Jean Stine - Legendary Women Detectives

“Have you any objection to my sitting here?”

A suave, smiling, elderly gentleman with white hair and gold-rimmed pince-nez was standing at the table, hesitating, but Gorleston answered his smile cheerfully.

“Not a bit in the world. Crowded here tonight.”

“Somewhat. I don’t know my London well. I’m from the country – North Wales. My annual trip to London. I come up once a year, I see all the sights. And–” with a smile “–I have a little opportunity to indulge my pet hobby – billiards.”

Gorleston was interested in a moment.

“Funny that,” he said. “It’s a particular hobby of mine.” And they were hard at it in a moment. Finally, when the stranger, who volunteered his name as Professor Lucas, called for his bill, Gorleston ventured to suggest that he and his new friend should adjourn for a game.

They played several games. The professor was charmed with his new acquaintance and pressed him to dine with him the following evening. Gorleston accepted with alacrity.

The following evening they met again, but soon after the meal had started the professor was claimed by three friends of his. He expressed extraordinary surprise at seeing them, introduced them to Gorleston, and insisted on their dining with him. It was a merry dinner, and a considerable amount of wine was consumed. Later on the quintet adjourned – this time it was to a pet place of the professor’s. They had a private room there, and Gorleston trounced the professor soundly. Then, in boisterous mood, he took on his three friends and administered severe hidings to each of them. So pleased was he that he sent for two magnums of champagne and after trying ineffectually to play with the rest, which he had previously chalked, he subsided gracefully onto the couch. Eventually Gorleston, hopelessly drunk, was assisted into a taxi. The professor gave the driver the address of 124, Unwin Street, Bloomsbury.

Inside the taxi the behaviour of the four men was a little strange, for they proceeded to extract a good many things from the drunken man’s pockets. They also carefully placed a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles on his face.

“Capital!” murmured the professor as he gazed at the unconscious man. “John Elwes, surely?”

“We’ll hope so,” replied one of the others. “We’ll knock up his landlady and if she greets him as such we’re home.”

“When will he wake up?”

“About eleven tomorrow,” replied the other. “I got that drug from the natives on the West Coast, and I know it backwards. Still, we’ll be on the safe side and turn up at ten o’clock tomorrow.”

One hour later the landlady, profuse in her thanks for bringing Mr. Elwes home, showed the four men out of 124, Unwin Street. In a quiet street they proceeded to remove beards, moustaches and wigs – the professor becoming Allan Sylvester and his three companions – Martin Everest, Sir Hugh Williamson and Lord Trevitter!

“It was a brain-wave of Daphne’s!” chuckled Everest as he lit a cigarette. “We know he’s Gorleston, he knows he’s Gorleston, but his landlady and Adwinter are prepared to swear he’s John Elwes. Besides, he’s in Elwes’s rooms in Elwes’s bed, all his clothes are marked with Elwes’s name, and even his cards are in the name of John Elwes. If I were on the bench,” thoughtfully, “I should have to come to the conclusion that he was Elwes.”

“Of course, the amusing thing to me,” said Williamson, “is that we’ve done it so carefully that even if he can prove he’s Gorleston, he’s in a worse mess. For that establishes definitely that he’s been runnin” a dual personality in order to defraud the bank.“

“Ali, but his attitude tomorrow morning will decide that. If he refuses to give in, we may be wrong. But he won’t. He’ll throw up the sponge. You see if he doesn’t.”

When Richard Henry Gorleston awoke the next morning he stared dazedly round the room. Then with a startled cry he leapt out of bed. But he stopped short, for at that moment the door opened and two men, complete strangers to him, came into the room, and locked the door.

“Well, John Elwes – the game’s up!”

“Wh – wh – what d’you mean? My name’s not John Elwes!

“Really! Then may I ask what you’re doing in John Elwes’s room, sleeping in John Elwes’s bed?” He took a quick step forward, picked up a coat which lay on a chair, glanced at it. “And how come you to be wearing John Elwes’s clothes?”

The other gasped.

“John Elwes’s – clothes?”

“See for yourself! Name in coat – name on the shirt – name on the collar – card-case here on the dressing-table–” he took it up and examined it, “–with John Elwes’s cards in it! If you’re not John Elwes perhaps you’ll not only tell us how you come to be in possession of all his things, but who you are and how you are here.”

For a space of seconds Gorleston glared at him like a rat caught in a trap.

“My name’s Gorleston,” he blurted out desperately. “Richard Henry Gorleston. How I got here I don’t know.”

The taller of the two men smiled pityingly.

“Come again, sonnie,” he answered. “We’re acting on behalf of the Universal Banking Corporation who are rather interested in getting hold of John Elwes for forging Gorleston’s signature to a twenty-five-thousand-pound check. Adwinter, of Queen Anne Street, will swear to you anywhere, and so will your landlady.”

Gorleston moistened his dry lips.

“It’s going to trouble you to prove I’m Elwes,” he said.

“It’s going to trouble you to prove you’re not,” laughed the other easily. “We’ve got your four pals of last night who swear that while you were drunk you let out the whole story.”

“It’s a plant!” Gorleston muttered at length. “A frame-up! You know!”

“Try that on the magistrate,” smiled the other. “Of course, it’s always open to you, when you get to Bow Street, to subpoena Gorleston himself. If there is such a strong likeness between the two of you, you might get off that way.”

“My dear Allan,” chimed in his friend sarcastically, “do think of what he’s told us! He is Gorleston. Though if he can prove it, then Heaven help him, because we can quite easily establish that he is Elwes as well. So all the bank does is to charge him with trying to obtain twenty-five thou” by means of a trick.“

“Well, hop it and call a policeman,” replied his friend. “I’m sick of all this cackle.”

But as the other moved over to the door Gorleston sprang up trembling.

“Can’t we – can’t we settle this?” he exclaimed desperately.

The man at the door smiled.

“There’s Gorleston to be considered,” he replied.

“I tell you I am Gorleston.”

The other strode back, his hands clenched.

“Yes,” he snapped, his voice like a whiplash, “and John Elwes as well! Don’t you dare to interrupt me–” as Gorleston made as if to speak. “What about the nine-eleven up to London from Tavistock on the day the forgery was committed? What about the chauffeur who drove you here the moment you arrived so that your landlady could prove that John Elwes was in town that day? What about your telling her that you were in a hurry to get to the Universal Bank to cash a check? Excellent corroborative evidence, eh, that John Elwes was a real live person? And then you drove on to the bank, gave the chauffeur ten shillings and walked in as Richard Henry Gorleston – and caught the three-sixteen back to Tavistock, picked up your fishing rod en route to Portworth and walked into the hotel and said you’d had a blank day. Want any more, you lying devil?”

But evidently Gorleston didn’t. He fell back in his chair the picture of absolute rage and despair.