The Stowmarket Mystery by Louis Tracy (best classic books of all time TXT) 📕
Brett referred to his scrap-book. In spite of himself, he felt all his old interest reawakening in this remarkable crime.
"Yes?" queried Hume.
The barrister, his lips pursed up and critical, surveyed his concluding notes.
"You were tried at the ensuing Assizes, and the jury disagreed. Your second trial resulted in an acquittal, though the public attitude towards you was dubious. The judge, in summing up, said that the evidence against you 'might be deemed insufficient.' In these words he conveyed the popular opinion. I see I have noted here that Miss Margaret H
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“I think,” he said, “if you wait there it will be more comfortable for you and equally good for the horse.”
The cabby pocketed an interim tip with a grin.
“I’ve struck it rich to-day,” he murmured, as he disappeared through a swing door bearing the legend, “Tap,” in huge letters.
Meanwhile, Brett sauntered past St. John’s Mansions. Across the road a man was leaning against the railings of a large garden, being deeply immersed in the columns of a sporting paper.
The barrister caught his eye and walked on. A minute later Mr. Winter overtook him.
“Not a move here all day,” he said in disgust, “except Mrs. Jiro’s appearance with the perambulator. She led me all round Kensington Gardens, and her only business was to air the baby and cram it with sponge-cakes.”
“Where is her husband?”
“In the house. He hasn’t stirred out since yesterday’s visit to the Museum.”
“Who is looking after the place in your absence?”
“One of my men has taken a room over the paper shop opposite. He has special charge of the Jap. My second assistant is scraping and varnishing the door of No. 16 flat. He sees every one who enters and leaves the place during the day. If Mrs. Jiro comes out he has to follow her until he sees that I am on the job.”
“Good! I want to talk matters over with you. I have a cab waiting in a side street.”
“Why, sir, has anything special happened?”
A newsboy came running along shouting the late edition of the Evening News. The barrister bought a paper and rapidly glanced through its contents.
“Here you are,” he said. “Someone in that office has a good memory.”
The item which Brett pointed out to the detective read as follows:—
“ACCIDENT IN WHITEHALL.
“Mr. Robert Hume-Frazer, residing in one of the great hotels in Northumberland Avenue, was knocked down and nearly run over by an omnibus in Whitehall this morning. The skill of the driver averted a very serious accident. It is supposed that Mr. Hume-Frazer slipped whilst attempting to cross before the policeman on duty at that point stopped the traffic.
“The injured gentleman was carried to his hotel, where he is staying with his cousin, Mr. David Hume-Frazer, whose name will be recalled in connection with the famous ‘Stowmarket Mystery’ of last year.”
“What does it all mean?” inquired Winter.
“It means that you must listen carefully to what I am going to tell you. Here is my cab. Jump in. Driver, I am surprised that a man of your intelligence should waste your money on a public-house cigar. Throw it away. Here is a better one. And now, Victoria Street, sharp.”
Winter’s ears were pricked to receive Brett’s intelligence. Beyond a sigh of professional admiration at the result of Brett’s pertinacity with regard to the omnibuses passing through Whitehall at 10.45, he did not interrupt until the barrister had ended.
Even then he was silent, so Brett looked at him in surprise,
“Well, Winter, what do you think of it?” he said.
“Think! I wish I had half your luck, Mr. Brett,” he answered sadly.
“How now, you green-eyed monster?”
“No. I’m not jealous. You beat me at my own game; I admit it. I would never have thought of going for the ’buses. I suppose you would have interviewed the driver and conductor of every vehicle on that route before you gave in. You didn’t trouble about the hansoms. Hailing a cab was a slow business, and risked subsequent identification. To jump on to a moving ’bus was just the thing. Yes, there is no denying that you are d—d smart.”
“Winter, your unreasonable jealousy is making you vulgar.”
“Wouldn’t any man swear, sir? Why did I let such a handful as Mrs. Jiro slip through my fingers the other day? Clue! Why, it was a perfect bale of cotton. If I had only followed her instead of that little rat, her husband, we would now know where the third man lives, and have the murderer of Sir Alan under our thumb. It is all my fault, though sometimes I feel inclined to blame the police system—a system that won’t even give us telephones between one station and another. Never mind. Wait till I tackle the next job for the Yard. I’ll show ’em a trick or two.”
Chapter XXI Concerning Chickens, and MotivesReturn to Table of Contents
The detective cooled off by the time they reached Brett’s flat. On the dining-room tables they found two telegrams and a Remington type-writer.
The messages were from Holden, Naples.
The first: “Johnson arrived here this morning.”
The second: “Johnson’s proceedings refer to poorhouse and church registers.”
“Johnson is Capella,” explained Winter. “I forgot to tell you we had arranged that.”
Brett surveyed the second telegram so intently that the detective inquired:
“How do you read that, sir?”
“Capella is securing copies of certificates—marriages, births, or deaths; perhaps all three. He is also getting hold of living witnesses.”
“Of what?”
“He will tell us himself. He is preparing a bombshell of sorts. It will explode here. Goodness only knows who will be blown up by it.”
He took the cover off the type-writer, seized a sheet of paper, and began to manipulate the keyboard with the methodical carefulness of one unaccustomed to its use.
He wrote:
“About Stowmarket. David Hume Frazer killed
cousin. Cousin talked girl in road.
Girl waited wood. David Hume Frazer met
girl in wood after 1 a.m.”
“Do you mean to say,” cried the detective, “that you can remember the anonymous letter word for word? You have only seen it once, and that was several days ago.”
“Not only word for word, but the spacing, the number of words in a line, the lines between which creases appear. Look, Winter. Here is the small broken ‘c,’ the bent capital ‘D,’ the letter ‘a’ out of register. Where is the original?”
“Here, in my pocket-book.”
They silently compared the two typed sheets. It needed no expert to note that they had been written by the same machine.
“It would take a clever counsel to upset that piece of evidence,” said Winter. “I wish I had hold of the writer.”
“You have spoken to him several times.”
“Surely you cannot mean Jiro!”
“Who else? Jiro is but the tool of a superior scoundrel. He is just beginning to suspect the fact, and trying to use it for his own benefit. I wish I was in Naples with your friend Holden.”
“But, Mr. Brett, the murderer is in London! What about this morning’s attempt—”
“My dear fellow, you are already constructing the gallows. Leave that to the gaol officials. What we do not yet know is the motive. The key to the mystery is in Naples, probably in Capella’s hands at this moment. If I were there it would be in mine, too. Do not question me, Winter. I am not inspired. I can only indulge in vague imaginings. Capella will bring the reality to London.”
“Then what are we to do meanwhile?”
“Await events patiently. Watch Jiro with the calm persistence of a cat watching a hole into which a mouse has disappeared. At this moment, eat something.”
He rang for Smith, and told him to attend to the wants of the waiting cabman, whilst Mrs. Smith made the speediest arrangements for an immediate dinner.
The two men sat down, and Winter could not help asking another question.
“Why are you keeping the cab, Mr. Brett?”
“Because I am superstitious.”
The detective opened wide his eyes at this unlooked-for statement.
“I mean it,” said the barrister. “Look at all I have learnt to-day whilst darting about London in that particular hansom, which, mind you, I carefully selected from a rank of twenty. Abandon it until I am dropped at my starting-point! Never!”
Winter sighed.
“I never feel that way about anything on wheels,” he said. “Do you really think you will be able to clear up this affair, sir? It seems to me to be a bigger muddle now than when I left it after the second trial. Don’t laugh at me. That is awkwardly put, I know. But then we had a straightforward crime to deal with. Now, goodness knows where we have landed.”
Smith entered, and commenced laying the table. Brett did not reply to the detective’s spoken reverie. Both men idly watched the deft servant’s preparations.
“Smith,” suddenly cried the master of the household, “what sort of chicken have we for dinner?”
“Cold chicken, sir.”
“Thank you. As you seem to demand Miltonic precision in phrase, I amend my words. What breed of chicken have we for dinner?”
“A dorking, sir.”
“And how do you know it is a dorking?”
“Oh, there’s lots of ways of knowin’ that, sir. You can tell by the size, by its head and feet, and by the tuft of feathers left on its neck.”
“Q.E.D.”
“Beg pardon, sir!”
“I was only saying, ‘Right you are!’”
Smith went out, and Brett turned to his companion:
“Did you note Smith’s philosophy in the matter of dorkings?” he inquired.
“Yes.”
“Does it convey no moral to you? I fear not. Now mark me, Winter. Just as the breed of the chicken is indelibly stamped on it in the eyes of a man skilled in chickens, so is the murder we are investigating marked by characteristics so plain that a child of ten, properly trained to use his eyes, might discern them. What you and I suffer from are defects implanted by idle nursemaids and doting mothers. Let us, for the moment, adopt the policy of the theosophists and sit in consultation apart from our astral bodies. Who killed Sir Alan Hume-Frazer? I answer, a relative. What relative? Someone we do not know, whom he did not know, or who committed murder because he was known. What sort of person is the murderer? A man physically like either David or Robert, so like that ‘Rabbit Jack’ would swear to the identity of either of them as readily as to the person of the real murderer. Why did he use such a weird instrument as the Ko-Katana? Because he found it under his hand and recognised its sinister purpose, to be left implanted in the breast or brain of an enemy’s lifeless body. Where is the man now? In London, perhaps outside this building, perhaps watching the Northumberland Avenue Hotel, waiting quietly for another chance to take the life of the person who caused us to reopen this inquiry. To sum up, Winter, let us find such an individual, a Hume-Frazer with black, deadly eyes, with a cold, calculating, remorseless brain, with a knowledge of trick and fence not generally an attribute of the Anglo-Saxon race—let us lay hands on him, I say, and you can book him for kingdom come, viâ the Old Bailey.”
“Yes, sir!” broke in Winter excitedly. “But the motive!”
“Et tu, Brute! Would the disciple rend his master? Have I not told you that Capella will bring that knowledge with him from Naples? I have hopes even of your long-nosed friend, Holden, giving us all the details we need.”
“What did the murderer steal from Sir Alan’s writing-desk, from the drawer broken open before the blow was struck?”
Smith entered, bearing a chicken.
“The motive, Winter! The motive!” laughed Brett, and in pursuance of his invariable practice, he refused to say another word about the crime or its perpetrator during the meal.
Chapter XXII The Second AttackReturn to Table of Contents
Mrs. Smith was accustomed to her master’s occasional freaks in the matter of dinner. Her husband, aided by long experience, knew whether Brett’s “immediately” meant one minute, or five, or even fifteen.
This time he gave his wife the longest limit, so, in addition to the chicken, a bird whose unhappy attribute is a facility for being devoured with the utmost speed, a mixed grill of cutlets, bacon, and French sausages appeared on the table.
The diners were hungry and the good things were appreciated. It was well that they wasted no time on mere words. They were still intent on the feast when a boy messenger brought a note. It was from Helen, written in pencil:
“David was coming to see you when he was attacked. Can
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