The Stowmarket Mystery Part 52

"Ah, Capella. He sought his own death. He looked at me so oddly that I thought him a spy. I was alone in a carriage when, half-way here, he ran along the platform at a small station and joined me. He began to question me. I looked out of the window and saw that we were coming to a viaduct over a stream between deep cliffs, so I took the little man and cracked his neck. Then I flung him over the bridge. It was a mistake. He should have left me alone."

He described this cold-blooded murder of the unfortunate Italian with the weary air of one who recites a tedious episode. The lids drooped heavily over his eyes.

"I am tired," he said. "That was a good little snake. He knew his business. He could make the best of poison."

"Surely," said the barrister solemnly, "you are not so utterly inhuman that at the very point of death you still maintain the att.i.tude of a disappointed avenger. What wrong had all these people done you to demand your murderous hate?"

Ooma seemed for a moment to rouse himself from lethargy. Once again the black eyes sparkled with their menacing gleam.

"It is you," he cried, "you, the thinker, who question me. I never gave a thought to you, or I would not now be slowly sinking into death. I might have guessed that a higher intelligence was at work than that which saw the Ko-Katana with its motto, and yet failed to read its story. You ask my motives. Can a man explain heredity? Here"--and he threw a packet of papers on the writing-desk--"are the proofs of my ident.i.ty. It is not long ago, only one hundred and fifty years, since David Hume was robbed of his birthright, and what is such a period to the old families of England and j.a.pan? There are men living in j.a.pan to-day who saw his son in the flesh.

I am his lawful descendant. I came to England and resolved to be an Englishman. But I needed money. Do you remember our motto, 'A new field gives a small crop'? The first j.a.panese Hume did not prosper. He was a good fighter, but he saved no yen. So I applied to my family. I came here on the New Year's Eve, and Sir Alan Hume-Frazer saw me walking up the avenue. He stepped out through that window to meet me. He was surprised at my appearance, and thought I was his cousin Robert, whom he had not seen for years."

At this remarkable statement the four listeners chiefly concerned looked wonderingly at each other. The main incidents of the family feud were repeating themselves in a ghostly manner.

Ooma paid no heed to their amazement. He staggered unsteadily to a chair and sank into it limply. It was the chair which David Hume occupied when he slept, and dreamed. Not even Winter saw cause for suspicion in the act.

Ooma was dying. His yellow skin was now green. His lips were white. His whole frame was sinking. At this phase he became a j.a.panese, and lost all likeness to the Frazers.

He continued, with an odd cackle:

"I kept up the error. I demanded money as my right, and from his words I gathered that the Frazers had been at their old tricks and defrauded another relative."

Robert started.

"Do you hear?" he murmured to Brett. "That accounts for Alan's strange reception of me the same day."

Brett held up a warning hand. Ooma was still talking.

"I taunted him with thriving on the plunder of his own people. That made him furious. He raved about the world being in league against him. The only relative he loved, one who was more than brother, had stolen the woman he wished to marry; his sister was a living lie; his cousin a blackmailer. I laughed. 'Do you disown your sister, then?' I asked. He took from his breast-pocket some papers--you will find them there, on the table--and told me, in great anger, that he possessed proof that she was not his sister. I was cooler than he, and saw the value of this admission I pretended to go away, but hid among the trees and saw him walk about the library for nearly an hour. I meant to enter the house if an opportunity presented itself, and, trusting to my appearance, go to his bedroom, if he changed his clothes and went out. But he helped me by placing the papers in the drawer which I afterwards broke open. I saw him meet you"--he feebly pointed to Robert. "I saw you arrive in the carriage," and he indicated David. "Then I determined to wait until the night I went back to Stowmarket, where I left a portmanteau at a small hotel"--Brett knew that Winter stole a look at him, but he ignored the fact--"and changed my clothes. In England, at night, a man in evening dress can enter almost any house. When I returned I carried my bag with me, as I did not know how I might wish to get away subsequently. I saw the preparations for the ball.

They helped me. David Hume's unexpected appearance at midnight upset my plans. Waiting near the gate, I witnessed Alan's meeting with a girl in a white dress. Whilst they were talking, I ran up to the house and found David asleep in the library. I resolved to act boldly. Even he would not know what to do if he suddenly discovered another Frazer in the room. To force open the drawer I picked up the j.a.panese sword, and knew it as belonging to my house by the device on the handle of the Ko-Katana. The thing inspired me. I obtained the papers, and was going out when I met Alan. He had seen what I was doing. He called me a cur, and the memory of my ancestor's vengeance rushed on me, so I struck him with the knife, and left it resting in his heart as he fell. Afterwards it was easy. No one knew me. Those who had seen me thought that I was either David or Robert Hume-Frazer. I depended on the police and the servants to complete the mystery. They did. I saw David meet the same girl in a white dress near the lodge, so I sent the post-card which I made Jiro write for me. He wrote it badly, which was all the better for my purpose. I meant David to be hanged by the law; then I would marry Margaret. That is all. Give me some brandy. I am dreaming now. I can see curling shapes. Ah!"

He gulped down half a tumblerful of raw spirits hastily procured by Brett.

Again he attempted to shake off the torpid state that was slowly mastering him. He lifted his eyes feebly to Brett's face, and his face contorted in a ghastly smile.

"You!" he croaked. "I should have killed you! You carried my stick that night in Middle Street. Why was I not warned? Did you follow the girl from the hotel? I was a fool. I tried to stop the inquiry by getting rid of David Hume-Frazer. As if he had brains enough to get on my track! About that girl! She believes in me. She does not know anything of my past. Do not tell her. Try to help her. She is coa.r.s.e, one of the people, as you say here, but she has courage and is faithful. Help her!"

His head drooped. The action of the brandy, whilst momentarily stimulating the heart, helped the stupefaction of the brain. It was a question of a minute, perhaps two.

"Why did you come here to-day?" asked Brett quickly.

"To see Margaret She would give me money. I was going away. That man--I threw from the train--was her husband? He was not--a proper mate--for a Frazer--or a Hume. We are--an old race--of soldiers. We know--how to die.

Four of us--fell fighting--in j.a.pan. I am dying! What a pity!"

His head sank lower. His breath grew faint His voice died away in unintelligible words. After a brief silence he spoke again.

The words he used were j.a.panese. In his weakened consciousness all he could recollect was the language he learnt from his j.a.panese mother--the mother he despised when he became a man and knew his history.

Winter and Brett were now holding him. The others drew apart. They afterwards confessed that the death of this murderer, this tiger-cub of their race, affected them greatly. He was fearless to the end. The way in which he quitted life became him more than the manner in which he lived.

There was a bustle without, and the local doctor entered. He looked wise, profound, even ventured on a sceptical remark when the barrister explained that Ooma had injected snake-poison into his arm. But he lifted the eyelids of the figure in the chair and glanced at the pupils.

"Whatever the cause of death may be, he is undoubtedly dead!" was his verdict.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

THE LAST NOTE IN BRETT'S DIARY

Winter and Holden were invaluable during the trying hours that followed.

Acting in conjunction with the local police, they caused a search to be made for Capella's body. It was found easily enough. Only once did the line cross such a place as that described by Ooma, and a bruised and battered corpse was taken out of the boulder-strewn stream beneath the viaduct.

Meanwhile Winter, writing from Brett's dictation, drew up a complete statement of all the facts retailed by the j.a.panese in relation to the murders of Sir Alan Hume-Frazer and the unfortunate Italian.

This they signed, and went to obtain the signatures of the two cousins, Holden, and the man-servant, for whom a special short statement had been prepared.

"This is for use at the coroner's inquest, I suppose?" inquired David.

"Yes," said Brett. "We must seize that opportunity to publish all the evidence needed to thoroughly acquit you of suspicion in relation to your cousin's death. By prior consultation with the coroner we can, if you think fit, keep out of the inquiry all allusions to Mrs. Capella."

"It would certainly be the best thing to do," agreed David, "especially in view of the fact that Robert and I have burnt those beastly papers."

He pointed to some shivering ashes in the grate of the drawing-room, for Ooma occupied the library in the last solemn stateliness of his final appearance on earth.

"What!" cried Brett. "Do you mean to say that you have destroyed the doc.u.ments deposited by the j.a.panese on the writing-desk?"

"Not exactly all," was the cool reply. "We picked out those referring to Margaret, and made an end of them. We hope to be able to do the same with regard to papers discovered on Capella's body or among his belongings.

Those bearing on Ooma himself are here"--and he pointed to a small packet, neatly tied up, reposing on the mantelpiece.

"You have done a somewhat serious thing."

"We don't care a cent about that. Robert and I have both agreed that what Margaret has she keeps. There may, in course of time, be very good reason for this action. Anyhow, I have acted to please myself, and my father will, I am sure, approve of what I have done."

Brett shook his head. No lawyer could approve of these rough-and-ready settlements of important family affairs.

"Has anyone telegraphed to Mrs. Capella?" he inquired.

"Yes," said Robert, "I did. I just said 'Ooma dead; Capella reported seriously ill. Remain in Whitby. I will join you to-morrow evening.' That, I thought, was enough for a start."

It certainly was.

Soon there came excited messages from both Margaret and Helen demanding more details, whereupon Brett, who knew that suspense was more unbearable than full knowledge, sent a fairly complete account of occurrences.

During the next few days there was the usual commotion in the Press that follows the opening up of the secret records of a great and mysterious crime.

It came as a tremendous surprise to David Hume-Frazer to learn how many people were convinced of his innocence "all the time." Being the central figure in the affair, he was compelled to remain at Beechcroft until Capella and Ooma were interred, and the coroner's jury, at a deferred inquest, had recorded their verdict that the wretched j.a.panese descendant of the Scottish Jacobite was not only doubly a murderer, but guilty of the heinous crime of _felo de se_.