The Case of Miss Elliott

by Baroness Orczy

  3

  “As for the next day,” continued the man in the corner after a slight pause, “I can assure you that there was not a square foot of standing room in the coroner’s court for the adjourned inquest. It was timed for eleven a.m., and at six o’clock on that cold winter’s morning the pavement outside the court was already crowded. As for me, I always manage to get a front seat, and I did on that occasion, too. I fancy that I was the first among the general public to note Dr Stapylton as he entered the room accompanied by his solicitor, and by Dr Kinnaird, with whom he was chatting very cheerfully and pleasantly.

  “Mind you, I am a great admirer of the medical profession, and I think a clever and successful doctor usually has a most delightful air about him – the consciousness of great and good work done with profit to himself – which is quite unique and quite admirable.

  “Dr Stapylton had that air even to a greater extent than his colleague, and from the affectionate way in which Dr Kinnaird finally shook him by the hand, it was quite clear that the respected chief of the Convalescent Home, at any rate, refused to harbour any suspicion of the integrity of its Treasurer.

  “Well, I must not weary you by dwelling on the unimportant details of this momentous inquest. Constable Fiske, who was asked to identify the gentleman in evening dress whom he had seen with the deceased at a few minutes before twelve, failed to recognize Dr Stapylton very positively: pressed very closely, he finally refused to swear either way. Against that, Dr Earnshaw repeated, clearly and categorically, looking his colleague straight in the face the while, the damnatory evidence he had given the day before.

  “‘I saw Dr Stapylton, I spoke to him, and he spoke to me,’ he repeated most emphatically.

  “Everyone in that court was watching Dr Stapylton’s face, which wore an air of supreme nonchalance, even of contempt, but certainly neither of guilt nor of fear.

  “Of course, by that time I had fully made up my mind as to where the hitch lay in this extraordinary mystery; but no one else had, and everyone held their breath as Dr Stapylton quietly stepped into the box, and after a few preliminary questions the coroner asked him very abruptly:

  “‘You were in the company of the deceased a few minutes before she died, Dr Stapylton?’

  “‘Pardon me,’ replied the latter quietly, ‘I last saw Miss Elliott alive on Saturday afternoon, just before I went home from my work.’

  “This calm reply, delivered without a tremor, positively made everyone gasp. For the moment coroner and jury were alike staggered.

  “‘But we have two witnesses here who saw you in the company of the deceased within a few minutes of twelve o’clock on the Sunday night!’ the coroner managed to gasp out at last.

  “‘Pardon me,’ again interposed the doctor, ‘these witnesses were mistaken.’

  “‘Mistaken!’

  “I think everyone would have shouted out the word in boundless astonishment had they dared to do so.

  “‘Dr Earnshaw was mistaken,’ reiterated Dr Stapylton quietly. ‘He neither saw me nor did he speak to me.’

  “‘You can substantiate that, of course?’ queried the coroner.

  “‘Pardon me,’ once more said the doctor, with utmost calm, ‘it is surely Dr Earnshaw who should substantiate his statement.’

  “‘There is Constable Fiske’s corroborative evidence for that,’ retorted the coroner, somewhat nettled.

  “‘Hardly, I think. You see, the constable states that he saw a gentleman in evening dress, etc., talking to the deceased at a minute or two before twelve o’clock, and that when he heard the clock of St Mary Magdalen chime the hour of midnight he was just walking away from the footbridge. Now, just as that very church clock was chiming that hour, I was stepping into a cab at the corner of Harrow Road, not a hundred yards in front of Constable Fiske.’

  “‘You swear to that?’ queried the coroner in amazement.

  “‘I can easily prove it,’ said Dr Stapylton. ‘The cabman who drove me from there to my club is here and can corroborate my statement.’

  “And amidst boundless excitement, John Smith, a hansom-cab driver, stated that he was hailed in the Harrow Road by the last witness, who told him to drive to the Royal Clinical Club, in Mardon Street. Just as he started off, St Mary Magdalen’s Church, close by, struck the hour of midnight.

  “At that very moment, if you remember, Constable Fiske had just crossed the footbridge, and was walking towards the Harrow Road, and he was quite sure (for he was closely questioned afterwards) that no one overtook him from behind. Now there would be no way of getting from one side of the canal to the other at this point except over that footbridge; the nearest bridge is fully two hundred yards further down the Blomfield Road. The girl was alive a minute before the constable crossed the footbridge, and it would have been absolutely impossible for anyone to have murdered a girl, placed the knife in her hand, run a couple of hundred yards to the next bridge and another three hundred to the corner of Harrow Road, all in the space of three minutes.

  “This alibi, therefore, absolutely cleared Dr Stapylton from any suspicion of having murdered Miss Elliott. And yet, looking on that man as he sat there, calm, cool and contemptuous, no one could have had the slightest doubt but that he was lying – lying when he said he had not seen Miss Elliott that evening; lying when he denied Dr Earnshaw’s statement; lying when he professed himself ignorant of the poor girl’s fate.

  “Dr Earnshaw repeated his statement with the same emphasis, but it was one man’s word against another’s, and as Dr Stapylton was so glaringly innocent of the actual murder, there seemed no valid reason at all why he should have denied having seen her that night, and the point was allowed to drop. As for Nurse Dawson’s story of his alleged quarrel with Miss Elliott on the Saturday night, Dr Stapylton again had a simple and logical explanation.

  “‘People who listen at keyholes,’ he said quietly, ‘are apt to hear only fragments of conversation, and often mistake ordinary loud voices for quarrels. As a matter of fact, Miss Elliott and I were discussing the dismissal of certain nurses from the Home, whom she deemed incompetent. Nurse Dawson was among that number. She desired their immediate dismissal, and I tried to pacify her. That was the subject of my conversation with the deceased lady. I can swear to every word of it.’”

  4

  The man in the corner had long ceased speaking and was placing quietly before me a number of photographs. One by one I saw the series of faces which had been watched so eagerly in the coroner’s court that memorable afternoon by an excited crowd.

  “So the fate of poor Miss Elliott has remained wrapt in mystery?” I said thoughtfully at last.

  “To everyone,” rejoined the funny creature, “except to me.”

  “Ah! What is your theory, then?”

  “A simple one, dear lady; so simple that it really amazes me that no one, not even you, my faithful pupil, ever thought of it.”

  “It may be so simple that it becomes idiotic,” I retorted with lofty disdain.

  “Well, that may be. Shall I at any rate try to make it clear?”

  “If you like.”

  “For this I think the best way would be, if you were to follow me through what transpired before the inquest. But first tell me, what do you think of Dr Earnshaw’s statement?”

  “Well,” I replied, “a good many people thought that it was he who murdered Miss Elliott, and that his story of meeting Dr Stapylton with her was a lie from beginning to end.”

  “Impossible!” he retorted, making an elaborate knot in his bit of string. “Dr Earnshaw’s friends, with whom he had been dining that night, swore that he was not in evening dress, nor wore a high hat. And on that point – the evening dress, and the hat – Constable Fiske was most positive.”

  “Then Dr Earnshaw was mistaken, and it was not Dr Stapylton he met.”

  “Impossible!” he shrieked, whilst another knot went to join its fellows. “He spoke to Dr Stapylton, and Dr Stapylton spoke to him.”

 
; “Very well, then,” I argued; “why should Dr Stapylton tell a lie about it? He had such a conclusive alibi that there could be no object in his making a false statement about that.”

  “No object!” shrieked the excited creature. “Why, don’t you see that he had to tell the lie in order to set police, coroner, and jury by the ears, because he did not wish it to be even remotely hinted at, that the man whom Dr Earnshaw saw with Miss Elliott, and the man whom Constable Fiske saw with her ten minutes later, were two different persons?”

  “Two different persons!” I ejaculated.

  “Ay! two confederates in this villainy. No one has ever attempted to deny the truth of the shaky finances of the Home; no one has really denied that Miss Elliott suspected certain defalcations and was trying to force the hands of the Honorary Treasurer towards a full enquiry. That the Honorary Treasurer knew where all the money went to was pretty clear all along – his magnificent house in Hamilton Terrace fully testifies to that. That the President of the institution was a party to these defalcations and largely profited by them I for one am equally convinced.”

  “Dr Kinnaird?” I ejaculated in amazement.

  “Ay, Dr Kinnaird. Do you mean to tell me that he alone among the entire staff of that Home was ignorant of those defalcations? Impossible! And if he knew of them, and did neither enquire into them nor attempt to stop them, then he must have been a party to them. Do you admit that?”

  “Yes, I admit that,” I replied.

  “Very well, then. The rest is quite simple; those two men, unworthy to bear the noble appellation of doctor, must for years have quietly stolen the money subscribed by the benevolent for the Home, and converted it to their own use: then, they suddenly find themselves face to face with immediate discovery in the shape of a young girl determined to unmask the systematic frauds of the past few years. That meant exposure, disgrace, ruin for them both, and they determine to be rid of her.

  “Under the pretence of an evening walk, her so-called lover entices her to a lonely and suitable spot; his confederate is close by, hidden in the shadows, ready to give his assistance if the girl struggles and screams. But suddenly Dr Earnshaw appears. He recognizes Stapylton and challenges him. For a moment the villains are nonplussed, then Kinnaird – the cleverer of the two – steps forward, greets the two lovers unconcernedly, and after two minutes’ conversation casually reminds Stapylton of an appointment the latter is presumed to have at a club in St James’s Street.

  “The latter understands and takes the hint, takes a quick farewell of the girl, leaving her in his friend’s charge, then, as fast as he can, goes off, presently takes a cab, leaving his friend to do the deed, whilst the alibi he can prove, coupled with Dr Earnshaw’s statement, was sure to bewilder and mislead the police and the public.

  “Thus it was that though Dr Earnshaw saw and recognized Dr Stapylton, Constable Fiske saw Dr Kinnaird, whom he did not recognize, on whom no suspicion had fallen, and whose name had never been coupled with that of Miss Elliott. When Constable Fiske had turned his back, Kinnaird murdered the girl and went off quietly, whilst Dr Stapylton, on whom all suspicions were bound to fasten sooner or later, was able to prove the most perfect alibi ever concocted.

  “One day I feel certain that the frauds at the Home will be discovered, and then who knows what else may see the light?

  “Think of it all quietly when I am gone, and tomorrow when we meet tell me whether if I am wrong what is your explanation of this extraordinary mystery.”

  Before I could reply he had gone, and I was left wondering, gazing at the photographs of two good-looking, highly respectable and respected men, whom an animated scarecrow had just boldly accused of committing one of the most dastardly crimes ever recorded in our annals.

  II

  The Hocussing of Cigarette

  1

  Quite by chance I found myself one morning sitting before a marble-topped table in the ABC shop. I really wondered for the moment what had brought me there, and felt cross with myself for being there at all. Having sampled my tea and roll, I soon buried myself in the capacious folds of my Daily Telegraph.

  “A glass of milk and a cheesecake, please,” said a well-known voice.

  The next moment I was staring into the corner, straight at a pair of mild, watery blue eyes, hidden behind great bone-rimmed spectacles, and at ten long bony fingers, round which a piece of string was provokingly intertwined.

  There he was as usual, wearing – for it was chilly – a huge tweed ulster, of a pattern too lofty to be described. Smiling, bland, apologetic, and fidgety, he sat before me as the living embodiment of the reason why I had come to the ABC shop that morning.

  “How do you do?” I said, with as much dignity as I could command.

  “I see that you are interested in Cigarette,” he remarked, pointing to a special column in The Daily Telegraph.

  “She is quite herself again,” I said.

  “Yes, but you don’t know who tried to poison her and succeeded in making her very ill. You don’t know whether the man Palk had anything to do with it, whether he was bribed, or whether it was Mrs Keeson or the groom Cockram who told a lie, or why –?”

  “No,” I admitted reluctantly; “I don’t know any of these things.”

  He was fidgeting nervously in the corner, wriggling about like an animated scarecrow. Then suddenly a bland smile illuminated his entire face. His long bony fingers had caught the end of the bit of string, and there he was at it again, just as I had seen him a year ago, worrying and fidgeting, making knot upon knot, and untying them again, whilst his blue eyes peered at me over the top of his gigantic spectacles.

  “I would like to know what your theory is about the whole thing,” I was compelled to say at last; for the case had interested me deeply, and, after all, I had come to the ABC shop for the sole purpose of discussing the adventures of Cigarette with him.

  “Oh, my theories are not worth considering,” he said meekly. “The police would not give me five shillings for any one of them. They always prefer a mystery to any logical conclusion, if it is arrived at by an outsider. But you may be more lucky. The owner of Cigarette did offer £100 reward for the elucidation of the mystery. The noble Earl must have backed Cigarette for all he was worth. Malicious tongues go even so far as to say that he is practically a ruined man now, and that the beautiful Lady Agnes is only too glad to find herself the wife of Harold Keeson, the son of the well-known trainer.

  “If you ever go to Newmarket,” continued the man in the corner after a slight pause, during which he had been absorbed in unravelling one of his most complicated knots, “anyone will point out the Keesons’ house to you. It is called Manor House, and stands in the midst of beautiful gardens. Mr Keeson himself is a man of about fifty, and, as a matter of fact, is of very good family, the Keesons having owned property in the Midlands for the past eight hundred years. Of this fact he is, it appears, extremely proud. His father, however, was a notorious spendthrift, who squandered his property, and died in the nick of time, leaving his son absolutely penniless and proud as Lucifer.

  “Fate, however, has been kind to George Keeson. His knowledge of horses and of all matters connected with the turf stood him in good stead: hard work and perseverance did the rest. Now, at fifty years of age, he is a very rich man, and practically at the head of a profession, which, if not exactly that of a gentleman, is, at any rate, highly remunerative.

  “He owns Manor House, and lived there with his young wife and his only son and heir, Harold.

  “It was Mr Keeson who had trained Cigarette for the Earl of Okehampton, and who, of course, had charge of her during her apprenticeship, before she was destined to win a fortune for her owner, her trainer, and those favoured few who had got wind of her capabilities. For Cigarette was to be kept a dark horse – not an easy matter in these days, when the neighbourhood of every racecourse abounds with rascals who eke out a precarious livelihood by various methods, more or less shady, of which the gleaning of early inf
ormation is perhaps the least disreputable.

  “Fortunately for Mr Keeson, however, he had in the groom, Cockram, a trusted and valued servant, who had been in his employ for over ten years. To say that Cockram took a special pride in Cigarette would be but to put it mildly. He positively loved the mare, and I don’t think that anyone ever doubted that his interest in her welfare was every bit as keen as that of the Earl of Okehampton or of Mr Keeson.

  “It was to Cockram, therefore, that Mr Kesson entrusted the care of Cigarette. She was lodged in the private stables adjoining the Manor House, and during the few days immediately preceding the Coronation Stakes the groom practically never left her side, either night or day. He slept in the loose box with her, and ate all his meals in her company; nor was anyone allowed to come within measurable distance of the living treasure, save Mr Keeson or the Earl of Okehampton himself.

  “And yet, in spite of all these precautions, in spite of every care that human ingenuity could devise, on the very morning of the race Cigarette was seized with every symptom of poisoning, and although, as you say, she is quite herself again now, she was far too ill to fulfil her engagement, and, if rumour speaks correctly, completed thereby the ruin of the Earl of Okehampton.”

  2

  The man in the corner looked at me through his bonerimmed spectacles, and his mild blue eyes gazed pleasantly into mine.

  “You may well imagine,” he continued, after a while, “what a thunderbolt such a catastrophe means to those whose hopes of a fortune rested upon the fitness of the bay mare. Mr Keeson lost his temper for an instant, they say – but for one instant only. When he was hastily summoned at six o’clock in the morning to Cigarette’s stables, and saw her lying on the straw, rigid and with glassy eyes, he raised his heavy riding-whip over the head of Cockram. Some assert that he actually struck him, and that the groom was too wretched and too dazed to resent either words or blows. After a good deal of hesitation he reluctantly admitted that for the first time since Cigarette had been in his charge he had slept long and heavily.