Portrait of a Murderer

were to be Gray’s standby, and in no circumstances would he allow Eustace to handle them. He, Eustace, knew the whereabouts of the safe, and he determined to try and discover the combination and remove the documents. This, he said passionately, was a final endeavour to save an intolerable situation. He had forgotten, if he had ever known, that it was Gray’s habit to lock his door when he left the library at night, and so it did not strike him as strange that it should be open when he went down. He had met no one; and the room, when he entered it, was perfectly dark. The curtain had blown across the window that was opened, and in his haste and anxiety he had not realised that it was not closed. The safe was set in a deep recess, lighted from the floor by a discreetly concealed electric bulb that flung radiance into the safe without illuminating the rest of the room. Gray, he understood, had had this fitted in, so that if he were suddenly disturbed while examining his securities, he could extinguish the light without moving, and foil the curiosity-mongers. He was always unnaturally secretive about his affairs. He, Eustace, had crossed the room in bedroom slippers, felt for and found the switch of the light, and set himself to open the safe. This, however, he was not able to do. He supposed he was in the room for the greater part of an hour. It did not occur to him that there was any way of entry except by the door. He kept a sharp look-out for the signs of a light being switched on in the hall. The recess was deep enough for a man to hide, unless anyone came directly into it. At the end of an hour he had desisted. Panic had increased in his breast, and he dared not risk being found by any member of the family. When he heard from the police that they had opened the safe and found it practically empty, he had been half distracted.

That was the substance of his story, and most people who heard it found it quite inadequate. They argued that on so cold and windy a night a man must have become aware of the open window; that it would be impossible to spend so long in a room where a man lay dead without seeing the body; that it was absurd to suppose the police could with little difficulty open a safe that had defied his efforts; that the whole explanation, in short, was lame and improbable.

The jury, and even Moore’s own lawyer, took the same view. The former were away for about forty minutes, during which a number of people in the court stirred and came outside into the pale sunlight to discuss various aspects of this most exciting mystery.

2

The jury discussed the position with animation.

“We take it for granted that the doctor’s right in saying the slab of brass was the implement used?”

“It seems likely, seeing it was bright and polished like nothing else was. Besides, two people—Miss Amy and a servant—remember it being on top of a pile of loose papers, and it was not on any papers at all when they found it.”

There was general agreement with that. The foreman continued, “I’ll tell you how I see it. I believe he did come down, as he says, and began tinkering with the safe. I daresay he didn’t notice about the window. When all your mind’s set on one thing you’re absorbed. Heat and cold don’t seem to strike you in the same way. Well, there he was, trying to help himself to Mr. Gray’s papers, when through the open window comes Mr. Gray himself. There’s a wide verandah outside, as happen you know, and he might have slipped out there when he heard footsteps, not wanting to be disturbed by anyone else that night. Then he watched, and found this fellow trying the safe. Mind you, I don’t for a minute believe he stood there for an hour, but this chap wants to make out the best story he can. I daresay the old man watched him for some time; then he came in and took his son-in-law by surprise. Terrified and taken unawares, the fellow hit out…”

“What about the cheque?” interrupted a more far-seeing juryman. “That wasn’t drawn till the morning.”

“That’s true. We shall have to alter that story. Look here. Suppose Mr. Moore made Mr. Gray understand how bad things were, and persuaded him to give him a cheque? Or p’raps he threatened him, standing over him while he wrote it out. And then Mr. Gray told him in that sarcastic way of his that it wasn’t worth the form it was written on. He’d be glad enough to have the last laugh. And then Mr. Moore, wild at being cheated, and not seeing any hope anywhere, hit out, just to make him stop talking, perhaps, and not meaning to kill him at all. When he saw what had happened he put the cheque on the fire and wiped the paper-weight and came upstairs again. He didn’t think about finger-prints on the safe. How does that fit?”

At the end of forty minutes the jury returned, with a verdict of wilful murder against Eustace Moore.

3

There was little surprise though much excitement in the court when this verdict was announced. It had been obvious from the trend of examination and argument in which direction the tide of suspicion had turned. Yet it seemed, for a moment, as though, of all present, Eustace himself had not anticipated this consummation. For a minute his control broke utterly. He glared wildly round the court, rose to speak, could not command his voice, clutched at a chair with both hands, and trembled violently from head to foot. There was something so repulsive, so divorced from normal human dignity in the spectacle of this pale, middle-aged man in impeccable morning garb, clinging to