CHAPTER XXIII
IS THIS MAN RIGHT?
A murmur of astonishment ran through the court as the witness madehis last reply, and those most closely interested in him turned andlooked at each other with obvious amazement. And for a moment Mr.Millington-Bywater seemed to be at a loss; in the next he bent forwardtoward the witness-box and fixed the man standing there with apiercing look.
"Do you seriously tell us, on your oath, that these papers--your papers,if you are what you claim to be--were stolen from you many years ago, andhave only just been restored to you?" he asked. "On your oath, mind!"
"I do tell you so," answered the witness quietly. "I am on oath."
The magistrate glanced at Mr. Millington-Bywater.
"What is the relevancy of this--in relation to the prisoner and thecharge against him?" he inquired. "You have some point, of course?"
"The relevancy is this, Your Worship," replied Mr. Millington-Bywater:"Our contention is that the papers referred to were until recently in thecustody of John Ashton, the murdered man--I can put a witness in the boxwho can give absolute proof of that, a highly reputable witness, who ispresent,--and that John Ashton was certainly murdered by some person orpersons who, for purposes of their own, wished to gain possession ofthem. Now, we know that they are in possession of the present witness, orrather, of his solicitors, to whom he has handed them. I mean to provethat Ashton was murdered in the way, and for the reason I suggest, andthat accordingly the prisoner is absolutely innocent of the chargebrought against him. I should therefore like to ask this witness to tellus how he regained possession of these papers, for I am convinced that inwhat he can tell us lies the secret of Ashton's murder. Now," hecontinued, turning again to the witness as the magistrate nodded assent,"we will assume for the time being that you are what you representyourself to be--the Lord Marketstoke who disappeared from Englandthirty-five years ago. You have just heard what I said to HisWorship--about these papers, and what I put forward as regards theirconnection with the murder of John Ashton? Will you tell us how you lostthose papers, and more particularly, how you recently regained possessionof them? You see the immense, the vital importance of this to theunfortunate young fellow in the dock?"
"Who," answered the witness with a calm smile, "is quite and utterlymistaken in thinking that he knew me in America, for I have certainlynever set foot in America, neither North nor South, in my life! I am verymuch surprised indeed to be forced into publicity as I have been thismorning--I came here as a merely curious spectator and had no ideawhatever that I should be called into this box. But if any evidence ofmine can establish, or help to establish, the prisoner's innocence, Iwill give it only too gladly."
"Much obliged to you, sir," said Mr. Millington-Bywater, who, in Viner'sopinion, was evidently impressed by the witness's straightforward toneand candid demeanour.
"Well, if you will tell us--in your own way--about these papers,now--always remembering that we have absolute proof that until recentlythey were in the possession of John Ashton? Let me preface whatever youchoose to tell us with a question: Do you know that they were inpossession of John Ashton?"
"I have no more idea or knowledge of whose hands they were in, and hadbeen in, for many years, until they were restored to me, than the man inthe moon has!" affirmed the witness. "I'll tell you the wholestory--willingly: I could have told it yesterday to certain gentlemen,whom I see present, if they had not treated me as an impostor as soon asthey saw me. Well,"--here he folded his hands on the ledge of thewitness-box, and quietly fixing his eyes on the examining counsel,proceeded to speak in a calm, conversational tone--"the story is this: Ileft England about five-and-thirty years ago after certain domesticunpleasantnesses which I felt so much that I determined to give up allconnection with my family and to start an absolutely new life of my own.I went away to Australia and landed there under the name of Wickham. Ihad a certain amount of money which had come to me from my mother. Ispeculated with it on my arrival, somewhat foolishly, no doubt, and Ilost it--every penny.
"So then I was obliged to work for my living. I went up country, and forsome time worked as a miner in the Bendigo district. I had been workingin this way perhaps fourteen months when an accident occurred in the mineat which I was engaged. There was a serious fall of earth and masonry;two or three of my fellow-workers were killed on the spot, and I wastaken up for dead. I was removed to a local hospital--there had been someserious injury to my head and spine, but I still had life in me, and Iwas brought round. But I remained in hospital, in a sort of semiconsciousstate, for a long time--months. When I went back, after my discharge, tomy quarters--nothing but a rough shanty which I had shared with manyother men--all my possessions had vanished. Among them, of course, werethe papers I had kept, and a packet of letters written to me by my motherwhen I was a schoolboy at Eton.
"Of course, I knew at once what had happened--some one of my mates,believing me to be dead, had appropriated all my belongings and gone offwith them. There was nothing at all to be wondered at in that--it was theusual thing in such a society. And I knew there was nothing to do but toaccept my loss philosophically."
"Did you make no effort to recover your possessions?" asked Mr.Millington-Bywater.
"No," answered the witness with a quiet smile. "I didn't! I knew too muchof the habits of men in mining centers to waste time in that way. A greatmany men had left that particular camp during my illness--it would havebeen impossible to trace each one. No--after all, I had left England inorder to lose my identity, and now, of course, it was gone. I went awayinto quite another part of the country--into Queensland. I began tradingin Brisbane, and I did very well there, and remained there many years.Then I went farther south, to Sydney--and I did very well there too. Itwas in Sydney, years after that, that I saw the advertisements in thenewspapers, English and Colonial, setting forth that my father was dead,and asking for news of myself. I took no notice of them--I had not theleast desire to return to England, no wish for the title, and I was quitecontent that my youngest brother should get that and the estates. So Idid nothing; nobody knew who I really was--"
"One moment!" said Mr. Millington-Bywater. "While you were at themining-camp, in the Bendigo district, did you ever reveal your secret toany of your fellow-miners?"
"Never!" answered the witness. "I never revealed it to a living souluntil I told my solicitor there, Mr. Methley, after my recent arrivalin London."
"But of course, whoever stole your letters and so on, would discover, orguess at, the truth?" suggested Mr. Millington-Bywater.
"Oh, of course, of course!" said the witness. "Well as I was saying, Idid nothing--except to keep an eye on the papers. I saw in due coursethat leave to presume my death had been given, and that my youngerbrother had assumed the title, and administered the estate, and I wasquite content. The fact was, I was at that time doing exceedingly well,and I was too much interested in my doings to care about what was goingon in England. All my life," continued the witness, with a slight smile,"I have had a--I had better call it a weakness--for speculating; andwhen I had got a goodly sum of money together by my trading venture inBrisbane and Sydney, I began speculating again, in Melbourne chiefly.And--to cut my story short--last year I had one of my periodic bad turnsof fortune: I lost a lot of money. Now, I am, as you see, getting on inlife, over sixty--and it occurred to me that if I came over to Englandand convinced my nephew, the present holder of the title and estates,that I am really who I am, he would not be averse--we have always been agenerous family--to giving me enough to settle down on in Australia forthe rest of my days. Perhaps I had better say at once, since we aremaking matters so very public, that I do not want the title, nor theestate; I will be quite candid and say what I do want--enough to let melive in proper comfort in Australia, whither I shall again repair as soonas I settle my affairs here."
Mr. Millington-Bywater glanced at the magistrate and then at the witness.
"Well, now, these papers?" he said. "You didn't bring them to Londonwith you?"
"Of course not!" answered the witness. "I had not seen or heard of themfor thirty-two years! No I relied, on coming to this country, on otherthings to prove my identity, such as my knowledge of Marketstoke andEllingham, my thorough acquaintance with the family history, myrecollection of people I had known, like Mr. Carless, Mr. Driver, andtheir clerk, Mr. Portlethwaite, and on the fact that I lost this fingerthrough a shooting accident when I was a boy, at Ellingham. Curiously,"he added with another smile, "these things don't seem to have muchweight. But no! I had no papers when I landed here."
"How did they come into your possession, then?" asked Mr.Millington-Bywater. "That is what we most earnestly desire to know. Letme impress upon you, sir, that this is the most serious and fatefulquestion I can possibly put to you! How did you get them?"
"And--from whom?" said the magistrate. "From whom?"
The witness shook his head.
"I can tell you exactly how I got them," he answered. "But I can't tellyou from whom, for I don't know! What I can tell you is this: When Iarrived at Tilbury from Melbourne, I asked a fellow-passenger with whom Icame along to London if he could tell me of a quiet, good hotel in theneighbourhood of the parks--he recommended the Belfield, in LancasterGate. I went there and put myself up, and from it I went out and about agood deal, looking up old haunts. I also lunched and dined a good manytimes at some of the new restaurants which had sprung into being since Ileft London. I mention this to show you that I was where I could be seenand noticed, as I evidently was. One afternoon, while I was sitting inthe smoking-room at my hotel, the page-boy came in with a letter on histray, approached me, and said that it had been brought by a districtmessenger. It was addressed simply, 'Mr. Cave'--the name by which I hadregistered at the hotel--and was sealed; the inclosure, on a half-sheetof note-paper, was typewritten. I have it here," continued the witness,producing a pocketbook and taking out an envelope. "I will read itscontents, and I shall be glad to let any one concerned see it. There isno address and no date, and it says this: 'If you wish to recover thepapers and letters which were lost by you when you went into hospital atWirra-Worra, Bendigo, thirty-two years ago, be at the Speke Monument inKensington Gardens at five o'clock this afternoon.' There was nosignature."
Another murmur of intense and excited interest ran round the court as thewitness handed the letter up to the magistrate, who, after looking itover, passed it on to the counsel below. They, in their turn, showed itto Mr. Carless, Mr. Pawle and Lord Ellingham, Mr. Pawle, showing it toViner, whispered in his ear:
"If this man's telling the truth," he said, "this is the mostextraordinary story I ever heard in my life."
"It seems to me that it is the truth!" muttered Viner. "And I'm prettycertain that at last we're on the way-to finding out who killed Ashton.But let's hear the end."
Mr. Millington-Bywater handed the letter back with a polite bow--it wasvery obvious to more than one observer that he had by this time quiteaccepted the witness as what he claimed to be.
"You kept the appointment?" he asked.
"I did, indeed!" exclaimed the witness. "As much out of greatly excitedcuriosity as anything! It seemed to me a most extraordinary thing thatpapers stolen from me in Australia thirty-two years ago should bereturned to me in London! Yes, I walked down to the Speke Monument. I sawno one about there but a heavily veiled woman who walked about on oneside of the obelisk while I patrolled the other. Eventually sheapproached me, and at once asked me if I had kept secret the receipt ofthe mysterious letter? I assured her that I had. She then told me thatshe was the ambassadress of the people who had my letters and papers, andwho had seen and recognized me in London and tracked me to my hotel. Shewas empowered to negotiate with me for the handing over of the papers.There were stipulations. I was to give my solemn word of honour that Iwould not follow her, or cause her to be followed. I was not to askquestions. And I was to give a post-dated check on the bank at which Ihad opened an account in London, on receipt of the papers. The check wasto be post-dated one month; it was to be made out to bearer, and theamount was ten thousand pounds. I agreed!"
"You really agreed!" exclaimed Mr. Millington-Bywater.
"I agreed! I wanted my papers. We parted, with an agreement that we wereto meet two days later at the same place. I was there--so was the woman.She handed me a parcel, and I immediately took it to an adjacent seat andexamined it. Everything that I could remember was there, with twoexceptions. The packet of letters from my mother, to which I referredjust now, was missing; so was a certain locket, which had belonged toher, and of which I had taken great care since her death, up to the timeof my accident in the mining-camp. I pointed out these omissions to thewoman: she answered that the papers which she had handed over were allthat had been in her principal's possession. Thereupon I gave her thecheck which had been agreed upon, and we parted."
"And that is all you know of her?" asked Mr. Millington-Bywater.
"All!"
"Can you describe her?"
"A tallish, rather well-built woman, but so veiled that I could seenothing of her features; it was, moreover, nearly dark on both occasions.From her speech and manner, she was, I should say, a woman of educationand refinement."
"Did you try to trace her, or her principals, through the districtmessenger who brought the letter?"
"Certainly not! I told you, just now, that I gave my word of honour: Icouldn't."
Mr. Millington-Bywater turned to the magistrate.
"I can, if Your Worship desires it, put a witness in the box who canprove beyond doubt that the papers of which we have just heard thisremarkable story, were recently in the possession of John Ashton," hesaid. "He is Mr. Cecil Perkwite, of the Middle Temple--a member of my ownprofession."
But the magistrate, who appeared unusually thoughtful, shook his head.
"After what we have heard," he said, "I think we had better adjourn. Theprisoner will be remanded--as before--for another week."
When the magistrate had left the bench, and the court was humming withthe murmur of tongues suddenly let free, Mr. Pawle forced his way to theside of the last witness.
"Whoever you are, sir," he said, "there's one thing certain--nobody butyou can supply the solution of the mystery about Ashton's death! Comewith me and Carless at once."