DISCUSSING THE CRIME
The murder of Morris Barnes, considered merely as an event, came as a
Godsend to the halfpenny press, which has an unwritten but immutable
contract with the public to provide it with so much sensation during the
week, in season or out of season. Nothing else was talked about anywhere.
Under the influence of the general example, Wrayson found himself within
a few days discussing its details with perfect coolness, and with an
interest which never flagged. He seemed continually to forget his own
personal and actual connection with the affair.
It was discussed, amongst other places, at the Sheridan Club, of which
Wrayson was a member, and where he spent most of his spare time. At one
particular luncheon party the day after the inquest, nothing else was
spoken of. For the first time, in Wrayson's hearing, a new and somewhat
ominous light was thrown upon the affair.
There were four men at the luncheon party, which was really not a
luncheon party at all, but a promiscuous coming together of four of the
men who usually sat at what was called the Colonel's table. First of all
there was the Colonel himself,--Colonel Edgar Fitzmaurice, C.B.,
D.S.O.,--easily the most popular member of the club, a distinguished
retired officer, white-haired, kindly and genial, a man of whom no one
had ever heard another say an unkind word, whose hand was always in his
none too well-filled pockets, and whose sympathies were always ready to
be enlisted in any forlorn cause, deserving or otherwise. At his right
hand sat Wrayson; on his left Sydney Mason, a rising young sculptor, and
also a popular member of this somewhat Bohemian circle. Opposite was
Stephen Heneage, a man of a different and more secretive type. He called
himself a barrister, but he never practised; a journalist at times, but
he seldom put his name to anything he wrote. His interests, if he had
any, he kept to himself. In a club where a man's standing was reckoned by
what he was and what he produced, he owed such consideration as he
received to a certain air of reserved strength, the more noteworthy
amongst a little coterie of men, who amongst themselves were accustomed
to speak their minds freely, and at all times. If he was never brilliant,
he had never been heard to say a foolish thing or make a pointless
remark. He moved on his way through life, and held his place there more
by reason of certain negative qualities which, amongst a community of
optimists, were universally ascribed to him, than through any more
personal or likable gifts. He had a dark, strong face, but a slim, weakly
body. He was never unduly silent, but he was a better listener than
talker. If he had no close friends, he certainly had no enemies. Whether
he was rich or poor no man knew, but next to the Colonel himself, no one
was more ready to subscribe to any of those charities which the
Sheridanites were continually inaugurating on behalf of their less
fortunate members. The man who succeeds in keeping the "ego" out of sight
as a rule neither irritates nor greatly attracts. Stephen Heneage was
one of those who stood in this position.
They were talking about the murder, or rather the Colonel was talking and
they were listening.
"There is one point," he remarked, filling his glass and beaming
good-humouredly upon his companions, "which seems to have been entirely
overlooked. I am referring to the sex of the supposed assassin!"
Wrayson looked up inquiringly. It was a point which interested him.
"Nearly all of you have assumed," the Colonel continued, "that it must
have taken a strong man to draw the cord tight enough to have killed that
poor fellow without any noticeable struggle. As a matter of fact, a child
with that particular knot could have done it. It requires no strength,
only delicacy of touch, rapidity and nerve."
"A woman, then--" Wrayson began.
"Bless you, yes! a woman could have done it easily," the Colonel
declared, "only unfortunately there don't seem to have been any women
about. Why, I've seen it done in Korea with a turn of the wrist. It's
all knack."
Wrayson shuddered slightly. The Colonel's words had troubled him more
than he would have cared to let any one know.
"Woman or man or child," Mason remarked, "the person who did it seems to
have vanished in some remarkable manner from the face of the earth."
"He certainly seems," the Colonel admitted, "to have covered up his
traces with admirable skill. I have read every word of the evidence at
the inquest, and I can understand that the police are completely
confused."
Heneage and Mason exchanged glances of quiet amusement whilst the
Colonel helped himself to cheese.
"Dear old boy," the latter murmured, "he's off on his hobby. Let him go
on! He enjoys it more than anything in the world."
Heneage nodded assent, and the Colonel returned to the subject with
avidity a few moments later.
"This man Morris Barnes," he affirmed, "seems to have been a somewhat
despicable, at any rate, a by no means desirable individual. He was of
Jewish origin, and he had not long returned from South Africa, where
Heaven knows what his occupation was. The money of which he was
undoubtedly possessed he seems to have spent, or at any rate some part
of it, in aping the life of a dissipated man about town. He was known
to the fair promenaders of the Empire and Alhambra, he was an _habitué_
of the places where these--er--ladies partake of supper after the
exertions of the evening. Of home life or respectable friends he seems
to have had none."
"This," Mason declared, leaning back and lighting a cigarette, "is better
than the newspapers. Go on, Colonel! Your biography may not be
sympathetic, but it is lifelike!"
The Colonel's eyes were full of a distinct and vivid light. He scarcely
heard the interruption. He was on fire with his subject.
"You see," he continued, "that the man's days were spent amongst a class
where the passions run loose, where restraint is an unknown virtue, where
self and sensuality are the upraised gods. One can easily imagine that
from amongst such a slough might spring at any time the weed of tragedy.
In other words, this man Morris Barnes moved amongst a class of people
to whom murder, if it could be safely accomplished, would be little more
than an incident."
The Colonel lit a cigar and leaned back in his chair. He was enjoying
himself immensely.
"The curious part of the affair is, though," he continued deliberately,
"that this murder, as I suppose we must call it, bears none of the
hall-marks of rude passion. On the contrary, it suggests in more ways
than one the touch of the finished artist. The man's whole evening has
been traced without the slightest difficulty. He dined at the Café Royal
alone, promenaded afterwards at the Alhambra, and drove on about
supper-time to the Continental. He left there at 12.30 with a couple of
ladies whom he appeared to know fairly well, called at their flat for a
drink, and sent one out to his cabby--rather unusual forethought for such
a bounder. When he reappeared and directed the man to drive him to
Cavendish Mansions, Battersea, the driver tried to excuse himself. Both
he and his horse were dead tired, he said. Barnes, however, insisted upon
keeping him, and off they went. At Cavendish Mansions, Barnes alighted
and offered the man a sovereign. Naturally enough the fellow could not
change it, and Barnes went in to get some silver from his rooms,
promising to return in a minute or two. The cabby descended and walked to
the corner of the street to see if he could beg a match for his pipe from
any passer-by. He may have been away for perhaps five minutes, certainly
no more, during which time he stood with his back to the Mansions. Seeing
no one about, he returned to his cab, ascended to his seat, naturally
without looking inside, and fell fast asleep. The next thing he remembers
is being awakened by Wrayson here! So much for the cabby."
"What a fine criminal judge was lost to the country, Colonel, when you
chose the army for a career," Mason remarked, turning round to order some
coffee. "Such coherence--such an eye for detail. Pass the matches,
Wrayson. Thanks, old chap!"
The Colonel smiled placidly.
"I am afraid," he said, "that I should never have had the heart to
sentence anybody to anything, but I must admit that things of this sort
do interest me. I love to weigh them up and theorize. The more
melodramatic they are the better."
Heneage helped himself to a cigarette from Mason's case, and leaned back
in his chair.
"I never have the patience," he remarked, "to read about these things in
the newspapers, but the Colonel's _résumé_ is always thrilling. Do go on.
There won't be any pool till four o'clock."
The Colonel smiled good-naturedly.
"It's good of you fellows to listen to my prosing," he remarked. "No use
denying that it is a sort of hobby of mine. You all know it. Well, we'll
say we've finished with the cabby, then. Enter upon the scene, of all
people in the world, our friend Wrayson!"
"Hear, hear!" murmured Mason.
Wrayson changed his position slightly. With his head resting upon his
hand, he seemed to be engaged in tracing patterns upon the tablecloth.
"Wrayson knows nothing of Barnes beyond the fact that they are neighbours
in the same flats. Being the assistant editor of a journal of world-wide
fame, however, he has naturally a telephone in his flat. By means of that
instrument he receives a message in the middle of the night from an
unknown person in an unknown place, which he is begged to convey to
Barnes. The message is in itself mysterious. Taken in conjunction with
what happened to Barnes, it is deeply interesting. Barnes, it seems, is
to go immediately on his arrival, at whatever hour, to the Hotel Francis.
Presumably he would know from whom the message came, and the sender does
not seem to have doubted that if it was conveyed to Barnes he would obey
the summons. Wrayson agrees to and does deliver it. That is to say, he
writes it down and leaves it in the letter-box of Barnes' door, Barnes not
having yet returned. Now we begin to get mysterious. That communication
from our friend here has not been discovered. It was not in the
letter-box; it was not upon the person of the dead man. We cannot tell
whether or not he ever received it. I believe that I am right so far?"
"Absolutely," Wrayson admitted.
"Our friend Wrayson, then," the Colonel continued, beaming upon his
neighbour, "instead of going to bed like a sensible man, takes up a book
and falls asleep in his easy-chair. He wakes up about three or four
o'clock, and his attention is then attracted by the jingling of a hansom
bell below. He looks out of window and sees a cab, both the driver and
the occupant of which appear to be asleep. The circumstance striking him
as somewhat unusual, he descends to the street and finds--well, rather
more than he expected. He finds the cabman asleep, and his fare
scientifically and effectually throttled by a piece of silken cord."
Wrayson turned to the waiter and ordered a liqueur brandy.
"Have one, you fellows?" he asked. "Good! Four, waiter."
He tossed his own off directly it arrived. His lips were pale, and the
hand which raised the glass to his lips shook. Heneage alone, who was
watching him through a little cloud of tobacco smoke, noticed this.
"Have you finished with me, Colonel?" Wrayson asked.
"Practically," the Colonel answered, smiling, "unless you can answer one
of the three queries suggested by my _résumé_. First, who killed Morris
Barnes? Secondly, when was it done? Thirdly, where was it done? I have
left out a possible fourth, why was it done? because, in this case, I
think that the motive and the man are practically identical. I mean that
if you discover one, you discover the other."
Heneage leaned across the table towards the Colonel.
"You are a magician, Colonel," he declared quietly. "I glanced through
this case in the paper, and it did not even interest me. Since I have
listened to you I have fallen under the spell of the mysterious. Have you
any theories?"
The Colonel's face fell a little.
"Well, I am afraid not," he admitted regretfully. "To be perfectly
interesting the affair certainly ought to present something more definite
in the shape of a clue. You see, providing we accept the evidence of
Wrayson and the cabman, and I suppose," he added, laying his hand
affectionately upon Wrayson's shoulder, "we must, the actual murderer is
a person absolutely unseen or unheard of by any one. If you are all
really interested we will discuss it again in a week's time after the
adjourned inquest."
"I, for one, shall look forward to it," Heneage remarked, glancing across
towards Wrayson. "What about a pool?"
"I'm on," Wrayson declared, rising a little abruptly.
"And I," Mason assented.
"And I can't," the Colonel said regretfully. "I must go down to Balham
and see poor Carlo Mallini; I hear he's very queer."
The Colonel loved pool, and he hated a sick-room. The click of the
billiard balls reached him as he descended the stairs, but he only sighed
and set out manfully for Charing Cross. On the way he entered a
fruiterer's shop and inquired the price of grapes. They were more than he
expected, and he counted out the contents of his trousers pockets before
purchasing.
"A little short of change," he remarked cheerfully. "Yes! all right, I'll
take them."
He marched out, swinging a paper bag between his fingers, travelled third
class to Balham, and sat for a couple of hours with the invalid whom he
had come to see, a lonely Italian musician, to whom his coming meant more
than all the medicine his doctor could prescribe. He talked to him
glowingly of the success of his recent concert (more than a score of the
tickets sold had been paid for secretly by the Colonel himself and his
friends), prophesied great things for the future, and laughed away all
the poor fellow's fears as to his condition. There were tears in his eyes
as he walked to the station, for he had visited too many sick-beds to
have much faith in his own cheerful words, and all the way back to London
he was engaged in thinking out the best means of getting the musician
sent back to his own country, Arrived at Charing Cross, he looked
longingly towards the club, and ruefully at the contents of his pocket.
Then with a sigh he turned into a little restaurant and dined for
eighteen-pence.