CHAPTER IX
A LIBEL ON THE THIEF
He found Plymouth horrified the next morning.
"Murder! A murderous assault—by Manling!" The shock and astonishment of the English met the young American as he came down to the breakfast-room of his hotel upon the Hoe.
For Manling, whose eminently safe operations the police and public had followed with complacency—indeed, almost with admiration—had made the expected bolder and more audacious attempt. And heavier even than the sense of horror, there seemed to have fallen upon these strange English the pain of a betrayal, an outrage, and violation of their trust.
Even the staid Morning News seemed to share the general shame and chagrin of a people who had trusted and been betrayed. Manling had fallen. The shock to the English was not only because another American visitor had been set upon, robbed, and probably murdered in the secure old Devonshire Inn at Plymouth, but because it was certain that Manling—upon whom the English depended to continue straight in his considerate course—had committed the crime.
It was irrefutable, as the paper spread out the evidence.
A rich American was missing—a broker named Hareston, who was known to have carried considerable funds in easily convertible form. His rooms at the Devonshire Inn had been entered in one of the simple Manling methods. That "Manling" himself had entered was certain, besides, from the identification of a small packet of things which the thief had dropped upon the floor, and which were known to have been part of the last Manling haul two days before.
But this time Mr. Manling had not got away without being seen. And when caught, he had not halted at violence—perhaps even murder—to save himself.
The deep-stained marks of a struggle over the rugs and furnishings told their undeniable story—they and the disappearance of the victim.
Moreover, the signs were plain which showed where a body—whether living or dead no one might say—had been dragged out the window to the lawn and across that to the narrow little side street. So half the Plymouth police scoured the city for the victim; and the other half searched for the assailant.
Young Preston wondered, for an instant, why the police had not arrested him at once and why he was not then on his way to the jail.
But the News explained it clearly to him.
"This shocking outrage may at least, we hope," its account concluded, "serve the purpose of putting our police upon the proper track of the criminal at last. Obviously, it explains why our officers have failed, as completely as they have to date, in obtaining any sort of positive evidence against the American whom, they tell us, they have been following for the past few weeks, thinking him the man who has called himself Manling.
"It is further an indication of how, forming a premature conclusion upon insufficient evidence, the police and public can mislead themselves and persist in following the fancy of their own creation.
"From every indication given, up to this shocking exposure, the man had been presumed to be a person of some apparent breeding, manner, and—one might almost say—refinement.
"So, from every characteristic hitherto shown, we had seemed secure in supposing that the man would do nothing worse than continue to pilfer, in some simple and safe manner, the surplus funds of such as showed him they could afford the loss.
"He had so completely misled even the special officers detailed upon the case that, they tell us themselves, they have contented themselves with examining and shadowing for further and more conclusive evidence certain young Americans—or, to be more exact, a certain young American—against whom the coincidences of many circumstances seemed suspicious.
"But the true Manling, however it may have pleased and profited him heretofore to confuse himself with another, is now exposed in his proper colors as the ordinary, low, and brutal villain. Our police cannot too soon abandon their absurd persecution of those whom they have been holding under surveillance. Instead of being one of the gentle class pursuing this remarkable course in refined crime for some obscure purpose, the man is too clearly of the repulsive, cruel, criminal type which sticks at nothing. Our police should now put themselves upon the right track and bring this murderous assailant to justice."
So, as he put down the paper and passed into the dining-room, the American comprehended why the plain-clothes officer, whom Mr. Dunneston had marked for him the day before, gave him only a cursory and, if anything, rather a commending glance. And he was prepared for his former friend's apologetic greeting, as he met Mr. Dunneston himself passing out.
"A pardon for a grave, a very grave error, Mr. Preston!" the Englishman requested soberly. "A pardon, please, Mr. Preston! But you must rather well agree," he excused himself, "that till this, things were jolly well against you, what?"
"But this?"
"Ah; this I can say safely, Mr. Preston, is not only entirely inconsistent without previous possible notion of you, sir; it is, indeed, quite prohibitive of it. Ah; quite conclusively prohibitive, I assure you!"
"I am glad this has satisfied even you, sir!" The American bowed his acknowledgment and went on to his table.
"Well!" he sighed to himself with satisfaction as he broke his eggs. "If even Mr. Dunneston and the police are reassured about me now, I certainly haven't much of an excuse to take Mrs. Varris's protection into Cornwall. But if even the English are sure about me now, I won't need an excuse to go!"
He looked at his watch impatiently. It was still more than an hour before he could hope to meet the Varrises. So after finishing breakfast, he had to wait restlessly about the hotel. But at last he went down to the railroad station where the Cornwall Express was waiting.
"Mr. Preston!" the Varrises greeted him from their reserved compartment as we went out to the train. "We are very glad! You will put your things in here?"
"It was a terrible thing. I am told that the police have found no trace of Mr. Hareston yet," Mrs. Varris closed the few comments upon the night's crime a moment later. "But if there must be some favorable feature for some one in everything, let us be glad that this has shown the police the absurdity of their mistake, and you, also, your absurdity, Mr. Preston, in supposing that we could connect you seriously with the thefts."
"Oh, I am not ungrateful for that, Mrs. Varris, especially since not only the ordinary English, but even Mr. Dunneston also, has acquitted me."
"You say even he has acquitted you?" The girl turned from her examination of the people passing upon the platform.
"Yes; I saw him this morning, and he was awfully decent about it. And by the way, did I tell you that he, too, is going down into Cornwall, and may take this train?"
"You didn't. But I knew it."
"He—"
"No; I saw him pass just a moment ago. And there he is now, reading the paper he just bought. There—see! And—touch wood, Mr. Preston!" she laughed. "Touch wood quickly! You just finished saying that he had acquitted you, but if I recall his foreboding expression at all correctly, that is certainly it which he—"
"Is wearing now? Yes; it certainly is, now that he sees me. But I wonder what has made him suspicious of me again so quickly? Truly he was all right a few moments ago."
"It must be in the newspaper—the second edition which he just bought. Oh, please call him over, Mr. Preston!"
"Oh—gladly!" the American assented, "since I can't seem to satisfy you except when writhing under suspicions. I guess," he turned and regarded the Englishman a moment, "if Mr. Dunneston can half substantiate that expression of his with the facts, I'm going to make you very happy soon, Miss Varris. Anyhow, here goes! Oh, Mr. Dunneston!" he called obediently, as the Englishman at last folded his paper and began to search along the first-class carriages for a seat. "Mr. Dunneston!"
"Ah, Mr. Preston!" the Englishman returned with a manner subdued and foreboding, even for him. "And—ah, Mrs. Varris and Miss Varris!" he altered suddenly to greet the women. "But—ah," he turned back queerly to the young American, "you are—ah, travelling again with Mrs. Varris, Mr. Preston?"
"There is no one else in here, Mr. Dunneston," Mrs. Varris said cordially, "and as the train is already starting, won't you come in here with us? We shall be very glad to have you. You, too, are bound for Cornwall?"
"Thanks. Ah—yes," he answered, resigning himself to his seat as he scrambled in and the train gained speed. "I am, ah—very fortunate, Mrs. Varris! Mr. Preston indicated that you were in town yesterday; but I did not know that he was to travel with you again—after—ah, the event of last night."
"But why not, Mr. Dunneston?" the girl demanded, smiling expectantly at the young American. The Englishman settled back and regarded her seriously. "Why, Mr. Preston has just been telling us that even you could not connect him with murder!" she added.
"No," the Englishman replied. "But—ah—you have not heard, I see," he comprehended. "Ah—I understand now. You had not heard. It is not murder!"
"Nor—murderous assault?"
"Nor even murderous assault, Miss Varris. No; nor anything else but another cleverer, bolder, and more adroit robbery in which the thief had exercised his greatest care to prevent the violence which was feared. In short, it is nothing in the least inconsistent with or at all prohibitive of our holding our—our original ideas of the personality and identity of the remarkable Mr. Manling! For this last crime does not prove him an unbred, brutal ruffian, but only a more scrupulous and clever operator!"
"What's that, Mr. Dunneston?" Young Preston leaned forward quickly, as the others fell back before the Briton's quiet assurance. "What do you mean, sir?"
The Cornwall Express had already cleared Plymouth, and, as the Englishman looked out the window at his side, the wheels roared over the great iron spans of Royal Albert bridge and the Tamar, which holds Devonshire off from Cornwall, glistening below in the morning sun.
The Briton waited patiently till the train rushed again over the silent, solid ground, and the bright copses and spinneys of the extreme county of Southern England flashed by.
"I mean, Mr. Preston," he said then, "that Mr. Manling has not only claimed the credit of the crime last night for himself, but also—"
"But also, Mr. Dunneston?"
"But also this time, Mr. Preston, he has at last overreached himself."
"Overreached himself?"
"Oh, only apparently, perhaps!" the Englishman qualified cautiously. "Apparently only, I must say; for I have thought that he had overreached himself many times before and he had not. But now it seems certain that the police must surely have him within the next hour. For last night in Plymouth, as we know, he committed the bolder and more audacious crime for which the police were waiting; and we must admit he threw us all completely off his track, at first. That seems to have made him so reckless that he evidently thought he could safely correct the police and put them back on the track again. But he dared the one thing too much! He has overreached himself at last! And we have him!"
"How?" the American put forth his hand for the Englishman's newspaper. "How, Mr. Dunneston?" he demanded.
"Here it is!"
"This must be it, Mrs. Varris," Preston said quietly, as he glanced quickly down the column conspicuously headlined "LATER":—
"'The following remarkable communication, being concerned with the outrage of last night upon which we have commented above, has just been received by the police and the News in duplicate. The police inform us that the writing and other characteristics are identical with those of the other communications received previously from the man who signs himself Manling. This was mailed in Plymouth early this morning. The communication, verbatim, follows:
"'"To the Police, Press, and Public:—
"'"As I have consistently taken the greatest pains,"' the letter reads, '"and have repeatedly subjected myself to great personal inconvenience as well as often permitted myself to suffer substantial losses to protect the persons and to preserve the respect and confidence of my chosen clientele, I am exceedingly pained and grieved in observing the stupid, insulting, and libellous manner in which the press and police have interpreted my visit at the Devonshire Inn last night.
"'"Irrespective of my personal sensibility, I feel that I owe to those whom I hope from time to time to add to my clientele, that they should not feel the entirely unnecessary and unwarranted alarm over my visits which these stupid and libellous reports, if left uncorrected, would cause them to suffer.
"'"Therefore, I wish to state—and this statement can be verified at the end of two weeks when S.S. Bahia reaches Rio de Janeiro, for which port she sailed with Mr. Hareston from Plymouth at midnight last night—that I neither committed a murder nor made a murderous assault upon Mr. Hareston at the Devonshire Inn.
"'"In fact, if I had appreciated that he had been drinking heavily and was very drunk when he disturbed me during my visit, I would gladly have retired quietly, as I have done more than once before when anything involved a personal contact, however harmless. But he himself prevented that by a direct attack upon me. However, I took such care of him even after he had grappled with me, that I even permitted myself to be slightly hurt to save him a more serious wound. So the stains which appear to have alarmed and misled the police are from a slight cut which he inflicted upon me, not from any hurt to him.
"'"And after I had quieted him, I would have been glad to have been able to leave him in his rooms; but he had thoughtlessly turned on the lights before attacking me, and so made it impossible for me to leave him where he could give my description to the police in the morning.
"'"But, although I was obliged to remove him, I never for a moment considered the cruel and clumsy way which seems to have occurred to the police. Instead, I took him with me as carefully as though he were just a tipsy friend, and put him aboard the Bahia, where I insured him the best care by explaining to the stewards that he was a rich American planter in Brazil. I even bought him a private cabin at a price which considerably cut into my profits for the evening, and saw him comfortably in bed and carefully restrained there by the steward before I left him and—the ship sailed for Brazil.
"'"For the two weeks until this statement of the circumstances can be confirmed by cable, I ask the indulgence of the public.
"'"Faithfully,
"'"Manling."'"
The women looked from one to the other. Preston turned and glanced out the window and considered the flying green fields and the trim, clipped, and ordered farms of Cornwall, bright and clean under the late August sun.
"I can see how this restores Mr. Manling's original character," he said finally. "But, Mr. Dunneston, I cannot see yet where he has overreached himself—in that character. Of course, he has declared himself a little more plainly and given the police more than he has dared to give before. Yet, even if this statement is true and not sent to mislead the police, I cannot see how they can catch him—inside of two weeks."
"You do not?"
"No. Where has he overreached himself at last? What has he overlooked?"
"The one thing which alone can harm him; the one thing which alone can make it as if he had never placed Mr. Hareston with such great care and forethought aboard a slow fourteen-day boat for Brazil; the one thing which can bring back his description, and the evidence against him, and give it to the police as minutely and surely as though his victim were testifying before him in the dock! The one thing which gives him, not two weeks, but now less than one hour, to act and get under cover or find himself fast and secure in jail!"
"But what is that one thing, Mr. Dunneston?" the girl now bent forward brightly and demanded impatiently.
"Yes; what is that one thing he has forgotten?" the American repeated.
"What?" the Englishman echoed. "The 'wireless,' of course, Mr. Preston! The 'wireless'!"