the fen church street mystery by baroness emma otzi the man in the corner pushed aside his glass and lent across the table mysteries he commented there is no such thing as a mystery in connection with any crime provided intelligence is brought to bear upon its investigation very much astonished polly burton looked over the top of her newspaper and fixed a pair of very severe coldly inquiring brown eyes upon him she had disapproved of the man from the instant when he shuffled across the shop and
sat down opposite to her at the same marble topped table which already held her large coffee thruppence her roll and butter tuppence and plate of tongue sixpence now this particular corner this very same table that special view of the magnificent marble hall known as the norfolk street branch of the aerated bread company's depots were polly's own corner table and view here she had partaken of eleven penneth of luncheon and one pennies of daily information ever since that glorious never to be for
gotten day when she was enrolled on the staff of the evening observer we'll call it that if you please and became a member of that illustrious and world famed organization known as the british press she was a personality was miss burton of the evening observer her cards were printed thus miss mary j burton evening observer she had interviewed miss ellen terry and the bishop of madagascar mr seymour hicks and the chief commissioner of police she had been present at the last mulberry house garden
party in the cloakroom that is to say where she caught sight of lady thingamy's hat miss watchme calls sun shade and of various other things modistical or fashionable all of which were duly described under the heading royalty and dress in the early afternoon edition of the evening observer the article itself is signed mjb and is to be found in the files of that leading haepenath for these reasons and for various others too polly felt irate with the man in the corner and told him so with her eyes
as plainly as any pair of brown eyes can speak she had been reading an article in the daily telegraph the article was palpitatingly interesting had polly been commenting audibly upon it certain it is that the man over there had spoken in direct answer to her thoughts she looked at him and frowned the next moment she smiled miss burton of the evening observer had a keen sense of humor which two years association with the british press had not succeeded in destroying and the appearance of the man
was sufficient to tickle the most ultra morose fancy polly thought to herself that she had never seen anyone so pale so thin with such funny light-colored hair brushed very smoothly across the top of the very obviously bold crown he looked so timid and nervous as he fidgeted incessantly with a piece of string his long lean and trembling fingers tying and untying it into knots of wonderful and complicated proportions having carefully studied every detail of the quaint personality polly felt more
amiable and yet she remarked kindly but authoritatively this article in an otherwise well-informed journal will tell you that even within the last year no fewer than six crimes have completely baffled the police and the perpetrators of them are still at large pardon me he said gently i never for a moment ventured to suggest that there were no mysteries to the police i merely remarked that there were none where intelligence was brought to bear upon the investigation of crime not even in the fenc
e church street mystery i suppose she asked sarcastically least of all in the so-called fence church street mystery he replied quietly now the fen church street mystery as that extraordinary crime had popularly been called had puzzled as polly well knew the brains of every thinking man and woman for the last 12 months it had puzzled her not inconsiderably she had been interested fascinated she had studied the case formed her own theories thought about it all often and often had even written one
or two letters to the press on the subject suggesting arguing hinting at possibilities and probabilities adducing proofs which other amateur detectives were equally ready to refute the attitude of that timid man in the corner therefore was exasperating and she retorted with sarcasm designed to completely annihilate her self-complacent interlocutor what a pity it is in that case that you do not offer your priceless services to our misguided the well-meaning police isn't it he replied with perfect
good humor well you know for one thing i doubt if they would accept them and in the second place my inclinations and my duty would where i to become an active member of the detective force nearly always be in direct conflict as often as not my sympathies go to the criminal who is clever and astute enough to lead our entire police force by the nose i don't know how much of the case you remember he went on quietly it certainly at first began even to puzzle me on the 12th of last december a woman
poorly dressed but with an unmistakable heir of having seen better days gave information at scotland yard of the disappearance of her husband william kershaw of no occupation and apparently of no fixed abode she was accompanied by a friend a fat oily looking german and between them they told a tale which set the police immediately on the move [Music] it appears that on the 10th of december at about three o'clock in the afternoon carl muller the german called on his friend william kershaw for the
purpose of collecting a small debt some ten pounds or so which the latter owed him on arriving at the squalid lodging in charlotte street fitzroy square he found william kershaw in a wild state of excitement and his wife in tears muller attempted to state the object of his visit but kershaw with wild gestures waved him aside and in his own words flabbergasted him by asking him point blank for another loan of two pounds which some he declared would be the means of a speedy fortune for himself an
d the friend who would help him in his need after a quarter of an hour spent in obscure hints kershaw finding the cautious german object decided to let him into the secret plan which herebird would place thousands into their hands instinctively polly had put down her paper the mild stranger with his nervous air and timid watery eyes had a peculiar way of telling his tail which somehow fascinated her i don't know he resumed if you remember the story which the german told to the police and which w
as corroborated in every detail by the wife or widow briefly it was this some 30 years previously keshaw then 20 years of age and a medical student at one of the london hospitals had a chum named barker with whom he roomed together with another this other so it appears brought home one evening a very considerable sum of money which he had won on the turf and the following morning he was found murdered in his bed kershaw fortunately for himself was able to prove a conclusive alibi he had spent th
e night on duty at the hospital as for barker he had disappeared that is to say as far as the police were concerned but not as far as the watchful eyes of his friend kershaw were able to spy at least so the latter said barker very cleverly contrived to get away out of the country and after sundry vicissitudes finally settled down in vladivostok in eastern siberia where under the assumed name of smeadhurst he built up an enormous fortune by trading in fairs now mind you everyone knows smithhurst
the siberian millionaire casual's story that he had once been called barker and had committed a murder thirty years ago was never proved was it i am merely telling you what kershaw said to his friend the german and to his wife on that memorable afternoon of december the 10th according to him smithhurst had made one gigantic mistake in his clever career he had on four occasions written to his late friend william kershaw two of these letters had no bearing on the case since they were written more
than 25 years ago and kershaw moreover had lost them so he said long ago according to him however the first of these letters was written when smithhurst alias barker had spent all the money he had obtained from the crime and found himself destitute in new york kershaw then in fairly prosperous circumstances sent him a 10-pound note for the sake of old times the second when the tables had turned and kershaw had begun to go downhill smith hurst as he then already called himself sent his while frie
nd 50 pounds after that as mueller gathered kershaw had made sundry demands on smithhurst's ever-increasing purse and had accompanied these demands by various threats which considering the distant country in which the millionaire lived were worse than futile but now the climax had come and kershaw after a final moment of hesitation handed over to his german friend the two last letters purporting to have been written by smithhurst and which if you remember played such an important part in the mys
terious story of this extraordinary crime i have a copy of both these letters here added the man in the corner as he took out a piece of paper from a very worn-out pocketbook and unfolding it very deliberately he began to read sir your preposterous demands for money are wholly unwarrantable i have already helped you quite as much as you deserve however for the sake of old times and because you once helped me when i was in a terrible difficulty i am willing to once more let you impose upon my goo
d nature a friend of mine here a russian merchant to whom i have sold my business starts in a few days for an extended tour to many european and asiatic ports in his yacht and has invited me to accompany him as far as england being tired of falling parts and desirous of seeing the old country once again after 30 years absence i have decided to accept his invitation i don't know when we may actually be in europe but i promise you that as soon as we touch a suitable port i will write to you again
making an appointment for you to see me in london but remember that if your demands are too preposterous i will not for a moment listen to them and that i am the last man in the world to submit to persistent and unwarrantable blackmail i am sir yours truly francis smithhurst the second letter was dated from southampton continued the old man in the corner calmly and curiously enough was the only letter which kershaw professed to have received from smethurst of which he had kept the envelope and w
hich was dated it was quite brief he added referring once more to his piece of paper dear sir referring to my letter of a few weeks ago i wish to inform you that the sasuke law will touch it tilbury on tuesday next the 10th i shall land there and immediately go up to london by the first train i can get if you like you may meet me at fenchurch street station in the first class waiting room in the late afternoon since i surmise that after 30 years absence my face may not be familiar to you i may a
s well tell you that you will recognize me by a heavy astrakhan fur coat which i shall wear together with a cap of the same you may then introduce yourself to me and i will personally listen to what you may have to say yours faithfully francis smithhurst it was this last letter which had caused william kershaw's excitement and his wife's tears in the germans own words he was walking up and down the room like a wild beast gesticulating wildly and muttering sundry exclamations mrs kershaw however
was full of apprehension she mistrusted the man from foreign parts who according to her husband's story had already one crime upon his conscience who might she feared risk another in order to be rid of a dangerous enemy woman like she thought the scheme a dishonorable one for the law she knew is severe on the blackmailer the assignation might be a cunning trap in any case it was a curious one why she argued did not smithhurst elect to see kesha at his hotel the following day a thousand wise and
wherefores made her anxious but the fat german had been won over by kershaw's visions of untold gold held tantalizingly before his eyes he had lent the necessary two pounds with which his friend intended to tidy himself up a bit before he went to meet his friend the millionaire half an hour afterwards kershaw had left his lodgings and that was the last the unfortunate woman saw of her husband or muller the german of his friend anxiously his wife waited that night but he did not return the next d
ay she seems to have spent in making purposeless and futile inquiries about the neighborhood of fenchurch street and on the 12th she went to scotland yard gave what particulars she knew and placed in the hands of the police the two letters written by smithhurst the man in the corner had finished his glass of milk his watery blue eyes looked across at miss polly burton's eager little face from which all traces of severity had now been chased away by an obvious and intense excitement it was only o
n the 31st he resumed after a while that a body decomposed past all recognition was found by two lighter men in the bottom of a disused barge she had been murdered at one time at the foot of one of those dark flights of steps which lead down between tall warehouses to the river in the east end of london i have a photograph of the place here he added selecting one out of his pocket and placing it before polly the actual barge you see had already been removed when i took this snapshot but you will
realize what a perfect place this alley is for the purpose of one man cutting another man's throat in comfort and without fear of detection the body as i said was decomposed beyond all recognition it had probably been there 11 days but sundry articles such as a silver ring and a type in were recognizable and were identified by mrs kershaw as belonging to her husband she of course was loud in denouncing smithhurst and the police had no doubt a very strong case against him for two days after the
discovery of the body in the barge the siberian millionaire as he was already popularly called by enterprising interviewers was arrested in his luxurious suite of rooms at the hotel cecil to confess the truth at this point i was not a little puzzled mrs kershaw's story and smithhurst's letters had both found their way into the papers and following my usual method mind you i am only an amateur i try to reason out a case for the love of the thing i sought about for a motive for the crime which the
police declared smithhurst had committed to effectually get rid of a dangerous blackmailer was the generally accepted theory well did it ever strike you how paltry that motive really was miss polly had to confess however that it had never struck her in that light surely a man who had succeeded in building up an immense fortune by his own individual efforts was not the sort of fool to believe that he had anything to fear from a man like kershaw he must have known that kershaw held no damning pro
ofs against him not enough to hang him anyway have you ever seen smithhurst he added as he once more fumbled in his pocketbook polly replied that she had seen smithhurst's picture in the illustrated papers at the time then he added placing a small photograph before her what strikes you most about the face well i think it's strange astonished expression due to the total absence of eyebrows and the funny foreign cut of the hair so close that it almost looks as if it had been shaved exactly that is
what struck me most when i elbowed my way into the court that morning and first caught sight of the millionaire in the dock he was a tall soldier looking man upright in stature his face very bronzed and tanned he wore neither moustache nor beard his hair was cropped quite close to his head like a frenchman's but of course what was so very remarkable about him was that total absence of eyebrows and even eyelashes which gave the face such a peculiar appearance as you say a perpetually astonished
look he seemed however wonderfully calm he had been accommodated with a chair in the dock being a millionaire and chatted pleasantly with his lawyer sir arthur inglewood in the intervals between the calling of the several witnesses for the prosecution whilst during the examination of these witnesses he sat quite placidly with his head shaded by his hand muller and mrs kershaw repeated the story which they had already told to the police i think you said that you were not able owing the pressure o
f work to go to the court that day and hear the case so perhaps you have no recollection of mrs kershaw no oh well here is a snapshot i managed to get of her once that is her exactly as she stood in the box overdressed in elaborate crepe with a bonnet which once had contained pink roses and to which a remnant of pink petals still clung obtrusively amidst the deeper black she would not look at the prisoner and turned her head resolutely towards the magistrate i fancy she had been fond of that vag
abond husband of hers an enormous wedding ring encircled her finger and that too was swathed in black she firmly believed that kershaw's murderer sat there in the dock and she literally flaunted her grief before him i was indescribably sorry for her as for muller he was just fat oily pompous conscious of his own importance as a witness his fat fingers covered with brass rings gripped the two incriminating letters which he had identified they were his passports as it were to a delightful land of
importance and notoriety sir arthur inglewood i think disappointed him by stating that he had no questions to ask of him muller had been brim full of answers ready with the most perfect indictment the most elaborate accusations against the bloated millionaire who had decoyed his dear friend kershaw and murdered him in heaven knows what an out-of-the-way corner of the east end after this however the excitement grew a pace muller had been dismissed and had retired from the court altogether leading
away mrs kershaw who had completely broken down constable d21 was giving evidence as to the arrest in the meanwhile the prisoner he said had seemed completely taken by surprise not understanding the cause or history of the accusation against him however when put in full possession of the facts and realizing no doubt the absolute futility of any resistance he had quietly enough followed the constable into the cab no one at the fashionable and crowded hotel cecil had even suspected that anything
unusual had occurred then a gigantic sigh of expectancy came from every one of the spectators the fun was about to begin james buckland a porter at fenchurch street railway station had just sworn to tell all the truth etc after all it did not amount to much he said that at six o'clock in the afternoon of december the 10th in the midst of one of the densest fogs he ever remembers the 5-5 from tilbury steamed into the station being just about an hour late he was on the arrival platform and was hai
led by a passenger in a first class carriage he could see very little of him beyond an enormous black fur coat and a traveling cap of fur also the passenger had a quantity of luggage all marked fs and he directed james buckland to place it all upon a four-wheeled cab with the exception of a small handbag which he carried himself having seen that all his luggage was safely bestowed the stranger in the fur coat paid the porter and telling the cab man to wait until he returned he walked away in the
direction of the waiting rooms still carrying his small handbag i stayed for a bit added james buckland talking to the driver about the fog in that then i went about my business seeing that the local from south end had been signaled the prosecution insisted most strongly upon the hour when the stranger in the fur coat having seen his luggage walked away towards the waiting rooms the porter was emphatic it was not a minute later than 6 15 he averred sir arthur inglewood still had no questions to
ask and the driver of the cab was called he corroborated the evidence of james buckland as to the hour when the gentleman in the fur coat had engaged him and having filled his cab in and out with luggage had told him to wait and cabbie did wait he waited in the dense fog until he was tired until he seriously thought of depositing all the luggage in the lost property office and of looking out for another fare waited until at last at a quarter before nine whom should he see walking hardly towards
his cab but the gentleman in the fur coat and cap who got in quickly and told the driver to take him at once to the hotel's cecil this cabbie declared had occurred at a quarter before nine still sir arthur inglewood made no comment and mr francis smithhurst in the crowded stuffy court had calmly dropped to sleep the next witness constable thomas taylor had noticed a shabbily dressed individual with shaggy hair and beard loafing about the station and waiting rooms in the afternoon of december th
e 10th he seemed to be watching the arrival platform of the tilbury and south end trains two separate and independent witnesses cleverly unearthed by the police have seen this same shably dressed individual stroll into the first class waiting room at about 6 15 on wednesday december the 10th and go straight up to a gentleman in a heavy fur coat and cap who had also just come into the room the two talked together for a while no one heard what they said but presently they walked off together no on
e seemed to know in which direction francis smithhurst was rousing himself from his apathy he whispered to his lawyer who nodded with a bland smile of encouragement the employees of the hotel cecil gave evidence as to the arrival of mr smithhurst at about 9 30 pm on wednesday december the 10th in a cab with a quantity of luggage and this closed the case for the prosecution everybody in that court already saw smithhurst mounting the gallows it was uninterested curiosity which caused the elegant a
udience to wait and hear what sir arthur engelwood had to say he of course is the most fashionable man in the law at the present moment his lolling attitudes his drawling speech are quite the rage and imitated by the gilded youth of society even at this moment when the siberian millionaire's neck literally and metaphorically hung in the balance an expectant titter went round the fair spectators as saratha stretched out his long loose limbs and lounged across the table he waited to make his effec
t sir arthur is a born actor and there is no doubt that he made it when in his slowest most drawly tones he said quietly with regard to this alleged murder of one william cashore on wednesday december the 10th between 6 15 and 8 45 pm your honor i now propose to call two witnesses who saw this same william cashore alive on tuesday afternoon december the 16th that is to say six days after the supposed murder it was as if a bombshell had exploded in the court even his honor was aghast and i'm sure
the lady next to me only recovered from the shock of the surprise in order to wonder whether she need put off her dinner party after all as for me added the man in the corner with that strange mixture of nervousness and self-complacency which had set miss polly burton wondering well you see i had made up my mind long ago where the hitch lay in this particular case and i was not so surprised as some of the others perhaps you remember the wonderful development of the case which so completely myst
ified the police and in fact everybody except myself tariani and a waiter at his hotel in the commercial road both deposed that at about 3 30 p.m on december the 10th a shabbily dressed individual lulled into the coffee room and ordered some tea he was pleasant enough and talkative told the waiter that his name was william kershaw that very soon all london would be talking about him as he was about through an unexpected stroke of good fortune to become a very rich man and so on and so on nonsens
e without end when he had finished his tea he lulled out again but no sooner had he disappeared down a turning of the road then the waiter discovered an old umbrella left behind accidentally by the shabby talkative individual as is the custom in his highly respectable restaurant senor tariani put the umbrella carefully away in his office on the chance of his customer calling to claim it when he had discovered his loss and sure enough nearly a week later on tuesday the 16th at about 1 pm the same
shabbily dressed individual called and asked for his umbrella he had some lunch and chatted once again to the waiter senor tariani and the waiter gave a description of william kershaw which coincided exactly with that given by mrs kershaw of her oddly enough he seemed to be a very absent-minded sort of person for on this second occasion no sooner he left then the waiter found a pocketbook in the coffee room underneath the table it contained sundry letters and bills all addressed to william kers
haw this pocketbook was produced and carl muller who had returned to the court easily identified it as having belonged to his dear and lamented friend william this was the first blow to the case against the accused it was a pretty stiff one you will admit already it had begun to collapse like a house of cards still there was the assignation and the undisputed meeting between smithhurst and kershaw and those two and a half hours of foggy evening to satisfactorily account for the man in the corner
made a long pause keeping the girl on tenterhooks he had fidgeted with his bit of string till there was not an inch of it free from the most complicated and elaborate knots i assure you he resumed at last that at that very moment the whole mystery was to me as clear as daylight i only marveled how his honor could waste his time and mine by putting what he thought were searching questions to the accused relating to his past francis smithhurst who had quite shaken off his somnolence spoke with a
curious nasal twang and with an almost imperceptible soup song of foreign accent he calmly denied kershaw's version of his past declared that he had never been called barker and had certainly never been mixed up in any murder case 30 years ago but you knew this man cashore persisted his honor since you wrote to him pardon me your honor said the accused quietly i have never to my knowledge seen this man kershaw and i can swear that i never wrote to him never wrote to him retorted his honor warnin
gly that is a strange assertion to make when i have two of your letters to him in my hands at the present moment i never wrote those letters your honor persisted the accused quietly they are not in my handwriting which we can easily prove came in sir arthur inglewood's drawly tones as he handed up a packet to his honor here are a number of letters written by my client since he has landed in this country and some of which were written under my very eyes as sir arthur inglewood had said this could
be easily proved and the prisoner at his honours request scribbled a few lines together with his signature several times upon a sheet of note paper it was easy to read upon the magistrate's astounded countenance that there was not the slightest similarity in the two handwritings a fresh mystery had cropped up who then had made the assignation with william kershaw at fenchurch street railway station the prisoner gave a fairly satisfactory account of the employment of his time since his landing i
n england came over on the sasuke sailor he said a yacht belonging to a friend of mine when we arrived at the mouth of the thames there was such a dense fog that it was 24 hours before it was thought safe for me to land my friend who is a russian would not land at all he was regularly frightened at this land of fogs he was going on to madeira immediately i actually landed on tuesday the 10th and took a train at once for town i did see to my luggage and a cab as the porter and driver told your ho
nor then i tried to find my way to a refreshment room where i could get a glass of wine i drifted into the waiting room and there i was accosted by a shabbily dressed individual who began telling me a piteous tale who he was i do not know he said he was an old soldier who had served his country faithfully and then been left to starve he begged of me to accompany him to his lodgings where i could see his wife and starving children and verify the truth and piteousness of his tale well your honor a
dded the prisoner with noble frankness it was my first day in the old country i had come back after 30 years with my pockets full of gold and this was the first sad tale i had heard but i am a businessman and did not want to be exactly done in the eye i followed my man through the fog out into the streets he walked silently by my side for the time i had not a notion where i was suddenly i turned to him with some question and realized in a moment that my gentleman had given me the slip finding pr
obably that i would not part with my money till i had seen the starving wife and children he left me to my fate and went in search of more willing bait the place where i found myself was dismal and deserted i could see no trace of cab or omnibus i retraced my steps and tried to find my way back to the station only to find myself in worse and more deserted neighborhoods i became hopelessly lost and fogged i don't wonder that two and a half hours elapsed while i thus wandered on in the dark and de
serted streets my sole astonishment is that i ever found the station at all that night or rather close to it a policeman who showed me the way but how do you account for kershaw knowing all your movements still persisted his honor and his knowing the exact date of your arrival in england how do you account for these two letters in fact i cannot account for it or them your honor replied the prisoner quietly i have proved to you have i not that i never wrote those letters and that the man kershaw
is his name was not murdered by me can you tell me of anyone here or abroad who might have heard of your movements and of the date of your arrival my late employees at vladivostok of course knew of my departure but none of them could have written these letters since none of them know a word of english then you can throw no light upon these mysterious letters you cannot help the police in any way towards the clearing up of this strange affair the affair is as mysterious to me as to your honor and
to the police of this country francis smithhurst was discharged of course there was no semblance of evidence against him sufficient to commit him for trial the two overwhelming points of his defense which had completely routed the prosecution were firstly the proof that he had never written the letters making the assignation and secondly the fact that the man supposed to have been murdered on the 10th was seen to be alive and well on the 16th but then who in the world was the mysterious individ
ual who had apprised kesha of the movements of smithhurst the millionaire the man in the corner talked his funny thin head on one side and looked at polly then he took up his beloved bit of string and deliberately untied every knot he had made in it when it was quite smooth he laid it out upon the table i will take you if you like point by point along the line of reasoning which i followed myself and which will inevitably lead you as it led me to the only possible solution of the mystery first t
ake this point he said with nervous restlessness once more taking up his bit of string and forming with each point raised a series of knots which would have shamed a navigating instructor obviously it was impossible for kershaw not to have been acquainted with smithhurst since he was fully apprised of the letters arrival in england by two letters now it was clear to me from the first that no one could have written those two letters except smithhurst you will argue that those letters were proved
not to have been written by the man in the doc exactly remember kershaw was a careless man he had lost both envelopes to him they were insignificant now it was never disproved that those letters were written by smithhurst but suggested polly wait a minute he interrupted while not number two appeared upon the scene it was proved that six days after the murder william kershaw was alive and visited the tariani hotel where already he was known and where he conveniently left a pocketbook behind so th
at there should be no mistake as to his identity but it was never questioned where mr francis smithhurst the millionaire happened to spend that very same afternoon surely you don't mean gasped the girl one moment please he added triumphantly how did it come about that the landlord of the tariani hotel was brought into court at all how did siratha ringle would or rather his client know that william keshaw had on those two memorable occasions visited the hotel and that its landlord could bring suc
h convincing evidence forward that would forever exonerate the millionaire from the imputation of murder surely she argued the usual means the police the police had kept the whole affair very dark until the arrest of the hotel cecil they did not put into the papers the usual if anyone happens to know of the whereabouts etc etc had the landlord of that hotel heard of the disappearance of kershaw through the usual channels he would have put himself in communication with the police sir arthur ingle
wood produced him how did sir arthur inglewood come on his track surely you don't mean point number four he resumed imperturbably mrs kershaw was never requested to produce a specimen of her husband's handwriting why because the police clever as you say they are never started on the right tech they believed william keshaw to have been murdered they looked for william kershaw on december the 31st what was presumed to be the body of william kershaw was found by two lighter men i have shown you a p
hotograph of the place where it was found dark and deserted it is in all conscience is it not just the place where a bully and a coward would decoy an unsuspecting stranger murder him first then rob him of his valuables his papers his very identity and leave him there to rot the body was found in a disused barge which had been moored some time against the wall at the foot of these steps it was in the last stages of decomposition and of course could not be identified but the police would have it
that it was the body of william kershaw it never entered their heads that it was the body of francis smithhurst and that william keshaw was his murderer ah it was cleverly artistically conceived kershaw is a genius think of it all his disguise keshore had a shaggy beard hair and moustache he shaved up to his very eyebrows no wonder that even his wife did not recognize him across the court and remember she never saw much of his face while he stood in the dock kershaw was shabby slouchy he stooped
smethurst the millionaire might have served in the prussian army then that lovely trait about going to revisit the toriyani hotel just a few days grace in order to purchase moustache and beard and wig exactly similar to what he had himself shaved off making up to look like himself splendid then leaving the pocketbook behind kershaw was not murdered of course not he called at the toriani hotel six days after the murder whilst mr smithhurst the millionaire hobnobbed in the park with duchesses han
g such a man phi he fumbled for his hat with nervous trembling fingers he held it deferentially in his hand whilst he rose from the table polly watched him as he strode up to the desk and paid tuppence for his glass of milk and his bun soon he disappeared through the shop whilst she still found herself hopelessly bewildered with a number of snapshot photographs before her still staring at a long piece of string smothered from end to end in a series of knots as bewildering as irritating as puzzli
ng as the man who had lately sat in the corner you've been listening to a bite-sized audio book read by simon stanhope for more stories like this please try the links below and do click subscribe and hit the bell to hear about future uploads you may also be interested in becoming a channel member there are a few options available with various benefits click the join button to find out more this recording is copyright bite-sized audio 2021 thank you for listening
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