The Big Bow Mystery | Page 5

police would have none of him, and
restored him forthwith to his friends and keepers. The number of
candidates for each new opening in Newgate is astonishing.
The full significance of this tragedy of a noble young life cut short had
hardly time to filter into the public mind, when a fresh sensation
absorbed it. Tom Mortlake had been arrested the same day at Liverpool

on suspicion of being concerned in the death of his fellow-lodger. The
news fell like a bombshell upon a land in which Tom Mortlake's name
was a household word. That the gifted artisan orator, who had never
shrunk upon occasion from launching red rhetoric at society, should
actually have shed blood seemed too startling, especially as the blood
shed was not blue, but the property of a lovable young middle-class
idealist, who had now literally given his life to the Cause. But this
supplementary sensation did not grow to a head, and everybody (save a
few labour leaders) was relieved to hear that Tom had been released
almost immediately, being merely subpoenaed to appear at the inquest.
In an interview which he accorded to the representative of a Liverpool
paper the same afternoon, he stated that he put his arrest down entirely
to the enmity and rancour entertained towards him by the police
throughout the country. He had come to Liverpool to trace the
movements of a friend about whom he was very uneasy, and he was
making anxious inquiries at the docks to discover at what times
steamers left for America, when the detectives stationed there had, in
accordance with instructions from headquarters, arrested him as a
suspicious-looking character. "Though," said Tom, "they must very
well have known my phiz, as I have been sketched and caricatured all
over the shop. When I told them who I was they had the decency to let
me go. They thought they'd scored off me enough, I reckon. Yes, it
certainly is a strange coincidence that I might actually have had
something to do with the poor fellow's death, which has cut me up as
much as anybody; though if they had known I had just come from the
'scene of the crime,' and actually lived in the house, they would
probably have--let me alone." He laughed sarcastically. "They are a
queer lot of muddle-heads, are the police. Their motto is, 'First catch
your man, then cook the evidence.' If you're on the spot you're guilty
because you're there, and if you're elsewhere you're guilty because you
have gone away. Oh, I know them! If they could have seen their way to
clap me in quod, they'd ha' done it. Luckily I know the number of the
cabman who took me to Euston before five this morning."
"If they clapped you in quod," the interviewer reported himself as
facetiously observing, "the prisoners would be on strike in a week."

"Yes, but there would be so many blacklegs ready to take their places,"
Mortlake flashed back, "that I'm afraid it 'ould be no go. But do excuse
me. I am so upset about my friend. I'm afraid he has left England, and I
have to make inquiries; and now there's poor Constant gone--horrible!
horrible! and I'm due in London at the inquest. I must really run away.
Good-by. Tell your readers it's all a police grudge."
"One last word, Mr. Mortlake, if you please. Is it true that you were
billed to preside at a great meeting of clerks at St. James's Hall between
one and two to-day to protest against the German invasion?"
"Whew! so I was. But the beggars arrested me just before one, when I
was going to wire, and then the news of poor Constant's end drove it
out of my head. What a nuisance! Lord, how troubles do come together!
Well, good-by, send me a copy of the paper."
Tom Mortlake's evidence at the inquest added little beyond this to the
public knowledge of his movements on the morning of the Mystery.
The cabman who drove him to Euston had written indignantly to the
papers to say that he picked up his celebrated fare at Bow Railway
Station at about half-past four A.M., and the arrest was a deliberate
insult to democracy, and he offered to make an affidavit to that effect,
leaving it dubious to which effect. But Scotland Yard betrayed no itch
for the affidavit in question, and No. 2138 subsided again into the
obscurity of his rank. Mortlake--whose face was very pale below the
black mane brushed back from his fine forehead--gave his evidence in
low, sympathetic tones. He had known the deceased for over a year,
coming constantly across him in their common political and social
work, and had found the furnished rooms for him in Glover Street at his
own