"'My God!' Henry Buckley exclaimed at this point, and with a groan he buried his face in his hands.
"Mind you," the Old Man in the Corner proceeded, after a moment's pause, "the public had no information as to the exact words, and so on, that passed between Lady Angela, her brother Henry, and the officials of Scotland Yard. All that I am telling you, and what I am still about to tell you, came out bit by bit in the papers. Sensation-lovers were immensely interested in the case from the outset, because, although both public and police are familiar enough with the tragi-comedy of the good-looking young blackguard who gets confiding females to entrust him with their little bits of jewellery, this was the first time that the confidence trick had been played by a well-known man about town—reputed wealthy, since he had gone to the length of paying a friend's gambling debts—on a society lady who was not in her first youth and must presumably have had some knowledge of the world she lived in.
"Lady Angela had concluded her statements by saying that during the drive home in the car she took off her pearls and handed them to her fiancé, who slipped them into his pocket just as they were, although when presently the car drew up at her door she suggested running up to her room to get the case for them. The Captain, however, declared this to be unnecessary. What he said was, 'I will sleep with them under my pillow to-night, and to-morrow morning first thing I will take them round to the bank for you.' After this he said good-night. Lady Angela let herself into the house with her latchkey, and Captain Shillington then dismissed the car, saying that he would enjoy a bit of a walk as the rooms at Grosvenor Square had been so desperately hot.
"And it was at this point," the Old Man in the Corner now said with deliberate emphasis as he worked away at an exceptionally intricate knot in his beloved bit of string, "it was at this point that certain facts leaked out which lent to the whole case a sinister aspect.
"It appears that on the Saturday morning at break of day one of the boats belonging to the Thames District Police found a grey Homburg hat floating under one of the old steamship landing stages and, stuck to one of the wooden piles close by, a man's silk scarf. There was no name inside the hat or any other clue as to the owner's identity, but both the scarf, which had once been white or light grey, and the hat were terribly soiled and torn, and both were stained with blood. The police had tried on the quiet to trace the owner of the hat and scarf but without success. After Lady Angela had told her story of the missing pearls, the things were shown to Miss Shillington, who at once identified the hat as belonging to her brother; the scarf, however, she knew nothing about.
"But this was not by any means all. It appears that for some reason which was never quite clear, Captain Shillington, after he said good-night to Lady Angela, altered his mind about the proposed walk. It may have started to rain, or he may not, after all, have liked the idea of walking about the streets at night with twenty-five thousand pounds' worth of pearls in his pocket. Be that as it may, he hailed a passing taxi and drove to Mexfield House. The driver came forward voluntarily in answer to an advertisement put in the papers by the police. He stated that he remembered the circumstance quite well because of what followed. He remembered taking up a fare outside Stanhope Gate and being ordered to drive to Mexfield House in Somerset Street. When he slowed down close to Mexfield House he noticed a man with his hands in his pockets lounging under the doorway of one of the houses close by. As far as he could see the man was in evening dress and wore a light overcoat. He had on a silk hat tilted right over his eyes so that only the lower part of his face was visible, and he had a white or pale grey scarf tied loosely round his neck. The chauffeur also noticed that he had a large white flower, probably a carnation, in his buttonhole. After the taxi-man had put down his fare he drove off, and as he did so he saw the man in the light overcoat step out from under the doorway, where he had been lounging, and turn in the direction of Mexfield House. What happened after that he didn't know, as he drove away without taking further notice, but the police were already in touch with another man who had been watching that night in Somerset Street, where a portion of the road was up for repair. This man, whose name, I think, was William Rugger, remembered quite distinctly seeing a 'swell' in a light overcoat and wearing a light-coloured scarf round his neck, loafing around Mexfield House. He remembered the taxi drawing up and a gentleman getting out of it, whereupon the one in the light overcoat and the scarf went up to him and said, 'Hullo, Denver!' at which the other gent, the one who had come in the taxi, appeared very surprised, for Rugger heard him say, 'Good Lord, Henry, what are you doing here?'
"Rugger didn't hear any more because the gentleman in the light overcoat then took the other one by the arm and together the pair of them walked away down the street. When they had gone Rugger noticed a large white carnation lying on the pavement; he picked it up and subsequently took it home to his missis.
"You may imagine what a stir and excitement this story—which pretty soon leaked out in all its details—caused amongst the public. It seems that although neither the taxi-driver nor the man Rugger had seen the face of the man who had stepped out from under a neighbouring doorway and accosted Captain Shillington, they were both of them quite positive that he was in evening dress, and that he wore a silk hat, a light overcoat, and had a pale grey or white scarf wound round his neck. And besides that, there was the white carnation. But, of course, the crux of the whole evidence was Rugger's assertion that he heard one gentleman—the one who got out of the cab—say to the other in tones of great surprise, 'Good Lord, Henry, what are you doing here?' Questioned again and again he never wavered in this statement. He heard the name Henry quite distinctly and it stuck in his mind because his eldest boy was Henry. He was also asked whether the gentleman, who had stepped out of the taxi—obviously Captain Shillington, since the other had called to him, 'Hullo, Denver'—walked away reluctantly or willingly when he was thus summarily taken hold of by the arm. Rugger was under the impression that he walked away reluctantly; he freed his arm once, but the other got hold of him again, and, though Rugger did not catch the actual words, he certainly thought that the two gentlemen were quarrelling.
"And thus public opinion, which at first had been dead against the Australian Captain, now went equally dead against Henry Buckley. Ugly stories were current of his extravagance, his gambling debts, his addiction to drink. People who knew him remembered one or two ugly pages in his life's history: altercations with the police, raids on gambling clubs of which he was a prominent member; there was even a fraudulent bankruptcy which had been the original cause of his being sent out to Australia by his harassed parents until the worst of the clouds had rolled by.
"The only thing that told in his favour, as far as the public was concerned, was the bitter vindictiveness displayed against him by Miss Shillington. That the girl had cause for bitterness was not to be denied. For a time, at any rate, public opinion had branded her brother as a common trickster and a thief, and she and her mother had no doubt suffered terribly under the stigma; in consequence of this, Mrs. Shillington's health, always in a precarious state, had completely broken down and the old lady had taken to her bed, not suffering from any particular disease, but just from debility of mind and body, obstinately refusing to see a doctor, declaring that nothing would cure her except the return of her son.