Collected works of j s f.., p.655
Collected Works of J S Fletcher, page 655
“Aye, and nobody’s memory is as good as your old countryman’s!” said Liversedge knowingly. “Nothing to do, you see, but treasure up memories of the past. Oh, we’ll find what we want, never fear!” he added as they turned into the hall of an old-fashioned hotel in the centre square. “There’s an hour before dinner-time — do you make yourself at home, Mr. Marchmont, or take a glance round, while I just go and do a bit of business. There’ll be a police station here if there’s nothing else!” he concluded, with a laugh. “You’ll always find that!”
He went out presently, and Richard saw him no more until the bell was ringing for dinner, when he came back smiling and rubbing his hands with evident satisfaction.
“Struck oil at once, Mr. Marchmont!” he announced gleefully, as they went to the coffee-room. “Rare good luck! The man who was superintendent of police here twenty-five years ago — name of Daverill — and who only retired a short time since, is still living in the town — nice little place he has too, close by the old church. I got in touch with him at once, from the local police, and he’s coming along to have a talk with us after dinner. Fine old chap! — and what’s very fortunate, he’s posted in the case; that is, he’s read all there’s been in the newspapers so far; the inquest proceedings and so on. Of course, he knew your uncle when he was in practice here, and your family generally — Clayminster people, I understand. Oh, yes — we’ve hit the bull’s-eye in one, sir! We’ll give the old chap a drop of whatever he fancies, and a nice cigar — and let him talk. The more he talks, the better for our purpose!”
There were few people staying in the hotel, and when the ex-superintendent arrived he and his two hosts had the most comfortable fireside corner of the smoking-room to themselves. Richard was all agog to hear what their guest could tell, but the old man would at first talk of nothing else but his own recollections of the Marchmont family; of Charles Marchmont, Richard’s grandfather, and of John, his father, and of Sophia and Charlotte, two maiden aunts, now departed; finally of Henry, his uncle. Richard grew impatient; family history and other men’s recollections had no great interest for him. But Liversedge, who had dined well and was now taking his ease with the indifference of a man who has all the evening before him, let the ex-superintendent ramble on, knowing that he would eventually come to present-day matters. At last he came — with a sigh.
“But I never thought that such an event as this would happen in your family, sir,” said the old man, turning to Richard. “Poor Mr. Henry! — I remember him, young and active, as if it were yesterday! A bad business — bad!”
“Well, now, that’s just where we want your help,” said Liversedge, seizing his opportunity. “You tell me you’ve read all the newspaper accounts about the inquest on Mr. Henry Marchmont — which, of course, has been adjourned for further inquiries. You’d see what was told to his managing clerk, Mr. Simpson, by Mr. Henry Marchmont, about his meeting with a man named Lansdale, who really was, he said, one Land, who used to live at Clayminster. You read all about that — all?”
“Every word,” agreed the ex-superintendent. “I’ve read all there’s been in the papers — being, as it was, of special local interest.”
“Well, then, you know what Simpson said Mr. Marchmont told him about Land — gave him the impression that when Land cleared out of this town he was very badly wanted by the police?” continued Liversedge. “You were superintendent then, Mr. Daverill — is that so?”
Richard waited impatiently for the old man’s reply. But Daverill took his time. He puffed meditatively at his cigar; he sipped his whisky. Eventually, he gave his two companions a glance which indicated that he was now going to talk business.
“Well, it is so, and it isn’t so,” he answered. “I read all that Mr. Henry is alleged to have told his clerk. If he said to his clerk what the clerk says he said, then Mr. Henry was not correct — though he may have thought that he was quite correct. You see, it all happened about the time that Mr. Henry left here to go to his new partnership in London. He probably confused things.”
“Wasn’t Land wanted by the police, then?” asked Liversedge.
“Oh, yes, he was, most assuredly!” replied Daverill. “We had a fine old hunt for him! — lasting for some time. But — it was not for the reason that Mr. Henry evidently thought it was!”
“What reason was it, then?” exclaimed Liversedge.
The old man smiled, as at some secret thought, and looked from one to the other of his listeners.
“I don’t think we ever let it out to anybody,” he said. “Probably that’s how Mr. Henry got hold of a wrong impression, thinking that we were raking the whole countryside for Land in order to arrest him. We weren’t! The fact is, gentlemen, the police firmly believed that Land had been murdered!”
The effect of this announcement on the detective was electrical; he leapt in his seat as if a strong current had run through him. And as he settled down again he let out a whistle of astonishment — or of illumination.
“Ah!” he exclaimed, beginning to rub his hands. “Ah! That was it, was it? You thought he’d been murdered? Instead of trying to catch him alive, you were really expecting to find him dead! Mighty different thing, that!”
“We firmly believed he’d been murdered,” replied Daverill. “What’s more, I never changed that belief! It was a perfect surprise to me when I saw that Mr. Henry had told his clerk that he’d met Land in London, under the name of Lansdale. For five-and-twenty years I’ve been under the firm impression that Land was murdered, and that his body might yet come to light in or somewhere near this town!”
Liversedge smote both hands on his knees and looked at Richard.
“God bless my soul!” he exclaimed. “D’you hear that, Mr. Marchmont? That’s something new for us, isn’t it? Murdered, eh? Well, of course, he would disappear if he were murdered. But — —”
“What reason had you for believing Land to have been murdered?” asked Richard, breaking in on the detective’s soliloquies. “Weren’t they made public?”
Daverill smiled and shook his head.
“I dare say we — I — kept the thing close,” he answered. “There were reasons for doing so at the time. No, the public knew nothing except that we were conducting a very thorough and exhaustive inquiry for Land. Doubtless they thought, as Mr. Henry seems to have thought, that we wanted to arrest him. But that’s all wrong — we never had a charge brought against Land on which we could have arrested him. He never committed any crime that was brought to my notice.”
Richard could not repress a sigh of relief; it was something, at any rate, to know that Angelita’s father was not a criminal. But Liversedge turned to practical questions.
“Well, I’m getting puzzled again!” he said. “You say you believed Land had been murdered. Whom did you suspect of murdering him, then?”
“Nobody!” answered the ex-superintendent.
“That puzzles me more than ever!” remarked Liversedge. “You believe a man’s murdered, and yet — —”
“The fact is,” said Daverill, with a sly look, “the fact is, gentlemen, there were, at that time, in Clayminster and the neighbourhood, quite a score of people, women as well as men, who would have cheerfully murdered James Land! Cheerfully! And when he completely vanished, in such a fashion that he couldn’t have done it better if he’d melted into thin air, not a trace of him coming to hand — why, naturally, we believed that some one of those people had wreaked vengeance on him! I tell you, I believed it!”
“Vengeance, eh?” remarked Liversedge. “Were there reasons?”
“Reasons, yes — that in the generality of cases sprang out of utter unreasonableness!” replied the ex-superintendent. “The truth is, gentlemen, that about that time, twenty-five or twenty-six years ago, there was a perfect epidemic of what was no better than senseless gambling amongst a certain class of people in this town and neighbourhood — gambling, of course, in stocks and shares. I don’t know now — if I ever did know — how it began, but there it was. It always reminded me of what you read about the South Sea Bubble in history. There was a regular mania for it — chiefly amongst the better-class folk; country gentlemen, professional men, well-to-do tradesmen and the like. It was chiefly, I think, in foreign securities — I’m sure I can’t remember what, now. Well, of course, Land was in it. He was a youngish man then; he had been a schoolmaster; he had also been an accountant. I can’t remember if he’d started business as a stock and share broker before this gambling craze came on, and whether it was the craze that made him start. But anyway, he was stock and share broking here during the craze, and I believe an enormous amount of business passed through his hands. There was some particular stock that these misguided folk fancied — it was a temporary craze, like the rubber craze some years later — and Land dealt heavily in it. Then all of a sudden there was a terrible smash, or slump, or crash, or whatever they call it, and lots of people hereabouts were either ruined or reduced to comparative poverty. And many of them were unreasonable enough to blame Land, when they had only their own greed to blame. I tell you! — I, as police superintendent, became aware that his life was actually in danger; I knew it to be so. And when he suddenly disappeared — but I’ve already told you what I believed, and why we made an exhaustive search for him. You can have no idea, gentlemen, no idea whatever,” said the old man with emphasis, “you can’t form any idea of the vindictive rage which these people showed towards a man who, after all, had only been their broker! For that’s all Land was.”
“Perhaps he’d given ’em bad advice,” suggested Liversedge.
“On the only occasion on which I spoke to Land about it,” replied Daverill, “he assured me that these folk had always insisted on his buying those particular stocks and shares through which they were ruined. I tell you, they were all mad to gamble — it was a fever! There were families that were well-to-do when it began; beggars when it ended. I can call several to mind. Aykins, of Woodcote; Marshes, of Pebberston; Sanderthwaites — —”
Richard started. Sanderthwaite? Where had he heard that name before? Then he suddenly remembered the two shabby-genteel ladies whom he had found with Henry Marchmont in Bedford Row.
VIII. The Detective Theorises
DAVERILL WAS TOO much preoccupied with his recollections to notice Richard’s start of surprise, and Liversedge was just then lighting a second cigar and consequently failed to see it. And Richard was thankful that it was unobserved; he had already made up his mind to keep that matter to himself for the time being; the idea had flashed across him that he might get some information from Mrs. Mansiter and her sister when he returned to town. He listened more eagerly than before as the ex-superintendent rambled on.
“The case of those Sanderthwaites was a particularly bad one,” he said. “They were people who lived just outside the town, on a nice place — an old family of these parts, theirs was, and they were comfortably off. There was a father, a couple of daughters, and a son. The daughters were fine girls — Bessie and Cora, I remember them well enough, and the son, Lionel, or Liney, as they called him, was a smart young fellow. I don’t know about Bessie — she was a quieter sort than her sister — but the father, and Cora, and Liney were all bitten with this gambling fever; they said in the town that they were never off Land’s office doorstep! And when the smash came they were very badly hit. The children had money of their own; it all went, unless Bessie saved, or had taken care to keep safe, some of hers. But the old man was ruined, and it finished him off — anyway, he never got over it and died soon after. The place was sold up, and the brother and two sisters went clear away — I did hear, years after, that they started a lodging-house, or something of that sort, in London. I remember having a talk to Cora — she was the youngest — just before they left the town. She was one of those I mentioned to you — she’d cheerfully have murdered Land! — she blamed him for everything. But I don’t know! — they were of the gambling sort, those Sanderthwaites — the sort of people that’ll sit up round a card-table all night. The old man was a great race-goer and used to bet heavily. Cora — she was a fine, dashing girl who used to go hunting a good deal — she said that it was Land who persuaded them to go in for these deals that came to nothing, but it’s my opinion and always has been that folk of this kind need precious little persuasion. Still, when I spoke to her about it, Cora Sanderthwaite was — well, murderous in her hatred of Land!”
“But you never knew of any real, actual misdoing on Land’s part?” asked Liversedge. “Never knew that he brought himself within the law?”
“No,” replied Daverill. “It was nothing but vague rumour, hints, suggestions — all coming from people who’d suffered, and who were naturally very sore about it. Of course, in a small country town like this, there are always people who talk off the top and say wild things. It was said that Land had never invested the money some of these folk had placed in his hands; that he’d put it in his own pockets; that he’d made a nice warm nest somewhere and was off to it. That, of course, was after he’d gone.”
“How did he go?” inquired Liversedge. “Any mystery about it?”
“Mystery!” exclaimed the old man. “It was all mystery! The night before the smash came — that is, the night before the news of the smash got generally known here in Clayminster — Land was in this hotel; as a matter of fact he was in this very room, and may have been sitting in this very chair, for all I know! — he used to spend his evenings here. Nobody noticed anything unusual about him or his manner, though seeing that he’s now turned up again, he must have known what was going to happen, and what he himself was going to do. He walked out of this room — of course, we got every possible detail about it afterwards — and out of this hotel at ten o’clock, his invariable time for leaving, and he was never seen again!”
“Made a complete disappearance, eh?” said Liversedge. “Just — vanished!”
“Couldn’t have vanished more successfully if he’d been a ghost!” answered Daverill. “From the moment he walked into the road outside — it was a dark night, about this time of the year, middle of autumn — nobody set eyes on him. Might ha’ been spirited away!”
“Where did he live in the town?” inquired the detective.
“Why, he didn’t live in the town. He was a single man, and he had rooms in a fine old farm-house at Elmcote, about three-quarters of a mile out,” replied Daverill. “When he left this hotel, he’d cross the road, go down Church Pavement, and turn into Elmcote Lane. When he reached Elmcote — which is a tiny bit of a place, a couple of farmsteads and a sprinkling of cottages — he’d turn into another lane, really a cart-track, that led to the farm-house through a spinney. Our notion was that he’d been waylaid — —”
Liversedge stopped the flood of recollection with a sharp exclamation.
“But I say!” he said. “This was before the smash came! — the day, or night, before! Why should anybody waylay him? The victims — if they were victims — didn’t know of the smash then!”
The ex-superintendent smiled knowingly.
“I said — before the smash became generally known,” he answered. “Generally. We found out, afterwards, that what you might call the inner circle — those most closely concerned — did know; they knew enough, at any rate, to know that their money had gone! Oh, yes — plenty of ’em knew; had known for a day or two. However, that’s how it was — we believed he’d been waylaid and murdered, and that his body had been got rid of. That wouldn’t have been difficult, thereabouts; there are a great many old pit-workings in that district, and the disused shafts are very deep, and covered over with growth; he could have been thrown down any one of them. And just to show you how thoroughly we did believe that Land had been got rid of — we had a lot of these old shafts examined! Of course, we found nothing; anyway, we didn’t find his body. But his disappearance was so complete, and the efforts to trace were such equally complete failures, that, as I tell you, I’ve always held to the opinion that he was murdered. And now — he turns up, after all these years, in London!”
“I suppose you could identify him, Mr. Daverill?” suggested Liversedge.
“Oh, yes, I could identify him,” replied the old man. “He has — that is, Land had — a dropped eyelid. The left eyelid. It gave him rather an odd appearance — as if he was half-asleep, on that side of his face. Oh, yes, I should know him — if he’s the man!”
“I don’t suppose he’ll have got rid of that little physical infirmity in twenty-five years, certainly,” remarked the detective. “Can’t have got himself a new eyelid, anyhow! But what like was he when you knew him here? — what make of man?”
Daverill smiled and turned to Richard.
“Why,” he answered, “he wasn’t at all unlike your uncle, sir — Mr. Henry. The similarity of appearance was often noticed. They were both good-looking men; tall, fresh-coloured, clean-shaved; very similar in features and in carriage. Of course, I’m speaking of a generation back: I don’t know how they wore as time went on. But they were very much alike in the time we’ve been talking about.”
When the ex-superintendent had gone away, Liversedge remained for some time walking about the room as if in deep thought. At last he came back to the hearth and dropped into his chair again.
“Mr. Marchmont,” he said, “I’m wondering! Some people might say the motive was impossible, far-fetched, extravagant, but I don’t know. Anyhow, I’m wondering if your uncle was shot by somebody who took him for Land!”
Richard made no reply for the moment. Some such idea as that now voiced by the detective had been floating, a vague and nebulous thing, through his own brain ever since the old ex-superintendent had mentioned the hatred felt for Land amongst a certain section of Clayminster people and by such particular sufferers as the Sanderthwaites. And now he was wondering, more than ever, if Henry Marchmont had told Mrs. Mansiter and her sister about Land’s presence in London and that he was going to Bedford Row that evening, and if —— But Liversedge broke in again on his speculating.
