The Herapath Property Part 30

Burchill drew himself up.

"Sir!" he exclaimed. "That is an unwarrantable a.s.sumption, and----"

"Unwarrantable a.s.sumptions, Mr. Burchill, appear to be present in great quant.i.ty," interrupted Mr. Tertius, with an air of defiance which surprised everybody. "Don't you interrupt me, sir!--I'll deal with you before long in a way that will astonish you. Now, Mr. Barthorpe Herapath," he went on, turning to that person with determination, "I will astonish you somewhat, for I honestly believe you really have some belief in what you say. I am not Arthur John Wynne. I am what I have always been--John Christopher Tertius, as a considerable number of people in this town can prove. But I knew Arthur John Wynne. When he left Portland he came to me here in London--at the suggestion of Jacob Herapath. I then lived in Bloomsbury--I had recently lost my wife. I took Wynne to live with me. But he had not long to live. If you had searched into matters more deeply, you would have found that he got his discharge earlier than he would have done in the usual course, because of his health. As a matter of fact, he was very ill when he came to me, and he died six weeks after his arrival at my house. He is buried in the churchyard of the village from which he originally came--in Wales--and you can inspect all the doc.u.ments relating to his death, and see his grave if you care to. After his death, for reasons into which I need not go, I went to live with Jacob Herapath. It was his great desire--and mine--that Wynne's daughter, your cousin, should never know her father's sad history. But for you she never would have known it! And--that is a plain answer to what you have had to allege against me. Now, sir, let me ask you a plain question. Who invented this c.o.c.k-and-bull story? You don't reply--readily? Shall I a.s.sist you by a suggestion? Was it that man who sits by you--Burchill? For Burchill knows that he has lied vilely and shamelessly this morning--Burchill knows that he did see Jacob Herapath sign that will--Burchill knows that that will was duly witnessed by himself and by me in the presence of each other and of the testator! G.o.d bless my soul!" exclaimed Mr. Tertius, thumping the table vehemently. "Why, man alive, your cousin Margaret has a doc.u.ment here which proves that that will is all right--a doc.u.ment written by Jacob Herapath himself! Bring it out, my dear--confound these men with an indisputable proof!"

But before Peggie could draw the packet from her m.u.f.f, Burchill had risen and was showing signs of retreat. And Barthorpe, now pale with anger and perplexity, had risen too--and he was looking at Burchill.

Mr. Halfpenny looked at both men. Then he pointed to their chairs.

"Hadn't you better sit down again?" he said. "It seems to me that we're just arriving at the most interesting stage of these proceedings."

Burchill stepped towards the door.

"I do not propose to stay in company in which I am ruthlessly insulted,"

he said. "It is, of course, a question of my word against Mr. Tertius's.

We shall see. As for the present, I do."

"Stop!" said Barthorpe. He moved towards Burchill, motioning him towards the window in which Peggie and Mr. Tertius had spoken together. "Here--a word with you!"

But Burchill made for the door, and Mr. Halfpenny nudged Professor c.o.x-Raythwaite.

"I say--stop!" exclaimed Barthorpe. "There's some explanation----"

He was about to lay a hand on the door when Mr. Halfpenny touched a bell which stood in front of him on the table. And at its sharp sound the door opened from without, and Burchill fell back at what he saw--fell back upon Barthorpe, who looked past him, and started in his turn.

"Great Scot!" said Barthorpe. "Police!"

Davidge came quickly and quietly in--three other men with him. And in the room from which they emerged Barthorpe saw more men, many more men, and with them an eager, excited face which he somehow recognized--the face of the little _Argus_ reporter who had asked him and Selwood for news on the morning after Jacob Herapath's murder.

But Barthorpe had no time to waste thoughts on Triffitt. He suddenly became alive to the fact that two exceedingly strong men had seized his arms; that two others had similarly seized Burchill. The pallor died out of his face and gave place to a dull glow of anger.

"Now, then?" he growled. "What's all this!"

"The same for both of you, Mr. Herapath," answered Davidge, cheerfully and in business-like fashion. "I'll charge both you and Mr. Burchill formally when we've got you to the station. You're both under arrest, you know. And I may as well warn you----"

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Barthorpe. "Arrest!--on what charge?"

"Charge will be the same for both," answered Davidge coolly. "The murder of Jacob Herapath."

A dead silence fell on the room. Then Peggie Wynne cried out, and Barthorpe suddenly made a spring at Burchill.

"You villain!" he said in a low concentrated voice. "You've done me, you devil! Let me get my hands on----"

The other men, Triffitt on their heels, came bustling into the room, obedient to Davidge's lifted finger.

"Put the handcuffs on both of 'em," commanded Davidge. "Can't take any chances, Mr. Herapath, if you lose your temper--the other gentleman----"

It was at that moment that the other gentleman took his chance. While Barthorpe Herapath had foolishly allowed himself to become warm and excited, Burchill had remained cool and watchful and calculating. And now in the slight diversion made by the entrance of the other detectives, he suddenly and adroitly threw off the grasp of the men who held him, darted through the open door on to the stairs, and had vanished before Davidge could cry out. Davidge darted too, the other police darted, Mr. Halfpenny smote his bell and shouted to his clerks. But the clerks were downstairs, out of hearing, and the police were fleshy men, slow of movement, while Burchill was slippery as an eel and agile as an athlete. Moreover, Burchill, during his secretaryship to Jacob Herapath, had constantly visited Mr. Halfpenny's office, and was as well acquainted with its ins and outs as its tenant; he knew where, in those dark stairs there was a side stair which led to a private door in a neighbouring alley. And while the pursuers blundered this way and that, he calmly slipped out to freedom, and, in a couple of minutes was mingling with the crowds in a busy thoroughfare, safe for that time.

Then Davidge, cursing his men and his luck, took Barthorpe Herapath away, and Triffitt rushed headlong to Fleet Street, seething with excitement and br.i.m.m.i.n.g with news.

CHAPTER XXV

PROFESSIONAL a.n.a.lYSIS

The _Argus_ came out in great style next morning, and it and Triffitt continued to give its vast circle of readers a similar feast of excitement for a good ten days. Triffitt, in fact, went almost foodless and sleepless; there was so much to do. To begin with, there was the daily hue and cry after Burchill, who had disappeared as completely as if his familiar evil spirits had carried him bodily away from the very door of Halfpenny and Farthing's office. Then there was the bringing up of Barthorpe Herapath before the magistrate at Bow Street, and the proceedings at the adjourned coroner's inquest. It was not until the tenth day that anything like a breathing s.p.a.ce came. But the position of affairs on that tenth day was a fairly clear one. The coroner's jury had returned a verdict of wilful murder against Barthorpe Herapath and Frank Burchill; the magistrate had committed Barthorpe for trial; the police were still hunting high and low for Burchill. And there was scarcely a soul who had heard the evidence before the coroner and the magistrate who did not believe that both the suspected men were guilty and that both--when Burchill had been caught--would ere long stand in the Old Bailey dock and eventually hear themselves sentenced to the scaffold.

One man, however, believed nothing of the sort, and that man was Professor c.o.x-Raythwaite. His big, burly form had been very much in evidence at all the proceedings before coroner and magistrate. He had followed every sc.r.a.p of testimony with the most scrupulous care; he had made notes from time to time; he had given up his leisure moments, and stolen some from his proper pursuits, to a deep consideration of the case as presented by the police. And on the afternoon which saw Barthorpe committed to take his trial, he went away from Bow Street, alone, thinking more deeply than ever. He walked home to his house in Endsleigh Gardens, head bent, hands clasped behind his big back, the very incarnation of deep and ponderous musing. He shut himself in his study; he threw himself into his easy chair before his hearth; he remained smoking infinite tobacco, staring into vacancy, until his dinner-bell rang. He roused himself to eat and drink; then he went out into the street, bought all the evening newspapers he could lay hands on, and, hailing a taxi-cab, drove to Portman Square.

Peggie, Mr. Tertius, and Selwood had just dined; they were sitting in a quiet little parlour, silent and melancholy. The disgrace of Barthorpe's arrest, of the revelations before coroner and magistrate, of his committal on the capital charge, had reduced Peggie to a state of intense misery; the two men felt hopelessly unable to give her any comfort. To both, the entrance of c.o.x-Raythwaite came as a positive relief.

c.o.x-Raythwaite, shown into the presence of these three, closed the door in a fashion which showed that he did not wish to be disturbed, came silently across the room, and drew a chair into the midst of the disconsolate group. His glance round commanded attention.

"Now, my friends," he said, plunging straight into his subject, "if we don't wish to see Barthorpe hanged, we've just got to stir ourselves!

I've come here to begin the stirring."

Peggie looked up with a sudden heightening of colour. Mr. Tertius slowly shook his head.

"Pitiable!" he murmured. "Pitiable, most pitiable! But the evidence, my dear c.o.x-Raythwaite, the evidence! I only wish----"

"I've been listening to all the evidence that could be brought before coroner's jury and magistrate in police court," broke in the Professor.

"Listening with all my ears until I know every sc.r.a.p of it by heart. And for four solid hours this afternoon I've been a.n.a.lysing it. I'm going to a.n.a.lyse it to you--and then I'll show you why it doesn't satisfy me.

Give me your close attention, all of you."

He drew a little table to his elbow, laid his bundle of papers upon it, and began to talk, checking off his points on the tips of his big, chemical-stained fingers.

"Now," he said, "we'll just go through the evidence which has been brought against these two men, Barthorpe and Burchill, which evidence has resulted in Barthorpe being committed for trial and in the police's increased anxiety to lay hold of Burchill. The police theory, after all, is a very simple one--let's take it and their evidence point by point.

"1. The police say that Jacob Herapath came to his death as the result of a conspiracy between his nephew Barthorpe Herapath and Frank Burchill.

"2. They say that the proof that that conspiracy existed is found in certain doc.u.ments discovered by Davidge at Burchill's flat, in which doc.u.ments Barthorpe covenants to pay Burchill ten per cent. of the value of the Herapath property if and when he, Barthorpe, comes into it.

"3. The police argue that this conspiracy to murder Jacob Herapath and upset the will was in existence before November 12th--in other words that the idea of upsetting the will came first, and that the murder arose out of it.

"4. In support of this they have proved that Barthorpe was in close touch with Burchill as soon as the murder was committed--afternoon of the same day, at any rate--and therefore presumably had been in close touch with him previously.

"5. They have proved to the full a certain matter about which there is no doubt--that Barthorpe was at the estate office about the time at which, according to medical evidence, his uncle was murdered, that he subsequently put on his uncle's coat and hat and visited this house, and afterwards returned to the estate office. That, I say, is certain--and it is the most d.a.m.ning thing against Barthorpe.

"6. According to the police, then, Barthorpe was the actual murderer, and Burchill was an accessory before the fact. There is no evidence that Burchill was near the estate office that night. But that, of course, doesn't matter--if, as the police suggest, there is evidence that the conspiracy to kill Jacob Herapath existed before November 12th, then it doesn't matter at all whether Burchill took an active part in it or not--he's guilty as accessory."

The Professor here paused and smote his bundle of papers. Then he lifted and wagged one of his great fingers.

"But!" he exclaimed. "But--but--always a but! And the but in this case is a mighty one. It's this--did that conspiracy exist before November 12th? Did it--did it? It's a great point--it's a great point. Now, we all know that this morning, before he was committed, Barthorpe, much against the wishes of his legal advisers, insisted, forcibly insisted, on making a statement. It's in the evening papers here, verbatim. I'll read it to you carefully--you heard him, all of you, but I want you to hear it again, read slowly. Consider it--think of it carefully--remember the circ.u.mstances under which it's made!"

He turned to the table, selected a newspaper, and read: