The great Q.C. put his case in a nutshell. “Our client,” he contended, “was NOT the man against whom the warrant in this case had been duly issued; he was NOT the man named Guy Waring; he was NOT the man whom the witnesses deposed to having seen at Mambury; he was NOT the man who had loitered with evil intent around the skirts of Dartmoor; in short,” the great Q.C. observed, with demonstrative eye-glass, “it was a very clear case of mistaken identity. It would take them time, no doubt, to prove the conclusive alibi they intended to establish; for the gentleman now charged before them, he would hope to show hereafter, was Mr. Cyril Waring, the distinguished painter, twin brother to Mr. Guy Waring, the journalist, against whom warrant was issued; and he was away in Belgium during the whole precise time when Mr. Guy Waring—as to whose guilt or innocence he would make no definite assertion—was prowling round Dartmoor on the trail of McGregor, alias Montague Nevitt. Therefore, they would consent to an indefinite remand till evidence to that effect was duly forthcoming. Meanwhile—” and here Gilbert Gildersleeve’s eyes fell upon Elma once more with a quiet forensic smile—he would call one witness, on the spur of the moment, whom he hadn’t thought till that very morning of calling, but whom the magistrates would allow to be a very important one—a lady from Chetwood—Miss Elma Clifford.
Elma, taken aback, stood up in the box and gave her evidence timidly. It amounted to no more than the simple fact that the person before the magistrates was Cyril, not Guy; that the two brothers were extremely like; but that she had reason to know them easily apart, having been associated in a most painful accident in a tunnel with the brother, the present Mr. Cyril Waring. What she said gave only a presumption of mistaken identity, but didn’t at all invalidate the positive identification of all the people who had seen the supposed murderer. However, from Gilbert Gildersleeve’s point of view, this delay was doubly valuable. In the first place, it gave him time to prove his alibi for Cyril and bring witnesses from Belgium; and, in the second place, it succeeded in still further fastening public suspicion on Guy, and narrowing the question for the police to the simple issue whether or not they had really caught the brother who was seen at Mambury on the day of the murder.
The law’s delays were as marvellous as is their wont. It was a full fortnight before the barrister was able to prove his point by bringing over witnesses at considerable expense from Belgium and elsewhere, and by the aid of a few intimate friends in London, who could speak with certainty as to the difference between the two brothers. At the end of a fortnight, however, he did sufficiently prove it by tracing Cyril in detail from England to the Ardennes and back again to Dover, as well as by showing exactly how Guy had been employed in London and elsewhere on every day or night of the intervening period. The magistrates at last released Cyril, convinced by his arguments; and on the very same day, the coroner’s inquest on Montague Nevitt’s body, after adjourning time upon time to await the clearing up of this initial difficulty, returned a verdict of wilful murder against Guy Waring.
That evening, in town, the most completely mystified person of all was a certain cashier of the London and West County Bank, in Lombard Street, who read in his St. James’s this complete proof that Cyril had been in Belgium through all those days when he himself distinctly remembered cashing over the counter for him a cheque for no less a sum than six thousand pounds to “self or bearer.” Had the brothers, then, been deliberately and nefariously engaged in a deep-laid scheme—the cashier asked himself, much puzzled—to confuse one another’s identity with great care beforehand, with a distinct view to the projected murder? For as yet, of course, nobody on earth except Guy Waring himself on the waters of Biscay knew or suspected anything at all about the forgery.
Elma Clifford and her mother, meanwhile, had stopped on at Tavistock till Cyril was released from his close confinement. Elma never meant to marry him, of course—to that prime determination she still remained firm as a rock under all conditions—but in such straits as those, why, naturally she couldn’t bear to be far away from him. So she remained at Tavistock quietly till the inquiry was over.
On the evening of his release Elma met him at the hotel. Her mother had gone out on purpose to leave them alone. Elma took Cyril’s hand in hers with a profound trembling. She felt the moment for reserve had long gone past.
“Cyril,” she said, boldly calling him by his Christian name, because she could call him only as she always thought of him, “I knew from the first you didn’t do it. And just because I know you didn’t, I know Guy didn’t either, though everything looks now so very black against him. I can trust YOU, and I can trust HIM. All through, I’ve never had a doubt one moment of either of you.”
Cyril held her hand in his, and raised it tenderly to his lips. Elma looked at him, half surprised. Only her hand, how strange of him. Cyril read the unspoken thought, as she would have read it herself, and answered quickly, “Never, Elma, now, till Guy has cleared himself of this deadly accusation. I couldn’t bear to ask you to accept a man who every one else would call a murderer’s brother.”
Elma gazed at him steadfastly. Tears stood in her eyes. Her voice trembled; but she was very firm.
“We must clear you and him of this dreadful charge,” she said slowly. “I know we must do that, Cyril. Guy didn’t kill him. Guy’s wholly incapable of it. But where is Guy now? That’s what I don’t understand. We must clear that all up. Though, even when it’s cleared up, I can only LOVE you. As I told you that day at Chetwood—and I mean it still—whatever comes to us two, I can never, never marry you.”