“Wasn’t beside her, sir—at least not just exactly. A bit behind her—like this.”
“Oh, very well, then, that will do. Now, then. Here’s the passage and here are you, and I’ll just show you how a mistake could occur, and how it did occur, under precisely similar circumstances. Once upon a time when I was in Paris——”
“In Paris, monsieur?”
“Yes, madame—this little thing I’m going to tell you about happened there. You may or may not have heard that a certain Frenchy dramatist wrote a play calledChanticler—or maybe you never heard of it? Didn’t, eh? Well, it’s a play where all the characters are barnyard creatures—dogs, poultry, birds and the like—and the odd fancy of men and women dressing up like fowls took such a hold on the public that before long there were Chanticler dances and Chanticler parties in all the houses, and Chanticler ‘turns’ on at all the music halls, until wherever one went for an evening’s amusement one was pretty sure to see somebody or another dressed up like a cock or a hen, and running the thing to death. But that’s another story, and we’ll pass over it. Now, it just so happened that one night—when the craze for the thing was dying out and barnyard dresses could be bought for a song—I strolled into a little fourth-rate café at Montmarte and there saw the only Chanticler dancer that I ever thought was worth a sou. She was a pretty, dainty little thing—light as a feather and graceful as a fairy. Alone, I think she mighthave made her mark; but she was one of what in music-halldom they call ‘a team.’ Her partner was a man—bad dancer, an indifferent singer, but a really passable ventriloquist.”
“A ventriloquist, monsieur—er—er!”
“Cleek, madame—name’s Cleek, if you don’t mind.”
“Cleek! Oh, Lummy!” blurted out Mr. Nippers. But neither “madame” nor Constable Gorham said anything. They merely swung round and made a sudden bolt; and Cleek, making a bolt, too, pounced down on them like a leaping cat, and the sharp click-click of the handcuffs he had borrowed from Mr. Nippers told just when he linked their two wrists together.
“Game’s up, Madame Fifine, otherwise Madame Nosworth, the worthless wife of a worthless husband!” he rapped out sharply. “Game’s up, Mr. Henry Nosworth, bandit, pickpocket, and murderer! There’s a hot corner in hell waiting for the brute-beast that could kill his own father, and would, for the simple sake of money. Get at him, quick, Mr. Narkom. He’s got one free hand! Nip the paper out of his pocket before the brute destroys it! Played, sir, played! Buck up, Miss Renfrew, buck up, little girl—you’ll get your ‘Boy’ and you’ll get Mr. Septimus Nosworth’s promised fortune after all! ‘God’s in his heaven, and all’s right with the world.’”
“Yes, a very, very clever scheme indeed, Miss Renfrew,” agreed Cleek. “Laid with great cunning and carried out with extreme carefulness—as witness the man’s coming here and getting appointed constable and biding his time, and the woman serving as cook for six months to get the entrée to the house and to be ready to assist when the time of action came round. I don’t think I had the least inkling of the truth until I entered this house and saw that woman. She had done her best to pad herself to an unwieldy size and to blanch portions of her hair, but she couldn’t quite make her face appear old without betraying the fact that it was painted—and hers is one of those peculiarly pretty faces that one never forgets when one has ever seen it. I knew her the instant I entered the house; and, remembering the Chanticler dress with its fowl’s-foot boots, I guessed at once what those marks would prove to be when I came to investigate them. She must have stamped on the ground with all her might, to sink the marks in so deeply—but she meant to make sure of the claws and the exaggerated scales on the toes leaving their imprint. I was certain we should find that dress and those boots among her effects; and—Mr. Narkom did. What I wrote on that pretended telegram was for him to slip away into the house proper and search every trunk and cupboard for them. Pardon? No, I don’t think they really had any idea of incriminating Sir Ralph Droger. That thought came into the fellow’s mind when you stepped out and caught him stealing away after the murder had been committed. Nodoubt he, like you, had seen Sir Ralph practising for the sports, and he simply made capital of it. The main idea was to kill his father and to destroy the will; and of course, when it became apparent that the old gentleman had died intestate, even a discarded son must inherit. Where he made his blunder, however, was in his haste to practise his ventriloquial accomplishment to prevent your going into the Round House and discovering that his father was already dead. He ought to have waited until you had spoken, so that it would appear natural for the old man to know, without turning, who it was that had opened the door. That is what put me on the track of him. Until that moment I hadn’t the slightest suspicion where he was nor under what guise he was hiding. Of course I had a vague suspicion, even before I came and saw her, that ‘the cook’ was in it. Her readiness in inventing a fictitious gypsy with a bear’s muzzle, coupled with what Nippers had told me of the animal marks she had pointed out, looked a bit fishy; but until I actually met her nothing really tangible began to take shape in my thoughts. That’s all, I think. And now, good-night and good luck to you, Miss Renfrew. The riddle is solved; and Mr. Narkom and I must be getting back to the wilderness and to our ground-floor beds in the hotel of the beautiful stars!”
Here, as if some spirit of nervous unrest had suddenly beset him, he turned round on his heel, motioned the superintendent to follow, and brushing by the awed and staring Mr. Ephraim Nippers, whisked open the door and passed briskly out into the hush and darkness of the night.
The footpath which led through the grounds to the gate and thence to the long lonely way back to Dollops and the caravan lay before him. He swung into it with a curious sort of energy and forged away from the house at such speed that Narkom’s short, fat legs were hard put to it to catch up with him before he came to the path’s end.
“My dear chap, are you going into training for a match with that Sir Ralph What’s-his-name of whom Miss Renfrew spoke?” he wheezed when he finally overtook him. “You long, lean beggars are the very old boy for covering the ground. But wait until you get to bemyage, by James!”
“Perhaps I shan’t. Perhaps they won’t let me!” threw back Cleek, in a voice curiously blurred, as if he spoke with his teeth hard shut. “Donkeys do die, you know—that little bit of tommyrot about the absence of their dead bodies to the contrary.”
“Meaning what, old chap?”
“That I’ve been as big an ass as any of the thistle-eating kind that ever walked. Gad! such an indiscretion! Such an example of pure brainlessness! And the worst of it is that it’s all due to my own wretched vanity—my own miserable weakness for the theatrical and the spectacular! It came to me suddenly—while I was standing there explaining things to Miss Renfrew—and I could have kicked myself for my folly.”
“Folly? What folly?”
“‘What folly?’ What? Good heavens, man, use your wits! Isn’t it enough for me to be a blockhead without you entering the lists along with me?” said Cleek, irritably. “Or, no! Forgive that, dear friend. My nerves were speaking, not my heart. But in moments like this—when we had built a safe bridge, and my own stupidity has hacked it down—Faugh! I tell you I could kick myself. Didn’t you hear? Didn’t you see?”
“I saw that for some special reason you were suddenly obsessed with a desire to get out of the house in the midst of your talking with Miss Renfrew, if that’s what you refer to—is it?”
“Not altogether. It’s part of it, however. But not the worst part, unfortunately. It was at that moment then therecollection of my indiscretion came to me and I realized what a dolt I had been—how completely I had destroyed our splendid security, wrecked what little still remains of this glorious holiday—when I couldn’t let ‘George Headland’ have the centre of the stage, but needs must come in like the hero of a melodrama and announce myself as Cleek. To Nosworth and his wife! To Nippers! To all that gaping crowd! You remember that incident, surely?”
“Yes. Of course I do. But what of it?”
“What of it? Man alive, with a chap like that Nippers, how long do you suppose it will remain a secret that Cleek is in Yorkshire? In the West Riding of it? In this particular locality? Travelling about with Mr. Maverick Narkom in a caravan—acaravanthat can’t cover five miles of country in the time a train or a motor car is able to get over fifty!”
“Good lud! I never thought of that. But wait a bit. There’s a way to overcome that difficulty, of course. Stop here a minute or two and I’ll run back and pledge that Nippers fool to keep his mouth shut about it. He’ll give me his promise,Iknow.”
“To be sure he will. But how long do you suppose he will keep it? How long do you suppose that an empty-headed, gabbling old fool like that fellow will refrain from increasing his own importance in the neighbourhood by swaggering about and boasting of his intimacy with the powers at Scotland Yard and—the rest of it? And even if he shouldn’t, what about the others? The gathering of rustics that heard what he heard? The gamekeepers from the Droger estate? The Nosworths, as well as they? Can their mouths, too, be shut? They will not love me for this night’s business, be sure. Then, too, they have lived in Paris. The woman is French by birth. Of Montmartre—of the Apache class, the Apache kind—and she will know of the ‘Cracksman,’ be assured. So will her husband.And they won’t take their medicine lying down, believe me. An accused man has the right to communicate with counsel, remember; and a wire up to London will cost less than a shilling. So, as between Margot’s crew and our friend Count Waldemar—la, la!There you are.”
Mr. Narkom screwed up his face and said something under his breath. He could not but follow this line of reasoning when the thing was put before him so plainly.
“And we had been so free from all worry over the beggars up to this!” he said, savagely. “But to get a hint—to pick up the scent—out here—in a wild bit of country like this! Cinnamon, it makes me sweat! What do you propose to do?”
“The only thing that’s left us to do,” gave back Cleek. “Get out of it as quickly as possible and draw a red herring over the scent. In other words, put back to Dollops, abandon the caravan, make our way to some place where it is possible to telephone for the chap we hired it from to send out and get it; then, to make tracks for home.”
“Yes, but why bother about telephoning, old chap? Why can’t we drop in ourselves and tell the man when we get back to Sheffield on our way to London?”
“Because we are not going back to Sheffield, my friend—not going in for anything so silly as twice travelling over the same ground, if it’s all the same to you,” replied Cleek, as he swung off from the highway on to the dark, still moor and struck out for the place where they had left Dollops and the caravan. “At best, we can’t be more than thirty miles from the boundary line of Cumberland. A night’s walking will cover that. There we can rest a while—at some little out-of-the-way hostelry—then take a train over the Scottish border and make for Dumfries. From that point on, the game is easy. There are six trains a day leaving for St. Pancras and eight for Euston. We can choose which we like, and a seven hours’ ride will land us inLondon without having once ‘doubled on our tracks’ or crossed the route by which we came out of it.”
“By James! what a ripping idea,” said Mr. Narkom approvingly. “Come along then, old chap—let’s get back to the boy and be about it as soon as possible.” Then he threw open his coat and waistcoat to get the full benefit of the air before facing the ordeal, and, falling into step with Cleek, struck out over the moor at so brisk a dog trot that his short, fat legs seemed fairly to twinkle.
By the side of the little chattering stream that flowed through the bit of woodland where Mr. Nippers and his associates had come upon them, they found Dollops, with his legs drawn up, his arms folded across his knees and his forehead resting upon them, sleeping serenely over the embers of a burnt-out fire. He was still “making music,” but of a kind which needed no assistance from a mouth harmonica to produce it.
They awoke him and told him of the sudden change in the programme and of the need for haste in carrying it out.
“Oh, so help me! Them Apaches, eh? And that foreign josser, Count What’s-his-name, too?” said he, rubbing his eyes and blinking sleepily. “Right you are, guv’ner! Gimme two seconds to get the cobwebs out of my thinking-box and I’m ready to face marching orders as soon as you like. My hat! though, but this is a startler. I can understand wot them Apache johnnies has got against you, sir, of course; but wot that Mauravanian biscuit is getting after you for beats me. Wot did you ever do to the blighter, guv’ner? Trip him up in some little bit of crooked business, sir, and ‘did him down,’ as the ’Mericans say?”
“Something like that,” returned Cleek. “Don’t waste time in talking. Simply get together such things as we shall need and let us be off about our business as soon as possible.”
Dollops obeyed instructions upon both points—obeyed them, indeed, with such alacrity that he shut up like an oyster forthwith, dived into the caravan and bounced outagain, and within five minutes of the time he had been told of the necessity for starting, had started, and was forging away with the others over the dark, still moor and facing cheerily the prospect of a thirty-mile walk to Cumberlandshire.
All through the night they pressed onward thus—the two men walking shoulder to shoulder and the boy at their heels—over vast stretches of moorland where bracken and grass hung heavy and glittering under their weight of dew; down the craggy sides of steep gullies where the spring freshets had quickened mere trickles into noisy water-splashes that spewed over the rocks, to fall into chuckling, froth-filled pools below; along twisting paths; through the dark, still woodland stretches, and thence out upon the wild, wet moor again, with the wind in their faces and the sky all a-prickle with steadily dimming stars. And by and by the mist-wrapped moon dropped down out of sight, the worn-out night dwindled and died, and steadily brightening Glory went blushing up the east to flower the pathway for the footfalls of the Morning.
But as yet the farthermost outposts of Cumberland were miles beyond the range of vision, so that the long tramp was by no means ended, and, feeling the necessity for covering as much ground as possible while the world at large was still in what Dollops was wont to allude to as “the arms of Murphy’s house,” the little party continued to press onward persistently.
By four o’clock they were again off the moors and in the depths of craggy gorges; by five they were on the borders of a deep, still tarn, and had called a halt to light a fire and get things out of the bag which Dollops carried—things to eat and to drink and to wear—and were enjoying a plunge in the ice-cold water the while the coffee was boiling; and by six—gorged with food and soothed by tobacco—they were lying sprawled out on the fragrant earth and blinkingdrowsily while their boots were drying before the fire. And after that there was a long hiatus until Cleek’s voice rapped out saying sharply, “Well, I’ll be dashed! Rouse up there, you lazy beggars. Do you know that it’s half-past twelve and we’ve been sleeping for hours?”
They knew it then, be assured, and were up and on their way again with as little delay as possible. Rested and refreshed, they made such good time that two o’clock found them in the Morcam Abbey district, just over the borders of Cumberland, and, with appetites sharpened for luncheon, bearing down on a quaint little hostlery whose signboard announced it as the Rose and Thistle.
“Well, there’s hospitality if you like,” said Cleek, as, at their approach, a cheery-faced landlady bobbed up at an open window and, seeing them, bobbed away again and ran round to welcome them with smiles and curtseys delivered from the arch of a vine-bowered door.
“Welcome, gentlemen, welcome,” beamed she as they came up and joined her. “But however in the world did you manage to get over here so soon?—the train not being due at Shepperton Old Cross until five-and-twenty past one, and that a good mile and a quarter away as the crow flies. However, better too early than too late—Major Norcross and Lady Mary being already here and most anxious to meet you.”
As it happened that neither Cleek nor Mr. Narkom had any personal acquaintance with the lady and gentleman mentioned, it was so clearly a case of mistaken identity that the superintendent had it on the tip of his tongue to announce the fact, when there clashed out the sound of a door opening and shutting rapidly, a clatter of hasty footsteps along the passage, and presently there came into view the figure of a bluff, hearty, florid-faced man of about five-and-forty, who thrust the landlady aside and threw a metaphorical bombshell by exclaiming excitedly:
“My dear sir, I never was so delighted. Talk about English slowness. Why, this is prompt enough to satisfy a Yankee. I never dispatched my letter to you until late yesterday afternoon, Mr. Narkom, and—by the way, whichisMr. Narkom, and which that amazing Mr. Cleek? Or, never mind—perhaps that clever johnnie will be coming later; you can tell me all about that afterward. For the present, come along. Let’s not keep Lady Mary waiting—she’s anxious. This way, please.”
Here—as Mr. Narkom had lost no time in acknowledging his identity, it being clear that no mistake had been made after all—here he caught the superintendent by the arm, whisked him down the passage, and throwing open the door at the end of it, announced excitedly, “All right, Mary. The Yard’s answered—the big reward’s caught ’em, as I knew it would—and here’s Narkom. That chap Cleek will come by a later train, no doubt.”
The response to this came from an unexpected quarter. Of a sudden the man he had left standing at the outer door, under the impression that he was in no way connected with the superintendent, but merely a gentleman who had reached the inn at the same time, came down the passage to the open door, brushed past him into the room, and announced gravely, “Permit me to correct an error, please, Major. The ‘man Cleek’ is not coming later—he is here, and very much at your and Lady Mary Norcross’ service, believe me. I have long known the name of Major Seton Norcross as one which stands high in the racing world—as that, indeed, of the gentleman who owns the finest stud in the kingdom and whose filly, Highland Lassie, is first favourite for the forthcoming Derby—and I now have the honour of meeting the gentleman himself, it seems.”
The effect of this was somewhat disconcerting. For, as he concluded it, he put out his hand and rested it upon Mr. Narkom’s shoulder, whereat Lady Mary half rose from herseat, only to sit down again suddenly and look round at her liege lord with uplifted eyebrows and lips slightly parted. Afterward she declared of the two men standing side by side in that familiar manner: “One reminded me of an actor trying to play the part of a person of distinction, and the other of a person of distinction trying to play the part of an ordinary actor and not quite able to keep what he really was from showing through the veneer of what he was trying to be.”
The major, however, was too blunt to bottle up his sentiments at any time, and being completely bowled over in the present instance put them into bluff, outspoken, characteristic words.
“Oh, gum games!” he blurted out. “If you really are Cleek——”
“I really am. Mr. Narkom will stand sponsor for that.”
“But, good lud, man! Oh, look here, you know, this is all tommyrot! What under God’s heaven has brought a chap like you down to this sort of thing?”
“Opinions differ upon that score, Major,” said Cleek quietly. “So far from being ‘brought down,’ it is my good friend, Mr. Narkom here, who has brought meupto it—and made me his debtor for life.”
“Debtor nothing! Don’t talk rubbish. As if it were possible for a gentleman not to recognize a gentleman!”
“It would not be so easy, I fear, if he were a good actor—and you have just done me the compliment of indirectly telling me that I must be one. It is very nice of you but—may we not let it go at that? I fancy from what I hear that I, too, shall soon be in the position to pay compliments, Major. I hear on every side that Highland Lassie is sure to carry off the Derby—in fact that, unless a miracle occurs, there’ll be no horse ‘in it’ but her.”
Here both the major and his wife grew visibly excited.
“Gad, sir!” exclaimed he, in a voice of deep despair. “I’mafraid you will have to amend that statement so that it may read, ‘unless a miracle occurs there will beeveryhorse in it but her’—every blessed one from Dawson-Blake’s Tarantula, the second favourite, down to the last ‘also ran’ of the lot.”
“Good heavens! The filly hasn’t ‘gone wrong’ suddenly, has she?”
“She’s done more than ‘gone wrong’—she’sgone altogether! Some beastly, low-lived cur of a horse thief broke into the stables the night before last and stole her—stole her, sir, body and bones—and there’s not so much as a hoofprint to tell what became of her.”
“Well, I’m blest!”
“Are you? B’gad, then, you’re about the only one who knows about it that is! For as if that wasn’t bad enough, I’ve not only lost the best filly in England but the best trainer as well: and the brute that carried off the one got at the other at the same time, dash him!”
“What do you mean by ‘got at’ the trainer, Major? Did the man take a bribe and ‘sell’ you that way?”
“What, Tom Farrow? Never in God’s world! Not that kind of a chap, by George! The man that offered Tom Farrow a bribe would spend the rest of the week in bed—gad, yes! A more faithful chap never drew the breath of life. God only knows when or how the thing happened, but Farrow was found on the moor yesterday morning—quite unconscious and at death’s door. He had been bludgeoned in the most brutal manner imaginable. Not only was his right arm broken, but his skull was all but crushed in. There was concussion of the brain, of course. Poor fellow, he can’t speak a word, and the chances are that he never will be able to do so again.”
“Bad business, that,” declared Cleek, looking grave. “Any idea of who may possibly have been the assailant? Local police picked up anything in the nature of a clue?”
“The local police know nothing whatsoever about it. I have not reported the case to them.”
“Not reported——H’m! rather unusual course, that, to pursue, isn’t it? When a man has his place broken into, a valuable horse stolen, and his trainer all but murdered, one would naturally suppose that his first act would be to set the machinery of the law in motion without an instant’s delay. That is, unless——H’m! Yes! Just so.”
“What is ‘just so’?” inquired the major eagerly. “You seem to have hit upon some sort of an idea right at the start. Mind telling me what it is?”
“Certainly not. I could imagine that when a man keeps silent about such a thing at such a time there is a possibility that he has a faint idea of who the criminal may be and that he has excellent reasons for not wishing the world at large to share that idea. In other words, that he would sooner lose the value of the animal fifty times over than have the crime brought home to the person he suspects.”
Lady Mary made a faint moaning sound. The major’s face was a study.
“I don’t know whether you are a wizard or not, Mr. Cleek,” he said, after a moment; “but you have certainly hit upon the facts of the matter. It is for that very reason that I have refrained from making the affair public. It is bad enough that Lady Mary and I should have our suspicions regarding the identity of the—er—person implicated without letting others share them. There’s Dawson-Blake for one. If he knew, he’d move heaven and earth to ruin him.”
“Dawson-Blake?” repeated Cleek. “Pardon, but will that be the particular Sir Gregory Dawson-Blake the millionaire brewer who achieved a knighthood in the last ‘Honours List’ and whose horse, Tarantula, is second favourite for the coming Derby?”
“Yes, the very man. He is almost what you might call a neighbour of ours, Mr. Cleek. His place, Castle Claverdale, is just over the border line of Northumberland and about five miles distant from Morcan Abbey. His stables are, if anything, superior to my own; and we both use the intervening moorland as a training ground. Also, it was Dawson-Blake’s daughter that Lieutenant Chadwick played fast and loose with. Jilted her, you know—threw her over at the eleventh hour and married a chorus girl who had nothing to bless herself with but a pretty face and a long line of lodging-house ancestry. Not that Miss Dawson-Blake lost anything by getting rid of such a man beforeshe committed the folly of tying herself to him for life, but her father never forgave Lieutenant Chadwick and would spend a million for the satisfaction of putting him behind bars.”
“I see. And this Lieutenant Chadwick is—whom may I ask?”
“The only son of my elder and only sister, Mr. Cleek,” supplied Lady Mary with a faint blush. “She committed the folly of marrying her music master when I was but a little girl, and my father died without ever looking at her again. Subsequently, her husband deserted her and went—she never learnt where, to the day of her death. While she lived, however, both my brother, Lord Chevelmere, and I saw that she never wanted for anything. We also supplied the means to put her son through Sandhurst after we had put him through college, and hoped that he would repay us by achieving honour and distinction. It was a vain hope. He achieved nothing but disgrace. Shortly after his deplorable marriage with the theatrical person for whom he threw over Miss Dawson-Blake—and who in turn threw him over when she discovered what a useless encumbrance he was—he was cashiered from the army, and has ever since been a hanger-on at race meetings—the consort of touts, billiard markers, card sharpers, and people of that sort. I had not seen him for six years, when he turned up suddenly in this neighbourhood three days ago and endeavoured to scrape acquaintance with one of the Abbey grooms.”
“And under an assumed name, Mr. Cleek,” supplemented the major somewhat excitedly. “He was calling himself John Clark and was trying to wheedle information regarding Highland Lassie out of my stable-boys. Fortunately, Lady Mary caught sight of him without being seen, and at once gave orders that he was to be turned off the premises, and never allowed to come near them again.He was known, however, to be in this neighbourhood up to dusk on the following evening, but he has never been seen since Highland Lassie disappeared. You know now, perhaps, why I have elected to conduct everything connected with this affair with the utmost secrecy. Little as we desire to be in any way associated with such a man, we cannot but remember that he is connected with us by ties of blood, and unless Farrow dies of his injuries—which God forbid! we will hush the thing up, cost what it may. All that I want is to get the animal back—not to punish the man: if, indeed, he be the guilty party; for there is really no actual proof of that. But if Dawson-Blake knew, it would be different. He would move heaven and earth to get the convict’s ‘broad arrow’ on him and to bring disgrace upon everybody connected with the man.”
“H’m, I see!” said Cleek, puckering up his brows and thoughtfully stroking his chin. “So that, naturally, there is—with this added to the rivalry of the two horses—no very good blood existing between Sir Gregory Dawson-Blake and yourself?”
“No, there is not. If, apart from these things, Mr. Cleek, you want my private opinion of the man, it can be summed up in the word ‘Bounder.’ There is not one instinct of the gentleman about him. He is simply a vulgar, money-gilded, low-minded cad, and I wouldn’t put it beyond him to be mixed up in this disappearance of the filly himself but that I know Chadwick was about the place; and for there to be anything between Chadwick and him is as impossible as it is for the two poles to come together, or for oil to assimilate with water. That is the one thing in this world that Dawson-Blake would not do under any circumstances whatsoever. Beyond that, I put nothing beneath the man—nothing too despicable for him to attempt in the effort to gain his own end and aim. He races not for the sport of the thing, but for the publicity, the glory ofgetting talked about, and of making the vulgar stare. He wants the blue ribbon of the turf for the simple fame of the thing; and he’dbuyit if buying it were possible, and either bribes or trickery could carry off the race.”
“H’m! That’s a sweeping assertion, Major.”
“But made upon a basis of absolute fact, Mr. Cleek. He has twice endeavoured to buy Farrow to desert me by an offer of double wages and a pension; and, failing that, only last week he offered my jockey £10,000 cash on the nail to slip off over to France on the night before Derby Day, and promised him a further five thousand if Tarantula carried off the race.”
“Oho!” said Cleek, in two different tones; and with a look of supremest contempt. “So our Tinplate Knight is that sort of a sportsman, is he, the cad? And having failed to get hold of therider——H’m! Yes. It is possible—perhaps. Chadwick’s turning up at such a time might be a mere coincidence—a mere tout’s trick to get inside information beforehand, or——Well, you never can tell. Suppose, Major, you give me the facts from the beginning. When was the animal’s loss discovered—and how? Let me have the full particulars, please.”
The major sighed and dropped heavily into a chair.
“For an affair of such far-reaching consequences, Mr. Cleek,” he said gloomily, “it is singularly bald of what might be called details, I am afraid; and beyond what I have already told you there is really very little more to tell. When or how the deed was committed, it is impossible to decide beyond the indefinite statement that it happened the night before last, at some time after half-past nine in the evening, when the stable-boy, Dewlish, before going home, carried a pail of water at Farrow’s request into the building where Highland Lassie’s stall is located, and five o’clock the next morning when Captain MacTavish strolled into the stables and found the mare missing.”
“A moment, please. Who is Captain MacTavish? And why should the gentleman be strolling about the Abbey stable-yard at five o’clock in the morning?”
“Both questions can be answered in a few words. Captain MacTavish is a friend who is stopping with us. He is a somewhat famous naturalist. Writes articles and stories on bird and animal life for the magazines. It is his habit to be up and out hunting for ‘specimens’ and things of that sort every morning just about dawn. At five he always crosses the stable yard on his way to the dairy where he goes for a glass of fresh milk before breakfast.”
“I see. Captain a young man or an old one?”
“Oh, young, of course. About two or three and thirty, I should say. Brother of a deceased army pal of mine. Been stopping with us for the past two months. Very brilliant and very handsome chap—universal favourite wherever he goes.”
“Thanks. Now just one more question before you proceed, please: About the trainer Farrow getting the stable-boy to carry in that pail of water. Would not that be a trifle unusual at such a time of the night?”
“I don’t know. Yes—perhaps it would. I never looked at it in that light before.”
“Very likely not. Stables would be closed and all the grooms, et cetera, off duty for the night at that hour, would they not?”
“Yes. That is, unless Farrow had reason for asking one of them to help him with something. That’s what he did, by the way, with the boy, Dewlish.”
“Just so. Any idea what he wanted with that pail of water at that hour of the night? He couldn’t be going to ‘water’ one of the horses, of course, and it is hardly likely that he intended to take on a stableman’s duties and wash up the place.”
“Oh, gravy—no! He’s a trainer, not a slosh-bucket.I pay him eighteen hundred a year and give him a cottage besides.”
“Married man or a single one?”
“Single. A widower. About forty. Lost his wife two years ago. Rather thought he was going to take another one shortly, from the way things looked. But of late he and Maggie McFarland don’t seem, for some reason or another, to be hitting it off together so well as they did.”
“Who’s Maggie McFarland, please?”
“One of the dairymaids. A little Scotch girl from Nairn who came into service at the Abbey about a twelvemonth ago.”
“H’m! I see. Then the filly isn’t the only ‘Highland Lassie’ in the case, it would seem. Pardon? Oh, nothing. Merely a weak attempt to say something smart, that’s all. Don’t suppose that Maggie McFarland could by any possibility throw light upon the subject of that pail of water, do you, Major?”
“Good lud, no! Of course she couldn’t. What utter rot. But see here—come to think of it now, perhapsIcan. It’s as like as not that he wanted it to wash himself with before he went over to the shoer’s at Shepperton Old Cross with Chocolate Maid. I forgot to tell you, Mr. Cleek, that ever since Dawson-Blake made that attempt to buy him off, Farrow became convinced that it wouldn’t be safe to leave Highland Lassie unguarded night or day for fear of that cad’s hirelings getting at her in some way or another, so he closed up his cottage and came to live in the rooms over the filly’s stable, so as to be on the spot for whatever might or might not happen at any hour. He also bought a yapping little Scotch terrier that would bark if a match fell, and kept it chained up in the place with him. When the discovery of the filly’s disappearance was made that dog was found still attached to its chain, but as dead as Maria Martin. It had been poisoned. There was a bitof meat lying beside the body and it was literally smothered in strychnine.”
“Quite so. Keep strychnine about the place for killing rats, I suppose?”
“Yes, of course. They are a perfect pest about the granary and the fodder bins. But of course it wouldn’t be lying round loose—a deadly thing like that. Besides, there never was any kept in that particular section of the stables, so the dog couldn’t have got hold of it by accident. Then there’s another thing I ought to tell you, Mr. Cleek: Highland Lassie never was stabled with the rest of the stud. We have always kept her in one especial stable. There are just two whacking big box stalls in the place. She occupies one and Chocolate Maid the other. Chocolate Maid is Lady Mary’s personal property—a fine, blooded filly that will make a name for herself one of these days, I fancy. Dark-coated and smooth as a piece of sealskin, the beauty. To-day she is the only animal in that unlucky place. Yes, come to think of it, Mr. Cleek,” he added with a sort of sigh, “that is probably what the poor fellow wanted the pail of water for: to wash up and ride her over to the forge at Shepperton Old Cross.”
“Singular time to choose for such a proceeding, wasn’t it, Major? After half-past nine o’clock at night.”
“It would be if it were any other man and under any other circumstances. But remember! It is but three weeks to Derby Day and every hour of daylight is worth so much gold to us. Farrow knew that he could not spare a moment of it for any purpose; and he is most particular over the shoeing. Will see it done himself and direct the operation personally. Sort of mania with him. Wouldn’t let the best man that ever lived take one of the horses over for him. Go himself, no matter what inconvenience it put him to. Farrier at Shepperton Old Cross knows his little ‘fads and fancies’ and humours them at all times. Wouldopen the forge and fire up for him if it were two o’clock in the morning.”
“I see. And did he take Chocolate Maid over there on that night, after all?”
“Yes. Lady Mary and I attended a whist drive at Farmingdale Priory that evening; but her ladyship was taken with a violent headache and we had to excuse ourselves and leave early. It would be about a quarter to eleven o’clock when we returned to the Abbey and met Farrow riding out through the gates on Chocolate Maid. We stopped and spoke to him. He was then going over to the shoer’s with the mare.”
“How long would it take him to make the journey?”
“Oh, about five-and-twenty minutes—maybe half an hour: certainly not more.”
“So then it would be about quarter-past eleven when he arrived at the farrier’s? I see. Any idea at what time he got back?”
“Not the ghost of one. In fact, we should never have known that he ever did get back—for nobody heard a sound of his return the whole night long—were it not that when Captain MacTavish crossed the stable-yard at five o’clock in the morning and, seeing the door ajar, looked in, he found Chocolate Maid standing in her stall, the dog dead, and Highland Lassie gone. Of course, Chocolate Maid being there after we had passed Farrow on the road with her was proof that he did return at some hour of the night, you know: though when it was, or why he should have gone out again, heaven alone knows. Personally, you know, I am of the opinion that Highland Lassie was stolen while he was absent; that, on returning he discovered the robbery and, following the trail, went out after the robbers, and, coming up with them, got his terrible injuries that way.”
“H’m! Yes! I don’t think! What ‘trail’ was he to find, please, when you just now told me that there wasn’t somuch as a hoofprint to tell the tale? Or was that an error?”
“No, it wasn’t. The entire stable-yard is paved with red tiles, and we’ve had such an uncommon spell of dry weather lately that the earth of the surrounding country is baked as hard as a brickbat. An elephant couldn’t make a footmark upon it, much less a horse. But, gravy, man! instead of making the thing clearer, I’m blest if you’re not adding gloom to darkness, and rendering it more mysterious than ever. What under the four corners of heaven could Farrow have followed, then, if the ‘trail’ is to be eliminated entirely?”
“Maybe his own inclination, Major—maybe nothing at all,” said Cleek, enigmatically. “If your little theory of his returning and finding Highland Lassie stolen were a thing that would hold water I am inclined to think that Mr. Tom Farrow would have raised an alarm that you could hear for half a mile, and that if he had started out after the robbers he would have done so with a goodly force of followers at his heels and with all the lanterns and torches that could be raked and scraped together.”
“Good lud, yes! of course he would. I never thought of that. Did you, Mary? His whole heart and soul were bound up in the animal. If he had thought that anything had happened to her, if he had known that she was gone, a pitful of raging devils would have been spirits of meekness beside him. Man alive, you make my head whiz. For him to go off over the moor without word or cry at such a time——I say, Mr. Cleek! For God’s sake, what do you make of such a thing as that at such a time, eh?”
“Well, Major,” replied Cleek, “I hate to destroy any man’s illusions and to besmirch any man’s reputation, but—que voulez vous? If Mr. Tom Farrow went out upon that moor after the mare was stolen, and went without giving an alarm or saying a word to anybody, then in my privateopinion your precious trainer is nothing in the world but a precious double-faced, double-dealing, dishonourable blackguard, who treacherously sold you to the enemy and got just what he deserved by way of payment.”
Major Norcross made no reply. He simply screwed up his lips until they were a mere pucker of little creases, and looked round at his wife with something of the pain and hopeless bewilderment of an unjustly scolded child.
“You know, Seton, it was what Captain MacTavish suggested,” ventured she, gently and regretfully. “And when two men of intellect——” Then she sighed and let the rest go by default.
“Demmit, Mary, you don’t mean to suggest that I haven’t any, do you?”
“No, dear; but——”
“Buts be blowed! Don’t you think I know a man when I run foul of him? And if ever there was a square-dealing, honest chap on this earth——Look here, Mr. Cleek. Gad! you may be a bright chap and all that, but you’ll have to give me something a blessed sight stronger than mere suspicion before you can make me believe a thing like that about Tom Farrow.”
“I am not endeavouring to make you believe it, Major. I am merely showing you what would certainly be the absolute truth of the matterifTom Farrow had done what you suggested, and gone out on that moor alone and without a word or a cry when he discovered that the animal was stolen. But, my dear sir, I incline to the belief that he never did go out there after any person or any living thing whatsoever.”
“Then, dash it, sir, how in thunder are you going to explain his being there at all?”
“By the simple process, Major, of suggesting that he was on his way back to the Abbey at the time he encountered his unknown assailant. In other words, that he hadnot only never returned to the place after you and her ladyship saw him leaving it at a quarter to eleven, but was never permitted to do so.”
“Oh, come, I say! That’s laying it on too thick. How the dickens can you be sure of such a thing as that?”
“I’m not. I am merely laying before you the only two things possible to explain his presence there. One or the other of them is the plain and absolute truth. If the man went out thereafterthe filly was stolen he is a scoundrel and a liar. If he is innocent, he met with his injuries on the way back to his quarters above Highland Lassie’s stall.”
“But the other animal? But Chocolate Maid? How could she have got back to the stable, then? She couldn’t have found her way back alone after Farrow was assaulted—at least, she could, of course, but not in the condition she was in when found next morning. She had no harness of any sort upon her. Her saddle was on its peg. She was in her box—tied up, b’gad! and the door of the box was closed and bolted; so that if by any chance——Hullo! I say! What on earth are you smiling in that queer way for? Hang it, man! do you believe that I don’t know what I’m talking about?”
“Oh, yes, Major. It isn’t that kind of a smile. I have just discovered that four and four make eight when you add them up properly; and the smile is one of consequent satisfaction. A last question, please. At what time in the morning was Farrow found lying unconscious upon the moor?”
“Somewhere between six and seven o’clock. Why?”——
“Oh, nothing in particular. Who found him? Captain MacTavish?”
“No. Maggie McFarland. She was just coming back from milking when——Hang it, man! I wish you wouldn’t smile all up one side of your face in that confoundedmanner. It makes me think that you must have something up your sleeve.”
“Well, if I have, Major, suppose you drive me over to the stables and give me a chance to take it out?” suggested Cleek, serenely. “A little ‘poking about’ sometimes does wonders, and a half hour in Highland Lassie’s quarters may pick the puzzle to pieces a great deal sooner than you’d believe. Or, stop! Perhaps, on second thought, it will be better for you and her ladyship to go on ahead, as I shall want to have a look at Tom Farrow’s injuries as well, so it will be best to have everything prepared in advance, in order to save time. No doubt Mr. Narkom and I can get a conveyance of some sort here. At any rate—h’m! it is now a quarter to three, I see—at any rate, you may certainly expect us at quarter-past five. You and her ladyship may go back quite openly, Major. There will be no need to attempt to throw dust in Sir Gregory Dawson-Blake’s eyes any longer by keeping the disappearance of the animal a secret. If he’s had a hand in her spiriting away, he knows, of course, that she’s gone; but if he hasn’t—oh, well, I fancy I know who did, and that she will be in the running on Derby Day after all. A few minutes in Highland Lassie’s stable will settle that, I feel sure. Your ladyship, my compliments. Major, good afternoon. I hope if night overtakes us before we get at the bottom of the thing you can manage to put us up at the Abbey until to-morrow that we may be on the spot to the last?”
“With pleasure, Mr. Cleek,” said Lady Mary; and bowed him out of the room.
It was precisely ten minutes past five o’clock and the long-lingering May twilight was but just beginning to gather when the spring cart of the Rose and Thistle arrived at the Abbey stables, and Cleek and Mr. Narkom descending therefrom found themselves the centre of an interested group composed of the major and Lady Mary, the countryside doctor, and Captain MacTavish.
The captain, who had nothing Scottish about him but his name, was a smiling, debonnaire gentleman with flaxen hair and a curling, fair moustache; and Cleek, catching sight of him as he stood leaning, in a carefully studied pose, against the stable door-post with one foot crossed over the other, one hand in his trousers pocket and the other swinging a hunting crop whose crook was a greyhound’s head wrought in solid silver, concluded that here was, perhaps, the handsomest man of his day, and that, in certain sections of society, he might be guaranteed to break hearts by the hundred. It must be said of him, however, that he carried his manifold charms of person with smooth serenity and perfect poise; that, if he realized his own beauty, he gave no outward evidences of it. He was calm, serene, well-bred, and had nothing of the “Doll” or the “Johnny” element in either his bearing or his deportment. He was at once splendidly composed and almost insolently bland.
“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Cleek. Read a great deal about you one way and another,” he said, when the major made the introduction—a performance which the captain evidently considered superfluous as between an army officerand a police detective. “Sorry I shan’t be able to remain and study your interesting methods, however. Should have been rather pleased to do so, otherwise.”
“And I for my part should have been pleased to have you do so, Captain, I assure you,” replied Cleek, the first intonation of his voice causing the captain to twitch up his head and stare at him as if he were a monstrosity. “Shall you be leaving us, then, before the investigation is concluded?”
“Well, I’m blest! Why, how in the world—oh—er—yes. Obliged to go. Wire from London this afternoon. Regiment sails for India in two days. Beastly nuisance. Shall miss the Derby and all that. By the way, Norcross, if this chap succeeds in finding the filly in time for the race, that little bet of ours stands, of course?”
“Of course,” agreed the major. “Ready are you, Mr. Cleek? Right you are—come along.” And he forthwith led the way into the stable where Chocolate Maid, like a perfect horse in French bronze, stood munching hay in her box as contentedly as if there were no such things in the world as touts and swindlers and horse thieves, and her companion of two days ago still shared the quarters with her.
“Gad! but she’s a beauty and no mistake, Major,” said Cleek as he went over and, leaning across the low barrier of the enclosure, patted the mare’s shoulder and smoothed her glossy neck. “I don’t wonder that you and her ladyship have such high hopes for her future. The creature seems well nigh perfect.”
“Yes, she is a pretty good bit of horseflesh,” replied he, “but not to be compared with Highland Lassie in speed, wind, or anything. Theresheis, Mr. Cleek; and it’s as natural as life, the beauty!”
Speaking, he waved his hand toward a framed picture of the missing animal—a coloured gift plate which had been given away with the Easter number ofThe Horseman, and which Farrow had had glazed and hung just over her box.Cleek, following the direction of the indicating hand, looked up and saw the counterfeit presentment of a splendidly proportioned sorrel with a splash of white on the flank and a white “stocking” on the left forefoot.
“A beauty, as you say, Major,” agreed he, “but do you know that I, for my part, prefer the charms of Chocolate Maid? May be bad judgment upon my part but—there you are. What a coat! What a colour! What splendid legs, the beauty! Mind if I step in for a moment and have a look at her?”
The major did not, so he went in forthwith and proceeded to look over the animal’s points—feeling her legs, stroking her flanks, examining her hoofs. And it was then and then only that the major remembered about the visit to the farrier’s over at Shepperton Old Cross and began to understand that it was not all simple admiration of the animal, this close examination of her.
“Oh, by Jove! I say!” he blurted out as he made—with Cleek—a sudden discovery; his face going first red and then very pale under the emotions thus engendered. “Shehasn’tany new shoes on, has she? So she can’t have been taken to the farrier’s after all.”
“No,” said Cleek, “she can’t. I half suspected that she hadn’t, so—well, let it go. Let’s have a look round Highland Lassie’s box, please. H’m! Yes! Very nice; very splendid—everything of the best and all in apple pie order. By the way, Major, you surely don’t allow harness to be washed and oiled in here?”
“Certainly not! What in the world could have put such an idea into your head?”
“Merely that bit of rag and that dirty sponge tucked in the corner over there and half covered by the bedding.”
The major went over and touched the things with the toe of his boot.
“It’s one of those imps of stable-boys, the young vandals!”he declared, as he kicked the rag and the sponge out of the box and across the stable floor. “It’s well for them that Farrow isn’t about or there would be some cuffed ears for that sort of presumption, the young beggars! Hullo! Found something else?”
“No,” said Cleek. “That is, nothing of any importance. Merely a bit torn from an old handbill—see? It probably got mixed up with the bedding. It’s of no account, anyhow.” Here he gave his hand a flirt as if flinging the bit of paper over the low barrier of the box, instead of which he cleverly “palmed” it and afterward conveyed it unsuspected to his pocket. “You were right in what you declared this afternoon, Major; for a case of such far-reaching effects it is singularly bald in the matter of detail. At all events there’s no more to be discovered here. By the way, Doctor, am I privileged to go up and see the patient? I should like to do so if I may.”
“By all means, sir, by all means,” replied the doctor. “I am happy to inform you that his condition has considerably improved since my visit at noon, Mr. Cleek, and I have now every hope that he may pull through all right.”
“Excellent!” said Cleek. “But I think I shouldn’t let that good news go abroad just yet a while, Doctor. If you haven’t taken anybody into your confidence regarding it as yet, don’t do so. You haven’t, have you?”
“No. That is, nobody but those who are now present. I told the major and her ladyship on their return this afternoon, of course. And—naturally—Captain MacTavish. He was with me at the time I made the examination, which led me to arrive at the conclusion that the man would survive.”
“Ah!” said Cleek—and the curious, one-sided smile went slowly up his cheek. “Oh, well, everything is all right among friends, of course, but I shouldn’t let it go any farther. And now, if you please, let us go up to Farrow’s room.”
They went up forthwith—Lady Mary alone refraining from joining the group—and a moment or two later Cleek found himself standing beside the bed of the unconscious trainer.
He was a strong, sturdily built man, this Tom Farrow, upon whose integrity the major banked so heavily in his warm, trustful, outspoken way; and if the face is any index to the mind—which, in nine cases out of ten, it isn’t!—that trustfulness and confidence were not misplaced. For Farrow’s was a frank, open countenance which suggested a clear conscience and an honest nature, even though it was now pale and drawn with the lines that come of suffering and injury.
At Cleek’s request the doctor removed the bandages and allowed him to inspect the wound at the back of the head.
“H’m! Made with a heavy implement shaped somewhat after the fashion of a golf stick and almost as heavy as a sledge hammer,” he commented. “Arm broken, too. Probably that was done first, and the man struck again after he was on the ground and unable to defend himself. There are two blows, you see: this one just above the ear, and that crushing one at the back of the head. That’s all I care to see, Doctor, thank you. You may replace the bandages.”
Nevertheless, although he asserted this, it was noticeable that his examination of the stricken trainer did not end here; for while the doctor was busy replacing the bandages he took the opportunity to lift the man’s hands and inspect them closely—parting the fingers and looking at the thin, loose folds of skin between them. A few minutes later, the bandages being replaced and the patient turned over to the nurse in charge, the entire party left the room and filed down the stairs together.
“Any ideas, Mr. Cleek?” questioned the major, eagerly.
“Yes, plenty of them,” replied he. “I rather fancy we shall not have to put you to the trouble of housing us at theAbbey to-night, Major. The case is a shallower one than I fancied at first. Shouldn’t be surprised if we cleared it all up inside of the next two hours.”
“Well, I’ll be—dithered!” exclaimed the major, aghast. “Do you mean to tell me that you’ve got at the bottom of the thing? That you’ve found something that leads you to suspect where the animal is?”
“More than suspect, Major. I know where she is. By half-past seven o’clock to-night—if you want me to make you a promise—I’ll put her bridle into your hands and she will be at the other end of it!”
“You will?”
“I certainly will, Major—my word for it.”
“Well, of all the dashed——I’m done! I’m winded! I’m simply scooped dry! Where on earth did you get your clues, man? You never did anything but walk about that I could see; and now to declare——I say, MacTavish, did you hear that? Did you hear what he has promised—eh?”
“I heard,” responded the captain with a laugh. “But I’ll believe when I see. I say, Mr. Inspector, where did you find the secret? Hidden between Farrow’s fingers or wrapped around Chocolate Maid’s legs?”
“Both,” said Cleek serenely. “Tell you something else if you care to hear it. I know who poisoned the dog the other night. Farrow did it himself.”
The major’s exclamation of indignation was quite lost in the peal of the captain’s laughter.
“Hawkshaw out-Hawkshawed!” cried he derisively. “Find out that, too, from Farrow’s fingers?”
“Oh, no—that would be impossible. He washed them before he went out that night and they’ve been washed by the nurse several times since. I found it out from the dog himself—and he’s not the only dog in this little business, believe me—though I’m willing to stake my reputation andmy life upon it that neither one nor the other of them had any hand in spiriting away the missing horse.”
“Who did, then, Mr. Cleek? who did?”
“Tom Farrow and Tom Farrow alone, Major,” began Cleek—and then stopped suddenly, interrupted by a painful circumstance.
By this time they had reached the foot of the stairs and were filing out into the stable again, and there by the open door Lady Mary Norcross was standing endeavouring to soothe and to comfort a weeping girl—Maggie McFarland, the dairymaid from Nairn.
“Oh, but say he winna dee—say he winna!” she was crying out distressfully. “If I thoct the sin o’ that wad added to the sair conscience o’ me.” Then with a sudden intaking of the breath, as if drowning, and a sudden paleness that made her face seem ivory white, she cowered away, with hands close shut, and eyes wide with fright as she looked up and saw the gentlemen descending.
“It winna matter—it winna matter: I can come again, my leddy!” she said in a frightened sort of whisper which rose suddenly to a sort of wailing cry as she faced round and ran like a thing pursued.
Cleek glanced round quietly and looked at Captain MacTavish. He was still his old handsome, debonnaire, smiling self; but there was a look in his eyes which did not make them a very pleasant sight at present.
“Upon my word, Seton, I cannot make out what has come over that silly girl,” said Lady Mary as her liege lord appeared. “She came here begging to be allowed to go up and see Farrow and to be assured that he would live, and then the moment you all put in an appearance she simply dashed away, as you saw. I really cannot understand what can be the matter with her.”
“Don’t bother about that just now, Mary; don’t bother about anything, my dear, but what this amazing man haspromised,” exclaimed the major excitedly. “Do you know, he has declared that if we give him until half-past seven to-night——”
Here Cleek interrupted.
“Your pardon, Major—I amend that,” he said. “I know all about the horse and it will not now take so long as I thought to know all about the ‘dog’ as well. Give me one hour, Major—just one, gentlemen, all—and I will give you the answer to the riddle—every part of it: dog’s part as well as horse’s—here on this spot, so surely as I am a living man. Major, all I ask of you is one thing. Let me have a couple of your grooms out there on the moor inside of the next fifteen minutes, please. May I have them?”
“Certainly, Mr. Cleek—as many as you want.”
“Two will do, thanks. Two are enough for fair play in any little bout and—not going to stop and see the finish, Captain? It will all be over in an hour.”
“Sorry, but I’ve got my packing to attend to, my man.”
“Ah, to be sure. Oh, well, it doesn’t matter. You know the proverb: ‘If the mountain will not come to Mahomet, why, Mahomet must go to the mountain,’ of course,” said Cleek. “I’ll just slip round to the dairy and have a glass of milk to brace me up for the business and then—in one hour—in just one by the watch—you shall have the answer to the riddle—here.”
Then, with a bow to Lady Mary, he walked out of the stable and went round the angle of the building after Maggie McFarland.