EBONY TORSO

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 September 1939, Page 12

EBONY TORSO

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.

COPYRIGHT.

(By

JOHN C. WOODIWISS.)

CHAPTER XI. (Continued). He looked at the serious faces before him and cleared his throat before going on. “I knew nothing of my father until I examined some of my mother’s papers, and I can tell you it was a pretty ghastly shock.” “Must have been,” agreed the Commissioner sympathetically. “That started me thinking, gentlemen. I made a few enquiries and found that, compared to me, my brother was living in the lap of luxury; educated at Eton and Oxford, and amply provided for, while I was little better than a tramp. That made me sore, and I took an oath that I’d get my proper share one day! With that idea firmly fixed in my brain it wasn’t long before. I managed to work my passage to England and start hunting for my kind and generous father.” “Was that before the War?” asked Carlingford. “Yes,” said the prisoner.' “I found the old man was dead, and that his other son, who was a few years my senior, had entered the Church and was a curate at St Luke’s . . so I looked him up and told him about myself. Now here’s the point, gentlemen; the vicar was a fanatic as well as a saint. He argued that I’d enough to live on and was convinced he must share his inheritance with the poor rather than with his own flesh' and blood! But I was determined to force justice out of him. I’m not going to mince matters. T blackmailed him for every copper I could, and from that time on I lived a bit more like my rich father’s son.” “Were you still in London?” asked Hopton. “No,” replied the sham padre. “I was only too glad to get back to Australia, for Galesbourne was too absorbed in his parish work, and Smith —who had been my father’s servant, and now working for him —was- particularly nasty to me and did everything in his power to make mischief between me and my brother. “Oh, so Smith was with him >as long ago as that?” Sir Mallard interjected. “Yes,” agreed the prisoner. “He was a widower, vzith a daughter called Gertrude, and she was the only decent one of the lot as far as I was concerned. She was very good to me and eventually we fell in love with each other and got secretly married, much to her father’s fury.” “So Mrs Galesbourne, alias Mrs Clara Abershaw, was Smith’s daughter?” asked Sir Hallard, screwing his monocle more firmly into his eye. “She was, poor darling,” returned Galesbourne softly. “And a finer wife no man ever had in this wide world, sir. After our marriage, my brother agreed to make me a proper allowance, provided I kept out of the Old Country; you see, it was awkward having me about, for. by some trick of fate,, we were extraordinarily alike in looks and voice.” ,

“I see,” remarked Hopton. “So, back to Australia we went, Gertie and I, and a pretty hard struggle we had, until I thought of going into the music hall business. Galesbourne would conveniently forget about us, or else Smith saw that we never got the letters, anyhow, he never paid up unless pressure was used; so we roughed it through all the littletowns of Australia until ’we dropped across a poor little hunchbacked monstrosity called Dave Reynolds, or ‘Red Dave’ as he was known in the business, because of his complexion.” “The Human Ape- ” asked Carlingford.

“Yes, Inspector,” agreed the crook with a wan smile. “The poor little devil was an eccentric character, but one of the finest trapeeze artists I ever saw, and he somehow took to me from the first. We toured the country as the ‘Human Ape Act,’ and for a time our show coined money.” “With Red Dave disguised as a gorilla?” questioned the Commissioner. “Exactly, sir. Things went swimmingly, until one flight our poor little star-turn fell off a slack wire at a hall in Melbourne and knocked himself unconscious. We put him to bed in our lodgings, but. when he recovered, we found he'd injured his brain in some way and had fits of violent rage, when I was the only person who could manage him.” “You said he was not quite normal before the accident ■ and, I suppose the jolt sent him right off the deep end?” Sir Hallard suggested. “I suppose so,” agreed the prisoner. “The doctors wanted to certify him and put him away; but I knew that once he was out of the bill, our act was gone. Besides, I didn’t agree that he was really mad, -and I'd always been able to control him, even at his worst; so my wife and I smuggled him away, and got him out of Australia disguised in his gorilla skin, and packed in a big wooden cage." "Yes, I know that,” Hopton broke in. “You travelled on the ‘Pacific.’ ” “That’s right, Inspector,” Galesbourne assured him. “We managed to get away quite all right, and smuggled Dave ashore at Tilbury. I hid Dave with an old pal of mine. Ikey Frost, the animal dealer —”

“Oh, yes. I remember him all right! - ' chuckled the Scotland Yard man. “And then I made straight for St Luke's Vicarage to get some overdue money from rny benevolent brother. Luckily I found him alone in the house, and we had a bit of a dust up. He said he had no more money, to give me; all he had, had been given away. He couldn’t bear to see the desperate need in the parish. That made me see red, and I snatched up a chair and In my rage hit him. He never got up again, gentlemen. I'd killed him. though God knows I didn’t mean to do it! Eul soon my fury had all gone, and I got windy—horrified of the ccn-

sequences of what I’d done.” “So' you took his place,” remarked Hopton. “Impersonated him, eh?” "We were almost exactly alike, and it seemed the obvious thing to do,” nodded the prisoner wearily. "From that moment, I became a desperate criminal—fighting to escape the gallows with every sinew in my body. Now, I must tell you of the ghastly thing I had to do with my" brother’s body—’ he continued after a pause. “I think, perhaps, I can save you that unpleasant part of the- story,” suggested the Detective. “We know about Ikey Frost’s cellars—the starving animals and the furnace for burning bones.” “In that case I needn’t go over that horror again, remarked Galesbourne in obvious relief. “I couldn’t have done it, if I hadn t been mad with terror of the police. Having got rid of Parson Galesbourne, I settled down in his place.”

“But surely old Smith knew the difference between you and his master?” queried the Commissioner. “Why didn’t, he give you away?” “He didn’t want to hang his son-in-law, and possibly his daughter as well. Besides, I pointed out that the mischief he made between me and my brother was partly the cause of his master’s death. ' Of course, he spotted the difference immediately, but I was able to threaten him into silence, and when he got too difficult, I used personal violence. That accounted for the bruises you saw on his wrists, inspector.” “I see,” said Hopton. ' “The next step was to prevent anyone else discovering my secret,” continued .the sham parson. “And as I knew next to nothing about the vicar’s duties or parishioners, I had to stage a nervous breakdown with loss of memory. In this I was helped, quite unsciously by that smug idiot, Dr Gravely. As the Vicar was a celibate, I was obliged to install my wife in rooms at Kensington as Mrs Clara. Abershaw. We could only meet occasionally, and was the hardest part of the whole thing.” * .■ He paused and Sir Hallard poured out a glass of water and passed it over to him.

“Thank you, sir,” he smiled, taking it and drinking eagerly. “I’m sorry to keep you so long, but I’m nearly at the end of my story now.” “That’s all right, take your time,” nodded the Commissioner, kindly. “We’re in no particular- hurry.” “Then I’ll get on, answered the prisoner. “I did a bit of calling in the parish to lend colour to the sham, and was just settling down, as I thought, in safety, when, one awful day, I was recognised by a man who’d known me in the old days—Freddy Scutt.” “So that’s where Scutt, comes into the story?” cried Carlingford. “He knew you were the Vicar’s brother?” Hopton asked. i “I was fool enough to tell him during my first visit to England when I thought him my friend,” replied the prisoner, a fierce look in his eyes. “Well, as I said before, he noticed the scar again, and threatened me with the police.” “I see,” nodded Carlingford. “Up to his usual blackmailing games, eh.?” “That’s it, Inspector,” agreed the other, taking another sip of water. '“From that time on my life became a regular hell . , . with an endless demand for money, in larger and larger sums, which Scutt put down his throat in drink. After a bit, I got sick of this racket and refused to pay, and it was about that time that I got a brain wave. Scutt had gone crazy on this Spiritualism game, and used to tell fortunes for money; so I got my wife to call and consult him . . fortunately she hadn’t met him before . . under the name of Mrs Abershaw, so as ..to keep an eye on him. You know the stunt we worked with that carving. ‘The Ebony Torso,’ and how we tried to scare him into such a state of drunken panic that we could get him locked up and out of harm’s way in a lunatic asylum.” “Yes, we ,know that,” Sir Hallard assured him.

“Well, my wife put over her stuff magnificently, poor dear, for she was a born actress. But the only effect the sedre 'had was to make Scutt even more desperate for drink. I wouldn’t go near him, so he sent his wife, who, of course knew nothing of- his blackmailing games, to ask me to call and see him. I couldn’t refuse to go, for I was terrified of what he might do, and it suddenly struck me that I might be able to make use of all this wild stuff he’d been saying, about the Ebony Torso, causing his death, to get rid him, once and for all. When I got to his bedside he demanded money, and I promised to go over to the Vicarage for more. I carefully left the front door of his house ajar, dashed back and got hold of poor little Dave, who lived in a room at the top of the house, told him to bring one of his gorilla gloves, and took him back with me to Scutl’s, hidden under a rug in the back of my car. “I next smuggled him upstairs under rny long black cloak, and tapped at the door. Scutt answered it, and I waited till he’d got back into bed again before entering the room with Dave crouching behind me. Mrs Scutt, by the way, had taken the opportunity of my being with her husband to -go out and do some household shopping. Well, the little devil was so quick, that Scutt never even saw him, until he made a spring and gripped his throat with the glove, lacerating the flesh' badly with the sham talons. In three minutes the man was dead, and I heaved a sigh of relief. (To bo Continued.)