"We can easily conjecture how easy it was for Moville to leave the country altogether. He had plenty of money, and it is never difficult for a man of resource to leave a British port for any destination he pleases, especially if he is of obviously British nationality. Money, we all know, will accomplish anything, and rogues will slip through a cordon of officials where the respectable citizens will be chivied about and harassed with regulations. Moreover, we must always bear this in mind, that the police were not on his track, nor on that of the Italian, for that matter. Moville was free to come and go, and you may be sure that he was quite clever enough not to behave in any way that might create suspicion."
The Old Man in the Corner paused quite abruptly. A complicated knot was absorbing his whole attention. I felt thoughtful, meditative, and after a few minutes' silence I put my meditations into words.
"That is all very well," I said, "but, personally, I don't see that you have anything definite this time on which to base your theory. Both the men have disappeared; the police say that Vissio killed Moville; you assert the reverse, and declare that Moville deliberately dressed up the body of the Italian in his own clothes, but you have nothing more to go on for your assertion than the police have for theirs."
"I was waiting for that," he rejoined with a dry chuckle. "But let me assure you that I have at least three psychological facts to go on for my assertion, whereas the police only go on two very superficial matters for theirs; they base their whole argument firstly on the clothes, watch, jewellery, and so on found on a body that was otherwise unidentifiable, and, secondly, on a blood-stained knife known to have belonged to the Italian. Now I have demonstrated to you, have I not, how easy it was for Moville to manufacture both these pieces of evidence. So mark the force of my argument," the funny creature went on, gesticulating with his thin hands like a scarecrow blown by the wind. "First of all, why did Moville suddenly declare his intention of leaving England? In order to look after his partner's affairs? Not a bit of it. He left England because of some shady transaction out there in Argentina which was coming to light, and because of which he thought it best to disappear altogether for a time. My proof for this? you will ask. The simple proof that his parents accepted his disappearance for a whole week without making any enquiries about him either in Richmond, or London, or the shipping company that controls the steamers to Buenos Ayres. Can you imagine that Sir Timothy Moville, having seen the last of his son on the Tuesday evening, would say and do nothing, when he was left eight days without news; he would have enquired in London; he knew to which hotel his son intended to go; some one would have enquired at Richmond whether the car had been left there. But no! There was not a single enquiry made for Gerald Moville by his parents, or his brothers and sisters, until after Topcoat had mentioned his name to the police and the latter had started their investigations. And why? Because his people knew where he was; that is to say, they knew—or some of them knew—that Gerald had to lie low, at any rate for a time. Of course his supposed death under such tragic circumstances must have been a terrible shock to them, but it is a remarkable fact, you will admit, that the offer of a substantial reward for the apprehension of the murderer did not come from Sir Timothy Moville; it came from one of the big dailies, out for publicity.
"My whole argument rests on psychological grounds, and in criminal cases psychology is by far the surest guide. Now there was not a single detail in connection with the Moorland Tragedy that in any way suggested the hand of a man like Antonio Vissio. Can you see an Italian peasant who, moreover, has lived all his life with a gun in his hand, solemnly laying that gun down before embarking on a quarrel with his rival? And yet the gun was found undischarged, lying in a gully. Vissio was much more likely to have shouldered it at sight of the man he hated, and shot him dead; more especially as the Englishman would have an enormous advantage in a hand-to-hand fight, even if the other man had suddenly whisked out a knife. Vissio was not the type of man who would think of the consequence of his crime. Maddened by jealousy, he would kill his man at sight, but in his own country and also in France, there would be no disgrace attached to such a deed—no disgrace and very little punishment. The man who last year shot the English dancing girl on the Riviera because he thought that she was carrying on with another man, only got five years' imprisonment; Vissio would not realise that he would be amenable to English law, which does not look at Homicide quite so leniently.
"Having killed his rival, the Italian would, in all probability, have swanked as far as the nearest village, had a good drink to steady his nerves, and then have boasted loudly of what he had done, certain that he would be leniently dealt with by a judge, and sympathised with by a jury, because of the torments of jealousy which he had endured until he could do so no longer. You can't imagine such a man sawing off his victim's head and wrapping it up in a newspaper taken out of the dead man's pocket.
"And this brings me to the final point in my argument, and one which ought to have struck the police from the first: the question of the car. How would Vissio know that he would find Moville's car conveniently stationed by the roadside? He would have to know that before he could dare walk across the moor carrying his gruesome parcel. Now Vissio couldn't possibly know all that, and what's more, though he might not have been altogether ignorant of driving, he certainly was not expert enough to drive a car all by himself for over a hundred miles, at top speed, and for several hours in the dark. To my mind, if this fact had been driven home to the jury by a motoring expert they never would have brought in a verdict against Vissio, and if you think the whole matter over you will be bound to admit that there is not a single flaw in my argument. From the point of view of possibility as well as of psychology, only one man could have committed that crime, and that was Gerald Moville. I suppose his unfortunate parents will know the truth one day. Soon, probably, when the young miscreant is short of money and writes home for funds.
"Or else he may return to Argentina and under an assumed name start life anew. They are not over-particular there as to a man's antecedents. They would perhaps think all the more of him, when they knew that where a girl is concerned he will stand no nonsense from a rival. Think it all over, you'll come to the conclusion that I'm right."
He gathered up his bit of string and took his spectacles from off his nose. For the first time I saw his pale, shrewd eyes looking down straight at me.
"I shan't see you again for some time," he said with a wry smile. "Won't you shake hands and wish me luck?"