As he could not go with his beloved to the cinema he thought he would
spend a happy evening with her. What made him originally go into the
office we shall never know. Some trifle no doubt, some message for
his employer--it is those sorts of trifles that so often govern the
destinies of men. Personally I think that he was very much in the
same boat as young Leighton: some trifling irregularities in his
accounts. The deceased, speaking so harshly to Mrs. Tufnell that
night, first directed my attention to young Tufnell. He didn't want
to see any of them that night: he was irritated with Mark quite as
much as with Leighton, but out of consideration for the housekeeper
whom he valued he said little about her son. Perhaps he had ordered
the young man to come to his office; as I said just now, this little
point I cannot vouch for. But if I have not succeeded in convincing
you that the first visitor at No. 13, Fulton Gardens was Mark
Tufnell, that it was he who went out in Mr. Jessup's hat and
overcoat, changed hats in the street, and wandered out as far as
Walthamstow in order to be rid of the _pièces de conviction_, then
you are less intelligent than I have taken you to be. Mark Tufnell,
remember, lives in the north of London; he was supposed to have gone
to the cinema that night, therefore the people with whom he lodged
thought nothing of his coming home late."
"That poor mother!" I ejaculated, "I wonder if she suspects the
truth."
"She knows it," the funny creature said, "you may be sure of that.
There was a bond of understanding between those two women, and they
never once contradicted each other in their evidence. A worthless
young blackguard has been saved from the gallows; my sympathy is not
with him, but with the women who put up such a brave fight for his
sake."
"Do you know what happened to them all subsequently?" I asked.
"Not exactly. But I do know that Mr. Seton Jessup in his will left
his housekeeper an annuity of £50. I also know that young Tufnell
has gone out to Australia, and that if you ever dine with a friend at
the Alcyon Club you will notice an exceptionally pretty waitress who
will make eyes at all the men. Her name is Ann Weber!"
XIII
A MOORLAND TRAGEDY
§1
The Old Man in the Corner had finished his glass of milk and ceased
to munch his bun; from the capacious pocket of his huge tweed coat he
extracted a piece of string, and for a while sat contemplating it,
with his head on one side, so like one of those bald-headed storks at
the Zoo.
"I always had a great predilection for that mystery," he said _à
propos_ of nothing at all. "It still fascinates me."
"What mystery?" I asked; but as usual he took no notice of my
question.
"It was more romantic than the common crimes of to-day; in fact, I
don't know if you will agree with me, but to me it has quite an
eighteenth-century atmosphere about it."
"If you were to tell me to what particular crime you refer," I said
coldly, "I might tell you whether I agree with you or not."
He looked at me as if he thought me an idiot, then he rejoined dryly:
"You don't mean to say that you have never thought of the Moorland
Tragedy!"
"Yes," I said, "often!"
"And don't you think that the story is as romantic as any you have
read in fiction recently?"
"Yes, I do think that the story is romantic, but only because of its
_mise en scène_. The same thing might have occurred in a London
slum, and then it would have been merely sordid. Of course, it is
all very mysterious, and I, for one, have often wondered what has
become of that Italian--I forget his name."
"Antonio Vissio. A queer creature, wasn't he? And we can well
imagine with what suspicion he was regarded by the yokels in the
neighbouring villages. Yorkshire yokels! Just think of them in
connection with an exotic creature like Vissio. He had a curious
history, too. His people owned a little farm somewhere in the
mountains near Santa Catarina in Liguria, and during the war an
English intelligence officer--Captain Arnott--lodged with them for a
time. They were, it seems, extraordinarily kind to him. The family
consisted of a widow, two daughters, and the son, Antonio. As he was
the only son of a widow, he was, of course, exempt from military
service, and helped his mother to look after the farm. His passion,
however--and one, by the way, which is very common to Italian
peasants--was shooting. There is very little game in that part of
Italy, and it means long tramps before you can get as much as a
rabbit or a partridge; but there was nothing that Antonio loved more
than those tramps with a gun and a dog, and when Captain Arnott had
leisure, the two of them would go off together at daybreak and never
return till late at night.
"Some time in 1917 Captain Arnott was transferred to another front.
He got his majority the following year, and after the war he retired
with the rank of Lieut.-Colonel. He hadn't seen the Vissio family
for some time, but he always retained the happiest recollections of
their kindness to him, and of Antonio's pleasant companionship. It
was not to be wondered at, therefore, that when, in 1919, that
terrible explosion occurred at the fort of Santa Catarina, which was
only distant a quarter of a mile from the Vissios' farm, Colonel
Arnott should at once think of his friends, and, as he happened to be
at Genoa on business at the time, he motored over to Santa Catarina
to see if he could ascertain anything of their fate. He found the
village a complete devastation, the isolated farms for miles around
nothing but masses of wreckage. I don't know how many people--men,
women, and children--had been killed, there were over two hundred
injured, and those who had escaped were herding together amongst the
ruins of their homes. It was only by dint of perseverance and the
exercise of an iron will that Captain Arnott succeeded at last in
finding Antonio Vissio. There was nothing left of the farm but dust
and ashes. The mother and one of the girls had been killed by the
falling in of the roof, and the younger daughter was being taken care
of by some sisters in a neighbouring convent which had escaped total
destruction.
"Antonio was left in the world all alone, homeless, moneyless; Italy
is not like England, where at times of disaster money comes pouring
at once out of the pockets of the much-abused capitalists to help the
unfortunate. There was no money poured out to help poor Antonio and
his kindred.
"Colonel Arnott was deeply moved at sight of the man's loneliness.
He worked hard to try and get him a job in England, right away from
the scenes of the disaster that must perpetually have awakened bitter
memories. Finally he succeeded. A friend of his, Lord Crookhaven,
who owned considerable property in the North Riding, agreed to take
Vissio as assistant to one of his gamekeepers, a fellow named William
Topcoat. Of course this was an ideal life for Antonio. He could
indulge his passion for shooting to his heart's content, and,
incidentally, he would learn something of the science of preserving,
and of the game laws as they exist in all the sporting countries.
"I don't suppose that Antonio ever realised quite how unpopular he
was from the first in his new surroundings. The Yorkshire yokels
looked upon him as a dago, and the fact that he had not fought in the
war did not help matters. During the first six months he did not
speak a word of English, and even after he had begun to pick up a
sentence or two, he always remained unsociable. To begin with, he
didn't drink: he hated beer and said so; he didn't understand
cricket, and was bored with football. He didn't bet, and he was
frightened of horses. All that he cared for was his gun; but he went
about his work not only conscientiously, but intelligently, took
great interest in the rearing of young birds, and was particularly
successful with them.
"After he had been in England a year he fell madly in love with
Winnie Gooden. And that is how the tragedy began.
§2
"An Italian peasant's idea of love is altogether different to that of
an English yokel. The latter will begin by keeping company with his
sweetheart: he will walk out with her in the twilight, and sit beside
her on the stile, chewing the end of a straw and timidly holding her
hand. Kisses are exchanged, and sighs, and usually no end of jokes
and chaff. On the whole the English yokel is a cheerful lover. Not
so the Italian. With him love is the serious drama of life; he is
always prepared for it to turn to tragedy. His love is overwhelming,
tempestuous. With one arm he fondles his sweetheart, but the other
hand is behind his back, grasping a knife.
"So it was with Antonio Vissio. Winnie Gooden was the daughter of
one of the gardeners at Markthwaite Hall, Lord Crookhaven's
residence. She was remarkably pretty, and I suppose that she was
attracted by the silent, rather sullen Italian, who, by the way, was
extraordinarily good-looking. Dark eyes, a soft creamy skin,
quantities of wavy hair; every one admitted that the two of them made
a splendid pair when they walked out together on Sunday afternoons.
Thanks to the kindness of Colonel Arnott, Vissio had succeeded in
selling the bit of land on which his farm had stood, so he had a good
bit of money, too, and though James Gooden, the father, was said to
be averse to the idea of his daughter marrying a foreigner, it was
thought that Winnie would talk her father over easily enough, if she
really meant to have Antonio; but people didn't think that she was
seriously in love with him.
"During the spring of 1922 Mr. Gerald Moville came home from
Argentina, where he was said to be engaged in cattle-rearing. He was
the youngest son of Sir Timothy Moville, whose property adjoined that
of Lord Crookhaven. His arrival caused quite a flutter in feminine
hearts for miles around, for smart young men are scarce in those
parts, and Gerald Moville was both good-looking and smart, a splendid
dancer, a fine tennis and bridge player, and in fact, was possessed
of the very qualities which young ladies of all classes admire, and
which were so sadly lacking in the other young men of the
neighbourhood. The fact that he had always been very wild, and that
it was only through joining the Air Force at the beginning of the war
that he escaped prosecution for some shady transaction in connection
with a bridge club in London, did not seriously stand against him, at
any rate with the ladies; the men, perhaps, cold-shouldered him at
first, and he was not made an honorary member of the County Club at
Richmond, but he was welcome at all the tea and garden parties, the
dances, and the tennis matches throughout the North Riding, and in
social matters it is, after all, the ladies who rule the roost.
"The Movilles, moreover, were big people in the neighbourhood, whom
nobody would have cared to offend. The eldest son was colonel
commanding a smart regiment--I forget which; one daughter had married
an eminent K.C., and the other was the wife of a bishop; so for the
sake of the family, if for no other reason, Gerald Moville was
accepted socially and his peccadilloes, of which it seems there were
more than the one in connection with the bridge club, were
conveniently forgotten. Besides which it was declared that he was
now a reformed character. He had joined the Air Force quite early in
the war, been a prisoner of the Germans until 1919, when he went out
to Argentina, where he had made good, and where, it was said, he was
making a huge fortune. This rumour also helped, no doubt, to make
Gerald Moville popular, even though he himself had laughingly sworn
on more than one occasion that he was not a marrying man: he was in
love with too many girls ever to settle down with one. He certainly
was a terrible flirt, and gave all the pretty girls of the
neighbourhood a very good time; he had hired a smart little
two-seater at Richmond, and motor-excursions, lunches at the
Wheatsheaf at Reeth, jade earrings or wrist watches--the girls who
were ready to flirt with him and to amuse him could get anything they
wanted out of him.
"But it was soon pretty evident that though Gerald Moville flirted
with many, it was Winnie Gooden whom he admired the most. From the
first he ran after that girl in a way that scandalised the village
gossips. She, of course, was flattered by his attentions, but did
not show the slightest inclination to throw Antonio over. She was
sensible enough to know that Gerald Moville would never marry her,
and she made it very clear that though he amused her, her heart would
remain true to her Italian lover. But here was the trouble. Antonio
was not the man to run in double harness. His fiery Southern blood
rose in revolt against any thought of rivalry. He had won Winnie's
love and meant to hold it against all comers, and more than once in
public and in private he threatened to do for any man who came
between him and Winnie.
"You would have thought that those who were in the know would have
foreseen the tragedy from the moment that Winnie Gooden started to
flirt with Gerald Moville; nevertheless, when it did occur there was
universal surprise quite as much as horror, and there seemed to be no
one clever enough to understand the psychological problem that was
the true key of that so-called mystery."
§3
"Lord Crookhaven's property, you must know," the Old Man in the
Corner resumed after a moment's pause, "extends right over
Markthwaite Moor, which is a lonely stretch of country, intersected
by gullies, down which, during the heavy rains in spring and autumn,
the water rushes in torrents. There are one or two disused stone
quarries on the moor, and, except for the shooting season, when Lord
Crookhaven has an occasional party of sportsmen to stay with him at
the Hall, who are out after the birds all day, this stretch of
country is singularly desolate.
"Topcoat's cottage, where Vissio lodged, is on the edge of the moor
on the Markthwaite side; about a couple of miles away to the north
the moor is intersected by the secondary road which runs from Kirkby
Stephen and joins up with the main road at Richmond, and three or
four miles again to the north of the road is the boundary wall that
divides Lord Crookhaven's property from that of his neighbour, Sir
Timothy Moville.
"It was in September, 1922, that the tragedy occurred which made
Markthwaite Moor so notorious at the time. Topcoat was walking
across the moor in the company of the Italian, both carrying their
guns, when about half a mile away, on the further side of the quarry
known as the Poacher's Leap, the gamekeeper spied a man who appeared
to be crouching behind some scrub. Without much reflection he
pointed this crouching figure out to Vissio and said:
"There's a fellow who is up to no good. After the birds again, the
damned thief. Run along, my lad, and see if you can't put a shot or
two into his legs.'
"Topcoat swore subsequently that when he said this he had not
recognised who the crouching figure was. But he was a very hard man
where poachers were concerned; he had been much worried with them
lately, and a day or two ago had been reprimanded by Lord Crookhaven
for want of vigilance. This, no doubt, irritated his temper, and
made him rather 'jumpy.'
"Vissio, with his gun on his shoulder, went off in the direction of
the Poacher's Leap. Topcoat watched him until a bit of
sharply-rising ground hid him from sight. A moment or two later the
crouching figure stood up, and Topcoat recognised Mr. Gerald Moville.
He had always had exceptionally fine sight, and Mr. Moville had
certain tricks of gait and movement which were unmistakable even at
that distance. Topcoat immediately shouted to Vissio to come back,
but apparently the Italian did not hear him; and the last thing that
the gamekeeper saw on that eventful morning was Mr. Moville suddenly
turn and walk towards the high bit of ground behind which Vissio had
just disappeared.
"And that was the last," my eccentric neighbour concluded with a
chuckle all his own, "that has been seen up to this hour of those two
men--Mr. Gerald Moville and Antonio Vissio. Topcoat waited for a
while on the moor, and called to the Italian several times, but as he
heard nothing in response, and as it had started to rain heavily, he
finally went home. Vissio did not turn up at the cottage the whole
of that day, and he did not come home that night. The following
morning, which was a Thursday, Topcoat walked across to the Goodens'
cottage to make enquiries, but no one had seen the Italian, and
Winnie knew nothing about him. The gamekeeper waited until the
Saturday before he informed the police; that, of course, was a
serious delay which ought never to have occurred, but you have to
know that class of north-country yokel intimately to appreciate this
man's conduct throughout the affair. They all have a perfect horror
of anything to do with the police: the type of delinquency most
frequent in these parts is, of course, poaching, and the gamekeepers
on the big estates look on themselves as the only efficient police
for those cases. Half the time they don't turn the delinquent over
to the magistrates at all, and administer a kind of rough justice as
they think best. They hate police interference.
"In this case we must also bear Topcoat's subsequent statement in
mind, which was that at first no suspicion of foul play had entered
his head. He had not heard the report of a gun, and all he feared
was that the Italian had tried to pick a quarrel with Mr. Moville and
been soundly punished for his impertinence, and that probably he did
not dare show his face until the trouble had blown over. Topcoat,
however, spent a couple of days scouring the moor for the missing
man, in case he had met with an accident and was lying somewhere
unable to move. On the second day he found Vissio's gun lying in a
gully close to the Poacher's Leap; it had not been discharged; and
the next day--that is, on the Saturday--he very reluctantly went to
the police. Even then he made no mention of Mr. Gerald Moville; he
only said that his assistant, an Italian named Antonio Vissio, who
lodged with him, had not been home for three days, and that he had
last seen him on Markthwaite Moor on the previous Wednesday carrying
a gun and walking in the direction of the Poacher's Leap. Poachers,
of course, were at once suspected; Topcoat referred vaguely to Vissio
having gone after a man whose movements had appeared suspicious. He
was severely blamed for having delayed so long before informing the
police; even if the Italian had not been the victim of foul play he
might, it was argued, have met with a serious accident, and been
lying for days perhaps with a broken leg out in the cold and wet, and
might even have perished of exposure and neglect. But this latter
theory Topcoat would not admit. He had scoured the moor, he
declared, from end to end; if Vissio had been lying anywhere he swore
that he would have found him.
"Another three or four days were now spent by the police in scouring
the moor, and it was only after a last fruitless search that Topcoat
mentioned the fact that he had seen Mr. Gerald Moville the very
morning and close to the spot where Vissio disappeared: that, as a
matter of fact, he was the man after whom the Italian had gone, and
that the two must have met somewhere near the north end of the
Poacher's Leap.
"Of course, to the general public--to you, for instance--Topcoat's
attitude of reticence all this while must seem positively criminal;
but it is useless to measure the conduct of people of that class in
remote north-country districts by the ordinary rules of common sense.
For a man in Topcoat's position to connect 'one of the gentry' with
the disappearance of a gamekeeper's assistant--and a foreigner at
that--would seem as preposterous as to imagine that the King of
England would go poaching on his neighbour's estate. It simply
couldn't be, and when the D.C.C. to whom Topcoat first made this
statement rebuked him with unusual severity, the gamekeeper turned
sulky and declared that he didn't see he had done anything wrong.
"More than a week you see had elapsed since that Wednesday morning
when Vissio had last been seen alive; for the past four days the
police had worked very hard, but entirely in the dark. Now at last
they felt that they had a glimmer of light to guide them in their
search. The public, who had taken some interest at first in the
Moorland Mystery, was beginning to tire of reading about this
fruitless search for a missing dago. But now, suddenly, the mystery
had taken a sensational turn. Topcoat's statement had found its way
into the local papers, and Mr. Gerald Moville's name was whispered in
connection with the case. And hardly had the lovers of sensation
recovered from this first shock of surprise, when they received
another that was even more staggering.
"Mr. Gerald Moville, it seems, had left home on the very day that
Vissio disappeared, and his people were without news of him. Just
think what this sensational bit of news meant! It evoked at once in
the mind of the imaginative a drama of love and jealousy, a real
romance such as is only dreamt of in the cinema, with an Italian dago
as the jealous lover, and a handsome young Englishman as the victim
of that jealousy. The police, holding on to this clue, turned their
attention to the investigation of Mr. Gerald Moville's movements on
the morning of that eventful Wednesday: they had to go very tactfully
to work, so as not to cause alarm to Sir Timothy and Lady Moville.
It seems that Mr. Gerald had on the Monday previously announced his
sudden intention to return immediately to Argentina. According to
statements made by one or two of the servants, he did this at
breakfast one morning after he had received a couple of
official-looking letters that bore the Buenos Ayres postmark. Lady
Moville had been very distressed at this, and she and Sir Timothy had
tried to dissuade Mr. Gerald from going quite so soon; but he was
quite determined to go, saying that there was some trouble at the
farm which he must see to at once or it would mean a severe loss not
only to himself, but to his partner. He finally announced that he
would have to go up to London on the Wednesday at latest to see about
getting a berth, if possible, in a boat that left Southampton for
Buenos Ayres the following Saturday. Preparations for his departure
were made accordingly. On the Tuesday the chauffeur took his luggage
to Richmond and saw to its being sent off to London in advance. It
was addressed to the Carlton Hotel. On the Wednesday Mr. Gerald had
breakfast at half-past six, as he wished to make an early start; he
was going to drive the little two-seater back to the place in
Richmond whence he had hired it, and then take the train that would
take him to Dalton in time to catch the express up to London. He had
said good-bye to his parents the evening before, and, having tipped
all the servants lavishly, he made a start soon after seven.
"Two labourers going to their work saw the little car speeding along
the road that intersects the moor; according to their statement there
were two people in the car, a man and a woman. They thought that the
man who was driving might have been Mr. Moville, but the woman had on
a thick veil and they had not particularly noticed who she was. On
the other hand, one witness had seen the car standing unattended on
the roadside within a hundred yards of a group of cottages, one of
which was occupied by Gooden. Whereupon Winnie was taken to task by
the police. Amidst a flood of tears she finally confessed that she
had seen Mr. Moville on the Wednesday morning. He had called for her
in his car very early; her father had only just gone to work, so it
could not have been much later than seven o'clock; he told her that
he had some business to attend to in Richmond, would she like to come
for a run and have lunch there with him. To this she willingly
assented. On the way Mr. Moville told her that as a matter of fact
he was going away for good, and that he could not possibly live
without her. He begged her to come away with him; he would take her
to London first, and buy her everything she wanted in the way of
clothes, and then they would go on to Paris, and travel all over the
world and be the happiest couple on this earth.