“He remained in England, but in that case, where is he? You would be the first to admit that, with the whole of our detective staff at his heels, it seems incredible that a man of the Count’s singular appearance could hide himself so completely as to baffle detection. Moreover, the question at once arises, that if he did not cross over to France or Belgium, what in the world did he do with the money? What was the use of disappearing and living the life of a hunted beast hiding for his life, with £80,000 worth of foreign money, which was practically useless to him?
“Now, I told you, from the first,” concluded the man in the corner, with a dry chuckle, “that this strange episode contained no sensational incident, nor dramatic inquest or criminal procedure. Merely the complete, total disappearance, one may almost call it extinction, of a striking-looking man, in the midst of our vaunted civilization, and in spite of the untiring energy and constant watch of a whole staff of able men.”
4
“Very well, then,” I retorted in triumph, “that proves that Hubert Turnour murdered Count Collini out of revenge, not for greed of money, and probably threw the body of his victim, together with the foreign banknotes, into the sea.”
“But where? When? How?” he asked, smiling good-humouredly at me over his great bone-rimmed spectacles.
“Ah! that I don’t know.”
“No, I thought not,” he rejoined placidly. “You had, I think, forgotten one incident, namely, that Hubert Turnour, accompanied by the Count, was in the former’s room at the Grand Hotel drinking whisky at half past ten o’clock. You must admit that, even though the hall of the hotel was very crowded later on, a man would nevertheless find it somewhat difficult to convey the body of his murdered enemy through a whole concourse of people.”
“He did not murder the Count in the hotel,” I argued. “The two men walked out again, when the hall was crowded, and they passed unnoticed. Hubert Turnour led the Count to a lonely part of the cliffs, then threw him into the sea.”
“The nearest point at which the cliffs might be called ‘lonely’ for purposes of a murder, is at least twenty minutes’ walk from the Grand Hotel,” he said, with a smile, “always supposing that the Count walked quickly and willingly to such a lonely spot at eleven o’clock at night, and with a man who had already, more than once, threatened his life. Mr Hubert Turnour, remember, was seen in the hall of the hotel at half past eleven, after which hour he only left the hotel to go to the station after 1 o’clock a.m.
“The hall was crowded by the passengers from the boattrain a little after eleven. There was no time between that and half past to lead even a willing enemy to the slaughter, throw him into the sea, and come back again, all in the space of five-and-twenty minutes.”
“Then what is your explanation of that extraordinary disappearance?” I retorted, beginning to feel very cross about it all.
“A simple one,” he rejoined quietly, as he once more began to fidget with his bit of string. “A very simple one indeed; namely, that Count Collini, at the present moment, is living comfortably in England, calmly awaiting a favourable opportunity of changing his foreign money back into English notes.”
“But you say yourself that that is impossible, as the most able detectives in England are on the watch for him.”
“They are on the watch for a certain Count Collini,” he said dryly, “who might disguise himself, perhaps, but whose hidden identity would sooner or later be discovered by one of these intelligent human bloodhounds.”
“Yes? Well?” I asked.
“Well, that Count Collini never existed. It was his personality that was the disguise. Now it is thrown off. The Count is not dead, he is not hiding, he has merely ceased to exist. There is no fear that he will ever come to life again. Mr Turnour senior will see to that.”
“Mr Turnour!” I ejaculated.
“Why, yes,” he rejoined excitedly; “do you mean to tell me you never saw through it all? The money lying in his hands; his brother about to wed the rich heiress; then Mrs Brackenbury’s matrimonial ambitions, Alice Checkfield’s coldness to Hubert Turnour, the golden prize slipping away right out of the family for ever. Then the scheme was evolved by those two scoundrels, who deserve to be called geniuses in their criminal way. It could not be managed, except by collaboration, but as it was, the scheme was perfect in conception, and easy of execution.
“Remember that disguise previous to a crime is always fairly safe from detection, for then it has no suspicion to contend against, it merely deceives those who have no cause to be otherwise but deceived. Mrs Brackenbury lived in London, Reginald Turnour in Reading; they did not know each other personally, nor did they know each other’s friends, of course; whilst Alice Checkfield had not seen her guardian since she was quite a child.
“Then the disguise was so perfect, I went down to Reading, some little time ago, and Reginald Turnour was pointed out to me: he is a Scotchman, with very light, sandy hair. That face clean-shaved, made swarthy, the hair, eyebrows, and lashes dyed a jet black, would render him absolutely unrecognizable. Add to this the fact that a foreign accent completely changes the voice, and that the slight limp was a master-stroke of genius to hide the general carriage.
“Then the winter came round; it was, perhaps, important that Mr Turnour should not be absent too long from Reading, for fear of exciting suspicion there; and the scoundrel played his part with marvellous skill. Can’t you see him yourself leaving the Carlton Hotel, ostensibly going abroad, driving to Charing Cross, but only booking to Cannon Street?
“Then getting out at that crowded station and slipping round to his brother’s office in one of those huge blocks of buildings where there is perpetual coming and going, and where any individual would easily pass unperceived?
“There, with the aid of a little soap and water, Mr Turnour resumed his Scotch appearance, went on to Reading, and spent winter and spring there, only returning to London to make a formal proposal, as Count Collini, for Alice Checkfield’s hand. Hubert Turnour’s office was undoubtedly the place where he changed his identity, from that of the British middle-class man, to the interesting personality of the Italian nobleman.
“He had, of course, to repeat the journey to Reading a day or two before his wedding, in order to hand over his ward’s fortune to Mrs Brackenbury’s solicitor. Then there were the supposed rows between Hubert Turnour and his rival; the letters of warning from the guardian, for which Hubert no doubt journeyed down to Reading, in order to post them there: all this was dust thrown into the eyes of two credulous ladies.
“After that came the wedding, the meeting with Hubert Turnour, who, you see, was obliged to take a room in one of the big hotels, wherein, with more soap and water, the Italian Count could finally disappear. When the hall of the hotel was crowded, the sandy-haired Scotchman slipped out of it quite quietly: he was not remarkable, and no one specially noticed him. Since then the hue and cry has been after a dark Italian, who limps, and speaks broken English; and it has never struck anyone that such a person never existed.
“Mr Turnour is fairly safe by now; and we may take it for granted that he will not seek the acquaintanceship of the Brackenburys, whilst Alice Checkfield is no longer his ward. He will wait a year or two longer perhaps, then he and Hubert will begin quietly to reconvert their foreign money into English notes – they will take frequent little trips abroad, and gradually change the money at the various bureaux de change on the Continent.
“Think of it all, it is so simple – not even dramatic, only the work of a genius from first to last, worthy of a better cause, perhaps, but undoubtedly worthy of success.”
He was gone, leaving me quite bewildered. Yet his disappearance had always puzzled me, and now I felt that that animated scarecrow had found the true explanation of it after all.
X
The Ayrsham Mystery
1
“I have never had a great opinion of our detective force here in England,” said the man in the corner, in his funny, gentle, apo
logetic manner, “but the way that department mismanaged the affair at Ayrsham simply passes comprehension.”
“Indeed?” I said, with all the quiet dignity I could command. “It is a pity they did not consult you in the matter, isn’t it?”
“It is a pity,” he retorted with aggravating meekness, “that they do not use a little common sense. The case resembles that of Columbus’ egg, and is every bit as simple.
“It was one evening last October, wasn’t it? that two labourers walking home from Ayrsham village turned down a lane, which, it appears, is a short cut to the block of cottages some distance off, where they lodged.
“The night was very dark, and there was a nasty drizzle in the air. In the picturesque vernacular of the two labourers, ‘You couldn’t see your ’and before your eyes.’ Suddenly they stumbled over the body of a man lying right across the path.
“‘At first we thought ’e was drunk,’ explained one of them subsequently, ‘but when we took a look at ’im, we soon saw there was something very wrong. Me and my mate turned ’im over, and “foul play” we both says at once. Then we see that it was Old Man Newton. Poor chap, ’e was dead, and no mistake.’
“Old Man Newton, as he was universally called by his large circle of acquaintances, was very well known throughout the entire neighbourhood, most particularly at every inn and public bar for some miles round.
“He also kept a local sweet-stuff shop at Ayrsham. No wonder that the men were horrified at finding him in such a terrible condition; even in their uneducated minds there could be no doubt that the old man had been murdered, for his skull had been literally shattered by a fearful blow, dealt him from behind by some powerful assailant.
“Whilst the labourers were cogitating as to what they had better do next, they heard footsteps also turning into the lane, and the next moment Samuel Holder, a well-known inhabitant of Ayrsham, arrived upon the scene.
“‘Hello! is that you, Mat Newton?’ shouted Samuel, as he came near.
“‘Ay! ’tis Old Man Newton, right enough,’ replied one of the labourers, ‘but ’e won’t answer you no more.’
“Samuel Holder seemed absolutely horrified when he saw the body of Old Man Newton; he uttered various ejaculations, which the two labourers, however, did not take special notice of at the time.
“Then the three men held a brief consultation together, with the result that one of them ran back to Ayrsham village to fetch the local police, whilst the two others remained in the lane to guard the body.
“The mystery – for it seemed one from the first – created a great deal of sensation in Ayrsham and all round the neighbourhood, and much sympathy was felt for, and shown to, Mary Newton, the murdered man’s only child, a young girl about two- or three-and-twenty, who, moreover, was in ill health.
“True, Old Man Newton was not a satisfactory protector for a young girl. He was very much addicted to drink; he neglected the little bit of local business he had; and, moreover, had recently shamefully ill-treated his daughter, the neighbours testifying to the many and loud quarrels that occurred in the small back parlour behind the sweet-stuff shop.
“A case of murder – the moment an element of mystery hovers around it – immediately excites the attention of the newspaper-reading public, who is always seeking for new sensations.
“Very soon the history of Old Man Newton and of his daughter found its way into the London and provincial dailies, and the Ayrsham murder became a topic of all-absorbing interest.
“It appears that Old Man Newton was at one time a highly respectable local tradesman, always in a very small way, as there is not much business doing at Ayrsham. It is a poor and straggling village, although its railway station is an important junction on the Midland system.
“There is some very good shooting in the neighbourhood, and about four or five years ago some of it, together with The Limes, a pretty house just outside the village, was rented for the autumn by Mr Ledbury and his brother.
“You know the firm of Ledbury and Co., do you not – the great small-arms manufacturers? The elder Mr Ledbury was the recipient of birthday honours last year, and is the present Lord Walterton. His younger brother, Mervin, was in those days, and is still, a handsome young fellow in the Hussars.
“At the time – I mean about five years ago – Mary Newton was the local beauty of Ayrsham; she did a little dressmaking in her odd moments, but it appears that she spent most of her time in flirting. She was nominally engaged to be married to Samuel Holder, a young carpenter, but there was a good deal of scandal talked about her, for she was thought to be very fast; village gossip coupled her name with that of several young men in the neighbourhood, who were known to have paid the village beauty marked attention, and among these admirers of Mary Newton during the autumn of which I am speaking, young Mr Mervin Ledbury figured conspicuously.
“Be that as it may, certain it is that Mary Newton had a very bad reputation among the scandalmongers of Ayrsham, and though everybody was shocked, no one was astonished when one fine day in the winter following she suddenly left her father and her home, and went no one knew whither. She left, it appears, a very pathetic letter behind, begging for her father’s forgiveness, and that of Samuel Holder, whom she was jilting, but she was going to marry a gentleman above them all in station, and was going to be a real lady; then only would she return home.
“A very usual village tragedy, as you see. Four years went by, and Mary Newton did not return home. As time went by and with it no news of his daughter, Old Man Newton took her disappearance very much to heart. He began to neglect his business, and then his house, which became dirty and ill-kept by an occasional charwoman who would do a bit of promiscuous tidying for him from time to time. He was ill-tempered, sullen, and morose, and very soon became hopelessly addicted to drink.
“Then suddenly, as unexpectedly as she had gone, Mary Newton returned to her home one fine day, after an absence of four years. What had become of her in the interim no one in the village ever knew; she was generally supposed to have earned a living by dressmaking, until her failing health had driven her well-nigh to starvation, and then back to the home and her father she had so heedlessly left.
“Needless to say that all talk of her ‘marriage with a gentleman above her in station’ was entirely at an end. As for Old Man Newton, he seems, after his daughter’s return, to have become more sullen and morose than ever, and the neighbours now busied themselves with talk of the fearful rows which frequently occurred in the back parlour of the little sweet-stuff shop.
“Father and daughter seemed to be leading a veritable cat-and-dog life together. Old Man Newton was hardly ever sober, and at the village inns he threw out weird and strange hints about ‘breach of promise actions with £5,000 damages, which his daughter should get, if only he knew where to lay hands upon the scoundrel’.
“He also made vague and wholly useless enquiries about young Mervin Ledbury, but in a sleepy, out-of-the-way village like Ayrsham, no one knows anything about what goes on beyond a narrow five-mile radius at most. The Limes and the shooting were let to different tenants year after year, and neither Lord Walterton nor Mr Mervin Ledbury had ever rented them again.”
2
“That was the past history of old Newton,” continued the man in the corner, after a brief pause; “that is to say, of the man who on a dark night last October was found murdered in a lonely lane, not far from Ayrsham. The public, as you may well imagine, took a very keen interest in the case from the outset; the story of Mark Newton, of the threatened breach of promise, of the £5,000 damages, roused masses of conjecture to which no one as yet dared to give definite shape.
“One name, however, had already been whispered significantly, that of Mr Mervin Ledbury, the young Hussar, one of Mary Newton’s admirers at the very time she left home in order, as she said, to be married to someone above her in station.
“Many thinking people, too, wanted to know what Samuel Holder, Mary’s jilted fiancée, was doin
g close to the scene of the murder that night, and how he came to make the remark: ‘Hello! is that you, Mat Newton?’ when the old man lived nearly half a mile away, and really had no cause for being in that particular lane, at that hour of the night in the drizzling rain.
“The inquest, which, for want of other accommodation, was held at the local police station, was, as you imagine, very largely attended.
“I had read a brief statement of the case in the London papers, and had hurried down to Ayrsham Junction as I scented a mystery, and knew I should enjoy myself.
“When I got there, the room was already packed, and the medical evidence was being gone through.
“Old Man Newton, it appears, had been knocked on the head by a heavily leaded cane, which was found in the ditch close to the murdered man’s body.
“The cane was produced in court; it was as stout as an old-fashioned club, and of terrific weight. The man who wielded it must have been very powerful, for he had only dealt one blow, but that blow had cracked the old man’s skull. The cane was undoubtedly of foreign make, for it had a solid silver ferrule at one end, which was not English hallmarked.
“In the opinion of the medical expert, death was the result of the blow, and must have been almost instantaneous.
“The labourers who first came across the body of the murdered man then repeated their story; they had nothing new to add, and their evidence was of no importance. But after that there was some stir in the court. Samuel Holder had been called and sworn to tell the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
“He was a youngish, heavily built man of about five-and-thirty, with a nervous, not altogether prepossessing, expression of face. Pressed by the coroner, he gave us a few details of Old Man Newton’s earlier history, such as I have already told you.
The Case of Miss Elliott Page 16
