Kitabı oku: «The Chestermarke Instinct», sayfa 4

CHAPTER VII
THE TRAVELLING TINKER

Neale's eye caught the gleam of silver braid on the clothing of one of the two men, and he hastened his steps a little as he and Betty emerged on the level ground at the top of the steep path.

"That's a policeman," he said. "It'll be the constable from Ellersdeane. The other man looks like a gamekeeper. Let's see if they've heard anything."

The two figures turned at the sound of footsteps, and came slowly in Neale's direction. Both recognized him and touched their hats.

"I suppose you're looking round in search of anything about Mr. Horbury?" suggested Neale. "Heard any news or found any trace?"

"Well, we're what you might call taking a preliminary observation, Mr. Neale," answered the policeman. "His lordship's sent men out all over the neighbourhood. No, we've heard nothing, nor seen anything, either. But, then, there's not much chance of hearing anything hereabouts. The others have gone round asking at houses, and such-like – to find out if he was seen to pass anywhere. Of course, his lordship was figuring on the chance that Mr. Horbury might have had a fit, or something of that sort, and fallen somewhere along this path, between the town and Ellersdeane House – it's not much followed, this path. But we've seen nothing – up to now."

Neale turned to the keeper.

"Were none of your people about here on Saturday night?" he asked. "You've a good many watchers on the estate, haven't you?"

"Yes, sir – a dozen or more," answered the keeper. "But we don't come this way – this isn't our land. Our beats lie the other way – t'other side of the village. We never come on to this part at all."

"This, you know, Mr. Neale," remarked the policeman, jerking his thumb over the Hollow, "this, in a manner of speaking, belongs to nobody. Some say it belongs to the Crown – I don't know. All I know is that nobody has any rights over it – it's been what you might term common land ever since anybody can remember. This here Mr. Horbury that's missing – your governor, sir – I once met him out here, and had a bit of talk with him, and he told me that it isn't even known who worked them old lead-mines down there, nor who has any rights over all this waste. That, of course," concluded the policeman, pointing to the glowing fire which Neale and Betty had seen from the edge of the wood, "that's why chaps like yonder man come and camp here just as they like – there's nobody to stop 'em."

"Who is the man?" asked Neale, glancing at the fire, whose flames made a red spot amongst the bushes.

"Most likely a travelling tinker chap, sir, that comes this way now and again," answered the policeman. "Name of Creasy – Tinner Creasy, the folks call him. He's come here for many a year, at odd times. Camps out with his pony and cart, and goes round the villages and farmsteads, seeing if there's aught to mend, and selling 'em pots and pans and such-like. Stops a week or two – sometimes longer."

"And poaches all he can lay hands on," added the gamekeeper. "Only he takes good care never to go off this Hollow to do it."

"Have you made any inquiry of him?" asked Neale.

"We were just thinking of doing that, sir," replied the policeman. "He roams up and down about here at nights, when he is here. But I don't know how long he's been camping this time – it's very seldom I ever come round this way myself – there's naught to come for."

"Let's go across there and speak to him," said Neale.

He and Betty followed the two men down the side of the promontory and across the ups and downs of the Hollow, until they came to a deeper depression fringed about by a natural palisading of hawthorn. And as they drew near and could see into the dingle-like recess which the tinker had selected for his camping-ground they became aware of a savoury and appetizing odour, and the gamekeeper laughed.

"Cooking his supper, is Tinner Creasy!" he remarked. "And good stuff he has in his pot, too!"

The tinker, now in full view, sat on a log near a tripod, beneath which crackled a bright fire, burning under a black pot. The leaping flames revealed a shrewd, weather-beaten face which turned sharply towards the bushes as the visitors appeared; they also lighted up the tinker's cart in the background, the browsing pony close by, the implements of the tinner's trade strewn around on the grass. It was an alluring picture of vagabond life, and Neale suddenly compared it with the dull existence of folk who, like himself, were chained to a desk. He would have liked to sit down by Tinner Creasy and ask him about his doings – but the policeman had less poetical ideas.

"Hullo, Tinner!" said he, with easy familiarity. "Here again, what? I thought we should be seeing your fire some night this spring. Been here long?"

The tinker, who had remained seated on his log until he saw that a lady was of the party, rose and touched the edge of his fur cap to Betty in a way which indicated that his politeness was entirely for her.

"Since yesterday," he answered laconically.

"Only since yesterday!" exclaimed the policeman. "Ah! that's a pity, now. You wasn't here Saturday night, then?"

The tinker turned a quizzical eye on the four inquiring faces.

"How would I be here Saturday night when I only came yesterday?" he retorted. "You're the sort of chap that wants two answers to one question! What about Saturday night?"

The policeman took off his helmet and rubbed the top of his head as if to encourage his faculties.

"Nay!" he said. "There's a gentleman missing from Scarnham yonder, and it's thought he came out this way after dark, Saturday night, and something happened. But, of course, if you wasn't in these parts then – "

"I wasn't, nor within ten miles of 'em," said Creasy. "Who is the gentleman?"

"Mr. Horbury, the bank manager," answered the policeman.

"I know Mr. Horbury," remarked Creasy, with a glance at Neale and Betty. "I've talked to him a hundred-and-one times on this waste. So it's him, is it? Well, there's one thing you can be certain about."

"What?" asked Betty eagerly.

"Mr. Horbury wouldn't happen aught by accident, hereabouts," answered the tinker significantly. "He knew every inch of this Hollow. Some folks, now, might take a header into one o' them old lead-mines. He wouldn't. He could ha' gone blind-fold over this spot."

"Well – he's disappeared," observed the policeman. "There's a search being made, all round. You heard naught last night, I suppose?"

Creasy gave Neale and Betty a look.

"Heard plenty of owls, and night-jars, and such-like," he answered, "and foxes, and weasels, and stoats, and beetles creeping in the grass. Naught human!"

The policeman resumed his helmet and sniffed audibly. He and the keeper moved away and talked together. Then the policeman turned to Neale.

"Well, we'll be getting back to the village, sir," he said. "If so be as you see our super, Mr. Neale, you might mention that we're out and about."

He and his companion went off by a different path; at the top of a rise in the ground the policeman turned again.

"Tinner!" he called.

"Hullo?" answered Creasy.

"If you should hear or find aught," said the policeman, "come to me, you know."

"All right!" assented Creasy. He picked up some wood and replenished his fire. And glancing at Neale and Betty, who still lingered, he let fall a muttered whisper under his breath. "Bide a bit – till those chaps have gone," he said. "I've a word or two."

He walked away to his cart after this mysterious communication, dived under its tilt, evidently felt for and found something, and came back, glancing over his shoulder to see that keeper and policeman had gone their ways.

"I never tell chaps of that sort anything, mister," he said, giving Neale a sly wink. "Them of my turn of life look on all gamekeepers and policemen as their natural enemies. They'd both of 'em turn me out o' this if they could! – only they know they can't. For some reason or other Ellersdeane Hollow is No Man's Land – and therefore mine. And so – I wasn't going to say anything to them – not me!"

"Then there is something you can say?" said Neale.

"You were here on Saturday!" exclaimed Betty. "You know something!"

"No, miss, I wasn't here Saturday," answered the tinker, "and I don't know anything – about what yon man asked, anyway – I told him the truth about all that. But – you say Mr. Horbury's missing, and that he's considered to have come this way on Saturday night. So – do either of you know that?"

He drew his right hand from behind him, and in the glare of the firelight showed them, lying across its palm, a briar tobacco-pipe, silver-mounted.

"I found that, last night, gathering dry sticks," he said. "It's letters engraved on the silver band – 'J. H. from B. F.' 'J. H.' now? – does that mean John Horbury? – you see, I know his Christian name."

Betty uttered a sharp exclamation and took the pipe in her hand. She turned to Neale with a look of sudden fear.

"It's the pipe I gave my uncle last Christmas!" she said. "Of course I know it! Where did you find it?" she went on, turning on Creasy. "Do tell us – do show us!"

"Foot of the crag there, miss – right beneath the old tower," answered Creasy. "And it's just as I found it. I'll give it to you, sir, to take to Superintendent Polke in Scarnham – he knows me. But just let me point something out. I ain't a detective, but in my eight-and-forty years I've had to keep my wits sharpened and my eyes open. Point out to Polke, and notice yourself – that whenever that pipe was dropped it was being smoked! The tobacco's caked at the surface – just as it would be if the pipe had been laid down at the very time the tobacco was burning well – if you're a smoker you'll know what I mean. That's one thing. The other is – just observe that the silver band is quite bright and fresh, and that there are no stains on the briar-wood. What's that indicate, young lady and young gentleman? Why, that that pipe hadn't been lying so very long when I found it! Not above a day, I'll warrant."

"That's very clever of you, very observant!" exclaimed Betty. "But – won't you show us the exact place where you picked it up?"

Creasy cast a glance at his cooking pot, stepped to it, and slightly tilted the lid. Then he signed to them to go back towards the tower by the path by which they had come.

"Don't want my supper to boil over, or to burn," he remarked. "It's the only decent meal I get in the day, you see, miss. But it won't take a minute to show you where I found the pipe. Now – what's the idea, sir," he went on, turning to Neale, "about Mr. Horbury's disappearance? Is it known that he came out here Saturday night?"

"Not definitely," replied Neale. "But it's believed he did. He was seen to set off in this direction, and there's a probability that he crossed over here on his way to Ellersdeane. But he's never been seen since he left Scarnham."

"Well," observed Creasy, "as I said just now, he wouldn't happen anything by accident in an ordinary way. Was there any reason why anybody should set on him?"

"There may have been," replied Neal.

"He wouldn't be likely to have aught valuable on him, surely – that time o' night?" said the tinker.

"He may have had," admitted Neale. "I can't tell you more."

Creasy asked no farther question. He led the way to the foot of the promontory, at a point where a mass of rock rose sheer out of the hollow to the plateau crowned by the ruinous tower.

"Here's where I picked up the pipe," he said. "Lying amongst this rubbish – stones and dry wood, you see – I just caught the gleam of the silver band. Now what should Mr. Horbury be doing down here? The path, you see, is a good thirty yards off. But – he may have fallen over – or been thrown over – and it's a sixty-feet drop from top to bottom."

Neale and Betty looked up the face of the rocks and said nothing. And Creasy presently went on, speaking in a low voice: —

"If he met with foul play – if, for instance, he was thrown over here in a struggle – or if, taking a look from the top there, he got too near the edge and something gave way," he said, "there's about as good means of getting rid of a dead man in this Ellersdeane Hollow as in any place in England! That's a fact!"

"You mean the lead-mines?" murmured Neale.

"Right, sir! Do you know how many of these old workings there is?" asked Creasy. "There's between fifty and sixty within a square mile of this tower. Some's fenced in – most isn't. Some of their mouths are grown over with bramble and bracken. And all of 'em are of tremendous depth. A man could be thrown down one of those mines, sir, and it 'ud be a long job finding his body! But all that's very frightening to the lady, and we'll hope nothing of it happened. Still – "

"It has to be faced," said Betty. "Listen – I am Mr. Horbury's niece, and I'm offering a reward for news of him. Will you keep your eyes and ears open while you're in this neighbourhood?"

The tinker promised that he would do his best, and presently he went back to his fire, while Neale and Betty turned away towards the town. Neither spoke until they were half-way through the wood; then Betty uttered her fears in a question.

"Do you think the finding of that pipe shows he was – there?" she asked.

"I'm sure of it," replied Neale. "I wish I wasn't. But – I saw him with this pipe in his lips at two o'clock on Saturday! I recognized it at once."

"Let's hurry on and see the police," said Betty. "We know something now, at any rate."

Polke, they were told at the police-station, was in his private house close by: a polite constable conducted them thither. And presently they were shown into the superintendent's dining-room, where Polke, hospitably intent, was mixing a drink for a stranger. The stranger, evidently just in from a journey, rose and bowed, and Polke waved his hand at him with a smile, as he looked at the two young people.

"Here's your man, miss!" said Polke cheerily. "Allow me – Detective-Sergeant Starmidge, of the Criminal Investigation Department."

CHAPTER VIII
THE SATURDAY NIGHT STRANGER

Neale, who had never seen a real, live detective in the flesh, but who cherished something of a passion for reading sensational fiction and the reports of criminal cases in the weekly newspapers, looked at the man from New Scotland Yard with a feeling of surprise. He knew Detective-Sergeant Starmidge well enough by name and reputation. He was the man who had unravelled the mysteries of the Primrose Hill murder – a particularly exciting and underground affair. It was he who had been intimately associated with the bringing to justice of the Camden Town Gang – a group of daring and successful criminals which had baffled the London police for two years. Neale had read all about Starmidge's activities in both cases, and of the hairbreadth escape he had gone through in connection with the second. And he had formed an idea of him – which he now saw to be a totally erroneous one. For Starmidge did not look at all like a detective – in Neale's opinion. Instead of being elderly, and sinister, and close of eye and mouth, he was a somewhat shy-looking, open-faced, fresh-coloured young man, still under thirty, modest of demeanour, given to smiling, who might from his general appearance have been, say, a professional cricketer, or a young commercial traveller, or anything but an expert criminal catcher.

"Only just got here, and a bit tired, miss," continued Polke, waving his hand again at the detective. "So I'm just giving him a refresher to liven his brains up. He'll want 'em – before we've done."

Betty took the chair which Polke offered her, and looked at the stranger with interest. She knew nothing about Starmidge, and she thought him quite different to any preconceived notion which she had ever had of men of his calling.

"I hope you'll be able to help us," she said politely, as Starmidge, murmuring something about his best respects to his host, took a whisky-and-soda from Polke's hand. "Do you think you will – and has Mr. Polke told you all about it?"

"Given him a mere outline, miss," remarked Polke. "I'll prime him before he goes to bed. Yes – he knows the main facts."

"And what do you propose to do – first?" demanded Betty.

Starmidge smiled and set down his glass.

"Why, first," he answered, "first, I think I should like to see a photograph of Mr. Horbury."

Polke moved to a bureau in the corner of his dining-room.

"I can fit you up," he said. "I've a portrait here that Mr. Horbury gave me not so long ago. There you are!"

He produced a cabinet photograph and handed it to Starmidge, who looked at it and laid it down on the table without comment.

"I suppose that conveys nothing to you?" asked Betty.

"Well," replied Starmidge, with another smile, "if a man's missing, one naturally wants to know what he's like. And if there's any advertising of him to be done – by poster, I mean – it ought to have a recent portrait of him."

"To be sure," agreed Polke.

"So far as I understand matters," continued Starmidge, "this gentleman left his house on Saturday evening, hasn't been seen since, and there's an idea that he probably walked across country to a place called Ellersdeane. But up to now there's no proof that he did. I think that's all, Mr. Polke?"

"All!" assented Polke.

"No!" said Neale. "Miss Fosdyke and I have brought you some news. Mr. Horbury must have crossed Ellersdeane Hollow on Saturday night. Look at this! – and I'll tell you all about it."

The superintendent and the detective listened silently to Neale's account of the meeting with Creasy, and Betty, watching Starmidge's face, saw that he was quietly taking in all the points of importance.

"Is this tin-man to be depended upon?" he asked, when Neale had finished. "Is he known?"

"I know him," answered Polke. "He's come to this neighbourhood for many years. Yes – an honest chap enough – bit given to poaching, no doubt, but straight enough in all other ways – no complaint of him that I ever heard of. I should believe all he says about this."

"Then, as that's undoubtedly Mr. Horbury's pipe, and as this gentleman saw him smoking it at two o'clock on Saturday, and as Creasy picked it up underneath Ellersdeane Tower on Sunday evening," said Starmidge, "there seems no doubt that Mr. Horbury went that way, and dropped it where it was found. But – I can't think he was carrying Lord Ellersdeane's jewels home!"

"Why?" asked Neale.

"Is it likely?" suggested Starmidge. "One's got – always – to consider probability. Is it probable that a bank manager would put a hundred thousand pounds' worth of jewels in his pocket, and walk across a lonely stretch of land at that time of night, just to hand them over to their owner? I think not – especially as he hadn't been asked to do so. I think that if Mr. Horbury had been in a hurry to deliver up these jewels, he'd have driven out to Lord Ellersdeane's place."

"Good!" muttered Polke. "That's the more probable thing."

"Where are the jewels, then?" asked Neale.

Starmidge glanced at Polke with one expression, at Betty and Neale with another.

"They haven't been searched for yet, have they?" he asked quietly. "They may be – somewhere about, you know."

"You mean to search for them?" exclaimed Betty.

"I don't know what I intend to do," replied Starmidge, smiling. "I haven't even thought. I shall have thought a lot by morning. But – the country's being searched, isn't it, for news of Mr. Horbury? – perhaps we'll hear something. It's a difficult thing for a well-known man to get clear away from a little place like this. No! – what I'd like to know – what I want to satisfy myself about is – did Mr. Horbury go away at all? Is there really anything missing from the bank? Are those jewels really missing? You see," concluded Starmidge, looking round his circle of listeners, "there's an awful lot to take into account."

At that moment Polke's domestic servant tapped at the door and put her head inside the room.

"If you please, Mr. Polke, there's Mrs. Pratt, from the Station Hotel, would like a word with you," she said.

The superintendent hurried from the room – to return at once with a stout, middle-aged woman, who, as she entered, raised her veil and glanced half-suspiciously at Polke's other visitors.

"All friends here, Mrs. Pratt," said the superintendent reassuringly. "You know young Mr. Neale well enough. This lady is Mr. Horbury's niece – anxious to find him. That gentleman's a friend of mine – you can say aught you like before him. Well, ma'am! – you think you can tell me something about this affair? What might it be, now?"

Mrs. Pratt, taking the chair which Starmidge placed for her at the end of the table, nodded a general greeting to the company, and lifting her veil and untying her bonnet-strings, revealed a good-natured countenance.

"Well, Mr. Polke," she said, turning to the superintendent, "taking your word for it that we're all friends – me being pretty sure, all the same, that this gentleman's one of your own profession, which I don't object to – I'll tell you what it is I've come up for, special, as it were, and me not waiting until after closing-time to do it. But that town-crier's been down our way, and hearing him making his call between our house and the station, and learning what it was all about, thinks I to myself, 'I'd best go up and see the super and tell him what I know.' And," concluded Mrs. Pratt, beaming around her, "here I am!"

"Ay – and what do you know, ma'am?" asked Polke. "Something, of course."

"Or I shouldn't be here," agreed Mrs. Pratt, smoothing out a fold of her gown. "Well – Saturday afternoon, the time being not so many minutes after the 5.30 got in, and therefore you might say at the outside twenty minutes to six, a strange gentleman walked across from the station to our hotel, which is, as you're all well aware, exactly opposite. I happened to be in the bar-parlour window at the time, and I saw him crossing – saw, likewise, from the way he looked about him, and up at the town above us, that he'd never been in Scarnham before. And happen I'd best tell you what like he was, while the recollection's fresh in my mind – a little gentleman he was, very well dressed in what you might call the professional style; dark clothes and so forth, and a silk top-hat; I should say about fifty years of age, with a fresh complexion and a biggish grey moustache and a nicely rolled umbrella – quite the little swell he was. He made for our door, and I went to the bar-window to attend to him. He wanted to know if he could get some food, and I said of course he could – we'd some uncommon nice chops in the house. So he ordered three chops and setterers – and then he asked if we'd a telephone in the house, and could he use it. And, of course, I told him we had, and showed him where it was – after which he wanted a local directory, and I gave him Scammond's Guide. He turned that over a bit, and then, when he'd found what he wanted, he went to our telephone box – which, as you're well aware, Mr. Polke, is in our front hall. And into it he popped."

Mrs. Pratt paused a moment, and gave her listeners a knowing look, as if she was now about to narrate the most important part of her story.

"But what you mayn't be aware of, Mr. Polke," she continued, "is that our telephone box, which has glass panels in its upper parts, has at this present time one of these panels broken – our pot-man did it, carrying a plank through the hall. So that any one passing to and fro, as it were, when anybody's using the telephone, can't help hearing a word or two of what's being said inside. Now, of course, I was passing in and out, giving orders for this gentleman's chops, when he was in the box. And I heard a bit of what he said, though I didn't, naturally, hear aught of what was said to him, nor who by. But it's in consequence of what I did hear, and of what Tolson, the town-crier, has been shouting down our way tonight, that I come up here to see you."

"Much obliged to you, Mrs. Pratt," said Polke. "Very glad to hear anything that may have to do with Mr. Horbury's disappearance. Now, what did you hear?"

"What I heard," replied the landlady, "was this here – disjointed, as you would term it. First of all I hear the gentleman ask for 'Town 23.' Now, of course, you know whose number that there is, Mr. Polke."

"Chestermarke's Bank," said Neale, turning to Betty.

"Chestermarke's Bank it is, sir," assented Mrs. Pratt. "Which you know very well, as also do I, having oft called it up. Very well – I didn't hear no more just then, me going into the dining-room to see that our maid laid the table proper. But when I was going back to the bar, I heard more. 'Along the river-side?' says the gentleman, 'Straight on from where I am – all right.' Then after a minute, 'At seven-thirty, then?' he says. 'All right – I'll meet you.' And after that he rings off – and he went into the dining-room, and in due course he had his chops, and some tart and cheese, and a pint of our bitter ale, and took his time, and perhaps about a quarter past seven he came to the bar and paid, and he took a drop of Scotch whisky. After which he says, 'It's very possible, landlady, that I may have to stop in the town all night – have you a nice room that you can let me?' 'Certainly, sir,' says I. 'We've very good rooms, and bathrooms, and every convenience – shall I show you one?' 'No,' says he, 'this seems a good house, and I'll take your word for it – keep your best room for me, then.' And after that he lighted a cigar and went out, saying he'd be back later, and he crossed the road and went down on the river-bank, and walked slowly along towards the bottom of the town. And Mr. Polke and company," concluded Mrs. Pratt, solemnly turning from one listener to another, "that was the last I saw of him. For – he never came back!"

"Never came back!" echoed Polke.

"Not even the ghost of him!" said Mrs. Pratt. "I waited up myself till twelve, and then I decided that he'd changed his mind and was stopping with somebody he knew, which person, Mr. Polke, I took to be Mr. Horbury. Why? 'Cause he'd rung up Chestermarke's Bank – and who should he want at Chestermarke's Bank at six o'clock of a Saturday evening but Mr. Horbury? There wouldn't be nobody else there – as Mr. Neale'll agree."

"You never heard of this gentleman being in the town on Sunday or today?" asked Polke.

"Not a word!" replied Mrs. Pratt. "And never saw him go to the station, neither, to leave the town. Now, as you know, Mr. Polke, we've only two trains go away from here on Sundays, and there's only four on any week-day, us being naught but a branch line, and as our bar-parlour window is exactly opposite the station, I see everybody that goes and comes – I always was one for looking out of window! And I'm sure that little gentleman didn't go away neither yesterday nor today. And that's all I know," concluded Mrs. Pratt, rising, "and if it's any use to you, you're welcome, and hopeful I am that your poor uncle'll be found, Miss, for a nicer gentleman I could never wish to meet!"

Mrs. Pratt departed amidst expressions of gratitude and police admonitions to keep her news to herself for awhile, and Betty and Neale turned eagerly to the famous detective. But Starmidge appeared to have entered upon a period of silence, and made no further observation than that he would wait upon Miss Fosdyke in the morning, and presently the two young people followed Mrs. Pratt into the street and turned into the Market-Place. The last of the evening revellers were just coming out of the closing taverns, and to a group of them, Tolson, the town-crier, was dismally calling forth his announcement that one hundred pounds reward would be paid to any person who first gave news of having seen Mr. John Horbury on the previous Saturday evening or since. The clanging of his bell, and the strident notes of his cracked voice, sounded in the distance as Betty said good-night to Neale and turned sadly into the Scarnham Arms.