The First R. Austin Freeman MEGAPACK ®. R. Austin Freeman

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      “No. I never see ’em again.”

      “Have you ever heard sounds of hammering on the yacht?”

      “Yes. The night after the parcel came I was on the quay alongside, and I heard someone a-hammering in the cabin.”

      “What did the hammering sound like?”

      “It sounded like a cobbler a-hammering in nails.”

      “Have you over seen any boot-nails on the yacht?”

      “Yes. When I was a-clearin’ up the cabin the next mornin’, I found a hobnail on the floor in a corner by the locker.”

      “Were you on board on the night when Mr. Hearn died?”

      “Yes. I’d been ashore, but I came aboard about half-past nine.”

      “Did you see Mr. Hearn go ashore?”

      “I see him leave the yacht. I had turned into my bunk and gone to sleep, when Mr. Jezzard calls down to me: ‘We’re putting Mr. Hearn ashore,’ says he; ‘and then,’ he says, ‘we’re a-going for an hour’s fishing. You needn’t sit up,’ he says, and with that he shuts the scuttle. Then I got up and slid back the scuttle and put my head out, and I see Mr. Jezzard and Mr. Leach a-helpin’ Mr. Hearn acrost the deck. Mr. Hearn he looked as if he was drunk. They got him into the boat—and a rare job they had—and Mr. Pitford, what was in the boat already, he pushed off. And then I popped my head in again, ’cause I didn’t want them to see me.”

      “Did they row to the steps?”

      “No. I put my head out again when they were gone, and I heard ’em row round the yacht, and then pull out towards the mouth of the harbour. I couldn’t see the boat, ’cause it was a very dark night.”

      “Very well. Now I am going to ask you about another matter. Do you know anyone of the name of Polton?”

      “Yes,” replied Gummer, turning a dusky red. “I’ve just found out his real name. I thought he was called Simmons.”

      “Tell us what you know about him,” said Anstey, with a mischievous smile.

      “Well,” said the boy, with a ferocious scowl at the bland and smiling Polton, “one day he come down to the yacht when the gentlemen had gone ashore. I believe he’d seen ’em go. And he offers me ten shillin’ to let him see all the boots and shoes we’d got on board. I didn’t see no harm, so I turns out the whole lot in the cabin for him to look at. While he was lookin’ at ’em he asks me to fetch a pair of mine from the fo’c’sle, so I fetches ’em. When I come back he was pitchin’ the boots and shoes back into the locker. Then, presently, he nips off, and when he was gone I looked over the shoes, and then I found there was a pair missing. They was an old pair of Mr. Jezzard’s, and what made him nick ’em is more than I can understand.”

      “Would you know those shoes if you saw them!”

      “Yes, I should,” replied the lad.

      “Are these the pair?” Anstey handed the boy a pair of dilapidated canvas shoes, which he seized eagerly.

      “Yes, these is the ones what he stole!” he exclaimed.

      Anstey took them back from the boy’s reluctant hands, and passed them up to the magistrate’s desk. “I think,” said he, “that if your Worship will compare these shoes with the last pair of moulds, you will have no doubt that these are the shoes which made the footprints from the sea to Sundersley Gap and back again.”

      The magistrates together compared the shoes and the moulds amidst a breathless silence. At length the chairman laid them down on the desk.

      “It is impossible to doubt it,” said he. “The broken heel and the tear in the rubber sole, with the remains of the chequered pattern, make the identity practically certain.”

      As the chairman made this statement I involuntarily glanced round to the place where Jezzard was sitting. But he was not there; neither he, nor Pitford, nor Leach. Taking advantage of the preoccupation of the Court, they had quietly slipped out of the door. But I was not the only person who had noted their absence. The inspector and the sergeant were already in earnest consultation, and a minute later they, too, hurriedly departed.

      The proceedings now speedily came to an end. After a brief discussion with his brother-magistrates, the chairman addressed the Court.

      “The remarkable and I may say startling evidence, which has been heard in this court today, if it has not fixed the guilt of this crime on any individual, has, at any rate, made it clear to our satisfaction that the prisoner is not the guilty person, and he is accordingly discharged. Mr. Draper, I have great pleasure in informing you that you are at liberty to leave the court, and that you do so entirely clear of all suspicion; and I congratulate you very heartily on the skill and ingenuity of your legal advisers, but for which the decision of the Court would, I am afraid, have been very different.”

      That evening, lawyers, witnesses, and the jubilant and grateful client gathered round a truly festive board to dine, and fight over again the battle of the day. But we were scarcely halfway through our meal when, to the indignation of the servants, Sergeant Payne burst breathlessly into the room.

      “They’ve gone, sir!” he exclaimed, addressing Thorndyke. “They’ve given us the slip for good.”

      “Why, how can that be?” asked Thorndyke.

      “They’re dead, sir! All three of them!”

      “Dead!” we all exclaimed.

      “Yes. They made a burst for the yacht when they left the court, and they got on board and put out to sea at once, hoping, no doubt, to get clear as the light was just failing. But they were in such a hurry that they did not see a steam trawler that was entering, and was hidden by the pier. Then, just at the entrance, as the yacht was creeping out, the trawler hit her amidships, and fairly cut her in two. The three men were in the water in an instant, and were swept away in the eddy behind the north pier; and before any boat could put out to them they had all gone under. Jezzard’s body came up on the beach just as I was coming away.”

      We were all silent and a little awed, but if any of us felt regret at the catastrophe, it was at the thought that three such cold-blooded villains should have made so easy an exit; and to one of us, at least, the news came as a blessed relief.

      THE STRANGER’S LATCHKEY (1909)

      The contrariety of human nature is a subject that has given a surprising amount of occupation to makers of proverbs and to those moral philosophers who make it their province to discover and expound the glaringly obvious; and especially have they been concerned to enlarge upon that form of perverseness which engenders dislike of things offered under compulsion, and arouses desire of them as soon as their attainment becomes difficult or impossible. They assure us that a man who has had a given thing within his reach and put it by, will, as soon as it is beyond his reach, find it the one thing necessary and desirable; even as the domestic cat which has turned disdainfully from the preferred saucer, may presently be seen with her head jammed hard in the milk-jug, or, secretly and with horrible relish, slaking her thirst at the scullery sink.

      To this peculiarity of the human mind was due, no doubt, the fact that no sooner СКАЧАТЬ