The Old Man in the Corner eBook

Baroness Emma Orczy
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 258 pages of information about The Old Man in the Corner.

The Old Man in the Corner eBook

Baroness Emma Orczy
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 258 pages of information about The Old Man in the Corner.

Miss Polly had to confess, however, that it had never struck her in that light.

“Surely a man who had succeeded in building up an immense fortune by his own individual efforts, was not the sort of fool to believe that he had anything to fear from a man like Kershaw.  He must have known that Kershaw held no damning proofs against him—­not enough to hang him, anyway.  Have you ever seen Smethurst?” he added, as he once more fumbled in his pocket-book.

Polly replied that she had seen Smethurst’s picture in the illustrated papers at the time.  Then he added, placing a small photograph before her: 

“What strikes you most about the face?”

“Well, I think its strange, astonished expression, due to the total absence of eyebrows, and the funny foreign cut of the hair.”

“So close that it almost looks as if it had been shaved.  Exactly.  That is what struck me most when I elbowed my way into the court that morning and first caught sight of the millionaire in the dock.  He was a tall, soldierly-looking man, upright in stature, his face very bronzed and tanned.  He wore neither moustache nor beard, his hair was cropped quite close to his head, like a Frenchman’s; but, of course, what was so very remarkable about him was that total absence of eyebrows and even eyelashes, which gave the face such a peculiar appearance—­as you say, a perpetually astonished look.

“He seemed, however, wonderfully calm; he had been accommodated with a chair in the dock—­being a millionaire—­and chatted pleasantly with his lawyer, Sir Arthur Inglewood, in the intervals between the calling of the several witnesses for the prosecution; whilst during the examination of these witnesses he sat quite placidly, with his head shaded by his hand.

“Mueller and Mrs. Kershaw repeated the story which they had already told to the police.  I think you said that you were not able, owing to pressure of work, to go to the court that day, and hear the case, so perhaps you have no recollection of Mrs. Kershaw.  No?  Ah, well!  Here is a snapshot I managed to get of her once.  That is her.  Exactly as she stood in the box—­over-dressed—­in elaborate crape, with a bonnet which once had contained pink roses, and to which a remnant of pink petals still clung obtrusively amidst the deep black.

“She would not look at the prisoner, and turned her head resolutely towards the magistrate.  I fancy she had been fond of that vagabond husband of hers:  an enormous wedding-ring encircled her finger, and that, too, was swathed in black.  She firmly believed that Kershaw’s murderer sat there in the dock, and she literally flaunted her grief before him.

“I was indescribably sorry for her.  As for Mueller, he was just fat, oily, pompous, conscious of his own importance as a witness; his fat fingers, covered with brass rings, gripped the two incriminating letters, which he had identified.  They were his passports, as it were, to a delightful land of importance and notoriety.  Sir Arthur Inglewood, I think, disappointed him by stating that he had no questions to ask of him.  Mueller had been brimful of answers, ready with the most perfect indictment, the most elaborate accusations against the bloated millionaire who had decoyed his dear friend Kershaw, and murdered him in Heaven knows what an out-of-the-way corner of the East End.

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
The Old Man in the Corner from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.