“I shall go to the Gold Street house and find out what I can as soon as this cab turns up.”
There seemed a possibility of some excitement in the adventure, so I asked: “Will you want any help?”
Hewitt smiled. “I _think_ I can get through it alone,” he said.
“Then may I come to look on?” I said. “Of course I don’t want to be in your way, and the result of the business, whatever it is, will be to your credit alone. But I am curious.”
“Come, then, by all means. The cab will be a four-wheeler, and there will be plenty of room.”
* * * * *
Gold Street was a short street of private houses of very fair size and of a half-vanished pretension to gentility. We drove slowly through, and Leamy had no difficulty in pointing out the house wherein he had been paid five pounds for carrying a bag. At the end the cab turned the corner and stopped, while Hewitt wrote a short note to an official of Scotland Yard.
“Take this note,” he instructed Leamy, “to Scotland Yard in the cab, and then go home. I will pay the cabman now.”
“I will, sor. An’ will I be protected?”
“Oh, yes! Stay at home for the rest of the day, and I expect you’ll be left alone in future. Perhaps I shall have something to tell you in a day or two; if I do, I’ll send. Good-by.”
The cab rolled off, and Hewitt and I strolled back along Gold Street. “I think,” Hewitt said, “we will drop in on Mr. Hollams for a few minutes while we can. In a few hours I expect the police will have him, and his house, too, if they attend promptly to my note.”
“Have you ever seen him?”
“Not to my knowledge, though I may know him by some other name. Wilks I know by sight, though he doesn’t know me.”
“What shall we say?”
“That will depend on circumstances. I may not get my cue till the door opens, or even till later. At worst, I can easily apply for a reference as to Leamy, who, you remember, is looking for work.”
But we were destined not to make Mr. Hollams’ acquaintance, after all. As we approached the house a great uproar was heard from the lower part giving on to the area, and suddenly a man, hatless, and with a sleeve of his coat nearly torn away burst through the door and up the area steps, pursued by two others. I had barely time to observe that one of the pursuers carried a revolver, and that both hesitated and retired on seeing that several people were about the street, when Hewitt, gripping my arm and exclaiming: “That’s our man!” started at a run after the fugitive.
We turned the next corner and saw the man thirty yards before us, walking, and pulling up his sleeve at the shoulder, so as to conceal the rent. Plainly he felt save [safe?] from further molestation.
“That’s Sim Wilks,” Hewitt explained, as we followed, “the ‘juce of a foine jintleman’ who got Leamy to carry his bag, and the man who knows where the Quinton ruby is, unless I am more than usually mistaken. Don’t stare after him, in case he looks round. Presently, when we get into the busier streets, I shall have a little chat with him.”
But for some time the man kept to the back streets. In time, however, he emerged into the Buckingham Palace Road, and we saw him stop and look at a hat-shop. But after a general look over the window and a glance in at the door he went on.
“Good sign!” observed Hewitt; “got no money with him–makes it easier for us.”
In a little while Wilks approached a small crowd gathered about a woman fiddler. Hewitt touched my arm, and a few quick steps took us past our man and to the opposite side of the crowd. When Wilks emerged, he met us coming in the opposite direction.
“What, Sim!” burst out Hewitt with apparent delight. “I haven’t piped your mug[A] for a stretch;[B] I thought you’d fell.[C] Where’s your cady?”[D]
[Footnote A: Seen your face.]
[Footnote B: A year.]
[Footnote C: Been imprisoned.]
[Footnote D: Hat.]
Wilks looked astonished and suspicious. “I don’t know you,” he said. “You’ve made a mistake.”
Hewitt laughed. “I’m glad you don’t know me,” he said. “If you don’t, I’m pretty sure the reelers[A] won’t. I think I’ve faked my mug pretty well, and my clobber,[B] too. Look here: I’ll stand you a new cady. Strange blokes don’t do that, eh?”
[Footnote A: Police.]
[Footnote B: Clothes.]
Wilks was still suspicious. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said. Then, after a pause, he added: “Who are you, then?”
Hewitt winked and screwed his face genially aside. “Hooky!” he said. “I’ve had a lucky touch[A] and I’m Mr. Smith till I’ve melted the pieces.[B] You come and damp it.”
[Footnote A: Robbery.]
[Footnote B: Spent the money.]
“I’m off,” Wilks replied. “Unless you’re pal enough to lend me a quid,” he added, laughing.
“I am that,” responded Hewitt, plunging his hand in his pocket. “I’m flush, my boy, flush, and I’ve been wetting it pretty well to-day. I feel pretty jolly now, and I shouldn’t wonder if I went home cannon.[A] Only a quid? Have two, if you want ’em–or three; there’s plenty more, and you’ll do the same for me some day. Here y’are.”
[Footnote A: Drunk.]
Hewitt had, of a sudden, assumed the whole appearance, manners, and bearing of a slightly elevated rowdy. Now he pulled his hand from his pocket and extended it, full of silver, with five or six sovereigns interspersed, toward Wilks.
“I’ll have three quid,” Wilks said, with decision, taking the money; “but I’m blowed if I remember you. Who’s your pal?”
Hewitt jerked his hand in my direction, winked, and said, in a low voice: “He’s all right. Having a rest. Can’t stand Manchester,” and winked again.
Wilks laughed and nodded, and I understood from that that Hewitt had very flatteringly given me credit for being “wanted” by the Manchester police.
We lurched into a public house, and drank a very little very bad whisky and water. Wilks still regarded us curiously, and I could see him again and again glancing doubtfully in Hewitt’s face. But the loan of three pounds had largely reassured him. Presently Hewitt said:
“How about our old pal down in Gold Street? Do anything with him now? Seen him lately?”
Wilks looked up at the ceiling and shook his head.
“That’s a good job. It ‘ud be awkward if you were about there to-day, I can tell you.”
“Why?”
“Never mind, so long as you’re not there. I know something, if I _have_ been away. I’m glad I haven’t had any truck with Gold Street lately, that’s all.”
“D’you mean the reelers are on it?”
Hewitt looked cautiously over his shoulder, leaned toward Wilks, and said: “Look here: this is the straight tip. I know this–I got it from the very nark[A] that’s given the show away: By six o’clock No. 8 Gold Street will be turned inside out, like an old glove, and everyone in the place will be—-” He finished the sentence by crossing his wrists like a handcuffed man. “What’s more,” he went on, “they know all about what’s gone on there lately, and everybody that’s been in or out for the last two moons[B] will be wanted particular–and will be found, I’m told.” Hewitt concluded with a confidential frown, a nod, and a wink, and took another mouthful of whisky. Then he added, as an after-thought: “So I’m glad you haven’t been there lately.”
[Footnote A: Police spy.]
[Footnote B: Months.]
Wilks looked in Hewitt’s face and asked: “Is that straight?”
“_Is_ it?” replied Hewitt with emphasis. “You go and have a look, if you ain’t afraid of being smugged yourself. Only _I_ shan’t go near No. 8 just yet–I know that.”
Wilks fidgeted, finished his drink, and expressed his intention of going. “Very well, if you _won’t_ have another—-” replied Hewitt. But he had gone.
“Good!” said Hewitt, moving toward the door; “he has suddenly developed a hurry. I shall keep him in sight, but you had better take a cab and go straight to Euston. Take tickets to the nearest station to Radcot–Kedderby, I think it is–and look up the train arrangements. Don’t show yourself too much, and keep an eye on the entrance. Unless I am mistaken, Wilks will be there pretty soon, and I shall be on his heels. If I _am_ wrong, then you won’t see the end of the fun, that’s all.”
Hewitt hurried after Wilks, and I took the cab and did as he wished. There was an hour and a few minutes, I found, to wait for the next train, and that time I occupied as best I might, keeping a sharp lookout across the quadrangle. Barely five minutes before the train was to leave, and just as I was beginning to think about the time of the next, a cab dashed up and Hewitt alighted. He hurried in, found me, and drew me aside into a recess, just as another cab arrived.
“Here he is,” Hewitt said. “I followed him as far as Euston Road and then got my cabby to spurt up and pass him. He had had his mustache shaved off, and I feared you mightn’t recognize him, and so let him see you.”
From our retreat we could see Wilks hurry into the booking-office. We watched him through to the platform and followed. He wasted no time, but made the best of his way to a third-class carriage at the extreme fore end of the train.
“We have three minutes,” Hewitt said, “and everything depends on his not seeing us get into this train. Take this cap. Fortunately, we’re both in tweed suits.”
He had bought a couple of tweed cricket caps, and these we assumed, sending our “bowler” hats to the cloak-room. Hewitt also put on a pair of blue spectacles, and then walked boldly up the platform and entered a first-class carriage. I followed close on his heels, in such a manner that a person looking from the fore end of the train would be able to see but very little of me.
“So far so good,” said Hewitt, when we were seated and the train began to move off. “I must keep a lookout at each station, in case our friend goes off unexpectedly.”
“I waited some time,” I said; “where did you both go to?”
“First he went and bought that hat he is wearing. Then he walked some distance, dodging the main thoroughfares and keeping to the back streets in a way that made following difficult, till he came to a little tailor’s shop. There he entered and came out in a quarter of an hour with his coat mended. This was in a street in Westminster. Presently he worked his way up to Tothill Street, and there he plunged into a barber’s shop. I took a cautious peep at the window, saw two or three other customers also waiting, and took the opportunity to rush over to a ‘notion’ shop and buy these blue spectacles, and to a hatter’s for these caps–of which I regret to observe that yours is too big. He was rather a long while in the barber’s, and finally came out, as you saw him, with no mustache. This was a good indication. It made it plainer than ever that he had believed my warning as to the police descent on the house in Gold Street and its frequenters; which was right and proper, for what I told him was quite true. The rest you know. He cabbed to the station, and so did I.”
“And now perhaps,” I said, “after giving me the character of a thief wanted by the Manchester police, forcibly depriving me of my hat in exchange for this all-too-large cap, and rushing me off out of London without any definite idea of when I’m coming back, perhaps you’ll tell me what we’re after?”
Hewitt laughed. “You wanted to join in, you know,” he said, “and you must take your luck as it comes. As a matter of fact there is scarcely anything in my profession so uninteresting and so difficult as this watching and following business. Often it lasts for weeks. When we alight, we shall have to follow Wilks again, under the most difficult possible conditions, in the country. There it is often quite impossible to follow a man unobserved. It is only because it is the only way that I am undertaking it now. As to what we’re after, you know that as well as I–the Quinton ruby. Wilks has hidden it, and without his help it would be impossible to find it. We are following him so that he will find it for us.”
“He must have hidden it, I suppose, to avoid sharing with Hollams?”
“Of course, and availed himself of the fact of Leamy having carried the bag to direct Hollams’s suspicion to him. Hollams found out by his repeated searches of Leamy and his lodgings, that this was wrong, and this morning evidently tried to persuade the ruby out of Wilks’ possession with a revolver. We saw the upshot of that.”
Kedderby Station was about forty miles out. At each intermediate stopping station Hewitt watched earnestly, but Wilks remained in the train. “What I fear,” Hewitt observed, “is that at Kedderby he may take a fly. To stalk a man on foot in the country is difficult enough; but you _can’t_ follow one vehicle in another without being spotted. But if he’s so smart as I think, he won’t do it. A man traveling in a fly is noticed and remembered in these places.”
He did _not_ take a fly. At Kedderby we saw him jump out quickly and hasten from the station. The train stood for a few minutes, and he was out of the station before we alighted. Through the railings behind the platform we could see him walking briskly away to the right. From the ticket collector we ascertained that Radcot lay in that direction, three miles off.
To my dying day I shall never forget that three miles. They seemed three hundred. In the still country almost every footfall seemed audible for any distance, and in the long stretches of road one could see half a mile behind or before. Hewitt was cool and patient, but I got into a fever of worry, excitement, want of breath, and back-ache. At first, for a little, the road zig-zagged, and then the chase was comparatively easy. We waited behind one bend till Wilks had passed the next, and then hurried in his trail, treading in the dustiest parts of the road or on the side grass, when there was any, to deaden the sound of our steps.
At the last of these short bends we looked ahead and saw a long, white stretch of road with the dark form of Wilks a couple of hundred yards in front. It would never do to let him get to the end of this great stretch before following, as he might turn off at some branch road out of sight and be lost. So we jumped the hedge and scuttled along as we best might on the other side, with backs bent, and our feet often many inches deep in wet clay. We had to make continual stoppages to listen and peep out, and on one occasion, happening, incautiously, to stand erect, looking after him, I was much startled to see Wilks, with his face toward me, gazing down the road. I ducked like lightning, and, fortunately, he seemed not to have observed me, but went on as before. He had probably heard some slight noise, but looked straight along the road for its explanation, instead of over the hedge. At hilly parts of the road there was extreme difficulty; indeed, on approaching a rise it was usually necessary to lie down under the hedge till Wilks had passed the top, since from the higher ground he could have seen us easily. This improved neither my clothes, my comfort, nor my temper. Luckily we never encountered the difficulty of a long and high wall, but once we were nearly betrayed by a man who shouted to order us off his field.
At last we saw, just ahead, the square tower of an old church, set about with thick trees. Opposite this Wilks paused, looked irresolutely up and down the road, and then went on. We crossed the road, availed ourselves of the opposite hedge, and followed. The village was to be seen some three or four hundred yards farther along the road, and toward it Wilks sauntered slowly. Before he actually reached the houses he stopped and turned back.
“The churchyard!” exclaimed Hewitt, under his breath. “Lie close and let him pass.”
Wilks reached the churchyard gate, and again looked irresolutely about him. At that moment a party of children, who had been playing among the graves, came chattering and laughing toward and out of the gate, and Wilks walked hastily away again, this time in the opposite direction.
“That’s the place, clearly,” Hewitt said. “We must slip across quietly, as soon as he’s far enough down the road. Now!”
We hurried stealthily across, through the gate, and into the churchyard, where Hewitt threw his blue spectacles away. It was now nearly eight in the evening, and the sun was setting. Once again Wilks approached the gate, and did not enter, because a laborer passed at the time. Then he came back and slipped through.
The grass about the graves was long, and under the trees it was already twilight. Hewitt and I, two or three yards apart, to avoid falling over one another in case of sudden movement, watched from behind gravestones. The form of Wilks stood out large and black against the fading light in the west as he stealthily approached through the long grass. A light cart came clattering along the road, and Wilks dropped at once and crouched on his knees till it had passed. Then, staring warily about him, he made straight for the stone behind which Hewitt waited.
I saw Hewitt’s dark form swing noiselessly round to the other side of the stone. Wilks passed on and dropped on his knee beside a large, weather-worn slab that rested on a brick under-structure a foot or so high. The long grass largely hid the bricks, and among it Wilks plunged his hand, feeling along the brick surface. Presently he drew out a loose brick, and laid it on the slab. He felt again in the place, and brought forth a small dark object. I saw Hewitt rise erect in the gathering dusk, and with extended arm step noiselessly toward the stooping man. Wilks made a motion to place the dark object in his pocket, but checked himself, and opened what appeared to be a lid, as though to make sure of the safety of the contents. The last light, straggling under the trees, fell on a brilliantly sparkling object within, and like a flash Hewitt’s hand shot over Wilks’ shoulder and snatched the jewel.
The man actually screamed–one of those curious sharp little screams that one may hear from a woman very suddenly alarmed. But he sprang at Hewitt like a cat, only to meet a straight drive of the fist that stretched him on his back across the slab. I sprang from behind my stone, and helped Hewitt to secure his wrists with a pocket-handkerchief. Then we marched him, struggling and swearing, to the village.
When, in the lights of the village, he recognized us, he had a perfect fit of rage, but afterward he calmed down, and admitted that it was a “very clean cop.” There was some difficulty in finding the village constable, and Sir Valentine Quinton was dining out and did not arrive for at least an hour. In the interval Wilks grew communicative.
“How much d’ye think I’ll get?” he asked.
“Can’t guess,” Hewitt replied. “And as we shall probably have to give evidence, you’ll be giving yourself away if you talk too much.”
“Oh, I don’t care; that’ll make no difference. It’s a fair cop, and I’m in for it. You got at me nicely, lending me three quid. I never knew a reeler do that before. That blinded me. But was it kid about Gold Street?”
“No, it wasn’t. Mr. Hollams is safely shut up by this time, I expect, and you are avenged for your little trouble with him this afternoon.”
“What did you know about that? Well, you’ve got it up nicely for me, I must say. S’pose you’ve been following me all the time?”
“Well, yes; I haven’t been far off. I guessed you’d want to clear out of town if Hollams was taken, and I knew this”–Hewitt tapped his breast pocket–“was what you’d take care to get hold of first. You hid it, of course, because you knew that Hollams would probably have you searched for it if he got suspicious?”
“Yes, he did, too. Two blokes went over my pockets one night, and somebody got into my room. But I expected that, Hollams is such a greedy pig. Once he’s got you under his thumb he don’t give you half your makings, and, if you kick, he’ll have you smugged. So that I wasn’t going to give him _that_ if I could help it. I s’pose it ain’t any good asking how you got put on to our mob?”
“No,” said Hewitt, “it isn’t.”
* * * * *
We didn’t get back till the next day, staying for the night, despite an inconvenient want of requisites, at the Hall. There were, in fact, no late trains. We told Sir Valentine the story of the Irishman, much to his amusement.
“Leamy’s tale sounded unlikely, of course,” Hewitt said, “but it was noticeable that every one of his misfortunes pointed in the same direction–that certain persons were tremendously anxious to get at something they supposed he had. When he spoke of his adventure with the bag, I at once remembered Wilks’ arrest and subsequent release. It was a curious coincidence, to say the least, that this should happen at the very station to which the proceeds of this robbery must come, if they came to London at all, and on the day following the robbery itself. Kedderby is one of the few stations on this line where no trains would stop after the time of the robbery, so that the thief would have to wait till the next day to get back. Leamy’s recognition of Wilks’ portrait made me feel pretty certain. Plainly, he had carried stolen property; the poor, innocent fellow’s conversation with Hollams showed that, as, in fact, did the sum, five pounds, paid to him by way of ‘regulars,’ or customary toll, from the plunder of services of carriage. Hollams obviously took Leamy for a criminal friend of Wilks’, because of his use of the thieves’ expressions ‘sparks’ and ‘regulars,’ and suggested, in terms which Leamy misunderstood, that he should sell any plunder he might obtain to himself, Hollams. Altogether it would have been very curious if the plunder were _not_ that from Radcot Hall, especially as no other robbery had been reported at the time.
“Now, among the jewels taken, only one was of a very pre-eminent value–the famous ruby. It was scarcely likely that Hollams would go to so much trouble and risk, attempting to drug, injuring, waylaying, and burgling the rooms of the unfortunate Leamy, for a jewel of small value–for any jewel, in fact, but the ruby. So that I felt a pretty strong presumption, at all events, that it was the ruby Hollams was after. Leamy had not had it, I was convinced, from his tale and his manner, and from what I judged of the man himself. The only other person was Wilks, and certainly he had a temptation to keep this to himself, and avoid, if possible, sharing with his London director, or principal; while the carriage of the bag by the Irishman gave him a capital opportunity to put suspicion on him, with the results seen. The most daring of Hollams’ attacks on Leamy was doubtless the attempted maiming or killing at the railway station, so as to be able, in the character of a medical man, to search his pockets. He was probably desperate at the time, having, I have no doubt, been following Leamy about all day at the Crystal Palace without finding an opportunity to get at his pockets.
“The struggle and flight of Wilks from Hollams’ confirmed my previous impressions. Hollams, finally satisfied that very morning that Leamy certainly had not the jewel, either on his person or at his lodging, and knowing, from having so closely watched him, that he had been nowhere where it could be disposed of, concluded that Wilks was cheating him, and attempted to extort the ruby from him by the aid of another ruffian and a pistol. The rest of my way was plain. Wilks, I knew, would seize the opportunity of Hollams’ being safely locked up to get at and dispose of the ruby. I supplied him with funds and left him to lead us to his hiding-place. He did it, and I think that’s all.”
“He must have walked straight away from my house to the churchyard,” Sir Valentine remarked, “to hide that pendant. That was fairly cool.”
“Only a cool hand could carry out such a robbery single-handed,” Hewitt answered. “I expect his tools were in the bag that Leamy carried, as well as the jewels. They must have been a small and neat set.”
They were. We ascertained on our return to town the next day that the bag, with all its contents intact, including the tools, had been taken by the police at their surprise visit to No. 8 Gold Street, as well as much other stolen property.
Hollams and Wilks each got very wholesome doses of penal servitude, to the intense delight of Mick Leamy. Leamy himself, by the by, is still to be seen, clad in a noble uniform, guarding the door of a well-known London restaurant. He has not had any more five-pound notes for carrying bags, but knows London too well now to expect it.
VI.
THE STANWAY CAMEO MYSTERY.
It is now a fair number of years back since the loss of the famous Stanway Cameo made its sensation, and the only person who had the least interest in keeping the real facts of the case secret has now been dead for some time, leaving neither relatives nor other representatives. Therefore no harm will be done in making the inner history of the case public; on the contrary, it will afford an opportunity of vindicating the professional reputation of Hewitt, who is supposed to have completely failed to make anything of the mystery surrounding the case. At the present time connoisseurs in ancient objects of art are often heard regretfully to wonder whether the wonderful cameo, so suddenly discovered and so quickly stolen, will ever again be visible to the public eye. Now this question need be asked no longer.
The cameo, as may be remembered from the many descriptions published at the time, was said to be absolutely the finest extant. It was a sardonyx of three strata–one of those rare sardonyx cameos in which it has been possible for the artist to avail himself of three different colors of superimposed stone–the lowest for the ground and the two others for the middle and high relief of the design. In size it was, for a cameo, immense, measuring seven and a half inches by nearly six. In subject it was similar to the renowned Gonzaga Cameo–now the property of the Czar of Russia–a male and a female head with imperial insignia; but in this case supposed to represent Tiberius Claudius and Messalina. Experts considered it probably to be the work of Athenion, a famous gem-cutter of the first Christian century, whose most notable other work now extant is a smaller cameo, with a mythological subject, preserved in the Vatican.
The Stanway Cameo had been discovered in an obscure Italian village by one of those traveling agents who scour all Europe for valuable antiquities and objects of art. This man had hurried immediately to London with his prize, and sold it to Mr. Claridge of St. James Street, eminent as a dealer in such objects. Mr. Claridge, recognizing the importance and value of the article, lost no opportunity of making its existence known, and very soon the Claudius Cameo, as it was at first usually called, was as famous as any in the world. Many experts in ancient art examined it, and several large bids were made for its purchase.
In the end it was bought by the Marquis of Stanway for five thousand pounds for the purpose of presentation to the British Museum. The marquis kept the cameo at his town house for a few days, showing it to his friends, and then returned it to Mr. Claridge to be finally and carefully cleaned before passing into the national collection. Two nights after Mr. Claridge’s premises were broken into and the cameo stolen.
Such, in outline, was the generally known history of the Stanway Cameo. The circumstances of the burglary in detail were these: Mr. Claridge had himself been the last to leave the premises at about eight in the evening, at dusk, and had locked the small side door as usual. His assistant, Mr. Cutler, had left an hour and a half earlier. When Mr. Claridge left, everything was in order, and the policeman on fixed-point duty just opposite, who bade Mr. Claridge good-evening as he left, saw nothing suspicious during the rest of his term of duty, nor did his successors at the point throughout the night.
In the morning, however, Mr. Cutler, the assistant, who arrived first, soon after nine o’clock, at once perceived that something unlooked-for had happened. The door, of which he had a key, was still fastened, and had not been touched; but in the room behind the shop Mr. Claridge’s private desk had been broken open, and the contents turned out in confusion. The door leading on to the staircase had also been forced. Proceeding up the stairs, Mr. Cutler found another door open, leading from the top landing to a small room; this door had been opened by the simple expedient of unscrewing and taking off the lock, which had been on the inside. In the ceiling of this room was a trap-door, and this was six or eight inches open, the edge resting on the half-wrenched-off bolt, which had been torn away when the trap was levered open from the outside.
Plainly, then, this was the path of the thief or thieves. Entrance had been made through the trap-door, two more doors had been opened, and then the desk had been ransacked. Mr. Cutler afterward explained that at this time he had no precise idea what had been stolen, and did not know where the cameo had been left on the previous evening. Mr. Claridge had himself undertaken the cleaning, and had been engaged on it, the assistant said, when he left.
There was no doubt, however, after Mr. Claridge’s arrival at ten o’clock–the cameo was gone. Mr. Claridge, utterly confounded at his loss, explained incoherently, and with curses on his own carelessness, that he had locked the precious article in his desk on relinquishing work on it the previous evening, feeling rather tired, and not taking the trouble to carry it as far as the safe in another part of the house.
The police were sent for at once, of course, and every investigation made, Mr. Claridge offering a reward of five hundred pounds for the recovery of the cameo. The affair was scribbled off at large in the earliest editions of the evening papers, and by noon all the world was aware of the extraordinary theft of the Stanway Cameo, and many people were discussing the probabilities of the case, with very indistinct ideas of what a sardonyx cameo precisely was.
It was in the afternoon of this day that Lord Stanway called on Martin Hewitt. The marquis was a tall, upstanding man of spare figure and active habits, well known as a member of learned societies and a great patron of art. He hurried into Hewitt’s private room as soon as his name had been announced, and, as soon as Hewitt had given him a chair, plunged into business.
“Probably you already guess my business with you, Mr. Hewitt–you have seen the early evening papers? Just so; then I needn’t tell you again what you already know. My cameo is gone, and I badly want it back. Of course the police are hard at work at Claridge’s, but I’m not quite satisfied. I have been there myself for two or three hours, and can’t see that they know any more about it than I do myself. Then, of course, the police, naturally and properly enough from their point of view, look first to find the criminal, regarding the recovery of the property almost as a secondary consideration. Now, from _my_ point of view, the chief consideration is the property. Of course I want the thief caught, if possible, and properly punished; but still more I want the cameo.”
“Certainly it is a considerable loss. Five thousand pounds—-“
“Ah, but don’t misunderstand me! It isn’t the monetary value of the thing that I regret. As a matter of fact, I am indemnified for that already. Claridge has behaved most honorably–more than honorably. Indeed, the first intimation I had of the loss was a check from him for five thousand pounds, with a letter assuring me that the restoration to me of the amount I had paid was the least he could do to repair the result of what he called his unpardonable carelessness. Legally, I’m not sure that I could demand anything of him, unless I could prove very flagrant neglect indeed to guard against theft.”
“Then I take it, Lord Stanway,” Hewitt observed, “that you much prefer the cameo to the money?”
“Certainly. Else I should never have been willing to pay the money for the cameo. It was an enormous price–perhaps much above the market value, even for such a valuable thing–but I was particularly anxious that it should not go out of the country. Our public collections here are not so fortunate as they should be in the possession of the very finest examples of that class of work. In short, I had determined on the cameo, and, fortunately, happen to be able to carry out determinations of that sort without regarding an extra thousand pounds or so as an obstacle. So that, you see, what I want is not the value, but the thing itself. Indeed, I don’t think I can possibly keep the money Claridge has sent me; the affair is more his misfortune than his fault. But I shall say nothing about returning it for a little while; it may possibly have the effect of sharpening everybody in the search.”
“Just so. Do I understand that you would like me to look into the case independently, on your behalf?”
“Exactly. I want you, if you can, to approach the matter entirely from my point of view–your sole object being to find the cameo. Of course, if you happen on the thief as well, so much the better. Perhaps, after all, looking for the one is the same thing as looking for the other?”
“Not always; but usually it is, or course; even if they are not together, they certainly _have_ been at one time, and to have one is a very long step toward having the other. Now, to begin with, is anybody suspected?”
“Well, the police are reserved, but I believe the fact is they’ve nothing to say. Claridge won’t admit that he suspects any one, though he believes that whoever it was must have watched him yesterday evening through the back window of his room, and must have seen him put the cameo away in his desk; because the thief would seem to have gone straight to the place. But I half fancy that, in his inner mind, he is inclined to suspect one of two people. You see, a robbery of this sort is different from others. That cameo would never be stolen, I imagine, with the view of its being sold–it is much too famous a thing; a man might as well walk about offering to sell the Tower of London. There are only a very few people who buy such things, and every one of them knows all about it. No dealer would touch it; he could never even show it, much less sell it, without being called to account. So that it really seems more likely that it has been taken by somebody who wishes to keep it for mere love of the thing–a collector, in fact–who would then have to keep it secretly at home, and never let a soul besides himself see it, living in the consciousness that at his death it must be found and this theft known; unless, indeed, an ordinary vulgar burglar has taken it without knowing its value.”
“That isn’t likely,” Hewitt replied. “An ordinary burglar, ignorant of its value, wouldn’t have gone straight to the cameo and have taken it in preference to many other things of more apparent worth, which must be lying near in such a place as Claridge’s.”
“True–I suppose he wouldn’t. Although the police seem to think that the breaking in is clearly the work of a regular criminal–from the jimmy-marks, you know, and so on.”
“Well, but what of the two people you think Mr. Claridge suspects?”
“Of course I can’t say that he does suspect them–I only fancied from his tone that it might be possible; he himself insists that he can’t, in justice, suspect anybody. One of these men is Hahn, the traveling agent who sold him the cameo. This man’s character does not appear to be absolutely irreproachable; no dealer trusts him very far. Of course Claridge doesn’t say what he paid him for the cameo; these dealers are very reticent about their profits, which I believe are as often something like five hundred per cent as not. But it seems Hahn bargained to have something extra, depending on the amount Claridge could sell the carving for. According to the appointment he should have turned up this morning, but he hasn’t been seen, and nobody seems to know exactly where he is.”
“Yes; and the other person?”
“Well, I scarcely like mentioning him, because he is certainly a gentleman, and I believe, in the ordinary way, quite incapable of anything in the least degree dishonorable; although, of course, they say a collector has no conscience in the matter of his own particular hobby, and certainly Mr. Wollett is as keen a collector as any man alive. He lives in chambers in the next turning past Claridge’s premises–can, in fact, look into Claridge’s back windows if he likes. He examined the cameo several times before I bought it, and made several high offers–appeared, in fact, very anxious indeed to get it. After I had bought it he made, I understand, some rather strong remarks about people like myself ‘spoiling the market’ by paying extravagant prices, and altogether cut up ‘crusty,’ as they say, at losing the specimen.” Lord Stanway paused a few seconds, and then went on: “I’m not sure that I ought to mention Mr. Woollett’s name for a moment in connection with such a matter; I am personally perfectly certain that he is as incapable of anything like theft as myself. But I am telling you all I know.”
“Precisely. I can’t know too much in a case like this. It can do no harm if I know all about fifty innocent people, and may save me from the risk of knowing nothing about the thief. Now, let me see: Mr. Wollett’s rooms, you say, are near Mr. Claridge’s place of business? Is there any means of communication between the roofs?”
“Yes, I am told that it is perfectly possible to get from one place to the other by walking along the leads.”
“Very good! Then, unless you can think of any other information that may help me, I think, Lord Stanway, I will go at once and look at the place.”
“Do, by all means. I think I’ll come back with you. Somehow, I don’t like to feel idle in the matter, though I suppose I can’t do much. As to more information, I don’t think there is any.”
“In regard to Mr. Claridge’s assistant, now: Do you know anything of him?”
“Only that he has always seemed a very civil and decent sort of man. Honest, I should say, or Claridge wouldn’t have kept him so many years–there are a good many valuable things about at Claridge’s. Besides, the man has keys of the place himself, and, even if he were a thief, he wouldn’t need to go breaking in through the roof.”
“So that,” said Hewitt, “we have, directly connected with this cameo, besides yourself, these people: Mr. Claridge, the dealer; Mr. Cutler, the assistant in Mr. Claridge’s business; Hahn, who sold the article to Claridge, and Mr. Woollett, who made bids for it. These are all?”
“All that I know of. Other gentlemen made bids, I believe, but I don’t know them.”
“Take these people in their order. Mr. Claridge is out of the question, as a dealer with a reputation to keep up would be, even if he hadn’t immediately sent you this five thousand pounds–more than the market value, I understand, of the cameo. The assistant is a reputable man, against whom nothing is known, who would never need to break in, and who must understand his business well enough to know that he could never attempt to sell the missing stone without instant detection. Hahn is a man of shady antecedents, probably clever enough to know as well as anybody how to dispose of such plunder–if it be possible to dispose of it at all; also, Hahn hasn’t been to Claridge’s to-day, although he had an appointment to take money. Lastly, Mr. Woollett is a gentleman of the most honorable record, but a perfectly rabid collector, who had made every effort to secure the cameo before you bought it; who, moreover, could have seen Mr. Claridge working in his back room, and who has perfectly easy access to Mr. Claridge’s roof. If we find it can’t be none of these, then we must look where circumstances indicate.”
There was unwonted excitement at Mr. Claridge’s place when Hewitt and his client arrived. It was a dull old building, and in the windows there was never more show than an odd blue china vase or two, or, mayhap, a few old silver shoe-buckles and a curious small sword. Nine men out of ten would have passed it without a glance; but the tenth at least would probably know it for a place famous through the world for the number and value of the old and curious objects of art that had passed through it.
On this day two or three loiterers, having heard of the robbery, extracted what gratification they might from staring at nothing between the railings guarding the windows. Within, Mr. Claridge, a brisk, stout, little old man, was talking earnestly to a burly police-inspector in uniform, and Mr. Cutler, who had seized the opportunity to attempt amateur detective work on his own account, was groveling perseveringly about the floor, among old porcelain and loose pieces of armor, in the futile hope of finding any clue that the thieves might have considerately dropped.
Mr. Claridge came forward eagerly.
“The leather case has been found, I am pleased to be able to tell you, Lord Stanway, since you left.”
“Empty, of course?”
“Unfortunately, yes. It had evidently been thrown away by the thief behind a chimney-stack a roof or two away, where the police have found it. But it is a clue, of course.”
“Ah, then this gentleman will give me his opinion of it,” Lord Stanway said, turning to Hewitt. “This, Mr. Claridge, is Mr. Martin Hewitt, who has been kind enough to come with me here at a moment’s notice. With the police on the one hand and Mr. Hewitt on the other we shall certainly recover that cameo, if it is to be recovered, I think.”
Mr. Claridge bowed, and beamed on Hewitt through his spectacles. “I’m very glad Mr. Hewitt has come,” he said. “Indeed, I had already decided to give the police till this time to-morrow, and then, if they had found nothing, to call in Mr. Hewitt myself.”
Hewitt bowed in his turn, and then asked: “Will you let me see the various breakages? I hope they have not been disturbed.”
“Nothing whatever has been disturbed. Do exactly as seems best. I need scarcely say that everything here is perfectly at your disposal. You know all the circumstances, of course?”
“In general, yes. I suppose I am right in the belief that you have no resident housekeeper?”
“No,” Claridge replied, “I haven’t. I had one housekeeper who sometimes pawned my property in the evening, and then another who used to break my most valuable china, till I could never sleep or take a moment’s ease at home for fear my stock was being ruined here. So I gave up resident housekeepers. I felt some confidence in doing it because of the policeman who is always on duty opposite.”
“Can I see the broken desk?”
Mr. Claridge led the way into the room behind the shop. The desk was really a sort of work-table, with a lifting top and a lock. The top had been forced roughly open by some instrument which had been pushed in below it and used as a lever, so that the catch of the lock was torn away. Hewitt examined the damaged parts and the marks of the lever, and then looked out at the back window.
“There are several windows about here,” he remarked, “from which it might be possible to see into this room. Do you know any of the people who live behind them?”
“Two or three I know,” Mr. Claridge answered, “but there are two windows–the pair almost immediately before us–belonging to a room or office which is to let. Any stranger might get in there and watch.”
“Do the roofs above any of those windows communicate in any way with yours?”
“None of those directly opposite. Those at the left do; you may walk all the way along the leads.”
“And whose windows are they?”
Mr. Claridge hesitated. “Well,” he said, “they’re Mr. Woollett’s, an excellent customer of mine. But he’s a gentleman, and–well, I really think it’s absurd to suspect him.”
“In a case like this,” Hewitt answered, “one must disregard nothing but the impossible. Somebody–whether Mr. Woollett himself or another person–could possibly have seen into this room from those windows, and equally possibly could have reached this room from that one. Therefore we must not forget Mr. Woollett. Have any of your neighbors been burgled during the night? I mean that strangers anxious to get at your trap-door would probably have to begin by getting into some other house close by, so as to reach your roof.”
“No,” Mr. Claridge replied; “there has been nothing of that sort. It was the first thing the police ascertained.”
Hewitt examined the broken door and then made his way up the stairs with the others. The unscrewed lock of the door of the top back-room required little examination. In the room below the trap-door was a dusty table on which stood a chair, and at the other side of the table sat Detective-Inspector Plummer, whom Hewitt knew very well, and who bade him “good-day” and then went on with his docket.
“This chair and table were found as they are now, I take it?” Hewitt asked.
“Yes,” said Mr. Claridge; “the thieves, I should think, dropped in through the trap-door, after breaking it open, and had to place this chair where it is to be able to climb back.”
Hewitt scrambled up through the trap-way and examined it from the top. The door was hung on long external barn-door hinges, and had been forced open in a similar manner to that practiced on the desk. A jimmy had been pushed between the frame and the door near the bolt, and the door had been pried open, the bolt being torn away from the screws in the operation.
Presently Inspector Plummer, having finished his docket, climbed up to the roof after Hewitt, and the two together went to the spot, close under a chimney-stack on the next roof but one, where the case had been found. Plummer produced the case, which he had in his coat-tail pocket, for Hewitt’s inspection.
“I don’t see anything particular about it; do you?” he said. “It shows us the way they went, though, being found just here.”
“Well, yes,” Hewitt said; “if we kept on in this direction, we should be going toward Mr. Woollett’s house, and _his_ trap-door, shouldn’t we!”
The inspector pursed his lips, smiled, and shrugged his shoulders. “Of course we haven’t waited till now to find that out,” he said.
“No, of course. And, as you say, I didn’t think there is much to be learned from this leather case. It is almost new, and there isn’t a mark on it.” And Hewitt handed it back to the inspector.
“Well,” said Plummer, as he returned the case to his pocket, “what’s your opinion?”
“It’s rather an awkward case.”
“Yes, it is. Between ourselves–I don’t mind telling you–I’m having a sharp lookout kept over there”–Plummer jerked his head in the direction of Mr. Woollett’s chambers–“because the robbery’s an unusual one. There’s only two possible motives–the sale of the cameo or the keeping of it. The sale’s out of the question, as you know; the thing’s only salable to those who would collar the thief at once, and who wouldn’t have the thing in their places now for anything. So that it must be taken to keep, and that’s a thing nobody but the maddest of collectors would do, just such persons as–” and the inspector nodded again toward Mr. Woollett’s quarters. “Take that with the other circumstances,” he added, “and I think you’ll agree it’s worth while looking a little farther that way. Of course some of the work–taking off the lock and so on–looks rather like a regular burglar, but it’s just possible that any one badly wanting the cameo would like to hire a man who was up to the work.”
“Yes, it’s possible.”
“Do you know anything of Hahn, the agent?” Plummer asked, a moment later.
“No, I don’t. Have you found him yet?”
“I haven’t yet, but I’m after him. I’ve found he was at Charing Cross a day or two ago, booking a ticket for the Continent. That and his failing to turn up to-day seem to make it worth while not to miss _him_ if we can help it. He isn’t the sort of man that lets a chance of drawing a bit of money go for nothing.”
They returned to the room. “Well,” said Lord Stanway, “what’s the result of the consultation? We’ve been waiting here very patiently, while you two clever men have been discussing the matter on the roof.”
On the wall just beneath the trap-door a very dusty old tall hat hung on a peg. This Hewitt took down and examined very closely, smearing his fingers with the dust from the inside lining. “Is this one of your valuable and crusted old antiques?” he asked, with a smile, of Mr. Claridge.
“That’s only an old hat that I used to keep here for use in bad weather,” Mr. Claridge said, with some surprise at the question. “I haven’t touched it for a year or more.”
“Oh, then it couldn’t have been left here by your last night’s visitor,” Hewitt replied, carelessly replacing it on the hook. “You left here at eight last night, I think?”
“Eight exactly–or within a minute or two.”
“Just so. I think I’ll look at the room on the opposite side of the landing, if you’ll let me.”
“Certainly, if you’d like to,” Claridge replied; “but they haven’t been there–it is exactly as it was left. Only a lumber-room, you see,” he concluded, flinging the door open.
A number of partly broken-up packing-cases littered about this room, with much other rubbish. Hewitt took the lid of one of the newest-looking packing-cases, and glanced at the address label. Then he turned to a rusty old iron box that stood against a wall. “I should like to see behind this,” he said, tugging at it with his hands. “It is heavy and dirty. Is there a small crowbar about the house, or some similar lever?”
Mr. Claridge shook his head. “Haven’t such a thing in the place,” he said.
“Never mind,” Hewitt replied, “another time will do to shift that old box, and perhaps, after all, there’s little reason for moving it. I will just walk round to the police-station, I think, and speak to the constables who were on duty opposite during the night. I think, Lord Stanway, I have seen all that is necessary here.”
“I suppose,” asked Mr. Claridge, “it is too soon yet to ask if you have formed any theory in the matter?”
“Well–yes, it is,” Hewitt answered. “But perhaps I may be able to surprise you in an hour or two; but that I don’t promise. By the by,” he added suddenly, “I suppose you’re sure the trap-door was bolted last night?”
“Certainly,” Mr. Claridge answered, smiling. “Else how could the bolt have been broken? As a matter of fact, I believe the trap hasn’t been opened for months. Mr. Cutler, do you remember when the trap-door was last opened?”
Mr. Cutler shook his head. “Certainly not for six months,” he said.
“Ah, very well; it’s not very important,” Hewitt replied.
As they reached the front shop a fiery-faced old gentleman bounced in at the street door, stumbling over an umbrella that stood in a dark corner, and kicking it three yards away.
“What the deuce do you mean,” he roared at Mr. Claridge, “by sending these police people smelling about my rooms and asking questions of my servants? What do you mean, sir, by treating me as a thief? Can’t a gentleman come into this place to look at an article without being suspected of stealing it, when it disappears through your wretched carelessness? I’ll ask my solicitor, sir, if there isn’t a remedy for this sort of thing. And if I catch another of your spy fellows on my staircase, or crawling about my roof, I’ll–I’ll shoot him!”
“Really, Mr. Woollett—-” began Mr. Claridge, somewhat abashed, but the angry old man would hear nothing.
“Don’t talk to me, sir; you shall talk to my solicitor. And am I to understand, my lord”–turning to Lord Stanway–“that these things are being done with your approval?”
“Whatever is being done,” Lord Stanway answered, “is being done by the police on their own responsibility, and entirely without prompting, I believe, by Mr. Claridge–certainly without a suggestion of any sort from myself. I think that the personal opinion of Mr. Claridge–certainly my own–is that anything like a suspicion of your position in this wretched matter is ridiculous. And if you will only consider the matter calmly—-“
“Consider it calmly? Imagine yourself considering such a thing calmly, Lord Stanway. I _won’t_ consider it calmly. I’ll–I’ll–I won’t have it. And if I find another man on my roof, I’ll pitch him off!” And Mr. Woollett bounced into the street again.
“Mr. Woollett is annoyed,” Hewitt observed, with a smile. “I’m afraid Plummer has a clumsy assistant somewhere.”
Mr. Claridge said nothing, but looked rather glum, for Mr. Woollett was a most excellent customer.
Lord Stanwood and Hewitt walked slowly down the street, Hewitt staring at the pavement in profound thought. Once or twice Lord Stanway glanced at his face, but refrained from disturbing him. Presently, however, he observed: “You seem, at least, Mr. Hewitt, to have noticed something that has set you thinking. Does it look like a clue?”
Hewitt came out of his cogitation at once. “A clue?” he said; “the case bristles with clues. The extraordinary thing to me is that Plummer, usually a smart man, doesn’t seem to have seen one of them. He must be out of sorts, I’m afraid. But the case is decidedly a most remarkable one.”
“Remarkable in what particular way?”
“In regard to motive. Now it would seem, as Plummer was saying to me just now on the roof, that there were only two possible motives for such a robbery. Either the man who took all this trouble and risk to break into Claridge’s place must have desired to sell the cameo at a good price, or he must have desired to keep it for himself, being a lover of such things. But neither of these has been the actual motive.”
“Perhaps he thinks he can extort a good sum from me by way of ransom?”
“No, it isn’t that. Nor is it jealousy, nor spite, nor anything of that kind. I know the motive, I _think_–but I wish we could get hold of Hahn. I will shut myself up alone and turn it over in my mind for half an hour presently.”
“Meanwhile, what I want to know is, apart from all your professional subtleties–which I confess I can’t understand–can you get back the cameo?”
“That,” said Hewitt, stopping at the corner of the street, “I am rather afraid I can not–nor anybody else. But I am pretty sure I know the thief.”
“Then surely that will lead you to the cameo?”
“It _may_, of course; but, then, it is just possible that by this evening you may not want to have it back, after all.”
Lord Stanway stared in amazement.
“Not want to have it back!” he exclaimed. “Why, of course I shall want to have it back. I don’t understand you in the least; you talk in conundrums. Who is the thief you speak of?”
“I think, Lord Stanway,” Hewitt said, “that perhaps I had better not say until I have quite finished my inquiries, in case of mistakes. The case is quite an extraordinary one, and of quite a different character from what one would at first naturally imagine, and I must be very careful to guard against the possibility of error. I have very little fear of a mistake, however, and I hope I may wait on you in a few hours at Piccadilly with news. I have only to see the policemen.”
“Certainly, come whenever you please. But why see the policemen? They have already most positively stated that they saw nothing whatever suspicious in the house or near it.”
“I shall not ask them anything at all about the house,” Hewitt responded. “I shall just have a little chat with them–about the weather.” And with a smiling bow he turned away, while Lord Stanway stood and gazed after him, with an expression that implied a suspicion that his special detective was making a fool of him.
* * * * *
In rather more than an hour Hewitt was back in Mr. Claridge’s shop. “Mr. Claridge,” he said, “I think I must ask you one or two questions in private. May I see you in your own room?”
They went there at once, and Hewitt, pulling a chair before the window, sat down with his back to the light. The dealer shut the door, and sat opposite him, with the light full in his face.
“Mr. Claridge,” Hewitt proceeded slowly, “_when did you first find that Lord Stanway’s cameo was a forgery_?”
Claridge literally bounced in his chair. His face paled, but he managed to stammer sharply: “What–what–what d’you mean? Forgery? Do you mean to say I sell forgeries? Forgery? It wasn’t a forgery!”
“Then,” continued Hewitt in the same deliberate tone, watching the other’s face the while, “if it wasn’t a forgery, _why did you destroy it and burst your trap-door and desk to imitate a burglary_?”
The sweat stood thick on the dealer’s face, and he gasped. But he struggled hard to keep his faculties together, and ejaculated hoarsely: “Destroy it? What–what–I didn’t–didn’t destroy it!”
“Threw it into the river, then–don’t prevaricate about details.”
“No–no–it’s a lie! Who says that? Go away! You’re insulting me!” Claridge almost screamed.
“Come, come, Mr. Claridge,” Hewitt said more placably, for he had gained his point; “don’t distress yourself, and don’t attempt to deceive me–you can’t, I assure you. I know everything you did before you left here last night–everything.”
Claridge’s face worked painfully. Once or twice he appeared to be on the point of returning an indignant reply, but hesitated, and finally broke down altogether.
“Don’t expose me, Mr. Hewitt!” he pleaded; “I beg you won’t expose me! I haven’t harmed a soul but myself. I’ve paid Lord Stanway every penny back, and I never knew the thing was a forgery till I began to clean it. I’m an old man, Mr. Hewitt, and my professional reputation has been spotless until now. I beg you won’t expose me.”
Hewitt’s voice softened. “Don’t make an unnecessary trouble of it,” he said. “I see a decanter on your sideboard–let me give you a little brandy and water. Come, there’s nothing criminal, I believe, in a man’s breaking open his own desk, or his own trap-door, for that matter. Of course I’m acting for Lord Stanway in this affair, and I must, in duty, report to him without reserve. But Lord Stanway is a gentleman, and I’ll undertake he’ll do nothing inconsiderate of your feelings, if you’re disposed to be frank. Let us talk the affair over; tell me about it.”
“It was that swindler Hahn who deceived me in the beginning,” Claridge said. “I have never made a mistake with a cameo before, and I never thought so close an imitation was possible. I examined it most carefully, and was perfectly satisfied, and many experts examined it afterward, and were all equally deceived. I felt as sure as I possibly could feel that I had bought one of the finest, if not actually the finest, cameos known to exist. It was not until after it had come back from Lord Stanway’s, and I was cleaning it the evening before last, that in course of my work it became apparent that the thing was nothing but a consummately clever forgery. It was made of three layers of molded glass, nothing more nor less. But the glass was treated in a way I had never before known of, and the surface had been cunningly worked on till it defied any ordinary examination. Some of the glass imitation cameos made in the latter part of the last century, I may tell you, are regarded as marvelous pieces of work, and, indeed, command very fair prices, but this was something quite beyond any of those.
“I was amazed and horrified. I put the thing away and went home. All that night I lay awake in a state of distraction, quite unable to decide what to do. To let the cameo go out of my possession was impossible. Sooner or later the forgery would be discovered, and my reputation–the highest in these matters in this country, I may safely claim, and the growth of nearly fifty years of honest application and good judgment–this reputation would be gone forever. But without considering this, there was the fact that I had taken five thousand pounds of Lord Stanway’s money for a mere piece of glass, and that money I must, in mere common honesty as well as for my own sake, return. But how? The name of the Stanway Cameo had become a household word, and to confess that the whole thing was a sham would ruin my reputation and destroy all confidence–past, present, and future–in me and in my transactions. Either way spelled ruin. Even if I confided in Lord Stanway privately, returned his money, and destroyed the cameo, what then? The sudden disappearance of an article so famous would excite remark at once. It had been presented to the British Museum, and if it never appeared in that collection, and no news were to be got of it, people would guess at the truth at once. To make it known that I myself had been deceived would have availed nothing. It is my business _not_ to be deceived; and to have it known that my most expensive specimens might be forgeries would equally mean ruin, whether I sold them cunningly as a rogue or ignorantly as a fool. Indeed, my pride, my reputation as a connoisseur, is a thing near to my heart, and it would be an unspeakable humiliation to me to have it known that I had been imposed on by such a forgery. What could I do? Every expedient seemed useless but one–the one I adopted. It was not straightforward, I admit; but, oh! Mr. Hewitt, consider the temptation–and remember that it couldn’t do a soul any harm. No matter who might be suspected, I knew there could not possibly be evidence to make them suffer. All the next day–yesterday–I was anxiously worrying out the thing in my mind and carefully devising the–the trick, I’m afraid you’ll call it, that you by some extraordinary means have seen through. It seemed the only thing–what else was there? More I needn’t tell you; you know it. I have only now to beg that you will use your best influence with Lord Stanway to save me from public derision and exposure. I will do anything—pay anything–anything but exposure, at my age, and with my position.”
“Well, you see,” Hewitt replied thoughtfully, “I’ve no doubt Lord Stanway will show you every consideration, and certainly I will do what I can to save you in the circumstances; though you must remember that you _have_ done some harm–you have caused suspicions to rest on at least one honest man. But as to reputation, I’ve a professional reputation of my own. If I help to conceal your professional failure, I shall appear to have failed in _my_ part of the business.”
“But the cases are different, Mr. Hewitt. Consider. You are not expected–it would be impossible–to succeed invariably; and there are only two or three who know you have looked into the case. Then your other conspicuous successes—-“
“Well, well, we shall see. One thing I don’t know, though–whether you climbed out of a window to break open the trap-door, or whether you got up through the trap-door itself and pulled the bolt with a string through the jamb, so as to bolt it after you.”
“There was no available window. I used the string, as you say. My poor little cunning must seem very transparent to you, I fear. I spent hours of thought over the question of the trap-door–how to break it open so as to leave a genuine appearance, and especially how to bolt it inside after I had reached the roof. I thought I had succeeded beyond the possibility of suspicion; how you penetrated the device surpasses my comprehension. How, to begin with, could you possibly know that the cameo was a forgery? Did you ever see it?”
“Never. And, if I had seen it, I fear I should never have been able to express an opinion on it; I’m not a connoisseur. As a matter of fact, I _didn’t_ know that the thing was a forgery in the first place; what I knew in the first place was that it was _you_ who had broken into the house. It was from that that I arrived at the conclusion, after a certain amount of thought, that the cameo must have been forged. Gain was out of the question. You, beyond all men, could never sell the Stanway Cameo again, and, besides, you had paid back Lord Stanway’s money. I knew enough of your reputation to know that you would never incur the scandal of a great theft at your place for the sake of getting the cameo for yourself, when you might have kept it in the beginning, with no trouble and mystery. Consequently I had to look for another motive, and at first another motive seemed an impossibility. Why should you wish to take all this trouble to lose five thousand pounds? You had nothing to gain; perhaps you had something to save–your professional reputation, for instance. Looking at it so, it was plain that you were _suppressing_ the cameo–burking it; since, once taken as you had taken it, it could never come to light again. That suggested the solution of the mystery at once–you had discovered, after the sale, that the cameo was not genuine.”
“Yes, yes–I see; but you say you began with the knowledge that I broke into the place myself. How did you know that? I can not imagine a trace—-“
“My dear sir, you left traces everywhere. In the first place, it struck me as curious, before I came here, that you had sent off that check for five thousand pounds to Lord Stanway an hour or so after the robbery was discovered; it looked so much as though you were sure of the cameo never coming back, and were in a hurry to avert suspicion. Of course I understood that, so far as I then knew the case, you were the most unlikely person in the world, and that your eagerness to repay Lord Stanway might be the most creditable thing possible. But the point was worth remembering, and I remembered it.
“When I came here, I saw suspicious indications in many directions, but the conclusive piece of evidence was that old hat hanging below the trap-door.”
“But I never touched it; I assure you, Mr. Hewitt, I never touched the hat; haven’t touched it for months—-“
“Of course. If you _had_ touched it, I might never have got the clue. But we’ll deal with the hat presently; that wasn’t what struck me at first. The trap-door first took my attention. Consider, now: Here was a trap-door, most insecurely hung on _external_ hinges; the burglar had a screwdriver, for he took off the door-lock below with it. Why, then, didn’t he take this trap off by the hinges, instead of making a noise and taking longer time and trouble to burst the bolt from its fastenings? And why, if he were a stranger, was he able to plant his jimmy from the outside just exactly opposite the interior bolt? There was only one mark on the frame, and that precisely in the proper place.
“After that I saw the leather case. It had not been thrown away, or some corner would have shown signs of the fall. It had been put down carefully where it was found. These things, however, were of small importance compared with the hat. The hat, as you know, was exceedingly thick with dust–the accumulation of months. But, on the top side, presented toward the trap-door, were a score or so of _raindrop marks_. That was all. They were new marks, for there was no dust over them; they had merely had time to dry and cake the dust they had fallen on. _Now, there had been no rain since a sharp shower just after seven o’clock last night_. At that time you, by your own statement, were in the place. You left at eight, and the rain was all over at ten minutes or a quarter past seven. The trap-door, you also told me, had not been opened for months. The thing was plain. You, or somebody who was here when you were, had opened that trap-door during, or just before, that shower. I said little then, but went, as soon as I had left, to the police-station. There I made perfectly certain that there had been no rain during the night by questioning the policemen who were on duty outside all the time. There had been none. I knew everything.
“The only other evidence there was pointed with all the rest. There were no rain-marks on the leather case; it had been put on the roof as an after-thought when there was no rain. A very poor after-thought, let me tell you, for no thief would throw away a useful case that concealed his booty and protected it from breakage, and throw it away just so as to leave a clue as to what direction he had gone in. I also saw, in the lumber-room, a number of packing-cases–one with a label dated two days back–which had been opened with an iron lever; and yet, when I made an excuse to ask for it, you said there was no such thing in the place. Inference, you didn’t want me to compare it with the marks on the desks and doors. That is all, I think.”
Mr. Claridge looked dolorously down at the floor. “I’m afraid,” he said, “that I took an unsuitable role when I undertook to rely on my wits to deceive men like you. I thought there wasn’t a single vulnerable spot in my defense, but you walk calmly through it at the first attempt. Why did I never think of those raindrops?”
“Come,” said Hewitt, with a smile, “that sounds unrepentant. I am going, now, to Lord Stanway’s. If I were you, I think I should apologize to Mr. Woollett in some way.”
Lord Stanway, who, in the hour or two of reflection left him after parting with Hewitt, had come to the belief that he had employed a man whose mind was not always in order, received Hewitt’s story with natural astonishment. For some time he was in doubt as to whether he would be doing right in acquiescing in anything but a straightforward public statement of the facts connected with the disappearance of the cameo, but in the end was persuaded to let the affair drop, on receiving an assurance from Mr. Woollett that he unreservedly accepted the apology offered him by Mr. Claridge.
As for the latter, he was at least sufficiently punished in loss of money and personal humiliation for his escapade. But the bitterest and last blow he sustained when the unblushing Hahn walked smilingly into his office two days later to demand the extra payment agreed on in consideration of the sale. He had been called suddenly away, he exclaimed, on the day he should have come, and hoped his missing the appointment had occasioned no inconvenience. As to the robbery of the cameo, of course he was very sorry, but “pishness was pishness,” and he would be glad of a check for the sum agreed on. And the unhappy Claridge was obliged to pay it, knowing that the man had swindled him, but unable to open his mouth to say so.
The reward remained on offer for a long time; indeed, it was never publicly withdrawn, I believe, even at the time of Claridge’s death. And several intelligent newspapers enlarged upon the fact that an ordinary burglar had completely baffled and defeated the boasted acumen of Mr. Martin Hewitt, the well-known private detective.
VII.
THE AFFAIR OF THE TORTOISE.
Very often Hewitt was tempted, by the fascination of some particularly odd case, to neglect his other affairs to follow up a matter that from a business point of view was of little or no value to him. As a rule, he had a sufficient regard for his own interests to resist such temptations, but in one curious case, at least, I believe he allowed it largely to influence him. It was certainly an extremely odd case–one of those affairs that, coming to light at intervals, but more often remaining unheard of by the general public, convince one that, after all, there is very little extravagance about Mr. R.L. Stevenson’s bizarre imaginings of doings in London in his “New Arabian Nights.” “There is nothing in this world that is at all possible,” I have often heard Martin Hewitt say, “that has not happened or is not happening in London.” Certainly he had opportunities of knowing.
The case I have referred to occurred some time before my own acquaintance with him began–in 1878, in fact. He had called one Monday morning at an office in regard to something connected with one of those uninteresting, though often difficult, cases which formed, perhaps, the bulk of his practice, when he was informed of a most mysterious murder that had taken place in another part of the same building on the previous Saturday afternoon. Owing to the circumstances of the case, only the vaguest account had appeared in the morning papers, and even this, as it chanced, Hewitt had not read.
The building was one of a new row in a partly rebuilt street near the National Gallery. The whole row had been built by a speculator for the purpose of letting out in flats, suites of chambers, and in one or two cases, on the ground floors, offices. The rooms had let very well, and to desirable tenants, as a rule. The least satisfactory tenant, the proprietor reluctantly admitted, was a Mr. Rameau, a negro gentleman, single, who had three rooms on the top floor but one of the particular building that Hewitt was visiting. His rent was paid regularly, but his behavior had produced complaints from other tenants. He got uproariously drunk, and screamed and howled in unknown tongues. He fell asleep on the staircase, and ladies were afraid to pass. He bawled rough chaff down the stairs and along the corridors at butcher-boys and messengers, and played on errand-boys brutal practical jokes that ended in police-court summonses. He once had a way of sliding down the balusters, shouting: “Ho! ho! ho! yah!” as he went, but as he was a big, heavy man, and the balusters had been built for different treatment, he had very soon and very firmly been requested to stop it. He had plenty of money, and spent it freely; but it was generally felt that there was too much of the light-hearted savage about him to fit him to live among quiet people.
How much longer the landlord would have stood this sort of thing, Hewitt’s informant said, was a matter of conjecture, for on the Saturday afternoon in question the tenancy had come to a startling full-stop. Rameau had been murdered in his room, and the body had, in the most unaccountable fashion, been secretly removed from the premises.
The strongest possible suspicion pointed to a man who had been employed in shoveling and carrying coals, cleaning windows, and chopping wood for several of the buildings, and who had left that very Saturday. The crime had, in fact, been committed with this man’s chopper, and the man himself had been heard, again and again, to threaten Ramean, who, in his brutal fashion, had made a butt of him. This man was a Frenchman, Victor Goujon by name, who had lost his employment as a watchmaker by reason of an injury to his right hand, which destroyed its steadiness, and so he had fallen upon evil days and odd jobs.
He was a little man of no great strength, but extraordinarily excitable, and the coarse gibes and horse-play of the big negro drove him almost to madness. Rameau would often, after some more than ordinarily outrageous attack, contemptuously fling Goujon a shilling, which the little Frenchman, although wanting a shilling badly enough, would hurl back in his face, almost weeping with impotent rage. “Pig! _Canaille_!” he would scream. “Dirty pig of Africa! Take your sheelin’ to vere you ‘ave stole it! _Voleur_! Pig!”
There was a tortoise living in the basement, of which Goujon had made rather a pet, and the negro would sometimes use this animal as a missile, flinging it at the little Frenchman’s head. On one such occasion the tortoise struck the wall so forcibly as to break its shell, and then Goujon seized a shovel and rushed at his tormentor with such blind fury that the latter made a bolt of it. These were but a few of the passages between Rameau and the fuel-porter, but they illustrate the state of feeling between them.
Goujon, after correspondence with a relative in France who offered him work, gave notice to leave, which expired on the day of the crime. At about three that afternoon a housemaid, proceeding toward Rameau’s rooms, met Goujon as he was going away. Goujon bade her good-by, and, pointing in the direction of Rameau’s rooms, said exultantly: “Dere shall be no more of the black pig for me; vit ‘im I ‘ave done for. Zut! I mock me of ‘im! ‘E vill never _tracasser_ me no more.” And he went away.
The girl went to the outer door of Rameau’s rooms, knocked, and got no reply. Concluding that the tenant was out, she was about to use her keys, when she found that the door was unlocked. She passed through the lobby and into the sitting-room, and there fell in a dead faint at the sight that met her eyes. Rameau lay with his back across the sofa and his head–drooping within an inch of the ground. On the head was a fearful gash, and below it was a pool of blood.
The girl must have lain unconscious for about ten minutes. When she came to her senses, she dragged herself, terrified, from the room and up to the housekeeper’s apartments, where, being an excitable and nervous creature, she only screamed “Murder!” and immediately fell in a fit of hysterics that lasted three-quarters of an hour. When at last she came to herself, she told her story, and, the hall-porter having been summoned, Rameau’s rooms were again approached.
The blood still lay on the floor, and the chopper, with which the crime had evidently been committed, rested against the fender; but the body had vanished! A search was at once made, but no trace of it could be seen anywhere. It seemed impossible that it could have been carried out of the building, for the hall-porter must at once have noticed anybody leaving with so bulky a burden. Still, in the building it was not to be found.
When Hewitt was informed of these things on Monday, the police were, of course, still in possession of Rameau’s rooms. Inspector Nettings, Hewitt was told, was in charge of the case, and as the inspector was an acquaintance of his, and was then in the rooms upstairs, Hewitt went up to see him.
Nettings was pleased to see Hewitt, and invited him to look around the rooms. “Perhaps you can spot something we have overlooked,” he said. “Though it’s not a case there can be much doubt about.”
“You think it’s Goujon, don’t you?”
“Think? Well, rather! Look here! As soon as we got here on Saturday, we found this piece of paper and pin on the floor. We showed it to the housemaid, and then she remembered–she was too much upset to think of it before–that when she was in the room the paper was laying on the dead man’s chest–pinned there, evidently. It must have dropped off when they removed the body. It’s a case of half-mad revenge on Goujon’s part, plainly. See it; you read French, don’t you?”
The paper was a plain, large half-sheet of note-paper, on which a sentence in French was scrawled in red ink in a large, clumsy hand, thus:
_puni par un vengeur de la tortue_.
“_Puni par un vengeur de la tortue_,” Hewitt repeated musingly. “‘Punished by an avenger of the tortoise,’ That seems odd.”
“Well, rather odd. But you understand the reference, of course. Have they told you about Rameau’s treatment of Goujon’s pet tortoise?”
“I think it was mentioned among his other pranks. But this is an extreme revenge for a thing of that sort, and a queer way of announcing it.”
“Oh, he’s mad–mad with Rameau’s continual ragging and baiting,” Nettings answered. “Anyway, this is a plain indication–plain as though he’d left his own signature. Besides, it’s in his own language–French. And there’s his chopper, too.”
“Speaking of signatures,” Hewitt remarked, “perhaps you have already compared this with other specimens of Goujon’s writing?”
“I did think of it, but they don’t seem to have a specimen to hand, and, anyway, it doesn’t seem very important. There’s ‘avenger of the tortoise’ plain enough, in the man’s own language, and that tells everything. Besides, handwritings are easily disguised.”
“Have you got Goujon?”
“Well, no; we haven’t. There seems to be some little difficulty about that. But I expect to have him by this time to-morrow. Here comes Mr. Styles, the landlord.”
Mr. Styles was a thin, querulous, and withered-looking little man, who twitched his eyebrows as he spoke, and spoke in short, jerky phrases.
“No news, eh, inspector, eh? eh? Found out nothing else, eh? Terrible thing for my property–terrible! Who’s your friend?”
Nettings introduced Hewitt.
“Shocking thing this, eh, Mr. Hewitt? Terrible! Comes of having anything to do with these blood-thirsty foreigners, eh? New buildings and all–character ruined. No one come to live here now, eh? Tenants–noisy niggers–murdered by my own servants–terrible! _You_ formed any opinion, eh?”
“I dare say I might if I went into the case.”
“Yes, yes–same opinion as inspector’s, eh? I mean an opinion of your own?” The old man scrutinized Hewitt’s face sharply.
“If you’d like me to look into the matter—-” Hewitt began.
“Eh? Oh, look into it! Well, I can’t commission you, you know–matter for the police. Mischief’s done. Police doing very well, I think–must be Goujon. But look about the place, certainly, if you like. If you see anything likely to serve _my_ interests, tell me, and–and–perhaps I’ll employ you, eh, eh? Good-afternoon.”
The landlord vanished, and the inspector laughed. “Likes to see what he’s buying, does Mr. Styles,” he said.
Hewitt’s first impulse was to walk out of the place at once. But his interest in the case had been roused, and he determined, at any rate, to examine the rooms, and this he did very minutely. By the side of the lobby was a bath-room, and in this was fitted a tip-up wash-basin, which Hewitt inspected with particular attention. Then he called the housekeeper, and made inquiries about Rameau’s clothes and linen. The housekeeper could give no idea of how many overcoats or how much linen he had had. He had all a negro’s love of display, and was continually buying new clothes, which, indeed, were lying, hanging, littering, and choking up the bedroom in all directions. The housekeeper, however, on Hewitt’s inquiring after such a garment in particular, did remember one heavy black ulster, which Rameau had very rarely worn–only in the coldest weather.
“After the body was discovered,” Hewitt asked the housekeeper, “was any stranger observed about the place–whether carrying anything or not?”
“No, sir,” the housekeeper replied. “There’s been particular inquiries about that. Of course, after we knew what was wrong and the body was gone, nobody was seen, or he’d have been stopped. But the hall-porter says he’s certain no stranger came or went for half an hour or more before that–the time about when the housemaid saw the body and fainted.”
At this moment a clerk from the landlord’s office arrived and handed Nettings a paper. “Here you are,” said Nettings to Hewitt; “they’ve found a specimen of Goujon’s handwriting at last, if you’d like to see it. I don’t want it; I’m not a graphologist, and the case is clear enough for me anyway.”
Hewitt took the paper. “This” he said, “is a different sort of handwriting from that on the paper. The red-ink note about the avenger of the tortoise is in a crude, large, clumsy, untaught style of writing. This is small, neat, and well formed–except that it is a trifle shaky, probably because of the hand injury.”
“That’s nothing,” contended Nettings. “handwriting clues are worse than useless, as a rule. It’s so easy to disguise and imitate writing; and besides, if Goujon is such a good penman as you seem to say, why, he could all the easier alter his style. Say now yourself, can any fiddling question of handwriting get over this thing about ‘avenging the tortoise’–practically a written confession–to say nothing of the chopper, and what he said to the housemaid as he left?”
“Well,” said Hewitt, “perhaps not; but we’ll see. Meantime”–turning to the landlord’s clerk–“possibly you will be good enough to tell me one or two things. First, what was Goujon’s character?”
“Excellent, as far as we know. We never had a complaint about him except for little matters of carelessness–leaving coal-scuttles on the staircases for people to fall over, losing shovels, and so on. He was certainly a bit careless, but, as far as we could see, quite a decent little fellow. One would never have thought him capable of committing murder for the sake of a tortoise, though he was rather fond of the animal.”
“The tortoise is dead now, I understand?”
“Yes.”
“Have you a lift in this building?”
“Only for coals and heavy parcels. Goujon used to work it, sometimes going up and down in it himself with coals, and so on; it goes into the basement.”
“And are the coals kept under this building?”
“No. The store for the whole row is under the next two houses–the basements communicate.”
“Do you know Rameau’s other name?”
“Cesar Rameau he signed in our agreement.”
“Did he ever mention his relations?”
“No. That is to say, he did say something one day when he was very drunk; but, of course, it was all rot. Some one told him not to make such a row–he was a beastly tenant–and he said he was the best man in the place, and his brother was Prime Minister, and all sorts of things. Mere drunken rant! I never heard of his saying anything sensible about relations. We know nothing of his connections; he came here on a banker’s reference.”
“Thanks. I think that’s all I want to ask. You notice,” Hewitt proceeded, turning to Nettings, “the only ink in this place is scented and violet, and the only paper is tinted and scented, too, with a monogram–characteristic of a negro with money. The paper that was pinned on Rameau’s breast is in red ink on common and rather grubby paper, therefore it was written somewhere else and brought here. Inference, premeditation.”
“Yes, yes. But are you an inch nearer with all these speculations? Can you get nearer than I am now without them?”
“Well, perhaps not,” Hewitt replied. “I don’t profess at this moment to know the criminal; you do. I’ll concede you that point for the present. But you don’t offer an opinion as to who removed Rameau’s body–which I think I know.”
“Who was it, then?”
“Come, try and guess that yourself. It wasn’t Goujon; I don’t mind letting you know that. But it was a person quite within your knowledge of the case. You’ve mentioned the person’s name more than once.”
Nettings stared blankly. “I don’t understand you in the least,” he said. “But, of course, you mean that this mysterious person you speak of as having moved the body committed the murder?”
“No, I don’t. Nobody could have been more innocent of that.”
“Well,” Nettings concluded with resignation, “I’m afraid one of us is rather thick-headed. What will you do?”
“Interview the person who took away the body,” Hewitt replied, with a smile.
“But, man alive, why? Why bother about the person if it isn’t the criminal?”
“Never mind–never mind; probably the person will be a most valuable witness.”
“Do you mean you think this person–whoever it is–saw the crime?”
“I think it very probable indeed.”
“Well, I won’t ask you any more. I shall get hold of Goujon; that’s simple and direct enough for me. I prefer to deal with the heart of the case–the murder itself–when there’s such clear evidence as I have.”
“I shall look a little into that, too, perhaps,” Hewitt said, “and, if you like, I’ll tell you the first thing I shall do.”
“What’s that?”
“I shall have a good look at a map of the West Indies, and I advise you to do the same. Good-morning.”
Nettings stared down the corridor after Hewitt, and continued staring for nearly two minutes after he had disappeared. Then he said to the clerk, who had remained: “What was he talking about?”
“Don’t know,” replied the clerk. “Couldn’t make head nor tail of it.”
“I don’t believe there _is_ a head to it,” declared Nettings; “nor a tail either. He’s kidding us.”
* * * * *
Nettings was better than his word, for within two hours of his conversation with Hewitt, Goujon was captured and safe in a cab bound for Bow Street. He had been stopped at Newhaven in the morning on his way to Dieppe, and was brought back to London. But now Nettings met a check.
Late that afternoon he called on Hewitt to explain matters. “We’ve got Goujon,” he said, gloomily, “but there’s a difficulty. He’s got two friends who can swear an _alibi_. Rameau was seen alive at half-past one on Saturday, and the girl found him dead about three. Now, Goujon’s two friends, it seems, were with him from one o’clock till four in the afternoon, with the exception of five minutes when the girl saw him, and then he left them to take a key or something to the housekeeper before finally leaving. They were waiting on the landing below when Goujon spoke to the housemaid, heard him speaking, and had seen him go all the way up to the housekeeper’s room and back, as they looked up the wide well of the staircase. They are men employed near the place, and seem to have good characters. But perhaps we shall find something unfavorable about them. They were drinking with Goujon, it seems, by way of ‘seeing him off.'”
“Well,” Hewitt said, “I scarcely think you need trouble to damage these men’s characters. They are probably telling the truth. Come, now, be plain. You’ve come here to get a hint as to whether my theory of the case helps you, haven’t you?”
“Well, if you can give me a friendly hint, although, of course, I may be right, after all. Still, I wish you’d explain a bit as to what you meant by looking at a map and all that mystery. Nice thing for me to be taking a lesson in my own business after all these years! But perhaps I deserve it.”
“See, now,” quoth Hewitt, “you remember what map I told you to look at?”
“The West Indies.”
“Right! Well, here you are.” Hewitt reached an atlas from his book-shelf. “Now, look here: the biggest island of the lot on this map, barring Cuba, is Hayti. You know as well as I do that the western part of that island is peopled by the black republic of Hayti, and that the country is in a degenerate state of almost unexampled savagery, with a ridiculous show of civilization. There are revolutions all the time; the South American republics are peaceful and prosperous compared to Hayti. The state of the country is simply awful–read Sir Spenser St. John’s book on it. President after president of the vilest sort forces his way to power and commits the most horrible and bloodthirsty excesses, murdering his opponents by the hundred and seizing their property for himself and his satellites, who are usually as bad, if not worse, than the president himself. Whole families–men, women, and children–are murdered at the instance of these ruffians, and, as a consequence, the most deadly feuds spring up, and the presidents and their followers are always themselves in danger of reprisals from others. Perhaps the very worst of these presidents in recent times has been the notorious Domingue, who was overthrown by an insurrection, as they all are sooner or later, and compelled to fly the country. Domingue and his nephews, one of whom was Chief Minister, while in power committed the cruellest bloodshed, and many members of the opposite party sought refuge in a small island lying just to the north of Hayti, but were sought out there and almost exterminated. Now, I will show you that island on the map. What is its name?”
“Tortuga.”
“It is. ‘Tortuga,’ however, is only the old Spanish name; the Haytians speak French–Creole French. Here is a French atlas: now see the name of that island.”
“La Tortue!”
“La Tortue it is–the tortoise. Tortuga means the same thing in Spanish. But that island is always spoken of in Hayti as La Tortue. Now, do you see the drift of that paper pinned to Rameau’s breast?”
“Punished by an avenger of–or from–the tortoise or La Tortue–clear enough. It would seem that the dead man had something to do with the massacre there, and somebody from the island is avenging it. The thing’s most extraordinary.”
“And now listen. The name of Domingue’s nephew, who was Chief Minister, was _Septimus Rameau_.”
“And this was Cesar Rameau–his brother, probably. I see. Well, this _is_ a case.”
“I think the relationship probable. Now you understand why I was inclined to doubt that Goujon was the man you wanted.”
“Of course, of course! And now I suppose I must try to get a nigger–the chap who wrote that paper. I wish he hadn’t been such an ignorant nigger. If he’d only have put the capitals to the words ‘La Tortue,’ I might have thought a little more about them, instead of taking it for granted that they meant that wretched tortoise in the basement of the house. Well, I’ve made a fool of a start, but I’ll be after that nigger now.”
“And I, as I said before,” said Hewitt, “shall be after the person that carried off Rameau’s body. I have had something else to do this afternoon, or I should have begun already.”
“You said you thought he saw the crime. How did you judge that?”
Hewitt smiled. “I think I’ll keep that little secret to myself for the present,” he said. “You shall know soon.”
“Very well,” Nettings replied, with resignation. “I suppose I mustn’t grumble if you don’t tell me everything. I feel too great a fool altogether over this case to see any farther than you show me.” And Inspector Nettings left on his search; while Martin Hewitt, as soon as he was alone, laughed joyously and slapped his thigh.
* * * * *
There was a cab-rank and shelter at the end of the street where Mr. Styles’ building stood, and early that evening a man approached it and hailed the cabmen and the waterman. Any one would have known the new-comer at once for a cabman taking a holiday. The brim of the hat, the bird’s-eye neckerchief, the immense coat-buttons, and, more than all, the rolling walk and the wrinkled trousers, marked him out distinctly.
“Watcheer!” he exclaimed, affably, with the self-possessed nod only possible to cabbies and ‘busmen. “I’m a-lookin’ for a bilker. I’m told one o’ the blokes off this rank carried ‘im last Saturday, and I want to know where he went. I ain’t ‘ad a chance o’ gettin’ ‘is address yet. Took a cab just as it got dark, I’m told. Tallish chap, muffled up a lot, in a long black overcoat. Any of ye seen ‘im?”
The cabbies looked at one another and shook their heads; it chanced that none of them had been on that particular rank at that time. But the waterman said: “‘Old on–I bet ‘e’s the bloke wot old Bill Stammers took. Yorkey was fust on the rank, but the bloke wouldn’t ‘ave a ‘ansom–wanted a four-wheeler, so old Bill took ‘im. Biggish chap in a long black coat, collar up an’ muffled thick; soft wide-awake ‘at, pulled over ‘is eyes; and he was in a ‘urry, too. Jumped in sharp as a weasel.”
“Didn’t see ‘is face, did ye?”
“No–not an inch of it; too much muffled. Couldn’t tell if he ‘ad a face.”
“Was his arm in a sling?”
“Ay, it looked so. Had it stuffed through the breast of his coat, like as though there might be a sling inside.”
“That’s ‘im. Any of ye tell me where I might run across old Bill Stammers? He’ll tell me where my precious bilker went to.”
As to this there was plenty of information, and in five minutes Martin Hewitt, who had become an unoccupied cabman for the occasion, was on his way to find old Bill Stammers. That respectable old man gave him full particulars as to the place in the East End where he had driven his muffled fare on Saturday, and Hewitt then begun an eighteen, or twenty hours’ search beyond Whitechapel.
* * * * *
At about three on Tuesday afternoon, as Nettings was in the act of leaving Bow Street Police Station, Hewitt drove up in a four-wheeler. Some prisoner appeared to be crouching low in the vehicle, but, leaving him to take care of himself, Hewitt hurried into the station and shook Nettings by the hand. “Well,” he said, “have you got the murderer of Rameau yet?”
“No,” Nettings growled. “Unless–well, Goujon’s under remand still, and, after all, I’ve been thinking that he may know something—-“
“Pooh, nonsense!” Hewitt answered. “You’d better let him go. Now, I _have_ got somebody.” Hewitt laughed and slapped the inspector’s shoulder. “I’ve got the man who carried Rameau’s body away!”
“The deuce you have! Where? Bring him in. We must have him—-“
“All right, don’t be in a hurry; he won’t bolt.” And Hewitt stepped out to the cab and produced his prisoner, who, pulling his hat farther over his eyes, hurried furtively into the station. One hand was stowed in the breast of his long coat, and below the wide brim of his hat a small piece of white bandage could be seen; and, as he lifted his face, it was seen to be that of a negro.
“Inspector Nettings,” Hewitt said ceremoniously, “allow me to introduce Mr. Cesar Rameau!”
Netting’s gasped.
“What!” he at length ejaculated. “What! You–you’re Rameau?”
The negro looked round nervously, and shrank farther from the door.
“Yes,” he said; “but please not so loud–please not loud. Zey may be near, and I’m ‘fraid.”
“You will certify, will you not,” asked Hewitt, with malicious glee, “not only that you were not murdered last Saturday by Victor Goujon, but that, in fact, you were not murdered at all? Also, that you carried your own body away in the usual fashion, on your own legs.”
“Yes, yes,” responded Rameau, looking haggardly about; “but is not zis–zis room publique? I should not be seen.”
“Nonsense!” replied Hewitt rather testily; “you exaggerate your danger and your own importance, and your enemies’ abilities as well. You’re safe enough.”
“I suppose, then,” Nettings remarked slowly, like a man on whose mind something vast was beginning to dawn, “I suppose–why, hang it, you must have just got up while that fool of a girl was screaming and fainting upstairs, and walked out. They say there’s nothing so hard as a nigger’s skull, and yours has certainly made a fool of me. But, then, _somebody_ must have chopped you over the head; who was it?”
“My enemies–my great enemies–enemies politique. I am a great man”–this with a faint revival of vanity amid his fear–“a great man in my countree. Zey have great secret club-sieties to kill me–me and my fren’s; and one enemy coming in my rooms does zis–one, two”–he indicated wrist and head–“wiz a choppa.”
Rameau made the case plain to Nettings, so far as the actual circumstances of the assault on himself were concerned. A negro whom he had noticed near the place more than once during the previous day or two had attacked him suddenly in his rooms, dealing him two savage blows with a chopper. The first he had caught on his wrist, which was seriously damaged, as well as excruciatingly painful, but the second had taken effect on his head. His assailant had evidently gone away then, leaving him for dead; but, as a matter of fact, he was only stunned by the shock, and had, thanks to the adamantine thickness of the negro skull and the ill-direction of the chopper, only a very bad scalp-wound, the bone being no more than grazed. He had lain insensible for some time, and must have come to his senses soon after the housemaid had left the room. Terrified at the knowledge that his enemies had found him out, his only thought was to get away and hide himself. He hastily washed and tied up his head, enveloped himself in the biggest coat he could find, and let himself down into the basement by the coal-lift, for fear of observation. He waited in the basement of one of the adjoining buildings till dark and then got away in a cab, with the idea of hiding himself in the East End. He had had very little money with him on his flight, and it was by reason of this circumstance that Hewitt, when he found him, had prevailed on him to leave his hiding-place, since it would be impossible for him to touch any of the large sums of money in the keeping of his bank so long as he was supposed to be dead. With much difficulty, and the promise of ample police protection, he was at last convinced that it would be safe to declare himself and get his property, and then run away and hide wherever he pleased.
Nettings and Hewitt strolled off together for a few minutes and chatted, leaving the wretched Rameau to cower in a corner among several policemen.
“Well, Mr. Hewitt,” Nettings said, “this case has certainly been a shocking beating for me. I must have been as blind as a bat when I started on it. And yet I don’t see that you had a deal to go on, even now. What struck you first?”
“Well, in the beginning it seemed rather odd to me that the body should have been taken away, as I had been told it was, after the written paper had been pinned on it. Why should the murderer pin a label on the body of his victim if he meant carrying that body away? Who would read the label and learn of the nature of the revenge gratified? Plainly, that indicated that the person who had carried away the body was _not_ the person who had committed the murder. But as soon as I began to examine the place I saw the probability that there was no murder, after all. There were any number of indications of this fact, and I can’t understand your not observing them. First, although there was a good deal of blood on the floor just below where the housemaid had seen Rameau lying, there was none between that place and the door. Now, if the body had been dragged, or even carried, to the door, blood must have become smeared about the floor, or at least there would have been drops, but there were none, and this seemed to hint that the corpse might have come to itself, sat up on the sofa, stanched the wound, and walked out. I reflected at once that Rameau was a full-blooded negro, and that a negro’s head is very nearly invulnerable to anything short of bullets. Then, if the body had been dragged out–as such a heavy body must have been–almost of necessity the carpet and rugs would show signs of the fact, but there were no such signs. But beyond these there was the fact that no long black overcoat was left with the other clothes, although the housekeeper distinctly remembered Rameau’s possession of such a garment. I judged he would use some such thing to assist his disguise, which was why I asked her. _Why_ he would want to disguise was plain, as you shall see presently. There were no towels left in the bath-room; inference, used for bandages. Everything seemed to show that the only person responsible for Rameau’s removal was Rameau himself. Why, then, had he gone away secretly and hurriedly, without making complaint, and why had he stayed away? What reason would he have for doing this if it had been Goujon that had attacked him? None. Goujon was going to France. Clearly, Rameau was afraid of another attack from some implacable enemy whom he was anxious to avoid–one against whom he feared legal complaint or defense would be useless. This brought me at once to the paper found on the floor. If this were the work of Goujon and an open reference to his tortoise, why should he be at such pains to disguise his handwriting? He would have been already pointing himself out by the mere mention of the tortoise. And, if he could not avoid a shake in his natural, small handwriting, how could he have avoided it in a large, clumsy, slowly drawn, assumed hand? No, the paper was not Goujon’s.”
“As to the writing on the paper,” Nettings interposed, “I’ve told you how I made that mistake. I took the readiest explanation of the words, since they seemed so pat, and I wouldn’t let anything else outweigh that. As to the other things–the evidences of Rameau’s having gone off by himself–well, I don’t usually miss such obvious things; but I never thought of the possibility of the _victim_ going away on the quiet and not coming back, as though _he’d_ done something wrong. Comes of starting with a set of fixed notions.”
“Well,” answered Hewitt, “I fancy you must have been rather ‘out of form,’ as they say; everybody has his stupid days, and you can’t keep up to concert pitch forever. To return to the case. The evidence of the chopper was very untrustworthy, especially when I had heard of Goujon’s careless habits–losing shovels and leaving coal-scuttles on stairs. Nothing more likely than for the chopper to be left lying about, and a criminal who had calculated his chances would know the advantage to himself of using a weapon that belonged to the place, and leaving it behind to divert suspicion. It is quite possible, by the way, that the man who attacked Rameau got away down the coal-lift and out by an adjoining basement, just as did Rameau himself; this, however, is mere conjecture. The would-be murderer had plainly prepared for the crime: witness the previous preparation of the paper declaring his revenge, an indication of his pride at having run his enemy to earth at such a distant place as this–although I expect he was only in England by chance, for Haytians are not a persistently energetic race. In regard to the use of small instead of capital letters in the words ‘La Tortue’ on the paper, I observed, in the beginning, that the first letter of the whole sentence–the ‘p’ in ‘puni’–was a small one. Clearly, the writer was an illiterate man, and it was at once plain that he may have made the same mistake with ensuing words.
“On the whole, it was plain that everybody had begun with a too ready disposition to assume that Goujon was guilty. Everybody insisted, too, that the body had been carried away–which was true, of course, although not in the sense intended–so I didn’t trouble to contradict, or to say more than that I guessed who _had_ carried the body off. And, to tell you