"For the sake of the insurance money."
"But, man alive!" I ejaculated, "that was the tragedy of the whole thing. I remember reading about it at the time. I suppose that it was either out of meanness or because he had so little ready money, but Sir James Narford had only insured his treasure for £20,000, whereas the jewels——"
"Were not worth a penny more than that," the Old Man in the Corner broke in with his bland smile. "The public may have been bamboozled with tales of fabulous value—nowadays people talk as glibly of millions as the past generation did of thousands—but insurance companies don't usually listen to fairy tales."
"But even so," I argued, "the jewels must have been worth more than the insurance after all the advertisement they got. Why shouldn't Sir James have sold them, rather than take the risk of stealing them?"
"But, my dear young lady," he retorted, "can't you see that the jewels can still be sold and that they will be—abroad—presently—one by one? Twenty thousand pounds insurance money is good, but you double the amount and it is better."
"But what about the wounded man in Wicklow Lane?" I asked.
"A red herring across the trail," he replied, with a smile, "only with this difference, that it was dragged across before the hounds were on the scent. And that is where the immense cleverness of the man comes in. To create a personality on whom to draw suspicion of a crime and then make that personality disappear before the crime is committed, is as clever a bit of rascality as I have ever seen. It needed absolute coolness and a knowledge of facial make-up, in both of which we must take it Sir James Narford was a past-master. Think then how easy everything else would be for him.
"Just let me reconstruct the whole thing for you from beginning to end, that is from the moment when Sir James Narford first conceived the idea of doubling the value of his gems, and took his man Ruggles as partner in that fine piece of rascality. He couldn't have done it without a partner, of course, and probably this was not the first villainy those two scoundrels had carried through together. Well then, Narford having given instructions to Ruggles and arranged certain matters of detail with him, begins his campaign by ostensibly starting on a journey. He crossed over to France probably and then back to England. It is easy enough for a man to disappear in crowded trains or railway stations if there is no one on his track; easy enough for him to stay in one hotel after another in any big town if he chooses hotels whose proprietors have reason to dread the police, and will not volunteer information if any of their visitors are 'wanted.' A month only of such wanderings and Sir James Narford, habitually a very dapper man, with sleek, sandy hair cropped very close, a tiny tooth-brush moustache and shaven cheeks and chin, can easily be transformed into one with shaggy hair and beard and walrus moustache. Add to this a nose built out with grease-paint and highly coloured, and cheeks stained a dull red, and you have the man who called for the key of the empty house at Messrs. Whiskin and Sons, with a parcel under his arm, which contained the black cape and Montmartre hat purchased abroad at some time previously, during the course of his wanderings. That's simple, is it not?" the funny creature continued, while his thin, claw-like fingers worked away feverishly at his piece of string. "Now, all that our rascal wants is to change his clothes and his face; so, late that evening, by preconcerted plan, Ruggles meets him at the empty house under cover of the fog. Here he and his precious master change clothes with one another. Narford then completes his toilet by applying to his shaggy hair and beard one of those modern dyes that are so much advertised for the use of ladies desiring to possess raven locks. And so we have the explanation of all the conflicting evidence of the witnesses who saw a man with a parcel, and yet were so much at variance both as to the time when they saw him, as to his appearance, and even as to the size of the parcel.
"Having thus created the personality of a foreign-looking individual in black clothes, you will easily see how important it was for the general scheme that the comedy of the row and the pistol-shots in the empty house should be enacted. Attention had to be drawn to the created personage, attention coupled with mystery, and at this stage of the scheme there was not the slightest danger of the wounded man in Wicklow Lane being in any way connected with Sir James Narford of George Street, Mayfair. Time was no object. The mysterious Mr. Allen Lloyd of Wicklow Lane might be detained days, weeks, even months, but he would have to be let out some time or other. He was perfectly harmless apparently, and otherwise sane; he could not be kept for ever at the country's expense. He was eventually discharged; went to an hotel, and lived there quietly a while longer until he thought that the time was ripe for complete disappearance. In the meanwhile we must suppose that he was in touch with Ruggles. Ruggles made a point of taking a brisk walk every evening. Well, winter evenings are dark and London is a very crowded place. Ruggles would bring what money was required. What more easy than to meet in a crowd?
"Then at last the two rascals thought that the time was ripe. The mysterious Mr. Allen Lloyd disappeared from the hotel in Mexborough Gate; he went to Sackville Street, where he shaved off his shaggy moustache and beard, and cut his hair once more so close that nothing of the dyed ends could be seen. He changed into his own clothes, which Ruggles kept there ready for him. Then he slipped round to Victoria Station and crossed over to France, only in order to return to England, openly this time, as Sir James Narford, and just in time to find Ruggles just aroused from a drugged sleep and the whole flat seething with excitement. But it was he who in black cape and Montmartre hat visited the shop in Sackville Street, it was Ruggles who the following night spoke to the lift-boy, even while Narford was procuring for himself a perfect alibi by crossing over quite openly from France.