A CUNNING RASCAL
"Yes, left severely alone," continued the man in the corner with a
sarcastic chuckle. "So severely alone, in fact, that one quarter of an
hour after another passed by and still the magnificent police officer in
the gorgeous uniform did not return. Then, when it was too late, Schwarz
cursed himself once again for the double-dyed idiot that he was. He had
been only too ready to believe that Prince Semionicz was a liar and a
rogue, and under these unjust suspicions he had fallen an all too easy
prey to one of the most cunning rascals he had ever come across.
"An inquiry from the hall porter at the North-Western elicited the fact
that no such personage as Mr. Schwarz described had entered the hotel.
The young man asked to see Prince Semionicz, hoping against hope that
all was not yet lost. The Prince received him most courteously; he was
dictating some letters to his secretary, while the valet was in the next
room preparing his master's evening clothes. Mr. Schwarz found it very
difficult to explain what he actually did want.
"There stood the dressing-case in which the Prince had locked up the
jewels, and there the bag from which the secretary had taken the
bank-notes. After much hesitation on Schwarz's part and much impatience
on that of the Prince, the young man blurted out the whole story of the
so-called Russian police officer whose card he still held in his hand.
"The Prince, it appears, took the whole thing wonderfully
good-naturedly; no doubt he thought the jeweller a hopeless fool. He
showed him the jewels, the receipt he held, and also a large bundle of
bank-notes similar to those Schwarz had with such culpable folly given
up to the clever rascal in the cab.
"'I pay all my bills with Bank of England notes, Mr. Schwarz. It would
have been wiser, perhaps, if you had spoken to the manager of the hotel
about me before you were so ready to believe any cock-and-bull story
about my supposed rogueries.'
"Finally he placed a small 16mo volume before the young jeweller, and
said with a pleasant smile:
"'If people in this country who are in a large way of business, and are
therefore likely to come in contact with people of foreign nationality,
were to study these little volumes before doing business with any
foreigner who claims a title, much disappointment and a great loss would
often be saved. Now in this case had you looked up page 797 of this
little volume of Gotha's Almanach you would have seen my name in it and
known from the first that the so-called Russian detective was a liar.'
"There was nothing more to be said, and Mr. Schwarz left the hotel. No
doubt, now that he had been hopelessly duped he dared not go home, and
half hoped by communicating with the police that they might succeed in
arresting the thief before he had time to leave Liverpool. He
interviewed Detective-Inspector Watson, and was at once confronted with
the awful difficulty which would make the recovery of the bank-notes
practically hopeless. He had never had the time or opportunity of
jotting down the numbers of the notes.
"Mr. Winslow, though terribly wrathful against his nephew, did not wish
to keep him out of his home. As soon as he had received Schwarz's
letter, he traced him, with Inspector Watson's help, to his lodgings in
North Street, where the unfortunate young man meant to remain hidden
until the terrible storm had blown over, or perhaps until the thief had
been caught red-handed with the booty still in his hands.
"This happy event, needless to say, never did occur, though the police
made every effort to trace the man who had decoyed Schwarz into the cab.
His appearance was such an uncommon one; it seemed most unlikely that no
one in Liverpool should have noticed him after he left that cab. The
wonderful fur coat, the long beard, all must have been noticeable, even
though it was past four o'clock on a somewhat foggy December afternoon.
"But every investigation proved futile; no one answering Schwarz's
description of the man had been seen anywhere. The papers continued to
refer to the case as 'the Liverpool Mystery.' Scotland Yard sent Mr.
Fairburn down--the celebrated detective--at the request of the Liverpool
police, to help in the investigations, but nothing availed.
"Prince Semionicz, with his suite, left Liverpool, and he who had
attempted to blacken his character, and had succeeded in robbing Messrs.
Winslow and Vassall of £10,500, had completely disappeared."
The man in the corner readjusted his collar and necktie, which, during
the narrative of this interesting mystery, had worked its way up his
long, crane-like neck under his large flappy ears. His costume of
checked tweed of a peculiarly loud pattern had tickled the fancy of some
of the waitresses, who were standing gazing at him and giggling in one
corner. This evidently made him nervous. He gazed up very meekly at
Polly, looking for all the world like a bald-headed adjutant dressed for
a holiday.
"Of course, all sorts of theories of the theft got about at first. One
of the most popular, and at the same time most quickly exploded, being
that young Schwarz had told a cock-and-bull story, and was the actual
thief himself.
"However, as I said before, that was very quickly exploded, as Mr.
Schwarz senior, a very wealthy merchant, never allowed his son's
carelessness to be a serious loss to his kind employers. As soon as he
thoroughly grasped all the circumstances of the extraordinary case, he
drew a cheque for £10,500 and remitted it to Messrs. Winslow and
Vassall. It was just, but it was also high-minded.
"All Liverpool knew of the generous action, as Mr. Winslow took care
that it should; and any evil suspicion regarding young Mr. Schwarz
vanished as quickly as it had come.
"Then, of course, there was the theory about the Prince and his suite,
and to this day I fancy there are plenty of people in Liverpool, and
also in London, who declare that the so-called Russian police officer
was a confederate. No doubt that theory was very plausible, and Messrs.
Winslow and Vassall spent a good deal of money in trying to prove a case
against the Russian Prince.
"Very soon, however, that theory was also bound to collapse. Mr.
Fairburn, whose reputation as an investigator of crime waxes in direct
inverted ratio to his capacities, did hit upon the obvious course of
interviewing the managers of the larger London and Liverpool _agents de
change_. He soon found that Prince Semionicz had converted a great deal
of Russian and French money into English bank-notes since his arrival in
this country. More than £30,000 in good solid, honest money was traced
to the pockets of the gentleman with the sixteen quarterings. It seemed,
therefore, more than improbable that a man who was obviously fairly
wealthy would risk imprisonment and hard labour, if not worse, for the
sake of increasing his fortune by £10,000.
"However, the theory of the Prince's guilt has taken firm root in the
dull minds of our police authorities. They have had every information
with regard to Prince Semionicz's antecedents from Russia; his position,
his wealth, have been placed above suspicion, and yet they suspect and
go on suspecting him or his secretary. They have communicated with the
police of every European capital; and while they still hope to obtain
sufficient evidence against those they suspect, they calmly allow the
guilty to enjoy the fruit of his clever roguery."
"The guilty?" said Polly. "Who do you think--"
"Who do I think knew at that moment that young Schwarz had money in his
possession?" he said excitedly, wriggling in his chair like a
Jack-in-the-box. "Obviously some one was guilty of that theft who knew
that Schwarz had gone to interview a rich Russian, and would in all
probability return with a large sum of money in his possession?"
"Who, indeed, but the Prince and his secretary?" she argued. "But just
now you said--"
"Just now I said that the police were determined to find the Prince and
his secretary guilty; they did not look further than their own stumpy
noses. Messrs. Winslow and Vassall spent money with a free hand in those
investigations. Mr. Winslow, as the senior partner, stood to lose over
£9000 by that robbery. Now, with Mr. Vassall it was different.
"When I saw how the police went on blundering in this case I took the
trouble to make certain inquiries, the whole thing interested me so
much, and I learnt all that I wished to know. I found out, namely, that
Mr. Vassall was very much a junior partner in the firm, that he only
drew ten per cent of the profits, having been promoted lately to a
partnership from having been senior assistant.
"Now, the police did not take the trouble to find that out."
"But you don't mean that--"
"I mean that in all cases where robbery affects more than one person the
first thing to find out is whether it affects the second party equally
with the first. I proved that to you, didn't I, over that robbery in
Phillimore Terrace? There, as here, one of the two parties stood to
lose very little in comparison with the other--"
"Even then--" she began.
"Wait a moment, for I found out something more. The moment I had
ascertained that Mr. Vassall was not drawing more than about £500 a year
from the business profits I tried to ascertain at what rate he lived and
what were his chief vices. I found that he kept a fine house in Albert
Terrace. Now, the rents of those houses are £250 a year. Therefore
speculation, horse-racing or some sort of gambling, must help to keep up
that establishment. Speculation and most forms of gambling are
synonymous with debt and ruin. It is only a question of time. Whether
Mr. Vassall was in debt or not at the time, that I cannot say, but this
I do know, that ever since that unfortunate loss to him of about £1000
he has kept his house in nicer style than before, and he now has a good
banking account at the Lancashire and Liverpool bank, which he opened a
year after his 'heavy loss.'"
"But it must have been very difficult--" argued Polly.
"What?" he said. "To have planned out the whole thing? For carrying it
out was mere child's play. He had twenty-four hours in which to put his
plan into execution. Why, what was there to do? Firstly, to go to a
local printer in some out-of-the-way part of the town and get him to
print a few cards with the high-sounding name. That, of course, is done
'while you wait.' Beyond that there was the purchase of a good
second-hand uniform, fur coat, and a beard and a wig from a costumier's.
"No, no, the execution was not difficult; it was the planning of it all,
the daring that was so fine. Schwarz, of course, was a foreigner; he had
only been in England a little over a fortnight. Vassall's broken English
misled him; probably he did not know the junior partner very intimately.
I have no doubt that but for his uncle's absurd British prejudice and
suspicions against the Russian Prince, Schwarz would not have been so
ready to believe in the latter's roguery. As I said, it would be a great
boon if English tradesmen studied Gotha more; but it was clever, wasn't
it? I couldn't have done it much better myself."
That last sentence was so characteristic. Before Polly could think of
some plausible argument against his theory he was gone, and she was
trying vainly to find another solution to the Liverpool mystery.