Kitabı oku: «The Chestermarke Instinct», sayfa 9

CHAPTER XVII
ACCIDENT OR MURDER?

Betty checked the cry of horror which instinctively started to her lips, and turned to Neale with a look which he was quick to interpret. He moved nearer to the tinker, who was unwinding the rope from his waist.

"You couldn't tell – what man?" he asked, in low tones.

Creasy shook his head with a look of dislike for what he had seen by the light of his lantern.

"No!" he answered. "'Twasn't possible, mister. But – a man there is! And dead, naturally. And – a long way it is, too, down to the bottom of that place!"

"What's to be done?" asked Neale.

The tinker slowly coiled up his ropes, and laid them in order by the crowbar.

"There's only one thing to be done," he answered, after a reflective pause. "We shall have to get him up. That'll be a job! Do you and the young lady go back to Scarnham, and tell Polke what we've found, and let him come out here with a man or two. I'll go into Ellersdeane yonder and get some help – and a windlass – can't do without that. There's a man that sinks wells in Ellersdeane – I'll get him and his men to come back with me. Then we can set to work."

Creasy moved away as he finished speaking, untethered his pony, threw an old saddle across its back, and without further remark rode off in the direction of the village, while Neale and Betty turned back to Scarnham. For a while neither broke the silence which had followed the tinker's practical suggestions; when Betty at last spoke it was in a hushed voice.

"Wallie!" she said, "do you think that can possibly be – Uncle John?"

"No!" answered Neale sharply, "I don't! I don't believe it possible that he would be so foolish as to lean over a rotten bit of walling like that – he'd know the danger of it."

"Then it must be – the other man – Hollis!" said Betty.

"Maybe," agreed Neale. "If it is – "

He paused, and Betty looked at his set face as if she were wondering what he was thinking of.

"What?" she asked timidly. "You're uneasy about something."

"It's a marvel to me – if it is Hollis – however he comes to be there," answered Neale at last. "According to all we know, he certainly went to meet somebody on Saturday night. I can't think how anybody who knew the district would have let a stranger do such a risky thing as to lean over one of those shafts. Besides, if anybody was with him, and there was an accident, why hasn't the accident been reported? Betty! – it's more like murder!"

"You think he may have been thrown down there?" she asked fearfully.

"Thrown down or forced down – it's all the same," said Neale. "There may have been a struggle – a fight. But there, what's the use of speculating? We don't even know whose body it is yet. Let's get on and tell those police chaps."

Turning off the open moor on to the highway at the corner of Scarnham Bridge, they suddenly came face to face with Gabriel Chestermarke, who, for once in a way, was walking instead of driving into the town. The two young people, emerging from the shelter of a high hedgerow which bordered the moorland at that point, started at sight of the banker's colourless face, cold and set as usual. But Gabriel betrayed no surprise, and was in no way taken aback. He lifted his hat in silence, and was marching on when Neale impulsively hailed him.

"Mr. Chestermarke!" he exclaimed.

Gabriel halted and turned, looking at his late clerk with absolute impassiveness. He made no remark, and stood like a statue, waiting for Neale to speak.

"You may like to know," said Neale, coming up to him, "we have just found the body of a man on the moor – Ellersdeane Hollow."

Gabriel showed no surprise. No light came into his eyes, no colour to his cheek. It seemed a long time before his firmly set lips relaxed.

"A man?" he said quietly. "What man?"

"We don't know," answered Neale. "All we know is, there's a man's body lying at the bottom of one of the old shafts up there – near Ellersdeane Tower. The tinker who camps out there has just seen it – he's been partly down the shaft."

"And – did not recognize it?" asked Gabriel.

"No – it was too far beneath him," replied Neale. "He's gone into the village to get help."

Gabriel lingered a moment, and then, lifting his hat again, began to move forward towards the town.

"I should advise you to acquaint the police, Mr. Neale," he said. "Good-morning!"

He marched away, stiffly upright, across the bridge and up the Cornmarket, and Neale and Betty followed.

"Why did you tell – him?" asked Betty.

Neale threw a glance of something very like scorn after the retreating figure.

"Wanted to see how he'd take it!" he answered. "Bah! – Gabriel Chestermarke's no better than a wax figure! You might as well tell a marble image any news of this sort as tell him! You'd have thought he'd have had sufficient human feeling in him to say that he hoped it wasn't your uncle, anyhow!"

"No, I shouldn't," said Betty. "I sized Gabriel up – and Joseph, too – when I walked into their parlour the other afternoon. They haven't any feelings – you might as well expect to get feeling out of a fish."

They met Starmidge in the Market-Place – talking to Parkinson. Neale told the news to both. The journalist dashed into his office for his hat, and made off to Ellersdeane Hollow: Starmidge turned to the police-station with his information.

"No one else knows, I suppose?" he remarked, as they went along.

"Gabriel Chestermarke knows," answered Neale. "We met him as we were coming off the moor and I told him."

"Show any surprise?" asked the detective.

"Neither surprise nor anything else," said Neale. "Absolutely unaffected!"

Polke, hearing the news, immediately bustled into activity, sending for a cab in which to drive along the road to a point near Ellersdeane Tower, from which they could reach the lead mine. But he shook his head when he saw that Betty meant to return.

"Don't, miss!" he urged. "Stay here in town – you'd far better. It's not a nice job for ladies, aught of that sort. Wait at the hotel – do, now!"

"Doing nothing!" exclaimed Betty. "That would be far worse. Let me go – I'm not afraid of anything. And to hang about, waiting and wondering – "

Neale, who had been about to enter the cab with the police, drew back.

"You go on," he said to Polke. "Get things through – Miss Fosdyke and I will walk slowly back there. We won't come close up till you can tell us something definite. Don't you see she's anxious about her uncle? – we can't keep her waiting."

He rejoined Betty as Polke and his men drove off: together they turned again in the direction of the bridge. Once across it and on the moor, Neale made the girl sit down on a ledge of rock at some distance from the lead mine, but within sight of it: he himself, while he talked to her, stood watching the figures grouped about the shaft. Creasy had evidently succeeded in getting help at once: Neale saw men fixing a windlass over the mouth of the old mine; saw a man at last disappear into its depths. And after a long pause he saw from the movements of the other men that the body had been drawn to the surface and that they were bending over it. A moment later, Starmidge separated himself from the rest, and came in Neale's direction. He nodded his head energetically at Betty as he drew within speaking distance.

"All right, Miss Fosdyke!" he said. "It's not your uncle. But – it's the other man, Mr. Neale! – no doubt of it!"

"Hollis!" exclaimed Neale.

"It's the man described by Mrs. Pratt and Simmons – that's certain," answered the detective. "So there's one mystery settled – though it makes all the rest stranger than ever. Now, Miss Fosdyke, that'll be some relief to you – so don't come any nearer. But just spare Mr. Neale a few minutes – I want to speak to him."

Betty obediently turned back to the ledge of rock, and Neale walked with Starmidge towards the group around the shaft.

"Can you tell anything?" he asked. "Are there any signs of violence? – I mean, does it look as if he'd been – "

"Thrown in there?" said the detective calmly. "Ah! – it's a bit early to decide that. The only thing I'm thinking of now is the fact that this is Hollis! That's certain, Mr. Neale. Now what could he be doing on this lonely bit of ground? Where does this track lead?"

"It's a short cut from Scarnham Bridge corner to the middle of Ellersdeane village," answered Neale, pointing one way and then the other.

"And Gabriel Chestermarke lives in Ellersdeane, doesn't he?" asked Starmidge. "Or close by?"

Neale indicated certain chimneys rising amongst the trees on the far side of the Hollow. "He lives there – The Warren," he replied.

"Um!" mused Starmidge. "I wonder if this poor fellow was making his way there – to see him?"

"How should he – a stranger – know of this short cut?" demurred Neale. "I don't think that's very likely."

"That's true – unless he'd had it pointed out to him," rejoined Starmidge. "It's odd, anyway, that his body should be found half-way, as it were, between Gabriel Chestermarke's place and Joseph Chestermarke's house – isn't it now? But, Lord bless you! – we're only on the fringe of this business as yet. Well – just take a look at him."

Neale walked within the group of bystanders, feeling an intense dislike and loathing of the whole thing. In obedience to Starmidge's wish, he looked steadily at the dead man and turned away.

"You don't know him? – never saw him during the five years you were at the bank?" whispered the detective. "Think! – make certain, now."

"Never saw him in my life!" declared Neale, stepping back. "I neither know him nor anything about him."

"I wanted you to make sure," said Starmidge. "I thought you might – possibly – recollect him as somebody who'd called at the bank during your time."

"No!" said Neale. "Certainly not! I've never set eyes on him until now. Of course, he's Hollis, I suppose?"

"Oh, without doubt!" answered Polke, who caught Neale's question as he came up. "He's Hollis, right enough. Mr. Neale – here's a difficulty. It's a queer thing, but there isn't one of us here who knows if this spot is in Scarnham or in Ellersdeane. Do you? Is it within our borough boundary, or is it in Ellersdeane parish? The Ellersdeane policeman there doesn't know, and I'm sure I don't! It's a point of importance, because the inquest'll have to be held in the parish in which the body was found."

The Ellersdeane constable who had followed Polke suddenly raised a finger and pointed across the heather.

"Here's a gentleman coming as might know, Mr. Polke," he said. "Mr. Chestermarke!"

Neale and Starmidge turned sharply – to see the banker advancing quickly from the adjacent road. A cab, drawn up a little distance off, showed that he had driven out to hear the latest news.

Polke stepped forward to meet the new-comer: Gabriel greeted him in his usual impassive fashion.

"This body been recovered?" he asked quietly.

"A few minutes ago, Mr. Chestermarke," answered Polke. "Will you look at it?"

Gabriel moved aside the group of men without further word, and the others followed him. He looked steadily at the dead man's face and withdrew.

"Not known to me," he said, in answer to an inquiring glance from Polke. "Hollis, I suppose, of course."

He went off again as suddenly as he had come – and Starmidge drew Neale aside.

"Mr. Neale!" he whispered, with a nearer approach to excitement than Neale had yet seen in him. "Did you see Gabriel Chestermarke's eyes? He's a liar! As sure as my name's Starmidge, he's a liar! Mr. Neale! – he knows that dead man!"

CHAPTER XVIII
THE INCOMPLETE CHEQUE

Neale, startled and amazed by this sudden outburst on the part of a man whom up to that time he had taken to be unusually cool-headed and phlegmatic, did not immediately answer. He was watching the Ellersdeane constable, who was running after Gabriel Chestermarke's rapidly retreating figure. He saw Gabriel stop, listen to an evident question, and then lift his hand and point to various features of the Hollow. The policeman touched his helmet, and came back to Polke.

"Mr. Chestermarke, sir, says the moorland is in three parishes," he reported pantingly. "From Scarnham Bridge corner to Ellersdeane Tower yonder is in Scarnham parish: this side the Hollow is in Ellersdeane; everything beyond the Tower is in Middlethorpe."

"Then we're in Scarnham," said Polke. "He'll have to be taken down to the town mortuary. We'd better see to it at once. What are you going to do, Starmidge?" he asked, as the detective turned away with Neale.

"I'll take this short cut back," said Starmidge. "I want to get to the post-office. Yes, sir!" he went on, as he and Neale slowly walked towards Betty. "I say – he knew him! knew him, Mr. Neale, knew him! – as soon as ever he clapped his eyes on him!"

"You're very certain about it," said Neale.

"Dead certain!" exclaimed the detective. "I was watching him – purposely. I've taught myself to watch men. The slightest quiver of a lip – the least bit of light in an eye – the merest twitch of a little finger – ah! don't I know 'em all, and know what they mean! And, when Gabriel Chestermarke stepped up to look at that body, I was watching that face of his as I've never watched mortal man before!"

"And you saw – what?" asked Neale.

"I saw – Recognition!" said Starmidge. "Recognition, sir! I'll stake my reputation as a detective officer that Mr. Gabriel Chestermarke has seen that dead man before. He mayn't know him personally. He may never have spoken to him. But – he knew him! He'd seen him!"

"Will your conviction of that help at all?" inquired Neale.

"It'll help me," replied the detective quickly. "I'm gradually getting some ideas. But I shan't tell Polke – nor anybody else – of it. You can tell Miss Fosdyke if you like – she'll understand: women have more intuition than men. Now I'm off – I want to get a wire away to London. Look here – drop in at the police-station when you get back. We shall examine Hollis's clothing, you know – there may be some clue to Horbury."

He hurried off towards the town, and Neale rejoined Betty. And as they slowly followed the detective, he told her what Starmidge had just said with such evident belief – and Betty understood, as Starmidge had prophesied, and she grew more thoughtful than ever.

"When are we going to find a way out of all this miserable business!" she suddenly exclaimed. "Are we any nearer a solution because of what's just happened? Does that help us to finding out what's become of my uncle?"

"I suppose one thing's sure to lead to another," said Neale. "That seems to be the detective's notion, anyhow. If Starmidge is so certain that Gabriel Chestermarke knew Hollis, he'll work that for all it's worth. It's my opinion – whatever that's worth! – that Hollis came down here to see the Chestermarkes. Did he see them? There's the problem. If one could only find out – that!"

"I wish you and I could do something – apart from the police," suggested Betty. "Isn't there anything we could do?"

Neale pointed ahead to the high roof of Joseph Chestermarke's house across the river.

"There's one thing I'd like to do – if I could," he answered. "I'd just like to know all the secrets of that place! That there are some I'm as certain as that we're crossing this moor. You see that queer-shaped structure – sort of conical chimney – sticking up amongst the trees in Joseph Chestermarke's garden? That's a workshop, or a laboratory, or something, in which Joseph spends his leisure moments. I'd like to know what he does there. But nobody knows! Nobody is ever allowed in that house, nor in the garden. I don't know a single soul in all Scarnham that's ever been inside either. I'm perfectly certain Mr. Horbury was never asked there. Once Joseph's across his thresholds, back or front, there's an end of him – till he comes out again!"

"But – he doesn't live entirely alone, does he?" asked Betty.

"As near as can be," replied Neale. "His entire staff consists of an old man and an old woman – man and wife – who've been with him – oh, ever since he was born, I believe! You may have seen the old man about the town – old Palfreman. Everybody knows him – queer, old-fashioned chap: he goes out to buy in whatever's wanted: the old woman never shows. That's the trio that live in there – a queer lot, aren't they?"

"It's all queer!" sighed Betty. "But now that this unfortunate man's body has been found – Wallie! do you think it possible he was thrown down that mine? That would mean murder!"

"If he was thrown down there, already dead," answered Neale grimly, "it would not only mean murder but that more than one person was concerned in it. We shall know more when they've examined the body and searched the clothing. I'm going round to the police-station when I've seen you back to the hotel – I'm hoping they'll find something that'll settle the one point that's so worrying."

"Which point?" asked Betty.

"The real critical point – in my opinion," answered Neale. "Who it was that Hollis came to see on Saturday? There may be letters, papers, on him that'll settle that. And if we once know that – ah! that will make a difference! Because then – then – "

"What then?" demanded Betty.

"Then the police can ask that person if Hollis did meet him!" exclaimed Neale. "And they can ask, too, what that person did with Hollis. Solve that, and we'll see daylight!"

But Betty shook her head with clear indications of doubt as to the validity of this theory.

"No!" she said. "It won't come off, Wallie. If there's been foul play, the guilty people will have had too much cleverness to leave any evidences on their victim. I don't believe they'll find anything on Hollis that'll clear things up. Daylight isn't coming from that quarter!"

"Where are we to look for it, then?" asked Neale dismally.

"It's somewhere far back," declared Betty. "I've felt that all along. The secret of all this affair isn't in anything that's been done here and lately – it's in something deep down. And how to get at it, and to find out about my uncle, I don't know."

Neale felt it worse than idle to offer more theories – speculation was becoming useless. He left Betty at the Scarnham Arms, and went round to the police-station to meet Starmidge: together they went over to the mortuary. And before noon they knew all that medical examination and careful searching could tell them about the dead man.

Hollis, said the police-surgeon and another medical man who had been called in to assist him, bore no marks of violence other than those which were inevitable in the case of a man who had fallen seventy feet. His neck was broken; he must have died instantaneously. There was nothing to show that there had been any struggle previous to his fall. Had such a struggle taken place, the doctors would have expected to find certain signs and traces of it on the body: there were none. Everything seemed to point to the theory that he had leaned over the insecure fencing of the old shaft to look into its depths; probably to drop stones into them; that the loose, unmortared parapet had given way with his weight, and that he had plunged headlong to the bottom. He might have been pushed in – from behind – of course, but that was conjecture. Under ordinary circumstances, agreed both doctors, everything would have seemed to point to accident. And one of them suggested that it was very probable that what really had happened was this – Hollis, on his way to call on some person in the neighbourhood, or on his return from such a call, had crossed the moor, been attracted by inquisitiveness to the old mine, had leaned over its parapet, and fallen in. Accident! – it all looked like sheer accident.

In one of the rooms at the police-station, Neale anxiously watched Polke and Starmidge examine the dead man's clothing and personal effects. The detective rapidly laid aside certain articles of the sort which he evidently expected to find – a purse, a cigar-case; the usual small things found in a well-to-do man's pockets; a watch and chain; a ring or two. He gave no particular attention to any of these beyond ascertaining that there was a good deal of loose money in the purse – some twelve or fifteen pounds in gold – and pointing out that the watch had stopped at ten minutes to eight.

"That shows the time of the accident," he remarked.

"Are you sure?" suggested Polke doubtfully. "It may merely mean that the watch ran itself out then."

Starmidge picked up the watch – a stem winder – and examined it.

"No," he said, "it's broken – by the fall. See there! – the spring's snapped. Ten minutes to eight, Saturday night, Mr. Polke – that's when this affair happened. Now then, this is what I want!"

From an inner pocket of the dead man's smart morning-coat, he drew a morocco-leather letter-case, and carefully extracted the papers from it. With Neale looking on at one side, and Polke at the other, Starmidge examined every separate paper. Nothing that he found bore any reference to Scarnham. There were one or two bills – from booksellers – made out to Frederick Hollis, Esquire. There was a folded playbill which showed that Mr. Hollis had recently been to a theatre, and – because of some pencilled notes on its margins – had taken an unusual interest in what he saw there. There were two or three letters from correspondents who evidently shared with Mr. Hollis a taste for collecting old books and engravings. There were some cuttings from newspapers: they, too, related to collecting. And Neale suddenly got an idea.

"I say!" he exclaimed. "Mr. Horbury was a bit of a collector of that sort of thing, as you probably saw from his house. This man may have run down to see him about some affair of that sort."

But at that moment Starmidge unfolded a slip of paper which he had drawn from an inner pocket of the letter-case. He gave one glance at it, and laid it flat on the table before his companions.

"No!" he said. "That's probably what brought Hollis down to Scarnham! A cheque for ten thousand pounds! And – incomplete!"

The three men bent wonderingly over the bit of pink paper. Neale's quick eyes took in its contents at a glance.

"That's extraordinary!" exclaimed Neale. "Date and amount filled in – and the names of payee and drawer omitted! What does it mean?"

"Ah!" said Starmidge, "when we know that, Mr. Neale, we shall know a lot! But I'm pretty sure of one thing. Mr. Hollis came down here intending to pay somebody ten thousand pounds. And – he wasn't exactly certain who that somebody was!"

"Good!" muttered Polke. "Good! That looks like it."

"So," said Starmidge, "he didn't fill in either the name of the payee or his own name until he was – sure! See, Mr. Neale!"

"Why did he fill in the amount?" remarked Neale, sceptically.

Starmidge winked at Polke.

"Very likely to dangle before somebody's eyes," he answered slyly. "Can't you reconstruct the scene, Mr. Neale? 'Here you are!' says Hollis, showing this cheque. 'Ten thousand of the very best, lying to be picked up at my bankers. Say the word, and I'll fill in your name and mine!' Lay you a pound to a penny that's been it, gentlemen!"

"Good!" repeated Polke. "Good, sergeant! I believe you're right. Now, what'll you do about it?"

The detective carefully folded up the cheque and replaced it in the slit from which he had taken it. He also replaced all the other papers, put the letter-case in a stout envelope and handed it to the superintendent.

"Seal it up and put it away in your safe till the inquest tomorrow," he said. "What shall I do? Oh, well – you needn't mention it, either of you, except to Miss Fosdyke, of course – but as soon as the inquest is adjourned – as it'll have to be – I shall slip back to town and see those bankers. I don't know, but I don't think it's likely that Mr. Hollis would have ten thousand pounds always lying at his bank. I should say this ten thousand has been lodged there for a special purpose. And what I shall want to find out from them, in that case, is – what special purpose? And – what had it to do with Scarnham, or anybody at Scarnham? See? And I'll tell you what, Mr. Polke – I don't know whether we'll produce that cheque at the inquest on Hollis – at first, anyhow. The coroner's bound to adjourn – all he'll want tomorrow will be formal identification of the body – all other evidence can be left till later. I've wired for Simmons – he'll be able to identify. No – we'll keep this cheque business back till I've been to London. I shall find out something from Vanderkistes – they're highly respectable private bankers, and they'll tell me – "

At that moment a policeman entered the room and presented Polke with a card.

"Gentleman's just come in, sir," he said. "Wants to see you particular."

Polke glanced at the card, and read the name aloud, with a start of surprise: "Mr. Leonard Hollis!"