“No,” I rejoined amiably. “But you did.”
“Yes, you are right there,” he replied, “I knew well enough where the puzzle lay but it was not my business to put the police on the right track. And if I had I should have been the cause of making two innocent and clever people suffer more severely than the guilty party.”
“Will you condescend to explain?” I asked, with an indulgent smile.
“Why should I not?” he retorted, and once again his thin fingers started to work on the inevitable piece of string. “It all lies in a nutshell, and is easily understandable if we realise that ‘old Pasquier,’ the man with the walrus moustache, was not the friend of the Saunderses, but their enemy.”
I frowned. “Their enemy?”
“An old pal shall we say?” he retorted, “who knew something in the past history of one or the other of them that they did not wish their newest friends to know: really a blackmailer who, under the guise of comradeship, sat not infrequently at their fireside, watching an opportunity for extorting a heavy price for his silence and his goodwill. Thus he could worm himself into their confidence; he knew their private life; he heard about the necklace, and decided that here was the long-sought-for opportunity at last. Think it all over and you will see how well the pieces of that jigsaw puzzle fit together and make a perfect picture. Pasquier calls on the Saunderses a day or two before their departure and springs his infamous proposal upon them then. For the time being Arthur succeeds in giving him the slip; his journey is not yet… the necklace is not yet in his possession… but he knows the true quality of the blackmailer now and he is on the alert. He begins by going to Sir Montague Bowden and begging him to entrust the mission to somebody else. Judging by the butler’s evidence, he even makes a clean breast of his troubles to Sir Montague who, however, makes light of them and advises consultation with Mr. Haasberg, who perhaps would undertake the journey. In any case it is too late to make fresh arrangements at this hour. Very reluctantly now, and hoping for the best, the Saunderses make a start. But the blackmailer, too, is on the alert, he has succeeded in spying upon them and in tracing them to the Majestic in Paris. The situation now has become terribly serious, for the blackmailer has thrown off the mask and demands the necklace under threats which apparently the Saunderses did not dare defy.
“But they are both clever and resourceful, and as soon as Haasberg’s arrival rids them temporarily of their tormentor they put their heads together and invent a plot which was destined to free them for ever from the threats of Pasquier and at the same time would enable them to honour the trust which had been placed in them by the committee. In any case they had until the morrow to make up their minds. Remember the words which Mr. Haasberg overheard on the part of Pasquier: “S’long old man. I’ll wait till tomorrow.” Anyway, Pasquier must have gone off that evening confident that he had Captain Saunders entirely in his power and that the wretched man would on the morrow hand over the necklace without demur.
“Whether Arthur Saunders confided in Haasberg or no is doubtful. Personally I think not. I believe that he and Mary did the whole thing between them. Arthur having parted from his brother-in-law went back to the hotel, took the necklace out of the strong room and then left it in Mary’s charge. He threw the tin box away, there where it would surely be found again. Then he went as far as the Rue de Moncigny and crouched, seemingly unconscious, in the blind alley, having previously taken the precaution of saturating his handkerchief with chloroform.
“Thus the two clever conspirators cut the ground from under the blackmailer’s feet, for the latter now had the police after him for an assault, which he might find very difficult to disprove, even if he cleared himself of the charge of having stolen the necklace. Anyway he would remain a discredited man, and his threats would in the future be defied, because if he dared come out in the open after that, public feeling would be so bitter against him for a crime which he had not committed that he would never be listened to if he tried to do Captain Saunders an injury. And it was with a view to keeping public indignation at boiling pitch against the supposed thief that the Saunderses kept up the comedy for so long. To my mind that was a very clever move. Then they came out with the story of the restoration of the necklace and became the heroes of the hour.
“Think it over,” the funny creature went on as he finally stuffed his bit of string back into his pocket and rose from the table, “think it over and you will realise at once that everything happened just as I have related and that it is the only theory that fits in with the facts that are known; you’ll also agree with me, I think, that Captain and Mrs. Saunders chose the one way of ridding themselves effectually of a dangerous blackmailer. The police were after him for a long time, as they still believed that he had something to do with the theft of the necklace and with the assault on M. le Capitaine Saunders. But presently 1914 came along and what became of the man with the walrus moustache no one ever knew. His nationality was never stated at the time, but whatever it was, it would, I imagine, be a bar against his obtaining a visa on his passport for the purpose of visiting England and blackmailing Arthur Saunders.
“But it was a curious case.”
IV
The Mystery of the Russian Prince
I
There had been a great deal of talk about that time, in newspapers and amongst the public, of the difficulty an inexperienced criminal finds in disposing of the evidences of his crime—notably of course of the body of his victim. In no case perhaps was this difficulty so completely overcome—at any rate as far as was publicly known—as in that of the murder of the individual known as Prince Orsoff. I am thus qualifying his title because as a matter of fact the larger public never believed that he was a genuine Prince—Russian or otherwise—and that even if he had not come by such a violent and tragic death the Smithsons would never have seen either their £10,000 again, or poor Louisa’s aristocratic bridegroom.
I had been thinking a great deal about this mysterious affair, indeed it had been discussed at most of the literary and journalistic clubs as a possible subject for a romance or drama, and it was with deliberate intent that I walked over to Fleet Street that afternoon in order to catch the Man in the Corner in his accustomed teashop and get him to give me his views on the subject of the mystery that to this very day surrounds the murder of the Russian Prince.
“Let me just put the whole case before you,” the funny creature began as soon as I had led him to talk upon the subject, “as far as it was known to the general public. It all occurred in Folkestone, you remember, where the wedding of Louisa Smithson, the daughter of a late retired grocer, to a Russian Prince whom she had met abroad, was the talk of the town.
“It was on a lovely day in May, and the wedding ceremony was to take place at Holy Trinity Church. The Smithsons—mother and daughter—especially since they had come into a fortune, were very well known in Folkestone, and there was a large crowd of relatives and friends inside the church and another out in the street to watch the arrival of guests and to see the bride. There were cameramen and newspapermen, and hundreds of idlers and visitors, and the police had much ado to keep the crowd in order.
“Mrs. Smithson had already arrived looking gorgeous in what I understand is known as amethyst crêpe-de-chine, and there was a marvellous array of Bond Street gowns and gorgeous headgears, all of which kept the lookers-on fully occupied during the traditional quarter of an hour’s grace usually accorded to the bride. But presently those fifteen minutes became twenty, the clergy had long since arrived, the guests had all assembled, the bridesmaids were waiting in the porch: but there was no bridegroom. Neither he nor his best man had arrived; and now it was half an hour after the time appointed for the ceremony, and, oh, horror!—the bride’s car was in sight. The bride in church waiting for the bridegroom!—such an outrage had not been witnessed in Folkestone within the memory of the oldest inhabitant. One of the guests went at once to break the news to the elderly relative who had arranged to give the bride
away, and who was with her in the car, whilst another, a Mr. Sutherland Ford, jumped into the first available taxi, having volunteered to go to the station in order to ascertain whether there had been any breakdown on the line, as the bridegroom was coming down by train from London with his best man.
“The bride, hastily apprised of the extraordinary contretemps, remained in the car, with the blinds pulled down, well concealed from the prying eyes of the crowd, whilst the fashionable guests, relatives, and friends had perforce to possess their souls in patience.
“And presently the news fell like a bombshell in the midst of this lively throng. A taxi drove up and from it alighted first Mr. Sutherland Ford, who had volunteered to go to the station for information, and then John and Henry Carter, the two latter beautifully got up, in frock-coats, striped trousers, top hats, and flowers in their buttonholes, looking obviously like belated wedding guests. But still no bridegroom, and no best man. The three gentlemen, paying no heed to the shower of questions that assailed them, as soon as they had jumped out of the taxi ran straight into the church, leaving everyone’s curiosity unsatisfied and public excitement at fever pitch. ‘It was John and Henry Carter’ the ladies whispered agitatedly; ‘fancy their being asked to the wedding!’
“And those who were in the know whispered to those who were less favoured that young Henry had at one time been engaged to Louisa Smithson, before she met her Russian Prince, and that when she threw him over he was in such dire despair that his friends thought he would commit suicide.
“A moment or two later Mrs. Smithson was seen hurriedly coming out of church, her face pale and drawn, and her beautiful hat all awry. She made straight for the bride’s car, stepped into it, and the car immediately drove off, whilst the wedding guests trooped out of the church and the terrible news spread like wildfire through the crowd and was presently all over the town. It seems that when the midday train, London to Folkestone, stopped at Swanley Junction, two passengers who were about to enter a first-class compartment in one of the corridor carriages were horrified to find it in a terrible state of disorder. They hastily called the guard, and on examination the carriage looked indeed as if it had been the scene of a violent struggle: the door on the off side was unlatched, two of the window straps were wrenched off, the antimacassars were torn off the cushions, one of the luggage-racks was broken and the net hung down in strips, and over some of the cushions were marks unmistakably made by a bloodstained hand.
“The guard immediately locked the compartment and sent for the local police. No one was allowed in or out of the station until every passenger on the train had satisfied the police as to his or her identity. Thus the train was held up for over two hours whilst preliminary investigations were going on. There appeared no doubt that a terrible murder had been committed, and telephonic communication all along the line presently established the fact that it must have been done somewhere in the neighbourhood of Sydenham Hill, because a group of men who were at work on the up side of the line at Penge when the down train came out of the tunnel noticed that the door of one of the first-class carriages was open. It swung to again just before the train steamed through the station. A preliminary search was at once made in and about the tunnel; it revealed on the platform of Sydenham Hill station a first-class single ticket of that day’s issue, London to Folkestone, crushed and stained with blood, and on the permanent way, close to the entrance of the tunnel on the Penge side, a soft black hat, and a broken pair of pince-nez. But as to the identity of the victim there was for the moment no clue.
“After a couple of wearisome and anxious hours the passengers were allowed to proceed on their journey. Among these passengers, it appears, were John and Henry Carter, who were on their way to the Smithson wedding. Until they arrived in Folkestone they had no more idea than the police who the victim of the mysterious train murder was: but in the station they caught sight of Mr. Sutherland Ford, whom they knew slightly. Mr. Ford was making agitated enquiries as to any possible accident on the line. The Carters put him au fait of what had occurred, and as there was no sign of the Russian Prince amongst the passengers who had just arrived, all three men came to the horrifying conclusion that it was indeed the bridegroom elect who had been murdered. They communicated at once with the police, and there were more investigations and telephonic messages up and down the line before the Carters and Mr. Ford were at last allowed to proceed to the church and break the awful news to those most directly concerned.
“And in this tragic fashion did Louisa Smithson’s wedding-day draw to its end; nor, as far as the public was concerned, was the mystery of that terrible murder ever satisfactorily cleared up. The local police worked very hard and very systematically, but, though presently they also had the help of one of the ablest detectives from Scotland Yard, nothing was seen or found that gave the slightest clue either as to the means which the murderer or murderers adopted for removing the body of their victim, or in what manner they made good their escape.”
The body of the Russian Prince was never found, and, as far as the public knows, the murderer is still at large; and although, as time went on, many strange facts came to light, they only helped to plunge that extraordinary crime into darker mystery.
II
“The facts in themselves were curious enough, you will admit,” the Man in the Corner went on after a while; “many of these were never known to the public, whilst others found their way into the columns of the halfpenny Press, who battened on the ‘Mystery of the Russian Prince’ for weeks on end, and, as far as the unfortunate Smithsons were concerned, there was not a reader of the Express Post and kindred newspapers who did not know the whole of their family history.
“It seems that Louisa Smithson is the daughter of a grocer in Folkestone who had retired from business just before the War, and with his wife and his only child led a meagre and obscure existence in a tiny house in Warren Avenue somewhere near the tram road. They were always supposed to be very poor, but suddenly old Smithson died and it turned out that he had been a miser, for he left the handsome little fortune of £15,000 to be equally divided between his daughter and his widow.
“At once Mrs. Smithson and Louisa found themselves the centre of an admiring throng of friends and relatives, all eager to help them spend their money for their especial benefit; but Mrs. Smithson was shrewd enough not to allow herself to be exploited by those who in the past had never condescended to more than a bowing acquaintance with her. She turned her back on most of those sycophants, but at the same time she was determined to do the best for herself and Louisa, and to this end she admitted into her councils her sister, Margaret Penny, who was saleswoman at a fashionable shop in London, and who immediately advised a journey up to town so that the question of clothes might at once be satisfactorily settled.
“In addition to valuable advice on that score, this Miss Penny seems to have succeeded in completely turning her sister’s head. Certain it is that Mrs. Smithson left Folkestone a quiet, sensible, motherly woman, and that she returned, six weeks later, an arrogant, ill-mannered parvenue, who seemed to think that the possession of a few thousand pounds entitled her to ride roughshod over the feelings and sentiments of those who had less money than herself.
“She began by taking a suite of rooms at the Splendid Hotel for herself, her daughter, and her maid, then she sold her house in Warren Avenue, bought a car, and, though she and Louisa were of course in deep mourning, they were to be seen everywhere in wonderful Bond Street dresses and marvellous feathered hats. Finally they announced their intention of spending the coming winter on the Riviera, probably Monte Carlo.
“All this extravagant behaviour made some people smile, others shrugged their shoulders and predicted disaster; but there was one who suffered acutely through this change in the fortune of the Smithsons. This was Henry Carter, a young clerk employed in an insurance office in London. He and his brother were Folkestone men, sons of a local tailor in a very small way of business, who had been one of old Smithso
n’s rare friends. The elder Carter boy had long since cut his stick and was said to be earning a living in London by freelance journalism. The younger one, Henry, remained to help his father with the tailoring. He was a constant visitor in the little house in Warren Avenue, and presently became engaged to Louisa. There could be no question of an immediate marriage, of course, as Henry had neither money nor prospects; however, presently old Carter died, the tailoring business was sold for a couple of hundred pounds, and Henry went up to London to join his brother and to seek his fortune. Presently he obtained a post in an insurance office, but his engagement to Louisa subsisted: the young people were known to be deeply in love with one another and Henry spent most weekends and all his holidays in Folkestone in order to be near his girl.
“Then came the change in the fortune of the Smithsons and an immediate coolness in Louisa’s manner toward young Henry. It was all very well in the past to be engaged to the son of a jobbing tailor, while one was poor oneself, and one had neither wit nor good looks, but now…!
“In fact already when they were in London Mrs. Smithson had intimated to Henry Carter that his visits were none too welcome, and when he appealed to Louisa she put him off with a few curt words. The young man was in despair, and, indeed, his brother actually feared at one time that he would commit suicide.
“It was soon after Christmas of that same year that the curtain was rung up on the first act of the mysterious tragedy which was destined to throw a blight for ever after upon the life of Louisa Smithson. It began with the departure of herself and her mother for the Continent, where they intended to remain until the end of March. For the first few weeks their friends had no news of them, but presently Miss Margaret Penny, who had kept up a desultory correspondence with a pal of hers in Folkestone, started to give glowing accounts of the Smithsons’ doings in Monte Carlo. They were staying at the Hotel de Paris, paying two hundred francs a day for their rooms alone, they were lunching and dining out every day of the week, they had been introduced to one or two of the august personages who usually graced the Riviera with their presence at this time of the year, and they had met a number of interesting people. According to Miss Penny’s account, Louisa Smithson was being greatly admired, and in fact several titled gentlemen of various nationalities had professed themselves deeply enamoured of her.
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