In a comfortably furnished room in the Inner Temple four men sat round a table talking. Just an ordinary room, but certainly no ordinary men, these four. Actually, you could have found them all in Who’s Who.
The big, tanned, curly-haired, merry-eyed giant, who sat next to the empty chair at the head of the table, was none other than James Ffolliott Plantagenet Trevitter, only son of the Earl of Winstanworth – Eton and Oxford, with half a page of athletic records added. Next to him, lounging a little in his chair, thin, lean, bronzed, almost bored-looking, with his gold-rimmed monocle, sat Sir Hugh Williamson, most intrepid of explorers. Opposite to him, elderly, grey-haired, almost benevolent-looking, Allan Sylvester, the best-loved actor-manager in England. And lastly, leaning forward talking, a smile on his clean-cut handsome face, Martin Everest, K. C., the greatest criminal barrister in England.
And these were the four Adjusters…
The clock on the mantelpiece chimed out the hour, and as it did so the door opened and the four men rose to their feet, as Daphne Wrayne stood in the doorway.
“Well, Peter Pan!” exclaimed Sylvester.
“Well, you dear Knights!”
Very lovely she looked as she came forward, and her eyes were for all of them. But it was Lord Trevitter who, as if by tacit understanding, helped her off with her cloak and put her into her chair. Very naturally, yet quite openly too, she slipped her hand into his and let it stay there. But the other three only smiled indulgently though their smiles spoke volumes. You felt, somehow, that they had known her from childhood – looked on her now almost as a beloved child. That even if she had singled out Trevitter – as indeed she had – she loved none of them less dearly for that.
“Oh, it’s great to be here!” she exclaimed with shining eyes. “I can still hardly believe it’s true.”
“It’s a wonderful stunt,” murmured Everest thoughtfully.
“We’ve been lucky, Martin,” answered the girl. “If it hadn’t been for the Duchess’s pearls-”
“And then you giving an interview to the Monitor,” chimed in Lord Trevitter. “That was the master stroke, Daph.”
“Well, it was just the right moment, Jim. Having had a big success it seemed to me to be the very wisest thing to do.”
“By Jove, it was, my dear,” chuckled Sylvester. “It couldn’t have come at a better time. If you’d given it before, the public would only have scoffed. But as we had recovered that necklace they couldn’t afford to scoff.”
“Incidentally,” remarked the girl, “the Duchess sent us a check for five hundred pounds.”
“Good for her,” said Lord Trevitter. “I suppose you’ve – oh, of course, Jim! Anonymously, needless to say.”
“Quite right,” murmured Everest. “Well, what’s the big idea this evening?”
“How do you know I’ve got one?”
“Listen to her!” exclaimed Williamson. “Breaking off a dance at twelve o’clock and keeping us out of our beds-
“But it’s rather a puzzling one, Hugh-” interrupting him. “We shall want all our ingenuity to get home this time.”
“Splendid! Let’s have it, my dear.”
Leaning forward in her chair, slim hands clasped, Daphne Wrayne outlined the story to them. Then, as she came to the end:
“But I can add a good deal to this. It seemed obvious to me from the start that there was no double at all – it was just a ruse, carefully planned.”
“Particularly why, Daph?” queried Lord Trevitter.
“The signature, Jim, alone. In a forgery of this size your forger never makes a mistake with the signature. It’s miles too risky. Besides, assuming that it was Gorleston himself, look at all there is to support the idea. If they detect the flaw in the signature they can’t collar him – it’s merely a slip. But if it gets by, what happens then? Why the bank’s in the cart and they’re liable for carelessness.”
“You’re a true woman, my dear,” smiled Everest. “Jump to a conclusion first and fit your facts to it afterwards.”
Daphne pouted adorably.
“I hate you, Martin,” she said. “Still, I was right.”
“You’re sure?” demanded Williamson.
“Absolutely. All the same, as my legal friend here will tell you – laying her hand on Everest’s arm with a smile – ”it’s going to be very difficult to prove. However, let me first give you all the facts I have.“
She paused for a moment to light a cigarette, and they all waited eagerly.
“I sent Rayte up to interview Adwinter,” she went on, “and established pretty satisfactorily that a man wearing glasses and answering in all other descriptions to Gorleston called there recently in the name of John Elwes, of 124, Unwin Street, Bloomsbury. He wanted new glasses and got them. So to Unwin Street, where apparently John Elwes has had a bedroom and sitting-room for over a year. Now, according to his landlady he is a man of no occupation who used to come once or twice a week and stay the night there. He turned up there, on the day the forgery was committed, at two-fifteen in the afternoon – note the time – stayed a few minutes, during which he told his landlady he was going to the bank, got into his taxi saying he’d look in in a few days’ time. He has never been near there since.”
She paused a moment to relight her cigarette which had gone out. Then she went on.
“Now as regards Gorleston. Gorleston’s been stopping, as he declared, at the Golden Crown, Portworth, two miles out of Tavistock. Every morning he’s breakfasted at eight and gone out, with his lunch, till ten o’clock at night. Now on the day that this forgery is supposed to have been committed, Gorleston swears he was fishing all day. But the curious fact turns up that a ticket collector at Tavistock – who is a fisherman himself, and who had apparently seen Gorleston fishing there that week – swears that he saw him on that particular day going up to London on the nine-eleven. The booking clerk can’t help us, but it’s funny that there was only one return ticket to London issued that day. Funnier still that the return half should have been given up that evening, and funniest of all that Gorleston should have come in on that night – the only one – to say that he had had a blank day.”
“How can you fix the day, Daph?”
“It was a brilliantly fine day, Martin, and the people at the Inn remember it as strange because two other men staying there had had big catches.”
“And the trains? How do they fit in?”
“The nine-eleven gets to town at one-fifty-six. A taxi would take him to Bloomsbury at 2:15 P.M.; would get him to the bank at two-thirty – the time we know he was there. While another one would give him the three-sixteen to land him at Tavistock at eight-forty-one.”
“If you could only find the taxi man who drove him-” began Sylvester, but Daphne cut him short.
“Oh, I have, Allan! He remembers it well. Described his fare as tall and thin, wearing horn-rimmed glasses. Drove him to Unwin Street and waited a few minutes. Then to the bank, where he was given a ten-shilling note and dismissed.”
“Seems to me,” said Lord Trevitter, “that you’ve proved it up to the hilt.”
But Everest shook his head.
“Circumstantially, Jim,” he said, “it’s excellent. But it’s not a good case to go to a jury with. Brief me for Gorleston and I’ll find a hundred flaws.”
“I was afraid you’d say that, Martin,” said Daphne, a little ruefully.
“I don’t want to say it, dear, but I must. Mind you, I haven’t the slightest doubt from all you’ve told me that John Elwes has never existed, but I’m equally certain that even with the evidence you’ve got, it’s going to be hard to establish. You see, who’s going to prove that the taxi man’s passenger was Gorleston from Tavistock? It might have been John Elwes from, say, Surbiton! Frankly, it’s a very clever fraud that has got home and looks like staying home. He’s got overwhelming evidence that he was at Tavistock, and all that we can produce is a ticket collector who’s only seen him once or twice. While he, Gorleston, can produce a hundred intimate pals who will swear that he has never worn spectacles, and a thousand or two checks all bearing his accurate and original signature. No, no, it won’t do!”