Kitabı oku: «The Chestermarke Instinct», sayfa 5

CHAPTER IX
NO FURTHER INFORMATION

Chestermarke's clerks found no difficulty in obtaining access to the bank when they presented themselves at its doors at nine o'clock next morning. Both partners were already there, and appeared to have been there for some time. And Joseph at once called Neale into the private parlour, and drew his attention to a large poster which lay on a side-table, its ink still wet from the printing press.

"Let Patten put that up in one of the front windows, Neale," he said. "It's just come in – I gave the copy for it last night. Read it over – I think it's satisfactory, eh?"

Neale bent over the big, bold letters, and silently read the announcement: —

"Messrs. Chestermarke, in view of certain unauthorized rumours, now circulating in the town and neighbourhood, respecting the disappearance of their late manager, Mr. John Horbury, take the earliest opportunity of announcing that all Customers' Securities and Deposits in their hands are safe, and that business will be conducted in the usual way."

"That make things clear?" asked Joseph, closely watching his clerk. "To our clients, I mean?"

"Quite clear, I should say," replied Neale.

"Then get it up at once, before opening hours, and save all the bother of questions," commanded Joseph. "And if people do come asking questions – as some of them will! – tell them not to bother themselves – nor us. We don't want to waste our time interviewing fools all the morning."

Neale took the poster and went out, with no further remark. And presently the junior clerk, with the aid of a few wafers, fixed the announcement in the window which looked out on the Market-Place, and people began to gather round and to read it, and, after the usual fashion of country-born folk, then went away to talk about it. In half an hour it was known in every shop and tavern parlour in Scarnham Market-Place that despite the town-crier's announcement, and the wild rumours of the night before, Chestermarke's Bank was all right, and Chestermarkes were already speaking of Horbury in the past tense – he was (wherever he might be) no longer the manager of that ancient concern; he was the late manager.

At ten o'clock Superintendent Polke, bluff and cheery as usual, and Detective-Sergeant Starmidge, eyeing his new surroundings with appreciative curiosity, strolled round the corner from the police-station and approached the bank. Half a dozen loungers were gathered before the window, reading the poster; the two police officials joined them and also read – in silence. Then, with a look at each other, they turned into the door which Patten had just opened. Neale hurried to the counter to meet them.

"Well, Mr. Neale," said Polke, as if he had called on the most ordinary business, "we'll just have a word with your principals, if they please. A mere interchange of views, you know: we shan't keep 'em."

"They don't want bothering," whispered Neale, bending over the counter. "Shan't I do instead?"

"No, sir!" answered Polke. "Nothing but principals will do! Here, Starmidge, give Mr. Neale one of your official cards."

Neale took the card and disappeared into the parlour, where he laid it before Gabriel.

"Mr. Polke is with him, sir," he said. "They say they won't detain you."

Gabriel tossed the card over to his nephew with a look of inquiry: Joseph sneered at it, and threw it into a waste-paper basket.

"Tell them we don't wish to see them," he answered. "We – "

"Stop a bit!" interrupted Gabriel. "I think perhaps we'd better see them. We may as well see them, and have done with it. Bring them in, Neale."

Polke and Starmidge, presently entering, found themselves coldly greeted. Gabriel made the slightest inclination of his head, in response to Polke's salutation and the detective's bow: Joseph pointedly gave no heed to either.

"Well?" demanded the senior partner.

"We've just called, Mr. Chestermarke, to hear if you've anything to say to us about this matter of Mr. Horbury's," said Polke. "Of course, you know it's been put in our hands."

"Not by us!" snapped Gabriel.

"Quite so, sir, by Lord Ellersdeane, and by Mr. Horbury's niece, Miss Fosdyke," assented Polke. "The young lady, of course, is naturally anxious about her uncle's safety, and Lord Ellersdeane is anxious about the Countess's jewels. And we hear that securities of yours are missing."

"We haven't told you so," retorted Gabriel.

"We haven't even approached you," remarked Joseph.

"Just so!" agreed Polke. "But, under the circumstances – "

"We have nothing to say to you, superintendent," interrupted Gabriel. "We can't help anything that Lord Ellersdeane has done, nor anything that Miss Fosdyke likes to do. Lord Ellersdeane is not, and never has been, a customer of ours. Miss Fosdyke acts independently. If they call you in – as they seem to have done very thoroughly – it's their look out. We haven't! When we want your assistance, we'll let you know. At present – we don't."

He waved one of the white hands towards the door as he spoke, as if to command withdrawal. But Polke lingered.

"You don't propose to give the police any information, then, Mr. Chestermarke?" he asked quietly.

"At present we don't propose to give any information to anybody whom it doesn't concern," replied Gabriel. "As regards the mere surface facts of Mr. John Horbury's disappearance, you know as much as we do."

"You don't propose to join in any search for him or any attempt to discover his whereabouts, sir?" inquired Starmidge, speaking for the first time.

Gabriel looked up from his paper, and slowly eyed his questioner.

"What we propose to do is a matter for ourselves," he answered coldly. "For no one else."

Starmidge bowed and turned away, and Polke, after hesitating a moment, said good-morning and followed him from the room. The two men nodded to Neale and went out into the Market-Place.

"Well?" said Polke.

"Queer couple!" remarked Starmidge.

Polke jerked his thumb at the poster in the bank window.

"Of course!" he said, "so long as they can satisfy their customers that all's right so far as they're concerned, we can't get at what is missing that belongs to the Chestermarkes."

"There are ways of finding that out," replied Starmidge quietly.

"What ways, now?" asked Polke. "We can't make 'em tell us their private affairs. Supposing Horbury has robbed them, they aren't forced to tell us how much or how little he's robbed 'em of!"

"All in good time," remarked the detective. "We're only beginning. Let's go and talk to this Miss Fosdyke a bit. She doesn't mind what money she spends on this business, you say?"

"Not if it costs her her last penny!" answered Polke.

"All right," said Starmidge. "Fosdyke's Entire represents a lot of pennies. We'll just have a word or two with her."

Betty, looking out of her window on the Market-Place, had seen the two men leave Chestermarke's Bank, and was waiting eagerly for their coming. She listened intently to Polke's account of the interview with the partners, and her cheeks glowed indignantly as he brought it to an end.

"Shameful!" she exclaimed. "To make accusations against my uncle, and then to refuse to say what they are! But – can't you make them say?"

"We'll try, in good time," answered Starmidge. "Slow and steady's the game here. For, whatever it is, it's a deep game."

"Nothing has been heard since I saw you last night?" asked Betty anxiously. "No one has brought you any news?"

"No news of any sort, miss," replied Polke.

"What's to be done, then, next?" she inquired, looking from one to the other. "Do let us do something!"

"Oh, we'll do a lot, Miss Fosdyke, before the day's out," said Starmidge reassuringly. "I'm going to work just now. Now, the first thing is, publicity! We must have all this in the newspapers at once." He turned to the superintendent. "I suppose there's some journalist here in the town who sends news to the London press, isn't there?" he asked.

"Parkinson, editor of the 'Scarnham Advertiser,' he does," replied Polke, with promptitude. "He's a sort of reporter-editor, you understand, and jolly glad of a bit of extra stuff."

"That's the first thing," said Starmidge. "The next, we must have a reward bill printed immediately, and circulated broadcast. It must have a portrait on it – I'll take that photograph you showed me last night. And – we'll have to offer a specific reward in each. How much is it to be, Miss Fosdyke? For you'll have to pay it, you know."

"Anything you like!" said Betty eagerly. "A thousand pounds? – would that do, to begin with."

"We'll say half of it," answered Starmidge. "Very good. Now, Mr. Polke, if you'll tell me where this Mr. Parkinson's to be found, and where the best printing office in the place is, I'll go to work."

"Scammonds are the best printers – and they're quick," said Polke. "But I'll come with you."

"Is there anything I can do?" asked Betty. "If I could only be doing something!"

Starmidge nodded his comprehension and mused a while.

"Just so!" he said. "You don't want to sit and wait. Well, there is something you might do, Miss Fosdyke, as you're Mr. Horbury's niece. Mr. Polke's been telling me about Mr. Horbury's household arrangements. Now, as you are a relation, suppose you call on his housekeeper, who was the last person to see him, and get all the information you can out of her? Draw her on to talk – you never know what interesting point you mayn't get in that way. And – are you Mr. Horbury's nearest relation?"

"Yes – the very nearest – next-of-kin," answered Betty.

"Then ask to see his papers – his desk – his private belongings," said Starmidge. "Demand to see them! You've the legal right. And let us know – you'll always find me somewhere about Mr. Polke's – how you get on. Now, superintendent, we'll get to work."

Outside the Scarnham Arms, Starmidge looked at his companion with a sly smile.

"Are you anything of a betting man?" he asked.

"Naught much – odd half-crown now and then," replied Polke. "Why?"

"Lay you a fiver to a shilling Miss Fosdyke won't see anything of Horbury's – nor get any information!" answered Starmidge, more slyly than ever. "She won't be allowed!"

Polke gave the detective a shrewd look.

"I dare say!" he said. "Whew! – it's a queer game, this, Starmidge. First moves of it, anyway."

"Let's get on to the next," counselled Starmidge. "Where's this journalist?"

Mr. Parkinson, a high-browed, shock-headed young man, who combined the duties of editor and reporter with those of advertisement canvasser and business manager of the one four-page sheet which Scarnham boasted, received the two police officials in a small office in which there was just room for himself and his visitors to squeeze themselves.

"I was about coming round to you, Mr. Polke," he said. "Can you let me have the facts of this Horbury affair?"

"We've come to save you the trouble," answered Polke. "This gentleman – Detective-Sergeant Starmidge, of the C.I.D., Mr. Parkinson – wants to have a bit of a transaction with you."

Parkinson eyed the famous detective with as much wonder as Neale had felt on the previous evening.

"Oh!" he exclaimed. "Pleased to meet you, sir – I've heard of you. What can I do for you, Mr. Starmidge?"

"Can you wire – at our expense – a full account of all that I shall tell you, to a London Press agency that'll distribute it amongst all the London papers at once?" asked Starmidge. "You know what I mean?"

"I can," answered Parkinson. "And principal provincials, too. It'll be in all the evening papers this very night, sir."

"Then come on," said Starmidge, dropping into a chair by the editorial desk. "I'll tell you all about it."

Polke listened admiringly while the detective carefully narrated the facts of what was henceforth to be known as the Scarnham Mystery. Nothing appeared to have escaped Starmidge's observation and attention. And he was surprised to find that the detective's presentation of the case was not that which he himself would have made. Starmidge did no more than refer to the fact that Lady Ellersdeane's jewels were missing: he said nothing whatever about the rumours that some of Chestermarke's securities were said to have disappeared. But on one point he laid great stress – the visit of the little gentleman with the large grey moustache to the Station Hotel at Scarnham on the evening whereon John Horbury disappeared, and to the fragments of conversation overheard by Mrs. Pratt. He described the stranger as Mrs. Pratt had described him, and appealed to him, if he read this news, to come forward at once. Finally, he supplemented his account with a full description of John Horbury, carefully furnished by the united efforts of Polke and Parkinson, and wound up by announcing the five hundred pounds reward.

"All over England, tonight, and tomorrow morning, sir," said Parkinson, gathering up his copy. "Now I'm off to wire this at once. Great engine the Press, Mr. Starmidge! – I dare say you find it very useful in your walk of life."

Starmidge followed Polke into the Market-Place again.

"Now for that reward bill," he said. "I don't set so much store by it, but it's got to be done. It all helps. There's Miss Fosdyke – going to have a try at her bit."

He pointed down the broad pavement with an amused smile. Miss Betty Fosdyke, attired in her smartest, was just entering the portals of Chestermarke's Bank.

CHAPTER X
THE CHESTERMARKE WAY

Mrs. Carswell herself opened the door of the bank-house in response to Miss Fosdyke's ring. She started a little at sight of the visitor, and her eyes glanced involuntarily and, as it seemed to Betty, with something of uneasiness, at the side-door which led into the Chestermarkes' private parlour. And Betty immediately interpreted the meaning of that glance.

"No, Mrs. Carswell," she said, before the housekeeper could speak, "I haven't come to call on either Mr. Gabriel or Mr. Joseph Chestermarke – I came to see you. Mayn't I come in?"

Mrs. Carswell stepped back into the hall, and Betty followed. For a moment the two looked at each other. And in the elder woman's eyes there was still the same expression, and it was with obvious uncertainty, if not with positive suspicion, that she waited.

"You have not heard anything of Mr. Horbury?" asked Betty, who was not slow to notice the housekeeper's demeanour.

"Nothing!" replied Mrs. Carswell, with a shake of the head. "Nothing at all! No one has told me anything."

Betty turned to the door of the dining-room.

"Very well," she said. "I dare say you know, Mrs. Carswell, that I am my uncle's nearest relation. Now I want to go through his papers and things. I want to see his desk – his last letters – anything – and everything there is."

She laid a hand on the door – and Mrs. Carswell suddenly found her tongue.

"Oh, miss!" she said, in a low, frightened voice, "you can't! That room's locked up. So is the study – where all Mr. Horbury's papers are. So is his bedroom. Mr. Joseph Chestermarke locked them all up last night – he has the keys. Nobody's to go into them – nor into any other room – without his permission."

Betty's cheeks began to glow, and an obstinate look to settle about her lips.

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "But I think I shall have something to say to that, Mrs. Carswell. Ask Mr. Joseph Chestermarke to come here a minute."

The housekeeper shrunk back.

"I daren't, Miss Fosdyke!" she answered. "It would be as much as my place was worth!"

"I thought you were my uncle's housekeeper," suggested Betty. "Aren't you? Or are you employed by Mr. Joseph Chestermarke? Come, now?"

Mrs. Carswell hesitated. It was very evident that she was afraid. But of what?

"So far as I know," continued Betty, "this is my uncle's house, and you're his servant. Am I right or wrong, Mrs. Carswell?"

"Right as regards my being engaged by Mr. Horbury," replied the housekeeper. "But the house belongs to – them! Mr. Horbury – so I understand – had the use of it – it was reckoned as part of his salary. It's their house, miss."

"But, anyway, my uncle's effects are his – and I mean to see them," insisted Betty. "If you won't call Mr. Joseph – or Mr. Gabriel – out, I shall walk into the bank at the front door, and demand to see them. You'd better let one of them know I'm here, Mrs. Carswell – I'm not going to stand any nonsense."

Mrs. Carswell hesitated a little, but in the end she knocked timidly at the private door. And presently Joseph Chestermarke opened it, looked out, saw Betty, and came into the hall. He offered his visitor no polite greeting, and for once he forgot his accustomed sneering smile. Instead, he gave the housekeeper a swift look which sent her away in haste, and he turned to Betty with an air of annoyance.

"Yes?" he asked abruptly. "What do you want?"

"I want to go into my uncle's house – into his rooms," said Betty. "I am his next-of-kin – I wish to examine his papers."

"You can't!" answered Joseph. "We haven't examined them ourselves yet."

"What right have you to examine them?" demanded Betty.

"Every right!" retorted Joseph.

"Not his private belongings!" she said firmly.

"This is our house – you're not going into it," declared Joseph. "Nobody's going into it – without our permission."

"We'll see about that, Mr. Joseph Chestermarke!" replied Betty. "If – supposing – my uncle is dead, I've the right to examine anything he's left. I insist upon it! I insist on seeing his papers, looking through his desk. And at once!"

"No!" said Joseph. "Nothing of the sort. We don't know that you've any right. We don't know that you're his next-of-kin. We're not – legally – aware that you're his niece. You say you are – but we don't know it – as a matter of real fact. You'd better go away."

Betty's cheeks flamed hotly and her eyes flashed.

"So that's your attitude – to me!" she exclaimed. "Very well! But you shall soon see whether I am what I say I am. What are you and your uncle implying, suggesting, hinting at?" she went on, suddenly letting her naturally hot temper get the better of her. "Do you realize what an utterly unworthy part you are playing? You accuse my uncle of being a thief – and you dare not make any specified accusation against him! You charge him with stealing your securities – and you daren't tell the police what securities! I don't believe you've a security missing! Nobody believes it! The police don't believe it. Lord Ellersdeane doesn't believe it. Why, your own clerk, Mr. Neale, who ought to know, if anybody does, doesn't believe it! You're telling lies, Mr. Joseph Chestermarke – there! Lies! I'll denounce you to the whole town – I'll expose you! I believe my uncle has met with some foul play – and as sure as I am his niece I'll probe the whole thing to the bottom. Are you going to admit me to those rooms?"

The door of the private room, which Joseph had left slightly ajar behind him, was pushed open a little, and Gabriel's colourless face looked out.

"Tell the young woman to go and see a solicitor," he said, and vanished again.

Joseph glanced at Betty, who was still staring indignantly at him.

"You hear?" he said quietly. "Now you'd better go away. You are not going in there."

Betty suddenly turned and walked out. She was across the Market-Place and at the door of the Scarnham Arms before her self-possession had come back to her. And she was aware then that a gentleman, who had just alighted from a horse which a groom was leading away to the stable yard, was looking and smiling at her.

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "Is it you, Lord Ellersdeane? – I beg your pardon – I was preoccupied."

"So I saw," said the Earl. "I'd watched you come across from the Bank. Is there any news this morning?"

"Come up to my sitting-room and let us talk," said Betty. She led the way upstairs and closed her door on herself and her visitor. "No news of my uncle," she continued, turning to the Earl. "Have you any?"

The Earl shook his head disappointedly.

"No!" he replied. "I wish I had! I myself and a lot of my men have been searching all round Ellersdeane – practically all night. We've made inquiries at each of the neighbouring villages – without result. Have the police heard anything? – I've only just come into town."

"You haven't seen Polke, then?" said Betty. "Oh, well, he heard something last night." She went on to tell the Earl of the meeting with the tinker, and of Mrs. Pratt's account of the mysterious stranger, and of what Starmidge was now doing. "It all seems such slow work," she concluded, "but I suppose the police can't move any faster."

"You heard nothing at the bank itself – from the Chestermarkes?" asked the Earl.

"I heard sufficient to make me as – as absent-minded as I was when you met me just now! I went there, as my uncle's nearest relation, with a simple request to see his papers and things – a very natural desire, surely. The Chestermarkes have locked up his rooms – and they ordered me out – showed me the door!"

"How very extraordinary!" exclaimed the Earl. "Really! – in so many words?"

"I think Joseph had the grace to say I had better go away," said Betty. "And Gabriel – who called me a young woman – told me to go and see a solicitor, which, of course," she added reflectively, "is precisely what I shall do – as they will very soon find!"

The Earl stepped over to one of the windows, and stood for a moment or two silently looking out on the Market-Place.

"I don't understand this at all," he said at last. "What is the meaning of all this reserve on the Chestermarkes' part? Why didn't they tell the police what securities are missing? Why don't they let you, his niece, examine Horbury's effects? What right have they to fasten up his house?"

"Their house – so Mrs. Carswell says," remarked Betty.

"Oh, well – it may be their house, strictly speaking," agreed the Earl, "but Horbury was its tenant, anyway, and the furniture and things in it are his – I'm sure of that, for he and I shared a similar taste in collecting old oak, and I know where he bought most of his possessions. I can't make the behaviour of these people out at all – and I'm getting more and more uneasy about the whole thing, Miss Fosdyke – as I'm sure you are. I wonder if the police will find the man who came to the Station Hotel on Saturday? Now, if they could lay hands on him, and get to know who he was, and what he wanted, and if he really met your uncle – "

The Earl suddenly paused and turned from the window with a glance at Betty.

"There's young Mr. Neale coming across from the bank," he observed. "I think he's coming here. By the by, isn't he a relation of Horbury's?"

"No," said Betty. "But my uncle was his guardian. Is he coming here, Lord Ellersdeane?"

"Straight here," replied the Earl. "Perhaps he's got some news."

Betty had the door open before Neale could knock at it. He came in with a smile, and glanced half-whimsically, half as if he had queer news to give, at the two people who looked so inquiringly at him.

"Well?" demanded Betty. "What is it, Wallie? Have these two precious principals sent you with news?"

"They're not my principals any longer," answered Neale. He laid down some books and an old jacket on the table. "That's my old working coat," he went on, with a laugh. "I've worn it for the last time – at Chestermarke's. They've dismissed me."

Lord Ellersdeane turned sharply from the window, and Betty indulged in a cry of indignation.

"Dismissed – you?" she exclaimed. "Dismissed!"

"With a quarter's salary in lieu of notice," laughed Neale, slapping his pocket. "I've got it here – in gold."

"But – why?" asked Betty.

Neale shook his head at her.

"Because you told Joseph that I didn't believe them when they said that some of their securities were missing," he answered. "You did it! As soon as you'd gone, they had me in, told me that it was contrary to their principles to retain servants who took sides with other people against them, handed me a cheque, and told me to cash it forthwith and depart. And – here I am!"

"You don't seem to mind this very much, Mr. Neale," observed the Earl, looking keenly at this victim of summary treatment. "Do you?"

"If your lordship really wants to know," answered Neale, "I don't! I'm truly thankful. It's only what would have happened – in another way. I meant to leave Chestermarke's. If it hadn't been for Mr. Horbury, I should have left ages ago. I hate banking! I hated the life. And – I dislike Chestermarke's! Immensely! Now, I'll go and have a free life somewhere in Canada or some equally spacious clime – where I can breathe."

"Not at all!" said Betty decidedly. "You shall come and be my manager in London. The brewery wants one, badly. You shall have a handsome salary, Wallie – much more than you had at that beastly bank!"

"Very kind of you, I'm sure," laughed Neale. "But I think I'm inclined to put breweries in the same line with banks. Don't you be too rash, Betty – I'm not exactly cut out for commercialism. Not," he added reflectively, "not that I haven't been a very good servant to Chestermarke's. I have! But Chestermarkes are – what they are!"

The Earl, who had been watching the two young people with something of amused interest, suddenly came forward from the window.

"Mr. Neale!" he said.

"My lord!" responded Neale.

"What's your honest opinion about your late principals?" asked the Earl.

Neale shook his head slowly and significantly.

"I don't know," he answered.

"Do you know that they've – just now – refused Miss Fosdyke permission to examine her uncle's belongings?" continued the Earl. "That they wouldn't even let her enter the house?"

"No, I didn't know," replied Neale. "But I'm not surprised. Nothing that those two could do would ever surprise me."

"Feeling that, what do you advise in this case?" asked the Earl. "Come! – you're no longer in their employ – you can speak freely now. What do you think?"

"Well," said Neale, after a pause, and speaking with unusual gravity, "I think the police ought to make a thorough examination of the bank-house – I'm surprised it hasn't been thought of before."

The Earl picked up his hat.

"I've been thinking of it all the morning!" he said. "Come – let us all go round to Polke."