The Herapath Property Part 31

"'The accused, having insisted, in spite of evident strong dissuasion from his counsel, upon making a statement, said: "I wish to tell the plain and absolute truth about my concern with this affair. I have heard the evidence given by various witnesses as to my financial position. That evidence is more or less true. I lost a lot of money last winter in betting and gambling.

I was not aware that my position was known to my uncle until one of these witnesses revealed that my uncle had been employing private inquiry agents to find it out. I was meaning, when his death occurred, to make a clean breast to him. I was on the best of terms with him--whatever he may have known, it made no difference that I ever noticed in his behaviour to me. I was not aware that my uncle had made a will. He never mentioned it to me. About a year ago, there was some joking conversation between us about making a will, and I said to him that he ought to do it, and give me the job, and he replied, laughingly, that he supposed he would have to, some time. I solemnly declare that on November 12th I hadn't the ghost of a notion that he had made a will.

"'"On November 12th last, about five o'clock in the afternoon, I received a note from my uncle, asking me to meet him at his estate office, at midnight. I had often met him there at that time--there was nothing unusual about such an appointment. I went there, of course--I walked there from my flat in the Adelphi. I noticed when I got there that my uncle's brougham was being slowly driven round the square across the road. The outer door of the office was slightly open. I was surprised. The usual thing when I made late calls was for me to ring a bell which sounded in my uncle's private room, and he then came and admitted me. I went in, and down the hall, and I then saw that the door of his room was also open. The electric light was burning. I went in. I at once saw my uncle--he was lying between the desk and the hearth, quite dead.

There was a revolver lying near. I touched his hand and found it was quite warm.

"'"I looked round, and seeing no sign of any struggle, I concluded that my uncle had shot himself. I noticed that his keys were lying on the desk. His fur-collared overcoat and slouch hat were thrown on a sofa. Of course, I was much upset. I went outside, meaning, I believe, to call the caretaker. Everything was very still in the house. I did not call. I began to think. I knew I was in a strange position. I knew my uncle's death would make a vast difference to me. I was next of kin. I wanted to know how things stood--how I was left. Something suggested itself to me. I think the overcoat and hat suggested it. I put on the hat and coat, took the keys from the table, and the latch-key of the Portman Square house from my uncle's waistcoat pocket, turned out the light, went out, closed both doors, went to the brougham, and was driven away. I saw very well that the coachman didn't know me at all--he thought I was his master.

"'"I have heard the evidence about my visit to Portman Square. I stopped there some time. I made a fairly complete search for a will and didn't find anything. It is quite true that I used one of the gla.s.ses, and ate a sandwich, and very likely I did bite into another. It's true, too, that I have lost two front teeth, and that the evidence of that could be in the sandwich. All that's true--I admit it. It's also quite true that I got the taxi-cab at two o'clock at the corner of Orchard Street and drove back to Kensington. I re-entered the office; everything was as I'd left it. I took off the coat and hat, put the keys under some loose papers on the table, turned out the light and went home to my flat.

"'"Now I wish to tell the absolute, honest truth about Burchill and the will. When I heard of and saw the will, after Mr. Tertius produced it, I went to see Burchill at his flat. I had never seen him, never communicated with him in any way whatever since he had left my uncle's service until that afternoon. I had got his address from a letter which I found in a pocket-book of my uncle's, which I took possession of when the police and I searched his effects. I went to see Burchill about the will, of course.

When I said that a will had been found he fenced with me.

He would only reply ambiguously. Eventually he asked me, point-blank, if I would make it worth his while if he aided me in upsetting the will. I replied that if he could--which I doubted--I would. He told me to call at ten o'clock that night. I did so. He then told me what I had never suspected--that Mr. Tertius was, in reality, Arthur John Wynne, a convicted forger. He gave me his proofs, and I was fool enough to believe them. He then suggested that it would be the easiest thing in the world, considering Wynne's record, to prove that he had forged the will for his daughter's benefit. He offered to aid in this if I would sign doc.u.ments giving him ten per cent. of the total value of my uncle's estate, and I was foolish enough to consent, and to sign. I solemnly declare that the entire suggestion about upsetting the will came from Burchill, and that there was no conspiracy between us of any sort whatever previous to that night. Whatever may happen, I've told this court the absolute, definite truth!"'"

Professor c.o.x-Raythwaite folded up the newspaper, laid it on the little table, and brought his big hand down on his knee with an emphatic smack.

"Now, then!" he said. "In my deliberate, coldly reasoned opinion, that statement is true! If they hang Barthorpe, they'll hang an innocent man.

But----"

CHAPTER XXVI

THE REMAND PRISON

Mr. Tertius broke the significant silence which followed. He shook his head sadly, and sighed deeply.

"Ah, those buts!" he said. "As you remarked just now, c.o.x-Raythwaite, there is always a but. Now, this particular one--what is it?"

"Let me finish my sentence," responded the Professor. "I say, I do not believe Barthorpe to be guilty of murder, though guilty enough of a particularly mean, dirty, and sneaking conspiracy to defraud his cousin.

Yes, innocent of murder--but it will be a stiff job to prove his innocence. As things stand, he'll be hanged safe enough! You know what our juries are, Tertius--evidence such as that which has been put before the coroner and the magistrate will be quite sufficient to d.a.m.n him at the Old Bailey. Ample!"

"What do you suggest, then?" asked Mr. Tertius.

"Suggestion," answered the Professor, "is a difficult matter. But there are two things--perhaps more, but certainly two--on which I want light.

The first is--n.o.body has succeeded in unearthing the man who went to the House of Commons to see Jacob on the night of the murder. In spite of everything, advertis.e.m.e.nts and all the rest of it, he's never come forward. If you remember, Halfpenny had a theory that the letter and the object which Mountain saw Jacob hand to that man were a note to the Safe Deposit people and the key of the safe. Now we know that's not so, because no one ever brought any letter to the Safe Deposit people and n.o.body's ever opened the safe. Halfpenny, too, believed, during the period of the police officials' masterly silence, that that man had put himself in communication with them. Now we know that the police have never heard anything whatever of him, have never traced him. I'm convinced that if we could unearth that man we should learn something.

But how to do it, I don't know."

"And the other point?" asked Selwood, after a pause during which everybody seemed to be ruminating deeply. "You mentioned two."

"The other point," replied the Professor, "is one on which I am going to make a practical suggestion. It's this--I believe that Barthorpe told the truth in that statement of his which I've just read to you, but I should like to know if he told all the truth--all! He may have omitted some slight thing, some infinitesimal circ.u.mstance----"

"Do you mean about himself or--what?" asked Selwood.

"I mean some very--or seemingly very--slight thing, during his two visits to the estate office that night, which, however slight it may seem, would form a clue to the real murderer," answered the Professor.

"He may have seen something, noticed something, and forgotten it, or not attached great importance to it. And, in short," he continued, with added emphasis, "in short, my friends, Barthorpe must be visited, interviewed, questioned--not merely by his legal advisers, but by some friend, and the very person to do it"--here he turned and laid his great hand on Peggie's shoulder--"is--you, my dear!"

"I!" exclaimed Peggie.

"You, certainly! n.o.body better. He will tell you what he would tell no one else," said the Professor. "You're the person. Am I not right, Tertius?"

"I think you are right," a.s.sented Mr. Tertius. "Yes, I think so."

"But--he's in prison!" said Peggie. "Will they let me?"

"Oh, that's all right," answered the Professor. "Halfpenny will arrange that like winking. You must go at once--and Selwood there will go with you. Far better for you two young people to go than for either Halfpenny, or Tertius, or myself. Youth invites confidence."

Peggie turned and looked at Selwood.

"You'll go?" she asked.

Selwood felt his cheeks flush and rose to conceal his sudden show of feeling. "I'll go anywhere and do anything!" he answered quietly. "I don't know whether my opinion's worth having, but I think exactly as Professor c.o.x-Raythwaite does about this affair. But--who's the guilty man? Is it--can it be Burchill? If what Barthorpe Herapath says about that will affair is true, Burchill is cunning and subtle enough for----"

"Burchill, my dear lad, is at present out of our ken," interrupted c.o.x-Raythwaite. "Barthorpe, however, is very much within it, and Halfpenny must arrange for you two to see him without delay. And once closeted with him, you must talk to him for his soul's good--get him to search his memory, to think of every detail he can rake up--above everything, if there's anything he's keeping back, beg him, on your knees if necessary, to make a clean breast of it. Otherwise----"

Two days later Peggie, sick at heart, and Selwood, nervous and fidgety, sat in a room which gave both of them a feeling as of partial suffocation.

It was not that it was not big enough for two people, or for six people, or for a dozen people to sit in--there was s.p.a.ce for twenty. What oppressed them was the horrible sense of formality, the absence of life, colour, of anything but sure and solid security, the intrusive spick-and-spanness, the blatant cleanliness, the conscious odour of some sort of soap, used presumably for washing floors and walls, the whole crying atmosphere of incarceration. The barred window, the pictureless walls, the official look of the utterly plain chairs and tables, the grilles of iron bars which cut the place in half--these things oppressed the girl so profoundly that she felt as if a sharp scream was the only thing that would relieve her pent-up feelings. And as she sat there with thumping heart, dreading the appearance of her cousin behind those bars, yet wishing intensely that he would come, Peggie had a sudden fearful realization of what it really meant to fall into the hands of justice.

There, somewhere close by, no doubt, Barthorpe was able to move hands and feet, legs and arms, body and head--but within limits. He could pace a cell, he could tramp round an exercise yard, he could eat and drink, he could use his tongue when allowed, he could do many things--but always within limits. He was held--held by an unseen power which could materialize, could make itself very much seen, at a second's notice.

There he would stop until he was carried off to his trial; he would come and go during that trial, the unseen power always holding him. And one day he would either go out of the power's clutches--free, or he would be carried off, not to this remand prison but a certain cell in another place in which he would sit, or lounge, or lie, with nothing to do, until a bustling, businesslike man came in one morning with a little group of officials and in his hand a bundle of leather straps. Held!--by the strong, never-relaxing clutch of the law. That----

"Buck up!" whispered Selwood, in the blunt language of irreverent, yet good-natured, youth. "He's coming!"

Peggie looked up to see Barthorpe staring at her through the iron bars.

He was not over good to look at. He had a two days' beard on his face; his linen was not fresh; his clothes were put on untidily; he stood with his hands in his pockets lumpishly--the change wrought by incarceration, even of that comparative sort, was great. He looked both sulky and sheepish; he gave Selwood no more than a curt nod; his first response to his cousin was of the nature of a growl.

"Hanged if I know what you've come for!" he said. "What's the good of it? You may mean well, but----"

"Oh, Barthorpe, how can you!" exclaimed Peggie. "Of course we've come!

Do you think it possible we shouldn't come? You know very well we all believe you innocent."

"Who's all?" demanded Barthorpe, half-sneeringly. "Yourself, perhaps, and the parlour-maid!"

"All of us," said Selwood, thinking it was time a man spoke.

"c.o.x-Raythwaite, Mr. Tertius, myself. That's a fact, anyhow, so you'd better grasp it."

Barthorpe straightened himself and looked keenly at Selwood. Then he spoke naturally and simply.

"I'm much obliged to you, Selwood," he said. "I'd shake hands with you if I could. I'm obliged to the others, too--especially to old Tertius--I've wronged him, no doubt. But"--here his face grew dark and savage--"if you only knew how I was tricked by that devil! Is he caught?--that's what I want to know."

"No!" answered Selwood. "But never mind him--we've come here to see what we can do for you. That's the important thing."

"What can anybody do?" said Barthorpe, with a mirthless laugh. "You know all the evidence. It's enough--they'll hang me on it!"

"Barthorpe, you mustn't!" expostulated Peggie. "That's not the way to treat things. Tell him," she went on, turning to Selwood, "tell him all that Professor c.o.x-Raythwaite said the other night."

Selwood repeated the gist of the Professor's arguments and suggestions, and Barthorpe began to show some interest. But at the end he shook his head.

"I don't know that there's anything more that I can tell," he said.