A Link in the Chain
Fred Thomas came away a good deal dissatisfied from his discussion
with his client. Walter Brooklyn, he felt, had given him little enough
to go upon. He persisted in affirming that he had not been in Liskeard
House that night, and in denying absolutely that he had either rung up
his Club and given a message or left his walking-stick in Prinsep’s
room. Yet surely, Thomas argued, the police, if they had proceeded to
the drastic step of an arrest, must have some definite proof that he
had been in the house, or at any rate some clear indication of his
complicity. He did not believe that his client was being frank with
him; and, while he had not said this outright, a hint of what he
thought had produced a violent outburst of bad temper from Brooklyn,
and almost caused him to tell his legal adviser to clear out and come
back no more. This had served to confirm Thomas’s idea that Brooklyn
was lying, and his thought, as he went away, was that, if he tried
again, probably Brooklyn would tell him the truth when he cooled down
and came to realise more fully what his position was. In his
experience imprisonment had a wonderfully sobering effect. Meanwhile,
Thomas made up his mind to see Carter Woodman, and try to find out
from him more definitely how matters stood. Woodman, presumably, would
want Walter Brooklyn to get off, even if he believed him to be guilty.
He would probably not want a member of the Brooklyn family to be
convicted of murder, whatever the truth might be.
Thomas had not long left Walter Brooklyn when Joan arrived to see him.
She had come into the police-station alone, leaving Lucas and Ellery
outside in the car to wait for her return. While they waited, Ellery
told his guardian more about his engagement to Joan, and received from
him very hearty congratulations. “You didn’t take my advice, my boy,”
Lucas said; “but now that things have come out right, I’m most
heartily glad that you didn’t. I have hoped for this for a long time.
I’m very fond of you both, and I can see there’s no doubt about your
being fond of each other.” Which was very pleasant hearing for Ellery;
for he had a great liking for his guardian, and he knew that his
friendly countenance would be likely to stand him in good stead with
Sir Vernon Brooklyn, of whom he was more than a little afraid. “You
must back me up with Sir Vernon,” he said; and Lucas readily promised
his help.
It was three-quarters of an hour before Joan came out of the
police-station. She seemed well satisfied, smiling back at the
policeman who accompanied her to the door. “He has told you?” asked
Ellery, as he held open the door of the car.
“What he had to tell,” Joan replied. “It was not very much; but it
makes everything different. Let us go back and talk it over.”
Lucas drove straight back to Liskeard House, and there, in Joan’s
room, the three held a consultation. “He was not here at all,” she
told them. “I mean he did not come back to the house on Tuesday night.
The telephone message must be all a mistake.”
“Do you mean that he knows nothing at all about it?” asked Ellery.
“I am quite sure that he knows nothing. He has told me exactly what he
did after leaving here and up to the time when he went back to his
Club.”
“You may think I ought not to ask this, Joan,” said Lucas; “but are
you quite sure of what you say?”
“Absolutely sure. He was telling me the truth, I know.”
“Then I suppose,” Ellery put in, “we can produce witnesses to prove
that he was somewhere else when he was supposed to be here. But who
the devil did send that telephone message if he did not?”
Lucas put in a word. “Never mind that for the moment. The main thing
now is to prove that he did not send it. Who was with him and where
was he?”
“Ah, that’s just the difficulty. He has told me exactly where he went;
but I don’t see how we can find any one to prove it.”
“Do you mean that he was alone all the time, and no one saw him?”
asked Ellery.
“Well, not quite that; but something very like it, I’m afraid.”
Then Joan was allowed to tell her story. Walter Brooklyn, after being
refused an interview with Sir Vernon, had left Liskeard House at about
a quarter past ten. He had stopped for a minute or two outside the
Piccadilly Theatre, wondering what to do next. Then he had walked
slowly along Piccadilly and into the Circus. There again he had hung
about for a few minutes, and had then gone slowly along Coventry
Street as far as Leicester Square. He had walked round the Square, and
outside the Alhambra had stopped for a few minutes to talk to a woman
of his acquaintance—“not at all a nice woman, I am afraid,—and he
knows no more about her than that her name is Kitty, and that she is
often to be found about there. He doesn’t even know her surname. It
was about a quarter to eleven when he met her.”
Then he had gone on past the Hippodrome and up Charing Cross Road as
far as Cambridge Circus. He had stopped for a few minutes outside the
Palace, but had not spoken to any one, and then he had walked down
Shaftesbury Avenue and back into Piccadilly Circus. In Cambridge
Circus he had lighted a cigar with his last match; but it had gone
out. Just outside the Monico he had stopped a man he did not
know—“fellow came out of the place, he looked like a waiter, don’t you
know”—and had borrowed a match and re-lighted his cigar. Then he had
crossed the Circus again, and walked back down Piccadilly as far as
the turning leading to Liskeard House. He had half a mind, he said, to
go in and ask to see Prinsep; but after hanging about for a few
minutes he had given up the idea, crossed the road, and walked down
St. James’s Street with the idea of looking in at his other Club. But
he had decided not to go in, and had walked past the door down Pall
Mall and into Trafalgar Square. At the top of Whitehall he had looked
at his watch, and the time had been 11.45. Just before that, he had
hung over the parapet on the National Gallery side of the Square for a
minute or two; but he had no conversation with any one. On leaving the
Square, he turned up Regent Street and made his way, walking a good
deal faster, along Jermyn Street and up St. James’s Street, and so
back to his Club in Piccadilly. He had thus again passed Liskeard
Street, but on the opposite side of the road. When he got in, he had
gone straight to bed.
This account of Walter Brooklyn’s movements was quite convincing to
Joan and her two listeners; but they had to admit that there was not
much in it to persuade others of its truth. According to his own
account, he must have been in the neighbourhood of Liskeard House at
11.30 when the ’phone message was supposed to have been sent; and not
one of his movements between 10.15 and midnight seemed to be at all
easy to confirm by any independent testimony. When Joan had finished
her narrative, they all felt that, if Walter Brooklyn’s vindication
was to depend on an _alibi_, his chances were not particularly good.
Still, if he had not been in the house, the police could after all
have very little against him beyond a suspicion.
At this point Mary Woodman came into the room to say that Sir Vernon
would be very pleased if Mr. Lucas would come and sit with him for a
while, and Lucas, promising to obey her order to be very quiet and not
to allow the patient to excite himself, was led off to the sick room.
“I tell you what, Joan,” said Ellery, who had been sitting still, with
a prodigious frown on his face, trying to think the thing over, “we’ve
jolly well got to establish that _alibi_. We don’t know what else the
police may have; but we’re safe enough if we can prove that he wasn’t
here that evening. Unless we can establish positively that he wasn’t
there, the circumstantial evidence will go down with a jury.”
“But how can we establish it? I only wish we could.”
“We’re going to. We’re going to find those people he spoke to, and
we’re going to hunt London for people who saw him strolling about.
After all, he’s very well known, and lots of people must have seen
him. I know we shall be able to prove he’s telling the truth.”
“You’re a dear to say so, and I don’t see what we can do but try. How
do you propose to set about it?”
“First of all, I propose that we make a map of the wanderings of
Ulysses—shall we call it?—showing exactly where he went, whom he spoke
to and when, and so on. That will help us to see exactly what’s the
best way of getting to work.”
So Ellery took a sheet of paper, and they sat down side by side at the
table. Under Joan’s directions, Ellery made a map of Walter Brooklyn’s
journeyings on Tuesday evening. It took an hour to do, and this is
what it looked like when it was done, with notes to help them in
prosecuting their inquiries.
[Illustration: A map of some streets in London, entitled “Walter
Brooklyn’s Odyssey.” A dotted line traces a path from Liskeard House
to Byron Club that meanders along a dozen streets, including
Piccadilly, Charing Cross Road, Jermyn Street, Pall Mall, and Liskeard
Street. Nine different points on the path are labelled indicating
points where Walter Brooklyn engaged in some activity.]
“It isn’t very hopeful, I’m afraid,” said Joan, as they looked
together at the finished plan; “but I’m afraid it is all we have to go
upon.”
“Not quite all, I hope. Did he tell you what the man he spoke to
looked like—I mean the chap who gave him a match outside the Monico?”
“Yes, he was a tall, dark man, clean-shaven and very blue in the chin,
wearing a long black overcoat and a squash hat. And he almost
certainly had some trouble of the eyes. He wore glasses; but he kept
blinking all the time behind them.”
“That ought to help. Now what about this woman, Kitty? What is she
like?”
“He says she is about forty, but dresses—and paints—to look younger.
She’s getting fat, has bright golden hair—certainly dyed—and wears a
great many rings. She’s fairly tall, and walks with a bit of a waddle.
Her eyes are dark and piercing, he says, and she has a smile that
looks as if it was switched on and off like an electric light.”
“I must say she doesn’t sound attractive.”
“But he says she is—extraordinarily; and, what is more, she’s very
well known. He has heard her other name, but he can’t remember it. He
thinks she has had several surnames.”
“That seems to be all we can get to start with. What I propose to do
is to follow your stepfather’s route, trying to find some one who saw
him at each point where he stopped.”
“Yes, but you can leave a bit of it to me. We know that Marian and
Helen and Carter all saw him coming here at a few minutes past ten,
and the servants here say he left at about a quarter-past. He tells me
he stopped outside the theatre just after that. If so, some one very
likely saw him. I’ll see about that, and I’ll try to find out as well
whether any one saw him passing again later. He must have passed at
about 11.20 to half-past—I mean when he stood at the corner of
Liskeard Street, and again just before twelve on his way back to the
Club.”
“Very well. You take this end and I’ll follow the rest of his
wanderings. And there is no reason why I shouldn’t get to work at
once. It will be best to go over the ground in the evening, just as he
did.”
They sat and talked of the case for a while longer; and then they sat
for a time without talking at all, happy in each other’s presence
despite the tragedy in which they were involved. At length Ellery
started up, saying that he must go out and get some dinner, and then
go to work seriously.
“And by the way, Joan,” he added, “why shouldn’t you come out and have
dinner with me? I’m sure Mary would look after Sir Vernon.”
“My dear boy, does it occur to you that I’ve left him to himself for a
good long time already—or rather left poor Mary alone to look after
him? I couldn’t have done it if Marian had not promised to come in and
help.”
“I’m sure Mary wouldn’t mind,” Ellery began, pleading with her to
come.
“Oh, of course, Mary’s an angel. She never minds anything. But that’s
no reason why she should be put upon. No, my boy, you go and have your
bachelor dinner, and I’ll get Winter to send me up an egg.”
“Mayn’t I share the egg?”
“Certainly not. Get along with you.” And Joan sped her lover on his
way with the taste of her kiss fresh on his mouth. It seemed a
profanation to eat anything after that; but all the same, while Joan
ate her egg and then took her turn in watching over Sir Vernon,
Ellery, seated alone in the grill room at Hatchett’s was making a very
solid and satisfactory meal. Somehow, love seemed to give one an
appetite, he reflected, as he lighted a cigar. Then he set forth upon
his quest, walking slowly down Piccadilly towards the Circus. He had
no fixed plan of action. As he put it to himself, he was following the
route Walter Brooklyn had taken and just keeping his eyes open, in the
hope that something might turn up. Nothing did turn up till he reached
Piccadilly Circus. There, as he knew, Walter Brooklyn had hung about
for a few minutes, but had spoken to no one.
The quest certainly did not seem to be hopeful. Piccadilly Circus was
crowded with people, some hurrying this way or that in pursuit of some
definite object, others standing or strolling about as if they had
nothing to do and nowhere in particular to go. The flower-women who
sit on the island in the middle of the Circus in the daytime had
already left their posts, and would presumably have done so on Tuesday
before Walter Brooklyn took that disastrous walk. But before long
Ellery picked out two persons who remained at fixed spots while the
rest of the crowd changed from minute to minute. The one was a
policeman regulating the traffic and the queues at the point where the
buses stopped by the island: the other was a night-watchman in his
little hut, keeping guard over a piece of the roadway which was under
repair. These were the most likely of all the crowd to have been there
on Tuesday night, and with them he determined to begin his inquiries.
The policeman was quickly disposed of. He had not been on duty on
Tuesday; but a little persuasion in tangible form soon secured the
name of the constable who had, and the news that he had only been kept
away that night by a misadventure, and would be on duty again the
following night. Ellery made a note of the name, and said to himself
that he must see the other policeman later. For the present he
strolled over towards the watchman, whom he found reading a tattered
book in his little cabin, by the light partly of the lamps and sky
signs, and partly, though it was a warm summer evening, of a blazing
fire in a pail. He was a little, old man with a pair of steel
spectacles, which had carved a deep rut in his nose, and he seemed to
be reading with extraordinarily concentrated attention. Ellery managed
to see what the book was. It was _Sartor Resartus_. The man was
clearly a “scholar,” and probably a homely philosopher of the
working-class.
It seemed best to use the opening which providence had provided.
“That’s a fine book you’ve got there,” said Ellery, casting his mind
back to the days at school, when he had first and last read his
_Sartor_, only to forget all about it and Carlyle as he reached years
of discretion.
The little old man peered up at him over his glasses. “It is _the_
book for me,” he said. “That Carlyle, sir, he was a man.”
“I dare say you manage to read a great deal at your job.”
“I do that. You see, I had a accident ten years ago. ’Fore that, I was
a navvy; but that finished me—for heavy work, I mean. At first, I was
wretched at this job; the company gave it me, when doctor said I was
fit for light work. And then it came to me I’d take up reading, like.
I hadn’t hardly ever opened a book till then—not since school. I can
tell you, it’s been a revelation to me. I don’t ask nothing better
than to sit here with a good book now. But it isn’t often one of you
gentlemen seems to notice what I’m reading.”
The old man spoke slowly, and rather as if he was thinking aloud. He
seemed almost to have forgotten that Ellery was there.
“Perhaps I shouldn’t have noticed, unless there had been something I
wanted to ask you. A man’s life may depend on it, and I wanted your
help.”
The old man peered up at him again, and a little gleam of excitement
came into his eyes; but he only nodded to Ellery to go on.
Ellery handed him a photograph of Walter Brooklyn. “On Tuesday night,
at about half-past ten, that man stopped for some minutes on the
island in the middle of the Circus here. He is accused of having been
somewhere else, and his life may depend on our finding some one who
saw him here. What I want to ask is whether you happened to notice
him.”
The old man thought for a minute before answering. “I can’t say I did;
but I seem to know his face somehow. Half-past ten, you said?”
“Then or then abouts, it must have been.”
“No, I didn’t see him. At half-past ten I was in here reading, and I
didn’t notice much. But I know I’ve seen that chap somewhere. Wait a
minute while I think.”
Ellery waited. It seemed a long while before the old man went on.
“Now, if you’d have said half-past eleven, or maybe a quarter-past, I
should have said I saw him.”
“Yes. Why, he did cross the Circus again at about that time.”
“Then I saw him. It was like this, you see. About a quarter-past
eleven on Tuesday I gets up to walk round the works here and see if
all’s right. Up there at the corner by Shaftesbury Avenue I saw a
gentleman—very like your gentleman he was and smoking a big cigar—come
strolling across the road. Very slow, he was walking. Seemed as if he
was annoyed about something—waving his stick in the air, he was, as if
he was making believe to hit somebody. I only noticed him because a
big motor-car came round suddenly from Regent Street as he was
crossing, and he had to skip. Came straight into the ropes round the
work up there. I hurried to see if he was all right; but before I got
there he dusted himself down and walked on. I’m almost sure he was
your man. I’ve got a memory for faces, and I noticed him particularly
because he seemed that ratty, if I may say so.”
“Can you tell me again what time that was?”
“Not far short of half-past eleven—leastways it was after the quarter,
twenty to twenty-five past, maybe.”
Ellery congratulated himself on an extraordinary stroke of luck. It
was, of course, far more important to establish Walter Brooklyn’s
presence in Piccadilly Circus between 11.15 and 11.30 than at 10.30;
but it had seemed impossible to do so. Some one might have noticed him
when he hung about there for several minutes; but it seemed very
unlikely that his mere walking across the Circus at the later time
could have been confirmed. By a lucky chance it had been, and the
first link in the _alibi_ had been successfully joined.
The next thing was to get the watchman’s name and address, and to
arrange for his appearance if he were called upon. The old man readily
gave the particulars; but when Ellery talked of payment for his
services, he refused. “I don’t want money for it,” he said; “not
unless I have to appear in court. Then I’ll want my expenses same as
another. But I’ll tell you what. If I’ve done you a good turn, you
come here again some night and talk to me about books. That’ll be a
lot more to me than what you’d give me. There ain’t no one I’ve got to
talk to about what I read. It’ll be a treat to have a talk to a gent
like you, what knows all about books and what’s inside ’em.”
“I’m afraid,” said Ellery, “you do me too much credit. It’s years
since I read Carlyle, and I’ve forgotten most about him. But I’ll come
back, and lend you some more of him if you want it. But I expect you
know a lot more about him than I do.”
It turned out that what the old man wanted above all else was a copy
of Carlyle’s _Cromwell_. Ellery promised to bring it, and after a few
words more they parted on the best of terms, and Ellery walked on
slowly along Coventry Street and into Leicester Square. He felt that
luck was on his side.