Part 18

"Everything being ready, Sir James Narford asked a distinguished lady friend of his to declare the show open, and for the first fortnight--this, I must tell you, was in October--there was a steady stream of visitors, ladies for the most part, who came to gaze on the much-advertised gems. You might wonder what pleasure there could be in looking at things one could never hope to possess, especially at loose gems, however precious, which, to my mind, only become beautiful when they are mounted and set in artistic designs. However, I do not profess to understand feminine mentality; all I know is that Sir James Narford declared himself on more than one occasion satisfied with the result of his little venture. True that after the first fortnight the attendance at the show fell off considerably, and a few people did wonder why Sir James should continue to keep it open for so long. Those who had been most curious to see the gems of fabulous value had flocked in the first few days, after that there was only a very thin sprinkling of people up from the country, or foreigners, who paid their 2s. 6d. admission for the sight. But be that as it may, the jewels were certainly getting an additional amount of advertisement, and when presently the owner would put them for sale, as no doubt he intended to do, they would fetch a higher figure in consequence. In the meanwhile Sir James went on living very quietly in a small service flat in George Street, waited on by a faithful servant, a man named Ruggles, whom he had known for years. Every day he would stroll round to Sackville Street to look at his treasure and to talk to one or two friends. At six o'clock the exhibition would be closed, and Sir James would himself deposit all the gems into the safe, lock up the premises, and take the keys back with him to his flat. He went out very little in society, and only occasionally to his club. His one extravagance appeared to be a mania for travelling in all sorts of out-of-the-way places; he had been seemingly in every corner of Europe--in Czecho-Slovakia and Yugoslavia, in Montenegro, Bosnia, and Bessarabia. Before this whenever he went off on his travels he would take his man with him and shut up the flat, but on the occasion which presently arose he left Ruggles in charge of the exhibition in Sackville Street. This was early in November, about a fortnight after the opening of the exhibition; and when Sir James had gone it was Ruggles who every night at six o'clock put the gems away in the safe and locked up the premises. He then made a point of going for a brisk walk, and returned to the flat at about half-past seven, had his supper, read his paper, and then went to bed at about ten o'clock with the keys of the safe and of the Sackville Street premises underneath his pillow.

"One of the staff in the flats at George Street always got his supper ready for him--some cold meat, bread and cheese, and half a pint of beer, which the lift-boy invariably fetched for him from the Crown and Sceptre round the corner. He prepared his own breakfast in the morning, and his other meals he took in Sackville Street. They were sent in from one of the cheaper restaurants in Piccadilly.

"Every morning the charwoman who cleaned the steps outside the block of flats in George Street would see Ruggles come out of the house and walk away in the direction of Sackville Street. Even on Sundays he would stroll round as far as the shop to see that everything was all right.

"It was on a snowy morning in January that the charwoman failed to see Ruggles at his accustomed time. As the quiet neighbourhood did not as a rule lend itself much to gossip, the present opportunity was not to be missed. The charwoman, on meeting with the lift-boy, imparted to him the priceless news that Mr. Ruggles must either be ill or had gone and overslept himself. Whereupon the lift-boy was ready with the startling information that he had just observed that one of the glass panels in the front door of Sir James Narford's flat was broken. 'The glass wasn't broke in the evening, ten-thirty,' he went on to say, 'when I took a party down who'd been visitin' Miss Jenkins.'

"It seems that Miss Jenkins was maid to a lady who had a flat on the same floor as Sir James Narford. But there was the length of a passage with staircase and lift between the two flats, and neither the lady nor the maid, when spoken to by the lift-boy about the broken glass panel, had heard anything during the night. Now all this seemed very strange, more especially as the morning hours wore on and there was still no sign of Mr. Ruggles. The lift-boy was kept busy for the next hour taking the staff of the service flats up and down in his lift, as every one wished to have a look at the broken panel, and wanted to add their quota of opinion as to what had gone on last night in Sir James Narford's flat. At ten o'clock the housekeeper, more responsible or more enterprising than the rest of the staff, resolved to knock at the flat door. No answer came. She then tried to peep through the broken glass panel, and to apply her ear to it. For a time all was silence. The charwoman, the lift-boy, the scullery-maid, and the head housemaid stood by on the landing, holding their breath. Suddenly they all gave a simultaneous gasp! A groan--distinctly a groan--was heard issuing from inside the flat! The group of watchers looked at one another in dismay. 'What's to be done?' they murmured.

"The lift-boy had the key of the flat, but as the front door was bolted on the inside, the key in itself was no use. The housekeeper with the air of a general in command about to order a deathly charge, said resolutely, 'I shall force my way in!' And it was the lift-boy who gasped, awe-stricken, 'You kin put your 'and through the broken panel, mum, and pull the bolt.'

"Somehow this bright idea which had occurred to the lift-boy made every one there feel still more uncomfortable. The housekeeper, who had been so bold a while ago, stammered something about fetching the police, and when at that precise moment the lift-bell rang, the head housemaid declared herself ready to faint. But it was only Sir James Narford who had rung for the lift from below. He had arrived by the night mail from Paris, and had only his small suit-case with him. The lift-boy had the satisfaction of being the first to impart the exciting news to him. ''E took it badly, 'e did!' was that young gentleman's comment on Sir James's reception of the news. Without taking the slightest notice of the group of excited women on the landing, Sir James went straight to his front door, thrust his hand through the broken panel, drew back the inside bolt, and stepped into his flat. The next moment the agitated crowd on the landing heard him cry out, 'My God, Ruggles, what has happened?' A feeble voice which was scarcely recognisable as that of Ruggles was then heard talking in short, jerky sentences, and a few moments later Sir James's voice could be distinctly heard speaking on the telephone.

"'He is telephoning for the police,' the housekeeper solemnly announced to the staff.

"Well," the Old Man in the Corner continued after a while, "let me shorten my tale by telling you briefly the story which Ruggles told the police. It did not amount to a great deal, but such as it was it revealed a degree of cunning and of daring in the ways of burglary that have seldom been equalled. Ruggles, it seems, had as usual put away the gems in the safe and locked up the premises in Sackville Street and then walked home to the flat, very glad, he declared, that his responsibility would cease before another day went by, as he expected Sir James home from abroad the following morning. He had his supper as usual, but when he settled down to read his paper, he felt so sleepy that he just went and bolted the front door, placed the keys underneath his pillow, and went straight to bed. He remembered nothing more until he felt himself roughly shaken and heard his master's voice calling to him. It took him some time to collect himself; he felt dazed and his head ached terribly. When Sir James told him that it was past ten o'clock he could not conceive how he could have overslept himself in this way. Through force of habit he put his hand under his pillow to grope for the keys. They had gone! Then Sir James telephoned to the police. That was all that Ruggles could say. His condition was pitiable; alternately bemoaning his fate and cursing himself for a fool, he knelt at his master's feet and with hands clasped begged for forgiveness.

"'I'd have done anything in the world for Sir James,' he kept reiterating to the police officer, 'and 'ere I've been the ruin of 'im, just through over-sleepin'.'

"The police inspector got quite impatient with him, and at one time, I think, he thought that the man was acting a part. But Sir James Narford himself indignantly repudiated any suggestion of the sort. 'I would trust Ruggles,' he said emphatically, 'as I would myself. I have known him for thirty years, and he was in my father's service before that. I trust him with my keys, with money, with everything. He would have plenty of opportunity to rob me comfortably if he had a mind. What would a man of his class do with valuable gems?'

"All the same I fancy that the police did not altogether lose sight of the possibility that Ruggles might know something about the affair, but in spite of very clever questioning and cross-questioning, his story never varied even in the minutest detail. All that he added to his original statement that was of any value was the description of a foreign visitor at Sackville Street whom, in his own words, he 'didn't like the looks of.' This was a youngish man, with very sallow complexion, jet-black hair and moustache, and wearing a peculiar-looking caped overcoat and black soft hat with a very wide brim, who had remained over half an hour in the shop, apparently deeply interested in the gems. At one time he asked Ruggles whether he might have the glass cases opened, so that he could examine the stones and pearls more closely. This request Ruggles very naturally refused. The young man then put a lot of questions to him: 'Where did the gems come from? What was their value? Were they insured? Where were they kept at night? Was the safe burglar-proof or only fireproof?' and so on.

"It seems that two ladies who were visiting the exhibition at the same time noticed this same young man with the sallow complexion and the jet-black hair. They heard him questioning Ruggles and remarked upon his foreign accent, which was neither Italian nor Spanish; they thought he might be Portuguese. His clothes were certainly very outlandish. The ladies had noticed the caped coat, a kind of black Inverness, and the hat _à la_ Montmartre. The presence of this foreigner in the shop in Sackville Street became still more significant later on, when another fact came to light--a fact in connection with the half-pint of beer which the lift-boy from the flats in George Street had fetched as usual on the evening preceding the robbery, from the Crown and Sceptre public house. A few drops of the beer had remained in the mug beside the remnants of Ruggles's supper. On examination the beer was found to contain chloral. The lift-boy at first was probably too scared to throw any light on this circumstance. He had, he declared, fetched the beer as usual from the Crown and Sceptre, taken it up to No. 4, Sir James Narford's flat, and put it upon the table in the sitting-room, where Mr. Ruggles's supper was already laid for him. After repeated questions from the police inspector, however, he recollected that on his way from the public house to the flats, a gentleman accosted him and asked him the way to Regent Street. The boy, holding the mug of beer in one hand, pointed out the way with the other and probably turned his head in the same direction as he did so. He couldn't say for certain. The gentleman seemed stupid and didn't understand the directions all at once; the boy had to repeat them again and again, and altogether was in conversation with the gentleman quite a while. It was dark at the time, but he did see that the gentleman wore a funny sort of coat and a funny hat, and as the boy picturesquely put it, ''E spoke queer-like, as if 'e wor a Frenchman.' To a lift-boy presumably every foreigner is a Frenchman if he be not a German, and though the lad's description of the coat and hat only amounted to his calling them 'funny,' there seemed little doubt but that the man who visited the shop in Sackville Street and the one who accosted the lift-boy in George Street were one and the same. There was also little doubt but that he poured the drug into the mug of beer while the boy's head was turned away. And finally all doubts were set at rest when the 'funny coat and hat' were discovered tied up in a bundle in the area of an empty house, two doors higher up the street.

"Unfortunately, although these few facts were definitely established, all traces of the man himself vanished after that. How he got into the block of flats could not be ascertained. He might have slipped in after the lift-boy, while the latter went upstairs with the beer, and concealed himself somewhere in the basement. It was impossible to say. The street-door was kept open as usual until eleven o'clock, and until that hour the boy was in attendance at the lift; he had been up and down several times, taking up residents or their visitors, and while he ran to fetch the beer one of the maids saw to the lift, if the bell rang. At eleven o'clock every evening the street-door was closed, but not bolted; it was provided with a Yale lock and every resident had one key, in case they came in late; the lift was not worked after that hour, but there was a light kept on every landing. These lights the housemaid switched off the first thing every morning when she did the stairs, and as a matter of fact she remembered that on that memorable morning the light on the top floor landing--which is the landing outside Sir James Narford's flat--was already switched off when she went to do it.

"And those are all the facts," the Old Man in the Corner went on slowly, while he paused in his work of fashioning intricate knots in his beloved bit of string, "all the facts that were ever known in connection with the theft of Sir James Narford's gems. Of course, as you may well suppose, not only the official but also the public mind at once flew to the mysterious personage, originally found wounded in an empty house in Wicklow Lane. There could be no shadow of doubt that this man and the one who visited the shop in Sackville Street, who accosted the lift-boy, drugged Ruggles's beer and robbed him of his keys, were one and the same. There was the black caped coat, the Montmartre hat, the jet-black hair and foreign look. True, the wounded man of Wicklow Lane spoke English without any foreign accent, but the latter could easily be assumed. Indeed, it all seemed plain sailing, and as soon as the word went round about the robbery in Sackville Street and the description was given of the foreign-looking individual with the jet-black hair, the police thought they had a perfectly clear case.

"A clear case, yes!" the funny creature went on, with a grin, "but not an easy one, because when the police called at the hotel in Mexborough Gate they learned that the mysterious Mr. Allen Lloyd had been gone three days. Having paid his bill, he had walked out of the house one dark afternoon and not been seen or heard of since. He went off carrying a paper parcel, which no doubt contained the few belongings he had bought of late.

"Of course he was the thief and a marvellous cunning one. Just think what it meant. It meant, first of all, immense presence of mind and daring to accost the lift-boy and engage him in conversation whilst pouring a drug into a mug of beer; then it meant sneaking into the block of flats in George Street, breaking the glass panel of a door, entering the flat, stealing the keys, sneaking out of the building again, going round to Sackville Street, watching until the police on duty had passed by, entering the house, opening the safe, collecting the gems--all in full view of the street, mind you, or else in absolute darkness--then relocking the safe and again watching for the opportunity to sneak out of the house until the man on duty was out of sight. Clever? I should think it would have been clever, if it had ever been done!"

"How do you mean, if it had ever been done?" I ejaculated, with some impatience. "Whoever the thief was--and I suppose that you have your theory--he must have done all those things."

"Oh no, he did not!" the funny creature asserted emphatically, "he merely put all the gems away in his own pocket after the exhibition was closed for the night, instead of locking them up in the safe."

"Then you think it was Ruggles?" I exclaimed.

"In conjunction with his master."

"Sir James Narford? But why?"

"For the sake of the insurance money."

"But, man alive!" I ejaculated, "that was the tragedy of the whole thing. I remember reading about it at the time. I suppose that it was either out of meanness or because he had so little ready money, but Sir James Narford had only insured his treasure for £20,000, whereas the jewels----"

"Were not worth a penny more than that," the Old Man in the Corner broke in with his bland smile. "The public may have been bamboozled with tales of fabulous value--nowadays people talk as glibly of millions as the past generation did of thousands--but insurance companies don't usually listen to fairy tales."

"But even so," I argued, "the jewels must have been worth more than the insurance after all the advertisement they got. Why shouldn't Sir James have sold them, rather than take the risk of stealing them?"

"But, my dear young lady," he retorted, "can't you see that the jewels can still be sold and that they will be--abroad--presently--one by one? Twenty thousand pounds insurance money is good, but you double the amount and it is better."

"But what about the wounded man in Wicklow Lane?" I asked.

"A red herring across the trail," he replied, with a smile, "only with this difference, that it was dragged across before the hounds were on the scent. And that is where the immense cleverness of the man comes in. To create a personality on whom to draw suspicion of a crime and then make that personality disappear before the crime is committed, is as clever a bit of rascality as I have ever seen. It needed absolute coolness and a knowledge of facial make-up, in both of which we must take it Sir James Narford was a past-master. Think then how easy everything else would be for him.

"Just let me reconstruct the whole thing for you from beginning to end, that is from the moment when Sir James Narford first conceived the idea of doubling the value of his gems, and took his man Ruggles as partner in that fine piece of rascality. He couldn't have done it without a partner, of course, and probably this was not the first villainy those two scoundrels had carried through together. Well then, Narford having given instructions to Ruggles and arranged certain matters of detail with him, begins his campaign by ostensibly starting on a journey. He crossed over to France probably and then back to England. It is easy enough for a man to disappear in crowded trains or railway stations if there is no one on his track; easy enough for him to stay in one hotel after another in any big town if he chooses hotels whose proprietors have reason to dread the police, and will not volunteer information if any of their visitors are 'wanted.' A month only of such wanderings and Sir James Narford, habitually a very dapper man, with sleek, sandy hair cropped very close, a tiny tooth-brush moustache and shaven cheeks and chin, can easily be transformed into one with shaggy hair and beard and walrus moustache. Add to this a nose built out with grease-paint and highly coloured, and cheeks stained a dull red, and you have the man who called for the key of the empty house at Messrs. Whiskin and Sons, with a parcel under his arm, which contained the black cape and Montmartre hat purchased abroad at some time previously, during the course of his wanderings. That's simple, is it not?" the funny creature continued, while his thin, claw-like fingers worked away feverishly at his piece of string. "Now, all that our rascal wants is to change his clothes and his face; so, late that evening, by preconcerted plan, Ruggles meets him at the empty house under cover of the fog. Here he and his precious master change clothes with one another. Narford then completes his toilet by applying to his shaggy hair and beard one of those modern dyes that are so much advertised for the use of ladies desiring to possess raven locks. And so we have the explanation of all the conflicting evidence of the witnesses who saw a man with a parcel, and yet were so much at variance both as to the time when they saw him, as to his appearance, and even as to the size of the parcel.

"Having thus _created_ the personality of a foreign-looking individual in black clothes, you will easily see how important it was for the general scheme that the comedy of the row and the pistol-shots in the empty house should be enacted. Attention had to be drawn to the created personage, attention coupled with mystery, and at this stage of the scheme there was not the slightest danger of the wounded man in Wicklow Lane being in any way connected with Sir James Narford of George Street, Mayfair. Time was no object. The mysterious Mr. Allen Lloyd of Wicklow Lane might be detained days, weeks, even months, but he would have to be let out some time or other. He was perfectly harmless apparently, and otherwise sane; he could not be kept for ever at the country's expense. He was eventually discharged; went to an hotel, and lived there quietly a while longer until he thought that the time was ripe for complete disappearance. In the meanwhile we must suppose that he was in touch with Ruggles. Ruggles made a point of taking a brisk walk every evening. Well, winter evenings are dark and London is a very crowded place. Ruggles would bring what money was required. What more easy than to meet in a crowd?

"Then at last the two rascals thought that the time was ripe. The mysterious Mr. Allen Lloyd disappeared from the hotel in Mexborough Gate; he went to Sackville Street, where he shaved off his shaggy moustache and beard, and cut his hair once more so close that nothing of the dyed ends could be seen. He changed into his own clothes, which Ruggles kept there ready for him. Then he slipped round to Victoria Station and crossed over to France, only in order to return to England, openly this time, as Sir James Narford, and just in time to find Ruggles just aroused from a drugged sleep and the whole flat seething with excitement. But it was he who in black cape and Montmartre hat visited the shop in Sackville Street, it was Ruggles who the following night spoke to the lift-boy, even while Narford was procuring for himself a perfect alibi by crossing over quite openly from France.