IV

I made up my mind that the Churles Street referred to in the message

lay in London. London was the home town evidently of the master of the

_Shanghai_, and he would refer to Churles Street—perhaps a well-known

place in the dock quarter—just as one might speak of Cromwell Road or

Regent Street.

On getting in to Southampton, the first thing I did at the hotel was

to consult a Kelly’s directory, and sure enough, there was Churles

Street, E.C., the only street of that name, a short street of twenty

houses or so with the name J. Robertson against No. 11. The street

opened off the West India Dock Road, and two days later, when I had

disposed of my private business in London, I took a walk in the East

End. The Dock Road is a fascinating place if you are in good health

and spirits, and if the day is fine, but there is no fascination about

Churles Street, a gloomy, evil looking cul-de-sac, not rowdy, but

quiet with the quietude of vice reduced to misery and crouching in a

corner.

It was a horrible place.

A thin woman nursing a baby was standing at the door of No. 11. I

asked her was anyone of the name of Abbott living there and she

glanced me up and down.

“Have you come from his brother?” asked she.

“Yes,” I said, “I’ve come from Captain Richard Abbott.”

She led the way into the passage, opened a door, and showed me into a

room where a man, fully dressed, was lying on a bed smoking a pipe and

reading a sporting paper.

A typical lounger and ne’er-do-well, unshaved, and with his collar and

tie on the chair beside him, this chap gave me pause, I can assure

you.

“Well,” he said to the woman, “what’s he want?”

“You’re his brother?” I said.

“Yes,” he replied, “I’m his brother, and who might you be?”

“Met him abroad,” I replied, “and he asked me to call in and see how

you were doing.” I was clean cut off from the business I had in mind,

some instinct told me to halt right there and show nothing that was in

my hand. The man repulsed me.

“Well, you see how I am doing,” replied he, “hasn’t he sent me

anything but his kind inquiries?”

“Yes,” I said, “he asked me to give you a sovereign from him.”

I brought out the money and he took it and laid it on the chair by the

collar and tie, then he filled his pipe again and we talked. I had

taken a chair which the woman had dusted. I talked but I could get

nothing much out of him, to ask questions I would have had to explain,

and to explain might have meant bringing this unshaven waster on top

of me to help him to prosecute his claims. If I did anything further

in the matter, I would do it through an agent, but upon my word I felt

I had paid any debt I might owe to the master of the _Shanghai_ by the

trouble I had taken already and the sovereign I had handed over in his

name.

As we talked a pretty little girl of ten or twelve ran into the room;

she was dirty and neglected, and as she stood at the end of the bed

with her great eyes fixed on me, I could have kicked the loafer lying

there, his pipe in his mouth and his sporting paper by his side.

It seemed that he had four children altogether, and as I took my leave

and the woman showed me out, I put another sovereign into her hand for

the children.

There I was in the West India Dock Road again feeling that I could

have kicked myself. It was not so much the trouble I had taken over

the business that worried me as the wind up. I’d put into Shanghai,

sent cables from Japan, altered my plans, spent no end of money to

bring news to that rotten chap, news of a fortune that if secured

would certainly be burst on racing and drink.

I said to myself that this came of mixing in other folks’ business and

I took an oath never to do it again—I didn’t know I was only at the

beginning of things.

Murchison was the agent I determined to employ to finish up the

affair. Murchison is less a detective than an inquiry agent, his game

is to find out facts relative to people, he lives in Old Serjeants’

Inn, and knowing him to be secrecy itself and not caring to employ my

lawyer, I determined to go to him next day and place the matter in his

hands, telling him to do what he could with the business, but to keep

my name out of it. He need mention nothing about the finding of the

message, but he could give it as coming from some unknown source—the

message was the main thing, anyhow.

I called at his office next morning. Murchison is a thin old chap, dry

as a stick. I told him the whole story and it made no more impression

on him than if I’d been telling it to a pump. He made a note or two,

and when I had finished, he told me in effect that he wasn’t a

District Messenger, but an inquiry agent, and that I had better take

the thing to my lawyer. He seemed put out; I had evidently raised his

tracking instincts by my story and ended simply by asking him to take

a message.

I apologised, told him the truth, that my lawyer was an old-fashioned

family solicitor, gone in years, touchy as Lucifer, the last man in

London to set hinting of possible fortunes to beggars in slums. “If

you won’t do it yourself,” I finished, “tell me of a man who will.”

“I can tell you of plenty,” he replied, “but if you take my advice you

will let me make an inquiry into the business before you move further

in the matter; there’s more in it than meets the eye and you may be

doing injury to other parties by stirring up the mud, for this man you

tell me of seems mud.”

“A jolly good name for him,” said I. “Well, go ahead and make your

inquiries; it’s only a few pounds more thrown after the rest, and it

will be interesting to hear the result.” Then I left him.

A month later I got a letter asking me to call upon him, and I went.

When I took my seat he sent the clerk for the Abbott documents, and

the clerk brought a sheaf of all sorts of papers, laid them on the

table and went out. Murchison put on his glasses, took a glance

through the papers and started his yarn.

Beautifully concise it was, and I’ll give you it almost in his own

words.

V

William Abbott, of Sydney, N.S.W., was a wool broker who came to

England in the year 1906 and died worth some hundred and fifty

thousand pounds. He had three sons, John, Alexander and Richard.

The Will was simple and direct. Murchison laid a copy of it before me,

taken by permission of Abbott’s lawyer’s, whom he had found, and it

ran something like this.

“Owing to the conduct of my eldest son, John Abbott, I hereby revoke

my Will of June 7th, 1902, by which I bequeathed him the whole of my

property, with the exception of the sum of twenty thousand pounds to

be equally divided between my sons Alexander and Richard. I hereby

bequeath the whole of my property to my son Alexander Abbott. Signed:

William Abbott, July 10th, 1904. Witnesses: John Brooke, Jane

Summers.”

“Well,” said Murchison, as I handed the paper back, “that signature is

a forgery; the body of the document is written as if by a clerk in

almost print character, but though I have never seen the handwriting

of William Abbott, I will bet my reputation that the signature is

forged.”

“How can you tell?” I asked.

“Because the signatures of the witnesses are forged; they have both

been written by the same hand. The signature ‘William Abbott’ has

evidently been carefully copied from an original, there is a

constraint about it that tells me that, but the witnesses’ signatures,

where the forger had nothing to copy and had to invent imaginary

names, simply shout. The fool never thought of that; leaving the point

of similarity aside, the woman’s signature is as masculine as a

Grenadier. The body of the document, though almost in print, is also

the work of the forger.”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Absolutely,” said he, “handwriting with me is not only a science

which I have studied for fifty years; it is something that has

developed in me an instinct. Now to go on. Alexander Abbott lives in a

big house down in Kent. Richard, at the time of his father’s death,

was a captain in the Black Bird Line, evidently working for his bread.

A year after his father’s death he bought the steamer _Shanghai_,

paying a large sum for it spot cash. He was an unmarried man, and when

ashore occupied a flat in Bayswater. Alexander is a widower with one

daughter.—That’s all. The case is complete.”

“How do you read it?” I asked. The old chap fetched a snuff box out of

a drawer in the desk, took a pinch and put the box back without

offering it.

“I read it,” he said, “in this way. John, the eldest son, was a bad

lot; the father may have intended to disinherit him, and make a second

will; anyhow, he didn’t; put it off as men do. When the father died,

Alexander boldly did the trick. Richard may have been party to the

business, at first—who knows? Anyhow, it seems that he was later on,

since he was able to plank that big sum down for the ship, and since

he was left nothing in the will, and since, as you say, he put up that

notice you took off the boat and which told the truth.”

I said nothing for a while, thinking this thing over. I was sure

Murchison was right.

This thing would have been weighing in the sailor’s mind for years;

from what I could make out at Churles Street he had evidently been

making John some sort of allowance; one could fancy the long watches

of the night, the pacing of the deck under the stars, and the mind of

the sailor always teased by the fact that he was party to this

business, a forgery that had kept a brother, however bad, out of his

inheritance. Then the last frantic attempt to put things right in the

face of death, the agonised thought that to write the thing on paper

was useless, paper that would be washed away by the rain or blown away

by the wind.

“Well,” said I to Murchison, “it seems plain enough, and now, on the

face of it, what would you advise me to do?”

“If I were in your place,” said he, “I would do nothing. You say this

elder brother is a scamp; Alexander, on the other hand, is a rogue; if

you mix yourself up in the business you may have trouble. Why should

you worry yourself about a bad lot of strangers?—turn it down.”

That seemed sensible enough, but you see Murchison knew only the bare

facts of the case; he had not seen that notice board tossing about in

the desolation of the Pacific.

I left him without having made up my mind as to what I should do, half

determined to do nothing.

The bother was that the facts Murchison had put before me gave a new

complexion to the whole business, a new urgency to that message which

I had not delivered. I felt as if the captain of the _Shanghai_ had

suddenly come to my elbow, him and his uneasy conscience craving to be

put at rest. Just so, but on the other hand there was John Abbott, and

I can’t tell you the grue that chap had given me. It wasn’t that he

was a boozer, or a waster; he was bad; bad right through and rotten.

There is a sixth sense, it has to do with morals and the difference

between good and evil; it told me this chap was evil, and the thought

of helping to hand him a fortune made my soul revolt.

Still, there you are, I didn’t make the chap, and the fact remained

that in doing nothing I was holding him out of his rights.

All that evening the thing worried me and most of that night. Next

morning I couldn’t stand it any longer. I took the train for Oakslot

in Kent. I had determined to go straight to Alexander Abbott, beard

him, tell him of the notice I had found and see what he had to say.

The idea came to me that he might make restitution in some way without

handing all the fortune over to John—anyhow, it would be doing

something, and I determined to use all my knowledge and power if

necessary.

Ever been to Oakslot? It is the quaintest and quietest place, and it

wasn’t till I got out of the train and found myself on the platform

that the terrible nature of the business I was on took me by the arm.

I had no difficulty in finding Alexander Abbott’s residence; the

Waterings was the name it went by, an old Georgian house set in a

small park; one of those small, rook-haunted, sleepy, sunlit

pleasaunces found only in England and best in Sussex or Kent.

I was shown into the drawing-room by an old manservant, who took my

card, on which I had pencilled: “From Captain Richard Abbott.”

A few moments passed and the door opened and a girl came in, a girl of

sixteen or so, pretty as a picture and charming as a rose; one of

those sweet, whole, fresh, candid creatures, almost sexless as yet,

but made to love and be loved.

I stood before her. I was Tragedy, but she only saw a man. She told me

her father was unwell but would see me. Would I follow her?

She led me to a library, and there, seated by the window which gave

upon the sunlit park, sat the criminal, a man of forty or so, a man

with seemingly a good and kindly face, a man I would have trusted on

sight. He was evidently far gone in consumption, this forger of

documents, and it was pretty evident that anxiety had helped in the

business; a weight on the conscience is a big handicap if one is

trying to fight disease.

I sat down near him and started right in; the quicker you get a

surgical operation over the better, and so he seemed to think, for

when I told him of the finding of the notice and went on to say that

it might be necessary to inquire into the will and that I had reason

to believe there was something wrong about it, he saw I knew nearly

everything and stopped me right off.

“Everything is wrong about it,” said he, “and thank God that this

matter has fallen into the hands of a straight and honest man like

you—you will understand. This thing has tormented me for years, but

when you have heard what I have to say you will know I did wrong only

to do right. There is no greater scoundrel in this world than my

brother John Abbott; a terrible thing to say but the truth. My father

had made a will leaving him everything. He placed that will in the

hands of James Anderson of Sydney, our lawyer. Anderson knew John’s

character better than my father and was averse from the business, but

he could do nothing. My father was a very headstrong man and blind to

John’s doings, which the scamp somehow managed to partly conceal from

him. He thought John was sowing his wild oats and that he would be all

the better for it. John could do no wrong in his eyes, but a few days

before his death he had a terrible awakening with a forged bill of

exchange—forgery seems to run in the family. It cost him five

thousand pounds to stifle the matter, and the day after the business

was settled my father died; slipped coming downstairs, fell, and broke

his back.

“I was there and he died in my arms, and his last words were: ‘Get

that will from Anderson and destroy it.’ He had no power to write a

new will, no strength even to write his signature, and when he was

dead there was I with those words ringing in my ears.

“I knew my father intended to revoke his first will, would have done

it that day; maybe, ought to have done it days ago, but his mind was

in a turmoil and he was a strong, hearty man with never a thought of

death. Well, there I was, not only with that knowledge but the

knowledge that if the property fell to John it would be the end of the

family’s good name; that beast was only possible when he was kept

short of money—then there was the lower consideration of my own

position, penniless and at John’s mercy.

“I made a will and put my father’s name to it, sure that Anderson

would make no trouble, sure that John would not inquire into it, for

the forgery of the bill of exchange had drawn his teeth, and the fact

of that forgery would account to him for the change in the disposition

of the property.

“I dated the will, it is true, some years back, and in the time my

father lived in Sydney. I did that because I had to forge the names of

the two witnesses; had I dated it recently someone might ask who are

these witnesses? As it was there was no one to put that question to,

for I was not in Sydney at the time indicated in the will—they might

have been hotel servants—anyone.

“I left myself the whole property, not from greed but simply because

my brother Richard was at sea. I knew his temperament and character,

and it was possible that, had I made him part heir, he would have

revolted and disclosed all—for I had determined to tell him

everything.

“I placed the forged will among my father’s papers; it was proved and

there was no trouble. Anderson, whose clients are largely wool brokers

and Australian merchants, has a branch office in London; they were my

father’s solicitors in England as well as Australia, and the whole

thing went through their hands. They had all the less reason to cast

any suspicious eye on the document in as much as they had dealt with

the forgery of the bill of exchange.

“Then Richard came back from sea and I told him all. He was horrified,

yet he saw that what I had done had been simply to carry out my

father’s wish. It was impossible to destroy the old will as he had

directed, or possible only in one way—by the creation of a new will.

“After a while he cooled on the matter and even accepted a large sum

for the purchase of a ship, the _Shanghai_, now lost. But the thing

weighed on his mind as it has on mine, only more so. He was of a

different temperament. He did not dread detection, with him it was

entirely a matter of conscience: he felt he had defrauded John by

being partner to the business, and accepting that sum of money. He

seemed to think in his sailor way it would bring him bad luck; no

doubt when the end came and he lost his ship he had that in mind, and

lest the bad luck might follow him into the next world wrote that

notice you found. I have only a few more months to live—now tell me,

was I right or wrong in doing what I did?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I am not your judge, but all I can say is

this: from what I know of the business, I will move no further in the

matter, if for no other reason than that, should John Abbott get word

of the business, your daughter would be rendered penniless after your

death.”

“Absolutely,” said he.

I asked him was John receiving an allowance, and he said yes. He was

receiving two pounds a week for life.

Then I left him and took the train for London, and from that day to

this I have heard nothing of any of the lot of them. I expect he’s

dead and his daughter an heiress—I don’t know, but I’ll never touch a

thing like that again. Even still I’m bothered to know if I was right

or wrong in holding my hand and tongue. What would you have done in

similar circumstances?