His choice settled on three sets of apartments, all in the neighbourhood of Hampstead, a locality with which he had been familiar before he married. Having finished his coffee, he tucked the newspaper under his arm and made his way to the Broad Street terminus, where he took a ticket for the Heath Station and, selecting an empty compartment, opened the newspaper and searched its pages vainly for some notice of the Crompton tragedy. Apparently the news had not reached London when the paper went to press.
In the matter of lodgings he was fortunate, for his first essay brought him to a pleasant, old-fashioned house in a small close off the High Street, where he was offered a ground-floor room, with a bedroom over it, which seemed in every respect so desirable that he engaged them at once. Then, having paid a deposit to establish the tenancy, he returned to town to lunch and to collect his scanty luggage from the cloakroom at Cannon Street Station.
The latter part of the programme, however, he deferred until later in the day, for he had no object in returning to his lodgings before the evening, and he found some relief in walking about the crowded city streets while he turned over again and again the various possibilities of escape from the perplexities in which he was involved. He looked in, for a while, at the Guildhall Art Gallery and found some comfort in the companionship of the pictures. Then he had a late and leisurely tea, after which he repaired to Cannon Street Station, and, having redeemed his luggage—Ronald's suit-case and his own attaché case—made his way to Broad Street Station. And here he had a most surprising and disturbing experience.
As he reached the top of the broad staircase, he observed that a train was waiting at the platform and he judged by the hiss of escaping steam that it was ready to start; an opinion that was confirmed by the ticket collector who urged him to "look sharp" as "she was just off". On this, he started forward at a run, threading his way as well as he could through a dense crowd of people who were waiting for the next train. But he nearly missed his passage, for, as he struggled towards the open door of an empty compartment, the engine-driver sounded his whistle and the train began to move. He barely managed to fling his luggage in at the open door and scramble up to the foot-board as the protesting guard rushed at him, pushed him in and slammed the door.
As soon as he was shut in, he turned and thrust his head out of the window to compare his wrist-watch with the station clock. But the comparison was never made; for at that moment he met the eyes of a woman at the edge of the crowd and then only a few feet away, who was gazing at him with a most singular expression. As their eyes met, she uttered an exclamation and started forward, making as if she were about to try to board the train. She did, in fact, run alongside for a short distance until a porter, suspecting her intentions, firmly headed her off; and then Andrew, gazing at her in the utmost astonishment, saw her standing, still staring at him with that strange expression, until distance and a curve of the line hid her from his view.
It was an amazing affair. Who could she be? She was a total stranger to him—that is, to Andrew Barton. But he was Andrew Barton no longer. The reflection was a distinctly uncomfortable one. He had taken over the reversion of Ronald's nose. Might there be some other reversions of which he knew nothing? It seemed far from improbable, judging by the little that he knew of his late cousin's moral character and manner of life.
He tried to recall the woman's appearance. It was not difficult, for she was a somewhat unusual-looking woman; rather big, with a marked suggestion of energy and muscular strength and by no means uncomely. She had a good deal of hair of a coppery tint and eyes of a pale, bluish grey. Certainly not a woman whose appearance would be easily forgotten.
But what was the meaning of that singular expression? Astonishment undoubtedly. But the flushed face and the truculent grey eyes suggested emotions other than surprise. There was no denying that the woman's expression and manner had been definitely hostile. She was an unmistakably angry woman.
The incident, with its uncomfortable implications, supplied him with matter for thought until he reached his lodgings. And when he had unpacked the suit-case and went forth for a walk on the Heath, it continued to intrude itself as an added complication to the difficulties of his other problems.
But as he turned into the High Street on his way home, his attention was brought back to the main issues by the voice of a paper-boy announcing the contents of the late evening paper. As the boy came nearer, the generalized howl resolved itself into the words: "Kibble's Cross Murder: Inquest."
In an instant the woman was forgotten, blotted out by the picture of the lonely road, the car with its two occupants, and the figures of the flying bandits. With a thrill of mingled curiosity and terror, Andrew stopped the boy, bought a copy of the paper, and, having folded it and stowed it in an inner pocket, stole into his lodgings to read it in secret.
The report was complete to the inevitable verdict, for the inquest had been held in the morning and the proceedings had been comparatively brief. The deceased was a Mr. Oliver Hudson, the publisher of a technical journal, and the woman who was with him was his secretary. Miss Kate Booth. She, naturally, was the principal witness, and her evidence was taken first, and was to the following effect.
In the evening of Monday, the 27th of August, she was driving Mr. Hudson from his office to his home at Lenham. She was accustomed to drive him daily to and from his office and knew the road well. On the night of the murder, as they were approaching Kibble's Cross, she saw a closed car drawn up at the corner with its head pointing towards the side road. She thought she saw a man standing by it, but was not certain, as, owing to the speed at which she was driving—about forty miles an hour—she had to keep her attention fixed on the road. But someone must have made a signal of some kind for her car to stop, though she did not see it, for deceased exclaimed: "Confound them! Pull up and see what they want."
She put on the brakes and stopped the car. A man came to the window and deceased said: "Well, what is it?" and put his hand into the pocket in which he carried his revolver. The man said: "Put 'em up, both of you," and pointed a revolver at deceased, who, almost at the same moment, drew his revolver from his pocket.
She had only a rather confused recollection of what followed. Both revolvers seemed to go off almost at the same moment, and the bullet from one—it must have been Mr. Hudson's—made a hole through the wind-screen. Deceased uttered a cry and lurched up against her. When the revolvers were fired, she instinctively put down the accelerator pedal and the car jumped forward. She did not look back through the rear window as she had accelerated to over fifty miles an hour and she had to keep her eyes on the road.
At Padsworth, four miles farther on, she halted at the Welbeck Hotel and sent for a doctor and the police; but deceased was already dead. A police patrol came in a few minutes and she told him what had happened. "Can you describe the man whom you saw at the window?" the coroner asked.
"Yes," she replied, "I saw him very distinctly, because, as he appeared at the window, deceased threw the light of a torch full on his face, and it was a most extraordinary face—one that I could never forget. His nose appeared to have been broken; at any rate, it had no bridge. It was perfectly flat excepting at the tip, which was of the ordinary length and stuck out from his face like a bird's beak. He had grey eyes and I should say he was about thirty years of age."
"Could you see how he was dressed?"
"No; at least, I didn't notice anything about his clothing excepting that he had no hat on."
"Was he the only person present, or were there others?"
"I had an impression that there was someone behind him, but I did not actually see anyone. My eyes were fixed on the face that was lighted up by the torch."
"Are you quite sure that the man whom you have described is the man who fired the shot?"
"Yes, quite sure. There was no one else that I could see. And I saw the revolver pushed in over the edge of the window."
"Do you think you would recognize this man if you were to see him a
gain?"
"I am certain that I should. It was a face that you could never forget."
"Did deceased usually carry a revolver?"
"Only, I think, when he was motoring at night. Then he always did; and he declared that he meant to use it if he was stopped by an armed robber."
"Do you know of any reason for this attack? Had you anything of value in the car?"
"No; there was nothing of any value in the car beyond the money in our pockets."
"Did you notice if any cars overtook and passed you on the road?"
"Yes; several cars overtook us and passed ahead near London. I always drive at a very moderate speed until I am clear of the town and let the faster cars go by."
"Do you remember any car in particular?"
"Yes, there was one which passed us at great speed just as we were approaching the open country road. Mr. Hudson remarked upon it as it flew past."
That was the sum of the secretary's evidence. It was followed by that of the medical witness; who deposed that death was due to a gun-shot wound penetrating the heart, and must have been practically instantaneous. Then came the patrol officer, who had not much to tell, and finally a detective-inspector with a remarkable gift for keeping his own counsel. But if somewhat elusive in regard to matters of fact, he was prepared to offer certain rather guarded opinions. Thus, when asked by the coroner if the circumstances of the attack were not very unusual and surprising, he agreed, and continued in explanation: "The police are inclined to believe that the whole affair was a mistake. There is reason for suspecting that it was a carefully planned robbery concerned with certain very valuable property which was being conveyed in a car along this road at about this time; but, at the last moment, the thieves got flurried and attacked the wrong car. It is a pity," the inspector added, "that deceased produced his revolver, because that probably flurried them still more, and led to the disaster."
The coroner discreetly refrained from further questions on this subject, but, turning to another, asked: "With regard to the man who has been stated to have fired the fatal shot; is there any clue to his identity?"
Here, the inspector became once more distinctly elusive, but he was of opinion that, having regard to the man's very unusual and distinctive appearance, there ought not to be much difficulty in finding him; and, once found, the witness, Miss Booth, would be able to identify him beyond any reasonable doubt.
This completed the evidence. If the police knew any more about the case, they were reserving their knowledge, and the coroner was wise enough to ask no questions that were not strictly relevant to the inquiry. There was no doubt as to how deceased had met his death, and the verdict of wilful murder by a person unknown was a foregone conclusion.
The reading of this report had no other effect upon Andrew than to confirm him in his resolve to abandon for ever his original personality. The guarded tone of the inspector's evidence left him in little doubt that "the man with the deformed nose" had already been identified as Mr. Andrew Barton, and that the police were in hot pursuit. What would have happened if they had been able to run him to earth? The woman, Booth, was evidently prepared to swear that she saw him fire the fatal shot; and to this, the clear testimony of a competent eye-witness, there appeared to him no possible answer. Of course he was wrong; and in his peculiar state of mind, he was ignoring the strength of his defence. But even if he was mistaken as to his position if he were brought to trial, who can say that he was wrong in his choice of action? Who would accept the chances of a trial for murder—and an atrocious murder at that—when he could, by lying perdu, avoid even the accusation. In the character of Ronald Barton he lay under no suspicion whatever. His security was complete. If there were any incidental disadvantages, he had yet to discover them.
When he had finished the report, he turned over the leaves of the paper in search of some notice of the discovery of Ronald's body. He found it near the bottom of the page, headed, "A mystery of the Sea," and the brief account read as follows: "Yesterday afternoon, a party of fishermen, sailing along the coast near Crompton, made a strange and gruesome discovery. Looking shorewards, they saw what appeared to be a pair of nude human legs protruding from under a heap of chalk which seemed to have fallen recently from the cliff. On this, they ran their boat in-shore and landed to investigate, when they found the nude body of a man buried under a mass of chalk fragments. The largest of the fragments, a mass weighing fully a hundredweight, had fallen on his head and crushed it so completely as to render the face unrecognizable. The man had apparently been bathing, as a complete set of clothes was under the body, and from articles found in the pockets, it is inferred that the remains are those of Mr. Andrew Barton, of Fairfield near Bunsford. The inquest is to be held at Crompton to-morrow."
He laid the newspaper aside and fell into a train of deep but uneasy thought. And once again, the sense of unreality, of illusion, which had never quite left him since Professor Booley had waved the magician's wand to such amazing purpose, came over him with renewed intensity. He repeated the statement to himself: "The inquest is to be held to-morrow." The inquest! The inquiry into his own death! And he, the deceased, would read the report of the proceedings! It was an incredible situation; and the more he thought of it, the more impossible and unbelievable did it appear.
Yet he knew that it was a reality; and presently, as his thoughts settled down into a more orderly train, he began to be aware of certain possibilities which might affect his future and influence his conduct most profoundly. At present the position was that the body of Mr. Andrew Barton had been found on the shore. The identification by the clothing was not legally conclusive; but it would have occurred to nobody to doubt whose body it was. And the suggestion which had influenced others would doubtless take effect also on Molly. Her husband was missing; and here was a dead man—unrecognizable, but of similar age, size and general appearance—who had been wearing her husband's clothes. Would the idea that this might possibly be another man even enter her head? It was practically certain that it would not. She, like the others, would take the appearances at their obvious face value; unless—
He sat up with suddenly sharpened attention to consider the position more critically. Yes, undoubtedly there were counter possibilities that had to be reckoned with. A single item of positive evidence would shatter the whole illusion. It need be but the merest trifle; a mole, a wart, a scar, a tattoo mark; any permanent characteristic on that body, which was not on the body of Andrew Barton, would be enough to destroy the suggestion effect of the clothing. And when once the question of identity was raised, all the mysterious and abnormal circumstances would combine to confirm the suspicion of a substitution.
And how would that affect him? On the whole, favourably; for it would simplify his task when he sought to convince Molly of his changed identity. True, it would set the police once more searching for the man with the deformed nose. But that need cause him no concern. That man was dead. If he had not died at the foot of the cliffs, he had at least died in Professor Booley's "beauty parlour". And, mercifully, the Professor would be on the high seas before the inquest opened.
But when the report of the inquest appeared, it raised questions of a somewhat different kind from those which Andrew had anticipated. The evening paper of Thursday contained only the opening of the proceedings; but the Daily Telegraph of the following morning had a full report, given in considerable detail, and this Andrew studied with the closest attention.
The first witness was Samuel Sharpin, the skipper of the fishing lugger, who deposed as follows: "On Tuesday, the 28th of August, I was aboard my boat, the Sunflower. We was beating up for Meregate Cove, where we berths. About four o'clock in the afternoon we was opposite Hunstone Gap when I noticed that some of the cliff had fallen down and I remarked to my mate that it was a good job that no one was underneath when it came down. Then the apprentice, Joe Todd, said he thought someone had been underneath, because he seemed to see what looked like a pair of legs sticking out from under
the heap of chalk. So I got my glass and looked; and then I saw a pair of naked legs sticking out. So we put the boat about and turned her head inshore; and, when we was near enough in, we dropped the anchor and pulled ashore in the dinghy. Then we saw a man lying under a heap of chalk with his legs sticking out. It wasn't a big fall. But one large lump of chalk, nearly half the size of a fish trunk, had come right down on the man's head; and there it sat, resting on his face, with the blood and stuff oozing out at the sides.
"My mate, who is a pretty hefty lad, hove the block of chalk off the man's face, though it must have weighed well over a hundredweight, and then we could see that his head was smashed as flat as a turbot and his face hadn't got no more features than a skate. It was an awful sight. Gave us all a reg'lar turn.
"We took up the body and carried it to the dinghy—it wasn't far to go, for the tide was up and beginning to wash round the corpse when we came ashore. Then we carefully collected the clothes and put them in the boat; and then we just had a look round before we went back aboard."
The coroner: "You had a look round. What were you looking for?"
Witness: "We wanted to see if the man had come to the place by himself. Because, as he was naked, and seemed to have been bathing and sitting on his clothes to dry himself, it seemed funny that he should have come there all by himself. So we had a look round."
"And what did you find?"
"We found that he hadn't. There was only a small strip of clear sand left opposite the Gap, but we could see quite plainly that there were two sets of footmarks coming down to the shore from the cart-track that leads down to the Gap, but there was only one set going up. So he must have come there with someone else."
Coroner: "This is very remarkable and very important. Are you quite sure about the two sets of footprints? I mean, are you sure that they were the footprints of two persons walking together and not merely the footprints of two persons who had come to the place separately?"
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