Unravelled Knots

by Baroness Orczy

  “It appears that Henry Buckley, delighted at what he jocosely called ‘old Square-toes falling from grace,’ had rung up his sister in order to tell her the startling news over the telephone. Lady Angela being a very modern young woman, her brother thought that she might storm for a bit, but in the end see the humorous side of the situation. But not at all! Lady Angela took the affair entirely au tragique. Over the telephone she only exclaimed ‘Great Lord!’ but that afternoon she arrived at the flat, having taken the first train up to town and not even waiting for her maid to pack her things. Mr. Henry Buckley was just going out to lunch. Without condescending to explain anything, his sister dragged him off then and there to Scotland Yard. ‘Something happened to Denver,’ was all that she would say. ‘Something dreadful, I am sure.’

  “In vain did her brother protest that she would only be making a fool of herself by rushing to the police like this, that old Square-toes had only gone on the spree, and that anyway he ought to consult with the Shillingtons before doing anything silly; Lady Angela would not listen to reason. ‘You don’t know! You don’t know!’ she kept on reiterating with ever-increasing agitation. ‘He has been murdered, I tell you. Murdered!’

  “By the time that the pair arrived at Scotland Yard Lady Angela was in a state bordering on hysterics, and her brother appeared both sulky and perplexed. They saw the same inspector who had interviewed Miss Shillington, and certainly his amazement was no whit less than that of Mr. Henry Buckley when Lady Angela, having mentioned the disappearance of Captain Denver Shillington, said abruptly, ‘Yes, he has disappeared, and incidentally, he had my pearls in his pocket.’ The inspector made no immediate comment; men of his calling are used to those kinds of surprises, but Henry Buckley gave a gasp of horror.

  “‘Your pearls?’ he exclaimed. ‘What pearls? Not—?’

  “‘Yes,’ Lady Angela rejoined coolly. ‘The Glenarm pearls. All of them!’

  “‘But—’ Henry Buckley stammered, wide-eyed and white to the lips.

  “His sister threw him what appeared to be a warning glance, then she turned once more to the police inspector.

  “‘My brother is upset,’ she said calmly, ‘because he knows that the pearls are of immense value. The late Lord Glenarm left them to me in his will. He made a huge fortune by a successful speculation in sugar. He had no daughters of his own and late in life he married my mother’s sister. He was my godfather, and when he first bought the pearls and gave them to his wife as a wedding present, he said that after her death and his they should belong to me. They were valued for probate at twenty-five thousand pounds.’

  “Henry Buckley was still speechless, and it was in answer to several questions put to her by the inspector that Lady Angela gave the full history, as far as she knew it, of the disappearance of her pearls.

  “‘I was going to spend the weekend with some friends at Tatchford, near Newmarket,’ she said. ‘My brother at first had decided not to come with me. On the Friday evening I went with Captain Shillington to a ball at the Duchess of Flint’s in Grosvenor Square. I wore my pearls; on the way home in the car Captain Shillington appeared very anxious as to what I should do about the pearls whilst I was away. He wanted me to take them to the bank first thing in the morning before I left. But I knew I couldn’t do this because my train was at nine-fifty from Liverpool Street. Captain Shillington had once or twice before shown anxiety about the pearls and urged me to keep them at the bank when I was not wearing them, but he had never been so insistent as that night.’

  “Lady Angela appeared to hesitate for a moment or two. She glanced at her brother with a curious expression, both of anxiety and contempt. It seemed as if she were trying to make up her mind to say something that was very difficult to put in so many words. The inspector sat silent and impassive, waiting for her to continue her story, and at last she did make up her mind to speak.

  “‘I had a safe in the flat,’ she went on glibly, ‘where I keep my jewellery, but Captain Shillington did not seem satisfied. He argued and argued, and at last he persuaded me to let him have the pearls while I was away and he would deposit them at his own bank until my return.’

  “Presumably at this point the lady caught an expression on the face of the inspector which displeased her, for she added with becoming dignity, ‘I am engaged to be married to Captain Denver Shillington.’

  “‘My God!’ Henry Buckley exclaimed at this point, and with a groan he buried his face in his hands.

  “Mind you,” the Man in the Corner proceeded, after a moment’s pause, “the public had no information as to the exact words, and so on, that passed between Lady Angela, her brother Henry, and the officials of Scotland Yard. All that I am telling you, and what I am still about to tell you, came out bit by bit in the papers. Sensation lovers were immensely interested in the case from the outset, because although both public and police are familiar enough with the tragi-comedy of the good-looking young blackguard who gets confiding females to entrust him with their little bits of jewellery, this was the first time that the confidence trick had been played by a well-known man about town—reputed wealthy since he had gone to the length of paying a friend’s gambling debts—on a society lady who was not in her first youth and must presumably have had some knowledge of the world she lived in.

  “Lady Angela had concluded her statements by saying that during the drive home in the car she took off her pearls and handed them to her fiancé who slipped them into his pocket just as they were, although when presently the car drew up at her door she suggested running up to her room to get the case for them. The Captain, however, declared this to be unnecessary. What he said was, ‘I will sleep with them under my pillow tonight, and tomorrow morning first thing I will take them round to the bank for you.’ After this he said good night. Lady Angela let herself into the house with her latch-key, and Captain Shillington then dismissed the car, saying that he would enjoy a bit of a walk as the rooms at Grosvenor Square had been so desperately hot.

  “And it was at this point,” the Man in the Corner now said with deliberate emphasis as he worked away at an exceptionally intricate knot in his beloved bit of string, “it was at this point that certain facts leaked out which lent to the whole case a sinister aspect.

  “It appears that on the Saturday morning at break of day one of the boats belonging to the Thames District Police found a grey Homburg hat floating under one of the old steamship landing stages and, stuck to one of the wooden piles close by, a man’s silk scarf. There was no name inside the hat or any other clue as to the owner’s identity, but both the scarf, which had once been white or light grey, and the hat were terribly soiled and torn, and both were stained with blood. The police had tried on the quiet to trace the owner of the hat and scarf but without success. After Lady Angela had told her story of the missing pearls, the things were shown to Miss Shillington, who at once identified the hat as belonging to her brother; the scarf, however, she knew nothing about.

  “But this was not by any means all. It appears that for some reason which was never quite clear, Captain Shillington, after he said good night to Lady Angela, altered his mind about the proposed walk. It may have started to rain, or he may not, after all, have liked the idea of walking about the streets at night with twenty-five thousand pounds’ worth of pearls in his pocket. Be that as it may, he hailed a passing taxi and drove to Mexfield House. The driver came forward voluntarily in answer to an advertisement put in the papers by the police. He stated that he remembered the circumstance quite well because of what followed. He remembered taking up a fare outside Stanhope Gate and being ordered to drive to Mexfield House in Somerset Street. When he slowed down close to Mexfield House, he noticed a man with his hands in his pockets lounging under the doorway of one of the houses close by.

  “As far as he could see the man was in evening dress and wore a light overcoat. He had on a silk hat tilted right over his eyes so that only the lower part of his face was visible, and he had a white or pale grey scarf tie
d loosely round his face. The chauffeur also noticed that he had a large white flower, probably a carnation, in his buttonhole. After the taxi-man had put down his fare he drove off, and as he did so he saw the man in the light overcoat step out from under the doorway where he had been lounging, and turn in the direction of Mexfield House. What happened after that he didn’t know, as he drove away without taking further notice, but the police were already in touch with another man who had been watching that night in Somerset Street, where a portion of the road was up for repair.

  “This man whose name, I think, was William Rugger, remembered quite distinctly seeing a ‘swell’ in a light overcoat and wearing a light-coloured scarf round his neck, loafing around Mexfield House. He remembered the taxi drawing up and a gentleman getting out of it, whereupon the one in the light overcoat and the scarf went up to him and said, ‘Hallo, Denver!’ at which the other gent, the one who had come in the taxi, appeared very surprised, for Rugger heard him say: ‘Good Lord, Henry, what are you doing here?’

  “Rugger didn’t hear any more because the gentleman in the light overcoat then took the other one by the arm and together the pair of them walked away down the street. When they had gone Rugger noticed a large white carnation lying on the pavement; he picked it up and subsequently took it home to his missus.

  “You may imagine what a stir and excitement this story—which pretty soon leaked out in all its details—caused amongst the public. It seems that, although neither the taxi driver nor the man Rugger had seen the face of the man who had stepped out from under a neighbouring doorway and accosted Captain Shillington, they were both of them quite positive that he was in evening dress, and that he wore a silk hat, a light overcoat, and had a pale grey or white scarf wound round his neck. And besides that, there was the white carnation. But, of course, the crux of the whole evidence was Rugger’s assertion that he heard one gentleman—the one who got out of the cab—say to the other in tones of great surprise, ‘Good Lord, Henry, what are you doing here?’

  “Questioned again and again he never wavered in this statement. He heard the name Henry quite distinctly and it stuck in his mind because his eldest boy was Henry. He was also asked whether the gentleman who had stepped out of the taxi—obviously Captain Shillington since the other had called to him ‘Hello, Denver!’—walked away reluctantly or willingly when he was thus summarily taken hold of by the arm. Rugger was under the impression that he walked away reluctantly; he freed his arm once, but the other got hold of him again, and, though Rugger did not catch the actual words, he certainly thought that the two gentlemen were quarrelling.

  “And thus public opinion which at first had been dead against the Australian Captain now went equally dead against Henry Buckley. Ugly stories were current of his extravagance, his gambling debts, his addiction to drink. People who knew him remembered one or two ugly pages in his life’s history: altercations with the police, raids on gambling clubs of which he was a prominent member; there was even a fraudulent bankruptcy which had been the original cause of his being sent out to Australia by his harassed parents until the worst of the clouds had rolled by.

  “The only thing that told in his favour, as far as the public was concerned, was the bitter vindictiveness displayed against him by Miss Shillington. That the girl had cause for bitterness was not to be denied. For a time, at any rate, public opinion had branded her brother as a common trickster and a thief, and she and her mother had no doubt suffered terribly under the stigma; in consequence of this, Mrs. Shillington’s health, always in a precarious state, had completely broken down and the old lady had taken to her bed, not suffering from any particular disease, but just from debility of mind and body, obstinately refusing to see a doctor, declaring that nothing would cure her except the return of her son.

  “And on the top of all that came the growing conviction that the son never would return and that he had been foully murdered for the sake of Lady Angela’s pearls, which he so foolishly was carrying in his pocket that night. No wonder then, that his sister Marion felt bitter against the people who were the original cause of all these disasters; no wonder that she threw herself heart and soul into the search for evidence against the man whom she sincerely believed to be guilty of a most hideous crime.

  “It was mainly due to her that the police came on the track of William Rugger, the night-watchman, and through the latter that the driver of the taxi-cab was advertised for, because Rugger remembered seeing the gentleman alight from a taxi outside Mexfield House. But Miss Shillington’s valuable assistance in the matter of investigation went even further than that. She at last prevailed upon the old manservant at Mexfield House to come forward like a man and to speak the truth. He was a poor creature, not really old, probably not more than fifty, but timid and almost abject. He had at first declined to make any statement whatever, declaring that he had nothing to say. To every question put to him by the police he gave the one answer, ‘I saw nothing, sir, I ’eard nothing. I went to bed as usual on the Friday night. The Captain ’e never expected me to sit up for ’im when ’e went out to parties, and I never ’ear ’im come in, as I sleep at’ top of the ’ouse. No, sir, I didn’t ’ear nothing that night. The last I seed of the Captain was at nine o’clock when ’e got into the car and said good night to me.’ When he was shown the blood-stained hat, he burst out crying and said, ‘Yes, sir! Yes, sir! That is the Captain’s ’at. My Lord! What ’as come of ’im?’ He also failed to identify the scarf as being his master’s property.

  “Then one day Miss Shillington, still suffering from a cold in the head, but otherwise very businesslike and brisk, arrived at Scotland Yard with the man—James Rose was his name—in tow. By what means she had persuaded him to speak the truth at last no one ever knew, but in a tremulous voice and shaken with nervousness, he did tell what he swore to be the truth. ‘I must ’ave dropped to sleep in the dining-room,’ he said. ‘I was very tired that evening, and I remember after I ’ad cleared supper away I just felt as ’ow I couldn’t stand on my legs any longer, and I sat down in an armchair and must ’ave dozed off. What woke me was the front door bell which rings in the ’all as well as in the basement. I looked at the clock, it was past midnight. Captain forgot ’is key, that’s what I thought. Lucky I ’adn’t gone to bed, or I should never ’ave ’eard ’im. Funny ’is forgetting ’is key, I thought. Never done such a thing before, I thought, and went to open the door for ’im. But it wasn’t the Captain,’ Rose went on, his voice getting more and more husky as no doubt he realised the deadly importance of what he was about to say. ‘No, it wasn’t the Captain,’ he reiterated, and shook his head in a doleful manner.

  “‘Who was it?’ the inspector demanded.

  “‘The young gentleman who sometimes came to the ’ouse,’ Rose repeated under his breath. ‘Mr. ’Enery Buckley it was, sir. Yes, Mr. ’Enery, that’s ’oo it was.’

  “‘What did he say?’ Rose was asked.

  “‘’E asked if the Captain was in, and I said no, not as I knew, but I would go and see. So up I went to the Captain’s room and saw ’e wasn’t there. Not yet. And I told Mr. ’Enery so when I came down again.’

  “‘Then what happened?’

  “‘Mr. ’Enery ’e told me that ’e wouldn’t wait and that I was to tell the Captain ’e ’ad called, and that ’e would call again in ’arf an hour. I said that I was going to bed and I wouldn’t probably see the Captain. ’E might be ever so late. Then Mr ’Enery ’e just said, “Very good,” and “Never mind,” and “Good night, Rose,” ’e said, and then I let ’im out.’

  “‘Well, and what happened after that?’

  “‘I don’t know, sir,’ the old man concluded. ‘I went to bed and I never seed the Captain again, nor yet Mr. ’Enery—not from that day to this, sir. No, not again sir.’ And Rose once more shook his head in the same doleful manner. Of course the police were very down on him for keeping back this valuable piece of information, and they were even inclined to look with suspicion upon the
man. They wanted to know something about his antecedents, and why he seemed so frightened of facing the police authorities. Fortunately for him, however, Miss Shillington could give them all the information they wanted. She said that James Rose had been for years in the service of a Mrs. O’Shea who was a great friend of Mrs. Shillington’s. When Mrs. O’Shea died she left him a hundred pounds. But the poor thing had never been very strong and he was nothing to look at, he couldn’t get another place, and the hundred pounds vanished bit by bit. About a month ago Mrs. Shillington, who was requiring a manservant, advertised for one in the Daily Mail. Rose answered the advertisement and though the poor thing in the meanwhile had gone terribly downhill physically, Mrs Shillington, who remembered how honest and respectable he had always been when he was in Mrs. O’Shea’s service, engaged him out of compassion for the sake of old times. Miss Shillington gave him an excellent character and the police were satisfied.

  “I think,” the old Man in the Corner said, amorously contemplating a marvellously intricate knot which he had just made in his bit of string, “I think that the police were mainly satisfied because at last they felt that ‘they had made out a case.’ From that moment the detectives and inspectors in charge became absolutely convinced that Henry Buckley had enticed Captain Denver Shillington to some place of ill fame close to the river and there, in collusion probably with other disreputable characters, had robbed and murdered him. To say the least, the case looked black enough against Buckley. His fast living, his mountain of debt, the absence in him of moral rectitude as proved by his fraudulent bankruptcy, told against him; and now it was definitely proved that he had sought out and actually been in the company of Captain Shillington the night that the latter disappeared. A light grey overcoat similar to the one described by Rugger and the chauffeur as worn by the gentleman who was loafing round Somerset Street was found to be a part of his wardrobe; no one could swear, however, as to the scarf, but it turned out that he never went out in the evening without wearing a large white carnation in his buttonhole.