their securities, amounting between them to ten thousand pounds.
Then they went up to London, drew the money out of their bank,
changed it themselves into French money--so as to make it more
convenient for Mr. Schumann--and handed the entire sum over to Prince
Orsoff on the eve of the wedding.
"Of course such fatuous imbecility would be unbelievable if it did
not occur so frequently: vain, silly women, who have never moved
outside their own restricted circle, are always the ready prey of
plausible rascals.
"Anyway, in this case the Smithsons returned to Folkestone that day,
perfectly happy and with never a thought of anything but contentment
for the present and prosperity in the future. The wedding was to be
the next day; the bridegroom-elect was coming down by the midday
train with his best man, whom he vaguely described as secretary to
the Russian Embassy, and the bridal pair would start for Paris by the
afternoon boat.
"All this the Smithsons related to the police inspector in charge of
the case and subsequently to the Scotland Yard detective, with a
wealth of detail and a profusion of lamentations not unmixed with
expletives directed against the unknown assassin and thief. For
indeed there was no doubt in the minds of Louisa and her mother that
the unfortunate Prince, on whom the girl still lavished the wealth of
her trustful love, had been murdered for the sake of the money which
he had upon his person.
"It must have amounted to millions of francs, Mrs. Smithson declared,
for he had the Prince of Wales's money upon him also, and probably
that of the President of the French Republic, and at first she and
Louisa fastened their suspicions upon the anonymous best man, the
so-called secretary of the Russian Embassy. Even when they were
presently made to realise that there was no such thing as a Russian
Embassy in London these days, and that minute enquiries both at home
and abroad regarding the identity of a Prince Orsoff led to no result
whatever, they repudiated with scorn the suggestion put forth by the
police that their beloved Russian Prince was nothing more or less
than a clever crook who had led them by the nose, and that in all
probability he had not been murdered in the train but had succeeded
in jumping out of it and making good his escape across country.
"This the Smithson ladies would not admit for a moment, and with
commendable logic they argued that if Prince Orsoff had been a crook
and had intended to make away with their money he could have done
that easily enough without getting into a train at Victoria and
jumping out of it at Sydenham Hill.
"Pressed with questions, however, the ladies were forced to admit
that they knew absolutely nothing about Prince Orsoff, they had never
been introduced to any of his relations, nor had they met any of his
friends. They did not even know where he had been staying in London.
He was in the habit of telephoning to Louisa every morning, and any
arrangements for his visits down to The Towers or the ladies' trips
up to town were made in that manner. As a matter of fact Louisa and
her future husband had not met more than a dozen times altogether, on
some five or six occasions in Monte Carlo, and not more than six in
England. It had been a case of love at first sight.
"The question of Mr. Schumann's vast undertaking was first discussed
at The Towers. After that the ladies wrote to their bank to sell out
their securities, and subsequently went up to town for a couple of
days to draw out their money, change it into French currency, and
finally hand it over to Prince Orsoff. On that occasion he had met
them at Victoria Station and taken them to a quiet hotel in
Kensington, where he had engaged a suite of rooms for them. All
financial matters were then settled in their private sitting-room.
"In answer to enquiries at that hotel, one or two of the employees
distinctly remembered the foreign-looking gentleman who had called on
Mrs. and Miss Smithson, lunched with them in their sitting-room that
day, and saw them into their cab when they went away the following
afternoon. One or two of the station porters at Victoria also
vaguely remembered a man who answered to the description given of
Prince Orsoff by the Smithson ladies: tall, with a slight stoop,
wearing pince-nez, and with a profusion of dark, curly hair, bushy
eyebrows, long, dark moustache, and old-fashioned imperial, which
made him distinctly noticeable, he could not very well have passed
unperceived.
"Unfortunately, on the actual day of the murder, not one man employed
at Victoria Station could swear positively to having seen him, either
alone or in the company of another foreigner; and the latter has
remained a problematical personage to this day.
"But the Smithson ladies remained firm in their loyalty to their
Russian Prince. Had they dared they would openly have accused Henry
Carter of the murder; as it was they threw out weird hints and
insinuations about Henry who had more than once sworn that he would
be even with his hated rival, and who had actually travelled down in
the same train as the Prince on that fateful wedding morning,
together with his brother John, who no doubt helped him in his
nefarious deed. I believe that the unfortunate ladies actually spent
some of the money which now they could ill spare in employing a
private detective to collect proofs of Henry Carter's guilt.
"But not a tittle of evidence could be brought against him. To begin
with, the train in which the murder was supposed to have been
committed was a non-stop to Swanley. Then how could the Carters have
disposed of the body? The Smithsons suggested a third miscreant as a
possible confederate; but the same objection against that theory
subsisted in the shape of the disposal of the body. The murder--if
murder there was--occurred in broad daylight in a part of the country
that certainly was not lonely. It was not possible to suppose that a
man would stand waiting on the line close to Sydenham Hill station
until a body was flung out to him from the passing train, and then
drag that body about until he found a suitable place in which to bury
it: and all that without being seen by the workmen on the line or
employees on the railway, or in fact any passer-by. Therefore the
hypothesis that Henry Carter or his brother murdered the Russian
Prince with or without the help of a confederate was as untenable as
that the Prince had travelled from Victoria to Sydenham Hill and
there jumped out of the train, at risk of being discovered in the
act, rather than disappear quietly in London, shave off his luxuriant
hair, or assume any other convenient disguise, until he found an
opportunity for slipping back to the Continent.
"But the Smithsons remained firm in their belief in the genuineness
of their Prince and in their conviction that he had been murdered--if
not by the Carters, then by the mysterious secretary to the Russian
Embassy or any other Russian or German emissary, for political
reasons.
"And thus the public was confronted with the two hypotheses, both of
which led to a deadlock. No sensible person doubted that the
so-called Russian Prince was a crook, and that he had a confederate
to help him in his clever plot, but the mystery remained as to how
the rascal or rascals disappeared so completely as to checkmate every
investigation. The travelling by train that morning and setting the
scene for a supposed murder was, of course, part of the plan, but it
was the plan that was so baffling, because to an ordinary mind that
disappearance could have been effected so much more easily and with
far less risk without the train journey.
"Of course there was not a single passenger on that train who was not
the subject of the closest watchfulness on the part of the police,
but there was not one--not excluding the Carters--who could by any
possible chance have known that the Prince carried a large sum of
money upon his person. He was not likely to have confided the fact
to a stranger, and the mystery of the vanished body was always there
to refute the theory of an ordinary murderous attack for motives of
robbery."
§4
The Old Man in the Corner ceased talking, and became once more
absorbed in his favourite task of making knots in a bit of string.
"I see in the papers," I now put in thoughtfully, "that Miss Louisa
Smithson has overcome her grief for the loss of her aristocratic
lover by returning to the plebeian one."
"Yes," the funny creature replied dryly, "she is marrying Henry
Carter. Funny, isn't it? But women are queer fish! One moment she
looked on the man as a murderer, now, by marrying him, she actually
proclaims her belief in his innocence."
"It certainly was abundantly proved," I rejoined, "that Henry Carter
could not possibly have murdered Prince Orsoff."
"It was also abundantly proved," he retorted, "that no one else
murdered the so-called Prince."
"You think, of course, that he was an ordinary impostor?" I asked.
"An impostor, yes," he replied, "but not an ordinary one. In fact I
take off my hat to as clever a pair of scamps as I have ever come
across."
"A pair?"
"Why, yes! It could not have been done alone!"
"But the police..."
"The police," the spook-like creature broke in with a sharp cackle,
"know more in this case than you give them credit for. They know
well enough the solution of the puzzle which appears so baffling to
the public, but they have not sufficient proof to effect an arrest.
At one time they hoped that the scoundrels would presently make a
false move and give themselves away, in which case they could be
prosecuted for defrauding the Smithsons of ten thousand pounds, but
this eventuality has become complicated through the master-stroke of
genius which made Henry Carter marry Louisa Smithson."
"Henry Carter?" I exclaimed. "Then you do think the Carters had
something to do with the case?"
"They had everything to do with the case. In fact, they planned the
whole thing in a masterly manner."
"But the Russian Prince at Monte Carlo?" I argued. "Who was he? If
he was a confederate, where has he disappeared to?"
"He is still engaged in free-lance journalism," the Old Man in the
Corner replied drily, "and in his spare moments changes parcels of
French currency back into English notes."
"You mean the brother!" I ejaculated with a gasp.
"Of course I mean the brother," he retorted dryly, "who else could
have been so efficient a collaborator in the plot? John Carter was
comparatively his own master. He lived with Henry in the small house
in Chelsea, waited on by a charwoman who came by the day. It was
generally given out that his reporting work took him frequently and
for lengthened stays out of London. The brothers, remember, had
inherited a few hundreds from their father, while the Smithsons had
inherited a few thousands. We must suppose that the idea of
relieving the ladies of those thousands occurred to them as soon as
they realised that Louisa, egged on by her mother, would
cold-shoulder her fiancé.
"John Carter, mind you, must be a very clever man, else he could not
have carried out all the details of the plot with so much sang-froid.
We have been told, if you remember, that he had early in life cut his
stick and gone to seek fortune in London, therefore the Smithsons,
who had never been out of Folkestone, did not know him intimately.
His make-up as the Prince must have been very good, and his
histrionic powers not to be despised: his profession and life in
London no doubt helped him in these matters. Then, remember also
that he took very good care not to be a great deal in the Smithsons'
company--even in Monte Carlo he only let them see him less than half
a dozen times, and as soon as he came to England he hurried on the
wedding as much as he could.
"Another fine stroke was Henry's apparent despair at being cut out of
Louisa's affections, and his threats against his successful rival: it
helped to draw suspicion on himself--suspicion which the scoundrels
took good care could easily be disproved. Then take a pair of vain,
credulous, unintelligent women and a smart rascal who knows how to
flatter them, and you will see how easily the whole plot could be
worked. Finally, when John Carter had obtained possession of the
money, he and Henry arranged the supposed tragedy in the train and
the Russian Prince's disappearance from the world as suddenly as he
had entered it."
I thought the matter over for a moment or two. The solution of the
mystery certainly appealed to my dramatic sense.
"But," I said at last, "one wonders why the Carters took the trouble
to arrange a scene of a supposed murder in the train: they might
quite well have been caught in the act, and in any case it was an
additional unnecessary risk. John Carter might quite well have been
content to shed his role of Russian Prince, without such an elaborate
setting."
"Well," he admitted, "in some ways you are right there, but it is
always difficult to gauge accurately the mentality of a clever
scoundrel. In this case I don't suppose that the Carters had quite
made up their minds about what they would do when they left London,
but that the plan was in their heads is proved by the hat, pince-nez,
and railway ticket which they took with them when they started, and
which, if you remember, were found on the line: but it was probably
only because the train was comparatively empty, and they had both
time and opportunity in the non-stop train, that they decided to
carry their clever comedy through.
"Then think what an immense advantage in their future plans would be
the Smithsons' belief in the death of their Prince. Probably Louisa
would never have dreamed of marrying if she thought her aristocratic
lover was an impostor and still alive: she would never have let the
matter rest; her mind would for ever have been busy with trying to
trace him, and bring him back, repentant, to her feet. You know what
women are when they are in love with that type of scoundrel, they
cling to them with the tenacity of a leech. But once she believed
the man to be dead, Louisa Smithson gradually got over her grief and
Henry Carter wooed and won her on the rebound. She was poor now, and
her friends had quickly enough deserted her: she was touched by the
fidelity of her simple lover, and he thus consolidated his position
and made the future secure.
"Anyway," the Old Man in the Corner concluded, "I believe that it was
with a view to making a future marriage possible between Louisa and
Henry that the two brothers organised the supposed murder. Probably
if the train had been full and they had seen danger in the
undertaking they would not have done it. But the _mise en scène_ was
easily enough set and it certainly was an additional safeguard. Now
in another week or so Louisa Smithson will be Henry Carter's wife,
and presently you will find that John in London, and Henry and his
wife, will be quite comfortably off. And after that, whatever
suspicions Mrs. Smithson may have of the truth, her lips would have
to remain sealed. She could not very well prosecute her only child's
husband.
"And so the matter will always remain a mystery to the public: but
the police know more than they are able to admit because they have no
proof.
"And now they never will have. But as to the murder in the train,
well!--the murdered man never existed."
V
THE MYSTERIOUS TRAGEDY IN BISHOP'S ROAD
§1
The Old Man in the Corner was in a philosophising mood that
afternoon, and all the while that his thin, claw-like fingers
fidgeted with the inevitable piece of string, he gave vent to
various, disjointed, always sententious remarks.
Suddenly he said:
"We know, of course, that the world has gone dancing mad! But I
doubt if the fashionable craze has ever been responsible before for
so dark a tragedy as the death of old Sarah Levison. What do you
think?"
"Well," I replied guardedly, for I knew that, whatever I might say, I
should draw an avalanche of ironical remarks upon my innocent head,
"I never have known what to think, and all the accounts of that
brutal murder as they appeared in the cheaper Press only made the
obscurity all the more obscure."
"That was a wise and well-thought-out reply," the aggravating
creature retorted with a dry chuckle, "and a non-committal one at
that. Obscurity is indeed obscure for those who won't take the
trouble to think."
"I suppose it is all quite clear to you?" I said, with what I meant
to be withering sarcasm.
"As clear as the proverbial daylight," he replied undaunted.
"You know how old Mrs. Levison came by her death?"
"Of course I do. I will tell you, if you like."
"By all means. But I am not prepared to be convinced," I added
cautiously.
"No," he admitted, "but you soon will be. However, before we reach
that happy conclusion, I shall have to marshal the facts before you,
because a good many of these must have escaped your attention. Shall
I proceed?"
"If you please."
"Well, then, do you remember all the personages in the drama?" he
began.
"I think so."
"There were, of course, young Aaron Levison and his wife,
Rebecca--the latter young, pretty, fond of pleasure, and above all of
dancing, and he, a few years older, but still in the prime of life,
more of an athlete than a business man, and yet tied to the shop in
which he carried on the trade of pawnbroking for his mother. The
latter, an old Jewess, shrewd and dictatorial, was the owner of the
business: her son was not even her partner, only a well-paid clerk in
her employ, and this fact we must suppose rankled in the mind of her
smart daughter-in-law. At any rate, we know that there was no love
lost between the two ladies; but the young couple and old Mrs.
Levison and another unmarried son lived together in the substantial
house over the shop in Bishop's Road.
"They had three servants and we are told that they lived well, old
Mrs. Levison bearing the bulk of the cost of housekeeping. The
younger son, Reuben, seems to have been something of a bad egg; he
held at one time a clerkship in a bank, but was dismissed for
insobriety and laziness; then after the war he was supposed to have
bad health consequent on exposure in the trenches, and had not done a
day's work since he was demobilised. But in spite, or perhaps
because, of this, he was very markedly his mother's favourite; where
the old woman would stint her hard-working, steady elder son, she
would prove generous, even lavish, toward the loafer, Reuben; and
young Mrs. Levison and he were thick as thieves.
"What money Reuben extracted out of his mother he would spend on
amusements, and his sister-in-law was always ready to accompany him.
It was either the cinema or dancing--oh, dancing above all! Rebecca
Levison was, it seems, a beautiful dancer, and night after night she
and Reuben would go to one or other of the halls or hotels where
dancing was going on, and often they would not return until the small
hours of the morning.
"Aaron Levison was indulgent and easy-going enough where his young
wife was concerned: he thought that she could come to no harm while
Reuben was there to look after her. But old Mrs. Levison, with the
mistrust of her race for everything that is frivolous and thriftless,
thought otherwise. She was convinced in her own mind that her
beloved Reuben was being led astray from the path of virtue by his
brother's wife, and she appears to have taken every opportunity to
impress her thoughts and her fears upon the indulgent husband.
"It seems that one of the chief bones of contention between the old
and the young Mrs. Levison was the question of jewellery. Old Mrs.
Levison kept charge herself of all the articles of value that were
pawned in the shop, and every evening after business hours Aaron
would bring up all bits of jewellery that had been brought in during
the day, and his mother would lock them up in a safe that stood in
her room close by her bedside. The key of the safe she always
carried about with her. For the most part these bits of jewellery
consisted of cheap rings and brooches, but now and again some
impoverished lady or gentleman would bring more valuable articles
along for the purpose of raising a temporary loan upon them, and at
the time of the tragedy there were some fine diamond ornaments
reposing in the safe in old Mrs. Levison's room.
"Now young Mrs. Levison had more than once suggested that she might
wear some of this fine jewellery when she went out to balls and
parties. She saw no harm in it, and neither, for a matter of that,
did Reuben. Why shouldn't Rebecca wear a few ornaments now and again
if she wanted to?--they would always be punctually returned, of
course, and they could not possibly come to any harm. But the very
suggestion of such a thing was anathema to the old lady, and in her
flat refusal ever to gratify such a senseless whim she had the
whole-hearted support of her eldest son: such a swerving from
traditional business integrity was not to be thought of in the
Levison household.
"On that memorable Saturday evening young Mrs. Levison was going with
her brother-in-law to one of the big charity balls at the Kensington
Town Hall, and her great desire was to wear for the occasion a set of
diamond stars which had lately been pledged in the shop, and which
were locked up in the old lady's safe. Of course, Mrs. Levison
refused, and it seems that the two ladies very nearly came to blows
about this, the quarrel being all the more violent as Reuben hotly
sided with his sister-in-law against his mother."
§2
"That then was the position in the Levison household on the day of
the mysterious tragedy," the Old Man in the Corner went on presently;
"an armed truce between the two ladies--the lovely Rebecca sore and
defiant, pining to gratify a whim which was being denied her, and old
Mrs. Levison more bitter than usual against her, owing to Reuben's
partisanship. Egged on by Rebecca, he was furious with his mother
and vowed that he was sick of the family and meant to cut his stick
in order to be free to lead his own life, and so on. It was all
tall-talk, of course, as he was entirely dependent on his mother, but
it went to show the ugliness of his temper and the domination which
his brother's wife exercised over him. Aaron, on the other hand,
took no part in the quarrel, but the servants remarked that he was
unwontedly morose all day, and that his wife was very curt and
disagreeable with him.
"Nothing, however, of any importance occurred during the day until
dinner-time, which as usual was served in the parlour at the back of
the shop at seven o'clock. It seems that as soon as the family sat
down to their meal, there was another violent quarrel on some subject
or other between the two ladies, Rebecca being hotly backed up by
Reuben, and Aaron taking no part in the discussion; in the midst of
the quarrel, and following certain highly offensive words spoken by
Reuben, old Mrs. Levison got up abruptly from the table and went
upstairs to her own room which was immediately overhead at the back
of the house, next to the drawing-room, nor did she come downstairs
again that evening.
"At half-past nine the three servants went up to bed according to the
rule of the house. Old Mrs. Levison, who was a real autocrat in the
management of the household, expected the girls to be down at six
every morning, but they were free to go to bed as soon as their work
was done, and half-past nine was their usual time.
"Two of the girls slept at the top of the house, and the housemaid,
Ida Griggs by name, who also acted as a sort of maid to old Mrs.
Levison, occupied a small slip room on the half-landing immediately
above the old lady's bedroom. On the floor above this there was a
large bedroom at the back, and a bathroom and dressing-room in front,
all occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Aaron, and over that the two maids'
room, and one for Mr. Reuben, and a small spare room in which Mr.
Aaron would sleep now and again when his wife was likely to be out
late and he did not want to get his night's rest broken by her
home-coming, or if he himself was going to be late home on a holiday
night after one of those country excursions on his bicycle of which
he was immensely fond and in which he indulged himself from time to
time.