CHAPTER XIX
LEGALITIES
Brixey relapsed into his chair again and stared at Gaffkin harder than before. And Gaffkin, helping himself to another glass of Brackett's old port, shook his head over his first sip of it, not so much in token of the appreciation which he felt as of his realisation of the deep mystery in which he and Brixey were becoming more and more entangled.
"Well?" said Brixey at last. "You've ideas, Gaffkin—notions! Out with 'em! This is the time for speaking."
Gaffkin took a pinch of snuff from an old-fashioned box which he drew from his waistcoat pocket.
"Man and boy, boy and man," he remarked, "I've had a good long experience of legal matters, Mr. Brixey, and since I left Mr. Linthwaite I've seen and known some queer things in the private detective line. This is a queer thing!
"Of course, since I made these discoveries yesterday, -and, since hearing the bits you've told me to-day, I've formulated a theory. This is a conspiracy, probably shared in by a lot of people. Object—to get hold of the late Martin Byfield's money. Money, sir! That's the idea. Money!"
"I've felt that it was money pretty nearly all along," agreed Brixey. "But I haven't quite seen the ins and outs of the conspiracy theory."
"I take it that it's something like this," said Gaffkin. "Do you remember what Wetherby, Martin Byfield's old servant, told me about the marriage abroad—at Monaco? That his master married a Mrs. Sunderland?"
"That's established," assented Brixey. "Old Mr. Semmerby, the family solicitor, told me that. He told me who, or rather what, she was at that time—manageress of some English tea-rooms at Nice."
Gaffkin jerked his thumb in the direction of the sheepskin-bound book.
"In my opinion," he said quietly, "the Mrs. Sunderland of that time was identical with the Harriet Sunderland who married Cradock Melsome, as specified by your uncle in that pedigree! She wasn't Mrs. Sunderland at all—she was Mrs. Cradock Melsome."
Brixey whistled, a sign that light was beginning to break in on him.
"Whew!" he exclaimed. "But if Cradock Melsome was alive, six months ago, in Quebec, she—she wasn't free to marry Martin Byfield at all?"
"Precisely—unless she'd got a divorce from Cradock, of which we've no record or proof," answered Gaffkin. "Now, look at what we know.
"Mr. Linthwaite, in that sort of biographical note, says that Cradock Melsome was what he calls a bad egg. He says in effect that he was so bad that his wife, a very decent woman, had experienced so much of his badness in six months that she left him—disappeared altogether, and so effectively that she couldn't be traced. That may mean—probably does mean—that Mr. Linthwaite tried to trace her. But—we know that her name was Harriet Sunderland.
"Now, Mrs. Byfield's name when she married Martin Byfield was Mrs. Sunderland. Was Mrs. Sunderland really Mrs. Cradock Melsome? It looks like it."
"Go on, I'm following," said Brixey.
"Let's suppose that she was," continued Gaffkin. "Now, when she met Martin Byfield, some years had elapsed since she left Cradock Melsome. We know that she told Martin Byfield that she was a widow. She may have thought that she was free to marry.
"But, as Cradock Melsome was alive, as we know he was, from all these receipts, she wasn't free to marry. And therefore the marriage, at Monaco with Martin Byfield was in our law no marriage at all."
"Or-bigamous?" suggested Brixey.
"She may have believed that she was free to marry," repeated Gaffkin. "She may, for anything we know, have had legal advice. As near as I can put times and dates together, she'd left, and had most likely not heard of Cradock Melsome for over seven years.
"She may have had a genuine belief that Cradock Melsome was dead. Probably she could certainly prove that she didn't know him to be living. But whether or not, as Cradock Melsome was living, and if there had been no divorce between them, her marriage to Martin Byfield was null and void."
"Absolutely?" asked Brixey.
"Absolutely! Now, then," continued Gaffkin—"what follows? She does marry Martin Byfield. They live here in Selchester or abroad. They have a son, this young fellow, Fanshawe. No one suspects Mrs. Byfield's secret—whether she ever told it to Martin Byfield himself is a very doubtful point in my mind And who was there, to discover it—for a long time?
"Cradock Melsome we know, was in America and Canada, Charles Melsome was in England, and five years in prison, for forgery, and Selchester is, except for tourists, an out-of-the-way little place. All goes well for Mrs. Byfield and her secret. And at last Martin Byfield dies—and dies intestate. Anyway, no will comes to light.
"So the widow administers the estate. Most of it, I understand, is in the form of personal property. There is a widow and one child. The widow takes one-third; the child—Fanshawe—two-thirds. What real estate there is, is shared similarly. So things stand.
"But," concluded Gaffkin, wagging his forefinger warningly, "only on the supposition that the marriage at Monaco was a valid one!"
"And if it wasn't?" asked Brixey.
"Let's suppose that it was not!" said Gaffkin. "In that case Mrs. Byfield and her son are not entitled to one penny. She was not Martin Byfield's legal wife, therefore she was not his legal widow. Fanshawe Byfield was not in any legal position to his father.
"Granted that Mrs. Byfield was really Mrs. Cradock Melsome, and that Fanshawe Byfield was the offspring of the illegal union between her and Martin Byfield, neither mother nor son is entitled to anything. The whole of the late Martin Byfield's real and personal estate, on his dying intestate, passed to the young lady who keeps our worthy landlord's books—Miss Georgina."
"Great Scott! Is that a fact?" exclaimed Brixey.
"Dead sure fact, sir!" assented Gaffkin, "If Martin Byfield had known the whole truth and wanted to leave his estate to the supposed widow and her son, he'd have had to make a will and specify them by their legal names, making it clear whom he meant.
"As he died intestate, they don't and can't come in at all Everything that he possessed goes to his niece, daughter of his brother Peter. Stern, absolute fact! But," he added, "with that, just now, we've nothing to do. That's in the future. We're concerned with the recent past."
"I'm following every syllable!" said Brixey.
"Very well," continued Gaffkin. "Leave that aside and consider Byfield's position when Martin died. He died intestate. She administered the estate and came into her share. Her son is just about come into his.
"No one knows that she isn't really and truly the legal widow of the deceased—it no doubt looks to her as if no one ever would know. And then, as near as we can judge, about two years ago Mrs. Byfield somewhere, somehow, comes face to face with a nasty reminder of the past—Mesham!"
"Otherwise Charles Melsome," observed Brixey.
"Otherwise Charles Melsome, her brother-in-law," assented Gaffkin, "Charles Melsome, alias Christopher Mesham, convicted forger, general bad lot. We don't know where she met him. Perhaps in London. Perhaps in Brighton. But she met him! And he recognised her, and he knew his brother Cradock to be alive—and henceforth Mesham, as we'll call him, had Mrs. Byfield at his mercy!"
"Blackmail!" exclaimed Brixey.
"No other," agreed Gaffkin. "Blackmail to be sure! Mesham, you may be certain, would very quickly find out all about his sister-in-law and that she was in extremely good circumstances. Do you think he was going to let his chance slip? He was probably living on his three pounds a week, and on such additional pickings as his wits could scrape up, and he would jump at the chance of getting a nice thing out of her secret.
"For remember—he had nothing to do but to go to Semmerby and tell him the truth, and Mrs. Byfield and Fanshawe would be penniless. So he no doubt came to an arrangement with the woman who was at his mercy, and hence he lives in great comfort over the saddler's shop and draws a handsome yearly income out of his victim."
Gaffkin paused and once more wagged his emphasising forefinger.
"But something occurs!" he went on. "By sheer accident, Mr. John Linthwaite turns up here in Selchester. He recognises Mrs. Byfield—your uncle sir, has an extraordinary memory for faces—as the woman he had known long since as Mrs. Cradock Melsome; the woman who had disappeared so effectually that she couldn't be traced.
"Now, Mr. Linthwaite knows that Cradock is alive—was alive, at any rate, six months before, when he forwarded his last receipt from Quebec. He probably tells Mrs. Byfield this, and hears her story from her. And in the thick of it, Mesham comes upon them. With Mesham, Mr. Linthwaite walks away. They are overheard making an appointment for half-past-two that afternoon.
"Why? Probably to discuss the strange situation of the Byfields, mother and son, more fully. But of any more we know nothing. That, Mr. Brixey, is as far as I've got."
"Have you no further theories in the light of what I've told you?" asked Brixey.
For the first time since the beginning of their talk, Gaffkin showed signs of doubt and uncertainty.
"I don't know what to think," he answered, after a pause. "It's no use denying that I've thought very seriously over the possibility that there's been murder done. Mesham is a bad lot—a deep, designing man! I don't think he'd stick at that. And it would seem as if that man who evidently went to Newhaven with the substituted message was in with him.
"We don't know who's in and who isn't in the whole thing. It may be that Fanshawe Byfield is in it. But as it sounds, Mr. Brixey, I don't think we ought to shut our eyes to the fact that it may be murder."
"No," protested Brixey. "I don't believe that! I think they've put my uncle out of the way somewhere for a few days. Until their coup comes off, don't you see? Then, when he can't interfere, he'll be released."
"If that theory's correct," observed Gaffkin, "the elderly man whom Mrs Iddison saw, and who was taken to Ledfieid last Wednesday night, was not Mr. Linthwaite. That's certain."
"For that matter," said Brixey, "he may have been some man who's nothing whatever to do with the case. The mere fact that Mesham drove openly with him to Ledfieid and made no concealment about it impels me to think that he was merely some acquaintance of his and the Byfields. I think we can dismiss that episode altogether."
"But Gaffkin shook his head at that suggestion.
"No," he said, "We'll not dismiss even the slightest detail of anything that we've learned. It'll all fit in, somewhere, somehow. But our task is to find Mr. Linthwaite.
"Now we're certain that a conspiracy to get hold of the Byfield money is behind his disappearance. How would it be if we make a bold stroke as regards the money?"