THE METHODS OF PETER GANNS
Two men travelled together in the train de luxe from Milan to
Calais. Ganns wore a black band upon the sleeve of his left arm; his
companion carried the marks of mourning in his face. It seemed that
Brendon had increased in age; his countenance looked haggard; his
very voice was older.
Peter tried to distract the younger man, who appeared to listen,
though his mind was far away and his thoughts brooding upon a grave.
"The French and Italian police resemble us in the States," said Mr.
Ganns. "They are much less reticent in their methods than you
English. You, at Scotland Yard, are all for secrecy, and you claim
for your system superior results to any other. And figures support
you. In New York, in 1917, there were two hundred and thirty-six
murders and only sixty-seven convictions. In Chicago, in 1919, there
were no less than three hundred and thirty-six murders and
forty-four convictions. Pretty steep--eh? In Paris four times as
many crimes of violence are committed yearly as in London, though,
of course, the population is far smaller. Yet what are the
respective achievements of the police? Only half as many crimes are
detected by the French as by the British. Your card index system is
to be thanked for that."
He ran on and then Brendon seemed to come to himself.
"Talk about poor Albert Redmayne," he said.
"There's little to be added to what you know. Since Pendean chooses
to keep dumb, at any rate until he's extradited, we can only assume
exactly what happened; but I have no doubt of the details. It was
Pendean, of course, you saw leave the villa, while his wife held you
in conversation, and so ordered her falsehoods that you were swept
away from every other consideration save how best to rescue her from
her husband.
"She took good care to involve your own future and to say just what
was most likely to make you forget your trust. My dear, dear Albert,
forgive me if I am blunt; but when you look back, presently, you
will see that the great loss is really mine, not yours. Michael
Pendean, once out of sight, gets a boat, adopts his disguise--the
false beard and mustache found upon him--and presently rows round to
Albert's steps. He sees Assunta, who does not recognize him, and
says that he has come from Virgilio Poggi, who is at death's door at
Bellagio.
"There was no weightier temptation possible than that. Redmayne
forgets every other consideration and in five minutes has started
for Bellagio. The boat is quickly in mid-lake under the darkness and
there Albert meets his death and burial. Pendean undoubtedly
murdered him with a blow--probably just as he murdered Robert and
Bendigo Redmayne; then, no doubt, he used weights, heavy stones
brought for the purpose, and sank his victim in the tremendous
depths of Como. He was soon back again with a clean boat and his
disguise in his pocket. He had an alibi also, for we found out that
he had been drinking for more than hour at an _albergo_ before he
came back to the villa."
"Thank you," said Brendon humbly. "There can be no doubt that it was
so. And now I will ask a final favour, Ganns. What happened has made
my mind a blank in some particulars. I should be thankful and
grateful if you would retrace your steps when you were in England. I
want to go over that ground again. You will not be at the trial; but
I must be; and, praise God, this is the last time I shall ever
appear in a court of law."
He referred to a determination that he had already expressed: to
leave the police service and seek other occupation for the remainder
of his life.
"That's as may be," answered Peter, bringing out the gold snuffbox.
"I hope you'll think better of it. You've had a bitter experience
and learned a great deal that will help you in business as well as
in life. Don't be beaten by a bad woman--only remember that you had
the luck to meet and study one of the rarest female crooks our
mysterious Creator ever turned out. A face like an angel and a heart
like a devil. Let time pass and presently you'll see that this is
merely a hiatus in a career that is only begun. Much good and
valuable work lies before you; and to abandon a profession for which
you are specially suited is to fly in the face of Providence
anyway."
After a pause and a long silence, while the train sped through the
darkness of the Simplon tunnel, Peter retraced the steps by which he
had been enabled to solve the riddle of the Redmaynes.
"I told you that you had not begun at the beginning," he said. "It's
really all summed up in that. You occupied an extraordinary
position. The criminal himself, in the pride of his craft and by
reason of the consuming vanity that finally wrecked him,
deliberately brought you in. It was part of his fun--his art if you
like--that he should involve a great detective for the added joy of
making a fool of him. You were the spice in his bloody cup for
Michael Pendean--the salt, the zest. If he had merely stuck to
business, not a thousand detectives would ever have queered his
pitch. But he was as playful as any other hunting tiger. He rejoiced
in adding a thousand details to his original scheme. He was an
artist, but too florid, too decadent in his decorations. And so he
ruined what might have been the crime of the century. It is just the
touch of human fallibility that has brought Nemesis to many a great
criminal.
"The machinery he employed focussed attention from the first on the
apparent murderer rather than his victim. It appeared impossible to
doubt what had happened and Pendean's death was assumed but never
proved. Particulars concerning Robert Redmayne were abundant; yet,
during the whole course of the official inquiry, none was
forthcoming concerning the supposed victim. Of him you had heard
from his wife; and her original statement to you at Princetown--when
she invited you, doubtless at Pendean's direction, to take up the
case--was masterly because so nearly true in every respect.
"But from the time that I met and spoke with Albert's niece I began
to reflect upon that statement, and my speedy conviction was this:
that a great deal more concerning Jenny's first husband demanded to
be known. Do not suppose that I was on the track of the truth at
that period. Far from it. I only desired more data and regarded the
history of Michael Pendean as being of doubtful value, since his
wife alone was responsible for the details. It seemed to me
absolutely necessary to learn more than she was prepared to tell. I
had questioned her, but found her either ignorant of much concerning
him--or else purposely evasive. Of her three uncles, only Robert had
ever seen Michael Pendean. Neither Bendigo nor dear Albert had set
eyes on him; and that fact, though of no significance at first, of
course, became very significant indeed at a later stage of my study.
"I went first to Penzance and devoted several days to learning all
possible particulars of the Pendean family. On examining Michael
Pendean's ancestry, as a preliminary to finding out everything
remembered of Pendean himself, I at once made a highly important
discovery. Joseph Pendean, Michael's father, was often in Italy on
his pilchard business for the firm, and he married an Italian woman.
She lived with her husband at Penzance and bore him one son, and a
daughter who died in infancy. The lady seems to have given cause for
a certain amount of scandal, for her Latin temperament and lively
ways did not commend themselves to the rather austere and religious
circle in which her husband and his relations moved.
"She visited Italy sometimes and Joseph Pendean undoubtedly
regretted his marriage. He might have divorced her in the opinion of
some with whom I spoke; but for the sake of his son he would not
take this step. Michael was devoted to his mother and accompanied
her frequently to Italy. On one of these occasions, when a boy of
seventeen or eighteen, he met with an accident to his head; but I
could glean no particulars of its nature. He seems to have been a
silent and observant lad and never quarrelled with his father.
"When at last Mrs. Pendean died in Italy, her husband attended the
funeral at Naples and returned to England immediately afterward with
his son. The boy was subsequently apprenticed to a dentist, having
expressed a wish to follow that profession. He promised well, passed
his examinations and practised at Penzance for a time. But then he
ceased to be interested in the work and presently joined his
father. In connection with the pilchard trade, he now visited Italy
and often spent a month at a time in that country.
"Few could give me any information as to his nature, and pictures of
him did not apparently exist; but an elderly relative was able to
tell me that Michael had been a silent, difficult boy. She also
showed me an old photograph of his parents, taken together with
their son when he must have been a child of three, or thereabout.
His father didn't suggest a man of character; but Mrs. Pendean
appeared to be a very handsome creature indeed, and it was at the
moment I studied her features through a magnifying glass that I won
my first conviction of a familiar likeness.
"It is a rule with me, when any sudden flash of intuition throws
real or false light upon a case, to submit the inspiration to a most
searching and destructive analysis and bring every known fact
against it. Thus, on seeing a possible glimpse of Giuseppe Doria's
beautiful countenance reflected upon my eyes from the photograph of
the mother of Michael Pendean, I began to marshal all my knowledge
to confound any deduction from that accident. But judge of my
interest and surprise when I found nothing that could be pointed to
as absolute refutation of the theory now taking such swift shape in
my mind. Not one sure fact clashed with the possibility.
"Nothing at present was positively known by me which made it out of
the question that Joseph Pendean's wife should be the mother of
Giuseppe Doria. But none the less many facts might exist as yet
beyond my knowledge, which would prove such a suspicion vain. I
considered how to obtain these facts and naturally my thought turned
to Giuseppe himself. To show you by what faltering steps we
sometimes climb to safe ground, I may say that at this stage of my
inquiry I had not imagined Doria and Michael Pendean were one and
the same person. That was to come. For the moment I conceived of the
possibility that Madame Pendean, a lady who had caused some
fluttering in the Wesleyan dovecots of Penzance, might by chance
have been the mother of a second son in her native country. I
imagined that Michael and an Italian half brother might know each
other, and that the two were working together to destroy the
brothers Redmayne, so that Michael's wife should inherit all the
family money.
"Having found out what Penzance could tell me, I beat it up to
Dartmouth, because I was exceedingly anxious to learn, if possible,
the exact date when Giuseppe Doria entered the employment of Bendigo
Redmayne as motor boatman. Albert's brother hadn't any friends that
I could find; but I traced his doctor and, though he was not in a
position to enlighten me, he knew another man--an innkeeper at
Tor-cross, some miles away on the coast--who might be familiar with
this vital date.
"Mr. Noah Blades proved a very shrewd and capable chap. Bendigo
Redmayne had known him well, and it was after spending a week at the
Tor-cross Hotel with Blades and going fishing in his motor boat,
that the old sailor had decided to start one himself at 'Crow's
Nest.' He did so and his first boatman was a failure. Then he
advertised for another and received a good many applications. He'd
sailed with Italians and liked them on a ship, and he decided for
Giuseppe Doria, whose testimonials appeared to be exceptional. The
man came along and, two days after his arrival, ran Bendigo down to
Tor-cross in his launch to see Blades.
"Redmayne, of course, was full of the murder at Princetown, which
had just occurred, and the tragedy proved so interesting that Blades
had little time to notice the new motor boatman. But what matters is
that we know it was on the day after the murder--on the very day
Bendigo heard what his brother, Robert, was supposed to have done at
Foggintor Quarry--that his new man, Giuseppe Doria, arrived at
'Crow's Nest' and took on his new duties.
"From that all-important fact I built my case, and you don't need to
be told how every step of the way threw light upon the next until I
had reached the goal. Robert Redmayne is seen on the night of
Michael Pendean's supposed destruction. He is traced home again to
Paignton. He leaves his diggings before anybody is up and, from that
exit, vanishes off the face of the earth. But during the same
day--probably by noon--Giuseppe Doria arrives at 'Crow's Nest'--an
Italian whom nobody knows, or has even seen before.
"That meant good-bye to any theory of a half brother for Michael;
and it also meant that not Pendean, but his wife's uncle, Robert
Redmayne, perished on Dartmoor. And there he lies yet, my son!"
Mr. Ganns took snuff and proceeded.
"Now, having made this tremendous deduction, I looked over all the
facts again and they became very much more interesting. Every moment
I expected some crushing blow to shake my structure; at every turn I
guessed a certainty would come along and bowl my theory over; but no
such thing happened. Details, of course, there are--many little
pieces of the puzzle now known to only one man alive, and that is
Pendean himself; but the main incidents, the true picture, loomed
out clear enough for me before I left Dartmouth and came back to
Albert in London. The big things were all, not there to be shaken.
The picture was fogged at certain points, but I had no doubt as to
what it represented, and even the incredible details that seemed to
contradict reason were composed and cleaned up when Michael
Pendean's own temperament was brought as a solvent to them.
"Here, I think, we may spare a tribute of admiration to Pendean's
histrionics. I guess that his original conception and creation of
'Giuseppe Doria' was an exceedingly fine and well thought out piece
of acting. He actually lived in the character and day after day
exhibited qualities of mind and an attitude to life quite foreign to
his real rather saturnine and reserved nature. Both he and his wife
were heaven-born comedians as well as hell-born criminals.
"To return; the large particulars, then, were these: the foreground,
the middle distance and the background made a synthetic whole,
logically consistent, rational even--when you allow for the artist's
make-up. That he will leave a full statement before the end, I
venture to prophecy. His egregious vanity demands it. Nothing that
he writes is likely to be sincere and he'll have his eye on the
spotlight all the time; but you may expect a pretty complete account
of his adventures before he's hanged; you may even expect something
a little new in the suicide line if they give him a chance; for be
sure he's thought of that.
"And now I'll indicate how I brought fact after fact to bombard my
theory, and how the theory withstood every assault until I was bound
to accept it and act upon it.
"We start with the assumption that Pendean is living and Robert
Redmayne dead. We next assume that Pendean, having laid out his
wife's uncle at Foggintor, gets into his clothes, puts on a red
mustache and a red wig and starts for Berry Head on Redmayne's motor
bicycle. The sack supposed to contain the body is found, and that is
all. His purpose is to indicate a hiding-place for the corpse and
lead search in a certain direction; but he is not going to trust the
sea; he is not going to stand the risk of Robert Redmayne's corpse
spoiling his game. No, his victim never left Foggintor and probably
Michael will presently tell us where to find the body.
"Meanwhile a false atmosphere is created under which he proceeds to
his engagement at 'Crow's Nest.' And then what happens? The first
clue--the forged letter, purporting to come from Robert Redmayne to
his brother. Who sent it? Jenny Pendean on her way through Plymouth
to her Uncle Bendigo's home. She and her husband are soon together
again--working for the next stroke. As I say, they were a pair who
ought to have been on the stage, where they would have made darned
sight bigger money than the Redmayne capital all told; but crime was
in their blood; they must have met like the blades of a scissors and
found themselves heart and soul in agreement. Evil was their good;
and no doubt, when they understood each other's lawless point of
view, both felt they must join forces. A tolerable bad dame, I'm
afraid, Mark; but she knew how to love all right; and nobody doubts
that bad women can love as well as good ones--often a great deal
better.
"They settle down and the supposed death of Michael Pendean blows
over. Jenny plays widow but spends as much time as she wants in her
husband's arms all the same; and together they plan to put out poor
Ben. He'd never seen Pendean, of course, which made the Doria
swindle possible. And a great point--that only Michael himself can
clear--is the intended order of his murders. That puzzled me a bit,
because before Robert Redmayne appeared at Princetown and the
reconciliation between him and his niece and her husband was
affected, he must already have got the appointment of motor boatman
to Bendigo and known that he was going there presently under a false
name and character. I incline to think that he meant to begin with
the old sailor and that, when Robert turned up unexpectedly on
Dartmoor, he altered his plans. That accident opened the way to his
first performance if I'm not wrong; but he'll throw light on that
assumption later and show what really did pass through his mind.
"Now we come to the preliminary steps at 'Crow's Nest' which ended
in the death of the second brother. What plan was to be taken we
cannot be sure, but your second visit to Dartmouth--a surprise
visit, remember--quickened it. You offered just the starting point;
and before you left on that rough, moonlight night, Pendean had
recreated the forgery of Robert Redmayne and appeared before you in
that character. And not content with this, he kept the part going
for all it was worth. As Robert Redmayne, he broke into Strete Farm
and was seen by Mr. Brook, the farmer; while as 'Doria,' next
morning, he comes to you at Dartmouth to tell you the murderer of
Michael Pendean has reappeared.
"One may easily imagine the joy that he took in this double
impersonation and how easy it was, with the help of his wife, to
fool you to the top of your bent. He had already derived the
exquisite entertainment of seeing you jealous of his attentions to
Jenny and suspicious that she was yielding to them; while she--well,
it is instructive to consider again her treatment of you. Yes, a
very great actress; but whether inspired by love for Pendean, or
hate for her unfortunate relatives, or just pure creative joy in her
own talent, who shall say? Probably all these emotions played their
part.
"Now we get to blindman's-buff with the forgery. Follow each step.
Bendigo never sees his supposed brother once; you never see him
again. Your united search through the woods is futile; but Jenny and
her husband in the motor boat bring news of him. She comes back with
tears in her eyes. She has seen Robert Redmayne--the murderer of her
husband! She and the motor boatman have spoken to him; they describe
his miserable condition and intense desire to see his brother. They
paint a wonderful and realistic picture. Robert must see Bendigo all
alone--and he must have food and a lamp in his secret hiding-place.
He has been in France--that was a sop for you, Mark--but can endure
suspense no longer.
"Well, it's fixed up and Ben decides to meet his brother after
midnight, alone; but the old sailor's pluck wavers--who shall blame
him?--and he arranged in secret with you that you should be hidden
in his tower room when Robert Redmayne comes to keep the
appointment. He writes a letter to his brother, and Jenny and Doria
go to sea again and take it, together with stores and a lamp. While
they're away, you get planted in the tower room to watch the coming
interview; and when the pair in the motor boat return, Jenny's uncle
tells her that you've gone back to Dartmouth and will blow in again
next morning. You recollect exactly what followed. Night comes and,
at the appointed time, footsteps are heard ascending to the
observatory and Bendigo prepares to meet his brother. But no Robert
Redmayne appears. It is Giuseppe Doria. He has already had a long
talk with his master about Jenny Pendean. He has told the old sailor
of his love for Jenny and so forth. You, hidden, heard that yarn,
and how Bendigo told him to stow the subject and say no more about
it for another six months.
"Now the next thing puzzled me for a moment; but I think I know what
happened. Only Pendean's final statement, if he ever makes one, will
serve to clear the point; but I can guess that at that first
interview with Ben he tumbled to the fact that you were hidden in
the tower room. He is a man with a power of observation sharp as a
razor, and I'm inclined to bet that before he left Bendigo, after
their talk over Jenny, he'd got you--knew you were there.
"That being so, his own plans had to be modified pretty extensively.
Whether he meant to finish off Ben that night, you can't be sure;
but there is very little doubt of it. Everything was planned. The
interview with Robert had been arranged and various people,
including yourself, knew about it. His wife was ready down below to
help him get the body away, and their plans were, no doubt, mature
to the last detail. If, therefore, all had gone right with Pendean,
if you had really been away that night, next morning you would
probably have been greeted with the information that Bendigo had
disappeared. You would possibly have found evidences of a struggle
in the tower room and a pint of blood judiciously decorating the
floor, but nothing else.
"Only on the assumption that Pendean had found you out can I explain
why this didn't start under your nose. I imagine that if he had
believed his master alone at one o'clock that night, he would have
knocked him on the head and proceeded as I suggest. But he does no
such thing. He arrives in great excitement to describe another
meeting with Robert and to report that the wanderer has changed his
mind and will only see his brother in his own secret hiding-place
after dark.
"On hearing this, Bendigo bids you come out of your cupboard, and
Doria, so to call him, pretends great indignation and surprise.
"Now we get another lifelike report of runaway Robert; and finally
Bendigo consents to visit him in his hiding-place. The lamp is going
to burn and show the particular cave on that honeycombed coast where
Bendigo's brother is supposed to be concealed. Another night comes
and Ben goes to his death. Probably he was murdered instantly on
landing and disposed of at sea. Again there is going to be no dead
man. Pendean returns to you and his wife at 'Crow's Nest.' He
reports that the brothers are conferring and reveals the situation
of the hiding-place. He is soon off again and, on his second visit,
plays his tiger tricks, runs a bloody trail up the tunnel to the
plateau, and sets his trap for the police next morning.
"One needn't go over the futile hunt that followed. Everything
worked exactly as Pendean had planned, and you can very easily
picture the entertainment furnished for that vampire pair by the
course of the subsequent man hunt.
"Two Redmaynes have gone to their account and there remains but one.
Meantime the course of true love runs smoothly and Doria marries his
wife again. So, at least, they are pleased to declare, for the
satisfaction of Albert Redmayne and yourself. Needless to say they
went south together as man and wife, reported a ceremony that did
not take place, and after a reasonable delay turned their attention
to my hapless friend.
"Would you not have thought some ray of human truth might have
touched their hearts in the company of that childlike and kindly
spirit? Would you not have judged that close acquaintance with one
so amiable and large-hearted must have wakened a spark of compassion
in their souls? No; they came to kill him and the unsuspecting
victim welcomes his murderers with friendship. It is interesting to
observe that he prefers Giuseppe to his own niece. He confessed to
me that Jenny puzzled him and it seemed strange to Albert that she
had forgotten her first husband so easily. His tender sensibilities
could not admire such indifference; and no doubt he also remembered
that his niece's early record, in marrying Pendean against her
family's wishes, too much reminded him of her father's wilful ways
and headstrong passions.
"But they come on their dark business and are welcomed; and then--an
insensate act of folly! The weak spot in their remorseless plan!
Again Doria rouses Robert Redmayne from the grave; again he
challenges you! A thousand simple and safe ways had offered to
dispose of Albert Redmayne. The region in which he chose to live and
his own trusting and ingenuous character had alike made him the
easiest possible prey of any human hunter; but Michael's vanity has
grown by what it feeds on. He is an artist, and he desires to
complete his masterpiece with all due regard to form. It must be
fashioned to endure and take its place forever in the highest
categories of crime. His pride rebels against the line of least
resistance. All shall end on the same large pattern in which it was
originally conceived. He courts danger and creates difficulty that
his ultimate achievement may be the more august.
"So the forgery is trotted out once more; and it is not enough that
Jenny shall report to her uncle the advent of Robert Redmayne beside
Como. An independent witness is demanded and Assunta Marzelli sees
the big man with the red mustache, red hair and red waistcoat. She
also records the tremendous shock to her mistress that resulted from
this sudden apparition. Remember that Jenny's husband was still
supposed by Albert to be in Turin. Then the old game is played;
Doria presently arrives in person; they toy with their subject; they
enrich it with details; awaken the alarm of their unhappy victim and
send for you, designing to treat you in the same manner as before.
"Nor does Albert's appeal to me hasten their operations. Who is
Peter Ganns? A famous American bull. Good! They will have another
victim at their chariot wheels. It shall be an international
triumph. Albert Redmayne must be murdered before an audience worthy
of the occasion. The combined detective forces of the States, of
Italy, of England, shall seek Robert Redmayne and succour Albert;
but the one shall evade capture, the other perish under their eyes."
He turned to Brendon. "And they brought it off--thanks to you, my
son."
"And paid for it--thanks to you," answered Mark.
"We are but men, not machines," answered the elder. "Love thrust a
finger into your brain and created the inevitable ferment. Of course
Pendean was lightning quick to win his account from that. He may
have even calculated upon it when he made Jenny beg your aid at the
outset. He knew what men thought of her; he had doubtless taken
stock of you at Princetown and probably learned that you were
unmarried. So, when time has passed and you can look back without a
groan, you will take the large view and, seeing yourself from the
outside, forgive yourself and confess that your punishment was
weightier than your error."
In gathering dusk the train thundered through the valley of the
Rhine while, above, the mountain summits melted upon the night. A
steward looked into the carriage.
"Dinner is served, gentlemen," he said. "I will, if you please, make
your beds while you are absent."
They rose and went together to the saloon carriage.
"I'm dry, son, and I've sure earned a drink," said Peter.
"You've earned a vast deal more than I or any man can ever pay you,
Ganns," said Brendon.
"Don't say it, or think it. I've done nothing that you wouldn't have
done if you had been free. And always remember this: I shall never
blame you, even when I think with dearest affection of my old
friend. I shall only blame myself, because the final, fatal mistake
was mine--not yours. I was the fool to trust you and had no excuse
for doing so. You were not to be trusted for a moment just then, and
I ought to have known it. 'Twas our limited capability that made you
err, that made me err, that made Michael Pendean err. The best laid
plans of mice and men--you know, Mark. The villain mars his
villainy; the virtuous smudge their white record; the deep brain
suddenly runs dry--all because perfection, in good or evil, is
denied to saints and sinners alike."