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THE BAND OF THREE
(TOLD BY TYLER TATLOCK HIMSELF)

BY an extraordinary chance I was travelling one summer night from Marseilles to Paris by the 'Rapide,' when a blood-curdling crime was committed in the train.

From Avignon, seventy-five miles to the north of Marseilles, there is a long run of over seventy miles to Saint-Etienne: at least, that was the arrangement at the period I speak of. The time occupied was nearly two hours. At Saint-Etienne a ghastly discovery was made by some of the company's servants. In a first class compartment a well-preserved and even handsome woman of about fifty was found dead. She had been stabbed in the breast on the left side. She was elegantly dressed, and her things were soaked with blood. It was obvious that death must have been almost instantaneous, for she was still sitting in the corner of the compartment, her head leaning against the cushions.

In the same compartment was a man who seemed dazed and stupefied. His face was covered with blood which had trickled from a wound in his head and had saturated his shirt-front. The excitement necessarily caused by the discovery had attracted my attention and, I need scarcely say, aroused my interest, and, on making myself known to the officials, I was accorded the privilege of being allowed to see a little more than most of the other passengers, who crowded the platform, but were kept at a respectful distance from the blood-soaked carriage by a cordon of gendarmes.

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The wounded man, having been stimulated with some brandy, gave the following account of the affair: The lady was a somewhat eccentric Englishwoman known as Mrs. Flora Pennell. The man was travelling with her as her courier. He was an Italian, by name Joseph Stradvari. He had travelled a good deal about Europe with her on various occasions. On this, her last earthly journey, they had been to Monte Carlo, and had remained there for three months. Mrs. Pennell was believed to be wealthy, but had a passion for gambling, and had several times visited Monte Carlo in order that she might enjoy the excitement of the tables. She was generally very fortunate, and during this visit had won something like one hundred thousand francs. She and her courier had travelled from Nice to Marseilles with two gentlemen whose passing acquaintance she had made at the Monte Carlo Casino. At Marseilles, just be-fore the Paris train started, the same two men got into Mrs. Pennell's compartment, and made themselves very agreeable; but, soon after leaving Avignon, the courier was suddenly stunned by a blow on the head. One of the two men had struck him with what he believed was a life-preserver. But whatever it was he was deprived of his senses, and remembered nothing more until he was revived at Saint-Etienne, and he learnt to his unspeakable horror that his mistress had been murdered.

He was able to give a detailed description of the two men, and the telegraph was at once called into requisition. A small leather case belonging to the lady was missing. The courier said that the case contained her jewellery and about five thousand pounds, he believed, in French notes principally. It was her intention on reaching Paris to convert her French money into a draft on her London bankers. They were to spend a week or so in Paris, and then proceed to London, where the lady had a house in Mayfair.

These details I gathered up during the forty minutes' wait at Saint-Etienne. The carriage in which the crime had been committed was taken off the train, and the courier was sent to the local hospital to have his wound dressed. I took my | | 170 seat again in my own compartment, and the train was once more speeding north towards Paris.

An incident that comes under one's own personal observation appeals to one more forcibly than it otherwise would do. And so it was, I suppose, that I so far interested myself in the matter that I followed the particulars of the French investigations as they were given in the French papers; and when I read in some of the London morning journals a very inaccurate account of the affair, I sent a communication over my own name to the respective editors giving a plain, unvarnished statement of the facts so far as they had come under my own observation.

When three or four weeks had passed, I gathered that the French police had been unsuccessful in their endeavours to trace the criminals, but they proved pretty conclusively that the unfortunate lady had been robbed of even a larger amount than that given by Joseph Stradvari.

One morning, to my astonishment, I received a letter asking me to call at the house in Mayfair which, I learnt on the night of the crime, was the late Mrs. Pennell's London residence. The letter was signed 'Bertha Pennell.' As a matter of course I complied with the written request, and duly presented myself at the address named.

Miss Bertha Pennell was about thirty—an attractive, interesting-looking woman, dressed in deep mourning, and with a settled sadness of face that was pathetic.

I gathered from your letter in the papers, 'she began,' that you were travelling to Paris by the same train in which my poor mother was murdered, and so I thought I should like to see you. I don't know whether you are aware of it, but the French police have quite failed to throw any light on the crime. In compliance with their request I have been over to France three times to give them such information as I could about my mother. But, while they have made a great fuss and a show of doing something, I don't believe that they have given themselves very much trouble, possibly because the murdered person was a foreigner. Then, again, as there have been several robberies and | | 171 murders on that line, there seems to be a desire to hush the whole affair up. Now, I want to know if you can help me in any way?'

'But you forget, Miss Pennell, I have no locus standi,' I answered. 'This crime was committed in a foreign country.'

'True. But, while you have no right to interfere, you are surely free to conduct an independent inquiry.' Presumably I am.'

'It is probable,' she went on, that the murderer will never be brought to justice in this world. But amongst the property stolen from my mother were a medallion portrait of my paternal grandfather, Admiral Sir John Pennell, and a massive gold repeater watch, which was personally presented to him by George III. My father set great store upon these things, and, as family heirlooms, they have a value beyond price for me. The portrait was painted on ivory, and set in smoked pearls and diamonds. I would give anything if I could recover these two articles.'

I gave Miss Pennell to understand that I was willing to make an attempt to realise her wishes, and, as soon as my arrangements permitted, I went over to France, and had an interview with the police officials at Saint-Etienne. At first they did not seem inclined to be very communicative, but I managed to win their confidence, and I was informed of what had been done. They had utterly failed to trace the two men who were alleged to have travelled with Madame Pennell from Monte Carlo to Marseilles, and subsequently, at the last moment, to have joined the Paris train, and to have got into the same compartment as Mrs. Pennell and her courier. Although the train was not a particularly crowded one on the night of the tragedy, nothing could be learnt about these two men. Neither the conductor of the train nor the ticket-collectors had any recollection of two men passengers being with Mrs. Pennell when the train left Marseilles. Joseph Stradvari had furnished a full description of them, but neither at Monte Carlo nor Nice could they be identified from the description, and yet Stradvari averred | | 172 that they were in Monte Carlo all the time that he and his mistress were there.

This failure to trace the men seemed to me very remarkable, and another remarkable circumstance was that the railway company were able to account for every ticket issued at Marseilles for the Paris express on the night of the crime. Therefore, if the two men were in the train, they must have been without tickets. Needless to say that the weapon with which the murder was committed had remained undiscovered. Mrs. Pennell had been stabbed with a very long-bladed knife or dagger, which had gone clean through the heart. Great force had evidently been used. Now there was no doubt that the crime was committed after the train left Avignon, because the conductor swore that he saw Mrs. Pennell and her courier on the platform at that station. Between there and Saint-Etienne there was no stop, and as Mrs. Pennell, when discovered at Saint-Etienne, had been dead for more than an hour, the crime must have been committed almost immediately after leaving Avignon.

Having got all the information I could, I went on to Avignon, which is a town of some importance, with a population of something like fifty thousand. There, in a quiet and unostentatious way, I pursued my inquiries. The trains on leaving there, going north, do not get up any speed at first, as there is a big climb up a hill to a little place called Orange. It seemed to me, therefore, that the crime was committed before reaching Orange, as after that the speed at which the train would travel would make alighting from it a matter of such extreme risk that few would care to venture it. Now, the theory was that there were two men concerned in the outrage, and both these men had to effect their escape. That would have been comparatively easy before Orange was reached; afterwards very difficult. I therefore inclined to the belief that the woman was murdered after leaving Avignon and before reaching Orange. If two men escaped from the train, they would in all probability return to Avignon, for Orange was only a small place, and, as strangers, they would have been | | 173 conspicuous there, and some information concerning them ought to have been forthcoming. But the French police had made exhaustive inquiries, and learnt nothing. For my own part, the more I pursued my investigations the more and more shadowy did these two men become. The description of the men as given by Stradvari had been very widely circulated, but had resulted in nothing. From Avignon I went on to Monte Carlo.

Mrs. Pennell had stayed at the Hotel de France, where she was well known. She lived well, was considered to be very rich, and was looked upon as a representative type of a certain class of eccentric English people whom foreigners regard somewhat with contempt. But Mrs. Pennell's eccentricities—which appeared to be nothing more serious than a masterful and independent disposition—were easily tolerated, for she had plenty of money, and spent it liberally. She entertained a good deal at her hotel, but I could not find anyone who could even vaguely identify the mysterious men who were supposed to have done the deed. Nor was she given, according to the French police theory, to associating with anyone who would accept her hospitality. On the contrary, she stood a great deal upon her dignity, and resented any attempts of mere adventurers to get on terms of familiarity with her. She kept Joseph Stradvari in his place, and always treated him as an inferior and a menial. Nevertheless, she fully availed herself of his services in every way. He wrote her business letters, he did her commissions, paid her bills, and kept her accounts. He was clever in his way, as he spoke four or five languages, was a good accountant, and a capable manager, but he was by no means a favourite. These small details represent the amount of information I picked up ; and, having spent three weeks in a useless endeavour to strike a distinct trail, I returned to London with a certain idea taking definite shape in my mind.

Joseph Stradvari was resident in London. I learnt that from the French police. He was a native of Genoa, where his people lived, but he preferred to make his temporary | | 174 home in London, as he said he was more likely to meet with employment in the British Metropolis.

Soon after my return I made it my business to call upon him, as I wished to hear a recital of the tragic story from his own lips. I found him occupying apartments in the house of a widow lady in a quiet street near Westminster Abbey, and a young Italian woman, represented as his wife, was living with him. The French police made no mention to me of his being married.

When I first called at his residence he was out, but Mrs. Stradvari came to inquire my business. That was my first introduction to her. She was of medium height, and, like most of her countrywomen, intensely dark, with black, fiery, passionate eyes. She spoke English indifferently, but French well, and one thing that struck me as singular was she evinced almost feverish anxiety to know my business.

I fenced her questions, and occasionally got one in of my own, and drew an answer. By this means I learnt that she had only been in England for a short time. She did not like London. The climate was awful. The smoke choked her. The absence of blue sky and sunshine made life unbearable; and then the people were so heavy, so morose. Everything and everybody was so sad, so colourless. Ugh! it made her shiver when she thought of it all. But, grace a Dieu, she and Joseph were going to South America.

What were they going to South America for?

Oh, well, Joseph was tired of roaming about, and was going to take a farm in Southern America, and rear cattle. They were both very fond of country life.

It was not until three days after this interview with Mrs. Stradvari that I saw Joseph. I recognised him again immediately, although when I first met him it was under peculiar circumstances. For reasons of my own I did not tell him that I was in the train when his mistress was murdered, nor did I tell him who I was. I said I had been asked by a relative of the late Mrs. Pennell to call and see him with a view to eliciting some particulars about her | | 175 affairs. He expressed his willingness to answer anything he could, but prefaced his remarks with a shudder, and by saying it was a horrible, ghastly affair, and he should be glad to forget it all. I began by asking if he could tell me approximately how much money she had spent during the time she had stayed in Monte Carlo. He didn't know exactly, but a good deal. She was extravagant.

'She entertained liberally, did she not?'

'Very—too liberally.'

'What class of people were they?'

'Oh, generally a good class, but sometimes there were adventurers of both sexes. If you have never been to Monte Carlo, you don't know what a very mixed and very peculiar society one meets there. One has to be very careful.'

'Mrs. Pennell was perhaps not as careful as she ought to have been?'

'I was always telling her that.'

'Have you formed any theory to account for her murder yourself?'

'What theory should I form? It is all too terrible, too plain. The murderers, they travel with us. When I am dozing they knock me on the head. Then when I recover I find my dear Madame dead. Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! it is awful!'

'And having committed the crime, they jumped from the carriage?'

'How else would they escape, Monsieur?'

'Have you any idea where the train was when you were attacked?'

'It was soon after we had left Avignon.'

'Before you came to Orange?'

'Yes, without doubt.'

Why are you so confident on that point?'

'I have often travelled there. We had not left Avignon more than ten minutes, and because of a hill the train goes slowly.'

I suppose Madame's death is a great loss to you?'

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This question seemed to affect him deeply, and when he answered his voice was husky.

'I am not the same man,' he said; 'she was so good. She pay me so well. I weep for her always.'

'But, of course, a man of your standing will have no difficulty in obtaining an appointment?'

'I seek no more to be a courier.'

'Why?'

'I—I—am tired. I am sick here, Monsieur'—he placed his hand over his heart.

'Have you made enough money that you can afford to retire from your profession?'

'I am going abroad, Monsieur.'

'Abroad!'

'Yes; I go to South America. There I buy a farm.' Then you have made some money?'

'A trifle—a mere trifle. If I have not enough, perhaps I can borrow some. I don't know. Anyway, I go to America.'

This practically closed my interview with Stradvari, and, as I had no purpose to serve in prolonging it, I took my departure, firmly convinced in my own mind that I should ultimately succeed in clearing away the mystery surrounding Mrs. Pennell's death.

The day following the conversation I have recorded as taking place between myself and Joseph Stradvari I crossed over to France once more, and went direct to Saint-Etienne. The chief of the police there was a somewhat pompous and self-opinionated gentleman of the name of Souste. I approached him now with a good deal of deference, and gave him to understand that I was charged with a mission on behalf of the daughter of Mrs. Pennell, and therefore was interested in the case, and was anxious to assist him in solving the mystery, and, if possible, bringing the guilty parties to justice.

He hastened to assure me that his agents had so exhausted the subject that he didn't think a stranger and a foreigner was likely to succeed where they had failed.

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'But suppose your agents have been pursuing phantoms?' I ventured to ask.

He was not altogether pleased by the question, and demanded with a certain sharpness of tone to know what I meant, and the following little colloquy ensued:

'You believe in the story of two men having got into the same compartment with Madame and her courier at Marseilles?'

'Certainly.'

'The murder was committed after leaving Avignon?'

'Of that there is no doubt.'

'And before Orange was reached?'

'Yes.'

'You have ascertained the speed at which the train was travelling at that time, I presume?'

'Yes, about twenty-two kilometres an hour.'

And you think that two men could escape by jumping off the train while going at such a speed?'

'The risk would be great, but it could be done.'

'If your theory is correct, it was done, Monsieur Souste. Remember, the night was very dark.'

'Yes.'

'And the murderers would be labouring under excitement.'

'That is true.'

'For them suddenly to plunge into space from a train moving at the rate of twenty-two kilometres an hour, under such conditions as I have named, would be to run a risk so tremendous that I should set their chances of freedom from injury as fifty thousand to one. In the case of two men the chance of injury to one or other of them would be many times increased.'

'I fail, sir, to see the point of your argument,' remarked Monsieur Souste, with just a trifle of irritability in his tone.

'My point is this. The night being dark, the men being excited, the likelihood of jumping from a rapidly moving train | | 178 without meeting with serious injury is so small that we may dismiss it as an untenable theory.'

'But perhaps they were injured.'

'Sir, having regard to the exhaustive inquiries you have made, do you think it probable you would have failed to have heard of it if one or both of those men had been injured? Let us assume one was hurt. His companion would make for the nearest village to seek for assistance. At that hour his errand would have attracted great attention, and when the murder became known somebody would surely have come forward with information, or, failing that, your men would have heard of the incident.'

'Then what is your theory?' asked Monsieur Souste, displaying increased interest.

'My theory is that the two men are phantoms.'

'I don't quite follow you,' said Souste, with a puzzled expression on his face that was quite comical.

'What I mean is this. Two men did not get into the carriage at Marseilles or elsewhere.'

'Then who killed Madame Pennell?'

'The courier.'

'Joseph Stradvari?'

'Yes.'

Monsieur Souste gasped. The colour left his face. He drew forth his handkerchief, and mopped his forehead. He seemed to be labouring under suppressed excitement that was choking him. The suddenness with which I had sprung my theory upon him had taken his breath away, and for the time rendered him speechless. But at last he re-covered sufficiently to blurt out—

'Impossible!'

It took M. Souste some time to recover from the shock I had given him, but when he did he admitted that I had probability on my side, and it was ultimately agreed that an accredited French detective should return with me to London, and that we should lay such information before a Magistrate as would justify the issuing of a warrant to search Stradvari's baggage. The discovery of any of the late | | 179 Mrs. Pennell's property amongst his things would secure us a warrant for his arrest on a charge of murder.

This plan was carried out, and in the courier's possession there were found the gold repeater watch, the medallion portrait, many other items of jewellery, and upwards of 4,000l. in French notes, which were known to have been in the possession of the unfortunate lady at the time of her death. Stradvari had been too artful to attempt to part with any of the property while the hue and cry was hot. But he had made all preparations for going out to Buenos Ayres. There he would have little difficulty in realising on his ill-gotten gains. His arrest was promptly effected, as also that of the woman with him, and after the usual formalities they were extradited and conveyed to France. In order to save her own head the woman, under the pressure and torture of French methods of judicial interrogation, turned traitor to her partner and revealed the whole plot. She had long been acquainted with Stradvari, and she had once lived in Avignon as maid to a French lady. She had a brother, a ne'er-do-weel, who had been in the French navy, but was discharged in disgrace, after long imprisonment for severely injuring a superior officer. She and her brother, who were sorely pressed for money, urged Stradvari to kill his mistress. The crime was to be committed after leaving Avignon, and the woman and the brother were to be waiting at a certain spot agreed upon as the train passed, and they would carry a small lamp as a signal that they were there. Having secured the property, Stradvari was to toss it out of the window to his waiting confederates, and then slightly injure himself, and stick to the story of the two men having joined the train at Marseilles.

It was a clever and artfully conceived plot, and carried out without a hitch. The woman and her brother walked back to Avignon, whence they got train in a few hours to Marseilles. From there they journeyed to Paris, where the man remained while the woman proceeded to London with the stolen property to wait for Stradvari. The brother's share of the plunder was a thousand pounds, which he very | | 180 soon commenced to get rid of in riotous living in the French capital, where, after his sister's confession, he was arrested. He had been drinking so heavily, and was so saturated with absinthe, that he was a physical and mental wreck.

The trial that ensued was one of the most sensational that had occurred in France for a long time, and it is satisfactory to know that the criminals met their deserts. Stradvari was guillotined, the brother was sentenced to imprisonment for life, and the woman to fifteen years'.