Kitabı oku: «The Chestermarke Instinct», sayfa 3

CHAPTER V
THE SEARCH BEGINS

Polke, superintendent of the Scarnham police force, a little, round, cheery-faced man, whose mutton-chop whiskers suggested much business-like capacity and an equal amount of common sense, rose from his desk and bowed as the Earl of Ellersdeane entered his office.

"I know what your lordship's come for!" he said, with a twinkle of the eye which betokened infinite comprehension. "The young lady's been here."

"And has no doubt told you everything?" remarked the Earl, as he dropped into the chair which the superintendent drew forward. "Has she?"

"Pretty well, my lord," replied Polke, with a chuckle. "She's not one to let much grass grow under her feet, I think."

"Given you the facts, I suppose?" asked the Earl.

Polke motioned to Neale to seat himself, and resumed his own seat. He put his fingers together over his desk and looked from one to the other of his visitors.

"I'll give the young lady this much credit," he said. "She can tell one what she wants in about as few words as could possibly be used! Yes, my lord – she told me the facts in a couple of sentences. Her uncle disappeared – nobody knows where he is – suspected already of running away with your lordship's jewels and Chestermarke's securities. A very nice business indeed!"

"What do you think of it?" asked the Earl.

"As a policeman, nothing – so far," answered Polke, with another twinkle. "As a man, that I don't believe it!"

"Nor do I!" said the Earl. "That is, I don't believe that Horbury's appropriated anything. There's some mistake – and some mystery."

"We can't get away from the fact that Mr. Horbury has disappeared," remarked Neale, looking at the superintendent. "That's all I'm sent here to tell you, Mr. Polke."

"That's an accepted fact," agreed Polke. "But he's not the first man who's disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Some men, as your lordship knows, disappear – and reappear with good reasons for their absence. Some never reappear. Some men aren't wanted to reappear. When a man disappears and he's wanted – why, the job is to find him."

"What does Miss Fosdyke wish?" asked the Earl, nodding assent to these philosophies. "She would say, of course."

"Miss Fosdyke's way, my lord – so far as I could gather from ten minutes' talk with her – is to tell people what to do," answered Polke drily. "She doesn't ask – she commands! We're to find her uncle – quick. At once. No pains to be spared. Money no object. A hundred pounds, spot cash, to the first man, woman, child, who brings her the least fragment of news of him. That's Miss Fosdyke's method. It's not a bad one – it's only rich young ladies who can follow it. So I've already put things in train. Handbills and posters, of course – and the town-crier. I suggested to her that by tonight, or tomorrow morning, there might be news of Mr. Horbury without doing all that. No good! Miss Fosdyke – she can tell you a lot inside a minute – informed me that since she was seventeen she had only had one motto in life. It's – do it now!"

"Good!" laughed the Earl. "But – where are you going to begin?"

"That's the difficulty," agreed Polke. "A gentleman walks out of his back garden into the dusk – and he's never seen again. I don't know. We must wait and see if anybody comes forward to say that he, she, or it saw Mr. Horbury after he left his house on Saturday night. That's all."

"Somebody must have seen him," said the Earl.

"Well, you'd think so, my lord," replied Polke, "but he could get away from the back of his orchard into the open country without being seen. The geographical position of our town's a bit curious, so your lordship knows. Here we are on a ridge. Horbury's garden and orchard run down to the foot of that ridge. At that foot is the river. There's a foot-bridge over the river, immediately opposite his orchard gate. He could cross that foot-bridge, and be in the wood on the other side in two minutes from leaving his house. That wood extends for a good mile into the country. Oh, yes! he could get away without being seen, and once in that country, why, he could make his way to one or other of half a dozen small railway stations. We shall telephone to all of them. That's all in the routine. But then, that's all supposing that he left the town. Perhaps he didn't leave the town."

The Earl started, and Neale looked quickly up from a brown study.

"Eh?" said the Earl. "Didn't leave the town?"

"Speaking as a policeman," answered Polke, with a knowing smile, "I don't know that he even left his house. I only know that his housekeeper says he did. That's a very different matter. For anything we know – absolutely know! – Mr. Horbury may have been murdered in his own house, and buried in his own cellar."

"You're not joking?" said Neale. "Or – you are!"

"Far from it, Mr. Neale," answered Polke. "That may seem a very, very outrageous thing to say, but, I assure you, one never knows what may not have happened in these cases. However, Mrs. Carswell says he did leave the house, so we must take her word to begin with, and see if we can find out where he went. And as your lordship is here, there's just a question or two I should like to have answered. How many people know that your lordship handed over these valuables to Mr. Horbury?"

"So far as I know, no one but the Countess and myself," replied the Earl. "I never mentioned the matter to any one, and I don't think my wife would either. There was no need to mention it."

"Well, I don't know," remarked Polke. "One's got to consider all sorts of little things in these affairs, or else I wouldn't ask another question. Does your lordship think it possible the Countess mentioned it to her maid?"

The Earl started in his chair.

"Ah!" he said. "That may be! She may have done that, of course. I hadn't thought of it."

"Is the maid a trustworthy woman?" inquired Polke.

"She's been in our service twelve or fourteen years," replied the Earl. "We've always found her quite trustworthy. So much so that I've more than once sent her to my bankers with those very jewels."

"You took her with you to the Continent, of course, my lord?" asked Polke.

"No, we didn't," replied the Earl. "The fact is – we wanted to have, for once in our lives, a thoroughly unconventional holiday. You know that the Countess and I are both very fond of walking – well, we had always had a great desire to have a walking tour, alone, in the Ardennes district, in early spring. We decided some time ago to have it this year. So when we set off, six weeks ago, we took no servants – and precious little luggage – and we enjoyed it all the more. Therefore, of course, my wife's maid was not with us. She remained at Ellersdeane – with the rest of the servants."

Polke seemed to ponder over this last statement. Then he rose from his chair.

"Um!" he said. "Well – I'm doing what I can. There's something your lordship might do."

"Yes?" asked the Earl. "What, now! It shall be done."

"Let some of your men take a look round your neighbourhood," answered the superintendent. "Gamekeepers, now – they're the fellows! Just now we're having some grand moonlight nights. If your men would look about the country between here and Ellersdeane, now? And tell the farmers, and the cottagers, and so forth, and take a particular look round Ellersdeane Hollow. It would be a help."

"Excellent idea, Polke," said the Earl. "I'll ride home and set things going at once. And you'll let me know if anything turns up here during the evening or the night."

He strode off to the door and Neale followed. But on the threshold Neale was pulled up by the superintendent.

"Mr. Neale!" said Polke.

Neale turned to see his questioner looking at him with a rather quizzical expression.

"What precise message had you for me?" asked Polke.

"Just what I said," replied Neale. "I was merely to tell you that Mr. Horbury disappeared from his house on Saturday evening, and has not been seen since."

"No further message – from your principals?" suggested Polke.

"Nothing," said Neale.

Polke nodded, and with a bow to the Earl sat down again to his desk. He took up a pen when the door had closed on his visitors, and for a while busied himself in writing. He was thus occupied when the telephone bell rang in the farthest corner of his room. He crossed over and laid hold of the receiver.

"Yes?" he said quietly. "Yes – this is Polke, superintendent, Scarnham – I rang you up twenty minutes since. I want you to send me, at once, the smartest man you have available. Case is disappearance, under mysterious circumstances, of a bank manager. Securities to a large amount are missing; valuables also. No expense will be spared here – money no object. You understand – a first-class man? Tonight? Yes. Good train from town five-twenty – gets here nine-fifteen. He will catch that? Good. Tell him report here on arrival. All right. Good-bye."

Polke rang off and went back to his desk.

"What New Scotland Yard calls a first-class is very often what I should call a third-class," he muttered as he picked up his pen. "However, we'll live in hope that something out of the usual will arrive. Now what are those two Chestermarkes after? Why didn't one of them come here? What are they doing? And what's the mystery? James Polke, my boy, here's a handful for you!"

If Polke had been able to look into Chestermarke's Bank just then, he would have failed to notice any particular evidences of mystery. It was nearly the usual hour for closing when Wallington Neale went back, and Gabriel Chestermarke immediately told him to follow out the ordinary routine. The clerks were to finish their work and go their ways, as if nothing had happened, and, as far as they could, they were to keep their tongues quiet. As for the partners, food was being sent over for them from the hotel: they would be obliged to remain at the bank for some time yet. But there was no need for Neale to stay; he could go when the day's balancing was done.

"You heard what instructions this Miss Fosdyke had given the police, I suppose?" asked Gabriel, as Neale was leaving the parlour. "Raising the whole town, no doubt?"

Neale briefly narrated all he knew; the partners listened with the expression characteristic of each, and made no comment. And in half an hour Neale handed over the keys to Joseph Chestermarke and went out into the hall, his labours over. That had been the most exciting day he had ever known in his life – was what was left of it going to yield anything still more exciting?

He stood in the outer hall trying to make up his mind about something. He wanted to speak to Betty Fosdyke – to talk to her. She had evidently not recognized him when she came so suddenly into the dining-room of the bank-house. But why should she, he asked himself? – they had only met once, when both were children, and she had no doubt forgotten his very existence. Still —

He rang the house bell at last and asked for Mrs. Carswell. The housekeeper came hurrying to him, a look of expectancy on her face.

"Has anything been heard, Mr. Neale?" she asked. "Or found out? Have the police been told yet?"

"The police know," answered Neale. "And nothing has been heard. Where is Miss Fosdyke, Mrs. Carswell? I should like to speak to her."

"Gone to the Scarnham Arms, Mr. Neale," replied the housekeeper. "She wouldn't stay here, though her room was all ready for her. Said she wouldn't stop two seconds in a house that belonged to men who suspected her uncle! So she's gone across there to take rooms. Do – do the partners suspect Mr. Horbury of something, Mr. Neale?"

Neale shook his head and turned away.

"I can't tell you anything, Mrs. Carswell," he answered. "If either Mr. Chestermarke or Mr. Joseph wish to give you any information, they'll give it themselves. But I can say this on my own responsibility – if you know of anything – anything, however small! – that would account for Mr. Horbury's absence, out with it!"

"But I don't – I know nothing but what I've told," said Mrs. Carswell. "Literally nothing!"

"Nobody knows anything," remarked Neale. "That's the worst of it. Well – we shall see."

He went away from the house and crossed the Market-Place to the Scarnham Arms, an old-world inn which had suffered few alterations during the last two centuries. And there inside its wide hall, superintending the removal of various articles of luggage which had just arrived from the station and in conversation with a much interested landlady, he found Betty Fosdyke.

"I may be here for weeks, and I shall certainly be here for days," that young lady was saying. "Put all these things in the bedroom, and I'll have what I want taken into the sitting-room later. Now, Mrs. Depledge, about my dinner. I'll have it in my sitting-room, and I'll have it early. I – "

At this moment Miss Fosdyke became aware of Neale's presence, and that this eminently good-looking young man was not only smiling at her, but was holding out a hand which he evidently expected to be taken.

"You've forgotten me!" said Neale.

Miss Fosdyke's cheeks flushed a little and she held out her hand.

"Is it – is it Wallie Neale?" she asked. "But – I saw you in the bank-house – and you didn't speak to me!"

"You didn't speak to me," retorted Neale, smiling.

"Didn't know you," she answered. "Heavens! – how you've grown! But – come upstairs. Mrs. Depledge – dinner for two, mind. Mr. Neale will dine with me."

Neale suffered his hostess to lead him upstairs to a private parlour. And when they were once within it, Miss Fosdyke shut the door and turned on him.

"Now, Wallie Neale!" she said, "out with it! What is the meaning of all this infernal mystery? And where's my uncle?"

CHAPTER VI
ELLERSDEANE HOLLOW

Neale dropped into a chair and lifted a despairing countenance to his downright questioner.

"I don't know!" he said. "I know – nothing!"

"That is – beyond what I've already been told?" suggested the girl.

"Beyond what you've been told – exactly," replied Neale. "I'm literally bewildered. I've been going about all day as if – as if I were dreaming, or having a nightmare, or – something. I don't understand it at all. I saw Mr. Horbury, of course, on Saturday – he was all right when I left him at the bank. He said nothing that suggested anything unusual. The whole thing is – a real facer! To me – anyhow."

Betty Fosdyke devoted a whole minute to taking a good look at her companion: Neale, on his part, made a somewhat shyer examination of her. He remembered her as a long-legged little girl who had no great promise of good looks: he was not quite sure that she had grown into good looks now. But she was an eminently bright and vivacious young woman, strong, healthy, vigorous, with fine eyes and teeth and hair, and a colour that betokened an intimate acquaintance with outdoor life. And already, in the conversation at the bank, and in Polke's report of his interview with him, he had learnt that she had developed certain characteristics which he faintly remembered in her as a child, when she had insisted on having her own way amongst other children.

"You've grown into quite a handsome young man, Wallie!" she observed suddenly, with a frank laugh. "I shouldn't have thought you would, somehow. Am I changed?"

"I should say – not in character," answered Neale shyly. "I remember you always wanted to be top dog!"

"It's my fate!" she said, with a sigh. "I've such a lot of people and things to look after – one has to be top dog, whether one wants to or not. But this affair – what's to be done?"

"I understand from Polke that you've already done everything," replied Neale.

"I've given him orders to spare neither trouble nor expense," she asserted. "He's to send for the very best detective they can give him from headquarters in London, and search is to be made. Because – now, Wallie, tell me truthfully – you don't believe for one moment that my uncle has run away with things?"

"Not for one second!" asserted Neale stoutly. "Never did!"

"Then – there's foul play!" exclaimed Betty. "And I'll spend my last penny to get at the bottom of it! Here I am, and here I stick, until I've found my uncle, or discovered what's happened to him. And listen – do you think those two men across there are to be trusted?"

Neale shook his head as if in appeal to her.

"I'm their clerk, you know," he replied. "I hate being there at all, but I am there. I believe they're men of absolute probity as regards business matters – personally, I'm not very fond of either."

"Fond!" she exclaimed. "My dear boy! – Joseph is a slimy sneak, and Gabriel is a bloodless sphinx – I hate both of them!"

Neale laughed and gave her a look of comprehension.

"You haven't changed, Betty," he said. "I'm to call you Betty, though you are grown up?"

"Since it's the only name I possess, I suppose you are," she answered. "But now – what can we do – you and I? After all, we're the nearest people my uncle has in this town. Do let's do something! I'm not the sort to sit talking – I want action! Can't you suggest something we can do?"

"There's one thing," replied Neale, after a moment's thought. "Lord Ellersdeane suggested that possibly Mr. Horbury, hearing that the Ellersdeanes had got home on Saturday, put the jewels in his pocket and started out to Ellersdeane with them. I know the exact path he'd have taken in that case, and I thought of following it this evening – one might come across something, or hear something, you know."

"Take me with you, as soon as we've had dinner," she said. "It'll be a beginning. I mean to turn this neighbourhood upside down for news – you'll see. Some person or persons must have seen my uncle on Saturday night! – a man can't disappear like that. It's impossible!"

"Um! – but men do disappear," remarked Neale. "What I'm hoping is that there'll eventually – and quickly – be some explanation of this disappearance, and that Mr. Horbury hasn't met with – shall I put it plainly?"

"You'd better put anything plainly to me," she answered. "I don't understand other methods."

"It's possible he may have been murdered, you know," said Neale quietly.

Betty got up from her chair and went over to the window to look out on the Market-Place. She stood there some time in silence.

"It shall be a bad job for any man who murdered him if that is so," she said at last. "I was very fond of my uncle."

"So was I," said Neale. "But I say – no past tenses yet! Aren't we a bit previous? He may be all right."

"Ring the bell and let's hurry up that dinner," she commanded. "I didn't make it clear that we want it as early as possible. I want to get out, and to see where he went – I want to do something active!"

But Miss Betty Fosdyke was obliged to adapt herself to the somewhat leisurely procedure of highly respectable country-town hotels, whose cooks will not be hurried, and it was already dusk, and the moonlight was beginning to throw shadows of gable and spire over the old Market-Place, when she and Neale set out on their walk.

"All the better," said Neale. "This is just about the time that he went out on Saturday night, and under very similar conditions. Now we'll take the precise path that he'd have taken if he was on his way to Ellersdeane."

He led his companion to a corner of the Market-Place, and down a narrow alley which terminated on an expanse of open ground at the side of the river. There he made her pause and look round.

"Now if we're going to do the thing properly," he said, "just attend, and take notice of what I point out. The town, as you see, stands on this ridge above us. Here we are at the foot of the gardens and orchards which slope down from the backs of the houses on this side of the Market-Place. There is the gate of the bank-house orchard. According to Mrs. Carswell, Mr. Horbury came out of that gate on Saturday night. What did he do then? He could have turned to the left, along this river bank, or to the right, also along the river bank. But, if he meant to walk out to Ellersdeane – which he would reach in well under an hour – he would cross this foot-bridge and enter those woods. That's what we've got to do."

He led his companion across a narrow bridge, over a strip of sward at the other side of the river, and into a grove of fir which presently deepened and thickened as it spread up a gently shelving hillside. The lights of the town behind them disappeared; the gloom increased; presently they were alternately crossing patches of moonlight and plunging into expanses of blackness. And Betty, after stumbling over one or two of the half-exposed roots which lay across the rough path, slipped a hand into Neale's arm.

"You'll have to play guide, Wallie, unless you wish me to break my neck," she laughed. "My town eyes aren't accustomed to these depths of gloom and solitude. And now," she went on, as Neale led her confidently forward through the wood, "let's talk some business. I want to know about those two – the Chestermarkes. For I've an uneasy feeling that there's more in this affair than's on the surface, and I want to know all about the people I'm dealing with. Just remember – beyond the mere fact of their existence and having seen them once or twice, years ago, I don't know anything about them. What sort of men are they – as individuals?"

"Queer!" replied Neale. "They're both queer. I don't know much about them. Nobody does. They're all right as business men, much respected and all that, you know. But as private individuals they're decidedly odd. They're both old bachelors, at least Gabriel's an old one, and Joseph is a youngish one. They live sort of hermit lives, as far as one can make out. Gabriel lives at the old house which I'll show you when we get out of this wood – you'll see the roofs, anyhow, in this moonlight. Joseph lives in another old house, but in the town, at the end of Cornmarket. What they do with themselves at home, Heaven knows! They don't go into such society as there is; they take no part in the town's affairs. There's a very good club here for men of their class – they don't belong to it. You can't get either of 'em to attend a meeting – they keep aloof from everything. But they both go up to London a great deal – they're always going. But they never go together – when Gabriel's away, Joseph's at home; when Joseph's off, Gabriel's on show. There's always one Mr. Chestermarke to be found at the bank. All the same, Mr. Horbury was the man who did all the business with customers in the ordinary way. So far as I know banking," concluded Neale, "I should say he was trusted and confided in more than most bank managers are."

"Did they seem very much astonished when they found he'd gone?" asked Betty. "Did it seem a great shock, a real surprise?"

"The cleverest man living couldn't tell what either Gabriel or Joseph Chestermarke thinks about anything," answered Neale. "You know what Gabriel's face is like – a stone image! And Joseph always looks as if he was sneering at you, a sort of soft, smiling sneer. No, I couldn't say they showed surprise, and I don't know what they've found out – they're the closest, most reserved men about their own affairs that you could imagine!"

"But – they say some of their securities are missing," remarked Betty. "They'll have to let the exact details be known, won't they?"

"Depends – on them," replied Neale. "They'll only do what they like. And they don't love you for coming on the scene, I assure you!"

"But I'm here, nevertheless!" said Betty. "And here I stop! Wallie, haven't you got even a bit of a theory about all this!"

"Can't say that I have!" confessed Neale woefully. "I'm not a very brilliant hand at thinking. The only thing I can think of is that Mr. Horbury, knowing Lord Ellersdeane had got home on Saturday, thought he'd hand back those jewels as soon as possible, and set off in the evening with that intention – possibly to be robbed and murdered on the way. Sounds horrible – but honestly I can't think of any other theory."

Betty involuntarily shivered and glanced about her at the dark cavernous spaces of the wood, which had now thickened into dense masses of oak and beech. She took a firmer grip of Neale's arm.

"And he'd come through here!" she exclaimed. "How dangerous! – with those things in his pocket!"

"Oh, but he'd think nothing of it!" answered Neale. "He was used to walking at night – he knew every yard of this neighbourhood. Besides, he'd know very well that nobody would know what he had on him. What I'd like to know is – supposing my theory's right, and that he was taking these jewels to Ellersdeane, how did anybody get to know that he had them? For the Chestermarkes didn't know they'd been given to him, and I didn't – nobody at the bank knew."

A sudden turn in the path brought them to the edge of the wood, and they emerged on a broad plateau of rough grass, from beneath which a wide expanse of landscape stretched away, bathed just then in floods of moonlight. Neale paused and waved his stick towards the shadowy distances and over the low levels which lay between.

"Ellersdeane Hollow!" he said.

Betty paused too, looking silently around. She saw an undulating, broken stretch of country, half-heath, half-covert, covering a square mile or so of land, houseless, solitary. In its midst rose a curiously shaped eminence or promontory, at the highest point of which some ruin or other lifted gaunt, shapeless walls against the moonlit sky. Far down beneath it, in a depression amongst the heath-clad undulations, a fire glowed red in the gloom. And on the further side of this solitude, amidst groves and plantations, the moonlight shone on the roofs and gables of half-hidden houses. Over everything hung a deep silence.

"A wild and lonely scene!" she said.

Neale raised his stick again and began to point.

"All this in front of us is called Ellersdeane Hollow," he remarked. "It's not just one depression, you see – it's a tract of unenclosed land. It's dangerous to cross, except by the paths – it's honeycombed all over with disused lead-mines – some of the old shafts are a tremendous depth. All the same, you see, there's some tinker chap, or some gipsies, camped out down there and got a fire. That old ruin, up on the crag there, is called Ellersdeane Tower – one of Lord Ellersdeane's ancestors built it for an observatory – this path'll lead us right beneath it."

"Is this the path he would have taken if he'd gone to Ellersdeane on Saturday night?" asked Betty.

"Precisely – straight ahead, past the Tower," answered Neale. "And there is Ellersdeane itself, right away in the distance, amongst its trees. There! – where the moonlight catches it. Now let your eye follow that far line of wood, over the tops of the trees about Ellersdeane village – do you see where the moonlight shines on another high roof? That's Gabriel Chestermarke's place – the Warren."

"So – he and Lord Ellersdeane are neighbours!" remarked Betty.

"Neighbours at a distance of a mile – and who do no more than nod to each other," answered Neale. "Lord Ellersdeane and Mr. Horbury were what you might call friends, but I don't believe his lordship ever spoke ten words with either of the Chestermarkes until this morning. I tell you the Chestermarkes are regular hermits! – when they're at home or about Scarnham, anyhow. Now let's go as far as the Tower – you can see all over the country from that point."

Betty followed her guide down a narrow path which led in and out through the undulations of the Hollow until it reached the foot of the promontory on which stood the old ruin that made such a prominent landmark. Seen at close quarters Ellersdeane Tower was a place of much greater size and proportion than it had appeared from the edge of the wood, and the path to its base was steep and rocky. And here the loneliness in which she and Neale had so far walked came to an end – on the edge of the promontory, outlined against the moonlit sky, two men stood, talking in low tones.