“You will remember that when the night porter was asked if he could, among the persons present in court, recognize the Hon. Robert de Genneville’s belated visitor, everyone had noticed his hesitation, and marked that the man’s eyes had rested doubtingly upon the face and figure of the young Earl of Brockelsby.
“Now, if that belated visitor had been Mr. Timothy Beddingfield—tall, lean, dry as dust, with a birdlike beak and clean-shaven chin—no one could for a moment have mistaken his face—even if they only saw it very casually and recollected it but very dimly—with that of young Lord Brockelsby, who was florid and rather short—the only point in common between them was their Saxon hair.
“You see that it was a curious point, don’t you?” added the man in the corner, who now had become so excited that his fingers worked like long thin tentacles round and round his bit of string. “It weighed very heavily in favour of Timothy Beddingfield. Added to which you must also remember that, as far as he was concerned, the Hon. Robert de Genneville was to him the goose with the golden eggs.
“The ‘De Genneville peerage case’ had brought Beddingfield’s name in great prominence. With the death of the claimant all hopes of prolonging the litigation came to an end. There was a total lack of motive as far as Beddingfield was concerned.”
“Not so with the Earl of Brockelsby,” said Polly, “and I’ve often maintained—”
“What?” he interrupted. “That the Earl of Brockelsby changed clothes with Beddingfield in order more conveniently to murder his own brother? Where and when could the exchange of costume have been effected, considering that the Inverness cape and Glengarry cap were in the hall of the Castle Hotel at 9:15, and at that hour and until ten o’clock Lord Brockelsby was at the Grand Hotel finishing dinner with some friends? That was subsequently proved, remember, and also that he was back at Brockelsby Castle, which is seven miles from Birmingham, at eleven o’clock sharp. Now, the visit of the individual in the Glengarry occurred some time after 10 p.m.”
“Then there was the disappearance of Beddingfield,” said the girl musingly. “That certainly points very strongly to him. He was a man in good practice, I believe, and fairly well known.”
“And has never been heard of from that day to this,” concluded the old scarecrow with a chuckle. “No wonder you are puzzled. The police were quite baffled, and still are, for a matter of that. And yet see how simple it is! Only the police would not look further than these two men—Lord Brockelsby with a strong motive and the night porter’s hesitation against him, and Beddingfield without a motive, but with strong circumstantial evidence and his own disappearance as condemnatory signs.
“If only they would look at the case as I did, and think a little about the dead as well as about the living. If they had remembered that peerage case, the Hon. Robert’s debts, his last straw which proved a futile claim.
“Only that very day the Earl of Brockelsby had, by quietly showing the original ancient document to his brother, persuaded him how futile were all his hopes. Who knows how many were the debts contracted, the promises made, the money borrowed and obtained on the strength of that claim which was mere romance? Ahead nothing but ruin, enmity with his brother, his marriage probably broken off, a wasted life, in fact.
“Is it small wonder that, though ill-feeling against the Earl of Brockelsby may have been deep, there was hatred, bitter, deadly hatred against the man who with false promises had led him into so hopeless a quagmire? Probably the Hon. Robert owed a great deal of money to Beddingfield, which the latter hoped to recoup at usurious interest, with threats of scandal and whatnot.
“Think of all that,” he added, “and then tell me if you believe that a stronger motive for the murder of such an enemy could well be found.”
“But what you suggest is impossible,” said Polly, aghast.
“Allow me,” he said, “it is more than possible—it is very easy and simple. The two men were alone together in the Hon. Robert de Genneville’s room after dinner. You, as representing the public, and the police say that Beddingfield went away and returned half an hour later in order to kill his client. I say that it was the lawyer who was murdered at nine o’clock that evening, and that Robert de Genneville, the ruined man, the hopeless bankrupt, was the assassin.”
“Then—”
“Yes, of course, now you remember, for I have put you on the track. The face and the body were so battered and bruised that they were past recognition. Both men were of equal height. The hair, which alone could not be disfigured or obliterated, was in both men similar in colour.
“Then the murderer proceeds to dress his victim in his own clothes. With the utmost care he places his own rings on the fingers of the dead man, his own watch in the pocket; a gruesome task, but an important one, and it is thoroughly well done. Then he himself puts on the clothes of his victim, with finally the Inverness cape and Glengarry, and when the hall is full of visitors he slips out unperceived. He sends the messenger for Beddingfield’s portmanteau and starts off by the night express.”
“But then his visit at the Castle Hotel at ten o’clock—” she urged. “How dangerous!”
“Dangerous? Yes! but oh, how clever. You see, he was the Earl of Brockelsby’s twin brother, and twin brothers are always somewhat alike. He wished to appear dead, murdered by someone, he cared not whom,
