XX

The morning after these events had taken place, the Home Secretary, Sir Edward Law, was moving about his fine room in Whitehall. He felt restless and thoroughly ill at ease, and that, although he was a statesman noted for his calm and cool temperament.

Within a few moments from now he expected his door to open and three persons to be shown in. First there would be a solicitor named John Oram, whose name he vaguely knew as that of a man of the highest standing in his profession, and who, the year before, had been President of the Law Society. Mr. Oram was the legal adviser of Roger Gretorex, a man convicted of murder, whose execution had been fixed to take place the following morning at nine o’clock. Then Sir Joseph Molloy, the most famous advocate of the day, known by the cynically minded as “the murderer’s friend,” who had defended Roger Gretorex at the Old Bailey would accompany Mr. Oram, though his presence could not be regarded as being quite in order. However, Sir Joseph was a very old friend of the Home Secretary, and he had pleaded urgently to be allowed to come this morning. The Judge, Mr. Justice Mayhew, who had tried Roger Gretorex, was the third visitor expected, his presence at the forthcoming conference being, very properly, regarded as essential.

An odd thing had happened only the previous day in connection with this Gretorex case. Sir Edward Law had received an envelope, marked “Private,” and containing a letter signed “Roger Gretorex.” With it, a plain piece of paper bore the following words: “The enclosed was written to Mrs. Lexton only last November, after the beginning of Jervis Lexton’s illness. It reads like the letter of an innocent man.”

That touching, in its way noble, love-letter had much impressed him, and had added a note of real mystery to a story with all the details of which he was by now painfully familiar.

At last Sir Edward stopped in front of his writing-table. There, in a place by themselves, stood five white cards. Each was marked with a name and a date; and they formed a perpetual reminder that four men and one woman were now lying under sentence of death. For the date on each of those death-cards was the day on which the person named was to suffer the last penalty of the law.

The Home Secretary’s eyes became fixed on the card bearing the name of Roger Gretorex, the young man of gentle birth who had been sentenced to death at the Old Bailey for the murder of one Jervis Lexton. And, as he gazed at the rather unusual name, the Minister, in whose hands the fate of these men and one woman still reposed, asked himself, with a tightening of the heart, whether Sir Joseph Molloy might not be right after all in his belief that there had been a grave miscarriage of justice.

Sir Edward Law was a man with a high sense of duty. At first he had naturally accepted the verdict at the trial as conclusive of Gretorex’s guilt, and he had daily expected to hear the news that there had been a full confession, especially after he learnt that the condemned man had refused to enter an appeal. But he had been unwillingly impressed by Sir Joseph Molloy’s strong conviction of his client’s innocence, and now he understood that certain extraordinary new evidence was to be laid before him this morning, at what was indeed the eleventh hour.

That was why, as late as the day before, the Home Secretary had conscientiously read once more all the documents, and they were many, connected with what had been called “The Lexton Mystery.” He had felt it to be his plain duty thus to prepare himself for the critical examination which it would be his business to apply to this new evidence.

And yet? And yet, he could not imagine what new evidence could possibly be adduced of a nature strong enough to upset the apparently conclusive case built up against Roger Gretorex at the trial.

The door opened, and Sir Edward’s principal private secretary came in.

“Sir Joseph Molloy to see you, sir, by appointment. And there is another man with him.”

Thus announced, Sir Joseph Molloy, who was followed by Alfred Finch, entered the room and, after greeting his old friend, the Home Secretary, came at once to business.

“Mr. Oram is unfortunately ill, so I have ventured to bring in his stead his head clerk, Mr. Finch, who has had all the threads of the Gretorex case in his hands. Indeed, it is to Mr. Finch that I believe we owe the proof of a fearful miscarriage of justice. I hope he will be able to convince you, Sir Edward, of the innocence of his most unfortunate client, Roger Gretorex. ‘Murder, though it hath no tongue, will speak!’ ” added Sir Joseph in a dramatic tone.

The Home Secretary slightly raised his eyebrows. Sir Joseph was going just a little bit too fast, as he sometimes did, especially when he had any kind of audience. But the famous advocate realised that he was not going quite the right way to work, for quickly he changed his tone:

“I think, Sir Edward, that after you have seen the statutory declaration made by a certain person who was closely connected with Gretorex’s London life, as well as other new evidence which Mr. Finch is about to lay before you, you will agree that there is a strong case for, at any rate, the postponement of Roger Gretorex’s execution.”

And then the door of the room opened again, and the Judge who had tried the Lexton case came in.

Mr. Justice Mayhew appeared outwardly his usual calm and dignified self. But within he was full of interest, and even a certain excitement. Unlike the Home Secretary, he thought nothing of Sir Joseph Molloy’s belief in his client’s innocence; what had profoundly impressed him had been the condemned man’s refusal to appeal.

A few moments later the three men⁠—for Alfred Finch was standing a little aside, he had done his part and he knew the documents which he had brought with him almost by heart⁠—were gazing with intense curiosity at Mrs. Huntley’s statutory declaration. Each, in turn, read the pasted-up fragments of Ivy Lexton’s two passionate love-letters. They belonged to an early period of her friendship with Roger Gretorex, and each letter proposed a meeting at Ferry Place. On each occasion she had chosen an evening, or rather a night, when her husband was to be with an old friend who had a fishing place some way from London.

And then the Home Secretary took out of a drawer, and handed to the Judge, Gretorex’s own piteous letter to Ivy Lexton, the letter which had remained so long hidden in Mrs. Berwick’s desk.

It took quite a little while for Sir Edward Law and Mr. Justice Mayhew to make themselves fully acquainted with what had been laid before them. And then they looked at one another in silence for a moment. As for Sir Joseph, he wisely said nothing, though he was longing intensely to express something of the triumph and exultation which filled his heart.

“I read a full report of the case over again yesterday,” said the Home Secretary. “There seemed to me, then, no doubt as to the guilt of Roger Gretorex. But this Mrs. Huntley’s report of what she swears she saw the very day before, it is now ascertained, Jervis Lexton had his first attack of illness, does, I admit, entirely alter the complexion of everything. But I should not have attached very great importance to a statement which rests on the word of one person, who, if she tells the truth now, certainly lied before, had we not also these three letters. They prove that Mrs. Lexton has committed gross perjury.”

As the two men he was addressing remained silent, he went on: “I suppose the police made a thorough search of the flat in which Jervis Lexton met his death?”

And then all at once Alfred Finch took a hand.

“No, Sir Edward, the flat was not searched,” he answered deferentially.

“Are you sure of that?”

“Quite sure. It is not usual to institute a search unless there is cause for suspicion against a person actually living in the house or flat where the murder has been committed. Now, the first C.I.D. man, who was in charge of the preliminary inquiries, undoubtedly formed the definite opinion that Roger Gretorex had poisoned Jervis Lexton. From his point of view there was no need to go further, the more so as his view was confirmed by a conversation he had with Gretorex just after he had taken a statement from Mrs. Lexton. The inspector, a day or two later on, interviewed Mrs. Huntley. You have that first statement of hers, gentlemen, in that bundle of papers I have laid down over there, marked ‘I.’ Mrs. Huntley then perjured herself, apparently because she had made a solemn promise to Dr. Gretorex to reveal nothing as to his association with Mrs. Lexton. She was, of course, quite unaware, at the time, of the fearful injury she was doing her employer.”

The Home Secretary opened the bundle marked “I.” He read through first the notes which Inspector Orpington had made during his first interview with Ivy Lexton⁠—that interview during which she had gone out of her way to volunteer the fact that Roger Gretorex entertained for her a hopeless, unrequited passion.

Sir Edward next read most carefully again Mrs. Lexton’s two letters to Gretorex, as well as the letter which had reached him anonymously only yesterday.

“This Mrs. Lexton appears to be, in any case, a most hypocritical and abandoned woman,” he observed tartly.

Sir Joseph Molloy laughed a merry, hearty, boyish laugh, and Mr. Justice Mayhew looked round at him with an expression of shocked disgust on his stern face.

But “divil a bit,” as he said to himself, did Sir Joseph care for that.

“Do you agree,” said Sir Edward Law, looking at the Judge, “that these various documents provide sufficient reason for further inquiries?”

Mr. Justice Mayhew waited for what seemed a very long time, both to Sir Joseph and to Alfred Finch. Then reluctantly he answered:

“Yes, I think we have certainly cause here for the execution to be postponed, and for further inquiries to be made.”

“Now that we are on what I may term the right track,” exclaimed Sir Joseph, “I trust that my unhappy friend Roger Gretorex will not be allowed to languish in the cell of a condemned felon a moment longer than is absolutely necessary?”

The great advocate felt that he had now done all he could, and he was well aware that he had only been admitted to this conference by favour. And so, after a word of thanks to his old friend, and a sly look of triumph at the Judge, he went away, taking Alfred Finch with him, and leaving the Home Secretary and Mr. Justice Mayhew alone together.

Inspector Orpington looked not only serious but also very grim, as, early that afternoon, and accompanied by the same colleague as had been with him here before, he rang the bell of Mrs. Lexton’s flat.

He felt extremely incensed for, turn the facts round in his mind as he might, there was no doubt that the childishly simple-looking, lovely little woman had completely taken him in. She had certainly, as he put it to himself, bamboozled him to the top of her bent.

Yet, even now, he found it almost impossible to believe that Ivy Lexton had poisoned her husband. Even so, he had been very much startled and impressed, not so much by Mrs. Huntley’s new statement, for he knew her to be a liar. No, what had astounded him had been Ivy’s letters to Roger Gretorex. Though these two letters had been written at a time when the writer was passionately in love with her correspondent, they revealed quite a different type of woman from what everyone connected with the case had taken her to be.

Inspector Orpington had also been unwillingly impressed by the letter written by Gretorex to Ivy in evident answer to one in which she had begged him to leave off coming to see her. The date, that of November the 6th, inscribed on Gretorex’s letter, proved that she had written the note to which it had been the answer after she had started her cruel work of poisoning her husband, if indeed she had poisoned her husband. The inspector realised that the letter was what might have been called a bull point in the writer’s favour. It breathed sincerity in every line.

It seemed a long time, to the two men standing there, before the door of the flat was opened by the cook. She looked surprised when she saw the inspector standing there, and then she smiled amiably.

“Want to see Mrs. Lexton?” she inquired. And, as he nodded, “Then want will be your master! She’s away in the country, and not coming back yet awhile.”

Orpington had already walked through into the hall.

“All alone in the flat?” he asked casually.

“I am this minute. There don’t seem any reason for keeping a young girl here all day just to do nothing,” said the woman tolerantly. “She works pretty hard when Mrs. Lexton is at home, that I will say.”

“Where is Mrs. Lexton staying?”

“I’ve got it down on a bit of paper. It’s near Brighton. A place belonging to the Lady Flora something or other. I’ll go and get it.”

“Wait a sec. We’ve come on what isn’t a very pleasant job, cook. We’ve got to search this place of yours.”

“Search this place?” Cook looked taken aback. “Whatever for?”

As no answer was vouchsafed to that question, “I’ll just go and tidy my room then,” she exclaimed. “I’ve been taking things easy since Mrs. Lexton went away. Where will you begin? How about the dining-room just here?”

“All right. We’ll begin with the dining-room, and work down towards the kitchen.”

He added in a perfunctory tone, “No need to tell you to hide nothing, eh, cook?”

“There’s nothing to hide!” she exclaimed with some heat. “Everything’s always left open. Mrs. Lexton isn’t a lady to lock up her jewellery, like some do. She trusts us, and we are worthy of the trust, same as everyone is who is trusted.”

“If that’s so ’twill make our job easy. Then there’s no lockup at all?” and he looked at her rather hard.

“I keeps my box locked up, but you’re welcome to the key!”

“Don’t you be afraid. We’ll let your box alone. I meant, is there no lockup this end of the flat?”

She waited a moment. “There’s half the big hanging cupboard in Mrs. Lexton’s bedroom always kept locked, just because there’s nothing in it. She keeps all her fine clothes⁠—my, and she has got a lot, fit to stock a shop with!⁠—in a little room that no one uses, next door to the bathroom.”

“Have you got the key of that part of the hanging cupboard?”

“I’ve never even seen it. But I expect it’s about somewhere. Maybe in the dressing-table drawer.”

It takes a long time to search a room thoroughly, and by the time the two men had done with the dining-room and the drawing-room, they felt tired.

“Perhaps we’d better do Mrs. Lexton’s room next? Not that I expect to find anything there. The room in which that poor chap died was searched, and thoroughly too, though not till after the postmortem.”

Cook brought the bit of paper on which Ivy had written down her country address. Then she went off again into her kitchen.

The two men walked, in a rather gingerly way, into Ivy Lexton’s charming bedroom.

There the searchers had an easy task, for everything was unlocked, as the cook had said it would be.

But suddenly Orpington exclaimed, “Why, this must be the room where, according to that good old soul, there’s a lockup? I’d forgotten that! It’s the half of this big cupboard. Seen any keys about?”

The other shook his head.

Orpington, stepping back, looked dubiously at the big handsome inlaid piece of furniture. It was a fine bit of early Victorian cabinet work, and had belonged to the mother of the Miss Rushworth whose room this was. Though it was not in modern taste, Inspector Orpington thought it a beautiful object.

“I wonder if we’ve any call to force this lock?” he muttered to himself. “I wouldn’t like to hurt that cupboard in any way. It’s a good piece⁠—”

“I bet you I can open it all right without doing it a bit of harm,” said the other man confidently.

He went up to the cupboard. Then he did something to the lock with a bit of wire he happened to have in his pocket, and⁠—the big door swung open.

Orpington came forward quickly. He peered into the mahogany-lined cavity. It was empty, save for a shabby-looking red-leather despatch-box, on which, so faded as to be practically indecipherable, were embossed three gilt letters.

“That’s a rummy looking thing! One wouldn’t expect Mrs. Lexton would have such an object as this about,” and he lifted the despatch-box out of the cupboard.

It was surprisingly light.

“I wonder if she kept Gretorex’s love-letters in there,” said the other with a laugh. “If so, we may find something useful, eh?”

Orpington shook the box. Though it was so light he could feel that there was something in it which rolled about.

“You won’t find it as easy to open this box as you did that cupboard,” he observed, “but it has to be done.”

“The only way we could open this,” said the sergeant, decidedly, “would be with a kitchen knife, unless they’ve got a chisel.”

“You go and get what you can from the old woman.”

A minute or two later the man came back. “She’s in her room tidying up,” he said with a grin, “so I just took this without saying ‘by your leave.’ ” And he held up a short stout kitchen knife.

“You just lock that door,” said Orpington quickly.

And then, the two men, by exerting a great deal of strength, managed to prize open the hinges of the old despatch-box which had belonged to Ivy’s father. The lock stayed fast.

The inspector felt a pang of disappointment, for there only lay on the rubbed green velvet lining a lady’s fancy handbag.

And then Orpington suddenly remembered Mrs. Huntley’s sworn statement. In that statement was actually a description of the bag Ivy had had with her when the old woman had found her alone in the surgery with the jar of arsenic on the table before her. A bolster bag that “looked like mother-of-pearl.” This was the same one without doubt.

He took the odd little bag out of the despatch-box and pressed the jewelled knob⁠—to find nothing in it but a cable from South Africa. The signature, “Rushworth,” meant nothing to him, though of course he knew of the famous Rushworth Line.

Then he opened the little white leather-lined, inner pocket of the bag. It, too, was empty. A faint scent, that of a popular face powder, rose from it.

And then, suddenly, he noticed, with a queer quickening of his pulse, that a few grains of what looked like kitchen salt clung to the white leather sides.

Moistening his finger, he put it against the leather, and a few grains stuck on to his wet finger. Face powder? No, not face powder. He touched his finger with his tongue, and then the colour rushed up all over his face.

“I’d like Sir Bernard to have a squint at that!” he exclaimed, holding up the open bag.

“D’you mean you’ve found something?” the other cried excitedly.

“Hush!”

Carefully Orpington put the rather absurd-looking mother-of-pearl bolster into a big black bag which he had brought with him. Then he put the empty despatch-box back into the cupboard.

“Let’s get out of this,” he murmured, “before the old woman sees us. Can you manage to shut the cupboard as cleverly as you opened it?”

“I think I can,” said the other. And sure enough he did shut it, though it took him longer to lock up the half of the great early-Victorian cupboard than it had done to unlock it.

Orpington took a card out of his notebook. He wrote on it: “We’ve seen everything we wanted. Shan’t be troubling you any more,” and left it in a prominent place on the hall table.

Then he shut the front door rather loudly behind him, and, together, the two men went down the stairs by the side of the lift.

When they were safely out of the Duke of Kent Mansion, the inspector stayed his steps.

“I’ve got her!” he said exultingly. “Little Ivy will live to be sorry she bamboozled ‘yours truly,’ my boy!”