THE BARON
Coming so soon after the robbery at Holt, the brutal murder of Sir
Roland's head gardener created an immense sensation throughout both
Berkshire and Hampshire—for the Holt Manor estate, though actually in
Berkshire, is also upon the border of Hampshire. The London papers, too,
devoted much space to the matter, the problem they set their readers to
solve being: whether the murder could have any bearing upon the robbery.
Some of the leading journals declared that both crimes must have been in
some way related; others urged that this was most unlikely, and then
proceeded to "prove" the accuracy of their own individual reasoning.
The man had been done to death in a peculiarly horrible manner. He had
been hit upon the back of the head with some heavy implement—probably a
"jemmy" the police said when the wound, with the wounds upon the
forehead, had been examined beneath a microscope. The theory they held
was that some person had crept up unheard behind the victim—as this
could easily have been done with snow so thick upon the ground—stunned
him with a blow upon the back of the head, and then despatched him
outright by blows upon the forehead. No footsteps were anywhere
visible, the falling snow having hidden them.
Churchill's movements during that afternoon had in part been traced.
Directly after taking to Dulcie the buckle he had found and obtaining
her permission to absent himself for the afternoon, he had walked to
Holt Stacey, and there caught the 4:05 train to Newbury. He had
exchanged the time of day with the ticket-collector at Newbury, who had
taken the half of his ticket. The return half had afterwards been found
in the dead man's pocket. Where he had been, or what he had done,
between 4:20—from the time he left Newbury station, on foot—and 6:10,
when he had looked in at the "Dog and Clown" and had a drink and a chat
with the landlord, was unknown. He had not told the landlord why he was
in Newbury, or said anything concerning his movements in that town.
The fact of his having bought a return ticket showed that he had
intended to return to Holt Stacey by train. But he had not gone back by
train. The last train for Holt Stacey left Newbury at 9:11, and at 9:30
he had been seen by a seedsman who kept a shop in the town, and who knew
Churchill well, standing in the High Street talking to an unknown man he
had never seen before. After that, nobody appeared to have seen
Churchill until—just before 10:30, at which time the inn at Holt Stacey
closed—he had come into the inn and ordered a hot drink. Nobody was
with him then. He appeared, so the innkeeper said, to already have drunk
to excess, and this had surprised the innkeeper, who knew him to be a
temperate man, adding that that was the first time he had ever seen him
even partially intoxicated. Incidentally Churchill had mentioned that "a
gentleman had given him a lift from Newbury in his car." He had not said
who the gentleman was—if a stranger or somebody he knew, or where he
was going. Presumably the man in the car had branched off at Holt
Stacey—for he had not put up there for the night. Had he been going on
past Holt Manor he would, it was reasonable to suppose, have taken
Churchill all the way, and dropped him at the gate.
Soon after 10:30 Churchill had left the inn, saying that he was about to
walk home to Holt Manor, a distance of four miles. That was the last
time he was known to have been seen alive. It was snowing when he
set out.
Poor Dulcie was terribly cut up. I had always known her to be very
partial to the old gardener, who remembered her as a baby, but until
after his death I had not realized how deeply attached to him she really
had been. What most distressed me was that she blamed herself,
indirectly, for what had happened. Again and again did she declare to me
that, had she not given him leave to take the afternoon off the tragedy
would not have happened. In vain I tried to make her see the fallacy of
her argument—she would not listen to reason.
A fortnight went by, and nothing was discovered. The secret of the
murder remained even a greater mystery than the secret of the robbery.
True, I had my suspicions, but until I had some slight shreds of
evidence to go upon it would, I knew, be futile to make known those
suspicions. And it was because I suspected somebody of indirect, if not
direct, connivance at Churchill's murder, that I became more and more
distressed, indeed alarmed, at Dulcie's daily increasing affection for
the woman Stapleton. Their friendship was now firmly established—at any
rate, Dulcie's feeling of friendship for the widow. Whether the widow's
feeling of friendship for Dulcie was actual or only apparent was, I
thought, quite another matter.
"_Come at once. Urgent_:—_Jack_."
That telegram reached me on this afternoon, exactly two weeks after the
murder, two weeks that I had spent at Holt Manor with Dulcie, during
which time, I am bound to say, Aunt Hannah had revealed herself in quite
a new light, being friendly, even affectionate in the extreme.
"Don't go—oh! don't go, Mike!" Dulcie cried out, suddenly clutching my
arm, after reading the telegram which I had handed to her.
"But I must, darling," I exclaimed. "Jack wouldn't send me that wire if
the matter were not really urgent. It has most likely to do with the
robbery—I have told you that he is determined to find out who committed
it, with the help of that detective friend of his, George Preston. It
may even have to do with the other affair—or possibly with Jack being
kept confined in the house in Grafton Street."
"I don't care what it has to do with—don't go, dearest—please don't, I
ask you as a favour," and, bending over, she kissed me on the lips.
It was horribly hard to resist such an appeal, and yet I felt I should
be a cur if Jack really needed me—and obviously he did—and I failed to
go to him. And what would Dulcie think of me later if, through my giving
way to her entreaty, some serious harm should befall my friend? Much as
I loved her, I could not let her influence me in such a case; even if I
did, it might in the end make her despise me.
"I would do anything in the world for you, sweetheart," I said, kissing
her fondly. "You know that, as well as I do. I would grant you any
favour provided—"
"Provided what?" she asked quickly as I paused.
"Provided that my doing so could have no harmful result. Prevent my
going to Jack in such a crisis, and—"
I stopped abruptly. My tongue had, alas, outrun my discretion.
"Crisis? What crisis?" Dulcie burst forth, startled at my tone. "Oh,
Mike, you are keeping something from me, you are deceiving me—don't say
that you aren't, for I know you are!"
"Darling," I exclaimed, taking her in my arms, "I am not deceiving
you—indeed, indeed I am not. I may have been wrong in using the word
'crisis.' What I meant was that, knowing that Jack and a friend of his
are striving tooth and nail to track down the thieves who robbed this
house, and seeing that I have promised to help Jack to the best of my
ability, I feel that this urgent telegram of his means that something
has come to light, that he has heard something or discovered some clue
which makes it imperative that I should go to him at once. And I am
going—now."
Quickly I released her. Then, fearing that further delay—added,
possibly, to further persuasion on her part—might end by weakening my
determination, I gave her a final kiss, and hurried out of the room.
Again I glanced at the telegram—
"_Come at once. Urgent.—Jack._"
Then I crumpled the paper and tossed it into the fire.
Having arrived at Paddington I went straight to Jack Osborne's hotel.
He had left word that, upon my arrival, I should be told to go to a
house in Warwick Street, Regent Street, and there inquire for him.
It was George Preston's address. I hastened there in a taxi, and, as I
rang the bell, I heard a clock strike six. Preston himself admitted me.
"Mr. Osborne has not yet arrived," he said as, after a word of
explanation, we shook hands, "but I expect him any minute, and he is
expecting you. Will you come in and wait?"
As I had not previously been to Preston's house its appearance surprised
me. One does not associate a police detective, even an ex-detective,
with a taste in things artistic, but here on all sides was evidence of
refinement and a cultured mind—shelves loaded with carefully selected
books, volumes by classic authors; treatises on art; standard works by
deep thinkers of world-wide repute, while on the walls hung mezzotints I
knew to be extremely rare. In addition there were several beautiful
statues, cloisonne vases from Tokio and Osaka, antique furniture from
Naples and from Florence, also treasures from Burma, the West Indies,
and New Guinea.
The door opened, and the maid announced: "Baron Poppenheimer."
"Ah, my dear Baron," Preston exclaimed as he advanced to meet him, "this
is a real pleasure; I didn't expect you so soon, but, as you are here,
come and sit down," and he drew forward a chair. "But first let me
present to you Mr. Michael Berrington, a friend of our mutual friend
Jack Osborne's."
"Delighted to meet you—delighted, I am sure," Baron Poppenheimer said,
with a slight accent, extending two fingers—a form of handshake which I
particularly dislike. "Dreadfully cold again, is it not?—hein?
Dreadfully cold, I am sure."
His appearance rather amused me. His was a queer figure. He wore a
thick, dark blue box-cloth overcoat, double-breasted, with large pearl
buttons, and a wide collar of yellow fur, which came well down on the
shoulders; the fur cuffs matched it. His gloves were woolly ones,
lavender-coloured, and the black silk hat which he carried in his right
hand was burnished until it rivalled the shine of his patent boots—the
"uppers" being hidden by spats. He had curly, black hair; black, rather
bushy eyebrows; and a small imperial. While he carried a stout malacca
cane with a large gold head to it, and in his left eye was a gold-rimmed
monocle secured round his neck by a broad black ribbon.
We conversed for a little time, and from his talk I could see that he
was something of a character. He knew many of my friends, and, upon my
repeating my name to him, he seemed to know a good deal about me. I
expressed surprise at this, whereupon he looked up at Preston, who stood
immediately behind me, and observed drily:
"I believe I could tell Mr. Berrington almost as much about himself as I
was able to tell you, Preston; what do you think?"
"Baron Poppenheimer is an extraordinarily clever clairvoyant and
palmist, Mr. Berrington," Preston said. "I place such implicit
confidence in his forecasts that I persuade him, whenever I can, to help
me in my work. Yesterday he took it into his head to read my palms, and
he told me things about myself that staggered-me—I almost begin to
believe in black magic!"
I became greatly interested.
"I wish I could some day persuade the Baron to read my palms," I
exclaimed, "Palmistry has always rather appealed to me."
"So?" Baron Poppenheimer answered. "I will read your palms for you now,
if you will, I am sure."
He took my right hand, flattened it, palm upward, on his knee, studied
it closely for a moment or two, then, after a few moments' silence,
began to talk fluently and rapidly. The things he told me about myself,
things I had done, even things I had only thought, made me almost gape
with amazement. Then he took my left hand, examined both sides of it
closely through his monocle, and continued his disclosures. He told me
to within a day or two how long I had been engaged to be married, and
described Dulcie's appearance to the life; he even went so far as to
tell me exactly how she talked. For some moments I wondered if Preston
could have coached the Baron in my movements; then I remembered that the
Baron had told me things about myself of which Preston knew nothing.
"And that is all I have to tell you, my dear Mike," the "Baron" suddenly
exclaimed in quite a different voice. I sprang back in my chair as I
looked up sharply. Jack Osborne had pulled off his black, curly wig, and
sat laughing loudly. Preston too was considerably amused.
"Yes, George," Jack said at last, "that disguise will do; you certainly
are a marvel in the art of 'make-up.' If I can deceive Mike Berrington,
who is one of my oldest friends, I shall be able to hoodwink anybody.
Now you had better try your hand on Mike. What sort of person do you
propose to turn him into? I have told you that he is an excellent actor,
and can mimic voices to perfection."
Osborne then explained why he had telegraphed to me. Preston had made a
discovery—a rather important discovery. Exactly what it was they would
not tell me then, but Preston had suggested that on that very night the
three of us should visit Easterton's house in Cumberland Place, where
Gastrell's reception had taken place, wearing effectual disguises which
he would attend to, and see for ourselves what there was to be seen. It
was Osborne, I now learned for the first time, who had effected the
introduction between Hugesson Gastrell and "Lord Cranmere"—the actual
Lord Cranmere had been consulted by Jack on the subject of his being
impersonated, and when Jack had outlined to him his plan and told him
why the detective, Preston, wished to impersonate him, Lord Cranmere had
entered into the spirit of the thing and given his consent. He had,
indeed, expressed no little alarm when Jack had told him how the
mysterious, unseen individual at the house in Grafton Street had
cross-questioned him with regard to Eldon Hall, Cranmere's place in
Northumberland, the whereabout of the safe that Cranmere had bought ten
months previously, the likelihood of there being a priests' hiding-hole
at Eldon, and so on.
"The whole idea regarding to-night, and our plan of action, originates
with Preston," Jack said to me. "He believes—in fact, he is almost
sure—that Gastrell and his associates know nothing of him by repute as
a detective, also that they don't know him by sight, or by name either.
He says, however, that they believe they are now personally acquainted
with Lord Cranmere, upon whose property we think they have evil designs.
'Lord Cranmere' is now, in turn, going to introduce to Gastrell and his
associates two particular friends of his. Those friends will be 'Baron
Poppenheimer' and—who is Cranmere's other friend to be, George?" he
inquired, looking up at Preston.
"'Sir Aubrey Belston,'" Preston answered at once. "Mr. Berrington is not
at all unlike Sir Aubrey, in build as well as in feature."
"'Baron Poppenheimer' and 'Sir Aubrey Belston,'" Jack said, "who in
private life are Jack Osborne and Michael Berrington. And if George
disguises you and coaches you as well as he did me, I undertake to say
that nobody will suspect that you are not actually Sir Aubrey Belston."