“But what does that prove?” I argued with an impatient frown.
“It proves that my contention is correct; that the first visitor was not Leighton, that it was someone for whom Ann Weber cared more than she did for Leighton, as she lied for his sake when she told her aunt that she was speaking to Leighton in the hall. The whole thing occurred just as the police supposed. The first visitor called and while Ann Weber was down in the kitchen getting him something to eat and drink, he entered the office, probably not with any evil intention, and saw his employer sitting at his desk with the safe containing a quantity of loose cash, invitingly open. Let us be charitable and assume that he yielded to sudden temptation. Mr. Jessup’s coat, hat and stick were lying there on a chair. The stick was one of those heavily weighted ones which men like to carry nowadays. He seizes the stick and strikes the old man on the head with it, then he collects the money from the safe and thrusts it into his pockets.
“At that moment Ann Weber comes up the stairs. I say that this man was her lover; she had returned to him, as she did once before. Imagine her horror first and then her desire—her mad desire—to save him from the consequences of his crime. It is her woman’s wit which first suggests the idea of telephoning to Fitzjohn’s Avenue: she who thinks of plunging the house in darkness. And now to get the criminal out of the house. It can be done in a moment, but just then Mrs. Tufnell opens her door on the second floor and begins to grope her way downstairs. It is impossible to think quickly enough how to meet this situation. Instinct is the only guide, and instinct suggests impersonating the deceased, to avoid the danger of Mrs. Tufnell peeping in at the office door.
“The criminal hastily dons his victim’s hat and coat, and he is almost through the hall when Mrs. Tufnell calls to Ann:
“‘Is it Mr. Leighton?’ and Ann on the impulse of the moment replies: ‘Yes, it is! He is just going.’ And so the criminal escapes unseen. But there is still the danger of Mrs. Tufnell peeping in at the office door, so Ann invents the story of having seen Mr. Jessup walk out of the house some time before. So for the moment danger is averted; the housekeeper does peep in at the door, but only in order to satisfy herself that the lights are out, and the women then go upstairs together.
“Ten minutes later there is another ring at the bell. This time it is Arthur Leighton and Ann Weber has sufficient presence of mind not to let him see that there is anything wrong in the house. She asks him in, she tells him Mr. Jessup cannot see him, she gets him a drink and sends him off again. I don’t suppose for a moment that at this stage she has any intention of using him as a shield for her present sweetheart, but undoubtedly the thought had by now crept into her mind to utilise Leighton’s admitted presence in the house for the purpose of confusing the issues. Nor do I think that she had any idea that night that Mr. Jessup was dead. She probably thought that he had only been stunned by a blow from the stick: hence her exclamation when she realised the truth, ‘My God, he has killed him!’ Then only did she concentrate all her energies and all her wits to saving her sweetheart—even at the cost of another man.
“Women are like that sometimes,” the Man in the Corner went on with a chuckle, “the instinct of the primitive woman is first of all to save her man, never mind at whose expense. The cave-man’s instinct is to protect his woman with his fists—but she, conscious of physical weakness, sets her wits to work, and if her man is in serious danger, she will lie and she will cheat—aye, and perjure herself if need be. And those flirtatious minxes of which Annie-bird is a striking example are only cave-women with a veneer of civilisation over them.
“She did save her man by dragging a red herring across his trail, and she left Fate to deal with Leighton. Once embarked on a system of lies she had to stick to it or her man was doomed. Fortunately she could rely on the other woman. A mother’s wits are even sharper than those of a sweetheart.”
“A mother?” I ejaculated. “Then you think that it was—?”
“Mark Tufnell, of course,” he broke in, drily. “Didn’t you guess? As he could not go with his beloved to the cinema, he thought he would spend a happy evening with her. What made him originally go into the office we shall never know. Some trifle, no doubt, some message for his employer; it is those sort of trifles that so often govern the destinies of men. Personally I think that he was very much in the same boat as young Leighton: some trifling irregularities in his account. The deceased speaking so harshly to Mrs. Tufnell that night first directed my attention to young Tufnell. He didn’t want to see any of them that night: he was irritated with Mark quite as much as with Leighton, but out of consideration for the housekeeper whom he valued he said little about her son.
“Perhaps he had ordered the young man to come to his office; as I said just now, this little point I cannot vouch for. But if I have not succeeded in convincing you that the first visitor at No. 13, Fulton Gardens was Mark Tufnell, and that it was he who went out in Mr. Jessup’s hat and overcoat, changed hats in the street and wandered out as far as Walthamstow in order to be rid of the pièces de conviction then you are less intelligent than I have taken you to be. Mark Tufnell, remember, lives in the north of London; he was supposed to have gone to the cinema that night, therefore the people with whom he lodged thought nothing of his coming home late.”
“That poor mother!” I ejaculated, “I wonder if she suspects the truth.”
“She knows it,” the funny creature said, “you may be sure of that. There was a bond of understanding between those two women, and they never once contradicted each other in their evidence. A worthless young blackguard has been saved from the gallows; my sympathy is not with him, but with the women who put up such a brave fight for his sake.”
“Do you know what happened to them all subsequently?” I asked.
“Not exactly. But I do know that Mr. Seton Jessup in his will left his housekeeper an annuity of £50. I also know that young Tufnell has gone out to Australia, and that if you ever dine with a friend at the Alcyon Club you will notice an exceptionally pretty waitress who will make eyes at all the men. Her name is Ann Weber!”
XIII
A Moorland Tragedy
I
The Man in the Corner had finished his glass of milk and ceased to munch his bun; from the capacious pocket of his huge tweed coat he extracted a piece of string, and for a while he sat contemplating it, with his head on one side, so like one of those bald-headed storks at the Zoo.
“I always had a great predilection for that mystery,” he said, à propos of nothing at all. “It still fascinates me.”
“What mystery?” I asked; but as usual he took no notice of my question.
“It was more romantic than the common crimes of today; in fact, I don’t know if you will agree with me, but to me it has quite an eighteenth-century atmosphere about it.”
“If you were to tell me to what particular crime you refer,” I said coldly, “I might tell you whether I agree with you or not.”
He looked at me as if he thought me an idiot, then he rejoined drily:
“You don’t mean to say that you have never thought of the Moorland Tragedy!”
“Yes,” I said, “often!”
“And don’t you think that the story is as romantic as any you have read in fiction recently?”
“Yes, I do think that the story is romantic but only because of its mise-en-scène. The same thing might have occurred in a London slum, and then it would have been merely sordid. Of course it is all very mysterious, and I for one have often wondered what has become of that Italian—I forget his name.”
“Antonio Vissio. A queer creature, wasn’t he? And we can well imagine with what suspicion he was regarded by the yokels in the neighbouring villages. Yorkshire yokels! Just think of them in connection with an exotic creature like Vissio. He had a curious history, too. His people owned a little farm somewhere in the mountains near Santa Catarina in Liguria, and during the war an English Intelligence officer—Captain Arnott—lodged with them for a time. Th
ey were, it seems, extraordinarily kind to him. The family consisted of a widow, two daughters, and the son Antonio. As he was the only son of a widow, he was, of course, exempt from military service and helped his mother to look after the farm.
“His passion, however—and one, by the way, which is very common to Italian peasants—was shooting. There is very little game in that part of Italy, and it means long tramps before you can get as much as a rabbit or a partridge; but there was nothing that Antonio loved more than those tramps with a gun and a dog, and when Captain Arnott had leisure the two of them would go off together at daybreak and never return till late at night.
“Sometime in 1917 Captain Arnott was transferred to another front. He got his majority the following year, and after the war he retired with the rank of Lieut.-Colonel. He hadn’t seen the Vissio family for some time, but he always retained the happiest recollections of their kindness to him and of Antonio’s pleasant companionship. It was not to be wondered at, therefore, that when in 1919 that terrible explosion occurred at the fort of Santa Catarina, which was only distant a quarter of a mile from the Vissios’ farm, Colonel Arnott should at once think of his friends, and, as he happened to be at Genoa on business at the time, he motored over to Santa Catarina to see if he could ascertain anything of their fate.
“He found the village a complete devastation, the isolated farms for miles around nothing but masses of wreckage. I don’t know how many people—men, women and children—had been killed, there were over two hundred injured, and those who had escaped were herding together amongst the ruins of their homes. It was only by dint of perseverance and the exercise of an iron will that Colonel Arnott succeeded at last in finding Antonio Vissio.
“There was nothing left of the farm but dust and ashes. The mother and one of the girls had been killed by the falling in of the roof, and the younger daughter was being taken care of by some sisters in a neighbouring convent which had escaped total destruction. Antonio was left in the world all alone, homeless, moneyless; Italy is not like England where at times of disaster money comes pouring at once out of the pockets of the much abused capitalists to help the unfortunate. There was no money poured out to help poor Antonio and his kindred.
“Colonel Arnott was deeply moved at sight of the man’s loneliness. He worked hard to try and get him a job in England right away from the scenes of the disaster that must perpetually have awakened bitter memories. Finally he succeeded. A friend of his, Lord Crookhaven, who owned considerable property in the North Riding, agreed to take Vissio as assistant to one of his gamekeepers, a fellow named William Topcoat. Of course this was an ideal life for Antonio. He could indulge his passion for shooting to his heart’s content, and, incidentally, he would learn something of the science of preserving, and of the game laws as they exist in all the sporting countries.
“I don’t suppose that Antonio ever realised quite how unpopular he was from the first in his new surroundings. The Yorkshire yokels looked upon him as a dago, and the fact that he had not fought in the war did not help matters. During the first six months he did not speak a word of English, and even after he had begun to pick up a sentence or two, he always remained unsociable. To begin with, he didn’t drink: he hated beer and said so. He didn’t understand cricket and was bored with football. He didn’t bet and he was frightened of horses. All that he cared for was his gun, and he went about his work not only conscientiously but intelligently, took great interest in the rearing of young birds and was particularly successful with them.
“After he had been in England a year, he fell madly in love with Winnie Gooden. And that is how the tragedy began.”
II
“An Italian peasant’s idea of love is altogether different to that of an English yokel. The latter will begin by keeping company with his sweetheart: he will walk out with her in the twilight, and sit beside her on the stile, chewing the end of a straw and timidly holding her hand. Kisses are exchanged and sighs, and usually no end of jokes and chaff. On the whole the English yokel is a cheerful lover. Not so the Italian. With him love is the serious drama of life; he is always prepared for it to turn to tragedy. His love is overwhelming, tempestuous. With one arm he fondles his sweetheart, but the other hand is behind his back, grasping a knife.
“So it was with Antonio Vissio. Winnie Gooden was the daughter of one of the gardeners at Markthwaite Hall, Lord Crookhaven’s residence. She was remarkably pretty, and I suppose that she was attracted by the silent, rather sullen Italian, who, by the way, was extraordinarily good looking. Dark eyes, a soft creamy skin, quantities of wavy hair; everyone admitted that the two of them made a splendid pair when they walked out together on Sunday afternoons. Thanks to the kindness of Colonel Arnott, Vissio had succeeded in selling the bit of land on which his farm had stood, so he had a good bit of money, too, and though James Gooden, the father, was said to be averse to the idea of his daughter marrying a foreigner, it was thought that Winnie would talk her father over easily enough if she really meant to have Antonio; but people didn’t think that she was seriously in love with him.
“During the spring of 1922, Mr. Gerald Moville came home from Argentina where he was said to be engaged cattle-rearing. He was the youngest son of Sir Timor Moville whose property adjoined that of Lord Crookhaven. His arrival caused quite a flutter in feminine hearts for miles around, for smart young men are scarce in those parts, and Gerald Moville was both good looking and smart, a splendid dancer, a fine tennis and bridge player, and, in fact was possessed of the very qualities which young ladies of all classes admire, and which were so sadly lacking in the other young men of the neighbourhood.
“The fact that he had always been very wild, and that it was only through joining the Air Force at the beginning of the war that he escaped prosecution for some shady transaction in connection with a bridge club in London, did not seriously stand against him, at any rate with the ladies; the men, perhaps, cold-shouldered him at first, and he was not made an honorary member of the County Club at Richmond, but he was welcome at all their tea and garden parties, the dances and the tennis matches throughout the North Riding, and in social matters it is, after all, the ladies who rule the roost.
“The Movilles, moreover, were big people in the neighbourhood, whom nobody would have cared to offend. The eldest son was Colonel commanding a smart regiment—I forget which; one daughter had married an eminent K.C., and the other was the wife of a bishop; so for the sake of the family, if for no other reason, Gerald Moville was accepted socially and his peccadilloes, of which it seems there was more than the one in connection with the bridge club, were conveniently forgotten; besides which it was declared that he was now a reformed character. He had joined the Air Force quite early in the war, been a prisoner of the Germans until 1919 when he went out to Argentina where he had made good, and where, it was said, he was making a huge fortune.
“This rumour also helped, no doubt, to make Gerald Moville popular, even though he himself had laughingly sworn on more than one occasion that he was not a marrying man: he was in love with too many girls ever to settle down with one. He certainly was a terrible flirt and gave all the pretty girls of the neighbourhood a very good time; he had hired a smart little two-seater at Richmond, and motor excursions, lunches at the Wheatsheaf at Reeth, jade earrings or wristwatches—the girls, who were ready to flirt with him and to amuse him could get anything they wanted out of him.
“But it was soon pretty evident that though Gerald Moville flirted with many, it was Winnie Gooden whom he admired the most. From the first he ran after that girl in a way that scandalised the village gossips. She, of course, was flattered by his attentions, but did not show the slightest inclination to throw Antonio over. She was sensible enough to know that Gerald Moville would never marry her, and she made it very clear that though he amused her, her heart would remain true to her Italian lover. But here was the trouble. Antonio was not the man to run in double harness. His fiery Southern blood rose in revolt against any thought of
rivalry. He had won Winnie’s love and meant to hold it against all comers, and more than once in public and in private he threatened to do for any man who came between him and Winnie.
“You would have thought that those who were in the know would have foreseen the tragedy from the moment that Winnie Gooden started to flirt with Gerald Moville; nevertheless when it did occur there was universal surprise quite as much as horror, and there seemed to be no one clever enough to understand the psychological problem that was the true key of that so-called mystery.”
III
“Lord Crookhaven’s property, you must know,” the Man in the Corner resumed, after a moment’s pause, “extends right over Markthwaite Moor, which is a lonely stretch of country, intersected by gullies, down which, during the heavy rains in spring and autumn, the water rushes in torrents. There are one or two disused stone quarries on the moor, and, except for the shooting season when Lord Crookhaven has an occasional party of sportsmen to stay with him at the Hall, who are out after the birds all day, this stretch of country is singularly desolate.
“Topcoat’s cottage, where Vissio lodged, is on the edge of the moor on the Markthwaite side; about a couple of miles away to the north the moor is intersected by the secondary road which runs from Kirkby Stephen and joins up with the main road at Richmond, and three or four miles again to the north of the road is the boundary wall that divides Lord Crookhaven’s property from that of his neighbour Sir Timothy Moville.
“It was in September 1922 that the tragedy occurred which made Markthwaite Moor so notorious at the time. Topcoat was walking across the moor in the company of the Italian, both carrying their guns, when about half a mile away, on the further side of the quarry known as the Poacher’s Leap, the gamekeeper spied a man who appeared to be crouching behind some scrub. Without much reflection he pointed this crouching figure out to Vissio and said: ‘There’s a fellow who is up to no good. After the birds again, the damned thief. Run along, my lad, and see if you can’t put a shot or two into his legs.’
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