Part 5

“Just so; but why _both_ sheets? One would be ample. And since you allude to the bundle, why both sheets as well as the Indian shawl? This last, by the way, is a thing Mrs. Beckle seems not to have missed in the confusion, or perhaps she didn’t know that Pullin possessed it. Why all these wrappings, and moreover, _why the hook?_ The presumption is clear. The bundle was already made up in the Indian shawl, and required no more wrapping. The two sheets were wanted to tie together to enable the criminal to descend from the window, and the hook was the very thing to hold this rope with at the top. It was not necessary to tie it to anything, and it would not prevent the shutting of the window behind. Moreover, when the descent had been made, a mere shake of the rope of sheets would dislodge the hook and bring it down, thus leaving no evidence of the escape--except the mark on the sill, which was very small.

“Then again, there was no noise or struggle heard. Pullin, as you could see, was a powerful, hard-set man, not likely to allow his throat to be cut without a lot of trouble, therefore the murderer must either have entered the room unknown to him--an unlikely thing, for he had not gone to bed--or else must have been there with his permission, and must have taken him by sudden surprise. And now we come to the heart of the thing. Of the two papers burnt in the grate--you have kept them under the shade, I see--one bore no trace of the writing that had been on it (many inks and papers do not after having been burnt), but the other bore plain signs of having been a cheque. Now just let us look at it. The main body of the paper has burnt to a deep gray ash, nearly black, but the printed parts of the cheque--those printed in coloured inks, that is--are of a much paler gray, quite a light ash colour. That is the colour to which most of the _pink_ ink used in printing cheques burns, as you may easily test for yourself with an old cheque of the sort that is printed from a fine plate with water-solution pink ink. The _black_ ink, on the other hand, such as the number of the cheque is printed in, has charred black, and by sharp eyes is quite distinguishable against the general dark gray of the paper. The cinder is unfortunately broken rather badly, and the part containing the signature is missing altogether. But one can plainly see in large script letters part of the boldest line of print, the name of the bank. The letters are _e r n C o n s o,_ and this must mean the Eastern Consolidated Bank. Of course you saw that for yourself.”

“Yes, of course I did.”

“Fortunately the whole of the cheque number is unbroken. It is B/K63777. Of course I took a note of that, as well as of the other particulars distinguishable. It is payable to Pullin, clearly, for here is the latter half of his Christian name, Abel, and the first few letters of Pullin. Then on the line where the amount is written at length there are the letters _u s a n d_ and _p._ Plainly it was a large cheque, for thousands. At the bottom, where the amount is placed in figures, there is a bad break, but the first figure is a 2. The cheque, then, was one for £2000 at least. And there is one more thing. The cinder is perfect and unbroken nearly all along the top edge, and there is no sign of crossing, so that here is an open cheque which any thief might cash with a little care. That is all we can see; but it is enough, I think. Now would a thief, committing murder for the sake of plunder, _burn_ this cheque? Would Pullin, to whom the money was to be paid, burn it? I think not. Then who in the whole world _would_ have any interest in burning it? Not a soul, with one single exception--_the man who drew it.”_

“Yes, yes. What! do you mean that the man who drew that cheque must have murdered Pullin in order to get it back and destroy it?”

“That is my opinion. Now who would draw Pullin a cheque for £2,000? Anybody in this house? Is it at all likely? Of course not. Again, we are pointed to a stranger. And now remember Pullin’s antecedents. On his last voyage but one his ship, the _Egret,_ from Valparaiso for Wellington, New Zealand, was cast away on the Paumotu Islands, far out of her proper course. There was but a small crew, and, as it happened, all were lost except Pullin and one Kanaka boy. The _Egret_ was heavily insured, and there were nasty rumours at Lloyd’s that Captain Pullin had made sure of his whereabouts, taken care of himself, and destroyed the ship in collusion with the owners, and that the Kanaka boy had only escaped because he happened to be well acquainted with the islands. But there was nothing positive in the way of proof, and the underwriters paid, with no more than covert grumblings. And, as you remember, Mrs. Heckle told us yesterday Pullin on his return had no money. Now suppose the story of the intentional wreck were true, and for some reason Pullin’s payment was put off till after his next voyage, would the people who sent their men to death in the Pacific hesitate at a single murder to save £2,000? I think not.

“After I left you yesterday I made some particular inquiries at Lloyd’s through a friend of mine, an underwriter himself. I find that the sole owner of the _Egret_ was one Herbert Roofe, trading as Herbert Roofe & Co. The firm is a very small one, as shipping concerns go, and has had the reputation for a long time of being very ‘rocky’ financially; indeed, it was the common talk at Lloyd’s that nothing but the wreck of the _Egret_ saved Roofe from the bankruptcy court, and he is supposed now to be ‘hanging on by his eyelashes,’ as my friend expresses it, with very little margin to keep him going, and in a continual state of touch-and-go between his debit and credit sides. As to the rumours of the wilful casting away of the _Egret,_ my friend assured me that the thing was as certain as anything could be, short of legal proof. There was something tricky about the cargo, and altogether it was a black sort of business. And to complete things he told me that the bankers of Herbert Roofe & Co. were the Eastern Consolidated.”

“Phew! This is getting pretty warm, I must say, Mr. Hewitt.”

“Wait a minute; my friend aided me a little further still. I told him the whole story--in confidence, of course--and he agreed to help. At my suggestion he went to the manager of the Eastern Consolidated Bank, whom he knew personally, and represented that among a heap of cheques one had got torn, and the missing piece destroyed. This was true entirely, except in regard to the heap--a little fiction which I trust my friend may be forgiven. The cheque, he said, was on the Eastern Consolidated, and its number was B/K63777. Would the manager mind telling him which of his customers had the cheque book from which that had been taken? Trace of where the cheque had come from had been quite lost, and it would save a lot of trouble if the Bank could let him know. ‘Certainly,’ said the manager; ‘I’ll inquire.’ He did, and presently a clerk entered the room with the information that cheque No. B/K63777 was from a book in the possession of Messrs. Herbert Roofe & Co.”

The inspector rose excitedly from his chair. “Come,” he said, “this must be followed up. We mustn’t waste time; there’s no knowing where Roofe may have got to by this.”

“Just a little more patience,” Hewitt said. “I don’t think there will be much difficulty in finding him. He believes himself safe. As soon as my friend told me what the Bank manager had said, I went round to Roofe’s office to ascertain his whereabouts, prepared with an excuse for the interview in case I should find him in. It was a small office rather, over a shop in Leadenhall Street. When I asked for Mr. Roofe, the clerk informed me that he was at home confined to his room by a bad cold, and had not been at the office since Tuesday--the next day but one before the body was discovered. I appeared to be disappointed, and asked if I could send him a message. Yes, I could, the clerk told me. All letters were being sent to him, and he was sending business instructions daily to the office from Chadwell Heath. I saw that the address had slipped inadvertently from the clerk’s mouth, for it is a general rule, I know, in city offices to keep the principals’ addresses from casual callers. So I said no more, but contented myself with the information I had got. I took the first opportunity of looking at a suburban directory, and then I found the name of Mr. Roofe’s house at Chadwell Heath. It is Scarby Lodge.”

“I must be off, then, at once,” Truscott said, “and make careful inquiries as to his movements. And those cinders--bless my soul, they’re as precious as diamonds now! How shall we keep them from damage?”

“Oh, the glass shade will do, I fancy. But wait a moment; let us review things thoroughly. I will run rapidly over what I suggest has happened between Roofe and Pullin, and you shall stop me if you see any flaw in the argument. It’s best to make our impressions clear and definite. Now we will suppose that the _Egret_ has been lost, and Pullin has come home to claim the reward of his infamy. We will suppose it is £2,000. He goes to Roofe and demands it. Roofe says he can’t possibly pay just then; he is very hard up, and the insurance money of the _Egret_ has only just saved him from bankruptcy. Pullin insists on having his money. But, says Roofe, that is impossible, because he hasn’t got it. A cheque for the amount would be dishonoured. The plunder of the underwriters has all been used to keep things going. Roofe says plainly that Pullin must wait for the money. Pullin can’t reveal the conspiracy without implicating himself, and Roofe knows it. He promises to pay in a certain time, and gives Pullin an acknowledgment of the debt, an I O U, perhaps, or something of that kind, and with that Pullin has to be contented, and, having no money, he has to go away on another voyage, this time in a ship belonging to somebody else, because it would look worse than ever if Roofe gave him another berth at once. He makes his voyage and he returns, and asks for his money again. But Roofe is as hard up as ever. He cannot pay, and he cannot refuse to pay. It is ruin either way. He knows that Pullin will stand no more delay, and may do something desperate, so Roofe does something desperate himself. He tells Pullin that he must not call at his office, nor must anybody see them together anywhere for fear of suspicion. He suggests that he, Roofe, should call at Pullin’s lodgings late one night, and bring the money. Pullin is to let him in himself, so that nobody may see him. Pullin consents, and thus assists in the concealment of his own murder. He stands at the front door smoking his pipe (you remember that Mrs. Beckle told me so), waiting for Roofe. When Roofe comes, Pullin takes him very quietly up to his room without attracting attention. Roofe, on his part, has prepared things by feigning a bad cold and going to bed early, going out--perhaps through the window--when all his household is quiet. There are plenty of late trains from Chadwell Heath that would bring him to Stratford.

“Well, when they are safely in Pullin’s room, Roofe hears the front door shut and bolted, with all its squeaks and thumps, and decides that it won’t be safe to go out that way after he has committed his crime. The men sit and talk, and Pullin drinks. Roofe doesn’t. You will remember the bottle on the table, with only one glass. Roofe produces and writes a cheque for the £2,000, and Pullin hands back the I O U, which Roofe burns. _That_ would be the lower of the two charred pieces of paper, which we have there with the other, but can’t read.

“Then the crime takes place. Perhaps Pullin drinks a little too much, perhaps he dozes--we shall never know, unless Roofe confesses circumstantially. At any rate, Roofe gets behind him, uses the sharp seaman’s knife he has brought for the purpose, and straightway the skipper is dead at his feet. Then Roofe gets back the cheque and burns _that._ After that he ransacks the whole room. He fears there may be some documentary evidence, unguarded letters or something of the sort, which, being examined, may throw some light on the _Egret_ affair. There are none. Then he sets about his escape. He has the whole night before him, and to make the thing look like a murder for ordinary plunder, and at the same time account for the upset room, he takes away all the dead man’s valuables, tied in that shawl. He sees the hook--just the thing he wants--and of course the sheets are an obvious substitute for a rope. He takes away the door-key, to make it seem likely that somebody inside the house had been the criminal, and then he simply goes away through the window, as I have already explained. At 5.45 there would be a train to Chadwell Heath, and that would land him home early enough to enable him to regain his bedroom unobserved. After that he wisely maintains the pretence of illness for a day or two.

“I guessed that the things carried off would be in that ditch, for very simple reasons. I looked about the house, and the ditch seemed the only available hiding-place near. More, it was on the way to the station, the direction Roofe would naturally take. He would seize the very first opportunity of getting rid of his burden, for every possible reason. It was a nuisance to carry; he could not account for it if he were asked; and the further he carried it before getting rid of it, the more distinct the clue to the direction he had taken, supposing it ever were found. As I quite expected, my guess was right. The behaviour of some of the people in the house might have been suspicious, if I hadn’t had so strong a clue in my hand, leading in another direction. Foster, poor fellow, has probably pawned all his clothes, one after another, and put those bricks in his boxes to conceal the fact, so that Mrs. Beckle might not turn him away. He owed her so much that at last he hadn’t the face to go and eat her breakfast when he had no money to pay for it. He went out early, met friends, got ‘stood’ drinks and came back drunk. The girl Taffs very naturally ran from the horrible sight in this room, and probably Foster had been kind to her at some time or another, so that when she found he was suspected she refused to give any information.”

“Yes,” the inspector said, “it certainly seems to fit together to the smallest bit as you put it. There’s a future before you, Mr. Hewitt. You ought to be in the force. But now I must go to Chadwell Heath. Are you coming?”

III

At Chadwell Heath it was found that a first-class return ticket to Stratford had been taken just before the 10.54 train left on the last night Abel Pullin was seen alive, and that the return half had been given up by a passenger who arrived by the first train soon after six in the morning The porter who took the ticket remembered the circumstance, because first-class tickets were rare at that time in the morning, but he did not recognise the passenger, who was muffled up.

“But I think there’s enough for an arrest without a warrant, at any rate,” Truscott said. “We shall be able to walk round and pick up a little more evidence after that. I am off to Scarby Lodge. Can’t afford to waste any more time. He was foolish to take a first-class ticket, any way. That singles a man out, and he might easily have been recognised. He was smart enough not to use his season ticket, though. That would have done him clean.”

Scarby Lodge was a rather pretentious house, standing in about three acres of ground. The path to the front door was well shaded, and it was arranged that Truscott should wait aside till Hewitt had sent in a message asking to see Mr. Roofe on a matter of urgent business, and that then both should follow the servant to his room. This was done, and as the parlourmaid was knocking at the bedroom door she was astonished to find Hewitt and the police inspector behind her. Truscott at once pushed open the door, and the two walked in.

It was a large, well-lighted room, and at the far end a man sat in his dressing-gown near a table, on which stood several medicine bottles. He was a man apparently of about thirty-eight, well built, and with sharp features. He frowned as Truscott and Hewitt entered, but betrayed no sign of emotion, carelessly taking one of the small bottles from the table at his side. “What do you want here?” he said.

“Sorry to be so unceremonious, Mr. Roofe,” Truscott said, advancing up the long room, “but I am a police officer, and it is my duty to arrest you on a serious charge--a charge of murder on the person of---- Stop, sir! Let me see that!”

But it was too late. Before Truscott could reach him, Roofe had swallowed the contents of the small bottle, and, swaying once, dropped to the floor as though shot. A faint smell as of bruised almonds rose in the air.

Hewitt stooped over the man. “Dead,” he said; “dead as Abel Pullin. It is prussic acid. He had arranged for instant action if by any chance the game went against him.”

But Inspector Truscott was troubled. “This is a nice thing,” he said, “to have a prisoner commit suicide in front of my eyes. It’ll be an unpleasant job for me, I’m afraid. But you can testify that I hadn’t time to get near him, can’t you? Indeed he _wasn’t_ a prisoner at the time, for I hadn’t arrested him, in fact.”

THE CASE OF MR. GELDARD’S ELOPEMENT

I

Many people have been surprised at the information that, in all Martin Hewitt’s wide and busy practice, the matrimonial cases whereon he has been engaged have been comparatively few. That he has had many important cases of the sort is true, but among the innumerable cases of different descriptions they make a small percentage. The reason is that so many of the persons wishing to consult him on such concerns were actuated by mere unreasoning or fanciful jealousy that Hewitt would do no more in their cases than urge reconciliation and mutual trust. The common “private inquiry” offices chiefly flourish on this class of case, and their proprietors present no particular reluctance to taking it up. In any event it means fees for consultation and “watching”; and recent newspaper reports have made it plain that among some of the less scrupulous agents a case may be manufactured from beginning to end according to order. Again, Hewitt had a distaste for the sort of work commonly involved in matrimonial troubles; and with the immense amount of business brought to him, rendering necessary his rejection of so many commissions, it was easy for him to avoid what went against his inclinations. Still, as I have said, matrimonial cases there were, and often of an interesting nature, taking rise in no fanciful nor unreasoning jealousy.

When, on its change of proprietorship, I accepted my appointment on the paper that now claims me, I had a week or two’s holiday pending the final turning over of the property. I could not leave town, for I might have been wanted at any moment, but I made an absorbing and instructive use of my leisure as an amateur assistant to Hewitt. I sat in his office much of the time, and saw more of the daily routine of his work than I had ever done before; and I was present at one or two interviews that initiated cases that afterwards developed striking features. One of these--which indeed I saw entirely through before I resumed my more legitimate work--was the case of Mr. and Mrs. Geldard.

Hewitt had stepped out for a few minutes, and I was sitting alone in his private room, when I became conscious of some disturbance in the outer office. An excited female voice was audible making impatient inquiries. Presently Kerrett, Hewitt’s clerk, came in with the message that a lady--Mrs. Geldard was the name on the visitor’s slip that she had filled up--was anxious to see Mr. Hewitt, at once, and failing himself, had decided to see me, whom Kerrett had calmly taken it upon himself to describe as Hewitt’s confidential assistant. He apologised for this, and explained that he thought, as the lady seemed excited, it would be as well to let her see me to begin with, if there was no objection, and perhaps she would begin to be coherent and intelligible by Hewitt’s arrival, which might occur at any moment. So the lady was shown in. She was tall, bony, and severe of face, and she began as soon as she saw me: “I’ve come to get you to get a watch set on my husband. I’ve endured this sort of thing in silence long enough. I won’t have it. I’ll see if there’s no protection to be had for a woman treated as I am--with his goings out all day ‘on business’ when his office is shut up tight all the time. I wanted to see Mr. Hewitt himself, but I suppose you’ll do, for the present at any rate though I’ll have it sifted to the bottom and get the best advice to be had, no matter what it costs though I _am_ only a woman with nobody to confide in or to speak a word for me and I’m not going to be crushed like a fly as I’ll soon let him know.”

Here I seized a short opportunity to offer Mrs. Geldard a chair, and to say that I expected Mr. Hewitt in a few minutes.

“Very well, I’ll wait and see him. But you have to do with the watching business, no doubt, and you’ll understand what it is I want done; and I’m sure I’m justified, and mean to sift it to the bottom, whatever happens. Am I to be kept in total ignorance of what my husband does all day when he is supposed to be at business? Is it likely I should submit to that?”

I said I didn’t think it likely at all, which was a fact. Mrs. Geldard appeared to be about the least submissive woman I ever saw.

“No, and I won’t, that’s more. Nice goings on somewhere, no doubt, with his office shut up all day and the business going to ruin. I want you to watch him. I want you to follow him to-morrow morning and find out all he does and let me know. I’ve followed him myself this morning and yesterday morning, but he gets away somehow from the back of his office, and I can’t watch on two staircases at once, so I want you to come and do it, and I’ll--”

Here fortunately Hewitt’s arrival checked Mrs. Geldard’s flow of speech, and I rose and introduced him. I told him shortly that the lady desired a watch to be set on her husband at his office, and a report to be given her of his daily proceedings. Hewitt did not appear to accept the commission with any particular delight, but he sat down to hear his visitor’s story. “Stay here, Brett,” he said, as he saw my hands stretched towards the door. “We’ve an engagement presently, you know.”

The engagement, I remembered, was merely to lunch, and Hewitt kept me with some notion of restricting the time which this alarming woman might be disposed to occupy. She repeated to Hewitt, in the same manner, what she had already said to me, and then Hewitt, seizing his first opportunity, said, “Will you please tell me, Mrs. Geldard, definitely and concisely, what evidence, or even indication, you have of unbecoming conduct on your husband’s part, and substantially what case you wish me to take up?”