THE SUSPICIONS OF MR. MORLEY
The newcomer was a man apparently about sixty years of age, short,
and grey-haired, with old-fashioned, neatly-trimmed side whiskers. He
was dressed entirely in black, even to black kid gloves; his hat he
carried in his hand. He seemed to be in a state of considerable
agitation, and stood looking from one to the other of us as if he was
endeavouring to make up his mind as to who or what we were. Hume
recognized him at once. He went striding towards him from across the
room.
“Morley, you had better come with me. It is to me you wish to speak,
not to this gentleman.”
I interposed.
“He asked for Mr. Ferguson. I am Mr. Ferguson. It therefore seems that
it is to me that he wishes to speak.”
“Don’t talk nonsense! You’re a stranger to him; I tell you it’s a
mistake. You know me, Morley, don’t you?”
The old gentleman looked at Hume with eyes which seemed half dazed.
“Yes, sir; oh yes. You’re Dr. Hume. I know you very well.”
“You hear? Stand aside!”
“I shall not stand aside. And, Hume, take my strong advice and don’t
attempt to interfere with any visitor of mine. You hear me?”
“I hear, but I shall not pay the least attention. Morley, I forbid you
to say a word in this gentleman’s presence. You have no right to speak
of your master’s private affairs in the presence of strangers. I am
his friend; I will safeguard his interests. I tell you that by not
keeping a strict watch over your tongue you may do him a serious
mischief.”
“Very good, Hume. Evidently to remonstrate with you is to waste one’s
breath. I will try another way.” Taking him up in my arms I carried
him towards the door. “I am going to put you outside my room, and,
before you attempt to enter it again, I trust that you will have
learnt at least the rudiments of decent manners. Out you go!”
And out he went. Depositing him on the floor in the corridor, I locked
the door in his face. He banged against it with his fist.
“You shall pay for this!”
“Very good; render your account. I will render you such moneys as are
due.”
“Morley, I forbid you to say a word to him at your peril.”
I turned to my visitor.
“I beg, Mr. Morley, that you will take a seat. Pray do not heed our
excitable friend. Just now he can hardly be said to have the full
control of his senses--as you yourself perceive. As you remarked, I am
John Ferguson, the friend of Mr. Edwin Lawrence. You, I take it, are
in the service of his brother, Mr. Philip.”
Mr. Morley’s calmness had not perceptibly increased. He seemed
impressed by the way in which I had handled Hume; and, also, disposed
to be influenced by the doctor’s express commands to hold his tongue;
he was like a man between two stools.
“Yes, sir, I’m in Mr. Philip’s service; but I think that perhaps the
doctor’s right, and I oughtn’t to talk about my master.”
“Possibly, Mr. Morley; but you have spoken of him already. You have
accused him of murder.”
“No, sir, not that!”
“Just now, in the presence of Dr. Hume and myself, you expressed your
belief that Mr. Philip had killed Mr. Edwin.”
“Oh no, sir, not that; I didn’t go so far as that. I didn’t mean it if
I did.”
“What you meant is another question; that is what you said. I may tell
you, Mr. Morley, that I am not of your opinion. I do not believe that
Mr. Philip had any hand whatever in his brother’s death.”
“No, sir? I--I’m glad to hear it.”
“Very soon you will receive from his own lips an explanation which
will blow all your doubts away. I believe that he will clear the whole
thing up at once, if you will take me to him.”
Mr. Morley’s jaw dropped open.
“Take you to him? But that--that’s just it. I don’t know where he is.
Isn’t he--here?”
He looked about him as if he half expected to discover Philip Lawrence
hidden behind a curtain or under a table.
“Do I understand you to mean that your master has not returned all
night?”
“Yes, sir; that’s what I do mean, and that’s what makes me
so--concerned. He’s a gentleman of regular habits--most regular; and
I’ve never known him to stop out all night before without giving me
warning.”
I felt that, in that case, he must indeed be a gentleman of most
regular habits.
“Where does Mr. Philip Lawrence live?”
“In Arlington Street; that’s his London address.”
“When did he go out?”
“After midnight, in--in a towering rage.”
“In a towering rage? With whom?”
“Well, sir,”--Mr. Morley came closer; he cast an anxious glance around
him; he dropped his voice--“I’m not a talkative man, not as a rule, as
any one who knows me will tell you; but I’ve got something to say
which I feel I must say to some one, though you heard what Dr. Hume
said. But, perhaps, sir, as you’re Mr. Edwin’s friend, you’re Mr.
Philip’s too.”
“Mr. Morley, in making any statement to me, you will be at least as
safe as if you made it to Dr. Hume. I tell you that I believe your
master’s hands are clean. To prove it, we shall have to establish the
truth. If you have anything to say which will go to make the darkness
light, say it, like a man, before it’s too late.”
“You won’t use it to do him a disservice? And you won’t say that I
talked about him in a way I didn’t ought to have done?”
“I will do neither of these things.”
“Well, sir, I like your looks; you look like the kind of gentleman one
can trust, and I flatter myself I’m a pretty good judge of faces;
and--and the way you handled Dr. Hume was”--he coughed behind his
hand--“queer. I’ll make a clean breast of it.”
The old gentleman’s hesitation had its amusing side; I was conscious
that something very unusual had happened to throw him, to such a
degree, off his mental balance.
“That’s right, Mr. Morley; we shall soon arrive at an understanding if
we are frank with one another. Sit down.”
He sat down on the edge of a chair. His hat he placed beside him on
the floor, crown uppermost.
“Well, sir”--with his gloved fingers he stroked his chin, still
regarding me with an air of dubitation--“I’m afraid that Mr. Edwin was
not all that he ought to have been.”
“I am afraid that something similar could be said of all of us.”
“It was in money matters chiefly, though there were other things as
well; but in money matters he was most irregular--quite unlike Mr.
Philip. Mr. Philip has let him have thousands and thousands of pounds;
what he did with it was a mystery. They quarrelled dreadfully.”
“Brothers will quarrel, Mr. Morley. It’s a way they have.”
The old gentleman shook his head.
“Ah, but the fault was Mr. Edwin’s. Mr. Philip is hot-tempered, but
Mr. Edwin was always in the wrong.”
Leaning towards me, Mr. Morley whispered, under cover of his hand,
“Once Mr. Philip thrashed him--broke his stick across his back, he
did; Mr. Edwin must have been black and blue with bruises. Mr.
Philip’s very quick when he’s roused, and he’s a better man than his
brother. He was very sorry afterwards for what he had done--dear me!
how sorry he was. He went to his brother and he asked him to forgive
him, and Mr. Edwin did forgive him; I expect he got a good deal more
money out of Mr. Philip, or he never would have done. He was
unforgiving enough, was Mr. Edwin, unless it paid him to be otherwise;
he’d wait for years for a chance of returning, with good thumping
interest, what he thought was an injury; it was the only thing he ever
did return with interest.”
The expression on Mr. Morley’s face as he said this did not itself
suggest the charity which forgiveth all things.
“So it went on, for soon they were quarrelling again. But lately it
has been worse than ever.”
Looking anxiously about him, Mr. Morley again resorted to the cover of
his hand.
“There’s been--there’s been some trouble about some bills. Mr. Edwin’s
been putting some bills on the market which weren’t quite what they
ought to have been, and getting money on them. I’m afraid he’s been
making an unauthorized use of his brother’s name.”
“Are you sure of what you say? At this point it is for me to follow
Dr. Hume’s lead and warn you to be careful.”
“Oh, I’m sure enough. I’ve too much reason to be sure. Forgery, sir;
that’s what it was, rank forgery. In his rage Mr. Philip let it all
come out, so that there’s plenty of others who know of it, or I
shouldn’t be speaking of it now. Mr. Philip has gone on dreadfully
since he found it out. I’ve sometimes wondered if he was going mad.
“Yesterday afternoon Mr. Edwin came to Arlington Street; there was an
awful scene. I went into them; I didn’t think they’d come to blows in
front of me. Then Mr. Philip began at me. ‘Morley,’ he said, shouting
so that you might have heard him in Pall Mall, ‘my brother’s a thief!
That’s no news, you’ve heard it before; but he’s been robbing me
again, on fresh lines, and he’ll keep on robbing me until, in spite of
all I can do, he’ll succeed in dragging an honoured name through the
mire. But before then, Morley, I’ll kill him, for the cur he is. If
he’s found with his neck broken you’ll know who did it.’
“Then he turned to Mr. Edwin. ‘So you’ve had fair warning. And now,
you blackguard, out of this house you go before I throw you through
the window.’ And out he did go, and it was about time he did, or I
believe Mr. Philip would have thrown him through the window.”
Mr. Morley passed a red silk handkerchief carefully to and fro across
his brow. I thought of how Edwin Lawrence and I had spent the previous
evening. He certainly had not worn his troubles where others could see
them; he was generally something of a cynic, but I did not remember to
have seen him more genially inclined, or apparently in a more careless
mood. The man, as limned by Mr. Morley, was to me an entire
revelation.
The old gentleman went on. “In the evening, about nine o’clock, some
one came to see Mr. Philip. He was a big, portly party, very well
dressed, with shiny black hair, and I noticed that his fingers were
covered with rings. I set him down for a Jew. He wouldn’t give his
name, and when I told him Mr. Philip wasn’t in, he said he’d call
again. He came again, about eleven. Mr. Philip hadn’t returned; so he
gave me a letter, and told me to give it to him directly he did. It
was just past twelve when Mr. Philip did come in. I gave him the
letter, though I was in two minds as to whether I hadn’t better keep
it till the morning, for I smelt that there was mischief in it; and
now I wish I had, for directly he opened it Mr. Philip broke into the
worst rage I ever saw him in. He was like a man stark mad. ‘That
brother of mine,’ he screamed, ‘is a more infernal scoundrel even than
I thought he was; I’ll kill him if I can find him!’ And he tore out of
the house before I could move to stop him.”
Again the red silk handkerchief went across Mr. Morley’s forehead. The
mere recollection of the scene bedewed his brow with sweat.
“Well, sir, I sat up for him all night, and my wife, she sat up to
keep me company; but he never came home. We listened to every sound,
and we jumped at every footstep that came near the house, thinking it
was him. Emma--that’s Mrs. Morley--kept on snivelling pretty nearly
all the time. ‘Joe,’ she kept on saying--my name’s Joe, sir, leastways
Joseph--‘Joe, do you think that Mr. Philip’s killing him?’
“To be asked such a question made one feel like killing her; for it
was the very question which I kept putting to myself all through the
night. My feeling was that Mr. Philip had been drinking more than he
was used to, and that letter found him in an evil mood; and when he’s
in one of his rages he’s not the good, kind-hearted, fair-minded
gentleman he generally is, he’s more like a raving lunatic, although I
say it, and capable of anything.
“When morning came, and there were still no signs of him, I couldn’t
stand it any longer. So I came round to see Mr. Edwin, and directly I
came they told me he had been murdered. Murdered! Murdered!” He
repeated the word again and again, as if he found a ghastly pleasure
in the repetition.
I paced up and down, pondering the tale as he had told it. I perceived
how, from his point of view, the case looked black against his master.
Yet still I felt persuaded that there was something in the whole
business which was beyond our comprehension, and that, when we learned
what that something was, it would be conclusively shown that the
deductions which he drew were erroneous.
“Do you think that Mr. Philip killed him?”
“No, Morley, I do not. But I think that, if you get a chance, you’ll
hang him.”
“Hang Mr. Philip? Me? No, not--not if he’d killed Mr. Edwin a dozen
times over.”
“On the contrary, if you don’t take care, you’ll hang him, although he
hasn’t killed Mr. Edwin even once. If they were to put you into the
witness-box, and you were to tell that tale, your evidence would need
but the slenderest corroboration to send him to the gallows right
away.”
“Mr. Ferguson!”
“Morley, you must know that you had not the slightest right to tell me
what you have done. Fortunately your information has been imparted to
a person who will not make an injurious use of it; but, if you take my
serious advice, you will not breathe a word of it to any other living
soul. You will go straight home, and you will say nothing to any one;
and you will know nothing either.”
“But--but where is Mr. Philip, sir?”
“What business is that of yours? I take it that he is free to regulate
his movements without consulting you. Whatever concern you may feel,
you will not allow a hint of it to escape you--that is, if you have
your master’s interests at heart!”
There came an imperious rapping at the door.
“Who’s there?”
“It’s I--Inspector Symonds, of the Criminal Investigation Department.
Be so good, Mr. Ferguson, as to open the door.”
“There, Morley, is some one who will be glad to listen to what you
have been telling me, but if you have the least regard for your
master’s reputation, not to mention his neck, you will see him further
first. You’re not forced to speak a word unless you choose; I
shouldn’t choose; and here’s something to help you not to choose.”
I handed him a wine-glass full of brandy. He swallowed it so fast that
it set him coughing. There came the knocking at the door again.
“Open this door, Mr. Ferguson!”
“With pleasure. You seem to be in a hurry, sir. Possibly you are not
aware that these rooms are private, and that it is not necessary that
I should open to every person who takes it into his head to knock.”
As, opening the door, I planted myself in the doorway, Mr. Symonds
looked at me as if surprised. He was not a little man, but I was a
good head taller, and I fancy that he had not expected to find me
quite so big, or he would have hustled past me. As it was, he
refrained.
“I am informed that you have some one in your rooms who can give
important information in the matter of Mr. Edwin Lawrence’s murder.”
“Indeed. Who is your informant?”
“I am. You will find, Ferguson, that you cannot play with edged
tools.”
Hume was the speaker.
“So? Pray enter, Mr. Symonds.” Hume tried to pass in after him. “If
you don’t mind, I would rather not. I think that edged tools are
better outside.”
I shut the door in his face; he taking my cavalier treatment of him
more meekly than he was wont to do. Perhaps he remembered.
Mr. Symonds immediately assailed the lamblike Mr. Morley.
“I believe that your name is Morley; and that you are in the service
of Mr. Philip Lawrence. What information have you to give with
reference to the murder of his brother?”
“Mr. Morley has no information to give.”
It was I who answered.
“Let Mr. Morley speak for himself.”
“Permit me to repeat, Mr. Symonds, that these premises are private;
and before I allow you, on these premises, to bully a guest of mine,
I must request you to show me the authority on which you are acting.”
Inspector Symonds looked me up and down, as if he did not know exactly
what to make of me. He seemed to hesitate.