Part 21

"And now you will no doubt recall the fact which finally determined the jury to bring in their sensational verdict, in consequence of which Philip Ashley was arrested on the coroner's warrant on a charge of attempted murder. It seemed horrible, ununderstandable, unbelievable, but, nevertheless, a jury of twelve men did arrive at that momentous decision after deliberation lasting less than half an hour. What I believe weighed with them in the end was the fact that the assistant who came with the divisional surgeon to conduct the _post-mortem_ found underneath the bed of the deceased, a walking-stick with a crook-handle, and the crumpled and torn copy of the notes for the new will which Mr. Triscott had prepared. Philip Ashley when confronted with the stick admitted that it was his. He had missed it on the Saturday when he was leaving the flat, as he was under the impression that he had brought one with him; however, he did not want to spend any more time looking for it, as he was obviously so very much in the way.

"Now, both the charwoman and Mrs. Triscott swore that the patient's room had been cleaned and tidied on the Sunday, and that there was no sign of a walking-stick in the room then.

§5

"And so," the Old Man in the Corner went on, with a cynical shrug of his lean shoulders, "Philip Ashley went through the terrible ordeal of being hauled up before the magistrate on the charge of having attempted to murder his father, an old man with one foot in the grave. He pleaded 'Not Guilty,' and reserved his defence. The whole of the evidence was gone through all over again, of course, but nothing new had transpired. The case was universally thought to look very black against the accused, and no one was surprised when he was eventually committed for trial.

"Public feeling remained distinctly hostile to him. It was a crime so horrible and so unique you would have thought that no one would have believed that a well-known, well-educated man could possibly have been guilty of it. Probably, if the event had occurred before the war, public opinion would have repudiated the possibility, but so many horrible crimes have occurred in every country these past few years that one was just inclined to shrug one's shoulders and murmur: 'Perhaps, one never knows!' One thing remained beyond a doubt: old Mr. Thornton Ashley died of shock or fright following a violent and dastardly assault, finger-marks were discovered round his throat, and there were evidences on his face and head that he had been repeatedly struck with what might easily have been the walking-stick which was found under his bed. Add to this the weight of evidence of the new will, about to be signed, and of the quarrel between father and son on the previous Wednesday, and you have as good a motive for the murder as any prosecuting counsel might wish for. Philip Ashley would not, of course, hang for murder, but it was even betting that he would get twenty years.

"Anyway, I don't think that, as things were, any one blamed Lady Peet-Jackson for her decision. A week before Philip Ashley's trial came on she announced her engagement to Lord Francis Firmour, son of the Marquis of Ettridge, whom she subsequently married.

"But Philip Ashley was acquitted--you remember that? He was acquitted because Sir Arthur Inglewood was his counsel, and Sir Arthur is the finest criminal lawyer we possess; and, because the evidence against him was entirely circumstantial, it was demolished by his counsel with masterly skill. Whatever might be said on the subject of 'motive,' there was nothing whatever to prove that the accused knew anything of his father's intentions with regard to a new will; and there was only a charwoman's word to say that he had quarrelled with his father on that memorable Wednesday.

"On the other hand, there was Mr. Oldwall and Dr. Fanshawe-Bigg, old friends of the deceased, both swearing positively that Thornton Ashley had a peculiarly shrill and loud voice, that he would often get into passions about nothing at all, when he would scream and storm, and yet mean nothing by it. The only evidence of any tangible value was the walking-stick but even that was not enough to blast a man's life with such a monstrous suspicion.

"Philip Ashley was acquitted, but there are not many people who followed that case closely who believed him altogether innocent at the time. What Lady Peet-Jackson thought about it no one knows. It was for her sake that the unfortunate man threw up the chances of a fortune, and when it came within his grasp it still seemed destined to evade him to the end. In losing the woman for whom he had been prepared to make so many sacrifices, poor Philip lost the fortune a second time, because, as he was not married within the prescribed time-limit, it was Charles who inherited under the terms of the original will. But I think you will agree with me that any sensitive man is well out of a union with a hard and mercenary woman.

"And now there has been another revolution in the wheel of Fate. Charles Ashley died the other day in a nursing home of heart failure, following an operation. He died intestate, and his brother is his sole heir. Funny, isn't it, that Philip Ashley should get his father's fortune in the end? But Fate does have a way sometimes of dealing out compensations, after she has knocked a man about beyond his deserts. Philip Ashley is a rich man now, and there is a rumour, I am told, current in the society papers, that Lady Francis Firmour has filed a petition for divorce, and that the proceedings will be undefended. But can you imagine any man marrying such a woman after all that she made him suffer?"

Then, as the funny creature paused and appeared entirely engrossed in the fashioning of complicated knots in his beloved bit of string, I felt that it was my turn to keep the ball rolling.

"Then you, for one," I said, "are quite convinced that Philip Ashley did not know that his father intended to make a new will, and did not try to murder him?"

"Aren't you?" he retorted.

"Well," I rejoined, somewhat lamely, "some one did assault the old miser, didn't they? If it was not Philip Ashley then it must have been just an ordinary burglar, who thought that the old man had some money hidden away under his mattress."

"Can't you theorise more intelligently than that?" the tiresome creature asked in his very rude and cynical manner. I would gladly have slapped his face, only--I did want to know.

"Your own theory," I retorted, choosing to ignore his impertinence, "seek him first whom the crime benefits."

"Well, and whom did that particular crime benefit the most?"

"Philip Ashley, of course," I replied, "but you said yourself----"

"Philip Ashley did not benefit by the crime," the old scarecrow broke in, with a dry cackle. "No, no, but for the fact that a merciful Providence removed Charles Ashley so very unexpectedly out of this wicked world, Philip would still be living on a few hundreds a year, most of which he would owe to the munificence of his brother."

"That," I argued, "was only because that Peet-Jackson woman threw him over, otherwise----"

"And why did she throw him over? Because old Thornton Ashley died under mysterious circumstances, and Philip Ashley was under a cloud because of it. Any one could have foreseen that that particular woman would throw him over the very moment that suspicion fell upon him."

"But Charles----" I began.

"Exactly," he broke in, excitedly, "it was Charles who benefited by the crime. It was he who inherited the fortune."

"But, by the new will he would have inherited anyhow. Then, why in the world----"

"You surely don't believe in that new will, do you? The way in which I marshalled the facts before you ought to have paved the way for more intelligent reasoning."

"But Mr. Triscott----" I argued.

"Ah, yes," he said, "Mr. Triscott--exactly. The whole thing could only be done in partnership, I admit. But does not everything point to a partnership in what, to my mind, is one of the ugliest crimes in our records? You ought to be able to follow the workings of Charles Ashley's mind, a mind as tortuous as the body that held it. Let me put the facts once more briefly before you. While Philip obstinately remained a bachelor, all was well. Charles stuck to the old miser, carefully watching over his interests lest they become jeopardised. But presently, Lady Peet-Jackson became a widow and Philip gaily announced his engagement. From that hour Charles, of course, must have seen the fortune on which he had already counted slipping away irretrievably from his grasp. Can you not see in your mind's eye that queer, misshapen creature setting his crooked brain to devise a way out of the difficulty? Can you not see the plan taking shape gradually, forming itself slowly into a resolve--a resolve to stop his brother's marriage at all costs? But how? Philip, passionately in love with Muriel Peet-Jackson, having won her after years of waiting, was not likely to give her up. No, but _she_ might give _him_ up. She had done it once for the sake of ambition, she might do it again if ... if ... well, Charles Ashley, obscure, poor, misshapen, was not likely to find a rival who would supplant his handsome brother in any woman's affections. Certainly not! But there remained the other possibility, the possibility that Philip, poor--or, better still, disgraced--might cease to be a prize in the matrimonial market. Disgraced! But how? By publicity? By crime? Yes, by crime! Now, can you see the plan taking shape?

"Can you see Charles cudgelling his wits as to what crime could most easily be fastened on a man of Philip's personality and social position? Probably a chance word dropped by his father put the finishing touch to his scheme, a chance word on the subject of a will. And there was the whole plan ready. The unsigned will, the assault on the dying man, and quarrels there always were plenty between the peppery old miser and his somewhat impatient son. As for Triscott, the dapper little local lawyer, I suppose it took some time for Charles Ashley's crooked schemes to appear as feasible and profitable to him. Of course, without him nothing could have been done, and the whole of my theory rests upon the fact that the two men were partners in the crime.

"Where they first met, and how they became friends, I don't profess to know. If I had had anything to do with the official investigation of that crime I should first of all have examined the servant in the Triscott household, and found out whether or no Mr. Charles Ashley had ever been a visitor there. In any case, I should have found out something about Triscott's friends and Triscott's haunts. I am sure that it would then have come to light that Charles Ashley and Mr. Triscott had constant intercourse together.

"I cannot bring myself to believe in that unsigned will. There was nothing whatever that led up to it, except the supposed quarrel on the Wednesday. But, if that old miser did want to alter his will, why should he have sent for a man whom he hardly knew and whom, mind you, he would have to pay for his services, rather than for his friend, Oldwall, who would have done the work for nothing? The man was a miser, remember. His meanness, we are told, amounted to a mania; a miser never pays for something he can get for nothing. There was also another little point that struck me during the inquest as significant. If Triscott was an entire stranger to Charles Ashley, why should he have taken such a personal interest in him and in the old man to the extent of sending his wife to spend two whole days and nights in charge of an invalid who was nothing to him? Why should Mrs. Triscott have undertaken such a thankless task in the house of a miser, where she would get no comforts and hardly anything to eat? Why, I say, should the Triscotts have done all that if they had not some vital self-interest at stake?

"And I contend that that self-interest demanded that one of them should be there, in the flat, on the watch, to see that no third person was present whilst Philip spent his time by his father's bedside--a witness, such as Lady Peet-Jackson, perhaps, or some friend--whose testimony might demolish the whole edifice of lies, which had been so carefully built up. And, did you notice another point? The charwoman, by a new arrangement, was never at the flat on a Monday morning, and that arrangement had only obtained for the past two months. Now why? Charwomen stay away, I believe, on Sundays always, but, I ask you, have you ever heard of a charwoman having a holiday on a Monday?"

I was bound to admit that it was unusual, whereupon the old scarecrow went on, with excitement that grew as rapidly as did the feverish energy of his fingers manipulating his bit of string.

"And now propel your mind back to that same Monday morning, when, the coast being clear, Charles Ashley, back at the flat and alone with the old man, was able at last to put the finishing touch to his work of infamy. One pressure of the fingers, one blow with the walking-stick, and the curtain was rung down finally on the hideous drama which he had so skilfully invented. Think of it all carefully and intelligently," the Old Man in the Corner concluded, as he stuffed his beloved bit of string into the capacious pocket of his checked ulster, "and you will admit that there is not a single flaw in my argument----"

"The walking-stick," I broke in, quickly.

"Exactly," he retorted, "the walking-stick. Charles was quick enough to grasp the significance of that, and on Saturday, while his brother's back was turned, he carefully hid the walking-stick, knowing that it would be a useful piece of evidence presently. Do you, for a moment, suppose," he added, dryly, "that any man would have been such a fool as to throw his walking-stick and the crumpled notes of the will underneath his victim's bed? They could not have been left there, remember, they could not have rolled under the bed, as the walking-stick had a crook-handle; they must deliberately have been thrown there.

"No, no!" he said, in conclusion, "there is no flaw. It is all as clear as daylight to any receptive intelligence, and though human justice did err at first, and it looked, at one time, as if the innocent alone would suffer and the guilty enjoy the fruits of his crime, a higher justice interposed in the end. Charles has gone, and Philip is in possession of the fortune which his father desired him to have. I only hope that his eyes are opened at last to the true value of the beautiful Muriel's love, and that it will be some other worthier woman who will share his fortune and help him forget all that he endured in the past."

"And what about the Triscotts?" I asked.

"Ah!" he said, with a sigh, "they are the wicked who prosper, and higher justice has apparently forgotten them, as it often does forget the evil-doer, for a time. We must take it that they were well paid for their share in the crime, and, if the unfortunate Charles had lived, he probably would have been blackmailed by them and bled white. As it is, they have gone scot-free. I made a few enquiries in the neighbourhood lately and I discovered that Mr. Triscott is selling his practice and retiring from business. Presently we'll hear that he has bought himself a cottage in the country. Then, perhaps, your last doubt will vanish and you will be ready to admit that I have found the true solution of the mystery that surrounded the death of the miser of Maida Vale."

The next moment he was gone, and I just caught sight of the corner of his checked ulster disappearing through the swing doors.

XII

THE FULTON GARDENS MYSTERY

§1

"Are you prepared to admit," the Old Man in the Corner said abruptly as soon as he had finished his glass of milk, "that sympathy, understanding, largeness of heart--what?--are invariably the outcome of a big brain? It is the fool who is censorious and cruel. Your clever man is nearly always sympathetic. He understands, he appreciates, he studies motives and understands them. During the war it was the fools who tracked down innocent men and women under pretence that they were spies; it was the fools who did not understand that a German might be just as fine a patriot as a Briton or a Frenchman if he served his own country. The hard, cruel man is almost always a fool; the backbiting old maid invariably so.

"I am tempted to say this," he went on, "because I have been thinking over that curious case which newspaper reporters have called the Fulton Gardens Mystery. You remember it, don't you?"

"Yes," I said, "I do. As a matter of fact I knew poor old Mr. Jessup slightly, and I was terribly shocked when I heard about that awful tragedy. And to think that that horrid young Leighton----"

"Ha!" my eccentric friend broke in, with a chuckle, "then you have held on to that theory, have you?"

"There was no other possible!" I retorted.

"But he was discharged."

I shrugged my shoulders under pretence of being unconvinced. As a matter of fact, all I wanted was to make the funny creature talk.

"A flimsy _alibi_," I said coldly.

"And a want of sympathy," he rejoined.

"What has sympathy got to do with a brutal assault on a defenceless old man? You can't deny that Leighton had something, at any rate, to do with it?"

"I did not mean sympathy for the guilty," he argued, "but for the women who were the principal witnesses in the case."

"I don't see----" I protested.

"No, but I do. I understood, and in a great measure I sympathised."

At which expression of noble sentiment I burst out laughing. I couldn't help it. In view of his preamble just now his fatuous statement was funny beyond words.

"You being the clever man who understands, etcetera," I said, as seriously as I could, "and I the censorious and cruel old maid who is invariably a fool."

"You put it crudely," he rejoined complacently, "and had you not given ample proof of your intelligence before now I might have thought it worth while to refute the second half of your argument. As for the first..."

"Hadn't you better tell me about the Fulton Gardens Mystery?" I broke in impatiently.

"Certainly," he replied, in no way abashed. "I have meant to talk to you about it all along, only that you would digress."

"_Pax!_" I retorted, and with a conciliatory smile I handed him a beautiful bit of string. He pounced on it with thin hands that looked like the talons of a bird, and he gloated on that bit of string for all the world as on a prey.

"I dare say," he began, "that to most people the mystery appeared baffling enough. But to me ... Well, there was the victim of what you very properly call the cowardly assault, your friend--or acquaintance--Mr. Seton Jessup, a man on the wrong side of sixty, but very active and vigorous for his years. He carried on the business of pearl merchant in Fulton Gardens, but he did not live there, as you know. He was a married man, had sons and daughters and a nice house in Fitzjohn's Avenue. He also owned the house in Fulton Gardens, a four-storied building of the pattern prevalent in that neighbourhood. The ground floor, together with the one above that, and the basement were used by Mr. Jessup himself for his business: on the ground floor he had his office and showroom, above that were a couple of reception rooms, where he usually had his lunch and saw a few privileged customers, and in the basement there was a kitchen with scullery and pantry, a small servants' hall, and a strong-room for valuables. The top story of all was let to a surgical-instrument maker who did not sleep on the premises, and the second floor--that is the one just below the surgical-instrument maker and immediately above the reception rooms--was occupied by Mrs. Tufnell, who was cook-housekeeper to Mr. Jessup, and her niece, Ann Weber, who acted as the house-parlourmaid. Mrs. Tufnell's son, Mark, who was a junior clerk in the office, did not sleep in the house. He was considered to be rather delicate, and lived with a family somewhere near the Alexandra Palace.

"All these people, as you know, played important parts in the drama that was enacted on the sixteenth of November at No. 13, Fulton Gardens--an unlucky number, by the way, but one which Mr. Jessup did not change to the usual 12a when he bought the house, because he despised all superstition. He was a hard-headed, prosperous business man; he worked hard himself, and expected hard work from his employés. Both his sons worked in the office, one as senior clerk, and the other as showman, and in addition to young Mark Tufnell there was another junior clerk--a rather unsatisfactory youth named Arthur Leighton, who was some sort of a relation of Mrs. Jessup's. But for this connection he never would have been kept on in the business, as he was unpunctual, idle, and unreliable. The housekeeper, as well as some of the neighbours, had been scandalised lately by what was picturesquely termed the 'goings on of that young Leighton with Ann, the housemaid at No. 13.'

"Ann Weber was a very pretty girl, and like many pretty girls she was fond of finery and of admiration. As soon as she entered Mr. Jessup's service she started a flirtation with Mark Tufnell, then she dropped him for a while in favour of the youngest Mr. Jessup; then she went back to Mark, and seemed really in love with him that time until, finally, she transferred her favours to Arthur Leighton, chiefly because he was by far the most generous of her admirers. He was always giving her presents of jewellery which Mark Tufnell could not afford, and young Jessup apparently did not care to give her. But she did not, by any means, confine her flirtations to one man: indeed, it appears that she had a marvellous facility for keeping several men hanging about her dainty apron-strings. She was not on the best of terms with her aunt, chiefly because the latter noted with some asperity that her son was far from cured of his infatuation for the pretty housemaid. The more she flirted with Leighton and the others the greater did his love for her appear, and all that Mrs. Tufnell could hope for was that Mr. Leighton would marry Ann one day soon, when he would take her right away and Mark would then probably make up his mind to forget her. Young Leighton was doing very well in business apparently, for he always had plenty of money to spend, whilst poor Mark had only a small salary, and, moreover, had nothing of the smart, dashing ways about him which had made the other man so attractive to Ann."

§2

"And now," the Old Man in the Corner continued after a while, "we come to that sixteenth of November when the mysterious drama occurred at No. 13, Fulton Gardens. As a general rule, it seems, Mr. Jessup was in his office most evenings until seven o'clock. His clerks and showmen finished at six, but he would, almost invariably, stay on an hour longer to go through his accounts or look over his stock. On this particular evening, just before seven o'clock, he rang for the housekeeper, Mrs. Tufnell, and told her that he would be staying until quite late, and would she send him in a cup of tea and a plate of sandwiches in about an hour's time. Mrs. Tufnell owned to being rather disappointed when she had this order because her son Mark had arranged to take her and Ann to the cinema that evening, and now, of course, they could not leave until after Mr. Jessup had gone, in case he wanted anything, and he might be staying on until all hours. However, Mark stayed to supper, and after supper Mrs. Tufnell got the tea and sandwiches ready and took the tray up to Mr. Jessup herself. Mr. Jessup was then sitting at his desk with two or three big books in front of him, and Mrs. Tufnell noticed that the safe in which the cash was kept that came in after banking hours was wide open.