Corner House — Chapter XIII, Second Sight; Chapter XIV, "Crowner's Quest"

CHAPTER XIII. SECOND SIGHT.

Hetty clung to Bruce's arm as if fearful for her safety.

Of course, he was absolutely innocent, but how far the world would believe it was quite another matter.

For the girl was quick and clear-sighted, and it needed no explanation to show her Bruce's terrible position.

Her nimble wit pointed to conspiracy.

But it was only a vague idea at present.

She forced a brave smile to her lips.

"We won't discuss it, dearest," she said.

"The mere idea of your guilt is absurd to any one who knows you.

I cannot realize it yet, the whole thing is so terribly mixed up and involved.

The one man to get to the bottom of things is Gilbert Lawrence.

The police will see nothing here beyond a mere vulgar crime.

My uncle Gilbert will bring a novelist's imagination to work on it, And, whatever happens, there will be one person who believes implicitly in you."

Bruce pressed the little hand under his arm silently.

He did not feel equal to speaking just for the moment.

Despite the pain and trouble at her heart Hetty spoke bravely.

She forced a smile to her face.

Bruce felt that he had never loved the girl by his side so much as he did at that moment.

Lawrence was fortunately at home.

He had just finished a story, so that his frame of mind was complaisant.

But as he listened to the dramatic events of the afternoon he grew deeply interested.

"We thought you would help us," Hetty said.

"I am probably the only man in the world who can help you," Lawrence replied.

"To a certain extent I seem to have got you into this mess, and I must get you out of it.

My dear young people, I am going to astonish you presently.

Now, all I know up to now is that these notes have been traced to Bruce, and that, by a dreadful coincidence, he actually was one of the last people to see the murdered man before the tragedy.

His little part Bruce has already told me, but I purposely asked no details.

He has not yet informed me how the notes really reached his pocket, because the assumption that he stole them is ridiculous."

"Thank you for that," Bruce said gratefully.

"Nonsense, my dear fellow.

Now let me open your eyes.

Behold the great force of a man who is gifted with second sight.

Where did you get those notes?

Was it not on the same evening as the murder?"

Bruce nodded.

He was beginning to have some feeling of hope.

"Score one to me.

Recently you bought some article of value.

Say it was a piece of Battersea china or a Chippendale chair, an engraving after Reynolds, or a picture.

On the whole I am inclined to suggest a picture of the Dutch school with a history."

Lawrence's eyes fairly beamed as he spoke.

"Another one to you," said Bruce.

"I did buy an old Dutch picture recently.

But how on earth you managed----" "Never mind that yet.

I didn't get this information from you.

Behold the picture!

You are sitting in your room on the night previous to the murder--a few hours before it in fact.

Enter to you a more or less picturesque individual who tells you a story of a picture.

It is an heirloom in his family.

The family have had to part with it in their dark days.

Now the same picturesque individual has become rich.

Imagine his delight when he sees this family treasure in a shop window."

"Amazing," Bruce cried.

"That is exactly what did happen.

But how could you possibly have known that considering that until an hour ago not a soul knew of it, not even Hetty!"

Lawrence puffed his cigarette in huge enjoyment.

"So far the oracle has spoken correctly," he went on.

"The picture was in the shop window.

The old man had no cheque book.

He hurried home to get it, and by the time he returned the picture was gone.

There's a pathetic little incident for you, quite in the fashion of a lady's novelette.

The picturesque old man wants the picture and he offers you £200 for it, which you accept.

He pays you in bank notes and you place these notes in your inner coat pocket."

"I shall wake up presently and find it a dream," said Bruce.

"If you had been present at the interview you could not have described it better."

"End of the first act," Lawrence said with pardonable triumph.

"You are just going into your rooms when a motor comes up.

It looks like a coincidence, but the driver has been lurking about waiting for you.

Do you suppose it was chance that you were picked out of all the doctors in London?"

"I thought, perhaps," Bruce began, "that my name----" "Fiddlesticks!

You are the victim of a vile conspiracy, my dear fellow, if ever there was one.

Now let me go on with my visions.

The motor is an unusually silent one, and it was painted a dull, lustreless black."

"Correct to a fault," Bruce cried.

"Well, we shall hear more of that lustreless black motor later on when I come to go closely into the mystery and show the police what asses they are.

You address a question to the driver and he turns out to be dumb.

He takes you to the corner house, where you are received by a fair woman with a mantilla over her head so that you have the very vaguest idea of her features.

If you were asked to swear to her identity you couldn't do it I suppose?"

"At the present moment I could not swear to my own," Bruce said helplessly.

"Well, you can leave other people to do that.

You find your patient half dead between drink and drugs, and after a time you pull him round.

As you go away you sign to the Spanish woman that you are coming again.

She says no, and by means of a Bradshaw and some labelled luggage--say to Dover--leads you to believe that the people of the house are going abroad at once."

"Marvellous!"

Bruce cried.

"It is exactly as you have said."

"Of course it is," Lawrence replied.

"One question more.

How many times did the hall gas go out when you were there?"

Bruce looked at the speaker absolutely too astounded to say a word.

CHAPTER XIV.

"CROWNER'S QUEST."

Hetty was conscious of a sea of curious eyes and white, eager faces.

As the days went on public interest in the Corner House mystery had not abated.

All sorts of vague stories had got about, and in some mysterious way the name of Dr. Gordon Bruce was mixed up in it.

Why he had not been arrested Bruce could not imagine.

The tale he had volunteered to Prout and his signature on the back of the notes were almost in themselves enough to hang a man.

Perhaps a little private conversation between Prout and Lawrence had had the effect of postponing matters.

Bruce was not in the least likely to run away; on the contrary, he had volunteered to give evidence at the adjourned inquest.

Hetty also would have something to say that would be in favour of her lover.

"After all, they can't definitely say that those notes were ever in the possession of the murdered man," she whispered to Bruce.

"He wrote the letter, of course, but they don't know he really possessed the notes."

"I am afraid they do," Bruce replied.

"They are going to call a cashier from the National Credit Bank who positively identified the deceased as the man who changed £400 in gold for notes, part of which notes were numbers 190753 to 190792, or the notes I paid to Capper.

That piece of evidence cannot possibly be shaken."

Hetty admitted the fact with a sigh.

She had no illusions as to the future.

Unless something like a miracle happened Gordon was certain to stand in the dock charged with the murder of a man unknown.

Examined in the cold light of day, Gordon Bruce's story was an extraordinary one.

Hetty was forced to admit that from the lips of a stranger she would not have believed a word of it.

And Gilbert Lawrence now refused to say anything.

He was the one person who seemed to be thoroughly satisfied.

There was some comfort to be derived from this, but not much, as Hetty told herself miserably.

The inquest was sensational from the very start.

After the dead man's landlady of the house by the docks and her landlord's agent proved the handwriting of the deceased, Sergeant Prout told the story of the missing banknotes.

A good few of the packed audience knew Bruce by sight, and as the evidence proceeded he found the scrutiny of so many eyes quite trying.

Even the most guilty when brought to book are not without some feeling of shame, however defiant they may appear, but it is a horrible thing when the innocent has to stand and answer to a criminal charge.

A wave of indignation passed over Bruce, to be followed by utter helplessness.

"Courage, dear old boy," Hetty whispered.

"It will all come right in the end.

Good will come out of this evil."

Bruce shut his teeth tightly and nodded.

Still, in Prout's evidence he seemed to hear the voice of his judge passing sentence.

Prout concluded his evidence at length, every word of which told dead against the one man seated there.

Not half a dozen people in the room would have acquitted him on the criminal charge.

"Do you propose to go any further today?"

the coroner asked.

Prout was understood to say no, when Bruce rose.

His face was deadly pale, a tiny red spot burning on either cheek.

But he had his voice under proper control; there was no look of guilt about him.

"If you have no objection, sir, I should like to give evidence," he said.

The presiding official was decidedly taken aback.

He looked at Prout, who made no sign.

He was not so prejudiced as most of the people there.

"Really if you will be guided by my opinion you will do nothing of the kind," he said, much as a magistrate might address a prisoner in the dock.

"If you were called it would be a different matter.

On the whole the best plan would be for you to be represented by a solicitor, who would put questions likely to--er--tell in your favour."

Bruce smiled grimly.

He knew perfectly well what a terrible significance lay behind these formal words.

At the same time, he had no desire to take any advantage.

There was an electric thrill in the audience as he was sworn.

They thrilled with a deeper intensity as he proceeded.

If ever a man stood up and committed moral and social suicide Dr. Gordon Bruce was that man at this moment.

There was scarcely a sound to be heard till he had finished.

People thrust forward, eager that no word should be missed.

A sudden sneeze caused the whole court to start violently.

It was a strange weird story, that only one listener believed in, and that was Hetty.

The coroner had nothing to say.

The thing was bad enough, and he did not wish to be too hard on a medical colleague.

A curious juryman had a lot of questions to ask, especially about the mysterious Spanish woman and the motor car.

"You left that lady behind you?"

he said.

"Who is to testify to that?

If you can prove such to be the case, why----" The curious one shrugged his shoulders.

Then a loud clear voice rang to the roof, the voice of a woman who declared that she could prove it.

A ripple of amazement followed.

Before it died away Hetty became conscious of the fact that the voice was hers, and that she had spoken.

In a dreary kind of way she found herself answering questions.

Somebody had placed a book in her hands and had told her to kiss it.

"I live next door to the corner house," she said.

"I could not sleep on the night in question.

At a little before five----" "How do you fix the time?"

came from the inquisitive juryman, "Because my bedroom clock struck the hour as I got back.

I heard somebody leave the corner house.

I looked out of the window and saw a motor car that appeared to be draped in black.

As a woman from the house got on to it she seemed to push some of the drapery aside, for I saw the gleam of the rail.

She was a fair woman with a mantilla over her head.

The car went off without the faintest noise, and that is all I know."

"Are you a friend of the prison----, I mean of Dr. Bruce?"

asked the inquisitive one.

Hetty was bound to admit that she was more than that.

The interrogative juryman sniffed and suggested that Dr. Bruce might have been in the house then.

"Impossible," Bruce cried.

"At a quarter to five I was at home.

The hall porter and two of the maids were down and will testify to the fact."

A ripple of excitement followed.

A reporter rose and held up his hand.

"I desire to be sworn, sir," he said.

"It so happens that I can throw a little light on this matter.

I did not leave the office of my paper till four in the morning of the day to which this young lady alludes.

The clock on Gregory's store struck five as I reached Garrett Street, which, as you know, runs into Raven Street.

A few seconds later a fast motor passed me without the slightest noise."

"Perhaps you had better describe this motor," said the coroner.

"It was draped or some way disguised in black.

A woman sat by the driver, with a cloud of lace over her head.

I could just catch a glimpse of a brass rail where the drapery was disturbed."

Prout snapped his note-book together and put it in his pocket.

"After that," he muttered, "I give it up; it's beyond me."