Chapter IV

“Then William Yule and his wife were left in full possession of their fortune?” I asked eagerly.

“Yes, they were,” he replied; “but they had to go and travel abroad for a while, feeling was so high against them. The deed of course, not having been ‘delivered,’ could not be upheld in a court of law; that was the opinion of several eminent counsel whom Mr. Statham, with a lofty sense of justice, consulted on behalf of young Bloggs.”

“And young Bloggs was left penniless?”

“No,” said the man in the corner, as, with a weird and satisfied smile, he pulled a piece of string out of his pocket; “the friends of the late Mrs. Yule subscribed the sum of £1,000 for him, for they all thought he had been so terribly badly treated, and Mr. Statham has taken him in his office as articled pupil. No! no! young Bloggs has not done so badly either——”

“What seems strange to me,” I remarked “is that for all she knew, Mrs. William Yule might have committed only a silly and purposeless theft. If Mrs. Yule had not died suddenly and accidentally the next morning, she would, no doubt, have executed a fresh deed of gift, and all would have been _in statu quo_.”

“Exactly,” he replied drily, whilst his fingers fidgeted nervously with his bit of string.

“Of course,” I suggested, for I felt that the funny creature wanted to be drawn out; “she may have reckoned on the old lady’s weak heart, and the shock to her generally, but it was, after all, very problematical.”

“Very,” he said, “and surely you are not still under the impression that Mrs. Yule’s death was purely the result of an accident?”

“What else could it be?” I urged.

“The result of a slight push from the top of the stairs,” he remarked placidly, whilst a complicated knot went to join a row of its fellows.

“But Mrs. William Yule had left the house before midnight—or, at any rate, some one had. Do you think she had an accomplice?”

“I think,” he said excitedly, “that the mysterious visitor who left the house that night had an instigator whose name was William Bloggs.”

“I don’t understand,” I gasped in amazement.

“Point No. 1,” he shrieked, while the row of knots followed each other in rapid succession, “young Bloggs swore a lie when he swore that it was Mrs. William Yule who called at Dartmoor Terrace that night.”

“What makes you say that,” I retorted.

“One very simple fact,” he replied, “so simple that it was, of course, overlooked. Do you remember that one of the things which Annie overheard was old Mrs. Yule’s irate words, ‘Very well, you may sleep here; but, remember, I do not wish to see your face again. You can leave my house before I return from church; you can get plenty of trains after seven o’clock.’ Now what do you make of that?” he added triumphantly.

“Nothing in particular,” I rejoined; “it was an awfully wet night, and——”

“And High Street, Kensington Station, within two minutes’ walk of Dartmoor Terrace, with plenty of trains to West Hampstead, and Sheriff Road within two minutes of this latter station,” he shrieked, getting more and more excited, “and the hour only about ten o’clock, when there _are_ plenty of trains from one part of London to another? Old Mrs. Yule, with her irascible temper and obstinate ways, would have said: ‘There’s the station, not two minutes’ walk, get out of my house, and don’t ever let me see your face again,’ wouldn’t she now?”

“It certainly seems more likely.”

“Of course it does. She only allowed the woman to stay because the woman had either a very long way to go to get a train, or perhaps had missed her last train—a connection on a branch line presumably—and could not possibly get home at all that night.”

“Yes, that sounds logical,” I admitted.

“Point No. 2,” he shrieked, “young Bloggs having told a lie, had some object in telling it. That was my starting point; from there I worked steadily until I had reconstructed the events of that Thursday night—nay, more, until I knew something more about young Bloggs’ immediate future, in order that I might then imagine his past.

“And this is what I found.

“After the tragic death of Mrs. Yule, young Bloggs went abroad at the expense of some kind friends, and came home with a wife, whom he is supposed to have met and married in Switzerland. From that point everything became clear to me. Young Bloggs had told a lie when he swore that it was Mrs. William Yule; therefore it was somebody who either represented herself as such, or who believed herself to be Mrs. William Yule.

“The first supposition,” continued the funny creature, “I soon dismissed as impossible; young Bloggs knew Mrs. William Yule by sight—and since he had lied, he had done so deliberately. Therefore to my mind the lady who called herself Mrs. William Yule did so because she believed that she had a right to that name; that she had married a man, who, for purposes of his own, had chosen to call himself by that name. From this point to that of guessing who that man was was simple enough.”

“Do you mean young Bloggs himself?” I asked in amazement.

“And whom else?” he replied. “Isn’t that sort of thing done every day? Bloggs was a hideous name, and Yule was eventually to be his own. With William Yule’s example before him, he must have known that it would be dangerous to broach the marriage question at all before the old lady, and probably only meant to wait for a favourable opportunity of doing so. But after a while the young wife would naturally become troubled and anxious, and like most women under the same circumstances, would become jealous and inquisitive as well.

“She soon found out where he lived, and no doubt called there, thinking that old Mrs. Yule was her husband’s own fond mother.

“You can picture the rest. Mrs. Yule, furious at having been deceived, herself destroys the deed of gift which she meant to present to her adopted son, and from that hour young Bloggs sees himself penniless.

“The false Mrs. Yule left the house, and young Bloggs waited for his opportunity on the dark landing of a small London house. One push and the deed was done. With her weak heart, Mrs. Yule was sure to die of the shock, if not of the fall.

“Before that, already the desk had been broken open and every appearance of a theft given to it. After the tragedy, then, young Bloggs retired quietly to his room. The whole thing looked so like an accident that, even had the servants heard the fall at once, there would still have been time enough for the young villain to sneak into his room, and then to reappear at his door as if he, too, had been just awakened by the noise.

“The result turned out just as he had expected. The William Yules have been and still are suspected of the theft; and young Bloggs is a hero of romance with whom every one is in sympathy.”

IV. Who Stole the Black Diamonds?