A MILLIONAIRE IN THE DOCK
The man in the corner had finished his glass of milk. His watery blue
eyes looked across at Miss Polly Burton's eager little face, from which
all traces of severity had now been chased away by an obvious and
intense excitement.
"It was only on the 31st," he resumed after a while, "that a body,
decomposed past all recognition, was found by two lightermen in the
bottom of a disused barge. She had been moored at one time at the foot
of one of those dark flights of steps which lead down between tall
warehouses to the river in the East End of London. I have a photograph
of the place here," he added, selecting one out of his pocket, and
placing it before Polly.
"The actual barge, you see, had already been removed when I took this
snapshot, but you will realize what a perfect place this alley is for
the purpose of one man cutting another's throat in comfort, and without
fear of detection. The body, as I said, was decomposed beyond all
recognition; it had probably been there eleven days, but sundry
articles, such as a silver ring and a tie pin, were recognizable, and
were identified by Mrs. Kershaw as belonging to her husband.
"She, of course, was loud in denouncing Smethurst, and the police had no
doubt a very strong case against him, for two days after the discovery
of the body in the barge, the Siberian millionaire, as he was already
popularly called by enterprising interviewers, was arrested in his
luxurious suite of rooms at the Hotel Cecil.
"To confess the truth, at this point I was not a little puzzled. Mrs.
Kershaw's story and Smethurst's letters had both found their way into
the papers, and following my usual method--mind you, I am only an
amateur, I try to reason out a case for the love of the thing--I sought
about for a motive for the crime, which the police declared Smethurst
had committed. To effectually get rid of a dangerous blackmailer was the
generally accepted theory. Well! did it ever strike you how paltry that
motive really was?"
Miss Polly had to confess, however, that it had never struck her in that
light.
"Surely a man who had succeeded in building up an immense fortune by his
own individual efforts, was not the sort of fool to believe that he had
anything to fear from a man like Kershaw. He must have _known_ that
Kershaw held no damning proofs against him--not enough to hang him,
anyway. Have you ever seen Smethurst?" he added, as he once more fumbled
in his pocket-book.
Polly replied that she had seen Smethurst's picture in the illustrated
papers at the time. Then he added, placing a small photograph before
her:
"What strikes you most about the face?"
"Well, I think its strange, astonished expression, due to the total
absence of eyebrows, and the funny foreign cut of the hair."
"So close that it almost looks as if it had been shaved. Exactly. That
is what struck me most when I elbowed my way into the court that morning
and first caught sight of the millionaire in the dock. He was a tall,
soldierly-looking man, upright in stature, his face very bronzed and
tanned. He wore neither moustache nor beard, his hair was cropped quite
close to his head, like a Frenchman's; but, of course, what was so very
remarkable about him was that total absence of eyebrows and even
eyelashes, which gave the face such a peculiar appearance--as you say, a
perpetually astonished look.
"He seemed, however, wonderfully calm; he had been accommodated with a
chair in the dock--being a millionaire--and chatted pleasantly with his
lawyer, Sir Arthur Inglewood, in the intervals between the calling of
the several witnesses for the prosecution; whilst during the examination
of these witnesses he sat quite placidly, with his head shaded by his
hand.
"Müller and Mrs. Kershaw repeated the story which they had already told
to the police. I think you said that you were not able, owing to
pressure of work, to go to the court that day, and hear the case, so
perhaps you have no recollection of Mrs. Kershaw. No? Ah, well! Here is
a snapshot I managed to get of her once. That is her. Exactly as she
stood in the box--over-dressed--in elaborate crape, with a bonnet which
once had contained pink roses, and to which a remnant of pink petals
still clung obtrusively amidst the deep black.
"She would not look at the prisoner, and turned her head resolutely
towards the magistrate. I fancy she had been fond of that vagabond
husband of hers: an enormous wedding-ring encircled her finger, and
that, too, was swathed in black. She firmly believed that Kershaw's
murderer sat there in the dock, and she literally flaunted her grief
before him.
"I was indescribably sorry for her. As for Müller, he was just fat,
oily, pompous, conscious of his own importance as a witness; his fat
fingers, covered with brass rings, gripped the two incriminating
letters, which he had identified. They were his passports, as it were,
to a delightful land of importance and notoriety. Sir Arthur Inglewood,
I think, disappointed him by stating that he had no questions to ask of
him. Müller had been brimful of answers, ready with the most perfect
indictment, the most elaborate accusations against the bloated
millionaire who had decoyed his dear friend Kershaw, and murdered him in
Heaven knows what an out-of-the-way corner of the East End.
"After this, however, the excitement grew apace. Müller had been
dismissed, and had retired from the court altogether, leading away Mrs.
Kershaw, who had completely broken down.
"Constable D 21 was giving evidence as to the arrest in the meanwhile.
The prisoner, he said, had seemed completely taken by surprise, not
understanding the cause or history of the accusation against him;
however, when put in full possession of the facts, and realizing, no
doubt, the absolute futility of any resistance, he had quietly enough
followed the constable into the cab. No one at the fashionable and
crowded Hotel Cecil had even suspected that anything unusual had
occurred.
"Then a gigantic sigh of expectancy came from every one of the
spectators. The 'fun' was about to begin. James Buckland, a porter at
Fenchurch Street railway station, had just sworn to tell all the truth,
etc. After all, it did not amount to much. He said that at six o'clock
in the afternoon of December the 10th, in the midst of one of the
densest fogs he ever remembers, the 5.5 from Tilbury steamed into the
station, being just about an hour late. He was on the arrival platform,
and was hailed by a passenger in a first-class carriage. He could see
very little of him beyond an enormous black fur coat and a travelling
cap of fur also.
"The passenger had a quantity of luggage, all marked F.S., and he
directed James Buckland to place it all upon a four-wheel cab, with the
exception of a small hand-bag, which he carried himself. Having seen
that all his luggage was safely bestowed, the stranger in the fur coat
paid the porter, and, telling the cabman to wait until he returned, he
walked away in the direction of the waiting-rooms, still carrying his
small hand-bag.
"'I stayed for a bit,' added James Buckland, 'talking to the driver
about the fog and that; then I went about my business, seein' that the
local from Southend 'ad been signalled.'
"The prosecution insisted most strongly upon the hour when the stranger
in the fur coat, having seen to his luggage, walked away towards the
waiting-rooms. The porter was emphatic. 'It was not a minute later than
6.15,' he averred.
"Sir Arthur Inglewood still had no questions to ask, and the driver of
the cab was called.
"He corroborated the evidence of James Buckland as to the hour when the
gentleman in the fur coat had engaged him, and having filled his cab in
and out with luggage, had told him to wait. And cabby did wait. He
waited in the dense fog--until he was tired, until he seriously thought
of depositing all the luggage in the lost property office, and of
looking out for another fare--waited until at last, at a quarter before
nine, whom should he see walking hurriedly towards his cab but the
gentleman in the fur coat and cap, who got in quickly and told the
driver to take him at once to the Hotel Cecil. This, cabby declared, had
occurred at a quarter before nine. Still Sir Arthur Inglewood made no
comment, and Mr. Francis Smethurst, in the crowded, stuffy court, had
calmly dropped to sleep.
"The next witness, Constable Thomas Taylor, had noticed a shabbily
dressed individual, with shaggy hair and beard, loafing about the
station and waiting-rooms in the afternoon of December the 10th. He
seemed to be watching the arrival platform of the Tilbury and Southend
trains.
"Two separate and independent witnesses, cleverly unearthed by the
police, had seen this same shabbily dressed individual stroll into the
first-class waiting-room at about 6.15 on Wednesday, December the 10th,
and go straight up to a gentleman in a heavy fur coat and cap, who had
also just come into the room. The two talked together for a while; no
one heard what they said, but presently they walked off together. No one
seemed to know in which direction.
"Francis Smethurst was rousing himself from his apathy; he whispered to
his lawyer, who nodded with a bland smile of encouragement. The employés
of the Hotel Cecil gave evidence as to the arrival of Mr. Smethurst at
about 9.30 p.m. on Wednesday, December the 10th, in a cab, with a
quantity of luggage; and this closed the case for the prosecution.
"Everybody in that court already _saw_ Smethurst mounting the gallows.
It was uninterested curiosity which caused the elegant audience to wait
and hear what Sir Arthur Inglewood had to say. He, of course, is the
most fashionable man in the law at the present moment. His lolling
attitudes, his drawling speech, are quite the rage, and imitated by the
gilded youth of society.
"Even at this moment, when the Siberian millionaire's neck literally and
metaphorically hung in the balance, an expectant titter went round the
fair spectators as Sir Arthur stretched out his long loose limbs and
lounged across the table. He waited to make his effect--Sir Arthur is a
born actor--and there is no doubt that he made it, when in his slowest,
most drawly tones he said quietly;
"'With regard to this alleged murder of one William Kershaw, on
Wednesday, December the 10th, between 6.15 and 8.45 p.m., your Honour, I
now propose to call two witnesses, who saw this same William Kershaw
alive on Tuesday afternoon, December the 16th, that is to say, six days
after the supposed murder.'
"It was as if a bombshell had exploded in the court. Even his Honour was
aghast, and I am sure the lady next to me only recovered from the shock
of the surprise in order to wonder whether she need put off her dinner
party after all.
"As for me," added the man in the corner, with that strange mixture of
nervousness and self-complacency which had set Miss Polly Burton
wondering, "well, you see, _I_ had made up my mind long ago where the
hitch lay in this particular case, and I was not so surprised as some of
the others.
"Perhaps you remember the wonderful development of the case, which so
completely mystified the police--and in fact everybody except myself.
Torriani and a waiter at his hotel in the Commercial Road both deposed
that at about 3.30 p.m. on December the 10th a shabbily dressed
individual lolled into the coffee-room and ordered some tea. He was
pleasant enough and talkative, told the waiter that his name was William
Kershaw, that very soon all London would be talking about him, as he was
about, through an unexpected stroke of good fortune, to become a very
rich man, and so on, and so on, nonsense without end.
"When he had finished his tea he lolled out again, but no sooner had he
disappeared down a turning of the road than the waiter discovered an old
umbrella, left behind accidentally by the shabby, talkative individual.
As is the custom in his highly respectable restaurant, Signor Torriani
put the umbrella carefully away in his office, on the chance of his
customer calling to claim it when he had discovered his loss. And sure
enough nearly a week later, on Tuesday, the 16th, at about 1 p.m., the
same shabbily dressed individual called and asked for his umbrella. He
had some lunch, and chatted once again to the waiter. Signor Torriani
and the waiter gave a description of William Kershaw, which coincided
exactly with that given by Mrs. Kershaw of her husband.
"Oddly enough he seemed to be a very absent-minded sort of person, for
on this second occasion, no sooner had he left than the waiter found a
pocket-book in the coffee-room, underneath the table. It contained
sundry letters and bills, all addressed to William Kershaw. This
pocket-book was produced, and Karl Müller, who had returned to the
court, easily identified it as having belonged to his dear and lamented
friend 'Villiam.'
"This was the first blow to the case against the accused. It was a
pretty stiff one, you will admit. Already it had begun to collapse like
a house of cards. Still, there was the assignation, and the undisputed
meeting between Smethurst and Kershaw, and those two and a half hours of
a foggy evening to satisfactorily account for."
The man in the corner made a long pause, keeping the girl on
tenterhooks. He had fidgeted with his bit of string till there was not
an inch of it free from the most complicated and elaborate knots.
"I assure you," he resumed at last, "that at that very moment the whole
mystery was, to me, as clear as daylight. I only marvelled how his
Honour could waste his time and mine by putting what he thought were
searching questions to the accused relating to his past. Francis
Smethurst, who had quite shaken off his somnolence, spoke with a curious
nasal twang, and with an almost imperceptible soupçon of foreign accent,
He calmly denied Kershaw's version of his past; declared that he had
never been called Barker, and had certainly never been mixed up in any
murder case thirty years ago.
"'But you knew this man Kershaw,' persisted his Honour, 'since you wrote
to him?'
"'Pardon me, your Honour,' said the accused quietly, 'I have never, to
my knowledge, seen this man Kershaw, and I can swear that I never wrote
to him.'
"'Never wrote to him?' retorted his Honour warningly. 'That is a strange
assertion to make when I have two of your letters to him in my hands at
the present moment.'
"'I never wrote those letters, your Honour,' persisted the accused
quietly, 'they are not in my handwriting.'
"'Which we can easily prove,' came in Sir Arthur Inglewood's drawly
tones, as he handed up a packet to his Honour; 'here are a number of
letters written by my client since he has landed in this country, and
some of which were written under my very eyes.'
"As Sir Arthur Inglewood had said, this could be easily proved, and the
prisoner, at his Honour's request, scribbled a few lines, together with
his signature, several times upon a sheet of note-paper. It was easy to
read upon the magistrate's astounded countenance, that there was not the
slightest similarity in the two handwritings.
"A fresh mystery had cropped up. Who, then, had made the assignation
with William Kershaw at Fenchurch Street railway station? The prisoner
gave a fairly satisfactory account of the employment of his time since
his landing in England.
"'I came over on the _Tsarskoe Selo_,' he said, 'a yacht belonging to a
friend of mine. When we arrived at the mouth of the Thames there was
such a dense fog that it was twenty-four hours before it was thought
safe for me to land. My friend, who is a Russian, would not land at all;
he was regularly frightened at this land of fogs. He was going on to
Madeira immediately.
"'I actually landed on Tuesday, the 10th, and took a train at once for
town. I did see to my luggage and a cab, as the porter and driver told
your Honour; then I tried to find my way to a refreshment-room, where I
could get a glass of wine. I drifted into the waiting-room, and there I
was accosted by a shabbily dressed individual, who began telling me a
piteous tale. Who he was I do not know. He _said_ he was an old soldier
who had served his country faithfully, and then been left to starve. He
begged of me to accompany him to his lodgings, where I could see his
wife and starving children, and verify the truth and piteousness of his
tale.
"'Well, your Honour,' added the prisoner with noble frankness, 'it was
my first day in the old country. I had come back after thirty years with
my pockets full of gold, and this was the first sad tale I had heard;
but I am a business man, and did not want to be exactly "done" in the
eye. I followed my man through the fog, out into the streets. He walked
silently by my side for a time. I had not a notion where I was.
"'Suddenly I turned to him with some question, and realized in a moment
that my gentleman had given me the slip. Finding, probably, that I would
not part with my money till I _had_ seen the starving wife and children,
he left me to my fate, and went in search of more willing bait.
"'The place where I found myself was dismal and deserted. I could see no
trace of cab or omnibus. I retraced my steps and tried to find my way
back to the station, only to find myself in worse and more deserted
neighbourhoods. I became hopelessly lost and fogged. I don't wonder that
two and a half hours elapsed while I thus wandered on in the dark and
deserted streets; my sole astonishment is that I ever found the station
at all that night, or rather close to it a policeman, who showed me the
way.'
"'But how do you account for Kershaw knowing all your movements?' still
persisted his Honour, 'and his knowing the exact date of your arrival
in England? How do you account for these two letters, in fact?'
"'I cannot account for it or them, your Honour,' replied the prisoner
quietly. 'I have proved to you, have I not, that I never wrote those
letters, and that the man--er--Kershaw is his name?--was not murdered by
me?'
"'Can you tell me of anyone here or abroad who might have heard of your
movements, and of the date of your arrival?'
"'My late employés at Vladivostok, of course, knew of my departure, but
none of them could have written these letters, since none of them know a
word of English.'
"'Then you can throw no light upon these mysterious letters? You cannot
help the police in any way towards the clearing up of this strange
affair?'
"'The affair is as mysterious to me as to your Honour, and to the police
of this country.'
"Francis Smethurst was discharged, of course; there was no semblance of
evidence against him sufficient to commit him for trial. The two
overwhelming points of his defence which had completely routed the
prosecution were, firstly, the proof that he had never written the
letters making the assignation, and secondly, the fact that the man
supposed to have been murdered on the 10th was seen to be alive and
well on the 16th. But then, who in the world was the mysterious
individual who had apprised Kershaw of the movements of Smethurst, the
millionaire?"