The Stolen Statesman: Being the Story of a Hushed Up Mystery

“It is an assumption for which I have reasonable grounds,” was Smeaton’s answer. “There has been no bitterness in party politics ever since Mr Monkton became a conspicuous figure in the House. And we know that, while he was most popular with his own side, he was respected and liked by his political opponents.”

“Is it too much to ask you to give us the benefit of any theory you have formed, Mr Smeaton?” suggested Sheila, in her pretty, gracious way.

“With all the pleasure in life, my dear young lady. This letter goes back, in my opinion, to your father’s barrister days, when he was one of the foremost counsel in England. I asked you just now whether he was on the Equity or the Common Law side, and you wondered why I asked the question.”

“I am still wondering,” said Sheila simply.

“On the Equity side they try all sorts of cases concerned with points of law, the majority of them of a very dry and uninteresting character. I should not look in an Equity case for a defeated litigant who would turn into a vindictive enemy of the type of the writer of this letter.”

The young people began to see, as yet very dimly, whither he was leading them.

“On the Common Law side, on the contrary, we are brought into the world of human passion and emotion; one in which the issues of life or death are at stake. We will suppose that your father, in the plenitude of his powers, is retained as counsel against some adroit rogue, some swindling company promoter, for example, who up to that moment had managed to keep himself well on the right side of the law.”

They began to see light, and listened with the closest attention.

“We will say this swindler, a more than usually clever rascal, is living in luxury with his ill-gotten gains, when he makes a slip that brings him within reach of the long arm of justice. One of his victims (or perhaps several in combination) brings an action against him for the return of the money he has inveigled out of him by his lying prospectuses. He employs big counsel to defend him, but your father wins his case. The wealthy rogue is forced to disgorge, finds his occupation gone, and is reduced to penury.”

Sheila nodded to show that she was following his argument.

“I am assuming for a moment that it is a civil action, and that it disclosed sufficient evidence to justify his arrest on a criminal charge later on. I deduce that from the fact that he was not a convicted felon at the time of writing that letter, otherwise he would not have been able to write and send it to your father. The meaning of the words ‘forced me to fly the country’ indicate, in my opinion, that he was in hourly fear of arrest.”

“It seems a very feasible theory,” remarked Wingate.

“The rest is easy to understand. He nourishes a morbid hatred for the man who has been the means of menacing his liberty, and driving him from the society he polluted. He regards him as a personal enemy, not merely the instrument of the justice he has defied. While smarting under this, to his distorted ideas, sense of wrong, he pens the letter and has it conveyed to your father by some trusted confederate. As there is no stamp or postmark on it, it was conveyed by hand.”

Wingate looked at Sheila, and she returned his glance. They were both greatly impressed by the detective’s clear reasoning.

Smeaton took up the half-sheet of notepaper, and submitted it to a close observation.

“The man who wrote it is, I should judge, a keen business man of methodical habits, inclined to neatness, of a strong but not impulsive character. An impulsive man would have torn the sheet across, leaving a rough and jagged edge. It has been pressed down with the finger and thumb, and then carefully cut.”

He held the small sheet up to the light, and made further observations.

“A peculiar paper, peculiar, I mean, as to the texture. The watermark, in its entirety, is, fortunately for us, on this half-sheet. That enables us to trace where it comes from. Come here for a moment and stand beside me.”

They did so, followed his pointing finger, and saw a shield bearing a coat-of-arms, and beneath, the words: “Westford Mill.”

“That will help you,” cried Sheila eagerly.

“I hope so. It is, as I said, a paper of peculiar texture, and doubtless many tons of it have been sold. If, as I guess, it is now off the market, I shall be compelled to fix a date. If I do that, it would considerably narrow the field of my inquiries.”

After a little further conversation, Smeaton took his leave with the letter in his possession. Sheila and Wingate, when they were alone, indulged in mutual admiration of his powers of analysis and deduction.

The detective, an hour later, looked in upon Mr Newsom-Perry, with whom he was slightly acquainted, and handed him the document.

“We found this amongst the papers you sent to Miss Monkton,” he explained. “I called on the chance of finding that your client had spoken to you, at one time or another, of some man who sent him a threatening letter. I may say that we have found no allusion to it amongst the other papers.”

“Which seems to show that Monkton did not attach any importance to it himself, I should say,” remarked the solicitor. “No, so far as I am concerned he never alluded to the matter. You attach some importance to it – eh?”

“Some,” replied Smeaton guardedly.

“Of course, you have a wider experience of these things than I, and you are wise to neglect no possible clue. Still, I should think that any big counsel in extensive practice has many letters of this kind from impulsive and angry litigants, who regard him as the author of their ruin.”

Smeaton rose. “It may be so,” he said quietly. “This man was angry, but he was not impulsive; the handwriting alone proves that. He wrote the letter at white heat, but he is of a resolute and determined character.”

Even though the writer of the anonymous threat had overlooked the fact that a watermark was on the paper, the latter point was not half so easy to clear up as Sheila and Wingate expected.

To the chief firms of paper makers and paper agents in the City Smeaton, through the following days, showed a tracing of the watermark, but without result.

Nobody could identify it.

The managing director of one firm of paper agents in Queen Victoria Street declared it to be a foreign paper, even though it was marked “Westford Mill.”

“The vogue for English notepaper on the Continent has led French and German mills to produce so-called ‘English writing paper’,” he added. “And if I am not mistaken this is a specimen.”

For nearly a week Smeaton prosecuted his inquiries of stationers, wholesale and retail, in all parts of the metropolis, taking with him always the tracing of the watermark. He did not carry the letter, for obvious reasons.

One day at a small retail stationer’s in the Tottenham Court Road, when he showed the tracing to the elderly shopkeeper, the man exclaimed:

“Oh, yes! I’ve seen that before. It’s foreign. When I was an assistant at Grimmel and Grice’s in Bond Street, Mr Grice bought a quantity of it from Paris because of its unusual colour and texture. It was quite in vogue for a time, and it could only be obtained from us.”

“Then all of this particular paper came from Grimmel and Grice’s?”

“Certainly, sir, I recollect the ‘Westford Mill’ well. We supplied it to half the aristocracy of London.”

Smeaton, much pleased with his discovery, took a taxi to Bond Street, and entering the fashionable stationers’ addressed himself to the first person he saw, a young man of about twenty-five.

“Do you make this paper nowadays?” he asked.

The shopman examined it, and shook his head. “No, sir, that paper has not been sold here since I’ve been in the business.”

“And how long would that be?”

“A matter of six years or so.”

“I am anxious to make some further inquiries,” said Smeaton, after a moment’s pause. “Who is the oldest assistant in the shop?”

“Mr Morgan, sir. He’s been with Grimmel and Grice a matter of nearly fifty years, man and boy. He’s on the other side. I will take you to him.”

Smeaton was introduced to the veteran Mr Morgan, an alert-looking man, in spite of his years. Smeaton explained his name and errand, adding that he was from Scotland Yard. Morgan at once became interested. He looked at the watermark.

“I remember that paper well,” he said at length. “It had a tremendous vogue for a little time; we couldn’t get it over from Paris fast enough. Then it went as suddenly out of fashion.”

“I suppose you can’t help me with any dates?”

“Oh, but indeed I can, Mr Smeaton. I have a wonderful memory for everything connected with the business. Old Mr Grice used to say that my memory was as good as the firm’s books. The paper started just twenty-five years ago, and it ran for five years. After that, no more was made.”

Smeaton expressed his gratitude. Mr Morgan’s excellent memory would shorten his labours considerably.