Princeton University Library
32101 064788761
Che MARGATE
S MYSTERY
BURFORD DELANNOY


3711 Saurance St. Bower
1361 Predbina
.35
361
ANNEXében. 1901
Library of

Princeton University.
Bequest of
Laurance H. Bower
Class of '96


از کے





THE MARGATE MYSTERY





COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY
BRENTANO'S
Press of J. J. Little & Co.
Astor Place, New York


CONTENTS
PART
1.
TWO MEN AND A WOMAN .
(In the Third Person.)
.
.
.
7
11. POLLY'S REASON FOR WHAT SHE DID
(The Barmaid's Story.)
.
III. ON A MURDER CHARGE
(Inspector Johnson's Arrest.)
.
. 75
IV.
.
. 81
THE BRIEF FOR THE PROSECUTION
(The Author Speaks.)
V.
THE CELLAR IN MARSEILLES
(The Confession of Jacques Lemaire.)
VI.
A FREE MAN AGAIN
(Marie's Contribution.)
.
.i69
VII. THE APE AND THE CHAMBERMAID
(The Barrister's Margate Experiences.)
.
VIII. THE CHAMBERS IN THE TEMPLE
(Mary Picks up the Thread.)
.
IX.
THE BLIND AUTHOR
(The Third Person Again.)
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CONTENTS
PART
x.
PAGE
. 229
THE DETECTIVE'S DISAPPOINTMENT
(Sergeant Parden's Methods.)
XI. AT WORK ONCE MORE
. 253
(Ex-Inspector Johnson Emerges from his Retirement.)
XI. IN BROKEN ENGLISH AGAIN
(Penned in Fear of Death.)
.
.
. 283
. 295
XIII. THE FORGOTTEN ENCLOSURE
(The Ex-Inspector Speaks.)
XIV. CERTIFIED BY THE BRITISH CONSUL
(An Official Document.)
. 299
.
• 301
xv. ARRESTED BY THE HAND OF DEATH
(A Dead Man's Confession.)
XVI. THE CAUSE OF THE SILENCE
(Final Note.)
· 309
- [ 4 ]—


THE MARGATE MYSTERY





THE MARGATE MYSTERY
PART I
Two MEN AND A WOMAN
THEY were of the bourgeois—the little trinity
1 whose doings are, inter alia, chronicled herein
-two men and a woman. As the foundation of a
story, that composition seems to lack novelty, still
it is one which necessarily entails complications, and
the old French proverb applies. If you would seek
elucidation of the mystery, search for the woman-
or, rather, in this instance, the women, for as this
story grows, the trinity merges into a quartette,
and the feminine element plays a strong hand.
There is a saying that people who live in Brixton
smell of it. The trinity this story starts with was
particularly redolent of that southern or south-
eastern suburb.
[7]-


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
She was employed in the mantle department at
the local Bon Marché, elevated to that position
from the sales-counter by reason of her excellent
figure, and the way she carried herself. The Bon
Marché mantles looked well on her shoulders, Bon
Marché customers thought they would look equally
well on their own—of that thought was born profit
to the proprietors of the Bon Marché.
After eight o'clock in the evening she took the
fresh air—such of it as finds its way into the
Brixton Road. So it was that she met William-
and Charles, his friend
These two gentlemen were clerks in the city, and
they shared a sitting-room and bedroom in a street
off the main road—a street in which “ Lodgings
for Single Gentlemen ” cards were as common as
dirty doorsteps. Their joint income was three
pounds per week. The description, bourgeois, was
perhaps of a flattering nature.
Lucy, of the Bon Marché mantle department
aforesaid, whilst enjoying one of her nightly prom-
enades, slipped on a piece of orange-peel, and it
chanced that two gentlemen walking behind her
were sufficiently near to save her falling.
There were grateful thanks and glances on the
one hand; raised hats and expressions of pleasure
- [ 8 ]


TWO MEN AND A WOMAN
at being of service, on the other—all in the good
old stereotype fashion which makes the pages of
“ The Family Herald " so dear to its readers' hearts.
Then-she was walking that way; so were they.
That was the beginning of it. They met again and
again. Both the men declared themselves admirers
of the girl, and she—nothing better chancing in the
way—was divided in her opinion about them; but
she decided that they would do to go on with.
She became a regular Sunday afternoon visitor to
their rooms. Their landlady's scruples needed some
over-riding as to this, but that was eventually ac-
complished-most landladies' scruples are like that.
Great were these Sabbath banquets. The tooth-
some shrimp, the succulent winkle, the well-
margarined crumpet all found a place on the
table, flanked by a plate of what the landlady called
“creases," with a salt cellar centred therein. The
thing was done in absolute style-Brixton style.
Not a word was said about marriage. They knew
that—despite the correspondence columns of “The
Daily Telegraph”—marriage was a failure when
embarked on on an income of seventy-five pounds
a year; and they knew that a Bon Marché assist-
ant's marriage was equivalent to a week's notice to
leave that emporium. The sea of marriage is a
-[9]


THE MARG A TE MYSTERY
troublous one to embark on at the best of times,
but on a limited income it is impossible to avoid
the rocks ahead. Wreckage is certain.
The men's admiration of the girl increased, yet
they remained friends. The friendship was secure
because its foundation could not be disturbed,
because each knew the weakness of the other-
financially.
The girl preferred William to Charles. Preferred
him, after the manner of women, because there was
a little more trace of the devil in his composition.
Charles, though, made her more expensive pres-
ents. He rarely aspired to the daredevildom of
cigars and whiskey—cigarettes and a glass of bitter
beer came more in his way; hence the ability at odd
times to buy a present of a bottle of scent, or a pair
of gloves—an ability the other man lacked. Hence
Charles was out of favor.
But that spice of the devil made William bolder,
and when Charles was out of the room on the
occasion of one of the Sunday visits, the bold, bad
William drew Lucy's head back as she sat in the
one large chair the room boasted (and which for
some unaccountable reason was called an "easy"
one), and fixed his lips on her own bright red ones
before she could prevent him.
- [10]


TWO MEN AND A WOMAN
She did not scream, but with a flushed face said,
“How can you?”
He, emboldened by this, showed her how he
could by repeating the act. Then she rose, and,
with a deeper flush on her face and a heaving
bosom, would have spoken, but that Charles just
then re-entered the room.
Nothing was said about that embrace. The two
men, as was usual, saw her home, and parted from
her at the Bon Marché private entrance with the
customary “good-night,” except that the parting
pressure of William's hand pained her somewhat-
a pain which somehow she did not mind.
Being a saleswoman in the mantle department,
and out of the ranks, as it were, Lucy had the priv-
ilege of a bedroom to herself. It was considered
a great privilege by those who enjoyed it; those
who did not were apt to speak contemptuously of
cupboards and the swinging of cats. When she
had removed her street attire Lucy looked at her-
self in the mirror. It was not a mirror which
reflected all of her-it was not large enough. It
was the kind that some tea companies give away
to purchasers of two pounds of their syrupy sou-
chong. But she saw enough to know that she was
good to look upon-much too good to throw her-
-


THE MARGA TE · MYSTERY
self away on a minimum thirty and a maximum
forty shillings a week. She knew something of city
clerks' salaries—city clerks are rather freely dis-
cussed by counter young ladies; they form the body
from which husbands sometimes drop.
All the same, she sighed, Then she did a foolish
thing: she slowly advanced her face to the glass till
she touched it, and then kissed her own lips as it
were. She blushed at the act; perhaps she did not
find it so pleasant as the touch of William's lips. It
is scarcely to be expected. Imagination is an ex-
cellent thing—but it has its limits.
Besides-quaint as it may sound of a mantle-
room saleswoman, to say nothing of her previous
sojourn behind the counter-William's kiss was the
first moustached one she had ever experienced.
She had pecked at other girls, as girls will, but
this was the first time she had felt the pressure of
a man's lips—and the feeling which that pressure
usually excites in a woman and she hankered after
more of it. She tried to conjure up a repetition of
it with her mirror, but that was a ghastly failure,
and she disrobed, sighing discontentedly.
William met her one evening when Charles
was delayed in the city till late. They mounted
a tram-car in the Brixton Road, and journeyed
-[12]-


TWO MEN AND A WOMAN
where there were grass and trees. Most of the
time they spent amidst those very-dusty-but-pass-
for-sylvan surroundings, his arm was round her
waist, more than once their lips met. Then he saw
her home.
How would it all have ended but for the death of
Charles's aunt? God knows! How do these things
usually end? But Charles's aunt died, and Charles
nearly had his own breath taken away when he was
told that, under her will, he was to receive three
thousand pounds.
That night, before they went to bed, the two men
talked. William was by no means a fool. In the
stations of life into which it had pleased God to call
them, three thousand pounds was colossal wealth.
William was particularly alive to the blessings
wealth brings in its train, because he more often
needed money than his companion-he spent it
more quickly. Decidedly, therefore, Charles was a
man to keep in with.
“ Bill, old chap, this money of mine must neces-
sarily make a difference. And I think it will make
most difference in us about Lucy.”.
William started. Charles went on-
“And I want, first of all, for us to clearly under-
stand the position. If we are in the scales, you and
-[13]-


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
I, the balance must be held fairly—my money must
not weigh things down.”
William looked curiously at his friend. He saw
things—from a worldly point of view—clearer.
Charles continued.
“That's why I am speaking now, Bill, old man,
as I am. I don't for the life of me know whether
she prefers one of us to the other ”
Bill did.
“ —and I don't think we ought to let her know
about this money till she makes up her mind. What
do you say? I have to go down into the country
about the sale of the furniture at.my aunt's place,
but I shall be back in time for Sunday tea. Now,
I want you to promise me that between this and
then, if you should see her, you won't say a word
about this money."
Bill promised silence-faithfully.
“And then let her decide for herself, unin-
fluenced by the pounds, shillings, and pence.”
“But, Charley, my dear old chap, you've got hold
of the wrong end of the stick altogether. There's
some one else to consult besides Lucy.”
“Whom?”
“ Yours truly. You may love the girl well
enough to marry her—I don't. Besides, I know
- [14]-


TWO MEN AND A WOMAN
exactly how much she thinks of me. I am quite
convinced,” and he was quite correct in saying so,
“that if I proposed to-morrow to marry her, she'd
give me the mitten.”
. “Do you think so?” inquired Charles, elate.
"Sure of it. I think you are right about the
money. Don't let her know. Pop the question on
Sunday, and see whether she-as the story-books
say—“ loves you for yourself alone.' I'll clear out
after tea to give you a chance.”
“You're a brick, Bill! But are you sure? I
mean, you have no latent idea of ever asking her
to marry you?”
“My dear old chap, you ought to know me bet-
ter. I have a difficulty in scraping along as it is.
This frock coat is not paid for, and I want another.
Where should I be with a wife? No-bachelordom
for me, old son.”
Charles went into the country to see about the
sale of the goods and chattels left by his aunt, but
not before he had had an interview with his
employer. The said employer had knowledge of
Charles's ability and industry, and offered, if he
liked to put two thousand pounds into the con-
cern, to take him into the business as a junior
partner. That meant an immediate drawing of
[15]-


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
five pounds a week, and a near possibility of much
more.
William met Lucy whilst Charles was away, and
they took the tram-car again to the more quiet and
rural district. As they were journeying, he said,
“Lucy, I am going to show you how much I love
you.”
“Not here," she answered;" wait.”
She imagined he was going to evidence his
affection in the usual way. He laughed.
“No, old lady, not that. I am going to put you
on to a good thing. You have heard of Charley's
aunt?”
." That piece Penley made such a hit in?”
William roared laughing.
“No,” he said, “I mean our Charley's aunt.
She's dead, and has left him three thousand
pounds."
“Never!”
It almost took her breath away. The mere idea
of inheritance of three thousand pounds is enough
to asphyxiate most young women in the mantle
department of a drapery establishment.
“Now, where my magnanimity comes in, is not
only in giving you up—because I shall never be
worth three thousand shillings—but in showing
[16]


TWO MEN AND A WOMAN
you firm ice to skate on, for there are thin spots
laid out for you to fall through."
She looked her inquiry.
“Next Sunday,” he went on, “ Charley will pop
the question. He does not mean to say a word
about the money, but thinks to find out whether
you love him for himself.”
“What a beastly mean trick!” she said,
indignantly.
“So I thought,” he made answer—he was an ex-
cellent liar.
“ Does he think-
“ It is not what he thinks, Lucy; it is what you
think. Not that you will need to think beføre
Sunday. His governor-you know he is in the silk
line—has offered to take him into a junior partner-
ship. That means his drawing a fiver a week-
possibly more.”
“His money— "
“Goes into the business, of course. He will keep
a thousand out of it for furniture and reserve, fund
if you accept him. I can picture you as Mrs.
Charley—semi-detached villa and a cap-and-
aproned girl to open the door when your old friend
Bill drops in to tea."
“Don't be a fool," she said shortly,
ea
-[17]-


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
“Don't you, Lucy—that's what you have to mind
just now. A fiver a week don't walk up and down
the Brixton Road every evening, you know. Pick
the fruit whilst it's ripe; gather the roses whilst ye
may. He's going to pop on Sunday—you accept.”
They were sitting beneath the shadow of a tree on
one of the seats provided by a thoughtful local
board for just such couples. Probably to save her
from being hurt by the hardness of the back of the
seat, his arm was around her waist. That may have
been the reason; men are very thoughtful-some-
times.
Woman-like, she did not reconcile the position of
his arm with the position he took up. There was
no fear of her-after the manner of the maiden in
the poem-saying: Why don't you speak for your-
self, Bill? All the same, she resented the imperson-
ality of his talk.
“You advise me to marry him?" she inquired.
“Rather. You'll be a bigger fool than I take you
for if you don't.”
She put her hand behind her, and drew his arm
away. He was quite surprised-aggrieved, in fact.
“Hullo!” he said; “ that's all the thanks a fellow
gets for putting you on to a good thing."
She did not answer; her face was turned away.
— [18]


TWO MEN AND A WOMAN
If it had not been he would have seen tears in her
eyes. Very foolish of her—she admitted that to
herself—but then Bill was so much nicer.
“Let's go home,” she said suddenly, as she rose
to her feet.
" Certainly,” he replied shortly—he considered
himself the injured party.
They both stood in the darkness under the
shadow of the tree. Suddenly she flung her arms
round his neck and said,
“Kiss me.”
Their lips met. Then she said in a tremulous
voice-
“That must be the last—the very last time.”
And meant it when she said it. He said
“So it shall.”
They went home on the tram-car. When they
parted at the Bon Marché, and shook hands, he
pressed hers just as painfully as he had done before.
He was a gentleman with some experience of
drapers' young ladies; he knew they liked a spice of
pain in the affection of their admirers. It seemed
to give them something to remember.
-[19]


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
II
SUNDAY came. The banquet over, William sud-
denly remembered that he had to send a telegram,
and that he had better send it at once, as on the
Sabbath the telegraph office was only open for a
limited time.
They did not mind his going out for ten minutes
or so?—No, not at all.
He went, first offering Charles a meaning wink,
and then from the other side of tủe room favoring
Lucy with one equally pregnant.
“Lucy,” said Charles when they were alone, “I
have something I want to say to you."
“Oh,” she said, in quite a surprised tone, as if the
mere idea of his wanting to say something to her
was phenomenal.
“I won't beat about the bush, Lucy. I want to
ask you if you care for me well enough to
marry me?”
much better. The building of suburban theatres
and the weekly visits of touring dramatic companies.
have educated present-day young women; when a
situation of this sort comes along, she is not at a loss.
- [ 20 ]-


TWO MEN AND A WOMAN
Lucy felt she was quite able to play the heroine in
the little comedy upon which Charley had raised the
curtain, and as she “knew her part,” she counted
on a flourish of music and the limelight when the
curtain fell.
“Charley," she said, “are you in earnest?”
“Was never more so in my life.”
“ But-but- " —Pretty little hesitation cop-
ied from the previous week's drama at the local
theatre.
“There is no 'but,' Lucy; answer me, 'yes' or
‘no.'”
She answered him—still with the Thespian recol-
lection in her mind—by slowly lifting her eyes to
his and saying—
“ Charley, you know-oh, you must know-how
I love you!”
He left his chair, and was on his knees by her
side. Her hand in his, he inquired-
“You will marry me, Lucy?”
“No-no, do not ask me that.”
“Why not?”
He asked, but in no despairing tone. He felt
that any objection she might raise, he would be able,
if necessary, to wipe away. Money acts that way.
It is easy to call “ Nap” with a handful of trumps.
-[21]-


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
“We are—oh, Charley—we must not think of it
—for your—for your sake.”
She had her handkerchief to her eye as she spoke
-dramatically. She continued-after the manner
of the preceding week's heroine-
“ It would not be fair to you, dear; marriage with
you means—you must not blast your prospects in
life. There is nothing would make me happier than
to be your wife, to know that you belonged to me;
but I will not be selfish; I will not consent to any-
thing which will hurt you."
She had dropped her handkerchief by this time-
and the lachrymose attitude. She was stroking his
hair, and could not help thinking how much harder
his hair was than William's.
“Suppose I tell you, darling, that my prospects
are assured; that I am a well-to-do man?”
“You do not deceive me?" shé answered—sad
smile à la Maud Jeffreys as “ Mercia.” “I have told
you that nothing on earth would please me more
than to be your wife. Were I a rich woman, I
would marry you to-morrow. As it is—no. I will
be no brake on your progress.”
“Lucy!” he cried, putting his arms around her,
drawing her to him and kissing her, “I can wipe
away all your objections. My aunt has died and
- [ 22 ]-


TWO MEN AND A WOMAN
left me a heap of money, and I am going to be a
partner in the firm.”
She held him away at arm's length with both
hands, and looked at him with surprise in her eyes
—ingenue style, effect very telling.
"Is—it-possible?” she inquired, with Irving-
esque pauses between each word.
“Yes, darling, quite. And now, you will marry
me, will you not?”
For answer she drew him to her and held
him so. An eloquent silence à la Mrs. Patrick
Campbell.
There was heard a man's voice humming as the
owner ascended the stairs; the door opened, and
William entered, enveloped in cigar smoke. The
odor preceded him and reminded one of White-
chapel—where the cheap Manila cheroot comes
from.
“ Bill, old boy!” Charley burst out, “ congratu-
late me. Lucy has promised to be my wife.”
Of course William said the needful, and when
later on Lucy retired, Charles alone accompanied
her home.
The course of this particular love ran smooth.
Charles and Lucy hunted in couples after a resi-
dence, and at last secured one. Then they began
- [ 23 ]—


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
filling it with furniture, and at last all was ready
for their marriage.
The last night of their joint residence, the last
night of Charley's celibacy, the two men sat
talking.
“ Bill, is there anything I can do for you”_he
laid his hand on his companion's shoulder affection-
ately—“ before we part? Don't hesitate to say if
there is. We have been together so long, and such
good friends.”
“Well, there is something, Charley, you might
do, but ’pon my soul, I have no right to suggest it
to you.”
: “Do ... What is it?”
“You know Arkwright, man we have met in the
saloon at the 'Arms '?"
“Yes—bookmaker.”
“ That's the man. I have known him a long time.
He has made money in pubs. the last few years.
Has got a street of houses to my knowledge. , He
is getting tired of working so hard. I'll tell you
what he has offered me—a sixth share of the profits
if I go into partnership with him, and bring in two
hundred pounds."
“ A bookmaker's is a sort of funny business,
Bill — ”
- [ 24 ]


TWO. MEN AND A WOMAN
“ Tell me one that makes money quicker or
easier?”
“I know-
“Well, there it is, Charley. I would not have
mentioned it if you had not asked me how you
could help. You can that way. I know what a
sixth share is under his indolent management-
six pounds a week.”'
“As much as that?”
"It is, and I'reckon I could largely increase it.
I could pay back three pounds a week till the two
hundred was wiped off.”
“I wish it had been any other business—_-"
“ There isn't any other, old chap, where two
hundred pounds would be a shadow of good. If
you can let me have that, you'll put me on my
feet."
For answer, Charles drew a check book from
his pocket. He kept it there after the manner of a
man who has a bank balance for the first time in his
life. He filled one in to his friend's order, the
amount—two hundred pounds—and then handed
it over.
“You're a brick, Charley, and you shan't lose a
cent of this. On the first of each month, without
fail, I shall send you twelve pounds. Now let me
- [ 25 ]


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
make you out an acknowledgment of the money
owing.". .
He did so, and with renewed thanks the incident
closed.
The next day Charles was married—William be-
ing his best man. In that capacity he drank to the
joint happiness of the married couple, and ulti-
mately saw them into the train at Charing Cross on
the departure for their honeymoon.
The honeymoon lasted a fortnight, and then
Charles put his nose to the grindstone of his busi-
ness. He was surprised to find that, the business
having a branch in Marseilles, he would be expected
to spend a month of his time there each summer.
The other partner spent a winter month there, so
that there was nothing to grumble about.
III
WILLIAM prospered. Regularly the instalments
of the loan were repaid. He was doing well; the
racing season was in full swing.
William dined at Charles's place, and saw how
much marriage had improved Mrs. Charles. He
prefixed the Mrs.
- [ 26 ]-


TWO MEN AND A WOMAN
Charles laughed with the pride of possession.
Mrs. Charles looked at him strangely.
For long after he had gone home, Mrs. Charles's
fingers pained her where a ring had been pressed
into her flesh-when William had shaken hands
with her.
He was a frequent visitor after that dinner.
The end of July loomed—the time for Charles's
trip abroad. The end of July and the beginning of
August he would be in Marseilles. But for the fever
raging there, he would have taken his wife with
him-as it was, she would be left at home alone for
a month.
Not that she minded much. She had got very
tired of her husband in the few months they had
been married. Charles saw no flaw in her, but he
did not quite know her.
Many items in the grocer's bill, which were “car-
ried forward,” were from the wine and spirit de-
partment. Mrs. Charles had contracted a habit of
whiskey and soda drinking. It is a habit of rapid
growth. She got her whiskey that way, and her
busy little husband was none the wiser.
Her home would have disgusted a careful house-
wife, but loving Charles, so long used to a third-
rate lodging-house, saw nothing wrong in it. If he .
-[27]


THE MARG A T-E MYSTERY
could occasionally write his name on the dust on
the piano, that was no new experience to him.
Besides, was not his wife unwell? He thought
so. He was confirmed in the belief by the fact that
she was unable to rise in the morning and sit down
to breakfast with him. She had to have her break-
fast in bed, and usually arose about noon.
She had developed into a thoroughly lazy woman.
She had, she told herself, worked hard enough at
the Bon Marché to last a lifetime. She kept one
servant-perhaps that is wrong, she did not keep
them, they would not stand her temper. The ser-
vant she had for the time being, she left to do all
the.work. As she remarked, what was the use of
keeping a dog and barking yourself? The servants
barked, though, pretty freely-generally when they
were leaving, or talking to other people about
her. They were very fluent then. If there is any
truth in the saying, Mrs. Charles's ears must have
burned.
The day her husband went away she felt very dull.
She would have laughed at the suggestion that it
was because of his going. But one gets dull with-
out always being able to assign a reason for it.
Moreover, the whiskey did not seem to “pull her
round.” Perhaps—as she had no fear of her hus-
-[ 28 ]


TWO MEN AND A WOMAN
band's return—she exceeded her usual allowance.
It is possible to have too much of a good thing.
She told herself that she was leading a deadly
dull life, and that it was not endurable, and asked
herself why should she? Whiskey gives rise to
thoughts like those.
Then she sat down to her writing-table and wrote
on a sheet of note-paper :-
“DEAR Bill,—I am alone and dull. Come
round.
“ Yours,
“Lucy.”
This she took to the post-office, and to ensure
its immediate delivery, invested in threepennyworth
of express messenger. The post-office Mercury is
frequently despatched by Venus—the telegraph-
boy goes a long way. in
There had been times when William's eyes had
sparkled, his pulse had throbbed, and his hands had
trembled when he received a note asking him so
to call. But times change, and people with them.
As has been indicated, this was not the first note of
the kind he had received, and if he accepted the in-
vitation it would be by no means the first time he
had been to see Mrs. Charles when she had been
[ 29 ]-


THE MARGATE MYSTER Y
“ alone and dull.” Why, then, did he use a swear
word? Well-yes; he was getting rather tired of
her--men do. Somehow she did not appeal to him
-as she had done. He liked whiskey well enough,
but he did not like a woman to smell of it. Also,
there was some one else. Perhaps that was the
serious reason. It generally is.
The head barmaid at the “ Arms,” where he and
his partner did most of their business, had cast an
eye of—shall we call it love, for lack of a better
word ?-an eye of " love ” on him. She knew that
as Tom Arkwright's partner he must be doing well,
and she had an ambition to do well herself—an
ambition which may safely be labelled laudable.
Not that she was doing badly. There were no
troublesome check tills in the saloon bar, and, being
a far-seeing young lady, she did not spend what she
was able to “make" on herself—she carefully put
it aside. She had been so putting it aside till it ran
into over two hundred pounds. Which shows what,
even in the humble station of barmaid, can be done
by perseverance.
Her idea was to take a smaller public-house, a few
minutes' walk away from the “ Arms,” which she
knew was coming into the market shortly. It was
doing badly, but that did not frighten her-it would
[ 30 ]


TWO MEN AND A WOMAN
be a reason for its going cheap. Moreover, she
knew that she could herself draw away an appre-
ciable number of the “ Arms ” customers, and if
she could only get the Arkwright following, success
was assured.
Arkwright was a married man. William, she
knew, was free, hence her favoring the latter gen-
tleman. William fell into line readily. He liked
Polly, the barmaid—to use his own description, she
was “rippin'.” The assured position of a licensed
victualler appealed to him. They shook hands on
the idea.
The house did come into the market. It was a
tied or brewers' house. The brewery agent knew
Polly, and knew how she would be likely to work
up the trade. If she could find four hundred pounds
she could have the place. Polly had two. Could
William find the other moiety? So she asked him,
and he said, “ Yes, he could.”
And that promise, or rather the difficulty in ful-
filling it, was troubling William. He did not dare
ask Charles, practically the only friend who knew
little enough of him to lend him money, for two rea-
sons. More than half of the original loan of two
hundred pounds remained unpaid, and he knew
that his friend had not any such sum as he required
-[ 31 ]


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
at his banker's. After buying the furniture, settling
five hundred pounds on Lucy, and lending him two
hundred pounds, there was not much left out of the
thousand.
He had ideas of going to Lucy and asking her to
lend it him. He was an unmitigated cad, but even
he drew the line at that. Under the guise of friend-
ship, he had robbed his friend of his wife's honor,
and now he was thinking of—no, he could not, he
told himself, do that.
That afternoon Polly said to him-
“ There's a fortnight gone, Bill. You don't seem
to hurry up with that two hundred. Can't you
rake it in? Remember, there is only another four-
teen days, and then some one else will get the
place."
He was annoyed at that—at his inability to get
the money, and her reminder. So, when he went
home, and found Lucy's letter, he gave vent to his
feelings in one—and a generally considered expres-
sive—word.
Then he thought. Why should not he borrow
the money of Lucy? It could be repaid. No one
would ever be the wiser. Trust her to keep it from
Charley's ears—as she did everything else.
But when she came to know he was married?
-[32]-


TWO MEN AND A WOMAN
Phew!... Well, he would face that. She married
another man professing to love him.
That evening he went to her. She opened the
door to him.
“I've given the girl a night out,” she said, as he
entered the hall, and she closed the door; “if you
are going to take me out, I can take the latch-key.
Kiss me. .. I used not to have to ask you to
do so."
" I'm a bit worried, old girl, that's all. Don't ask
me to take you out to-night. It's a big mistake.
If any one who knows us saw us together, what
possible acceptable explanation could we give
Charley?”
“ Explanation!” she said, blending a whiskey
and soda; “it is rather late in the day for you to
talk of giving him an explanation, isn't it?”
He shifted in his chair uneasily and affected to
laugh.
“And now, what is worrying you, Bill?” she
said, sitting on his knee, with one arm round his
neck, and the other hand holding her glass.
“What worries a man most times ?” he answered
evasively, thinking how he could best broach the
subject of the loan he needed.
“Woman,” she answered promptly. “You don't
- [ 33 ]-


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
suggest I worry you? ... Who's the other
woman, then?”
She drew her arm from him as she spoke.
“Don't be a fool, Lucy."
“I don't mean to let you make me one."
“You know very well there is no other woman.”
The excellence of his lying was commented on
earlier in these pages. He practised the art success-
fully. She believed him; her arm went back.
“What's the trouble, then?” she said, affection-
ately. “Tell me.”
“I am hard up."
“ You are! I am surprised. I have heard Charley
say that you are making more money than he is.”
“So I am; it's quite true. But you see the racing
business is a funny one. There is a season when it
is on, and a season when it is off. Arkwright has
quaint notions. He is as straight as a die, but he
has his ideas, and won't depart from them. We
each draw enough to carry us on, a few pounds a
week, and not until the end of the year will he
divide up the profit. There it lies, over two hun-
dred pounds to my credit, and I can't touch a penny
of it till December.”
“I see.”
“I have an immediate need for two hundred
—[ 34 ]—


TWO MEN AND A WOMAN
pounds. If I could get that in a week, it means a
big thing for me. I have asked Arkwright, and he
won't let me draw a shilling beyond our agreed
sum. ‘Business is business,' he says. Of course
he is right, but it's rough on me, when I want two
hundred now, to know that I can't get it, although
I am sure to handle it in December.”
“I suppose there is no doubt about your being in
possession of it then—in December?”
“Of course not. I have told you it is there to
my credit now. There will be much more in De-
cember.”
"Supposing I lent you the money—till Decem-
ber, Bill?”
“ You!”
“Yes. I have got it, you know. About two
hundred, not much more. Don't you remember
Charley gave me as a marriage portion five hundred
pounds?”
“ Yes,” he answered, “ of course. Now I come
to think of it, I do."
“Well, I haven't got five hundred now,” she said.
“I have spent a lot lately; but I can manage the two
you want if I am sure you will repay me at the end
of the year. I must have it then."
“Of course.” He paused, wondering what she
-
[35]


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
could possibly have done with the other part of the
money. “Then you will lend it to me?”
“Well, yes—on conditions."
“ Conditions?”
“Yes,” she answered thoughtfully, as she twirled
the end of his moustache with her fingers,“ most
people make conditions when they lend money,
don't they?”
He was surprised. He wondered if she meant to
charge him interest! He inwardly laughed at the
idea, and then—with his arm round her waist-
inquired what the "conditions” were. He thought
that a good way in which to ensure easy ones. She
told him—
“I want you to myself. There's the condition.
It can be easily arranged. To-morrow is Wednes-
day. Next Monday is Bank Holiday. Take me
down to Margate for a few days."
He started. He had not expected to pay such a
price as that.
“The risk—"he commenced.
"Pah! There's risk about everything. Let
us have a holiday if we are never to have
another."
“If any one should see us?”
“Who should see us?”
-[ 36 ]-


TWO MEN AND A WOMAN
"Margate is thick at holiday time; it is an awful
risk.”
“Baby!”
“No, I am not, Lucy. I am thinking of you."
Which was not true: he was thinking of himself,
and what Polly would say if she should hear that he
was at Margate with another woman. It was an
unpleasant kind of thought.
“Don't mind me,” she answered. “I can look
after myself.”
“Well, we will arrange it, but we will not go
down together- ”
“What— "
“ Listen. I'll wire down to Rochester's Hotel-
prepaid reply—for numbers of rooms they have.
Book one in your own name openly, and the
adjoining room from another address in another
name.”
“M'yes. If you must be so careful.”
“ It is best."
“ Very well. When shall we go?”
“To-morrow afternoon. I can't get away earlier
and I am bound to be back in London on Tuesday.”
“If you must, you must.”
The pout was one of dissatisfaction-she had
foreseen and counted on a week.
[37]


TWO MEN AND A WOMAN
“Well, you shall touch it inside the week. I'll
give it to you the day you return to London.”
“ I can rely on that?”.
“Of course. Do you doubt me?”
“ No, dear old girl; no, of course not. But if
I can be sure of it, it will be such a relief to me.”
It was, too, a relief to him. It enabled him, when
he left her, to go to the other woman and say over
the bar-
" It's all right, Polly, old girl—the two hundred.”
She brightened; she had somewhat begun to lose
faith in him. She inquired
“ Got it?”
“ As good as. Shall have it on Tuesday morn-
ing."
“ Certain ? "
“Sure. Old aunt is going to lend it me. Old
woman is selling out Consols, and will have the
money by Tuesday morning. I have got to do the
dutiful, go down there to-morrow, and stay with
her. You bet I shall not come back without the
pieces.”
“I can tell Bass's man it will be all right?”
“Rather. I shan't see you, though, till Tuesday,
Polly."
- [ 39 ]-


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
“Oh, I'll try to survive—without you.”
“ You don't mind my going?”.
“If you are coming back two hundred pounds
heavier, I prefer it.”
Next morning Mrs. Charles discharged her ser-
vant and packed her dress basket. About one
o'clock a messenger came with a letter. It read:
“ Have arranged everything at Rochester's.
Booked rooms No. 23 and No. 24. The Margate
express leaves Victoria at five. Don't fail to be
there by then. Have your luggage put in the train.
I'll join you at the barrier with the tickets.
“Lovingly yours,
“Bill."
So at five o'clock they left Victoria, journeyed to
Margate, went by separate flys to Rochester's
Hotel, with an interval of some minutes between
each, and—and so on.
Somehow it was not a pleasant time for either of
them. For a man to have to make love to a woman
he dislikes—and his feeling for her had reached
[ 40 ]-


TWO MEN AND A WOMAN
that stage—there is scarcely anything more un-
pleasant. He is not himself when he is thinking of
the other woman.
Lucy's vanity would not allow her to guess at the
real state of things—that he was tired of her; but
she resented his coldness, and sought to raise her
spirits with spirits of another kind. That led to
more trouble, as the incipient intoxication she gave
signs of only disgusted him the more. One word
led to another-it usually does.
On Monday he managed to get her into a good
temper-or she allowed herself to be cajoled into
one. She wanted him to stop on after the morrow.
The subject of the two hundred pounds came up,
and she said,
“Oh, if it will make you any easier, have it
now.”
They were in the little sitting-room adjoining her
bedroom, and she drew her check-book from her
dressing-bag and dipped pen in ink.
“Shall I make it payable to Mr. Warner?" she
sneered.
"No,” he said, "scratch out 'order' and make
it payable to 'bearer.'”
She did so, and filled in the morrow's date, and
after signing, blotted and handed him the check.
[41]


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
“There,” she said, “now perhaps you are
happy."
“I'll never be able to thank you sufficiently for
this, old girl.”
“ I'm sure of that–because you'll never try.
What's the matter with you, Bill? What's made
you so queer lately? Getting tired ?”.
“Silly little woman! What on earth will you be
thinking next ? ”
“Well, I'm thinking now that you don't love me
half as much, or a quarter as much, as I love you."
“Rot! I have been worried; that is all.”
“Prove you love me, Bill—by doing what I ask.”
“What's that?”
“ I'm going to stop on till the end of the week-
stop on with me."
“My dear girl! did I not tell you that I must be
in town to-morrow morning? Wasn't that part of
our- ”
“ You refuse, then?”
“I must. I tell you I must be in town.”
They quarrelled again.
Next morning, the day after the Bank Holiday,
he went to her room early to bid her good-bye.
She was as savage as a bear at what she called his
desertion of her, and spoke her mind freely; and
[ 42 ]-


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
about two o'clock, that they should get down to
Greenwich Park on the tram-car, and come back
in time for an evening at the South London Music
Hall. This was their idea of an enjoyable time-
the palate of the Surrey-sider is not a diffrcult one
to tickle.
At two o'clock he called at her place, and handed
her the two hundred pounds. Then they went out.
In Greenwich Park they sat planning their future.
They would be married next week at the Registrar's
Office-William had given the necessary notices—
and so enter into possession of a new business as
man and wife.
As the shades of night fell they sought the roads
again, and, entering a restaurant, ordered a meal.
Whilst it was being prepared, William picked up a
copy of “ The Star,” and the caption of one of the
columns caused him to start. As he read, his face
took on the color of the cloth on the table, and
when he had reached the end he murmured, in a
tone of agony-
“Oh, my God!”
Polly had seen him start when he looked at the
paper, but the act of reading had hidden his face.
Now, as he spoke, she said sharply-
“What is the matter?”
- [ 44 ]


TWO MEN AND A WOMAN
Fortunately, they were the only people seated in
that particular compartment. He was unable to
answer her. He sat as one turned to stone.
She snatched the paper from his nerveless fingers,
and her eyes were attracted by the big type. She
read:
"MURDER
AT A MARGATE HOTEL.
Woman Found Dead in Bed.
FLIGHT OF THE MURDERER.
POLICE HAVE A CLUE.
“This morning much excitement prevailed in
Margate by reason of a rumor which quickly
spread that a murder had been committed. Unlike
many rumors, there was a foundation of fact, and
our special correspondent learned on inquiry of the
police that a murder had undoubtedly been com-
mitted. At this stage of the affair the police are
very reticent, but the facts appear to be as follows:
A lady named Mantock, whether an assumed name
or not is not known, booked a room at Rochester's
Hotel on Wednesday last. She either knew, or
made the acquaintance of, a man named Warner,
who occupied the adjoining room. A chambermaid
- [ 45 1


THE 'MARGATE MYSTERY
reports that Warner was seen in the deceased's
room this morning. The woman was crying, and
said to Warner, 'You are trying to kill me; you
want to see me dead,' or words to that effect.
Shortly after that Warner paid his bill and left the
hotel. Some time after, the same chambermaid
entered the woman's room, and was horrified to
find the occupant lying on the bed black in the face.
There had evidently been a struggle, and the
woman was quite dead. Police and medical men
were hastily summoned—the latter arriving too
late to be of any service. The police searched for
verification of the woman's name, and, if possible,
her address, but so far have found nothing. Her
room was taken by telegraph, but the telegram
itself had been destroyed. The police will, of course,
inquire through the postal authorities, and will no
doubt get at the real name and address through the
deceased's bankers, a check-book being found in
her dressing-bag. Curiously enough, according to
the counterfoil, the last check drawn was dated to-
day, and was for exactly two hundred pounds. The
police are said to have a clue to the murderer's
movements.”
“Are you Warner?”
-[46]


TWO MEN AND A WOMAN
Polly was speaking. She was a shrewd little
woman, and usually touched the spot. A barmaid's
life tends to bring out this trait.
He nodded.
“ This woman was your aunt?”
He started at the suggestion, but, as the drown-
ing man clutches at straws, nodded again.
“ You killed her?”
“No, no-oh, my God! no—don't think that."
Polly was a woman quick of thought. She did
not believe him guilty, although from his admission
it looked like it; yet, she argued, he would never
have told her as much if he were. Her mind was
quickly made up.
“Your description by this time will be circulated
at every police station. Take off that light coat you
are wearing. That's it. Here's dinner; eat, or
pretend to eat.”
They played with the food. Unseen by the res-
taurateur, Polly swept part of the meal into a news-
paper and bunched it up. After an interval, she
rapped for the waiter, and the bill was paid.
Whilst the man went for the change, she said to
her companion-
"Pull yourself together. We passed a hat shop
a few doors down. What size hat do you wear?
- [ 47 ]-


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
... Good. I'll go in and buy you a soft brown
felt.”
The waiter returned with the change, and they
left the restaurant, William carrying his light coat
and Polly the bundle of food.
“Walk on to the corner,” she said, when they
reached the hatter's, “and turn up the street; it
leads to the Park.”
In a few minutes she joined him.
“Come,” she said, “it is dark here. Roll the coat
up, and leave it on that seat. . . . Some one will
find it and take it away. . . . Stamp on that bowler
hat, make it flat;.we will take that with us."
They went back to the main road, and, hailing a
cab, were driven to the Old Kent Road. Here they
alighted, discharged the cabman, and, walking a
little way, hailed another. In that they were driven
close to Polly's room. En route she flung the
crushed bowler from the cab window.
It was dark, and the street in which Polly rented
her room was quiet. She had a key, and let herself
in. Being holiday time, her landlady was out; not
a soul noticed their entrance.
“Swear to me,” she said, “ so help you God, that
you did not murder this woman.”
“Oh, Polly, Polly! don't think it! I-do I look
11
- [ 48 ]-


TWO MEN AND A WOMAN
like a murderer? Good God! that you should
think me capable of it! No, no, no; a thousand
times no."
“Yet you were under another name.”
“ Yes, I know that, but— "
“Don't tell me anything. Somehow, I don't
think you murdered your aunt— ”
He started.
“But I don't want to hear any details. They
would make me feel sick. You must keep close.
Until the guilty man turns up you won't be safe in
any public place. I'll sleep at my sister's to-night;
you sleep here. To-morrow early I will bring you
a razor and scissors. You must cut off that mous-
tache and beard. It will change you a lot.”
“Oh, my God ”
“Keep quiet. Excitement won't do any good.
One other question, though, before I go. Your
aunt gave you this money voluntarily; it is not ”-
she shuddered—“ blood money?”
“Oh, no, she-she-gave it to me last night.”
“M’well, I believe you. She could not have
signed a check very well if- Well, there, I believe
you, Bill. I don't think you would be fool enough
to try to deceive me. Perhaps the murderer will be
arrested before morning. Let's hope so. Good-
- [ 49 ]


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
night, and keep up your heart till I come in the
morning.”
She kissed and left him.
His thoughts all that never-seeming-to-end night
it is impossible to depict.
-[50]-


PART II
Polly's Reason for What She Did
CASON FOR
The Barmaid's Story
·
| AM Mary Ann Drew—and I am not ashamed
1 of my name either, or anything I did in con-
nection with the Margate Murder. Mr. Lanward,
the author, is poking his nose into the matter-
with a view, he says, of letting the public know the
truth—but for my part I think sleeping dogs should
be allowed to lie. Besides, no good can come of
raking things up now.
I think myself that there ought to be some law to
prevent authors making capital out of real inci-
dents, disturbing and worrying and distressing
people by dragging into the light of day things
which would be the better for being left in the dark.
If an author hasn't sense enough to invent a plot,
then it is time he took to bricklaying, or some-
anyway-useful sort of business.
Mr. Lanward came to me, and told me what he
intended doing. I informed him that I absolutely
-[517-


THE MARGA TE MYSTERY
declined to tell him anything about it, and he
twiddled his moustache and replied that he was
very sorry, that it would trouble him to tell the
story for me. I hate sarcastic men.
Just as he was leaving my bar parlor, into which,
as he looked like a gentleman and had asked to see
me privately, he had been shown—I am in business
for myself now—I called him back, and said-
"I am to be held up to ridicule and contempt in
this account of yours, I suppose?”.
"My dear madam,” he replied, with a suavity
which made me hate him, “a moment ago you told
me you had done nothing to be ashamed of. Surely
if light is shed on what you did, you will see no
contempt in it?”
“That's just it,” I answered. “I know what you
writing men are. The staff of the ‘ Brixton Por-
cupine,' the ‘Surrey Starlette,' and other papers
used to come to the ‘Arms' when I was barmaid
there, and some of them use this house. I know
what writing men are.”
He bowed and said he was flattered that I should
include him in so excellent a literary circle—that I
did him an undeserved honor. I went on-
“Knowing you boys as I do, I know how in your
hands you will twist and torture the truth- ”
- [52]


POLLY'S REASON
“Permit me to interpose,” he said. “Believe me
that the truth so rarely passes through my hands
that when it does I handle it with singular care. I
look upon truth,” he continued, fixing his eye on a
girl about it pretty sharply when he'd gone) “ as a
sort of butterfly. Handle it, and you ruin it. The
feathers come off on your fingers, and the beauty
is to be looked at, seen and loved; never touched.
As the poet hath it: 'For truth has such a face
and such a mien, as to be lov'd needs only to be
seen.'”
“ I've no time to listen to poetry-spouting,” I
said. “If your time is of no value to you, mine
one o'clock.”
“Then,” he said, picking up his hat, “I must
crave your pardon for the portion of your time I
have wasted; and in saying farewell, beg you will
permit me to send you a copy of the book when
published, containing my account of your account
of the affair.”
“When you were gassing about truth just now,"
I said, “ did I understand you to mean that you
wouldn't touch or alter or cut out or put in the
[53]


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
account I should give you of my part in the
affair? ”
"Madam,” he said, with one of those irritating
little bows of his, “ you have gauged my intentions
with an exactness which excites my wonder and
admiration.”
“ Supposing,” I said, “ that I sat down and wrote
it all out. Do you promise me that every word of
what I write you will print ? ”
“I pledge you my word of honor to that effect.”
“Words of honor amongst you writing men,” I
retorted, “ don't go far with me. I have a slateful
of them at the back of my bar. They were gener-
ally given me when the pledger had left his purse at
home on the piano. Yes,” I continued reflectively,
“I used to have a lot of pledged words of honor,
but I've got over taking them now. I just point
to a card I have hanging up in the bar. It has a
pithy sentence printed on it. It reads:' Poor Trust
is dead; Bad Pay killed him.'"
“ There is a delicacy—a subtlety I may say-
about your utterances, madame, which convinces
me that you are destined to shine in the particular
sphere "
“Shut it," I interposed. “I don't want any soft
soap. I'll do it—I'll write out all my part of it. It
[ 54 ]-


THE MARG A TE MYSTERY
“That's more poetry,” I said with the contempt I
felt. “Useful on a greengrocer's or a flour bag,
but on a man's lips—pah! you make me tired.”
He seemed to shiver a little in his fur coat at that.
I had evidently hit him where the pain was, touched
the spot, as it were.
“And now I've got to look after my cook," I
said; “will you have a drink?... No?
. .'. Well, you're the first writing man I ever
knew refuse a glass of beer when it was offered
him!”
He seemed to shiver again, and opened the door
as if he'd be glad to get away.
“I have the honor,” he said, “ of wishing you a
very good day.”
" Pleasure,” I said, “pleasure. You've got
more pleased feeling than honor about you. So
long."
He went. I noticed that he did not offer to
shake hands as he left. He was a bit sick, I expect.
Thought to ride it over me easily, and found his
mistake out. I haven't met a man who's been a
match for me yet. I haven't been behind a bar for
seven years for nothing—not me. As to Mr.
Lanward, I reckon I gave him quite as good as
he gave me. I hate a man who puts on side and
Seven
-[56]-


POLLY'S REASON
waxes his moustache—I don't know which I object
to most.
And now I'll sit down and write out fair and
square—relying on nothing being altered—my
connection with the matter.
Before I was landlady here I was barmaid at the
“ Arms." I got pretty well known there to the
customers, and was a bit of a favorite with them
—which, partly, accounts for my doing so well
here.
I knew William Bankes when he was a city clerk.
He used to come in and smoke and have a drink or
two in the evenings. He was sharp with his tongue,
and as I like a bit of repartee, I was always glad to
see him.
There was one gent-one of our customers
who was not so glad to see him-Tom Arkwright,
the bookie. Bankes used somehow to be able to
spot the winners, and he put his little bit on the
four-legged 'uns with Arkwright. Arkwright had
more often to pay over than to receive, and that
made him mad. Bookies don't feel too full of glad-
ness when they have to pay out—it isn't their
nature.
What first drew my attention to Bankes's so fre-
—[ 57 )


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
quently winning was the regularity of his bets—he
never went beyond a dollar on any one gee-gee.
"No," I've heard him say, “ I'm not going to
lose my head because a six to one chance romps
in with a length to spare. I'm in luck, that's all.
But I'm not going to tempt it. If I lose a dollar
or two it won't break me, but if I lose quids it
might. No big bet for me, however often I win.
I'm not having any."
You see why I was attracted ? It was such an
unusual trait in a young man's character. Most of
them, if they win a bit, plunge, “ follow their luck,"
as they call it, and either end up at the Old Bailey,
or with their arms round their mothers' necks, and
her few valuables in the pawnshop-put there to
keep her son out of a mess.
It was so unusual that I thought-got to think
—what an excellent husband (from the point of
view of carefulness) Bankes would make.
One night when Arkwright was paying over to
Bankes the latter's week's winnings, he said to
him-
“It would be cheaper for me, Bill, to take you in
as a partner.”
“ Right you are," replied Bankes, smart with his
tongue as usual, “ I'm on. Why not? I'm looking
-[58] -


POLL Y'S REASON
out for an investment of all my winnings. You'd
get a bit of your own back that way.”
“Do you mean that? ” said Arkwright.
“ Of course.”
“Well, look here, Bill, I'm getting tired of too
much work; I can afford to rest a bit. If you can
put a couple of hundred in the bag as a sort of
security and premium, I'll take you in and give you
a sixth share. The biz is all right, you know."
“I know that,” says Bill shortly.
He seemed rather staggered that what he had
said in a joke was taken seriously. But his eyes
sparkled. It opened up to him a future more gor-
geous than a city clerkship offered.
Well, to cut a long story short, he put in a couple
of hundred, and Arkwright and he were partners.
They did well. I was interested, and watched.
Arkwright was satisfied. He sat and smoked his
cigar, and Bankes did all the work, and the busi-
ness increased.
After some months I heard that “The Henry
VIII.,” which was only a few minutes' walk from
the “ Arms," was likely to come into the market.
The trade had gone down so—owing to the boss
being more often in D. T.'s than out of them—that
it was certain to go cheap. It was a tied house-
- [ 59 ]-


THE MARG A TE: MYSTERY
Bass's—and I knew their traveller well. I spoke
to him, and he spoke to his people for me. At last
they offered to find all the balance on a five per cent.
mortgage if I could plank down four hundred
pounds. They gave me a month to make up my
mind and find the tin in..
I am a careful girl, and I had saved just over two
hundred pounds—the question was, where was I to
get the other two hundred pounds from? And
then my mind went to Bankes.
You see I knew that I should draw a lot of the
best people from the “ Arms." I had been there
long enough and played my cards well enough to
get liked; and I thought what a grand thing it
would be if I could get Arkwright and Bankes's
following, because when a man came in with a slip
of paper, with the name of a horse on, in the palm
of one hand, he had—as an excuse—to have the
price of a drink in the other.
Bankes was gone on me. I am not a fool. I
know when a man's just chaffing, and when there's
an undercurrent of truth—corn in the chaff, as it
were.
I called him “ Bill” and he called me “ Polly.” I
knew he was a careful, cool-headed, shrewd busi-
ness man, and I reckoned that if he could raise that
—[ 60 ]-


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
pounds on the following Tuesday—the day after
Bank Holiday. He had, he said, to go down to his
aunt's place the following morning, and would
stop there till the Tuesday, and bring up the money
with him.
He went, and I saw nothing of him till the Tues-
day following—the day of the Margate Murder.
He came in the bar about dinner time, and I could
see by the pleased look of him that it was all right.
We had had an awful hard Bank Holiday in the
bar—you remember what the weather was, that
accounted for it—and the Boss saw I was dead
tired, in fact I had worked like a nigger. So he
gave me the afternoon and evening off.
I told Bill so, and we arranged to go to Green-
wich on the cars for a blow, and to do the South
London in the evening. He arranged to call round
at my place for me—where I rented a room-at
two o'clock.
He came. He handed me the promised two
hundred pounds, and I put it with the other money
I had saved for “ The Henry VIII.” change, and
stowed it away in safety.
We got on a car, and when we reached Green-
wich, found a seat in the Park, and sat there talk-
ing and arranging things till it got quite dusk.
- [62]


POLLY'S REASON
Then we thought we should get something to eat,
and after that, car up to the “ Elephant and Castle,"
and toddle into the South London.
In the main road we found one of those Swiss
cafés, where you can get a meal at all hours,
provided you don't mind it out of tins. We en-
tered, and ordered chip potatoes and a steak-
they're things you can reckon on as never being
tinned.
Whilst they were cooking the meal, Bill picked
up an evening paper, and I noticed him start when
he saw the top line of one of the columns. He
drew the paper closer to him to read the smaller
print, and I could not see his face. I did not worry.
I thought he had seen something startling about a
horse.
Presently I saw the paper shaking in his hand,
and it gradually dropped or was lowered to his
knees. Then I saw his face—and I nearly jumped
out of my skin at the sight of it, it was so deadly
pale. And then Bill sort of groaned out-
“Oh, my God!”
I can tell you I was a bit startled, but I didn't
lose my head. My losing it wouldn't have helped
him to find his. I said,
:“What's the matter?”
- [63]


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
But he was too dazed to answer. I picked up the
folded newspaper, and in large type I saw-
MURDER
AT A MARGATE HOTEL.
Woman Found Dead in Bed.
FLIGHT OF THE MURDERER.
POLICE HAVE A CLUE.
And then I read the report. Until I had got
nearly to the end I never suspected that Bill had
anything actually to do with it—I thought that he
recognized the name of the woman perhaps.
Then suddenly I remembered that Bill had used
the name of Warner in betting advertisements he
ran from a newspaper shop in the Camberwell Road,
where he used to have his letters left. Then there
was the extraordinary coincidence of two hundred
pounds. Two hundred pounds! - exactly the
amount he had handed me that afternoon!
I did not lose my head-it never pays to do that
—but I thought promptly. I looked at Bill, and
somehow I formed the opinion that he did not look
like a murderer. Moreover, I thought that if he
really were guilty he would not have been so startled
at seeing the report in the newspaper, because the
SO
- [64]


THE MARGA TE MYSTERY
And he nodded again-still unable to find his
tongue. I was 'cute enough to see that if the two
hundred he had given me was the fruits of that
check she had drawn—referred to in the newspaper
report—she must have been alive when she signed
it: in other words, that he could not have killed her
for it. I, however, made assurance doubly sure. I
inquired-
“You killed her?”
And he found his tongue then, protesting his
innocence. Somehow, I believed him, and just then
the dinner was put on the table. He could not
touch a bit—not a mouthful. I ate some of mine
for the look of the thing, and because if you've got
anything to do, it's as well to do it on a full stomach.
Hunger may be a good sauce, but it's no condition
to be in when you have got things ahead to do.
And there were things to do, and I could very
plainly see that Bill alone wasn't capable of think-
ing for himself—at that moment he had not as
much brains as a black beetle.
I swept the uneaten dinner into a newspaper and
made a parcel of it, which I could hide under my
cloak, intending to throw it away when we got
outside.
I made Bill take off the light-colored coat he
-[66]-


POLLY'S REASON
was wearing—for it was pretty certain that his de-
scription had been telegraphed all over England by
this time—and we went out in the direction of
the Park again.
I had got the number—the size—hat he wore,
and as we passed a hat shop, I went in and got a
soft brown felt whilst he walked on.
When in the shelter and darkness of the Park, we
left the light coat on a seat, and there was a slight
change in Bill's appearance.
In the main road again we hailed a cab, and were
driven as far as the Old Kent Road. We dismissed
that cab, and a few minutes after took another and
drove into the street next the one in which I lived.
I got Bill into the room I was lodging in without
a soul being the wiser, and we arranged that he
should lie low there until the real murderer was
apprehended. I had no doubt that that would
happen, and meanwhile it was as well to prevent an
innocent man being arrested, as of course it was
more than likely Bill would be if seen.
I left Bill (as I was going to sleep at my sister's),
promising to visit him in the morning with a razor,
so that he could remove the beard and moustache
he was wearing, in case the landlady happened to
see him in the house, and the newspapers printed a
-[67]-


THE MARG A TE MYSTERY
description of him. I was going to tell my land-
lady that he was a brother of mine up from the
country.
I had to be in the bar-I was the head of the
saloon bar—first thing in the morning to put out
the change, and see everything was in order. After
that-between nine and eleven-was a slack time,
and I knew I could slip out, get a razor, and take
it, with something to eat, to Bill.
Whilst I was drinking a cup of coffee, I picked
up the morning paper, and I think I must have
gone white at what I read there—I felt so, anyway.
Bill must have been lying to me! There was the
story all set out. The previous evening and night
the police had been busy and ferreted things out.
The murdered woman was a wife, and all the while
Bill had been pretending to love me he had been
carrying on with her!
Savage! Was I? What do you think? It was
good for Bill I was not within a yard of him, or he
would have had an embrace from me he had never
bargained for.
I read on, and found out Bill's true character-
the deceitful, lying beast! The police got to see
-through the post office—the telegrams handed
in at Brixton about taking the dead woman's room
,
- [68]-


POLLY'S REASON
at the Margate Hotel, and they got the other tele-
gram booking the adjoining room in the name of
Warner, in the same handwriting. I, of course,
knew it was Bill's! And all the while he was telling
me-oh, it made me sick to think of him!
The bank cashier described the man who had
cashed the two hundred pounds check-Bill's de-
scription. It was not his aunt he had murdered,
but a woman he was tired of, and perhaps afraid
of—afraid lest she should turn up and make
things unpleasant when she heard of his marriage
to me.
He had been with her at the very time our names
were down for marriage at the Registry Office!
I can tell you it made my blood boil. He had
robbed the other woman of two hundred pounds,
killed her, and then came to me with words of love
on his lips.
Did I buy that razor and get a nice breakfast
together for him ? You bet not.
I got leave to go out for an hour, and I took the
tram-car which passes the Stones End police sta-
tion. I went to Stones End because I knew the
head men there; some of them used the “ Arms”
when off duty.
I went in, and I saw Inspector Johnson talking
-[69]


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
to another officer. I marched up to him. When he
saw me, he said,
“Hullo, Polly! What's brought you out so
early ?-after the early worm?”
“No,” I said; “ I have come to give you a bit of
information. You have got a description of the
man wanted for the Margate Murder?”
I saw his eye turn involuntarily to a green-baized
board on the wall, whereon a number of pieces of
paper were stuck.
“Yes,” he said, “we have got his description.
Do you want it? Is he a friend of yours?”.
“ Yes,” I said shortly, “or, rather, he was.".
The two officers had listened to me quite good-
temperedly so far, with smiles on their faces; they
evidently thought the matter a joke.
“ You haven't arrested him yet,” I continued.
“I have come to tell you where he is.”
Inspector Johnson let the smile leave his face.
" Polly," he said, “there is a time for all things.
I know you love a joke dearly. But a joke at the
"Arms' and a joke in a police station about a mur-
der, are songs in two very different keys. Drop it,
my dear—it doesn't sound funny."
“Funny!” I answered. “I am not trying to
be funny. You want Warner-but as yet you
-[ 70 ]-


THE MARGA TE MYSTERY
“Do you take me for quite a fool?” I said. “You
must. Do you think I don't know ? Can't you see
I'm speaking the truth?”.
“Well, I should think so but for the fact that I
know—it is common property—that you are en-
gaged to Bill Bankes."
“ Was engaged to him," I said. “Now, I take it,
he'll be engaged to the hangman-the beast!”.
“Oh,” he said, a light coming into his eyes, “ you
have quarrelled ?”
“Not a wry word. But I have found him out.
He is waiting at my room for me to bring him
breakfast—you take him a pair of handcuffs, won't
you?”
He looked at me thoughtfully for a moment, and
then said
“The street door? Any difficulty in getting in?
Whose house?”
“No difficulty—here's the latch-key. Let your-
self in, and don't forget second floor back room.
Go up quietly and knock. He'll open readily
enough, thinking it's me. There's one thing more.”
I had got up and had a hand ready on the door to
leave; “promise me you won't bring my name into
this. I am just taking a little place for myself, and
I don't want to be mixed up in a murder case. I
- [72]


POLLY'S REASON
have done you a good turn, promise me you will do
this for me-keep my name out of it.”
“Right you are,” he answered.
Then we both said " Good-bye,” and I got back
to the “Arms." The evening papers were full of
the arrest. They vied with each other in eulogizing
the astuteness of the officers-practically without a
clue—tracing a man under another name from
Margate to Brixton in so short a time. Nothing
laudatory enough could be said about the intelli-
gence of the police.
The intelligence of the police has its South aspect
- like most other things.
-[73]





PART III
On a Murder Charge
Inspector Johnson's Arrest
I DO not know that I can add anything to the
1 reports which appeared in the newspapers-
except that you tell me that Miss Drew-Polly
Drew-has spoken, and there is no longer a need to
conceal the fact that I got the information from
her which led to the arrest.
Mr. Lanward tells me that a movement is on foot
to right what was wrong, and that I shall be assist-
ing by giving even the remotest detail of evidence.
For my part, I cannot see that any good will re-
sult from opening up the matter now-still, Mr.
Lanward came to me armed with authority from
headquarters, and I have promised to set down my
introduction to the Margate Murder case, and the
rest of it appears, of course, in the reported pro-
ceedings.
I have known Polly Drew for some three or four
years. She used to be the prettiest and cheekiest
[75]


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
barmaid at the “ Arms,” and was a big attraction
there. She is now—as she terms it—" on her
own”; in other words, keeps“ The Henry VIII.”
On the morning following Tuesday after Bank
Holiday, Miss Drew came into the station. I hap-
pened to be there talking to the sergeant on duty.
I greeted her jocularly, for she was always a
sprightly girl, full of jokes, but she seemed pretty
full of seriousness just then. She brought up the
subject of the murder and the murderer.
I warned her that the law and murder were not
things to be trifled with—still thinking she was
joking—but the serious look in her face made me
at last grip on to the fact that she was talking in
earnest.
I took her into the inner office, and she almost
took my breath away by what she told me—that the
man she was engaged to, William Bankes, was the
murderer.
I fitted in the description of the man who had
last been seen with the murdered woman at Mar-
gate, as supplied by the Kent police, and, sure
enough, it fitted Bankes.
Why I say it nearly took my breath away is be- .
cause I knew Bankes-knew him quite well. Had
had many a drink with him at the “ Arms ” when


ON A MURDER CHARGE
off duty-and if the truth must be told—had had
many a half-dollar on a horse with him. I had al-.
ways found him travel as straight as a dart, and he
was about the last man I should have thought of in
connection with bloodshed.
Miss Drew soon satisfied me that she was speak-
ing the truth. It was a bit hard to believe at first,
because it was common talk in the “ Arms ” that
she and Bankes were going to be married.
I quickly discovered the reason of her coming to
the police with information, though—she had got
her knife into Bankes. Jealousy was prompting
her-jealousy and wounded vanity. I don't know
where the police force would be but for the green-
eyed monster. The tips and clues we get from
jealous women are of more use to us than all Scot-
land Yard put together.
Once I was satisfied, I lost no time. She gave me
the address-a room she rented—where Bankes
was lying hidden, and the key of the front door.
Then I said “Good-bye ” to her.
I took two plain-clothes men, and in a four-
wheeler we were driven to Atlantic Road. Going
along I said,
“ Undo your bootlaces. We shall have to slip
upstairs in our stockinged feet. He's on the second
-[77]-


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
floor, and the sound of men's footsteps might create
trouble.”
So when the cab was stopped a few doors off No.
42a, we were in a position to slip off our boots in a
second. I told the cabman to wait, and walked up
the steps of 42a. The latch-key fitted, and in a mo-
ment we were all three inside, with the street door
shut, taking off our boots.
I put a finger to my lips, and holding my boots in
the other hand, led the way quietly upstairs—my
two men following. On the second floor we put
down our boots.
I turned the handle of the back room door, and,
finding the door would not open, tapped with my
knuckles cautiously. There was a creaking of an
iron bedstead, a sound of a man springing from it to
the floor, and a voice which said-
“Is that you, Polly ? ” and the key was turned.
That moment I turned the haridle and pushed
open the door. When Bankes saw us he uttered a
stifled groaning sort of scream, and staggered back.
One of my men went over to the window, the other
put his back to the now closed door.
“Police !” dropped from the prisoner's trem-
bling lips.
“Yes,” I said;“ I come to arrest you for— ".
- [78]


ON A MURDER CHARGE
“ I know," he answered, before I could stop him;
“ for the murder of Mrs. Mantock at Margate.”
“Don't speak,” I intervened,“ till you hear me.
It is my duty to tell you that whatever you may say
now will be used against you in evidence later on.”
He sat on the bed, and, burying his head in his
hands, groaned. Then he stood up as if he were
summoning all his courage to appear as a man be-
fore us, and said,
“ You are taking me to the station?”
“Yes," I answered; "put on your coat. There
—let me give you a hand.” The poor devil was
trembling so he could not find the arm-hole. “ And
now give me your promise to walk downstairs and
into the cab I have waiting, quietly, and I won't put
the handcuffs on:”
He nodded; he seemed so overpowered that he
could scarcely speak. Huskily, he said,
“ Let me have a drink.”
And he lifted the jug which stood in the wash-
hand basin, and drank deeply from that-there did
not appear to be any water-bottle in the room.
“I am ready,” he said. “Oh, I have not got my
boots on." A sickly smile came on his face as he
lifted a boot from the bedside with a shaking hand.
“Give him a hand with them, Parker," I said to
-[79]-


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
the man guarding the exit, at the same time setting
my own back against the door.
By that means we got him ready quickly. We
clapped his brown soft hat on his head, and after we
had, one by one, fastened our own boots, we went
downstairs into the cab, and were driven to the
station.
En route the prisoner did not speak a word. He
was formally charged before the Inspector on duty,
and put in the cell whilst we wired to the Margate
police.
Three of the Kent men came up at once, and were
enabled to take the prisoner back with them the
same day. The next morning he was charged at the
Margate police court.
I have set out in detail every trifling thing which
occurred, as requested. The evidence at the trial
was strengthened by what the prisoner said when
lie was arrested, and, of course, it weighed—I must
say that. It was not thought that an innocent man
would have spoken so.
So far as I am personally concerned—that is all
I have to say.
-[80]—


PART IV
THE BRIEF FOR THE PROSECUTION
The Author Speaks
I WAS sitting alone in the Temple—where the
1 barristers come from.
That very feeble effort at a joke, built on a worn-
out threadbare foundation, will show you the state
of mind I was in. Put it down to illness—for I was
ill. If I had not been ill, I should have been down
at the Kent Assizes; this was the last day of them.
I shared chambers in King's Bench Walk with a
well-known barrister. His name appeared on the
door, “Mr. Raymond Matthews,” and beneath it
appeared mine, “ Mr. Richard Lanward.” We had
lived together there on and off for years. In the
early days when briefs were few, and manuscripts
were more often—much more often—rejected than
accepted, and now somehow, when the sun of pros-
perity shone on us, we clung to the dear old cham-
bers in the dear old Temple.
The law gave me many a point for the fiction
-[81]-


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
work I was engaged on, and when my stories are
spoken of as being realistic-I am afraid that is the
only true word of praise spoken of them-I often
think how much of the realism comes from the
courts of law. How much stranger-trite as it may
be to say it-truth really is than fiction.
It would be a poor morning that a penman would
spend at a Metropolitan Police Court without gath-
ering sufficient plot for a story. Life in so many, so
varied, phases is seen there.
It came about that, being in that seedy condition
a man runs into who spends July in London with
his nose on the grindstone, I ran down to Margate
in August to recuperate.
Whilst there, the Margate Murder was com-
mitted—I say " the,” because of its kind I think it
came to be thought the most sensational one of the
century. As a matter of curiosity, I was present at
the first examination, which resulted in a formal re-
mand after the adduction of the police evidence. A
stronger power drew me to subsequent examina-
tions.
No matter I had ever listened to held me so
tightly as did this murder case. I heard all the
evidence given. There was, practically, no defence.
The evidence for the prosecution, if circumstantial,
- [82]


THE MARG A TE MYSTERY
junior brief for the prosecution. That looked to me
like the point of the finger-like the stretching out
of the long arm.
I determined to go to Maidstone, to be present
at the trial, although, of course, I knew I could do
nothing but look on. I did not expect to find any
pleasure in the attendance. I should see the man I
believed innocent standing in the most awful posi-
tion in which a human being can stand-on trial for
his life.
God knows, it must be awful enough for a guilty
man to be cooped up, week after week, brought out
at intervals to be gazed on as some monstrosity, and
ultimately condemned to die. But for an innocent
man to be so treated, it must be a thousand, thou-
sand times worse.
I could not attend the trial. I lay a victim to
influenza when the Assizes began. I was only re-
covering from it when they ended.
Matthews knew my anxiety about the case-in-
deed, had ridiculed it, for all he knew me so well,
and had witnessed so many instances wherein I had
been right in my facial reading.
So that, as the afternoon merged into evening
that day of the trial, I sat in an easy chair anxiously
waiting the arrival of the telegram Matthews had
-[84]-


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
I thought how it would sound in the ears of an in-
nocent man. Those dread concluding words which
the judge uses-
“You will be taken to the place from whence you
came, and hanged by the neck until you are dead.
May the Lord have mercy on your soul!”
I could picture the dumb horror of the listening
man in the dock-too dazed to realize that an inno-
cent man could be found guilty, could have been
sentenced to death for a murder he had not com-
mitted. The idea was horrible. .
What could I do? Nothing—absolutely noth-
ing. I was but an unit-a tiny speck in the great
seething mass of humanity—possibly the only soul,
save the real murderer or murderess, who believed
in the convicted man's innocence.
Rat-tat! The telegraph boy again. Another
wire. It read-
“ Coming home. Shall reach you nine-thirty.
“MATTHEWS.”.
I was glad he was coming home; I was most
anxious to hear the details of the trial—he could
give them me; he had held a brief for the pros-
ecution.


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
from every other soul-save yourself—but I can't
help it."
“That is the way with me, Mat," I responded
eagerly. “Ask me for a reason—a solid, tangible,
cogent reason-for my belief, and I cannot give you
one. But the feeling, the faith, the belief are here
all the same.”
“I have held briefs in half a dozen murder cases,”
continued Matthews, “and it has been no business
of mine to do otherwise than to defend or prosecute
the prisoner, as the case might be. I have generally
gauged the innocence or otherwise of the prisoner
rightly. In this case the evidence is as clear as day-
light. Everything points to guilt, and yet I believe
that poor devil, cooped up in his cell now, with the
sentence of death ringing in his ears, is absolutely
innocent."
“ It is so, Mat; it is so, I am sure.”
“Supposing it is,” he answered bitterly, “is it
my business or yours to stir in the matter? Are
we to say that the judge, the jury, the whole court
were wrong, and that we two are right? And, even
so, to whom are we to say it? Do we thirst after
the reputations of idiots? Do we hanker after being
laughed at? Do we yearn for the finger of scorn?”
“No, Mat," I replied, soothingly; "all that is
-[88]-


FOR THE PROSECUTION
quite true. ... You do not, of course, see your
way to putting your view of the matter before the
Home Secretary?”
“ Good God, no! I don't covet the character of
an imbecile—and I should be thought that, or
worse, if I moved in the matter. The judge himself
warned the prisoner to expect no mercy, or recom-
mendation of it.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. Besides, it would be sheer audacity for
me, a junior, to pit my opinion in that way. The
and he would at once say, as he did, that he coin-
cided with the jury.”
“Who was leading you?”.
"Jackson, Q.C., and when I-tentatively-sug-
gested the probability of the prisoner's innocence,
he looked at me to see what manner of idiot he was
with. Of course, I retired into my shell. A repu-
tation for stupidity is easily gained at the bar—and
it is not a profitable one. I don't hunger after it.
I have my living to get.”
“And the prisoner his death," I remarked, sol-
emnly.
"Good God, yes—don't I know it?” he said,
springing to his feet and pacing the floor. “ And it
-[89 )-


T Ꮋ Ꭼ
M A Ꭱ G A T E
M Y S T Ꭼ Ꭱ
Y
is death-absolute death. That man will swing on
the gallows as assuredly as I am walking this room
now.”
“ The idea is horrible!”
“ Horrible? It is revolting! I have had that last
scene of all before me all the way up in the train
from Maidstone. Ringing in my ears—mingling
with the rattling of the train—I seemed to hear the
wail of a dying man crying out on the scaffold, 'I
am innocent!'”
“ Mat, dear boy, sit down; - you are taking it
worse than I am," I said, soothingly. “ After all,
we have really nothing to do with the matter."
“For you, yes—that applies. But I helped to
weave the rope that will be put round his neck. I
drew from the witnesses the answers which blended
to his destruction—the strands— "
“ But, Mat, it was your duty."
“I know, I know, I know. But will it make my
regret any the less keen if ever the real murderer is
discovered ?”
“Mat, there must have been something happen
at the trial to make this affect you so."
“There was not; not a thing. Jackson made the
speeches; I took the examination and cross-exam-
ination. All that while the prisoner fixed his mute,


FOR THE PROSECUTION
horrible, astonished eyes on me. Good God! shall
I ever get the sight of them out of my mind? I
never before saw such a look in a human being—I
pray God I never may again. If this kind of thing
is to happen,” he continued, with a nervous laugh
as he sank into a chair, “I shall throw up the
criminal and keep to the civil side. My nerves are
shattered.”
I mixed him a whiskey and soda and he gulped
it down. I realized then that he had had no food
that day. I quietly pushed the biscuit box his way,
but he ignored it. He went on-
“I saw that astonished, frightened, horror-
stricken look in a dog once. You remember
Willie Carter, who read up Roman with us for the
Exam. ? He developed insanity, as you know, and
it took the form of disliking those he had cared
most for, even hating them.”
“So I heard.”
“You remember that hound he had ? Big, beau-
tiful, intelligent creature, with eyes that spoke to
you? ... That dog knew there was something
wrong with his master, and sat watching him by the
hour, alert to his slightest movement, obedient to
his slightest wish.”
"I remember the dog.".
-[91]-


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
“I was sitting with Carter-his attendant had
gone on to the balcony—when suddenly the fit
seized him. He picked up a stick which he used
to walk with when taking exercise, and thrice—so
rapid were his movements—he furiously, fiendishly
struck that dog across the face and head before I
could restrain him, before my call brought in the
attendant, before we had got the stick away, before
we were holding him down, foaming at the mouth.”
“ Horrible!”
“ That faithful beast never turned on his master,
never sprang at him, but into his eyes came such a
look of grief blended with horror and astonishment
at being treated so by the one he loved, that I have
never forgotten it. I have the look of those eyes—
framed in the blood which oozed from the wounds
-indelibly printed on my memory. I did what I
could for the animal, but the look kept in the eyes
till they gradually glazed and—and he died."
“Poor beast!”
“Till my dying day I shall have other eyes pres-
ent in my memory—the eyes of the man who
watched me weaving strand after strand in the rope
which is to hang him; the eyes of the man who was
sentenced to death to-day.”
“Was there no fresh evidence offered, nothing
-[92]


FOR THE PROSECUTION
beyond what transpired at the police court exam-
inations? I was there, at each, you know.”
“Here is my brief,” he said, taking it out of his
bag as he spoke. “Go through the proofs. ...
Firstly, there is the policeman who took him into
custody. He swore, and it was not contradicted,
that when arrested the prisoner said, 'I know what
you have come to arrest me for—the murder of
Mrs. Mantock at Margate.'”
“Yes, I noted that. But it was the day after the
murder. The morning papers, and the previous
evening's specials, had fairly long reports."
“ Then there is the evidence of the Brixton post-
office girl. She attended on subpæna, and produced
the three original telegrams. Listen to her proof:
“On the Wednesday morning preceding Aug-
ust Bank Holiday the prisoner came into the office.
I was at the telegraph counter. I know the prisoner
well as being a betting man; he sent a great num-
ber of telegrams. I know his handwriting be-
cause I have seen him fill up so many forms in the
office. He handed me the telegram I now produce.
It is in the prisoner's handwriting. It reads:
“Rochester Hotel, Margate.—Let me know num-
bers of the bedrooms you have vacant for a week
from to-morrow. Reply paid.—MANTOCK, 17,
Globe Road, Brixton, Surrey.” I was on receiving,
-[93]-


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
not on despatching duty, so did not see the reply
wire. About an hour after, the prisoner came into
the office again, and filled up two forms at the office
desk. I produce them. One reads: “Rochester
Hotel, Margate.-Book room 23 for me, for a week,
shall be down this afternoon.—MANTOCK.”. The
other reads: “Rochester Hotel, Margate.—Please
book me room No. 24, am coming down by train to-
day.—WARNER, 70, Camberwell Road.” 70, Cam-
berwell Road, was a news agent's, and one of
the addresses at which the prisoner had letters
and telegrams sent him. 17, Globe Road, was
another address he used.'
“ That,” said Matthews, “was the telegraph
girl's evidence. Colquhoun, who was for the de-
fence, jumped up and admitted the handwriting; of
course, there was no denying it.”
“And the telegram from Margate?”
“ With the number of rooms? Another girl from
the Brixton office proved despatching it to 17,
Globe Road, by one of the messengers. And we
were saved the necessity of proving its receipt by
the prisoner—Colquhoun admitted it.”.
“From the very commencement the thing looks
shady—the clouds are over it.”
“Yes. With the prosecution the first thing is
motive. In opening, Jackson, of course, harped on
[ 94 )


FOR THE PROSECUTION
the two hundred pounds; theorized that the pris-
oner lured the dead woman to Margate, stayed
there himself under another name, robbed her of
the money, murdered her, and then bolted.”
“But a check- "
“I know, I know, I know. But look how the
clouds bank up, and thicken and blacken as the evi-
dence is unfolded. The murdered woman is the
prisoner's paramour! He is down there under an
alias!”
“Yes ”
“ Then—if he really is innocent—see how he is
hurt by the chambermaid's evidence. 'I went into
the bedroom,' she says; 'the prisoner was standing
there, and the murdered woman was crying. I
heard the dead woman say to him, " I believe you
are doing your best to kill me; you want to see me
dead."! There's evidence for you—meaningless,
perhaps; just a hysterical woman's complaint. But
mark how it tells from the witness-box; see how a
jury receives it, how it twists the rope tighter.”
“Yes, I see that."
“ The chambermaid went on to swear that the
murder was committed on her particular floor, and
that from the time of her seeing the prisoner in the
room till the discovery of the murder she did not
-[95]


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
leave that floor-she was occupied the whole time
bed-making, dusting, and clearing up generally in
the opposite or adjoining rooms.”
“But not all the while in sight of the murdered
woman's door. Did not Colquhoun make capital
out of that?"
“That was the one little rag he had, and he wor-
ried it for all it was worth. But it was no good.
The girl swore she saw no one come up the stairs,
that all the rooms were unoccupied—it was a fine
morning, and I suppose all the hotel visitors were
on the front—that she never heard a scream or
the slightest noise of a scuffle or struggle after the
prisoner left. That the prisoner stayed in the
room some minutes after she left it, and when he
came out told her not to disturb Mrs. Mantock
for two hours, and then to take her in some hot
water."
“ Another cloud.”
“Of course. Jackson enlarged on it-painted it
as an excuse to allow time for the murderer to get
away. ... The bank clerk recognized the pris-
oner, remembered his coming in on the day of the
murder and cashing a check for two hundred
pounds, signed by the deceased.”
“Ah! That is a point which struck me at the
der and cachas coming induced the pris.
-[96]-


FOR THE PROSECUTION
police court—the two hundred pounds. Did it
come out at the trial? What became of it?”
“No. The singularity of that struck me, but it
was not the business of the prosecution to trace the
money; it was sufficient to show that the prisoner
cashed the check.”
“ True.”
“Medical evidence was to the effect that death
was caused by strangulation—the finger marks
were around the woman's throat—and that when
the doctor saw the body he estimated death to have
taken place about two hours prior."
“ About the time the prisoner left the room?"
“Precisely."
“Was the husband—Mantock-present at the
trial?”
“No. Typhoid is raging in Marseilles, and an-
other medical certification attached to a declaration
made before a Marseilles magistrate was put in.
Mantock has not left his bed for weeks, and is too
ill to be informed even that his wife is dead-apart
from the horrible nature of her death, and her—his
—dishonor.”
“Did it take long for the jury to make up their
minds? ”
" Long? They were back in court, and sentence
-[97]


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
of death pronounced within five minutes of the
judge's summing up."
“They had no doubt?”
“Not the suspicion of one-nor had any other
soul in court. Nor, I believe, has any one else, save
our two selves.”
“ This man will be hanged-when?”.
“Oh, in about three weeks from now. I don't
know what is to be—what can be done, but what-
ever it is, it should be done at once. Can't you-
from the world of fiction—suggest the possible per-
sonage who committed this murder? Imagine it
one of those detective stories in which your tri-
umphant detective turns up at the last moment, and
claps his hand on the one being the reader has least
suspected right through the book.”
I shook my head.
“I have considered this murder case for hours
together," I said, “and the difficulty is to suspect
any one. The most likely person would have been
Mantock—the injured husband—but for the fact
that he was in Marseilles.”
“Yes, but then that would be too much like a
book story. How could he-assuming for the mo-
ment the possibility of his guilt-have hit on the
exact time of his wife and the prisoner being at
.
-[98]


FOR THE PROSECUTION
Margate, and then commit the murder in such a
fashion that the whole weight of suspicion falls on
the man who has injured him? There would be a
sort of—a certain amount of_dramatic justice
about it, perhaps, but it sounds too much like one
of your book plots.”
“And yet," I answered, “ unlike most axioms,
there is a solid foundation in the trite ‘Truth is
stranger than fiction.' And fiction suggests an-
other-I admit absurdly remote-explanation.
You remember Poe's story, 'The Murder in the
Rue Morgue?' ... The escaped ape? ... Well,
near this particular hotel at Margate is a menagerie,
you will have seen it-you pass it leaving the rail-
way station—wild beast show, pictures hanging all
over a public house, flags flying, and an announce-
ment that its proprietor is of England's nobility-
that it belongs to Lord George Sanger.”
“Oh, yes, I know it; it is a common object of
that seashore."
“ The monkey house there is its great feature. If
you have been into the place—I have—you will
know that you pass through a long, gorgeous-in-
mirrors-and-gold dancing saloon, walk through the
grounds, and at the end there is a building devoted
to the animals needing shelter and warmth—promi-
— [99]-


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
nent are the monkeys. I have seen there large ani-
mals—the orang-outang, and little monkeys you
could pick up and put in your pocket.”
“You suggest that a large ape might have com-
mitted the murder?”
“It is scarcely a suggestion. But inquiry might
be made as to the escape of any ape on that par-
ticular day. It will need careful inquiry, for the
men keep these escapes of wild animals close. Per-
sonally, I don't think much of the idea. But it is an
idea, and it should be followed up. Poe's story was
enthralling, blood-curdling, interesting, but it does
not bear cold analysis. Still, I say again, the theory
of the ape-considering the adjacency of the
menagerie, needs looking into.”
“I agree.”
“I have more faith in the husband theory—a
weak, wavering, flaccid faith, but it exists. If well
enough to-morrow, I shall cross the channel, and
see Mantock at Marseilles.”
“ If he is alive.”
“Why do you say that?”
“ Because of the medical certificates produced in
court. 'Been confined to his bed for weeks and
dangerously and seriously ill,' they read.”
“Well, I shall go.”
-[100]-


FOR THE PROSECUTION
“I would not attempt to dissuade you. Person-
ally, I shall go to Margate. I cannot possibly leave
England just now. I have so many cases in the list,
I must be in touch of the courts—and I shall look
into this ape idea of yours.”
“Bred,” I interrupted, “purely bred of Poe's
Rue Morgue story. It is an idea almost ridicu-
lous."
“But still,” replied Matthews, “worth investiga-
tion. I shall put up at Rochester's Hotel. There,
I think, there is a possibility of finding some clue.
Frankly, I half suspect the chambermaid.”
“The chambermaid ? "
“Yes. If you work this tangle out, and acquit-
as we do—the prisoner, you will find that apart
from the ape and husband theory, there is only the
chambermaid left.”
“True," I replied, thoughtfully. “ But born of
that suspicion, arises the question: what could have
been her motive?”
“Think one out,” said Matthews. “See if you
can formulate a theory—as I have done.”
“Was the dead woman of violent temper? Did
she enrage the chambermaid? Did the chamber-
maid in her temper seize the dead woman? Did
the dead woman suffer from heart disease, and did
ZS
-[101],


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
the shock of that seizure or the heat of her temper
bring about death? Did the chambermaid, alarmed
to find herself alone with a dead woman, hurry out
of the room and say nothing about it?”
“Yes—theories all good, but, to me, they lack
originality. I thought of all those things in the
train. I went further. I even in my own mind ac-
quitted the chambermaid of murderous design, and
yet made her compass the death."
“How?”
“The theory was bred of a perusal of the dead
woman's hotel bills—they were put in evidence.
Whiskey was the chief item—she was evidently a
big drinker. I theorized that she was perhaps in a
state of incipient D.T.'s when the chambermaid en-
tered her room, after the prisoner had gone, and
there is no accounting for what a woman under the
influence of drink will do. She may have seized
the chambermaid, who, in self-defence, brought
about the death. The heart of a heavy drinker is
not a good thing to give a shock to.”
“True."
“ Imagine the position of that chambermaid,
standing there alone with a woman she has killed.
What is the natural thing for such a girl to do?
Not face the music; not to go out and boldly say:
- [102]-


FOR THE PROSECUTION
“I have killed her, but I did it in self-defence,' be-
cause she thinks she will not be believed, thinks she
will perhaps experience the handling of the hang-
man: the half-educated woman thinks that way.
There is an easier course open to her—she would
adopt it; creep out of the room, summon all her
courage, and when-after an interval-she was
quite herself, play the part this woman did
play.”
“Did you put any questions to her, whilst she
was in the box, likely to- "
“Dear boy! She was a witness for the prosecu-
tion. One can't examine one's own witnesses !”
“Of course not. I was not thinking. You are
going to Margate—I am glad. I shall go to Mar-
seilles.”
“I, too, am glad. It leaves no stone unturned.
The husband, the chambermaid, and the ape: there
are the three clues we have to work on. You are
taking the one; I am taking the two. Later on we
will compare notes."
“ Good. I shall leave for Marseilles-queer as I
am-in two days. I shall be able to travel by
then.”
But I was not; I got worse, then better. Under
influenza you fluctuate so, and the worrying to get
-[103]


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
well did not make me do so any the quicker. At
last I was able, after many days, to travel. I
thanked God for that, for every day brought nearer
the day of execution—it was now horribly close.
I went to Marseilles.
--[104]


THE MARGA TE MYSTERY
Jacques, as to misunderstand me,” he continued;
“humor is a quality sadly lacking in my character
at the best of times—now it is absolutely eclipsed.
I am sad. Sad because of the failure of a purpose-
a mission I set out to Marseilles to accomplish. I
am setting down, with the object of ultimately pub-
lishing it, a record—you are an item in that record.
I want my picture in it to appear clean, and, where
I have met other people, with my picture painted by
them. I have met you.”
I grinned—these English express themselves so
quaintly. He went on-
“What I lack in humor you make up, my good
Jacques. A man who can smile so seraphically as
that last contortion of yours indicated, after three
weeks' confinement within these walls, with the
overhanging probability of three years' imprison-
ment ahead, is, in my eyes, a humorist of the first
water. Mark Twain and Jerome K. Jerome fade
away into insignificance beside you. I said three
years, but the gendarmes tell me that it may be
five or seven years. Doubtless you have stụdied
the question, as it affects you so closely. For what
period, think you, will you be at the service and
disposition of the Republic?”
“ That, M'sieu," I replied, " is in a measure on
- [106]-


CELLAR IN MARSEILLES
yourself dependant. We here—our juges—in la
Belle France are led much by the prosecutor. He,
by his way of evidence-giving, makes light the juge-
ment-or heavy."
“Good, Jacques,” said this idiot of an Anglais,
placidly. “If you realize that, it simplifies my pres-
ent task. My evidence-giving,' or the manner of
it, shall depend on yourself.”
“How, M’sieu?”.
"Write me down-truthfully, absolutely truth-
fully—the whole details of your meeting with me,
what you did to me, and— ”
“M'sieu Lanward," I say, “ you to me lie when
you say you lack humor. Humor! Mon Dieu,
you brim, running over with it. You think before
my trial I am so big fool as to a confession write?
What you for take me?”
“ At present,” he responded, “for a very thick-
headed sort of idiot. Confession or otherwise, your
conviction is certain—you admit that? ... Very
well, I practically offer you terms. That is, I will
not paint the incidents of our meeting—and your
subsequent hospitality-in too rich a vermilion. I
shall tell the truth and leave it without embellish-
ment.”
I saw this pig of an Anglais was in earnest. It
ca
- [107]


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
was as well to with him make terms. Not the first
time France has had to make terms with England.
I said
“That is bargain, eh? I set it all down in ink
on paper, and you—you make things as light for
me, eh?”
"Accurate, friend Jacques; quite accurate.”
.“ Very well,” said I. “ Bargain be it. Leave me
sous for paper and ink. ... Good! Cigarettes,
eh? Oh, yes, we are to smoke permitted—this is
France, M'sieu. In our prisons a man is innocent
till he is proved guilty. Ah, ‘Little Caporals!'
Good! I smoke these and I write. Come you to-
morrow, M'sieu, and I have the detailed writing for
you ready. Adieu ! ”
So it comes about that I, Jacques Lemaire, am
down sitting writing details of the offence for which
in a few days I tried shall be. Not that it is the first
offence—by many. Still, my luck has been ascend-
ant, not find out has been for me before. And now
-well, what would you? It is the fortune of war.
I take my punishment like a man—but I take it in
a small dose as possible.
You will be acquaint with the railway station at
Marseilles, the refreshment buffet of course? It has
to me been a happy ground of hunting many times.
-[108]


CELLAR IN MARSEILLES
One night I was standing there on the watch. It
is good to watch. It is easy work, and you never
know what fools turn up—fools it pays to know. I
was standing there with my wife.
Ah! my dear wife—may the curses of Hell light
on the traitresse—I must to you her present.
English of course. That for the saying goes. No
French woman would betray the man she lives with.
She say now I betrayed her! Pah! These English
can never see nothing in the right lights. That I
promised to marry her and did not—what of it? a
detail. It did not her justify in me getting years
imprisonment. But that matter not. Years slip
away—will my desire for revenge on the woman
who put me away so slip? I think not-I think
not.
But to the station. The train arrive. Passengers
alight. Some stop, some go on—it is ever so. I-
it is my occupation to spot amongst the voyageurs
the fool. Most of the English is fool. He comes
wrapped up so in himself—it is not a good protec-
tion for him, not against men like me. So.
I see a fur-coated, wax-moustached Englishman
conversing to another man at the buffet. Fur
coat, wax moustache-well, they indicate, do they
not? I need not say more. When he remove his
-[109]-


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
glove I notice great sparkling diamond. I like dia-
monds. They have an irresistible for me attrac-
tion. So.
Say the other man to the fur-coated one-
“I am sorry, Lanward, old chap, you are not
going on. The South is good just now, and here
in Marseilles things are bad. Fever is raging, and
every second street flies a warning flag. Come with
me.”
“Dear boy," answer the man Lanward, “I
should just like to. I have been sick, and fain would
I recruit in Nice. It would pick me up. But I
came here on business. I am bound to go through
with it."
“Oh, I know your character—when you have
your hand to the plough, etc. Well, there's my bell.
I must get along. Awfully glad to have had the
pleasure of your company so far. Good-bye. . . .
Good-bye.”
He ran out to his train catch. Lanward was left
alone. He finish his refreshment, pull out his chro-
nometer—the red gold show in the light—then
slowly pull on his glove, hiding the diamond I had
determined should be mine.
I-quicker—had my mind made up. To my wife
I had quietly spoken-given her the directions what
-[110]-


CELL AR IN MARSEILLES
to do. Reluctantly she comply. She know that
otherwise when we reach home I caress her—with
my doubled up hand. I to correct her have had sev-
eral times. She work only when urged. Very
mulish these English women. I had direct her to
work M'sieu Lanward on the will dodge—it never
fail. It appeal to the sympathy, not to the pocket-
excellent therefore for the English. Sympathy cost
nothings.
... It was a succès. He leave the station with
her. She-they-go left, I go right. Therefore, at
our house I arrive first. Therefore prepared am
I for our guest-prepared with a chloroformed
sponge.
He come in. “This way,” say my wife. He come
in almost to my arms—rather that I let him pass,
and so seize him from behind. The chloroform soon
effect its work—it is a drug most reliable. He
struggle a little, then fall down—the rest is easy,
mere child's play.
Below the level of the street, the back room is
away from hearing. Some it a cellar would call-
but I, I content myself with naming it a room. Con-
venient for detaining when need of secret confine-
ment.
To this I drag M'sieu Lanward. To the wall a
-[111]


CELLAR IN MARSEILLES
guage! Present I to you my wife! Shock her not,
I pray you, with the adjectif vigoureux!”
So far from him soothe, he the more excited
become. Despite my assurance of the stability of
the chain and belt, he try strongly to break away,
inferentially doubting my word—which is sad
to me. But I smoke on at my cigarette. I not fol-
low his example and my temper loose—there is no
need.
“When you have quite done, and calm off," I
say, “conversation will interest you. Take your
own times.”
He look at me with the bloodshot in his eye-
but I have faith in the belt he lacks. I know it
hold—therefore retain I my frigidity. He say-
“What devil's trick is this? What is the mean-
ing of this, you murdering thief?”
“ Come, come,” I say, with good temper the most
perfect. “You me must not libel like that. So far,
I have not murder you. I have not even rob you-
yet.”
“ Then what the devil does this mean?"
“I use your own words. You say murder-rob.
Good. It will certainly be one—whether two, with
yourself it rests.”
He look the question he want to ask-look it
[113]


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
with his eyes, with which some of the bloodshot has
changed place with fright. I answer that look.
“M'sieu, I will with you be franc. Premier, I
to you introduce myself—Chevalier d'industrie!
Livings are so difficile to ensure on the lines of
honesty. Therefore, take I to the less arduous but
more profitable methods—what would you?”
“ You are a damned thief!”.
“M'sieu!” I throw up my hands in affected
horror; “M'sieu! such adjectifs with Madame
present! You shock me. I must send Madame
away."
I do so-to the station with the registration
ticket for the voyageur's luggage. He say-
“Get to the bottom of this hellish scheme, what-
ever it is. Let me know the worst. What is it?
Robbery, or robbery and murder?”
“Dependant on M'sieu. Robbery in any case,
murder—perhaps.”
“If I scream for help "
“ Try it, M'sieu, try it. It exercise the lungs; it
do no other thing."
He saw by my coolness that we could not be
heard, that we were out of the shot of the ear. He
had more sense than usual with those who have
worn the iron belt. I not like that—the bigger the
-[114]


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
your future guests—suggest that the padlock
placed in front instead of behind would allow of
greater ease when leaning back? Pray do not think
I am finding fault with the manner in which you are
catering for my comfort. I merely draw your at-
tention to a trifling detail.”
Certainement he is the coolest one who has ever
been belted to the wall. So much so, that I give
him the cigarette and light without so much as
speak.
“Now," he say, “ as you appear to be in no hurry
to leave, and as I cannot leave although I am in a
hurry, how would it be if you gave me a little infor-
mation, eh? Not necessarily for publication, you
know, but as a guarantee of good faith.”
I liked not this tone of banter. It made difficile
the work I had before me to do. He go on-
“Does it pay, now, my friend ? does it pay? I
have gone into figures with many an English rogue,
and upon my word I have always worked out that
honesty, in addition to being, from the proverbial
point of view, the best policy, is distinctly more
remunerative than dishonesty."
“Think you," I say, with sneer on my lip, “ to
convert me?”
“God bless your simple heart and soul! No,” he
_ [116]


CELL AR IN MARSEILLES
replied, laughingly. “Once a rogue, always a
rogue. I have seen too much of life not to know
the real value of the word reformation. Besides,
men of your calling are necessary. You keep em-
ployed hundreds of people. I went through figures
with a prison commissioner once, and do you know
that we estimated that, directly and indirectly,
every single dishonest person brought about the
employment of thirteen honest ones? Of course,
that was in Merrie England-possibly you manage
those things better in France."
The prolixity of my prisonnier began to grow on
me weary--more so because, perhaps, I not quite
see what he drive at. He go on-
“Now, take my case. You have turned me over
and what have you gained ? I haven't twenty
pounds in money, the gew-gaws on me the most
kindly uncle in the world-oh, by the bye, they
don't hang out the Lombardy sign here, do they?
It's Mont de piété or nothing—would not lend fifty
pounds on. That is a total of seventy. Again I
ask you—with the fear of detection and its results,
is the game worth the candle ?”
“I have of detection no fear," I respond shortly;
“I cover my feet marks too well to be trace. Be-
sides you catalogue not well your effects. Your va-
- [117]


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
lise—now being fetched from the station bureau by
my wifes—it is so far to me an unknown quantity."
He laughed. He say—
“You will be disappointed, Chevalier; there is
not a thing in it beyond a change—as I expected to
be back in London within a day or two. ... Now
see here: I have told you that I look upon men of
your class as necessary evils. It is not my business
to rout you out or coop you up. I leave that to the
police. Let me promise to give you no trouble and
let me go. I quite recognize that you have the
whip-hand, and I admire the ingenuity with which
you got it."
My wife return at that moment with the voy-
ageur's valise. I start to undo the straps.
“One moment,” said the prisonnier politely, “I
can, perhaps, save you trouble. Let me go now
with my bag and ten pounds. I'll promise to return
you that ten pounds, looking on it as a loan. ...
You need not smile, some men have sufficient
honor, you know, to keep their word. In addition
you have security. My jewelry will not fetch you
fifty pounds. I would not part with the watch alone
for twice that amount–intrinsically it is not worth
five pounds. Let me have an address where an ex-
change can be effected and I promise to give you
-[118]


CELLAR IN MARSEILLES
for the watch one hundred pounds. . . . You may
trust me. When I was a little chap only five years
old, and was taken in to see my sick father, he
stretched his thin, weak arm under his pillow and
drew that watch out. He was too far gone to speak
to me, to say good-bye, but the watch was his last
gift to me; before the hands had gone half-way
round its face the giver was dead. ... I am not
trying—I never essay a hopeless task—to rouse
sentiment in you; I am only rendering you proof
that I am in earnest in what I say."
1—I did not trouble to make the reply. I had
unstrapped the valise and was now trying the voy-
ageur's bunch of keys. He assisted me.
" It is hard,” he said, “ to be doubted, but as you
seem to think there is value in the bag, I will save
you time. The stumpy little key next the longest
one opens it.”
I insert the key he indicate—the valise it open. I
over all the things go-looking carefully for
pocketbook and papers. I look for what the
English rarely travel without; presently I find him.
Then I push aside the valise.
“There,” said the prisonnier," was I right or
wrong? Let me have another cigarette, will you?"
With his wish I comply. I also draw out my own
(
wn
[119]


CELLAR IN MARSEILLES
“You spoke of murder just now," he say, “in too
light a tone to seriously entertain the idea of it. I
do not fear for my own life—not a scrap. I can
read humanity pretty well, and if you loaded a pistol
and sharpened a knife under my very nose, I should
not fear-I should know you are too great a cur,
too great a coward to kill. That you are capable of
torture, I do not doubt, but you will do nothing to
bring about the flashing of the knife of the guil-
lotine over your head.”
I started. He had read me exactment. In all
my time I have the line drawn at kill—anything but
that. The sight of blood to me-Bah! I shudder
myself now as I pen the paper. All the same, sur-
pris am I that he peruse so my face, read so the
nature of me. But I determine not to exhibit that.
He go on,
“The fact that you can keep me here a week I
grasp—I am helpless in your hands. But no victim
you have belted here before can ever have prayed so
earnestly for his liberty as I do to you. On my lib-
erty-in all human probability-depends another's
life.”
I look up. He do not strike me as a liar, this
voyageur—so he interest me. He go on-
“In a few days' time from now, a man who is
[121]


THE MARGATE : MYSTERY
lying in the condemned cell at Maidstone Gaol will
be launched into Eternity by the hands of the hang-
man. He is innocent of the crime. I came here to
Marseilles in the hope that I might learn something
which would enable me to go back to England and
obtain his reprieve. Whilst he lives, there is hope
that the real murderer will turn up. In that pocket-
book there is a newspaper report of the trial-look
at it. . . . Read it, I beg of you, to find confirma-
tion of my words.”
I just glance at the journal and toss it to Madame.
I say to her-
“You complain of no English journals. Behold
one; read you that.”
Then I go on looking at the voyageur. I turn
round. I see my wife has fallen asleep on the
ground. I half rise to kick her to wakefulness;
then think: What matter? So I leave her there.
The voyageur he continuer-
“ As an act of mercy, for God's sake, let me go.
... Ah, I know you think I speak for myself.”
Then in despair tones he say, “ And I shall never
make you think differently—you cannot grasp
it. Oh, my God! this is terrible! terrible! ter-
rible! That poor wretch at Maidstone!” He
sink then his head in his hands and say brokenly,
-[122]—


CELLAR IN MARSEILLES
-
“Oh, God! be merciful to him; be merciful to
him.”
It strike me as the ludicrous to hear from one
prisonnier prière for another. However, there
come look into the voyageur's face, which make
me bring my mirth to a quick finale. Of course
I know the belt and chain are secure—all the same
it not nice look on the voyageur's face, I am glad of
my confiance in his bonds. So then I proceed to
business. I say,
“M'sieu, I will explain the need for your cap-
tivité. You English you rarely travel without your
checks-book-you are not exception. Behold.”
At that I hold up his checks-book which I have
from his valise removed. I see plainly he not under-
stand yet. So I say—
“M'sieu, I have here préparé pens and ink. You
fill me up a checks. ... Do you not comprendre
now?”
“Whilst it is being cashed, you devil, I am de-
tained," said the Englishman. “Yes, it is pretty
plain. And it is ingenious—at any other time I
could find it in my heart to admire the ingenuity,
and now I am just cursing you mentally for all I
am worth.”
“Curses," I say, “not trouble me. Apart from
-[123]


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
the proverb you have in your own country that
they roost like chickens when they come back. I
have been cursed so often times that they roll off
me like the waters from the back of the canard."
“ Marseilles to London and back-even if you
went yourself— ".
“Oh, M'sieu," I interposed, “ do not pay me so
poor a compliment as think I trust others! Be-
sides, M'sieu will be quite safe. I take the belt key
with me.”
“ It would not take a week,” he went on, not re-
gard paying to my interposition. “You could be
back in less than three days. . . . Come, I will
make it worth your while to so hurry back. Keep
the watch, be back before three days, set me free,
and afterwards I will give you a hundred pounds
for the watch."
“ It could be done,” I said, hesitating, as if I
thought of his ideas falling in with.
But in my mind I had no such intent to trouble
me. When in London my work was accomplish, I
should run down to Margate for a few days—it is
place I often go to, am fond of—why not? Prison-
nier quite safe if I have key and Madame feed
him. So.
“Of course it could be done,” he said eagerly.
- [124]


CELL AR IN MARSEILLES
“ You are a greedy beast, but I suppose you must
have your ransom. Pass the check-book and ink
along. . . . How much are you going to de-
mand?”
“I am but a poor man,” I began.
“ Cut the cackle and come to the horses,” he said
inpatiently.
I look my want of understanding, and he go on-
“ Cut the cant. For what amount am I to fill in
the check?”
“For no amount," I say.
“What the devil do you mean?”
“I shall want you to make it payable to bearer.”
“So I imagine—for what amount?”.
“No amount! I have a little form of words
which are excellent use. I have try them before-
they have not fail. I would rather you word the
check my way.”
“Well, what are they?”.
He pause, pen poised in air.
I pull out from my pocket little portfeuille in
which I make notes. All times notes are useful.
He watch me with air impatient as I wet my thi mb
and turn over leafs. At last I come to the prea
page, and I read it out to him. I say,
“ These are the words I want you to write-
-[125]-


CELL AR IN MAR-SEILLES
rap on the wall; she come to you, and can send
boy with message. You touch me," I say mock-
ingly, “ in my tender heart with accounts of man to
be hanged. Hurry you up in your mind-making,
so that it be not too late. Come, Marie,” this to my
wife who has awakened some time.
We go out and leave the prisonnier in dark.
Good thing dark-brings them to senses quickly. I
say to my wife in a whisper-
“I shall be round at the Café Egalité. Send little
Pierre from next door for me the moment should he
ask. But I am afraid he is obstinate pig."
But he was not. I go out, and in less than an
hour little Pierre come running to me fetch. I
drink up my absinthe and smile. Hurriedly I re-
turn. To my wife I say—
“Well?”
“He knocked on the wall. I called out, 'What
do you want?' and he replied, ' Send for that beast
of a husband of yours, and tell him I will give him
what he wants. So I send little Pierre for you."
“Good!” I say in the approval tones. "I looks
a fat bird this; and if his bank balance is so you
shall have something good for present.” 5
I take up lamp and reënter the cellar. He greet
me at once-
[127]—


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
“Will you promise me," he say, “if I give you
the check that you will travel night and day so as to
be back here to liberate me within three days? ”
“Oh, yes, certainement," I say—without the
slightest intent of so doing.
“Can't you cash the check and wire your wife to
set me at liberty?”
“No," I say with the smile, “not at all. I feel
safer with the belt key in my pocket. Besides, I like
not to take chances. Offense here and offense there
two different things."
“Very well,” he says, “have it your own way.
Only remember that I rely on your being back
within three days.”
“You will be quite safe to do so," I say.
I hide the smile round my mouth with my hand.
The simplicity of this Englishman make him very
amusant; they are all times the same, the English.
He fill up, sign the check, and I pocket it. I
draw out my watch and see the time. I see that I
am too late to catch the Paris train. So I arrange
to go on the morrow. The prisonnier fume at that,
but I have the checks.
I call to my wife to pack bag for me, as I start in
morning.-:. After to repose. ... Then arise
and make my toilet for voyage. I to England have
-[128]


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
the counter. Suddenly I say without think-I am
so overcome by the magnifique amount-
“ All in gold, please.”
So soon as I say that, I could have my tongue bit,
because so foolish it was.
“ All?” say the compteur—no way surprised.
“Very well. Will you kindly step into the man-
ager's room there at the end? They keep the gold
done up in thousand-pound packets to save the
trouble of counting.”
I go there to the end as direct. A door with a
glass panel face me. It have the word “ Manager"
paint on it. Gently I tap and a voice respond-
“Come in.”
I turn the handle; I go in. At his desk I see man-
ager sit with pen. I advance with bow of politeness,
hat in hand, to him, when from behind side of screen
I see uniform of English police! My faith! My
heart stand still. I smell a trap. I turn round, dash
to the door, open it, run out—and fall over the out-
stretched leg of a detective there. Miserable me!
Of a truth it was most humiliating. Moreover,
things to make worse, my nose bleed when I fall on
him—on the front of my chemise. Truly, the police
are most brutal.
I am taken before a magistrate and remand,
-[130]-


CELLAR IN MARSEILLES
“pending,” he say to me politely over his glasses,
“ the extradition proceedings.”
For days this “pending ”go on, and ultimately I
am taken to France and lodged here—here am I.
The charge: kidnap and rob—but fortunately for
me it was Englishman. My nation like not the
English—the man who stand on the dung-heap,
flap his arms and cry all day, “ Cock-a-doodle-do!”
They are droll, these English—we French we esti-
mate them at their worth.
What will happen to me? Goodness knows-so
much rest on prosecutor. Still, M'sieu Lanward
has keen eye for humor. When I tell him of the leg
of the detective which cause my downfall he smile.
When I tell him of my nose that bleeds on to my
front, he smile again. Good sign, smiles. If he not
color things up I may only go for two years. Let
me hope so, because I want prompt return. I have
things I want to say to my dear wife. Want them
to say so badly that I cannot scarce contain myselfs
when of her I think. My wife! Ah, yes. We shall
meet again. I live till then. So I hope will she.
After? Well, I would face the guillotine for her
sweet sake. We shall see what we shall see. Au
revoir !
-[131]-





PART VI
A Free MAN AGAIN
Marie's Contribution
M R. LANWARD gave me “ The Confession of
IV Jacques Lemaire” to read. It amused me a
little—the portion devoted to threats. Threats are
so empty. I note that Jacques refers to me as his
wife—a questionable honor. And yet I call back
the time when I, on my knees, prayed him, by all the
saints in the calendar, to marry me—but that was
long ago. I did not know him quite so well then.
Yes, it is quite true that I betrayed him, and I am
rather glad that I have the opportunity of setting
down the reason for that betrayal. The rôle of
traitresse is not a pretty one to figure in, and in our
case, too, we had sinned together so often that there
should be good excuse for the act. I had it-I
think. Judge ye.
I have lived so long in France that I have imbibed
some of its notions. Quaint amongst them all are
the opinions on the sacredness of the marriage tie-
- [133]—


THE MARG A TE MYSTERY
and otherwise. It is an unwritten law that a woman
living with a man should be as faithful to him as if
mother church had blessed the union.
I lived with Jacques Lemaire, and I was unfaith-
ful to him. Like another Delilah I betrayed him to
his enemies—you shall hear why.
I met him first in an English boarding school. I
was a governess there, he, the French tutor. Under
a promise of marriage he betrayed me.
Looking back on that time, I almost laugh at the
preposterous story with which he deceived me-
quite laugh at my own imbecility in giving it cre-
dence. Truly I must have wanted to believe it
badly. Calf love is blind.
Under an uncle's will he would inherit money;
but the will contained a clause to the effect that if he
married in any other country than France he would
be disinherited. So—but really, in writing it would
read—would be—too ludicrous. I smile when I
think of it. Surely no reader exists who could re-
frain from laughter at the hollowness of the story,
and the simplicity of the girl who would let it blind
her sense of right and wrong. And yet it so blinded
me.
It was in the last term, and we were both leaving
the school at the end of it. Jacques was taking me
-[134]


A FREE M'AN AGAIN
to France-I thought (what fools women are !) to
marry me. When we reached France he did not. I
was paralyzed with the horror of his conduct then
-I was but young. Men act so. One does not
frame a broken mirror.
It would not be nice reading were I to set out
what he said to me. If I did so, you would wonder
why I stayed on with him. You would not accept :
as an excuse the fact that he had borrowed (my faith
in him then! Holy Virgin !) all the money I had;
that I had not sufficient left to pay my return fare
to England. That, had I so returned, I should have
landed penniless, and as a characterless girl. That
—but there, you would not excuse the act. The
judgment of the righteous contains no mercy or
tolerance. One has to sin to understand sin's temp-
tations. I stayed on with him.
We went to Marseilles, lived there for many
years. At first on the fruits of Jacques's card-
sharping. We lived in style on that, and I-oh,
yes, I sank-I helped. We had a code of signals
when handling the cards, and so we won. Whilst it
lasted we did well. Prosperity blinded me. It is
the poor sinner who repents—not the well-to-do
one.
But the day of detection came. Our visitors
-[135]


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
dropped from us as leaves drop in the autumn. We
ran down the scale: pawned, borrowed, were sued,
brokers in, homeless; we ran down, and with the
usual rapidity, starved.
The consciences of starving people—they are not
troublesome. Shakespeare said: “ Conscience doth
make cowards of us all ”; but he went too far. We
were not sufficiently troubled with ours to become
cowards. On the contrary, we became brave
enough to defy the law.
One night we determined, Jacques and I, to rob.
We were living then in the same cellar as at the
time of Mr. Lanward's imprisonment there. We
had not tasted food for two whole days—then it
had been a loaf of bread, bread I had snatched from
a child. Brave, you say sneeringly; cruel, you say
meaningly. Wait—wait till famine comes your way,
till you are near to death of hunger: you will not
talk so much then. A full stomach makes a good
moralizer.
Yes, it sounds horrible; but this was my first
theft in the way of actual taking. For two whole
days I had not broken my fast, and coming home I
saw a child emerging from a bakery with a long loaf
under her arm. That loaf I snatched and ran-
Holy Virgin! how I ran!
-[136]—


· A FREE MAN AGAIN
I had it hidden beneath my shawl, got into the
house, and with my back against the street door,
panted till I got my breath. I heard no sounds of
pursuit; I had run too quickly for them. Then I
went below to our rooms—cellars.
Half famished, Jacques, when he saw the bread,
could scarcely believe his eyes.
“Mother of God!” he cried," where did you get
this ? "
But I was eating, ravenously. I did not answer.
I handed him—even as the first woman handed
stolen food to the first man—and he did eat. We
enjoyed that meal more than any we had ever tasted
before. You need to be hungry to enjoy food.
Hunger is the best sauce.
That day I went into the confessional and conf-
but you are not a Catholic, perhaps? You would
not understand.
... We discussed the situation on empty
stomachs, and as I have said, we determined to
rob. Poverty breeds strange ideas—hunger,
stranger ones. We thought it a crime that rich men
should walk about with laden pockets whilst we
were without a sou. Poverty—and empty stomachs
-have a way of talking so. They are eloquent.
Socialism is born that way.
V
-[137]


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
Better prison—where at least there were meat
and drink and warmth—than to die of cold and
hunger in that cellar, like rats. So said Jacques—I
agreed. Oh, yes, I do not excuse myself. I had
sunk to that depth-I agreed. To Jacques it was
pleasure—his nature was vicious. To me it was—
but there, why should I seek to excuse myself?
We left the house determined to rob, and our idea
was to wait for a clear street. Jacques was to trip
up a man, and I to snatch his watch and chain and
run away. It seemed simple enough; but the dan-
ger and small profit made Jacques think of a more
subtle plan.
Our own street was clear of people and dark at
night; so we waited in a doorway like spiders wait-
ing for a fly—two hungry persons coveting the
goods of the first well-to-do person who passed.
... There came along a man humming a tune.
He was wearing an overcoat and top hat—was ap-
parently well-to-do. As he reached the doorway in
which we were hidden, Jacques darted out and
threw him. I followed to be quick-but there was
no need for hurry. The man had fallen senseless,
whether due to shock or blow we knew not.
Then an idea came to Jacques—he was ever
quick of thought, fertile in invention. He had
-[138]-


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
“All safe, M'sieu," replied Jacques. “You are
with friends. You had been assault and beat when
we along came. We saw you by a man struck, and
ran to you assist; but alas ! too late. The thiefs
had decamp. You were senseless, so we here car-
ried you, not knowing what to do.”
The man felt in his pockets and cried
“I have been robbed !”
“ Alas! M'sieu, we thought that_I and my good
wife. Had we been moments quicker we should
have in time been. Alas!”
“The brutes," said the man. “It might have
been my death. I suffer from a weak heart and
shock is—have you any brandy?”
“ Alas! M'sieu, would that we had! But we are
poor—what would you? We have not sous for
bread. Alas! . . . M'sieu, shall I run get you a
fiacre? You can walk with assistance to it?
Better home go. Poor place like this for gentle-
homme is no fit.”.
The man thanked Jacques for the suggestion.
The fiacre was fetched, I meanwhile ministering to
the victim's wants as well as I was able. Into the
fiacre with tender hands we lifted the man, and he
drove away, thanking us from his heart, and saying
we should hear from him in the morning.
ca
-[140]


A FREE MAN AGAIN
We did. A letter full of thanks, and notes for five
hundred francs. The money he had had on his per-
son, together with the amount his jewelry realized,
made almost as much more. We were in clover.
That was the commencement.
I have detailed-apart from the trickery and the
gambling—my first real downward step. The
others were descended so easily. Our victims we
picked—always Englishmen. That for many rea-
sons which will be apparent. They were simpler,
more easily gulled, and—detested in France—the
justice meted them in case of complaint was of the
scantiest.
Of the belt in the back cellar Jacques has spoken.
It was useful. In those years it brought us many
hundreds of pounds. But for the mania of gam-
bling, which had a tight hold on Jacques, we should
have been wealthy; but it all went on the Devil's
books.
The idea of the scheme of kidnapping arose from
the first incident.
If, Jacques argued, we could bring an insensible
man into the cellar, how much easier to let walk in
a man? It needed but a plausible tale to lure
him. He thought of the tale to tell, and it never
failed.
-[141]


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
Whilst the money lasted we did not work; hence
the risk of discovery was small. Our ground was
the arrival platform at the railway station, and there
we waited for an Englishman travelling alone. Not
many such alighted at Marseilles, but some broke
the journey, and if we were on hand we welcomed
him.
The idea of holding an Englishman to ransom in
a big town was on the face of it daring, but like most
daring things, easy of accomplishment. There was
but little real danger in it. At night the street was
dark, one house was so much like another; and
when we liberated our prisoner it was at night,
drugged, stupefied, and walked between us as far
away as possible; there was not much chance of
detection.
Moreover, the victim, when the check had been
cashed, was not sent empty away. Usually he had
a ticket to continue or return on his journey. That
and a few pounds in his pocket enabled him to leave
the place. He generally did so as speedily as pos-
sible. We threatened him unless he did—we
speeded the departing guest. A threat of what
would happen to him if he stayed, hurried his move-
ments. A week in that cellar cooled the bravest
man's courage.
-[142]


A FREE MAN AGAIN
Now I come to the evening when Mr. Lanward
alighted from the train at Marseilles with a friend.
We took but little notice, Jacques and .I, of them,
because there was danger in numbers—we sought
only the solitary traveller. I was without the buffet,
Jacques drinking within. Presently Jacques came
to me. He said,
“The fur-coated man with moustache waxed is
not going on; he stop here "
“ The man with him?” I said.
“ Is going on. Get ready. There is the bell.”
As the bell rang the majority of those at the bar
ran out on to the platform. Mr. Lanward stood
alone, putting on his gloves. I walked to him, and
said—I had said it so often that I suppose I was
pretty proficient—with tears in my voice-
“ You are an Englishman; I am in trouble; pray
help me. . . . Ah! no, do not think I am begging
I do not want money."
He looked at me. I am not a bad-looking woman,
and I know all the tricks of lash-lifting and expres-
sions which arouse sympathy in men. I exercised
them then.
" Come here,” he said; “ sit down and tell- "
“Ah! no," I answered; "pray-pray do not
think me—I am I should not like to be seen in
le.
[1437-


THE MARG A TE MYSTERY
here—in a bar. Will you not come out, please—
into the station?”.
He shrugged his shoulders, and said,
“ Lead on; I will follow.”
Outside I said to him—
“I do beg of you not to think that I am seeking
-begging—I mean that I only want you to do a
kindly act which will cost you nothing. We are
staying here, my sister and I; have been for some
days. She "-I used my handkerchief with effect
here—“is dying. Oh! pray do not think because
fever is abroad that she is suffering from that; it is
nothing contagious. We were in the accident on
the railway. You read of it? ... No?... She
suffered so. Ah! it is best she should die "-hand-
kerchief in use again.
“My dear girl," he answered (I smiled. When
you ask a man for sympathy and he grows affec-
tionate, you can predict what will happen), “I am
not a doctor. I— "
"Ah! no," I said tearfully. “I am so foolish.
I do not make myself understood. The doctor-a
good English doctor—God bless him! is with her
now. He will not leave her till she dies. It is about
her will, which she is anxious to make, that I need
your help.”
-[144]-


A FREE MAN AGAIN
“My dear girl," he said again (again I smiled
under my handkerchief), “ you mean that you need
a lawyer— "
"No. The will is ready to be signed, but it is an
English will, and needs two witnesses. The doctor
will be one; we need another. My sister is—is
sensitive. She will not allow a foreigner to witness
it, and so the doctor sent me out to find an English-
man or woman. He said she must be humored. I
-I in all Marseilles know no English people, and so
I came here to the station—the train brings so
many English. It is presumption on my part; I
am sensible of the trouble I am putting you to.
Were my sister not dying I would not- ”.
“Say no more," he said gruffly—my handker-
chief had not been worked in vain—“I will come.”
I led the way—a roundabout way—and said,
“ It is a poor place we are staying at, my sister
and I. I could find no place where they would take
us in that fearful night of the accident. All closed
doors on a dying girl. These foreigners,” I shud-
dered, “are brutal in the extreme. You don't-oh!
you can't know the comfort it is to me to hear a
good honest English voice again.”.
I lifted my eyes to his. ... We reached our
house. I pushed open the front door.
—[145]-


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
“ This way,” I said. He followed, and—Jacques
was there, Jacques with the chloroform pad. There
was just a little struggle, and the drug won. It al-
ways did—the contest was so unequal.
Below were the cellars. When prosperity came
to us we rented the whole house. It was a precau-
tion. We acted and dressed differently above and
below. Now we had our working clothes on-they
were excellent disguises.
When he was belted to the wall we waited for the
Englishman to come to his senses, Jacques smok-
ing, I sitting quietly. He lost no time in letting us
know—he swore and tugged at his chain. But both
things lacked novelty. Most of them did that-at
first.
They talked, the two men. If I am a good actress,
then Jacques is a good actor. Whilst they talked,
I went across with the luggage ticket to the station.
I brought it back with me, the prisoner's luggage-
only a small portmanteau, which I easily carried.
I could plainly see that the conversation had not
been after Jacques's heart. I saw signs of storm on
his face, and I was sorry. When in a temper,
Jacques was not nice to me.
When Jacques had unstrapped the bag I had
brought in, the prisoner told him which key fitted
TIL.
- [146]-


A FREE MAN AGAIN
the lock. His cool courtesy did not please Jacques.
The bag opened, it was plain to see the contents
were but clothing, and in a pocketbook, the pris-
oner's check-book. That was what Jacques was
after.
The conversation went on-in the usual way, and
I really did not pay much attention to it. It always
ended, sooner or later, in the same way. But pres-
ently the tone of the prisoner's voice altered—there
was a world of entreaty and pleading in it—and I
looked up.
He was speaking of an innocent man who had
been condemned to be hanged, and who was then
lying in Maidstone Jail in England. In a few
days, he said, he was to be executed, and he—our
prisoner—had come over to Marseilles hoping to
find some evidence of the condemned man's in-
nocence.
He besought Jacques to believe him—which he
did, which we both did, for there was that in the
stranger's voice which compelled credence. He
said —
“In that pocketbook there is a newspaper report
of the trial. Look at it. Read it. You will find
confirmation of my words.”
Mechanically Jacques handled the paper and
- [147]-


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
flection, “ the best form of assurance would be the
insertion of the key into this padlock—and the turn-
ing of it. Perhaps it wants oiling—the lock, but I
would raise no objection to its squeak.”
“You know," I said impatiently," that my hus-
band has the key in his pocket.”
“And is, I suppose, on the other side of that door
in the attitude of listening—the damned thief !”
“ He has gone out to a neighboring café, and
unless I send for him will not return-probably—
for hours. He is a gambler.”
"To what then am I indebted for the honor of
this visit of yours? Conscience pricking you? and
you think to cheer up the solitary man's loneliness?
Or the other way about, and you have come to gloat
over your damnable handiwork?”.
“I have come to propose a means of escape for
you.”
He smiled.
“Oh," I cried, " believe me! believe me!"
He smiled again and I could have struck him.
It is hard, when one speaks the truth, to be doubted.
It is harder when the man you are trying to help
scoffs at you. It is hardest of all when your own
flesh and blood is in peril, when—
“ Trot out this little plan of escape of yours," he
[150]-


A FREE MAN A G A IN
said sneeringly. “Do I bore a hole through the
ground with a toothpick, or pick the padlock be-
hind me with a hatpin?”.
I paced the cellar in a perfect frenzy. I could
scarcely trust myself to speak. I halted in front of
the man, and, face close to his, said,
“ Can you not credit me with one good trait-a
desire to help you?”
“You?” he said.
I had no idea one word could convey so much
scorn and contempt. He spoke as he felt. I started
back from it as from the lash of a whip. Then I
sank on the sofa, and buried my chin in my hands
and looked at the lamp—thinking. Thinking how
it would be possible to convince this man that I was
speaking the truth. For if he was to escape he must
have blind confidence in me—it was the only way.
How could I inspire it?
“ Are you aware," he inquired—I felt that he had
his eyes fixed on me all the time—“that you are
within the compass of my chain? That I could put
my fingers round your fair throat and choke the life
out of you before your husband, behind the door
there, could spring to your assistance?"
I did not move for a whole minute. I wanted him
to see that I was not afraid. I was not—his was not
- [151]—


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
the hand that would ever be raised against a woman.
A woman is quick to find such things out—the in-
stinct is unfailing.
Then I turned my head and faced him—we were
both seated on the sofa. I said
"If you are going to disbelieve me, if you have
determined to refuse to listen, I think I should be
rather obliged to you if you carried out your
threat."
“Ah," he said easily; “is this in the part? I
don't quite see the situation yet. Where does your
husband come in? You are starring in this little
drama, you know; but I am making a poor show.
What does the curtain fall on? Let's go to the
God-save-the-Queen stage, for a one-part piece
like this palls, you know-excellent actress as
you are.”
That brought me to my feet again. Once more
I paced the cellar-thinking, thinking, thinking.
What could I do to make this man listen to and be-
lieve the truth?
He said, still in the same mocking tone-
"Lady Macbeth business, isn't it? You won't
think me rude, will you, if I say that I am not a
novice at this sort of thing? I have been dramatic
critic on a London paper for half a dozen years, and
- [152]-


A FREE MAN AGAIN
there are few tricks of the profession unknown to
me. If you have anything original in the way of
'business,' trot it out—but spare me, spare me any-
thing that is not.”
Suddenly—all the while he had been speaking I
was thinking of my brother—my emotion overcame
me. Bursting into tears, I knelt at his feet and
cried-
“For mercy's, pity's sake, listen to me. I want
you to listen to me, to believe me, for your own
sake. Oh, in the name of the Holy Virgin, I con-
jure you, listen and believe."
And then I was overcome by a torrent of tears,
and crouched at his feet sobbing. There was silence
for a full minute—which he broke; still in the same
cold, sneering tone-
"I hope you won't think I have any idea of re-
forming you, or anything of that sort,” he said;
"but, my girl, you have mistaken your vocation.
There can't be any vast amount of money—apart
from the danger-in this decoy racket you work;
you should take to the stage. You would rise-be-
lieve memrise till you attained the glory of the
mammoth poster, and the star part of the pro-
gramme. I told you I had been a dramatic critic:
I have studied Thespian speakers. The stage voice
—[153]—


THE MARG A TE MYSTERY
-a human organ—I have heard played week in
week out for years, but never, never have I seen the
emotion stop pulled out on that organ as you are
able to pull it, and played on as you are able to play.
There are big things in it, my girl. Drury Lane is
open to histrionic ability like it. It is strange for a
chained-up dramatic critic to discover a second
Ellen Terry in a back cellar—but it is so."
Still, as he sat on the couch, I crouched at his feet
sobbing—sobbing as in all my life I had never
sobbed before.
"If I remember rightly,” he went on, "you
played with the emotion stop out fairly well at the
railway station. It was a dying sister then—when
you were using your handkerchief; what is the
game now?"
I looked up. I saw a chance of convincing him.
I said between my sobs—
“The dying sister was false, you know that—it is
of my perhaps dying brother I want to-
Then his bitter sarcastic laugh rang out, and my
head fell and my heart sank as he said,
“Keep it in the family, my girl! You are clever,
but if you were speaking from the rack, I wouldn't
believe the words tortured out of you. You are a
very princess of liars. With memonce bit, twice
-[154]-


THE MARGĄ TE MYSTERY
“ That's better! That sounds more like the truth.
If not for me, who is the favored individual?"
“My brother.”
“Oh, the one you said was dying?”
“ The one you implied was dying,” I retorted.
“I?"
He really was surprised at last-it was plainly
read in his look of astonishment.
“Do you think I should have worried about
you," I said, “any more than I have worried about
a dozen other men in a similar strait the last half-
dozen years—but for the tidings you brought?”.
“Tidings! ... My girl, either you are mad, or
I am going so. I do not know your brother-never
spoke to him."
“ Your coming here-to Marseilles—to save
him, was why I wanted to save you.”
“To-save- "
“Yes," I answered. “ Can you not understand ?
I am Mary Bankes, and William Bankes, the man
you are here to save, is my brother!”
It was as if I had struck him—the shock was so
great. He fell back. I essayed to rise. But he
seized me in a moment, and if I had been capable of
the feeling of fear just then, I should have felt it.
There was that look in his eyes—which surely rarely
[156]—


A FREE' M AN AGAIN
finds place in them, in a man of his nature. There
was a nasty, snarling look round his lips which I
was amazed to think it possible could find place
there. His eyes flashed fire. I-he gripped me so
closely, so painfully, I could almost have screamed.
“You devil!” he seemed to hiss at me, and his
face was so close to mine that his hot, panting
breath came on it. “Don't go too far! I have
heard of the lust of blood—by God! I never knew
what it was TILL NOW. I have read of men shak-
ing, choking, killing women-I never understood
the possibility TILL NOW.”
His hands-one of them, stole up from my waist
-up-up to my throat, and I felt his warm, quiver-
ing fingers circling my neck. Perhaps I was never
nearer death than then, but I did not flinch; I
looked him straight in the face so close to mine,
straight into the eyes which seemed to burn me
with their intense glare.
Suddenly he threw me away from him, shudder-
. ing as if I were some unclean thing.
“Get up!” he said, “ you spawn of Hell! God!”
he appealed, as he raised his head and shaking
hands, “that you should allow a devil to wear an
angel's mask!”
I-I lay crouching just where he pushed me. I
ee
[157]-


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
still felt the warmth of his hand round my throat, of
his arm round my waist, pressing, clutching me to
him. I had been near death. I sighed—I felt that
it would have been good to die so.
He cooled down; his excitement faded. He be-
came his old, cool self—save that the color did not
come back to his cheeks.
“Well,” he inquired, “ what is the next move?
You will admit that the last one has failed. What is
the next idea ? You will have to run the whole
gamut, I warn you."
“Do you still,” I asked, “ think my husband is
outside ?"
“N—no,” he answered, reluctantly. “He is a
miserable cur, but surely anything around in the
shape of a man would have come to your rescue a
moment ago when you were in danger. And," he
added, with a sort of ashamed laugh,“ it was a close
call for you."
I looked at him. He avoided my look for a mo-
ment. Then, with a nervous laugh, he said,
"I am sorry. Sorry, I mean, that I gave rein to
my temper like that. I would not have believed it
possible that I could so treat a wom. Did I hurt
you? Pray think me earnest when I say that I am
sorry—heartily sorry.”.
-[158]-


A FREE MAN AGAIN
“ You need not be. It does not matter. ...
Does the absence of my husband from behind the
door make you think it possible that I am not trying
to play a double game with you?”
“What is your game, anyway?”.
“I have told you—to secure your liberty, that
you may try to secure my brother's.”
“ Your brother's?”.
“ Yes.”
“ Well—let us advance a stage or two. How do
you propose to let me loose?”
“With time—and a file—it can be done.”
“And if your husband returns?”
“It must not be attempted whilst he is in Mar-
seilles.”
“How, then, do you propose to get him away?”
“ That you can do—at once."
“How?"
“ By signing that check."
“Oh,” he said, “ that is the game, is it?"
“Not altogether the game—but one of the
moves in it. The game itself is your liberation."
“That is clever—distinctly clever. You are a
woman of big brain power. What a pity it is to see
it so. Well, go on. Let us advance another stage.
I give this husband of yours—you must be worth
—[159],


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
your weight in gold to him—the check. What is
the next move?”.
“ He will leave with it for England. His back
turned, you turn yours—yours with the padlock on
it. The snap in the lock is the smallest piece of
binding metal. An hour or two's filing—and you
are at liberty."
“And then?”
“Then-you do what you will naturally do."
“And you?”
“Oh!” I answered, “I am at the end of my
tether. I have had enough of it. Do not be afraid.
I will not fly. Your police shall find me here."
“And your precious husband?”
“ I suppose the police will find him there—natur-
ally, you would wire to stop the check, and have
the presenter arrested.”
“By God!” he said, “this is clever! It is an
inspiration, or is it—no, it cannot be—an old
wheeze you are working? Do you know," he
continued, “I sit for hours sometimes trying to
shape a plot or situation for my books, and this
sort of thing comes to you in a flash. It is mar-
vellous!”
“ Are you going to do it?”
“What?” he inquired. “ Sign that check?”
-[160]-


A FREE MAN AGAIN
“Yes.”
He laughed.
“You little devil, you!” he said. “There is no
torture you or any human being could devise which
would make me do that.”
I sighed.
“Were it my own money only at the bank-I
think I have about four or five hundred pounds of
my own—I should have signed ere this, for I quite
realize that you will do your level best to make me,
and short of death, I can understand that charming
blackguard of a husband of yours going to ex-
tremes. I do not look forward to a whole-souled,
merry-Christmas sort of a time. But there is there,
to the credit of my account, money which is not
mine-money which has been paid over to me as
trustee for the orphan child of one of my dearest
dead friends. There is nothing which could be
compassed within the four walls of this cellar which
could make me betray that trust.”
I began to despair. Then I said
“ You think I lied when I said the condemned
man was my brother?”
“You put it concisely."
"If I could describe him to you—accurately?
All the while—the years—we lived together as boy
- [161]-


THE MARGA TE MYSTERY
-
and girl, I noted, have knowledge of everything
about him. Can see him standing before me now
as I last saw him seven years ago.”
He looked at me curiously.
“That,” I said wearily, “is my last attempt to
convince you. I can think of nothing else. If you
know my brother, examine me as to his descrip-
tion.”
Suddenly he started doing so. He sharply laid
traps for me, but of course I could not make mis-
takes about the description of my own brother. I
furnished it accurately. Moreover-it was evident
-I convinced him.
He was quite silent for a few minutes. Then he
said,
"Send for that beast of a husband of yours—I'll
risk it.”
I sent little Pierre to the café, and presently
Jacques came back. He and the prisoner talked,
and ultimately Jacques had the check in his pocket,
signed. It was too late for him to start his journey
to England that night, but he went the next
morning.
I—I was affectionate. I went with him to the
station-saw him off in the train. Then coming
-[162]


A FREE MANAG A IN
home, at the shop of a quincaillier I bought three
files. With those I sought the cellar.
“Well?” queried the prisoner eagerly.
For answer, I threw the three files on the couch.
“I saw him off in the train,” I said, as I took off
my street jacket, and rolled up the sleeves of my
blouse. There was hard work to do yet—indeed, it
was nearly two hours before the steel grip of the
padlock was sawn through. From the position be-
hind—the belt was spiked so that it would not twist
round—the prisoner could not help. I knelt, file
in hand.
“Stay,” he said, “a moment.” He caught my
face in the palms of his hands and held me close to
him. “I want to—before you begin—tell you that
I am sorry, sick and sorry that I spoke to you as I
did. Tell me you forgive me—you are a regular
brick, after all!”
Praise from him! It made my blood flow the
quicker! It gave me strength!
“ Turn round,” I said—saying so thinking it
would enable me to hide my flushed cheek.
But he would not let me go.
"I asked you something,” he said, looking into
my eyes; "answer me.”
"Oh, yes. I forgive you,” I murmured, with the
-[163]


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
lashes of my eyes covering the expression in them.
So it was perhaps that I did not see what he was
about to do. He lifted my head closer to his, then
suddenly he-he kissed me!
... I filed till my fingers, my arms, my whole
body ached, and he talked all the time. Questioned
me, too, and I answered him truthfully. He was a
man who compelled truthfulness—he was so in-
sistent, so masterful.
“My first act, little woman, is to go to the Crédit
Lyonnais—they will have a branch here, and, fortu-
nately, I am known at their London office. I must
stop the payment of that check. If possible, I will
let this husband of yours go free for your sake. He
must not be arrested.”
“He is not my husband,” I said shortly.
“What!”
He remained silent for whole minutes. Then he
said
“Tell me."
I knew what he meant. And I told him all. My
life in the school, and how Jacques had brought me
to what I was. When I had finished, he said,
“Come from behind me. . . . Rest a minute.
... You have been crying! ... This dishonest
life ends to-day, little woman. You have made it
-[164]–


A FREE MAN A G A IN
your business to rescue me when I was in dire peril;
it shall be my business to rescue you."
“No,” I said. “I do— "
“Hush! You do not know me. I am Cæsar
or nothing. You have looked after my present
-I shall look after your future. It shall be my
care.”
It was sweet to hear him talk so! I could
imagine what the future of a woman cared for by
him would be.
“Do not,” I said, “be rash-make rash prom-
ises. Remember what I am ".
“Rather," he replied, “what you have been
forced to be."
“I am- ”
“ Silence!” he said. “ Don't talk—let me. Un-
derstand, you quit this place when I quit it. You
return to England when I return—I do not want
you to undergo the worry of the witness box. I
shall find you employment-perhaps employ you
myself. I shall take you out of yourself. You leave
the service of this fiend Jacques for my service.
Now, I will let you speak. Tell me that you will
welcome the change. Answer me.”
I did not avail myself of the permission to speak
—but I answered him. I brushed the back of his
- [165]—


A FREE MAN AGAIN
took rooms there. Whilst luncheon was being pre-
pared, he went out—to the bank-to the police, and
the cable was put in motion between France and
England. Did I feel any pity for Jacques ? No.
There had been times, many times—I bear marks
on my body of those times now—when he had
shown no pity for me. It was time he should suffer.
For three days we remained at Marseilles, and
then Mr. Lanward took me to England, where he
found me employment in copying.
He-Mr. Lanward-returned to Marseilles some
days after, and when he reached England again he
told me that Jacques had been sentenced to two
years' imprisonment.
The belt and chain he brought back with him—
having purchased them from the police. These he
hung in his study. He referred to them as trophies
of the chase-there are few things without a hu-
morous side to him.
-[167]-





PART VII
THE APE AND THE CHAMBERMAID
The Barrister's Margate Experiences
sey
SA
I HAD several cases in the cause list, so that to
I leave London was impossible—the Law Courts
claimed so much of my time. Moreover, Lanward,
who shared Chambers in the Temple with me, had
a relapse in the influenza attack which had got a
tight hold—I had nearly written “grip”—on him,
though the influenza is no joking matter.
After the trial of Bankes for the Margate murder
-after I had come to agree with Lanward that
Bankes was innocent (though the reason of that
belief I could not and cannot now give), we decided
to follow up and investigate those trails we imag-
ined might exist, viz., the murdered woman's hus-
band, the hotel chambermaid, and the monkeys in
the Margate menagerie.
It was determined that I should investigate in
Kent, and that Lanward should journey to France,
but days passed before he was well enough to travel,
as
- [169]-


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
and then he set out for Marseilles. Two afternoons
after my clerk brought me word that on the morrow
I had a free day; that there was not a cause in the
paper in which I held a brief.
Hurriedly I threw a few things into a handbag,
gave my clerk my address, “ Rochester's Hotel,”
Margate, and caught the fast train from Holborn
Viaduct.
Being late in September, and a cold season,
Rochester's was nearly empty, so I had the pick of
the rooms. I chose room No. 23. Not a word was
said to me about it, but I saw the hotel clerk look at
me strangely as he rang the bell for a porter to carry
up my bag.
The chambermaid received me on the foor—the
same chambermaid I had examined in the witness-
box on the trial of William Bankes. She did not
recognize mema wig and gown make such a
difference in a man's appearance. I was glad of
that.
“Oh,” I said to the porter, as, after depositing
my bag in the room, he was going, “I see there is
an adjoining sitting-room. I have some writing to
do, and need quietude. Tell the hotel clerk I will
book this sitting-room, too."
It wanted but half an hour to dinner, and bidding
.
-[170]-


A PE AND CHAMBER MA I D
the chambermaid light a fire in the sitting-room, I
washed and ultimately went down to dinner.
After dinner, I ascended to my sitting-room. The
fire was burning brightly, the blinds and curtains
were drawn, and everything looked very cosey.
Then leisurely I examined my rooms.
To my astonishment, I found that there was only
one entrance to the sitting-room-through the bed-
room. This was most unusual, and prompted me
to feel the walls all round to discover if a door had
been papered over. No. Everything was solid.
The room was in the corner of the building, and the
windows were on either side of the angle. I pulled
aside the blinds and peered out, but it was too dark
to see anything. Then I went into the bedroom,
and carefully examined that. The door-like most
hotel bedroom doors-opened with a handle as well
as a key. That is to say, when the catch was set
back, from the outside the handle opened the door.
At night—or when leaving the house—the occu-
pant would naturally let the catch go.
I could make nothing of the rooms. There was
distinctly nothing out of the common in either of
them.
I came back to the sitting-room, and, lighting a
cigar, toasted myself by the fire, for the September
-[171]-


THE MARG ATE MYSTERY
evenings were chilly, and thought. I stood there
some time thinking, trying to devise a method of
attacking the chambermaid in such a way that she
would be taken off her guard. At last I hit on an
idea—bred of her apparent nervousness. I pressed
the electric-bell button beside the chimney-piece.
In a minute the door opened, and the chambermaid
entered. So far so good.
“What is your name?”
“ Maggie, sir."
“Do you believe in ghosts, Maggie?”
She started.
“Why, sir ? ” she asked-after the manner of her
kind-replying to one question with another.
“Well,” I said slowly, watching her carefully the
time, “I am not a nervous man, but if I did not see
ghosts in this room a minute or so ago, I am a
Dutchman.”
“Lor, sir!” She shivered and looked round and
I fancied turned pale.
“Yes, I did. I saw two women; one in her night-
gown, struggling with another dressed as a cham-
bermaid.”
Her face went quite pale at that.
“Two women,” she blurted out,“ there was only
one- "
-[172]—


A PE AND CHAMBER M A ID
Then she suddenly pulled herself up.
“What do you mean by only one?” I inquired
sharply. “Come, no nonsense. If there is any
mystery about this room, let me know it. If it
is haunted, it will not frighten me. Only tell
me.”
“We are forbidden in the hotel to talk about it,
sir,” she answered, “and if it came to the master's
ears I should be
“It will not come to the master's ears," I inter-
rupted; “whatever you may tell me—I give you
my word for that.”
“Well, sir, this was the room occupied by Mrs.
Mantock. She was,” she shuddered, “ murdered in
the bed in the next room.”
“Oh," I answered, “then if there is anything in
the ghosts I saw, she was murdered by one of the
chambermaids in the hotel.”
“Lor, no, sir !” she said, and her eyes opened
wide in astonishment-genuine astonishment-at
the suggestion. “She was murdered by a man, she
was—she was—who was—that is to say, she was
friendly with.”
That was enough for me. This girl was no mur-
deress. Like Lanward, I can read faces pretty well,
and the countenance before me was like an open
-[173]


THE MARG ATE MYSTERY
book. She had told the truth at the Assizes. My
interest in her ceased.
Responding to questions, she gave me all the de-
tails of the murder; but there was nothing new in
them. All had come out at the trial.
As I dismissed her, she said —
“If you would like to change your bed-
room
”
I laughed.
“Oh, no," I answered; "ghosts do not frighten
me. I am proof against them because I do not fear
them.”
Which was quite true. I slept that night as com-
fortably in the bed the woman had been murdered
in as I should have done in my own. The man who
confesses to a belief in ghosts—well, his friends
should urge him to seek advice, ought to have him
treated for softening of the brain; it is an infallible
sign.
In the morning I had my breakfast, and again
examined the rooms, finding—as on the previous
evening—nothing of help to me. I turned my at-
tention to the windows. On one—the one facing
the back of the hotel grounds—there was no fasten-
ing: the catch was broken.
The sash lifted easily. I lifted it. Putting my
ex
- [174]-


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
At the end, down some steps, I came to the
monkey-house–I call it so for lack of a better
name. It was a long, square-shaped building, with
elephant, and a dromedary were there. Several
cages were devoted to monkeys.
In one cage was the largest monkey I think I
have ever seen. It must have been quite three and
a half feet high, and it was confined as I had never
seen a monkey confined—chained by one of its
short legs to a staple let in the floor. It could
make the circuit of the floor of its cage, and that
was all.
I gazed at the beast, and then read on the label
below its cage, “ Orang-outang. Simia satyrus.”
Again I gazed at the animal, and wondered whether
I could possibly be looking on Mrs. Mantock's mur-
derer! The legs of the hairy beast were short, but
the arms were exceedingly long and wiry, and ap-
parently of great strength. I could almost see them
clinging to the drain-pipe, and the beast swarming
up it. There was something fiendishly human in
the appearance of the brute-especially its head.
The attendant was passing round, and I entered
into conversation with him. He seemed reluctant
to talk of the orang-outang, but ultimately reeled
[176] —


A PE AND CHAMBERMAID
off a long string of words, which was apparently his
usual recitation for visitors.
“The orang-outang,” he said, “is known in this
country as the Malay, which means the Wild Man
of the Woods. It is possessed of enormous
strength. The only animals known to attack it are
the crocodile and the python. The crocodile, the
orang-outang kills by main strength, standing on
it, pulling open its jaws, and ripping open its throat.
The orang-outang is considered by the Malay na-
tives to be the strongest animal in the jungle. This
one here came from Borneo. It was taken when
lying ill in its nest or shelter in the trees- ".
“Yes, yes," I interrupted, “that sounds very
pretty-like a page out of a Natural History book.
You take me back to childhood's days with that
recital. I can imagine a school-treat listening to it
open-mouthed; but, useful as your information no
doubt is, I want to know something different.”
“What do you want to know?”
“I want you to tell me where this ape was last
Bank Holiday.”
It was a bow drawn at a venture, but it seemed
to tell. I thought the man looked round in a fright-
ened style, and he queried-
“What—what do you know about that?"
- [177]


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
“It does not matter what I know. Tell me the
truth. It will pay you better. A truthful tongue
may lead to the repair of some of the damage done.”
“Good Lord! I've nothing to hide. If the beast
broke away, I couldn't help it—not that it will
break away again.”
“ This leg-fastening is new?” I queried.
“ You can see that by the way he is sulking. I
used to go in his cage, and Jacko would coddle up
to me as affectionate as my own child. Since he
has had that leg iron on, I shouldn't like to put my
hand within his reach. He'd tear it off—you have
no idea of the strength of the beast.”
“I can imagine it.”
“He hasn't been here six months yet, and he has
broken away half a dozen times. It had to be put a
stop to, and leg irons was the only way. 'Tisn't
that he does any actual harm except frightening
people, and being mischievous. Climbs up to their
windows, and jabbers at them.”
“ Yes," I thought, “and does something more
than jabbers; pushes the frame of the window up,
and strangles the occupant of the room.” I thought
that seriously—thought that I had traced the real
murderer, and my heart beat the quicker for the
thought.
[178]-


APE AND CHAMBER M A ID
“What is it this time? ” queried the man. “Who
has he frightened? Or, I suppose, he's damaged
something by your turning up. Why have you left
it so long?"
“He has done something far more serious than
frightening."
“Oh, that be damned for a tale!” replied the
man, expectorating the juice of the tobacco he was
chewing on to the sawdust floor. “Until he was
chained he was as harmless as a kitten—wouldn't
hurt a mouse. A more affectionate monkey never
lived.”
“You know what happened last Bank Holiday
time?” I inquired.
“I know we had the biggest crowd we ever had
down here in these gardens, if that's what you mean.
And glad enough I was to get hold of Jacko here,
before the trains arrived, and the excursionists
poured in. The boss was wild enough about Jacko
getting out, and had the leg iron put on him
then and there. Those two hours you spent
free last Bank Holiday, Jacko,” he continued,
addressing the monkey, “are the last you are
likely to spend, and what's more it has made us
bad friends.”
He advanced closer to the cage, and that instant
-[179]


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
the beast sprang the length of its chain and tried,
impotently, to claw at the man.
“There,” said the keeper, in a sorrowful tone of
voice, “ that's what chaining him down has done."
“Two hours only you say he was free?” I in-
quired. I began to doubt if, after all, I was on the
right tack.
“Yes. Each time he has got away he has been
back here within two or three hours. He doesn't
seem happy- "
“ Yes, yes; but I am talking about the last time.”
“So was I.”
“ That was the Tuesday following Bank Holi-
day?"
“Oh, no, it wasn't-it was on the morning
of Bank Holiday itself, between seven and nine
o'clock. You're muddling things up a bit, guvnor.”
“Are you quite certain of what you are telling
me?”
“Well,” he said indignantly, “I think that takes
it! I suppose I know my own blooming business,
don't I? Here, Bob!” he called to an attendant in
the distance.
“Hullo!”
“What day was the last time Jacko escaped-
before he was ironed?”
- [180]-


APE AND CHAMBERMAID
“Bank Holiday morning, of course. What is
the matter with you? Are you losin' your bloomin'
memory?”
"Perhaps you'd like some more confirmation of
my word,” said the keeper to me, aggressively.
“Oh, no," I answered, “I am quite satisfied.”
So was the keeper when I left him. I purchased
his satisfaction at the cost of half-a-crown. It was
the only way—money is an excellent salve in such a
case.
But how bitterly disappointed I was! I had
thought myself on the track—and it was a wrong
scent, after all. My hopes had risen to fever-point,
only to sink hopelessly. My mission was an abso-
lute failure. The chambermaid and the ape theories
had fallen to the ground.
I went back to the hotel and spent part of the day
talking the matter of the murder over with the ser-
I even went to the local police station and
chatted with the superintendent on duty—my card
procured me an interview with him at once. But I
discovered nothing.
Next morning I took train to London. At that
season of the year there were few travellers, and I
had a compartment to myself. In turning over my
newspaper I was horrified at a news item which
- [181]


A PE AND CHAMBER M A ID
We were married—Dorothy and I–in three
months.
In my own happiness I had forgotten the reason
of my journey to Margate, the failure of my mission
there, and the hopelessness of it, as was indicated to
me in the news item I had referred to.
That latter I was reminded of as we gave up our
tickets and emerged from the barrier of the London
terminus. Below Smith's bookstall the placards of
the morning papers were still prominent. On one
was the reminder I have spoken of. .
I shuddered as I read it, and after seeing Dorothy
into a cab, I returned into the station and tele-
graphed to the man who was, I imagined, at work
in Marseilles. The telegram explains things. It
read-
“Lanward, Hotel Bocage, Marseilles.—Bankes
executed for Margate murder this morning.-
MATTHEWS.”
[183]


PART VIII
THE CHAMBERS IN THE TEMPLE
Mary Picks up the Thread
OMITTED in my previous writing to speak of
1 an incident which occurred whilst we were at
Marseilles.
I never saw a man's face fall so, never saw the
change from hope to horror so rapidly portrayed
on the countenance of any human being, as I saw
when Mr. Lanward opened a telegram which came
for him at the Hotel Bocage. After reading it, he
crushed it in his hand, and muttered
“My God! How awful! how horrible!”
I did not know him then sufficiently well to go to
him—as I felt I should like to have done—and ask
the trouble and sympathize with him. But as it was,
the woman in me made me say—
“Something troubles you—I am so sorry.”
He walked the few steps which separated us—I
was sitting in the window—and lifted my head with
- [185]


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
one hand as he stroked my hair with what seemed
tender and fraternal affection.
“ Little woman," he said, and there was a wistful,
tearful look in his eyes, “I am in trouble—awful,
deep trouble-a trouble which nothing can cure..
It is too late—too late."
Again I said I was sorry—one could not help
being so, he seemed so horrified, so grief-stricken;
and added .
“ Can you not share the trouble with me? Oh,
rely on my sympathy. ... No, perhaps you con-
sider that presumption ?”
“Not at all. I think your sympathy in any
trouble would be most helpful. But—but in this
you could not help. The thing is beyond human
help; and when I tell you what it is it will trouble
you. You will need my sympathy, and you shall
have it; oh, believe that!”
· Then, I think, for the first time I felt a fear. There
seemed to be something tightening round my heart.
I imagined this news must concern-so it was that
I involuntarily said-
“My brother!”
And he answered-
“Yes. ... He-is--dead.”
After the numbness of my sorrow died away-
-[186]


CHAMBERS IN THE TEMPLE
even the deepest grief is not plumbless—Mr. Lan-
ward told me of the failure of his quest in Marseilles
—that he had learnt nothing there which had
thrown any light on the Margate Murder, and so
it was that I came to think that my brother was
really guilty, and to, in a measure, acquiesce in the
justice of his death.
I pictured my brother as I had known him, and
I found it hard to reconcile my recollection of him
with a murderer. But I had not seen him for seven
years, and he might have changed greatly in that
time. The evidence I had read in the newspaper-
apart from the actual murder-showed him to have
lived an unclean life, and I knew, from bitter experi-
ence, that descent, once the first false step is taken,
is rapidly easy.
So coming to the belief that my brother was
guilty, the paying of the penalty of his crime with
his life seemed right, and, strange as it may read,
assuaged my grief. It does sound strange that,
perhaps; but such was my mental constitution,
that it seemed right to me.
We went from Marseilles to Paris, and stayed
there a day or two, and Mr. Lanward insisted on
my getting dresses there. The money for this he
found, saying I could pay him back later. The
[187]-


CHAMBERS IN THE TEMPLE
which most of the unhappy part of your life has
been spent—let us leave it for good and all; shall
we? Look upon it as a tomb in which an enemy
lies hidden, and wipe the memory clean out of our
recollections. ... Oh, yes, it can be done. And
firstly, promise me faithfully that, from this mo-
ment, you will never again mention your sealed-up,
troubled past again?”
And I promised. But I nearly broke the promise
a moment ago with my pen. And it would be so
unfair—he asked it of me and I promised him—the
man who has been so very good to me.
Of course Mr. Lanward was amongst my clients.
At first it was a big clientèle—but it narrowed. Mr.
Lanward's demands on my time became more ex-
acting, until at last one day he said to me-
“You are earning a lot of money?"
“What makes you think so?”.
“Well, your absurdity in paying me back what
you call 'borrowed' money gives rise to the
thought.”
“Oh!” I answered hotly, “I feel—feel so much
happier now that I am not under a monetary obli-
gation to you."
“ Thanks!”
“Oh, don't; but, no; you cannot misunderstand
-[189]-


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
me. You know that if I lived for a thousand years
I could never repay,
“Now you are talking stupidly, and I do not like
that, because stupidity is foreign to you."
I smiled. It is so pleasant to be praised by the
man you reverence. Yes, that is the word; I would
have gone through fire and water for him.
He had lifted me from—I am forgetting my
promise again: opening up the pages of the
past.
He went on-
“I queried whether you were making much
money because I was anxious to see whether I could
afford to strike a bargain with you—make a con-
tract?”
I looked my misunderstanding.
“You see, my work is increasing—it is so in the
literary world I am fringing. The more often you
appear before the public, the more often the pub-
lic wants you. You are a capital amanuensis—I
grudge other men taking up your time. Suppos-
ing I suggest that you devote your time entirely
to me. Can we arrange terms?”
Devote myself entirely to him! Could I have
wished for greater happiness? Of course, I showed
nothing of it, I would not have had him guess my
-[190]


CHAMBERS IN THE TEMPLE
secret for worlds; I would have died first. We
discussed terms. Need I say that I was engaged?
And so daily, from ten o'clock in the morning
till four in the afternoon, I went to his chambers in
King's Bench Walk-he was living there alone
now. Mr. Matthews had married, and taken a house
Kensington way.
For three months that daily task was accom-
plished. It was the very happiest time I had ever
spent in my life. I was his servant during that time
-he had been my master always, from the first
night we met.
That relationship I prayed might last, but it was
not to be. As the first quarter of a year came to a
close, I was cognizant of it-of his love for me.
And I fought it, God knows, as hardly as I could.
His very voice was a caress, and although now
he never touched me, never lifted my head, never
stroked my hair, the memory of those incidents, was
dear to me. And when my day's work was done,
and he said “ good afternoon” to me as I departed,
he would look at me; and the look-it lasted me
for hours. Yet I repulsed every advance he made.
His love for me was a clean thing; but, personally,
I was not clean enough–I was no fitting mate for
him.
-[191]-


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
I was in love. Oh, yes, for the first time. I knew
that now-knew that that incident with Jacques was
a foolish, girlish passion. I had often read of love,
and when its intensity and sacrificial nature had
been portrayed, I had been apt to laugh, to ridicule
so absorbing a passion.
There was no mirth in my idea of love now, for
happiness could never attend my own. I knew that
-knew it because marriage between us was out of
the question. I would never link my soiled life with
his, never spoil him in any way. I loved him far too
dearly.
But I would, cheerfully, have laid down my life
for him. That is the kind of assertion I had read
in love stories, and laughed at; but it was so to me.
He could not have asked a sacrifice I would not
have made. But he never asked one.
His love for me was earnest, and it grew day by
day. Day by day I endeavored to act more coldly
to him. It cut me like a knife to do so, but it was
necessary for his sake.
There were times when the lovelight in his eyes
made me infirm of purpose, but I betrayed nothing
of this. He, for his part, never entrenched, never
went beyond the bounds of Bohemian-for a Bo-
hemian he truly was-politeness. It seemed to me
-[192]


CHA MBERS IN THE TEMPLE
that he was desirous of creating in me a love for him
before he told me of his own.
Hence, when I wounded him—as my coldness
did—there came a look of sadness into his eyes,
which made me hate myself for being what I was;
that it was so impossible—by reason of that—that I
could be anything to him.
As I saw that eagerness growing in him, so to-
wards him I acted with greater frigidity. And it
brought about a crucial condition of things.
I entered his chambers one morning, and found
him standing with his back to the fire. It was an
unusual position; he was generally hard at work at
that hour, asserting that the early morning was the
best time for brain work.
I had removed my jacket and hat in an adjoining
room, and came in and sat to the little table I used,
and got ready my pens, ink, and note-book. Then
his voice—what he said—made me start and look
up.
“We won't start work for a little. I have some-
thing to say to you. Sit here, please.”
“Here ” was beside the fire, and he was indicat-
ing an arm-chair. I could not refuse to sit there,
but I dreaded doing so. Instinctively I knew that
—from his lips—he was going to speak on a subject
[193]


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
of which he had before only spoken with his eyes.
With the latter he had been eloquent enough–I
feared his tongue. I sat.
“ Firstly, I am going to ask you a question,” he
said, “ and I expect you to give me an honest, truth-
ful reply. For the last few weeks you have steadily
grown more distant and cold to me. I want to
know why? That is the chief question I have to
put to you. It may save the putting of others. I
want to know why!”
• There was an insistent tone in his voice; then he
paused for a reply—and I sat there dumb. What
was it possible for me—what could I say?
i "It is not anything I have done or said—I know
that; I have been so careful not to give you offense.
Do you know, little woman—I think you must
know—that I love you? My love may not be worth
much, perhaps, but—live you till doomsday—you
will never find a man loving you more ardently,
deeply, soulfully.”
His love might not be worth much! He was
saying that to me! I, who would have knelt at his
feet and kissed them, had I felt myself worthy so
to do.
“We have seen a good deal of each other during
the last few months, and you can have gauged my
-[194],


CH A MBERS IN THE TEMPLE
character pretty accurately. Is it that it has not
pleased you or—that I am the more afraid of—is
there any one else?”
Still I made no answer.
“That sounds fairly vain, doesn't it?” he went
on, with a nervous little laugh; “implying that if
there is no one else, you must necessarily fall in love
with me! But you acquit me of such vanity, don't
you? You know that I did not mean that. But
those are the two things—tell me that you love an-
other man, and I cease questioning you. I will not
worry you with another reference to my own love
for you.' I will only pray God that the man you
have selected will love you as truly as I do, and say
God bless you both.'”
I could only shake my head.
“There must be no shaking of heads, little
woman; there must be a distinct understanding-
plain' yes,' or plain ‘no,' to what I am asking you-
for your sake as well as my own. I know that I have
no right to pin you down in that chair, and cross-
examine you like this; but don't be hard on me,
Mary; forgive me if I do it. Your answer means
so much to me—so much! If your affections are
free-even if you do not care for me now, I shall
hope on, hope that in time my great love for you
-[195]—


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
must arouse a kindred feeling in your own heart.
Now a plain 'yes' or 'no, please. Do you love
some other man?”
“No."
“ Thank God! I say it heartily, gladly, rejoic-
ingly, little woman, because there is hope for me."
The feeling he expressed was visible on his face.
He drew a chair fronting the fire, and sat in it, half
facing me. He smiled as he said,
“Am I a very hopeless sort of wreck, Mary?
Isn't there anything in me good enough to catch
on to? Nothing at all which will tempt you to
say: 'I'll marry you?'"
“Nothing."
I said it. I had to. God knows how I summoned
courage to utter the word; but I did so. His face
fell—the gladsomeness left it. He said slowly, with
a pathetic little quiver in his voice, which made me
want to throw myself on my knees, and sob out that
I was lying, that I did love him, loved him with all
my heart and soul-
"I am sorry. Still, you tell me there is nothing
—there is nobody else? I will wait. . . . Nay, do
not think I intend pestering you with my attentions,
little woman, every hour in the future days. After
this interview, we will bury the subject. I may ask
-[196]-


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
"_ and it was a kiss of sheer, kindly gratitude.
I meant it for nothing more. But it meant more to
me. In a moment my love for you was born, and
it has steadily grown ever since. Plainly, now, you
don't dislike me?”
“Oh, no! How could I?”
“But you do not love me—a little ?"
And then I told the biggest lie I ever told, and
nigh broke my own heart in the telling. I replied-
“No.”
A silence ensued, broken by a sigh from him.
Then he said, with an effort at cheerfulness-
“ It is a bright morning: take a walk in the gar-
dens. I have worried you—you look pale. I have
been a perfect brute to do so. Come back in an
hour or two—when you feel brighter, with a color
in your cheeks. I am sorry for you. I am a great
selfish brute. All my thought was for myself. I
had no right to worry you. But I won't do it again.
I'll just go on, with my heart aching for the time
to come, hoping for it, praying God for it, when you
will come to me and say, the kindest thing you
could say to me, “I think I love you a little now.
... And that is my last word on the subject. . ..
Here is your jacket. Let me. ... That's it. Your
hat you must manage yourself. If I attempted to
-[198]-


CHAMBERS IN THE TEMPLE
-
insert a hatpin-well, you might have to get med-
ical aid. That's right. Let me see a smile. There,
that's like sunshine again! And the sun is shining
in the gardens, too. Go you out into the brightness
and light, and remember when you come back, no
worrying on my part; we just go on with our work
as usual, and think-talk-of nothing else.”
I did not return from the gardens with a color
-indeed, my face was colorless for many,
many weeks. I grew, I think, paler and paler. A
breaking heart is rarely concealed by roses in the
cheeks.
True to his promise, not a word of love escaped
my employer's lips. Things went on-outwardly-
just as before.
And then something happened. Amongst the
frequent visitors to the chambers was an old friend
of Mr. Lanward's—Dr. Morton. His visits were
generally evening ones, but sometimes he came in
in the daytime—so it was that I got to know him.
On going to the Temple one morning as usual, I
was amazed to have the door opened to me by the
doctor.
“Don't take your things off,” he said. “ Come
in here.”
I followed him into the little outer room.
-[199]


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
“ Lanward is ill," he said abruptly; “seriously
ill.”
He watched me with his keen eyes as he said this
---saw my face blanch, pushed the chair which was
behind me closer, and helped me into it as I stag-
gered.
“What's the matter?” I inquired, hoarsely, “an
accident?"
“No; worse. Infectious case-small-pox."
“Small-pox?” I said in wonderment.
“Where he got it I don't know. One can catch
it in a cab, a railway carriage, a hundred ways. It
is sufficient that he has it—is likely, I fear, to be bad
under it. The point is, it is infectious. You must
stop away till "
“Stop away!”
I was on my feet with grim determination in my
heart-I think written in my face. The doctor
continued-
“I shall not have him taken to the hospital.
These rooms can be isolated. I have sent for a
nurse; she is here. He must have another "
“I will be that other.”
“You seriously want to be?”.
“ With all my heart-with all my heart and soul.”
“I thought you would,” he said, grimly. “I am
--[200]


CHAMBERS IN THE TEMPLE
C
grant. Let me stop-let me help to nurse you.
Believe me, there is nothing—now—that you could
do to please me so much."
“But- "
“ There are no buts. I do not fear infection. I
run no risk. I have been vaccinated recently, and
had small-pox as a child. Dr. Morton tells me I
run no risk. Accept me-please.”
I had put my hand out, and he took it and pressed
it. Then he said-
“My greatest grief has been the thought that for
weeks I should not see you, Mary. In a sense, I
am sorry, and yet so glad, so glad, so glad.”
So it was that I stopped and helped to nurse my
employer. And he was ill, became worse—and
worse. More often than once I saw the doctor
shake his head, and I-in my heart-trembled as
he did so. The patient seemed to wear away to a
shadow. The least thing pained, irritated him;
even the light which came through the slats of the
blinds had to be covered over. It was only when I
was reading to him or when the doctor came that
there was any light in the room at all.
Dr. Morton came four times one day. The pa-
tient was nearly unconscious on each occasion, and
I could see a frown on the doctor's face as he ex-
-[203]


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
amined the prostrate man. When presently he was
going I followed him out of the room.
“ Tell me,” I said, “ for God's sake, tell me—is he
dying?”
"If I tell you, you will break down, just at the
time when the most careful nursing is needed, and
may pull him through.”
“No, no, I will not. I am of strong will. You
do not know me.”
“Very well. I am afraid, sadly afraid, he is sink-
ing—I don't know. It is a most critical stage. It
depends in a measure how he comes out of this
unconscious condition from which I dare not rouse
him. He will come out of it-must-soon. See
that he is not worried in any shape or form. What-
ever he asks for, give it him—whatever it may be.
Get him to sleep, if possible; I will be back in two
or three hours.”
He went his way. I returned to the sick cham-
ber; sat there-dry-eyed. I had said to the doctor
that I was a woman of strong will. I exercised it
then. I kept back my tears so that my eyes seemed
to burn in their sockets. ... I was startled by
hearing the patient, in a feeble, but quite rational
voice, saying-
“Mary, is that you ?-I cannot see plainly."
-[204]-


CHAMBERS IN THE TEMPLE
I was kneeling by the bedside in a moment, put-
ting the hair from his forehead, as I answered
“ Yes, darling, I am here."
For almost a full minute there was silence, and
then, still in the same feeble tone, he said
“Mary-do you know what you said just then?”
I had not-I remembered, though; I had spoken
from my heart. But he was so ill—dying, what did
it matter? I knew what he wanted to hear from my
lips—why, now, should I hold back?
“Yes, dear,” I murmured, “ I know what I said.”
His poor, thin, wasted hand sought mine, and I
continued
“Not long ago you said to me you would be glad
to hear me say that I thought I loved you a little.
Hear me say now, dear one, will you, that I love
you—love you with all my heart and soul!”
“It is good—balm to hear you say so; but I don't
understand why you— "
“Don't try, dear. Is it not sufficient for you to
know that I do love you, that I tell you so, that I
have ever loved you, and that when I told you I
did not, I lied, and nearly broke my heart in the
lying?”
“Tell me "
"Nothing more now. Don't think-don't talk.
-[205]


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
Try and sleep—rest. The doctor said so. He will
be back soon. See, now, I won't say another word
to you till he comes ”.
"Only one word, Mary. I asked you to marry
me once. If—if I get better, tell me you will do
so?”
What answer could I give-save one? So it was
that I answered-
“ Yes."
He sighed contentedly.
“Not another word now," I said. “I will
remain kneeling here as I am, my hand holding
yours, so long as you do not speak. Try and
sleep.”
When some hours after the doctor came, he saw
a change for the better. When he went—as before
-I followed him out.
“ He has taken a turn for the better, I think,” he
said, as he put on his gloves. “There was mental
worry or depression complicating matters—that
seems to have passed away. I shall look in again
in the evening.”
He did, some hours later, and spoke most cheer-
ingly of the patient's improved condition. I won-
dered had I been the cause of it—what I had said ?
I wondered, too, what would happen if he recovered
-[206]-


CHAMBERS IN THE TEMPLE
wa
JSS
and wanted to keep me to the promise I had made
when I thought he was dying.
So, day by day, the patient came out of the Valley
of the Shadow of Death. I could see his recovery;
he ate and drank, and seemed to be putting on flesh,
but all the same I was worried—because the doctor
was worried. There was something-evidently un-
satisfactory-of which he said nothing to me.
In his waking moments I was scarcely ever ab-
sent from the sick man's room. It did him good, he
said, for me to be there—and he missed me in a
moment. The nurse—as dear and kindly a soul as
ever lived—God bless her! was in no way jealous.
She read things so easily. She was a woman.
For weeks he lay there in almost the blackness of
night, for by the doctor's directions there was but
a glimmer of light admitted to the room. He got
much better—the weakness left him. The time
when I had had to feed him with a spoon seemed
long past. He was travelling on the road to health,
the milestones were passed quicker and quicker,
and I felt assured he would reach his goal. And yet
my assurance was checked by the worried look on
the doctor's face—there was quite as much the re-
lation of friendship, as doctor and patient between
them.
-[207]-


CHAMBERS IN THE TEMPLE
Women
So we two women waited outside, the two med-
ical men going into the sick chamber and closing
the door.
Although we could not distinguish their voices,
we could hear sounds from the room. We heard
the jangle of the rings on the poles as the curtains
were swung back, and the clatter of the laths as the
venetian blinds were pulled up the doctor was do-
ing it himself.
Then there was a long silence—and we two
women waited in it. Have you ever waited out-
side the door of a sick room so ?—waiting for
the verdict? You will know how I felt—the
torture of it. Nurse saw what I was suffering,
and put her arm round my waist and drew me
to her-her sympathy was very sweet, God bless
her.
Then we heard the murmur of voices, and sud-
denly there rang out a sharp, half-suppressed
scream-a man's scream. I started towards the
door, but nurse held me back.
“What is it ? ” I panted; "he is being hurt! Are
they performing any operation?"
“No, dear,” she said, and there was a sad tone
in her voice. “They have told him, and—I was
afraid it was so.”
-[209]-


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
“ Afraid ? ” I said, “what is it?. For God's sake,
tell me."
At that moment the door opened, and the two
men came out. Dr. Morton went with the specialist
to the door, shook hands, and said good-bye to
him. Then, closing the door, said-
“Nurse, go to your patient for two or three min-
utes, will you? I want to talk_” Then, turning
to me, he continued: “Come in here."
We entered the study, where the doctor made
me sit down, and then seated himself. He was very
much upset, I could see. I feared the worst, and sat
stonily facing him. I felt that I was going to be told
that the sick man was dying. And yet I thought
that I knew the patient's character better—that he
would have accepted the verdict of death more
bravely—that he would not have cried out.
“I am detaining you here purposely," said the
doctor, “just for a few minutes. Lanward asked
me to do so. He wants to pull himself together a
bit before he sees you.”
“Is he—is he going—to die?”
“ There are worse things than death.”
“Worse?”
“ To some men—yes. Had we told him that
death was coming he would have borne it better."
—[210]—


CHAMBERS IN THE TEMPLE
He looked at me kindly with his shrewd, keen eyes.
“But I think it will come right. I think I read you
—your character-correctly. I think—whatever
he may say—you will make his life worth the living
to him. I don't think I shall be disappointed in you
-I hope not, for his sake."
“Tell me— ”
“No,” he answered. “I have prepared you a
little for what he has to say to you—he shall tell you
himself. Go now to him; you can bring peace
—and will, if you are the woman I take you
to be—where no other soul can. Go, and when I
come this evening, I hope to find absent from his
face the look of horror and terror I have left on
it.”
He put on his hat and went. I sat for a moment
where he left me—unable to move. I had not the
faintest suspicion what it could be. At first I
thought he was to be cruelly marked by the small-
pox, but I dismissed that from my mind-he was
not a vain man. He would not have cried out at
that.
“Worse than death to some men,” the doctor
had said. What could it be? I determined to see
for myself. I staggered to the door, and, pulling
myself together, walked along the passage to the
—[211]—


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
sick room. Nurse came out as I entered. She
whispered-
“I am glad you have come. He asked for you,
I was just coming to fetch you."
The room looked so strange. The blinds were
up, and the brightness and light were streaming
in at the windows, which had been closed for so
many weeks. I looked at the sick man; he was
sitting up in bed; his face was pale-ghastly
pale—but there was not a pock mark on it. I ad-
vanced.
“ Is that you, Mary?”
He was facing the door. I was standing in the
light, and he asked me that! Yet I had no suspicion.
I answered, endeavoring to be cheerful-
Can't you see me?”
And then, with an infinite pathos in his voice, he
replied
“No, Mary ... I shall never see you again
... God help me, I am blind!”.
That was it—and I had never suspected it! For
a moment the room seemed to whirl round me;
then I sprang to his bedside, sat on the bed, and had
him in my arms, holding him so tightly, and he, all
the manhood gone from him, was sobbing out his
[212]-


THE MARGA TE MYSTERY
blind man! That arrangement we spoke of a little
time ago-our marriage ”—there came a little
quaver in his voice, and I saw his lip tremble—“can
never be. I release you from your promise."
I drew him to me again, and kissed his trembling
lips.
“Do you remember, dear,” I said, " telling me
once that the trait of determination was a strong
one in my character? Are you prepared to fight
it? You will lose, if you do, I warn you. I have
determined what I shall dom ".
“Mary- ”
“You say you release me from that marriage
arrangement. How do you know I want to be
released? How do you know that when you have
tried to break away from what you have promised
me- "
"Mary— "
- and after leading me to believe that you
would marry me, fail to do so! How do you know
that I shall permit it? You won't force me to sue
you for breach of promise of marriage, I hope!”
He smiled a little at that, as I had intended him
to. Then he said,
“You don't see
“Ah, dear one,” I interrupted, “ that is just what
—[214]


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
future time, some sharp, violent combined men-
tal and physical shock might suddenly restore the
sight—but it was a chance not to be thought or
depended on.
When Dr. Morton came that evening, he came
more as a friend than medical adviser. So far as the
fever was concerned, the patient was free from it,
and it was merely a question now of what the doctor
termed “feeding up.” So well was he that the
doctor allowed him to smoke one pipe that night,
a luxury he had been sighing for for weeks.
And when at last the doctor left-he was not a
man given to exhibit his feelings, so that it made
it the more marked-he shook me by the hands
and said -
• “I was right-in my reading of your character.
You are a good woman. God bless you. Good-
night."
Three more weeks elapsed before the patient was
well enough to travel, and then one afternoon we-
he and I—took train from Charing Cross to Bex-
hill. We were to spend a month there.
Two people saw us off, Dr. Morton and the nurse.
They had been with us all the morning—at the reg-
istrar's office, where they had witnessed our mar-
-[216]—


CHAMBERS IN THE TEMPLE
riage, and afterwards to a little wedding breakfast
at which we formed a quartette.
We had taken a small furnished cottage on the
outskirts or edge of Bexhill, and were so comfort-
able there that we viewed the leaving of the place
with dismay. A few pence took me into Hastings
for shopping, whilst the quietude so essential to the
successful thinking of an author was at my hus-
band's command. He worked, he said, in that ex-
hilarating, sea-kissed air as he had never been able
to work before. I knew it, for his thoughts flowed
so rapidly that my pen was kept busily at work-
there were few pauses when the dictator “stopped
to think.”
That was the origin of our making Bexhill our
home. Terms were arranged with the owner of the
house, and the contents bought-lock, stock, and
barrel. From the chambers in the Temple came
down all my husband's books, papers, pictures, and
things he valued, the rest of the furniture being sold
off. So we became permanently located at Bexhill.
For many months this quiet, peaceful life of hap-
piness had been enjoyed by us, when I increased the
happiness by something I was able to announce:
that later on, with God's blessing, a child would be
born to us.
[217]-


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
And now this narration of my life must draw to a
close. The news I have imparted to my husband
, has made him more exacting, more insistent in his
demands on my time. “There will be,” he says,
with ludicrous anxiety mingled with pleasure at the
thought, “another mouth to feed! We must work.”
I laugh—but I yield. And so between this extra
time in taking down from dictation and transcribing
my notes, and looking after the thousand and one
little odd jobs of sewing—for I mean to give myself
the pleasure of making every stitch of my own baby
linen—I shall have no time at all for writing about
myself.
How, I wonder, does the story of my life read ?
Have I sufficiently shown my gratitude for the
peaceful happiness which has come to me—the har-
bor in which my boat rests after that stormy early
voyage?
I hope so—for my gratitude is great. Never a
night passes but I thank God on bended knee that
He has lifted me from the depths, that He has
shown me this infinite mercy, that He has given me
such a good husband. And soon I hope to thank
Him for that other—the coming gift, which will
make even happier than it is our married life. I
have indeed much to be prayerfully thankful for.
- [218]


PART IX
THE BLIND AUTHOR
The Third Person Again
D EXHILL-ON-SEA, with its dry and invigo-
rating air, its town situated in the bay midway
between Eastbourne and Hastings, is not one-half
as popular as it justly deserves to be. In winter-
unlike Hastings—it has no season, and the beach is
left mainly to the inhabitants and the few visitors
who know the value of the place, and love its peace
and quietness.
Here the Lanwards pitched their tent, and found
it a pleasant place enough. On the fringe of the
town they had a little bufigalow looking on to the
English Channel, near enough to the town to be
considered part of it, and yet far enough away to
be free from its noise.
The straight path from the garden led down to
the sea, and it was not long before the quickly de-
veloped power of observation—it sounds a strange
thing to say of a blind man-enabled the author to


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
mechanically count his way along to the sea. So
many steps led so-and-so, and so many to such-and-
such a place.
The figure of this man feeling his way along the
paths with his stick—for he wanted to cultivate in-
dependence—was a common sight to the water-
men; and those who earned their living on the beach
were wont to steal minutes from their work, pre-
tending they were going the blind man's way, that
they might help him thereon a little, or save him
from some possible collision or fall.
This intercourse had started with a polite“ Good
morning, sir,” and had developed when it was seen
how grateful the blind man was for any friendly
recognition. It is impossible to say what morbid
idea the author had—perhaps that people would
shun him; but this friendliness on all hands was a
source of great comfort to him. He saw so much
more of the kindly side of human nature that he,
too, came to say, “I never saw till I was blind.”
Regularly each day he started for a long walk
alone, but he rarely finished it so. He met men on
all hands. No sooner had one left him than he was
greeted by another. They did not like to see the
slow, cautious progress he made on his walk along
the sea-wall, tapping the side lest he should fall
-[220]—


THE BLIND AUTHOR
over, and ahead of him, for fear of steps. So it was,
that the men, seeing him coming, would mount the
wall and walk beside him, shielding him from dan-
ger, and allowing of a healthier pace.
Perhaps the men had never known a visitor who
spoke so well to them; that was one reason, per-
haps, that they sought him so much. He painted
—with his tongue—such pictures that they saw
them plainly with their own eyes. They were re-
luctant to leave him. He came to be loved on that
sunny southern shore.
And happy the man whose turn it was to take the
blind man out fishing—for they took it in turns
among themselves, this pleasant task—and many a
man would lose a job that he might be mate in the
small boat, which would anchor off the shore for
hours. The blind man would sit in the bow of the
boat, with his spools hanging either side, and talk
to the men, and smoke his pipe, and share his to-
bacco with them, and be as gleeful as a boy every
time he had a bite. Then he would haul up and
handle his catch-it was the only way he could tell
its size—and rejoice loudly if he landed a big fish.
The other man, or men, fishing too, would notice
this glee, and it came about that they formed a small
conspiracy amongst themselves to deceive the blind
—[221]-


THE BLIND AUTHOR
sighed, and then felt for his pipe—he would smoke
in the front garden till Mary came back. The to-
bacco pouch in his hand he found empty. No mat-
ter; he knew where to place his hand on a jar full-
on the workshop mantelpiece.
He turned the handle of the door and entered.
Midway in the room—every inch of which he knew
—his foot touched something. He advanced the
foot further, and then, with a cry of dismay—for he
felt that a human being lay there—he stooped. His
hand touched—a woman! God! what did it mean?
His hand went higher-he felt the blouse, knew
that it was one his wife was wearing that day.
Higher up he felt a brooch-her brooch! Good
God! What could it mean? As he half lifted him-
self his hand slid over her breast, and he felt some-
thing wet—something sticky!
With an understanding cry of horror he stag-
gered to his feet, and in doing so his foot slipped
in something slimy on the floor. Before he could
recover or save himself he fell with a heaviness
which shook the little building.
Then—then it happened. There came about the
combination, the mental and physical shock of
which the specialist had spoken. As if by a flash of
lightning, he saw! His sight was restored! And
—[225]


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
he had another, bigger shock in what he did see.
There, lying on the floor, was his wife, dead of stabs
in the breast; and away in the corner of the room,
crouching with an affrighted face, knife in hand,
was the murderer!
The author staggered to his feet, threw up his
arms, fought, struggled for the air which seemed
withheld from him, and then fell to the floor again,
this time unconscious.
When, two weeks after, the “ Hastings and Bex-
hill Advertiser” gave an account of the inquest, and
the jury's verdict, “ Wilful murder against some
person or persons unknown," and went on to say
that the police had absolutely no clue, it considera-
bly gladdened the heart of one careful reader—the
murderer. He read the report in his bedroom at
the Hastings Hotel, and heaved a deep sigh of relief
as he read it. He had not feared detection—now he
knew he was safe.
But had he known that he was being slowly but
surely tracked by two parties, working wholly inde-
pendently of each other, and yet playing into each
other's hands, he would not have felt quite so easy.
He liked Hastings—had serious thoughts of set-
tling there. A wine business came into the mar-
-[226]





PART X
THE DETECTIVE'S DISAPPOINTMENT
Sergeant Parden's Methods
I WAS a photographer before I entered the police
1 force. Photography as a means of earning a
living is not the paying art it was. Nearly every
second man you meet in the street now owns a
camera. So I gave the business up-retaining my
apparatus—and entered the force. A policeman's
pay is not large, but it is sure. You have clothes on
your back and a roof over your head whether the
sun shines or not, which is more than the cheap
photographer can always boast of.
What I knew of photography was of help to me
in my new sphere. By reason of what I did with
that knowledge in one case, I was promoted from
the uniform to plain clothes; and later on in the
Southwold murder case) I used my camera with
such effect that I got my promotion to sergeant.
That was good. Promotion is curious in the
force—once a man starts mounting, he gener-
-[229]-


PARDEN'S METHODS
said. I can safely predict that man's remaining a
constable to the end of his term. A man frightened
of a little blood does not go up many rungs of the
police ladder.
The cottage in which the murder had been com-
mitted stood in the middle of its own piece of
ground, close to the sea, and not far from the
town of Bexhill. It was a quiet spot, off the
road, and just the place for a murder. A victim
might have screamed for hours and attracted no
attention.
The night constable had been awakened, and was
on duty at the cottage, holding a small crowd at
bay. He saluted me, and I said to him,
“You did quite right, Lee, to keep the people
out. Don't let a soul in."
“I haven't, sir,” he answered, “ except the doc-
tor. He's just gone in.”
I walked up the path and opened the door. The
murder had been committed in the back room, or
study. I heard some one moving there—it was
the doctor.
“Hullo, Parden!” he said; “here's a bad job.
Woman stone dead, and this man so deeply uncon-
scious that I can't bring him round.”
He was on one knee, holding the man across the
lan
con
-[231]-


PARD EN’S METHODS
I sent a boy home by train with a letter to my
wife at Hastings, and he was to bring me a reply.
The letter explained why I should not be home that
night, and requested her to send back by the bearer
my flashlight apparatus. I knew that my photo-
graphs must be taken that night or never; next day
there would be jurymen, coroner, medical men,
perhaps more policemen, trampling out everything
that might serve as a clue.
The blind man did not come out of that state of
unconsciousness in which he had been found, and
the doctor looked anxious. His surgery was at the
other end of the town, and he needed restoratives,
and yet did not like to leave his patient. He was
friendly with the blind man—knew him in the town.
I preferred having that house to myself all night. I
wanted to thoroughly examine it for clues, and I
had work to do which would not be helped by on-
lookers. I suggested how much better-as the doc-
tor was a friend of Mr. Lanward's—if we sent for a
fly, put him in it, and the doctor took him to his
own home and restored him to consciousness there.
The medical man jumped at the idea, and a fly
was fetched, and my idea—and the unconscious
man—carried out. I was not sorry. I guessed that
the author would be of no use to me—a blind man
—[233]-


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
cannot give you much information. At last I was
alone. Until the boy returned, I occupied myself
with noting the contents of the room—viewing
them from the doorway.
I did not tramp about the room. There was no
knowing what clues there were on the floor—it was
for the camera to show them, as it had done in the
Southwold case. On the wall in the corner of the
room there was the mark of a hand-in blood.
From that I pictured how the murder had been
committed—the three stabs, and then perhaps a
feeling of horror as the woman staggered and fell,
prompting a crouching attitude against the wall. It
was either a crouching man or a dwarf who had
made the bloody finger marks on the wall. My
camera was going to help me there. I knew all
there was to know of the science of finger marks
as expounded by Mr. Francis Galton, and in use
in the continental prisons.
The crowd had gradually dwindled away as it
grew dark, and at last the boy returned. I dismissed
him, and was absolutely alone. There was a coal
cellar leading out of the scullery, and when I had
put a piece of sacking over the grating which ad-
mitted light and air, I had there a chamber which
served admirably as a dark room in which to change
-[234]-


PARDEN’S METHODS
my photographic plates. For I wanted at least a
dozen pictures of the room, and I only had one slide
with me. Many things not visible to the naked eye
are revealed by the camera—I had found it so be-
fore, and might again.
What with changing those plates a dozen times—
I knew by the rough feel of the gelatine the right
side, and worked easily in the dark—and doing
them up in separate pieces of paper, journeying to
and from cellar to room, and manipulating the flash-
light apparatus, I was over four hours taking those
dozen pictures.
When I had at last exhausted my plates, and
wrapped the box containing them in more paper
and my black cloth so as to keep them light proof,
I thought I had earned a few hours' sleep—and I
took them. Soon after daybreak I was up again,
washed, and made a careful survey of the ground all
round the house. I found nothing to help me. It
had been dry weather. There was not a footmark.
At eight o'clock came one of the constables to re-
lieve me—daylight wiped away some of his feeling
of fear, and he looked three inches bigger round the
chest-and I went home. A hurried meal, and I
went down to the little shed at the bottom of my
garden, which I used as a dark room.
- [235]


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
I had taken a dozen pictures, but half of them
were, in a measure, duplicates. That is to say, I
took the same picture again, but with a chromatic
glass, which affects some and not other colors. I
knew enough of photography to know what I was
doing. The glass brings out some colors and does
not touch others.
The pictures were a success. Those I had taken
of the floor—thanks to the chromatic glass-
showed footmarks in blood; and I rejoiced to find
that the servant girl who had given the alarm had
not walked into the room. The sight from the door
had probably been sufficient for her. Neither the
doctor nor myself had of course been foolish
enough to tread in the pool of blood, so of the
clearly outlined footmarks there were two views.
I was able to locate them directly. There was the
sweep or swish indicating where Mr. Lanward had
fallen, and the direction of the footmark, from the
blood-stained wall, was of the other man's—the
murderer's.
I soaked the negatives in spirits of wine, and in a
quarter of an hour they were fit to handle. Then I
put them in my lantern arrangement for enlarging.
This description smacks rather of the photogra-
pher's shop, but I am giving you minute details of
-[236]


THE MARGA TE MYSTERY
haps right, perhaps wrong, it is not for me to say;
but I may point to my rapid ascent of the ladder of
promotion, I think. Those bootmarks I had photo-
graphed indicated good boots—it took the mur-
derer right out of the laboring classes. That was
point one. Nothing appeared stolen; the dead
woman's rings, watch and chain were prominent-
point two. If not robbery, revenge-point three.
The Lanwards were decent people—inference (A),
that a man seeking revenge on them would be of
the like class; (B) the murderer would very likely
prove to be a gentleman.
I summed up these points in my usual way,
that is to say, I put myself in the murderer's place,
and asked myself what should I, an educated man,
a gentleman, do? The first move of a man of low
intelligence would be to put as much ground as pos-
sible between himself and the scene of his crime.
Would a gentleman? He would know better.
Therefore Bexhill, Hastings, or St. Leonards
would probably contain him—anyway, being on the
spot, search should be made there first. The“ Hast-
ings and Bexhill Visitors' List” was purchased for
a penny, and I carefully ran down the list of visitors.
There were no less than thirty-three foreign names.
That looked like a tough job~to sift them; but I
- [238]


PARD EN’S METHODS
took it on. I subdivided those names into three sec-
tions: those staying at (A) Apartments; (B) Board-
ing-houses; (c) Hotels.
I took on (A) first-easier. A knock at the door.
Was Mr. Aimer, a foreign gentleman, walking
slightly lame, staying there? That had the desired
result—there was a foreigner, but no one of that
name or lame staying there. Night fell before I had
completed the apartments and boarding houses.
But I was not disheartened.
Early morning found me at work at the hotels,
and before eight o'clock I thought I had struck the
trail. At one a French gentleman named Victor
Breine, slightly lame, was stopping. Then came
the critical part of my task. It was early, and the
cleaned boots had not been disturbed outside their
respective owners' bedroom doors.
With the manager's permission I went into the
room where the king of Day and Martin reigned,
said king having been sent on an errand by the
manager. The manager obliged me in this—most
hotel managers who know their business like to
keep in with the police. It is a policy which pays.
The number of the bedroom occupied by Victor
Breine was 44, so I sorted over the row of boots
until I came to a pair bearing chalk figures on the
-[239]-


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
soles, 44. From my pocket I whipped a folded piece
of white paper with a sheet of carbonized paper be-
tween it. On that I pressed the boots. Then I
came out-I had got what I wanted.
In the office I ascertained that Mr. Breine had
been at the hotel for over a week, and had given
no indication of any intention of leaving. So far
so good—but I did not take any risks. I put a nark
on the watch. Understand me, I was doing a lot
of this work all on my own. If I gave away—at this
early stage—the clues I had, where were my honor
and glory to come in? I could afford to spend some
shillings-pounds, if needs be (for I was privately
rewarded over the Southwold matter)—with the
ambition to fill a superintendent's position inspir-
ing me.
So at the inquest I said nothing of what I knew.
I simply gave my evidence in the usual way; that
is to say, of the things that an ordinary officer would
have seen. You think me vain for saying that, per-
haps, but I again point to the rapidity with which
I have climbed from the ranks.
The black impression I had of the boots fitted my
photographs. Personally, I had little doubt; but I
had not evidence sufficient to justify an arrest. Be-
sides, the case was not clear enough. I had yet the
-[240]


PARDEN'S METHODS
thumb mark to verify—that would come. I am not
an impatient man; I could wait.
There was a difficulty in getting at Mr. Victor
Breine's actual fingers. I tried once, and failed.
Put one of my narks in an oilskin, covered with a
thin film of gelatine, and sent him in Mr. Breine's
way, when that gentleman was walking on the front.
The nark lurched as if drunk, and Breine put out
his hands to save himself from collision, and
touched the gelatine; but, confound him, we found
he was wearing gloves. İn fact, we found that he
rarely left the house without wearing them. The
gelatined waterproof had no chance.
Mr. Lanward was strangely reticent. I had one
short interview with him. I tried, without telling
him what I suspected, of course, to pump him, and
failed. He could tell me nothing. His grief was
deep—I don't think I ever saw such an alteration in
a man's face; but there was another, a nasty ex-
pression on it, too, the look which grows from the
desire for revenge. I should not have liked him to
lay his hands on the murderer. It would have spoilt
a good trial—there would have been no need for
an execution. He had evidently been very fond of
his dead wife.
Almost directly after the inquest and the jury's
—[241]-


PAR DEN’S METHODS
giving the maiden name of the murdered woman
and her address at the time of her marriage, from
the Register. Her name was Mary Bankes.
Bankes! That struck me as familiar—you don't
often find that final “e." I turned up my index of
criminals (a guard book of cuttings I keep), and I
came across the name of William Bankes in it, exe-
cuted for murder about two years ago. I wrestled
with that, but I did not quite see how it was going
to help me, or what connection that murder had
with the present one. There were two coincidences,
though—both the victims were women, both mur-
ders had been at the seaside. Was there anything
in it?
I sauntered along the main street of Hastings,
thinking so deeply that I did not think where I was
going. A warning cry from some painters standing
on trestles against a shop pulled me up—I had
nearly walked into them. Looking up, I saw what
the painters were doing on the facia. It does not do
for a detective to be surprised—I was then, though.
Their work read “Victor Breine, late Hastings
Wine Co."
I walked on, came back again, did this three or
four times—the place had a fascination for me. I
- [243] —


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
knew Benson, who kept the wine shop, a sort of in-
terior Bodega,“ Wines from the Wood ” place, by
having talked to him when he applied at the licens-
ing sessions. So I walked in, had a glass of wine,
and talked.
“ Painters at work, I see.”
“Yes; I've had enough of Hastings can't get a
living in it.”
“Selling?—found a mug?”
“Selling—yes; mug, no. He's pretty smart, is
Mr. Breine, and he'll perhaps do where I have failed.
We are applying, by the way, to-morrow, for a tem-
porary transfer of the license.”
“Is it the French gent staying at Summerton's
Hotel ?”
“ Yes.”
"Ah! Well, I hope he'll make a do of it. Sorry
you haven't. Good morning."
I came out. This looked like a step on the road
to success. I began to regret I am so well known
in the town. I wanted to handle the cards and play
them myself, and, if Breine did not know me, I saw
the way. I did not attempt to disguise myself. That
sort of thing reads well in books, but in real life
-bah!
Yes, I saw the way. You know what narks are ?
- 244]


PARDEN'S METHODS
can do things the regular police dare not-spies,
in fact. They are, as a rule, a traitorous, vile, des-
picable set, but you must not be too particular
about the tools you handle if you want to detect
criminals.
I had a photograph taken of the “wine vaults”
when the painters had finished; and the day Breině
took possession, and was waiting behind his coạn-
ter for customers, I entered for a glass of wine, and
whilst drinking it glanced through the columns of
the daily paper. Evidently Breine did not know
me; so far so good.
Presently a travelling photographer entered. He
had photographed the wine vaults with other shops
in the High Street yesterday. Would Mr. Breine
like one or more copies? Mr. Breine would say
when he saw one. The photographer had not pulled
any prints, but Mr. Breine could look at the nega-
tive if he liked—by holding it with the thumbs and
fingers to the light, he could see what sort of picture
it would make. Mr. Breine did so. The negative
was damp enough to take the impression of Mr.
Breine's fingers. It did. The nark came away with
it in a box. I had stained the thumb mark, and was
making prints of it within an hour. It fitted my
-[245]-


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
photographs of the bloody finger marks on the
wall.
All this time, of course, Mr. Breine was being
watched by my narks—if he went out, they followed
him; he was worth keeping in sight. I had almost
sufficient material to go on, but still I wanted to be
more certain. I did not want to run any risk; I was
not anxious for a reputation as a mistake-maker.
I invested sixpence—twenty.words for sixpence.
I put an advertisement in the agony column of one
of the local papers. It read-
FRENCHMAN.—Beware! I am on your
track. It shall be a life for a life.-Yours
till death.—Mary BANKES.
With a copy of this paper, hot from the press, I
strolled into the wine vaults. I was quite a good
customer there now. The wine from its cellars was
good. Whilst standing drinking my wine, I sud-
denly laughed, and said to Breine, who was
serving-
“Hullo! Here's a message for one of your coun-
trymen.”
“Oh,” he replied with great politeness—I must
-[246]-


PARDEN'S METHODS
give the devil his due, he was the pink of good man-
ners—“ What about?”
“Here,” I said.
I indicated with my finger the advertisement as
I handed him the paper. Then I picked up my glass
and pretended to be drinking whilst he read. It was
my man right enough. He went livid.
Of course, I did not let him see that I noticed any-
thing wrong. I had picked up another paper, and
was engrossed in it, never once turning my head in
his direction—not that there was a need to: the
mirror opposite reflected everything.
I made up my mind to see the Chief of the Crim-
inal Investigation Department. I would go up to
Scotland Yard. I did not believe in trusting to the
Sussex Chief. I wanted all the glory of my dis-
covery to myself; some of it might be lost if it
filtered to headquarters in the ordinary way. Be-
sides, Scotland Yard was my proper place—I felt
that—and I was doing my best to get there.
I applied for a day's leave, and got a grant of it
five days ahead. Then, armed with my proofs, I
would make for London.
About noon on the fourth day I sauntered into
the wine vaults for my morning glass of wine, and to
look at the bird whose wings I was shortly to clip-
[247]


THE MARG A TE MYSTERY
and it did me good to look at him. But on this oc-
casion I did not see him—nor either of my narks.
I imagined Breine had gone out for a stroll, and
though I sighed at missing a sight of him, I went
about my duties in the ordinary way. I could trust
my men to follow him.
At six-thirty I went home to tea, and found a tele-
gram awaiting me. I saw that it had been handed in
at Bexhill, and it read-
“Come at once. Urgent. Meet you at station.”
And it bore the name of one of my narks.
I was alarmed. What could it mean? At first I
thought that Breine had taken train to London, but
then I knew that the narks had each of them a sov-
ereign in his pocket to meet a contingency of that
kind. Why telegraph from Bexhill?
I did not stay for tea, but, a train being due, I
promptly sought the railway station, and was in a
few minutes on the Bexhill platform. One of my
men met me.
“I'm glad you've come, sir," he said; "we're in
a fix."
“What's the matter?” I said sharply. “Where's
Breine?”
-[248]


PAR DEN’S METHODS
“I don't know, sir.”
“What?”
“Let me tell you the whole story. You know you
said we were not to let him out of our sight. He
took the 10:40 train from Hastings to Bexhill. We
heard him ask for his ticket at the booking-office,
and we took the same. We nipped into the train,
and when he got out we followed at a distance. He
went into the house where the murder was com-
mitted.”
I started—I was rather surprised.
“Well, we watched, and kept on watching, but he
never came out, and so, after some hours, I went
into the village and sent you that wire.”
“ Did no one come out at all?”
“Yes, a chap with a beard and glasses on- "
“Who "
“Well, my mate says he knows him—though he
don't seem so certain about it now—says it was
Lanward, the author.”
“But Lanward does not wear glasses,” I said;
“he is stone blind.”
“we have been done! The man that came out was
not blind. He walked to the railway station smartly
enough like any one else, and took his ticket and
-[249]-


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
went up to London by the twelve o'clock train. I
know that because, although my mate said he knew
him, I did not want to run any risks, and I followed
the man all the way from the cottage to the railway
station. He could see as well as I could.”
We were walking all this time along the front,
making for where the other nark was seeing, but
not being seen. Somehow, I fancied Breine had
been too clever for me—that, disguised in a false
beard, he had made off for London.
The other nark, when we reached him, was posi-
tively certain that no mistake had been made. He
had seen Lanward's photograph in the shop win-
dows in Hastings, and knew it well—the fact that
the man who left the cottage could see shook him
a bit, but he persisted that he was right, that it was
Lanward. I got rather angry, as I knew that the
author was away, and the place in charge of the deaf
old fisherman.
As a measure of precaution I kept the narks on
the watch there—one at night and one in the day-
time—for three days. But I felt that the bird had
flown. I began, in fact, to think I had been too
smart—that I had frightened him away with my
bogey advertisement.
Breine's assistant kept the wine shop going—was
-[250]-


PART XI
At Work Once More
Ex-Inspector Johnson Emerges from his Retirement
W H ILST I was on active service-I call the
duties attached to the time I served at
Stone's End police-station, active service—I re-
member picking up a book and reading a story
which professed to be the recollections of a retired
police officer. It was full of the sighs of the retired
man, who, in his retirement, lived in a nice little
house in a nice little garden, in a nice part of the
country, with his radishes and lettuces and spring
onions growing all round him, his chickens clucking
at the side of him, and general peace and content-
ment and rest from, worry everywhere.
I say the book was full of sighs—sighs because
the man supposed to be throwing off the “recollec-
tions ” was not on active service then. That book
made me laugh hugely. It seemed such a big joke.
Here was I on duty in the heart of South London,
never knowing one moment where I should be the
[253]—


T Ꮋ Ꭼ
M A Ꭱ G A T E
M
Y S T Ꭼ Ꭱ Y
the time had an idea that the man who was ulti-
mately hanged was innocent.”
“That is so.”
“Have you still that suspicion?”
" It is no longer a suspicion. I have absolute,
incontrovertible proof that William Bankes was
innocent of the Margate Murder."
“ Good God!”
I could not help saying that, I was so star-
tled.
“During those interviews I had with you," he
continued, “I formed a particularly good idea of
your shrewdness and intelligence. That, coupled
with the fact that you could speak French, made
me think of you."
“You want me to do something ?” I inquired
eagerly.
“I went to Stone's End to inquire for you, and
they told me you had retired. I had heard that.
When I told them that I wanted you for a bit of
private detective work, the inspector—who is a
friend of yours, evidently—said he knew you
would willingly undertake it, as the last time he
had heard from you, you had complained that
you were growing rusty.”
I laughed. The author continued-
-[256]-


AT WORK ONCE MORE
“So he gave me your address, and I took the
train and came down here.”
“And you could not have arrived at a better time.
I am sick of doing nothing. Put me on a trail, and
you will find I won't leave it till I have my quarry."
“I like a man like that,” he said. “I propose to
give you a guinea a day, and pay all travelling ex-
penses whilst you are on my work. Does that suit
you?”
“ You could not,” I answered,“ have suggested
anything which would suit me better. And now
the job—what is it?”.
“You are not in the force now—not bound by
hard and fast rules? There is no need for you to
inquire too closely into my motives; rather keep
your mind to the object.”
“Yes."
“I want to trace the present whereabouts of a
man who was sentenced to a term of two years' im-
prisonment in France, a little over two years ago.
We must go over to France, and follow his foot-
steps from the date of his liberation. In the prisons
there, I believe, they have a system of marking dis-
charged prisoners' permits or passports; they man-
age these things better in France."
“I see. And when the man is found?”
-[257]


AT WORK ONCE MORE
I believe I go absolutely mad. Change the sub-
ject.”
I did—with promptitude.
“ You started the conversation,” I said, “ by say-
ing that you had proof of the innocence of William
Bankes. From that I suppose you have proof of the
guilt of some one else?”
" Absolute proof."
“Is that a secret you are keeping ?”
“ No.”
“Do you mean to tell me who the guilty man
is?”
“Yes: you shall be told-by the man himself.”
“When?”
“When we have found this man I seek.”
“Two years ago, you said ? ... The time of
the Margate Murder! ... This man then—I
begin to see light! We are really seeking a mur-
derer?”
“That is so."
“But—I hesitate to take this job of yours on.”
“Why?”
“I can't allow—I mean there must be no tamper-
ing with justice.”
“You are not a policeman now.”
“True; but I have a policeman's instincts. I can't
-[259]


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
find a murderer, and then obey you when you say
'the quest ends.' It wouldn't do for me.”
“ You don't surely think I want the man to escape
-to suffer nothing for his crime?"
“N-no,” I answered; “but that is what is both-
ering me. I am not quite a fool, Mr. Lanward, and
my common sense tells me that in seeking a man
out of the force, there is something to be done that
a man in the force would not do."
“For instance,” he said, “ if you were on duty at
Stone's End, you would scarcely be able to leave at
a moment's notice for France."
“You know perfectly well, Mr. Lanward, that I
did not mean that. I meant there is something out
of the regular and proper course. We are after a
murderer?"
“ Yes.”
“Why not after him in the ordinary way?”
“ Because I have little faith in the ordinary ways
- I prefer those of the extraordinary kind.”
“When found—tell me—will he be my prisoner?
Shall I have him to hand over to justice? Give me
your word—your word of honor."
“I give you my word of honor," he said slowly,
" that he shall be handed over to you to do whatever
you think fit with.”
-[260]-


AT WORK ONCE MORE
tem in favor of them. Every prisoner leaves his
finger-prints as a record. Do you care to have this
man's ? "
Yes. I did. Partly because it was a novel thing
to me, this system, and partly because it never does
to throw anything away which is likely to serve as a
clue. So I came away with Jacques Lemaire's
finger-prints in my pocketbook.
In accordance with the usụal custom, Jacques
Luciaire had been asked to give the address to
which he was going when discharged, and he had
given 43, Rue Clichard, Marseilles—the address he
had given when arrested.
Mr. Lanward wore an air of intense disappoint-
ment when we left the prison. I could not fathom
why. To my question he replied-
“I am disappointed. I thought, expected to
have found, to have been given more informa-
tion."
We returned to Marseilles. I suggested going to
43, Rue Clichard. Mr. Lanward shrugged his
shoulders.
“I know the place," he said. “It is useless."
Nevertheless, we went. It was an empty build-
ing. Inquiries in the neighborhood furnished the
information that it had been so empty for over two
-[263]-


THE MARG A TE MYSTERY
ney to his friend, Mr. Victor Breine, whose last ad-
dress we had was Summerton's Hotel, Hastings,
Sussex, England. Although our sale bills still ap-
pear on the property, we may say that the house
has been sold, and we have paid (pursuant to the
power of attorney) the purchase money over to Mr.
Victor Breine.
“We set all this out for two reasons—(1) In case
your intent was to negotiate for the property, that
you might know it was sold; (2) That if you want
to find Mr. Lemaire for other reasons, the only per-
son we know likely to assist you would be his attor-
ney, Mr. Victor Breine.
“Yours faithfully,
“ JULES CROZIER ET CIE.”
Again let me say that at that stage I knew noth-
ing of these letters. I therefore saw nothing ex-
traordinary in Mr. Lanward's saying to me the
morning after our return to Marseilles-
“You have done no good in your search, John-
son? ... I was afraid not. If you fail, who can
hope to succeed ? ” (I did not notice the underlying
sarcasm in that speech then.) “We will give it up.
Unless you see any good likely to result from stop-
ping, let us take train homewards to-day."
I saw no good likely to result, and said so. Ac-
cordingly, that afternoon saw us on our homeward
-[266]-


AT WORK ONCE MORE
have to take possession of him, to do things to
him, above all, to talk to him—as he once talked
to me.”
“For God's sake,” I said breathlessly, for I was
fearful of what the man might do, “ don't do any-
thing. You mean to hurt or maim him—remem-
ber, you will be responsible if you do. Is it
worth- ”
He took me by the shoulders and looked me
straight in the face.
“See, Johnson,” he said, “ do I look like a man
who would lightly break his word to an honest man?
... Good. Now, I promise you that, when in
three or four days' time you put your hands on this
man, it shall be entirely his own fault if he is not
alive, and sound in every limb. Now that is all.
Look for my letter. Good-bye.”
He went. I stood looking after him-helpless-
powerless. What could I do? I dared not—and
even if I dared, what good could result?4follow
him. ... I went home. For three days I was the
most expectant, dejected, miserable man in all Eng-
land. And then, as promised, I got a letter. It was
registered, and bore the Bexhill-on-Sea postmark.
I tore it open, and out dropped a latch-key and a
smaller key. The letter ran-
S
-[269]-


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
“The Bungalow,
“ The Beach,
“ Bexhill-on-Sea.
“DEAR JOHNSON,—I promised to write you
within three days—I keep my promise. I promised
to put the murderer in your hands—I keep my
promise. Enclosed, the key of the situation—the
latch-key of my bungalow. Use it, and you will find
the murderer securely fastened within its walls so
that he cannot escape. I do not think you will need
me. I shall be on my way to a country from which
I shall never return. The whole explanation of the
Margate Murder mystery (I must apologize for
confusing you a little over this) is contained in the
document in the enclosed envelope.
“ Yours faithfully,
“R. LANWARD.”
That letter came late in the afternoon. I looked
at the clock, crammed the letter away, snatched up
my hat and coat, put a pair of handcuffs, a small
revolver and a bull's-eye lantern into my pocket,
and shot off to catch an up-train which was about
due. By that means I reached London in time to
catch the last down train to Bexhill, which place I
reached late at night.
At the Bexhill station, and of people I passed, I
inquired for Mr. Lanward's Bungalow, and found
it and he were well known. “ Place where the mur-
-[270]-


AT WORK ONCE MORE
der was committed,” said more than one man. I
walked on out of the town, leaving the houses as di-
rected, and along the front till I could dimly see,
some distance away from the road, a square-shaped
building standing in its own grounds-Lanward's
Bungalow, by the description.
I had lighted my dark-lantern, and now I walked
off the sea-wall in the direction of the house. As I
reached it, and had my hand on the latch of the gate,
I heard a low warning whistle—I had heard them
too often as a policeman not to know their meaning.
Some one was being warned. Of what?-my ap-
proach? The signal was repeated from the direc-
tion in which I had come—the sea-wall.
I paused a moment, and looked round. It was
too dark to make anything out. But the whistle
made me cautious. I entered the garden very
quietly, and equally quietly walked up the path
leading to the front door. Then I inserted the
key and opened the door; not a sound. I paused
a moment, took out my revolver, caressed the
trigger with my finger, and turned the top of
my lantern.
In the round disc of light I could see the hall and
the turn of a staircase which led to upstairs rooms
(whoever had christened the place a bungalow
-[271]-


THE MARGA TE MYSTERY
could scarcely have known the meaning of the
word), and the passage leading to the back of the
house. On the right-hand side were two doors-
back and front room—both shut. I paused, listen-
ing, for I fancied I heard a snapping sound, like the
click of a lock or catch, but, all being quiet, I turned
round and shut the front door.
As I did that, and stooped to pick up my light, I
distinctly heard the opening of an upper window-
the pushing up of one of the frames. I took a step
forward-another—till I reached the foot of the
stairs, and listened. What should I do? Then I
heard footsteps upstairs, and I promptly twisted
the dark slide on my lantern and waited by the side
of the staircase.
Presently a door opened, and I saw a round
disc of light on the wall of the landing, evidently
another bull's-eye! I was for a moment amazed,
astounded. Could it, I thought, be possible that
such a coincidence could come about that I should
be in the house at the very moment that burglars
were entering it? It seemed too ridiculous; but
immediately the disc of light was followed by the
appearance of a man, a rough-looking fellow, with
as no-right-to-be-here a look on his face as ever
man wore. He peered over the landing, but I was
_ [272]


AT WORK ONCE MORE
with the index finger of my other hand, “and I
shoot."
“Who are you?” said the man outside, who held
another bull's-eye lantern (I began to think that in
reaching Bexhill I had struck the native place of
the bull's-eye—the place seemed full of them!).
“That, I think,” I answered, with a coolness bred
of the temperature aforesaid, “is a question I
should put to you. I am here by lawful, proper
authority. I catch this man entering the house
quietly, and you threaten to burst in the door unless
it is opened! What do you mean? ”.
“I am a police officer,” the man answered sulkily,
and, seeing me glance towards it, he lifted the lapel
of his coat and showed me his authority.
“Oh,” I said, changing my tone, “ that puts an-
other complexion on the affair. You were lying in
wait for this beauty, I suppose?”
“He's one of my own men,” replied the other,
even more sulkily.
“What?" I inquired, in astonishment.
“He's one of my own men. You can let him go.
I am answerable for his presence here, and," I heard
him mutter, “ a damned fine mess I seem to have
made of it.”
“Is this the usual-Sussex—method of police
-[275]—


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
work?” I inquired, “or only a variation of it? I
have had twenty-one years' experience in the Lon-
don police force, from the ranks to inspectorship,
but I don't ever remember to have seen official
work carried out in this style.”
The two men had slunk out into the garden,
whilst the third, with the lantern, stood talking
to me.
“They are narks,” he said, pointing his thumb
over his shoulder. “ I have had the place watched
night and day for the last three days, believing the
house contained a murderer— "
I started.
"—whose scent I have been keen on. At last I
thought he had given me the slip, and as the lower
room windows are all shuttered, I got one of my
men to mount a ladder and enter by a window at the
back. The idea was for him to open the front door,
and allow me to search the premises."
“I see,” I said. “That explains things. End
justifies the means sort of policy. Well, perhaps
you will be surprised to hear me say that I believe
the murderer is here.”
It was his turn to start.
“Tell your men to wait outside,” I continued,
“and come in."
-[276]-


AT WORK ONCE MORE
Whilst he was talking to his men, I went to the
corner of the stairs and fetched my lantern. The
officer-I afterwards found he was Detective-
Sergeant Parden-came in, and I opened the front
room door. There was no one there. We entered.
“I had a letter to-day," I said, “ from the owner
of this cottage ”
“Mr. Lanward ?”
“ Yes, enclosing the latch-key, and telling me
that I should find the man who committed the Mar-
gate Murder, two years ago, securely imprisoned
here."
“The Margate Murder!” he said in amazed
tones. “You must be wrong. You mean the mur-
der of Mrs. Lanward in this very cottage. That is
the man I am after, and who, three days ago, was
seen to enter this house. Surely he did not say
• Margate Murder'?”.
“No," I answered, after thinking a moment,
“now I come to think of it, I don't think he did; he
said murderer simply.”
“ That's it. I have been on the scent for weeks
-a Frenchman.”
“A Frenchman!” I cried. “I begin to see more
clearly.”
“I have him fixed, I think,” continued the ser-
-[277]


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
geant. “I am a believer in photography, and I
have a photograph of his blood-stained boot-marks
and impressions of his real boot. I have a photo-
graph of his thumb-marks, and an impression from
his thumb itself— ”.
“Hold on," I interrupted, bringing out my
pocketbook and producing the print the Governor
of the French prison had given me. “Does this
match yours? ”
The sergeant, by means of a pocket lens, eagerly
compared what I gave him with a print he drew
from his own pocket, and then said,
-“The same—no shadow of a doubt.”
“ Then," I answered, starting to my feet, “we
are both after the same man. Let us find him.”.
“You think he is here?” said the sergeant in-
credulously.
“I don't think Mr. Lanward is a liar," I said;
“and he says he is here."
We both picked up our lanterns and left the
room.
“We will search downstairs first,” I said, open-
ing the back-room door.
And then, when we entered the room, and saw
what the lights revealed, we, for a moment, started
back in horror. There, chained to the wall by a
—[278]-


AT WORK' ONCE MORE
steel belt, tightly padlocked round his waist, was a
white-haired, haggard-faced, raving, stark staring
madman.
When he saw our lights he lifted his hands,
clawed the air with his fingers and laughed-
laughed the peculiar, awful make-one's-flesh-creep
laugh of the insane, which prompts the desire to
cram one's fingers into one's ears and run-run
away from the horror of it.
There was a couch behind him, a hanging lamp
above him, and a small table on which were pens
and ink, and some sheets of paper.
I remembered the small key which had been
enclosed in Mr. Lanward's letter. I handed it to
the sergeant.
“ This,” I said, “ will release the man. He is your
prisoner; you have been after him so long_let the
arrest be yours.”
“You mean that?” he inquired eagerly, as if the
· tidings were too good to be true.
He was evidently an ambitious young officer, and
anxious for honor and glory. I answered—
“Yes. Take my advice, and release the man
before you get your men in—there may be no need
to say how you found him, beyond the fact that you
did find him hidden in this room. It will make the
-[279]-





PART XII
IN BROKEN ENGLISH AGAIN
Penned in Fear of Death
I JACQUES LEMAIRE (who for purpose of my
1, own assume recently the name of Victor
Breine) use up the pen and ink, and the light which
is shortly to expire, to write out that it may be
known when my dead body is found, why it is so.
Quite recently I acquire to myself the business of
a wine merchant in Hastings. The morning of this
day I a note received from M'sieu Lanward, at
Bexhill Bungalow, in which it say the writer stock
his cellar afresh, and would I call myselfs with price
lists to take large orders for wines.
I start some little at the letter, seeing the place
which it came from, and ordinarily would I have
not gone; but to my mind comes the reflection:
“What have you to fear—the man is blind." I
had met the writer of that letter-met him when he
was not pleased at the meeting. Still, I reflect, it
is coincidence; he cannot me know under the name
-[283]-


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
of Breine. Besides the which, he not see me at all-
he is know all over Hastings as the blind author.
So, as business not being too brisk, I smother the
feeling which nearly prevail on me to go not, and
take the twenty minute to eleven train to Bexhill.
In a little times I knock at the door of the place call
the Bungalow. M'sieu Lanward open the door,
and stand there looking straight ahead. He has
face full of paleness and griefs, and I feel steal over
me tinge of regrets that I had cause it; but still, I
was my revenge bound to have. He say,
“Who are you? What you want?”
In a voice of disguise, I say—
“ You to the wine merchant write saying come.
Behold I come.”
“Ah!” he say; “ quite so. Will you walk in?”
I step past him, and he the door close behind me.
The next moment he spring upon me, and clap
something over my nose and mouth-I recognize
the smell at once—it was a drug I have myself
handle, chloroform. I had so done to him two
years more ago.
I struggle-struggle wildly, but I am taken so by
surprise, not thinking a blind man could so act.
But in vain my struggle; I am but an infant in his
hands—arms. Before I think twice, steal over me
-[284]-


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
I remember-it was a phrase I to use was prone,
when voyageurs had been lured to my cellar. I it
had said to inspirate the confidence.
"Friends," he go on; “ myself (and you know
how friendly I am disposed towards you—or you
shall before we part) and the spirit of my wife, of the
woman you murdered in this room.”
I shudder when he say that, but I not speak.
He say,
"You are strangely reticent, Jacques. I con-
gratulate you on the restraint you are able to put
on your tongue. You may remember—when our
positions were reversed—I used language more
forcible than polite. You were good enough to
rebuke me at the time in that playful and charac-
teristically humorous way of yours.”
I still not speak-I only at him look. He go on
cold as ice—no emotion can be shown on his face.
Between the puffs of his cigarette, he say—
“You may remember, too, that you introduced
yourself to me, and with a frank candor which
would—under other circumstances—have appealed
to me, detailed what you were going to do to me,
how you would do it, and gave me assurances that
you were coldly, calmly, icily in earnest."
He stop at that, and draw up his chair to the
[286]-


BROKEN ENGLISH A G A IN
table which between us was stood. He rest head
on palms of hands, with elbows on the table top, and
fix me with these burning, bright eyes of his—eyes
I had thought blind—my God! How I had a trap
walked into!
“Look at me, Jacques,” he say. “Look long,
carefully and steadily. I am the last human being
you will ever see on this earth. I am a believer in the
doctrine of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a
life for a life. Firstly, why I want you to look so
closely at me is, that you may read whether you
think I lie or speak truth.”
The look in my face must him have answered.
He go on-
“As you did it, so do I. The chloroform and the
belt you have experienced. Now permit me to
introduce myself, Richard Lanward, a man with
but one unexecuted task between himself and
death, whose charm in life has gone, whose heart
lies buried in the grave of the woman you mur-
dered; whose one mission in life just now is to
see that the sentence of death he has passed on
you is carried out with all that exactness and
faithfulness of detail which marked your own con-
duct towards him more than two years ago—you
remember?”
-[287]


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
I look my remembrance in my face. To speak
was not necessary—as well as impossible. My
tongue stuck to my mouth roof.
“Chained to that wall, Jacques, you are going to
slowly die. Hunger and thirst, increasing in inten-
sity and strength hour by hour, day by day, until
at last exhausted nature will be more merciful to
you than I am—will release you from an existence
which must be a hell upon earth, and send you to
the hell beneath it.”
I, my tongue ran round my parched mouth and
lips, and hoarsely I say—ah! what a fool! -
“Suppose I scream out?”.
He his arms take off the table top, and leant
back, saying-
“How well my memory serves me! On the
occasion of the happening of that two years ago
incident in Marseilles, I made a similar remark to
you. I remember your answer perfectly. You said
in your broken English: ‘Try it, try it, it exercises
the lungs; it do no other thing. So with you,
Jacques; this house, this room is isolated. You
might scream for hours and attract no more
attention than does the cry of the passing sea-
gull. My one attendant, who keeps guard outside
is a deaf old fisherman—so deaf that a gun fired
-[288]


BROKEN ENGLISH AGAIN
within a yard of his ears would be soundless to
him.”
Of course I might all that have guess—he would
not be such a fool as to have leave me ungag if he
not know it safe.
“That lamp overhead," he say on," will burn for
the next eight hours; then-till you die you will be
in pitch-black darkness. Don't think I purposely
do that, but the lamp lasts only so long. In one
hour I shall be far away from here. I am starting
on a long journey. The house will be shut up,
locked and bolted, and no one will set foot in it for
a year, when my lease expires. I mention that,
Jacques, that you may understand that you will
not be disturbed.”
I--my faith! What could I say? What could I
do? I think of appeal for mercy. Perhaps he see
that in my face, for he say—
“There is no death sufficiently full of torture for
such a human devil as you are, Jacques. Could I
have devised one more painful than this, you should
have benefited by it. But I thought that, on the
principle of tit for tat, this would do. You remem-
ber how you served me? You remember how in
this room you served my wife? You think I did
not see you—I did. My sight was restored, it was
-[289]


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
given back to me as by a miracle, and I saw my
dead murdered wife and her living murderer-I
saw you crouching by the wall.”
I-involuntarily—I look at the room corner
where I so crouch as he portray, and I shudder as I
think of Marie whom I kill there.
“When the darkness comes on, Jacques," he go
on, “think of what happened in this room, when,
like the cur you are, you stole in and murdered my
wife. Try to think-apart from my avenging hand
—of the spirit of the dead hovering round you,
waiting, waiting, waiting until you give up the
ghost, and the devil claims you for his own."
I feel my eyes leaving my head-it was so horri-
ble! Still I not cry for pity. I in my heart see that
the man there have no pity for me—he is as iron.
But I think of the darkness—and where I am, and
I put teeth in my lips to prevent the outcry. I fear
so.
“In twelve months, Jacques, they will find what
is left of you. I cannot foresee how you will shape
then. I say that because there are rats here."
My God! How I shudder when he say that!
“ They have often troubled me. Great big, red-
eyed, drain rats, Jacques, with sharp teeth, which
come from the sewers close by. They are bold,
-[290],


BROKEN ENGLISH A G A IN
these rodents; they will pay you a visit when it
grows dark, Jacques—in eight hours' time.”
He rise to his feet and pick up his hat and look
round. He say—
“I have not forgotten anything, Jacques, have I ?
The couch behind you—it was so in the Rue Cli-
chard? The table, the pens and paper-it was so
in the Rue Clichard ? In case you should care to
write out who and what you are now-in twelve-
months' time perhaps they will not be able to
identify you—the writing materials may be of use
to you. You may save much trouble by a little
writing. I am going now. There is nothing more
I can do for you before I go?”
"Stop," I cry out. “ You are not afraid? This
is murder! You will hang by the necks for this.”
He smile. It enrage me. I cry out again,
“ You English have proverb 'Murders will out.'
Think you not this will be discover and you will be
execute for it?”
He smile again, and say with the air of one ex-
postulate-
“My good Jacques! You did not favor me with
all your attention when I was speaking. I said that
I had but one thing to live for: to see that the death
I had sentenced you to was properly carried out.
- [291]


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
When I leave this isolated house, and lock it behind
me, knowing that no human being will set foot in it
for a year, surely I may safely consider the one
thing I had left to live for accomplished? You can-
not think for a moment that there is the remotest
earthly chance of your ever leaving the place
alive?”
I suppose he behold how from my face, that I
regarded the position. That I am in my tomb I am
well acquaint. He seem to see that; he smile sadly,
and say,
“My mission is ended, Jacques—in a few hours
my life will be ended too. I have some business
details which it is only fair to others that I should
put straight, then I go to join the woman you
murdered. My life has nothing left in it worth
the living for.”
He walk then to the door of the room. He stop
for a moment and look at me; then open the door
and pass out; then he close the door behind him.
I hear him cross the hall walking, then the rattle of
a lock, the bang of the street door, and I–my God!
I am alone in my tomb!
What shall I do, I think? . . . I tug at my
chain and belt-hopeless. The chain end is em-
bedded in the wall of the house—I must pull down
0
!
-[292]-


BROKEN ENGLISH A GAIN
the wall before it come loose. Then–I cry. I sit
down and rest my arms on the table and sob
out. . . . I pray, I who never pray, call on the
* good God. I appeal to the Holy Virgin. I sob
again. Ah! I know not what I do—my brain all go
rounds and rounds.
The deadly quiet of the place, not a sound from
any sides make me feel that I go mad. I think
when the light go out what I do in the horrible
dark! The thought drive me more feeling to mad-
ness. I must somethings do.
I raise the pen, I dip him in ink, and I write all I
have to write about this. It occupy my mind. It
take me hours so to do. Stop I do, and think,
think, think at times between. But the horror of
thinking makes me pick up the pen again.
... So go I on. It seem weeks that I have
been here, but I know it is of hours only. I am the
darkness in dread of—the darkness in the room
where I kill Marie! I am close to the spots where
she fall and fix her staring eyes on me when she die.
I seem to see them now. In the dark will her spirit
come to me as he say? Come to me and watch
hour by hour, day by day, till I die of hunger and
thirst—and the rats come!
--[293]


FORGOTTEN ENCLOSURE
to me that I should hear after three days (as a mat-
ter of fact, I heard within that period). Again, the
story of the lease was fiction—his tenancy expired
on the coming quarter-day.
Again, when I reached home once more, I found
a letter from a firm of Hastings auctioneers, enclos-
ing an authority to me to hand them the key of the
house; and on inquiry I ascertained that they
were to sell everything on the premises, and hand
the proceeds over to the Secretary of the Mid-
Sussex Home for Incurables.
All these things point to the fact that Mr. Lan-
ward's intention was to, for a time, torture the man.
If he came through the ordeal, it would be to fall
into the hands of the police; if not, he would end
his days in an asylum.
As a matter of fact, the latter came about. There
was only one flaw in the scheme. Supposing the
man had been sane when we arrested him, what
proof was there that he was a murderer? (Of
course Mr. Lanward knew nothing of Detective-
Sergeant Parden's photographic experiments.)
This was a weak spot which the schemer had not
foreseen. It convinced me that I was right in my
surmise that the murder of his wife had sent the
author partly out of his mind.
- [297]


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
The other thing I could not understand, and do
not to this day-the Frenchman's reference to the
author as a blind man, and the name of “ the blind
author" which he bore in Bexhill. When I first
saw Mr. Lanward at Stones End police-station, he
could see as well as I could, and when, some years
after, he came to me in my retirement, he walked
up to my cottage seeing as plainly as he had ever
done. There are some mysteries a man never
fathoms—this was one to me.
I thought of all these things as I prepared for
bed. I took off my coat and hung it on a hook on
the door, and as I did so, the top of the registered
foolscap envelope I had received from Mr. Lanward
projected from the inner pocket.
I had forgotten it. I took it out and re-read the
letter to myself. Then for the first time I opened
the inner envelope, and what for more than two
years had been a mystery was made clear. The
contents of that inner envelope were several sheets
of thin paper, taped together at the top corner and
the ends of the tape waxed, bearing the print of an
official seal. There was a white sheet of paper,
bearing the British arms, attached to the others.
It read as follows:
-[298]


THE HAND OF DEATH
not take her—it would not do to risk her life-I
loved her very dearly.
Business, of course, had to be attended to, or
I should not have left her; she was not at all well.
Indeed her health was then causing me great worry,
she seemed to have grown weak, was unable to rise
in the morning, and had grown pettish and irritable.
So it was with a heavy heart I went away.
Her letters to me were short and irregular, and
this I put down to her illness and a reluctance to tell
me her real condition. I became more worried at
the end of the week preceding August Bank Holi-
day, as I had not heard from her for four days.
I determined to run across to England-availing
myself of the Bank Holiday service—just for the
shortest while, returning directly that I had seen
she was all right. This was, of course, not a right
thing to do, as I had arranged to spend the whole
of my time looking after the Marseilles business.
However, I hoped that by travelling night and day
I should not be absent more than two days at most
from business.
I did this. I reached London late on Monday
night-Bank Holiday. I took a cab to my house
at Brixton, where I alighted and found the house in
darkness. I was surprised at this as I had tele-
-[303]


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
graphed saying I was coming home. As it was I
supposed my wife to be in bed.
I inserted my latch-key and opened the door.
Fearful of frightening my wife, I called out-
“Don't be frightened, Lucy, it is only me.”
I got no reply! I stood a moment in fear. I
could not understand it. I wore a matchbox on
my watch-chain, and taking a vesta from it, I
lighted the hall gas. Then I walked up to the street
door to close it. As I did so I noticed a folded
paper lying on the mat.
This I picked up. It was a notice, dated a day
back, that a telegram, undelivered, addressed to
Mrs. Mantock, lay at the local post officemy
telegram!
I stood on the doormat-dazed. I walked to the
stairs again and called—thrice—“ Lucy!” Still no
reply. What could it mean!
I opened the front room door, and lighted the
drawing-room gas. There were two geraniums in
art pots standing in the room; the plants were
lying over quite dead—I saw for want of water.
What could it mean? Then a horrible feeling seized
me—was my wife lying dead in her bed upstairs?
I uttered a cry and rushed out of the room,
upstairs to our bedroom. Hastily entering with a
-[304]—


THE MARGATE MYSTERY
I stopped in the bedroom with the letter in front
of me the whole night. What I did I do not know.
I had but one desire-to kill the woman I had loved
so much, who had been so false to me.
At daybreak I turned out the gas and left the
house.
It was too early for a conveyance, and I walked
halfway to Ludgate Hill before meeting a cab.
When I reached the station I had an hour to wait
for a train—and that would be a slow one.
I travelled by it-still with the one fierce deter-
mination to kill. I found out where Roches-
ter's Hotel was at Margate, walked direct to it,
entered the hall and walked upstairs. I did not
meet a soul, and finding room No. 23, I turned
the handle softly, entered, and shut the door be-
hind me.
My wife was lying on her side, her face turned
from me. Hearing the gentle closing of the door
she turned on her back. She saw me—perhaps saw
what I meant. There came a look of horror on her
face—but I changed that look. I sprang on her-
astride her—and my knees pinning the bedclothes
and her arms to her side, I gripped her throat, and
choked the life out of her. I kept a grip till her face
turned black, her eyes bulged, and her tongue hung
-[306]—


[
T Ꮋ Ꭼ
Ꮋ Ꭺ N D
0 F
D E A T H
from her mouth. Then I let go—my work was
done.
I heard a voice-a woman's—humming an air as
she walked the passage outside. She passed the
door of the room I was in, and presently I heard the
rattle of a key in a lock, and the sound of a dustpan
put down in one of the rooms. Then I opened the
bedroom door, and swiftly left the bedroom, closing
the door gently after me.
I walked downstairs without meeting a soul;
being such a fine day I suppose all the visitors
were out. I reached the station, caught an up
train, in London caught the Paris express, and so to
Marseilles.
I never for a moment imagined that William
Bankes would be arrested for the crime. If I
thought at all, it was to think that my escape being
unnoticed, the crime would remain one of the un-
detected ones.
The newspaper paragraph I saw to-day to the
effect that William Bankes has been tried for the
crime, found guilty, and condemned to death, has
prompted me to write this.
Since writing the above, Mr. Lanward, an Eng-
-[307]


PART XVI
THE CAUSE OF THE SILENCE
Final Note
I RICHARD LANWARD, pin to the annexed
1, confession the explanation of why I never
used it. Overjoyed at getting it, I rushed back to
the Hotel Bocage, to pack and catch the next train
for London. As I entered, full of joy at being able
to tell the sister of the man lying under sentence of
death that he was innocent, I was handed a tele-
gram. It was from my friend Matthews, in Lon-
don, to say that William Bankes had that morning
been executed in Maidstone Jail. I was horrified.
The dead man's sister was sitting in the room.
What should I do? What should I tell her? It
was sad enough for her brother to be dead; should
I make her grief ten times greater by telling her
that he, an innocent man, had been hanged? ...
A few moments' reflection determined me to say
nothing. I did not. Whilst she lives I shall never
speak. When she is dead the truth may be told.
THE END.
-[309]-