Mrs. Braxfield turned back into the hall, and opening a door, motioned her visitors into the room in which Blick had listened to Mr. Fransemmery’s story three nights previously. The plain-clothes man, entering last, carefully closed the door, and remained standing before it.
“What do you want?” demanded Mrs. Braxfield. The colour had come back to her cheeks, and she was looking decidedly angry; anger, too, was apparent in her voice.
“We want to have a talk to you about last Tuesday morning, Mrs. Braxfield,” replied the Chief Constable. “Just a quiet talk—between ourselves.”
“I’m not so sure about that ‘between ourselves!’” exclaimed Mrs. Braxfield with unmistakable asperity. “It strikes me that some folk, when they say ‘between ourselves’ mean a good deal of the very opposite. I believe some of you”—here she gave Blick an indignant glance—“some of you have been talking about me, behind my back! Here’s my charwoman just come up from the village, and she says there’s talk going on down there about me and the murder! Nay!—there’s more! They’re saying, some of them, that I had something to do with it—did it myself, some of them are saying, straight out! Now where’s all that originated, I should like to know? But I’ll find out—and then I’ll see what my lawyer has to say!”
“Quite so, Mrs. Braxfield,” agreed the Chief Constable. “You’ll be quite within your rights to do that if false rumours are being spread about you. But we’ve heard of these rumours, and we want to ask a few questions. I’m sure you’ll see that it will be advisable for you to answer them—eh, Mrs. Braxfield?”
“Depends what they are!” replied Mrs. Braxfield, still angry. “I shall please myself!”
“Well, the first thing is this,” continued the Chief Constable, becoming somewhat sterner in manner. “I’m afraid you didn’t tell the exact truth at the inquest the other day. You said that you saw Mr. John Harborough at a certain spot on the hill-side from your chamber window—your bedroom window. Now, Mrs. Braxfield, you couldn’t see him at that place from your bedroom window—there’s the rise of a hill between your house and that particular place. What have you to say to that?”
Mrs. Braxfield had paled again, and started visibly at this, and her lips compressed themselves for an instant.
“I did see him all the same!” she said sullenly. “I might get mixed up about exactly where it was from, but——”
“Now, where was it from?” asked the Chief Constable. “Come!—you can’t have forgotten that—an important matter!”
But Mrs. Braxfield’s lips again compressed themselves, and in the middle of her pale cheeks, red, angry spots began to show.
“If you won’t speak, I’ll refresh your memory,” said the Chief Constable. “Wasn’t it from the edge of that little spinney near Markenmore Hollow? Come, now?”
“What if it was?” retorted Mrs. Braxfield.
“What were you doing there, at that time of the morning?” asked the Chief Constable.
“That’s my business!” said Mrs. Braxfield with sudden defiance. “What have you to do with it?”
The Chief Constable shook his head.
“Oh, well!” he answered. “If you are going to adopt that tone, Mrs. Braxfield, we must show our hand a little more openly. Now, Mrs. Braxfield, listen to me; we know certain things. You’ve been in the habit of going to that spinney, or round about it, very early of a morning, to have a shot at foxes; the foxes, we hear, have given you trouble about your fowls. Is that so?”
“What if it is?” demanded Mrs. Braxfield. “Do you think I’m going to have my valuable fowls and chickens carried off by foxes? I’m not!—not for all the hunting men in the country! So there! I wish I could shoot every fox that’s running about! As it is, all I’ve done has been to frighten them.”
“You can settle your affairs about the foxes with the Master of Foxhounds, Mrs. Braxfield,” said the Chief Constable good-humouredly. “It’s a truly awful crime to shoot a fox, in the opinion of hunting people, but it’s one that doesn’t come within police regulations. But now, Mrs. Braxfield, what did you use in shooting at the foxes? Was it a rifle, or a sporting gun, or a revolver? Or—was it an automatic pistol? Come!”
Mrs. Braxfield looked from one face to another. Three pairs of eyes were fixed firmly upon her.
“Who’s been telling you all this?” she suddenly exclaimed. “Who’s been——”
“It was an automatic pistol, wasn’t it?” persisted the Chief Constable. “Come, now, Mrs. Braxfield, why not answer straight out?”
“What if it was?” muttered Mrs. Braxfield.
“Then it was! Very well; now then,” continued the Chief Constable, “where did you get it?”
Mrs. Braxfield, who until then had been standing by the table in the centre of the room, facing her three visitors, suddenly sat down in the nearest chair, folded her hands on her lap, looked calmly from one to the other.
“Look here!” she said quietly, finally fixing her eyes on the Chief Constable. “You no doubt think you’re being very plain, and outspoken, and all that, but if you want any information out of me, you’ll have to be a good deal plainer! And I’ll tell you straight out that you’re not going to get me to incriminate myself! I haven’t said that I had any automatic pistol. You said: ‘Was it an automatic pistol that I used, to scare the foxes?’ I replied: ‘What if it was?’ That isn’t saying that it was, or that I ever had one. I’m willing to give any information that I can, but you’re treating me with suspicion, and I’m not going to be forced into any admission that might be damaging—damaging to me and to others, very likely. You treat me fair, and——”
“Mrs. Braxfield,” broke in the Chief Constable, “we’ve no wish for anything else than to treat you fairly. But we know certain things, and we’re bound to ask you for some explanation. Now, as you ask me to be more explicit, I will! I may as well tell you that an automatic pistol has been found.”
The Chief Constable stopped suddenly. Mrs. Braxfield, taken unawares, had turned pale to the lips, and her hands tightened. She started palpably.
“Found!” she exclaimed.
“Found, Mrs. Braxfield!” said the Chief Constable sternly. “I needn’t ask you if you have any ideas as to where it was found—I think you have. Now that automatic pistol has, of course, a mark and a number, and it has been identified by a gunsmith in Selcaster as one that he sold, comparatively recently, to Mr. Harry Markenmore—your son-in-law. Now, Mrs. Braxfield, we know beyond any question that you have been in the habit of using an automatic pistol of that particular sort to scare or shoot foxes. Be candid. Was the pistol that you’ve been using given to you by Mr. Harry Markenmore—the pistol that is now in our possession? Come!”
Mrs. Braxfield sat silent for a while. Now and then she looked at her questioner; now and then at the rings on her fingers, which she was mechanically turning round and round. It seemed a long time before she spoke. But when she did, it was to the accompaniment of an unusually dogged and defiant look.
“I’m not going to say another word!” she said. “Bear you in mind, all of you, that I’ve admitted nothing!”
The Chief Constable glanced at Blick and sighed—the sigh of a man upon whom an unpleasant duty is forced, much against his will.
“Very well, Mrs. Braxfield,” he said quietly. “Then there’s nothing else for it—you’ll have to come with us.”
“Do you mean that you’re going to take me to Selcaster?” asked Mrs. Braxfield, with suspicious calmness. “All right!—and you’ll be more than sorry for it, as you’ll see! Very well—I suppose I can go upstairs and make ready?”
“No!” said the Chief Constable. “Not out of my sight, now! You’ve a woman in the house—you can ring for her, and tell her to get all you want. Then—we’ve a cab outside.”
“Ah!” remarked Mrs. Braxfield maliciously. “You’re only doing what you meant to do! All right, Mr. Chief Constable, and the other two of you—you’ll be sorry for this!”
But the Chief Constable silently motioned to Blick to ring the bell for the charwoman.
CHAPTER XXII
Five minutes later, the charwoman, amazed and lachrymose, and holding a corner of her apron in readiness to apply to her eyes, watched the little procession move away across the garden of Woodland Cottage and over the hill-side to the edge of the grass track whereat the cab was in waiting. She kept her eyes fixed on Mrs. Braxfield until Mrs. Braxfield vanished; but Mrs. Braxfield never looked back. Her eyes were concentrated on the cab in which she was to be carried away. There were two more plain-clothes men in charge of it; one on the box, another by the door, and at sight of them she laughed satirically.
“You came pretty well prepared, I think!” she said with bitter emphasis. “I can see what was in your minds! This is what you call having a talk between ourselves—being frank and candid—and all that! Rubbish!”
“You’ve only got to be candid, Mrs. Braxfield, and there’ll be no necessity to take you away,” said the Chief Constable. “If you’ll only just tell me——”
“I shall tell nothing!” retorted Mrs. Braxfield, “Nothing at all!—not one word!—until I’ve seen my solicitor, Mr. Crewe. I suppose you’ll not deny me the right of seeing him when I get to wherever you’re going to take me?”
“You shall see Mr. Crewe within ten minutes of reaching Selcaster,” assented the Chief Constable. “I’ll give orders to that effect. My men here will see that you’re quite comfortable, and that you and Mr. Crewe have every facility you want—and I hope, Mrs. Braxfield, for your own sake, that by the time I get back to Selcaster you’ll have thought better of things and been more open and candid with your solicitor than you’ve been with me!”
“That’s my business,” said Mrs. Braxfield. “I can do it without any advice from you. But—aren’t you going back now? Mr. Crewe’ll want you.”
“Not at present,” said the Chief Constable. “You’ll go with my men—Mr. Blick and myself are now going to see Mr. Harry Markenmore.”
Mrs. Braxfield stopped in her progress towards the cab. A curious look came into her eyes.
“You’re not—not going to arrest him?” she whispered. “He——”
“Just leave us to manage our own business, if you please, Mrs. Braxfield,” said the Chief Constable, “Step in!—you’ll be treated with every consideration, as you’ll see. Marshall!” he continued, turning to the man who had accompanied Blick and himself to the cottage. “As soon as you get to Selcaster, put Mrs. Braxfield in my room, and send Robinson at once to Mr. Crewe, asking him to come round immediately to see her. You know all the rest—I shall be back there as quickly as possible.”
The cab drove away with its burden of three stolid-faced men and a highly indignant woman, and the Chief Constable took off his peaked and laced cap and wiped his forehead.
“Phew!” he said. “Disagreeable business that, Blick! Now, why the deuce couldn’t that foolish woman be candid instead of behaving in a fashion calculated to arouse suspicion? A few words—a proper explanation—and we needn’t have been put to this trouble!”
“She’s a determined and obstinate woman,” answered Blick reflectively. “But as far as I’m concerned no amount of explanation would have satisfied me. I haven’t the slightest doubt that it was she who threw this automatic pistol away down the badger-hole, and if that isn’t damaging to her, I don’t know what is!”
“You think it’s highly probable that she shot Guy Markenmore, then?” suggested the Chief Constable.
“Well, if you want to know, I do!” declared Blick frankly. “It was probably done on the spur of the moment, but I think she did. From what I’ve seen of her, I think she’s a woman who wouldn’t stick at anything. She’s evidently tremendously ambitious about that daughter of hers, and was very keen that she should be Lady Markenmore instead of merely Mrs. Harry. Fransemmery can tell you that Mrs. Braxfield was terribly upset when she found that Guy had left a son, and that Harry hadn’t succeeded to the baronetcy. Whatever may result there’s very strong ground of suspicion against her. She wouldn’t be the first woman who’s resorted to murder for the sake of family advancement—not she!”
“I wonder what made her start when I mentioned that we were going to see Harry Markenmore?” remarked the Chief Constable. “And whatever made her ask if we were meaning to arrest him? Surely, if she was in it, he isn’t—can’t have been an accessory?”
“Can’t say!” answered Blick laconically. “But—she was taken aback. However, there is Harry Markenmore—we needn’t go to the house for him.”
He and his companion had crossed Deep Lane by that time, and were now traversing the park in the direction of Markenmore Court. And there, a little way before them, they saw Harry Markenmore, superintending the labours of three or four men who were engaged in felling a giant elm tree. He caught sight of them at the same moment, and presently came strolling in their direction, his eyes looking a question as they met.
“Good morning, Mr. Markenmore,” began the Chief Constable. “We were just going to the house to see you. The fact is,” he continued, unconsciously lowering his voice in spite of the fact that he and his two companions stood in a solitude, “a very unpleasant situation has arisen in respect of the death of your brother. Now, Mr. Markenmore, you can help us to clear it up, one way or another, if you’ll give us some information: the whole thing may be capable of very easy explanation—anyway, I’m sure you’ll help us if you can.”
“In what way?” asked Harry. He stood, hands in pockets, glancing first at one, then at the other; in Blick’s opinion he seemed to be ill at ease. “What do you want to know?”
“Well, first of all,” replied the Chief Constable quietly, “we better tell you what we do know. Now don’t be alarmed or upset, Mr. Markenmore, by what I have to say——”
A queer expression suddenly played about Harry Markenmore’s lips, and he gave Blick an equally queer glance.
“Why should I be either alarmed or upset?” he asked. “Scarcely likely!”
“Just so, Mr. Markemnore, just so!” agreed the Chief Constable. “It isn’t at all likely, but you know what I mean. Well, now, in the course of his enquiries Detective-Sergeant Blick has found that some little time ago you purchased a Webley-Fosbery automatic pistol at Widdington’s, the gunsmith, in Selcaster. That’s so, Mr. Markenmore?”
“That is so, certainly,” replied Harry. “No secret about it, either.”
“I felt sure there wouldn’t be,” said the Chief Constable. “Very well—would you recognize that pistol if you were shown it?”
“By its mark and number—yes!” answered Harry.
The Chief Constable turned to Blick, who promptly drew the automatic pistol from his pocket and handed it over. Both watched curiously as Harry examined it.
“That’s it!” he said. “But how——”
“Mr. Markenmore!” interrupted the Chief Constable. “This is where the unpleasant part of the business comes in! That pistol was found, by Detective-Sergeant Blick himself, thrown away in a hole—a badger hole—behind the bushes in Deep Lane there, last Friday evening. Now, Mr. Markenmore, have you any idea how your pistol came to be there? For it is the automatic pistol you bought at Widdington’s—we’ve identified the number and mark.”
Harry Markenmore, healthy enough in colour until then, had paled, and he was staring at the automatic pistol with a frown that was half angry and half puzzled.
“I!” he exclaimed. “How should I know how it came there!”
“But you’ll know what you did with the pistol when you bought it, Mr. Markenmore!” said the Chief Constable. “I gather from your last remark that it passed out of your possession. Now, Mr. Markenmore, be frank with us! To whom did you give the pistol?—or to whom did you lend it? Anyway, who’s had it?”
Harry Markenmore handed the pistol back, and replaced his hands in his pockets.
“Look here!” he said quietly. “You’d better be frank, too. Are you suggesting that it was a shot from that thing that caused my brother’s death?”
“We think it extremely probable, Mr. Markenmore,” answered the Chief Constable. “We showed it to the police-surgeon last night, and in his opinion, it is just the sort of thing that was used.”
“And whom do you suspect of using it?” demanded Harry. “Come, now?”
He had assumed the rôle of examiner then, and he was watching the two men as keenly as they had watched him. The Chief Constable hesitated.
“I should prefer that you tell us what you did with the pistol,” he began. “I think——”
“And I prefer that you tell me whom you suspect of using it on my brother,” declared Harry. “Whatever you prefer, I’m not going to say anything that may incriminate perfectly innocent people! That’s flat—and final, too!”
The Chief Constable looked at Blick. And Blick, who was beginning to size matters up, nodded.
“Tell him!” he murmured.
“Very well, Mr. Markenmore,” said the Chief Constable. “I’ll take the lead. We believe there is ground of suspicion against Mrs. Braxfield. We have found out that for some time she has been in the habit of firing an automatic pistol near a spinney on the edge of Markenmore Hollow in order to frighten foxes away from her chickens, and that she has often been seen there at very early hours of the morning. Now, Mr. Markenmore, is yours the pistol she used?”
“What does Mrs. Braxfield herself say?” asked Harry quietly.
“Mrs. Braxfield refuses to say anything,” answered the Chief Constable, “except that she admits firing at the foxes sometimes, at the times and place I’ve mentioned. And the result is that we’ve been obliged to take her off to Selcaster, pending enquiries——”
Harry Markenmore’s face suddenly became dark with anger.
“What!” he exclaimed. “You’ve—arrested her?”
“Detained for further enquiries,” said the Chief Constable, with a sudden approach to stern formalities. “She has only to give us a satisfactory explanation——”
“Damnation!” Harry Markenmore suddenly burst out. “Are you aware that Mrs. Braxfield is my mother-in-law? What the devil do you mean by even suggesting that she murdered my brother?”
“Be calm, Mr. Markenmore!” said the Chief Constable. “Help us to clear up this affair of the automatic pistol! Tell us if and why you gave it to Mrs. Braxfield, and if you can account for its being thrown away? Then——”
But Harry, muttering angrily to himself, suddenly turned and strode off rapidly in the direction of Markenmore Court, and though the Chief Constable called to him, begging him to listen to reason, he marched on without taking further notice. The two men looked at each other.
“Is he to go?” asked Blick.
“What can we do?” answered the Chief Constable. “Hang it all——”
“I think I should have insisted on his going with us to Selcaster,” said Blick. “If he and Mrs. Braxfield had been confronted——”
The Chief Constable, however, had turned towards the village.
“Oh, well!” he said. “There’s a way of making him speak! He’ll have to speak of his part in a witness-box. Let’s get to Selcaster, and if that woman hasn’t come to her senses under Crewe’s advice, I’ll charge her, formally, and bring her before the magistrates—they’ll be sitting at eleven o’clock this morning.”
“You’ll go as far as that?” said Blick.
“I will!” declared the Chief Constable. “I shall be justified on what we know already. Come on—we’ll get a trap at the Sceptre.”
Half an hour later, when he and Blick drove up to the police-station, they met Crewe, the solicitor, emerging from it. He gave the Chief Constable a dry, shrewd smile.
”Um!” he said, drawing him aside. “Pretty arbitrary in your treatment of Mrs. B., I think! However, under my advice, she’ll now tell you what you wanted to know. And after that, if I were you, I should just let her go quietly home. She’s pretty furious—and she’s given me certain instructions that’ll possibly help you—though between you and me, I think she’s a fool for doing it!”
“I don’t understand you,” said the Chief Constable curtly.
Crewe waved a sheet of paper which he carried towards the police-station.
“Go in and see her, then!” he retorted.
The Chief Constable motioned Blick to follow him to his room. One of the plain-clothes men stood outside; inside sat Mrs. Braxfield, conversing amicably with the other two, who, at a sign from their superior, went out.
“Well, Mrs. Braxfield,” said the Chief Constable as he seated himself at his desk, “we’ve just seen your solicitor, and he tells me you are now going to give me the information I wanted. But I may as well tell you I’m a bit tired of this, and I want straightforward answers to my questions. Now then—is that automatic pistol that you’ve been using, to scare foxes with, one that was given you by Mr. Harry Markenmore?”
“Yes!” answered Mrs. Braxfield sullenly.
“For what purpose did he give it to you?”
“Well—it was some time after he became engaged, with my consent, to my daughter. He used, of course, to come up to Woodland Cottage and see us, in the evenings. And he often said what a lonely situation it was for two women—for Braxfield rarely came then. And one day he brought that pistol, and showed us both how to use it. And when those foxes began raiding my fowls, I thought of the pistol and used it to scare them. I never hit one, that I know of.”
“Where is the pistol?” demanded the Chief Constable.
“Well,” replied Mrs. Braxfield, with obvious reluctance, “I’ve been a fool about that! After I heard of Guy Markenmore’s murder, I got nervous—frightened. I thought there might be a search made—you never know—and it would look queer for me to have a pistol, and so—well, I threw it away.”
“Where?”
“Down a deep hole behind the bushes in the lane near my house,” said Mrs. Braxfield.
“One more question,” said the Chief Constable. “Did you see Guy Markenmore at all, anywhere, last Tuesday morning, and did you fire that pistol that morning?”
“No!” declared Mrs. Braxfield. “I never saw Guy Markenmore—have never seen him for seven years—and I never fired the pistol that morning—I hadn’t it with me.”
The Chief Constable took Blick aside and for some minutes they talked together in low tones. At last the Chief Constable turned round.
“Well, Mrs. Braxfield,” he said, “I won’t detain you any longer. You’ve only yourself to thank for your being brought here. You can go, now.”
Mrs. Braxfield got up from her chair with dignity.
“I am going!” she said. “And it would be a bad job for anybody who kept me any longer! Just as it’ll be a bad job for anybody who spreads any more rumours about me! But I’ve adopted a course that’ll surprise some of you. And you police-folk may as well know what it is—it’s something that ought to have been done before. I’ve instructed Crewe to get out, at once, this very morning, a bill offering a substantial reward to anybody who gives information that’ll lead to the arrest and conviction of Guy Markenmore’s murderer; if you police had had half your wits about you, you’d have done that long since! Lord bless you, do you think there aren’t folk in Markenmore who know something? Why, there isn’t a soul in the place that wouldn’t give his or her own mother away for a five-pound note! And I’m not short of five-pound notes, I can tell you! I could buy all Markenmore up if I wanted!”
“Good morning, Mrs. Braxfield,” said the Chief Constable. Then, remembering that Mrs. Braxfield had come there against her will, he added politely, “Will you have a cab to drive home in? I’ll order one at once.”
“Thank you; I can order cabs for myself, and pay for them, too,” said Mrs. Braxfield as she sailed out. “I want no favours!”
The Chief Constable sighed when Mrs. Braxfield had gone.
“I daresay that’s the real truth, at least, about the automatic pistol,” he remarked. “Why couldn’t Harry Markenmore tell us!”
“I don’t suppose that he knew that she threw it away,” answered Blick. He was walking up and down the room, evidently restless and dissatisfied; finally, he brought up at a window overlooking the street. “Here’s Harry Markenmore himself, with Chilford,” he exclaimed suddenly. “He must have ridden in as soon as he left us in the park. They’ve met Mrs. Braxfield now, and she’s giving them the benefit of her tongue, I think!”
“Let her!” said the Chief Constable. “I’m sick of her!”
“I’m not satisfied about her and Harry Markenmore and that pistol,” observed Blick. “After all, we’ve only got her word for what she alleges, and we haven’t got his at all. If he gave her the pistol for the very innocent reason she spoke of—to keep in the house as a means of protection—why couldn’t he say so, straight out, without all that mystery and losing his temper into the bargain? Not very satisfactory!”
“I suppose he was angry because Mrs. Braxfield is his mother-in-law, and he’d have to tell his wife of what we appeared to suspect,” remarked the Chief Constable. “Not a very nice situation for a young woman who’s come into a family under odd circumstances. I don’t think I should have liked it had I been Harry Markenmore, to have to go and say to my young wife, ‘Look here! the police have collared your mother on suspicion of murdering my brother!’ Would you? So I can excuse his temper.”
Blick made no reply. He continued staring out of the window in silence, for some time. Suddenly he spoke.
“Chilford’s coming across here,” he said. “Those two have been jawing at him no end!”
Chilford came in presently, and shook his head at the two men, with mock reproof.
“I say—I say!” he said. “Rather high-handed proceedings, eh—to collar Mrs. Braxfield like that, after trying to get her to incriminate herself? Come—come! You don’t really mean to tell me, either of you, that you think it at all likely that Mrs. Braxfield would be such a fool as to murder a man to whom she’d just become related by marriage—a Markenmore, too! Really, I’m surprised——”
“Look you here, Chilford!” interrupted the Chief Constable, getting a little red about the ears, “you can be as surprised as you like! Mrs. Braxfield has only herself to blame, and she’s only gone out of here on sufferance. Let her be thankful if we don’t fetch her back—and keep her!”
Chilford pulled himself together, staring.
“Oh!” he said. “Ah! Oh, very well: if you’re putting it that way, I’ve no more to say, except that Crewe and I will put our heads together on behalf of the family. We’re not at all satisfied with you police—you’re not going on the right track. Why don’t you recognize once and for all that the real reason for Guy Markenmore’s murder was money!—money in some fashion or another—money!”
With another emphatic repetition of his last word he swung round and left the room.
CHAPTER XXIII
The Chief Constable looked at Blick when Chilford walked out: his eyes assumed a somewhat blank and doubtful expression.
“What on earth does he mean by all that?” he exclaimed.
“That something to do with money is at the bottom of it,” said Blick. “And after all, there’s the three thousand pounds’ worth of bank-notes to account for! There doesn’t seem any doubt that Guy Markenmore had these notes on him when he left the Sceptre, and he certainly hadn’t them when we examined his clothing. Where are they? Obviously, the murderer helped himself to them.”
The Chief Constable reflected awhile.
“The queer thing, to my way of thinking,” he observed at last, “is this: if the murder was committed for the sake of robbery, how comes it that the murderer didn’t possess himself of all the rest of the stuff Guy Markenmore had on him? Money, a fair lot, I think; valuables, gold watch and chain; and so on. There was a very valuable diamond ring, wasn’t there?”
“The odd thing is that another ring—the duplicate of that which Mrs. Tretheroe wears—was gone,” said Blick. “Gone!—a comparatively valueless thing, merely a curiosity, while a diamond ring, worth a great deal, was left on the very same finger! But what’s the use of theorizing? The facts are as they are! If there’s nothing whatever in what we’ll call the Mrs. Braxfield line—well, I’m still without any real clue!”
“Chilford says—money!—money!—money!” remarked the Chief Constable. “I wish we knew more of Guy Markenmore’s money affairs! But talking of money, I shouldn’t wonder if that dodge of Mother Braxfield’s mayn’t have something in it. I know village people pretty well by now! What she said is quite true—there’s scarce a soul amongst ’em that wouldn’t sell his own mother for a five-pound note! Bit exaggerated, of course, that!—but it’s sound in principle.”
Blick looked doubtful and surprised.
“Do you mean to say that, supposing there are people in Markenmore who really do know something about this affair, they’ve kept silence up to now?” he asked. “I don’t mean people who might be incriminated by confession or revelation, but people who are in possession of information and simply won’t give it?”
“Nothing more likely!” affirmed the Chief Constable, with the emphatic assurance of experience. “Village folk are the biggest gossips and scandalmongers under the sun! There isn’t a village in England that isn’t a perfect hot-bed of slander—born of envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness! But—don’t you make any mistake, my lad!—village folk, in spite of that tendency, can be as close as ever they make ’em! You might as well try to get butter out of a dog’s mouth as try to extract a secret from them if they don’t want to tell it. Why, I would give you piles of proof of that out of my own experience! I remember one case that happened near here, not so long ago. A certain land-agent was shot at and badly wounded one night as he went home, and we’ve never yet found out who his assailant and would-be murderer was. But I haven’t the slightest doubt that nearly every man and woman in that place knows who he was—only they won’t say, because their chief regret is that the victim wasn’t finished off. There you are!”
“But according to Mrs. Braxfield—and you seem to agree with her—these folks would tell for a five-pound note,” said Blick with a cynical laugh. “Why didn’t you try that in the case you mention?”
“We may do yet,” replied the Chief Constable. “The victim himself seems inclined to hush the matter up, fearing worse things—but we may try a reward. In this Markenmore affair, however, Mrs. Braxfield is going to try a monetary offer—out of pure pique, I fancy!—and it won’t surprise me if something results. If I were you, Blick, I should keep my ears on the stretch during the next twenty-four hours. I don’t know what she’ll offer, but if it’s something substantial, there’ll be a vast amount of cupidity aroused amongst these rustics—I know ’em!”
Blick got up from the elbow-chair in which, since Chilford’s abrupt departure, he had been sitting with his legs stretched out and his hands in his pockets, looking perplexed and somewhat disconsolate.
“I may as well be going back then,” he muttered. “Hanged if I know even now, if we didn’t part with Mrs. Braxfield a bit too easily!”
“She’ll not run away,” retorted the Chief Constable, with a significant nod of his head. “And if it’s all a piece of bluff——”
He paused as a policeman entered the room and laid a card before him.
“The gentleman’s waiting outside, sir,” said the policeman.
The Chief Constable glanced at the card, started, and turned to Blick.
“Sir Thomas Hodges-Wilkins!” he murmured surprisedly. “That big scientific chap!—Professor, from Cambridge, that that fellow Spindler told us about. What on earth can he want? Bring him in, Jarvis,” he went on. “Set a chair there.” He looked wonderingly at the detective. “Another development!” he muttered. “What now?”
Blick made no reply. He was watching the door, through which suddenly appeared a man who was not at all the sort of person that Blick expected to see. Instead of being old, and grave, and bald, and bearded, and spectacled, and dressed anyhow, the famous professor of chemistry was a smart, alert, rather military-looking man, fastidiously attired, wearing a monocle instead of spectacles, and endowed with a breezy air and cheery smile, which he bestowed freely on the two occupants of the room as he marched in and seated himself by the Chief Constable’s desk, on the edge of which he laid down two or three newspapers, heavily marked here and there with blue pencil.
“Good morning—good morning!” he exclaimed. “I don’t know whether you’ll guess my business from my name—or, indeed, if you know anything about it? But I’ve been reading the newspaper accounts of this Markenmore affair, and it seemed to me, last night, that it was my duty to come here and tell you something. And first of all, to make things clear, have you had here a young man named Spindler, a chemist’s assistant, from Farsham?”
“We have!” replied the Chief Constable.
“Did he tell you anything in which my name came up? And if so, what?”
“He told us—this is Detective-Sergeant Blick, who was with me when this man Spindler called—that a certain secret of his, respecting the preparation of some dye which he had offered to sell to Guy Markenmore, was submitted to you by Markenmore, for your expert opinion.”
“Just so! It was. Markenmore got my opinion. Now—how much further had that gone?”
“Gone to this,” answered the Chief Constable. “When Markenmore was murdered he had on him three thousand pounds in bank-notes, which, we believe, he was to hand over to Spindler that very morning in payment for his secret.”
“Spindler was going to sell for three thousand pounds?”
“He was—so he told us.”
The Professor of Chemistry screwed his monocle still further into the cavity of his eye, and took a queer, keenly-inspecting glance at the two men.
“Do you two believe—are you theorizing that Markenmore was murdered for the three thousand pounds?” he asked quizzically. “It, to be sure, looks rather obvious!”
“There is such a theory afloat,” answered the Chief Constable. “He had that sum on him at three o’clock on Tuesday morning, and it was gone when his dead body was found a very few hours later!”
“Aye!” said the Professor with a short laugh. “And something else gone with it, too! Now, look here!—I’m not a policeman, but I have some intelligence. I’ll tell you what Guy Markenmore was murdered for, and I’ll lay all the money I’ve got to a China orange that I’m right, all the time. Guy Markenmore was murdered for the Spindler formula! Dead certain!”
The Professor laughed again, and slapped his elegantly-gloved hand on the desk at his side. The two listeners stared at him, and then at each other. And this time it was Blick who spoke.
“Are we to understand, Sir Thomas,” he asked, “that that formula was of great value?—of greater value than the three thousand pounds?”
“Call me Professor,” said the famous scientist. “Saves time—— Yes. You are to understand that! Three thousand pounds! Had it been my secret, I wouldn’t have sold it for thirty thousand pounds! That chap Spindler is an ass—or awfully ignorant of market values; had he stuck to it himself he’d have made a huge fortune out of it, one way and another. I don’t know if you two are at all up in this question of aniline dyes? You’ll know, at any rate, if you read your newspapers, that it’s a most serious question—one of rescuing a trade originally ours from its German usurpers. You know that? Very well, this young man at Farsham—clever chap, indeed!—has discovered a peculiar formula! I needn’t go into details, but I know enough to be absolutely certain, in my own mind, that Markenmore was murdered by somebody who knew that he had the formula on him, and who meant to have it for himself by hook or crook. He was probably followed down here, watched, and attacked at the lonely spot I read of in the papers.”
“That presupposes that somebody in London knew what he had on him,” said Blick.
“Somebody—in London or elsewhere—certainly must have known,” assented the Professor. “My own theory is that Markenmore told other people—financial speculators, perhaps, about this—and he may have shown them my opinion as an expert. But I’ll tell you my own share in the transaction. I have, as you may know, a European reputation as a chemist. Well, Markenmore wrote to me, enclosing Spindler’s formula and a handsome fee, asking me to tell him what I thought of it. I recognized the immense value of the thing at once, and I wrote out my opinion, and returned the formula with it to Markenmore. I was so anxious that the secret of the formula should be kept that I adopted unusual precautions in sending the papers (which no living soul but myself had seen while they were in my possession) to him; instead of posting them I gave them, heavily sealed, to a trusted assistant of mine—an assistant in my laboratory—who was just then going to London for a holiday, so that they might be delivered to Markenmore himself, by hand, at his office in Folgrave Court. That they were so delivered, I know. The assistant to whom I have referred, though he did not know what precisely the packet contained, knew that its contents were of supreme consequence, and, indeed, of monetary value, and he was most careful to hand the packet to Markenmore in person. And when Markenmore came down here that night, he would have these papers on him—the formula itself, and my opinion on it. I tell you again, my belief is that he let somebody else into the secret, that that somebody followed him, watched him, and murdered him! The Spindler formula is at the bottom of the whole thing!”
A period of silence followed, during which the three men looked at each other. The Professor broke it as last, with a direct question.
“You’ve no clue so far?”
“None!” answered Blick.
“You’ll have to hark back,” said the Professor. “London! Get at some of Markenmore’s recent doings there. Now, as I came through London from Cambridge yesterday, I made it in my way to call at Markenmore’s office in Folgrave Court to make a few enquiries. Markenmore’s head clerk gave me some information. He remembered my assistant, Mr. Carter, calling. He himself saw Carter deliver to Markenmore my sealed letter; he saw Markenmore give Carter a receipt for it, which Carter sent on to me by post. I have it in my pocket now. The head clerk says that as soon as Carter had gone, he saw Markenmore break the seals of my letter, draw two papers from it and read them. Markenmore, the moment he had finished them, went into the telephone-box in the hall of their building and presumably rang somebody up. Within half an hour a man came who was an absolute stranger to the head clerk; he is positive that this man had never been there before, but he remembers him well—a foreigner, by appearance—and can give you an accurate description of him. Now, the clerk saw Markenmore produce my sealed letter—unsealed, of course, I mean—and show this strange man the two papers which it contained. A few minutes later they went out together. Now, who is that man? You’ll have to find him.”
The Chief Constable looked at Blick.
“This,” he said, “seems like shifting the scene of your operations.”
But Blick looked at the Professor.
“What description—of this stranger—did Markenmore’s clerk give you?” he asked.
“Dark, swarthy, middle-sized, middle-aged man—very well dressed,” responded the Professor promptly. “The sort of man, he said, you see much of in financial circles. Some sort of a foreign Jew—in the clerk’s opinion.”
“Had such a man come into these parts, he must have been seen,” said Blick. “I’ve made minute enquiries about the recent presence of strangers at all the railway stations——”
“There are other ways of transport than railways,” observed the Professor. “But, anyway, here’s one thing certain—Markenmore showed the formula and my opinion on it to this man!”
Blick walked about the room awhile, in his favourite attitude—head down and hands in pockets. He turned at last to the Chief Constable.
“Well, I’m going back to Markenmore,” he said. “There are certain things to see to, there. Afterwards——”
“We must have more talk,” responded the Chief Constable. “As you say—afterwards.”
The Professor rose and picked up his hat and walking-stick.
“I am going to stay at the Mitre here for a day or two,” he said. “So, if you want me, you’ll know where to find me. But while I am here, I should like to see the scene of all this mystery, and if you’re going out there, Sergeant, I’ll go with you, if I may.”
“Great pleasure, sir,” replied Blick.
He took the Professor out and through the streets of Selcaster to the long straight road that led towards Markenmore. As they walked along he detailed to him the whole of his own proceedings, from the finding of the dead man to the affairs of that morning with Mrs. Braxfield.
“Whether the offering of a reward will do any good, I don’t know,” he said in conclusion. “If anybody had seen such a stranger as you indicate it might, but I’m sure I should have heard of that before now.”
“Ah, you’ll have to go back on your trail—you’ll have to go back on your trail!” said the Professor. “The secret lies away back, I’m convinced. All the theories are wrong, so far!—it’s not money—at least not ready money. It’s the Spindler formula—with its vast potentialities. Now, what does this Mrs. Braxfield propose to offer for information?”
“Don’t know—she didn’t say,” answered Blick. “But we soon shall know. Look there!”
A bill-poster’s cart, driven by a man in white linen overalls, passed them, going rapidly in the direction of the village.
“Her solicitor spoke of having these things out at once,” continued Blick. “He’s evidently lost no time—that chap’s going out to post them.”
“Small result, I fear!” said the Professor. “My own opinion is that the whole thing was too carefully engineered. Nothing would come out here.”
“You never know,” replied Blick. “All sorts of things help.”
They walked on to the entrance to the village. There, at the first blank wall he had come across, the bill-poster was already busy—a group of open-mouthed women and children around him.
The two men stopped, as the bill, a big square sheet, in heavy black lettering, was pasted, wet and shining, on the wall. The Professor, adjusting his monocle, read it aloud:
ONE HUNDRED POUNDS REWARD
Whereas Guy Markenmore, Esquire, late of Markenmore Court, near Selcaster, was found shot dead on the Downs near Markenmore Hollow on the morning of Tuesday, April 24th last, and is believed to have been murdered: Take notice that the above-mentioned sum, one hundred pounds sterling, will be paid to any person giving information which will lead to the arrest and conviction of the murderer. Such information may be given to the police, or direct to
GILBERT CREWE,
Solicitor, Selcaster.
“Um!” remarked the Professor, turning away with something of a sardonic smile. “Your Mrs.—What’s-her-name?—Braxfield doesn’t err on the side of generosity! Now, if she’d said five hundred!—eh?”
“Mrs. Braxfield,” said Blick, with a glance at the folk who were eagerly spelling out the contents of the poster, “observed cynically to the Chief Constable and me that there wasn’t a man or woman in Markenmore who wouldn’t give his or her own mother away for a five-pound note! Now there are twenty fives in a hundred, so——”
“Twenty times the inducement!” laughed the Professor. “Good arithmetic, anyway! Aye, well, my friend, I don’t think this will do much good. But, as a curiosity, I should like a copy of that bill. Do you think our worthy of the paste-pot and brush would give us one?”
“Nothing would please him better, I should think,” said Blick. “Especially if you give him the price of a pint of ale—bill-posting, I believe, is considered to be thirsty work.”
The Professor laughed again, and approaching the bill-poster, appropriated a couple of his bills, and handed him half a crown.
“Going to stick these things up all over the countryside I suppose?” he asked, as he handed one bill to Blick, and folded up the other for his pocket. “Mean to create a widespread interest, eh?”
“Something of that sort, sir,” answered the bill-poster. “Such was my instructions. Two hundred copies of that poster I have in my cart, and up they go before dinner-time, all round this here village. And,” he added with a wink, “a fat lot of good they’ll do!—in my opinion.”
“No good, you think?” suggested the Professor. “Why not?”
“’Cause that there affair’s a darned sight too deep down in mystery!” said the bill-poster. “Deep, deep, deep—gentlemen! A deed o’ darkness!—and ain’t going to be found out in a hurry. But business is business, and I must go on with mine, which at present is to excite everybody and arouse cupidity and avaricious feelings!”
“A humorist!” observed the Professor, as the bill-poster hurried away. He walked on into the village at Blick’s side, looking about him with inquisitive eyes. Suddenly he caught sight of the Sceptre. “Ah!” he said. “So that’s the Inn where the midnight meeting took place? I should like to look in there—I wonder if they could give us some lunch?”
“I’m staying there,” replied Blick. “My headquarters. And I’ve a private sitting-room. If you’ll honour me, sir, I’ll order lunch whenever you like—they’re well provided.”
The Professor professed himself delighted, and for the next hour or two he and Blick, over the luncheon-table and round the fire, discussed the Markenmore problem in all its ramifications. At three o’clock in the afternoon they went out to examine the scene of the drama, with Markenmore Hollow as a final objective. But as they strolled along the road, Blick suddenly caught sight of Daffy Halliwell, just within the wicket gate of the Dower House—and he saw, too, that Daffy quietly signalled her desire to speak with him.
CHAPTER XXIV
As she made her signalling movement towards Blick, Daffy retreated a pace or two within the thick shrubbery, and the expression in her eyes indicated a desire for secrecy and caution. Blick, in his turn, signed to his companion to follow him, and whispered an aside as they left the road and passed through the wicket-gate.
“This is one of the women I told you of,” he murmured. “Mrs. Tretheroe’s maid—Daphne Halliwell, sister of the girl Myra Halliwell, who married Guy Markenmore. She’s therefore aunt to the new baronet!—and as deep as they make ’em. Come with me—I’ll let her think you’re an assistant of mine.”
“Excellent!” said the Professor. “An adventure! By all means, my dear fellow! The lady looks as if she had something to impart.”
“I shouldn’t wonder!” answered Blick. “As I say—she’s deep.”
Daffy had retreated further up the walk between the laurel and holly bushes; she now stood awaiting their approach, and as they drew near, she looked closely at the Professor, and especially at his fashionable attire. Her eyes glanced a question at Blick.
“All right!” whispered Blick. “Professional friend of mine. What is it?”
“I want to speak to you,” said Daffy. She looked round at their surroundings and then at a narrower path which opened close by. “Come along here,” she went on. “There’s an old summer-house down there that’s never used—we shall be safe there.”
The two men followed Daffy’s trim figure through a maze of shrubs until they came to a rustic arbour set in the midst of high trees. Entering this, a dilapidated and mouldy place, she turned and confronted Blick with another side-glance at the Professor.
“I wanted to speak to you, Mr. Blick,” she said, in low tones. “I’d been waiting there at the gate some little time, thinking I might see you coming out of the Sceptre. My mistress has driven into Selcaster, so I shan’t be wanted, and nobody’s likely to come here, so we’re safe enough for a bit of talk. Look here! there’s a reward out, isn’t there?”
“One hundred pounds,” assented Blick, watching her narrowly.
Daffy made a grimace.
“Oh, well!” she said. “It’s a miserable amount, but I don’t want it, and I don’t know anything that would enable me to get it. But—now, this is between ourselves, isn’t it?”
“Absolutely!” declared Blick. “Strictly so. Tell us anything you like—and can.”
“Well, I know of somebody who, I believe, has made a pretty good guess at the truth about Guy Markenmore,” answered Daffy. “And he’s a man who’d be glad of a hundred pounds, for he wants to emigrate.”
“What man?” asked Dick.
Daffy lowered the tones of her voice.
“Jim Roper!” she whispered. “You’ve heard of him?”
“Yes,” replied Blick. He was already wondering how much of whatever was coming was to be relied on; as far as he had seen into her character, Daffy did not seem the sort of woman to tell anything that would not benefit herself. But she might have reasons for benefiting Jim Roper which was not yet apparent. “Yes,” he repeated, “I’ve heard of Jim Roper. He’s the man who wanted to marry your sister, Myra, isn’t he—the sister who ran away with and married Guy Markenmore?”
“That’s just it,” assented Daffy. “It’s because he was about to marry Myra when she threw him clean over and went off with Guy Markenmore that Roper hasn’t spoken. But a hundred pounds might induce him to speak!”
“What do you mean, exactly, about it’s because of that?” asked Blick. “And what is it that he hasn’t spoken of?”
“Well,” replied Daffy, with a glance that took in both men, “it’s like this—Roper is, and always was, what you’d call a dark-tempered man. The sort that never forgets nor forgives. He’d always meant to marry Myra, and she’d promised him, too. In fact, they were just about to have the banns published when she suddenly ran away with Guy. And, of course, nobody—not even me, her own sister!—ever knew what had become of her until recently, when all this business came out about their having got married. Roper, when she first went off, went many a time to London to look for her. He never got a trace of her, of course, but he always swore that it was Guy Markenmore who’d enticed her away. And he swore something else, too—that if ever he chanced across Guy Markenmore he’d kill him, if he swung for it there and then. He meant it, too! That was about the last thing he said to me just before I went to India, with Mrs. Tretheroe, and it was the first thing I heard him say when I came back here, seven years later.”
“Still meaning to do it, eh?—after seven years?” said Blick.
“I believe he’d have done it if he’d met Guy Markenmore after seventeen years!” replied Daffy. “He’s that sort! I could see he’d got worse with brooding over it. It was the one thing on his mind. Why, it’s only a fortnight ago that I met him hereabouts one day, and happened to mention that old Sir Anthony was on his last legs, and that I’d wondered if Guy would come back and be master, and he scowled and said that if Guy ever came back it would only be to get a knife through him! And I’ll tell you, since it is between ourselves, that when I heard that Guy had been murdered, I fully believed that Roper had met him that morning and done for him—I really did!”
“And you don’t believe it now?” suggested Blick.
“No!” asserted Daffy. “But I believe Roper has a very good idea as to who did murder him. In fact, he may have more than an idea—he may know. And I tell you that he may be inclined to tell you for a hundred pounds, for now that he knows Myra is dead, he wants to leave here and go abroad.”
“What makes you think that Roper knows something?” enquired Blick. “Let’s have it straight out, now! Has he said anything to you?”
“Yes!” replied Daffy. “I met him a night or two ago, when he’d come down to the village to do his shopping. We got talking by that gate where you met me just now, and, of course, it was all about the murder. I asked him straight out if he’d had anything to do with it? He said no, worse luck, he hadn’t! And then he said more. ‘I could tell something about it,’ he said, ‘but I ain’t going to, for the thing’s done, now. I ain’t going to help the police,’ he went on. ‘Let ’em do their own work.’ That was all—he went off, then.”
“Giving you no more idea than just that?” asked Blick.
“He said nothing but that,” replied Daffy. “But I’m sure he knows something. Only, if you begin questioning him, for God’s sake don’t let him know I told you!”
“I can get over that, easily, if you’ll just tell me this,” said Blick reassuringly. “Did Roper make threats against Guy Markenmore in anybody’s presence beside your own?—in the old days, I mean?”
“Oh, he certainly did in the old days!—before I went to India,” asserted Daffy. “I’ve heard of him saying dreadful things at the Sceptre. I should think there’s many a man in the village who’s heard him.”
Blick’s memory went back to the first conversation he had overheard at the Sceptre, and to the remarks of certain of the village men as to the feelings of enmity cherished by various unnamed persons of the neighbourhood against Guy Markenmore.
“All right,” he said. “Your name shan’t come in. I’ve heard something of Roper’s threats and feelings elsewhere. But now, where does Roper live?”
“All by himself, in a cottage amongst the woods on the other side of the Downs, behind Markenmore Hollow,” replied Daffy. “He keeps himself to himself up there—never comes down this way, except once a week to buy his groceries and meat.”
“What sort of man is he?” asked Blick.
“He used to be as nice a lad as there was anywhere about, till Myra ran away,” answered Daffy. “But that soured him. He’s a black, gloomy, quiet man, now—scarcely speaks, and never smiles. I don’t know if you’ll get anything out of him or not, but I’m perfectly certain he either knows something or has guessed at something.”
“You’re quite sure, in your own mind, that Roper himself is innocent?” suggested Blick, looking searchingly at her.
Daffy Halliwell glanced at both men and uttered a queer laugh.
“Yes!” she exclaimed. “I’m certain of that!”
“Why, now?” asked the Professor, speaking for the first time since the beginning of the conversation. “Why are you certain?”
Daffy turned her regard more particularly to the second questioner. After looking carefully at him for a full minute, she spoke.
“You look as if you’d understand—whoever you are,” she said suddenly. “And that you’re a policeman—plain-clothes or otherwise—I don’t believe! I’m certain Jim Roper didn’t kill Guy Markenmore, because if he had he’s just the man to have let it be known that he’d had his revenge! He wouldn’t have cared twopence if they’d hanged him next day!”
Blick exchanged another word or two with Daffy as to Roper’s exact location, and he and his companion went off. The Professor marched along in silence for awhile.
“That woman possesses a power of keen insight into character,” he remarked at last. “She’d make a useful member of your force, Blick! I’m sure she’s quite right in what she said just now. A man of the sort she described, who’d nursed his desire for revenge all these years, wouldn’t care very much who knew that he’d satisfied it at last. For him, you see, it would be the end!—all else would be nothing.”
“What about self-preservation?” suggested Blick.
“I don’t think he’d be at all careful about that,” replied the Professor thoughtfully. “No!—the woman’s intuition is right. I think we must acquit this man Roper. A much-wronged man, too, evidently. I’m curious to see him.”
“I daresay we shall soon find him,” said Blick. “He’ll be somewhere in the woods.”
He led his companion up Deep Lane, past The Warren and Woodland Cottage, to the summit of the high ground above Markenmore Hollow. Beyond that point Blick had never been; he was surprised to find himself contemplating a stretch of country which in its wildness and diversity contrasted strongly with the pastoral and landscape country that he and his companion had just left behind them. Here, on the northern side of the uplands, the hillsides were broken into deep dark combes and ravines; great masses of rock jutted out from the slopes; old, dark, apparently impenetrable woods were on all sides; the two men, looking round in astonishment at the almost savage character of the scene, observed that as far as they could see there was not a human habitation in sight.
“A wild scene!” remarked the Professor. “Deserted!”
But Blick lifted a hand.
“Hark!” he said.
From somewhere to the right of where they stood came the unmistakable ring of an ax, laid with vigour to the root of some tree. Turning in that direction, they saw the tall slender spire of a pine sway, totter, and disappear amongst the lower trees, amidst which it had stood: a dull crash followed.
“That’ll be our man at work,” said Blick.
Silently the two men crossed the hill-side in the direction whence the sound of the swinging ax, now evidently laid aside, had proceeded. Within a few minutes they reached a belt of trees, through an opening in which they saw a clearing in the wood beyond. There, beside the fallen pine, stood a man, at that moment in the act of lighting his short clay pipe. His ax lay against the tree which it had just felled; near it a dog was curled up against its master’s coat. It cocked an ear and opened an eye as the two strangers drew near; at its low growl, the man turned and gave his visitors a sullen, questioning glance.
“A formidable-looking fellow!” murmured the Professor. “And that ax of his is a fearsome weapon, Blick! I should speak him very fair—to begin with.”
Blick smiled.
“I shan’t frighten him!” he answered. “Persuasion goes further than force. Good afternoon!” he continued pleasantly, as they came nearer the object of their search. “Are you James Roper?”
“My name, mister,” replied the woodman.
“That’s mine,” said Blick, producing one of his professional cards. “You may have heard of me. I’m staying at the Sceptre.”
Roper took the card, glanced at it and at Blick, and handed it back, unconcernedly.
“Heard something o’ the sort,” he answered.
Blick sat down on the fallen pine, and pulled out his pipe and tobacco.
“I wanted to know if you couldn’t give me a bit of information, Roper,” he said. “You live hereabouts, don’t you?”
“Close by,” replied Roper, in tones which signified that it was none of Blick’s business where he lived.
“Then you know this district—these woods and hill-sides and downs—very well indeed, I should think,” continued Blick. “Out on them and amongst them early in a morning, and perhaps late at night, no doubt?”
Roper made no answer. He had got his pipe fairly going by that time, and he now picked up his ax and began to lop away the upper twigs and slighter branches of the tree on which Blick had seated himself. Blick assented to his silence and kept his own, the ax ceased, and Roper, leaning on its shaft, looked at his questioner.
“You ain’t come up here for nothing!” he said, with a scowl. “What might you be after? I do hear as how you’re a-enquiring into that there affair at Markenmore Hollow. I don’t know nothing about it. Might strike ’ee that if I did I’d ha’ come somewheres your way or to they police at Selcaster, and ha’ told.”
“And it might strike me that you wouldn’t,” retorted Blick, with a sly glance at his man. “I’ve learnt a good deal since I came into these parts. You’d a pretty good grudge against Guy Markenmore yourself, eh?”
Roper scowled more darkly than before.
“Don’t know nothing certain about how he come by his end, anyhow,” he muttered. “And as to grudges, there’s them around here as knows how that varmint treated I! Ain’t a decent man, same as what I’ve been, a right to have his feelings about another man as treated him bad?”
“You’ve the same right to your feelings that every other man has,” agreed Blick. “Who says you haven’t?”
Roper looked somewhat mollified.
“Well,” he remarked slowly, “’cause o’ such feelings as I do have, I ’oodn’t ha’ lifted a finger to presarve that man! He got what such-like desarves! But I ain’t no, what you might call certain idea whatever who he got it from.”
“You mean—if it comes to precise particulars,” insinuated Blick. “But now look here, Roper. You knock about a good deal round this part, early and late, and I guess you’ve a pair of sharp eyes and a pair of sharp ears as well. Guy Markenmore’s dead!—good riddance to him, if you like!—I don’t care, I’m sure. But what’s it matter if you, if you have any knowledge of any sort about him, just before his death, if you let it out—especially if it’s made worth your while? For instance—in going about, as you do, have you ever seen anything suspicious, or met any suspicious characters? Have you ever heard or seen anything out of the common?”
Roper looked from one visitor to another. The Professor, smoking a cigar, was watching him attentively.
“Ain’t heard nothing about it’s being worth anybody’s while to tell anything as they might chance to know,” said Roper suddenly.
Blick silently drew out his copy of the reward bill and handed it to the woodman; the Professor, keenly attentive, saw Roper’s eyes brighten at sight of the heavy type in which the particulars of Mrs. Braxfield’s reward were printed. He drew his heavy brows together as he laboriously read through the offer.
“How does that strike you?” asked Blick presently. “There’s a hundred pounds to be picked up by anybody who can tell a bit. If you know anything—mind, Roper, I’m not implying that you do!—but—if you do—eh?”
Roper began to fold up the reward bill; his eyes were fixed thoughtfully on the trees in front of him as he handed the paper back to the detective.
“Keep it!” said Blick. “It’s posted all over the place. If you do chance to know anything at all, Roper, cut in first!”
“That there money?—a hundred pound,” said Roper slowly. “Is it a sure thing?”
“I’ll guarantee that!” answered Blick. “Dead certain!—to anybody who can give accurate information. Have you got any?”
“Money down?” asked Roper.
“Money down!” assented Blick. “Spot cash!”
Roper’s pipe had gone out. He suddenly seated himself on the fallen tree, and proceeded to re-light the tobacco, with a deliberation which showed that he was being equally deliberate in his thoughts.
“I could do wi’ a hundred pounds!” he said suddenly. “’Tain’t a great deal, sure-ly—but it ’ud do me a good turn. I’m sick and weary o’ these parts, now, and I want to be off—I want to start a new life, somewhere’s far away! That man Guy Markenmore—he broke my life in two, as you might say, and now—well, if I’ve the money I’ll go right away out o’ this, and see new places and faces, and try if I can’t forget. I’ve lived overmuch alone, and——”
Blick had not been prepared for this outburst of feeling, nor was he prepared for an equally sudden, wholly impulsive, similar display from the Professor.
“Look here, my man!” he exclaimed. “You don’t know me—never mind!—Blick here does. Now then, if you want a new start—another life, eh?—I’ll give you a hundred pounds in addition to this reward money—great pleasure, I’m sure—and just now! But—if you know anything—tell!”
Roper stared in amazement at the Professor, who nodded his head vigorously.
“Thank ’ee sir!” he said suddenly. “I see you means it—you’re a man with a bit o’ heart in you! Well, I don’t know nothing positive, but I can make a pretty good guess at—something!”
CHAPTER XXV