Ten Star Clues

by E. R. Punshon

  “I see that,” agreed Clinton thoughtfully. “Of course, you have a right to every help any one can give you— especially a solicitor. A solicitor is an officer of justice, too. I don’t know if you’ve heard that the original Bertram got himself into serious trouble at Oxford. I don’t know the details, I never bothered to try to find out. But I know he had to leave the country in a hurry, and that it was bad enough for there to be some danger of a criminal prosecution. Most likely, if he had been a poor boy, he would have gone to Borstal. But grandsons of peers don’t go to Borstal, and young Bertram went to America instead. It’s a good distance, and not the first time a British aristocratic family has been grateful that when Columbus discovered America he discovered it such a long way away. You understand Bertram wasn’t the heir then. In the line of succession, of course, but not the direct heir. There were two or three lives between him and the title. But they all fell in, accident and illness and so on. This claimant fellow turned up at my office about three weeks ago. He didn’t know that owing to various deaths he had become next heir. At least he said he didn’t. What he wanted to know, he told me, was whether it would be safe for him to appear again, and also what sort of reception he was likely to get from his grandparents. At first, you understand, I accepted him at face value. Took him for granted. It was unexpected, of course, and rather startling, and even then I felt it was hard luck on Ralph. When I told the chap that owing to various deaths he was the heir he was either very surprised indeed, or else he is a jolly good actor. But I began to have my doubts. I can’t say exactly why. Somehow, it didn’t seem right. Or that’s what I thought. But then I thought that might be because he had been knocking about America so long. Of course, I had no right to ask him questions. Not my business. I rang up and told the late earl. He wasn’t impressed. He didn’t say anything when I dropped a sort of careful hint that personally I wasn’t quite happy about it. But he said he would see the chap. So I brought him along. I admit he puzzled me. He seemed to know a lot. He recognized places and he knew names. But there were holes. There were things I felt he ought to know he didn’t seem even to have heard of. I was inclined to think he knew the district, knew a good deal about the Hoyle family, probably had met the genuine Bertram in America—did I tell you he showed me letters and papers the genuine Bertram would certainly have had?—and had somehow got hold of, stolen, perhaps, the proofs of identity he showed me. Bertram’s death had been reported, you know, and it’s not difficult, if you are on the spot, to get hold of a dead man’s papers and so on. That’s what I thought. That’s what, I’m dead certain, the old earl thought at first. The fact that I can show letters written to John Smith doesn’t necessarily prove that I am that particular John Smith. The old earl asked him one or two testing questions our man couldn’t answer. I was fully prepared to see him kicked out—and to help for that matter—when he asked for a private interview. Said he could convince the old earl in two minutes. Well, it didn’t take two minutes. It took half an hour or so. Martin came to ask me to go back to the library to join them. I was completely and utterly bowled over, flabbergasted, when the old earl said quite calmly that he had now recognized his grandson. So, he said, had the countess. I could hardly believe my own ears. But they both stuck to it, and the chap was publicly accepted as their grandson and heir. That was conclusive to most people. Every one knew how intensely proud of the family name and tradition were both the old people. It simply wasn’t thinkable that they would accept a wrong ’un, and put an impostor, a stranger in blood, in possession of title and estates. Inconceivable. If they were satisfied, then it must be so. You can’t wonder most people took it all for granted.”

  “You didn’t yourself?”

  “Well, at first I simply didn’t know what to think. I supposed the grandparents must know best. I felt I had been a fool to let my doubts be so plain. Not the best way of standing in with the new heir to let it be known you thought he was a fraud. I began to think I had done for myself and the firm, too. My partners rubbed that in rather vigorously when they heard about it all. I was told I had probably lost the firm the Wych estate business as soon as the new heir succeeded. Or sooner. He wasn’t likely to forget in a hurry that I had as good as called him an impostor. There was a fine old dust-up in the office. I believe my partners would have thrown me out of the firm then and there if they had known how. Or sued me for damages. Well, there it was. I might have let them buy me out only for Ralph making it quite clear he didn’t accept the new Bertram, and that he meant to fight. So I thought, all right, I’ll go in with him. Right’s right, all the world over. It meant I had to resign my partnership instead of being bought out. Couldn’t be helped, and they were so glad to get rid of me, there was no trouble arranging things. I knew if Ralph said he meant fighting, fight he would. He’s that sort. What he said confirmed my own ideas. I swung back to my first belief that this chap was another Arthur Orton and the whole affair another Tichborne case. You remember Lady Tichborne recognized Orton as her son, and if a mother could be mistaken in her own son and stick to it through thick and thin, then why couldn’t grandparents be mistaken, too, no matter how they stuck to it? So I told Ralph I would sink or swim with him.”

  The colonel nodded approvingly.

  “One can’t help liking a good fighter,” he remarked, and the remark was evidently intended to include both the absent Ralph and the present Clinton.

  “Oh, Ralph’s a good fighter all right,” declared Clinton with a laugh. “I mean to do my best, too,” he added modestly. “But then I’m just a lawyer. I’ve got to make my way in the profession. I don’t deny a good fight is good fun, and I’m looking forward to it. And you don’t much care for seeing a decent sort of chap like Ralph being done down by a dirty fraud. But I don’t want you to think that I’m taking a sentimental view of the job. I’m not. I’m not taking it on out of friendship or sympathy or sense of justice or that sort of thing. Merely a plain business proposition.”

  “Business that a good many people would go a long way to avoid, I think,” observed the colonel, and Clinton made a little deprecatory movement with his hands as if to wave the implied compliment aside.

  “I suppose,” observed Bobby unexpectedly, his eyes still fixed on the ceiling, “I suppose that only the late earl’s death makes it possible to test the succession in court?”

  “Well, I was considering that,” admitted Clinton.

  “Libel, scandal, an injunction to prevent Bertram from putting himself forward as heir, something on those lines, perhaps.”

  “I don’t quite see—” began Bobby, and Clinton interrupted him.

  “Oh, I agree it’s much easier to put a case now,” he said. “Of course, I’ve not had time even to begin getting evidence. There’ll have to be inquiries in America. We must try to establish the real facts about Bertram’s reported death. Then there’s the question of this chap’s actual identity. If he is—and I think he is—a native of this part, we shall have to try to trace every one who lived here about that time and has left since. A big job, but it can be done, and with luck we might get on the chap’s trail very quickly. If we can prove who he really is, we’ve won at once. There’s a lot to be done, and a plan of campaign will have to be thought out. It’ll be a long time before we shall be ready to go into court.”

  “I suppose so,” agreed the colonel. “The thing might take years. The Tichborne case did, didn’t it?”

  “Years,” agreed Clinton. “The two trials alone took nearly a year, taken together. I don’t know,” he added, hesitatingly, “if I ought to ask you, but I suppose it is quite clearly established that Ralph left here an hour before the murder occurred? I’m inclined to suspect there’s a certain amount of gossip going on, and I think it ought to be checked at once.”

  “Martin is quite clear on that point,” the colonel admitted; surprised that so acute and zealous a lawyer as Clinton Wells seemed to be, did not see at once that such an early departure did not in any way prevent a later return
. “It’s most unfortunate there was this violent quarrel between Ralph and the late earl just before the murder. You can’t wonder at there being gossip. Ralph says he went straight back home and to bed, and only heard of what had happened this morning. By the way, when you left here last night, you went home for your dinner?”

  Clinton shook his head.

  “Oh, no,” he said. “My poor housekeeper would have had a fit. I told her I would be out for dinner, and there wouldn’t have been a thing ready. Ought I to account for my movements?” he added smilingly. “I had dinner at the Midland Hotel.” He began to search in his pockets. “There’s the bill,” he said, “if you like to see it—nineteen and six, it comes to. I don’t always do myself as well as that, but they’ve a rather good Romanee Conti I treated myself to. To put myself in a good temper after my little upset with Ralph, I suppose. Then I went home, rang up one or two chaps I know to see if I could make up a four for bridge, found I couldn’t, and spent the rest of the evening more usefully, I suppose, in looking up succession law and so on. I meant to make Ralph’s case a big thing, win or lose. Put in the shade now, I suppose.”

  “Why?” asked Bobby.

  “Well, isn’t it?” Clinton retorted. “Murders are much more exciting, much more sensational than missing heirs.”

  “There seems a connection,” Bobby remarked. “There’s a reference in your statement you made earlier to an automatic pistol you all, yourself, Mr. Longden, Ralph, seem to have handled in the Wych estate office last night?”

  “Oh, yes,” Clinton answered. “But we all saw it securely locked up in the big safe in Ralph’s office, and I understand Mr. Longden walked off with the keys by mistake. So Ralph couldn’t have got it out, and Mr. Longden wasn’t near the office till after the murder.”

  “There’s evidence,” Bobby agreed, “that Mr. Ralph Hoyle came straight here this morning when he heard what had happened, without going to his office. The housekeeper found the door bolted on the inside as usual when she came down about seven. She noticed, too, the keys on the floor where they had fallen when Mr. Longden pushed them through the letter-box.”

  “Well, that seems all right,” observed Clinton. “The pistol must be still in the safe where we all saw it put away. Impossible for any one to have got hold of it. Longden had the key of the safe but not of the office. Ralph had the key of the office but not of the safe. Cancel each other out.” Bobby made no comment on this, though he wondered, much as the colonel had wondered before, how it was that so acute a lawyer did not see at once how easy it would have been for Ralph, who had sole charge of the safe key, to provide himself with a duplicate. In a slightly embarrassed voice, Clinton said:—

  “I suppose you know the old earl kept an automatic in a drawer of the writing-table here? Martin said anything about—well, about it and me?”

  “I don’t think so,” Bobby answered. “No, he didn’t. Why?”

  “Well, it’s like this,” explained Clinton, still slightly embarrassed. “I was in here the other day talking to the old earl, and he happened to show me the thing, the automatic I mean, a point three-two Colt automatic, I remember. Well, I happened to have it in my hand looking at it when Martin came into the room. I thought I had better mention it. You know, I don’t trust that fellow, Martin. He would make mischief fast enough if he got the chance. I wouldn’t put blackmail past him. It did just strike me that if he said he had seen me with it, well, that would prove I knew about it, which I did, and I’ve had plenty of opportunity of getting hold of it since, if I wanted to. I thought I had better mention it. My legal mind did suggest that it might look a trifle fishy, if that was the weapon used. Not that I had any reason for trying to get rid of the poor old boy, only in a case like this, it’s better to mention everything, isn’t it?”

  “Very much better,” agreed the colonel warmly. “I wish every one would be as frank. We haven’t identified the weapon yet, and as a matter of fact, the automatic you mention can’t be found now.”

  “The devil it can’t,” exclaimed Clinton, looking worried. “I didn’t know that. Suggestive, eh? Looks as if it were the one used.”

  “We can’t be sure,” the colonel answered cautiously. “All we can be sure of is that the bullets were fired from a point thirty-two, and that that is the calibre both of Earl Wych’s pistol and of the one which presumably is still in the Wych estate office safe.”

  “If the earl’s pistol were used,” Clinton said slowly, “that does seem to suggest possibilities.”

  He seemed to become lost in thought. Bobby said:— “Yes. What possibilities?”

  “Hanged if I know,” Clinton answered with a half smile. “Can’t say. Lawyers must be cautious, you know,” he added, his smile more marked now.

  He wouldn’t say any more, and presently was allowed to go. When the door had closed behind him, the colonel said:—

  “I must say I rather like the way he sticks up for Ralph and all the time pretends he is just thinking of his own interests. A fine fellow.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Bobby, who had resumed his inspection of the ceiling above their heads.

  The colonel stared out of the window, fidgeted, hesitated. Unconsciously he imitated a favourite gesture and rubbed the tip of his nose. Then he said:—

  “Or is he?”

  “I don’t know,” said Bobby.

  “A bit odd,” the colonel said, “the way he dragged it in about Martin having seen him handling the automatic here. Why was he so keen on our knowing that?”

  “There were one or two other things he said rather worried me,” Bobby said. “It all came in quite naturally about Ralph’s temper and opportunities but it all did come in. Why shouldn’t it for that matter?”

  “You don’t think,” said the colonel hesitatingly, “you don’t think he can be our man?”

  “It might be,” agreed Bobby cautiously.

  “What possible motive could he have?” asked the colonel. “None,” he answered himself firmly. “So that lets him out. Hang it all, we mustn’t get into the way of suspecting every one. Or must we?”

  “Well, sir,” answered Bobby, “at present I think we must.”

  CHAPTER XIV

  RALPH

  The next and last on the list to be interviewed was Ralph, though first there was an interlude when an offer of refreshments brought by Martin was gratefully accepted. Not much time was spent in this way, though; not half enough indeed in the considered opinion of the stenographer, and then Ralph appeared, looking very grim and defiant. But his voice was quiet and steady as, without waiting to be questioned, he began abruptly:—

  “I suppose you know what’s being said about me?”

  “We pay no attention to what people say,” the colonel told him at once.

  “Don’t you?” Ralph asked. “Well, I do. I don’t like being called a murderer. If any one says it to my face, I’ll—”

  He stopped there, with an effort that was evident, with eyes so fiercely alight, a mouth so ominously set, that the colonel was quite startled—and not too favourably impressed.

  “No violence, please,” he said sharply.

  “May I suggest to Mr. Hoyle,” interposed Bobby, “that if any one is suspected of an act of violence, the best way to strengthen that suspicion is to commit a further act of violence.”

  Ralph, who hitherto had hardly noticed Bobby, swung round in the chair he had just taken and stared at him. Their eyes met in a long and steady gaze, as those of Anne and Bobby had done a little before. But this time the long, searching stare they exchanged was not so much as if exchanged between two open adversaries, but, searching and questioning, an effort to divine each what was in the other’s mind. ‘Are you guilty?’ Bobby seemed to be asking and Ralph to be retorting: ‘What do you think?’ Both of them seemed for the moment to have forgotten the colonel, who himself seemed loath to interrupt that silent, not so much duel as intensity of search into another’s secret and most hidden thoughts. But then he coughed, almost apo
logetically, and said:—

  “Ralph, I’ve known all of you a good many years. That makes no difference now. But I warn you again that any show of violence will only make things worse.”

  Ralph swung round on him.

  “Well, what would you do,” he demanded, “if people were going about behind your back saying you were a murderer?”

  This was a difficult question, and the colonel made no attempt to answer it. Ralph did not seem to expect any reply, for he went on immediately:—

  “I was fond of him—of uncle, I mean, great-uncle really—I always called them uncle and aunt. You know we had a blazing row last night?”

  “Ralph,” the colonel said, speaking slowly and with some care, “it is not our duty—or our practice—to warn people unless we think there is likely to be sufficient evidence to justify a charge. I don’t think that about you and so I didn’t mean to give you any warning. But now I will. I remind you formally that anything you say may be used in evidence, that you are not obliged to answer questions, and that if you wish you can have your solicitor present.”

  “Thank you for making it so plain,” Ralph answered with some bitterness. “What you mean is the handcuffs are all ready but you are keeping them out of sight for the present. Well, anything I say you may use any damn way you like. I’m quite willing to answer any sensible”—he laid a slightly offensive emphasis on this last word—“any sensible question you want to ask me. As for a solicitor, I wouldn’t mind old Clinton being here. He’s been such a decent scout all along.” Ralph’s bitter, angry expression softened momentarily as he mentioned his friend’s name. “He’s stood by me from the first,” and now Ralph’s expression hardened again as if he were thinking of others who had emphatically not ‘stood by’ him. “He’s the one person I feel I can trust. But I don’t think we need bother him just at present. He’s got his own work to attend to, he’s gone haring off to his office where his clients have been lining up all day, waiting for him. But I’ll tell you one thing. No one’s going to call me a murderer to my face and get away with it.”