Ричард Марш
A Master of Deception

"Now, here is someone whom, I presume, you will recognise-the very person. Gladys, here is Mr. Wilkes. He has something which he very much wishes to say to you."

Returning the letter to its envelope, Mr. Wilkes rose from his chair.

"My hands are not going to be forced by you, Mr. Elmore, don't you suppose it. In making any communication to Miss Patterson which I may have to make, I shall prefer to choose my own time and place."

"That's it, is it? I quite appreciate the reasons which actuate you, Mr. Wilkes, in wishing to make what you call your communication to Miss Patterson behind my back; and I think that Miss Patterson will appreciate them equally well. Mr. Wilkes has in his hand what he claims to be a letter from your father. If you take my advice you will insist on his showing it to you at once."

Miss Patterson was quick to act on the hint which her lover gave her. She moved close up to the lawyer.

"Mr. Wilkes, be so good as to let me see the letter to which my cousin refers."

"With pleasure, Miss Patterson, at-if you will allow me to say so-some more convenient season; the sooner the better. For instance, may I have a few minutes' private conversation with you this afternoon? The matter on which I wish to speak to you is for your ear only."

"You have spoken of it to my cousin?"

"Oh, yes; he has spoken of it to me."

"Then, why can you not speak of it to me in his presence?"

"I will write to you on the subject, Miss Patterson, and will endeavour to make my reasons clear."

He made as if to move towards the door. She placed herself in front of him.

"One moment, Mr. Wilkes. Any letter from you will be handed to Mr. Elmore, unopened. I will have no private communication with you, nor, if I can help it, will I have any communication with you of any sort or kind."

"I regret to hear you say so, Miss Patterson, and can only deplore the attitude of mind which prompts you to arrive at what I cannot but feel is a most unfortunate decision."

"You are impertinent, Mr. Wilkes."

The lawyer, with his dark eyes fixed on the lady's face, raised the hand in which was the envelope which contained the letter with the intention of slipping it into an inner pocket of his coat. Her quick glance recognised the handwriting of the address.

"It's from dad!" she cried. "It's a letter from dad!"

She had snatched the letter from between the lawyer's fingers before he had the faintest inkling of what she was about to do.

"Miss Patterson," he exclaimed, "give me back that letter."

She retreated, as he showed a disposition to advance. Mr. Elmore interposed himself between the lawyer and the lady.

"Steady, Mr. Wilkes, steady. You told me that it would be your duty to place that letter in Miss Patterson's hands. It is in her hands. What objection have you to offer?"

Whatever protest the lawyer might have been inclined to make he apparently came to the conclusion that, at the moment, it would be futile to make any. He withdrew himself from Elmore's immediate neighbourhood, and observed the lady, as she read the letter. She read it without comment to the end. Then she asked:

"When did you get this letter?"

"It reached my office last night, and me this morning; but, as you see, it was written on Sunday, and would appear to have been delayed in the post."

She turned to Rodney.

"Have you read this letter?"

"It has been read aloud to me, which comes to the same thing."

"You know-what he says at the end?"

"I do; Mr. Wilkes took special care of that."

"Is it true?"

"It is absolutely false. There is not one word of truth in it. It comes to me as a complete surprise. Never by so much as a word did your father lead me to suppose that he had such thoughts of me. I cannot conceive what can have been the condition of his mind when he wrote in such a strain. But that letter enables me to begin to understand that something must have happened to him mentally, and that when he committed suicide he actually was insane."

Miss Patterson tore the letter in half from top to bottom. The lawyer broke into exclamation.

"Miss Patterson! What are you doing? You must not do that! Not only is it not your letter, but it is a document of the gravest legal importance."

Paying him no heed whatever, the girl continued in silence the destruction of the letter, going about the business in the most thorough-going manner, reducing it to the tiniest atoms. When she had finished with the letter itself, she proceeded to dispose of the envelope, Mr. Wilkes expostulating hotly all the time, but kept from active interference by the insistent fashion with which Mr. Elmore prevented him from getting near the lady. Compelled at last to own that it was useless to attempt to stay her, he called upon his colleague to take notice of the outrage to which the letter was subjected, to say nothing of himself.

"Mr. Parmiter, you are witness of what is being done. This young lady, with the connivance and, indeed, assistance of this young man, is destroying a document of the first importance, which is not only in no sense her own property, but which was obtained from me by what is tantamount to an act of robbery, accompanied, in a legal sense, by violence. Of these facts you will be called upon, in due course, to give evidence."

Mr. Parmiter was still, but the lady spoke.

"Are you not forgetting that Mr. Parmiter is my solicitor, and that a solicitor cannot give evidence against his own client? I am sorry to have to seem to teach you law, Mr. Wilkes. Rodney, have you a match? If so, will you please burn these?"

She held out the fragments of the letter. Mr. Wilkes made a final attempt at salvage.

"Miss Patterson, I implore you to give me those scraps of paper. It may still not be too late to piece them together, and so save you from consequences of whose gravity you have no notion."

Once more the young gentleman interposed.

"Steady, Mr. Wilkes, steady!"

"Remove your hand from my shoulder, sir! You are only making your position every moment more and more serious!"

Again the lady spoke.

"To use a phrase of which you seem to be rather fond, Mr. Wilkes, in a legal sense, I believe this is my room. I must ask you to leave it at once."

"Not before you have given me those scraps of paper, Miss Patterson!"

"If you won't go, I shall reluctantly have to ask Mr. Elmore to put you out, and, in doing so, to use no more violence than is necessary."

"I entreat you, Miss Patterson, to accept sound advice, and to do something which may permit of my repairing the mischief you have caused. Give me those scraps of paper."

"Rodney, will you please put Mr. Wilkes out? But please don't hurt him!"

The young man put the lawyer out, doing him no actual bodily hurt. He conducted him through the outer office to the landing, then addressed the astonished Andrews.

"Andrews, this is Mr. Stephen Wilkes; I believe you know him. Give instructions that, under no pretext, is he to be admitted to these offices again. I shall look to you to see that those instructions are carried out. Good-day, sir."

Shutting the door in the lawyer's face, he audibly turned the key on the inner side.

"Now, Andrews, would you mind coming into the other room?"

Miss Patterson greeted her cousin with the request she had already made. She still had the fragments of the letter between her fingers.

"How about that match, Rodney? Please burn these."

He made a little bonfire of them on the hearth, while she went on:

"I don't suppose you will be very eager now to attend my father's funeral in the capacity of mourner."

"I am not. I would much rather not go at all, if you will pardon the abstention."

"I would much rather you did not go either-so, Andrews, that is settled. Also, be so good as to understand that I should prefer that the funeral should not start from Russell Square."

Mr. Patterson's body had been removed from the station to the undertaker's, where it at present reposed in a handsome example of the undertaker's art. The idea had been to bring it in a hearse to Russell Square, whence the funeral cortège was to start. It was this arrangement which Miss Patterson wished to have altered. The managing man silently acquiesced; there was still time to give instructions that all that was left of his late employer was to be taken straight from the undertaker's to the cemetery.

CHAPTER XXII
PHILIP WALTER AUGUSTUS PARKER

The four of them went together to the bank, which was within a minute's walk. There, the necessary forms being quickly gone through, a sum of two thousand pounds was credited to Miss Patterson, power being given to Rodney Elmore to draw on her account for such sums as were needed for the proper conduct of the business, it being tacitly understood that he would draw only such sums as were needed for the business. That matter being settled, they separated; Mr. Andrews and Mr. Parmiter going their own ways, Miss Patterson and Mr. Elmore departing together in a cab to lunch. The cab had not gone very far before the young gentleman made a discovery.

"I've left my letter-case on the table in the bank?"

"Your letter-case? Did you? What a nuisance; I never noticed it. Are you sure it was on the table?"

"Quite; I remember distinctly; it was under a blotting-pad. What an idiot I am! I'm frightfully sorry, but I'm afraid I shall have to go back and get it."

"Of course, we will go back."

The cab returned to the bank. The lady remained inside; the gentleman passed through the great swing doors-through first one pair, then a second-it was impossible to see from the street what was taking place beyond. Once in the bank, the young gentleman said nothing about his letter-case-it had apparently passed from his memory altogether; but he presented at the counter a cheque for a thousand pounds, with his own signature attached. He took it in tens and fives, and a hundred pounds in gold. If the paying clerk thought it was rather an odd way of taking so large a sum, he made no comment. He came back through the swing doors with a letter-case held in his hand.

"I've got it," he explained.

He emphatically had, though she understood one thing and he meant another. When they had gone some little distance in the direction of lunch she observed:

"I wish I were not in mourning. I've half a mind to go back and change."

He observed her critically-he was holding one of her hands under cover of the apron.

"My dear Gladys, I can't admit that you do look your best in mourning."

"Do you think that I don't know that?"

"But you look charming, all the same."

"No, I don't; I look a perfect fright."

"I doubt if you could look a fright even if you tried; I'm certain you don't look one now. In fact, the more I look at you the harder I find it to keep from kissing you."

"I dare say! You'd better not."

"That's a truth of which I'm unpleasantly aware. Still, if you did look like anything distantly resembling a fright, I shouldn't have that feeling so strong upon me, should I?"

"You're not to talk like that in a hansom!"

"I'm merely explaining. I suggest that if you do feel like changing, you should lunch first, and change afterwards."

"You're coming back with me to Russell Square?"

"Rather!"

"I won't wear mourning-people may say and think what they choose-I declare I won't. Did you ever see anything like that letter?"

"It was by way of being a curiosity."

"But, Rodney, he said you were-he said you were all sorts of things! What did he mean?"

"Your father was one of those not uncommon men who always use much stronger language than the occasion requires-it was a habit of his. For instance, when, in spite of his very positive commands, I showed an inclination to continue your acquaintance, he as good as told me I was a murderer-he said that it was his positive conviction that for the sake of a five-pound note I'd murder you."

"Did he really?"

"He did. And I dare say that when you showed no desire to cut me dead, he said one or two nice things to you."

"Oh, he did-several. He made out that I was everything that was bad."

"There you are-that's the kind of man he was."

"But didn't he say something about a policeman-and giving you in charge?"

"I am sure that he would have given me in charge to twenty policemen if he could, and that nothing would have pleased him better than to have had me sent to penal servitude for life."

"What I can't make out is-why did he dislike you so?"

"My dear, I'm afraid the explanation is simple-too simple. I don't want to hurt your feelings, but I've a notion-a very strong one-that he didn't like you. He regarded you as a nuisance; you know how he kept you in the background as long as he could; you interfered with the sort of life he liked to live; you were in his way."

"He certainly never at any period of his life or mine, showed himself over-anxious for my company."

"When you did become installed in town, he had formed his own plans for your future. What precisely was the arrangement between them I don't pretend to know; but I dare say I shall find out before long-it won't need much to induce Wilkes to give himself away; but I am persuaded that it was his intention that you should become Mrs. Stephen Wilkes."

"But what makes you think so? It seems to me so monstrous. Fancy me as Mrs. Stephen Wilkes!"

"Thank you, I'd rather not. It's only a case of intuition, I admit, but I'm convinced I'm right, and one day I may be able to give you chapter and verse. He was not over-fond of me to begin with, but when you appeared on the scene, and he saw that his best laid plans bade fair to gang agley, he suddenly began to develop a feeling towards me which ended as it has done. It's not a pretty one, but there's my explanation. But, sweetheart, that page is ended; let's turn it over and never look back at it; and all the rest of the volume-let's try our best to make it happy reading."

They ate a fair lunch, considering, and enjoyed it, and afterwards returned together in a taximeter cab to Russell Square, feeling more tenderly disposed to each other, and at peace with all the world. When Miss Patterson had ate and drunk well she was apt to discover a turn for languorous sentiment which appealed to Mr. Elmore very forcibly indeed. Since, therefore, it was probably their intention to spend an amorous afternoon, the shock was all the greater when, on their arrival at No. 90, they were greeted in the hall by a tall upstanding, broad-shouldered, soldierly-looking man in whom Gladys recognised the officer of police who had brought her the news of her father's tragic fate.

"Inspector Harlow," she exclaimed. "What-what are you doing here?"

It was perhaps only natural that, drawing away from the policeman towards her lover, she should slip her hands through his arm as if she looked to him for protection from some suddenly threatening danger. Rodney pressed his arm closer to his side, as if to assure her she would find shelter there; though, as she uttered the visitor's name, he glanced towards him with a look which, as it were, with difficulty became an odd little smile. The visitor's manner, when he spoke, suggested mystery.

"Can I say half a dozen words with you, Miss Patterson, in private?"

She led the way to the first room to which they came, which chanced to be the dining-room, she entering first, then Rodney, the inspector last. When he was in he shut the door and stood up against it.

"I said, Miss Patterson, in private."

The inspector had an eye on Rodney.

"We are in private; you can say anything you wish to say before this gentleman. This is Mr. Elmore, to whom I am shortly to be married."

"Mr. Elmore?"

As the officer echoed the name the two men's glances met. In the inspector's eyes there was an expression of eager curiosity, as if he were taken by surprise; Rodney's quick perceptions told him that while his name, and probably more than his name, was known to the other, for some cause he was the last person he had expected to see; the man was studying him with an interest which he did not attempt to conceal. The young man, on his side, was regarding the inspector as if he found him amusing.

"Well, inspector, when you have quite finished staring at Mr. Elmore, perhaps you will tell me what it is you have to say."

The girl's candid allusion to the peculiarity which it seemed she had noticed in his manner had the effect of bringing the officer back to a consciousness of what he was doing.

"Was I staring? I beg Mr. Elmore's pardon-and yours, Miss Patterson. I was only thinking that, under the circumstances, it is a fortunate accident that Mr. Elmore should be present."

"You have omitted to state what are the circumstances to which you allude."

"I will proceed to supply that omission at once, Miss Patterson. You will probably think that they are strange ones; and, indeed, they are; but you will, of course, understand that I am only here in pursuance of my duty. I have come in consequence of a letter which I received this morning. I will read it to you."

He took an envelope from a fat pocket-book.

"It bears no address, and is not dated; but the envelope shows that it was posted last night at Beckenham.

"'To Inspector Harlow.

"'Sir, – Mr. Graham Patterson did not commit suicide; he was murdered.

"'If you can make it convenient to be at Mr. Graham Patterson's late residence, No. 90, Russell Square, to-morrow, Wednesday, afternoon at 3.30, I will be there also, and will point out to you the murderer.

"'Your obedient servant,

"'Philip Walter Augustus Parker.'"

Silence followed when the inspector ceased to read. The officer was engaged in folding the letter and returning it to its envelope; Gladys looked as if she were too startled to give ready utterance to her feelings in words. Rodney was possibly trying to associate someone of whom he had heard with the name of Parker-and failing. His memory did not often play him tricks; he was pretty sure that no one of that name was known to him. The inspector was the first to speak.

"You will, of course, perceive, Miss Patterson, that the probabilities are that this letter is a hoax; the signature, Philip Walter Augustus Parker, in itself suggests a hoax. Then there is the absence of an address. And, of course, we have the verdict of the coroner's jury, and the evidence on which it was found. I am quite prepared to learn that I have come to Russell Square, and troubled you with my presence, for nothing. But at the same time, in my position, I did not feel justified in not coming, on the very off-chance of making the acquaintance of Philip Walter Augustus Parker. It is now on the stroke of half-past three; we will give him a few minutes' grace, after which-if, as I expect will be the case, there are still no signs of him-I'll take myself off, with apologies, Miss Patterson. But should he by any strange chance put in an appearance, I would ask you to have him at once shown in here."

Hardly had the inspector done speaking than there was the sound of an electric bell and a rat-tat-tat at the front door. The trio in the dining-room could scarcely have seemed more startled had they been suddenly confronted by a ghost. The inspector's voice sank to a whisper.

"If the name's Parker, would you mind asking the servant-in here?"

A gesture supplied the words he had omitted in his sentence. He held the door open so that Gladys could speak to the maid who was coming along the hall. She did so, also in lowered tones.

"If that's a person of the name of Parker show him at once in here."

She withdrew; the inspector shut the door; there was a pause; no one spoke; each of the three stood and listened. They could hear the front door opened and steps coming along the hall. Then the dining-room door was opened by a maid, who announced:

"Mr. Parker."

There entered the little man who had followed the example set by Rodney of getting out of the train in Redhill Tunnel.

CHAPTER XXIII
NECESSARY CREDENTIALS

The moment he appeared Rodney knew that he had been expecting him; that somewhere at the back of his mind there had been a feeling that it was he who was coming. His impulse was to take him by the throat and crush the life out of him before he had a chance of saying a word; which was the impulse of a badly frightened man. But he seldom lost his presence of mind for long; and, on that occasion, he had it again almost as soon as it had gone; indeed, within the same second he was smiling at himself for having allowed himself to be disposed towards such crass folly.

So far as Rodney was able to judge the little man was clad just as he had been on Sunday evening-in the same shabby tweed suit, the old unbrushed boots, with the same suggestion about him that he might easily have been improved by a more intimate acquaintance with soap and water. He had his hat in one hand, and with the other he rubbed his scrubby chin. No one could have seemed more at his ease. Without offering any sort of greeting he immediately proceeded to address the inspector, while the maid was still closing the door, in that thin, unmusical, penetrating voice which Rodney had so much disliked.

"So you are there, Harlow, are you? I wondered if you'd have sense enough to come."

He rounded off his sentence with the snigger which had so jarred on the young man's sensitive nerves, and which affected Gladys so unpleasantly that, with what seemed to be a start of repulsion, she moved closer to her lover's side. The stranger noted the movement, and commented on it-again with the uncomfortable snigger.

"That's right; get as close as you can; he'll keep you safe; anyone will be safe who gets close enough to him. You're Miss Patterson; I could tell you anywhere by your likeness to your father. You're not the kind of girl I care about, any more than he was the kind of man. Who's the youngster? Now, there is someone worth looking at; why, he's as handsome as paint, and of quite unusual force of character for so young a man. Miss Patterson, the girl who gets him for a lover will have a lover of a kind of which she has no notion. He's a most remarkable young man."

With a view, perhaps, of checking the stranger's volubility, the inspector administered what was possibly meant for a rebuke.

"If you would confine yourself to the business which has brought you here, sir, it would be as well. Are you Mr. Parker?"

"I am; Philip Walter Augustus Parker-a lot of name for a man of my size."

"You sent me a letter last night from Beckenham?"

"I did."

"Stating that Mr. Graham Patterson did not commit suicide."

"Exactly."

"But was murdered?"

"He was."

"You went on to say that if I were here this afternoon you would point out to me the murderer."

"I will."

"Point him out."

"I am."

"I thought so."

"I knew you did. I saw on your intelligent visage that you knew what was coming. You have some experience of cranks who accuse themselves of crimes of which they are innocent; you take it for granted that I am one of them, which shows what a dunce you are. I am a lunatic. That's right, Harlow, smile again. I knew that would tickle you. A policeman's sense of humour is his own."

"It is necessary, Mr. Parker, that I should warn you that anything you say will be taken down and used against you."

"Quite right, Harlow; take it down; but as for using it against me, that's absurd. The law does not punish lunatics; whatever they may do it holds them guiltless. I'm an example of the inadequacy of the law to protect the public from what I may describe as the lunatic at large. It is not sufficiently recognised that there is an order of dementia which may at any time develop into homicidal mania, and that, therefore, a lunatic, unless he is kept in safe keeping, may kill, with impunity, whom he pleases-as I have done. I have killed Graham Patterson; yet no one may venture to kill me. My life is more sacred than that of a sane man in the eyes of the law."

The inspector looked at the girl significantly.

"I think, Miss Patterson, that I had better deal with Mr. Parker alone."

"And, Miss Patterson, I think not. What I am about to say will be found of interest not only by you, but also by-that extraordinary young man. Harlow, your duty is to take down what I am about to say in writing; don't exceed it. Shut the door. Miss Patterson will stay where she is."

The inspector looked at the lady, as if for instructions. As she gave no sign, beyond drawing a little closer to her lover, he shut the door, which he had opened a few inches. Mr. Parker beamed at him with a grotesque little air of triumph.

"There, Harlow-you see! Now attend to me. Suppose, before I go any further, we all sit down; my tale may take some minutes; I don't want anyone to get tired of standing. You won't? Very good-then stand. There are plenty of chairs, and very comfortable some of them seem; but, of course, I don't propose to force you to occupy them if you would rather not. Now-attention! To begin at the beginning."

Again he indulged in the uncomfortable sort of laughter which, more than anything else, revealed the disorder of the creature's mind.

"On Sunday evening I bolted from my keeper, one Metcalf, in whose charge I have been for six or seven months, and of whom I was tired to extinction-an unclubable fellow who never talks unless he has something to say. I left Brighton station on the 9.10 train. Until the train started I was the sole occupant of a first-class carriage, at which I was not displeased. I had some idea of committing suicide myself. Life, I assure you, has little to offer me. I am just sane enough to know that I never shall be saner. There's a wall-a wall which I shall never climb, and which shuts me out-from I don't know what. If I were left alone-I so seldom am; they won't leave me alone! – here would be an excellent opportunity to consider the best way out of it. You may fancy, then, what my feelings were when, just as the train was starting, another passenger entered-bundled in by an extremely officious porter. He would never have caught the train if it hadn't been for the porter-in which case he would have been still alive-so that one may say, logically, the porter killed him. The fellow certainly ought to be punished."

He waved his hat with a gesture which was possibly intended to represent the execution of the porter in question.

"The man who had entered my compartment, Miss Patterson, was your father-in every respect a most objectionable person, combining in himself nearly everything that I most object to-bloated, overfed, nearly drunk, horrible to contemplate. He sat there perspiring, puffing, panting, gasping for breath; I half expected he would have a fit. But, instead of having a fit, before the train had gone very far he was asleep, fast asleep. Could any conduct have been more disgusting? – drunken sleep! With a man of my stamp at the other end of the carriage, could anything have been more insulting? And he snored-such snores! I declare to you he made more noise than the train did; if that extraordinary young man had been in the next compartment he'd have heard him. And his jaw dropped open-it was that gave me the idea. Who is it says that trifles light as air lead to I don't know what? It was that trifle which led to my killing your father, Miss Patterson."

Again the cackling giggle, which made the girl try to draw still nearer to her lover, as if the thing were possible.

"Some time before I had come into possession of quite a quantity of potassium cyanide; I won't say how-I had. The artfulness of lunatics is proverbial, and I'm as artful as any of them; on that point I refer you to Metcalf, as well as to others who have had me in their charge, both in asylums and out of them-they'll tell you! It was in the form of tabloids, looking just like sweeties, in a nice little silver box; enough to kill a street. I had meant to use it to kill myself, but at the sight of that dreadful man, with his bulging mouth, I thought-why not use it to kill him? Pop one into his mouth, and the trick was done! I moved inch by inch and foot by foot along the seat towards his end of the carriage; he still snored on, paying no attention of any sort to me; he was a horrid, vulgar man. At last I was right in front of him; I might have been ten miles away for all he knew. How he snored, and how his jaws did gape! I had the silver box in one hand and a tabloid between the finger and thumb of the other, and I leaned forward and popped it into his open mouth."

Mr. Parker illustrated his words by his gestures, with the air of one who was telling an amusing tale.

"Oh, what a change came over him! You should have seen it! He snored the tabloid right down his throat, and he gave a great gasp and was dead. He had not even waked; I am sure that he never knew I was on the seat in front of him, or that I was in the carriage at all. There was his huge carcase bolt upright in front of me, and I knew that he would never snore any more. It made me feel quite odd; it was all so sudden and so funny. I daresay it would have made that extraordinary young man feel odd, eh?"

He looked up at Rodney with a leer which made his mean, wrinkled face all at once seem bestial. But he never faltered in his story, which he told with a sniggering relish which lent it a quality of horror which no display of dramatic, conscience-stricken intensity could possibly have done.

"My idea had been to tell the porters all about it the first time the train stopped; it would have been funny to see the fuss they'd have made; I shouldn't have cared. But it so happened that the signal was against us, and the train stopped in the middle of Redhill tunnel."

The inspector allowed no hint to escape him of what he knew or did not know. He kept his eyes fastened on the little man, as if his wish were not so much to follow his actual words, but to see something which might be behind them.

"When it stopped I had another idea, quite as brilliant as the first. Why should I go through the nuisance of a trial for murder? With a little management, if this objectionable person were found in a carriage by himself, it might be taken for granted that he had committed suicide, which would be too funny. So I put the silver box open in his fingers, slipped out of the carriage into the tunnel-in the darkness no one saw me-waited for the train to go, then walked after it, out of the tunnel, up the banks, across the fields to Redhill Station; had a drink or two, which I was in want of; went on by the 10.40, until at Croydon I was joined by Metcalf, who had got there first. For the rest of the tale refer to him."