XXII
The Spaniard Does His Bit
Ellery met the Spaniard in accordance with his appointment in Trafalgar Square that evening. As he approached, he saw the old man pacing up and down the pavement in front of the National Gallery, walking slowly with a dignity and grace worthy of some grandee of the olden times. He was curiously like the Lavery portrait of Cunninghame Graham. The Spaniard made Ellery a low bow, accompanied by a sweeping gesture with his broad-brimmed hat; and Ellery, doing his best to live up to the occasion, returned the salutation with a very inferior grace.
“You have news for me?” he asked.
“If you will do me the honour of accompanying me in my promenade, I think I may be able to impart certain facts of interest to your fair lady.”
The Spaniard, as Ellery told Joan afterwards, took the devil of a time to come down to brass tacks. But what he had to tell was quite conclusive. He had found, and could produce, conclusive evidence that Walter Brooklyn had been in Trafalgar Square at the time he had stated. He had discovered two men who had seen him leaning over the parapet opposite the National Gallery, and one of them had definitely noticed the time by the clock of St. Martin’s Church. This had been at 11:40. Moreover, the second man, perhaps, the Spaniard hinted—oh, so delicately that his way of saying it seemed to make petty larceny a fine art—in the hope of picking a few trifles out of Mr. Brooklyn’s pockets, had actually followed him round the Square, and seen him take out his watch and look at the time. He had shadowed Brooklyn up Cockspur Street and the Haymarket, actually as far as the corner of Jermyn Street, where some object of greater immediate interest had served to distract him from the chase. Moreover, in return for suitable rewards, both these men were prepared to give evidence. The Spaniard had arranged for them both to meet Ellery, if he so desired, and, in a few minutes’ time, they would be in the bar of the little public-house in which Ellery had originally met with the Spaniard himself.
This was more than satisfactory, and Ellery at once went to meet the two men and hear their stories. They fully bore out what the Spaniard had said, and Ellery took their names and addresses, and then arranged to see them again on the following morning at the same place, and to take them, with the other witnesses he and Joan had collected, to Thomas’s office, where they would be able to consider the steps that had best be taken towards securing Walter Brooklyn’s absolution. He could get hold of the remaining witnesses later in the evening; but first he had to thank the Spaniard and to settle with him for what he had done.
Ellery had no doubt that the Spaniard both needed and expected payment for the very real service he had rendered; but it was, he found, by no means easy to come to the point. The old man, despite his seedy garments, was very much the fine gentleman in his manners; it was easy enough to thank him handsomely, and to receive his still more handsome acknowledgments. But it was not at all easy to offer him money. Still, it had to be done; and, awkwardly and stammeringly, Ellery at last did it.
He was met with a refusal. The Spaniard was only too glad to have been of some service—to a lady. Thanks were more than enough: pecuniary reward would degrade a charming episode to the level of a commercial transaction. Perhaps, some day, Ellery, or Miss Cowper might be in a position to do him a service. He would accept it gladly; but he begged that, until the occasion arose, no more might be said upon the matter. Ellery had to leave it at that, making a resolution to seek at once an occasion for being of service to the man who had helped so greatly in their quest. Meanwhile, he could only thank him again, and exchange, in taking his leave, the fine courtesies which gave the Spaniard such manifest pleasure.
Ellery’s first action, on leaving Trafalgar Square, was to take steps to summon his other witnesses to meet him at Thomas’s office the following morning. Kitty Frensham he secured by a telephone message to Mandleham’s flat. Mandleham at once promised to come himself, and to bring Kitty with him, at half-past ten. Ellery then walked on to Piccadilly Circus, where he found his friend, the night-watchman, deep this time in Carlyle’s Oliver Cromwell, which Ellery had lent him. He, too, promised to be in attendance. Ellery then walked along Piccadilly to the theatre, and secured the attendant who had seen Walter Brooklyn standing outside at “a bit before half-past ten.” This completed his preparations; and he rang at the bell of Liskeard House, and asked for Joan.
“What news?” she asked anxiously, coming forward to greet him as he was announced.
“The best,” he replied. “The alibi is proved.”
“Oh, I am so glad. And now I can tell you a secret. I wasn’t absolutely sure my stepfather had told us the truth. At least, I was sure; but I couldn’t help having a doubt every now and then. And I simply couldn’t bear the thought that he might have been implicated. I knew, of course, that he hadn’t killed anyone; but I wasn’t quite sure he didn’t know all about it. And everybody else seemed to believe the worst, and at times I couldn’t help being a little shaken. Now you must tell me all about what you’ve found out.”
Ellery did tell her all about it, and also of the steps he had taken to arrange a meeting at Thomas’s office for the following morning. Joan said at once that she would go; and Ellery thereupon rang up Thomas, to whom he had so far said nothing, at his home, and demanded an interview. Joan and he must, he said, see Thomas on urgent business. They would be bringing several witnesses who could throw valuable light on the case, and they would be at his office at 10:30 on the following morning. Would Thomas be sure to keep the time free?
Thomas was plainly surprised, and also curious; and he tried to make Ellery tell him over the phone what it was all about. This Ellery would not do, merely saying that the matter was of vital importance, but he would rather explain it all in the morning. Thomas thereupon agreed to cancel a previous engagement, and to be ready for them at the hour arranged. “Now, at last,” said Ellery, as he hung up the receiver, “I think we are entitled to a good night’s rest.”
“I’m afraid there won’t be much sleep for me, darling,” said Joan. “Sir Vernon was told today about poor George. He kept asking for him, and in the end Marian had to tell him all about it. Of course it has made him worse. Now, he keeps asking to see the police, and insisting that they must find the murderers. But he knows nothing at all about it—he has no idea who did it. Someone must be with him all the time, of course. Mary is with him now, and I have to take her place at midnight. She is tired out, poor thing.”
“And what about you, poor thing?” said Ellery; for he could see that she was almost at the end of her strength. He drew her head down on to his shoulder, and tried to persuade her to give up the idea of coming to Thomas’s office in the morning. But Joan was firm: she must see the thing through. She would be all right: she could get plenty of sleep later in the day. Ellery had to consent to her coming, and the lovers sat together till midnight, when they bade each other farewell, as lovers do, for all the world as if their parting were, not for a few hours, but for an eternity.
It was getting on for one o’clock when Ellery reached home; and he was surprised as he went up the steps, to see a light in his sitting-room. He let himself in with his key, and found his landlady sitting bolt upright on the hall chair. “Lord, Mr. Ellery,” she said, “how late you are. There’s a person in your room been waiting for you more than an hour. I wouldn’t go to bed with him there—not for worlds, I wouldn’t. He said he must see you, and would wait.”
“What sort of a man?”
“Oh, not a nice man. He looks to me more like a tramp, sir, than anything else. I was afraid he might steal something if I left him.”
Ellery opened the door and went in. He at once recognised the man who had followed Walter Brooklyn on Tuesday from Trafalgar Square to Jermyn Street—one of the witnesses whom the Spaniard had found. The visitor lost no time.
“Look ’ere, mister,” he said, “it’s off.”
“What’s off? What do you mean?”
“What I mean is you don’t catch me givin’ hevidence in this ’ere case. You treated me like a gent, and I thought I’d let you know. But tomorrow I shan’t be there. You gotter understand that.”
“Do you mean you won’t help to clear Mr. Brooklyn? Why, what’s the matter?”
“Well, mister, I may not be what I oughter be—leastways, some folks says I ain’t. But I got views o’ my own as to what’s right, same as others. And I’ve found out a thing or two about this Mr. Brooklyn of yours. He can swing, s’far as I’m concerned.”
“My good fellow, the man’s innocent of this crime, whatever you may know about him. You must say what you know.”
“Not so much ‘good fellow,’ and there’s no ‘must’ about it, mister. That chap deserves hangin’ for things he’s done, and I don’t care if they hangs ’im on the right charge or the wrong ’un. I know a girl what …”
“I don’t mind telling you that I don’t like Mr. Brooklyn any better than you do. But I want to see him cleared. He didn’t commit these murders, I know that.”
“Come, come, mister, why not let ’im hang? What’s it matter to you, anyway? He’d be a good riddance, from what I ’ear of ’im.”
“But you can’t see a man condemned when you know he’s innocent.”
“Why not, mister? I says, Why not? It’s not as if you had any personal interest in the fellow, so to speak.”
“But I have. He’s the stepfather of the girl I’m engaged to marry. She would never get over it if he were convicted.”
The pickpocket’s manner changed from sullenness to interest. “Eh, what’s that you say?” he said. “Nah, if you’d told me that at once, I’m not one to stand between a man and his girl.”
“You’ll come, won’t you?”
The man hesitated. “I don’t say as I won’t,” he said. “But, if I do come, ’twon’t be for any love of your Mr. Brooklyn. I’d see ’im hanged, and glad too, along of what I know.”
“I don’t care why you come, as long as you do come.”
“Well, mister, I’ll come. If yer want to know why, it’s because I’ve took a bit of a fancy to yer. But I’ll ’ave a bit of me own back on that Brooklyn gent, if he gets off bein’ ’ung. I didn’t lift ’is watch off ’im that night; but I will when ’e gets out.”
“Oh, you’re welcome there. Pick his pockets as much as you like.”
“In course yer won’t let on ter the police what I’ve been sayin’. I’ve bin treatin’ yer as if yer was a pal, yer know.”
Ellery promised that his visitor’s calling should be kept a dead secret. Then he gave him a drink and showed him out, after obtaining a renewal of the promise that he would attend in the morning. The man slouched out into the night.
Love did not keep Ellery awake. He was tired, and he slept soundly, only waking in time to snatch a hasty breakfast, and to call for Joan early enough to take her straight round with him to their appointment at Thomas’s office.