The Old Man in the Corner Read online

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  "The old man in the corner."]

  THE OLD MAN IN THE CORNER

  BY

  BARONESS ORCZY

  TO MY DEAR UNCLE AND AUNT

  COUNT AND COUNTESS WASS OF CZEGE

  IN REMEMBRANCEOF MANY HAPPY DAYS SPENTIN TRANSYLVANIA

  _October, 1908_

  CONTENTS

  Chapter

  I. THE FENCHURCH STREET MYSTERY II. A MILLIONAIRE IN THE DOCK III. HIS DEDUCTION IV. THE ROBBERY IN PHILLIMORE TERRACE V. A NIGHT'S ADVENTURE VI. ALL HE KNEW VII. THE YORK MYSTERY VIII. THE CAPITAL CHARGE IX. A BROKEN-HEARTED WOMAN X. THE MYSTERIOUS DEATH ON THE UNDERGROUND RAILWAY XI. MR. ERRINGTON XII. THE LIVERPOOL MYSTERY XIII. A CUNNING RASCAL XIV. THE EDINBURGH MYSTERY XV. A TERRIBLE PLIGHT XVI. NON PROVEN XVII. UNDENIABLE FACTS XVIII. THE THEFT AT THE ENGLISH PROVIDENT BANK XIX. CONFLICTING EVIDENCE XX. AN ALIBI XXI. THE DUBLIN MYSTERY XXII. FORGERY XXIII. A MEMORABLE DAY XXIV. AN UNPARALLELED OUTRAGE XXV. THE PRISONER XXVI. A SENSATION XXVII. TWO BLACKGUARDSXXVIII. THE REGENT'S PARK MURDER XXIX. THE MOTIVE XXX. FRIENDS XXXI. THE DE GENNEVILLE PEERAGE XXXII. A HIGH-BRED GENTLEMANXXXIII. THE LIVING AND THE DEAD XXXIV. THE MYSTERIOUS DEATH IN PERCY STREET XXXV. SUICIDE OR MURDER? XXXVI. THE END

  THE OLD MAN IN THE CORNER

  CHAPTER I

  THE FENCHURCH STREET MYSTERY

  The man in the corner pushed aside his glass, and leant across thetable.

  "Mysteries!" he commented. "There is no such thing as a mystery inconnection with any crime, provided intelligence is brought to bear uponits investigation."

  Very much astonished Polly Burton looked over the top of her newspaper,and fixed a pair of very severe, coldly inquiring brown eyes upon him.

  She had disapproved of the man from the instant when he shuffled acrossthe shop and sat down opposite to her, at the same marble-topped tablewhich already held her large coffee (3d.), her roll and butter (2d.),and plate of tongue (6d.).

  Now this particular corner, this very same table, that special view ofthe magnificent marble hall--known as the Norfolk Street branch of theAerated Bread Company's depots--were Polly's own corner, table, andview. Here she had partaken of eleven pennyworth of luncheon and onepennyworth of daily information ever since that gloriousnever-to-be-forgotten day when she was enrolled on the staff of the_Evening Observer_ (we'll call it that, if you please), and became amember of that illustrious and world-famed organization known as theBritish Press.

  She was a personality, was Miss Burton of the _Evening Observer_. Hercards were printed thus:

  Miss MARY J. BURTON. _Evening Observer_.]

  She had interviewed Miss Ellen Terry and the Bishop of Madagascar, Mr.Seymour Hicks and the Chief Commissioner of Police. She had been presentat the last Marlborough House garden party--in the cloak-room, that isto say, where she caught sight of Lady Thingummy's hat, MissWhat-you-may-call's sunshade, and of various other things modistical orfashionable, all of which were duly described under the heading "Royaltyand Dress" in the early afternoon edition of the _Evening Observer_.

  (The article itself is signed M.J.B., and is to be found in the files ofthat leading halfpennyworth.)

  For these reasons--and for various others, too--Polly felt irate withthe man in the corner, and told him so with her eyes, as plainly as anypair of brown eyes can speak.

  She had been reading an article in the _Daily Telegraph_. The articlewas palpitatingly interesting. Had Polly been commenting audibly uponit? Certain it is that the man over there had spoken in direct answer toher thoughts.

  She looked at him and frowned; the next moment she smiled. Miss Burton(of the _Evening Observer)_ had a keen sense of humour, which two years'association with the British Press had not succeeded in destroying, andthe appearance of the man was sufficient to tickle the most ultra-morosefancy. Polly thought to herself that she had never seen any one so pale,so thin, with such funny light-coloured hair, brushed very smoothlyacross the top of a very obviously bald crown. He looked so timid andnervous as he fidgeted incessantly with a piece of string; his long,lean, and trembling fingers tying and untying it into knots of wonderfuland complicated proportions.

  Having carefully studied every detail of the quaint personality Pollyfelt more amiable.

  "And yet," she remarked kindly but authoritatively, "this article, in anotherwise well-informed journal, will tell you that, even within thelast year, no fewer than six crimes have completely baffled the police,and the perpetrators of them are still at large."

  "Pardon me," he said gently, "I never for a moment ventured to suggestthat there were no mysteries to the _police_; I merely remarked thatthere were none where intelligence was brought to bear upon theinvestigation of crime."

  "Not even in the Fenchurch Street _mystery_. I suppose," she askedsarcastically.

  "Least of all in the so-called Fenchurch Street _mystery_," he repliedquietly.

  Now the Fenchurch Street mystery, as that extraordinary crime hadpopularly been called, had puzzled--as Polly well knew--the brains ofevery thinking man and woman for the last twelve months. It had puzzledher not inconsiderably; she had been interested, fascinated; she hadstudied the case, formed her own theories, thought about it all oftenand often, had even written one or two letters to the Press on thesubject--suggesting, arguing, hinting at possibilities andprobabilities, adducing proofs which other amateur detectives wereequally ready to refute. The attitude of that timid man in the corner,therefore, was peculiarly exasperating, and she retorted with sarcasmdestined to completely annihilate her self-complacent interlocutor.

  "What a pity it is, in that case, that you do not offer your pricelessservices to our misguided though well-meaning police."

  "Isn't it?" he replied with perfect good-humour. "Well, you know, forone thing I doubt if they would accept them; and in the second place myinclinations and my duty would--were I to become an active member of thedetective force--nearly always be in direct conflict. As often as not mysympathies go to the criminal who is clever and astute enough to leadour entire police force by the nose.

  "I don't know how much of the case you remember," he went on quietly."It certainly, at first, began even to puzzle me. On the 12th of lastDecember a woman, poorly dressed, but with an unmistakable air of havingseen better days, gave information at Scotland Yard of the disappearanceof her husband, William Kershaw, of no occupation, and apparently of nofixed abode. She was accompanied by a friend--a fat, oily-lookingGerman--and between them they told a tale which set the policeimmediately on the move.

  "It appears that on the 10th of December, at about three o'clock in theafternoon, Karl Mueller, the German, called on his friend, WilliamKershaw, for the purpose of collecting a small debt--some ten pounds orso--which the latter owed him. On arriving at the squalid lodging inCharlotte Street, Fitzroy Square, he found William Kershaw in a wildstate of excitement, and his wife in tears. Mueller attempted to statethe object of his visit, but Kershaw, with wild gestures, waved himaside, and--in his own words--flabbergasted him by asking himpoint-blank for another loan of two pounds, which sum, he declared,would be the means of a speedy fortune for himself and the friend whowould help him in his need.

  "After a quarter of an hour spent in obscure hints, Kershaw, finding thecautious German obdurate, decided to let him into the secret plan,which, he averred, would place thousands into their hands."

  Instinctively Polly had put down her paper; the mild stranger, with hisnervous air and timid, watery eyes, had a peculiar way of telling histale, which somehow fascinated her.

  "I don't know," he resumed, "if you remember the story which the German
told to the police, and which was corroborated in every detail by thewife or widow. Briefly it was this: Some thirty years previously,Kershaw, then twenty years of age, and a medical student at one of theLondon hospitals, had a chum named Barker, with whom he roomed,together with another.

  "The latter, so it appears, brought home one evening a very considerablesum of money, which he had won on the turf, and the following morning hewas found murdered in his bed. Kershaw, fortunately for himself, wasable to prove a conclusive _alibi_; he had spent the night on duty atthe hospital; as for Barker, he had disappeared, that is to say, as faras the police were concerned, but not as far as the watchful eyes of hisfriend Kershaw were able to spy--at least, so the latter said. Barkervery cleverly contrived to get away out of the country, and, aftersundry vicissitudes, finally settled down at Vladivostok, in EasternSiberia, where, under the assumed name of Smethurst, he built up anenormous fortune by trading in furs.

  "Now, mind you, every one knows Smethurst, the Siberian millionaire.Kershaw's story that he had once been called Barker, and had committed amurder thirty years ago, was never proved, was it? I am merely tellingyou what Kershaw said to his friend the German and to his wife on thatmemorable afternoon of December the 10th.

  "According to him Smethurst had made one gigantic mistake in his clevercareer--he had on four occasions written to his late friend, WilliamKershaw. Two of these letters had no bearing on the case, since theywere written more than twenty-five years ago, and Kershaw, moreover, hadlost them--so he said--long ago. According to him, however, the first ofthese letters was written when Smethurst, alias Barker, had spent allthe money he had obtained from the crime, and found himself destitute inNew York.

  "Kershaw, then in fairly prosperous circumstances, sent him a L10 notefor the sake of old times. The second, when the tables had turned, andKershaw had begun to go downhill, Smethurst, as he then already calledhimself, sent his whilom friend L50. After that, as Mueller gathered,Kershaw had made sundry demands on Smethurst's ever-increasing purse,and had accompanied these demands by various threats, which, consideringthe distant country in which the millionaire lived, were worse thanfutile.

  "But now the climax had come, and Kershaw, after a final moment ofhesitation, handed over to his German friend the two last letterspurporting to have been written by Smethurst, and which, if youremember, played such an important part in the mysterious story of thisextraordinary crime. I have a copy of both these letters here," addedthe man in the corner, as he took out a piece of paper from a veryworn-out pocket-book, and, unfolding it very deliberately, he began toread:--

  "'Sir,--Your preposterous demands for money are wholly unwarrantable. Ihave already helped you quite as much as you deserve. However, for thesake of old times, and because you once helped me when I was in aterrible difficulty, I am willing to once more let you impose upon mygood nature. A friend of mine here, a Russian merchant, to whom I havesold my business, starts in a few days for an extended tour to manyEuropean and Asiatic ports in his yacht, and has invited me to accompanyhim as far as England. Being tired of foreign parts, and desirous ofseeing the old country once again after thirty years' absence, I havedecided to accept his invitation. I don't know when we may actually bein Europe, but I promise you that as soon as we touch a suitable port Iwill write to you again, making an appointment for you to see me inLondon. But remember that if your demands are too preposterous I willnot for a moment listen to them, and that I am the last man in the worldto submit to persistent and unwarrantable blackmail.

  'I am, sir, 'Yours truly, 'Francis Smethurst.'

  "The second letter was dated from Southampton," continued the old man inthe corner calmly, "and, curiously enough, was the only letter whichKershaw professed to have received from Smethurst of which he had keptthe envelope, and which was dated. It was quite brief," he added,referring once more to his piece of paper.

  "'Dear Sir,--Referring to my letter of a few weeks ago, I wish to informyou that the _Tsarskoe Selo_ will touch at Tilbury on Tuesday next, the10th. I shall land there, and immediately go up to London by the firsttrain I can get. If you like, you may meet me at Fenchurch StreetStation, in the first-class waiting-room, in the late afternoon. Since Isurmise that after thirty years' absence my face may not be familiar toyou, I may as well tell you that you will recognize me by a heavyAstrakhan fur coat, which I shall wear, together with a cap of the same.You may then introduce yourself to me, and I will personally listen towhat you may have to say.

  'Yours faithfully, 'Francis Smethurst.'

  "It was this last letter which had caused William Kershaw's excitementand his wife's tears. In the German's own words, he was walking up anddown the room like a wild beast, gesticulating wildly, and mutteringsundry exclamations. Mrs. Kershaw, however, was full of apprehension.She mistrusted the man from foreign parts--who, according to herhusband's story, had already one crime upon his conscience--who might,she feared, risk another, in order to be rid of a dangerous enemy.Woman-like, she thought the scheme a dishonourable one, for the law, sheknew, is severe on the blackmailer.

  "The assignation might be a cunning trap, in any case it was a curiousone; why, she argued, did not Smethurst elect to see Kershaw at hishotel the following day? A thousand whys and wherefores made heranxious, but the fat German had been won over by Kershaw's visions ofuntold gold, held tantalisingly before his eyes. He had lent thenecessary L2, with which his friend intended to tidy himself up a bitbefore he went to meet his friend the millionaire. Half an hourafterwards Kershaw had left his lodgings, and that was the last theunfortunate woman saw of her husband, or Mueller, the German, of hisfriend.

  "Anxiously his wife waited that night, but he did not return; the nextday she seems to have spent in making purposeless and futile inquiriesabout the neighbourhood of Fenchurch Street; and on the 12th she went toScotland Yard, gave what particulars she knew, and placed in the handsof the police the two letters written by Smethurst."