Polke, superintendent of the Scarnham police force, a little, round, cheery-faced man, whose mutton-chop whiskers suggested much business-like capacity and an equal amount of common sense, rose from his desk and bowed as the Earl of Ellersdeane entered his office.
"I know what your lordship's come for!" he said, with a twinkle of the eye which betokened infinite comprehension. "The young lady's been here."
"And has no doubt told you everything?" remarked the Earl, as he dropped into the chair which the superintendent drew forward. "Has she?"
"Pretty well, my lord," replied Polke, with a chuckle. "She's not one to let much grass grow under her feet, I think."
"Given you the facts, I suppose?" asked the Earl.
Polke motioned to Neale to seat himself, and resumed his own seat. He put his fingers together over his desk and looked from one to the other of his visitors.
"I'll give the young lady this much credit," he said. "She can tell one what she wants in about as few words as could possibly be used! Yes, my lord—she told me the facts in a couple of sentences. Heruncle disappeared—nobody knows where he is—suspected already of running away with your lordship's jewels and Chestermarke's securities. A very nice business indeed!"
"What do you think of it?" asked the Earl.
"As a policeman, nothing—so far," answered Polke, with another twinkle. "As a man, that I don't believe it!"
"Nor do I!" said the Earl. "That is, I don't believe that Horbury's appropriated anything. There's some mistake—and some mystery."
"We can't get away from the fact that Mr. Horbury has disappeared," remarked Neale, looking at the superintendent. "That's all I'm sent here to tell you, Mr. Polke."
"That's an accepted fact," agreed Polke. "But he's not the first man who's disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Some men, as your lordship knows, disappear—and reappear with good reasons for their absence. Some never reappear. Some men aren't wanted to reappear. When a man disappears and he's wanted—why, the job is to find him."
"What does Miss Fosdyke wish?" asked the Earl, nodding assent to these philosophies. "She would say, of course."
"Miss Fosdyke's way, my lord—so far as I could gather from ten minutes' talk with her—is to tell people what to do," answered Polke drily. "She doesn't ask—she commands! We're to find her uncle—quick. At once. No pains to be spared. Money no object. A hundred pounds, spot cash, to the first man, woman, child, who brings her the least fragmentof news of him. That's Miss Fosdyke's method. It's not a bad one—it's only rich young ladies who can follow it. So I've already put things in train. Handbills and posters, of course—and the town-crier. I suggested to her that by tonight, or tomorrow morning, there might be news of Mr. Horbury without doing all that. No good! Miss Fosdyke—she can tell you a lot inside a minute—informed me that since she was seventeen she had only had one motto in life. It's—do it now!"
"Good!" laughed the Earl. "But—where are you going to begin?"
"That's the difficulty," agreed Polke. "A gentleman walks out of his back garden into the dusk—and he's never seen again. I don't know. We must wait and see if anybody comes forward to say that he, she, or it saw Mr. Horbury after he left his house on Saturday night. That's all."
"Somebody must have seen him," said the Earl.
"Well, you'd think so, my lord," replied Polke, "but he could get away from the back of his orchard into the open country without being seen. The geographical position of our town's a bit curious, so your lordship knows. Here we are on a ridge. Horbury's garden and orchard run down to the foot of that ridge. At that foot is the river. There's a foot-bridge over the river, immediately opposite his orchard gate. He could cross that foot-bridge, and be in the wood on the other side in two minutes from leaving his house. That wood extends for a good mile into the country. Oh, yes! he could get away without being seen, and once in that country, why,he could make his way to one or other of half a dozen small railway stations. We shall telephone to all of them. That's all in the routine. But then, that's all supposing that he left the town. Perhaps he didn't leave the town."
The Earl started, and Neale looked quickly up from a brown study.
"Eh?" said the Earl. "Didn't leave the town?"
"Speaking as a policeman," answered Polke, with a knowing smile, "I don't know that he even left his house. I only know that his housekeeper says he did. That's a very different matter. For anything we know—absolutely know!—Mr. Horbury may have been murdered in his own house, and buried in his own cellar."
"You're not joking?" said Neale. "Or—you are!"
"Far from it, Mr. Neale," answered Polke. "That may seem a very, very outrageous thing to say, but, I assure you, one never knows what may not have happened in these cases. However, Mrs. Carswell says he did leave the house, so we must take her word to begin with, and see if we can find out where he went. And as your lordship is here, there's just a question or two I should like to have answered. How many people know that your lordship handed over these valuables to Mr. Horbury?"
"So far as I know, no one but the Countess and myself," replied the Earl. "I never mentioned the matter to any one, and I don't think my wife would either. There was no need to mention it."
"Well, I don't know," remarked Polke. "One'sgot to consider all sorts of little things in these affairs, or else I wouldn't ask another question. Does your lordship think it possible the Countess mentioned it to her maid?"
The Earl started in his chair.
"Ah!" he said. "That may be! She may have done that, of course. I hadn't thought of it."
"Is the maid a trustworthy woman?" inquired Polke.
"She's been in our service twelve or fourteen years," replied the Earl. "We've always found her quite trustworthy. So much so that I've more than once sent her to my bankers with those very jewels."
"You took her with you to the Continent, of course, my lord?" asked Polke.
"No, we didn't," replied the Earl. "The fact is—we wanted to have, for once in our lives, a thoroughly unconventional holiday. You know that the Countess and I are both very fond of walking—well, we had always had a great desire to have a walking tour, alone, in the Ardennes district, in early spring. We decided some time ago to have it this year. So when we set off, six weeks ago, we took no servants—and precious little luggage—and we enjoyed it all the more. Therefore, of course, my wife's maid was not with us. She remained at Ellersdeane—with the rest of the servants."
Polke seemed to ponder over this last statement. Then he rose from his chair.
"Um!" he said. "Well—I'm doing what I can. There's something your lordship might do."
"Yes?" asked the Earl. "What, now! It shall be done."
"Let some of your men take a look round your neighbourhood," answered the superintendent. "Gamekeepers, now—they're the fellows! Just now we're having some grand moonlight nights. If your men would look about the country between here and Ellersdeane, now? And tell the farmers, and the cottagers, and so forth, and take a particular look round Ellersdeane Hollow. It would be a help."
"Excellent idea, Polke," said the Earl. "I'll ride home and set things going at once. And you'll let me know if anything turns up here during the evening or the night."
He strode off to the door and Neale followed. But on the threshold Neale was pulled up by the superintendent.
"Mr. Neale!" said Polke.
Neale turned to see his questioner looking at him with a rather quizzical expression.
"What precise message had you for me?" asked Polke.
"Just what I said," replied Neale. "I was merely to tell you that Mr. Horbury disappeared from his house on Saturday evening, and has not been seen since."
"No further message—from your principals?" suggested Polke.
"Nothing," said Neale.
Polke nodded, and with a bow to the Earl sat down again to his desk. He took up a pen when the door had closed on his visitors, and for a while busiedhimself in writing. He was thus occupied when the telephone bell rang in the farthest corner of his room. He crossed over and laid hold of the receiver.
"Yes?" he said quietly. "Yes—this is Polke, superintendent, Scarnham—I rang you up twenty minutes since. I want you to send me, at once, the smartest man you have available. Case is disappearance, under mysterious circumstances, of a bank manager. Securities to a large amount are missing; valuables also. No expense will be spared here—money no object. You understand—a first-class man? Tonight? Yes. Good train from town five-twenty—gets here nine-fifteen. He will catch that? Good. Tell him report here on arrival. All right. Good-bye."
Polke rang off and went back to his desk.
"What New Scotland Yard calls a first-class is very often what I should call a third-class," he muttered as he picked up his pen. "However, we'll live in hope that something out of the usual will arrive. Now what are those two Chestermarkes after? Why didn't one of them come here? What are they doing? And what's the mystery? James Polke, my boy, here's a handful for you!"
If Polke had been able to look into Chestermarke's Bank just then, he would have failed to notice any particular evidences of mystery. It was nearly the usual hour for closing when Wallington Neale went back, and Gabriel Chestermarke immediately told him to follow out the ordinary routine. The clerks were to finish their work and go their ways, as if nothing had happened, and, as far as they could, they were to keep their tongues quiet. As for the partners,food was being sent over for them from the hotel: they would be obliged to remain at the bank for some time yet. But there was no need for Neale to stay; he could go when the day's balancing was done.
"You heard what instructions this Miss Fosdyke had given the police, I suppose?" asked Gabriel, as Neale was leaving the parlour. "Raising the whole town, no doubt?"
Neale briefly narrated all he knew; the partners listened with the expression characteristic of each, and made no comment. And in half an hour Neale handed over the keys to Joseph Chestermarke and went out into the hall, his labours over. That had been the most exciting day he had ever known in his life—was what was left of it going to yield anything still more exciting?
He stood in the outer hall trying to make up his mind about something. He wanted to speak to Betty Fosdyke—to talk to her. She had evidently not recognized him when she came so suddenly into the dining-room of the bank-house. But why should she, he asked himself?—they had only met once, when both were children, and she had no doubt forgotten his very existence. Still—
He rang the house bell at last and asked for Mrs. Carswell. The housekeeper came hurrying to him, a look of expectancy on her face.
"Has anything been heard, Mr. Neale?" she asked. "Or found out? Have the police been told yet?"
"The police know," answered Neale. "And nothing has been heard. Where is Miss Fosdyke, Mrs. Carswell? I should like to speak to her."
"Gone to the Scarnham Arms, Mr. Neale," replied the housekeeper. "She wouldn't stay here, though her room was all ready for her. Said she wouldn't stop two seconds in a house that belonged to men who suspected her uncle! So she's gone across there to take rooms. Do—do the partners suspect Mr. Horbury of something, Mr. Neale?"
Neale shook his head and turned away.
"I can't tell you anything, Mrs. Carswell," he answered. "If either Mr. Chestermarke or Mr. Joseph wish to give you any information, they'll give it themselves. But I can say this on my own responsibility—if you know of anything—anything, however small!—that would account for Mr. Horbury's absence, out with it!"
"But I don't—I know nothing but what I've told," said Mrs. Carswell. "Literally nothing!"
"Nobody knows anything," remarked Neale. "That's the worst of it. Well—we shall see."
He went away from the house and crossed the Market-Place to the Scarnham Arms, an old-world inn which had suffered few alterations during the last two centuries. And there inside its wide hall, superintending the removal of various articles of luggage which had just arrived from the station and in conversation with a much interested landlady, he found Betty Fosdyke.
"I may be here for weeks, and I shall certainly be here for days," that young lady was saying. "Put all these things in the bedroom, and I'll have what I want taken into the sitting-room later. Now, Mrs.Depledge, about my dinner. I'll have it in my sitting-room, and I'll have it early. I——"
At this moment Miss Fosdyke became aware of Neale's presence, and that this eminently good-looking young man was not only smiling at her, but was holding out a hand which he evidently expected to be taken.
"You've forgotten me!" said Neale.
Miss Fosdyke's cheeks flushed a little and she held out her hand.
"Is it—is it Wallie Neale?" she asked. "But—I saw you in the bank-house—and you didn't speak to me!"
"You didn't speak to me," retorted Neale, smiling.
"Didn't know you," she answered. "Heavens!—how you've grown! But—come upstairs. Mrs. Depledge—dinner for two, mind. Mr. Neale will dine with me."
Neale suffered his hostess to lead him upstairs to a private parlour. And when they were once within it, Miss Fosdyke shut the door and turned on him.
"Now, Wallie Neale!" she said, "out with it! What is the meaning of all this infernal mystery? And where's my uncle?"
Neale dropped into a chair and lifted a despairing countenance to his downright questioner.
"I don't know!" he said. "I know—nothing!"
"That is—beyond what I've already been told?" suggested the girl.
"Beyond what you've been told—exactly," replied Neale. "I'm literally bewildered. I've been going about all day as if—as if I were dreaming, or having a nightmare, or—something. I don't understand it at all. I saw Mr. Horbury, of course, on Saturday—he was all right when I left him at the bank. He said nothing that suggested anything unusual. The whole thing is—a real facer! To me—anyhow."
Betty Fosdyke devoted a whole minute to taking a good look at her companion: Neale, on his part, made a somewhat shyer examination of her. He remembered her as a long-legged little girl who had no great promise of good looks: he was not quite sure that she had grown into good looks now. But she was an eminently bright and vivacious young woman, strong, healthy, vigorous, with fine eyes and teeth and hair, and a colour that betokened an intimate acquaintance with outdoor life. And already, in the conversation at the bank, and in Polke's report of hisinterview with him, he had learnt that she had developed certain characteristics which he faintly remembered in her as a child, when she had insisted on having her own way amongst other children.
"You've grown into quite a handsome young man, Wallie!" she observed suddenly, with a frank laugh. "I shouldn't have thought you would, somehow. Am I changed?"
"I should say—not in character," answered Neale shyly. "I remember you always wanted to be top dog!"
"It's my fate!" she said, with a sigh. "I've such a lot of people and things to look after—one has to be top dog, whether one wants to or not. But this affair—what's to be done?"
"I understand from Polke that you've already done everything," replied Neale.
"I've given him orders to spare neither trouble nor expense," she asserted. "He's to send for the very best detective they can give him from headquarters in London, and search is to be made. Because—now, Wallie, tell me truthfully—you don't believe for one moment that my uncle has run away with things?"
"Not for one second!" asserted Neale stoutly. "Never did!"
"Then—there's foul play!" exclaimed Betty. "And I'll spend my last penny to get at the bottom of it! Here I am, and here I stick, until I've found my uncle, or discovered what's happened to him. And listen—do you think those two men across there are to be trusted?"
Neale shook his head as if in appeal to her.
"I'm their clerk, you know," he replied. "I hate being there at all, but I am there. I believe they're men of absolute probity as regards business matters—personally, I'm not very fond of either."
"Fond!" she exclaimed. "My dear boy!—Joseph is a slimy sneak, and Gabriel is a bloodless sphinx—I hate both of them!"
Neale laughed and gave her a look of comprehension.
"You haven't changed, Betty," he said. "I'm to call you Betty, though you are grown up?"
"Since it's the only name I possess, I suppose you are," she answered. "But now—what can we do—you and I? After all, we're the nearest people my uncle has in this town. Do let's do something! I'm not the sort to sit talking—I want action! Can't you suggest something we can do?"
"There's one thing," replied Neale, after a moment's thought. "Lord Ellersdeane suggested that possibly Mr. Horbury, hearing that the Ellersdeanes had got home on Saturday, put the jewels in his pocket and started out to Ellersdeane with them. I know the exact path he'd have taken in that case, and I thought of following it this evening—one might come across something, or hear something, you know."
"Take me with you, as soon as we've had dinner," she said. "It'll be a beginning. I mean to turn this neighbourhood upside down for news—you'll see. Some person or persons must have seen my uncle on Saturday night!—a man can't disappear like that. It's impossible!"
"Um!—but men do disappear," remarked Neale."What I'm hoping is that there'll eventually—and quickly—be some explanation of this disappearance, and that Mr. Horbury hasn't met with—shall I put it plainly?"
"You'd better put anything plainly to me," she answered. "I don't understand other methods."
"It's possible he may have been murdered, you know," said Neale quietly.
Betty got up from her chair and went over to the window to look out on the Market-Place. She stood there some time in silence.
"It shall be a bad job for any man who murdered him if that is so," she said at last. "I was very fond of my uncle."
"So was I," said Neale. "But I say—no past tenses yet! Aren't we a bit previous? He may be all right."
"Ring the bell and let's hurry up that dinner," she commanded. "I didn't make it clear that we want it as early as possible. I want to get out, and to see where he went—I want to do something active!"
But Miss Betty Fosdyke was obliged to adapt herself to the somewhat leisurely procedure of highly respectable country-town hotels, whose cooks will not be hurried, and it was already dusk, and the moonlight was beginning to throw shadows of gable and spire over the old Market-Place, when she and Neale set out on their walk.
"All the better," said Neale. "This is just about the time that he went out on Saturday night, and under very similar conditions. Now we'll take the precisepath that he'd have taken if he was on his way to Ellersdeane."
He led his companion to a corner of the Market-Place, and down a narrow alley which terminated on an expanse of open ground at the side of the river. There he made her pause and look round.
"Now if we're going to do the thing properly," he said, "just attend, and take notice of what I point out. The town, as you see, stands on this ridge above us. Here we are at the foot of the gardens and orchards which slope down from the backs of the houses on this side of the Market-Place. There is the gate of the bank-house orchard. According to Mrs. Carswell, Mr. Horbury came out of that gate on Saturday night. What did he do then? He could have turned to the left, along this river bank, or to the right, also along the river bank. But, if he meant to walk out to Ellersdeane—which he would reach in well under an hour—he would cross this foot-bridge and enter those woods. That's what we've got to do."
He led his companion across a narrow bridge, over a strip of sward at the other side of the river, and into a grove of fir which presently deepened and thickened as it spread up a gently shelving hillside. The lights of the town behind them disappeared; the gloom increased; presently they were alternately crossing patches of moonlight and plunging into expanses of blackness. And Betty, after stumbling over one or two of the half-exposed roots which lay across the rough path, slipped a hand into Neale's arm.
"You'll have to play guide, Wallie, unless you wishme to break my neck," she laughed. "My town eyes aren't accustomed to these depths of gloom and solitude. And now," she went on, as Neale led her confidently forward through the wood, "let's talk some business. I want to know about those two—the Chestermarkes. For I've an uneasy feeling that there's more in this affair than's on the surface, and I want to know all about the people I'm dealing with. Just remember—beyond the mere fact of their existence and having seen them once or twice, years ago, I don't know anything about them. What sort of men are they—as individuals?"
"Queer!" replied Neale. "They're both queer. I don't know much about them. Nobody does. They're all right as business men, much respected and all that, you know. But as private individuals they're decidedly odd. They're both old bachelors, at least Gabriel's an old one, and Joseph is a youngish one. They live sort of hermit lives, as far as one can make out. Gabriel lives at the old house which I'll show you when we get out of this wood—you'll see the roofs, anyhow, in this moonlight. Joseph lives in another old house, but in the town, at the end of Cornmarket. What they do with themselves at home, Heaven knows! They don't go into such society as there is; they take no part in the town's affairs. There's a very good club here for men of their class—they don't belong to it. You can't get either of 'em to attend a meeting—they keep aloof from everything. But they both go up to London a great deal—they're always going. But they never go together—when Gabriel's away, Joseph's athome; when Joseph's off, Gabriel's on show. There's always one Mr. Chestermarke to be found at the bank. All the same, Mr. Horbury was the man who did all the business with customers in the ordinary way. So far as I know banking," concluded Neale, "I should say he was trusted and confided in more than most bank managers are."
"Did they seem very much astonished when they found he'd gone?" asked Betty. "Did it seem a great shock, a real surprise?"
"The cleverest man living couldn't tell what either Gabriel or Joseph Chestermarke thinks about anything," answered Neale. "You know what Gabriel's face is like—a stone image! And Joseph always looks as if he was sneering at you, a sort of soft, smiling sneer. No, I couldn't say they showed surprise, and I don't know what they've found out—they're the closest, most reserved men about their own affairs that you could imagine!"
"But—they say some of their securities are missing," remarked Betty. "They'll have to let the exact details be known, won't they?"
"Depends—on them," replied Neale. "They'll only do what they like. And they don't love you for coming on the scene, I assure you!"
"But I'm here, nevertheless!" said Betty. "And here I stop! Wallie, haven't you got even a bit of a theory about all this!"
"Can't say that I have!" confessed Neale woefully. "I'm not a very brilliant hand at thinking. The only thing I can think of is that Mr. Horbury, knowing Lord Ellersdeane had got home on Saturday,thought he'd hand back those jewels as soon as possible, and set off in the evening with that intention—possibly to be robbed and murdered on the way. Sounds horrible—but honestly I can't think of any other theory."
Betty involuntarily shivered and glanced about her at the dark cavernous spaces of the wood, which had now thickened into dense masses of oak and beech. She took a firmer grip of Neale's arm.
"And he'd come through here!" she exclaimed. "How dangerous!—with those things in his pocket!"
"Oh, but he'd think nothing of it!" answered Neale. "He was used to walking at night—he knew every yard of this neighbourhood. Besides, he'd know very well that nobody would know what he had on him. What I'd like to know is—supposing my theory's right, and that he was taking these jewels to Ellersdeane, how did anybody get to know that he had them? For the Chestermarkes didn't know they'd been given to him, and I didn't—nobody at the bank knew."
A sudden turn in the path brought them to the edge of the wood, and they emerged on a broad plateau of rough grass, from beneath which a wide expanse of landscape stretched away, bathed just then in floods of moonlight. Neale paused and waved his stick towards the shadowy distances and over the low levels which lay between.
"Ellersdeane Hollow!" he said.
Betty paused too, looking silently around. She saw an undulating, broken stretch of country, half-heath,half-covert, covering a square mile or so of land, houseless, solitary. In its midst rose a curiously shaped eminence or promontory, at the highest point of which some ruin or other lifted gaunt, shapeless walls against the moonlit sky. Far down beneath it, in a depression amongst the heath-clad undulations, a fire glowed red in the gloom. And on the further side of this solitude, amidst groves and plantations, the moonlight shone on the roofs and gables of half-hidden houses. Over everything hung a deep silence.
"A wild and lonely scene!" she said.
Neale raised his stick again and began to point.
"All this in front of us is called Ellersdeane Hollow," he remarked. "It's not just one depression, you see—it's a tract of unenclosed land. It's dangerous to cross, except by the paths—it's honeycombed all over with disused lead-mines—some of the old shafts are a tremendous depth. All the same, you see, there's some tinker chap, or some gipsies, camped out down there and got a fire. That old ruin, up on the crag there, is called Ellersdeane Tower—one of Lord Ellersdeane's ancestors built it for an observatory—this path'll lead us right beneath it."
"Is this the path he would have taken if he'd gone to Ellersdeane on Saturday night?" asked Betty.
"Precisely—straight ahead, past the Tower," answered Neale. "And there is Ellersdeane itself, right away in the distance, amongst its trees. There!—where the moonlight catches it. Now let your eye follow that far line of wood, over the tops of thetrees about Ellersdeane village—do you see where the moonlight shines on another high roof? That's Gabriel Chestermarke's place—the Warren."
"So—he and Lord Ellersdeane are neighbours!" remarked Betty.
"Neighbours at a distance of a mile—and who do no more than nod to each other," answered Neale. "Lord Ellersdeane and Mr. Horbury were what you might call friends, but I don't believe his lordship ever spoke ten words with either of the Chestermarkes until this morning. I tell you the Chestermarkes are regular hermits!—when they're at home or about Scarnham, anyhow. Now let's go as far as the Tower—you can see all over the country from that point."
Betty followed her guide down a narrow path which led in and out through the undulations of the Hollow until it reached the foot of the promontory on which stood the old ruin that made such a prominent landmark. Seen at close quarters Ellersdeane Tower was a place of much greater size and proportion than it had appeared from the edge of the wood, and the path to its base was steep and rocky. And here the loneliness in which she and Neale had so far walked came to an end—on the edge of the promontory, outlined against the moonlit sky, two men stood, talking in low tones.
Neale's eye caught the gleam of silver braid on the clothing of one of the two men, and he hastened his steps a little as he and Betty emerged on the level ground at the top of the steep path.
"That's a policeman," he said. "It'll be the constable from Ellersdeane. The other man looks like a gamekeeper. Let's see if they've heard anything."
The two figures turned at the sound of footsteps, and came slowly in Neale's direction. Both recognized him and touched their hats.
"I suppose you're looking round in search of anything about Mr. Horbury?" suggested Neale. "Heard any news or found any trace?"
"Well, we're what you might call taking a preliminary observation, Mr. Neale," answered the policeman. "His lordship's sent men out all over the neighbourhood. No, we've heard nothing, nor seen anything, either. But, then, there's not much chance of hearing anything hereabouts. The others have gone round asking at houses, and such-like—to find out if he was seen to pass anywhere. Of course, his lordship was figuring on the chance that Mr. Horbury might have had a fit, or something of that sort,and fallen somewhere along this path, between the town and Ellersdeane House—it's not much followed, this path. But we've seen nothing—up to now."
Neale turned to the keeper.
"Were none of your people about here on Saturday night?" he asked. "You've a good many watchers on the estate, haven't you?"
"Yes, sir—a dozen or more," answered the keeper. "But we don't come this way—this isn't our land. Our beats lie the other way—t'other side of the village. We never come on to this part at all."
"This, you know, Mr. Neale," remarked the policeman, jerking his thumb over the Hollow, "this, in a manner of speaking, belongs to nobody. Some say it belongs to the Crown—I don't know. All I know is that nobody has any rights over it—it's been what you might term common land ever since anybody can remember. This here Mr. Horbury that's missing—your governor, sir—I once met him out here, and had a bit of talk with him, and he told me that it isn't even known who worked them old lead-mines down there, nor who has any rights over all this waste. That, of course," concluded the policeman, pointing to the glowing fire which Neale and Betty had seen from the edge of the wood, "that's why chaps like yonder man come and camp here just as they like—there's nobody to stop 'em."
"Who is the man?" asked Neale, glancing at the fire, whose flames made a red spot amongst the bushes.
"Most likely a travelling tinker chap, sir, that comes this way now and again," answered the policeman. "Name of Creasy—Tinner Creasy, the folkscall him. He's come here for many a year, at odd times. Camps out with his pony and cart, and goes round the villages and farmsteads, seeing if there's aught to mend, and selling 'em pots and pans and such-like. Stops a week or two—sometimes longer."
"And poaches all he can lay hands on," added the gamekeeper. "Only he takes good care never to go off this Hollow to do it."
"Have you made any inquiry of him?" asked Neale.
"We were just thinking of doing that, sir," replied the policeman. "He roams up and down about here at nights, when he is here. But I don't know how long he's been camping this time—it's very seldom I ever come round this way myself—there's naught to come for."
"Let's go across there and speak to him," said Neale.
He and Betty followed the two men down the side of the promontory and across the ups and downs of the Hollow, until they came to a deeper depression fringed about by a natural palisading of hawthorn. And as they drew near and could see into the dingle-like recess which the tinker had selected for his camping-ground they became aware of a savoury and appetizing odour, and the gamekeeper laughed.
"Cooking his supper, is Tinner Creasy!" he remarked. "And good stuff he has in his pot, too!"
The tinker, now in full view, sat on a log near a tripod, beneath which crackled a bright fire, burning under a black pot. The leaping flames revealed a shrewd, weather-beaten face which turned sharply towardsthe bushes as the visitors appeared; they also lighted up the tinker's cart in the background, the browsing pony close by, the implements of the tinner's trade strewn around on the grass. It was an alluring picture of vagabond life, and Neale suddenly compared it with the dull existence of folk who, like himself, were chained to a desk. He would have liked to sit down by Tinner Creasy and ask him about his doings—but the policeman had less poetical ideas.
"Hullo, Tinner!" said he, with easy familiarity. "Here again, what? I thought we should be seeing your fire some night this spring. Been here long?"
The tinker, who had remained seated on his log until he saw that a lady was of the party, rose and touched the edge of his fur cap to Betty in a way which indicated that his politeness was entirely for her.
"Since yesterday," he answered laconically.
"Only since yesterday!" exclaimed the policeman. "Ah! that's a pity, now. You wasn't here Saturday night, then?"
The tinker turned a quizzical eye on the four inquiring faces.
"How would I be here Saturday night when I only came yesterday?" he retorted. "You're the sort of chap that wants two answers to one question! What about Saturday night?"
The policeman took off his helmet and rubbed the top of his head as if to encourage his faculties.
"Nay!" he said. "There's a gentleman missing from Scarnham yonder, and it's thought he came out this way after dark, Saturday night, and somethinghappened. But, of course, if you wasn't in these parts then——"
"I wasn't, nor within ten miles of 'em," said Creasy. "Who is the gentleman?"
"Mr. Horbury, the bank manager," answered the policeman.
"I know Mr. Horbury," remarked Creasy, with a glance at Neale and Betty. "I've talked to him a hundred-and-one times on this waste. So it's him, is it? Well, there's one thing you can be certain about."
"What?" asked Betty eagerly.
"Mr. Horbury wouldn't happen aught by accident, hereabouts," answered the tinker significantly. "He knew every inch of this Hollow. Some folks, now, might take a header into one o' them old lead-mines. He wouldn't. He could ha' gone blind-fold over this spot."
"Well—he's disappeared," observed the policeman. "There's a search being made, all round. You heard naught last night, I suppose?"
Creasy gave Neale and Betty a look.
"Heard plenty of owls, and night-jars, and such-like," he answered, "and foxes, and weasels, and stoats, and beetles creeping in the grass. Naught human!"
The policeman resumed his helmet and sniffed audibly. He and the keeper moved away and talked together. Then the policeman turned to Neale.
"Well, we'll be getting back to the village, sir," he said. "If so be as you see our super, Mr. Neale, you might mention that we're out and about."
He and his companion went off by a different path; at the top of a rise in the ground the policeman turned again.
"Tinner!" he called.
"Hullo?" answered Creasy.
"If you should hear or find aught," said the policeman, "come to me, you know."
"All right!" assented Creasy. He picked up some wood and replenished his fire. And glancing at Neale and Betty, who still lingered, he let fall a muttered whisper under his breath. "Bide a bit—till those chaps have gone," he said. "I've a word or two."
He walked away to his cart after this mysterious communication, dived under its tilt, evidently felt for and found something, and came back, glancing over his shoulder to see that keeper and policeman had gone their ways.
"I never tell chaps of that sort anything, mister," he said, giving Neale a sly wink. "Them of my turn of life look on all gamekeepers and policemen as their natural enemies. They'd both of 'em turn me out o' this if they could!—only they know they can't. For some reason or other Ellersdeane Hollow is No Man's Land—and therefore mine. And so—I wasn't going to say anything to them—not me!"
"Then there is something you can say?" said Neale.
"You were here on Saturday!" exclaimed Betty. "You know something!"
"No, miss, I wasn't here Saturday," answered the tinker, "and I don't know anything—about what yon man asked, anyway—I told him the truth about all that. But—you say Mr. Horbury's missing, andthat he's considered to have come this way on Saturday night. So—do either of you know that?"
He drew his right hand from behind him, and in the glare of the firelight showed them, lying across its palm, a briar tobacco-pipe, silver-mounted.
"I found that, last night, gathering dry sticks," he said. "It's letters engraved on the silver band—'J. H. from B. F.' 'J. H.' now?—does that mean John Horbury?—you see, I know his Christian name."
Betty uttered a sharp exclamation and took the pipe in her hand. She turned to Neale with a look of sudden fear.
"It's the pipe I gave my uncle last Christmas!" she said. "Of course I know it! Where did you find it?" she went on, turning on Creasy. "Do tell us—do show us!"
"Foot of the crag there, miss—right beneath the old tower," answered Creasy. "And it's just as I found it. I'll give it to you, sir, to take to Superintendent Polke in Scarnham—he knows me. But just let me point something out. I ain't a detective, but in my eight-and-forty years I've had to keep my wits sharpened and my eyes open. Point out to Polke, and notice yourself—that whenever that pipe was dropped it was being smoked! The tobacco's caked at the surface—just as it would be if the pipe had been laid down at the very time the tobacco was burning well—if you're a smoker you'll know what I mean. That's one thing. The other is—just observe that the silver band is quite bright and fresh, and that there are no stains on the briar-wood.What's that indicate, young lady and young gentleman? Why, that that pipe hadn't been lying so very long when I found it! Not above a day, I'll warrant."
"That's very clever of you, very observant!" exclaimed Betty. "But—won't you show us the exact place where you picked it up?"
Creasy cast a glance at his cooking pot, stepped to it, and slightly tilted the lid. Then he signed to them to go back towards the tower by the path by which they had come.
"Don't want my supper to boil over, or to burn," he remarked. "It's the only decent meal I get in the day, you see, miss. But it won't take a minute to show you where I found the pipe. Now—what's the idea, sir," he went on, turning to Neale, "about Mr. Horbury's disappearance? Is it known that he came out here Saturday night?"
"Not definitely," replied Neale. "But it's believed he did. He was seen to set off in this direction, and there's a probability that he crossed over here on his way to Ellersdeane. But he's never been seen since he left Scarnham."
"Well," observed Creasy, "as I said just now, he wouldn't happen anything by accident in an ordinary way. Was there any reason why anybody should set on him?"
"There may have been," replied Neal.
"He wouldn't be likely to have aught valuable on him, surely—that time o' night?" said the tinker.
"He may have had," admitted Neale. "I can't tell you more."
Creasy asked no farther question. He led the way to the foot of the promontory, at a point where a mass of rock rose sheer out of the hollow to the plateau crowned by the ruinous tower.
"Here's where I picked up the pipe," he said. "Lying amongst this rubbish—stones and dry wood, you see—I just caught the gleam of the silver band. Now what should Mr. Horbury be doing down here? The path, you see, is a good thirty yards off. But—he may have fallen over—or been thrown over—and it's a sixty-feet drop from top to bottom."
Neale and Betty looked up the face of the rocks and said nothing. And Creasy presently went on, speaking in a low voice:—
"If he met with foul play—if, for instance, he was thrown over here in a struggle—or if, taking a look from the top there, he got too near the edge and something gave way," he said, "there's about as good means of getting rid of a dead man in this Ellersdeane Hollow as in any place in England! That's a fact!"
"You mean the lead-mines?" murmured Neale.
"Right, sir! Do you know how many of these old workings there is?" asked Creasy. "There's between fifty and sixty within a square mile of this tower. Some's fenced in—most isn't. Some of their mouths are grown over with bramble and bracken. And all of 'em are of tremendous depth. A man could be thrown down one of those mines, sir, and it 'ud be a long job finding his body! But all that's very frightening to the lady, and we'll hope nothing of it happened. Still——"
"It has to be faced," said Betty. "Listen—I am Mr. Horbury's niece, and I'm offering a reward for news of him. Will you keep your eyes and ears open while you're in this neighbourhood?"
The tinker promised that he would do his best, and presently he went back to his fire, while Neale and Betty turned away towards the town. Neither spoke until they were half-way through the wood; then Betty uttered her fears in a question.
"Do you think the finding of that pipe shows he was—there?" she asked.
"I'm sure of it," replied Neale. "I wish I wasn't. But—I saw him with this pipe in his lips at two o'clock on Saturday! I recognized it at once."
"Let's hurry on and see the police," said Betty. "We know something now, at any rate."
Polke, they were told at the police-station, was in his private house close by: a polite constable conducted them thither. And presently they were shown into the superintendent's dining-room, where Polke, hospitably intent, was mixing a drink for a stranger. The stranger, evidently just in from a journey, rose and bowed, and Polke waved his hand at him with a smile, as he looked at the two young people.
"Here's your man, miss!" said Polke cheerily. "Allow me—Detective-Sergeant Starmidge, of the Criminal Investigation Department."
Neale, who had never seen a real, live detective in the flesh, but who cherished something of a passion for reading sensational fiction and the reports of criminal cases in the weekly newspapers, looked at the man from New Scotland Yard with a feeling of surprise. He knew Detective-Sergeant Starmidge well enough by name and reputation. He was the man who had unravelled the mysteries of the Primrose Hill murder—a particularly exciting and underground affair. It was he who had been intimately associated with the bringing to justice of the Camden Town Gang—a group of daring and successful criminals which had baffled the London police for two years. Neale had read all about Starmidge's activities in both cases, and of the hairbreadth escape he had gone through in connection with the second. And he had formed an idea of him—which he now saw to be a totally erroneous one. For Starmidge did not look at all like a detective—in Neale's opinion. Instead of being elderly, and sinister, and close of eye and mouth, he was a somewhat shy-looking, open-faced, fresh-coloured young man, still under thirty, modest of demeanour, given to smiling, who might from his general appearance have been, say, a professionalcricketer, or a young commercial traveller, or anything but an expert criminal catcher.
"Only just got here, and a bit tired, miss," continued Polke, waving his hand again at the detective. "So I'm just giving him a refresher to liven his brains up. He'll want 'em—before we've done."
Betty took the chair which Polke offered her, and looked at the stranger with interest. She knew nothing about Starmidge, and she thought him quite different to any preconceived notion which she had ever had of men of his calling.
"I hope you'll be able to help us," she said politely, as Starmidge, murmuring something about his best respects to his host, took a whisky-and-soda from Polke's hand. "Do you think you will—and has Mr. Polke told you all about it?"
"Given him a mere outline, miss," remarked Polke. "I'll prime him before he goes to bed. Yes—he knows the main facts."
"And what do you propose to do—first?" demanded Betty.
Starmidge smiled and set down his glass.
"Why, first," he answered, "first, I think I should like to see a photograph of Mr. Horbury."
Polke moved to a bureau in the corner of his dining-room.
"I can fit you up," he said. "I've a portrait here that Mr. Horbury gave me not so long ago. There you are!"
He produced a cabinet photograph and handed it to Starmidge, who looked at it and laid it down on the table without comment.
"I suppose that conveys nothing to you?" asked Betty.
"Well," replied Starmidge, with another smile, "if a man's missing, one naturally wants to know what he's like. And if there's any advertising of him to be done—by poster, I mean—it ought to have a recent portrait of him."
"To be sure," agreed Polke.
"So far as I understand matters," continued Starmidge, "this gentleman left his house on Saturday evening, hasn't been seen since, and there's an idea that he probably walked across country to a place called Ellersdeane. But up to now there's no proof that he did. I think that's all, Mr. Polke?"
"All!" assented Polke.
"No!" said Neale. "Miss Fosdyke and I have brought you some news. Mr. Horbury must have crossed Ellersdeane Hollow on Saturday night. Look at this!—and I'll tell you all about it."
The superintendent and the detective listened silently to Neale's account of the meeting with Creasy, and Betty, watching Starmidge's face, saw that he was quietly taking in all the points of importance.
"Is this tin-man to be depended upon?" he asked, when Neale had finished. "Is he known?"
"I know him," answered Polke. "He's come to this neighbourhood for many years. Yes—an honest chap enough—bit given to poaching, no doubt, but straight enough in all other ways—no complaint of him that I ever heard of. I should believe all he says about this."
"Then, as that's undoubtedly Mr. Horbury's pipe,and as this gentleman saw him smoking it at two o'clock on Saturday, and as Creasy picked it up underneath Ellersdeane Tower on Sunday evening," said Starmidge, "there seems no doubt that Mr. Horbury went that way, and dropped it where it was found. But—I can't think he was carrying Lord Ellersdeane's jewels home!"
"Why?" asked Neale.
"Is it likely?" suggested Starmidge. "One's got—always—to consider probability. Is it probable that a bank manager would put a hundred thousand pounds' worth of jewels in his pocket, and walk across a lonely stretch of land at that time of night, just to hand them over to their owner? I think not—especially as he hadn't been asked to do so. I think that if Mr. Horbury had been in a hurry to deliver up these jewels, he'd have driven out to Lord Ellersdeane's place."
"Good!" muttered Polke. "That's the more probable thing."
"Where are the jewels, then?" asked Neale.
Starmidge glanced at Polke with one expression, at Betty and Neale with another.
"They haven't been searched for yet, have they?" he asked quietly. "They may be—somewhere about, you know."
"You mean to search for them?" exclaimed Betty.
"I don't know what I intend to do," replied Starmidge, smiling. "I haven't even thought. I shall have thought a lot by morning. But—the country's being searched, isn't it, for news of Mr. Horbury?—perhapswe'll hear something. It's a difficult thing for a well-known man to get clear away from a little place like this. No!—what I'd like to know—what I want to satisfy myself about is—did Mr. Horbury go away at all? Is there really anything missing from the bank? Are those jewels really missing? You see," concluded Starmidge, looking round his circle of listeners, "there's an awful lot to take into account."
At that moment Polke's domestic servant tapped at the door and put her head inside the room.
"If you please, Mr. Polke, there's Mrs. Pratt, from the Station Hotel, would like a word with you," she said.
The superintendent hurried from the room—to return at once with a stout, middle-aged woman, who, as she entered, raised her veil and glanced half-suspiciously at Polke's other visitors.
"All friends here, Mrs. Pratt," said the superintendent reassuringly. "You know young Mr. Neale well enough. This lady is Mr. Horbury's niece—anxious to find him. That gentleman's a friend of mine—you can say aught you like before him. Well, ma'am!—you think you can tell me something about this affair? What might it be, now?"
Mrs. Pratt, taking the chair which Starmidge placed for her at the end of the table, nodded a general greeting to the company, and lifting her veil and untying her bonnet-strings, revealed a good-natured countenance.
"Well, Mr. Polke," she said, turning to the superintendent, "taking your word for it that we'reall friends—me being pretty sure, all the same, that this gentleman's one of your own profession, which I don't object to—I'll tell you what it is I've come up for, special, as it were, and me not waiting until after closing-time to do it. But that town-crier's been down our way, and hearing him making his call between our house and the station, and learning what it was all about, thinks I to myself, 'I'd best go up and see the super and tell him what I know.' And," concluded Mrs. Pratt, beaming around her, "here I am!"
"Ay—and what do you know, ma'am?" asked Polke. "Something, of course."
"Or I shouldn't be here," agreed Mrs. Pratt, smoothing out a fold of her gown. "Well—Saturday afternoon, the time being not so many minutes after the 5.30 got in, and therefore you might say at the outside twenty minutes to six, a strange gentleman walked across from the station to our hotel, which is, as you're all well aware, exactly opposite. I happened to be in the bar-parlour window at the time, and I saw him crossing—saw, likewise, from the way he looked about him, and up at the town above us, that he'd never been in Scarnham before. And happen I'd best tell you what like he was, while the recollection's fresh in my mind—a little gentleman he was, very well dressed in what you might call the professional style; dark clothes and so forth, and a silk top-hat; I should say about fifty years of age, with a fresh complexion and a biggish grey moustache and a nicely rolled umbrella—quite the little swell he was. He made for our door, and I went tothe bar-window to attend to him. He wanted to know if he could get some food, and I said of course he could—we'd some uncommon nice chops in the house. So he ordered three chops and setterers—and then he asked if we'd a telephone in the house, and could he use it. And, of course, I told him we had, and showed him where it was—after which he wanted a local directory, and I gave him Scammond's Guide. He turned that over a bit, and then, when he'd found what he wanted, he went to our telephone box—which, as you're well aware, Mr. Polke, is in our front hall. And into it he popped."
Mrs. Pratt paused a moment, and gave her listeners a knowing look, as if she was now about to narrate the most important part of her story.
"But what you mayn't be aware of, Mr. Polke," she continued, "is that our telephone box, which has glass panels in its upper parts, has at this present time one of these panels broken—our pot-man did it, carrying a plank through the hall. So that any one passing to and fro, as it were, when anybody's using the telephone, can't help hearing a word or two of what's being said inside. Now, of course, I was passing in and out, giving orders for this gentleman's chops, when he was in the box. And I heard a bit of what he said, though I didn't, naturally, hear aught of what was said to him, nor who by. But it's in consequence of what I did hear, and of what Tolson, the town-crier, has been shouting down our way tonight, that I come up here to see you."
"Much obliged to you, Mrs. Pratt," said Polke. "Very glad to hear anything that may have to dowith Mr. Horbury's disappearance. Now, what did you hear?"
"What I heard," replied the landlady, "was this here—disjointed, as you would term it. First of all I hear the gentleman ask for 'Town 23.' Now, of course, you know whose number that there is, Mr. Polke."
"Chestermarke's Bank," said Neale, turning to Betty.
"Chestermarke's Bank it is, sir," assented Mrs. Pratt. "Which you know very well, as also do I, having oft called it up. Very well—I didn't hear no more just then, me going into the dining-room to see that our maid laid the table proper. But when I was going back to the bar, I heard more. 'Along the river-side?' says the gentleman, 'Straight on from where I am—all right.' Then after a minute, 'At seven-thirty, then?' he says. 'All right—I'll meet you.' And after that he rings off—and he went into the dining-room, and in due course he had his chops, and some tart and cheese, and a pint of our bitter ale, and took his time, and perhaps about a quarter past seven he came to the bar and paid, and he took a drop of Scotch whisky. After which he says, 'It's very possible, landlady, that I may have to stop in the town all night—have you a nice room that you can let me?' 'Certainly, sir,' says I. 'We've very good rooms, and bathrooms, and every convenience—shall I show you one?' 'No,' says he, 'this seems a good house, and I'll take your word for it—keep your best room for me, then.' And after that he lighted a cigar and went out, sayinghe'd be back later, and he crossed the road and went down on the river-bank, and walked slowly along towards the bottom of the town. And Mr. Polke and company," concluded Mrs. Pratt, solemnly turning from one listener to another, "that was the last I saw of him. For—he never came back!"
"Never came back!" echoed Polke.
"Not even the ghost of him!" said Mrs. Pratt. "I waited up myself till twelve, and then I decided that he'd changed his mind and was stopping with somebody he knew, which person, Mr. Polke, I took to be Mr. Horbury. Why? 'Cause he'd rung up Chestermarke's Bank—and who should he want at Chestermarke's Bank at six o'clock of a Saturday evening but Mr. Horbury? There wouldn't be nobody else there—as Mr. Neale'll agree."
"You never heard of this gentleman being in the town on Sunday or today?" asked Polke.
"Not a word!" replied Mrs. Pratt. "And never saw him go to the station, neither, to leave the town. Now, as you know, Mr. Polke, we've only two trains go away from here on Sundays, and there's only four on any week-day, us being naught but a branch line, and as our bar-parlour window is exactly opposite the station, I see everybody that goes and comes—I always was one for looking out of window! And I'm sure that little gentleman didn't go away neither yesterday nor today. And that's all I know," concluded Mrs. Pratt, rising, "and if it's any use to you, you're welcome, and hopeful I am that your poor uncle'll be found, Miss, for a nicer gentleman I could never wish to meet!"
Mrs. Pratt departed amidst expressions of gratitude and police admonitions to keep her news to herself for awhile, and Betty and Neale turned eagerly to the famous detective. But Starmidge appeared to have entered upon a period of silence, and made no further observation than that he would wait upon Miss Fosdyke in the morning, and presently the two young people followed Mrs. Pratt into the street and turned into the Market-Place. The last of the evening revellers were just coming out of the closing taverns, and to a group of them, Tolson, the town-crier, was dismally calling forth his announcement that one hundred pounds reward would be paid to any person who first gave news of having seen Mr. John Horbury on the previous Saturday evening or since. The clanging of his bell, and the strident notes of his cracked voice, sounded in the distance as Betty said good-night to Neale and turned sadly into the Scarnham Arms.