UNRAVELLED KNOTS

BARONESS ORCZY

NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

CONTENTS

I [THE MYSTERY OF THE KHAKI TUNIC]

II [THE MYSTERY OF THE INGRES MASTERPIECE]

III [THE MYSTERY OF THE PEARL NECKLACE]

IV [THE MYSTERY OF THE RUSSIAN PRINCE]

V [THE MYSTERIOUS TRAGEDY IN BISHOP'S ROAD]

VI [THE MYSTERY OF THE DOG'S TOOTH CLIFF]

VII [THE TYTHERTON CASE]

VIII [THE MYSTERY OF BRUDENELL COURT]

IX [THE MYSTERY OF THE WHITE CARNATION]

X [THE MYSTERY OF THE MONTMARTRE HAT]

XI [THE MISER OF MAIDA VALE]

XII [THE FULTON GARDENS MYSTERY]

XIII [A MOORLAND TRAGEDY]

By BARONESS ORCZY

UNRAVELLED KNOTS
PIMPERNEL AND ROSEMARY
THE HONOURABLE JIM
THE TRIUMPH OF THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL
NICOLETTE
CASTLES IN THE AIR
THE FIRST SIR PERCY
HIS MAJESTY'S WELL-BELOVED
THE LEAGUE OF THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL
FLOWER O' THE LILY
THE MAN IN GREY
LORD TONY'S WIFE
LEATHERFACE
THE BRONZE EAGLE
A BRIDE OF THE PLAINS
THE LAUGHING CAVALIER
"UNTO CAESAR"
EL DORADO
MEADOWSWEET
THE NOBLE ROGUE
THE HEART OF A WOMAN
PETTICOAT RULE

New York: George H. Doran Company

UNRAVELLED KNOTS

I
THE MYSTERY OF THE KHAKI TUNIC

§1

I cannot pretend to say how it all happened. I can but relate what occurred, leaving those of my friends who are versed in psychic matters to find a plausible explanation for the fact that on that horrible foggy afternoon I chanced to walk into that blameless teashop at that particular hour.

Now, I had not been inside a teashop for years, and I had almost ceased to think of the Old Man in the Corner—the weird, spook-like creature with the baggy trousers, the huge horn-rimmed spectacles, and the thin claw-like hands that went on fidgeting, fidgeting, fidgeting with a piece of string, tying it with nervy deliberation into innumerable and complicated knots.

And yet, when I walked into that teashop and saw him sitting in the corner by the fire, I was hardly conscious of surprise, but I did not think that he would recognise me. So I sat down at the next table to him, and when I thought that he was most intent on fidgeting with his piece of string, I stole surreptitious glances at him. The years seemed to have passed him by; he was just the same; his face no more wrinkled; his fingers were as agile and restless as they had been when last I saw him twenty years ago.

Then all at once he spoke, just as he used to do, in the same cracked voice with the dry, ironic chuckle.

"One of the most interesting cases it has ever been my good fortune to investigate," he said. I had not realised that he had seen me, and I gave such a startled jump that I spilt half a cup of tea on my frock. With a long, bony finger he was pointing to a copy of the Express Post, which lay beside his plate, and almost against my will my eyes wandered to the flaring headline: "The Mystery of the Khaki Tunic."

Then I looked up inquiringly at my pixy-like interlocutor. It never occurred to me to make a conventional little speech about the lapse of time since last we met; for the moment I had the feeling as if I had seen him the day before.

"You are still interested in criminology, then?" I asked.

"More than ever," he replied with a bland smile, "and this case has given me some of the most delightful moments I have ever experienced in connection with my studies. I have watched the police committing one blunder after another, and to-day, when they are completely baffled and the public has started to write letters to the papers about another undetected crime and another criminal at large, I am having the time of my life."

"Of course, you have made up your mind," I retorted with what I felt was withering sarcasm.

"I have arrived at the only possible solution of the mystery," he replied, unperturbed, "and you will do the same when I have put the facts clearly and logically before you. As for the police, let 'em flounder," he went on complacently. "For me it has been an exciting drama to watch from beginning to end. Every one of the characters in it stands out before me like a clear-cut cameo.

"There was Miss Mary Clarke, a quiet, middle-aged woman who rented Hardacres from Lord Foremeere. She had taken the place soon after the Armistice, and ran a poultry farm there on a small scale with the occasional assistance of her brother Arthur, an ex-officer in the East Glebeshires, a young man who had an excellent war-record, but who seemed, like so many other young men of his kind, to have fallen into somewhat shiftless and lazy ways since the glorious peace.

"No doubt you know the geography of the place. The halfpenny papers have been full of maps and plans of Hardacres. It is rather a lonely house on the road between Langford and Barchester, about three-quarters of a mile from Meere village. Meere Court is another half-mile or so farther on, the house hidden by clumps of stately trees, above which can be perceived the towers of Barchester Cathedral.

"Very little seems to have been known about Miss Clarke in the neighbourhood; she seemed to be fairly well-to-do and undoubtedly a cut above the village folk, but, equally obviously, she did not belong to the county set. Nor did she encourage visitors, not even the vicar; she seldom went to church, and neither went to parties nor ever asked any one to tea; she did most of her shopping herself, in Meere, and sold her poultry and eggs to Mr. Brook, the local dealer, who served all the best houses for miles around. Every morning at seven o'clock a girl from the village, named Emily Baker, came in to do the housework at Hardacres, and left again after the mid-day dinner. Once a week regularly, Miss Clarke called at Meere Court. Always on a Friday. She walked over in the afternoon, whatever the weather, brought a large basket of eggs with her, and was shown, without ever being kept waiting, straight into Lady Foremeere's sitting-room. The interview lasted about ten minutes, sometimes more, and then she would be shown out again.

"Mind you," the funny creature went on glibly, and raising a long, pointed finger to emphasise his words, "no one seems to have thought that there was anything mysterious about Miss Clarke. The fact that 'she kept 'erself to 'erself' was not in itself a sign of anything odd about her. People, especially women, in outlying country districts, often lead very self-centred, lonely lives; they arouse a certain amount of curiosity when they first arrive in the neighbourhood, but after a while gossip dies out if it is not fed, and the hermit's estrangement from village life is tacitly accepted.

"On the other hand, Miss Clarke's brother Arthur was exceedingly gregarious. He was a crack tennis player and an excellent dancer, and these two accomplishments procured him his entrée into the best houses in the county—houses which, before the war, when people were more fastidious in the choice of their guests, would no doubt have not been quite so freely opened to him.

"It was common gossip that Arthur was deeply in love with April St. Jude, Lord Foremeere's beautiful daughter by a previous marriage, but public opinion was unanimous in the assertion that there never could be any question of marriage between an extemporary gentleman without money or property of any kind and the society beauty who had been courted by some of the smartest and richest men in London.

"Nor did Arthur Clarke enjoy the best of reputations in the neighbourhood. He was over-fond of betting and loafing about the public-houses of Barchester. People said, that he might help his sister in the farm more than he did, seeing that he did not appear to have a sixpence of his own, and that she gave him bed and board, but as he was very good-looking and could make himself very agreeable if he chose, the women, at any rate, smiled at his misdeeds and were content to call Arthur 'rather wild, but not really a bad boy.'

"Then came the tragedy.

"On the twenty-eighth of December last, when Emily Baker came to work as usual, she was rather surprised not to see or hear Miss Clarke moving about the place. As a rule she was out in the yard by the time Emily arrived; the chickens would have had their hot mash and the empty pans would have been left for Emily to wash up. But this morning nothing. In the girl's own words there was a creepy kind of lonely feeling about the house. She knew that Mr. Clarke was not at home. The day before the servants at Meere Court had their annual Christmas party, and Mr. Clarke had been asked to help with the tree and to entertain the children. He had announced his intention of putting up afterwards at the Deanery Hotel for the night, a thing he was rather fond of doing whenever he was asked out to parties and did not know what time he might be able to get away.

"Emily, when she arrived, had found the front door on the latch, as usual, therefore, she reflected, Miss Clarke must have been downstairs and drawn the bolts. But where could she be now? Never, never would she have gone out before feeding her chickens, on such a cold morning, too!

"At this point Emily gave up reflecting, and proceeded to action. She went up to her mistress's room. It was empty, and the bed had not been slept in. Genuinely alarmed now, she ran down again, her next objective being the parlour. The door was, as usual, locked on the outside, but, contrary to precedent, the key was not in the lock; thinking it had dropped out, the girl searched for it, but in vain, and at one moment, when she moved the small mat which stood before the door of the locked room, she at once became aware of an over-powering smell of gas.

"This proved the death-blow to Emily's fortitude; she took to her heels and ran out of the house and down the road toward the village, nor did she halt until she came to the local police-station, where she gave as coherent an account as she could of the terrible state of things at Hardacres.

"You will remember that when the police broke open the door of the parlour, the first thing they saw was the body of Miss Clarke lying full-length on the floor. The poor woman was quite dead, suffocated by the poisonous fumes of gas which was fully turned on in the old-fashioned chandelier above her head. The one window had been carefully latched, and the thick curtains closely drawn together; the chimney had been stuffed up with newspaper and paper had been thrust into every aperture so as to exclude the slightest possible breath of air. There was a wad of it in the keyhole, and the mat on the landing outside had been carefully arranged against the door with the same sinister object.

"The news spread like wildfire and soon the entire neighbourhood was gloating over a sensation the like of which had not come its way for generations past."

§2

"The London evening papers got hold of the story for their noonday edition," the Old Man in the Corner went on, after a slight pause, "and I with my passion for the enigmatical and the perplexing, made up my mind then and there to probe the mystery on my own account, because I knew well enough that this was just the sort of case which would send the county police blundering all over the wrong track.

"I arrived at Barchester on the Tuesday, in time for the inquest, but nothing of much importance transpired that day. Medical evidence went to prove that the deceased had first been struck on the back of the head by some heavy instrument, a weighted stick or something of the sort, which had no doubt stunned her, but she actually died of gas poisoning, which she inhaled in large quantities while she was half-conscious. The medical officer went on to say that Miss Clarke must have been dead twelve hours or more when he was called in by the police at about eight o'clock in the morning.

"After this, a couple of neighbours testified to having seen Miss Clarke at her front door at about half-past five the previous evening. It was a very dark night, if you remember, and a thick Scotch mist was falling. When the neighbours went by, Miss Clarke had apparently just introduced a visitor into her house, the gas was alight in the small hall, and they had vaguely perceived the outline of a man or woman, they could not swear which, in a huge coat, standing for a moment immediately behind Miss Clarke; the neighbours also heard Miss Clarke's voice speaking to her visitor, but what she said they could not distinguish. The weather was so atrocious that every one who was abroad that night hurried along without taking much notice of what went on around.

"Evidence of a more or less formal character followed, and the inquest was then adjourned until the Friday, every one going away with the feeling that sensational developments were already in the air.

"And the developments came tumbling in thick and fast. To begin with, it appears that Arthur Clarke, when first questioned by the police, had made a somewhat lame statement.

"'I was asked,' he said, 'to help with the servants' Christmas party at Meere Court. I walked over to Barchester at about three o'clock in the afternoon, with my suit-case, as I was going to spend the night at the Deanery Hotel. I went on to Meere Court soon after half-past three, and stayed until past seven; after which I walked back to the Deanery, had some dinner, and went early to bed. I never knew that anything had happened to my sister until the police telephoned to me soon after eight o'clock the next morning. And,' he added, 'that's all about it!'

"But it certainly was not 'all about it,' because several of the servants at Meere Court who were asked at what time Mr. Clarke went away that night, said that he must have gone very soon after five o'clock. They all finished their tea about that time, and then the gramophone was set going for dancing; they were quite sure that they had not seen Mr. Clarke after that.

"On the other hand, Miss St. Jude said that the servants were mistaken; they were far too deeply engrossed in their own amusements to be at all reliable in their statements. As a matter of fact, Mr. Clarke went away, as he said, at about seven o'clock; she herself had danced with him most of the time, and said good-night to him in the hall at a few minutes after seven.

"Here was a neat little complication, do you see—a direct conflict of evidence at the very outset of this mysterious case. Can you wonder that amateur detectives already shrugged their shoulders and raised their eyebrows, declaring that the Hon. April St. Jude was obviously in love with Arthur Clarke, and was trying to shield him, well knowing that he had something to hide.

"Of course the police themselves were very reticent, but even they could not keep people from gossiping. And gossip, I can assure you, had enough and to spare to feed on. At first, of course, the crime had seemed entirely motiveless. The deceased had not an enemy, or, as far as that goes, many acquaintances in the world. In the drawer of the desk, in the parlour, the sum of twenty pounds odd in notes and cash were found, and in a little box by the side of the money poor Mary Clarke's little bits of jewellery.

"But twenty-four hours later no one could remain in doubt as to the assassin's purpose. You will remember that on the day following the adjourned inquest there had arrived from the depths of Yorkshire an old sister of the deceased, a respectable spinster, to whom Arthur himself, it seems, had communicated the terrible news. She had come to Barchester for the funeral. This elder Miss Clarke, Euphemia by name, though she could not say much that was informative, did, at any rate, throw light upon one dark passage in her sister's history.

"'For the past four years,' she told the police, 'my sister had an allowance of four pounds a week from a member of the aristocracy. I did not know much about her affairs, but I do know that she had a packet of letters on which she set great store. What these letters were I have not the slightest idea, nor do I know what Mary ultimately did with them. On one occasion, before she was actually settled at Hardacres, she met me in London and asked me to take care of this packet for her, and she told me then that they were very valuable. I also know that she and my brother Arthur had most heated arguments together on the subject of these letters. Arthur was always wanting her to give them up to him, and she always refused. On one occasion she told me that she could, if she wanted, sell that packet of letters for five thousand pounds. "Why on earth don't you?" I asked her. But she replied: "Oh, Arthur would only get the money out of me! It's better as it is."'

"This story, as you may well imagine, gave food enough for gossip; at once a romance was woven of blackmail and drama of love and passion, whilst the name of a certain great lady in the neighbourhood, to whom Miss Clarke had been in the habit of paying mysterious weekly visits, already was on everybody's lips.

"And then the climax came. By evening it had transpired that in Arthur Clarke's room at Hardacres, the detectives had found an old khaki tunic stuffed away at the bottom of a drawer, and in the pocket of the tunic the key of the locked parlour door. It was an officer's tunic, which had at some time had its buttons and badges taken off; its right sleeve was so torn that it was nearly out at its armhole; the cuff was all crumpled, as if it had been crushed in a damp, hot hand, and there was a small piece of the cloth torn clean out of it. And I will leave you to guess the importance of this fact—in the tightly-clenched hand of the murdered woman was found the small piece of khaki cloth which corresponded to a hair's-breadth with the missing bit in the sleeve of the tunic.

"After that the man in the street shook his head and declared that Arthur Clarke was as good as hung already."

§3

The Old Man in the Corner had drawn out of his capacious pocket a fresh piece of string. And now his claw-like fingers started to work on it with feverish intentness. I watched him, fascinated, well knowing that his keen mind was just as busy with the Hardacres mystery as were his hands in the fashioning of some intricate and complicated knot.

"I am not," he said after a while, "going to give you an elaborate description of the inquest and of the crowds that collected both inside and out of the court-room, hoping to get a glimpse of the principal actors in the exciting drama. By now, of course, all those who had talked of the crime being without apparent motive had effectually been silenced. To every amateur detective, as well as to the professional, the murderer and his nefarious object appeared absolutely revealed to the light of day. Every indication, every scrap of evidence collected up to this hour, both direct and circumstantial, pointed to Arthur Clarke as the murderer of his sister. There were the letters, which were alleged to be worth five thousand pounds, to the mysterious member of the aristocracy who was paying Miss Clarke a weekly pittance, obviously in order to silence her; there was the strong love motive—the young man in love with the girl far above him in station and wanting to get hold of a large sum of money, no doubt, to embark on some profitable business which might help him in his wooing; and there, above all, was the damning bit of khaki cloth in the murdered woman's hand, and the tunic with the key of the locked door in its pocket found in a drawer in Clarke's own room.

"No, indeed, the inquest was not likely to be a dull affair, more especially as no one doubted what the verdict would be, whilst a good many people anticipated that Clarke would at once be arrested on the coroner's warrant and committed for trial at the next assizes on the capital charge.

"But though we all knew that the inquest would not be dull, yet we were not prepared for the surprises which were in store for us, and which will render that inquest a memorable one in the annals of criminal investigation. To begin with we already knew that Arthur Clarke had now the assistance of Mr. Markham, one of the leading solicitors of Barchester, in his difficult position. Acting on that gentleman's advice Clarke had amplified the statement which he had originally made as to his movements on the fatal afternoon. This amplified statement he now reiterated on oath, and though frankly no one believed him, we were bound to admit that if he could substantiate it, an extraordinary complication would arise, which though it might not eventually clear him altogether, in the minds of thinking people, would at any rate give him the benefit of the doubt. What he now stated was in substance this:

"'The servants at Meere Court,' he said, 'are quite right when they say that I left the party soon after five o'clock. I was rather tired, and after a last dance with Miss St. Jude, I went upstairs to pay my respects to Lady Foremeere. Her ladyship, however, kept me talking for some considerable time on one subject and another, until, to my astonishment, I saw that it was close on seven o'clock, when I hastily took my leave.

"'While I was looking for my coat in the hall, I remember that Lord Foremeere came out of the smoking-room and asked me if I knew whether the party downstairs had broken up. "These things are such a bore," he said, "but I will see if I can get one of them to come up and show you out." I told his lordship not to trouble. However, he rang the bell, and presently the butler, Spinks, came through from the servants' quarters, and his lordship then went upstairs, I think. A minute or two later Miss St. Jude came, also from the servants' quarters; she sent Spinks away, telling him that she would look after me; we talked together for a few moments, and then I said good-night, and went straight back to the hotel.'

"Now we had already learned from both the hall-porter and the head waiter at the Deanery that Mr. Clarke was back at the hotel soon after seven o'clock, that he had his dinner in the restaurant at half-past, and that after spending an hour or so in the lounge after dinner, he went up to his room, and did not go out again until the following morning. Therefore, all that was needed now was a confirmatory statement from Lady Foremeere to prove Arthur Clarke's innocence, because in that case every hour of his time would be accounted for, from half-past three onwards, whilst Miss Clarke was actually seen alive by two neighbours when she introduced a visitor into her house at half-past five.

"The question would then resolve itself into, Who was that visitor? leaving the more important one of the khaki tunic as a baffling mystery, rather than as damning evidence.

"The entire courtroom was on the tiptoe of expectation when Lady Foremeere was formally called. I can assure you that the ubiquitous pin could have been heard to drop during the brief moment's silence when the elegant Society woman stood up and disposed her exquisite sable cape about her shoulders and then swore to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

"She answered the coroner's questions in a clear, audible voice, and never wavered in her assertions. She said that her step-daughter had come up to her boudoir and asked her if she would see Mr. Arthur Clarke for a few moments; he had something very important to say to her.

"'I was rather surprised at the strange request,' Lady Foremeere continued with the utmost composure, 'and suggested that Mr. Clarke should make his important communication to Lord Foremeere, but my step-daughter insisted, and to please her I agreed. I thought that I would get my husband to be present at this mysterious interview, but his lordship was having a short rest in the smoking-room, so on second consideration I decided not to disturb him.

"'A minute or two later, Mr.—er—Clarke presented himself, and at once I realised that he had had too much to drink. He talked wildly about his desire to marry Miss St. Jude, and very excitedly about some compromising letters which he alleged were in his possession, and which he threatened to show to Lord Foremeere if I did not at once give him so many thousand pounds. Naturally, I ordered him out of the place. But he wouldn't go for a long time; he got more and more incoherent and excited, and it was not until I threatened to fetch Lord Foremeere immediately that he sobered down and finally went away. He had been in my room about half an hour.'

"'About half an hour?' was the coroner's earnest comment on this amazing piece of evidence, 'But Mr. Clarke said that when he left your ladyship it was close on seven.'

"'Mr.—er—Clarke is in error,' her ladyship asserted firmly. 'The clock had just struck half-past five when I succeeded in ridding myself of him.'

"You can easily imagine how great was the excitement at this moment and how intensified it became when Lord Foremeere gave evidence in his turn and further confused the issues. He began by corroborating Arthur Clarke's statement about his having spoken to him in the hall at seven o'clock. It was almost unbelievable! Everybody gasped and the coroner almost gave a jump:

"'But her ladyship has just told us,' he said, 'that Clarke left her at half-past five!'

"'That, no doubt, is accurate,' Lord Foremeere rejoined in his stiff, prim manner, 'since her ladyship said so. All I know is that I was asleep in front of the fire in the smoking-room when I heard a loud bang issuing from the hall. I went to see what it was and there I certainly saw Clarke. He was just coming through the glass door which divides the outside vestibule from the hall, and he appeared to me to have come straight out of the wet and to have left his hat and coat in the outer vestibule.'

"'But,' the coroner insisted, 'what made your lordship think that he had come from outside?'

"'Well, for one thing his face and hands were quite wet, and he was wiping them with his handkerchief when I first caught sight of him. His boots, too, were wet, and so were the edges of his trousers. And then, as I said, he was coming into the hall from the outer vestibule, and it was the banging of the front door which had roused me.'

"'And the hour then was?'

"'The clock had not long since struck seven. But my butler will be able to confirm this.'

"And Spinks the butler did confirm this portion of his lordship's statement, though he could say nothing about Mr. Clarke's boots being wet, nor did he help Mr. Clarke on with his coat and hat, or open the door for him. Miss St. Jude had practically followed Spinks into the hall, and had at once dismissed him, saying she would look after Mr. Clarke. His lordship in the meanwhile had gone upstairs, and Spinks went back into the servants' hall.

"Of course, Miss St. Jude was called. You remember that she had previously stated that Clarke had only left the party at about seven o'clock, that she herself had danced with him most of the time until then, and finally said good-bye to him in the hall. But as this statement was not even corroborated by Clarke's own assertions, and entirely contradicted by both Lord and Lady Foremeere's evidence, she was fortunately advised not to repeat it on oath. But she hotly denied the suggestion that Clarke had come in from outside when she said good-bye to him in the hall. She saw him put on his hat and coat, and they were quite dry. But nobody felt that her evidence was of any value because she would naturally do her utmost to help her sweetheart.

"Finally, one of the most interesting moments in that memorable inquiry was reached when Lady Foremeere was recalled and asked to state what she knew of Miss Clarke's antecedents.

"'Very little,' she replied. 'I only knew her in France when she worked under me in a hospital. I was very ill at one time and she nursed me devotedly; ever since that I helped her financially as much as I could.'

"'You made her a weekly allowance?' her ladyship was asked.

"'Not exactly,' she replied. 'I just bought her eggs and poultry at a higher figure than she would get from any one else.'

"'Do you know anything about some letters that she thought were so valuable?'

"'Oh, yes!' the lady replied with a kindly smile. 'Mary had a collection of autograph letters which she had collected whilst she was nursing in France. Among them were some by august, and others by very distinguished, personages. She had the idea that these were extraordinarily valuable.'

"'Do you know what became of those letters?'

"'No,' her ladyship replied, 'I do not know.'

"'But there were other letters, were there not?' the coroner insisted, 'in which you yourself were interested? The ones Mr. Clarke spoke to you about?'

"'They existed only in Mr. Clarke's imagination, I fancy,' Lady Foremeere replied, 'but he was in such a highly excited state that afternoon that I really could not quite make out what it was that he desired to sell to me.'

"Lady Foremeere spoke very quietly and very simply, without a single note of spite or acerbity in her soft, musical voice. One felt that she was stating quite simple facts that rather bored her, but to which she did not attach any importance. And later on when Miss Euphemia Clarke retold the story of the packet of letters and of the quarrels which the deceased and her brother had about them, and when the damning evidence of the khaki tunic stood out like an avenging Nemesis pointing at the unfortunate young man, those in court who had imagination, saw—positively saw—the hangman's rope tightening around his neck."

§4

"And yet the verdict was one of wilful murder against some person or persons unknown," I said, after a slight pause, waiting for the funny creature to take up his narrative again.

"Yes," he replied, "Arthur Clarke has been cleared of every suspicion. He left the court a free man. His innocence was proved beyond question through what every one thought was the most damnatory piece of evidence against him—the evidence of the khaki tunic. The khaki tunic exonerated Arthur Clarke as completely as the most skilful defender could do. Because it did not fit him. Arthur Clarke was a rather heavy, full-grown, broad-shouldered man, the khaki tunic would only fit a slim lad of eighteen. Clarke had admitted the tunic was his, but he had never thought of examining it, and certainly, not of trying it on. It was Miss St. Jude who thought of that. Trust a woman in love for getting an inspiration.

"When she was called at the end of the day to affirm the statements which she had previously made to the police and realised that these statements of hers were actually in contradiction with Clarke's own assertions, she worked herself up into a state bordering on hysteria, in the midst of which she caught sight of the khaki tunic on the coroner's table. Of course, she, like every one else in the neighbourhood, knew all about the tunic, but when April St. Jude actually saw it with her own eyes and realised what its existence meant to her sweetheart, she gave a wild shriek.

"'I'll not believe it,' she cried, 'I'll not believe it. It can't be. It is not Arthur's tunic at all.' Then her eyes dilated, her voice sank to a hoarse whisper, and with a trembling hand she pointed at the tunic. 'Why,' she murmured, 'it is so small—so small! Arthur! Where is Arthur? Why does he not show them all that he never could have worn that tunic?'

"Proverbially there is but a narrow dividing line between tragedy and farce: While some people shuddered and gasped and men literally held their breath, marvelling what would happen next, quite a number of women fell into hysterical giggling. Of course you remember what happened. The papers have told you all about it. Arthur Clarke was made to try on the khaki tunic, and he could not even get his arms into the sleeves. Under no circumstances could he ever have worn that particular tunic. It was several sizes too small for him. Then he examined it closely and recognised it as one he wore in his school O.T.C. when he was a lad. When he was originally confronted with it, he explained, he was so upset, so genuinely terrified at the consequences of certain follies which he undoubtedly had committed, that he could hardly see out of his eyes. The tunic was shown to him, and he had admitted that it was his, for he had quite a collection of old tunics which he had always kept. But for the moment he had forgotten the one which he had worn more than eight years ago at school.

"And so the khaki tunic, instead of condemning Clarke, had entirely cleared him, for it now became quite evident that the miscreant who had committed the dastardly murder had added this hideous act to his greater crime, and deliberately set to work to fasten the guilt on an innocent man. He had gone up to Clarke's room, opened the wardrobe, picked up a likely garment, no doubt tearing a piece of cloth out of it whilst so doing, and thus getting the fiendish idea of inserting that piece of khaki between the fingers of the murdered woman. Finally, after locking the parlour door, he put the key in the pocket of the tunic and stuffed the latter in the bottom of a drawer.

"It was a clever and cruel trick which well nigh succeeded in hanging an innocent man. As it is, it has enveloped the affair in an almost impenetrable mystery. I say 'almost' because I know who killed Miss Clarke, even though the public has thrown out an erroneous conjecture. 'It was Lady Foremeere,' they say, 'who killed Miss Clarke.' But at once comes the question: 'How could she?' And the query: 'When?'

"Arthur Clarke says he was with her until seven, and after that hour there were several members of her household who waited upon her, notably her maid who it seems came up to dress her at about that time, and she and Lord Foremeere sat down to dinner as usual at eight o'clock.

"That there had been one or two dark passages in Lady Foremeere's life, prior to her marriage four years ago, and that Miss Clarke was murdered for the sake of letters which were in some way connected with her ladyship were the only actual undisputable facts in that mysterious case. That it was not Arthur Clarke who killed his sister has been indubitably proved; that a great deal of the evidence was contradictory every one has admitted. And if the police do not act on certain suggestions which I have made to them, the Hardacres murder will remain a mystery to the public to the end of time."

"And what are those suggestions?" I asked, without the slightest vestige of irony, for, much against my will, the man's personality exercised a curious fascination over me.

"To keep an eye on Lord Foremeere," the funny creature replied with his dry chuckle, "and see when and how he finally disposes of a wet coat, a dripping hat and soaked boots, which he has succeeded in keeping concealed somewhere in the smoking-room, away from the prying eyes even of his own valet."

"You mean——" I asked, with an involuntary gasp.

"Yes," he replied. "I mean that it was Lord Foremeere who murdered Miss Clarke for the sake of those letters which apparently contained matter that was highly compromising to his wife.

"Everything to my mind points to him as the murderer. Whether he knew all along of the existence of the compromising letters, or whether he first knew of this through the conversation between her ladyship and Clarke the day of the servants' party, it is impossible to say; certain it is that he did overhear that conversation and that he made up his mind to end the impossible situation then and there, and to put a stop once and for all to any further attempt at blackmail.

"It was easy enough for him on that day to pass in and out of the house unperceived. No doubt his primary object in going to Hardacres was to purchase the letters from Miss Clarke, money down; perhaps she proved obstinate, perhaps he merely thought that dead men tell no tales. This we shall never know.

"After the hideous deed, which must have revolted his otherwise fastidious senses, he must have become conscious of an overwhelming hatred for the man who had, as it were, pushed him into crime, and my belief is that the elaborate mise en scène of the khaki tunic, and the circumstantial lie that when he came out of the smoking-room Arthur Clarke had obviously just come in from outside was invented, not so much with the object of averting any suspicion from himself, as with the passionate desire to be revenged on Clarke.

"Think it over," the Old Man in the Corner concluded, as he stuffed his beloved bit of string into his capacious pocket; "time, opportunity, motive, all are in favour of my theory, so do not be surprised if the early editions of to-morrow's evening papers contain the final sensation in this interesting case."

He was gone before I could say another word, and all that I saw of him was his spook-like figure disappearing through the swing-door. There was no one now in the place, so a moment or two later I too paid my bill and went away.

§5

The Old Man in the Corner proved to be right in the end. At eleven o'clock the next morning the street corners were full of newspaper placards with the flaring headlines: "Sudden death of Lord Foremeere."

It was reported that on the previous evening his lordship was examining a new automatic which he had just bought and explaining the mechanism to his valet. At one moment he actually made the remark: "It is all right, it isn't loaded," but apparently there was one cartridge left in one of the chambers. His lordship, it seems, was looking straight down the barrel and his finger must accidentally have touched the trigger; anyway, according to the valet's story, there was a sudden explosion, and Lord Foremeere fell shot right between the eyes.

The verdict at the inquest was, of course, one of accidental death, the coroner and jury expressing the greatest possible sympathy with Lady Foremeere and Miss St. Jude. It was only subsequently that one or two facts came to light which appeared obscure and unimportant to the man in the street, but which for me, in the light of my conversation with the Old Man in the Corner, bore special significance.

It seems that an hour or two before the accident, the chief superintendent of police had called with two constables at Meere Court and were closeted for a considerable time with Lord Foremeere in the smoking-room. And Spinks, the butler, who subsequently let the three men out, noticed that one of the constables was carrying a coat and a hat, which Spinks knew were old ones belonging to his lordship.

Then I knew that the funny creature in the loud check tweeds and baggy trousers had found the true solution of the Hardacres mystery.

Oh, and you wish to know what was the sequel to the pretty love story between April St. Jude and Arthur Clarke. Well, you know, she married Amos Rottenberg, the New York banker, last year, and Clarke runs a successful garage now somewhere in the North. A kind friend must have lent him the capital wherewith to make a start. I can make a shrewd guess who that kind friend was.

II
THE MYSTERY OF THE INGRES MASTERPIECE

§1

I did not see the Old Man in the Corner for several weeks after that strange meeting in the blameless teashop. The exigencies of my work kept me busy, and somehow the sensational suicide of Lord Foremeere which had appeared like the logical sequence of the spook-like creature's deductions, had left a painful impression on my mind. Entirely illogically, I admit, I felt that the Old Man in the Corner had had something to do with the tragedy.

But when in March of that year we were all thrilled by the mystery of the valuable Ingres picture, and wherever one went one heard conjectures and explanations of that extraordinary case, my thoughts very naturally reverted to the funny creature and his bit of string, and I found myself often wondering what his explanation of what seemed a truly impenetrable mystery could possibly be.

The facts certainly were very puzzling in themselves. When first I was deputed by the Express Post to put them clearly and succinctly before its readers, I found the task strangely difficult; this, for the simple reason that I myself could not see daylight through it all, and often did I stand in front of the admirable reproduction which I possess of the Ingres "La Fiancée" wondering if those smiling lips would not presently speak and tell me how an original and exquisite picture could possibly have been at two different places at one and the same time.

For that, in truth, was the depth of the puzzle. We will, if you please, call the original owners of the picture the Duc and Duchesse Paul de Rochechouart. That, of course, is not their name, but, as you all know who they really are, it matters not what I call them for the purpose of recording their singular adventure.

His Grace had early in life married a Swedish lady of great talent and singular beauty. She was an artist of no mean order, having exhibited pictures of merit both at the Paris Salon and at the Royal Academy in London; she was also an accomplished musician, and had published one or two very charming volumes of poetry.

The Duke and his wife were devoted to one another; they lived for the greater part of the year at their beautiful château on the Oise, not far from Chantilly, and here they entertained a great deal, more after the homely and hospitable manner of English country houses than in the more formal fashion. Here, too, they had collected some rare furniture, tapestries, and objects of art and vertu, amongst which certain highly-prized pictures of the French School of the Nineteenth Century.

The war, we may imagine, left the Duc de Rochechouart and his charming wife a good deal poorer, as it left most other people in France, and soon it became known amongst the art dealers of London, Paris and New York that they had decided to sell one or two of their most valuable pictures; foremost amongst these was the celebrated "La Fiancée" by Ingres.

Immediately there was what is technically known as a ramp after the picture. Dealers travelled backwards and forwards from all the great Continental cities to the château on the Oise to view the picture. Offers were made for it by cable, telegram and telephone, and the whole art world was kept in a flutter over what certainly promised to be a sensational deal.

Alas! as with most of the beautiful possessions of this impoverished old world, the coveted prize was destined to go to the country that had the longest purse. A certain Mr. Aaron Jacobs, the Chicago multi-millionaire, presently cabled an offer of half a million dollars for the picture, an offer which, rumour had it, the Duc de Rochechouart had since accepted. Mr. Jacobs was said to be a charming, highly-cultured man, a great art connoisseur and a great art lover, and presently one heard that he had already set sail for Europe with the intention of fetching away his newly-acquired treasure himself.

On the very day following Mr. Jacobs's arrival as the guest of the Duc and Duchesse de Rochechouart at the latter's château, the world-famous picture was stolen in broad daylight by a thief or thieves who contrived to make away with their booty without leaving the slightest clue, so it was said, that might put the police on their track. The picture was cut clean out of the frame, an operation which must have taken at least two or three minutes. It always used to hang above the tall chimneypiece in the Duchesse's studio, but that self-same morning it had been lifted down and placed on an easel in the dining-hall, no doubt for closer inspection by the purchaser. This easel stood in a corner of the hall, close to one of the great windows that overlooked the gardens of the château.

The amazing point in this daring theft was that a garden fête and tennis tournament were in progress at the time. A crowd of guests was spread all over the lawns and grounds in full view of the windows of the hall, and, as far as the preliminary investigations were able to establish, there were not more than twenty or twenty-five minutes at most during which some servant or other inmate of the château had not either actually been through the hall or had occasion to observe the windows.

The dining-hall itself has monumental doors which open on the great central vestibule, and immediately facing it similar doors give on the library. The marble vestibule runs right through the centre of the main building, it has both a front and a garden entrance, and all the reception rooms open out of it, right and left. Close to the front door entrance is one of the main ways into the kitchens and offices.

Now right away until half-past four on that fateful afternoon the servants were up and down the vestibule, busy with arrangements for tea which they were serving outside on the lawns. The tennis tournament was then drawing to a close, the Duchesse was on the lawn with her guests, dispensing tea, and at half-past four precisely the Duc de Rochechouart came into the château by way of the garden entrance, went across the vestibule and into the library to fetch the prizes which were to be distributed to the victors in the tournament, and which were locked up in his desk. The doors of the dining-hall were wide open and the Duc walking past them peeped into the room. The picture was in its place then, and he gave a glance at it as he passed, conscious of a pang of regret at the thought that he must needs part with this precious treasure. It took the Duc some little time to sort the prizes, and as in the meanwhile the afternoon post had come in and a few letters had been laid on his desk, he could not resist the desire to glance through his correspondence. On the whole he thought that he might have been in the library about a quarter of an hour or perhaps more. He had closed the door when he entered the room, and when he came out again he certainly noticed that the doors of the dining-hall were shut. But there was nothing in this to arouse his suspicions, and with the neatly tied parcels containing the prizes under his arm, he recrossed the vestibule and went once more into the garden.

At five o'clock M. Amédé, the chief butler, had occasion to go into the dining-hall to fetch a particular silver tray which he required. He owned to being astonished at finding the doors closed, because he had been past them a quarter of an hour before that and they were wide open then. However, he entered the room without any serious misgivings, but the next moment he nearly fainted with horror at sight of the empty frame upon the easel. The very first glance had indeed revealed the nefarious deed. The picture had not been moved out of its frame, it was the canvas that had been cut. M. Amédé, however, knowing what was due to his own dignity did not disturb the entire household then and there; he made his way quietly back into the garden where the distribution of prizes after the tournament was taking place and, seizing a favourable opportunity, he caught M. le Duc's eye and imparted to him the awful news.

Even so nothing was said until after the guests had departed. By the Duc's orders the doors leading into the dining-hall were locked, and to various enquiries after the masterpiece made by inquisitive ladies, the evasive answer was given that the picture was in the hands of the packers.

There remained the house party, which, of course, included Mr. Aaron Jacobs. There were also several ladies and gentlemen staying at the château, and before they all went up to their rooms to dress for dinner, they were told what had happened. In the meanwhile the police had already been sent for, and M. le Commissaire was conducting his preliminary investigations. The rooms and belongings of all the servants were searched, and, with the consent of the guests themselves, this search was extended to their rooms. A work of art worth half a million dollars could not thus be allowed to disappear and the thief to remain undetected for the sake of social conventions, and as the law stands in France any man may be guilty of a crime until he be proved innocent.

§2

The theft of the Ingres masterpiece was one of those cases which interest the public in every civilised country, and here in England where most people are bitten with the craze for criminal investigation it created quite a sensation in its way.

I remember that when we all realised for the first time that the picture had in very truth disappeared, and that the French police, despite its much vaunted acumen, had entirely failed to find the slightest trace of the thief, we at once began to look about for a romantic solution of the mystery. M. le Duc de Rochechouart and his pretty Duchesse had above all our deepest sympathy, for it had very soon transpired that neither the Ingres masterpiece, nor indeed any of the Duc's valuable collection of art works, was insured. This fact seems almost incredible to English minds, with whom every kind of insurance is part and parcel of the ordinary household routine. But abroad the system is not nearly so far-reaching or so extended, and there are numberless households in every degree of the social scale who never dream of spending money on insurances save, perhaps, against fire.

Be that as it may, the fact remained that "La Fiancée" was not insured against theft, and that through the action of an unknown miscreant the Duc and Duchesse de Rochechouart would, unless the police did ultimately succeed in tracing the stolen masterpiece, find themselves the poorer by half a million dollars. With their usual lack of logic, readers of the halfpenny Press promptly turned their attention to Mr. Aaron Jacobs, the intending purchaser. Being a Chicago multi-millionaire does not, it appears, render a man immune from the temptation of acquiring by dishonest means the things which he covets. Anyway, the public decided that Mr. Jacobs was not so rich as he was reputed to be, but that, on the other hand, being as greedy for the possession of European works of art as any ogre for human flesh, he had stolen the picture which he could not afford to buy; and ten, or mayhap fifteen years hence, when the story of the mysterious theft will have been consigned to oblivion, Mr. Jacobs would display the masterpiece in his gallery. How this was to be accomplished without the subsequent intervention of the police those wiseacres did not attempt to explain.

The mystery remained impenetrable for close on two years. Many other sensations, criminal or otherwise, had, during that time, driven the affair of the Ingres masterpiece out of the public mind. Then suddenly the whole story was revived and in a manner which proved far more exciting than any one had surmised. It was linked—though the European public did not know this—with the death in July, 1919, of Charles B. Tupper, the head of one of the greatest cinematograph organisations in the States—a man who for the past few years had controlled over two thousand theatres, and had made millions in his day. Some time during the war he had married the well-known cinema star, Anita Hodgkins, a beautiful entirely uneducated girl who hailed from Upper Tooting. The will of Mr. Charles B. Tupper was proved for a fabulous sum, and, as soon as his affairs were settled, Mrs. Tupper, who presumably had remained Cockney at heart as well as in speech, set sail for England with the intention of settling down once more in the country of her birth. She bought Holt Manor, a magnificent house in Buckinghamshire, sent for all her splendid furniture and belongings from America, and, early in 1920, when her palatial residence was ready for occupation, she married Lord Polchester, a decadent young nincompoop, who was said to have fallen in love with her when he first saw her on the screen.

Presumably Mrs. Anita Tupper née Hodgkins hugged herself with the belief that once she was styled my lady she would automatically become a social star as she had been a cinema one in the past. But in this harmless ambition she was at first disappointed. Though she had furnished her new house lavishly, though paragraphs appeared in all the halfpenny and weekly Press giving details of the sumptuous establishment of which the new Lady Polchester was queen, though she appeared during the London season of 1920 at several official functions and went to an evening Court that year, wearing pearls that might have been envied by an empress, she found that in Buckinghamshire the best people were shy of calling on her, and the bits of pasteboard that were from time to time left at her door came chiefly from the neighbouring doctors, parsons, or retired London tradespeople, or from mothers with marriageable daughters who looked forward to parties at the big house and consequent possible matrimonial prizes.

This went on for a time and then Lady Polchester, wishing no doubt to test the intentions of the county towards her, launched out invitations for a garden party! The invitations included the London friends she had recently made, and a special train from Paddington was to bring those friends to the party. Among these was Mr. Aaron Jacobs. He had known the late Charles B. Tupper over in the States, and had met Lady Polchester more recently at one of the great functions at the United States Embassy in London. She had interested him with a glowing account of her splendid collection of works of art, of pictures and antique furniture which she had inherited from her first husband and which now adorned her house in Buckinghamshire, and when she asked him down to her party he readily accepted, more I imagine out of curiosity to see the objects in which he was as keenly interested as ever than from a desire to establish closer acquaintanceship with the lady.

The garden party at Holt Manor, as the place was called, does not appear to have been a great social success. For one thing it rained the whole afternoon, and the military band engaged for the occasion proved too noisy for indoor entertainment. But some of the guests were greatly interested in the really magnificent collection of furniture, tapestries, pictures and works of art which adorned the mansion, and after tea Lady Polchester graciously conducted them all over the house, pointing out herself the most notable pieces in the collection and never failing to mention the price at which the late Mr. Charles B. Tupper purchased the work of art in question.

And that is when the sensation occurred. Following their hostess, the guests had already seen and duly admired two really magnificent Van Dycks that hung in the hall, when she turned to them and said, with a flourish of her plentifully be-gemmed hands:

"You must come into the library and see the picture for which Mr. Tupper gave over half a million dollars. I never knew I had it, as he never had it taken out of its case, and I never saw it until this year when it came over with all my other things from our house in New York. Lord Polchester had it unpacked and hung in the library. I don't care much about it myself, and the late Mr. Tupper hadn't the time to enjoy his purchase, because he died two days after the picture arrived in New York, and, as I say, he never had it unpacked. He bought it for use in a commercial undertaking which he had in mind at one time, then the scheme fell through, and I am sure I never thought any more about the old picture."

With that she led the way into the library, a nobly-proportioned room lined with books in choice bindings, and with a beautiful Adam chimneypiece, above which hung a picture.

Of course there were some people present who had never heard of the stolen Ingres, but there must have been a few who, as they entered the room, must literally have gasped with astonishment, for there it certainly was. "La Fiancée" with her marvellously painted Eastern draperies, her exquisitely drawn limbs and enigmatic smile, was smiling down from the canvas, just as if she had every right to be in the house of the ex-cinema star, and as if there had not been a gigantic fuss about her throughout the whole art world of Europe.

We may take it that the person by far the most astonished at that moment was Mr. Aaron Jacobs. But he was too thoroughly a gentleman and too much a man of the world to betray his feelings then, and I suppose that those who, like himself, had thought they recognised the stolen masterpiece, did not like to say anything either until they were more sure: English people in all grades of society being proverbially averse to being what they call "mixed up" in any kind of a fuss. Certain it is that nothing was said at the moment to disturb Lady Polchester's complacent equanimity, and after a while the party broke up and the guests departed.

Of course people thought that Mr. Aaron Jacobs should have informed Lord Polchester of his intentions before he went to the police. But Lord Polchester was such a nonentity in his own household, such a frivolous fool, and, moreover, addicted to drink and violent fits of temper, that those who knew him easily realised how a sensible business man like Mr. Aaron Jacobs would avoid any personal explanation with him.

Mr. Jacobs went straight to the police that self-same evening, and the next day Lady Polchester had a visit from Detective Purley, one of the ablest as he was one of the most tactful men on the staff. But indeed he had need of all his tact in face of the infuriated cinema star when that lady realised the object of his visit.

"How dared they come and ask her such impertinent questions?" she stormed. "Did they imagine she had stolen a beastly picture which she would as soon throw on the dust heap as look at again? She, who could buy up all the pictures in any gallery and not feel the pinch..." and so on and so on. The unfortunate Purley had a very unpleasant quarter of an hour, but after a while he succeeded in pacifying the irate lady and got her to listen calmly to what he had to say.

He managed to make her understand that without casting the slightest aspersion upon her honourability or that of the late Charles B. Tupper, there was no getting away from the fact that the picture now hanging in the library of Holt Manor was the property of the Duc de Rochechouart from whose house in France it was stolen over two years before—to be quite accurate it was stolen on July twenty-fifth, 1919.

"Then," retorted the lady, by no means convinced or mollified, "I can prove you all to be liars, for the late Mr. Charles B. Tupper bought the old thing long before that. He had been on the Continent in the spring of 1919 and landed in New York again on May eighteenth. He told me then that he had made some interesting purchases in Europe, amongst them there was a picture for which he had paid half a million dollars. I scolded him about it, as I thought he was throwing his money away on such stuff, but he said that he wanted to make use of the picture for some wonderful advertising scheme he had in his mind, so I said no more about it. But that is the picture you say was stolen from some duke or other in July, when I tell you that it had been shipped for New York a month at least before that."

Perhaps at this point Detective Purley failed to conceal altogether a slight look of incredulity, for Lady Polchester turned on him once more like a fury.

"So you still think I stole the dirty old picture, do you?" she cried, using further language that is quite unprintable, "and you think that I am such a ninny and that I will give it up simply because you are trying to bully me. But I won't, so there! I can prove the truth of every word I say, and I don't care if I have to spend another million dollars to put your old duke in prison for talking such rot about me."

Once again Purley's tact had to come into play, and after a while he succeeded in soothing the lady's outraged feelings. With infinite patience he gradually got her to view the matter more calmly and above all not to look upon him as an enemy, but as a friend whose one desire was to throw light upon what certainly seemed an extraordinary mystery.

"Very well, then," she said, after a while, "I'll tell you all I can. I don't know when the picture was shipped from Europe but I do know that a case addressed to Mr. Charles B. Tupper and marked 'valuable picture with great care' was delivered at our house in New York on July eighteenth. I can't mistake the date because Mr. Tupper was already very ill when the case arrived and he died two days later, that is on July twentieth, 1919. That you can ascertain easily enough, can't you?" Lady Polchester added tartly. Then as Purley offered no comment she went on more quietly:

"That's all right, then. Now let me tell you that the case containing this picture was in my house two days before Mr. Tupper died, and that I never had it undone until a couple of months ago, here in this house. I had it shipped from New York, not along with all my things, but by itself; and there is the lawyer over there, Mr. George F. Topham, who can tell you all about the case. I was too upset what with Mr. Tupper's illness and then his death, and the will and the whole bag of tricks to trouble much about it myself, but I told the lawyer that it contained a picture for which Mr. Tupper had paid half a million dollars, and it was put down for probate for that amount; the lawyer took charge of the old thing, and he can swear, and lots of other people over in the States can swear that the case was never undone. And the shipping company can swear that it never was touched whilst it was in their charge. They delivered it here and their men opened the case for us and helped us to place the picture.

"And now," concluded Lady Polchester, not because she had nothing more to say but presumably because she was out of breath, "now perhaps you'll tell me how a picture which was over in New York on the eighteenth of July can have been stolen from France on the twenty-fifth; and if you can't tell me that, then I'll trouble you to clear out of my house, for I've no use for Nosey Parkers about the place."

The unfortunate Purley had certainly, by all accounts, rather a rough time of it with the lady. Nor could he arrive at any satisfactory arrangement with her. Needless to say that she absolutely refused to give up the picture unless she were forced to do so by law, and even then, she dared say, she could make it very unpleasant for some people.

§3

The next event of any importance in this extraordinary case was the action brought by the Duc and Duchesse de Rochechouart here in England against Lady Polchester for illegal detention of their property.

It very soon transpired that several witnesses had come over from the States in order to corroborate tie lady's assertions with regard to her rightful ownership of the picture, and the public was once more on the tiptoe of expectation.

The case came on for hearing in March and lasted only two days. The picture was in court and was identified first by the Duc and Duchesse de Rochechouart and then by two or three experts as the genuine work of Ingres: "La Fiancée" known throughout the entire art world as having been purchased by the Duc's grandfather from the artist himself in 1850, and having been in the family uninterruptedly ever since. The Duc himself had last seen it in his own château at half-past four on the afternoon of July twenty-fifth, 1919.

A well-known peculiarity about the masterpiece was that it had originally been painted on a somewhat larger canvas, and that the artist himself, at the request of the original purchaser, had it cut smaller and re-strained on a smaller stretcher; this alteration was, of course, distinctly visible on the picture. The frame was new; it was admittedly purchased by Lady Polchester recently. When the picture came into her possession it was unframed.

On that lady's behalf on the other hand there was a formidable array of witnesses, foremost amongst these being Mr. Anthony Kleeberger, who was the late Charles B. Tupper's secretary and manager. He was the first to throw some light on the original transaction, whereby "La Fiancée" first came into his employer's possession.

"Mr. Tupper," he explained, "was the inventor of a new process of colour photography which he desired to test and then to advertise all over the world by means of reproduction from some world-famous masterpiece, and when during the spring of 1919 I accompanied him to Europe, one of the objects he had in mind was the purchase of a picture suitable for his purpose. It pretty soon was known all over the art world of the Continent what we were after and that Mr. Tupper was prepared to pay a big price for his choice. You would be surprised if I were to tell you of some of the offers we had in Vienna, in London, even in Rome.

"At last, when we were staying in Paris, Mr. Tupper came to me one day and told me he had at last found the very picture he wanted. He had gone to the studio of a picture restorer who had written to him and offered him a genuine Ingres. He had seen the picture and liked it, and had agreed to give the owner half a million dollars for it. I thought this a terrific price and frankly I was a little doubtful whether my employer had a sufficient knowledge of art to enter into a transaction of this sort. I feared that he might be badly had, and buying some spurious imitation rather than a masterpiece. But Mr. Tupper was always a queer man in business. Once he had made up his mind there was no arguing with him. 'I like the picture,' was all that he ever said to me in response to some timid suggestion on my part that he should seek expert advice, 'and I have agreed to buy it for half a million dollars, simply because the fellow would not part with it for less. I believe it to be genuine. But if it is not I don't care. It will answer my purpose and there it is.'

"He then gave me instructions to see about the packing and forwarding of the picture and this I did. I must say that I had terrible misgivings about the whole affair. I certainly thought the picture magnificent, but of course I am no judge. It had a worthless frame around it which I discarded in order to facilitate the packing. The picture restorer's studio was up a back street in the Montmartre quarter. He and his wife saw to the packing themselves. I never saw anybody else in the place. I arranged for the forwarding of the case, for the insurance and so on, and I myself handed over to the vendor, whose name was given to me as Matthieu Vignard, five hundred thousand-dollar bills in the name and on account of my employer, Mr. Charles B. Tupper. Of course, I presumed that the snuffy old man and his blousey wife were acting for some personage who desired to remain unknown, and as time went on and there was no talk in the art world or in the newspapers then about any great masterpiece being stolen, I soon forgot my misgivings, and a couple of months later I set out on Mr. Tupper's business for Central America where I remained for close on two years.

"Half the time during those years I was up country in Costa Rica, Venezuela and so on where newspapers are scarce, and when the hue and cry was after a picture stolen from the house of the Duc de Rochechouart, I knew nothing about it. But this picture now in court is certainly the one which Mr. Tupper bought in Paris at the end of June, 1919, and which I myself saw packed and nailed down in its case and forwarded to New York where it arrived two days before Mr. Tupper's death."

That was the substance of Mr. Kleeberger's evidence, by far the most important heard on the first day of the action. After that the testimony of other witnesses went to confirm the whole story. There was the well-known New York solicitor, Mr. George F. Topham, who took charge of the picture after the death of his client, Mr. Tupper, and the managing director of the Nebraska Safe Deposit Company where it was stored until Lady Polchester sent for it. There were the managers of the shipping companies who forwarded the picture from Paris to New York in June-July, 1919, and from New York to Holt Manor in the following year, and there were the removal men and servants who saw the picture unpacked and taken into the library at the Manor.

It took two days to go through all that evidence, but it was never either conflicting or doubtful. Yet the one supreme, mysterious contradiction remained, namely, that the picture now in court, the wonderful Ingres masterpiece, was bought by Mr. Tupper in Paris in June, 1919, and then and there shipped over to him to New York, and that, nevertheless, it was stated never to have left the Duc de Rochechouart's possession from the day when his grandfather bought it more than seventy years ago until that memorable twenty-fifth of July, 1919, when it was stolen on the very day it was about to pass into the possession of Mr. Aaron Jacobs. One felt one's head reeling when one thought out this amazing puzzle, and the decision of the learned judge was awaited with palpitating curiosity.

But after the second day of the action, just before it was adjourned, counsel on both sides were able to announce that their respective clients had come to an exceedingly satisfactory arrangement. All aspersions as to the honourability of the late Charles B. Tupper or of Lady Polchester would be publicly withdrawn and a notice to that effect would appear in all the leading newspapers of London, Paris and New York; and Lady Polchester would now remain in undisputed possession of the Ingres masterpiece, having paid its rightful owner the Duc de Rochechouart the sum of one hundred and twenty thousand pounds for it.

So both parties we may take it were completely satisfied; at one time it had looked as if the unfortunate duke would be done both out of his picture and out of the money, and another as if Lady Polchester would be so defrauded. But now all was well and the learned judge declared himself pleased with the agreement. Not so the public who were left to face a mystery which every one felt would never now be cleared up.

I for one felt completely at sea, so much so indeed that my thoughts instinctively flew to the curious creature in the blameless tea-shop who I felt sure would have a theory of his own which would account for what was puzzling us all.

And a day or two later I saw him, weaving a fantastic design of knots in a piece of string. He saw that I wished to hear his explanation of the mystery of the Ingres masterpiece, but he kept me on tenter-hooks for some time, wearing out my patience with his sharp, sarcastic comments.

"Do you admit," he asked me at one time, with his exasperating chuckle, "that the Ingres masterpiece could have been in two places at one and the same time?"

"No, of course," I replied, "I do not admit such nonsense."

"Very well, then," he resumed, "what is the logical conclusion?"

"That there were two pictures," I said coldly.

"Of course there were two pictures. And as the great Mr. Ingres did not presumably paint his masterpiece in duplicate, we must take it that one picture was the original and the other the copy."

Now it was my turn to grow sarcastic and I retorted drily:

"Having done that, we are no nearer a solution of the mystery than we were before."

"Are we not?" he rejoined with a cackle like an old hen. "Now it seems to me that when we have admitted that one of the pictures was a copy of the other, and when we know that the picture which Mr. Charles B. Tupper bought was the original, because that was the one that was produced in court, we must come to the conclusion that the one which was stolen from the château in France could only have been the copy."

"Why, yes," I admitted, "but then again we have been told that the grandfather of the present Duc de Rochechouart bought the picture from the artist himself, and that it has been in the uninterrupted possession of his family ever since."

"And I am willing to admit that the picture was in the uninterrupted possession of the Duc de Rochechouart until the present holder of the title or some one who had access to it in the same way as himself sold it to Mr. Charles B. Tupper in June, 1919."

"But you don't mean——"

"Surely," the funny creature went on with his dry cackle, "it was not such a very difficult little bit of dishonesty to perpetrate, seeing that Mme. la Duchesse was such an accomplished artist. Can you not imagine the lady being like many of us, very short of money, and then hearing of Mr. Charles B. Tupper, the American business man who was searching Europe through for a world-famous masterpiece; can you not see her during one of her husband's pleasure trips to Paris or elsewhere setting to work to make an exact replica of 'La Fiancée'? We know that it always hung in her studio until the day when it was moved to the dining-hall. Think how easy it was for her to substitute her own copy for the original. The only difficulty would be the conveying of the picture to Paris, but an artist knows how to take a canvas off its stretcher, to roll it up and re-strain it.

"Here I think that she must have had a confederate, probably some down-at-heel friend of her artistic days, a man whom she paid lavishly both for his help and his silence. Who that man was I suppose we shall never know. The so-called Matthieu Vignard and his 'blousey wife,' as Mr. Kleeberger picturesquely described her, have completely disappeared; no trace of them was ever found. They hired the studio at Montmartre for one month, paid the concierge the rent in advance, and at the end of that time they decamped and have never been heard of since, but unless I am much mistaken, they must at the present moment be carrying on a very lucrative little blackmailing business, because it must have been Vignard who conveyed the picture to Paris in the same way as we know it was he who first approached Charles B. Tupper and ultimately sold him the picture."

"But surely," I objected, for the funny creature had paused a moment, and I could not deny that his arguments were sound, "surely it would have been more practical to have sold the copy—which we suppose must have been perfect—to Mr. Tupper who was a layman and an outsider, and to have kept the original in the château, as the Duc was even then negotiating for its sale, and most of the art dealers were coming to have a look at it."

He did not reply immediately but remained for a while deeply absorbed in the contemplation of his beloved bit of string.

"That," he admitted with complacent condescension, "would be a sound argument if we admit at once that the Duchesse knew for a certainty that her husband intended to sell 'La Fiancée.' But my contention is that at the time that she sold the picture to Mr. Tupper she had no idea that the Duc had any such intentions. No doubt when she knew this for a fact, she must have been beside herself with horror; no doubt also that she had a hard fight with her own terror before she made a clean breast of her misdeed to her husband. Apparently she did not do this until the very last moment, until the day when the picture was actually taken out of her studio and placed upon an easel in the dining-hall for closer inspection. Then discovery was imminent and we must suppose that she made a full confession.

"The Duc, like a gallant gentleman, at once set his wits thinking how best to save his wife's reputation without endangering his own. To have admitted to Mr. Aaron Jacobs and to the other experts and art dealers who had come to see the masterpiece that a Duc de Rochechouart was trying to sell a spurious imitation whilst having already disposed of the original was, of course, unthinkable; and thus the idea presented itself to their Graces that the copy must be made to disappear effectually. A favourable circumstance for the success of this scheme was the garden fête which was to take place that afternoon, when the house would be full of guests, of strangers and of servants, when surveillance would be slack and the comings and goings of the master of the house would easily pass unperceived.

"The Duc, in my opinion, chose the one quarter of an hour when he was alone in the house to cut the picture out of its frame. He then hid the canvas sufficiently skilfully that it was never found. Probably he thought at the time that there the matter would end, but equally probably he never gave the future another thought. His own position was unassailable seeing he was not insured against loss, and it was the present alone that mattered: the fact that a Duc de Rochechouart was trying to sell a spurious picture for half a million dollars. To many French men and women ever since the war, America is a far country, and no doubt the Duc and Duchesse both hoped that the whole transaction, including the Ingres masterpiece, would soon lie buried somewhere at the bottom of the sea.

"Fate and Lady Polchester proved too strong for them; they ordained that 'La Fiancée' should be brought back to Europe, and that the whole of its exciting history be revived. But fate proved kind in the end, and I think that you will agree with me that two such daring and resourceful adventurers as their Graces deserve the extra half million dollars which, thanks to Lady Polchester's generosity and ostentation, they got so unexpected.

"Soon afterwards you will remember that the Duc and Duchesse de Rochechouart sold their château on the Oise together with the bulk of their collection of pictures and furniture.

"They now live in Sweden, I understand, where the Duchesse has many friends and relations and where the law of libel will not trouble you much if you publish my deductions in your valuable magazine.

"Think it all out," the Old Man in the Corner concluded glibly, "and from every point of view, and you will see that there is not a single flaw in my argument. I have given you the only possible solution of the mystery of the Ingres masterpiece."

"You may be right——" I murmured thoughtfully.

"I know I am," he answered dryly.

III
THE MYSTERY OF THE PEARL NECKLACE

§1

The Old Man in the Corner had a very curious theory about that mysterious affair of the pearl necklace, and though it all occurred a few years ago, I am tempted to put his deductions down on record, because, as far as I know, neither the police of this or any other country, nor the public, have ever found a satisfactory solution for what was undoubtedly a strange and mystifying adventure.

I remembered the case quite well when first he spoke to me about it one afternoon in what had become my favourite tea-haunt in Fleet Street; the only thing I was not quite certain of was the identity of the august personage to whom the pearl necklace was to be presented. I did know, of course, that she belonged to one of the reigning families of Europe and that she had been an active and somewhat hotheaded and bitter opponent of the Communist movement in her own country, in consequence of which both she and her exalted husband had been the object of more than one murderous attack by the other side.

It was on the occasion of the august lady's almost miraculous escape from a peculiarly well-planned and brutal assault that a number of ladies in England subscribed the sum of fifteen thousand pounds for the purchase of an exquisite pearl necklace to be presented to her as a congratulatory gift.

Rightly or wrongly, the donors of this princely gift feared that a certain well-known political organisation on the Continent would strive by every means in its power, fair or foul, to prevent this token of English good-will from reaching the recipient, and also, as it chanced to happen, there had been during the past few months a large number of thefts of valuables on Continental railways, and it became a question who should be entrusted by the committee of subscribers with the perilous risk of taking the necklace over for presentation; the trouble being further enhanced by the fact that in those days the Insurance Companies barred one or two European countries from their comprehensive policies against theft and petty larceny, and that it was to one of those countries thus barred that the bearer of the fifteen thousand pound necklace would have to journey.

Imagine the excitement, the anxiety, which reigned in the hearts of the thousands of middle-class English women who had subscribed their mite to the gift! Their committee sat behind closed doors discussing the claims of various volunteers who were ready to undertake the journey: these worthy folk were quite convinced that certain well-known leaders of anarchical organisations would be on the lookout for the booty and would have special facilities for the theft of it at the frontier during the course of those endless customs and passport formalities for which that particular country was ever famous.

Finally the committee's choice fell upon a certain Captain Arthur Saunders, nephew of Sir Montague Bowden, who was chairman of the ladies' committee. Captain Saunders had, it seems, travelled abroad a great deal, and his wife was foreign—Swedish so it was understood; it was thought that if he went abroad now in the company of his wife, the object of their journey might be thought to be a visit to Mrs. Saunders's relations, and the conveying of the pearl necklace to its destination might thus remain more or less a secret.

The choice was approved of by all the subscribers, and it was decided that Captain and Mrs. Saunders. should start by the ten a.m. train for Paris on the sixteenth of March. Captain Saunders was to call the previous afternoon at a certain bank in Charing Cross, where the necklace was deposited, and there receive it as an almost sacred trust from the hands of the manager. Further, it was arranged that Mrs. Saunders should, immediately on arrival in Paris, send a wire to Mrs. Berners, a great friend of hers who was the secretary of the committee, and in fact that she should keep the committee informed of Captain Saunders's well-being at all the more important points of their journey.

And thus they started.

But no news came from Paris on the sixteenth. At first no anxiety was felt on that score, every one being ready to surmise that the Calais-Paris train had been late in, and that the Saunderses had perhaps only barely time to clear their luggage at the customs and catch the train de luxe which would take them on, via Cologne, without a chance of sending the promised telegram. But soon after midday of the seventeenth, Sir Montague Bowden had a wire from Mrs. Saunders from Paris saying: "Arthur disappeared since last night. Desperately anxious. Please come at once. Have booked room for you here. Mary. Hotel Majestic."

The news was terrifying; however, Sir Montague Bowden, with commendable zeal, at once wired to Mary announcing his immediate departure for Paris, and as it was then too late for him to catch the afternoon Continental train, he started by the evening one, travelling all night and arriving at the Hotel Majestic in the early morning.

As soon as he had had a bath and some breakfast he went in search of information. He found that the French police already had the "affaire" in hand, but that they had not so far the slightest clue to the mysterious disappearance of le Capitaine Saunders. He found the management of the Majestic in a state of offended dignity, and Mrs. Saunders, in one that verged on hysteria, but fortunately, he also found at the hotel a Mr. Haasberg, brother of Mrs. Saunders, a Swedish business man of remarkable coolness and clearness of judgment, who promptly put him au fait with what had occurred.

It seems that Mr. Haasberg was settled in business in Paris, and that he had hoped to catch a glimpse of his sister and brother-in-law on the evening of the sixteenth at the Gare du Nord on their way through to the East, but that on that very morning he had received a telegram from Mary asking him to book a couple of rooms—a bedroom and a sitting-room—for one night for them at the Hotel Majestic. This Mr. Haasberg did, glad enough that he would see something more of his sister than he had been led to hope.

On the afternoon of the sixteenth he was kept late at business, and was unable to meet the Saunderses at the station, but towards nine o'clock he walked round to the Majestic, hoping to find them in. Their room was on the third floor. Mr. Haasberg went up in the lift, and as soon as he reached No. 301 he became aware of a buzz of conversation coming from within, which, however, ceased as soon as he had pushed open the door.

On entering the room he saw that Captain Saunders had a visitor, a tall, thick-set man, who wore an old-fashioned, heavy moustache and large, gold-rimmed spectacles. At sight of Mr. Haasberg the man clapped his hat—a bowler—on his head, pulled his coat-collar over his ears, and with a hasty: "Well, s'long, old man. I'll wait till to-morrow!" spoken with a strong foreign accent, he walked rapidly out of the room and down the corridor.

Haasberg stood for a moment in the doorway to watch the disappearing personage, but he did this without any ulterior motive or thought of suspicion; then he turned back into the room and greeted his brother-in-law.

Saunders seemed to Haasberg to be nervous and ill-at-ease; in response to the latter's inquiry after Mary, he explained that she had remained in her room as he had a man to see on business. Haasberg made some casual remark about this visitor, and then Mary Saunders came in. She, too, appeared troubled and agitated, and as soon as she had greeted her brother, she turned to her husband and asked very eagerly:

"Well, has he gone?"

Saunders, giving a significant glance in Haasberg's direction, replied with an obvious effort at indifference:

"Yes, yes, he's gone. But he said he would be back to-morrow."

At which Mary seemed to give a sigh of relief.

Scenting some uncomfortable mystery, Haasberg questioned her, and also Saunders, about their visitor, but could not elicit any satisfactory explanation.

"Oh, there is nothing mysterious about old Pasquier," was all that either of them would say.

"He is an old pal of Arthur's," Mary added lightly, "but he is such an awful bore that I got Arthur to say that I was out, so that he might get rid of him more quickly."

Somehow Haasberg felt that these explanations were very lame. He could not get it out of his head, that there was something mysterious about the visitor, and knowing the purpose of the Saunderses' journey, he thought it as well to give them a very serious word of warning about Continental hotels generally, and to suggest that they should, after this stay in Paris, go straight through in the train de luxe and never halt again until the fifteen thousand pound necklace was safely in the hands of the august lady for whom it was intended. But both Arthur and Mary laughed at these words of warning.

"My dear fellow," Arthur said, seemingly rather in a huff, "we are not such mugs as you think us. Mary and I have travelled on the Continent at least as much as you have, and are fully alive to the dangers attendant upon our mission. As a matter of fact, the moment we arrived, I gave the necklace in its own padlocked tin box, just as I brought it over from England, in charge of the hotel management, who immediately locked it up in their strong-room, so even if good old Pasquier had designs on it—which I can assure you he has not—he would stand no chance of getting hold of it. And now, sit down, there's a good chap, and talk of something else."

Only half reassured, Haasberg sat down and had a chat. But he did not stay long. Mary was obviously tired, and soon said good-night. Arthur offered to accompany his brother-in-law to the latter's lodgings in the Rue de Moncigny.

"I would like a walk," he said, "before going to bed."

So the two men walked out together, and Haasberg finally said good-night to Arthur just outside his own lodgings. It was then close upon ten o'clock. The little party had agreed to spend the next day together, as the train de luxe did not go until the evening, and Haasberg had promised to take a holiday from business. Before going to bed he attended to some urgent correspondence, and had just finished a letter when his telephone bell rang. To his horror he heard his sister's voice speaking.

"Don't keep Arthur up so late, Herman," she said. "I am dog tired, and can't go to sleep until he returns."

"Arthur?" he replied. "But Arthur left me at my door two hours ago!"

"He has not returned," she insisted, "and I am getting anxious."

"Of course you are, but he can't be long now. He must have turned into a café and forgot the time. Do ring me up as soon as he comes in."

Unable to rest, however, and once more vaguely anxious, Haasberg went hastily back to the Majestic. He found Mary nearly distracted with anxiety, and as he himself felt anything but reassured, he did not know how to comfort her.

At one time he went down into the hall to ascertain whether anything was known on the hotel about Saunders's movements earlier in the evening; but at this hour of the night there were only the night porter and the watchman about, and they knew nothing of what had occurred before they came on duty.

There was nothing for it but to await the morning as calmly as possible. This was difficult enough, as Mary Saunders was evidently in a terrible state of agitation. She was quite certain that something tragic had happened to her husband, but Haasberg tried in vain to get her to speak of the mysterious visitor who had from the first aroused his own suspicions. Mary persisted in asserting that the visitor was just an old pal of Arthur's and that no suspicion of any kind could possibly rest upon him.

In the early morning Haasberg went off to the nearest commissariat of police. They took the matter in hand without delay, and within the hour had obtained some valuable information from the personnel of the hotel. To begin with, it was established that at about ten minutes past ten the previous evening, that is to say a quarter of an hour or so after Haasberg had parted from Arthur Saunders outside his own lodgings, the latter had returned to the Majestic, and at once asked for the tin box which he had deposited in the bureau. There was some difficulty in acceding to his request, because the clerk who was in charge of the keys of the strong-room could not at once be found. However, M. le Capitaine was so insistent that search was made for the clerk, who presently appeared with the keys, and after the usual formalities, handed over the tin box to Saunders, who signed a receipt for it in the book. Haasberg had since then identified the signature which was quite clear and incontestable.

Saunders then went upstairs, refusing to take the lift, and five minutes later he came down again, nodded to the hall porter, and went out of the hotel. No one had seen him since, but during the course of the morning, the valet on the fourth floor had found an empty tin box in the gentlemen's cloakroom. This box was produced, and to her unutterable horror Mary Saunders recognised it as the one which had held the pearl necklace.

The whole of this evidence as it gradually came to light was a staggering blow both to Mary and to Haasberg himself, because until this moment neither of them had thought that the necklace was in jeopardy: they both believed that it was safely locked up in the strong-room of the hotel.

Haasberg now feared the worst. He blamed himself terribly for not having made more certain of the mysterious visitor's identity. He had not yet come to the point of accusing his brother-in-law in his mind of a conspiracy to steal the necklace, but frankly, at this stage, he did not know what to think. Saunders's conduct had—to say the least—been throughout extremely puzzling. Why had he elected to spend the night in Paris, when all arrangements had been made for him and his wife to travel straight through? Who was the mysterious visitor with the walrus moustache, vaguely referred to by both Arthur and Mary as "old Pasquier"? And above all why had Arthur withdrawn the necklace from the hotel strong-room where it was quite safe, and, with it in his pocket, walked about the streets of Paris at that hour of the night?

Haasberg was quite convinced that "old Pasquier" knew something about the whole affair, but, strangely enough, Mary persisted in asserting that he was quite harmless and an old friend of Arthur's who was beyond suspicion. When further pressed with questions, she declared that she had no idea where the man lodged, and that, in fact, she believed that he had left Paris the self-same evening en route for Brussels, where he was settled in business.

Enquiry amongst the personnel of the hotel revealed the fact that Captain Saunders's visitor had been seen by the hall porter when he came soon after half-past eight, and asked whether le Capitaine Saunders had finished dinner; his question being answered in the affirmative, he went upstairs, refusing to take the lift. Half an hour or so later he was seen by one of the waiters in the lounge hurriedly crossing the hall, and finally by the two boys in attendance at the swing doors when he went out of the hotel. All agreed that the man was very tall and thick-set, that he wore a heavy moustache and a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles. He had on a bowler hat and an overcoat with the collar pulled right up to his ears. The hall porter, who himself spoke English fairly well, was under the impression that the man was not English, although he made his enquiries in that language.

In addition to all these investigations, the commissaire de police, on his second visit to the hotel, was able to assure Haasberg that all the commissariats in and around Paris had been communicated with by telephone so as to ascertain whether any man answering to Saunders's description had been injured during the night in a street accident, and taken in somewhere for shelter; also that a description of the necklace had already been sent round to all the Monts-de-Piété throughout the country. The police were also sharply on the lookout for the man with the walrus moustache, but so far without success.

And Mary Saunders obstinately persisted in her denial of any knowledge about him. "Arthur," she said, "sometimes saw 'old Pasquier' in London"; but she did not know anything about him, neither what his nationality was, nor where he lodged. She did not know when he had left London, nor where he could be found in Paris. All that she knew, so she said, was that his name was Pasquier, and that he was in business in Brussels; she therefore concluded that he was Belgian.

Even to her own brother she would not say more, although he succeeded in making her understand how strange her attitude must appear both to the police and to her friends, and what harm she was doing to her husband, but at this she burst into floods of tears and swore that she knew nothing about Pasquier's whereabouts, and that she believed him to be innocent of any attempt to steal the necklace or to injure Arthur.

There was nothing more to be said for the present and Haasberg sent the telegram in his sister's name to Sir Montague Bowden because he felt that some one less busy than himself should look after the affair and be a comfort to Mary, whose mental condition appeared pitiable in the extreme.

In this first interview he was able to assure Sir Montague that everything had been done to trace the whereabouts of Arthur Saunders, and also of the necklace of which the unfortunate man had been the custodian; and it was actually while the two men were talking the whole case over that Haasberg received an intimation from the police that they believed the missing man had been found: at any rate would Monsieur give himself the trouble to come round to the commissariat at once.

This, of course, Haasberg did, accompanied by Sir Montague, and at the commissariat to their horror they found the unfortunate Saunders in a terrible condition. Briefly the commissaire explained to them that about a quarter past ten last night an agent de police, making his rounds, saw a man crouching in the angle of a narrow blind alley that leads out of the Rue de Moncigny. On being shaken up by the agent the man struggled to his feet, but he appeared quite dazed and unable to reply to any questions that were put to him. He was then conveyed to the nearest commissariat, where he spent the night.

He was obviously suffering from loss of memory, and could give no account of himself, nor were any papers of identification found upon him, not even a visiting card, but close behind him, on the pavement where he was crouching, the agent had picked up a handkerchief which was saturated with chloroform. The handkerchief bore the initials A.S. The man, of course, was Arthur Saunders. What had happened to him it was impossible to ascertain. He certainly did not appear to be physically hurt, although from time to time when Mr. Haasberg or Sir Montague tried to question him, he passed his hand across the back of his head, and an expression of pathetic puzzlement came into his eyes.

His two friends, after the usual formalities of identification, were allowed to take him back to the Hotel Majestic where he was restored to the arms of his anxious wife; the English doctor, hastily summoned, could not find any trace of injury about the body, only the head appeared rather tender when touched. The doctor's theory was that Saunders had probably been sandbagged first, and then rendered more completely insensible by means of the chloroformed handkerchief, and that excitement, anxiety and the blow on the head had caused temporary loss of memory which quietude and good nursing would soon put right.

In the meanwhile, of the fifteen thousand pound necklace there was not the slightest trace.

§2

Unfortunately the disappearance of so valuable a piece of jewellery was one of those cases that could not be kept from public knowledge. The matter was of course in the hands of the French police and they had put themselves in communication with their English confrères, and the consternation—not to say the indignation—amongst the good ladies who had subscribed the money for the gift to the august lady was unbounded.

Everybody was blaming everybody else; the choice of Captain Saunders as the accredited messenger was now severely criticised; pointed questions were asked as to his antecedents, as to his wife's foreign relations, and it was soon found that very little was known about either.

Of course everybody knew that he was Sir Montague Bowden's nephew, and that, thanks to his uncle's influence, he had obtained a remunerative and rather important post in the office of one of the big Insurance Companies. But what his career had been before that no one knew. Some people said that he had fought in South Africa and later on had been correspondent for one of the great dailies during the Russo-Japanese war; altogether there seemed no doubt that he had been something of a rolling stone.

Rather tardily the committee was taken severely to task for having entrusted so important a mission to a man who was either a coward or a thief, or both, for at first no one doubted that Saunders had met a confederate in Paris and had handed over the necklace to him, whilst he himself enacted a farce of being waylaid, chloroformed and robbed, and subsequently of losing his memory.

But presently another version of the mystery was started by some amateur detective, and it found credence with quite a good many people. This was that Sir Montague Bowden had connived at the theft with Mrs. Saunders's relations; that the man with the walrus moustache did not exist at all or was in very truth a harmless old friend of Captain Saunders, and that it was Haasberg who had induced his brother-in-law to withdraw the necklace from the hotel strong-room and to bring it to the Rue de Moncigny; that in fact it was that same perfidious Swede who had waylaid the credulous Englishman, chloroformed and robbed him of the precious necklace.

In the meanwhile the police in England had, of course, been communicated with by their French confrères, but before they could move in the matter or enjoin discretion on all concerned, an enterprising young man on the staff of the Express Post had interviewed Miss Elizabeth Spicer, who was the parlour-maid at the Saunderses' flat in Sloane Street.

That young lady, it seems, had something to say about a gentleman named Pasquier, who was not an infrequent visitor at the flat. She described him as a fine, tall gentleman, who wore large gold-rimmed spectacles, and a full military moustache. It seems that the last time Miss Elizabeth saw him was two days before her master and mistress's departure for abroad. Mr. Pasquier called late that evening and stayed till past ten o'clock. When Elizabeth was rung for in order to show him out, he was saying good-bye to the captain in the hall, and she heard him say, "in his funny foreign way," as she put it:

"Well, I shall be in Paris as soon as you. Tink it over, my friend."

And on the top of that came a story told by Henry Tidy, Sir Montague Bowden's butler. According to him Captain Saunders called at Sir Montague Bowden's house in Lowndes Street on the afternoon of the fifteenth. The two gentlemen remained closeted together in the library for nearly an hour, when Tidy was summoned to show the visitor out. Sir Montague, it seems, went to the front door with his nephew, and as the latter finally wished him good-bye, Sir Montague said to him:

"My dear boy, you can take it from me that there's nothing to worry about, and in any case I am afraid that it is too late to make any fresh arrangements."

"It's because of Mary," the captain rejoined. "She has made herself quite ill over it."

"The journey will do her good," Sir Montague went on pleasantly, "but if I were you I would have a good talk with your brother-in-law. He must know his Paris well. Take my advice and spend the night at the Majestic. You can always get rooms there."

This conversation Tidy heard quite distinctly, and he related the whole incident both to the journalist and to the police. After that the amateur investigators of crime were divided into two camps: there were those who persisted in thinking that Pasquier and Saunders, and probably Mrs. Saunders also, had conspired together to steal the necklace, and that Saunders had acted the farce of being waylaid and robbed, and losing his memory; they based their deductions on Elizabeth Spicer's evidence and on Mary Saunders's extraordinary persistence in trying to shield the mysterious Pasquier.

But other people, getting hold of Henry Tidy's story, deduced from it that it was indeed Sir Montague Bowden who had planned the whole thing in conjunction with Haasberg, since it was he who had persuaded Saunders to spend the night in Paris, thus giving his accomplice the opportunity of assaulting Saunders and stealing the necklace. To these wise-acres "old Pasquier" was indeed a harmless old pal of Arthur's, whose presence that evening at the Majestic was either a fable invented by Haasberg, or one quite innocent in purpose. In vain did Sir Montague try to explain away Tidy's evidence. Arthur, he said, had certainly called upon him that last afternoon, but what he seemed worried about was his wife's health; he feared that she would not be strong enough to undertake the long journey without a break, so Sir Montague advised him to spend the night in Paris and in any case to talk the matter over with Mary's brother.

The conversation overheard by Tidy could certainly admit of this explanation, but it did not satisfy the many amateur detectives who preferred to see a criminal in the chairman of the committee rather than a harmless old gentleman, as eager as themselves to find a solution to the mystery. And while people argued and wrangled there was no news of the necklace, and none of the man with the walrus moustache. No doubt that worthy had by now shaved off his hirsute adornment and grown a beard. He had certainly succeeded in evading the police; whether he had gone to Brussels or succeeded in crossing the German frontier no one could say, his disappearance certainly bore out the theory of his being the guilty party with the connivance of Saunders, as against the Bowden-Haasberg theory.

As for the necklace it had probably been already taken to pieces and the pearls would presently be disposed of one by one to some unscrupulous Continental dealers, when the first hue and cry after them had died away.

Captain Saunders was said to be slowly recovering from his loss of memory and subsequent breakdown. Every one at home was waiting to hear what explanation he would give of his amazing conduct in taking the necklace out of the hotel strong-room late that night and sallying forth with it into the streets of Paris at that hour. The explanation came after about a fortnight of suspense in a letter from Mary to her friend Mrs. Berners.

Arthur, she said, had told her that on the fateful evening, after he parted from Mr. Haasberg in the Rue de Moncigny, he had felt restless and anxious about what the latter had told him on the subject of foreign hotels, and he was suddenly seized with the idea that the necklace was not safe in the care of the management of the Majestic, because there would come a moment when he would have to claim the tin box, and this would probably be handed over to him when the hall of the hotel was crowded, and the eyes of expert thieves would then follow his every movement. Therefore he went back to the hotel, claimed the tin box, and as the latter was large and cumbersome he got rid of it in one of the cloak-rooms of the hotel, slipped the necklace, in its velvet case, in the pocket of his overcoat, and went out with the intention of asking Haasberg to take care of it for him, and only to hand it back to him when on the following evening the train de luxe was on the point of starting. He had been in sight of Haasberg's lodgings when, without the slightest warning, a dull blow on the back of his head, coming he knew not whence, robbed him of consciousness.

This explanation, however, was voted almost unanimously to be very lame, and it was, on the whole, as well that the Saunderses had decided to remain abroad for a time. The ladies especially—and above all those who had put their money together for the necklace—were very bitter against him. On the other hand Sir Montague Bowden was having a very rough time of it; he had already had one or two very unpleasant word-tussles with some outspoken friends of his, and there was talk of a slander action that would certainly be a cause célèbre when it came on.

Thus the arguments went on in endless succession until one day—well do I remember the excitement that spread throughout the town as soon as the incident became known—there was a terrible row in one of the big clubs in Piccadilly. Sir Montague Bowden was insulted by one of his fellow members: he was called a thief, and asked what share he was getting out of the sale of the necklace. Of course the man who spoke in this unwarranted fashion was drunk at the time, but nevertheless it was a terrible position for Sir Montague, because as his opponent grew more and more abusive and he himself more and more indignant, he realised that he had practically no friends who would stand by him in the dispute. Some of the members tried to stop the row, and others appeared indifferent, but no one sided with him, or returned abuse for abuse on his behalf.

It was in the very midst of this most unedifying scene—one perhaps unparalleled in the annals of London club life—that a club servant entered the room, and handed a telegram to Sir Montague Bowden.

Even the most sceptical there, and those whose brains were almost fuddled with the wrangling and the noise, declared afterwards that a mysterious Providence had ordained that the telegram should arrive at that precise moment. It had been sent to Sir Montague's private house in Lowndes Street; his secretary had opened it and sent it on to the club. As soon as Sir Montague had mastered its contents he communicated them to the members of the club, and it seems that there never had been such excitement displayed in any assembly of sober Englishmen as was shown in that club room on this momentous occasion.

The telegram had come all the way from the other end of Europe, and had been sent by the august lady in whose hands the priceless necklace, about which there was so much pother in England and France, had just been safely placed. It ran thus:

"Deeply touched by exquisite present just received through kind offices of Captain Saunders, from English ladies. Kind thoughts and beautiful necklace equally precious. Kindly convey my grateful thanks to all subscribers."

Having read out the telegram, Sir Montague Bowden demanded an apology from those who had impugned his honour, and I understand that he got an unqualified one. After that, male tongues were let loose; the wildest conjectures flew about as to the probable solution of what appeared a more curious mystery than ever. By evening the papers had got hold of the incident, and all those who were interested in the affair shook their heads and looked portentously wise.

But the hero of the hour was certainly Captain Saunders. From having been voted either a knave or a fool, or both, he was declared all at once to be possessed of all the qualities which had made England great: prudence, astuteness, and tenacity. However, as a matter of fact, nobody knew what had actually happened; the august lady had the necklace and Captain Saunders was returning to England without a stain on his character, but as to how these two eminently satisfactory results had come about not even the wise-acres could say. Captain and Mrs. Saunders arrived in England a few days later; every one was agog with curiosity, and the poor things had hardly stepped out of the train before they were besieged by newspaper men and pressed with questions.

The next morning the Express Post and the Daily Thunderer came out with exclusive interviews with Captain Saunders, who had made no secret of the extraordinary adventure which had once more placed him in possession of the necklace. It seems that he and his wife on coming out of the Madeleine Church on Easter Sunday were hustled at the top of the steps by a man whose face they did not see, and who pushed past them very hastily and roughly. Arthur Saunders at once thought of his pockets, and looked to see if his notecase had not disappeared. To his boundless astonishment his hand came in contact with a long, hard parcel in the outside pocket of his overcoat, and this parcel proved to be the velvet case containing the missing necklace.

Both he and his wife were flabbergasted at this discovery, and, scarcely believing in this amazing piece of good luck, they managed with the help of Mr. Haasberg, despite its being Easter Sunday, to obtain an interview with one of the great jewellers in the Rue de la Paix, who, well knowing the history of the missing necklace, was able to assure them that they had indeed been lucky enough to regain possession of their treasure. That same evening they left by the train de luxe, having been fortunate enough to secure seats; needless to say that the necklace was safely stowed away inside Captain Saunders's breast pocket.

All was indeed well that ended so well. But the history of the disappearance and reappearance of the pearl necklace has remained a baffling mystery to this day. Neither the Saunderses nor Mr. Haasberg ever departed one iota from the circumstantial story which they had originally told, and no one ever heard another word about the man with the walrus moustache and the gold-rimmed spectacles: the French police are still after him in connection with the assault on le Capitaine Saunders, but no trace of him was ever found.

To some people this was a conclusive proof of guilt, but then, having stolen the necklace, why should he have restored it? Though the pearls were very beautiful and there were a great number of them beautifully matched, there was nothing abnormal about them either in size or colour; there never could be any difficulty for an expert thief to dispose of the pearls to Continental dealers. The same argument would of course apply to Mr. Haasberg, whom some wiseacres still persisted in accusing. If he stole the necklace why should he have restored it? Nothing could be easier than for a business man who travelled a great deal on the Continent to sell a parcel of pearls. And there always remained the unanswered question: Why did Saunders take the pearls out of the strong-room, and where was he taking them to when he was assaulted and robbed?

Did the man with the walrus moustache really call at the Majestic that night? And if he was innocent, why did he disappear? Why, why, why?

§3

The case had very much interested me at the time, but the mystery was a nine days' wonder as far as I was concerned, and soon far more important matters than the temporary disappearance of a few rows of pearls occupied public attention.

It was really only last year when I renewed my acquaintance with the Old Man in the Corner, that I bethought myself once more of the mystery of the pearl necklace, and I felt the desire to hear what the spook-like creature's theory was upon the subject.

Unravelled Knots

UNRAVELLED KNOTS

ITHE MYSTERY OF THE KHAKI TUNIC

§1

§2

§3

§4

§5

IITHE MYSTERY OF THE INGRES MASTERPIECE

§1

§2

§3

IIITHE MYSTERY OF THE PEARL NECKLACE

§1

§2

§3

I
THE MYSTERY OF THE KHAKI TUNIC

II
THE MYSTERY OF THE INGRES MASTERPIECE

III
THE MYSTERY OF THE PEARL NECKLACE