Trent Intervenes and Other Stories

by E. C. Bentley

  ‘No; he wouldn’t – what with being rather deaf, and asleep too, as he would be at the time, and the study being on the other side of the house. But he is terribly distressed that he did not – I think he persuades himself that he is to blame in a way. The whole thing has been quite shattering for him.’

  Trent considered for a few moments of silence. ‘And at the Fête you met your brother?’

  ‘Yes; he came there straight from Maidstone. It is only a twenty minutes’ run, and he probably got there before we did. He had been there some time, he said, when we ran into him in the crowd. After that the three of us were together until we returned here, and heard what had happened.’

  Trent found Gerald Shelley and Signor Capazza in the middle of a meadow that sloped down to a stream bounding the general’s property on one side. They had rods in their hands, and it was evident that the Italian was being given a dry-land initiation in the art of casting a fly. ‘There! You’ve got the trick of it,’ Trent heard Shelley say. ‘I’ve never known a beginner so quick at picking it up.’ ‘Aha! Sono molto pescatore!’ the other laughed. ‘Watch out, you feesh, when I get-a going!’

  Shelley, a slight, fair young man with a distraught and worn-out look, made a striking contrast with his friend, a tall, swarthy, and solidly built man of about thirty, with health and vigour in every athletic line of him.

  Shelley had quite agreed with his sister, he said, that Trent should be told all they could tell him, because he and his paper had a name for not printing anything the family wouldn’t like. He supposed she had already told him what she and Signor Capazza knew about it, which was more than anyone else knew, as no one else had seen Hoyt between lunch-time and the time when he was found murdered.

  Shelley dwelt upon this point, and volunteered a particular account of his own doings on the afternoon of the crime, mentioning several persons who had seen him in Maidstone, and appealing to the Italian to bear out his statement that the two of them and Miss Shelley had not been out of each other’s sight during the time spent at the Fête. Trent, who could think of one period when, by the girl’s account, she had not been with the other two, turned to Signor Capazza.

  ‘Eet ees true,’ Capazza said. His voice was deep and soft. ‘Togezzer all-a time, and so he tell-a da police. But my friend ees afraid they suspect-a heem,’ he added with a dazzling smile. ‘Ees all-a bunk, eh? Ees-a not likely he keel a man een hees own house, and among hees own-a famiglia, and for no reason. You theenk?’

  Trent agreed that it did not seem probable.

  ‘Oh, they suspect everybody, of course,’ Shelley said gloomily. ‘They suspect my father, for instance, just because he happened to be in the house when this murderer got in – which only shows you, because the governor would as soon shoot himself as do violence to a guest under his roof, to say nothing of stabbing him in the back.’

  ‘Well, they have to work to their system, you know,’ Trent said. ‘Will you tell me, signor, about that time when you and Miss Shelley saw Hoyt at the window? He said something, did he, about keeping his promise? What could he have meant by that?’

  A shade of embarrassment passed over Capazza’s expressive face. ‘I do not like to speak of eet, Mr Trent; but of course everything must be explain, I know eet. What you ask, I tell-a da police inspector already. You see, Hoyt would make-a fun of me often, because I drink always water. That day when he was keel he had drink-a much whisky, and after lunch he start on me again, why I not get souse once in a while and enjoy myself. Then I say to heem, “These friend of ours do not enjoy themself when you are souse, you know. They ought to be consider, when you are guest. Why do you not go easy on da liquor while you are here, so they like you better?” And Hoyt say, “I believe you give-a me good advice, and I show you I can lay off da booze when I want. After thees I-am on the water-cart while I am here, and that ees a promise.” So you see what he mean when he tell-a Mees Shelley about my blameless life, and that he will keep-a da promise.’

  Trent nodded. ‘Yes, I see. And a little later he shouted after you, when you and Miss Shelley were at the gate. Why was that, I wonder?’

  Capazza shrugged lightly. ‘How can I tell? I think he weesh us to return, but Mees Shelley say no, he is not sober, let us go on. And that ees the last time we see him alive.’

  ‘And when you heard of the murder, you could not form any idea of who did it, or why? I suppose you have not thought of anything since then, Signor Capazza. I mean, Hoyt was a friend of yours, and you knew something of his life and his circumstances, no doubt.’

  Capazza wagged a forefinger in a Latin gesture of emphatic denial. ‘No, no, Mr Trent; make-a no mistake. I know no more of heem than Mr Shelley knows. We all meet for da first time at da Greville Hotel, where Hoyt and I are both staying to visit your wonderful London. We sit in a bridge game a few times after dinner, and so we become acquaint. One evening Hoyt came to me in da smoke-room, and Mr Shelley with heem, and Hoyt say, “Thees gentleman and I have meet in da cocktail bar and got-a talking, and we think we would like to have a spot of poker. Will you join us?” I say, I will be very please indeed; so we play in Hoyt’s sitting-room, and we are all pretty good players, and we have a good time. After that we meet some more times; and then we are so friendly that Mr Shelley invite the two of us here to thees charming house. And now eet is all come to thees terrible end.’ Signor Capazza, sighing deeply, rolled his fine eyes heavenward.

  At the inquest next day, before the customary adjournment at the request of Chief-Inspector Jewell, in charge of the inquiry, the medical evidence was taken. Describing the wound, the witness said the knife had penetrated the left lung and the left ventricle of the heart. Such an injury must have been instantly fatal, and the victim had probably died without uttering a cry. The blow could not possibly have been self-inflicted. It would not have required any great strength, because the point of the weapon was as sharp as a knife-point could be.

  Trent, after hearing this evidence, was seen no more that day. He had driven back to London, and had spent an afternoon hour at the office of a friend of his, in the neighbourhood of Leicester Square. He had then written a carefully considered letter to Inspector Jewell, who received it duly the next morning.

  ‘I have [Trent wrote] a few suggestions to make which you may think it worthwhile to follow up. Some of the points, perhaps all of them, will have occurred to you already, but for the sake of clearness I will put down all that I think, and something that I know.

  ‘Gerald Shelley believes that he is under suspicion of having committed the crime; and so no doubt he is. Everything points to his having lost more money than he could pay to Hoyt and having applied to his father for help, probably at Hoyt’s suggestion. It may well be that General Shelley’s financial position was already not an easy one, and that Gerald was told so by him. If Hoyt’s antecedents could be traced, it might turn out that he was a professional sharper and swindler. In any case, if he had got Gerald in a desperate difficulty, Hoyt’s death would be very convenient for Gerald – and for his father also, who therefore falls under suspicion too, the more so as he was admittedly in the house when the murder was done. That is not the case with Gerald; but his alibi is no good. He could easily have called at the house, without being seen by anyone, on returning from Maidstone; and then proceeded at once to the Fête.

  ‘You will have considered that, of course; but you may not be as confident as I am that that is precisely what Gerald did do. What happened was, I believe, that he drove back to South Lodge for some purpose, went to the gun-room, and there found Hoyt lying dead with the knife in his back. At the same time he saw through the open window Miss Shelley and Signor Capazza walking towards the gate in the hedge. He ran to the window, shouted to them, and waved his arms, before he knew what he was doing. He saw them turn and glance towards him, while the poodle barked, recognising him, and leapt about in sympathy with his excitement, as dogs will. When they went on without paying any further attention to him he was naturally as
tonished, for although he knew his sister was too short-sighted, even with glasses, to recognise him at that distance, he had no reason to suppose that Capazza was short-sighted too. Still, he could only think that neither of them, in fact, had recognised him; and when he began to realise his position, he was glad indeed to think so.

  ‘He saw that if he was known to have been in the room where the murdered man lay, before the body was found by any other person, he would be in the gravest danger. He knew what motive would be imputed to him, and he could not imagine, then or afterwards, who else could possibly have murdered Hoyt. He was in the position of an innocent man who fears to tell the truth because it points directly at his own guilt.

  ‘He determined to do his best to fabricate an alibi, weak though he must have seen it to be; and his statement to you was the result.

  ‘I was led to this conclusion by noting some curious details in the account given to me by Miss Shelley of what happened on that same occasion. In the first place, she said that when she heard Hoyt shouting she glanced back and saw him waving his arm. Now I knew from my own observation that Miss Shelley could not see well enough to have made out, at a glance and at that distance, who it was at the window. What she actually did was to assume that it was Hoyt; and quite naturally, having really seen him at that window a minute before. She said, too, that she was annoyed by the dog trying to run back, and making a noise that might disturb her father’s siesta. I was struck by that, because she had already told me that the dog was terrified of Hoyt, and could only shiver and cringe when he was about. But if she had had the least uncertainty about its being Hoyt at the window, it must have been banished by Signor Capazza recognising him as Hoyt, and asking her if she wished to go back at the invitation of a tipsy man.

  ‘That was quick and clever of Capazza, for if it was really Gerald at the window, as I believe, Capazza would have recognised him instantly. His sight is exceptionally keen. I know that now; and I had got that impression before, when I heard how quickly he had mastered the art of throwing a fly, which is a difficult combination of the work of wrist and eye.

  ‘There was another thing which struck me about Miss Shelley’s story of what had happened when Hoyt spoke from the window to herself and Capazza. She said that his manner had been offensive and sneering – and she is, I think, a perfectly honest witness. But Capazza, telling me of the same facts, put an entirely different colour on them. He represented Hoyt as being in a rather chastened temper, after having sworn off drink at Capazza’s suggestion, and as having merely repeated that promise made a short time before. That would have been quite a plausible explanation of the words Hoyt had said, but for Miss Shelley’s description of the way he had said them. And she was very sure about that, because she had been so much offended that she turned her back on him and gave her attention to cutting a rose.

  ‘It was that final detail which put an idea into my head. It was an idea which might be wild, but which provided an answer, at least, to some curious questions.

  ‘Why had the dog behaved in that way, if the man who shouted from the window had been Hoyt?

  ‘If the man was not Hoyt, why had Capazza pretended to Miss Shelley that he was Hoyt? And why had he reminded her that Hoyt had been drinking, if he believed Hoyt to be at that time in a penitent mood, and anxious not to make himself objectionable?

  ‘Lastly, had something happened, unseen by Miss Shelley, while her back was turned; while she was taking the scissors from her bag and cutting a rose?

  ‘Perhaps you see the direction that my ideas were taking. I waited for the inquest, to hear what the doctor would say about the cause of death; and it did not dispose of my suspicion. A few hours later I paid a visit to Mr Hyman Weingott, of 247 Green Street, who has a theatrical and vaudeville agency, and knows all there is to know about the business. I described Signor Capazza to him, and I asked him a question. Mr Weingott went to a bookcase filled with cardboard folders, arranged alphabetically, and took down one from among the B’s. The name on the cover was Briccione. He took out some papers and three photographs, which he handed to me. They were excellent likenesses of Signor Giulio Capazza.

  ‘Then I told Mr Weingott the whole story, and my guess as to how Hoyt had met his death. He was keenly interested. He said there were many people in London who could identify Briccione, but he would like to do it himself. He will travel to Headcorn tomorrow afternoon by the train which gets in at 3.28, and will report to you when he arrives.

  ‘Tito Briccione was born at Calascibetta in Sicily. He is an American citizen, his parents having emigrated when he was an infant; and he was brought up amongst the poor Italians in New York. Briccione is the most eminent knife-thrower in that small and highly-paid profession, having learnt his art from the celebrated Leo Latti. He can hit the ace of spades at 20 feet, and has never been known to miss. He has toured all over Europe and America for years, and in England his minimum fee has been £50 for a ten-minute turn. He is said to have made a good deal of money, in spite of his career having been interrupted by two terms of imprisonment in New York State. In both cases his offence was aggravated assault as the result of a quarrel. Owing to his ferocious temper and readiness to use the knife he always carried (under his left arm), he is reputed a dangerous man, and credited with several murders and stabbings that were never brought home to him. He is rigidly abstemious, because knife-throwers have to be; but he is a confirmed gambler, and associates a good deal with professional card-sharks.

  ‘So there you have a brief history of Signor Capazza. I don’t know what you thought about his story of how he became acquainted with Hoyt, and afterwards with Gerald Shelley. It sounded to me at the time just like a card-sharping variation of the confidence trick, and I think it fits in – as also does the sort of English Capazza talks – with what Mr Weingott told me. Probably the two of them had conspired to fleece Gerald, and Capazza would not leave Hoyt until the money had been collected and divided.

  ‘I suggest that Capazza murdered Hoyt by throwing his knife at a moment when Hoyt turned away from the gun-room window, Miss Shelley having her back to it; that he did so while standing close to Miss Shelley, but between her and the window, and at a distance from it of about sixteen feet. Gerald Shelley entered the room while they were walking to the gate in the hedge, and as they reached it he shouted after them. Briccione-Capazza is a man who can think and act very swiftly. He saw instantly that Miss Shelley took the man at the window to be Hoyt, and that if they both gave evidence to that effect his alibi would take a lot of breaking; so he played up to her belief.

  ‘Why he killed Hoyt can be a matter of guesswork only. My own guess is that Hoyt, who resented Miss Shelley’s preferring Capazza’s company to his own, had threatened to tell the Shelley family the story of Capazza’s “blameless life” unless he gave up cultivating Miss Shelley’s society; that when Hoyt heard him asking for a rose he determined “to keep his promise”, and he said so; that this was too much for Briccione’s fiendish temper, and that when Hoyt turned from the window he seized his chance with a gambler’s boldness.’

  On the afternoon of the day on which Inspector Jewell received this letter, Trent was at home in his studio. He had plenty to do there, and on the scene of the murder there was no more, he thought, to be discovered. A representative of the Record, who remained on the spot, was to telephone him the result of Mr Weingott’s visit; and Trent had already drafted, in advance of the facts, a message announcing the latest action taken by the police, and revealing the true identity of Giulio Capazza. At 4.15 the call came through, and Trent had little to add to his story before dispatching it to Fleet Street.

  An official version of what had happened came to Trent by the first post next morning. The letter ran as follows:

  DEAR SIR,

  I have to acknowledge your favour of the 22nd inst., and to thank you for the contents of same.

  Mr Weingott arrived here this afternoon as per your letter, and we then proceeded to South Court. In view of
your information re the criminal record of Briccione, alias Capazza, I thought it best that we should be accompanied by a uniformed constable. We found Briccione with Mr Gerald Shelley fishing in the stream, and they did not observe our approach until Mr Weingott said to me, ‘That is the man. I should know him anywhere.’ Briccione looked up and appeared to recognise Mr Weingott, to whom he applied an obscene epithet. Acting with such rapidity that for a moment we were unable to intervene, Briccione then flung himself upon Mr Weingott, seized him by the hair with both hands and attempted to bite him in the throat. Mr Weingott struck Briccione a heavy blow over the ear, and another below the belt, while we were pinioning him from behind, so that the arrest was effected without further difficulty. Subsequently Briccione was charged before a special meeting of the magistrates in Maidstone, and committed for trial at the next assizes.

  Mr Gerald Shelley has confessed that his statement made to us on the day of the crime was an incomplete account of his movements, which were substantially as suggested in your letter. As he appears to have had no knowledge of the identity of the murderer of Mr Hoyt, and no motive but to avoid being implicated in the crime, we have decided as at present advised to bring no charge against him.

  I am,

  Yours faithfully,

  C M JEWELL

  (Chief-Inspector)

  IX

  The Public Benefactor

  Colonel White drifted gently out from the enormous portal of the Hotel Artemare, and relapsed into a chair on the veranda overlooking the sunlit picture of Monte Carlo, with the wall of mountain majesty that made a sublimely unconscious background for its trivial charm. With his long, slim fingers he lighted a long, slim cigar, and his heavy-lidded eyes roamed slowly over the scene. Presently he rose to his feet as a tall, fair young woman came from the hotel and took a chair near his.