Part 14

“I don’t think any of us were sorry to fall in with his suggestion. I also don’t think I’ve ever drunk such a large whisky-and-soda as I did a few minutes later. Discovering the body had been bad enough: breaking the news to the two girls was going to be worse.

“It was Joan who met me in the hall—and we stared at one another in silence. Then I nodded my head stupidly.

“‘It’s father,’ she whispered. ‘Oh, my God!’

“I put out my hand to steady her, and she was looking at me with a fixed stare.

“‘Don’t you understand?’ she muttered, hoarsely, and swallowing all the time. ‘Don’t you understand? Jack has been here to-night.’

“‘Jack!’ I looked at her foolishly. ‘Jack!’

“And then her full meaning struck me.

“‘How did that man find out?’ she whispered. ‘And who is he?’

“‘I don’t know. I’ll go and ask him.’ I was still trying to adjust this new development—and her next words seemed to come from a great distance.

“‘Do something. For God’s sake—do something.’

“Then she turned and left me, and I watched her go up the stairs, walking stiffly and clinging to the banisters.

“So Jack had been there! And old Marley was dead! Murdered! Hit on the head with a poker. And Jack had been there. It’s only in romantic fiction that the reader is expected to assume the impossibility of the hero committing a crime, owing to the extreme beauty of his nature. And this wasn’t romantic fiction. It was hard, brutal reality. The two facts stood there, side by side, in all their dazzling simplicity. Jack’s nature was not supremely beautiful. He was an ordinary man, with the devil of a temper when it was roused.

“Mechanically I started to walk back to the room where I had left the other three men. They were sitting in silence when I entered, and after a while the stranger got up.

“‘A dreadful thing to happen,’ he said, gravely.

“‘May I ask, sir,’ I began, ‘how you came to discover it?’

“‘Very simply,’ he answered. ‘I was strolling along the road, going back to the village inn where I have been stopping for two or three nights, when I saw the window of the room through the trees. The light was shining out, and I could see someone sitting at the desk. More out of idle curiosity than anything else, I paused for a moment or two, and then something began to arouse my suspicions. The man at the desk seemed so motionless. I thought perhaps he had fainted, or was ill, and after a little hesitation I went in at the gate and looked through the window. To my horror I saw he was dead—and I at once came round to the other room from which the light was shining, and where I found you.’

“‘There is a point which may have some bearing on the crime,’ he continued, after a pause. ‘On my way up from the inn a man passed me. He was coming from this direction, and seemed to me to be in a very excited condition. It was his obvious agitation that made me notice him at the time, though in the dim light I couldn’t see his face very clearly. But he was swinging his stick in the air, and muttering to himself. At the moment I didn’t think much about it. But now——’ He shrugged his shoulders slightly. ‘Of course, I may be completely wrong, but I think it is a thing worth mentioning to the police.’

“‘Would you know the man again?’ I asked, trying to speak quite normally.

“‘Well, he was tall—six feet at least—and broad. And he was clean-shaven.’ He spoke thoughtfully, weighing his words. ‘I might know him again—but I wouldn’t swear to it. One has to be doubly careful if a man’s life is at stake.’

“I turned away abruptly. Jack was tall and broad and clean-shaven. Strive as I would, the deadly suspicion was beginning to grip me that Jack, in a fit of ungovernable passion, had killed the old man. And at such moments, whatever may be the legal aspect of the matter, one’s main idea is how best to help a pal. If Jack had indeed done it, what was the best thing to do?

“I rang the bell, and told the scared-looking maid to bring the whisky and some glasses. Then, with a muttered apology, I left the room. I felt I wanted to talk to Joan about it. I found her dry-eyed and quite composed, though she was evidently holding herself under control with a great effort. And briefly I told her what the stranger had said.

“She heard me out in silence: then she spoke with a quiet assurance that surprised me.

“‘If Jack did it,’ she said, ‘he doesn’t know he’s done it. He doesn’t know he’s killed—father.’ She faltered a bit over the last word, and I didn’t interrupt. ‘What I mean is this,’ she went on after a moment. ‘I know Jack—better than anyone else. I know those rages of his—when he sees red. But they’re over in a minute. He’s capable of anything for a second or two, but if he’d done it, Hugh, if he’d hit father—and killed him—his remorse would have been dreadful. He wouldn’t have run away: I’m certain of that. That’s why I say that if Jack did it he doesn’t know—he killed him.’

“I said nothing: there was no good telling her that it wasn’t one blow, nor yet two or three, that had been used. There was no good telling her that it was no accidental thing done unwittingly in the heat of the moment—that it was an absolute impossibility for the man who had done it to be in ignorance of the fact. And yet, though I realised all that, her simple conviction put new hope into me. Illogical, I admit, but I went downstairs feeling more confident.

“I found that the local police had arrived—a sergeant and an ordinary constable—and had already begun their investigations. The principal evidence, of course, came from the stranger, and he repeated to them what he had already told me. His name apparently was Lenham—Victor Lenham—and the police knew he had been stopping at the local inn.

“‘You saw the body through the window, sir,’ said the sergeant, ‘and then went round to the drawing-room?’

“‘That is so, sergeant.’

“‘You didn’t go into the room?’

“‘Not until later—with these gentlemen. You see,’ he added, ‘I’ve seen death too often not to recognise it. And as, in a way, you will understand, it was no concern of mine, I thought it advisable to have some member of the house itself with me before entering the room.’

“‘Quite, sir, quite.’ The sergeant nodded portentously. ‘Is there anything else you can tell us?’

“‘Well,’ said Lenham, ‘there is a point, which I have already mentioned to this gentleman.’ He glanced at me, and then, turning back to the sergeant, he told him about the man he had passed on the road. And it was when he came to the description that suddenly the constable gave a whistle of excitement. The sergeant frowned on him angrily, but the worthy P.C., whose only experience of crime up-to-date had been assisting inebriated villagers home, had quite lost his head.

“‘Mr. Fairfax, sergeant,’ he exploded. ‘’E was down here to-night. Caught the last train, ’e did. Jenkins at the station told me—sure thing.’

“‘Good heavens, sergeant!’ I said angrily, ‘what the devil is the man talking about? He surely doesn’t suppose that Mr. Fairfax had anything to do with it?’

“But the mischief was done. The sergeant formally told off his indiscreet subordinate, but it was obvious that it was merely an official rebuke. In a village like that everybody knows everybody else’s private affairs, and the strained relations between the dead man and Jack Fairfax were common property. I could see at a glance that the sergeant regarded the matter as solved already.

“‘Would you recognise this man again, sir?’ he demanded, and Lenham gave him the same guarded reply as he had already given to me. He might—but he wouldn’t swear to it. It was impossible to be too careful in such a case, he repeated, and it was practically dark when he had passed the man.

“It was all duly noted down, and then we adjourned to the room of the tragedy. The constable—a ruddy-faced young man—turned pale when he saw the body; then he pulled himself together and assisted the sergeant in his formal examination. I didn’t blame him—we were all feeling the strain, somewhat naturally. Lenham seemed the least concerned, but it wasn’t a personal matter with him as it was with us, especially with me. All the time I was fidgeting round the room, subconsciously watching the stolid sergeant making notes, but with only one thought dominating my brain—how best to help Jack. Not that I had definitely made up my mind that he’d done it, but even at that stage of the proceedings I realised that appearances were against him. And Joan’s words were ringing in my head—‘For God’s sake—do something.’

“After a while I crossed the room to a small table on which a tantalus of whisky and two glasses were standing. I looked at the tray with unseeing eyes—an Indian silver one, which old Marley had been very proud of. And then mechanically I picked up the glasses. I don’t know why I did so; the action was, as I say, mechanical. They had been used—both of them: they had been used for whisky—one could tell that by the smell. And when I put the glasses down again on the tray, the sergeant was approaching with his note-book.”

The sandy-haired man paused, with a reminiscent smile.

“Ever noticed how extraordinarily dense you can be at times, even with a plain fact staring you straight in the face? There was one staring at me for ten minutes that night before my grey matter began to stir.”

“Just hold on a minute,” interrupted the Barrister. “Is this plain fact staring us in the face now?”

“No, it isn’t,” conceded the narrator. “At the moment you are in the position of the other people in that room. Mind you, I’ve left out nothing in order to mystify you; the story, as I have given it to you, is a plain unvarnished account of what took place. But I’m out to disprove your half-brick theory, lawyer-man, and to do so with such little story-telling ability as I happen to possess.

“Now, I won’t weary you with what happened during the next week, beyond saying that an inquest and a burglary took place. And the latter, at any rate, was very successful. The former moved along obvious lines, and resulted in Jack Fairfax being arrested for the wilful murder of his guardian, Roger Marley. The evidence was purely circumstantial, but it was about as damning as it could be. Jack admitted to having had an interview with Marley that night; he admitted that they had had an appalling quarrel. What was even worse was that he admitted to having struck the old man in a furious fit of rage, but beyond that he denied everything. He absolutely swore that the blow he struck Marley could not have killed him; further, that he had never handled the poker. And then, a finger-print expert proved that he had. That was the worst shock of the lot, and his explanation given afterwards that, now he came to think of it, he had picked up the poker to ram the tobacco down in his pipe convinced no one. He indignantly denied that his action in going up to London by the last train was in any sense running away; he had intended all along to go up by that train. And his reason for leaving the house after the interview without attempting to see his _fiancée_ was that he was in such a rage with her father that he couldn’t trust himself to speak to her for fear of what he might say.

“So much for Jack Fairfax’s case—pretty black, as you will agree. In fact, I don’t think I should be exaggerating if I said that there were only two people in England convinced of his innocence. And he was one of them. Even Joan’s faith was shaken, a little.

“It was on the tenth day after the inquest that I rang up the inspector who had come over from Exeter to look into the case, with a request that he would come up to the house. I told him that I had certain information which might interest him and suggested that he might care to hear it. I also rang up Lenham at the inn, and asked him if he would mind coming along at the same time. I told him I’d discovered the burglar. By the way, I didn’t tell you that it was his room that had been burgled.

“In about half an hour they arrived, and the local sergeant as well.

“‘What’s this about my burglar?’ laughed Lenham. ‘A funny fellow—because as far as I can see he didn’t take anything.’

“‘All in good time,’ I answered, smiling. ‘I’ve found out a lot of strange things in town.’

“Lenham looked at me quickly. ‘Oh! have you been to London?’ he inquired.

“‘Yes,’ I answered, ‘for two days. Most entertaining.’

“And then the inspector chipped in, impatiently:

“‘Well, sir, what is it you want to say to me?’ He looked at his watch suggestively.

“‘First of all, inspector,’ I said, quietly, ‘I want to ask you a question. Have you ever heard the legal maxim, _Falsus in uno, falsus in omne_?’

“I could see that he hadn’t the faintest idea what I was driving at. I could also see that Lenham’s eyes had suddenly become strained.

“‘It means,’ I went on, ‘that if a witness—let us say—is proved to have told one lie, there is strong presumptive evidence that he has told several. At any rate, the value of his statement is greatly diminished. Do you agree?’

“‘Certainly,’ he answered. ‘But I don’t see——’

“‘You will shortly, inspector,’ I remarked. ‘Now who would you consider the principal witness against Mr. Fairfax?’

“‘Mr. Fairfax himself,’ said the inspector, promptly.

“‘And leaving him out?’ I asked.

“‘Well—I suppose—this gentleman here.’ He nodded towards Lenham, who was sitting quite motionless, watching me.

“‘Precisely,’ I murmured. ‘Then why was it necessary for Mr. Lenham to state that his name was Lenham, and further to swear that he had never seen Mr. Marley before—when both those statements were lies?’

“‘What the devil do you mean?’ snarled Lenham, rising from his chair. ‘What do you mean by saying my name is not Lenham?’

“‘You wanted to know about the burglar who took nothing, didn’t you?’ I said, grimly. ‘Well—I was the burglar, and I took something very valuable—an address.’

“‘What on earth——’ began the inspector, and then he glanced at Lenham. ‘I think you’d better sit still, Mr. Lenham,’ he said, quietly, ‘until we have heard what this gentleman has to say.’

“Lenham sat back in his chair with a venomous look at me. Then he laughed harshly.

“‘By all means, inspector,’ he remarked. ‘Only it is a little disconcerting to be cross-examined suddenly by a man who admits he is a thief.’

“As a matter of fact the man didn’t know how much I knew—or how little; and between ourselves it was deuced little. But, watching him closely, I knew I was right, and my only hope was to bluff him into some admission.

“‘Shall we endeavour to reconstruct the events of the night when Mr. Marley was murdered, Mr. Lenardi?’ I began, quietly. ‘That is your name, is it not?—and you are a Corsican.’

“‘Well,’ he said, ‘what if I am? I had a very good reason for changing my name.’

“‘Doubtless,’ I agreed. ‘Let us hope your reason will prove satisfactory to the inspector. May I suggest, however, unless you can supply a better one, that your reason was to avoid the notoriety which would inevitably arise if a foreigner came to stay in a small village like this? And you were particularly anxious to avoid any possibility of Mr. Marley knowing that a Corsican was in the neighbourhood.’

“He laughed sarcastically. ‘I think that I have already stated that I have never even seen Mr. Marley,’ he sneered.

“‘Oh!’ I remarked. ‘Then might I ask you, inspector, to have a look at this photograph? It is old and faded, but the faces are still clear.’

“I handed the photograph to the inspector, and with a sudden curse the Corsican whipped out a knife and sprang at me. He realised even then that the game was up, and his one thought was to revenge himself on me. But I’d been expecting some such move, and I’d got a revolver handy. Incidentally, revolver shooting is one of the few things I can do, and I plugged him through the forearm before he could do any damage.

“He stood there glaring at me sullenly, and then the inspector took a hand.

“‘Stand by that window, sergeant. Now, Mr. whatever-your-name-is, no monkey tricks. Do you still deny that you knew Mr. Marley?”

“‘I refuse to answer,’ snarled the man.

“‘Because this photograph is of you and Marley and a woman. Taken abroad somewhere.’

“‘Naples, to be exact, inspector,’ I said. ‘I found it in his rooms in Berners Street, the address of which I got as the result of my burglary here.’

“The Corsican stood there like a beast at bay, and the inspector’s face was stern.

“‘What explanation have you got to give?’ he rapped out. ‘Why did you lie in evidence?’

“‘I refuse to answer,’ repeated the man.

“‘Since he is so uncommunicative,’ I remarked, ‘perhaps you will allow me to reconstruct the crime. Much of it, of necessity, is guess-work. For instance, Lenardi, what was your motive in murdering Mr. Marley?’ I rapped the question out at him, and though he’d have killed me willingly if he could have got at me he didn’t deny it.

“‘Well,’ I continued, ‘it doesn’t matter. Let us assume it was the girl in that photograph. You tracked Marley to earth here—in this village—that is all that concerns us. And having tracked him, you bided your time. Vengeance is the sweeter for delay. Each evening you walked up here, watching him through the window—gloating over what was to come. And then one night you found another man with him—Jack Fairfax—and they were quarrelling. At once you saw that this was your opportunity. However skilfully you hid your traces under ordinary circumstances, there was always a grave risk; but here, ready to hand, was a marvellous stroke of luck. Perhaps you crept nearer the window in the darkness, secure in the fact that the room was in a remote part of the house. You saw Jack Fairfax leave, blind with rage, and then, skulking out of the night, you entered the room yourself.’

“‘It’s a lie!’ shouted the Corsican, but his lips were white.

“‘And then old Marley saw you, and the rage on his face was replaced by a dreadful terror. He knew what you had come for. I don’t think you wasted much time, Lenardi. You picked up the poker with a gloved hand—oh! you were taking no chances—and you battered his head in. And then, Lenardi—and then you drank a whisky-and-soda. You drank a whisky-and-soda, and then you decided on a very bold move: you came and alarmed the rest of the house. It was clever of you, but——’”

The sandy-haired man smiled thoughtfully.

“We sprang forward together—the inspector and I; but we were too late. The Corsican had swallowed poison before we could stop him. He was dead in half a minute and he never spoke again. So I can only assume that my imagination was not far off the rails.”

“Yes, but hang it, man,” said the Barrister, peevishly, “the whole thing was a pure fluke on your part.”

“I’ve never laid any claim to being a detective,” murmured the sandy-haired man, mildly, rising and helping himself to some more whisky. “All that I said was that there are times when you can build an entire case from your half-brick or its equivalent. And when you find two glasses both smelling strongly of whisky in a room, you assume that two people have drunk whisky. Which was where the Corsican tripped up. You see, he distinctly swore he hadn’t entered the room till he came in with us.”

The Barrister raised protesting hands to the ceiling.

“The man is indubitably mad,” he remarked to no one in particular. “Was not Fairfax in the room most of the evening?”

The sandy-haired man looked even more mild.

“I think that perhaps I ought to have mentioned one fact sooner, but I was afraid it would spoil the story. The cat has an aversion to water; the fish have an aversion to dry land. But both these aversions pale into total insignificance when compared to Jack Fairfax’s aversion to whisky.”

He gazed thoughtfully at his glass.

“A strange flaw in an otherwise fine character. Thank heavens the symptom is not common!”

_XII_ _The Man Who Could Not Get Drunk_

“YES; she’s a beautiful woman. There’s no doubt about that. What did you say her name was?”

“I haven’t mentioned her name,” I returned. “But there’s no secret about it. She is Lady Sylvia Clavering.”

“Ah! Sylvia. Of course, I remember now.”

He drained his glass of brandy and sat back in his chair, while his eyes followed one of the most beautiful women in London as she threaded her way through the tables towards the entrance of the restaurant. An obsequious head-waiter bent almost double as she passed; her exit, as usual, befitted one of the most be-photographed women of Society. And it was not until the doors had swung to behind her and her escort that the man I had been dining with spoke again.

“I guess that little bow she gave as she passed here was yours, not mine,” he said, with the suspicion of a smile.

“Presumably,” I answered a little curtly. “Unless you happen to know her. I have that privilege.”

His smile grew a trifle more pronounced though his eyes were set and steady. “Know her?” He beckoned to the waiter for more brandy. “No, I can’t say I know her. In fact, my sole claim to acquaintanceship is that I carried her for three miles in the dark one night, slung over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes. But I don’t know her.”

“You did what?” I cried, staring at him in amazement.

“Sounds a bit over the odds, I admit.” He was carefully cutting the end off his cigar. “Nevertheless it stands.”

Now when any man states that he has carried a woman for three miles, whether it be in the dark or not, and has followed up such an introduction so indifferently that the woman fails even to recognise him afterwards, there would seem to be the promise of a story. But when the woman is one of the Lady Sylvia Claverings of this world, and the man is of the type of my dinner companion, the promise resolves itself into a certainty.

Merton was one of those indefinable characters who defy placing. You felt that if you landed in Yokohama, and he was with you, you would instinctively rely on him for information as to the best thing to do and the best way to do it. There seemed to be no part of the globe, from the South Sea Islands going westward to Alaska, with which he was not as well acquainted as the ordinary man is with his native village. At the time I did not know him well. The dinner was only our third meeting, and during the meal we confined ourselves to the business which had been the original cause of our running across one another at all. But even in that short time I had realised that Billy Merton was a white man. And not only was he straight, but he was essentially a useful person to have at one’s side in a tight corner.

“Are you disposed to elaborate your somewhat amazing statement?” I asked, after a pause.

For a moment or two he hesitated, and his eyes became thoughtful.

“I don’t suppose there’s any reason why I shouldn’t,” he answered slowly. “It’s ancient history now—ten years or so.”

“That was just about the time she was married,” I remarked.

He nodded. “She was on her honeymoon when it happened. Well, if you want to hear the yarn, come round to my club.”

“Why, certainly,” I said, beckoning for the bill. “Let’s get on at once; I’m curious.”

“Do you know Africa at all?” he asked me, as we pulled our chairs up to the fire. We had the room almost to ourselves; a gentle snoring from the other fireplace betokened the only other occupant.

“Egypt,” I answered. “Parts of South Africa. The usual thing: nothing out of the ordinary.”