The Earl took the empty casket from the detective's hand and looked at it, inside and outside, with doubt and wonder.
"Now what do you take this to mean?" he asked.
"That we've got three people to find, instead of two, my lord," answered Starmidge promptly. "We must be after the housekeeper."
"You found this in her room?" asked Polke. "So—you went up there?"
"As soon as you'd left me," replied the detective, with a shrewd smile. "Of course! I wanted to have a look round. I didn't forget the chimney. She'd put that behind the back of the grate—a favourite hiding-place. I say she—but, of course, some one else may have put it there. Still—we must find her. You telephoned to the police at Ecclesborough, superintendent?"
"Ay, and got small comfort!" answered Polke. "It's a stiff job looking for one woman amongst half a million people."
"She wouldn't stop in Ecclesborough," said Starmidge. "She'll be on her way further afield, now. You can get anywhere from Ecclesborough, of course."
"Of course!" assented Polke. "She would be in any one of half a dozen big towns within a couple of hours—in some of 'em within an hour—in London itself within three. This'll be another case of printing a description. I wish we'd thought of keeping an eye on her before!"
"We haven't got to the stage where we can think of everything," observed Starmidge. "We've got to take things as they come. Well—there's one thing can be done now," he went on, looking at the Earl, "if your lordship'll be kind enough to do it."
"I'll do anything that I can," replied Lord Ellersdeane. "What is it?"
"If your lordship would just make a call on the two Mr. Chestermarkes," suggested Starmidge. "To tell them, of course, of—that," he added, pointing to the empty casket. "Your lordship will get some attention—I suppose. They won't give any attention to Polke or myself. If your lordship would just tell them that your casket—emptied of its valuable contents—had been found hidden in Mrs. Carswell's room, perhaps they'll listen, and—what is much more important—give you their views on the matter. I," concluded Starmidge, drily, "should very much like to hear them!"
The Earl made a wry face.
"Oh, all right!" he answered. "If I must, I must. It's not a job that appeals to me, but—very well. I'll go now."
"And we," said Starmidge, turning to Polke, "had better join the others and see if the old antiquarygentleman has found any of these secret places he talked of."
Lord Ellersdeane found no difficulty in obtaining access to the partners: he was shown into their room with all due ceremony as soon as Shirley announced him. He found them evidently relaxing a little after their lunch, from which they had just returned. They were standing in characteristic attitudes; Gabriel, smoking a cigar, bolt upright on the hearth-rug beneath the portrait of his ancestor; Joseph, toying with a scented cigarette, leaning against the window which looked out on the garden. For once in a way both seemed more amenable and cordial.
The Earl held out the empty casket.
"This," he said, "is the casket in which I handed my wife's jewels to Mr. Horbury. It is, as you see, empty. It has just been found by the Scotland Yard man, Starmidge."
Gabriel glanced at the casket with some interest; Joseph, with none: neither spoke.
"In the housekeeper's room—hidden in her fire-place," continued the Earl, looking from one partner to the other. "That shows, gentlemen, that the jewels were, after all, in this house—on these premises."
"There has never been any question of that," said Gabriel quickly. "We, of course, never doubted what your lordship was good enough to tell us—naturally!"
"Not for a moment!" said Joseph. "We felt at once that you had given the jewels to Horbury."
The Earl set the casket down on Gabriel's desk andlooked a little uncertain—and uncomfortable. Gabriel indicated the chair which he had politely moved forward on his visitor's entrance.
"Won't your lordship sit down?" he said.
The Earl accepted the invitation and looked from one man to the other. A sudden impression crossed his mind—never, he thought, were there two men from whom it was so difficult to get a word as these Chestermarkes—who had such a queer habit of staring in silence at one!
"The—the housekeeper appears to have run away," he said haltingly. "That's—somewhat queer, isn't it?"
"We understand Mrs. Carswell has left the house—and the town," replied Gabriel. "As to it's being queer—well, all this is queer!"
"And—all of a piece!" remarked Joseph.
The Earl was glad that the junior partner made that remark, and he turned to him.
"I understand you saw her—and spoke to her—just before she left, this morning?" he said hesitatingly. "Did she—er—give you the impression of being—shall we say, uneasy?"
"I certainly saw her—and spoke to her," asserted Joseph. "I went to scold her. I had given her orders that no one was to be allowed access to certain rooms in the house, and that we were not to be bothered by callers. She fetched me out to see Miss Fosdyke—I went to scold her for that. We had our reasons for not permitting access to those rooms. They have, of course, been frustrated."
"But at any rate some good's come of it," observedthe Earl, pointing to his casket. "This has been found. And—in the housekeeper's bedroom. Hidden! And—she's gone. What do you think of it, gentlemen?"
Gabriel spread his hands and shook his head. But Joseph answered readily.
"I should think," he replied, "that's she's gone to meet Horbury."
The Earl started, glancing keenly from one partner to the other.
"Then—you still think that Horbury is guilty of—of dishonesty!" he exclaimed. "Really, I—dear me, such an absolutely upright, honourable man——"
"Surface!" said Joseph quietly. "Surface! On the surface, my lord."
The Earl's face flushed a little with palpable displeasure, and he turned from the junior to the senior partner.
"Very good of your lordship," said Gabriel, with the faintest suggestion of a smile. "But—a man's honesty is bounded by his necessity. We, of course, are better acquainted with our late manager's qualities—now."
"You have discovered—something?" asked the Earl anxiously.
"Up to now," replied Gabriel, "we have kept things to ourselves. But we don't mind giving your lordship a little—just a little—information. There is no doubt that Horbury had, for some time past, engaged in speculation in stocks and shares—none whatever!"
"To a considerable extent," added Joseph.
"And—unsuccessfully?" inquired the Earl.
"We are not yet quite sure of the details," answered Gabriel. "The mere fact is enough. Of course, no man in his position has any right to speculate. Had we known that he speculated——"
"He would have been discharged from our service," said Joseph. "No banker can retain the services of a manager who—gambles."
The Earl began to feel almost as uncomfortable as if these two men were charging him with improper transactions. He was a man of simple mind and ideas, and he supposed the Chestermarkes knew what they were talking about.
"Then you think that this sudden disappearance——" he said.
"In the history of banking—unwritten, possibly," remarked Joseph, "there are many similar instances. No end of them, most likely. Bank managers enjoy vast opportunities of stealing, my lord! And the man who is best trusted has more opportunities than the man who's watched. We never suspected—and so we never watched."
"You have heard of the stranger who came to the town on Saturday night, and is believed to have telephoned from the Station Hotel to Horbury?" asked the Earl. "What of him?"
"We have heard," answered Gabriel. "We don't know any more. We don't know any such person—from the description. But we have no doubt he did meet Horbury—and that his visit had something—probably everything—to do with Horbury's disappearance."
"But how could he disappear?" asked the Earl."I mean to say—how could such a well-known man disappear so completely, without anybody knowing of it? It seems impossible!"
"If your lordship will think for a moment," said Joseph, "you will see that it is not merely not impossible, but very easy. Horbury was a great pedestrian—he used to boast of his thirty and forty mile walks. Now we are well within twenty miles of Ecclesborough. Ecclesborough is a very big town. What was there to prevent Horbury, during Saturday night, from walking across country to Ecclesborough? Nothing! If, after interviewing that strange man, he decided to clear out at once, he'd nothing to do but set off—over a very lonely stretch of country, every inch of which he knew—to Ecclesborough: he would be in Ecclesborough by an early hour in the morning. Now in Ecclesborough there are three stations—big stations. He could get away from any one of them—what booking-clerk or railway official would pay any particular attention to him? The thing is—ridiculously easy!"
"What of the other man?" asked the Earl. "If there were two men—together—at an early hour—eh?"
"They need not have caught a train at a very early hour," replied Joseph. "They need not have been together when they caught any train. I don't say they went together—I don't say they went to Ecclesborough—I don't say they caught a train: I only say what, it must be obvious, they easily could do without attracting attention."
"The fact of Horbury's disappearance is—unchallengeable,"remarked Gabriel quietly. "We—know why he disappeared."
"I should think," said Joseph, still more quietly, "that Lord Ellersdeane also knows—by now."
"No, I don't!" exclaimed the Earl, a little sharply. "I wish I did!"
Joseph pointed to the casket.
"Why have the police been officially—and officiously—searching the house, then?" he asked.
"To see if they could get any clue to his disappearance," replied the Earl.
"And they found—that!" retorted Joseph.
"In the housekeeper's room," said the Earl. "She may have appropriated the jewels."
"I think your lordship must see that that is very unlikely—without collusion between Horbury and herself," remarked Gabriel.
"Mrs. Carswell," said Joseph, "has always been more or less of a mysterious person. We know nothing about her. I don't even know where Horbury got her from. But—the probability is that they were in collusion, and that when he went, she stayed behind, to ascertain how things turned out on his disappearance; and that she fled when it began to appear that searching inquiries were to be made into which she might be drawn."
The Earl made no reply. He recognized that the Chestermarke observations and suggestions were rather more than plausible, and much as he fought against the idea of the missing manager's dishonesty, he could not deny that the circumstances as set forth by the bankers were suspicious.
"Your lordship will, of course, follow up this woman?" said Gabriel, after a brief silence.
"I suppose the police will," replied the Earl. "But—aren't you going to do anything yourselves, Mr. Chestermarke? You told me, you know, that certain securities of yours were missing."
Gabriel glanced at his nephew—and Joseph nodded.
"Oh, well!" answered Gabriel. "We don't mind telling your lordship—and if your lordship pleases, you may tell the police—we are doing something. We have, in fact, been doing something from an early hour. We have a very clever man at work just now—he has been at work since he heard from us twenty-four hours ago. But—our ideas are not those of Polke. Polke begins his inquiries here. Our inquiries—based on our knowledge—begin ... elsewhere."
"You think Horbury will be heard of—elsewhere?" suggested the Earl.
"Much more likely to be heard of elsewhere than here, my lord!" asserted Gabriel.
"But, of course, what we do need not interfere with anything that your lordship does, or that Miss Fosdyke does, or that the police do."
"All that any of us want, I suppose, is to find Horbury," said the Earl, as he rose. "If he's found, then, I conclude, some explanation will result. You don't believe in searching about here, then?"
"Let Polke and his men have their way, my lord," replied Gabriel, with a wave of his hand. "My impression of police methods is that those who follow them can only follow that particular path. We arenot looking for Horbury—here. He's—elsewhere."
"So, by this time, are your lordship's jewels," added Joseph significantly. "They, one may be sure, are not going to be found in or about Scarnham."
The Earl said good-day and went out, troubled and wondering. In the hall he met the search-party. Mr. Batterley had failed to find anything in the way of secret stairs or passages or openings beyond those already known to the occupants, and though he was still confident that they existed, the police had wound up their present investigations to turn to more palpable things. Polke and the detective listened to the Earl's account of his interview, and the superintendent sniffed at the mention of the inquiries instituted by the partners.
"Ah!" he said incredulously. "Just so! Private inquiry agent, no doubt. All right—let 'em do what they like. But we're going to do what we like, my lord, and what we do will be on very different lines. First thing now—we want that woman!"
The search-party separated outside the bank, not too well satisfied with the result of its labours. The old antiquary walked away obviously nettled that he was not allowed to pursue his investigations further; Betty Fosdyke and the solicitor went across to the hotel in deep conference; the Earl accompanied Starmidge and Polke to the police-station. And there the detective laid down a firm outline of the next immediate procedure. It was of no use to half-do things, he said—they must rouse wholesale attention. Once more the press must be made use of—the sudden disappearance of Mrs. Carswell must be noised abroad in the next morning's papers. A police notice describing her must be got out and sent all over the kingdom. And—last, but certainly not least—Lord Ellersdeane must offer a substantial reward for the recovery of, or news of, his missing property. Let the Chestermarkes adopt their own method—if they had any—of finding the alleged absconding manager; he, Starmidge, preferred to solve these mysteries by ways of his own.
It was growing near to dusk when all their necessary arrangements had been made, and Starmidge was free to seek his long-delayed dinner. He had put himselfup, of his own choice, at a quiet and old-fashioned inn near the police-station, where he had engaged a couple of rooms and found a landlady to his liking. He repaired to this retreat now, and ate and drank in quiet, and smoked a peaceful pipe afterwards, and was glad of a period of rest. But as he took his ease, he thought and pondered, and by the time that evening had fairly settled over the little town, he went out into the streets and sought the ancient corner of Scarnham which was called Cornmarket.
Starmidge wanted to take a look at the house in which Joseph Chestermarke spent his bachelor existence. Since his own arrival in the town, he had been learning all he could about the two Chestermarkes, and he was puzzled about them. For a man who was still young, Starmidge had seen a good deal of the queer side of life, and had known a good many strange people, but so far he had never come across two such apparently curious characters as the uncle and nephew who ran the old-fashioned bank. Their evident indifference to public opinion puzzled him. He could not understand their ice-cold defiance of what he himself called law. He never remembered being treated as they had treated him. For Starmidge, when on duty, considered himself as much the representative of Justice as any ermined and coifed judge could be, and he had been accustomed—so far—to attentive and respectful consideration. But neither Gabriel nor Joseph Chestermarke appeared to have any proper appreciation of the dignity of a detective-sergeant of the Criminal Investigation Department, and their eyes had regarded him as if he were something veryinferior indeed. Starmidge, though by no means a vain man, felt nettled by such treatment, and he accordingly formed something very like a prejudice against the two partners. That prejudice was quickly followed by suspicion—especially in the case of Joseph Chestermarke. According to Starmidge's ideas, the bankers, if they really believed Horbury to have absconded, if certain securities of theirs really were missing, if they really thought that Horbury had carried them off, and the Countess of Ellersdeane's jewels with him, ought to have placed every information in their power at the disposal of the police: it was suspicious, and strange, and not at all proper, that they didn't. And it was suspicious, too, that the housekeeper, Mrs. Carswell, should take herself off after a brief exchange of words with Joseph. It looked very much as if the junior partner had either warned her to go, or had told her to go. Why had she gonethen?—when she might have gone before. And why in such haste? Clearly, considering everything, there were grounds for believing that there was some secret between Mrs. Carswell and Joseph Chestermarke.
Anyway, rightly or wrongly, Starmidge was suspicious of the junior partner in Chestermarke's Bank, and he wanted to know everything that he could find out about him. He had already learnt that Joseph, like his uncle, was a confirmed bachelor, and lived in an old house at the corner of Cornmarket, somewhat—so far as the town-folk could judge—after the fashion of a hermit. Starmidge would have given a good deal for a really good excuse to call on Joseph Chestermarkeat that house, so that he might see the inside of it: indeed, if he had only met with a better reception at the bank, he would have invented such an excuse. But if Gabriel was icily stand-offish, Joseph was openly sneering and contemptuous, and the detective knew that no excuse would give him admittance. Still, there was the outside: he would take a look at that. Starmidge was a young man of ideas as well as of ability, and without exactly shaping his thought in so many words, he felt—vaguely perhaps, but none the less strongly—that just as you can size up some men by the clothes they wear, so you can get an idea of others by the outer look of the houses which shelter them.
Cornmarket in Scarnham lay at the further end of the street called Finkleway. It was a queer, open space which sloped downhill from the centre of the ridge on which the middle of the town was built to the valley through which the little river meandered. Save where the streets, and the road leading out to the open country and Ellersdeane cut into it, it was completely enclosed by old houses of the sort which Starmidge had already admired in the Market-Place: many of them half-timbered, all of them very ancient. One or two of them were inns; some were evidently workmen's cottages; others were better-class dwelling-houses. From the description already furnished to him by Polke, Starmidge at once recognized Joseph Chestermarke's abode. It was a corner house, abutting on the road which ran out at the lower angle of this irregular space and led down to the river and Scarnham Bridge. It was by far the biggest housethereabouts—a tall, slender, stone-built house of many stories, towering high above any of the surrounding gables. And save for a very faint, dull glow which shone through the transom window of the front door, there was not a vestige of light in a single window of the seven stories. Cornmarket was a gloomy commonplace, thought Starmidge, but the little oil lamps in the cottages were riotously cheery in comparison with the darkness of the tall, gaunt Chestermarke mansion. It looked like the abode of dead men.
Starmidge longed to knock at that door—if only to get a peep inside the hall. But he curbed his desires and went quietly round the corner of the house. There was a high black wall there which led down to the grassy bank of the river. From its corner another wall ran along the river-side, separated from the stream by a path. There was a door set in this wall, and Starmidge, after carefully looking round in the gloom, quietly tried it and found it securely locked.
An intense desire to see the inside of Joseph Chestermarke's garden seized the detective. Near the door, partly overhanging the garden wall, partly overshadowing the path and the river-bank, was a tree: Starmidge, after listening carefully and deciding that no one was coming along the path, made shift to climb that tree, just then bursting into full leaf. In another minute he was amongst its middle branches, and peering inquisitively into the garden which lay between him and the gaunt outline of the gloom-stricken house.
The moon was just then rising above the roofs andgables of the town, and by its rapidly increasing light Starmidge saw that the garden was of considerable size, running back quite sixty yards from the rear of the house, and having a corresponding breadth. Like all the gardens which stretched from the backs of the Market-Place houses to the river-bank, it was rich in trees—high elms and beeches rose from its lawns, and made deep shadows across them. But Starmidge was not so much interested in those trees, fine as they were, as in a building; obviously modern, which was set in their midst, completely isolated. That it was a comparatively new building he could see; the moonbeams falling full on it showed that the stone of which it was built was fresh and unstained by time or smoke. But what was it? Of what nature, for what purpose? It was neither stable, nor coach-house, nor summer-house, nor a grouping of domestic offices. No drive or path led to it: it was built in the middle of a grass-plot: round it ran a stone-lined trench. Its architecture was plain but handsome; it possessed two distinctive features which the detective was quick to notice. One, was that—at any rate on the two sides which he could see—its windows were set at a height of quite twelve feet from the ground: the other, that from its flat parapeted roof rose a conical structure something like the rounded stacks of glass foundries and potteries. This was obviously a chimney, and from its mouth at that moment was emerging a slight column of smoke which threw back curiously coloured reflections, blue, and yellow, and red, to the moonlight which fell on its thickening spirals.
Starmidge felt just as much desire to get inside this queer structure as into the house behind it, and if he could have seen any prospect of taking a peep through its windows he would have risked detection and dropped from his perch into the garden. But he judged that if the windows were twelve feet from the ground on the two sides of the building which he could see, they would be the same height on the sides which he couldn't see; moreover, he observed that they were obscured by either dull red glass or red curtains. Clearly no outsider was intended to get a peep into this temple of mystery. What was it? What went on within it? He was about to climb down from the tree when he got some sort of an answer to these questions. From within the building, muffled by the evidently thick walls, came the faintest sound of metal beating on metal—a mere rippling, tinkling sound, light and musical, such as might have been made by fairy blacksmiths beating on a fairy anvil. But far away as it sounded, it was clear and unmistakable.
Starmidge regained the path between the wall and the river and went slowly forward. The place, he decided, was evidently some sort of a workshop, in which was a forge: probably Joseph Chestermarke amused himself with a little amateur work in metals. He thought no more of the matter just then; he wanted to explore the river-bank along which he now walked. For according to the story of the landlady of the Station Hotel, it was on that river-bank that the mysterious stranger was to meet whoever it was that he spoke to over the telephone, and so far Starmidgehad not had an opportunity of examining its geography.
There was not much to examine. The river, a mere ditch, eight or ten yards in breadth, wandered through a level mead at the base of the valley, separated from the gardens by a wide path. Between Scarnham Bridge, at the foot of Cornmarket and the corner of Joseph Chestermarke's big garden, and the end of Cordmaker's Alley, a narrow street which ran down from the further end of the Market-Place to the river-side, there were no features of any note or interest. On the other side of the river lay the deep woods through which Neale and Betty Fosdyke had passed on their way to Ellersdeane Hollow: Starmidge had heard all about that expedition, and he glanced curiously at the black depths of the trees, wondering if John Horbury and the mysterious stranger, supposing they had met, had turned into these woods to hold their conference. He presently came to the foot-bridge by which access to the woods and the other bank of the river was gained, and by it he lingered for a moment or two, looking at it in its bearings to the bank-house garden and orchard on his left hand, and to the Station Hotel, the lights of which he could plainly see down the valley. Certainly, if John Horbury and the stranger desired to meet in secret, here was the place. The stranger had nothing to do but stroll along the river-bank from the hotel; Horbury had only to step out of his orchard and meet him. Once together, they had only to cross that foot-bridge into the woods to be immediately in surroundings of great privacy.
Starmidge turned up Cordmaker's Alley, regained the Market-Place, and strolled on to Polke's private house. The superintendent was taking his ease after his day's labours and reading the Ecclesborough evening newspapers: he tossed one of them over to his visitor.
"All there!" he said, pointing to some big headlines. "Got it all in, just as you told it to Parkinson. Full justice to the descriptions of both Horbury and the Station Hotel stranger. Smart work, eh?"
"Power of the Press—as Parkinson said," answered Starmidge, with a laugh. "It's very useful, the Press: I don't know how they managed without it in the old days of criminal catching, Mr. Polke. Press and telegraph, eh?—they're valuable adjuncts."
"You think all that would be in the London papers this evening?" asked Polke.
"Sure to be," replied Starmidge. "I'm hoping we'll hear something from London tomorrow. I say—I've been taking a bit of a look round one or two places tonight, quietly, you know. What's that curious building in Joseph Chestermarke's garden?"
Polke put down his paper and looked unusually interested.
"I don't know!" he answered. "How did you see it? I've never seen inside his garden."
"Climbed a tree on the river-bank and looked over the wall," replied Starmidge.
"Well," said Polke, "I did hear, some few years ago, that he was building something in that garden, but the work was done by Ecclesborough contractors,and nobody ever knew much about it here. I believe Joseph's a bit of an amateur experimenter—but I don't know what he experiments in. Nobody ever goes inside his house—he's a hermit."
"He's got some sort of a forge there, anyhow," said Starmidge. "Or a furnace, or something of that sort."
Then they talked of other things until half-past ten, when the detective retired to his inn and went to bed. He was sleeping soundly when a steady knocking at his door roused him, to hear the voice of his landlady outside. And at the same time he heard the big clock of the parish church striking midnight.
"Mr. Starmidge!" said the voice, "there's a policeman wanting you. Will you go round at once to Mr. Polke's? There's a man come from London about that piece in the newspapers."
Starmidge hastily pulled some garments about him, and flinging a travelling-coat over his shoulders, hurried downstairs, to find a sleepy-looking policeman in the hall.
"How did this man get here—at this time of night?" he asked, as they set off towards the police-station.
"Came in a taxi-cab from Ecclesborough," answered the policeman. "I haven't heard any particulars, Mr. Starmidge, except that he'd read the news in the London paper this evening and set off here in consequence. He's in Mr. Polke's house, sir."
Starmidge walked into the superintendent's parlour, to find him in company with a young man, whom the detective at once sized up as a typical London clerk—a second glance assured him that his clerkship was of the legal variety.
"Here's Detective-Sergeant Starmidge," said Polke. "Starmidge, this gentleman's Mr. Simmons, from London. Mr. Simmons says he's clerk to a Mr. Hollis, a London solicitor. And, having read that description in the papers this last evening, he's certain that the man who came to the Station Hotel here on Saturday is his governor."
Starmidge sat down and looked again at the visitor—atall, sandy-haired, freckled young man, who was obviously a good deal puzzled.
"Is Mr. Hollis missing, then?" asked Starmidge.
Simmons looked as if he found it somewhat difficult to explain matters.
"Well," he answered. "It's this way. I've never seen him since Saturday. And he hasn't been at his rooms—his private rooms—since Saturday. In the ordinary course he ought to have been at business first thing yesterday—we'd some very important business on yesterday morning, which wasn't done because of his absence. He never turned up yesterday at all—nor today either—we never heard from or of him. And so, when I read that description in the papers this evening, I caught the first express I could get down here—at least to Ecclesborough—I had to motor from there."
"That description describes Mr. Hollis, then?" asked Starmidge.
"Exactly! I'm sure it's Mr. Hollis—it's him to a T!" answered the clerk. "I recognized it at once."
"Let's get everything in order," said Starmidge, with a glance at Polke. "To begin with, who is Mr. Hollis?"
"Mr. Frederick Hollis, solicitor, 59bSouth Square, Gray's Inn," replied Simmons promptly. "Andwell & Hollis is the name of the firm—but there isn't any Andwell—hasn't been for many a year—he's dead, long since, is Andwell. Mr. Hollis is the only proprietor."
"Don't know him at all," remarked Starmidge. "What's his particular line of practice?"
"Conveyancing," said Simmons.
"Then, naturally, I shouldn't," observed Starmidge. "My acquaintance is chiefly with police-court solicitors. And you say he'd private rooms some where? Where, now?"
"Paper Buildings, Temple," replied the clerk. "He'd a suite of rooms there—he's had 'em for years."
"Bachelor, then?" inquired the detective.
"Yes—he's a bachelor," agreed Simmons.
"You know he hasn't been at his rooms since Saturday—you've ascertained that?" continued Starmidge.
"He's never been at his rooms since he left them after breakfast on Saturday morning," replied Simmons. "I went there at eleven o'clock Monday—that was yesterday—again at four: twice on Tuesday. I was coming away from the Temple when I got the paper and read about this affair."
"When did you see him last?" asked Starmidge.
"Half-past-twelve Saturday. He went out—dressed just as it says in your description. And," concluded the clerk, with a shake of his head which suggested his own inability to understand matters, "he never said a word to me about coming down here."
"Did he say anything to anybody at his rooms about going away?—for the week-end, for instance?" asked the detective. "There'd be somebody there, of course."
"Only a woman who tidied up for him and got his breakfast ready of a morning," said Simmons."He took all his other meals out. No—he said nothing to her. But he wasn't a week-ender: he very rarely left his rooms except for the office."
"Any of his relations been after him?" inquired Starmidge.
"I don't know anything about his relations—nor friends, either," answered the clerk. "Don't even know the address of one of them, or I'd have gone to seek him on Monday—everything's at a standstill. He was a lonely sort of man—I never heard of his relations or friends."
"How long have you been with him, then?" asked the detective. "Some time?"
"Six years," replied Simmons.
"And you've no doubt, from the description in the papers, that the gentleman who came here on Saturday last is Mr. Hollis?" asked Starmidge.
The clerk shook his head with an air of conviction.
"None!" he answered. "None whatever!"
Starmidge helped himself to a cigar out of an open box which lay on Polke's table. He lighted it carefully, and smoked for a minute or two in silence. Then he looked at Polke.
"Well, there's a very obvious question to put to Mr. Simmons after all that," he remarked. "Have you any idea," he continued, turning to the clerk, "of any reason that would bring Mr. Hollis to Scarnham?"
Simmons shook his head more vigorously than before.
"Not the ghost of an idea!" he exclaimed.
"There was no business being done with anybody at Scarnham?" asked Starmidge.
"Not in our office!" asserted Simmons. "I'm sure of that. I know all the business that we have in hand. To tell you the truth, gentlemen, though you may think me very ignorant, I never even heard of Scarnham myself until I read the paper this evening."
"Quite excusable," said Starmidge. "I never heard of it myself until Monday. Well—this is all very queer, Mr. Simmons. What does Mr. Polke think? And what's Mr. Polke got to suggest!"
Polke, who had been listening silently, turned to the clerk.
"Did you chance to look at Mr. Hollis's letters—recent letters, I mean—" he asked, "to see if you would find anything inviting him down here?"
"I did," replied Simmons promptly. "I looked through all the letters on his desk and in his drawers yesterday afternoon. I didn't find anything that explained his absence. And when I was at his rooms this evening I looked at some letters on his mantelpiece—nothing there. I tell you, I haven't the least notion as to what could bring him to Scarnham."
"And I suppose none of your fellow-clerks have, either?" asked Polke.
Simmons smiled and glanced at Starmidge.
"We've only myself and another—a junior clerk—and a boy," he said. "It's not a big practice—only a bit of good conveyancing now and then, and some family business. Mr. Hollis isn't dependent on it—he's private means of his own."
"Aye, just so!" observed Polke. "And I should say, Starmidge, that it was private business brought him down here—if he's the man, as he certainly seems to be. But—whose?"
Starmidge turned again to the clerk.
"You've a good memory, I can see," he said. "Now, did you ever hear Mr. Hollis mention the name of Horbury?"
"Never!" replied Simmons.
"Did you ever hear him speak of Chestermarke's Bank?" asked Starmidge.
"No—never! Never heard either name in my life until I saw them in the papers," asserted Simmons.
"Who looks after the banking account at Hollis's?" asked the detective. "I mean, the business account—you know. Not his private one."
"I do," said Simmons. "Always have done since I went there."
"You never saw any cheques paid to those names—or any cheques from them?" inquired Starmidge. "Think, now!"
"No—I'm absolutely sure of it," said the clerk. "Horbury, perhaps, I might not remember, but I should have remembered Chestermarke—it's an uncommon name, that—to me, anyway."
"Well," said Starmidge, after a pause, during which all three looked at each other as men look who have come to a dead stop in the progress of things, "there's one thing very certain, Mr. Simmons. If that was your governor who came down to the Station Hotel here on Saturday evening last, he certainly telephoned from there to Chestermarke'sBank as soon as he arrived. And he got a reply from there, and he evidently went out to meet whoever sent it—that sender seeming to be Mr. Horbury, the manager. And so," he concluded, turning to Polke, "what we've got to find out is—what did Hollis come here at all for?"
"We shan't find that out tonight," said Polke, with a yawn.
"Quite so—so we'll adjourn till morning, when Mr. Simmons shall see Mrs. Pratt—just to establish things," remarked Starmidge. "In the meantime he'd better come round with me to my place, and I'll get him a bed."
Neither the police-superintendent nor the detective had the slightest doubt after hearing Simmons' story that the man who presented himself at the Station Hotel at Scarnham on the evening of John Horbury's disappearance was Mr. Frederick Hollis, solicitor, of Gray's Inn. If they had still retained any doubt it would have disappeared next morning when they took the clerk down to see Mrs. Pratt. The landlady described her customer even more fully than before: Simmons had no doubt whatever that she described his employer: he wouldn't have been more certain, he said, that Mrs. Pratt was talking about Mr. Hollis, if she'd shown him a photograph of that gentleman.
"So we can take that for settled," remarked Polke, as the three left the hotel and went back to the town. "The man who came here last Saturday night was Mr. Frederick Hollis, solicitor, of South Square, Gray's Inn, London. That's established, I take it, Starmidge?"
"Seems so," agreed the detective.
"Then the next question is—Where's he got to?" said Polke.
"I think the next question is—Has anybody ever heard of him in connection with Mr. Horbury, or the Chestermarkes?" observed Starmidge. "There's no doubt he came down here to see one or other of them—Horbury, most likely."
"And who's to tell us anything?" asked Polke.
"Miss Fosdyke's a relation of Horbury's," replied Starmidge. "She may know Hollis by name. Mr. Neale's always been in touch with Horbury—he may have heard of Hollis. And—so may the bankers."
"The difficulty is to make them say anything," said Polke. "They'll only tell what they please."
"Let's try the other two, anyway," counselled Starmidge. "They may be able to tell something. For as sure as I am what I am, the whole secret of this business lies in Hollis's coming down here to see Horbury, and in what followed on their meeting. If we could only get to know what Hollis came here for—ah!"
But they got no further information from either Betty Fosdyke or Wallington Neale. Neither had ever heard of Mr. Frederick Hollis, of Gray's Inn. Betty was certain, beyond doubt, that he was no relation of the missing bank-manager: she had the whole family-tree of the Horburys at her finger-ends, she declared: no Hollis was connected with even its outlying twigs. Neale had never heard the name of Hollis mentioned by Horbury. And he added that he was absolutely sure that during the last fiveyears no person of that name had ever had dealings with Chestermarke's Bank—open dealings, at any rate. Secret dealings with the partners, severally or collectively, or with Horbury, for that matter, Mr. Hollis might have had, but Neale was certain he had had no ordinary business with any of them.
Polke took heart of grace and led Simmons across to the bank. To his astonishment, the partners now received him readily and politely; they even listened with apparent interest to the clerk's story, and asked him some questions arising out of it. But each declared that he knew nothing about Mr. Frederick Hollis, and was utterly unaware of any reason that could bring him to Scarnham: it was certainly on no business of theirs, as a firm, or as private individuals, that he came.
"He came, of course, to see Horbury," said Joseph at last. "That's dead certain. No doubt they met. And after that—well, they seem to have vanished together."
Gabriel followed Polke into the hall and drew him aside.
"Did this clerk tell you whether his master was a man of standing?" he asked.
"Man of private means, Mr. Chestermarke, with a small, highly respectable practice—a conveyancing solicitor," answered Polke.
"Oh!" replied Gabriel. "Just so. Well—we know nothing about him."
Polke and his companion returned to the Scarnham Arms, where Starmidge was in consultation with Betty and Neale.
"They know nothing at all over there," he reported. "Never heard of Hollis. What's to be done now!"
"Mr. Simmons must do the next thing," answered the detective. "Get back to town, Mr. Simmons, and put yourself in communication with every single one of Mr. Hollis's clients—you know them all, of course. Find out if any of them gave Mr. Hollis any business that would send him to Scarnham. Don't leave a stone unturned in that way! And the moment you have any information, however slight, wire to me, here—on the instant."
Starmidge and Polke presently left—to walk down to the railway station with the bewildered clerk; when they had gone, Betty turned to Neale, who was hanging about her sitting-room with no obvious intention of leaving it.
"While these people are doing what they can in their way, is there nothing we can do in ours?" she asked. "I hate sitting here doing nothing at all! You're a free man now, Wallie—can't you suggest something?"
Neale was thoroughly enjoying his first taste of liberty. He felt as if he had just been released from a long term of imprisonment. To be absolutely free to do what he liked with himself, during the whole of a spring day, was a sensation so novel that he was holding closely to it, half-fearful that it might all be a dream from which it would be a terrible thing to awake—to see one of Chestermarke's ledgers under his nose. And this being a wonderfully fine morning, he had formed certain sly designs of luring Betty away into the country, and having the whole day with her. A furtive glance at her, however, showed him that Miss Fosdyke's thoughts and ideasjust then were entirely business-like, but a happy inspiration suggested to him that business and pleasure might be combined.
"We ought to go and see if that tinker chap's found out or heard anything," he said. "You remember he promised to keep his eyes and ears open. And we might do a little looking round the country for ourselves: I haven't much faith in those local policemen and gamekeepers. Why not make a day of it, going round? I know a place—nice old inn, the other side of Ellersdeane—where we can get some lunch. Much better making inquiries for ourselves," he concluded insinuatingly, "than sitting about waiting for news."
"Didn't I say so?" exclaimed Betty. "Come on, then!—I'm ready. Where first?"
"Let's see the tinker first," said Neale. "He's a sharp man—he may have something else to tell by now."
He led his companion out of the town by way of Scarnham Bridge, pointing out Joseph Chestermarke's gloomy house to her as they passed it.
"I'd give a lot," he remarked, as they turned on to the open moor which led towards Ellersdeane Hollow, "to know if either of the Chestermarkes really did know anything about that chap Hollis coming to the town on Saturday. I shouldn't be a bit surprised if they did. Those detective fellows like Starmidge are very clever in their way, but they always seem to me to stop thinking a bit too soon. Now both Starmidge and Polke seem to take it for certain that this Hollis went to meet Horbury when he left theStation Hotel. There's no proof that he went to meet Horbury—none!"
"Whom might he have gone to meet, then?" demanded Betty.
"You listen to me a bit," said Neale. "I've been thinking it over. Hollis comes to the Station Hotel and uses their telephone. Mrs. Pratt overhears him call up Chestermarke's Bank—that's certain. Then she goes away, about her business. An interval elapses. Then she hears some appointment made, with somebody, along the river bank, for that evening. But—that interval during which Mrs. Pratt didn't overhear? How do we know that the person with whom Hollis began his conversation was the same person with whom he finished it? Come, now!"
"Wallie, that's awfully clever of you!" exclaimed Betty. "How did you come to think of such an ingenious notion?"
"Worked it out," answered Neale. "This way! Hollis comes down to Scarnham to see Chestermarke's Bank—which means one of the partners. He rings up the bank. He speaks to somebody there. How do we know that somebody was Horbury? We don't! It may have been Mrs. Carswell. Now supposing the real person Hollis wanted to see was either Gabriel or Joseph Chestermarke? Very well—this person who answered from the bank would put Hollis on to either of them at once. Gabriel has a telephone at the Warren: Joseph has a telephone at his home yonder behind us. It may have been with either Gabriel or Joseph that Hollis finished his conversation. And—if it was finished with one of them, it was, in myopinion, whatever that's worth, with Master Joseph!"
"What makes you think that?" asked Betty, startled by the suggestion.
Neale laid a hand on the girl's arm and turned her round to face the town. He lifted his stick and pointed at Joseph Chestermarke's high roof, towering above the houses around it; then he swept the stick towards the river and its course, plainly to be followed, in the direction of the station.
"You see Joseph's house there," he said. "You see the river—the path along its bank—going right down to the meadow opposite the Station Hotel? Very well—now, supposing it was Joseph with whom Hollis wound up that telephone talk, suppose it was Joseph whom Hollis was to see. What would happen? Joseph knew that Hollis was at the Station Hotel. The straightest and easiest way from the Station Hotel to Joseph's house is—straight along the river bank. Now then, call on your memory! What did Mrs. Pratt tell us? 'When I was going back to the bar,' says Mrs. Pratt, '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,' concludes Mrs. Pratt, 'he rings off.' Now, why shouldn't it be Joseph Chestermarke that he was going to meet?—remember, again, the river-side path leads straight to Joseph's house. Come!—Mrs. Pratt's story doesn't point conclusively to Horbury at all. It's as I say—the telephone conversation may have begun with Horbury, but it may have ended with—somebody else. And what I sayis—who was the precise person whom Hollis went to meet?"
"Are you going to tell all that to Starmidge?" asked Betty admiringly. "Because I'm sure it's never entered his head—so far."
"Depends," replied Neale. "Let's see if the tinker has anything to tell. He's at home, anyway. There's his fire."
A spiral of blue smoke, curling high above the green and gold of the gorse bushes, revealed Creasy's whereabouts. He had shifted his camp since their first meeting with him: his tilted cart, his tethered pony, and his fire, were now in a hollow considerably nearer the town. Neale and Betty looked down into his retreat to find him busily mending a collection of pots and pans, evidently gathered up during his round of the previous day. He greeted his visitors with a smile, and fetched a three-legged stool from his cart for Betty's better accommodation.
"Heard anything?" asked Neale, seating himself on a log of wood.
The tinker pointed to several newspapers which lay near at hand, kept from blowing away by a stone placed on the uppermost.
"Only what's in these," he answered. "I've read all that—so I'm pretty well posted up, mister. I've just read this morning's—bought it in the town when I went to fetch some bread. Queer affair altogether, I call it!"
"Have you looked round about at all?" asked Betty.
"I've been a good bit over the Hollow, miss," answeredCreasy. "But it's a stiff job seeking anything here. There's nobody knows what a wilderness this Hollow is until they begin exploring it. Holes—corners—nooks—crannies—bracken and bushes—it is a wilderness, and that's a fact! I'd engage to hide myself safely in this square mile for many a week, against a hundred seekers. It wouldn't a bit surprise me, you know, if it comes out in the end that Mr. Horbury, after all, did fall down one of these old shafts. I couldn't believe it possible at first, knowing that he knew every in and out of the place, but I'm beginning to think he may have done. There's only one thing against that theory."
"What?" asked Betty.
"Where's the other gentleman?" answered the tinker. "If they came together on to this waste, one couldn't fall down a shaft without the other knowing it, eh? And it's scarcely likely they'd both fall down."
Neale glanced at Betty and shook his head.
"There you are, you see!" he muttered. "They all hang to the notion that Hollis did meet Horbury! Mr. Horbury may have been alone, after all, you know," he went on, turning to Creasy. "There's no proof that the other gentleman was with him."
"Aye, well—I'm going on what these paper accounts say," answered Creasy. "They all take it for granted that those two were together. Well, about these old shaftings, mister—I did notice something very early this morning that I thought might be looked into."
"What is it?" asked Neale. "Don't let's lose anychance of finding anything out, however small it may be."
The tinker finished mending a kettle and set it aside amongst other renovated articles. He lifted the pan of solder off the fire, set it aside, too, and got up.
"Come this way, then," he said. "I was going in to Scarnham this noon to tell Mr Polke about it, but as long as you're here——"
He led the way through the thick gorse and heather until he came to a narrow track which wound across the moor in the direction of the town. There he paused, pointing towards Ellersdeane on the one hand, towards Scarnham on the other.
"You see this track, mister?" he said. "You'll notice that it goes to Ellersdeane village that way, and to Scarnham this. Of course, you can't see it all the way in either direction, but you can take my word for it—it does. It comes out at Ellersdeane by the duck-pond, at Scarnham by the bridge at the foot of Cornmarket. People who know it would follow it if they wanted a short cut across the moor from the town to the village—or the opposite, as you might say. Now then, look here—a bit this way."
He preceded them along the narrow track until, on an open space in the moorland, they came to one of the old lead-mine shafts, the mouth of which had been fenced in by a roughly built wall of stone gathered from its immediate surroundings. In this wall, extending from its parapet to the ground, was a wide gap: the stones which had been displaced to make it had disappeared into the cavernous opening.
"Now then!" said the tinker, turning on his companions with the inquiring look of a man who advances a theory which may or may not be accepted as reasonable, "you see that? What I'd like to know is—is that a recently made gap? It's difficult to tell. If this bit of a stone fence had been built with mortar, one could have told. But it's never had mortar or lime in it!—it's just rough masonry, as you see—stones picked up off the moor, like all these fences round the old shafts. But—there's the gap right enough! Do you know what I'm thinking?"
"No!" murmured Betty, with a glance of fear and doubt at the black vista which she saw through the gap. "But—don't be afraid to speak."
"I'm thinking this," continued the tinker: "Supposing a man was following this track from Ellersdeane to Scarnham, or t'other way about, as it might be—supposing he was curious to look down one of these old shafts—supposing he looked down this one, which stands, as you see, not two yards off the very track he was following—supposing he leaned his weight on this rotten bit of fencing—supposing it gave way? What?"
Neale, who had been listening intently, made a movement as if to lay his hand on the grey stones. Betty seized him impulsively.
"Don't, Wallie!" she exclaimed. "That frightens me!"
Creasy lifted his foot and pressed it against the stones at one edge of the gap. Before even that slight pressure three or four blocks gave way and droppedinward—the sound of their fall came dully from the depths beneath.
"You see," said the tinker, "it's possible. It might be. And—as you can tell from the time it takes a stone to drop—it's a long way down there. They're very deep, these old mines."
Neale turned from the broken wall and looked narrowly at the ground about it.
"I don't see any signs of anybody being about here recently," he remarked. "There are no footmarks."
"There couldn't be, mister," said Creasy. "You could march a regiment of soldiers over this moorland grass for many an hour, and there'd be no footprints on it when they'd gone—it's that wiry and strong. No!—if half a dozen men had been standing about here when one fell in—or if two or three men had come here to throw another man in," he added significantly, "there'd be no footmarks. Try it—you can't grind an iron-shod heel like mine into this turf."
"It's all very horrible!" said Betty, still staring at the black gap with its suggestions of subterranean horror. "If one only knew——"
The tinker turned and looked at the two young people as if he were estimating their strength.
"What are you wondering about?" asked Neale.
Creasy smiled as he glanced again at Betty.
"Well," he replied, "you're a pretty strong young fellow, mister, I take it, and the young lady looks as if she'd got a bit of good muscle about her. Ifyou two could manage one end of a rope, I'd go down into that shaft at the other end—a bit of the way, at any rate. And then—I'd let down a lantern and see if there's aught to be seen."
Betty turned anxiously to Neale, and Neale looked the tinker over with appraising eyes.
"I could pull you up myself," he answered. "You're no great weight. And haven't those shafts got props and stays down the side?"
"Aye, but they'll be thoroughly rotten by this," said Creasy. "Well, we'll try it. Come to my cart—I've plenty of stuff there."
"You're sure there's no danger?" asked Betty. "Don't imperil yourself!"
"No danger, so long as you two'll stick to this end of the rope," said Creasy. "I shan't go too far down."
The tilted cart proved to contain all sorts of useful things: they presently returned to the shaft with two coils of stout rope, a crowbar, a lantern attached to a length of strong cord, and a great sledge-hammer, with which the tinker drove the crowbar firmly into the ground some ten or twelve feet from the edge of the gap. He made one end of the first rope fast to this; the other end he securely knotted about his waist; one end of the second rope he looped under his armpits, and handed the other to Neale; then, lighting his lantern, he prepared to descend, having first explained the management of the ropes to his assistants.
"All you've got to do," he said reassuringly to Betty, "is to hold on to this second rope and let medown, gradual-like. When I say 'Pull,' draw up—I'll help, hand over hand, up this first rope. Simple enough!—and I shan't go too far."
Nevertheless, he exhausted the full length of both ropes, and it seemed a long time before they heard anything of him. Betty, frightened of what she might hear, fearful lest Neale should go too near the edge of the shaft, began to get nervous at the delay, and it was with a great sense of relief that she at last heard the signal.
The tinker came hand over hand up the stationary rope, helped by the second one: his face, appearing over the edge of the gap, was grave and at first inscrutable. He shook himself when he stepped above ground, as if he wanted to shake off an impression: then he turned and spoke in a whisper.
"It's as I thought it might be!" he said. "There's a dead man down there!"