The Master Detective: Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher QuarlesBrebner, Percy James
General
The Master Detective: Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles
Brebner, Percy James
Detective and mystery stories
"Have you read the evidence given to-day carefully?" I asked.
"I was there," he snapped.
I had not seen him and was astonished.
"Arrest Tavener," he went on, "and then you may be able to solve the
problem. There may be extenuating circumstances, but they can be dealt
with afterwards. Let us go into another room."
He got up and brought the discussion to a close. He was in one of those
moods in which there was no doing anything with him.
Although I was at the inquest, I had had little to do with the case up to
this point; now it came entirely into my hands, and it may be that
Quarles's advice was at the back of my mind during my inquiries.
I made one or two rather interesting and significant discoveries. The
Folliotts, with whom it was said Lady Tavener was dining that night, did
not know Sir John, and moreover, they had no appointment with Lady
Tavener that evening, nor were they dining at the Piccadilly Hotel. The
people on Richmond Green, with whom Sir John had dined, admitted that he
was in an excited condition. He made an expected division in the House of
Commons an excuse for leaving early, directly after dinner in fact, but
he had not gone to the House and did not arrive home until after
midnight, when he found a constable waiting for him with the news of his
wife's death.
These facts were given in evidence at the next hearing, but it was less
due to them than to public feeling, I fancy, that a verdict of murder
against Sir John Tavener was returned.
That night I went again to Chelsea.
"I see that you have arrested him, Wigan," was the professor's greeting.
"I don't believe he is guilty," I answered.
"Why not? Let us have the reasons. But tell me first, what was his
demeanor when he heard the verdict? Was he astonished?"
"He seemed to be pitying a body of men who could make such a mistake."
"Ah, he will play to the gallery even when death knocks at his door. Why
do you think he is not guilty, Wigan?"
"Intuition for one reason."
"Come, that is a woman's prerogative."
"That sixth sense, which is usually denied to men," corrected Zena.
"Then for tangible reasons," I said; "if he killed his wife he committed
the crime between Twickenham and Richmond Green, knowing perfectly well
that her death must be discovered at the end of her journey. He would
know that suspicion would inevitably fall upon him."
"That seems a good argument, Wigan, but, as a fact, suspicion did not
immediately fall upon him. He has only been arrested to-day, and even now
you think he has been wrongly arrested. The very daring of the crime was
in his favor."
"My second reason is this," I went on. "If he were guilty, would he
deliberately have closed the door of escape open for him by the doctors
and declare that he did not believe his wife committed suicide? Would he
not have jumped at the idea?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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