“Topcoat swore subsequently, that when he said this, he had not recognised who the crouching figure was. But he was a very hard man where poachers were concerned; he had been much worried with them lately, and a day or two ago had been reprimanded by Lord Crookhaven for want of vigilance. This, no doubt, had irritated his temper, and made him rather ‘jumpy.’
“Vissio, with his gun on his shoulder, went off in the direction of the Poacher’s Leap. Topcoat watched him until a bit of sharply rising ground hid him from sight. A moment or two later the crouching figure stood up and Topcoat recognised Mr. Gerald Moville. He had always had exceptionally fine sight, and Mr. Moville had certain tricks of gait and movement which were unmistakable even at that distance. Topcoat immediately shouted to Vissio to come back, but apparently the Italian did not hear him, and the last thing that the gamekeeper saw on that eventful morning was Mr. Moville suddenly turn and walk towards the high bit of ground behind which Vissio had just disappeared.
“And that was the last,” my eccentric neighbour concluded with a chuckle all his own, “that has been seen up to this hour of those two men, Mr. Gerald Moville and Antonio Vissio. Topcoat waited for a while on the moor, and called to the Italian several times, but as he heard nothing in response and as it had started to rain heavily, he finally went home.
“Vissio did not turn up at the cottage the whole of that day, and he did not come home that night. The following morning, which was a Thursday, Topcoat walked across to the Goodens’ cottage to make enquiries, but no one had seen the Italian and Winnie knew nothing about him. The gamekeeper waited until the Saturday before he informed the police; that, of course, was a serious delay which ought never to have occurred, but you have to know that class of north country yokel intimately to appreciate this man’s conduct throughout the affair. They all have a perfect horror of anything to do with the police. The type of delinquency most frequent in these parts is, of course, poaching, and the gamekeepers on the big estates look on themselves as the only efficient police for those cases. Half the time they don’t turn the delinquent over to the magistrates at all, and administer a kind of rough justice as they think best. They hate police interference.
“In this case we must also bear Topcoat’s subsequent statement in mind, which was that at first no suspicion of foul play had entered his head. He had not heard the report of a gun, and all he feared was that the Italian had tried to pick a quarrel with Mr. Moville and been soundly punished for his impertinence, and that probably he did not dare show his face until the trouble had blown over. Topcoat, however, spent a couple of days scouring the moor for the missing man, in case he had met with an accident and was lying somewhere unable to move.
“On the second day he found Vissio’s gun lying in a gully close to the Poacher’s Leap; it had not been discharged, and the next day—that is, on the Saturday—he very reluctantly went to the police. Even then he made no mention of Mr. Gerald Moville; he only said that his assistant, an Italian named Antonio Vissio, who lodged with him, had not been home for three days, and that he had last seen him on Markthwaite Moor on the previous Wednesday carrying a gun and walking in the direction of the Poacher’s Leap.
“Poachers, of course, were at once suspected; Topcoat referred vaguely to Vissio having gone after a man whose movements had appeared suspicious. He was severely blamed for having delayed so long before informing the police; even if the Italian had not been the victim of foul play he might, it was argued, have met with a serious accident, and been lying for days, perhaps, with a broken leg out in the cold and wet, and might even have perished of exposure and neglect. But this latter theory Topcoat would not admit. He had scoured the moor, he declared, from end to end; if Vissio had been lying anywhere, he swore that he would have found him.
“Another three or four days were now spent by the police in scouring the moor, and it was only after a last fruitless search that Topcoat mentioned the fact that he had seen Mr. Gerald Moville the very morning and close to the spot where Vissio disappeared: that, as a matter of fact, he was the man after whom the Italian had gone, and that the two had met somewhere near the north end of the Poacher’s Leap.
“Of course to the general public—to you, for instance—Topcoat’s attitude of reticence all this while must seem positively criminal; but it is useless to measure the conduct of people of that class in remote north-country districts by the ordinary rules of common sense. For a man in Topcoat’s position to connect ‘one of the gentry’ with the disappearance of a gamekeeper’s assistant—and a foreigner at that—would seem as preposterous as to imagine that the King of England would go poaching on his neighbour’s estate. It simply couldn’t be, and when the D.C.C., to whom Topcoat first made this statement, rebuked him with unusual severity, the gamekeeper turned sulky and declared that he didn’t see he had done anything wrong.
“More than a week you see had elapsed since that Wednesday morning when Vissio had last been seen alive; for the past four days the police had worked very hard, but entirely in the dark. Now at last they felt that they had a glimmer of light to guide them in their search. The public, who had taken some interest at first in the Moorland Mystery, was beginning to tire of reading about this fruitless search for a missing dago. But now, suddenly, the mystery had taken a sensational turn. Topcoat’s statement had found its way into the local papers and Mr. Gerald Moville’s name was whispered in connection with the case. And hardly had the lovers of sensation recovered from this first shock of surprise, when they received another that was even more staggering.
“Mr. Gerald Moville, it seems, had left home on the very day that Vissio disappeared, and his people were without news of him. Just think what this sensational bit of news meant! It evoked at once in the mind of the imaginative, a drama of love and jealousy, a real romance such as is only dreamt of in the cinema, with an Italian dago as the jealous lover, and a handsome young Englishman as the victim of that jealousy. The police, holding on to this clue, turned their attention to the investigation of Mr. Gerald Moville’s movements on the morning of that eventful Wednesday: they had to go very tactfully to work so as not to cause alarm to Sir Timothy and Lady Moville.
“It seems that Mr. Gerald had, on the Monday previously, announced his sudden intention to return immediately to Argentina. According to statements made by one or two of the servants, he did this at breakfast one morning after he had received a couple of official-looking letters that bore the Buenos Aires postmark. Lady Moville had been very distressed at this, and she and Sir Timothy tried to dissuade Mr. Gerald from going quite so soon; but he was quite determined to go, saying that there was some trouble at the farm which he must see to at once or it would mean a severe loss, not only to himself but to his partner. He finally announced that he would have to go up to London on the Wednesday at latest to see about getting a berth, if possible, in a boat that left Southampton for Buenos Aires the following Saturday. Preparations for his departure were made accordingly.
“On the Tuesday the chauffeur took his luggage to Richmond and saw to its being sent off to London in advance. It was addressed to the Carlton Hotel. On the Wednesday Mr. Gerald had breakfast at half-past six as he wished to make an early start; he was going to drive the little two-seater back to the place in Richmond whence he had hired it, and then take the train that would take him to Dalton in time to catch the express up to London. He had said goodbye to his parents the evening before, and, having tipped all the servants lavishly, he made a start soon after seven.
“Two labourers going to their work saw the little car speeding along the road that intersects the moor; according to their statement there were two people in the car, a man and a woman. They thought that the man who was driving might have been Mr. Moville, but the woman had on a thick veil and they had not particularly noticed who she was. On other hand one witness had seen the car standing unattended on the roadside within a hundred yards of a group of cottages one of which was occupied by Gooden. Whereupon Winnie was taken to
task by the police. Amidst a flood of tears she finally confessed that she had seen Mr. Moville on the Wednesday morning. He had called for her in his car very early; her father had only just gone to work, so it could not have been much later than seven o’clock; he told her that he had some business to attend to in Richmond, would she like to come for a run and have lunch there with him. To this she willingly assented. On the way Mr. Moville told her that as a matter of fact he was going away for good, and that he could not possibly live without her. He begged her to come away with him; he would take her to London first and buy everything she wanted in the way of clothes, and then they would go on to Paris and travel all over the world and be the happiest couple on this earth.
“It seems that the girl at first was carried away by his eloquence; she was immensely flattered and thrilled by this romantic adventure, until something he said, or didn’t say, some expression or some gesture—Winnie couldn’t say what it was—but something seemed to drag her back. Probably it was just sound Yorkshire common sense. Anyway she took fright, turned a deaf ear to Gerald Moville’s blandishments, and insisted on being taken back to her father’s cottage at once.
“Still to the accompaniment of a flood of tears Winnie went on to say that Mr. Gerald ‘carried on terribly’ when she finally refused to go away with him and he reproached her bitterly for having played with him, all the while that she was in love with that ‘dirty dago.’ But Winnie was firm and in the end the disappointed lover had to turn the car back and take the girl home again. It was then close upon nine o’clock. Mr. Gerald drove her to within half a mile of her father’s cottage; here she got out and walked the rest of the way home. She had not seen Mr. Moville since. On the other hand one of the neighbours told her that soon after she went off in the car that morning, Antonio Vissio had called at the cottage, and seemed in a terrible way when he was told that she had gone out with Mr. Moville.
“As you see the mystery was deepening. Instead of the one missing man, there were now two who had disappeared, and the question was what had become of Mr. Gerald Moville and his car. Enquiries at the garage where it belonged brought no light upon the subject. The car had not been returned, and nothing had been seen in Richmond of Mr. Moville or the car. Enquiries were then telegraphed all over the place and twenty-four hours later the car was traced to a small place called Falconblane, which is about twelve miles from Paisley, where it was left at a garage late on the Wednesday night by a man who had never since been to claim it.
“The people at the garage could only give a vague description of this man. It was about eleven o’clock, a very dark night and just upon closing time. The man wore a big motor-coat and a cap with flaps over the ears; he had on a pair of goggles, and the lower part of his face looked coated with grime. It would be next to impossible to swear to his identity, but the assistant who took charge of the car said that the man spoke broken English. The police searched the car and found a handbag containing a number of effects such as a man would take with him if he was going on a long train journey: brush and comb, a novel, a couple of handkerchiefs and so on. Some of these effects bore the initials G. M.
“Pursuing their investigations further the police discovered that a man wearing a big motor-coat, goggles and a cap with flap-ears had taken a first-class ticket for Glasgow at Beith, which is a small place on a local branch line, in the early morning of Thursday, and had travelled to Glasgow by the 7.15 am train. Glasgow being a very busy terminus no one appears to have noticed him there, but one of the porters found a motor-coat, a cap and a pair of goggles in one of the first-class carriages on the local from Beith, and a certain Mr. Etty, who was a gentleman’s outfitter in the Station Road, stated that he had a customer in his shop early on Thursday morning who purchased a tweed cap and an overcoat off the peg. He had come in without either hat or coat, his face and hands were black with grime, and his hair looked covered with coal dust.
“He explained that he was an engineer who had been engaged all night on some salvage work down the line, where there had been a breakdown, and that he had somehow lost his coat and his cap. He paid for the goods with a £5 note which he took from a case out of his pocket, and the case appeared to be bulging over with notes. Mr. Etty thought that he might possibly be able to identify the man if he saw him again; one thing he did note about him, and that was that he spoke broken English.
“But from that moment, in spite of strenuous efforts on the part of the police, all traces of the man with the dirty face who spoke broken English vanished completely. And what’s more all trace of Mr. Gerald Moville had also vanished. He did not go up to London, and all this while his luggage was at the Carlton Hotel waiting to be claimed. Nor was it ever claimed by him, because about a month after that tragic Wednesday in September the body of Mr. Gerald Moville was found in a ‘gruff’ or gully about three quarters of a mile from the Poacher’s Leap. When I say that the body was found, I am wrong, for it was only a part of the body and that, of course, was completely decomposed. The head was missing and it was never found, in spite of the most strenuous efforts on the part of professional and amateur detectives, and lavish expenditure of money, thought and trouble on the part of Sir Timothy Moville. It lies buried, I imagine, somewhere on the moor. The clothes, though sodden, were, however, still recognisable, also the unfortunate man’s wristwatch, which had stopped at five minutes past eleven, his cuff-links, and his signet ring which had fallen from his fleshless finger and lay beside it in the ‘gruff.’
“And about seventy yards higher up the gully a search-party found a knife of obviously foreign make, which still bore certain stains, which scientific analysis proved to be human blood. That knife was identified by Topcoat as the property of Vissio.”
IV
The Man in the Corner had been silent for a little while, as was his habit when he reached a certain stage of his narrative. At such moments it always seemed as if nothing in the world interested him, except the fashioning of innumerable and complicated knots in a bit of string. It was my business to set him talking again.
“Of course there was an inquest after that,” I said casually.
“Yes, there was,” he replied drily, “but it revealed nothing that the public did not already know. A few minor details—that was all. For instance, it came to light that when Mr. Moville left home on that fateful morning he was wearing the coat, cap and goggles which were subsequently found in the train at Glasgow station. It was easy to suppose that the murderer had stolen these from his victim, the cap and goggles being especially useful for purposes of disguise. The same supposition applies to money. Vissio, it was argued, had probably only a few shillings in his pocket when in a moment of mad jealousy he killed Gerald Moville.
“That, of course, was the universally accepted theory, it was only desperate necessity that pushed him on to robbing the dead. Topcoat and others who knew Antonio well, declared that he was quite harmless except where Winnie Gooden was concerned, but it was more than likely that that morning he was tortured by one of his jealous fits. He had hated Gerald Moville from the first, and, according to the girl’s own admissions, she must have given him definite cause for jealousy. That very morning he had called at her cottage and found that she had gone out with his rival. Perhaps he knew that Moville was going away for good. Perhaps he guessed that he would try and induce Winnie to go with him. With such torturing fears in his heart, what wonder that when he met his rival on the lonely moor he ‘saw red,’ and used his knife as Southerners, unfortunately, are only too apt to do?
“The coroner’s jury returned a verdict of wilful murder against Antonio Vissio, and the police hold a warrant for his arrest. But more than two years have gone by since then, and Vissio has succeeded in eluding the police. For many weeks the public were deeply interested in the mystery. The evening papers used to come out with the headlines: ‘Where is Antonio Vissio?’ and one great daily offered a reward of £500 for information that would lead to his apprehension. But, as you know, it has
all been in vain. The public want to know how a man of unusual personality and speaking broken English could possibly lie perdu so long in this tight little island.
“And if he did leave the country, then how did he do it? He hadn’t his passport with him, as that remained with his effects at Topcoat’s cottage. How then did he evade the passport officials at Glasgow or any other port of embarkation? It is done sometimes, we all know that, and in this case Vissio had four days’ start before Topcoat gave information to police, but somehow the newspaper-reading public felt that if Vissio got out of the country, something would have betrayed him, someone would have seen him and furnished the first clue that would lead to discovery.
“And so the disappearance of the Italian has been classed as one of the unsolved mysteries in the annals of crime. But to me the only point on which I am not absolutely clear (although even there I hold a theory), is why Gerald Moville should have gone wandering about the moor, after he had parted from Winnie Gooden, and when he hadn’t very much time left to catch his train, if he didn’t want to miss his connection at Dalton. That point did strike Inspector Dodsworth of the C.I.D. who had been sent down from London to assist the local police in the investigation of the crime. I know Dodsworth very well, and he and I discussed that point once or twice. Of course I was not going to give him the key to the whole mystery—a key, mind you, which I had discovered for myself—but I didn’t object to talking over one or two of the minor details with the man, and I told him that in my opinion Moville undoubtedly went out on the moor in order to meet Vissio and have it out with him on the subject of Winnie.
Unravelled Knots Page 30
