CHAPTER I
BY WORD OF MOUTH
Fleet Street, at four o'clock that springtide afternoon, was at its busiest. The most eminent of the recently deposed European Sovereigns, emulating the example of Napoleon Bonaparte, had broken loose from his place of exile, made a dramatic reappearance in his former capital that morning, and was rallying round him his old adherents to the confusion of a new Government and the anger of both hemispheres.
The London evening papers were hurrying out edition after edition with the latest tidings from the scene of action. Newspaper carts were starting out to all points of the compass; newspaper boys were risking their limbs among the wheeled traffic; at every corner of street and alley men were turning over the damp sheets in haste to catch some idea of the latest freak of the man who was still a danger and a menace.
From the end of Fetter Lane to the middle of Ludgate Circus there was an unusual accentuation of noise and bustle, and to a girl who came into the street in a taxicab from the direction of London Bridge it seemed as if she were suddenly plunged into a crystallised quintessence of all the racket of the world.
The taxicab driver pulled up in front of a palatial building, got down, and, opening the door of his vehicle, looked at his fare as a man looks who is about to impart information which, he is quite certain, is being imparted to its recipient for the first time.
"Morning Sentinel office, miss," he said.
The girl dropped a two-shilling piece into the outstretched hand, and hurried into the doorway. A grey-moustached commissionaire, presiding over a group of boys, sized up her timidity and inexperience, and advanced as she entered.
"Yes, miss?" he asked. "Want to see somebody?"
The girl held out a sheet of letter-paper and pointed to the signature.
"Can I see Mr. Richard Brixey?" she asked.
"Mr, Brixey, miss? Certainly—I believe he's in just now," answered the commissionaire. He picked up a sheaf of callers' forms and handed the girl a pencil. "If you'll just fill that up, miss, and then take a seat in the waiting-room."
The girl took the form and quickly understood its meaning. Without delay she handed it back, filled up, and the commissionaire glanced it over:
"Stubbins!" said the commissionaire.
A boy detached himself from half-a-dozen who lounged on a bench, took the slip of paper, vanished into an elevator, was whirled upwards, and disappeared; the girl, motioned thereto by the commissionaire, walked into a waiting-room and sat down. But she had only had time to realise that there was a map of London on one wall and a large photogravure portrait of the proprietor of the Morning Sentinel on another, when Stubbins shot into view again, and beckoned to her as only an absolutely unconcerned youth can beckon.
Next moment she found herself being swiftly borne into high regions; a moment later she was traversing a long corridor; then Stubbins flung open a door and motioned her to go in as a warder might motion a prisoner to enter a cell. The corridor was gloomy, the room bright; she was conscious at first of nothing but the fact that a man was there, alone, and that he came hurriedly forward.
But the next instant, as the door closed behind her, she saw that this was a young man, who looked, indeed, much more youthful than he probably was. He was a shortish, athletic-looking young man, with broad shoulders and an air of activity—a pink-faced, blue-eyed, red-haired person, clean-shaven; by no means handsome, for he owned a snub nose and many freckles, but suggestive of much mental ability and general alertness.
He wore a new suit of rather loud-patterned tweeds, and a club tie of pronounced colours; a green Homburg hat was tilted back off his red hair, and in his anxiety he forgot to remove it—he was so anxious, indeed, that without any ceremony he instantly pointed to the name which Miss Georgina Byfield had written down at the foot of the form.
"What's this?" he demanded, as he hurried forward. "That's my uncle's name? What do you know about him? I see you're from Seichester. Is—is he ill?"
He was taking in all that he could about his caller as he spoke. She was about his own height—a girl, he decided, of twenty or twenty-one, brown-haired, brown-eyed, pleasing rather than strictly pretty, quietly but well-dressed; a superior sort of girl, he thought. And he suddenly pulled forward a chair, and at the same moment snatched off his hat.
It's difficult to explain," answered Miss Byfield. "I don't know anything—except what I've been sent to tell you."
"And that," he broke in eagerly, "That's—what?"
"Mr. Brackett, of the Mitre Hotel, at Seichester, sent me," replied Miss Byfield, "I am bookkeeper there, Mr. John Linthwaite came to the hotel three days ago—that was on Monday. But since Tuesday, morning nothing has been seen of him, either at the hotel or in the town. He's disappeared."
Brixey, who was standing with his hands plunged deep in his pockets, staring at his visitor, screwed up his lips as if to whistle. But before the sound came he twisted round, dropped into the chair behind his desk, and became business-like.
"Just tell me all about it," he said. "Disappeared! Why, I was to meet him at Winchester to-morrow morning! The fact is"—he pointed to a suit-case which stood on a chair close by—"I was going down there to-night; I was just off when you sent up your name. But—tell me."
Miss Georgina Byfield was slowly considering the structure of her story. She had rehearsed it more than once on her way to London and the Morning Sentinel office, but now that she was in the presence of the, person she had been sent to find, it seemed to her that it was no easy matter to tell even the plainest of tales. And Brixey saw her diffidence, and hastened to help.
"Just begin at the beginning," he said, with an understanding smile "The beginning—that's always best. Then we know where we are."
Miss Byfield, who had been thoughtfully regarding him, nodded.
"Well," she said, "it began on Monday evening, then. A gentleman—a stranger—came in and booked a room at the Mitre, just before dinner-time, and said he’d want it until Friday morning. He signed the register as Mr. John Linthwaite, London—no other address. I believe he told Mr. Brackett, the landlord, that evening, that he had come to Selchester to look round the old places—the cathedral, and the Priory, and the city walls, and so on. Next morning, soon after breakfast, he went out, and we've never seen him since."
"That was Tuesday morning?" asked Brixey.
Miss Byfield nodded.
"And now," said Brixey, "it’s Thursday afternoon. So he's been missing from your place two days. And two nights."
"Yes," she assented. "Two days and two nights."
"Wasn't Mr. Brackett alarmed when Mr. Linthwaite didn't return on Tuesday night?" asked Brixey.
"Mr. Brackett thought that he had possibly met some friend who lived in the neighbourhood and had gone home with him for the night," answered Miss Byfield. "But when no message came, and he didn't return again last night, nor send any word—well, then he began to get uneasy, because he thought that Mr. Linthwaite, in looking about him, might have met with some accident.
"For instance, behind the Priory—which he’d spoken of going to see—there’s a large sheet of water, in a very lonely place, and—well, Mr. Brackett thought, you know, that"
"That possibly he'd fallen into it," said Brixey. "Just so. And how,did you hear of me?"
Miss Byfield held out the letter which she had produced to the taxicab,
"This morning, first thing," she replied, "Mr. Brackett looked round No. 7—Mr. Linthwaite’s room—to see if he could get any clue to his address. He couldn’t find anything but this—it was lying on the dressing-table. He and I read it. And we gathered, of course, that Mr Linthwaite was your uncle and that you were to meet him at Winchester to-morrow."
"Just so!" said Brixey. "I was! I’m just beginning my holiday; he and I were to meet at Winchester and go on through the south and south-west of England together. But—I interrupted you."
"So Mr. Brackett told me to catch the noon express to London Bridge and come straight here to tell you," concluded Miss Byfield. "He thought it would be better than wiring,"
"Very good of him, and kind of you," said Brixey. "But—this is a queer affair! Mr. Linthwaite, as I’ve said, is my uncle, and I know him and his habits exceedingly well, for he and I, both being bachelors, have lived together in chambers in the temple for some years. He's a most punctilious, methodical man, and after booking a room at your hotel he certainty wouldn't absent himself without letting you know. So—something's happened. You heard nothing of him in Selchester?"
"Nothing?" replied Miss Byfield.
"And has Mr. Brackett made no inquiries?" asked Brixey.
"You see, we thought he would be coming back every minute," explained Miss Byfield. "Mr. Brackett didn't know what to do, and he didn't like to go to the police about it. But he had some hopes that you, perhaps, had heard from Mr. Linthwaite."
"Heard nothing," said Brixey. He picked up a railway guide, and hastily turned to one of its pages. "Did you come straight to this office from London Bridge, Miss Byfield?" he asked. "You did? Then, you've had no tea? Very well—we've just got an hour to get some and to catch the 5.45 to Selchester. Sorry to hustle you, but I reckon I must get straight down there and take a look round for my uncle; he's got to be found. So"
He seized his suit-case as he spoke, flung the green Homburg on the back of his red hair, threw an overcoat over his left shoulder, and hurried Miss Byfield away to the lift. Two minutes more and she was again in a taxicab and in the roar of Fleet-Street, and Brixey, sitting at her side, was looking as if all the noise was a million miles away.
CHAPTER II
THE ONLY CLUE
Four hours later, as the dusk of the May evening settled into night, Brixey found himself in an old-fashioned omnibus which two ancient horses drew clumsily over the cobble-paved street of a quiet town. Loo king out through the narrow windows, he was aware of old, high-gabled houses, of a tall spire rising high above trees, and of a general air of antiquity.
The omnibus turned a corner into a wider street, rumbled under an archway and came to a stand; and, Brixey, assisting his companion to alight, found himself in a queer old courtyard, flanked on either side by picturesque bow windows, through the red curtains of which shone a warm and cheery glow. A waiter and a chambermaid appeared at a door and seized on Brixey’s belongings; behind them came a tall, sturdy rosy-cheeked, who hurried out with evident anxiety.
"This is Mr. Brackett," said Miss Byfield.
Brixey held out a hand to the landlord, who took it with old-fashioned politeness.
"Your servant, sir," he said hurriedly. "Glad you've come down, sir. But have you any news of this poor gentleman?"
Brixey shook his head.
"Have you?" he asked. That's the most important point."
"Come this way, sir," said the landlord. He led Brixey into the house, across a shadowy old hall, and into a cosy parlour where a bright fire of logs burned on the hearth. "This is the' sitting-room I gave Mr. Linthwaite," he said, as they entered. "There's some of the papers and books he was reading the night he came in. No, sir, I've no news. After I sent up to you this morning, I just gave a quiet hint to the police, and they've been making inquiries round the town, but up to an hour ago they'd heard nothing. Nobody seems to have even seen the poor gentleman since he walked out of here on Tuesday morning."
Brixey took off his hat and gloves and laid them aside.
"Very well," he said. "Then I've just got to find him, Mr. Brackett. So let me have some supper in here, and book me a room, and in the meantime show me the room he had and what he left there."
He presently followed the landlord up an old-fashioned, heavily-balustered staircase, and along a succession of winding corridors. From habit and training Brixey kept his eyes active, and as he went along he made note of old pictures, cabinets of glass and china and silver, ancient furniture, and the various oddments that accumulate in old houses; he noted, too, the unevenness of the doors which he trod, and the queer angles and nooks wherein doors were set.
"An old place this," he observed, as the landlord stopped at a door. "Very old indeed, I should think."
"Goes back to old Harry the Eighth, sir, some of it," answered Brackett. "It's been in my family's hands since Queen Anne's times. One Stephen Brackett after another has. held it ever since then—I'm the seventh in a straight line. It used to be a famous coaching house in the old days, but now—well, we get a few motorists for an hour or two. The old times, sir, are gone. This is the room Mr. Linthwaite had."
He ushered Brixey into a roomy, comfortable apartment, and lighted a couple of candles which stood in tall plated sticks on the dressing-table.
"All's just as he left it on Tuesday," he continued. "I made bold to look through his things first thing this morning, to see if I could find any address, otherwise nothing's been touched."
There was little to see or to examine. An old-fashioned portmanteau lay open on a stand? some garments were hanging on pegs various toilet articles lay about s a book or two lay on a table near the bed.
"If I hadn't found your letter lying open there on the dressing-table, have known what to do, You see Mr. Linthwaite didn't enter any address of his own when he came—just London, and no more. I suppose you've no theory of your own, sir?"
"None!" answered Brixey. "And so I must get to work. I'll have that bit of supper, Mr. Brackett, and then, late as it is, I must see your police. My own idea is that my uncle's met with some accident. Your young lady mentioned some sheet of water that you thought he might have fallen into."
"I suggested that to Inspector Crabbe this afternoon," said Brackett. "He promised to have that water looked at, and I expect him in before the evening's over. I'll give you the next room to this, sir, if you'll come this way, and you shall have some hot supper in ten minutes."
Left to himself, Brixey, as he washed his hands and brushed his red hair, faced the problem before him. His uncle, John Linthwaite, was a particularly hale and hearty man of sixty-three. He was well-to-do. He had not a care in the world. He had no business. He spent much of his time in travelling. He was an antiquary of some repute. It was his love of antiquarianism that had brought him to Selchester, where he had proposed to spend a few days before joining his nephew at Winchester, preparatory to a joint tour in the south-west of England.
Why, then, this extraordinary disappearance? Accident, surer there, had been some accident—Brixey could think of no other explanation. He knew his uncle’s love of exploring old places—there were many old places in Selchester. He might have got into some ruin or other, had a bad fall, be lying there even then, unable to get help—he might be dead.
But, dead or alive—he had to be found. And it was no use speculating, and no use inventing theories. The thing required was that for which Brixey was famous among his journalistic associates—action.
He looked at his watch as he sat down to his supper in the little parlour into which Brackett had first brought him—9.15. Fleet Street and its noise seemed a long way off, and the strange quietude of the old cathedral town inclined Brixey to the opinion that its inhabitants were probably in the habit of going to bed before ten. But between then and midnight Brixey meant to do things, and to extend their doing beyond midnight if necessary.
Once in action he was not inclined to ease off—that, he said to himself, was not the Brixey way. He had been doing sub-editorial work the Morning Sentinel for two years, but before that he had worked as a reporter, and there were certain notable, things to his fame and credit in Fleet Street. It was Brixey who tracked the Surbiton murderer to discovery when the police utterly failed; Brixey who got the exclusive news of the Hammerstein-Martin affair, the biggest scoop that Fleet Street had known for many a long day.
And now here was a personal matter, with the added incentive that Richard Brixey, nephew, was something more than fond of John Linthwaite, uncle. They were not only relations, but affectionate friends.
Brixey ate as he did everything else—swiftly. He had got through a plate of hot soup and a steak of cod, and was rapidly devouring a grilled chop when the waiter asked if he would see Mr. Brackett and Inspector Crabbe.
"This minute!" responded Brixey. "Bring 'em in here, just now."
The last mouthful of mutton disappeared as the landlord led in the policeman, and Brixey, with a sharp nod to the official, plunged straight into business.
"Any news, Inspector?" he asked. "I suppose Mr. Brackett's told you who I am?—Mr. Linthwaite’s nephew, and out to find him. I propose to start on to that game right here and now, so if you've heard, anything—eh?"
Inspector Crabbe, a tall, soldierly-looking man of grave manners, took Brixey in at a comprehensive glance, and recognised him as a person of unbounded energy.
"We've heard nothing whatever, sir, until just now," he answered. "One of my men has just been in to tell me that Mrs. Crosse, the landlady of the 'Lame Hussar,' believes that Mr. Linthwaite called at her house about eleven o'clock on Tuesday morning—that would be (if it was Mr. Linthwaite) about half an hour after he left this hotel. Anyway, a strange gentleman—elderly—dropped in there for a few minutes, and"
"Where is this place?" demanded Brixey, snatching up his hat. "Up North Street? Come on then, Inspector; that's the first clue I've heard, and we'll be on to it.
"This," he continued as they went out into the courtyard, "is a very serious affair. There's no reason in the world why my uncle should disappear. He was in the very best of health; he's a well-to-do man; he came here to enjoy himself by looking round your old spots, and I'm afraid he's had an accident."
"That's what I'm afraid of, sir," assented Crabbe. "But there are odd features about this matter. You can see for yourself," he went on, as he led Brixey round the corner, "this is a very small town. There are only these four main streets, all going off from the centre here—from that old Market Cross—in it.
"Your uncle was a stranger—and, I'm told, a fine-looking gentleman. How is it nobody saw him on Tuesday morning? At least, how is it we can't hear of anybody who saw him—in a bit of a place like this, where a stranger can scarcely fail to be noticed!"
"Aye!" said Brixey. "But you don't know yet that he wasn't seen by somebody. Now, if it should be that that somebody won't tell—what then?"
"In that case, sir, if you ask me, I should say there's been foul play," answered Crabbe. "Now, had your uncle much money on him?"
"He usually carried about a hundred pounds in his pockets," replied Brixey indifferently. "That's no great incentive to—shall we say murder?"
Crabbe made no answer; but he shook his head. They had walked swiftly up the street, and had come to what Brixey saw to be the old walls of the town. Just before reaching them the inspector pointed to a red-curtained window in a high-gabled, ancient house, in front of which stood a tall pole whence hung an old-fashioned swinging sign.
"This is the spot, sir," he said. "The 'Lame Hussar'—one of our oldest inns."
CHAPTER III
THE WHITE FACE
Brixey, before following his guide into the old tavern, took a quick He had already seen that Selchester was a very small town, divided into four segments by two main streets, one of which ran due south and north, the other due east and west; he was aware from an old map which hung in his bedroom at the "Mitre" that it was enclosed by an ancient wall, running round it in an almost perfect circle.
To one of the gates of this wall, the North Bar, he and Crabbe had now come; the "Lame Hussar" stood just within it; to the right a narrow lane led away in the direction of what appeared to he a belt of woodland, wherein Brixey made out the lines of a high gateway. To this he drew. his companion's attention.
"What's that place?" he asked.
"Entrance to the old Priory grounds, sir," replied Crabbe. "There are ruins, and things in there—sort of show-place, you understand. As far as I could gather, it must have been there that your uncle was making for—and if what I hear is correct he seems to have turned in here. But we'll soon know that."
He led the way into the tavern, and down a sanded passage towards a parlour in the rear. From its open doorway a tall, elderly woman looked out, and at sight of Crabbe beckoned him to come forward. Crabbe ushered Brixey within, and closed the door behind them.
"Evening, Mrs. Crosse," he said. "I got your message, so I thought I'd walk up myself. This gentleman's the nephew of the gentleman that's missing. He's come down from London to find him. Now, what can you tell?"
The landlady, who had silently motioned her callers to seat themselves, shook her head.
"Why, not much, Mr. Crabbe," she answered. "But, of course, it might lead to something. I've no doubt that the gentleman who came in here is the one that your man told me was missing. A stranger to me, anyway, and I know most Selchester folks."
"Describe him," suggested Brixey.
"A tall, well-made gentleman, sixty or thereabouts, I should say; clean-shaved—a sort of professional look on him," answered Mrs. Crosse promptly. "Dressed in a smart grey tweed, and carrying a gold-mounted umbrella. I put him down as one of these tourists that we see so many of in summer. He came into my front room there—the one with the bow-window—about eleven on Tuesday morning, and asked for a glass of my best bitter ale.
"I invited him in here, but he said he'd rather be where he could look down the street. I took the ale in to him, and he stood in the bow-window while he drank it, and talked, casual-like. And then something happened that I've thought of since, though not until your man came in to-night to make inquiries, Mr. Crabbe."
"Well?" asked Crabbe. "And what was it, Mrs. Crosse?"
"Why, this," replied the landlady. "As he stood there in the window, looking out, Mrs. Byfield came round the corner"
"Mrs. Byfield!" exclaimed Crabbe.
"Mrs. Byfield of the Minories," assented Mrs. Crosse, "She came round the corner there out of North Street, and turned down towards them Priory gates. Now, it wasn't no fancy on my part Mr. Crabbe; I saw the gentleman start at the sight of her. He did start. There was no mistaking it. He'd his glass in his hand at the time, and he set it down and looked at me.
"'Who's that lady, walking there the other side of the lane?' he says. 'Mrs. Byfield, of the Minories, sir,' says I. 'And who's Mrs. Byfield?' says he. 'Mr. Byfield's dead, sir—some time I says. 'He was a retired gentleman.'
"'Ah!' he says, sort of careless-like, but still watching her. 'Fine woman!' 'Has been a very handsome one, sir I says. 'I remember her when she first came to the town, just after Mr. Byfield married her—which they were married in some foreign place, where they met.' 'Aye?' he says, 'And how long since is that, ma'am?’
"So I thought a bit, 'Well, sir,' I says, 'it’ll be getting on over two-and-twenty years since.' 'A long time, ma’am,' he says, with a laugh. 'We were all younger then.' And he then drank off his ale and bade me good day, and he went out. And, of course, Mr. Crabbe, I’ve never seen him since."
"Which way did he go when he left your house?" asked Brixey.
"Well, I can speak positive as to that, sir," replied the landlady, "for I watched him. He went straight into the Priory grounds—same as Mrs. Byfield had done, a minute or two sooner."
"On her heels, in fact?" suggested Brixey, with a glance at Crabbe.
"On her heels, as you might say, sir," assented Mrs. Crosse. "She’d gone in there, as I’ve often seen her doing of a morning, and he wouldn’t be a couple of minutes after her."
Brixey signed to the inspector and rose. But on his way to the door he looked significantly at the landlady.
"You’re the sort of woman that can keep things to yourself," he said. "Keep this to yourself—you understand?"
Mrs. Crosse nodded silently, and her two visitors went out into the right. Brixey pulled out his watch.
"Not yet ten," he said. "Well, Inspector, there’s one thing we can do at once. Where does this Mrs. Byfield live?"
"Within a few minutes’ walk, sir," replied Crabbe, "You’d like to go there?"
"Just to ask her if she saw my uncle in the Priory grounds that morning," replied Brixey. "No more at present."
"This way, then," said Crabbe. He crossed the lane, took his companion a little way down North Street, and turned into a narrow thoroughfare which presently debouched on a wide space flanked by big, old-fashioned houses.
Crabbe stopped before a big house, the wide front of which was covered with ivy. He glanced at the lower windows, saw lights in them, and rang the bell. A moment later he and Brixey found themselves in a dimly-lighted parlour just within a square hall, waiting. Presently the door opened, and a woman came in—a tall, still handsome woman, whose abundant dark hair was only slightly shot with grey, whose dark eyes were still alert and vivacious.
Brixey was quick to watch those eyes, and he saw a guarded expression come sharply into them, he saw, too, a whitening of the cheeks beneath them, and noticed a sudden, uncontrollable movement of a hand lifted upward.
"Sorry to disturb you at this hour, Mrs. Byfield," began Crabhe apologetically, "The fact is, a gentleman, who was staying at the 'Mitre,' has been missing since Tuesday morning. He was last seen entering the Priory grounds, and we hear that you were in there that morning, about the same time that he went in, so we thought perhaps you could tell us something. This gentleman is the missing gentleman’s nephew, and he’s very anxious about him."
Brixey spoke, steadily regarding Mrs. Byfield.
"My uncle, who is missing—unaccountably," he said, "is Mr. John Linthwaite, who until a year or two ago was a well-known London solicitor, practising in Lincoln's Inn Fields, There is no reason whatever why he should have made his disappearance, and I am beginning to suspect foul play. I'll tell you precisely what his movements were that morning.
"Now," he added, when he had told her the pertinent facts without repeating Mrs. Crosse's suggestion about the recognition, "may I ask if you saw anything of him in the Priory grounds about that time?"
He was sure of what the answer would be. His observant eyes had seen that Mrs. Byfield had regained full command over herself as Crabbe and he explained their presence and that the colour had come back to her cheeks, and he was quite prepared for the assured and steady voice.
"No!" she said, looking from him to Crabbe. "I was certainly in the Priory grounds at eleven o’clock, or thereabouts, on Tuesday morning, but it was only for a few minutes. I don't remember seeing the gentleman you mention at all. Perhaps he wasn’t in the part I was in. I only went there to give a message to the caretaker. The grounds are very extensive," she concluded, glancing meaningly at Crabbe. "Perhaps this gentleman doesn’t know them."
"I shall know them better to-morrow," remarked Brixey. He said no more, and presently he and Crabbe were back in North Street, and walking towards the centre of the town.
"Now, Inspector," he said, as they drew near a building which Brixey had previously noted as being the police station, "I don’t think we can do more to-night. But listen, there’s going to be no expense spared about finding my uncle. To-morrow morning, first thing, I'm going to have a poster out, offering a reward for news of him. And you and your people must do all you can.
"You must have that sheet of water that I’ve heard of thoroughly searched, and all the old places of the town examined, too. And if, during the night, or early in the morning, you hear anything, let me know at once. As I said just now, expense matters nothing. My uncle’s got to be found, dead or alive!"
He turned away with a curt farewell, and went back to the "Mitre," an unlighted cigar between his teeth, his hands plunged deep in his trousers pockets, his whole attitude that of intense, thought. Inside the shadowy hall he met Miss Byfield, who, candle in hand, was just about to mount the stairs. She paused, looking at him, and Brixey, going close to her, blurted out what was in his mind.
"Who’s that Mrs. Byfield of the Minories?" he asked. "Same name as yours. Any relation?"
"My aunt by marriage," she answered, watching him closely.
"Are you friends?" demanded Brixey, his eves still on her.
"No!" she replied.
"Some mystery about it?" he suggested.
Miss Byfield looked up and down the stairs and the hall.
"Something of the sort," she admitted. "I'll tell you afterwards, but"
The door of the bar parlour opened, and old Brackett, pipe in hand, looked out.
"Any news, sir?" he asked. "Thought I heard your voice."
Brixey nodded to, Miss Byfield, and turned in to the landlord. Over a whisky-and-soda and a cigar he talked non-committally for half an hour. But when he was alone in his bedroom, later, he indulged in his habit of muttering.
"As sure as I'm what I am," he, growled, "that Mrs. Byfield was lying! She knows something. It's in her that the mystery of the old boy’s disappearance lies. Brixey, my lad, here’s a stick! Which end of it are you going to lay hands on first?"
He was asking himself that question again when he woke in the grey dawn; he had asked it a dozen times when heavy footsteps came along the corridor outside and a gentle knock sounded on the panels of his door. To his demand as to the identity of his disturber came a reply that hurried him out of bed.
"Inspector Crabbe has some news for you, sir—will you go round to the police station at once?"
CHAPTER IV
THE HAT AND UMBRELLA
Brixey hurried himself into indispensable, garments and threw, open his door. A man stood outside—a shrewd-faced, sharp-eyed fellow who regarded him with interest as he held out Brixey’s shoes, already polished.
"You the boots?" asked Brixey.
"That and other things, sir," answered the man with a smile. "Odd-job man."
"Who brought this message?" demanded Brixey.
"A policeman, sir—said you were to have it at once," replied the other. "Like a cup of tea or coffee before you go out, sir?"
"No, thank you," said Brixey, who was already pulling on his shoes. "I’ll go straight there." He glanced at his caller, who was lingering at the open door. "Want to say anything?" he asked.
"There was a matter I thought of last night, sir," answered the man, "after I’d heard you was down here. That gentleman, sir, Mr. Lintwhaite, he asked me a question before he went out that morning. Wanted to know his way to Mardene Mill."
"Where’s that?" asked Brixey.
"North-east of the town, sir, on the Downs," said the boots, "He'd have to pass through a very lonely bit of country to get at that, sir, the way I told him. There’s some queer folks camps out thereabouts—vanners, and gipsies, and such-like. Thought I’d mention it, sir."
"What's your name?" inquired, Brixey.
"Empidge, sir—Jim Empidge," replied the man.
"You’re a sharp-looking chap," said Brixey. "And you no doubt hear a good deal of town gossip. You keep your eyes and ears open, Empidge, and let me know what you hear and see. Eh?"
"I understand, sir’ said Empidge, with a scarcely perceptible flicker of an eyelid. "I’ll see to it, sir."
"Any bit of news, you know," suggested Brixey. "Now I'm off. Order my breakfast for eight o’clock sharp."
Six was striking from the town clocks as he walked out of the old courtyard into the fresh air of the May morning. There was scarcely a soul about in the streets, and the policeman who admitted him to Inspector Crabbe's presence looked half asleep; Crabbe himself was in little more of a wakeful condition.
"Sorry to disturb you, Mr. Brixey," he said, leading the way into an inner office, "but you said I was to let you know if anything turned up. A man that lives outside the town, Mardene way, knocked me up at a quarter past live and brought me these things. He was on his way to his work when he found them. Can you recognise them?"
He lifted a sheet of brown paper which had covered some objects lying on a side table, and revealed a grey felt Homburg hat and a gold-mounted umbrella.
"Of course," answered Brixey. "Those are my uncle's." He picked up the hat and pointed to the name of the maker. "Always gets his hats there" he said. "And there, too, are his initials on the umbrella."
"The stick of the umbrella's broken" observed Crabbe. "And it was an uncommon stout one, too! Well—there's something."
Brixey took the umbrella in his hands. The silk was wet as if from exposure; the strong hazel stick was snapped a few inches below the crook.
"Where were these things found?" he asked.
Crabbe walked across to a drawer and returned with a large map, which he spread out on the table before Brixey.
"Ordnance map—Selchester and district," he said. "Now, you see here, Mr. Brixey. There's the Lame Hussar Inn, where we called last night. There's the Priory grounds, and the woodlands in it. That's a path that runs right through the wood on the top side, out of the walls there by that postern gate, and past the sheet of water you've heard about. From that point, you see, it goes away across the country in the direction of Mardene."
"I've just heard from the boots at the 'Mitre,' that my uncle asked his way to Mardene Mill before he went out on Tuesday morning," remarked Brixey.
"Aye, just so!—that explains things, then" said Crabbe. "For this is the way he'd take. Now, you see where this path leads into a lane—Foxglove Lane—leading to the open Downs? That's where the hat and umbrella were picked up, as near as I could gather from the man who brought them, just there. A very lonely spot, too."
Brixey gave minute to studying the map.
"You say this man comes from Mardene every morning to work in Selchester?" asked. "Very well. This is Friday morning. He's come in three times since Tuesday. Presumably he's gone back the same way—three times. Therefore, he's passed the place where he found these things six times since Tuesday. How is it he never saw 'em before?"
"Can’t say," answered Crabbe. "He didn't strike me as a very noticing sort of chap. You can see him for yourself—I know where he works. He said they were lying behind some gorse bushes—he caught the gleam of the sun on the gold-mounting of the umbrella—that's what drew his attention. But that's not the thing just now, Mr. Brixey."
"No?" said Brixey, affecting interest. "What is, then?"
"You said your uncle would have at least a hundred pounds on him," suggested Grabbe, with a meaning looker.
"He never carried less when he was travelling about," replied Brixey. "But, as a matter of fact, I've a pretty good idea what he would have on him. I cashed a cheque for him last Saturday morning for a hundred and fifty, and gave him the money in notes, which, of course, can be traced.
"He left London for Dorking last Saturday afternoon. He spent the week-end at Dorking and came on here Monday afternoon. So he’d probably have at least a hundred and forty pounds on him—perhaps a bit more."
"Aye" said Grabbe, with a knowing look. "And other things, that could be seen, Mr. Brixey! His money couldn’t be seen, but he no doubt had valuables that could."
"As to that," answered Brixey, "he had. He wore a very valuable watch and chain—gold, of course—and he’d a diamond scarf-pin that was a bit noticeable, and a very fine diamond ring."
Crabbe picked up the hat and umbrella with a significant gesture, and, carrying them across to a cupboard, turned the key on them.
"Then the whole affair’s as plain as a pikestaff, sir!" he exclaimed, "The poor gentleman’s been murdered!"
Brixey pulled out a cigarette case and struck a match with fingers that moved as steadily as a machine.
"Think so?" he said, "Um! Did you ever study the natural history of fallacies, Inspector? No? Well, I have—just a bit. And in this case I should say that what you’ve just said doesn’t follow. Non sequitur, my dear sir! But I’m quite sure you’ve already got a theory."
"I know what I think," answered Crabbe, who had a suspicion that Brixey was pulling his leg. "And it’s what anybody would think who exercised common sense."
"Common sense," observed Brixey dryly, "is a valuable asset. Now, Empidge, the man at the 'Mitre,’ tells me that round about this Foxglove Lane it’s a usual thing for gipsies and caravan dwellers to camp. That so?"
"It is so—and I reckon some of ’em have done your uncle in," said Crabbe, "That’s about it!"
"Then, in that case, you’ll give your attention to ascertaining who was about there on Tuesday, and if they’re still there, and where they’ve moved to if they aren’t there now?" suggested Brixey.
"Of course—and at once," assented Grabbe. "I shall go out that way with some of my men as soon as I’ve had breakfast."
"Good," said Brixey. "You follow your line. In the meantime, can you tell me of a printer—a man who can do work quickly?"
"There's a good printing office just down the street," answered Crabbe. "Rollinson’s. Then you won’t go out there with us?"
Brixey shook his head and pointed to the ordnance map.
"That's enough for me," he said. "I know, where the things were found. But when you want me, come to the 'Mitre.’"
He went away without more words, and turned slowly down the street. Early as it was, the printer’s establishment was open, and while a small boy went to fetch its proprietor, Brixey leaned against the counter and thought.
"Conclusion one," he muttered, "is that Mrs. Byfield told me a lie last night. Conclusion two is that my uncle’s hat, and umbrella were carried to Foxglove Lane and thrown away there. And the next thing’s—this."
When the printer came down, half dressed, he found a red-haired stranger leaning over his counter preparing copy. That copy, when finished, proved to be a terse announcement to the effect that one hundred pounds would be paid to anyone who would give information which would lead to the discovery of Mr. John Linthwaite, missing since the previous Tuesday, such information to be brought direct to Richard Brixey at the Mitre Hotel.
"You’ll have that printed, and you’ll get it posted and distributed broadcast by noon to-day" commanded Brixey, as he pulled out a pocket-book. "Reckon up the whole job—printing, posting, and distributing—and I'll pay you right now. Speed is the thing."
"Town and district, I suppose, sir?" asked the printer, beginning to figure out his costs.
"Town and district" answered Brixey. "Take in a twelve-mile radius."
He went back to the "Mitre" and leisurely completed his toilet. To all appearance he was an unconcerned young man who might have been taken for an idle tourist when, at eight o’clock, he strolled down to his private parlour and rang the bell for his breakfast.
He looked just as idle when, three-quarters of an hour later, he lounged out into the courtyard and gave a cheery good-morning to old Brackett, who stood at the entrance looking out on the waking town. Brixey led him off towards a quiet corner.
"You’re the sort of man one can give confidences to, I think, Mr. Brackett," he said. "I’m going to give you mine." He went on to tell him of what had happened at the "Lame Hussar," and of Mrs. Byfield’s direct negative to the straight question which he had put to her.
"Now," he continued, "between you and me, I don’t believe Mrs. Byfield. I believe my uncle recognised her as somebody he knew. I believe he went after her, to speak to her. I believe he did speak to her. And so—between you and me, again—who is Mrs. Byfield?"
Brackett, who had been listening with vast interest to Brixey's story, half turned and jerked his thumb in the direction of the bow-windows of the house.
"That young lady, my book-keeper, is a Byfield," he said. "She’s the niece of Martin Byfield, Mrs. Byfield’s late husband."
"Well?" said Brixey. "What then?"
"Come into that private sitting-room of yours, sir," answered the landlord. "I’ll fetch her in. Between her and me, we can tell you something, but as to what it amounts to, in relation to this affair—well, I know nothing."
CHAPTER V
WHO WAS MRS. BYFIELD?
Since the previous evening, Brixey had been wondering how it came about that a member of the Byfield family should be occupying the comparatively humble position of book-keeper at the Mitre Hotel. He had seen enough of the Byfield house in the Minories to know that it signified money. Crabbe had spoken of Mrs. Byfield as of one well endowed with the world's goods.
He had also seen enough of Georgina Byfield as they journeyed together to Selchester to discover that she was a well-educated young woman, with ideas of her own, and not at all the sort of girl whom he would have expected to find making out bills and posting ledgers in a country town tavern, however long established. He was still wondering about this when Brackett came in with the object of his thoughts and carefully closed the door behind them.
"I've just told Miss Byfield what you told me outside there, Mr. Brixey," said the landlord. "She thinks what you seem to think—that your uncle may have known Mrs. Byfield at some time."
Brixey handed Georgina a chair and motioned Brackett to take another.
"Look here," he said. "Between the three of us, I've already got some suspicion about Mrs. Byfield, consequent, of course, on what Mrs. Crosse said last night, and of what I observed in Mrs. Byfield herself. Now, then, who is, or was, Mrs. Byfield? You see, my uncle had a big practice as a solicitor. He may have had dealings with her, and have recognised her. Anyway, I want to know all I can find out about her.
"Here's the position. According to Mrs. Crosse, a dependable witness, my uncle recognises Mrs. Byfield; he hurries out after her; he’s never seen again from that time, and Mrs. Byfield says she never saw him. Are there reasons why Mrs. Byfield should wish it not to be known that she did see him?"
He looked at Georgina, and Georgina shook her head.
"I don't know anything of Mrs. Byfield's antecedents," she answered. "As to her coming to the town, Mr. Brackett can tell more than I can. I only know what I've heard."
"It was this way, you see, sir," said Brackett. "I, of course, have my days, so I know all the history of the place.
"Now, about these Byfields. They're an old family in the town, what you might call the present generation, we'll go back to when I was a young man. There were then two Byfields—Martin Byfield and Peter Byfield, his younger brother, this young lady's father. They both had money—a certain amount, you understand.
"Now, Martin Byfield went into trade with his, and he made a rare lot more. Peter, I'm sorry to say, lived on his capital, and, to tell the plain truth, he got through everything before he died. It just about lasted out. Missie here won't mind me saying that her poor father was his own worst enemy."
"Say whatever you like, Mr. Brackett," said Georgina. "You know all the facts."
"Well, to get to, say, twenty-two or twenty-three years ago," continued Brackett, "Martin Byfield had made a big fortune, and had retired from business, and was living in that house in the Minories that you called at last night, sir. He was a bachelor. He began to travel a good deal. He was always going on the Continent. He used to take with him a sort of manservant or valet that he had—a man named Wetherby.
"Wetherby’s living here in the town now. And it'll be just twenty-two years this next winter that they went off to the Riviera for a few months. They came back in spring, and Martin Byfield brought a wife home with him."
"This present Mrs. Byfield?" asked Brixey, who was making careful mental notes. "The one I've seen?"
"The same, sir," answered Brackett. "Brought her home, a bride. A rare handsome woman she was, too; a woman, I should say of twenty-eight or thirty—maybe a year or two more."
"Nothing was said by Martin Byfield as to who she was, nor as to where they met, but it came out through Wetherby that his master had met her at Cannes, or Nice, or somewhere about there, and that she was a young widow from one of the Colonies—New Zealand or Australia; I forget which.
"Wetherby let it out, too, that they were married, after a short acquaintance, at the English church at Monaco. So that's how this Mrs. Byfield came to Selchester. Now, as I'm telling this story, we come to the relations between Martin Byfield, her husband, and Peter Byfield, his brother—this young lady's father."
Brixey turned and glanced at Georgina, who was listening quietly to the old landlord.
"I hope you don't mind these recollections—or revelations?" he said. I assure you I shouldn't ask for them if I didn't think them necessary."
"I don't mind anything that Mr. Brackett tells," she, answered. "Mr. Brackett knows everything."
"Missie and me understand each other, sir," remarked with a nod at his book-keeper. "We're old friends. Well, now, up to the time of his marriage, Martin had been good friends with his brother Peter, who, I may tell you, had married two or three years previously. But it was noticed that after Martin came home with his wife from foreign parts the old friendliness died out, and, to cut matters short, it came to this—the brothers were on little more than talking terms.
"Some said the two wives couldn't hit it off—some said that Mrs. Martin Byfield didn't like her husband's relations, and wouldn't encourage their coming to the house in the Minories. But what is certain is that she had a tremendous influence over her husband, and did what she liked with him, and that for some years before their deaths the two brothers, Martin and Peter, had been more or less of strangers.
"However, if they weren't united in life, they were, as you might say, united in death, for they both died within a month of each other, just three years ago. With this difference, Mr. Brixey—and missie won't mind my saying it—Martin died a very rich man; Peter died very poor."
"Did Martin leave any children?" asked Brixey.
"One lad, sir—young Fanshawe Byfield, this girl's cousin, who's now close on twenty-one," answered Brackett. "You’ll not be long in the town before you see him. He’s a handful for anybody to manage—between us three, I won’t have him here in the 'Mitre'—I’ve warned him off.
"Now, Martin, although he’d so much to leave—he was a very wealthy man—died intestate; leastways, nobody was ever able to bring any will of his to light, and so, of course, there were no legacies for anybody, and everything fell into the hands of the widow and the son.
"Nothing for his niece here, sir!—not a penny. And as her father had left next to nothing, and her mother was dead—well, missie here had to earn her living, and"
"And Mr. Brackett gave her the chance to do it," interrupted Georgina softly. "Now Mr. Brixey knows that secret, Mr. Brackett, so"
"I see, I see," exclaimed Brixey. "Good man!—I understand. But I say," he went on hastily. "You mayn't quite see why, but what you’ve told me makes me all the more convinced that Mrs. Crosses story is true, and that my uncle recognised Mrs. Byfield as somebody he knew or had known.
"Now, look here. My uncle had an extensive practice in Lincoln's Inn Fields, and to my knowledge he knew a lot of curious people, and was mixed up in some odd affairs. Moreover, he’d an extraordinary memory for faces—it’s not so long ago that he said to me in the course of conversation about such things that he could remember a client if he hadn’t seen him for twenty years. I’m certain that he recognised Mrs. Byfield."
"Now, if he did, and if—as seems probable—he went after her, the fact of that recognition makes his subsequent disappearance all the more remarkable. And I'd like to know something. Has this Mrs. Byfield any people of her own? Did or does she have relations, friends, to visit her? Do you happen to know that, Mr. Brackett?—or you, Miss Byfield?"
"In other words, sir," said Brackett, "you want to know this: Who is or who was Mrs. Byfield? All right. I can answer for the entire population of Selchester. Nobody knows—not even after twenty years."
Brixey sat thinking in silence for a few minutes. At last he rose and picked up his hat.
"One question occurs to me, just now, out of what you’ve told me. Were people surprised to find that Martin Byfield died intestate?"
Brackett glanced at Georgina.
"Seeing that this child's father and mother were dead and she left without means, some people were more than surprised, sir!" he replied with emphasis. "It was a black shame that Martin Byfield didn’t make a will and provide for her!"
"But you said Martin and his brother died about the same time," said Brixey.
"Pater died first," answered Brackett, "Martin had time—three weeks. He himself died very suddenly. He'd time, plenty of time to do something for his niece, let alone make a will!"
Brixey turned again to Georgina.
"It seems a shame to ask such private questions," he said. "But when you were left like that, did your uncle do nothing for you?"
Georgina glanced- at the landlord, and then at Brixey.
"Mr. Brackett and I don't agree on this point," she said. "But, if you want to know the truth—that is, as I see it—I don’t believe that my uncle Martin ever knew my father was dead."
"Can’t credit it, my girl!" muttered Brackett. "Must have known!"
"You’ve a reason for that opinion," suggested Brixey, looking at Georgina. "What is it?"
"I think Mrs. Byfield took care he shouldn’t know," she answered.
Brixey nodded and made for the door.
"All right!" he said. "All between ourselves, you know. We’ll talk more, later. Just now I’ve some important business."
He hurried straight down to the post office and wrote out a telegram:
William Gaffkin, 26, Alpha Road, Brondesbury, London, N.W. Mr. Linthwaite has unaccountably disappeared under strange, circumstances. Come by next express and meet me at Mitre Hotel, Selchester—Richard Brixey.
That done, and the message handed in, Brixey lighted his pipe and walked slowly up the street in the direction of the "Lame Hussar."
CHAPTER VI
THE LILAC PRINT GOWN
Instead of turning into the open door of the tavern, Brixey, with no more than a passing glance at it, walked forward along the side street, to the gates of the Priory grounds. It was then ten o’clock, and already nursemaids, in charge of children and perambulators, were beginning to seek the shade of the belts of trees or the sunlight which lay gaily over the open lawns.
Once inside Brixey stood and took a comprehensive glance around him. He had heard of this place as a popular resort of the townsfolk, and he wanted to get an idea of its general situation and appearance. He found himself contemplating a wide expanse of green, evidently used as to one part of it, for cricket, as to another, for lawn tennis.
From where he stood, and all round the farther side, ran a thick belt of woodland through certain open spaces in which he caught glimpses of the town walls.
In one of these open spaces, between the trees he save the little postern gate in the walls which Crabbe had indicated on the ordnance map; beyond it he saw water shining in the sun. That, of course, he said, was the sheet of water that he had heard of more than once. And near him lay the path, which, according to Jim Empidge, Mr. Linthwaite would have taken if he had followed out his intention of walking to the old ruin known as Mardene Mill.
But Brixey's immediate attention fixed itself on the ruins of the old Priory, which stood on a plateau between the belt of woodland and the open lawns. He had turned over a local guide to Selchester as he breakfasted, and he knew these ruins to be the remains of a house of the Augustinian canons, and one of the best preserved monuments of antiquity in the south of England.
The high, square tower stood intact; much of the roofless church was uninjured; a good deal of the surrounding cloister was left. Part of the cloister he at once saw to be in use as a modern dwelling; a cheery curl of blue smoke was rising skyward from a tall chimney in its squat roof. There was an ornamental garden laid out in front of. this, and in it a tall, dark-faced man, somewhat gipsyish in appearance, was busily planting out flowers from an array of red pots which stood ranged near him.
Brixey had learnt from the guide-book that there was a small museum housed in these old rains, and he presently crossed the lawn and made towards a door on the carved posts of which hung a framed placard whereon the terms of admission were inscribed.
The man in the garden looked up as he passed, and gave an unconcerned reply to Brixey’s observation that the morning was fine; evidently he set Brixey down as another specimen of the tourist tribe. But as Brixey approached the entrance to the museum, the door of the house was opened, and a young woman stepped out and stood waiting his approach.
Brixey had done no more than glance at the gipsy-looking man in the garden, but he looked at this young woman hard and long. She was, he said to himself, well worth looking at. Moreover, as she stood there on the steps before the museum door, quietly waiting, she showed no indisposition to be looked at, and Brixey used his power of observation to the full as he slowly drew near.
A tallish, slender, lissom young woman, apparently twenty-four to twenty-five years of age, brown-haired, brown-eyed, pretty in a piquant and provoking fashion, dressed in a lilac print gown, the only ornament of which was a knot of gay ribbon at an open throat; a quietly elusive, demure expression about the corners of a pair of red lips; a watchful air about the half-shaded eyes—these were the matters which Brixey took in and immediately drew some conclusions from.
Here, he thought, was a young person who had her wits about her, and probably knew very well how to use them.
"Do you wish to see the museum, sir?" asked the young woman, as he walked towards the steps. "It’s not supposed to be open till half-past ten, but I can let you in if you like."
"You're the caretaker, I suppose?" suggested Brixey.
The young woman indicated the man working in the garden.
"My father's the caretaker," she answered. "I'm at home to help him. Those are what most people come to look at—the Roman remains."
Brixey cast a glance at the glass-topped show-cases which ran down one side of the ancient room.
"And this place was the refectory of the old monks who lived here," continued the young woman, "Built about 1380, they say—that's all I know. Except," she added, evidently wishing to be gracious, "that that old boat was dug out of Selchester Harbour some years ago—they say it's over two thousand years old."
"Ought to be dry enough to make good firewood by now, then," observed Brixey.
"You don't care for old things, I see?" said the young woman.
"Not so much as for young ones," replied Brixey with a bold glance. "Bit dullish here for anybody like you, isn't it?"
The young woman, who showed no disposition to remove herself, gave the visitor a glance of intelligence.
"Oh, well, we get other people than old antiquaries to see us sometimes," she answered, "Besides, I haven't been home so very long. I've lived in London a good deal."
"My spot," said Brixey, who was rapidly reckoning up his new acquaintance. "Ah, there's nothing like London, is there? What were you doing there?"
"West End milliner's place for two years," replied the young woman readily. "Of course, it is dull here in Selchester; nothing doing most of the time."
"Ah, well, you get a bit of sensation now and then," observed Brixey. "What about this old gentleman's strange disappearance from the 'Mitre'? You've heard of that, I suppose?"
Brixey was keeping his eyes open, watching keenly without seeming to watch. But no more than a mere look of assent came into the demurely pretty face.
"Oh, we had a policeman asking something about that yesterday," she said. "We'd never seen anything of him."
"I heard last night that he'd been seen entering these grounds," remarked Brixey. "On Tuesday morning, that was. You don't remember seeing an elderly gentleman?"
The young woman shrugged her shoulders.
"There are a good many elderly gentlemen come into these grounds," she replied. "I don't spend my time in watching them. Neither my father nor I remember seeing this one. People cross through the wood there to get outside the town into the country. There's a queer old place outside there that these antiquaries go to see—Mardene Mill."
"Ah, I was thinking of strolling that way myself," said Brixey. "Which way does one go? I'll chuck the Roman remains for this morning—see 'em another time, perhaps."
The young woman led him outside and pointed to the postern gate in the trees.
"Straight through," she said. Then, as Brixey showed signs of moving, she gave him a demure glance. "Coming back again sometime?" she asked.
"I'm stopping in the town for a bit," answered Brixey "See you later, eh?"
He gave her a purposely admiring glance as he turned off, and she answered it with a smile and a nod as she went back into the house. Brixey passed the man in the garden with another nod, and went on through the trees and past the sheet of water, just then lively with waterfowl, and into Foxglove Lane.
"Demure and sly young party!" he mused, "Good bit of a flirt, I think. Do no harm to cultivate her acquaintance. Nor that of the dark faced gentleman who's planting out innocent flowers.
"If the poor old boy did go into those grounds, and if he did talk to Mrs. Byfield there, and if those two, father and daughter, saw that interview, and if Mrs. Byfield squared 'em to say nothing—well, I should say they could be squared!"
He went on, down Foxglove Lane, looking about him. The lane, at first running through high hedgerows, soon changed into a mere cart-track crossing an open moor. In the distance Brixey saw the ruinous walls of an ancient building which he took to be Mardene Mill. Before he had come half-way to it he encountered an elderly weather-beaten man, who, leaning on a shepherd's crook, was watching a flock of sheep.
"Morning, master!" said Brixey, coming to a halt. "Been about here long?"
"Ever since first thing, sir," answered the man with a smile. "Hereabouts, anyway."
"Seen anything of the police round this quarter?" asked Brixey. "Inspector Crabbe, for instance? Seen him?"
The shepherd pointed to some cottages which lay half a mile distant across the moor, evidently a part of Selchester that had sprung up outside the wails.
"’Tain't not ten minutes since Mr. Crabbe and one o’ they men of his druv’ back across there, sir," he replied. "Been up here they had and along the lane. I minded their hoss and trap for ’em while they was looking about. ’Twas about this here hat and umbrella what was found this morning as they come. And I knows something about that, too."
"What?" asked Brixey.
The shepherd laughed and indicated a clump of gorse that grew high by the' side of the track.
"’Twas there, master, behind that goss, as Jack Tisdale found that there hat and umbrella," he replied. "Found ’em here this daybreak, he did. All right; but if he did—and I ain’t sayin’ he didn’t, 'cause I’ve no doubt he did—if he did, they’d been put there since last night.
"I been round about here for three days along o’ them sheep, and there weren’t no hat and umbrella at that spot when I went home six o’clock yesterday, and that’s gospel truth."
"Tell Crabbe that?" asked Brixey.
"Ain’t much good ever tellin’ they chaps anything they don’t want to hear, master," replied the shepherd sardonically. "Don’t suit ’em always But I did tell ’em."
Brixey talked a little longer, and then went thoughtfully back to the town—to lounge idly in the "Mitre" until after lunch. But at four o’clock he was down at the station to meet the London express, and as it came steaming in he caught sight of Mrs. Byfield, who, like himself, had evidently come to meet it.
Seeing her, Brixey, the instant that his expected man stepped down, seized him, and without ceremony twisted him round.
"Gaffkin!" he exclaimed. "You were my uncle’s confidential clerk for ten years. Look, have you ever seen that woman there—the tall, handsome woman—in his office? Think, man!"
Gaffkin, a quiet, solemn-faced man, fixed a steady, reflective look on Mrs. Byfield.
"No, sir," he answered. "Never saw her in my life before, there or anywhere."
CHAPTER VII
GAFFKIN
Brixey’s momentary excitement died out as quickly as it had arisen. He turned unconcernedly away from looking at Mrs. Byfield, who stood a little way off, greeting a young woman who had just alighted from the train, and glanced at Gaffkin’s small and neat portmanteau.
"Got any more luggage?" he asked laconically.
"All that I shall require is in here, Mr. Brixey," replied Gaffkin.
Like the portmanteau, he, too, was neat and small—a quiet, self-contained man, who looked more like a highly respectable valet than a solicitor's clerk.
"Any news of Mr. Linthwaite, sir?" he inquired, as they walked out of the station. "Of course, I’m all in the dark."
Brixey wheeled his companion into the street and pulled him up before the first shop they came to.
"Everything's in the dark," he said, pointing to a bill which hung prominently displayed. "There’s the first effort I’ve made to dispel the darkness, Gaffkin. I want your help; you’re the only man I could think of. As far as I can see, there’s some extraordinary mystery about my uncle’s disappearance."
Gaffkin read the contents of the reward bill.
"Since Tuesday!" he exclaimed. "And now it’s Friday afternoon. Nothing been heard, Mr. Brixey—nothing at all?"
"Come along to the 'Mitre'," answered Brixey. "I’ve booked a room there for you. We’ll have a nip of tea, and I’ll tell you all I know. And then we’ve got to do a lot of thinking."
In the private sitting-room, behind a carefully closed door, Brixey told his uncle’s old clerk everything that had transpired since his own arrival the previous night, and Gaffkin, who since he had left John Linthwaite’s employment had been carrying on the business of a private inquiry agent, listened silently and carefully, weighing the evidence with due appreciation.
"And that was Mrs. Byfield you pointed out just now, sir?" he said when Brixey had finished. "Just so, and you thought she might have been one of Mr. Linthwaite’s old clients? May have been, Mr. Brixey, but, if so, it was before my time.
"I was with your uncle in Lincoln’s Inn Fields for the last ten years of his practice, and I’m certain she never came there during that time. I never forget faces, sir. I’ve trained myself that way. That’s a noticeable woman. Still, Mr. Linthwaite may have known her before I went to him. The landlady, Mrs. Crosse, had no doubt that he recognised her?"
"No more than I have that he went after her," said Brixey.
"Then the thing to do," replied Gaffkin, "is to try back, and to find out all her antecedents—a stiff job. But it's a most extraordinary thing that no one has come forward to say they saw Mr. Linthwaite in those grounds. Somebody must have seen him."
"Somebody may come forward yet," remarked Brixey. "A hundred pounds reward may loosen a tongue or two. But now, Gaffkin, these police chaps—they're already on the theory that my uncle was murdered by tramps, or vanners, or gipsies, or something of that sort. You know what they are when they start a line of their own. Well, let ’em take it. We’ve got to go deeper.
"My uncle may have been murdered, but if he has, it’s not been because of the money in his pocket and the diamond in his necktie. The reason's been a deeper one than that. And it seems to me that the thing to find out is: Is there any person here in this town who had reasons—weighty reasons—for silencing him?"
"A big order, Mr. Brixey," said Gaffkin. "It means, as I say, going back. You want me to stop here?"
"Till he’s found—alive or dead—or accounted for," answered Brixey. "I shall stop. I’m on my holidays, and expense, of course, is neither here nor there. He’s got to be found!"
"Very good, sir," said Gaffkin. "Then the only thing you’ve mentioned to me up to now that I can work on is the fact that there’s a man in this town who was with the late Martin Byfield when he was married at Monaco—-Wetherby.
"I must get hold of him, and use a bit of caution in getting what information I can out of him. Get to know from the landlord here where this man can be found, and I’ll manage to get in touch with him, quietly."
"I'll do that now," agreed Brixey, "And I'll order dinner for six o’clock," he added, as he went off to find Brackett.
"I’ve found out where this man Wetherby’s to be seen," said Brixey, returning in a few minutes. "He’s head waiter at the Cavalier Hotel, a few doors away. I'll leave that business to you, Gaffkin. When we’ve had a bit of dinner, try your hand on him. I needn’t tell you how to go about it. You’re a past-master at that sort of thing, I fancy."
"Leave it to me, sir," said Gaffkin. "You won’t mind a ten-pound note, I dare say, Mr. Brixey?"
"Nor a twenty," replied Brixey. "Don’t let that stand in the way."
Left alone after dinner, when Gaffkin had gone out on his mission to the Cavalier Hotel, Brixey set to work on a job which he had been meditating since early morning. Full of concern as he was for his uncle, the newsman’s instinct was strong in him, and he was going to make a big feature of Linthwaite’s strange disappearance for the Sentinel.
Linthwaite was a well-known man, of repute in legal circles, a member of one or two London companies, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries—many people would be deeply interested in news of him. Brixey intended the Sentinel to have exclusive news, to begin with.
He had been meditating a first message all day—a message that would work up intense interest without going into too much detail, and would exclude personal details such as those relating to Mrs. Byfield.
To-morrow, he said, he would follow it up with more. And he had a double object—he would not only be sending good copy to his paper, but drawing public attention to the affair. Brixey believed in public attention to anything, and now, left alone, he pulled out a sheaf of Press telegram forms and began to write.
Brixey finished his message and walked down to the post office with it. The lamplighters were going about their work as he returned towards the "Mitre," and underneath a lamp, just lit up, he encountered Gaffkin, who drew him aside from the passers-by.
"I’ve hit on something straight off, Mr. Brixey," said Gaffkin. "There's a man here in Selchester who used to come regularly to Mr. Linthwaite’s office some years ago. I know him as well by sight as I know you. He’s in the bar at the 'Cavalier' just now. Come in here, sir, and I'll tell you what I know of him."
CHAPTER VIII
MR. MESHAM
Brixey and Gaffkin were at that moment standing outside one of the old gateways which gave access to the Cathedral Close, Silently they walked within it and paced along a quiet lane, fenced about with high .walls, until they came to a point where they were quite alone. Even in this solitude Gaffkin dropped his voice to a whisper.
"I don’t know who this man is," he said, "I don't even know his name. But, as I say, I know him well, by sight, as a man who used to come to the office in Lincoln's Inn Fields. He came there twice a year.
"He first came when I'd been with Mr. Linthwaite about three years. After that he came regularly, at six-monthly intervals, until Mr. Linthwaite retired two years ago, when I, of course, left him. He's the same man, without the slightest doubt."
"Came there all that time, regularly, and yet you don't know his name?" said Brixey. "Queer!"
"No," answered Gaffkin, "I always knew there was a mystery about him; I remember very well indeed the first time he called. It was in spring—about this time. He walked into the outer office one morning. I attended to him. He leaned over the counter and said, in a whisper, 'Tell Mr. Linthwaite that Mr. X is here.'
"He was at once shown in. After that, he came, as I say, at six-monthly intervals—every spring, every autumn. And though Mr. Linthwaite never mentioned him to me, never said one word to me about his visits, I'd a very good idea as to why he came—in fact, it was no idea, it was a certainty."
"Well?" asked Brixey.
"Every time he came, from the first," said Gaffkin, "Mr. Linthwaite used to send me out to cash a cheque for seventy-five pounds."
"His own cheque?" inquired Brixey,
"Mr. Linthwaite's cheque—yes," replied Gaffkin. "Always the same amount. I used to get it in notes and gold. And, of course, it was for this man."
"Did you never see anything in the shape of a receipt?" asked Brixey.
"Never. If the man gave any receipt, Mr. Linthwaite kept it among his private papers!" said Gaffkin, "It never came among the business receipts."
"You're sure this is the same man?" said Brixey. "No mistake?"
"No mistake, sir—I'd know him among a thousand!" asserted Gaffkin.
"Remember," he continued impressively, "it's only two years since I last saw him in Lincoln's Inn Fields. I saw no difference in him except that he's now rather more smartly dressed than when I saw him last, though he was always well dressed in those days,"
"Where did you come across him to-night?" asked Brixey.
"I saw him going into the 'Cavalier' by one door as I came out at another. He went into the lounge," answered Gaffkin.
"Let's go and have a look at him," said Brixey. "But first, that man Wetherby. Did you find him?"
"Yes, and got out of him all he knows—at least, all I wanted to know just now—in a few minutes," replied Gaffkin.
"Martin Byfield met his wife at Nice. She was a Mrs. Sunderland, a young widow from Australia. They were married at the English church at Monaco, about five weeks after their first meeting. Wetherby was present. That's all—you already knew as much."
"Except her name," said Brixey. "Sunderland—Mrs. Sunderland. Ail right. Now, where's this place where the man is?"
Gaffkin led him out of the old gateway, up the street, and past the "Mitre," to a modern-looking hotel which faced on the point where the main streets of the town intersected at the Market Cross.
"As far as I can make out," observed Gaffkin, "this house, the 'Cavalier' appears to be the popular resort of the young bloods of Selchester. The 'Mitre,' I think, is too highly proper and respectable. The old landlord's mighty particular, and prefers a family trade to a popular one. This place has a lounge bar, and it’s pretty full. All the better—we can perhaps see without being seen."
He led Brixey into a long, low-ceilinged room arranged as a lounge, with numerous alcoves and quiet corners, and furnished with a bar which ran the entire length of the farther side, and was presided over by a couple of smartly-dressed barmaids.
Here and there small groups of men were gathered about the tables in the alcoves, but the majority of those present—a numerous company—were lined up along the bar, and several of them had ranged themselves round a tall, elderly man, who, glass in hand, was evidently laying down the law with unction, and in what looked to be enjoyment of the sound of his own voice.
"The thing's ridiculous!" this person was saying. "Any man who knows anything of the world—and if there's nobody else here who knows it, I can safely claim that I do—knows very well that men often disappear just as this gentleman's done—for their own purposes.
"I said to Crabbe just now, 'Crabbe,' I said, 'you're a dee'd clever policeman, Crabbe, but you're like all the rest of your calling—a bit too previous,' I said. 'Don't go making trouble where no trouble is, Crabbe,' I said.
"‘You want to get up a grand cause célèbre,’ I said. ‘Take the opinion of a hard-bitten old man of the world, Crabbe,' I said, 'The gentleman’s just made himself scarce because he wanted to.' That’s what I said to Crabbe—and damme, what I’d say to anybody!"
Gaffkin drew Brixey into an alcove that lay in shadow, and motioning to a waiter who was hovering about, ordered whisky-and-soda.
"That's the man!" he whispered, nudging his companion. "Take no notice. We'll be hearing his name in a minute."
Brixey, under cover of lighting his, pipe, took a careful look at the oracular person. He was a man of apparently between fifty and sixty years of age, still handsome in a rakish, rather worse-for-wear fashion, who sported a grizzled moustache brushed aggressively upward towards his fresh-coloured cheeks, and wore a monocle in his right eye.
His dress suggested the sportsman; a feather or two from a pheasant’s wing ornamented the band of his green felt hat, worn at a defiant angle; in his hand he carelessly swung a stick furnished at its extremity with a steel spud for cutting out weeds. A self-assertive, self-opinionated person, this, thought Brixey, and evidently a little god among the circle which surrounded him.
"That’s what I’d say to anybody!" he repeated, and set down a tumbler which he had held in his left hand as he talked. "Common sense! 'Crabbe,' I said to our inspector, ‘don’t make mystery where there’s no mystery.' That’s what I said—and what I say. Give me the same old thing, my dear."
"All the same," remarked one of the loungers, "a hundred pounds is a hundred pounds, and there are plenty of folks in Selchester who'd be glad to handle it, Mr. Mesham."
Gaffkin nudged Brixey again. Mesham—Mr. Mesham. And Brixey returned the nudge in token of his understanding. The Mr. X. of. the Lincoln’s Inn Fields days was now the Mr. Mesham of Selchester.
Mr. Mesham took up the replenished tumbler and lifted it. At that moment the waiter who had just served Brixey and Gaffkin turned up the light in their alcove, and the glare fell full on Gaffkin.
Mesham, in the act of drinking, saw Gaffkin, and after a sudden stare and start, obvious though almost imperceptible, hastily drank off his liquor, set down the glass again, and pulled out his watch.
"Aye, just so!" he said absently. "To be sure. By Jove! I’d no idea it was as late as it is. Promised to meet Hetherington at the club at eight, and it’s ten past now. Bye-bye, boys. See you later, perhaps."
He went swiftly, out of the door into the street, and Gaffkin, with a sharp whisper to Brixey, went after him, with Brixey at his heels. Before Mesham had gone many yards, Gaffkin was at his elbow.
"Excuse me, sir," he said, quietly and politely. "Happening yo be in the bar you’ve just left, I recognised you as a gentleman who used to call on Mr. Linthwaite at his office in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Mr. X."
Mesham drew himself up, and glanced uneasily at Brixey, who had come up to Gaffkin’s side, Brixey stared back, watchfully, end Mesham transferred his glance to Gaffkin.
"Who are you?" he demanded.
"I was Mr. Linthwaite’s clerk during the whole of the time you called there," answered Gaffkin. "I remember you very well, and all the circumstances of your visits. And I think you recognise me."
"What do you want?" growled Mesham. "And who is this with you? If you're a couple of detectives, you can go elsewhere with your questions."
"I am Mr. John Linthwaite’s nephew. My name is at the foot of the reward bill which you were discussing just now," said Brixey with suave intonation, "I am naturally anxious to find my uncle. As Mr. Gaffkin tells me that you were familiar with my uncle's appearance, and as you evidently live in Selchester, may I ask you a question?
"Have you seen anything of Mr. Linthwaite? He was here, and about town, on Monday evening and Tuesday morning. Did you chance to see him?"
Mesham, it was plain to Brixey, was on his guard. He was watching both his questioners. And suddenly he spoke, bending forward with a knowing leer.
"Is this affair in the hands of the police?" he asked. "Of course! Haven't I heard all about it from Crabbe? Then, when I've anything to say, I’ll say it to Crabbe. You’re strangers to me. I know nothing about you."
He swung on his heel and marched off in the direction of the Market Cross, and Brixey, without comment, signed to Gaffkin to follow him into the "Mitre." He beckoned Brackett out of the bar parlour into the private sitting-room.
"Look here," he said, when they were alone. "We just want you to tell us if you know a man who's known here as Mr. Mesham? Do you?"
The old landlord smiled, wagging his head.
"Everybody knows Mesham!" he answered. "That is, as far as there's anything to be known about him. But that’s not much."
"Who is he?" asked Brixey.
"A stranger," replied Brackett. "He came to the town about two years ago. He lives in very good rooms over Strike's, the saddler's; he's a bachelor. Nobody knew anything about him when he came. Nobody knows anything now, except that he’s evidently got plenty of money. He spends his time lounging about the town, either at the club, or at the 'Cavalier,' and he amuses himself with a bit of amateur photography, and a bit of fishing, and a bit of shooting, and so on.
"Sometimes he drops in here, but the ‘Cavalier’s' more to his fancy. We're too old-fashioned and sober-going for his tastes. That's about all I know, Mr. Brixey."
"He wasn't a Selchester man, then, originally?" asked Gaffkin.
"No, sir, not he! Never saw him in the place until he came," answered the landlord. "And I never heard where he came from, either. Nobody knew him. He just came, took those rooms, and settled down. And wherever he gets his money from, he’s not short of it He"
The waiter knocked at the door and looked at his master.
"Beg pardon, sir—Reverend Mr. Felgrave to see Mr. Brixey," he announced.
"One of our clergymen," whispered Brackett. "Vicar of St. Fridolin's."
"Bring Mr. Felgrave in," said Brixey. He glanced at Gaffkin and smiled. "Now we're going to get some news," he muttered. "This is the first-fruits of the reward bill!"
CHAPTER IX
THE VICAR OF ST. FRIDOLIN
The old landlord stood aside as the waiter ushered in a little, rather nervous-looking, sharp-featured, big-eyed clergyman, who glanced about as if he were not quite sure of his surroundings, and was anxious to gain some confidence in them. Catching sight of Brackett he smiled a little, taking Brixey and Gaffkin in with the tail of a watchful eye.
"Oh, good evening, Mr. Brackett!" he said "I—ah—one of these gentlemen is Mr. Brixey, I presume—the Mr. Brixey whose name appears at the foot of the poster?"
"I'm Mr. Brixey," interrupted the signatory. "Will you take a seat, Mr. Felgrave? I suppose you've brought me some news?"
Mr. Felgrave dropped into the arm-chair which Gaffkin pushed forward and glanced at the landlord.
"Well—er—" he said. "I—the fact is, yes—of a private nature. Mr. Brackett knows me, and, of course, he understands that a clergyman has to be—er—very particular, you know, about"
"I'll leave you to yourselves, gentlemen," said Brackett.
"You've something to tell me about my uncle?" said Brixey.
"Oh, Mr. Linthwaite is your uncle?" said Mr. Felgrave. "Of course, then, you're naturally anxious about him. Now—er—before I say what I can say, do you, would you mind telling me—who is Mr. Linthwaite?"
"Well-known London man," answered Mr. Brixey. "Retired solicitor. Somewhat celebrated as an archæologist. Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. Member of two or three other learned societies."
"I should be delighted if anything that I can tell you would relieve your anxiety," said Mr. Felgrave. "I—er—suppose that if I can give information, I should be entitled to"
"If you can tell me anything that'll lead to the discovery of my uncle, dead or alive, you'll get a hundred pounds," answered Brixey. "And it'll be paid over with as much speed as satisfaction. That's so!"
Mr. Felgrave glanced at the door, assured himself that it was closed, and edged his chair a little nearer to the two men who confronted him from the other side of the hearthrug.
"Mr. Brackett," said Mr. Felgrave, "may have mentioned to you that I am vicar of St. Fridolin's. One of our oldest churches—the very ancient church near the North Bar. The vicarage is that old red-brick house, largely covered with ivy, near the Lame Hussar Inn.
"So, of course, we are very close to the Priory walls. The walls, as you doubtless know, are a favourite promenade, and the fact is, I have two children. One of them, Nora, is now aged five; the other, Thomas, is aged four. Now, I am a methodical sort of person. I order my day by rule, Mr. Brixey. And for some time, since my children were of companionable age, and as we do not keep, as yet, a nursery governess—mine is but a poor living—I have made a practice of taking Nora and Thomas out for an hour's walk every morning. We as a rule walk in the Priory grounds. But on Tuesday morning last—you may rely on me for exactitude in dates and times, Mr. Brixey—we walked on the walls.
"In fact, we sat down there—the corporation, some time ago, placed seats on the walls, at certain places overlooking the Priory grounds. And at between a quarter-past and half-past eleven the event took place which I am about to tell you of. Seated where I could look down into the Priory grounds, and, as a matter of fact, immediately facing the ruins of the ancient conventual church, which, you have doubtless noticed, are in a very remarkable state of preservation, I saw one who is, as I have observed, a principal parishioner of mine—Mrs. Byfield. I am not aware if you have heard of her. She is a lady of considerable means, who resides in the Minories."
"We have heard of Mrs. Byfield," said Brixey.
"Just so," remarked Mr. Felgrave. "One of the principal residents of the town. Very well. Mrs. Byfield came into the Priory grounds, and walked towards the ruins. She had scarcely reached the point I have just referred to when an elderly gentleman came hurrying after her. He caught her up, raised his hat, and spoke to her.
"There appeared to be mutual recognition, with, I should say, though, of course, I was quite a hundred yards away, some surprise on her part. I have no hesitation, having read and reread the description in your reward bill, Mr. Brixey, in saying that the gentleman was Mr. Linthwaite."
"Yes," said Brixey. "Now—what happened?"
"What occurred was this," replied Mr. Felgrave. "Mrs. Byfield and the stranger walked into the ruins, in, apparently, close and deep conversation. Of course, when they had gone in there, I could not see them any longer.
"But they had not long been removed from my sight when another person came on the scene—from the south entrance to the grounds. It appeared to me that he must have had some appointment with Mrs. Byfield, or with the stranger, for he went straight into the ruins, as if to join one or the other. The fact seemed evident."
"And he was—who?" asked Brixey.
"Not a parishioner of mine, in this case," answered Mr. Felgrave. "A person whom I often see about the town, and whom I know as a Mr. Mesham—yes, a Mr. Christopher Mesham. I have seen his full name on a subscription list. Mr. Mesham, I say, came up and walked into the ruins."
"You didn't see any meeting between him and the other two?" inquired Brixey.
"I did not," replied Mr. Felgrave. "In fact, from my point of view, that would have been a physical impossibility. The walls of the transept—the north transept—formed an impenetrable barrier. But that the three did meet I deduced from the fact that at the end of perhaps ten minutes they all emerged together."
"Aye! And what happened then?" asked Brixey.
"They parted," said Mr. Felgrave. "Mrs. Byfield went away across the grounds in the direction of a little wicket which admits to the Minories; Mr. Mesham and the stranger walked together, slowly, towards the postern gate which leads into Foxglove Lane. They passed through it. I saw them no more."
Brixey glanced at Gaffkin and Gaffkin turned to the clergyman.
"I suppose a good many of the townspeople frequent these grounds, sir?" he asked. "Did you happen to notice if there were many about that morning?"
"Nursemaids and children and a few old men," responded Mr. Felgrave.
"On the north side of the ruins, where these three could be seen?" suggested Gaffkin.
"No," replied Mr. Felgrave. "They were on the lawns and gardens on the south side. On the side between the walls and the ruins there was nobody whatever. It was quite deserted."
"Then the probability is that you were the only person who witnessed this meeting?" said Gaffkin.
"I should say that is so, emphatically," assented Mr. Felgrave. "On that side of the grounds there was no one at all."
"Have you mentioned this to either Mrs. Byfield or Mr. Mesham?" asked Gaffkin. "Privately, you know?"
Mr. Felgrave leaned forward in his chair until his lean face was close to his questioners.
"The truth is," he whispered, "I haven’t mentioned one syllable of it to a soul—not even to my wife. I haven’t said a word until now!"
Brixey took his hands out of his pockets and his pipe out of his mouth, and got up.
"Good!" he said. "Don’t. Keep it strictly to yourself. I’m much obliged to you, Mr. Felgrave. You’ve given us exceedingly valuable information which will probably lead to good results. You’ll find me here until my uncle is found or accounted for. And now you’ll excuse us, for we’ve got work to do."
He bustled the visitor out politely but quickly, and hurried back to Gaffkin.
"Come on!" he said. "We’re going to act on that—just now."
"Crabbe?" asked Gaffkin, as he picked up his hat.
"No!" answered Brixey, "The woman!"
CHAPTER X
YOUNG MR. FANSHAWE
The trim parlourmaid who opened the door of the big house in the Minories to Brixey and his companion looked dubious and hesitating when they asked to see her mistress, and kept the door unmistakably closed against them.
"I don’t think Mrs. Byfield will see you, sir," she said, lowering her voice and glancing round into the hall behind her. "She—well, she gave orders that if you or Mr. Crabbe called again I was to say she wasn’t at home."
Brixey drew out a card and turned to Gaffkin.
"Give me one of your professional cards," he said, "Here," he went on, handing the cards to the girl. "Take those to Mrs. Byfield, and tell her that it's absolutely imperative that we should see her at once. If not, then Mr. Crahbe will have to come himself."
"The parlourmaid took the cards with evident reluctance, and went away to the rear of the hall. Brixey and Gaffkin were left on the steps for several minutes. When at last the girl came back, she silently admitted them, and showed them into the parlour in which Brixey and Inspector Crabbe had seen Mrs. Byfield the previous evening.
There they waited still longer—waited until the door was thrown unceremoniously open, and a young man, little more than a boy, and obviously in a high temper, burst in, and flung the callers' cards on the table.
"Now then," he exclaimed furiously. "What the devil do you fellows mean by forcing your way into my mother's house? Weren't you told that she wasn't at home? What do you mean by threatening her with the police? Do you think you can come bullying people like this? Get out!"
He pulled the door wide and pointed to it threateningly. But Gaffkin remained quietly watching, and Brixey, instead of moving, stood looking calmly at their indignant assailant. A tall, good-looking, slim-figured youngster this, fair-complexioned as a girl, fair-haired, too, with a slightly budding moustache—a mere boy, and very, very angry in a nervous and excited fashion.
His flushed face worked, and the finger which he pointed to the door trembled. And seeing that his orders were not being obeyed, his blue eyes flashed and his lips began to quiver with something that threatened to become rage.
"You hear me!" he said in louder tones. "Get out, before you’re thrown out!"
Brixey stepped forward.
"Not yet!" he said quietly. "Mr. Fanshawe Byfield, I presume?"
"And what the devil’s my name to you, I should like to know, and who the hell are you?" demanded Fanshawe. "You clear yourself and your damned detective out of this, or"
"My name is on my card," answered Brixey, pointing to the table. "And you can take your choice between listening politely to me, or having a visit from the police within the next few minutes. No more violence!" he continued, as Fanshawe made a threatening step towards him. "It’s mere foolishness.
"Now, Mr. Byfield, you know very well what our business is. I am in search of news of my uncle, Mr. John Linthwaite, who is a man of position, and, since that will probably appeal to you, of considerable wealth. I had reason to believe last night that your mother saw my uncle in the Priory grounds on Tuesday morning, and I came here with Inspector Crabbe and asked her politely if she did. She denied having seen him. I now know—know, mind you—that she not only saw him, but spoke to him for some minutes."
Fanshawe Byfield, whose attitude had grown more threatening as Brixey spoke, drew back a little, and an uneasy look came over his boyish face.
"You know?" be said. "And who the devil told you, Mr. whatever your name is? You tell me that! Some damned liar or other!"
"The damned liar, then, is Mr. Felgrave, the Vicar of St. Fridolin's," answered Brixey, "As to his truthfulness, your mother is, of course, better able to judge than I am."
The lad’s jaw dropped, and he moved nearer the open door.
"Felgrave!" he exclaimed. "You say he says"
"Mr. Felgrave was on the walls overlooking the Priory grounds on Tuesday morning about eleven o’clock," said Brixey, "He saw my uncle, Mr. John Linthwaite, speak to your mother, who evidently recognised him. They entered into conversation, and walked, into the ruins together. There they were presently joined by a man who lives in this town—Mr. Mesham."
"What," said Fanshawe, "Kit Mesham? Rot!"
"Mr. Felgrave," observed Brixey, "appears to me to be a man who is not likely to make mistakes. I have told you what he says he saw, and he is prepared to swear to it."
Fanshawe lifted his hand and began to pull at his tiny moustache. He stood staring sullenly and doubtfully at his unwelcome visitors for a moment, and then suddenly turned to the door.
"Some queer mistake!" he muttered. "I'll—I'll hear what my mother says."
He went out of the room, and Brixey and Gaffkin exchanged glances.
"He knows nothing!" murmured Gaffkin.
"So we'll excuse him," said Brixey, "You’re quite right, he knows nothing. Which, in my opinion, heightens the mystery."
Ten minutes went by before Fanshawe came back. The sullen look on his face was still there, and he gave Brixey a furtive, half deprecating glance as he entered. And this time he carefully closed the door.
"Sorry if I spoke a bit sharply," he said. "The fact is my mother suffers from a weak heart, and I can’t have her bothered. She was upset last night by your coming with Crabbe. And—well I’ve told her, what you say Felgrave says. There’s some mistake somewhere—she doesn’t know anything about Mr. Linthwaite.
"You mentioned that name last night, and, of course, she didn’t know who you were talking about. It’s true, however, that she did see a gentleman in the Priory grounds on Tuesday morning. But he was a Mr. Herbert—a man she’d met once or twice, a great many years ago, on the Continent. He came up to her and reminded her that they’d met—at Marseilles. Quite a long time since, but he remembered her. A Mr. Herbert—not your uncle at all. I knew there was some mistake."
"Did Mrs. Byfield mention to you that Mr. Mesham came up and spoke to her and Mr. Herbert?" asked Brixey.
"She says Mesham did come, up while she was talking to Mr. Herbert—quite casually," answered Fanshawe. "He and Herbert got discussing the ruins. And they walked away together. That’s all she knows."
He stood looking at Brixey as if wondering whether more questions were, going to be asked of him, But Brixey suddenly motioned to Gaffkin and turned towards the door.
"I'm much obliged to you, Mr. Byfield," he said, "I hope we haven't upset your mother,; I don't think we shall have to trouble her again."
Fanshawe made no answer, and the callers let themselves out into the street, and had walked some little way before Brixey spoke.
"I say!" he said. "That's a bit of a floorer, Gaffkin! I'm a bit taken aback. What Mrs. Byfield says may be absolutely true, so far as she's personally concerned."
"Yes?" said Gaffkin.
"The truth is," continued Brixey, "until about eighteen or twenty years ago, my uncle's name was Herbert—John Herbert. He took the name of Linthwaite on succeeding to some property left him by a kinsman. So there you are!
"He's always been a regular traveller on the Continent. He may have met this woman years since, in the south of France. She may have remembered him as Mr. Herbert. And in that case I don’t see where there’s any suspicion against her."
"I’d much rather follow up that man Mesham," observed Gaffkin. "After all, Mr. Brixey, the latest thing we know is that Mr. Linthwaite was last seen in his company."
Brixey pulled out his watch beneath a street lamp.
"Nine-thirty," he said. "Look here, while we’re up this end of the town there are some people I’d like to ask a question or two of. Man and his daughter—he's the caretaker of the Priory grounds; the daughter’s a bit of a character. I got their names from Empidge, the boots at the 'Mitre,' The father’s Nat Lee, the daughter Debbie Lee—short for Deborah, I suppose. I'd a bit of a talk to Debbie this morning, and I’d like a bit more. Come along to the Priory."
He led Gaffkin up the street, and round the corner in front of the "Lame Hussar," to the lighted windows of which he pointed as they passed.
"That’s where my uncle caught sight of Mrs. Byfield," he remarked. "He was in that bow-window there. He followed her towards these gates. Mrs. Crosse, the landlady there, saw him enter. And, by the by, how are we going to enter? I rather believe these gates are locked at sunset. Never thought of that."
The Priory gates stood in a high wall, up to which, on the left-hand side, and close to the gateway, ran a tall, thick hedgerow of holly and hawthorn. There were two gates—one, wide enough to admit a carriage, was set between pillars; the other, a wicket-gate, was set in the wall itself. Gaffkin tried both.
"Locked!" he said. "Both locked. No getting in there, Mr. Brixey."
"Yet the folks who live inside must get in and out," remarked Brixey. "And I suppose people go to see them now and then? Look if there’s a bell. The house in the ruins isn’t many yards inside the grounds."
As Gaffkin examined the pillars of the big gate and the wall by the little one, Brixey heard footsteps coming along the narrow street which they had just traversed, and turning round, saw a tall figure cross the full glare of a street lamp in front of the "Lame Hussar." With a sudden sharp movement he laid a hand on Gaffkin's shoulder and drew him through a gap in the hedge that ran up to the angle of the gate.
"H'sh!" he whispered. "Keep quiet! That chap we’ve just seen—Fanshawe Byfield! Let's see what he's up to."
Fanshawe came rapidly along the deserted, street, crossed the bit of open ground which lay in front of the wall, and, walked straight up to the wicket-gate. A second later the two watchers heard the click of a key in a lock; then the gate was gently closed, and inside the wall footsteps cut rapidly up the drive in the direction of the ruins.
"Mr. Fanshawe Byfield has the right of entry!" whispered Brixey. "Um, I think we'll give up this part of the proceedings, Gaffkin. But I’d very much like to know what that youngster’s doing in there."
Gaffkin examined his surroundings as well as the light permitted.
"I dare say we could get in if we, really wanted to," he observed. "I've climbed stiffer things than this wall when business made it necessary."
"So have I," said Brixey. "But I think not, just now. Let’s go back to the 'Mitre'—and on the way we'll have a word with Inspector Crabbe."
CHAPTER XI
A SIDE-TRACK SUGGESTION
As Brixey and Gaffkin turned into the police station, the constable who had acted as intermediary between them and his inspector once or twice, by carrying messages to the "Mitre" came hurrying out and pulled himself up at sight of them.
"Just going to fetch you, sir," he said, looking at Brixey. "Mr Crabbe would like a word with you. There’s a man come in from Normanstead with some news."
He led them down a passage to Crabbe’s office, and opening the door, revealed the inspector in conversation with a queer-looking person who sat by the fire, warming a pair of remarkably dirty hands. The callers, inspecting him closely, noted a face tanned by the sun and wind to the colour of mahogany a pair of sharp, ferrety eyes, and a watchful, half-suspicious expression. They noted too, the man’s curious fur cap, evidently of home manufacture, out of the skins of animals, his red plush waistcoat, worn under a soil-stained blue pilot coat, and the gaily-coloured Belcher handkerchief knotted about his sinewy throat. Something about him suggested much outdoor life and the possible excitements of poaching, and Brixey was prepared for Crabbe’s introduction.
"One of the people who were camping out on Mardene Moor the other day," said Crabbe, nodding sideways at his queer guest. "Eli Clarke, by trade a tinker. He heard of this business a few hours ago, when he was in Normanstead, and he’s come in here to tell something he knows—hoping, of course," he added, with a wink at Brixey, "to get paid for his trouble."
"What do you know?" asked Brixey.
Clarke looked his questioner up and down, and, before replying, pulled a crumpled and dirty copy of the reward bill out of his waistcoat pocket.
"Yourn, guv’nor?" he inquired, pointing to Brixey's name at the foot. "Just so. Then in that case, if anything as I tells you"
"If anything that you tell me leads to the finding of Mr. Linthwaite," said Brixey, "you'll be well paid for your trouble. So what is it?"
"Not so much, guv'nor," answered Clarke, with a certain amount of ruefulness. "I wish it had been more—I could do with that reward as you offers! All the same, accordin' to him—" here he indicated Inspector Crabbe—"it's more than what's been told by anybody else.
"But it's this—I had my van on Mardene Moor, outside the town there, from last Saturday afternoon to Tuesday night, when I moved off Normanstead way. I was going home’ards, gradual, d'ye see, up Leatherhead direction. Well, now, Tuesday morning, about a quarter to twelve, as near as I can remember, maybe a bit earlier, I was in Foxglove Lane, among the gorse bushes—never mind what for, 'cause it's nothing to do with this.
"I sees two gentlemen coming along from the direction of them Priory grounds, which, as Mr. Crabbe there can tell you, if you don't know yourselves, is at the top o' the lane. Now, in course, I don't know who these gentlemen were—by name, you understand—though I've seen one of 'em, time and again, in Selchester streets. He's a biggish, sporty-looking sort, getting on a bit in years, like, with a moustache what he wears brushed up—fierce, as it were.
"T'other, he was a clean-shaven, oldish gentleman, as wore a suit o' grey clothes and swung a gold-mounted umbrella. I took particular note o' that, and of his gold chain. That, I reckon, guv'nor, is the party as is missing?"
"Well?" said Brixey. "Go on with your story."
"Ain't a deal left in it," continued Clarke. "These here two comes right past where I was in the bushes. They didn't see me, 'cause I took good care they shouldn't. They was talkin' confidential and serious—I could see that. But they was a good twenty yards away, and I couldn't catch a word o' what they was sayin'.
However, when they'd passed me a bit, they parted. Him with the umbrella went off across the moor in the direction of that old mill at Mardene, and him with the moustache turned back towards the town by the way they’d come. But when he'd walked past me again a yard or two, he twisted sharp round and called out to the other gent. And that's all I can tell as to what you might call exact words of what I actually heard."
"What did you hear?" demanded Brixey. "Don't make any mistake about it."
"No mistake, guv'nor. It was only a word or two," said the tinker. "Him with the moustache called out: 'I say!' he says. 'You’d better make it two-thirty. That'll give me more time,' he says. T’other gent nodded. 'Very well,' he calls. 'I'll be there—two-thirty.' Then they both went their ways, and, of course, I went mine. And that's all, gentlemen, whatever it's worth."
Brixey turned from his informant to Crabbe, who motioned him and Gaffkin to step aside.
"Before this man came in," he said, in a whisper, "I had some news which seems to confirm his statement—from Mardene. A gentleman who I haven't the slightest doubt was Mr. Linthwaite got a bit of cold lunch at the village inn there at one o'clock on Tuesday and, set off, three-quarters of an hour later, in the direction of Selchester."
"Now that appears to be the very last bit of information. The thing now is; where did Mr. Linthwaite go at half-past two? And was the other man whom he was to meet Mr. Mesham."
"Of course!" answered Brixey. "We know it was Mesham. Here, let me give this man something for his trouble, and arrange with about further reward if his information leads to anything, and then Gaffkin and I will tell you all we've learnt this evening."
Crabbe's eyes grew larger and his face graver as he heard Brixey’s account of the evening's proceedings, and in the end he shook, his head and fell into a deep silence, which the other two did not interrupt.
"I don't like this, gentlemen," he said at last. "Mesham's a stranger in this town. He’s only been here two years, and nobody knows anything about him, nor where his means come from, nor anything!
"And he’s deep; why, he was chatting to me in the street about this affair early this evening and he never breathed a syllable about having met Mr. Linthwaite. Instead, he suggested that he’d disappeared, because he wanted to. I don't like it at all!"
"The situation is this," observed Brixey. "We now know, on the evidence of Mr. Felgrave, and by the admission of Mrs. Byfield, through her son, that Mesham met my uncle in the Priory grounds on Tuesday morning and walked down Foxglove Lane with him.
"We also know, from what this tinker chap has just told us, that my uncle made an appointment with Mesham for half-past two, and that he set out from Mardene at a quarter to two to keep it. There the trail ends. Now, then, it seems to me that there's only one thing to do, inspector. How does it strike you?"
"You're right, sir," said Crabbe. "There is only one thing to do. We must go at once, and insist on Mesham telling us where he was to meet Mr. Linthwaite, and if he did meet him. Come round to his rooms, gentlemen—they’re close by."
He took Brixey and Gaffkin down the street until they came to a point where a narrow alley turned off in the direction of the cathedral close—there, at the corner of the main street and the alley, stood a saddler's shop with the name Strike over it in gilt letters, on a powder-blue ground. Crabbe pointed to some lighted windows on the first floor.
"Those are Mesham's rooms," he said. "He has the whole floor—very comfortable, too, I can assure you! He knows how to look after himself. I've been, in here more than once."
"Mr. Mesham in?" he asked, as a smart young woman answered his ring at the door bell. "Just ask him to see me, if you please—important business. I wish," he added in a whisper, as the three men waited in the passage, "that we could have caught him unawares. He'll be prepared now."
Mesham, prepared or not, certainly revealed a brilliant unconcern. They found him in a comfortably furnished sitting-room, lounging in a deep easy chair in a smoking jacket and crimson morocco slippers; a bright fire at his toes, a spirit-case and mineral waters at his elbow; a cigar of fine aroma between his teeth.
He took it out unconcernedly as the three entered, and while he nodded half-condescendingly to Crabbe, gave no more than a supercilious glance of recognition to the others.
"Didn't know you'd got a bodyguard, Crabbe," he drawled, "But as you have, what the devil is it all about?"
Crabbe advanced to a table which filled the centre of the room, and, resting the tips of his fingers on it, leaned forward with a keen look.
"Mr. Mesham," he said, "this Linthwaite affair. We’ve had information to-night which proves that you know something about it. I'll just tell you what it is, and then—well, then, I should like to know what you've got to say.
"Now," he concluded, after summarising what Mr. Felgrave and the tinker had told, "what do you say to that, Mr. Mesham? You see how serious it is!"
Mesham, who had shown no sign of either surprise or uneasiness while Crabbe was speaking, and had watched him steadily throughout, sneered visibly as he glanced from him to his companions.
"I'll tell you what I say, Crabbe," he answered. "And in a few words, too! I can mind my own business as well as any man. And I’m going to!"
"You don’t deny what Mr. Felgrave says, nor what Clarke says?" asked Crabbe uneasily.
"Not for a minute. Quite right, both of ’em," replied Mesham.
"Did you meet Mr. Linthwaite somewhere at two-thirty that day?" inquired Crabbe.
Mesham’s lip curled in a more pronounced sneer.
"Now that is my business!" he said with emphasis.
"You won’t tell?" asked Crabbe.
"Certainly not!" retorted Mesham.
Crabbe glanced at Brixey, and Brixey moved nearer the defiant figure in the arm-chair.
"You don’t care anything about my personal anxiety?" he asked.
Mesham let his eyes turn in Brixey’s direction for a second.
"Not a damn!" he answered. "Why should I?"
Brixey drew back again, and Mesham, after another sneering look at him, turned to Crabbe.
"Look here, Crabbe," he said. "How do you know what business Linthwaite had with me, or if we’re to mention names, with Mrs. Byfield? Go away and think over that. You’re building up a mare’s-nest and Linthwaite'll be dropping right on top of it! See?"
Brixey touched Crabbe’s elbow.
"Come away!" he said: "We’re wasting time here."
CHAPTER XII
THE FAMILY SOLICITOR
Mesham twisted sharply in his chair and gave Brixey an equally sharp glance.
"You’re quite right, my friend," he said calmly, "You are wasting time."
Crabbe seemed to follow the other two with anything but willingness, and in the street he hesitated, as if uncertain whether to go forward or back.
"There may be something in what he said just then, Mr. Brixey," he observed, shaking his head. "How do we know that your uncle didn’t go away, suddenly, on Tuesday on some secret business? One thing's now very evident to me—there’s some queer mystery in all this, and Mr. Linthwaite's mixed up in it.
"So's Mesham, and so, in all likelihood, is Mrs. Byfield. Mr. Linthwaite may have gone off at a moment's notice. He could have gone unobserved, too. Ours is a very busy station. Who'd have taken any particular notice of an elderly gentleman?"
"All wrong," said Brixey. "You're forgetting something. I had certain arrangements with my uncle. Whatever new ones he made he would have acquainted me with. That man we've just seen is a bold liar. Also, you forget another matter on which you previously laid a good deal of stress. If Mr. Linthwaite had left the town on sudden and secret business, how came his hat and umbrella to be left behind in Foxglove Lane? Come on, Gaffkin."
He walked away up the street without waiting an answer from Crabbe, and remained silent until he and Gaffkin were entering the courtyard of the "Mitre." There he paused and tapped his companion's arm.
"Look here!" he said. "I’m going on my own lines henceforth. No more truck with the police. Crabbe's no good. We'll solve this matter in our own way. Now listen. You’ll catch the first train to town in the morning. It leaves here just after seven; make your arrangements to-night. You know my uncle and I live in rooms in the Temple—of course, you’ve been there. Go there, Gaffkin. Here’s my key. Examine his papers—you’ll find a desk full, and some boxes full, too, in his room. They’re locked, of course. Call a locksmith in.
"Go right through everything, and see if you can find anything in which either of the names Byfield or Mesham is mentioned.
"Leave nothing unexamined. Put yourself up in the rooms until you’ve gone through everything, and then get back here. Meanwhile, I'll carry out a notion of my own. You understand?"
"All right," said Gaffkin. "I’ve a pretty good idea of what there is to examine. I can get through it in a couple of days, so you ought to see me back here on Monday morning—perhaps on Sunday evening. I'll arrange about being called."
He went up the yard to a room wherein Empidge carried out his duties as boots and general factotum, and Brixey turned into the hotel. Brackett caught sight of him, and came out of the bar parlour.
"Glad you’ve come in, sir," he said. "Mr. Semmerby, of Semmerby and Askill, the solicitors, has just been round here wanting to see you. He’s been away at Brighton for a few days, and only came home to-night, and as soon as he heard of what’s going on, and saw the reward bill, he came along.
"He’s anxious to help, Mr. Brixey. He says he’s met Mr. Linthwaite once or twice in London, and he’s much concerned. He asked if you could see him as soon as you got in."
"To be sure," answered Brixey. "Where does he live?"
Brackett led him out to the entrance of the courtyard, and pointed along the now deserted street.
"Straight along this side until you've passed St. Benet's Church, sir"' he said. "Then, just before you come to West Bar, you'll see an old house standing a bit back from the street. That's Mr. Semmerby's—his private residence, of course."
Brixey went off in the direction indicated. In a few minutes he found himself in an old-fashioned dining-room, the furniture and ornaments of which suggested early Victorian days, confronting an inquisitive-eyed, benevolent-looking old gentleman who regarded him with great interest.
"I was very much concerned to hear this news about Mr. Linthwaite," he said, as he pressed his visitor into an easy chair, and silently offered him refreshment from certain things on the table.
"I met Mr. Linthwaite four or five years ago in the course of business; in fact, I lunched with him once or twice in town. We had tastes—antiquarian tastes—in common. So you're his nephew? I hope you've some news of him by now, Mr Brixey?"
"No good news," answered Brixey. "In fact, I’m getting more and more puzzled and bothered about the whole thing. I'm much obliged to you, Mr. Semmerby, for coming round to the 'Mitre.' You may be able to give me the very help I want."
The old lawyer dropped into a chair at his visitor’s side, and put the tips of his, fingers, together.
"Tell me all about it," he said. "Remember, I don't know anything beyond mere common gossip. I haven’t been home more than an hour. I've just heard what my housekeeper could tell, and seen your handbill. Of course, you know much more?"
"Not so much," replied Brixey, "I'll tell you it all—in order, as things have developed since I became acquainted with them.
"Now," he concluded, after giving his host a lucid and straightforward account of his doings, from the visit of Georgina Byfield to the Sentinel office to the end of the call upon Mesham, "that's as far as things have gone. What, as a professional man, do you say to all that, Mr. Semmerby?"
"One thing, immediately," answered the old lawyer. "Mesham will have to tell if he did meet Linthwaite at two-thirty on Tuesday; where he met him; and where he left him. That's flat."
"Aye," said Brixey. "But who'll make him?"
"Public opinion," affirmed Semmerby.
"From what I've seen of Mesham," remarked Brixey, "I should say he’s as utterly indifferent to public opinion as he is to private feeling."
Semmerby shook his head.
"I wonder if you can tell me something?" said Brixey.
"I'll tell you anything I can that would help you," answered Semmerby.
"Do you know if Mesham knew Mrs. Byfield before he came to Selchester?" asked Brixey.
The old lawyer reflected in silence for a few minutes before he replied to this. When he spoke it was with a shake of the head which Brixey understood to suggest indecision more than denial.
"If he did," he answered, "it's unknown to me. That Mesham knows the Byfields, and visits them, I know. But I fancy, at least, I always understood, that it was through Fanshawe that he began going to the house. They belong to the same club—the Selchester Club. Fanshawe Byfield has a very good billiard table at the house in the Minories—he's a great player; so is Mesham. I think that's the bond. Of course, through going to the house to play billiards with the son, Mesham knows the mother."
"If Mesham was an absolute stranger when he came to this town two years ago," asked Brixey, "how did he manage to get elected a member of the Selchester Club?"
"Good question!" said the old lawyer with a smile. "Well, he'd been in the town some time—some months—then. He'd got to know two or three sportsmen, met them at the 'Mitre' or the 'Cavalier' or at the cricket ground. Some of them put him up, and, as his means were evident, and the tradesfolk spoke well of him, and as they're not very particular at the club—why, he was elected."
"The truth is, Mr. Semmerby," remarked Brixey, "nobody knows who the man is?"
"Quite so," agreed Semmerby.
"I mean to know," said Brixey. "And," he added, with a resolute look, "I mean to know who somebody else in Selchester is, too!"
"Who?" asked the old lawyer.
"Mrs. Byfield," replied Brixey.
Semmerby looked his visitor carefully over.
"You think there's some mystery about her which may be connected with your uncle's disappearance?" he asked.
"Frankly, I do!" assented Brixey. "I’m certain of it."
"Well," said Semmerby, "I may as well tell you that I'm the Byfield family solicitor."
"Are you?" exclaimed Brixey. "Glad to hear it! Then—do you know who she is—which really means who she was?"
"No more than that she was a young or youngish widow, named Mrs. Sunderland, when my late client, Martin Byfield, met her at, I think, Nice, where she was in charge—to put it plainly—of an English tea-room—manageress, you know," replied Semmerby.
"She came to Europe from New Zealand, where her first husband had died. That's all I can tell, except that there's a man here in the town, Wetherby, Martin Byfield's old valet, who saw his master married to her at Monaco. I don't think there's any mystery about Mrs. Byfield."
"You won't think me impertinent if I ask if these Byfields are very wealthy?" inquired Brixey.
"It's well known," answered Semmerby. "Those things do get known, especially in small places like this. Martin Byfield, who, by the by, died intestate, left about two hundred thousand pounds, almost entirely in personal property. Of course, the widow administered. She look one-third, and the son takes the other two-thirds. That reminds me. He comes of age during this next week. A very wealthy young man, and, I'm sorry to say, a very weak one."
But Brixey appeared to have no interest in young Mr. Fanshawe Byfield’s character, and presently he went away, promising to keep Mr. Semmerby informed if any news came to hand.
CHAPTER XIII
THE POSTER AND THE TELEGRAM
Brixey lay awake through half that night, thinking. He had endeavoured since his schoolboy days to foster and develop habits of clear thought, but he was bound to admit, as he lay tossing restlessly about, hearing the cathedral clock strike one hour after another, that his mental processes on this occasion were anything but clear.
It was an unrefreshing and unquiet slumber, from which he was aroused by a gentle tap at his door.
"Just off," whispered Gaffkin, putting his head inside. "Anything more you wish to tell me?"
Brixey had the faculty of coming wide-awake at any time, with all his wits about him.
"Oh, well!" he answered. "Just this. If you find any letters at our rooms, send 'em on. I forgot to leave instructions about that. That’s all. Be thorough in your search, Gaffkin."
Gaffkin nodded, withdrew his head, and went quietly away. Brixey pulled his watch from under his pillow, and finding that half-past six had arrived, got out of bed and drew up his blinds. Opposite his window, at the corner of the street, was a newsagent’s shop. The newsagent himself, having evidently been down to the station to fetch the first editions of the London morning newspapers, was now busied in putting tip their contents-bills at his door.
Brixey, thrusting his hands in the pockets of his pyjama jacket, stood lazily and indifferently watching him. But that watching gave him an idea, and suddenly he dived into his suit-case, dragged out a notebook and a pencil, and standing at a chest of drawers, began to write.
When he had finished writing he propped the sheet of paper on which he had written against the mirror on his dressing-table, and, while he shaved and dressed, he read it over and over again, and every time he read he laughed.
The printer round the corner was behind his shop-counter when Brixey upon him at eight o’clock.
"Another job for you," said Brixey, laying down his sheet of paper. "See that? Read it."
The printer read and whistled.
"Whew!" he said. "There isn’t anything you think that could be taken as libel, sir? The law’s so queer about printing statements that"
"It’s all right—pure statement of undisputed fact," answered Brixey. "The person named there admitted that much to Inspector Crabbe, to me, and to a friend of mine last night. Pure fact! But I mean to go further.
"Now look here, I want you to make a dozen big, staring placards of that—great big letters, as bold as possible. Then paste the placards on boards, and let a dozen men parade the streets round the Cross there with them, from, say eleven to one o’clock. Can you get men?"
"I can get a dozen if you make it worth their while," said the printer.
"Give ’em five shillings apiece," commanded Brixey, pulling out his money. "Now listen. Let them start out from here at eleven, and walk up and down for two hours in the centre of the town. Isn’t it your market-day?"
"One of them—we’ve two here," assented the printer. This is the town market-day."
"It’s the townsfolk I want to startle," said Brixey. "All right. Go ahead. There’s a fiver—we’ll settle things later, in the morning. But, eleven sharp, mind!"
The printer picked up the copy and the bank-note and vanished into his composing room, and Brixey lounged back to the "Mitre" and ate a big breakfast.
When that was over he did more lounging in the private room, adjacent to his own sitting-room, in which Miss Georgina Byfield, under Mr. Brackett’s superintendence, kept the books and wrote the letters—and she and the old landlord were not a little surprised to find that, for the first time since his arrival, Brixey avoided reference to the cause of his coming to Selchester. He had evidently no wish to talk of Mr. Linthwaite that morning. Instead, he talked of any trifling matter that arose. But as eleven o’clock struck he motioned Brackett to follow him out of the house and to the entrance to the courtyard.
"Come and see something," he said laconically, as he glanced up the street towards the printer’s. "There, out to the minute! Now, then, what do you think of that for a demonstration in force?"
Twelve men emerged in silent and solemn procession from the court at the side of the printing office, and, with intervals of a few yards between each, marched erect and businesslike down the side of the pavement.
Each carried in front of him a large board, on which was pasted a placard, its lettering bold enough to be read from across the street.
Brixey, admiring his own design, chuckled, as he saw that the printer, generously entering into the spirit of the thing, had printed the announcement in two colours, using red and black ink with striking effect.
"Bless my soul!" exclaimed the old landlord. "Your work, of course, sir!"
"Aye!" said Brixey. "Pretty notice, isn’t it?"
Brackett adjusted his glasses as the placard-bearers drew nearer, and audibly read over the wording which Brixey had concocted in the early hours.
"FIVE HUNDRED POUNDS REWARD!
SPOT CASH
Mitre Hotel, Selchester.
"The offer of £100 made yesterday by Mr. Richard Brixey for news of his uncle, Mr. John Linthwaite is now increased to the above amount, which wall be paid to any person who first gives reliable information leading to the finding of Mr. Linthwaite, alive or dead, Mr. Linthwaite, it is now known, arranged to meet
MR. CHRISTOPHER MESHAM
at half-past two o'clock last Tuesday afternoon.
DID THEY MEET?"
"Bless my soul!" repeated Brackett. "What will Mesham say to that? He'll—gad, sir, if that doesn't force him to something! Here, I'll get a copy of that to hang up in the bar, Mr. Brixey. Publicity, eh, sir—you believe in it?"
Brixey laughed, and, without replying, strolled slowly down the street after the line of placard-bearers. The town was just then filling with the usual Saturday morning crowd, and within a few minutes every other person was thronging the edges of the sidewalks to read the staring red-and-black.
Brixey, secure in his incognito, enjoyed himself by hearing the comments and inquiries, and suddenly he saw Mesham emerge from a tobacconist's shop, face to face with the first of the twelve stolid-faced processionists.
Mesham caught his own name glaring at him in great red letters, and his start of annoyed surprise was visible. His face flamed as scarlet as the printer's ink, and before any of those standing near had noticed his sudden appearance, he lifted the heavy, steel-ended stick which he carried and rushed on the placard-bearer, to find Brixey's square shoulders in front of him.
"My employees, Mr. Mesham," said Brixey quietly. "No interference!"
Mesham glared and glanced and drew back. The procession in the gutter moved on.
"Damn you!" he growled beneath his tightened lips. "Your work! I'll make you pay for this. I'll go to the police. I'll"
"Mere statement of fact," remarked Brixey, pointing to the last placard. "You admitted it to Crabbe last night. Now, did you meet my uncle?"
"Go to hell!" hissed Mesham, moving off in the direction of the police station.
"You," said Brixey, quietly sidling up to Mesham's side, "are in a very fair way of going to jail. Listen—these men will parade the streets for two hours, unless their presence leads to a riot. But they'll have done their effective work long before that—in fact, they've done it now.
"Now then, if before one o'clock you haven't told me whether or not you met Mr. Linthwaite last Tuesday at two-thirty, and if you did, what happened, and where he is, this little dodge of mine is as nothing—nothing!—to my next manœuvre against you. Now go and see Crabbe."
He turned on his heel without as much as another glance at Mesham, and walked slowly back towards the "Mitre," careless of the wondering and inquisitive looks of certain folk who had witnessed the scene on the sidewalk.
But at the point where the four main streets of the town intersected he met Mr. Semmerby, who had evidently crossed from the "Mitre," and who shook his head half gravely, half whimsically, at sight of him.
"Brackett," remarked the old lawyer, "has just shown me your poster. Ah, there, I see," he added as the procession of placard-bearers came back along their first tracks, "there are your emissaries! A bold experiment, my dear young man! Your notion of course, is to force Mesham's hand?"
"My notion, sir," answered Brixey, with a grim look, "is to force the truth out of him. I'll give him no peace until he tells if he did meet my uncle last Tuesday, and what he knows of his subsequent movements."
He paused, feeling a tap on his elbow, and turning, found Empidge standing there holding out a telegram.
"Just come for you, sir," said Empidge. "I saw you standing here, so I ran across with it."
Brixey excused himself to the old solicitor, and turning away, read the message. As he expected, it was from Gaffkin:
Found following telegram here addressed to you. Housekeeper says was delivered last Thursday afternoon at four-thirty: "Newhaven.—Obliged to run over to Paris on urgent business for a few days, so cannot meet you Winchester to-morrow. Will wire you next Tuesday or Wednesday to White Hart, Salisbury, as to time of my return.—Linthwaite."
CHAPTER XIV
THE HOLOGRAPH MESSAGE
Brixey read this message twice over, excused himself again to Mr. Semmerby and, moving away, beckoned to Empidge, who was waiting behind him.
"Got a local time table?" he asked.
The boots produced a much-thumbed railway guide, and Brixey, running through its pages, quickly memorised the information he needed.
"Look here!" he said, handing back the guide. "Tell Mr. Brackett I'm going to be away during the afternoon. I shall be back at the 'Mitre' just about seven tills evening.
"Now, another thing. You know Robinson, the printer? Go to him, and tell him that Mr. Brixey says he can withdraw those men who are carrying the placards at twelve o’clock, or sooner, if—but only if—Mr. Crabbe asks him to do so. That's all, except that I shall want dinner when I get back."
He hurried away down the street and went off to the station, where he presently caught an eastward-bound train. And all the way to Newhaven he was wondering and speculating about the exact meaning and significance of Gaffkin's wire
That the repeated wire, purporting to originate from Mr. Linthwaite was really genuine Brixey did not believe for one moment. He knew his uncle well enough to feel sure that if circumstances had arisen necessitating an alteration in his plans he would not only have wired more explicitly, but have supplemented the telegram by a letter giving details.
The telegram quoted by Gaffkin was, in Brixey's opinion, a fraud, and, as he had said, a clumsy one, and a feature in what he was rapidly coming to consider a strange and mysterious conspiracy. It had been sent to him as a blind, in his uncle’s name, in order to throw him off a possible scent.
Yet there were certain facts to be faced, and Brixey put these to himself in the form of questions, revolving each in turn as the tram carried him along the Sussex coast line. Some person who was not Mr. Linthwaite had send the message which Gaffkin had found on arriving in London. So how had that person obtained Brixey’s private address?
How did the person know that he, Brixey, had arranged to meet Mr. Linthwaite at Winchester last Friday morning? Why was Tuesday or Wednesday in the coming week mentioned as a probable date for Mr. Linthwaite to communicate again with his nephew?
Finally, why was it necessary to put him, Brixey, into the position of believing that Mr. Linthwaite’s arrangements were so altered that there would be no meeting between uncle and nephew for at least four or five days?
Before he reached Brighton and changed into a local train for Newhaven, Brixey had worked out certain conclusions, which, when he re-considered seemed obvious enough. First, whoever had sent the wire from Newhaven was in touch with Mr. Linthwaite. Second, Mr. Linthwaite had without doubt furnished, of his own will or under pressure, the address of the rooms in the Temple which he and his nephew shared. Third, the obvious intention of the wire was that Brixey, for some days at any rate, should have uneasiness or wonder as to his uncle's whereabouts.
Hew was to be under the comfortable impression that Mr. Linthwaite had, for some reason or other, altered his arrangements; that they were to meet at the "White Hart" at Salisbury some days later than they had meant to meet at Winchester, and that their projected holiday together would then begin.
So, what did it all mean?
Brixey got the solution of the mystery in a flash as he stood nibbling a sandwich and sipping a cup of coffee in the refreshment room at Brighton during a ten minutes' wait.
Kidnapped!
While he journeyed round through Lewes to Newhaven, Brixey did more thinking. He tried to reconstruct things. Mr. Linthwaite goes to Selchester intent on no more than amusing and interesting himself in its antiquities, among which he means to idle a few days pleasantly away.
By sheer accident, he lights on some people he has known One is Mrs. Byfield; the other is Mr. Christopher Mesham, the Mr. X of another period. What secret of theirs, or of hers, does he discover? Was it a mutual secret? Was it the secret of one only? Did it come to the surface, just when it was not wanted, when the three met in the old ruins that morning? Did Mr. Linthwaite already know it? Or did he only become acquainted with it at that meeting?
Anyway,in Brixey’s opinion, what had happened was this—these people had a secret, and a design in hand arising out of it which would be absolutely smashed up if Mr. Linthwaite was allowed to remain at large with power to use his knowledge of the secret; therefore he was cleverly and quietly trapped, until the moment came whereat that knowledge would be useless.
And, evidently, from the trick of the telegram, that time was limited to four or five five, days—certainly to within a week. Therefore, whatever it was that these people were doing, they were doing it now. Now—just now.
Brixey left the train at Newhaven town station and walked up to the post office. He had to wait some little time before the clerk was found who had taken in the telegram about which he had called, but thereafter he had no difficulty in getting his first piece of information. The telegram had not been handed in over the counter at all, but telephoned from an hotel in the town.
"Man's voice or woman's?" asked Brixey.
"Man's—I should say a young man’s," answered the clerk.
"You’ve an arrangement, I suppose, by which the hotel people or people staying there can telephone messages up to you for transmission by telegram?" suggested Brixey.
"Just so," said the clerk. "Often done."
Brixey went off to the hotel. He was on the track of something, and of somebody; the next thing was to discover who the person was who had come to Newhaven in order to send that designedly misleading message. Would the hotel folk, who no doubt saw a great many people, be likely to remember any particular person who had been there, perhaps only for a few minutes, two days before?
He was encouraged in his hopes by finding that the hotel was a small one. He walked into the coffee-room, that was otherwise unoccupied, and, finding that it was already past three o’clock, rang the bell and asked for tea. While the waitress went for it he sat down and reflected on his next movement.
He was anxious not to excite undue interest, for he was by that time convinced that he had to do with a conspiracy, and he did not know how far its ramifications might extend. For anything he knew to the contrary, one of the persons concerned in it might live in Newhaven, might use that very house regularly. It was, in any case, necessary to proceed with caution.
From sheer habit when stranded in such surroundings and being one of those people who can think of one thing and read about another at the same time, Brixey looked round for a newspaper.
Then he saw one close at his knee; someone had carelessly thrown the Daily Express on top of a big waste-paper basket which stood between his easy-chair and the corner of the fender. He leaned forward and picked it up, and the next instant found himself staring at a scrap of paper on which part of his own name and address was plainly written. And—in Mr. Linthwaite’s familiar caligraphy!
Brixey had already experienced too much of it not to believe in luck. He had known several strokes of luck—luck so extraordinary as to be almost miraculous. And he knew that here, once more, his luck was with him again. By sheer, good, absolute luck he was on the verge of a discovery.
Before placing even the tip of a finger on it, he bent over the basket and looked narrowly at its contents. He saw at once that they had been accumulating there for days. He saw, too, what had happened in the case of the scrap of paper on which Mr. Linthwaite’s writing appeared.
Someone, probably sitting in that very chair, probably waiting, as he was, for a cup of tea had torn up a half-sheet of notepaper into small pieces, and had then dropped the pieces, in a solid sheaf, into the basket.
Having arrived at that conclusion, Brixey carefully took the pieces out, made sure that there were no more of them, and put them, unsorted, into his pocket.
The tea came. Once more he had the room to himself. He drew a chair to the table, poured out a cup of tea, lighted a cigarette, and examined his find, laying each scrap of paper on the cloth. Then he counted them. Thirty-two in all.
He knew then what had happened. The destroyer had half a sheet of notepaper. He had torn it in two—torn it again—repeated the process three times after that, until the one piece had become thirty-two pieces. All right—the thirty-two pieces were there; all that was necessary was to put them carefully together.
There was no great difficulty in the task, granted that whoever essayed it was possessed of patience and aptitude. In ten minutes Brixey had brought it to a successful conclusion, and had the tangible result before him. And he was then more surprised than ever.
There were two messages on the half-sheet of paper, and each was in a different handwriting. One, written evidently rather hastily in pencil, was in the handwriting of Mr. Linthwaite; the other, in ink, was in a hand quite unfamiliar to Brixey.
What Mr. Linthwaite had written was this:
Brixey, 851c, King's Bench Walk, Temple, E.C.—Obliged alter arrangements for few days. Meet me White Hart, Salisbury, next Wednesday evening.—Linthwaite.
All of this, except the address, had been crossed out in ink. Underneath the unknown hand had written another message:
Newhaven.—Obliged to run over to Paris on urgent business for a few days, so cannot meet you Winchester to-morrow. Will wire you next Tuesday or Wednesday to White Hart, Salisbury, as to time of my return.—Linthwaite.
This, of course, was identical, word for word, with the wire which Gaffkin had quoted to Brixey in his own wire of that morning. The variation from the original message had, of course, been made with a purpose, and
The waitress entered the room at that moment, bringing some hot toast, and Brixey, after a sharp, observant glance at her, determined on a bold stroke. He motioned her to put the door to, and lowered his voice to a whisper.
"Look here!" he said, with a meaning look. "Would you like to earn a sovereign?"
CHAPTER XV
THE VEILED WOMAN
Had Brixey invited the waitress to lead a white elephant in chains through the streets of Newhaven she could scarcely have looked more astonished than she did on hearing this question. Seeing her astonishment, he hastened to make matters more plain to her.
"Nothing much!" he said reassuringly. "I just want you to tell me something, if you can. This is Saturday. Now, the day before yesterday, Thursday—do you remember any strangers coming in here in the afternoon, between, say, two o’clock and four, or something of that sort?"
The girl’s face cleared, and she nodded her head with an emphatic gesture.
"There was a gentleman in, about three o’clock’ she said. "He had a cup of tea. But he came in to use our telephone."
"Ah!" said Brixey. "To use your telephone. Where’s that, now?"
"At the end of the hall, by the bar," answered the waitress. "He wanted to telephone a message to the post office—he paid the landlord for it."
"Oh!" remarked Brixey. "Now, what sort of gentleman—old or young?"
"Well," replied the waitress, after thoughtful reflection, "I should say he’d be thirty or so."
"Quite a stranger, I suppose?" suggested Brixey.
"I never saw him before," said the girl. "But I’ve only been here a year. Perhaps," she added, "the landlord, Mr. Marrows, could tell you more about him. Has he—has he been doing something?"
"Ah!" said Brixey, with a warning look. "It’s a very mysterious case. However, here’s the little present I promised you. Now, then," he added, as he slipped a sovereign into the girl’s hand, "where is Mr. Marrows?"
The waitress, evidently as delighted with the mystery as with its results to herself, conducted Brixey to the bar parlour at the rear of the hall, where an elderly man sat reading the newspaper to the accompaniment of a cigar. He looked over the top of his spectacles as the girl ushered Brixey in.
"Gentleman wants to speak to you, Mr. Marrows," she said, and turned away with obvious reluctance.
Brixey nodded confidentially to the landlord and sat down by him.
"A little private .business, between you and me, of the detective sort," said Brixey, assuming a still more mysterious air than he had manifested to the damsel. "I’ve just heard from your waitress what I wanted—and expected—to find. On Thursday afternoon you'd a man in here who used your telephone to send a wire to the post office. He paid you for it?"
"Left half a crown for it—they collect from the post office," assented the, landlord. "Told me to give the change to the girl, which I did."
"Just so" said Brixey. "You didn't know the, man?"
"Not from Adam" answered Mr. Marrows. "Not any more than I know you."
Brixey pulled out a card and laid it on the table.
"That's who I am," he said. "Now, that message which the man sent off from here was to me—I have the copy of it in my pocket. And I want to find out who he was. There's a great deal depends on it, Mr. Marrows. I gather from what your waitress says that he was a stranger here?"
"Absolute, mister! Never saw the man in my life before," declared the landlord. "And I've been in this house five-and-twenty years. I've a good memory for faces, too."
"Then you can remember, since it’s only forty-eight hours since he was here, what this chap was like?" suggested Brixey.
"Very ordinary," said the landlord. "I should ha’ set him down as a commercial, or a clerk, or something of that sort, mister. Dark clothes, billycock hat, bit of a black moustache:—very ordinary, such as you might meet by the dozen, you know.
"However, I did notice one thing about him that's not so very usual, when all’s said and done."
"What was that?" asked Brixey.
"Had a queer cast in one eye—the left one," answered the landlord. Gave him a—a—what's that word, now?"
"A sinister look?" suggested Brixey.
"You're right," agreed Mr. Marrows. "A sinister look! Seemed to be looking at you sort of fixed-like with one optic while the other roved round. I never trust that sort. Not as it can be helped, I suppose—born so, no doubt."
"And that’s all you know of him? " asked Brixey.
"All!" said the landlord. "Excepting that he came in here, had a cup of tea and a bit of toast or the like, used our telephone, and treated me to a drop of whisky and a cigar before he went out. Left to catch the four-eleven train."
Brixey followed the mysterious stranger's example by inviting Mr. Marrows to the refreshment specified. But he got no further information.
When he, too, presently caught the four-eleven, all he knew was that a very ordinary-looking individual, only distinguished from the ruck by an optical infirmity, had somehow become possessed of Mr. Linthwaite's real message to himself, and had, at his own pleasure, or at the dictation of some other person, altered it as to endeavour to make him, Brixey, believe that Mr. Linthwaite was on his way, via Newhaven and Dieppe, to Paris.
"A concocted job!" mused Brixey, as he set off on his return journey to Selchester. "How many of them are in at it? And is this squinting person a principal or an agent—a cat's-paw? And how am I to find him?
This was a question not to be answered by speculation, and Brixey occupied, himself for the remainder of his two hours' journey by considering larger issues. By this time he had come to a supplementary conclusion—the thing at the bottom of all this mystery was money. But whose money? What money?
He began to reflect upon all he had heard of money in connection with it. Martin Byfield had left Georgina, his niece, no money. He had not made any will about his own money; at any rate, if he had, no will had ever been brought to light. Had Mr. Linthwaite's disappearance anything to do with these two matters?
Again, as regards money, Mr. Linthwaite had been in the habit of paying Mesham, as Mr. X., so much money every six months. Had that fact any relation to his disappearance? And yet again, Mr. Semmerby had casually mentioned the fact that within a few days young Fanshawe Byfield would come of age and into a fortune—a big one. Had that any relation to the Linthwaite mystery?
After all, Mr. Linthwaite was a solicitor, if a retired one. It might be—nay, must be—that he had professional secrets of which he, Brixey, knew and could know nothing whatever.
Supposing that his evidently accidental meeting with Mrs. Byfield and Mesham brought up one of those secrets and led to these apparently mysterious events, might not the explanation, when it came, be a remarkably simple one? He was bound to confess that it might.
But, in spite of that, he was going on—the intuitive feeling that something was wrong was too powerful to be resisted. He had set out to find his uncle, and he was going to find him. His zeal might be misplaced, but Brixey’s way was to go through with things.
He was back at the "Mitre" before seven, and at once sought out Brackett, eager for news. Nothing had happened. The placard men had patrolled the streets until noon, when, in accordance with Brixey's orders, the printer had withdrawn them. But the one hour's publicity had been amply sufficient, said Brackett. The whole town was talking about the affair.
And, whether it had anything to do with it or not, a young fellow who drove a motor-car from Stillwick's garage had told Empidge that he would like to see Mr. Brixey that evening, but wouldn't say why. Empidge had told him to call later on.
"Bring him in—any time," said Brixey. "Any telegrams for me?"
He had hoped to hear something more from Gaffkin. But there was nothing, and nothing had come by the time he had eaten his dinner. He sat down then to write more copy for the Sentinel. This time he was going further; Monday's Sentinel should have a column, a whole column, with rousing cross-headings, of startling news. He was busied in this way when nine o’clock came, and the old landlord entered with a significant air which suggested mystery.
"There’s a woman, heavily veiled, outside in the yard," he whispered, "Wants to see you on the placard business. But she’s evidently frightened to death of being seen, and doesn't wish to come into the house.
"Look here, there's a quiet little room up the yard, in one of the old wings. I'll take her there, and assure her of privacy, and you can go and talk to her. Wait a minute, and I'll fetch you."
Five minutes later, Brixey was ushered into a queer little room at the top of a flight of stairs in an ancient part of the house which he had not seen before. There was no furniture in it but a rickety table and a couple of decayed chairs.
In the light of a small lamp which Brackett had set on the table he saw a tall, slightly-built woman, dressed in old-fashioned rusty black garments, whose head and face were so thoroughly obscured by thick swathings of veil that it was impossible to see any features beyond a prominent nose.
Brixey stared hard at this apparition. His visitor was so still, so statuesque, that for the moment he was taken aback, and it was not until a low, interrogative cough had sounded from behind the heavy veil that he regained his wits.
"You wish to speak to me, ma’am?" he asked awkwardly, "Won't you take a chair?"
The veiled lady glanced at the door.
"Mr. Brixey, I suppose?" she said. "The Mr. Brixey whose name is on the posters? Yes, but is it—shall we be absolutely private?"
"I can assure you of that, ma'am," answered Brixey, "There's nobody at all in this part of the house; that door's closed; nobody will come, and we can talk in whispers. As for me, if you've come to tell me anything relating to my uncle. I'm as silent as—as a man can be! So"
The mysterious visitor sat down in a chair on one side of the rickety table, and Brixey, taking the other, leaned towards her.
"Don't be afraid of anything!" he said reassuringly, "This is real privacy."
Without further delay the visitor pushed up the heavy swathings of veil, and Brixey found himself looking at an elderly woman, of a strongly marked countenance, who, now that she was unveiled, leaned nearer to him and regarded him with an attention equal to his own.
"I can tell you something that I know," she said in a low, tense whisper which did no more than reach his ear. "It may have something to do with what you're after, and if it is, you'll see that I'm paid—I'm poor!"
"That's all right," answered Brixey hurriedly. "Make yourself easy on that point."
The woman nodded and drew her chair still nearer to the intervening table.
"You mentioned one name on the placard they carried about this morning," she said, in the same low but clear tones. "It's about that I've come—about him—Mesham!"
CHAPTER XVI
WHO WAS HE?
Once more the name of the man in whom, as Brixey had long been convinced, much of the mystery which he was attempting to fathom centred! He was prepared for it, but he unconsciously started, and drew his own chair closer to the rickety table. His own eager face was very near to the woman's somewhat haggard and watchful one.
"Mesham!" he said, "Yes. And—what?"
"I'd better tell you who I am," answered the woman. "I'm enough known in the town, but I came here like this because—well, in a place of this sort, it doesn't do to let it be known that you're interfering with your neighbour's business. And I'm neighbour to Mrs. Byfield. You'll know, I suppose, where she lives—in the Minories?"
"I know," assented Brixey. "Been there."
"Perhaps you didn't notice at the side of her house, back of the garden, there's a little street—Friargate—that runs into the town?" said the visitor. "Well, there is, and her garden wall makes one side of it for some distance. There's a door in that wall—I live in a house right opposite that door.
"My name’s Mrs. Iddison—I'm a dressmaker. And I do a good deal for Mrs. Byfield, plain things, for her, and gowns for her servants, and I shouldn't like it to get to her ears that I've told anything that has to do with her affairs, you understand?"
"I see!" said Brixey, "Be reassured, Mrs. Iddison. All that you tell me's between ourselves."
"I don't know that it has anything to do with her," continued Mrs. Iddison. "But it certainly has to do with Mr. Mesham, and perhaps with this gentleman you're looking for.
"Well—it's this, sir. My windows look out on Mrs. Byfield's garden door, as I've said. Close by that garden door there's a lamp. It's the only lamp there is in Friargate, which is a short street. Now, last Tuesday night I was going to bed, about twenty minutes to ten, and I was just about drawing the blind down in my front upstairs window when I heard voices in the street below.
"I looked out and saw two gentlemen coming along. The lamp I mentioned was just in front of them, so, of course, the light fell full on them. One of them was Mr. Mesham. The other was a stranger—a tallish"
"Be very careful about describing him, if you please," interrupted Brixey.
"As tall as Mr. Mesham," said Mrs. Iddison. "An elderly man, fresh-coloured, clean-shaved. He'd a grey suit and a Trilby hat. I couldn't say more about him. They were talking—well, loud enough for me to hear, though I didn't catch any words.
"It was just as if they were—you know—just strolling along, chatting. Mr. Mesham was smoking a cigar. And when they came to Mrs. Byfield's garden door, they turned in. So, of course, I didn't see them again that night."
"I judge from your last words that you saw them on some other occasion," observed Brixey.
"Yes, the next night," assented Mrs. Iddison. "But under different circumstances. It was about the same time. I was upstairs, in the same room. There was a taxicab came down Friargate—one of Stillwick's. It stopped at Mrs. Byfield's garden door.
"In a minute or two the door opened, and Mr. Mesham and another gentleman came out. As far as I could see, it was the stranger that I'd seen the night before—his build, anyway, but he'd an overcoat on, and a big white muffler, and a soft cap. I only got the merest glimpse of his face. But I feel sure it was the same, from his height and general appearance."
"They entered the taxicab?" asked Brixey. "Both?"
"Both," replied Mrs. Iddison. "And, of course, off it went, round the corner and through the Minories. And that’s all I know. Do you think, sir," she continued, with an anxious, interrogative look at Brixey, "do you think, from what I say, that this would be the gentleman who’s missing?"
"I should say it’s extremely likely," answered Brixey.
"Do you think I shall have any chance of getting anything out of that reward, sir?" she asked nervously. "I could do with it, I assure you."
"You know what the terms of my offer are," answered Brixey, "I’m offering the reward for information which will lead to the finding of Mr. Linthwaite, alive or dead. If what you’ve told me is of help—as I have no doubt it will be—you’ll benefit. I shall have to follow it up, and find out more. You haven’t told all this to anyone else?"
"Oh, dear no, sir!" replied Mrs. Iddison. "Not a soul! I’m not one for talking to neighbours, and, to tell you the truth, I’ve never thought anything of this until I saw, that placard that was carried about this morning. No—I’ve told no one."
"Don’t!" said Brixey. "And, talking of neighbours, do you think any of yours would be likely to see what you saw?"
"I have none close at hand," she answered, "Mine’s the only dwelling house in Friargate. On one side of the street, coming from the main street, there’s first St. Fridolin’s church, and then the long wall of Mrs. Byfield’s garden.
"On the other side there’s a brewery—its walls and outbuildings run right up to my house, which is at the far corner. Then Friargate runs into the Minories. So there was nobody but me could have seen."
"Very well, Mrs. Iddison," said Brixey. "For the present, then, this is secret. I’ll see that you are properly rewarded."
He waited until his visitor had resumed her heavy veil and had slipped quietly away up the courtyard of the "Mitre"; then he went back to his private sitting-room and sat down to think.
Was that his uncle whom Mrs. Iddison had seen with Mesham? It seemed extremely likely. But, if so, why this extraordinary secrecy of movement? And, beyond that, why the throwing away of hat and umbrella in Foxglove Lane? Was it possible, after all, that Mr. Linthwaite himself was mixed up, of his own free will, in the mysterious doings of these people, and that he, Brixey, was alarming himself unduly, and being foolishly officious?
Mrs. Iddison’s information had certainly done something to shake him, and he was becoming almost angrily puzzled when word was brought to him that the young man from Stillwick’s was outside.
Brixey grew more puzzled before he had been closeted with this visitor for many minutes. Stillwick’s employee, like Mrs. Iddison, was out for what he could get. But, unlike her story, his appeared to have no mystery in it! It was a very plain ordinary story of a cab transaction.
As a rule, said this young man, he was with his taxicab on a rank near the station. He was there early in the evening of the previous Wednesday when Mr. Mesham came up to him and gave him an order. He was to be at Mrs. Byfield’s—the garden-door entrance—at twenty minutes to ten that evening, and would be wanted for an hour or a little more.
There was no secrecy about it. Mr. Mesham was alone when he gave the order. And he, the driver, had fulfilled it at the time specified; he had driven up to the minute, and Mr. Mesham and another gentleman had at once come out and entered the cab.
"Well, where did you drive them?" asked Brixey.
"Ledfield Junction, sir," answered the man promptly.
"Where’s that?" demanded Brixey.
"About five miles out, sir—going east," said the driver.
"Did they catch a train there, then?" asked Brixey.
"The strange gentleman did, sir—not Mr. Mesham," replied the man. "Mr. Mesham he came back with me, after seeing his friend off."
"Do you know where the friend went?" inquired Brixey.
"Yes," said the driver. "I followed them into the booking hall to set my watch right, and I was standing near when the strange gentleman took his ticket. He booked to Brighton."
Brixey revolved this answer in his mind for a minute or two. "Why should he have gone to Ledfield Junction when he could have gone from Selchester?" he asked.
"No train from here after eight o’clock, sir," answered the driver. "The ten-seventeen at Ledbury starts from Bayington, on the coast—branch line, sir, that doesn’t touch Selchester, That, I reckon, was why they went to Ledfield."
"Did you happen to hear Mr. Mesham address the other man by name?" asked Brixey.
But the driver shook his head. No, he hadn’t heard any name mentioned. Mr. Mesham and the stranger seemed very friendly—very friendly indeed. Mr. Mesham went with him on to the platform, saw him off, then came back to the taxicab and was driven to his own rooms in Selchester. He paid for the cab then.
"I suppose you'd know the stranger if you saw him?" suggested Brixey.
But the driver was doubtful. He had only a vague, general idea of an elderly gentleman—as tall as Mr. Mesham, and a good deal wrapped up.
After he had gone, Brixey felt that all he had heard that evening only seemed to lead to the conclusion that Mr. Linthwaite might, after all, have gone to Paris on the previous Thursday, having spent Wednesday night in Brighton, and that the message from Newhaven might have originated from him, and the variation in it been dictated by him.
He was climbing the stairs to his room that night when he encountered Georgina Byfield in one of the big, gloomy corridors. A sudden notion seized upon him. He badly wanted somebody to talk to, to confide in.
"Look here!" he said, stopping her, "I’m an impulsive chap! If I haven’t some soul to talk to to-morrow, I shall explode! It’s Sunday. Come out with me. I want to tell you a whole budget of stuff. Coming?"
Georgina gave him an intelligent glance and moved off.
"See me after breakfast in the morning," she answered.
CHAPTER XVII
SUNDAY MORNING
What time the bells of the old cathedral and of the ancient churches were, ringing out in Selchester next morning, Mr. Richard Brixey and Miss Georgina Byfield, seated in a retired yet sunny nook of the city walls, were ruminating, he in his, and she in her way, on the story which he had just unfolded in all its fullness.
He had set before her everything that he had done, and all that he had learnt, since she fetched him away from Fleet Street three days before, and had given her all details with one exception—that of the little matter of the squinting man who had presented himself at Newhaven, which small particular he was as yet keeping to himself, for reasons of his own.
And now he was wanting to know what she, as a sensible young woman, with some business experience, thought of the various incidents and developments, and while she was thinking, he, too, was weighing and adding, viewing things from every conceivable aspect.
"Well?" he asked, after a long pause, during which Georgina, evidently very meditative, was tracing patterns with her umbrella in the loose gravel at their feet. "How does it all seem to you?"
Georgina took another minute or two for further reflection.
"You said you felt sure that money was at the bottom of it," she remarked at last. "What money? Whose money?"
"It might be Martin Byfield’s money," replied Brixey. "There’s a tidy lot of it, from what I hear."
"But that’s settled," said Georgina. "It’s Mrs. Byfield’s, and they’ve got it."
"She’s got hers, to be sure," agreed Brixey. "But has he got his? Old Semmerby, the solicitor, mentioned that Fanshawe comes of age during this week."
"Fanshawe will be twenty-one on Tuesday," observed Georgina.
"Then he’ll come into his fortune, I suppose," said Brixey. "A lot of money. He’ll get two-thirds of what your uncle left. Now, supposing all this business has something to do with that?"
"What would Mr. Linthwaite have to do with it?" asked Georgina. "He’d nothing to do with the Byfield affairs, had he?"
"Not to my knowledge," answered Brixey. "But he might have had. Perhaps Gaffkin may have discovered something. But I say, look here, don’t you think it was a very queer thing that Martin Byfield died without leaving a will?"
"Mr. Brackett," remarked Georgina, "used to say, at one time, that he didn’t believe he died without leaving a will."
"Then where is it?" demanded Brixey. "No, we’re running against a dead wall there, I think. If there’d been a will, it would have come to light by now.
"But here’s a question I’ve wanted to ask you. Did you never see, or meet, your Uncle Martin in his last days, never go to his house or anything of that sort?"
Georgina shook her head with a decided gesture.
"Mrs. Byfield wouldn't have either my father or myself at the house," she answered. "My uncle was infirm during the last two or three years; and she kept everybody away from him. If I ever saw him, it was in a bath-chair in the streets, and there was always Mrs. Byfield and a nurse with him. Wetherby, his old valet, used to wheel him out."
"So you never had any conversation with him in the last stages?" asked Brixey.
"I never remember speaking to him since I was sixteen or seventeen," replied Georgina.
Brixey considered matters a little.
"Seems a rather blunt way of putting things," he said presently, "but you'd have been in a bad way if it hadn't been for old Brackett, wouldn't you?"
"Very!" answered Georgina laconically. "Mr. Brackett has been a second father to me. Of course, keeping his books and writing his letters is a mere pretext for his kindness. He adopted me. I shouldn't have had anywhere or anybody to turn to but for him."
"He's a good old chap," said Brixey. "And yet, if we're going to be plainly straightforward, there you were with a remarkably, rich uncle next door to you! Seems odd, eh?"
"I've told you that I don't believe my Uncle Martin knew anything about it," replied Georgina. "He was fenced in."
"By his wife," said Brixey. "What you say implies that she wasn't going to let him spare a penny for his niece. Now, he might comfortably have spared a good many pounds. Which makes it all the odder!"
Georgina gave her companion a quick, searching glance out of her eye-corners.
"You don't look into things any further than that?" she suggested.
Brixey returned the look.
"Not good at riddles," he retorted. "What’s this one?"
"Old men are apt to be a bit talkative, aren’t they?" said Georgina. "I've always believed that Mrs. Byfield kept everybody away from my Uncle Martin, because she was afraid of his saying things she didn't want anybody to hear."
"You think there were secrets?" suggested Brixey.
"I think she has secrets," assented Georgina.
"Now, why do you think so?" asked Brixey.
"Because I do!" she answered. "Besides, she looks as if she had!"
"Good feminine reasons," assented Brixey. "Well, if comes to this. The foundation of all this business is away back—a long way back. Questions arise. Who was Mrs. Byfield? When did my uncle, John Linthwaite, know her. What did he know? What's it all got to do with his sudden removal from the scene? And where is he?"
"You don't think, after all, that there may be a perfectly reasonable explanation of this?" asked Georgina. "That Mr. Linthwaite may be somehow mixed up with some business affair of these people, and have gone away in connection with it, and that he'll turn up all right in a day or two?"
"When I woke this morning," replied Brixey, "I was a good deal inclined to think that. But by breakfast time I was quite sure that my inclinations were leading me into a wrong path. For one very little, very simple reason.
"I can’t conceive it possible that my uncle should leave Selchester in such a violent hurry that he couldn’t either slip into the 'Mitre’ or send a message to Mr. Brackett to say that ho was going away. The thing’s ludicrous! Moreover, what about the hat and umbrella found in Foxglove Lane?"
"Then you think—what?" asked Georgina.
"I think he’s been kidnapped," said Brixey. "Put away somewhere until these folk, whoever they are, have brought off some business on which they’re engaged, and with which his sudden coming to Selchester, and his knowledge of them, interfered.
"I say these folk. But I don’t know what particular folk I mean! Mesham’s one, no doubt. Probably Mrs. Byfield’s another. There may—must, I think—be still more. And what are they after? If I knew that, I’d know a lot.
"As to my uncle’s whereabouts, I'm now inclined to think that he may have been the elderly gentleman who drove with Mesham to Ledfield Junction and is known to have booked for Brighton. Perhaps he was met at Brighton by Mesham's confederates and safely locked up. The whole thing’s getting into more of a tangle than I ever foresaw. And I tell you, my dear young lady, it all spells—money!"
Georgina made no answer to this emphatic declaration, and Brixey, after a pause, suddenly laughed.
"What a lark it would be if a sudden burst-up of some sort revealed the fact that money was coming to you!" he exclaimed.
"To me?" said Georgina, staring at him. "Nonsense!"
"Never mind," retorted Brixey. "I’ve heard and known of some queer cases about money and estates and that sort of thing. Supposing you were discovered to be a rich heiress? Perhaps there’s money that ought to have come to your father, and perhaps your Uncle Martin knew of it, and perhaps Mrs. Byfield has inherited the secret, and perhaps"
"I thought you prided yourself on being practical," interrupted 'Georgina.
"Eminently practical," replied Brixey, with assurance. "That’s why I'm suggesting all this. You never know!" He pulled out his watch.
"Past noon," he said. "Let’s be going 'Mitre’-wards. I’m wondering if Gaffkin will turn up. He might."
Ten minutes later Brixey walked into his sitting-room at the "Mitre" to find Gaffkin, who, at sight of him, held up a carefully sealed packet, with one word:
"Papers!"
CHAPTER XVII
RECEIPTS AND PEDIGREES
Brixey realised that Gaffkin had made some important discovery, and hastened to shut the door.
"Found something out?" he asked. "Something really pertinent?"
"I think so," answered Gaffkin, laying stress on the personal pronoun.
"I do indeed. I’d have got back last night if I could, Mr. Brixey. I made this discovery yesterday afternoon late, but there wasn't a train. So I caught the very first one this morning."
"What is it?" demanded Brixey, pointing to the sealed packet. "In there?"
"The papers are in here," said Gaffkin. He glanced at a clock on the mantelpiece.
"We can’t go into it now he added. "It’ll be a long and serious business. And, to tell you the truth, I’m famishing. I’ve had nothing since eight o’clock."
Just then the waiter came in to lay the cloth for lunch, and Brixey had to restrain his impatience. He had to restrain it again, not being particularly hungry himself, while Gaffkin ate and drank. It seemed to him that the meal—a typically English country hotel Sunday dinner—was never coming to an end. But he knew that Gaffkin had been hard at it since they parted, and he encouraged him to enjoy himself. Moreover, when the waiter had removed the cloth, he ordered in a bottle of Brackett’s best port, knowing that his companion had an old-fashioned taste for that wine.
Gaffkin sipped his first glass with great satisfaction, remarked dryly that a man felt much better disposed towards important business when he had dined well, and, drawing the packet towards him, broke the seals and cut the strings.
"I don’t know what Mr. Linthwaite would say, sir, if he knew that I’d been going through his private papers," he remarked, glancing slyly at Brixey, "but as I'd your authority and warranty I made a pretty exhaustive search. And I'll tell you what I went for, Mr. Brixey.
"I thought the whole matter carefully over as I journeyed up to town yesterday morning, and I came to the conclusion that I’d better stick to a definite object—this object. We know that Mesham is a man who used to come, twice a year, to Mr. Linthwaite’s for money, calling himself Mr. X.
"Very well, it struck me that I’d better look for receipts for those payments, in the hope of getting at Mesham’s real name. And I’ve found receipts. Not in Mesham’s name, you may be sure, but if they don’t refer to Mesham I shall be astonished. Personally, I’ve no doubt of it, because of the dates, and the regularity of those dates. But we’ll go through things in order."
Gaffkin had by this time opened his packet. Prom it he drew a small, thin quarto manuscript book, bound in sheepskin, and furnished with a clasp. This he laid aside. He also took out two bundles of folded papers, each tied up with red tape; these he arranged before him.
"Now, look here, sir," he began, tapping the two bundles with his forefinger. "There are two series of receipts, going back for thirty years, precisely, from this present year. They refer to half-yearly payments which Mr. Linthwaite, first as Mr. John Herbert, afterwards as Mr. John Linthwaite, has been in the habit of making to two persons, evidently beneficiaries under a will of which Mr. Linthwaite is trustee and executor.
"From the wording of the receipts you will see that the will in question was that of one James Melsome; the names of the two beneficiaries are Cradock Melsome and Charles Melsome."
"Melsome—Melsome" said Brixey. "The name's somewhat familiar—at least, I've heard it. Some distant relation of my uncle's, I fancy."
"Precisely the conclusion I've come to, as I'll show you presently," agreed Gaffkin, pointing to the sheepskin-bound book. "That they are relations, certain entries in this book seem to prove.
"Well, now, I want you to look at these receipts. Mr. Linthwaite is, as you know, a highly methodical man, and they're all duly arranged in order. Let's examine those of Cradock Melsome first. Now observe the date of the first—March 28, 1889. The wording of the receipt in that of receipt is practically that of all the rest.
"'Received from John Herbert, Esquire, the sum of seventy-five pounds under the will of James Melsome deceased
"'Cradock Melsome.'
"Now," continued Gaffkin, "observe, as we go through them, that these receipts of Cradock Melsome's are dated from various places. They begin in London. Later, they are from Boulogne. Still later they are from New York.
"And for the last ten or eleven years, right up to the last, they have been from Quebec, where, it's very evident, this Cradock Melsome must have settled. The last receipt, you see, Mr. Brixey, was sent from Quebec six months ago."
Brixey examined the various documents as Gaffkin laid them below him, and, without comment, glanced at the second bundle.
"These refer to the other beneficiary, Charles Melsome," said Gaffkin. "Now, the wording is just the same. He, too, gets these payments, at half-yearly intervals, under the will of James Melsome, deceased. They begin at the same time as those made to Cradock Melsome. They, too, are from various places, but mostly they are dated in London.
"Two facts, however, are notable—I want you to pay particular regard to them. We'll take the second first. Note that the last four receipts—that means receipts for the last two years—are dated from Brighton.
"But, note, too, a much more significant fact, in view of something to which I'm going to draw your attention in this book; that some years ago—fifteen years to be exact—there was a period of five years during which no payment was made at all to Charles Melsome. You see, Mr. Brixey—there's a hiatus of five years in the payments."
"I see," assented Brixey, as Gaffkin ranged the papers in order. "Nothing paid during five years."
"Nothing," said Gaffkin. "But look. The next receipt is for five years' arrears. Note the amount. It's £772 10s.
"What does that mean? It means five years' income at £150 a year, and £22 10s. interest at three per cent. In other words, the income had been lying at the bank for five years. Then Charles Melsome drew it all in a lump."
"Something, I suppose, hangs on that?" asked Brixey.
Gaffkin sorted the various receipts into their proper places, and bundles, and, laying them aside, took up the sheepskin-bound book.
"I won't say that anything that we’re concerned with hangs on that," he replied. "But it's a highly significant, and important fact, and has a relative importance to matters in general.
"But, now, this book, Mr. Brixey—it’s a book in which your uncle seems to have written down a lot of family history and information of pedigrees and genealogies, and all that sort of stuff. You’re mentioned in it, and your mother and father."
"My mother was, of course, Mr. Linthwaite’s sister," remarked Brixey. "She was a Herbert. I told you he took the name of Linthwaite on coming into some property, some years since, before you knew him."
"Precisely, sir," agreed Gaffkin. "There’s the whole Herbert pedigree in here, and the fact recorded that your mother married Mr. Samuel Brixey, of Camberwell—your father. The Herberts, I gather, were a Warwickshire family. But we’re not concerned with either Herberts or Brixeys. We’re concerned with these Melsomes. Now, there are two pages in this book which deal with them.
"You’ll observe that about sixty years ago a Miss Susannah Herbert married a Mr. Christopher Melsome, who is here set down, in correct pedigree fashion, as. being the son of one Stephen Melsome, and the brother of James Melsome. There it is—set out in your uncle’s handwriting."
Brixey looked attentively at the page to which Gaffkin pointed, and read the tabulated entries.
Continued from Herbert Pedigree, vii,
Stephen Melsome, of High Barnet.
________________|________________________
| |
Christopher Melsome James Melsome
married bachelor
Susannah Herbert.
|__________________________
| |
Cradock Melsome 6 Charles Melsome 8
married
Harriet Sunderland."Now, observe," continued Gaffkin. "Christopher Melsome, who married Susannah Herbert, who, I make out from the Herbert pedigree, was Mr. Linthwaite’s aunt, left two sons—Cradock and Charles. We don’t know if he left them any fortune, but it’s very evident, from these receipts, that their uncle, James, who, you see, was a bachelor, did. He left them £150 a year each—evidently in trust, and Mr. Linthwaite was undoubtedly trustee and executor.
"If I’d had time, I’d have searched for James Melsome’s will. The probability is that these two, Cradock and Charles, have only a life interest in it. But that’s neither here nor there, just now. What is of importance is this. Do you see two little figures—in one case a six, in the other an eight—against the names of Cradock and Charles?"
"I see 'em!" said Brixey, deeply interested.
Gaffkin turned over the pages of the pedigree book.
"Mr. Linthwaite," he said, "has a habit, evidently, of writing down little notes—what you might call autobiographical notes—about the people mentioned in his pedigrees. There's one about your father and one about yourself, Mr, Brixey. But now, look what he's written about these two Melsomess!"
Brixey looked, and read his uncle's naïvely frank remarks.
"6. A bad egg. His wife, a decent woman, ran away from him, in less than six months, unable to stand him any longer. She made a clean disappearance, too; never could trace her."
"8. Worse, if anything, than the other—got five years for forgery. Odd that two such utterly worthless fellows should come of such good old stock!"
With a sharp exclamation, Brixey pushed the book away from him, and, jumping to his feet, stared at Gaffkin. And Gaffkin smiled and wagged his head with a knowing gesture.
"By Gad!" exclaimed, Brixey. "You've hit it in one, Gaffkin! Of course—the Christopher Mesham of Selchester is the Charles Melsome of those receipts!"
"Yes!" said Gaffkin. "But where's his brother, Cradock? And where's Cradock's wife—Harriet Sunderland?"
CHAPTER XIX
LEGALITIES
Brixey relapsed into his chair again and stared at Gaffkin harder than before. And Gaffkin, helping himself to another glass of Brackett's old port, shook his head over his first sip of it, not so much in token of the appreciation which he felt as of his realisation of the deep mystery in which he and Brixey were becoming more and more entangled.
"Well?" said Brixey at last. "You've ideas, Gaffkin—notions! Out with 'em! This is the time for speaking."
Gaffkin took a pinch of snuff from an old-fashioned box which he drew from his waistcoat pocket.
"Man and boy, boy and man," he remarked, "I've had a good long experience of legal matters, Mr. Brixey, and since I left Mr. Linthwaite I've seen and known some queer things in the private detective line. This is a queer thing!
"Of course, since I made these discoveries yesterday, -and, since hearing the bits you've told me to-day, I've formulated a theory. This is a conspiracy, probably shared in by a lot of people. Object—to get hold of the late Martin Byfield's money. Money, sir! That's the idea. Money!"
"I've felt that it was money pretty nearly all along," agreed Brixey. "But I haven't quite seen the ins and outs of the conspiracy theory."
"I take it that it's something like this," said Gaffkin. "Do you remember what Wetherby, Martin Byfield's old servant, told me about the marriage abroad—at Monaco? That his master married a Mrs. Sunderland?"
"That's established," assented Brixey. "Old Mr. Semmerby, the family solicitor, told me that. He told me who, or rather what, she was at that time—manageress of some English tea-rooms at Nice."
Gaffkin jerked his thumb in the direction of the sheepskin-bound book.
"In my opinion," he said quietly, "the Mrs. Sunderland of that time was identical with the Harriet Sunderland who married Cradock Melsome, as specified by your uncle in that pedigree! She wasn't Mrs. Sunderland at all—she was Mrs. Cradock Melsome."
Brixey whistled, a sign that light was beginning to break in on him.
"Whew!" he exclaimed. "But if Cradock Melsome was alive, six months ago, in Quebec, she—she wasn't free to marry Martin Byfield at all?"
"Precisely—unless she'd got a divorce from Cradock, of which we've no record or proof," answered Gaffkin. "Now, look at what we know.
"Mr. Linthwaite, in that sort of biographical note, says that Cradock Melsome was what he calls a bad egg. He says in effect that he was so bad that his wife, a very decent woman, had experienced so much of his badness in six months that she left him—disappeared altogether, and so effectively that she couldn't be traced. That may mean—probably does mean—that Mr. Linthwaite tried to trace her. But—we know that her name was Harriet Sunderland.
"Now, Mrs. Byfield's name when she married Martin Byfield was Mrs. Sunderland. Was Mrs. Sunderland really Mrs. Cradock Melsome? It looks like it."
"Go on, I'm following," said Brixey.
"Let's suppose that she was," continued Gaffkin. "Now, when she met Martin Byfield, some years had elapsed since she left Cradock Melsome. We know that she told Martin Byfield that she was a widow. She may have thought that she was free to marry.
"But, as Cradock Melsome was alive, as we know he was, from all these receipts, she wasn't free to marry. And therefore the marriage, at Monaco with Martin Byfield was in our law no marriage at all."
"Or-bigamous?" suggested Brixey.
"She may have believed that she was free to marry," repeated Gaffkin. "She may, for anything we know, have had legal advice. As near as I can put times and dates together, she'd left, and had most likely not heard of Cradock Melsome for over seven years.
"She may have had a genuine belief that Cradock Melsome was dead. Probably she could certainly prove that she didn't know him to be living. But whether or not, as Cradock Melsome was living, and if there had been no divorce between them, her marriage to Martin Byfield was null and void."
"Absolutely?" asked Brixey.
"Absolutely! Now, then," continued Gaffkin—"what follows? She does marry Martin Byfield. They live here in Selchester or abroad. They have a son, this young fellow, Fanshawe. No one suspects Mrs. Byfield's secret—whether she ever told it to Martin Byfield himself is a very doubtful point in my mind And who was there, to discover it—for a long time?
"Cradock Melsome we know, was in America and Canada, Charles Melsome was in England, and five years in prison, for forgery, and Selchester is, except for tourists, an out-of-the-way little place. All goes well for Mrs. Byfield and her secret. And at last Martin Byfield dies—and dies intestate. Anyway, no will comes to light.
"So the widow administers the estate. Most of it, I understand, is in the form of personal property. There is a widow and one child. The widow takes one-third; the child—Fanshawe—two-thirds. What real estate there is, is shared similarly. So things stand.
"But," concluded Gaffkin, wagging his forefinger warningly, "only on the supposition that the marriage at Monaco was a valid one!"
"And if it wasn't?" asked Brixey.
"Let's suppose that it was not!" said Gaffkin. "In that case Mrs. Byfield and her son are not entitled to one penny. She was not Martin Byfield's legal wife, therefore she was not his legal widow. Fanshawe Byfield was not in any legal position to his father.
"Granted that Mrs. Byfield was really Mrs. Cradock Melsome, and that Fanshawe Byfield was the offspring of the illegal union between her and Martin Byfield, neither mother nor son is entitled to anything. The whole of the late Martin Byfield's real and personal estate, on his dying intestate, passed to the young lady who keeps our worthy landlord's books—Miss Georgina."
"Great Scott! Is that a fact?" exclaimed Brixey.
"Dead sure fact, sir!" assented Gaffkin, "If Martin Byfield had known the whole truth and wanted to leave his estate to the supposed widow and her son, he'd have had to make a will and specify them by their legal names, making it clear whom he meant.
"As he died intestate, they don't and can't come in at all Everything that he possessed goes to his niece, daughter of his brother Peter. Stern, absolute fact! But," he added, "with that, just now, we've nothing to do. That's in the future. We're concerned with the recent past."
"I'm following every syllable!" said Brixey.
"Very well," continued Gaffkin. "Leave that aside and consider Byfield's position when Martin died. He died intestate. She administered the estate and came into her share. Her son is just about come into his.
"No one knows that she isn't really and truly the legal widow of the deceased—it no doubt looks to her as if no one ever would know. And then, as near as we can judge, about two years ago Mrs. Byfield somewhere, somehow, comes face to face with a nasty reminder of the past—Mesham!"
"Otherwise Charles Melsome," observed Brixey.
"Otherwise Charles Melsome, her brother-in-law," assented Gaffkin, "Charles Melsome, alias Christopher Mesham, convicted forger, general bad lot. We don't know where she met him. Perhaps in London. Perhaps in Brighton. But she met him! And he recognised her, and he knew his brother Cradock to be alive—and henceforth Mesham, as we'll call him, had Mrs. Byfield at his mercy!"
"Blackmail!" exclaimed Brixey.
"No other," agreed Gaffkin. "Blackmail to be sure! Mesham, you may be certain, would very quickly find out all about his sister-in-law and that she was in extremely good circumstances. Do you think he was going to let his chance slip? He was probably living on his three pounds a week, and on such additional pickings as his wits could scrape up, and he would jump at the chance of getting a nice thing out of her secret.
"For remember—he had nothing to do but to go to Semmerby and tell him the truth, and Mrs. Byfield and Fanshawe would be penniless. So he no doubt came to an arrangement with the woman who was at his mercy, and hence he lives in great comfort over the saddler's shop and draws a handsome yearly income out of his victim."
Gaffkin paused and once more wagged his emphasising forefinger.
"But something occurs!" he went on. "By sheer accident, Mr. John Linthwaite turns up here in Selchester. He recognises Mrs. Byfield—your uncle sir, has an extraordinary memory for faces—as the woman he had known long since as Mrs. Cradock Melsome; the woman who had disappeared so effectually that she couldn't be traced.
"Now, Mr. Linthwaite knows that Cradock is alive—was alive, at any rate, six months before, when he forwarded his last receipt from Quebec. He probably tells Mrs. Byfield this, and hears her story from her. And in the thick of it, Mesham comes upon them. With Mesham, Mr. Linthwaite walks away. They are overheard making an appointment for half-past-two that afternoon.
"Why? Probably to discuss the strange situation of the Byfields, mother and son, more fully. But of any more we know nothing. That, Mr. Brixey, is as far as I've got."
"Have you no further theories in the light of what I've told you?" asked Brixey.
For the first time since the beginning of their talk, Gaffkin showed signs of doubt and uncertainty.
"I don't know what to think," he answered, after a pause. "It's no use denying that I've thought very seriously over the possibility that there's been murder done. Mesham is a bad lot—a deep, designing man! I don't think he'd stick at that. And it would seem as if that man who evidently went to Newhaven with the substituted message was in with him.
"We don't know who's in and who isn't in the whole thing. It may be that Fanshawe Byfield is in it. But as it sounds, Mr. Brixey, I don't think we ought to shut our eyes to the fact that it may be murder."
"No," protested Brixey. "I don't believe that! I think they've put my uncle out of the way somewhere for a few days. Until their coup comes off, don't you see? Then, when he can't interfere, he'll be released."
"If that theory's correct," observed Gaffkin, "the elderly man whom Mrs Iddison saw, and who was taken to Ledfieid last Wednesday night, was not Mr. Linthwaite. That's certain."
"For that matter," said Brixey, "he may have been some man who's nothing whatever to do with the case. The mere fact that Mesham drove openly with him to Ledfieid and made no concealment about it impels me to think that he was merely some acquaintance of his and the Byfields. I think we can dismiss that episode altogether."
"But Gaffkin shook his head at that suggestion.
"No," he said, "We'll not dismiss even the slightest detail of anything that we've learned. It'll all fit in, somewhere, somehow. But our task is to find Mr. Linthwaite.
"Now we're certain that a conspiracy to get hold of the Byfield money is behind his disappearance. How would it be if we make a bold stroke as regards the money?"
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