Unravelled Knots

by Baroness Orczy

  “Whether it was pressure from outside, or from his own family, that suddenly induced Sir David to ‘come out into the open’ is not generally known; certain it is that presently he condescended to give an explanation of the mysterious half-yearly payments made by his father to Felix Shap, and the explanation was so romantic and frankly so far-fetched that most people, especially men, refused to accept it—notably Mr. Stonebridge. It was not the business of a lawyer to listen to sentimental stories, least of all was it the business of the lawyer acting on the other side. The story told by Sir David, namely, was this:

  “The late Sir Alfred, when quite a young man, had gone out as clerk to that same engineering firm in Batavia whom he represented later on; it was then that he first met Felix Shap, who had not yet begun to go downhill. An intimacy sprang up between Alfred Carysfort and Shap’s sister, Berta, and the two were secretly married in Batavia. A year later Berta had a son whose birth she only survived by a few hours. The marriage had been an unhappy one from the first, and Carysfort was only too thankful when his firm called him back to England and he was able to shake off the dust of Batavia from his feet, as he hoped for ever. He never spoke of his marriage, nor did he ever recognise or have anything to do with his son. By some pecuniary arrangement entered into with Felix Shap the latter undertook to provide for and look after the boy, to give him his own name, and never to trouble his brother-in-law about him again. A deedpoll was, Sir David believed, duly executed, and the boy assumed the name of Alfred Shap.

  “Some years later there occurred the transaction over the Shap Fuelettes. Alfred Carysfort had come to Batavia on business: he had met Felix Shap again who by this time had become a hopeless wastrel. The contract for the sale of the patent rights in the Fuelettes was duly executed, but whether, after seeing his son once more, the call of the blood became more insistent in the heart of Alfred Carysfort or whether he merely yielded to blackmail, Sir David could not say; certain it is that after a while when the profits of the Shap Fuelettes Company became substantial Sir Alfred took to sending over a couple of hundred pounds every year to Shap for the benefit of young Alfred. Then the war broke out; young Alfred joined the Australian Expeditionary Force and was killed in Gallipoli in August, 1915. As soon as Sir Alfred had definite news of the boy’s death, he naturally stopped all further payments to Shap.

  “The story as you see sounded plausible enough, and if it proved to be untrue, it would reflect great credit on Sir David’s gift of imagination. Felix Shap, as was only to be expected, denied it from beginning to end; the whole thing, he declared, was an impudent falsehood, based on a semblance of truth. It was quite true that he had adopted and for years had cared for his sister’s son, who was subsequently killed in Gallipoli; it was also true that Alfred Carysfort had years ago paid some attention to his sister Berta, but there never was any question of marriage between them, young Carysfort deeming himself far too grand and well-born to marry the daughter of an obscure East Indian trader. Berta had subsequently married a man of mixed blood who deserted her and went off somewhere—Argentina or Honduras—Shap did not know where; at any rate he was never heard of again.

  “In proof of his version of the romantic story, Felix Shap actually had a copy of his sister’s marriage certificate, as well as one or two letters written at different times to his sister Berta by her rascally husband. He had, indeed, plenty of proofs for his assertions; but when Mr. Stonebridge asked for confirmation of Sir David’s story, the latter appeared either unprepared or unwilling to produce any, whereupon Mr. Stonebridge, on behalf of his client, entered an action for the recovery of certain royalties due to him on the sales of the Shap Fuelettes, the amount to be presently agreed on after examination of the audited accounts.

  “Thus matters stood when on that Wednesday night in February last Mr. Stonebridge was found gagged and unconscious, the victim of a murderous and inexplicable assault. And on the Saturday following, Mr. Felix Shap, accompanied by his friend, Mr. Lloyd, called on Mr. Medburn at the office in High Street. They had read in the papers certain details which had filled Shap with apprehension; they had read that the safe in the morning-room in Mr. Stonebridge’s house had been obviously ransacked, and that the analysis of the ashes in the grate had revealed the presence of a large quantity of burnt paper.

  “‘My friend Mr. Shap would like you to put his mind at rest Mr.—er—Medburn,’ Mr. Lloyd said in an anxious, agitated tone of voice, ‘that the papers relating to this case, which I entrusted to Mr. Stonebridge, are safely locked up in a safe at this office.’

  “Unfortunately the head clerk was not able to satisfy Mr. Shap on that point. Mr. Stonebridge had never brought the papers to the office, nor had Mr. Medburn ever seen them. His impression was—he regretted to say—that Mr. Stonebridge had, for the time being, kept all papers relating to this particular case at his private house, just as he had always seen Mr. Shap there rather than at the office. Of course, Medburn hastened to assure his visitor, Mr. Stonebridge may have kept the documents in some other secure place; Mr. Medburn couldn’t say, not having access to all his employer’s papers, and in any case he would make a comprehensive search for the missing documents, and if nothing was found he would at once inform the police.

  “An evening or two later the papers came out with flaring headlines: ‘Amazing developments in the Tytherton outrage. Missing documents. Sensational turn in the Shap Fuelettes case.’ And so on. The head clerk had made an exhaustive search amongst his employer’s papers, but not a trace could he find of any documents relative to Mr. Snap’s case. One and all had disappeared: the original letter from Alfred Carysfort promising to pay an extra twenty per cent on the profits of the Shap Fuelette Company under certain conditions, the letters from the scoundrel who had been Berta’s husband together with the copy of Berta’s marriage certificate—everything was gone, every proof of the truth of the story which Felix Shap had come all this way to tell.”

  II

  “The next exciting incident,” the Man in the Corner continued glibly, “in this remarkably mysterious case, was the news that Mr. Allan Carysfort, eldest son of Sir David Carysfort, Bart., had been detained in connection with the assault upon Mr. Stonebridge and the disappearance of certain papers, the property of Mr. Felix Shap of Batavia.

  “Young Allan Carysfort, who was a subaltern in a cavalry regiment, had come home from India recently, and, as a matter of fact, he had arrived at the Grange, the family seat just outside Tytherton, the very evening of the outrage. Acting upon certain information received the police had detained him. He was to be brought before the magistrates on the following day and in the meanwhile it was generally understood that some highly sensational evidence had been collected by the police.

  “It has been asserted that Sir David Carysfort and his family were the last to realise how very strong public opinion had been against them ever since Shap’s story and the loss of the documents had become generally known. Though there had been no hint of it in the Press, the public loudly declared that the Carysforts must have had something to do with the outrage, ‘seek him whom the crime benefits’ being a most excellent adage. But imagine the sensation when Allan Carysfort, the eldest son of Sir David Carysfort, Bart., was arrested! Need I say that the following day when the young man was brought before the magistrates the court was crowded. David was a magistrate, too, but of course he did not sit that day. To see his eldest son arraigned before his brother Beaks must have been a bitter pill for his pride to swallow.

  “We had the usual formal evidence of arrest, the medical evidence, and so on, after which we quickly plunged into exciting business. Mr Stonebridge we were soon told had made a statement. He was not yet strong enough to appear in person but he had made a statement, so at last the public was to be initiated into the mysteries that surrounded the inexplicable assault.

  “‘After my servants had gone to bed,’ Mr. Stonebridge had stated, ‘I sat awhile reading in the morning-room. I was expecting the visit of Mr.
Shap, as we had talked over the possibility of a quiet chat at my house that evening on the subject of his affairs. He and Mr. Lloyd, who were both of them very fond of the cinema, were in the habit of dropping in after the show, on their way home. At about a quarter to eleven—I am sure it was not later—there was a ring at the front door bell, and I went to open the door. No sooner had I done this than a shawl or muffler of some sort was thrown over my face, and I was made to lose my balance by the thrust of a foot between my two shins. I came down backwards with a crash. The whole thing occurred in fewer seconds that it takes to describe; the next moment I had the sensation of cold steel against my temple, I heard an ominous click, and a husky voice whispered in my ear, “Your servant is coming out of his room. Speak to him, tell him you are all right, or I shoot.” What could I do? I was utterly helpless and a revolver was held to my temple. The muffler was then lifted from my mouth, I could feel the man bending over me, I could feel his hot breath on my forehead, and a few seconds later I heard Henning come out of his room upstairs and switch on the light on the top landing. “If he comes downstairs,” the voice whispered close to my ear, “I shoot.” Then it was,’ Mr. Stonebridge went on to say, ‘that I shouted up to Henning that I had only tripped over a rug, and that I was quite all right. I don’t think I ever looked death so very near in the face before. The next moment I heard Henning switch off the light upstairs and go back to his room. After that I remember nothing more. I only have a vague recollection of a sudden terrible pain in my head; everything else is a blank until I found myself in bed, and with vague stirrings of memory bringing a return of that same appalling headache.’

  “The great point about Mr. Stonebridge’s evidence was that he was utterly unable to identify his assailant. He was not even sure whether he had been attacked by two men or one, since he had been blindfolded at the outset, and all that he heard was a husky voice that spoke in a whisper. He was ready to admit that he may have left the safe unlocked when he went to answer the front door bell, and he certainly had the papers relating to Mr. Shap’s case on his desk as he had been going through them earlier in the evening. Those papers, therefore, had undoubtedly been burned in the grate, and it was obvious that the theft and destruction of those papers was the motive of the assault.

  “After that we went from excitement to excitement. We did not get it all the same day of course; Allan Carysfort appeared, as far as I can remember, three or four times before the local magistrates; in between times he was out on bail, this having been fixed at £1,000 in two recognisances of £500 each, with an additional £500 on his own. It seems that when he was arrested he had made a statement, to which he had since unreservedly subscribed. He said that he had arrived in London from Southampton on Monday the 26th, and after seeing to some business in town, he took the 8.10 pm train on the 28th to Tytherton, where he arrived at 9.50, having dined on board. His father met him at the station with the car, but it was such a beautiful moonlit night Sir David and himself decided that they would walk to the Grange and then sent the car home with a message to Lady Carysfort that they would be home at about eleven o’clock.

  “Carysfort had been asked whether it was not strange that after being absent from home so long, he should have elected to put off seeing his mother till a much later hour.

  “‘Not at all,’ he replied. ‘Sir David wished to put me au fait of certain family matters before I actually saw Lady Carysfort. These matters,’ he added emphatically in reply to questions put to him by the magistrate, ‘had nothing whatever to do with financial business, least of all were they in any relation to Mr. Shap and his affairs. Sir David and I,’ he went on calmly, ‘walked about for a while and then Sir David remembered that he wished to see a friend at the County Club. He went in there, but I preferred to take another turn out of doors, as I had not had a taste of English country air for nearly two years.’

  “Asked how long he had walked about Tytherton waiting for Sir David, Carysfort thought about half an hour, and when questioned as to the direction he had taken, he said he really couldn’t remember. The police of course had adduced certain witnesses whose testimony would justify the course they had taken in arresting a gentleman in the position of Mr. Allan Carysfort. There was, first of all, Felix Shap himself and his friend Julian Lloyd. They deposed that at about half-past ten, or perhaps a little earlier, they were on their way to see Mr. Stonebridge, as the latter had expressed a wish to see them both and have another quiet talk over a cigar and a glass of wine; Shap and Lloyd had been to the P.P.P. cinema in High Street, and they left just before the end to go to Mr. Stonebridge’s house. They were within fifty yards of it when they saw a man turn out of the nearest side street and go up to Mr. Stonebridge’s house. The man went through the garden gate and up to the front door. Shap and Lloyd saw him in the act of ringing the bell. It was then somewhere between 10.30 and 10.45. Mr. Stonebridge was so very much in the habit of seeing friends, and even those clients with whom he was intimate, late in the evenings, that Mr. Shap and Mr. Lloyd didn’t think anything of the incident; but, at the same time, they made up their minds to postpone their own visit to Mr. Stonebridge until they could be quite sure of seeing him alone. So they turned then and there and went straight back to the Black Swan where they lodged.

  “I may add that with commendable reserve both these witnesses refused to identify Allan Carysfort with Mr. Stonebridge’s visitor on that memorable Wednesday evening. The man they saw had an overcoat and wore a Glengarry cap. More they could not say, as they had not seen his face clearly. On the other hand the hall-porter at the County Club, another witness for the Treasury, had no cause for such reserve. He said that on the evening of February 28th Sir David Carysfort came to the Club a little before half-past ten. Mr. Allan was with him then, but he didn’t come in. The hall-porter heard him say to Sir David: ‘Very well then! I’ll pick you up here in about half an hour!’ And Sir David rejoined: ‘Yes; don’t be late!’ Mr. Allan did return to the Club at about eleven o’clock and the two gentlemen then went off together. The hall-porter remembered the incident on that date quite distinctly, because he recollected being much surprised at seeing Mr. Allan Carysfort, who he thought was still abroad.

  “After that there was another remand, Allan Carysfort’s solicitor having asked and obtained an adjournment for a week. But by this time, as you may imagine, not only the county, but London society too were absolutely horror-struck. To think that a man in the position of the Carysforts should have stooped to such an act, not only of violence, but of improbity, was indeed staggering. Nor did public opinion swerve from this attitude one hair’s breadth, even though at the next hearing all the proofs which the police had adduced against the accused were absolutely confuted. Fortunately for Carysfort, his solicitors had been successful in finding two witnesses, Miriam Page and Arthur Ormeley, who had seen Mr. Allan Carysfort, whom they knew by sight, strolling by the river at a quarter to eleven. They—like the hall-porter at the County Club—remembered the circumstance very clearly because they did not know that Mr. Allan was home from abroad, and were astonished to see him there.

  “The point of the evidence of three witnesses was that the river where they had seen Allan Carysfort strolling at a quarter to eleven is at the diametrically opposite end of the town to that where lies the Great West Road. Now the hall-porter had seen Allan Carysfort outside the County Club at half-past ten and again at eleven. If Carysfort was strolling by the river at a quarter to eleven, and there was no reason to impugn the credibility of the witnesses, he could not possibly have been the man whom Mr. Shap and Mr. Lloyd saw ringing the bell of Mr. Stonebridge’s house at about that same hour.

  “Allan Carysfort was discharged by the magistrates as you know. There was no definite proof against him. But public opinion is ever an uncertain quantity, and it is still dead against the Carysforts. In the public mind two facts have remained indelibly fixed: firstly, that the Carysforts had everything to gain by the destruction of Felix Shap’s papers, an
d, secondly, that there was nobody else who could possibly have benefited by it. Since then also Mr. Stonebridge has made a declaration that nothing was stolen out of his safe and pocketbook except the papers and letters belonging to Felix Shap. So what would you? Although Allan Carysfort was discharged by the magistrates, really because there was no tangible evidence against him, he did not leave the court without a stain on his character. The stain was there, and there it is to this day. It will take the Carysforts years to live the scandal down; though some friends have remained loyal, there are always the enemies, the envious, the uncharitable, and they insist that the two witnesses—the only two, mind you, whose evidence did clear Allan Carysfort of suspicion—had been bought and should not be believed, while others simply declare that Sir David and his son employed some ruffian to do the dirty work for them.”

  He gave a dry cackle and contemplated me through his huge horn-rimmed spectacles.

  “And you are of that opinion, too, I imagine,” he said.

  “Well, it seems the only likely explanation,” I replied guardedly.

  “Surely you don’t suppose,” he retorted, “that a businessman like David Carysfort would place himself so entirely in the hands of a ruffian that he would for ever after be the victim of blackmail! Why, it would have been cheaper to buy off Felix Shap!”