The Crime And The Criminal - free ebook by Richard Marsh

BOOK I.-THE CRIME.

( The Story according to Mr. Thomas Tennant .)...

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CHAPTER I. THE OPEN DOOR.

I ran down to Brighton for the Sunday. My wife's cousin, George Baxendale, was stopping there, with the Coopers. The wife and I were both to have gone. But our little Minna was very queer--feverish cold, or something--and Lucy did not like to leave her with the nurse. So I went down alone. It was a fine day, for November. We drove over to Bramber--Jack Cooper and his wife, Baxendale, and I. When we got back to Regency Square it was pretty late. I was to go back by the 8.40. When we had dined I h

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CHAPTER II. THE MAN WITH THE SILK HANDKERCHIEF.

Now that I had reached Victoria I did not know what to do. I continued to sit in a sort of bewilderment, wondering. Should I speak to the guard, or should I not? Should I walk out of the station as if nothing had happened? I was, or it seemed to me that I was, between the devil and the deep sea. Whichever path I took was the path, not of safety but of danger. While I sat hesitating and apparently incapable of anything but hesitation, the carriage door was opened. I supposed that, seeing me, a po

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CHAPTER III. THE NAME ON THE SCRAP OF PAPER.

I was quite conscious, as I drove home the rest of the way alone, that I had made of myself, doubly and trebly, a fool. But, if possible, still worse remained behind. How the African gentleman, of whom I read the other day, manages with 999 wives, I, for one, am at a loss to understand. When a man is on good terms with one wife--and I had rather be on good terms with one wife than on bad terms with 999--occasions do arise on which he experiences little difficulties. For instance, I had been in t

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CHAPTER IV. BLACKMAIL.

Again I was struck by the man's resemblance to Mr. Townsend. It was obvious even in the way in which he advanced towards me across the room. It was almost as if Townsend had slipped on some costume of a masquerade, and reappeared in it to play tricks with me. The fellow, going to the centre of the room, crossed his arms, in theatrical fashion, across his chest, and stood and stared at me--glared at me would be the more correct expression. Not caring to meet his glances, and to return him glare f

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CHAPTER V. THE FACE IN THE DARKNESS.

I did not go home even when he had left me, though shortly afterwards I started to. As I was going along Throgmorton Street I met MacCulloch. He was jubilant. He had pulled off a big stake over some race or other--upon my word, I forget what. It was one which had been run that day. He asked me to have a small bottle with him. While we were having it three other fellows joined us. Then MacCulloch asked the lot of us to go and dine with him. I knew that I ought not to, but I didn't care. I seemed

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CHAPTER VI. A CONFESSION.

"He will be all right now." The voice seemed to come to me out of the land of dreams. I seemed to be in a dream myself. What I saw, I seemed to see in a dream. It was some moments before I realised that the man bending over me was Ferguson, our doctor; that I was lying undressed in bed; that my wife was standing by the doctor's side. When I did realise it, I sat up with a start. "What's the matter?" I asked. "Have I been ill?" It struck me that, as he replied to my question with another, the doc

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CHAPTER VII. A VISITOR.

These might be a silver lining to the cloud. If there was, I should have liked to have had a peep at it. Just then it would have done me good. I could not see much promise of happiness either in the near or in the distant future. I had been reading a good deal lately about the "ethics of suicide." If my wife believed me guilty, I should find it difficult to convince a judge and jury of my innocence. I might as well commit suicide as hang. I should be the victim of a judicial murder if they did h

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CHAPTER VIII. MORE THAN HIS MATCH.

Yes, unannounced. I am sure that if I had had the least suspicion of his approaching presence I should have kept him out by the simple expedient of turning the key in the door. As it was, there he stood, as bold as brass, holding in one hand the handle of the door which he had closed behind him, and in the other his hat, the brim of which he was pressing to his breast. A striking change had been effected in his appearance since I had seen him last. He had expended a portion of my hundred pounds

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CHAPTER IX. FOR THE SECOND TIME.

Lucy turned to me as soon as it was quite clear that the fellow had gone. "Now get up and dress, and go at once to some great lawyer and tell him everything. To whom shall you go?" "My dear! At this time of day? By the time that I reach town they'll have all gone home." Lucy looked at me in that freezing fashion which has always struck me as being so singularly unsympathetic. "What do you propose to do?" "Well, my dear, I think I'll get up and dress, if you don't mind, and have a little dinner."

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BOOK II.--THE CLUB.

( The Tale is told by Reginald Townsend, Esq .)...

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CHAPTER X. THE HONOUR OF THE CLUB.

I had not a notion that it would be Louise, that evening at the club--not the very faintest! How could I have? I did not know that the lot would fall to me. I was the first to draw. When I saw that the card which I had drawn was black, and that on it were inscribed, in gleaming crimson letters, the words, "The Honour of the Club," it gave me quite a start. Of course I knew that the odds were equal. But, somehow or other, I had never expected to draw the thing. I held it up in front of me. "Gentl

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CHAPTER XI. WHAT MR. TENNANT HAD WRITTEN.

There were several letters by the morning's post. One's creditors, at any rate, seemed to be in town. Do those sort of people ever go away? Lily Langdale wanted me to look her up. Confound little Lily Langdale! I had looked her up too much already. Chirpy Mason, writing from Monte Carlo, wanted to know if I could do him a hundred or two. Would I wire? No; I would neither do the one or the other. I knew Chirpy. He had probably made the same request to half a dozen more of us. There were only two

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CHAPTER XII. SIR HASELTON JARDINE.

Sir Haselton Jardine was a man whom I had rather been in the habit of holding in awe. One never could be certain how much he knew. A man could scarcely rise to the forensic heights which he had reached without knowing something of almost every one. He was so quiet and so self-contained that it was impossible to gauge the extent of his knowledge until too late. He was rather short, and he was very thin, and he stooped. He had colourless grey eyes, which you scarcely ever saw, though, if you had y

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CHAPTER XIII. AN AFTERNOON CALL.

"You're sleeping it out. Are you going to lie in bed all day?" I opened my eyes. I looked up. Somebody was shaking me--Archie Beaupré. "You don't mean to say that you're awake? I admire your hours." "Is it late?" "I don't know what you call late. It's nearly one. Do you generally sleep to this time?" "Made rather a night of it, my boy. It was five when I left the Climax." "Oh, you went to the Climax, did you, after you left Jardine's? Win?" "A trifle. What brings you here--starting in the early-

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CHAPTER XIV. SELLING BOOMJOPFS.

The newspapers on the Wednesday and Thursday were beyond my understanding. I had never before so clearly realised how great a stir a little thing might make. The little incident at Three Bridges had assumed the dimensions of an event of national importance. Had one of the great decisive battles of the world just been fought it could scarcely have seemed to occupy a greater space in the public mind. Everywhere the words stared you in the face, everywhere you heard the words slipping from somebody

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CHAPTER XV. THE CLUB.

The club held its meetings in Horseferry Road. I had never been there in the daytime, but by night the approaches, the surroundings, the place itself did not strike one as being particularly savoury. One wondered what the deuce one was doing in that galley. We were instructed to tell cabmen to pull up at the Gas Light and Coke Company's Offices. Since it was not deemed expedient to let even jarveys know exactly where in that salubrious locality men with the price of a cab-fare in their pockets h

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CHAPTER XVI. DRAWING THE LOT.

When we had taken our places, Pendarvon commenced proceedings. He looked round at us and laughed, as if the whole proceedings had been some mighty joke. "Gentlemen, the usual preliminaries, if you please." He had the crimson-covered book open in front of him. He read aloud the oath by which we all had bound ourselves. As he did so, men sobered down a little. The oath which he had evolved from his mischief-making brain was calculated to make one sober. It was the rule that, at each meeting, the o

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CHAPTER XVII. A LITTLE GAME.

Six or seven of us were in the street outside the club when the meeting was over. Where the rest had vanished to I do not know. There was not a cab to be seen. I doubt if a cab ever does ply for hire in that locality. Besides, what would be one cab among so many? The night was fine. Archie put his arm through mine. "Come along, lets pad the hoof, my dears." Off we went, the lot of us abreast. We had not gone a dozen yards before we came upon a policeman coming along as if the pavement had been i

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CHAPTER XVIII. DAMON AND PYTHIAS: A MODERN INSTANCE.

" West Kensington . " Dear Mr. Townsend ,--Will you come and dine with me one evening next week? I am always free. "I want to ask your advice on a small personal concern. You know the world so much better than I do. "Truly yours, " Helen Carruth ." The next morning, when I woke from dreams of poker, this was the first letter which I opened. It was nicely written, in a small, round hand, as clear as copperplate--somehow it did not strike me as being the writing of a woman who did not know the wor

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CHAPTER XIX. THE PROMISE.

But he went with me to Cockington. More, he picked up the cheque, and cashed it, and let Pendarvon have his money before he went. He struck me as not being very far from drunk when we started. Having commenced to drink, he kept at it like a fish. He was in deliriously high spirits by the time we reached our journey's end. I began to suspect that there was literal truth in what he had said; that there was a strain of madness in his blood; and that, consciously or otherwise, he was in actual train

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CHAPTER XX. THE NEWS FROM TOWN.

I woke up feeling as fresh as a daisy. When Burton drew up the blinds the sun came gleaming through the bedroom windows. "There's been a slight frost, sir, but I think it's going to be a clear day." From where I lay in bed the sky looked cloudless. "It seems just the morning for a shoot." "I think it is a shooting day, sir--there's no wind, and a good light." As Burton said, it was a shooting day. When I had dressed I went straight down on to the terrace. There was a slight nip in the air, and t

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BOOK III.--THE WOMAN.

( The Story as told by Mrs. Carruth .)...

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CHAPTER XXI. THE ADVENTURES OF A NIGHT.

To have fallen out of an express train going at full speed! I have had some strange experiences, for a mere woman. But this, I think, beats all. And to owe it to Thomas Tennant! I will be even with him yet. I went down to Brighton to spend the Sunday with Lettice Enderby--she was acting at the theatre there. I found her not feeling very well. We spent the day alone together. After dinner I had to make a rush for the train. Who should I find myself shut in with as soon as the train had started, b

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CHAPTER XXII. LOUISE O'DONNEL'S FATHER.

Next day Jack Haines came to see me. Mr. Haines promised to be a nuisance. Jack Haines and Daniel J. Carruth had been partners. I might have married either of them, for the matter of that. I might have married any one in Strikehigh City. Of two evils I chose what seemed to me to be the lesser, which was Daniel. For one thing, he was the boss partner and had the larger share, and for another, he was the older man. I could have twisted either of them round my finger, but it occurred to me that I m

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CHAPTER XXIII. MR. TOWNSEND COMES TO TEA.

I have not lived in the world so long as I have done, and seen so much of it, without realising how small a world, after all, it really is, and how full it is of coincidence; but I do think that this beats all the coincidences of which I ever heard. To think that I should have pitched on the one street in London which Mr. Thomas Tennant has chosen for a residence! It seems that I have. I lay awake for an hour trying to account for his sudden appearance from that cab. At last I hit on something.

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CHAPTER XXIV. WHAT MRS. CARRUTH SAW.

All sorts of things have happened--past all belief. Tommy Tennant has been arrested for murder--for the murder of me! Those wise police! And Reginald Townsend is coming to dine. But let us proceed in order. Each thing in its place, and one at a time. To take two or three things to begin with. The muddle they have made about what happened at Three Bridges is, really, in its way, quite marvellous. And it all pans out so clean--or seems to--to those who are looking on. No one is talking of anything

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CHAPTER XXV. MR. TOWNSEND'S DOUBLE.

That Thursday was wet. It drizzled all day long. I was not feeling well. I had had trouble with one of my maids--caught her tampering with a lock, and sent her packing on the spot. Altogether I was feeling run down. The best of us women get the blues at times! Things were worrying me, as things will if one is not feeling quite the thing. I was almost disposed to tell myself that I had made a mistake in coming to England. After all, I should have done better by remaining on the other side. Here t

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CHAPTER XXVI. ANNOUNCED!

The man twiddled his hat round and round between his hands, as if he sought inspiration from its brim. I sat and watched him. He was a poor kind of scamp. He was so easily nonplussed. "My name, madam? Yes." He struck himself with the palm of his hand upon his chest, affably, as it were. "My name is Trevannion--Stewart Trevannion." "Have you ever heard of Mr. Reginald Townsend?" Mr. Trevannion went all of a heap. He looked at me like a startled rabbit. He turned, as if to obey an impulse which su

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CHAPTER XXVII. MR. TOWNSEND IS MADE TO UNDERSTAND.

I wondered if he had an inkling of what it was that I might have to say to him. He showed no signs of it. But one could not tell. I felt, instinctively, that his intuition was every whit as keen as mine. While as for his appearance of perfect ease, it clothed him like a skin. As he lounged in an easy-chair I drank in, as it were, the atmosphere of his grace and elegance and charm of manner. I felt that I was going to enjoy myself. I believe that the fighting instinct is the strongest instinct th

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CHAPTER XXVIII. THE PRISONER COMES INTO COURT.

I got the ticket, and I went to the trial. I travelled in the same train with the judge. At Victoria, as I was standing at the carriage door, a little old gentleman, of the beer-barrel type of architecture, went toddling by. He wore gold spectacles, he had a very red face, a double chin, and big, pursy lips--the sort of old gentleman one would have liked to have smacked on the back. Another old gentleman was standing near me. He was tall and thin. When the little old gentleman went toddling by t

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CHAPTER XXIX. THE TRIAL BEGINS.

I am not able to describe all that took place. To begin with, everything that happened seemed to me for some time to be happening in a dream. When, afterwards, I read the account in the newspapers, it came to me with all the force of novelty. The fact was that, for ever so long, it was all I could do to prevent myself from swooning and making a scene and spoiling it all. It seems funny that, after having gone so much out of my way, and taken all that trouble, I should have been such a goose; but

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CHAPTER XXX. MR. TAUNTON'S EVIDENCE.

"Call Alexander Taunton!" He came not, though they called. Instead there was an interval for refreshment. A buzz of talking rose in the court. With one hand the judge pressed his spectacles more firmly in their place. He took a bird's-eye view of the proceedings. "I think," he observed, "that before taking the evidence of the next witness, it might be convenient if we were to adjourn for luncheon." So we adjourned. At least, some of us did. The prisoner was taken away. I heard them removing him

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CHAPTER XXXI. THE CASE FOR THE CROWN CONCLUDES.

After that the court adjourned till to-morrow. Mr. Alexander Taunton's performance wound up the programme of the day's entertainment, as it appeared to me, with adequate spirit. At the inn or hotel, or whatever they called it, at which I was stopping, every one was talking of the trial. The chambermaid, who waited on me at dinner, could talk of nothing else. She went gabble, gabble all the time that she was in the room, and it seemed to me that she stopped in the room as much as she possibly cou

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CHAPTER XXXII. MRS. CARRUTH REMOVES HER VEIL.

After luncheon came the speeches. Sir Haselton Jardine's was as deadly as it very well could have been. He was not a bit of an orator. He reminded one of an automatic figure as much as anything, as if he had been wound up to go. He went quietly on, in the same placid, passionless sort of whisper, but as clear as a bell. One never lost a syllable he uttered. He never faltered or stumbled. The words, as they flowed from him, were exactly adapted to the meaning they were intended to convey. He fitt

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BOOK IV--THE CRIMINAL.

( The Author tells the Tale .)...

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CHAPTER XXXIII. MR. TENNANT SPEAKS.

"I saw her! I saw her!" "None of that now. You'd better come quietly." Mr Tennant looked at the warder who spoke. With the assistance of his colleague the man was hurrying him along in a fashion which, even at that moment of amazement and of horror, in some subtle way reminded him of his school days. "I saw her!" he repeated. "So you might have done; nobody says you didn't. Only don't let's have any fuss." The man spoke as one might speak, not ill-naturedly, but with the superior wisdom of a sen

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CHAPTER XXXIV. MR. HOLMAN AT HOME.

But they looked for her in vain. They did not find her. And the following night Mr. Holman was in the bosom of his family. Mr. Holman's home was in a street off Leicester Square. His family consisted of his wife. Of her he was wont to make a confidant, as he did on the present occasion. Mr. Holman had come up by an afternoon train from Lewes. Mrs. Holman had prepared a meat tea for him on his arrival. He had commenced his attack upon the viands before she began to question him. "So they're going

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CHAPTER XXXV. THE WOMAN OF THE PORTRAIT.

The detective easily avoided the man's blind rush, the result of which was that Mr. Haines all but cannoned into Mr. Holman's niece. Miss Hetty Johnson, however--the young lady's name was Johnson--seemed in no way disconcerted. "That's right. Knock me down and trample on me. I don't mind. I've done nothing to nobody. But it's all the same as if I had." Brought back by the young lady's words to a sense of reality, Mr. Haines spluttered out an apology. "I beg your pardon. It was an accident." Then

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CHAPTER XXXVI. THE VARIOUS MOODS OF A GENTLEMAN OF FASHION.

Mr. Townsend was shaving himself. Advancing his face an inch or two nearer his shaving-glass, with his fingers he smoothed his chin. "Very awkward," he said. "Very!" The allusion could scarcely have been to the process in which he was engaged. Everything had gone with smoothness. Not even a scratch had marred the perfect peace. Mr. Townsend concluded that his chin was as clean shaven as it possibly could be. He put his razor down. He took up a cigarette. He lighted it. "Exceedingly awkward!" As

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CHAPTER XXXVII. "CALL ME DORA."

Mr. Townsend's rooms were at Albert Gate. Miss Jardine's home was in Sloane Gardens. From Albert Gate to Sloane Gardens is not very far. It was a clear, brisk morning. Mr. Townsend decided to walk. Just as he had crossed the road some one touched his arm from behind, and a voice said-- "Excuse me--might I speak to you for a moment?" Mr. Townsend turned. He supposed it was a beggar. The speaker looked like one. The man--it was a man--had on a top hat which was battered and bruised out of all semb

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CHAPTER XXXVIII. ON THE THRESHOLD.

It was plain that Mrs. Carruth was impatient. Nor was the thing made less evident by her attempts to conceal it from herself. She lounged on a couch. A pile of books and magazines was at her side. She pretended to read--or, rather, it would be more correct to write that she tried not to pretend to read. But it would not do. It was nothing but pretence. And she knew that it was nothing but pretence. She took up a book. She turned a page or two. She put it down again. She exchanged it for a magazi

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CHAPTER XXXIX. THE LAST MEETING OF THE CLUB.

Horseferry Road. A hazy though a cloudless night. A house, the windows of which showed no lights. Up two flights of stairs. The rendezvous of that agreeable social institution, the Murder Club. The Club was to hold a session. The gentleman who, if he was not the actual source of inspiration, was, at any rate, the founder, the promoter, the organiser, the backbone of the Club, was making ready for the members coming. A man about the middle height, somewhat slightly built, in evening dress, with a

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CHAPTER XL. MR. TOWNSEND REACHES HOME.

The members, for the most part, stared at the Colonel. Then they stared at one another. They did not seem to understand. Mr. Townsend looked at the Colonel, then at Mr. Pendarvon. Mr. Pendarvon, with twitching lips and dilated eyes, was leaning, as if for support, against the dial-plate. "Pendarvon, I am waiting for you to contradict what Kendrick has said." Mr. Pendarvon was making an effort to control his faculty of speech. "It's false." Mr. Townsend turned to the Colonel. "You hear what he sa

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CHAPTER XLI. TAKING LEAVE.

It was a handsome room, that in which Mr. Townsend, when at home, passed the larger portion of his waking hours--large, lofty, well-proportioned. The walls were wainscoted. Here and there was a piece of tapestry. Curtains suggested, rather than screened, an occasional recess. Veiled, too, were entrances to rooms beyond. A window, running from floor to ceiling, extended on one side of the room, almost from wall to wall. Had it been daytime, one would have seen that it overlooked Hyde Park. On his

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CHAPTER XLII. HAND IN HAND.

Mrs. Tennant had obtained permission to see her husband in prison once before he was hung to say good-bye. She was starting upon the errand now--alone. She had resolved to go alone. She had battled out the question with herself, upon her knees, in prayer, and it seemed to her that, of many alternatives, she had not chosen the worst. She would have with her neither his mother, nor hers, nor any of their kith and kin. The horror of the memory of that parting should be hers alone. Nor would she tak

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