The Stowmarket Mystery by Louis Tracy (best classic books of all time TXT) 📕

“Surely you had some motive for your remark?” questioned David. “The only remaining relative is Mrs. Capella.”

“There again—how do you define the word ‘relative.’ I suppose, Mr. Brett, you are fairly well posted in the history of our house?”

“Yes.”

“Well, has it never struck you that there was something queer about the manner of my Uncle Alan’s marriage—Margaret’s father, I mean?”

“Perhaps. What do you know about it?”

“Nothing definite. When I was a mid-shipman on board the Northumberland I have a lively recollection of a fiendish row between a man named Somers and another officer who passed some chaffing remark about my respected uncle’s goings on in Italy. The officer in question had forgotten, or never knew, that Sir Alan married Somers’s sister—they were Bristol people, I think—but he stuck to it that Sir Alan had an Italian wife. He had seen her.”

Brett was driving, Frazer sitting by his side, and David leaning over the rail from the back seat. Had a bombshell dropped in their midst the two others could not have been more startled than by Robert’s chance observation.

“Good Heavens!” cried Hume, “why has Capella gone to Italy?”

“That question may soon be answered,” said Brett.

“Was that one of the other reasons you hinted at in the library when telling us why you did not volunteer evidence at the trial?” he asked Robert.

“It was. The cat is out of the bag now. I did not know where the affair might end, so I held my tongue. It also accounts for my unwillingness to meet Capella. I am very fond of Margaret. She is straight as a die, and I would not do anything to cause her suffering. In a word, I let sleeping dogs lie. If you can manage your matrimonial affairs without all this fuss, Davie, I should advise you to do the same.”

“What are you hinting at? What new mystery is this?” cried Hume.

“Let us keep to solid fact for the present,” interposed the barrister. “I wish I had met you sooner, Mr. Frazer. I would be nearing Naples now, instead of entering Stowmarket Have you any further information?”

“None whatever. Even what I have told you is the recollection of a boy who did not understand what the row was about. Where does it lead us, anyhow? What is known about Capella?”

“Very little. Unless I am much mistaken, he will soon tell us a good deal himself. I am beginning to credit him with the possession of more brains and powers of malice than I was at first inclined to admit. He is a dangerous customer.”

“Look here,” exclaimed Robert angrily. “If that wretched little Italian annoys Margaret in any way I will crack his doll’s head.”

They reached the hotel, where a room was obtained for Frazer, and David undertook to equip him out of his portmanteau. Brett left the cousins to arrange matters, and hurried to his sitting-room, where a number of telegrams awaited him.

Those from Hume he barely glanced at. David could tell his own story.

There were three from Winter. The first, despatched at 1.10 p.m., read:

“Capella and valet left by club train. Nothing doing Japanese.”

The second was timed 4.30 p.m.:

“Jap, accompanied by tall, fat man, left home 2.45. They separated Piccadilly Circus. Followed Jap—(“Oh, Winter!” groaned Brett)—and saw him enter British Museum. Four o’clock he met fat man again outside Tottenham Court Road Tube Station. They drove west in hansom. Heard address given. Am wiring before going same place.”

This telegram had been handed in at an Oxford Street office.

The third, 7.30., p.m.:

“Nothing important. All quiet. Wiring before your local office closes.”

The facetious Winter had signed these messages “Snow.”

Brett promptly wrote a telegram to the detective’s private address:

“Your signature should have been ‘Frost.’ If that fat man turns up again follow him. Call on Jap and endeavour to see his wife. You may be sadder but wiser. Meet me Victoria Street, 5 p.m. to-day.”

He called a waiter and gave instructions that this message should be sent off early next morning. Then he lit a cigar to soothe his disappointment.

“I cannot emulate the House of Commons bird,” he mused, “or at this moment I would be close to Jiro’s flat in Kensington, and at the same time crossing Lombardy in an express. What an ass Winter is, to be sure, whenever a subtle stroke requires an ingenious guard. Jiro dresses his wife in male attire and sends her on an errand he dare not perform himself. The fact that they depart together from their residence is diplomatic in itself. If they are followed, the watcher is sure to shadow Jiro and leave his unknown friend. Just imagine Winter dodging Jiro around the Rosetta Stone or the Phoebus Apollo, whilst the woman is visiting some one or some place of infinite value to our search. It is positively maddening.”

Perhaps, in his heart, Brett felt that Winter was not so greatly to blame. The sudden appearance on the scene of a portly and respectable stranger was disconcerting, but could hardly serve as an excuse for leaving Jiro’s trail at the point of bifurcation.

Moreover, it is difficult to suspect stout people of criminal tendencies. Winter had the best of negative evidence that they are not adapted for “treasons, spoils, and stratagems.” Even a convicted rogue, if corpulent, demands sympathy.

But Brett was very sore. He stamped about the room and kicked unoffending chairs out of the way. His unfailing instinct told him that a rare opportunity had been lost. It was well for Winter that he was beyond reach of the barrister’s tongue. A valid defence would have availed him naught.

David entered.

“I just seized an opportunity—” he commenced eagerly, but Brett levelled his cigar at him as if it were a revolver.

“You want to tell me,” he cried, “that before you were two hours in Portsmouth you ascertained Frazer’s address from an old friend. You caught the next train for London, went to his lodgings, encountered a nagging landlady, and found that your cousin had taken his overcoat to the pawnbroker’s to raise money for his fair to Stowmarket You drove frantically to Liverpool Street, interviewed a smart platform inspector, and he told you—”

“That all I had to do was to ask Brett, and he would not only give me a detailed history of my own actions, but produce the very man he sent me in search of,” interrupted David, laughing. Nothing the barrister said or did could astonish him now.

“What has upset you?” he went on. “I hope I made no mistakes.”

“None. Your conduct has been irreproachable. But you erred greatly in the choice of your parents. There are far too many Hume-Frazers in existence.”

“Please tell me what is the matter?”

“Read those.” Brett tossed the detective’s telegrams across the table.

Hume puzzled over them.

“I think we ought to know who that fat man was,” he said.

“We do know. She is a fat woman, the ex-barmaid from Ipswich. Next time, they will send out the youthful Jiro in a perambulator.”

“But why are you so furious about it?” demanded Hume. “Was it so important to ascertain what she did during that hour and a quarter?”

“Important! It is the only real clue given us since ‘Rabbit Jack’ saw a man like you standing motionless in the avenue.”

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Brett devoted half an hour to Frazer’s business affairs next morning. David was present, and the result of the conclave is shown by the following excerpt from a letter the barrister sent by them to Mrs. Capella, incidentally excusing his personal attendance at the Hall:

“In my opinion, your cousin David and you should guarantee the payment of the land-tax on Mr. Frazer’s estate—£650 per annum—for five years. You should give him a reasonable sum to rehabilitate his wardrobe and pay the few small debts he has contracted, besides allowing him a weekly stipend to enable him to live properly for another year. I will place him in touch with sound financial people, who will exploit his estate if they think the prospects are good, and you can co-operate in the scheme, if you are so advised by your solicitors, with whom the financiers I recommend will carry weight. Failing support in England, Mr. Frazer says he can make his own way in the Argentine if helped in the manner I suggest.”

He explained to the two young men that his movements that day would be uncertain. If the ladies still adhered to their resolve to proceed to London forthwith, the whole party would stay at the same hotel. In that event they should send a telegram to his Victoria Street chambers, and he would dine with them. Otherwise they must advise him of their whereabouts.

Left to himself, he curled up in an arm-chair, knotting legs and arms in the most uncomfortable manner, and rendering it necessary to crane his neck before he could remove a cigar from his lips.

In such posture, alternated with rapid walking about the room, he could think best.

The waiter, not knowing that the barrister had remained in the hotel, came in to see what trifles might be strewed about table or mantelpiece in the shape of loose “smokes” or broken hundreds of cigarettes.

Like most people, his eyes could only observe the expected, the normal. No one was standing or sitting in the usual way—therefore the room was empty.

A box of Brett’s Turkish cigarettes was lying temptingly open. He advanced.

“Touch those, and I slay you,” snapped Brett. “Your miserable life is not worth one of them.”

The man jumped as if he had been fired at. The barrister, coiled up like a boa-constrictor, glared at him in mock fury.

“I beg pardon, sir,” he blurted out, “I didn’t know you was in.”

“Evidently. A more expert scoundrel would have stolen them under my very nose. You are a bungler.”

“I really wasn’t goin’ to take any, sir—just put them away, that is all.”

“In that packet,” said Brett, “there are eighty-seven cigarettes. I count them, because each one is an epoch. I don’t count the cigars in the sideboard.”

“I prefer cigars,” grinned the waiter.

“So I see. You have two of the landlord’s best ‘sixpences’ in the left pocket of your waistcoat at this moment.”

“Well, if you ain’t a fair scorcher,” the man gasped.

“What, you rascal, would you call me names?”

Brett writhed convulsively, and the waiter backed towards the door.

“No, sir, I was callin’ no names. We don’t get too many perks—we waiters don’t, sir. I was out of bed until one o’clock and up again at six. That’s wot I call hard work, sir.”

“It is outrageous. Take five cigars.”

“Thank you kindly, sir.”

“What kept you up till one o’clock?”

“Gossip, sir—just silly gossip. All about Mrs. Capella, an’ Beechcroft, an’ I don’t know wot”

“Indeed, and who was so interested in these topics as to spoil your beauty sleep?”

“The new gentleman, who is so like Mr. David.”

“How very interesting,” said the barrister, who certainly did not expect this revelation.

“It seemed to be interesting to ’im, sir. You see, the ’ouse is pretty full, and when you brought ’im ’ere last night, sir, the bookkeeper gev’ ’im the room next to mine. Last thing, I fetched the gentleman a Scotch an’ soda an’ a cigar. ’E said ’e couldn’t sleep, and ’e was lookin’ at a fotygraf. I caught a squint at it, an’ I sez, ‘Beg parding, sir, but ain’t that Mrs. Capella—Miss Margaret as used to be?’ That started ’im.”

“You surprise me.”

“And the gentleman surprised me,” confided the waiter, whose greatest conversational effects were produced by quickly adapting remarks made to him. “P’r’aps you are not aware, sir, that the lady’s Eye-talian ’usbin’ ain’t no good?”

“I have heard something of the sort.”

“Then you’ve heard something right, sir. They do say as ’ow ’e beats her.”

“The scoundrel!”

“Scoundrel! You should ’ave seen No. 18 last night when I tole ’im that. My conscience! ’E went on awful, ’e did. ’E seemed to be mad about Mrs. Capella.”

“He is her cousin.”

“Cousin! That won’t wash,