He then abstracted Barker’s I.O.U. and collected all Prescott’s spare cash. All he had to do now was to dress Prescott again—which he did, making the two mistakes alluded to—wait till the whole house was quiet—and then carry him downstairs to the billiard room—the brown shoes of course being used for the purpose that I have shown to give the affair an “outside” connection. Everybody was asleep, and he probably went in his stockinged feet—it was a thousand to one nobody would hear him. But Jack Considine heard him shut his own bedroom door upon his return. Whitney, the motorist, saw the light go up in the billiard room when Cunningham entered with his ghastly burden—but that was all he could see. Cunningham probably wore gloves all the time—there were no finger-marks. But he knew that Major Hornby’s finger-marks would show on the dagger which he had had no occasion to use. So he used it—driving it into Prescott’s dead body. It would cause the police much mystification, and throw suspicion on Hornby.
The noises that Arkwright and his wife heard were consequent upon the visit of the “Spider”—about an hour after the actual murder and say an hour or so before the descent to the billiard room. The attack on Jack Considine I can only attempt to explain. But my conjecture is that Cunningham’s jealousy had reached such extreme limits that he was infuriated by Jack’s praise of Prescott at breakfast that morning. He used the lumber shed to fire from—that was how I told Jack the exact spot of the outrage. He had used the shed before to hide behind when following Mary and Prescott. Even then I made him convict himself—I felt that I must remove all shred of doubt before telling Sir Charles and getting Baddeley to act. I arranged with Mary to play Cunningham the eighteen holes of golf—fearing the possible consequences of a refusal on her part as he was by that time in a dangerous state. I arranged for her shoe-lace to come undone—and that she should get Cunningham to tie it for her. He was excited—he forgot himself—he tied it exactly as he had tied Prescott’s shoe! I had arranged with Baddeley to give him the signal if my worst fears were confirmed. I did so. When the time came we acted quickly.
I try to forget it all—and now, having written this account of it, am going to try all the harder. For then I can think of him as he was before that dreadful madness turned his brain, and after all—
“There—but for the Grace of God—goes—any one of us!”
THE END
FOOTNOTES
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Transcriber’s Notes
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