Collected works of j s f.., p.384
Collected Works of J S Fletcher, page 384
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?”
