JEREMIAH AND HIS MOTHER DISAPPEAR.
That was the busiest of days. There was so much for Richard Garden to do
that the wonder was how the young fellow got through it. There were
reports from Kiss and Linton to receive from time to time; interviews to
be held with the Home Secretary; interviews also with the judge and with
the lawyers for the prosecution; test examinations of Tom Barley by
experts in colour-blindness; excursions to Scotland Yard; and a thousand
matters to be attended to. Other persons were busy as well. There was
sunshine once more in Aunt Leth's house; the family were looking forward
with eager impatience to the joy of their dear girl's release; the room
which Phoebe shared with Fanny was made bright with flowers and
ribbons; every bit of furniture in the house was polished, every
saucepan lid scoured. Uncle Leth came home early from the bank, loaded
with delicacies for Phoebe. Yes; everything was for Phoebe. Clean
linen on every bed, a fire in every room, her own chair here in this
corner, on the table the books she loved, the piano open, with her
favourite songs ready, her desk looking like new, with fresh ink and
pens and paper--everywhere spiritual signs of love. "Oh mamma, mamma!"
sighed Fanny again and again, and, clasped in each other's arms, the
mother and daughter wept happy tears, and kissed and laughed, and then
broke into tears again. "But we must be patient, darling," said Aunt
Leth. "See what Fred says in this telegram--'It cannot be to-day. There
are formalities to be gone through. I have seen Phoebe. She knows
something, but not all. I feared that the shock would be too great. They
say in the prison that she is an angel. She sends you her dearest love.
I cannot come to you. Dick and I are very busy. God bless you all!' So
you see, Fanny, we _must_ be patient." Telegrams were flying to and fro
all the day. 'Melia Jane was wild with joy. "Tom may come now when he
likes," she said, "and I shall have a beautiful fortune to tell him."
But Tom did not come to the house, nor did he send a message, of even a
single word.
At eight o'clock in the evening Fred was alone in his rooms, waiting for
Kiss, who had arranged to come for him. In company with Linton and a
policeman in private clothes they were to follow Jeremiah and his mother
when those two left their lodgings to meet the woman who had stolen the
bracelet. They were not acquainted with the place of meeting, but it had
been settled that the Pamfletts should be stealthily followed, and that
steps should be taken to overhear what took place between them and the
woman, and that afterward the three should be arrested. Garden could not
form one of the party: he had too much to attend to.
It was destined, however, that this carefully-laid plan was not to be
carried out. Everything else had succeeded, but this part of the
programme of action was doomed to failure.
Kiss did not appear until half past eight, and when he entered the room
Fred divined from the distress depicted in his face that something had
gone wrong. His first words were:
"They have escaped us, Mr. Cornwall."
"Escaped you!" cried Fred, in great excitement.
"Yes. It is an unfortunate fact. I could beat my head against the wall.
Whether their suspicions were aroused, or whether they had previously
decided upon some course of action of which we were in ignorance, I
cannot say; but they have disappeared, and so mysteriously that we don't
know what to make of it."
"You, or one of you, saw them go, surely?"
"No, sir, we did not; and that is the strangest part of it. We all
thought they were in their rooms; nothing had been heard of them for
three or four hours, and we supposed they were asleep. At last Mrs.
Linton came down from her cupboard, and said she did not know what to
think of it, but it really seemed to her as if their rooms must be
empty. Upon this the landlady said she would go up and ask them whether
they required anything, and she did so; a minute afterward she called to
us to come up, and we went. Their rooms _were_ empty; the fiends had
disappeared; and that they were gone for good was proved by their having
taken certain things with them which, if they had only gone on an
errand, they need not have touched."
"Perhaps they will come back," said Fred.
"Not they, sir," said Kiss, shaking his head. "They are a cunning pair,
and they know what they are about. They have thrown us off the scent,
Mr. Cornwall; there's no doubt in my mind about that."
Fred considered a moment. "You have the address of the woman they were
to meet?"
"Yes, Mr. Cornwall."
"Give it to me. I will rattle there in a cab, and if I cannot learn
anything about her, I will join you at No. 12."
"You will find it difficult to obtain any information of her, sir."
"Money will accomplish anything. I shall find out what I want to know."
Promising the cabman double fare if he drove at his fastest pace, Fred,
in less than half an hour, arrived at the woman's lodgings. The
landlady, as Kiss had foreseen, was disinclined to speak of her lodger,
but a tip of half a sovereign and the promise of another loosened her
tongue.
"I don't see, after all," said the landlady, "why I shouldn't oblige
you. She has left the rooms, and is not coming back."
Then she related how the woman had gone away in an open manner, saying
that she was about to leave England, and did not intend to return. She
was not going abroad alone; some friends were going with her. That was
all.
"Can you tell me her name?" asked Fred.
The landlady replied that she did not know it.
That was the extent of the information Fred could obtain; and there was
nothing for it but to go back to Surrey Street and ascertain whether
anything had been heard of the Pamfletts. Nothing had been heard, and
none of the neighbours could enlighten them. It was evident that they
must have taken the greatest pains to get out of the neighbourhood
unobserved.
When Garden was informed of what had taken place he was inexpressibly
annoyed. It happened that Tom Barley was with him when Fred was giving
an account of the occurrence.
"Ah, well," said Garden, presently, "we must make the best of it. We
must put the police on their guard immediately. The night trains to the
Continent must be watched, and to-morrow we will offer a reward for
their apprehension. I may manage to get an advertisement in some of the
papers to-night. I have seen Mr. Quinlan, the wealthy owner of the
stolen bracelet, and he has admitted that it was the genuine one which
was stolen. He said he told the story to the police and the reporters in
order that he should not be annoyed. 'I am rich enough to be able to
afford such a loss,' he said. Wish we were--eh, Fred? I doubt whether I
should have succeeded in prevailing upon him to let me pursue the case
had I not informed him that in connection with it was a diabolical
murder, for which an innocent girl had been condemned to death. 'The man
who has the bracelet,' I said, 'is the man who committed the murder, and
he and another laid an infernal plot to bring a beautiful girl to a
shameful end.' This excited him, and he has given me _carte blanche_ as
to the expenses. So to-morrow we will offer a reward of five hundred
pounds for the apprehension of Jeremiah Pamflett and his mother. It is
good to know that their disappearance will not retard Miss Farebrother's
release; everything is in training for that happy event. Ill as I can
afford it, I would give something out of my own pocket to know what
takes place to-night between the murderers and thieves."
To some extent, the late editions of the newspapers on the following day
supplied him and the country with the intelligence he desired to obtain:
"THE MURDER OF MISER FAREBROTHER.--THE MYSTERY OF THE DIAMOND
BRACELET.--STRANGE REVELATIONS.
"The painful interest excited in the public mind by the trial of Miss
Farebrother for the murder of her father, Miser Farebrother--a crime of
which, in the teeth of the verdict, the young lady is now incontestably
proved to be innocent--will be revived by the account we now publish of
an outrage which took place last night, in an untenanted timber-yard
near Nine Elms.
"These premises have been unoccupied for some considerable time. They
are of large extent, and out of the way of regular traffic. Early this
morning, just before sunrise, the policeman on the beat, passing the
timber-yard, heard a sound as of a person moaning within. Entrance to
the yard is obtained through a pair of wooden gates, which are in a very
dilapidated condition, being practically off their hinges. Indeed, by
persons of the neighbourhood they are regarded as unsafe, and as likely
soon to fall to pieces. The policeman, passing through these gates and
going some distance into the yard--his course being guided by the faint
moaning which had first arrested his attention--saw before him a woman
in a frightful state. She was bleeding from a deep wound at the back of
her neck, which must have been inflicted some hours previously, and was
not sufficiently sensible to understand or reply to the questions
addressed to her. Without delay the policeman procured assistance, and
the woman was conveyed to St. Thomas's Hospital, where she was examined
by the surgeon, who pronounced the wound she had received fatal, giving
it as his opinion that she could not live twenty-four hours. Her
pockets, which bore the appearance of having been rifled, contained
nothing which afforded a clue to her name or address, nor were her
clothes marked in a way which would lead to her identification. At ten
o'clock this morning the woman recovered consciousness, and being made
sensible that death was approaching, requested the presence of a
magistrate, to whom she made her dying deposition, which we give here
word for word:
"'My name is Maria Baily. I was in the employ of a wealthy lady, Mrs.
Quinlan. I was acquainted with a man who called himself Captain
Ablewhite, but that is not his right name, and I don't know what is. He
promised to marry me, and he prevailed upon me to steal a diamond
bracelet of great value. It was worth forty or fifty thousand pounds.
What I did with the bracelet after I took it from the jewel-safe of my
mistress has been described in all the papers. We were stopping at the
Langham Hotel. A man was waiting outside on the night I stole it, and I
went and gave it to him, and then I ran away from my service to a room
Captain Ablewhite had taken for me in Leman Street, Whitechapel. Captain
Ablewhite told me that the man to whom I gave the bracelet was named
Jeremiah Pamflett, and that his master, a rich money-lender, Miser
Farebrother, was going to lend money on it. Three days after I stole the
bracelet Captain Ablewhite took me away to Germany, and I remained with
him some time.
"'He told me that Jeremiah Pamflett had cheated him; that he had
promised to get four thousand pounds from Miser Farebrother for the
bracelet, and that Jeremiah Pamflett had given him only two hundred.
When the account was put into the newspapers that the bracelet I had
stolen was of no value, and that the stones in it were false, Captain
Ablewhite said it was not true, and that the bracelet I had given to
Jeremiah Pamflett was the real one. Then Captain Ablewhite quarrelled
with me, and deserted me. Not knowing what to do, I returned to London
and found out Jeremiah Pamflett. I thought it would have been difficult
to find him, but it was very easy, because his master had been murdered,
and there was a great trial just over, in which Miser Farebrother's
daughter had been found guilty of the murder of her father. Jeremiah
Pamflett tried to escape from me; but I would not let him, and the end
of it was that he confessed he had the bracelet in his possession; and
he proposed that he, his mother, and I should all go away together to
America, where he would be able to sell the diamonds, and where,
changing our names, we could live in safety. We were to meet last night
at Nine Elms, and he and his mother were there when I arrived. So that
we could talk together undisturbed, he took me to the place in which I
was discovered, and there we had a quarrel. He wanted to give me ten
pounds only, and said that he would send me more after he got safely
away. I was in a great passion, and I asked him if Miser Farebrother had
given him four thousand pounds for the bracelet--which money he said he
had given to Captain Ablewhite--how it was that it was now in his
possession. He said that was his business; and then we got to higher
words, and I accused him of murdering Miser Farebrother so that he might
rob him. Then Jeremiah Pamflett said: "Do you want to know the truth? I
did kill him; and that is how I got the bracelet back again. But you
shall not live to tell anybody else. I will kill you as I killed the
miser!" As he said that, he plunged a knife into me, and I fell to the
ground. The last words I heard were what his mother said: "She is dead;
you have killed her. Let us get away as quick as possible." I do not
remember anything more. I know I am dying. And I swear to God that I
have told nothing but the truth!'
"Maria Baily signed this deposition, and then almost immediately became
unconscious. The latest reports are to the effect that she cannot live
through the night.
"Thus, in a strange and providential manner, a frightful injustice has
been averted. It is singular that on the very day on which Jeremiah
Pamflett committed this second murder, other evidence was obtained of
the innocence of the young lady who, by an error of justice, was
pronounced guilty of the murder of her father. The strongest evidence
against the unfortunate and cruelly-wronged lady was supplied by a
friend who had a deep affection for her. We refer to the evidence of Tom
Barley, a policeman, who swore that he saw in the grounds of Parksides,
at the time of the murder of the miser, a woman in a blue dress. Such a
dress did Miss Farebrother wear when she went from her aunt's house in
London, with the intention of asking her father for some assistance by
which her aunt's family could be extricated from a temporary difficulty.
It is now proved that Tom Barley is colour-blind, and that the woman he
really saw had on a pink dress, such as Mrs. Pamflett, Jeremiah
Pamflett's mother, wore on that occasion. This strange discovery opens
up a fruitful field of speculation. Other evidence is also forthcoming
which indubitably establishes Miss Farebrother's innocence.
"There is now no reason to doubt that the story related by Mrs. Pamflett
of the events of the night on which Miser Farebrother met his death was
from first to last a cunningly invented fabrication. Part of this
evidence is supplied by a gentleman who has been absent from England on
business, and who testifies that Jeremiah Pamflett did not return to
Miser Farebrother's London office until seven o'clock of the morning of
the murder. It will be remembered that Jeremiah Pamflett swore that he
returned at eleven o'clock on the previous night. He and his mother are
at large: they could scarcely have had time and opportunity to effect
their escape, as a watch was kept upon all the outgoing trains to the
Continent last night. The police are on the alert, and it is to be
hoped, in the interests of justice, that the criminals will soon be
arrested and put upon their trial for their diabolical crimes."