The police were not encouraging.
Detective Inspector Nash, from Scotland Yard, who had handled some of the biggest cases of bank swindles, held out no hope of the money being recovered.
"In theory you can get back the notes if you have their numbers," he said, "but in practice it is almost impossible to recover them, because it is quite easy to change even notes for five hundred pounds, and probably you will find these in circulation in a week or two."
His speculation proved to be correct, for on the third day after the crime three of the missing notes made a curious appearance.
"Ready-Money Minute," true to his nickname, was in the habit of balancing his accounts as between bank and bank by cash payments. He had made it a practice for all his dividends to be paid in actual cash, and these were sent to the Piccadilly branch of the London and Western Counties Bank in bulk. After a payment of a very large sum on account of certain dividends accruing from his South African investments, three of the missing notes were discovered in the bank itself.
John Minute, apprised by telegram of the fact, said nothing; for the money had been paid in by his confidential secretary, Jasper Cole, and there was excellent reason why he did not desire to emphasize the fact.
The big library of Weald Lodge was brilliantly lighted and nobody had pulled down the blinds. So that it was possible for any man who troubled to jump the low stone wall which ran by the road and push a way through the damp shrubbery to see all that was happening in the room.
Weald Lodge stands between Eastbourne and Wilmington, and in the winter months the curious, represented by youthful holiday makers, are few and far between. Constable Wiseman, of the Eastbourne constabulary, certainly was not curious. He paced his slow, moist way and merely noted, in passing, the fact that the flood of light reflected on the little patch of lawn at the side of the house.
The hour was nine o'clock on a June evening, and officially it was only the hour of sunset,though lowering rain clouds had so darkened the world that night had closed down upon the weald, had blotted out its pleasant villages and had hidden the green downs.
He continued to the end of his beat and met his impatient superior.
"Everything's all right, sergeant," he reported; "only old Minute's lights are blazing away and his windows are open."
"Better go and warn him," said the sergeant, pulling his bicycle into position for mounting.
He had his foot on the treadle, but hesitated.
"I'd warn him myself, but I don't think he'd be glad to see me."
He grinned to himself, then remarked: "Something queer about Minute—eh?"
"There is, indeed," agreed Constable Wiseman heartily. His beat was a lonely one, and he was a very bored man. If by agreement with his officer he could induce that loquacious gentleman to talk for a quarter of an hour, somuch dull time might be passed. The fact that Sergeant Smith was loquacious indicated, too, that he had been drinking and was ready to quarrel with anybody.
"Come under the shelter of that wall," said the sergeant, and pushed his machine to the protection afforded by the side wall of a house.
It is possible that the sergeant was anxious to impress upon his subordinate's mind a point of view which might be useful to himself one day.
"Minute is a dangerous old man," he said.
"Don't I know it?" said Constable Wiseman, with the recollection of sundry "reportings" and inquiries.
"You've got to remember that, Wiseman," the sergeant went on; "and by 'dangerous' I mean that he's the sort of old fellow that would ask a constable to come in to have a drink and then report him."
"Good Lord!" said the shocked Mr. Wiseman at this revelation of the blackest treachery.
Sergeant Smith nodded.
"That's the sort of man he is," he said. "I knew him years ago—at least, I've seen him. I was in Matabeleland with him, and I tell you there's nothing too mean for 'Ready-Money Minute'—curse him!"
"I'll bet you have had a terrible life, sergeant," encouraged Constable Wiseman.
The other laughed bitterly.
"I have," he said.
Sergeant Smith's acquaintance with Eastbourne was a short one. He had only been four years in the town, and had, so rumor ran, owed his promotion to influence. What that influence was none could say. It had been suggested that John Minute himself had secured him his sergeant's stripes, but that was a theory which was pooh-poohed by people who knew that the sergeant had little that was good to say of his supposed patron.
Constable Wiseman, a profound thinker and a secret reader of sensational detective stories, had at one time made a report against John Minute for some technical offense, and hadmade it in fear and trembling, expecting his sergeant promptly to squash this attempt to persecute his patron; but, to his surprise and delight, Sergeant Smith had furthered his efforts and had helped to secure the conviction which involved a fine.
"You go on and finish your beat, Constable," said the sergeant suddenly, "and I'll ride up to the old devil's house and see what's doing."
He mounted his bicycle and trundled up the hill, dismounting before Weald Lodge, and propped his bicycle against the wall. He looked for a long time toward the open French windows, and then, jumping the wall, made his way slowly across the lawn, avoiding the gravel path which would betray his presence. He got to a point opposite the window which commanded a full view of the room.
Though the window was open, there was a fire in the grate. To the sergeant's satisfaction, John Minute was alone. He sat in a deep armchair in his favorite attitude, his hands pushed into his pockets, his head uponhis chest. He heard the sergeant's foot upon the gravel and stood up as the rain-drenched figure appeared at the open window.
"Oh, it is you, is it?" growled John Minute. "What do you want?"
"Alone?" said the sergeant, and he spoke as one to his equal.
"Come in!"
Mr. Minute's library had been furnished by the Artistic Furniture Company, of Eastbourne, which had branches at Hastings, Bexhill, Brighton, and—it was claimed—at London. The furniture was of dark oak, busily carved. There was a large bookcase which half covered one wall. This was the "library," and it was filled with books of uniform binding which occupied the shelves. The books had been supplied by a great bookseller of London, and included—at Mr. Minute's suggestion—"The Hundred Best Books," "Books That Have Helped Me," "The Encyclopedia Brillonica," and twenty bound volumes of a certain weekly periodical ofinternational reputation. John Minute had no literary leanings.
The sergeant hesitated, wiped his heavy boots on the sodden mat outside the window, and walked into the room.
"You are pretty cozy, John," he said.
"What do you want?" asked Minute, without enthusiasm.
"I thought I'd look you up. My constable reported your windows were open, and I felt it my duty to come along and warn you—there are thieves about, John."
"I know of one," said John Minute, looking at the other steadily. "Your constable, as you call him, is, I presume, that thick-headed jackass, Wiseman!"
"Got him first time," said the sergeant, removing his waterproof cape. "I don't often trouble you, but somehow I had a feeling I'd like to see you to-night. My constable revived old memories, John."
"Unpleasant for you, I hope," said John Minute ungraciously.
"There's a nice little gold farm four hundred miles north of Gwelo," said Sergeant Smith meditatively.
"And a nice little breakwater half a mile south of Cape Town," said John Minute, "where the Cape government keeps highwaymen who hold up the Salisbury coach and rob the mails."
Sergeant Smith smiled.
"You will have your little joke," he said; "but I might remind you that they have plenty of accommodation on the breakwater, John. They even take care of men who have stolen land and murdered natives."
"What do you want?" asked John Minute again.
The other grinned.
"Just a pleasant little friendly visit," he explained. "I haven't looked you up for twelve months. It is a hard life, this police work, even when you have got two or three pounds a week from a private source to add to your pay. It is nothing like the work we have inthe Matabele mounted police, eh, John? But, Lord," he said, looking into the fire thoughtfully, "when I think how I stood up in the attorney's office at Salisbury and took my solemn oath that old John Gedding had transferred his Saibach gold claims to you on his death bed; when I think of the amount of perjury—me a uniformed servant of the British South African Company, and, so to speak, an official of the law—I blush for myself."
"Do you ever blush for yourself when you think of how you and your pals held up Hoffman's store, shot Hoffman, and took his swag?" asked John Minute. "I'd give a lot of money to see you blush, Crawley; and now, for about the fourteenth time, what do you want? If it is money, you can't have it. If it is more promotion, you are not fit to have it. If it is a word of advice—"
The other stopped him with a motion of his hand.
"I can't afford to have your advice, John," he said. "All I know is that you promised memy fair share over those Saibach claims. It is a paying mine now. They tell me that its capital is two millions."
"You were well paid," said John Minute shortly.
"Five hundred pounds isn't much for the surrender of your soul's salvation," said Sergeant Smith.
He slowly replaced his cape on his broad shoulders and walked to the window.
"Listen here, John Minute!" All the good nature had gone out of his voice, and it was Trooper Henry Crawley, the lawbreaker, who spoke. "You are not going to satisfy me much longer with a few pounds a week. You have got to do the right thing by me, or I am going to blow."
"Let me know when your blowing starts," said John Minute, "and I'll send you a bowl of soup to cool."
"You're funny, but you don't amuse me," were the last words of the sergeant as he walked into the rain.
As before, he avoided the drive and jumped over the low wall on to the road, and was glad that he had done so, for a motor car swung into the drive and pulled up before the dark doorway of the house. He was over the wall again in an instant, and crossing with swift, noiseless steps in the direction of the car. He got as close as he could and listened.
Two of the voices he recognized. The third, that of a man, was a stranger. He heard this third person called "inspector," and wondered who was the guest. His curiosity was not to be satisfied, for by the time he had reached the view place on the lawn which overlooked the library John Minute had closed the windows and pulled down the blinds.
The visitors to Weald Lodge were three—Jasper Cole, May Nuttall, and a stout, middle-aged man of slow speech but of authoritative tone. This was Inspector Nash, of Scotland Yard, who was in charge of the investigations into the forgeries. Minute received them in the library. He knew the inspector of old.
Jasper had brought May down in response to the telegraphed instructions which John Minute had sent him.
"What's the news?" he asked.
"Well, I think I have found your Mr. Holland," said the inspector.
He took a fat case from his inside pocket, opened it, and extracted a snapshot photograph. It represented a big motor car, and, standing by its bonnet, a little man in chauffeur's uniform.
"This is the fellow who called himself 'Rex Holland' and who sent the commissionaire on his errand. The photograph came into my possession as the result of an accident. It was discovered in the flat and had evidently fallen out of the man's pocket. I made inquiries and found that it was taken by a small photographer in Putney, and that the man had called for the photographs about ten o'clock in the morning of the same day that he sent the commissionaire on his errand. He was probably examining them during the period of hiswaiting in the flat, and one of them slipped to the ground. At any rate, the commissionaire has no doubt that this was the man."
"Do you seriously suggest that this fellow is Rex Holland?"
The inspector shook his head.
"I think he is merely one of the gang," he said. "I don't believe you will ever find Rex Holland, for each of the gang took the name in turn to take the part, according to the circumstances in which they found themselves. I have been unable to identify him, except that he went by the name of Feltham and was an Australian. That was the name he gave to the photographer with whom he talked. You see, the photograph was taken in High Street, Putney. The only clew we have is that he has been seen several times on the Portsmouth Road, driving one or two cars in which was a man who is probably the nearest approach to Rex Holland we shall get.
"I put my men on to make further investigations, and the Haslemere police told them thatit is believed that the car was the property of a gentleman who lived in a lockup cottage some distance from Haslemere—evidently rather a swagger affair, because its owner had an electric cable and telephone wires laid in, and the cottage was altered and renovated twelve months ago at a very considerable cost. I shall be able to tell you more about that to-morrow."
They spent the rest of the evening discussing the crime, and the girl was a silent listener. It was not until very late that John Minute was able to give her his undivided attention.
"I asked you to come down," he said, "because I am getting a little worried about you."
"Worried about me, uncle?" she said, in surprise.
He nodded.
The two men had gone off to Jasper's study, and she was alone with her uncle.
"When I lunched with you the other day at the Savoy," he said, "I spoke to you about your marriage, and I asked you to defer any action for a fortnight."
She nodded.
"I was coming down to see you on that very matter," she said. "Uncle, won't you tell me why you want me to delay my marriage for a fortnight, and why you think I am going to get married at all?"
He did not answer immediately, but paced up and down the room.
"May," he said, "you have heard a great deal about me which is not very flattering. I lived a very rough life in South Africa, and I only had one friend in the world in whom I had the slightest confidence. That friend was your father. He stood by me in my bad times. He never worried me when I was flush of money, never denied me when I was broke. Whenever he helped me, he was content with what reward I offered him. There was no 'fifty-fifty' with Bill Nuttall. He was a man who had no ambition, no avarice—the whitest man I have ever met. What I have not told you about him is this: He and I were equal partners in a mine, the Gwelo Deep. He hadgreat faith in the mine, and I had none at all. I knew it to be one of those properties you sometimes get in Rhodesia, all pocket and outcrop. Anyway, we floated a company."
He stopped and chuckled as at an amusing memory.
"The pound shares were worth a little less than sixpence until a fortnight ago."
He looked at her with one of those swift, penetrating glances, as though he were anxious to discover her thoughts.
"A fortnight ago," he said, "I learned from my agent in Bulawayo that a reef had been struck on an adjoining mine, and that the reef runs through our property. If that is true, you will be a rich woman in your own right, apart from the money you get from me. I cannot tell whether it is true until I have heard from the engineers, who are now examining the property, and I cannot know that for a fortnight. May, you are a dear girl," he said, and laid his hand on her arm, "and I have looked after you as though you were my owndaughter. It is a happiness to me to know that you will be a very rich woman, because your father's shares was the only property you inherited from him. There is, however, one curious thing about it that I cannot understand."
He walked over to the bureau, unlocked a drawer, and took out a letter.
"My agent says that he advised me two years ago that this reef existed, and wondered why I had never given him authority to bore. I have no recollection of his ever having told me anything of the sort. Now you know the position," he said, putting back the letter and closing the drawer with a bang.
"You want me to wait for a better match," said the girl.
He inclined his head.
"I don't want you to get married for a fortnight," he repeated.
May Nuttall went to bed that night full of doubt and more than a little unhappy. The story that John Minute told about her father—was it true? Was it a story invented on the spur of the moment to counter Frank's plan? She thought of Frank and his almost solemn entreaty. There had been no mistaking his earnestness or his sincerity. If he would only take her into his confidence—and yet she recognized and was surprised at the revelation that she did not want that confidence. She wanted to help Frank very badly, and it was not the romance of the situation which appealed to her. There was a large sense of duty, something of that mother sense which every woman possesses, which tempted her to the sacrifice. Yet was it a sacrifice?
She debated that question half the night, tossing from side to side. She could not sleep, and, rising before the dawn, slipped into her dressing gown and went to the window. The rain had ceased, the clouds had broken and stood in black bars against the silver light of dawn. She felt unaccountably hungry, and after a second's hesitation she opened the door and went down the broad stairs to the hall.
To reach the kitchen she had to pass her uncle's door, and she noticed that it was ajar. She thought possibly he had gone to bed and left the light on, and her hand was on the knob to investigate when she heard a voice and drew back hurriedly. It was the voice of Jasper Cole.
"I have been into the books very carefully with Mackensen, the accountant, and there seems no doubt," he said.
"You think—" demanded her uncle.
"I am certain," answered Jasper, in his even, passionless tone. "The fraud has been worked by Frank. He had access to the books. He was the only person who saw Rex Holland; he was the only official at the bank who could possibly falsify the entries and at the same time hide his trail."
The girl turned cold and for a moment swayed as though she would faint. She clutched the jamb of the door for support and waited.
"I am half inclined to your belief," saidJohn Minute slowly. "It is awful to believe that Frank is a forger, as his father was—awful!"
"It is pretty ghastly," said Jasper's voice, "but it is true."
The girl flung open the door and stood in the doorway.
"It is a lie!" she cried wrathfully. "A horrible lie—and you know it is a lie, Jasper!"
Without another word, she turned, slamming the door behind her.
Frank Merrill stepped through the swing doors of the London and Western Counties Bank with a light heart and a smile in his eyes, and went straight to his chief's office.
"I shall want you to let me go out this afternoon for an hour," he said.
Brandon looked up wearily. He had not been without his sleepless moments, and the strain of the forgery and the audit which followed was telling heavily upon him. He nodded a silent agreement, and Frank went back to his desk, humming a tune.
He had every reason to be happy, for in his pocket was the special license which, for a consideration, had been granted to him, and which empowered him to marry the girl whose amazing telegram had arrived that morning whilehe was at breakfast. It had contained only four words:
Marry you to-day.May.
Marry you to-day.May.
He could not guess what extraordinary circumstances had induced her to take so definite a view, but he was a very contented and happy young man.
She was to arrive in London soon after twelve, and he had arranged to meet her at the station and take her to lunch. Perhaps then she would explain the reason for her action. He numbered among his acquaintances the rector of a suburban church, who had agreed to perform the ceremony and to provide the necessary witnesses.
It was a beaming young man that met the girl, but the smile left his face when he saw how wan and haggard she was.
"Take me somewhere," she said quickly.
"Are you ill?" he asked anxiously.
She shook her head.
They had the Pall Mall Restaurant tothemselves, for it was too early for the regular lunchers.
"Now tell me, dear," he said, catching her hands over the table, "to what do I owe this wonderful decision?"
"I cannot tell you, Frank," she said breathlessly. "I don't want to think about it. All I know is that people have been beastly about you. I am going to do all I possibly can to make up for it."
She was a little hysterical and very much overwrought, and he decided not to press the question, though her words puzzled him.
"Where are you going to stay?" he asked.
"I am staying at the Savoy," she replied. "What am I to do?"
In as few words as possible he told her where the ceremony was to be performed, and the hour at which she must leave the hotel.
"We will take the night train for the Continent," he said.
"But your work, Frank?"
He laughed.
"Oh, blow work!" he cried hilariously. "I cannot think of work to-day."
At two-fifteen he was waiting in the vestry for the girl's arrival, chatting with his friend the rector. He had arranged for the ceremony to be performed at two-thirty; and the witnesses, a glum verger and a woman engaged in cleaning the church, sat in the pews of the empty building, waiting to earn the guinea which they had been promised.
The conversation was about nothing in particular—one of those empty, purposeless exchanges of banal thought and speech characteristic of such an occasion.
At two-thirty Frank looked at his watch and walked out of the church to the end of the road. There was no sign of the girl. At two-forty-five he crossed to a providential tobacconist and telephoned to the Savoy and was told that the lady had left half an hour before.
"She ought to be here very soon," he said to the priest. He was a little impatient, a little nervous, and terribly anxious.
As the church clock struck three, the rector turned to him.
"I am afraid I cannot marry you to-day, Mr. Merrill," he said.
Frank was very pale.
"Why not?" he asked quickly. "Miss Nuttall has probably been detained by the traffic or a burst tire. She will be here very shortly."
The minister shook his head and hung up his white surplice in the cupboard.
"The law of the land, my dear Mr. Merrill," he said, "does not allow weddings after three in the afternoon. You can come along to-morrow morning any time after eight."
There was a tap at the door, and Frank swung round. It was not the girl, but a telegraph boy. He snatched the buff envelope from the lad's hand and tore it open. It read simply:
The wedding cannot take place.
The wedding cannot take place.
It was unsigned.
At two-fifteen that afternoon May had passed through the vestibule of the hotel, and her foot was on the step of the taxicab when a hand fell upon her arm, and she turned in alarm to meet the searching eyes of Jasper Cole.
"Where are you off to in such a hurry, May?"
She flushed and drew her arm away with a decisive gesture.
"I have nothing to say to you, Jasper," she said coldly. "After your horrible charge against Frank, I never want to speak to you again."
He winced a little, then smiled.
"At least you can be civil to an old friend," he said good-humoredly, "and tell me where you are off to in such a hurry."
Should she tell him? A moment's indecision, and then she spoke.
"I am going to marry Frank Merrill," she said.
He nodded.
"I thought as much. In that case, I am coming down to the church to make a scene."
He said this with a smile on his lips; but there was no mistaking the resolution which showed in the thrust of his square jaw.
"What do you mean?" she said. "Don't be absurd, Jasper. My mind is made up."
"I mean," he said quietly, "that I have Mr. Minute's power of attorney to act for him, and Mr. Minute happens to be your legal guardian. You are, in point of fact, my dear May, more or less of a ward, and you cannot marry before you are twenty-one without your guardian's consent."
"I shall be twenty-one next week," she said defiantly.
"Then," smiled the other, "wait till next week before you marry. There is no very pressing hurry."
"You forced this situation upon me," said the girl hotly, "and I think it is very horrid of you. I am going to marry Frank to-day."
"Under those circumstances, I must comedown and forbid the marriage; and when our parson asks if there is any just cause I shall step forward to the rails, gayly flourishing the power of attorney, and not even the most hardened parson could continue in the face of that legal instrument. It is a mandamus, a caveat, and all sorts of horrific things."
"Why are you doing this?" she asked.
"Because I have no desire that you shall marry a man who is certainly a forger, and possibly a murderer," said Jasper Cole calmly.
"I won't listen to you!" she cried, and stepped into the waiting taxicab.
Without a word, Jasper followed her.
"You can't turn me out," he said, "and I know where you are going, anyway, because you were giving directions to the driver when I stood behind you. You had better let me go with you. I like the suburbs."
She turned and faced him swiftly.
"And Silvers Rents?" she asked.
He went a shade paler.
"What do you know about Silvers Rents?"he demanded, recovering himself with an effort.
She did not reply.
The taxicab was halfway to its destination before the girl spoke again:
"Are you serious when you say you will forbid the marriage?"
"Quite serious," he replied; "so much so that I shall bring in a policeman to witness my act."
The girl was nearly in tears.
"It is monstrous of you! Uncle wouldn't—"
"Had you not better see your uncle?" he asked.
Something told her that he would keep his word. She had a horror of scenes, and, worst of all, she feared the meeting of the two men under these circumstances. Suddenly she leaned forward and tapped the window, and the taxi slowed down.
"Tell him to go back and call at the nearest telegraph office. I want to send a wire."
"If it is to Mr. Frank Merrill," said Jaspersmoothly, "you may save yourself the trouble. I have already wired."
Frank came back to London in a pardonable fury. He drove straight to the hotel, only to learn that the girl had left again with her uncle. He looked at his watch. He had still some work to do at the bank, though he had little appetite for work.
Yet it was to the bank he went. He threw a glance over the counter to the table and the chair where he had sat for so long and at which he was destined never to sit again, for as he was passing behind the counter Mr. Brandon met him.
"Your uncle wishes to see you, Mr. Merrill," he said gravely.
Frank hesitated, then walked into the office, closing the door behind him, and he noticed that Mr. Brandon did not attempt to follow.
John Minute sat in the one easy chair and looked up heavily as Frank entered.
"Sit down, Frank," he said. "I have a lot of things to ask you."
"And I've one or two things to ask you, uncle," said Frank calmly.
"If it is about May, you can save yourself the trouble," said the other. "If it is about Mr. Rex Holland, I can give you a little information."
Frank looked at him steadily.
"I don't quite get your meaning, sir," he said, "though I gather there is something offensive behind what you have said."
John Minute twisted round in the chair and threw one leg over its padded arm.
"Frank," he said, "I want you to be perfectly straight with me, and I'll be as perfectly straight with you."
The young man made no reply.
"Certain facts have been brought to my attention, which leave no doubt in my mind as to the identity of the alleged Mr. Rex Holland," said John Minute slowly. "I don't relish saying this, because I have liked you, Frank, though I have sometimes stood in your way and we have not seen eye to eye together.Now, I want you to come down to Eastbourne to-morrow and have a heart-to-heart talk with me."
"What do you expect I can tell you?" asked Frank quietly.
"I want you to tell me the truth. I expect you won't," said John Minute.
A half smile played for a second upon Frank's lips.
"At any rate," he said, "you are being straight with me. I don't know exactly what you are driving at, uncle, but I gather that it is something rather unpleasant, and that somewhere in the background there is hovering an accusation against me. From the fact that you have mentioned Mr. Rex Holland or the gang which went by that name, I suppose that you are suggesting that I am an accomplice of that gentleman."
"I suggest more than that," said the other quickly. "I suggest that you are Rex Holland."
Frank laughed aloud.
"It is no laughing matter," said John Minute sternly.
"From your point of view it is not," said Frank, "but from my point of view it has certain humorous aspects, and unfortunately I am cursed with a sense of humor. I hardly know how I can go into the matter here"—he looked round—"for even if this is the time, it is certainly not the place, and I think I'll accept your invitation and come down to Weald Lodge to-morrow night. I gather you don't want to travel down with a master criminal who might at any moment take your watch and chain."
"I wish you would look at this matter more seriously, Frank," said John Minute earnestly. "I want to get to the truth, and any truth which exonerates you will be very welcome to me."
Frank nodded.
"I will give you credit for that," he said. "You may expect me to-morrow. May I ask you as a personal favor that you will notdiscuss this matter with me in the presence of your admirable secretary? I have a feeling at the back of my mind that he is at the bottom of all this. Remember that he is as likely to know about Rex Holland as I.
"There has been an audit at the bank," Frank went on, "and I am not so stupid that I don't understand what this has meant. There has also been a certain coldness in the attitude of Brandon, and I have intercepted suspicious and meaning glances from the clerks. I shall not be surprised, therefore, if you tell me that my books are not in order. But again I would point out to you that it is just as possible for Jasper, who has access to the bank at all hours of the day and night, to have altered them as it is for me.
"I hasten to add," he said, with a smile, "that I don't accuse Jasper. He is such a machine, and I cannot imagine him capable of so much initiative as systematically to forge checks and falsify ledgers. I merely mentionJasper because I want to emphasize the injustice of putting any man under suspicion unless you have the strongest and most convincing proof of his guilt. To declare my innocence is unnecessary from my point of view, and probably from yours also; but I declare to you, Uncle John, that I know no more about this matter than you."
He stood leaning on the desk and looking down at his uncle; and John Minute, with all his experience of men, and for all his suspicions, felt just a twinge of remorse. It was not to last long, however.
"I shall expect you to-morrow," he said.
Frank nodded, walked out of the room and out of the bank, and twenty-four pairs of speculative eyes followed him.
A few hours later another curious scene was being enacted, this time near the town of East Grinstead. There is a lonely stretch of road across a heath, which is called, for some reason, Ashdown Forest. A car was drawn up on apatch of turf by the side of the heath. Its owner was sitting in a little clearing out of view of the road, sipping a cup of tea which his chauffeur had made. He finished this and watched his servant take the basket.
"Come back to me when you have finished," he said.
The man touched his hat and disappeared with the package, but returned again in a few minutes.
"Sit down, Feltham," said Mr. Rex Holland. "I dare say you think it was rather strange of me to give you that little commission the other day," said Mr. Holland, crossing his legs and leaning back against a tree.
The chauffeur smiled uncomfortably.
"Yes, sir, I did," he said shortly.
"Were you satisfied with what I gave you?" asked the man.
The chauffeur shuffled his feet uneasily.
"Quite satisfied, sir," he said.
"You seem a little distrait, Feltham; I mean a little upset about something. What is it?"
The man coughed in embarrassed confusion.
"Well, sir," he began, "the fact is, I don't like it."
"You don't like what? The five hundred pounds I gave you?"
"No, sir. It is not that, but it was a queer thing to ask me to do—pretend to be you and send a commissionaire to the bank for your money, and then get away out of London to a quiet little hole like Bilstead."
"So you think it was queer?"
The chauffeur nodded.
"The fact is, sir," he blurted out, "I've seen the papers."
The other nodded thoughtfully.
"I presume you mean the newspapers. And what is there in the newspapers that interests you?"
Mr. Holland took a gold case from his pocket, opened it languidly, and selected a cigarette. He was closing it when he caught the chauffeur's eye and tossed a cigarette to him.
"Thank you, sir," said the man.
"What was it you didn't like?" asked Mr. Holland again, passing a match.
"Well, sir, I've been in all sorts of queer places," said Feltham doggedly, as he puffed away at the cigarette, "but I've always managed to keep clear of anything—funny. Do you see what I mean?"
"By funny I presume you don't mean comic," said Mr. Rex Holland cheerfully. "You mean dishonest, I suppose?"
"That's right, sir, and there's no doubt that I have been in a swindle, and it's worrying me—that bank-forgery case. Why, I read my own description in the paper!"
Beads of perspiration stood upon the little man's forehead, and there was a pathetic droop to his mouth.
"That is a distinction which falls to few of us," said his employer suavely. "You ought to feel highly honored. And what are you going to do about it, Feltham?"
The man looked to left and right as thoughseeking some friend in need who would step forth with ready-made advice.
"The only thing I can do, sir," he said, "is to give myself up."
"And give me up, too," said the other, with a little laugh. "Oh, no, my dear Feltham. Listen; I will tell you something. A few weeks ago I had a very promising valet chauffeur just like you. He was an admirable man, and he was also a foreigner. I believe he was a Swede. He came to me under exactly the same circumstances as you arrived, and he received exactly the same instructions as you have received, which unfortunately he did not carry out to the letter. I caught him pilfering from me—a few trinkets of no great value—and, instead of the foolish fellow repenting, he blurted out the one fact which I did not wish him to know, and incidentally which I did not wish anybody in the world to know.
"He knew who I was. He had seen me in the West End and had discovered my identity. He even sought an interview with some one towhom it would have been inconvenient to have made known my—character. I promised to find him another job, but he had already decided upon changing and had cut out an advertisement from a newspaper. I parted friendly with him, wished him luck, and he went off to interview his possible employer, smoking one of my cigarettes just as you are smoking—and he threw it away, I have no doubt, just as you have thrown it away when it began to taste a little bitter."
"Look here!" said the chauffeur, and scrambled to his feet. "If you try any monkey tricks with me—"
Mr. Holland eyed him with interest.
"If you try any monkey tricks with me," said the chauffeur thickly, "I'll—"
He pitched forward on his face and lay still.
Mr. Holland waited long enough to search his pockets, and then, stepping cautiously into the road, donned the chauffeur's cap and goggles and set his car running swiftly southward.
Constable Wiseman lived in the bosom of his admiring family in a small cottage on the Bexhill Road. That "my father was a policeman" was the proud boast of two small boys, a boast which entitled them to no small amount of respect, because P. C. Wiseman was not only honored in his own circle but throughout the village in which he dwelt.
He was, in the first place, a town policeman, as distinct from a county policeman, though he wore the badge and uniform of the Sussex constabulary. It was felt that a town policeman had more in common with crime, had a vaster experience, and was in consequence a more helpful adviser than a man whose duties began and ended in the patrolling of country lanes and law-abiding villages where nothing more exciting than an occasional dog fight ora charge of poaching served to fill the hiatus of constabulary life.
Constable Wiseman was looked upon as a shrewd fellow, a man to whom might be brought the delicate problems which occasionally perplexed and confused the bucolic mind. He had settled the vexed question as to whether a policeman could or could not enter a house where a man was beating his wife, and had decided that such a trespass could only be committed if the lady involved should utter piercing cries of "Murder!"
He added significantly that the constable who was called upon must be the constable on duty, and not an ornament of the force who by accident was a resident in their midst.
The problem of the straying chicken and the egg that is laid on alien property, the point of law involved in the question as to when a servant should give notice and the date from which her notice should count—all these matters came within Constable Wiseman's purview, and were solved to the satisfaction ofall who brought their little obscurities for solution.
But it was in his own domestic circle that Constable Wiseman—appropriately named, as all agreed—shone with an effulgence that was almost dazzling, and was a source of irritation to the male relatives on his wife's side, one of whom had unfortunately come within the grasp of the law over a matter of a snared rabbit and was in consequence predisposed to anarchy in so far as the abolition of law and order affected the police force.
Constable Wiseman sat at tea one summer evening, and about the spotless white cloth which covered the table was grouped all that Constable Wiseman might legally call his. Tea was a function, and to the younger members of the family meant just tea and bread and butter. To Constable Wiseman it meant luxuries of a varied and costly nature. His taste ranged from rump steak to Yarmouth bloaters, and once he had introduced a foreign delicacy—foreign to the village, which hadnever known before the reason for their existence—sweetbreads.
The conversation, which was well sustained by Mr. Wiseman, was usually of himself, his wife being content to punctuate his autobiography with such encouraging phrases as, "Dear, dear!" "Well, whatever next!" the children doing no more than ask in a whisper for more food. This they did at regular and frequent intervals, but because of their whispers they were supposed to be unheard.
Constable Wiseman spoke about himself because he knew of nothing more interesting to talk about. His evening conversation usually took the form of a very full résumé of his previous day's experience. He left the impression upon his wife—and glad enough she was to have such an impression—that Eastbourne was a well-conducted town mainly as a result of P. C. Wiseman's ceaseless and tireless efforts.
"I never had a clew yet that I never follered to the bitter end," said the preening constable.
"You remember when Raggett's orchard was robbed—who found the thieves?"
"You did, of course; I'm sure you did," said Mrs. Wiseman, jigging her youngest on her knee, the youngest not having arrived at the age where he recognized the necessity for expressing his desires in whispers.
"Who caught them three-card-trick men after the Lewes races last year?" went on Constable Wiseman passionately. "Who has had more summonses for smoking chimneys than any other man in the force? Some people," he added, as he rose heavily and took down his tunic, which hung on the wall—"some people would ask for promotion; but I'm perfectly satisfied. I'm not one of those ambitious sort. Why, I wouldn't know at all what to do with myself if they made me a sergeant."
"You deserve it, anyway," said Mrs. Wiseman.
"I don't deserve anything I don't want," said Mr. Wiseman loftily. "I've learned afew things, too, but I've never made use of what's come to me officially to get me pushed along. You'll hear something in a day or two," he said mysteriously, "and in high life, too, in a manner of speaking—that is, if you can call old Minute high life, which I very much doubt."
"You don't say so!" said Mrs. Wiseman, appropriately amazed.
Her husband nodded his head.
"There's trouble up there," he said. "From certain information I've received, there has been a big row between young Mr. Merrill and the old man, and the C. I. D. people have been down about it. What's more," he said, "I could tell a thing or two. I've seen that boy look at the old man as though he'd like to kill him. You wouldn't believe it, would you, but I know, and it didn't happen so long ago either. He was always snubbing him when young Merrill was down here acting as his secretary, and as good as called him a fool in front of my face when I served him with thatsummons for having his lights up. You'll hear something one of these days."
Constable Wiseman was an excellent prophet, vague as his prophecy was.
He went out of the cottage to his duty in a complacent frame of mind, which was not unusual, for Constable Wiseman was nothing if not satisfied with his fate. His complacency continued until a little after seven o'clock that evening.
It so happened that Constable Wiseman, no less than every other member of the force on duty that night, had much to think about, much that was at once exciting and absorbing. It had been whispered before the evening parade that Sergeant Smith was to leave the force. There was some talk of his being dismissed, but it was clear that he had been given the opportunity of resigning, for he was still doing duty, which would not have been the case had he been forcibly removed.
Sergeant Smith's mien and attitude had confirmed the rumor. Nobody was surprised,since this dour officer had been in trouble before. Twice had he been before the deputy chief constable for neglect of, and being drunk while on, duty. On the earlier occasions he had had remarkable escapes. Some people talked of influence, but it is more likely that the man's record had helped him, for he was a first-class policeman with a nose for crime, absolutely fearless, and had, moreover, assisted in the capture of one or two very desperate criminals who had made their way to the south-coast town.
His last offense, however, was too grave to overlook. His inspector, going the rounds, had missed him, and after a search he was discovered outside a public house. It is no great crime to be found outside a public house, particularly when an officer has a fairly extensive area to cover, and in this respect he was well within the limits of that area. But it must be explained that the reason the sergeant was outside the public house was because he had challenged a fellow carouser to fight, and at themoment he was discovered he was stripped to the waist and setting about his task with rare workmanlike skill.
He was also drunk.
To have retained his services thereafter would have been little less than a crying scandal. There is no doubt, however, that Sergeant Smith had made a desperate attempt to use the influence behind him, and use it to its fullest extent.
He had had one stormy interview with John Minute, and had planned another. Constable Wiseman, patrolling the London Road, his mind filled with the great news, was suddenly confronted with the object of his thoughts. The sergeant rode up to where the constable was standing in a professional attitude at the corner of two roads, and jumped off with the manner of a man who has an object in view.
"Wiseman," he said—and his voice was such as to suggest that he had been drinking again—"where will you be at ten o'clock to-night?"
Constable Wiseman raised his eyes in thought.
"At ten o'clock, Sergeant, I shall be opposite the gates of the cemetery."
The sergeant looked round left and right.
"I am going to see Mr. Minute on a matter of business," he said, "and you needn't mention the fact."
"I keep myself to myself," began Constable Wiseman. "What I see with one eye goes out of the other, in the manner of speaking—"
The sergeant nodded, stepped on to his bicycle again, turned it about, and went at full speed down the gentle incline toward Weald Lodge. He made no secret of his visit, but rode through the wide gates up the gravel drive to the front of the house, rang the bell, and to the servant who answered demanded peremptorily to see Mr. Minute.
John Minute received him in the library, where the previous interviews had taken place. Minute waited until the servant had gone and the door was closed, and then he said:
"Now, Crawley, there's no sense in coming to me; I can do nothing for you."
The sergeant put his helmet on the table, walked to a sideboard where a tray and decanter stood, and poured himself out a stiff dose of whisky without invitation. John Minute watched him without any great resentment. This was not civilized Eastbourne they were in. They were back in the old free-and-easy days of Gwelo, where men did not expect invitations to drink.
Smith—or Crawley, to give him his real name—tossed down half a tumbler of neat whisky and turned, wiping his heavy mustache with the back of his hand.
"So you can't do anything, can't you?" he mimicked. "Well, I'm going to show you that you can, and that you will!"
He put up his hand to check the words on John Minute's lips.
"There's no sense in your putting that rough stuff over me about your being able to send me to jail, because you wouldn't do it. It doesn'tsuit your book, John Minute, to go into the court and testify against me. Too many things would come out in the witness box, and you well know it—besides, Rhodesia is a long way off!"
"I know a place which isn't so far distant," said the other, looking up from his chair—"a place called Felixstowe, for example. There's another place called Cromer. I've been in consultation with a gentleman you may have heard of, a Mr. Saul Arthur Mann."
"Saul Arthur Mann," repeated the other slowly. "I've never heard of him."
"You would not, but he has heard of you," said John Minute calmly. "The fact is, Crawley, there's a big bad record against you, between your serious crimes in Rhodesia and your blackmail of to-day. I've a few facts about you which will interest you. I know the date you came to this country, which I didn't know before, and I know how you earned your living until you found me. I know of some shares in a non-existent Rhodesian mine which you soldto a feeble-minded gentleman at Cromer, and to a lady, equally feeble-minded, at Felixstowe. I've not only got the shares you sold, with your signature as a director, but I have letters and receipts signed by you. It has cost me a lot of money to get them, but it was well worth it."
Crawley's face was livid. He took a step toward the other, but recoiled, for at the first hint of danger John Minute had pulled the revolver he invariably carried.
"Keep just where you are, Crawley!" he said. "You are close enough now to be unpleasant."
"So you've got my record, have you?" said the other, with an oath. "Tucked away with your marriage lines, I'll bet, and the certificate of birth of the kids you left to starve with their mother."
"Get out of here!" said Minute, with dangerous quiet. "Get away while you're safe!"
There was something in his eye which cowed the half-drunken man who, turning with alaugh, picked up his helmet and walked from the room.
The hour was seven-thirty-five by Constable Wiseman's watch; for, slowly patrolling back, he saw the sergeant come flying out of the gateway on his bicycle and turn down toward the town. Constable Wiseman subsequently explained that he looked at his watch because he had a regular point at which he should meet Sergeant Smith at seven-forty-five and he was wondering whether his superior would return.
The chronology of the next three hours has been so often given in various accounts of the events which marked that evening that I may be excused if I give them in detail.
A car, white with dust, turned into the stable yard of the Star Hotel, Maidstone. The driver, in a dust coat and a chauffeur's cap, descended and handed over the car to a garage keeper with instructions to clean it up and have it filled ready for him the following morning. He gave explicit instructions as to the numberof tins of petrol he required to carry always and tipped the garage keeper handsomely in advance.
He was described as a young man with a slight black mustache, and he was wearing his motor goggles when he went into the office of the hotel and ordered a bed and a sitting room. Therefore his face was not seen. When his dinner was served, it was remarked by the waiter that his goggles were still on his face. He gave instructions that the whole of the dinner was to be served at once and put upon the sideboard, and that he did not wish to be disturbed until he rang the bell.
When the bell rang the waiter came to find the room empty. But from the adjoining room he received orders to have breakfast by seven o'clock the following morning.
At seven o'clock the driver of the car paid his bill, his big motor goggles still upon his face, again tipped the garage keeper handsomely, and drove his car from the yard. He turned to the right and appeared to be takingthe London Road, but later in the day, as has been established, the car was seen on its way to Paddock Wood, and was later observed at Tonbridge. The driver pulled up at a little tea house half a mile from the town, ordered sandwiches and tea, which were brought to him, and which he consumed in the car.
Late in the afternoon the car was seen at Uckfield, and the theory generally held was that the driver was killing time. At the wayside cottage at which he stopped for tea—it was one of those little places that invite cyclists by an ill-printed board to tarry a while and refresh themselves—he had some conversation with the tenant of the cottage, a widow. She seems to have been the usual loquacious, friendly soul who tells one without reserve her business, her troubles, and a fair sprinkling of the news of the day in the shortest possible time.
"I haven't seen a paper," said Rex Holland politely. "It is a very curious thing that I never thought about newspapers."
"I can get you one," said the woman eagerly. "You ought to read about that case."
"The dead chauffeur?" asked Rex Holland interestedly, for that had been the item of general news which was foremost in the woman's conversation.
"Yes, sir; he was murdered in Ashdown Forest. Many's the time I've driven over there."
"How do you know it was a murder?"
She knew for many reasons. Her brother-in-law was gamekeeper to Lord Ferring, and a colleague of his had been the man who had discovered the body, and it had appeared, as the good lady explained, that this same chauffeur was a man for whom the police had been searching in connection with a bank robbery about which much had appeared in the newspapers of the day previous.
"How very interesting!" said Mr. Holland, and took the paper from her hand.
He read the description line by line. He learned that the police were in possession ofimportant clews, and that they were on the track of the man who had been seen in the company of the chauffeur. Moreover, said a most indiscreet newspaper writer, the police had a photograph showing the chauffeur standing by the side of his car, and reproductions of this photograph, showing the type of machine, were being circulated.
"How very interesting!" said Mr. Rex Holland again, being perfectly content in his mind, for his search of the body had revealed copies of this identical picture, and the car in which he was seated was not the car which had been photographed. From this point, a mile and a half beyond Uckfield, all trace of the car and its occupant was lost.
The writer has been very careful to note the exact times and to confirm those about which there was any doubt. At nine-twenty on the night when Constable Wiseman had patrolled the road before Weald Lodge and had seen Sergeant Smith flying down the road on his bicycle, and on the night of that day when Mr.Rex Holland had been seen at Uckfield, there arrived by the London train, which is due at Eastbourne at nine-twenty, Frank Merrill. The train, as a matter of fact, was three minutes late, and Frank, who had been in the latter part of the train, was one of the last of the passengers to arrive at the barrier.
When he reached the barrier, he discovered that he had no railway ticket, a very ordinary and vexatious experience which travelers before now have endured. He searched in every pocket, including the pocket of the light ulster he wore, but without success. He was vexed, but he laughed because he had a strong sense of humor.
"I could pay for my ticket," he smiled, "but I be hanged if I will! Inspector, you search that overcoat."
The amused inspector complied while Frank again went through all his pockets. At his request he accompanied the inspector to the latter's office, and there deposited on the tablethe contents of his pockets, his money, letters, and pocketbook.
"You're used to searching people," he said. "See if you can find it. I'll swear I've got it about me somewhere."
The obliging inspector felt, probed, but without success, till suddenly, with a roar of laughter, Frank cried:
"What a stupid ass I am! I've got it in my hat!"
He took off his hat, and there in the lining was a first-class ticket from London to Eastbourne.
It is necessary to lay particular stress upon this incident, which had an important bearing upon subsequent events. He called a taxicab, drove to Weald Lodge, and dismissed the driver in the road. He arrived at Weald Lodge, by the testimony of the driver and by that of Constable Wiseman, whom the car had passed, at about nine-forty.
Mr. John Minute at this time was alone; his suspicious nature would not allow the presenceof servants in the house during the interview which he was to have with his nephew. He regarded servants as spies and eavesdroppers, and perhaps there was an excuse for his uncharitable view.
At nine-fifty, ten minutes after Frank had entered the gates of Weald Lodge, a car with gleaming headlights came quickly from the opposite direction and pulled up outside the gates. P. C. Wiseman, who at this moment was less than fifty yards from the gate, saw a man descend and pass quickly into the grounds of the house.
At nine-fifty-two or nine-fifty-three the constable, walking slowly toward the house, came abreast of the wall, and, looking up, saw a light flash for a moment in one of the upper windows. He had hardly seen this when he heard two shots fired in rapid succession, and a cry.
Only for a moment did P. C. Wiseman hesitate. He jumped the low wall, pushed through the shrubs, and made for the side ofthe house from whence a flood of light fell from the open French windows of the library. He blundered into the room a pace or two, and then stopped, for the sight was one which might well arrest even as unimaginative a man as a county constable.
John Minute lay on the floor on his back, and it did not need a doctor to tell that he was dead. By his side, and almost within reach of his hand, was a revolver of a very heavy army pattern. Mechanically the constable picked up the revolver and turned his stern face to the other occupant of the room.
"This is a bad business, Mr. Merrill," he found his breath to say.
Frank Merrill had been leaning over his uncle as the constable entered, but now stood erect, pale, but perfectly self-possessed.
"I heard the shot and I came in," he said.
"Stay where you are," said the constable, and, stepping quickly out on to the lawn, he blew his whistle long and shrilly, then returned to the room.
"This is a bad business, Mr. Merrill," he repeated.
"It is a very bad business," said the other in a low voice.
"Is this revolver yours?"
Frank shook his head.
"I've never seen it before," he said with emphasis.
The constable thought as quickly as it was humanly possible for him to think. He had no doubt in his mind that this unhappy youth had fired the shots which had ended the life of the man on the floor.
"Stay here," he said again, and again went out to blow his whistle. He walked this time on the lawn by the side of the drive toward the road. He had not taken half a dozen steps when he saw a dark figure of a man creeping stealthily along before him in the shade of the shrubs. In a second the constable was on him, had grasped him and swung him round, flashing his lantern into his prisoner's face. Instantly he released his hold.
"I beg your pardon, Sergeant," he stammered.
"What's the matter?" scowled the other. "What's wrong with you, Constable?"
Sergeant Smith's face was drawn and haggard. The policeman looked at him with open-mouthed astonishment.
"I didn't know it was you," he said.
"What's wrong?" asked the other again, and his voice was cracked and unnatural.
"There's been a murder—old Minute—shot!"
Sergeant Smith staggered back a pace.
"Good God!" he said. "Minute murdered? Then he did it! The young devil did it!"
"Come and have a look," invited Wiseman, recovering his balance. "I've got his nephew."