The Seven Secrets

The adjourned inquest was resumed on the day appointed in the big room at the Star and Garter at Kew, and the public, eager as ever for sensational details, overflowed through the bar and out into the street, until the police were compelled to disperse the crowd. The evening papers had worked up all kinds of theories, some worthy of attention, others ridiculous; hence the excitement and interest had become intense.

The extraordinary nature of the wound which caused Mr. Courtenay’s death was the chief element of mystery. Our medical evidence had produced a sensation, for we had been agreed that to inflict such a wound with any instrument which could pass through the exterior orifice was an absolute impossibility. Sir Bernard and myself were still both bewildered. In the consulting room at Harley Street we had discussed it a dozen times, but could arrive at no definite conclusion as to how such a terrible wound could possibly have been caused.

I noticed a change in Sir Bernard. He seemed mopish, thoughtful, and somewhat despondent. Usually he was a busy, bustling man, whose manner with his patients was rather brusque, and who, unlike the majority of my own profession, went to the point at once. There is no profession in which one is compelled to exercise so much affected patience and courtesy as in the profession of medicine. Patients will bore you to death with long and tedious histories of all their ailments since the days when they chewed a gutta-percha teething-ring, and to appear impatient is to court a reputation for flippancy and want of attention. Great men may hold up their hands and cry “Enough!” But small men must sit with pencil poised, apparently intensely interested, and listen through until the patient has exhausted his long-winded recollections of all his ills.

Contrary to his usual custom, Sir Bernard did not now return to Hove each evening, but remained at Harley Street—dining alone off a chop or a steak, and going out afterwards, probably to his club. His change of manner surprised me. I noticed in him distinct signs of nervous disorder; and on several afternoons he sent round to me at the Hospital, saying that he could not see his patients, and asking me to run back to Harley Street and take his place.

On the evening before the adjourned inquest I remarked to him that he did not appear very well, and his reply, in a strained, desponding voice, was:

“Poor Courtenay has gone. He was my best friend.”

Yes, it was as I expected, he was sorrowing over his friend.

When we had re-assembled at the Star and Garter, he entered quietly and took a seat beside me just before the commencement of the proceedings.

The Coroner, having read over all the depositions taken on the first occasion, asked the police if they had any further evidence to offer, whereupon the local inspector of the T Division answered with an air of mystery:

“We have nothing, sir, which we can make public. Active inquiries are still in progress.”

“No further medical evidence?” asked the coroner.

I turned towards Sir Bernard inquiringly, and as I did so my eye caught a face hidden by a black veil, seated among the public at the far side of the room. It was Ethelwynn herself—come there to watch the proceedings and hear with her own ears whether the police had obtained traces of the assassin!

Her anxious countenance shone through her veil haggard and white; her eyes were fixed upon the Coroner. She hung breathlessly upon his every word.

“We have no further evidence,” replied the inspector.

There was a pause. The public who were there in search of some solution of the bewildering mystery which had been published in every paper through the land, were disappointed. They had expected at least to hear some expert evidence—which, if not always reliable, is always interesting. But there seemed an inclination on the part of the police to maintain a silence which increased rather than lessened the mystery.

“Well, gentlemen,” exclaimed Dr. Diplock, turning at last to the twelve local tradesmen who formed the jury, “you have heard the evidence in this curious case, and your duty is to decide in what manner the deceased came by his death, whether by accidental means, or by foul play. I think in the circumstances you will have very little difficulty in deciding. The case is a mysterious one—a very mysterious one. The deceased was a gentleman of means who was suffering from a malignant disease, and that disease must have proved fatal within a short time. Now this fact appears to have been well known to himself, to the members of his household, and probably to most of his friends. Nevertheless, he was found dead in circumstances which point most strongly to wilful murder. If he was actually murdered, the assassin, whoever he was, had some very strong incentive in killing him at once, because he might well have waited another few months for the fatal termination of the disease. That fact, however, is not for you to consider, gentlemen. You are here for the sole purpose of deciding whether or not this case is one of murder. If, in your opinion it is, then it becomes your duty to return a verdict to that effect and leave it to the police to discover the assassin. To comment at length on the many mysterious circumstances surrounding the tragedy is, I think, needless. The depositions I have just read are sufficiently full and explanatory, especially the evidence of Sir Bernard Eyton and of Doctor Boyd, both of whom, besides being well-known in the profession, were personal friends of the deceased. In considering your verdict I would further beg of you not to heed any theories you may have read in the newspapers, but adjudge the matter from a fair and impartial standpoint, and give your verdict as you honestly believe the truth to be.”

The dead silence which had prevailed during the Coroner’s address was at once broken by the uneasy moving of the crowd. I glanced across at Ethelwynn, and saw her sitting immovable, breathless, statuesque.

She watched the foreman of the jury whispering to two or three of his colleagues in the immediate vicinity. The twelve tradesmen consulted together in an undertone, while the reporters at the table conversed audibly. They, too, were disappointed at being unable to obtain any sensational “copy.”

“If you wish to retire in order to consider your verdict, gentlemen, you are quite at liberty to do so,” remarked the coroner.

“That is unnecessary,” replied the foreman. “We are agreed unanimously.”

“Upon what?”

“Our verdict is that the deceased was wilfully murdered by some person or persons unknown.”

“Very well, gentlemen. Of course in my position I am not permitted to give you advice, but I think that you could have arrived at no other verdict. The police will use every endeavour to discover the identity of the assassin.”

I glanced at Ethelwynn, and at that instant she turned her head, and her eyes met mine. She started quickly, her face blanched to the lips; then she rose unsteadily, and with the crowd went slowly out.

Ambler Jevons, who had been seated at the opposite side of the room, got up and rushed away; therefore I had no chance to get a word with him. He had glanced at me significantly, and I knew well what passed through his mind. Like myself, he was thinking of that strange letter we had found among the dead man’s effects and had agreed to destroy.

About nine o’clock that same night I had left Sir Bernard’s and was strolling slowly round to my rooms, when my friend’s cheery voice sounded behind me. He was on his way to have a smoke with me as usual, he explained. So we entered together, and after I had turned up the light and brought out the drinks he flung himself into his habitual chair, and stretching himself wearily said—

“The affair becomes more mysterious hourly.”

“How?” I inquired quickly.

“I’ve been down to Kew this afternoon,” was his rather ambiguous response. “I had to go to my office directly after the inquest, but I returned at once.”

“And what have you discovered? Anything fresh?”

“Yes,” he responded slowly. “A fresh fact or two—facts that still increase the mystery.”

“What are they? Tell me,” I urged.

“No, Ralph, old chap. When I am certain of their true importance I’ll explain them to you. At present I desire to pursue my own methods until I arrive at some clear conclusion.”

This disinclination to tell me the truth was annoying. He had always been quite frank and open, explaining all his theories, and showing to me any weak points in the circumstantial evidence. Yet suddenly, as it seemed to me, he had become filled with a strange mistrust. Why, I could not conceive.

“But surely you can tell me the nature of your discoveries?” I said. “There need be no secrets between us in this affair.”

“No, Ralph. But I’m superstitious enough to believe that ill-luck follows a premature exposure of one’s plans,” he said.

His excuse was a lame one—a very lame one. I smiled—in order to show him that I read through such a transparent attempt to mislead me.

“I might have refused to show you that letter of Ethelwynn’s,” I protested. “Yet our interests being mutual I handed it to you.”

“And it is well that you did.”

“Why?”

“Because knowledge of it has changed the whole course of my inquiries.”

“Changed them from one direction to another?”

He nodded.

“And you are now prosecuting them in the direction of Ethelwynn?”

“No,” he answered. “Not exactly.”

I looked at his face, and saw upon it an expression of profound mysteriousness. His dark, well-marked countenance was a complex one always, but at that moment I was utterly unable to discern whether he spoke the truth, or whether he only wished to mislead my suspicions into a different channel. That he was the acme of shrewdness, that his powers of deduction were extraordinary, and that his patience in unravelling a secret was almost beyond comprehension I knew well. Even those great trackers of criminals, Shaw and Maddox, of New Scotland Yard, held him in respect, and admired his acute intelligence and marvellous power of perception.

Yet his attempt to evade a question which so closely concerned my own peace of mind and future happiness tried my patience. If he had really discovered some fresh facts I considered it but right that I should be acquainted with them.

“Has your opinion changed as to the identity of the person who committed the crime?” I asked him, rather abruptly.

“Not in the least,” he responded, slowly lighting his foul pipe. “How can it, in the face of the letter we burnt?”

“Then you think that jealousy was the cause of the tragedy? That she——”

“No, not jealousy,” he interrupted, speaking quite calmly. “The facts I have discovered go to show that the motive was not jealousy.”

“Hatred, then?”

“No, not hatred.”

“Then what?”

“That’s just where I fail to form a theory,” he answered, after a brief silence, during which he watched the blue smoke curl upward to the sombre

ceiling of my room. “In a few days I hope to discover the motive.”

“You will let me assist you?” I urged, eagerly. “I am at your disposal at any hour.”

“No,” he answered, decisively. “You are prejudiced, Ralph. You unfortunately still love that woman.”

A sigh escaped me. What he said was, alas! too true. I had adored her through those happy months prior to the tragedy. She had come into my lonely bachelor life as the one ray of sunlight that gave me hope and happiness, and I had lived for her alone. Because of her I had striven to rise in the profession, and had laboured hard so that in a little while I might be in a position to marry and buy that quiet country practice that was my ideal existence. And even now, with my idol broken by the knowledge of her previous engagement to the man now dead, I confess that I nevertheless still entertained a strong affection for her. The memory of a past love is often more sweet than the love itself—and to men it is so very often fatal.

I had risen to pour out some whiskey for my companion when, of a sudden, my man opened the door and announced:

“There’s a lady to see you, sir.”

“A lady?” we both exclaimed, with one voice.

“Yes, sir,” and he handed me a card.

I glanced at it. My visitor was the very last person I desired to meet at that moment, for she was none other than Ethelwynn herself.

“I’ll go, old chap,” Jevons cried, springing to his feet, and draining his glass at a single draught. “She mustn’t meet me here. Good-bye till to-morrow. Remember, betray no sign to her that you know the truth. It’s certainly a curious affair, as it now stands; but depend upon it that there’s more complication and mystery in it than we have yet suspected.”