Jasper County Democrat, Volume 10, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 September 1907 — Martin Hewitt, Investigator. [ARTICLE]

Martin Hewitt, Investigator.

The Case of Mr. Foggatt.

By ARTHUR MORRISON.

Published by Arrangement With Harper & Brothers.

[Concluded]

“There were other inferences to be made—slighter, but all pointing the same way. For Instance, a man of Foggatt's age does not, as a rule, munch an unpeeled apple like a schoolboy. Inference—a young man arid healthy. Why I/came to the conclu aion that he was tall, active, a gymnast and perhaps a sailor I have already told you when we examined the outside of Foggatt’s window. It was also pretty clear that robbery was not the motive, since nothing was disturbed, and that a friendly conversation had preceded the murder—witness the drinking and the bating of the apple. "As I said, after the Inquest I was finable to devote any immediate time to the case, but I resolved to keep my eyes open. The man to look for was tall, young, strong and active, with a very Irregular set of teeth, a tooth missing from the lower jaw just to the left of the center and another from the upper jaw a little further still toward the'left. He might possibly be a peraon I had seen about the premises (1 have a good memory for faces) or, of course, he possibly might not. “A few days ago I noticed a young man at Luzattl’s whom I remembered to have seen somewhere about the offices in this building. He was tall, young and* so on, but I had a client with me and was unable to examine him more narrowly. Today, finding the same young man with a vacant seat opposite him. I took the opportunity of making a closer acquaintance.” “You certainly managed to draw him out” “Oh. yes; the easiest person in the ■world to draw out is a cyclist. When you see a healthy, well trained looking man, who nevertheless has a slight stoop in the shoulders and, maybe, a medal on his watchguard, it is always p safe card to try him first-with a little cycle racing talk. I soon brought Mr. Mason out of his shell, read his name on his medal and had a chance of observing his teeth. Indeed be spoke of them himself. He had lost exactly two teeth—one from the lower jaw just to the left of the center and another from upper jaw further still toward the ft! Trivialities, pointing in the same direction, became Important considerations. More, his teeth were Irregular

throughout and, as nearly as I could remember it, looked remarkably like this little plaster mold of mine.” He produced from bls pocket an irregular lump of plaster about three Inches long. On one side of this appeared in relief the likeness of two irregular rows of six or eight teeth, minus one in each row, where a deep gap was seen in the position spoken of by my friend. He proceeded: “This was enough at least to set me after this young man, but he gave me the greatest chance of all whtfn he turned and left his apple (eaten unpeeled, remember—another important triviality) on his plate. I’m afraid I wasn’t at all polite, and I ran the risk of arousing his suspicions, but I couldn’t resist the temptation to steal It” He brought the apple from his coat pocket. One bitten side, placed against the upper half of the mold, fitted precisely, a projection ofxipple filling exactly the deep gap. The other side similarly fitted the lower half. “There’s no getting behind that, you see,” Hewitt remarked. “You’ll never find two men bite exactly alike, no matter whether they leave distinct teeth marks or not. We’ll take another mold from this apple and compare them.” He oiled the apple, heaped a little plaster in a newspaper, took my water jug and rapidly pulled off a hard mold. The parts corresponding to the merely broken places in the apple were, of course, dissimilar, but as to the teeth marks, the impressions were Identical. “That will do, I think,” Hewitt said. “Tomorrow morning, Brett, I shall put up these things in a small parcel and take them around to Bow street.”

“But are they sufficient evidence?” “Quite sufficient for the police purpose. There Is the man, and all the rest—his movements on the daj\ and so forth—are simple matters of Inquiry. At any rate, that is police business.” I had scarcely sat down to my breakfast on the following morning when Hewitt came into the room and put a long l&tter before me. “From our friend of last night," he said. “Read it.” This letter began abruptly ami urndated and was as follows; “To Martin Hewitt. Esq;: “Sir—l must compliment you on the adroitness you exhibited this evening In extracting from me my name. The address I was able to balk you of for the time being, although by the time you read this you will probably have found it through the law list, as I am an admitted solicitor. That, however, will be of little use to you, for I am removing myself, I think, beyond the reach even of your abilities of search. I knew you well by sight and was perhaps foolish io allow myself to-be drawn as I did. Still I had no idea that it would be dangerous, especially after seeing you as a witness with very little to say at the Inquest upon the scoundrel I shot Your somewhat discourteous seizure of my apple at first amazed me— lndeed, I was a little doubtful as to whether you had really

Ti ken It-writ‘WTsTfiy^rtt“Warn tag that you might 1* playing a deep game, against me, incomprehensible as the action wan to my mind. I subsequently reflected that I had been eating an apple, instead of taking the drink he first offered me. An the dead wretch’s rooms on the night he came to his merited erfd. From this I assume that your design was in some way to compare what remained of the two apples, although I do not presume to fathom the depths of your detective system. “I do not know by whom you are commissioned to hunt me, nor to what extent you may be acquainted with my connection with the creature I killed. I have sufficient respect for you, howto wish that you should not regard me as a vicious criminal, and a couple of hours to spare in which to offer you an explanation that may persuade you that such is not altogether the case. A hasty and violent temper I admit possessing, but even now I cannot regret the one crime it has led me into—for it is, I suppose, strictly speaking, a crime—for it was the man Foggatt who made a felon of my father before the eyes of the world and killed him with shame. It was he who murdered my mother and none the less murdered her because she died of a broken heart, That he was also a thief and a hypocrite might have concerned me little but for that.

"Of my father I remember very little. He must, I fear, have been a weak and incapable man in many respects. He had no business abilities—in fact, was quite unable to understand the complicated business mutters in. which he largely dealt. Foggatt was a consummate master of all those arts of*financial jugglery that make so many fortunes and ruin so many others in matters of company promoting, stocks and shares. He was Unable to exercise them, however, because of a great financial disaster in which he had been mixed up a few years before and which made his name bne to be avoided in future. In these circumstances he made a sort of secret and Informal partnership with my father, who, ostensibly albne in the business, acted throughout on the directions of Foggatt, understanding as little of what he did—poor, simple man—as a schoolboy would have done. The transactions carried on went from small to large and unhappily from honorable to dishonorable. In brief, my unhappy and foolish father was a tn ere tool in the hands of the cunning (scoundrel who pulled all the wires of the business, himself unseen and irresponsible. At last three companies for the promotion of wh'eh my faster was responsible came to grief in a heap. Fraud was written large over all their history, and. while Foggatt retired with his plunder, my father was left to meet ruin, disgrace and •Imprisonment. From beginning to end he, and he only, was responsible. There was no shred of evidence to connect Foggatt with the matter and nc means of escape from the net drawn about my father. He lived through three years of imprisonment, and then, entirely abandoned by the man who had made use of his simplicity, he died—of nothing but shame and a broken heart.

“Of this I knew nothing at the time. Again and again as a small boy I remember asking of my mother why I had no father at home, as other boys had, unconscious of the stab I thus inflicted on her gentle heart. Of her my earliest as well as my latest memory Is that of a pale, weeping woman who grudged to let me out of her sight. "Little by little I learned the whole cause of my mother’s grief, for she had no other confidant, and I fear my character developed early, for my first coherent remembrance of the matter is that of a childish design to take a table knife and kill the bad man who had made my father die in prison and caused my mother to cry. “One thing, however, I never knew: the name of that bad man. Again and again, as I grew older, I demanded to know, but my mother always withheld It from me, with a gentle reminder that vengeance was for a greater hand than mine.” “I Was seventeen years of age when my mother died. I believe that nothing but her strong attachment to myself and her desire to see me safely started in life kept her alive so long. Then I found that through all those years of narrowed means she had contrived to scrape and save a little money —sufficient, as It afterward proved, to see me through the examinations for entrance to my profession, with the generous assistance of my father’s old legal advisers, who gave me my articles and who have all along treated me with extreme kindness.

“For most of tbe succeeding year? my life does not concern the matter in hand. »I was a lawyer’s clerk in my benefactor’s service, and afterward a qualified man among their assistants. All through the flrm were careful, in pursuance of ipy poor mother’s wishes, that I should not learn the name or whereabouts of the man who had wrecked her life and my father’s. I first met the man himself at the Clifton_£lub, where I had gone with an acquaintance who was a member. It was not till afterward that I understood his curious awkwardness on that occasion. A wqpk later I called (as I have frequently done) at the building in which your office is situated on business with a solicitor who has an office on the floor above your own. On the stairs I almost ran against Mr. Foggatt. He started and turned pale, exhibiting signs of alarm that I could not understand and asked me if I wished to see him. “ ‘No,’ I replied. ‘I didn’t know you lived here. I am after somebody else just now. Aren’t you well?’ ■ "He looked at me rather doubtfully and said he was not very well. “I meet him twice or thrice after that, and on each occasion bls ipanper

gfew more friendly In a seryile, flattering and mean sort of way; a thing unpleasant enough In anybody, but doubly so in the Intercourse of a man with another young enough to be his own son. Still, of course, I treated the man civilly enough.. On one occasion he asked me into his rooms to z look at a rather fine picture he had lately bought and observed casually, lifting a large revolver from the mantelpiece: “‘You see, I am prepared for any unwelcome visitors to my little den! I He, he!’ Conceiving him, of course, to refer to burglars, I could not help Wondering at the forced and hollow character of his laugh. As we went down the stairs he said: ‘I think we know one another pretty well now, Mr. Mason, eh? And if I could do anything to advance your professional prospects I should be glad of the chance, of course. If you will drop In tomorrow evening, perhaps I may have a little proposal to make. Will you?’ “I assented, wondering what this proposal could be. I went and was received with a cordiality that even then seemed a little overeffusive. We sat and talked of one thing and another for a long while, and I began to w’onder when Mr. Foggatt was coming to the point that most interested me. Several times he invited me to drink and smoke, but long usage to athletic training has given me a distaste for both practices, and I declined. At last he began to talk about myself. He was afraid that- my professional prospects in this country were not great, but he had heard that in some of the colonies—South Africa, for example—young Jawyers had brilliant opportunities. “ ‘lf you'd like to go there,' be said, ‘l’ve no doubt, with a little capital, a clever man like you could get a grhnd practice together very soon. Or you might buy a share in some good established practice. I should be glad to let you- have £SOO or even a little more if that wouldn’t satisfy you. and’— “I stood aghast. Why should this man, almost a stranger, offer me £SOO, or even more ‘if that wouldn’t satisfy’ me? What claim had I on him? It was very generous of him, of course, but out of the question. I was at least a gentleman and had a gentleman’s self respect. Meanwhile he had gone maundering on in a halting sort of way and presently let slip a sentence that struck me like a blow between the eyes. . , . ~ »! “ ‘I shouldn’t like you to bear ill will because of what has happened in the past,’ he said. ‘Your late—your late lamented mother—l’m afraid—she had unworthy suspicions—l’m sure—it was latest for ail parties—your father always appreciated’— “I set back my chair and stood erect before him. This groveling wretch, forcing the words through his dry lips, was the thief who had made another pf my father and had brought to miserable ends the lives of both my par-

ents! Everything was clear. The creature went in fear of me, never imagining that I did not know him, and sought to buy me off—to buy me from the remembrance of my dead mother’s broken heart for £soo £SOO that he had made my father steal for him! I said not a word. But the memory of all my mother’s bitter years and a savage sense of this crowning Insult to myself took a hold upon me, and I was a tiger. Even then I verily believe that one word of repentance, one tone of honest remorse, would have saved him. But he drooped his eyes, snuffled excuses and stammered of ’unworthy suspicions’ and ‘no ill will.’ I let him stammer. Presently he looked up and saw my face and fell back In his chair sick with terror. I snatched the pistol from the mantelpiece and. thrusting it in his face, shot him where he sat. “My subsequent coolness and quietness surprise me now. I took my hat and stepped toward the door. But there were voices on the stairs. The door was locked on the Inside, and I left It so. I went back and quietly opened a window. Below was a clear drop Into darkness and above was plain wall, but away to one side, where the slope of the gable sprang from the roof, an Iron gutter ended, supported by a strong bracket. It was the only way. I got upon the sill and carefully shut the window behind me, for people were already knocking at the lobby door. From the end of the sill, holding on by the reveal of the window with one ha,nd, leaning and stretching my utmost, I caught the gutter, Swung myself clear and scrambled on the roof. I climbed over many roofs before I found, in an adjoining street, a ladder lashed perpendicularly against the front of a house In course of repair, and I availed myself of It “I have ta|R?n some time and trouble in order that you (so far as I am aware the only human being beside myself who knows me to be the author of Foggatt’s death) shall have at least the means of appraising my crime at its just value of culpability. You see the thing, of course, from your own point of view—l from mine. And I remember my mother! Your obedient

sen-ant, SIDNEY MASON.” I read the singular document through And handed it back to Hewitt “How does It strike you?” Hewitt asked. “Mason would seem to be a man of Very marked character," I said. “Certainly no fool. And, If his tale Is true, Foggatt Is no great loss to the world.” “Just so—if the tale Is true. Personally I am disposed to believe It la.” “Where, was the letter posted?” “It wasn’t posted. It was handed In with the others from the front door letter box this morning In an unstamped envelope. He must have dropped it in himself during the night.” “Where do you suppose he’s gone?” • “Impossible to guess. Some might think he meant suicide by tbe expression ‘beyond the reach Sven of your I abilities of search,' but I scarcely think I he Is the sort of man to do that.”

“Wh<t shall youTio?” A( “Put the letter in the box with the casta tor the police. Flat justttia, you know, without any question of sentiment. As to the apple/1 really think, if the police will let me, I’ll make you a present of it. it somewhere as a souvenir of your absolute deficiency In reflective observation in thia case, and look at It whenever you feel yourself growing dangerously conceited. It should cure you.” Of Mr. Sidney Mason we never heard another 'word. The police did their best, but he had left not a track be- 1 hind him. His rooms were left alpiost undisturbed, and he bad gone without anything In the way of elaborate preparation for his journey and without leaving a trace of his intentions.