Collected works of j s f.., p.381
Collected Works of J S Fletcher, page 381
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.
