THE YORK MYSTERY
The man in the corner looked quite cheerful that morning; he had had two
glasses of milk and had even gone to the extravagance of an extra
cheese-cake. Polly knew that he was itching to talk police and murders,
for he cast furtive glances at her from time to time, produced a bit of
string, tied and untied it into scores of complicated knots, and
finally, bringing out his pocket-book, he placed two or three
photographs before her.
"Do you know who that is?" he asked, pointing to one of these.
The girl looked at the face on the picture. It was that of a woman, not
exactly pretty, but very gentle and childlike, with a strange pathetic
look in the large eyes which was wonderfully appealing.
"That was Lady Arthur Skelmerton," he said, and in a flash there flitted
before Polly's mind the weird and tragic history which had broken this
loving woman's heart. Lady Arthur Skelmerton! That name recalled one of
the most bewildering, most mysterious passages in the annals of
undiscovered crimes.
"Yes. It was sad, wasn't it?" he commented, in answer to Polly's
thoughts. "Another case which but for idiotic blunders on the part of
the police must have stood clear as daylight before the public and
satisfied general anxiety. Would you object to my recapitulating its
preliminary details?"
She said nothing, so he continued without waiting further for a reply.
"It all occurred during the York racing week, a time which brings to the
quiet cathedral city its quota of shady characters, who congregate
wherever money and wits happen to fly away from their owners. Lord
Arthur Skelmerton, a very well-known figure in London society and in
racing circles, had rented one of the fine houses which overlook the
racecourse. He had entered Peppercorn, by St. Armand--Notre Dame, for
the Great Ebor Handicap. Peppercorn was the winner of the Newmarket, and
his chances for the Ebor were considered a practical certainty.
"If you have ever been to York you will have noticed the fine houses
which have their drive and front entrances in the road called 'The
Mount.' and the gardens of which extend as far as the racecourse,
commanding a lovely view over the entire track. It was one of these
houses, called 'The Elms,' which Lord Arthur Skelmerton had rented for
the summer.
"Lady Arthur came down some little time before the racing week with her
servants--she had no children; but she had many relatives and friends in
York, since she was the daughter of old Sir John Etty, the cocoa
manufacturer, a rigid Quaker, who, it was generally said, kept the
tightest possible hold on his own purse-strings and looked with marked
disfavour upon his aristocratic son-in-law's fondness for gaming tables
and betting books.
"As a matter of fact, Maud Etty had married the handsome young
lieutenant in the Hussars, quite against her father's wishes. But she
was an only child, and after a good deal of demur and grumbling, Sir
John, who idolized his daughter, gave way to her whim, and a reluctant
consent to the marriage was wrung from him.
"But, as a Yorkshireman, he was far too shrewd a man of the world not to
know that love played but a very small part in persuading a Duke's son
to marry the daughter of a cocoa manufacturer, and as long as he lived
he determined that since his daughter was being wed because of her
wealth, that wealth should at least secure her own happiness. He refused
to give Lady Arthur any capital, which, in spite of the most carefully
worded settlements, would inevitably, sooner or later, have found its
way into the pockets of Lord Arthur's racing friends. But he made his
daughter a very handsome allowance, amounting to over £3000 a year,
which enabled her to keep up an establishment befitting her new rank.
"A great many of these facts, intimate enough as they are, leaked out,
you see, during that period of intense excitement which followed the
murder of Charles Lavender, and when the public eye was fixed
searchingly upon Lord Arthur Skelmerton, probing all the inner details
of his idle, useless life.
"It soon became a matter of common gossip that poor little Lady Arthur
continued to worship her handsome husband in spite of his obvious
neglect, and not having as yet presented him with an heir, she settled
herself down into a life of humble apology for her plebeian existence,
atoning for it by condoning all his faults and forgiving all his vices,
even to the extent of cloaking them before the prying eyes of Sir John,
who was persuaded to look upon his son-in-law as a paragon of all the
domestic virtues and a perfect model of a husband.
"Among Lord Arthur Skelmerton's many expensive tastes there was
certainly that for horseflesh and cards. After some successful betting
at the beginning of his married life, he had started a racing-stable
which it was generally believed--as he was very lucky--was a regular
source of income to him.
"Peppercorn, however, after his brilliant performances at Newmarket did
not continue to fulfil his master's expectations. His collapse at York
was attributed to the hardness of the course and to various other
causes, but its immediate effect was to put Lord Arthur Skelmerton in
what is popularly called a tight place, for he had backed his horse for
all he was worth, and must have stood to lose considerably over £5000 on
that one day.
"The collapse of the favourite and the grand victory of King Cole, a
rank outsider, on the other hand, had proved a golden harvest for the
bookmakers, and all the York hotels were busy with dinners and suppers
given by the confraternity of the Turf to celebrate the happy occasion.
The next day was Friday, one of few important racing events, after which
the brilliant and the shady throng which had flocked into the venerable
city for the week would fly to more congenial climes, and leave it, with
its fine old Minster and its ancient walls, as sleepy, as quiet as
before.
"Lord Arthur Skelmerton also intended to leave York on the Saturday, and
on the Friday night he gave a farewell bachelor dinner party at 'The
Elms,' at which Lady Arthur did not appear. After dinner the gentlemen
settled down to bridge, with pretty stiff points, you may be sure. It
had just struck eleven at the Minster Tower, when constables McNaught
and Murphy, who were patrolling the racecourse, were startled by loud
cries of 'murder' and 'police.'
"Quickly ascertaining whence these cries proceeded, they hurried on at a
gallop, and came up--quite close to the boundary of Lord Arthur
Skelmerton's grounds--upon a group of three men, two of whom seemed to
be wrestling vigorously with one another, whilst the third was lying
face downwards on the ground. As soon as the constables drew near, one
of the wrestlers shouted more vigorously, and with a certain tone of
authority:
"'Here, you fellows, hurry up, sharp; the brute is giving me the slip!'
"But the brute did not seem inclined to do anything of the sort; he
certainly extricated himself with a violent jerk from his assailant's
grasp, but made no attempt to run away. The constables had quickly
dismounted, whilst he who had shouted for help originally added more
quietly:
"'My name is Skelmerton. This is the boundary of my property. I was
smoking a cigar at the pavilion over there with a friend when I heard
loud voices, followed by a cry and a groan. I hurried down the steps,
and saw this poor fellow lying on the ground, with a knife sticking
between his shoulder-blades, and his murderer,' he added, pointing to
the man who stood quietly by with Constable McNaught's firm grip upon
his shoulder, 'still stooping over the body of his victim. I was too
late, I fear, to save the latter, but just in time to grapple with the
assassin--"
"'It's a lie!' here interrupted the man hoarsely. 'I didn't do it,
constable; I swear I didn't do it. I saw him fall--I was coming along a
couple of hundred yards away, and I tried to see if the poor fellow was
dead. I swear I didn't do it.'
"'You'll have to explain that to the inspector presently, my man,' was
Constable McNaught's quiet comment, and, still vigorously protesting his
innocence, the accused allowed himself to be led away, and the body was
conveyed to the station, pending fuller identification.
"The next morning the papers were full of the tragedy; a column and a
half of the _York Herald_ was devoted to an account of Lord Arthur
Skelmerton's plucky capture of the assassin. The latter had continued to
declare his innocence, but had remarked, it appears, with grim humour,
that he quite saw he was in a tight place, out of which, however, he
would find it easy to extricate himself. He had stated to the police
that the deceased's name was Charles Lavender, a well-known bookmaker,
which fact was soon verified, for many of the murdered man's 'pals'
were still in the city.
"So far the most pushing of newspaper reporters had been unable to glean
further information from the police; no one doubted, however, but that
the man in charge, who gave his name as George Higgins, had killed the
bookmaker for purposes of robbery. The inquest had been fixed for the
Tuesday after the murder.
"Lord Arthur had been obliged to stay in York a few days, as his
evidence would be needed. That fact gave the case, perhaps, a certain
amount of interest as far as York and London 'society' were concerned.
Charles Lavender, moreover, was well known on the turf; but no bombshell
exploding beneath the walls of the ancient cathedral city could more
have astonished its inhabitants than the news which, at about five in
the afternoon on the day of the inquest, spread like wildfire throughout
the town. That news was that the inquest had concluded at three o'clock
with a verdict of 'Wilful murder against some person or persons
unknown,' and that two hours later the police had arrested Lord Arthur
Skelmerton at his private residence, 'The Elms,' and charged him on a
warrant with the murder of Charles Lavender, the bookmaker."