Wirgman's Theory
Page 2
Miss Drummond―by virtue of what had passed, and knowing the spirit in which Pegram had set out―would be the first to believe in his guilt. So that even were he to escape hanging―which Wirgman doubted in view of the singularly heavy combination of circumstantial evidence―his life must become that of an outcast and a pariah, and Miss Drummond he could never marry.
In all this there was a certain sweet satisfaction. Yet Wirgman reflected with still greater satisfaction upon the fact that he had proven that pet theory of his to be correct. Under very exceptional circumstances, and finding himself heavily handicapped, he had accomplished the destruction of a fellow-creature in a manner that could not possibly implicate him.
In the morning and noon editions Of the papers there was no report whatever of any tragedy at Wimbush. As he was going on board at four o'clock that afternoon, he bought a late edition of an evening paper, and with this he stepped briskly toward the gangway. Already he had one foot upon it when suddenly a cheery voice somewhere behind him hailed him with:
"Hallo, Wirgman!"
Utterly taken off his guard, he looked round. Then, suddenly recollecting himself and his changed identity, he sought to assume an air of naturalness, as though his turning as the name was called had been no more than a coincidence. But a burly individual in a serge suit confronted him, and laid a singularly significant and possessive hand upon his shoulder, murmuring into his ear:
"Roger Wirgman, I arrest you!"
He started back, and his thoughts worked with the rapidity of lightning. Had Pegram by any chance suspected his conspiracy, and forestalled the discovery of his disappearance?
"In God's name, on what charge?" he blurted out.
"On the charge of murdering Henry Stanhope Pegram last night on Wimbush Head."
A ghastly pallor spread upon his lean face.
"Are you mad?" he choked.
"You had best not make a scene," murmured the detective, adding the formal reminder that anything he said would be taken as evidence against him.
Like a man in a dream, Wirgman allowed the detective and his companion to lead him away from the gathering crowd, and take him to the waiting-room, where they locked themselves up with him.
"Our train is due out in a quarter of an hour," he heard one say to the other.
Then he remembered the paper in his grasp, and, thinking that there he might find the solution of this marvel, be opened it with trembling hands, and was confronted by the headlines:
SHOCKING MURDER AT WIMBUSH. Flight of the Murder.
Swiftly his eyes devoured the bald, newspaper narrative that told how Harry Pegram's body had been discovered the night before on Wimbush Head, death being due to fracture of the skull. The dead man had been rifled of all money and valuables, and theft had at first been thought the motive of the crime. But the lady to whom Mr. Pegram was engaged had told the police a story―since corroborated―which gave rise to the theory that the theft was a blind rather than a motive. It was known that a deadly enmity existed between the deceased and Mr. Roger Wirgman, of Copmore Gardens, W. This latter gentleman had come down from town that day; and it was known that he and Pegram had been together on Wimbush Head that evening. A hat containing the initials "R. W.," and which was identified as belonging to Wirgman, was discovered a few hundred yards from the spot where the body, had been found, and, on the beach below, Pegram's stick, smeared with blood which the murderer had no doubt wrenched from his hand and used against him. He read how the police―by means beyond his understanding―had succeeded in tracking him to the left-luggage office at Alwyn Bay, and how they were on the spoor at the time of going to press. That powerful imagination which he had taken such pride in showed him now, as in a flash, how each item of evidence he had manufactured so sedulously to serve against Pegram would weigh a hundredfold more heavily against himself under the existing circumstances. In addition, there was his flight―that most damning incrimination―under an assumed name and in altered personality, to say nothing of the threats he had uttered against Pegram, and the purpose which he had announced was taking him to Port Wimbush.
He realised that he was indeed hoist with his own petard, doomed irrevocably, and for a crime that was none of his committing.
But even in that hour of supreme defeat and bitter agony he contended that his theory was still right. Here was a fortuitous circumstance which he could not have foreseen. The whole of his elaborate scheme had crumbled and collapsed because it had occurred to some vulgar thief to hit Harry Pegram over the head that he might rob him.
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