25: The Open Window

CHARLESWORTH was quick to see that Mrs. John Stanmore was in a state of nervous excitement---or of fear. As Bedford handed her out of the cab she glanced apprehensively at the house, and while he paid and dismissed the driver she looked up and down the street as if suspicious or frightened of her surroundings. As for Bedford, his movements were quick and decisive. Turning from the cabman he directed Mrs. Stanmore’s attention to the open door and pointed within to the stair which led to Ehrenfeldt’s office on the first floor. Talking with evident rapidity all the time, he then pointed her down the street in the direction of Holborn Viaduct; Mrs. Stanmore, nodding as if in comprehension, turned away and walked slowly in that direction. And Bedford, after watching her for a second, made for the doorway and they heard him running up the stairs. A moment later and a door opened and closed.

“Queer!” muttered Charlesworth. “Why has she gone away? And will she come back?”

“Evident, I think,” said Mappleson. “The man wants to have a word or two in private with Ehrenfeldt. But---the man is Bedford, eh?”

“Bedford!---right enough!” replied Charlesworth, with a cynical laugh. “Oh, yes, that’s Bedford! Well . . . I think Bedford’s trapped! Out of this house he doesn’t go without me. Safe, up there, I think. And I suppose the lady will come back presently and go up there, too. But---Mrs. John Stanmore! In league with Bedford! There’ll be some strange revelations, Mr. Mappleson!”

He laughed again, and there was a note of chagrin in the laughter---Charlesworth was wondering why the devil he had never harboured any suspicion of these two. Mrs. John Stanmore! Good Heavens!---he had never even thought of her! And yet---why, of course, she’d had equal opportunities with any of the other people living at Aldersyke Manor at the time of Sir Charles’ death. And after all she was Guy’s mother, and if she knew that Guy was about to be cut off with a miserable £500 a year and that she could save his inheritance by sacrificing her brother-in-law, why---there you were! Strange that he’d never thought of that before!---and now to find Bedford in collusion with her---it was a turnover of things that he’d never anticipated. And now he was eager to get to grips with the truth, and he looked excitedly down the street in the hope of seeing Mrs. Stanmore’s immediate return and hearing her climb the stairs to Ehrenfeldt’s office. . . .

“We’ll follow her up there as soon as she comes back,” he said, thinking aloud. “Catch both of ’em red-handed, so to speak. I suppose they’ll have those diamonds on them----”

The door of Mosenstein’s room opened: Ehrenfeldt came in---alone. Charlesworth made for him, hurriedly. Ehrenfeldt nodded.

“All right, all right!” he said. “The lady comes back, soon. Just a moment---I keep the fish playing for you a little while. All right!”

He went up to Mosenstein’s table and spoke a few words to him in an undertone, and in a language which neither Charlesworth nor Sherman understood. Mosenstein nodded, got up, and left the room with Ehrenfeldt; Charlesworth, opening the door slightly, saw them go upstairs. He turned to Mappleson.

“Did you understand what Ehrenfeldt said to the other man?” he asked.

“Yes,” replied Mappleson. “He asked him to go upstairs for a minute to look at some diamonds. That----”

What Mappleson was going to say further, Charlesworth never knew. There came suddenly from upstairs a shout of alarm, a stampede on the landing, and a wild call from Ehrenfeldt.

“Hi---hi! You come up here---quick, you come! He is gone!”

With an imprecation on his luck, Charlesworth darted out of the door and up the stairs. Ehrenfeldt stood just within his office, pointing excitedly to the window, the lower sash of which was wide open.

“He must have gone through there while I leave him for the moment!” he exclaimed. “Gone!---when Mosenstein and I come up, he is gone---vanish!”

Charlesworth dashed across the room to the open window and looked out. He saw at once how easy it had been for Bedford to get clear away. A few feet below the level of the window was a low building projecting from the outer wall of the house; it was but a drop of a few feet to that; another drop of a few feet to a yard below. Out of that yard a door, now standing ajar, admitted to a narrow passage which ran in the direction of Great Saffron Hill and Farringdon Road: within a couple of minutes of escaping from Ehrenfeldt’s office, Bedford would be in the midst of teeming crowds. And Charlesworth, muttering a hearty curse, turned to Ehrenfeldt.

“Those diamonds?” he exclaimed. “Did he bring them?”

Ehrenfeldt spread his hands, and then pointed to his desk.

“He bring the lot!” he said. “They are there, spread out, when I leave him for a moment, to ask Mosenstein here to come and look at them. He suggest that his own self. ‘Let somebody else, who is an expert, see them, too,’ he say. ‘See them before the lady arrive.’ So---I leave him to fetch Mosenstein. Leave the diamonds, too---just there, where I show you. Then, when we come back, Mosenstein and me---gone! Diamonds---and him! Vanish---pouf!”

“Why didn’t the lady come in with him?” growled Charlesworth.

“He say he wish to see me alone, first,” replied Ehrenfeldt. “She come presently---take a little walk along the street; then come. You find her outside, eh? But as for him---eh, well, it is as I tell you, as you see! Gone! And those diamonds---worth---oh!”

Charlesworth ran down the stairs and into the street. But he saw nothing of Mrs. John Stanmore. And presently he called Sherman outside.

“No use hanging round here!” he said. “Come on, let’s get busy after this fellow. As to the woman, I reckon she’s off, too! But what on earth did they come here at all for? Here, let’s get to the nearest telephone.”

“Post-office along there---opposite side,” said Sherman. “Telephone there.”

Charlesworth crossed the street and hurried along, with Sherman at his heels, and Mappleson, who had followed them out, in close attendance. They had not gone far before they were aware of a crowd gathered at the entrance to a tea-shop opposite the post-office and near the end of the street. Re-crossing, Charlesworth forced his way to the tea-shop door and asked a policeman standing there what was the matter, at the same time showing his card.

“Lady died suddenly, inside,” replied the policeman laconically. “Walked in, ordered some tea, and died, they say, while she was drinking it.”

Charlesworth pushed into the shop, followed closely by the other two. And he pushed, too, into the midst of a group gathered near a small table in a corner, in the centre of which, still lying in the chair in which she had died, was Mrs. John Stanmore. There was a doctor there, and he was saying just what Charlesworth expected him to say.

“Heart failure---probably been hurrying,” said the doctor.

But Charlesworth muttered something to himself and went out---to get on the track of Bedford.

+++

If Bedford had not made a little miscalculation of his chances---as nearly all criminals do---he might have got away very easily with the Verringham diamonds and with the considerable amount of cash which they found in his pockets when they searched him. But Bedford forgot something---again, as nearly all criminals do. He forgot, when he climbed out of Ehrenfeldt’s window, that that window was overlooked by a great many other windows: if he didn’t overlook it, he took great odds against himself. And as a matter of fact, there happened to be looking out of one of those over-looking windows a sharp youth who just then had nothing to do and was so vastly interested in seeing a man climb out of Ehrenfeldt, the diamond merchant’s window and sneak away from the yard beneath, that he promptly went after him, and following Bedford into Farringdon Street promptly pointed him out to a sergeant and a constable who happened to stand handy at a street corner and told them what he had seen. And what Bedford had to say was not satisfactory, and the sergeant and constable took him in charge, and when, a little later, they found a quantity of loose diamonds and a lot of bank-notes and other valuables on him, they communicated with Headquarters, and by tea-time Charlesworth and Bedford met again.

+++

“He was a queer chap, Bedford,” said Charlesworth, talking to a friend a day or two after Bedford had been hanged at Pentonville. “As queer a chap as ever I came across. Of course, plenty came out at the trial, but I knew more than came out there or elsewhere. Bedford sent for me after it was all over and when he knew there wasn’t a chance for him, and he told me all about it. The real truth was this. Sir Charles Stanmore, who was another queer character, had certain views for his nephew Guy, and certain views for his daughter Irene---who, until all this came out, never knew she was his daughter. Well, Guy and Irene smashed these views to pieces by getting married secretly. A little time before his death Sir Charles found out about this secret marriage---how he found it out nobody knows, and probably never will know. He was a revengeful devil, Sir Charles!---he immediately began preparing to make these young people suffer. But---and here comes in the most important thing!---the very morning before his death, and after he’d had a row with Irene, he discovered---perhaps from her---that Mrs. John Stanmore knew of the marriage and had kept it from him. So he had a holy row with her, and before leaving for town, he told her plainly that instead of leaving her £25,000, and Irene £25,000, and Guy the immense revenue, he should cut his legacy to her down to £1,000 and leave Guy and Irene no more than £500 a year each for life, and, moreover, that he should alter his proposed new will to that effect next day. Next day, mind you!---so there wasn’t much time to be lost. Now then, what happened? To begin with, Mrs. John went in tears and tribulation to Bedford and told him of Sir Charles’ threat, and she moaned and groaned over the pauperism to which she and Guy and Irene were to be reduced. Of course---according to himself---Bedford could do no more than express the pious hope that Sir Charles’ hard heart would be softened. Mrs. John, however, appears to have had more faith in practical measures than in sentimental processes. And that night---again according to himself---Bedford and Purser, indulging in a little quiet conversation, somewhere in its vicinity and where they themselves were unseen, saw Mrs. John steal into the butler’s pantry, where the supper-tray for Sir Charles was laid out ready for Purser to take into the study. Purser stole after her, and peeped through the crack of the door, and saw Mrs. John, but with her back to Purser, bending over the tray as if inspecting it. Now Mrs. John did a good deal of superintendence, and Purser concluded that she was just seeing that the tray was all right. But next day, when rumours began to circulate as to the causes of Sir Charles’ death in the night, Bedford and Purser got hold of Mrs. John and accused her, point-blank, of murdering her brother-in-law! She neither denied nor confessed it, but began to bargain with them. Then Bedford took the situation completely in hand. He agreed with Mrs. John to square Purser, and he made an arrangement with Purser, who was to have a very nice sum per week for life and an occasional bonus into the bargain. Then he accused Mrs. John of having secured the Verringham necklace, and finding that she had it, he forced her to hand it over to him. And, thirdly, recognizing that it might be a very handy thing to have, and before the doctors got hold of the whole bag of tricks, Bedford emptied the contents of one of the bottles in the Borgia Cabinet into a bottle of his own---and took good care of it. It was with that stuff that he impregnated the chocolates that he sent to Purser; it was the same stuff that he used in eventually getting rid of Mrs. John. And now to end with, I’ll tell you exactly what Bedford did on that last day of his liberty. He wanted to be off---and with all the wealth he could get together. He’d tried Gilford for the £5,000---principal and interest---which Guy Stanmore owed him; he’d also tried to sell the diamonds to Ehrenfeldt. Gilford wouldn’t pay; Ehrenfeldt wouldn’t buy except from the principal, the lady of decayed family. So Bedford, having the whip hand of her, turned his attention to Mrs. John Stanmore! First of all that morning, he made her sell out some stock of her own and pay him £5,000 in cash. Then he forced her to accompany him to Ehrenfeldt’s in the character of the real owner of the diamonds---but he had no intention of taking her there. He made her lunch with him somewhere in the neighbourhood of Holborn, and he poisoned her, calculating to a nicety when she would expire. When they reached Ehrenfeldt’s, he sent her down the street, told her to go into the tea-shop and get a cup of tea, and at the end of half an hour to return to Ehrenfeldt’s and walk upstairs. Then, diamonds and money in pocket, he went up to Ehrenfeldt’s, made a show of the stones, asked Ehrenfeldt to get another expert to examine them, and as soon as Ehrenfeldt had left the room, pocketed them and went out of the window. A damned cool, calculating chap!---and possessed of a very queer way of looking at things! ‘It was a most unfortunate thing for me, Mr. Charlesworth,’ he said, in winding up his story, ‘a really deplorable thing that that young fellow should attach any importance to my getting out of the window! I had figured on anybody who saw me taking me for a window-cleaner. A great pity, sir, that a little thing like that should spoil a man’s future!---I’d intended to do very well, Mr. Charlesworth, when I’d got safely away, I had indeed!’ There was an obvious remark that I might have made on that,” concluded Charlesworth, “and I was sorely tempted to make it. But I knew Bedford by that time. He was, like most criminals of his sort---diabolically clever to a certain degree, but beyond that a perfect fool!”

THE END