Unravelled Knots

by Baroness Emmuska Orczy Orczy

"Major Gubbins, if you remember, was headmaster of the school, and, what's more, he, too, had been very much in love with Janet Smith, but it appeared that his friendship with Captain Marston had prompted him to stand aside as soon as he realised which way the girl's affections lay. Major Gubbins was not so popular as the Captain, he was inclined to be off-hand and disagreeable, so the ladies said, and, moreover, he did not play tennis, and, with the sublime inconsequence of your charming sex, they seemed to connect these defects with the terrible accusation which was now weighing upon the Major's successful rival.

"The executive of the institute consisted, in addition to the three persons I have named, of its president, General Sir Arkwright Jones, who, it seems, took little if any interest in the concern. It seemed as if, by giving it the prestige of his name, he had done all that he intended for the furtherance of the institute's welfare. Then there were the governors, a number of amiable local gentlemen and ladies who played tennis all day and attended innumerable tea-parties, and knew as much about administering a big concern as a terrier does of rabbit-rearing.

"In the midst of this official supineness, the murder of the young matron, followed immediately by the arrest of the secretary, had come as a bombshell, and now wise heads began to wag and ominous murmurs became current that for some time past there had been something very wrong in the management of the Woodforde Institute. Whilst, at the call of various august personages, money was pouring in from the benevolent public, the commissariat was being conducted on parsimonious lines that were a positive scandal. The boys were shockingly underfed, and the staff of servants was constantly being changed because girls would not remain on what they called a starvation régime.

"Then again, no proper accounts had been kept since the inception of the Institute five years ago; entries were spasmodic, irregular and unreliable; books were never audited; no one, apparently, had the slightest idea of profit and loss or of balances; no one knew from week to week where the salaries and wages were coming from, or from quarter to quarter if there would be funds enough to meet rates and taxes; no one, in fact, appeared to know anything about the affairs of the Institute, least of all the secretary himself, who had often remarked quite jocularly that he had never in all his life known anything about book-keeping, and that his appointment by the governors rested upon his agreeable personality rather than upon his financial and administrative ability.

"As you see, the Captain's position was, in consequence of this, a very serious one; it became still more so when presently two or three ominous facts came to light. To begin with, it seemed that he could give absolutely no account of himself during the greater part of the night of May fifth. He had left the Institute at about seven o'clock; he told the headmaster then that he was going for a walk which seemed strange as it was pouring with rain. On the other hand the landlady at the room where he lodged told the police that when she herself went to bed at eleven o'clock, the Captain had not come in: she hadn't seen him since morning, when he went to his work, and at what time he eventually came home she couldn't say.

"But there was worse to come: firstly, a stick was found on the beach some thirty yards or less from the spot where the body itself was discovered; and secondly, the police produced a few strands of wool which were, it seems, clinging to the poor girl's hatpin, and which presumably were torn out of a muffler during the brief struggle which must have occurred when she was first attacked and before she lost her footing and fell down the side of the cliff.

"Now the stick was identified as the property of Captain Marston, and he had been seen on the road with it in his hand in the early part of the evening. He was then walking alone on the Lovers' Walk; two Broxmouth visitors met him on their way back from Kurtmoor. Knowing him by sight, they passed the time of day. These witnesses, however, were quite sure that Captain Marston was not then wearing a muffler, on the other hand they were equally sure that he carried the stick; they had noticed it as a very unusual one, of what is known as Javanese snake-wood with a round heavy knob and leather strap which the Captain carried slung upon his arm.

"Of course, the matter interested me enormously; it is not often that a person of the social and intellectual calibre of Captain Marston stands accused of so foul a crime. If he was guilty, then indeed, he was one of the vilest criminals that ever defaced God's earth, and in the annals of crime there were few crimes more hideous. The poor girl, it seems, had been in love with him right up to the end and, according to some well-informed gossips, the wedding-day had actually been fixed.

"The unsuccessful rival, Major Gubbins, too, was an interesting personality, and it was difficult to suppose that he was entirely ignorant of the events which must of necessity have led up to the crime. Supposedly there had been a quarrel between the lovers; sundry rumours were current as to this and in a vague way those rumours connected this quarrel with the shaky financial situation of the Institute. But it was all mere surmise and very contradictory; no one could easily state what possible connection there could be between the affairs of the Institute and the murder of the chief matron.

"In the meanwhile the accused had been brought up before the magistrate, and formal evidence of the finding of the body and of the arrest was given, as well as of the subsequent discovery of the stick, which was identified by the two witnesses, and of the strands of wool. The accused was remanded until the following Monday, bail being refused. The inquest was held a day or two later, and I went down to Broxmouth for it. I remember how hot it was in that crowded court-room; excited and perspiring humanity filled the stuffy atmosphere with heat. While the crowd jabbered and fidgeted I had a good look at the chief personages who were about to enact a thrilling drama for my entertainment; you have seen portraits of them all in the illustrated papers, the British army being well represented by a trio of as fine specimens of manhood as any one would wish to see.