Our correspondent quickly ascertained from the general servant of the house that this lady was Mrs Ellison the landlady of the lodging house. He also learned that an artist lodged there under the name of John Chantry, and he had lived alone for several years. He was a very quiet individual, who often kept to his room, and it was therefore not at all unusual not to see him for a week together, which must have been why his landlady had not been aware that he was missing.
Our energetic correspondent then hurried to the Town Hall, and after a short while, Mrs Ellison emerged, and he was able to obtain an interview. He was advised that she had viewed the man in the cells and was certain beyond any doubt that he was her lodger Mr John Chantry, whom she had last set eyes upon on the same morning that he had decided to approach the police. She stated that he was a very quiet man and had never given any trouble either to her or the other residents. He only went out in order to sit by the sea and make his drawings, and as far as she knew, he had never received any visitors. She also expressed the belief that it was all the recent gossip about Mr Holt following the news of his widow’s remarriage that had disturbed her lodger’s mind and led to his strange imaginings. Asked if Mr Chantry was to return to his lodgings, she said that she understood that for the time being he was not to be permitted to return home as it was felt that a doctor ought to examine him and see what should be done with him next.
Next, Mina read a piece in The Illustrated Police News.
PORTRAIT OF THE BRIGHTON MYSTERY MAN
We publish on our front page an engraving which has been most faithfully carried out by our artist, taken from a photograph of the man being held at Brighton Police Station whose identity has until now been a mystery. (The photograph was provided by kind permission of Mr Beckler, photographer of Ship Street, Brighton) The prisoner had claimed to be Mr Jasper Holt, who vanished and was presumed drowned in 1864, but who had either been alive all that time, or had risen from the dead, but it now seems that he was in reality an artist of unsound mind, a Mr John Chantry.
Our sketch artist was kindly granted permission by Mrs Ellison the landlady of the lodging house where Mr Chantry resided, to enter the private abode of Mr Chantry, and he has depicted for our pages the humble lodgings complete with all the paraphernalia of his calling. It was Mrs Ellison who formally identified the prisoner and she is also portrayed in our newspaper together with a picture of her lodging house about which a small crowd of interested persons has collected. Mr Chantry rarely sells his drawings which are all scenes of the sea, and are of moderate skill, but he has never failed to pay for his rent and provisions, since he is in receipt of a monthly postal order from an unknown benefactor.
We also provide portraits of Miss Hannah Hartop, whose keen eyes noticed the resemblance between the portrait in the window of the photographer’s shop and the mystery man, of the shop front crowded by visitors, and its proprietor, Mr Beckler.
On making further enquiries it appears however that many of the residents of Brighton remain unconvinced that the identification of Mr Chantry solves the mystery, since they feel that it is possible that he might be Mr Holt after all, who has been living under a false name in humble circumstances to avoid arrest. His recent actions are considered by some not to be the result of sudden mania, but an attack of conscience, his crimes having weighed on his mind to the extent that he felt a sudden desire to confess. All that is known about the postal orders is that they come from a London address.
And finally, The Times.
THE BRIGHTON MYSTERY: A SAD DELUSION
So it seems that the Brighton mystery is over, and a pathetic and commonplace answer it has turned out to be. The man in the cells of the Brighton police office is not the walking corpse of Mr Jasper Holt, or even the living Mr Holt, but a Mr John Chantry, a man whose state of mind can only arouse our sympathy. We must hope that he has relatives who are able to take care of him.
We must also observe with some sorrow that many of the residents of Brighton, and those being not the idle or curious but men of the business class, who surely ought to know better how to behave themselves, have been gathering in the street outside the home of Mr and Mrs Vardy, demanding an interview. It appears that they are labouring under the delusion that there is money to come to the creditors from the Holt bankruptcy. All our enquiries on the matter suggest that this is not the case, and these gentlemen should cease their baseless demands and return to their proper business. The editor must inform his readers that all further correspondence on this case is now closed.
Mina also received a letter from Mr Phipps.
Dear Miss Scarletti
How extraordinary that you discovered a photograph of the members of the Brighton Yacht Club, and a hitherto unsuspected connection with the Maritime Queen fraud! I would be very interested to borrow the portrait and show it to the senior partners.
I have made some enquiries and have established that the club is no longer in existence, however there are some papers in the possession of the widow of a former member which I have examined. The papers include a list of members of the Brighton Yacht Club, as of December 1862. This is of course before the creation of the Maritime Queen Insurance Company, which took place in the following year. Those members who were resident in Brighton were the founder, Captain Bulstrode, Mr William Cobbe, Mr John Taylor, Mr Walter Randall, and Mr Henry Westbury. I believe Mr Westbury was originally approached to see if he would act for the company, but he declined to be involved, a decision for which he was no doubt profoundly grateful later on. Since he does not appear in the photograph dated 1863, perhaps he left the club in that year.
There were three other gentlemen members who were resident in London, Mr Sutherland, whom we know about, and also a Mr Bertram Briggs and a Mr Frederick Chantry, all three of whom owned and sailed yachts. I have made enquiries and Mr Briggs who is now sixty years of age, was a partner in a manufacturing company who has retired and currently lives in Worthing. Mr Chantry, who was an investment broker passed away three years ago aged sixty-five, so he cannot be the gentleman in the police cells, although he might possibly be a relative. In view of their ages, neither Mr Briggs nor Mr Chantry can be in the photograph.
You will have noticed the names Taylor and Randall whom I mentioned in my earlier correspondence, and as far as I have been able to discover these are the same gentlemen who were almost certainly the prime movers in the Maritime Queen Insurance Company fraud. It would appear that while the Club did have members who were genuinely interested in yachting, like Captain Bulstrode and the three London gentlemen I have named, there were others who used its meetings to conceal their fraudulent activities and make the acquaintance of men of the profession and class they sought to inveigle into their schemes. The address of the Club rooms and the Maritime Queen Insurance company are the same.
Yours faithfully,
R Phipps
Mina immediately had the photograph sent to Mr Phipps and received a note by return of post.
Dear Miss Scarletti,
I have shown the photograph of the yacht club members to the partners, in the hopes that they might be able to identify the gentlemen, but apart from Mr Bulstrode and Mr Cobbe they could not be certain. I will however retain it for the time being.
Yours faithfully,
R Phipps