Kitabı oku: «The Chestermarke Instinct», sayfa 8

CHAPTER XV
MR. FREDERICK HOLLIS

Starmidge hastily pulled some garments about him, and flinging a travelling-coat over his shoulders, hurried downstairs, to find a sleepy-looking policeman in the hall.

"How did this man get here – at this time of night?" he asked, as they set off towards the police-station.

"Came in a taxi-cab from Ecclesborough," answered the policeman. "I haven't heard any particulars, Mr. Starmidge, except that he'd read the news in the London paper this evening and set off here in consequence. He's in Mr. Polke's house, sir."

Starmidge walked into the superintendent's parlour, to find him in company with a young man, whom the detective at once sized up as a typical London clerk – a second glance assured him that his clerkship was of the legal variety.

"Here's Detective-Sergeant Starmidge," said Polke. "Starmidge, this gentleman's Mr. Simmons, from London. Mr. Simmons says he's clerk to a Mr. Hollis, a London solicitor. And, having read that description in the papers this last evening, he's certain that the man who came to the Station Hotel here on Saturday is his governor."

Starmidge sat down and looked again at the visitor – a tall, sandy-haired, freckled young man, who was obviously a good deal puzzled.

"Is Mr. Hollis missing, then?" asked Starmidge.

Simmons looked as if he found it somewhat difficult to explain matters.

"Well," he answered. "It's this way. I've never seen him since Saturday. And he hasn't been at his rooms – his private rooms – since Saturday. In the ordinary course he ought to have been at business first thing yesterday – we'd some very important business on yesterday morning, which wasn't done because of his absence. He never turned up yesterday at all – nor today either – we never heard from or of him. And so, when I read that description in the papers this evening, I caught the first express I could get down here – at least to Ecclesborough – I had to motor from there."

"That description describes Mr. Hollis, then?" asked Starmidge.

"Exactly! I'm sure it's Mr. Hollis – it's him to a T!" answered the clerk. "I recognized it at once."

"Let's get everything in order," said Starmidge, with a glance at Polke. "To begin with, who is Mr. Hollis?"

"Mr. Frederick Hollis, solicitor, 59b South Square, Gray's Inn," replied Simmons promptly. "Andwell & Hollis is the name of the firm – but there isn't any Andwell – hasn't been for many a year – he's dead, long since, is Andwell. Mr. Hollis is the only proprietor."

"Don't know him at all," remarked Starmidge. "What's his particular line of practice?"

"Conveyancing," said Simmons.

"Then, naturally, I shouldn't," observed Starmidge. "My acquaintance is chiefly with police-court solicitors. And you say he'd private rooms some where? Where, now?"

"Paper Buildings, Temple," replied the clerk. "He'd a suite of rooms there – he's had 'em for years."

"Bachelor, then?" inquired the detective.

"Yes – he's a bachelor," agreed Simmons.

"You know he hasn't been at his rooms since Saturday – you've ascertained that?" continued Starmidge.

"He's never been at his rooms since he left them after breakfast on Saturday morning," replied Simmons. "I went there at eleven o'clock Monday – that was yesterday – again at four: twice on Tuesday. I was coming away from the Temple when I got the paper and read about this affair."

"When did you see him last?" asked Starmidge.

"Half-past-twelve Saturday. He went out – dressed just as it says in your description. And," concluded the clerk, with a shake of his head which suggested his own inability to understand matters, "he never said a word to me about coming down here."

"Did he say anything to anybody at his rooms about going away? – for the week-end, for instance?" asked the detective. "There'd be somebody there, of course."

"Only a woman who tidied up for him and got his breakfast ready of a morning," said Simmons. "He took all his other meals out. No – he said nothing to her. But he wasn't a week-ender: he very rarely left his rooms except for the office."

"Any of his relations been after him?" inquired Starmidge.

"I don't know anything about his relations – nor friends, either," answered the clerk. "Don't even know the address of one of them, or I'd have gone to seek him on Monday – everything's at a standstill. He was a lonely sort of man – I never heard of his relations or friends."

"How long have you been with him, then?" asked the detective. "Some time?"

"Six years," replied Simmons.

"And you've no doubt, from the description in the papers, that the gentleman who came here on Saturday last is Mr. Hollis?" asked Starmidge.

The clerk shook his head with an air of conviction.

"None!" he answered. "None whatever!"

Starmidge helped himself to a cigar out of an open box which lay on Polke's table. He lighted it carefully, and smoked for a minute or two in silence. Then he looked at Polke.

"Well, there's a very obvious question to put to Mr. Simmons after all that," he remarked. "Have you any idea," he continued, turning to the clerk, "of any reason that would bring Mr. Hollis to Scarnham?"

Simmons shook his head more vigorously than before.

"Not the ghost of an idea!" he exclaimed.

"There was no business being done with anybody at Scarnham?" asked Starmidge.

"Not in our office!" asserted Simmons. "I'm sure of that. I know all the business that we have in hand. To tell you the truth, gentlemen, though you may think me very ignorant, I never even heard of Scarnham myself until I read the paper this evening."

"Quite excusable," said Starmidge. "I never heard of it myself until Monday. Well – this is all very queer, Mr. Simmons. What does Mr. Polke think? And what's Mr. Polke got to suggest!"

Polke, who had been listening silently, turned to the clerk.

"Did you chance to look at Mr. Hollis's letters – recent letters, I mean – " he asked, "to see if you would find anything inviting him down here?"

"I did," replied Simmons promptly. "I looked through all the letters on his desk and in his drawers yesterday afternoon. I didn't find anything that explained his absence. And when I was at his rooms this evening I looked at some letters on his mantelpiece – nothing there. I tell you, I haven't the least notion as to what could bring him to Scarnham."

"And I suppose none of your fellow-clerks have, either?" asked Polke.

Simmons smiled and glanced at Starmidge.

"We've only myself and another – a junior clerk – and a boy," he said. "It's not a big practice – only a bit of good conveyancing now and then, and some family business. Mr. Hollis isn't dependent on it – he's private means of his own."

"Aye, just so!" observed Polke. "And I should say, Starmidge, that it was private business brought him down here – if he's the man, as he certainly seems to be. But – whose?"

Starmidge turned again to the clerk.

"You've a good memory, I can see," he said. "Now, did you ever hear Mr. Hollis mention the name of Horbury?"

"Never!" replied Simmons.

"Did you ever hear him speak of Chestermarke's Bank?" asked Starmidge.

"No – never! Never heard either name in my life until I saw them in the papers," asserted Simmons.

"Who looks after the banking account at Hollis's?" asked the detective. "I mean, the business account – you know. Not his private one."

"I do," said Simmons. "Always have done since I went there."

"You never saw any cheques paid to those names – or any cheques from them?" inquired Starmidge. "Think, now!"

"No – I'm absolutely sure of it," said the clerk. "Horbury, perhaps, I might not remember, but I should have remembered Chestermarke – it's an uncommon name, that – to me, anyway."

"Well," said Starmidge, after a pause, during which all three looked at each other as men look who have come to a dead stop in the progress of things, "there's one thing very certain, Mr. Simmons. If that was your governor who came down to the Station Hotel here on Saturday evening last, he certainly telephoned from there to Chestermarke's Bank as soon as he arrived. And he got a reply from there, and he evidently went out to meet whoever sent it – that sender seeming to be Mr. Horbury, the manager. And so," he concluded, turning to Polke, "what we've got to find out is – what did Hollis come here at all for?"

"We shan't find that out tonight," said Polke, with a yawn.

"Quite so – so we'll adjourn till morning, when Mr. Simmons shall see Mrs. Pratt – just to establish things," remarked Starmidge. "In the meantime he'd better come round with me to my place, and I'll get him a bed."

Neither the police-superintendent nor the detective had the slightest doubt after hearing Simmons' story that the man who presented himself at the Station Hotel at Scarnham on the evening of John Horbury's disappearance was Mr. Frederick Hollis, solicitor, of Gray's Inn. If they had still retained any doubt it would have disappeared next morning when they took the clerk down to see Mrs. Pratt. The landlady described her customer even more fully than before: Simmons had no doubt whatever that she described his employer: he wouldn't have been more certain, he said, that Mrs. Pratt was talking about Mr. Hollis, if she'd shown him a photograph of that gentleman.

"So we can take that for settled," remarked Polke, as the three left the hotel and went back to the town. "The man who came here last Saturday night was Mr. Frederick Hollis, solicitor, of South Square, Gray's Inn, London. That's established, I take it, Starmidge?"

"Seems so," agreed the detective.

"Then the next question is – Where's he got to?" said Polke.

"I think the next question is – Has anybody ever heard of him in connection with Mr. Horbury, or the Chestermarkes?" observed Starmidge. "There's no doubt he came down here to see one or other of them – Horbury, most likely."

"And who's to tell us anything?" asked Polke.

"Miss Fosdyke's a relation of Horbury's," replied Starmidge. "She may know Hollis by name. Mr. Neale's always been in touch with Horbury – he may have heard of Hollis. And – so may the bankers."

"The difficulty is to make them say anything," said Polke. "They'll only tell what they please."

"Let's try the other two, anyway," counselled Starmidge. "They may be able to tell something. For as sure as I am what I am, the whole secret of this business lies in Hollis's coming down here to see Horbury, and in what followed on their meeting. If we could only get to know what Hollis came here for – ah!"

But they got no further information from either Betty Fosdyke or Wallington Neale. Neither had ever heard of Mr. Frederick Hollis, of Gray's Inn. Betty was certain, beyond doubt, that he was no relation of the missing bank-manager: she had the whole family-tree of the Horburys at her finger-ends, she declared: no Hollis was connected with even its outlying twigs. Neale had never heard the name of Hollis mentioned by Horbury. And he added that he was absolutely sure that during the last five years no person of that name had ever had dealings with Chestermarke's Bank – open dealings, at any rate. Secret dealings with the partners, severally or collectively, or with Horbury, for that matter, Mr. Hollis might have had, but Neale was certain he had had no ordinary business with any of them.

Polke took heart of grace and led Simmons across to the bank. To his astonishment, the partners now received him readily and politely; they even listened with apparent interest to the clerk's story, and asked him some questions arising out of it. But each declared that he knew nothing about Mr. Frederick Hollis, and was utterly unaware of any reason that could bring him to Scarnham: it was certainly on no business of theirs, as a firm, or as private individuals, that he came.

"He came, of course, to see Horbury," said Joseph at last. "That's dead certain. No doubt they met. And after that – well, they seem to have vanished together."

Gabriel followed Polke into the hall and drew him aside.

"Did this clerk tell you whether his master was a man of standing?" he asked.

"Man of private means, Mr. Chestermarke, with a small, highly respectable practice – a conveyancing solicitor," answered Polke.

"Oh!" replied Gabriel. "Just so. Well – we know nothing about him."

Polke and his companion returned to the Scarnham Arms, where Starmidge was in consultation with Betty and Neale.

"They know nothing at all over there," he reported. "Never heard of Hollis. What's to be done now!"

"Mr. Simmons must do the next thing," answered the detective. "Get back to town, Mr. Simmons, and put yourself in communication with every single one of Mr. Hollis's clients – you know them all, of course. Find out if any of them gave Mr. Hollis any business that would send him to Scarnham. Don't leave a stone unturned in that way! And the moment you have any information, however slight, wire to me, here – on the instant."

CHAPTER XVI
THE LEAD MINE

Starmidge and Polke presently left – to walk down to the railway station with the bewildered clerk; when they had gone, Betty turned to Neale, who was hanging about her sitting-room with no obvious intention of leaving it.

"While these people are doing what they can in their way, is there nothing we can do in ours?" she asked. "I hate sitting here doing nothing at all! You're a free man now, Wallie – can't you suggest something?"

Neale was thoroughly enjoying his first taste of liberty. He felt as if he had just been released from a long term of imprisonment. To be absolutely free to do what he liked with himself, during the whole of a spring day, was a sensation so novel that he was holding closely to it, half-fearful that it might all be a dream from which it would be a terrible thing to awake – to see one of Chestermarke's ledgers under his nose. And this being a wonderfully fine morning, he had formed certain sly designs of luring Betty away into the country, and having the whole day with her. A furtive glance at her, however, showed him that Miss Fosdyke's thoughts and ideas just then were entirely business-like, but a happy inspiration suggested to him that business and pleasure might be combined.

"We ought to go and see if that tinker chap's found out or heard anything," he said. "You remember he promised to keep his eyes and ears open. And we might do a little looking round the country for ourselves: I haven't much faith in those local policemen and gamekeepers. Why not make a day of it, going round? I know a place – nice old inn, the other side of Ellersdeane – where we can get some lunch. Much better making inquiries for ourselves," he concluded insinuatingly, "than sitting about waiting for news."

"Didn't I say so?" exclaimed Betty. "Come on, then! – I'm ready. Where first?"

"Let's see the tinker first," said Neale. "He's a sharp man – he may have something else to tell by now."

He led his companion out of the town by way of Scarnham Bridge, pointing out Joseph Chestermarke's gloomy house to her as they passed it.

"I'd give a lot," he remarked, as they turned on to the open moor which led towards Ellersdeane Hollow, "to know if either of the Chestermarkes really did know anything about that chap Hollis coming to the town on Saturday. I shouldn't be a bit surprised if they did. Those detective fellows like Starmidge are very clever in their way, but they always seem to me to stop thinking a bit too soon. Now both Starmidge and Polke seem to take it for certain that this Hollis went to meet Horbury when he left the Station Hotel. There's no proof that he went to meet Horbury – none!"

"Whom might he have gone to meet, then?" demanded Betty.

"You listen to me a bit," said Neale. "I've been thinking it over. Hollis comes to the Station Hotel and uses their telephone. Mrs. Pratt overhears him call up Chestermarke's Bank – that's certain. Then she goes away, about her business. An interval elapses. Then she hears some appointment made, with somebody, along the river bank, for that evening. But – that interval during which Mrs. Pratt didn't overhear? How do we know that the person with whom Hollis began his conversation was the same person with whom he finished it? Come, now!"

"Wallie, that's awfully clever of you!" exclaimed Betty. "How did you come to think of such an ingenious notion?"

"Worked it out," answered Neale. "This way! Hollis comes down to Scarnham to see Chestermarke's Bank – which means one of the partners. He rings up the bank. He speaks to somebody there. How do we know that somebody was Horbury? We don't! It may have been Mrs. Carswell. Now supposing the real person Hollis wanted to see was either Gabriel or Joseph Chestermarke? Very well – this person who answered from the bank would put Hollis on to either of them at once. Gabriel has a telephone at the Warren: Joseph has a telephone at his home yonder behind us. It may have been with either Gabriel or Joseph that Hollis finished his conversation. And – if it was finished with one of them, it was, in my opinion, whatever that's worth, with Master Joseph!"

"What makes you think that?" asked Betty, startled by the suggestion.

Neale laid a hand on the girl's arm and turned her round to face the town. He lifted his stick and pointed at Joseph Chestermarke's high roof, towering above the houses around it; then he swept the stick towards the river and its course, plainly to be followed, in the direction of the station.

"You see Joseph's house there," he said. "You see the river – the path along its bank – going right down to the meadow opposite the Station Hotel? Very well – now, supposing it was Joseph with whom Hollis wound up that telephone talk, suppose it was Joseph whom Hollis was to see. What would happen? Joseph knew that Hollis was at the Station Hotel. The straightest and easiest way from the Station Hotel to Joseph's house is – straight along the river bank. Now then, call on your memory! What did Mrs. Pratt tell us? 'When I was going back to the bar,' says Mrs. Pratt, '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,' concludes Mrs. Pratt, 'he rings off.' Now, why shouldn't it be Joseph Chestermarke that he was going to meet? – remember, again, the river-side path leads straight to Joseph's house. Come! – Mrs. Pratt's story doesn't point conclusively to Horbury at all. It's as I say – the telephone conversation may have begun with Horbury, but it may have ended with – somebody else. And what I say is – who was the precise person whom Hollis went to meet?"

"Are you going to tell all that to Starmidge?" asked Betty admiringly. "Because I'm sure it's never entered his head – so far."

"Depends," replied Neale. "Let's see if the tinker has anything to tell. He's at home, anyway. There's his fire."

A spiral of blue smoke, curling high above the green and gold of the gorse bushes, revealed Creasy's whereabouts. He had shifted his camp since their first meeting with him: his tilted cart, his tethered pony, and his fire, were now in a hollow considerably nearer the town. Neale and Betty looked down into his retreat to find him busily mending a collection of pots and pans, evidently gathered up during his round of the previous day. He greeted his visitors with a smile, and fetched a three-legged stool from his cart for Betty's better accommodation.

"Heard anything?" asked Neale, seating himself on a log of wood.

The tinker pointed to several newspapers which lay near at hand, kept from blowing away by a stone placed on the uppermost.

"Only what's in these," he answered. "I've read all that – so I'm pretty well posted up, mister. I've just read this morning's – bought it in the town when I went to fetch some bread. Queer affair altogether, I call it!"

"Have you looked round about at all?" asked Betty.

"I've been a good bit over the Hollow, miss," answered Creasy. "But it's a stiff job seeking anything here. There's nobody knows what a wilderness this Hollow is until they begin exploring it. Holes – corners – nooks – crannies – bracken and bushes – it is a wilderness, and that's a fact! I'd engage to hide myself safely in this square mile for many a week, against a hundred seekers. It wouldn't a bit surprise me, you know, if it comes out in the end that Mr. Horbury, after all, did fall down one of these old shafts. I couldn't believe it possible at first, knowing that he knew every in and out of the place, but I'm beginning to think he may have done. There's only one thing against that theory."

"What?" asked Betty.

"Where's the other gentleman?" answered the tinker. "If they came together on to this waste, one couldn't fall down a shaft without the other knowing it, eh? And it's scarcely likely they'd both fall down."

Neale glanced at Betty and shook his head.

"There you are, you see!" he muttered. "They all hang to the notion that Hollis did meet Horbury! Mr. Horbury may have been alone, after all, you know," he went on, turning to Creasy. "There's no proof that the other gentleman was with him."

"Aye, well – I'm going on what these paper accounts say," answered Creasy. "They all take it for granted that those two were together. Well, about these old shaftings, mister – I did notice something very early this morning that I thought might be looked into."

"What is it?" asked Neale. "Don't let's lose any chance of finding anything out, however small it may be."

The tinker finished mending a kettle and set it aside amongst other renovated articles. He lifted the pan of solder off the fire, set it aside, too, and got up.

"Come this way, then," he said. "I was going in to Scarnham this noon to tell Mr Polke about it, but as long as you're here – "

He led the way through the thick gorse and heather until he came to a narrow track which wound across the moor in the direction of the town. There he paused, pointing towards Ellersdeane on the one hand, towards Scarnham on the other.

"You see this track, mister?" he said. "You'll notice that it goes to Ellersdeane village that way, and to Scarnham this. Of course, you can't see it all the way in either direction, but you can take my word for it – it does. It comes out at Ellersdeane by the duck-pond, at Scarnham by the bridge at the foot of Cornmarket. People who know it would follow it if they wanted a short cut across the moor from the town to the village – or the opposite, as you might say. Now then, look here – a bit this way."

He preceded them along the narrow track until, on an open space in the moorland, they came to one of the old lead-mine shafts, the mouth of which had been fenced in by a roughly built wall of stone gathered from its immediate surroundings. In this wall, extending from its parapet to the ground, was a wide gap: the stones which had been displaced to make it had disappeared into the cavernous opening.

"Now then!" said the tinker, turning on his companions with the inquiring look of a man who advances a theory which may or may not be accepted as reasonable, "you see that? What I'd like to know is – is that a recently made gap? It's difficult to tell. If this bit of a stone fence had been built with mortar, one could have told. But it's never had mortar or lime in it! – it's just rough masonry, as you see – stones picked up off the moor, like all these fences round the old shafts. But – there's the gap right enough! Do you know what I'm thinking?"

"No!" murmured Betty, with a glance of fear and doubt at the black vista which she saw through the gap. "But – don't be afraid to speak."

"I'm thinking this," continued the tinker: "Supposing a man was following this track from Ellersdeane to Scarnham, or t'other way about, as it might be – supposing he was curious to look down one of these old shafts – supposing he looked down this one, which stands, as you see, not two yards off the very track he was following – supposing he leaned his weight on this rotten bit of fencing – supposing it gave way? What?"

Neale, who had been listening intently, made a movement as if to lay his hand on the grey stones. Betty seized him impulsively.

"Don't, Wallie!" she exclaimed. "That frightens me!"

Creasy lifted his foot and pressed it against the stones at one edge of the gap. Before even that slight pressure three or four blocks gave way and dropped inward – the sound of their fall came dully from the depths beneath.

"You see," said the tinker, "it's possible. It might be. And – as you can tell from the time it takes a stone to drop – it's a long way down there. They're very deep, these old mines."

Neale turned from the broken wall and looked narrowly at the ground about it.

"I don't see any signs of anybody being about here recently," he remarked. "There are no footmarks."

"There couldn't be, mister," said Creasy. "You could march a regiment of soldiers over this moorland grass for many an hour, and there'd be no footprints on it when they'd gone – it's that wiry and strong. No! – if half a dozen men had been standing about here when one fell in – or if two or three men had come here to throw another man in," he added significantly, "there'd be no footmarks. Try it – you can't grind an iron-shod heel like mine into this turf."

"It's all very horrible!" said Betty, still staring at the black gap with its suggestions of subterranean horror. "If one only knew – "

The tinker turned and looked at the two young people as if he were estimating their strength.

"What are you wondering about?" asked Neale.

Creasy smiled as he glanced again at Betty.

"Well," he replied, "you're a pretty strong young fellow, mister, I take it, and the young lady looks as if she'd got a bit of good muscle about her. If you two could manage one end of a rope, I'd go down into that shaft at the other end – a bit of the way, at any rate. And then – I'd let down a lantern and see if there's aught to be seen."

Betty turned anxiously to Neale, and Neale looked the tinker over with appraising eyes.

"I could pull you up myself," he answered. "You're no great weight. And haven't those shafts got props and stays down the side?"

"Aye, but they'll be thoroughly rotten by this," said Creasy. "Well, we'll try it. Come to my cart – I've plenty of stuff there."

"You're sure there's no danger?" asked Betty. "Don't imperil yourself!"

"No danger, so long as you two'll stick to this end of the rope," said Creasy. "I shan't go too far down."

The tilted cart proved to contain all sorts of useful things: they presently returned to the shaft with two coils of stout rope, a crowbar, a lantern attached to a length of strong cord, and a great sledge-hammer, with which the tinker drove the crowbar firmly into the ground some ten or twelve feet from the edge of the gap. He made one end of the first rope fast to this; the other end he securely knotted about his waist; one end of the second rope he looped under his armpits, and handed the other to Neale; then, lighting his lantern, he prepared to descend, having first explained the management of the ropes to his assistants.

"All you've got to do," he said reassuringly to Betty, "is to hold on to this second rope and let me down, gradual-like. When I say 'Pull,' draw up – I'll help, hand over hand, up this first rope. Simple enough! – and I shan't go too far."

Nevertheless, he exhausted the full length of both ropes, and it seemed a long time before they heard anything of him. Betty, frightened of what she might hear, fearful lest Neale should go too near the edge of the shaft, began to get nervous at the delay, and it was with a great sense of relief that she at last heard the signal.

The tinker came hand over hand up the stationary rope, helped by the second one: his face, appearing over the edge of the gap, was grave and at first inscrutable. He shook himself when he stepped above ground, as if he wanted to shake off an impression: then he turned and spoke in a whisper.

"It's as I thought it might be!" he said. "There's a dead man down there!"