His giving drugged beer to Finch, moreover, proved his guilt beyond a doubt.
“But here the mystery becomes hopeless,” he added with a chuckle, “for the loafer dropped the booty which he had stolen – that booty was the false necklace, and it has remained an impenetrable mystery to this day as to who made the substitution and when.
“A whole year has elapsed since then, but the real necklace has never been traced or found; so Mr Kidd has paid, with absolute quixotic chivalry, the sum of £10,000 to Miss Morgan, and thus he has completely cleared the firm of Kidd and Co. of any suspicion as to its integrity.”
3
“But then, what in the world is the explanation of it all?” I asked bewildered, as the funny creature paused in his narrative and seemed absorbed in the contemplation of a beautiful knot he had just completed in his bit of string.
“The explanation is so simple,” he replied, “for it is obvious, is it not? that only four people could possibly have committed the fraud.”
“Who are they?” I asked.
“Well,” he said, whilst his bony fingers began to fidget with that eternal piece of string, “there is, of course, old Mr Kidd; but as the worthy jeweller has paid £10,000 to prove that he did not steal the real necklace and substitute a false one in its stead, we must assume that he was guiltless. Then, secondly, there is Mr Howard Dennis.”
“Well, yes,” I said, “what about him?”
“There were several points in his favour,” he rejoined, marking each point with a fresh and most complicated knot; “it was not he who bought the roses, therefore it was not he who, clad in a blue domino, entered Miss Morgan’s dressing-room directly after Knight left it.
“And mark the force of this point,” he added excitedly.
“Just before the curtain rang up for the second act, Miss Morgan had been in her room, and had then undone the packet, which, in her own words, was just as she had received it from Mr Kidd’s hands.
“After that Miss Knight remained in charge, and a mere ten seconds after she left the room she saw the blue domino carrying the roses at the door.
“The flower-girl’s story and that of George Finch have proved that the blue domino could not have been Mr Dennis, but it was the loafer who eventually stole the false necklace.
“If you bear all this in mind you will realize that there was no time in those ten seconds for Mr Dennis to have made the substitution before the theft was committed. It stands to reason that he could not have done it afterwards.
“Then, again, many people suspected Miss Knight, the dresser; but this supposition we may easily dismiss. An uneducated, stupid girl, not three-and-twenty, could not possibly have planned so clever a substitution. An imitation necklace of that particular calibre and made to order would cost far more money than a poor theatrical dresser could ever afford; let alone the risks of ordering such an ornament to be made.
“No,” said the funny creature, with comic emphasis, “there is but one theory possible, which is my own.”
“And that is?” I asked eagerly.
“The workman, Rumford, of course,” he responded triumphantly. “Why! it jumps to the eyes, as our French friends would tell us. Who other than he, could have the opportunity of making an exact copy of the necklace which had been entrusted to his firm?
“Being in the trade he could easily obtain the false stones without exciting any undue suspicion; being a skilled craftsman, he could easily make the clasp, and string the pearls in exact imitation of the original; he could do this secretly in his own home and without the slightest risk.
“Then the plan, though extremely simple, was very cleverly thought out. Disguised as the loafer –”
“The loafer!” I exclaimed.
“Why, yes! the loafer,” he replied quietly; “disguised as the loafer, he hung round the stage door of the Novelty after business hours, until he had collected the bits of gossip and information he wanted; thus he learnt that Mr Howard Dennis was Miss Morgan’s accredited fiancée; that he, like everybody else who was available, ‘walked on’ in the second act; and that during that time the back of the stage was practically deserted.
“No doubt he knew all along that Mr Kidd meant to take the pearls down to the theatre himself that night, and it was quite easy to ascertain that Miss Morgan – as the hapless heroine – wore no jewellery in the second act, and that Mr Howard Dennis invariably wore a blue domino.
“Some people might incline to the belief that Miss Knight was a paid accomplice, that she left the dressing-room unprotected on purpose, and that her story of the blue domino and the roses was prearranged between herself and Rumford, but that is not my opinion.
“I think that the scoundrel was far too clever to need any accomplice, and too shrewd to put himself thereby at the mercy of a girl like Knight.
“Rumford, I find, is a married man: this to me explains the blue domino, which the police were never able to trace to any business place, where it might have been bought or hired. Like the necklace itself, it was ‘home-made’.
“Having got his properties and his plans ready, Rumford then set to work. You must remember that a stage doorkeeper is never above accepting a glass of beer from a friendly acquaintance; and, no doubt, if George Finch had not asked the loafer to bring him a glass, the latter would have offered him one. To drug the beer was simple enough; then Rumford went to buy the roses, and, I should say, met his wife somewhere round the corner, who handed him the blue domino and the mask; all this was done in order to completely puzzle the police subsequently, and also in order to throw suspicion, if possible, upon young Dennis.
“As soon as the drug took effect upon George Finch, Rumford slipped into the theatre. To slip a mask and domino on and off is, as you know, a matter of a few seconds. Probably his intention had been – if he found Knight in the room – to knock her down if she attempted to raise an alarm; but here fortune favoured him. Knight saw him from a distance, and mistook him easily for Mr Dennis.
“After the theft of the real necklace, Rumford sneaked out of the theatre. And here you see how clever was the scoundrel’s plan: if he had merely substituted one necklace for another there would have been no doubt whatever that the loafer – whoever he was – was the culprit – the drugged beer would have been quite sufficient proof for that. The hue and cry would have been after the loafer, and, who knows? there might have been someone or something which might have identified that loafer with himself.
“He must have bought the shabby clothes somewhere; he certainly bought the roses from a flower-girl; anyhow, there were a hundred and one little risks and contingencies which might have brought the theft home to him.
“But mark what happens: he steals the real necklace, and keeps the false one in his hand, intending to drop it sooner or later, and thus sent the police entirely on the wrong scent. As the loafer, she was supposed to have stolen the false necklace, then dropped it whilst struggling with George Finch. The result is that no one has troubled about the loafer; no one thought that he had anything to do with the substitution, which was the main point at issue, and no very great effort has ever been made to find that mysterious loafer.
“It never occurred to anyone that the fraud and the theft were committed by one and the same person, and that that person could be none other than James Rumford.”
XII
1
“We have heard so much about the evils of Bridge,” said the man in the corner that afternoon, “but I doubt whether that fashionable game has ever been responsible for a more terrible tragedy than the one at Barnsdale Manor.”
“You think, then,” I asked, for I saw he was waiting to be drawn out, “you think that the high play at Bridge did have something to do with that awful murder?”
“Most people think that much, I fancy,” he replied, “although no one has arrived any nearer to the solution of the mystery which surrounds the tragic death of Mme Quesnard at Barnsdale Manor on the 23rd September last.
“On that fateful occasion, you must remember that the house party at the Manor included a number of sporting and fashionable friends of Lord and Lady Barnsdale, among whom Sir Gilbert Culworth was the only one whose name was actually mentioned during the hearing of this extraordinary case.
“It seems to have been a very gay house party indeed. In the daytime Lord Barnsdale took some of his guests to shoot and fish, whilst a few devotees remained at home in order to indulge their passion for the modern craze of Bridge. It was generally understood that Lord Barnsdale did not altogether approve of quite so much gambling. He was not by any means well off; and although he was very much in love with his beautiful wife, he could ill afford to pay her losses at cards.
“This was the reason, no doubt, that Bridge at Barnsdale Manor was only indulged in whilst the host himself was out shooting or fishing; in the evenings there was music or billiards, but never any cards.
“One of the most interesting personalities in the Barnsdale ménage was undoubtedly madame Nathalie Quesnard, a sister of Lord Barnsdale’s mother, who, if you remember, was a Mademoiselle de la Trémouille. This Mme Quesnard was extremely wealthy, the widow of a French West Indian planter, who had made millions in Martinique.
“She was very fond of her nephew, to whom, as she had no children or other relatives of her own, she intended to leave the bulk of her vast fortune. Pending her death, which was not likely to occur for some time, as she was not more than fifty, she took up her abode at Barnsdale Manor, together with her companion and amanuensis, a poor girl named Alice Holt.
“Mme Quesnard was seemingly an amiable old lady, the only unpleasant trait in her character being her intense dislike of her nephew’s beautiful and fashionable young wife. The old Frenchwoman, who, with all her wealth, had the unbounded and innate thriftiness peculiar to her nation, looked with perfect horror on Lady Barnsdale’s extravagances, and above all on her fondness for gambling; and subsequently several of the servants at the Manor testified to the amount of mischief the old lady strove to make between her nephew and his young wife.
“Mme Quesnard’s dislike for Lady Barnsdale seems, moreover, to have been shared by her dependent and companion, the girl Alice Holt. Between them, these two ladies seem to have cordially hated the brilliant and much-admired mistress of Barnsdale Manor.
“Such were the chief inmates of the Manor last September, at the time the tragedy occurred. On that memorable night Alice Holt, who occupied a bedroom immediately above that of Mme Quesnard, was awakened in the middle of the night by a persistent noise, which undoubtedly came from her mistress’ room. The walls and floorings at the old Manor are very thick, and the sound was a very confused one, although the girl was quite sure that she could hear Mme Quesnard’s shrill voice raised as if in anger.
“She tried to listen for a time, and presently she heard a sound as if some piece of furniture had been knocked over, then nothing more. Somehow the sudden silence seemed to have frightened the girl more than the noise had done.
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