THE DEATH OF HARTLEY PARRISH
“For Miss Trevert.”
Thus, in Jeekes’s round and flowing commercial hand, the document
began:
Last Statement of Albert Edward Jeekes, made at Rotterdam, this
twenty-first Day of January, in the Year of Our Lord One Thousand Nine
Hundred and...
Mr. Bardy, the solicitor, to whom, by common consent, the reading of
the confession had been entrusted, raised his eyebrows, thereby letting
his eyeglass fall, and looked round at the company.
“Pon my soul,” he remarked, “for a man about to take his own life, our
friend seems to have been the coolest customer imaginable. Look at it!
Written in a firm hand and almost without an erasure. Very remarkable!
Very remarkable, indeed!...”
“Hm!” grunted Mr. Manderton, “not so uncommon as you suppose, Mr.
Bardy, sir. Hendriks, the Palmers Green poisoner, typed out his
confession on cream inlaid paper before dosing himself. But let’s hear
what the gentleman has to tell us....”
This was the last digression. Thenceforth Mr. Bardy read out the
confession to the end without interruption.
_For Miss Trevert_:
_Madam_,
I slew, but I am not a murderer: I Killed, but without deliberation.
Victor Marbran has gone and left me to meet a shameful death. But I
cannot face the scaffold. As men go, I do not believe I am a coward and
I am not afraid to die. But the inexorable deliberation of justice
appals me. When I have written what I have to write, I shall be hangman
to myself. My pistol they have taken away.
Victor Marbran has abandoned me. He had prepared everything for his
flight. Even if the law can indict him as the virtual murderer of
Hartley Parrish, the law will never lay hands on him. Victor Marbran
neglects no detail. He will never be caught. But from the Great Unknown
for which I shall presently set out, I shall stretch forth my hand and
see that, here or there, he does not escape the punishment he merits
for bringing down shame and disgrace upon me.
Just now he bade me stay in the office and finish burning the papers in
his desk. He promised he would take me with him to a secure
hiding-place which he had made ready for some such emergency as this. I
believed him and, unsuspecting, stayed. And now he has slipped away. He
is gone and the house is empty. I cannot follow him even did I know
where he has gone. I have only a very little money left and I am tired.
Very tired. I feel I cannot support the hue-and-cry they will raise.
Everything is still about me. The quiet of the country is very
soothing. To die like this, with darkness falling and no sound but the
rustling rain, is the better way ...
Hartley Parrish was the man behind the great syndicate which
systematically ran the British blockade of Germany in the war. He
financed Marbran and the international riff-raff of profiteers with
whom Marbran worked. Parrish supplied the funds, often the goods as
well,—at any rate, until they tightened up the blockade,—while Marbran
and the rest of the bunch in neutral countries did the trading with the
enemy.
Parrish was a deep one. I say nothing against him. He was a kind
employer to me and I played him false, for which I have been bitterly
punished. To have swindled Victor Marbran—I count it as nothing against
him, for that heartless, cruel man is deserving of no pity ...
Parrish was the heart and soul, brains and muscle of the syndicate. He
lurked far in the background. Any and every trail which might possibly
lead back to him was carefully effaced. He was secure as long as
Marbran and one or two other big men in the business kept faith with
him. Now and then, when the British Intelligence were too hot on the
trail, Parrish and Marbran would give away one of the small fry
belonging to the organization and thus stave off suspicion. They could
do this in complete safety, for so perfect was their organization that
the small fry only knew the small fry in the shallows and never the big
fish in the deep ...
But Hartley Parrish was in Marbran’s hands. They stood or fell
together. Parrish knew this. But he was a born gambler and insanely
self-confident. He took a chance with Marbran. It cost him his life.
All payments were made to Parrish. He was treasurer and banker of the
syndicate. Money came in by all sorts of devious routes, sometimes from
as far afield as South or Central America. Parrish distributed the
profits. Everything was in his hands.
By the time the armistice came, the game had got too hot. All the big
fish except Marbran had cleared out with their pile. But Marbran, like
Parrish, was a gambler. He stuck it out and stayed on.
Parrish played fair until the war was over. The armistice, of course,
put an end to the business. But some months after the armistice a sum
of £150,000 was paid to Parrish through a Spanish bank in settlement,
Marbran told me, for petrol indirectly delivered to the German
Admiralty. Parrish pouched the lot. Not a penny did Marbran get.
Parrish and Marbran were old friends. They were young men together on
the Rand gold-fields in the early days. In fact, I believe they went
out to South Africa together as penniless London lads. But Marbran
hated Parrish, though Parrish had, I believe, been his benefactor in
many ways. Marbran was fiercely envious of the other because he
realized that, starting with an equal chance, Parrish had left him far
behind. Everything that Parrish touched prospered, while Marbran was in
perpetual financial straits. He was Parrish’s equal in courage, but not
in judgment.
Parrish calculated that Marbran would not dare to denounce him. He had
always taken the lead in their schemes and he affected to disregard
Marbran altogether. So he left the latter’s letters unanswered and
laughed at his threats. He was quite sure that Marbran would never risk
losing his pile by giving Parrish away, for they were, of course, both
British subjects and both in it together ...
Marbran always distrusted Parrish, and long before the breach came, he
picked on me to act the spy on my employer. I, too, was born a gambler,
but, like Marbran, I lacked the lucky touch which made Parrish a
millionaire. Speculation proved my ruin. I have often thanked my God on
my bended knees—as I shall do again to-night before I pass over—that my
insane folly has ruined no one but myself ...
Already, when Hartley Parrish engaged me, I was up to the neck in
speculation. Up to that time, however, I had managed to keep my head
above water, but the large salary on which Parrish started me dazzled
me. I tried a flutter in oil on a much larger scale than anything I had
hitherto attempted, with the result that one day I found myself with a
debt of nine hundred pounds to meet and no assets to meet it with. And
I was two hundred pounds in debt to Hartley Parrish’s petty cash
account, which I kept.
It was Victor Marbran who came to my rescue. Parrish had sent me over
to Rotterdam to fetch some papers from Marbran. At this time I knew
nothing of Parrish’s blockade-running business. Parrish never took me
into his confidence about it and the whole of the correspondence went
direct to him through a number of secret channels with which I only
gradually became acquainted behind his back.
I had met Marbran several times in London and also at Rotterdam. It had
struck me that he had formed a liking for me. On this particular visit
to Rotterdam Marbran took me out to dinner and encouraged me to speak
about myself. He was very sympathetic, and this, coupled with the wine
I had taken, led me to open my heart to him. Without giving myself
away, I let him understand that I was in considerable financial
difficulties, which I set down to the high cost of living as the result
of the war.
Without a word of warning Marbran pulled out his cheque-book.
“How much do you want,” he asked, “to put you straight?”
Nine hundred pounds, I told him.
He wrote the cheque at once there at the table. He would advance me the
money, he said, and put me down for shares in a business in which he
was interested. It was a safe thing and profits were very high. I could
repay him at my leisure.
In this way I became a shareholder in Parrish’s blockade-running
syndicate. The return I was to make was to spy on my employer and to
report to Marbran the letters which Parrish received and the names of
the people whom he interviewed.
Of course, Marbran did not propose this plan at once. When I took leave
of him that night, I remember, I all but broke down at the thought of
his unsolicited generosity. I have had a hard life, Miss Trevert, and
his seeming kindness broke me all up. But I might have known.
I cashed Marbran’s cheque and put back the two hundred pounds I had
taken from the petty cash account. But I went on speculating. You see,
I did not believe Marbran’s story about the shares he said he would put
me down for. I thought it was a charitable tale to spare my feelings.
So I plunged once more in the confident hope of recovering enough to
repay my debt to Marbran.
A month later Marbran sent me a cheque for one hundred pounds. He said
it was the balance of fifteen hundred pounds due to me as profits on my
shares less the nine hundred pounds I owed him and five hundred pounds
for my shares. But my speculations had by this time gone wrong again,
and I was heartily glad presently to receive a further cheque for two
hundred pounds from Marbran. From that time on I got from Marbran sums
varying between one hundred and fifty pounds and five hundred pounds a
month.
When Marbran made me his shameful offer, I rejected it with
indignation. But I was fast in the trap. Marbran explained to me in
great detail and with the utmost candour the working of the Parrish
syndicate. He let me know very plainly that I was as deeply implicated
as Parrish and he. I was a shareholder; I had received and was
receiving my share of the profits. In my distress and shame I
threatened to expose the pair of them. Had I known the source of his
money, I told him, I should never have accepted it. At that Marbran
laughed contemptuously.
“You tell that yarn to the police,” he sneered, “and hear what they
say!”
And then I realized that I was in the net.
I make no excuses for myself. I shall make none to the Great Judge
before whom in a little while I shall appear. I had not the moral force
to resist Marbran. I did his bidding: I continued to take his money and
I held my peace.
And then came the breach between Parrish and Marbran. I was the cause
of it. But for me, his trusty spy, Marbran would have known nothing of
this payment of £150,000 which Parrish received from Spain, and this
tragedy would not have happened. God forgive me ...
Marbran appealed to Parrish in vain. What he wrote I never knew, for,
shortly after, Parrish quietly and without any explanation took the
confidential work out of my hands. I believe he suspected then who
Marbran’s spy was. But he said nothing to me of his suspicions at that
time ...
Finally, Marbran came to London. It was on Tuesday of last week. I had
been up in Sheffield on business, and on my return I found Marbran
waiting for me at my rooms.
He was like a man possessed. Never before have I witnessed such an
outburst of ungovernable rage. Parrish, it appears, had declined to see
him. He swore that Parrish should not get the better of him if he had
to kill him first. I can see Marbran now as he sat on my bed, his livid
face distorted with fury.
“I’ll give him a last chance,” he cried, “and then, by God, let our
smart Alec look out!”
This sort of talk frightened me. I knew Marbran meant mischief. He was
a bad man to cross. I was desperately afraid he would waylay Parrish
and bring down disaster on the three of us. I did my utmost to put the
idea of violence out of his mind. I begged him to content himself with
trying to frighten Parrish into paying up before trying other means.
My suggestion seemed to awaken some old memory in Marbran’s mind.
“By Gad, Jeekes,” he said, after a moment’s thought, “you’ve given me
an idea. Parrish has a yellow streak. He’s scared of a gun. I saw it
once, years ago, in a roughhouse we got into at Krugersdorp on the
Rand. Damn it, I know how to bring the yellow dog to heel, and I’ll
tell you how we’ll do it ...”
He then unfolded his plan. He would send Parrish a last demand for a
settlement, threatening him with death if he did not pay up. The
warning would reach Parrish on the following Saturday. Marbran would
contrive that he should receive it by the first post. As soon as
possible thereafter I was to go to Parrish boldly and demand his
answer.
“And you’ll take a gun,” Marbran said, peering at me with his cunning
little eyes, “and you’ll show it. And if at the sight of it you don’t
get the brass, then I don’t know my old pal, Mister Hartley Parrish,
Esquire!”
The proposal appalled me. I knew nothing of Hartley Parrish’s “yellow
streak.” I knew him only as a hard and resolute man, swift in decision
and ruthless in action. Whatever happened, I argued, Parrish would
discharge me and there was every prospect of his handing me over to the
police as well.
Marbran was deaf to my reasoning. I had nothing to fear, he protested.
Parrish would collapse at the first sign of force. And as for my losing
my job, Marbran would find me another and a better one in his office at
Rotterdam.
Still I held out. The chance of losing my position, even of being sent
to gaol, daunted me less, I think, than the admission to Parrish of the
blackly ungrateful role I had played towards him. In the end I told
Marbran to do his dirty work himself.
But I spoke without conviction. I realized that Marbran held me in a
cleft stick and that he realized it, too. He wasted no further time in
argument. I knew what I had to do, he said, and I would do it.
Otherwise ...
He left me in an agony of mental stress. At that time, I swear to
Heaven, Miss Trevert, I was determined to let Marbran do his worst
rather than lend myself to this odious blackmailing trick, my own
suggestion, as I bitterly remembered. But for the rest of the week his
parting threat rang in my ears. Unless he heard by the following Sunday
that I had confronted Parrish and called his bluff, as he put it, the
British police should have word, not only of Parrish’s activities in
trading with the enemy, but of mine as well.
It was no idle threat. Parrish and Marbran had put men away before. I
could give you the names ...
It is quite dark now. It must be an hour since Greve took you away.
Soon he will be back with the police to arrest me and I must have
finished by then, finished with the story, finished with life ...
Last week I worked at Parrish’s city office. I told you how he kept me
off his confidential work. On Saturday morning I went round to the
house in St. James’s Square to see whether Marbran had really sent his
warning. Archer, my colleague, who was acting as confidential secretary
in my stead, was there. Parrish was at Harkings, he told me. Archer was
going down by car that morning with his mail. It included two “blue
letters” which Archer would, according to orders, hand to Parrish
unopened.
These “blue letters,” as we secretaries used to call them, written on a
striking bluish paper, were the means by which all communications
passed between Parrish and Marbran on the syndicate’s business. They
were drafted in conventional code and came to Parrish from all parts of
Europe and in all kinds of ways. No one saw them except himself. By his
strict injunctions, they were to be opened only by himself in person.
When Archer told me that two “blue letters” had come, I knew that
Marbran had kept his word. Though my mind was not made up, instinct
told me I was going to play my part ...
I could not face the shame of exposure. I was brought up in a decent
English home. To stand in the dock charged with prolonging the
sufferings of our soldiers and sailors in order to make money was a
prospect I could not even contemplate.
I thought it all out that Saturday morning as I stood at the
dressing-table in my bedroom by the open drawer in which my automatic
pistol lay. It was one given me by Parrish some years before at a time
when he thought we might be going on a trip to Rumania ...
I slipped the pistol into my pocket. I felt like a man in a dream. I
believe I went down to Harkings by train, but I have no clear
recollection of the journey. I seemed to come to my senses only when I
found myself standing on the high bank of the rosery at Harkings,
looking down upon the library window.
Outside in the gardens it was nearly dark, but from the window fell a
stream of subdued light. The curtains had not been drawn and the window
was open at the bottom. Parrish sat at the desk. Only the desk-lamp was
lit, so that his face was in shadow, but his two hands, stretched out
on the blotter in front of him, lay in a pool of light, and I caught
the gleam of his gold signet ring.
He was not writing or working. He seemed to be thinking. I watched him
in a fascinated sort of way. I had never seen him sit thus idly at his
desk before ...
My brain worked quite lucidly now. As I looked at him, I suddenly
realised that I had a golden opportunity for speaking to him
unobserved. The gardens were absolutely deserted: the library wing was
very still. If he were a man to be frightened into submission, my
sudden appearance, following upon the receipt of the threatening
letter, would be likely to help in achieving this result.
I walked softly down the steps to the window. I stood close up to the
sill.
“Mr. Parrish,” I said, “Victor Marbran has sent me for his answer.”
In a flash he was on his feet.
“Who’s there?” he cried out in alarm.
His voice shook, and I could see his hand tremble in the lamplight as
he clutched at the desk. Then I knew that he was badly frightened, and
the discovery gave me courage.
“Are you going to settle with Marbran or are you not?” I said.
At that he peered forward. All of a sudden his manner changed.
“What in hell does this mean, Jeekes?”
His voice quavered no longer. It was hard and menacing.
But I had burnt my boats behind me now.
“It means,” I answered boldly, “that you’ve got to pay up. And you’ve
got to pay up now!”
In a couple of quick strides he was round the desk and coming at me as
I stood with my chest pressing against the window-sill. His hands were
thrust in his jacket pockets. His face was red with anger.
“You dawggorn dirty little rathole spy,”—he spat the words at me in a
low, threatening voice,—“I guessed that lowdown skunk Marbran had been
getting at some of my people!”
His voice rose in a sudden gust of passion.
“You rotten little worm! You’d try and bounce me, would you? You’ve
come to the wrong shop for that, Mr. Spying Jeekes ...”
His manner was incredibly insulting. So was the utter contempt with
which he looked at me. This man, who had trembled with fear at the
unknown, recovered his self-control on finding that the menace came
from the menial, the hireling, he despised. I felt the blood rush in a
hot flood to my head. I lost all self-control. I screamed aloud at him.
“There’s no bounce about it this time! If you don’t pay up, you know
what to expect!”
I had been holding my pistol out of his sight below the window-ledge,
but on this I swung it up and levelled it at him.
He sprang back a pace, the colour fading on the instant from his face,
his mouth twisted awry in a horrid paroxysm of fear. Even in that
subdued light I could see that his cheeks were as white as paper.
But then in a flash his right hand went up. I saw the pistol he held,
but before I could make a movement there was a loud, raucous hiss of
air and a bullet whistled past my ear into the darkness of the gardens.
How he missed me at that range I don’t know, but, seeing me standing
there, he came at me again with the pistol in his hand ...
And then you, Miss Trevert, cried out, “Hartley,” and rattled the
handle of the door. Your cry merged in a deafening report. Parrish, who
was quite close to me, and advancing, stopped short with a little
startled exclamation, his eyes reproachful, full of surprise. He stood
there and swayed, looking at me all the time, then crashed backwards on
the floor. And I found myself staring at the smoking pistol in my hand
...
It was your scream that brought me to my senses. My mind cleared
instantly. I knew I must act quickly. The house would be alarmed
directly, and before that happened, I must be clear of the grounds. Yet
I knew that before I went I must do something to make myself safe ...
I stood at the window staring down at the dead man. His eyes were
terrible. Like a suicide he looked, I thought. And then it flashed
across my mind that only one shot had been heard and that our pistols
were identical and fired the same ammunition. The silencer! The
silencer could save me. With that removed, the suicide theory might
pass muster: at any rate, it would delay other investigations and give
me a start ...
In a matter of a second or two I believe I thought of everything. I did
not overlook the danger of leaving finger-prints or foot-marks about. I
had not taken off my gloves, and my boots were perfectly dry. In
climbing into the room I was most careful to see that I did not mark
the window-sill or scratch the paintwork ...
I stood beside the body and I caught the dead man’s hand. It was fat
and soft and still warm. The touch of it made me reel with horror. I
turned my face away from his so as not to see his eyes again....
I got the silencer. Parrish had shown it to me and I knew how to detach
it....
I went back through the window as carefully as I had come in. And I
pushed the window down. Parrish would have done that, I thought, if he
had meant to commit suicide. And then my nerve went. The window
frightened me. The blank glass with the silent room beyond;—it reminded
me of Parrish’s sightless gaze. I turned and ran....
I did not mean to kill. As there is a God in ...
On that unfinished sentence the confession ended.
Mr. Bardy put the bundle of manuscript down on the desk and, dropping
his eyeglass from his eye, caught it deftly and began to polish it
vigorously with his pocket handkerchief. As no one spoke, he said:
“That’s all. It ends there!”
He looked round the circle of earnest faces. Then Horace Trevert
crossed to the desk.
“Robin,” he said, and held out his hand, “I want to apologize. I ... we
... behaved very badly ...”
Robin grasped the boy’s hand.
“Not a word about that, Horace, old boy,” he said. “Besides, Mary is
putting all that right, you know!”
“She told me,” replied Horace; “and, Robin, I’m tremendously glad!”
“Mr. Greve!”
Robin turned to find Mr. Manderton, large and impressive, at his elbow.
“Might I have a word with you?”
Robin followed the detective across the room to the window.
Mr. Manderton seemed a trifle embarrassed.
“Er—- Mr. Greve,” he said, clearing his throat rather nervously, “I
should like to—er,—offer you my congratulations on the remarkably
accurate view you took of this case. I should have been able to prove
to you, I believe, but for this curious interruption, that your view
and mine practically coincided. It has been a pleasure to work with
you, sir!”
He cast a hasty glance over his shoulder at the other occupants of the
room, who were gathered round the desk.
“I’m not a society man, Mr. Greve,” he added, “and I have a lot of work
on my hands regarding the case. So I think I’ll run off now ...”
He broke off, gave Robin a large hand, and, looking neither to right
nor to left, made a hurried exit from the room, taking Inspector
Humphries with him.
“Now that we are just among ourselves”—the solicitor was speaking—“I
think I may seize the opportunity of saying a word about Mr. Parrish’s
will. Miss Trevert, as you know, is made principal legatee, but I
understand from her that she does not propose to accept the
inheritance. I will not comment on this decision of hers, which does
her moral sense, at any rate, infinite credit, but I should observe
that Mr. Parrish has left directions for the payment of an allowance—I
may say, a most handsome allowance—to Lady Margaret Trevert during her
ladyship’s lifetime. This is a provision over which Miss Trevert’s
decision, of course, can have no influence. I would only remark that,
according to Mr. Parrish’s instructions, this allowance will be paid
from the dividends on a percentage of his holdings in Hornaway’s under
the new scheme. I have not yet had an opportunity of looking further
into Mr. Parrish’s affairs in the light of the information which Mr.
Greve obtained in Rotterdam, but I have reason to believe that he kept
his interest in Hornaway’s and his—ahem!—other activities entirely
separate. If this can be definitely established to my own satisfaction
and to yours, my dear Miss Trevert, I see no reason why you should not
modify your decision at least in respect of Mr. Parrish’s interest in
Hornaway’s.”
Mary Trevert looked at Robin and then at the solicitor.
“No!” she said; “not a penny as far as I am concerned. With Mother the
case is different. I told her last night of my decision in the matter.
She disapproves of it. That is why she is not here to-day. But my mind
is made up.”
Mr. Bardy adjusted his eyeglass in his eye and gazed at the girl. His
face wore an expression of pain mingled with compassion.
“I will see Lady Margaret after lunch,” he said rather stiffly.
Then the door opened and Bude appeared.
“Luncheon is served, Miss!”
He stood there, a portly, dignified figure in sober black, solemn of
visage, sonorous of voice, a living example of the triumph of
established tradition over the most savage buffetings of Fate. His
enunciation was, if anything, more mellow, his demeanour more
pontifical than of yore.
Bude was once more in the service of a County Family.
THE END