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The Third R. Austin Freeman Megapack

Page 163

by R. Austin Freeman


  “Well,” Miller rejoined, “the decision doesn’t rest with me. I must see what the Commissioner has to say. I will give him the facts, and you can depend on me to tell him what you say and to put your case as strongly as I can. He is not out to make unnecessary trouble any more than I am. So we must leave it at that. I will let you know what he says. If he falls in with your view, he will probably want your assistance in fixing up the details of the examination and the inspection of the specimen. You may as well give me Bernstein’s address.”

  Thorndyke wrote the name and address down on one of his own cards and handed it to the Superintendent. And this brought the business to an end. The latter part of the conversation had been carried on in the stationary car, which had been drawn up in King’s Bench Walk opposite our chambers. We now shook hands with Miller and got out; and, as the car turned away towards Crown Office Row, we entered the wide doorway and ascended the stairs to our own domain.

  CHAPTER XXI

  Jervis Completes the Story

  The time has come for us to gather up the threads of this somewhat discursive history. They are but ends, and short ones at that; for, in effect, my tale is told. But even as the weaver’s work is judged by the quality of the selvedge, so the historian’s is apt to be judged by its freedom from loose ends and uncompleted episodes.

  But since the mere bald narration of the few outstanding incidents would be but a dull affair, I shall venture (on the principle that the greater includes the less) to present an account of them all under cover of that which most definitely marked the completion of our labours; the establishment of the young Earl and his Countess in firm possession of the ancestral domain. For, however thrilling may have been the alarums and excursions that befell by the way, they were but by-products and side issues of the Winsborough Peerage Case. With the settlement of that case we could fairly say that our work was done; and, if disposed to tags or aphorisms, could take our choice between Nunc dimittis and Finis coronat opus.

  It was a brilliant morning in that most joyous season of the year when late spring is merging into early summer; and the place was the spot upon the earth’s surface where that season develops its most perfect loveliness—the south-east corner of Kent; or, to be more precise, the great lawn at the rear of the unpretentious mansion “known as and being” Winsborough Castle. Thither Thorndyke and my wife and I, together with Brodribb (who came also in his official capacity) had been invited to the house-warming on the return of the young Earl and Countess from their prolonged honeymoon. But we had not come as mere visitors, or even friends. The warm-hearted Jenifer had formally adopted us as members of the family, and as no one could ask for more delightful relatives, we had accepted the position gratefully.

  As we strolled together across the sun-lit lawn, I glanced from time to time at the young couple with that sober pleasure which a middle-aged man feels in contemplating the too-rare spectacle of a pair of entirely satisfactory human beings. They were both far beyond the average in good looks; of splendid physique, gay and sprightly in temperament and gifted with the faultless manners that spring from natural kindliness and generosity coupled with quick intelligence. Looking at them, one could not but reflect pensively on the might-have-been; and think what a pleasant place the world would be if it could be peopled with their like.

  “I wonder,” said Jenny, “what has become of Pap and Uncle John.” (“Uncle John” was Thorndyke)

  “I don’t,” said Giles, “because I know, I saw them sneaking off together towards the churchyard. My impression is that they are trying to make a complete and exhaustive collection of ancestral Pippets.”

  Jenny laughed delightedly. “Inquisitive old things!” she exclaimed. “But I don’t see why they need fuss themselves. There are no particular points about the ancestral Pippets. They never did anything worth speaking of excepting that they sold good beer—and, incidentally, they produced me.”

  “Not incidentally,” Giles objected. “It was their crowning achievement. And I don’t know what more you would have. I call it a deuced good effort.”

  The girl glanced at me with sparkling eyes. “Conceited young feller, isn’t he, Uncle Kit? He will persist in thinking that his goose is a swan.”

  “He knows that she is,” retorted Giles. “But, I say, Jenny. You’ll have to keep an eye on Dad. What do you think he has done?”

  She looked at him in mock alarm. “Break it gently,” she pleaded.

  “To my certain knowledge,” said Giles, “he has taken over the lease of the Earl of Beaconsfield and he is having the sign changed back to The Castle Arms. What do you make of that?”

  “My prophetic soul!” she exclaimed. “I see it all. He’s going to have ‘by C. Pippet’ written underneath the sign. If we don’t mind our eyes, we shall have him behind the bar before we can say ‘knife.’ ‘What’s bred in the bone,’ you know.”

  Giles laughed in his delightful school-boy fashion.

  “My word, yes!” he agreed. “We shall have to take a strong hand. We are not going to spend our lives under the Upas shadow of the Fox & Grapes. But I must hook off. Mr. Brodribb has got the bailiff chappie here—Mr. Solly—and they are going to rub my nose on all the things that they say a land-owner ought to understand. Brodribb insists that there is no eye like the master’s eye, and I expect he is right, though I fancy I know an eye that is better still; to wit, the eye that adorns the countenance of the master’s Pa-in-law. What are you going to do?”

  “I,” replied Jenny, “am going to extract a statement from Uncle Kit on the subject of the various happenings since we had Mr. Brodribb’s summary. I want to know how it all ended.”

  “Good!” said Giles; “and when you have wormed all the facts out of him, you can pass them on to me. Now I’m off.”

  With a flourish of his hat and a mock-ceremonial bow, he turned and strode away across the turf towards the old brick porch, the very type and embodiment of healthy, virile youth. Jenny followed him with her eyes until he disappeared into the porch; then she opened her cross-examination.

  “Now, Uncle K., you’ve got to tell me all you know about everything.”

  “Yes,” I agreed, “that seems to offer some scope for conversation. Would you like to begin anywhere in particular?”

  “I want, first of all, to know just exactly what has happened to poor Mr. Gimbler.”

  “Poor Mr. Gimbler!” I exclaimed. “You needn’t waste your sympathy on a rascal like that.”

  “I know,” said she. “Of course he is a rascal. But he did manage things so bee-yutifully.”

  Her tone jarred upon me slightly, and I think she must have observed something in my expression, for she continued:

  “You think I am taking a purely selfish view of the case, and I must admit that, as events have turned out, I am the greatest gainer by what Giles calls ‘Mr. Gimbler’s gimblings.’ But I assure you, Uncle Kit, that Mr. Gimbler did the very best for us all. Pap loves him. He says he is going to give him a pension when he comes out of chokee—if that is where he is, I suppose it is.”

  “Yes,” I replied. “Chokee is his present address,”

  “I was afraid it was,” said she. “The benefactor of humanity is languishing in a dungeon, and you don’t care a hoot. You seem even to feel a callous satisfaction in his misfortunes. But see here, now, Uncle K., I want you to understand the benefits that he has showered on us. And, first of all, you’ve got to understand my father’s position. You have got to realize that he never wanted the earldom at all. Pap is a thorough-bred American. He had no use for titles of nobility; and he was very clear that he didn’t want to stand in the way of anyone else who had.

  “But Auntie Arminella and I didn’t take that view at all. We were as keen as mustard on an English title and a beautiful English estate, and Auntie started to stir my father up. He didn’t take much stirring up. As soon as he realized that I wanted ‘this toy,’ as he called it, and had ascertained, as he thought, that the title and estates were ly
ing derelict and unclaimed, he decided to go for them all out. And when Pap makes a decision, he usually gets a move on, right away.

  “Now, the first shock that he got was when he discovered that there was another claimant. Then he met Giles and his mother, and he fell in love with them both at first sight, as Auntie and I did. He didn’t know how poor Giles was—he was actually working in a stockbroker’s office, if you will believe me—but he realized that the decision of the court meant a lot more to Giles than it did to him, and he would have liked to back out of the claim.”

  “Why didn’t he?” I asked.

  “He couldn’t. When once the claim had been raised, it had got to be settled. Giles didn’t want the earldom as a gift, and Mr. Brodribb wouldn’t have let the case drop, with the chance of its being re-opened in the future. So it had to go on. And now see what Mr. Gimbler did for us. Supposing he hadn’t changed the coffins; and supposing the real one had been found to be stuffed with lead. It might have been. That would have gone a long way towards establishing my father’s claim. Supposing the decision had gone in his favour. Then he would have been the Earl of Winsborough. And he would have hated it. Supposing I had married Giles—and I guess I should have had to ask him, myself, as he was a poor man and as proud as Lucifer—what would Pap’s position have been? He would have defeated his own plans. He would have got the title for himself, and he would have kept his daughter and her husband out of it during his lifetime. But now, thanks to Mr. Gimbler, we have all got what we wanted. Pap has escaped the title, and he has the satisfaction of seeing his girl Countess of Winsborough.”

  I smiled at her quaint and somewhat wrong-headed Way of looking at the case. But I refrained from pointing out that “Mr. Gimbler’s gimblings” might easily have produced the undesired results but for Thorndyke’s intervention. It was a dangerous topic, with my secret knowledge of what was in the real coffin, So I held my peace; or rather, led the conversation away from possible shoals and quicksands.

  “By the way,” I said, “if Giles had no money, who was going to pay his costs if he had lost the case?”

  “I don’t know,” she replied. “We suspect dear old Brodribb. He told Giles and his mother that ‘there were funds available,’ but he wouldn’t say what they were. Of course, it is all right now. But you haven’t told me what happened to Mr. Gimbler.”

  “You will be relieved to hear that he was let off quite lightly. Three years. It might easily have been seven, or even fourteen. Probably it would have been if we had included the forgery in the charges against him.”

  “I suppose it really was a forgery?”

  “Yes, it was undoubtedly. For your father’s satisfaction, we tested it chemically—but not until after the conviction. The ink was a modern synthetic drawing-ink. But it was a wonderfully skilful forgery.”

  “Pity,” Jenny commented. “He is a really clever and ingenious man. Why couldn’t he have run straight? But now tell me about the other people. There was an undertaker man, who made the coffin. What happened to him?”

  “Joseph Wallis was his name. He also had better luck than he deserved, for he got only three months. It was originally proposed to charge him and Gimbler together with conspiracy. But there is this awkward peculiarity about an indictment for conspiracy in which only two persons are involved; if one of them is acquitted, the other is acquitted automatically. For a conspiracy is like a quarrel; it can’t be a single-handed job. A man can’t conspire with himself. So if, of two alleged conspirators, one is found innocent, it follows that there was no conspiracy, and the other man must be innocent, too.

  “Now, Joseph pleaded that he had no knowledge of the purpose for which the coffin was required; thought it was a practical joke or a wager. And this plea was supported by Gimbler, who, in a statement to the police, declared that he never told Joseph what the coffin was really wanted for. Which seems likely enough. So the conspiracy charge against Joseph was dropped; and, of course, it had also to be dropped in respect to Gimbler.”

  “I am glad,” said Jenny, “that The Slithy Tove, as Giles calls him, was man enough to clear his confederate.”

  “Yes, it is something in his favour; though we must bear in mind that the Tove was a criminal lawyer—in more senses than one—and knew all about the law of conspiracy. Is there anything else that you want to know?”

  “There was a man named Bunter; but I don’t think he was much concern of ours, was he?”

  “He was an invaluable link in the chain of evidence,” I replied, “though he seems rather outside the picture. However, I can report favourably on his case, for he got off altogether. Nobody wanted his blood. The police accepted his explanation of his attempt to break into the yacht, Cormorant, for, though it was probably untrue, it was quite plausible. There remained only his complicity in the platinum robbery. But that had been committed outside British jurisdiction; and, as the platinum had been recovered and restored to its lawful owners, and as the principal robbers were dead, no one was inclined to move in the matter. Accordingly, Mr. Frederick Bunter was released and went on his way rejoicing, with only one or two slight stains on his otherwise spotless character. And I think that completes the list, unless you can think of anything more.”

  “No,” she answered, “I think that finishes up the history of the Winsborough Peerage Case. A queer story it is, looking back on it, with its ups and downs, its hopes and anxieties, to say nothing of one or two ugly passages.”

  “Yes,” I agreed, “there have been some anxious moments. But all’s well that ends well.”

  “Very true,” said she. “And it has ended very well indeed; for me and for Giles, for our parents and for Arminella. We have all got what we wanted most, we are all happy and contented, and we are all tremendously pleased with one another. It couldn’t have ended better. And to think that we owe it all to poor Mr. Gimbler!”

  I smiled, but I didn’t contradict her. It was a harmless delusion. Perhaps it was not a delusion at all. At any rate, one might fairly say of Mr. Horatio Gimbler that he builded better than he knew.

  FOR THE DEFENCE, DR. THORNDYKE (1934) [Part 1]

  CHAPTER I

  The Letter

  It was about four o’clock on a summer afternoon when Andrew Barton, pipe in mouth and garden shears in hand, suspended for a moment his operations on the privet hedge in his front garden to glance down the lane at the postman, who had just turned into it from the road at the end. It was a glance of no special interest. He was not expecting any communication. But as there was no other house in the lane—which presently petered out into a foot-path across fields—it was obvious that his own residence was the goal of the postman’s peregrinations.

  He observed the man’s approach intermittently, punctuating his observations with perfunctory snips at the hedge and speculating vaguely and incuriously on the source of the letter which the messenger was presumably coming to deliver. He was not particularly interested. Yet even a rural postman, though less portentous than the telegraph boy, embodies untold potentialities of good or evil, of joy or sorrow, of fortune or disaster. But Andrew was not particularly interested; and thus he watched, unmoved and unsuspecting, the approach of Fate’s special messenger, charged with a message the significance of which was only by degrees to be unfolded.

  The man strode up to the gate with a letter in his hand and ran his eye critically over the half-cropped hedge. “I see you are havin’ a bit of a tidy-up, sir,” he remarked as he handed the letter over the gate; “and none too soon. He was getting rare straggly. But Lord! How the stuff do grow this weather! ’Tis out of bounds almost afore you’ve done a-trimmin’ of it.”

  As Andrew showed no sign of rising to this conversational bait, beyond a vague assent, the postman wished him “good afternoon,” took another glance at the hedge and turned back down the lane, a little disconcerted by Mr. Barton’s unwonted taciturnity. “Didn’t seem to like the look of that letter,” he mused as he swung along in his heavy, nailed boots. “Someone dun
ning him for money, maybe.”

  It was a simple and reasonable explanation of the sudden change in Andrew’s expression as he read the address on the envelope and glanced at the postmark, and not so very wide of the truth. But “dunning” was not quite the right word, since that implies a demand for payment of a lawful debt. Of such demands Andrew Barton had no experience, being a scrupulously prompt paymaster. But a glance at the too-familiar handwriting prepared him for a demand of another kind, and the only question was, “How much does he want this time?” He tore the envelope open with angry impatience and read the answer to that question.

  “16, Barleymow Street, Crompton-on-Sea. 21st August, 1928.

  “My dear Old Chappie,

  “What a time it is since I had the felicity of looking at your blessed old mug! Years and years! I am just pining for the sight of you; and no doubt you are equally pining for the sight of me. I hope so. Because I am going to satisfy my yearning and I should like to satisfy yours at the same time. In short, I propose to pop over this day week and shed the light of my countenance on you and Molly. I shall turn up to lunch.

  “Your affectionate and devoted, though unfortunate cousin,

  “Ronald.

  “P.S. I have just got the offer of a top-hole job in the North. £300 a year and commission. But the fly in the ointment is that they want me to deposit £50, and I haven’t got it. I hope you will be able to help me to that extent, for it would be a thousand pities to miss a chance like this. Of course, I shall be able to let you have it back in a month or two, with five per cent interest if you like. Further particulars when we meet. By the way, if you should be writing to me, please address me as Mr. Walter Green. I am adopting that name temporarily, for business reasons. R.B.”

  Andrew read the letter through twice, returned it to its envelope and put it away in his pocket-book. Then he resumed his operations on the hedge, with increased energy but diminished attention, whereby its symmetry was somewhat impaired but the job was more speedily completed. When the last savage snip had done its work, he hastily raked the cuttings together, conveyed them to the destructor in the back garden and deposited the shears and the rake in the tool-shed. Then he sauntered down to the studio which he had built at the bottom of the garden and let himself in with his key. A half-finished picture stood on the water-colour easel, the palette, brushes and water-dipper reposed invitingly on the table alongside, and the Windsor chair seemed silently to offer its services. He sat down wearily. He even dipped a brush in the water. But it would not do. Painting is no occupation for a mentally preoccupied man. Finally he rose, and, leaving the studio, walked up to the house, where he scribbled a note to his wife and laid it on the hall table, (they kept no maid, and the daily “help” had gone after lunch,) put on his hat and went forth, turning to the right as he emerged from the gate and taking his way along the foot-path that led across the fields.

 

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