A RIFT IN THE CLOUDS
Could there be two men the whorls of whose fingers were the same?
Scotland Yard says impossible.
“I do not question that this is a very wonderful safe, Mr. Morrice,”
the detective remarked quietly to the financier in a subsequent
conversation, “but it is evidently not as invulnerable as you and the
makers thought it.”
“Once know the secret of its mechanism, and the rest is easy,” retorted
Morrice, a little nettled at this depreciatory reference to the
wonderful invention, to the perfecting of which he had contributed not
a little himself with his own ingenious suggestions.
He explained to Lane a few of its marvels. To begin with, it was
the only safe of its kind that had ever been manufactured. The
combinations of the times when it would open would run into millions.
Supposing you worked on tens, for instance, that is ten, twenty,
thirty, the days of the month, it would only open if both keys were
applied to the same keyhole!
The detective listened politely, but he was not very interested in
learning how the thing worked; his object was to find out if there was
anybody besides young Croxton and his employer who could have become
acquainted with the secret of its working.
“It seems to me that it is really a matter of exercising ordinary
common-sense,” observed the angry banker. “Two men alone know the
secret, myself and Richard Croxton, therefore either of us could open
it after having obtained surreptitiously a duplicate of the key held by
the other. Let us assume, for a moment that you, acting on Croxton’s
behalf, say that I was the thief, that from some sinister motive
I stole my own property. Well, you are perfectly entitled to that
opinion, as an opinion.”
“I have not expressed it,” said the detective quietly.
“I know you haven’t,” snapped Morrice. He was in a very angry mood
to-day, and inclined to let his temper run away with him. “But I also
know that gentlemen of your profession cast your net wide when you
start, in the hope of catching some very unlikely fish. Of course, I
could have opened it and cast it upon Croxton, if I were so disposed.
But where is my motive for robbing myself? I can understand certain
circumstances which might induce a man to commit such an act, and
cleverly provide a scapegoat. Men set fire to their own warehouses
to get the insurance money. Why? Because they are on the verge of
bankruptcy and that money will save them. A desperate man might steal
his own money for similar reasons, to place it beyond the reach of his
creditors, so that he should not go forth to the world a beggar. But
these motives are absent in my own case. I am more than solvent; I
don’t wish to speak in any boasting spirit, but I have more money than
I know what to do with.”
Lane thought for such a practical man of the world, and possessing,
as he did, such a clear logical brain, he was indulging in rather
superfluous observations. Besides, he had referred to one aspect
of the situation as it affected himself—the absence of financial
embarrassment. If one chose to argue with him, one could cite from
the annals of crime instances of more than one other motive that had
impelled men to commit crimes which they artfully fixed upon innocent
persons, whom for some subtle reason they wished to remove from their
path, or on whom they desired revenge.
The next words, however, showed why the banker had volunteered such an
elaborate defence of himself.
“I am therefore eliminated, at any rate to my own satisfaction.” His
tone was still angry, as if he inwardly resented Lane’s rather lukewarm
attitude. “There is only left this young man whom I have treated as a
son, whom I have loaded with benefits, whom I have preserved from the
consequences of his criminal acts, his dastardly ingratitude to me.
He alone, beyond myself, knew the secret of this safe’s mechanism,
therefore he alone could open it, unless, which of course is possible,
he employed a confederate whom he took into his confidence. Is that
common-sense or not, Mr. Lane?” he concluded in a slightly calmer tone.
“Perfectly common-sense so far as it carries us, Mr. Morrice,” was the
detective’s judicial reply.
“So far as it carries us,” cried Morrice with a slight return of his
previous explosive manner. “I do not understand you.”
Lane smiled. It was a slightly superior smile, prompted by the thought
that these clever business men, excellent and keen as they were in
their own pursuits, did not exhibit that logical mind which is the
great equipment of a trained investigator.
“By that expression I mean simply this, that when you definitely assume
Mr. Croxton’s guilt you are acting on the presumption that nobody but
you and he knows the secret of this mechanism. Can you prove that?”
“Of course I can’t prove it in a way that might satisfy you, but I
do know that I have never told anybody else. There is of course the
maker,” he added sarcastically. “Perhaps you are including him in your
calculations.”
“I think I will consent readily to his elimination,” replied Lane in
his quiet, not unhumorous way. “Now, Mr. Morrice, we will discuss this
matter without heat. I am now employed by you as well as Mr. Croxton,
and I have only one object in view. But I must conduct my investigation
in my own way, and I want to go a little deeper than we have yet gone.”
Morrice was impressed by the grave authoritative manner of the man;
he showed a strong touch of that quality which we notice in eminent
judges, successful barristers and all properly qualified members of
the legal profession, a patient pursuit of facts, a strongly developed
power of deduction from whatever facts are presented, a keen faculty of
analysis.
“Now, Mr. Morrice, I shall ask you a question or two for my own
enlightenment. From the little you have explained to me, the mechanism
of this safe is extremely complicated. Did you and Mr. Croxton carry
all the details of it in your heads, or had you some written memorandum
of its working to refer to in case of a temporary lapse of memory?”
Morrice was quick enough immediately to see the drift of that question,
and his manner changed at once. “Thank you for that suggestion, Mr.
Lane; I fear I have shown a little impatience. For all practical
purposes, we did carry it in our heads, but I have in my possession,
as you surmise, a written key to which reference could be made in the
event of our requiring an elaborate combination.”
“And that key is still in your possession?”
“Yes. I keep it in the safe in my dressing-room. I looked this morning,
and it was there.”
The detective ruminated over this latest piece of information. While he
was doing so, Morrice spoke again, with just a little hesitation, as
if he knew that what he was going to say would cut the ground a little
from under his strongly expressed theory of Croxton’s guilt.
“You ought to know the whole truth, Mr. Lane, and you shall have it
for what it is worth. This present memorandum—I will speak of it by
that name—is one that I wrote out from memory. I had an original one,
perhaps just a trifle fuller, but I lost it, that is to say I could not
find it amongst my papers, some two years ago.”
Still clinging obstinately to his theory, he added a few comments
which, needless to say, did not make much impression on his listener,
who went into possibilities and probabilities perhaps just a trifle too
elaborately for the ordinary man.
“You know how easily papers get lost or mislaid. It is as likely as
not that the original memorandum will turn up in the last place I
should expect to find it. And if it got loose and was swept up by some
careless servant, it would get into the hands of the dustman. To the
ordinary person it would, of course, be quite unintelligible.”
To this Lane simply remarked that when a paper of importance had
disappeared it was quite impossible to prophesy into whose hands it
would fall. The dustman was a comforting theory, but it was no part
of his business to adopt comforting theories that did away with the
necessity to think. If “Tubby” Thomas had not been safely locked up
at Dartmoor for the last two years, he would have been pretty certain
that by some felonious means it had come into the possession of that
accomplished safe-breaker.
His position had changed since Mr. Morrice had summoned him to Deanery
Street on the occasion of the second burglary. He was now representing
the financier as well as Richard Croxton. In a way he was glad, for
Richard Croxton was poor according to Rosabelle, and this promised to
be an expensive investigation. To Morrice money did not matter; he
would not be stopped from ascertaining the truth by lack of funds.
But in another way it was awkward. They had already found out about
Mrs. Morrice that, in conjunction with Sir George Clayton-Brookes, the
supposed wealthy baronet, she was passing off as her nephew a young man
who had no claim to the title. In course of time Morrice would have
to be acquainted with that suspicious fact, and whatever degree of
affection the banker felt for his wife, whether he loved her very much
or hardly at all, it would be a terrible blow to him, either to his
love or pride, or both.
Lane had a long talk with Sellars over the latest development of the
Morrice mystery. The young man strongly maintained that it greatly
strengthened the presumption of Croxton’s innocence, and although the
detective, with his usual habit of caution, did not take quite such a
decided view as his more impetuous lieutenant, he readily admitted
that it told in his favour, that any man possessing the legal mind must
concede as much.
“The more I can find out about him and his habits,” Sellars remarked,
“the more it seems unlikely, although not, of course, impossible, that
he should have done this thing. As far as I can learn, he has been in
love with Miss Sheldon for years, and his life has simply been bound up
with the Morrice family. They entertained very largely, and he always
showed up at their entertainments, was at every dinner-party they
gave, just like a son of the house. He seems to have very few young
men friends, but they are all of a most respectable type. He doesn’t
gamble, he doesn’t drink. Other women don’t come into the case, for he
is hardly ever a yard away from his lady-love. Does he seem the kind
of man to get himself into a hole out of which he can only extricate
himself by robbery?”
And Lane was forced to agree that if the good report of one’s
fellows could establish innocence, young Richard Croxton was already
satisfactorily whitewashed. But of course, in the opinion of this
eminent practitioner, all this was negative evidence, not positive.
Rosabelle, who was duly informed of the loss of the original
memorandum—for Lane was at bottom a very kind-hearted man and thought
he could give the harassed girl this crumb of comfort without
jeopardizing his future action—was very jubilant. She was also
pleased that her uncle had appointed the detective to prosecute his
investigations on his behalf. It would mean that Lane would not be
hampered for money.
She went over to Petersham the next day to tell her lover what had
happened, and succeeded in infecting him with her own hopeful spirit.
“And is Mr. Morrice still as bitter against me as ever, does he still
believe as firmly in my guilt?”
Rosabelle was not very sure of the financier’s real thoughts, but she
gave the best answer she could.
“You know, my dear old Dick, how obstinately he clings to an idea when
he has once taken it into his head, but I fancy he is a bit shaken.”