Sir Charles took the usual advantage of the first interval to rise
from his seat. Like so many of us in these days by the time of the
first interval (when it is not a play of Mrs. Fielder-Flemming’s that
is in question) he felt almost physically unable to contain himself
longer.
“Mr. President,” he boomed, “let us get this clear. Is Mrs.
Fielder-Flemming making the preposterous accusation that some friend
of my daughter’s is responsible for this crime, or is she not?”
The President looked somewhat helplessly up at the bulk towering
wrathfully above him and wished he were anything but the President. “I
really don’t know, Sir Charles,” he professed, which was not only
feeble but untrue.
Mrs. Fielder-Flemming however was by now quite able to speak up for
herself. “I have not yet specifically accused any one of the crime,
Sir Charles,” she said, with a cold dignity that was only marred by
the fact that her hat, which had apparently been sharing its
mistress’s emotions, was now perched rakishly over her left ear. “So
far I have been simply developing a thesis.”
To Mr. Bradley Sir Charles would have replied, with Johnsonian scorn
of evasion: “Sir, damn your thesis.” Hampered now by the puerilities
of civilised convention regarding polite intercourse between the
sexes, he could only summon up once more the blue glare.
With the unfairness of her sex Mrs. Fielder-Flemming promptly took
advantage of his handicap. “And,” she added pointedly, “I have not yet
finished doing so.”
Sir Charles sat down, the perfect allegory. But he grunted very
naughtily to himself as he did so.
Mr. Bradley restrained an impulse to clap Mr. Chitterwick on the back
and then chuck him under the chin.
Her serenity so natural as to be patently artificial, Mrs.
Fielder-Flemming proceeded to call the interval closed and ring up the
curtain on her second act.
“Having given you my processes towards arriving at the identity of the
third member of the triangle I postulated, in other words towards that
of the murderer, I will go on to the actual evidence and show how that
supports my conclusions. Did I say ‘supports’? I meant, confirms them
beyond all doubt.”
“But what are your conclusions, Mrs. Fielder-Flemming?” Bradley asked,
with an air of bland interest. “You haven’t defined them yet. You only
hinted that the murderer was a rival of Sir Eustace’s for the hand of
Miss Wildman.”
“Exactly,” agreed Alicia Dammers. “Even if you don’t want to tell us
the man’s name yet, Mabel, can’t you narrow it down a little more for
us?” Miss Dammers disliked vagueness. It savoured to her of the
slipshod, which above all things in this world she detested. Moreover
she really was extremely interested to know upon whom Mrs.
Fielder-Flemming’s choice had alighted. Mabel, she knew, might look
like one sort of fool, talk like another sort, and behave like a
third; and yet really she was not a fool at all.
But Mabel was determined to be coy. “Not yet, I’m afraid. For certain
reasons I want to prove my case first. You’ll understand later, I
think.”
“Very well,” sighed Miss Dammers. “But do let’s keep away from the
detective-story atmosphere. All we want to do is to solve this
difficult case, not mystify each other.”
“I have my reasons, Alicia,” frowned Mrs. Fielder-Flemming, and rather
obviously proceeded to collect her thoughts. “Where was I? Oh yes, the
evidence. Now this is very interesting. I have succeeded in obtaining
two pieces of quite vital evidence which I have never heard brought
forward before.
“The first is that Sir Eustace was not in love with—” Mrs.
Fielder-Flemming hesitated; then, as the plunge had already been taken
for her, followed the intrepid Mr. Bradley into the deeps of complete
candour “—with Miss Wildman at all. He intended to marry her simply
for her money—or rather, for what he hoped to get of her father’s
money. I hope, Sir Charles,” added Mrs. Fielder-Flemming frostily,
“that you will not consider me slanderous if I allude to the fact that
you are an exceedingly rich man. It has a most important bearing on my
case.”
Sir Charles inclined his massive, handsome head. “It is hardly a
matter of slander, madam. Simply one of taste, which is outside my
professional orbit. I fear it would be a waste of time for me to
attempt to advise you on it.”
“That is very interesting, Mrs. Fielder-Flemming,” Roger hastily
interposed on this exchange of pleasantries. “How did you discover
it?”
“From Sir Eustace’s man, Mr. Sheringham,” replied Mrs.
Fielder-Flemming not without pride. “I interrogated him. Sir Eustace
had made no secret of it. He seems to confide most freely in his man.
He expected, apparently, to be able to pay off his debts, buy a
racehorse or two, provide for the present Lady Pennefather, and
generally make a fresh and no doubt discreditable start. He had
actually promised Barker (that is his man’s name) a present of a
hundred pounds on the day he ‘led the little filly to the altar,’ as
he phrased it. I am sorry to hurt your feelings, Sir Charles, but I
have to deal with facts, and feelings must go down before them. A
present of ten pounds bought me all the information I wanted. Quite
remarkable information, as it turned out.” She looked round
triumphantly.
“You don’t think, perhaps,” ventured Mr. Chitterwick with an
apologetic smile, “that information from such a tainted source might
not be entirely reliable? The source seems so very tainted. Why, I
don’t think my own man would sell me for a ten-pound note.”
“Like master like man,” returned Mrs. Fielder-Flemming shortly. “His
information was perfectly reliable. I was able to check nearly
everything he told me, so that I think I am entitled to accept the
small residue as correct too.
“I should like to quote another of Sir Eustace’s confidences. It is
not pretty, but it is very, very illuminating. He had made an attempt
to seduce Miss Wildman in a private room at the Pug-Dog Restaurant
(that, for instance, I checked later), apparently with the object of
ensuring the certainty of the marriage he desired. (I am sorry again,
Sir Charles, but these facts must be brought out.) I had better say at
once that the attempt was unsuccessful. That night Sir Eustace
remarked (and to his valet of all people, remember); ‘You can take a
filly to the altar, but you can’t make her drunk.’ That, I think, will
show you better than any words of mine just what manner of man Sir
Eustace Pennefather is. And it will also show you how overwhelmingly
strong was the incentive of the man who really loved her to put her
for ever out of the reach of such a brute.
“And that brings me to the second piece of my evidence. This is really
the foundation stone of the whole structure, the basis on which the
necessity for murder (as the murderer saw it) rested, and the basis at
the same time of my own reconstruction of the crime. Miss Wildman was
hopelessly, unreasonably, irrevocably infatuated with Sir Eustace
Pennefather.”
As an artist in dramatic effect, Mrs. Fielder-Flemming was silent for
a moment to allow the significance of this information to sink into
the minds of her audience. But Sir Charles was far too personally
preoccupied to be interested in significances.
“And may one ask how you found _that_ out, madam?” he demanded,
swelling with sarcasm. “From my daughter’s maid?”
“From your daughter’s maid,” responded Mrs. Fielder-Flemming sweetly.
“Detecting, I discover, is an expensive hobby, but one mustn’t regret
money spent in a good cause.”
Roger sighed. It was plain that, once this ill-fortuned child of his
invention had died a painful death, the Circle (if it had not been
completely squared by then) would be found to be without either Mrs.
Fielder-Flemming or Sir Charles Wildman; and he knew which of the two
it would be. It was a pity. Sir Charles, besides being such an asset
from the professional point of view, was the only leavening apart from
Mr. Ambrose Chitterwick of the literary element; and Roger, who had
attended a few literary parties in his earlier days, was quite sure he
would not be able to face a gathering that consisted of nothing but
people who made their livings by their typewriters.
Besides, Mrs. Fielder-Flemming really was being a little hard on the
old man. After all, it was his daughter who was in question.
“I have now,” said Mrs. Fielder-Flemming, “established an overwhelming
motive for the man who is in my mind to eliminate Sir Eustace. In fact
it must have seemed to him the only possible way out of an intolerable
situation. Let me now go on to connect him with the few facts allowed
us by the anonymous murderer.
“When the Chief Inspector the other evening permitted us to examine
the forged letter from Mason & Sons I examined it closely, because I
know something about typewriters. That letter was typed on a Hamilton
machine. The man I have in mind has a Hamilton typewriter at his place
of business. You may say that might be only a coincidence, the
Hamilton being so generally used. So it might; but if you get enough
coincidences lumped together, they cease to become coincidences at all
and become certainties.
“In the same way we have the further coincidence of Mason’s notepaper.
This man has a definite connection with Mason’s. Three years ago, as
you may remember, Mason’s were involved in a big lawsuit. I forget the
details, but I think they brought an action against one of their
rivals. You may remember, Sir Charles?”
Sir Charles nodded reluctantly, as if unwilling to help his antagonist
even with this unimportant information. “I ought to,” he said shortly.
“It was against the Fearnley Chocolate Company for infringement of
copyright in an advertisement figure. I led for Mason’s.”
“Thank you. Yes, I thought it was something like that. Very well,
then. This man was connected with that very case. He was helping
Mason’s, on the legal side. He must have been in and out of their
office. His opportunities for possessing himself of a piece of their
notepaper would have been legion. The chances by which he might have
found himself three years later in possession of a piece would be
innumerable. The paper had yellowed edges; it must have been quite
three years old. It had an erasure. That erasure, I suggest, is the
remains of a brief note on the case jotted down one day in Mason’s
office. The thing is obvious. Everything fits.
“Then there is the matter of the post-mark. I agree with Sir Charles
that we may take it for granted that the murderer, cunning though he
is, and anxious though he might be to establish an alibi, would not
entrust the posting of the fatal parcel to any one else. Apart from a
confederate, which I am sure we may rule out of the question, it would
be far too dangerous; the name of Sir Eustace Pennefather could hardly
escape being seen, and the connection later established. The murderer,
secure in his conviction that suspicion will never fall on himself of
all people (just like all murderers that have ever been), gambles a
possible alibi against a certain risk and posts the thing himself. It
is therefore advisable, just to clinch the case against him, to
connect the man with the neighbourhood of the Strand between the hours
of eight-thirty and nine-thirty on that particular evening.
“Surprisingly enough I found this task, which I had expected to be the
most difficult, the easiest of all. The man of whom I am thinking
actually attended a public dinner that night at the Hotel Cecil, a
re-union dinner to be exact of his old school. The Hotel Cecil, I need
not remind you, is almost opposite Southampton Street. The Southampton
Street post-office is the nearest one to the Hotel. What could be
easier for him than to slip out of his seat for the five minutes which
is all that would be required, and be back again almost before his
neighbours had noticed his action?”
“What indeed?” murmured the rapt Mr. Bradley.
“I have two final points to make. You remember that in pointing out
the resemblance of this case to the Molineux affair, I remarked that
this similarity was more than surprising, it was significant. I will
explain what I meant by that. What I meant was that the parallel was
far too close for it to be just a coincidence. This case is a
deliberate _copy_ of that one. And if it is, there is only one
inference. This murder is the work of a man steeped in criminal
history—of a criminologist. And the man I have in mind _is_ a
criminologist.
“My last point concerns the denial in the newspaper of the rumoured
engagement between Sir Eustace Pennefather and Miss Wildman. I learnt
from his valet that Sir Eustace did not send that denial himself. Nor
did Miss Wildman. Sir Eustace was furiously angry about it. It was
sent, on his own initiative without consulting either of them, by the
man whom I am accusing of having committed this crime.”
Mr. Bradley stopped hugging himself for a moment. “And the
nitrobenzene? Were you able to connect him with that too?”
“That is one of the very few points on which I agree with Sir Charles.
I don’t think it in the least necessary, or possible, to connect him
with such a common commodity, which can be bought anywhere without the
slightest difficulty or remark.”
Mrs. Fielder-Flemming was holding herself in with a visible effort.
Her words, so calm and judicial to read, had hitherto been spoken too
with a strenuous attempt towards calm and judicial delivery. But with
each sentence the attempt was obviously becoming more difficult. Mrs.
Fielder-Flemming was clearly getting so excited that a few more such
sentences seemed likely to choke her, though to the others such
intensity of feeling seemed a little unnecessary. She was approaching
her climax, of course, but even that seemed hardly an excuse for such
a very purple face and a hat that had now managed somehow to ride to
the very back of her head where it trembled agitatedly in sympathy
with its mistress.
“That is all,” she concluded jerkily. “I submit that I have proved my
case. This man is the murderer.”
There was complete silence.
“Well?” said Alicia Dammers impatiently. “Who is he, then?”
Sir Charles, who had been regarding the orator with a frown that grew
more and more lowering every minute, thumped quite menacingly on the
table in front of him. “Precisely,” he growled. “Let us get out in the
open. Against whom are these ridiculous insinuations of yours
directed, madam?” One gathered that Sir Charles did not find himself
in agreement with the lady’s conclusions, even before knowing what
they were.
“Accusations, Sir Charles,” Mrs. Fielder-Flemming squeaked correction.
“You—you pretend you don’t know?”
“Really, madam,” retorted Sir Charles, with massive dignity, “I’m
afraid I have no idea.”
And then Mrs. Fielder-Flemming became regrettably dramatic. Rising
slowly to her feet like a tragedy queen (except that tragedy queens do
not wear their hats tremblingly on the very backs of their heads, and
if their faces are apt to go brilliant purple with emotion disguise
the tint with appropriate grease paints), heedless of the chair
overturning behind her with a dull, doom-like thud, her quivering
finger pointing across the table, she confronted Sir Charles with
every inch of her five-foot nothing.
“Thou!” shrilled Mrs. Fielder-Flemming. “Thou art the man!” Her
outstretched finger shook like a ribbon on an electric fan. “The brand
of Cain is on your forehead! Murderer!”
In the silence of ecstatic horror that followed Mr. Bradley clung
deliriously to the arm of Mr. Chitterwick.
Sir Charles succeeded in finding his voice, temporarily mislaid. “The
woman’s mad,” he gasped.
Finding that she had not been shot on the spot, or even blasted by
blue lightning from Sir Charles’s eyes, either of which possibilities
it seemed that she had been dreading, Mrs. Fielder-Flemming proceeded
rather less hysterically to amplify her charge.
“No, I am not mad, Sir Charles; I am very, very sane. You loved your
daughter, and with the twofold love that a man who has lost his wife
feels for the only feminine thing left to him. You considered that any
lengths were justified to prevent her from falling into the hands of
Sir Eustace Pennefather—from having her youth, her innocence, her
trust exploited by such a scoundrel.
“Out of your own mouth I convict you. Already you’ve told us that it
was not necessary to mention everything that took place at your
interview with Sir Eustace. No; for then you would have had to give
away the fact that you informed him you would rather kill him with
your own hands than see your daughter married to him. And when matters
reached such a pass, what with the poor girl’s infatuation and
obstinacy and Sir Eustace’s determination to take advantage of them,
that no means short of that very thing was left to you to prevent the
catastrophe, you did not shrink from employing them. Sir Charles
Wildman, may God be your judge, for I cannot.” Breathing heavily, Mrs.
Fielder-Flemming retrieved her inverted chair and sat down on it.
“Well, Sir Charles,” remarked Mr. Bradley, whose swelling bosom was
threatening to burst his waistcoat. “Well, I wouldn’t have thought it
of you. Murder, indeed. Very naughty; very, very naughty.”
For once Sir Charles took no notice of his faithful gadfly. It is
doubtful whether he even heard him. Now that it had penetrated into
his consciousness that Mrs. Fielder-Flemming really intended her
accusation in all seriousness and was not the victim of a temporary
attack of insanity, his bosom was swelling just as tumultuously as Mr.
Bradley’s. His face, adopting the purple tinge that Mrs.
Fielder-Flemming’s was relinquishing, took on the aspect of the frog
in the fable who failed to realise his own bursting-point. Roger,
whose emotions on hearing Mrs. Fielder-Flemming’s outburst had been so
mixed as to be almost scrambled, began to feel quite alarmed for him.
But Sir Charles found the safety-valve of speech just in time. “Mr.
President,” he exploded through it, “if I am not right in assuming
this to be a jest on this lady’s part, even though a jest in the worst
possible taste, am I to be expected to take this preposterous nonsense
seriously?”
Roger glanced at Mrs. Fielder-Flemming’s face, now set in flinty
masses, and gulped. However, preposterous though Sir Charles might
term it, his antagonist had certainly made out a case, and not a
flimsy, unsupported case either. “I think,” he said, as carefully as
he could, “that if it had been any one but yourself in question, Sir
Charles, you would agree that a charge of this kind, when there is
real evidence to support it, does at least require to be taken
seriously so far as to need refuting.”
Sir Charles snorted and Mrs. Fielder-Flemming nodded her head several
times with vehemence.
“If refuting is possible,” observed Mr. Bradley. “But I must admit
that, personally, I am impressed. Mrs. Fielder-Flemming seems to me to
have made out her case. Would you like me to go and telephone for the
police, Mr. President?” He spoke with an air of earnest endeavour to
do his duty as a citizen, however distasteful it might be.
Sir Charles glared, but once more seemed bereft of words.
“Not yet, I think,” Roger said gently. “We haven’t heard yet what Sir
Charles has to answer.”
“Well, I suppose we may as well _hear_ him,” conceded Mr. Bradley.
Five pairs of eyes glued themselves on Sir Charles, five pairs of ears
were strained.
But Sir Charles, struggling mightily with himself, was silent.
“As I expected,” murmured Mr. Bradley. “There is no defence. Even Sir
Charles, who has snatched so many murderers from the rope, can find
nothing to say in such a glaring case. It’s very sad.”
From the look he flashed at his tormentor it was to be deduced that
Sir Charles might have found plenty to say had the two of them been
alone together. As it was, he could only rumble.
“Mr. President,” said Alicia Dammers, with her usual brisk efficiency,
“I have a proposal to make. Sir Charles appears to be admitting his
guilt by default, and Mr. Bradley, as a good citizen, wishes to hand
him over to the police.”
“Hear, hear!” observed the good citizen.
“Personally I should be sorry to do that. I think there is a good deal
to be said for Sir Charles. Murder, we are taught, is invariably
anti-social. But is it? I am of the opinion that Sir Charles’s
intention, that of ridding the world (and incidentally his own
daughter) of Sir Eustace Pennefather, was quite in the world’s best
interests. That his intention miscarried and an innocent victim was
killed is quite beside the point. Even Mrs. Fielder-Flemming seemed to
be doubtful whether Sir Charles ought to be condemned, as a jury would
certainly condemn him, though she added in conclusion that she did not
feel competent to judge him.
“I differ from her. Being a person of, I hope, reasonable
intelligence, I feel perfectly competent to judge him. And I consider
further that all five of us are competent to judge him. I therefore
suggest that we do in fact judge him ourselves. Mrs. Fielder-Flemming
could act as prosecutor; somebody (I propose Mr. Bradley) could defend
him; and all five of us constitute a jury, the finding to be by
majority in favour or against. We would bind ourselves to abide by the
result, and if it is against him we send for the police; if it is in
his favour we agree never to breathe a word of his guilt outside this
room. May this be put to the meeting?”
Roger smiled at her reprovingly. He knew quite well that Miss Dammers
no more believed in Sir Charles’s guilt than he, Roger, did himself,
and he knew that she was only pulling that eminent counsel’s leg; a
little cruelly, but no doubt she thought it was good for him. Miss
Dammers professed herself a strong believer in seeing the other side,
and held that it would be a very good thing for the cat occasionally
to find itself chased by the mouse; certainly therefore it was most
salutary for a man who had prosecuted other men for their lives to
find himself for once in the dock on just such a terrifying charge.
Mr. Bradley, on the other hand, though he, too, obviously did not
believe that Sir Charles was the murderer, mocked not out of
conviction but because only so could he get a little of his own back
against Sir Charles for having made more of a success of his life than
Mr. Bradley was likely to do.
Nor, Roger thought, had Mr. Chitterwick any serious doubts as to the
possibility of Sir Charles being guilty, though he was still looking
so alarmed at Mrs. Fielder-Flemming’s temerity in suggesting such a
thing that it was not altogether possible to say what he did think.
Indeed Roger was quite sure that nobody entertained the least
suspicion of Sir Charles’s innocence except Mrs. Fielder-Flemming—and
perhaps, from the look of him, Sir Charles himself. As that outraged
gentleman had pointed out, such an idea, looked at in sober
reflection, was plainly the most preposterous nonsense. Sir Charles
could not be guilty because—well, because he was Sir Charles, and
because such things don’t happen, and because he obviously couldn’t
be.
On the other hand Mrs. Fielder-Flemming had very neatly proved that he
was. And Sir Charles had not even attempted yet to prove that he
wasn’t.
Not for the first time Roger wished, very sincerely, that anybody were
sitting in the presidential chair but himself.
“I think,” he now repeated, “that before we take any steps at all we
ought to hear what Sir Charles has to say. I am sure,” added the
President kindly, remembering the right phrase, “that he will have a
complete answer to all charges.” He looked expectantly towards the
criminal.
Sir Charles appeared to jerk himself out of the haze of his wrath. “I
am really expected to defend myself against this—this hysteria?” he
barked. “Very well. I admit I am a criminologist, which Mrs.
Fielder-Flemming appears to think so damning. I admit that I attended
a dinner at the Hotel Cecil on that night, which it seems is enough to
put the rope round my neck. I admit, since it appears that my private
affairs are to be dragged into public, regardless of taste or decency,
that I would rather have strangled Sir Eustace with my own hands than
see him married to my daughter.”
He paused, and passed his hand rather wearily over his high forehead.
He was no longer formidable, but only a rather bewildered old man.
Roger felt intensely sorry for him. But Mrs. Fielder-Flemming had
stated her case too well for it to be possible to spare him.
“I admit all this, but none of it is evidence that would have very
much weight in a court of law. If you want me to prove that I did not
actually send those chocolates, what am I to say? I could bring my two
neighbours at the dinner, who would swear that I never left my seat
till—well, it must have been after ten o’clock. I can prove by means
of other witnesses that my daughter finally consented, on my
representations, to give up the idea of marriage with Sir Eustace and
has gone voluntarily to stay with relations of ours in Devonshire for
a considerable time. But there again I have to admit that this has
happened since the date of posting the chocolates.
“In short, Mrs. Fielder-Flemming has managed, with considerable skill,
to put together a _prima facie_ case against me, though it was based
on a mistaken assumption (I would point out to her that counsel is
never constantly in and out of his client’s premises, but meets him
usually only in the presence of his solicitor, either at the former’s
place of business or in his own chambers), and I am quite ready, if
this meeting thinks it advisable, for the matter to be investigated
officially. More, I welcome such investigation in view of the slur
that has been cast upon my name. Mr. President, I ask you, as
representing the members as a whole, to take such action as you think
fit.”
Roger steered a wary course. “Speaking for myself, Sir Charles, I am
quite sure that Mrs. Fielder-Flemming’s reasoning, exceedingly clever
though it was, has been based as you say upon an error, and really, as
a matter of mere probability, I cannot see a father sending poisoned
chocolates to the would-be fiancé of his own daughter. A moment’s
thought would show him the practical inevitability of the chocolates
reaching eventually the daughter herself. I have my own opinion about
this crime, but even apart from that I feel quite certain in my own
mind that the case against Sir Charles has not really been proved.”
“Mr. President,” cut in Mrs. Fielder-Flemming, not without heat, “you
may say what you like, but in the interests of—”
“I agree, Mr. President,” Miss Dammers interrupted incisively. “It is
unthinkable that Sir Charles could have sent those chocolates.”
“Humph!” said Mr. Bradley, unwilling to have his sport spoiled quite
so soon.
“Hear, hear!” Mr. Chitterwick, with surprising decision.
“On the other hand,” Roger pursued, “I quite see that Mrs.
Fielder-Flemming is entitled to the official investigation which Sir
Charles asks for, no less than is Sir Charles himself on behalf of his
good name. And I agree with Sir Charles that she has certainly made
out a _prima facie_ case for investigation. But what I should like to
stress is that so far only two members out of six have spoken, and it
is not outside possibility that such startling developments may have
been traced out by the time we have all had our turn, that the one we
are discussing now may (I do not say that it will, but it _may_) have
faded into insignificance.”
“Oho!” murmured Mr. Bradley. “What has our worthy President got up his
sleeve?”
“I therefore propose, as a formal motion,” Roger concluded,
disregarding the somewhat sour looks cast on him by Mrs.
Fielder-Flemming, “that we shelve the question regarding Sir Charles
entirely, for discussion or report either inside or outside this room,
for one week from to-day, when any member who wishes may bring it up
again for decision, failing which it passes into oblivion for good and
all. Shall we vote on that? Those in favour?”
The motion was carried unanimously. Mrs. Fielder-Flemming would have
liked to vote against it, but she had never yet belonged to any
committee where all motions were not carried unanimously and habit was
too strong for her.
The meeting then adjourned, rather oppressed.