A Rogue by Compulsion: An Affair of the Secret ServiceBridges, Victor
General
A Rogue by Compulsion: An Affair of the Secret Service
Bridges, Victor
Secret service -- Fiction; Spy stories
On the third of October four years ago, as most of our readers will
remember, a gentleman named Mr. Seton Marks was found brutally
murdered in his luxurious flat on the Chelsea Embankment. It was
thought at first that the crime was the work of burglars, for Mr.
Marks's rooms contained many art treasures of considerable value. A
further examination, however, revealed the fact that nothing had been
tampered with, and the next day the whole country was startled and
amazed to learn that Neil Lyndon had been arrested on suspicion.
At the trial it was proved beyond question that the accused was the
last person in the company of the murdered man. He had gone round to
Mr. Marks's flat at four o'clock in the afternoon, and had apparently
been admitted by the owner. Two hours later Mr. Marks's servant
returning to the flat was horrified to find his master's dead body
lying in the sitting-room. Death had been inflicted by means of a
heavy blow on the back of the head, but the state of the dead man's
face showed that he had been brutally mishandled before being killed.
The accused, while maintaining his innocence of the murder, did not
deny either his visit to the flat, or the fact that he had inflicted
the other injuries on the deceased. He declined to state the cause of
their quarrel, but the defending counsel produced a witness in the
person of Miss Joyce Aylmer, a young girl of sixteen, who was able to
throw some light on the matter.
Miss Aylmer, a young lady of considerable beauty, stated that for
about a year she had been working as an art student in Chelsea, and
used occasionally to sit to artists for the head. On the afternoon
before the murder she had had a professional engagement of this kind
with Mr. Marks. There had been a visitor in the flat when she arrived,
but he had left as soon as she came in. Subsequently, according to her
statement, the deceased had acted towards her in an outrageous and
disgraceful manner. She had escaped from his flat with difficulty, and
had subsequently informed Mr. Lyndon of what had taken place.
In his re-examination, the accused admitted that it was on account
of Miss Aylmer's statement he had visited the flat. Up till then, he
declared, he had had no quarrel with the deceased.
This statement, however, was directly contradicted by Lyndon's
partner, Mr. George Marwood. Giving his evidence with extreme
reluctance, Mr. Marwood stated that for some time bad blood had
undoubtedly existed between Mr. Marks and the accused. He added that
in his own hearing on two separate occasions the latter had threatened
to kill the deceased.
Pressed still further, he admitted meeting Mr. Lyndon in Chelsea
on the night of the murder, when the latter had to all intents and
purposes acknowledged his guilt.
On the evidence there could naturally be only one verdict, and Lyndon
was found guilty and sentenced to death by Mr. Justice Owen.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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