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

“Suppose I tell you that the man you saw was no ghost, but real flesh and blood, a Japanese descendant of the David Hume who fought and killed the first Sir Alan in 1763, what would you say?”

“I would say, sir, that it had to be, were it ever so strange.”

“Have you ever, in gossip about family records, heard anything of the fate of the David Hume I have just mentioned.”

“Only this, sir. My people have lived on the Highland estate longer than any Hume-Frazer of them a’. My father remembered his grandfather sayin’ that a man who was in India wi’ Clive met Mr. Hume in Calcutta. There was fightin’ agin’ the French, an’ Mr. Hume would neither strike a blow for King George nor draw a sword for the French, so he sailed away to the East in a Dutch ship, and he was never heard of afterwards.”

This was a most important confirmation of the theory evolved by the barrister. For the rest, Fergusson’s reminiscences were useless.

Next morning Brett went to Somerset House to consult the will in which Margaret’s father left her £1,000 a year. Her brother died intestate.

As he expected, the document was phrased adroitly. It read: “I give and bequeath to Margaret Hume-Frazer, who has elected to desert the home provided for her, the sum of—” etc., etc.

The fact that she was, in the eyes of the law, an illegitimate child could not invalidate this bequest. For the rest, he imagined that when her brother died so unexpectedly, no one ever dreamed of inquiring into the well-intentioned fraud perpetrated by Lady Hume-Frazer and her husband. Margaret was unquestionably accepted as the heiress to her brother’s property, the estate being unentailed.

Then he drove to 17 St. John’s Mansions, Kensington, where Mr. and Mrs. Jiro were “at home.” They received him in the tiny drawing-room, and the lady’s manner betokened some degree of nervousness, which she vainly endeavoured to conceal by a pretence of bland curiosity as to the object of the barrister’s visit.

Not so Numagawa, whose sharp ferret eyes snapped with anxiety.

Brett left them under no doubt from the commencement. He addressed his remarks wholly to the Japanese.

“You have an acquaintance—perhaps I should say a confederate—residing at No. 37 Middle Street, Kennington—” he began.

“I do not understand,” broke in Jiro, whose sallow face crinkled like a withered apple in the effort to display non-comprehension.

“Oh yes, you do. The man’s name is Ooma. He is a tall, strongly-built native of Japan. He sent you to Ipswich to watch the trial of Mr. David Hume-Frazer for the murder of his cousin. He got you to write the post-card to Scotland Yard on the type-writer which you disposed of the day after my visit here. You recognised the motto of his house in the design which I showed you, and which was borne on the blade of the Ko-Katana. For some reason which I cannot fathom, unless you are his accomplice, you made your wife dress in male attire and go to warn him that some person was on his track. You see I know everything.”

As each sentence of this indictment proceeded it was pitiable to watch the faces of the couple. Jiro became a grotesque, fit to adorn the ugliest of Satsuma plaques. Mrs. Jiro visibly swelled with agitation. Brett felt that she was too full, and would overflow with tears in an instant.

“This is vely bad!” gasped Jiro.

“Oh, Nummie dear, have we been doing wrong?” moaned his spouse.

The barrister determined to frighten them thoroughly.

“It is a grave question with the authorities whether they should not arrest you instantly,” he said.

“On what charge?” cried Jiro.

“On a charge of complicity after the act in relation to the murder of Sir Alan Hume-Frazer. Your accomplice, Ooma, is the murderer.”

“What!” shrieked Mrs. Jiro, flouncing on to her knees and breaking forth into piteous sobs. “Oh, my precious infant! Oh, my darling Nummie! Will they part us from our babe?”

The door opened, and a frowsy head appeared.

“Did you call, mum?” inquired the small maid-servant.

“Get out!” shouted Brett; and the door slammed.

“Mr. Blett,” whimpered the Japanese, “I did not do this thing. I am innocent. I knew nothing about it until—until—”

“You verified the motto on the blade by consulting the ‘Nihon Suai Shi’ in the British Museum.”

This shot floored Jiro metaphorically, and his wife literally, for she sank into a heap.

“He knows everything, Nummie,” she cried.

“Evelything!” repeated her husband.

“Then tell him the rest!”. (Yet she was born in Suffolk.)

Brett scowled terribly as a subterfuge for laughter.

“Tell me,” he said, “why you helped this amazing scoundrel?”

“I did not help,” squeaked Jiro, his voice becoming shrill with excitement and fear. “He was my fliend. He is a Samurai of Japan. We met in Okasaki, and again in London. I came to England long after the clime you talk of. He told me these Flazel people were bad people, who had lobbed his father in the old days. He wanted them to be all hanged, then he would get money. He said they might watch him and get him sent back to Japan, where he belongs to a political palty who are always beheaded when they are caught. So when you come, I think, ‘Hello, he wants to find Ooma!’ I lite Ooma a letter, and he lite me to send Mrs. Jilo, dlessed in man’s clothes, to tell him evelything. I did that to save my fliend.”

“Have you Ooma’s letter?”

“Yes; hele it is.”

He took a document from a drawer, and Brett saw at a glance that Jiro’s statement was correct.

“You appear to have acted as his tool throughout,” was his scornful comment.

“But, Mr. Brett,” sobbed the stout lady, “I ought to say that when I—when I—put on those things—and met Mr. Ooma, I disobeyed my husband in one matter. I—liked you—and was afraid of Mr. Ooma, so instead of describing you to him I described Mr. Hume-Frazer from what my husband told me of his appearance in the dock. He was the first man I could think of, and it seemed to be best, as the quarrel was between them. Only—I gave him—a beard and moustache, so as to puzzle him more. Didn’t I, Nummie? I told you when I came home.”

So Mrs. Jiro’s unconscious device had undoubtedly saved Brett from a murderous attack, and Ooma had probably seen him leave the Northumberland Avenue Hotel more than once whilst waiting to waylay David Hume. Hence, too, the partial recognition by Ooma when they met by night in Middle Street.

The barrister could not help being milder in tone as he said:

“I believe you are both telling the truth. But this is a very serious matter. You must never again communicate with Ooma in any way. Avoid him as you would shun the plague, for within three or four days he will be in gaol, and you will be called upon to give evidence against him.”

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At his chambers Brett found Holden awaiting him, with the tidings that Capella had gone to Whitby. The Italian’s agents, Messrs. Matchem & Smith, had evidently ferreted out Margaret’s whereabouts. Her husband, full of vengeful thoughts and base schemings, hastened after her, rejoicing in the knowledge that her cousins and Miss Layton would also be present.

“As I knew exactly where he was going, and assumed his object to be a domestic quarrel, I did not think it necessary to accompany him until I had first consulted you, sir,” said the imperturbable Holden.

“You acted quite rightly. Wait until the little beast returns to London!” exclaimed the barrister, with some degree of warmth.

Capella’s conduct reminded him of a spiteful child which deserved a sound spanking. He telegraphed to Hume to inform him of the fiery visitor who might be expected at the hotel that evening.

Oddly enough, Helen, David, and the Rev. Mr. Layton, tempted by a marine excursion to Scarborough and back, left Whitby Harbour on a local steamer at 11 a.m., and were timed to return about 9 p.m. Margaret was not a good sailor, so Robert Hume-Frazer remained with her, the two going for a protracted stroll along the cliffs.

During their walk, the golden influences of the hour unlocked Margaret’s heart. She was overwhelmed with the consciousness of the wretched mistakes of her life. She could not help contrasting the manly, gallant, out-spoken sailor by her side with the miserable foreigner whom she had espoused under the influence of a genuine but too violent passion. The knowledge that Robert might, under happier conditions, have been her husband was crushing and terrible.

There came to her some half-defined resolve to show her cousin how unworthy she was of his affections. Stopping defiantly at a moment when he casually called her attention to a lovely glimpse of rock-bound sea framed in a deep gorge, she said to him:

“Robert, I have something to tell you. I was on the point of telling Mr. Brett the last time I saw him in London, but he would not permit it. You are my cousin, and ought to know.”

“My dear girl,” he cried, “why this solemnity? You give me shivers when you speak in that way!”

“Pray listen to me, Robert. This is no matter for jesting. I am your cousin, but only in a sense. In the eyes of the law I am a nameless outcast. My mother was not Alan’s mother. I was born before my father married the lady who treated me as her daughter until her death. My mother was an Italian, who died at my birth, and whom my father never married.”

Frazer looked at the beautiful woman who addressed these astonishing words to him, and amazement, incredulity, a spasm almost of fear, held him dumb.

“It is too true, Robert. I did not know these things until a few short months ago. Some one, I believe, told my husband the truth soon after our marriage, and it was this discovery that so changed his feelings towards me. At first I was utterly unable to explain the awful alteration in his attitude. Not until I returned to England and settled down at Beechcroft did I become aware of the facts.”

“Surely, Rita, you are romancing?”

“No, there can be no doubt about it. I have seen the proofs.”

“Proofs! How can you be certain? Who made these statements to you?”

“I have been blackmailed, bled systematically for large sums of money. At first I was beguiled into a correspondence. My curiosity was aroused by references to my husband and to my father’s will. Finally, I received copies of documents which made matters clear even to my bewildered brain. More than that, I was sent a memorandum, written by my father, in which he gave Alan all the particulars, corroborated by extracts from registers, and explaining the reasons which actuated him in framing his will so curiously. We were never closely knit together, as you know. I think now that he regarded me as the living evidence of the folly of his earlier years, and perhaps my sensitive nature was quick to detect this hidden feeling.”

“May I ask who blackmailed you?”

Robert’s face grew hard and stern. The woman experienced a tumultuous joy as she saw it. She had at least one defender.

“That is the hard part of my story,” she murmured, in a voice broken with emotion. “The correspondence took place with a man named Ooma, a person I never even met at that time, and—can you believe it, Robert—within the past few days I have good reason to know that he is the murderer of my brother, the man who endeavoured to kill both you and David.”

Frazer caught her by the shoulder.

“Rita,” he said, “what has come to you? Are you hysterical, or dreaming?”

“Oh, for pity’s sake, believe me!” she moaned. “Mr. Brett knows it is true. What is worse, he knows that I know it. I cannot bear this terrible secret any longer. I went to this man’s house in London the other night, and boldly charged