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THE PRIVATE SECRETARY

THE following story—alas! too true—records one of those grim tragedies of real life the recital of which moves one to the pathos of tears, unless one is strangely emotionless. It needs no pen-dressing, no florid colouring to heighten its dramatic interest; it is best told in the plain and homely language of everyday life. Tatlock confesses that during his long experience none of the many cases he had to deal with stirred him to his depths as this one did.

A gentle lady, tenderly nurtured and brought up, married, when she was only seventeen, Richard Ernest Merford, who held a commission in the army. He was one of a large family. His father was a country clergyman, who had practised a life of self-denial and self-suppression in order to educate his children well and bring them up respectably. It was said of Richard Merford that he was one of the handsomest men the world had ever seen. Whether that was true or not matters little, for it is not with him the narrative is mainly concerned. Two children were born unto him, a girl and a boy, the latter being named Gabriel, who grew up handsome and reckless, like his father before him. Captain Richard Merford died before he had turned forty. During his short life he discounted the future in every possible way. A small fortune he had inherited was dissipated ; he alienated his friends; he blighted his career, and a scandal, in which the name of a lady of title was involved, compelled him to resign his commission. Then followed a few brief years of mad recklessness on the turf, until, wrecked with disease and broken-hearted, he sank into a dishonoured grave.

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Mrs. Merford, who was a sweet woman, had borne with exemplary patience shame, contumely, and misery, struggling with heroic devotion to screen her girl and boy from the father's blighting influence. Fortunately for herself she had had a small income settled upon her, and so bound with the bonds of legal strictness that it was completely out of her husband's reach. When he died she continued to be-stow unremitting care and attention on her children; and particularly was she mindful of the boy, who was as the apple of her eye; her soul's delight. Gabriel spent some years at a public school, and then went up to Oxford; but he disappointed his tutors, and left without taking honours, and with a somewhat unsavoury odour clinging to his name. Not that he had committed, so far as was known, any grievous fault; but he was credited with many youthful follies which greatly pained all who were interested in his welfare.

On leaving college considerable influence was brought to bear by his mother's relatives, and after a few months' travelling abroad he secured an appointment as private secretary to a member of Parliament, who was immensely wealthy. For three or four years he seems to have fulfilled his duties to the entire satisfaction of his employer and with credit to himself. His employer, whom we will refer to for the purpose of the story as 'Mr. Grantly,' took great interest in him, and indicated his desire to promote his interests in every way. But heredity was strong in the young man, and some of the vices which had ruined and destroyed his father began to manifest themselves, and led him into debt. In a moment of desperation he confessed his errors to Mr. Grantly, who generously, on receiving his solemn promise to reform, paid off his liabilities, and rein-stated him in his estimation.

Mr. Grantly had three daughters, the youngest, Virginia, being about nineteen. She was a girl of surpassing beauty and high accomplishments. As might have been expected, between this beautiful girl and her father's hand-some secretary a strong attachment sprang up. Mr. Grantly, | | 243 having full confidence in young Merford, treated him almost as one of his family, and, as it chanced, the secretary and Virginia were thrown much together. She was a very clever linguist, and as her father had a large foreign correspondence she attended to his foreign letters, the consequence being that she and Merford saw a great deal of each other.

It was to be revealed at a later stage that he frequently urged her with passionate pleading to go through a secret marriage with him. But against this deception she set her face with stubborn determination; and no less passionately she prayed him to go boldly to her father in an honourable, straightforward way, and ask his permission to marry her. Merford declined for some time to do this, much to the young lady's amazement, for she was very sanguine that her father, who loved her devotedly, would not stand in the way of her happiness. Nevertheless Merford maintained a stubborn obstinacy, and used every argument he could think of to bring her to his way of thinking. Virginia, however, was too dutiful and loyal, and had too high a regard for honour and truth, to deceive her father; and when Merford realised this, and he had exhausted his arguments, he sought a private interview with Mr. Grantly, and nervously and excitedly declared his passion for Virginia, and craved per-mission to marry her.

Mr. Grantly, who had never suspected anything, was quite taken aback, and had hard work to conceal his anger and annoyance. As was only natural in the case of a man of his standing and ability, he said that he would commit himself to no hasty decision one way or the other. In the meantime he would talk to Virginia, and ascertain her feelings in the matter, for he had her happiness deeply at heart. Subsequently he made known his views to his secretary, and they are best expressed, perhaps, in his own words.

From what I have seen and heard, you have succeeded in entirely winning the trust and love of my daughter, and though, if I had been referred to at an earlier date, I should resolutely have set my face against your becoming my son- | | 244 in-law, I fear that matters have gone too far now, and I therefore countenance an engagement between you, subject to the following conditions:—You shall pledge me your solemn word of honour that for two years you will hold no communication with her. During that time she shall live out of England with some relatives. If at the end of the two years you are still both of the same mind I will sanction your marriage, and will liberally dower my daughter, so that you may have no financial anxiety as regards the future.'

Merford expressed himself as satisfied with the conditions, and gave the necessary promise to refrain from making any attempt to communicate with Virginia during the stipulated time. Twelve months later Mr. Grantly died somewhat suddenly after a trying and exhausting Parliamentary session. When his will became known to the family it was found that he had added a codicil, embodying in effect the verbal conditions he had made with Merford, and setting forth that if at the end of the two years Virginia was still desirous of becoming the wife of Merford, and subject to his keeping his promise not to communicate with her, he was to receive from the estate the sum of twenty-five thousand pounds, and provision was made for settling three thousand pounds a year on her for life, and her children, in the event of any being born, were not forgotten. Indeed, Mr. Grantly's generosity and foresight were displayed in a very marked manner. Until the expiry of the stipulated two years Merford was, in the event of the testator's death, to continue to act as secretary, and was charged with the duty of collating, sorting, and arranging the deceased's papers.

The foregoing may be taken as a sort of prologue to what follows. Mr. Grantly had been in his grave about six months, when Tyler Tatlock was called upon to investigate the circumstances attending the death of a young woman, known as Mrs. Sherrington, and her daughter, Ada, aged four and a half. For some time Mrs. Sherrington and her child had occupied a picturesque but lonely little cottage standing in about an acre of garden near Maidenhead. Mrs. | | 245 Sherrington led a very secluded life, and had aroused the curiosity of the neighbourhood, for nothing was known about her, and she seemed determined that nothing should be known, for she visited no one, and did not encourage anyone to call upon her. She kept no servant, but twice a week a Mrs. Rogers, a charwoman from Maidenhead, went to the cottage to do the washing and help to clean up.

One morning she went as usual—it was Friday—and she found the house shut up. She knocked and waited and waited, and knocked again; but, getting no response, she became alarmed, because she knew that Mrs. Sherrington was expecting her. So she appealed to a rural constable who was passing, and expressed her fears that something was wrong. He was induced to obtain a ladder, which he reared against an upper window that was unfastened. Lifting the window, he got in, reappearing a few moments later with the startling information that Mrs. Sherrington and her child were lying on the bed, both dead, and he hurried off to make the affair known in the proper quarter. A doctor who was called in said the woman and child had been dead many hours, and, as they had both vomited very much, he was of opinion they had both partaken of some poisonous food. Of course a coroner's inquest was held, and the poison theory confirmed. In a dust-bin at the back of the house a broken pie-dish containing some remnants of a rabbit pie was found, and, as the medical evidence proved that the dead woman and child had partaken of rabbit pie shortly before death, the contents of the stomachs and the remains of the pie, which had been partly devoured by a cat, which was lying dead under a hedge a few yards away, were subjected to analysis, and the fact revealed that the pie was poisoned with arsenic, and mother and child had died from arsenic poisoning.

Here at once was a first-class sensation, and it flew on the wings of electricity from John o' Groat's to Land's End. It was just the kind of mystery the public delight in, and mystery it remained for some time. Adjournment after adjournment of the inquest became necessary, until the | | 246 difficult analytical work had been completed, and when that was done there was no room to doubt that mother and child had died from eating rabbit pie which was almost saturated with arsenic. Then, of course, arose the question, Who put the arsenic in the pie?' For the time being that question was more difficult of answer than the most complicated of any of Euclid's problems. No arsenic was found in the house. Mrs. Rogers was almost the only witness. She testified to the secluded life Mrs. Sherrington lived. She never heard of arsenic being used for any purpose in the house, and did not consider it possible that her mistress could have put it in the pie wilfully. Mrs. Sherrington always seemed very happy, and was passionately fond of her child. Mrs. Rogers was aware that on two or three occasions a gentleman visited her mistress, but Mrs. Rogers had never seen him. Sometimes amongst the clothing she washed at the cottage she had found a gentleman's shirt and collars.

Jim Schofield was the next witness. He was a farm labourer, an unlettered and ignorant man, but with a certain native shrewdness and considerable intelligence. The cottage occupied by Mrs. Sherrington stood on his master's land. The farm fields surrounded it, and Jim worked in those fields early and late. He knew Mrs. Sherrington, because he kept her garden tidy, for which she often gave him a good square meal and a shilling or two. He had occasionally seen a gentleman go to and leave the house. On the day that Mrs. Sherrington and her little girl died it happened that Jim was working in the field which was separated from Mrs. Sherrington's garden by an oak paling only. Between three and four in the afternoon he saw the gentleman open the wicket gate, go up the garden path, and knock at the door of the house. In a few moments the door was opened. Mrs. Sherrington and the little girl appeared, and embraced affectionately the man, who in turn embraced them. The witness remained working in the field in full view of the cottage until seven o'clock, but did not see the man leave. A few days before his master and some friends had been out rabbit-shooting. | | 247 Three of the rabbits shot were sent to Mrs. Sherrington, and Jim took them. He never saw her again after that.

This was about all the evidence there was to offer, and when everything had been weighed and examined it was made evident beyond all dispute that the woman and child had died from eating rabbit pie poisoned with arsenic, but there was nothing to prove how the arsenic got into the pie.

Of course this was the only verdict that could be returned under the circumstances, but the police were fully convinced they were face to face with a mysterious case of murder, and they enlisted Tatlock's services without delay. He states that he had rarely had anything submitted to him which looked so hopeless from the start as this case did. A careful search of the premises failed to bring to light any document or letter calculated to be of use. Mrs. Sherrington either had no correspondents or destroyed her letters as soon as read. But in the pocket of the dress she had worn on the day she died was a note written on half a sheet of note paper. It was without date or address, and was worded as follows:—

Now it happened that it was between three and four on a Thursday that Jim Schofield saw the gentleman he had seen on two or three occasions go into the cottage. The deduction, therefore, was that the 'gentleman' and the writer of the note were the same. In a drawer in Mrs. Sherrington's bedroom, amongst a quantity of linen, a gentleman's white shirt was found, marked in one corner with the initials 'G. M.' These things and a detailed description of the mysterious visitor, the description being supplied by Jim Schofield, were all that Tatlock had to guide him in the initial stage of the inquiry. He ascertained that Mrs. Sherrington had rented the cottage two years previously to her death from a farmer named Archibald Gifford, the rent being twenty pounds a year, | | 248 payable quarterly. The instalments were paid with great punctuality and regularity. In Maidenhead was a grocer's shop kept by John Hunter. At this shop Mrs. Sherrington had been in the habit of obtaining her supplies of groceries. Once she ran up an account of ten pounds odd, which was not forthcoming at the time it was expected, and, two or three applications having failed to get a settlement, John Hunter gave the debtor peremptory notice that if the amount was not forthcoming by a certain date he would pass the matter into his solicitor's hands. The result was that before the date came round Mrs. Sherrington presented a cheque in payment. The cheque was for fifteen pounds. It was drawn in favour of Ada Sherrington, and it was signed Alfred Smalley. The grocer cashed the cheque, deducting his account, and handed the balance to his customer. It was a crossed cheque, and he paid it into his bank in the usual way.

Now Tatlock noted that the brief letter found in Mrs. Sherrington's pocket and signed 'G.' had, according to the post mark on the envelope, been posted in Paddington, and the branch bank on which the cheque was drawn was also in Paddington. This to him was significant. It was suggestive that the drawer of the cheque and 'G.' both lived in Paddington; and was there not a probability, he argued, that 'G.' and Alfred Smalley were one and the same person? Inquiries at the bank elicited the fact that Alfred Smalley had had a small current account there for about two years. They did not know what or who he was, but, according to his address in their books, he lived at 27 Ebury Street, Pimlico. This proved to be a house kept by a woman who took in lodgers. She received letters from Alfred Smalley, who had once lodged at her house, though not in the name of Smalley, but Gabriel Merton. The initials marked on the shirt were 'G. M.' The lodging-house keeper further informed Tatlock that her late lodger had, she believed, been living at the house of Mr. Grantly, the member of Parliament. She did not know what Merton's occupation was, but she thought he was 'a sort of a superior kind of servant—a gentleman's wallet or something.'

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Following up the clue thus obtained, Tatlock proceeded to the house of the late Mr. Grantly, and learnt Merton's true position; but Merton had suddenly disappeared a fort-night ago, leaving word that he had been called to the death-bed of a relative, and would return in a few days. But he had not returned, and had sent no word of explanation. The late Mr. Grantly interested himself in farming, and carried on a model farm in Essex. At this farm large quantities of arsenic were used for sheep. Merton had recently spent much time at the farm.

The gathering up of these facts placed Gabriel Merton under grave suspicion, which was greatly strengthened when it was ascertained that he had closed his account at the bank and removed all his things from Mr. Grantly's house. If he were honest and guiltless why had he gone off so strangely and tried to destroy his tracks? Of course Tatlock learnt the story of Merton's life, for it seemed to have been pretty well known to the late Mr. Grantly and members of his family. Merton's description and the description of the strange man who was in the habit of visiting Mrs. Sherrington were identical, and all over the country this description was circulated. A little later it was announced to Tatlock by a firm of shipowners that a young man answering the description in every way, though known to them as William Smith, had sailed in a ship of theirs called the 'Somersetshire' for Melbourne. He had booked a saloon passage, and the date of his sailing tallied with the date of Merton's leaving Mr. Grantly's house. The 'Somersetshire' was a sailing ship, but a fast one, and she had been gone three weeks.

Tatlock laid all the facts as he had gathered them up before the authorities, but they did not seem able to make up their minds as to whether or not Gabriel Merton, Alfred Smalley, and William Smith were one and the same. But Tatlock never wavered nor doubted. He was convinced, and urging the necessity for action on the part of the authorities, he was at last furnished with a warrant of arrest and commissioned to start in pursuit. A stern chase is a ong [sic] chase, and Merton had got a good start; but Tatlock | | 250 secured a berth in a P. and O. boat from Southampton for Alexandria. Thence overland to Aden (it was long before the opening of the Suez Canal). At Aden he got a trading steamer just starting for Melbourne. She was a slow boat, and the passage was long and stormy.

On arriving at Melbourne he learnt that the 'Somerset-shire' had arrived weeks ago, discharged her cargo, and gone to Newcastle, on the Hunter River, to load coal for China. Of course her passengers had dispersed far and wide, and for the moment the trail of William Smith was lost. But Tatlock found that a Mr. Collins, head of the firm of Collins & Co., printers, Melbourne, had come out in the 'Somersetshire,' and to him Tatlock went in the bare hope of picking up a thread. Nor was he disappointed. Collins had become somewhat interested in William Smith, who seemed to hold himself aloof from every one. But Collins succeeded in winning his confidence to some extent, inasmuch as he asked many questions about Australia, and particularly how best to reach some gold diggings in the Braidwood district of New South Wales. After going on shore he dined, by invitation, two or three times at Mr. Collins's, and finally called to say good-bye, as he was off on a bush tramp, and was going to make his way to the diggings he had spoken of, as he intimated that he had a cousin there.

Having thus got on the trail again, Tatlock was speedily following it, accompanied by two experienced men of the mounted police force. It was a rough and trying ride through some of the finest of Australian scenery, which, at any other time, would have filled Tatlock with delight. But now he was so intent on running his quarry down that he had little thought for anything else. At last, after rapid travelling, they crossed into New South Wales, reached Braidwood, and learnt that a man answering the description of the one wanted had gone to a very wild spot called Naraga, where some quartz and alluvial diggings were being worked. Forth the trackers went, and, not without some difficulty, reached their destination, which, up to a recent | | 251 period, when some prospectors had discovered gold, had been one of Nature's unbroken solitudes. William Smith was found at last, and from a portrait Tatlock carried he had no difficulty in recognising him as Gabriel Merton. When the warrant was read over to him he seemed aghast, but quickly recovering himself vowed and declared that the suspicion against him was infamous.

Protestations, however, were useless. He was arrested, deprived of all weapons, and escorted under a watchful guard to Sydney. A week later he was being conveyed back to England as a prisoner. Tatlock found him an interesting, intelligent, and clever fellow, and did what he could and dared to ameliorate the harsh conditions of his position as a prisoner charged with a dreadful crime. The prisoner's behaviour was all that could be desired. He gave no trouble, and conformed without a murmur to the rules to which he was subjected. Without being sullen he was silent and reserved, and seemed to have resigned himself to his fate.

When the vessel, which was bound to Liverpool, reached the mouth of the Mersey all hands were startled by the discovery that the prisoner passenger had strangled himself in his cabin. He left a document for Tatlock, in which he told the terrible story of his life, and acknowledged that he was Gabriel Merton and had been known as Alfred Smalley. When at Oxford he had made the acquaintance of a publican's daughter, and secretly married her. He placed her under an oath to keep the marriage secret until he gave her permission to divulge it. At his request she went to live with her child at the cottage near Maidenhead. As was inevitable, his folly came home to him, and when he found that but for this obstacle he might have married Miss Grantly and a fortune he was maddened, and in a moment of desperation he resolved to rid himself of his wife and child by the awful expedient of murder. At first he did not realise the enormity of his offence. When he did he was overwhelmed, and, unable at last to withstand the fearful strain and suspense, as he gathered that no effort was to be | | 252 spared to bring the crime home to the guilty person, he resolved upon flight, the end of which was to be the dark tragedy that closed his career in sight of his native land. Had he been stronger-minded, more self-reliant, and a clever criminal, he might have managed to escape earthly punishment. As it was, his sin found him out, and the cruel deaths of his wife and daughter were revenged. In his confession he stated that he had obtained the arsenic at Mr. Grantly's farm, and had availed himself of the opportunity afforded by the temporary absence of his wife from the cottage to poison the pie which she had specially pre-pared, and which stood upon the table ready for supper.

The revelation of his awful wickedness killed his aged mother, who sank beneath the shock ; and the sweet girl who had believed him true and honourable, and had loved him passionately, renounced the world and its ways and went into a convent.