The Red-headed Man

by Fergus Hume

It cannot be said that Torry had been particularly lucky hitherto in elucidating the mystery of the double tragedy. Certainly he had collected a quantity of evidence, but none likely to indicate directly the names of the assassins. He suspected that Vass and Donna Maria, for reasons of their own, were shielding Mrs. Grent; but this belief had no real foundation in fact. It was incredible that Donna Inez could have had anything to do with the murder of a husband to whom she was fondly attached; yet Torry could not explain the conduct of Maria and Vass on any other grounds than that they knew of something which implicated the elder woman in the affair. Putting Vass out of the question, there was no one, save her aunt, whom Maria had an interest in screening; and Torry was confident that the Spanish girl was screening someone. She knew the truth, he believed, but kept silent for the sake of a certain person. Was that person Donna Inez? He could not, so far as the known evidence went, answer that question.

Darrel had been careful to inform the detective of his interview with Blake and all that the Irishman had told him. He related the story of the Blue Mummy Society, and ended with an account of Roderick's denunciation of Captain Manuel. Torry believed the first, but disputed the second, although Blake, with red-hot enthusiasm, made out a very ingenious case against the Spaniard. He declared that Grent must have taken the ten thousand pounds to deliver to Julia Brawn in Mortality-lane; that when he had given her the money he had been attacked and killed by Manuel as having stolen the funds of the society; that Manuel, not finding the money on his dead body, had surmised that it was in the possession of Julia Brawn, and, having followed her to the Embankment, had killed her near Cleopatra's Needle. Then he had taken the money off her, and had sent it to Paris. Afterwards, to conceal his crime and gain for himself or the society an additional ten thousand pounds, he had applied to Grent's bank for the missing money. "It is as clear as day," said Roderick, "that Captain Manuel is the assassin."

"Rubbish!" said Torry when the details of this accusation were submitted to him by Darrel. "Clear as day, indeed! Clear as mud, he means. In the first place, we have absolutely no proof that Grent was in possession of the money on the night of his death; in the second, as the theft was not discovered until three or four days after the murder, Manuel could not have known beforehand that the funds of his society were missing; therefore he had no motive to commit the crime. Again, it has been clearly proved by the evidence of the third cabman that Julia Brawn, with an unknown man, drove to the Embankment in the most leisurely manner, and as there were no fourth cab near Mortality-lane at that time, Manuel, even presuming him to have been present, could not have followed sufficiently rapidly to have caught her. Finally," concluded Torry, "the man who was with Julia might have let Manuel kill Grent, but he would not have permitted him to assassinate Julia."

"But the man might have been Manuel himself," urged Frank.

"He might have been, if you go by the evidence of the two blue images which Manuel, as a representative of the society, might have placed by the bodies. But, ignorant of the loss of the money, Manuel had no motive to kill Grent. No, Mr. Darrel, whosoever killed these unlucky people, it was not this Spanish gentleman."

"Yet if you go by the story of Blake, the two victims undoubtedly were killed by order of the society."

"I grant you that," admitted Torry quickly, "and as Manuel represents this cut-throat association, I'll have him watched."

"Why not have him arrested?"

"Because I have not sufficient evidence to obtain a warrant for his arrest," said Torry. "Also," he added with emphasis, "I prefer to play a waiting game."

From this position Torry was not to be moved. Nothing could convince him of Captain Manuel's guilt; and certainly the Spaniard acted in every way like an innocent man. He came daily to see the detective and ask after the case. He offered to submit himself to the authorities for examination, and this offer having been accepted, gave an account of the Patriotic Peruvian Society. His story was similar to that of Blake, but he denied that the members of the society were in the habit of assassinating people. They were actuated, he declared, by the purest of motives, and sought to gain their ends by upright methods. Manuel also confessed that several of the tomb images had been stolen, and might have been placed by the assassin near the body to implicate the society in the crimes. The Spaniard also explained that he had passed the evening of the murder, first at the theatre, and afterwards at the house of an acquaintance, where he was playing cards until a late hour. This account was corroborated by several witnesses, and it was conclusively proved that Manuel could not have killed Grent or Julia Brawn. Torry was triumphant at this confirmation of his opinion.