That this was done very speedily and pretty roughly we may infer from Old Man Newton’s subsequent fury, and the threats he uttered even while he was being ‘shown out’.
“Now you see, do you not?” continued the man in the corner, “that this evidence seemed to add another link to the chain which was incriminating young Mr Ledbury in this terrible charge of murdering Old Man Newton.
“The young man himself was now with his regiment stationed at York. It appears that the house-party at Fernhead Towers was breaking up on the very day of Old Man Newton’s strange visit thither. Lord and Lady Walterton left for town on the Tuesday morning, and Captain Ledbury went up to York on that very same fatal night.
“You must know that the small local station of Fernhead is quite close to The Towers. Captain Ledbury took the late local train there for Ayrsham Junction after dinner that night, arriving at the latter place at 9.15, with the intention of picking up the Midland express to the North at 10.15 p.m. later on.
“The police had ascertained that Captain Ledbury had got out of the local train at Ayrsham Junction at 9.15, and aimlessly strolled out of the station. Against that, it was definitely proved by several witnesses that the young man did catch the Midland express at 10.15 p.m., and travelled up north by it.
“Now, there was the hitch, do you see?” added the funny creature excitedly. “Samuel Holder overheard a conversation in the fatal lane between Mary Newton and the stranger, whom everybody by now believed to be Captain Ledbury. Good! That was between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m., and, as it happened, the young man does seem to have unaccountably strolled about in the neighbourhood whilst waiting for his train; but remember that when Sam Holder left the stranger waiting in the lane, and went back towards Ayrsham in order to try and find Old Man Newton, he distinctly heard Ayrsham church clock striking ten.
“Now, the lane where the murder occurred is two and a half miles from Ayrsham Junction station, therefore it could not have been Captain Ledbury who was there lying in wait for the old man, as he could not possibly have had his interview with old Mat, quarrelled with him and murdered him, and then caught his train two and a half miles further on, all in the space of fifteen minutes.
“Thus, even before the final verdict of ‘wilful murder against some person or persons unknown’, the case against Captain Mervin Ledbury had completely fallen to the ground. He must also have succeeded in convincing Sir John Fernhead of his innocence, as I see by the papers that Miss Fernhead has since become Mrs Ledbury.
“But the result has been that the Ayrsham tragedy has remained an impenetrable mystery.
“‘Who killed Old Man Newton? and why?’ is a question which many people, including our clever criminal investigation department, have asked themselves many a time.
“It was not a case of vulgar assault and robbery, as the old man was not worth robbing, and the few coppers he possessed were found intact in his waistcoat pocket.
“Many people assert that Samuel Holder quarrelled with the old man and murdered him, but there are three reasons why that theory is bound to fall to the ground. Firstly, the total absence of any motive. Samuel Holder could have no possible object in killing the old man, but still, we’ll waive that; people do quarrel – especially if they are confederates, as these two undoubtedly were – and quarrels do sometimes end fatally. Secondly, the weapon which caused the old man’s death – a heavily leaded cane of foreign make, with solid silver ferrule.
“Now, I ask you, where in the world could a village carpenter pick up an instrument of that sort? Moreover no one ever saw such a thing in Sam Holder’s hands or in his house. When he walked to the Fernhead Arms in order to try and find the old man, he had nothing of the sort in his hand, and in spite of the most strenuous efforts on the part of the police, the history of that cane was never traced.
“Then, there is a third reason why obviously Sam Holder was not guilty of the murder, though that reason is a moral one; I am referring to Mary Newton’s attitude at the inquest. She lied, of that there could not be a shadow of doubt; she was determined to shield her former lover, and incriminated Sam Holder only because she wished to save another man.
“Obviously, old Newton went out on that dark, wet night in order to meet someone in the lane; that someone could not have been Sam Holder, whom he met anywhere and everywhere, and every day in his own house.
“There! you see that Sam Holder was obviously innocent, that Captain Ledbury could not have committed the murder, that surely Mary Newton did not kill her own father, and that in such a case, common sense should have come to the rescue, and not have left this case, what it now is, a tragic and impenetrable mystery.”
4
“But,” I said at last, for indeed I was deeply mystified, “what does common sense argue? – the case seems to me absolutely hopeless.”
He surveyed his beloved bit of string for a moment, and his mild blue eyes blinked at me over his bone-rimmed spectacles.
“Common sense,” he said at last, with his most apologetic manner, “tells me that Ayrsham village is a remote little place, where a daily paper is unknown, and where no one reads the fashionable intelligence or knows anything about birthday honours.”
“What do you mean?” I gasped in amazement.
“Simply this, that no one at Ayrsham village, certainly not Mary Newton herself, had realized that one of the Mr Ledburys, whom all had known at The Limes four years ago, had since become Lord Walterton.”
“Lord Walterton!” I ejaculated, wholly incredulously.
“Why, yes!” he replied quietly. “Do you mean to say you never thought of that? that it never occurred to you that Mary Newton may have admitted to her father that Mr Ledbury had been the man who had so wickedly wronged her, but that she, in her remote little village, had also no idea that the Mr Ledbury she meant was recently made, and is now styled, Lord Walterton?
“Old Man Newton, who knew of the gossip which had coupled his daughter’s name, years ago, with the younger Mr Ledbury, naturally took it for granted that she was referring to him. Moreover, we may take it from the girl’s subsequent attitude that she did all she could to shield the man whom she had once loved; women, you know, have that sort of little way with them.
“Old Newton, fully convinced that young Ledbury was the man he wanted, went up to The Towers and had the stormy interview, which no doubt greatly puzzled the young Hussar. He undoubtedly spoke of it to his brother, Lord Walterton, who, newly married and of high social position, would necessarily dread a scandal as much as anybody.
“Lord Walterton went up to town with his young wife the following morning. Ayrsham is only forty minutes from London. He came down in the evening, met Mary in the lane, asked to see her father, and killed him in a moment of passion, when he found that the old man’s demands were preposterously unreasonable. Moreover, Englishmen in all grades of society have an innate horror of being bullied or blackmailed; the murder probably was not premeditated, but the outcome of rage at being browbeaten by the old man.
“You see, the police did not use their common sense over so simple a matter. They naturally made no enquiries as to Lord Walterton’s movements, who seemingly had absolutely nothing to do with the case. If they had, I feel convinced that they would have found that his lordship would have had some difficulty in satisfying everybody as to his whereabouts on that particular Tuesday night.
“Think of it, it is so simple – the only possible solution of that strange and unaccountable mystery.”
XI
1
“Talking of mysteries,” said the man in the corner, rather irrelevantly, for he had not opened his mouth since he sat down and ordered his lunch, “talking of mysteries, it is always a puzzle to me how few thefts are committed in the dressing-rooms of fashionable actresses during a performance.”
“There have been one or two,” I suggested, “but nothing of any value was stolen.”
“Yet you remember that affair at the Novelty Theatre a year or two ago, don’t you?” he added. “It created a great deal of sensation at the time. You see, Miss Phyllis Morgan was, and still is, a very fashionable and popular actress, and her pearls are quite amongst the wonders of the world. She herself valued them at £10,000, and several experts who remember the pearls quite concur with that valuation.
“During the period of her short tenancy of the Novelty Theatre last season, she entrusted those beautiful pearls to Mr Kidd, the well-known Bond Street jeweller, to be restrung. There were seven rows of perfectly matched pearls, held together by a small diamond clasp of ‘art-nouveau’ design.
“Kidd and Co. are, as you know, a very eminent and old-established firm of jewellers.
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