"The real name of your friend was--as you have guessed from the
threatening letters addressed to him at Kingswear, in Devon--Arnold
Edgecumbe," the solicitor commenced, leaning his elbows upon his table
and looking me straight in the face. "My firm acted for his father--a
wealthy manufacturer in Bradford, who, upon his death, left his son an
ample fortune. Twenty years ago he married an extremely pretty woman.
It was purely a love-match, and one daughter was born. Six months after
that event, however, poor little Mrs Edgecumbe died of phthisis, and
her husband was inconsolable over his loss. He was devoted to his wife,
and the blow proved a terrible one. Soon, in order to occupy his mind,
he turned his attention to financial affairs in the City, and went into
partnership with a man named Henry Harford."
"Harford!" I ejaculated. "Why, that was the man against whom he warned
me! The words he wrote down are still in my possession."
"He had strong reasons for doing so," went on the man sitting at his
table. "The combination of the pair--both of whom were fearless and
successful speculators--soon raised the firm to the position of one of
the best-known financial houses in London. They dealt in millions, as
others deal in thousands, and both men, in the course of a few years,
amassed great fortunes. Suddenly, when just in the zenith of their
prosperity, a great and terrible exposure was made. It was found that
they had, by promoting certain bogus companies, which had been largely
taken up, netted huge profits. The shareholders, numbering many
thousands of widows, clergymen, retired officers, and such-like persons,
who are ever ready to swallow the bait of a well-written prospectus,
became furious, and the Public Prosecutor took up the matter actively.
Though my client was, I assure you, utterly blameless in the matter, and
afterwards paid back every penny he had received from the transaction,
nevertheless such public outcry was made against him as a swindler,
that, victim of circumstances, he was compelled to fly the country.
Trusting implicitly to his partner, Harford--who, by a very shrewd move,
cleared himself, although he was, no doubt, the actual culprit--he, on
the night of his flight, placed his little daughter, to whom he was
entirely devoted, in his care, urging him to adopt her, and not to allow
her to know her real father's name."
"What?" I cried, starting suddenly to my feet as the amazing truth
flashed upon me for the first time. "Then Asta is Edgecumbe's daughter,
and Shaw's real name is Harford!"
"Exactly. With these facts in your mind you will be able to follow me
more closely."
Again I sank back into my chair astounded.
"Well," he went on, "ingeniously as did Harford endeavour to cover his
connection with the bogus promotions--of which the Britannia Banking
Corporation, which you will remember, perhaps, was one--yet the Public
Prosecutor, after the accounts and books had been examined, decided that
he was also a culprit, and two months after his partner's disappearance
a warrant was also issued for his arrest. Harford, always wary, had,
however, on the day previously, taken little Asta with him and left for
Greece, with which country we have no treaty of extradition. Meanwhile,
Edgecumbe had a younger sister who had married a man of bad character,
an expert forger of banknotes, named Earnshaw, and who sometimes went in
the name of King, and the pair had, to a great extent, assisted Harford
in his fraudulent schemes entirely unknown to Edgecumbe. The woman and
her husband were adventurers of the most ingenious class, and with
Harford, reaped a golden harvest in the circulation on the Continent of
the clever imitations of Bank of England notes. Edgecumbe was all
unconscious of this, and, indeed, only became aware of the transactions
by accident. It seems that on the night of his flight from England he
went to the office after it had been locked up, in order to get some
cash for his journey. There was only forty pounds in the safe, but on
breaking open a drawer in his partner's table he found a big roll of new
notes. He took them, and left on the table a memorandum of what he had
done. Ere he arrived at Dover, however, suspicion grew upon him that
the notes were not genuine. So he kept them, and said nothing. It was
his first suspicion that Harford was playing a double game. Through all
the years that elapsed from that day till his death they remained in his
possession as evidence against Earnshaw and his accomplice, but in order
that after his death they should not be found in his possession, he
apparently got you to destroy them."
"But this man Harford--or Shaw? Who was he?" I inquired eagerly.
"Of that I know very little, except that, before meeting Edgecumbe, he
had lived for many years in Ecuador and Peru, where he had been engaged
in the adventurous pursuit of collecting orchids and natural history
specimens. Probably while there, he knew of the giant venomous
tarantula, and had trained one to answer to his call," was Mr Fryer's
reply. "Apparently, from what you have told me concerning the
threatening letter, Edgecumbe's sister suspected him of betraying her to
the police, and, after serving her sentence for swindling, she and her
husband again became on friendly terms with Harford, who, in the name of
Harvey Shaw, was then posing as a county magnate, deriving his income
partly from the proceeds of his financial transactions, and partly from
the passing at various banks on the Continent the bogus notes printed in
secret in a room at Ridgehill Manor. It was for that reason the police
of Europe have, for the last ten years, been in search of Harford--the
English police because of the charges against him in the City, and the
European police because he has defrauded hundreds of _bureaux-de-change_
all over the Continent by exchanging thousands of his marvellous
imitations of Bank of England notes for foreign notes or gold. Yet
being a man of such colossal ideas, such a splendid linguist, and
possessing such marvellous powers of invention and clever evasion, he
acted so boldly and sustained his role of English gentleman so well,
that he often passed beneath the very noses of those in active search of
him."
"Then Edgecumbe was in entire ignorance of the true character of his
late partner?" I exclaimed.
"Absolutely--until too late. He only became convinced on the day of his
death. He wished you to assist him, though he warned you against him.
Apparently, by slow degrees, during his rare visits to England, he had
become cognisant of Harford's criminal instincts, and of the fact that
he was in possession of that venomous pet which the man had once--I
believe--boastingly described as his `Hand,' yet Edgecumbe was
diplomatic enough not to quarrel with him. Asta, ignorant of her
parentage, looked upon Harford as her father and held him in highest
esteem. For Edgecumbe to denounce him would be to disillusion the girl
in whom all his hopes were centred, and who regarded him, not as a
father, but as a very dear friend. On arrival in England he seems to
have written immediately to her, urging her to meet him, unknown to
Harford, yet, when she went to the hotel it was only to discover, that
he was dead."
"But the terrible tarantula--the `Hand,' as Harford termed it--surely
Edgecumbe must have suspected something?" I said.
"He probably was unaware that the thing was so deadly venomous, and he
never dreamed to what use the scoundrel would put it," said the
solicitor. "The truth only dawned upon him when too late! Remember he
placed the utmost confidence in you--and in you alone--a stranger."
"Yes. He gave me that bronze cylinder. I wonder what it can possibly
contain?"
"Let us take a taxi down to Chancery Lane," Mr Fryer suggested. "Let
us carry it up here, open it--and ascertain."