Kitabı oku: «The Middle Temple Murder», sayfa 11

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

ARRESTED

Spargo hurried out to the hall, took the two telegrams from the boots of the "Dragon," and, tearing open the envelopes, read the messages hastily. He went back to Mr. Quarterpage.

"Here's important news," he said as he closed the library door and resumed his seat. "I'll read these telegrams to you, sir, and then we can discuss them in the light of what we've been talking about this morning. The first is from our office. I told you we sent over to Australia for a full report about Marbury at the place he said he hailed from—Coolumbidgee. That report's just reached the Watchman, and they've wired it on to me. It's from the chief of police at Coolumbidgee to the editor of the Watchman, London:—

"John Marbury came to Coolumbidgee in the winter of 1898-9. He was unaccompanied. He appeared to be in possession of fairly considerable means and bought a share in a small sheep-farm from its proprietor, Andrew Robertson, who is still here, and who says that Marbury never told him anything about himself except that he had emigrated for health reasons and was a widower. He mentioned that he had had a son who was dead, and was now without relations. He lived a very quiet, steady life on the sheep-farm, never leaving it for many years. About six months ago, however, he paid a visit to Melbourne, and on returning told Robertson that he had decided to return to England in consequence of some news he had received, and must therefore sell his share in the farm. Robertson bought it from him for three thousand pounds, and Marbury shortly afterwards left for Melbourne. From what we could gather, Robertson thinks Marbury was probably in command of five or six thousand when he left Coolumbidgee. He told Robertson that he had met a man in Melbourne who had given him news that surprised him, but did not say what news. He had in his possession when he left Robertson exactly the luggage he brought with him when he came—a stout portmanteau and a small, square leather box. There are no effects of his left behind at Coolumbidgee."

"That's all," said Spargo, laying the first of the telegrams on the table. "And it seems to me to signify a good deal. But now here's more startling news. This is from Rathbury, the Scotland Yard detective that I told you of, Mr. Quarterpage—he promised, you know, to keep me posted in what went on in my absence. Here's what he says:

"Fresh evidence tending to incriminate Aylmore has come to hand. Authorities have decided to arrest him on suspicion. You'd better hurry back if you want material for to-morrow's paper."

Spargo threw that telegram down, too, waited while the old gentleman glanced at both of them with evident curiosity, and then jumped up.

"Well, I shall have to go, Mr. Quarterpage," he said. "I looked the trains out this morning so as to be in readiness. I can catch the 1.20 to Paddington—that'll get me in before half-past four. I've an hour yet. Now, there's another man I want to see in Market Milcaster. That's the photographer—or a photographer. You remember I told you of the photograph found with the silver ticket? Well, I'm calculating that that photograph was taken here, and I want to see the man who took it—if he's alive and I can find him."

Mr. Quarterpage rose and put on his hat.

"There's only one photographer in this town, sir," he said, "and he's been here for a good many years—Cooper. I'll take you to him—it's only a few doors away."

Spargo wasted no time in letting the photographer know what he wanted.

He put a direct question to Mr. Cooper—an elderly man.

"Do you remember taking a photograph of the child of John Maitland, the bank manager, some twenty or twenty-one years ago?" he asked, after Mr. Quarterpage had introduced him as a gentleman from London who wanted to ask a few questions.

"Quite well, sir," replied Mr. Cooper. "As well as if it had been yesterday."

"Do you still happen to have a copy of it?" asked Spargo.

But Mr. Cooper had already turned to a row of file albums. He took down one labelled 1891, and began to search its pages. In a minute or two he laid it on his table before his callers.

"There you are, sir," he said. "That's the child!"

Spargo gave one glance at the photograph and turned to Mr. Quarterpage. "Just as I thought," he said. "That's the same photograph we found in the leather box with the silver ticket. I'm obliged to you, Mr. Cooper. Now, there's just one more question I want to ask. Did you ever supply any further copies of this photograph to anybody after the Maitland affair?—that is; after the family had left the town?"

"Yes," replied the photographer. "I supplied half a dozen copies to Miss Baylis, the child's aunt, who, as a matter of fact, brought him here to be photographed. And I can give you her address, too," he continued, beginning to turn over another old file. "I have it somewhere."

Mr. Quarterpage nudged Spargo.

"That's something I couldn't have done!" he remarked. "As I told you, she'd disappeared from Brighton when enquiries were made after Maitland's release."

"Here you are," said Mr. Cooper. "I sent six copies of that photograph to Miss Baylis in April, 1895. Her address was then 6, Chichester Square, Bayswater, W."

Spargo rapidly wrote this address down, thanked the photographer for his courtesy, and went out with Mr. Quarterpage. In the street he turned to the old gentleman with a smile.

"Well, I don't think there's much doubt about that!" he exclaimed. "Maitland and Marbury are the same man, Mr. Quarterpage. I'm as certain of that as that I see your Town Hall there."

"And what will you do next, sir?" enquired Mr. Quarterpage.

"Thank you—as I do—for all your kindness and assistance, and get off to town by this 1.20," replied Spargo. "And I shan't fail to let you know how things go on."

"One moment," said the old gentleman, as Spargo was hurrying away, "do you think this Mr. Aylmore really murdered Maitland?"

"No!" answered Spargo with emphasis. "I don't! And I think we've got a good deal to do before we find out who did."

Spargo purposely let the Marbury case drop out of his mind during his journey to town. He ate a hearty lunch in the train and talked with his neighbours; it was a relief to let his mind and attention turn to something else than the theme which had occupied it unceasingly for so many days. But at Reading the newspaper boys were shouting the news of the arrest of a Member of Parliament, and Spargo, glancing out of the window, caught sight of a newspaper placard:

THE MARBURY MURDER CASE ARREST OF MR. AYLMORE

He snatched a paper from a boy as the train moved out and, unfolding it, found a mere announcement in the space reserved for stop-press news:

"Mr. Stephen Aylmore, M.P., was arrested at two o'clock this afternoon, on his way to the House of Commons, on a charge of being concerned in the murder of John Marbury in Middle Temple Lane on the night of June 21st last. It is understood he will be brought up at Bow Street at ten o'clock tomorrow morning."

Spargo hurried to New Scotland Yard as soon as he reached Paddington. He met Rathbury coming away from his room. At sight of him, the detective turned back.

"Well, so there you are!" he said. "I suppose you've heard the news?"

Spargo nodded as he dropped into a chair.

"What led to it?" he asked abruptly. "There must have been something."

"There was something," he replied. "The thing—stick, bludgeon, whatever you like to call it, some foreign article—with which Marbury was struck down was found last night."

"Well?" asked Spargo.

"It was proved to be Aylmore's property," answered Rathbury. "It was a South American curio that he had in his rooms in Fountain Court."

"Where was it found?" asked Spargo.

Rathbury laughed.

"He was a clumsy fellow who did it, whether he was Aylmore or whoever he was!" he replied. "Do you know, it had been dropped into a sewer-trap in Middle Temple Lane—actually! Perhaps the murderer thought it would be washed out into the Thames and float away. But, of course, it was bound to come to light. A sewer man found it yesterday evening, and it was quickly recognized by the woman who cleans up for Aylmore as having been in his rooms ever since she knew them."

"What does Aylmore say about it?" asked Spargo. "I suppose he's said something?"

"Says that the bludgeon is certainly his, and that he brought it from South America with him," announced Rathbury; "but that he doesn't remember seeing it in his rooms for some time, and thinks that it was stolen from them."

"Um!" said Spargo, musingly. "But—how do you know that was the thing that Marbury was struck down with?"

Rathbury smiled grimly.

"There's some of his hair on it—mixed with blood," he answered. "No doubt about that. Well—anything come of your jaunt westward?"

"Yes," replied Spargo. "Lots!"

"Good?" asked Rathbury.

"Extra good. I've found out who Marbury really was."

"No! Really?"

"No doubt, to my mind. I'm certain of it."

Rathbury sat down at his desk, watching Spargo with rapt attention.

"And who was he?" he asked.

"John Maitland, once of Market Milcaster," replied Spargo. "Ex-bank manager. Also ex-convict."

"Ex-convict!"

"Ex-convict. He was sentenced, at Market Milcaster Quarter Sessions, in autumn, 1891, to ten years' penal servitude, for embezzling the bank's money, to the tune of over two hundred thousand pounds. Served his term at Dartmoor. Went to Australia as soon, or soon after, he came out. That's who Marbury was—Maitland. Dead—certain!"

Rathbury still stared at his caller.

"Go on!" he said. "Tell all about it, Spargo. Let's hear every detail.

I'll tell you all I know after. But what I know's nothing to that."

Spargo told him the whole story of his adventures at Market Milcaster, and the detective listened with rapt attention.

"Yes," he said at the end. "Yes—I don't think there's much doubt about that. Well, that clears up a lot, doesn't it?"

Spargo yawned.

"Yes, a whole slate full is wiped off there," he said. "I haven't so much interest in Marbury, or Maitland now. My interest is all in Aylmore."

Rathbury nodded.

"Yes," he said. "The thing to find out is—who is Aylmore, or who was he, twenty years ago?"

"Your people haven't found anything out, then?" asked Spargo.

"Nothing beyond the irreproachable history of Mr. Aylmore since he returned to this country, a very rich man, some ten years since," answered Rathbury, smiling. "They've no previous dates to go on. What are you going to do next, Spargo?"

"Seek out that Miss Baylis," replied Spargo.

"You think you could get something there?" asked Rathbury.

"Look here!" said Spargo. "I don't believe for a second Aylmore killed Marbury. I believe I shall get at the truth by following up what I call the Maitland trail. This Miss Baylis must know something—if she's alive. Well, now I'm going to report at the office. Keep in touch with me, Rathbury."

He went on then to the Watchman office, and as he got out of his taxi-cab at its door, another cab came up and set down Mr. Aylmore's daughters.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

THE BLANK PAST

Jessie Aylmore came forward to meet Spargo with ready confidence; the elder girl hung back diffidently.

"May we speak to you?" said Jessie. "We have come on purpose to speak to you. Evelyn didn't want to come, but I made her come."

Spargo shook hands silently with Evelyn Aylmore and motioned them both to follow him. He took them straight upstairs to his room and bestowed them in his easiest chairs before he addressed them.

"I've only just got back to town," he said abruptly. "I was sorry to hear the news about your father. That's what's brought you here, of course. But—I'm afraid I can't do much."

"I told you that we had no right to trouble Mr. Spargo, Jessie," said Evelyn Aylmore. "What can he do to help us?"

Jessie shook her head impatiently.

"The Watchman's about the most powerful paper in London, isn't it?" she said. "And isn't Mr. Spargo writing all these articles about the Marbury case? Mr. Spargo, you must help us!"

Spargo sat down at his desk and began turning over the letters and papers which had accumulated during his absence.

"To be absolutely frank with you," he said, presently, "I don't see how anybody's going to help, so long as your father keeps up that mystery about the past."

"That," said Evelyn, quietly, "is exactly what Ronald says, Jessie. But we can't make our father speak, Mr. Spargo. That he is as innocent as we are of this terrible crime we are certain, and we don't know why he wouldn't answer the questions put to him at the inquest. And—we know no more than you know or anyone knows, and though I have begged my father to speak, he won't say a word. We saw his danger: Ronald—Mr. Breton—told us, and we implored him to tell everything he knew about Mr. Marbury. But so far he has simply laughed at the idea that he had anything to do with the murder, or could be arrested for it, and now–"

"And now he's locked up," said Spargo in his usual matter-of-fact fashion. "Well, there are people who have to be saved from themselves, you know. Perhaps you'll have to save your father from the consequences of his own—shall we say obstinacy? Now, look here, between ourselves, how much do you know about your father's—past?"

The two sisters looked at each other and then at Spargo.

"Nothing," said the elder.

"Absolutely nothing!" said the younger.

"Answer a few plain questions," said Spargo. "I'm not going to print your replies, nor make use of them in any way: I'm only asking the questions with a desire to help you. Have you any relations in England?"

"None that we know of," replied Evelyn.

"Nobody you could go to for information about the past?" asked Spargo.

"No—nobody!"

Spargo drummed his fingers on his blotting-pad. He was thinking hard.

"How old is your father?" he asked suddenly.

"He was fifty-nine a few weeks ago," answered Evelyn.

"And how old are you, and how old is your sister?" demanded Spargo.

"I am twenty, and Jessie is nearly nineteen."

"Where were you born?"

"Both of us at San Gregorio, which is in the San José province of Argentina, north of Monte Video."

"Your father was in business there?"

"He was in business in the export trade, Mr. Spargo. There's no secret about that. He exported all sorts of things to England and to France—skins, hides, wools, dried salts, fruit. That's how he made his money."

"You don't know how long he'd been there when you were born?"

"No."

"Was he married when he went out there?"

"No, he wasn't. We do know that. He's told us the circumstances of his marriage, because they were romantic. When he sailed from England to Buenos Ayres, he met on the steamer a young lady who, he said, was like himself, relationless and nearly friendless. She was going out to Argentina as a governess. She and my father fell in love with each other, and they were married in Buenos Ayres soon after the steamer arrived."

"And your mother is dead?"

"My mother died before we came to England. I was eight years old, and Jessie six, then."

"And you came to England—how long after that?"

"Two years."

"So that you've been in England ten years. And you know nothing whatever of your father's past beyond what you've told me?"

"Nothing—absolutely nothing."

"Never heard him talk of—you see, according to your account, your father was a man of getting on to forty when he went out to Argentina. He must have had a career of some sort in this country. Have you never heard him speak of his boyhood? Did he never talk of old times, or that sort of thing?"

"I never remember hearing my father speak of any period antecedent to his marriage," replied Evelyn.

"I once asked him a question about his childhood." said Jessie. "He answered that his early days had not been very happy ones, and that he had done his best to forget them. So I never asked him anything again."

"So that it really comes to this," remarked Spargo. "You know nothing whatever about your father, his family, his fortunes, his life, beyond what you yourselves have observed since you were able to observe? That's about it, isn't it?"

"I should say that that is exactly it," answered Evelyn.

"Just so," said Spargo. "And therefore, as I told your sister the other day, the public will say that your father has some dark secret behind him, and that Marbury had possession of it, and that your father killed him in order to silence him. That isn't my view. I not only believe your father to be absolutely innocent, but I believe that he knows no more than a child unborn of Marbury's murder, and I'm doing my best to find out who that murderer was. By the by, since you'll see all about it in tomorrow morning's Watchman, I may as well tell you that I've found out who Marbury really was. He–"

At this moment Spargo's door was opened and in walked Ronald Breton. He shook his head at sight of the two sisters.

"I thought I should find you here," he said. "Jessie said she was coming to see you, Spargo. I don't know what good you can do—I don't see what good the most powerful newspaper in the world can do. My God!—everything's about as black as ever it can be. Mr. Aylmore—I've just come away from him; his solicitor, Stratton, and I have been with him for an hour—is obstinate as ever—he will not tell more than he has told. Whatever good can you do, Spargo, when he won't speak about that knowledge of Marbury which he must have?"

"Oh, well!" said Spargo. "Perhaps we can give him some information about Marbury. Mr. Aylmore has forgotten that it's not such a difficult thing to rake up the past as he seems to think it is. For example, as I was just telling these young ladies, I myself have discovered who Marbury really was."

Breton started.

"You have? Without doubt?" he exclaimed.

"Without reasonable doubt. Marbury was an ex-convict."

Spargo watched the effect of this sudden announcement. The two girls showed no sign of astonishment or of unusual curiosity; they received the news with as much unconcern as if Spargo had told them that Marbury was a famous musician. But Ronald Breton started, and it seemed to Spargo that he saw a sense of suspicion dawn in his eyes.

"Marbury—an ex-convict!" he exclaimed. "You mean that?"

"Read your Watchman in the morning," said Spargo. "You'll find the whole story there—I'm going to write it tonight when you people have gone. It'll make good reading."

Evelyn and Jessie Aylmore took Spargo's hint and went away, Spargo seeing them to the door with another assurance of his belief in their father's innocence and his determination to hunt down the real criminal. Ronald Breton went down with them to the street and saw them into a cab, but in another minute he was back in Spargo's room as Spargo had expected. He shut the door carefully behind him and turned to Spargo with an eager face.

"I say, Spargo, is that really so?" he asked. "About Marbury being an ex-convict?"

"That's so, Breton. I've no more doubt about it than I have that I see you. Marbury was in reality one John Maitland, a bank manager, of Market Milcaster, who got ten years' penal servitude in 1891 for embezzlement."

"In 1891? Why—that's just about the time that Aylmore says he knew him!"

"Exactly. And—it just strikes me," said Spargo, sitting down at his desk and making a hurried note, "it just strikes me—didn't Aylmore say he knew Marbury in London?"

"Certainly," replied Breton. "In London."

"Um!" mused Spargo. "That's queer, because Maitland had never been in London up to the time of his going to Dartmoor, whatever he may have done when he came out of Dartmoor, and, of course, Aylmore had gone to South America long before that. Look here, Breton," he continued, aloud, "have you access to Aylmore? Will you, can you, see him before he's brought up at Bow Street tomorrow?"

"Yes," answered Breton. "I can see him with his solicitor."

"Then listen," said Spargo. "Tomorrow morning you'll find the whole story of how I proved Marbury's identity with Maitland in the Watchman. Read it as early as you can; get an interview with Aylmore as early as you can; make him read it, every word, before he's brought up. Beg him if he values his own safety and his daughters' peace of mind to throw away all that foolish reserve, and to tell all he knows about Maitland twenty years ago. He should have done that at first. Why, I was asking his daughters some questions before you came in—they know absolutely nothing of their father's history previous to the time when they began to understand things! Don't you see that Aylmore's career, previous to his return to England, is a blank past!"

"I know—I know!" said Breton. "Yes—although I've gone there a great deal, I never heard Aylmore speak of anything earlier than his Argentine experiences. And yet, he must have been getting on when he went out there."

"Thirty-seven or eight, at least," remarked Spargo. "Well, Aylmore's more or less of a public man, and no public man can keep his life hidden nowadays. By the by, how did you get to know the Aylmores?"

"My guardian, Mr. Elphick, and I met them in Switzerland," answered Breton. "We kept up the acquaintance after our return."

"Mr. Elphick still interesting himself in the Marbury case?" asked Spargo.

"Very much so. And so is old Cardlestone, at the foot of whose stairs the thing came off. I dined with them last night and they talked of little else," said Breton.

"And their theory—"

"Oh, still the murder for the sake of robbery!" replied Breton. "Old Cardlestone is furious that such a thing could have happened at his very door. He says that there ought to be a thorough enquiry into every tenant of the Temple."

"Longish business that," observed Spargo. "Well, run away now, Breton—I must write."

"Shall you be at Bow Street tomorrow morning?" asked Breton as he moved to the door. "It's to be at ten-thirty."

"No, I shan't!" replied Spargo. "It'll only be a remand, and I know already just as much as I should hear there. I've got something much more important to do. But you'll remember what I asked of you—get Aylmore to read my story in the Watchman, and beg him to speak out and tell all he knows—all!"

And when Breton had gone, Spargo again murmured those last words: "All he knows—all!"