Unravelled Knots

by Baroness Orczy

  “This fact—the shutters being bolted on the inside—was confirmed by Miss Monica Glenluce who had been the first to go into the smoking-room after the tragic event. Her brother joined her subsequently. Both of these witnesses said that the room looked absolutely undisturbed, the shutters were bolted, the drawer of the desk was closed: they had remained in the room until after the visit of the police inspector.

  “After the positive evidence of these two witnesses, the police prosecution had of necessity to fall back on the far-fetched theory that Colonel Forburg himself, before he hurried out in order to join in the chase against the burglar, had run into the smoking-room and picked up his revolver, and that, having overtaken Peyton, he had threatened him; that Peyton had then jumped on him, wrenched the weapon out of his hand and shot him. It was a far-fetched theory certainly, and one which the defence quickly upset. Gerald Glenluce for one was distinctly under the impression that the Colonel ran from the dining-room straight out into the garden, and the young footman who was watching the fun from the front door, and saw the Colonel run out, was equally sure that he had not a revolver in his hand.

  “Peyton got six months’ hard labour for attempted housebreaking, there really was no evidence against him to justify the more serious charge; but when the charge of murder was withdrawn, it left the mystery of ‘Remount Forburg’s’ tragic end seemingly more impenetrable than before. Nevertheless the coroner and jury laboured conscientiously at the inquest. No stone was to be left unturned to bring the murderer of ‘Remount Forburg’ to justice, and, in this laudable effort the coroner had the able and unqualified assistance of Miss Glenluce. However bitter her feelings may have been in the past towards her stepfather while he lived, she seemed determined that his murderer should not go unpunished. Nay more, there appeared to be in all her actions during this terrible time a strange note of vindictiveness and animosity, as if the unknown man who had rid her of an arrogant and brutal tyrant had really done her a lasting injury.

  “It was entirely through her energy and exertions that certain witnesses were induced to come forward and give what turned out to be highly sensational evidence. The police, who were convinced that James Peyton was guilty, had turned all their investigations in the direction of proving their theories; Miss Monica, on the other hand, had seemingly made up her mind that the murderer was to be sought for inside the house; it even appeared as if she had certain suspicions which she only desired to confirm. To this end she had questioned and cross-questioned everyone who was in the house on that fatal night, well knowing how reluctant some people are to be mixed up in any way with police proceedings. But at last she had forced two persons to speak, and it was on the first day of the inquest that at last a glimmer of light was thrown upon the mysterious tragedy.

  “After the medical evidence which went to establish beyond a doubt that Colonel Forburg died from a gun-shot wound inflicted at close range, both balls having penetrated the heart, Miss Glenluce was called. Replying to the coroner, who had put certain questions to her with regard to the Colonel’s state of mind just before the tragedy, she said that he appeared to have a premonition that something untoward was about to happen. When the butler ran into the dining-room saying that a burglar had been seen trying to break into the house, the Colonel had jumped up from the table at once.

  “‘I did the same,’ Miss Monica went on, ‘as I was genuinely alarmed; but my stepfather in his peremptory way ordered me to sit still. “I believe,” he said to me with a funny laugh, “that it’s a put-up job. It’s some friend of Thrall’s giving him a hand.” I could not, of course, understand what he meant by that, and I looked at Mr. Thrall for an explanation. I must add that Mr. Thrall had been extraordinarily moody all through dinner; he looked flushed and I noticed particularly that he never spoke either to my stepfather, to my brother, or to me. However at the moment I failed to catch his eye, and the very next second he was out of the room, on the heels of Colonel Forburg.’

  “This was remarkable evidence to say the least of it, but nevertheless it was confirmed by two witnesses who heard the Colonel make that strange remark: one was Rachel Rawstone, the young friend who was dining at Brudenell Court that Christmas Eve, and the other was Gerald Glenluce.

  “Of course, by this time the public was getting very excited: they were like so many hounds heading for a scent, and the jury was beginning to show signs of that obstinate prejudice which culminated presently in a ridiculous verdict. But there was more to come. Thanks again to Miss Monica’s insistence the footman at Brudenell Court, a lad named Cambalt, had been induced to come forward with a story which he had evidently intended to keep hidden within his bosom, if possible. He gave his evidence with obvious reluctance and in a scarcely audible voice. It was generally noticed, however, that Miss Monica urged him frequently to speak up.

  “Cambalt deposed that just before dinner on Christmas Eve he had gone in to tidy the smoking-room before the gentlemen came down from dressing. As he opened the door he saw Mr. Morley Thrall standing in the middle of the room facing Colonel Forburg who was seated at his desk. Young Mr. Glenluce was standing near the mantelpiece with one foot on the fender staring into the fire. Mr. Thrall, according to witness, was livid with rage.

  “‘’E took a step forward like,’ Cambalt went on, amidst breathless silence on the part of the public and jury alike, ‘’and ’e raised ’is fist. But the Colonel ’e just laughed, then ’e opened the drawer of the desk and took out a revolver and showed it to Mr. Thrall and says: “’Ere y’are, there’s a revolver ’andy, anyway.” Then Mr. Thrall, ’e swore like anything and says: “You blackguard! You d—scoundrel! You ought to be shot like the cur you are.” I thought ’e would strike the Colonel, but young Mr. Glenluce ’e just stepped quickly in between the two gentlemen and ’e says “Look ’ere. Thrall, I won’t put up with this! You jess get out!” Then one of the gentlemen seed me and Mr. Thrall ’e walked out of the room.’

  “‘And what happened after he had gone?’ the coroner asked.

  “‘Oh!’ the witness replied, ‘the Colonel ’e threw the revolver back into the drawer and laughed sarcastic like. Then ’e ’eld out ’is ’and to Mr. Gerald and says: “Thanks my boy. You did ’elp me to get rid of that ruffian.” After that,’ Cambalt concluded, ‘I got on with my work, and the gentlemen took no notice of me.’

  “This witness was very much pressed with questions as to what happened later on when the burglary alarm was given and the gentlemen all hurried out of the house. Cambalt was in the hall at the time and he made straight for the front door to see some of the fun. He said that the Colonel was out first and the other three gentlemen, Mr. Gerald, Mr. Rawstone and Mr. Morley Thrall went out after him; Mr. Thrall was the last to go outside; he ran across the garden in the direction of the five-acre field. Major Rawstone remained somewhere near the house, but it was a very dark night, and he, Cambalt, soon lost sight of the gentlemen. Presently, however, Mr. Thrall came back toward the house. It was a few minutes after the shots had been fired and witness heard Mr. Thrall say to Major Rawstone: ‘I suppose it’s that fool Forburg potting away at the burglar; he’ll get himself into trouble if he doesn’t look out.’ Soon after that Mr. Gerald came running back with the news that the burglar had fallen into the arms of a passing constable and Cambalt then returned to his duties in the dining-room.

  “As you see,” the Man in the Corner went on glibly, “the witness’s evidence was certainly sensational. The jury, which was composed of farm labourers, with the local butcher as foreman, had by now fully made up its silly mind that Mr. Morley Thrall had taken the opportunity of sneaking into the smoking-room, snatching up the revolver and shooting ‘Remount Forburg,’ whom he hated, because the Colonel was opposing his marriage with Miss Monica.

  “It was all as dear as daylight to those dunderheads, and from that moment they simply would not listen to any more evidence. They had made up their minds; they were ready with their verdict and it was: Manslaughter against Mor
ley Thrall. Not murder you see! The dolts who had all of them suffered from ‘Remount Forburg’s’ arrogance and violent temper would not admit that killing such vermin was a capital crime.

  “What I am telling you would be unbelievable if it were not a positive fact. It is no use quoting British justice and dilating on the absolute fairness of trial by jury. A coroner’s inquest fortunately is not a trial. The verdict of a coroner’s jury, such as the one which sat on the Brudenell Court affair, though it may have very unpleasant consequences for an innocent person, cannot have fatal results. In this case it cast a stigma on a gentleman of high position and repute, and the following day Mr. Morley Thrall, himself J.P., was brought up before his brother magistrates on an ignominious charge.”

  IV

  “It is not often,” the Man in the Corner resumed after a while, “that so serious a charge is preferred against a gentleman of Mr. Morley Thrall’s social position, and I am afraid that the best of us are snobbish enough to be more interested in a gentleman criminal than in an ordinary Bill Sikes.

  “I happened to be present at that magisterial inquiry when Mr. Morley Thrall, J.P., was brought in between two warders, looking quite calm and self-possessed. Everyone of us there noticed that when he first came in, and in fact throughout that trying inquiry, his eyes sought to meet those of Miss Glenluce who sat at the solicitors’ table; but whenever she chanced to look his way, she quickly averted her gaze again, and turned her head away with a contemptuous shrug. Gerald Glenluce, on the other hand, made pathetic efforts at showing sympathy with the accused, but he was of such unprepossessing appearance and was so shy and awkward that it was small wonder Morley Thrall took little if any notice of him.

  “Very soon we got going. I must tell you first of all that the whole point of the evidence rested upon a question of time. If the accused took the revolver out of the desk in the smokingroom, when did he do it? The footman, Cambalt, reiterated the statement which he had made at the inquest. He was, of course, pressed to say definitely whether after the quarrel between Mr. Morley Thrall and the Colonel which he had witnessed, and before everyone went in to dinner, Mr. Thrall might have gone back to the smoking-room and extracted the revolver from the drawer of the desk; but Cambalt said positively that he did not think this was possible. He himself, after he had tidied the smoking-room, had been in and out of the hall preparing to serve dinner. The door of the smoking-room gave on the hall, between the dining room and the passage leading to the kitchens. If anyone had gone in or out of the smoking-room at that time Cambalt must have seen them.

  “At this point Miss Glenluce was seen to lean forward and to say something in a whisper to the Clerk of the Justices, who in his turn whispered to the chairman on the Bench, and a moment or two later that gentleman asked the witness:

  “‘Are you absolutely prepared to swear that no one went in or out of the smoking-room while you were making ready to serve dinner?’

  “Then, as the young man seemed to hesitate, the magistrate added more emphatically:

  “‘Think now! You were busy with your usual avocations; there would have been nothing extraordinary in one of the gentlemen going in or out of the smoking-room at that hour. Do you really believe and are you prepared to swear that such a very ordinary incident would have impressed itself indelibly upon your mind?’

  “Thus pressed and admonished, Cambalt retrenched himself behind a vague, ‘No sir! I shouldn’t like to swear one way or the other.’

  “Whereat Miss Monica threw a defiant look at the accused who, however, did not as much as wink an eyelid in response.

  “Presently when that lady herself was called no one could fail to notice that she, like the coroner’s jury the previous day, had absolutely made up her mind that Morley Thrall was guilty, otherwise her attitude of open hostility toward him would have been quite inexplicable. She dwelt at length on the fact that Mr Thrall had paid her marked attention for months, and that he had asked her to marry him.

  “She had given him her consent, and between them they had decided to keep their engagement a secret, until after she, Monica, had attained her twenty-first birthday, when she would be free to marry whom she chose.

  “‘Unfortunately,’ the witness went on, suddenly assuming a dry, pursed-up manner, ‘Colonel Forburg got wind of this. He was always very much set against my marrying at all, and between tea and dinner on Christmas Eve he and I had some very sharp words together on the subject, at the end of which my stepfather said very determinedly: “Christmas or no Christmas, the fellow shall leave my house by the first available train tomorrow, and tonight I am going to give him a piece of my mind.”’

  “Just for a moment after Miss Glenluce had finished speaking, the accused seemed to depart from his attitude of dignity and reserve, and an indignant ‘Oh!’ quickly repressed, escaped his lips. The public by this time was dead against him. They are just like sheep, as you know, and the verdict of the coroner’s jury had prejudiced them from the start, and the police, aided by Miss Glenluce, had certainly built up a formidable case against the unfortunate man. Everyone felt that the motive for the crime was fully established already. ‘Remount Forburg’ had had a violent quarrel with Morley Thrall, then had turned him out of the house, and the latter, furious at being separated from the girl he loved, had killed the man who stood in his way.

  “I should be talking until tomorrow morning were I to give you in detail all the evidence that was adduced in support of the prosecution. The accused listened to it all with perfect calm. He stood with arms folded, his eyes fixed on nothing. The ‘Oh!’ of indignation did not again cross his lips, nor did he look once at Miss Monica Glenluce. I can assure you that at one moment that day things were looking very black against him.

  “Fortunately for him, however, he had a very clever lawyer to defend him in the person of his distinguished cousin, Sir Evelyn Thrall. The latter, by amazingly clever cross-examination of the servants and guests at Brudenell Court, had succeeded in establishing the fact that at no time, from the moment that the burglary alarm was given until after the two revolver shots had been heard, was the accused completely out of sight of someone or other of the witnesses. He was the last to leave the dining-room. Mrs. Rawstone and her daughter testified to that. He had stayed behind one moment after the other three gentlemen had gone out in order to say a few words to Monica Glenluce. Miss Rawstone was standing inside the dining-room door and she was quite positive that Mr. Thrall went straight out into the garden.

  “On the other hand Major Rawstone saw him in the forecourt coming away from the five-acre meadow only a very few moments after the shots were fired, and gave it absolutely as his opinion that it would have been impossible for the accused to have fired those shots. This is where the question of time came in.

  “‘When a man who bears a spotless reputation,’ Major Rawstone argued, ‘finds that he has killed a fellow creature, he would necessarily pause a moment, horror-struck with what he has done; whether the deed was premeditated or involuntary he would at least try and ascertain if life was really extinct. It is inconceivable that any man, save an habitual and therefore callous criminal, would just throw down his weapon and with absolute calm, hands in pocket and without a tremor in his voice make a casual remark to a friend. Now I saw Mr. Morley Thrall perhaps two minutes after the shots were fired; in that time he could not have walked from the centre of the field to the forecourt where I was standing and he had not been running as his voice was absolutely clear and he came walking towards me with his hands in pockets.’

  “As was only to be expected Sir Evelyn Thrall made the most of Major Rawstone’s evidence, and I may say that it was chiefly on the strength of it that the charge of murder against the accused was withdrawn, even though the Clerk to the Magistrates, perpetually egged on by Miss Glenluce, did his best to upset Major Rawstone. When the lady found that this could not be done, she tried to switch back to the idea that accused had abstracted the revolver out of the morning-room before din
ner and immediately after his quarrel with Colonel Forburg. The footman Cambalt’s evidence on this point had been somewhat discounted by his refusing to state positively that no one could have gone into the smoking-room at that time without his seeing them. But against this theory there was always the argument—of which Sir Evelyn Thrall made the most as you know—that before dinner the accused could not have known that there would be an alarm of burglary which would give him the opportunity of waylaying the Colonel in the open field.

  “With equal skill, too, Sir Evelyn brought forward evidence to bear out the statement made by the accused on the matter of his quarrel with Colonel Forburg.

  “‘Just before dinner,’ Mr. Thrall stated, ‘Colonel Forburg told me he had something to say to me in private. I followed him into the smoking-room and there he gave me certain information with regard to his past life and also with regard to Miss Glenluce’s parentage which made it absolutely impossible for me, in spite of the deep regard which I have for that lady, to offer her marriage. Miss Glenluce is the innocent victim of tragic circumstances in the past, and Forburg is just an unmitigated blackguard, and I told him so, but I had my family to consider and very reluctantly I came to the conclusion that I could not introduce any relation of Colonel Forburg into its circle. Colonel Forburg did not stand in the way of my marrying his stepdaughter, it is I who most reluctantly withdrew.’

  “Whilst the accused was cross-examined upon this statement, and he gave his answers in firm, dignified tones, Miss Monica never took her eyes off him, and surely if looks could kill, Mr. Morley Thrall would not at that moment have escaped with his life, so full of deadly hatred and contempt was her gaze. The accused had signed a much fuller statement than the one which he had made in open court: it contained a detailed account of his interview with Colonel Forburg, and of the circumstances which finally induced him to give up all thoughts of asking Miss Glenluce to be his wife. These facts were not made public at the time for the sake of Miss Monica and of the unfortunate Gerald, but it seems that the transactions which had earned for the Colonel the sobriquet of ‘Remount Forburg’ were so disreputable and so dishonest that not only was he cashiered from the army, but he served a term of imprisonment for treason, fraud and embezzlement.