Chapter Twenty
Two months had elapsed since the meeting between Major Murchison and Stella Spencer, recorded in the last chapter.
A handsome, well-set-up man of about thirty was travelling up from Manchester to London. The reason of his journey was his desire to visit his sister, Caroline Masters, who occupied a small flat in the neighbourhood of King’s Cross.
Up to a short time ago this handsome, well-set-up man had been leading a very quiet life in the busy city of Manchester. He was an electrician by trade, and a very clever one. He was civil, well-spoken, intelligent beyond his station, but he had not foregathered much with his fellow-workers, had kept himself very much to himself. And yet, strange to say, this self-isolation had not provoked suspicion or resentment on the part of his daily associates.
Reginald Davis, for such was his name, had been unjustly suspected of murder, and the police had been hot on his track. Then had come the suicide in Number 1 °Cathcart Square, and his sister, Caroline Masters, had identified the dead body as that of her brother.
Caroline Masters had always been a plucky, resourceful girl, and devoted to him. The dead man, no doubt, bore some resemblance to himself, and she had taken advantage of the opportunity to swear to a false identification, and remove from him the sleepless vigilance of the police. This much she had conveyed to him in a guarded letter.
Reginald Davis, the man falsely accused of murder, was dead in the eyes of the law: in a sense, he had nothing further to fear. But at the same time, caution must be observed. The few friends he had were in London; at any time he might run across one or more of them. So, taking another name, he had hidden himself in Manchester, and corresponded secretly with the one of the two sisters he could trust, Caroline Masters.
And then, suddenly, the burden had been lifted from his soul. There was a small paragraph in the evening newspapers, afterwards reproduced in the morning ones, which told him that he need not skulk through the world any longer.
A man lying under sentence of death for a brutal murder and without hope of reprieve, had confessed to the crime of which Davis had been falsely accused. In the paragraph, which was, of course, essentially the same in all the papers, were a few words of sympathy for the unfortunate Reginald Davis who had stolen into Number 1 °Cathcart Square and committed suicide, under a sense of abject terror. The police had carefully investigated the statements of the condemned man, with the result that they found the late Reginald Davis absolutely innocent.
The late Reginald Davis, very alive and well, knocked at the door of his sister’s flat. She had been apprised of his coming, and greeted him affectionately. She sat him down before a well-cooked supper. He was hungry and ate heartily. She did not disturb him with much conversation till he had finished.
“Well, Reggie, that was a bit of luck indeed.” She was, of course, alluding to the confession of the real murderer. “Now you are as free as air. You were always a bit of a bad egg, old boy, but never a criminal to that extent.”
“No, hang it all, I am not particular in a general way, but murder was not in my line,” he answered briefly. “It was hard lines to get scot-free of the other things, and then to be suspected of that at the end.”
He looked at her admiringly. “By Jove! Carrie, you were always the cleverest of the lot of us. That was a brain-wave of yours, walking in and identifying me as the suicide.” Mrs Masters smiled appreciatively. “Yes, it came to me in a flash. I read the account in the papers. It struck me I might do something useful. I went up to the court with the tale of a missing brother. I saw the body; the poor creature might have been your twin. Of course, I swore it was you, and gave you a new lease of life.” She added severely, “I hope you have taken advantage of what I did, and become a reformed character.” Davis spoke very gravely. “Yes, Carrie, I swear to you I have. That shock was the making of me. I have lain very low, worked hard, and put by money.”
He pulled out an envelope from his breastpocket, and thrust it into her hand; it was full of one-pound notes.
“Fifty of the best, old girl, for a little nest-egg. I have not forgotten my best pal, you see.”
The tears came into Mrs Masters’ eyes. He had been a bad egg, but he had a good heart at bottom.
“That is very sweet of you, Reggie; it will come in very useful. And now to go back for a moment to Cathcart Square. Who was the poor devil who killed himself there? He was as like you as two peas are like each other.”
“I think we have got to find that out,” said Reginald Davis gravely. “Nor, reading the account in the papers, am I quite sure that it was a suicide.”
“But that was the verdict,” interrupted the sister.
“I know, but there are peculiar things about the case. Letters addressed to Reginald Davis were found on him; there was a letter signed Reginald Davis, addressed to the Coroner, announcing his intention to commit suicide. Those letters had been placed there by the person who murdered him, and that person who murdered him was somebody who knew me, unless it was the accidental taking of a common name.”
“But the razor was clutched in his hand, Reggie!”
“Quite easy,” replied Davis, who, if not a murderer himself, could easily project himself, apparently, into the mind of one. “We will assume, for the moment, it was a man. He cut the poor devil’s throat, and then thrust the razor into his stiffening hand, to convey the idea of suicide.”
“It might be,” agreed Mrs Masters.
“Well, Carrie, one thing I have fixed on, and it is one of the things for which I have come up. I go to Scotland Yard to-morrow, tell them straight I am Reginald Davis, without a stain upon my character, explain to them that you were misled by a close resemblance. We will have that body exhumed. I am firmly convinced it was a murder.”
“Let sleeping dogs lie, Reggie,” advised Mrs Masters, who had a horror of the law and its subtle ways. “Never mind who was the poor devil who was found there, whether he was murdered or committed suicide. It is no affair of yours.”
“It is an affair of mine in this way,” replied Davis in a dogged tone. “The person who murdered the poor devil, as you call him, knew something about me, and took a liberty with my name.”
“It served you a good turn, Reggie, anyway.”
“I know; I admit that. But the murderer did not know he was doing me, thanks to you, a good turn when he killed the other fellow.” Mrs Masters thought deeply for a few moments. “Reggie, you have been a very bad egg, I am sure. I shall never guess a quarter of what you have been guilty of.”
He laid his hand affectionately on her arm. “Well for you, old girl, you can’t. That is all past and done with. By the way, that letter found on the poor chap, announcing his intention to commit suicide, did they ask you to identify my handwriting? Of course, the others addressed to him didn’t matter much. Anybody could have written them. But my letter was a forgery. Did they ask you to identify that particular letter?”
“They did, Reggie, and my brain was in such a whirl that I could hardly read it. I said that I believed it was in your handwriting. It was certainly very like, although, as you can imagine, I looked at it through a sort of mist. Anyway, it was as like your handwriting as the dead man was like you.” Davis ruminated for a few moments. “That letter was forged by somebody who knew me and could imitate my hand to a nicety. I am thinking of all the wrong ’uns I knew in the old days. I think I can fix him.”
“Yes,” said Mrs Masters breathlessly. She was capable of great daring in the cause and the service of those she loved, but she was not habituated to the ways of hardened criminals.
“A man I was a bit associated with in the old days; luckily he didn’t drag me in far enough. He was an expert forger. We used to call him ‘George the Penman.’”
Mrs Masters shuddered. “Oh, you poor weak soul, you were so near it as that?”
“Very near, Carrie. The shock of the false accusation of murder pulled me up straight. I saw where I was drifting, and made up my mind that the straight path was the surest.” At the moment that Mr Davis gave utterance to this honourable sentiment there was a ring at the bell.
Mrs Masters rose at once. “It is Iris. I dropped her a note to say you were coming. She will be so pleased to see you.”
There floated into the small sitting-room a very dainty and ethereal figure, Miss Iris Deane, a charming member of the chorus at the Frivolity Theatre.
She flung her arms round the neck of her handsome brother. “Oh Reggie, dear, what a treat to see you! And all this dreadful thing is lifted from you.”
Iris was not his favourite sister. She was clever in a worldly way, and had made good. But she had not the sterling loyalty of Caroline.
Davis gently checked her enthusiasm. “And how have you been getting on, Iris? Always floating on the top as usual?”
Miss Iris showed her dimples. “Always floating on the top, as you say, dear old boy. A silly, soft chap fell in love with me; wrote most impassioned love-letters. Well, he was too soppy for me to care much about him, and when his rich brother came along, offering me a price for his love-letters, I can tell you I just jumped at the chance.”
“Did you get a good price?” queried her brother.
“I stuck out for ten thousand,” explained the capable Iris; “but this chap was a good bargainer, and I let them go at seven. It was better on the whole. If I had married Roddie, I should have been so fed-up in a month that I should have run away from him, and then Heaven knows where I might have ended.”
Davis looked at his sister approvingly. There was enough of the old Adam left in him to entertain a slight envy of his sister’s chances. Seven thousand pounds, a little fortune in itself, was a good bit of work, a handsome reward for the display of her dimples.
“Roddie who, dear? You might tell us his other name,” queried Mrs Masters, who perhaps was also smitten with a sense of envy.
“That’s telling,” answered the sprightly Iris, who was not given to be too frank about her own affairs. “But if either of you two dear things want a little ready, apply to me. Of course, you will remember I have got to take care of myself, to make provision for my old age.”
Davis and Carrie exchanged glances. They knew the volatile Iris of old. As a child she had always been mean and grasping. Not much of the seven thousand would come their way, if they were on the verge of starvation.
Carrie spoke in cold accents. “You are really too generous, Iris. But we shall not have to trespass upon your generosity. I have enough for my humble wants. And Reggie has been able to put by, so much so that he has been kind enough to make me a very handsome money present to-night.”
“Dear old Reggie,” said the sweetly smiling Iris. “I am so glad you have made good.”
And then Davis spoke: “Thanks, in great part, to Carrie, who told that splendid lie about the suicide, or murder, at 1 °Cathcart Square. You remember that, of course?”
“Suicide, wasn’t it?” said Iris, but her cheek had grown a little pale.
“I don’t think so. There was a forged letter purporting to be written by me. I am going to Scotland Yard to-morrow, stating frankly who I am, and urging them to exhume the body. We will find out who the man, buried under the name of Reginald Davis, really was.”
And then the agitation of his younger sister became extreme. She clutched convulsively at his arm.
“Reggie, you will not do this. What does it matter to you who the man was? Go under some other name, and let sleeping dogs lie.” Unconsciously she had used the same expression as Mrs Masters, but from different motives.
“I have been under a different name for a longer time than I care to remember,” answered Davis doggedly. “I have a fancy to resume my own, and make a clean breast of it to the police. They have nothing else to charge me with.”
Iris fell on her knees, and the tears rained down her cheeks.
“For my sake, Reggie, if not for your own.”
“And why for your sake? Tell us what you mean,” demanded her brother sternly.
And Iris spoke as clearly as she could speak amidst her strangled sobs.
“If you try and unearth that mystery at Cathcart Square, I might be dragged in, and it might be very awkward for me.”
Chapter Twenty One
Davis directed a keen glance at his elder sister over the bowed head of Iris. The younger woman was by no means of an emotional nature. Light, frivolous and volatile, she had danced through life, and, on the whole, had had a good time. One could not picture her in a tragic mood.
And yet, she was the personification of deep emotion now. She could hardly speak for those convulsive sobs, and in her frightened eyes there was a deep and haunting terror. At what point, and through what circumstances, had tragedy touched this little selfish, self-centred butterfly, gifted with a certain amount of cunning and sharpness, but utterly brainless.
“What do you know of Number 1 °Cathcart Square, except what you gleaned from the newspapers?” demanded her brother sternly. “How can you be implicated in the murder of the unknown man whom Carrie mistook for me?”
“But Carrie did not mistake him for you,” wailed Iris. “She told me afterwards that the idea suggested itself in a flash, and when she read the newspaper she was not sure whether it was you who had crept in there, according to the evidence, and made away with yourself, through fear of the police.”
“Leave Carrie out of it for the moment,” said Davis. “Whatever she did was well thought out. Of course, we both know her object was to identify me, if possible, and put Scotland Yard off the scent. What we want to know is, how did you come to be acquainted with the house? What do you mean by saying that, if further investigations are made, you might be dragged in?”
“I was there on four occasions: on the last a few days before the murder, or suicide, whatever it was.”
Davis gasped, and Carrie lifted her hands in horror. What did this confession mean? It was impossible that this slim, weak girl had herself been the murderess, could have killed a big, powerful man of the same build as the supposed Davis, with those slim, weak hands.
She saw the horror in their faces, and hastened to reassure them. “Oh no, not that, I swear to you. I am no more a murderess than you were a murderer, Reggie. But if the whole thing is raked up, and the man whom I believe it to be, accurately identified this time, things might look very black for me.”
Davis lifted her from her kneeling position, and placed her in an easy-chair. “Calm yourself, and tell us the whole story of why and how you came to be in Cathcart Square at all.”
Iris waited a few moments till the convulsive sobbing ceased. She spoke with little occasional gasps, but it was very evident it was a relief to unbosom herself.
“It is a very long story,” she began tremulously.
“If the telling of it lasts till midnight, we must have it,” said her brother in an inflexible voice.
And compelled by his resolute manner, the girl, whom they had always regarded as a frivolous butterfly, embarked upon her strange and thrilling narrative.
“It all arose out of the sale of those letters I spoke to you about. Carrie just now asked me the name of the man who wrote them. Well, I didn’t get further than Roddie, which doesn’t carry you very far. If it had not been for your threat of going to Scotland Yard, I should have stopped at that. A still tongue makes a wise head, you know.”
They could quite believe that. In spite of her ceaseless chatter, Iris had always been very reticent about her own affairs. She had seen next to nothing of her brother for a few years, not very much of Carrie Masters. And, on these occasions, she had always avoided, in a marked manner, any allusion to her private affairs.
“I told you of a soppy young chap who started to make love to me last year. I didn’t care a snap for him, but he was very persistent, and at last wrote me most urgent letters imploring me to be his wife. His full name was Roderick Murchison, a member of the great brewing family; his father has been dead for some time, he died during the War, and Roddie came in for tons of money, although he was not the eldest son. I don’t know if you have ever heard of him?”
No, neither Davis nor Carrie had known of the existence of such a young man. They had a hazy idea that there was a big brewing firm of that name, that was all.
“Well, as I say, I didn’t care a snap for him, although he was awfully good and generous, overwhelmed me with, all kinds of lovely presents: rings, bracelets, fur coats, etc. In our life, you know, one accepts these things from the mugs who are gone on us without attaching very much importance to the fact.” It was evident that Miss Iris had struck out her own line of life, and made a very good thing out of it.
“Well, then, Roddie began to grow desperate, and declared he couldn’t live without me. It was all so genuine that at last I began to think seriously of it. There were tons of money, and although I didn’t cotton much to the sort of life I should have to lead as his wife, still there were worse things than being Mrs Roderick Murchison, with the future well assured, and a handsome settlement.”
Davis and his elder sister exchanged wondering glances. So this butterfly little girl, whom they had always regarded as rather shallow and feather-brained, had had this wonderful chance of marrying a gentleman and a rich man.
“It was difficult to bring myself up to the scratch, in spite of the advantages, for he was so soft and soppy that he irritated me in a thousand-and-one ways, and I knew in a very short time I should grow to hate and despise him. Then one night, after a very excellent champagne supper at the ‘Excelsior,’ he got me in a yielding mood, and I promised to marry him.”
Brother and sister could only marvel at the girl’s extraordinary good fortune, reluctant as she seemed to avail herself of it.
“He told me that before he went to bed that night he wrote to his family acquainting them with the news, anticipating fully their objections, but expressing his strong determination to brook no interference or remonstrance. You see he was his own master, nobody could take his money away from him, and he didn’t care whether his relatives were offended or not.”
“And how did the family take it?” queried Davis.
“I am coming to that,” replied Iris. She was growing much calmer now. It was a relief to unburden her secret to an audience whom she could trust. For she was sure that neither her brother nor sister would ever allow her to put herself into real danger.
“I am coming to that,” she repeated. “A few days after he had written those letters, one to his widowed mother, one to his elder brother, who had inherited the bulk of the big fortune, the elder brother called upon me in my flat. He was a very handsome, well-set-up man, although he had been through a good deal in the War. He was very like you, Reggie.”
“Ah,” ejaculated Mr Davis. He looked at Carrie, keenly watching her sister, with a glance that suggested they would soon be coming to the real pith of this rambling confession.
“He begged the favour of a short conversation. He was perfectly open and above-board. He told me straight he was Roddie’s elder brother, and that his name was Hugh Murchison. He pointed out to me very kindly that his brother was an impetuous young ass – a judgment which I privately endorsed – that Roddie had been infatuated, in his short day, with quite a number of other girls, although, perhaps, not to the same extent as with me.” Iris, getting back rapidly into her light mind, let her volatile and easily impressed nature peep out in her next words.
“Oh, Hugh Murchison was a darling, so quiet, so sensible, and so strong. If he had been fool enough to ask me to marry him, I would not have given him up for seven thousand pounds.”
“But you were prepared to chuck Roddie for that?” suggested her brother quietly.
“I think I let him go a bit too cheap,” answered the fair Iris in a reflective voice. “Many girls have got more than I asked for compromising a breach of promise. But to tell the absolute truth, Hugh Murchison hypnotised me a bit. He was so quiet and yet so strong that I felt he could twist me round his little finger.”
“We want to get to Cathcart Square,” interjected Davis a little impatiently. “We don’t seem to be near it yet.”
“I must tell my story my own way, it is no use driving me,” replied Iris, pouting a little. “Well, as I tell you, he called that day at my flat – that was the beginning of negotiations. Where were we to meet to discuss details? I couldn’t have him at my flat, because Roddie was always popping in and out. He couldn’t have me at his hotel, because nobody knew whom we might come across, and Roddie was always coming there. He said he would think out a plan and telephone or wire me.”
“Ah,” said Carrie, with a sigh of relief: she was a very practical person. “Now, I suppose we are coming to it.”
Iris, heedless of the interruption, went on with her story.
“Next day he ’phoned me up, and after ascertaining that I was quite alone, told me to meet him at 1 °Cathcart Square to resume our conversation.”
“Why, in the name of all that is wonderful – ” began Reginald Davis, but his sister motioned him to silence.
“Don’t interrupt, please, you will know everything in a few minutes. I went to Number 1 °Cathcart Square at the time appointed. He opened the door himself. It was a big house in an old-fashioned square, ages old, I should say, and in the front court was an agent’s board, intimating that this particular house was to let, furnished.”
“I know Cathcart Square well, it’s in an old-world quarter of Kensington,” interrupted Davis. He added grimly, “I know it well, although I did not have the misfortune to commit suicide there.”
“He told me a very funny story. The afternoon of the day before, he had been up to Kensington to visit an old nurse of the family who lived near by. He had strolled round to Cathcart Square to fill up an idle half-hour. He had been struck by the appearance of the house, and loitered before it, when suddenly the door opened, and a somewhat bibulous-looking caretaker came out.”
Davis indulged in a sigh of relief. “We are really coming to it now, then?”
“Yes, you are coming to it. He told me a sudden idea had occurred to him. Here would be a quiet little spot for our meetings, a place where Roddie would never dream of following us. He accosted the caretaker, evidently a drunken and corrupt creature. He explained that he wanted to rent a couple of rooms where he could receive a certain visitor he was expecting in the course of the next week or fortnight. It was no use going to the house agents for that, they would turn down such a proposition. The caretaker, with a couple of five-pound notes in his hand, took an intelligent view of the situation. He gave Hugh a key, and intimated that, if he had sufficient notice, he would make himself scarce on the occasions when the visitor was expected.”
“Of all the mad things – ” began Davis, but his sister for the second time motioned her brother to silence.
“Not quite so mad as you think. I fancy I can see into his mind. We could have met at a dozen different restaurants in London, but Roddie was here, there and everywhere: at any moment he might have come across us. He would never get as far as Kensington.” David nodded his sagacious head. “I think I see. Go on.”
“I met him there, in all four times, the last meeting was a few days before the tragedy.”
“And what took place at that meeting?”
“He paid me the seven thousand pounds in notes. I signed a paper agreeing to give Roddie up. I carried out my bargain. I wrote Roddie that same night, giving him his dismissal, and assuring him that nothing he could urge would induce me to reconsider my determination. He sent me frantic telegrams the next day, but I replied to the same effect. After taking his seven thousand pounds, I could not break faith with Hugh, could I?”
Davis was not quite sure that Iris would not break faith with anybody if it suited her purpose. But clearly Hugh Murchison had subjugated her to the extent of respecting an honourable bargain. No doubt she had fallen in love with him, so far as a person of her shallow temperament could fall in love.
“And what has become of Roddie?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t care. He has bored me to extinction for over nine months. I am glad to be shut of him.”
Davis put a question. “You say Hugh Murchison paid you in notes. What have you done with them? His bank will have the numbers.”
“Will they?” cried Iris, the frightened look again coming into her eyes; she knew nothing of business methods. “I paid them into my own account. Now, you see, if you rake this up I might be implicated.”
“Your opinion is, then, that the man found in Number 1 °Cathcart Square was Hugh Murchison?”
“I am as nearly sure as I can be, after reading the caretaker’s evidence. He had some other stunt on beside my own. I was not the only visitor he received.”
Davis thought deeply before he spoke. “If I have him dug up, and he is identified by those who know him, a lot will come to light. Your notes will be traced, for one thing.”
“I am afraid of everything, Reggie. For the love of Heaven, let him rest where he is.” Caroline Masters breathed softly to herself. “You were half in love with him, or perhaps three-quarters, and you don’t want to know the real truth. Oh, you miserable little, paltry soul!”
And then a sudden thought came to Davis. “Now, Iris, you could never think very clearly about things when they got a little bit complicated. You are quite sure the last occasion on which you saw him was a few days before the discovery of the body?”
“I will swear to it,” cried Iris firmly.
“The date of his cheque, which the Bank has, will show that. He probably cashed it himself on the day he paid you, any way the day before. Now, on the day preceding and the day following that tragedy, can you prove where you were?”
Iris began to see light. “Of course I can. The day after I had the notes, I got up a sprained ankle, an obliging doctor, an old (or rather young) friend of mine, sent a certificate to the theatre. I motored down to Brighton with Johnny Lascelles – who, by the way, used to make Roddie fearfully jealous. We joined a jolly little party at ‘The Old Ship.’ I came back the day after the discovery in Cathcart Square.”
Davis rose and gave a great shout: “You have witnesses who can swear to that?”
“Of course,” answered Iris, not even yet comprehending the full drift of the question. “Johnny Lascelles motored me there and drove me back. Then there was Cissy Monteith, Katie Havard, Jack Legard and others who were with me all the time.”
“You silly little idiot,” cried Reginald Davis. “And what the deuce do you mean by saying that you might be implicated?”
“The notes,” she faltered. “My meeting him alone in that empty house. They might suggest I murdered him, if you say he was murdered.”
Davis smote his forehead in impotent anger at her denseness. “How could you have murdered him when you were at Brighton all the time?”
He smote the palms of his hands together.
“I will find out who the dead man was, and also the man who forged my name to that letter to the Coroner.”
He turned to his sister: “As for you, young woman, it may be you will have a bad quarter of an hour, if it all comes out about Roddie. But never mind, you will have a splendid advertisement. The next bunch of letters you get hold of, the price will be twice seven thousand pounds.”