CHAPTER IV
THE ALIAS
"This man was alive within the last few minutes." That was the doctor'sverdict. "He is still quite warm." The doctor looked at me. "What doyou know about the matter?"
"Nothing. I was expecting a visitor. As he was late, I came down fromthe coffee-room, and went into the hall with the intention of seeingif he was coming. As I was coming down the stairs I saw this man lyingon the floor."
The body had been moved into the little front room on the groundfloor, which, I afterwards learned, was used as a privatesitting-room for such visitors to the house as chose to pay for one.There were present in the room, besides myself, the doctor, a youngman with a shrewd but kindly face, an inspector of police, a sergeant,who kept the door, while Mrs. Barnes and the maid kept each otherclose company in the corner by the fireplace. When I had answered thedoctor, the inspector questioned me upon his own account.
"What is that upon your hand?"
I held out the hand to which he referred.
"Blood! This unfortunate man's blood! When I saw him lying on thefloor my impression was that he was either drunk or in a fit. I laidmy hand upon his shoulder with a view of rousing him. Directly I didso I found that his coat was wet. When I withdrew my hand I saw thatit was covered with blood. It was then I realised that there had beenfoul play."
The dead man had been laid on the table. It was not large enough tohold the whole of him, so that his feet hung over the edge. He was abig man all over--in particular, he had one of the biggest heads Iever saw. There was not a hair on the top. But on his large, fatcheeks were what used to be called mutton-chop whiskers, which were incolour a dirty red. He was dressed from top to toe in glossy blackbroadcloth. He wore black kid gloves upon his hands. In the centre ofhis wide expanse of shirtfront was, so far as I was a judge of suchthings, a large diamond stud. A heavy gold chain spanned hiswaistcoat.
"Is this the person you were expecting?" inquired the inspector.
"That is more than I can tell you. The person I was expecting was tome personally a stranger."
"What was his name?"
"Duncan Rothwell. I received a telegram from him this morning to saythat he would be here by half-past twelve. Here is the telegram."
I handed it to the inspector.
"Half-past twelve. And when do you say that you discovered this man onthe floor?"
"About a quarter to one. When I gave the alarm the landlady of thehotel and the servant came running to me immediately. They will beable to tell you what time it was; and I should say that the doctorwas here within five minutes."
The inspector turned to the doctor.
"And what was the time, sir, when you arrived?"
"I should say as nearly as possible about ten minutes to one. I lunchat one; I was just going to wash when I was called."
"And how long do you say, sir, he had then been dead?"
"He had probably been alive five minutes before."
"Then, in that case, he must have been alive when this man says heentered the hall." The inspector pointed to me.
"I do not say that. The man was stabbed in the back, under the leftshoulder, probably just as he was in the act of entering the house. Ihave only made a superficial examination, but I think it probable thatthe blow killed him in an instant--before, that is, he could breathethe breath which he was breathing, as it were, right out. And I do saythis, that if this gentleman had entered the hall a minute before heactually did, he would have seen the man in the very act of beingmurdered."
The inspector turned again to me.
"Where did this Mr. Duncan Rothwell live?"
"That also is more than I can tell you. The fact is, I know nothingwhatever about him. A firm of solicitors placed him in communicationwith me."
"What was he coming to see you about?"
"With reference to this advertisement."
I gave the inspector the advertisement which had placed me in theposition which, so far, did not promise to be much to my advantage.
"What is your name?"
"James Southam."
"Are you the James Southam here alluded to?"
"That, again, is more than I can tell you. I saw that advertisementthe day before yesterday. I at once communicated with Messrs. Cleaverand Caxton. Yesterday I received this letter, and this morning thetelegram which you already have."
The inspector carefully read the letter which had come to me signed"Duncan Rothwell." Then, without asking with your leave or by yourleave, he placed the letter, the advertisement, and the telegram inhis pocket-book, and the pocket-book in his pocket. The action struckme as extremely, and indeed unpleasantly, significant.
An examination of the dead man's pockets disclosed the somewhatcurious fact that they contained nothing but a massive gold watch,without a maker's name; a sheaf of bank-notes, which, unenclosed inany cover, was simply thrust in the breast-pocket of his coat, andconsisted of no less than one hundred ten-pound notes; some gold andsilver coins--four pounds, thirteen shillings, if I rememberrightly--in a plain leather purse; and, in an apparently forgottencorner of his right-hand waistcoat pocket, was a torn scrap of avisiting card. On it was the name, "Raymond." But the card was torn insuch a manner that, whether this was a surname or a Christian name,there was, as the police would themselves have said, no evidence toshow. But beyond these articles there was absolutely nothing whichwould serve or could be used as a means of identification. It almostseemed as if the dead man had taken care that there should be nothingabout him by means of which he could be identified.
As soon as the inspector seemed disposed to allow me to quit hispresence I went straight away to Messrs. Cleaver and Caxton. Again Ifound the senior partner alone. My appearance seemed to surprise him;possibly in my bearing there was something which was a triflesuggestive of the condition of my mind.
"Well, has Mr. Rothwell been?"
I shut the door behind me, looking him full in the face.
"You appear to have let me in for a nice little thing, Mr. Cleaver."
"What do you mean?"
"It is what you mean I intend to understand before I leave this room.You will be so good as to answer me one or two questions, Mr. Cleaver.First, is Mr. Duncan Rothwell the name of the client for whom you havebeen acting?"
He leaned back in his chair, regarding me with rather a curious smile.
"You have a singular method of address, Mr. Southam. Before I answerthis question perhaps you will answer mine. Has Mr. Rothwell been tosee you?"
"What does he look like?"
"Look like!" Again the curious smile. "You continue to answer questionwith question. Tell me, sir, has any one calling himself DuncanRothwell been to see you? We will discuss the question of what helooked like afterwards."
I paused before I spoke again, then keenly noted the effect of mywords.
"For all I know, Mr. Duncan Rothwell lies murdered at Mrs. Barnes'shotel."
Mr. Cleaver sprang to his feet. "Murdered!"
"Precisely! Some one lies there murdered. If you will tell me what helooks like I will tell you if it is Mr. Duncan Rothwell."
Not unnaturally, Mr. Cleaver appeared bewildered.
"Explain yourself a little more clearly, Mr. Southam; and, to beginwith, will you be so good as to answer Yes or No to my question. Hasany one calling himself Duncan Rothwell been to see you?"
I told him what had happened--so far as I understood it. His amazementunmistakably was genuine.
"You say that the dead man had nothing on him by means of which hecould be recognised. Then, in that case, we can do nothing to assistin his identification; we ourselves have never seen Mr. DuncanRothwell in our lives. All our communications with him have been byletter."
He acknowledged one thing: that the person for whom they had beenacting was Mr. Duncan Rothwell. But, beyond that one fact, I learnednothing at all. He protested that Mr. Duncan Rothwell had instructedthem, by letter, to advertise
for a James Southam, of Dulborough, andthat that was all they knew of the matter. He even suggested that,since I was James Southam, I, if I chose, could fill up the blanks.
When I returned to the hotel, little wiser than I left it, as soon asI set foot inside the door the inspector of police, clapping his handupon my shoulder, drew me aside. I did not like the fashion in whichhe addressed me at all.
"See here, Mr. Southam. I do not wish to make myself disagreeable, butI need scarcely point out to you that there are circumstances in thiscase which are, to say the least of it, peculiar. I may as well tellyou that your movements will be under the surveillance of the police;and, should you make any attempt to elude us we may consider it ourduty to place you in safe custody."
"That's all right," I replied. "Lock me up and hang me, do! It onlyneeds some little trifle of that kind to make the situation altogetherwhat it should be. The man is a perfect stranger to me, and I know nomore how he came to his death than the man in the moon; which thingsare, possibly, a sufficient reason why the police should make of meone of their proverbial examples."
It struck me that the inspector did not altogether know what to makeof me; Although he did not arrest me, to all intents and purposes hemight almost as well have done. Until the inquest took place the hotelwas practically in charge, with everybody in it. A policeman slept onthe premises; other policemen were continually about the premises,asking questions and making themselves objectionable both by day andnight. I myself began to feel that I had a haunted, hangdog sort ofair. As for Mrs. Barnes, if she had not a great crime upon herconscience, it was not because she did not look it. She seemed to begrowing hourly thinner. I knew very well that she was full of a greatanxiety to say a word or two to me in private, but dared not for fearof prying eyes and ears. She solved the difficulty in her own way bypinning a note to my pillow, so that I found it on going to bed on thenight before the inquest.
It had neither beginning nor end, and ran something like this; everyword was underlined--
"Say nothing to-morrow about my husband, for God's sake! I am quitesure that he had nothing to do with this deed of horror--you know thathe had not--and I know! No good purpose will be served by dragging himinto it, and so bringing on me greater ruin than has come already!"
As I read this scarcely judicious appeal I told myself that Mrs.Barnes was certainly wrong in saying that I knew that her mysterioushusband had had nothing to do with the crime which had been wrought.As a matter of fact, I knew nothing.
The more I reflected, however, the less I liked the look of thecircumstances, which seemed to suggest a guilty knowledge on the partof my whilom friend, the waiter. It appeared at least possible that hewas the James Southam who had been actually advertised for, and thathe was very well aware that Duncan Rothwell had something to say tohim which was, very distinctly, not to his advantage. Looking at theviolence which, without hesitation, he had used towards me, was it notconceivable that he might have, and indeed had, used still greaterviolence towards Mr. Rothwell?
The inquest was not over in a day, though the only light it threw uponthe crime went to prove the identity of the murdered man. A singularstate of things the evidence upon this point revealed--by no meanstending to elucidate the mystery. The dead man actually turned out tobe Jonas Hartopp--the head, and, in fact, the sole remaining partner,in the well-known firm of manufacturing jewellers--Hartopp andCompany. The strange part of the business was that he seemed to havebeen Duncan Rothwell as well--that is, he had assumed that name forreasons which were very far from being plain.
Hartopp and Company were a Birmingham firm--a wealthy one. JonasHartopp himself had had the reputation of being as rich as areasonable man would care to be. Duncan Rothwell had written toMessrs. Cleaver and Caxton from Liverpool, where he had taken rooms,as it would seem, for the special purpose of communicating with them.
He had never occupied the rooms, but had given the most peremptoryinstructions that all letters and telegrams should at once beforwarded to an address at Aston. The address at Aston turned out tobe a tobacconist's shop. The tobacconist at once recognised the deadman as being the person he had known as Duncan Rothwell. Why thewealthy Birmingham jeweller, Jonas Hartopp, had chosen to masqueradeas Duncan Rothwell, or what was the something to his advantage whichhe proposed to communicate to James Southam, there was not a shred ortittle of evidence to show; nor was there a thread of light thrownupon the shadows which enveloped the mystery of his sudden death.
As it chanced, no question was asked me while I was in the witness-boxwhich gave me an opportunity of bringing in the incident of Mrs.Barnes's husband. I had a sufficiently bad time of it without beingactuated by a burning desire to involve myself in furthercomplications. Never in my life had I been so badgered. They would notaccept my plain statement that I had not the faintest notion why JamesSoutham had been advertised for, or who had advertised for him, orwhat was the something which he was to learn to his advantage. Thecoroner and the police, and, for the matter of that, the public too,appeared to be under the impression that, since I owned that my namewas James Southam, therefore I held the key of the mystery in thehollow of my hand; or, at any rate, that I ought to. They had raked upthe circumstances of my life from my earliest days; they had made allsorts of inquiries about me in all sorts of directions, yet they couldfind nothing which could fairly be said to tell against me; and thatfor the sufficient, and, from my point of view, satisfactory reason,that there was nothing to find.
Notwithstanding which, when the inquiry closed, I was conscious thatmore than one person in court, and a good many out of it, cherishedthe impression that I had had a hand indirectly, if not directly, inthe murdered man's despatch, the verdict of the coroner's jury beingthat Jonas Hartopp, otherwise known as Duncan Rothwell, had beenmurdered by some person or persons unknown.
The Woman with One Hand, and Mr. Ely's Engagement Page 5
