Unravelled Knots

by Baroness Emmuska Orczy Orczy

"Anyway, the accused was committed for trial on the coroner's warrant, and, of course, reserved his defence. You probably, like the rest of the public, kept up a certain amount of interest in the Cliff murder, as it was popularly called, for a time, and then allowed your mind to dwell on other matters and forgot poor Captain Franklin Marston who was languishing in gaol under such a horrible accusation. Subsequently your interest in him revived when he was brought up for trial the other day at the Barchester Assizes. In the meanwhile he had secured the services of Messrs. Charnton and Inglewood, the noted solicitors, who had engaged Mr. Provost Boon, K.C., to defend their client.

"You know as well as I do what happened at the trial, and how Mr. Boon turned the witnesses for the Crown inside out and round about until they contradicted themselves and one another all along the line. The defence was conducted in a masterly fashion. To begin with, the worthy housekeeper, Mrs. Rumble, after a stiff cross-examination, which lasted nearly an hour, was forced to admit that she could not swear positively to the exact words which she overheard between the deceased and Captain Marston. All that she could swear to was that the Captain and his sweetheart had apparently had a tiff. Then, as to Miss Amelia Smith's evidence; it also merely went to prove that the lovers had had a quarrel; there was nothing whatever to say that it was on the subject of finance, nor that deceased had any intention either of speaking to the President about it or of handing in her resignation to the governors.

"Next came the question of Major Gubbins's story of the message which he had been asked by his friend to deliver to the deceased. Now accused flatly denied that story, and denied it on oath. The whole thing, he declared, was a fabrication on the part of the Major who, far from being his friend, was his bitter enemy and unsuccessful rival. In support of this theory William Peryer's evidence was cited as conclusive. He had heard the two men quarrelling at the very moment when accused was alleged to have made a pathetic appeal to his friend. Peryer had heard one of them say to the other: 'You villain! You shall pay for this!' And in very truth, the unfortunate Captain was paying for it, in humiliation and racking anxiety.

"Then there came the great, the vital question of the stick and of the strands of wool so obviously torn out of a muffler. With regard to the stick, the accused had stated that in the course of his walk he had caught his foot against a stone and stumbled, and that the stick had fallen out of his hand and over the edge of the cliff. Now this statement was certainly borne out by the fact that, as eminent counsel reminded the jury, the stick was found more than thirty yards away from the body. As for the muffler, it was a graver point still; strands of wool were found sticking to the girl's hatpin, and James Hoggs, after hearing a scream at nine o'clock that evening, ran out towards the cliff and came across a man who was engaged in readjusting a muffler round his throat. That was incontestable.

"Of course, Mr. Boon argued, it was easy enough to upset a witness of the type of James Hoggs, but an English jury's duty was not to fasten guilt on the first man who happens to be handy, but to see justice meted out to innocent and guilty alike. The evidence of the muffler, argued the eminent counsel, was proof positive of the innocence of the accused. The witnesses who saw him in the Lovers' Walk on that fateful night had declared most emphatically that he was not wearing a muffler. Then where was the man with the muffler? Where was the man who was within a few yards of the scene of the crime five minutes after James Hoggs had heard the scream—the man who had denied hearing the scream although both Hoggs and his wife heard it over a quarter of a mile away?

"'Yes, gentlemen of the jury,' the eminent counsel concluded with a dramatic gesture, 'it is the man with the muffler who murdered the unfortunate girl. If he is innocent why is he not here to give evidence? There are no side tracks that lead to the cliffs at this point, so the man with the muffler must have seen something or some one; he must know something that would be of invaluable assistance in the elucidation of this sad mystery. Then why does he not come forward? I say because he dare not. But let the police look for him, I say. The accused is innocent; he is the victim of tragic circumstances, but his whole life, his war-record, his affection for the deceased, all proclaim him to be guiltless of such a dastardly crime, and above all there stands the incontestable proof of his innocence, the muffler, gentlemen of the jury—the muffler!'

"He said a lot more than that, of course," the Old Man in the Corner went on, chuckling dryly to himself, "and said it a lot better than ever I can repeat it, but I have given you the gist of what he said. You know the result of the trial. The accused was acquitted, the jury having deliberated less than a quarter of an hour. There was no getting away from that muffler, even though every other circumstance pointed to Marston as the murderer of Janet Smith.

"On the whole, his acquittal was a popular one, although many who were present at the trial shook their heads, and thought that if they had been on the jury Marston would not have got off so easily, but for the most part these sceptics were not Broxmouth people. In Broxmouth the Captain was personally liked, and the proclamation of his innocence was hailed with enthusiasm; and, what's more, those same champions of the good-looking secretary—they were the women mostly—looked askance on the headmaster, who, they averred, had woven a Machiavellian net for trapping and removing from his path for ever a hated and successful rival.

"The police have received a perfect deluge of anonymous communications suggesting that Major Gubbins was identical with the mysterious man with the muffler, but, of course, such a suggestion is perfectly absurd, since at the very hour when James Hoggs heard the scream, and a very few minutes before he met the man with the muffler, Major Gubbins was paying his belated visit to Miss Amelia Smith and delivering the alleged message. Even those ladies who disliked the headmaster most cordially had to admit that he could not very well have been in two places at the same time. The Dog's Tooth Cliff is a good half hour's walk from Miss Smith's house, and the Lovers' Walk itself is not accessible to cyclists or motors.

"And thus, to all intents and purposes, the Cliff murder has remained a mystery, but it won't be one for long. Have I not told you that you may expect important developments within the next few days? And I am seldom wrong. Already in this evening's paper you will have read that the entire executive of the Woodforde Institute has placed its resignation in the hands of the governors, that several august personages have withdrawn their names from the list of patrons, and that though the President has been implored not to withdraw his name, he has proved adamant on the subject, and even refused to recommend successors to the headmaster, the secretary, or the matron; in fact, he has seemingly washed his hands of the whole concern."