"An abnormal dread of the future, Wigan; I think we shall find that is at the bottom of it, and we shall probably find also that the whole of the spoil is intact. The law, of course, cannot enter into these curious mental attitudes. Come! I think we shall provide a sensation for the world of finance."
The arrest of Mr. Wickstead when he was on the point of bolting, and his subsequent confession, certainly made a sensation; and, as Quarles had surmised, the whole of the money and the jewels were found concealed in Mr. Wickstead's house.
The manner of the robbery was much as Quarles had imagined it, and there is little doubt that Wickstead was in an abnormal mental condition. But he was not mad, and was sentenced to a long term of imprisonment.
It was a sad case altogether, the only bright spot in it being the marriage of Ursula Yerbury to the man she had trusted, in spite of his lapse from the path of rectitude.
CHAPTER XIII
THE WILL OF THE ECCENTRIC MR. FRISBY
I have said that, owing to Quarles's dislike of publicity, I was constantly receiving praise which I did not merit; but in the curious affair of Mr. Frisby's will, although I received substantial benefits, the professor was obliged to put up with the eulogy. The case was never in my hands professionally; indeed, strictly speaking, there was no case for the police to deal with. All I really did was to use my position to clear away difficulties and give Quarles a clear field for his investigations. He declared that he went into the thing for the sake of the reward which was offered, but it was undoubtedly the intricacy of the problem which attracted him.
I will tell Mr. Frisby's history as a connected narrative at once; but, of course, the theory was not complete when Quarles decided to attempt the solution of the difficulty. We got the outline from newspaper paragraphs and comments; but some of the details, such as the tenor of Mr. Frisby's letter to his nephew, were only filled in after we had taken up the case seriously.
James Frisby, a native of Boston, in Lincolnshire, was apparently a very ordinary young man indeed. He was a clerk in the office of a solicitor in the town, named Giles, and in his leisure hours was inclined to consort with the most undesirable companions, and to be a too frequent visitor to the public-house bars. Without his doing anything very outrageous, the position of black sheep of his family was assigned to him, and a too puritanical spirit, perhaps, had judged him to be well on the downward path, when a girl named Edith Turner, the daughter of a small but prosperous farmer at Spilsby, came into his circle. According to all accounts, she was the sort of girl any man might fall in love with; exactly what she saw in James Frisby was not so apparent. However, there was undoubtedly mutual affection; but the girl's family strongly objected to the friendship, and the girl herself was not to be persuaded to act in opposition to her father's wishes. Frisby pleaded, made all sorts of promises for the future, and, when these proved of no avail, he threw up his situation and went to Australia.
There was evidently more in him than people gave him credit for. Some twenty-five years afterward he returned to Boston an exceedingly wealthy man, and an eccentric one. He immediately entered into negotiations to purchase the Towers, a large house some three miles out of Boston on the Spilsby Road. It had stood empty a long time, and he spent an immense amount of money upon alterations and in furnishing it, giving no information to anyone concerning himself or his intentions.