THE LIVING AND THE DEAD
The man in the corner blinked across at Polly with his funny mild blue
eyes.
"No wonder you are puzzled," he continued, "so was everybody in the
court that day, every one save myself. I alone could see in my mind's
eye that gruesome murder such as it had been committed, with all its
details, and, above all, its motive, and such as you will see it
presently, when I place it all clearly before you.
"But before you see daylight in this strange case, I must plunge you
into further darkness, in the same manner as the coroner and jury were
plunged on the following day, the second day of that remarkable inquest.
It had to be adjourned, since the appearance of Mr. Timothy Beddingfield
had now become of vital importance. The public had come to regard his
absence from Birmingham at this critical moment as decidedly remarkable,
to say the least of it, and all those who did not know the lawyer by
sight wished to see him in his Inverness cape and Glengarry cap such as
he had appeared before the several witnesses on the night of the awful
murder.
"When the coroner and jury were seated, the first piece of information
which the police placed before them was the astounding statement that
Mr. Timothy Beddingfield's whereabouts had not been ascertained, though
it was confidently expected that he had not gone far and could easily be
traced. There was a witness present who, the police thought, might throw
some light as to the lawyer's probable destination, for obviously he had
left Birmingham directly after his interview with the deceased.
"This witness was Mrs. Higgins, who was Mr. Beddingfield's housekeeper.
She stated that her master was in the constant habit--especially
latterly--of going up to London on business. He usually left by a late
evening train on those occasions, and mostly was only absent thirty-six
hours. He kept a portmanteau always ready packed for the purpose, for he
often left at a few moments' notice. Mrs. Higgins added that her master
stayed at the Great Western Hotel in London, for it was there that she
was instructed to wire if anything urgent required his presence back in
Birmingham.
"'On the night of the 14th,' she continued, 'at nine o'clock or
thereabouts, a messenger came to the door with the master's card, and
said that he was instructed to fetch Mr. Beddingfield's portmanteau, and
then to meet him at the station in time to catch the 9.35 p.m. up train.
I gave him the portmanteau, of course, as he had brought the card, and
I had no idea there could be anything wrong; but since then I have heard
nothing of my master, and I don't know when he will return.'
"Questioned by the coroner, she added that Mr. Beddingfield had never
stayed away quite so long without having his letters forwarded to him.
There was a large pile waiting for him now; she had written to the Great
Western Hotel, London, asking what she should do about the letters, but
had received no reply. She did not know the messenger by sight who had
called for the portmanteau. Once or twice before Mr. Beddingfield had
sent for his things in that manner when he had been dining out.
"Mr. Beddingfield certainly wore his Inverness cape over his dress
clothes when he went out at about six o'clock in the afternoon. He also
wore a Glengarry cap.
"The messenger had so far not yet been found, and from this
point--namely, the sending for the portmanteau--all traces of Mr.
Timothy Beddingfield seem to have been lost. Whether he went up to
London by that 9.35 train or not could not be definitely ascertained.
The police had questioned at least a dozen porters at the railway, as
well as ticket collectors; but no one had any special recollection of a
gentleman in an Inverness cape and Glengarry cap, a costume worn by
more than one first-class passenger on a cold night in September.
"There was the hitch, you see; it all lay in this. Mr. Timothy
Beddingfield, the lawyer, had undoubtedly made himself scarce. He was
last seen in company with the deceased, and wearing an Inverness cape
and Glengarry cap; two or three witnesses saw him leaving the hotel at
about 9.15. Then the messenger calls at the lawyer's house for the
portmanteau, after which Mr. Timothy Beddingfield seems to vanish into
thin air; but--and that is a great 'but'--the night porter at the
'Castle' seems to have seen some one wearing the momentous Inverness and
Glengarry half an hour or so later on, and going up to deceased's room,
where he stayed about a quarter of an hour.
"Undoubtedly you will say, as every one said to themselves that day
after the night porter and Mrs. Higgins had been heard, that there was a
very ugly and very black finger which pointed unpleasantly at Mr.
Timothy Beddingfield, especially as that gentleman, for some reason
which still required an explanation, was not there to put matters right
for himself. But there was just one little thing--a mere trifle,
perhaps--which neither the coroner nor the jury dared to overlook,
though, strictly speaking, it was not evidence.
"You will remember that when the night porter was asked if he could,
among the persons present in court, recognize the Hon. Robert de
Genneville's belated visitor, every one had noticed his hesitation, and
marked that the man's eyes had rested doubtingly upon the face and
figure of the young Earl of Brockelsby.
"Now, if that belated visitor had been Mr. Timothy Beddingfield--tall,
lean, dry as dust, with a bird-like beak and clean-shaven chin--no one
could for a moment have mistaken his face--even if they only saw it very
casually and recollected it but very dimly--with that of young Lord
Brockelsby, who was florid and rather short--the only point in common
between them was their Saxon hair.
"You see that it was a curious point, don't you?" added the man in the
corner, who now had become so excited that his fingers worked like long
thin tentacles round and round his bit of string. "It weighed very
heavily in favour of Timothy Beddingfield. Added to which you must also
remember that, as far as he was concerned, the Hon. Robert de Genneville
was to him the goose with the golden eggs.
"The 'De Genneville peerage case' had brought Beddingfield's name in
great prominence. With the death of the claimant all hopes of prolonging
the litigation came to an end. There was a total lack of motive as far
as Beddingfield was concerned."
"Not so with the Earl of Brockelsby," said Polly, "and I've often
maintained--"
"What?" he interrupted. "That the Earl of Brockelsby changed clothes
with Beddingfield in order more conveniently to murder his own brother?
Where and when could the exchange of costume have been effected,
considering that the Inverness cape and Glengarry cap were in the hall
of the Castle Hotel at 9.15, and at that hour and until ten o'clock Lord
Brockelsby was at the Grand Hotel finishing dinner with some friends?
That was subsequently proved, remember, and also that he was back at
Brockelsby Castle, which is seven miles from Birmingham, at eleven
o'clock sharp. Now, the visit of the individual in the Glengarry
occurred some time after 10 p.m."
"Then there was the disappearance of Beddingfield," said the girl
musingly. "That certainly points very strongly to him. He was a man in
good practice, I believe, and fairly well known."
"And has never been heard of from that day to this," concluded the old
scarecrow with a chuckle. "No wonder you are puzzled. The police were
quite baffled, and still are, for a matter of that. And yet see how
simple it is! Only the police would not look further than these two
men--Lord Brockelsby with a strong motive and the night porter's
hesitation against him, and Beddingfield without a motive, but with
strong circumstantial evidence and his own disappearance as condemnatory
signs.
"If only they would look at the case as I did, and think a little about
the dead as well as about the living. If they had remembered that
peerage case, the Hon. Robert's debts, his last straw which proved a
futile claim.
"Only that very day the Earl of Brockelsby had, by quietly showing the
original ancient document to his brother, persuaded him how futile were
all his hopes. Who knows how many were the debts contracted, the
promises made, the money borrowed and obtained on the strength of that
claim which was mere romance? Ahead nothing but ruin, enmity with his
brother, his marriage probably broken off, a wasted life, in fact.
"Is it small wonder that, though ill-feeling against the Earl of
Brockelsby may have been deep, there was hatred, bitter, deadly hatred
against the man who with false promises had led him into so hopeless a
quagmire? Probably the Hon. Robert owed a great deal of money to
Beddingfield, which the latter hoped to recoup at usurious interest,
with threats of scandal and what not.
"Think of all that," he added, "and then tell me if you believe that a
stronger motive for the murder of such an enemy could well be found."
"But what you suggest is impossible," said Polly, aghast.
"Allow me," he said, "it is more than possible--it is very easy and
simple. The two men were alone together in the Hon. Robert de
Genneville's room after dinner. You, as representing the public, and the
police say that Beddingfield went away and returned half an hour later
in order to kill his client. I say that it was the lawyer who was
murdered at nine o'clock that evening, and that Robert de Genneville,
the ruined man, the hopeless bankrupt, was the assassin."
"Then--"
"Yes, of course, now you remember, for I have put you on the track. The
face and the body were so battered and bruised that they were past
recognition. Both men were of equal height. The hair, which alone could
not be disfigured or obliterated, was in both men similar in colour.
"Then the murderer proceeds to dress his victim in his own clothes. With
the utmost care he places his own rings on the fingers of the dead man,
his own watch in the pocket; a gruesome task, but an important one, and
it is thoroughly well done. Then he himself puts on the clothes of his
victim, with finally the Inverness cape and Glengarry, and when the hall
is full of visitors he slips out unperceived. He sends the messenger for
Beddingfield's portmanteau and starts off by the night express."
"But then his visit at the Castle Hotel at ten o'clock--" she urged.
"How dangerous!"
"Dangerous? Yes! but oh, how clever. You see, he was the Earl of
Brockelsby's twin brother, and twin brothers are always somewhat alike.
He wished to appear dead, murdered by some one, he cared not whom, but
what he did care about was to throw clouds of dust in the eyes of the
police, and he succeeded with a vengeance. Perhaps--who knows?--he
wished to assure himself that he had forgotten nothing in the _mise en
scène_, that the body, battered and bruised past all semblance of any
human shape save for its clothes, really would appear to every one as
that of the Hon. Robert de Genneville, while the latter disappeared for
ever from the old world and started life again in the new.
"Then you must always reckon with the practically invariable rule that a
murderer always revisits, if only once, the scene of his crime.
"Two years have elapsed since the crime; no trace of Timothy
Beddingfield, the lawyer, has ever been found, and I can assure you that
it will never be, for his plebeian body lies buried in the aristocratic
family vault of the Earl of Brockelsby."
He was gone before Polly could say another word. The faces of Timothy
Beddingfield, of the Earl of Brockelsby, of the Hon. Robert de
Genneville seemed to dance before her eyes and to mock her for the
hopeless bewilderment in which she found herself plunged because of
them; then all the faces vanished, or, rather, were merged in one long,
thin, bird-like one, with bone-rimmed spectacles on the top of its
beak, and a wide, rude grin beneath it, and, still puzzled, still
doubtful, the young girl too paid for her scanty luncheon and went her
way.