The Middle of Things

by J. S. Fletcher

  CHAPTER XXII

  ON REMAND

  When Langton Hyde was brought up before the magistrate next morning, thecourt was crowded to its utmost limits; and Viner, looking round him fromhis seat near the solicitors' table saw that most of the peopleinterested in the case were present. Mr. Carless was whispering with Mr.Pawle; Lord Ellingham had a seat close by; in the front of the publicgallery Miss Penkridge, grim and alert, was in charge of the timid andshrinking sisters of the unfortunate prisoner. There, too, were Mr.Armitstead and Mr. Isidore Rosenbaum, and Mr. Perkwite, all evidentlyvery much alive to certain possibilities. But Viner looked in vain foreither Methley or Woodlesford or their mysterious client; they werecertainly not present when Hyde was put into the dock, and Viner began towonder if the events of the previous day had warned Mr. Cave and thosebehind him to avoid publicity.

  Instructed by Viner, who was determined to spare neither effort normoney to clear his old schoolmate, Felpham had engaged the servicesof one of the most brilliant criminal barristers of the day, Mr.Millington-Bywater, on behalf of his client; and he and Viner had sat uphalf the night with him, instructing him in the various mysteries andramifications of the case. A big, heavy-faced, shrewd-eyed man, Mr.Millington-Bywater made no sign, and to all outward appearance showed novery great interest while the counsel who now appeared on behalf of thepolice, completed his case against the prisoner.

  The only new evidence produced by the prosecution was that of thegreengrocer on whose premises Hyde had admitted that he passed most ofthe night of the murder, and in whose shed the missing valuables had beenfound. The greengrocer's evidence as to his discovery was given in aplain and straightforward fashion--he was evidently a man who would justtell what he actually saw, and brought neither fancy nor imagination tobear on his observation. But when the prosecution had done with him, Mr.Millington-Bywater rose and quietly asked the police to produce thewatch, chain and ring which the greengrocer had found, in their originalwrappings. He held up the wrapping-papers to the witness and asked him ifhe could swear that this was what he had found the valuables in and hadgiven to the police. The greengrocer was positive as to this; he waspositive, too, that the other wrappings which Felpham had carefullypreserved were those which had been on the outside of the parcel and hadbeen thrown aside by himself on its discovery and afterwards picked up byViner. Mr. Millington-Bywater handed all these papers up to themagistrate, directing his attention to the strong odour of drugs orchemicals which still pervaded them, and to the address of themanufacturing chemists which appeared on the outer wrapping. Themagistrate seemed somewhat mystified.

  "What is the object of this?" he asked, glancing at the defendingcounsel. "It is admitted that these are the wrappings in which the watch,and chain and ring were found in the witness's shed, but"--he paused,with another inquiring look--"you propose to--what?" he asked.

  "I propose, Your Worship, to prove that these things were never put thereby the prisoner at all!" answered Mr. Millington-Bywater, promptly andwith an assurance which was not lost on the spectators. "I intend to showthat they were purposely placed in that outhouse by the real murderer ofJohn Ashton after the statement made by the prisoner at the inquestbecame public--placed there, of course, to divert any possible suspicionof himself.

  "And now," he continued, after the greengrocer had left the box and theprosecuting counsel had intimated that he had no more evidence to bringforward at present, "now I will outline the defence which I shall set upon behalf of my client. I intend to prove that John Ashton was murderedby some man not yet discovered, who killed him in order to gainpossession of certain papers which he carried on him--papers of extremeimportance, as will be shown. We know where certain of those papers are,and we hope before very long to know where the rest are, and alsowhere a certain very valuable diamond is, which the murdered man hadon him at the time of his death. I shall, indeed, prove that theprisoner--certainly through his own foolishness--is wrongly accused. Itwill be within your worship's recollection that when the prisoner wasfirst before you, he very unwisely refused to give his name and addressor any information--he subsequently repented of that and made astatement, not only to the police but before the coroner. Now, I proposeto put him into that box so that he may give evidence, and I shall thencall certain witnesses who will offer evidence which will go to provethat what I say as regards the murder of Ashton is more thanprobable--namely, that he was murdered for the sake of the documents hehad on him, and that the spoiling of his money and valuables was a merepiece of bluff, intended to mislead. Let the prisoner go into the box!"

  There was a continued deep silence in court while Hyde, underexamination, repeated the story which he had told to Viner and Drillfordand before the coroner and his jury. It was a plain, consecutive story,in which he set forth the circumstances preceding the evening of themurder and confessed his picking up of the ring which lay on the pavementby Ashton's body. He kept his eyes steadily fixed on Mr.Millington-Bywater under this examination, never removing them from himsave when the magistrate interposed with an occasional remark orquestion. But at one point a slight commotion in court caused him to lookamong the spectators, and Viner, following the direction of his eyes, sawhim start, and at the same instant saw what it was that he started at.Methley, followed by the claimant, was quietly pushing a way through thethrong between the door and the solicitor's table.

  Viner leaned closer to Mr. Pawle.

  "Do you see?" he whispered. "Hyde evidently recognizes one of those two!Now--which?"

  Mr. Pawle glanced at the prisoner. Hyde's face, hitherto pale, hadflushed a little, and his eyes had grown bright; he looked as if he hadsuddenly seen a friend's face in a hostile crowd. But Mr.Millington-Bywater, who had been bending over his papers, suddenly lookedup with another question, and Hyde again turned his attention to him.

  "All that you really know of this matter," asked Mr. Millington-Bywater,"is that you chanced to turn up Lonsdale Passage, saw a man lying on thepavement and a ring close by, and that, being literally starving anddesperate, you snatched up that ring and ran away as fast as you could?"

  "Yes--that is all," asserted Hyde. "Except that I had met a man, as Ihave already told you, at the end of the passage by which I entered."

  "You did not even know whether this man lying on the pavement wasalive or dead?"

  "I thought he might be drunk," replied Hyde. "But after I had snatched upthe ring I never thought at all until I had run some distance. I wasafraid of being followed."

  "Now why were you afraid of being followed?"

  "I was famishing!" answered Hyde. "I knew I could get something, somemoney, on that ring, in the morning, and I wanted to stick to it. I wasafraid that the man whom I met as I ran out of the passage, whom I nowknow to have been Mr. Viner, might follow me and make me give up thering. And the ring meant food."

  Mr. Millington-Bywater let this answer sink into the prevalent atmosphereand suddenly turned to another matter. The knife which had been found inHyde's possession was lying with certain other exhibits on thesolicitor's table, and Mr. Millington-Bywater pointed to it.

  "Now about that knife," he said. "It is yours? Very well--how long haveyou had it?"

  "Three or four years," replied Hyde, promptly. "I bought it when I wastouring in the United States, at a town called Guthrie, in Oklahoma.And," he added suddenly and with a triumphant smile as of a man who isunexpectedly able to clinch an argument, "there is a gentleman there whowas with me when I bought it--Mr. Nugent Starr!"

  From the magistrate on his bench to the policeman at the door everyperson in court turned to look at the man to whom the prisoner pointed anout-stretched finger. And Mr. Pawle let out an irrepressible exclamation.

  "Good God!" he said. "The claimant fellow!"

  But Viner said nothing. He was staring, as everybody else was, at the manwho sat by Methley. He, suddenly aware that Hyde had pointed to him, wasobviously greatly taken aback and embarrassed--he looked sharply at theprisoner, knitted his brows, shook hi
s head, and turning to Methleymuttered something which no one else caught. Mr. Millington-Bywaterlooked at him and turned to his client.

  "You say there is a gentleman here--that gentleman!--who was with youwhen you bought that knife?" he asked. "A friend of yours, then?"

  "Well--we were playing in the same company," asserted Hyde. "Mr.Moreby-Bannister's company. He was heavy lead--I was juvenile. He knowsme well enough. He was with me when I bought that knife in a hardwarestore in Guthrie."

  The magistrate's eye was on the man who sat by Methley, and there was acertain amount of irritation in it. And suddenly Methley whisperedsomething to his companion and the man shyly but with a noticeablecomposure stood up.

  "I beg Your Worship's pardon," he said, quietly, with a polite bow to thebench, "but really, the witness is under a mistaken impression! I don'tknow him, and I have never been in the town he mentions--in fact, I havenever been in the United States. I am very sorry, but, really, there issome strange mistake--I--the witness is an absolute stranger to me!"

  The attention of all present was transferred to Hyde. And Hyde flushed,leaned forward over the ledge of the witness-box and gave the claimant along, steady stare.

  "No mistake at all!" he suddenly exclaimed in a firm voice. "That's Mr.Nugent Starr! I played with him for over twelve months."

  While this had been going on, Felpham on one side, and Carless on theother, had been whispering to Mr. Millington-Bywater, who listened toboth with growing interest, and began to nod to each with increasingintelligence--and then, suddenly, the prosecuting counsel playedunexpectedly and directly into his hand.

  "If Your Worship pleases," said the prosecuting counsel, "I shouldlike to have the prisoner's assertion categorically denied--it may beof importance. Perhaps this gentleman will go into the box and denyit on oath."

  Mr. Millington-Bywater sat down as quickly as if a heavy hand had forcedhim into his seat, and Viner saw a swift look of gratification cross hisfeatures. Close by, Mr. Pawle chuckled with joy.

  "By the Lord Harry!" he whispered, "the very thing we wanted! Noneed to wait for the adjourned coroner's inquest, Viner--thething'll come out now!"

  Viner did not understand. He saw Hyde turned out of the box; he saw theclaimant, after an exchange of remarks with Methley, step into it; heheard him repeat on oath the denial he had just uttered, after statingthat his name was Cave, and that he lived at the Belmead Hotel, LancasterGate; and he saw Mr. Millington-Bywater, after exchanging a few questionsand answers in whispers with Hyde over the ledge of the dock, turn to thewitness as he was about to step down.

  "A moment, sir," he said. "I want to ask you a few questions, with thepermission of His Worship, who will soon see that they are verypertinent. So," he went on, "you reside at the Belmead Hotel, inLancaster Gate, and your name is Edward Cave?"

  "At present," answered the witness, stiffly.

  "Do you mean that your name is Edward Cave--at present?"

  "My name is Edward Cave, and at present I live--as I have stated,"replied the witness with dignity.

  "You have just stated, on oath, that you are not Nugent Starr, have neverbeen so called, don't know the prisoner, never met him in America, havenever set foot in America! Now, then--mind, you're on your oath!--isEdward Cave your real or full name?"

  "Well, strictly speaking," answered the witness, after some hesitation,"no, it is not. My full name is Cave-Gray--my family name; but for thepresent--"

  "For the present you wish to be called Mr. Cave. Now, sir, are you notthe person who claims to be the rightful Earl of Ellingham?"

  A murmur of excited interest ran round the court, and everybodyrecognized that a new stage of the case had been entered upon. Every eye,especially the observant eyes on the bench, were fixed on the witness,who now looked considerably ruffled. He glanced at Methley--but Methleysat with averted look and made no sign; he looked at the magistrate; themagistrate, it was plain, expected the question to be answered. And theanswer came, almost sullenly.

  "Yes, I am!"

  "That is to say, you are really--or you claim to be really--the LordMarketstoke who disappeared from England some thirty-five years ago, andyou have now returned, though you are legally presumed to be dead, toassert your rights to titles and estates? You absolutely claim to be theninth Earl of Ellingham?"

  "Yes!"

  "Where have you been during the last thirty-five years?"

  "In Australia."

  "What part?"

  "Chiefly in Melbourne. But I was for four or five years up-country."

  "What name did you go under there?"

  Mr. Pawle, Mr. Carless and the rest of the spectators who were in thesesecrets regarded the witness with keen attention when this question wasput to him. But his answer came promptly.

  "At first, under the name of Wickham. Later under the one I nowuse--Cave."

  "Did you marry out there?"

  "Never!"

  "And so, of course, you never had a daughter?"

  "I have never been married and have never had daughter or son!"

  Mr. Millington-Bywater turned to Mr. Carless, at his left elbow, andexchanged two or three whispered remarks with him. At last he lookedround again at the witness.

  "Yesterday," he said, "in your character of claimant to the Ellinghamtitle and estates you showed to Messrs. Carless & Driver, of Lincoln'sInn Fields, and to the present holder of the title, certain documents,letters, papers, which would go some way toward establishing your claimto be what you profess to be. Now, I will say at once that we believethese papers to have been stolen from the body of John Ashton when he wasmurdered. And I will ask you a direct question, on your oath! Have thosepapers always been in your possession since you left England thirty-fiveyears ago?"

  The witness drew himself up and looked steadily at his questioner.

  "No!" he answered firmly. "They were stolen from me almost as soon as Iarrived in Australia. I have only just regained possession of them."