The Old Man in the Corner - Baroness Orczy
"Then he lays his plans. He typewrites a letter, forges the signature of
the erstwhile Count, and awaits events. The fish does rise to the bait.
He gets sundry bits of money, and his success makes him daring. He looks
round him for an accomplice--clever, unscrupulous, greedy--and selects
Mr. Edward Skinner, probably some former pal of his wild oats days.
"The plan was very neat, you must confess. Mr. Skinner takes the room in
Russell House, and studies all the manners and customs of his landlady
and her servant. He then draws the full attention of the police upon
himself. He meets Morton in West Street, then disappears ostensibly
after the 'assault.' In the meanwhile Morton goes to Russell House. He
walks upstairs, talks loudly in the room, then makes elaborate
preparations for his comedy."
"Why! he nearly died of starvation!"
"That, I dare say, was not a part of his reckoning. He thought, no
doubt, that Mrs. Chapman or the servant would discover and rescue him
pretty soon. He meant to appear just a little faint, and endured quietly
the first twenty-four hours of inanition. But the excitement and want of
food told on him more than he expected. After twenty-four hours he
turned very giddy and sick, and, falling from one fainting fit into
another, was unable to give the alarm.
"However, he is all right again now, and concludes his part of a
downright blackguard to perfection. Under the plea that his conscience
does not allow him to live with a lady whose first husband is still
alive, he has taken a bachelor flat in London, and only pays afternoon
calls on his wife in Brighton. But presently he will tire of his
bachelor life, and will return to his wife. And I'll guarantee that the
Comte de la Tremouille will never be heard of again."
And that afternoon the man in the corner left Miss Polly Burton alone
with a couple of photos of two uininteresting, stodgy, quiet-looking
men--Morton and Skinner--who, if the old scarecrow was right in his
theories, wore a pair of the finest blackguards unhung.
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE REGENT'S PARK MURDER
By this time Miss Polly Burton had become quite accustomed to her
extraordinary _vis-a-vis_ in the corner.
He was always there, when she arrived, in the selfsame corner, dressed
in one of his remarkable check tweed suits; he seldom said good morning,
and invariably when she appeared he began to fidget with increased
nervousness, with some tattered and knotty piece of string.
"Were you ever interested in the Regent's Park murder?" he asked her one
day.
Polly replied that she had forgotten most of the particulars connected
with that curious murder, but that she fully remembered the stir and
flutter it had caused in a certain section of London Society.
"The racing and gambling set, particularly, you mean," he said. "All the
persons implicated in the murder, directly or indirectly, were of the
type commonly called 'Society men,' or 'men about town,' whilst the
Harewood Club in Hanover Square, round which centred all the scandal in
connection with the murder, was one of the smartest clubs in London.
"Probably the doings of the Harewood Club, which was essentially a
gambling club, would for ever have remained 'officially' absent from the
knowledge of the police authorities but for the murder in the Regent's
Park and the revelations which came to light in connection with it.
"I dare say you know the quiet square which lies between Portland Place
and the Regent's Park and is called Park Crescent at its south end, and
subsequently Park Square East and West. The Marylebone Road, with all
its heavy traffic, cuts straight across the large square and its pretty
gardens, but the latter are connected together by a tunnel under the
road; and of course you must remember that the new tube station in the
south portion of the Square had not yet been planned.
"February 6th, 1907, was a very foggy night, nevertheless Mr. Aaron
Cohen, of 30, Park Square West, at two o'clock in the morning, having
finally pocketed the heavy winnings which he had just swept off the
green table of the Harewood Club, started to walk home alone. An hour
later most of the inhabitants of Park Square West were aroused from
their peaceful slumbers by the sounds of a violent altercation in the
road. A man's angry voice was heard shouting violently for a minute or
two, and was followed immediately by frantic screams of 'Police' and
'Murder.' Then there was the double sharp report of firearms, and
nothing more.
"The fog was very dense, and, as you no doubt have experienced yourself,
it is very difficult to locate sound in a fog. Nevertheless, not more
than a minute or two had elapsed before Constable F 18, the point
policeman at the corner of Marylebone Road, arrived on the scene, and,
having first of all whistled for any of his comrades on the beat, began
to grope his way about in the fog, more confused than effectually
assisted by contradictory directions from the inhabitants of the houses
close by, who were nearly falling out of the upper windows as they
shouted out to the constable.
"'By the railings, policeman.'
"'Higher up the road.'
"'No, lower down.'
"'It was on this side of the pavement I am sure.'
"No, the other.'
"At last it was another policeman, F 22, who, turning into Park Square
West from the north side, almost stumbled upon the body of a man lying
on the pavement with his head against the railings of the Square. By
this time quite a little crowd of people from the different houses in
the road had come down, curious to know what had actually happened.
"The policeman turned the strong light of his bull's-eye lantern on the
unfortunate man's face.
"'It looks as if he had been strangled, don't it?' he murmured to his
comrade.
"And he pointed to the swollen tongue, the eyes half out of their
sockets, bloodshot and congested, the purple, almost black, hue of the
face.
"At this point one of the spectators, more callous to horrors, peered
curiously into the dead man's face. He uttered an exclamation of
astonishment.
"'Why, surely, it's Mr. Cohen from No. 30!'
"The mention of a name familiar down the length of the street had caused
two or three other men to come forward and to look more closely into the
horribly distorted mask of the murdered man.
"'Our next-door neighbour, undoubtedly,' asserted Mr. Ellison, a young
barrister, residing at No. 31.
"'What in the world was he doing this foggy night all alone, and on
foot?' asked somebody else.
"'He usually came home very late. I fancy he belonged to some gambling
club in town. I dare say he couldn't get a cab to bring him out here.
Mind you, I don't know much about him. We only knew him to nod to.'
"'Poor beggar! it looks almost like an old-fashioned case of
garroting.'
"'Anyway, the blackguardly murderer, whoever he was, wanted to make sure
he had killed his man!' added Constable F 18, as he picked up an object
from the pavement. 'Here's the revolver, with two cartridges missing.
You gentlemen heard the report just now?'
"'He don't seem to have hit him though. The poor bloke was strangled, no
doubt.'
"'And tried to shoot at his assailant, obviously,' asserted the young
barrister with authority.
"'If he succeeded in hitting the brute, there might be a chance of
tracing the way he went.'
"'But not in the fog.'
"Soon, however, the appearance of the inspector, detective, and medical
officer, who had quickly been informed of the tragedy, put an end to
further discussion.
"The bell at No. 30 was rung, and the servants--all four of them
women--were asked to look at the body.
"Amidst tears of horror and screams of fright, they all recognized in
the murdered man their master, Mr. Aaron Cohen. He was therefore
conveyed to his own room pending the coroner's inquest.
"The police had a pretty difficult task, you will admit; there were so
very few indications to go by, and at first literally no clue.
"The inquest revealed practically nothing. Very little was known in the
neighbourhood about Mr. Aaron Cohen and his affairs. His female servants
did not even know the name or whereabouts of the various clubs he
frequented.
"He had an office in Throgmorton Street and went to business every day.
He dined at home, and sometimes had friends to dinner. When he was alone
he invariably went to the club, where he stayed until the small hours of
the morning.
"The night of the murder he had gone out at about nine o'clock. That was
the last his servants had seen of him. With regard to the revolver, all
four servants swore positively that they had never seen it before, and
that, unless Mr. Cohen had bought it that very day, it did not belong to
their master.
"Beyond that, no trace whatever of the murderer had been found, but on
the morning after the crime a couple of keys linked together by a short
metal chain were found close to a gate at the opposite end of the
Square, that which immediately faced Portland Place. These were proved
to be, firstly, Mr. Cohen's latch-key, and, secondly, his gate-key of
the Square.
"It was therefore presumed that the murderer, having accomplished his
fell design and ransacked his victim's pockets, had found the keys and
made good his escape by slipping into the Square, cutting under the
tunnel, and out again by the further gate. He then took the precaution
not to carry the keys with him any further, but threw them away and
disappeared in the fog.
"The jury returned a verdict of wilful murder against some person or
persons unknown, and the police were put on their mettle to discover the
unknown and daring murderer. The result of their investigations,
conducted with marvellous skill by Mr. William Fisher, led, about a week
after the crime, to the sensational arrest of one of London's smartest
young bucks.
"The case Mr. Fisher had got up against the accused briefly amounted to
this:
"On the night of February 6th, soon after midnight, play began to run
very high at the Harewood Club, in Hanover Square. Mr. Aaron Cohen held
the bank at roulette against some twenty or thirty of his friends,
mostly young fellows with no wits and plenty of money. 'The Bank' was
winning heavily, and it appears that this was the third consecutive
night on which Mr. Aaron Cohen had gone home richer by several hundreds
than he had been at the start of play.
"Young John Ashley, who is the son of a very worthy county gentleman who
is M.F.H. somewhere in the Midlands, was losing heavily, and in his case
also it appears that it was the third consecutive night that Fortune
had turned her face against him.
"Remember," continued the man in the corner, "that when I tell you all
these details and facts, I am giving you the combined evidence of
several witnesses, which it took many days to collect and to classify.
"It appears that young Mr. Ashley, though very popular in society, was
generally believed to be in what is vulgarly termed 'low water'; up to
his eyes in debt, and mortally afraid of his dad, whose younger son he
was, and who had on one occasion threatened to ship him off to Australia
with a L5 note in his pocket if he made any further extravagant calls
upon his paternal indulgence.
"It was also evident to all John Ashley's many companions that the
worthy M.F.H. held the purse-strings in a very tight grip. The young
man, bitten with the desire to cut a smart figure in the circles in
which he moved, had often recourse to the varying fortunes which now and
again smiled upon him across the green tables in the Harewood Club.
"Be that as it may, the general consensus of opinion at the Club was
that young Ashley had changed his last 'pony' before he sat down to a
turn of roulette with Aaron Cohen on that particular night of February
6th.
"It appears that all his friends, conspicuous among whom was Mr. Walter
Hatherell, tried their very best to dissuade him from pitting his luck
against that of Cohen, who had been having a most unprecedented run of
good fortune. But young Ashley, heated with wine, exasperated at his own
bad luck, would listen to no one; he tossed one L5 note after another on
the board, he borrowed from those who would lend, then played on parole
for a while. Finally, at half-past one in the morning, after a run of
nineteen on the red, the young man found himself without a penny in his
pockets, and owing a debt--gambling debt--a debt of honour of L1500 to
Mr. Aaron Cohen.
"Now we must render this much maligned gentleman that justice which was
persistently denied to him by press and public alike; it was positively
asserted by all those present that Mr. Cohen himself repeatedly tried to
induce young Mr. Ashley to give up playing. He himself was in a delicate
position in the matter, as he was the winner, and once or twice the
taunt had risen to the young man's lips, accusing the holder of the bank
of the wish to retire on a competence before the break in his luck.
"Mr. Aaron Cohen, smoking the best of Havanas, had finally shrugged his
shoulders and said: 'As you please!'
"But at half-past one he had had enough of the player, who always lost
and never paid--never could pay, so Mr. Cohen probably believed. He
therefore at that hour refused to accept Mr. John Ashley's 'promissory'
stakes any longer. A very few heated words ensued, quickly checked by
the management, who are ever on the alert to avoid the least suspicion
of scandal.
"In the meanwhile Mr. Hatherell, with great good sense, persuaded young
Ashley to leave the Club and all its temptations and go home; if
possible to bed.
"The friendship of the two young men, which was very well known in
society, consisted chiefly, it appears, in Walter Hatherell being the
willing companion and helpmeet of John Ashley in his mad and extravagant
pranks. But to-night the latter, apparently tardily sobered by his
terrible and heavy losses, allowed himself to be led away by his friend
from the scene of his disasters. It was then about twenty minutes to
two.
"Here the situation becomes interesting," continued the man in the
corner in his nervous way. "No wonder that the police interrogated at
least a dozen witnesses before they were quite satisfied that every
statement was conclusively proved.
"Walter Hatherell, after about ten minutes' absence, that is to say at
ten minutes to two, returned to the club room. In reply to several
inquiries, he said that he had parted with his friend at the corner of
New Bond Street, since he seemed anxious to be alone, and that Ashley
said he would take a turn down Piccadilly before going home--he thought
a walk would do him good.
"At two o'clock or thereabouts Mr. Aaron Cohen, satisfied with his
evening's work, gave up his position at the bank and, pocketing his
heavy winnings, started on his homeward walk, while Mr. Walter Hatherell
left the club half an hour later.
"At three o'clock precisely the cries of 'Murder' and the report of
fire-arms were heard in Park Square West, and Mr. Aaron Cohen was found
strangled outside the garden railings."
CHAPTER XXIX
THE MOTIVE
"Now at first sight the murder in the Regent's Park appeared both to
police and public as one of those silly, clumsy crimes, obviously the
work of a novice, and absolutely purposeless, seeing that it could but
inevitably lead its perpetrators, without any difficulty, to the
gallows.
"You see, a motive had been established. 'Seek him whom the crime
benefits,' say our French _confreres_. But there was something more than
that.
"Constable James Funnell, on his beat, turned from Portland Place into
Park Crescent a few minutes after he had heard the clock at Holy Trinity
Church, Marylebone, strike half-past two. The fog at that moment was
perhaps not quite so dense as it was later on in the morning, and the
policeman saw two gentlemen in overcoats and top-hats leaning arm in arm
against the railings of the Square, close to the gate. He could not, of
course, distinguish their faces because of the fog, but he heard one of
them saying to the other:
"'It is but a question of time, Mr. Cohen. I know my father will pay
the money for me, and you will lose nothing by waiting.'
"To this the other apparently made no reply, and the constable passed
on; when he returned to the same spot, after having walked over his
beat, the two gentlemen had gone, but later on it was near this very
gate that the two keys referred to at the inquest had been found.
"Another interesting fact," added the man in the corner, with one of
those sarcastic smiles of his which Polly could not quite explain, "was
the finding of the revolver upon the scene of the crime. That revolver,
shown to Mr. Ashley's valet, was sworn to by him as being the property
of his master.
"All these facts made, of course, a very remarkable, so far quite
unbroken, chain of circumstantial evidence against Mr. John Ashley. No
wonder, therefore, that the police, thoroughly satisfied with Mr.
Fisher's work and their own, applied for a warrant against the young
man, and arrested him in his rooms in Clarges Street exactly a week
after the committal of the crime.
"As a matter of fact, you know, experience has invariably taught me that
when a murderer seems particularly foolish and clumsy, and proofs
against him seem particularly damning, that is the time when the police
should be most guarded against pitfalls.
"Now in this case, if John Ashley had indeed committed the murder in
Regent's Park in the manner suggested by the police, he would have been
a criminal in more senses than one, for idiocy of that kind is to my
mind worse than many crimes.
"The prosecution brought its witnesses up in triumphal array one after
another. There were the members of the Harewood Club--who had seen the
prisoner's excited condition after his heavy gambling losses to Mr.
Aaron Cohen; there was Mr. Hatherell, who, in spite of his friendship
for Ashley, was bound to admit that he had parted from him at the corner
of Bond Street at twenty minutes to two, and had not seen him again till
his return home at five a.m.
"Then came the evidence of Arthur Chipps, John Ashley's valet. It proved
of a very sensational character.
"He deposed that on the night in question his master came home at about
ten minutes to two. Chipps had then not yet gone to bed. Five minutes
later Mr. Ashley went out again, telling the valet not to sit up for
him. Chipps could not say at what time either of the young gentlemen had
come home.
"That short visit home--presumably to fetch the revolver--was thought to
be very important, and Mr. John Ashley's friends felt that his case was
practically hopeless.
"The valet's evidence and that of James Funnell, the constable, who had
overheard the conversation near the park railings, were certainly the
two most damning proofs against the accused. I assure you I was having a
rare old time that day. There were two faces in court to watch which was
the greatest treat I had had for many a day. One of these was Mr. John
Ashley's.
"Here's his photo--short, dark, dapper, a little 'racy' in style, but
otherwise he looks a son of a well-to-do farmer. He was very quiet and
placid in court, and addressed a few words now and again to his
solicitor. He listened gravely, and with an occasional shrug of the
shoulders, to the recital of the crime, such as the police had
reconstructed it, before an excited and horrified audience.
"Mr. John Ashley, driven to madness and frenzy by terrible financial
difficulties, had first of all gone home in search of a weapon, then
waylaid Mr. Aaron Cohen somewhere on that gentleman's way home. The
young man had begged for delay. Mr. Cohen perhaps was obdurate; but
Ashley followed him with his importunities almost to his door.
"There, seeing his creditor determined at last to cut short the painful
interview, he had seized the unfortunate man at an unguarded moment from
behind, and strangled him; then, fearing that his dastardly work was not
fully accomplished, he had shot twice at the already dead body, missing
it both times from sheer nervous excitement. The murderer then must have
emptied his victim's pockets, and, finding the key of the garden,
thought that it would be a safe way of evading capture by cutting across
the squares, under the tunnel, and so through the more distant gate
which faced Portland Place.
"The loss of the revolver was one of those unforeseen accidents which a
retributive Providence places in the path of the miscreant, delivering
him by his own act of folly into the hands of human justice.
"Mr. John Ashley, however, did not appear the least bit impressed by the
recital of his crime. He had not engaged the services of one of the most
eminent lawyers, expert at extracting contradictions from witnesses by
skilful cross-examinations--oh, dear me, no! he had been contented with
those of a dull, prosy, very second-rate limb of the law, who, as he
called his witnesses, was completely innocent of any desire to create a
sensation.
"He rose quietly from his seat, and, amidst breathless silence, called
the first of three witnesses on behalf of his client. He called
three--but he could have produced twelve--gentlemen, members of the
Ashton Club in Great Portland Street, all of whom swore that at three
o'clock on the morning of February 6th, that is to say, at the very
moment when the cries of 'Murder' roused the inhabitants of Park Square
West, and the crime was being committed, Mr. John Ashley was sitting
quietly in the club-rooms of the Ashton playing bridge with the three
witnesses. He had come in a few minutes before three--as the hall porter
of the Club testified--and stayed for about an hour and a half.
"I need not tell you that this undoubted, this fully proved, _alibi_ was
a positive bombshell in the stronghold of the prosecution. The most
accomplished criminal could not possibly be in two places at once, and
though the Ashton Club transgresses in many ways against the gambling
laws of our very moral country, yet its members belong to the best, most
unimpeachable classes of society. Mr. Ashley had been seen and spoken to
at the very moment of the crime by at least a dozen gentlemen whose
testimony was absolutely above suspicion.
"Mr. John Ashley's conduct throughout this astonishing phase of the
inquiry remained perfectly calm and correct. It was no doubt the
consciousness of being able to prove his innocence with such absolute
conclusion that had steadied his nerves throughout the proceedings.
"His answers to the magistrate were clear and simple, even on the
ticklish subject of the revolver.
"'I left the club, sir,' he explained, 'fully determined to speak with
Mr. Cohen alone in order to ask him for a delay in the settlement of my
debt to him. You will understand that I should not care to do this in
the presence of other gentlemen. I went home for a minute or two--not in
order to fetch a revolver, as the police assert, for I always carry a
revolver about with me in foggy weather--but in order to see if a very
important business letter had come for me in my absence.
"'Then I went out again, and met Mr. Aaron Cohen not far from the
Harewood Club. I walked the greater part of the way with him, and our
conversation was of the most amicable character. We parted at the top of
Portland Place, near the gate of the Square, where the policeman saw us.
Mr. Cohen then had the intention of cutting across the Square, as being
a shorter way to his own house. I thought the Square looked dark and
dangerous in the fog, especially as Mr. Cohen was carrying a large sum
of money.
"'We had a short discussion on the subject, and finally I persuaded him
to take my revolver, as I was going home only through very frequented
streets, and moreover carried nothing that was worth stealing. After a
little demur Mr. Cohen accepted the loan of my revolver, and that is
how it came to be found on the actual scene of the crime; finally I
parted from Mr. Cohen a very few minutes after I had heard the church
clock striking a quarter before three. I was at the Oxford Street end of
Great Portland Street at five minutes to three, and it takes at least
ten minutes to walk from where I was to the Ashton Club.'
"This explanation was all the more credible, mind you, because the
question of the revolver had never been very satisfactorily explained by
the prosecution. A man who has effectually strangled his victim would
not discharge two shots of his revolver for, apparently, no other
purpose than that of rousing the attention of the nearest passer-by. It
was far more likely that it was Mr. Cohen who shot--perhaps wildly into
the air, when suddenly attacked from behind. Mr. Ashley's explanation
therefore was not only plausible, it was the only possible one.
"You will understand therefore how it was that, after nearly half an
hour's examination, the magistrate, the police, and the public were
alike pleased to proclaim that the accused left the court without a
stain upon his character."
CHAPTER XXX
FRIENDS
"Yes," interrupted Polly eagerly, since, for once, her acumen had been
at least as sharp as his, "but suspicion of that horrible crime only
shifted its taint from one friend to another, and, of course, I know--"