My Strangest Case - Guy Boothby (inspiring books for teens TXT) 📗

word with you, Senor Gairdi?" I asked.

"Yes, certainly," he replied, speaking with only a slight foreign accent. "What is it you want?"

I drew him a few paces further along the deck, so that, if possible, the other passengers, who were standing near, should not hear what I had to say to him.

"I have to tell you," I said, "that I hold a warrant for your arrest on the charge of murdering one, Joseph Spainton, on the night of July the nineteenth of this year. I must caution you that anything you may say will be used as evidence against you."

The nearest electric light shone full and clear upon his face, and I noticed that a queer expression had suddenly made its appearance upon it. Apart from that, he did not seem at all surprised at his arrest.

"So you have found it out after all," he said. "I thought I was going to evade suspicion and get away safely. You would not have caught me then. It is Fate, I suppose."

He shrugged his shoulders and said something under his breath in Italian.

"Must I go ashore with you?" he asked.

"If you please," I answered, marvelling that he should take it so coolly.

Then turning his dark eyes upon me, he continued--

"Senor, in Italy I am a gentleman, and my name, which is not Gairdi, is an honoured one. What I am accused of, and what I admit doing, was no crime. The dead man was a traitor, and I was deputed to kill him. I did it, and this is the end."

The words had scarcely left his lips before he took a revolver from his coat-pocket, placed it to his right temple and, before I could prevent him, had pulled the trigger. He fell with a crash at my feet, and before the ship's doctor could be brought to his side, he was dead. Who he really was, or to what Secret Society he belonged--for his last words to me warranted the belief that he was a member of some such organization--we were never able to discover. He was dead, and there was an end to it. Such is the story of the first big case in which I was engaged, and one that led me step by step to the position I now hold. I have told it perhaps at somewhat greater length than I need have done, but I trust the reader will forgive me. As a matter of fact I am rather proud of it; more so perhaps than I have any reason to be.

Having resigned my position in the police of the Northern Colony, I was not to be tempted to reconsider my decision. My liking for the life, however, and my interest in the unravelling of mysterious crimes, proved too strong, and I joined the Detective Staff in Melbourne, seeing in their service a good deal of queer life and ferreting out not a small number of extraordinary cases. The experience gained there was invaluable, and led me, after one particularly interesting piece of business in which I had the good fortune to be most successful, to entertain the notion of quitting Government employ altogether, and setting up for myself. I did so, and soon had more work upon my hand than I could very well accomplish. But I was too ambitious to be content with small things, and eventually came to the conclusion that there was not enough scope in the Colonies for me. After fifteen years' absence, therefore, I returned to England, spending a year in the Further East _en route_ in order to enlarge my experience, and to qualify myself for any work that might come to me from that quarter.

On a certain bitterly cold day in January I reached Liverpool from the United States, and took the train for my old home. My father and mother had long since died, and now all that remained to me of them was the stone slab that covered their resting place in the quiet little churchyard at the foot of the hill.

"Well, here I am," I said to myself, "thirty-three years old, and alone in the world. Nobody knows me in England, but it won't be my fault if they don't hear of George Fairfax before very long. I'll be off to London and try my fortune there."

Next day I made my way to the Great Metropolis, and installed myself at a small private hotel, while I looked about me preparatory to commencing business. To talk of gaining a footing in London is all very well in its way, but it is by no means so easy a task to accomplish as it might appear. Doubtless it can be done fairly quickly if one is prepared to spend large sums of money in advertising, and is not afraid to blow one's own trumpet on every possible occasion, but that is not my line, and besides, even had I so wished, I had not the money to do it. For a multitude of reasons I did not feel inclined to embark my hard-earned savings on such a risky enterprise. I preferred to make my way by my own diligence, and with that end in view I rented an office in a convenient quarter, furnished it, put a small advertisement in a few of the papers, and then awaited the coming of my clients.

As I have a long and curious story to tell, and this book is only intended to be the narration of a certain episode in my life, a detailed description of my first three years in London would not only be superfluous, but in every way a waste of time. Let it suffice that my first case was that of the now notorious Pilchard Street Diamond Robbery, my success in which brought me business from a well known firm in Hatton Gardens. As the public will doubtless remember, they had been robbed of some valuable gems between London and Amsterdam in a singularly audacious manner. My second was the case of the celebrated Russian swindler, who called herself the Countess Demikoff. This case alone took me nearly six months to unravel, but I did not grudge the time, seeing that I was well paid for my labours, and that I managed to succeed where the police had failed. From that time forward I think I may say without boasting that I have been as successful as any man of my age has a right to expect to be. What is better still, I am now in the happy position of being able to accept or decline business as I choose. It is in many respects a hard life, and at all times is attended with a fair amount of risk, but you cannot make omelets without breaking eggs, and if any one chooses to spend his life running to earth men who are waging war against Society, well, he must not grumble if he receives some hard knocks in return.

After these preliminaries I will proceed to show how I came to be mixed up in the most curious case it has ever been my good, or evil, fortune to encounter. It showed me a side of human nature I had not met before, and it brought me the greatest happiness a man can ever hope to find.



CHAPTER II

All business London, and a good many other people besides, must remember the famous United Empire Bank Fraud. Bonds had been stolen and negotiated, vast sums of money were discovered to be missing, and the manager and one of the directors were absent also. So cleverly had the affair been worked, and so flaring were the defalcations, that had it not been for the public-spirited behaviour and generosity of two of the directors, the position of the bank would have been most seriously compromised, if not shattered altogether. How the culprits had managed to slip through the fingers of the law in the first place no one could say, but the fact remains that they were able to get out of England, without, apparently, leaving a trace of their intentions or their whereabouts behind them. Scotland Yard took the matter up with its usual promptness, and at first were confident of success. They set their cleverest detectives to work upon it, and it was not until more than a month had elapsed that the men engaged were compelled most reluctantly to admit their defeat. They had done their best: it was the system under which they worked that was to blame. In the detection of crime, or in the tracing of a criminal, it is best, as in every other walk of life, to be original.

One morning on arriving at my office I found a letter awaiting me from the remaining directors of the bank, in which they inquired if I could make it convenient to call upon them at the head-office that day. To tell the truth I had been expecting this summons for nearly a week, and was far from being displeased when it came. The work I had expected them to offer me was after my own heart, and if they would only trust the business to me and give me a free hand, I was prepared on my part to bring the missing gentlemen to justice.

Needless to say I called upon them at the hour specified, and after a brief wait was conducted to the board room where the directors sat in solemn conclave.

The chairman, Sir Walter Bracebridge, received me on behalf of his colleagues.

"We wrote to you, Mr. Fairfax," he said, "in order to find out whether you could help us concerning the difficulty in which we find ourselves placed. You of course are aware of the serious trouble the bank has experienced, and of the terrible consequences which have resulted therefrom?"

I admitted that I was quite conversant with it, and waited to hear what he would have to say next.

"As a matter of fact," he continued, "we have sent for you to know whether you can offer us any assistance in our hour of difficulty? Pray take a chair, and let us talk the matter over and see what conclusion we can arrive at."

I seated myself, and we discussed the affair to such good purpose that, when I left the Boardroom, it was on the understanding that I was to take up the case at once, and that my expenses and a very large sum of money should be paid me, provided I could manage to bring the affair to a successful termination. I spent the remainder of that day at the Bank, carefully studying the various memoranda. A great deal of what I had read and heard had been mere hearsay, and this it was necessary to discard in order that the real facts of the case might be taken up, and the proper conclusions drawn therefrom. For three days I weighed the case carefully in my mind, and at the end of that time was in a position to give the Board a definite answer to their inquiries. Thereupon I left England, with the result that exactly twelve weeks later the two men, so much wanted, were at Bow Street, and I had the proud knowledge of knowing that I had succeeded where the men who had tried before me had so distinctly failed.

As will be remembered, it was a case that interested every class of society, and Press and Public were alike united in the interest they showed in it. It is not, however, to the trial itself as much as another curious circumstance connected with it, that has induced me to refer