The Stowmarket Mystery, Louis Tracy [best romance novels of all time .txt] 📗

sir, beggin’ your pardon. You an’ me knows better than that”

“I tell you again he is her cousin.”

The waiter absent-mindedly dusted the back of a chair.

“Well, sir, it isn’t for the likes of me to be contradictious, but I’ve got two sisters an’ ’arf-a-dozen cousins, an’ I don’t go kissin’ their pictures an’ swearin’ to ’ave it out with their ’usbin’s.”

“Oh, come now. You are romancing.”

“Not a bit, sir. When I went to my room I—er—’eard ’im.”

“Is there a wooden partition between No. 18 and your room?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And cracks—large ones?”

“Yes, sir. But why you should—oh, I see! Excuse me, sir; I thought I ’eard a bell.”

The waiter hurried off, and Brett unwound himself.

“So Robert is in love with Margaret,” he said, laughing unmirthfully. “Was there ever such a tangle! If I indulge in a violent flirtation with Miss Layton, and I persuade Winter to ogle Mrs. Jiro, the affair should be artistically complete.”

The conceit brought Ipswich to his mind. He was convinced that the main line of inquiry lay in the direction of Mr. Numagawa Jiro and the curious masquerading of his colossal spouse.

He had vaguely intended to visit the local police. Now he made up his mind to go to Ipswich and thence to London. Further delay at Stowmarket was useless.

Before his train quitted the station he made matters right with the stationmaster by explaining to him the identity of the two men who had attracted his attention the previous evening. Somehow, the barrister imagined that the third visitant of that fateful New Year’s Eve two years ago would not trouble the neighbourhood again. Herein he was mistaken.

At the county town he experienced little difficulty in learning the antecedents of Mrs. Numagawa Jiro.

In the first hotel he entered he found a young lady behind the bar who was not only well acquainted with Mrs. Jiro, but remembered the circumstances of the courtship.

“The fact is,” she explained, “there are a lot of silly girls about who think every man with a dark skin is a prince in his own country if only he wears a silk hat and patent leather boots.”

“Is that all?” said Brett.

“All what?” cried the girl. “Oh, don’t be stupid! I mean when they are well dressed. Princess, indeed! Catch me marrying a nigger.”

“But Japanese are not niggers.”

“Well, they’re not my sort, anyhow. And fancy a great gawk like Flossie Bird taking on with a little man who doesn’t reach up to her elbow. It was simply ridiculous. What did you say her name is now?”

He gave the required information, and went on:

“Had Mr. Jiro any other friends in Ipswich to your knowledge?”

“He didn’t know a soul. He was here for the Assizes, about some case, I think. Oh, I remember—the ‘Stowmarket Mystery’—and he stayed at the hotel where Flossie was engaged. How she ever came to take notice of him, I can’t imagine. She was a queer sort of girl—used to wear bloomers, and get off her bike to clout the small boys who chi-iked at her.”

“Do her people live here?”

“Yes, and a rare old row they made about her marriage—for she is married, I will say that for her. But why are you so interested in her?”

The fair Hebe glanced in a mirror to confirm her personal opinion that there were much nicer girls than Flossie Bird left in Ipswich.

“Not in her,” said Brett; “in the example she set.”

“What do you mean?”

“If a little Japanese can come to this town and carry off a lady of her size and appearance, what may not a six-foot Englishman hope to accomplish?”

“Oh, go on!”

He took her advice, and went on to the hotel patronised by Mr. Jiro during his visit to Ipswich. The landlord readily showed him the register for the Assize week. Most of the guests were barristers and solicitors, many of them known personally to Brett. None of the other names struck him as important, though he noted a few who arrived on the same day as the Japanese, “Mr. Okasaki.”

He took the next train to London, and reached Victoria Street, to find Mr. Winter awaiting him, and carefully nursing a brown paper parcel.

“I got your wire, Mr. Brett,” he explained, “and this morning after Mr. Jiro went out alone—”

“Where did he go to?”

“The British Museum.”

“What on earth was he doing there?”

“Examining manuscripts, my assistant told me. He was particularly interested in—let me see—it is written on a bit of paper. Here it is, the ‘Nihon Guai Shi,’ the ‘External History of Japan,’ compiled by Rai Sanyo, between 1806 and 1827, containing a history of each of the military families. That is all Greek to me, but my man got the librarian to jot it down for him.”

“Your man has brains. What were you going to say when I interrupted you?”

“Only this. No fat companion appeared to day, so I called at No. 17 St. John’s Mansions in my favourite character as an old clo’ man.”

The barrister expressed extravagant admiration in dumb show, but this did not deceive the detective, who, for some reason, was downcast.

“I saw Mrs. Jiro, and knew in an instant that she was the stout gentleman who left her husband at Piccadilly Circus yesterday. I was that annoyed I could hardly do a deal. However, here they are.”

He began to unfasten the string which fastened the brown paper parcel.

“Here are what?” cried Brett.

“Mrs. Jiro’s coat, and trousers, and waistcoat,” replied Winter desperately. “She doesn’t want ’em any more; sold ’em for a song—glad to be rid of ’em, in fact.”

He unfolded a suit of huge dimensions, surveying each garment ruefully, as though reproaching it personally for the manner in which it had deceived him.

Then Brett sat down and enjoyed a burst of Homeric laughter.

Chapter XIX The Third Man Appears

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The Rev. Wilberforce Layton raised no objection to his daughter’s excursion to London with Mrs. Capella. Indeed, he promised to meet them in Whitby a week later, and remain there during August. Mrs. Eastham pleaded age and the school treat.

It was, therefore, a comparatively youthful party which Brett joined at dinner in one of the great hotels in Northumberland Avenue.

Someone had exercised rare discretion in ordering a special meal; the wines were good, and two at least of the company merry as emancipated school children.

The barrister soon received ample confirmation of the discovery made by the Stowmarket waiter.

Robert Hume-Frazer was undoubtedly in love with his cousin, or, to speak correctly, for the ex-sailor was a gentleman, he had been in love with her as a boy, and now secretly grieved over a hopeless passion.

Whether Margaret was conscious of this devotion or not Brett was unable to decide. By neither word nor look was Robert indiscreet. When she was present he was lively and talkative, entertaining the others with snatches of strange memories drawn from an adventurous career.

It was only when she quitted their little circle that Brett detected the mask of angry despair that settled for a moment on the young man’s face, and rendered him indifferent to other influences until he resolutely aroused himself.

Yet, on the whole, a great improvement was visible in Frazer. Attired in one of David’s evening dress suits, carefully groomed and trimmed, he no sooner donned the garments which gave him the outward semblance of an aristocrat than he dropped the curt, somewhat coarse, mannerisms which hitherto distinguished him from his cousin.

Beyond a more cosmopolitan style of speech, he was singularly like David in person and deportment. They resembled twins rather than first cousins. They were both remarkably fine-looking men, tall, wiry, and in splendid condition. It was only the slightly more attenuated features of Robert that made it possible, even for Brett, to distinguish one from the other at a little distance.

Helen was pleased to be facetious on the point.

“Really, Davie,” she said, “now that your cousin has come amongst us, you must remove your beard at once.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Because you are so alike that some evening, in these dark corridors, I shall mistake Mr. Frazer for you.”

“That won’t be half bad,” laughed Robert.

Nellie blushed, and endeavoured to evade the consequences of her own remark.

“I meant,” she exclaimed, “that you would be sure to laugh at me if I treated you as Davie.”

“Not at all. I would consider it a cousinly duty to make you believe I was David, and not myself.”

“Then,” she cried, “I will guard against any possibility of error by treating both of you as Mr. Robert Hume-Frazer until I am quite sure.”

“Waiter!” said David, “where is the barber’s shop?”

Helen became redder than ever, but they enjoyed the joke at her expense. The waiter politely informed his questioner that the barber would not be on duty until the morning at 8 a.m.

“Then book the first chair for me!” said David.

“And the second for me!” joined in Robert.

“Mr. Brett,” said Margaret, “don’t you consider this competition perfectly disgraceful?”

“I am overjoyed,” he replied. “It appears to me that the result must be personally most satisfactory.”

“In what way?”

“It is obvious that you have no resource but to accept my willing slavery, Miss Layton having monopolised the attentions of your two cousins.”

“Hello!” cried Frazer. “This is an unexpected attack. Miss Layton, I resign. Have no fear. In the darkest corridor I will warn you that my name is ‘Robert.’”

Though the words were carelessly good-humoured, they were just a trifle emphatic. The incident passed, but they recalled it subsequently under very different circumstances.

Brett went home about ten o’clock. Next day at noon he was arranging for the immediate delivery of a type-writer machine, sold by Mr. Numagawa Jiro to a West End exchange, when a telegram reached him:

“Come at once. Urgent.—HUME.”

He drove to the hotel, where David and Helen were sitting in the foyer awaiting his arrival.

Hume had kept his promise anent the barber. He no longer desired to alter his appearance in any way, and had only grown a beard on account of his sensitiveness regarding his two trials at the Assizes.

But the fun of the affair had quite gone.

Helen was pale, David greatly perturbed.

“A terrible thing has happened,” he said, in a low voice, when he grasped the barrister’s hand. “Someone tried to kill Bob an hour ago.”

The blank amazement on Brett’s face caused him to add hurriedly:

“It is quite true. He had the narrowest escape. He is in bed now. The doctor is examining him. We have secured the next room to his, and Margaret is there with a nurse.”

The barrister made no reply, but accompanied them to Frazer’s apartment. In the adjoining room they found Margaret, terribly scared, but listening eagerly to the doctor’s cheery optimism.

“It is nothing,” he was saying, “a severe squeeze, some slight abrasions, and a great nervous shock, quite serious in its nature, although your friend makes light of it, and wishes to get up at once. I think, however—”

A nurse entered.

“The patient insists upon my leaving the room,” she cried angrily. “He is dressing.”

They heard Robert’s voice:

“Confound it, I have been rolled on three times in one day by a bucking broncho, and thought nothing of it. I absolutely refuse to stop in bed!”

The doctor resigned professional responsibility; and the nature of Margaret’s cheque caused him to admit that, to a man accustomed to South American ponies, unbroken, the nervous shock might not amount to much.

Indeed, Robert appeared almost immediately, and in a bad temper.

“I lost my wind,” he explained, “when that horse fell on me, and everyone promptly imagined I was killed. I hope, Margaret, the needless excitement of my appearance on a stretcher did not alarm you. They were going to whip me off to the hospital when I managed to gurgle out the name of the hotel.”

“What happened?” said Brett.

“The most extraordinary thing. Have you told him, Davie?”

“No, I attributed your first words to me as being due to delirium. I had no idea you were in earnest.”

“Well, Mr. Brett,” said Frazer, sitting down, for notwithstanding his protests, he was somewhat shaky, “it began to rain after breakfast.”

“Excellent!”