by Fergus Hume
“He is found!” said Julf, quickly. “I got a telegram while you were in the park. The police picked him up in Whitechapel, and will send him down here to-morrow. If he can swear that Sir Lewis gave him the boots, I shall get a warrant out for that man’s arrest.”
“I believe he is guilty,” said Hagar, in a meditative fashion, “and yet I am not altogether sure.”
“Why not? There is certainly a strong case against him.”
“Yes, yes; but why, if Sir Lewis is guilty, should Kerris keep silent, and not declare his innocence? I must see the man and find out. Can I get into the jail?”
“I’ll take you there myself to-morrow morning,” replied Julf. “I should like to know the reason of his silence also. It can’t be love of Sir Lewis as makes him hold his tongue.”
“No; that is what puzzles me. After all, like Kerris, the baronet may be innocent.”
Julf shook his head. “I can’t think where you will find a third party on which to lay the guilt—unless,” he added, with an afterthought, “you blame the Irish boy who pawned the boots.”
“It may be even him!” said Hagar, seriously. “But we’ll know to-morrow, I fancy. Kerris, Sir Lewis, Micky—h’m! I wonder which of the three killed that poor young man.”
Hagar thought over this problem for an hour or so, then, not being able to solve it, she put it out of her head for the night. As for Julf, he was so much impressed by Hagar’s cleverness in finding the pistol and constructing a case against Sir Lewis—who he now began to believe was guilty—that the next morning, before taking her to see George Kerris in prison, he conducted her to an outlying farm.
“Laura Brenton lives here,” he said; “ask her about Sir Lewis, and see if we can strengthen the case against him.”
Laura was a fine, tall, handsome girl, somewhat masculine in her looks; but at the present moment she seemed ill, and appeared haggard— which was no wonder, seeing that one of her lovers was dead, and the other in prison. However, she was quite willing to answer Hagar’s questions, and declared most emphatically that Kerris was innocent.
“He wouldn’t kill a fly!” said she, weeping, “although he was angry with me for meeting Sir Leslie; but I never saw any harm in doing so.”
“Opinions differ,” said Hagar, coldly, not approving of this morality. “You met Sir Leslie on the night of the murder?”
“I—I didn’t!” stammered the girl, fiercely. “Who says so?”
“Sir Lewis. He told me that his cousin left him in the park—after their quarrel—to see you by the Queen’s Pool.”
This Laura denied flatly. “I went into Marlow on that evening to buy some ribbon ” she explained, “but I never went near Welby Park. Sir Lewis is a liar and a murderer!”
“A murderer? Why should he murder his cousin?” asked Hagar, sharply.
“Because he loved me, and I would have nothing to say to him.”
“You loved Sir Leslie?”
“I did not!” blazed out the girl, wrathfully. “I loved neither of them, but only George Kerris. He is innocent, and Sir Lewis is guilty. I believe he killed his cousin with the pistol Sir Leslie gave him.”
“What do you know about that pistol?”
“Why,” explained Laura, quietly, “I went to Welby Park with father to pay the rent, and in the library, on the table, there was a pistol with a silver plate on it. Sir Lewis—he was not the baronet then— told me that Sir Leslie had given it to him, and showed me his own name on the plate. As Sir Leslie was shot with a pistol, I believe Sir Lewis did it.”
“But had not George Kerris a pistol also?”
“Yes; an old thing that wouldn’t fire straight. I tried it myself at a target which George set up on the farm.”
“The pistol isn’t in George’s house.”
“I don’t know where it is, then,” said the girl, indifferently; “but I am sure of one thing, that George is innocent. Oh, try and get him out of jail!”
“And Sir Lewis hanged?” said Hagar, drily.
“Yes!” cried Laura, fiercely: “he’s a murdering beast; I should like to see him dead!”
Rather wondering at the fierceness of the girl, Hagar left her, and went on to the jail in which Kerris was incarcerated. The gamekeeper was a huge blond man, with a fresh, handsome face. Usually his expression was frank and kindly, but now, owing to recent events, he looked sullen. In spite of all Hagar’s questioning, he persisted in declining an explanation.
“I’ll say neither one thing nor another,” he declared; “if I did kill Sir Leslie, or I didn’t, is my business. Anyhow, he deserved to be killed.”
“Who are you screening?” asked Hagar, changing her tactics.
“No one,” replied Kerris, a color rising in his face.
“Yes, you are, else you would not jeopardize your neck. But you shall be saved in spite of yourself. I know who killed Sir Leslie.”
“You do?” asked the man, looking up anxiously.
“Yes, his cousin, Sir Lewis. We have found his pistol concealed where the murder took place; he stole your boots to wear them, and throw the blame on you. You came out of Welby Park at ten o’clock, after the murder was committed. Did you not see Sir Lewis?”
“No, I didn’t,” replied Kerris, hastily. “I saw no one. I heard a shot, and thought poachers might be about, but as Sir Leslie had discharged me I didn’t think it was my business to see after them.”
“Sir Lewis paid you a visit shortly before the murder?”
“Yes, he did; to see me about some game.”
“Did you miss the boots after he left?”
“I never missed them till the night of the murder, when I wanted to put ‘em on,” said Kerris. “I hadn’t worn them for some days, as they were new boots, and rather hurt my feet.”
“Then no doubt Sir Lewis stole them for his own purposes,” said Hagar triumphantly. “He is guilty, and you ——”
“I am innocent!” cried Kerris, proudly. “I don’t mind saying it now. I never killed Sir Leslie; I never laid a finger on him.”
“And you did not say so before because you are screening some one. Who is it?”
Kerris made no reply, but looked uneasy.
Before Hagar could repeat her question, the answer thereto came from a most unexpected quarter. The door of the cell was opened, and Julf entered, with an expression of profound astonishment on his face.
“Here’s a go!” he cried to Hagar. “Micky has arrived, and has told me from whom he received the boots!”
“Sir Lewis?”
“No! I have seen Sir Lewis, and he denies his guilt; also, he tells me a story which corroborates Micky’s evidence, and explains why Kerris here holds his tongue.”
Kerris rose from his seat on the bed with a bound, and strode towards Julf, looking worried and fierce.
“Not a word! not a word!” he said, between his clenched teeth. “Spare her!”
“Her!” cried Hagar, a light breaking in on her. “Laura Brenton?”
“Yes, Laura Brenton,” replied Julf, shaking off the gamekeeper. “Micky has seen her; it was she who gave him the boots.”
“I told her to; I told her to!” interrupted Kerris, in despair.
“Nonsense! you wish to screen her, as you have tried to do all along. But you are wrong. Laura Benton is not worth your sacrificing your life, my man. She is the guilty person who killed Sir Leslie. And why? Because he had cast her off, and was about to marry another woman.”
Kerris gave a great cry. “It is false—false! She loved me!”
“She loved herself!” retorted Julf, sharply. “Sir Leslie promised to marry her, and because she could not force him to keep that promise she killed him. It was to throw the blame on you that she stole the boots and wore them on the night she met Sir Leslie by the Queen’s Pool. It was to get Sir Lewis into trouble that she stole his pistol to kill his cousin.”
“And did she hide it in the urn?” asked Hagar, astonished by these revelations.
“No;
Sir Lewis did so. He knew that Laura committed the crime.”
“How so?”
“He heard the shot, and went to see who had fired it. By the Queen’s Pool he found his cousin’s dead body, and picked up his own pistol on the bank. As Laura, to his knowledge, had taken it away from the library on the day she came with her father to pay rent, he knew that she had killed Sir Leslie. To screen her, and not thinking of his own danger should the pistol with his name on it be found, he hid it in the urn where you found it. So, you see, two men have tried to screen this woman, who loved neither of them.”
“She loved me—me!” cried Kerris, in agony. “Oh, why did Sir Lewis speak!”
“To save himself from arrest,” replied Julf. “He was not so loyal as you, my poor fellow. However, you will soon be released. To-day, I arrest Laura.”
And this was done on that very morning. Laura was arrested, and, terrified by the statements of Micky and Sir Lewis, although George Kerris loyally kept silent, she confessed all. Julf’s explanation was correct. She had met Sir Leslie on the night of the murder by the Queen’s Pool, with the intention of killing him should he persist in his intention of casting her off. He did so, and she killed him. She had stolen the pistol and the boots to throw the blame, should occasion arise, on Sir Lewis and Kerris. Also, she had taken away the pistol of Kerris from his cottage to inculpate him. But for Hagar and the episode of the pawned boots, which Laura had given to Micky to get rid of, she might have succeeded in her vile plans, and have escaped free, to ruin other men. As it was, she confessed her crime, and was condemned to penal servitude for life. She deserved the scaffold, but she escaped that through the leniency of the jury, on the score of her youth and beauty.
Released from the prison into which he had cast himself so madly to save an ungrateful woman, George Kerris came up to Lambeth and redeemed those fatal boots which had been pawned by Micky.
“I am going to Australia,” he said to Hagar. “I failed to save her, so I cannot bear to remain at Marlow. I knew she was guilty all along; for she had been in my cottage the day previous to the murder, and had carried off these boots, on the plea that her father wished for a similar pair, and wanted to see them. When the footmarks with my initials were traced in the mud of the pond, I guessed that she had worn the boots, and had killed Sir Leslie. I loved her so dearly that I would have suffered in her place: but you with your clear head found her out, and now she is paying for her wickedness. Life is over for me here; I go to Australia, and I shall take these boots which ruined her with me.”
“Why did you do all this for Laura—that worthless woman?”
“Worthless she is, I know,” rejoined Kerris; “but—I loved her!” and with a nod he departed, carrying the boots and himself into exile.
CHAPTER X. THE NINTH CUSTOMER AND THE CASKET.
HAGAR had almost a genius for reading people’s characters in their faces. The curve of the mouth, the glance of the eyes—she could interpret these truly; for to her feminine instinct she added a logical judgment masculine in its discretion. She was rarely wrong when she exercised this faculty; and in the many customers who entered the Lambeth pawn-shop she had ample opportunities to use her talent. To the sleek, white-faced creature who brought for pawning the Renaissance casket of silver she took an instant and violent dislike. Subsequent events proved that she was right in doing so. The ninth customer—as she called him—was an oily scoundrel. In appearance he was a respectable servant—a valet or a butler—and wore an immaculate suit of black broad-cloth. His face was as white as that of a corpse, and almost as expressionless. Two tufts of whisker adorned his lean cheeks, but his thin mouth and receding chin were uncovered with hair. On his badly-shaped head and off his low narrow forehead the scanty hair of iron-gray was brushed smoothly. He dropped his shifty gray eyes when he addressed Hagar, and talked softly in a most deferential manner. Hagar guessed him to be a West-end servant; and by his physiognomy she knew him to be a scoundrel.
This “gentleman’s gentleman”—as Hagar guessed him rightly to be— gave the name of Julian Peters, and the address 42, Mount Street, Mayfair. As certainly as though she had been in the creature’s confidence, Hagar knew that name and address were false. Also, she was not quite sure whether he had come honestly by the casket which he wished to pawn, although the story he told was a very fair and, apparently, candid one.
“My late master, miss, left me this box as a legacy,” he said deferentially, ” and I have kept it by me for some time. Unfortunately, I am now out of a situation, and to keep myself going until I obtain a new one I need money. You will understand, miss, that it is only necessity which makes me pawn this box. I want fifteen pounds on it.”
“You can have thirteen,” said Hagar, pricing the box at a glance.
“Oh, indeed, miss, I am sure it is worth fifteen,” said Mr. Peters (so-called): “if you look at the workmanship ——”
“I have looked at everything,” replied Hagar, promptly—“at the silver, the workmanship, the date, and all the rest of it.”
“The date, miss?” asked the man, in a puzzled tone.
“Yes; the casket is Cinque Cento, Florentine work. I dare say if you took it to a West-end jeweler you could get more on it than I am prepared to lend. Thirteen pounds is my limit.”
“I’ll take it,” said Peters, promptly. “I don’t care about pawning it in the West-end, where I am known.”
“As a scoundrel, no doubt,” thought Hagar, cynically. However, it was not her place to spoil a good bargain—and getting the Renaissance casket for thirteen pounds was a very good one—so she made out the ticket in the false name of Julian Peters, and handed it to him, together with a ten-pound note and three sovereigns. The man counted the money, with a greedy look in his eyes, and turned to depart with a cringing bow. At the door of the shop he paused, however, to address a last word to Hagar.
“I can redeem that casket whenever I like, miss?” he asked, anxiously.
“To-morrow, if it pleases you?” replied Hagar, coldly, “so long as you pay me a month’s interest for the loan of the money.”
“Thank you, miss; I shall take back the box in a month’s time. In the meantime I leave it in your charge, miss, and wish you a very good day.”
Hagar gave a shudder of disgust as he left the shop; for the man to her was a noxious thing, like a snake or a toad. If instinct were worth anything, she felt that this valet was a thief and a scoundrel, who was abusing the trust his employer placed in him. The casket was far more likely to have been thieved than to have come to Mr. Peters by will. It is not usual for gentlemen to leave their servants legacies of Cinque Cento caskets.
The box, as Peters called it, was very beautiful; an exquisite example of goldsmith’s art, worthy of Benvenuto Cellini himself. Probably it was by one of his pupils. Renaissance work certainly, for in its ornamentation there was visible that mingling of Christianity and paganism which is so striking a characteristic of the re-birth of the Arts in the Italy of Dante and the Medici. On the sides of the casket in relief there were figures of dancing nymph and piping satyr; flower-wreathed altar and vine-crowned priest. On the lid a full-length figure of the Virgin with upraised hands; below clouds and the turrets of a castle; overhead the glory of the Holy Ghost in the form of a wide-winged Dove, and fluttering cherubs and grave saints. Within the casket was lined with dead gold, smooth and lusterless; but this receptacle contained nothing.
Without doubt this tiny gem of goldsmith’s art had been the jewel-case of some Florentine lady in that dead and gone century. Perhaps for her some lover had ordered it to be made, with its odd mingling of cross and thyrsus; its hints of asceticism and joyous life. But the Florentine beauty was now dust; all her days of love and vanity and sin were over; and the casket in which she had stored her jewels lay in a dingy London pawn-shop. There was something ironic in the fate meted out by Time and Chance to this dainty trifle of luxury.
While examining the box, Hagar noticed that the gold plate of
the case within was raised some little distance above the outside portion. There appeared to her shrewd eyes to be a space between the base of the casket and the inner box of gold. Ever on the alert to discover mysteries, Hagar believed that in this toy there was a secret drawer, which no doubt opened by a concealed spring. At once she set to work searching for this spring.
“It is very cleverly hidden,” she murmured, having been baffled for a long time; ” but a secret recess there is, and I intend to find it. Who knows but what I may stumble on the evidence of some old Florentine tragedy, like that of the Crucifix of Fiesole?”
Her fingers were slender and nimble, and had a wonderfully delicate sense of feeling in their narrow tips. She ran them lightly over the raised work of beaten silver, pressing the laughing heads of the fauns and nymphs. For some time she was unsuccessful, until by chance she touched a delicately-modeled rose, which was carven on the central altar of one side. At once there was a slight click, and the silver slab with its sculptured figures fell downward on a hinge. As she had surmised, the box was divided within into two unequal portions; the upper one, visible when the ordinary lid was lifted, was empty, as has been said; but in the narrowness of the lower receptacle, between the false and the real bottoms of the box, there was a slim packet. Pleased with her discovery—which certainly did credit to her acute intelligence—Hagar drew out the papers. “Here is my Florentine tragedy!” said she, with glee, and proceeded to examine her treasure-trove.
It did not take her long to discover that the letters—for they were letters, five or six, tied up with rose-hued ribbon—were not fifteenth century, but very late nineteenth; that they were not written in Italian, but in English. Penned in graceful female handwriting upon scented paper—a perfume of violets clung to them still—these letters were full of passionate and undisciplined love. Hagar only read one, but it was sufficient to see that she had stumbled upon an intrigue between a married woman and a man. No address was given, as each letter began unexpectedly with words of fire and adoration, continuing in such style from beginning to end, where the signature appended was “Beatrice.” In the first one, which Hagar read—and which was a sample of the rest—the writer lamented her marriage, raged that she was bound to a dull husband, and called upon her dearest Paul— evidently the inamorato’s name—to deliver her. The passion, the fierce sensual love which burnt in every line of this married woman’s epistles, disgusted Hagar not a little. Her pure and virginal soul shrank back from the abyss revealed by this lustful adoration; trembled at the glimpse it obtained of a hidden life. There was, indeed, no tragedy in these letters as yet, but it might be—with such a woman as she who had penned them—that they would become the prelude to one In every line there was divorce.