|UA LLC.
Co/ege ººo-ºº:
…e., Dezºe
º º
• PERCY JAMES BREENER
ººº-


−===========№=':
№=~~*~*=~~~~- - - |-
|- ---------- - - - ----------~~~~===
----
1758








CHRISTOPHER QUARLES





CHRISTOPHER QUARLES
College Professor and Master Detective
BY
PERCY JAMES BREBNER
AUTHOR or “PRINCEss MARITzA,” “THE LIFTLE GREY SHOE,” Erc., Erc.
º
L º R º -
º
&
º
NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
681 FIFTH AVENUE
PUBLISHERs
| 3 || A.
3.2


nº Li RJ, ARY
** 82631B
- * it. I Nºx AND
| * * **, SpATIONS
| R 1940 L
"T-
CopyRIGHT, 1914, By
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
Press of
J. J. Little & Ives Co.
New York


CONTENTS
THE AFFAIR OF THE Ivory BoxEs .
THE IDENTITY OF THE FINAL VICTIM
THE RIDDLE of THE CIRCULAR Cou’NTERS .
THE STRANGE CASE OF MICHAEL HALL
THE Evidence of THE CIGARETTE-END
THE MYSTERY OF “OLD MRs. JARDINE”
THE DEATH-TRAP IN THE TUDOR ROOM
THE MYSTERY OF CROSS ROADS FARM .
THE Conundrum of THE Golf LINKs
THE DIAMond NECKLACE SCANDAL
THE DISAPPEARANCE OF DR. SMITH . -
THE AFFAIR OF THE STOLEN GoLD
THE WILL OF THE ECCENTRIC MR. FRISBy .
THE CASE OF THE MURDERED FINANCIER
ragrº
1
17
32
48
67
86
... 102
. 120
. 137
. 156
. 175
. 195
. 217
. 239
THE STRANGE AFFAIR of THE FLORENTINE CHEST 258
THE SEARCH FOR THE MISSING FORTUNE
. 280





CHRISTOPHER QUARLES
CHAPTER I
THE AFFAIR OF THE IVORY BOXES
HERE was a substantial aspect about Blenheim
Square, not of that monotonous type which
characterizes so many London squares, but a certain
grace and consciousness of well-being.
The houses, though maintaining some uniformity,
possessed individuality, and in the season were gay with
window-boxes and flowers; the garden in the center was
not too stereotyped in its arrangement, and plenty of
sunlight found its way into it. The inhabitants were
people of ample means, and the address was undoubt-
edly a good one. There was no slum in close proximity,
that seamy background which so constantly lies behind
a fair exterior of life; it was seldom that any but re-
spectable people were seen in the square, for hawkers
and itinerant musicians were forbidden; and, beyond
a wedding or a funeral at intervals, nothing exciting
ever seemed to happen there.
It looked particularly attractive when I entered it
one spring morning early and made my way to No. 12.
As I approached the house and noted that the square
was still asleep, an old gentleman, clad in a long and
rather rusty overcoat, shuffled toward me from the op-
posite direction. He wore round goggles behind which
his eyes looked unusually large, and a wide-awake hat
was drawn over his silver locks.
1


2 Christopher Quarles
He stopped in front of me and, without a word,
brought his hand from his pocket and gave me a card.
“Christopher Quarles,” I said, reading from the bit
of pasteboard.
“My name. What is yours?”
“Murray Wigan,” I answered, and the next instant
was wondering why I had told him.
“Ah, I do not fancy we have met before, Detective
Wigan. Perhaps we may help each other.”
“You knew Mr. Ratcliffe?” I asked.
“No, but I have heard of him.”
‘‘I am afraid tha 5 y
He laid two fingers of a lean hand on my arm.
“You had better. It will be wise.”
A sharp retort came to my tongue, but remained un-
spoken. I can hardly explain why, because in an ordi-
nary way his manner would only have increased my
resentment and obstinacy.
I was young, only just over thirty, but success had
brought me some fame and unlimited self-confidence. I
was an enthusiast, and have been spoken of as a born
detective, but the line of life I had chosen had sadly
disappointed my father. He had given me an excellent
education, and had looked forward to his son making a
name for himself, but certainly not as a mere police-
man, which was his way of putting it.
Indeed, family relations were strained even at this
time, a fact which may have accounted for that hard-
ness of character which people, even my friends, seemed
to find in me.
My nature and my pride in my profession were
therefore assailed by the old man's manner, yet the
sharp answer remained unspoken.
;
-
-
:


The Affair of the Ivory Boaves 3
“You will find that I am known to your people,” he
added while I hesitated.
I did not believe him for a moment, but there was
something so compelling in the steady gaze from the
large eyes behind the goggles that I grudgingly allowed
him to enter the house with me.
Early that morning, before the first milk-cart had
rattled through Blenheim Square, Constable Plowman
had been called to No. 12 by the cook-housekeeper, who
had found her master, Mr. Ratcliffe, dead in his study.
Plowman had at once sent for a doctor and communi-
cated with Scotland Yard. The doctor had arrived
before me, but nothing had been moved by the con-
stable, and the housekeeper declared that the room was
exactly as she had found it.
The study was at the back of the house, a small room
lined with books. In the center was a writing table, an
electric lamp on it was still burning, and, leaning back
in his chair, his eyes fixed on vacancy, sat Mr. Rat-
cliffe. The doctor said he had been dead some hours.
On the blotting-pad immediately in front of him was
a large blue stone—a sapphire—and arranged in a
rough semicircle round the pad were the various boxes
of one of those Chinese curiosities in which box is con-
tained within box until the last is quite small.
They were of thin ivory, the largest being some three
inches square, the smallest not an inch, and they were
arranged in order of size. There was no confusion in
the room, no sign of violence on the dead man. Cur-
tains were drawn across the window, which was open
a little at the top.
At first my attention was somewhat divided; the old
man interested me as well as the case.
He looked closely into the face of the dead man, then


4. Christopher Quarles
glanced at the curtained window, and nodded his head
in a sagacious way, as if he had already fathomed the
mystery. He looked at the sapphire and at the semi-
circle of boxes, but he did not attempt to touch any-
thing, nor did he say a word.
Well, it is easy enough to look wise; it is when a man
opens his mouth that the test begins. I came to the
conclusion that he was a venerable fraud, and that I
had been a fool to let him come in. I dismissed him
from my mind and commenced my own investigations.
On the window-sill there were marks which made it
practically certain that someone had entered the room
that way, but neither then nor later could I discover
any footprints in the small garden which was some
eight feet below the window.
The housekeeper, who had been with Mr. Ratcliffe a
dozen years, explained that, on coming down that morn-
ing, she had gone into the study to draw the curtains
as usual. The room was exactly as we saw it. Her
master spent most of his time in his study when he
was at home, and seemed to enjoy his own company.
He went little into society, but a friend sometimes
dined with him; indeed, his nephew, Captain Ratcliffe,
had dined with him last night.
She had gone to bed before the captain left, and did
not hear him go. She would not admit that her master
was peculiar or eccentric in any way, but said he had
seemed worried and rather depressed lately. The
slightest noise in the house disturbed him, and she
fancied he had got into the habit of listening for
noises, for once or twice she had come upon him in a
listening attitude. She knew nothing about the sap-
phire, and had never seen the ivory boxes before.
The old man never asked a question; I do not think


The Affair of the Ivory Boaves 5
he said a single word until we were leaving the house,
and then he remarked in a casual manner:
“A curious case, Detective Wigan.”
“Some curious points in it,” I said.
I was glad when the old fellow had shuffled off. He
was a disturbing influence. His eyes behind those gog-
gles seemed to have a paralyzing effect upon me. I
could not think clearly.
Certainly there were many curious points in the
case, and my inquiries quickly added to the number.
Mr. Ratcliffe had traveled extensively, was a linguist,
and a far richer man than his neighbors had supposed.
Collecting precious stones had been his hobby, and in
a case deposited with his bankers there were many valu-
able, and some unique, gems. Probably he had others
with him in the house, but none were found except the
sapphire lying on the blotting-pad. Robbers might
have taken them, the marks on the window-sill were
suggestive, but I was doubtful on this point. Even if
robbers had entered the room, how was Mr. Ratcliffe's
death to be accounted for? There was no mark upon
the body, there was no trace of poison. The doctors
declared he was in a perfectly healthy condition. There
was no apparent reason for his death. Besides, if he
had been robbed of his jewels, why should the sapphire
have been left?
It was only natural, perhaps, that suspicion should
fall upon the dead man's nephew. Might he not have
left the house by the window? it was asked. I had put
the same question to myself.
Captain Ratcliffe's behavior, however, was not that
of a guilty man, although there were certain things
which told against him.
He answered questions frankly and without hesita-


6 Christopher Quarles
tion. He was in a line regiment, and was somewhat
heavily in debt. It was close upon midnight when
he left his uncle, he said, and they had not gone
into the study at all. They had sat smoking and talk-
ing in the dining room, and just before he left they
had both had a little whisky. The empty glasses and
the cigar ends in the dining room went to confirm this
Statement. -
He knew about his uncle's hobby for stones, was sur-
prised to find that he was such a rich man, and declared
that he had no idea he was his heir. Mr. Ratcliffe had
never helped him in any way; in fact, that very night
he had refused, not unkindly but quite frankly, to
lend him a sum of money he had asked for.
There had been no quarrel, and they had parted ex-
cellent friends.
I am convinced that a large section of the public
wondered why Captain Ratcliffe was not arrested, and
possibly some detectives would have considered there
was sufficient evidence against him to take this course.
I did not, although I had him watched.
The fact was that Christopher Quarles lurked at the
back of my mind. I found that he had spoken the
truth when he said that he was known at Scotland
Yard. He was a professor of philosophy, and some
two years ago had made what seemed a perfectly pre-
posterous suggestion in a case which had puzzled
the police, with the result that he had been in-
strumental in saving an innocent man from the gal-
lows. A chance success was the comment of the au-
thorities; my own idea was that he must have had
knowledge which he ought not to possess. Now it
might prove useful to cultivate the acquaintance of this
mysterious professor, so I called upon him one morn-


The Affair of the Ivory Boares 7
ing in his house at West Street, Chelsea, as keen upon a
difficult trail as I had ever been in my life.
The servant said the professor was at home and re-
quested me to follow her.
Through open doors I had a glimpse of taste and
luxury—softly carpeted rooms, old furniture, good pic-
tures—and then the servant opened a door at the ex-
treme end of the hall and announced me.
Astonishment riveted me to the threshold for the
moment. Except for a cheap writing-table in the win-
dow, a big arm-chair by the fireplace, and two or three
common chairs against the wall, this room was empty.
There was no carpet on the floor, not a picture on the
whitewashed walls. The window had a blind, but no
curtains; there were no books, and the appointments
of the writing-table were of the simplest kind possible.
“Ah, I have been expecting you,” said Quarles,
crossing from the window to welcome me.
A skull-cap covered his silver locks, but he wore no
glasses, and to-day there were few signs of age or de-
terioration of physical or mental force about him. His
shuffling gait when he had met me in Blenheim Square
that morning had evidently been assumed, and probably
he had worn glasses to conceal some of the expression
of his face.
“You had been expecting me?” I said.
“Two days ago I gave the servant instructions to
bring you in whenever you came. Zena, my dear, this
is Detective Wigan—my granddaughter who often as-
sists me in my work.”
I bowed to the girl who had risen from the chair
at the writing-table, and for a moment forgot the pro-
fessor—and, indeed, everything else in the world. Since
no woman had ever yet succeeded in touching any


8 Christopher Quarles
sympathetic chord in me, it may be assumed that she
was remarkable. In that bare room she looked alto-
gether out of place, and yet her presence transformed
it into a desirable spot.
“You are full of surprises, professor,” I said, with
a keen desire to make myself agreeable. “I enter your
house and have a glimpse of luxury through open doors,
yet I find you in—in an empty room; you tell me I am
expected, when until a few hours ago I had not de-
termined to call upon you; and now you further mys-
tify me by saying this lady is your helper.”
“Philosophy is mysterious,” he answered, “and I
am interested in all the ramifications of my profession.
To understand one science perfectly means having a
considerable knowledge of all other sciences.”
“My grandfather exaggerates my usefulness,
the girl.
“I do not,” he returned. “Your questions have con-
stantly shown me the right road to travel, and to have
the right road pointed out is half the battle. Sit
down, Mr. Wigan—in the arm-chair—no, I prefer sit-
ting here myself. Zena and I were talking of Blenheim
Square when you came in. A coincidence? Perhaps,
but it may be something more. In these days we are
loath to admit there are things we do not understand.
This case puzzles you?”
The detective in me was coming slowly uppermost
again, and I remembered the line I had decided to take
with this curious old gentleman.
“It does. From first to last I am puzzled. To begin
with, how came you to hear of the tragedy that you
were able to be upon the scene so promptly?”
“Are you here as a spy or to ask for help? Come, a
2 3
said


The Affair of the Ivory Boares 9
plain answer,” said Quarles hotly, as though he were
resenting an insult.
“Dear !” said the girl soothingly.
“Zena considers you honest,” said the old man,
suddenly calm again. “My helper, as I told you, and
not always of my opinion. Let that pass. You are a
young man with much to learn. I am not a detective,
but a philosopher, and sometimes an investigator of
human motives. If a mystery interests me I endeavor to
solve it for my own satisfaction, but there it ends. I
never give my opinion unless it is asked for, nor should
I interfere except to prevent a miscarriage of justice.
If this is clear to you, you may proceed and tell me
what you have done, how far you have gone in the
unraveling of this case; if you are not satisfied, I have
nothing more to say to you except ‘Good morning!’”
For a moment I hesitated, then shortly I told him
what I had done, and he listened attentively.
“I have always worked alone,” I went on, “not with-
out success, as you may know. In this case I am beaten
so far, and I come to you.”
“Why?”
“For two reasons. First—you will forgive my men-
tioning it again—your prompt arrival puzzled me;
secondly, I believe in Captain Ratcliffe, and am anxious
to relieve him of the suspicion which undoubtedly rests
upon him.”
The old man rubbed his head through his skull-cap.
“You would like to find some reason to be suspicious
of me?”
“Mr. Wigan does not mean that, dear,” said Zena.
The professor shook his head doubtfully.
“Crime as crime does not interest me. It is only
when I am impelled to study a case, against my will


I0 Christopher Quarles
sometimes, that I become keen; and, whenever this hap-
pens, the solution of the mystery is likely to be unusual.
My methods are not those of a detective. You argue
from facts; I am more inclined to form a theory, and
then look for facts to fit it. Not a scientific way, you
may say, but a great many scientists do it, although
they would strenuously deny the fact. I can show you
how the facts support my theory, but I cannot always
produce the actual proof. In many cases I should be a
hindrance rather than a help to you.”
“It is courteous of you to say so,” I returned, wish-
ing to be pleasant.
“It is quite true, not a compliment,” said the girl.
“First, the dead man,” Quarles went on. “Quite a
healthy man was the medical opinion—but his eyes.
Did you particularly notice his eyes? You look into
the brain through the eyes, see into it with great pene-
tration if you have accustomed yourself to such scru-
tiny as I have done. Mr. Ratcliffe had not been dead
long enough for his eyes to lose that last impression
received from the brain. They were still looking at
something, as it were, and they still had terror in
them. Now he was a traveler, one who must have
faced danger scores of times; it would take something
very unusual to frighten him.” -
I acquiesced with a nod.
“We may take it, I think, that such a man would not
be terrified by burglars.”
I admitted this assumption.
“He was looking at the curtains which were drawn
across the window—that is a point to remember,” said
the professor, marking off this fact by holding up a
finger. “Then the little boxes; did you count them?”
“Yes, there were twenty-five.”


I2 Christopher Quarles
find. I think you will find it is paste, a wonderful imi-
tation, capable of standing some tests—but still paste.”
“Then why did Mr. Ratcliffe—an expert in gems, re-
member—treasure it so carefully?” I asked.
“He didn’t,” Quarles answered shortly. “It is obvi-
vious that a man who possessed such stones as were
found in that packet at the bank would certainly not
make such a mistake; yet he was apparently playing with
his treasure when he met his death. My theory had
three points, you see. First, the sapphire was the sole
object of the robbery; secondly, the thieves had substi-
tuted an exact duplicate for the real stone; thirdly,
the stone must have some special fascination for Mr.
Ratcliffe, or he would have put it in the bank for safety
as he had done with others.”
“An interesting theory, I admit, but—”
“Wait, Mr. Wigan. I have said something about my
methods. I began to look for facts to support my
theory. You remember the cook-housekeeper?”
“Perfectly.”
“She spoke of her uncle's sensitiveness to noises; she
had on one or two occasions surprised him in a listen-
ing attitude. That gave me a clew. What was he lis-
tening for? Mr. Ratcliffe had only given way to this
listening attitude recently; in fact, only since his re-
turn from his last voyage. It would seem that since
his return his mental balance had become unstable.
There was some constant irritation in his brain which
brought fear, and in his dead eyes there was terror.
My theory was complete; I had only to fit the facts
into it. I suppose, Mr. Wigan, you have found out all
about the people living on either side of Ratcliffe's
house?”
“Both are families above suspicion,” I answered.


The Affair of the Ivory Boaves I5
“I think so,” said Quarles. “The Tibetans followed
Mr. Ratcliffe to recover the lost eye, I have no doubt of
that, and to be ready for any emergency had supplied
themselves with a paste duplicate of the stone. Ex-
actly how Mr. Ratcliffe died I can only conjecture. I
remember that his eyes evidently saw something, and I
fancy terror killed him. The Tibetans had undoubtedly
watched him constantly, and had found out that he had
the stone hidden in the boxes. Probably they expected
to find it so hidden, having discovered that Mr. Rat-
cliffe had discarded the inner boxes of the talisman at
the time of the robbery. Having made certain of this,
I think that on the fatal night they made the curious
sound that the idol makes when speaking, expecting
that he would be listening for it, as their priests de-
clared those who offended the god always did, and as a
curious fact Mr. Ratcliffe actually was, remember; then
possibly they thrust between the curtains one of those
hideous masks which figure in so many religious cere-
monies in Tibet. Mr. Ratcliffe was in a state of mind
to give any sudden terror an enormous power over him,
and I think he died without any violence being offered
him. So the gem was recovered, the paste sapphire and
the remaining boxes being left as a sign that the god ,
had been avenged, a sign which I believe I have been
able to read. There are the theory and some facts; you
must make further inquiries yourself.”
The professor rose abruptly from his chair. Evi-
dently he had no intention of answering questions, and
he meant the interview to come to an end.
“Thank you,” I said. “I shall take steps at once to
find out if you are correct.”
“For your own satisfaction, not mine,” said Quarles;
“I am certain. You asked how it was I came to Blen-


16 Christopher Quarles
heim Square that morning. Chance! It is called that.
I do not believe in chance. When I am impelled to do a
thing, I do it because I recognize a directing will I am
forced to obey. We live in a world girt with miracles,
in an atmosphere of mystery which is beyond our com-
prehension. We find names for what we do not under-
stand, psychic force, mind waves, telepathy, and the
like, but they are only names and do not help us much.
Keep an open mind, Mr. Wigan; you will be astonished
what strange imaginings will enter it—imaginings
which you will discover are real truths. An empty
mind in an empty room, there you have the best re-
ceptacle for that great will which guides and governs all
thought and action. I speak as a philosopher, and as
an old man to a young one. Come to me if you like
when you are in a difficulty, and I will help you if I am
allowed to. Do you understand? Good-bye.”
Subsequent inquiries made by Scotland Yard through
the authorities in India established the fact that the
sapphire eye of the image in Tibet had been stolen; that
Mr. Ratcliffe was in Tibet at the time; and that not
long after the tragedy in Blenheim Square the jewel
was restored to its place with much rejoicing and re-
ligious enthusiasm.
I was not disposed to like Professor Quarles nor to
believe in him altogether. I found it easy to see the
charlatan in him, yet the fact remained that he had
solved the problem.
Certainly he was interesting, and, besides, there was
his granddaughter, Zena. If only for the sake of see-
ing her, I felt sure I should have occasion to consult
Christopher Quarles again.


CHAPTER II
THE IDENTITY OF THE FINAL VICTIM
SOON fell into the habit of going to see Professor
Quarles. As an excuse I talked over cases with
him, but he seldom volunteered an opinion, often was
obviously uninterested. Truth to tell, I was not there
for his opinion, but to see his granddaughter. A de-
tective in love sounds something like an absurdity, but
such was my case, and, since Zena's manner did not
suggest that she was particularly interested in me, my
love affair seemed rather a hopeless one.
My association with Christopher Quarles has, how-
ever, led to the solution of some strange mysteries, and,
since my own achievements are sufficiently well known,
I may confine myself to those cases which, single-
handed, I should have failed to solve. I know that in
many of them I was credited with having unraveled the
mystery, but this was only because Professor Quarles
persisted in remaining in the background. If I did the
spade work, the deductions were his.
They were all cases with peculiar features in them,
and it was never as a detective that Quarles approached
them. He was often as astonished at my acumen in fol-
lowing a clew as I was at his marvelous theories, which
seemed so absurd to begin with yet proved correct in
the end.
Perhaps his curious power was never more noticeable
than in the case of the Withan murder.
17


The Identity of the Final Victim I9
There were many fantastic answers to the question.
Some of the country folk, easily superstitious, sug-
gested that it must be the work of the devil, others put
it down to an escaped lunatic, while others again
thought it might be the work of some doctor who wanted
to study the brain.
The authorities believed that it had been removed
to prevent identification, and would be found buried
in the wood. It was not found, however, and the coun-
tryside was in a state bordering on panic.
For a few days the Withan murder seemed unique
in atrocities, and then came a communication from the
French police. Some two years ago an almost identi-
cal murder had been committed outside a village in
Normandy. In this case also the head was missing,
and nothing had been found upon the body to iden-
tify the victim. He was well dressed, and a man who
would be likely to carry papers with him, but nothing
was found, and the murder had remained a mystery.
These were the points known and conjectured when
the case came into my hands, and my investigations
added little to them.
One point, however, impressed me. I felt convinced
that the man's clothes, which were shown to me, had
not been made in England. They were poor, worn
almost threadbare, but they had once been fairly good,
and the cut was not English. That it was French I
could not possibly affirm, but it might be, and so I
fashioned a fragile link with the Normandy crime.
On this occasion I went to Quarles with the object
of interesting him in the Withan case, and he fore-
stalled me by beginning to talk about it the moment I
entered the room.
Here I may mention a fact which I had not dis-


20 Christopher Quarles
covered at first. Whenever he was interested in a case
I was always taken into his empty room; at other
times we were in the dining-room or the drawing-room.
It was the empty room on this occasion, and Zena re-
mained with us. -
I went carefully through the case point by point,
and he made no comment until I had finished.
“The foreign cut of the clothes may be of impor-
tance,” he said. “I am not sure. Is this wood you
mention of any great extent?”
“No, it runs beside the road for two or three hun-
dred yards.”
“Toward Withan º'?
“No ; it was near the Withan end of it that the dead
man was found.”
“Any traces that the head was carried to the wood?”
“The local authorities say, ‘Yes,’ and not a trace
afterward. The ground in the wood was searched at
the time, and I have been over it carefully since.
Through one part of the wood there runs a ditch, which
is continued as a division between two fields which
form part of the farm land behind the wood. By walk-
ing along this the murderer might have left the wood
without leaving tracks behind him.”
“A good point, Wigan. And where would that ditch
lead him?”
“Eventually to the high road, which runs almost
at right angles to the Withan road.”
“Much water in the ditch?’’ asked Quarles.
“Half a foot when I went there. It may have been
less at the time of the murder. The early part of Jan-
uary was dry, you will remember.”
“There was a moon that night, wasn't there?”
“Full, or near it,” I returned.


The Identity of the Final Victim 21
“And how soon was the alarm raised along the
countryside?”
“That night. It was about eight o'clock when the
body was found, and after going to the village the
farmer returned to Medworth for the police.”
“A man who had walked a considerable distance in
a ditch would be wet and muddy,” said Zena, “and if
he were met on the road carrying a bag he would arrest
attention.”
“Why carrying a bag?” asked Quarles.
“With the head in it,” she answered.
“That's another good point, Wigan,” chuckled
Quarles.
“Of course, the head may be buried in the wood,”
said Zena.
Quarles looked at me inquiringly.
“I searched the wood with that idea in my mind,”
I said. “One or two doubtful places I had dug up.
I think the murderer must have taken the head with
him.”
“To bury somewhere else?” asked Quarles.
“Perhaps not,” I answered.
“A mad doctor bent on brain experiments—is that
your theory, Wigan?”
“Not necessarily a doctor, but some homicidal ma-
niac who is also responsible for the Normandy murder.
The likeness between the two crimes can hardly be a
coincidence.”
“What was the date of the French murder?”
“January the seventeenth.”
“Nearly the same date as the English one,” said
Zena.
“Two years intervening,” I returned.
“Wigan, it would be interesting to know if a similar


22 Christopher Quarles
murder occurred anywhere in the intervening year at
that date,” said Quarles.
“You have a theory, professor?’’
“An outlandish one which would make you laugh.
No, no; I do not like being laughed at. I never men-
tion my theories until I have some facts to support
them. I am interested in this case. Perhaps I shall
go to Withan.”
There was nothing more to be got out of the profes-
sor just then, and I departed.
I took the trouble to make inquiry whether any simi-
lar crime had happened in England in the January of
the preceding year, and had the same inquiry made
in France. There was no record of any murder bearing
the slightest resemblance to the Withan tragedy.
A few days later Quarles telegraphed me to meet
him at Kings Cross, and we traveled North together.
“Wait,” he said when I began to question him. “I
am not sure yet. My theory seems absurd. We are
going to find out if it is.”
We took rooms at a hotel in Medworth, Quarles
explaining that our investigations might take some days.
Next morning, instead of going to Withan as I had
expected, he took me to the police court, and seemed
to find much amusement in listening to some common-
place cases, and was not very complimentary in his
remarks about the bench of magistrates. The next
afternoon he arranged a drive. I thought we were
going to Withan, but we turned away from the village,
and presently Quarles stopped the carriage.
“How far are we from Withan?” he asked the driver.
“Five or six miles. The road winds a lot. It’s a
deal nearer as the crow flies.”


The Identity of the Final Victim 28
“You need not wait for us, driver. My friend and
I are going to walk back.”
The coachman pocketed his money and drove away.
“Couldn’t keep him waiting all night, as we may
have to do,” said Quarles. “Mind you, Wigan, I’m
very doubtful about my theory; at least, I am not cer-
tain that I shall find the facts I want. A few hours
will settle it one way or the other.”
After walking along the road for about a mile
Quarles scrambled through a hedge into a wood by the
roadside.
“We’re trespassers, but we must take our chance.
Should we meet anyone, blame me. Say I am a dodder-
ing old fool who would walk under the trees and you
were obliged to come to see that I didn’t get into any
mischief. Do you go armed?”
“Always,” I answered.
“I do sometimes,” he said, tapping his pocket. “We
might come up against danger if my theory is correct.
If I tell you to shoot—shoot, and quickly. Your life
is likely to depend upon it. And keep your ears open
to make sure no one is following us.”
He had become keen, like a dog on the trail, and, old
as he was, seemed incapable of fatigue. Whether he
had studied the topography of the neighborhood I
cannot say, but he did not hesitate in his direction until
he reached a high knoll which was clear of the wood
and commanded a considerable view.
We were trespassers in a private park. To our right
was a large house, only partially seen through its screen
of trees, but it was evidently mellow with age. To our
left, toward what was evidently the extremity of the
park, was hilly ground, which had been allowed to run
wild.


24 Christopher Quarles
To this Quarles pointed.
“That is our way,” he said. “We’ll use what cover
we can.”
We plunged into the wood again, and were soon in
the wilderness, forcing our way, sometimes with con-
siderable difficulty, through the undergrowth. Once or
twice the professor gave me a warning gesture, but he
did not speak. He had evidently some definite goal,
and I was conscious of excitement as I followed him.
For an hour or more he turned this way and that,
exploring every little ravine he could discover, grunt-
ing his disappointment each time he failed to find what
he was looking for.
“I said I wasn’t certain,” he whispered when our
path had led us into a damp hollow which looked as if
it had not been visited by man for centuries. “My
theory seems—and yet this is such a likely place. There
must be a way.”
He was going forward again. The hollow was sur-
rounded by perpendicular walls of sand and chalk; it
was a pit, in fact, which Nature had filled with vege-
tation. The way we had come seemed the only way
into it.
“Ah! this looks promising,” Quarles said suddenly.
In a corner of the wall, or, to be more precise, fill-
ing up a rent in it, was a shed, roughly built, but with
a door secured by a very business-like lock.
‘‘I think the shed is climbable,” said Quarles. “Let’s
get on the roof. I am not so young as I was, so help
me up.”
It was not much help he wanted. In a few mo-
ments we were on the roof.
“As I thought,” he said. “Do you see?”
The shed, with its slanting roof, served to block a


The Identity of the Final Victim 25
narrow, overgrown path between two precipitous chalk
walls.
“We'll go carefully,” said Quarles. “There may be
worse than poachers’ traps here.”
Without help from me he dropped from the roof,
and I followed him.
The natural passage was winding, and about fifty
yards long, and opened into another pit of some size.
A pit I call it, but it was as much a cave as a pit, part
of it running deeply into the earth, and only about a
third of it being open to the sky. The cave part had
a rough, sandy floor, and here was a long shed of
peculiar construction. It was raised on piles, about
eight feet high; the front part formed a kind of open
veranda, the back part being closed in. The roof was
thatched with bark and dried bracken, and against one
end of the veranda was a notched tree trunk, serving
as a ladder.
“As I expected,” said Quarles, with some excite-
ment. “We must get onto the veranda for a moment.
I think we are alone here, but keep your ears open.”
The shed was evidently used sometimes. There was
a stone slab which had served as a fireplace, and from a
beam above hung a short chain, on which a pot could
easily be fixed.
“We’ll get away quickly,” said Quarles. “Patience,
Wigan. I believe we are going to witness a wonderful
thing.”
“When 7”
“In about thirty hours’ time.”
The professor's sense of direction was marvelous.
Having reclimbed the shed which blocked the entrance
to this concealed pit, he made practically a straight


26 Christopher Quarles
line for the place at which we had entered the wood
from the road. -
“I daresay one would be allowed to see over the
house, but perhaps it is as well not to ask,” he said.
“We can do that later. I’m tired, Wigan; but it was
safer not to keep the carriage.”
Try as I would, I could get no explanation out of
him either that night or next day. He was always as
secret as the grave until he had proved his theory, and
then he seemed anxious to forget the whole affair, and
shrank from publicity. That is how it came about that
I obtained credit which I did not deserve.
“We go there again this evening,” he said after
lunch next day; “so a restful afternoon will suit us.”
It was getting dark when we set out, and again
Quarles's unerring sense of locality astonished me. He
led the way without hesitation. This time he took
more precaution not to make a sound when climbing
over the shed into the narrow path.
“I think we are first, but great care is necessary,”
he whispered.
We crept forward and concealed ourselves among
the scrub vegetation which grew in that part of the
pit which was open to the sky. It was dark, the long
shed barely discernible, but the professor was par-
ticular about our position.
“We may have to creep a little nearer presently,”
he whispered. “From here we can do so. Silence,
Wigan, and don’t be astonished at anything.”
The waiting seemed long. Moonlight was presently
above us, throwing the cave part of the pit into greater
shadow than ever.
I cannot attempt to say how long we had waited in
utter silence when Quarles touched my arm. Someone


The Identity of the Final Victim 27
was coming, and with no particular stealth. Whoever
it was seemed quite satisfied that the night was empty
of danger. I heard footsteps on the raised floor of the
shed—a man’s step, and only one man's. I heard him
moving about for some time. I think he came down
the ladder once and went up again. Then there was
a light and sudden tiny flames. In the dark he had
evidently got fuel, and had started a fire on the stone
slab.
As the flames brightened I watched his restless fig-
ure. He was not a young man. I caught a glimpse of
white hair, but he took no position in which I could
see his face clearly. He was short, thick-set, and quick
in his movements.
From somewhere at the back of the shed he pushed
forward a block of wood, and, standing on this, he
fixed something to the short chain I had noted yester-
day. When he got down again I saw that a bundle
was suspended over the fire, not a pot, and it was too
high for the flames or much of the heat to reach it,
only the smoke curled about it.
Then the man moved the wooden block to the side
of the fire and sat down facing us, the flickering flames
throwing a red glow over him.
“Wigan, do you see?” whispered Quarles.
“Not clearly.”
“We’ll go nearer. Carefully.”
From our new point of view I looked again. The
man’s face was familiar, but just then I could not
remember who he was. It was the bundle hanging
over the fire which fascinated me.
Tied together, and secured in a network of string,
were five or six human heads, blackened, shriveled
faces, which seemed to grin horribly as they swung


28 Christopher Quarles
deeply from side to side, lit up by the flicker of the
flames.
“Do you see, Wigan?” Quarles asked again.
“Yes.”
“And the man?”
“Who is he?”
“On the bench yesterday. Sir Henry Buckingham.
Don’t you remember?”
For an hour—two, three, I don’t know how long—
that horrible bundle swung over the fire, and the man
sat on his block of wood, staring straight before him.
I had a great desire to rush from my hiding-place and
seize him, and I waited, expecting some further revela-
tion, listening for other footsteps. None came. The
fire flickered lower and went out. The moon had set,
and the cold of the early morning got into my bones.
In the darkness before the dawn the man moved
about the shed again, and presently I heard him go.
“Patience!” whispered Quarles, as I started up to
go after him. “He will not run away.”
His calmness almost exasperated me, but he would
answer no questions until we had returned to our hotel
and had breakfast.
“My dear Wigan,” he said, when at last he con-
descended to talk, “it was Zena who first set me on
the right road, when she remarked that a man who
had walked in a ditch carrying a bag would arrest
attention. Two points were suggested—first, that the
man might not have far to go to reach a place of
safety; secondly, that he had come prepared to take a
head away with him. A mere speculation, you may
say, but it set me putting questions to myself. Why
should a head be required? What kind of man would
be likely to want a head? A theory took shape in my


30 Christopher Quarles
“I think there would have been other heads missing
if he had been,” Quarles answered. “He was sane
enough to be somewhere where he was not known when
this time of the year came round. At the full moon he
is always queer—witness last night; but he is only
dangerous in January—dangerous, I mean, without
provocation. To preserve his secret, I have little doubt
he would go to any length; that is why I warned you
to be ready to shoot when we went upon our journey
of discovery. Now this year he was in England; ill-
ness had kept him to his house yonder, but he was well
enough to get out at the fatal time, and the insane
desire proved irresistible. He was cunning too. He
must know everybody in the neighborhood, yet the
man he killed was unknown. We shall find presently,
I have no doubt, that the victim was some wanderer
returning unexpectedly to friends in Withan. That
would account for the foreign cut of his clothes. Sir
Henry, waiting in the wood, perhaps for hours, may
have allowed others to pass before this man came. He
realized that he was a stranger, and attacked him.”
“But the head?”
“Was among those hanging over the fire. Sir Henry
was for many years in Borneo, Wigan, and for a large
part of the time was up-country helping to put down
the head-hunting which still existed there, and still does
exist, according to all accounts, when the natives think
they can escape detection. The horrible custom proved
too much for his diseased brain, and fascinated him.
You see how my theory grew. Then I looked for the
actual proof, which we found last night. The long
shed in that pit is built exactly as the Dyaks of Borneo
build theirs—a whole village living on communal terms
under one roof. The stone slab for the fire is the


The Identity of the Final Victim 31
same, and over it the Dyaks hang the treasured heads,
just as we saw them last night. Now you had better
go and see the police, Wigan. Don’t drag me into it.
I am going back to London by the midday train.”
The arrest of Sir Henry Buckingham caused an
enormous sensation.
He was subsequently put into a lunatic asylum, where
he died not many months afterward. Fortunately he
had no children to run the risk of madness in their
turn, and neither his wife nor any of the servants knew
anything of the concealed pit where he went to revel in
his insane delight.
Hidden under the long shed the heads were found—
six of them, five so hideously shriveled that identifica-
tion was altogether impossible.
The sixth was less shriveled, was the only English
one, and, perhaps, had we shown it in Withan, some
old person might have recognized a lost son believed
to be still wandering the world.
It was thought better not to do so, and the identity of
Sir Henry's last victim remains a mystery.


CHAPTER III
THE MYSTERY OF THE CIRCULAR COUNTERS
OWEVER obscure a mystery may be, there is
always some point or circumstance which, if
rightly interpreted, will lead to its solution. Even in
those crimes which have never been elucidated this
point exists, only it has never been duly appreciated.
It is this key-clew, as I may call it, for which the de-
tective first looks, and, since few crimes, if any, are
committed without some definite reason, it is most
frequently found in the motive.
His almost superhuman power of recognizing this
key-clew was the foundation of Christopher Quarles's
success, and his solution of the mysterious burglaries
which caused such speculation for a time was not the
least of his achievements.
Sir Joseph Maynard, the eminent physician of Har-
ley Street, had given a small dinner party one evening.
The guests left early, and soon after midnight the
household had retired.
Neither Sir Joseph nor Lady Maynard nor any of
the servants were disturbed during the night, but next
morning it was found that burglars had entered. They
had got in by a passage window at the back—not a very
difficult matter—and had evidently gone to the dining-
room and helped themselves to spirits from a tantalus
which was on the sideboard. Three glasses, with a little
of the liquor left in them, were on the table, and near
32


The Mystery of the Circular Counters 38
them were some biscuit crumbs. There were several
silver articles on the sideboard, but these had not been
touched.
The burglars appeared to have given all their atten-
tion to Sir Joseph’s room, which was in a state of con-
fusion. Two cupboards and every drawer had been
turned out and the contents thrown about in all direc-
tions. A safe which stood in a corner had been broken
open. It was a large safe, but of an old-fashioned
type, presenting little difficulty to experts. In it, be-
sides papers and about seventy pounds in gold in a
canvas bag, Sir Joseph had a considerable amount of
silver, presentations which had been made to him, and
some unique specimens of the Queen Anne period. All
this silver was upon the floor, also the bag of money
intact.
So far as Sir Joseph could tell, not a thing had been
taken. Half a dozen cigarette-ends had been thrown
down upon the carpet, and a small box containing some
round counters lay broken by the writing-table. It
looked as if the box had been knocked down and trod-
den on by mistake, for the counters were in a little
heap close to the broken fragments. It appeared that
the burglars must have been disturbed and had made
off without securing their booty.
This was the obvious explanation, but it did not
satisfy me. I questioned Sir Joseph about his papers.
Had he any document which, for private or public
reasons, someone might be anxious to obtain? He said
he had not, was inclined to laugh at my question, and
proceeded to inform me that he had no family skeleton,
had no part in any Government secret, had never been
in touch with any mysterious society, and had no papers


34 Christopher Quarles
giving any valuable details of scientific experiments
upon which he was engaged.
Of course the thieves might have been disturbed, but
there were certain points against this idea. No one
had moved about the house during the night, so appar-
ently there had been nothing to disturb them. The
silver on the floor was scattered, not gathered together
ready to take away as I should have expected to find it,
and it looked as if it had been thrown aside carelessly,
as though it were not what the thieves were in search
of; and surely, had they left in a hurry, the bag of
money would have been taken. Moreover, the cigarette-
ends and the dirty glasses suggested a certain leis-
urely method of going to work, and men of this kind
would not be easily frightened.
The cigarette-ends puzzled me. They were of a
cheap American brand, had not been taken from Sir
Joseph’s box, which contained only Turkish ones, and,
although they had apparently been thrown down care-
lessly, there was no ash upon the carpet nor anywhere
else. They looked like old ends rather than the re-
mains of cigarettes smoked last night. If my idea
were correct, it would mean that they had been put
there on purpose to mislead.
I examined the three glasses on the dining-room table;
there was the stain of lips at the rim of one, but not
of the other two. Only one had been drunk out of,
and probably a little of the liquid had been emptied
out of this into the other two. On inquiry, one of
the servants told me that only a very little of the spirit
had been taken. She also said there was only one
biscuit left in the box last night, and it was there
now ; therefore a few crumbs from the box must have
been purposely scattered on the tablecloth.


The Mystery of the Circular Counters 35
This was the story I told to Professor Quarles and
his granddaughter. I went to him at once, feeling
that the case was just one of those in which his theo-
retical method was likely to be useful. By doing so
I certainly saved one valuable life, possibly more than
One.
That he was interested was shown by our adjourn-
ment to the empty room, and he did not ask a question
until I had finished my story.
“What is the opinion you have formed about it,
Wigan?” he said.
“I think there was only one burglar, but for some
reason he thought it important that it should be be-
lieved there were more.”
“A very important point, and a reasonable conclu-
sion, I fancy,” said Quarles. “If you are right, it
narrows the sphere of inquiry—narrows it very much,
taken with the other facts of the case.”
“Exactly,” I answered. “There is a suggestion to
my mind of amateurishness in the affair. I grant the
safe was not a difficult one to break open, but it had
not been done in a very expert manner. The cigarette-
ends, the dirty glasses, and the biscuit crumbs seem to
me rather gratuitous deceptions, and—”
“Wait,” said Quarles. “You assume a little too
much. They would have deceived nine men out of ten
—you happen to be the tenth man. Amateur or not,
we have to deal with a very smart man, so don’t under-
estimate the enemy, Wigan. Assuming this to be the
work of an amateur, to what definite point does it lead
you?”
“To this question,” I replied. “Did Sir Joseph
Maynard burgle his own house?”
“Why should you think so?”


36 Christopher Quarles
“His manner was curious. Then there is only his
own statement that nothing has been taken. But sup-
posing he wished to get rid of papers, or of something
else which was in his possession and for which he was
responsible to others, a burglary would be an easy way
out of the difficulty.” -
“Would he not have robbed himself of something to
make the affair more plausible?” said Quarles.
“The amateur constantly overlooks the obvious,” I
answered.
The professor shook his head.
“Besides, Wigan, if he wanted to suggest that some
important document had been stolen, that is just the
one thing he would mention.”
“I think that would entirely depend on the man's
temperament, professor.”
“That may be true, but we have also got to con-
sider the man's character. Sir Joseph's standing is
very high.”
“Sudden temptation or necessity may subvert the
highest character,” I answered. “You know that as
well as I do. When I questioned Sir Joseph about his
papers his manner seemed curious, as I have said.
He at once declared that he had no part in any Gov-
ernment secret or mysterious society, gratuitous infor-
mation, you understand, not in answer to any direct
question of mine, showing that the ideas were in his
mind. Why? The explanation would be simple if he
were the burglar of his own papers.”
“I admit the argument is sound, Wigan, but it does
not creep into my brain with any compelling influ-
ence. There is a link missing in the chain somewhere,”
and he looked at Zena.
His often-repeated statement that she helped him by


The Mystery of the Circular Counters 37
her questions had never impressed me very greatly.
When a mystery was cleared up, it was easy to say
that Zena had put him on the right road, and I con-
sidered it a whim of his more than anything else. Still
I am bound to say that her seemingly irrelevant ques-
tions often had a curious bearing on the problem. It
Was SO now.
“You do not seem interested in the broken box of
counters?” she said, turning toward her grandfather.
‘‘I wonder, Wigan—is that the clew?” Quarles said
quickly. “It creeps into my brain.”
“The counters were in a heap,” I said.
“As if they had fallen out of the box when it was
broken?” asked Quarles.
“No, that would have scattered them more. They
were round, and might have fallen over after having
been put one upon another as one gathers coppers to-
gether when counting a number of them. Sir Joseph
picked them up and put them on the writing-table
while he was talking to me.”
“Did that strike you as significant?” asked Quarles.
“I cannot say it did. The floor was covered with
things, and I fancy they happened to be in his way,
that was all.”
“They are significant, Wigan, but I cannot see yet
in which direction they lead us. We must wait; for
the moment there is nothing to be done.”
I had become so accustomed to Quarles jumping to
some sudden conclusion that I was disappointed. I
think I was prepared to find him a failure in this case.
Naturally I was not idle during the next few days, but
at the end of them I had learnt nothing.
Then the unexpected happened. On consecutive
nights two doctors’ houses were burgled. The first was


38 Christopher Quarles
in Kensington. Dr. Wheatley had taken some part in
local politics which had made him unpopular with cer-
tain people, and he was inclined to consider the burg-
lary one of revenge rather than intended robbery.
Nothing had been stolen, but everything in his room
was in disorder, and a small and unique inlaid cabinet
with a secret spring lock had been smashed to pieces.
Several cigarette-ends were on the floor.
The second was at Dr. Wood's in Ebury Street, an
eminent surgeon, and the author of one or two text-
books. He had several cabinets in his room containing
specimens, and everything had been turned on to the
floor and damaged more or less. In fact, although
nothing had been taken, the damage was considerable.
On the night of the burglary Dr. Wood was away
from home, only servants being in the house. The
cook, suffering from faceache, had been restless all
night, but had heard nothing. It seemed, however,
that the burglar must have heard her moving about
and had been prepared to defend himself, for a re-
volver, loaded in every chamber, was found on one of
the cabinets. Apparently, having put it ready for use,
he had forgotten to take it away.
The doctor was furious at the wanton destruction of
his specimens, and, being irascible and suspicious,
fancied the revolver was merely a blind and that the
culprit was some jealous medical man. Again there
were cigarette-ends among the débris.
As soon as possible I went to Quarles and was shown
into the empty room.
“The unexpected has happened,” I said.
“No, no; the expected,” he said impatiently, and he
pointed to a heap of newspapers. “I’ve read every
report, but tell me yourself—every detail.”


The Mystery of the Circular Counters 39
I did so.
“The same brand of cigarettes?” he asked.
“No, but all cheap American ones.”
“One man trying to give the impression that he is
several. You still think that? Nothing has happened
to make you change that opinion?”
“No, I hold to the one man theory.”
“And you are right,” he snapped. “I admit I might
not have got upon the right track had you not made
that discovery. It was clever, Wigan.”
“It did not seem to help you to a theory,” I an-
swered.
“True. But it made me ask myself a question. Had
the thief found what he was looking for? Much de-
pended upon the answer. If he had, I saw small
chance of elucidating the mystery. I might have pro-
pounded a theory, but I should have had no facts to
support it.
“Indeed, had I theorized, then my theory would have
been wrong. If the thief had not found what he
wanted, he would continue his search, I argued. For
some reason he connected Sir Joseph Maynard with
the object of his search, and, when he tried again, we
stood a chance of finding the link in the chain we
wanted. It might implicate Sir Joseph, it might not.
That is why I said we must wait. The thief has tried
again—twice. Now, what is he looking for?’’
“Presumably something a doctor is likely to have,”
I said.
“And not silver, nor money, nor papers, nor—
“Nor counters, I suppose,” I interrupted.
“Not precisely,” said Quarles. “But those counters
have inspired me. They crept into my brain, Wigan,
and remained there. Whatever it is the thief is seek-
y y


40 Christopher Quarles
ing for, he is desperately anxious to obtain it—witness
his two attempts on consecutive nights.”
“You forget that days have elapsed since Sir Jo-
seph's was broken into.”
“Forget? Nonsense!” said the professor sharply.
“Should I be likely to forget so important a point?
It means that opportunity has been lacking. More, it
means that any doctor would not do, only certain medi-
cal practitioners. And that is where the counters help
me—or I think they do.”
“How 2°’
“Call for me to-morrow morning; we are going to
pay a visit together. We may be too late, but I hope
not. That revolver left in Dr. Wood's house rather
frightens me.”
“Why, particularly 7°
“It proves that the thief will use violence if he is
disturbed, and that he is a desperate man. I should
say he will grow more dangerous with every failure.”
It was like Christopher Quarles to raise my curi-
osity, and then to leave it unsatisfied. It was his way
of showing that he was my superior—at least, it always
impressed me like this. No man has ever made me
more angry than he has done. Yet I owe him much,
and there is no gainsaying his marvelous deductions.
He made me angry now, first by his refusal to tell
me more, and then by his patronizing air when I left
the house.
“You are clever, Wigan, very clever. You have
shown it in this case. But you lack imagination to step
out as far as you ought to do. Cultivate imagination,
and don’t be too bound up by common sense. Common
sense is merely the knowledge with which fools on the
dead level are content. Imagination carries one to the


The Mystery of the Circular Counters 41
hills, and shows something of that truth which lies be-
hind what we call truth.”
I found him ready and waiting for me next morning,
as eager to be on the trail as a dog in leash.
“We are going to call on Dr. Tresman, in Montagu
Street,” he said, stopping a taxi. “You will tell him
that you have reason to believe that his house is being
watched, and will be burgled on the first opportunity.
If the opportunity is given, it may happen to-night,
which will suit us admirably, because we have got to
keep watch every night in his room until it is burgled.
Of course, you will tell him who you are, and get his
permission. We don’t want to have to commit burg-
lary ourselves in order to catch the thief.”
“Why do you expect this particular doctor will be
visited ?” I asked.
“It is part of my theory,” was all the explanation
I could get out of him.
Dr. Tresman was a man in the prime of life, and
evidently believed himself capable of dealing with any
thieves who visited him. I told him that the man we
expected was no ordinary thief.
“A gang at work, eh? I have been out of town for
a little while holiday-making, and part of my holiday
consists in not reading the papers. Of course you
may keep watch, and I shall be within call should you
want help.”
“You had better leave it to us, doctor,” said Quarles,
who, for the purpose of this interview, posed as my
assistant.
“Come, now, if it means a rough-and-tumble, I
should back myself against you,” laughed Tresman,
drawing himself up to his full inches.


42 Christopher Quarles
“No lack of muscle, I can see, doctor, but then there
is my experience.”
“For all that, you may be glad of my muscle when
it comes to the point,” was the answer.
At nine o’clock that night Quarles and I were con-
cealed in the doctor's room, Quarles behind a chester-
field sofa in a corner, while I crouched close to the
wall behind one of the window curtains.
We had decided that the most likely means of entry
was by a window at the end of the hall, and we ex-
pected our prey to enter the room by the door. We
had got the doctor to put a spirit tantalus on the side-
board, also some biscuits and a box of cigarettes. We
were anxious to reproduce the circumstances of the
burglary at Sir Joseph Maynard's as nearly as pos-
sible, for Quarles declared it was impossible to say
what significance there might be in the man's every
action.
So we waited—waited all night, in fact. Nothing
happened.
“Something alarmed him,” was all Quarles said
when we left the house in the morning.
He showed no disappointment, nor any sign that his
theory had received a shock.
The next night we were on the watch again, con-
cealed as before.
By arrangement, the house retired to rest early. So
slowly did time go that half the night seemed to have
passed when I heard a neighboring church clock strike
one, and almost directly afterward the door of the
room was opened stealthily and was shut again.
Until that moment I had not heard a sound in the
house, and I was not certain that anyone had entered
the room even now, until I saw a tiny disk, the end


44 Christopher Quarles
the revolver ready to his hand upon the piece of furni-
ture he was examining. Every drawer he emptied on
to the floor. Some of the contents he hardly looked at.
Indeed, most of the contents did not interest him. But
now and then his attention was closer, and at inter-
vals he seemed puzzled, standing quite still, his hands
raised, a finger touching his head, almost as a low
comedian does when he wishes the audience to realize
that he is in deep thought.
For some time I could not make out what kind of
article it was to which he gave special attention, but
presently noticed that anything in ivory or bone inter-
ested him, especially if it were circular. I remembered
the counters in Sir Joseph's room, and wished we had
thought to place some in here to see what he would
have done with them.
Watching him closely, I was aware that he became
more irritable as he proceeded. One small cabinet,
which might possess a secret hiding-place, he broke
with the chisel, and I noticed that whenever a drawer
was locked his scrutiny of the contents was more care-
ful. He evidently expected that the man he was robbing
would value the thing he was looking for, and would
be likely to hide it securely.
He had worked round half the room when he sud-
denly stopped, and, with a quick movement, took up
the revolver. I had not heard a sound in the house,
but he had. There was no sign of doubt in his attitude,
which was of a most uncompromising character. He
did not make any movement to switch off the light, he
did not attempt to conceal himself. He just raised his
arm and pointed the revolver toward the door, on a
level at which the bullet would strike the head of a
man of average height.


The Mystery of the Circular Counters 45
The handle was turned, and the door began to open.
The next five seconds were full of happenings. For
just a fraction of time I realized that the burglar
meant to shoot the intruder without a word of warn-
ing, and for a moment I seemed unable to utter a
sound. Then I shouted:
“Back for your life!”
Immediately there was a sharp report. Quarles had
fired from behind the Chesterfield, and the burglar's
arm dropped like a dead thing to his side, his revolver
falling to the floor.
“Quickly, Wigan l’’ Quarles cried.
I had dashed aside the curtain, and I threw myself
upon the burglar just in time to prevent his picking
up his weapon with his left hand. He struggled
fiercely, and I was glad of Tresman's help in securing
him, although the doctor had come perilously near to
losing his life by his unexpected intrusion. But for
Christopher Quarles he would have been a dead man.
We called in the police, and, when our prisoner had
been conveyed to the station, the professor and I went
back to Chelsea.
“Do you know what he was looking for, Wigan?”
Quarles asked.
“Something in bone or ivory.”
“Bone,” answered Quarles. “Thank heaven that
fool Tresman didn’t come sooner! We might have
missed much that was interesting. You noted how
keen he was with every piece of bone he could find,
how irritable he was growing. The counters, Wigan,
they were the clew. But I did not understand their
significance at first.”
“I do not understand the case now,” I confessed,
“except that we have caught a mad burglar.”


46 Christopher Quarles
“Yes, it's an asylum case, not a prison one,” said
Quarles. “What was the man looking for? That was
my first question, as I told you. If he had not found
it at Sir Joseph’s he would look again. He did, and
visited two other doctors. Round counters—doctors.
There was the link. I daresay you know, Wigan, there
is an annual published giving particulars of all the
hospitals, with the names of the medical staff, con-
sulting surgeons and physicians, and so forth. In the
paragraph concerning St. James's Hospital you will
find that the first three names mentioned are Sir Joseph
Maynard, Dr. Wheatley, and Dr. Wood. The fourth
is Dr. Tresman. It could not be chance that the burg-
lar had visited these men in exact order, so I argued
that he would next go to Dr. Tresman. The man had
had something to do with St. James’s Hospital, and,
since he was acting like a madman, yet with method, I
judged he had been a patient who had undergone an
operation, outwardly successful, really a failure. He
was looking for something of which a doctor at this
hospital had robbed him, as he imagined, and, not
knowing which doctor, looked at this annual and began
at the first name. I have no doubt he was conscious
of the loss of some sense or faculty, and believed that
if he could get back the something that was missing
he would recover this sense. Moreover, he was ex-
ceedingly anxious that no one should guess what he
was looking for, so he attempted to suggest that a gang
was at work—the glasses, the crumbs, the cigarette-
ends, all placed where they would be certain to attract
notice. Did you see how he touched his head several
times to-night?”
“Yes.”
“That gives the explanation, I think,” said Quarles.


The Mystery of the Circular Counters 47
“To relieve some injury to his head, he was trepanned
at St. James’s Hospital, and he was looking for the
bone which the little circular trephine had cut from
his head. I have no doubt he examined Sir Joseph's
round counters very carefully to make sure that what
he wanted was not among them, and he would naturally
damage Dr. Wood's specimens. Probably the original
pressure was relieved by the operation, but in some
other way the brain was injured. We have seen the
result.”
Subsequent inquiry at St. James's Hospital proved
that Quarles was right. The man was a gentleman of
small independent means, a bachelor, and practically
alone in the world. There was no one to watch his.
goings and comings, no one to take note of his growing
peculiarities. His madness was intermittent, but the
doctors said he would probably become worse, as, in-
deed, he did, poor fellow !
“Ah, it is wonderful what surgery can do,” said
Quarles afterward. “But there are limitations, Wigan,
great limitations. And when we come to the brain,
great heavens! We are mere babies playing with a
mechanism of which we know practically nothing. No
wonder we so often make a mess of it.”
2


CHAPTER IV
THE STRANGE CASE OF MICHAEL HALL
UARLES was professedly a theorist, and I admit
Q that he often outraged my practical mind. I
believe the practical people govern the affairs of the
world, but occasionally one is brought face to face with
such strange occurrences that it is impossible not to
speculate what would happen had not the world its
theorists and dreamers too.
Early one morning about a week after the mad
burglar's case, I received a wire from Zena Quarles,
asking me to go to Chelsea as soon as possible. A
request from her was a command to me, and, dispens-
ing with breakfast, except for a hasty cup of coffee,
I started at once. She came to the door herself.
“Come in here for a minute,” she said, leading the
way into the dining-room and closing the door. “Grand-
father does not know I have sent for you. I am
troubled about him. For the last three days he has not
left his room. He will not let me go to him. His door
is not locked, but he commanded me, quite irritably,
not to come until he called for me. For three days he
has not wanted my companionship, and never before
do I remember so long an isolation.”
“What is he doing?” I asked.
She did not answer at once, and when she did the
words came with some hesitation.
“Of course, he is an extraordinary man, with powers
48


The Strange Case of Michael Hall 49
which one cannot exactly define, powers which—don’t
think me foolish—powers which might prove danger-
ous. In a way, you and I understand him, but I think
there is a region beyond into which we are not able
to follow him. I admit there have been times when I
have been tempted to think that some of his philosophi-
cal reasonings and fantastic statements were merely
the eccentricities of a clever man—intentional mystifi-
cations, a kind of deceptive paraphernalia.”
“I have thought so too,” I said.
“We are wrong,” she said decisively. “He wan-
ders into regions into which we cannot follow—where
he touches something which is outside ordinary under-
standing, and when he is only dimly conscious of the
actualities about him. Don’t you remember his saying
once that we ought to strive toward the heights, and
see the truth which lies behind what we call truth?
He does climb there, I believe, and, in order that he
may do so, his empty room and isolation are necessary.
I wonder whether there is any peril in such a jour-
ney?”
I did not venture to answer. Being a practical man,
a discussion on these lines was beyond me.
As I went to the professor's room I framed a knotty,
if unnecessary, problem out of a case 'upon which I was
engaged; but I was not to propound it.
I was suddenly plunged into a mystery which led
to one of the most curious investigations I have ever
undertaken, and showed a new phase of the professor's
powers.
Christopher Quarles was sitting limply in the arm-
chair, but he started as I entered, and looked at me with
blinking eyes, as though he did not recognize me.
Energy returned to him suddenly, and he sat up.


50 Christopher Quarles
“Paper and pencil,” he said, pointing to the writing-
table. I handed him a pencil and a writing-block.
By a gesture he intimated that he wanted me to
watch him.
Quarles was no draughtsman. He had told me so—
quite unnecessarily, because I had often seen him make
a rough sketch to illustrate some argument, and he
always had to explain what the various parts of the
drawing stood for. Yet, as I watched him now, he
began to draw with firm, determined fingers—a definite
line here, another there, sometimes pausing for a mo-
ment as if to remember the relative position of a line
or the exact curve in it.
For a time there seemed no connection between the
lines, no meaning in the design.
I have seen trick artists at a music-hall draw in this
way, beginning with what appeared to be the least
essential parts, and then, with two or three touches,
causing all the rest to fall into proper perspective and
a complete picture. So it was with Quarles. Two or
three quick lines, and the puzzle became a man's head
and shoulders. No one could doubt that it was a por-
trait with certain characteristics exaggerated, not into
caricature, but enough to make it impossible not to
recognize the original from the picture. It was an
attractive face, but set and rather tragic in expression.
Quarles did not speak. He surveyed his work for
a few moments, slightly corrected the curve of the
nostril, and then very swiftly drew a rope round the
neck, continuing it in an uncertain line almost to the
top of the paper. The sudden stoppage of the pencil
give a jagged end to the line. The rope looked as if it
had been broken. The effect was startling.
“Three times he has visited me,” said Quarles.


The Strange Case of Michael Hall 51
“First, just as the dusk was falling he stood in the
window there, little more than a dark shadow against
the light outside. The second time was when the lamp
was lighted. I looked up suddenly, and he was stand-
ing there by the fireplace gazing at me intently. He
was flesh and blood, real, not a ghost, no shape of mist
trailing into my vision. An hour ago, at least it
seems only an hour ago, he came again. The door
opened, and he entered. He stood there just in front
of me, as clearly visible in the daylight as you are, and
as real. When you opened the door, I thought my visitor
had come a fourth time.”
“And what is the meaning of this—this broken
rope?” I said, pointing to the drawing.
“Broken?” and he looked at the paper closely. “My
hand stopped involuntarily. It is a good sign—encour-
aging—but the rope is not really broken yet. That is
for us to accomplish.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that in one of His Majesty's prisons this
man lies under sentence of death, that he is innocent
of the crime, that he has been permitted to come to
me for help.”
“But º
Quarles sprang from his chair.
“Ah, leave questioning alone. I do not know how
much time we have to prevent injustice being done.
Take this drawing, Wigan, find out where the man is,
work night and day to get the whole history, and then .
come to me. We must not lose a moment. Providence
must have sent you to Chelsea this morning—another
sign of encouragement.”
I did not explain how I came to be there, nor say
there was no foundation for encouragement in my un-


52 Christopher Quarles
expected arrival. Indeed, but for my talk with Zena
that morning, I should have been inclined to argue with
him. As it was, I left Chelsea only half convinced that
I was not being misled by the fantastic dream of a man
not in his usual state of health.
I was soon convinced of my error.
Quarles's drawing was the portrait of a real man.
He was lying under sentence of death in Worcestershire,
the case against him so clear that there seemed to be
no doubt about his guilt. The story was a sordid one,
had created no sensation, had presented no difficult
problem. But, under the peculiar circumstances, it
was only natural that I should work with feverish haste
to learn all the details of the crime, and I intimated
to the authorities that facts had come to my knowledge
which threw a doubt on the justice of the sentence, and
that a postponement at least of the last penalty of the
law would be advisable. This advice was not the out-
come of anything I discovered; it was given entirely
on my faith in Christopher Quarles.
Later I told the following story to the professor and
Zena in the empty room.
“Michael Hall, the condemned man, is an artist,” I
said. “The portrait of him, Professor, is a good one.
I have seen him, and he impresses you at once as pos-
sessing the artistic temperament. Whether he has any-
thing beyond the temperament, I cannot judge, but the
fact remains that he has had little success. He is a
gentleman, and there is something convincing in the
manner in which he protests his innocence. Yet I am
bound to say that every circumstance points to his guilt.
Possessed of two or three hundred pounds, and an un-
limited faith in himself, he married. There is one
child, three years old. The money dwindled rapidly,


The Strange Case of Michael Hall 53
and a year ago, to cut down expenses, he went to live
at Thornfield, a village near Pershore, in Worcester-
shire. At Thornfield he became acquainted with an
elderly gentleman named Parrish, a bookworm, some-
thing of a recluse, and an eccentric. For no particular
reason, and apparently without any foundation, Mr.
Parrish had the reputation of being a rich man. Gen-
erally speaking, the inhabitants of Thornfield are hum-
ble people, and the fact that Parrish had a little old
silver may have given rise to the idea of his wealth.
He does not appear to have had even a banking ac-
Count.
“The old gentleman welcomed a neighbor of his own
class, and Hall was constantly in his house. That Hall
should come to Thornfield and live in a tiny cottage
might suggest to anyone that he was not overburdened
with this world’s goods, but Hall declares that Parrish
had no knowledge of his circumstances. Only on one
occasion was Parrish in his cottage, and money was
never mentioned between them. Yet Hall was in dif-
ficulties. He pawned several things in Pershore—small
articles of jewelry belonging to his wife—giving his
name as George Cross, and an address in Pershore. One
evening—a Sunday evening—Hall was with Parrish.
The housekeeper—Mrs. Ashworth, an elderly woman—
the only servant living in the house, said in her evi-
dence that Hall came at seven o’clock. The church
clock struck as he came in. Her master expected him
to supper. Hall says that he left at half-past nine, but
Mrs. Ashworth said it was midnight when he went.
She had gone to bed at nine—early hours are the rule
in Thornfield—and had been asleep. She was always
a light sleeper. She was roused by the stealthy closing
of the front door, and just then midnight struck.


54 Christopher Quarles
Early next morning—they rise early in Thornfield—
Mrs. Ashworth came down and found her master upon
the floor of his study—dead. He had been struck
down with a life-preserver, which was found in the
room and belonged to Hall. The housekeeper ran out
into the village street, but it seems there was nobody
about, and some twenty minutes elapsed before anyone
came to whom she could give the alarm.
“Hall's arrest followed. From the first he protested
his innocence, but the only point in his favor appears
to be the fact that he was found at his cottage, and
had not attempted to run away. Everything else seems
to point to his guilt. Although he says he left Par-
rish’s house at half-past nine, he did not arrive home
until after midnight. His wife innocently gave this
information, and Hall, who had not volunteered it, ex-
plained his late return by saying that he was worried
financially, and had gone for a lonely walk to think
matters over. He admits that the life-preserver be-
longed to him. Mr. Parrish had spoken once or twice
of the possibility of his being robbed, and that evening
Hall had made him a present of the weapon, but had
not told his wife that he was going to do so. The police
discovered that two days before the murder a valuable
silver salver belonging to Parrish had been pawned in
Pershore in the name of M. Hall, and the pawnbroker's
assistant identified Hall. A search among Parrish's
papers after the murder resulted in the discovery of a
recent will, under which all the property was left to
Hall. The condemned man declared he was ignorant
of this fact, but the prosecution suggested that his
knowledge of it and the straits he was in for money
were the motive for the crime. Except on the assump-
tion that Hall is guilty there appears to be no motive


The Strange Case of Michael Hall 55
for the murder. Nothing but this silver salver was
missing.”
Quarles had not interrupted me. He had listened to
my narrative, his features set, his eyes closed, the whole
of his mind evidently concentrated on the story. As I
stopped I looked at Zena.
“I wonder the housekeeper did not look out of her
bedroom window to see that it was Michael Hall who
left the house,” Zena said slowly.
“She slept at the back of the house,” I returned.
“I had not thought of that.” And then, after a
pause, during which her grandfather's eyes remained
fixed upon her as though he would compel her to say
more, she went on : “How was it, since they are early
risers in Thornfield, that Mrs. Ashworth had to wait
twenty minutes before anyone came? The house isn’t
isolated, is it?”
“No. I understand it is in the middle of the village
street.”
“There may be something in that question, Wigan,”
said Quarles, becoming alert. “Tell me, are the house
and its contents still untouched ?”
“I believe so. According to Mrs. Ashworth, Mr. Par-
rish appears to have had only one relation living—a
nephew, named Charles Eade. He lives in Birming-
ham, and at the trial said he knew nothing whatever
about his uncle, and had not seen him for years.”
“Any reason?”
“No; the family had drifted apart. I am simply
stating what came out in the evidence.”
“About the will,” said Quarles. “Was any provision
made for Mrs. Ashworth in it?”
“No; it leaves everything to Hall, and there is a
recommendation to sell the books in London, except a


56 Christopher Quarles
few which are specially mentioned as being of no value
intrinsically, and which Hall is advised to read. Ac-
cording to Hall, the old gentleman talked much about
literature, and declared that the whole philosophy of
life was contained in about a score of books. I have a
copy of the list given in the will.”
“Who witnessed the signature to the will?” Quarles
asked.
“A lawyer in Pershore and his clerk. This was the
only business transaction the lawyer had had with
Mr. Parrish, and he knew little about him.”
“I think we must go to Birmingham,” said Quarles.
“Sometimes there is only one particular standpoint
from which the real facts can be seen, and I fancy
Birmingham represents that standpoint for us. I sup-
pose you can arrange for us to have access to Mr. Par-
rish's house at Thornfield, Wigan?”
‘‘I will see about that,” I answered.
“Are you sure Michael Hall is not guilty?” asked
Zena.
‘‘Were he guilty I should not have seen him,” an-
swered Quarles decidedly.
“His poor wife l’’ said Zena.
“Pray, dear, that we may carry sunlight to her
again,” said the professor solemnly.
I thought that our journey to Birmingham was for
the purpose of interviewing Parrish’s nephew, but
it was not. Quarles got a list of the leading secondhand
booksellers there.
“A bookworm, Wigan, remains a bookworm to the
end of his days. Although nothing has been said about
it, I warrant Mr. Parrish bought books and had them
sent to Thornfield.”
“He might have bought them in London,” I said.


The Strange Case of Michael Hall 57
“I think it was Birmingham,” said Quarles.
So far he was right. It was the third place we
visited. Baines and Son was the firm, and we saw old
Mr. Baines. He had constantly sold books to Mr. Par-
rish, of Thornfield, who had been to his shop several
times, but their intercourse was chiefly by correspond-
ence. Good books! Certainly. Mr. Parrish knew what
he was doing, and never bought rubbish.
“His purchases might be expected to increase in
value?” asked Quarles.
“Yes; but, forgive me, why these questions?”
“Ah! I supposed you would have heard. Mr. Par-
rish is dead.”
“Indeed! I am very sorry to hear it.”
“We are looking into his affairs,” Quarles went on.
“Is there any money owing to you?”
“No.”
“The fact is, Mr. Parrish was murdered.”
“Murdered 1’’ exclaimed Baines, starting from his
chair. “Do you mean for some treasured volume he
possessed? Do you mean by some bibliomaniac!”
“You think he may have had such a treasure, then?”
“I know he had many rare and valuable books,”
Baines answered.
“You don’t happen to know a bibliomaniac who might
commit murder?” said Quarles.
‘‘No.”
“Such information would help us, because a young
man has been condemned for the murder, a man named
Hall—Michael Hall.”
‘‘I never heard of him,” said Baines. “I wonder
I did not see the case in the paper.”
“It caused little sensation,” said Quarles. “At pres-


58 Christopher Quarles
ent it seems one of those crimes committed for small
gain.”
“Mr. Parrish must have been a man of considerable
means,” said the bookseller; “considerable means, al-
though he was eccentric about money. He always sent
me cash, or some check he had received, with a re-
quest that I would return him the balance in cash. In-
deed, I have constantly acted as his banker. He has
sent me checks and asked me to send him notes for
them.”
“Where did those checks come from—I mean whose
were they? Were they for dividends?”
“Possibly, one or two of them, I do not remember;
but I fancy he sold books sometimes, and the checks
represented the purchase money.”
We thanked Mr. Baines, and then, just as we were
leaving, Quarles said:
“By the way, do you happen to know a Mr. Charles
Eade?”
“A solicitor?” queried the bookseller.
“I didn’t know he was a solicitor, but he is a relation
of Mr. Parrish’s, I believe,” Quarles answered.
‘‘I was not aware of that,” Baines returned. “Mr.
Eade’s office is in West Street—No. 40, I think. He
comes in here occasionally to make small purchases.”
“Not a bookworm like his uncle, eh?”
“Neither the taste nor the money, I should imagine,”
said Baines.
As soon as we were in the street the professor turned
to me. -
“That has been an interesting interview, Wigan.
What do you think of the bibliomaniac idea?”
“I suppose it goes to confirm your theory?” I said.
“On the contrary, it was a new idea to me. It would


The Strange Case of Michael Hall 59
be an idea well worth following if we found that one
or two of Parrish’s valuable books were missing; but
we’ll try another trail first. I think we will go to Per-
shore next.”
“How about Charles Eade?”
“I expect he is in his office in West Street. I don’t
want to see him. Do you?”
“We might call upon him so as to leave no stone
unturned. I don’t think you quite appreciate the dif-
ficulty of this case. The man may be innocent, but
we have got to prove it.”
“My dear Wigan, if Baines had said that Eade was
a bibliomaniac I should have gone to West Street at
once. Since he is only a lawyer, I am convinced we
should get no useful information out of him. Besides,
he might very reasonably resent our interference in his
uncle's affairs. It will be time enough to communicate
with him when we have made some discovery which
will help Michael Hall.”
Next morning we journeyed to Pershore.
“Yesterday you suggested that I had a theory, Wi-
gan,” said Quarles, who had been leaning back in the
corner of the railway carriage apparently asleep, but
now became mentally energetic. “As a fact, my theory
went no further than this: A bookworm in all prob-
ability buys books; to buy books requires money; there-
fore he must have money. In Thornfield Mr. Parrish
was considered a man of means; our friend Baines con-
firms that belief. My theory is established.”
“It doesn’t carry us very far,” I said.
“It provides another motive for the murder—rob-
bery. The bookseller's story suggests that Parrish must
have kept a considerable sum of money in the house.
It is said nothing was taken, but a large amount in


60 Christopher Quarles
notes may be stolen without leaving any noticeable
space vacant. Just one step forward we may take. If
such a sum existed, as is probable, remember Parrish
might at times think of burglars, might have mentioned
his fears, without giving a reason, to Hall, and Hall,
having a life-preserver, might make a present of it to
his friend.”
I did not contradict him, but, personally, I was not
at all convinced.
From the station we went straight to the pawnbrok-
er's and had an interview with the assistant who had
identified Hall as the man who pawned the salver.
We arranged that I was a detective helping the pro-
fessor, who was interested in Hall, and could not be-
lieve that he was guilty. It proved an excellent line
to adopt, for it brought out the young fellow's sympa-
thy. I asked questions, after stating our position, and
for a time Quarles remained an interested listener.
The assistant described Hall fairly accurately.
“He had pawned things before, hadn’t he?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“You recognized Hall at once?”
“Yes—”
“There is one very curious point,” I said: “so long
as the articles were his own, and he had a right to pawn
them, he gave a false name; yet, when he pawns an
article he had stolen, he gave his own name.’’
‘‘I think it seems more curious than it is,” was the
answer. “My experience is that whenever an important
article is pawned the correct name is given. The af-
fair becomes a financial transaction which there is no
reason to be ashamed of.”
“I understood that Hall had pawned things of some
value before this salver,” said Quarles; “jewelry be-


The Strange Case of Michael Hall 61
longing to his wife, for instance. Why didn’t he give
his own name then?”
“It is rather the importance of the article which
counts than its actual value,” said the assistant. “In
this case I have no doubt the prisoner would have said
that he had temporarily borrowed the salver. He must
redeem it presently; it was an important matter, and
by giving his own name the transaction seemed almost
honest.”
Quarles nodded, as though this argument impressed
him; then he said suddenly:
“What is George Cross like?”
‘‘That was the false name Hall used.”
“Did you comment upon the fact when he pawned
the salver in his own name?”
“No.”
“It would have been natural to do so, wouldn’t it?”
‘‘Perhaps; but we were busy at the time, and --
“And it didn’t occur to you,” said Quarles. “Now
I suggest that when you picked out Hall you were
really identifying the man you knew as George Cross,
and that the man who pawned the salver and gave the
name Hall was a different person altogether.”
“No.”
“Are you sure the salver was not pawned by a
woman?”
“Certain.”
“But you might reconsider your original statement
if I produced another man?”
“If such a person exists, why has it not been sug-
gested to me, say, by a photograph?”
The professor nodded and smiled, but I could get
nothing out of him that evening, not even whether he
was hopeful or not.


62 Christopher Quarles
Next morning we went to Thornfield. I had ar-
ranged that we should be allowed to visit the house.
For the time being, the local constable had the keys,
and we went to his house first. Quarles set him talk-
ing about the crime at once.
“Is Mrs. Hall still in the village?” he asked.
“Yes, sir. That's her cottage yonder,” and he
pointed down the village street. “Poor thing, we all
sympathize with her.”
“And Mrs. Ashworth, is she still here?”
‘‘No, sir. She was willing, I believe, to remain in
charge of Mr. Parrish’s house, but it was decided that
I should have the keys and look after it. She took a
room in the village until after the trial; then she left.”
“How long had she been with Mr. Parrish, con-
stable?”
“About a year, sir. You’re not thinking she had
anything to do with the murder, are you? She wasn’t
equal to it. She is a little bit of a woman, and it was
a tremendous blow which killed Mr. Parrish.”
“It was quite early in the morning when she dis-
covered the dead man, wasn’t it?”
“Yes; before the village was awake.”
“What do you know about Mr. Parrish’s nephew!”
“I understand he claims the property as next-of-kin,”
said the constable; “but he hasn’t been near the place,
so I don’t suppose he expects to be much richer for
his uncle’s death.”
Quarles and I went through the village to Parrish’s
house, which was the most important in the street, but
was of no great size. The room in which the dead
man had been found was lined with books, and, with
some excitement manifest in his face, Quarles took sev-
eral volumes from the shelves and examined them.


The Strange Case of Michael Hall 68
“Value here, Wigan. The old gentleman knew what
he was buying. These shelves represent a lot of money,
even if he had no other investments. Have you the
list of the books Hall was recommended to keep?”
I had. There were eighteen books in all, such classics
as “Lamb’s Essays,” “Reynold's Discourses,” and
“Pope's Homer.” We found only ten of them, and
careful search convinced us that the others were not
on the shelves.
“If you are looking for a cryptogram—a key to
the hiding place of a fortune—the missing books spoil
it,” I said.
“I confess that something of the kind was in my
mind,” said Quarles excitedly, “but the missing books
are going to help us. The old gentleman had not read
these books himself. See, Wigan, uncut pages; at
least”—he took out, a penknife—“not uncut, but care-
fully gummed together. I hadn’t thought of this.”
He slit the pages apart, and from between them
took a ten-pound note. Other pages, when unfastened,
yielded other notes—five pounds, twenty pounds, and
one was for fifty pounds.
“Enough, Wigan!” he exclaimed. “We’ve some-
thing better to do than find bank-notes. You must see
the constable at once, and tell him there is treasure
in this house which requires special protection. Then
communicate with the Birmingham police, and tell them
not to lose sight of Charles Eade, and let them also
have a description of Mrs. Ashworth. I expect she is
lying low in Birmingham.”
“I don’t follow your line of reasoning, professor.”
“I had no very definite theory beyond thinking that
Mr. Parrish must be a man of considerable means,”
said Quarles. “That fact once established, we had a


64 Christopher Quarles
motive for the murder, which did not seem applicable
to Michael Hall. It was said that nothing beyond the
salver was missing. Only Mrs. Ashworth could estab-
lish that fact. You remember Zena's question: “How
was it, since people were such early risers in Thorn-
field, that Mrs. Ashworth had to wait so long before
anyone came?’ There was one obvious answer. She
was up much earlier than usual that morning, perhaps
had not been to bed that night. The constable had said
that the village was not awake. Again, it was Mrs.
Ashworth who gave information about the nephew in
Birmingham. It is possible Parrish may have mentioned
him to his housekeeper, but, since she had only been
with him a year, and the old gentleman held no com-
munication with his nephew, it is unlikely. Once more,
the housekeeper was a little too definite about the time.
She had a story to tell. The precision might be the
result of careful rehearsal. These points were in my
mind from the first, but they were too slight for evi-
dence. Now the missing volumes give us the link we
want. Who could have taken them? Either Mrs. Ash-
worth, or someone with her connivance. I don’t think
it was Mrs. Ashworth. I believe it was the man who
murdered Mr. Parrish.”
“His nephew '' -
“Charles Eade; but I do not think he is his nephew.
Let me reconstruct the plot. Supposing Eade, either
from Mr. Baines or from some assistant in his shop,
heard of Parrish and his eccentricities, he would nat-
urally assume that a lot of money was kept in this
house. When, a year ago, Mr. Parrish wanted a house-
keeper the opportunity came to establish a footing here;
so Mrs. Ashworth, the accomplice, came to Thornfield.
A man like Parrish would be secretive, not easy to


The Strange Case of Michael Hall 65
watch; but in time the housekeeper would find out
where he hid his money, and would note the books. She
would only be able to note those used during the past
year—the eight books which are missing, Wigan. Now
the robbery had to be carefully arranged, suspicion
must be thrown upon someone, and Hall was at hand.
To emphasize his need of money, the salver was pawned,
I thought by Mrs. Ashworth, but doubtless Eade did it
himself, choosing a busy time. The scoundrels chose
the night when Hall was having supper with the old
man, and whether the original intention was robbery
only or murder, everything worked in their favor. Eade
took the eight books away that night, and the house-
keeper stayed to give the alarm and tell her story.
Now, mark what happens. After the murder a will is
found in which eighteen books are mentioned, and im-
mediately we hear through Mrs. Ashworth that Mr. Par-
rish has a nephew living, who, as the constable tells
us, had laid claim to the property. The villains are
greedy, and want the other ten volumes.”
“Is there any real evidence to support the story,
professor?”
“Yes; those eight missing books, which will be found
in the possession of Charles Eade.”
Few men have received less sympathy than Charles
Eade when he paid the last penalty of the law. He
was not only a murderer, but had intended to let an
innocent man suffer. The missing volumes were found,
and some of the money saved; and it was a satisfaction
that Mrs. Ashworth, who was sentenced to a long term
of imprisonment, confessed. Her story agreed with
Quarles's theory in almost every particular, even to the
fact that Eade was no relation to the dead man.


66 Christopher Quarles
Quarles and I visited the Halls afterward, and the
professor very simply told them of his experience, of.
fering no explanation, expressing no opinion.
But as we traveled back to London, he said to me:
“If men were ready to receive them, such manifesta-
tions of mercy would be constant experiences. Is it
not only natural they should be? Take a child; he is
only happy and secure because every moment of his life
his parents help him, protect him, think for him. With-
out such care and thought, would he live to become a
man? It is a marvelous thing that, whereas a child
learns to lean wholly on the wisdom of his parents,
man, as a rule, seems incapable of wholly trusting an
Almighty wisdom; and, when he is forced to realize
it, calls it miraculous. The miracle would be if these
things did not happen.”
I did not answer. We were both silent until the
train ran into Paddington.


º .
CHAPTER V
THE EVIDENCE OF THE CIGARETTE-END
SUPPOSE I have my fair share of self-confidence,
but there have been occasions when I have felt in-
tuitively that the only chance of success was to have
Quarles with me from the beginning. The Kew mystery
was a case in point. £ºw.
It was half-past nine when the telephone bell rang.
At first the inspector on duty at the station could
only hear a buzzing sound, followed by a murmur of
voices, which might have come from the exchange;
then came the single word, “Police l’’ As soon as he
had answered in the affirmative the message came in
quick gasps in a woman's voice:
“Hambledon Road—fourteen—come—it's murder!
Quick, I’m being 5 y
There was a faint cry, as though the woman had been
suddenly dragged from the instrument.
The inspector at once sent off a constable, who, with
Constable Baker, the man on the Hambledon Road beat
at the time, went to No. 14. Their knock was not an-
swered very promptly. A servant came to the door,
still fidgeting with her cap and apron, as though she
had put them on hastily, and she gave a start when
she saw the policeman. She said her mistress—a Mrs.
Fitzroy—was at home, but she seemed a little reluctant
to let the officers walk into the dining-room without a
preliminary announcement, which was only natural,
67 .


68 Christopher Quarles
perhaps. They entered to find the room empty. Mrs.
Fitzroy was not in the house. The servant knew noth-
ing about the telephone call. She said it was her night
out, that she had come in by the back door, as usual, and
was upstairs taking off her hat and jacket when the
policeman knocked.
This was the outline of the mystery which I gave to
Christopher Quarles as we walked from Kew Gardens
Railway Station to Hambledon Road. The investigation
had only been placed in my hands that morning, and
I knew no details myself.
“Shall we find Constable Baker at the house?” he
asked presently.
“Yes; I have arranged that,” I answered.
The house was a fair size, semi-detached, with half a
dozen steps up to the front door, and it had a basement.
There was a small window on the right of the door which
gave light to a wide passage hall, and on the other side
was the large window of the dining-room.
Baker opened the door for us.
“No news of Mrs. Fitzroyº” I asked.
“None, sir.” He was a smart man. I had worked
with him before.
“What time was it when you entered the house last
night?” asked Quarles.
“Ten o’clock, sir. A clock struck while we were
standing on the steps.”
“Was the light burning in the hall and in the dining-
room?”
“Yes, sir; full on.”
“And the dining-room door was shut?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You searched the house for Mrs. Fitzroy?”


The Evidence of the Cigarette-End 69
“We did. Have you just come from the police sta-
tion?”
“No.”
“I have reported one or two points,” said Baker.
“The gardens of these houses all have a door opening
onto a footpath, on the other side of which there is a
tennis club ground.
“The path ends in a blank wall at one end; the
other end comes out into Melbury Avenue, a road run-
ning at right angles to Hambledon Road. I found the
garden gate here unbolted, and the servant, Emma
Lewis, says she has never known it to be unfastened
before. Also in Melbury Avenue last evening I saw a
taxi waiting. I saw it first at about eight o’clock, and
it was still there at a quarter past nine, when I spoke
to the driver. He said he had brought a gentleman
down, who had told him to wait there, and had then
walked up Melbury Avenue. It was not the first time
he had driven him to the avenue, and the driver sup-
posed it was a clandestine love affair. After we found
that Mrs. Fitzroy was missing, I went to look for the
taxi. It had gone. I had noticed the number, however,
and they are making inquiries at the police station.”
“Good,” said Quarles. “Now let us look at the din-
ing-room. Nothing has been moved, I suppose.”
“It’s just as we found it last night,” Baker returned.
It was a well-furnished room. An easy chair was
close to the hearth, and an ordinary chair was turned
sideways to the table. A swivel-chair was pushed back
from the writing-table, which was in the window, and
the telephone, which evidently stood on this table as
a rule, was hanging over it, suspended by the cord, the
receiver being upon its hook. The telephone directory
lay open on the blotting-pad. For some time Quarles


The Evidence of the Cigarette-End 71
“We'll ask the servant. By the way, Baker, do you
happen to know Mrs. Fitzroy?”
“I’ve seen a lady come out of this house on one or
two occasions,” answered the constable. “I described
her to the servant, and have no doubt it was Mrs. Fitz-
roy. She is rather good-looking, fifty or thereabouts,
but takes some pains to appear younger, I fancy.”
“You are observant,” Quarles remarked. “Shall we
have the servant in, Wigan?”
Emma Lewin told us that she had been with Mrs.
Fitzroy for over three years. Last night she had gone
out as usual about six o'clock. She had left by the
back door and had taken the key with her. She always
did so. She returned just before ten, and had gone
straight upstairs to take off her hat and jacket. She
always did this before going in to see whether her mis-
tress required anything.
“Was the dining-room door shut when you went up-
stairs?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“You did not go by the garden gate last night?”
“No. I never go that way. The gate is never used.”
“Did Mrs. Fitzroy have many visitors?”
“None to speak of. Not half a dozen people have
called upon her since I have been here. I believe she
had no relations. Once or twice a week she would be
out all day, and occasionally she has been away for a
night or two.”
“Where has she gone on these occasions?” I asked.
“I do not know.”
“And her correspondence—was it large?”
“She received very few letters,” the servant an-
swered; “whether she wrote many, I cannot say. I cer-
tainly didn’t post them.”


72 Christopher Quarles
“Did she use the telephone much?”
“She gave orders to the tradesmen sometimes, and
I have heard the bell ringing occasionally. You see,
the kitchen is a basement one, and the bell might often
ring without my hearing it.”
“Did your mistress smoke?” Quarles asked suddenly.
“No, sir.”
“How do you know she didn’t?”
“I have heard her say she didn’t agree with women
smoking. Besides, when doing the rooms I should have
found cigarette-ends.”
“That seems conclusive,” said Quarles. “Yesterday
was Wednesday, your night out?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Is Wednesday always your night out?”
“It is.”
“From six to ten?”
“Yes; it is a standing arrangement; nothing ever in-
terferes with it.”
“Very interesting,” said the professor. “Now, of
course you know what your mistress was wearing when
you left her alone in the house last night?”
“A brown dress with × 2
“I don’t want to know,” Quarles interrupted. “But
I want you to go to your mistress's room and find out
what hat and coat and what kind of boots she put on
last night. She wouldn’t be likely to go out dressed as
you left her. You had better go with the young
woman, Baker.”
He spoke in rather a severe tone, and, when the girl
had left the room with the constable, I asked him if he
suspected her of complicity in the affair.
“My dear Wigan, as yet I am only gathering facts,”
he answered, “facts to fit theories. We may take the


The Evidence of the Cigarette-End 75
“Probably he wasn’t in the room, and her woman's
wit—”
“Ah, you’ve been reading sensational fiction,” he
interrupted. “Let us stick to facts. The call must
have been a deliberate one and would take time. There
was evidently no desperate struggle in this room last
night. The position of the two chairs by the hearth
suggests that two persons at some time during the
evening were sitting here together—one of them a man,
since the hearth shows that he smoked. The time would
be somewhere between six o'clock, when the servant
went out, and nine-thirty, when the telephone message
was received. If Baker can fix the time of the taxi's
arrival in Melbury Avenue, perhaps we can be even
more accurate.”
“The taxi wasn’t there at half-past seven,” said the
constable.
“Then we may say between seven-thirty and nine-
thirty,’” said Quarles. “Now the only thing which
suggests violence of any kind is the instrument hanging
over the table. Had the person using it been forcibly
dragged away, the instrument might have fallen in
that position, but it would have been a stupendous
miracle if the receiver had swung to its place on the
hook. No, Wigan, the receiver was replaced carefully
to cut the connection, and the instrument was prob-
ably hung as it is deliberately to attract attention. I
come back to my question, then: Why was the police
station rung up at all?”
I did not answer, and Baker shook his head in sym-
pathy.
“I do not attempt to suggest what occurred while
the two sat here by the fire,” said Quarles, “but what-
ever it was, somebody wished it to be known that some-


76 Christopher Quarles
thing had happened. That is my answer to the ques-
tion. The message suggests murder. As the house has
not yet been thoroughly searched, murder may actually
have taken place.”
Baker started, and I looked at the professor in as-
tonishment.
“You think Mrs. Fitzroy is lying dead somewhere
in this house?” I said.
“I have a theory which we may put to the test at
once,” returned Quarles.
“In the cellars, I suppose?”
“No, Wigan; we’ll look everywhere else first. I ex-
pect to find a body, and not very securely hidden either;
there wouldn’t be much time; and, besides, I believe it
is meant to be found. Still I do not expect to find Mrs.
Fitzroy's body. I expect to find a dead man. Shall
we go and look?”
A man in my profession perforce gets used to com-
ing in contact with death in various forms, but there
is always a certain thrill in doing so, and in the present
search there was something uncanny. The quest was
not a long one. In a small bedroom on the first floor,
sparsely furnished and evidently used chiefly as a box-
room, we found the body of a man under the bed. A
cord had been thrown round his neck and he had been
strangled fiercely and with powerful hands at the
work.
“Not a woman’s doing,” said Quarles as he knelt
down to examine the corpse.
There were no papers of any kind in the pockets,
but there was money and a cigar case.
“Time is precious now, Wigan,” said the professor.
“You might telephone to the station and ask if they
have found the driver of the taxi. I want to know if


The Evidence of the Cigarette-End 77
this poor fellow is the man he drove to Melbury Ave-
nue last evening, also whether it has always been a
Wednesday when he has brought him into this neigh-
borhood; and, of course, you must ask him any ques-
tions which may lead to the identification of the dead
man. I don’t suppose he will be able to help you much
in that direction. You will find, I fancy, that the
driver got tired of waiting for his fare last night and
drove away.”
“Or took another fare—the murderer,” I suggested.
“I don’t think so,” said Quarles. “You might also
ask the inspector at the station whether he is prepared
to swear that the first voice he heard over the 'phone—
the voice which said “police’—was a woman's. What
time does it grow dark now, constable?”
“Early—half-past four, sir.”
“I’ll go, Wigan. I want to think the matter out be-
fore dark. Seven o’clock to-night—meet me at the top
of the road at that time, and somewhere close have half
a dozen plain clothes men ready for a raid. Now that
we know murder has been done, you couldn’t suggest a
house to raid, I suppose, constable.”
“I couldn’t, sir.”
“Nor can I at present. Seven o’clock to-night, Wi-
gan.”
The professor's manner, short, peremptory, self-suf-
ficient, was at times calculated to disturb the serenity
of an archangel. I had been on the point of quarreling
with him more than once that morning, but the sudden
demonstration of what seemed to be the wildest theory
left me with nothing to say. Constable Baker had an
idea of putting the case adequately, I think, when he
remarked: “He ain’t human, that’s what he is.”
The taxi driver had been found, and, when taken


78 Christopher Quarles
to Hambledon Road, recognized the dead man as his
fare. He had driven him to Melbury Avenue on four
occasions, and each time it had been a Wednesday. Of
course, the gentleman might have come more than four
times, and on other days besides Wednesdays for all
he knew. On each occasion he had been called off a
rank in Trafalgar Square. His fare had paid him for
the down journey before walking up the avenue, and
had never kept him waiting so long before, so he gave
up the job and went back to town. He had not picked
up another fare until he got to Kensington.
The inspector at the station was certain the message
he had received was in a woman's voice, but he was not
sure that the word “police” was in the same voice, or
that it was a woman who spoke it.
At seven o’clock I was waiting for Quarles at the top
of Hambledon Road. He was punctual to the minute.
“You’ve got the men, Wigan?”
“They are hanging about in Melbury Avenue.”
“It may be there is hot work in front of us,” said
Quarles, ‘‘and the first move is yours. No. 6 Hamble-
don Road is the house we want, and you will go to the
front door and ask to see the master. I fancy a maid-
servant will answer the door, but I am not sure. Who-
ever it is, prevent an alarm being given, and get into
the house with the two men who will accompany you.
That done, get the door into the garden open, and I
will join you with the rest of the men. If there is
any attempt at escape it will be by the garden, and we
shall be waiting for them. Utter silence; that is im-
perative. Of course, they may be prepared, but prob-
ably they are not. If it is necessary to shoot, you must,
and we will force our way in as best we can and take


80 Christopher Quarles
voice, pitched low and monotonous in its tone, went on
with an argument:
“I can find no excuse for you in that, Bertha Cap-
racci. It is not admitted that your husband found
death at the hands of his associates, but, were it so, it
is no more than just. There are papers here proving be-
yond all doubt that he betrayed his friends.”
“I have already said that is untrue,” came the an-
swer in a woman’s voice.
“There is no doubt,” said another man.
“None,” said a third.
Three men at least were sitting in judgment upon
this woman, and it was evident they were not English.
“Besides, I am not one of you,” said the woman.
“In name, no; in reality, yes; since your husband
must have let you into many secrets,” returned the
first speaker. “Your woman’s wit has outplayed our
spies until recently, but, once discovered, you have been
constantly watched. We cannot prove that the failure
of some of our plans, costing the lives of good com-
rades, has been due to your interference, but we sus-
pect it. We found you in constant communication with
this English Jew, Jacob Morrison, who is in the pay of
the Continental police. He is dead, a warning to others,
killed in your house, and busy eyes are now looking
for you as his murderess. You have hidden your iden-
tity so entirely that all inquiry must speedily be baf-
fled, and so you have played into our hands. Your dis-
appearance will hardly reach to a nine days’ wonder,
and who will think to look for your body under the
flags of this cellar? Death is the sentence of the So-
ciety, and forthwith.”
I waited to hear a cry of terror, but it did not come.
Nor was there a movement to suggest that the men had


The Evidence of the Cigarette-End 81
risen at once to the work, or, in spite of the restraining
hand the professor laid on my arm, I should have been
beating at the door to break it down.
‘‘I offer you one chance of life,” the man’s voice
droned on after a pause. “Confess everything. Give
me the names of all those to whom you have given in-
formation concerning us, and you shall have your miser-
able life.”
“You have killed the only man who knew anything
from me,” she answered.
“It’s a lie,” came the hissing reply. “Your cursed
husband told you so much about us, he may have ex-
plained some of the means we employ to make unwilling
tongues speak. I’ll have the truth out of you.”
One of the men must have sat close to her, for her
sudden cry of fear was instantly smothered, and there
was the sound of struggle and rough usage.
“Now—quickly,” whispered Quarles; and the man
who had followed us to the cellars had struck with a
stout piece of iron between the door and its framework.
The wood splintered immediately, and, almost before
I was prepared, we were facing our enemies, and
Quarles was shouting for the other men in the house
to COme to us.
“Hands up !” I cried.
They were unprepared, that was our salvation. Not
one of the three had any intention of surrender, that
was evident in a moment, but they had to get their
hands on their weapons, and, fortunately, only one of
them had a revolver. The other two rushed upon us
with knives.
I think Quarles was the first to fire, and he was not
a thought too soon. He said afterward that he meant
to maim and not to kill, but his bullet passed through


The Evidence of the Cigarette-End 83
“No, Wigan, no,” he said, in reply to my question.
“I did not even know there was such a place as Ham-
bledon Road.”
“I am altogether astonished.”
“And not for the first time, eh, Wigan? Yet this
case has been worked upon facts chiefly. It was clear
that the idea of the woman going suddenly to the tele-
phone to call for help was absurd, and, therefore, it
was at least possible that she had spoken that mes-
sage under compulsion. When the revolver was held
to her head in the cellar to-night, it was probably not
for the first time. As I said this morning, there was a
desire to put the authorities on the scent. This sug-
gested a conspiracy. So much for theory, now for
facts.”
“But we did not know murder had been committed
then,” I said.
“Mrs. Fitzroy said so in her message,” Quarles an-
swered, “and it was unlikely the police would have
been called unless they were meant to discover some-
thing. But we had facts to go upon. It was evident
that two persons had sat by the fire, the position of
the chairs, the cigar ash on the heart 2 y
“Cigarette, you mean.”
“It was a cigar ash on the hearth, and I looked for
a cigar end among the cinders and could not find one.
It was cigarette ash on the writing-table, and I found the
cigarette end, you will remember. It was possible, of
course, that the same man had smoked a cigarette as
well as a cigar, but the different position of the ash
was significant. I concluded there were two men, one
who had sat smoking a cigar by the fire, one who, in
leaning over to ring up the police, had dropped ash
from a cigarette on to the writing-table. I concluded


84 Christopher Quarles
*
that the cigar smoker was the murdered man, and you
will remember there was a cigar case in the pocket of
the man we found. I think we shall discover that it
was the cigarette smoker who killed him, and then com-
pelled Mrs. Fitzroy to send that message. No doubt he
had a companion with him, perhaps more than one, and
I believe they have been living at No. 6 for some time
watching Mrs. Fitzroy. We have heard to-night who
Jacob Morrison was, and it was on Wednesday even-
ings that he came to No. 14. Possibly the watchers had
not become aware of his visits until that evening; they
may have kept watch in the Hambledon Road, whereas
Mrs. Fitzroy unbolted the gate at the bottom of the
garden for him as soon as the servant went out. You
remember the cigarette end?”
“Yes, it was a cheap kind.”
“And foreign,” said Quarles; “Spagnolette Na-
tionale. You can buy them done up in a gray paper
case at any shop which sells tobacco in Italy, trenta
centesimi for ten, I believe, and you can get them at
certain places in Soho. You heard me ask Baker what
time it grew dark. I had something to do then, but
much to do first. To begin with, I had to find out
what days the dust was collected, then to make judicious
inquiries about foreigners living in the neighborhood.
You see, since Mrs. Fitzroy had been taken away just
as she was, and since Baker had only seen that one taxi
waiting, I concluded the lady had not been taken far.
The only house containing foreigners which seemed to
... suit my purpose was No. 6, and, when it was dark, I
went to examine the dust-bin. There I found two or
three of these cases of gray paper. You see, Wigan,
the case was comparatively an easy one.”


CHAPTER VI
THE MYSTERY OF • ‘OLD MRS JARDINE”
Y association with Professor Quarles undoubtedly
had an effect upon my method of going to work
in the elucidation of mysteries, and not always with a
good result. His methods were his own, eminently suc-
cessful when he used them, but dangerous in the hands
of others. In attempting to theorize I am convinced I
have sometimes lost sight of facts.
I am not sure that this reflection applies to the case
of old Mrs. Jardine, but somehow my mind never
seemed to get a firm grip of the affair. I was con-
scious of being indefinite, and had an unpleasant sensa-
tion that I had failed to see the obvious.
Old Mrs. Jardine lived at Wimbledon, in a house of
some size standing in a well-grown garden. She was
an invalid, confined to the house—indeed, to three or
four rooms which opened into one another on the first
floor—and she must have been an absolute annuity to
Dr. Hawes, who visited her nearly every day. The
household consisted of old Mrs. Jardine, Mrs. Harrison,
also an elderly lady, who was her companion, Martha
Wakeling, housekeeper and cook, who had been many
years in her service; and a housemaid named Sarah
Paget.
Into this household, in which no one took any par-
ticular interest, came tragedy, and the Wimbledon mys-
tery developed into a sensation.
86


The Mystery of “Old Mrs. Jardine” 87
Early one morning Sarah Paget arrived at the doc-
tor's, saying her mistress had been taken suddenly ill,
and would he come immediately. She did not know
what was the matter. The cook had sent her.
Three days before Dr. Hawes had gone away for a
holiday, and his practice was in the hands of a locum,
a young doctor named Dolman. He went at once. Mrs.
Jardine was dead upon her bed. She had been found
in the morning by Martha Wakeling lying just as the
doctor saw her. She had been attacked in her sleep,
Dolman thought, and her head had been smashed with
some heavy instrument; Mrs. Harrison, the companion,
had disappeared. Of course, the police were sent for
at once, and the case came into my hands that same
day.
Dr. Dolman had seen his patient for the first time
on the previous afternoon. Dr. Hawes had told him
that she was something of a crank, could only walk a
little, and suffered from indigestion and general de-
bility, which was hardly wonderful, since she would
make no effort to go out even for a drive. She seemed
to enjoy being a confirmed invalid under constant medi-
cal treatment, and would certainly resent any neglect.
“She was sitting in an arm-chair when I saw her,”
Dolman told me, “and was in good spirits; inclined to
be facetious, in fact, and to enjoy her little joke at my
expense. She wanted to know what a young man could
possibly know about an old woman's ailments, and won-
dered that Hawes was content to leave his patients in
such inexperienced hands as mine. I do not think she
was as bad as she would have people believe.”
Dolman had not spoken to Mrs. Harrison, but he
had seen her. She was sitting in the adjoining room


88 Christopher Quarles
doing some needlework. He had taken little notice of
her, and was doubtful if he would know her again.
Martha Wakeling said it was her custom to go into
her mistress's room on her way down in the morning,
and she had found her dead on the bed. She had heard
no noise in the night. Mrs. Harrison occupied a room
opening out of Mrs. Jardine's, and it was empty that
morning. The bed had been slept in, but the com-
panion had gone.
“Was she on good terms with Mrs. Jardine?” I
asked.
“Yes, oh, yes.”
“You say it rather doubtfully?”
“The mistress wasn’t always easy to get on with,
and I daresay she tried Mrs. Harrison at times.”
“And so Mrs. Harrison murdered her in a fit of an-
ger,” I suggested.
“I don’t say that. She is not to be found; that's
all I know for certain.”
“Where did Mrs. Harrison come from ? Who was
she 3’’
“I think she answered the mistress's advertisement.”
“How long has she been here?” I asked.
“Just over a year. Mrs. Jardine didn’t get on well
with the last two companions she had. They were
younger women, and the place was too dull for them.
They wanted to go out more, and Mrs. Jardine wanted
someone who was content to live the kind of life she
did. So she got this elderly companion.”
“Mrs. Harrison had friends, I suppose?”
‘‘I never saw nor heard of any.”
“But she received letters?”
‘‘I can’t call to mind that she ever did. I fancy she
was one of the lonely sort.” .


The Mystery of “Old Mrs. Jardine” 89
She was also uninteresting and commonplace in ap-
pearance, according to Martha Wakeling's description.
The word-picture I managed to draw up for circulation
had nothing distinctive about it. Nor did Martha
know much of her mistress's relations. Mrs. Jardine
had not been on friendly terms with them, and had not
seen any of them in her time, as far as she knew; the
only one she had heard mentioned was a nephew, a
Mr. Thomas Jardine, who lived somewhere in London.
The upper floor of the house was unfurnished and
locked up, and an unfastened window on the ground
floor, opening into the garden, suggested the way Mrs.
Harrison had left. I took immediate steps to delay
the publication of the news of the tragedy. There
were points in the case which might modify first sus-
picions considerably, and a few hours of unhampered
investigation might be of great value.
Even a perfunctory search among Mrs. Jardine's
papers proved that if she had not seen her nephew
recently she had heard from him. I found two letters
asking for money, a whine in them, and at the same
time an underlying threat, as though the writer had
it in his power to do mischief. Apparently Mrs. Jar-
dine had a past which might account for her being a
crank. A talk with her nephew should prove inter-
esting.
I went to the address given in the letters—a flat in
Hammersmith—but it was not until next morning that
I got an interview with Thomas Jardine.
He was a big loose-limbed man, a gentleman come
down in the world through dissipation. I told him I
had come on behalf of Mrs. Jardine, and his first words
showed that he was either an excellent actor or that
the news of his aunt's death had not yet reached him.


90 Christopher Quarles
“If you are her business man and have brought me
a check, you are welcome,” he said.
“I have not brought the check—at present.”
“Come, there's a hopeful tone about you,” he re-
turned, “and I’m hard up enough not to be particular
or spiteful. Is the old girl willing to come to terms?”
“I am in rather a difficult position,” I answered,
carefully feeling my way. “I want to do the best I
can for both sides, and, as you are probably aware,
Mrs. Jardine is not one to talk very fully, even to her
man of business.”
“I warrant she has given you her version of the
story.”
“But not yours. I should like to hear yours.”
“They won’t agree; but the unvarnished truth is
this. She was a Miss Stuart, or called herself so, and
my uncle met her on a sea trip. He was in such a
hurry to put his head in the noose that he married her
without knowing anything about her. He imagined
he had caught an angel; instead—well, to put it mildly,
he had found an adventuress. She had taken good care
to discover she had got hold of a rich man, and soon
began her tricks. She alienated my uncle from his
family, not particular about the truth so long as she
got her way. My father was the kind of man who
never succeeds at anything, and my uncle was con-
stantly helping him. This came to an end when Mrs.
Jardine got hold of the reins. She didn’t spend money;
she got it out of her husband and hoarded it, no doubt
conscious that her opportunity of doing so might Sud-
denly come to an end. It did. My father made it his
business to hunt up her past history. It wasn’t edi-
fying. A lot she denied, but plenty remained which
there was no denying. She had been a decoy for Conti-


92 Christopher Quarles
yet, the outside is quite enough; money-lenders’ com-
plaints, half of them, and the other half bills demand-
ing immediate payment. If you’ve ever had dealings
with the fraternity, you can tell what is inside by the
look of the envelope.”
I turned the letters over; he was probably right as
to their contents. There was one, however, in a woman's
handwriting which interested me. I almost passed it
to him, and then thought better of it.
“It struck me that there was a threatening tone in
your letters,” I said.
‘‘Perhaps. I was not averse from frightening her
a little if I could.”
“Not very generous,” I said.
“I don’t feel generous. She’d have to come down
very handsomely to make me drink her health.”
“If your story is the correct one, there may be a
reason for your aunt leading so secluded a life,” I
went on. “In marrying your uncle she may have
tricked her confederates.”
“It is more than possible,” Jardine answered.
“Do you know any of them who would be likely to
do her an injury?” I asked.
“You’re thinking I would give the old woman away
to them?” he laughed. “No; I have worked on the
shady side at times, but I am not so bad as that.”
“I wasn’t thinking so.”
“Then I don’t understand your question. Is it
likely I should have acquaintances in a gang of Conti-
nental thieves?”
“The night before last Mrs. Jardine was murdered,”
I said quietly.
The man sprang from his chair.


The Mystery of “Old Mrs. Jardine” 93
“Murdered Then—by heaven! you're—you're
thinking that—”
“And her companion, a Mrs. Harrison, is not to be
found,” I added.
“Mrs. Jardine—dead! Then I come into my own.
The night before last—where was I? Drunk. I didn’t
get home.”
“I know that. I called here yesterday.”
“Are you thinking that I had a hand in it?”
“I am looking for her companion,” I answered.
Had there been no missing companion I should have
been very doubtful about Thomas Jardine; as it was,
the two became connected in my mind. I left the Ham-
mersmith flat, stopping outside to give instructions to
the man I had brought with me to keep a watch upon
Jardine's movements.
Then I went to Wimbledon to see Martha Wakeling
again, but I did not tell her I had seen Jardine.
“Do you think you could find me any of Mrs. Har-
rison's handwriting?” I asked.
“I believe I can,” she said, after a moment's thought.
“She wrote a store's order the other day which was
not sent. I believe it’s in this drawer. Yes, here it is.”
I glanced at it and put it in my pocket.
“I wonder whether this nephew has anything to do
with the affair?” I said contemplatively.
“No,” she said with decision.
“Why are you so certain? You said you didn’t
know him.”
‘‘I don't.”
“I have discovered one thing,” I said carelessly.
“By Mrs. Jardine's death he comes into a lot of
money.”
“I’ve heard my mistress say something of the kind.”


94 Christopher Quarles
“You see, there would be a motive for the murder.”
“The thing is to find Mrs. Harrison,” she said. “A
woman doesn’t go away in the middle of the night
unless she has a good reason for doing so.”
Details of the crime, so far as they were known, were
now published, and the description of Mrs. Harrison
was circulated in the press.
When the inquest was adjourned, no doubt most
people were surprised. Although I did not suppose
the companion innocent, I was not satisfied that she
alone was responsible for the crime. I had wondered
whether the letter which I had seen in Jardine's flat
had come from her, but the store's order which Martha
Wakeling had given me proved that I was wrong. Pos-
sibly Mrs. Harrison was a member of the gang which
Mrs. Jardine had forsaken, and the murder was one
of revenge; yet Thomas Jardine profited so greatly
that I could not dismiss him from my calculations.
Besides, the old lady's will was suggestive. Over her
husband's money she had no control, but she had saved
a considerable amount, and, as though to make restitu-
tion to her husband's family, but with a curious reser-
vation—only if she died a natural death.
Should she die by violence or accident, this money
went to her “faithful servant and friend, Martha
Wakeling.” It was evident she had feared violence—
apparently from her nephew—and it was significant
that her papers proved that, although Jardine knew
he was her heir, he was not aware of the condition.
Before the day fixed for the hearing of the adjourned
inquest I went to see Christopher Quarles.
I had nearly finished the story before he showed any
interest, and then we went to the empty room, with
Zena with us, where I had to tell the tale all over again.


The Mystery of “Old Mrs. Jardine” 95
He had to have his own way, or there was nothing to
be got out of him at all.
“Was there no information to be had from Sarah
Paget?” he asked, when I had finished.
“None whatever.’’
“Did Mrs. Jardine keep much money in the house?”
“Martha Wakeling says not.”
“Then the companion was likely to get little by mur-
dering her mistress,” said Quarles.
“Either she did it in a fit of uncontrollable passion,”
I said, “or the motive was revenge.”
“Possible solutions,” returned the professor, “but
robbed of their weight when we consider the motives
which Thomas Jardine and Martha Wakeling had.”
“I think—”
“One moment, Wigan; I am not theorizing, I am
using facts. By murdering his aunt, Jardine lost her
money 2 x
“He inherited three or four thousand a year,” I
interrupted.
“Which was mortgaged up to the hilt or over it; he
told you so himself. Mrs. Jardine’s money would have
been very useful to him, and by killing her he would
lose all chance of it.”
“He did not know the condition,” I said.
“So far as we know,” Quarles answered. “I don’t
think we must consider that point as proved. Now
take Martha Wakeling's position. By the violent death
of her mistress she will come into this money. Was
there any provision for her in the will if Mrs. Jardine
died a natural death?’”
“She got a legacy of a hundred pounds.”
“You appreciate the enormous difference,” said


96 Christopher Quarles
Quarles with that exasperating smile he had when he
thinks he has driven his opponent into a corner.
“At any rate, we have no reason to suppose that
Jardine did know the condition,” I returned. “I do
not believe he committed the murder, but I am inclined
to think he and Mrs. Harrison are accomplices.”
“A theory—my method, Wigan. Very good, but by
the handwriting on that envelope you have tried to
establish a connection between Jardine and Mrs. Har-
rison, and have failed.”
“At present,” I said irritably.
“It is a pity that some of the old superstitions do
not hold good,” said Quarles, ‘‘or at least are without
significance in these practical days. You might have
confronted Jardine with his victim, and the wounds
might have given evidence by bleeding afresh. I sup-
pose you haven’t done this?”
“No, Jardine has not seen his aunt,” I answered,
still irritably.
The professor looked at Zena.
“It is curious the tragedy should happen while Dr.
Hawes was away,” Zena said. “What kind of man is
his locum, Mr. Wigan?”
“Quite above suspicion,” I answered.
“Ah, your question sets me theorizing, Zena,” said
Quarles, ‘‘and we have got to watch Martha Wake-
ling, Wigan. Yes, I am going to help you, and we’ll
start to-morrow morning.”
We returned to the dining-room, and after a pleas-
ant hour, during which we appeared to forget that such
a place as Wimbledon existed, I left, far more of a
lover than a detective.”
Next morning Quarles called for me.
“We’ll go to the stores first,” he said. “I have a
y 7


The Mystery of “Old Mrs. Jardine” 97
fancy to look at the items in the list sent. There
might be some drug which would make Mrs. Jardine
sleep more soundly.”
“The list was not sent. I have it here.”
“I mean the one sent in place of that,” said the
professor. “Of course one was sent. People who are
not in the habit of having much money in the house
would see that the store cupboard was replenished.”
He was right. A list was shown to us, and I had
some difficulty in not showing signs of excitement. The
writing was the same as that on the envelope in Jar-
dine's flat. It was peculiar writing, and I could swear
to it.”
“I think we shall find that Martha Wakeling wrote
that,” said Quarles. “If so, we establish a link be-
tween her and Jardine which neither of them has men-
tioned.”
“But since she would profit by the crime, why should
she communicate with him?”
“We are going to find out,” he answered. “I pre-
sume you have not been keeping any particular watch
upon Martha Wakeling?”
“No.”
“Has she mentioned what she intends to do when
this affair is over ?”
“I think she said she would go back to her old vil-
lage somewhere in Essex.”
“Quite a rich woman, eh?” laughed Quarles. “But
I doubt the statement about her old village. She is
more likely to go where she is not known.”
“You will change your opinion when you have talked
to her.’’
“I hope to know all about her before I talk to her,”


98 Christopher Quarles
Quarles returned. “We are going to Wimbledon, but
not to an interview yet.”
Arriving there, I went to the house to make sure
that Martha Wakeling was there, and then, taking care
not to be seen, joined the professor in the garden,
where we hid in a shrubbery to watch anyone who
came from or went to the house. It was a long wait—
indeed, Quarles was rather doubtful whether anything
would happen that day—but in the afternoon Martha
Wakeling came out and passed into the road.
“We have got to follow her and not be seen,”
Quarles.
There was some difficulty in doing so, for she was
evidently careful not to be followed. She went to the
station, and by District Railway to Victoria, and to a
house in the Buckingham Palace Road.
“We must find out whom it is she comes to visit here,
Wigan,” said Quarles. “We will wait a few minutes,
and then you must insure that we are shown up with-
out being announced. I do not fancy we shall meet
with any resistance.”
The woman who opened the door to us showed no
desire for secrecy. The lady who had just come in did
not live there, she explained. If I wanted to see her,
would I send in my name? It was not until I told
her that I was a detective that she led the way to the
first floor, and we entered the room unannounced.
In an armchair sat an elderly woman, and from a
chair at her side Martha Wakeling rose quickly.
Quarles had entered the room first, and she did not
notice me in the doorway.
“What is the meaning of this intrusion?” she asked.
“It is a surprise to find you in London,” I said,
coming forward.
’ said


The Mystery of “Old Mrs. Jardine” 99.
y
“You! Yes, my sister is >
Quarles had crossed toward the woman in the arm-
chair.
“I am glad to see the journey has not hurt you, Mrs.
Jardine,” he said quietly.
It was a bow drawn at a venture, but Martha Wake-
ling's little cry of consternation was enough to prove
that Quarles was right.
The arrest of Mrs. Jardine for the murder of her
companion created a sensation, and I am doubtful
whether the plea of insanity which saved her from the
gallows and sent her to a criminal lunatic asylum was
altogether justified.
The method in her madness was so extraordinary
that the result of the trial would have been different,
I fancy, had not Martha Wakeling's courage and care
of her mistress aroused everybody's sympathy.
Martha Wakeling knew little of her mistress's past,
but she had always known that she was not such an
invalid as she pretended to be. If she chose to live
that kind of life, it was nobody's business but her own,
and the servant never suspected that she was afraid
of being seen by some of her former associates.
Martha's story made it clear that Mrs. Jardine had
nursed a great hatred for her husband's family, es-
pecially for her nephew, the son of the man who had
made the accusations against her. Her will, her every
action in the tragedy, pointed to premeditation. She
chose the time when Dr. Hawes was away, and, saying
it would be an excellent joke to mislead a young doc-
tor, she arranged that Mrs. Harrison should take her
place when Dolman came. The companion could not
refuse, very possibly enjoyed the joke.
$24MRº4" HR


I00 Christopher Quarles
Martha Wakeling knew of this arrangement, thought
it silly, but never suspected any sinister intention.
In the middle of the night her mistress woke her up,
and told her that she had killed Mrs. Harrison. Mrs.
Jardine was excited, and explained that everyone
would suppose that she herself had been murdered, and
that her will and papers, and her nephew's impecuni-
ous position, would certainly bring the crime home to
him. This was her revenge. She was mad; Martha
was convinced of that. Mrs. Jardine never seemed in
doubt that her servant, who was the only person who
knew the truth, would help her. Mrs. Jardine in-
tended to go away that night, and when the affair was
over Martha would join her, and they could go and
live quietly somewhere. She did not want her hus-
band's money—she had enough of her own, and, since
by her will it would come to Martha, there was no
difficulty. Martha refused to be a party to such a
crime, and succeeded in showing her mistress that she
was in danger. Even if the body was taken for Mrs.
Jardine, it was Mrs. Harrison who would be suspected,
not Thomas Jardine. Poor Mrs. Harrison was dead,
nothing could alter that, and Martha schemed to pro-
tect her mistress. She so far entered into her plan
as to let it be supposed that the dead woman was Mrs.
Jardine. Since the companion would not be found, the
hue and cry would be after her. All that day her mis-
tress was concealed in the house, as much afraid now
as she had been exultant before, and in the evening
Martha got her a lodging in Buckingham Palace Road.
Afterward she intended to take her away to some
place where they were not known and look after her.
Three times she had been to see her, fearful that her
mistress might betray herself. And she had written


CHAPTER VII
THE DEATH-TRAP IN THE TUDOR ROOM
HAD not been to Chelsea for some weeks—indeed,
I had not been in town, business having kept me
in the country—and I returned to find a letter from
Quarles which had been waiting for me for three days.
Several cases were in my hands just then—affairs
of no great difficulty nor any particular interest—and
only in one case had I had any worry. This trouble
was due, not so much to the case itself as to the fact
that it had brought me in contact with another detec-
tive named Baines, who would persist in treating me
as a rival. He was as irritating as Quarles himself
could be on occasion, and was entirely without the
professor's genius. To be candid, I may admit Baines
had some excuse. Circumstances brought me into the
affair at the eleventh hour, and he was afraid I should
reap where he had planted.
It was a strange business from first to last, and one
I am never likely to forget.
A man, riding across an open piece of country near
Aylesbury early one morning, came upon a motor cy-
clist lying near his machine on the roadside. The ma-
chine had been reduced to scrap-iron. The man, who
was dressed in overalls, seemed to have been killed
outright by a blow on the head. Since the man still
wore his goggles, and there was no sign of a struggle,
Baines argued, and reasonably, I think, that death was
102


The Death-Trap in the Tudor Room 103
not the result of foul play. That he had been run
into by a motor car, and that the people in the car had
either not stopped to see what damage was done, or,
having seen it, feared to give information, was perhaps
giving too loose a rein to imagination.
However, this was Baines's idea; and he had suc-
ceeded in hearing of a car with only one man in it
which had been driven through Aylesbury at a furi-
ous pace on the night when a second and similar trag-
edy occurred, this time near Saffron Walden.
The man had been killed in the same fashion, he wore
goggles and overalls, and the machine was smashed,
though not so completely. Neither of the men had been
identified. In the first case, there might be a reason
for this, as the man was a foreigner. In the second
case, the man was an Englishman. Both the machines
were old patterns, and of a cheap make, carried fic-
titious numbers, and Baines had been unable to find
out where they had been purchased.
He held to his theory of the car, but was now in-
clined to think that the cyclists had been purposely
driven into. Granted a certain shape of bonnet—and
the car driven through Aylesbury appeared to have
this shape—he contended that, in endeavoring to avoid
the collision, a cyclist would be struck in exactly the
manner indicated by the appearance of the head. He
was therefore busy trying to trace a devil-mad motorist.
The discovery of a dead chauffeur on a lonely road
near Newbury now brought me into the affair. He
had apparently been killed in precisely the same man-
ner as the victims of the Aylesbury and Saffron Wal-
den tragedies; and so I was brought in contact with
Baines. From the first he scorned my arguments and
suggestions. It seemed to me that this third tragedy


I04 Christopher Quarles
went to disprove his theory of a madly driven motor
car, but he insisted that it was only a further proof.
Was it not possible, he asked, that the mad owner of
the car, believing that his chauffeur knew the truth,
had killed him to protect himself? I asked him how
he supposed the car had been driven at the chauffeur
in order to injure him, exactly as it had injured men
on cycles. When Baines answered that the chauffeur
was probably on a cycle at the time, I wanted to know
why, in this case, the motorist had gathered up the
broken machine and taken it away. In short, we quar-
reled over the affair, and Baines was furious when I
was able to prove that in neither case was the wrecked
cycle a complete machine. True, in one case, only some
trivial pieces were missing which might have been
driven into the ground by the force of the fall; but in
the other an important part was wanting, without
which the machine could not have been driven.
I came to the conclusion that there had been foul
play, that the broken machines were a blind, and that
the men had been brought to the places where they
were found after they were dead.
I returned to London to pursue inquiries in this di-
rection, and found the letter from Quarles asking me
to go and see him as soon as possible.
I went to Chelsea that evening, and was shown into
the dining-room. The professor looked a little old to-
night, I thought.
“Very glad to see you, Wigan. I want your help.”
“I shall be delighted to give it, you have helped me
so often. Your granddaughter is well, I trust?”
“Yes, she is away. She has taken a situation.”
“A situation l’’ I exclaimed.
“The world hasn’t much use for a professor of phi-


The Death-Trap in the Tudor Room 105
losophy in these days, and that leads to financial diffi-
culty for the professor,” Quarles answered. “You
glance round at the luxury of this room, I notice, and
I can guess your thoughts. Selfish old brute, you are
saying to yourself. But it was the child's wish, and
we bide our time. She is made much of where she is.
I think it is my loneliness which deserves most pity.
Besides, there is no disgrace in honest work, either for
man or woman.”
Something of challenge was in his tone, and I has-
tened to agree with him. In a sense, the information
was not unpleasant to me. Life was not to be all lux-
ury for Zena Quarles. The social standing of a de-
tective, however successful he may be, is not very high,
and the necessity for her to work seemed to bring us
nearer together. The value of what I could offer her
was increased, and a spirit of hopefulness took pos-
session of me.
“But I didn’t ask you here to pity either Zena or
myself,” Quarles went on, after a pause. “I daresay
you have heard of Mrs. Barrymore?”
‘‘I have.”
“She advertised for a private secretary, and Zena
answered the advertisement. When a woman goes
deeply into philanthropic work, visits hospitals, rescue
homes, and the like, she often does it to fill a life which
would otherwise be empty. Not to Mrs. Barrymore.
She is a society woman as well, is to be met here, there
and everywhere. She is a golfer, a yachtswoman, fond
of sport generally, and withal a charming hostess. It
is no wonder she wants a secretary. You don’t sup-
pose I should let Zena go anywhere to be treated as a
kind of housemaid, and in a way that no self-respecting
servant would stand?”


I06 Christopher Quarles
“Of course not. I gather that you know Mrs. Barry-
more personally?”
“I saw her once or twice when she was a child. I
knew her mother.”
I looked up quickly, struck by his tone.
“There is romance in every life, Wigan. Here you
touch mine. Mrs. Barrymore's mother married an
American. She chose him rather than me, and, al-
though I afterwards married, I have never forgotten
her. Naturally, I feel an interest in her daughter,
Mrs. Barrymore, and I want your help.”
“In what way?”
“I want your opinion of her.”
“But I don’t know her.”
“You must get to know her. She puzzles me, and
certain things which Zena has told me make me think
I might help her. I should like to do so, if I can. We
have been useful to each other, Wigan, because our
methods are different. I have formed a certain opin-
ion of Mrs. Barrymore, the result of theorizing. I
shall not tell you what it is because I want your un-
biased view, arrived at by your method of going to
work.”
“There is a mystery about her, then?”
“My dear Wigan, that is exactly what I want to find
out.”
“How am I to make her acquaintance?” I asked.
“Not as Murray Wigan, certainly,” he said, and
then he added, after a pause: “Would you mind pre-
tending to be Zena's lover? When I saw her a few
days ago I said I would suggest this way to her.”
Mind? Pretend! The professor little knew how the
proposal pleased me. He was offering me a part I
could play to perfection.


The Death-Trap in the Tudor Room 107
“It is a good idea,” was all I said.
“We even thought of a name for you—George Hast-
ings—and you are a surveyor. Being in Richmond,
you thought you might venture to call, not having seen
Zena for some time. Mrs. Barrymore lives at Lantern
House, Richmond. If you see Mrs. Barrymore, as I
hope you will, and make yourself agreeable, she may
give you permission to come again. I think it will
work all right.”
“Will to-morrow be too soon to go?” I asked.
“No.”
“If I am given the chance, I will certainly go again
when I can. Unfortunately, I am very busy just now.”
“Ah, I haven’t asked you about your work. Any-
thing interesting?”
“One case, or, rather, three cases in one.” And I
told him about the cyclists and the chauffeur.
“Only wounds in the head? What kind of wounds?”
he asked.
“I did not see the cyclists. I can only speak of the
chauffeur from direct knowledge. The forehead, just
by the margin of the hair, was bruised and the skin
slightly abraded. At the base of the head behind,
under the hair, there was another bruise—round, the
size of half a crown. There was no swelling, no blood.
I am told that the cyclists were also bruised about the
temples.”
“What had the doctor to say?”
“Very little in the chauffeur's case. Some severe
blow had been delivered, but he could not say how.
He was puzzled. When I suggested the man might
have been run down by a car—quoting Baines's idea—
he said it was a possible explanation. He said so, I


I08 Christopher Quarles
fancy, merely because he had no other suggestion to
Offer.”
“And the man's face, Wigan?”
“If a man could see death in some horrible shape,
and his features become suddenly fixed with terror, he
might look like the chauffeur did,” I answered.
“He has not been identified either?”
“Not yet, but I'm hoping to trace him.”
“Have you thought of one point, Wigan?” said
Quarles, with some eagerness. “He may not have been
a chauffeur, nor the others cyclists. They may only
have worn the clothes.”
“It is possible,” I returned. “His hands had done
manual work, but not of an arduous kind. There were
curious marks on the body, a discoloration under the
arms, and the skin somewhat chafed. Also, on the
outer side of the arms, there were marks just above the
elbows—depressions rather than discolorations. A rope
bound round the body might have produced the latter.”
“There would have been marks upon the chest and
back as well,” said Quarles.
“I do not say it was a rope,” I returned. “Have
you any helpful theory, professor?’’
For a few moments he had seemed keen—I should
not have been surprised had he suggested our going to
the empty room. Now he became apathetic, loose-
minded, a man incapable of concentration. I had never
known Quarles quite like this before.
‘‘I will think of it. When I read the accounts in
the papers, I thought I should like to assist you,” he
said slowly. “But it is impossible to-night. Zena is
not here. I am an incomplete machine without her.
You must have realized that, Wigan, by this time.”
I have intimated before that the empty room, the


The Death-Trap in the Tudor Room 109
listening for inspiration, and Quarles's faith in Zena's
questions did not impress me very much. His excuse
now I took as an intimation that he wanted to be alone.
“I will call at Mrs. Barrymore's to-morrow,” I said
as I rose to go.
“That's right; Lantern House, Richmond. And, by
the way, Mr. Hastings—that is your name, remember—
my granddaughter does not call herself Zena Quarles,
but Mary Corbett. I have an old friend, Mrs. Corbett,
and she has lent her name and her address for letters.
Mrs. Barrymore may have heard of me from her mother,
and mine is not a name easily forgotten. Besides—”
“I understand. You would help Mrs. Barrymore
without her knowing it.”
“There may be another reason. One does not ad-
vertise his financial difficulties if he can help it.”
“Professor, we are friends,” I said, with some hesi-
tation. “If you want 2 y
“No, no,” he answered quickly, “I do not want to
borrow yet. Thank you all the same, Wigan. Good
night. And don’t forget you are in love with Mary
Corbett.”
On the following afternoon I went to Richmond,
having supplied myself with some surveying instru-
ments to support the part I was to play. This was
unnecessary, perhaps, but I like to be on the safe side.
I was excited. I was in love, there was no pretense
about it, and if I could contrive to let Zena see the
reality through the pretense, so much the better.”
Lantern House, which had grounds running down to
the river, was large, rambling, and parts of it were
very old, contemporaneous with the old Palace of Rich-
mond, it was said. A small cupola in the central por-


II0 Christopher Quarles
tion of the building, possibly once used for star gazing,
may have suggested the name.
Zena evidently expected me, for the servant, without
making any inquiry, showed me into a room opening
on to the gardens at the back. Zena rose hastily from
a writing-table and hurried to meet me.
“George!” she exclaimed.
I caught both her outstretched hands in mine.
“Dearest!”
She turned quickly, a color in her cheeks, and then
I saw that we were not alone. A lady had risen from
a chair at the end of the room, and came forward.
“This is George Hastings, Mrs. Barrymore,” Zena
said.
“Well, Mr. Hastings, you may kiss her if you like.
I shall not be shocked,” and she laughed good-humor-
edly. “Mary told me that you might come, and I am
interested in the man she honors. So many girls make
fools of themselves, and marry worthless specimens.
Outwardly, I see nothing to take exception to in you.
Your character × 2
“I think Mary is satisfied,” I said.
“So it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks, eh?”
I laughed a little awkwardly, playing my part well,
I fancy, and showing just sufficient anxiety to impress
Mrs. Barrymore favorably.
She was a very handsome woman, tall, athletic, and
evidently addicted to sport. Yet there was nothing
ungraceful about her. Her manner was gracious and
attractive, her dress was charming. It was a marvel
she had succeeded in remaining a widow.
“I will leave you,” she said presently. “But I can
only spare Mary for a very short time to-day. You
know, my dear, how busy we are with the appeal for


The Death-Trap in the Tudor Room 111
that rescue society. Don't look so disappointed, Mr.
Hastings. You may come to-morrow and have tea with
Mary.”
“Thank you so much.”
“But remember, only a few minutes to-day.”
As she went out of the room, Zena gave me a warn-
ing look. I was evidently to play my part even when
Mrs. Barrymore was not there.
“Was there any harm in my coming, Mary?” I
asked.
“No, dear. Mrs. Barrymore is very kind to me.
George, you haven’t kissed me yet.”
She was afraid that curious eyes might be upon us,
and felt that the parts we had assumed must be played
thoroughly. I think the color deepened in my own
cheeks as I bent and touched her forehead with my
lips. I know hers did. For me it was a lover's kiss,
the first I had ever given.
“There is danger, but I am not sure what it is,” she
whispered, as we stood close together. And then, draw-
ing me to a chair, she said aloud: “Tell me all you
have been doing, George.”
I concocted a story of my surveying work, and man-
aged to be the lover too. If we had an audience I
fancy the deception was complete.
We were not left long together. Mrs. Barrymore
came back with an apology, and I departed, thinking a
great deal more about Zena than of any mystery there
might be about her employer. Yet, from thinking of
her, I began to fear for her. What danger could there
be at Lantern House?
There was some mystery—the professor had said as
much—but surely he would not let his granddaughter
run any risk? Still there was danger enough for Zena


112 Christopher Quarles
to take precaution that our deception should not be
discovered, even to the extent of allowing me to kiss
her. I passed a restless night, and was in Richmond
next day long before it was possible for me to go to
the house.
When I did go, I was at least an hour before my
time.
I was shown into the same room as on the previous
day. Mrs. Barrymore was there alone.
“You are early,” she said with a smile. “Lovers
are ever impatient. Did you meet Mary?”
‘‘No. Is she out?”
“Oh, you need not go. She will be back to tea, and
I am not sorry to have a quiet talk with you, Mr. Hast-
ings. I am interested in Mary Corbett. She is nearly
alone in the world, and my sympathy goes out to such
women. I have worked a great deal for societies deal-
ing with women’s status and employment, and am most
anxious to see a revision of the laws which at present
press too heavily on my sex. Come, tell me all about
yourself, your present position, your prospects—every-
thing.”
The story I told her would not have done discredit
to a weaver of romance, and she was so sympathetic a
listener that I felt a little ashamed of myself for prac-
ticing such deception.
“I think I am satisfied,” she said at last, ‘‘and I
judge you have a soul above the mere commercial side
of a surveyor's business—that the beautiful has an ap-
peal to you. Do you know anything about this house?”
“I believe part of it is old,” I said.
“Very old,” she returned. “I like modern com-
forts, but I love the old things too. We have a few
minutes before tea and Mary’s return. I will show


The Death-Trap in the Tudor Room 118
you the old part of Lantern House, if you like. I have
tried to give the rooms their original appearance, and
am rather proud of my achievement.”
She was giving me an opportunity which I could
hardly have expected, a chance of seeing something
which would give me a clew to the mystery concerning
her. I might have known better what to look for if
only the professor had been more explicit.
Talking pleasantly, calling my attention to a view
from a window, or to some unique piece of furniture,
Mrs. Barrymore led me through several rooms, the con-
tents of which told of the wealth and taste of the mis-
tress of the house.
‘‘I only use the old rooms on great occasions,” she
said, as we passed from a small boudoir into a dim
passage. “I have thought of letting the public see
them on certain days on payment of a small fee for
the benefit of some charity, but I have not quite made
up my mind. It would cut into my privacy a little,
and in some ways I am selfish. There are two steps
down, Mr. Hastings.”
She had opened a door and preceded me into a room,
Tudor in its construction, Tudor in its contents—at
least, I suppose the contents were all in keeping, but I
had not sufficient knowledge to be quite definite upon
the point. The effect, if somewhat stiff and severe, was
pleasing.
“A Philistine friend of mine complains of the som-
berness,” said Mrs. Barrymore, ‘‘and wants me to have
the electric light here as it is in the rest of the house.
Fancy Henry the Eighth wooing his many wives under
the electric light! Why, they would almost have seen
what a villain he was. Sit down for a moment, Mr.
Hastings, and imagine yourself back across the cen-


II.4. Christopher Quarles
turies. It was just such a chair as that which the fat
king used when he talked statecraft or divorce with
Wolsey.”
She seated herself by the table, and I took the chair
she indicated. Never did blind man walk into a pit
more unsuspectingly. The seat gave under me, half a
dozen inches, perhaps, setting the hidden mechanism to
quick work. My ankles were gripped, the arms closed
across me, pinning me securely just above the elbows,
and a bar shot under my chin, holding my head rigidly
against the back of the chair.
Mrs. Barrymore got up quickly, went behind me,
and, in a moment, had passed a cloth of some thick
material over my mouth. Then she came and stood in
front of me.
“Caught !” she said. “That chair holds you help-
less and speechless. I know just how you feel. I am
going to tell you why. I daresay you know I am an
American—at least my father was, although my mother
was English. I married an Englishman, who was a
genius, a crank, and a devil. We lived in the States,
where you know electrocution is the death penalty, and
my husband, a genius in all that had to do with elec-
tricity, invented an improved method, using little cur-
rent and dangerous in one particular—it is impossible
to tell how the victim has died. He was so pleased
with his invention he would not make it public. He
used it chiefly to terrify me. I was rich, my money
was my own, and to get money from me he has forced
me into that chair, also an invention of his, and sworn
he would kill me. Mine was a life of torture and ter-
ror. Then I played the siren with him. I asked him
to explain his devilish machine to me, and vowed to
make over to him a large sum of money in exchange


The Death-Trap in the Tudor Room 115
for the secret. He agreed—the fool! I kept my prom-
ise and paid the money, but one night when he was
drunk, I pushed him into that chair. He was the first
victim of his own invention, and to this day his death
remains a mystery.”
She laughed very quietly—not like a mad woman—
and, going to a corner of the room, she opened a panel
near the floor and brought out a curious contrivance,
circular in shape, but not a complete circle—something
like a metal cap with a triangular piece missing at
the back. Wires were attached to it, and were also
secured within the cupboard. They uncoiled as she
came across the room carrying the metal cap in her
hand.
“My husband was the type of brute who loves to
torture women in some form or other,” she said.
“There are thousands of such men, especially in Eng-
land, I think, or why are societies so necessary to pro-
tect women, to help them, to relieve them? Such devils
are better out of the world, and I had the power to be
something more than a philanthropist. I had the
owledge and the money to be an active agent. I
came to England. I hate Englishmen because of my
husband, and I have made a beginning. It was easy
among my charitable concerns to hear of men who
were brutes, and who would not be missed. In such a
man I took an interest, was kind to him, brought him
here to Lantern House to befriend him. He has sat
in that chair as you are sitting, he has worn this cap
as you wear it. How to get rid of him afterward?
Underneath us is a basement where I have a car ready,
a car I drive myself, and of the existence of which
nobody knows. An old house was an advantage to me,
you see. It is easy to put goggles and overalls on a


II6 Christopher Quarles
dead man. To contrive an iron frame which should
keep him in a sitting position was not difficult, and
you are exactly over a trap through which you can be
lowered into the car. Then a drive in the night, when
I am dressed like a man, and have a companion with
me who sits upright beside me, then an unfrequented
piece of country, and I come home again—alone.
Twice cyclists have been found—one of them a for-
eigner—their broken machines beside them. It was easy
to buy a fifth rate motor machine, smash it, and carry
it in the car. The cycle confused investigation, and
I was secure from detection. Then a chauffeur was
found. I did not take so much trouble with him, and
I wondered how his death would be explained.”
She laughed again.
“You may say you are not one of these brutes—per-
haps not. But do you remember the day Lord Del-
mouth married Lady Evelyn Malling? Such a wealth
of wedding presents required careful watching, and a
guest was pointed out to me as Murray Wigan, the
great detective. I never forget a face, and I never
underrate an enemy. I heard that Murray Wigan was
inquiring into the mysterious death of the chauffeur.
I knew you the moment you came into the house. Who
the girl is, I do not care. Your accomplice has noth-
ing to fear—I do not war against women. I sent her
to London. When she returns she will learn that you
have been and gone. You will be found, Murray
Wigan, sixty or seventy miles from London, and since
death by this method draws the features strangely, it
is doubtful if you will be identified. You were clever
to get upon my track, but you pay the penalty.”
The perspiration stood out heavily upon me. Fear
gripped me, and I was helpless. Yet even in this


II8 Christopher Quarles
going through that horrible ordeal had I not arrived
an hour before I was expected.
“You had no right to let Zena run such a risk,” I
said to Quarles. “You ought not to have sent her to
Lantern House to test your theories.”
“She ran no risk,” was his answer. “It was only
against man Mrs. Barrymore fought. I am sorry you
had such an experience, Wigan. I never supposed she
would attempt your life, did not imagine she would
know who you were. Indeed, I was doubtful of my
theory altogether. When the first cyclist was found, I
suspected electrocution in some form, and the other
two cases went to confirm the suspicion. I knew some-
thing of Barrymore, a hateful brute but a genius, and
I knew his wonderful knowledge of electricity. His
death must have been a relief to his wife, and the man-
ner of it made me suspicious of her. He was found
on a lonely road miles away from his home in Wash-
ington, and no one could tell how he died. Was it
remarkable I should wonder if Mrs. Barrymore were
responsible for the crimes here? And I would have
saved her if I could, for the sake of her mother. If
I could have done that, Wigan, you would have got
no theory out of me in this case, and your friend
Baines might have gone on hunting for his mad motor-
ist for the rest of his days.”
So I had touched the professor's romance, and now
had one of my own. I had pretended to be a lover,
and I had found a moment to tell Zena that it was
no pretense with me. The color deepened in her cheeks
as it had done when I kissed her, but she did not stop
my confession.
“My grandfather—”


The Death-Trap in the Tudor Room 119
“He can still remain with us,” I said eagerly, seeing
no difficulties. “Say yes, Zena.”
“It must not be yet.”
“But some day?”
“Perhaps—some day.”
And I was content.


CHAPTER VIII
THE MYSTERY OF CROSS ROADS FARM
E said nothing to the professor about the under-
standing we had come to. In his presence—
and I had little opportunity of seeing Zena at any
other time—we behaved toward each other as we had
always done, and I did not think he had any idea of
our secret. Personally, I felt the effects of my horrible
experience in the Tudor room for some time, which I
think accounts for my not doing myself justice in the
next case I was called upon to undertake.
Let me recount the facts of this complex affair, which
I take from the evidence given at the trial of Richard
Coleman.
Cross Roads Farm, lying about a mile outside the
village of Hanley, in Sussex, was owned by two broth-
ers, Peter and Simon Judd.
They were twins, middle-aged, devoted to each other,
and somewhat eccentric. Peter was well known to
everybody. He went to market, paid the bills, and
interviewed people when necessary. Simon seldom left
the farm, and was little known in the neighborhood.
They lived simply, had no servants in the house, and
the villagers declared they must have been saving money
for years. Mrs. Gilson, a widow in the village, went
up to the farm daily, but was never there after eight
o'clock.
At night the Judds were alone in the house. They
120


The Mystery of Cross Roads Farm 121
never had visitors, they retired early, and their only
known recreation was a game of chess before going to
bed. No one, except Mrs. Gilson, and, on occasion, her
son Jim, who was an “innocent,” had been known to
take a meal in their house. For Jim Gilson both
brothers showed a pitying affection, and he came and
went much as he liked, earning a few shillings by doing
any odd job of which he was capable.
One evening in November Mrs. Gilson was returning
from the farm considerably earlier than usual, when
she met a man, a stranger, an unusual occurrence in a
neighborhood where she knew everybody.
Next morning, on going to the farm, the blinds in
the upper windows were not drawn as usual, a thing
she had never known to happen before. The back door
was generally standing open when she arrived; to-day
it was shut, but was on the latch, and she entered, to
come face to face with a tragedy.
In front of the fireplace in the sitting-room Peter
Judd, clothed only in his pajamas, was lying face
downward—dead! A small table on which the chess-
board had stood was overturned, and the chessmen were
scattered about the floor. There was no sign of his
brother, but, wherever he was, it appeared that he too
must be in his pajamas, for his bed had been slept in
and his clothes were on a chair.
The doctor said that during the night Peter Judd
had been strangled, marks of fingers being visible on
his throat. Probably he had been seized from behind,
and the shock of the attack had possibly accelerated
his death, for he had apparently made little struggle
to defend himself.
Police investigation, however, soon proved that a
struggle had taken place in the house. On an upper


122 Christopher Quarles
landing the furniture was in disorder, and a piece of
torn material, which Mrs. Gilson identified as belong-
ing to pajamas which Simon Judd wore, was found.
Another torn shred was found in the kitchen, where
the table had been pushed out of its place. In the
yard outside was a well-house. The door of this, which
was always locked, had been forced, and caught by a
splinter of wood was a third shred of the pajamas. On
the floor of the shed was an old slipper, also belonging
to Simon Judd, Mrs. Gilson said.
The well was dragged, with no result, which hardly
astonished the neighborhood, for it was of immense
depth, and tapped an underground pit of water, ac-
cording to common report.
Then came Mrs. Gilson's story of the man she
had met on the previous evening, and her description
was so definite that within a few days a ne'er-do-well,
Richard Coleman, was traced, and subsequently ar-
rested. It was proved by more than one witness that
he had been in Hanley that day, apparently on the
tramp, and with no money, yet two days after the
murder he was spending money freely in Guildford.
At first Coleman denied all knowledge of Cross Roads
Farm, but afterward admitted that he had been there.
The Judds were his uncles. He had not seen them for
years, and had gone to ask for help. He wasn’t in the
house an hour, he declared, and said that his uncles
had given him twenty pounds, for their dead sister's
sake. They had also given him a lecture on idleness,
and sent him about his business. There had been no
quarrel, and he knew nothing about the tragedy.
That he was the Judds’ nephew was true, but for
the rest of his story, no one believed it. The fact that
he had denied all knowledge of Cross Roads Farm was


The Mystery of Cross Roads Farm 123
strong evidence against him. He was brought to trial,
and found guilty. His record was a bad one, yet the
counsel's eloquence so impressed the jury that he was
recommended to mercy, with the result that the death
penalty was commuted to penal servitude for life.
Of this tragedy I knew nothing when Cross Roads
Farm became the scene of a second mystery.
For five years—that is, since the death of the Judds
—the house had been shut up. Neither of the brothers
had made a will apparently; they had no solicitor, no
banker. Either their wealth had been stolen by Cole-
man, and safely concealed by him before his arrest,
or it existed only in the village imagination, or it re-
mained hidden on the premises. The last, being the
most romantic idea, found the greatest favor; but the
possibility of treasure trove had not induced anyone
to take the farm. The gardens grew into a tangle,
through which the upper part of the house began to
show signs of ruin. It was an uncanny spot, which
people passed with apprehension at night, and looked
askance at even in the daytime.
The only person who appeared to have no dread of
the place was Jim Gilson. During the last five years
he had grown rather more incapable. Physically he
was a powerful man, mentally he was a baby; and
whenever he could elude his mother's watchfulness he
ran off eagerly to the farm and sat just inside the gate.
Passers-by often saw him there, but whether he ever
penetrated further over the uncanny ground was not
known.
Sudden and unusual excitement on Jim's part led
to the discovery of the second tragedy. There was
another dead man at Cross Roads Farm, Jim declared,
first to his mother and then to everyone he met. The


124 Christopher Quarles
constable, with others, went there, and it was found
that Gilson had spoken the truth.
A tramp, dirty and unshaven, clothed in rags, lay
face downward on the sitting-room floor. The doctor
who had been called to Peter Judd came again. The
tramp was lying in exactly the same position as Peter
Judd had lain, the limbs stretched almost identically
as his had been, and on his throat were similar finger-
marks. The only difference the doctor could suggest
was that the tramp seemed to have been seized from
the front, whereas, he believed, Judd had been at-
tacked from behind. It was a suggestion more than a
conviction.
It was natural, perhaps, that in Hanley people be-
gan to attribute both deaths to supernatural agency.
Certainly there were curious points in the case, but it
seemed to me that I had had harder problems to solve.
First, I made myself acquainted with the evidence
which had been given at Richard Coleman’s trial. I
know that to read evidence is not the same thing as
hearing it, but one or two points struck me forcibly.
Why had Coleman been recommended to mercy? True,
his counsel's address had been an eloquent one, but if
the prisoner were guilty surely there could be no
extenuating circumstances in such a dastardly crime.
The evidence was strongly against Coleman, yet in
spite of this the jury had recommended him to mercy.
Was there a doubt in their minds? Do we not all
know that subtle doubt which comes even hand in
hand with what we believe is conviction? There have
been times with us all when we have given judgment
and immediately began to doubt that judgment. Un-
less something of this sort had happened to this jury,
I could not understand the recommendation to mercy.


The Mystery of Cross Roads Farm 125
Again, I was not satisfied with the assumption that
Simon Judd's dead body had been thrown into the well.
The well was certainly of immense depth, and possibly
tapped an underground cave full of water, which might
account for the futility of dragging operations; but
the shred of pajamas and the slipper found in the shed
were not of themselves sufficient evidence that the body
had been got rid of in this way. Even with the other
signs of struggle in the house the evidence was not
conclusive. Simon Judd might be alive, in which case
he might be the murderer.
Such an hypothesis was, however, unlikely. The
brothers were devoted to each other, as twins often
are; the overturned chessboard proved that normal re-
lations had existed between them that evening, that
they had played their usual game before retiring. If
Simon Judd was dead, and his body was not in the
well, where was it? Hidden securely, at any rate, and
therefore, presumably, by someone who knew the farm
well, which Richard Coleman did not.
Again, why had the murderer troubled to hide only
one body?
Another point which struck me as curious was the
wonderful accuracy of Mrs. Gilson's description of
Richard Coleman. It was nearly dark when she met
him; in passing she could have little opportunity to
examine him closely, yet her description was sufficient
to lead to his arrest.
These considerations set me speculating and, with
more excitement than was usual with me, I set to work
to see how far my speculations were supported by
facts. To begin with, I had an interview with Richard
Coleman in prison. I did not tell him of the new
tragedy at the farm; I merely said that some new facts


I26 Christopher Quarles
had come to light, and that if he answered my ques-
tions it might be to his ultimate benefit.
“A man unjustly imprisoned does not easily believe
that,” he returned.
However, he told me his version of the story, exactly
as he had told it at his trial.
“Do you remember meeting Mrs. Gilson?” I asked.
“Not particularly.”
“You didn’t stop and ask her the way?”
“No. I met two or three people on the way to the
farm. They didn’t interest me, and I had no reason
to suppose that I interested them.”
“Why did you deny knowing anything about Cross
Roads Farm?”
“Well, one way and another there was a good deal
against me at the time. It was natural to deny a lead-
ing statement like that made by the police, and I knew
nothing about the murder then. You see, although I
was innocent of murder, I wasn’t an innocent man.
I was in a hole, and attempted to lie myself out of it.”
“Very foolish ! It was a weighty argument against
you. Did you see anyone else at the farm beside your
uncles?”
“It was true what I said at the trial, that one of
the workmen had just finished talking to my uncles at
the door as I came in. The man gave evidence, said he
had parted with the Judds much as I described, but
that he had not seen me. I thought he said that to try
and help me a bit, because I’m certain he saw me.”
“Do you think it was the same man?”
“I didn’t doubt that it was, but I couldn’t have
sworn to him; I was too much engaged in taking stock
of the two men I had come to ask for help.”
“Did you ask for work?”


The Mystery of Cross Roads Farm 127
“No, money.”
“Did you demand any special sum?”
“No; and I didn’t demand it, I asked. I was play-
ing the penitent game, the prodigal anxious to reform.
Had I demanded I should have got nothing. I had
sized up my men all right. I got twenty pounds, which
was far more than I expected. I hadn’t had such a
sum to my name for years.”
“Was the money given willingly?”
“Not exactly willingly. My Uncle Peter did most
of the talking—lecturing it was—but he seemed more
impressed with my tale than Uncle Simon did. Simon
Judd had a good many reasons why I should not have
the money, but it was evident that Peter usually had
the last word and his own way. I should say he took
the lead in most things.”
“Did he actually give you the money?”
“Yes, counting it into my hand quid by quid, as if
he’d been parting with a fortune.”
“Where did he get it from? Did he take it out of
his pocket?”
“No ; he went out of the room, leaving me with
Simon, who didn’t speak a word the whole time. Peter
Judd was away about ten minutes. He came back with
the money in his hand.”
“And then you left the farm?”
“Yes; they didn’t offer me anything to eat or drink.
I have an idea that Peter thought of doing so, but
Simon made some remark about throwing money away,
and suggested my going at once.”
“You didn’t return to Hanley?”
“No, I went in the opposite direction.”
Next day I was back at the farm, my attention con-
centrated on the well. I had already heard that this


The Mystery of Cross Roads Farm 129
Roads Farm now, Jim,” I said suddenly. Since this
second discovery he had quite forsaken his haunt.
“No,” he answered.
“Why not?”
“No one else will come there now. They’re afraid.”
“Of What?”
“Spirits.”
“And of you, Jim—eh?”
The suggestion pleased him. He came and stood
close to me, and rolled up his sleeve to show me how
muscular his arms were.
“Splendid! Tell me, Jim, where is Simon Judd’’’
“Buried l’’ he said, and slouched out of the room.
I looked at his mother. Poor woman' I pitied her.
“I didn’t know—I didn’t guess, not till afterward,”
she said. “Jim told me next day that he had seen a
man go to the farm, told me what he was like, and I
knew it was the man I had met. It was more Jim's
description than mine that I gave. But I thought this
man was the murderer, thought so for months, until
Jim began to talk strange about money and that well.
It was not until then that I knew he had been at the
farm that night. And now this second murder! What
will they do?”
“Release an innocent man.”
“But to Jim 7” she whispered.
“Find him not responsible for his actions, most
likely. You ought to have spoken, Mrs. Gilson. An
innocent man is in prison. They are likely to be severe
with you.”
“I don’t care what happens to me; it's Jim I care
about.”
Later in the day I tried to get Jim to show me where
Simon Judd was buried. He only laughed.


I30 Christopher Quarles
“And the money, Jim—what has become of it?”
Still his only answer was a laugh.
“By sitting at the gate you kept watch over it, I
suppose? Had it somewhere close by, where you could
get at it to play with; and when this tramp came you
thought he would rob you. Is that the story?”
“It’s all right now,” he said solemnly.
My course was clear. Jim Gilson must be arrested,
and a court of justice would have to say whether he
was responsible for his actions or not. Personally, I
was not sure that he was as mad as he pretended to
be. The curious disposal of the shreds of pajamas
showed cunning, a desire to mislead, or it may be there
had been a struggle. Perhaps Simon Judd had fought
desperately for his life, and the madman had buried
him, entirely forgetting the dead body of Peter Judd,
who had given him no trouble. Possibly he had left
it with a purpose; certainly it had helped to convict an
innocent man. Who can explain either the cunning or
forgetfulness of a madman?
On the evening of the day following the arrest of
Jim Gilson I received a telegram from Christopher
Quarles, asking me to go to him without delay. He was
in the empty room, his granddaughter with him.
“Wigan, this Sussex affair?” were the words with
which he greeted me.
“All over. The murderer was arrested yesterday,”
I answered.
I had not seen Quarles for some days, and the case
had not been mentioned between us. His theories
would probably have hindered rather than helped me.
“You’re wrong, all wrong,” he said.
“My dear professor, nobody knows your ability bet-


The Mystery of Cross Roads Farm 181
ter than I do, but you haven’t had anything to do
with this affair. I assure you—”
“You may tell me the whole story, if you like, but
you're wrong. You haven’t caught your man.”
“Nonsense,” I said angrily.
“Tell me the story.”
“The newspaper résumé of the affair is quite cor-
rect,” I said.
“I’d rather hear it from you.”
And, in spite of my annoyance, I told it in answer
to an appealing glance from Zena. There was nothing
I would not have done to please her.
“I’ll tell you the story in a different way,” said
Quarles, when I had finished, “and you can pull me
up if I go outside reason. At the beginning of this
mystery, four or five years ago, I felt no interest in it;
now I am impelled to interfere. True, I have taken
no active part in the affair, but with me that is not
always necessary. Into my empty brain something has
come from outside.” - -
I smiled. There was something of the charlatan in
him.
“The body of Peter Judd is found,” Quarles went on,
‘‘his brother's isn’t. Where is it? Down the well?
You do not think so, yet by the shred of pajamas and
the slipper found there it is desired by someone to
suggest this solution. A well can be made to give up
its secrets, as a rule, but not this particular well.
This is a point in Richard Coleman's favor, since he
would not be likely to have any knowledge of local
lore; and, if you like, it is against Gilson, who might
have such knowledge. But what possible object could
he have in laying such a misleading trail?”


132 Christopher Quarles
“To implicate some other person—the man he had
seen join the Judds as he left them.”
“I am not combating your theory that two men left
the Judds in much the same manner that night, and
that the man who gave evidence at the trial was not
the one Coleman saw. No doubt Coleman saw Gilson;
but do you suggest it was a premeditated crime?”
“No. Gilson was curious about the visitor, and
watched; and while he waited Peter Judd went to the
well, and Gilson saw the gold. Then desire to possess
came to him.”
“So he murdered the two men who had been kind to
him. Why?” asked Quarles. “During the night he
could have broken open the shed and taken the gold.
The Judds would undoubtedly have jumped to the
conclusion that their nephew had robbed them.”
“I should say Gilson's idea was to get the key, hence
the murder.’’
“And while he was strangling Peter, what was Simon
doing? Since Peter was found in the sitting-room in
his pajamas, it is permissible to suppose that some-
thing had aroused him. If it did not arouse Simon too,
Peter would be likely to do so, and at the very least
he would have called for help the moment he was at-
tacked.”
“You forget the doctor's evidence,” I said. “He
was killed by the shock as much as by the man's fingers
at his throat.”
“A most important point,” said Quarles; “we will
come back to it in a minute. Having murdered both
the Judds, this imbecile breaks into the shed, because
he fails to find the key, I suppose; and having got the
money, is satisfied. He hides one body and leaves the
other. He lays a false trail for no earthly reason, I


The Mystery of Cross Roads Farm 133
submit. For months he does not let fall a word to
disturb his mother, but he haunts the gate of the farm.”
“His mother knows he is guilty, professor; remember
that.”
“Did she see him do it? Has he shown her the
money?”
“No.”
“Then, I ask, what made Gilson haunt the farm!
The right answer to that question will put you on the
right road. It was Zena who propounded that question
to me.’’
“In seeking for motives we must not be too precise
in dealing with a madman,” I said. “I think his idea
was to protect the money which he had hidden some-
where close at hand.”
“I don’t,” said Quarles. “He was watching for
the man who murdered Peter Judd.”
“Rather a fantastic conclusion, isn’t it?” I said.
“It might be were there no evidence to support it.
Let me tell the story as I imagine it. The twin broth-
ers were much attached to each other. Few people
knew them well; they kept altogether to themselves.
From Coleman's statement it would seem that Peter
took the lead. It was he who went for the money. He
appears to have managed all the money transactions.
It may have been merely a division of labor, but there
may have been another reason. Perhaps Simon's tem-
perament was to waste money, and to keep him out of
temptation Peter kept the key of the treasury.”
“Still a little fantastic, I fancy,” I said somewhat
contemptuously.
“Quite true, and we will go a little farther on the
same road. We will assume that the sight of gold was
not good for the moral welfare of Simon Judd. So


The Mystery of Cross Roads Farm 135
was fascinated by the sight of the gold; at any rate,
he remained there. He would see Coleman leave. That
he saw the actual murder is unlikely, did not know of
it until the next day, I should conjecture; but he
would see what Simon Judd did, would see him take
the money and go. When he knew Peter Judd was
dead, Gilson would guess who had killed him. He
would say nothing, because both men had been good
to him; but knowing the two brothers, being in touch,
perhaps, since he is one of God's fools, with a plane
of thought which is above the normal man, he waited
for Simon Judd's return, and he has not been disap-
pointed.”
“Not disappointed l’” I exclaimed.
“I imagine Simon spent his money riotously, every
penny of it, conscience troubling him at times, which
trouble he drowned with drink and drugs; but in the
end he was irresistibly drawn back, a tramp, dirty,
unrecognizable, except to the eyes expecting him—
Gilson’s.”
“And then?”
Quarles paused for a moment. -
“If Gilson watched him closely, as he probably did,
he may some day, in a lucid interval, confirm my sur-
mise. I think Simon Judd stood before the lifted veil
when he returned to Cross Roads Farm again; that on
the spot where so many familiar hours had been spent
he saw his brother once more, and remorse came to
him. The gold had gone, you see. Every detail of that
tragic night was recalled in a moment of time, and,
terror seizing him, he clutched himself by the throat
and fell dead.”
“I think you are right, dear,” Zena said solemnly.
“But how is it no one knew him?” I asked.


I36 Christopher Quarles
“Few people did know him, and he had passed
through five years of debauchery. Find someone who
knew of some peculiarity he had. Coleman might help
you here. Gilson knew him. Didn’t he tell you Simon
Judd was buried? That would be a day or so after
the tramp had been buried in Hanley.”
This case was certainly one of my failures, although
I had to accept praise when both Coleman and Gilson
were released.
It happened, too, that Coleman knew that, as a
young man, his Uncle Simon had undergone an opera-
tion, the scar of which the doctor found on the tramp's
body.
Jim Gilson was never lucid enough to give a detailed
account of what happened when Simon Judd returned
to the farm, but piecing together statements he made
at intervals there is little doubt that Quarles's surmise
was not very far from the truth.


CHAPTER IX
THE CONUNDRUM OF THE GOLF LINKS
HAVE wondered sometimes whether I have ever
really liked Christopher Quarles; at times I have
certainly resented his treatment, and had he been re-
quested to make out a list of his friends, quite possibly
my name would not have figured in the list unless
Zena had written it out for him. Some remark of the
professor's had annoyed me at this time, and I had
studiously kept away from Chelsea for some days, when
one morning I received a telegram:
“If nothing better to do, join us here for a few days.
—Quarles, Marine Hotel, Lingham.”
I did not even know they were out of town, for Zena
and I never wrote to each other, and I had a strong
suspicion the invitation meant that the professor wanted
my help in some case in which he was interested. Still,
there would be leisure hours, and I had visions of pleas-
ant rambles with Zena. If I could manage it, some of
them should be when the moon traced a pale gold path
across the sleeping waters. I may say at once that
some moonlight walks were accomplished, though fewer
than I could have wished, and that, although there was
no business behind the professor's invitation, my visit
to Lingham resulted in the solution of a mystery which
had begun some months before and had baffled all
inquiry ever since.
137


I38 Christopher Quarles
Lingham, as everybody knows, is a great yachting
center, and as I journeyed down to the East Coast I
wondered if yachting interested Quarles, and, if not,
why he had chosen Lingham for a holiday.
The professor was a man of surprises. I have seen
him looking so old that a walk to the end of the short
street in Chelsea might reasonably be expected to try
his capacity for exercise; and, again, I have seen him
look almost young; indeed, in these reminiscences I
have shown that at times he did not seem to know
what fatigue meant. When he met me in the vestibule
of the Marine Hotel he looked no more than middle-
aged, and as physically fit as a man could be. He was
dressed in loose tweeds, and wore a pair of heavy boots
which, even to look at, almost made one feel tired.
“Welcome, my dear fellow!” he said. “But why
bring such infernal weather with you? It began to
blow at the very time you must have been leaving town,
and has been increasing ever since. It has put a stop
to all racing.”
“I didn’t know you took an interest in yachting.”
“I don’t. Golf, Wigan! At golf I am an enthu-
siast. There’s a good sporting course here, that’s why
I came to Lingham. You’ve brought your clubs, I
see.”
“Chance. You did not say anything about golf in
your wire.”
“Why should I? Useless waste of money. I re-
membered your telling me once that you never went
for your holiday without taking your clubs. We shall
have grand sport.”
He laughed quite boisterously, and a man who was
passing through the hall looked at me and smiled. I
recollected that smile afterward, but took little notice


The Conundrum of the Golf Links 139
of it just then, because Zena was coming down the
stairs.
Before dinner that evening it blew a gale, and from
windows overlooking the deserted parade we watched a
sullen, angry sea pounding the sandy shore and hissing
into long lines of foam, which the wind caught up and
carried viciously inland.
“Isn’t that a sail—a yacht?” said Zena suddenly,
pointing out to sea, over which darkness was gathering
like a pall.
It was, and those on board of her must be having a
bad time, not to say a perilous one. She was certainly
not built for such weather as this, but she must be a
stout little craft to stand it as she did, and they were
no fools who had the handling of her.
“Blown right out of her course, I should think,” said
Quarles. “The yachts shelter in the creek to the south
yonder. I should not wonder if that boat hopes to
make the creek which lies on the other side of the golf
course.”
“She’s more likely to come ashore,” said a man
standing behind us, and he spoke with the air of an
expert in such matters. “There’s no anchorage in that
creek, and, besides, a bar of mud lies right across the
mouth of it.”
As the curved line of the sea front presently hid the
yacht from our view the gong sounded for dinner—
a very welcome sound, and I, for one, thought no more
about the yacht that night.
Before morning the gale had subsided, but the day
was sullen and cloudy, threatening rain, and we did
not attempt golf until after lunch.
It was an eighteen-hole course, and might be reckoned
sporting, but it was not ideal. There was too much
72


I40 Christopher Quarles
loose sand, and a great quantity of that rank grass
which flourishes on sand dunes. It said much for the
management that the greens were as good as they were.
I had just played two holes with the professor before
I remembered the man who had smiled in the hall of
the hotel yesterday. Certainly Quarles was an enthu-
siast. In all the etiquette of the game he was perfect,
but as a player he was the very last word. He per-
sisted in driving with a full swing, usually with comic
effect; he was provided with a very full complement of
clubs, and was precise in always using the right one;
but he seemed physically incapable of keeping his eye
on the ball, and constantly hit out, as if he were play-
ing cricket; yet the bigger ass he made of himself the
greater seemed his enjoyment. He never lost his tem-
per. Other men would have emptied themselves of the
dregs of their vocabulary; Quarles only smiled, cheer-
fully explaining how he had come to top a ball, or why
he had taken half a dozen shots to get out of a bunker.
No wonder the man in the hotel had laughed.
There was one particularly difficult hole. The bogey
was six. It required a good drive to get over a ridge
of high ground; beyond was a brassey shot, then an
iron, and a mashie on to the green. To the left lay a
creek, a narrow water course between mud. My drive
did not reach the ridge, on the top of which was a
direction post; and the professor pulled his ball, which
landed perilously near the mud. It took him three
shots to come up with me, and when at last we mounted
the ridge we saw there was a man on the distant green,
which lay in a hollow surrounded by bunkers, behind
which was the bank of the curving creek.
“Fore!” shouted Quarles.
I almost laughed. It was certain the man would have


The Conundrum of the Golf Links 141
ample time to get off the green before the profes-
sor arrived there. Quarles waited for a moment, but
the man ahead took no notice, possibly had not heard
him.
The professor took a full swing with his brassey, and,
for a wonder, the ball went as straight and true as any
golfer could desire.
“Ah! I am getting into form, Wigan,” he exclaimed.
“What is that fool doing yonder? Fore!”
This time the man looked round and waved to us to
come on, which we did slowly, for Quarles's form was
speedily out again.
The man on the green was a curiosity. Thirty-five
or thereabouts, I judged him to be; a thin man, but
wiry, with a stiff figure and an immobile face, which
looked as if he had never been guilty of showing an
emotion. His eyes were beady, and fixed you; his mouth
gave the impression of being so seldom used for speech
that it had become partially atrophied. His costume,
perhaps meant to be sporting, missed the mark—looked
as if he had borrowed the various articles from different
friends; and he was practicing putting with a thin-
faced mashie, very rusty in the head, and dilapidated
in the shaft.
He stood aside and watched Quarles miss two short
puts.
“Difficult,” he remarked. “I’m practicing it.”
Quarles looked at the speaker, then at the mashie.
“With that?”
“Why not?” asked the man.
“Why?” asked Quarles.
“If I can do it with this I can do it with anything,”
was the answer.
“That's true,” said the professor, making for the


I42 Christopher Quarles
next tee. There was no arguing with a man of this
type.
The tee was on the top of the creek bank.
“I was right,” said Quarles. “Look, Wigan, they
did make for this haven last night.”
It was almost low water. The bank on the golf course
side was steep, varying in height, but comparatively
low near the tee, and an irregular line of piles stuck
up out of the mud below, the tops of half a dozen of
them rising higher than the bank. On the other side of
the creek the shore sloped up gradually from a wide
stretch of mud.
In the narrow waterway was a yacht, about eighteen
tons, I judged. That she was the same we had seen
laboring in the gale last night I could not say, but cer-
tainly she was much weather-marked and looked for-
lorn. She had not had a coat of paint recently, the
brasswork on her was green with neglect, and her
ropes and sails looked old and badly cared for. Yet
her lines were dainty, and, straining at her hawser, she
reminded me of a disappointed woman fretting to free
herself from an undesirable position.
A yacht is always so sentient a thing, and seems so
full of conscious life.
Quarles appeared to understand my momentary pre-
occupation.
“Don’t take any notice of her,” he said. “We’re
out for golf. I always manage a good drive from this
tee.”
This time was an exception, at any rate, and, in fact,
for the remainder of the round he played worse than
before, if that were possible. But he was perfectly
satisfied with himself, and talked nothing but golf as


The Conundrum of the Golf Links 143
we walked back, until we were close to the hotel, when
he stopped suddenly.
“Queer chap, that, on the green.”
“Very.”
“Do you think he came from the yacht?”
“I was wondering whether he hadn’t escaped from
an asylum,” I answered.
“I wonder what he was doing on the green,” Quarles
went on. “I saw no one else playing this afternoon, so
he had the green to himself, except for the little time
we disturbed him. When I first saw him it didn’t seem
to me that he was practicing putting, and I thought he
watched us rather curiously.”
“A theory, professor?” I asked with a smile.
“No, no; just wonder. By the way, don't say any-
thing to that expert who was so certain that the yacht
couldn’t get into the creek. He mightn't like to know
he was mistaken.”
After dinner that evening Zena and I went out.
There was no moon; indeed, it was not very pleasant
weather, but it was a pleasant walk, and entirely to
my satisfaction.
When we returned I found Quarles in a corner of
the smoking room leaning back in an armchair with
his eyes closed. He looked up suddenly as I approached
him.
“‘Cold out?” he asked.
“Nothing to speak of.”
“Feel inclined to go a little way with me now?”
“Certainly.”
“Good! Say in a quarter of an hour's time. I shall
get out of this dress and put on some warmer clothes. I
should advise you to do the same.”
I took his advice, and I was not surprised when he


The Conundrum of the Golf Links 145
If I am no great stylist, I am not deficient in muscle,
and, with the set of the tide to help me, we were not
long in making the mouth of the creek.
“The yacht is some way up, Wigan, and maybe there
are sharp ears on her. Tie your handkerchief round
that rowlock, and I’ll tie mine round this. You must
pull gently and make no noise. The tide is still run-
ning in, and will carry us up. By the way, when you're
on holiday do you still keep your hip pocket filled?”
“Yes, when I go on expeditions of this sort.”
“Good! Keep under the bank as much as possible,
and don’t stick on the mud.”
I did little more than keep the boat straight, was
careful not to make any noise, and in the shadow of the
bank we were not very likely to be seen. A heavy,
leaden sky made the night dark, and there was a sullen
rush in the water.
“Steady!” whispered Quarles.
We were abreast of the first of the piles which I had
noticed in the morning. Now it was standing out of
water instead of mud.
“She shows no light,” said Quarles. “We’ll get
alongside.”
With the incoming tide the yacht had swung around,
and was straining at the hawser which held her, the
water slapping at her bows with fretful insistency.
Quarles held on to her, bringing us with a slight bump
against her side. Keen ears would have heard the con-
tact, but no voice challenged.
We had come up on the side of the yacht which was
nearest the golf course.
“There's no boat fastened to her, Wigan,” said
Quarles. “Probably there is no one on board. Let's
go round to the other side.”


146 Christopher Quarles
There we found the steps used for boarding her.
“If there's anyone here, Wigan, we’re two landlub-
bers who’ve got benighted and have a bad attack of
nerves,” whispered Quarles. “Hitch one end of that
coil of rope to the painter, so that when we fasten our
boat to the stays on the other side of the yacht she’ll
float far astern. When they return they are almost cer-
tain to come up on this side to the steps, so will not
be likely either to see the rope or our boat in the dark.”
I fastened the rope to the painter as Quarles sug-
gested, and climbed on to the yacht after him. Then I
let the tide carry our boat astern, and, crossing the
deck, tied the other end of the rope securely to the
stays on the other side.
The sky seemed to have become heavier and more
leaden; it was too dark to see anything clearly. There
was little wind, yet a subdued and ghostly note soundéd
in the yacht's rigging, and the water swirling at her
bows seemed to emphasize her loneliness. So far as I
could see, she was in exactly the same condition as when
I had seen her from the golf course. No one was on
deck, and no sound came from below.
“Queer feeling about her, don’t you think?” said
Quarles. “We’re just deadly afraid of the night and
spooks, that’s what we are if there is anyone to question
us.”
I followed him down into the cabin. At the foot of
the companion Quarles flashed a pocket electric torch.
It was only a momentary flash, then darkness again as
he gave a warning little hiss.
Three glasses on the table was all I had seen. I sup-
posed the professor had seen something more, but I was
wrong.
After standing perfectly motionless for a minute or


The Conundrum of the Golf Links 147
so, he flashed the light again, and sent the ray round
the cabin. The appointments were faded, the covering
of the long, fixed seats on either side of the table was
torn in places. One of these seats had evidently served
as a bunk, for a pillow and folded blanket were lying
upon it. All the paint work was dirty and scratched.
Forward, there was a door into the galley; aft, another
door to another cabin.
“A crew of three,” said Quarles. “Three glasses,
plenty of liquor left in the bottle in the rack yonder,
a pipe and a pouch, and a conundrum.”
He let the light rest on a sheet of paper lying beside
the glasses. On it was written: “S. B. Piles—one with
chain—9th link. N. B. Direct. Mud—high water
—90 and 4 feet.”
“A conundrum, Wigan. What do you make of it?”
He held out the paper to me, a useless thing to do,
since he allowed the ray from the torch to wander
slowly round the cabin again.
“We must look at the pile with the chain,” he mut-
tered in a disconnected way, as though he were thinking
of something quite different.
“And at the ninth link of the chain,” I said.
“Yes, at the ninth link. A conundrum, Wigan.
A—”
He stopped. His eyes had suddenly become fixed
upon some object behind me. The electric ray fell
slanting close by me, and when I turned I saw that the
end of it was under the cushioned seat on one side of
the table. The light fell upon a golf club—a rusty
mashie.
“That man on the green was one of the crew, Wi-
gan,” said Quarles; and then when I picked up the
club we looked into each other’s eyes.


I48 Christopher Quarles
“Did I not say the yacht had a queer feeling about
her?” he said in a whisper.
I knew what he meant. The mashie had something
besides rust on it now, something wet, moist and sticky.
Quarles glanced at the door of the galley as he put
the paper on the table, careful to place it in the exact
position in which he had found it; then he went quickly
to the cabin aft.
On either side of a fixed washing cabinet there was
a bunk, and in one of them lay the man we had seen
on the green. The wound upon his head told to what
a terrible use the club had been put since he had
played with it that afternoon. He had been fiercely
struck from behind, and then strong fingers had
strangled out whatever life remained in him. He was
fully dressed, and there had been little or no struggle.
His would-be sportsmanlike attire was barely disar-
ranged, and even in death his pose was stiff, and his
set face exhibited no emotion. Quarles lifted up one of
his hands and looked at the palm and at the nails. He
let the light rest upon the hand that I might see it.
Then he pointed to a straight mark across the forehead,
just below the hair, and nodded.
We were back in the saloon-cabin again when I
touched the professor's arm, and in an instant the
torch was out. I had caught the sound of splashing
O8. TS.
“Put the club back under the seat,” said Quarles,
and then, with movements stealthy as a cat’s, he led the
way to the galley door. We were in our hiding place
not a moment too SOOn.
Two men came hurriedly down the companion. A
match was struck, but there was not a chink in the
boarding through which we could see into the cabin.


The Conundrum of the Golf Links 149
It seemed certain they had not discovered our dinghy,
and had no suspicion that they were not alone upon
the yacht.
“It’s plain enough. There's no other meaning to it.”
The speaker had a heavy voice, a gurgle in it, and I
judged the heavier tread of the two was his. “Ninety
feet, it says, captain; and we measured that string
to exactly ninety feet.”
“Feet might only refer to the four, and not to both
figures,” was the answer in a sharp, incisive voice.
“He said it was both.”
“And I’m not sure he lied,’’ returned the man ad-
dressed as captain. “The distance was originally paced
out no doubt, and pacing out ninety feet ain’t the same
as an exact measurement.”
“We made allowances,” growled the other.
“We’d been wiser to go on looking instead of com-
ing back. You’re too previous, mate.”
“You didn't trust him any more'n I did.”
“No ; but he had the name right enough,” answered
the captain, “and the time—a year last February. I
always put that job down to Glider. Let's get back
while the dark lasts.”
“Come to think of it, it’s strange Glider should have
made a confidant of him,” said the other.
“Sized him up, and took his chance for the sake of
the missus,” returned the captain.
‘‘I’m not going back until I’ve seen whether he's got
other papers about him.”
“He chucked his clothes overboard,” said the cap-
tain.
“He’d keep papers tied round him, maybe. I’ll
soon find out.”
There was a heavy tread, and the opening of the


I50 Christopher Quarles
door of the cabin aft. There was the rending of cloth,
and the man swore the whole time, perhaps to keep
up his courage for the horrible task.
“Nothing!” he said, coming back into the saloon-
cabin. “Say, captain, supposing it's all a plant—a
trap!”
There was a pause and my hand went to my re-
volver. If the suggestion should take root, would they
not at once search the galley?
“He’d a mind to get the lot, that was his game,”
said the captain.
They went on deck, we could hear them stamping
about overhead. Then came an oath, and a quick move-
ment. I thought they were coming down again, but
a moment later there was the soft swish of oars, fol-
lowed by silence.
“Carefully l’” said Quarles, as I fumbled at the gal-
ley door. “One of them may have remained to shoot
us from the top of the companion.”
He was wrong, but it was more than probable that
such an idea had occurred to them. They had dis-
covered our dinghy' It had been cut adrift, and the
scoundrels had escaped, leaving us isolated on the
yacht. I snapped out a good round oath.
“Can you swim, Wigan?” asked the professor.
At full tide the creek was wide, and the sullen, rush-
ing water had a hungry and cruel sound.
“Not well enough to venture here, and in the dark,”
I said.
“And I cannot swim at all,” said Quarles. “We are
caught until morning and low-water. It’s cold, and
beginning to rain. With all its defects I prefer the
cabin.”
He went below and declared that he must get a little


The Conundrum of the Golf Links 151
sleep. Whether he did or not, I cannot say; I know
that I never felt less inclined to close my eyes. We had
been trapped, that made me mad; and I could not for-
get our gruesome companion behind the door of the
aft cabin.
There was a glimmer of daylight when Quarles
moved.
“This is nearly as good a place to think in as my
empty room at Chelsea, Wigan. What do you make
of the mystery?”
“A trio of villains after buried treasure.”
“Which they could not find; and two of them are
scuttling away to save their necks.”
“So you think the dead man yonder fooled them?”
“No. I think there is some flaw in the conundrum.
By the way, why is a golf course called links?”
“It’s a Scotch word for a sandy tract near the sea,
isn’t it?”
“But to an untutored mind, Wigan, especially if it
were not Scotch, there might be another meaning, one
based on number, for instance. As a chain consists of
links, so a golf course, which has eighteen links. It is
a possible view, eh?”
“Perhaps.”
“I see they have taken the paper,” said Quarles;
“but I dare say you remember the wording. S. B.,
that means south bank; N. B., north bank. I have
no doubt there is a pile with a chain on it, whether with
nine or ninety links does not matter. It was on the
green of the ninth hole that the man was practicing.
For the word “link” substitute “hole,” and you get a
particular pile connected with the ninth hole, which,
of course, has a flag, and so we get a particular direc-
tion indicated. From the high-water line of mud on the


152 Christopher Quarles
north bank we continue this ascertained direction for
ninety feet, and then we dig down four feet.”
“And find nothing,” I said.
“Exactly! There is a flaw somewhere, but the trea-
sure is there,” said Quarles. “The rascals who have
given us an uncomfortable night evidently believed that
the man they called Glider had told the truth; more,
they had already put the job down to him, you will
remember. Now, how was it Glider gave his secret
away to the man in yonder cabin? Obviously he
couldn’t come and get the treasure himself.”
“A convict,” I said, “who gave information to a fel-
low convict about to be released.”
“I don’t think so,” said Quarles. “As a convict,
these men, who have been convicts themselves, or will
be, would have had sympathy with him. They hadn’t
any. They were afraid of him. They felt it was
strange that Glider should have confided in him, and
could only find an explanation by supposing that Gli-
der had sized him up and taken his chance for the
sake of the missus. We may assume, therefore, that
Glider had trusted a man no one would expect him to
trust. This suggests urgency, and I fancy a man, nick-
named Glider, has recently died in one of His Majesty's
prisons—Portland I should guess. Probably our ad-
venturers sailed from Weymouth. Now, Glider could
not have been in Portland long. A year last February
he was free to do the job with which this expedition is
connected, and of which I should imagine he is not sus-
pected by the police. Probably he was taken for some
other crime soon after he had committed this one.
He had no opportunity to dig up the treasure he had
buried, which he certainly would have done as soon
as possible. Yet Glider must have been long enough


The Conundrum of the Golf Links 153
in prison to size up the dead man yonder—a work of
some time, I fancy. You noticed his hands. Did they
show any evidence of his having worked as a convict?
You saw the mark across the forehead. That was made
by a stiff cap worn constantly until a day or two ago. I
think we shall find there is a warder missing from
Portland.”
‘‘A Warder l’’
The idea was startling, yet I could pick no hole in
the professor's argument.
“Even a warder is not free from temptation, and I
take it this man was tempted, and fell. Glider, no
doubt, told him of the captain and his mate. He had
worked with them before, probably, and trusted them;
also, he might think they would be a check upon the
warder. I shouldn’t be surprised if the warder were
the only one of the three who insisted that the widow
should have her share, and so came by his death. The
flaw in the riddle keeps the treasure safe. Perhaps I
shall solve it during the day. By the way, Wigan, it
must be getting near low-water.”
It was a beastly morning, persistent rain from a
leaden sky. The tide was out, only a thin strip of
water separating the yacht from the mud.
‘‘I fear there will be no golfers on the links to-day
to whom we might signal,” said Quarles; “and I could
not even swim that.”
“I can,” I answered.
“It would be better than spending another night
here,” said the professor. “Send a boat round for me,
and inform the police. I am afraid the captain and
his mate have got too long a start; but don’t leave
Lingham until we have had another talk. While I
am alone I may read the riddle.”


154 Christopher Quarles
The ducking I did not mind, and the swim was no
more than a few vigorous strokes, but I had forgotten
the mud. As I struggled through it, squelching, knee-
deep, Quarles called to me:
“They must have landed him at high-water yester-
day, Wigan, and then crossed over and taken the direc-
tion from him. I thought he was feeling about with
the flag when we first saw him on the green. No doubt
he made some sign to the others across the creek to lie
low when he saw us coming. They marked the place
in daylight and went at night to dig.”
I sank at least ten inches deeper into the mud while
he was speaking. He got no answer out of me. I felt
like hating my best friend just then.
After changing my clothes at the hotel, where I ac-
counted for my condition by a story, original but not
true, I told Zena shortly what had happened, then sent
a boat for the professor. I then told the Lingham po-
lice, who wired to the police at Colchester, and I also
telegraphed to Scotland Yard and to Portland Prison.
I did not see Quarles again until the afternoon.
“Have you solved the riddle?” I asked.
“I think so. We’ll go to that ninth hole at once.
The police are continuing the excavations begun by our
friends. I’ve had a talk to the professional at the golf
club. They move the position of the holes on a green
from time to time, you know, Wigan; and with the pro-
fessional’s help I think we shall be able to find out
where it was a year last February. He is a methodical
fellow. That will give us a different direction on the
north bank of the creek. It was a natural oversight
on the convict’s part. Were I not a golfer I might not
have thought of the solution.” -
We found the treasure a long way from where the


The Conundrum of the Golf Links 155
other digging had been done. It consisted of jewels
which, in the early part of the previous year, had been
stolen from Fenton Hall, some two miles inland. The
theft, which had taken place when the house was full
of week-end visitors, had been quickly discovered, and
the thief, finding it impossible to get clear away with
his spoil, had buried it on the desolate bank of the creek,
marking the spot by a mental line drawn through the
chained pile and the flag on the golf course. He must
have known the neighborhood, and knew this was the
ninth hole, or link as he called it, or as the warder had
written it down. For Quarles was right, a warder was
missing from Portland, and was found dead in that
aft cabin.
The yacht was known at Weymouth, and belonged
to a retired seaman, a Captain Wells, who lived at a
little hotel when he was in the town. He was often
away—sometimes in his yacht, sometimes in London—
and there was little doubt that his boat had often been
used to take stolen property across to the Continent.
Neither the captain nor his mate could be traced now,
but it was some satisfaction that they had not secured
the jewels.
As I have said, I did manage to get some moonlight
walks with Zena, but not many, for a week after we had
recovered the Fenton Hall jewels I was called back to
town to interview Lord Leconbridge.


The Diamond Necklace Scandal 157
Quarles, was an edition with marginal notes, the re-
sult of investigation and questions put to many people.
“I am interested in Lord Leconbridge,” said the pro-
fessor; “he is one of the few men who count. Whether
I shall get interested in his family jewels is another
matter. Still, we happen to be in the empty room, and
Zena is here to ask absurd questions; so tell your story,
Wigan.”
“When Lady Leconbridge came down to dinner that
evening she was wearing pearls. As she entered the
drawing-room her husband admired her appearance
and her dress, but suggested that the diamonds would
be more suitable than the pearls. She questioned his
taste, and appealed to her stepson. This only appeared
to make her husband more determined, and Lady Lecon-
bridge went upstairs and changed the pearls for the
diamonds. The jewels were certainly not lost on the
way to Park Lane, for the Duchess of Exmoor noticed
them five minutes before they were missing. The loss
was discovered by Lord Leconbridge when he was about
to present Jacob Hartmann to his wife. The reception
was a semi-political one; a footman says he knew every-
one who passed through the hall; and I have ascer-
tained that the known thieves, who might be able to
deal with such stones as these, were not at work that
night. A curious story comes from a housemaid. On
the chance of catching a glimpse of some of the guests,
she was looking down from a dark corner of the stairs
on to a corridor which was only dimly lighted, not be-
ing used much that evening, when she heard the low
voices of a man and woman talking eagerly. The
woman was either afraid or angry, and the man seemed
excited. Then she saw a man come quickly along the
corridor, and the next moment there was the sound of


I58 Christopher Quarles
broken glass. She did not know who he was, and the
woman she did not see at all. The servant thought no
more of the incident until she heard that the diamonds
were missing. The window of a small room opening out
of this corridor was found broken, and I find ample
evidence that it was broken from inside. A thief might
have escaped that way, but it would be a difficult task.”
“Who first told you that Lady Leconbridge was
wearing pearls when she went down to dinner?’’ asked
Quarles.
“Her maid.”
“Lord Leconbridge did not mention this fact?”
“No ; but later he corroborated the maid’s story; as
did also his wife and his son.”
“What is Lord Leconbridge's attitude?” asked
Quarles.
“He is extremely irritated, rather at the annoyance
caused to his wife than at the loss of the jewels, I
fancy.”
“Were I Lady Leconbridge I should be something
more than annoyed,’’ Zena remarked.
“Ah! that's not the point, my dear,” and the profes-
sor picked up an evening paper. “At the end of a
column of stuff dealing with this robbery there is this
paragraph: ‘Before her marriage Lady Leconbridge
was Miss Helen Farrow, an actress, who was rapidly
making a reputation. Not long ago, it will be remem-
bered, she played Lady Teazle at a command perform-
ance of Sheridan's masterpiece. Her last part was that
of Mrs. Clare in Brickell's play, which was such a suc-
cess at the St. George's Theater, and her charming im-
personation of the heroine will be fresh in the public
mind. Her marriage came as a great surprise, both
to the theatrical and social world.’


The Diamond Necklace Scandal I59
–
“A short paragraph,” Quarles went on, “but with a
sting in the tail of it. People talked a great deal at
the time of the marriage three years ago. Leconbridge
was called an old fool for going to the stage for a
second wife, and it was suggested that, if he must marry
an actress, he might have made a better choice. When
this kind of thing is said about a beautiful woman there
are plenty of evil-minded persons to make the worst of
it. You see, Zena, there is some reason for Lord
Leconbridge's irritability.”
“I do not believe there was the slightest foundation
for the gossip,” I said. “Lady Leconbridge is a most
charming person.”
“I know nothing about her,” said Quarles, tapping
the paper; “but I am certain that this affair will re-
vive the old gossip.”
“I wonder why the duchess noticed the diamonds so
particularly that evening,” said Zena.
“Probably because she had not seen them before,”
I answered. “Mr. Lester told me they were seldom
worn—suggested, indeed, that their size and setting
were so conspicuous as to make them rather vulgar.”
“I did not know that famous family jewels could be
considered vulgar,” she returned; “but, if so, why was
Lord Leconbridge so anxious that his wife should wear
them on this occasion?”
Quarles nodded and looked at me.
“A whim,” I said; “hardening into a firm determina-
tion when his son opposed him. Men are like that.”
“Are father and son not on good terms, then?”
“It has been said that Lord Leconbridge worships
his son,” I returned.
“What age is Rupert Lester?” Zena asked.
“About twenty-five.”
y


I60 Christopher Quarles
“And Lady Leconbridge?”
“Two or three years older.”
“And Mr. Lester's support of Lady Leconbridge
when she preferred the pearls only made his father
more determined that the diamonds should be worn.
I wonder 2 x
“Ah! that past gossip is having its effect upon your
judgment,” said Quarles. -
“You may put that idea out of your mind, Zena,” I
said. “Mr. Rupert Lester is engaged to Miss Margery
Dinneford. It is common knowledge that old Dinneford
had other views for his only daughter, but finally al-
lowed his opposition to be overruled. Margery Dinne-
ford and Lady Leconbridge are the greatest of friends.”
“As a matter of fact, such an idea had not entered
my mind,” Zena said. “I was wondering why Lord
Leconbridge introduced Jacob Hartmann to his wife.”
“Hartmann is a very wealthy banker,” I answered,
“who has been extremely useful to the Conservative
Party. He is the first of his family, so to speak, and is
engaged in winning a big social position. Since Lord
Leconbridge is a very important member of the Con-
servative Party, it is quite natural that such an intro-
duction should take place.”
“Very interesting,” said Quarles; “but are we really
required to clear Lady Leconbridge's character? Let
us get back to the diamonds. They were kept in the
house, I presume?”
“In a safe in the wall in Lady Leconbridge's bed-
room.”
“The maid knew they were there?”
“Yes.”
“It is a point to remember,” said Quarles. “We may
have to come back to it if we find no other way out of


I62 Christopher Quarles
stones were to be a demonstration, a proof of something,
and that Lord Leconbridge's irritation arises from the
fact that he has not been able to give this proof.”
“Proof of what?”
“Ah! that's the question, Wigan; and we have noth-
ing at present to help us to an answer.”
“You don’t suppose Hartmann was responsible for
the jewels not being there?”
“I have no fact to support such a theory.”
“Do you suggest that Lady Leconbridge was as anx-
ious that Hartmann should not see the jewels as her
husband was that he should?”
“I have not made such a suggestion. Since Lecon-
bridge did not tell his wife why he wanted her to wear
the diamonds, he probably did not prepare her for
Hartmann’s introduction. It is difficult to see what
time she would have to rob herself and conceal the
spoil.”
“Is Lord Leconbridge a poor man?” Zena asked.
“No,” I answered; “although I dare say he has
plenty of use for his money.”
“Perhaps he wanted to sell the diamonds.”
“It is possible,” said Quarles. “The stones were a
means to some end. Just hand me paper and a pencil,
Wigan. My theory grows. Is Lady Leconbridge still
in town ''
“I believe she has gone to Grasslands, their seat
in Worcestershire.”
“Poor lady! The middle of the season, too. Read
that, Wigan,” and he passed me the paper on which
he had been scribbling. I read it aloud:
“If the person who took, or found, the diamond neck-
lace lost on the evening of Monday, the 14th inst., at
the Duchess of Exmoor's house, in Park Lane, will re-


I64 Christopher Quarles
“You did not expect to regain possession of the neck-
lace so easily, Lord Leconbridge,” he said, looking at
the stones.
“No.”
“A curious robbery, and, since the jewels have been
returned, a curious reason for it exists, no doubt. I
suppose you cannot give us any helpful suggestion
in that direction?”
“No.”
“Of course, we have promised not to worry the per-
son responsible any further, but for our own satisfac-
tion—” And then, after a pause, he added: “I
suppose it would be a satisfaction to you to get at the
exact truth?’”
“I don’t quite follow the drift of your question,”
said Leconbridge.
“You have the diamonds; the matter might be al-
lowed to drop if you have any reason to think that, by
taking further steps, family affairs might be disclosed
which would cause scandal.”
For a moment Leconbridge remained silent, his jaw
very firmly set.
“I wish to know the exact truth,” he said slowly,
“but under no circumstances must the person who has
returned the diamonds suffer. Our word is pledged.”
“That is understood,” Quarles said. “Let me ask
one or two questions, then—rather impertinent ones,
but necessary. These stones have been in your family
a long while?”
“Three hundred years.”
“They are not often worn, I believe?”
‘‘Not Often.”
“And on this particular night you expressed a wish
that they should be worn?”


I66 Christopher Quarles
“You may prove me right or wrong by showing the
stones to an expert. Why not show them to Jacob
Hartmann?”
“Hartmann Why to him?”
“Because I believe he knows more about precious
stones than any man in this country.”
For the space of a minute Leconbridge and the pro-
fessor stood looking at each other in silence.
“I did not know that,” said Leconbridge.
“I am a man of the world rather than a detective,”
said Quarles, his manner suddenly changing, “and to
some extent I can appreciate your position. May I be-
come a friendly adviser? Lock this necklace up, and
let no one know it has been returned. Take my word
for it that the stones are imitation, and leave the mat-
ter in my hands. I give you my word that I believe,
when the full explanation is forthcoming, you will be
perfectly satisfied with it. Will you trust me, Lord
Leconbridge?”
“Yes,” came the firm answer, after a pause.
“It will be the work of a few hours, I hope,” said
Quarles, taking up his hat; “and, of course, it is agreed
that the person who returned the jewels is not to
suffer.’’
Quarles was thoughtful as we walked away from Hill
Street, and well he might be. He had promised a
great deal, and how he was going to fulfil that promise
was beyond my comprehension.
“You expected to surprise Lord Leconbridge into
an admission and were disappointed?” I said.
“On the contrary, he told me rather more than I
expected,” was the answer. “Evidently he had a pur-
pose in wanting his wife to wear the diamonds. It is
fairly clear, I think, that he did not believe she had


The Diamond Necklace Scandal I67
parted with the necklace, therefore his purpose had to
do with some one who would be at the reception that
night. Jacob Hartmann seems to fit that part. It is
wonderful, Wigan, what a lot of trouble is caused when
a person tells only half the truth.”
“I can understand Lord Leconbridge's reticence,” I
said.
“Yes. As a fact, I wasn’t thinking of Lord Lecon-
bridge just at the moment. My present difficulty is
to decide which road to take. One is easy, the other
difficult. Let us get into this taxi. How true it is that
the longest way round is often the shortest road home.”
He told the man to drive to Old Broad Street.
“A theory may lead to disaster, professor,” I said.
“Ah! but we are going into the city to look for
facts. I have noticed, Wigan, that lately you have
become strangely susceptible to beauty.”
I wondered if he had guessed that I was in love
with Zena.
“If you refer to Lady Leconbridge—”
“I don’t. I speak in the abstract. Still, there exists
a certain amount of evidence against her, and your
refusal to admit it has warped your judgment in this
case, I fancy. Do you know Jacob Hartmann?”
“No.”
“A very pleasant man, I am told. We are going to
see him, so shall be able to judge for ourselves. You
must question; I am merely your assistant. Your line
is this: You have got Lord and Lady Leconbridge's
story, and you are not quite satisfied. You recognize
that the affair is a delicate one, but you are not going
to wink at the compounding of a felony to hush up a
family scandal.”
All the way to the city Quarles continued to coach


I68 Christopher Quarles
me, giving me certain points and questions which I
was to lead up to gradually. I understood why he had
warned me against susceptibility to beauty, for the
whole trend of these questions was toward damning
Lady Leconbridge.
Mr. Hartmann received us in his private room, and,
although reluctant to talk about an affair which was
no business of his, was willing to give any help in his
power. I repeated the story as Lord Leconbridge had
first told it to me, just the bare facts, and I dwelt
upon the delicacy of the affair.
“You did not actually see the necklace, I suppose?”
“No; and in the excitement I was not presented to
Lady Leconbridge,” Hartmann answered.
“Was she very much agitated?” I asked.
“She was curiously calm.”
“I believe you know something about precious stones,
Mr. Hartmann?”
“Gems are a hobby of mine,” he said with a smile.
“I want your opinion. Do you think paste might
deceive an expert?”
“At a casual glance—yes, if it were good paste.”
“For instance,” I said, “if Lady Leconbridge had
been wearing the necklace when you approached her
would you have known had it been paste?”
“I should,” he answered, with a satisfied smile.
“But yours would have been only a casual glance.
A man is more likely to be interested in a woman's
beauty than in the jewels she is wearing. Besides, you
would not expect Lady Leconbridge to be wearing
paste.”
“I should have known,” he said.
“You say Lady Leconbridge was not agitated by her
loss?”


170 Christopher Quarles
“Such a person might be able to prove that he was
a legitimate possessor.”
“I was thinking of the Slade case,” I answered.
“Messrs. Bartrams, the pawnbrokers, you know, came
very badly out of that. They looked uncommonly like
receivers of property which they knew had been stolen.”
“Now I am out of my depth,” said the banker, rising
to bring the interview to an end.
“Just one question,” said Quarles, looking up sud-
denly. “Is the necklace in one of your safes in the
bank here?”
“Here! It is hardly a joking matter.”
“It is not a joke, but curiosity,” said Quarles. “I
thought you would keep the jewels at Messrs. Bartrams
and not here at the bank. It is rather awkward for
you, Mr. Hartmann.”
“What do you mean?”
“I am wondering how you will explain your posses-
sion of Lady Leconbridge's stolen diamond necklace.”
Hartmann stretched out his hand to the bell on his
table.
“Ring if you want it to be known that Jacob Hart-
mann, the well-known and much respected banker, is
also Bartrams, who have a very bad name, I can as-
sure you.”
“So you are here to trick me?” said Hartmann,
thrusting his hands into his pockets as though to pre-
vent himself touching the bell.
“No; to warn you,” Quarles answered. “I have not
collected all the details yet, but I think you know more
of Miss Farrow than you have admitted, and are in-
clined to be revengeful. You must not use the weapon
which chance has put into your hands.”
**Must not?”


The Diamond Necklace Scandal I71
“It would be folly. The jewels will be applied for
in due course, and there the matter must end. A
detrimental word concerning Lady Leconbridge, and
your position as sole owner of Bartrams would become
awkward, while your chance of getting a footing in the
society you are striving so hard to enter would be gone.
Unfortunately for you, I know too much. I am inclined
to be generous.”
“A poor argument,” laughed Hartmann. “The in-
terview is over.’’
“Generosity is at a discount,” said Quarles. “By
the first post to-morrow Lord Leconbridge must receive
from you an ample apology. You must state em-
phatically that there is not a shadow of truth in the
hints you have dropped lately concerning his wife. You
must also confess that three years ago you were instru-
mental in spreading utterly false reports about Helen
Farrow. You may excuse yourself as best pleases you.’’
“I shall send no apology.”
“By the first post, please,” said Quarles, “or by
noon Scotland Yard will be busy with the career of
Mr. Jacob Hartmann. Good day to you.”
It was not until we were in the empty room at Chel-
sea, Zena with us, that the professor would discuss the
Case.
“The difficult way was the right one, Wigan,” he
said. “You are convinced, I presume, that Hartmann
has the diamonds?”
“Yes.”
“Let me deal with the banker's part in the story first
—some theory in the solution, but with facts to sup-
port it. Since Leconbridge is an important member of
the Conservative Party, and Hartmann has for some
time supported the party, I asked myself why Hart-


The Diamond Necklace Scandal 173
tell his father everything—sons, in these circumstances,
seldom do. The creditor left unpaid, some hireling of
Hartmann's it may be, began to press the young man—
may have suggested, even, how easily he could raise
money on the diamonds, which were so seldom worn.”
“Do you mean that Lady Leconbridge helped him?”
asked Zena.
“It may be,” said Quarles. “Knowing how enraged
her husband would be with his son, she may have lent
Lester the diamonds to pawn. The fact that she ap-
pealed to him to support her in her choice of the pearls
lends weight to this view, but the housemaid’s story of
hearing an angry woman's voice in the corridor leads
me to think otherwise. I fancy Lester must have
heard his father speak to Hartmann at the reception,
and gathered that the diamonds were to be a proof of
something to the banker. Knowing Hartmann's
knowledge of stones, he went to Lady Leconbridge,
took her into the corridor, where she learnt for the
first time that he had taken the real jewels, and that she
was wearing the imitation he had put in their place.
She was angry, refused to have anything to do with
the deception, and then, partly to help him, but chiefly
to thwart her enemy, Hartmann, she consented to lose
the diamonds. Lester took the necklace, and, to give
the idea that a robbery had taken place, and the thief
escaped, broke the window of the small room. When
he saw the advertisement he returned the necklace,
hoping the mystery would come to an end so far as
the outer world was concerned; and at the present
time, I imagine, he is either trying to raise money
enough to redeem the jewels, or is getting up his courage
to confess to his father. He has probably promised


174 Christopher Quarles
Lady Leconbridge that he will do one or the other be-
fore she returns from Grasslands.”
What Rupert Lester's confession meant to his father
no one will ever know probably. Practically, in every
detail, he confirmed the professor's theory, and pos-
sibly Quarles and I saw Lord Leconbridge nearer the
breaking point than anyone else.
Leconbridge showed us Hartmann’s letter of apology.
“The snake's fangs are drawn,” said Quarles. “Now
you can let it be known through the press that the
necklace lost at the Duchess of Exmoor's has been re-
turned. It is the exact truth. The real diamonds you
may redeem as soon as you like, and I think this letter
insures that no lies will be told about your wife in
future.”
“But my son is—
“He is your son, Lord Leconbridge, and our word is
pledged not to make the person who returned the neck-
lace suffer.’’
Leconbridge held out his hand.
“May I give one other word of advice?” said Quarles.
“This must have been a terrible ordeal to Lady Lecon-
bridge. If I were you I should go to Grasslands to-
day.” -
And the professor and I went out of the room, clos-
ing the door gently behind us.
2 y


176 Christopher Quarles
denly ill; but the doctor was nowhere to be found.
Later in the evening Mrs. Smith communicated with
the police.
This man Evans was an intelligent fellow, and when
I took up the case I found him extremely useful. He
wasn’t too full of his own ideas, and answered my
questions definitely. So far as he knew, Dr. Smith had
nothing on his mind. He was not the kind of man to
commit suicide.
“Having to deal constantly with weak-minded peo-
ple might have an effect upon him,” I suggested.
“It might, of course,” Evans answered; “but it
hasn’t had any effect upon me, and, in a way, I should
say the doctor was a more phlegmatic person than I
am. Nothing moved him very much.”
“Had he enemies?”
“I have no reason to think so.”
“No money worries?”
“He never said anything to suggest such a thing.
Had there been any lack of money, I should have ex-
pected to see a certain pinching process in the house.”
There was no sign of this. The arrangements for
the patients were on the side of luxury, and there was
ample evidence of the kindest and most considerate
treatment. I judged that Mrs. Smith was a capable
manager. When I first saw her she had got over her
excitement, and was able to talk of her husband quite
calmly. She admitted that he was eccentric, and she
believed an eccentric action had cost him his life. She
had some reason for this belief.
Dr. Smith had a small boat of five or six tons, old
and shabby, but perfectly seaworthy. This he kept
moored in one of the small coves to the east of Rivers-
mouth. This boat had gone.


The Disappearance of Dr. Smith 177
I examined these coves carefully. They were pro-
tected by a spur of rock which ran out to sea. Many
of them were only caves eaten out of the cliffs, the depth
of water in them varying considerably. At low tide
some of them were almost dry, while others, even at
the greatest ebb, still had deep water in them. They
were great holes, in fact, which the sea constantly
replenished. That a boat had been moored in one of
them was evident, and there was some doubt at first
whether it had not been beached for the winter, as had
been done in previous years; but no one knew anything
about it, and the boat was not to be found.
Until quite the end of September the weather had
been perfect; there was no reason why the boat should
not have been used with safety and pleasure, and on
the night of Dr. Smith's disappearance the sea was
perfectly calm. As a matter of fact, however, the doc-
tor was never known to use the boat. The Riversmouth
people declared that they only knew Smith by the oc-
casional glimpse they had of him in his garden when
they passed; that they never met him either in the town
or on the way to the coves; and, indeed, the only person
who had any knowledge of him at all was Mr. Fergu-
son, a solicitor. On two occasions he had seen him at
his house on small matters of business, and once he had
met him in London to introduce him to an insurance
company. Whether a policy had been taken out or not
he did not know, as Dr. Smith had arranged to take
the commission himself if he completed the policy.
Evans was not prepared to say that the doctor never
used the boat. It was true that he seldom went beyond
the garden, but this was not to say that he never did.
People might have met him and not recognized who he
was. Once or twice during the summer Evans had


178 Christopher Quarles
been out in the boat himself, at the doctor's suggestion.
It was a good little boat, and quite easy for one person
to manage. -
Mrs. Smith did not believe that her husband ever
used the boat, and had never understood why he kept
it. He had bought it for practically nothing, and she
could only suppose that the fact of making a bargain
had appealed to him.
“Was he careless about money matters?” I asked.
“There was always plenty of money,” she answered,
“but I know very little about his financial affairs. I
think he was a little fearful about the future, and
some four years ago he talked about insuring his life.
Whether he did so or not, I cannot say.”
A description of the missing man was circulated in
the press; but we could give no portrait; such a thing
did not exist. The Riversmouth people considered this
publication futile. They were convinced that the miss-
ing boat was proof enough that the doctor had disap-
peared, and, while I searched for additional facts, I
was inclined to agree with them.
I was not long without a solid fact to deal with.
I have said that it was a calm night when the doctor
disappeared, but since then the weather had changed.
A southwesterly gale sent the great breakers foaming
all along the shore, until even the waters of the sheltered
coves were troubled. Between the east and the west
cliffs was a stretch of shingle, and here, early in the
morning of the fourth day, some wreckage was cast up
by the swirling waters. There was no doubt that it
was part of the doctor's boat. A fishermán and Patrick
Evans were able to identify it even before a fragment
bearing the name Betty came ashore.


The Disappearance of Dr. Smith 179
No body, however, was washed up, nor anything to
suggest that the doctor had been on his boat.
Certain inquiries necessitated my going to town next
day, and I took the opportunity of going to Chelsea, not
really to see Quarles, but to see Zena. I had no need of
his help in the Riversmouth case, and, had he not been
so anxious to know what I had been doing during the
last few days, I should not have mentioned it.
As it was, I told him the story.
“It’s a strange thing, Wigan, but I have had a pre-
sentiment for the last forty-eight hours that a particu-
larly difficult mystery was coming to me. Have you
any other case in hand or pending?”
“No.”
“Then this may be the one.”
“I don’t think there is much mystery about it,” I
answered. “I expect the body to come ashore pres-
ently.”
“How about the insurance?” asked Quarles.
“The policy is in force with the Meteor Insurance
Company for fifteen thousand pounds. He has paid the
premiums regularly, less commission.’’
“The premiums have been paid by check, I suppose?”
“Yes. The doctor had an account at the Capital and
Provincial here in London. It has never been a large
account, but has been open for a long while. The doc-
tor did all his business by letter, and does not appear
to have been inside the bank for years.”
“If he were in the boat, it is strange his body hasn't
been washed up, isn’t it?” asked Zena.
“I think a body might take longer to come ashore
than wreckage,” I answered. “Or it may have been
caught in another current, and will be thrown up far-
ther along the coast.”


I80 Christopher Quarles
Quarles nodded.
“Of course, there is the possibility that Dr. Smith is
not dead,” I went on, “that he has disappeared inten-
tionally, hoping to defraud the insurance company.
Were you thinking of that, Zena?”
“No; I was only wondering why the body had not
been found.”
“And you, professor?’’
“Oh, I haven’t developed a theory yet! If no body
is found, I presume the company will withhold the pay-
ment of the money for a time.”
“Naturally, I didn’t discuss that question with
them,” I returned. “I imagine no very thorough
search of the doctor's papers has yet been made, for
Mrs. Smith knew nothing definite about the insurance,
and, indeed, very little about her husband's affairs.”
“Well, we must wait for the body,” said the pro-
fessor.
“You have the same opinion as I have, and expect
it to come ashore.”
“I have formed no opinion,” he answered, “but,
judging from your account, I should think the body
will be found presently. When it is I should like to
see it, Wigan. The case doesn’t really interest me yet,
but my presentiment does. When I feel my particular
corner of the web of existence trembling I–but it is
too late to get on my hobby to-night. I'm tired, and I
dare say you and Zena want to have a talk. You're a
lucky dog, Wigan, a very lucky dog.”
He chuckled as he left the room, and Zena and I
looked at each other in astonishment. It was the first
intimation he had given that he knew our secret. He
declared later that he had known it exactly as long as


The Disappearance of Dr. Smith 181
we had, which was probably an exaggeration; but at
any rate it made things easier for us.
I returned to Riversmouth next day, and two days
later the doctor's body was found. As I had suggested
to Zena, it had evidently been caught by another cur-
rent, and was discovered among the rocks in a little
bay about half a mile east of the coves. A lad saw it
from the top of the cliffs and gave information.
I telegraphed to Quarles at once, and he arrived in
Riversmouth that afternoon.
Mrs. Smith, Patrick Evans, and the solicitor, Fergu-
son, had already identified the body when Quarles and
I went to see it at the mortuary.
The professor spent a long time examining the dead
man and his clothing. He was particularly interested
in the collar of his coat, and in certain rents in the
coat and trousers. I must confess he seemed to be look-
ing for a mystery where none existed. A silver watch
found in the dead man’s pocket had the initials “R. S.”
on it, and a signet ring on his finger also bore these
initials. There could be no doubt of the man’s iden-
tity.
“What are you looking for?” I asked.
“Nothing—”
“That presentiment is misleading you.”
“Maybe,” said Quarles.
“There is no doubt that he was drowned, and there
is not the slightest indication that he was the victim
of foul play before he was in the water.”
“I am inclined to agree with you.”
“The only question is whether his death was the re-
sult of an accident or whether he committed suicide.”
“I shouldn’t like to express an opinion,” Quarles re-


I82 Christopher Quarles
turned shortly. “By the way, Wigan, who found the
body?”
“A boy belonging to the town.”
“I suppose we can get hold of him?”
“He is ready to talk to anyone about it.”
“We’ll go and find him,” said Quarles. “I’m stay-
ing in Riversmouth to-night; no, not with you. I don’t
want to be identified with the case in any way. When
is the inquest?”
“The day after to-morrow.”
“Then to-morrow afternoon you might show me
these coves.”
“Certainly.”
“Now for this boy.”
The wind was blowing half a gale as we went through
the town.
“It has been blowing like this ever since the night
the doctor disappeared, hasn’t it?” asked Quarles.
“Worse than this part of the time. What's the
theory, professor?’’
‘‘I’m wondering whether there is not some way of
clearing up the accident or suicide question.”
We found the lad at his home, and Quarles listened
attentively to his graphic description of seeing the
water playing with the corpse as it lay caught on the
rocks.
“Had you gone that way on purpose to see if it had
come ashore?” asked Quarles.
“I had and I hadn’t. You don’t know old Clay, I
suppose. He's a fisherman who thinks he knows every-
thing, and he said it was impossible for a body to be
washed up on that side of the east cliff.”
“And you knew better?”
“It wasn’t that. There were several people standing


The Disappearance of Dr. Smith 188
round at the time, and they laughed at old Clay for
being so positive. He was wrong, you see.”
“Evidently. Do you remember who was there at the
time?”
“I didn’t notice. I was listening to what Clay was
saying. I don’t suppose he’ll talk so much after this.”
Quarles made no comment on what the lad had said
as we walked to the end of the street together, and we
parted after arranging our visit to the coves on the
following afternoon.
Next day about noon I walked up to see Mrs. Smith.
The assistant, Evans, came to me, bringing me her apolo-
gies. Unless it were anything of the gravest impor-
tance, would I mind coming again?
“The fact is, she has been upset this morning,’’ Evans
went on. “A gentleman unexpectedly turned up to
see the doctor about a new patient coming here. He had
not heard of the doctor's tragic death, and Mrs. Smith
had to explain.”
“Very trying for her,” I said.
“And, to make it worse, the man was rather stupid,”
said Evans. “He didn’t seem to understand the posi-
tion, nor why the doctor's death should prevent ar-
rangements being made. He appeared to have got it
into his head that we were unwilling to let him see how
the house was conducted. I was called in to the rescue,
and I took him over the house. If the weak-minded
patient is a relative, I should think the disease is
hereditary.”
“Why?”
“He could not understand any explanation,” said
Evans. “He even selected a bedroom which happened
to be mine, and would go into details why it was ex-
actly the room he desired. Of course, the house is to
7 x


I86 Christopher Quarles
new fact came to light, proving that he was altogether
Wrong. Even Christopher Quarles was not infallible.
Evidently he had noticed the sarcasm in my voice, and
would have me remember how often he had been right.
In the Riversmouth case, I argued, the professor was
hampered by circumstances. He had got it into his
brain that he was called upon to deal with a difficult
problem, and very naturally he saw difficulties where
there were none. I knew from my own experience that
for a detective a preconceived idea is deadly. He can
only see things from one point of view. I was con-
vinced this was Quarles's position, and the straight-
forward evidence given at the inquest next day only
confirmed this conviction.
If doubt remained in anyone’s mind as to the iden-
tity of the body, it was settled beyond all question. A
large sum of money being involved, the insurance com-
pany sent down an official who had seen Dr. Smith
when he called about taking out a policy. He recog-
nized the dead man at once. Quarles was not even
right as regards the verdict. The doctor’s evidence
suggested that there were certain signs of a struggle
which one would not expect to find in a deliberate sui-
cide, but which were natural if a man tried to save
himself from drowning. This, and there being no rea-
son why Dr. Smith should have taken his own life,
and the conviction of his wife and his assistant that
he was not the kind of man to do such a thing, so
impressed the jury that they returned a verdict of
accidental death by drowning.
Here would have been an end of the case had not
the insurance company raised difficulties and made all
sorts of excuses to delay the payment of the money.
Criticism was aroused; letters appeared in the papers.


I88 Christopher Quarles
contrary, then, we may assume that some idea was in
his mind when he bought the boat. He didn’t forget
all about its existence, remember, because twice during
the summer he sent his assistant out in it, and the
assistant pronounces it a very good boat and easy to
manage. Now, what possessed Dr. Smith to go for a
sail on that particular day and at that time of the day?
He was certainly not an ardent yachtsman.”
“Since he was peculiar, it is naturally difficult to
account for his actions,” I said.
“A possible explanation,” Quarles returned.
“He may always have had the idea of suicide at the
back of his brain,” said Zena. “It may have been in
his mind when he bought the boat. If one lives near
the sea and contemplates suicide, it would be natural to
choose drowning.”
“There is much in that argument,” said the pro-
fessor.
“It was in my mind when I said it was curious no
body was washed up with the wreckage,” said Zena.
“That remark of yours set me thinking,” Quarles
went on. “I wondered, Wigan, whether the doctor
was on board the boat when she capsized, or whatever
it was that happened to her. Now my wonder is in-
creased. The waves had battered the boat to pieces,
but when the body is found, caught on the rocks, it is
comparatively uninjured.”
“Doubtless it had been carried farther out to sea,”
I said.
“But it had to come ashore, and the weather was
stormy the whole time. It could hardly have escaped
altogether. There was something else to raise doubt.
There were rents in the coat, rents which were all much
alike, and a curious bulge in the collar of the coat.


The Disappearance of Dr. Smith 189
These things gave me a definite theory. The doctor
was not in the boat, nor had he committed suicide.”
“Are you suggesting murder?”
“I am.”
“At the inquest the doctor distinctly said that there
were no marks on the body to suggest he had been the
victim of foul play. He was drowned; he was not
killed first and put in the water afterward.”
“I quite agree with the doctor's evidence,” said
Quarles, “but he is not a detective. Let me reconstruct
what happened. Dr. Smith came to the cove either
with a companion or to meet someone. Possibly the
doctor had a drink, let us say from a bottle in the
boat's locker. I do not press this point, but it would
make the work easier. The companion pushed the
doctor into the water, and with a boathook—there was
one lying on the rocky ledge—he held him under until
he drowned. Once the hook was fixed into the collar
of the coat it would be comparatively easy. After-
ward a piece of rock tied to the body would keep it
under water. I suggest this could be done with least
danger in the cove next to the one where the boat was
kept. It is deeper, darker, and would not be likely to
receive so much attention when it became known that
the doctor was missing. So the body would be securely
hidden.
“Then the boat, as soon as it was dark enough, was
towed out to the end of the spur and scuttled. The
water is shallow there, and as soon as the wind got
up it was battered to pieces and presently the wreckage
came ashore. Why shouldn’t the body have been left
to come ashore too? you may ask. Old Clay is learned
in the currents of this part of the coast, and he will
tell you there is no certainty what will happen to


I92 Christopher Quarles
“He did.”
“I was the old fool,” said Quarles.
“You?”
“I wanted to see the house and its inhabitants. Mrs.
Smith was upset; she was, in fact, a little afraid of me,
Wigan. I was an unexpected element in the affair.
Patrick Evans is intelligent—very much so; but he did
not give you quite a correct version of what happened.
He was not sent for; he came into the room with Mrs.
Smith and he did most of the talking.”
“Did you make any discovery in the house?”
“Only that Patrick Evans was an important member
in it. Now the fact that only these three people had
identified the body fitted my theory exactly; but when
the insurance official did so, I was puzzled. Still, my
belief is this, that the person taken to the insurance
company by Ferguson was not the same person who
afterward went to Dr. London to be examined.”
“The difficulties your theory gets over, professor,
are enormous.”
“Look at it this way,” said Quarles. “Dr. Smith,
who was a man of no importance, and had done little
in his profession, took a weak-minded patient into his
house. Where he lived at the time we do not know.
This patient may have had friends who died; possibly
he was left on the doctor's hands without adequate
payment. We will suppose, further, that this patient
had peculiarities—a love of being important, of being
somebody, of being flattered, and above all of loving a
secret to an abnormal degree. Except to those who
knew him well, he appeared a normal individual under
ordinary circumstances. We get to facts when we say
that Smith had schemes in his head. He contemplated
insuring his life for a large sum, and we will assume


The Disappearance of Dr. Smith 198
that he meant to reap the benefit himself. How did
he go to work? He took a house at Riversmouth,
where he was unknown, and in due course arrived there
with his wife, who was privy to his scheme, and his
one patient.”
“It was not until he had settled in Riversmouth that
he had patients,” I said. “That fact is established.”
“Let me get to my point, Wigan. It was necessary
that the doctor should have an assistant, so we get
Evans at Riversmouth. The doctor, by flattery, by
pandering to his love of secrecy, suggested to his patient
that he should call himself Dr. Smith. So the scheme
was floated. It must necessarily be a work of time,
during which the doctor must live. He took three
other patients, who were well cared for and looked
after, chiefly by Evans. Through Ferguson, who I sug-
gest became a partner in the scheme, the insurance was
effected. When the time was ripe, Dr. London being
dead, this patient, who had come to be known as Dr.
Smith by the few people who had caught sight of him,
was murdered, drowned, in the way I have suggested,
by the doctor. The wife remained to claim the money.
So we watch her, and through her we shall presently
catch her husband.”
“And the assistant?” I asked.
“I grant, Wigan, that the facts supporting my theory
are not so strong as I could wish; that is why we
cannot act, why we must wait. We have a master
criminal to deal with in Mr. Smith, who remains in
hiding for a time. What he calls himself now I cannot
say, but we know him as Patrick Evans.”
We had to wait a long time. Mrs. Smith even had
the temerity to commence legal proceedings against the
insurance company, and then, probably for the purpose


I94 Christopher Quarles
of getting coached upon some difficult point, she had a
secret meeting with Evans in a restaurant in Soho.
Husband and wife and the solicitor Ferguson were
arrested. Mrs. Smith and Ferguson were brought to
trial and sentenced as accessories before the fact, but
the doctor succeeded in committing suicide in his cell.


I96 Christopher Quarles
At some time between the early closing on Saturday
afternoon and nine o'clock on Sunday morning the
head office of the City, Suburban and Provincial Bank,
in Lombard Street, had been robbed of an immense sum
in gold and valuables. The full amount of the loss had
not yet been ascertained, but it was soon apparent that
the first estimate was below the mark. Banks, as is
well known, always keep a very large sum in gold upon
the premises in case of emergency, and, naturally, ex-
treme precaution is taken for its safety. At the City,
Suburban and Provincial Bank this gold reserve, in
sealed bags, containing definite sums, was in an inner
strong-room. The steel doors of both the outer and
inner rooms had been blown open with an explosive of
immense strength but presumably making little noise.
Several bags of gold had been taken from the inner
safe, and in the outer safe two or three deed boxes
belonging to clients had been forced open, and jewels
stolen from them.
On Saturday the night porter was a man named
Coulsdon, who had been in the service of the bank for
many years. It was his duty to visit every part of the
premises at intervals during the night, and to register
the time of each visit by the telltale clocks provided
for the purpose. He was armed with a revolver, and
by means of an electric bell in the entrance-hall could
communicate, if necessary, with the porter who lived
on the premises.
His vigil ended at nine o'clock on the Sunday morn-
ing, when two clerks arrived to stay in the bank all
Sunday. This was a special duty, especially paid for,
and, as a general rule, each pair of clerks had the duty
for four Sundays, when they were relieved by another
pair. It was the custom for the resident porter to


The Affair of the Stolen Gold 197
admit the clerks at a side door of the bank, opening
into the narrow street turning at right angles to Lom-
bard Street.
Thomas, the resident porter, did this as usual on
Sunday, but no Coulsdon made his appearance. On
glancing at one of the clocks, it was found that no visit
was registered since two o'clock, and it was evident
that something was wrong. The clerks, with Thomas,
the porter, went at once to the strong-rooms, and found
the ruined door and Coulsdon lying, gagged and un-
conscious, in the outer safe. Urgent messages were at
once dispatched to one of the directors and one of the
three general managers, who were known to be in town.
“And to-day is Wednesday,” said Quarles, with a
lift of his eyebrows. “The thieves have a long start.
Now for details, Wigan.”
“The porter, Coulsdon, did not regain conscious-
ness for some hours,” I said. “He can tell us little.
To reach the strong-rooms you have to descend half
a dozen steps, and as he reached the foot of these he
received a blow out of the darkness, whether from a
weapon or a fist only he cannot say, but the effect was
stunning, and he cannot swear what happened after-
ward. He thinks something was thrown over his head,
but he really remembers nothing from the time he was
struck to the time he woke up.”
“An old servant of the bank, you say?”
“Yes, but only recently moved to London. He has
been porter at the Leamington branch. There is a dis-
position to suspect Couldson,” I went on; “and not
without reason, seeing that he is a big, hefty man, who
might be expected to give a good account of himself.
But there is a curious complication. About a month
ago a clerk named Frederick Ewing was summarily


The Affair of the Stolen Gold 199
which seem to support this idea. Quite recently some
repairs to the roof of the building became necessary,
and two men were engaged upon it for three days.
They may have been members of the gang, and it is
curious they have left the employment of the firm which
had the work in hand. So far I have failed to trace
them. Again, an office in this building, occupied by a
man named Bowman, calling himself a mortgage broker,
has remained closed since Saturday. Bowman has not
been there very long, but until now has been regular
in his attendance. I am inclined to think he will not
be seen there again.”
“How much do these bags of gold weigh?” asked
Zena thoughtfully.
“They are very heavy,” I answered.
“But how was the gold got away?” said Zena.
“I can only surmise as to that,” I said with a smile.
“The street which runs beside the bank is somewhat
dimly lighted, and almost opposite to the private door
of the bank there is an archway leading to a small
yard and the premises of Thorne & Co., wine merchants.
The archway is closed by a gate. The locked gate would
present small difficulty to a gang which had carefully
prepared their scheme, and very likely a motor car
was driven under this archway ready to take the spoil
away.”
“It is possible, but I should want to find out some-
thing more about Frederick Ewing,” said Zena.
“I am inclined to think that is a suggestion worth
consideration,” said Quarles. “This is a case in which
one looks for negatives to a series of propositions. We
may ask first, whether a gang, however expert, could
have carried out such a robbery, knowing when and
where to go and what to take, without some help from


200 Christopher Quarles
within. The answer seems to be, no. Was that in-
formation obtained merely through somebody's indis-
cretion? Hardly Only a few people would be ca-
pable of giving the necessary information. Coulsdon,
the porter, might give it. Did he? The fact that he
was knocked insensible does not exonerate him; that
might be part of a prearranged plan. On the whole,
however, Ewing appears to be a more likely person.
He was dishonest, that we know; he was in a position
to give the information; he would be smarting under
the disgrace of his dismissal; an offer of a substantial
payment would, therefore, be tempting; and, more-
over, he is not to be found.”
“I think it very probable that information was ob-
tained from Ewing,” I said. “But it may have been
given without any criminal intention. In my opinion
the planning of the robbery must have begun before
Ewing's dismissal. Besides, though I have failed to
trace Ewing, I do not find anything against him be-
yond this matter of the petty cash. There are no debts
worth mentioning, and no entanglements of any kind
apparently.”
“So we get no definite answer regarding him,” said
the professor; “we must, so to speak, put him aside
for further consideration. Let us get back to the gang
for a moment. That money would require a lot of
moving, Wigan. Assuming Coulsdon to be honest, the
door of the strong-room was intact at two o'clock on
Sunday morning. The tell-tale clock is a witness to
this, and seven hours later the alarm was given. I do
not say that a motor car might not have been loaded
as you suggest and driven out of the city without at-
tracting the notice of the police, but if you ask me


The Affair of the stolen Gold 201
whether it is likely I must decidedly answer in the
negative.”
“The fact remains that the gold was got away,” I
answered. “You cannot alter that.”
“Our methods sometimes clash, Wigan. You make a
theory to fit the facts; I get a theory first, and then
look for facts to fit it. I grant yours is the more
orthodox method; still, what is considered orthodox
has sometimes been shown to be wrong; and as for
facts—well, if I choose to think that this gold has not
left the city, how can you convince me beyond all dis-
pute that it has You can’t. You do not know. For
instance, it might be concealed in this man Bowman's
office. Say you are able to prove that it isn’t, there
are still many other offices in the building where it
might be hidden, ready to be got rid of gradually. At
this stage of the inquiry, at any rate, we are not pre-
pared to guarantee the honesty of all the firms in the
block of buildings adjoining the bank.”
“So that is your theory?” I said, somewhat impressed
by it, I admit.
“No, it isn’t,” said Quarles. “I was merely show-
ing how unstable was your central fact. No, my
theory is quite different.”
“May I hear what it is?”
“I agree with Zena. Continue to hunt for Frederick
Ewing. Get a dozen men on to the business, if you
like. Instruct them to pick up the most trivial items .
of information concerning him. Run his companions
to earth, find out all about his debts, however small
they may be; that’s the line along which you are likely
to pick up the clew. If you can manage to put an-
other detective on the job with you, I am a candidate


202 Christopher Quarles
for the post. I should like to see the strong-rooms and
the window, and to ask a few questions.”
My suggestion that Christopher Quarles should be
associated with me in the inquiry met with some oppo-
sition. The officials of the bank seemed a little nervous
of too much publicity. The fact of the robbery, quite
apart from the actual loss, had injured the bank con-
siderably. However, all objections were overruled.
When Quarles and I went to the bank, we were
requested to walk in and see Mr. Wickstead, who was
one of the three general managers, and he very gra-
ciously apologized to the professor for the difficulties
which had been raised.
‘‘I need not tell you that this is a very serious busi-
ness for us,” he said. “The loss, large as it is, con-
stitutes the least part of the damage. Clients, naturally
enough, are anxious about the security of their own
property, and already some nervous persons have re-
moved their deed boxes.”
“I can quite see the necessity of precaution,” said
Quarles. “You may rely on my discretion. May I ask
whether the full amount of the loss has yet been ascer-
tained?”
“Yes, I think we have now got to the bottom of it.”
“The securities—deeds, bonds, and such-like—have
they been tampered with?’”
“No.”
“The gang must have possessed wonderful knowl-
edge,” said Quarles.
“Marvelous.”
“May I take it, Mr. Wickstead, that there is no sus-
picion of collusion with officials in the bank?”
“You may. Of course, you are aware that we had to
dismiss a clerk recently?”


The Affair of the Stolen Gold 203
“Yes, who cannot be found. I understand that he
would be in a position to give the necessary informa-
tion if he chose to do so?”
“That is true. He was in a position of some im-
portance.”
“With regard to this gold reserve, how often is it
examined?” asked Quarles.
“At intervals, not regular intervals. The unex-
pected inspection is generally considered the best. We
have a staff of inspectors for this purpose.”
“My point is this,” said Quarles; “might the rob-
bery of this gold extend over a period of time, several
weeks, let us say—a bag taken to-day, for instance,
replaced by a dummy one, perhaps, and another bag
taken in three days’ time, and so on?”
Mr. Wickstead smiled.
“This reserve is kept in an inner strong-room. Three
keys are necessary to open the door, and these three
keys are kept by three different persons. I have one.
Three of us have to go together to open that inner
room.”
“Ewing would never be there alone, then?”
“Certainly not,” Wickstead answered. “For my
part, I do not believe Frederick Ewing had anything
to do with the affair at all. The circumstances of his
dismissal naturally make him suspect, but I think that
offense was the beginning and end of his dishonesty.”
“Yet he has disappeared,” said Quarles, “and it
looks as if he had taken extreme care to leave no clew
behind him.”
“He would feel the disgrace keenly, I imagine, and
would wish to efface himself,” the general manager
returned.


204 Christopher Quarles
“There was no question of prosecuting him, I sup-
pose?”
“One of the directors suggested that course, but it
was decided not to do so.”
“Could Ewing possibly have heard that a prosecu-
tion was contemplated?” asked Quarles. “That would
account for his complete disappearance.”
“He certainly could not have heard of it. I am
sorry for Ewing; indeed, I tried to get the directors to
reconsider their decision and give him another chance.
It is a terrible thing for a man to have to face poverty
and degradation like that. All I achieved was to get
laughed at for my sentimentality.”
“Then you would still trust Ewing?”
“I would,” Mr. Wickstead answered with deliber-
ation.
Quarles and I then went to examine the strong-
rooms, which were empty now, the securities having
been removed to other rooms.
A constable was on duty in the passage leading to
them, and materials lying about showed that the work
of fitting new doors was to commence at once. Quarles
put on a particularly heavy pair of spectacles and
produced a high-power pocket lens as well. He ex-
amined the locks and hinges of the ruined doors, and
the various bolts which were thrown by the action of
the turning keys. He carefully scanned the marks and
the ruin which the explosion had made, and also the
steel-bound holes into which the bolts fitted when the
doors were fastened. Both the inner and the outer
strong-rooms were examined with the same close scru-
tiny, and I pointed out to him the spot where the
porter, Coulsdon, had been found, and where the rifled
deed boxes had stood.


The Affair of the Stolen Gold 207
“Yes; I believe that was the general impression.”
“A bit of a dreamer, Wigan, I should say.”
And then the professor thanked the clerk, and we
left the bank.
“We’ve got to find Frederick Ewing,” said Quarles
decidedly. “He is the keystone to the mystery. With-
out definite knowledge concerning him we are power-
less, I fancy. Even if we make an arrest, even if we
arrest a gang of men, we could prove nothing. They
are not likely to be found carrying any of the missing
jewels, and there is precious little evidence to be got
out of a sovereign. Months must elapse before the
jewels, one or two at a time, filter into the market, and
no banknotes or bonds which might further us with a
clew have been taken. Ewing must be found.”
In this direction I was up against a blank wall. I
gave instruction for every shop, every public-house in
the neighborhood of Ewing's lodgings, to be visited,
and practically there was no result. A tobacconist
fancied he recognized a customer from the description
given of him, but that was all. Ewing had once be-
longed to a rowing club at Hammersmith, but had gone
in for little serious practice. And the day after
Quarles and I had visited the bank I drew another
blank. Bowman, the mortgage broker, returned to his
office. Not only was it quite certain that none of the
gold was hidden there, but he explained his absence
so thoroughly that it was impossible to suppose he had
anything to do with the affair.
Two or three days slipped by, days of strenuous
work, which seemed absolutely useless, and then I got a
wire from Quarles asking me to meet him at Chiswick
Station that evening, which I did.
“I must apologize, Wigan,” was his greeting. “It’s


The Affair of the Stolen Gold 209
there was a man named Yerbury living in Fulham;
he was the third of the name Zena had tried, and he
had a niece, Ursula, living in lodgings here in Chis-
wick. She is a typist, and should be home by this time
in the evening. She is expecting an old school friend—
that was the vague message Zena left with her landlady
—she will see us.”
“I congratulate you, professor; it looks as if you
had got on Ewing's track.”
“We shall know better in an hour's time,” he an-
swered. “No. 10 Old Cedar Lane is the address.
Pleasant flavor in some of these Chiswick names.”
There was nothing particularly striking about
Ursula Yerbury, but her personality grew upon one.
The moment we entered her small but comfortable sit-
ting-room it was apparent to me that she was on her
guard. She had expected some old school friend, and
had been tricked. Quarles came to the point at once.
To clear up the mystery of the sensational robbery in
the city, he wanted to find Frederick Ewing. Miss
Yerbury knew him, of course, and could no doubt sup-
ply the information.
- “You have had your journey in vain,” she an-
swered.
“That is a pity,” Quarles said, and in short, terse
sentences he told her the history of the robbery, so
far as we knew it, speaking of Ewing's dishonesty in a
cold, matter-of-fact way, and giving reasons why Ewing
should be suspected of helping a gang.
“Now, my dear young lady, I’m an eccentric,” he
went on. “One petty theft does not make a criminal,
and I do not believe Frederick Ewing is a criminal.
But do not mistake me; if he cannot be found he will
certainly be branded as one.”


210 Christopher Quarles
“I do not know where he is,” she answered firmly,
though her lips quivered.
“Still, you may know enough to help me to clear
his name,” said Quarles.
“You mean—but he told me himself.”
“Ah, that is what I mean,” said Quarles. “You
can tell me something. Take my word for it, you will
be doing Ewing a service by telling me what you
know.”
The professor looked exceedingly benevolent, and his
tone was persuasive. It was so necessary to obtain
information that the means were justified—one cannot
be sentimental in detective work—yet I pitied the
WOman.
“You know that Mr. Ewing was dismissed from the
bank—and why?” she said.
Quarles nodded.
“He did not tell me at first. He wrote to me, say-
ing he had been sent out of town on business. I had
no suspicion that anything was wrong. Some days
later I received a telegram asking me to meet him near
Victoria. It was then he told me of his dismissal. He
had supposed that he would not be prosecuted, but the
bank had, after all, decided to make an example of
him. He had gone away to hide himself. A friend
was helping him to get out of the country, and y 7
“Who was the friend?” asked Quarles.
“Frederick would not say. He had promised not
to tell anyone who he was; indeed, he had promised not
to hold any communication with anyone. The latter
promise he had broken by meeting me. We were—we
are engaged. I would not take back my freedom. He
will write to me presently, and then I shall join him
wherever he is.”


212 Christopher Quarles
said. “My directors are beginning to say that the
publicity is worse than the loss.”
“We go slowly,” I answered; “but for the general
safety publicity is necessary in an affair of this kind.”
“We will not detain you,” said Quarles. “I can see
we have come at an inconvenient time. Just one ques-
tion. Had the locks of the strong-room doors been
repaired recently?”
‘‘No. They were in excellent order.”
“It has not even been necessary to have new keys
made?”
“No.”
Quarles rose, and thanked him; then, as he reached
the door, he paused.
“Oh, it may interest you to know that we have got
on the track of Frederick Ewing,” he said.
“Then there has been some progress. I am glad.
Still, I am afraid Ewing will not be able to throw much
light on this affair. Where is he?”
“Abroad,” Quarles answered. “We expect to have
definite information this afternoon. It is often easier
to find criminals when they go abroad than when they
remain hidden in England.”
When we were outside the bank Quarles began to
chuckle.
“It doesn’t do to let these fellows think we are doing
nothing, Wigan; and, in a sense, we have got on
Ewing's track. We have found the woman. Isn’t that
always considered the great point?”
“This seems to be one of the exceptions which are
supposed to prove the rule,” I answered.
“We’ll get back to Chelsea. I daresay Zena can
give us some lunch.”
From that moment until the three of us retired to


The Affair of the Stolen Gold 213
the empty room after lunch Quarles would not talk
about the case, but when we were in the empty room
he began at once.
“Zena from the first suggested that we must find
Frederick Ewing,” said Quarles; “and her intuition
was right. We know—at least I think we may take it
as an established fact—that a very expert gang has
been at work in London during the past few months,
and it was reasonable to assume that this robbery was
their work, with the help of someone connected with
the bank. Practically speaking, it would have been
impossible without inside and absolutely accurate in-
formation. A process of elimination left Ewing as the
likely person to give this help. We need not go over
all the difficulties the gang would have to contend
with; they were many, not the least being the suc-
cessful removal of the spoil; but I asked myself
whether this gang was not a sort of obsession with us,
whether the robbery might not have been a one-man
job. You will remember I questioned the general man-
ager on the possibility of Ewing being alone in the
strong-rooms, and whether the gold might not have
been removed by degrees. He laughed at the idea, but
ridicule never yet made me give up a theory. I looked
for something to support my theory, and I found many
things. The action of the explosive had been peculiar.
The manner of the damage was not quite what one
would have expected from gelignite, or some equally
powerful preparation. Further, why was Coulsdon
found in the outer safe? It is reasonable to suppose
that he was rendered insensible before the explosion
took place, or he might have heard it. Why, then,
should he be dragged into the safe? A gang would not
have troubled to do this, but, if the job were a one-


214 Christopher Quarles
man affair, the thief might reasonably want to keep
his eye upon the porter in case he should recover con-
sciousness. Now, to come back to the explosion, it
seemed to me that so far as the door of the inner strong-
room was concerned it had not been locked, at any
rate not fully locked, when the explosion took place.
Was there any support to this theory to be found?
Yes. I will show you presently the débris I picked
out of the lock. It contains portions—small, but quite
recognizable—of a key, not polished, as would be the
case if used constantly, but rough. This suggested that
duplicate keys had been made. That key, Wigan, I
believe, was in the lock when the explosion took place.
It was blown to pieces by the explosion, but the burg-
lar must have discovered his mistake, and gathered up
the pieces, for I could discover nothing either on the
strong-room floor or in the passage without. I found
another support to my theory in the window on the
roof. Someone had got out as well as in—got out,
Wigan, to hide, and got in again when the moment for
action had come.”
“But—”
“I haven’t finished yet,” said Quarles, interrupting
me. “Obviously one man couldn’t remove all that
gold and get it away from the city that night. The
robber, with the duplicate keys he had in his posses-
sion, could go to that strong-room when he liked; all
he had to do was to take the precaution that he was
not seen. A very few visits sufficed, no doubt; but on
each occasion he brought away some spoil with him,
which he concealed, I imagine, somewhere in the bank,
where he could easily get at it. The robbery extended
over a period of time, that is my point, and whether


The Affair of the Stolen Gold 215
dummy bags were substituted for those taken, or a
bag was gradually emptied, does not matter.”
“But, my dear professor, your ingenious theory over-
looks the fact that, if it were true, there would be no
use for the final catastrophe-for attacking the por-
ter and blowing up the strong-room.”
“Ah! that brings me to the mental attitude of the
thief. I think we shall find that an inspection of those
strong-rooms was imminent, and the thief was anxious,
first, to make a last addition to his store, and, secondly,
to suggest the work of a gang, and so minimize all risk
to himself. Besides—”
The professor paused. There was a knock at the
door, and the servant brought in a telegram. Quarles
opened it and read it.
“Besides, one has to consider the mental twist a man
may have,” he went on. “We shall probably find in
this case that at the back of the robbery was an awful
dread of the future, of the helplessness and poverty
that might come into it, an abnormal morbidness which
so constantly drives men to strange actions.”
“But how could Ewing manage to conceal himself
in the bank, or get into it even? Everybody knew
him, everybody probably knew of his dismissal.”
“How about the window in the roof?” said Quarles,
handing me the telegram, and I read: “Left early
this afternoon; returned home.”
“That refers to the general manager, Mr. Wick-
stead,” said Quarles. “Probably he does not intend
to remain at home, but we may catch him there. I
have a man watching him. I thought my statement
that we had traced Ewing would frighten him. He is
the thief, Wigan. He is also the friend Ewing spoke
about to Ursula. Yerbury. Don’t you see the clever-


216 Christopher Quarles
ness? He helped Ewing out of the country, after
frightening him by saying that a prosecution had been
decided upon; sent him somewhere where he was not
likely to hear of the robbery, and tried to throw dust
in our eyes by expressing pity for him and a belief in
his innocence.”
“If you are right, what a villain!” I exclaimed.
“An abnormal dread of the future, Wigan; I think
we shall find that is at the bottom of it, and we shall
probably find also that the whole of the spoil is intact.
The law, of course, cannot enter into these curious
mental attitudes. Come! I think we shall provide a
sensation for the world of finance.”
The arrest of Mr. Wickstead when he was on the
point of bolting, and his subsequent confession, cer-
tainly made a sensation; and, as Quarles had surmised,
the whole of the money and the jewels were found
concealed in Mr. Wickstead's house.
The manner of the robbery was much as Quarles had
imagined it, and there is little doubt that Wickstead
was in an abnormal mental condition. But he was not
mad, and was sentenced to a long term of imprison-
ment.
It was a sad case altogether, the only bright spot
in it being the marriage of Ursula. Yerbury to the man
she had trusted, in spite of his lapse from the path of
rectitude.


218 Christopher Quarles
be a too frequent visitor to the public-house bars.
Without his doing anything very outrageous, the po-
sition of black sheep of his family was assigned to
him, and a too puritanical spirit, perhaps, had judged
him to be well on the downward path, when a girl
named Edith Turner, the daughter of a small but pros-
perous farmer at Spilsby, came into his circle. Ac-
cording to all accounts, she was the sort of girl any
man might fall in love with; exactly what she saw in
James Frisby was not so apparent. However, there
was undoubtedly mutual affection; but the girl’s family
strongly objected to the friendship, and the girl her-
self was not to be persuaded to act in opposition to
her father's wishes. Frisby pleaded, made all sorts
of promises for the future, and, when these proved of
no avail, he threw up his situation and went to Aus-
tralia.
There was evidently more in him than people gave
him credit for. Some twenty-five years afterward he
returned to Boston an exceedingly wealthy man, and an
eccentric one. He immediately entered into negoti-
ations to purchase the Towers, a large house some three
miles out of Boston on the Spilsby Road. It had stood
empty a long time, and he spent an immense amount
of money upon alterations and in furnishing it, giving
no information to anyone concerning himself or his
intentions.
Twenty-five years had brought many changes. The
old town nestling, and dozing a little perhaps, under
the great church with its high tower, a landmark far
across the fen country and out to sea, was much the
same; but a new generation of people lived in it.
Frisby's friends had gone, were dead or scattered about
the world, and he had only one relation living, a


The Will of the Eccentric Mr. Frisby 219
nephew, the son of an elder sister. Frisby Morton was
in business in London, was married and doing fairly
well, and had so lost touch with his native place that
he heard nothing about his uncle's return until James
Frisby had settled at the Towers.
Five or six years after Frisby had left Boston, Edith
Turner had become Edith Oglethorpe, the wife of a
farmer. There was nothing to show that she had
grieved very much for her first lover, no suggestion
that she had not been a happy wife and mother. Both
she and her husband were dead when Frisby returned,
and their later years had been clouded with misfor-
tune. Bad harvests and ill-luck had eaten up their
savings, and they had been able to do very little for
their only son. They appear to have had many am-
bitions for him, all of which remained unfulfilled.
James Frisby found the lad, then between seventeen
and eighteen, in a grocer's shop in Wide Bargate, one
of the main thoroughfares of the town, and at once
proposed to adopt him. It was natural that Frisby
should be interested in the son of the woman he had
loved; it was natural, too, that the boy should jump
at the prospect which opened out to him, but it was
curious how quickly these two came to love each other.
For Frisby probably there was in the son something of
what he had loved in the mother; and the lad, no doubt,
saw in the man all those good and lovable qualities
which Frisby took no trouble to exhibit to the world.
A tutor came to the Towers; in due course young
Oglethorpe went to Cambridge, and came home to be
the constant companion of his adopted father. Such
a life would have been bad for most young men, but
Edward Oglethorpe appeared to be an exception to the
rule. He had everybody's good word, not because of


220 Christopher Quarles
his wealthy position, but for his own sake. That he
would come into all Frisby's money no one doubted.
There are few who are not attracted by wealth, and
it was only natural that Frisby Morton should take an
early opportunity of making himself known to his
uncle. He was his only kith and kin; he might reason-
ably hope to reap some advantage from his wealthy
relative. Whether he approached his uncle in too open
a manner, or whether James Frisby had something
against his sister or brother-in-law, some injury which
he had nursed all these years and had not forgiven,
was not known. The one thing certain was that Frisby
disliked his nephew and took some trouble to make his
adopted son dislike him too. Morton persistently paid
flying visits to the Towers, getting small welcome, and
on one occasion there was a quarrel, entirely of his
uncle's making, Morton declared. That there was some
truth in this seemed probable, for shortly afterward
James Frisby wrote to him. It may be he considered
the letter a sort of apology. He said frankly that he
did not like him, and that he didn’t want to have any-
thing more to do with him.
“It isn’t your fault, and it isn’t mine. It just hap-
pens,” he wrote. “Still, I do realize that you are my
nephew, I do understand that you have some reason
for thinking that you have a claim upon me. That I
am a rich man is my attraction for you. I know it;
you need not scruple to admit it. My money will all
go to my adopted son, Edward Oglethorpe; but, as I
have said, you are my nephew, and the enclosed check
recognizes the relationship, and pays for it. Please
understand that it is all you will ever get.”
The ungracious tone of the letter lost some of its
sting by reason of the largeness of the check, which


The Will of the Eccentric Mr. Frisby 221
was for ten thousand pounds. Morton's credit was
none too strong, so it suited his purpose to make no
secret of the gift. To one or two persons in Boston he
showed Mr. Frisby's letter, which suggested that he
realized the finality of the transaction, and seemed con-
tent to drop his uncle's acquaintance. Whether he
really gave up all hope of further advantage was an-
other matter.
James Frisby's death, which occurred about ten
years after his return to England, caused a sensation
not only in Lincolnshire, but throughout the country.
When he was taken ill it was not thought that any-
thing serious was the matter with him, but a stroke
followed, and the doctor pronounced his condition to
be grave. Oglethorpe immediately telegraphed to Mor-
ton. Apparently he had not troubled either to like or
dislike him, and thought it only right that the nephew
should know of his uncle's condition. That Morton
had received ten thousand pounds he was aware, but
he knew nothing of the letter which accompanied the
gift, or he might have hesitated to send for him. Mor-
ton came to the Towers and stayed there. His uncle
had lost all power of speech, hardly seemed to recog-
nize those about him, yet it was evident that some-
thing troubled him. They thought it was the light in
the room. They darkened it, and, that having no
effect, they increased it, but failed to satisfy the old
man, who worked his hands backward and forward as
if he were wringing them at the inability of those by
his bedside to comprehend him. In this manner James
Frisby passed out of life.
The first note of sensation came quickly. No will
could be found, and it was soon rumored that no will
had been made. Mr. Giles, the chief solicitor in Bos-


222 Christopher Quarles
ton, son of the Giles in whose office Mr. Frisby had
started life, had no will in his possession, nor had any
other solicitor in the town; and the advertisements
which appeared in the London and provincial papers
failed to produce any solicitor who had. Diligent
search in the house was without result. Not only was
there no will, but there was not even a scrap of paper
of any kind to indicate what the old man's wishes were.
Mr. Giles, with an eye to business in the future, made
himself agreeable to Frisby Morton, who, if no will
were forthcoming, would come into the property as next
of kin. The general opinion was that no will had been
made, but a servant at the Towers declared that he
and another servant had witnessed their master's sig-
nature to some document soon after Edward Oglethorpe
had come there to live. The other witness had recently
left the Towers, but was easily found in Lincoln. That
they had witnessed the signature to a will neither of
them could affirm; their master had not said what the
document was, but they had supposed it was his will.
They both agreed as to what the paper was like. More-
over, the man who had taken another situation in Lin-
coln gave an item of information which added to the
sensation. Some little time after he had witnessed the
signature, he chanced to meet Mr. Frisby Morton in
Boston, and in the course of conversation had men-
tioned what he had done. He could not say that Mr.
Morton was particularly interested, but he asked sev-
eral questions about Mr. Frisby and young Mr. Ogle-
thorpe. Gossip in a provincial town, especially when
it concerns an affair which everyone is talking about,
is apt to become a serious matter. It did in this case.
It only required someone to say that Morton had been
told of a will for someone else to suggest that he might


The Will of the Eccentric Mr. Frisby 228
know where the will was at the present moment. This
gossip found its way into Mr. Giles's office, and the
solicitor gave immediate advice to his client. Frisby
Morton was furious. Rumors of libel actions were in
the air, not one but many, and Morton declared that
the foul insinuation could only have come from one
source, and expressed his conviction that Oglethorpe
was responsible for it. Oglethorpe, in his turn, was
indignant at being considered capable of such a thing,
and put himself into the hands of Messrs. Lacey, a
London firm of solicitors. It was by their advice that
a reward of a thousand pounds was offered to anyone
who should find the will, or should give such informa-
tion as would lead to its discovery.
It was the publication of this reward which attracted
Quarles's attention.
“A thousand pounds, Wigan,” he remarked. “Shall
we go for it?”
I laughed; I thought he was joking.
“You are not busy, are you; you could give the
time?” he queried.
“It is hardly in my line, is it?”
“Money is in everybody's line,” he returned. “A
thousand divided by three is three hundred and thirty-
three pounds six shillings and eight pence. Zena shall
go with us. Let's get Bradshaw.”
Two days later we were in Boston, comfortably
housed at an old-fashioned hostelry called the Heron.
Before leaving London I had got the outline of the
case, and a few hours in Boston enabled me to fill in
the details of the story as I have set it down here.
We had a small sitting-room at the Heron, as
crammed full of furniture as the room in Chelsea was
empty.


224 Christopher Quarles
“Who could really think in a room like this?” said
Quarles.
“I don’t know whether it’s the fault of the room,” I
answered, “but I have no ideas at all about this af-
fair.’’
Zena laughed.
“Oh! there are plenty of ideas to be had; the most
obvious is that Mr. Frisby never made a will. That
would be my verdict but for one fact: we have an
eccentric to deal with.”
Quarles looked at her fixedly.
“The man who could send ten thousand pounds to his
nephew in the way he did would hardly be likely to
leave any chance open of his ever getting a penny
more,” Zena said. “If he hadn’t made a will before,
I think he would have sat down and made it the mo-
ment after drawing that check.”
“The room doesn’t affect her, Wigan,” said the pro-
fessor. “There’s something in the argument, but I
shall have to get a lonely walk before I can see any-
thing clearly. An eccentric; yes, I think that is a
point to bear in mind.”
Quarles had his walk before breakfast next day, and
afterward he and I called upon Mr. Giles. The solicitor
was evidently not pleased to see us. Since the reward
had been offered by Edward Oglethorpe he looked upon
us as antagonists; but as the professor argued, in his
most suave manner, the finding of the will, if it ex-
isted, must be a satisfaction to everybody, and might
save immense trouble in the future. Possibly Mr. Giles
did not perceive the cynicism in this argument.
“There is no will,” he said with conviction.
“Do you imagine the servants’ statement to be a
fabrication, then?”


The Will of the Eccentric Mr. Frisby 225
‘‘No, but a man wants his signature witnessed to
other documents besides a will. The fact that servants
witnessed this document, whatever it was, suggests a
careless and haphazard way of doing business, a ten-
dency to leave things to the last moment. I believe
Mr. Frisby was that kind of man, and he would be
quite likely to put off making his will until it was too
late.”
“It is possible,” said Quarles.
“Probable, sir, almost a certainty. If there is a
will I shall be more surprised than I have been at
anything in my professional career.”
“Naturally, your conviction greatly impresses me,”
said Quarles.
“Why, sir, his manner on his deathbed confirms my
view,” the solicitor went on. “He was speechless,
practically unconscious, yet undoubtedly troubled
about something. He had left his will too late, sir;
that was the trouble, depend upon it.”
“Your client—I think you act for Mr. Morton—
will profit by the omission. I suppose there is no
doubt whatever that, if a will were found, he would
not be mentioned in it. He had already received his
money, I understand.”
“I have grave doubts on the subject,” Giles an-
swered. “If Mr. Frisby had ever sat down to make a
will, I am inclined to think he would have repented
of the way in which he had treated his nephew. Per-
sonally, if a will exists, I should not be surprised to
find my client residuary legatee.”
“Our friend Giles has missed his vocation, Wigan,”
said Quarles, as he walked back to the Heron, where he
had ordered a carriage to drive us over to the Towers;
5 y


The Will of the Eccentric Mr. Frisby 227
Edward Oglethorpe was prepared for our visit and wel-
comed it. His appearance went to confirm the reports
we had heard of him. He was an upstanding, straight-
forward young Englishman of the best type, one with
whom it seemed impossible to associate any kind of
In eanneSS.
The professor came to the point at once.
“May I take it, Mr. Oglethorpe, you have no reason
to suspect that Frisby Morton has had anything to do
with the disappearance of this will?”
“The idea never suggested itself to me until he
accused me of making such a statement, then—”
“Quite naturally a doubt was raised in your mind,”
said Quarles. “Did it ever occur to you that Mr.
Frisby had treated his nephew badly?”
“No; I knew he did not care for him, but I also knew
he had given him ten thousand pounds. Only since
his death have I known of the letter he sent with that
check. I was, therefore, not aware that he intended
to leave him out of his will.”
“You feel confident there was a will?”
“Mr. Frisby told me I was his heir, and I took it
for granted there was a will. I never saw, I do not
think he actually told me he had made it. As it is, of
course, I naturally have doubts whether it ever was
made.”
Quarles nodded.
“I cannot explain what my adopted father was to
me,” Oglethorpe went on, “nor how keenly I feel his
death. The question of his wealth never troubled me.
I was too happy and contented with him to give a
thought to what my future would be without him.
You can understand how hateful this business, this
quarreling about his money, is to me.”


228 Christopher Quarles
y
“I can, I can,” said Quarles, with ready sympathy,
and with a few dexterous questions he set Oglethorpe
talking about the dead man. Never surely has a man
had his virtues treated more lovingly or his faults so
little remembered. To illustrate some reminiscence of
his adopted father, Oglethorpe led us from room to
room to show us some cabinet or picture. It seemed
to me, as I looked round, that there were a thousand
places where a will might be securely hidden, and my
sympathy went out to this young fellow who stood to
lose what there could be no doubt he was intended to
possess.
We came presently to the old man's sanctum.
Quarles had not asked to see it. He had followed
Oglethorpe, content to listen to him, and only asking a
short question at intervals. He seemed to grow keener
in this room.
“Was he here a great deal?” the professor asked,
looking round.
“He did all his business here, and if he wanted to
talk to me seriously we came in here. He always put
down the check for my college expenses on this table
with, “There, my dear boy, don’t spend it foolishly and
don’t get into debt’—always the same words. I can
hear them now. It is a comfort to me to remember
that I gave him no anxiety on that score.”
“Of course this room has been searched very thor-
oughly?”
“The whole house has been searched from garret
to cellar, but you are at liberty to look where you
please.”
“It would be superfluous labor, no doubt,” Quarles
answered. “Tell me, Mr. Oglethorpe, during this search
were there any surprises? It seems certain that if a


The Will of the Eccentric Mr. Frisby 229
will exists it must be in an altogether unexpected
place. Now were things generally found in unex-
pected places? For example, there is a safe in that
corner, I see; did you by any chance find a pair of old
slippers securely locked up in it?”
“There was nothing so eccentric as that,” said
Oglethorpe, “but certainly we did come across unex-
pected things. Some old pipes were locked in a cabinet
in the drawing-room. We found a mass of worthless
papers in that safe, while some valuable documents
were under some old clothes at the bottom of a drawer
in his bedroom. In that chest by the window, which a
burglar would find difficult to pick, he had locked some
fragments of a worthless china vase, and in this table
drawer, which has no lock at all, he kept the few let-
ters he had received from my mother. He looked upon
them as one of the greatest treasures he possessed, yet
anyone might have opened the drawer and read the let-
ters. Yes, the dear old man was a little eccentric in
that way.”
“Kept his old clothes, useless papers, broken frag-
ments. He did not like throwing things away.”
“That is true.”
“I suppose this room is much as he left it,” said
Quarles, picking up the waste-paper basket and turn-
ing over the papers in it.
“Yes; practically nothing has been moved or altered
in the whole house. I had everything put back ex-
actly where it was found. You notice that even the
paper basket has not been emptied.”
“May I open one or two drawers?” asked Quarles.
“You may search wherever you like,” said Ogle-
thorpe.
For a few minutes Quarles wandered round the room,


The Will of the Eccentric Mr. Frisby 231
slowly forward and downward; the right upward and
backward.
“You are quite sure that those were the exact move-
ments?” said Quarles after watching him closely.
“Quite sure.”
“They were the same the whole time? He did not
vary them?”
‘‘Not once.”
Quarles turned and walked out of the room, and we
followed him. He paused to examine a bronze figure
standing on a pedestal on the landing.
“Do you intend to begin your search at once?”
Oglethorpe asked.
The professor did not answer.
“You can do so when you like,” Oglethorpe went on.
“No,” said Quarles with a start. He was not really
examining the bronze, he was lost in thought. “No,
not at once. I must think it out first. To-morrow,
perhaps. I cannot say for certain.”
It was by no means a hopeful answer, and I won-
dered if Quarles had already made some discovery
which entirely destroyed his theory. His questions and
his insistency on certain points told me that he had
some theory.
We had kept our carriage waiting.
“I’m going to walk, Wigan,” said the professor. “I
must be alone. That road looks pretty flat and unin-
teresting; I shall go that way. It's impossible to think
in that room at the Heron. I may be some hours. By
the way, you might try and find out if Frisby Morton
is in Boston. I might want to see him.”
I drove back to the Heron, and in the afternoon I
made inquiries about Morton. I found that a rumor
had already been circulated in the town that a great
-


The Will of the Eccentric Mr. Frisby 233
necessary to life and well-being, you would find him
doing certain other things, doing them to-day because
he did them yesterday. He acquires a habit. Men do
the same. The more curious these actions are, the more
eccentric the individual becomes. You remember Zena
warned us that we had to do with an eccentric in this
affair, and therefore was inclined to believe in the
existence of a will.”
Zena nodded.
“She based her belief on one point. When Mr.
Frisby gave his nephew such a large sum of money,
disliking him as he did, he would take special care
that he should never touch another penny. A strong
argument. Besides, there was the testimony of the
two servants who had witnessed their master's signa-
ture to some document. On the other side was the
outstanding fact that no will was forthcoming. Men
do not put off making their wills until too late. A
man like Mr. Frisby, it might reasonably be argued,
when making his will, would go to a solicitor. He had
a very large fortune to dispose of; he wished to benefit
a person who had no legal claim on him; he was par-
ticularly anxious that his nephew should not get any-
thing more. His early years in a lawyer's office would
have shown him something of the pitfalls which await
the amateur in legal matters. Further, there was the
obvious distress of the dying man which might mean
that he had neglected to make a will. On the whole,
perhaps, the weight of evidence was against the exist-
ence of a will.”
“He was eccentric,” murmured Zena.
“And more than that—he had made a fortune,” said
Quarles. “Now, to make money a man usually re-
quires to be business-like; and since he was smart


234 Christopher Quarles
enough to make money, he would probably be smart
enough to see that it was disposed of as he wished.
Rich and eccentric. In his case these two facts meant
much. I came to the conclusion, Wigan, that there
was a will. If I was right three possibilities existed.
It might have been destroyed, it might have been stolen,
or it was concealed in some unexpected place. That
Mr. Frisby could destroy it by mistake was hardly
worth consideration, but he might destroy it purposely
either, as Giles hinted, because he felt he had treated
his nephew badly, or because he was dissatisfied with
his adopted son. There is nothing to suggest that his
feelings toward either of these persons had changed in
the least. I think Oglethorpe's conversation to-day bears
that out, Wigan.”
“Certainly,” I answered.
“It might have been stolen. Such a theft could only
profit one person—Frisby Morton, and incidentally, of
course, Mr. Giles, since he would be able to run up a
handsome bill of costs and secure a wealthy client.
We may not like Mr. Giles, but I do not think he would
do anything illegal. What we hear of Frisby Morton
does not tend to prepossess us in his favor. Having
worried his uncle a great deal, he was quickly upon
the scene when he heard that no will had been found.
He knew of the signing of a document from one of the
witnesses. There is a possibility that his conversation
with the servant might have given him an idea where
the document was placed afterward. Further, Mr.
Morton was almost suspiciously ready to resent all gos-
sip concerning himself, and at once attributed it to
Edward Oglethorpe. At the same time, it must be
remembered that he was Mr. Frisby's only living rel-
ative, that, in a sense, young Oglethorpe was an inter-


288 Christopher Quarles
Christopher Quarles insisted on dividing the reward
into three parts. Zena certainly had had a definite con-
viction about the affair from the first, so perhaps earned
her share; but I am very sure I did nothing to deserve
IIlllle.


240 Christopher Quarles
out a man in a box who seemed literally absorbed in
the performance, and said he was a wealthy German
named Seligmann, who was financially interested in the
opera season.
This morning Seligmann was dead, lying limply in
a deep arm-chair in the study of his home in Hamp-
stead. Owing to some misunderstanding I had arrived
before the doctor who had been sent for, and, as I have
said, the sight nauseated me. Downward, through his
neck, a stiletto had been driven, a death-dealing blow
delivered from behind, apparently, but besides this his
face and throat were torn as though some great bird
had attacked him with powerful talons. The description
is inadequate, perhaps, but it was too terrible a sight
to enlarge upon.
Quarles and the doctor arrived at the same time, and
the three of us entered the room together. After look-
ing at the dead man for a few moments, Quarles stood
apart while the doctor made his examination, but I no-
ticed that his eyes were particularly alive behind his
round goggles.
The doctor was puzzled.
“The stiletto killed him,” he said, slowly, looking
at me, “but these other wounds—the sudden explosion
of some vessel might have caused them, but there are
no fragments. It almost looks as if the flesh had been
torn by a rake. He has been dead some hours.”
“Yesterday was Sunday,” I replied, “and this room
was not opened.”
“That accounts for the time,” he said. “The work
of a madman, perhaps. Murder, undoubtedly.”
When the doctor had gone, after he had superin-
tended the removal of the dead man to a small room off
the hall, Quarles moved to the writing-table.


242 Christopher Quarles
“He would be careful not to leave it lying about
after the murder,” I said.
“It wasn’t a man, I fancy, but a woman. Had it
been a man, the glasses on the tray yonder would prob-
ably have been used. Besides, if criminals were always
as careful as you suggest, there are few detectives who
would be able to hunt them down. The very essence of
your profession is looking for mistakes.”
Quarles turned to examine the French window.
“The window was found closed,” I said, “but there
is little significance in that If pulled to from the out-
side it fastens itself.
“And cannot be opened from the outside, I observe,”
said Quarles. “How about the garden door, yonder?”
The house was a corner one. There was a small
square of garden, and in the high wall was a door, an
exit into a side road.
“It was locked,” I answered.
“So, unless the retreating person had a key, he would
have to climb the wall,” the professor remarked.
“That would require some agility.”
“The person who committed so savage a murder
would be likely to have sufficient strength for that,”
I said.
“Quite so,” Quarles returned thoughtfully, crossing
to a leather-covered sofa and looking at it carefully.
“Shall we interview the servants?” he said, after
a pause.
The man who had found his master that morning
was calmer now, and told us a coherent story. Mr.
Seligmann had arrived home just before midnight on
Saturday. They had expected him earlier in the eve-
ning. As he entered the study, he said he was return-
ing to Maidenhead as soon as he had looked through


244 Christopher Quarles
he never shut them. I suppose he considered the high
garden wall sufficient protection.”
“Did anyone come to see your master that night?”
“No.”
In this particular the man was wrong. When, a
few minutes later, the two women servants returned,
one of them—the housemaid—said she had answered
a ring at the bell after the man servant had gone to bed.
It was a young lady. She gave no name, but said that
Mr. Seligmann was expecting her. This was true, for
the master had had her shown in at once.
“He told me not to wait. He would show her out
himself.”
“What was the lady like?” I asked.
“Rather tall and well dressed. She wore a veil, so I
could not see her face very clearly.”
“Was she alone?” asked Quarles.
“Yes.”
“Quite alone?” the professor insisted. “She didn’t
turn to speak to anyone as she entered the house?”
“No.” -
“Did you switch off the light in the hall?”
‘‘I may have done. I do not remember.”
“So late a visitor surprised you, of course?”
“Only because the master was to be in the house so
short a time. He has a great deal to do with profes-
sional people, so we often get late visitors—after the
theaters are over. The mistress—”
She stopped. There was the soft purring of a motor
at the front door, and a moment later the sharp ring
of a bell.
“That is the mistress,” she said.
The door was opened, and a woman came in swiftly,
y


252 Christopher Quarles
get those papers, it will be awkward for you. Could
you swear the writing on the envelope was hers?”
“They could have come from no one else.”
“And you think she murdered Seligmann to get
them?”
“I am not to be trapped into admitting anything of
the sort.”
“As you will, Mr. Marsh. For my part, I expect this
affair will open Miss Wickham's eyes to your—your
true worth.”
And Quarles took up his hat and walked out of the
room. I followed him. In the street he took off his
glasses and put them in his pocket. They were the same
he had worn that morning—a pair he did not often
use.
“The Honorable Percival Marsh is a worm,” he re-
marked.
“Now for Miss Wickham,” said I.
“There is no necessity to see her,” said Quarles.
“I dare say it is true what this worm says. She went
to offer her talent cheap to Seligmann on condition
that he would give her the papers. I can guess what
happened. They talked over the bargain, but Seligmann
refused to do what she wanted, and was able, prob-
ably, to show her that Marsh was a worthless scoundrel.
Unless something of this sort had happened she would
have written to Marsh to tell him she had been unsuc-
cessful. I have little doubt Seligmann treated her in
a fatherly manner, and then let her out through the
garden, perhaps because he found the light in the hall
was out. He returned to find—I am not sure yet what
it was he found in his study, but nothing to alarm him,
I am sure. To-morrow we will go to Maidenhead, Wi-
gan, and see what servants are at the cottage.”


254 Christopher Quarles
“Do you happen to know the Honorable Percival
Marsh?” asked Quarles.
“Yes. He's been here, but not lately. The mistress
lunches with him in town sometimes. She seems to
think more of him than I do. There’s nothing in it.
I’ve heard her laugh at him with the master.”
“Is that the only dog about the place?” said Quarles.
“Yes. He’s a pet; usually goes up to the opera with
the mistress. He went on Saturday, and came back
like that on Sunday. He snapped at her in a fright-
ened way when she came in here in the morning and
got a hiding for it. I was afraid he’d go for her.”
Quarles gave a short exclamation underneath his
breath, and then he said in rather an agitated way:
“We’ll go in and see Mrs. Seligmann, Wigan.” And
as we left the yard he went on: “You must make the
servant show us in to her mistress without announcing
us. We must take Mrs. Seligmann unawares.”
The servant proved difficult to persuade, and I had
to explain who I was before she yielded. Mrs. Selig-
mann sprang from the sofa as we entered. She looked
wild, almost mad, as the chauffeur had said, but she
recognized us and forced herself to welcome us.
“What are you here for?” she said, and I started.
There was the suggestion of a snarl in her voice.
“We believe your husband was murdered by Percival
Marsh,” said Quarles quietly.
‘‘It’s a lie!” she shrieked.
“How comes it, then, that he has those papers which
were in your husband's possession?”
In a moment she had hurled herself upon the pro-
fessor, and had snapped at the hand which he threw
out to protect himself. Her strength was awful, and
all the time we were struggling with her she fought


The Case of the Murdered Financier 255
with her nails and teeth, and growled like an infuri-
ated animal. Her clothes were partly torn from her
in the struggle, and—but it was too ghastly to enlarge
upon. She was an animal in the form of a beautiful
woman. The house was quickly roused, and we had
to have the chauffeur's help before we could bind her
securely. Then I telephoned to Maidenhead for the
police.
“I thought a dog had helped, Wigan; that was my
theory,” said Quarles as we went back to town. “I
noted that a dog had trodden on the polished skirting
near the study sofa. Miss Wickham might have had a
dog, that is why I questioned the housemaid so closely
to make sure she entered the house quite alone. When
we were brought in contact with Marsh I suspected
Mrs. Seligmann. Those glasses I wear sometimes are
curious, acting like opera-glasses, and they enabled me
to see a portrait of Mrs. Seligmann standing back on a
corner table, and, moreover, that it was signed. Marsh
evidently knew her well; was in love with her, perhaps,
and she with him. My saying that he had first been
to River Mansions in the morning was guesswork, but
by his not denying it, the fact was established that
the papers must have come into his possession, or why
should he have gone there? He must have known that
Miss Wickham usually went away on Saturday or Sun-
day and did not return till late on Monday. I argued
that Mrs. Seligmann might have sent them, and that
Marsh suspected this, hence his visit to Miss Wickham
to make certain. It may be true that he did not know
she was going to Seligmann on Saturday night, and
if he heard from the porter that she had left town on
Saturday afternoon he would know that the papers
could not have come from her. He would hear from


The Case of the Murdered Financier 257
him, and was quite in agreement with her husband
when he said he would presently punish him by using
the papers he held. He was expecting his wife to call
for him that night in a taxi. She came, and killed
him. -
I am thankful to say that a fortnight after her ar-
rest Mrs. Seligmann died.


The Strange Affair of the Florentine Chest 261
it a business aspect, but the room was crowded with
costly furniture which fancy might suppose had once
belonged to some unfortunate debtor who had been un-
able to satisfy Mr. Portman's demands. Some good pic-
tures hung upon the walls, and in a recess opposite
the door stood an old chest heavily clamped with iron.
The key, which might have hung at the waist of a
medieval jailer, so huge was it, was in the lock, which
was evidently out of order. When I turned the key
the lid would not open. Looking through the drawers
in the desk, I found several letters which showed that
Mr. Portman’s business was often with well-known peo-
ple—men one would not expect to find associated with
him in any way—and the sums involved were often so
large that only a rich man could deal with them.
Mrs. Eccles answered my questions without any hesi-
tation. Whatever the world might think of Mr. Port-
man, she appeared to have a genuine affection for him.
She had noticed no change in him recently; he had ap-
peared to her to be in his usual health and spirits.
“When you went for the tray and found the door
locked, did you think he had anyone with him?” I
asked.
“I didn’t hear anyone, but I can’t say I listened. It
was not the first time I had found the door locked and
been told to go back presently for the tray.”
“A friend was to dine with him on the following
night. Did the friend come?”
“No.”
“What was his name?”
“Mr. Portman did not mention it.”
“Did you prepare the dinner?”
“No.”
“Why not?” I asked. “You did not communicate


The Strange Affair of the Florentine Chest 263
notes, and there was not the slightest indication that
any of the papers had been touched. It was quite evi-
dent, however, that a number of people would profit by
Portman's death, especially if he should die suddenly
and leave no one to carry on his business; and this was
precisely what had happened. Not a relative or friend
had come forward to lay claim to anything, and many
of his debtors were likely to go free. Among these was
Lord Stanford, one of the names the clerk had given
me as recent visitors, and I went to see him, only to find
that he had left England the day after Portman's dis-
appearance. He had gone to Africa, and that was all
I could discover.
Another man who had called upon Portman recently,
and whom I went to see, was a Mr. Isaacson. From
him I obtained an interesting piece of information. He
had seen Portman in Finsbury Pavement on the eve-
ning of his disappearance. He must have met him
some ten minutes after he had left his house.
“I stopped to speak to him, but he was in a hurry,
and did not stop,” said Isaacson.
“I suppose you were not due to dine with him on
the following evening?” I said.
“Dine with him? No, I have never had that honor.
I do not think you quite appreciate Mr. Portman's
position. I lend money in a small way, there are many
like me, and if, as occasionally happens, business comes
to us which is too large for us to deal with, we go to
Mr. Portman. The business is carried through in our
names, but Mr. Portman is the real creditor.”
In his own way Mr. Portman was a man of impor-
tance, and a man of mystery. There was nothing to
suggest he was dead, and it was quite possible that


264 Christopher Quarles
some crooked business had kept him from home unex-
pectedly.
I chanced to go and see Christopher Quarles one
evening when I got to this point in my investigations,
and he at once began to ask questions about the Fins-
bury affair. I had not intended to enlist his help. I
was quite satisfied with the progress I had made, but
he was so keen about the mystery that I told the whole
story to him and Zena.
“You seem very interested,” I said, when I had
finished.
“I am. Mr. Portman has been talked about before
now, and I remember I once had a theory about him.”
“Does the present affair help to confirm that theory?”
I asked.
He shrugged his shoulders.
“It might be interesting to know why Lord Stanford
has gone abroad,” he said.
“That is exactly the line I am following,” I returned.
“I should like to know something about the man who
was coming to dinner and did not come,” said Zena.
“It is curious that he should have heard so quickly
of Mr. Portman's death, and more curious still that
- .
he should make no inquiries.”
“Lord Stanford may be able to tell us something
about him,” I said.
“Zena makes a point, Wigan,” said Quarles. “It is
rather a complicated puzzle. Of course, Portman may
not be dead, but if he is alive why should he run the
risk of a police search among his papers? He would
know that such an investigation would be likely to
do him harm. He would hardly run such a risk.
Since Mr. Isaacson saw him in Finsbury Pave-
ment he has vanished completely. He left the gas


266 Christopher Quarles
“What would yours be?”
“I should like to talk to Mrs. Eccles and the clerk.”
When Quarles solved a case his explanation was usu-
ally so clear that one could only marvel that the salient
points had not been apparent to everybody from the
first; when he was considering the difficulties it seemed
impossible that the mystery could ever be solved. As
I listened to him I felt that his help was necessary in
this affair.
“Why not come with me to Finsbury?” I said.
“I will to-morrow,” he answered. “By the way,
Wigan, wasn’t it foggy on the night of Portman's dis-
appearance?”
“It was, dear,” said Zena. “Don’t you remember,
I went to see some people at Highgate that day and
was late for dinner?”
Quarles nodded and changed the conversation; he
had done with the affair until to-morrow.
When I met him next morning, wrapped in a heavy
cloak, for it was cold, I could not help thinking that he
looked the very last man in the world to solve an intri-
cate mystery. He was the kind of old gentleman who
would annoy everybody by asking foolish questions and
telling stories which had grown hoary with age.
“I’m a simple old fool, Wigan, that’s my character,”
he said, guessing my thoughts; “and, if you can look
annoyed with me and show irritability, so much the
better. Where does Isaacson live? I should like to see
him first.”
I found it quite easy to be irritable. When we called
on Isaacson, Quarles asked him the most ridiculous
questions which certainly had nothing whatever to do
with Portman, but in a vague way concerned the theory
and honesty of money-lending.
y


276 Christopher Quarles
passage, but hardly dark enough to deceive the clerk.
Another difficulty was how a stranger could get into
the house without being seen. Both difficulties van-
ished when the clerk told us of the man who called
selling patent files. He had a bag, Wigan, containing
more than samples of files, I warrant—means of dis-
guise as well. We know how easy it is to let the front
door slam and remain in the house. I think the file
seller practiced the same trick we did. Even to going
to Portman's room and hiding behind the screen. You
see, the office windows are frosted, so the clerk cannot
see whether anyone leaving the office passes into the
street or not. If there is something fantastic in this
theory, let me pursue it to the end. If I am right, one
thing is certain: this file seller knew Portman well.
He must have come prepared to make himself up like
him. He was able to answer Mrs. Eccles when she
knocked at the door and deceive her. Granted that he
knew Mr. Portman well, we may assume that he was
in some way associated with him in business. Only one
man left that room, therefore, as things stand, we may
assume that these two men were enemies who had once
been friends. Here let me be imaginative for a mo-
ment. Mr. Portman was expecting a friend to dine with
him on the following night, an important person, since
the feast to be prepared was, according to Mrs. Eccles,
somewhat elaborate. The sumptuousness of a feast may
mean great friendship, but it may be used to hide in-
tense enmity. You read such things in the history of
the Medici of Florence. I believe, Wigan, that the feast
was prepared for this same file seller, that the wine,
which Mr. Portman was looking after himself, remem-
ber, would have proved unwholesome for the guest, who,


The Strange Affair of the Florentine Chest 277
distrusting Portman, came a day earlier and removed
his enemy.”
“A little imaginative,” I said.
“Imagination bridges the intervals between facts,”
Quarles answered. “We get again to a fact—the iron-
bound chest. It links the two men together. I have
no doubt the file seller knew of its peculiar mechanism
as well as Portman did. You could not open it, and,
since the key was in the lock, no mystery about it, you
naturally did not think it of much importance. When
together we succeeded in opening it I found on the floor
of it a tiny stain. I thought it was a blood stain, but
I was not sure. At any rate, the measurements of the
chest were such that a body might be pressed in it.
Frankly, I admit I expected to see Portman's body
when we raised the lid. For the sake of some docu-
ments—it is impossible to say what they were—I be-
lieved this file seller had murdered Portman, taken his
key, opened the safe, taken the papers he wanted, thrust
the body into the chest, and had then departed in the
character of his victim, flinging the safe key under the
bookcase as he went. As there was no body I wondered
whether Mrs. Eccles or the clerk, or both, were accom-
plices of the murderer; whether that chest might not
conceal a secret entrance to the room. The idea did
not fit my theory very well, but I laid a trap, and you
know the result, Wigan. The action of shutting that
chest opens the bottom of it, so that whatever is placed
in it falls out as soon as the lid is closed and locked.
I believe the body of Portman was in it and had got
caught somehow—that was why you could not open
it, why we could not open it until we had hammered it
about, and by constant working upon the lid had re-
leased the body. I feel certain that chest had its home


278 Christopher Quarles
in Florence; that is why I suggest an Italian may be
the criminal. He may have been long resident in
England, of course; certainly he is a man who speaks
English perfectly, or the clerk would have described
him as a foreigner.”
“But the body—where is it?” I asked.
“I’ve been to the British Museum to-day,” said
Quarles, taking up the rough sketch from his desk.
“This is a copy of an old map of the Finsbury district,
and here I find was one of the old plague pits. I be-
lieve Portman's house stands on this plot.”
It was a very rough sketch, but, as I compared the
place the professor had indicated with the old land-
marks and their modern equivalents which he had
marked, there could be little doubt that Quarles was
right.
“I do not suppose that Portman's is the first
body that has passed through that chest and slid down
into some hole which was once a part of this pit,” he
went on. “I asked Mrs. Eccles about a squinting youth.
He was a young fool with expectations, just such an-
other as Lord Stanford. He was robbed right and left,
and it is quite certain Portman, among others, made
money out of him. He disappeared suddenly. It is
possible Lord Stanford might have disappeared in a
similar way had not his friends got him out of the
country. Portman didn’t have that chest fixed to the
floor of his room for nothing. You may find the solu-
tion to more than one mystery, Wigan, when you move
that chest.”
Portman's body and the remains of at least three
other bodies were found in the deep hole under the old
house in Finsbury. How the hole had come there, or
how Portman had discovered it, it was impossible to
2


The Strange Affair of the Florentine Chest 279
guess, but there could be little doubt that he had only
been treated as he had treated others. And some six
months afterward a man named Postini was knifed in
Milan, and the inquiry into his murder brought to light
the fact that he had been closely connected with Port-
man. They had worked together in London, in Paris,
and in Rome. At the time of Portman's death they had
quarreled, and at that time Postini was in London.
Among Portman's papers I found none relating to Pos-
tini; no doubt the Italian had taken them, for Port-
man's letter, asking him to dine and to become true
friends again, was found among the Italian's papers.
There can be little doubt, I think, that Quarles was
right. Portman intended to rid himself of the Italian
after giving him a sumptuous feast, but Postini, wholly
distrusting his former comrade, had come a day before
his time, and been the murderer instead of the victim.


CHAPTER XVI
THE SEARCH FOR THE MISSING FORTUNE
HENEVER he had solved a case, if not to the
world's satisfaction, to his own, Quarles seldom
mentioned it again. He professed to think little of his
achievement, a pose which I have no doubt concealed a
considerable amount of satisfaction and self-compla-
cency. Of the curious case connected with the Bryants,
he was, however, rather proud; and, since it resulted in
making things easier for Zena and me, I have every
reason to be satisfied.
It began in a strange way. A simple looking old
man, his clothes a size too large for him, walked into
a large pawnbroker's one day, and, handing him a scarf-
pin, asked how much could be given for it. The pin
was no use to him. He didn’t want to pawn it, but to
sell it. The customer was requested to put a price upon
his property, and, after some hesitation, he asked
whether twenty pounds would be too much. The man
in the shop went into a back room ostensibly to consult
his superior, in reality to send for the police. It hap-
pened that a quantity of jewelry had been stolen from
a well-known society lady a few weeks before, and
pawnbrokers had had special notice of the fact; hence
the firm's precaution. The simple old man had offered
for twenty pounds a diamond that was worth at least
twenty times that amount.
Being interested in the jewel robbery, I was naturally
280


284 Christopher Quarles
“Did the relatives respect the old man's wish and
have the body cremated ?” Zena asked.
“No ; he was buried in a cemetery at Kingston.”
“Then they don’t deserve to find the money, and I
hope they won't.” -
“I do not like the relatives,” I returned; “but in
this matter there is something to be said for them.
They have always been opposed to cremation, a fact
which Mr. Ottershaw knew quite well, and, recognizing
the contemptuous tone of the will, not unreasonably, I
think, they decided that the wish was expressed only
to annoy them, and that their uncle had no real desire
to be cremated.”
“One of your absurd questions,” said Quarles.
“It seems to me I have never asked a more natural
or a more sensible one,” said Zena.
“I won’t argue, my dear,” Quarles returned. “I
presume that paper you have there, Wigan, is a copy of
the wording of the will?”
“Yes,” and I handed it to him.
“Of course, you do not think Sims has any connec-
tion with this jewel robbery you have been engaged
upon?”
“No ; he would not be selling so valuable a stone for
twenty pounds.”
“And you have come to the conclusion that his story
is a plain statement of facts?”
‘‘I think so.”
“You are not sure?”
“Well, one cannot close one's eyes to the possibility
that he may dislike the Bryants as much as his master
did, and may be keeping his master's secret,” I an-
swered.
»


286 Christopher Quarles " … . .
in a riddle where the treasure is hidden. He was alone
in a room. He didn’t send the treasure out of the
house. The statements are so deliberate that I am in-
clined to believe in a treasure of some sort.”
“So am I,’” I answered, “because of the valuable pin
he gave to his man.”
“When was this will made?” asked Quarles.
“Nine years ago.”
“Living as he did, he would hardly spend his pen-
sion,” the professor went on. “Money would accumu-
late in nine years, and, since there is no evidence that
he did anything else with it, we may assume that the
hoard was periodically added to, and, therefore, he must
have placed it where he could get at it without much
difficulty.”
For a moment Quarles studied the paper.
“I think we may take his statements literally,” he
went on; “so unless the treasure was very small, small
enough to be concealed inside a brick, it seems obvious
that it was not hidden in the walls of the house, or it
would have been found in the process of pulling down.”
“If we are to be quite literal, we must remember
that he says brick by brick,” I pointed out. “It might
therefore be hidden in a brick.”
“I have thought of that,” Quarles returned; “but in
pulling down bricks would get broken, especially a hol-
low brick, as this would be. I think we may take the
words to mean only total demolition, and that there is
no special significance in the expression “brick by
brick.’ Burning does away with the idea that the
treasure may be hidden in woodwork.”
“If he put it under a ground floor room or under a
cellar neither pulling down nor a fire would disclose it,”
said Zena.


The Search for the Missing Fortune 289
“Mr. Ottershaw gave you no such instructions, I
suppose,” said Quarles.
“The only instructions he gave was that I was to
lay him out, and to see him put into his coffin if he was
buried, and, whatever happened, to see him decently
carried out of the house. There was some talk of his
being cremated, and I suppose the master didn’t know
how they would take him away then. No doubt he
thought the Bryants would have a woman to lay him
out, so he left a letter for me to show them. The mas-
ter always did hate women.”
“And you did this for him?”
“Gladly, and I helped the undertaker lift him into
the coffin. I was there when he was screwed down, so
were Mr. George and Mr. Charles. There was nothing
but the body buried, nothing.”
“The Bryants wouldn’t have him cremated, I under-
stand,” said Quarles.
“And quite right, too,” said Sims. “It’s a heathen-
ish custom, that’s what I think.”
“And you don’t believe there was any large sum of
money?”
“No, I don’t. I should have seen some sign of it.”
“Your master gave you a very valuable pin,” said
Quarles; “I don’t suppose you had seen that before.”
“It’s true, I hadn't.”
“There may have been other valuables where that
came from.”
‘‘I don’t think it,” said Sims. “I don’t believe the
master himself knew it was so valuable.”
As we walked up the Fulham Road I asked the pro-
fessor what he thought of Sims.
“Simple—and honest, I fancy.”
“You’re not quite sure?”


292 Christopher Quarles
On our way back to town I asked Quarles whether
he expected to get the permission.
“Certainly I do. George Bryant is too greedy for
money to miss such a chance.”
“And do you really mean that you can find the
money?”
“At any rate, I mean the Bryants to pay heavily
for it if I do.”
Quarles was right. Three days later the permit and
the required document arrived, and we went to Nor-
biton.
As I had visited the house already, I was prepared
to act as guide to the professor, but he showed only a
feeble interest in the house itself. The only room he
examined with any minuteness was the bedroom Mr.
Ottershaw had used, and he seemed mainly to be prov-
ing to his own satisfaction that certain possibilities
which had occurred to him were not probabilities.
“There’s a ten per cent. reward hanging to this,
Wigan,” he chuckled. “We’re out to make money on
this occasion. Bryant seems to have spoken the truth.
The place appears to be much as Mr. Ottershaw left it.”
He had opened a cupboard in the bedroom, and took
up two or three pairs of boots to look at.
“Large feet, hadn’t he? Went in for comfort rather
than elegance. I never saw uglier boots. But they are
well made, nothing cheap about them.”
“You don’t expect to find the money in his boots, do
you?”
“Never heard of hollow heels, Wigan?” he asked.
“You couldn't hide much money if every boot in
the house had a hollow heel.”
“No, true. I wasn’t thinking of hollow heels par-
ticularly.”


296 Christopher Quarles
least trodden down—indeed, showed little wear either
inside or out. I wonder if Sims could explain this?”
Zena was leaning forward, her eyes fixed upon the
professor, and I was thinking of a boot with a hollow
heel.
“Let’s go back to the will for a moment,” said
Quarles. “Although Mr. Ottershaw desired to be cre-
mated, he did not put it in the form of a condition, as
he might reasonably have done. He even mentions the
expense, and, in fact, gives his relatives quite a good
excuse for not doing as he desires. It seems to me he
didn’t care much one way or the other, and that his
object was to make the relatives suffer for their greed,
and suffer all the more because he didn’t actually leave
the money away from them. It was Zena’s absurd
question, Wigan, and her anger that the Bryants had
not carried out the old man’s wish, which gave me the
germ of a theory. I believe if they had had him
cremated they would have found the treasure. He
gave them a chance which they lost by burying him.”
“Then you believe Sims carried out his master's
wishes?” I said.
“I do.” -
“And managed to have the treasure buried with .
him?”
“I do not believe Sims knows anything about a
treasure,” said Quarles; “and I think he speaks the
truth when he says that nothing but the body was
buried. But Sims knew more about his master than
anyone else. He could tell us something about their
doings in Switzerland and Germany, for instance. He
was very fond of his master, and was trusted by him.”
“We want to know what happened just after Mr.