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- Herausgeber: Books on Demand
- Kategorie: Krimi
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019
The Throne Room in the Royal Windsor Hotel was discreetly full of diners--the management never allowed that sacred haven to be packed even in holiday times--and every little table, with its shaded pink lights, held its sheaf of youth and beauty spilling with laughter and dazzling with eyes as bright and alluring as the gems that seemed to float there on a sea of foamy froth cradled in pink and mauve chiffon and diaphanous lace. There was something exceedingly intimate in the half-shrouded tables, each encrusted with the loveliest things that breathe and palpitate in this transient life of ours, and yet it seemed part of one smooth harmonious whole as if the elect gathered there were, after all, one exclusive family.
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The Man who was Two
The Man who was TwoCHAPTER I.--THE MAN IN MOTLEY.CHAPTER II.--THE VALET'S STORY.CHAPTER III.--THE GREEN SPECTACLES.CHAPTER IV.--THE DRAGGING HOUR.CHAPTER V.--THE VERDICT.CHAPTER VI.--BEHIND THE BARS.CHAPTER VII.--THE HANGMAN'S ROCK.CHAPTER VIII.--OVER THE BRINK.CHAPTER IX.--FROM TRAGEDY TO COMEDY.CHAPTER X.--THE HEELS OF ADVENTURE.CHAPTER XI.--THE RIGHT TRACK.CHAPTER XII.--THE MAN CALLED MARNE.CHAPTER XIII.--THE OTHER MAN.CHAPTER XIV.--"MR. S. ALLISON."CHAPTER XV.--THE CONJURING TRICK.CHAPTER XVI.--THE TRICK FINISHED.CHAPTER XVII.--TOWARDS THE DAWN.CHAPTER XVIII.--IN THE CARAVAN.CHAPTER XIX.--A STORY IN A STORY.CHAPTER XX.--PAVING THE WAY.CHAPTER XXI.--A BLIND WITNESSCHAPTER XXII.--THE NURSE'S STORY.CHAPTER XXIII.--UNDER THE CASTLECHAPTER XXIV.--FOR BIG STAKES.CHAPTER XXV.--A TELEGRAM FOR BARROS.CHAPTER XXVI.--ALLISON COMES IN.CHAPTER XXVII.--ON THE WAY.CHAPTER XXVIII.--FOLLOWING THE TRAIL.CHAPTER XXIX.--"AN ACCIDENT."CHAPTER XXX.--THE MAN WITH THE GREY BEARD.CHAPTER XXXI.--A FAMILY GATHERING.CHAPTER XXXII.--GILETTE'S HOUR.CHAPTER XXXIII.--THE LAST WORD.CopyrightThe Man who was Two
Fred M White
CHAPTER I.--THE MAN IN MOTLEY.
CHAPTER II.--THE VALET'S STORY.
The two men regarded each other with strained anxious eyes. Sir Marston was as if suddenly ten years had been added to his life. He was white and haggard behind his glasses, whilst Gilette, standing there, seemed to be unconscious of the paper cap that he was still wearing.
"For heaven's sake, take that thing off," the artist groaned. "It looks so horribly cold-blooded, well, callous."
Almost mechanically Gilette lifted his hand to his head. He crushed the gaudy tissue and flung it at his feet. A small Eton boy of his acquaintance grinned amiably, obviously waiting for the nod of recognition from such an athletic god as Gilette. But the little man in the white waistcoat might have been so much thin air so far as the object of his admiration was concerned.
The brilliantly-lighted rooms were filling up fast now and in the distance a band was playing some alluring dance music. From where he stood Gilette could see the two girls still seated at the table watching the gay throng and smiling as a child in shimmering hair and silken stockings threw herself with a cry of delight on Hetty Bond. It seemed almost impossible to couple all this abandon of happiness and gaiety with a sordid crime.
"Tell me all about it." Gilette asked, "When did it happen and where? What did Rivers say? I can't believe it. I have always heard people speak so well of Mallison. I was looking forward to meeting him to-night if only for Miss Ferriss' sake."
"I have known Mallison ever since he was a child," Sir Marston went on in the same absent, tired voice. "His father died before he was born--a man in the army he was, and made a runaway match with his wife. They were poor enough because Mrs. Malllison's father cast her off when she married and would never see her again. A sort of foreigner he was--half Spaniard, who made a great fortune cattle ranching in the Argentine. Proud as Lucifer, I'm told. They say that there was nobody good enough to associate with Marne."
Gilette stiffened as if a spark of fire had scorched him.
"What name did you say?" he asked thickly. "Marne! Why, that is the name of the man you followed for me just now. Sir Marston, my big story turns on a man called Marne who lives in the Argentine. I mean the super-film I told you about. This is amazing. My story--but go on. Tell me all about Mallison. His father died, yes?"
"When he was a child," Sir Marston proceeded. "Leaving his widow very poor. All this took place a year or two before I took that studio of mine in Merston. I mean the old house where I do my painting all the summer. You've been there often enough."
Gilette nodded. Well enough he knew that smiling paradise where Sir Marston painted and golfed and recuperated all through the long golden summers. There was no more romantic or beautiful spot in the British Isles. Occasionally Gilette picnicked there in Manley's absence yet, strangely enough, he had never met the unhappy Mallison or the girl he was engaged to until the last fortnight, when Peggy had come to town from Herston to spend a few days with her old school friend, Hetty Bond.
"Well," Sir Marston muttered. "Miss Mallison and her boy--that is the poor chap we are speaking of--lived at Merston on a small income allowed by her father so long as she did not bother him and so long as she stayed in the heart of the country. Until the time of her death she never saw her father, and he refused to do anything for his grandson directly he was old enough to get his own living. Probably, old Marne is dead and buried by this time."
"I'm sure he isn't," Gilette exclaimed. "But that side of the story we shall come to all in good time. But what about the tragedy in Rutland Inn? Did it happen in Rutland Inn? Was Rivers looking for me when you saw him here just now?"
"So I gathered," Sir Marston said. "He says that you were one of the very last to see Walter Pennington this afternoon and when he heard what had happened, he came here at once, because you had told him that you were dining here with a party to-night."
"Did Rivers say anything more?"
"Very little. From what I can gather, Pennington got back to his quarters in Rutland Inn about seven o'clock and proceeded to his bedroom over his professional chambers at once. He told his man that he was dining out and that he needed nothing. A little while after the telephone bell rang and Fisher, that is Pennington's man, answered it. The message was for himself, to the effect that his brother wanted to see him for a moment and would he, Fisher, step round to the 'Green Man,' a little respectable public house in Armory-street. Fisher went up and, knocked at his master's door and got the requisite permission. He was away perhaps for three-quarters of an hour and came back a little annoyed at the discovery that the whole thing was a hoax, indeed, he found out that his brother was not even in town, but that he had gone off for a few days' work in the country. When Fisher found that his master's evening overcoat and silk scarf were still hanging up in the passage he began to get alarmed. Getting no reply, after knocking at the door of Pennington's bedroom, he went in and found Pennington dead on the floor with a ghastly wound on the back of the head."
"Yes, but where does Mallison come in?" Gilette asked abruptly.
"Ah, that is the worst feature," Sir Marston went on. "As Fisher was hurrying along the corridor in the direction of Pennington's suite he met Mallison coming along as if he had been calling on Pennington. He had a little black bag in his hand, and seemed in a great hurry. Fisher was rather surprised, because he knew that his master and Mallison had been on extremely bad terms for some time, and therefore, he took particular notice. He says he spoke to Mallison, who seemed disturbed at being seen there, and he made no response. But Mallison was also recognised by two other members of the inn, and they also spoke to him. In each case he made no reply, but pushed on hurriedly into the darkness. These two men were the first to turn up when Fisher gave the alarm, and at once suspicion attached itself to Mallison. He was arrested in his rooms about an hour ago, and as he could not, or would not, give any account of himself until he came to dress for our party, the police took him to Brent-street station, and he is there now. I must go and see him in the morning, for I am convinced that there has been some lamentable mistake somewhere."
Gilette stood there for a few moments in anxious thought. It seemed almost sinful to him that all this mad gaiety was going on at a time when a fellow creature was beginning to fight for his very life. From where he was he could see the slim, graceful figure in pink and watch the happy laughter in Peggy's eyes. The fun was now reaching its height, the band played on alluringly, the giddy throng floated across the floor--a light foaming sea of rainbow hues, with the shimmer and point of diamonds here and there. The incongruity of it seemed to shriek alone in Gilette's ears as he watched.
"Not to-night," he protested. "You can't possibly see Mallison to-night. It's almost cruel to leave that poor girl there smiling and happy when there is this hideous thing to face. Will you go and fetch them out, or shall I?"
"No, no, I'll go," Sir Marston said. "It is old folk like me that understand sorrow best. We learn that sort of thing as we grow older--there are so many breaks for us. No, I'll go, Roy."
Gilette stood there anxiously waiting. He had learnt a lot to-night, far more than had been dreamt of in his philosophy. That story of his founded on tragic and criminal facts gleaned in the Argentine was following him even to London. The blazing trail had hit him full in the eyes not an hour ago. And in a dim way he was beginning to see the connection between this new and startling development and the history of Mallison's misfortune. Gilette had an unerring instinct for the psychology of crime, and already his mind was subconsciously piecing the scattered fragments together.
Then he put it out of his mind resolutely. There would be ample time for that. What he wanted now was to get this ghastly business of breaking the news to Peggy Ferriss out of the way. He saw her come along presently smiling and dimpling, with a little girl hanging on either arm. Hetty followed on close behind more sedately, but with an approving gleam in her eyes, too. The painter, white and agitated, brought up the rear. It was no easy matter to choke off the fairy manikins, but it was done at length, and then Sir Marston led the way to a secluded corner of the lounge. And it was not till then that Peggy grasped that there was something wrong.
"Why, what's the matter?"' she smiled. "Oh, you have heard that Raymond is not coming. What a shame! And Mr. Pennington, too."
"No, he is not coming, my dear," the painter said gently. "I want you to be brave, Peggy. Something has happened."
Peggy of the pale cheeks and dewy eyes seemed to divine the root of the trouble at once. She caught her lip between her white teeth.
"It's Raymond," she said. "I have had the feeling for the last hour. If he is dead, tell me at once. I shall know how to bear it."
Then, very gently and tenderly with tears in his eyes, the old man told Peggy all that he had learnt. He saw the pallor washed off her clear pale cheek by the rising red tide of anger and indignation. It was just as he had expected.
"They must he mad," she cried. "Oh, the idea of Raymond even thinking of such a thing is fantastic. Sir Marston, I must go to him. You must take me there at once. He would expect me."
Sir Marston shook his head sorrowfully.
"I am afraid that is impossible," he said. "The authorities do not allow that sort of thing. We will do everything that is necessary in the way of employing counsel, and in the morning I will see what else can be done. Perhaps If I call on the Home Secretary he may give me a special permit to visit the--I mean Mallison. My dear, you are the bravest girl I ever met. And God knows you want that courage."
But Peggy broke down badly enough once she was in the taxi on her way home with Hetty. Then it was that the precious solace of tears came to her aid, and she flung herself, weeping passionately, on the sympathetic breast of her companion. And far into the night she and Hetty discussed the tragic situation.
"He couldn't have done it," she said for the fiftieth time. "I say he couldn't. Ah. You don't know Raymond. Nobody knows him as I do. Oh, it's maddening to sit here doing nothing and Raymond perhaps imagining that we have all deserted him. Yes, I know that there was bad blood between Raymond and Walter Pennington, but it was only some silly quarrel over some statement that Raymond made in a criminal case where the poor boy was giving scientific evidence. Raymond thought that Mr. Pennington was trying to discredit him and he resented it. Then they carried it on in the club, and there was a bit of a scene. Talk about women gossiping."
Hetty sat there powerless to stop the flow of Peggy's grief. There was nothing to say or do until, utterly exhausted, Peggy allowed herself to be put into bed, where she declared she could not sleep. And almost immediately she fell into a deep, but restless, slumber. Then Hetty stole away, her eyes dim and aching with sympathy.
CHAPTER III.--THE GREEN SPECTACLES.
Sir Marston Manley had quite made up his mind what to do before he said good night to Gilette. He was not going to leave a stone unturned in getting to the bottom of this mystery. Ever since he had purchased his romantic studio-residence at Merston on the coast of North Devon he had known Raymond Mallison, who was now confronted by a charge that sounded almost grotesque to anyone who knew him. For the great artist had a high opinion of Mallison, who had thrust his way into a fine position by sheer hard work and genuine merit. He knew the hard struggle that Mallison's mother had had to send her boy to a public school and maintain, him at a London hospital afterwards. He knew that Mrs. Mallison's income was a slender one derived from her father on the other side of the world, but as to that, Marie Mallison said very little, nor would she hear of Manley accepting any share in her beloved Raymond's professional training. It was in vain that the great painter protested that he had no kith or kin in the world who stood in need of his help, and that in any case his will would see Raymond handsomely provided for. And so he had watched the boy's career with almost fatherly interest until he had carved out a real reputation for himself. This had taken some years, of course, during which time Sir Marston had painted those famous pictures of his, both in the grand house in Regent's Park and at the lovely old place at Merston. In the latter establishment Raymond Mallison came and went at his own sweet will, and occasionally took a hand with the catering of that delightful establishment, for there Manley lived the simple life and was looked after exclusively by an old woman and her fisherman husband, who shut up the rambling place in the winter, and retired to their own cottage on the beach.
Here Roy Gilette put in an occasional week or so during the fishing season, when he camped in the cottage and preferred to cater for himself. And, strange to say, he had never met Mallison, who had either been away at school or keeping his hospital terms in London whenever Gilette had paid one of his flying visits.
Obviously, then, Gilette could not be expected to take the same interest in the tragedy as did Sir Marston. We shall see presently how far the great artist's conclusions on this point were correct. He dropped Gilette presently, and gave his chauffeur directions to drive to the House of Commons, where, from the light in the tower, he could see that legislators were still sitting. The presentation of his card to an attendant in the lobby exercised its usual magical effect, and a few minutes later he found himself in the private room of the Home Secretary. Fortunately the great man had just emerged with flying colours from a verbal combat with a truculent member of the Opposition, and was consequently in his most amiable mood.
"Well, what can I do for you, my dear fellow?" he asked.
Sir Marston came to the point at once. He described the whole of the tragedy in detail, and wound up with a request for an order to see the prisoner in private. Mr. Calverley pursed his lips.
"My dear man," he protested, "this is most unusual. If you think that there is one law for the rich and--"
"Another for the politician," Sir Marston interrupted dryly. "That fact has not escaped me, Mr. Minister. We are old friends, and that being so, I can speak plainly. That boy's welfare is very dear to me, though he does not know it. I have watched his career from the time he was a little chap in knickerbockers, and never once has he disappointed me. And, dash it all, I was in love with his mother and would have married her, but she preferred to remain faithful to a memory. There is something desperately wrong here, and I mean to get to the bottom of it if it costs me half my fortune. And now you know all about it. You can give me that order if you choose."
"Very well, then," the Home Secretary growled. "But if some of those Red Flag chaps on the Opposition side below the gangway get wind of it, there will be trouble."
Sir Marston departed presently with the precious order in his pocket. He naturally concluded that Mallison would be brought before the presiding magistrate the following morning, when the police would give no more than evidence of arrest, and then ask for a formal remand of probably a week. It was his intention to see Mallison before he was brought into court. It was about half-past 9 the following morning when he passed over his permit to the inspector in charge, and a few moments later found himself in the cell where Raymond Mallison was detained.
It was a dreary and depressing place. A narrow whitewashed cell dimly lighted by a small barred window some eight feet from the ground, and containing nothing more than a wool mattress and a stool whereon reposed an empty basin, from which, obviously. Mallison had been eating something that passed as a breakfast. He sat on the bed with his head in his hands, a picture of lonely despair. He glanced up indifferently as Sir Marston entered, and a flush dyed his face.
Then he rose awkwardly enough, and half held out his hand.
"This--this is very kind of you," he whispered. "Sir Marston, if you only knew what it is to feel--"
But Manley was having nothing of that. He took Mallison's hand, and shook it warmly. Then he noticed for the first time that Mallison was wearing a pair of green-tinted spectacles. Under the right eye was a nasty red scar. Just for an instant Sir Marston's faith in his young friend was a little shaken. He pointed to the glasses.
"In the name of goodness, what have you been doing to yourself?" he asked. "What's wrong with your one eye?"
"Oh, that's nothing." Mallison said. "Just a bit of an accident after I got home to change last night. I got back too late for your dinner, as I told you I might do, and when I was changing to join you after I had a fancy to do a few exercises with my Sandow outfit. When I was on my back pulling at the elastic straps the hook in the wall gave away, and the fastening struck me violently in the eye. Nothing very serious, but by way of a precaution I put on these glasses, and very glad I am because I find that the trouble is likely to last for a month or so. I'm afraid that I have damaged the optic nerve. But why do you ask? Oh, well, in the circumstances, I suppose that anyone might ask a pointed question."
Mallison smiled a little bitterly as he spoke.
"You are quite wrong, my boy," Sir Marston said warmly. "I am quite prepared to believe everything that you say. Otherwise, I should not be here to-day. Naturally this has been a terrible shock to us all, but there is not one of your friends that count who is not absolutely convinced of your innocence."
"That is the sort of thing that brings the tears into the eyes," Mallison murmured. "And Peggy--how is she? It must have been a terrible shock to her. Did she send anything in--?"
"Peggy is as true as steel," Sir Marston said. "She's a girl in a million, Raymond. She absolutely refuses to hear a word against you. And, as she said last night, even if you were guilty. It would make no difference to her. Raymond, you are not guilty?"
"No more than you are," Mallison said with a quiet sincerity that carried conviction to the visitor's mind. "I was nowhere near Rutland Inn last night. Pennington and myself have not spoken for months, friends as we used to be. You will remember that I thought he had carried the privilege of counsel too far when he tried to discredit me in the Venn case. It was just after 9 o'clock when I got back to my rooms, and I was just dressing to join your party when they came along and arrested me. I was dumbfounded."
"But where had you been?" Sir Marston asked. "You should have no difficulty in proving an alibi. Someone must have seen you."
"So I thought at first. But it is not so easy as you think. I don't remember coming in contact with anybody who knows me. Upon my word, Sir Marston, I am in more desperate case than I thought. Here are three credible witnesses--people who have no sort of a grudge against me--who come forward ready to swear that they saw me coming along the corridor leading from Pennington's chambers a few minutes before his man found him dead--murdered. His man positively identified me. Then there were those two men outside, acquaintances of mine. And, mind you, I didn't get back to my rooms until a quarter of an hour after Pennington's body was found. Oh, as regards time, they have a splendid case."
"But where were you all last night?" Sir Marston asked. "Can't you see how vitally important it is?"
Mallison gave a groan of something like despair.
"Of course I can," he admitted doggedly. "And it is just here that I am going to test your belief in my story to the breaking point. Let me try and explain. About five o'clock I had an urgent message on the telephone to meet Blake--that's our big man--at an address in Willesden for an unusually interesting operation. I need not bother you with the details. Anyway, it was the sort of case that appeals to me, and I wanted the experience. I rather wondered why the venue was a private house, although it didn't very much matter. So I arranged to be there. Being a little short of exercise, I decided to walk. When I got to the address in question I found that the people in the house had never heard of Blake, and that no operation was needed. There was nothing for it but to come back and apologise to Blake for my stupidity in mistaking the address, and so I walked back again. But, Sir Marston, I shall never get a magistrate to believe that story."
"You never can tell," Sir Marston murmured. Even to his ears it sounded exceedingly thin.
"Did you 'phone to Blake when you got back? But of course you did. Blake's evidence ought to be a tower of strength to you. At any rate it goes to prove that you promised to go to Willesden, and in the circumstances anybody might be excused for blundering over the address. Let's have Blake by all means."
"Oh, I 'phoned Blake all right," Mallison sighed. "I got him personally. It was not Blake who called me up originally, but some assistant at the hospital, as I imagined. You can picture my feelings now when Blake told me that he had sent for me, and that, as a matter of fact, he had been out of town all day. Sir Marston, some enemy of mine has done this thing. My story will sound ridiculous in court, especially when Blake is called to depose that he never made any attempt to get me on the telephone. So you see the more truthful I am the worse it looks for me. And yet, so far as I know, I have not a single enemy in the world. It sounds like a scrap from some wild melodrama in which the villain lays a deadly trap for the hero. Who is it that hates me so virulently to get me hanged?"
To this wildly improbable tale Sir Marston listened with a queer sinking of the heart. A blacker case against an accused man he had never listened to. Still, so far as he was concerned, he did not doubt Mallison for a moment. But as a man of the world he was forced to the conclusion that Mallison's statement was terribly inadequate in the face of the evidence possessed by the police.
"I believe you, Raymond," he said. "And I am quite sure that the others will share my view. But it is the jury that we have to think about. You must have the best advice that money can procure. But that I have already seen to. I asked my own man on the telephone before I came here, and he recommended a criminal attorney who has a big reputation in cases like yours, and he will be here in due course. I expect that the evidence to-day will only be formal and that the police will ask for a remand. Now is there anyone else that you would like to see, because if so I think that I can manage it? What shall I tell Peggy, for instance?"
Mallison looked with almost loving gratitude at the benign figure of his old friend whose presence had heartened him so much. Here was one with a world-wide reputation, the friend of rulers, who had put everything else aside to come at once to his assistance. It was good to have such a friend as Sir Marston Manley.
"I think I understand."' he said thickly. "My fondest love to Peggy and tell her how her faith inspires me. But no, she must not come here--the very atmosphere would break her heart. I must go my own way and stick it as best I can until I am free or until I am forced to turn my back upon the world. I shall not fear."
Then came a warder with a curt intimation that time was up, though he was civil enough so far as Sir Marston was concerned. It was for Mallison that the almost brutal brevity was reserved, and Manley could see how the sensitive blood tinged his face. It was the first taste of what might follow in the hard time to come.
Then along a narrow corridor, and after that the dingy light of the courthouse with its stuffy atmosphere and the foul reek of humanity at its worst. A belated and sickly fly was buzzing against the grimy window pane, a thin light filtered on to the seat where the magistrate had already taken his place. In the gallery at the back a woman of tender years was seated nursing a whining child, a woman who would have been pretty save for her rags and dirt and the black eye that she flaunted defiantly like a banner. In the well of the court the reporters and a solicitor or two lounged and listened with a bored air to the usual sordid charges. In the dock sprawled a young man in a fine overcoat plastered with mud who listened with some show of vanity to the statement that it had taken four policemen to remove him from the Palace Theatre on the previous evening. His bloodshot eye and draggled white dress-tie stamped the charge. Over all these hung a prevailing odour of beer and boot-leather that seemed to dominate everything else. It was a positive relief to Manley when presently the name of Raymond Mallison was called.
He stood there with the dim light shining on his face, thankful for the hurt that had compelled him to don the green spectacles. The magistrate looked casually at the charge sheet through his glasses.
"Um, yes," he mumbled. "Quite so. Raymond Mallison, of St. Agnes Hospital, charged with doing grievous bodily harm to one Walter Pennington. Does the prisoner plead guilty or not guilty?"
Thus the representative of the law, with an air of detachment absolutely wooden. A thin man, with the face of an actor and keen eyes that seemed to flash sparks from behind his pince-nez, jumped to his feet. The man on the bench leaned forward.
"Well, Mr. Linnell," he said combatively. "What is it? And why do you presume to interrupt me?"
"Represent the prisoner, your Worship," the other said in a quick staccato voice. "Only instructed by telephone this morning. Understood that I was retained for the defence on a charge of murder. Now find it reduced to a charge of doing grievous bodily harm. Most 'straordinary. Appeal to Inspector Price to--"
Rising from the well of the court. Inspector Price explained that a remarkable mistake had been made. It had transpired late the night before that Mr. Pennington was not dead, as the police had concluded, but was in a state of collapse from which he might emerge, but that if so it would be something in the nature of a miracle. The charge sheet would have to be amended, and the Inspector proceeded to do so. A great burst of thankfulness welled up in Mallison's heart. Whilst there was life in Pennington's body there was hope.
Then up rose a little fat man with a red face exuding good nature, and announced the fact that he represented the Treasury. Sir Marston knew him for one of the shrewdest lawyers in London. It was a plain story that he had to tell, but it went dead against the prisoner. No venom or vindictiveness, but a simple tale delivered in an almost apologetic manner, as if counsel and prisoner had met at dinner the night before, and the task was a hateful one. Then he subsided with a sigh, and John Fisher, Pennington's servant, stepped into the witness box with a story as plain as that of the Treasury solicitor.
On the night before he had been called up on the telephone to speak to someone who said that he represented the witness's brother. That message was subsequently proved to be a false one, for the witness found no sign of his brother at the arranged spot. Nor had the tenant of the house of call sent or passed such message.
"It was a hoax, in fact?" the magistrate suggested.
"It must 'ave been a hoax, sir," the witness declared. "My brother hadn't been in London all day. Then I goes back, thinkin' that something was wrong, and that it was a burglar's trick, me being alone in the master's chambers, and sure by this time as he had gone out to a party at some hotel. But when I gets back Mr. Pennington hadn't gone out, for his coat and silk scarf was still hangin' up in the 'all. As I couldn't make him 'ear, I goes into his bedroom and finds him dead, as I thought."
Fisher went on to describe the injury sustained by the wounded man and how he had telephoned to the police at once. He was wandering on, rather pleased with his impression, when he was pulled up short by the barrister representing the Crown.
"One moment," he said. "Let us go back a bit. Did you pass anyone as you came along the corridor leading to the front door of Mr. Pennington's chambers?"
"That's right, sir," the witness said affably. "I met the prisoner in the dock. Mr. Mallison, that is."
"You are quite sure? Remember that you are on your oath. You met the prisoner coming from the direction of Mr. Pennington's chambers. Are there any other sets of chambers there?"
"Not on the ground floor, sir. There are others reached by a flight of stone stairs that turn to the right."
"Um, the prisoner might have been coming from one of these. By the way, was he wearing the green glasses that he has on now?"
Innocent as the question was. Sir Marston could fathom the deadly import of it. He waited eagerly for the reply.
"No, he wasn't, sir," the witness said confidently. "That I'll swear to. I spoke to him, for he used to visit Mr. Pennington regular at one time. I says, 'Good evenin', sir. Haven't had the pleasure of seein' you for a long time.'"
"And what did he say to that?" counsel asked.
"Just nothing, sir. He seemed a little annoyed or disturbed at seeing me, and he hurried off without a word. Mistaken, sir? No, I ain't mistaken--I'll swear to it anywheres."
Then came two more witnesses, typical society men about town, both of whom were personally acquainted with Mallison, to give much the same testimony. They were waiting outside the Inn for a man who had arranged to meet them there. The friend had not turned up--he had asked them not to wait very long as possibly he might be detained--but in the meantime they had seen Mallison and had hailed him by name. He had not responded, but perhaps it had been a little too dark for the prisoner to be sure of them, and they had only made certain as to Mallison's identity as he passed a lamp.
Sir Marston bent over and whispered some thing in Linnell's ear. The other nodded as he rose to ask a question or two.
"What was the name of the gentleman that you were waiting for?" he queried. "And where does he come from?"
The witness looked a little surprised.
"Name of Marne," he drawled. "From the Argentine and on his way to Liverpool last night."
Sir Marston sat back in his chair with a stolid face and never a word escaped him. But he smiled like a man who is not displeased.
CHAPTER IV.--THE DRAGGING HOUR.
It was all over a few minutes later and the prisoner was remanded for a week on the application of the police. A demand for bail was curtly refused, and then Sir Marston walked out of the dreary atmosphere of the courthouse infinitely glad to find himself in the open air once more. He lingered for a moment until Linnell emerged and stopped him for a few words regarding the case.
"I know that you are a busy man," he said, "but I shall be obliged if you can give me a minute. You understand, Mr. Linnell, that no expense is to be spared in this dreadful business. Please look to me for all that is necessary."
"I am quite at your disposal, Sir Marston," the lawyer said. "And I can assure you--"
"Quite so, quite so; in which case perhaps you will be so good as to come with me as far as the Athenaeum Club, where we can talk quietly over a biscuit and a glass of sherry."
Linnell would be delighted. He had an hour to spare which was quite at Sir Marston's disposal. Presently they were seated in the seclusion of the famous club, and the painter began to talk.
