"Morris Thornton!"
Both the porter and the locksmith had heard the name distinctly before
Eversleigh swooned away, and both understood who the dead man was. They
were so astounded that they stood looking at each other with startled
faces and mouths agape, while Gilbert bent over the unconscious form of
his father.
"Morris Thornton at last!" cried the porter; "it's the gentleman as was
missing."
"Morris Thornton--yes," said the locksmith; "the missing
millionaire--the man wot was advertised for in all the papers."
And then both men were silent, thinking of the reward of a thousand
pounds offered for information about this very man.
"I was the first as found him," remarked the locksmith, coming to his
wits, to the porter.
"We all found him together, didn't we?" asked the porter, in an
aggrieved tone.
Gilbert, meanwhile, had moved his father from off the dead body of
Morris Thornton on to the floor, and sought to bring him to by
unfastening his collar and tie and opening his shirt. The son felt that
his first concern was with his father, not with Morris Thornton--with
the living rather than the dead. And now, as he tried to bring back to
the inanimate frame the spark of life, he noticed, as he had not done
before, how changed, how shrunken were the face and figure of his
father. He knew his father had been ailing for some time, but he had not
realised how far the mischief had gone. And on the top of this illness
had come, first the death of Silwood, and now the discovery of Morris
Thornton lying dead in Silwood's chambers! Small wonder was it, he
thought, that the shock of this last circumstance, combined with all
that had preceded it, had proved too much for his father.
For some minutes he continued his efforts to re-animate Francis
Eversleigh, but without avail. The porter and the locksmith gave him
what assistance they could; finally the former suggested that a doctor
should be sent for.
"Yes," agreed Gilbert; "go round to King's College Hospital. I know one
or two of the doctors there; take my card, and get one of them if you
can. Say the case is urgent."
But the porter, who by this time was swelling with the importance of the
affair--an importance in which he saw himself included--had another
suggestion to make.
"After I get a doctor," he said to Gilbert, whom he knew to be Francis
Eversleigh's son, "don't you think it would be well if I fetched a
policeman? There's the dead body," he added significantly, "and of
course there will have to be an inquest."
"Quite right," replied Gilbert; "but get the doctor first."
And the porter withdrew, more important than ever.
"Shall I stay, sir?" asked the locksmith.
"Yes, please, until the police come; they will want your evidence."
"Very well, sir."
While he was trying to resuscitate his father, Gilbert's mind had been
in a whirl; now that he had desisted from the attempt his thoughts
shaped themselves more clearly. Here, before him, lay Kitty's father
dead--Kitty's father, that was his first thought--and his heart bled for
her. He knew that, though she had said and felt that Morris Thornton was
no more, she would still suffer terribly on hearing positively that he
was dead.
Then the strangeness of the thing--the body being found in Silwood's
room, and Silwood his own father's partner!--took hold of him. Silwood
dead! Morris Thornton dead! What did this conjunction indicate? That
there was something extraordinary about it did not admit of any doubt
whatever when it was coupled with the fact that Thornton's body had been
found in Silwood's chambers. How had Morris Thornton come to be there at
all? And in what way had he met his death? What connection was there
between that death and Cooper Silwood? What had Silwood to do with it?
Had he anything to do with it? For what reason? With what end in view?
Had Thornton been murdered? If so, it could not have been by Silwood,
for what motive could he have had for killing Thornton?--Silwood, a
member of one of the most respectable firms in London. And yet there
must be some connection and some explanation. What was it? What could it
be?
As these questionings flashed through Gilbert's mind, he stood gazing
upon the dead man's face, as if from its sightless eyes and from its
dumb lips there might come some solution of the mystery.
And then his thoughts took a fresh turn. Still gazing at the face of
Morris Thornton, he wondered if the man had come to his death by being
shot, if upon the body would be found the marks of the lethal weapon
that had slain him, if the murderer had left behind him some sign which
in the end would lead to his detection and conviction. But this was to
presume Thornton had been murdered, and there was no certainty as to
that.
While he was thus musing, his father showed some indications of
reviving. His eyelids fluttered and his lips worked slightly. Gilbert
bent down and raised his father's head. With a deep sigh, Francis
Eversleigh opened his eyes and stared at his son as at some stranger.
But reviving still more, a light of recognition came into his face, and
he moved his head.
"Are you better, father?" asked Gilbert.
Eversleigh made an effort to speak, but it failed; then he looked
piteously at his son.
"I wish I had some brandy to give you," said Gilbert. "A doctor will be
here in a few minutes."
At the mention of the word "doctor," Francis Eversleigh struggled to
raise himself, and, with Gilbert's help, managed to get into a sitting
position. Glancing about him in a weak and uncertain way, his eyes fell
upon the body of Thornton; a frightful spasm seemed to shake him to
pieces; then his eyes all at once blazed with light and life, but in an
instant they became clouded and overcast.
"Morris Thornton--I remember," he said, speaking with great slowness,
as though speech were exceedingly difficult to him.
He shut his eyes, as if he would shut out the sight of the dead man,
while Gilbert watched him anxiously and supported him with his strong
young arms.
Presently he opened his eyes again, looked at the body, and then at
Gilbert. On his face was a great solemn interrogation which his son
could scarcely fail to understand. Eversleigh was asking what did it all
portend, but Gilbert did not speak; he himself could see no way out of
the darkness surrounding the scene.
"What has happened?" asked the older man, but even as he spoke Gilbert
felt his father's form was beginning to press more heavily on him.
"I do not know," the son replied.
Francis Eversleigh now fixed his gaze on Thornton's body once more.
"Murder!" he suddenly cried in a piercing voice, and dropped back
unconscious again.
"Murder!"
Gilbert told himself that he could follow the mind of his father
perfectly. His father thought Morris Thornton had been murdered. It was
to all intents what was in his own mind.
But if Thornton had been murdered, who, then, was the murderer?
The piercing cry of "Murder!" which Francis Eversleigh had raised before
swooning again had not been heard by Gilbert only. The locksmith, who
was still in the room, heard it for one, and it filled him with fresh
excitement. He had been endeavouring to puzzle out the thing in his own
way, and was not exactly surprised to find the idea of murder imported
into it. That cry of "Murder!" was the echo of his own thoughts, and
from that moment he was so convinced that Thornton had been murdered
that nothing would disabuse him of the notion.
The cry was heard by three others, who were only a few steps away from
the door of Silwood's chambers when Francis Eversleigh gave utterance to
it. They were the doctor from King's College Hospital, a policeman from
Lincoln's Inn Fields, and the Inn porter, all arriving together. On
hearing it, they ran forward into the room.
The porter had already told both the doctor and the policeman his own
version of the finding of the body of Thornton and of the fainting fit
of Mr. Eversleigh.
"What was that cry I heard?" demanded the policeman, who was the first
to speak.
As he spoke he threw searching glances about and around the room. But
Gilbert paid no heed to his question. He knew the doctor, thanked him
for coming so promptly, and asked him to try to revive his father.
"It is the second time he has fainted," said Gilbert.
It was the locksmith that answered the policeman's query.
"The sick gentleman," said he, "him that's in the swound, called out
loud 'Murder!'--he'd been looking at the body--and then he dropped off
again. That was the second time he swounded."
"Oh, it was he," said the policeman. Then he advanced to Gilbert, having
been prompted thereto by the porter, who whispered to him, "He's young
Mr. Eversleigh," and said, "Will you tell me from the beginning the
whole story, sir?"
By this time his father was in the capable hands of the doctor, so that
Gilbert was able to give his whole attention to the policeman. As
succinctly as possible, he narrated the circumstances which had led to
his father and himself going to Silwood's chambers, how the door was
broken open, and the body of Thornton found lying on the floor. Next the
policeman listened to what the porter and the locksmith had seen, and by
the time he had heard what they had to tell him, Francis Eversleigh had
come to himself, though he looked shattered and frightfully ill. Him,
too, the policeman questioned.
"Mr. Thornton was a client of yours, I believe?" remarked the policeman,
after many other queries.
"Yes, an old schoolfellow, and one of my greatest friends," replied
Eversleigh. "His daughter is engaged to marry my son Gilbert, here."
"This gentleman?" asked the policeman, pointing to Gilbert.
"Yes."
"And these are the private apartments of your partner, Mr. Cooper
Silwood?"
"Yes."
"And the dead body of Mr. Thornton, your friend, is found in the private
apartments of your partner, Mr. Silwood?"
"Yes."
"And Mr. Silwood is dead?"
"Yes."
"Most extraordinary thing I ever heard of!" exclaimed the policeman.
"There's something very strange here."
"My father, as you can see for yourself," interposed Gilbert, "is ill;
he is in no fit state to stay here a moment longer than is necessary.
But if I can help you, I shall be glad to do so."
"Mr. Eversleigh ought to go home at once," said the doctor.
"That is all right," said the policeman.
"Do you report to Inspector Gale?" asked Gilbert of the policeman; "I
know him very well."
"Yes; I shall report to him. And in the mean time these chambers must be
closed up and sealed. The inspector will no doubt come and examine
everything in them. This is the usual procedure. And of course there
will be a coroner's inquest. Nothing more can be done at present, I
think. Please sir, do not touch the body," he added, speaking to the
doctor, who was scrutinizing it carefully.
"If I went to Scotland Yard, should I find the inspector in?" asked
Gilbert.
"You'll find him there at 2.30."
"And there is nothing more that can be done just now?"
"Nothing."
Leaving Silwood's chambers in the charge of the policeman, who had now
been reinforced by the arrival of two other constables, the two
Eversleighs, the doctor, the locksmith, and the porter filed out of the
chamber of mystery and death. As they entered the court of Stone
Buildings, they saw that little knots of people had collected, who were
discussing something that evidently was unusually interesting. The fact
was that the porter, on his way for the doctor and the policeman, had
let fall hints of what had been found. The Eversleighs were asked by
some gentlemen of the long robe, whom they knew, what was the truth of
the matter, and they put before them the bare facts. But the porter and
the locksmith were not so reticent. The former gossiped freely, but not
without a fitting sense of the greatness of the occasion. The latter
went into Chancery Lane by the iron-gated footway leading from the court
of Stone Buildings and saw a crowd gathered on the pavement opposite the
windows of Cooper Silwood's chambers. Already it had been spread abroad
that these chambers had been the scene of some astounding tragedy. The
locksmith, on being asked by some one in the crowd if he could throw any
light on the subject, forthwith poured forth all he knew, declaring that
undoubtedly Morris Thornton, whose dead body had been discovered in
Silwood's room, had been foully murdered. And when the rumour ran that
it was the body of the Missing Millionaire, of whom everybody had heard,
the excitement rose to fever heat in the crowd.
A passing reporter, on the staff of one of the evening papers, saw the
crowd, and was soon in possession of the pith of the news, but desirous
of getting the fullest particulars, he sought out the locksmith, who
told him the whole story, again reiterating his conviction that there
had been a murder of the blackest kind.
Thus it was the locksmith's idea of what had happened that coloured the
tone of the papers that evening, all of whom made the most of "THE
MYSTERY OF LINCOLN'S INN" and "THE MURDER OF THE MISSING MILLIONAIRE,"
as they entitled it on their bills in the largest of capitals.
And the affair quickly created an extraordinary sensation.