The Old Man in the Corner | Page 2

and trembling fingers tying and untying it into
knots of wonderful and complicated proportions.
Having carefully studied every detail of the quaint personality Polly felt
more amiable.
"And yet," she remarked kindly but authoritatively, "this article, in an

otherwise well-informed journal, will tell you that, even within the last
year, no fewer than six crimes have completely baffled the police, and
the perpetrators of them are still at large."
"Pardon me," he said gently, "I never for a moment ventured to suggest
that there were no mysteries to the police; I merely remarked that there
were none where intelligence was brought to bear upon the
investigation of crime."
"Not even in the Fenchurch Street mystery. I suppose," she asked
sarcastically.
"Least of all in the so-called Fenchurch Street mystery," he replied
quietly.
Now the Fenchurch Street mystery, as that extraordinary crime had
popularly been called, had puzzled--as Polly well knew--the brains of
every thinking man and woman for the last twelve months. It had
puzzled her not inconsiderably; she had been interested, fascinated; she
had studied the case, formed her own theories, thought about it all often
and often, had even written one or two letters to the Press on the
subject--suggesting, arguing, hinting at possibilities and probabilities,
adducing proofs which other amateur detectives were equally ready to
refute. The attitude of that timid man in the corner, therefore, was
peculiarly exasperating, and she retorted with sarcasm destined to
completely annihilate her self-complacent interlocutor.
"What a pity it is, in that case, that you do not offer your priceless
services to our misguided though well-meaning police."
"Isn't it?" he replied with perfect good-humour. "Well, you know, for
one thing I doubt if they would accept them; and in the second place
my inclinations and my duty would--were I to become an active
member of the detective force--nearly always be in direct conflict. As
often as not my sympathies go to the criminal who is clever and astute
enough to lead our entire police force by the nose.
"I don't know how much of the case you remember," he went on quietly.

"It certainly, at first, began even to puzzle me. On the 12th of last
December a woman, poorly dressed, but with an unmistakable air of
having seen better days, gave information at Scotland Yard of the
disappearance of her husband, William Kershaw, of no occupation, and
apparently of no fixed abode. She was accompanied by a friend--a fat,
oily-looking German--and between them they told a tale which set the
police immediately on the move.
"It appears that on the 10th of December, at about three o'clock in the
afternoon, Karl Müller, the German, called on his friend, William
Kershaw, for the purpose of collecting a small debt--some ten pounds
or so--which the latter owed him. On arriving at the squalid lodging in
Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square, he found William Kershaw in a wild
state of excitement, and his wife in tears. Müller attempted to state the
object of his visit, but Kershaw, with wild gestures, waved him aside,
and--in his own words--flabbergasted him by asking him point-blank
for another loan of two pounds, which sum, he declared, would be the
means of a speedy fortune for himself and the friend who would help
him in his need.
"After a quarter of an hour spent in obscure hints, Kershaw, finding the
cautious German obdurate, decided to let him into the secret plan,
which, he averred, would place thousands into their hands."
Instinctively Polly had put down her paper; the mild stranger, with his
nervous air and timid, watery eyes, had a peculiar way of telling his tale,
which somehow fascinated her.
"I don't know," he resumed, "if you remember the story which the
German told to the police, and which was corroborated in every detail
by the wife or widow. Briefly it was this: Some thirty years previously,
Kershaw, then twenty years of age, and a medical student at one of the
London hospitals, had a chum named Barker, with whom he roomed,
together with another.
"The latter, so it appears, brought home one evening a very
considerable sum of money, which he had won on the turf, and the
following morning he was found murdered in his bed. Kershaw,

fortunately for himself, was able to prove a conclusive alibi; he had
spent the night on duty at the hospital; as for Barker, he had
disappeared, that is to say, as far as the police were concerned, but not
as far as the watchful eyes of his friend Kershaw were able to spy--at
least, so the latter said. Barker very cleverly contrived to get away out
of the country, and, after sundry vicissitudes, finally settled down at
Vladivostok, in Eastern Siberia, where, under the assumed name of
Smethurst, he built up an enormous