Kitabı oku: «The Middle Temple Murder», sayfa 7

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

UNDER SUSPICION

A distinct, uncontrollable murmur of surprise ran round the packed court as this man in the witness-box gave this answer. It signified many things—that there were people present who had expected some such dramatic development; that there were others present who had not; that the answer itself was only a prelude to further developments. And Spargo, looking narrowly about him, saw that the answer had aroused different feelings in Aylmore's two daughters. The elder one had dropped her face until it was quite hidden; the younger was sitting bolt upright, staring at her father in utter and genuine bewilderment. And for the first time, Aylmore made no response to her.

But the course of things was going steadily forward. There was no stopping the Treasury Counsel now; he was going to get at some truth in his own merciless fashion. He had exchanged one glance with the Coroner, had whispered a word to the solicitor who sat close by him, and now he turned again to the witness.

"So you know that gentleman—make sure now—as Mr. Anderson, an inmate of the Temple?"

"Yes, sir."

"You don't know him by any other name?"

"No, sir, I don't."

"How long have you known him by that name?"

"I should say two or three years, sir."

"See him go in and out regularly?"

"No, sir—not regularly."

"How often, then?"

"Now and then, sir—perhaps once a week."

"Tell us what you know of Mr. Anderson's goings-in-and-out."

"Well, sir, I might see him two nights running; then I mightn't see him again for perhaps a week or two. Irregular, as you might say, sir."

"You say 'nights.' Do I understand that you never see Mr. Anderson except at night?"

"Yes, sir. I've never seen him except at night. Always about the same time, sir."

"What time?"

"Just about midnight, sir."

"Very well. Do you remember the midnight of June 21st-22nd?"

"I do, sir."

"Did you see Mr. Anderson enter then?"

"Yes, sir, just after twelve."

"Was he alone?"

"No, sir; there was another gentleman with him."

"Remember anything about that other gentleman?"

"Nothing, sir, except that I noticed as they walked through, that the other gentleman had grey clothes on."

"Had grey clothes on. You didn't see his face?"

"Not to remember it, sir. I don't remember anything but what I've told you, sir."

"That is that the other gentleman wore a grey suit. Where did Mr. Anderson and this gentleman in the grey suit go when they'd passed through?"

"Straight up the Lane, sir."

"Do you know where Mr. Anderson's rooms in the Temple are?"

"Not exactly, sir, but I understood in Fountain Court."

"Now, on that night in question, did Mr. Anderson leave again by your lodge?"

"No, sir."

"You heard of the discovery of the body of a dead man in Middle Temple Lane next morning?"

"I did, sir."

"Did you connect that man with the gentleman in the grey suit?"

"No, sir, I didn't. It never occurred to me. A lot of the gentlemen who live in the Temple bring friends in late of nights; I never gave the matter any particular thought."

"Never mentioned it to anybody until now, when you were sent for to come here?"

"No, sir, never, to anybody."

"And you have never known the gentleman standing there as anybody but Mr. Anderson?"

"No, sir, never heard any other name but Anderson."

The Coroner glanced at the Counsel.

"I think this may be a convenient opportunity for Mr. Aylmore to give the explanation he offered a few minutes ago," he said. "Do you suggest anything?"

"I suggest, sir, that if Mr. Aylmore desires to give any explanation he should return to the witness-box and submit himself to examination again on his oath," replied the Counsel. "The matter is in your hands."

The Coroner turned to Aylmore.

"Do you object to that?" he asked.

Aylmore stepped boldly forward and into the box.

"I object to nothing," he said in clear tones, "except to being asked to reply to questions about matters of the past which have not and cannot have anything to do with this case. Ask me what questions you like, arising out of the evidence of the last two witnesses, and I will answer them so far as I see myself justified in doing so. Ask me questions about matters of twenty years ago, and I shall answer them or not as I see fit. And I may as well say that I will take all the consequences of my silence or my speech."

The Treasury Counsel rose again.

"Very well, Mr. Aylmore," he said. "I will put certain questions to you. You heard the evidence of David Lyell?"

"I did."

"Was that quite true as regards yourself?"

"Quite true—absolutely true."

"And you heard that of the last witness. Was that also true!"

"Equally true."

"Then you admit that the evidence you gave this morning, before these witnesses came on the scene, was not true?"

"No, I do not! Most emphatically I do not. It was true."

"True? You told me, on oath, that you parted from John Marbury on Waterloo Bridge!"

"Pardon me, I said nothing of the sort. I said that from the Anglo-Orient Hotel we strolled across Waterloo Bridge, and that shortly afterwards we parted—I did not say where we parted. I see there is a shorthand writer here who is taking everything down—ask him if that is not exactly what I said?"

A reference to the stenographer proved Aylmore to be right, and the Treasury Counsel showed plain annoyance.

"Well, at any rate, you so phrased your answer that nine persons out of ten would have understood that you parted from Marbury in the open streets after crossing Waterloo Bridge," he said. "Now—?"

Aylmore smiled.

"I am not responsible for the understanding of nine people out of ten any more than I am for your understanding," he said, with a sneer. "I said what I now repeat—Marbury and I walked across Waterloo Bridge, and shortly afterwards we parted. I told you the truth."

"Indeed! Perhaps you will continue to tell us the truth. Since you have admitted that the evidence of the last two witnesses is absolutely correct, perhaps you will tell us exactly where you and Marbury did part?"

"I will—willingly. We parted at the door of my chambers in Fountain Court."

"Then—to reiterate—it was you who took Marbury into the Temple that night?"

"It was certainly I who took Marbury into the Temple that night."

There was another murmur amongst the crowded benches. Here at any rate was fact—solid, substantial fact. And Spargo began to see a possible course of events which he had not anticipated.

"That is a candid admission, Mr. Aylmore. I suppose you see a certain danger to yourself in making it."

"I need not say whether I do or I do not. I have made it."

"Very good. Why did you not make it before?"

"For my own reasons. I told you as much as I considered necessary for the purpose of this enquiry. I have virtually altered nothing now. I asked to be allowed to make a statement, to give an explanation, as soon as Mr. Lyell had left this box: I was not allowed to do so. I am willing to make it now."

"Make it then."

"It is simply this," said Aylmore, turning to the Coroner. "I have found it convenient, during the past three years, to rent a simple set of chambers in the Temple, where I could occasionally—very occasionally, as a rule—go late at night. I also found it convenient, for my own reasons—with which, I think, no one has anything to do—to rent those chambers under the name of Mr. Anderson. It was to my chambers that Marbury accompanied me for a few moments on the midnight with which we are dealing. He was not in them more than five minutes at the very outside: I parted from him at my outer door, and I understood that he would leave the Temple by the way we had entered and would drive or walk straight back to his hotel. That is the whole truth. I wish to add that I ought perhaps to have told all this at first. I had reasons for not doing so. I told what I considered necessary, that I parted from Marbury, leaving him well and alive, soon after midnight."

"What reasons were or are they which prevented you from telling all this at first?" asked the Treasury Counsel.

"Reasons which are private to me."

"Will you tell them to the court?"

"No!"

"Then will you tell us why Marbury went with you to the chambers in Fountain Court which you tenant under the name of Anderson?"

"Yes. To fetch a document which I had in my keeping, and had kept for him for twenty years or more."

"A document of importance?"

"Of very great importance."

"He would have it on him when he was—as we believe he was—murdered and robbed?"

"He had it on him when he left me."

"Will you tell us what it was?"

"Certainly not!"

"In fact, you won't tell us any more than you choose to tell?"

"I have told you all I can tell of the events of that night."

"Then I am going to ask you a very pertinent question. Is it not a fact that you know a great deal more about John Marbury than you have told this court?"

"That I shall not answer."

"Is it not a fact that you could, if you would, tell this court more about John Marbury and your acquaintanceship with him twenty years ago?"

"I also decline to answer that."

The Treasury Counsel made a little movement of his shoulders and turned to the Coroner.

"I should suggest, sir, that you adjourn this enquiry," he said quietly.

"For a week," assented the Coroner, turning to the jury.

The crowd surged out of the court, chattering, murmuring, exclaiming— spectators, witnesses, jurymen, reporters, legal folk, police folk, all mixed up together. And Spargo, elbowing his own way out, and busily reckoning up the value of the new complexions put on everything by the day's work, suddenly felt a hand laid on his arm. Turning he found himself gazing at Jessie Aylmore.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

THE SILVER TICKET

With a sudden instinct of protection, Spargo quickly drew the girl aside from the struggling crowd, and within a moment had led her into a quiet by-street. He looked down at her as she stood recovering her breath.

"Yes?" he said quietly.

Jessie Aylmore looked up at him, smiling faintly.

"I want to speak to you," she said. "I must speak to you."

"Yes," said Spargo. "But—the others? Your sister?—Breton?"

"I left them on purpose to speak to you," she answered. "They knew I did. I am well accustomed to looking after myself."

Spargo moved down the by-street, motioning his companion to move with him.

"Tea," he said, "is what you want. I know a queer, old-fashioned place close by here where you can get the best China tea in London. Come and have some."

Jessie Aylmore smiled and followed her guide obediently. And Spargo said nothing, marching stolidly along with his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, his fingers playing soundless tunes outside, until he had installed himself and his companion in a quiet nook in the old tea-house he had told her of, and had given an order for tea and hot tea-cakes to a waitress who evidently knew him. Then he turned to her.

"You want," he said, "to talk to me about your father."

"Yes," she answered. "I do."

"Why?" asked Spargo.

The girl gave him a searching look.

"Ronald Breton says you're the man who's written all those special articles in the Watchman about the Marbury case," she answered. "Are you?"

"I am," said Spargo.

"Then you're a man of great influence," she went on. "You can stir the public mind. Mr. Spargo—what are you going to write about my father and today's proceedings?"

Spargo signed to her to pour out the tea which had just arrived. He seized, without ceremony, upon a piece of the hot buttered tea-cake, and bit a great lump out of it.

"Frankly," he mumbled, speaking with his mouth full, "frankly, I don't know. I don't know—yet. But I'll tell you this—it's best to be candid—I shouldn't allow myself to be prejudiced or biassed in making up my conclusions by anything that you may say to me. Understand?"

Jessie Aylmore took a sudden liking to Spargo because of the unconventionality and brusqueness of his manners.

"I'm not wanting to prejudice or bias you," she said. "All I want is that you should be very sure before you say—anything."

"I'll be sure," said Spargo. "Don't bother. Is the tea all right?"

"Beautiful!" she answered, with a smile that made Spargo look at her again. "Delightful! Mr. Spargo, tell me!—what did you think about—about what has just happened?"

Spargo, regardless of the fact that his fingers were liberally ornamented with butter, lifted a hand and rubbed his always untidy hair. Then he ate more tea-cake and gulped more tea.

"Look here!" he said suddenly. "I'm no great hand at talking. I can write pretty decently when I've a good story to tell, but I don't talk an awful lot, because I never can express what I mean unless I've got a pen in my hand. Frankly, I find it hard to tell you what I think. When I write my article this evening, I'll get all these things marshalled in proper form, and I shall write clearly about 'em. But I'll tell you one thing I do think—I wish your father had made a clean breast of things to me at first, when he gave me that interview, or had told everything when he first went into that box."

"Why?" she asked.

"Because he's now set up an atmosphere of doubt and suspicion around himself. People'll think—Heaven knows what they'll think! They already know that he knows more about Marbury than he'll tell, that—"

"But does he?" she interrupted quickly. "Do you think he does?"

"Yes!" replied Spargo, with emphasis. "I do. A lot more! If he had only been explicit at first—however, he wasn't. Now it's done. As things stand—look here, does it strike you that your father is in a very serious position?"

"Serious?" she exclaimed.

"Dangerous! Here's the fact—he's admitted that he took Marbury to his rooms in the Temple that midnight. Well, next morning Marbury's found robbed and murdered in an entry, not fifty yards off!"

"Does anybody suppose that my father would murder him for the sake of robbing him of whatever he had on him?" she laughed scornfully. "My father is a very wealthy man, Mr. Spargo."

"May be," answered Spargo. "But millionaires have been known to murder men who held secrets."

"Secrets!" she exclaimed.

"Have some more tea," said Spargo, nodding at the teapot. "Look here—this way it is. The theory that people—some people—will build up (I won't say that it hasn't suggested itself to me) is this:—There's some mystery about the relationship, acquaintanceship, connection, call it what you like, of your father and Marbury twenty odd years ago. Must be. There's some mystery about your father's life, twenty odd years ago. Must be—or else he'd have answered those questions. Very well. 'Ha, ha!' says the general public. 'Now we have it!' 'Marbury,' says the general public, 'was a man who had a hold on Aylmore. He turned up. Aylmore trapped him into the Temple, killed him to preserve his own secret, and robbed him of all he had on him as a blind.' Eh?"

"You think—people will say that?" she exclaimed.

"Cock-sure! They're saying it. Heard half a dozen of 'em say it, in more or less elegant fashion as I came out of that court. Of course, they'll say it. Why, what else could they say?"

For a moment Jessie Aylmore sat looking silently into her tea-cup. Then she turned her eyes on Spargo, who immediately manifested a new interest in what remained of the tea-cakes.

"Is that what you're going to say in your article tonight?" she asked, quietly.

"No!" replied Spargo, promptly. "It isn't. I'm going to sit on the fence tonight. Besides, the case is sub judice. All I'm going to do is to tell, in my way, what took place at the inquest."

The girl impulsively put her hand across the table and laid it on Spargo's big fist.

"Is it what you think?" she asked in a low voice.

"Honour bright, no!" exclaimed Spargo. "It isn't—it isn't! I don't think it. I think there's a most extraordinary mystery at the bottom of Marbury's death, and I think your father knows an enormous lot about Marbury that he won't tell, but I'm certain sure that he neither killed Marbury nor knows anything whatever about his death. And as I'm out to clear this mystery up, and mean to do it, nothing'll make me more glad than to clear your father. I say, do have some more tea-cake? We'll have fresh ones—and fresh tea."

"No, thank you," she said smiling. "And thank you for what you've just said. I'm going now, Mr. Spargo. You've done me good."

"Oh, rot!" exclaimed Spargo. "Nothing—nothing! I've just told you what I'm thinking. You must go?…"

He saw her into a taxi-cab presently, and when she had gone stood vacantly staring after the cab until a hand clapped him smartly on the shoulder. Turning, he found Rathbury grinning at him.

"All right, Mr. Spargo, I saw you!" he said. "Well, it's a pleasant change to squire young ladies after being all day in that court. Look here, are you going to start your writing just now?"

"I'm not going to start my writing as you call it, until after I've dined at seven o'clock and given myself time to digest my modest dinner," answered Spargo. "What is it?"

"Come back with me and have another look at that blessed leather box," said Rathbury. "I've got it in my room, and I'd like to examine it for myself. Come on!"

"The thing's empty," said Spargo.

"There might be a false bottom in it," remarked Rathbury. "One never knows. Here, jump into this!"

He pushed Spargo into a passing taxi-cab, and following, bade the driver go straight to the Yard. Arrived there, he locked Spargo and himself into the drab-visaged room in which the journalist had seen him before.

"What d'ye think of today's doings, Spargo?" he asked, as he proceeded to unlock a cupboard.

"I think," said Spargo, "that some of you fellows must have had your ears set to tingling."

"That's so," assented Rathbury. "Of course, the next thing'll be to find out all about the Mr. Aylmore of twenty years since. When a man won't tell you where he lived twenty years ago, what he was exactly doing, what his precise relationship with another man was—why, then, you've just got to find out, eh? Oh, some of our fellows are at work on the life history of Stephen Aylmore, Esq., M.P., already—you bet! Well, now, Spargo, here's the famous box."

The detective brought the old leather case out of the cupboard in which he had been searching, and placed it on his desk. Spargo threw back the lid and looked inside, measuring the inner capacity against the exterior lines.

"No false bottom in that, Rathbury," he said. "There's just the outer leather case, and the inner lining, of this old bed-hanging stuff, and that's all. There's no room for any false bottom or anything of that sort, d'you see?"

Rathbury also sized up the box's capacity.

"Looks like it," he said disappointedly. "Well, what about the lid, then? I remember there was an old box like this in my grandmother's farmhouse, where I was reared—there was a pocket in the lid. Let's see if there's anything of the sort here?"

He threw the lid back and began to poke about the lining of it with the tips of his fingers, and presently he turned to his companion with a sharp exclamation.

"By George, Spargo!" he said. "I don't know about any pocket, but there's something under this lining. Feels like—here, you feel. There—and there."

Spargo put a finger on the places indicated.

"Yes, that's so," he agreed. "Feels like two cards—a large and a small one. And the small one's harder than the other. Better cut that lining out, Rathbury."

"That," remarked Rathbury, producing a pen-knife, "is just what I'm going to do. We'll cut along this seam."

He ripped the lining carefully open along the upper part of the lining of the lid, and looking into the pocket thus made, drew out two objects which he dropped on his blotting pad.

"A child's photograph," he said, glancing at one of them. "But what on earth is that?"

The object to which he pointed was a small, oblong piece of thin, much-worn silver, about the size of a railway ticket. On one side of it was what seemed to be a heraldic device or coat-of-arms, almost obliterated by rubbing; on the other, similarly worn down by friction, was the figure of a horse.

"That's a curious object," remarked Spargo, picking it up. "I never saw anything like that before. What can it be?"

"Don't know—I never saw anything of the sort either," said Rathbury. "Some old token, I should say. Now this photo. Ah—you see, the photographer's name and address have been torn away or broken off—there's nothing left but just two letters of what's apparently been the name of the town—see. Er—that's all there is. Portrait of a baby, eh?"

Spargo gave, what might have been called in anybody else but him, a casual glance at the baby's portrait. He picked up the silver ticket again and turned it over and over.

"Look here, Rathbury," he said. "Let me take this silver thing. I know where I can find out what it is. At least, I think I do.''

"All right," agreed the detective, "but take the greatest care of it, and don't tell a soul that we found it in this box, you know. No connection with the Marbury case, Spargo, remember."

"Oh, all right," said Spargo. "Trust me."

He put the silver ticket in his pocket, and went back to the office, wondering about this singular find. And when he had written his article that evening, and seen a proof of it, Spargo went into Fleet Street intent on seeking peculiar information.