CHAPTER X The Mysterious Death on the Underground Railway It was all very well for Mr. Richard Frobisher of the London Mail to cut up rough about it Polly did not altogether blame him. She liked him all the better for that frank outburst of manlike ill temper which, after all said and done, was only a very flattering form of masculine jealousy. Moreover, Polly distinctly felt guilty about the whole thing. She had promised to meet Dickie, that is, Mr. Richard Frobisher, at two o'clock sharp outside the Palace Theatre because she wanted to go to a Maud Allen matinee and because he naturally wished to go with her. But at two o'clock sharp she was still a Norfolk Street strand inside an ABC shop, sipping cold coffee opposite a grotesque old man who was fiddling with a bit of string. How could she be expected to remember Maud Allen or the Palace Theatre or Dickie himself for a matter of that? The man in the corner had begun to talk of that mysterious death on the Underground Railway and Polly had lost count of time, of place, and circumstance. Polly had gone to lunch quite early, for she was looking forward to the matinee at the Palace. The old Scarecrow was sitting in his custom place when she came into the ABC shop, but he made no remark all the time that the young girl was munching her scone and butter. She was just busy thinking how rude he was not to even have said good morning when an abrupt remark from him caused her to look up. Well, you'd be good enough, he said suddenly, to give me a description of the man who sat next to you just now while you were having your cup of coffee and scone. Then voluntarily Polly turned her head towards the distant door through which a man in a light overcoat was even now quickly passing. That man had certainly sat at the next table to hers when she first sat down to her coffee and scone. He had finished his luncheon whatever it was a moment ago, had paid at the desk, and gone out. The incident did not appear to Polly as being of the slightest consequence. Therefore she did not reply to the rude old man but shrugged her shoulders and called to the waiters to bring her bill. Do you know if he was tall or short, dark or fair, continued the man in the corner, seemingly not the least disconcerted by the young girl's indifference. Can you tell me at all what he was like? Of course I can, rejoined Polly impatiently, but I don't see that my description of one of the customers of an ABC shop can have the slightest importance. He was silent for a minute while his nervous fingers fumbled about in his capacious pockets in search of the inevitable piece of string. When he had found this necessary adjunct to thought, he viewed the young girl again through his half-closed lids and added maliciously, but supposing it were of paramount importance that you should give an accurate description of a man who sat next to you for a half an hour to-day, how would you proceed? I should say that he was of medium height. Five foot eight, nine or ten he interrupted quietly. How can one tell an inch or two rejoined Polly crustly? He was between colors. What's that? he inquired blandly. Neither fair nor dark. His nose—well, what was his nose like? Will you sketch it? I am not an artist. His nose was fairly straight. His eyes were neither dark nor light. His hair had the same striking peculiarity. He was neither short nor tall. His nose was neither ackeleton or snub. He recapitulated sarcastically. No, she retorted. He was just ordinary-looking. Would you know him again, say, to-morrow, and among a number of other men who were neither tall nor short, dark nor fair, ackeline or snub nose, et cetera? I don't know. I might. He was certainly not striking enough to be specially remembered. Exactly, he said, while he lent forward excitingly for all the world like a jack-in-the-box let loose.  Call yourself one at least, and it should be part of your business to notice and describe people. I don't mean only the wonderful personage of the clear Saxon features, the fine blue eyes, the noble brow, and classic face, but the ordinary person, the person who represents ninety out of every hundred of his own kind, the average Englishman, say, of the middle classes, who is neither very tall nor very short, who wears a mustache which is neither fair nor dark, but which masks his mouth and a top hat which hides the shape of his head and brow. A man, in fact, who dresses like hundreds of his fellow creatures, moves like them, speaks like them, has no peculiarity. Try to describe him to recognize him, say, a week hence, among his other eighty-nine doubles. Worse still, to swear his life away if he happened to be implicated in some crime, wherein your recognition of him would place the halter round his neck. Try that, I say, and having utterly failed, you will more readily understand how one of the greatest scoundrels unhung is still at large and why the mystery on the underground railway has never been cleared up. I think it was the only time in my life that I was seriously tempted to give the police the benefit of my own views upon the matter. You see, though I admire the brute for his cleverness, I did not see that his being unpunished could possibly benefit anyone. In these days of tubes and motor traction of all kinds, the old fashion best, cheapest, and quickest route to city and west end is often deserted, and the good old metropolitan railway carriages cannot at any time be said to be overcrowded. Anyway, when that particular train steamed into Allgate at about four p.m. on March 18th last, the first-class carriages were all but empty. The guard marched up and down the platform looking into all the carriages to see if anyone had left half-penny evening paper behind for him, and opening the door of one of the first-class compartments, he noticed a lady sitting in the further corner, with her head turned away towards the window, evidently oblivious of the fact that on this line Allgate is the terminal station. Where are you for, lady? he said. The lady did not move, and the guard stepped into the carriage, thinking that perhaps the lady was asleep. He touched her arm lightly and looked into her face. In his own poetic language he was struck all of a heap. In the glassy eyes, the ashen color of the cheeks, the rigidity of the head, there was the unmistakable look of death. Hasteily the guard, having carefully locked the carriage door, summoned a couple of porters, and sent one of them off to the police station, and the other in search of the station master. Fortunately at this time of day the up-platform is not very crowded, all the traffic tending westward in the afternoon. It was only when an inspector and two police constables, accompanied by a detective in plain clothes and a medical officer, appeared upon the scene and stood round a first-class railway compartment that a few idlers realized that something unusual had occurred, and crowded round, eager and curious. Thus it was that the later editions of the evening papers, under the sensational heading, mysterious suicide on the underground railway, had already in account of the extraordinary event. The medical officer had very soon come to the decision that the guard had not been mistaken and that life was indeed extinct. The lady was young and must have been very pretty, before the look of fright and horror had so terribly distorted her features. She was very elegantly dressed, and the more fervolous papers were able to give their feminine readers a detailed account of the unfortunate woman's gown, her shoes, hat, and gloves. It appears that one of the latter, the one on the right hand, was partly off, leaving the thumb and wrist bare. That hand held a small satchel, which the police opened, was a view to the possible identification of the deceased, but which was found to contain only a little loose silver, some smelling salts, and a small empty bottle, which was handed over to the medical officer for purposes of analysis. It was the presence of that small bottle, which had caused the report to circulate freely, that the mysterious case on the underground railway was one of suicide. Certain it was that neither about the lady's person, nor in the appearance of the railway carriage, was there the slightest sign of a struggle or even of resistance. Only the look in the poor woman's eyes spoke of sudden terror, of the rapid vision of an unexpected and violent death, which probably only lasted an infinitesimal fraction of a second, but which had left its indelible mark upon the face, otherwise so placid and so still. The body of the deceased was conveyed to the mortuary. So far, of course, not a soul had been able to identify her, or throw the slightest light upon the mystery which hung around her death. Against that, quite a crowd of idlers, genuinely interested or not, obtained admission to view the body on the pretext of having lost or mislaid a relative or a friend. At about 8.30 p.m., a young man, very well dressed, drove up to the station in a handsome, and sent in his car to the superintendent. It was Mr. Hazeldine, shipping agent, of 11 Crown Lane, E.C., and number 19, Addison Rowe, Kensington. The young man looked in a pitiable state of mental distress, his hand clutched nervously a copy of the St. James's Gazette, which contained the fatal news. He said very little to the superintendent, except that a person who was very dear to him had not returned home that evening. He had not felt really anxious until half an hour ago when suddenly he thought of looking at his paper. The description of the deceased lady, though vague, had terribly alarmed him. He had jumped into a handsome, and now begged permission to view the body in order that his worst fears might be elade. You know what followed, of course, continued the man in the corner. The grief of the young man was truly pitiable, and the woman lying there in a public mortuary before him, Mr. Hazeldine, had recognized his wife. I am waxing melodramatic, said the man in the corner, who looked up at Polly with a mild and gentle smile, while his nervous fingers vainly endeavored to add another knot on the scrappy bit of string with which he was continually playing. And I fear that the whole story savers of the penny novelette, but you must admit, and no doubt you remember, that it was an intensely pathetic and truly dramatic moment. The unfortunate young husband of the deceased lady was not much worried with questions that night. As a matter of fact, he was not in a fit condition to make any coherent statement. It was at the coroner's inquest on the following day that certain facts came to light, which for the time being seemed to clear up the mystery surrounding Mrs. Hazeldine's death, only to plunge that same mystery later on into denser gloom than before. The first witness at the inquest was, of course, Mr. Hazeldine himself. I think everyone's sympathy went out to the young man, as he stood before the coroner, and tried to throw what light he could upon the mystery. He was well dressed, as he had been the day before, but he looked terribly ill and worried, and no doubt the fact that he had not shaved gave his face a care-worn and neglected air. It appears that he and the deceased had been married some six years or so, and that they had always been happy in their married life. They had no children. Mrs. Hazeldine seemed to enjoy the best of health till lately, when she had had a slight attack of influenza, in which Dr. Arthur Jones had attended her. The doctor was present at this moment, and would no doubt explain to the coroner and the jury whether he thought that Mrs. Hazeldine had the slightest tendency to heart disease, which might have had a sudden and fatal ending. The coroner was, of course, very considerate to the bereaved husband. He tried by circumlocution to get at the point he wanted, namely, Mrs. Hazeldine's mental condition lately. Mr. Hazeldine seemed loath to talk about this. No doubt he had been warned as to the existence of the small bottle found in his wife's satchel. It certainly did seem to me at times, he at last reluctantly admitted, that my wife did not seem quite herself. She used to be very gay and bright, and lately I often saw her in the evening sitting as if brooding over some matters, which evidently she did not care to communicate to me. Still the coroner insisted and suggested the small bottle. I know, I know, replied the young man with a short heavy sigh. You mean the question of suicide. I cannot understand it at all. It seemed so sudden, and so terrible. She certainly had seemed listless and troubled lately, but only at times, and yesterday morning when I went to business she appeared quite herself again, and I suggested that we should go to the opera in the evening. She was delighted, I know, and told me she would do some shopping and pay a few calls in the afternoon. Do you know at all where she intended to go when she got into the underground railway? Well, not with certainty. You see, she may have meant to get out at Baker Street and go down to Bond Street to do her shopping. Then again she sometimes goes to a shop in St. Paul's Churchyard, in which case she would take a ticket to Aldersgate Street, but I cannot say. Now Mr. Hazeldeen, said the coroner, at last very kindly, will you try to tell me if there was anything in Mrs. Hazeldeen's life which you know of, which might in some measure explain the cause of the distressed state of mind which you yourself had noticed? Did there exist any financial difficulty which might have preyed upon Mrs. Hazeldeen's mind? Was there any friend to whose intercourse with Mrs. Hazeldeen you at any time took exception? In fact, added the coroner, as if thankful that he had got over an unpleasant moment, can you give me the slightest indication which would tend to confirm the suspicion that the unfortunate lady in a moment of mental anxiety or derangement may have wished to take her own life? There was silence in the court for several moments. Mr. Hazeldeen seemed to everyone there present to be laboring under some terrible moral doubt. He looked very pale and wretched, and twice attempted to speak before he at last said in scarcely audible tones. No, there were no financial difficulties of any sort. My wife had an independent fortune of her own. She had no extravagant taste. Nor any friend you at any time objected to, insisted the coroner. Nor any friend I at any time objected to, stambered the unfortunate young man, evidently speaking with an effort. I was present at the inquest, resumed the man in the coroner, after he had drunk a glass of milk and ordered another, and I can assure you that the most obtuse person there plainly realized that Mr. Hazeldeen was telling a lie. It was pretty plain to the meanest intelligence that the unfortunate lady had not fallen into a state of morbid dejection for nothing, and that perhaps there existed a third person who could throw more light under strange and sudden death than the unhappy bereaved young widower. That the death was more mysterious even than it had at first appeared became very soon apparent. You read the case at the time, no doubt, and must remember the excitement in the public mind caused by the evidence of the two doctors. Dr. Arthur Jones, the lady's usual medical man, who had attended her in a last very slight illness and who had seen her in a professional capacity fairly recently, declared most emphatically that Mrs. Hazeldeen suffered no organic complaint which could possibly have been the cause of sudden death. Moreover, he had assisted Mr. Andrew Thornton, the district medical officer, in making a post-mortem examination, and together they had come to the conclusion that death was due to the action of prusik acid which had caused instantaneous failure of the heart, but how the drug had been administered neither he nor his colleague were at present able to state. Do I understand then, Dr. Jones, that the deceased died poisoned with prusik acid? Such is my opinion, replied the doctor. Did the bottle found in her satchel contain prusik acid? It had contained some at one time, certainly. In your opinion then, the lady caused her own death by taking a dose of that drug? Pardon me, I never suggested such a thing. The lady died poisoned by the drug, but how the drug was administered we cannot say, by injection of some sort, certainly. The drug certainly was not swallowed, there was not a vestige of it in the stomach. Yes, added the doctor and replied to another question from the corner. Death had probably followed the injection in this case almost immediately, say within a couple of minutes or perhaps three. It was quite possible that the body would not have more than one quick and sudden convulsion, perhaps not that. Death in such cases is absolutely sudden and crushing. I don't think that at that time anyone in the room realized how important the doctor's statement was. A statement which, by the way, was confirmed in all its details by the district medical officer who had conducted the post-mortem. Mrs. Hazeldeen had died suddenly from an injection of prusic acid, administered no one knew how or when. She had been traveling in a first-class railway carriage in a busy time of the day. That young and elegant woman must have had singular nerve and coolness to go through the process of a self-inflicted injection of a deadly poison in the presence of perhaps two or three other persons. Mind you, when I say that no one there realized the importance of the doctor's statement at that moment, I am wrong. There were three persons who fully understood at once the gravity of the situation and the astounding development which the case was beginning to assume. Of course, I should have put myself out of the question, added the weird old man, with inimitable self-conceit peculiar to himself. I guess then and there in a moment where the police were going wrong, and where they would go on going wrong until the mysterious death on the underground railway had sunk into oblivion, together with the other cases which they mismanaged from time to time. I said there were three persons who understood the gravity of the two doctor's statements. The other two were, firstly, the detective who had originally examined the railway carriage, a young man of energy, and plenty of misguided intelligence. The other was Mr. Hazeldine. At this point the interesting element of the whole story was first introduced into the proceedings, and this was done through the humble channel of Emma Funnell Mrs. Hazeldine's made, who as far as was known then, was the last person who had seen the unfortunate lady alive, and had spoken to her. Mrs. Hazeldine lynched at home, explained Emma, who was shy and spoke almost in a whisper. She seemed well and cheerful. She went out at about half past three, and told me she was going to Spences in St. Paul's Churchyard to try on her new tailor-made gown. Mrs. Hazeldine had meant to go there in the morning, but was prevented as Mr. Errington called. Mr. Errington asked the coroner casually, who was Mr. Errington? But this Emma found difficult to explain. Mr. Errington was Mr. Errington, that's all. Mr. Errington was a friend of the family. He lived in a flat in the Albert Mansions. He very often came to Addison Row and generally stayed late. Press still further with questions, Emma at last stated that latterly Mrs. Hazeldine had been to the theatre several times with Mr. Errington, and that on those nights the master looked very gloomy and was very cross. Recall the young widower was strangely reticent. He gave forth his answers very grudgingly, and the coroner was evidently absolutely satisfied with himself at the marvellous way in which, after a quarter of an hour of firm yet very kind questionings, he had elicited from the witness what information he wanted. Mr. Errington was a friend of his wife. He was a gentleman of means, and seemed to have a great deal of time at his command. He himself did not particularly care about Mr. Errington, but he certainly had never made any observations to his wife on the subject. But who is Mr. Errington? repeated the coroner once more. What does he do? What is his business or profession? He has no business or profession. What is his occupation, then? He has no special occupation. He has ample private means, but he has a great and a very absorbing hobby. What is that? He spends all his time in chemical experiments, and is, I believe, as an amateur, a very distinguished toxicologist. CHAPTER XI. Mr. Errington. Did you ever see Mr. Errington, the gentleman so closely connected with the mysterious death on the underground railway? asked the man in the corner, as he placed one or two of his little snapshot photos before Miss Polly Burton. There he is, to the very life. Fairly good looking, a pleasant face enough, but ordinary, absolutely ordinary. It was the absence of any peculiarity, which very nearly, but not quite, placed the halter around Mr. Errington's neck. But I am going too fast, and you will lose the thread. The public, of course, never heard how it actually came about that Mr. Errington, the wealthy bachelor of Albert Mansions, of the Grosvenor and other young Dandy's clubs, one fine day, found himself before the magistrates at Bow Street, charged with being concerned in the death of Mary Beatrice Hazeldine, late of number nineteen, Addison Row. I can assure you both press and public were literally flabbergasted. You see, Mr. Errington was a well known and a very popular member of a certain smart section of London society. He was a constant visitor at the opera, the racecourse, the park, and the Carlton. He had a great many friends, and there was, consequently, quite a large attendance at the police court that morning. What had transpired was this. After the very scrappy bits of evidence which came to light at the inquest, two gentlemen thought themselves that perhaps they had some duty to perform towards the state and the public generally. Accordingly they had come forward, offering to throw what light they could upon the mysterious affair on the Underground Railway. The police naturally felt that their information, such as it was, came rather late in the day, but as it proved of paramount importance and the two gentlemen, moreover, were of an undoubtedly good position in the world, they were thankful for what they could get and acted accordingly. They accordingly brought Mr. Errington up before the magistrate on a charge of murder. The accused looked pale and worried when I first caught sight of him in the court that day, which was not to be wondered at, considering the terrible position in which he found himself. He had been arrested at Marseille, where he was preparing to start for Colombo. I don't think he realized how terrible his position really was until later in the proceedings, when all the evidence relating to the arrest had been heard, and Emma Funnell had repeated her statement as to Mr. Errington's call at 19 Addison Row in the morning, and Mrs. Hazeldine starting off for St. Paul's Churchyard at 3.30 in the afternoon. Mr. Hazeldine had nothing to add to the statements he had made at the coroner's inquest. He had last seen his wife alive on the morning of the fatal day. She had seen very well and cheerful. I think everyone present understood that he was trying to say as little as possible. That could, in any way, couple his deceased wife's name without of the accused. And yet, from the servant's evidence, it undoubtedly leaked out that Mrs. Hazeldine, who was young, pretty, and evidently fond of admiration, had once or twice annoyed her husband by her somewhat open yet perfectly innocent flirtation with Mr. Errington. I think everyone was most agreeably impressed by the widower's moderate and dignified attitude. You will see his photo there among this bundle. That is just how he appeared in court, in deep black, of course, but without any sign of ostentation in his morning. He had allowed his beard to grow lately and were closely cut in a point. After his evidence the sensation of the day occurred. A tall, dark-haired man, with the word city written metaphorically all over him, had kissed the book and was waiting to tell the truth and nothing but the truth. He gave his name as Andrew Campbell, head of the firm of Campbell & Company Brokers of Thorgmorton Street. In the afternoon of March 18th, Mr. Campbell, traveling on the Underground Railway, had noticed a very pretty woman in the same carriage as himself. She had asked him if she was in the right train for Aldersgate. Mr. Campbell replied in the affirmative and then buried himself in the stock exchange quotations of his evening paper. At Gower Street a gentleman in a tweed suit and a bowler hat got into the carriage and took a seat opposite the lady. She seemed very much astonished at seeing him, but Mr. Andrew Campbell did not recollect the exact words she said. The two talked to one another a good deal, and certainly the lady appeared animated and cheerful. Witness took no notice of them, he was very much engrossed in some calculations, and finally got out at Farringdon Street. He noticed that the man in the tweed suit also got out close behind him, having shaken hands with the lady and said in a pleasant way, ''Au revoir, don't be late tonight.'' Mr. Campbell did not hear the lady's reply, and soon lost sight of the man in the crowd. Everyone was on tenterhooks and eagerly waiting for the palpitating moment when Witness would describe and identify the man who last had seen and spoken to the unfortunate woman within five minutes probably of her strange and unaccountable death. Personally I knew what was coming before the Scotch stockbroker spoke.  It would have fitted equally well the man who sat and had luncheon at this table just now. It would have certainly described five out of every ten young Englishmen you know. The individual was of medium height. He wore a mustache, which was not very fair, nor yet very dark. His hair was between colors. He wore a bowler hat and a tweed suit, and... and that was all. Mr. Campbell might perhaps know him again, but then again he might not. He was not paying much attention. The gentleman was sitting on the same side of the carriage as himself, and he had his hat on all the time. He himself was busy with his newspaper. Yes, he might know him again, but he really could not say. Mr. Andrew Campbell's evidence was not worth very much, you will say. No, it was not in itself, and it would not have justified any arrest were it not for the additional statements made by Mr. James Verner, manager of Messers Rodney & Company Color Printers. Mr. Verner is a personal friend of Mr. Andrew Campbell, and it appears that at Farringdon Street where he was waiting for his train, he saw Mr. Campbell get out of a first-class railway carriage. Mr. Verner spoke to him for a second, and then, just as the train was moving off, he stepped into the same compartment, which had just been vacated by the stockbroker and the man in the tweed suit. He vaguely recollects a lady sitting in the opposite corner to his own, with her face turned away from him, apparently asleep, but he paid no special attention to her. He was like nearly all businessmen when they are traveling and grossed in his paper. Presently a special quotation interested him. He wished to make a note of it, took out a pencil from his waistcoat pocket, and seeing a clean piece of pasteboard on the floor, he picked it up and scribbled on it the memorandum which he wished to keep. He then slipped the card into his pocketbook. It was only two or three days later, added Mr. Verner in the midst of breathless silence that I had occasion to refer to those same notes again. In the meanwhile the paper said in a full of the mysterious death on the underground railway, and the names of those connected with it were pretty familiar to me. It was therefore with much astonishment that on looking at the pasteboard which I had casually picked up in the railway carriage, I saw the name on it, Frank Errington. There was no doubt that the sensation in court was almost unprecedented. Never since the days of the Fenn Church Street Mystery and the trial of Smithhurst had I seen so much excitement. Mind you, I was not excited. I knew by now every detail of that crime as if I had committed it myself. In fact, I could not have done it better, although I have been a student of crime for many years now. Many people here, his friends mostly, believed that Errington was doomed. I think he thought so too, for I could see that his face was terribly white, and he now and then passed his tongue over his lips, as if they were parched. You see, he was in an awful dilemma—a perfectly natural one, by the way—of being absolutely incapable of proving an alibi. The crime, if crime there was, had been committed three weeks ago. A man about town like Mr. Frank Errington might remember that he spent certain hours of a special afternoon at his club or in the park, but it is very doubtful in nine cases out of ten if he can find a friend who could positively square as to having seen him there. No, no, Mr. Errington was in a tight corner and he knew it. You see, there were, besides the evidence, two or three circumstances which did not improve matters for him. His hobby in the direction of toxicology to begin with. The police had found in his room every description of poisonous substances, including plastic acid. Then again, that journey to Marseille, the start for Colombo, was, though perfectly innocent, a very unfortunate one. Mr. Errington had gone on an aimless voyage, but the public thought that he had fled, terrified at his own crime. Sir Arthur Inglewood, however, here again displayed his marvelous skill on behalf of his client by the masterly way in which he literally turned all the witnesses of the crown inside out. Having first got Mr. Andrew Campbell to state positively that in the accused he certainly did not recognize the man in the tweed suit. The eminent lawyer, after twenty minutes' cross-examination, had so completely upset the stockbroker's equanimity that it is very likely he would not have recognized his own office boy. But through all his flurry and all his annoyance, Mr. Andrew Campbell remained very sure of one thing, namely that the lady was alive and cheerful and talking pleasantly with the man in the tweed suit up to the moment when the latter, having shaken hands with her, left her with a pleasant, well, revoir, don't be late tonight. He had heard neither scream nor struggle, and in his opinion, if the individual in the tweed suit had administered a dose of poison to his companion, it must have been with her own knowledge and free will, and the lady in the train most emphatically neither looked nor spoke like a woman prepared for a sudden and violent death. Mr. James Verner against that swore equally positively that he had stood in full view of the carriage door from the moment that Mr. Campbell got out until he himself stepped into the compartment, that there was no one else in that carriage between Farringdon Street and Allgate, and that the lady, to the best of his belief, had made no movement during the whole of that journey. No, Frank Errington was not committed for trial on the capital charge, said the man in the corner, with one of his sardonic smiles. Thanks to the cleverness of Sir Arthur Inglewood, his lawyer, he absolutely denied his identity with the man in the tweed suit, and swore he had not seen Mrs. Hazeldine since eleven o'clock in the morning of that fatal day. There was no proof that he had. Moreover, according to Mr. Campbell's opinion, the man in the tweed suit was an all probability, not the murderer. Common sense would not admit that a woman could have a deadly poison injected into her without her knowledge, while chatting pleasantly to her murderer. Mr. Errington lives abroad now. He is about to marry. I don't think any of his real friends for a moment believe that he committed the dastardly crime. The police think they know better. They do know this much, that it could not have been a case of suicide, that if the man who undoubtedly traveled with Mrs. Hazeldine on that fatal afternoon had no crime upon his conscience, he would long ago have come forward and thrown what light he could upon the mystery. As to who that man was, the police in their blindness have not the faintest doubt. Under the unshakable belief that Errington is guilty, they have spent the last few months in unceasing labor to try and find further and stronger proofs of his guilt, but they won't find them because there are none. There are no positive proofs against the actual murderer, for he was one of those clever blackards who think of everything, foresee every eventuality, and know human nature well, and come foretell exactly what evidence will be brought against them and act accordingly. This blackard from the first kept a figure the personality of Frank Errington before his mind. Frank Errington was the dust which the scoundrel threw metaphorically in the eyes of the police, and you must admit that he succeeded in blinding them, to the extent even of making them entirely forget the one simple little sentence overheard by Mr. Andrew Campbell, and which was, of course, the clue to the whole thing.  Mrs. Hazeldine was going that night to the opera with her husband. You are astonished, he added with a shrug of the shoulders. You do not see the tragedy yet, as I have seen it before me all along. The frivolous young wife, the flirtation with the friend, all a blind, all a pretence. I took the trouble which the police should have taken immediately, a finding out something about the finances of the Hazeldine menage. Money is in nine cases out of ten, the key note to a crime. I found that the will of Mary Beatrice Hazeldine had been proof by the husband, her sole executor, the estate being sworn at fifteen thousand pounds. I found out, moreover, that Mr. Edward Schultel Hazeldine was a poor shipper's clerk when he married the daughter of a wealthy builder in Kensington, and then I made note of the fact that this consulate widower had allowed his beard to grow since the death of his wife. There is no doubt that he was a clever rogue, added the strange creature, leaning excitedly over the table and peering into Polly's face. Do you know how that deadly poison was injected into the poor woman's system? By the simplest of all means, one known to every scoundrel in southern Europe, a ring, yes, a ring, which has a tiny hollow needle capable of holding a sufficient quantity of plastic acid to have killed two persons instead of one. The man in the tweed suit shook hands with his fair companion. Probably she hardly felt the prick, not sufficiently in any case to make her utter a scream. And, mind you, the scoundrel had every facility through his friendship with Mr. Errington of procuring the poison he required, not to mention his friend's visiting card. We cannot gauge how many months ago he began to try and copy Frank Errington in his style address, the cut of his moustache, his general appearance, making the change probably so gradual that no one in his own entourage would notice it. He selected for his model a man of his own height and build with the same colored hair. But there was the terrible risk of being identified by his fellow traveller in the underground, suggested Polly. Yes, there certainly was that risk. He chose to take it, and he was wise. He reckoned that several days would in any case elapse before that person, who, by the way, was a businessman absorbed in his newspaper, would actually see him again. The great secret of successful crime is to study human nature, added the man in the corner, as he began looking for his hat and coat. But Edward Hazeldine knew it well. But the ring? He may have bought it when he was on his honeymoon, he suggested, with a grim chuckle. The tragedy was not planned in a week. It may have taken years to mature. But you will own that there goes a frightful scoundrel unhung. I have left you his photograph as he was a year ago and as he is now. You will see he has shaved his beard again, but also his moustache. I fancy he is a friend now of Mr. Andrew Campbell. He left Miss Polly Burton wondering, not knowing what to believe. And that is how she missed her appointment with Mr. Richard Frobisher of the London Mail, to go and see Maud Allen dance at the Palace Theatre that afternoon. End of CHAPTER XI. CHAPTER XII OF THE OLD MAN IN THE CORNER This is a LibriVox recording, while LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. THE OLD MAN IN THE CORNER by Baroness R. Z. CHAPTER XII THE LIVERPOOL MYSTERY A title, a foreign title, I mean, is always very useful for purposes of swindles and frauds, remarked the old man in the corner to Polly one day. The cleverest robberies of modern times were perpetrated lately in Vienna by a man who dubbed himself Lord Seymour. Lost over here, the same class of thief calls himself Count Something Ending in O or Prince the Other Ending in O. Fortunately for our hotel and lodging housekeepers over here, she replied, they are beginning to be more alive to the ways of foreign swindlers and look upon all title gentry who speak broken English as possible swindlers or thieves. The result sometimes being exceedingly unpleasant to the real grand seniors who honor this country at times with their visits, replied the man in the corner. Now take the case of Prince Semyonitz, a man who sixteen quarterings are duly recorded in Gotha, who carried enough luggage with him to pay for the use of every room in a hotel for at least a week, whose gold cigarette case with diamond and turquoise ornament was actually stolen without his taking the slightest trouble to try and recover it. That same man was undoubtedly looked upon with suspicion by the manager of the Liverpool Northwestern Hotel from the moment that his secretary, a dapper, somewhat vulgar little Frenchman, bespoke on behalf of his employer with himself in a valet, the best suite of rooms the hotel contained. Obviously those suspicions were unfounded, for the little secretary, as soon as Prince Semyonitz had arrived, deposited with the manager a pile of banknotes, also papers and bonds, the value of which would exceed tenfold the most outrageous bill that could possibly be placed before the noble visitor. Moreover, M. Albert Lambert explained that the prince, who only meant to stay in Liverpool a few days, was on his way to Chicago, where he wished to visit Princess Anna Semyonitz, his sister, who was married to Mr. Gerwin, the great Copper King and multi-millionaire. Yet, as I told you before, in spite of all these undoubted securities, suspicion of the wealthy Russian prince lurked in the minds of most Liverpoolians who came in business contact with him. He had been at Northwestern two days when he sent his secretary to Winslow and Vassal, the jewelers of Bold Street, with a request that they would kindly send a representative round to the hotel with some nice pieces of jewelry, diamonds and pearls chiefly, that he was desirous of taking as a present to his sister in Chicago. Mr. Winslow took the order from M. Albert with a pleasant bow, then he went to his inner office and consulted with his partner, Mr. Vassal, as to the best course to adopt. Both the gentlemen were desirous of doing business, for business had been very slack lately, neither wished to refuse a possible customer or to offend Mr. Pettit, the manager of the Northwestern, who had recommended them to the prince. But that foreign title and the vulgar little French secretary stuck in the throats of the two pompous and worthy liverpool jewelers, and together they agreed, firstly, that no credit should be given, and secondly, that if a check or even a banker's draft were tendered, the jewels were not to be given up until that check or bank draft was cashed. Then came the question as to who should take the jewels to the hotel. It was altogether against business etiquette for the senior partners to do such errands themselves. Moreover, it was thought that it would be easier for a clerk to explain, without giving undue offence, that he could not take the responsibility for a check or draft without having cashed it previously to giving up the jewels. Then there was the question of the probable necessity of conferring in a foreign tongue.  It was therefore decided to dispatch Mr. Schwartz, a young German clerk lately arrived on the delicate errand. Mr. Schwartz was Mr. Winslow's nephew and godson, a sister of that gentleman having married the head of the great German firm of Schwartz and company Silversmiths of Hamburg and Berlin. The young man had soon become a great favorite with his uncle, whose heir he would presumably be as Mr. Winslow had no children. At first Mr. Vassel made some demure about sending Mr. Schwartz with so many valuable jewels alone in a city which he had not yet had time to study thoroughly, but finally he allowed himself to be persuaded by his senior partner, and a fine selection of necklaces, pendants, bracelets, and rings. Amounting in value to over sixteen thousand pounds having been made, it was decided that Mr. Schwartz should go to the north western in a cab the next day at about three o'clock in the afternoon. This he accordingly did the following day being a Thursday. Business went on in the shop as usual under the direction of the head assistant until about seven o'clock when Mr. Winslow returned from his club where he usually spent an hour over the papers every afternoon and at once asked for his nephew. To his astonishment Mr. Needham informed him that Mr. Schwartz had not yet returned.  Mr. Vassel offered to go around to the hotel and interview Mr. Pettit. I was beginning to get anxious myself, he said, but did not quite like to say so. I have been in over half an hour hoping every moment that you would come in and that perhaps you would give me some reassuring news. I thought that perhaps you had met Mr. Schwartz and were coming back together. However, Mr. Vassel walked round to the hotel and interviewed the hall porter. The latter perfectly remembered Mr. Schwartz sending in his card to print a semi-honnets. At what time was that? asked Mr. Vassel. About ten minutes past three, sir, when he came in. It was about an hour later when he left. When he left, gasped, more than usual, Mr. Vassel. Yes, sir. Mr. Schwartz left here about a quarter before four, sir. Are you quite sure? Quite sure. Mr. Pettit was in the hall when he left and he asked him something about business. Mr. Schwartz laughed and said, not bad. I hope there's nothing wrong, sir, out of the man. Oh, or nothing. Thank you. Can I see Mr. Pettit? Certainly, sir. Mr. Pettit, the manager of the hotel, shared Mr. Vassel's anxiety. Immediately he heard that the young German had not yet returned home. I spoke to him a little before four o'clock. We had just switched on the electric light, which we always do these winter months at that hour. But I shouldn't worry myself, Mr. Vassel. The young man may have seen to some business on his way home.  Apparently somewhat reassured, Mr. Vassel thanked Mr. Pettit and hurried back to the shop, only to find that Mr. Schwartz had not returned, though now it was close on eight o'clock. Mr. Winslow looked so haggard and upset that it would have been cruel to heap approaches upon his other troubles or to utter so much as the faintest suspicion that young Schwartz's permanent disappearance with sixteen thousand in jewels and money was within the bounds of probability. There was one chance left, but under the circumstances a very slight one, indeed. The Winslow's private house was up in the Birkenhead end of town. Young Schwartz had been living with them ever since his arrival in Liverpool, and he may have, either not feeling well or for some other reason, gone straight home without calling at the shop. It was unlikely as valuable jewelry was never kept at the private house, but it just might have happened. It would be useless, continued the man in the corner, and decidedly uninteresting were I to relate to you Messer's Winslow's and Vassel's further anxieties with regard to the missing young man suffice it to say that on reaching his private house Mr. Winslow found that his godson had neither returned nor sent any telegraphic message of any kind. Not wishing to needlessly alarm his wife, Mr. Winslow made an attempt at eating his dinner, but directly after that he hurried back to the northwestern hotel and asked to see Prince Semyonet. The Prince was at the theatre with his secretary and probably would not be home until nearly midnight. Mr. Winslow then, not knowing what to think nor yet what to fear and in spite of the horror he felt of giving publicity to his nephew's disappearance, thought at his duty to go round to the police station and interview the inspector. It is wonderful how quickly news of that type travels in a large city like Liverpool. Already the morning papers of the following day were full of the latest sensation, mysterious disappearance of a well-known tradesman. Mr. Winslow found a copy of the paper containing the sensational announcement on his breakfast table. It lay side by side with a letter addressed to him in his nephew's handwriting which had been posted in Liverpool. Mr. Winslow placed that letter written to him by his nephew into the hands of the police. Its contents therefore quickly became public property. The astounding statements made therein by Mr. Schwartz created, in quiet business like Liverpool, a sensation which has seldom been equaled. It appears that the young fellow did call on Prince Semyonet's at a quarter past three on Wednesday, December 10th, with a bag full of jewels amounting in value to some sixteen thousand pounds. The Prince duly admired and finally selected from among the ornaments a necklace, pendant, and bracelet, the whole being priced by Mr. Schwartz, according to his instructions, at ten thousand five hundred pounds. Prince Semyonet's was most prompt and business-like in his dealings. You will require immediate payment for these, of course, he said in perfect English, and I know your businessmen prefer solid cash to checks, especially when dealing with foreigners. I always provide myself with plenty of Bank of England notes in consequence, he added with a pleasant smile, as ten thousand five hundred and gold would perhaps be a little inconvenient to carry. If you will kindly make out the receipt, my secretary, Mr. Lambert, will settle all business matters with you. He thereupon took the jewels he had selected and locked them up in his dressing case, the beautiful silver fillings of which Mr. Schwartz just caught a short glimpse of. Then, having been accommodated with paper and ink, the young jeweler made out the account and receipt, whilst Mr. Lambert, the secretary, counted out before him the one hundred and five crisp Bank of England notes of one hundred pounds each. Then, was a final bow to his exceedingly urbane and eminently satisfactory customer, Mr. Schwartz took his leave. In the hall he saw and spoke to Mr. Pettit, and then he went out into the street. He had just left the hotel and was about to cross towards St. George's Hall when a gentleman in a magnificent fur coat stepped quickly out of a cab which had been stationed near the curb and touching him lightly upon the shoulder said with an unmistakable air of authority at the same time handing him a card. That is my name I must speak with you immediately. Schwartz glanced at the card, and by the light of the arc lamps above his head read on it the name of Dmitry Slavyansky Bergrinev de la troisième section de la Palice Imperiale de S. M. Vizard. Quickly the owner of the unpronounceable name in this significant title pointed to the cab from which he had just alighted, and Schwartz, whose every suspicion with regard to his princely customer bristled up in one moment, clutched his bag, and followed his imposing interlocutor. As soon as they were both comfortably seated in the cab, the latter began with courteous apology in broken but fluent English. I must ask your pardon, sir, for thus trespassing upon your valuable time, and I certainly should not have done so, but for the certainty that our interests in a certain matter which I have in hand are practically identical insofar that we both should wish to outwit a clever roque. Instinctively in his mindful of terrible apprehension Mr. Schwartz's hand wandered to his pocket-book, filled to overflowing with the banknotes which he had so lately received from the Prince. Ah, I see, interposed the courteous Russian with a smile. He has played the confidence trick on you with the usual addition of so many so-called banknotes. So-called, gasped the unfortunate young man. I don't think I often air in my estimate of my own countrymen, continued Mishir Bergenev. I have vast experience you must remember. Therefore, I doubt if I am doing Mishir Bergenev. What does he call himself? Prince, something? An injustice, if I assert. Even without handling those crisp bits of paper you have in your pocket-book that no bank would exchange them for gold. Remembering his uncle's suspicions and his own, Mr. Schwartz cursed himself for his blindness and folly and accepting notes so easily without for a moment imagining that they might be false. Now, with every one of those suspicions fully on the alert, he felt the bits of paper with nervous, anxious fingers while the impenetrable Russian calmly struck a match. See here, he said, pointing to one of the notes, the shape of that W in the signature of the chief cashier. I am not an English police officer, but I could pick out that spirtiest W among a thousand genuine ones. You see, I have seen a good many. Now, of course, poor young Schwartz had not seen very many Bank of England notes. He could not have told whether one W in Mr. Bowen's signature is better than another, but though he did not speak English nearly as fluently as his pompous interlocutor, he understood every word of the appalling statement the latter had just made. Then the Prince, he said, at the hotel? It is no more Prince than you and I, my dear sir, concluded the gentleman of his Imperial Majesty's police calmly. And to Jules, Mr. Winslow's Jules? With the Jules there may be a chance, oh, a mere chance, those forged banknotes which you accepted so trustingly may prove the means of recovering your property. How? The penalty of forging and circulating spurious banknotes is very heavy, you know that. The fear of seven years penile servitude will act as a wonderful sedative upon that er, Prince's joyful moot. He would give up the Jules to me all right enough, never you fear. He knows, added the Russian officer grimly, that there are plenty of old scores to settle up with the additional one of forged banknotes. Our interests you see are identical. May I rely on your cooperation? Oh, I will do as you wish, said the delighted young German. Mr. Winslow and Mr. Vassel they trusted me and I have been such a fool, I hope it is not too late. I think not, said Mr. Bergernauf, his hand already on the door of the cab. Though I have been talking to you, I have kept an eye on the hotel, and our friend the Prince has not yet gone out. We are accustomed, you know, to have eyes everywhere. We are the Russian secret police. I don't think that I will ask you to be present at the confrontation. Perhaps you will wait for me in the cab. There is a nasty fog outside, and you will be more private. Will you give me those beautiful banknotes? Thank you. Don't be anxious, I won't be long. He lifted his hat and slipped the notes into the inner pocket of his magnificent fur coat. As he did so, Mr. Schwartz caught sight of a rich uniform and a wide sash, which no doubt was destined to carry additional moral weight with the clever rogue upstairs. Then his imperial majesty's police officer stepped quickly out of the cab, and Mr. Schwartz was left alone. End of Chapter 12 Chapter 13 of The Old Man in the Corner This is a LibriVox recording, while LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org The Old Man in the Corner by Baroness Orzee Chapter 13 A Cunning Rascal Yes, left severely alone, continued the man in the corner with a sarcastic chuckle, so severely alone, in fact, that one quarter of an hour after another passed by, and still, the magnificent police officer in the gorgeous uniform did not return.   An inquiry from the Hall Porter at the Northwestern elicited the fact that no such personage as Mr. Schwartz described had entered the hotel. The young man asked to see Prince Simeonets hoping, against hope, that all was not yet lost. The Prince received him most courteously. He was dictating some letters to his secretary, while the valet was in the next room preparing his master's evening clothes. Mr. Schwartz found it very difficult to explain what he actually did want. There stood the dressing-case in which the Prince had locked up the jewels, and there the bag from which the secretary had taken the banknotes. After much hesitation on Schwartz's part and much impatience on that of the Prince, the young man blurted out the whole story of the so-called Russian police officer whose cart he still held in his hand. The Prince, it appears, took the whole thing wonderfully good-naturedly.  He showed him the jewels, the receipt he held, and also a large bundle of banknotes similar to those Schwartz had with such culpable folly given to the clever rascal in the cab. I pay all my bills with Bank of England notes, Mr. Schwartz. It would have been wise, or perhaps, if you had spoken to the manager of the hotel about me, before you were so ready to believe any cock-and-bull story about my supposed rogueries. Finally he placed a small, 16-month volume before the young jeweler, and said with a pleasant smile. If people in this country who are in a large way of business, and are therefore likely to come in contact with people of foreign nationality, or to study these little volumes before doing business with any foreigner who claims a title, much disappointment and a great loss would often be saved. Now, in this case, have you looked up page 797 of this little volume of Gath's almanac? You would have seen my name in it, and known from the first, that the so-called Russian detective was a liar. There was nothing more to be said, and Mr. Schwartz left the hotel. No doubt, now that he had been hopelessly duped, he dared not go home, and half hoped by communicating with the police that they might succeed in arresting the thief before he had time to leave Liverpool. He interviewed Detective Inspector Watson, and was at once confronted with the awful difficulty, which would make the recovery of the banknotes practically hopeless. He had never had the time or opportunity of jotting down the numbers of the notes. Mr. Winslow, though terribly wrathful against his nephew, did not wish to keep him out of his home, as soon as he had received Schwartz's letter, he traced him with Inspector Watson's help to his lodgings in North Street, where the unfortunate young man meant to remain hidden until the terrible storm had blown over, or perhaps until the thief had been caught red-handed with the booty still in his hands. This happy event, needless to say, never did occur, though the police made every effort to trace the man who had decoyed Schwartz into the cab. His appearance was such an uncommon one, it seems most unlikely that no one in Liverpool should have noticed him after he left that cab. The wonderful fur coat, the long beard, almost had been noticeable, even though it was past four o'clock on a somewhat foggy December afternoon. But every investigation proved futile, no one answering Schwartz's description of the man had been seen anywhere. The papers continued to refer to the case as the Liverpool mystery. Scotland Yard sent Mr. Fairburn down, the celebrated detective, at the request of the Liverpool police to help in the investigations, but nothing availed. Prince Semionets with his suite left Liverpool, and he who had attempted to blacken his character and had succeeded in robbing Messer's Winslow and Vassal of ten thousand five hundred pounds had completely disappeared. The man in the corner readjusted his collar and necktie, which, during the narrative of this interesting mystery, had worked its way up his long, crane-like neck under his large, flappy ears. His costume of checked tweed of a peculiarly loud pattern had tickled the fancy of some of the waitresses, who were standing gazing at him and giggling in one corner. This evidently made him nervous. He gazed up very meekly at Polly, looking for all the world like a bald-headed adjutant dressed for a holiday. Of course, all sorts of theories of the theft got about at first, one of the most popular and at the same time most quickly exploded being that young Schwartz had told a cock and bull story and was the actual thief himself. However, as I said before, that was quickly exploded, as Mr. Schwartz Sr., a very wealthy merchant, never allowed his son's carelessness to be a serious loss to his kind employers. As soon as he thoroughly grasped all the circumstances of the extraordinary case, he drew a check for ten thousand five hundred pounds and remitted it to Messers Winslow and Vassal. It was just, but it was also high-minded. All Liverpool knew of the generous action, as Mr. Winslow took care that it should, and any evil suspicion regarding young Mr. Schwartz vanished as quickly as it had come. Then, of course, there was the theory about the Prince and his suite, and to this day I fancy there are plenty of people in Liverpool and also in London who declare that the so-called Russian police officer was a confederate. No doubt that theory was very plausible, and Messers Winslow and Vassal spent a good deal of money in trying to prove a case against the Russian Prince. Very soon, however, that theory was also bound to collapse. Mr. Fairburn, whose reputation as an investigator of crime waxes in direct inverted ratio to his capacities, did hit upon the obvious course of interviewing the managers of the larger London and Liverpool and Chantuchage. He soon found that Prince Semyonets had converted a great deal of Russian and French money into English banknotes since his arrival in this country. More than thirty thousand pounds in good solid honest money was traced to the pockets of the gentlemen with the sixteen quarterings. It seemed, therefore, more than improbable that a man who was obviously fairly wealthy would risk imprisonment and hard labour if not worse, for the sake of increasing his fortune by ten thousand pounds. However, the theory of the Prince's guilt has taken firm root in the dull minds of our police authorities. They have had every information with regard to Prince Semyonets's antecedents from Russia. His position, his wealth, have been placed above suspicion, and yet they suspect and go on suspecting him or his secretary. They have communicated with the police of every European capital, and while they still hope to obtain sufficient evidence against those they suspect, they calmly allow the guilty to enjoy the fruit of his clever roguery. The guilty, said Polly, who do you think? Who do I think knew at that moment that young Swartz had money in his possession?  Obviously, someone was guilty of that theft who knew that Swartz had gone to interview a rich Russian, and would, in all probability, return with a large sum of money in his possession. Who indeed but the Prince and his secretary, she argued, but just now you said, just now I said that the police were determined to find the Prince and his secretary guilty. They did not look further than their own stumpy noses. Messers Winslow and Vassal spent money with a free hand in those investigations. Mr. Winslow, as the senior partner, stood to lose over nine thousand pounds by that robbery. Now with Mr. Vassal it was different. When I saw how the police went on blundering in this case, I took the trouble to make certain inquiries. The whole thing interested me so much, and I learned all that I wished to know. I found out, namely, that Mr. Vassal was very much a junior partner in the firm, that he only drew ten percent of the profits, having been promoted lately to a partnership from having been senior assistant. Now the police did not take the trouble to find that out. But you don't mean that. I mean that in all cases where robbery affects more than one person, the first thing to find out is whether it affects the second party equally with the first. I proved that to you, didn't I, over the robbery in Philomore Terrace? There, as here, one of the two parties stood to lose very little in comparison with the other. Even then, she began, wait a moment, for I found out something more. The moment I had ascertained that Mr. Vassal was not drawing more than about five hundred pounds a year from the business profits, I tried to ascertain at what rate he lived and what were his chief vices. I found that he kept a fine house in Albert Terrace. Now the rents of those houses are two hundred fifty pounds a year. Therefore, speculation, horse racing, or some sort of gambling must help to keep up that establishment. Speculation and most forms of gambling are synonymous with debt and ruin. It is only a question of time. Whether Mr. Vassal was in debt or not at the time, that I cannot say, but this I do know, that ever since that unfortunate loss to him of about one thousand pounds, he has kept his house in nicer style than before, and he now has a good banking account at the Lancashire and Liverpool Bank, which he opened a year after his heavy loss. But it must have been very difficult, argued Polly. What, he said, to have planned out the whole thing? For carrying it out was mere child's play. He had twenty-four hours in which to put his plan into execution. Why, what was there to do? Firstly, to go to a local printer in some sort of out-of-the-way part of town and get him to print a few cards with the high-sounding name. That, of course, is done while you wait. Beyond that, there was the purchase of a good second-hand uniform, fur coat, and a beard and a wig from a customer's. No, no, the execution was not difficult. It was the planning of it all, the daring that was so fine. Schwartz, of course, was a foreigner. He had only been in England a little over a fortnight. Vassal's broken English misled him. Probably he did not know the junior partner very intimately. I have no doubt that but for his uncle's absurd British prejudice and suspicions against the Russian Prince, Schwartz would not have been so ready to believe in the latter's roguery. As I said, it would be a great boon if English tradesmen studied Gotha more, but it was clever, wasn't it? I couldn't have done it much better myself. That last sentence was so characteristic, before Polly could think of some plausible argument against his theory he was gone, and she was trying vainly to find another solution to the Liverpool mystery. End of Chapter 13 Chapter 14 of The Old Man in the Corner This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Old Man in the Corner by Baroness Orsey Chapter 14 The Edinburgh Mystery The man in the corner had not enjoyed his lunch. Miss Polly Burton could see that he had something on his mind, for even before he began to talk that morning he was fidgeting with his bit of string and setting all her nerves on the jar. Have you ever felt real sympathy with a criminal or a thief? He asked her after a while. Only once, I think, she replied, and that I am not quite sure that the unfortunate woman who did enlist my sympathies was the criminal you make her out to be. You mean the heroine of the York mystery, he replied, blandly? I know that you tried very hard that time to discredit the only possible version of that mysterious murder, the version which is my own. Now I am equally sure that you have at the present moment no more notion as to who killed and robbed poor Lady Donaldson in Charlotte Square-Edenburg than the police have themselves, and yet you are fully prepared to poo-poo my arguments and to disbelieve my version of the mystery. Such is the Lady Journalist's mind. If you have some cock-and-bull story to explain that extraordinary case, she retorted, of course I shall disbelieve it. Certainly, if you are going to try and enlist my sympathies on behalf of Edith Crawford, I can assure you you won't succeed. Well, I don't know that that is altogether my intention. I see you are interested in the case, but I dare say you don't remember all the circumstances. You must forgive me if I repeat that which you know already. If you have ever been to Edinburgh at all, you will have heard of Graham's bank, and Mr. Andrew Graham, the present head of the firm, is undoubtedly one of the most prominent notabilities of modern Athens. The man in the corner took two or three photos from his pocket-book and placed them before the young girl, then pointing at them with his long bony finger. That, he said, is Mr. Elphinstone Graham, the eldest son, a typical young Scotchman, as you see, and this is David Graham, the second son. Polly looked more closely at this last photo and saw before her a young face upon which some lasting sorrow seemed already to have left its mark. The face was delicate and thin, the features pinched, and the eyes seemed almost unnaturally large and prominent. He was deformed, commented the man in the corner, in answer to the girl's thoughts, and as such an object of pity and even of repugnance to most of his friends. There was also a good deal of talk in Edinburgh society as to his mental condition, his mind according to many intimate friends of the Graham's, being at times decidedly unhinge. Be that as it may, I fancy that his life must have been a very sad one. He had lost his mother when quite a baby, and his father seemed, strangely enough, to have an almost unconquerable dislike towards him. Everyone got to know presently of David Graham's sad position in his father's own house, and also of the great affection lavished upon him by his godmother, Lady Donaldson, who is the sister of Mr. Graham's. She was a lady of considerable wealth, being the widow of Sir George Donaldson the Great Distiller, but she seems to have been decidedly eccentric. Laterally she had astonished all her family, who were rigid Presbyterians, by announcing her intention of embracing the Roman Catholic faith, and then retiring to the convent of St. Augustine's at Newton Abbot in Devonshire. She had sole and absolute control of the vast fortune which a doting husband had bequeathed to her. Clearly, therefore, she was at liberty to bestow it upon a Devonshire convent if she chose, but this evidently was not altogether her intention. I told you how fond she was of her deformed godson, did I not? Being a bundle of eccentricities, she had many hobbies, none more pronounced than the fixed determination to see, before retiring from the world altogether, David Graham happily married. Now it appears that David Graham, ugly, deformed, half-demented as he was, had fallen desperately in love with Ms. Edith Crawford, daughter of the late Dr. Crawford of Prince's Gardens. The young lady, however, very naturally, perhaps, thought shy of David Graham, who, about this time, certainly seemed very queer and morose, but Lady Donaldson, with characteristic determination, seems to have made up her mind to melt Ms. Crawford's heart towards her unfortunate and nephew. On October the 2nd last, at a family party given by Mr. Graham in his fine mansion in Charlotte Square, Lady Donaldson openly announced her intention of making over, by deed of gift, to her nephew, David Graham, certain property, money, and shares amounting in total value to the sum of one hundred thousand pounds, and also her magnificent diamonds, which were worth fifty thousand pounds, for the use of said David's wife. Keith McFinley, a lawyer of Prince's Street, received the next day instructions for drawing up the necessary deed of gift, which she pledged herself to sign the day of her godson's wedding. A week later the Scotsman contained the following paragraph. A marriage is arranged and will shortly take place between David, younger son of Andrew Graham Esquire, of Charlotte Square Edinburgh, and Dr. Neckirk Pershire, and Edith Lillian, only surviving daughter of the late Dr. Kenneth Crawford, of Prince's Gardens. In Edinburgh society comments were loud and various upon the forthcoming marriage, and, on the whole, these comments were far from complementary to the family's concerned. I do not think that the Scots are a particularly sentimental race, but there was such obvious buying, selling, and bargaining about this marriage that Scottish chivalry rose in revolt at the thought. Against that the three people most concerned seemed perfectly satisfied. David Graham was positively transformed, his morose-ness was gone from him. He lost his queer ways and wild manners, and became gentle and affectionate in the midst of this great and unexpected happiness. Miss Edith Crawford ordered her trousseau and talked of the diamonds to her friends, and Lady Donaldson was only waiting for the consummation of this marriage, her heart's desire, before she finally retired from the world, at peace with it and with herself. The deed of gift was ready for signature on the wedding day, which was fixed for November 7th, and Lady Donaldson took up her abode temporarily in her brother's house in Charlotte Square. Mr. Graham gave a large ball on October 23rd. Special interest is attached to this ball, from the fact that for this occasion Lady Donaldson insisted that David's future wife should wear the magnificent diamonds which were soon to become hers. They were, it seems, superb, and became Miss Crawford's stately beauty to perfection. The ball was a brilliant success, the last guest leaving at 4 a.m. The next day it was the universal topic of conversation, and the day after that, when Edinburgh unfolded the late editions of its morning papers, it learned with horror and dismay that Lady Donaldson had been found murdered in her room and that the celebrated diamonds had been stolen. Hardly had the beautiful little city, however, recovered from this awful shock, then its newspapers had another thrilling sensation ready for their readers. Already all Scotch and English papers had mysteriously hinted at startling information obtained by the Procurator Fiscal and at an impending sensational arrest. Then the announcement came, and everyone in Edinburgh read, horror struck and aghast, that the sensational arrest was none other than that of Miss Edith Crawford for murder and robbery both so daring and horrible that reason refused to believe that a young lady, born and bred in the best social circle, should have conceived, much less executed, so heinous a crime. She had been arrested in London at the Midland Hotel and brought to Edinburgh, where she was judicially examined, bail being refused. End of Chapter 14 Chapter 15 of The Old Man in the Corner This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Old Man in the Corner by Baroness Orsey Chapter 15 A Terrible Plight Little more than a fortnight after that, Edith Crawford was duly committed to stand her trial before the High Court of Justiciary. She had pleaded not guilty at the pleading diet, and her defense was entrusted to Sir James Fenwick, one of the most eminent advocates at the criminal bar. Strange to say, continued the man in the corner after a while, public opinion from the first went dead against the accused. The public is absolutely like a child, perfectly irresponsible and wholly illogical. It argued that since Ms. Crawford had already been ready to contract a marriage with a half-demented, deformed creature for the sake of his 100,000 pounds, she must have been equally ready to murder and rob an old lady for the sake of 50,000 pounds worth of jewelry without the encumbrance of so undesirable a husband. Perhaps the great sympathy aroused in the popular mind for David Graham had much to do with this ill-feeling against the accused. David Graham had, by this cruel and dastardly murder, lost the best if not the only friend he possessed. He had also lost, at one fell swoop, the large fortune which Lady Donaldson had been about to assign to him. The deed of the gift had never been signed, and the old lady's vast wealth, instead of enriching her favorite nephew, was distributed since she had made no will amongst her heirs at law. And now, to crown this long chapter of sorrow, David Graham saw the girl he loved accused of the awful crime which had robbed him of friend and fortune. It was therefore with an unmistakable thrill of righteous satisfaction that Edinburgh society saw this mercenary girl in so terrible a plight. I was immensely interested in the case, and journeyed down to Edinburgh in order to get a good view of the chief actors in the thrilling drama which was about to be unfolded there. I succeeded, I generally do, in securing one of the front seats among the audience, and was already comfortably installed in my place in court when through the trapdoor I saw the head of the prisoner emerge. She was very becomingly dressed in deep black, and led by two policemen she took her place in the dock. Sir James Fenwick shook hands with her very warmly, and I could almost hear him instilling words of comfort into her. The trial lasted six clear days, during which time more than forty persons were examined for the prosecution, and as many for the defense. But the most interesting witnesses were certainly the two doctors, the maid Tremlett, Campbell, the High Street Jeweler, and David Graham. There was, of course, a great deal of medical evidence to go through. Poor Lady Donaldson had been found with a silk scarf tied tightly around her neck, her face showing even to the inexperienced eye every symptom of strangulation. Then Tremlett, Lady Donaldson's confidential maid, was called. Closely examined by Crown Council, she gave an account of the ball at Charlotte Square on the twenty-third, and the wearing of the jewels by Miss Crawford on that occasion. I held Miss Crawford on with the tiara over her hair, she said, and my lady put the two necklaces round Miss Crawford's neck herself. There were also some beautiful brooches, bracelets, and earrings. At four o'clock in the morning when the ball was over, Miss Crawford brought the jewels back to my lady's room. My lady had already gone to bed, and I had put out the electric light as I was going to. There was only one candle left in the room close to the bed. Miss Crawford took all the jewels off and asked Lady Donaldson for the key of the safe, so that she might put them away. My lady gave her the key, and said to me, You can go to bed, Tremlett, you must be dead tired. I was glad to go, for I could hardly stand up, I was so tired. I said, Good night, to my lady, and also to Miss Crawford, who was busy putting the jewels away. As I was going out of the room, I heard Lady Donaldson saying, Have you managed it, my dear? Miss Crawford said, I have put everything away very nicely. In answer to Sir James Fenwick, Tremlett said that Lady Donaldson always carried the key of her jewelry safe on a ribbon around her neck, and had done so the whole day preceding her death. On the night of the twenty-fourth, she continued, Lady Donaldson seemed rather tired and went up to her room directly after dinner, and while the family were still sitting in the dining room. She made me dress her hair, then she slipped on her dressing-gown, and sat in the armchair with a book. She told me that she then felt strangely uncomfortable and nervous, and could not account for it. However, she did not want me to sit with her, so I thought that the best thing I could do was to tell Mr. David Graham that her ladyship did not seem very cheerful. Her ladyship was so fond of Mr. David, it always made her happy to have him with her. I then went to my room, and at half past eight Mr. David called me.   At about ten o'clock I did, as Mr. David suggested, and listened at her ladyship's door. However, all was quiet in the room, and thinking her ladyship had gone to sleep, I went back to bed. The next morning at eight o'clock, when I took my mistress's cup of tea, I saw her lying on the floor, her poor dear face all purple and distorted. I screamed, and the other servants came rushing along. Then Mr. Graham had the door locked and sent for the doctor and the police. The poor woman seemed to find it very difficult not to break down. She was closely questioned by Sir James Fenwick, but had nothing further to say. She had last seen her mistress alive at eight o'clock on the evening of the twenty-fourth. And when you listened at her door at ten o'clock, asked Sir James, did you try to open it? I did, but it was locked, she replied. Did Lady Donaldson always lock her bedroom at night? Nearly always. And in the morning, when you took in the tea, the door was open, I walked straight in. You are quite sure, insisted Sir James. I swear it, solemnly asserted the woman. After that we were informed by several members of Mr. Graham's establishment that Miss Crawford had been into tea at Charlotte Square in the afternoon of the twenty-fourth. That she told everyone she was going to London by the night mail, as she had some special shopping she wished to do there. It appears that Mr. Graham and David both tried to persuade her to stay to dinner and then to go by the nine-ten p.m. from the Caledonian station. Miss Crawford, however, had refused, saying she always preferred to go from the Waverley station. It was nearer to her own rooms, and she still had a good deal of writing to do. In spite of this, two witnesses saw the accused in Charlotte Square later on in the evening. She was carrying a bag which seemed heavy, and was walking towards the Caledonian railway station. But the most thrilling moment in that sensational trial was reached on the second day, when David Graham, looking wretchedly ill, unkempt, and haggard, stepped into the witness box. A murmur of sympathy went round the audience at the sight of him, who was the second, perhaps most deeply stricken victim of the Charlotte Square tragedy. David Graham, in answer to Crown Council, gave an account of his last interview with Lady Donaldson. Tremlin had told me that she seemed anxious and upset, and I went to have a chat with her. She soon cheered up, and— there the unfortunate young man hesitated visibly, but after a while resumed with an obvious effort. She spoke of my marriage, and of the gifts she was about to bestow upon me. She said the diamonds would be for my wife and after that for my daughter if I had one. She also complained that Mr. McFinley had been so punctilious about preparing the deed of gift, and that it was a great pity that one hundred thousand pounds could not pass from her hands to mine without so much fuss. I stayed talking with her for about half an hour, then I left her, as she seemed ready to go to bed, but I told her maid to listen at the door in about an hour's time. There was a deep silence in the court for several moments, a silence which to me seemed almost electrical. It was as if, some time before it was uttered, the next question put by Crown Council to the witness had hovered in the air. You were engaged to Miss Edith Crawford at one time, were you not? One felt, rather than heard, the almost inaudible, yes, which escaped from David Graham's compressed lips. Under what circumstances was that engagement broken off? Sir James Fenwick had already risen in protest, but David Graham had been the first to speak. I do not think that I need to answer that question. I will put it in a different form, then, said Crown Council or Bainley, one to which my learned friend cannot possibly take exception. Did you, or did you not, on October 27th, receive a letter from the accused, in which she desired to be released from her promise of marriage to you? Again, David Graham would have refused to answer, and he certainly gave no audible reply to the learned council's question, but everyone in the audience there present, I, every member of the jury and of the bar, read upon David Graham's pale countenance and large sorrowful eyes that ominous yes, which had failed to reach his trembling lips. This is a LibriVox recording, all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. There is no doubt, continued the man in the corner, that what little sympathy the young girl's terrible position had aroused in the public mind had died out the moment that David Graham left the witness box on the second day of the trial. Whether Edith Crawford was guilty of murder or not, the callous way in which he had accepted a deformed lover and then thrown him over had set everyone's mind against her. It was Mr. Graham himself, who had been the first to put the procurator fiscal in possession of the fact that the accused had written to David from London, breaking off her engagement. This information had no doubt directed the attention of the fiscal to Ms. Crawford, and the police soon brought forward the evidence which had led to her arrest. We had a final sensation on the third day, when Mr. Campbell, jeweler of High Street, gave his evidence. He said that on October 25th a lady came to his shop and offered to sell him a pair of diamond earrings. Trade had been very bad and he had refused the bargain, although the lady seemed ready to part with the earrings for an extraordinarily low sum, considering the beauty of the stones. In fact, it was because of this evident desire on the lady's part to sell at any cost, that he had looked at her more keenly than he otherwise would have done. He was now ready to swear that the lady that offered him the diamond earrings was the prisoner in the dock. I can assure you that as we all listen to this apparently damnatory evidence you might have heard a pin drop amongst the audience in that crowded court. The girl alone there in the dock remained calm and unmoved. Remember that for two days we had heard evidence to prove that old Dr. Crawford had died leaving his daughter penniless, that having no mother she had been brought up by a maiden aunt who had trained her to be a governess, which occupation she had followed for years, and that certainly she had never been known by any of her friends to be in possession of solitaire diamond earrings. The prosecution had certainly secured an ace of trumps, but Sir James Fenwick, who during the whole of that day had seemed to take little interest in the proceedings, here rose from his seat, and I knew at once that he had got a tidbit in the way of a point up his sleeve. Gaunt and unusually tall and with his beak like nose he always looked strangely impressive when he seriously tackles a witness. He did it this time with a vengeance, I can tell you. He was all over the pompous little jeweler in a moment. Had Mr. Campbell made a special entry in his book asked to the visit of the lady in question? No. Had he any special means of ascertaining when that visit did actually take place? No, but what record had he of the visit? Mr. Campbell had none. In fact, after about twenty minutes of cross-examination he had to admit that he had given but little thought to the interview with the lady at the time, and certainly not in connection with the murder of Lady Donaldson, until he had read in the papers that a young lady had been arrested. Then he and his clerk talked the matter over, it appears, and together they had certainly recollected that a lady had brought in some beautiful earrings for sale on a day which must have been the morning after the murder if Sir James Fenwick's object was to discredit this special witness he certainly gained his point. All the pomposity went out of Mr. Campbell. He became flurried, then excited, then he lost his temper. After that he was allowed to leave the court, and Sir James Fenwick resumed his seat, and waited like a vulture for its prey. It presented itself in the person of Mr. Campbell's clerk, who, before the procurator-fiscal, had corroborated his employer's evidence in every respect. In Scotland no witness in any case is present in court during the examination of another, and Mr. McFarlane, the clerk, was therefore quite unprepared for the pitfalls which Sir James Fenwick had prepared for him.  Mr. McFarlane did not lose his temper. He was of too humble a frame of mind to do that, but he got into a hopeless quagmire of mixed recollections, and he too left the witness-box quite unprepared to swear as to the day of the interview with the lady with the diamond earrings. I dare say, mind you, continued the man in the corner with a chuckle, that to most people present, Sir James Fenwick's cross-questioning seemed completely irrelevant. Both Mr. Campbell and his clerk were quite ready to swear that they had had an interview concerning some diamond earrings with a lady of whose identity with the accused they were perfectly convinced, and to the casual observer the question as to the time or even the day when that interview took place could make but little difference in the ultimate issue. Now I took in, in a moment, the entire drift of Sir James Fenwick's defense of Edith Crawford. When Mr. McFarlane left the witness-box, the second victim of the eminent advocate's caustic tongue, I could read, as in a book, the whole history of that crime, its investigation, and the mistakes made by the police first and the public prosecutor afterwards.  Mr. Campbell's and Mr. McFarlane's identification of the accused, with the lady who, on some date, admitted to be uncertain, had tried to sell a pair of diamond earrings, was the first point. Sir James had plenty of witnesses to prove that on the twenty-fifth, the day after the murder, the accused was in London, whilst, the day before, Mr. Campbell's shop had been closed long before the family circle had seen the last of Lady Donaldson. Clearly the jeweler and his clerk must have seen some other lady, whom their vivid imagination had pictured as being identical with the accused. Then came the great question of time. Mr. David Graham had been evidently the last to see Lady Donaldson alive. He had spoken to her as late as 8.30 p.m. Sir James Fenwick had called two porters at the Caledonian railway station, who testified to Miss Crawford having taken her seat in a first-class carriage of the 9.10 train some minutes before it started. Was it conceivable, therefore, argued Sir James, that in the space of half an hour the accused, a young girl, could have found her way surreptitiously into the house at a time when the entire household was still a stir, that she could have strangled Lady Donaldson, forced open the safe, and made away with the jewels? A man, an experienced burglar, might have done it, but I contend that the accused is physically incapable of accomplishing such a feat. With regard to the broken engagement, continued the prominent counsel with a smile, it may have seemed a little heartless, certainly, but heartlessness is no crime in the eyes of the law. The accused has stated in her declaration that at the time she wrote to Mr. David Graham, breaking off her engagement, she had heard nothing of the Edinburgh tragedy. The London papers had reported the crime very briefly. The accused was busy shopping. She knew nothing of Mr. David Graham's altered position. In no case was the breaking off of the engagement a proof that the accused had obtained possession of the jewels by so foul a deed. It is, of course, impossible for me, continued the man in the corner apologetically, to give you any idea of the imminent advocate's eloquence and masterful logic. It struck everyone, I think, just as it did me, that he chiefly directed his attention to the fact that there was absolutely no proof against the accused. Be that as it may, the result of that remarkable trial was a verdict of non-proven. The jury was absent forty minutes, and it appears that in the mind of every one of them there remained, in spite of Sir James' argument, a firmly rooted conviction, call it instinct, if you like, that Edith Crawford had done away with Lady Donaldson in order to become possessed of those jewels, and that in spite of the pompous jewelers many contradictions she had offered him some of those diamonds for sale. But there was not enough proof to convict, and she was given the benefit of the doubt. I have heard English people argue that in England she would have been hanged. Personally I doubt that. I think that an English jury not having the judicial loophole of non-proven would have been bound to acquit her. What do you think? Chapter 17 Undeniable Facts There was a moment's silence, for Polly did not reply immediately, and he went on making impossible knots in his bit of string. Then she said quietly, I think that I agree with those English people who say that an English jury would have condemned her. I have no doubt that she was guilty. She may not have committed that awful deed herself. Someone in the Charlotte Square House may have been her accomplice, and killed and robbed Lady Donaldson while Edith Crawford waited outside for the jewels. David Graham left his godmother at 8.30 p.m. If the accomplice was one of the servants in the house, he or she would have had plenty of time for any amount of villainy, and Edith Crawford could have yet caught the nine-ten train from the Caledonian station. Then who, in your opinion, he asked sarcastically, and cocking his funny, bird-like head on one side, tried to sell the diamond earrings to Mr. Campbell, the jeweler. Edith Crawford, of course, she retorted triumphantly. He and his clerk both recognized her. When did she try to sell them the earrings? Ah, that is what I cannot quite make out, and there to my mind lies the only mystery in this case. On the 25th she was certainly in London, and it is not very likely that she would go back to Edinburgh in order to dispose of the jewels there where they could most easily be traced. Not very likely, certainly, he assented dryly, and added the young girl. On the day before she left for London Lady Donaldson was alive. And pray, he said suddenly, as with comic complacency, he surveyed a beautiful knot he had just twisted up between his long fingers. What has that fact got to do with it? But it has everything to do with it, she retorted. Ah, there you go, he sighed with comic emphasis. My teachings don't seem to have improved your powers of reasoning. You are as bad as the police. Lady Donaldson has been robbed and murdered, and you immediately argue that she was robbed and murdered by the same person. But, argued Polly, there is no but, he said, getting more and more excited. See how simple it is. Edith Crawford wears the diamonds one night, then she brings them back to Lady Donaldson's room. Remember the maid's statement? My lady said, have you put them back, my dear? A simple statement utterly ignored by the prosecution. But what did it mean? That Lady Donaldson could not see for herself whether Edith Crawford had put back the jewels or not, since she asked the question. Then you argue, I never argue, he interrupted excitedly. I state undeniable facts. Edith Crawford, who wanted to steal the jewels, took them then and there when she had the opportunity. Why in the world should she have waited? Lady Donaldson was in bed, and tremlet, the maid, had gone. The next day, namely the twenty-fifth, she tries to dispose of a pair of earrings to Mr. Campbell. She fails and decides to go to London, where she has a better chance. Sir James Fenwick did not think it desirable to bring forward witnesses to prove what I have since ascertained is a fact. Namely, that on the twenty-seventh of October, three days before her arrest, Miss Crawford crossed over to Belgium and came back to London the next day. In Belgium no doubt, Lady Donaldson's diamonds, taken out of their settings, calmly repose at this moment, while the money derived from their sale, is safely deposited in a Belgian bank. But then, who murdered Lady Donaldson, and why? gassed Polly. Can you not guess? he queried blandly. Have I not placed the case clearly enough before you? To me, it seems so simple. It was a daring, brutal murder, remember? Think of one who, not being the thief himself, would nevertheless have the strongest of all motives to shield the thief from the consequences of her own misdeed. I, and the power, too, since it would be absolutely illogical, nay impossible, that he should be an accomplice. Surely, think of a curious nature warped morally as well as physically. Do you know how those natures feel a thousand times more strongly than the even, straight natures in everyday life?  Do you think that such a nature would hesitate a moment before committing a crime to save the loved one from the consequences of that deed? Mind you, I don't assert for a moment that David Graham had any intention of murdering Lady Donaldson. Tremlett tells him that she seems strangely upset. He goes to her room and finds that she has discovered that she has been robbed. She naturally suspects Edith Crawford, recollects the incidents of the other night, and probably expresses her feelings to David Graham and threatens immediate prosecution scandal what you will. I repeat it again. I daresay he had no wish to kill her. Probably he merely threatened to. A medical gentleman who spoke of sudden heart failure was no doubt right. Then imagine David Graham's remorse, his horror, and his fears. The empty safe probably is the first object that suggests to him the grim tableau of robbery and murder which he arranges in order to ensure his own safety. But remember one thing. No miscreant was seen to enter or leave the house surreptitiously. The murderer left no signs of entrance and none of exit. An armed burglar would have left some trace. Someone would have heard something. Then who locked and unlocked Lady Donaldson's door that night while she herself lay dead? Someone in the house, I tell you. Someone who left no trace. Someone against whom there could be no suspicion. Someone who killed without apparently the slightest premeditation and without the slightest motive. Think of it. I know I am right. And then tell me if I have at all enlisted your sympathies in the author of the Edinburgh mystery. He was gone. Polly looked again at the photo of David Graham, did a crooked mind really dwell in that crooked body, and were there in the world such crimes that were great enough to be deemed sublime? End of chapters 16 and 17. Chapter 18 of The Old Man in the Corner. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Old Man in the Corner by Baroness Orsey. Chapter 18. The Theft at the English Provident Bank. That question of motive is a very difficult and complicated one at times, said the man in the corner, leisurely pulling off a huge pair of flaming dog-sinn gloves from his meager fingers. I have known experienced criminal investigators declare as an infallible axiom that to find the person interested in the committal of the crime is to find the criminal. Well, that may be so in most cases, but my experience has proved to me that there is one factor in this world of ours, which is the mainspring of human actions, and that factor is human passions. For good or evil, passions rule this poor humanity of ours. Remember, there are the women. French detectives who are acknowledged masters in their craft never proceed till they have discovered the feminine element in a crime, whether in theft, murder, or fraud. According to their theory, there is always a woman. Perhaps the reason why the Philomore Terrace robbery was never brought home to its perpetrators is because there was no woman in any way connected with it, and I am quite sure, on the other hand, that the reason why the thief at the English Provident Bank is still unpunished is because a clever woman has escaped the eyes of our police force. He had spoken at great length and very dictatorially. Miss Polly Burton did not venture to contradict him, knowing by now that whenever he was irritable he was invariably rude, and then she had the worst of it. When I am old, he resumed, and have nothing more to do, I think I shall take professionally to the police force. They have much to learn. Could anything be more ludicrous than the self-satisfaction, the abnormal conceit of this remark, made by that shriveled piece of mankind in a nervous, hesitating tone of voice? Polly made no comment, but drew from her pocket a beautiful piece of string, and knowing his custom of nodding such an article while unraveling his mysteries, she handed it across the table to him. She positively thought that he blushed. As an adjunct to thought, she said, moved by a conciliatory spirit. He looked at the invaluable toy which the young girl had tantalizingly placed close to his hand, then he forced himself to look all around the coffee-room, at Polly, at the waitresses, at the piles of pallet buns upon the counter, but involuntarily his mild blue eyes wandered back lovingly to the long piece of string on which his playful imagination no doubt already saw a series of nods which would be equally tantalizing to tie and to untie. Tell me about the theft at the English provident bank, suggested Polly condescendingly. He looked at her as if she had proposed some mysterious complicity in an unheard of crime. Finally his lean fingers saw at the end of the piece of string and drew it towards him, his face brightened up in a moment. There was an element of tragedy in that particular robbery, he began after a few moments of beautified nodding. Altogether different to that connected with most crimes, a tragedy which, as far as I am concerned, would seal my lips forever and forbid them to utter a word which might lead the police on the right track.  You know the English provident bank, of course, in Oxford Street. There were plenty of sketches of it at the time in the illustrated papers. Here is a photo of the outside. I took it myself some time ago and only wish I had been cheeky or lucky enough to get a snapshot of the interior. But you see that the office has a separate entrance from the rest of the house, which was, and still is, as is usual in such cases, inhabited by the manager and his family. Mr. Ireland was the manager then. It was less than six months ago. He lived over the bank with his wife and family, consisting of a son, who was clerk in the business, and two or three younger children. The house is really smaller than it looks on this photo, for it has no depth and only one set of rooms on each floor looking out into the street, the back of the house being nothing but the staircase. Mr. Ireland and his family, therefore, occupied the whole of it. As for the business premises, they were, and in fact are, of the usual pattern, an office with its rows of desks, clerks and cashiers, and beyond through a glass door, the manager's private room, with the ponderous safe and desk, and so on. The private room has a door into the hall of the house, so that the manager is not obliged to go out into the street in order to go to business. There are no living rooms on the ground floor, and the house has no basement. I am obliged to put all these architectural details before you, though they may sound rather dry and uninteresting, but they are really necessary in order to make my argument clear. At night, of course, the bank premises are barred and bolted against the street, and as an additional precaution, there is always a night watchman in the office. As I mentioned before, there is only a glass door between the office and the manager's private room. This, of course, accounted for the fact that the night watchman heard all that he did here, on that memorable night, and so helped further to entangle the thread of that impenetrable mystery. Mr. Ireland, as a rule, went into his office every morning a little before ten o'clock, but on that particular morning, for some reason which he never could or would explain, he went down before having his breakfast at about nine o'clock. Mrs. Ireland stated, subsequently, that not hearing him return, she sent the servant down to tell the master that breakfast was getting cold. The girl's shrieks were the first intimation that something alarming had occurred. Mrs. Ireland hastened downstairs, unreaching the hall she found the door of her husband's room open, and it was from there that the girl's shrieks proceeded. The master, mum! The poor master! He is dead, mum! I am sure he is dead! Accompanied by vigorous thumps against the glass partition, and not very measured language on the part of the watchman from the outer office, such as, why don't you open the door instead of making that row? Mrs. Ireland is not the sort of woman who, under any circumstances, would lose her presence of mind. I think she proved that throughout the many trying circumstances connected with the investigation of the case. She gave only one glance at the room and realized the situation. On the armchair the head thrown back and eyes closed, lay Mr. Ireland, apparently in a dead faint, some terrible shock must have very suddenly shattered his nervous system, and rendered him prostrate for the moment. What that shock had been, it was pretty easy to guess. The door of the safe was wide open, and Mr. Ireland had evidently tottered and fainted before some awful fact which the open safe had revealed to him. He had caught himself against a chair which lay on the floor, and then finally sunk unconscious into the armchair. All this, which takes some time to describe, continued the man in the corner, took remember only a second to pass like a flash through Mrs. Ireland's mind. She quickly turned the key of the glass door, which was on the inside, and with the help of James Fairbarn, the watchman, she carried her husband upstairs to his room, and immediately sent both for the police and for a doctor. As Mrs. Ireland had anticipated, her husband had received a severe mental shock which had completely prostrated him. The doctor prescribed absolute quiet and forbade all worrying questions for the present. The patient was not a young man, the shock had been very severe. It was a case, a very slight one, of cerebral congestion, and Mr. Ireland's reason, if not his life, might be gravely jeopardized by any attempt to recall before his enfeebled mind the circumstances which had preceded his collapse. The police therefore could proceed but slowly in their investigations. The detective who had charged of the case was necessarily handicapped, whilst one of the chief actors concerned in the drama was unable to help him in his work. To begin with, the robbers or robbers had obviously not found their way into the manager's inner room through the bank premises. James Fairbarn had been on the watch all night, with the electric light full on, and obviously no one could have crossed the outer office or forced the heavily barred doors without his knowledge. There remained the other access to the room, that is, the one through the hall of the house. The hall door it appears was always barred and bolted by Mr. Ireland himself when he came home, whether from the theater or his club. It was a duty he never allowed anyone to perform but himself. During his annual holiday with his wife and family, his son, who usually had the sub-managers to stay with him on those occasions, did the bolting and barring, but with the distinct understanding that this should be done by ten o'clock at night. As I have already explained to you, there is only a glass partition between the general office and the manager's private room, and according to James Fairbarn's account, this was naturally always left wide open so that he, during his night watch, would have necessity hear the faintest sound. As a rule, there was no light left in the manager's room, and the other door that leading into the hall was bolted from the inside by James Fairbarn the moment he had satisfied himself that the premises were safe, and he had begun his night watch. An electric bell in both the offices communicated with Mr. Ireland's bedroom and that of his son, Mr. Robert Ireland, and there was a telephone installed to the nearest district messenger's office with an understood signal which meant police. At nine o'clock in the morning it was the night watchman's duty as soon as the first cashier had arrived to dust and tidy the manager's room and to undo the bolts. After that he was free to go home to his breakfast and rest. You will see, of course, that James Fairbarn's position in the English provident bank is one of great responsibility and trust, but then in every bank in business house there are men who hold similar positions. They are always men of well known and tried characters, often old soldiers with good conduct records behind them. James Fairbarn is a fine, powerful scotchman. He had been the night watchman to the English provident bank for fifteen years, and was then not more than forty-three or forty-four years old. He is an ex-guardsman and stands six feet three inches in his socks. It was his evidence, of course, which was of such paramount importance, and which somehow or other managed, in spite of the utmost care exercised by the police, to become public property and to cause the wildest excitement in banking and business circles. James Fairbarn stated that at eight o'clock in the evening of March twenty-fifth, having bolted and barred all the shutters and the door of the bank premises, he was about to lock the manager's door as usual when Mr. Ireland called to him from the floor above, telling him to leave that door open, as he might want to go into the office again for a minute when he came home at eleven o'clock. James Farbarn asked if he should leave the light on, but Mr. Ireland said no. Turn it out, I can switch it on if I want it. The night watchman at the English provident bank has permission to smoke. He also is allowed a nice fire and a tray consisting of a plate of substantial sandwiches and one glass of ale, which he can take when he likes. James Fairbarn settled himself in front of the fire, lit his pipe, took out his newspaper, and began to read. He thought he had heard the street door open and shut at about a quarter to ten. He supposed that it was Mr. Ireland going out to his club, but at ten minutes to ten o'clock the watchman heard the door of the manager's room open and someone enter, immediately closing the glass partition door and turning the key. He naturally concluded it was Mr. Ireland himself. From where he sat he could not see into the room, but he noticed that the electric light had not been switched on and that the manager seemingly had no light but an occasional match. For the minute continued James Fairbarn. I thought he'd crossed my mind that something might perhaps be wrong, and I put my newspaper aside and went to the other end of the room towards the glass partition. The manager's room was still quite dark, and I could not clearly see into it, but the door into the hall was open, and there was, of course, a light through there. I had got quite close to the partition when I saw Mrs. Ireland standing in the doorway and heard her saying in a very astonished tone of voice, why, Louis, I thought you had gone to your club ages ago. What in the world are you doing here in the dark? Louis is Mr. Ireland's Christian name, was James Fairbarn's further statement. I did not hear the manager's reply, but quite satisfied now that nothing was wrong, I went back to my pipe and my newspaper. Almost directly afterwards I heard the manager leave his room, cross the hall, and go out by the street door. It was only after he had gone that I recollected that he must have forgotten to unlock the glass partition, and that I could not therefore bolt the door into the hall the same as usual. And I suppose that is how those confounded thieves got the better of me.