Andrew Taylor - The American Boy

Mr Poe had laid the trail for an investigator to follow, the trail that led to the finger in the satchel at the dentist's. "Maria at the Fountain in St Giles is one of mine. If anyone came asking for Frant, she was to direct them to Queen-street and ensure I knew they were coming. And along you came, Mr Shield, not Mrs Johnson or a runner, as I'd been half-expecting. So we played out our charade – I thought it a neat touch to have Mary Ann give you the drawing that led you to my dentist, eh? If you had not asked to see the girl, she would have accosted you as you left. Then off you went to find the satchel with the finger."

"It was only when I saw your late father-in-law in Queen-street, when a glove fell off his left hand, that I realised what had happened."

"I needed a finger," Mr Poe said with a trace of embarrassment. "His was to hand, if you excuse the vile wordplay. I regretted the necessity of removing it, of course, but the result was so particularly ingenious that I could not resist: it suggested, did it not, that the body at Wellington-terrace was indeed mine, whoever I might be, and that Henry Frant was alive and well – and not only an embezzler but a murderer."

Having secured his own safety, as far as was possible, Mr Poe then turned his attention towards Monkshill-park. By that time he had studied Mrs Johnson's letter. She had not only made it clear that she and Mr Frant hoped to elope, and that their nest-egg was hidden somewhere in the vicinity of the ice-house at Monkshill-park and unlikely to be accessible until January: she had also dropped a broad hint about the value of the nest-egg, a sum so substantial that, as Mr Poe put it, "even the angels would have been tempted."

So Mr Poe had travelled down to Monkshill-park, arriving on St Stephen's Day. His had been the face that had peered at me through the window of Grange Cottage on the day that Edgar sprained his ankle.

"You gave me quite a fright, sir," he said reproachfully. "All in all, I did not have a happy day. You had hardly left the cottage when a chaise called for Mrs Johnson and took her away, and I knew by her luggage that she planned a visit of some length. The servant locked up and walked up to the village. I explored the garden and the outbuildings, and later I slipped into the park with the intention of discovering the ice-house. But a gamekeeper took me for a vagrant and threatened to set his dogs on me."

Later, Mr Poe learned from alehouse gossip in the village that Mrs Johnson was spending a fortnight with her cousins at Clearland, a circumstance which made a private conference with her difficult, if not impossible, to achieve. Urgent business called him back to London. But after the two weeks had elapsed, he returned.

"I hired a hack in Gloucester and rode over. You will imagine how mortified I was to find the cottage quite deserted. I slipped away-"

"Not before you were seen," I said. "I came over to the cottage myself to look for traces of you."

"If only I had known," Mr Poe replied courteously. "I should have been only too glad to renew our acquaintance."

On his return to Gloucester, however, a solution to his difficulty presented itself. The assembly at the Bell was only two days away and not unnaturally it formed the principal topic of conversation at that establishment. Mr Poe supped there on the Monday evening and discovered that a party from Clearland-court was among those expected to grace the occasion. It did not take him long to establish where the Ruispidges lodged. He witnessed their arrival on Wednesday and sent up a note to Mrs Johnson, begging the favour of an interview.

"I mentioned in my letter that I had something to communicate in relation to Mr H.F. – a matter of life and death, and discretion was of the utmost importance. I ventured to suggest we met on the morrow, but in her reply she insisted on an interview that very evening, and proposed that we meet in the gazebo at the bottom of the garden of the house where the Ruispidges lodged."

Mrs Johnson had been in a pitiable state, not knowing whether Henry Frant were alive or dead. Indeed, it was by playing upon the possibility that Frant was still alive that Mr Poe was able to induce her to co-operate with him. He told her that Frant had been attacked by a ruined creditor; that Mr Poe had acted the Good Samaritan and come to his aid; that Frant was lying dangerously ill in London, unable even to write; and that he had begged Mr Poe to fetch both Mrs Johnson and what was hidden in the ice-house.

"This was cruel indeed, sir," I said. "To play upon the poor woman's weakness."

"Upon my life, sir," Mr Poe protested, "she received only what she deserved. The letter I discovered in Mr Frant's pocket enabled me to form the opinion that Mrs Johnson was the originator of the scheme to have me killed in Mr Frant's place. Both she and Frant were ruthless and reckless, sir, and as impulsive as children; but she was immeasurably the stronger character. I can safely assert that it was she who was truly to blame for those ghastly events at Wellington-terrace."

"Did you tell her who you were?"

"Indeed I did not! That would have been the height of folly. The success of my scheme depended on the lady believing that it was I, Poe, not her lover, who had been murdered, just as she had planned. I led her to understand that I was a former associate of Mr Poe's, a man who had reason to hate him, a man who could be trusted as long as he was generously rewarded."

Mrs Johnson had needed desperately to believe him because he alone offered her the hope of finding Henry Frant. She agreed to return to Grange Cottage after the ball, not to Clearland as she had previously intended; Mr Poe would join her there to retrieve what was in the ice-house. As they talked in the gazebo, however, she became much agitated, and also very cold and, according to Mr Poe, suggested they take some refreshment. Her cloak and hood granted her anonymity, and they patronised a hostelry at a distance from both the Ruispidges' lodgings and the Bell.

"But the liquor went to her head," Mr Poe cried. "She wept on my shoulder! She became quarrelsome! She led me a merry dance! And then at last you and Mrs Frant appeared and I feared that all was lost."

Fortunately for him, Mrs Johnson had kept her own counsel, and he had come to the cottage according to plan. I myself had seen him on his skewbald mare. Mrs Johnson took a daily walk to the lake to ascertain when the men began to empty the ice-house.

"Her lover had given her a key to the door, which she had concealed in a secret compartment at the bottom of a small jewel box. Now I come to a most curious circumstance, my dear sir: I had the identical twin of that box in my own possession! But I shall return to this in a moment."

All had at first run smoothly on the night of their expedition. According to Mr Poe's version of events, their difficulties had begun only after Mrs Johnson had retrieved the valuables from the sump of the ice-house. In her excitement, she had missed her footing on the ladder and fallen to her death in the pit. To add to his troubles, he had nearly perished when he blundered into a mantrap on his way back to Grange Cottage.

"What could I do?" Mr Poe cried. "I am naturally law-abiding, and my instinct was at once to lay the matter in its entirety before the nearest magistrate. But nothing could bring my charming hostess back to life. I knew that circumstances were against me. All in all – for Mrs Johnson's sake – for the reputation of the illustrious family to which she had the honour of being connected – it seemed wiser that I should slip modestly away. My presence would have served only to confuse matters." He chuckled, as though challenging me to disagree with this interpretation of events; Mr Poe was a great tease.

"I did not have an opportunity to examine what Mr Frant and Mrs Johnson had concealed in the ice-house until I returned to London. I had expected gold – I had expected banknotes – I had expected more jewellery: and in all these I was not disappointed. I had also anticipated that there would be bills and other securities, though with less interest because I knew these would not be easy for a man in my position to realise for anything like their true value. But there is a profound irony here: the most valuable item of all was already in my possession, and it had been since November. That little box I found in Mr Frant's pocket."