The Old Man in the Corner - Baroness Orczy
"In answer to Mr. Walter Hibbert, John asserted positively that he took
the paper from the undertaker's hand and went straight with it to Mr.
Percival's room.
"'He was alone,' said John; 'I gave him the paper. He just glanced at
it, and I thought he looked rather astonished, but he said nothing, and
I at once left the room.'
"'When you say that you recognized the paper as the one which you had
seen your master sign the day before, how did you actually recognize
that it was the same paper?' asked Mr. Hibbert amidst breathless
interest on the part of the spectators. I narrowly observed the
witness's face.
"'It looked exactly the same paper to me, sir,' replied John, somewhat
vaguely.
"'Did you look at the contents, then?'
"'No, sir; certainly not.'
"'Had you done so the day before?'
"'No, sir, only at my master's signature.'
"'Then you only thought by the _outside_ look of the paper that it was
the same?'
"'It looked the same thing, sir,' persisted John obstinately.
"You see," continued the man in the corner, leaning eagerly forward
across the narrow marble table, "the contention of Murray Brooks'
adviser was that Mr. Brooks, having made a will and hidden it--for some
reason or other under his pillow--that will had fallen, through the
means related by John O'Neill, into the hands of Mr. Percival Brooks,
who had destroyed it and substituted a forged one in its place, which
adjudged the whole of Mr. Brooks' millions to himself. It was a terrible
and very daring accusation directed against a gentleman who, in spite of
his many wild oats sowed in early youth, was a prominent and important
figure in Irish high life.
"All those present were aghast at what they heard, and the whispered
comments I could hear around me showed me that public opinion, at
least, did not uphold Mr. Murray Brooks' daring accusation against his
brother.
"But John O'Neill had not finished his evidence, and Mr. Walter Hibbert
had a bit of sensation still up his sleeve. He had, namely, produced a
paper, the will proved by Mr. Percival Brooks, and had asked John
O'Neill if once again he recognized the paper.
"'Certainly, sir,' said John unhesitatingly, 'that is the one the
undertaker found under my poor dead master's pillow, and which I took to
Mr. Percival's room immediately.'
"Then the paper was unfolded and placed before the witness.
"'Now, Mr. O'Neill, will you tell me if that is your signature?'
"John looked at it for a moment; then he said: 'Excuse me, sir,' and
produced a pair of spectacles which he carefully adjusted before he
again examined the paper. Then he thoughtfully shook his head.
"'It don't look much like my writing, sir,' he said at last. 'That is to
say,' he added, by way of elucidating the matter, 'it does look like my
writing, but then I don't think it is.'
"There was at that moment a look in Mr. Percival Brooks' face,"
continued the man in the corner quietly, "which then and there gave me
the whole history of that quarrel, that illness of Mr. Brooks, of the
will, aye! and of the murder of Patrick Wethered too.
"All I wondered at was how every one of those learned counsel on both
sides did not get the clue just the same as I did, but went on arguing,
speechifying, cross-examining for nearly a week, until they arrived at
the one conclusion which was inevitable from the very first, namely,
that the will _was_ a forgery--a gross, clumsy, idiotic forgery, since
both John O'Neill and Pat Mooney, the two witnesses, absolutely
repudiated the signatures as their own. The only successful bit of
caligraphy the forger had done was the signature of old Mr. Brooks.
"It was a very curious fact, and one which had undoubtedly aided the
forger in accomplishing his work quickly, that Mr. Wethered the lawyer
having, no doubt, realized that Mr. Brooks had not many moments in life
to spare, had not drawn up the usual engrossed, magnificent document
dear to the lawyer heart, but had used for his client's will one of
those regular printed forms which can be purchased at any stationer's.
"Mr. Percival Brooks, of course, flatly denied the serious allegation
brought against him. He admitted that the butler had brought him the
document the morning after his father's death, and that he certainly, on
glancing at it, had been very much astonished to see that that document
was his father's will. Against that he declared that its contents did
not astonish him in the slightest degree, that he himself knew of the
testator's intentions, but that he certainly thought his father had
entrusted the will to the care of Mr. Wethered, who did all his business
for him.
"'I only very cursorily glanced at the signature,' he concluded,
speaking in a perfectly calm, clear voice; 'you must understand that the
thought of forgery was very far from my mind, and that my father's
signature is exceedingly well imitated, if, indeed, it is not his own,
which I am not at all prepared to believe. As for the two witnesses'
signatures, I don't think I had ever seen them before. I took the
document to Messrs. Barkston and Maud, who had often done business for
me before, and they assured me that the will was in perfect form and
order.'
"Asked why he had not entrusted the will to his father's solicitors, he
replied:
"'For the very simple reason that exactly half an hour before the will
was placed in my hands, I had read that Mr. Patrick Wethered had been
murdered the night before. Mr. Hibbert, the junior partner, was not
personally known to me.'
"After that, for form's sake, a good deal of expert evidence was heard
on the subject of the dead man's signature. But that was quite
unanimous, and merely went to corroborate what had already been
established beyond a doubt, namely, that the will dated February 1st,
1908, was a forgery, and probate of the will dated 1891 was therefore
granted to Mr. Murray Brooks, the sole executor mentioned therein."
CHAPTER XXIII
A MEMORABLE DAY
"Two days later the police applied for a warrant for the arrest of Mr.
Percival Brooks on a charge of forgery.
"The Crown prosecuted, and Mr. Brooks had again the support of Mr.
Oranmore, the eminent K.C. Perfectly calm, like a man conscious of his
own innocence and unable to grasp the idea that justice does sometimes
miscarry, Mr. Brooks, the son of the millionaire, himself still the
possessor of a very large fortune under the former will, stood up in the
dock on that memorable day in October, 1908, which still no doubt lives
in the memory of his many friends.
"All the evidence with regard to Mr. Brooks' last moments and the forged
will was gone through over again. That will, it was the contention of
the Crown, had been forged so entirely in favour of the accused, cutting
out every one else, that obviously no one but the beneficiary under that
false will would have had any motive in forging it.
"Very pale, and with a frown between his deep-set, handsome Irish eyes,
Percival Brooks listened to this large volume of evidence piled up
against him by the Crown.
"At times he held brief consultations with Mr. Oranmore, who seemed as
cool as a cucumber. Have you ever seen Oranmore in court? He is a
character worthy of Dickens. His pronounced brogue, his fat, podgy,
clean-shaven face, his not always immaculately clean large hands, have
often delighted the caricaturist. As it very soon transpired during that
memorable magisterial inquiry, he relied for a verdict in favour of his
client upon two main points, and he had concentrated all his skill upon
making these two points as telling as he possibly could.
"The first point was the question of time, John O'Neill, cross-examined
by Oranmore, stated without hesitation that he had given the will to Mr.
Percival at eleven o'clock in the morning. And now the eminent K.C.
brought forward and placed in the witness-box the very lawyers into
whose hands the accused had then immediately placed the will. Now, Mr.
Barkston, a very well-known solicitor of King Street, declared
positively that Mr. Percival Brooks was in his office at a quarter
before twelve; two of his clerks testified to the same time exactly, and
it was _impossible_, contended Mr. Oranmore, that within three-quarters
of an hour Mr. Brooks could have gone to a stationer's, bought a will
form, copied Mr. Wethered's writing, his father's signature, and that
of John O'Neill and Pat Mooney.
"Such a thing might have been planned, arranged, practised, and
ultimately, after a great deal of trouble, successfully carried out, but
human intelligence could not grasp the other as a possibility.
"Still the judge wavered. The eminent K.C. had shaken but not shattered
his belief in the prisoner's guilt. But there was one point more, and
this Oranmore, with the skill of a dramatist, had reserved for the fall
of the curtain.
"He noted every sign in the judge's face, he guessed that his client was
not yet absolutely safe, then only did he produce his last two
witnesses.
"One of them was Mary Sullivan, one of the housemaids in the Fitzwilliam
mansion. She had been sent up by the cook at a quarter past four o'clock
on the afternoon of February 1st with some hot water, which the nurse
had ordered, for the master's room. Just as she was about to knock at
the door Mr. Wethered was coming out of the room. Mary stopped with the
tray in her hand, and at the door Mr. Wethered turned and said quite
loudly: 'Now, don't fret, don't be anxious; do try and be calm. Your
will is safe in my pocket, nothing can change it or alter one word of it
but yourself.'
"It was, of course, a very ticklish point in law whether the
housemaid's evidence could be accepted. You see, she was quoting the
words of a man since dead, spoken to another man also dead. There is no
doubt that had there been very strong evidence on the other side against
Percival Brooks, Mary Sullivan's would have counted for nothing; but, as
I told you before, the judge's belief in the prisoner's guilt was
already very seriously shaken, and now the final blow aimed at it by Mr.
Oranmore shattered his last lingering doubts.
"Dr. Mulligan, namely, had been placed by Mr. Oranmore into the
witness-box. He was a medical man of unimpeachable authority, in fact,
absolutely at the head of his profession in Dublin. What he said
practically corroborated Mary Sullivan's testimony. He had gone in to
see Mr. Brooks at half-past four, and understood from him that his
lawyer had just left him.
"Mr. Brooks certainly, though terribly weak, was calm and more composed.
He was dying from a sudden heart attack, and Dr. Mulligan foresaw the
almost immediate end. But he was still conscious and managed to murmur
feebly: 'I feel much easier in my mind now, doctor--have made my
will--Wethered has been--he's got it in his pocket--it is safe
there--safe from that--' But the words died on his lips, and after that
he spoke but little. He saw his two sons before he died, but hardly
knew them or even looked at them.
"You see," concluded the man in the corner, "you see that the
prosecution was bound to collapse. Oranmore did not give it a leg to
stand on. The will was forged, it is true, forged in the favour of
Percival Brooks and of no one else, forged for him and for his benefit.
Whether he knew and connived at the forgery was never proved or, as far
as I know, even hinted, but it was impossible to go against all the
evidence, which pointed that, as far as the act itself was concerned, he
at least was innocent. You see, Dr. Mulligan's evidence was not to be
shaken. Mary Sullivan's was equally strong.
"There were two witnesses swearing positively that old Brooks' will was
in Mr. Wethered's keeping when that gentleman left the Fitzwilliam
mansion at a quarter past four. At five o'clock in the afternoon the
lawyer was found dead in Phoenix Park. Between a quarter past four and
eight o'clock in the evening Percival Brooks never left the house--that
was subsequently proved by Oranmore up to the hilt and beyond a doubt.
Since the will found under old Brooks' pillow was a forged will, where
then was the will he did make, and which Wethered carried away with him
in his pocket?"
"Stolen, of course," said Polly, "by those who murdered and robbed him;
it may have been of no value to them, but they naturally would destroy
it, lest it might prove a clue against them."
"Then you think it was mere coincidence?" he asked excitedly.
"What?"
"That Wethered was murdered and robbed at the very moment that he
carried the will in his pocket, whilst another was being forged in its
place?"
"It certainly would be very curious, if it _were_ a coincidence," she
said musingly.
"Very," he repeated with biting sarcasm, whilst nervously his bony
fingers played with the inevitable bit of string. "Very curious indeed.
Just think of the whole thing. There was the old man with all his
wealth, and two sons, one to whom he is devoted, and the other with whom
he does nothing but quarrel. One day there is another of these quarrels,
but more violent, more terrible than any that have previously occurred,
with the result that the father, heartbroken by it all, has an attack of
apoplexy and practically dies of a broken heart. After that he alters
his will, and subsequently a will is proved which turns out to be a
forgery.
"Now everybody--police, press, and public alike--at once jump to the
conclusion that, as Percival Brooks benefits by that forged will,
Percival Brooks must be the forger."
"Seek for him whom the crime benefits, is your own axiom," argued the
girl.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Percival Brooks benefited to the tune of L2,000,000."
"I beg your pardon. He did nothing of the sort. He was left with less
than half the share that his younger brother inherited."
"Now, yes; but that was a former will and--"
"And that forged will was so clumsily executed, the signature so
carelessly imitated, that the forgery was bound to come to light. Did
_that_ never strike you?"
"Yes, but--"
"There is no but," he interrupted. "It was all as clear as daylight to
me from the very first. The quarrel with the old man, which broke his
heart, was not with his eldest son, with whom he was used to
quarrelling, but with the second son whom he idolised, in whom he
believed. Don't you remember how John O'Neill heard the words 'liar' and
'deceit'? Percival Brooks had never deceived his father. His sins were
all on the surface. Murray had led a quiet life, had pandered to his
father, and fawned upon him, until, like most hypocrites, he at last got
found out. Who knows what ugly gambling debt or debt of honour, suddenly
revealed to old Brooks, was the cause of that last and deadly quarrel?
"You remember that it was Percival who remained beside his father and
carried him up to his room. Where was Murray throughout that long and
painful day, when his father lay dying--he, the idolised son, the apple
of the old man's eye? You never hear his name mentioned as being present
there all that day. But he knew that he had offended his father
mortally, and that his father meant to cut him off with a shilling. He
knew that Mr. Wethered had been sent for, that Wethered left the house
soon after four o'clock.
"And here the cleverness of the man comes in. Having lain in wait for
Wethered and knocked him on the back of the head with a stick, he could
not very well make that will disappear altogether. There remained the
faint chance of some other witnesses knowing that Mr. Brooks had made a
fresh will, Mr. Wethered's partner, his clerk, or one of the
confidential servants in the house. Therefore _a_ will must be
discovered after the old man's death.
"Now, Murray Brooks was not an expert forger, it takes years of training
to become that. A forged will executed by himself would be sure to be
found out--yes, that's it, sure to be found out. The forgery will be
palpable--let it be palpable, and then it will be found out, branded as
such, and the original will of 1891, so favourable to the young
blackguard's interests, would be held as valid. Was it devilry or
merely additional caution which prompted Murray to pen that forged will
so glaringly in Percival's favour? It is impossible to say.
"Anyhow, it was the cleverest touch in that marvellously devised crime.
To plan that evil deed was great, to execute it was easy enough. He had
several hours' leisure in which to do it. Then at night it was
simplicity itself to slip the document under the dead man's pillow.
Sacrilege causes no shudder to such natures as Murray Brooks. The rest
of the drama you know already--"
"But Percival Brooks?"
"The jury returned a verdict of 'Not guilty.' There was no evidence
against him."
"But the money? Surely the scoundrel does not have the enjoyment of it
still?"
"No; he enjoyed it for a time, but he died, about three months ago, and
forgot to take the precaution of making a will, so his brother Percival
has got the business after all. If you ever go to Dublin, I should order
some of Brooks' bacon if I were you. It is very good."
CHAPTER XXIV
AN UNPARALLELED OUTRAGE
"Do you care for the seaside?" asked the man in the corner when he had
finished his lunch. "I don't mean the seaside at Ostend or Trouville,
but honest English seaside with nigger minstrels, three-shilling
excursionists, and dirty, expensive furnished apartments, where they
charge you a shilling for lighting the hall gas on Sundays and sixpence
on other evenings. Do you care for that?"
"I prefer the country."
"Ah! perhaps it is preferable. Personally I only liked one of our
English seaside resorts once, and that was for a week, when Edward
Skinner was up before the magistrate, charged with what was known as the
'Brighton Outrage.' I don't know if you remember the memorable day in
Brighton, memorable for that elegant town, which deals more in
amusements than mysteries, when Mr. Francis Morton, one of its most
noted residents, disappeared. Yes! disappeared as completely as any
vanishing lady in a music-hall. He was wealthy, had a fine house,
servants, a wife and children, and he disappeared. There was no getting
away from that.
"Mr. Francis Morton lived with his wife in one of the large houses in
Sussex Square at the Kemp Town end of Brighton. Mrs. Morton was well
known for her Americanisms, her swagger dinner parties, and beautiful
Paris gowns. She was the daughter of one of the many American
millionaires (I think her father was a Chicago pork-butcher), who
conveniently provide wealthy wives for English gentlemen; and she had
married Mr. Francis Morton a few years ago and brought him her quarter
of a million, for no other reason but that she fell in love with him. He
was neither good-looking nor distinguished, in fact, he was one of those
men who seem to have CITY stamped all over their person.
"He was a gentleman of very regular habits, going up to London every
morning on business and returning every afternoon by the 'husband's
train.' So regular was he in these habits that all the servants at the
Sussex Square house were betrayed into actual gossip over the fact that
on Wednesday, March 17th, the master was not home for dinner. Hales, the
butler, remarked that the mistress seemed a bit anxious and didn't eat
much food. The evening wore on and Mr. Morton did not appear. At nine
o'clock the young footman was dispatched to the station to make
inquiries whether his master had been seen there in the afternoon, or
whether--which Heaven forbid--there had been an accident on the line.
The young man interviewed two or three porters, the bookstall boy, and
ticket clerk; all were agreed that Mr. Morton did not go up to London
during the day; no one had seen him within the precincts of the station.
There certainly had been no accident reported either on the up or down
line.
"But the morning of the 18th came, with its initial postman's knock, but
neither Mr. Morton nor any sign or news from him. Mrs. Morton, who
evidently had spent a sleepless night, for she looked sadly changed and
haggard, sent a wire to the hall porter at the large building in Cannon
Street, where her husband had his office. An hour later she had the
reply: 'Not seen Mr. Morton all day yesterday, not here to-day.' By the
afternoon every one in Brighton knew that a fellow-resident had
mysteriously disappeared from or in the city.
"A couple of days, then another, elapsed, and still no sign of Mr.
Morton. The police were doing their best. The gentleman was so well
known in Brighton--as he had been a resident two years--that it was not
difficult to firmly establish the one fact that he had not left the
city, since no one saw him in the station on the morning of the 17th,
nor at any time since then. Mild excitement prevailed throughout the
town. At first the newspapers took the matter somewhat jocosely. 'Where
is Mr. Morton?' was the usual placard on the evening's contents bills,
but after three days had gone by and the worthy Brighton resident was
still missing, while Mrs. Morton was seen to look more haggard and
careworn every day, mild excitement gave place to anxiety.
"There were vague hints now as to foul play. The news had leaked out
that the missing gentleman was carrying a large sum of money on the day
of his disappearance. There were also vague rumours of a scandal not
unconnected with Mrs. Morton herself and her own past history, which in
her anxiety for her husband she had been forced to reveal to the
detective-inspector in charge of the case.
"Then on Saturday the news which the late evening papers contained was
this:
"'Acting on certain information received, the police to-day forced an
entrance into one of the rooms of Russell House, a high-class furnished
apartment on the King's Parade, and there they discovered our missing
distinguished townsman, Mr. Francis Morton, who had been robbed and
subsequently locked up in that room since Wednesday, the 17th. When
discovered he was in the last stages of inanition; he was tied into an
arm-chair with ropes, a thick wool shawl had been wound round his mouth,
and it is a positive marvel that, left thus without food and very
little air, the unfortunate gentleman survived the horrors of these four
days of incarceration.
"'He has been conveyed to his residence in Sussex Square, and we are
pleased to say that Doctor Mellish, who is in attendance, has declared
his patient to be out of serious danger, and that with care and rest he
will be soon quite himself again.
"'At the same time our readers will learn with unmixed satisfaction that
the police of our city, with their usual acuteness and activity, have
already discovered the identity and whereabouts of the cowardly ruffian
who committed this unparalleled outrage.'"
CHAPTER XXV
THE PRISONER
"I really don't know," continued the man in the corner blandly, "what it
was that interested me in the case from the very first. Certainly it had
nothing very out of the way or mysterious about it, but I journeyed down
to Brighton nevertheless, as I felt that something deeper and more
subtle lay behind that extraordinary assault, following a robbery, no
doubt.
"I must tell you that the police had allowed it to be freely circulated
abroad that they held a clue. It had been easy enough to ascertain who
the lodger was who had rented the furnished room in Russell House. His
name was supposed to be Edward Skinner, and he had taken the room about
a fortnight ago, but had gone away ostensibly for two or three days on
the very day of Mr. Morton's mysterious disappearance. It was on the
20th that Mr. Morton was found, and thirty-six hours later the public
were gratified to hear that Mr. Edward Skinner had been traced to London
and arrested on the charge of assault upon the person of Mr. Francis
Morton and of robbing him of the sum of L10,000.
"Then a further sensation was added to the already bewildering case by
the startling announcement that Mr. Francis Morton refused to prosecute.
"Of course, the Treasury took up the case and subpoenaed Mr. Morton as a
witness, so that gentleman--if he wished to hush the matter up, or had
been in any way terrorised into a promise of doing so--gained nothing by
his refusal, except an additional amount of curiosity in the public mind
and further sensation around the mysterious case.
"It was all this, you see, which had interested me and brought me down
to Brighton on March 23rd to see the prisoner Edward Skinner arraigned
before the beak. I must say that he was a very ordinary-looking
individual. Fair, of ruddy complexion, with snub nose and the beginning
of a bald place on the top of his head, he, too, looked the embodiment
of a prosperous, stodgy 'City gent.'
"I took a quick survey of the witnesses present, and guessed that the
handsome, stylish woman sitting next to Mr. Reginald Pepys, the noted
lawyer for the Crown, was Mrs. Morton.
"There was a large crowd in court, and I heard whispered comments among
the feminine portion thereof as to the beauty of Mrs. Morton's gown,
the value of her large picture hat, and the magnificence of her diamond
rings.