Chapter IV

“But Pamela Pebmarsh?” I asked after a while, for he had paused and was gazing attentively at the photograph of a very beautiful and exquisitely-gowned woman.

“Ah, yes, Pamela Pebmarsh,” he said with a smile. “There was yet another act in that palpitating drama of her life—one act—the _dénouement_ as unexpected as it was thrilling. Salvation came where it was least expected—from Jemima Gadd, who seemed to have made up her mind that Pamela had killed her aunt, and yet who was the first to prove her innocence.

“She had been shown the few words which the murdered woman was alleged to have written after she had been stabbed. Jemima, not a very good scholar, found it difficult to decipher the words herself.

“‘Ah, well, poor dear,’ she said after a while, with a deep sigh, ‘’er ’andwriting was always peculiar, seein’ as ’ow she wrote always with ’er left ’and.’

“‘_Her left hand!!!_’ gasped the coroner, while public and jury alike, hardly liking to credit their ears, hung upon the woman’s thin lips, amazed, aghast, puzzled.

“‘Why, yes!’ said Jemima placidly. ‘Didn’t you know she ’ad a bad accident to ’er right ’and when she was a child, and never could ’old anything in it? ’Er fingers were like paralysed; the ink-pot was always on the left of ’er writing-table. Oh! she couldn’t write with ’er right ’and at all.’

“Then a strange revulsion of feeling came over every one there.

“Stabbed in the back, with her lung pierced through and through, how could she have done, dying, what she never did in life?

“Impossible!

“The murderer, whoever it was, had placed pen and paper to her hand, and had written on it the cruel words which were intended to delude justice and to send an innocent fellow-creature—a young girl not five-and-twenty—to an unjust and ignominious death. But, fortunately for that innocent girl, the cowardly miscreant had ignored the fact that Miss Pebmarsh’s right hand had been paralysed for years.

“The inquest was adjourned for a week,” continued the man in the corner, “which enabled Pamela’s solicitor to obtain further evidence of her innocence. Fortunately for her he was enabled to find two witnesses who had seen her in an omnibus going towards St. Pancras at about 11.15 p.m., and a passenger on the 12.25 train, who had travelled down with her as far as Hendon. Thus, when the inquest was resumed, Pamela Pebmarsh left the court without a stain upon her character.

“But the murder of Miss Pebmarsh has remained a mystery to this day—as has also the secret history of the compromising letters. Did they exist or not? is a question the interested spectators at that memorable inquest have often asked themselves. Certain it is that failing Pamela Pebmarsh, who might have wanted them for purpose of blackmail, no one else could be interested in them except Lady de Chavasse.”

“Lady de Chavasse!” I ejaculated in surprise. “Surely you are not going to pretend that that elegant lady went down to Boreham Wood in the middle of the night in order to murder Miss Pebmarsh, and then to lay the crime at another woman’s door?”

“I only pretend what’s logic,” replied the man in the corner, with inimitable conceit; “and in Pamela Pebmarsh’s own statement, she was with Lady de Chavasse at 51, Marsden Mansions, until eleven o’clock, and there is no train from St. Pancras to Boreham Wood between eleven and twenty-five minutes past midnight. Pamela’s _alibi_ becomes that of Lady de Chavasse, and is quite conclusive. Besides, that elegant lady was not one to do that sort of work for herself.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Do you mean to say you never thought of the real solution of this mystery?” he retorted sarcastically.

“I confess——” I began a little irritably.

“Confess that I have not yet taught you to think logically, and to look at the beginning of things.”

“What do you call the beginning of this case, then?”

“Why! the compromising letters, of course.”

“But——” I argued.

“Wait a minute!” he shrieked excitedly, whilst with frantic haste he began fidgeting, fidgeting again at that eternal bit of string. “These did exist, otherwise why did Lady de Chavasse parley with Pamela Pebmarsh? Why did she not order her out of the house then and there, if she had nothing to fear from her?”

“I admit that,” I said.

“Very well; then, as she was too fine, too delicate to commit the villainous murder of which she afterwards accused poor Miss Pamela, who was there sufficiently interested in those letters to try and gain possession of them for her?”

“Who, indeed?” I queried, still puzzled, still not understanding.

“Ay! who but her husband,” shrieked the funny creature, as with a sharp snap he broke his beloved string in two.

“Her husband!” I gasped.

“Why not? He had plenty of time, plenty of pluck. In a flat it is easy enough to overhear conversations that take place in the next room—he was in the house at the time, remember, for Lady de Chavasse said herself that he went out afterwards. No doubt he overheard everything—the compromising letters, and Pamela’s attempt at levying blackmail. What the effect of such a discovery must have been upon the proud man I leave you to imagine—his wife’s social position ruined, a stain upon his ancient name, his relations pointing the finger of scorn at his folly.

“Can’t you picture him, hearing the two women’s talk in the next room, and then resolving at all costs to possess himself of those compromising letters? He had just time to catch the 10 train to Boreham Wood.

“Mind you, I don’t suppose that he went down there with any evil intent. Most likely he only meant to buy those letters from Miss Pebmarsh. What happened, however, nobody can say but the murderer himself.

“Who knows? But the deed done, imagine the horror of a refined aristocratic man, face to face with such a crime as that.

“Was it this terror, or merely rage at the girl who had been the original cause of all this, that prompted him to commit the final villany of writing out a false accusation and placing it under the dead woman’s hand? Who can tell?

“Then, the deed done, and the _mise-en-scène_ complete, he is able to catch the last train—11.23—back to town. A man travelling alone would pass practically unperceived.

“Pamela’s innocence was proved, and the murder of Miss Pebmarsh has remained a mystery, but if you will reflect on my conclusions, you will admit that no one else—_no one else_—could have committed that murder, for no one else had a greater interest in the destruction of those letters.”

VI. The Lisson Grove Mystery