XII
THE FULTON GARDENS MYSTERY
"Are you prepared to admit," the Old Man in the Corner said abruptly as soon as he had finished his glass of milk, "that sympathy, understanding, largeness of heart—what?—are invariably the outcome of a big brain? It is the fool who is censorious and cruel. Your clever man is nearly always sympathetic. He understands, he appreciates, he studies motives and understands them. During the war it was the fools who tracked down innocent men and women under pretence that they were spies; it was the fools who did not understand that a German might be just as fine a patriot as a Briton or a Frenchman if he served his own country. The hard, cruel man is almost always a fool; the backbiting old maid invariably so.
"I am tempted to say this," he went on, "because I have been thinking over that curious case which newspaper reporters have called the Fulton Gardens Mystery. You remember it, don't you?"
"Yes," I said, "I do. As a matter of fact I knew poor old Mr. Jessup slightly, and I was terribly shocked when I heard about that awful tragedy. And to think that that horrid young Leighton——"
"Ha!" my eccentric friend broke in, with a chuckle, "then you have held on to that theory, have you?"
"There was no other possible!" I retorted.
"But he was discharged."
I shrugged my shoulders under pretence of being unconvinced. As a matter of fact, all I wanted was to make the funny creature talk.
"A flimsy alibi," I said coldly.
"And a want of sympathy," he rejoined.
"What has sympathy got to do with a brutal assault on a defenceless old man? You can't deny that Leighton had something, at any rate, to do with it?"
"I did not mean sympathy for the guilty," he argued, "but for the women who were the principal witnesses in the case."
"I don't see——" I protested.
"No, but I do. I understood, and in a great measure I sympathised."
At which expression of noble sentiment I burst out laughing. I couldn't help it. In view of his preamble just now his fatuous statement was funny beyond words.
"You being the clever man who understands, etcetera," I said, as seriously as I could, "and I the censorious and cruel old maid who is invariably a fool."
"You put it crudely," he rejoined complacently, "and had you not given ample proof of your intelligence before now I might have thought it worth while to refute the second half of your argument. As for the first..."
"Hadn't you better tell me about the Fulton Gardens Mystery?" I broke in impatiently.
"Certainly," he replied, in no way abashed. "I have meant to talk to you about it all along, only that you would digress."
"Pax!" I retorted, and with a conciliatory smile I handed him a beautiful bit of string. He pounced on it with thin hands that looked like the talons of a bird, and he gloated on that bit of string for all the world as on a prey.
"I dare say," he began, "that to most people the mystery appeared baffling enough. But to me ... Well, there was the victim of what you very properly call the cowardly assault, your friend—or acquaintance—Mr. Seton Jessup, a man on the wrong side of sixty, but very active and vigorous for his years. He carried on the business of pearl merchant in Fulton Gardens, but he did not live there, as you know. He was a married man, had sons and daughters and a nice house in Fitzjohn's Avenue. He also owned the house in Fulton Gardens, a four-storied building of the pattern prevalent in that neighbourhood. The ground floor, together with the one above that, and the basement were used by Mr. Jessup himself for his business: on the ground floor he had his office and showroom, above that were a couple of reception rooms, where he usually had his lunch and saw a few privileged customers, and in the basement there was a kitchen with scullery and pantry, a small servants' hall, and a strong-room for valuables. The top story of all was let to a surgical-instrument maker who did not sleep on the premises, and the second floor—that is the one just below the surgical-instrument maker and immediately above the reception rooms—was occupied by Mrs. Tufnell, who was cook-housekeeper to Mr. Jessup, and her niece, Ann Weber, who acted as the house-parlourmaid. Mrs. Tufnell's son, Mark, who was a junior clerk in the office, did not sleep in the house. He was considered to be rather delicate, and lived with a family somewhere near the Alexandra Palace.
"All these people, as you know, played important parts in the drama that was enacted on the sixteenth of November at No. 13, Fulton Gardens—an unlucky number, by the way, but one which Mr. Jessup did not change to the usual 12a when he bought the house, because he despised all superstition. He was a hard-headed, prosperous business man; he worked hard himself, and expected hard work from his employés. Both his sons worked in the office, one as senior clerk, and the other as showman, and in addition to young Mark Tufnell there was another junior clerk—a rather unsatisfactory youth named Arthur Leighton, who was some sort of a relation of Mrs. Jessup's. But for this connection he never would have been kept on in the business, as he was unpunctual, idle, and unreliable. The housekeeper, as well as some of the neighbours, had been scandalised lately by what was picturesquely termed the 'goings on of that young Leighton with Ann, the housemaid at No. 13.'
"Ann Weber was a very pretty girl, and like many pretty girls she was fond of finery and of admiration. As soon as she entered Mr. Jessup's service she started a flirtation with Mark Tufnell, then she dropped him for a while in favour of the youngest Mr. Jessup; then she went back to Mark, and seemed really in love with him that time until, finally, she transferred her favours to Arthur Leighton, chiefly because he was by far the most generous of her admirers. He was always giving her presents of jewellery which Mark Tufnell could not afford, and young Jessup apparently did not care to give her. But she did not, by any means, confine her flirtations to one man: indeed, it appears that she had a marvellous facility for keeping several men hanging about her dainty apron-strings. She was not on the best of terms with her aunt, chiefly because the latter noted with some asperity that her son was far from cured of his infatuation for the pretty housemaid. The more she flirted with Leighton and the others the greater did his love for her appear, and all that Mrs. Tufnell could hope for was that Mr. Leighton would marry Ann one day soon, when he would take her right away and Mark would then probably make up his mind to forget her. Young Leighton was doing very well in business apparently, for he always had plenty of money to spend, whilst poor Mark had only a small salary, and, moreover, had nothing of the smart, dashing ways about him which had made the other man so attractive to Ann.”
"And now," the Old Man in the Corner continued after a while, "we come to that sixteenth of November when the mysterious drama occurred at No. 13, Fulton Gardens. As a general rule, it seems, Mr. Jessup was in his office most evenings until seven o'clock. His clerks and showmen finished at six, but he would, almost invariably, stay on an hour longer to go through his accounts or look over his stock. On this particular evening, just before seven o'clock, he rang for the housekeeper, Mrs. Tufnell, and told her that he would be staying until quite late, and would she send him in a cup of tea and a plate of sandwiches in about an hour's time. Mrs. Tufnell owned to being rather disappointed when she had this order because her son Mark had arranged to take her and Ann to the cinema that evening, and now, of course, they could not leave until after Mr. Jessup had gone, in case he wanted anything, and he might be staying on until all hours. However, Mark stayed to supper, and after supper Mrs. Tufnell got the tea and sandwiches ready and took the tray up to Mr. Jessup herself. Mr. Jessup was then sitting at his desk with two or three big books in front of him, and Mrs. Tufnell noticed that the safe in which the cash was kept that came in after banking hours was wide open.
"Mrs. Tufnell put down the tray, and was about to leave the room again when Mr. Jessup spoke to her.
"'I expect Mr. Leighton back presently. Show him in here when he comes. But I don't want to see anybody else, not any of you. Understand?'
"It seems that he said this in such a harsh and peremptory manner that Mrs. Tufnell was not only upset, but quite frightened. Mr. Jessup had always been very kind and considerate to his servants, and the housekeeper declared that she had never been spoken to like that before. But we all know what that sort of people are: they have no understanding, and unless you are perpetually smiling at them they turn huffy at the slightest word of impatience. Undoubtedly Mr. Jessup was both tired and worried, and no great stress was laid by the police subsequently on the fact that he had spoken harshly on this occasion. Even to you at this moment I dare say that this seems a trifling circumstance, but I mention it because to my mind it had a great deal of significance, and I think that the police were very wrong to dismiss it quite so lightly.
"Well, to resume. Mr. Jessup was in his office with his books and with the safe, where he kept all the cash that came in after banking hours, open. Mrs. Tufnell saw and spoke to him at eight o'clock and he was then expecting Arthur Leighton to come to him at nine.
"No one saw him alive after that.
"The next morning Mrs. Tufnell was downstairs as usual at a quarter to seven. After she had lighted the kitchen fire, done her front steps and swept the hall she went to do the ground-floor rooms. She told the police afterwards that from the moment she got up she felt that there was something wrong in the house. Somehow or other she was frightened; she didn't know of what, but she was frightened. As soon as she had opened the office door she gave a terrified scream. Mr. Jessup was sitting at his desk just as Mrs. Tufnell had seen him the night before, with his big books in front of him and the safe door open. But his head had fallen forward on the desk, and his arms were spread out over his books. Mrs. Tufnell never doubted for a second but that he was dead, even before she saw the stick lying on the floor and that horrible, horrible dull red stain which spread from the back of the old man's head, right down to his neck and stained his collar and the top of his coat. Even before she saw all that she knew that Mr. Jessup was dead. Terrified, she clung to the open door; she could do nothing but stare and stare, for the room, the furniture, the motionless figure by the desk had started whirling round and round before her eyes, so that she felt that at any moment she might fall down in a dead faint. It seemed ages before she heard Ann's voice calling to her, asking what was the matter. Ann was lazy and never came downstairs before eight o'clock. She had apparently only just tumbled out of bed when she heard Mrs. Tufnell's scream. Now she came running downstairs, with her bare feet thrust into her slippers and a dressing-gown wrapped round her.
"'What is it, Auntie?' she kept on asking as she ran. 'What has happened?'
"And when she reached the office door, she only gave one look into the room and exclaimed, 'Oh, my God! He's killed him!'
"Somehow Ann's exclamation of horror brought Mrs. Tufnell to her senses. With a great effort she pulled herself together, just in time, too, to grip Ann by the arm, or the girl would have measured her length on the tiled floor behind her. As it was, Mrs. Tufnell gave her a vigorous shake:
"'What do you mean, Ann Weber?' she demanded in a hoarse whisper. 'What do you mean? Who has killed him?'
"But Ann couldn't or wouldn't utter another word. She was as white as a sheet and, staggering backwards, she had fallen up against the bannisters at the foot of the stairs and was clinging to them, wide-eyed, with twitching mouth and shaking knees.
"'Pull yourself together, Ann Weber,' Mrs. Tufnell said peremptorily, 'and run and fetch the police at once.'
"But Ann looked as if she couldn't move. She kept on reiterating in a dry, meaningless manner, 'The police! The police,' until Mrs. Tufnell, who by now had gathered her wits together, gave her a vigorous push and then went upstairs to put on her bonnet. A few minutes later she had gone for the police.
"I don't know," the Old Man in the Corner went on glibly, "whether you remember all the circumstances which made that case such a puzzling one. Indeed, it well deserved the popular name that the evening papers bestowed on it—'The Fulton Gardens Mystery'—for it was, indeed, a mystery, and to most people it has so remained to this day."
"Not to you," I put in, with a smile, just to humour him, as I could see he was waiting to be buttered-up before he would proceed with his narrative.
"No, not to me," he admitted, with his fatuous smile. "If the members of the police force who had the case in hand had been psychologists, they would not have been puzzled, either. But they were satisfied with their own investigations and with all that was revealed at the inquest, and they looked no further, with the result that when the edifice of their deductions collapsed, they had nowhere to turn. Time had gone on, evidences had become blurred, witnesses were less sure of themselves and less reliable, and a certain blackguard, on whom I for one could lay my fingers at this moment, is going through the world scot-free.
"But let me begin by telling you the facts as they were revealed at the inquest. You can then form your own conclusions, and I dare say that these will be quite as erroneous as those arrived at by the public and the police.
"The drama began to unfold itself when Mr. Ernest Jessup, the younger son of the deceased gentleman, was called. He began by explaining that he was junior clerk in his father's office, and that he, along with all the other employés had remarked on the sixteenth that the guv'nor did not seem at all like himself. He was irritable with everybody, and just before luncheon he called Arthur Leighton into his office and apparently some very hot words passed between the two. Witness happened to be in the hall at the moment, getting his hat and coat, and the housemaid was standing by. They both heard very loud voices coming from the office. The guv'nor was storming away at the top of his voice.
"'That's poor Leighton getting it in the neck,' witness remarked to Ann Weber.
"But the girl only giggled and shrugged her shoulders. Then she said: 'Do you think so?'
"'Yes,' witness replied, 'aren't you sorry to see your devoted admirer in such hot water?'
"Again the girl giggled and then ran away upstairs. Mr. Leighton was not at the office the whole of that afternoon, but witness understood, either from his father or from his brother—he couldn't remember which—that Leighton was to come in late that night to interview the guv'nor.
"Witness was next questioned as to the events that occurred at Mr. Jessup's home in Fitzjohn's Avenue, while the terrible tragedy was enacted in Fulton Gardens. It seems that Mr. Jessup had an old mother who lived in St. Albans, and that he went sometimes to see her after business hours and stayed the night. As a general rule, when he intended going he would telephone home in the course of the afternoon. On the sixteenth he rang up at about five o'clock and said that he was staying late at the office—later than usual—and they were not to wait dinner for him. Mrs. Jessup took this message herself, and had recognised her husband's voice. Then, later on in the evening—it might have been half-past eight or nine—there was another telephone message from the office. Witness went to the telephone that time. A voice, which at first he did not think that he recognised, said: 'Mr. Jessup has gone to St. Albans. He caught the 7.50, and won't be home to-night.' In giving evidence witness at first insisted on the fact that he did not recognise the voice on the telephone. It was a man's voice, and sounded like that of a person who was rather the worse for drink. He asked who was speaking, and the reply came quite clearly that time: 'Why, it's Leighton, you ass! Don't you know me?' Witness then asked: 'Where are you speaking from?' and the reply was: 'From the office, of course. I've had my wigging and am getting consoled by our Annie-bird.' Annie-bird was the name the pretty housemaid went by among the young clerks at the office. Witness then hung up the receiver and gave his mother the message. Neither Mrs. Jessup nor any one else in the house thought anything more about it, as there was nothing whatever unusual about the occurrence. Witness only made some remarks about Arthur Leighton having been drinking again, and there the matter unfortunately remained until the following morning, when witness and his brother arrived at the office and were met with the awful news.
"Both Mrs. Jessup and Mr. Aubrey, the eldest son, corroborated the statements made by the previous witness with regard to the telephone messages on the evening of the sixteenth. Mr. Aubrey Jessup also stated that he knew that his father was worried about some irregularities in Arthur Leighton's accounts, and that he meant to have it out with the young clerk in the course of the evening. Witness had begged his father to let the matter rest until the next day, as Leighton, he thought, had got the afternoon off to see a sick sister, but the deceased had rejected the suggestion with obvious irritation.
"'Stuff and nonsense!' he said. 'I don't believe in that sick sister a bit. I'll see that young blackguard to-night.'
"The next witness was Mrs. Tufnell, who was cook-housekeeper at Fulton Gardens. She was a middle-aged, capable-looking woman, with a pair of curiously dark eyes. I say 'curiously' because Mrs. Tufnell's eyes had that velvety quality which is usually only met with in southern countries. I have seldom seen them in England, except, perhaps, in Cornwall. Apart from her eyes, there was nothing either remarkable or beautiful about Mrs. Tufnell. She may have been good-looking once, but that was a long time ago. When she stood up to give evidence her face appeared rather bloodless, weather-beaten, and distinctly hard. She spoke quite nicely and without any of that hideous Cockney accent one might have expected from a cook in a City office.
"She deposed that on the sixteenth, just before the luncheon hour, she was crossing the hall at 13, Fulton Gardens. The door into the office was ajar, and she heard Mr. Jessup's voice raised, evidently in great wrath. Mrs. Tufnell also heard Mr. Leighton's voice, both gentlemen, as she picturesquely put it, going at one another hammer and tongs. Obviously, though she wouldn't admit it, Mrs. Tufnell stopped to listen, but she does not seem to have understood much of what was said. However, a moment or two later, Mr. Jessup went to the door in order to shut it, and while he did so, Mrs. Tufnell heard him say quite distinctly:
"'Well, if you must go now, you must, though I don't believe a word about your sister being ill. But you may go; only, understand that I expect you back here this evening not later than nine. I shall have gone through the accounts by then, and...'
"At this point the door was shut and witness heard nothing more. But she reiterated the statements which she had already made to the police, and which I have just retold you, about Mr. Jessup staying late at the office and her taking him in some sandwiches, when he told her that he was expecting Mr. Leighton at about nine o'clock and did not wish to be disturbed by anybody else. Witness was asked to repeat what the deceased had actually said to her with reference to this matter, and she laid great stress on Mr. Jessup's harsh and dictatorial manner, so different, she said, to his usual gentlemanly ways.
"'"I don't want to see anybody else—not any of you," that's what he said,' Mrs. Tufnell replied, with an air of dignity, and then added: 'As if Ann Weber or I had ever thought of disturbing him when he was at work!'
"Witness went on to relate that, after she had taken in the tray of tea and sandwiches, she went upstairs and found Ann Weber sitting in her room by herself. Mark, the girl explained, had gone off, very disappointed that they couldn't all go together to the cinema. Mrs. Tufnell argued the point for a moment or two, as she didn't see why Ann should have refused to go if she wanted to see the show. But the girl seemed to have turned sulky. Anyway, it was too late, she said, as Mark had gone off by himself: he had booked the places and didn't want to waste them, so he was going to get another friend to go with him.
"Mrs. Tufnell then settled down to do some sewing, and Ann turned over the pages of a stale magazine. Mrs. Tufnell thought that she appeared restless and agitated. Her cheeks were flushed and at the slightest sound she gave a startled jump. Presently she said that she had some silver to clean in the pantry, and went downstairs to do it. Some little time after that there was a ring at the front-door bell, and Mrs. Tufnell heard Ann going through the hall to open the door. A quarter of an hour went by, and then another.
"Mrs. Tufnell began to wonder what Ann was up to. She put down her sewing and started to go downstairs. The first thing that struck her was that all the lights on the stairs and landing were out; the house appeared very silent and dark; only a glimmer came from one of the lights downstairs in the hall at the foot of the stairs.
"Mrs. Tufnell went down cautiously. Strangely enough, it did not occur to her to turn on the lights on her way. After she had passed the first-floor landing she heard the sound of muffled voices coming from the hall below. Thinking that she recognised Ann's voice, she called to her: 'Is that you, Ann?' And Ann immediately replied: 'Coming, aunt.' 'Who are you talking to?' Mrs. Tufnell asked, and as Ann did not answer this time, she went on: 'Is it Mr. Leighton?' And Ann said: 'Yes. He is just going.'
"Mrs. Tufnell stood there, waiting. She was half-way down the stairs between the first floor and the hall, and she couldn't see Ann or Mr. Leighton, but a moment or two later she heard Ann's voice saying quite distinctly: 'Well, good-night, Mr. Leighton, see you to-morrow as usual.' After which the front door was opened, then banged to again, and presently Ann came tripping back across the hall.
"'You go to bed now, Ann,' Mrs. Tufnell said to her. 'I'll see Mr. Jessup off when he goes. He won't be long now, I dare say.'
"'Oh, but,' Ann said, 'Mr. Jessup has been gone some time.'
"'Gone some time?' Mrs. Tufnell exclaimed. 'He can't have been gone some time. Why, he was expecting Mr. Leighton, and Mr. Leighton has only just gone.'
"Ann shrugged her shoulders. 'I can only tell you what I know, Mrs. Tufnell,' she said acidly. 'You can come down and see for yourself. The office is shut up and all the lights out.'
"'But didn't Mr. Leighton see Mr. Jessup?'
"'No, he didn't. Mr. Jessup told Mr. Leighton to wait, and then he went away without seeing him.'
"'That's funny,' Mrs. Tufnell remarked, dryly. 'What was Mr. Leighton doing in the house, then, all this time? I heard the front-door bell half an hour ago and more.'
"'That's no business of yours, Aunt Sarah,' the girl retorted pertly. 'And it wasn't half an hour, so there!'
"Mrs. Tufnell did not argue the point any further. Mechanically she went downstairs and ascertained in point of fact that the door of the office and the show-room on the ground floor were both locked as usual, and that the key of the office was outside in the lock. This was entirely in accordance with custom. Mrs. Tufnell, through force of habit, did just turn the key and open the door of the office. She just peeped in to see that the lights were really all out. Satisfied that everything was dark she then closed and relocked the door. Ann, in the meanwhile, stood half-way up the stairs watching. Then the two women went upstairs together. They had only just got back in their room when the front-door bell rang once more.
"'Now, whoever can that be?' Mrs. Tufnell exclaimed.
"'Don't trouble, aunt,' Ann said with alacrity. 'I'll run down and see.' Which she did. Again it was some time before she came back, and when she did get back to her room, she seemed rather breathless and agitated.
"'Some one for Mr. Jessup,' she said in answer to Mrs. Tufnell's rather acid remark that she had been gone a long time. 'He kept me talking ever such a while. I don't think he believed me when I said Mr. Jessup had gone.'
"'Who was it?' witness asked.
"'I don't know,' the girl replied. 'I never saw him before.'
"'Didn't you ask his name?'
"'I did. But he said it didn't matter—he would call again to-morrow.'
"After that the two women sat for a little while longer, Mrs. Tufnell sewing, and Ann still rather restlessly turning over the pages of a magazine. At ten o'clock they went to bed. And that was the end of the day as far as the household of Mr. Jessup was concerned.
"You may well imagine that all the amateur detectives who were present at the inquest had made up their minds by now that Arthur Leighton had murdered Mr. Seton Jessup, and robbed the till both before and after the crime. It was a simple deduction easily arrived at and presenting the usual features. A flirty minx, an enamoured young man, extravagance, greed, opportunity, and supreme temptation. Amongst the public there were many who did not even think it worth while to hear further witnesses. To their minds the hangman's rope was already round young Leighton's neck. Of course, I admit that at this point it seemed a very clear case. It was only after this that complications arose and soon the investigations bristled with difficulties.
"After a good deal of tedious and irrelevant evidence had been gone through the inquest was adjourned, and the public left the court on the tiptoe of expectation as to what the morrow would bring. Nor was any one disappointed, for on the morrow the mystery deepened, even though there was plenty of sensational evidence for newspaper reporters to feed on.
"The police, it seems, had brought forward a very valuable witness in the person of the point policeman, who was on duty from eight o'clock onwards on the evening of the sixteenth at the corner of Clerkenwell Road and Fulton Gardens. No. 13 is only a few yards up the street. The man had stated, it seems, that soon after half-past eight he had seen a man come along Fulton Gardens from the direction of Holborn, go up to the front door of No. 13 and ring the bell. He was admitted after a minute or two, and he stayed in the house about half an hour. It was a dark night, and there was a slight drizzle; the witness could not swear to the man's identity. He was slight and of middle height, and walked like a young man. When he arrived he wore a bowler hat and no overcoat, but when he came out again he had an overcoat on and a soft grey hat, and carried the bowler in his hand. Witness noticed as he walked away up Fulton Gardens towards Finsbury this time he took off the soft hat, slipped it into the pocket of his overcoat, and put on the bowler. About ten minutes later, not more, another visitor called at No. 13. He also was slight and tallish, and he wore an overcoat and a bowler hat. He turned into Fulton Gardens from Clerkenwell Road, but on the opposite corner to the one where witness was standing. He rang the bell and was admitted, and stayed about twenty minutes. He walked away in the direction of Holborn. Witness would not undertake to identify either of these two visitors; he had not been close enough to them to see their faces, and there was a good deal of fog that night as well as the drizzle. There was nothing suspicious looking about either of the men. They had walked quite openly up to the front door, rung the bell, and been admitted. The only thing that had struck the constable as queer was the way the first visitor had changed hats when he walked away.
"Witness swore positively that no one else had gone in or out of No. 13 that night except those two visitors. How important this evidence was you will understand presently.
"After this young Tufnell was called. He was a shy-looking fellow, with a nervous manner altogether out of keeping with his dark expressive eyes—eyes which he had obviously inherited from his mother and which gave him a foreign as well as a romantic appearance. He was said to be musical and to be a talented amateur actor. Every one agreed, it seems, that he had always been a very good son to his mother until his love for Ann Weber had absorbed all his thoughts and most of his screw. He explained that he was junior clerk to Mr. Jessup, and as far as he knew had always given satisfaction. On the sixteenth he had also noticed that the guv'nor was not quite himself. He appeared unusually curt and irritable with everybody. Witness had not been in the house all the evening. When his mother told him that neither she nor Ann could go to the cinema with him he went off by himself, and after the show he went straight back to his digs near the Alexandra Palace. He only heard of the tragedy when he arrived at the office as usual on the morning of the seventeenth. His evidence would have seemed uninteresting and unimportant but for the fact that while he gave it he glanced now and again in the direction where Ann Weber sat beside her aunt. It seemed as if he were all the time mutely asking for her approval of what he was saying, and presently when the coroner asked him whether he knew the cause of his employer's irritability, he very obviously looked at Ann before he finally said: 'No, sir, I don't!'
"After that Ann Weber was called. Of course it had been clear all along that she was by far the most important witness in this mysterious case, and when she rose from her place, looking very trim and neat in her navy-blue coat and skirt, with a jaunty little hat pulled over her left eye, and wearing long amber earrings that gave her pretty face a piquant expression, every one settled down comfortably to enjoy the sensation of the afternoon.
"Ann, who was thoroughly self-possessed, answered the coroner's preliminary questions quite glibly, and when she was asked to relate what occurred at No. 13, Fulton Gardens on the night of the sixteenth, she plunged into her story without any hesitation or trace of nervousness.
"'At about half-past eight,' she said, 'or it may have been later—I won't swear as to the time—there was a ring at the front-door bell. I was down in the pantry, and as I came upstairs I heard the office door being opened. When I got into the passage I saw Mr. Jessup standing in the doorway of the office. He had his spectacles on his nose, and a pen in his hand. He looked as if he had just got up from his desk.'
"'"If that's young Leighton," he said to me, "tell him I'll see him to-morrow. I can't be bothered now." Then he went back into the office and shut the door.
"'I opened the door to Mr. Leighton,' witness continued, 'and he came in looking very cold and wet. I told him that Mr. Jessup didn't want to see him to-night. He seemed very pleased at this, but he wouldn't go away, and when I told him I was busy he said that I couldn't be so unkind as to turn a fellow out into the rain without giving him a drink. Now I could see that already Mr. Leighton he'd had a bit too much, and I told him so quite plainly. But there! he wouldn't take "No" for an answer, and as it really was jolly cold and damp I told him to go and sit down in the servants' hall while I got him a hot toddy. I went down into the kitchen and put the kettle on and cut a couple of sandwiches. I don't know where Mr. Leighton was during that time or what he was doing. I was in the kitchen some time, because I couldn't get the kettle to boil as the fire had gone down and we have no gas downstairs. When I took the tray into the servants' hall Mr. Leighton was there, and again I told him that I didn't think he ought to have any more whisky, but he only laughed, and was rather impudent, so I just put the tray down, and then I thought that I would run upstairs and see if Mr. Jessup wanted anything. I was rather surprised when I got to the hall to see that all the lights up the stairs had been turned off. There's a switch down in the hall that turns off the lot. The whole house looked very dark. There was but a very little light that came from the lamp at the other end of the hall, near the front door. I was just thinking that I would turn on the lights again when I saw what I could have sworn was Mr. Jessup coming out of his office. He had already got his hat and coat on, and when he came out of the office he shut the door and turned the key in the lock, just as Mr. Jessup always did. It never struck me for a moment that it could be anybody but him. Though it was dark, I recognised his hat and his overcoat, and his own way of turning the key. I spoke to him,' witness continued in answer to a question put to her by the coroner, 'but he didn't reply; he just went straight through the hall and out by the front door. Then after a bit Mr. Leighton came up, and I told him Mr. Jessup had gone. He was quite pleased, and stopped talking in the hall for a moment, and then aunt called to me and Mr. Leighton went away.'
"Witness was then questioned as to the other visitor who called later that same evening, but she stated that she had no idea who it was. 'He came about nine,' she explained, 'and I went down to open the door. He kept me talking ever such a time, asking all sorts of silly questions; I didn't know how to get rid of him, and he wouldn't leave his name. He said he would call again and that it didn't matter.'
"Ann Weber here gave the impression that the unknown visitor had stopped for a flirtation with her on the doorstep, and her smirking and pert glances rather irritated the coroner. He pulled her up sharply by putting a few straight questions to her. He wanted to pin her down to a definite statement as to the time when (1) she opened the door to Mr. Leighton, (2) she saw what she thought was Mr. Jessup go out of the house, and (3) the second visitor arrived. Though doubtful as to the exact time, Ann was quite sure that the three events occurred in the order in which she had originally related, and in this she was, of course, corroborating the evidence of the point policeman. But there was the mysterious contradiction. Ann Weber swore that Mr. Leighton followed her up from the servants' hall just after she had seen the mysterious individual go out by the front door. On the other hand, she couldn't swear what happened while she was busy in the kitchen getting the hot toddy for Mr. Leighton. She had been trying to make the fire burn up, and had rattled coals and fire-irons. She certainly had not heard any one using the telephone, which was in the office, and she did not know where Mr. Leighton was during that time.
"Nor would she say what was in her mind when first she saw her employer lying dead over the desk and exclaimed: 'My God! He has killed him!' And when the coroner pressed her with questions she burst into tears. Except for this her evidence had, on the whole, been given with extraordinary self-possession. It was a terrible ordeal for a girl to have to stand up before a jury and, roughly speaking, to swear away the character of a man with whom she had been on intimate terms.... The character, did I say? I might just as well have said the life, because whatever doubts had lurked in the public mind about Arthur Leighton's guilt, or at least complicity in the crime, those doubts were dispelled by the girl's evidence. For I need not tell you, I suppose, that every man present that second day at the inquest had already made up his mind that Ann Weber was lying to save her sweetheart. No one believed in the mysterious impersonator of Mr. Jessup. It was Arthur Leighton, they argued, who had murdered his employer and robbed the till, and Ann Weber knew it and had invented the story in order to drag a red herring across the trail.
"I must say that the man himself did not make a good impression when he was called in his turn. As he stepped forward with a swaggering air, and a bold glance at coroner and jury, the interest which he aroused was not a kindly one. He was rather a vulgar-looking creature, with a horsey get-up, high collar, stock-tie, fancy waistcoat, and so on. His hair was of a ginger colour, his eyes light, and his face tanned. Every one noticed that he winked at Ann Weber when he caught her eye, and also that the girl immediately averted her glance and almost imperceptibly shrugged her shoulders. Thereupon Leighton frowned and very obviously swore under his breath.
"Questioned as to his doings on the sixteenth, he admitted that 'the guv'nor had been waxy with him, because,' as he put it with an indifferent swagger, 'there were a few pounds missing from the till.' He also admitted that he had not been looking forward to the evening's interview, but that he had not dared refuse to come. In order to kill time, and to put heart into himself, he had gone with a couple of friends to the Café Royal in Regent Street, and they all had whiskies and sodas till it was time for him to go to Fulton Gardens. His friends were to wait for him until he returned, when they intended to have supper together. Witness then went to Fulton Gardens and saw Ann Weber, who told him that the guv'nor didn't wish to see him. This, according to his own picturesque language, was a little bit of all right. He stayed for a few minutes talking to Ann, and she gave him a hot toddy. He certainly didn't think he had stayed as long as half an hour, but then, when a fellow was talking to a pretty girl ... eh? ... what? ...
"The coroner curtly interrupted his fatuous explanations by asking him at what time he had left his friends, and at what time he had met them again subsequently. Witness was not very sure; he thought he left the Café Royal about half-past eight, but it might have been earlier or later. He took a bus to the bottom of Fulton Gardens. It was beastly cold and wet, and he was very grateful to Ann for giving him a hot drink. He denied that he had been drinking too much, or that he had demanded the hot drink. It was Ann Weber who had offered to get it for him. Jolly pretty girl, Annie-bird, and not shy. Witness concluded his evidence by swearing positively that he had waited in the servants' hall all the while that Ann Weber got him the toddy; he had followed her down, and not gone upstairs or seen anything of Mr. Jessup all the time he was in the house. When he left Fulton Gardens he tried to get a bus back to Regent Street, but many of them were full and it was rather late before he got back to the Café Royal.
"It was very obvious that as the coroner continued to put question after question to him, Arthur Leighton became vaguely conscious of the feeling of hostility towards him which had arisen in the public mind. He lost something of his swagger, and his face under the tan took on a greyish hue. From time to time he glanced at Ann Weber, but she obstinately looked another way.
"Undoubtedly he felt that he was caught in a network of damnatory evidence which he was unable to combat. The day ended, however, with another adjournment; the police wanted a little more time before taking drastic action. The public so often blame them for being in too great a hurry to fasten an accusation on the flimsiest grounds that one is pleased to record such a noteworthy instance when they really did not leave a single stone unturned before they arrested Arthur Leighton on the charge of murder. They did everything they could to find some proof of the existence and identity of the individual whom Ann Weber professed to have seen while Leighton was still in the house. But all their efforts in that direction came to naught, whilst Leighton himself denied having had an accomplice just as strenuously as he did his own guilt.
"He was brought up before the magistrate, charged with the terrible crime. No one, the police argued, had so strong a motive for the crime or such an opportunity. Alternatively, no one else could have admitted the mysterious impersonator of Mr. Jessup into the house, the accomplice who did the deed, whilst Leighton engaged Ann Weber's attention, always supposing that he did exist, which was never proved, and which the evidence of the police constable refuted. People who dabbled in spiritualism and that sort of thing were pleased to think that the mysterious personage whom the housemaid saw was the ghost of poor old Jessup, who was then lying murdered in his office, stricken by Leighton's hand. But even the most psychic-minded individual was unable to give a satisfactory explanation for the ghost having changed hats while he walked away from that fateful No. 13.
"Altogether the question of hats played an important role in the drama of Leighton's arrest and final discharge. The magistrate did not commit him for trial, because the case for the prosecution collapsed suddenly like a pack of cards. It was the question of hats that saved Leighton's neck from the hangman's rope. You remember, perhaps, that in his evidence he had stated that before starting to interview his irate employer he had been with some friends at the Café Royal in Regent Street, and that subsequently he met these friends there for supper. Well, although it appeared impossible to establish definitely the time when Leighton left the Café Royal to go to Fulton Gardens, there were two or three witnesses prepared to swear that he was back again at a quarter to ten. Now this was very important. It seems that his friends, who were waiting at the Café Royal, were getting impatient, and at twenty minutes to ten by the clock one of them—a fellow named Richard Hurrill—said he would go outside and see if he could see anything of Leighton. He strolled on as far as Piccadilly Circus where the buses stop that come from the City, and a minute or two later he saw Leighton step out of one. He seemed a little fuzzy in the head, and Hurrill chaffed him a bit. Then he took him by the arm and led him back in triumph to the Café Royal.
"Now mark what followed," the funny creature went on, whilst all at once his fingers started working away as if for dear life on his bit of string. "A hat—a soft grey hat—with an overcoat wrapped round it, were found in the area of a derelict house in Blackhorse Road, Walthamstow, close to the waterworks, and identified as the late Mr. Seton Jessup's overcoat and hat. I don't suppose that you have the least idea where Blackhorse Road, Walthamstow, is, but let me tell you that it is at the back of beyond in the northeast of London. If you remember, the point policeman had stated that the first visitor had called at No. 13 Fulton Gardens at half-past eight, and stayed half an hour. He then walked away in the direction of Finsbury. That visitor, the police argued, was Arthur Leighton, who had murdered Mr. Jessup and sent the telephone message to Fitzjohn's Avenue; then, hearing Ann Weber moving about downstairs and frightened at being caught by her, he had put on the deceased's hat and coat and slipped out of the house. Ann, however, had recognised him. She had involuntarily given him away when the housekeeper asked her whom she was talking to, so she invented the story of having seen what she thought was Mr. Jessup in order to save her sweetheart.
"It was a logical theory enough, but here came the evidence of the hat. The man who walked away from Fulton Gardens at nine o'clock, whom the point policeman saw changing his hat in the street at that hour, could not possibly have gone all the way to Walthamstow, either by bus or even part of the way in a taxi, and back again to Piccadilly Circus all in the space of forty-five minutes. And Leighton, mind you, stepped out of a bus when his friend met him, and I can tell you that the police worked their hardest to find a taxi-man who may have picked up a fare that night in the neighbourhood of Clerkenwell and driven out to Walthamstow and then back to Holborn. That search proved entirely fruitless. On the other hand, Leighton had paid his bus fare from Holborn, and the conductor vaguely recollected that he had got in at the corner of Clerkenwell Road. Well, that being proved, the man couldn't have done in the time all that the prosecution declared that he did.
"After he was discharged, the Press started violently abusing the police for not having directed their attention to the second visitor who called at Fulton Gardens ten minutes or so after the first one had left. But this person appeared as elusive and intangible as the mysterious wearer of Mr. Jessup's hat and coat. The point policeman saw him in the distance, and Ann Weber admitted him into the house and chatted with him for over twenty minutes. She didn't know him, but she declared that she could easily recognise him if she saw him again. For some time after that the poor girl was constantly called upon by the police to see, and if possible identify, the mysterious visitor. Half the shady characters in London passed, I believe, before her eyes during the next three months. But this search proved as fruitless as the other. The murder of Mr. Seton Jessup has remained as complete and as baffling a mystery as any in the annals of crime. Many there are—you amongst the number—who firmly believe that Arthur Leighton had, at any rate, something to do with it. I know that the family of the deceased were convinced that he did. Mr. Aubrey Jessup, the eldest son of the deceased, who was one of the executors under his father's will, and who had gone through the accounts of the business, had noted certain irregularities in Leighton's books; he also declared that various sums which had come in on the sixteenth after banking hours were missing from the safe. Moreover, young Leighton himself had admitted that 'the guv'nor was waxy with him because a few pounds were missing from the till.' All these facts no doubt had influenced the police when they applied for a warrant for his arrest, but there was no getting away from the evidence of that hat and coat found ten miles and more away from the scene of the crime, and of the bus conductor who could swear that out of forty-five minutes which the accused had to account for he had spent twenty in a bus."
"It is all very mysterious," I put in, because my eccentric friend had been silent for quite a long time, while his attention was entirely taken up by the fashioning of a whole series of intricate knots. "I am afraid that I was one of those who blamed the police for not directing their investigations sooner in the direction of the second visitor. He seems to me much more mysterious than the first. We know who the first one was——"
"Do we?" he retorted with a chuckle. "Or rather, do you?"
"Well, of course, it was Arthur Leighton," I rejoined impatiently. "Mrs. Tufnell saw him——"
"She didn't," he broke in quickly. "The house was pitch-dark; she heard voices and she asked Ann whether she was speaking to Mr. Leighton."
"And Ann said yes!" I riposted.
"She said yes," he admitted with an irritating smile.
"And Leighton himself in his evidence——"
"Leighton in his evidence," the funny creature broke in excitedly, "admitted that he had called at the house, he admitted that he remembered vaguely that Ann Weber told him that Mr. Jessup had decided not to see him, and that to celebrate the occasion he got the girl to make him a whisky toddy. But, apart from these facts, he only had the haziest notions as to the time when he came and when he left or how long he stayed. Nor were his precious friends at the Café Royal any clearer on that point. They had all of them been drinking, and only had the haziest notion of time until twenty minutes to ten, when they got hungry and wanted their supper."
"But what does that prove?" I argued with an impatient frown.
"It proves that my contention is correct; that the first visitor was not Leighton, that it was some one for whom Ann Weber cared more than she did for Leighton, as she lied for his sake when she told her aunt that she was speaking to Leighton in the hall. The whole thing occurred just as the police supposed. The first visitor called, and while Ann Weber was down in the kitchen getting him something to eat and drink, he entered the office, probably not with any evil intention, and saw his employer sitting at his desk with the safe containing a quantity of loose cash invitingly open. Let us be charitable and assume that he yielded to sudden temptation. Mr. Jessup's coat, hat, and stick were lying there on a chair. The stick was one of those heavily-weighted ones which men like to carry nowadays. He seizes the stick and strikes the old man on the head with it, then he collects the money from the safe and thrusts it into his pockets. At that moment Ann Weber comes up the stairs. I say that this man was her lover; she had returned to him, as she did once before. Imagine her horror first, and then her desire—her mad desire—to save him from the consequences of his crime. It is her woman's wit which first suggests the idea of telephoning to Fitzjohn's Avenue: she who thinks of plunging the house in darkness. And now to get the criminal out of the house. It can be done in a moment, but just then Mrs. Tufnell opens her door on the second floor and begins to grope her way downstairs. It is impossible to think quickly enough how to meet this situation. Instinct is the only guide, and instinct suggests impersonating the deceased, to avoid the danger of Mrs. Tufnell peeping in at the office door. The criminal hastily dons his victim's hat and coat, and he is almost through the hall when Mrs. Tufnell calls to Ann: 'Is it Mr. Leighton?' And Ann on the impulse of the moment replies: 'Yes, it is! He is just going.' And so the criminal escapes unseen. But there is still the danger of Mrs. Tufnell peeping in at the office door, so Ann invents the story of having seen Mr. Jessup walk out of the house some time before. So for the moment danger is averted; the housekeeper does peep in at the door, but only in order to satisfy herself that the lights are out; and the women then go upstairs together.
"Ten minutes later there is another ring at the bell. This time it is Arthur Leighton, and Ann Weber has sufficient presence of mind not to let him see that there is anything wrong in the house. She asks him in, she tells him Mr. Jessup cannot see him, she gets him a drink, and sends him off again. I don't suppose for a moment that at this stage she has any intention of using him as a shield for her present sweetheart; but undoubtedly the thought had by now crept into her mind to utilise Leighton's admitted presence in the house for the purpose of confusing the issues. Nor do I think that she had any idea that night that Mr. Jessup was dead. She probably thought that he had only been stunned by a blow from the stick; hence her exclamation when she realised the truth: 'My God, he has killed him!' Then only did she concentrate all her energies and all her wits to saving her sweetheart—even at the cost of another man. Women are like that sometimes," the Old Man in the Corner went on with a chuckle, "the instinct of the primitive woman is first of all to save her man, never mind at whose expense. The cave-man's instinct is to protect his woman with his fists—but she, conscious of physical weakness, sets her wits to work, and if her man is in serious danger she will lie and she will cheat—ay, and perjure herself if need be. And those flirtatious minxes, of which Annie-bird is a striking example, are only cave-women with a veneer of civilisation over them.
"She did save her man by dragging a red herring across his trail, and she left Fate to deal with Leighton. Once embarked on a system of lies she had to stick to it or her man was doomed. Fortunately she could rely on the other woman. A mother's wits are even sharper than those of a sweetheart."
"A mother?" I ejaculated. "Then you think that it was——?"
"Mark Tufnell, of course," he broke in, dryly. "Didn't you guess? As he could not go with his beloved to the cinema he thought he would spend a happy evening with her. What made him originally go into the office we shall never know. Some trifle no doubt, some message for his employer—it is those sorts of trifles that so often govern the destinies of men. Personally I think that he was very much in the same boat as young Leighton: some trifling irregularities in his accounts. The deceased, speaking so harshly to Mrs. Tufnell that night, first directed my attention to young Tufnell. He didn't want to see any of them that night: he was irritated with Mark quite as much as with Leighton, but out of consideration for the housekeeper whom he valued he said little about her son. Perhaps he had ordered the young man to come to his office; as I said just now, this little point I cannot vouch for. But if I have not succeeded in convincing you that the first visitor at No. 13, Fulton Gardens was Mark Tufnell, that it was he who went out in Mr. Jessup's hat and overcoat, changed hats in the street, and wandered out as far as Walthamstow in order to be rid of the pièces de conviction, then you are less intelligent than I have taken you to be. Mark Tufnell, remember, lives in the north of London; he was supposed to have gone to the cinema that night, therefore the people with whom he lodged thought nothing of his coming home late."
"That poor mother!" I ejaculated, "I wonder if she suspects the truth."
"She knows it," the funny creature said, "you may be sure of that. There was a bond of understanding between those two women, and they never once contradicted each other in their evidence. A worthless young blackguard has been saved from the gallows; my sympathy is not with him, but with the women who put up such a brave fight for his sake."
"Do you know what happened to them all subsequently?" I asked.
"Not exactly. But I do know that Mr. Seton Jessup in his will left his housekeeper an annuity of £50. I also know that young Tufnell has gone out to Australia, and that if you ever dine with a friend at the Alcyon Club you will notice an exceptionally pretty waitress who will make eyes at all the men. Her name is Ann Weber!”