Much Darker Days

As I left the court in chains, I heard the next case being called.

CHAPTER XIII. – Cleared Up. (From The ‘Green Park Gazette.’)

THE legitimate public interest in the Nownham Mystery suggested to us the propriety of sending one of our young men down to interview all parties. After having visited the Maori King, Mrs. Weldon, several Eminent Advertisers, and the crew of the Mignonette, he felt that his present task was a light one. He had to see the murderer, William Evans; the murderess, Mrs. South, or Lady Errand; the accessory after the fact, Dr. South; the victim, Sir Runan Errand; and Mrs. Thompson, the owner of the key on which the case for the prosecution hinged.

His adventures in the various Asylums where those unhappy persons are unconfined have little public interest. We print the Confessions just as our young man took them down in shorthand from the lips of the sufferers.

The Confession of Sir Runan Errand.

‘I need not tell you that I never was even the husband of the woman Phllippa at all. She stood in no relation to me, except as one of the persons in the troupe which I was foolish enough to manage. Instead of visiting her in January last to settle her pecuniary claims against me, I sent my valet. It appears that the man wore an old hat of mine, which he lost in the storm. That was not the only article of property belonging to me he carried off. I have since had a penitent letter from him. He is doing well in the United States, and has been elected to the Legislature. I have given up the freak of dabbling in the show business, and merely keep a private theatre at such a distance from human abodes that no one can complain of it as a nuisance. Since the disappearance of my valet I have been travelling in my own yacht. I reached England the day before the trial. ‘No. I never read the newspapers. Thank goodness I am no bookworm.’

The Confession of Philippa South, calling herself Lady Errand.

‘I tell you again, as I told you before, I know nothing about what I did that night. Go back to your employers.’

Nothing more of a nature suited to our columns could be extracted from this lady.

The Confession of Mrs. Thompson.

‘I lost my cellar key the night Philippa left my roof. I now recognise it as the key in the possession of William Evans. How he got it I have no idea whatever.’

The Confession of Basil South, M.D.

‘I begin to understand it all at last. The key which I took from Philippa on the night of the storm and supposed murder had not been taken by her from Sir Runan.

‘She had brought it with her from the house of Mrs. Thompson, with whom she had been residing.

‘When I threw away a key, which I believed to be the one I had taken from Philippa, I made a mistake.

‘I threw away a key of my own. When I thought I was giving William Evans the key of my cellar (with fatal intentions and designs, hoping that he would never survive the contents of that cellar), I really gave him the key I had taken from Philippa.

‘Consequently the key would not fit the cellar lock.

‘Consequently William Evans never tasted the fatal fluid, and so escaped his doom.

‘I have nothing to add to this confession, except that I am deeply penitent, and will never again offer a thoughtless public a Christmas Annual so absurd, morbid, and incoherent.’

This last statement made it unnecessary to interview William Evans.

All the other persons in this dismal affair are detained during her Majesty’s displeasure.