Part 15

I gave such a jump that I nearly upset the contents of a cup of boiling tea which I was conveying to my mouth. As it was, I scalded my tongue and nearly choked.

"What is?" I queried with a frown, for I was really vexed with the creature. I had no idea he was there at all. But he only smiled and concluded his speech, quite unperturbed.

"... that creates additional interest in a crime when it concerns people of wealth or rank."

"Snobbishness," I rejoined, "of course it's snobbishness! And when the little suburban madam has finished reading about Lady Stickinthemud's reception at Claridge's she likes to turn to Lord Tomnoodle's prospective sojourn in gaol."

"You were thinking of the disappearance of the Australian millionaire?" he asked blandly.

"I don't know that I was," I retorted.

"But of course you were. How could any journalist worthy of the name fail to be interested in that intricate case?"

"I suppose you have your theory--as usual?"

"It is not a theory," the creature replied, with that fatuous smile of his which always irritated me; "it is a certainty."

Then, as he became silent, absorbed in the contemplation of a wonderfully complicated knot in his beloved bit of string, I said with gracious condescension:

"You may talk about it, if you like."

He did like, fortunately for me, because, frankly, I could not see daylight in that maze of intrigue, adventure and possibly crime, which was described by the Press as "The Mystery of the White Carnation."

"The events were interesting from the outset," he began after a while, whilst I settled down to listen, "and so were various actors in the society drama. Chief amongst these was, of course, Captain Shillington, an Australian ex-officer, commonly reputed to be a millionaire, who, with his mother and sister, rented Mexfield House in Somerset Street, Mayfair, the summer before last. It appears that Lord Mexfield's younger son, the Honorable Henry Buckley, who was an incorrigible rake and whom his father had sent on a tour round the world in order to keep him temporarily out of mischief, not to say out of gaol, had met a married brother of Captain Shillington's out in the Antipodes, they had been very kind to him, and so on, with the result that when came the following London season the family turned up in England, and, after spending a couple of days at the Savoy, they moved into the Mexfields' house in Somerset Street.

"Lord and Lady Mexfield were abroad that year, and Henry Buckley and his sister Angela were living with an aunt who had a small house somewhere in Mayfair.

"Although the Shillingtons were reputed to be very wealthy, they appeared to be very quiet, simple folk, and it certainly seemed rather strange that they should have gone to the expense of a house in town, when obviously they had no social ambitions and did not mean to entertain. As a matter of fact, as far as Mrs. Shillington and her daughter were concerned, nobody could have lived a quieter, more retiring life than they did. Mrs. Shillington was an invalid and hardly ever went outside her front door, and the girl Marion seemed to be suffering from a perpetual cold in the head. They seemed to be in a chronic state of servant trouble. Mrs. Shillington was dreadfully irritable, and one set of servants after another were engaged only to leave without notice after a few days. The one faithful servant who remained was a snuffy old man who came to them about a month after they moved into Mexfield House. He and a charwoman did all the work of cooking and valeting and so on. Presumably the old man could not have got a situation elsewhere as his appearance was very unprepossessing, and therefore he was willing to put up with what the servants' registry offices would term 'a very uncomfortable situation.'

"Captain Shillington, the hero of the tragic adventure, on the other hand, went about quite a good deal. He was certainly voted to be rather strait-laced, not to say priggish, but he was very good-looking and a fine dancer. Henry Buckley introduced him to some of his smart friends and Lady Angela constituted him her dancing partner. The partnership soon developed into warmer friendship and presently it was given out that Lady Angela Buckley, only daughter of the Earl and Countess of Mexfield, was engaged to Captain Denver Shillington, the Australian millionaire. Lady Angela confided to her friends that her fiancé was the owner of immense estates in Western Australia, on a portion of which rich deposits of gold had lately been discovered. He certainly had plenty of money to spend, and on one occasion he actually paid Henry Buckley's gambling debts to the tune of two or three hundred pounds.

"On the whole, society pronounced the match a suitable one. Lady Angela Buckley was no longer in her first youth, whilst her brother, to whom she was really devoted, would be all the better for a somewhat puritanical, strait-laced and, above all, wealthy brother-in-law."

§2

"That, then, was the position," the Old Man in the Corner continued after a while, "and the date of Lady Angela Buckley's marriage to Captain Denver Shillington had been actually fixed when the public was startled one afternoon towards the end of the summer by the sensational news in all the evening papers: 'Mysterious disappearance of a millionaire.' This highly coloured description applied, as it turned out, to Captain Shillington, the fiancé of Lady Angela Buckley. It seems that during the course of that same morning a young lady, apparently in deep distress and suffering from a streaming cold in the head, had called at Scotland Yard. She gave her name and address as Marion Shillington, of Mexfield House, Somerset Street, Mayfair, and stated that she and her mother were in the greatest possible anxiety owing to the disappearance of her brother, Captain Denver Shillington. They had last seen him on the previous Friday evening at about nine o'clock when he left home in order to pick up his fiancée, Lady Angela Buckley, whom he was escorting that night to a reception in Grosvenor Square. He was wearing full evening dress and a soft hat. Miss Shillington couldn't say whether he had any money in his pockets. She thought that probably he was carrying a gold cigarette case, which Lady Angela had given him, but, as a matter of fact, he never wore any jewellery.

"No one in the house had heard him come in again that night, and his bed had not been slept in. Questioned by the police, Miss Shillington explained that neither she nor her mother felt any alarm at first because there had been some talk of Captain Shillington going away with his fiancée to stay with friends over the week-end, somewhere near Newmarket. It was only this morning, Wednesday, that Mrs. Shillington first began to worry when there was still no sign or letter from him. 'My brother is a very good son,' Miss Shillington continued, explaining to the police, 'and always very considerate to mother. It was so unlike him to leave us without news all this while and not let us know when to expect him home. So I rang up Lady Angela Buckley, who is his fiancée, to see if I could get news through her, as I could see mother was beginning to get anxious. Mr. Henry Buckley, Lady Angela's brother, answered the 'phone. I asked after his sister and he told me that she was staying on in the country a day or two longer. He himself had come back to town the previous night. I then asked him, quite casually, if he knew whether Denver--that's my brother--would be returning with Angela. And his answer to me was, "Denver? Why, I haven't seen him since Friday. And I can tell you that he is in for a row with Angela. She was furious with him that he never wrote once to her while she was away." I was so upset that I hung up the receiver and just sat there wondering what to do next. But Mr. Buckley rang up a moment or two later and asked quite cheerily if there was anything wrong. "Good old Square-toes!" he said, meaning my brother, whom he always used to chaff by calling him "Square-toes," "don't tell me he has gone off on the spree without letting you know. I say, that's too bad of him, though. But I shouldn't be anxious if I were you. Boys, you know, Miss Shillington, will be boys, and I like old Square-toes all the better for it."'

"Miss Shillington," the Old Man in the Corner went on, "was as usual suffering from a streaming cold, and between spluttering and crying, she had reduced two or three handkerchiefs to wet balls. At best she was no beauty, and with a red nose and streaming eyes she presented a most pitiable spectacle. 'I made Mr. Buckley assure me once more,' she said, 'that he had seen nothing of Denver since Friday. That night he and Lady Angela and Denver were at a reception in Grosvenor Square. They all left about the same time. Angela and Denver went, presumably, straight home; at any rate, he, Mr. Buckley, saw nothing more of them after they got into their car. He himself went to spend an hour or two at his club and came home about two a.m. The next morning, after breakfast, he drove his sister out to Tatchford, near Newmarket, where they spent the week-end with some friends. And that was all Mr. Buckley could say to me,' Miss Shillington concluded, vigorously blowing her nose: 'He came home last night from Tatchford, and was expecting Lady Angela in a couple of days. Denver had not been at Tatchford at all, and he had not once written to Angela all the while she was away.'

"Of course the police inspector to whom Miss Shillington related all these facts had a great many questions to put to her. For one thing he wanted to know whether she had been in communication with Lady Angela Buckley since this morning.

"'No,' the girl replied, 'I have not, and so far, I haven't said anything to mother. As soon as I felt strong enough I put on my things and came along here.'

"Then the inspector wanted to know if she knew of any friends or acquaintances of her brother's with whom he might have gone off for a week-end jaunt without saying anything about it, either at home or to his fiancée. He put the questions as delicately as he could, but the sister flared up with indignation. It seems that the Captain's conduct had always been irreproachable. He was a model son, a model brother, and deeply in love with Lady Angela. Miss Shillington also refused to believe that he could have been enticed to a place of ill-fame and robbed by one of the usual confidence tricksters.

"'My brother is exceptionally shrewd,' she declared, 'and a splendid business man. Though he is not yet thirty, he has built up an enormous fortune out in Australia, and administers his estates himself to the admiration of every one who knows him. He is not the sort of man who could be fooled in that way.'

"But beyond all this, and beyond giving a detailed description of her brother's appearance, the poor girl had very little to say, and the detective who was put in charge of the case could only assure her that enquiries would at once be instituted in every possible direction, and that the police would keep her informed of everything that was being done. Obviously, the person most likely to be able to throw some light upon the mystery was Lady Angela Buckley, but as you know, the advent of this charming lady upon the scene only helped to complicate matters. It appears that Henry Buckley, delighted at what he jocosely called, 'Old "Square-toes" falling from grace,' had rung up his sister in order to tell her the startling news over the telephone. Lady Angela being a very modern young woman, her brother thought that she might storm for a bit but in the end see the humorous side of the situation. But not at all! Lady Angela took the affair entirely _au tragique_. Over the telephone she only exclaimed, 'Great Lord!' but at one o'clock in the afternoon she arrived at the flat, having taken the first train up to town and not even waiting for her maid to pack her things. Mr. Henry Buckley was just going out to lunch. Without condescending to explain anything, his sister dragged him off then and there to Scotland Yard. 'Something has happened to Denver,' was all that she would say. 'Something dreadful, I am sure.' In vain did her brother protest that she would only be making a fool of herself by rushing to the police like this, that old Square-toes had only gone on the spree, and that, anyway, she ought to consult with the Shillingtons before doing anything silly; Lady Angela would not listen to reason. 'You don't know! You don't know!' she kept on reiterating with ever-increasing agitation. 'He has been murdered, I tell you. Murdered!'

"By the time that the pair arrived at Scotland Yard, Lady Angela was in a state bordering on hysterics, and her brother appeared both sulky and perplexed. They saw the same Inspector who had interviewed Miss Shillington, and certainly his amazement was no whit less than that of Mr. Henry Buckley when Lady Angela having mentioned the disappearance of Captain Denver Shillington, said abruptly, 'Yes, he has disappeared, and incidentally, he had my pearls in his pocket.' The Inspector made no immediate comment; men of his calling are used to those kinds of surprises, but Henry Buckley gave a gasp of horror.

"'Your pearls?' he exclaimed. 'What pearls? Not----?'

"'Yes,' Lady Angela rejoined, coolly. 'The Glenarm pearls. All of them!'

"'But----' Henry Buckley stammered, wide-eyed and white to the lips.

"His sister threw him what appeared to be a warning glance, then she turned once more to the police inspector.

"'My brother is upset,' she said calmly, 'because he knows that the pearls are of immense value. The late Lord Glenarm left them to me in his will. He made a huge fortune by a successful speculation in sugar. He had no daughters of his own, and late in life he married my mother's sister. He was my godfather, and when he first bought the pearls and gave them to his wife as a wedding present, he said that after her death and his they should belong to me. They were valued for probate at twenty-five thousand pounds.'

"Henry Buckley was still speechless, and it was in answer to several questions put to her by the Inspector that Lady Angela gave the full history, as far as she knew it, of the disappearance of her pearls.

"'I was going to spend the week-end with some friends at Tatchford, near Newmarket,' she said. 'My brother at first had decided not to come with me. On the Friday evening I went with Captain Shillington to a ball at the Duchess of Flint's in Grosvenor Square. I wore my pearls; on the way home in the car, Captain Shillington appeared very anxious as to what I should do about the pearls whilst I was away. He wanted me to take them to the bank first thing in the morning before I left. But I knew I couldn't do this, because my train was at nine-fifty from Liverpool Street. Captain Shillington had once or twice before shown anxiety about the pearls and urged me to keep them at the bank when I was not wearing them, but he had never been so insistent as that night.'

"Lady Angela appeared to hesitate for a moment or two. She glanced at her brother with a curious expression, both of anxiety and contempt. It seemed as if she were trying to make up her mind to say something that was very difficult, to put in so many words. The Inspector sat silent and impassive, waiting for her to continue her story, and at last she did make up her mind to speak.

"'I had a safe in the flat,' she went on, glibly, 'where I keep my jewellery, but Captain Shillington did not seem satisfied. He argued and argued, and at last he persuaded me to let him have the pearls while I was away and he would deposit them at his own bank until my return.'

"Presumably at this point the lady caught an expression on the face of the Inspector which displeased her, for she added with becoming dignity, 'I am engaged to be married to Captain Denver Shillington.'

"'My God!' Henry Buckley exclaimed at this point, and with a groan he buried his face in his hands.

"Mind you," the Old Man in the Corner proceeded, after a moment's pause, "the public had no information as to the exact words, and so on, that passed between Lady Angela, her brother Henry, and the officials of Scotland Yard. All that I am telling you, and what I am still about to tell you, came out bit by bit in the papers. Sensation-lovers were immensely interested in the case from the outset, because, although both public and police are familiar enough with the tragi-comedy of the good-looking young blackguard who gets confiding females to entrust him with their little bits of jewellery, this was the first time that the confidence trick had been played by a well-known man about town--reputed wealthy, since he had gone to the length of paying a friend's gambling debts--on a society lady who was not in her first youth and must presumably have had some knowledge of the world she lived in.

"Lady Angela had concluded her statements by saying that during the drive home in the car she took off her pearls and handed them to her fiancé, who slipped them into his pocket just as they were, although when presently the car drew up at her door she suggested running up to her room to get the case for them. The Captain, however, declared this to be unnecessary. What he said was, 'I will sleep with them under my pillow to-night, and to-morrow morning first thing I will take them round to the bank for you.' After this he said good-night. Lady Angela let herself into the house with her latchkey, and Captain Shillington then dismissed the car, saying that he would enjoy a bit of a walk as the rooms at Grosvenor Square had been so desperately hot.

"And it was at this point," the Old Man in the Corner now said with deliberate emphasis as he worked away at an exceptionally intricate knot in his beloved bit of string, "it was at this point that certain facts leaked out which lent to the whole case a sinister aspect.

"It appears that on the Saturday morning at break of day one of the boats belonging to the Thames District Police found a grey Homburg hat floating under one of the old steamship landing stages and, stuck to one of the wooden piles close by, a man's silk scarf. There was no name inside the hat or any other clue as to the owner's identity, but both the scarf, which had once been white or light grey, and the hat were terribly soiled and torn, and both were stained with blood. The police had tried on the quiet to trace the owner of the hat and scarf but without success. After Lady Angela had told her story of the missing pearls, the things were shown to Miss Shillington, who at once identified the hat as belonging to her brother; the scarf, however, she knew nothing about.

"But this was not by any means all. It appears that for some reason which was never quite clear, Captain Shillington, after he said good-night to Lady Angela, altered his mind about the proposed walk. It may have started to rain, or he may not, after all, have liked the idea of walking about the streets at night with twenty-five thousand pounds' worth of pearls in his pocket. Be that as it may, he hailed a passing taxi and drove to Mexfield House. The driver came forward voluntarily in answer to an advertisement put in the papers by the police. He stated that he remembered the circumstance quite well because of what followed. He remembered taking up a fare outside Stanhope Gate and being ordered to drive to Mexfield House in Somerset Street. When he slowed down close to Mexfield House he noticed a man with his hands in his pockets lounging under the doorway of one of the houses close by. As far as he could see the man was in evening dress and wore a light overcoat. He had on a silk hat tilted right over his eyes so that only the lower part of his face was visible, and he had a white or pale grey scarf tied loosely round his neck. The chauffeur also noticed that he had a large white flower, probably a carnation, in his buttonhole. After the taxi-man had put down his fare he drove off, and as he did so he saw the man in the light overcoat step out from under the doorway, where he had been lounging, and turn in the direction of Mexfield House. What happened after that he didn't know, as he drove away without taking further notice, but the police were already in touch with another man who had been watching that night in Somerset Street, where a portion of the road was up for repair. This man, whose name, I think, was William Rugger, remembered quite distinctly seeing a 'swell' in a light overcoat and wearing a light-coloured scarf round his neck, loafing around Mexfield House. He remembered the taxi drawing up and a gentleman getting out of it, whereupon the one in the light overcoat and the scarf went up to him and said, 'Hullo, Denver!' at which the other gent, the one who had come in the taxi, appeared very surprised, for Rugger heard him say, 'Good Lord, Henry, what are you doing here?'

"Rugger didn't hear any more because the gentleman in the light overcoat then took the other one by the arm and together the pair of them walked away down the street. When they had gone Rugger noticed a large white carnation lying on the pavement; he picked it up and subsequently took it home to his missis.

"You may imagine what a stir and excitement this story--which pretty soon leaked out in all its details--caused amongst the public. It seems that although neither the taxi-driver nor the man Rugger had seen the face of the man who had stepped out from under a neighbouring doorway and accosted Captain Shillington, they were both of them quite positive that he was in evening dress, and that he wore a silk hat, a light overcoat, and had a pale grey or white scarf wound round his neck. And besides that, there was the white carnation. But, of course, the crux of the whole evidence was Rugger's assertion that he heard one gentleman--the one who got out of the cab--say to the other in tones of great surprise, 'Good Lord, Henry, what are you doing here?' Questioned again and again he never wavered in this statement. He heard the name Henry quite distinctly and it stuck in his mind because his eldest boy was Henry. He was also asked whether the gentleman, who had stepped out of the taxi--obviously Captain Shillington, since the other had called to him, 'Hullo, Denver'--walked away reluctantly or willingly when he was thus summarily taken hold of by the arm. Rugger was under the impression that he walked away reluctantly; he freed his arm once, but the other got hold of him again, and, though Rugger did not catch the actual words, he certainly thought that the two gentlemen were quarrelling.

"And thus public opinion, which at first had been dead against the Australian Captain, now went equally dead against Henry Buckley. Ugly stories were current of his extravagance, his gambling debts, his addiction to drink. People who knew him remembered one or two ugly pages in his life's history: altercations with the police, raids on gambling clubs of which he was a prominent member; there was even a fraudulent bankruptcy which had been the original cause of his being sent out to Australia by his harassed parents until the worst of the clouds had rolled by.