acquaintances of her brother's with whom he might have gone off for a
week-end jaunt without saying anything about it, either at home or to
his fiancée. He put the questions as delicately as he could, but the
sister flared up with indignation. It seems that the Captain's
conduct had always been irreproachable. He was a model son, a model
brother, and deeply in love with Lady Angela. Miss Shillington also
refused to believe that he could have been enticed to a place of
ill-fame and robbed by one of the usual confidence tricksters.
"'My brother is exceptionally shrewd,' she declared, 'and a splendid
business man. Though he is not yet thirty, he has built up an
enormous fortune out in Australia, and administers his estates
himself to the admiration of every one who knows him. He is not the
sort of man who could be fooled in that way.'
"But beyond all this, and beyond giving a detailed description of her
brother's appearance, the poor girl had very little to say, and the
detective who was put in charge of the case could only assure her
that enquiries would at once be instituted in every possible
direction, and that the police would keep her informed of everything
that was being done. Obviously, the person most likely to be able to
throw some light upon the mystery was Lady Angela Buckley, but as you
know, the advent of this charming lady upon the scene only helped to
complicate matters. It appears that Henry Buckley, delighted at what
he jocosely called, 'Old "Square-toes" falling from grace,' had rung
up his sister in order to tell her the startling news over the
telephone. Lady Angela being a very modern young woman, her brother
thought that she might storm for a bit but in the end see the
humorous side of the situation. But not at all! Lady Angela took
the affair entirely _au tragique_. Over the telephone she only
exclaimed, 'Great Lord!' but at one o'clock in the afternoon she
arrived at the flat, having taken the first train up to town and not
even waiting for her maid to pack her things. Mr. Henry Buckley was
just going out to lunch. Without condescending to explain anything,
his sister dragged him off then and there to Scotland Yard.
'Something has happened to Denver,' was all that she would say.
'Something dreadful, I am sure.' In vain did her brother protest
that she would only be making a fool of herself by rushing to the
police like this, that old Square-toes had only gone on the spree,
and that, anyway, she ought to consult with the Shillingtons before
doing anything silly; Lady Angela would not listen to reason. 'You
don't know! You don't know!' she kept on reiterating with
ever-increasing agitation. 'He has been murdered, I tell you.
Murdered!'
"By the time that the pair arrived at Scotland Yard, Lady Angela was
in a state bordering on hysterics, and her brother appeared both
sulky and perplexed. They saw the same Inspector who had interviewed
Miss Shillington, and certainly his amazement was no whit less than
that of Mr. Henry Buckley when Lady Angela having mentioned the
disappearance of Captain Denver Shillington, said abruptly, 'Yes, he
has disappeared, and incidentally, he had my pearls in his pocket.'
The Inspector made no immediate comment; men of his calling are used
to those kinds of surprises, but Henry Buckley gave a gasp of horror.
"'Your pearls?' he exclaimed. 'What pearls? Not----?'
"'Yes,' Lady Angela rejoined, coolly. 'The Glenarm pearls. All of
them!'
"'But----' Henry Buckley stammered, wide-eyed and white to the lips.
"His sister threw him what appeared to be a warning glance, then she
turned once more to the police inspector.
"'My brother is upset,' she said calmly, 'because he knows that the
pearls are of immense value. The late Lord Glenarm left them to me
in his will. He made a huge fortune by a successful speculation in
sugar. He had no daughters of his own, and late in life he married
my mother's sister. He was my godfather, and when he first bought
the pearls and gave them to his wife as a wedding present, he said
that after her death and his they should belong to me. They were
valued for probate at twenty-five thousand pounds.'
"Henry Buckley was still speechless, and it was in answer to several
questions put to her by the Inspector that Lady Angela gave the full
history, as far as she knew it, of the disappearance of her pearls.
"'I was going to spend the week-end with some friends at Tatchford,
near Newmarket,' she said. 'My brother at first had decided not to
come with me. On the Friday evening I went with Captain Shillington
to a ball at the Duchess of Flint's in Grosvenor Square. I wore my
pearls; on the way home in the car, Captain Shillington appeared very
anxious as to what I should do about the pearls whilst I was away.
He wanted me to take them to the bank first thing in the morning
before I left. But I knew I couldn't do this, because my train was
at nine-fifty from Liverpool Street. Captain Shillington had once or
twice before shown anxiety about the pearls and urged me to keep them
at the bank when I was not wearing them, but he had never been so
insistent as that night.'
"Lady Angela appeared to hesitate for a moment or two. She glanced
at her brother with a curious expression, both of anxiety and
contempt. It seemed as if she were trying to make up her mind to say
something that was very difficult, to put in so many words. The
Inspector sat silent and impassive, waiting for her to continue her
story, and at last she did make up her mind to speak.
"'I had a safe in the flat,' she went on, glibly, 'where I keep my
jewellery, but Captain Shillington did not seem satisfied. He argued
and argued, and at last he persuaded me to let him have the pearls
while I was away and he would deposit them at his own bank until my
return.'
"Presumably at this point the lady caught an expression on the face
of the Inspector which displeased her, for she added with becoming
dignity, 'I am engaged to be married to Captain Denver Shillington.'
"'My God!' Henry Buckley exclaimed at this point, and with a groan he
buried his face in his hands.
"Mind you," the Old Man in the Corner proceeded, after a moment's
pause, "the public had no information as to the exact words, and so
on, that passed between Lady Angela, her brother Henry, and the
officials of Scotland Yard. All that I am telling you, and what I am
still about to tell you, came out bit by bit in the papers.
Sensation-lovers were immensely interested in the case from the
outset, because, although both public and police are familiar enough
with the tragi-comedy of the good-looking young blackguard who gets
confiding females to entrust him with their little bits of jewellery,
this was the first time that the confidence trick had been played by
a well-known man about town--reputed wealthy, since he had gone to
the length of paying a friend's gambling debts--on a society lady who
was not in her first youth and must presumably have had some
knowledge of the world she lived in.
"Lady Angela had concluded her statements by saying that during the
drive home in the car she took off her pearls and handed them to her
fiancé, who slipped them into his pocket just as they were, although
when presently the car drew up at her door she suggested running up
to her room to get the case for them. The Captain, however, declared
this to be unnecessary. What he said was, 'I will sleep with them
under my pillow to-night, and to-morrow morning first thing I will
take them round to the bank for you.' After this he said good-night.
Lady Angela let herself into the house with her latchkey, and Captain
Shillington then dismissed the car, saying that he would enjoy a bit
of a walk as the rooms at Grosvenor Square had been so desperately
hot.
"And it was at this point," the Old Man in the Corner now said with
deliberate emphasis as he worked away at an exceptionally intricate
knot in his beloved bit of string, "it was at this point that certain
facts leaked out which lent to the whole case a sinister aspect.
"It appears that on the Saturday morning at break of day one of the
boats belonging to the Thames District Police found a grey Homburg
hat floating under one of the old steamship landing stages and, stuck
to one of the wooden piles close by, a man's silk scarf. There was
no name inside the hat or any other clue as to the owner's identity,
but both the scarf, which had once been white or light grey, and the
hat were terribly soiled and torn, and both were stained with blood.
The police had tried on the quiet to trace the owner of the hat and
scarf but without success. After Lady Angela had told her story of
the missing pearls, the things were shown to Miss Shillington, who at
once identified the hat as belonging to her brother; the scarf,
however, she knew nothing about.
"But this was not by any means all. It appears that for some reason
which was never quite clear, Captain Shillington, after he said
good-night to Lady Angela, altered his mind about the proposed walk.
It may have started to rain, or he may not, after all, have liked the
idea of walking about the streets at night with twenty-five thousand
pounds' worth of pearls in his pocket. Be that as it may, he hailed
a passing taxi and drove to Mexfield House. The driver came forward
voluntarily in answer to an advertisement put in the papers by the
police. He stated that he remembered the circumstance quite well
because of what followed. He remembered taking up a fare outside
Stanhope Gate and being ordered to drive to Mexfield House in
Somerset Street. When he slowed down close to Mexfield House he
noticed a man with his hands in his pockets lounging under the
doorway of one of the houses close by. As far as he could see the
man was in evening dress and wore a light overcoat. He had on a silk
hat tilted right over his eyes so that only the lower part of his
face was visible, and he had a white or pale grey scarf tied loosely
round his neck. The chauffeur also noticed that he had a large white
flower, probably a carnation, in his buttonhole. After the taxi-man
had put down his fare he drove off, and as he did so he saw the man
in the light overcoat step out from under the doorway, where he had
been lounging, and turn in the direction of Mexfield House. What
happened after that he didn't know, as he drove away without taking
further notice, but the police were already in touch with another man
who had been watching that night in Somerset Street, where a portion
of the road was up for repair. This man, whose name, I think, was
William Rugger, remembered quite distinctly seeing a 'swell' in a
light overcoat and wearing a light-coloured scarf round his neck,
loafing around Mexfield House. He remembered the taxi drawing up and
a gentleman getting out of it, whereupon the one in the light
overcoat and the scarf went up to him and said, 'Hullo, Denver!' at
which the other gent, the one who had come in the taxi, appeared very
surprised, for Rugger heard him say, 'Good Lord, Henry, what are you
doing here?'
"Rugger didn't hear any more because the gentleman in the light
overcoat then took the other one by the arm and together the pair of
them walked away down the street. When they had gone Rugger noticed
a large white carnation lying on the pavement; he picked it up and
subsequently took it home to his missis.
"You may imagine what a stir and excitement this story--which pretty
soon leaked out in all its details--caused amongst the public. It
seems that although neither the taxi-driver nor the man Rugger had
seen the face of the man who had stepped out from under a
neighbouring doorway and accosted Captain Shillington, they were both
of them quite positive that he was in evening dress, and that he wore
a silk hat, a light overcoat, and had a pale grey or white scarf
wound round his neck. And besides that, there was the white
carnation. But, of course, the crux of the whole evidence was
Rugger's assertion that he heard one gentleman--the one who got out
of the cab--say to the other in tones of great surprise, 'Good Lord,
Henry, what are you doing here?' Questioned again and again he never
wavered in this statement. He heard the name Henry quite distinctly
and it stuck in his mind because his eldest boy was Henry. He was
also asked whether the gentleman, who had stepped out of the
taxi--obviously Captain Shillington, since the other had called to
him, 'Hullo, Denver'--walked away reluctantly or willingly when he
was thus summarily taken hold of by the arm. Rugger was under the
impression that he walked away reluctantly; he freed his arm once,
but the other got hold of him again, and, though Rugger did not catch
the actual words, he certainly thought that the two gentlemen were
quarrelling.
"And thus public opinion, which at first had been dead against the
Australian Captain, now went equally dead against Henry Buckley.
Ugly stories were current of his extravagance, his gambling debts,
his addiction to drink. People who knew him remembered one or two
ugly pages in his life's history: altercations with the police, raids
on gambling clubs of which he was a prominent member; there was even
a fraudulent bankruptcy which had been the original cause of his
being sent out to Australia by his harassed parents until the worst
of the clouds had rolled by.
"The only thing that told in his favour, as far as the public was
concerned, was the bitter vindictiveness displayed against him by
Miss Shillington. That the girl had cause for bitterness was not to
be denied. For a time, at any rate, public opinion had branded her
brother as a common trickster and a thief, and she and her mother had
no doubt suffered terribly under the stigma; in consequence of this,
Mrs. Shillington's health, always in a precarious state, had
completely broken down and the old lady had taken to her bed, not
suffering from any particular disease, but just from debility of mind
and body, obstinately refusing to see a doctor, declaring that
nothing would cure her except the return of her son.
"And on the top of all that came the growing conviction that the son
never would return and that he had been foully murdered for the sake
of Lady Angela's pearls, which he so foolishly was carrying in his
pocket that night. No wonder, then, that his sister Marion felt
bitter against the people who were the original cause of all these
disasters; no wonder that she threw herself heart and soul into the
search for evidence against the man whom she sincerely believed to be
guilty of a most hideous crime.
"It was mainly due to her that the police came on the track of
William Rugger, the night-watchman, and through the latter that the
driver of the taxi-cab was advertised for, because Rugger remembered
seeing the gentleman alight from a taxi outside Mexfield House. But
Miss Shillington's valuable assistance in the matter of investigation
went even further than that. She at last prevailed upon the old
man-servant at Mexfield House to come forward like a man and to speak
the truth. He was a poor creature, not really old, probably not more
than fifty, but timid and almost abject. He had at first declined to
make any statement whatever, declaring that he had nothing to say.
To every question put to him by the police, he gave the one answer,
'I saw nothing, sir, I 'eard nothing. I went to bed as usual on the
Friday night. The Captain 'e never expected me to sit up for 'im
when 'e was out to parties, and I never 'ear 'im come in, as I sleep
at the top of the 'ouse. No, sir, I didn't 'ear nothing that night.
The last I seed of the Captain was at nine o'clock, when 'e got into
the car and said good-night to me.' When he was shown the
blood-stained hat, he burst out crying, and said, 'Yes, sir! Yes,
sir! That is the Captain's 'at. My Lord! What 'as become of 'im?'
He also failed to identify the scarf as being his master's property.
"Then one day Miss Shillington, still suffering from a cold in the
head, but otherwise very business-like and brisk, arrived at Scotland
Yard with the man--James Rose was his name--in tow. By what means
she had persuaded him to speak the truth at last no one ever knew,
but in a tremulous voice and shaken with nervousness, he did tell
what he swore to be the truth. 'I must 'ave dropped to sleep in the
dining-room,' he said. 'I was very tired that evening, and I
remember after I 'ad cleared supper away I just felt as 'ow I
couldn't stand on my legs any longer, and I sat down in an armchair
and must 'ave dozed off. What woke me was the front-door bell which
rings in the 'all as well as in the basement. I looked at the clock,
it was past midnight. Captain forgot 'is key, that's what I thought.
Lucky I 'adn't gone to bed, or I should never 'ave 'eard 'im. Funny
'is forgetting 'is key, I thought. Never done such a thing before, I
thought, and went to open the door for 'im. But it wasn't the
Captain,' Rose went on, his voice getting more and more husky as no
doubt he realised the deadly importance of what he was about to say.
'No, it wasn't the Captain,' he reiterated, and shook his head in a
doleful manner.
"'Who was it?' the Inspector demanded.
"'The young gentleman who sometimes came to the 'ouse,' Rose repeated
under his breath. 'Mr. 'Enery Buckley it was, sir. Yes, Mr. 'Enery,
that's 'oo it was.'
"'What did he say?' Rose was asked.
"''E asked if the Captain was in, and I said no, not as I knew, but I
would go and see. So up I went to the Captain's room and saw 'e
wasn't there. Not yet. And I told Mr. 'Enery so when I came down
again.'
"'Then what happened?'
"'Mr. 'Enery 'e told me that 'e wouldn't wait and that I was to tell
the Captain 'e 'ad called, and that 'e would call again in 'arf an
hour. I said that I was going to bed and I wouldn't probably see the
Captain. 'E might be ever so late. Then Mr. 'Enery 'e just said,
"Very good," and "Never mind," and "Good-night, Rose," 'e said, and
then I let 'im out.'
"'Well? And what happened after that?'
"'I don't know, sir,' the old man concluded. 'I went to bed and I
never seed the Captain again, nor yet Mr. 'Enery--not from that day
to this, sir. No, not again, sir.' And Rose once more shook his
head in the same doleful manner. Of course the police were very down
on him for keeping back this valuable piece of information, and they
were even inclined to look with suspicion upon the man. They wanted
to know something about his antecedents and why he seemed so
frightened of facing the police authorities. Fortunately for him,
however, Miss Shillington could give them all the information they
wanted. She said that James Rose had been for years in the service
of a Mrs. O'Shea, who was a great friend of Mrs. Shillington's. When
Mrs. O'Shea died she left him a hundred pounds. But the poor thing
had never been very strong, and he was nothing to look at, he
couldn't get another place, and the hundred pounds vanished bit by
bit. About a month ago Mrs. Shillington, who was requiring a
man-servant, advertised for one in the _Daily Mail_. Rose answered
the advertisement, and though the poor thing in the meanwhile had
gone terribly downhill physically, Mrs. Shillington, remembering how
honest and respectable he had always been when he was in Mrs.
O'Shea's service, engaged him out of compassion and for the sake of
old times. Miss Shillington gave him an excellent character and the
police were satisfied.
"I think," the Old Man in the Corner said, amorously contemplating a
marvellously intricate knot, which he had just made in his bit of
string, "I think that the police were mainly satisfied because at
last they felt that 'they had made out a case.' From that moment the
detectives and inspectors in charge became absolutely convinced that
Henry Buckley had enticed Captain Denver Shillington to some place of
evil fame close to the river and there, in collusion probably with
other disreputable characters, had robbed and murdered him. To say
the least, the case looked black enough against Buckley. His fast
living, his mountain of debt, the absence in him of moral rectitude
as proved by his fraudulent bankruptcy, all told against him; and now
it was definitely proved that he had sought out and actually been in
the company of Captain Shillington the night that the latter
disappeared. A light grey overcoat similar to the one described by
Rugger and by the chauffeur as worn by the gentleman who was loafing
in Somerset Street was found to be a part of his wardrobe; no one
could swear, however, as to the scarf, but it turned out that he
never went out in the evening without wearing a large, white
carnation in his button-hole.
"The fact that he had not stated from the beginning that he had
called at Mexfield House that night, and subsequently met the missing
man and walked away with him, naturally told terribly against him.
Obviously the man lost his head. Questioned by the police, he tried
at first to deny the whole thing: he declared that the man with the
white carnation and the light-coloured scarf was some other man whose
name happened to be Henry, and he tried to upset Rose's evidence by
declaring that the man lied and that he had never called at Mexfield
House that night. But, unfortunately for him, he had taken a taxi
from his club to the house, the taxi-driver was found, and the noose
was further tightened round the Honourable Henry Buckley's neck. In
vain did he assert after that that Denver Shillington had told him to
call at Mexfield House at a quarter-past midnight on that fatal
Friday. He was no longer believed. He admitted that he was in
financial difficulties, and that he had spoken about these to Captain
Shillington earlier in the evening. He admitted, tardily enough,
that he went to Mexfield House hoping that Denver would give him some
money in order to wipe out his most pressing debts. When he found
that the Captain had not yet come home, he left a message with the
man-servant and thought he would go on to the club for a little while
and return later to see Shillington. Unfortunately, he drank rather
heavily whilst he was at the club and never thought any more either
about his money worries or about the Captain. In fact, he remembered
nothing very clearly beyond the fact that he went home, in the small
hours and went straight to bed.
"He then went on to say that he woke up the next morning with a
splitting headache. It was pouring with rain and London was looking
particularly beastly, as he picturesquely termed it. He recollected
that his sister Angela had planned to go down with old Square-toes to
some friends near Newmarket for the weekend. He, too, had been asked
but had declined the invitation, but now he began to wish he hadn't;
while he was out of town money-lenders couldn't dun him, and a breath
of country air would certainly do him good.
"And he was just cogitating over these matters at eight a.m. on that
Saturday morning, when his sister Angela came into his room. 'She
told me,' he went on, 'that old Square-toes was unable to accompany
her to these friends in Cambridgeshire, that she didn't want to go
alone, and would I hire a car and drive her down. She offered to pay
for the car, and, as the scheme happened to suit me, I agreed. We
drove down to Tatchford, and on the Tuesday I had an unpleasant
reminder from one of my creditors and thought that I must get back to
see what old Square-toes would do for me. I got home that same
evening, and the next morning early Miss Shillington rang up and told
me over the 'phone that they had heard nothing of Captain Shillington
since the previous Friday and that they were getting anxious. And
that's all I know,' he concluded. 'I swear that I never set eyes on
Shillington after he drove off from the Duchess of Flint's, with my
sister in his car. I did call at Mexfield House, but it was at
Shillington's suggestion, but when the man told me that the Captain
was not yet home, I did not loaf about the street, I went straight
back to the club and then home.'
"Of course all this was very clear and very categorical, but there
were one or two doubtful points in Buckley's statements, which the
police--dead out now to prove him guilty of murder--made the most of.
Firstly, there was his former denial on oath that he had not called
at Mexfield House that night. It was only when he was confronted
with the testimony of the taxi-cab driver that he made the admission.
The employees at his club, which, by the way, was in Hanover Square,
had seen him come in at about half-past eleven. He went out again
twenty minutes later and the hall porter saw him hail a taxi-cab. He
was once more in the club at half-past twelve, and it is a
significant fact that two of the younger members chaffed him
subsequently because he had not the usual white carnation in his
button-hole.