Fenchurch Street Mystery


Fenchurch Street Mystery
Baroness Orczy
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CHAPTER I. THE FENCHURCH STREET MYSTERY 
CHAPTER II. A MILLIONAIRE IN THE DOCK 
CHAPTER III. HIS DEDUCTION 



CHAPTER I. THE FENCHURCH STREET MYSTERY
THE man in the corner pushed aside his glass, and leant across the table. 
"Mysteries!" he commented. "There is no such thing as a mystery in connection 
with any crime, provided intelligence is brought to bear upon its 
investigation." 
Very much astonished Polly Burton looked over the top of her newspaper, and 
fixed a pair of very severe, coldly inquiring brown eyes upon him. 
She had disapproved of the man from the instant when he shuffled across the shop 
and sat down opposite to her, at the same marble-topped table which already held 
her large coffee (3d.), her roll and butter (2d.), and plate of tongue (6d.). 
Now this particular corner, this very same table, that special view of the 
magnificent marble hall—known as the Norfolk Street branch of the Aërated Bread 
Company's depôts—were Polly's own corner, table, and view. Here she had partaken 
of eleven pennyworth of luncheon and one pennyworth of daily information ever 
since that glorious never-to-be-forgotten day when she was enrolled on the staff 
of the Evening Observer (we'll call it that, if you please), and became a member 
of that illustrious and world-famed organization known as the British Press. 
She was a personality, was Miss Burton of the Evening Observer. Her cards were 
printed thus: 

  MISS MARY J. BURTON.   

 

  Evening Observer
She had interviewed Miss Ellen Terry and the Bishop of Madagascar, Mr. Seymour 
Hicks and the Chief Commissioner of Police. She had been present at the last 
Marlborough House garden party—in the cloak-room, that is to say, where she 
caught sight of Lady Thingummy's hat, Miss What-you-may-call's sunshade, and of 
various other things modistical or fashionable, all of which were duly described 
under the heading "Royalty and Dress" in the early afternoon edition of the 
Evening Observer. 
(The article itself is signed M. J. B., and is to be found in the files of that 
leading halfpenny-worth.) 
For these reasons—and for various others, too—Polly felt irate with the man in 
the corner, and told him so with her eyes, as plainly as any pair of brown eyes 
can speak. 
She had been reading an article in the Daily Telegraph. The article was 
palpitatingly interesting. Had Polly been commenting audibly upon it? Certain it 
is that the man over there had spoken in direct answer to her thoughts. 
She looked at him and frowned; the next moment she smiled. Miss Burton (of the 
Evening Observer) had a keen sense of humour, which two years' association with 
the British Press had not succeeded in destroying, and the appearance of the man 
was sufficient to tickle the most ultra-morose fancy. Polly thought to herself 
that she had never seen any one so pale, so thin, with such funny light-coloured 
hair, brushed very smoothly across the top of a very obviously bald crown. He 
looked so timid and nervous as he fidgeted incessantly with a piece of string; 
his long, lean, and trembling fingers tying and untying it into knots of 
wonderful and complicated proportions. 
Having carefully studied every detail of the quaint personality Polly felt more 
amiable. 
"And yet," she remarked kindly but authoritatively, "this article, in an 
otherwise well-informed journal, will tell you that, even within the last year, 
no fewer than six crimes have completely baffled the police, and the 
perpetrators of them are still at large." 
"Pardon me," he said gently, "I never for a moment ventured to suggest that 
there were no mysteries to the police; I merely remarked that there were none 
where intelligence was brought to bear upon the investigation of crime." 
"Not even in the Fenchurch Street mystery, I suppose," she asked sarcastically. 
"Least of all in the so-called Fenchurch Street mystery," he replied quietly. 
Now the Fenchurch Street mystery, as that extraordinary crime had popularly been 
called, had puzzled—as Polly well knew—the brains of every thinking man and 
woman for the last twelve months. It had puzzled her not inconsiderably; she had 
been interested, fascinated; she had studied the case, formed her own theories, 
thought about it all often and often, had even written one or two letters to the 
Press on the subject—suggesting, arguing, hinting at possibilities and 
probabilities, adducing proofs which other amateur detectives were equally ready 
to refute. The attitude of that timid man in the corner, therefore, was 
peculiarly exasperating, and she retorted with sarcasm destined to completely 
annihilate her self-complacent interlocutor. 
"What a pity it is, in that case, that you do not offer your priceless services 
to our misguided though well-meaning police." 
"Isn't it?" he replied with perfect good-humour. "Well, you know, for one thing 
I doubt if they would accept them; and in the second place my inclinations and 
my duty would—were I to become an active member of the detective force—nearly 
always be in direct conflict. As often as not my sympathies go to the criminal 
who is clever and astute enough to lead our entire police force by the nose. 
"I don't know how much of the case you remember," he went on quietly. "It 
certainly, at first, began even to puzzle me. On the 12th of last December a 
woman, poorly dressed, but with an unmistakable air of having seen better days, 
gave information at Scotland Yard of the disappearance of her husband, William 
Kershaw, of no occupation, and apparently of no fixed abode. She was accompanied 
by a friend—a fat, oily-looking German—and between them they told a tale which 
set the police immediately on the move. 
"It appears that on the 10th of December, at about three o'clock in the 
afternoon, Karl Müller, the German, called on his friend, William Kershaw, for 
the purpose of collecting a small debt—some ten pounds or so—which the latter 
owed him. On arriving at the squalid lodging in Charlotte Street, Fitzroy 
Square, he found William Kershaw in a wild state of excitement, and his wife in 
tears. Müller attempted to state the object of his visit, but Kershaw, with wild 
gestures, waved him aside, and—in his own words—flabbergasted him by asking him 
point-blank for another loan of two pounds, which sum, he declared, would be the 
means of a speedy fortune for himself and the friend who would help him in his 
need. 
"After a quarter of an hour spent in obscure hints, Kershaw, finding the 
cautious German obdurate, decided to let him into the secret plan, which, he 
averred, would place thousands into their hands." 
Instinctively Polly had put down her paper; the mild stranger, with his nervous 
air and timid, watery eyes, had a peculiar way of telling his tale, which 
somehow fascinated her. 
"I don't know," he resumed, "if you remember the story which the German told to 
the police, and which was corroborated in every detail by the wife or widow. 
Briefly it was this: Some thirty years previously, Kershaw, then twenty years of 
age, and a medical student at one of the London hospitals, had a chum named 
Barker, with whom he roomed, together with another. 
"The latter, so it appears, brought home one evening a very considerable sum of 
money, which he had won on the turf, and the following morning he was found 
murdered in his bed. Kershaw, fortunately for himself, was able to prove a 
conclusive alibi; he had spent the night on duty at the hospital; as for Barker, 
he had disappeared, that is to say, as far as the police were concerned, but not 
as far as the watchful eyes of his friend Kershaw were able to spy—at least, so 
the latter said. Barker very cleverly contrived to get away out of the country, 
and, after sundry vicissitudes, finally settled down at Vladivostok, in Eastern 
Siberia, where, under the assumed name of Smethurst, he built up an enormous 
fortune by trading in furs. 
"Now, mind you, every one knows Smethurst, the Siberian millionaire. Kershaw's 
story that he had once been called Barker, and had committed a murder thirty 
years ago, was never proved, was it? I am merely telling you what Kershaw said 
to his friend the German and to his wife on that memorable afternoon of December 
the 10th. 
"According to him Smethurst had made one gigantic mistake in his clever 
career—he had on four occasions written to his late friend, William Kershaw. Two 
of these letters had no bearing on the case, since they were written more than 
twenty-five years ago, and Kershaw, moreover, had lost them—so he said—long ago. 
According to him, however, the first of these letters was written when 
Smethurst, alias Barker, had spent all the money he had obtained from the crime, 
and found himself destitute in New York. 
"Kershaw, then in fairly prosperous circumstances, sent him a £10 note for the 
sake of old times. The second, when the tables had turned, and Kershaw had begun 
to go downhill, Smethurst, as he then already called himself, sent his whilom 
friend £50. After that, as Müller gathered, Kershaw had made sundry demands on 
Smethurst's ever-increasing purse, and had accompanied these demands by various 
threats, which, considering the distant country in which the millionaire lived, 
were worse than futile. 
"But now the climax had come, and Kershaw, after a final moment of hesitation, 
handed over to his German friend the two last letters purporting to have been 
written by Smethurst, and which, if you remember, played such an important part 
in the mysterious story of this extraordinary crime. I have a copy of both these 
letters here," added the man in the corner, as he took out a piece of paper from 
a very worn-out pocket-book, and, unfolding it very deliberately, he began to 
read:— 
"'SIR,—Your preposterous demands for money are wholly unwarrantable. I have 
already helped you quite as much as you deserve. However, for the sake of old 
times, and because you once helped me when I was in a terrible difficulty, I am 
willing to once more let you impose upon my good nature. A friend of mine here, 
a Russian merchant, to whom I have sold my business, starts in a few days for an 
extended tour to many European and Asiatic ports in his yacht, and has invited 
me to accompany him as far as England. Being tired of foreign parts, and 
desirous of seeing the old country once again after thirty years absence, I have 
decided to accept his invitation I don t know when we may actually be in Europe, 
but I promise you that as soon as we touch a suitable port I will write to you 
again, making an appointment for you to see me in London. But remember that if 
your demands are too preposterous I will not for a moment listen to them, and 
that I am the last man in the world to submit to persistent and unwarrantable 
blackmail. 
"'I am, sir, 
"'Yours truly, 
"'FRANCIS SMETHURST. 
"The second letter was dated from Southampton," continued the old man in the 
corner calmly, "and, curiously enough, was the only letter which Kershaw 
professed to have received from Smethurst of which he had kept the envelope, and 
which was dated. It was quite brief," he added, referring once more to his piece 
of paper. 
"'DEAR SIR,—Referring to my letter of a few weeks ago, I wish to inform you that 
the Tsarskoe Selo will touch at Tilbury on Tuesday next, the 10th. I shall land 
there, and immediately go up to London by the first train I can get. If you 
like, you may meet me at Fenchurch Street Station, in the first-class 
waiting-room in the late afternoon. Since I surmise that after thirty years' 
absence my face may not be familiar to you, I may as well tell you that you will 
recognize me by a heavy Astrakhan fur coat, which I shall wear, together with a 
cap of the same. You may then introduce yourself to me and I will personally 
listen to what you may have to say. 
"'Yours faithfully, 
" FRANCIS SMETHURST. 
"It was this last letter which had caused William Kershaw's excitement and his 
wife's tears In the German's own words, he was walking up and down the room like 
a wild beast, gesticulating wildly, and muttering sundry exclamations. Mrs. 
Kershaw, however, was full of apprehension. She mistrusted the man from foreign 
parts—who, according to her husband's story, had already one crime upon his 
conscience—who might, she feared, risk another, in order to be rid of a 
dangerous enemy. Woman-like, she thought the scheme a dishonourable one, for the 
law, she knew, is severe on the blackmailer. 
"The assignation might be a cunning trap, in any case it wag a curious one; why, 
she argued, did not Smethurst elect to see Kershaw at his hotel the following 
day? A thousand whys and wherefores made her anxious, but the fat German had 
been won over by Kershaw's visions of untold gold, held tantalizingly before his 
eyes. He had lent the necessary £2, with which his friend intended to tidy 
himself up a bit before he went to meet his friend the millionaire. Half an hour 
afterwards Kershaw had left his lodgings, and that was the last the unfortunate 
woman saw of her husband, or Müller, the German, of his friend. 
"Anxiously his wife waited that night, but he did not return; the next day she 
seems to have spent in making purposeless and futile inquiries about the 
neighbourhood of Fenchurch Street; and on the 12th she went to Scotland Yard, 
gave what particulars she knew, and placed in the hands of the police the two 
letters written by Smethurst." 
CHAPTER II. A MILLIONAIRE IN THE DOCK 
THE man in the corner had finished his glass of milk. His watery blue eyes 
looked across at Miss Polly Burton's eager little face, from which all traces of 
severity had now been chased away by an obvious and intense excitement. 
"It was only on the 31st," he resumed after a while, "that a body, decomposed 
past all recognition, was found by two lightermen in the bottom of a disused 
barge. She had been moored at one time at the foot of one of those dark flights 
of steps which lead down between tall warehouses to the river in the East End of 
London. I have a photograph of the place here," he added, selecting one out of 
his pocket, and placing it before Polly. 
"The actual barge, you see, had already been removed when I took this snapshot, 
but you will realize what a perfect place this alley is for the purpose of one 
man cutting another's throat in comfort, and without fear of detection. The 
body, as I said, was decomposed beyond all recognition; it had probably been 
there eleven days, but sundry articles, such as a silver ring and a tie pin, 
were recognizable, and were identified by Mrs. Kershaw as belonging to her 
husband. 
"She, of course, was loud in denouncing Smethurst, and the police had no doubt a 
very strong case against him, for two days after the discovery of the body in 
the barge, the Siberian millionaire, as he was already popularly called by 
enterprising interviewers, was arrested in his luxurious suite of rooms at the 
Hotel Cecil. 
"To confess the truth, at this point I was not a little puzzled. Mrs. Kershaw's 
story and Smethurst's letters had both found their way into the papers, and 
following my usual method—mind you, I am only an amateur, I try to reason out a 
case for the love of the thing—I sought about for a motive for the crime, which 
the police declared Smethurst had committed. To effectually get rid of a 
dangerous blackmailer was the generally accepted theory. Well! did it ever 
strike you how paltry that motive really was?" 
Miss Polly had to confess, however, that it had never struck her in that light. 
"Surely a man who had succeeded in building up an immense fortune by his own 
individual efforts, was not the sort of fool to believe that he had anything to 
fear from a man like Kershaw. He must have known that Kershaw held no damning 
proof~ against him—not enough to hang him, anyway. Have you ever s~en 
Smethurst?" he added, as he once more fumbled in his pocket-book. 
Polly replied that she had seen Smethurst's picture in the illustrated papers at 
the time. Then he added, placing a small photograph before her: 
"What strikes you most about the face?" 
"Well, I think its strange, astonished expression, due to the total absence of 
eyebrows, and the funny foreign cut of the hair." 
"So close that it almost looks as if it had been shaved. Exactly. That is what 
struck me most when I elbowed my way into the court that morning and first 
caught sight of the millionaire in the dock. He was a tall, soldierly-looking 
man, upright in stature, his face very bronzed and tanned. He wore neither 
moustache nor beard, his hair was cropped quite close to his head, like a 
Frenchman's; but, of course, what was so very remarkable about him was that 
total absence of eyebrows and even eyelashes, which gave the face such a 
peculiar appearance—as you say, a perpetually astonished look. 
"He seemed, however, wonderfully calm; he had been accommodated with a chair in 
the dock—being a millionaire—and chatted pleasantly with his lawyer, Sir Arthur 
Inglewood, in the intervals between the calling of the several witnesses for the 
prosecution; whilst during the examination of these witnesses he sat quite 
placidly, with his head shaded by his hand. 
"Müller and Mrs. Kershaw repeated the story which they had already told to the 
police. I think you said that you were not able, owing to pressure of work, to 
go to the court that day, and hear the case, so perhaps you have no recollection 
of Mrs. Kershaw. No? Ah, well! Here is a snapshot I managed to get of her once. 
That is her. Exactly as she stood in the box—over-dressed—in elaborate crape, 
with a bonnet which once had contained pink roses, and to which a remnant of 
pink petals still clung obtrusively amidst the deep black. 
"She would not look at the prisoner, and turned her head resolutely towards the 
magistrate. I fancy she had been fond of that vagabond husband of hers: an 
enormous wedding-ring encircled her finger, and that, too, was swathed in black. 
She firmly believed that Kershaw's murderer sat there in the dock, and she 
literally flaunted her grief before him. 
"I was indescribably sorry for her. As for Müller, he was just fat, oily, 
pompous, conscious of his own importance as a witness; big fat fingers, covered 
with brass rings, gripped the two incriminating letters, which he had 
identified. They were his passports, as it were, to a delightful land of 
importance and notoriety. Sir Arthur Inglewood, I think, disappointed him by 
stating that he had no questions to ask of him. Müller had been brimful of 
answers, ready with the most perfect indictment, the most elaborate accusations 
against the bloated millionaire who had decoyed his dear friend Kershaw, and 
murdered him in Heaven knows what an out-of-the-way corner of the East End. 
"After this, however, the excitement grew apace. Müller had been dismissed, and 
had retired from the court altogether, leading away Mrs. Kershaw, who had 
completely broken down. 
"Constable D 21 was giving evidence as to the arrest in the meanwhile. The 
prisoner, he said, had seemed completely taken by surprise, not understanding 
the cause or history of the accusation against him; however, when put in full 
possession of the facts, and realizing, no doubt, the absolute futility of any 
resistance, he had quietly enough followed the constable into the cab. No one at 
the fashionable and crowded Hotel Cecil had even suspected that anything unusual 
had occurred. 
"Then a gigantic sigh of expectancy came from every one of the spectators. The ' 
fun ' was about to begin. James Buckland, a porter at Fenchurch Street railway 
station, had just sworn to tell all the truth, etc. After all, it did not amount 
to much. He said that at six o'clock in the afternoon of December the 10th, in 
the midst of one of the densest fogs he ever remembers, the 6.5 from Tilbury 
steamed into the station, being just about an hour late. He was on the arrival 
platform, and was hailed by a passenger in a first-class carriage. He could see 
very little of him beyond an enormous black fur coat and a travelling cap of fur 
also. 
"The passenger had a quantity of luggage, all marked F. S., and he directed 
James Buckland to place it all upon a four-wheel cab, with the exception of a 
small hand-bag, which he carried himself. Having seen that all his luggage was 
safely bestowed, the stranger in the fur coat paid the porter, and, telling the 
cabman to wait until he returned, he walked away in the direction of the 
waiting-rooms, still carrying his small hand-bag. 
"'I stayed for a bit,' added James Buckland, ' talking to the driver about the 
fog and that; then I went about my business, seein' that the local from Southend 
'ad been signalled.' 
"The prosecution insisted most strongly upon the hour when the stranger in the 
fur coat, having seen to his luggage, walked away towards the waiting-rooms. The 
porter was emphatic. 'It was not a minute later than 6.15,' he averred. 
"Sir Arthur Inglewood still had no questions to ask, and the driver of the cab 
was called. 
"He corroborated the evidence of James Buckland as to the hour when the 
gentleman in the fur coat had engaged him, and having filled his cab in and out 
with luggage, had told him to wait. And cabby did wait. He waited in the dense 
fog—until he was tired, until he seriously thought of depositing all the luggage 
in the lost property office, and of looking out for another fare—waited until at 
last, at a quarter before nine, whom should he see walking hurriedly towards his 
cab but the gentleman in the fur coat and cap, who got in quickly and told the 
driver to take him at once to the Hotel Cecil. This, cabby declared, had 
occurred at a quarter before nine. Still Sir Arthur Inglewood made no comment, 
and Mr. Francis Smethurst, in the crowded, stuffy court, had calmly dropped to 
sleep. 
"The next witness, Constable Thomas Taylor, had noticed a shabbily dressed 
individual, with shaggy hair and beard, loafing about the station and 
waiting-rooms in the afternoon of December the 10th. He seemed to be watching 
the arrival platform of the Tilbury and Southend trains. 
"Two separate and independent witnesses, cleverly unearthed by the police, had 
seen this same shabbily dressed individual stroll into the first-class 
waiting-room at about 6.15 on Wednesday, December the 10th, and go straight up 
to a gentleman in a heavy fur coat and cap, who had also just come into the 
room. The two talked together for a while; no one heard what they said, but 
presently they walked off together. No one seemed to know in which direction. 
"Francis Smethurst was rousing himself from his apathy; he whispered to his 
lawyer, who nodded with a bland smile of encouragement. The employés the Hotel 
Cecil gave evidence as to the arrival of Mr. Smethurst at about 9.30 p.m. on 
Wednesday, December the 10th, in a cab, with a quantity of luggage; and this 
closed the case for the prosecution. 
"Everybody in that court already saw Smethurst mounting the gallows. It was 
uninterested curiosity which caused the elegant audience to wait and hear what 
Sir Arthur Inglewood had to say. He, of course, is the most fashionable man in 
the law at the present moment. His lolling attitudes, his drawling speech, are 
quite the rage, and imitated by the gilded youth of society. 
" Even at this moment, when the Siberian millionaire s neck literally and 
metaphorically hung in the balance, an expectant titter went round the fair 
spectators as Sir Arthur stretched out his long loose limbs and lounged across 
the table. He waited to make his effect—Sir Arthur is a born actor—and there is 
no doubt that he made it, when in his slowest, most drawly tones he said quietly 

"'With regard to this alleged murder of one William Kershaw, on Wednesday, 
December the 10th, between 6.15 and 8.45 p.m., your Honour, I now propose to 
call two witnesses, who saw this same William Kershaw alive on Tuesday 
afternoon, December the 16th, that is to say, six days after the supposed 
murder.' 
"It was as if a bombshell had exploded in the court. Even his Honour was aghast, 
and I am sure the lady next to me only recovered from the shock of the surprise 
in order to wonder whether she need put off her dinner party after all. 
"As for me," added the man in the corner, with that strange mixture of 
nervousness and self-complacency which had set Miss Polly Burton wondering, 
"well, you see, I had made up my mind long ago where the hitch lay in this 
particular case, and I was not so surprised as some of the others. 
"Perhaps you remember the wonderful development of the case, which so completely 
mystified the police—and in fact everybody except myself. Torriani and a waiter 
at his hotel in the Commercial Road both deposed that at about 3.30 p.m. on 
December the 10th a shabbily dressed individual lolled into the coffee-room and 
ordered some tea. He was pleasant enough and talkative, told the waiter that his 
name was William Kershaw, that very soon all London would be talking about him, 
as he was about, through an unexpected stroke of good fortune, to become a very 
rich man, and so on, and so on, nonsense without end. 
"When he had finished his tea he lolled out again, but no sooner had he 
disappeared down a turning of the road than the waiter discovered an old 
umbrella, left behind accidentally by the shabby, talkative individual. As is 
the custom in his highly respectable restaurant, Signor Torriani put the 
umbrella carefully away in his office, on the chance of his customer calling to 
claim it when he had discovered his loss. And sure enough nearly a week later, 
on Tuesday, the 16th, at about 1 p.m., the same shabbily dressed individual 
called and asked for his umbrella. He had some lunch, and chatted once again to 
the waiter. Signor Torriani and the waiter gave a description of William 
Kershaw, which coincided exactly with that given by Mrs. Kershaw of her husband. 

"Oddly enough he seemed to be a very absent-minded sort of person, for on this 
second occasion, no sooner had he left than the waiter found a pocket-book in 
the coffee-room, underneath the table. It contained sundry letters and bills, 
all addressed to William Kershaw. This pocket-book was produced, and Karl 
Müller, who had returned to the court, easily identified it as having belonged 
to his dear and lamented friend 'Villiam.' 
"This was the first blow to the case against the accused. It was a pretty stiff 
one, you will admit. Already it had begun to collapse like a house of cards. 
Still, there was the assignation, and the undisputed meeting between Smethurst 
and Kershaw, and those two and a half hours of a foggy evening to satisfactorily 
account for." The man in the corner made a long pause, keeping the girl on 
tenterhooks. He had fidgeted with his bit of string till there WSnot an inch of 
it free from the most complicated and elaborate knots. 
"I assure you," he resumed at last, "that at that very moment the whole mystery 
was, to me, as clear as daylight. I only marvelled how his Honour could waste 
his time and mine by putting what he thought were searching questions to the 
accused relating to his past. Francis Smethurst, who had quite shaken off his 
somnolence, spoke with a curious nasal twang, and with an almost imperceptible 
soupçn of foreign accent. He calmly denied Kershaw s version of his past; 
declared that he had never been called Barker, and had certainly never been 
mixed up in any murder case thirty years ago. 
"'But you knew this man Kershaw,' persisted his Honour, 'since you wrote to him? 
' 
"'Pardon me, your Honour,' said the accused quietly, 'I have never, to my 
knowledge, seen this man Kershaw, and I can swear that I never wrote to him.' 
"'Never wrote to him?' retorted his Honour warningly. 'That is a strange 
assertion to make when I have two of your letters to him in my hands at the 
present moment. 
"'I never wrote those letters, your Honour,' persisted the accused quietly, 
'they are not in my handwriting.' 
"'Which we can easily prove,' came in Sir Arthur Inglewood's drawly tones, as he 
handed up a packet to his Honour; 'here are a number of letters written by my 
client since he has landed in this country, and some of which were written under 
my very eyes.' 
"As Sir Arthur Inglewood had said, this could be easily proved, and the 
prisoner, at his Honour's request, scribbled a few lines, together with his 
signature, several times upon a sheet of note-paper. It was easy to read upon 
the magistrate's astounded countenance, that there was not the slightest 
similarity in the two handwritings. 
"A fresh mystery had cropped up. Who, then, had made the assignation with 
William Kershaw at Fenchurch Street railway station? The prisoner gave a fairly 
satisfactory account of the employment of his time since his landing in England. 

"'I came over on the Tsarskoe Selo,' he said, 'a yacht belonging to a friend of 
mine. When we arrived at the mouth of the Thames there was such a dense fog that 
it was twenty-four hours before it was thought safe for me to land. My friend, 
who is a Russian, would not land at all; he was regularly frightened at this 
land of fogs. He was going on to Madeira immediately. 
"'I actually landed on Tuesday, the 10th, and took a train at once for town. I 
did see to my luggage and a cab, as the porter and driver told your Honour; then 
I tried to find my way to a refreshment-room, where I could get a glass of wine. 
I drifted into the waiting-room, and there I was accosted by a shabbily dressed 
individual, who began telling me a piteous tale. Who he was I do not know. He 
said he was an old soldier who had served his country faithfully, and then been 
left to starve. He, begged of me to accompany him to his lodgings, where I could 
see his wife and starving children, and verify the truth and piteousness of his 
tale. 
"'Well, your Honour,' added the prisoner with noble frankness, 'it was my first 
day in the old country. I had come back after thirty years with my pockets full 
of gold, and this was the first sad tale I had heard; but I am a business man, 
and did not want to be exactly "done" in the eye. I followed my man through the 
fog, out into the streets. He walked silently by my side for a time. I had not a 
notion where I was. 
"'Suddenly I turned to him with some question, and realized in a moment that my 
gentleman had given me the slip. Finding, probably, that I would not part with 
my money till I had seen the starving wife and children, he left me to my fate, 
and went in search of more willing bait. 
"'The place where I found myself was dismal and deserted. I could see no trace 
of cab or omnibus. I retraced my steps and tried to find my way back to the 
station, only to find myself in worse and more deserted neighbourhoods. I became 
hopelessly lost and fogged. I don't wonder that two and a half hours elapsed 
while I thus wandered on in the dark and deserted streets; my sole astonishment 
is that I ever found the station at all that night, or rather close to it a 
policeman, who showed me the way.' 
"'But how do you account for Kershaw knowing all your movements?' still 
persisted his Honour, 'and his knowing the exact date of your arrival in 
England? How do you account for these two letters, in fact? ' 
"'I cannot account for it or them, your Honour,' replied the prisoner quietly. 
'I have proved to you, have I not, that I never wrote those letters, and that 
the man—er—Karshaw is his name?—was not murdered by me?' 
"'Can you tell me of anyone here or abroad who might have heard of your 
movements, and of the date of your arrival?' 
"'My late employés at Vladivostok, of course, knew of my departure, but none of 
them could have written these letters, since none of them know a word of 
English.' 
"'Then you can throw no light upon these mysterious letters? You cannot help the 
police in any way towards the clearing up of this strange affair?' 
"'The affair is as mysterious to me as to your Honour, and to the police of this 
country.' 
"Francis Smethurst was discharged, of course; there was no semblance of evidence 
against him sufficient to commit him for trial. The two overwhelming points of 
his defence which had completely routed the prosecution were, firstly, the proof 
that he had never written the letters making the assignation, and secondly, the 
fact that the man supposed to have been murdered on the 10th was seen to be 
alive and well on the 16th. But then, who in the world was the mysterious 
individual who had apprised Kershaw of the movements of Smethurst, the 
millionaire?" 
CHAPTER III. HIS DEDUCTION
THE man in the corner cocked his funny thin head on one side and looked at 
Polly; then he took up his beloved bit of string and deliberately untied every 
knot he had made in it. When it was quite smooth he laid it out upon the table. 
"I will take you, if you like, point by point along the line of reasoning which 
I followed myself, and which will inevitably lead you, as it led me, to the only 
possible solution of the mystery. 
"First take this point," he said with nervous restlessness, once more taking up 
his bit of string, and forming with each point raised a series of knots which 
would have shamed a navigating instructor, "obviously it was impossible for 
Kershaw not to have been acquainted with Smethurst, since he was fully apprised 
of the latter's arrival in England by two letters. Now it was clear to me from 
the first that no one could have written those two letters except Smethurst. You 
will argue that those letters were proved not to have been written by the man in 
the dock. Exactly. Remember, Kershaw was a careless man—he had lost both 
envelopes. To him they were insignificant. Now it was never disproved that those 
letters were written by Smethurst." 
"But—" suggested Polly. 
"Wait a minute," he interrupted, while knot number two appeared upon the scene, 
"it was proved that six days after the murder, William Kershaw was alive, and 
visited the Torriani Hotel, where already he was known, and where he 
conveniently left a pocket-book behind, so that there should be no mistake as to 
his identity; but it was never questioned where Mr. Francis Smethurst, the 
millionaire, happened to spend that very same afternoon." 
"Surely, you don't mean——?" gasped the girl. 
"One moment, please," he added triumphantly. "How did it come about that the 
landlord of the Torriani Hotel was brought into court at all? How did Sir Arthur 
Inglewood, or rather his client, know that William Kershaw had on those two 
memorable occasions visited the hotel, and that its landlord could bring such 
convincing evidence forward that would for ever exonerate the millionaire from 
the imputation of murder?" 
"Surely," I argued, "the usual means, the police——" "The police had kept the 
whole affair very dark until the arrest at the Hotel Cecil. They did not put 
into the papers the usual: ' If anyone happens to know of the whereabouts, etc. 
etc.' Had the landlord of that hotel heard of the disappearance of Kershaw 
through the usual channels, he would have put himself in communication with the 
police. Sir Arthur Inglewood produced him. How did Sir Arthur Inglewood come on 
his track?" 
"Surely, you don't mean——?" 
"Point number four," he resumed imperturbably, "Mrs. Kershaw was never requested 
to produce a specimen of her husband's handwriting. Why? Because the police, 
clever as you say they are, never started on the right tack. They believed 
William Kershaw to have been murdered; they looked for William Kershaw. 
"On December the 31st, what was presumed to be the body of William Kershaw was 
found by two lightermen: I have shown you a photograph of the place where it was 
found. Dark and deserted it is in all conscience, is it not? Just the place 
where a bully and a coward would decoy an unsuspecting stranger, murder him 
first, then rob him of his valuables, his papers, his very identity, and leave 
him there to rot. The body was found in a disused barge which had been moored 
some time against the wall, at the foot of these steps. It was in the last 
stages of decomposition, and, of course, could not be identified; but the police 
would have it that it was the body of William Kershaw. 
"It never entered their heads that it was the body of Francis Smethurst, and 
that William Kershaw was his murderer. 
"Ah ! it was cleverly, artistically conceived! Kershaw is a genius. Think of it 
all! His disguise! Kershaw had a shaggy beard, hair, and moustache. He shaved up 
to his very eyebrows ! No wonder that even his wife did not recognize him across 
the court; and remember she never saw much of his face while he stood in the 
dock. Kershaw was shabby, slouchy, he stooped. Smethurst, the millionaire, might 
have served in the Prussian army. 
"Then that lovely trait about going to revisit the Torriani Hotel. Just a few 
days' grace, in order to purchase moustache and beard and wig, exactly similar 
to what he had himself shaved off. Making up to look like himself! Splendid! 
Then leaving the pocket-book behind! He! he! he! Kershaw was not murdered! Of 
course not. He called at the Torriani Hotel six days after the murder, whilst 
Mr. Smethurst, the millionaire, hobnobbed in the park with duchesses! Hang such 
a man! Fie!" 
He fumbled for his hat. With nervous, trembling fingers he held it deferentially 
in his hand whilst he rose from the table. Polly watched him as he strode up to 
the desk, and paid twopence for his glass of milk and his bun. Soon he 
disappeared through the shop, whilst she still found herself hopelessly 
bewildered, with a number of snap-shot photographs before her, still staring at 
a long piece of string, smothered from end to end in a series of knots, as 
bewildering, as irritating, as puzzling as the man who had lately sat in the 
corner.