciously in his own favour. Like every
other suspected person, he wanted time, and time would be taken
up in proving an alibi for Cyril, as well as showing by concurrent
proof that he was not his brother. Meanwhile, suspicion would fix
itself still more firmly upon Guy, whose flight would give colour
to the charges brought against him by the authorities.
So the great Q.C. determined to take up Cyril Waring's case as a
labour of love, and didn't doubt he would succeed in finally proving
it.