XXXIX
THE YARN
"I needn't trouble you with my adventures before I came down here tovisit brother Simon," began the prisoner, "for you know them wellenough. It was about a month ago when I turned up at this house onenight."
"How did you get here?" demanded the superintendent.
"I did the last bit under the seat of the carriage," grinned Rattar,"and when we got into the station I hopped out on the wrong side of thetrain. The way I paid my fare wasn't bad either, considering I hadn'thalf of the fare from London in my pocket when I started--or anythinglike it. However, the point is I got here and just as I'd come throughthe gates I had the luck to see both the maids going out. So the coastwas clear.
"Well, I rang the bell and out came Simon--the man who'd got meconvicted, and my own brother too, mind you!--looking as smug as thehard-hearted old humbug he was. He got the shock of his life when he sawwho it was, but I began gently and I put a proposition to him. I'll betnone of you will guess what it was!"
He looked round the company, and Carrington answered:
"Blackmail of some sort."
"You may call it blackmail if you like, but what was the sort? Well,you'd never guess. I was wearing a beard and moustaches then, but I knewif I took them off I'd look so like Simon that no one meeting one of uswould know which it was, supposing we were dressed exactly alike and Idid Simon's grunting tricks and all that. And Simon knew it too.
"'Well, Simon, my dear brother,' I said to him, 'I'll make you asporting proposition. My idea is to settle down in this old place, andI'm so fond of you I mean to shave, get an outfit just like yours, andgive free rein to my affection for you. I'm so fond of you,' I said,'that I know I shan't be able to keep more than five yards away from youwhenever you are walking the streets, and I'll have to sit in churchbeside you, Simon. That's my present programme.'
"I let that sink in, and then I went on:
"'Supposing this programme embarrasses you, Simon, well there's one wayout of it, and I leave it to your judgment to say what it is.'
"Now, mind you, I'd banked on this coming off, for I knew what astickler Simon was for the respectable and the conventional and allthat. Can't you see the two of us going through the streets together,five yards apart and dressed exactly alike! Wouldn't the small boys haveliked it! That was my only idea in coming down here. I meant no moremischief, I'll swear to that! Unfortunately, though, I'd got so keen onthe scheme that I hadn't thought of its weak spot.
"Simon said not a word, but just looked at me--exactly as I've beenlooking at people since I took his place in society. And then he askedme if I was really very hard up. Like a fool I told him the plain truth,that I had inside of five bob in my pockets and that was every penny Iowned in the world.
"He grinned then--I can see him grinning now--and he said:
"'In that case you'll have a little difficulty in paying your board andlodging here, and still more in buying clothes. I tell you what I'lldo,' he said, 'I'll buy a ticket back to London for you and leave itwith the stationmaster, and that's every penny you'll ever get out ofme!'
"I saw he had me, but I wasn't going off on those terms. I damned him tohis face and he tried to shut the door on me. We were talking at thefront door all this while, I may mention. I got my foot in the way, andas I was always a bit stronger than Simon, I had that door open after atussle and then I followed him into the library.
"I knew the man was hard as flint and never showed mercy to any one inhis life when he had them on toast, and I knew he had me on toast. Howwas I to get any change out of him? That was what I was wondering as Ifollowed him, and then all at once something--the devil if youlike--put the idea into my head. I'd _be_ Simon!"
He looked round on his audience as though he still relished the memoryof that inspiration.
"The beauty of the idea was that no one would ever dream of suspecting aman of not being himself! They might suspect him of a lot of things, butnot of that. I hadn't thought of the scheme ten seconds before Irealised how dead safe it was so long as I kept my head. And I have keptit. No one can deny that!"
His glance this time challenged a contradiction, but no one spoke. Thecircle of steadfast eyes and silent lips he seemed to take as a tributeto his address, for he smiled and then went on:
"Yes, I kept my head from the beginning. I stood talking to him in thisvery room, he refusing to answer anything except to repeat that he'd buya ticket to London and leave it with the stationmaster, and I workingout the scheme--what to do it with and how to manage afterwards. I knewit was a swinging risk, but against that was a starving certainty, andthen I spied that match box and the thing was settled. I got him to lookthe other way for a moment--and then he was settled. Give me anotherdrink!"
Carrington got him a drink and he gulped it down, and then turnedsuddenly on Ned Cromarty.
"Your damned glass eye has been getting on my nerves long enough!" heexclaimed. "My God, that eye and your habit of hanging people--I've hadenough of them! Can't you turn it away from me?"
"Won't turn," said Ned coolly, "spring broken. Get on with your story!"
Even in his privileged position as prisoner, Rattar seemed disinclinedto have trouble with his formidable ex-client. He answered nothing, butturned his shoulder to him and continued:
"After that was over I set about covering my tracks. The first part wasthe worst. Before the maids came back I had to get Simon stowed away forthe night--no time to bury him then of course, and I had to get into hisclothes, shave, and learn the lie of the house and all that. I did itall right and came down to breakfast next morning and passed muster withthe servants, and never a suspicion raised!"
"There was a little," remarked Carrington, "but never enough."
"Not enough was good enough!"
"I am not quite certain of that," said Carrington. "However, go on. Yournext bunker was the office."
The prisoner nodded.
"It took some nerve," he said complacently, "and I'm free to confessthat to begin with I always had a beastly feeling that some one waswatching me and spotting something that didn't look quite right, but,good Lord, keeping my head the way I kept it, there was nothing to worryabout! Who would ever think that the Simon Rattar who walked into hisoffice and grunted at his clerks on Wednesday morning, wasn't the sameSimon Rattar who walked in and grunted on Tuesday morning? And then Ihad one tremendous pull in knowing all the ropes from old days. Simonwas a conservative man, nothing was ever changed--not even the clerks,so I had the whole routine at my fingers. And he was an easy man toimitate too. That was where I scored again. I daresay I have inheritedsome of the same tricks myself. I know I found them come quite easy--thestare and the silence and the grunts and the rest of them. And then Ialways had more brains than Simon and could pick up business quicker.You should have heard me making that ass Malcolm Cromarty, and theFarmond girl, and this hangman with the glass eye tell me all aboutthemselves and what their business was, without their ever suspectingthey were being pumped! For, mind you, I'd never set eyes on MalcolmCromarty or the Farmond girl before in my life! No, it wasn't at theoffice I had the nastiest time. It was burying the body that night."
The boastful smile died off his lips and for a moment he shivered alittle.
"What happened about that?" enquired Carrington keenly.
Rattar's voice instinctively fell a little.
"When I got home that afternoon I found he wasn't quite dead after all!"
"That accounts for it!" murmured Carrington.
"For what?"
"Your maid heard him moving."
The prisoner seemed to have recovered from his passing emotion.
"And I told her it was a rat, and she swallowed it!" he laughed. "Well,he didn't move for long, and I had fixed up quite a good scheme forgetting him out of the house. A man was to call for old papers. I evendid two voices talking in the hall to make the bluff complete! Not beingable to get his ring off his finger rather worried me, but I put thatright by an advertisement
in the paper saying I'd lost it!"
He was arrested by the look on Carrington's face.
"What happened?" he exclaimed. "Do you mean to say that gave me away?"
"Those superfluous precautions generally give people away."
"But how?"
"It doesn't matter now. You'll learn later. What next?"
"Next?" said Rattar. "Well, I just went on keeping my head and bluffingpeople----" he broke off, looked at Superintendent Sutherland, and gavea short laugh. "I only lost my nerve a bit once, and that was when theglass-eyed hangman butted in and said he was going to get down adetective. It struck me then it was time I was off--and what's more, Istarted!"
The superintendent's mouth fell open.
"You--you weren't the man----" he began.
"Yes," scoffed the prisoner, "I was the man with toothache in thatempty carriage. I'd got in at the wrong side after the ticket collectorpassed and just about twenty seconds before you opened the door. But thesight of your red face made me change my plans, and I was out againbefore that train started! A bright policeman you are! After that Idecided to stick it out and face the music; and I faced it."
His mouth shut tight and he sat back in his chair, his eyes travellinground the others as though to mark their unwilling admiration. Hecertainly saw it in the faces of the two open-eyed policemen, butCromarty's was hard and set, and he seemed still to be waiting.
"You haven't told us about Sir Reginald yet," he said.
Rattar looked at him defiantly.
"No evidence there," he said with a cunning shake of his head, "you cango on guessing!"
"Would you like to smoke a pipe?" asked Carrington suddenly.
The man's eyes gleamed.
"By God, yes!"
"You can have one if you tell us about Sir Reginald. We've got youanyhow, and there will be evidence enough there too when we've put ittogether."
The superintendent looked a trifle shocked, but Carrington's sway overhim was by this time evidently unbounded. He coughed an official protestbut said nothing.
The prisoner only hesitated for a moment. He saw Carrington taking out acigarette, and then he took out his keys and said:
"This is the key for that drawer. You'll find my pipe and baccy there.I'll tell you the rest." And then he started and exclaimed: "But how theh-- did you know I smoked?"
"At five minutes past nine o'clock last night," said Carrington, as hehanded him his pipe, "I was within three paces of you."
The prisoner stared at him with a wry face.
"You devil!" he murmured, and then added with some philosophy: "Afterall, I'd sooner be hanged than stop smoking." And with that he lit hispipe.
"You want to know about old Cromarty," he resumed. "Well, I made myfirst bad break when I carried on a correspondence with him which Simonhad begun, not knowing they had had a talk between whiles cancelling thewhole thing. You know about it and about the letter Sir Reginald sent meafter I'd written. Well, when I got that letter I admit it rattled me abit. I've often wondered since whether he had really suspected anythingor whether he would have sooner or later. Anyhow I got it into my headthat the game was up if something didn't happen. And so it happened."
"You went and killed him?" said Ned.
"That's for you and your glass eye to find out!" snapped the prisoner.
"Take his pipe away," said Carrington quietly.
"Damn it!" cried Rattar, "I'll tell you, only I'm fed up with that man'sbullying! I put it in a stocking" (he nodded towards the match box)"just as you guessed and I went out to Keldale that night. My God, whata walk that was in the dark! I'd half forgotten the way down to thehouse and I thought every other tree was a man watching me. I don't knowyet how I got to that library window. I remembered his ways and Ithought he'd be sitting up there alone; but it was just a chance, andI'd no idea I'd have the luck to pick a night when he was sleeping inhis dressing room. Give me another drink!"
Carrington promptly brought one and again it vanished almost in a gulp.
"Well, I saw him through a gap in the curtains and I risked a tap on theglass. My God, how surprised he was to see me standing there! I grinnedat him and he let me in, and then----" He broke off and fell forward inhis chair with his face in his hands. "This whisky has gone to my head!"he muttered. "You've mixed it too damned strong!"
Ned Cromarty sprang up, his face working. Carrington caught him by thearm.
"Let's come away," he said quietly. "We've heard everything necessary.You can't touch him now."
Cromarty let him keep his arm through his as they went to the door.
"I'll send a cab up for you in a few minutes," Carrington added to thesuperintendent.
They left the prisoner still sitting muttering into his hands.
XL
THE LAST CHAPTER
On their way down to the hotel Ned Cromarty only spoke once, and thatwas to exclaim:
"If I'd only known when I had him alone! Why didn't you tell me morebefore I went in?"
"For your own sake," said Carrington gently. "The law is so devilishundiscriminating. Also, I wasn't absolutely certain then myself."
They said nothing more till they were seated in Carrington's sittingroom and his employer had got a cigar between his teeth and pushed awayan empty tumbler.
"I'm beginning to feel a bit better," said he. "Fire away now and tellme how you managed this trick. I'd like to see just how derned stupidI've been!"
"My dear fellow, I assure you you haven't! I'm a professional at thisgame, and I tell you honestly it was at least as much good luck as goodguidance that put me on to the truth at last."
"I wonder what you call luck," said Ned. "Seems to me you were upagainst it all the time! You've told me how you caught Rattar lying atthe start. Well, that was pretty smart of you to begin with. Then, whatnext? How did things come?"
"Well," said Carrington, "I picked up a little something on my firstvisit to Keldale. From Bisset's description I gathered that the bodymust have been dragged along the floor and left near the door. Why?Obviously as a blind. Adding that fact to the unfastened window, thebroken table, the mud on the floor, and the hearth brush, the oddsseemed heavy on entry by the window. I also found that the middle blindhad been out of order that night and that it _might_ have been quitepossible for any one outside to have seen Sir Reginald sitting in theroom and known he was alone there. Again, it seemed long odds on hishaving recognised the man outside and opened the window himself, which,again, pointed to the man being some one he knew quite well and neversuspected mischief from."
"Those were always my own ideas, except that I felt bamboozled where youfelt clear--which shows the difference between our brains!"
Carrington laughed and shook his head.
"I wish I could think so! No, no, it's merely a case of every man to hisown trade. And as a matter of fact I was left just as bamboozled as youwere. For who could this mysterious man be? Of the people inside thehouse, I had struck out Miss Farmond, Bisset, Lady Cromarty, and all thefemale servants. Only Sir Malcolm was left. I wired for him to come upand was able to score him out too. I also visited you and scored youout. So there I was--with no conceivable criminal!"
"But you'd already begun to suspect Rattar, hadn't you?"
"I knew he had lied about engaging me; I discovered from Lady Cromartythat he had told her of Sir Malcolm's engagement to Miss Farmond--and Isuspected he had started her suspicions of them; and I saw that he wasset on that theory, in spite of the fact that it was palpably improbableif one actually knew the people. Of course if one didn't, it wasplausible enough. When I first came down here it seemed to me a verylikely theory and I was prepared to find a guilty couple, but when I metMiss Farmond and told her suddenly that Sir Malcolm was arrested, andshe gazed blankly at me and asked 'What for?' well, I simply ran mypencil, so to speak, through her name and there was an end of her! Thesame with Sir Malcolm when I met him. And yet here was the familylawyer, who knew them both perfectly, so convinced of their guilt thathe
was obviously stifling investigation in any other direction. And ontop of all that, all my natural instincts and intuitions told me thatthe man was a bad hat."
"But didn't all that make you suspect him?"
"Of what? Of leaving his respectable villa at the dead of night,tramping several miles at his age in the dark, and deliberatelymurdering his own best client and old friend under circumstances sorisky to himself that only a combination of lucky chances saw himsafely through the adventure? Nothing--absolutely nothing but homicidalmania could possibly account for such a performance, and the man wasobviously as sane as you or I. I felt certain that there was somethingwrong somewhere, but as for suspecting him of being the principal in thecrime, the idea was stark lunacy!"
"By George, it was a tough proposition!" said Ned. "By the way, had youheard of George Rattar at that time?"
"Oh, yes, I heard of him, and knew they resembled one another, but as Iwas told that he had left the place for years and was now dead, mythoughts never even once ran in that direction until I got into a stateof desperation, and then I merely surmised that his misdeeds might havebeen at the bottom of some difficulty between Simon and Sir Reginald."
"Then how on earth did you ever get on to the right track?"
"I never would have if the man hadn't given himself away. To begin with,he was fool enough to fall in with my perfectly genuine assumption thathe was either employing me or acting for my employer. No doubt he stoodto score if the bluff had come off, and he banked on your stipulationthat your name shouldn't appear. But if he had only been honest in thatmatter, my suspicions would never have started--not at that pointanyhow."
"That was Providence--sure!" said Ned with conviction.
"I'm inclined to think it was," agreed Carrington. "Then again hisadvice to Sir Malcolm and Miss Farmond was well enough designed tofurther his own scheme of throwing suspicion on them, but it simplyended in his being bowled out both times, and throwing suspicion onhimself. But _the_ precaution which actually gave him away was puttingin that advertisement about his ring."
"I was just wondering," said Ned, "how that did the trick."
"By the merest fluke. I noticed it when I was making enquiries at thePolice Office on quite different lines, but you can imagine that Iswitched off my other enquiries pretty quick when SuperintendentSutherland calmly advanced the theory that the ring was stolen whenRattar's house was entered by some one unknown on the very night of themurder!"
"This is the first I've heard of that!" cried Ned.
"It was the first I had, but it led me straight to Rattar's house and along heart to heart talk with his housemaid. That was when I collectedthat extraordinary mixed bag of information which I was wonderingyesterday whether to believe or not. Here are the items, and you canjudge for yourself what my state of mind was when I was carrying aboutthe following precious pieces of information."
He ticked the items off on his fingers.
"A mysterious man who entered the garden one night and left hisfootprints in the gravel, and whose visit had a strange and mysteriouseffect on Rattar. Funny feelings produced in the bosom of the housemaidby the presence of her master. Doors of unused rooms mysteriously lockedand keys taken away; said to be old papers inside. Mysterious visit ofmysterious man at dead of night to remove the said papers. A ring thatcouldn't come off the owner's finger mysteriously lost. Mysteriousburglary on night of the murder by mysterious burglar who left allwindows and doors locked behind him and took nothing away. Mysteriousperambulations of his garden every night at nine o'clock by Mr. SimonRattar."
"Great Scot!" murmured Cromarty.
"I have given you the items in what turned out to be their order ofdate, but I got them higgledy-piggledy and served up in a sauce ofmystery and trembly sensations that left me utterly flummoxed as to howmuch--if anything--was sober fact. However, I began by fastening on totwo things. The first was the burglary, which of course at oncesuggested the possibility that the man who had committed the crime atKeldale had returned to Rattar's house and got in by that window. Thesecond was the nightly perambulations, which could easily be tested.When Mr. Rattar emerged at nine that night, I was in the garden beforehim. And what do you think he did?"
"Had a look at his brother's grave?"
"Smoked two pipes of tobacco! A man who was an anti-tobacco fanatic! Thetruth hit me straight in the eye--'That man is not Simon Rattar!' Andthen of course everything dropped into its place. The ex-convict twinbrother, the only evidence of whose supposititious death was anannouncement in the paper, obviously put in as a blind. The personalresemblance between the two. All the yarns told me by the housemaid,including the strange visitor--George of course arriving; the man whocame for the papers--George himself taking out the body; and thevanished ring. Everything fitted in now, and the correspondence betweenSir Reginald and Rattar which had beaten me before, gave the clue atonce as to motive."
"I guess you felt you had deserved a drink that trip!" said Ned.
"I didn't stop to have my drink. I went straight off to see old Isonand pumped him for the rest of the evening. He wasn't very helpfulbut everything I could get out of him went to confirm my theory. Ifound for certain that Simon Rattar had never smoked in his life, andthat George used to be a heavy smoker. I also learned that a fewrecent peculiarities of conduct had struck the not too observant Ison,one being very suggestive. Rattar, it seemed, kept an old pair of kidgloves in his desk which he was in the habit of wearing when he wasalone in the office."
"Don't quite see the bearing of that."
"Well, on my hypothesis it was to avoid leaving finger marks. You seeGeorge was an ex-convict. It was a very judicious precaution too, andmade it extremely difficult to catch him out by that means, for onecould scarcely approach a respectable solicitor and ask him for animpression of his fingers! And anyhow, nothing could be definitelyproved against him until we had found Simon's body. That was the nextproblem. Where had he hidden it?"
"And how did you get at that?"
"Guessed it. At first my thoughts went too far afield, but when I wentover the times mentioned in the maid's story of the man who took awaythe papers, and the fact that she heard no sound of a wheeled vehicle, Irealised that he must have simply planted it in one of the flower beds.This morning I prodded them all with a stout walking stick and found thespot. Then I talked like a father to old Sutherland and fixed everythingup with him. And then I sent my wire to you."
"And you deliberately tell me you got there as much by good luck as goodguidance?"
Carrington's eyes thoughtfully followed his smoke rings.
"I can see the luck at every turn," he answered, "and though I'd like tobelieve in the guidance, I'm hanged if it's quite as distinct!"
"If you are telling me the neat, unvarnished truth, Carrington," saidhis admiring employer, "I can only say that you've a lot to learn aboutyour own abilities--and I hope to Heaven you'll never learn it!"
"But I assure you there are some people who think me conceited!"
"There are guys of all sorts in the world," said Ned. "For instancethere's a girl who has mistaken me for a daisy, and I've got to get backto her now. Good night! I won't say 'Thanks' because I can't shout itloud enough."
When his gig lamps had flashed up the silent street and Carrington hadturned back from the pavement into the hotel, he met his friend MissPeterkin.
"Mr. Cromarty's late to-night," said she. "A fine gentleman that! Ialways say there are few like Mr. Cromarty of Stanesland."
"That's lucky for me," said Carrington with a smile that puzzled her alittle. "My business in life would be gone if there were!"
THE END
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