CHAPTER XIII
A CUNNING RASCAL
"Yes, left severely alone," continued the man in the corner with asarcastic chuckle. "So severely alone, in fact, that one quarter of anhour after another passed by and still the magnificent police officer inthe gorgeous uniform did not return. Then, when it was too late, Schwarzcursed himself once again for the double-dyed idiot that he was. He hadbeen only too ready to believe that Prince Semionicz was a liar and arogue, and under these unjust suspicions he had fallen an all too easyprey to one of the most cunning rascals he had ever come across.
"An inquiry from the hall porter at the North-Western elicited the factthat no such personage as Mr. Schwarz described had entered the hotel.The young man asked to see Prince Semionicz, hoping against hope thatall was not yet lost. The Prince received him most courteously; he wasdictating some letters to his secretary, while the valet was in the nextroom preparing his master's evening clothes. Mr. Schwarz found it verydifficult to explain what he actually did want.
"There stood the dressing-case in which the Prince had locked up thejewels, and there the bag from which the secretary had taken thebank-notes. After much hesitation on Schwarz's part and much impatienceon that of the Prince, the young man blurted out the whole story of theso-called Russian police officer whose card he still held in his hand.
"The Prince, it appears, took the whole thing wonderfullygood-naturedly; no doubt he thought the jeweller a hopeless fool. Heshowed him the jewels, the receipt he held, and also a large bundle ofbank-notes similar to those Schwarz had with such culpable folly givenup to the clever rascal in the cab.
"'I pay all my bills with Bank of England notes, Mr. Schwarz. It wouldhave been wiser, perhaps, if you had spoken to the manager of the hotelabout me before you were so ready to believe any cock-and-bull storyabout my supposed rogueries.'
"Finally he placed a small 16mo volume before the young jeweller, andsaid with a pleasant smile:
"'If people in this country who are in a large way of business, and aretherefore likely to come in contact with people of foreign nationality,were to study these little volumes before doing business with anyforeigner who claims a title, much disappointment and a great loss wouldoften be saved. Now in this case had you looked up page 797 of thislittle volume of Gotha's Almanach you would have seen my name in it andknown from the first that the so-called Russian detective was a liar.'
"There was nothing more to be said, and Mr. Schwarz left the hotel. Nodoubt, now that he had been hopelessly duped he dared not go home, andhalf hoped by communicating with the police that they might succeed inarresting the thief before he had time to leave Liverpool. Heinterviewed Detective-Inspector Watson, and was at once confronted withthe awful difficulty which would make the recovery of the bank-notespractically hopeless. He had never had the time or opportunity ofjotting down the numbers of the notes.
"Mr. Winslow, though terribly wrathful against his nephew, did not wishto keep him out of his home. As soon as he had received Schwarz'sletter, he traced him, with Inspector Watson's help, to his lodgings inNorth Street, where the unfortunate young man meant to remain hiddenuntil the terrible storm had blown over, or perhaps until the thief hadbeen caught red-handed with the booty still in his hands.
"This happy event, needless to say, never did occur, though the policemade every effort to trace the man who had decoyed Schwarz into the cab.His appearance was such an uncommon one; it seemed most unlikely that noone in Liverpool should have noticed him after he left that cab. Thewonderful fur coat, the long beard, all must have been noticeable, eventhough it was past four o'clock on a somewhat foggy December afternoon.
"But every investigation proved futile; no one answering Schwarz'sdescription of the man had been seen anywhere. The papers continued torefer to the case as 'the Liverpool Mystery.' Scotland Yard sent Mr.Fairburn down--the celebrated detective--at the request of the Liverpoolpolice, to help in the investigations, but nothing availed.
"Prince Semionicz, with his suite, left Liverpool, and he who hadattempted to blacken his character, and had succeeded in robbing Messrs.Winslow and Vassall of L10,500, had completely disappeared."
The man in the corner readjusted his collar and necktie, which, duringthe narrative of this interesting mystery, had worked its way up hislong, crane-like neck under his large flappy ears. His costume ofchecked tweed of a peculiarly loud pattern had tickled the fancy of someof the waitresses, who were standing gazing at him and giggling in onecorner. This evidently made him nervous. He gazed up very meekly atPolly, looking for all the world like a bald-headed adjutant dressed fora holiday.
"Of course, all sorts of theories of the theft got about at first. Oneof the most popular, and at the same time most quickly exploded, beingthat young Schwarz had told a cock-and-bull story, and was the actualthief himself.
"However, as I said before, that was very quickly exploded, as Mr.Schwarz senior, a very wealthy merchant, never allowed his son'scarelessness to be a serious loss to his kind employers. As soon as hethoroughly grasped all the circumstances of the extraordinary case, hedrew a cheque for L10,500 and remitted it to Messrs. Winslow andVassall. It was just, but it was also high-minded.
"All Liverpool knew of the generous action, as Mr. Winslow took carethat it should; and any evil suspicion regarding young Mr. Schwarzvanished as quickly as it had come.
"Then, of course, there was the theory about the Prince and his suite,and to this day I fancy there are plenty of people in Liverpool, andalso in London, who declare that the so-called Russian police officerwas a confederate. No doubt that theory was very plausible, and Messrs.Winslow and Vassall spent a good deal of money in trying to prove a caseagainst the Russian Prince.
"Very soon, however, that theory was also bound to collapse. Mr.Fairburn, whose reputation as an investigator of crime waxes in directinverted ratio to his capacities, did hit upon the obvious course ofinterviewing the managers of the larger London and Liverpool _agents dechange_. He soon found that Prince Semionicz had converted a great dealof Russian and French money into English bank-notes since his arrival inthis country. More than L30,000 in good solid, honest money was tracedto the pockets of the gentleman with the sixteen quarterings. It seemed,therefore, more than improbable that a man who was obviously fairlywealthy would risk imprisonment and hard labour, if not worse, for thesake of increasing his fortune by L10,000.
"However, the theory of the Prince's guilt has taken firm root in thedull minds of our police authorities. They have had every informationwith regard to Prince Semionicz's antecedents from Russia; his position,his wealth, have been placed above suspicion, and yet they suspect andgo on suspecting him or his secretary. They have communicated with thepolice of every European capital; and while they still hope to obtainsufficient evidence against those they suspect, they calmly allow theguilty to enjoy the fruit of his clever roguery."
"The guilty?" said Polly. "Who do you think--"
"Who do I think knew at that moment that young Schwarz had money in hispossession?" he said excitedly, wriggling in his chair like aJack-in-the-box. "Obviously some one was guilty of that theft who knewthat Schwarz had gone to interview a rich Russian, and would in allprobability return with a large sum of money in his possession?"
"Who, indeed, but the Prince and his secretary?" she argued. "But justnow you said--"
"Just now I said that the police were determined to find the Prince andhis secretary guilty; they did not look further than their own stumpynoses. Messrs. Winslow and Vassall spent money with a free hand in thoseinvestigations. Mr. Winslow, as the senior partner, stood to lose overL9000 by that robbery. Now, with Mr. Vassall it was different.
"When I saw how the police went on blundering in this case I took thetrouble to make certain inquiries, the whole thing interested me somuch, and I learnt all that I wished to know. I found out, namely, thatMr. Vassall was very much a junior partner in the firm, that he onlydrew ten per cent of the profits, having been promoted lately to apartnership from havin
g been senior assistant.
"Now, the police did not take the trouble to find that out."
"But you don't mean that--"
"I mean that in all cases where robbery affects more than one person thefirst thing to find out is whether it affects the second party equallywith the first. I proved that to you, didn't I, over that robbery inPhillimore Terrace? There, as here, one of the two parties stood tolose very little in comparison with the other--"
"Even then--" she began.
"Wait a moment, for I found out something more. The moment I hadascertained that Mr. Vassall was not drawing more than about L500 a yearfrom the business profits I tried to ascertain at what rate he lived andwhat were his chief vices. I found that he kept a fine house in AlbertTerrace. Now, the rents of those houses are L250 a year. Thereforespeculation, horse-racing or some sort of gambling, must help to keep upthat establishment. Speculation and most forms of gambling aresynonymous with debt and ruin. It is only a question of time. WhetherMr. Vassall was in debt or not at the time, that I cannot say, but thisI do know, that ever since that unfortunate loss to him of about L1000he has kept his house in nicer style than before, and he now has a goodbanking account at the Lancashire and Liverpool bank, which he opened ayear after his 'heavy loss.'"
"But it must have been very difficult--" argued Polly.
"What?" he said. "To have planned out the whole thing? For carrying itout was mere child's play. He had twenty-four hours in which to put hisplan into execution. Why, what was there to do? Firstly, to go to alocal printer in some out-of-the-way part of the town and get him toprint a few cards with the high-sounding name. That, of course, is done'while you wait.' Beyond that there was the purchase of a goodsecond-hand uniform, fur coat, and a beard and a wig from a costumier's.
"No, no, the execution was not difficult; it was the planning of it all,the daring that was so fine. Schwarz, of course, was a foreigner; he hadonly been in England a little over a fortnight. Vassall's broken Englishmisled him; probably he did not know the junior partner very intimately.I have no doubt that but for his uncle's absurd British prejudice andsuspicions against the Russian Prince, Schwarz would not have been soready to believe in the latter's roguery. As I said, it would be a greatboon if English tradesmen studied Gotha more; but it was clever, wasn'tit? I couldn't have done it much better myself."
That last sentence was so characteristic. Before Polly could think ofsome plausible argument against his theory he was gone, and she wastrying vainly to find another solution to the Liverpool mystery.