The man from the river
Author: G. D. H. Cole; Margaret Cole
Date: 2026-06-17T00:00:00+00:00

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The man from the river

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

Title: The man from the river

A Wilson Story

Author: G. D. H. Cole

Margaret Cole

Release date: June 17, 2026 [eBook #78883]

Language: English

Original publication: New York: The Macmillan Company, 1928

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78883

Credits: Tim Miller, Dori Allard, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAN FROM THE RIVER ***

THE MAN FROM THE RIVER

By G. D. H. and M. COLE

The Blatchington Tangle

The Murder at Crome House

The Death of a Millionaire

THE MAN FROM THE RIVER

A WILSON STORY

BY

G. D. H. COLE

AND

MARGARET COLE

New York

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

1928

All rights reserved

Copyright, 1928,
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

Printed in the United States of America

THE MAN FROM THE RIVER

THE MAN FROM THE RIVER

CHAPTER I

“Thank goodness! Wilson’s coming to-day,” was the first thought of Michael Prendergast, M.D., F.R.C.S., and “rising consultant” of Harley Street, as he woke on a glorious July morning in his bed at the Old Malting House, Steeple Tollesbury.

Michael Prendergast was not unlike many other people in that, while he remained in London and perforce went through a certain round of daily toil and daily pleasure, he complained bitterly of the continual presence of people and yearned for green fields and solitude; but as soon as he found himself actually solitary in a green field, he tired at once of his own company and began to pine for the society of a friend. It was the first of these moods that had sent him down to the sleepy little Essex town, and suggested that he should take up his quarters rather at the pleasant old inn than six miles away at the house of his friend, Mark Warden, who had actually introduced him to the place; it was the second that, after only a week of “solitude,” had urged him to the ’phone to ring up that same Warden, and on finding that he was away in Colchester on business and not expected back for some days, had suggested a frantic appeal to Mr. Henry Wilson, Superintendent of the C.I.D., to put aside official cares and join him, if only for two or three days. And now Wilson was really coming! In the light of his impending arrival, the morning looked twice as fine, and the little cobbled market-square reclothed itself in the romance it had worn when Michael first set eyes on it.

Indeed, it was hardly the fault of Steeple Tollesbury that restless London nerves would not stay contented with it. It is emphatically a place which possesses all the charm of past greatness and present peace. Two centuries ago it was a busy little port, with its small but thriving fleet of colliers plying to and from the Tyne with “sea-coals,” and its respectable trade in various kinds of produce with the Dutch coast. But this glory has long departed. The old harbour at Tolleshithe has silted up; any produce that is still exported goes unromantically (though still as slowly) by train to London, and the best Wallsend arrives by the same route, though an occasional string of coal barges may yet be seen ambling gently up the Toll to Market Crumbles, the little town ten miles inland. To-day, though a few buildings such as the ridiculously large church, the great tithe-barn, and the Guild House, where young men and women are herded to hear the Vicar’s periodical discourses, remain as evidence of former greatness, Steeple Tollesbury is, in fact, the sleepiest township of that remote and sleepy district which lies between the estuaries of the Blackwater and the Crouch.

One of the aforesaid buildings is undoubtedly the inn, which goes by the name of the Old Malting House. It stands by the side of the Toll, one of its sides dropping sheer down into the water, facing a little stone wharf which is now seldom used, and a hundred yards or so above the old and narrow bridge, where the approach of an adventurous or bemused motor-car makes the pedestrian scuttle for safety into one of the stone embrasures. It is fourteenth century in design; its restorations have blended excellently with the old lines; roses and creepers run riot over its face; and, best of all, in cooking, in wines, and hospitality generally, it has remembered more of its old tradition than is always the case in forgotten towns. Its landlord is a gossip, and a pint of Guinness will always start him off; it has pewter mugs and oak settles and great log fires; in short, it is a peach of an inn.

So, at least, Michael Prendergast thought, when Warden took him to dine there on a chilly autumn day, in part payment, as he put it, for first-aid administered on the cricket-field. It seemed so much the acme of desire then, sitting hospitably permanent in the middle of that secret and sometimes terrifying countryside—the part of England where real ghosts still live—that he had pigeon-holed it in his mind as a place to revisit—even, perhaps, without his friend. For Mark Warden was one of those cheerful and hearty souls who, in certain moods to which Michael was as prone as most intellectuals, seem to be always saying the same thing in a loud voice, as if it had just occurred to them; and whose perplexities, when they have any, appear to them so much a violation of the natural order of the universe that they must complain loudly of them at all hours, at breakfast, dinner, and tea, until the tiresome thing is at last settled or forgotten. And Mark Warden, during the past winter, had been abruptly introduced to perplexity as a result of his decision to retire from the pleasant existence of a county cricketer, abandon the West Indian tour, and take seriously at last the position of junior—very junior—partner in the firm of stockbrokers which his father had founded, and had thence retired, owing to advancing years and a stroke, for his last act bringing in Mark as an innocent fledgling. Whether the fledgling’s decision to take a real part in the business had been prompted by the broken knee-cap to which Michael had attended, or by the growth of his desire to marry a neighbouring young lady, was not very clear; at all events the mysteries of law, finance, and love combined had had a serious effect on him, causing him very quickly to tear his hair and naïvely to come and lay his troubles, in season and out of season, before his new friend, in whose superior brains he had a complete and touching confidence. Michael knew nothing of finance and law, and cared less; and so, when he decided he was run down and must take a holiday, he had quite firmly decided that, though the Old Malting House was the place for him, Mark Warden was emphatically not the companion.

Not, indeed, that he could quite escape from his friend’s personality. Hellier Croft, the Wardens’ country home, was only six miles away across country, though nearer fourteen by the tortuous Essex roads. The family was an old one, and well known in the neighbourhood; and, if you stand a landlord a pint of stout, you must bear with the subjects of conversation he chooses. Samuel Wason, landlord of the Old Malting House, and fat and cheerful as such a landlord should be, had a very high opinion of old John Warden, as a judge both of horseflesh and of investments, and deeply regretted his illness. His son seemed equally popular; but it was clear that he was regarded as an ornament of society rather than a pillar; and Michael reflected with amusement how hurt Mark would have been at Warden’s genuine regret that he should be leaving the cricket-field—implying, in the way he put it, a distinct reflection on the heir’s business abilities. This was all in the correct tradition, the slightly patronising pride in the gay but brainless youth; but Michael was a little perturbed to notice a certain tinge of doubt in the way in which Wason spoke of the firm. It seemed that the firm was not what it had been in old Warden’s time; there were rumours of shaky investments, possible speculations, and one or two old clients transferring their business elsewhere. Mr. Hanborough, he that on old Warden’s retirement had become senior partner, didn’t belong to these parts, had come from London and never quite been taken to—though old Mr. Warden, he backed him through thick and thin. Oh, no, there wasn’t nothing against him that Wason knew of; he was different-like, and it wasn’t the same, that was all. Michael began to feel that he had perhaps been over-contemptuous of Mark Warden’s troubles, that they might after all be more than the instinctive protests of the butterfly bound to the business wheel, and in a mood of repentance had tried vainly to get into touch with him.

Then, of course, the second partner, Mr. Meston——At this point, Michael’s thoughts, recapitulating as he lay in bed, gave a sudden jump of delight. “Thank God that fellow’s gone, at any rate!” was how he phrased it. For, of course, the real objection to solitude in the countryside is that it never is solitude. There are always Mr. Mestons. One does not, naturally, mean by solitude a desert loneliness; innkeepers, potmen, tap-room habitués, even garrulous visitors like that old solicitor fellow—what’s his name?—Brandreth, of course—all these are local colour, and fit in with the picture. Besides, one need not talk to them unless one likes; one can keep out of the bar, sit upstairs or go for a walk, and they will not pursue. But a creature like Meston, with his lank hair, his gloomy face, his vast Adam’s apple, and his perpetual boring presence—what can be done with him?

Mr. Meston, middle partner of the Warden firm, who, till four or five days ago, had shared the hospitality of the Old Malting House with Michael, could certainly not have been called a cheerful companion. He was by origin a clerk in that firm, who had grown, or was about to grow, grey in its service, and who had been rewarded with a partnership by old John Warden. Faithful he might be, but he was neither beautiful nor entertaining. As already hinted, he was long, lean, and scraggy, of a sallow, rather unhealthy complexion, gloomily dressed in Sunday blacks, and showing a great tendency to protrude bony purplish wrists from his coat-sleeves. He was also singularly melancholy in manner—more depressed, Michael felt, even than his physical appearance warranted—and he seemed to have nothing to do but to moon miserably about the inn and the market-square in front of it. All this would have mattered little, however, if the creature had not obviously had something on its mind, something about which it ardently and horribly desired to talk to Michael. It was hardly safe to try to entice it into ordinary conversation; almost at once the talk would languish, it would begin to fidget with the salt-cellar or the fire-irons, and into its eye would come that yearning look peculiar to people who are just about to unbosom themselves. Michael, having fled from the possibility of Warden’s confidences, was by no means inclined to suffer the same treatment at the hands of a snuffling undertaker, as he unkindly termed his fellow-visitor; more especially as it was at least possible that the undertaker’s confidences might concern Warden, and Michael did not at all want to discuss his friend with him. For this reason he not only gave the widest possible berth to Meston himself, but even discouraged the landlord in various attempts to tell him “some things about Mr. Meston.” Whatever was to be known about Meston, Michael felt, he at all events did not want to know it. He wanted to have as little to do with the man as he could.

At least, thank goodness, he was not here any longer, polluting the sunshine. He had left, more or less unexpectedly, late in the evening of the previous Friday, or early the following morning; and the inn was perceptibly the brighter for his departure. What with that, and the immediate prospect of a friend who could be relied upon not to burden him with confidences of any kind, Michael felt so benevolent as he descended to breakfast, that he even, with a kind of overflowing of goodwill, asked the landlord whether he had heard anything of Mr. Meston.

“Only wish I had,” Wason replied. “It’s a nuisance to me, not knowing when he’s coming back and whether he’ll want to stay, when he does. Packed his baggage and all, too; looks as though he wasn’t going to stay. But it’s not like Mr. Meston to go on paying for a room when he needn’t.”

“Perhaps he doesn’t know he is. Perhaps he’s just forgotten,” Michael suggested.

“Forgotten? Not he. Mr. Meston, he’ve the longest memory in these parts for small things. Take care of a penny, he would—if it meant holding it in his mouth till Land’s End. No, that’s not like him. It don’t matter to me, much; we’re not overfull, as you can see for yourself. But his room’s the best in the place, and it’s a confusion to me not knowing whether he wants to keep it or not. Your friend might ’a’ liked it, now, supposing I’d had it free.”

“Oh, I think he’ll do very well where he is,” Michael said, suppressing none the less a slight regret at the loss of Meston’s room, which was indeed very attractive, being a long, low, oak-beamed room overlooking the river, and the only bedroom which looked out that side. As it was, Wilson must perforce be accommodated in a pleasant, but completely modern, room overlooking the cobbled market-place and not far from Michael’s own.

“London gentleman, isn’t he?” Wason continued. “What time will he be arriving, now?”

“Oh, some time this afternoon. I’m not sure when. He’s coming by car,” Michael said, wondering how often Wilson must have thanked his stars for his inconspicuous name. It is true that since the Brooklyn Case,[1] and still more since other problems in crime which he had triumphantly solved, Wilson’s name had become something of a national byword; but Henry Wilsons are still as common as blackberries in England, and there was no particular danger that this particular one’s incognito would be pierced during his stay at Steeple Tollesbury. For, of course, he was coming down incognito. A distinguished detective must of necessity eschew certain forms of publicity which delight a distinguished film-actor, for example. He does not want either his autograph or his likeness to figure prominently in the picture-press; still less does he want to be thronged by an admiring crowd wherever he goes. If the Superintendent had been called Sherlock Holmes, now, the whole of the market-place would already have been black with sightseers; but Henry Wilson! Even though he had only just brought to a conclusion his most spectacular case, it was hardly likely that a single village eye would be batted for his arrival. Unless, indeed, a crime were to occur; but Michael had yet to see a place which less suggested crime than Steeple Tollesbury.

As he stood in the inn doorway, drinking in deep draughts of sun, there was the purr of an engine, and a long racing car dashed over the bridge and turned down into the square. A man with what Michael felt to be an altogether unnecessarily good-looking profile and a mass of curly hair was at the wheel.

“Who’s that—cinema gentleman?” he said; “do you know? And why does he think he’s Jehu?”

“Why, that’s Wallace Burden,” the landlord said, turning Michael’s scornful remark into a compliment. Wallace Burden bid fair at the moment to climb to Valentino’s vacant pedestal. “He always drives like that. He’ll be going up to Lorings’—to the Grange—I shouldn’t wonder.”

“Well, I don’t like him,” Michael pronounced.

“There’s them that does, though,” the landlord said darkly.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See The Brooklyn Murders, by G. D. H. Cole.

CHAPTER II

Well-lined with eggs and bacon and marmalade, Michael Prendergast walked out of the inn into the market-place, and prepared to take a constitutional. He strolled in a leisurely way, basking in the lovely morning, along the High Street, which sloped slightly up to the bridge over the river, to the cross-roads, where diverged the road to Loring Grange, the home of the chief of the local gentry. He ambled gently in and out of the chestnut trees; stopped to pat a nondescript dog which was too contented already to make more than the most meagre of responses; lounged into the barber’s and bought some shaving-soap for no particular reason; and was regaled in return with selections of the morning’s gossip. There had been a railway accident somewhere in America—“terrible, how many them foreign railways kill.” The wireless last night had given some advice to farmers, which the farmers of Tollesbury neighbourhood very much resented:

“His wife and he’s got fourteen kids,

But a can’t keep flies off tarmits,”

the barber quoted scornfully. Mr. Wallace Burden had run over a pig at South Meadon, and the owner was going up to the Grange to demand compensation—“His girl wants to get on films, so she does,” etc., etc. Michael stayed in the shop until he felt well-soaked, and then wandered on up one of the side-streets, where the pleasantest old houses stood, until he came to that belonging to a Mr. Brandreth, an old retired solicitor, whose habit of dropping in to the Old Malting House for a pipe and a gossip had thrown him once or twice in Michael’s way. Michael had half intended to stop and chat; he found old Brandreth an amusing character in his way, and he had some thoughts of making judicious inquiries about Mark Warden’s firm. But when he got to the lawyer’s gate he saw the latter in conversation with so unprepossessing a man that he changed his mind, and walked on into the country, idly wondering what Brandreth could have in common with a man who looked like the more disreputable type of city tout. Even his bowler, Michael thought, apart from his loud check tweeds and his roving eye, would have induced any one to give him a wide berth. But Brandreth appeared to be having quite a chat with him. “Still,” Michael thought, “I suppose solicitors, even ex-solicitors, must come into contact with a good many shady customers”; and he remembered vaguely having heard his landlord mention that Brandreth was something of a thorn in the side of the local bench, as he had an incurable propensity for taking up the causes of those accused of crimes, which the said bench held most unpardonable. “I wouldn’t take up that chap’s case, though, not if you gave me a thousand pounds,” said Michael to himself. “However, the old boy’s tastes aren’t any business of mine.”

His walk led him in a half-circle round the outskirts of the little town, and eventually back to the far end of the bridge near by his own inn. It was not yet quite time for lunch, and as, in accordance with principle, he had duly sampled the bitters provided by the two pubs which he had passed, he saw no reason to waste the sunshine by going indoors. Instead, he sat down on a ledge of one of the stone embrasures, lit a pipe, and gave himself up to meditation; and what with the pipe, the sun, and the bitters, he became so nearly unconscious of his surroundings that, when a shout of “Hi, mister!” rent the air, he started up so abruptly that he almost lost his balance and fell in the river.

But the shout was not meant for him. It appeared to be meant for a rubicund man with a clay pipe in his mouth, who was standing almost at his elbow, staring down at a little steam-tug which was just about to pass under the bridge. With rather a sense of having made a fool of himself, Michael realised that he must have been fairly sound asleep to let the rubicund gentleman get so close to him without noticing, for when he sat down, neither he nor the tug had been in sight. As his senses slowly returned, he perceived that the shout had come from a man standing on the deck of the tug, which was pulling a couple of coal-barges down-stream.

“Eh?” said the man on the bridge, without removing his pipe from his mouth.

“Where be doctor?” shouted the man in the tug.

“Doctor’s up along Mrs. Clellan’s,” was the reply. “What’s the matter, Jarge? Been swallerin’ weeds?”

“Ain’t been swallerin’ nothin’,” Jarge replied, with a guffaw. “Bill’s gone an’ fished up a carpse for doctor.”

“Carpse! Holy Moses!” said the man on the bridge, and began to move in a lumbering fashion towards the scene of action. Michael followed him, his professional instincts fully awakened at the word.

“Eh? What’s that you say?” said a new voice, as the landlord of the Old Malting House strolled up to the bridge and leaned over.

“Carpse ’e’s fished up, ’e ’as,” said Jarge, obviously proud of his own importance. “You like to have a look at her, Mr. Wason? She came from along your place.”

“I’ll come down,” said the landlord. “Pull into the tow-path, will you? And you, Tommy”—catching hold of an urchin in the roadway—“get up along Mrs. Clellan’s and tell Doctor Kershaw he’s wanted here, will you? Some one’s fallen in the river. Look sharp, my lad.” The urchin was off at top speed almost before the words were out of his mouth, and Wason, with Michael and the man with the pipe, made his way rapidly down to the tow-path on the far side of the bridge, and stood there expectant, while with much puffing and blowing the tug put about and drew its train in to the bank.

“I’d better have a look at the body,” Michael said to Wason, “just in case Dr. Kershaw can’t be found. The poor fellow may not be dead. I’m a doctor,” he added for the benefit of the company. Jarge gave another loud guffaw.

“You can look at ’un and welcome,” he said. “Ain’t our private exhibition. But he’s dead enough, you’ll find. Been a-soaking for days, looks like. He’s in the tail-barge, thar. Bill!” A man who was squatting in the tail-barge looked up inquiringly. “Gent wants to see carpse. Says he’s a doctor,” he added.

“Let ’un,” said Bill, who seemed to be of a taciturn and incurious disposition; for he said nothing else, but sat and sucked at his pipe while Michael and Wason with some difficulty scrambled into the hindermost barge. The body lay on its face, covered with mud and slime.

“Well, he’s dead enough,” said the landlord. “Not much for you there, sir.”

There was certainly no doubt that the man was dead, and had been in the water for some time. The clothes were sodden and besmirched, and the legs covered with mire and waterweed, though the upper part of the body was comparatively free.

“Give me a hand with him, will you?” said Michael, going down on his knees and beginning to turn the body over. Wason, looking as if he did not particularly relish the job, bent down and took hold; but as the body slowly turned over, and the swollen, discoloured face came into view, he gave an exclamation and all but let it fall back again.

“Good God! Why, it’s Mr. Meston!”

“What’s that, Sam?” With a bound of surprising agility, considering his bulk, the stout onlooker sprang into the barge, and gazed down at the corpse’s face.

“Holy Moses!” he said again.

Michael looked down at the body. Whether or no he would, unprompted, have recognised in that horrid misshapen thing his morose fellow-visitor, there was no doubt that the landlord was right. This was William Meston—dead. And how had he come by his death?

“Some one’ll have to tell his wife,” Wason was saying.

“Aye, that’s right,” said the rubicund gentleman. “Somebody will.” For some reason this observation appeared to strike him as extremely humorous, for he gurgled and slapped his thigh several times. “Somebody’ll have to tell her, eh? Lard, think o’ that there Meston a-going and getting hisself drarned! Insured for a tidy bit, too, I’ll be bound. Eh, Sam?”

“He’s been dead some time. Three or four days at least,” said Michael, looking up from his examination.

“Strikes me,” the landlord said reflectively, “as though he must just ’a’ walked off the tow-path into the river the minute he left the inn, and got drowned. Hasn’t paid his bill, neither, I don’t mind telling you.”

“Couldn’t ’a’ done that neither,” said the rubicund one, looking along the flat line of the tow-path, “not unless he’d had a drop taken. And you’ve reason to know he never had, Sam.”

“That’s true. He wasn’t no good for trade, poor gentleman,” the landlord said. “Nevertheless there he is, fallen in.”

“Fallen in!” said the other scornfully. “Where’s your knowledge of yooman nature, Sam? Sooicide, that’s what it is. ’E done ’isself in, along of ’is wife’s goings-on at the Grange. It’s God’s judgment on the Scarlet Woman, that’s what it is.”

“Now, you shut up, Walter,” said the landlord. “It’s not decent, going on that way, and his body hardly fished up yet. There’s plenty of ways a man can fall into a river without being drunk. Lard, if you was to live along this river same as I do, you wouldn’t need to wonder the fool things folks can do, and they as sober as charches. What do you say, sir? Did he fall in? Though I suppose it isn’t hardly a medical point, so to speak?”

“It was sooicide,” Walter repeated obstinately. “Now, in the first place, ’e was drarned. You grant me that, eh?” He waved his pipe at the landlord to emphasise his argument.

“Oh, aye, I grant you that,” the latter replied.

“But that’s exactly what I don’t grant either of you,” Michael interrupted. With one ear on the dialogue, he had been making a hasty examination of the body. “He wasn’t drowned.”

Both his hearers gaped.

“Garn!” said Walter, indicating the corpse with his foot. “Tell me that ain’t drarned?”

Wason approached nearer the corpse and scratched his head. “I don’t belong to London,” he said, “but I’ve seen drowned men, and I ain’t often seen a drowneder.”

“Oh, he’s been in the water all right,” Michael said, “if that’s what you mean. But——”

“What’s all this?” an educated voice interrupted in a sharp, impatient tone; and a man on a bicycle shot down the tow-path, and sprang on the barge, flinging the bicycle into the thistles. “What’s all this? And what are you all doing here?”

“It’s Mr. Meston, doctor,” Wason volunteered. “He’s drowned—at least——”

“Oh, is it?” Dr. Kershaw, if it was he, responded abruptly. “Well, that’s as may be. But it doesn’t tell me who all these other people are.”

“My name’s Prendergast,” said Michael. “I happened to be here when the body was found, and I came on board to see if there was anything to be done for him.” He produced his professional card, at which the other barely glanced before thrusting it away into a pocket.

“Well, my name’s Kershaw,” he said, without reciprocating the courtesy; “and this appears to be my business. I’m the police-surgeon hereabouts; and the man’s obviously dead. So I don’t think I need trouble you any longer, Dr. Prendergast.” He knelt down beside the body, but immediately gave an irritated twitch of his shoulders, like a man pestered with flies. “How the hell can I do my job, with half a hundred of you crowding round? Keep back, will you?”

Michael stepped back obediently, but only a little way, for he was very much interested in the result of Dr. Kershaw’s examination. The latter felt the man over rapidly, with long, nervous fingers.

“Where’d you find him?” he asked Bill, who had never moved from his seat.

“Up along thar,” Bill replied, taking his pipe from his mouth and pointing vaguely up-stream. “Long of Malting House Wharf. Something fouled t’ barges, an’ Jarge ’e said ’e seen a face looking up in water, and I hooked ’un up wi’ boat-hook. Darn near broke my arm, too,” said Bill in an injured tone.

“See, sir,” Jarge put in, “I was up forward, an’ first we hit summat, and then I seen ’er in the water; and there wasn’t ’ardly any way on, so we stopped a’most dead. And Bill could reach ’un, so I calls to him to haul ’un in.”

“Near broke my arm, too,” Bill repeated sourly.

“Whew-w!” the landlord of the Old Malting House whistled. “Right thar by my inn, did you? Why, it looks a’most as though he must have fallen in clean out of his own windows. The water’s deep thar, sir,” he said to the doctor, “and there’s nothing to climb out by.”

“It was sooicide,” said Walter firmly. “Threw ’isself out of window. That’s my view, doctor.”

Dr. Kershaw looked round with increased irritation. “Nobody asked your views, Hicks,” he said. “Here he is drowned. It’s the coroner’s job to say how or why. You go and tell Linton to hurry up with that stretcher.”

“Excuse me,” Michael, still rather sore at his summary dismissal, interrupted, “but are you sure he was drowned?”

Kershaw swung round fiercely at him. “What! another of you!” he said. “This isn’t a public demonstration.”

“It looks to me,” Michael said, as mildly as he could manage, “as if the cause of death was not drowning but a broken neck. You can see his neck’s broken.”

The police doctor snorted. “Are you suggesting I don’t know my business? Of course I can see his neck’s broken.”

“Broke it when he fell, likely,” said the landlord.

“Just so,” said the doctor.

“Do you mean he hit his head?” Michael asked. “Is there a blow? I didn’t see——”

“I don’t know what there is or there isn’t, till I’ve had a proper look at him,” Kershaw snapped. “And, in any case, I don’t conduct examinations on the decks of barges. I do my work in the mortuary. Oh, there you are at last, Linton,” he said to a police-sergeant who had just appeared with two constables and a stretcher. “Get this body to the mortuary at once, will you? They say it’s Mr. Meston’s. These two men found it. I suppose you’ll make a note of where it was, and how they found it, won’t you? And somebody ought to take a message to Mrs. Meston up at the Grange. And you might clear this lot away. We don’t want people hanging about. If you’ll get the body to the mortuary quickly, I’ll have a look at it there. Oh, confound you, get out of the road!” He had leaped ashore and picked up his bicycle as he spoke, and the exclamation was directed to a crowd of sightseers, who were endeavouring to push their way along the tow-path. Foremost among them, Michael recognised the tout-like person whom he had last seen at Mr. Brandreth’s gate.

“For God’s sake,” said Kershaw to one of the constables, “clear this lot of gapers out!”

“Nah, then, get a move on, boys,” said the constable.

The tout-like person plucked at Kershaw’s sleeve. “Beg pardon, doctor,” he said in a voice that admirably fitted his clothes, “but did I understand you to say that was Mr. Meston’s body?”

“Why, do you know him?” Kershaw asked impatiently.

“No, but I’m very interested in his whereabouts,” the man replied, “—for reasons.”

“Well, if you don’t know him you’re no use here,” Kershaw said. “It’s none of my business to say who he was. I’m not the coroner. If you want to know who he was you’d better attend the inquest. I expect they’ll know his identity by then. Now, then, out of the way, all of you. I’m in a hurry.” And with a final curse he succeeded in pushing his bicycle through the crowd, and a moment later the bell was heard furiously ringing as he crossed the bridge.

“It is Mr. Meston, though, all right,” said Wason to the discomfited inquirer. “You needn’t worry about that. It’s him.”

“Oh, indeed,” the man said, licking his lips. “And he’s dead, is he? How did he come to die, might I ask?”

“Well, now, that’s a bit of a puzzler, seemingly,” Wason said, beginning to assume a pontifical air. “You and me, seeing him come out of the water like that, we’d say he was drowned and no mistaking. But this gentleman,” indicating Michael, “he’s a doctor, and he says he broke his neck. You’re quite sure he wasn’t drowned, aren’t you, sir?” he added.

“Quite’s a big word,” said Michael; “and I didn’t get much of a look at him. But I’m pretty sure it was the broken neck that killed him, and I shall be surprised if Dr. Kershaw doesn’t say the same when he’s finished his examination. But you needn’t spread this about, you know,” he said rather sharply to the man in the bowler, who was goggling at the information, “or you, Wason. I don’t want to find myself involved in a row with Dr. Kershaw, and, judging from his amiable manners, I should say he wouldn’t be slow in starting one.”

The landlord chuckled. “He’s a rough-tongued one, and no mistake. There’s plenty about’ll say the same. I should think he’d a touch of his liver this morning, though. I’ve not often seen him so sharp.”

“Sharp with me,” Michael muttered; “but not very sharp with the corpse.”

“Oh, he’s no fool, Dr. Kershaw,” Wason assured him.

CHAPTER III

Pondering deeply (for he was very much annoyed) on Dr. Kershaw’s manners or lack of manners, Michael followed the crowd towards the inn, and was not at all soothed to find that he had apparently attached to himself the man in the bowler, who followed at his elbow, telling interminable stories of relations and friends of his who had been cut off by violent deaths, interspersed with inquiries into the habits of the late Mr. Meston.

“I know nothing at all about him, I tell you,” Michael said in desperation. “I don’t suppose we’d exchanged a dozen words, all told.”

“But being in the same hotel, sir,” the man persisted, “you must have formed a himpression, if I may say so. You could tell me if the deceased seemed cheerful in his manner, you know, or restless, perhaps. Any little thing that suggested to you what his mood was, you know.”

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you anything,” Michael said untruthfully, for the late Mr. Meston’s mood was of the kind which made itself apparent without any intercourse whatever. But he disliked the inquirer exceedingly, and was quite determined that if he nosed out a newspaper story about the poor corpse, it should not be through him. Fortunately, the end of his purgatory approached, for they reached the inn door, and Michael, passing into the bar, plunged into a hubbub of delighted conversation.

Wason, who held the floor, was retailing, for the fourth or fifth time it would appear, his account of the finding of the body. Seeing Michael enter, he broke off the narrative to give a brief description of Michael’s views of Kershaw’s manners. There was a general roar of laughter.

“Doctor, he thinks he’s Scotland Yard and God A’mighty too, these days,” said one. “It’s all along o’ being so thick wi’ Squire.”

“Lard, he’s always as cross as two sticks,” another said. “I remember when my missus had her last, he pretty near had us art of harse.”

“Must be gettin’ used to it, by this time, William,” was the answer, provoking another general laugh.

“Aye, but did ye hear the trick a played on Joe Billings, Friday night?” another reminded them. “Two hours they was settin’ up for him, and a didn’t come——”

“Dancin’ at Squire’s, I’ll bet. They’d fine doin’s up thar, Friday night.”—“Old Joe were hopping mad when a did come, but Karshaw, he wouldn’t hear nothin’. Shut him up wi’ a flea in his mouth, a did.”

“Where be corpse now?” put in an ancient.

“Tommy Linton’s taken it along to mortuary. Us’ll get a look at it, maybe. Tommy’s a kind soul.”

“Yes, I couldn’t get near ’un at the barge,” another complained.

“Ye didn’t miss much,” a newcomer said. “Doctor wouldn’t let us get so much as a sniff of ’un.”

“Aye, he ought to be a fine niffy feller,” cackled the ancient.

“Whar’s corpse’s missus?” said a small wizened man. “She’ll ought to be told.”

“Whar d’ye think, Matthew? Up to Grange, o’ course.”

“I’m thinkin’,” said the small man, looking round for applause, “there’ll be one as’ll be main pleased carpse is found and the drowneder the pleaseder, I’m thinking.”

There was a general snigger, in the midst of which Walter Hicks’s mutter of “Scarlet Woman, I sez. And sooicide, that’s what I sez,” went unheard.

A man dug Michael in the ribs. “He means Missis Meston,” he observed. “It’s a known fact she couldn’t abide him.”

“There’s more’n that’d be pleased as Punch to know he’s drowned,” the small man went on. “There’d be more than pigs run over in Meadon if some had their way.”

“And that’s a fact,” the first speaker said truculently, as though he expected to have it disputed.

“Pigs or no pigs,” said the little man, “I’ve them in mind as’ll be sorry enough they wasn’t down by the riverside to-day.” He raised his glass. “Here’s to absent friends, boys,” he said, with a wink. There was another guffaw, after which the conversation descended into such abysses of allusiveness that Michael gave up the attempt to understand, and made his way out to the front of the inn, where another crowd was discussing the calamity with as much interest but less esoteric information. His last vision was of his bowler-hatted acquaintance eagerly buttonholing the little man. “Pah! the stinker!” thought Michael to himself. “He’s worse than Dr. Kershaw,” he angrily added. At that moment a car drew up at the Old Malting House.

“Hullo, Michael!” a well-known voice called. “What’s the matter? You look as though some one had stolen your savings.”

“Harry!” All Michael’s troubles slid from him as he turned to greet his friend. “I thought you couldn’t be here till after lunch.”

“Nor ought I to have. What my respected colleagues will say of me I can’t think. I’ve left half a dozen jobs for them to finish off. But the weather tempted me, and I did come. What a populous neighbourhood you seem to have chosen,” said Wilson, looking round. “Is it a wedding, or an election?”

“Neither. It’s a bit more in your line,” said Michael. “It’s a corpse.”

CHAPTER IV

“My dear Michael,” Wilson said, as they sat smoking in the bar-parlour after tea, “if this is to be a busman’s holiday, I wish you’d say so at once, and let me make off while there’s yet time. First you inveigle me into an inn with a corpse on its doorstep, then you repeat a lot of apparently malicious but wholly unintelligible gossip, and, to crown it all, you seem determined to quarrel with the local police-surgeon.”

“The man’s got the manners of a hog,” Michael said indignantly. “And it looks to me as though his professional qualities were quite on a par with his manners. He positively didn’t see the fellow’s neck was broken, until I pointed it out! And then you’d have thought from his tone I’d done him an injury instead of a service! These country sawbones are a disgrace to the profession!”

At this point, Wilson, whose smile had been growing broader and broader as Michael detailed his woes, chuckled outright. “This is magnificently righteous indignation,” he said. “Or is it natural irritation—and unsatisfied curiosity?”

“Well, nobody likes being talked to like that,” said Michael, “especially when he’s in the right, and the man talking to him an impudent ignoramus like Kershaw. And, of course, I wanted to have the thing properly looked into. It’s an odd thing for a body to turn up out of the river with a broken neck. Besides, what could he have broken his neck on? The bottom’s all soft mud, hereabouts. And, anyway, I’m not at all certain he broke his neck in a fall. There was no sign of a contusion that I could see, and there must have been if he’d hit something hard. But Kershaw was indignant at my even suggesting he’d broken his neck.”

“Or annoyed at your indiscretion, perhaps?” his companion suggested. “I suggest that he wanted to keep that tit-bit for the inquest. You know—‘Is it your view that death was caused by drowning, doctor?’ ‘No, sir, the man’s neck was broken!’ Sensation in Court. You mustn’t grudge your country brother his little bit of publicity. And seriously, I gather that Dr. Kershaw represents my profession as well as yours; and mine, as you know, doesn’t believe in giving the general public too much indiscriminate information. You were indiscreet, Michael.” He smiled; but Michael was still in a blaze of wrath.

“I wasn’t,” he said indignantly. “I didn’t call attention to anything that any fool couldn’t have seen with half an eye. And, anyway, no London police-surgeon would treat a colleague like that, I hope.”

“Alack! alack!” Wilson sighed. “How little you townsmen have to know of the vanity and self-sufficiency of the provincial! Would I could set up my plate in Baker Street, and never see a county police-station again! All right, Michael, I was only pulling your leg. I deeply sympathise. Let us agree that Dr. Kershaw is a cad and a fool, and ought to be struck off the register. And now, that being settled, will you tell me, really, why this body interests you?”

“You old hypocrite, you know perfectly well why it interests me and why you are asking me all these questions about it. This fellow, Meston, has got a broken neck. To the best of my belief, he didn’t get it by falling in the river, but somehow on land. Well, how? That’s what I want to know.”

“But, Michael, you can’t be sure. You may think the bottom’s all mud, but there may be a dozen snags half buried that you can’t see. And you’re not a diver. You can’t possibly have examined the river bottom for several hundreds of yards. For, of course, you don’t know exactly where he fell in.”

“All the same,” Michael said obstinately, “he couldn’t have broken his neck without hitting his head pretty hard on something. And if he hit it there’d have been a cut or a bruise. And I couldn’t see one.”

“Even if you couldn’t, it doesn’t prove there wasn’t one. Unless you’re certain? Are you?”

“We-ell. Of course it all depends what you mean by certain. If that Jack-in-office had let me make a proper examination I’d have been absolutely certain. As it is, I’m pretty sure there wasn’t; but I didn’t grasp what a puzzle it made until it was too late to get another look at him. Damn the man!” said Michael, with a fresh access of feeling.

“Well, well, never mind. It’s hard luck, I agree. But probably if you go to the inquest, you’ll find it’s all clear. I expect there will turn out to have been a contusion somewhere—probably hidden under the hair. Water plays strange tricks with dead bodies. Anyway, I suggest, now you’ve got it off your chest, that you put the whole thing out of your mind for a bit. If there’s really anything wrong, we shan’t get any forrarder without some more information. And this evening’s really too lovely to waste. Hullo! who drives a racing Talbot hereabouts?”

Looking out, Michael caught a glimpse of the lean scarlet car which had crossed the bridge earlier in the day, and a flash of its owner’s million-dollar profile.

“Wallace Burden,” he said. “He’ll be running over more pigs if he isn’t careful. Oh!” Part of the cryptic conversation in the bar had suddenly taken on a meaning to him.

“Who was that with him?” Wilson asked, without noticing the exclamation.

“I didn’t see. You must have eyes like a hawk. Male or female?”

“Female. And a very good choice, I should say, as far as looks are concerned.”

“I don’t know. Mrs. Meston, maybe—or the Scarlet Woman, which seems to be her pet name in these parts.” Michael retailed a little more gossip.

“I didn’t know you were such a scandal-monger, Michael,” Wilson said, with amusement. “Can’t the poor lady, if it is she, come to look at her husband’s remains without you goggling at her? Hullo! hullo! This looks more like business.”

“What? I don’t see anything.”

Wilson pointed at a florid gentleman, of military appearance and military step, who was striding towards them down the High Street.

“County Police, or I’m a Dutchman. And he appears to be coming here.”

“I hope he’s got more sense than his medical officer,” Michael grumbled, as the military gentleman disappeared. A moment later a maid-servant knocked at the door, with a card in an envelope, and a message that the owner desired a few minutes’ conversation with Dr. Prendergast. Michael held the card out to Wilson. It bore the name of Colonel Lockwood.

“Chief of the County Police,” Wilson said. “They’re on your trail, Michael. Will you see him here?”

CHAPTER V

“What about you?” Michael asked.

“To the best of my belief Colonel Lockwood doesn’t know me,” Wilson replied, “though I’ve seen him once or twice. I think I’ll stay and risk it. I’d rather like to see you arrested for suspicious behaviour. But be careful you don’t give me away.”

Accordingly, a minute later the same maid ushered in the military figure they had seen in the street. At closer quarters it looked even more military, with a brick-red face, a bristling yellow moustache, and a beaked nose; all belied, however, by a pair of very mild, very worried blue eyes which surmounted it.

“Dr. Prendergast?” he inquired in his best parade growl, and looked uneasily at Wilson.

“This is my friend, Mr. Wilson,” Michael explained. “He’s just come down to join us. Have you any objection to his remaining?”

The Colonel looked as if he were searching Army Orders for the correct procedure, and failing to find it. Finally, with a grunt, he decided to let it pass.

“Provided he knows how to hold his tongue,” he said. “The business I’ve come on is private, doctor.”

“Quite,” said Wilson. “I assure you I can keep my mouth shut.”

“That’s all right, then. Well, Dr. Prendergast, I won’t waste your time. I understand that you were present this morning when a body was taken out of the river?”

“Yes—Mr. Meston’s body,” Michael said. The Colonel frowned as if he very much disliked the fact.

“And you examined it before the police-surgeon arrived?”

“I did,” said Michael; “but not thoroughly. And your man didn’t appear to desire my assistance afterwards.”

“Oh, you mustn’t mind that,” said the Colonel. “Kershaw likes to do his work himself. It’s only his way.”

“It’s a very unpleasant way,” said Michael.

“Well, we can’t help that. Now, what I wanted to ask you was—Did you form any idea as to the cause of death?”

“The man had a broken neck, and I should say he died of it. The condition is frequently fatal.”

“You don’t think he died of drowning?”

“No. As far as I could see, I’m certain he didn’t.”

“Yes. So far you’re in complete agreement with Dr. Kershaw. You agree that he must have hit something with his head as he fell into the river, which broke his neck?”

“That, it seems to me, would have produced the mark of a blow or cut of some kind on his head. And I couldn’t see any.”

“Pardon me, doctor, but you’re wrong there. There’s a very distinct mark—under his hair. I’ve just seen it. He must have hit his head a tremendous crack.”

Michael caught Wilson’s eye, and thought it looked derisive. He became suddenly angry and positive. “That’s impossible,” he said.

“Impossible! My dear doctor, what do you mean? I tell you I’ve seen it. You admit you only made a perfunctory examination. You must have overlooked it.”

“I may have overlooked a slight mark,” Michael said, “because, as I told you, I was given no opportunity of making a proper examination. But I couldn’t possibly have overlooked a serious one, of course!”

“Well, but as Colonel Lockwood has seen it, it’s presumably there,” Wilson interrupted; and at the sound of his voice the other two, who had begun to glare at each other, sank down into their chairs. “What exactly is the point, Colonel?”

“Slight or serious, it’s there,” the Colonel repeated. “However, the point is—how long should you say the body had been in the water?”

“Several days—three or four at least. It couldn’t have been more than five, for the man was walking about here five days ago.”

“Precisely. Dr. Kershaw says the same. So we may take it that he probably fell or jumped into the river. Is there anything, in your view, to show whether it was accident or suicide?”

“That’s hardly a medical question, you know. There is obviously nothing to show.”

“You mean the medical evidence is consistent with either?”

“Accepting the mark, and the presence of some object in the river hard enough to break his neck—yes.”

The Colonel gave a sigh of relief. “That’s all right, then,” he said. “I’ve had to ask these questions, doctor, because there are a lot of local gossips here, and they will have it that you cast doubt on Doctor Kershaw’s conclusions. I suppose I may take it that you didn’t.”

“I would rather,” Michael answered, a trifle stiffly, “retrain from committing myself to any conclusions at all. I prefer to stick to facts.”

“So do we all, I hope. As to the facts, then, you agree?”

“I would rather not venture a definite opinion.”

The Colonel sighed. “At any rate you agree with Doctor Kershaw that the man died of a broken neck?”

“I agree that that appears to have been the cause of death——”

“Then it seems to me that’s all right. There’s no disagreement on the vital question.”

“—but,” persisted Michael, who was not going to be baulked of his grievance, “I’d really rather not say anything, without having a further look at the body.”

“Oh, surely—I hardly think that’s necessary.” The Colonel’s determination to let sleeping dogs lie was so obvious that Michael’s protest died away. He was well aware that he had no right to intervene in the matter; but he was so cross that he might easily have persisted had Wilson given him the least shadow of encouragement. But Wilson sat perfectly silent, with a faint smile on his face; and, after trying several more hints, all of which the Colonel politely ignored, Michael allowed the interview to come to an end, and scowled his visitor out of the room. This done, he turned furiously on Wilson.

“You might have helped me out instead of sitting there grinning like a Cheshire cat! Is this whole damned place in a conspiracy? First the doctor, and now this Chief Constable fellow!”

Wilson’s smile broadened. “Don’t you know innocence when you see it, Michael? There never was any one with less guile than Lockwood. It’s quite natural he shouldn’t want you butting in and questioning his expert medical evidence.”

“If that’s so, why wouldn’t he let me have another look at the body?”

“Because, for all practical purposes, it isn’t his body; it’s Kershaw’s. And you’ve upset Kershaw, and he’s told the Colonel you’re a meddlesome outsider—which you are, you know, from his point of view.”

“Why,” Michael said, “are you so keen on my letting the thing alone? It’s not like you. If there’s something wrong—and I’m certain there is—isn’t it everybody’s concern?”

“If there is,” said Wilson. “But the hardened professional is perhaps less anxious to find crimes than the amateur. Not everything is criminal that is a little odd, you know. And, if there has been any foul play—which I gather is what you are suggesting—shouldn’t we be better advised at the present moment to hold our tongues instead of making a shout of it?”

Michael coloured and bit his lip at the rebuke, and to cover his discomfiture went to look out of the window. What he saw there, however, appeared to please him very little, for he turned back into the room with an exclamation of disgust.

“What’s the matter?” Wilson asked. “Kershaw?”

“No. That little bounder,” Michael said, “hanging around still. Look!”

“What a lot of enemies you seem to have made,” Wilson commented mildly; but he went to the window obediently, and gazed out on Michael’s acquaintance in the bowler hat, who was having a semi-confidential conversation with the postman.

“Not an attractive creature, certainly,” he said. “But what has he done to you?”

“Only hung about all day, and tried to pump me—greasy little tyke!” said Michael. “Not to mention everybody else. What is he, Harry? A tout, or a reporter? Not a reporter, I hope.”

“I don’t think so,” Wilson said. “He looks to me, I regret to say, rather more like an outside broker in my line. He has the air of private inquiry agent—and not a very nice specimen of the breed. I wonder what cause there is for private inquiries into the late Mr. Meston? He’s buttonholed somebody else now—rather a nice-looking young fellow.”

Michael looked over his shoulder. “Why, it’s Warden!” he exclaimed. “I didn’t know he was back. I’ll bring him in, shall I?” And in a moment he was gone.

“Oh, impetuosity!” Wilson murmured to himself. “I’m afraid you may get another setback.”

CHAPTER VI

It was, in fact, only a few minutes before Michael was back again, looking distinctly glum. Out of pity, Wilson forbore to ask the reason; had he done so, he would have found that Michael had once again been dismissed with something less than cordiality. Mark Warden, though his face, which looked unusually careworn, had brightened up at Michael’s coming, had made it quite plain, after the first greeting, that his conversation with the supposed inquiry agent (now introduced as Strake) did not require a third; and Michael was in no mood to hang about while his friend conducted private conversations with “dirty little Paul Prys.” Accordingly, he returned to the inn, feeling that the world was in a conspiracy to humiliate and annoy him, and was so sulky during the evening that even Wilson, equable as his own temper was, was beginning to wish that the late Mr. Meston had stayed at the bottom of the river, when about nine o’clock there was a sound of hurried feet on the stairs, a bang on the door, and Mark Warden, pale and worried, rushed into the room.

“Oh, good! you’re there,” he exclaimed. “I say, Michael, I’m frightfully sorry about that chap, but, you see—oh!——” he broke off on seeing Wilson. “I’m sorry.”

“My friend, Wilson,” said Michael, introducing them. “Mark Warden.”

Wilson offered to leave, as the young man had clearly some trouble on his mind; but Michael was anxious for him to stay, and after a little beating about the bush, it was decided that he should. Drinks were ordered, and they settled themselves comfortably, Wilson meanwhile observing the young man with some care.

There was nothing apparent to distinguish Mark Warden from any other pleasant, moderately idle young fellow of twenty-six or seven. He was good-looking, in a way, but with the comeliness of youth and health rather than any special distinction; he was above middle height, with movements and a carriage which suggested that his body was probably more specifically handsome than his face; and though that face at present looked worried and worn, it was no more so than the faces of many young creatures Wilson had known, when first they discovered that life does not strictly correspond to the l.b.w. rule.

“I’m frightfully sorry,” he said very earnestly, “to have been talking to that awful bounder. Really, I couldn’t help it, though. You see, he was put on by Hanborough to look into this business. Of course, I thought Hanborough’d know what’d be best, and I didn’t ask any questions—and then he stopped me in the street, of all places, and began talking about it——”

“About what?” Michael interrupted. “About Meston’s death?”

“Yes, though God knows what business it was of his. He began feeding me up with a frightful lot of scandal. Come to think of it, your name got in somehow, Michael—about mysteries about Mr. Meston’s death, and quarrels with his wife—disgusting sort of rubbish! Of course, I pretty soon told him that wasn’t what Mr. Hanborough’d asked him to look into——”

“But what had he been asked to look into?” Michael tried again.

“Why, the accounts. That’s just what I’ve come to ask you about—to know what the blazes you think I ought to do. It’s frightfully awkward for me, you see, anyway, and now Meston turning up drowned fairly puts the lid on it.”

“Puts the lid on what?” Michael said impatiently. “What in thunder are you talking about?”

“Perhaps if Mr. Warden started from the beginning,” Wilson suggested. “He forgets you and I are strangers to the place.”

“You may be strangers,” Warden said bitterly, “but if you haven’t had all the gossip four times over at least, you’ve very lucky strangers. I never knew such a hornets’ nest as this. But I’m sorry I’m making a muddle—I don’t know what to think or what to do. I’ll start again properly.” He helped himself to a stiff drink, and pushed the hair back from his forehead.

“You know,”—to Michael, who nodded—“Dad put me in to learn the business five years ago; and Christmas two years, when he had his stroke, he got me made junior partner. Dad was senior partner of Warden, Hanborough and Meston”—he added to Wilson—“of Colchester. He built up the firm practically himself, and he did nearly everything, and so, of course, with two other partners, there was precious little for me to do; and, anyway, he was just as pleased I should play cricket and be a kind of county ornament as do anything else. I mean, I could be a sort of decoy duck for clients, don’t you see, even if I didn’t do any work. Well, after I properly came into the firm, this went on for some time; Hanborough and Meston between them knew the whole show inside out, and I didn’t see why I should bother. Then, you remember, I had that smash at the end of last season, when you picked me up; and our old sawbones thinks I must have managed to strain my guts, somehow, at the same time. Anyhow, I had a horrid pain inside me for a bit; and what with that and my knee, I didn’t feel much like playing games. So I took to going regularly to business, though I don’t fancy anybody particularly wanted me there, teaching somebody else their job—however, I thought I really ought to.

“But this is the devil of it—I hadn’t been going there regularly for very long before I began to see that something was wrong with the money side. It wasn’t any credit to me that I did; the greenest mug could have seen it with half an eye if he’d happened to come across it the way I did. I don’t mean to bother you with details—the long and short of it was that the funds weren’t where they should be; they were in oil-shares and that sort of stuff, and some, I believe, weren’t there at all.

“Well, I began to sweat with fright, because if some of our big people had called us to pay up, we should have been in the soup—and it would have been as much my fault as any one’s. I would have asked Dad; but he can’t talk even, much less look after business. So I went to Hanborough at last, and consulted him. That was this spring. Hanborough wouldn’t listen for some time. He practically told me I was an idiot, who didn’t know the difference between one kind of share and another, but at last I convinced him that it wasn’t only a question of shares, but of money actually missing. With that I got him down to the office and made him go into it thoroughly.

“Then he got into an awful stew, and declared we must go very carefully. You see, we neither of us knew who’d been monkeying with the business; and, as Hanborough said, if a whisper got out, somebody would be sure to try and withdraw their money, and then it would be all U.P. We talked a long time about what was to be done, and at last I persuaded Hanborough to put on a private detective to investigate and see what was going on. Meanwhile, he said, he and I would keep a personal look-out into everything that was going on in the office, and stop any more hanky-panky. And he particularly urged me to say nothing about our feelings to Meston——”

“Why not to Meston?” Wilson asked. “Wasn’t he concerned?”

“Well, I suppose you can guess why not, now, as I can,” young Warden said ruefully. “But it never occurred to me at the time. Hanborough only said that in cases like this it was as well for as few people as possible to know what was in the wind, and that as Meston had to be in the office a lot—he was the partner who generally saw people—it was just as well that he should be quite innocent. Also, he said, Meston had only been a clerk in the firm, and wouldn’t feel a thing like this as he or I should. I know it sounds as if I ought to have seen what he was driving at; but at the time I was so muddled that I couldn’t think of anything but that we must find out what was happening and nobody else must know. Hanborough got hold of this fellow Strake—though, as I say, I hadn’t a ghost of a notion what he was like—and sent me reports every now and then to say how things were going on. Then this afternoon they rang up from Hellier to let me know Meston had been found drowned. I couldn’t get hold of Hanborough, so I came down myself at once to see what had happened. And this is what I find—and that little beast of a Strake nosing round into it. He had the impudence to wave an expense account in my face, too! How Hanborough could ever have brought himself to employ such a fellow, I can’t think.”

“Spying isn’t a nice trade, you know,” Wilson pointed out to him. “You can’t always expect to employ a spy whom you’d like to ask to dinner. But what’s the position now? I gather from what you say that you think Meston may have been the villain of the piece?”

“Well, they say here he committed suicide,” Warden said. “Why, they say you said so, Michael.”

“I never said anything of the kind!” Michael contradicted him indignantly. “I never even got a chance——” Nor did he then, for Warden interrupted.

“Well, if you didn’t, somebody said he did. But what the hell ought I to do? It’ll have to come out now; and Hanborough’s away.”

“Gently!” said Wilson. “Aren’t you going a bit fast? You don’t seem to me to have much proof that Meston embezzled your funds.”

“Well, I don’t know what Strake’s got,” Warden said. “But, if he killed himself, it looks——”

“Yes, I know; but we can hardly assume that, at any rate, until the inquest’s been held. What do you suppose he did with the funds, if he did take them?”

“I don’t know. Salted ’em down, perhaps. Or lost ’em.”

“Had he expensive tastes, I mean? Did he bet, or speculate? Might he have lost the money?”

“I don’t know. Outside of the office, I hardly knew him.”

“He certainly didn’t sound like a successful embezzler, when he was here,” Michael put in. “If he did embezzle funds, I should say he’d certainly lost them all. I never saw such a gloomy fellow.”

“Oh, that’ll be his wife, poor devil,” Warden said. “She made him feel like that.”

“Is she the lady who’s supposed to be rejoicing at his death?” Michael asked.

“Well, they didn’t get on at all, if that’s what you mean. In fact, she’d just run away from him, and he’d taken leave from the office—really, I suppose, to go and get her back, though he didn’t say so.”

“Why did he come here, then?”

“Because she was at the Lorings’, of course,” said Warden, who seemed to imagine that all his hearers were as familiar with the current gossip as he was himself. “They’re her cousins, you know; and she always goes there when she can.”

“Did he get her back?”

“Not on your life,” Warden said, with decision. “But what’s it got to do——Oh, I see! You mean he might have killed himself for that!”

“Well, it’s a possibility.”

“Without having pinched any of our cash? I see. Well, I’m sure I hope he did,” Warden said, with a deep disregard of any one’s feelings but his own. “But tell me, d’you think there’s anything I can do?”

“Not much, I should say,” said Wilson, “at least, until the inquest, when it may be known how he died, and when his papers will have been examined.”

“But that’s just what I don’t want!” Warden cried. “Don’t you see, Mr. Wilson, if police officials get hold of his papers, and a whole lot of things come out, then the firm will bust. I’m absolutely certain we couldn’t meet our commitments, if even two or three people wanted their money. And—you see, it isn’t only looking like a fool, it’s my family. All our money, practically, except my mother’s, was—is—in the business; and I’ve two sisters. It would mean selling the house and turning Dad out, and—it would be my fault, you see.”

“Well, it may not have been Meston,” said Michael, pitying his distress but not seeing any way of dealing with it.

“But I must know! Whether it is or it isn’t, I must get at what happened! Really, I can’t stand going on like this—and everybody at home thinking it’s all very nice, only why can’t dear Mark be a little pleasanter? You know,” said the athlete ingenuously, “I used to think it was all bunkum about worry making you lose your appetite. But half a dozen times lately I’ve really felt so rotten with bothering about this, I haven’t wanted to touch anything. Only, of course, I had to, or they’d have wondered what on earth was happening. Oh yes, of course you’ll laugh at me,”—and Michael had striven so hard to restrain his smiles—“but it’s not a joke, even if I am a fool. Look here, Michael, that’s what I really came to ask. You know that friend of yours who’s at Scotland Yard—what’s his name? Well, couldn’t you get him to come and find out what’s happened? I mean, I can’t stand not knowing, and I can’t stand that fellow of Hanborough’s. Of course”—to Wilson—“I know what you mean, that a spy isn’t a gentleman; but a policeman at Scotland Yard’s not likely to be so bad as a little tuppenny-ha’penny chap from Walthamstow, is he? You know what I mean.”

They did, indeed: so well that they could scarcely keep their faces while Michael carefully explained that Scotland Yard is not for casual use by any and every private citizen in any case of suspicion. Warden’s face fell, but brightened again when Michael offered to put his troubles privately before the great man and see what he thought. “And I’ll sack that little perisher,” he said. “He’ll make me sick if he hangs about much longer.”

“I don’t know that I should be in a hurry,” Wilson advised. “It may be better for him to be bringing his gossip to you than scattering it broadcast. Besides, isn’t Mr. Hanborough concerned?”

“Yes, damn it. I’d forgotten him. I wish to hell he’d come back. Well, thanks awfully, both of you. You’ve made me feel a lot better. Now I must be going, or they’ll wonder what’s up. I expect I’ll be round again some time, if I’m not bothering. And you will ask Wilson, won’t you? So long.” And he took himself off, leaving Michael in fits of laughter on the couch.

“Unfeeling fellow,” Wilson said.

“Well, he is rather an outsize in geese,” Michael protested.

“You’ve no real appreciation of youth and innocence, Michael. If you’d been as much in contact with their opposites as I have, you’d regard your friend as a spring of water in a thirsty land. Oh, laugh if you like. I’m delighted to find you brightening up a little. Only don’t break the ornaments.” He stooped to pick up a photograph which Michael had knocked to the floor.

“Friend of yours?” the latter asked, glancing at it.

“Not that I know of. From that scrawl in the corner, one would judge it to be Mrs. Meston. It’s a striking face, isn’t it? Would you commit suicide if that face had left you, Michael?”

“I shouldn’t have married it in the first place,” Michael said. He was a bachelor.

CHAPTER VII

All the same, Michael was not happy. As soon as the immediate amusement of Warden’s naïveté had worn off, his mind returned to its troubles, to his annoyance with the corpse, the neighbours, Mr. Strake, and Dr. Kershaw. Warden’s story might well throw light on Meston’s end; for Michael could not deny that he had looked very much as though he might be contemplating suicide—but, if he had, that did not explain why he should deliver a blow on his own head and conceal it so carefully that Michael could not see it. “Damn! Why can’t I see him again?” grumbled Michael, turning his pillow. And if he had embezzled trust moneys, what had he done with them? He did not look like a man in funds, or a man with luxurious tastes. Spent them on his wife, most likely, thought Michael spitefully, while she was driving about in a scarlet car with cinema heroes. And, as he gradually slid off into an uneasy sleep, he saw Mrs. Meston leaning over the running-board of the Talbot to strike at the submerged face of her husband with what appeared to be Mr. Strake’s billycock.

He woke as early and unrefreshed as one commonly does after such slumber, and thought he would drive away his headache by taking a walk before breakfast. It was as glorious a morning as the previous one, and he made an endeavour to get Wilson to accompany him. But a visit to his friend’s bedroom only produced a sleepy request to go away and be damned; and he set out alone. He took no particular direction, but soon found that his legs had led him down the street of old houses where Mr. Brandreth lived. And there in the garden, as on the previous morning, was Mr. Brandreth himself, syringing a rosebush with soap and water.

“The very man I wanted to see,” Mr. Brandreth hailed him. “I’m an early bird myself, but I didn’t expect to see you about so soon. Where’s your friend?”

“My friend?” Michael gasped.

“Bless my soul,” Mr. Brandreth chuckled, “you didn’t think anything so important as a new guest’s arrival would pass without notice in Steeple Tollesbury, did you? Besides, as it happens, I saw him myself, when you were taking the air together yesterday evening. Between ourselves, doctor, is he here merely for a holiday?”

“What do you mean?” said Michael.

“Oh, only idle curiosity. You know, I’m pretty certain I’ve seen your friend before.” Mr. Brandreth lowered the syringe, and directed a wink straight at Michael. “And I’d almost be prepared to bet that I know where. At the Central Criminal Court, eh? Yes, I see I’m right.”

“Well, if you are, what of it?” said Michael sourly, annoyed at having so transparent a countenance. “My friend is here on a holiday, incognito. He won’t be particularly grateful to any one who spreads rumours abroad about his identity.”

“Oh, quite so, of course,” Mr. Brandreth agreed. “Don’t think I’ve been talking, doctor. I haven’t said an indiscreet word, and won’t, if you tell me not to. But, as I say, I happened to recognise him; and, having my fair share of natural curiosity, it occurred to me to wonder if he was here on—this business.”

“What, Meston?” Michael gave a jump in spite of himself. “Why—why should he be?”

“Oh, well, I don’t know, of course,” Brandreth said. “People have been saying all sorts of things—I rather gathered that some of them came from you, by the way—and when I saw your Mr. Wilson walking down the High Street so opportunely, I naturally wondered if he were concerned in it. Between you and me and the gate-post, I rather hoped he was.”

“Well, he isn’t,” said Michael shortly. “He’s on holiday.” Then, his natural curiosity getting the better of him, he asked, “Why did you hope he was?”

“Well—I think things aren’t always what they seem, you know. Don’t you? It looks to me a bit fishy altogether,” said Brandreth.

“You mean—you don’t think his death was all right?” Michael asked excitedly.

“To tell you the truth, I don’t. I look at it this way. Here’s a man fallen in the river—yes, I know he broke his neck on the way, but that only makes it odder. Now, I put it to you—Is there anywhere a man would be likely to fall into the Toll, unless he was blind drunk? And that Meston never was. I’ve never seen him take a drop more than was good for him—and often not half as much as would have been good for him, if you take my meaning. And I’m not to believe he fell into that river, not if he were to tell me so himself. The tap-room, I gather, says suicide. Well, that’s all very well; but a man doesn’t develop suicidal tendencies in ten minutes, and I’ve known Meston a good long time, and any one less likely to commit suicide I’ve seldom seen. Too struck with his own virtues, by a long way. Well, how did he get into that river?”

“Are you trying to tell me he was murdered?” Michael said. “Who would have murdered him?”

“Softly! I didn’t say murdered. Nothing of the sort. I only said he didn’t get there unassisted. And I’m naming no names, for obvious reasons. What I wondered was, whether your Superintendent Wilson was thinking of looking into the thing.”

“He’s got nothing to do with it.”

“Of course, I take your word,” Brandreth said doubtfully. “But, all the same, why shouldn’t he—quietly, you know? I’m sure you agree with me that the thing ought to be cleared up.”

“I don’t see quite how you come into it,” Michael said.

“Oh, well, I do, in a way. You see, I’m Mrs. Meston’s lawyer—it’s one of the few bits of business I still keep on with. And you can quite understand that she’ll be anxious to find out how her husband died; and if it is anything but accident, you can also understand, unless you’re too proud to listen to gossip, that it may be a bit awkward for her.”

“If there’s any truth in the gossip,” said Michael spitefully, “I should have thought she’d better lie low.”

“Well, I’m her lawyer, you see. I’m taking the line that there isn’t. But I’m also taking the line that it ought to be cleared up. And, as a matter of fact, though I’m speaking at the moment in a non-professional capacity, I don’t mind telling you that Mrs. Meston agrees with me. She came to see me yesterday evening, and was particularly urgent that it should be cleared up. So, you see, I thought your Mr. Wilson——”

“He’s not in it,” said Michael. “Anyway, he couldn’t come in unless he was asked by the local people. And your Chief Constable didn’t seem likely to ask him.”

“Oh, Lockwood! Of course, Lockwood doesn’t want a fuss of any kind. You see, if there’s any trouble, all the people likely to be involved—the Loring lot, Nicholas Hanborough”—Michael hoped he had suppressed his start this time—“and so on, are personal friends of his. And Lockwood’s a very decent chap, the last man in the world who ought to be a policeman, if you’ll excuse me saying so. You aren’t in that line yourself, by the way, are you? No, I thought not. So much the better for Kershaw”—Michael gasped again. “Well, naturally, what Lockwood wants is to get the fellow buried quickly and quietly, and no questions asked. But, personally, I don’t feel satisfied. That’s why I wanted to see you, in case your friend had any views. I thought of calling on him after breakfast. It’s all the better, in a way, if he really isn’t officially committed.”

“You couldn’t retain him, you know. He’s not a private inquiry agent,” said Michael, a recollection of Mr. Strake adding venom to his disclaimer. Was Brandreth, he wondered, thinking of running Wilson and Strake in harness? “And, anyway, he’s come down for a holiday. He needs one badly.”

“And doesn’t appreciate the busman’s kind, eh? All the same, I’d be obliged if you’d mention what I’ve told you to him. It can’t do any harm, and he might feel interested, you know.”

“I don’t think so,” said Michael. “But I’ll tell him, if you like.”

“Thanks, I should. And, look here, I’m on the ’phone. If you do find he’s interested, I shall be at home all morning, and a call will bring me at any time. Good luck, doctor. By the way, if there’s a fuss, your friend’s fiancée may be involved too, you know.”

“But he’s married!”

“I beg your pardon. I meant young Warden. You knew he was engaged to Edna Loring, the Squire’s sister, didn’t you? Oh, I thought you’d have heard. He’s going through a thin time now, isn’t he, poor lad? Well, I hope to hear from you.”

Michael passed the old lawyer’s request to Wilson, with an all-but-expressed prayer that the latter should decline to consider it. He had an uneasy feeling that Brandreth knew too much by half; and in spite of his last night’s strictures on Warden, he was fond enough of the young man not to wish him to be ruined by casual talk about his affairs. And, anyway, why should Brandreth suppose that Wilson had come down officially to investigate a case when there wasn’t a case to be investigated? For Scotland Yard could hardly have been called in on the question of embezzlement—unless, indeed, Warden were lying with a skill utterly foreign to his character; and, as to the death, Wilson must have started before even the body was found. Mr. Brandreth, Michael thought, was altogether too much of a gossip; and he was surprised and disappointed when Wilson, having heard a report of the conversation, said, “I think we’ll have him round. You’d better ’phone up.”

“But—surely you can’t take it up without Colonel Lockwood’s consent?”

“Of course I can’t,” said Wilson, a trifle impatiently. “But that doesn’t prevent me having a look round into interesting features—in fact, it rather eases it by setting me free. And Mr. Brandreth, if you’ve reported him correctly, sounds a distinctly interesting feature. I think I’d like to hear what he has to say.”

Michael accordingly telephoned Dunster House, where Brandreth lived; and a cheerful voice, in which he thought he detected a faint ring of triumph, assured him that its owner would be with them immediately after breakfast.

CHAPTER VIII

Wilson looked up with interest as the lawyer was ushered in. He saw a tubby, fresh-faced little man, with a short grey moustache, and grey hair which bristled up on his head, a beaming smile, a brisk manner, a pugnacious chin, and a pair of very alert, deep-set grey eyes. His appearance agreed very well with his character as derived from a gossip with Sam Wason, who had said that Mr. Brandreth was a deep one, a holy terror when he liked, and as sharp as a needle.

“Is he only a gossiping little busybody, or has he a game of his own?” Wilson wondered. “Probably to let him talk is the best way of finding out.” Accordingly, he opened straight to the point.

“I understand from Dr. Prendergast that you wanted to see me, Mr. Brandreth,” he said. “I hope you quite realise that I have no locus standi in this matter. I am simply here on a holiday, and the local people have not consulted me in any way. As far as I can judge, they do not think there is anything to consult about. Exactly what use I can be to you under the circumstances I don’t quite see; but I am at your service, if that is understood.”

“Oh, quite,” said Mr. Brandreth, with polite scepticism. “I am only seeking advice, unprofessionally, as I told Dr. Prendergast.”

“And the advice is——?”

“I want to know what you think happened to William Meston.”

“Dr. Prendergast mentioned Mrs. Meston. Are you acting for her?”

“Not definitely. I had a talk with her yesterday, and she is anxious to have the matter cleared up. But I’ve no definite instructions.”

“Why does she want it cleared up?”

“Well, it’s natural, isn’t it?” Brandreth said innocently. “Besides, I thought I explained to the doctor that, if his death was anything but an accident, there’s likely to be a good deal of unpleasant talk, and I’d rather that was dealt with quickly, for her sake.”

“So I gathered,” Wilson said somewhat dryly. “I haven’t been here twenty-four hours yet; but I’ve heard talk enough to fill an American Sunday paper. Perhaps, Mr. Brandreth, you would be good enough to sift it for me. What exactly is the truth about Mrs. Meston and her husband?”

“Well,” Mr. Brandreth settled himself in comfortable anticipation, and took out an old cherrywood pipe, “the first thing is, that they didn’t get on at all. That’s common knowledge—in fact, at the time when he died she’d actually run away from him, and was staying at the Grange.”

“Why at the Grange?”

“Oh, it was the natural place for her to go to. She’s a sort of cousin of the Lorings—Sylvia Liddell was her maiden name—and she’s been in and out of there ever since she could walk. Godfrey Loring—the Squire—regards himself almost as her guardian, I believe.”

“And so she’d left her husband. With any particular purpose?”

“Divorce, you mean? No; Meston wouldn’t divorce her. And she couldn’t divorce him.”

“But he could.”

“Oh, yes. I tell you, she wanted him to.”

“Any particular co-respondent?”

“None that I know of. But a suit would not have been defended.”

“Nevertheless, a co-respondent would be necessary.”

“Oh, I expect one could have been found.”

“Who?”

“Well, that’s a delicate question, Mr. Wilson. I should hardly like to say, seeing that the happy man has not had a chance of signifying his consent. And in any case, I couldn’t. The question, you see, had not arisen. But I have no doubt one would have been provided.”

“Not the cinema star, by any chance?”

“Oh—Burden.” There was respect in Brandreth’s glance. “I hardly think so. He has a wife already—if not two—and he’s an expensive sort of fellow. I should doubt he could afford another. Though, of course, he’s high in favour at present.”

“There were others, then?”

“Oh yes. Mackenzie, the explorer, was very smitten. And that fellow Shane—you’ll have heard of him, he’s in your line. And half a dozen more. Do you want a list?”

“I wonder,” Wilson mused, “why, with all that embarrassment of riches, Mrs. Meston hit upon her late husband. It doesn’t sound a natural choice for her.”

“That, of course,” said Brandreth, “was the most foolish thing that anybody ever did. And I’m afraid the reason’s as plain as a pikestaff. It was temper. I can tell you the whole story, if you don’t mind listening a few minutes.

“Sylvia Meston, as I said, was Sylvia Liddell before her marriage. Her parents both died when she was little; and, though nominally she lived with an old aunt, she in fact spent most of her time at the Grange. She was—and still is—an exceptionally pretty little devil, very frank and oncoming; and men were crazy about her from the time she was fifteen. Eighteen months ago, however, she suddenly married Meston, who had been hanging about her in common with dozens of others for the last year or so.

“Of course, everybody hereabouts knew why she’d married. It was partly poverty and mainly pique. Sooner or later, she would have had to marry. She had expensive tastes and no money of her own; and, though the Lorings are as rich as sin and would never have missed it, she’s proud enough in some ways to dislike being a pensioner. That, of course, doesn’t explain why she chose Meston; but it also happened at the same time that she had a violent quarrel with John Loring, the Squire’s younger brother, and sent him packing. At least, I never heard the rights of it; but John Loring certainly departed for China within the week, which was pretty drastic. I’ve an idea that that was the last thing Sylvia intended, and that she really cared for him all the time. I base this partly on the fact that she’s never discussed it with me, though her frankness on all other matters is occasionally disconcerting, and partly on the further fact that she took his departure very hard indeed, and all but sent all her other admirers off presently in John’s wake.

“Then she suddenly married Meston. It appears to me that she had decided, with one of the insane impulses which beset angry people, to cut herself off as far from the Loring ménage and way of life as possible; and that she chose Meston as the man least likely of all possibles to remind her of John. Besides, the fellow was one of the most curiously persistent creatures I’ve ever seen. Not only could he not take ‘no’ for an answer; he could not really believe that any one would meet him with a negative. If they appeared to be denying him, he assumed that it was some temporary blindness, and simply waited. I’ve seen that trait in philanthropists and reformers at times; and perhaps under happier circumstances poor Meston might have become a distinguished man. As it was, his patience brought him nothing but Dead Sea fruit.

“For, of course, it was a crazy thing to do, however you look at it. They hadn’t a thing in common. He disapproved of the Loring habits as much as your friend here would,” said Brandreth, with a side-glance at Michael, who sat upright in surprise, “and he was quite determined that once Sylvia was out she should stay out.”

“Excuse me,” Wilson interrupted, “but if he detested the atmosphere as much as you say, how did he ever come to meet the lady?”

“Oh, the firm did some business for the Lorings—it dated back to old Warden’s time. And Nick Hanborough, the present senior partner, is a fairly frequent visitor there, and took him along one day. Then he fell in love with Sylvia at first sight, and simply hung on till she married him. However, as I say, it was madness. They hadn’t been married a month before they began to quarrel; and the mischief of it was that, in one of their early rows, Sylvia let out the reason why she had married him. That absolutely put the lid on it, as far as she was concerned. Sylvia herself—and any of the Loring lot, for that matter—would have raged and stormed at a confession like that, and then forgotten all about it. But Meston was made of different stuff. Underneath his dull exterior he was one of the vainest men I ever knew, and this confession of his wife’s just got him on the raw. Once he had satisfied himself that she meant what she said, he became insane with rage. He was not the sort to say anything, but he just set himself out to make her pay for it. As I’ve already said, he wouldn’t hear of divorce, or even judicial separation. He simply tried to hold her by force. He kept her, for instance, as short of money as he possibly could. She couldn’t even dress decently without running into debt, and he made a violent scene whenever he was asked to pay a bill. He refused to ask her friends to the house; and if any of them came unasked, he treated them so rudely, men or women, that they generally didn’t come again—and this in the presence of the servants, quite often. If he’d dared, I think he would have locked her up; but even he stopped short of the consequences of that.

“Well, this went on for a considerable time. Sylvia complained to me, of course; and I did what I could to make him see reason. I knew him fairly well, one way and another, and he had his good points, though they didn’t come out in his marriage. But you might as well have talked to a stone wall. On this point he wasn’t a human creature at all; he was just a walking injury, a man deeply wounded in his self-esteem, and set on being properly revenged for it. Perhaps it’s a fairly common condition; but I hope there aren’t many who are so patiently vindictive about it as Meston was.

“Eventually, as I’ve told you, Sylvia ran away. She had nowhere to run but the Grange, otherwise I think she’d have gone before. But she was very unwilling to return with her tail between her legs, and she didn’t go until she had tried everything else. Godfrey Loring took her in, of course, and was ill-advised enough to write to Meston telling him that he’d done so, and why. Of course, that was like a red rag. Meston immediately packed his bag, came down to the Old Malting House here, and sat down to wait for his wife to return. Meanwhile, he wrote the most insane letters to her, to the Squire, and to any one else who he heard was on the premises, and ended by going up to the Grange with a whip and demanding her return. On this occasion, he was thrown out of the house by the footmen. Then, as you know, or, at least, as the doctor knows, he disappeared from the Old Malting House either late on Friday night or early Saturday morning, without giving up his room or taking away his bags, though he left them ready packed, Wason tells me, with a label, ‘To Be Called For.’ And that’s the last of him—until he turned up in the river yesterday morning. Wason thought he’d gone back to Colchester, and Colchester thought he was here. Otherwise there might have been inquiries before now. Well, Mr. Wilson, is that clear, or is there anything else you want to know?”

“What I chiefly want to know,” said Wilson thoughtfully, “is why you have come to me with this story. If the man committed suicide, or if there’s any possibility that he did, I can’t help you, nor could any man, to keep these facts concealed. But I gather from Dr. Prendergast that you don’t think he did commit suicide. Why not?”

“I knew him, you see,” said Brandreth. “He was, so emphatically, the last man in the world to kill himself. He would have felt baulked, for one thing, of his revenge on Sylvia; and he was quite certain, when he came down here, that he was going to get her back again, if not this time, then the next—or the next. He simply couldn’t believe that the universe would let him down after all. Sylvia agrees with me on that point, I may say.”

“I see,” said Wilson thoughtfully. “How does Mr. Hanborough come in, then?”

“Hanborough?” Brandreth looked up sharply. “He doesn’t, that I know of. Except that he was Meston’s partner.”

“Connected with him financially,” Wilson said, with a slight stress on the adverb.

“Oh, I see what you mean. I don’t think there’s anything in that. Of course, no doubt it would have worried him.”

“H’m,” Wilson said. “Had Meston any money, and who gets it?”

“A few thousands. Sylvia gets it, I believe—on condition she doesn’t marry again. I don’t think he could have been put out of the way for his possessions, if that’s what you mean.”

“We don’t know that he was put out of the way, yet,” Wilson said, with something of a sigh. “How old is Mrs. Meston, by the way?”

“Twenty-six; but she looks twenty.”

“Old enough to know her own mind,” Michael commented crossly. He disliked what he called “promiscuous” women.

“She does know it,” the lawyer replied. “That’s the trouble. She’s capable of wild impulses; but the Loring life is the life for her, and she’s known it now for a year and a half.”

“Or Mr. Burden?”

“Or any one else you like. She must have them.”

“You don’t give her a very reliable character,” Wilson said.

“Well, their pace is a bit hot for me,” Brandreth replied. “I like women, and I like wine—in moderation. But no Loring was ever known to be moderate in either.”

“But you didn’t attempt to dissuade your client from going there?”

“Oh, I’m a tolerant person,” the lawyer said. “When in Rome, I do as the Romans do. Besides, I know when the ice won’t bear me—unlike poor Meston. I shouldn’t dream of walking into one of the Grange parties, and asking Sylvia to come home.”

“I’ve heard about those parties,” Michael said. “There was one the night Meston vanished, wasn’t there?”

“There was. But that wasn’t the one he attended. Anyway, Sylvia wasn’t there, she tells me. She said she had a headache, which I find it hard to believe. I’ve seldom met any one with Sylvia’s physical energy. But this is a bit beside the mark, it seems to me. What do you say, Mr. Wilson?”

Before Wilson could answer, there was the sound of a slight disturbance outside the door, which was then opened by a flustered and giggling chambermaid. Just behind the chambermaid appeared a slight figure in a short tennis frock and white cap.

“Hullo, Ned!” said the apparition. “You haven’t wasted much time, have you? And will Mr. Wilson do anything?”

CHAPTER IX

The three men stared at the intruder with varying expressions. Brandreth’s face registered annoyance, changing after a second to humorous resignation. Wilson’s retained its usual air of impassive attention. Michael’s brow clouded with resentment and disapproval, though he was unable to restrain a gaze of curiosity at the heroine of the tale they had just heard.

Prejudiced as he was, Michael had to admit that neither the lawyer nor the photograph had overstated Sylvia Meston’s attractions. True, she was not looking her conventional “best” at the moment; for she had pretty clearly neither slept nor troubled to make up for the lack of sleep by adventitious aids. But that, in a sense, did her natural good looks more credit. Life at the Grange, however hot it was reputed to be, had not apparently damaged either her health or her complexion, since she was able to face worry and sleeplessness without looking either puffy or sallow. Michael noted almost with resentment that the lines of her jaw and the bones of her face, as well as her skin, were nearly as perfect as they could be, and that the short, brown curls, just visible under her hat, were as springy and as full of colour as any he had seen. Nevertheless, he did not abate his dislike; for Sylvia Meston obviously belonged to that type of womanhood he was wont to describe as “predatory.” He could see her, despite her weariness, settling on the best way of “getting at” Wilson as soon as she entered the room. “Minx!” he said to himself, as he was introduced, and saw the grey eyes sweep over him, and then appeal, a little too obviously, for his sympathy for beauty in distress.

“You know my name?” Wilson asked her, a slight asperity in his voice.

“So did the maid. Is it a secret? Ned told me you were here last night. Does it matter?” Sylvia asked indifferently. She had curled herself into a chair like a graceful kitten; but her fingers were rather uneasily clutching at its arm.

“I didn’t tell it you for public consumption,” Brandreth said, with an expression like that of a cat caught stealing cream. “Nor did I ask you to come here this morning.”

“Oh, well, I thought I’d better see what you were doing. I don’t trust you any farther than I can see you,” Sylvia said. “Is Mr. Wilson going to help us?” She turned her eyes suddenly on the owner of the name.

“I don’t quite see, at the moment, how I can help,” Wilson said. “Can you tell me just why you are so sure that Mr. Meston didn’t kill himself?”

“He wouldn’t. Not while I was alive. Didn’t Ned explain that to you?” Sylvia said. “I told him to. He said God would give me back to him.”

“But he might have met with an accident.”

“Accidents didn’t happen to William. He wasn’t that kind of man. Besides, he could swim like a duck. He couldn’t have got into that river, unless some one had pushed him there.”

“Who would have?”

“I don’t know, I’m sure,” said Sylvia. “If I did, I shouldn’t be asking you to find out. Will you find out?” Her tone was low, but none the less insistent.

“Would you mind telling me exactly why you are so anxious to know?”

“Well, he was my husband, wasn’t he? Aren’t I supposed to be interested?”

“But——” Even Wilson ventured a faint doubt, and Michael was betrayed into an unmistakable snort of contempt. There was an instant’s pause, during which Sylvia Meston raised her head, and stared him full in the face, with the indignant gaze of a trapped animal.

“Oh, I know what you’re thinking!” she burst out at last; and Michael reflected sourly that the pause had given its full value to her change of tone. “You needn’t bother to be polite! You’re thinking what all these swine here are saying—that I was glad William was dead, and that it’s indecent of me to bother how he died. Well, I’m not! I used to think I’d give anything in the world to get rid of him, and I didn’t care how it happened. But I’m not. Lockwood made me go and look at him”—she gave a shudder that was obviously genuine—“and whatever he was like and whatever he did to me, I couldn’t want him to look like that.”

“What about what you did to him?” Michael intervened.

“Oh, I was a little cat,” Sylvia said. “You needn’t think I don’t know it. Ned told me so dozens of times, didn’t you, Ned? I said, it’s no use, you can’t do what you can’t. And it’s no use talking about paying your debts of honour when you haven’t any money. I think William might have made it a bit easier, that’s all. I wouldn’t have asked for anything, only to be let alone. It was just an idiotic mistake, that’s all about it, and he might have seen. Everybody else knew it wasn’t any use going on trying. But that’s no reason why he should be killed, is it? or why you shouldn’t find out who killed him? Ned says I shall get his money. Well, I don’t want it—I won’t take it. I wish you’d have it and find out who killed him!”

“If he was killed,” Wilson said slowly, “the police will find out who did it, I presume.”

“If you knew Lockwood,” said Sylvia, a curl suddenly appearing at the corner of her mouth, “you wouldn’t make silly suggestions. He couldn’t find a murderer if he tried. Besides—he’d be sure to arrest the wrong person.”

“Oh, would he?” said Wilson, looking at her narrowly. She shifted uneasily, and turned her eyes full on him.

“Won’t you? Mr. Wilson—please?”

“My dear lady, you must give me time to think it over. I haven’t got my bearings yet. And, if I do take an interest, there are a great many things I should want to know.”

“Well, why don’t you ask them?” A motor horn honked long and angrily outside.

“It appears,” said Brandreth, who was nearest the window, “as though this conference would shortly be increased in numbers. Do you want Godfrey to come in and hold your hand, Sylvia?”

“Damn Godfrey!” Sylvia’s expressive face changed again. “Of course I don’t. Why can’t he leave me alone? I told him I should be half an hour at least.” The horn sounded again.

“He seems to be of the opinion that the half-hour has elapsed,” said Brandreth.

“He’ll have the whole town here in a minute, if he goes on making that noise,” said Michael.

“That’s what you’d like, isn’t it?” said Sylvia, with disconcerting penetration. “You’d like to send me home tarred and feathered on a cart-tail. I suppose you think I’m enjoying this. Oh, damn, there he goes again! I suppose I’d better go and tell him to shut up. Mr. Wilson, won’t you——”

“You must let me think it over,” Wilson said firmly; but somewhat to Michael’s disgust he accompanied the sinner downstairs. Brandreth, after a little hesitation, followed them, while Michael sullenly stared out of the window, and watched Sylvia Meston climb into a small, but smart two-seater, whose driver, a dark, heavily built, rather scowling fellow in motoring cap and coat, was presumably the Squire.

“What are you going to do?” he asked, when Wilson came back.

“Get you to have another look at the body,” was the answer. “We can’t do anything till we know a little more.”

“I shan’t be allowed,” said Michael gloomily. “You heard what Lockwood said.”

“Oh, I think we can manage that. If necessary, I’ll disclose myself to him. In fact, I’m not sure that it wouldn’t be best to do so, as Brandreth seems incapable of keeping his mouth shut,” Wilson mused.

“And then?”

“Oh, then we’ll see. It’s an odd business, isn’t it?”

“You don’t mean you’re going to take it up? Just because that girl made sheep’s eyes at you! It’s the first time I ever knew you fall for such an obvious siren, Harry,” said Michael in a hurt voice. Wilson burst out laughing.

“My dear fellow, don’t be so censorious. I was going to ask you what you made of Mrs. Meston and her views, but you’ve made it unnecessary.”

“I don’t think what she meant me to think, anyway!”

“I’m not so sure that I know what she meant you to think. The air of this place isn’t good for you, Michael. If you continue in this strain, I shall begin to think that you slew Meston yourself in an attack of dyspepsia.”

CHAPTER X

“There’s the mark,” Colonel Lockwood said. “Right under his hair, as you see.” They were standing, late in the evening of the same day, in the dark little mortuary, whose only light was an oil lamp, which shed a sickly greenish ray on the face of the corpse. Neither Wilson nor Michael, however, was enough of a novice to be moved in any way by their physical surroundings; and the latter coolly got out his electric torch and bent to survey the bruise.

Whatever charm it was that Wilson had employed on the Colonel—perhaps only the disclosure of his own identity—it had worked a considerable change in the latter’s manner to Michael. It was a very worried and perplexed, but not a truculent soldier, who came to the inn after dinner to conduct them to the mortuary; and his one desire appeared to be that Michael should have all the facilities he required. Dr. Kershaw, Michael noted with pleasure, either had not been invited to be present, or had decided not to come.

“It’s hardly serious enough to cause death, Kershaw says,” the Colonel remarked to Wilson; “but it’s quite sufficient to cause him to break his neck, if he was falling at all hard. Well, doctor, what d’you make of it?”

Michael made no answer, but motioned to Wilson to take his place. His brow was puckered with perplexity. Wilson, in his turn, bent over the corpse and examined the head closely, opening the mouth, feeling the cut under the hair, and passing his hands around the skin of the neck. When, after three or four minutes, he too straightened himself, the light fell for a moment full on his face, and Michael read in it a confirmation of his own opinion.

“Is it all serene, doctor?” the Colonel asked again.

“I’m afraid not,” Michael said gravely.

“Why? What’s the matter?”

“There is a contusion,” Michael said; “and it might have been sufficient to break his neck, if he had been alive when it was made. But it was made after death.”

“After death! What do you mean? You can’t know that.”

“Pardon me. If you look at the skin now——” Michael drew him to the body, and gave a brief technical explanation. “That wound was made after death,” he ended, “and some considerable time after death, too.”

“Then—he didn’t hit his head as he fell in. He must have hit something while he was in the water.... Of course, he struck the barge, or the barge struck him.... But, in that case, how did he break his neck?”

“Precisely,” said Michael. “How did he break his neck?”

“I suppose,” the Colonel pursued his agitated reflections, “that must have been the barge too—or something else he hit up against while he was in the water. He could have broken his neck after death, couldn’t he, doctor?”

“In that case, Colonel Lockwood, what did he die of?”

“Good God! I see what you mean. In that case, he must have been drowned.”

“Well, you’ve had the post-mortem, haven’t you? What did the doctors say?”

“I think they disagreed, at first. But finally they both reported that death could not possibly have been due to drowning.”

“But the man is dead.”

“Not much doubt of that, poor fellow,” said the Colonel. “But I don’t quite follow you, doctor. What are you suggesting?”

“What did the doctors find to be the cause of death?”

“A broken neck, they suggest, consequent upon his hitting his head in a fall.”

“Well, he didn’t. Not in that place, anyway—though I can’t think how I came to miss it yesterday,” said Michael.

“If you made a mistake yesterday,” said Colonel Lockwood hopefully, “don’t you think it may be possible that you’re making another to-day?”

“I’m afraid not. You see, I’ve had plenty of time to-night.”

“Then what in hell did the man die of?”

“I think I can answer that,” said Wilson, who had been standing silently by. He went back to the corpse. “Look at that, Michael,” he said. Michael bent down, and gave a horrified exclamation. “Good God!” he said.

“You agree?” said Wilson.

“What is it?” the Colonel asked.

“He’s been strangled,” said Michael slowly.

“What? What’s that?” said the Colonel, now thoroughly alarmed. “What fairy-tale is this, sir?”

“Look for yourself,” said Michael. “Take my torch and the lens. Do you see that mark? It goes right round the neck—here—and here; that’s the mark of a rope—a very fine rope——”

“Probably a silk rope,” said Wilson. “I think there’s a silk fibre there.” He took it off as he spoke, and held it out for Michael and the Colonel to see.

“You’re right,” said Michael. “You see, Colonel, the superficial marks have been nearly obliterated by the water; but they’re quite plain when you’ve noticed them. And that explains some things that had puzzled me about his face. I thought he didn’t look like a drowned man.”

“But, good God,” the Colonel said again, “I can’t believe it! You say the poor devil was strangled. That means, as far as I can see, that it wasn’t accident—or suicide.”

“The case,” said Michael grimly, “is one of murder.”

“Is that your view too, Mr. Wilson?” asked the Colonel. Wilson nodded. The three stood still for a moment, facing the fact, in the dark, half-lighted room.

“He was strangled,” the Colonel repeated. “Strangled! But how?”

“With a silk rope,” said Michael.

“And in a rather peculiar way,” Wilson added. “Did you notice the position of the marks, Michael?” He illustrated on his own neck, while the Colonel shuddered in horror. “Do you remember, they come close up under his chin, and then slope up at the back of his head? And his neck was broken. Doesn’t that suggest anything to you?”

“Good God!” said Michael, as Wilson’s meaning came gradually home to him. “It’s not possible. You don’t mean——?”

Wilson nodded, and Michael took hold of the bench for support. He was feeling slightly sick.

“Mean what?” asked the Colonel. “You’re talking in riddles. How was he strangled?”

“He was hanged,” said Michael in a low voice. The brutality of the crime appalled him, but “appalled” is no word to describe the Colonel’s appearance.

“Hanged!” he said in a stupefied voice. “Hanged! But what do you mean? Hanged?”

“Hanged by the neck until he was dead,” Wilson said slowly. The meaning of his words began gradually to dawn on the Colonel.

“Hanged!” he said at last. “But—who on earth would hang him?”

“That, I imagine,” said Wilson, “is what has now to be discovered.”

For a minute or two the soldier paced up and down the mortuary, with a look of desperate perplexity on his face. Then it suddenly lightened a trifle, and he turned to Wilson.

“But, surely,” he said, “what you’ve just said is compatible with suicide at least. A man may hang himself.”

“A man may hang himself,” Wilson replied, “but he certainly can’t cut himself down and throw away the rope. If it was suicide, all the circumstances go to show that some one else is pretty deeply implicated. And I don’t need to tell you, Colonel, that complicity in suicide is murder in the eyes of the law.”

The Colonel looked up at him with a face from which all hope had fled. “What am I to do now?” he said piteously. “I never had a murder to handle before, much less—this sort of murder.”

“Do you want me to help?” Wilson asked. “I’ve no business here, you know, unless you call me in. This is your show.”

“Do you think I want it?” the Colonel groaned. “I’m a plain man, Mr. Wilson, and I know when waters are too deep for me. Here’s a man brutally murdered, and I haven’t the ghost of a notion how or why—the murderer may be my own butcher, for all I know! Will you help me, Mr. Wilson? Or do you want an official letter?”

“Your word will do, I think,” said Wilson, smiling a little in spite of the situation. “But you realise we may be in for rather an unpleasant time?”

“I do,” said the Colonel, with emphasis. “But if you’ll help me—I’ll put myself entirely in your hands.”

“I’ll do the best I can,” said Wilson. “Let’s consider the inquest, then; that’s the first question. When is it?”

“Two-thirty to-morrow.”

“Who is the coroner?”

“Dr. Evershed, from Malton.”

“A good man?”

“I think so. But he’s a friend of mine,” said the Colonel, who had apparently come to the conclusion that suspicion must immediately rest on every one of his acquaintance.

“Well, I think you’d better prime him to take no more than the absolutely necessary evidence to-morrow—identification, of course, and the bargees, and the sergeant, and Dr. Kershaw—and then adjourn, if necessary. Above all, see that he doesn’t call Dr. Prendergast, or let out a hint of our discoveries to-night. And keep my presence dark—if you can,” said Wilson, remembering the garrulous Brandreth.

“But why all this secrecy?”

“Well, we don’t want to give the murderers full warning, do we?” said Wilson, with what Michael considered remarkable patience. “If I dared, I would like the coroner’s jury to bring in a verdict of misadventure. But it’s not safe; there’s been too much talk, and some juryman or other would be sure to ask awkward questions. So Dr. Evershed will just have to keep it as brief as he can. I’d better have a word with him myself, perhaps, if you don’t mind.”

“We’ll have to let Kershaw know,” the Colonel said, “or he’ll be giving misleading evidence.”

“So much the better for us,” said Wilson. “No, seriously, Colonel, I must insist that not a soul beyond ourselves knows what has taken place in this room to-night. If Kershaw’s got his diagnosis wrong, I’m afraid it’s his funeral.”

“It’s hardly cricket, to let him down,” the Colonel objected.

“Nor was it cricket to hang Meston. I’m sorry, Colonel, but we can’t afford to be gentlemanly in this business. We’re agents of justice at the moment—not of the M.C.C.”

The Colonel sighed, but agreed. He was obviously too far out of his depth to think of combating anything that Wilson laid down; and after a few more brief interchanges, they parted.

“I think that’s the most diabolical crime I’ve ever seen,” Michael said, as they regained their room.

“I’m not sure you’re not right,” was the reply.

“And I’m really prepared to swear that mark on the head wasn’t there when I saw the body yesterday.”

“As long as you don’t swear it at the inquest, well and good.”

“Then you don’t think I’m mad?”

“Of course I don’t. I never did. Besides, that was a fresh mark—I could see for myself.”

“Then how the devil did it get there?”

“That, perhaps, we shall discover in due course. I have only noted who found it.” Michael stared.

“Harry! Do you mean to suggest that Kershaw murdered the man, and then tried to cover up the traces?”

“We can’t go as far as that, yet,” said Wilson. “But you observe there is a pretty good reason for not interfering with Dr. Kershaw’s evidence.”

CHAPTER XI

“It won’t be quite as easy as you think, Mr. Wilson,” Dr. Evershed said doubtfully. “The people in these parts are an infernally inquisitive crowd, and I gather there’s been a good deal of talk. I don’t quite know how I’m to avoid calling Dr. Prendergast.”

“If you call him, and he doesn’t answer, that’s good enough, isn’t it?” Wilson said. They were all three having a morning consultation at Colonel Lockwood’s house. “I’ve been thinking for some time that a trip to Colchester would do you good, Michael.”

“Do I want to go to Colchester?” Michael inquired mildly.

“You won’t be allowed to go to the inquest, in any event,” Wilson said firmly, “so you might as well be in Colchester as anywhere else. I’ll think of something to amuse you. Then he can’t be called, Dr. Evershed; and you can perfectly well agree to ask the police to look into his evidence. I don’t think anybody here has the slightest suspicion that it was murder, except old Brandreth, and I’ve done my best to shut his mouth, though I judge it’s an unusually wide one.”

“Meanwhile, I suppose I’ve got to set about finding the murderer,” Colonel Lockwood groaned.

“If you could find the place at which the murder took place, it would be a step onward, at any rate,” Wilson said.

“Don’t you think he was killed where he was thrown in, then—at the Old Malting House?”

“I don’t know if he was killed where he was thrown in. But I hardly think he can have been thrown in where he came up. Do you know the river-bed there? I was examining it this morning. It’s almost free of tangled weed—and there’s a considerable current. The stream just there flows well on the left-hand side.”

“You mean,” said Dr. Evershed, who was keenly interested, “that if the body had been thrown in there on Friday night, it would have floated down-stream?”

“Precisely.”

“Then it must have been thrown in farther up-stream,” the Colonel triumphantly deduced. “How much farther up?”

“That, I’m afraid, we can hardly say,” Wilson said, exchanging a smile with the coroner. “Rivers don’t flow at a uniform pace, nor do objects committed to their charge. The body might have got into an eddy, or stuck in a patch of weed higher up. I’m afraid it means examining the banks, however, for some distance up. If he was killed by the riverside, and not brought from somewhere else—which, of course, he may have been—there will probably be traces of a struggle. Remember, you can’t hang a man in the air. He must be hung from something, and something pretty strong. Anyway, even if he was only carried to the river, there may be signs of some sort. It’s been dry as a bone this last week, which ought to help us. What is the river scenery like above the Old Malting House?”

“Meadow for four hundred yards or thereabouts,” the Colonel said, “then thick woods for two or three miles. One side is Loring property, and the other belongs to Sir Felix Lewis, the Stock Exchange fellow. He’s away just now. The woods are very damp and soggy, and there’s practically no firm ground but the tow-path. The next crossing is by an old bridge at the end of Lewis’s woods, about a quarter of a mile below Watergate Lock.”

“Thanks.” Wilson was drawing a rapid sketch-map from the Colonel’s directions. “The woods are private, I suppose? I’d rather like to have a look up there this afternoon, Colonel, if you can provide me with a boat and an inconspicuous man. I’ll go immediately the inquest’s over, if you’ll tell him to be waiting by the bridge. We’ll be off before the crowd comes along.”

“Right you are,” said the Colonel; “I’ll send Collins.” And after a little more conversation he departed, taking Dr. Evershed with him to see the body.

“That’s a sensible fellow,” Wilson said. “I feel I can trust him to hold Lockwood’s hand and let as little as possible come out this afternoon. I was rather in fear that our murderer would be provided with a nice little warning.”

“Do you know who he is, then?”

“Indeed I don’t! I don’t even know his motive yet.”

“I should have thought we’d heard motive enough, yesterday.”

“Yes, of course. The trouble is, there’s too much motive; or, rather, two perfectly plausible motives, each of which points to a quite different set of persons. There’s the very significant fact, which we heard yesterday morning, that Meston’s continued presence in the world was a great trouble and inconvenience to his wife—and presumably to any one else who might want to marry her. The trouble with that motive is that, as far as we can see, it seems likely to point to every marriageable male within miles.”

“Surely it points to her, first of all?” Michael said viciously.

“My dear Michael, surely even your prejudiced mind can take in that this isn’t a woman’s crime. You don’t mean to suggest that that girl hanged a twelve-stone man and then threw him in the river? If she was concerned in any way, she must have had a fairly hefty male accomplice; and, in that case, I hardly think she would be likely to come and urge me to take the thing up. The only thing that is suspicious about her is, first, that she clearly wanted to be rid of him (though I don’t suggest her reaction to the sight of his corpse was anything but genuine); and secondly, that she was so convinced that he couldn’t have committed suicide. But that may be simple observation. No, it is much more likely that one of the fair Sylvia’s admirers, seeing in Meston a permanent obstacle, determined to remove him. But which? It presumes a desperate character and a pretty strong infatuation; for this, as you remarked, is not only a savage, but a premeditated crime.”

“Burden,” said Michael promptly.

“Well, we don’t know, of course. We’ve only just seen his face, and killing a pig isn’t evidence for killing a human. Besides, I can’t somehow see a man of his kind taking an affair seriously enough. He is too much in a position to have his pick. I haven’t seen his infernal machine since yesterday, by the way. I wonder if he’ll turn up at the inquest?”

“Well, there must be plenty more.”

“So one gathers; but one knows very little. Shane I’ve met; he’s not in the least likely to compromise his career with murder. Besides, he couldn’t think it out if he tried. Mackenzie I don’t know; he has the reputation of a savage fellow, but you can’t build much on that. At present, I gather, he’s not at the Grange. He was there not long ago, but nobody seems to know exactly when he left. John Loring, the discarded swain, would fit the part best, no doubt. But you can’t very well murder a man from China.”

“Well, one of them ought to fit,” Michael said obstinately.

“Maybe. But you’re forgetting the other motive.”

“What’s that?”

“The money. The embezzlement.”

“Oh, that! But I don’t see how that throws any light. You don’t murder a man because he’s embezzled funds—unless you are thinking of an outraged client. Besides, he didn’t look like a successful embezzler when I saw him.”

“If he was an embezzler, he had presumably ceased to be successful by the time you saw him,” Wilson reminded him. “But I agree. We’ve nothing whatever, except Warden’s untrained conjecture, to suggest that he was an embezzler. But—I’ll just put this point to you. Supposing he wasn’t the embezzler, but supposing he’d found out who was? Would that provide a motive?”

“You mean if he was tracking the real criminal,” Michael said slowly. “And the man found out, and killed him. But, in that case, who was he?”

“Well, one would have to make inquiries in Colchester, obviously,” Wilson said. “Remember, though, it would have to be somebody fairly high up in the firm to get the opportunity. I know where my suspicions would go.”

“Hanborough!” Michael cried; “the senior partner.”

“Yes. Or Warden.”

“Mark! But that’s rubbish! You’ve seen him. He couldn’t cheat a fly.”

“I’ve seen him,” Wilson admitted, “but it doesn’t do to go too much by first impressions. No, keep your hair on. I’m not saying I suspect him. I’m only really trying to warn you that some people may, so that you may go carefully.”

“But it’s ridiculous. He wasn’t even there at the time!”

“Where? and at what time? We don’t know where Meston was murdered; we don’t know exactly when. Because he was last seen at 10.30 on Friday night, that doesn’t prove that he didn’t live for another twelve hours afterwards. We shall have to be very careful in accepting alibis for this business, Michael.”

“But, surely—it’s much more likely to have been Hanborough than Mark! He was senior partner; he was bound to know what was going on.”

“That depends, I should say,” said Wilson, “on how much of his time he spent at the Grange, and how much at the office.”

“The more at the Grange, the more likely to have been the murderer!”

“Michael, you really ought to be at the criminal bar. I never met anybody so determined to import prejudice into a case. You know nothing about Hanborough except that he employed an agent to look into the matter, which isn’t, on the face of it, proof of guilt. I think I’ll have a word with Mr. Strake, some time. But nobody here seems to know much about Hanborough.”

“Brandreth does,” said Michael. “Brandreth knows a great deal more than he need.”

“Yes. There’s something very odd about Brandreth, but what it is I’m hanged if I know. Has it struck you, Michael, that the only people who have been behaving suspiciously are people with no apparent connection with the deceased—at least, no motive for getting rid of him?”

“Brandreth and——?”

“Kershaw. Kershaw’s conduct so far is absolutely inexplicable on any other hypothesis except that of guilt of some sort. Yet I can’t find out that the two men ever exchanged a word.”

“Kershaw’s up at the Grange a lot,” Michael said. “He might be in love with Mrs. Meston, too.”

“Then it’s odd Brandreth shouldn’t have mentioned it in his sheaf of gossip.”

“You can’t tell with Brandreth,” Michael said shrewdly. “He won’t mention more than it suits him to mention. If Kershaw were guilty, now——”

“True, O sage. But this sort of speculation won’t get us much farther, without a few more facts. How do you propose to get to Colchester?”

“Do you really want me to go there?” Michael asked in some surprise. “I thought you only wanted me out of the way.”

“That, primarily. But I don’t see why your enforced banishment shouldn’t be profitable. There are a number of things which I think might usefully be looked into.”

“Go ahead. I’m your man—if you think I’m likely to do any good.”

“Well, I want as much as possible found out about all the people we’ve mentioned. First,” said Wilson, ticking them off on his fingers, “there’s Meston himself. Make an excuse for going to the office, if you can; and find out what’s thought of Meston, and whether he’s likely to have been your embezzler. Then I want all you can get hold of about Nicholas Hanborough, his circumstances, habits, etc.; and particularly what he was supposed to be doing—when? What should you say was the limit of time during which Meston could have been killed?”

“Oh, about twenty-four hours from the time he was last seen. Certainly not more.”

“Well, track Hanborough for that period, if you can. And in your friend Warden’s interest, you’d better do the same for him. Then I want any mortal thing you can find out about Kershaw—who he is, what he did before he came here, etc. There doesn’t appear to be a medical directory in this place. And you might see what you can pick up about Sylvia Meston, or any of her friends, as well, would you? But, for pity’s sake, put your own feelings temporarily in the background. You won’t get any information if you begin by disclosing your hand.”

“I’ll try,” Michael promised. “And, if I’m to do all this, I’d better be going. I wonder if there’s a train.”

CHAPTER XII

Wilson sent an appraising glance round the occupants of the big room at the Guild House, which the Church, in the person of the Vicar, had presently resigned to the State, in the person of Dr. Evershed. It was a good thing, he thought, that the room was a fair size; for at least half the township seemed to be in attendance, and he had even heard rumours of a special country bus service being run from surrounding villages. Well, the enterprising bus owner would presumably get his money’s worth, if nobody else did, Wilson thought, commiserating in his heart the Essex citizens packed in a dusty room on a hot July afternoon in the expectation of a sensation which he had done his best to deny them.

In the seats of honour, and probably much more conspicuous than they desired to be, was a party obviously from the Grange. Sylvia Meston, who had by this time acquired black clothes, in which she looked no less effective than she did in white, was in the middle, and beside her was Godfrey Loring in his rôle of protector. Riotous living had dealt less kindly with him than with his cousin; at thirty-five the marks of over-indulgence in food and drink, to say nothing of less simple pleasures, were plain upon his face, though he was still strong and athletic in build. He appeared to feel the physical and moral atmosphere of the courtroom considerably, and every now and then mopped his face and scowled round. Sylvia, on the other hand, looked as cool as a cucumber. For the most part she kept her eyes down; occasionally they swept the room with a look of defiant amusement.

Beyond Godfrey sat an extremely lean man, with a skin burnt to mahogany, and brilliant blue eyes under dark overhanging brows. He looked forty or over, and Wilson stared at him for some time with a vague feeling of familiarity, before he could remember where he had seen those features before. Then the front page of the Daily Express, with a streamer headline, suddenly presented itself to his consciousness, and he nodded with satisfaction. This was Mackenzie, the Zambesi explorer. “Back again so soon!” Wilson thought. “This does look like flies to a honeypot.” And he noticed in confirmation that the burning blue eyes were fixed on Sylvia’s hands. On her other side sat a man he could not place at all, a florid fellow in tweeds, with a humorous twist to his mouth and a slightly grizzled head. Wilson placed him as not quite a gentleman born, but could make no further conjecture, though the man was clearly not a stranger, for he smiled and nodded to one or two people in the room, including Brandreth, who was sitting well back on the right. There were one or two other nondescripts who might or might not have come from the Grange, but no one else who interested Wilson. Wallace Burden was not to be seen. Warden was there, looking very miserable, and Strake, looking very pleased, besides Wason, and what appeared to be the entire contents of the tap-rooms of Steeple Tollesbury. Having completed his survey, Wilson sat back in his corner and devoted his time of waiting to wondering what the apple-cheeked Mr. Brandreth had in his mind.

A little stir announced the arrival of the jury, rather pale and subdued, after their viewing of the body. The proceedings went exactly as Wilson had hoped. After the evidence of identity, the laconic Bill and the more loquacious Jarge deposed to the finding of the body, and Sergeant Linton then proceeded to give purely formal evidence as to his own proceedings. No questions were put, but as he retired there was a little stir of disappointment, and one man emitted a sound which might have been the beginning of a protest.

“If there is any disturbance,” Dr. Evershed said, looking fiercely down his spectacles, “I shall clear the court. This is not a public entertainment.” At this threat a funereal silence fell on the assembly.

Amory Kershaw, M.D., was next called, and Wilson, who had not seen him before, looked at him with interest. He was a sallow, thin-faced man of about forty-five, with blue chin, long nervous hands, and an ill-tempered expression. He was clearly ill at ease as he came forward, and stood for a second or two licking his lips and staring round the court—presumably looking for Prendergast. Once he had started, however, he gave his evidence clearly and impressively enough.

He had examined the body first on the barge, and had noticed the broken neck. But he had made no thorough investigation at that stage. This had been done by himself and his colleague in the mortuary, where they had observed a contused mark on the back of deceased’s head, which appeared to offer an explanation of the broken neck. Deceased had evidently hit his head in falling into the water, death being thus due, not to drowning, but to the breaking of the neck in consequence of a fall. Kershaw glanced round, as Wilson thought, a trifle defiantly, as he made this assertion.

“Are you and your colleague in agreement on this point?” Dr. Evershed asked.

“We are.”

At this point the inevitable juryman raised his voice to inquire “whether the doctor thought it was an accident or something wrong about it.” The coroner passed the question and looked at Kershaw, who replied that while it was not strictly his business, he would say that the state of the body was perfectly compatible with death by misadventure. His colleague was not in court, but was in agreement with him.

“Any further questions?” asked Dr. Evershed sharply. “Then I declare the inquest adjourned for a fortnight,” he went on, almost without a pause. There was a quick buzz of surprise and annoyance, under cover of which Wilson attempted to make his escape, but was displeased to find his way blocked by an indignant shopkeeper, who was explaining to all and sundry that it was too bad a man should be led to leave his shop all afternoon, and promise Sue Bradley half a crown for minding it, and then not hear half what he could have heard if he’d stayed at home. “Disgraceful, I call it,” he said.

“They’re deep ones, the police are,” said a woman. “They didn’t want to say nothin’ wi’ that thar hussy listening. You mark my words, there’ll be more to hear and see afore we’re much older.”

At last Wilson succeeded in forcing his way out to the open air; but at the door, much to his annoyance, he collided with Brandreth, who greeted him with a cheerful smile.

“Allow me to congratulate you on your stage management,” he said. “You did that admirably—I suppose it was you? You’ve spoilt everybody’s afternoon and given them only their own tales to eat. Where’s the doctor?”

“He had to go over to Colchester,” said Wilson, who did not want to appear to shake the man off too obviously. “I notice Mr. Burden didn’t put in an appearance either.”

Brandreth chuckled. “Oh, he’s defaulted. Departed this morning, I don’t know where. I gather this sort of publicity isn’t exactly what he courts. Sylvia, I may add, is quite annoyed with him.”

“Oh! Who was that taking his place?” Wilson asked, as he turned off down the High Street towards the river—“the man sitting next to Mrs. Meston, I mean.”

“That?” said Brandreth. “Oh, that was Nicholas Hanborough.”

CHAPTER XIII

Wilson pondered on that last piece of information as he made his way to the river. So that was Nicholas Hanborough, senior partner of Warden, Hanborough & Meston; and he was with the party from the Grange, and he was sitting next Sylvia Meston, having ousted from that place the blue-eyed explorer, who would obviously have given much to fill it. This, Wilson thought, required reflection. Suppose Hanborough were in love with Sylvia, and suppose he, the senior partner, had been the real defaulter in that financial business. For, in spite of his caution to Michael, Wilson was not at all disposed to believe that young Warden was the villain of that piece—though, of course, appearances might be deceptive. But Hanborough, who was, it seemed, an habitué of the Grange, might well find himself pressed for money, and if Meston were not only on his track, but also were the husband of the woman he loved—well, there was motive enough for a considerable crime. But, in that case, why put a private detective on his own track? “Ropes of sand!” said Wilson reprovingly to himself. “I don’t even know that Meston was on the track of anything. No use conjecturing without more evidence.”

At the bridge he found the discreet Collins with a boat and a fishing-rod which several officious urchins were instructing him how to manage, and climbed quickly in. Collins, who had been enlisted by Colonel Lockwood specially from another village, was not very well up in either the physical or the social topography of the place; and though Wilson, in the intervals of peering over the bows to look for any patch of weed which might have caught his corpse, made various attempts to elicit information about his possible suspects, he met with little success.

As to Nicholas Hanborough, he could find out no more than that he was a frequent visitor at the Grange, free with his money, and pretty well liked in the neighbourhood, though his antecedents were a matter of doubt. He had been partner of old Warden ten or a dozen years, having come originally from London; and he was accepted by the Grange rather than the county. But the county and the Grange, Wilson surmised, were apt to differ in their judgment of people.

Their progress was slow, for as soon as they had got a reasonable distance above the Old Malting House, Wilson insisted on examining the left bank as well as the bed of the stream. “I’ll do the other bank myself on foot,” he said, “from the tow-path. But it doesn’t look as though it would be very easy to get along here.”

“No, sir,” Collins agreed. The left bank was sedgy and sodden and full of holes, and the trees, which seemed to hold a good deal of water in their roots, grew thick and close to the edge. There was no sign of a track near the waterside. “But it wouldn’t be very easy for any one to have a struggle, or get a dead body down to the water, either, without leaving pretty clear marks. The ground’s very spongy still, you see. It doesn’t look to me as though it ever dried.”

“That’s true,” Wilson agreed, prodding a patch of sedge with his boat-hook. “The body could have caught in half a dozen places just under the bank, but I haven’t seen anywhere it could have got in. Well, we must just carry on.”

They carried on for a long while, patiently searching the bank, until a bend of the river brought them in sight of the old bridge which Colonel Lockwood had mentioned.

“This is the first possible place on the left-hand bank,” Wilson said. “I think I’ll just get out and have a look at it. Is it much used, do you know?”

“Not very much, sir, I think,” Collins replied. “It’s not safe for heavy traffic, and it isn’t really much more than a cut between the Grange and Sir Felix Lewis’s place.”

Wilson climbed out and surveyed the bank. It did not contain many indications of any kind, and certainly no signs of a struggle or of the dragging down of a corpse to the waterside. As he crossed the roadway, with a view to examining the farther side, his eye was caught by the tracks of a small car coming and going. “Of course,” he reflected, “if the murder took place at some distance from the river, a small car would be very handy to run the body down to the waterside. Still, there’s no particular reason why they should take him across the bridge, and this car certainly crossed it.” In the midst of these reflections he happened to raise his eyes and glance across the bridge to the farther bank, and his whole figure immediately stiffened with interest.

“I think,” he said, “we’ll just have a look at the tracks of that car. Of course, the odds are that it may have nothing to do with us; but it seems to have passed at about the right time—not long after the last rain fell.”

“Yes, sir.” Collins followed in stolid surprise, which would have been mitigated had he been aware of the object of Wilson’s attention. This was a tree, which, when he had looked up, he had noticed growing on the farther bank. This tree grew straight up for about four or five feet, and then shot out at right angles to the trunk an abrupt limb which continued for five or six feet horizontally without branching in any way. Had a natural gallows been desired, a better one could scarcely have been found, and just overhanging the water too, which would swallow up the corpse immediately it was cut down and bear it along to the Old Malting House. Decidedly, Wilson thought, this tree, standing at the first firm crossing of the river, had got to be investigated; and on the way he might as well keep track of the car.

“What’s that?” he asked, pointing to a building on the opposite bank, just by the tree. “A boathouse?”

“Boat and summerhouse mixed, sir,” Collins replied. “’Tis on Sir Felix Lewis’s property. Do you want to look at it, sir?”

“May as well,” said Wilson. “But I’ll just see what happened to the car first.” By this time Collins had tied up the boat, and joined him on the bridge. “You see it turned off the road here, just by the summerhouse, and stopped. It stopped some time, too—you can see that the wheels sank in pretty deeply. They must have had quite a job getting it out again.”

“They, sir?” Collins inquired. “Was there more than one?”

“It looks so,” said Wilson, “by the tracks. See here”—he pointed—“these marks were almost certainly made by people getting out of the car. And there are two of them, at least. That’s a man’s foot, size ten. And there’s the mark of a woman’s high-heeled shoe—I can’t see any print of the whole foot.”

“They don’t look much like a struggle, sir,” Collins, who had been following with enormous interest his first experience of tracking, observed. “If they were connected with this affair.”

“They don’t,” Wilson admitted. “Not in the least. Nor was one of them carrying a heavy weight. I dare say they’ve really nothing to do with us. However, we may as well finish them off. They went into the boathouse, it appears.” He followed suit. “Confound it! too many people have been in this boathouse. I shouldn’t have called it a particularly nice place to sit, would you? Dark and damp and probably earwiggy. Yet somebody’s been smoking cigarettes all over the place.”

“Any particular kind, sir?” Collins asked.

“Gold Flake, naturally! This habit of smoking cheap cigarettes is most deplorable. One cannot arrive at any conclusions nowadays from a man’s cigarette-ends—not even that they are a man’s. This, however, is a little more distinctive.” Wilson picked up a bright purple cigarette-tip. “Silk-tipped, scented Turkish. A nasty kind of cigarette, but, fortunately, not quite as common as the other. Are there any more of them?”

“Several, sir,” said Collins, who had been scavenging. “And here’s one that looks different, just outside the door.”

“It is different,” said Wilson. “That’s a Woodbine. That does tell us something about the smoker’s class, at all events. What is called the gentry doesn’t smoke Woodbines. Let’s look round the outside. There may be some more. Hullo! What’s that?”

In the wood behind the boathouse a sudden rustling had sounded. Both men sprang towards the back, but only reached it in time to see a ragged figure leap apparently out of the undergrowth and make a dash for the road leading away from the river.

“Hi, you there! Come back!” shouted Collins, and plunged heavily after him. But the figure only ran the faster; and in a few seconds Collins came back, hot and cursing.

“He’s too quick for me, sir,” he explained apologetically. “Like his darned sauce, hiding there and listening.”

“Do you know him, then?” Wilson asked.

“All our people do,” was the reply. “He’s Jerry Machin, regular tramp, beggar, and sneak-thief, always up for poaching or vagrancy. Perfect nuisance he is hereabouts; but he’s got a sharp tongue in his head, and his sauce often gets him half a crown or so. I suppose he’s been camping on Sir Felix’s property, free of charge; and that’s why he made off. Yes, here’s his bed, you see, all complete.” He indicated an elaborate nest of straw and dried leaves which had been piled up against the back of the boathouse. “Here’s his supper—pinched, I’ll bet. He left in a mighty hurry.”

“And here’s his after-lunch smoke,” said Wilson, picking it up. “He’s our consumer of Woodbines, I’m afraid. But he doesn’t appear to have gone inside the boathouse. That was reserved for the use of the Gold Flakes and the scented Turks—at least, I don’t see any trace of any other cigarettes. I’ll just have one more look round.”

He went back into the boathouse, and noted that the two smokers appeared to have sat side by side in one corner for some time, judging by the number of cigarettes they had consumed. From the rather faint marks of their feet on the floor he concluded that they were probably, though not quite certainly, the same pair who had arrived from the car; and he found adhering to a splinter a small piece of green silk, presumably from a woman’s dress.

Going round again to the outside of the boathouse, his attention was caught by what appeared to be the signs of some one having stood a fair time in the long grass close by it. No footmarks were visible; but the grass and earth had been heavily pressed down. And the conjecture was confirmed by the discovery of a shred of grey tweed caught on a projecting nail in the boathouse wall. There was nothing very remarkable in that, of course; the only curious thing was that just by the spot where the man (if it were a man) had stood, there was a large knot-hole in the boathouse wall, a little more than five feet above the ground. And, on approaching his face to the knot-hole, Wilson found that it was immediately behind the place where he had conjectured that his two smokers were sitting. Had there been a conversation in the boathouse to which some one had listened outside, and had that some one, perhaps, waited for the man in the boathouse to come out, and then struck him down? In that case, was it Meston who was in the boathouse? and, if so, who was with him? His wife? But having regard to the conditions of the Meston ménage, it seemed an odd rendezvous, and an oddly long discussion. Besides, the two in the boathouse had probably, though not certainly, arrived in a car; and Meston did not seem to have had access to any car. Meston’s foot would, as far as Wilson had observed it, have fitted the male prints. But then, probably, so would a good many other people’s.

Was it possible, then, that it was not Meston who was inside the boathouse, but Meston who stood outside watching? And did the watched man then spring out suddenly and deal execution on the spy? There was no particular sign of a struggle in the grass; but, of course, Meston might have been taken by surprise. In that case, who was the man in the shed?—and was it Sylvia Meston with him? The green silk which his pocket-book contained might provide an answer to the last question; but Wilson realised that he was building an altogether extravagantly large hypothesis on the presence of the gallows-tree. Ten to one the footmarks had nothing whatever to do with the case; though, after examining them closely, he was inclined to believe that they must have been made almost immediately after the last rain—which had fallen, as he had ascertained, on the afternoon preceding Meston’s disappearance. Last of all he examined the tree, to see if there was any tell-tale trace left on it. But he could find nothing definite. About half-way along the straight limb there was a slight dip, resembling a saddle, where anything hanging from the limb would naturally have rested. At this point the bark was rather worn and rubbed, but there were no fibres of rope or any definite indications visible. However, the bough was certainly marked.

“Collins,” he asked his assistant, after standing a few minutes lost in thought—“Collins, can you get your people to catch this Machin for me? I want to talk to him.”

“I should think so, sir,” Collins replied. “His regular haunts are pretty well known. Do you think he had anything to do with it?”

“I’ve no idea. But if there was anything out of the way happening here, he may have seen something of it. I should judge he’d been using this as his hotel for some time. Anyway, it’ll do no harm to ask him. A woman has been using this place as a rendezvous not so long ago, at least.”

“All right, sir,” Collins promised. “There’s some one in the wood, just by the tow-path, sir,” he added.

Wilson looked, and bit off an exclamation of annoyance. Not ten yards away, just in the shelter of the wood, and concealed by a peculiarly thick chestnut tree, sat Mr. Brandreth on a stump, with his hands on his knees, presumably admiring the view of the river. As Wilson approached, he came towards him, smiling.

“Good hunting, I trust, Superintendent,” he said. “It’s a nice day for sleuths, I should think.”

What a Jack-in-the-box the man was, Wilson reflected. How long had he been there, and how much had he seen or heard? Not that there was anything particularly private about the afternoon’s proceedings, but he did not wish to conduct all his investigations under the nose of so leaky a vessel as the little solicitor. “Do you often come this way?” he asked aloud.

“Oh, now and then,” Mr. Brandreth assured him. “It’s a pleasant enough walk. And I thought I might meet you.”

“Oh! Why, in particular?”

“Oh, I saw you going up-stream, and supposed you were after the place where Meston’s body—er—confided itself to the waters. And this is the first likely spot, of course. Had any luck?”

“Nothing to speak of,” said Wilson. If this were to go on, he reflected, he would soon get as irritable as Michael Prendergast.

CHAPTER XIV

Michael had always had an affection for Colchester. He liked the Essex country; he liked quiet towns; and he had pleasant memories of staying in some beautiful old houses in the High Street. However, on this occasion he decided that his mission was too important to admit of dallying with his friends, and armed with Wilson’s authority (to be used, the authority had urged, only in cases of absolute necessity), he set out on the novel task of picking up information.

He began with an annoying setback. At Meston’s office he had not expected to garner very much, and he was therefore not disappointed when the clerk-in-charge refused to give him any but the barest possible information. It was fairly obvious that the clerk knew that there was something in the wind; it was equally obvious that he had been strictly ordered to disclose nothing, and Michael did not feel that he looked important enough to demand to see private papers. Mr. Meston’s, he learned, were locked in the desk of the senior partner, who had come over and taken them on the afternoon of the finding of the body. Yes, Mr. Warden had been in the office at the time; in fact, both partners had been in every day since Mr. Meston had left. Neither of them was there at the moment. Mr. Hanborough had gone over to the inquest, and Mr. Warden to his home. The clerk understood that his father was worse. Michael was rather relieved, at the moment, that this should be so, for he was not at all inclined to explain his mission to Warden’s ingenuous mind; and, having acquired the private address of both the other partners, he went on his way.

As he reached the door of Meston’s house he saw a man emerging, and wondered idly what his business was. He was not at all pleased to gather, from his reception, that the man had come on approximately the same errand as himself, and had, moreover, apparently pumped Meston’s housekeeper dry. She did not actually turn him from the door; but she provided no information, replying morosely that “she couldn’t say” to direct questions, and rejecting all attempts to draw her into conversation or gossip. In despair, Michael tried his last resource, the production of Wilson’s card, but it seemed to carry no weight with her. She would not even allow an inspection of the man’s rooms.

“What about Mrs. Meston’s?” Michael asked hopefully.

“There ain’t nothing of hers here,” was the reply, with a pursing of the lips which suggested that the speaker shared Michael’s views on the lady’s character. “She took them all away when she came.”

“Oh! When was that?”

“Couldn’t say.” The housekeeper, seeming to feel that she had inadvertently allowed a morsel of information to escape her, shut up like a clam, and Michael, after a few more ineffective feelers, came away in no very pleasant mood, and betook himself to Hanborough’s house, which was a red brick villa a mile or so from the centre of the town.

His spirits were not brightened by passing, within a hundred yards of the gate, the visitor who had preceded him to Meston’s house. The man obviously recognised him, for he paused in his walk and looked up almost as if he were going to speak. But he thought better of it, and Michael passed on with the gloomiest anticipations of his coming interview.

The reality could not well have been worse. The maid who answered the door refused to admit him on any pretext; and when he tried to press her, the only result was to bring down a horrifying and voluble old lady looking very like a macaw, who screamed furious denials at him till he retired in despair, convinced that even Wilson himself could not have got in without physical force. “Confound it! how do detectives get hold of information?” he muttered to himself as he went away.

His wrath was complete when, on turning into the main road, he beheld the first caller obviously waiting to see him come out. “Damn the man!” Michael thought. “I might as well give up my job if he’s going to get in first and spoil my hand at every turn.” And he prepared his best scowl for the interloper.

The latter, however, seemed hardly to notice it, but as he came up addressed him in a quite pleasant voice, though with a tinge of officialism about it. “Dr. Prendergast?” he inquired.

“You have the advantage of me,” said Michael sulkily.

For answer, the stranger produced a card from his pocket, and handed it over. It bore the name of Inspector Bille, of the Essex County Constabulary.

“Well?” Michael said, wondering. “What is it? Do you want to arrest me?”

Inspector Bille laughed, a low-powered chuckle. “No, indeed, sir,” he said. “But I noticed you as I was coming away from Meston’s house, and when I saw you here it struck me you might be wondering what I was up to. Working with the Superintendent, I take it?” To the Forces throughout the country, Wilson was always simply “the Superintendent.”

“Yes,” said Michael, slightly mollified—“though I don’t know how you knew me. I don’t think we’ve met before.”

“Colonel Lockwood pointed you out, sir, this morning,” Inspector Bille explained. “I was in two minds whether to stop you before you went in.”

“You might just as well have stopped me,” Michael grumbled, “for all the help I got. You seem to have turned off the supply of information pretty successfully at both places.”

Bille laughed again. “Well, sir, people—particularly old Mrs. Hanborough—don’t very much like answering questions, unless they’re going to get their names in the papers. And if you’ll pardon me saying so, you don’t look very much like a newspaper man.”

“My own impression,” said Michael, “was rather that you’d forbidden either her or Meston’s housekeeper to say a word to any one.”

“We’re a bit exclusive, no doubt,” Bille said. “We don’t, in a general way, encourage people to chatter more than they need. But for the Superintendent, it’s a different matter, of course; and as you’re, so to speak, his representative, if I understand rightly, I’ll be happy to give you any information I’ve got, sir. If you’re not doing anything in a hurry, what about taking a spot of lunch with me, and we’ll talk over anything you want to know?”

Relieved by his affability, Michael made no demur, not even when it appeared that the Inspector’s taste in lunches was quite other than his own, and submitted to be seated in a little fly-blown tea-shop-cum-restaurant, and fed on pale boiled mutton, with soapy potatoes and nauseating greens.

“What point exactly were you on, sir?” the Inspector began. “There’s no one else here” (“And no wonder,” thought Michael, swallowing a piece of gristle) “so you can talk quite freely, if you don’t raise your voice too much.”

Michael passed on Wilson’s commissions about Meston and Hanborough.

“Yes, I thought so,” the Inspector said. “Now this is what I’ve been able to pick up. It mayn’t be much, but it’s something. There’s something very wrong with Meston’s firm, and what’s more, he knew about it, whether innocently or guiltily I can’t say for certain. The last week or so before his departure, he’d been taking the books home almost every night, and looking as worried as a sick cat in the daytime.”

“Did you see his private papers?” Michael interrupted. “The clerk wouldn’t let me look at them.”

“I expect he would if I’d asked him,” said the Inspector, not above rubbing in the advantages of belonging to the regulars; “but I thought I’d let it lie a bit. If Meston should happen to be innocent, sir, you see, we don’t want parties that may happen to be guilty—of anything—too wise to what we’re doing.”

“You think Meston was innocent?”

“I shouldn’t like to say definitely. All I can say is, if he’s guilty he’s put it away pretty carefully. There’s no sign of his having been flush at any time in the past few years; there’s nothing odd about his banking account, and nothing in his will (I’ve seen his lawyer) that’s any way out of the common. I expect you know, sir, his wife gets a life-interest as long as she doesn’t marry again; but there’s very little that doesn’t die with him. Not above two or three hundred, I should say.”

“Is it true she’d removed all her personal property from her rooms? And if so, why?”

“Oh, you got that, sir? Yes, it’s quite true. It was while he was with you—at the Old Malting House, I should say” (as Michael gave a wriggle of repudiation). “As to why, it seems she was meaning to leave him finally. What’s more to my mind is, where did she take ’em?”

“Why, to the Grange, surely. Where else?”

“Well, I don’t know. She may or she may not. She’d Mr. Burden, the actor, with her, for one thing.”

“Running over pigs in Meadon!” Michael interjected.

“That’s so, sir. Of course, she may’ve had anything in her mind. The housekeeper, who hates her like poison, as good as told me she’d killed him. Curious how nobody that knows him here cottons to the idea of suicide. Most of ’em would put it down to his good lady—though not with any notion how she could have done it, of course.”

“Well, Hanborough? What about him?”

“Ah, there’s more there, I fancy, than you found. Mr. Hanborough’s been dipping a bit, there’s no doubt; and from all I’ve heard one way and another, it’s pretty clear he could always do with a little extra cash. And this Strake, whom he’s put on to look into matters, is an old clerk of his whom he sacked; and it’s well known that he could have had him in the dock if he’d liked. So it’s not likely, to say the least of it, that he was intended to find out anything that’d make against Mr. Hanborough’s interests. He’s free with his money, is Mr. Hanborough, and well enough liked hereabouts; but Newmarket’s a bit too near for him, if you get me. And about two years ago he was pretty heavily in debt, which he’s been clearing slowly. I’ve one or two more points of that kind, which I can work up more closely if I need to. I don’t want to be starting a lot more talk to-day, you see—particularly since I’ve found out that Mr. Hanborough wasn’t at home the night Meston was murdered.”

“Oh!” said Michael. “Why, where was he?” The Inspector sat back, well pleased with his effect.

“He left home, sir, about 9 p.m., saying he was going to a party at the Grange and would be in early in the morning. Then he didn’t get back till after ten next day. His wife’s away, but I got this from his mother—the old lady you saw. Well, of course, it may be all right, and it may not—but we’d better keep our eyes——”

At this point the Inspector suddenly stopped, and devoted his attention to a slab of rice pudding. Michael, seeking an explanation, saw a slim, fair-haired girl in blue, whose face seemed vaguely familiar to him, enter rather hurriedly and sit down. He telegraphed an inquiry.

“Miss Loring,” the Inspector whispered in reply. “The Squire’s sister.”

So this was Mark Warden’s fiancée. On inspection, Michael decided that he liked her looks. She was obviously a good fifteen years younger than her brother, an open-faced, blue-eyed child who probably valued Warden as much for his cricket as for any other quality. At the moment she seemed worried and anxious; her fair brows were knitted, and she looked round the room rather nervously from time to time.

Michael, on a sudden impulse, leaned over to the Inspector. “I think I’d like a word with Miss Loring,” he said in a low voice. “Her fiancé’s a friend of mine. There isn’t anything else we ought to discuss here, is there?”

“Not as far as I’m concerned, sir,” said the Inspector impassively. “Anyway, I ought to be getting along. I’ve an appointment at the Colchester station at two-forty-five. But you’ll remember, sir, fair’s fair. If you or the Superintendent do get any information bearing on these matters, I would take it very kindly if you’d pass it on.”

“I’ll see you have it—if I get anything worth having, which personally I very much doubt,” Michael promised. “Good-day.” And, leaving the Inspector stolidly consuming pudding, he made his way to Edna Loring’s side. “At any rate,” he thought, as she lifted her eyes and looked at him with frank amazement, “she’s not a siren.”

Siren or no, the girl seemed pleased enough to see him, when once she had grasped who he was. She declined lunch, saying she had already had it, but demanded coffee, rather to Michael’s astonishment, since he could hardly imagine that even unsophisticated youth (if there was such a thing at Loring Grange) would deliberately choose to drink its coffee in broken-down tea-shops. The coffee, when it arrived, confirmed him in this view; but Edna drank it without comment, and even demanded a second supply. Michael began to get a little puzzled. What was the Squire’s sister doing here, unattended? and still more, why did she appear so content, nay, even pleased, with his rather humdrum company? Michael was no more modest than most men, but he had never had reason to think himself specially attractive to the opposite sex. Nor could he now believe that Edna Loring was moved by any strong personal feeling for him.

She talked, certainly; indeed, it would not be wholly untrue to say that she chattered. But it was of entirely indifferent things—the weather, the prospects of Essex county cricket, the various breeds of sporting dogs, etc.; and she did not appear to have the slightest interest in the matters which one would have imagined they had most in common. She mentioned Mark’s health, and his family, but not his business or his business prospects; and a tentative reference to Mr. William Meston elicited only a downright opinion that he was better dead, after which she quite plainly shelved the subject. If he had not had an uneasy conviction that he was playing truant, like a schoolboy, from the business he had been set to do in Colchester, Michael, after his humiliating experiences of the morning, would have thoroughly enjoyed himself. He liked cheerful, downright young things, when they were willing to talk to him, and he liked Edna Loring particularly. But he could not help feeling a little guilty, and at the same time wondering more and more why the girl should want to detain him talking there.

He had just reached the conclusion, absurd though he felt it to be, that she was contemplating an unpleasant interview or task of some sort for which she wanted a protector, when she suddenly looked at her watch, and asked, in a quite different tone, “Dr. Prendergast, would you like to do me a service?”

“Ah!” thought Michael to himself. “Now we’re coming to it.” Aloud he only said, “I should be delighted,” with more sincerity than he expected in his voice. Indeed, he would have been quite pleased to help the girl—if he could reasonably do so.

“Then drive me back to the Grange.”

“What!” This was the last request he would have anticipated.

“Drive me back to the Grange,” Edna Loring repeated, looking at him earnestly.

“But——” Michael, rather disconcerted, temporised. “I haven’t got a car. I came over by train. And I can’t drive to speak of.”

“Oh!” Edna obviously thought this an odd state of things. “Well, you could hire one, couldn’t you?”

“But—didn’t you come by car?”

“Yes, but it’s Wallace’s. Wallace Burden’s, you know. And I don’t want him to drive me back. I want you to take me back, if you will.”

“But doesn’t Mr. Burden want to go back?” said Michael obtusely.

“Yes, he does. And I don’t want him to. Don’t you see?” As Michael apparently did not, she added impatiently, “Oh, Dr. Prendergast, you do make it difficult! Must I put everything in words of three letters? I don’t want Wallace because I don’t want him to make love to me, don’t you see?”

“But——” Michael was conscious of gaping like an idiot, but the sudden shift of Mr. Burden’s affections was too much for him. “But I thought—Mrs. Meston——”

“Yes, that’s what I mean. I don’t want any more of Sylvia Meston’s cast-offs. And I don’t like Wallace, anyway.”

“Cast-offs?” Michael repeated.

“Well, you know what I mean. You all but said so yourself. Wallace and Sylvia had a row of sorts this morning. So he hadn’t anything to do, and he offered to drive me into Colchester. I didn’t know anything about it then, or I wouldn’t have let him. Of course, I found out as soon as we’d started, and then—pah! I always seem to get hold of people who want to hold Sylvia’s hand, and think mine will do next best if they can’t get it. I used to slap them,” said Edna reflectively, surveying her own vigorous brown hand, “but you can’t slap people for ever. I hate men!” she finished suddenly.

“Including Warden?” Michael asked, with slight amusement.

“Mark! Mark isn’t men! Oh, don’t be silly; you know what I mean. Of course, if I could get hold of Mark, I shouldn’t be asking you. I mean——” At this point Edna, realising her extreme candour, burst out laughing. “I don’t suppose I can pretend that was tactful, Dr. Prendergast. But I thought you’d understand. Truthfully, there’s been such a bother lately that I’ve got fed up. I almost thought of running away at one time; and if I have much more of Wallace, I shall commit murder or something. You do see that, don’t you? I got rid of him after lunch, and came in here because I thought I’d be safe; but I’ve half promised to let him take me to tea with some people he knows. And then we’re going home. Well, I simply can’t face it. I know Wallace, and he’s like a hippopotamus; he can’t believe that any innocent young thing wouldn’t give a thousand pounds to squeeze his hand. So, when you came over, I wondered if you weren’t an angel from heaven—you know what I mean”—as Michael laughed—“and if we could arrange to go back together, and give Wallace a hint, it would be so much nicer. But probably you can’t.”

“But if he’s a hippopotamus,” Michael, finding the situation embarrassing if pleasant, suggested, “will he take a hint? And I really can’t drive.”

“Oh, Wallace won’t make a third,” said Edna, with decision. “If I say I’m going with you, he’ll go off somewhere and sulk. He won’t call you out. Of course, if you can’t drive, you can’t. But I could drive. Or we could hire a man with the car, and he could take it back from the Grange. That would perhaps be the best way. Would you mind very much, Dr. Prendergast? I should be most awfully grateful—if you could bear it.”

Michael was not at all sure whether he minded or not; but eventually he agreed, subject to Edna’s herself undertaking to get rid of the spare cavalier, and subject also to his being given the afternoon to make one more attempt to acquire the information for which he had been sent. He liked the girl, and his sympathy for her immediate predicament was enhanced by the cordial dislike of Wallace Burden which he had conceived from the first glimpse he had caught of that gentleman’s classic profile. His friends’ fiancées, whether or not desirable in themselves, ought to be preserved from Wallace Burdens, he felt. There was, further, the added chance, whose attractiveness he would not have admitted to himself, of seeing at close quarters the ménage at the Grange, of which so many rumours were current. Michael was himself quite certain that the Grange was the kind of place to harbour any number of murderers; and possibly a visit there, under Edna Loring’s wing, might provide him with a clue. So, moved by a mixture of chivalry, wrath, and curiosity, he consented to go and hire a car, and to meet Edna again for tea at a somewhat more inspiring rendezvous—Burden, it was to be hoped, being by that time satisfactorily removed from the picture.

CHAPTER XV

As luck would have it, just as Michael was completing his negotiations about a car to take them back to the Grange, Wallace Burden himself came into the garage to collect his own Talbot. He looked as offensively handsome as ever, and Michael wanted nothing so much as to knock him down; but as the man had been standing by the office wicket while the transaction was taking place, including the name of the hirer and the destination of the car, and had obviously listened with interest, Michael thought that it might prove rather awkward if he did not explain. Accordingly, he briefly described his meeting with Edna Loring, his friend’s fiancée, and his intention of taking her home; and was considerably surprised, not to say pleased, to find that the actor seemed more relieved than otherwise.

“Oh, very well,” Burden said. “In that case, I’ll be getting on to town, I think. Will you tell Miss Loring for me, and thank her for her hospitality and all, you know? Matter of fact,” he added, with a grin, “it’s a bit overdone for me, I must say—with all this excitement recently. Look here, Dr. Prendergast,” with a sudden movement he took Michael by the arm and dragged him out into the street, “you found this fellow Meston, didn’t you? Well, you know they’re saying he’s been murdered. What’s your view about that, eh?”

“I’m afraid I can’t say,” said Michael, who had no intention of being pumped in this quarter. “I have nothing to do with it, officially. Why didn’t you go to the inquest, if you want to know?”

“And be asked a lot of damfool questions by a silly coroner? Not likely,” the actor said, with an angry shrug. “Do you think I want to be mixed up with a murder case? Loring ought to keep his damned village in better order, if he wants people to stay in it. No, thank you. I’m off—if you’ve nothing to tell me?”

“Nothing at all, I’m afraid,” said Michael, shaking him off. He was so glad to see the last of him that it was not until he was well inside the public library and had secured the Medical Directory that it occurred to him to wonder at the reason of this sudden departure, immediately a suspicion of murder was raised. Was Wallace Burden putting a convenient distance between himself and any too inquiring policeman? And ought Michael to have warned anybody in authority? However, Inspector Bille, after their brief lunch, had completely disappeared, and Michael did not feel equal to tackling the Colchester police force. He decided that it would be enough if he informed Wilson on his return, and set to work to look up Dr. Kershaw’s medical record.

Dr. Amory Kershaw had graduated M.D. from Guy’s Hospital in 1904, with a good degree. After that, he had held two or three temporary posts of the kind normally occupied by newly qualified men, and had then become physician to a fair-sized Midland hospital, where he had remained till 1910. He had, in the meantime, published one or two monographs on medical subjects, and, as far as Michael could judge from the Medical Directory, was on the high-road to become a distinguished physician. But after 1910 there was a gap, and in 1913 he reappeared in some unintelligible job in Stamboul, which he had apparently held until he left to join the army in 1915. After the war, in which his career had been perfectly normal, he had taken on this Essex practice, which he had retained ever since, becoming police-surgeon in 1924. The only two points of suspicion in the record were the gap between 1910 and 1913, followed by a distant appointment, and the rather humdrum work to which a man of exceptionally high qualifications had apparently settled down. The latter might, of course, be due to war injuries; but the Medical Directory is not exactly a repository of gossip, and Michael had no real hope of finding out anything else. He called at a friend’s house in Colchester, and made some inquiries; but it did not appear that Dr. Kershaw was known so far afield. About Meston and Hanborough, on the other hand, every one was willing to talk—and the latter’s fondness for good company and the former’s hatred of it were becoming as familiar to Michael as the palm of his hand by the time he kept his rendezvous. One fact which puzzled him not a little, but which was attested by more than one witness, was that Meston, in the last week or so of his life, had been observed more than once in the company of bookies. Had the virtuous man fallen from grace at the end?

Tea with Edna Loring was a refreshing and enjoyable affair. Relieved of the incubus of Burden, and highly amused at the manner of his departure—“I suppose that was what he quarrelled with Sylvia about”—Edna talked happily all through the meal, and Michael was both surprised and annoyed when the hired car appeared. As he was handing the passenger in, a sudden voice said, “Hullo, Edna!” and a tweed-clad, florid-faced person with a cheerful smile appeared.

“Hullo, Nick!” Edna responded; and introduced Mr. Hanborough. Mr. Hanborough appeared to enjoy a casual chat, and detained them some little time before they could get away, congratulating Edna on having had the sense to avoid the inquest, which had proved a complete frost in the matter of sensation.

“They didn’t even call the doctor fellow who had a row with Kershaw about the cause of death,” he said, as they were parting. “And Evershed shut up any poor chap who so much as whispered. If you ask me, the police ought to have a compulsory training in elementary psychology. The amount of unsatisfied curiosity there was in that room this afternoon would drive a dozen men to murder. Well, good-bye, my dear, and good luck.”

“I say, Dr. Prendergast,” Edna asked, as they drove away, “were you the mysterious doctor who disagreed?”

Michael admitted it, but declined to enter upon discussion, and as soon as he could changed the subject, and once more began making inquiries about Nicholas Hanborough. Edna, who appeared to like the senior partner, answered willingly for some time, though she was obviously more and more puzzled; but when Michael began asking her about Hanborough’s doings on the night of Meston’s death, she gave a gasp of amazement.

“Why, he was at our dance, of course! Dr. Prendergast, what is the matter with you? Any one would think he was a criminal, and you were trying to test his alibi!”

“Well,” Michael considered, “that was the night Meston died, wasn’t it? And no one knows yet whether it was an accident—or whether he killed himself—or whether some one killed him. I mean—there’s talk of some financial trouble between Meston and Mr. Hanborough, and it’s possible that some one may want to know where he was that night.”

“I see,” said Edna. She turned her face to Michael, and the latter was surprised to see how white it had become. “Well, they needn’t ask. He was at our dance.”

“All the time?”

“Yes. Well, I can’t say every minute. But he was about nearly all the time. I mean, I noticed him almost every time I looked up.”

“How long did it go on?”

“Till about six. But Nick didn’t go then. He and I and several others drove over to Little Friday and had breakfast. It was too fine to go to bed. Then we stayed in the woods a bit. We didn’t get back till after nine. Then Nick went back. He said he’d got to get home, and then to the office.”

And he arrived about then, Michael reflected. That looked like an alibi, at any rate for the earlier part of the twenty-four hours he had mentioned to Wilson. Edna Loring, he felt in his bones, was a good witness. He would have acquitted any one on her evidence. But why did she look so worried?

“Dr. Prendergast,” she said suddenly, “why are you asking this? Why should you—or any one else—think Nick Hanborough has anything to do with Mr. Meston’s death—however he died? What does it matter where he was?”

“Well,” Michael hedged, “he knew Meston well, and——”

“So did dozens of people! And you aren’t bothering about them. Why about Nick? Is it—because he was his partner? Is it anything to do with that money business?”

So she knew! Whether Mark had been less than discreet, or whether the long tongues of Steeple Tollesbury had been busy about that as well as everything else, did not seem to matter. She knew, and she was alarmed. This could only point to one person—Mark. On a sudden impulse Michael leaned forward and took her hands in his. He could feel them shaking.

“Miss Loring,” he said gently, “won’t you let me help you?”

The girl stiffened, and was silent. “Is it about Mark?” Michael pressed. A slight twitch was the only answer. “Listen,” Michael said. “I’ve known Mark for a long time—though not as long as you have—and it would be sheer nonsense to suggest his having anything to do with anything doubtful. If there’s something, I don’t know what, that worries you—something that wants explaining—I’m quite sure it can be easily explained. Whatever has or hasn’t happened to Meston, it’s absolutely certain Mark had nothing whatever to do with it. Can’t you trust me?”

Not exactly the professional detective’s manner, Michael thought. But it had its reward at once, in the look of relief that came into Edna Loring’s face and the return of the colour to her cheeks.

“Oh, you are nice!” she said appreciatively. “It was only—I got into an idiotic panic for a minute, you sounded so portentous. As if you were meaning to arrest Nick the next moment, if he couldn’t say where he was that night. But I knew he was at the party, and then I suddenly remembered that Mark—Mark wasn’t.”

“Wasn’t he?”

“At least, he was and he wasn’t. I mean, he came to the party—only he hated it, and went away soon after midnight, I think it was. And I know he didn’t go home, because he told me he’d spent ages wandering about—he does that, sometimes. Then when I thought you were asking about Nick just because he was that man’s partner—I simply went cold all over. I can’t think how I could have been so silly, but I feel much better now. Thank you.”

“Did Mark tell you about the money?” Michael asked, wondering whether he had not been slightly carried away by his enthusiasm. Was it possible that Warden——? No, surely it was absurd. Was all his journey to Colchester to result only in clearing everybody except his own friend?

“No.” Edna answered his last question. “Godfrey hinted something to me. I suppose Nick told him. Mark hasn’t said anything, and I didn’t like to ask him. He doesn’t believe in mixing up women and business, you know. And, anyway, he’s been in a funny mood lately, jumpy and not like himself. I shouldn’t wonder if that had got on my nerves a bit, and made me see bogies. I’m all right now. But, Dr. Prendergast, if you know and Godfrey knows, it can’t be much of a secret, can it? I wish you’d tell me just what it is that’s gone wrong with the business. I swear I won’t say a word to a soul—even to Mark—if you think I’d better not. But it’s pretty awful, not knowing.”

More to save himself from awkward questions than from any other reason, Michael told her. She listened attentively, with her chin on her hands, putting occasionally a question whose appositeness surprised him. But her final reception of the story astonished him still more.

“When did Mark tell you all this?” she asked. Provided with some particulars of the discussion in the Old Malting House, she leaned back with a triumphant smile.

“Then it was Mr. Wilson!” she said. “I knew I was right!”

“Who?”

“Why, your friend! I told Mark so; but he wouldn’t believe me. Mark never remembers names, but he told me a long time ago about your wonderful Scotland Yard friend called Wilson; and when he said you’d a friend called Wilson staying with you, I thought at once it must be the same. Oh, Dr. Prendergast, how perfectly marvellous! And is he going to find out all about everything? Oh, very well,” seeing Michael’s alarmed face. “If it’s a secret I won’t tell any one. Really, I won’t. But you shouldn’t have such a nice innocent face, you know?”

CHAPTER XVI

“There’s the drive,” said Edna. “You’ll stay to dinner, won’t you? Oh, please—I can’t face them alone!” And Michael, feeling he might as well see the thing through, agreed to stay, though he was not quite sure of his own wisdom.

The car moved slowly up the long, curving drive, which at points was singularly narrow for the entrance to a “gentleman’s residence” of any size.

“More like a country lane than a drive,” Michael commented. “Isn’t it rather dangerous?” he asked, as they swung suddenly round a completely blind corner which was not rendered any the safer for having a stretch of wider road leading up to it, and a broad expanse of parkland almost immediately beyond. He did not feel that the shape of the bend was compensated for by the trails of honeysuckle which brushed his shoulders on the one side, a high fence forming the other.

“Oh, frightfully, I should think,” Edna said. “But it’s always been the same, and nobody will have it altered. They cut back the hedge every now and then. But it isn’t so dangerous as you think. Every one hereabouts knows it, and coming from the village they always hoot and wait to see if anything’s coming.”

“But coming from the Grange? Or a stranger?”

“Cars from the Grange have the right of way. Anyway, nobody runs straight through except Godfrey, and every one knows his horn. And strangers oughtn’t to dash up other people’s drives at any pace they like. Serve them right if they do get smashed,” said Edna, with such surprising callousness as Michael could only excuse by assuming she had grown up from birth with the death-trap. “Do you like the park?”

“It’s in awfully good order,” Michael said appreciatively. “It isn’t often one sees timber as well kept in these degenerate days.”

“Oh, that’s Tulumba,” Edna said. “Rubber, I mean. You know Father and Godfrey both got disgustingly rich on rubber plantations. So Godfrey can afford to have the place properly kept up. It wasn’t like that when I first remember it; it was full of dead wood, and half the trees were falling down. But Father had all the dead stuff cleared away, and Godfrey’s planted a lot, and brought the deer back. We couldn’t do it if we weren’t bloodsucking capitalists. But it’s rather nice, isn’t it?”

“You didn’t have to plough the park up in the war?”

“No, Father was on the County Agricultural Committee,” Edna explained simply. “There’s the house. Isn’t it hideous?”

On the whole, Michael thought, it was. In origin it was probably Elizabethan, or earlier, and a mellow group of red brick stables set at one side seemed to belong to the earliest period. But the large square Queen Anne block immediately to their left did not match them at all; and worse still was an enormous Early Victorian atrocity in yellowish-grey, with bands of Palladian ornament, which stood beside the Queen Anne block, and just succeeded in overtopping it with an obvious and ludicrous effort. It was as if one’s grandmother had decided to stand permanently on tiptoe. Beyond that again came an indifferent restoration of something seventeenth-century in type; and a water tower or similar object of late nineteenth-century origin towered above everything else in the extreme left-hand corner. As the car swept across the front of the house preparatory to turning into the stable-yard, Michael saw, across a couple of tennis-courts, a flagged and flowered terrace on which half a dozen people were distributed.

“Wallace hasn’t come back, anyway,” Edna said. “That’s one good thing. Come along and I’ll introduce you.”

“Who are all those people?” Michael asked, as they neared the terrace, having left the car to return to Colchester.

“Oh, nobody in particular. That’s Godfrey—my brother—in the deck-chair, and the one walking up and down behind him is Brian Mackenzie, the Zambesi man. That’s Tom Shane leaning up against the sundial, and the one sitting on the steps is Leslie Buckton. The woman by him is Dora Schlesinger, and the other’s Tony Druce. Olga Felling ought to be somewhere about, but I don’t see her. I wonder where Sylvia is?”

As soon as she had finished her introductions, Edna repeated the last question, while Michael surveyed the group for possible murderers. As an honest man, he was forced to admit that he met with little success. Nobody’s face expressed much but boredom and slight ill-temper, though Mackenzie favoured him with a glance of fierce suspicion. Except for the two women, who belonged to an angular, high-coloured type which he strongly disliked, the smooth face of Shane the barrister impressed Michael most unfavourably. Leslie Buckton he put down as a pink-faced goose. But Wilson, he remembered, had contemptuously dismissed any idea of Shane’s criminality. This was very annoying.

At Edna’s question Godfrey Loring threw up his hands in mock despair.

“My dear Edna—must you join the gang? Tom and Brian have been asking me that question in alternate five minutes for the last two hours.” The K.C. gave an angry shrug; but Mackenzie took no notice. “I did think you would have spared me. Couldn’t Wallace tell you?—or what have you done with him?”

“Don’t be silly, Godfrey. I only asked where she was.”

“I do not know. Cross my heart, I do not know. She disappeared after that ridiculous ceremony in the town—don’t you want to hear about it, by the way?”

“No. I met Nick.”

“Well, anyway, she departed, and I’ve not had the pleasure of seeing her since. Gone to hold Lockwood’s hand, most likely. Sylvia always has a tenderness for the old and decrepit. Were you nice to Wallace?”

“I don’t know. He’s gone to town,” Edna said in an indifferent tone.

“Damn quick work,” said the Squire coarsely. “I will say that for Wallace, he doesn’t waste time. One woman for breakfast, another for lunch, and just in time to get a third for dinner. It’s a shame to leave you to forage for yourself, though”—with a glance at Michael.

“Shut up,” said Edna.

“Don’t get shirty, my child. I tried to find your young man for you, but he wasn’t to be seen. Nick was representing the firm’s sorrow—only he left his black band at home. Try consoling one of these chaps, if you’re hard up. Dora and Tony have been at it ever since tea without getting a rise.”

“She won’t have long to try,” either Dora or Tony remarked without heat, as Edna turned crossly back to Michael. “There is Sylvia.”

A perceptible electric movement ran through the little group; and all, Michael included, swung round to see Sylvia’s slim figure turning the corners of the terrace. She was paler than on the previous day, and there was a definite furrow of anxiety or fear between her brows. Obviously she was looking for some one; and Michael noticed with distinct satisfaction that she favoured him with a special stare of hostility before her eyes finally came to rest on the Squire. There was some sort of appeal or command in her glance, to which Godfrey Loring responded with a grunt and a wriggle, which was probably his limit of graciousness; but she delayed long enough to fling crumbs to the hungry trio.

“Hullo, everybody!” she said. “Isn’t it sinfully hot? Leslie, have you got a fag? You were quite right to keep out of that court. It’s a blessing for me Brian was brought up in the tropics, and kept cool. He was about the only cool thing in the room. Why didn’t you come, Tom? You could have asked Dr. Evershed leading questions—isn’t that what you call them?—and made life a little more interesting for all the poor dears who’d put on their Sunday-best to come. Oh, God! I’ll never go to another inquest, not even if it’s my own. Godfrey, I want to talk to you. Come indoors. No, lazy pig, I won’t stay here. It’s too hot, and I want a drink. Come on.”

Firmly declining all the rather feeble efforts made to keep her on the terrace, she led the way indoors, whither Godfrey Loring eventually followed her, with steps lighter than his bulk would have led one to expect. The group on the terrace stood limply still for a moment after they had gone.

“Oh, come on!” one of the women remarked at last in a sudden shrill voice. “What’s the use of standing about? Who’ll play tennis?”

“Go on, Tom,” said Leslie Buckton. “It’ll keep your figure slim.”

“No, thank you,” said Shane. “Come down and look at the frogs,” to Edna, who merely shook her head.

“I must say,” the woman who had spoken complained to the world at large, “you are a nice cheerful set.”

This was also Michael’s feeling when, after nearly an hour of almost pointless conversation, he was sent in Buckton’s charge to wash his hands for dinner. If these were murderers, he felt they had singularly little pleasure in their deed. So far from being a giddy haunt of vice, Loring Grange appeared at the moment to be nearly the most boring place on earth. His impression was deepened when they met again over listless cocktails, and he observed how each of the three men kept his eyes unashamedly glued to the door. As the gong went, Godfrey Loring, wearing a triumphant grin, looked in.

“To save everybody trouble,” he observed, “may I just announce that Sylvia’s not coming to dinner?”

“Fagged out?” inquired Buckton solicitously. He, at least, appeared to have the merit of bearing his infatuation lightly; at least, he put his arm round the woman called Olga, with a very fair attempt at friendliness.

“Fed up, I should call it,” his host responded brutally. “She seems to have had enough of the lot of you. Anyway, she’s gone off—skipped—and isn’t coming back to-night, or for some time. So sorry for you all. Another cocktail, doctor? No? Well, you can wait for me to have one.” He drank it off. “Shall we go in and drown Sylvia’s memory? Champagne, I think? Or would you prefer Australian Burgundy?”

They went into the dining-room, there to partake of a longer and drearier meal than Michael would have believed possible. There was plenty to eat and drink, and of excellent quality, and if he had only wanted to get drunk, he had plenty of opportunity. As he did not, he could only listen to Godfrey Loring, who appeared to be in excellent spirits, making inferior jokes against all the company impartially, most of them not in what Michael considered good taste. As his own drink mounted to his head, he began to wonder fiercely how Mark Warden could endure to leave his fiancée a day longer in that atmosphere—though Edna, he noticed with regret, appeared to object to it much less than he did.

Towards the end of the meal, the K.C., who had been firmly resisting the determined attempts of both Dora and Tony to annex him, announced, with a carefully detached air, that he regretted that business would call him to London early next morning.

Loring laughed heartily, and flicked some bread at him. “Mind you call on Wallace,” he said. “Perhaps he’ll go shares with you. Well, Brian, what about you? Where are you thinking of going? Buluwayo?”

Mackenzie clenched a lean fist but said nothing.

“Falling like autumn leaves,” the Squire said. “Well, doctor, you and I’ll have to console ourselves. How about a game of billiards? Oh, come, you’re not going after Sylvia too? A hundred up!” But this, Michael thought, was really more than chivalry required, though he was surprised to hear Edna second her brother’s invitation. Firmly he said he must go.

“I’ll drive you down to the town, if you like. I’m going that way,” Mackenzie offered. It was almost the first time he had spoken, and Michael, after a little hesitation, accepted. Perhaps Mackenzie would provide some information.

The intervening time he spent in detaching himself from his host and wandering with Edna in the hot, dark garden. As unobtrusively as he could, he tried to find out where all the house-party had spent the fatal hours of Friday week; but he got little or no satisfaction. As far as Edna knew, they had all been at the dance. But Michael gathered that from midnight onwards nobody had been very clear where anybody else was, and that, though alibis might possibly be forthcoming, they would have to be sought in detail.

“They’re all suspects, in fact,” he said to himself; “and not one more than the other. Where’s Mrs. Meston gone, do you know?” he asked.

“Not an idea,” Edna said, with indifference. “Godfrey knows, but he likes to keep things to himself if it annoys people. She’ll come back some time, I suppose. There’s Brian—if you really must go.”

As they came back, they passed by the Squire’s study-window, and saw the owner standing by his telephone, asking it in a rather thick voice for Colonel Lockwood. “Does he want to have the house raided?” Michael wondered. “I should think it ought to be.” From which it will be observed that Dr. Prendergast was prejudiced.

“Now,” he thought, “for Mackenzie.”

But if he had anticipated any remarkable revelations on the drive, he was disappointed. Mackenzie swore a great deal, mostly beneath his breath, and in general appeared so near a breakdown of some sort as to enlist Michael’s professional sympathy in spite of himself; but immediately, it seemed, he wanted no more than physical relief for his feelings, and all he provided for his passenger was a very lively speculation on whether he would arrive at his destination with a broken neck. However, there was no accident; and soon after ten o’clock Michael made his way up to his sitting-room at the inn, armed with a certain amount of not very useful information and undifferentiated suspicion enough to hang an army.

CHAPTER XVII

Wilson, for his part, had not spent an idle evening. After the extraordinarily inopportune meeting with Mr. Brandreth, he had decided to postpone his search of the tow-path, on which, in any case, there seemed to be too many miscellaneous footprints for accurate evidence to be obtainable. Machin, the tramp, was the person he really wanted to see; but Machin was not likely to be available, for a little while at any rate. At the moment, the most fruitful possibility appeared to be to test some of the conjectures he had formed at the bridge.

The first step was to find Colonel Lockwood, report his discoveries, and borrow the boots which Meston had been wearing at his death. The examination of the latter was annoyingly inconclusive. They were the right size, and fitted fairly closely, but not quite accurately, to the sketch which Wilson had made. Unlike the prints usually offered to the conventional sleuth, these had no nails, patches, or protectors obligingly fitted to the soles. The only thing was to try a borrowed boot on the spot.

Wilson then drew the scrap of green silk and the shred of tweed from his pocket, and asked the Colonel if he could identify either of them. The tweed produced no reaction; indeed, Wilson had hardly expected any. It might have come from almost anywhere, though it had definitely not come from William Meston’s suit, which was of the “respectable black” suggested by his calling. But when he saw the green silk, the good Colonel obviously suffered from a pang of recognition. He did not want to “put a name to it,” and endeavoured for some time to cloak himself in generalities; but Wilson, if patient, was ruthless, and in time forced the Colonel to disclose his practical certainty that it had come from an evening dress of Sylvia Meston’s.

Something, if not much, was gained at all events, if this were true. Some time within the last ten days, and probably near about the time at which her husband died, Sylvia Meston had spent a considerable time in the company of a man in that somewhat unattractive rendezvous up-stream. It now became of paramount importance to ascertain, if possible, who the man was. Making sure that, on this occasion at any rate, Brandreth was not hovering about his starting-point, Wilson set off to walk once more to the old bridge.

Within a couple of hours he was back again, and any one who knew him well would have been able to see that he was puzzled rather than satisfied. In the first place, Sylvia’s companion was definitely not her husband, unless the latter had on a different pair of boots. The prints resembled the borrowed boot, but they were not the same. Wilson made a note to investigate Meston’s belongings for a spare pair of boots; but realised that even if he found such a pair, and they fitted the marks, it would tell him very little about the crime. For obviously, if Meston had kept tryst wearing a different pair of boots, he must have returned alive to his hotel in order to change them.

It looked, on the whole, as though there had been another man present. But, if so, Wilson had no present means of identifying him—nor of saying whether the watcher by the knot-hole was or was not Meston. The tow-path, as he expected, told him nothing; there were trampled footprints of many kinds, but none visibly belonging either to Meston or to the two who had crossed the bridge. The only new information which he had secured was that there were certainly traces of not one, but two, cars on the little-used road which crossed the bridge, and that all the indications pointed to their having both been present on the same occasion—which might or might not be the night of the murder. The second car had come from the opposite direction, and had parked on the right bank, but on the far side of the road, which was why he had not seen its tracks at first, and had remained parked for quite as long as the other. From the parking place tracks of the man in size ten shoes led in various directions, as though he had been walking up and down; and eventually brought him to the place where they had first been observed, by the tracks of the second car. Wilson now thought that only one passenger—the woman—had been in the second car, that the man had joined her, and they had walked into the summerhouse together. Eventually both cars had gone away in the direction from which they had severally come. The woman had gone first, for the man’s footsteps were visible treading in the tracks of the woman’s car as it turned to go away; but, of course, it was quite uncertain by how long she had preceded him, and whether either or both had been there on the fatal night or at a different time. Nor could he find where either of the cars had gone after leaving the boathouse. Both tracks vanished completely in a little while—the woman’s at the cross-roads where the roads from Steeple Tollesbury and the Grange met it, and the other on a stretch of hard road by Sir Felix Lewis’s drive. Unless Mr. Jerry Machin had some information to give, Wilson very much feared that he had exhausted the clues at that spot.

As he returned to the hotel, thoughts of supper in his mind, he met Michael’s bête noire, Mr. Strake, at the tap-room entrance; and bethought himself that he had meant to have a word with him. Wilson had a short and harsh way with outsiders of his own profession, and Mr. Strake found himself speedily disclosing what information he had in his possession without the quid pro quo which he had obviously intended to extract. There was not very much of it, but what there was, was significant enough. He was an “old friend” of Nicholas Hanborough’s, who had been “very kind” to him more than once—Wilson was able, without much difficulty, to guess the nature of the kindness. He had been employed by Mr. Hanborough, nominally to look into the firm’s position, but in reality to spy on William Meston; and he was under strict orders to bring all he got straight to Mr. Hanborough himself. But the results of his spying had been remarkably meagre. He, like Inspector Bille, had found that Meston had shown a singular fondness for the firm’s books during the past few weeks, and had once or twice caught him talking to racing men; but that was all. He had begun to wonder whether there was anything to be found out, and for what, exactly, he was being paid.

Then, when Meston disappeared from Colchester, he had pursued his investigations in that town; and had then discovered, as he had already begun to suspect, that whatever Meston had been doing, he could not have been doing it without the connivance of the senior partner—in fact, that his own employer had been equally guilty. Hanborough had kept his own traces pretty well covered; but after patient investigation, Strake had at last succeeded in nosing them out. At this point he confessed, with an entire absence of shame, he had been rather at a loss what to do, whether to go back to Hanborough and demand blackmail, or to find somebody else who would be willing to pay him more highly for information against both partners. Eventually he tossed for it, and decided to go to Mark Warden—who had promptly hunted him off with a flea in his ear. Now he was open to an offer of any sort.

But, as already stated, he was forced to part with his information without any compensation, Wilson dragging from him piece by piece all the evidence he had against Hanborough, which was certainly enough to put the man in a very dubious light. After he had found out all he could on this point, Wilson began to fish for anything which might connect Hanborough more definitely with Meston’s murder. Here, however, he drew blank. Strake professed absolute ignorance of any question propounded to him; yet there was a look in his eye which made Wilson absolutely certain that he knew something which bore directly on the events of that fatal night, and he was about to employ more drastic measures, when he saw Brandreth, complete with smile and walking-stick, approaching him down the street.

Annoyed as much at being caught talking to the inquiry agent as by the abrupt termination of his interview, Wilson went indoors, and over his solitary supper began tabulating the result of his investigations.

He had to confess that they were not very exciting. Of the five questions which he propounded to himself—how, when, where, by whom, and with what motive had Meston been killed—only the first could be answered with any degree of certainty. Meston had been hanged—but when? and where? The boathouse up-river seemed the most probable place, but it could not be said to be in any way proved. Nothing had been found by the boathouse, except the tree, which suggested violent death, and the marks on the tree might easily have been caused by climbing boys. When? Any time from 10.30 p.m. onwards. This was no help to an investigator. And as to the murderer, and the motive, Wilson felt himself as much at a loss as when he had talked to Michael in the morning. He could not even yet choose between his two motives—and as to the men——! The most likely person was the man who, if his conjectures were true, had talked to Sylvia in the boathouse, but who was he? If he turned out to be Nicholas Hanborough, the two lines of suspicion would blend admirably; but was he likely to? Well, that could perhaps be ascertained. He was approximately the right height, at all events.

Wilson sent for the landlord, and endeavoured to get some light on Sylvia’s relations with Hanborough, but without any useful result. If Hanborough admired the siren, he kept it closely to himself; and she had never shown any predilection for him. He was married, yes, to a quiet little woman who didn’t go about much. They had no children. Oh yes, Mr. Hanborough liked the girls as well as any other man, and was a very pleasant-spoken gentleman; but nothing special to nobody, as you might say.

“If you’ve got the key of Meston’s room, Wason,” Wilson closed the conversation, “I wish you’d let me borrow it. I’d like to have a look round.” He had Colonel Lockwood’s authorisation ready in his pocket, in case it proved necessary; but Wason seemed to think such innocent curiosity the most natural thing in the world, and without any protest departed to fetch the key. Wilson was still engaged on the subsequent investigation when Michael reappeared, full of sound and fury.

“What are you doing?” he asked, when he had resigned himself to the realisation that Wilson was not at present interested in gossip about the Grange.

“Trying to fix, if possible, the time when Meston left the inn to go to his death,” was the reply. “I started like this. The probability is that he left it before any of you were awake on Saturday morning. It isn’t certain; but if he’d gone away in broad daylight some one would have been almost sure to see him. Also, it seems probable that he was intending to leave about then.”

“Probable?” said Michael. “I thought it was certain. Wason told me he’d packed all his things ready.”

“Well, yes. I think we may take it he intended to leave. I found his portmanteau in his cupboard—very methodically packed, poor fellow, not as if he was merely going off for a night or two—and labelled in the handwriting you can see in the visitors’ book, ‘To be kept till called for.’”

“Well, then——?”

“But it’s not by any means certain that he intended to leave in the middle of the night. His trunk wasn’t locked. I thought at first he’d packed everything, and forgotten to lock it; but on examining the chambermaid, I found that when she came in the following morning she found his pyjamas, sponge, etc., lying about the room. She left them alone that day; but the next day collected them and put them in the trunk. So he hadn’t finished packing when he went.”

“Where was he going?” Michael wondered.

“I’ve no idea. And as nobody here knew he was going till he’d gone, we shan’t find out from that source.

“There’s another point, though. With his portmanteau I found his hat, stick, and overcoat. That is to say, when he went away, he went, apparently, without some obvious portions of his attire. Of course, he may have had a second hat. But, unless he had, it appears that either he went out in a hurry, intending to return, or that he departed for good—at least for some time—bareheaded and without a coat, which seems out of character, or——”

“Or that he went out and drowned himself,” said Michael. “He wouldn’t need a hat for that.”

“Yes. Suicide would fit the case admirably. But you and I know he didn’t commit suicide. So that won’t do.”

“When did the things turn up?”

“The day after his departure. The chambermaid found them, and shoved them into the cupboard.”

“Any other indications?”

“Nary a one. Either he, or the chambermaid, suffers from excessive tidiness. If more were like them, there would be more undiscovered crime in the world.”

Michael sighed. “Nothing seems to take us anywhere. He makes all preparations for suicide, it would seem, and then doesn’t commit it. Hanborough appears as a nice suspect for a murder—and he turns out to have been safely out of the way. Sylvia Meston meets a suspicious sounding man at the old ferry, and you don’t know who it is, or whether Meston was there at all. And one knows just nothing of anybody else. What are we to do?”

“Plod on,” Wilson said. “I’ve been trying to establish, if I can, the time at which he left the inn. The probability is, as I say, that it was between 10.30 when you saw him go up to bed, and, say, seven the next morning. It was well after 10.30, because his bed had been slept in.”

“Unless he tumbled it himself.”

“Unless he did, of course. We could probably have established that, if we’d been on the spot at the time. As it is, we shall have to leave it open. There’s another point, however. There’s a cottage in fairly full view, across the river, beyond the tow-path; and the occupier, a cowman called Billings, happened to be up, and has told everybody that he could see Meston’s light on till well past one o’clock. I haven’t questioned him yet; but I can do so in the morning, if it seems worth while. Unfortunately, even that doesn’t tell us how late he was here, for the chambermaid apparently forgot to fill his lamp the day before, and found it burnt out in the morning. And she can’t give me any idea how much oil there would have been in it the previous evening. There were candles in the room, both partly burnt. So whether he went out and left his lamp burning, or whether the oil failed while he was there, and he completed whatever he was doing by candlelight, I’m afraid we can only guess.”

“I should think we’re likely to have our fill of guessing, by the time we’ve finished,” Michael remarked. “What about Kershaw?”

He produced the result of his researches into the doctor’s career. Wilson shook his head. “There’s really nothing in that, you know. There may be a dozen reasons for the gap between 1910 and 1913; and, though this doesn’t on the face of it seem a good enough job for a man of his qualifications, there may be some war injury to account for it. From the look I had at him to-day, I shouldn’t put shell-shock out of the question.”

“Shell-shock needn’t make him hit that poor fellow on the head,” Michael said.

“If he did. Oh, I quite agree his behaviour calls for some explanation. But I don’t think we shall get it to-night. Suppose we try bed, for a change?”

CHAPTER XVIII

“Mr. Brandreth, sir,” the maid announced, ushering in a lawyer perceptibly less rosy and debonair than he had been the previous day.

“Here’s a pretty kettle of fish,” he said, taking a letter from his pocket and handing it to Wilson. “This has just reached me by hand, from the Grange.” Wilson took it and read it twice through, gravely and carefully. “Have a look, Michael,” he said.

The letter was hastily scrawled and blotted on a large sheet of Loring-crested paper:

“Dear Ned,”—it ran—“It seems to me I’ve been a damned fool to get into such a racket over William’s death. Of course, now I’ve thought it over, it’s quite clear that it can’t have been anything but suicide. I don’t know why you ever let me go on talking rubbish about somebody having killed him—particularly in front of Mr. Wilson—unless you didn’t want to tell me point-blank that I’d driven him to do it. You can say that or anything else you like—I’m not a bit proud of myself over this business altogether, and I’d eat dirt if it would do anybody any good. As it is, I think the best thing I can do is to clear out, so I’m going—no address, no flowers, and apologies for troubling you. Will you do me one last service, and tell Mr. Wilson I’ve been a fool, and I’m sorry I bothered him? Of course it was suicide, tell him. He seemed a decent fellow, and perhaps he’ll understand, and stop Lockwood kicking up a fuss. Anyway, I leave it to you. I’m sorry to be a plague.

“Sylvia.”

“Now what do you think of that?” said the lawyer. “Isn’t that just like a woman?”

“It seems to me just like Mrs. Meston, if I may say so,” said Wilson. “The authentic note.”

“Makes me look a fool,” said the lawyer testily. “First she makes a great fuss about her husband’s being murdered, and gives me no peace till I agree to go and consult you. Then she butts into the consultation without being asked, and drags you aside downstairs and won’t tell me what she’s said. And now she calmly asks me to call the whole thing off, and just remarks that she’s going away——”

“She’s gone,” Michael said. “She went last night. I told you.”

“Yes, but I didn’t grasp that she’d gone for ever,” Wilson said.

“Nor did I. The Squire didn’t say so. But she must have.”

“Then why on earth couldn’t she have written to me last night?” the lawyer demanded.

“Surely,” said Wilson, “the explanation’s obvious. She did not want to give you an opportunity of objecting.”

“Well, anyway, there it is. What do you make of it?”

“That was the question I was going to put to you. What do you make of it?”

“I?” The lawyer stopped and gazed at him. “Oh, I don’t make anything. I suppose she means what she says——”

“Surely a dangerous assumption?”

“What do you mean?”

“It occurs to me that Mrs. Meston may have decided that for reasons of her own it now suits her better to regard her husband as not having been murdered. I suspect the lady’s ideas of truth are, shall we say, a trifle pragmatic.”

“What suits her’s the truth, you mean. Oh, I dare say. All women are like that, more or less.”

“And Mrs. Meston, I should say, decidedly more.”

“Oh, have it your own way. But what the devil is one to believe?”

“In this matter, I should say, nothing whatever,” Wilson said. “Mrs. Meston, as a witness, cancels out. She has voted both ways. Are you going to take that letter to Colonel Lockwood, by the way?”

“I don’t know.” The lawyer looked up at him slyly. “Should you think it would have a good effect?”

“My dear sir,” Wilson said in his best manner, “Colonel Lockwood is a public servant. I hope—I think he will accord to that letter exactly the weight it deserves.”

“It’s open to everybody to hope, of course,” Brandreth said.

“Whether,” Wilson continued, “you choose to take the responsibility of holding back evidence from him is, of course, your own affair—though I may remind you that the matter is not now entirely in your keeping. By the way”—as Brandreth turned to go—“you didn’t by any chance mention to Mrs. Meston our meeting yesterday afternoon, did you?”

“I told her I’d seen you up-stream, of course,” Brandreth said innocently. “She was naturally anxious to hear how her investigation was getting on.”

“You will, I think, make my position somewhat difficult if you continue to dog my steps and publish bulletins of progress,” said Wilson.

“Dear, dear, I’m so sorry,” said the lawyer impenitently. “I didn’t know it was private—nor that police-officers were so sensitive to harmless gossip. I didn’t tell Sylvia you found her frock in the boathouse, though; I didn’t know that till afterwards.” And before Michael’s gasp of astonishment could translate itself into words, he was gone.

CHAPTER XIX

“Colonel Lockwood,” said Wilson after lunch, “has just telephoned in a state of considerable agitation. It appears that his men have rounded up Mr. Jerry Machin, and he wants me to come and hear what the young man’s got to say. Care to come along too?”

“Will Brandreth be there, I wonder?” Michael mused.

“Oh, probably,” said Wilson in a resigned tone. “Yes, I think you’re correct, and it was Lockwood that passed on that bit of information about the green frock—possibly without knowing that he’d done so. There ought to be a major crime in every county at least once in five years—to keep the police up to elementary standards of caution.”

“And Brandreth told Mrs. Meston to run away.”

“She certainly ran away,” Wilson admitted. “That Brandreth put her up to it I’m not so sure. However, we may be wiser when we’ve got Machin’s story.”

They betook themselves to Lockwood’s house, where, in a room guarded by a stolid police-sergeant, they found a terribly agitated Lockwood and a calm tramp, who appeared quite unmoved by the Colonel’s perturbation.

“This is Jerry Machin,” the Colonel began abruptly. “Tell these gentlemen what you were telling me just now.”

“Well,” said Jerry Machin, spreading himself completely at his ease and speaking in an unusually educated voice, “it was like this. I’ve been taking a shakedown lately, back of Sir Felix Lewis’s boathouse—I needn’t tell you whereabouts, sir,” he added to Wilson, “because I seem to recollect it was you along with Jim Collins that smoked me out yesterday afternoon. Well, anyway, there I was——”

“Trespassing,” interrupted the Colonel sourly. Jerry Machin smiled at him.

“Wonderful how good comes out of evil, Colonel, isn’t it?” he said. “If I hadn’t been setting the law at defiance, in a manner of speaking, I’d not have been able to tell you what you want to know—if you do want to know it.” And, indeed, the Colonel did not look as though the information had been welcome. “Well, as I was saying, I had a shakedown——”

“Inside or outside the boathouse?” Wilson asked.

“Outside, sir. The weather’s good, and I’ve no love for a roof over my head at the best of times. Anyway, there I was, and—it was the night Mr. Meston left Sam Wason’s place—I’d had a nap, and I woke up sudden, and, being hot, I thought I’d take a stroll by the river. I’d only just got to the tow-path when I heard a car coming up the road to the old bridge. I was just wondering who it was, for there isn’t much traffic on that road late at night, when the car stopped——”

“Where?” Wilson interrupted.

“Close by the bridge, on the far side of the road.” Wilson nodded, as if satisfied. “I saw the headlights. Then whoever the car belonged to turned them out and began walking up and down the road. It was a still night, and I could hear him plain as plain.”

“But you couldn’t see him, I suppose?”

“No. ’Twas too dark. Leastways, he was in the trees, and I didn’t catch a sight of him for some time. But after a bit—quarter of an hour, it may have been—he came to the bridge and walked right out into the middle of it, and I could see his shape plain as plain against the bend of the river. Then I said to myself, I know that walk; and when he turned to go back I was quite certain.”

“And it was——?”

“Mr. John, sir.”

“John Loring,” the Colonel supplemented unhappily. Michael could not suppress a gasp.

“But I thought Mr. John Loring was in China,” Wilson said.

“So did I, sir; and if I hadn’t known him so well I couldn’t have believed my eyes. But I’ve known Lorings, father and sons, these twenty years; and I’ll take my oath it was Mr. John. Besides, I saw him after, closer to, as I’ve been telling the Colonel, and I’ve no doubt in my own mind it was Mr. John.”

“Very well. Go on. What did you do then?”

“Just waited, sir, to see what was going to happen. It wasn’t above five minutes after I’d seen Mr. John, sir, there was the sound of another car along the road, the other side of the bridge, and Mr. John went along to meet it. It crossed the bridge, and stopped on my side of the road—the other side from Mr. John’s—and Mr. John helped a lady to get out of it. I didn’t particularly want to be seen, so I moved off behind the old boathouse, and then I heard them go into it and shut the door. Well, I mooched a bit round, to see if they were coming out. They didn’t come, and I felt more than a bit curious to see who it was Mr. John was meeting so private at that time of night.”

“What time was it?” Wilson asked.

“Round about midnight, sir,” Machin said. “I couldn’t speak to the minutes, not carrying a timepiece, but it was there or thereabouts. Well, after I’d listened awhile, I remembered seeing a knot-hole in the back of the house, and I thought I might get a peep in that way. So I crept up very quietly, and put my face to it—but I didn’t see so much as a glimpse. It was all dark inside there, barring Mr. John’s cigarette, and I couldn’t see who it was with him.”

“Couldn’t you hear?”

“I could hear, right enough; but there wasn’t anything much to hear. Except that it was Mr. John’s young lady, and he’d brought her out there to tell her so, I couldn’t hear a word. And after I’d been looking for a bit, my foot slipped and I caught on a nail, and made a bit of a noise. So I skipped off into the woods as quiet as a mouse.”

“Why?”

“Ask the Colonel, sir.” Jerry Machin grinned. “You’ve known the Lorings pretty near as long as I have, Colonel. I put it to you, if one of them found you’d been listening to his sweethearting, would you stay around to hear what he thought about it?”

“And is that all you saw?”

“No, sir. I came back again, maybe an hour and a half later.”

“What had you been doing meanwhile?”

“Just about in the woods, sir. I’d a bit of business to attend to,” said Jerry, with an expression which left no doubt what the “bit of business” was. “Then I came back to see if the coast was clear, and just as I got near the bridge I heard a car starting, and just got there in time to see the second car—the lady’s—going away through the trees. I wondered whether Mr. John had gone too, and in case he hadn’t, I came up quietly. And it was my salvation I did so, sir; because as soon as I got close I could see Mr. John down by the waterside lighting a cigarette. The match-flame showed him up clear—I wasn’t more than a dozen feet away—and if I ever saw hell it was in Mr. John’s face then. It was just black with rage, and he’d got his teeth set—you know the way he has, Colonel—and if I’d got in his way then it wouldn’t have been long before I’d ’a’ been in the river with a cracked skull. So I dropped into the grass and lay low; and Mr. John, he paced up and down for a bit, muttering to himself. But then he suddenly got into his car and made off—the same way he’d come—without his lights, too, for all it was so black as my hat. And that’s the last I saw of him.”

“That is to say,” Wilson said, “you saw Mr. Loring first at about midnight. The lady came twenty minutes or so afterwards, and went away—when?”

“Some time after one, I should guess. Near as much as the half.”

“And Mr. Loring went away—how soon after her?”

“Five to ten minutes. Not more.”

“You didn’t see any one else there all the time?”

“Not a soul. And there wasn’t any one after Mr. John left. I looked all round before I went to bed again.”

“Could any one have been there while you were watching? Could you tell?”

“Not within a hundred yards, sir,” Machin replied positively. “I should have heard—and probably farther.”

“And you don’t know who the lady was?”

“Not if you say know, sir. Of course,” with a leer, “if you say guess, I could maybe put a name to her—and so could the Colonel for that matter. But I didn’t see her to swear to.”

“Nor hear her voice?”

“Not above a whisper, sir.”

“I see. Well, I think that’s all I want out of him, Colonel. I suppose you’ll keep him somewhere where he can be got at?”

“Bullock will see to that,” the Colonel replied, with unnecessary viciousness.

“Good! Wait a minute, though. I want a thread from your coat, Machin.” Wilson drew a small pair of tweezers from his pocket, and with a firm pull extracted from the tramp’s ragged coat a bit of grey tweed. Then he indicated dismissal, and Jerry Machin, with an impenitent smile to the world at large, disappeared in the firm charge of the police-sergeant.

“Well?” said Wilson to the Colonel.

“This is a frightful thing,” the latter groaned.

“Is that man reliable, should you say?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“We can test him on one point, at all events.” From an envelope in his pocket Wilson drew the grey thread he had taken from the old boathouse, laid it on the table beside Jerry Machin’s specimen, and compared the two through a lens. “That’s that,” he said. “They’re the same piece of stuff. That means that our friend did look through the knot-hole of the boathouse, and did see Mrs. Meston trysting with her lover from China. I gather, Colonel, from miscellaneous gossip, that that affair, while it was on, was pretty serious?”

The Colonel nodded unhappily. “Sylvia has never had one anything like so serious. And John Loring was very hard hit.”

“So that, if he suddenly returned from China, there might have been an—explosive situation?”

“There might.”

“And what would you expect Mr. John Loring to do under the circumstances?”

The Colonel gulped. “Not—hang a man. I can’t believe that!”

“But you could believe anything else. Thank you, Colonel.”

“Whoever they were, they were left alone in that boathouse for an hour or more,” Michael put in, “while the poacher was away. And Loring was in a raging passion afterwards.”

“Yes. Of course, you know, that fact strikes me as a little out of keeping with the rest of what you seem to suggest. What need to rage because one has just killed one’s rival?”

“In such a way as to destroy one’s own chances?”

“Yes—yes. There may be something in that, of course.”

“I can’t believe it,” the Colonel repeated.

“My dear Colonel,” said Wilson a little impatiently, “you won’t have to believe it unless some more evidence is forthcoming. We still don’t know that Meston was there. I suppose”—to Michael—“your suggestion is that while Machin was away he walked up the tow-path, surprised the lovers, and got killed?” Michael nodded. “Getting out of the inn late at night, and coming for a chance walk? I hardly think that will do, you know. He must have had some sort of intimation or warning. Now, how did he get it? Who knew that John Loring was in the place?”

“I don’t know,” said the Colonel. “I didn’t. I suppose Sylvia did.”

“Mrs. Meston,” said Wilson, “has very prudently departed, leaving no address. We had better get on her tracks quickly, but for the answer to my question we must, I’m afraid, try elsewhere. There’s just one possibility that occurs to me. Will you send for Strake, the private inquiry agent who has been messing around here, and let me question him? He seemed to me to have some information up his sleeve.”

The Colonel, looking rather bemused, gave the necessary orders. “And then,” Wilson continued, when he returned, “Mr. John Loring also must certainly be found and asked to explain. Have you any idea where he is likely to have made for?”

“Oh, I know where he is,” said the Colonel. “Godfrey Loring told me last night, when he was on the ’phone to me. He had a motoring smash a few days ago, on his way up to London, and is now lying ill at a friend’s house in St. John’s Wood. But he’s getting much better, Godfrey says.”

“And will soon be about again, I suppose,” Wilson supplemented. “Hadn’t you better make quite sure, that he comes here when he is, Colonel?”

“It won’t be easy,” the Colonel said, “if he went off in a rage.”

“There is such a thing as a warrant,” Wilson cruelly reminded him.

There was a gloomy silence, which was broken by the return of the policeman sent to fetch Strake.

“Beg pardon, sir,” he said, with a broad grin, “but Strake can’t come.”

“Can’t come?”

“He’s in the Cottage Hospital, sir, with a broken nose and contusions. The gentleman from Africa—Mr. Mackenzie—heard him in the King’s Arms last night making allegations against Mrs. Meston, and pretty near killed him. It took six of them to pull him off, and the Hospital say he won’t be fit to move till to-morrow.”

“You live in a violent neighbourhood, Colonel,” Wilson commented. “However, I think we might as well hear what the ill-advised man did say. Shall we try the Cottage Hospital?”

CHAPTER XX

Mr. Strake, in spite of his swollen and bandaged face, was not unwilling to talk. In fact, he was very anxious, as soon as the Chief Constable appeared at his bedside, to have a very long conversation on the wickedness of the neighbourhood and on his own grievances in particular. A prosecution of Mackenzie for assault and battery was obviously the least that would satisfy him.

“That will do,” Wilson cut into the tirade. “We know exactly what’s happened to you. Now may I remind you that there’s such a thing as provocation? What did you say that caused Mr. Mackenzie to attack you?”

“Nothing,” growled the injured one. “At least,” he amended, “I only ’inted Mrs. Meston was no better than she should be, as everybody knows she ain’t, when he went for me like a wild beast.”

“Did you specify any particular way in which Mrs. Meston’s conduct was—open to suspicion?” Wilson asked smoothly.

“Only corresponding with other men on the quiet while her husband was alive.”

“Just so. Did you perhaps take a note——?”

“I didn’t!” said the man indignantly. “I never took any note. It was that Potts took the note.”—“David Potts, footman at the Grange,” the Colonel replied to Wilson’s glance of inquiry.

“Oh! And what note did Potts take?—and how do you come to know about it? Suppose you tell me the whole thing straight?”

Strake was not unwilling to oblige, and explained that late in the afternoon preceding Meston’s death, he had been lounging about the cross-roads on the way to the Grange, when a man came along in a two-seater Chrysler. Just after passing Strake, the man slowed down, and seemed to hesitate. Then he saw Potts, who was walking along the road, and hailed him in a loud, commanding voice. Strake, for no reason at all except natural inquisitiveness, crept along the hedge so that he could witness the interview, and heard the man inquire of Potts whether Mrs. Meston was at the Grange. Hearing that she was, he gave Potts a note, with instructions to deliver it immediately to Mrs. Meston, and to no one else. He then turned and drove away at a great pace inland, while Strake, his curiosity thoroughly whetted, caught up Potts on the road to the Grange, and soon discovered—though Potts did not appear to have been communicative—that the strange man was the Squire’s brother, John Loring.

“And to whom did you pass on this interesting piece of news?” Wilson asked.

“Nobody.”

“Come, I can’t believe that. Think again.” Mr. Strake thought, but his thoughts did not appear to make him happy. Eventually, after some wriggling, it transpired that he had, as a matter of fact, kept the news of Mr. John Loring’s return to himself for some time. He had intended originally to hand it over to Meston, for a consideration; but had failed to catch the latter before his disappearance. Then he had waited for him to return, rather wondering that nobody but himself appeared to have seen John Loring; and when Meston reappeared from the river under distinctly dubious circumstances, it immediately occurred to him that his exclusive information might be turned to profit. After the inquest he had approached Sylvia Meston, with a request for a subvention as a price for holding his tongue. At first she had abused him, but had eventually agreed to pay him twenty-five pounds the following day; and he had let her go. But late the same evening, while taking a quiet drink at the King’s Arms, he had received the news of her departure, alone, with luggage, in a great hurry, going Londonwards; and in his wrath at her apparent deception, had made certain incautious reflections upon her morals. Then from the corner of the room a tornado had fallen upon him, and he literally knew nothing more until he found himself in bed at the hospital.

This was Strake’s story, and all Wilson’s questioning could get no more out of him. It seemed certain that he had told all he knew. “We shall have to confirm the note incident with Potts,” he said; “but it seems pretty clear that Strake has told the truth, and that Mr. John Loring was in the neighbourhood on the Friday afternoon, and sent a note to Mrs. Meston by hand, which may almost be assumed to be an appointment, or request for an appointment, for that evening by the old ferry. I’m afraid, Colonel, that your next duty is clearly to get hold of both those parties. They may know at the Grange where Mrs. Meston was going—if she was not going to John Loring—and you might be able to confirm the note incident at the same time. What sort of fellow is this Potts, do you know?”

“A sulky, hangdog sort of man,” the Colonel said, “though quite a good servant, I believe. He’s been at the Grange some time and is devoted to the Lorings; in fact, I think he was one of the men that threw Meston out, the time when he went up in search of his wife.”

“I see. Well, good luck to you.”

“Did you think it might have been Strake who sent word to Meston of his wife’s rendezvous?” Michael asked.

“I did, but after questioning him I don’t. I’m pretty certain he told us all he knew.”

“Little swine!” said Michael.

“Certainly. Not that his swinishness appears to have availed him much, in the present case.”

“But who was it then? Potts?”

“Possibly. But I think not very likely. There seems no reason, if he is as devoted to the Lorings as they say, why he should want to give away the tryst. Nobody loved Meston at the Grange.”

“But if Meston was summoned as part of a plot?”

“You’ve an ingenious mind,” Wilson said. “Even so, Potts doesn’t appear to have had much opportunity of hatching it, does he? But whether or no, there’s one bit of investigation that I think might be useful, at any rate. You remember Billings, the cowman, who saw Meston’s light on till one o’clock or thereabouts? Well, I called on him this morning to get his statement confirmed, and I found out one rather interesting fact. Do you know how it happened that he was awake at that time? His wife had a baby that night, and they couldn’t get hold of the doctor—Dr. Kershaw—till after two o’clock.”

“Why, where was he?”

“Nominally, at the Grange. At least, when Billings first sent round to his house, soon after midnight, he wasn’t there. He made a great row, and Kershaw’s housekeeper, who doesn’t live actually on the premises, but next door, heard him, and poked out her head to tell him that the doctor was up at the Grange. Billings waited about an hour; then, as his wife was obviously nearing her time, he sent one of his boys again to the doctor’s house to hurry him up. The boy could get no answer of any kind, and eventually cycled up to the Grange, and found that Kershaw had left there between midnight and half-past. He returned to the doctor’s house, expecting to find that he was there before him, but all was silent. He then hammered loudly, and roused the old housekeeper, who said she’d heard the doctor come back and go out again, ‘nigh an hour ago.’ As Kershaw had left the Grange on his bicycle, and as it takes about five minutes to get on a bicycle from his house to the cottage, the Billingses were considerably puzzled—particularly as Kershaw did not finally turn up till after two, when the child was already born.”

“And turned up very cross,” Michael supplemented.

“So I gather. How did you know?”

“I heard some chatter about it, in the pub, the afternoon Meston’s body was found,” Michael said. “I hadn’t given it another thought till this moment. It was apropos of Kershaw’s behaviour to me. They were all exchanging reminiscences about his manners, and this story was mentioned.”

“I see. Well, it appears to be true enough. Billings said the doctor looked very queer when he came, didn’t say a word about his lateness, snapped all their heads off, and marched away the moment he’d finished his job. And it was all they could do to get him to come and see the patient again. Now, that leaves a good hour and a half of Kershaw’s time unaccounted for on that Friday night—just about the same time as is also unaccounted for of John Loring’s.”

“I don’t quite see where we’re getting to, all the same,” Michael remarked. “Do you mean Kershaw called up Meston, or murdered him, or what?”

“I’m not quite sure. But I think I’d like a little more information, all the same. Would you like to be a burglar, Michael?”

“I don’t mind. Whose house shall we burgle?”

“Kershaw’s.” Wilson’s eyes had something of a schoolboy twinkle. “The owner, I find on inquiry, is away for the week-end, and the charwoman who does for him has also taken the time off. After I’d finished with Billings I took a little turn through the village, and inspected Kershaw’s house. I find it’s in the oldest part of the town, backing on to a little alley-way, which appears to be almost unused. The back wall of the house is old and quite climbable, and there are back gates of which a piece of wire ought to make fairly short work. What do you say?”

“That’s why you were so late coming in to lunch!” Michael chuckled. “And you never said a word. All right, I’m on.”

Together they went up the streets of the little town, and explored the alley-way. They found the wall even more easy to scale than they had expected, and a very few moments saw them in Kershaw’s garden, which was fortunately screened by higher walls and thick bushes from observation by the neighbours. A French window at the back afforded ridiculously easy access. “It’s very simple to be a burglar,” Michael commented. “What are you looking for?”

“I don’t know, quite. Evidence of character—past life—present occupation—anything,” said Wilson, producing a pick-lock, and beginning in a workmanlike way to rifle Kershaw’s desk.

Whatever Kershaw’s past life might have been, he was not particularly anxious to keep relics of it. Save for discharge papers and some other no-account stuff relating to Army life, there was at first glance nothing which threw light on his life prior to his arrival in Steeple Tollesbury.

“The man keeps nothing but his bills,” Michael said. “And he keeps a good many of them,” turning out a drawer full of nothing else.

“For a very good reason,” Wilson said. “They aren’t paid. And some of the creditors are getting quite cross about it. Our friend seems rather in financial difficulties. Hullo! this is interesting.”

“What?”

“Receipts, for a change. Quite a lot of them.”

“Well, even the impecunious must pay some bills occasionally.”

“Yes, but not all at once. These are all dated last week, and they would add up to quite a tidy sum.”

“Looks as though he’d come into money.”

“That seems to be indicated—though there isn’t any trace of the money’s arrival. Let’s see if we can guess how much it was.” Wilson made a rapid calculation on the back of an envelope.

“Four hundred and twenty pounds’ worth of bills he paid in one week. So whatever he received was more than that, anyway. Any more financial information? His pass-book’s not here—presumably it’s at the bank. And presumably his cheque-book’s on his person. But what does he do with his butt-ends?” A long search eventually disclosed a solitary butt-end reposing at the back of a drawer.

“This is rather an old one,” Wilson said. “But it may be of some help.”

Michael ran his finger quickly through the items. “Edward Gordon, whoever he is, had a lot.”

“Jermyn Street,” said Wilson. “Moneylender. What date?”

“1922.”

“Umph. He’s been in financial difficulties for some time, then.”

“The rest are all ordinary tradesmen, and cheques to self. There are rather a lot of those, by the way. Looks as if he spent a lot on his personal enjoyment—though you wouldn’t think it, to look at him.”

“No bookies?”

“Not visibly. There are some notes on the back of the self cheques, though—five pounds to X and so on. Not a very great deal.”

“Note them down, will you? and we’ll see.” Michael went through the cheque-book, extracting all payments made to X. They were for miscellaneous sums, mostly small, occurring at irregular intervals, and totalling something over seventy pounds for the period covered by the cheque-book.

“What is it?” Michael asked. “Blackmail?”

“It’s very odd blackmail, if it is,” Wilson said. “Paid at such odd moments and in such odd amounts. The blackmailer must have had to work hard for his living—it almost looks as though he came to the door with a collecting card. Let’s go to his bedroom. There’s one possible explanation of these payments that occurs to me, and it will be in his bedroom, if anywhere.”

Accordingly they made their way to Kershaw’s bedroom, which, though a magnificent fourteenth-century-panelled apartment, had nothing particular to tell them. After a few minutes’ search, however, Wilson drew out a small box rather like a snuff-box, which he handed to Michael.

“Humph,” said the latter, having sampled the white powder inside. “Is that what you guessed?”

“Something like it,” Wilson replied. “When I saw him at the inquest, I thought there was more than shell-shock in his eye. I fancy investigation would show Mr. X to be a vendor of cocaine. Well, it’s an expensive habit, and likely to sap the moral sense. Let’s try the surgery.”

They were on their way to the surgery when they were suddenly checked by a prolonged peal of Kershaw’s front-door bell, followed by a loud clamour on the knocker.

“The caller’s in a hurry,” Wilson said. “Don’t make a noise.”

He tiptoed back to the front room, followed by Michael, and peered out cautiously from behind the curtain. A man with a letter in his hand was standing at the street door, and as the burglars reached the window he raised his hand and beat another violent tattoo on the door.

From the area of the next house an unkempt head looked out. “Bain’t no use yammering there, Mr. Potts,” it said. “Doctor’s away to London.”

“Ain’t Mrs. Craggs here?” said Potts crossly.

“Noa; she’s gone to ’er married darter at Southend.”

“Damnation!” said Potts. “Squire wants an answer to this. Suppose I’d best leave it in the letter-box. When’s doctor coming back?”

“To-night, for sure,” said the woman. “Mrs. Craggs she told me.”

With another growl Potts pushed the letter into the letter-box, and turned away. Wilson led the way downstairs.

“This is mildly annoying,” he said. “I presume that this Potts is the footman who acted as go-between for John Loring and his lady. I wanted to have a word with him, but I could hardly spring out unannounced from Kershaw’s front door. Shall we complete the good work, and find out what the Squire has to say?”

Michael’s expectations rose as Wilson opened the letter, but fell heavily on seeing the contents. They consisted of a single square sheet of paper with the Loring crest, on which was written, “Go to hell!” There was nothing else, not even a signature.

“It doesn’t appear, on the face of it, what answer the Squire expected,” Michael said. “Nor does it tell us anything.”

“Not much,” Wilson agreed. “This may, however, interest you more. I found it with one or two old papers in his bedroom.”

“This” was a letter to Kershaw from Mr. William Meston. Part of the letter was missing, but enough remained to show its general tenor, which was, to put it bluntly, that Mr. Meston did not at all approve of Dr. Kershaw’s mode of life, and that if Dr. Kershaw could not learn to keep his hands off certain unspecified persons, Mr. Meston personally undertook to see that he was adequately punished. It was not a letter which could have caused the recipient any pleasure; and screwed up with it was what appeared to be the first draft of a violent reply, from which, however, subsequent erasure had removed most of the violence.

“Second thoughts,” said Michael.

“And very tame second thoughts,” Wilson added. “It’s pretty clear that if he did answer Meston’s letter at all, it was in very mild terms. Well, I think we’d better search the surgery and get out. We can’t discuss the bearing of our new evidence here. Will you bear witness that I found this in Kershaw’s house?” He pocketed the incriminating letter.

They examined the surgery with care but without result, and then retraced their steps to the alley-way, relocking the French window, and being careful to remove all traces of their entry. As they turned out of the alley-way a cheerful voice hailed them.

“Hullo!” it said; “inspecting our ancient architectural beauties? I’d just been to call on Kershaw. That’s his place, just round there. But he seems to be out. You didn’t find much down Hanging-Sword Alley, did you?”

“The old places seem to have been pulled down,” said Wilson, wondering how much suspicion of their real errand this inconvenient lawyer could have.

“Yes—it’s a pity, in a way. They were picturesque if insanitary. But we are a Borough, and we have an enlightened and unsentimental Borough Council. Kershaw’s its mainstay: he believes in progress. And, talking of progress, how’s the case? Hanged anybody yet?”

“I am not aware that any crime has yet been proved,” Wilson said stiffly.

“Oh, come, my dear sir. You won’t give us our sensation at the inquest. Why deprive us of it in private?”

“If I may say so,” Wilson said, “you seem perfectly capable of providing your own sensations, without any assistance from me.”

“Nature,” said the lawyer, “abhors a vacuum—though I’m told no scientific person now believes that. Progress is a most upsetting thing. If you won’t tell us what did happen, though, you must be prepared for intelligent surmise. Well, I mustn’t keep you. Particularly as I think Miss Loring is looking for you around the Old Malting House. I fancy she wants Dr. Prendergast. I told her I’d try and see if I could locate you. But another time you ought really to see the inside of Kershaw’s house. It’s a fine old place—fourteenth century. I suppose you’ve not seen it, by any chance?” Was there, or was there not, a twinkle in Brandreth’s eye?

“Some time I hope you will take us there,” was all Wilson said.

“I shall be delighted. You really mustn’t miss it. It’s as interesting as its owner. Well, good-bye.”

CHAPTER XXI

They hurried back to the inn, and found Edna Loring pacing up and down outside, apparently in some agitation. Michael took her up to their sitting-room, ordered tea, and waited for the ball to open.

Edna wasted no time. “Dr. Prendergast,” she said, “have you seen Mark to-day?”

“No, nor for some time.”

“We’ve had a row—I mean, this morning. And I can’t make it out, because we never have rows—I mean Mark never quarrels. But to-day he was furious.”

“Why?”

“What about, you mean. It was about Nick Hanborough, of all silly things. You know what you told me yesterday about the firm”—to Michael—“well, I began to ask him about it—we were going out for the day—and he seemed frightfully annoyed that I knew, which of course was ridiculous. As if I could help knowing something, in a place like this. But Mark is ridiculous about women; he thinks they’re all like his mother and sisters, and have to be kept in glass cases. Anyway, I asked him whether he really thought Nick had anything to do with it, and what it had got to do with Mr. Meston’s death anyway. I don’t know whether you know; but half the place thinks Meston was murdered—it’s absurd, of course, but there you are. I didn’t mean anything particular, I just wanted to know; but Mark turned quite white, and asked me what on earth I meant. So I said people seemed to be very inquisitive about Nick, and even asked where he was the night Meston died—you did, you know—and I wanted to know what it was all about. Then Mark got whiter than ever, and flew into a passion, and told me more or less I was a scandal-mongering fool, and I’d better hold my tongue. The long and short of it is that we had the first row we’ve ever had, and I told Mark to take me back here, and he did, and drove off again. And what I want to know now is whether I have put my foot in it frightfully, and if so, how? Because I’ve never seen Mark like that before.”

For a few moments both men were silent, weighing up the story.

“Is it true that Meston was murdered?” Edna asked at last.

“Miss Loring,” Wilson said, “if I give you some information which is meant to relieve your mind, you must solemnly promise to keep it to yourself. There is so much tattling going on in this town that it is very difficult either to trust any one or to believe what’s said. But if you will give me your word, I will tell you one or two things which you can be certain are true. Good. Well, then, there are grave suspicions that William Meston was murdered on Friday night of last week. It is not certain that he was; nor, if he was, is it known why. But, under the circumstances, you will see that the police are bound to make inquiries—routine inquiries—into the whereabouts of any one connected with Meston on Friday night. Hence the interest in Mr. Hanborough’s movements.”

“Nick was with us,” Edna said. “I told Dr. Prendergast so.”

“That may be fortunate for Mr. Hanborough,” Wilson said. “You will possibly have to repeat it to the police. But——”

“But Mark wasn’t! Oh, is that what you mean? Of course, I ought to have known. Mark was outside, wandering about somewhere. But—Mr. Wilson—Mark wouldn’t murder anybody!”

“Probably not,” said Wilson. “But for all that, he might not like too much casual talk about Mr. Hanborough’s position—especially as they are all three connected with a business which appears to have gone wrong.”

“I see. And do you think that’s all?—I mean, that’s why Mark was so queer?”

“That is all I can tell you. But I shouldn’t worry, Miss Loring, until I had something more definite to worry about. If Meston was killed, as I say, we don’t as yet know why—whether it was anything to do with this financial affair or not. And it’s no use crossing bridges till we come to them.”

“Thank you very much.” Edna still looked thoughtful, but she did not pursue the subject further, and soon afterwards finished her tea, and took her leave, rejecting all offers to see her home.

“What a fuss about nothing!” Michael said, when she was gone.

“Nothing? Aren’t you rather Spartan, Michael? Do you call the possible arrest of your fiancé, or your fiancé’s partner, for murder, nothing?”

“It’s not very likely,” Michael said, “since you’re here to see that Lockwood doesn’t arrest innocent people.”

“Oh, they’re innocent, are they? And who is guilty?”

“Isn’t John Loring?”

“Well, we haven’t got him or his statement yet,” Wilson pointed out. “We don’t know what he’s got to say in his own defence. But, as you seem to be certain, suppose you turn into counsel for the prosecution, and tell me just why you’re so sure he killed Meston?”

“I thought you were sure, too,” Michael said. “You hinted as much to Lockwood, anyway. However, if you want an Aunt Sally, here goes. John Loring was all but engaged to Mrs. Meston two years ago, and went off in a fit of temper. Everybody agrees that if he hadn’t gone to China before he had time to make it up he would have married her. You grant that?” Wilson nodded, and he continued:

“Well, then, Mrs. Meston gets married, also in a fit of temper, and repents without even a decent interval of leisure. She informs her husband that she’s made a mistake, and he informs her she’s got to stick to it. The cat-and-dog life they lead gets all round the neighbourhood, and presumably reaches the former lover—China isn’t all that distance away, you know, nowadays. Mrs. Meston, meanwhile, gets deeper and deeper in a set that has the reputation of sticking at nothing; and finally runs away—with a magnificent field of co-respondents ready to hand. Of course, she may have known then that Loring was coming back, though I’m inclined to think she didn’t. Anyway, she ran away; and when Meston came to fetch her back he was thrown out of the house. And she’d gone into Colchester with one of her paramours, and taken away every stick that belonged to her. That looks as if she meant her departure to be pretty final. Mark you,” Michael said, warming to his theme, “she hadn’t the smallest chance of getting untied and marrying her lover except through Meston’s death. He wouldn’t divorce her, and she couldn’t divorce him.

“Then comes the evening of this party at the Grange. Whether expected or not, John Loring turns up in the afternoon, and sends a note to Mrs. Meston, presumably asking her to meet him at the old boathouse that night, which she agrees to do. They meet, as Machin saw them. Then, when Machin has gone away, Meston comes up and surprises them. Loring, in a desperate rage, and not knowing that any one else has witnessed their encounter, kills Meston and sends the woman off by herself. Then he makes tracks for London. Mrs. Meston hangs on, believing his presence unknown, till she’s alarmed by Strake’s stories. Then she, too, makes tracks, after a futile attempt to throw you off the trail. That’s my reading, Harry. What do you say to it?”

“I should like,” said Wilson, “to know exactly how, in your view, Hanborough and the matter of the firm’s books fit into it.”

“They don’t fit at all. They’ve nothing whatever to do with it. It’s just an instance,” said Michael, doing his best to imitate his friend’s mannerisms, “of how chance coincidences may mislead an investigator.”

“I see. Well, there’s something in being ruthless, perhaps. But I’ve a larger snag for you. How did Meston happen to be walking that way at such a timely hour?”

“He was warned, I suppose.”

“By whom?”

“I don’t know—I suppose it must have been Potts.”

“Who has the reputation of being devoted to the Lorings, and who had previously thrown Meston out of the Grange. Would he take the trouble to warn Meston about his own master’s doings?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps not. But he must have been warned.”

“Another point,” Wilson continued. “You remember how Meston was killed? Hanged, by a silk rope. Where did that rope come from? One doesn’t find silk ropes lying about in disused boathouses.”

“I see,” Michael said slowly. “You mean—the murderer must have brought it with him?”

“Somebody must, at all events. I’m not destroying your theory, Michael. I only want to point out that it has implications which I’m not sure you’ve taken in yet. If there was a silk rope at the boathouse on the night of Friday week, it wasn’t there by accident. It was brought, presumably, by the person who was going to use it. But that isn’t murder committed in the heat of passion, by a man surprised by his bitter rival; it’s a cold-blooded, planned, diabolical killing. And the woman must have been party to it, probably stood by and saw it done, for Machin’s story makes it quite certain that the killing did not take place after Mrs. Meston left and before John Loring’s departure. Whatever was done, was done while she was there. I suggest that we ought to make fairly sure of our ground, seeing the character of the crime we are postulating.

“Another point. Not only must the hanging have been planned in advance—the victim also must have been brought to the spot by premeditation. The murderer could not have relied on any chance passing on of gossip. Do you suggest that Potts was primed by John Loring to bring Meston to his death?”

Michael pondered; then a light suddenly burst on him. “No!” he cried. “Not Potts! Kershaw!”

“Kershaw?”

“Kershaw. Wasn’t that what you were trying to suggest to me? Kershaw, as we’ve seen from his papers, must have had a pretty hefty grudge against Meston—the more so as he had, apparently, to swallow Meston’s abuse. Kershaw’s very thick with the Lorings, everybody says, particularly lately. Perhaps he, too, was in love with Mrs. Meston—no, that won’t work,” said Michael, checking himself. “Anyway, Loring fixed it up with him—he’d have had plenty of time to do it, because we haven’t any idea what happened to him between the time when he met Potts on the road and midnight. Loring goes to the old boathouse with his silk rope. Kershaw leaves the Grange early—just the time when Billings couldn’t find him anywhere—goes and rouses Meston, tells him where his wife is, and sends him to his death. Then, when the body turns up, or, rather, when I turn up, Kershaw bashes it on the head so as to try and make it look like accident. Of course, that’s it! And Loring would have had to find out Meston’s movements from somebody. I suppose Kershaw told him.”

“How, in your view, did Kershaw give his fatal message? Did he stand in a boat and shout it? Or bawl from the opposite bank? The wall of the inn goes straight down into the water, you’ll remember.”

Michael hesitated, but only for a moment. “He could get in quite easily, and go right up to Meston’s room. This is the easiest place in the world to get in and out of. The front door’s locked at night, but that’s only a kind of token vote. Anybody could get in—and out—almost anywhere. That’s one of the reasons it’s been so difficult to decide when Meston did depart.”

“Well, then, how did Meston get to his rendezvous in time to be murdered? Kershaw didn’t leave the Grange till after midnight. Meston, according to your theory, was murdered at all events soon after one. And it’s a good three miles’ pitch-dark walk along the tow-path.”

Once again Michael surmounted the obstacle. “Kershaw had a bicycle. He took Meston along—perhaps he helped to murder him; it would have been a difficult job single-handed. And then he cycled back quickly to get to Billings’s cottage.”

“And Mackenzie? And your other suspects?”

“Not on the map.”

“You’re very ingenious, Michael,” Wilson sighed. “You really answer my objections most convincingly.”

“And,” Michael ended triumphantly, “Kershaw got five hundred pounds, or something like it, for his share in the business. That’s how he managed to pay his bills last week. Isn’t that what you were hinting to me?”

“I had suspected something of that sort. But——”

“What’s the matter, Harry? Don’t you agree with me?”

“I expect,” Wilson said, “that a psycho-analyst would tell you that I don’t want to agree, and that that proves conclusively how right you must be. To be honest, I am not perfectly sure. The whole crime, as you’ve reconstructed it, suggests a diabolical completeness of prearrangement which doesn’t somehow seem to fit with the known characters.”

“You haven’t seen John Loring,” Michael pondered, “so it can’t be him that it doesn’t suit. It must be Mrs. Meston. You’ve let that woman get hold of you, Harry! It’s just the same with you as with Lockwood—she’s bemused you, and you don’t want to think her concerned, so you won’t!”

“More psycho-analysis! Lockwood and I, I admit, both agree in preferring defiant sinners. You, I fancy, like them sad and repentant.”

“You admit she’s a sinner, anyway?”

“That depends, doesn’t it, on the amount and degree of the sin. You condemn her because she uses the natural weapons of her sex, answers you back when you’re rude, and lies to get herself out of a corner. Very reprehensible, no doubt, but hardly on the same plane as deliberate murder, I think. Besides, let me put another point, which may appeal to you more. The whole business seems to me so excessive. Sylvia Meston wanted to exchange her husband for John Loring—granted. But in these degenerate days it is almost unnecessary to remove the male obstant. I don’t feel the Loring ménage would insist on John’s making an honest woman of his paramour. Why not simply go off together?”

“Well, perhaps it was Kershaw’s idea,” Michael persisted. “Meston may have been in his way to an extent that nothing but death would solve. Or there may have been other reasons. We don’t know the whole story yet.”

“We do not. Perhaps the young man will be able to enlighten us. Come in!”

Sergeant Linton, more portentous in civilian clothes, entered the room. “Colonel Lockwood asked me to let you know, sir, he’s got Mr. John Loring at his house under arrest. He thought you’d maybe step around after dinner.”

CHAPTER XXII

Three days before the discussion which took place in the last chapter, a young man who lay with a bandaged head in bed at a house in St. John’s Wood, becoming vaguely aware that certain irritating sounds in the bedroom were on the whole new to him, turned half round and opened his eyes to look at them. When he discovered that the source of the sounds was not the nurse, but a tweed-clad person, who was sitting by the bedside attending to the needs of his pipe, he gave an irritated snort and rolled over again. The operation was painful, and he cursed.

“Is he better, eh, Nurse?” said the tweed-clad one.

“Much better,” responded the nurse from some distant corner of the room. “We’ll have him about again in a couple of days.”

“Better!” growled the patient. “You’d call yourself better if there were a dozen trench-mortars going off inside your head, and you were nothing but aches all the way down! Better!”

“Well, what do you expect,” his friend said, with irritating reasonableness, “when you butt a car end on? I say, Johnnie, how on earth did you manage it?”

“How the hell should I know? I wish you’d go away and leave me alone!”

“Ungrateful devil, isn’t he?” the other apostrophised the nurse. “About as pleased as your dear brother was when I told him how I’d been a good Samaritan to you.”

“What!” In his indignation the patient nearly leapt out of bed. “You didn’t tell them at home, you damned blasted fool! Why the hell did you do that?”

“Well, how was I to know you didn’t want me to? You weren’t sayin’ nuffin, and it’s usual to let a chap’s relations know if he’s going to kick the bucket. Ain’t you the heir and all that sort of thing?”

“You might have waited till I had, at least!”

“Well, I didn’t know what you were going to do. You might have been killed, for all I knew, and there was the other chappie dancing round and howling like a damned dervish. Can’t imagine why he hasn’t set the cops on you already. Seriously, old thing, I thought you might be going to croak, and Godfrey ought to know about it, if you were. If I’ve put my foot in it, I apologise; but I don’t see how I was to know if you didn’t tell me.”

“Oh, all right,” John Loring grumbled. “I suppose you couldn’t help it. I never want to hear a word of any of them again, that’s all, and I don’t suppose they do, either. Did my charming brother show any interest, did you say?”

“Not much, I’m sorry to tell you,” said his friend, filling his pipe. “I must say I feel for you, ol’ man, having been a younger brother myself. I can’t say he seemed anything but relieved to hear it was me picked you up and he hadn’t got owt to do with it. Still, don’t take it to heart, my boy. I expect he was up to the eyes with this chap who’s gone and drowned himself. By the way, wasn’t Meston rather a bête noire of yours, one time?”

“Go to hell!” was the reply. “I tell you I don’t want to hear a word about any of them.”

“No, but, I say, you ought to be bucked about this. He’s gone and got drowned, or drowned himself, it says in the paper. What’s the matter now?”

“Hell! What’s the good of telling me that now? Do shut up! Oh, Lord, what a rotten head I’ve got! I wish you’d take your filthy pipe away, Phil—and your face too.” John Loring, no better at bearing unexpected pain than most young men, rolled over again and swore furiously.

“I think you’d better go now, Mr. Weaver,” the nurse suggested. “He’s had enough visitors for the moment. You’ll find him quite different when he’s had a sleep,” she added in a whisper; and Philip Weaver, with various winks and grunts expressive of tactful understanding, took himself out of the room, feeling that ingratitude was certainly the portion of the good Samaritans of this world.

John Loring, however, had a naturally tough constitution, and, once he had got over the shock of his accident, his health, though not at the moment his spirits, began to improve rapidly. By the Sunday morning he was well enough to be dressed and to lie on Weaver’s sofa, turning over a sheaf of Sunday papers, and impartially cursing the items of news therein.

“Thought you said the brute drowned himself,” he growled at Weaver.

“What brute?”

“That,” said John, pushing the paper over. For some reason he seemed to fight shy of Meston’s name. “It says there he fell in.”

“Well, I didn’t say he didn’t, did I? I only said he might have. By Jove,” said Weaver, looking down the report of the inquest at Steeple Tollesbury, “that’s dashed odd, isn’t it? The chappie seems to have come to his berluggy end the same night as you smashed. Did you see anything of him, by any chance?”

“No, I didn’t! Do you mean it was the same day? Let’s see. Oh, hell, what a mess!” John flung himself back on the couch and beat the cushions as if his emotions defied any other expression.

“I say, old man,” Weaver went on, after a pause, “you know I hate to bother you and all that; but I wish you’d tell me what in thunder did happen. I choked off the Johnny you bashed for a bit, and I don’t think he’s killed, which is a mercy, cos the courts are always down on manslaughter cases; but I’ve been surprised he hasn’t been along to curse, and I’d awfully like to know what to say when he does come.”

“I don’t care what you say. What’s it matter? I’m sure I don’t know what happened. I just ran into him, that’s all, and I don’t remember anything more till I woke up here with hell’s own headache and pains all over me.”

“With your lights off, old boy?”

“With my what? Oh, hadn’t I put ’em on? I suppose I forgot. They’re beastly things, anyway—make the road go all jumpy. Where did I do the deed, by the way?”

“Cross-roads a couple of miles out of Epping. I don’t know what happened—I wasn’t there. I’d been up at Morton’s place, and was buzzing back to town in a hurry, when I heard a chappie hooting no end on his horn and yelling ‘Keep out of the way!’ So I slowed down, and there you all were in the devil of a mess. You must have just missed hitting him amidships—as it was, you’d slewed him all across the road and buckled his hind-wheels, and chucked the chap himself through his windscreen. He was cut about and bleeding a bit, but nothing to write home about. Your bus was tipped over on its side right across the road, and you’d been thrown out and were lying there looking like a goner. You made me feel quite queer in the tummy, I do assure you; but I think, if you ask me, it was luck for you, for the grocer or whatever he was would’ve certainly killed you on the spot if you hadn’t looked dead already. As it was, he let it all off to me, and made me tell him who you were and go and feel your lamps. And they were cold as stone, so they can’t’ve been on for some time. Eventually, when he’d used all the cuss-words he knew, he helped me load you into my bus, and we hoofed yours into the ditch somehow out of the way, and I went in to Epping and got somebody to go out and bring him in—fortunately it was a jolly hot night or he might have died of pneumonia. When I got to town, I routed out Maurice, and he came along grousing, and said you weren’t killed, and I was jolly relieved, I can tell you. But I’ve been waiting for the other chap to turn up ever since; he took your name, and said he’d have the law of you. However, he hasn’t been, and I hope he won’t now.”

“I don’t care if he does,” said John. “What’s it matter, anyway?”

“I say, is anything up, really?” Weaver asked curiously. “You seem a bit pipped, I must say, for a fellow that’s been miraculously saved from pegging out. Maurice said if your skull had been a millimetre thinner you’d have been a gone coon.”

“Only I wish it had been,” John growled. “Or I wish you’d let the fellow bash my head in. Sorry, Phil, I ought to be grateful to you for saving my life, I know. Only, as it happens, I’m not interested in it at the moment.”

“Well, I’m damned if I know what’s to be done with you,” Weaver sighed.

“Does it matter?” said John, returning to the Sunday Express.

Late on the same afternoon, however, the problem of Mr. John Loring’s immediate future, was somewhat rudely solved. The bell of Weaver’s flat rang in a peremptory manner, and, on going to the front door, its owner found there two persons whose official manner immediately suggested plain-clothes policemen.

“Is Mr. John Loring here?” one of them asked. “The same that met with a motor accident last Friday week? Thank you. May we have a word with him, please?”

“Oh, well, that’s torn it,” thought Weaver resignedly. “I suppose the grocer fellow must have woken up at last. Poor old Johnnie, I hope they won’t give him too rough a time.” And he led the way into the sitting-room, where John still lay on the couch embedded in a débris of newspapers.

“Mr. John Loring?” the first of the two policemen asked.

“That’s my name.” John Loring did not look up.

“Mr. Loring, I am Inspector Bille, of the Essex County Constabulary.” At the name, Philip Weaver gave a weak giggle, which he immediately suppressed as its owner turned a stern official eye on him. “I have to ask you to be good enough to come with me.”

“Where to?”

“To Colonel Lockwood’s house. He is anxious to have a few words with you.”

“I’m damned if I will,” said John, without moving. “If Lockwood wants to talk to me he can come and find me, and you can tell him I said so.”

“I’m afraid that won’t do, sir,” the Inspector said politely. “Colonel Lockwood gave strict orders for you to go to his house.”

“Well, you can take ’em back again. I’m not going near the place.”

“Come, Mr. Loring, it’s no manner of use taking that tone. Orders are orders, you know, and I’ve orders to bring you back with me.”

“Hard luck on you,” said John Loring insolently. “What’ll they do to you? Take away your stripes?”

“Now, Mr. Loring, I don’t want to make it unpleasant for you——”

“Then you’d better take your face out of here quickly!”

“—but you’ll see that I must do my duty. Let me tell you that it will be much better for you if you’d come without making difficulties.”

“But look here, Inspector,” Weaver struck in, seeing the veins swell on his lodger’s forehead, “aren’t you getting rather on your high horse, don’t you know? I mean, you’re not dealing with a criminal, are you? ’Tisn’t a crime to have a motor smash, and if the chappie wants satisfaction, he might at least ask for it like a gentleman, what?”

“Motor smash?” said the Inspector. “I’m not talking about any motor smash.”

“Then what in hell’s name are you talking about?”

“Mr. Loring,” said the Inspector, “are you not aware that Mr. Meston’s body was found in the Toll last Wednesday?”

John Loring threw the papers away, and turned on him with a face of fury. “Will none of you let me alone?” he shouted. “What the devil does it matter to me where you found his lousy body? You don’t expect me to put on mourning for him, do you?”

“No; but Colonel Lockwood would like to ask you a few questions——”

“Devil take you and the Colonel too! I tell you I won’t answer any questions! What’s the man got to do with me?”

“Colonel Lockwood,” the Inspector persisted, “wishes to put a few questions to you about your movements last Friday night.”

The Inspector could hardly have expected an amiable reply; but even he must have been astonished by the reception of his remark. For John Loring, his face suddenly flushing a deep red, leaped from the couch and flung himself at the Inspector’s throat, muttering, “You damned swine! Say that again, will you?”

Taken aback by the sudden onslaught, the Inspector reeled against the door, and would have fallen had not his companion caught him. There ensued a sharp but short mêlée, in which Philip Weaver, utterly bewildered by the turn of events, played no part, but stood gaping against the wall while the Inspector and the policemen dealt firmly but effectively with Loring.

“Well?” the latter demanded sullenly, when he was once more back on the couch, with the policemen sitting astride his legs. “Two of you against a crock! I hope you’re satisfied. What are you going to do now? Arrest me?”

“Not unless you make it necessary, sir,” the Inspector said in a soothing tone. “I’m still in hopes you’ll come with us like a sensible man. I’ve a car outside.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then I’m afraid I shall have to arrest you, sir. But, believe me, I don’t want to.”

“But what in God’s name are you going to arrest him for?” Weaver put in. The Inspector turned an extinguishing eye on him.

“That, sir, is between me and Mr. Loring. Come now, sir, are you coming?”

“I am not.” John Loring set his teeth and passed his hand over his eyes. “If you’ve anything to arrest me for, you can arrest and be damned; but I’m not going back to Steeple Tollesbury unless you drag me. And that’s my last word, so you can stop arguing.”

“Then,” the Inspector’s voice became very official, “I have to arrest you, John Loring, on the charge of being concerned in the murder of William Meston at Steeple Tollesbury on the night of Friday, August the ninth, and to warn you that anything you say may be used in evidence against you.”

“What!” The prisoner, who had sat half up, fell back with a gasp. “You don’t mean—O God, that about puts the lid on it! The dirty little swine! All right, Billy-boy, arrest away. I’ll come quietly—isn’t that the word? Only mind my head. I’ve got the most damnable headache after talking to you. Bye-bye, Phil; I’ll see you get a bit of the rope.”

And in such manner did Mr. John Loring return to the home of his forefathers.

CHAPTER XXIII

“This,” said Colonel Lockwood, “is Superintendent Wilson, of Scotland Yard. Superintendent Wilson, Mr. John Loring.”

“Do I say, ‘Pleased to meet you, Mr. Wilson,’ or, ‘Damn you for a cursed, interfering swine’?” John Loring asked amiably. “The latter seems more appropriate, I think. Please consider it said.” He sank back into the Colonel’s arm-chair, with which, in deference to his physical condition, he had been accommodated, and leant his scowling head on his hand.

Wilson looked at him with some curiosity. He saw a tall, powerfully built man, four or five years younger than his brother, the Squire, but of the same general physical appearance. John, however, was the better-looking of the two, mainly because, owing either to the superior discipline of life in China or simply to less self-indulgent habits, he was obviously in much better general condition. He had Godfrey’s broad, low brow and heavy jaw, and the same deep-set grey eyes; but he was thinner and browner altogether, the bones of his face and head still stood out clearly, and he had not yet begun to thicken about the neck. At present he was looking very wan and exhausted, which was not surprising, considering that he had absolutely refused to touch either food or drink in Colonel Lockwood’s house; but his powers of resistance appeared unabated, and Wilson’s first reflection, on seeing him, was that the Colonel seemed to have bungled the affair again, and that it was long odds on extracting an admission, or indeed any information, from this formidable young man. Why on earth had Lockwood not gone to London himself, and put his own questions? Anything rather than let himself be jockeyed into making a quite possibly premature arrest. One fact, nevertheless, Wilson had to admit. There was no doubt that John Loring was physically capable of committing the crime they had set out to investigate.

“You know, John,” the Colonel said in a tone of mild reproof, “you’re not helping us very much.”

“I’m not trying to. Did I look as if I was?” was the reply. “I don’t know who killed the blighter and I don’t care. If I did I wouldn’t tell you. He deserved all he got. I hope you’re taking all this down, by the way?”

“You,” said the Colonel, “were in Steeple Tollesbury the night when he was murdered.”

“So were you,” said John. “Did you kill him? I congratulate you, Lockwood. I didn’t think you had it in you.”

“You had a grudge against him.”

“Have it your own way. You know best, I’m sure. What about it?”

“Mr. Loring,” Wilson said, “I think you’ve got this affair the wrong way round. We are not trying to make you incriminate yourself; we are only asking for an explanation on one or two points——”

“Don’t you wish you may get it?”

“You were in Sir Felix Lewis’s boathouse from midnight till about 1.30 on that Friday night.” Wilson saw Loring’s hand clench, but he said nothing. “What we want to know is what you were doing there, and what you did when you left?” No answer.

“And who was with you,” said the Colonel injudiciously. Loring put his hand down in order to glare at him; but an expression of relief showed momentarily in his eyes.

“You don’t want much, do you?” he said.

“I don’t think so,” the Colonel replied, “seeing that a man has been murdered in what even his enemies must admit to have been a cowardly manner——”

“How was he murdered?” John interrupted. “You didn’t mention that. You’ve given me a pile of gossip and things I didn’t ask for about my own movements, but you haven’t told me the really interesting thing—how that —— got himself done in.”

“For the moment,” Wilson put in, “I think we might leave that. The thing is, Mr. Loring, that it is necessary, in the best interests of all who knew Mr. Meston, and particularly, if I may say so, of those who are known to have been on bad terms with him, that they should give us a frank account of their movements on the night he was murdered. That is the reason we are asking you these questions.”

“To which you seem to know the answers—or have ’em made up,” said John. “Why bother me?”

“We should like your confirmation,” said the Colonel.

“I’ve no doubt you would,” with a sneer, “but that’s just what you aren’t going to get. My dear fool, do you think I don’t know you, that you come here with a booby-trap and expect me to walk into it, and hang myself out of my own mouth to oblige you and my precious brother? I’ve told you I didn’t kill him, and if that isn’t enough for you, you can go and whistle for more, or get some of your dirty little police spies to swear it. I don’t admit I was here on Friday night; I don’t admit I was at the boathouse; I don’t admit anything. Now go to hell!” His voice died away, and his eyes stared suddenly.

“Look out!” said Wilson. “He’s going to faint!” But before they could get to the prisoner he had slid forward in a heap and dropped inertly on the floor. He was a good thirteen stone in weight, and they had to summon the assistance of the sergeant on guard before they could get him restored to consciousness and placed on the couch, where he lay glaring at them like a trapped beast, but obviously beyond speech. Wilson noted that the sergeant appeared to relish his job no better than the Colonel, and approached the prisoner with an odd mixture of pity and deference. Plainly, Mr. John Loring was popular in the neighbourhood; and his arrest was not likely to range the gossiping population on the side of the law.

“You aren’t likely to get anything more out of him to-night,” Wilson said in an undertone to the Colonel. “In fact, I should get him to bed as quickly as possible.”

“Here?” said the Colonel, in the tone of one asked to extend a neighbourly lodging to a tiger.

“Well, he obviously isn’t fit to be housed in jail,” said Wilson. “You can put a guard, if you think he’s likely to run away. Personally, I doubt his having the strength for it, at the moment. You might get Kershaw to have a look at him, if he’s back.” For reasons of his own, he rather wished his two suspects to have a chance of communicating.

“Kershaw—can go to—hell,” the prisoner remarked in a faint but forcible whisper, as if he had read Wilson’s thoughts. “I’ll give you—parole—if you like. Won’t run away—feel too—damned sick.” And he shut his eyes as if the effort of keeping them open was beyond his strength.

“What do you make of it, Wilson?” the harassed Colonel said, when he had, with considerable labour, installed John Loring in his spare room. “It looks pretty bad, doesn’t it?”

“It looks to me very much the same as it did,” was the reply. “We haven’t succeeded in getting any fresh information—in fact, we’re just where we were.”

“But look how he’s incriminated himself!” the Colonel cried. “You didn’t hear half what he said about Meston! It would be enough to hang him with any ordinary jury.”

“Oh no, Colonel, it wouldn’t. A clever counsel could easily turn that to the prisoner’s advantage. It’s quite rare for a man who premeditates a crime like this to give himself away afterwards by abusing his victim. We know, of course, that Loring doesn’t like Mr. Meston; but that, by all accounts, we knew before.”

“But it’s indecent,” the Colonel said, “to curse the man when he’s dead.”

“Oh, Mr. John Loring is obviously in an exceedingly bad temper—a worse temper, one would think, than would be normal under the circumstances. But is it so out of keeping with his character?” The Colonel could not say that it was. “There you are, then. That goes no way with a local jury. I’m bound to say it seems to me that there’s more in his manner than meets the eye. But I don’t think, in his present mood, he’s likely to explain that for us himself. We’ll have to look for it elsewhere.”

“Then you don’t think he’s guilty?”

“I did not say so.” Wilson, tired himself with a long day and a series of disturbing suspicions, had much ado not to show his impatience. “What I meant to imply was that it is by no means fitted together yet, and that we certainly haven’t enough evidence to go before a jury. In the first place, we’re not definitely sure that it was Mrs. Meston who was with him at the boathouse, though I don’t feel much doubt that it was, and we can probably succeed in proving it. But, what’s much more important, we’ve no real evidence that Meston was there too, and that’s very much too large a fact to assume—however sure we may be in our own minds. Did you see the man Potts, by the way?”

“No; he had the day off. I’ll see him to-morrow,” the Colonel promised.

“The answer may be there—though I’m more inclined to think we’ve got to look further. Anyway, I’m not satisfied yet,” And with this negative conclusion Michael also had to be content, when his friend returned to bed at the Old Malting House.

CHAPTER XXIV

“So you’re going to hang the Squire’s brother! What terrible fellows you are, to let loose on a quiet town!” Like a cheerful Jack-in-the-box, Mr. Brandreth popped out of an entry, and strolled along by the side of a very reluctant Michael. Driven from Wilson’s company by a curt intimation that the latter wanted to think and that he got in the way, Michael had chosen the calm of the High Street in preference to the buzz of the inn; but it appeared that he had jumped from the frying-pan into the fire. Curse the fellow and his gift of ubiquity!

“I hope, for his own sake, your friend’s got plenty of evidence against him,” Brandreth continued. “It won’t be a popular arrest hereabouts. Our democracy has always taken John’s side against the Squire.”

“Don’t they get on, then?”

“There’s a proverb hereabouts,” the lawyer said. “Two Lorings, one hanging. I don’t know that it’s generally fulfilled in detail, but one feels that it might be any moment. The father and uncle of these two had a regular battle-royal, and there would have been murder done if they hadn’t been separated. And John and Godfrey have fought from their cradles. Oh, it’s not about anything; it never is. Just two Lorings—that’s all. Not that I think your friend’s very wise to go nap on John, you know. I don’t exactly fancy him in the part.”

“Then who do you fancy?”

“Oh, come, I’m not a tipster. I never back my fancy, even when the field’s small. And in this case, I fear it’s rather a large one. I always felt, you know, that the late William Meston was one of Nature’s murderees, if I may put it that way—only convention keeps most of us from following our natural impulses. By the way, talking of him, what does Mr. Wilson make of his researches into the financial affairs of his own firm?”

“Why should he make anything? He’s investigating his death, not his financial position.”

“Oh, he doesn’t think they’re connected, then? That’s very interesting. Now I wonder——You had a bit of a look into that, hadn’t you? Would it be very indiscreet to ask what sort of conclusion you reached?”

“It would,” said Michael, with a firmness not unmixed with pleasure at being able to baffle the solicitor for once in a way. “Anyway, I don’t see why on earth you should assume I’ve any interest in the matter.”

“My dear sir, Colchester is a charming town, no doubt; but few find it so attractive as to want to go there, with the prospect of an exciting inquest at home. But I forgot—of course you must have known that the inquest was going to be a wash-out. Your friend’s rather hard on us, isn’t he? Withholding of information beyond a certain point about seems to me a crime.”

“It’s a crime which can affect you singularly little!” Michael retorted. “You seem to know who is guilty, or who is going to be hanged, before I do myself!”

“Oh, as to that,” said Brandreth, unperturbed, “you can’t expect to bring John Loring home in a motor with two plain-clothes men, and lodge him in Lockwood’s house all night, without having a bit of a buzz about it. You see, we in these parts don’t need uniforms to rouse our suspicions. We know our local force’s Sunday best as well as its blues, and so—we draw our own conclusions.”

“Well, you’d better go on drawing them,” said Michael, moving off. “It seems to me you get much more interest out of life that way than I could give you.”

“Meaning you won’t tell me what you found in Colchester. Well, well, it’s a pity,” said Mr. Brandreth. “And after all the interesting conversations you must have had with Strake, too.” Michael made a sudden movement, as he remembered how on the morning following the finding of the body he had surprised Brandreth in an earnest conversation with the inquiry agent. “Oh, Strake’s not as secret as the grave, I’m quite aware. The difficulty is, isn’t it, to know what to believe and what not to believe with a fellow like that? I was in hopes you’d have been able to sift his stories a little. But, if you can’t, you can’t. Any time you do feel like a chat about it, of course, I’m your man. By the way,” as Michael made another effort to get away, “I was thinking of going along to Kershaw’s place now. Care to come with me? It’s really worth seeing.”

“Sorry; I’m afraid I can’t manage it at the moment.” Brandreth looked at him with a quizzical smile.

“Well, well, I’m not sure you’re not right. Perhaps, on the whole, Kershaw might be a little sore at the way you’ve treated him.”

“Sore? Treated him? What do you mean?” Michael’s wrath with the doctor had been overlaid a little by the events of the last few days; but it was still lively enough to awake at any suggestion that he had been in the wrong.

“Why, I don’t know what you said to Kershaw or he to you. But if you let him make a fool of himself in open court, he’s hardly likely to be pleased.”

“He gave his own evidence.”

“Pointing to accidental death—and you go and arrest John Loring for murder!”

“Why should you assume——”

“That it was murder? Well, I don’t suppose Mr. Wilson arrested him for accidentally pushing Meston into the water. And you’ve just told me it wasn’t anything to do with Meston’s financial affairs.”

“You’re very certain Wilson did arrest him,” said Michael, biting his lip.

“Didn’t he? Lockwood’s a very impulsive fellow at times,” said Brandreth sympathetically. “But I shouldn’t have thought his impulses would have led him to arrest John, unprompted. However that may be, it does seem to mean Kershaw’s got a bit of a grievance. He says somebody’s been burgling his house, by the way. Odd sort of thing to do; I shouldn’t think there was twenty pounds’ worth of stuff in the place, bar the house itself. But he’s quite annoyed about it.” He stared at Michael till the latter felt that the marrow of his spine was blushing. Suddenly there was a welcome diversion. “Good heavens!” said Mr. Brandreth, “there’s a man trying to get into my house, and the housekeeper’s out. I must go. So sorry. Au revoir, Dr. Prendergast.” And he trotted off to his house at a pace which Michael could not help thinking unduly speedy for a mere caller kept waiting.

“Now, what did he want to know that for?” Wilson mused, when Michael reported the conversation to him as they sat at lunch. “It’s quite obvious that he was trying unusually hard to pump you—but with what purpose? What conceivable interest can he have in Meston’s financial affairs? Or—is this a hint to me that I’m on the wrong track? I think perhaps I’ve been neglecting the Warden-Hanborough aspect of the thing. This wants looking into.” And he fell into a brooding silence.

“Have you got any further, this morning?” Michael asked.

“No; I can’t say I have. I went up to Lockwood’s to have another look at the prisoner; but he doesn’t seem any more talkative than he was last night. He’s slept for fourteen hours, and agreed to demean himself by taking food; so he’s in altogether better physical trim. But it doesn’t appear to have loosened his tongue any, as the Yankees say.”

“Much the wisest thing for a murderer to do, to say nothing,” Michael said.

“Yes, but they don’t all look so pleased about it. He’s in an odd mood altogether. Something has obviously happened to make him very angry, not to say despairing; for even the Loring temper would hardly account for his ferocious surliness. But at the same time there’s a quite perceptible air that can only be called exalté—a sort of Sydney Carton—‘It’s a far, far better thing’—if you know what I mean; which hardly seems to fit in with hanging one’s rival. If you’ve an odd moment, Michael, you might like to go up and have a look at him. You can say I sent you as medicine man, and I’d like to know what you think of your suspect in the flesh. Otherwise, there’s no news, except that I’m waiting hourly for news of Mr. Potts. Ah, there’s the good Colonel coming. This is probably it.”

The Colonel had, it was true, seen Potts, and had brought along, for what it was worth, the information he had secured. But, like most of the information secured in the case, it did not advance matters much. Potts, said the Colonel, had been very unwilling to talk at all, being a surly and secretive man by nature. “He’s a queer-looking customer, too,” the Colonel said. “Something like a talking gorilla. I often think the man’s not quite right in the head, but he’s said to be an excellent servant, and he’s certainly fond of the family. I had to call in Godfrey to help, before he would speak at all.” When he did speak, however, Potts confirmed the story of his meeting John Loring and receiving the note for Mrs. Meston, which he duly delivered. He had no idea, he said, what was in it. More than that he either did not know or would not tell. He had not seen Mr. John again, had not gone to the town that afternoon or evening, had not seen Meston or held any communication with him or any one else. Had not told any one of Mr. John’s return. Asked how Mrs. Meston looked when receiving her note, he professed himself unable to remember. And that, meagre as it was, was all the information which the Colonel had been able to extract from the footman. No amount of questioning or cross-questioning had been able to shake or vary his story.

“And that’s that,” the Colonel finished, as he took his leave. “Supposing the doctor’s suggestions are correct, we’re still no nearer knowing how Meston heard that young Loring was in the place.”

“Or how he got to the bridge—if he did.” Wilson was staring dreamily in front of him. “Thanks, Colonel. Don’t be downcast. I admit it’s not very satisfactory at present; but the only thing is to keep pegging away. I’ve known worse cases.”

“By the way,” said Michael, when the Colonel had gone, “Kershaw apparently has a fancy he’s been burgled over the week-end, so Brandreth tells me.”

“Rubbish!” said Wilson. “He couldn’t. I looked over the place myself, before I left, and there wasn’t a thing out of place.”

“Except the bit of cocaine I took to examine,” Michael said.

“No one could have missed that.”

“Well, Brandreth said he thought so, anyway.”

“That,” said Wilson, “proves either a guilty conscience or—special information. By Jove!” he sat up, suddenly wide awake. “That decides me. If he suspects burglary he may as well know about it—at least what it was for. Yes, I think a little conversation with Dr. Kershaw is indicated. No, Michael, I don’t want you. You’d put him off. You amuse yourself; I shan’t be long.”

CHAPTER XXV

Dr. Kershaw was in his surgery when Wilson was announced. He looked up with a cold glance of hostility as the detective came in, and Wilson noticed an additional shake of the long, nervous fingers that were beating up something in a mortar. “He’s running his drug pretty hard,” he thought.

“What can I do for you?” Kershaw asked.

Wilson held out his card. “My name’s Wilson, of the C.I.D.,” he said, thinking that it was of little use to try to keep his identity dark. “I’ve been requested by Colonel Lockwood to help him look into the matter of the death of Mr. Meston.”

“Why?” If Kershaw was alarmed, he was controlling it well. “Is there anything wrong with his death? It looked to me like an accident, but I may have been mistaken. I’ve heard nothing about it since the inquest was adjourned.”

“I understand that the police are not entirely satisfied to accept the explanation of accident,” said Wilson, with his eyes on the doctor’s face. “Particularly in view of certain events connected with Mr. Meston’s life.” Kershaw made no sign, but waited for him to proceed. “Can you throw any light, doctor, on anything which would suggest a motive for any one putting him out of the way?”

“I? No, I can’t. I barely knew the man.”

“Yet they say you’d had a violent quarrel with him.”

“Who say? Whoever it is, they’re lying.”

“There’s some talk of a very acrimonious correspondence between you.”

“Look here, Mr. Wilson,” said Kershaw, who had turned a greenish yellow, and seemed very angry, “are you intending to bring a charge against me? For if you are, I know enough of the law to know that you ought to caution me formally before you try to make me commit myself, and, if you aren’t, I’ll be glad if you’ll say plainly what you’re up to!”

“I’m not arresting you, Dr. Kershaw,” Wilson said, “and I should be glad to avoid the necessity of detaining you in order to answer my questions. There is a little information which I think you could quite easily give me, and I’d rather get it in an amicable manner. Of course, if you force my hand——”

The doctor turned round and fidgeted for a little with his test-tubes. “Well,” he said at last, “what is it you want to know?”

“Did you, or did you not, have a quarrel with William Meston?”

“We didn’t quarrel. He wrote me a very offensive letter—I suppose that’s what you’re alluding to, though how you found out about it I can’t imagine. But I didn’t take any notice. It was the sort of communication that’s best left alone.”

“What was it about?”

A dull red spot rose on the doctor’s cheeks. “If you must know, it was an insolent and unwarrantable attack on my private character. Meston, as you’ll know for yourself if you’ve been looking into his affairs, was a thoroughly unpleasant Paul Pry of a man—a kind of preaching deacon in other folks’ lives. He saw fit to call my conduct in question, and wrote me an entirely unfounded letter. If I’d done anything about it, I should have called him out and taken a horsewhip to him; but I didn’t. That kind of thing is best left alone, and everybody knew what Meston was like. There wasn’t a word of truth in it.”

“I see. And then you didn’t have any more ill-feeling?”

“I don’t know about feeling,” said Kershaw. “We weren’t on speaking terms; and if his face was any guide, his feelings about me must have been quite strong. But we didn’t have any row. As I’ve already told you, I barely knew the man.”

“I see,” said Wilson again. “Where were you on the night of his death?”

Kershaw gave a jump. “I? I was at a party at the Grange.”

“Till when?”

“Oh, some time after midnight, I think.”

“Why did you leave?”

“I had a case to go to. Midwifery.”

“Billings, the cowman?”

“Yes.”

“What time did you get there?”

“I’m not certain—some time between one and two, I think,” said Kershaw, licking his lips a little. “I was delayed.”

“What delayed you?”

“I—I forgot some appliances, and had to go back for them.”

“So that you went to your house twice, did you?”

“Twice—yes. Once for my bag, and once for the things I’d forgotten. That’s twice.”

“On your bicycle?”

“Yes.”

“How far were you when you found you’d forgotten your appliances?”

“Just by the bridge.”

“And it takes you—say—five minutes to bicycle from the bridge to your house. And from the Grange—how long?”

“I don’t know—I’ve never timed it.”

“Twenty minutes, perhaps. Or longer?”

“I don’t know. I tell you I haven’t inquired.”

“Even if we put it at half an hour, with a quarter of an hour for your other goings and comings—still you didn’t get to Billings’s cottage till an hour and three-quarters after you’d left the Grange. Where were you in the meantime, Dr. Kershaw?”

“Here,” said Kershaw. “I was—looking for things. I’d mislaid them. I had to turn the whole place out.”

“But when Billings’s boy came and knocked, you didn’t answer?”

“No, I didn’t,” the doctor snapped. “I looked out of the window and saw who it was, and I didn’t want to waste more time coming down after him. These people think one’s a mechanism at their beck and call—the fools!”

“And that’s all you did?”

“That’s all. Look here, Mr. Wilson——”

“You didn’t by any chance call at the Old Malting House?”

“No.” There was a gasp in Kershaw’s voice, but it sounded like a gasp of relief more than apprehension.

“Or see—anything remarkable?”

“No!” No relief this time. The question had clearly been a nasty one.

“And you’ve no notion or suspicion of how Meston came by his end?”

“No! None. I tell you I hardly knew him.”

“If that is so, Dr. Kershaw,” said Wilson, looking hard at him, “how do you account for the fact that in the week after his death you became unexpectedly possessed of a large sum of money?”

There was no mistaking, this suggestion had gone very near the mark, though what exactly the mark was, Wilson was not at all certain. Kershaw flushed furiously, and looked as if he was about to spring on him.

“That’s no business of yours—and nothing whatever to do with Meston,” he said eventually. “If you must know, a man paid me an old debt, that’s all.”

“And you used it?”

“I used it as I commonly use money—to pay for what I wanted!” Kershaw flashed back at him. “And now, Mr. Wilson, I’m a busy man, and I think I’ve wasted about enough time. Unless you’ve any more pressing questions, I will wish you good afternoon!”

“You haven’t any information that would help me, then?” Wilson said, preparing to take his leave.

“I have not. If I had I’d have given it to the proper quarters long ago. Good afternoon.” And without any attempt to show the visitor out, Dr. Kershaw returned to his mortar, and resumed his braying.

“That’s a scared man,” Wilson thought, “if ever I saw one. But what exactly is he scared of? Are we on the right track—or not?” He looked round at the sunny peaceful afternoon. “I think a walk might help to clear my mind a bit. Sorry, Michael”—he apostrophised his absent friend—“but it can’t be helped.”

CHAPTER XXVI

It was a glorious day, rather warm, perhaps, for walking, but with a cool breeze that just lifted the burden of the heat. Wilson strolled out along the London road, and took the first favourable turn into the field-paths. Now he was walking along a barely visible track by the side of the smallest imaginable stream, half hidden in brooklime and watercresses. In winter, no doubt, that small stream would spread out subterraneously through the porous earth until the field through which he was walking became simply a swamp, an enlargement of the river’s source; but now the only trace of its wintry activities was the slight dampness of the ground beneath his feet—a phenomenon which merely served to make the walk pleasantly cool. On his right was a copse of grey willows, knee-deep in moon-coloured cow-parsley, and he stared at them vaguely, wondering how this odd, forgotten county so near London could preserve such an air of the unearthly. Even in broad daylight the grey grove might have held any amount of ghosts of deserted ladies, and there was never a sound but the faint undercurrent buzz of an August afternoon. Traffic, and modern civilisation, might have been a hundred miles away; the road, as Essex roads do, had turned off at a crazy right angle, away from the direction in which it was nominally wending, and was now about its business of turning east, west, north, and south at random in order to get, after eight miles of meandering, to Little Friday—a village which he, across the fields, would reach in half that distance. An Essex road, Wilson reflected, got to its destination much as a river does in other counties, and was as little fitted for traffic in a hurry. A pleasant place still—for those without cars.

At the end of the willow copse the straight way was blocked by one of those curious cramped hummocks which make it absurd to speak of Essex as a flat county. To avoid it—though it was not more than a hundred feet high—Wilson crossed the little stream by a bridge of planks and earth, and stood for a moment staring at a little backwater, if a thing two feet across can be so described, which joined it just there. The surface of the backwater was covered with an abundance of duckweed, and Wilson remembered having heard some one say that duckweed on the top always meant clear water below. In an idle mood he pulled aside some of the weed with his stick and gazed down on a dark, but perfectly clear pool, out of which his own reflection looked serenely up at him. Was that an allegory of the Meston case? he wondered, half-attentive. Were all these perplexing clues and counter-clues only duckweed on clear water? and if he could once lift them out of the way, would he see instantly to the bottom of the problem?

His mind turned back to Amory Kershaw and the recollection of his last interview. That the doctor was alarmed, and alarmed with some definite reason, was quite apparent. But what was the reason? He went over in his mind the evidence against Kershaw.

First, he was a doubtful character, a drug-taker, in low water financially, and a man who held an appointment considerably less good than his professional qualifications would have suggested. These two facts were probably connected one with the other. Next, he bore a reputation in his own neighbourhood that was not of the highest. Wilson had not gone deeply into the general opinion of Kershaw; but that letter of Meston’s could never have been written to a strictly moral man. It was also interesting that Kershaw, on his own statement, appeared to have lain down under its imputations. Wilson did not for a moment believe the atmosphere of “too proud to fight,” with which Kershaw had endeavoured to invest his conduct; and he could only surmise that Kershaw had urgent reasons for not wishing to have the matter out with his correspondent.

All this was ancient history. Coming now to the actual circumstances of the crime, the one really damnable thing against Kershaw was that blow on the head—and his behaviour at the inquest. The fact that he had suddenly come into funds whose source he did not wish to explain might easily have no connection with anything Wilson was investigating. A man with Kershaw’s character might receive money from a dozen dubious quarters. It was a coincidence, of course, and a suspicious one. But it need not be anything more. Nor was his unexplained absence at a time which might have coincided with Meston’s murder evidence in itself of complicity. His own explanation of that might be correct—or he might have been drunk in a ditch. He had been at a party at the Grange, and parties at the Grange, Wilson surmised, would be provided with plenty of liquor. There was no sign of any particular motive on his part for murdering Meston—nor of any connection with John Loring, supposing the latter to be the major criminal. The conglomerated effect of that evidence was not enough to induce even the most biassed or muddle-headed magistrate to commit him for trial.

But the blow on the head! That was another matter. It had certainly been inflicted after death, and Wilson’s trust in Michael’s powers of observation was sufficient to make him take his word that it had not been there when the body came ashore. If it was not there then, it must have been inflicted afterwards; and nobody had such an opportunity of inflicting it as Kershaw. But even supposing the most unlikely thing possible, and that somebody else (either the murderer or an accomplice) had succeeded in getting into the mortuary and striking the corpse’s head, how on earth had Dr. Kershaw, a trained medical man, failed to observe that the blow had been inflicted after death? Even if he had managed to overlook that fact, any reasonably careful examination must have disclosed the real cause of death—indeed, unless Dr. Kershaw’s colleague was also privy to whatever devilry was on foot, his concurrence in Kershaw’s medical opinion could only be due either to compulsion or to his not having been given the opportunity to examine the body for himself.

But not only had Dr. Kershaw failed to observe these facts, he had actually stood up at the inquest and promulgated a theory of the man’s death which he must have known could not possibly be true. And, up to the present moment, Wilson was glad to observe, all the leakings of information that there had been did not appear to have put Kershaw in possession of the true cause of death, or, at any rate, of its discovery. Otherwise, surely he would have shown more apprehension. Yes, Kershaw must, on any showing, have knowingly concealed the real facts about the body. And why? It was an extraordinarily dangerous thing to do. Of course, the man could not have bargained for his own presence on the spot, and Lockwood was fool enough and peace-loving enough for anything. But, in any event, there was the other doctor; there were the police; and there might have been any amount of inconvenient observers, jurymen, and what not. Any one of these could have started a scandal whose only end would have been ruin and penal servitude for Kershaw. He would not have done it, then, unless he had an exceptionally strong motive; either the saving of his own skin (if he were the murderer), or—or what? Shielding some one? Who, and for what? Dr. Kershaw did not look a man likely to be actuated by motives of pure philanthropy, and even five hundred pounds, Wilson felt, would be an inadequate compensation for the risk. But perhaps it was only a first instalment. “I think it will be worth while having the fellow watched,” he said to himself, “to see whether he gets any more, and if so, from whom.”

One link in Michael’s reconstruction he felt had definitely failed to hold good. He did not believe, from Kershaw’s manner, that he was the man who delivered that assumed message to Meston in the dead of night. In fact, he was inclined to think that the man had never been to the Old Malting House at all. When questioned on that point, he had seemed definitely relieved. Of course, this did not mean that he had not sent the message; but that, if he had, some other hand or mouth had delivered it. But whose?

“Hullo, Harry!” At this point his meditations were interrupted by a hail from above him; and, returning to the external world, he found that he had arrived at the end of his journey. Before him the path led through a cabbage-field and up the tiny hill on which Little Friday was built; and at the top of a sloping meadow on his right hand, Michael, with Mark Warden and Edna Loring, sprawled in the sunshine, eating buns and smoking cigarettes.

“Come up and have some tea,” Warden shouted. After a brief hesitation, Wilson complied, and was soon seated beside them and drinking a large cup of strong tea.

“We got it at a shop in the village,” Edna explained. “But it was so stuffy we couldn’t bear to drink it in the shop, so Mark made the woman let us bring it out here.”

“And very nice too,” said Michael, with his mouth full. “These folk caught me up in the car as I was taking a solitary constitutional and wondering where on earth you’d got to, and insisted on taking me for a run.”

“Bus needed airing,” Warden explained to the newcomer.

“It hadn’t had a proper run since we quarrelled,” Edna added, squeezing his arm. “But you’ll be glad to hear we’ve made it all up, Mr. Wilson. I’ve apologised to Mark for interfering and being a foolish female, and he’s apologised for thinking I was one. So everything in the garden’s lovely.” And indeed she looked as though it was. “Tell them about it, Mark.”

“Rot!” said Mark, who looked nearly as happy as his fiancée. “Mr. Wilson doesn’t want to hear about our troubles. He’ll be as pleased as Punch to know we aren’t going to bother him about them any more.”

“But as I was in at the start, in a way,” said Wilson, “mayn’t I be in at the death too? Or is it private?”

“It’s not private in the least,” said Warden. “It’s just an enormous weight off my mind, but I hardly thought that would interest you.”

“Apart from anything else, if it’s connected with your financial affairs, it does,” said Wilson. “You’ll remember at one time you thought Meston’s death was the result of them, and Meston’s death has been interesting me considerably lately.” He looked with an inquiry at Edna, who shook her head. Wilson mentally gave her a good mark for discretion.

“Well, yes, that’s what it is about. And the good news is that it’s all going to be cleared up directly. You know I was in the dickens of a fuss when I came and called on you the other day, because I thought we were all going to be in Queer Street, and I didn’t know what had happened. I thought poor Meston must have made off with the cash and then killed himself. Well, a day or two later it got much worse, because that lousy little brute Strake—I don’t know if you’ve come across him—came oiling up to me, and said he’d got a lot of information he wanted to give me. I told him to take it to Hanborough, who was his employer, and then he started on a lot of greasy hints and suggestions out of which I gathered at last what he meant, and that was that Hanborough and Meston had been in it together, and that I was the sucker not to have seen it. And would I please pay double rates, and he’d pass the information on to me—that was what it amounted to. Well, that was a bit thick, you know—I don’t mean about me being a sucker, but to come there and calmly try and sell me stuff against Hanborough because he thought he’d get a bit more in that quarter. So as soon as I got his meaning I sent him off in double-quick time, and told him that I wouldn’t pay him a single halfpenny.

“Then, you know, after he’d gone I began to have blue fits. First, I began to wonder—you know the idiotic way one does—whether there could conceivably be anything in it, and whether I really was the greenest greenhorn in England. I began to think over all I knew of Nick, and whether he could possibly be double-crossing me. And I didn’t know—I just got more and more muddled. Then it suddenly dawned on me that whatever I thought, I ought to have got to the bottom of it, and at least gone and asked Nick about it. Because I couldn’t expect that little blighter not to try and get what he called his money’s worth out of the business, and there were probably plenty of people, in a hole like this, who’d pay him money to get hold of scandal about the Archbishop of Canterbury, if it came his way. I went cold when I realised I was responsible for letting that little worm loose in the place, with all his stories going bad on him, so to speak; and I didn’t know what the hell I was to do. I went mad for a moment. I rushed down to Steeple Tollesbury and tried to find Strake, and make him cough up something, but he’d disappeared. Then I tried to get hold of Nick and warn him what was afoot, and ask him if there was anything in it, but I couldn’t find him either. And Saturday night was the beastliest I’ve ever spent in my life, what with wondering what on earth had happened, and still more what was going to happen.

“Then, to crown it all, I met Edna on Sunday morning, and she began to tell me that everybody was asking questions about Nick, and, of course, I thought it was all Strake’s doing. And somehow it seemed to have got mixed up with Meston’s death, and I thought the next thing would be that we should all be getting arrested. I really don’t know what I said; I expect I was pretty hairy—Edna says I was, anyway. But I’d only one idea in my head, and that was by hook or by crook to get hold of Nick, and find out whether I was standing on my head or my heels. So I dropped her——”

“I believe you did it on purpose, pig,” Edna interrupted.

“On my honour, I didn’t,” Warden protested. “I was more miserable than ever when you’d gone. But since you had, I thought I wouldn’t let things get any worse, so I buzzed off to Nick’s house. He wasn’t in, but his wife was, and she said he’d faithfully promised to be in that night, and would I wait. Well, I couldn’t wait, because I’d promised to be back home, and they get into such a bait if I don’t come; but I sat down and wrote him a letter, telling him, so far as I knew it, all that Strake had been at, and asking him to let me know what he meant to do about it. Then I buzzed home, feeling a bit better, as though I’d done something at last, and this morning, first thing, I got a letter from him.”

“Saying what?”

“Well, saying, in effect, that I’m not to worry, and that he’s got it all in hand. I’d show it you if I’d got it,” said Warden; “but I’ve left it in my other suit. He says, though, that he’s been pretty well aware of what Master Strake has been doing all the time; and that what he’s really found is traces of his investigations into where the money’s been going—Nick’s, I mean. Also, he apologises for not letting me know sooner; he says he would if he’d guessed I was worrying, and anyhow he was going to tell me it all in the next few days, when he’d got his proofs complete. Anyway, he seems to have got it all settled. He says it’s too long to put in a letter, but it’s quite clear now who’s the guilty party, and it’s one of the last either of us would have suspected. And he’s made an appointment with me at the office to-morrow—he says he’s sorry he won’t be able to get there to-day—and tell me all about it.

“I tell you, I never was so relieved in my life. I’d really begun to think I must be going mad or something. So when I got this letter I felt I must tell Edna, and I rushed up to the Grange with it, and we decided we must celebrate. And we’d just done lunch when I ran into Dr. Prendergast, and he agreed to come and celebrate too.”

“So you haven’t put in an appearance at the office to-day?” Wilson said, smiling almost in spite of himself at the two care-free faces.

“Well—no.” Warden looked like a truant schoolboy. “I haven’t exactly. I felt the occasion was almost worth a holiday, you know. Besides—to tell you the truth, I shouldn’t have known how to face the fellows there, knowing that one of them was a wrong ’un, and not knowing which.”

“Yes; I see it might have been awkward. Tell me, have you any idea who is the guilty party?”

“Not an atom,” Warden said promptly. “Ever since I got Nick’s letter I’ve been racking my brains to think who it could be, and I’m blowed if I can find the answer. Everybody seems perfectly impossible; in fact, if you’d asked me before, I’d have sworn I was the most corruptible one among them. But there you are; I suppose I’m ignorant of human nature. Of course, if Nick really meant what he said literally—that it’s the last one either of us would have suspected—I suppose old Davis fits the part best. But I simply can’t believe it.”

“Who is Davis?”

“Head clerk and cashier. Been with us thirty years or thereabouts, and the most devoted employee you could imagine. I should think it would just about finish my father if——But, of course, it’s nonsense. I only meant that he was absolutely the last person you could suspect.”

“I see.” A silence fell—the silence of a warm summer afternoon. Wilson lay with an unlit pipe in his mouth, his eyes half closed, pondering upon the tangled duckweed of the Meston case. Warden’s voice roused him.

“I say, if I’m not being frightfully inquisitive, is it true what all the gossips are saying—that Meston was murdered? Of course, if you oughtn’t to say, or anything——”

Wilson, after exacting the same promise as he had exacted from Edna Loring, told him just what he had told the girl, namely, that the police were not at all satisfied with the appearance of Meston’s body, and were inclined to think that foul play might have had a share in his death. “That’s why, you see,” he said, “we have been rather carefully investigating the movements of every one who could possibly have been concerned with him that Friday night.”

“Yes, of course. By Jove,” Warden said suddenly, “it may be a good job for Nick Hanborough that this money business is cleared up, since Edna hasn’t got a proper alibi for him after all.”

“Hasn’t she?” Wilson murmured lazily, with a warning glance at Michael.

“Not exactly,” Edna said. “At least, not as much as I told you yesterday. I’d forgotten, when I said Nick was with us all the evening, that he wasn’t there at supper. I ought to have remembered, because he’d booked me to have supper with him, and when the time came, I couldn’t find him anywhere. So I went in with the rest of the crowd. He turned up again afterwards, and I clean forgot to ask him why he’d cut me. That’s all. There’s nothing in it, is there?”

“I shouldn’t think so,” said Wilson. “What time was supper, by the way?”

“About half-past twelve, as near as I can remember. Nick was back again by half-past one, because I saw him. I don’t know where he was in the meantime—unless he was with you, Mark?”

“I didn’t see him,” Warden responded. “Of course you know I’ve no alibi either, if it comes to that.” He appeared to find the situation humorous.

“No. So I heard. Where were you, in fact?”

“Wandering about. It’s quite simple, really. It was a frightfully hot night for a party, and I’d a pain in my belly. Drink made it worse, so I went out into the park to cool off——”

“And to get your temper back,” Edna put in.

“Well, of course, if you will keep on dancing with all the blighters I can’t bear. Anyway, I ambled on right through the park, and out into the road, without thinking much what I was doing, and suddenly I found I’d got right down to Steeple Tollesbury. By then I was feeling better, but I didn’t particularly want to go in again, so I went up and got the car and went home. I didn’t say good-night, because there didn’t seem anybody in particular there to say good-night to. That’s what I did; but it wouldn’t sound very convincing to a bobby, I dare say.”

“No. I’m surprised you haven’t been asked about it before. But perhaps you met somebody on your way—somebody who could swear where you were at a particular time?”

“I don’t believe I met a soul. It’s not a populous time of night. Wait a moment, though—yes, I did. I met Kershaw.”

“Who?”

“Kershaw. Don’t you know him—the doctor who gave evidence at the inquest?”

“Yes, I know him. Only I thought he was at the party also.”

“By Jove, I believe you’re right. Then he must have come away too. I say, it sounds as if Godfrey’s drink had been a bit wonky, doesn’t it?” Warden laughed.

“Where did you meet him?”

“Right down in Steeple Tollesbury, by the bridge. He was wheeling his bike across it.”

“How did you know it was he? Did he talk to you?”

“No; in fact, he didn’t look much as though he wanted to speak to any one. How I saw him was that just as he came along I thought I’d like a pipe, and I saw his face in the match. He looked pretty green, I thought—almost as if he’d seen a ghost; and he just said good-evening and pushed on. But he must have seen me, so I suppose he’d be able to say so. Not that it would help much,” said Warden, recollecting, “would it? For I suppose Meston, if he was croaked, must have been getting croaked somewhere about there at the same time.”

“Possibly. Which way was Kershaw coming, do you know?”

“Up from the tow-path, as far as I could see.”

“Do you know what time this was?”

“Half-past one, almost exactly. I looked at my watch then, and thought I’d better be getting back. But I didn’t see a sign of Nick anywhere.”

“I say,” Edna said, “if we’re going to get any dinner, hadn’t we better start somewhere? There won’t be anything fit to eat here.”

“Let’s make a night of it, darling. Run up to Romano’s and do a theatre. Won’t you come too?” said Warden hospitably. But this invitation the friends refused, and set off to return to their inn on foot.

CHAPTER XXVII

“I hope, for his own sake, that Mr. Nicholas Hanborough has got a satisfactory explanation of the financial affairs of his firm,” was Michael’s only comment on the afternoon’s proceedings. “You observed that he and Kershaw were apparently simultaneously absent from the party at the Grange at exactly the critical time?”

“I did. Our suspects seem to be crowding round the body again, don’t they? I wonder if your friend Mackenzie was there too. Hadn’t you better inquire?”

“I wonder whether Kershaw could have been mixed up in the financial business?” Michael suggested hastily, having detected what he thought a tinge of irony in his friend’s tone. “Do you think he was, and that he was the ‘last man one would ever have suspected’?”

“No reason against; no reason for,” was Wilson’s opinion. “We shall have to wait. Perhaps to-morrow will bring us some fresh light.”

It did, but not exactly of the kind which Michael, at any rate, had anticipated. They had not long finished their breakfast when there was the sound of a car tearing across the bridge. It stopped at the hotel; there was a murmur of voices below; and in another half-minute the chambermaid knocked at the door and announced, “Mrs. Meston to see you, sir.” As before, the owner of the name followed it into the room.

She had changed enough in the three days since he had seen her last, to have satisfied even Michael’s vindictive Puritanism. She was very pale, so pale that the rouge on her cheeks was worse than useless, and she was breathing hard, as if the normal supply of air were insufficient to keep her going. Her grey eyes, dark-circled, darted from side to side, as if she feared a new attack from almost any quarter. But her lips were firmly set, and she came to business without beating about the bush.

“Mr. Wilson,” she said, “is it true that you’ve arrested John Loring?” Wilson intimated that it was.

“On the charge of murdering—my husband?”

“On the charge of being concerned in his death.”

“He wasn’t! It’s a lie! You know it’s a lie.” Wilson said nothing, waiting to see what was coming next.

“He couldn’t have been, because—because——Is it true that Lockwood asked him where he was on that night, and he wouldn’t say, and that’s why he’s been arrested?”

“Mr. Loring,” Wilson said, “has so far declined to give any account whatever of his movements.”

“But you know where he was. Don’t you? Can’t you guess?” She looked up at him with an appeal.

“I don’t deal in guesses, Mrs. Meston. If you know, you had better tell us, hadn’t you?”

“He was with me. That’s why he wouldn’t say. He was with me.” Her fingers were gripping the back of a chair so furiously that all the blood had left them, and her underlip was drawn in.

“May I ask where?”

“By the river. You know Sir Felix Lewis’s grounds. There’s an old boathouse there, by the old bridge. It’s used as a summerhouse sometimes. That’s where we were.”

“What were you doing?”

“Oh, talking, and talking—and being fools, as usual. We quarrelled, you see.”

“Were you—alone?” Something in the tone of the question seemed to strike Sylvia.

“Alone—why, of course. It wasn’t the sort of meeting we’d invite our friends to.”

“You were alone all the time?”

“Yes—yes. Haven’t I said so?”

“How long were you there?”

“I don’t know. It felt like hours. I suppose it might have been an hour, really, or a bit more.”

“From when, do you know?”

“Twelve o’clock, or a little bit later. We’d arranged to be there at twelve.”

“Did you go there together?”

“No, John was there first. He sent me a note to the Grange to ask me to meet him there at midnight. So I shammed sick, and didn’t go to the party. Instead, I got out the Rover, and went down to the boathouse, and he was there waiting for me.”

“Did you go away together?”

“No. I went away first. I left him.” Sylvia said the last words almost solemnly.

“And you saw nobody while you were there?”

“No, of course not. There was nobody to see. Oh, do you mean there was somebody?”

“At any rate, you saw nobody. What did you and Mr. Loring quarrel about?”

“Oh, the usual thing.” Sylvia shrugged her shoulders bitterly. “John and I always quarrel. Ask Brandreth—ask any one. You don’t want me to tell you all over again, do you?” She looked up; but, at Wilson’s inexorable face, looked down again. “Oh, well, if it’s part of the show——You know, if you know anything at all about our crowd, that John was my lover a long time ago, before I was married. I ought to have married him, then. God knows why I didn’t, except that I was born a fool, I think. Anyway, I was having a jolly good time then, and I didn’t see why I should stop it all just to marry John. It would have meant stopping it all, you see—John didn’t make any bones about that. He’d have wanted me all to himself, and I didn’t see it. We quarrelled like cats about it, only we generally made up. Then, one day, we had a worse quarrel than usual. John got absolutely wild—and if you haven’t seen John furious you’ve missed one of the sights of the world—and practically told me I could choose. I could marry him at once or never see him again. Of course, that put my back up, and I told him he could go to hell for all I cared, and I’d marry him just when I pleased and not a bit sooner. So he went off in a rage, and I stayed here and cursed him. I thought, of course, he’d come back in a day or two and we’d make it up again. But the next thing that happened was that Godfrey called me into his study, and explained in his beastly fatherly way that John had gone to China, and was never coming back to England, and that he was responsible for me now, and—oh, God! such a lot of stuff. It makes me sick to think of it.

“I was absolutely furious with John for doing such an idiotic thing. And I couldn’t bear to hang around, living on Godfrey’s money and with his paws all over me. So I thought the best thing I could do was to marry William and get out of it. Oh, it’s all very well to sneer, Dr. Prendergast,” she said, turning upon him, “but I should like to know what you would have done?”

As Michael prudently refrained from taking up this challenge, Sylvia went on after a pause.

“Anyway, I did marry him; and I’m not going to tell you just how much of a mess that was, because I know Brandreth has. Of course, I didn’t know what he was like, and besides, I didn’t know till I’d tried how much I cared for John—damn him! We went on, somehow, and I never saw John again till the night William—died. And I suppose it’s that night you really want to know about, and you’re only just putting me through this——

“I got John’s note just before dinner. It was just asking me to meet him—nothing else; but it made all the difference. Wallace Burden—you know him—had been bothering me to go off with him, and one way and another I was absolutely fed up. Then, suddenly, there was John—in England. Fortunately, I’d already told Godfrey I wasn’t going to turn up at the party—I’d had enough of his damned parties to last me a long time. So I just said I wasn’t feeling well, and slipped off to my room. I knew by the time I came back—if I did—they’d all be too drunk to bother where I’d been. And, anyway, I didn’t mean to come back. I knew John must have come to take me away, and I meant to go as soon as he asked me.

“So I went. I was a bit late getting off, because I met Brian Mackenzie mooning about the grounds, and I couldn’t get away from him. But at last I got off and down to the river, and found John there. It was all right for a bit”—Sylvia’s eyes for one moment grew dreamy with recollection—“then—I’m damned if I know what happened. Somehow John began cursing me for marrying William—as if I needed telling what a fool I’d been, and anyway he hadn’t had to put up with the consequences. Anyway, I lost my temper and answered him back, and he began to tell me just what he thought about my character. I suppose he’d had time to think it all out, in China; and he didn’t waste any of it. John never was exactly what you’d call a polite lover, Mr. Wilson. At last I told him I’d had about enough of it; and he said, if I felt like that, he was sorry he’d ever come back to England, and I could stay with William and be damned. We went on that way for a bit, and at last it ended by my telling him I was going back to bed at the Grange and he could do what he liked. So I went. He didn’t try to stop me; he didn’t even help me start the car, though it had sunk in the leaves and I could hardly get it out. He just stood the other side of the river and looked. I half thought he’d follow me, even then; but he didn’t. So that’s where he was—and that was absolutely everything that happened. Why he couldn’t have told you himself I don’t know, but John always was a damned fool—like me. And—will you let him go, please?” In her desperation her appealing glance even included the obdurate Michael, who was, as a matter of fact, trying to make up his mind whether this was only remarkable acting or the real truth.

“My dear Mrs. Meston,” Wilson was saying in a very gentle voice, “if Mr. Loring is innocent, no one will be better pleased to let him go than I shall. But——”

“But what? What are you talking about, may I ask?”

“Mrs. Meston, where was your husband that night? While you were meeting Mr. Loring, I mean?”

“I don’t know. I’ve not the slightest idea. I didn’t know anything about what he was doing. What do you mean?”

“Suppose,” said Wilson slowly, “suppose he was there too?”

Sylvia Meston stared at him with horrified, yet fascinated eyes. “There? Where? Why? Oh, my God, you can’t mean that! How appalling! But he wasn’t there, Mr. Wilson! He couldn’t have been. You’re telling lies—trying to frighten me. Aren’t you?”

“I didn’t say he was,” said Wilson. “I only want you to realise that your statement does not of itself clear Mr. Loring.”

“But—I don’t know what you mean. William was killed here—at the bridge. Wasn’t he? How could—any one up at the summerhouse have had anything to do with it?”

“He wasn’t necessarily killed where he was found, Mrs. Meston. In fact, the probabilities are that he was not killed there, but somewhere up the river. Suppose it was at the summerhouse?”

“Oh, Christ!” The girl was as white as a sheet now, and swaying as she clung to the chair. It seemed a miracle that she did not faint. “I’ve been making it worse for John all the time! I tell you he didn’t do it! He didn’t! Oh, what can I do to make you believe it?”

“Come now, steady,” said Wilson, laying a hand on her wrist. “Sit down, and let’s talk it over quietly.” He guided her to a chair, where she sat almost like a person in a trance, biting her fingers and staring desperately at him. “You won’t do anything with melodrama. Nobody wants Mr. Loring to suffer if he isn’t guilty, and I for one will pledge my word that he shall have the fairest chance I can give him. I will even tell you that he made a favourable impression on me, and that, in spite of certain black appearances, I’m at present willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.”

“He didn’t!” Sylvia repeated. “It’s a lie—it must be lies.”

“But if he didn’t,” Wilson said, “and if you lose your head, you’ll only make them look blacker still. Do you understand that, and are you prepared to be sensible?”

Sylvia looked up sharply. “Do you mean you don’t believe what you said just now? Was William there, or wasn’t he?”

“That, Mrs. Meston, is exactly what I am trying to find out, if you will be so good as to help me.”

“Was he killed there? Not by here?”

“That also has to be investigated. And I want you, instead of trying to shield people and behaving, if I may say so, like a fool, to try and pull yourself together. Are you fit to answer one or two questions, and to answer them truthfully?”

A flash of resentment showed itself in Sylvia’s face, but died away. “Ask them,” she said. “I’ll answer—if I can.”

“First, then—Why did you come to me in the first place?”

“Because I thought William had been murdered—I told you so.”

“Why were you so certain?”

“I told you. Because I knew he couldn’t have killed himself—you would too, if you’d lived with him. And I didn’t believe in its being an accident. Nor did Brandreth. You know he didn’t.”

“But—excuse my pressing you—why were you, in any event, so anxious? If he was dead, surely that was sufficient for your—purposes?”

“You talk as though I’d killed him,” said Sylvia listlessly. “I didn’t. I didn’t want him killed. And I thought, if anybody had killed him—it was only fair—to him—that somebody should find it out. I don’t suppose you’ll understand—but that’s the truth, all the same.”

“Who did you think it was?”

“I didn’t think it was anybody.”

“Didn’t you? Then why were you so alarmed at the idea of Colonel Lockwood’s arresting the wrong person—when you first came to me, I mean?”

“You’re very observant. It did just flash through my mind, then, that—well, if anybody knew John had been about, they might think all sorts of things.”

“But you didn’t?”

“No, I didn’t! If I had, should I have asked you to go on?”

“And then you asked me to stop. Why?”

“Well, I should have thought that was obvious. I heard you were after John—and that you’d been up at the summerhouse—and that somebody had seen John at the cross-roads; and I didn’t know what you would do next. So I asked Godfrey, and he told me I’d been a fool, and it was most likely suicide, and I’d better choke you off before I did any more harm. So I wrote to Brandreth—I thought that was better than writing direct to you. But I meant him to show you the letter.”

“So I gathered,” said Wilson dryly. “And then you ran away. Where to? And why?”

“I went to John. At least, I meant to, only he wasn’t there. Godfrey gave me his address, but he’d had an accident, you know, and had never gone home. It took me ages to find out where he was.”

“And why did you go?”

“Why, to tell him not to come back, of course!” said Sylvia, opening her eyes wide. “And besides, if I wasn’t there, I thought you couldn’t ask me questions. Then I found that Weaver, whose house he was in, and he told me what had happened. So I came back.”

“I see. When, and why, did you fetch your property from Colchester in Mr. Burden’s car?”

“Oh, Lord, do you know that too? It was—Wednesday week, I think. I thought—I might be going to go off with him.”

“Had you told him so?”

“More or less. You have to say something to Wallace, sooner or later, or he won’t stop talking.”

“But you didn’t?”

“Why, John came back,” said Sylvia, with complete naïveté. “I didn’t know he was in England.”

“Did you—er—convey this fact to Mr. Burden?”

“No. But he didn’t need any facts conveyed to him. He took himself off the moment he thought there was going to be a row. Before the inquest, even,” said Sylvia scornfully.

“I see. Why didn’t you tell us all this before, when you first came to consult me?”

“I didn’t want you to know it,” said Sylvia.

“Well, you see I do. And perhaps you can take in that it would have been much better if you’d told me yourself in the first instance. If anything would make me believe in Mr. Loring’s guilt it is the web of inefficient lying with which you have tried to surround him,” said Wilson severely.

“I——” Sylvia looked up indignantly, but suddenly gave up the attempt. “I think you’ve got me on toast, Mr. Wilson, so I won’t try. Anyway, I haven’t said a word that isn’t true, this time.”

“Oddly enough, I believe you,” said Wilson. “It may also interest you to know that I have corroborative evidence, in the form of a piece of your evening-frock which you tore on a nail in the boathouse.” He produced it from his pocket-book. After a pause, the figure in the arm-chair emitted a weak little giggle.

“Do you know,” it said, “you make me feel rather a fool.”

“That,” said Wilson, smiling cheerfully, “was my intention. And now, will you answer one last question? Is Mr. Loring, as far as you know, a friend of Dr. Kershaw’s?”

“Kershaw’s? No, not that I know of. Kershaw’s always about the place, but I never heard of John having anything to do with him.”

“Was he—a friend of yours?”

“No, thank you,” said Sylvia emphatically. Michael noticed that she seemed quite to have regained her composure.

“Nor in love with you?”

“I hope not! I don’t like baboons.”

“Was Mr. Hanborough?”

“Nick? No, indeed. Nothing of the sort. Do you think I’m a honeypot, Mr. Wilson?”

“I think you’re rather a violent and wrong-headed young woman,” said Wilson. “But I’m in hopes that we may be working on the same lines at last, if you’ll remember that, in my view, truth pays best in the long run.”

“I’ll try,” Sylvia promised, looking dangerously meek. “But, Mr. Wilson, can’t I see him?”

“Mr. Loring? Oh, I dare say that can be arranged,” said Wilson, “if you behave yourself.”

CHAPTER XXVIII

Wilson did not show any great anxiety to discuss the bearings of the last interview. The morning paper arrived just as Sylvia Meston had gone, and he spent some time reading it in a desultory manner, with occasional lapses into brooding. At last he looked up. “You know, Michael,” he said, “I’m inclined to think that that young woman was telling the truth.”

“If that’s so,” Michael said uncharitably, “it must be the first time on record.”

“Very possibly. Which perhaps gives it all the more weight. If she is, of course, it rather knocks the bottom out of your Loring-Kershaw reconstruction, doesn’t it?”

“It doesn’t necessarily clear John Loring, even if it is true,” Michael said. “He might have committed the murder after she went away.”

“And after he went away himself, you mean. He couldn’t have done it in between, because, in the first place, he hadn’t time, and in the second, our friend Machin was watching him, if you remember. So that involves his going away, picking up Meston somewhere in his car, and murdering him—all as a deliberate plot, laid in advance. It doesn’t sound likely, and further, I doubt whether he’d really have had time. It’s a little uncertain when he left the bridge, but the police have been making inquiries into his accident, and it was only half-past two when he ran into the other car.”

“What did happen, then?”

“I only wish I knew! I wonder if young Weaver notified Godfrey Loring of his brother’s accident, by the way, or if he found out by chance?”

“What difference does it make?”

“Just an idea of mine,” said Wilson. “Thank you.” The maid-servant had just brought in a letter sent round by hand. Wilson read it through twice, with his eyebrows going up. Finally he handed it to Michael, with a shrug. It was a note from Colonel Lockwood, and it merely stated that a silk rope, knotted, had been found hidden in the leaves just by the old boathouse. With a smile almost of pity, Michael handed it back to his friend.

“This is a topsy-turvy case, isn’t it?” he said. “Just when you think you’ve cleared John Loring, there turns up a piece of nearly conclusive evidence against him. That is, unless you think there were two ropes.”

“That’s hardly likely,” Wilson admitted. “But no—this is impossible! Sorry, Michael, I want to think it out.”

“You might think just how good an actress a woman can be,” Michael suggested nastily, but could not pursue the matter, as he was just then summoned to the telephone. When he came back, all thoughts of Sylvia Meston had left his mind, and his face was strained and anxious.

“That was Warden, Harry, on the ’phone from Colchester,” he said. “He’s very anxious for me to go over there at once—and you too, if you can spare the time.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Hanborough’s levanted. He didn’t turn up to his rendezvous this morning, and sent a note saying he was clearing out.”

“I can’t say I’m surprised.”

“Nor I. But he’s apparently admitted a whole lot of things which may or may not have a bearing on this business. The police are in the Colchester office now, and Warden very much wants me to hear what they’ve got to say. He didn’t want to tell me any more himself over the ’phone. But I thought you might think it worth while to come too.”

“Perhaps it is.” Wilson got out of his chair. “Anyway, it’s probably more useful than sitting puzzling one’s brains here. I want some time to go and see that rope; but I think I’ll leave it till I know a little more what I want to find. We’d better go by car, I should think. Will you go and see about one, Michael? There’s a job I have to do first.”

As Michael left the garage, having bargained with it for the immediate use of its fastest vehicle, he met Brandreth ambling along. The little lawyer looked more debonair than ever, and he greeted Michael with a twinkle and an amiable good-morning.

“Let me congratulate you—or, rather, Mr. Wilson—on your discernment,” he said. “Sylvia has just been telling me her young man’s not going to be hanged after all.”

“Mrs. Meston is a little premature in her conclusions,” said Michael sourly. “As far as I recollect, Wilson only told her that she made matters much better for him when she consented to tell the truth!”

“Aggravating girl, isn’t she?” said the aggravating little man. “I must say it says much for your fair-mindedness that you’re able to admit when she’s speaking the truth. It’s a pity Kershaw can’t see that.”

“Can’t see what?” said Michael, thoroughly bewildered.

“Your essential fair-mindedness. He thinks you’re out to hang him, you see.”

“And wouldn’t that be fair?”

“Don’t be prejudiced, doctor. Of course it wouldn’t. Kershaw’s manners may not be pretty, but he never killed Meston. What on earth would he have gained by it, do you suppose? And if you weren’t too proud to listen to gossip, as I do, you’d have discovered long since that Kershaw never does anything unless he stands to gain something by it!”

“Why does he need to gain such a lot?”

“Oh, that’s a different question, isn’t it?” said Brandreth. “You’d better ask him. Well, I won’t keep you. You’ll tell Mr. Wilson what a meddlesome old nuisance I am, won’t you?”

“That man’s like a revolting Greek chorus, always turning up and moralising where he isn’t wanted!” said Michael, when they were seated in the car. “What on earth was he up to then, I should like to know?”

“Giving us a hint, I should say.”

“What on earth about?”

“Why, about Kershaw’s motives. It may be useful yet.”

CHAPTER XXIX

At the Colchester office they entered upon a scene of funereal excitement. The place was not, indeed, closed; but in the outer lobby there was only one small, distracted boy, who was obviously dreadfully ill-used at being deprived of his colleagues’ society. Within, there was a sort of subdued bustle. Two plain-clothes police-officers were methodically going through books and correspondence, aided by a distressed old fellow whom Michael guessed to be the faithful Davis. Two or three other clerks buzzed in the background. One of the latter took Wilson and Michael through into the inner office, where they found Inspector Bille, very calm and official, sitting in an arm-chair with a large notebook open on his knee, while Mark Warden, all yesterday’s confidence gone from his face, strode restlessly up and down in front of the fireplace.

“Thank God you’ve come!” he said, as the two friends appeared. “This is appalling. Hanborough’s gone!”

“So I heard,” said Wilson, after greeting the Inspector. “Clean gone? Definitely run away, I mean?”

“I should say so,” the Inspector chuckled. “Read his letter, sir; it’s on the table there.” Wilson took it and read it carefully.

“Dear Mark,”—it ran—“I’m sorry to tell you that I can’t keep our appointment for this morning; and more sorry that I can’t make another. The fact is, I’m throwing in my hand, and I hope and believe that this is the last you’ll hear of me. I apologise for leaving things in such a mess, but the truth is, it’s the fault of your friends, the police, for getting so inquisitive. If they’d let me have a little longer run I could have cleared it all up; as it is, I’m afraid you’ll have difficulty in dealing with Coxwell. The papers are in my desk, of which I enclose the keys. It’s not an easy one to open, and it’s a nice piece of furniture, so it would be a pity to knock it about.

“By the way, I shall have to leave Strake on your hands too. I’d square him if I could, but I want every bit of cash I’ve got. I don’t suppose you’ll have much to spare, either, but if anybody has an odd five-pound note it would be an act of charity to give it to him. He’s really had a rotten time, full of good information which nobody would pay him for. With regrets and apologies, Yours,

“Nicholas Hanborough.”

“I’ve never had the pleasure of conversing with Mr. Hanborough,” Wilson said, looking up, “but I should guess that this was rather a characteristic letter, isn’t it?”

“Like his impudence, you mean, sir,” said the Inspector. “It is. Very like.”

“How did it get here?”

“By post this morning. It was sent off by the afternoon post yesterday. Must have been sent just before he skipped.”

“He has skipped, then?”

“Oh yes. Went off yesterday afternoon. We’ve tracked him to the coast, and there are two or three boats he might have got a lift on. At the moment we don’t know which, and none of them has wireless. But I think we’ll get him.”

“And do his effects throw any light on your problems?” Wilson asked Warden.

“As far as we’re concerned, they explain the whole thing,” was the gloomy reply. “It was all his doing. He’d been systematically converting the funds to his own use—must have been doing it while Dad was still there, that’s my only comfort in the business. And that poor devil Meston was getting on his tracks. What we’re going to do now I can’t think. We’ve no possibility of meeting Coxwell, who wants to withdraw his account next week; and, of course, if he goes others will follow.”

“I see,” said Wilson, referring again to the letter, “that he says that if he had been given a few days’ more grace, he could have put the situation right. Is that correct, do you know? or merely gambler’s optimism?”

“Both, I should say,” said Bille, taking up the tale. “As far as we can make out, he was expecting to get in some cash directly, and that would have staved off the immediate collapse. How long he could have kept it up is quite another story, of course, sir.”

“Then why did he throw his hand in? Was it Warden’s suspicions?” To an intelligent listener, Wilson’s tone would have betrayed a doubt that an experienced swindler would have lost his nerve at the prospect of an interview with Mark Warden.

“Yes, and no. You see, sir,” Bille explained, “it wasn’t exactly what Mr. Warden thought, that he was afraid of. He didn’t mind about the misappropriation, because—if I may say so—he’d pulled the wool over Mr. Warden’s eyes once, and he’d pretty well reckon he could do it again. But it was one or two other things Mr. Warden let slip—about inquiries you and your friend were making about him—that hung on to some things we and the Colchester police had been finding out, and that put the wind up on him.”

“You mean,” put in Michael excitedly, “about his whereabouts the night Meston was killed?”

“That, and other things.” The Inspector obviously intended to have his money’s worth out of his sensation. “We’d an idea where he was that night. But, more than that, there was the question of what he did with the funds he’d embezzled. We were pretty certain what it was, but we couldn’t just find any way of fixing it on him.”

“And it was?”

“Drug-running, sir. Cocaine, principally; and other stuff as well. He’d a pretty big clientele hereabouts, but very difficult to come at. And it was with his makings on his last lot that he reckoned to clear off these impending troubles. But he took fright when he got Mr. Warden’s letter, and went off without them. However, we’ve got our evidence now; and when we catch him, he’ll be for it, sir, without a doubt.”

“Colonel Lockwood told me nothing of this,” Wilson wondered. It was indeed inconceivable that Lockwood should have kept so exciting a secret to himself.

“When I say we, sir,” the Inspector amplified, “I should have mentioned it was the Colchester force handled it. It was their business, really. We only came in because Hanborough was planting his stuff outside the city boundaries. In fact, I’m not sure that the Colonel really knows very much about it. You see, sir, he’s pretty well acquainted with most of the parties we’ve suspected, and it might have been difficult for him.” The Inspector’s opinion of his superior’s discretion could not have been more delicately conveyed.

“Such as Kershaw, eh?” Wilson suggested. The Inspector seemed pleased, if not astonished.

“You’ve that for a fact, sir? I’ve suspected it for some time, but I can’t say I’ve any proof. For an open-handed, free-spoken man, Hanborough was extremely cautious. It’s been remarkably difficult to come on his trail. If you’ve any proof, sir, I should be very glad if you’d let me see it.”

“You shall have it when you want it,” Wilson promised. “Meantime, perhaps you can help me on one or two points. Do you know whether Meston had any of this—side-line of his partner’s?”

“I couldn’t say, sir. There’s nothing in what we’ve found to show one way or the other. Mr. Meston, unfortunately for himself, was a very secretive man. He put hardly anything in writing, and what he had, I think Mr. Hanborough got. He had first access to his papers after his death, you see, sir.”

“There was nothing, as far as I remember, in the stuff found at Steeple Tollesbury?”

“Nothing whatever. And it’s the general belief, and I don’t see much reason to doubt it, that whatever he was doing before, the reason he went to Steeple Tollesbury was just the obvious one—to get at his wife. He was much stronger about her than about the firm, sir. Bit touched, in my opinion,” said the Inspector.

“And when he left it?”

“Who’s to say? May have been going to end it all, for aught anybody knows. Guessing’s not much good, sir.”

“It is not,” Wilson sighed. “Was Hanborough anywhere in particular that night, when he’d disappeared from the Grange, do you know?”

“Yes, sir, he was. He was with Sir Felix Lewis’s gamekeeper, fixing up business with him. He must have been rather put to it, to choose such a suspicious time; but I suppose he thought he wouldn’t be missed.”

“Oh! And where did he meet this gamekeeper?”

“At his cottage. He lives alone in a little place a couple of miles up beyond the old bridge. The cottage stands all by itself, close to the river, and there’s a path to it from the tow-path.”

“Oh!” Wilson digested this piece of information for some time; then, to Mark Warden’s relief, turned back to the matter in hand. For some time they discussed the effects of Hanborough’s flight on the firm’s affairs, Wilson endeavouring to administer a little consolation to the young man. Then Inspector Bille looked at his watch, and announced that he must go.

“Are you going back to Steeple Tollesbury?” Wilson asked. “If so, perhaps we can give you a lift. Our car’s outside, and we shall just get back in time for some lunch.” The Inspector accepted gratefully, and they piled in. Wilson and the Inspector exchanged a few commonplaces on the affairs of the Warden firm.

“Is it your opinion, sir,” Bille asked, “that these two affairs are connected—I mean this and the murder? I notice you’ve got your eye on Hanborough’s whereabouts that night?”

“I can’t say,” said Wilson. “Of course, we appear to have provided him with an excellent motive for making away with Meston—supposing we can prove that the latter knew anything of his activities. But you say we can’t. Then I confess I don’t quite see Hanborough, little as I know him, in the rôle of hangman. Do you?”

“No, sir,” the Inspector agreed. “But folk act strangely when they’re up against it.”

“Still,” Michael put in, “the man couldn’t have been murdered all along the river bank. This cottage, I think you said, is two miles above where the rope was found?”

“The rope!” There was a sudden note of excitement in Wilson’s voice. “I’d nearly forgotten the rope. Have you seen it, Bille? What was it like? And where was it found?”

“It’s a silk rope, sir,” said Bille, puzzled, but obliging. “Quite an ordinary kind of silk rope, I should say—though they’re not very common. We’ve got a man now trying to find out where it came from. It’s a good length—thirty feet or so—and it’s been knotted tight, and cut, just as you would if you’d strangled a man and then cut him down. I should say almost certainly it was the rope that was used to hang him. The Colonel’s having the fibres tested—I don’t know if that’ll prove anything, of course.”

“And where was it found?”

“Not thirty yards from the boathouse, sir, along by the tow-path, just inside the woods, in a heap of dead leaves. Just by the stump of an alder. It’s queer how our people came to miss it, being so near the place.”

“It is indeed.” Wilson’s eyes were shining with a curious inward light. “And how did they come to find it now?”

“They didn’t, sir. It was Potts, the man from the Grange, brought it in.”

“Potts?”

“Yes, sir. I understand he was taking a walk along the tow-path with his young lady, and sat down on the stump. Then he was kicking his heels about in the leaves, and it came to light. So, having heard something about strangling, though Lord knows how he did—that place is a whispering gallery—he brought it along to the station.”

“And when did he do that?”

“This morning. It was last night he found it. Does it suggest anything, sir?”

“It’s just possible—only just. But something’s queer about this, at all events. Would it inconvenience you greatly, Bille, if we took the Grange on our way back? I want to make an inquiry or two about that rope, and it won’t keep.”

The Inspector making no objection, he gave the word to the chauffeur, and for the rest of their drive remained sunk in a deep cogitation, which Michael knew better than to interrupt.

CHAPTER XXX

Wilson roused himself, as they swept up the drive of the Grange, to comment, like Michael before him, on the extreme danger of that narrow entry; and found that Bille, unlike Edna, was a whole-hearted sympathiser. “It ought to have been widened years ago,” he agreed. “Would have been, too, but that Squire and his father were both chairmen of the Bench. One of these days there’ll be a bad accident, and then I suppose something will be done about it. Do you want to see the Squire, sir?”

“Not if I can help it,” Wilson replied. “In fact, I want as little fuss as possible. I just want to have a few words with Potts, and then get away. Perhaps you’d better stay in the car, Bille, if you don’t mind. You’re probably a bit too well known hereabouts, and Dr. Prendergast can do any necessary introducing. There’s just a chance that Potts may open the door.”

As a matter of fact, the last-named eventuality actually did occur. But Wilson’s hope of getting his interview without disturbing any other member of the household was doomed to disappointment; for, even as they stood in the doorway preparatory to stating their business, a door on the far side of the hall opened suddenly, and Dr. Kershaw bounced, more than walked, out, his method of exit suggesting rather strongly that he had been assisted from behind. As he staggered into the hall, the face of the Squire, bearing a sardonic grin, appeared in the open doorway. Seeing the little group at the front door, he came forward, with a change of expression. Kershaw, whose face was livid with emotion, appeared not to see them, but on hearing Godfrey Loring’s footsteps, turned, and all but shook his fist in his face.

“Very well,” he said, “I shan’t forget.”

“I hope you won’t,” the Squire replied. “You might also remember that it isn’t altogether healthy to get thrown out of here.” He laughed. “Hullo, doctor, what can I do for you?”

At these words Kershaw, whom the penultimate sentence appeared to have reduced almost to a fit of apoplexy, turned sharp round, and, seeing Michael and his companion, made a sudden rush for the door. He nearly knocked over the footman as he disappeared down the steps.

“May I introduce my friend, Mr. Wilson?” Michael said. Godfrey Loring raised his eyebrows politely, but said nothing.

“Good afternoon, Squire,” said Wilson. “I’m really here on false pretences—it should be Colonel Lockwood. He understands that one of your men found a rope down by the old bridge last night, and there are just one or two points about it he wants cleared up, if I could see the man. It won’t take more than a couple of minutes.”

“Certainly. Potts!” Loring called to the footman. “Do you want a private conversation? If so, my study’s at your disposal.”

“There’s no reason you should not hear every word, Squire,” Wilson said carelessly, and somewhat to Michael’s surprise. “But perhaps we needn’t inform the world, though the point’s of no great interest.” He passed into the study, followed by Loring, Michael, and the footman. A whisky decanter and glasses were set out, and Loring offered drinks, helping himself when the others declined. Meanwhile, Michael gazed at Potts, whom he had not seen before. The footman, he decided, was not prepossessing, though it was with an animal, rather than a criminal, ugliness. He was of the gorilla type, with long arms, low brow, a prognathous jaw, and a heavy crop of black hair; and Michael wondered at the taste which should select such an object to open the door to its visitors. He seemed phenomenally stupid. Michael could not conceive how cross-examination could get any useful information out of him, and waited with all the more interest for Wilson to begin. He was proportionally disappointed to find that Wilson elicited nothing whatever beyond the story they had already been told by Bille in the car, and, indeed, hardly seemed to try. He only established, perhaps a little more exactly, the position of the stump by which the rope was found, and then thanked the footman, and indicated to the Squire that he might be dismissed at once.

“You’d never seen the rope before, I suppose?” was his parting question.

“Not that I know, sir,” said the footman, as he disappeared.

“That all right, Mr. Wilson?” said Loring. “Case getting on nicely?”

“So-so,” said Wilson. “It’s a long job. We’re holding your brother, you know, for the present.”

“So I heard,” said the Squire. “Dashed inconvenient for him, poor chap. I suppose you’ll have done with him soon?”

“I’m afraid I can’t say, at the moment,” said Wilson gravely. “When did you hear of his accident, by the way?”

“Some time the next day—Saturday,” was the reply. “Weaver—the fellow who picked him up—rang up and told me.”

“But you didn’t tell Mrs. Meston, did you—when she went off to find him?”

“No, I didn’t.” The Squire took a long drink. “I wasn’t aware that that came into the case, but if it does, I don’t mind telling you that I didn’t tell her deliberately. You know what Mrs. Meston is, and she had thoroughly gone in off the deep end. I’d just half a suspicion at the time—knowing my brother—that if he had managed to run across Meston while he was here, there might have been trouble, and I thought the less she poked her nose in it, the better for all concerned.”

“Then you knew he’d been in the neighbourhood?”

“Yes. Potts told me he’d seen him.”

“Didn’t you expect him to turn up here?”

“Hadn’t the slightest idea,” Godfrey Loring said. “John don’t exactly love the home of his ancestors, you know; and when he left it he didn’t bless the threshold. I supposed he’d turn up if he wanted to, and not otherwise.”

“Thank you. Can you tell me one other thing? What were you and Dr. Kershaw quarrelling about?”

“Well, I’m damned! Aren’t you being a trifle personal, Mr. Wilson? What’s it got to do with you?”

“If I tell you that Dr. Kershaw is under grave suspicion of being connected with a—financial scandal, which we are anxious to clear up with as little publicity as possible, will you tell me, Mr. Loring?”

Loring took another drink. “Oh, if it’s a criminal matter—I don’t mind. There’s nothing in it, anyway. Kershaw merely wanted to borrow some money off me.”

“For any particular purpose?”

“I’m afraid I didn’t ask. Kershaw’s always hard up, more or less, and always sponging on his friends. I don’t know if that helps you.”

“Did you lend it him?”

Loring smiled. “From his expression as he left the house, I should have thought you would have gathered that I did not.”

Wilson smiled back. “Have you often let Dr. Kershaw have money?”

“Nary a once. I’m not quite a fool,” was the reply.

“Well, thank you very much. I’m very much obliged to you, and I need not take up your time any longer,” said Wilson, getting himself and Michael out of the room. Shepherded by the Squire, they passed down the steps and out to the car, where Inspector Bille was awaiting them rather uneasily.

“I say, sir,” he said, “while you were in there, Dr. Kershaw passed out, with a face like nothing on earth, and rode off hell-for-leather on his bike. In view of what you were telling me awhile back, don’t you think we’d best pass the word to the station to keep an eye on him? We don’t want him to get off.”

“I’ve already warned them,” Wilson soothed him. “I don’t want him too closely watched, because I thought he might give somebody else away, if he was frightened and left at large. But I think you’ll find that your people have got their eye on him.”

“Hang-dog sort of fellow that Potts is,” said Michael. “It was a pity the Squire turned up just when he did. It stopped you getting any more out of him. I suppose you didn’t want to press him in front of his master?”

“I didn’t,” said Wilson. “And I didn’t want to alarm him either. But I got what I wanted.”

“Did you? I didn’t think you got anything fresh.”

“I got from his own lips the statement that he found that rope by the alder clump.”

“What’s the importance of that?”

“Only this,” said Wilson, his eyes dancing, “that I went through that pile of leaves myself with a tooth-comb on the afternoon of the inquest, and there was no rope there then.”

Inspector Bille gasped, and his jaw dropped. “Why, then—then——” he said, and stopped, for Wilson had ceased to listen.

“I know,” he was saying to himself—“I know the answer’s just under my hand. Wait a minute.” And he relapsed into silence; but just as they reached Steeple Tollesbury he almost sprang to his feet.

“Bille,” he said, “do you happen to know what the bottom of the Toll is like by the Old Malting House? Is it all mud, I mean?”

“All mud, I think,” said the Inspector. “No, bless my soul. That’s where the piers are.”

“Piers? What piers? And where are they?”

“Jutting out into the river just by the Old Malting House. There used to be a stone quay there, but it’s gone years ago, and there’s only these two piers left. They’re about eight feet down, covered with mud themselves now. I’d forgotten about them till you asked me.”

“Just so. Thank you. I believe, Michael—I’ve been a blind fool, but I believe I see daylight.”

“What’s the idea?” Michael asked curiously.

“Do dead bodies float or sink, Michael?”

“Float, generally,” Michael said. “But what——”

“And that dead body was in the river five days, and no one saw it floating! I think we’d better test this quickly.”

CHAPTER XXXI

Wilson’s next moves were totally incomprehensible to Michael. Indeed, at first he thought his friend had gone mad. Dropping the Inspector, with only the barest of leave-takings, at the police-station, he ordered the chauffeur to drive to the bridge over the Toll, and stopped the car on the farther side. There he got out, and hurried down the slope leading down to the tow-path, just as Michael, nearly a week ago, had hurried to bring first aid to Mr. Meston’s corpse. There he stopped and surveyed the land.

“Look, Michael,” he said, pointing at a small building which stood a little way back from the tow-path, and perhaps two hundred yards up-stream, “that’s Joe Billings’s cottage. If you were coming to it from Kershaw’s house, which way would you go?”

“Why, along here, I suppose, would be the quickest. Unless there’s a path through those sheds,” said Michael. Immediately to their left, and covering most of the ground between Billings’s cottage and the bridge[2] was a patch of waste ground half filled with some derelict warehouses.

“No, there isn’t. You have to go quite a long way round by the road, and then down a cart-track. Yes, this is the way he must have come. And, mark you, it’s just here, or rather, just on the bridge, that your friend Warden met him, at 1.30, coming back from the tow-path. But at that time, we know, he hadn’t been to Billings’s. What is more, he didn’t arrive there till nearly half an hour later. Where had he been? And, more important, what was he doing in that half-hour?”

“I don’t know,” said Michael. “I thought he’d been along the river, helping to murder Meston. If he hadn’t, I don’t know where he’d been. And what he was doing afterwards I haven’t an idea. Perhaps he really did go to fetch his appliances.”

“Perhaps. But on the whole I don’t think so. Let’s consider now what there is on the other side.” Michael looked across and saw nothing but the calm stuccoed side of the Old Malting House, with the reflections of the water chasing themselves about its base.

“Those two are the windows of Meston’s room, aren’t they?” Wilson said. “The one next them is passage, I fancy. Below, there appears to be only a tiny one. The wall hasn’t any windows that end. What is there below?”

“Billiard-room,” said Michael. “The tiny one is a boot-cupboard, or something, I think.”

“Just so. Quite so. See any traces of those piers?” Wilson asked, bending to look down into the water.

“No. But you wouldn’t, anyway, from this side. The reflection’s too strong, and there’s a little loose weed at the bottom. Besides, Bille said they were covered with mud.”

“That’s true. I think we’ll go and find Wason, and see if he can locate them for us. All right, driver, we shan’t need you any more.” And Wilson paid off the chauffeur, and led the way at a smart trot to the Old Malting House.

They found Wason without much difficulty, and with even less, drew him into conversation on the subject of the piers. “Thar’s only foundations left now and they mud-covered,” he said. “Ye’d never seen them without ye knew they were thar.”

Wilson asked exactly where they were, and received the information that one was directly below the first window of Meston’s room, and the other three or four yards up-stream. He made no comment, though Michael could tell that the answer had satisfied him, but began to put questions about the exact point in the river at which the body had turned up. Neither Michael nor the landlord, however, could recollect with sufficient accuracy to please him.

“Why don’t you ask Bill Sayers?” Wason said at last. “I reckon he’ll know, if any one does, seeing it was he fished carpse up.”

“Where can I find him, do you know?”

“As it happens, he’s in my bar this very moment. But he ain’t talkative. You’ll maybe have to have one with him.”

Two minutes later, having followed the landlord’s advice, Wilson was plying the uncommunicative mariner with questions. With considerable difficulty, he at last elicited that neither Bill nor Jarge, though they had been keeping a good look-out, had seen anything of the body until they actually felt it foul the tug. Then, as Jarge had said, the convoy had nearly stopped altogether, and Jarge, seeing the corpse’s face “way down in water,” had called to Bill to pull it out.

“What do you mean by ‘way down’?” Wilson asked. “Wasn’t the body floating?”

“Naw, she warn’t. She were three or four feet down, an’ I couldn’t ’ardly reach her. Caart under barge, likely,” said Bill.

“And then you pulled the body in with the boat-hook? Did you notice anything particular about it?” Wilson asked. “Did it seem heavy, for instance?”

Bill had found it heavy, and said so with sudden and uncharacteristic loquacity. It appeared that at the first attempts the corpse had declined to move at all, had, indeed, nearly pulled him overboard. “Thought I’d a-hooked barge,” he said. “She held on and she held on like mainland o’ Scotland. I sez to Jarge, me arms is a-going, I sez; then all of a sudden she comes away like, and I hauls her in.”

“As if it had suddenly come loose from something, eh?”

“That’s right, mister,” Jarge agreed. “Like a daisy, she come when she did.”

“Thank you. That’s what I wanted to know. Now can you tell me the exact spot where the body was floating?”

“That I can’t, mister, seeing ’twas under barge, and we was about mid-stream. But when I sees her, she was a-poking-up near side of barges, just along of Wason’s place, abouts. If ye’ll come through and look through th’ window, I’ll show ye the ’xact spot.”

Wilson came, and followed closely the indications given by Sayers’ grimy thumb. As far as he could see, the body had been found almost exactly above the first of the sunken piers.

“Thanks,” he said, dismissing Bill with suitable gratuities. “The next step,” he said to his other two hearers, “demands Colonel Lockwood’s presence. I think I’ll go up and find him. You stay about a bit, Wason. We may want you.”

“What do you want Lockwood to do?” Michael asked, as they went off.

“Drag the river,” was the answer.

“Why, there aren’t any more bodies there, are there?”

“I don’t anticipate finding any,” was all Wilson would say.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] See endpaper map.

CHAPTER XXXII

They found Colonel Lockwood disposing of the remains of an excellent lunch; and even in his excitement Michael found time to regret that Wilson had apparently forgotten all about a midday meal. He took the Colonel aside for a few minutes’ conversation, as a result of which the latter left the house rapidly in the direction of the police-station, while Wilson and Michael returned to the inn.

“We can’t get at the piers any way but by water, can we?” Wilson asked the landlord. “Then we’d better have your boat ready. There’s a party from the station coming along directly with a drag-net.” Michael used the interval to fortify himself a little with Wason’s extremely good beer.

In a very short time the party, which consisted of the Colonel, Sergeant Linton, and two policemen with the net, arrived on the tow-path, where the boat was waiting for them. Wilson, with the landlord and the two policemen, climbed in, while the others watched the proceedings from the bank. For a little while the boat manœuvred about, Wason giving the exact bearings of the old pier, while Wilson peered over the side into the clear water.

“See that, waving about among the weeds down there?” the watchers heard him say at last.

“It’s a mighty thick weed,” Wason agreed.

“That?” one of the policeman said; “that ain’t no weed. That’s a rope-end.”

“Precisely. That’s what I’m after, I think. Heave to, will you? And give me the boat-hook.”

After two or three tries, Wilson succeeded in getting the boat-hook to catch in the rope, and then began pulling on it gently. It did not move. He tried again and again, using a little more strength each time, but still the rope did not budge.

“Maybe it’s fastened to the pier,” Wason suggested, offering to assist. But Wilson declined.

“We mustn’t break it,” he said.

The drag-net was next called into play. “Be very careful,” said Wilson. “There’s something down there, on the pier, I think, which I want to get up. But if you knock it off into the mud, we shall never get it again. Go at it gently.”

For a few minutes the drag-net was manipulated to and fro. Then one of the policemen gave an exclamation. “That’s got something!” he said. “But we can’t move it,” he added a moment later. “It’s far too heavy for the net.”

“Stay just as you are,” Wilson commanded. He drew a long, straight wire from the bottom of the boat, and began to probe for the object. “I’ve got it. Now, pull hard for a second—stop! It moved,” he announced, bringing back his wire. “But how the devil are we to get whatever it is into the boat?”

There was a moment’s pause for consideration, while Wilson surveyed the land. “Somebody’ll have to go down for it, I’m afraid,” he said at last, “and tie a rope round it, and maybe we’ll be able to haul it in. I’ve got a coil of rope here. Do you know of any one who can dive a bit?” he asked the policemen.

“I can, sir,” one of them said. “I don’t mind going down. But I don’t think you’ll get her in, sir, not without you capsize the boat, and you’ll lose her again.”

“Strikes me,” the other grumbled, “what you’re trying to pull up’s a bit of the old pier.”

“It isn’t,” Wilson said. “It moved. But I’m not sure you’re not right,” he said to the first policeman. “And we can’t risk losing it. I think,” he added after a moment’s pause, “the best way will be to fix on ropes and haul the thing in at that window,” pointing to the window of Meston’s room. “Then we’ll be able to see what it is. I suppose it won’t pull your wall out, Wason?”

“That it won’t,” Wason said. “That wall’s a foot thick and more.”

“Then what we want,” said Wilson, “is plenty of strong rope. We’d better land and look for it.”

The preparations took some little time, but eventually some stout rope-ends were hanging out of the window, while Michael, the Colonel, and the sergeant stood in the room prepared to haul. Wilson stood at the window, and Wason remained below directing operations, while the volunteer diver began to remove his clothes. “I’ll go down and have a look round first,” he called up to the window. His colleague meanwhile collected the ends of rope in the boat, which Wason was balancing over the indicated spot. In another moment he had disappeared over the side.

The watchers at the window craned their necks, but could see nothing beyond bubbles and a stirring of mud from the river-bed. In a few seconds, however, the diver reappeared, spluttering and brushing water from his eyes. “It’s a big trunk,” he gasped. “I got hold of it, but it won’t move an inch.”

A trunk! Absurd visions of buried treasure floated across Michael’s mind; but Wilson seemed completely unmoved. “Anything to fasten the ropes to?” he asked.

“Oh, aye, that’ll be easy enough. It’s got good strong handles, and plenty of room for fastening ’em. Give me a couple of them ropes.”

Down went the diver again, and this time it seemed hours before he reappeared, announcing that he wanted another rope for safety’s sake. This was supplied, and after a little more delay he brought up the news that the trunk was now ready to be hauled in. He climbed back into the boat with some difficulty—“Easy on the rope!” said Wason—and after a perfunctory rub-down began resuming his clothes.

“Ready?” asked Wilson from the window.

“Half a minute, sir, till we get the boat clear,” was the reply.

After a long and wearisome pull the watchers could see something gradually approaching the surface of the water. In a series of lurches it came to light, and disclosed itself as a large tin trunk, covered with mud and waterweed, and trailing from it a broken length of cord. “Sakes alive!” Wason cried, nearly capsizing the boat in his excitement. “If that isn’t the missus’s old tin trunk from the loft! How in Christendom did that get to the bottom of the river?”

At this point there was a muffled curse from inside the room, and the trunk redescended with a jerk into the water. Turning to see what had happened Wilson observed the sergeant standing up and indignantly rubbing lacerated hands. “We shan’t get it in this way,” Colonel Lockwood said. “There isn’t weight enough among us. Better get my fellows in.”

“Right,” Wilson said. “Let her go again, gently. Now then,” he called, “you in the boat, you’re not wanted any longer there. Come round and help haul.” A roar of laughter directed his attention to the bridge, where an interested crowd had collected. “Oh, and clear the bridge, will you? We don’t want an audience. Linton, you’re the lightest weight; you go out and keep the place cleared. We can do without you, I think.”

His instructions were carried out to the letter, and at length, after a terrific haul, during which they more than once nearly lost it, the trunk became visible above the window-ledge, Wilson fending it off from the wall. “Now, then, last pull. Mind the window! That’s done it.” All stood up and mopped their brows as the trunk at last came to rest on the floor of Meston’s room.

“What on earth do you suppose is in it, to make it that weight?” the Colonel asked.

“Shall we look?” Wilson said. He began to tug at a double rope which was wound about the trunk’s middle. Sodden by the water, the knots refused to budge and had to be cut. Then, while all held their breath, he slowly raised the lid. Michael, looking over his shoulder, gave a sigh of disappointment.

The trunk was full to the brim of a ramshackle collection of pieces of rusty metal, apparently parts of some disused machine. Wilson unpacked these and disclosed beneath them something which gleamed like marble, and on being lifted out turned out to be a piece of sculpture representing a lady in a classical posture, with nothing on. A similar lady followed her, and left the trunk empty. “God bless my soul!” said Colonel Lockwood.

Wason stared at the figures, and scratched his head. “Well, I’m damned!” he said. “If those aren’t the statues I turned out of the coffee-room because the missus said they wasn’t decent! They’ve been up in my loft these fifteen years, and I never give them another thought. But what the dickens would anybody want to put them in a trunk for?”

“That’s quite simple,” said Wilson. “The murderers overdid it a little, or we shouldn’t have had all this trouble. But the whole thing’s nothing more than a weight used to sink the body.”

“The body!”

“Meston’s body,” he added.

“What! Then you mean,” the landlord said, “he was killed here, in this house, and thrown out of window wi’ that trunk tied on him?”

“That’s what I mean, more or less. See here.” Wilson picked up the loose end of rope which had been floating in the river. “This has been broken. If you joined it on”—he brought the end close to another which protruded from a knot—“you’ll see it made a loop. And that loop’s about the size of a man’s waist measurement. What clearly happened is this. The murderers tied the trunk to the body, and sank it in the river. But it fell on the old pier, which caught the trunk and left the body to float freely at the end of the cord—that is, about three or four feet below the surface. Nobody saw it—it’s not in the main stream—until our friend Jarge, who I suspect must have got a little out of his course, fouled it with the tug. The blow knocked it sideways, and he then saw the face in the water on the near side of the barge. When Bill hooked it, I judge from his account he must actually have got his hook in the rope itself, so that when he tried to pull it in, he was really pulling on the whole weight of the trunk. Naturally it wouldn’t come, until Bill, who is a pretty hefty fellow, succeeded in breaking the rope—you can see where it’s frayed. Then, of course, the body, being released from the trunk, came up ‘like a daisy,’ as he said, and they got it on board.”

“Good God!” the Colonel said. “You mean the devil strangled him first, and then drowned him with the trunk round his waist! What a diabolical thing! And if it hadn’t been for you we should never have known!”

“If it hadn’t been for the pier,” said Wilson. “If the trunk hadn’t happened to land directly on the pier it would have buried itself in the mud at the bottom, and it is ten thousand to one that neither it nor the body would ever have been seen again. The murderer or murderers owe their failure to a lucky—for him an unlucky—chance. If they had been able to avoid that pier——”

“They’d have got away with it,” said Michael quietly.

“They may yet, easily enough,” Colonel Lockwood said gloomily. “It doesn’t seem to me we’re much nearer knowing who they were.”

“One step at a time,” Wilson reassured him. “We’ve got some data, anyway. We know that they had to choose this particular place.”

“Well, that’s natural,” Wason said. “It’s just below Mr. Meston’s window.”

“And below something else, I think. Where did you say this stuff came from?”

“Out o’ the loft above.”

“Where is the loft? I didn’t know you had one.”

“Above this room, in the roof. Ye can’t see it from below, sir, but it and this room, they was both part of the old grain store years ago, when this place was a malting house. There warn’t any ceiling to this room then, it went straight up to the rafters. Then my father, when he took it, he put a ceiling in, so’s to make a room of the bottom part, and turned the top space into a loft. That’s a matter of forty or fifty years ago, and we don’t use it for nothin’ now but lumber. But it’s thar all right.”

“How did you get up to it?” Wilson asked. “I haven’t seen a stair.”

“It’s behind a door, sir, just at the end of the passage that goes to your room. It’s the old stair that used to lead up to the platform they had to steady the sacks when they hauled ’em in from the grain barges. There used to be a crane of some sort in the gable to fetch ’em up; but my father, he took it down.”

“Then the loft’s our next place of call,” said Wilson decidedly. “Leave this trunk where it is, and lock the billiard-room door.”

“You know, Michael,” he said, as they mounted to the first floor, “I ought to be shot for not having thought of that before.”

“Damned if I know what you’ve thought of now,” Michael said.

“I mean the weight,” Wilson explained. “It did occur to me, when I first heard your story, that it was odd that nobody should have noticed the body sooner, and I wondered whether it could have got caught in weed somewhere. When I saw it, however, I realised that there wasn’t enough weed on it for that to be true. Then that tree, and John Loring’s tryst, came in to confuse the trail, and I never so much as thought of the corpse having been tied to something till I realised this morning that whatever had happened couldn’t have happened at the old bridge.”

“Why couldn’t it?”

“Because of the rope,” said Wilson enigmatically. “Here we are.”

CHAPTER XXXIII

Dust and grime notwithstanding, it was a picturesque place into which they stumbled when they had made their way up the steep staircase. Huge rafters, of seasoned and blackened oak, spanned it, and from under the rafters, as they entered, half a dozen disturbed bats flew out and began to circle dismally round their heads. Two birds in noisy alarm dashed themselves violently against the sloping roof, and eventually, after some battering, made their way out through a broken skylight. This skylight, with another equally encrusted with dirt, provided all the light there was in the loft, save for a thin streak outlining what appeared to be a door in the riverside wall; but it was sufficient for them to see an odd collection of miscellaneous objects of all sorts, piled up anyhow on the floor, and all half buried in a thick layer of dust. Desolation could hardly go further.

“It’s in pretty much of a pickle,” the landlord said, surveying it. “You see, nobody comes up here nowadays. It’s months since I’ve been in the place myself. Every now and then I shove away something that’s not wanted, same as I shoved those statues; but, barring that, there’s no call to come here. ’Tisn’t worth while to keep the place clean.”

“But somebody’s been up here recently, all the same,” said Wilson, “or the trunk couldn’t have got down. Tread very carefully, all of you, so as not to disturb any traces. Walk along the outside beams. Hullo, here we are.” He pointed out some footprints which were plainly visible in the thick dust. “Almost as good as sand, for keeping traces. We’ll have a drawing of those in a minute. But this is rather odd.” He straddled from one beam to the next, and stood a moment staring at the prints. “I can’t understand this. But we can’t do much without more light. Is that a door over there?”

“Aye,” said Wason. “It’s in the gable—used to give on to that platform I told you about. Do you want it open, sir? I’ve got the key, but I doubt it’s stuck fast.”

“Why couldn’t I see the door from the outside?” Wilson asked. “I was looking at the inn from across the river just now, and there wasn’t a sign of it.”

“It don’t show from the outside, sir,” the landlord said. “When I had that wall stuccoed three years back, I let ’em carry the stuff right across the old door. There’s nothing but a line shows each side it now, and you’d never see that if you didn’t know ’twas there.” As he spoke he inserted a rusty key, which turned with surprising readiness, and gave the door a push. It opened immediately and with such ease that if Wilson had not grabbed him by the coat-collar he would have fallen into the river. “Whew-w!” said Wason. “That was a narrow shave. Thank you, sir. But the last time I opened it, it was as stiff as——”

“It’s been oiled since then,” said Wilson. “Feel those hinges. That suggests somebody has found a use for it quite recently. Well, at any rate we’ve got a bit of light on the situation.” He turned to survey the floor of the loft, on which the flood of light from the open door threw the footprints into strong relief. “See the mark where they dragged the trunk across the floor, Michael? But I think our principal concern is with the door.”

He crossed to its narrow sill, and stood looking out. Just above his head projected the stout beams of the little gable, and immediately below, breaking the sheer drop to the water, was the coping of Mr. Meston’s window. “Supposing,” he said, “a man were leaning out of that window, and supposing some one standing here dropped a noose over his head, and began to haul on it——”

The Colonel gave a shudder, but Wason remained sceptical. “They wouldn’t ’a’ got him up,” he said stolidly. “He’d be too heavy to pull out o’ window. Ain’t no leverage here.”

“But you said they used to pull up sacks here—heavy sacks,” Michael objected.

“Oh, aye, sacks. But sacks weren’t stuck in a window. Besides, they’d a crane in the gable. But my father—he took it down. It was only a big pulley, properly speaking, and he was afraid it’d get rotten and do some one a mischief falling on the barges.”

“The pulley may have gone,” Wilson said, leaning precariously out over space, while Michael moved to his side and held on to his coat-tails; “but something’s been in that gable not so long since. I can see screw-holes—new ones. Keep a hold, Michael. I’m going farther out. Wait a minute.” He swung back to safety, and drew a two-foot rule from his pocket. “Now.” He leant out as far as he dared, and with the rule in one hand and the other gripping the gable, began making measurements along the wood. Then he closed the rule and dropped it back into the loft. “Got a knife, somebody?” he asked. Wason opened his pocket-knife and handed it across. “No good,” said Wilson, after a minute’s scratching on the woodwork. “It’ll fall down. Fish in my trouser-pocket, Michael—no, the other one—and you’ll find my knife. If you open it, there’s a little pair of pincers in the head.... Good.” He leaned out still farther, and with a jerk of the pincers removed something from the woodwork, and placed it in his mouth for safety. “All serene. Coming in,” he said; and with Michael’s aid swung back into the loft.

Still standing on the sill, he drew from his mouth a strong screw, and exhibited it in the palm of his hand. “That’s what we call a ‘clue,’ Mr. Wason,” he said. “Now, have you got a wheelwright in the town, or any one who does odd wood-turning jobs?”

“Goodyear, in Strangers’ Alley, up along High Street, does most of that kind,” Wason said. “There’s one or two others does odd jobs; but Goodyear, he’s known.”

“Well, then, Colonel, I wonder if you or one of your men could do a job for me. I want to know if Goodyear at any time during the last month made or fitted up a pulley and pulley-blocks for this gable. Of course he won’t have known that it was for the gable; but here are the dimensions of the pulley”—he had torn a sheet from his pocket-book and began scribbling busily while he talked—“and this is a rough diagram of where the screw-holes were. The timber was three-quarters of an inch exactly, grooved for a slender rope, and this is one of the screws that were used. You can take it as a pattern. If Goodyear hasn’t made anything of the sort, try all the other people you can think of until you find out who has. Only it’s got to be done as quickly as possible, or our friends, whoever they are, will get to know about it, and decamp. Do you mind?”

“I’ll go myself,” said the Colonel, taking the sketch. He bustled off, looking very important. “Mind the footprints!” Wilson called after him.

“While’s he’s gone,” Wilson said, “we’d better examine this place as carefully as we can. There may be other traces. Have either of you men got flashlamps? Good. Then you go off into the dark end, and examine that thoroughly. But for goodness’ sake don’t disturb any of the traces we’ve already got. Linton, will you be measuring and drawing the footprints very carefully. I think you’ll find there are three sets, apart from some smudges; but I can’t be sure till they’re measured. Make a plan of how they lie, too—all those you can distinguish. There’s a bit of confirmatory evidence here, Michael, for what it’s worth,” he went on, looking out of the door again. “See those marks in the stucco just below? They’re fresh scratches; and they were made, I suppose, by the trunk as it went down, or by his feet as he came up—probably the latter.”

“Ugh!” said Michael, retreating. He did not like sheer drops at the best of times, still less drops where men had been hanged.

“There’s some cigarette-ends here, sir,” one of the constables said. “Nothing else that I can see.”

“Pick ’em up,” said Wilson. “I don’t suppose they’ll tell us much, but we’d better have all we can get. Look out, Michael, there’s something shining by your foot. Hullo! This is an odd thing to find in a loft.” In his hand lay a tiny, but blazing emerald. “Come out of anything of yours, Wason?”

“No, sir, nor of the missus’s,” the landlord said, with emphasis. He was staring at the brilliant little jewel as if it troubled him.

“Know whose it is?”

“Couldn’t say, sir.”

“Well, if you do, or if you find out, you’ll know pretty well who the murderer is,” Wilson said. “How are you fellows getting on?”

“Nearly done, sir,” one of the constables replied. “There’s a lot of junk here in this corner, that’s a bit awkward to get round. Something’s fallen down, I think, just lately, by the dust. Yes, it’s this box. Lend a hand, Freddy, and we’ll have it up. Holy snakes!”

“What’s the matter?” Without speaking, the man held up a long coil of fine silk rope.

“Well,” said Wilson, “what of it? The man was hanged, wasn’t he? That almost presupposes a rope.”

“But they found the rope, sir, by the boathouse.”

“No, they didn’t,” said Wilson. “This is the rope.”

“Then what’s the other?”

“The other? Oh, a plant, of course. That’s what I suspected. But why on earth were they such fools as to leave this one here? I suppose they lost it, tipped the box over on it, couldn’t find it in the dark, and didn’t dare to stay looking for it too long. It was all odds against it ever being found.”

“Particularly,” said Michael, “if the body had stayed at the bottom of the river.”

“Yes. Well, I think that’s about all we shall find up here. Suppose we get down. When you’ve finished, Linton, bring those drawings to me, and then put a guard at the bottom of the stair. What’s this?”

“A chestnut on a string,” said Michael, picking it up. “Not much good to us, is it? They’re hardly likely to have been playing conkers here.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Wilson. “They may have been. Bring it along, anyway.”

He led the way out of the loft, followed by Prendergast and the landlord. When they reached the landing Wason plucked at his sleeve. “If you please, sir, could I have a word with you?”

“Right.” Wilson turned in at the doorway of Meston’s room. “What is it?”

“That emerald, sir, you picked up in the loft—I didn’t like to say much, not with all those chaps about; but I’ve a feeling I know whose it is.”

“Well?”

“Mr. John’s, sir,” said Wason.

“Oh!” Wilson seemed more than a little surprised. “John Loring’s? Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure, sir,” the landlord admitted unwillingly. “Mr. John, when he was about these parts, he always had an emerald tie-pin, with a great big stone in the centre and a lot of little ’uns all round. And my girl, she saw him when he drove back with the police, and she noticed particular he was wearing his emerald pin.” Wason looked very distressed.

John Loring’s! And in the loft, where certainly John Loring had no reason to be. Little as he liked Sylvia Meston, Michael was almost indignant with Wilson for raising her hopes so recently. But Wilson did not appear moved.

“Well, we shall see what we shall see,” he said. “Hullo, Colonel, any luck?”

CHAPTER XXXIV

Colonel Lockwood looked extremely puzzled. “I can’t understand it,” he said. “I’ve traced the pulley—it wasn’t made by Goodyear, by the way. But a man called Templeton, who lives just outside the town, remembers quite well making a pulley and pulley-block to just those measurements, about three weeks ago.”

“For whom?” said Wilson. “That’s the point.”

“For Potts, the footman up at the Grange. But——”

“That’s all right,” said Wilson, whose face had fallen, but brightened up in a minute. “Of course, it might perfectly well have been Potts. In fact, it’s really more likely.”

“More likely than what?” said the Colonel. “Potts doesn’t seem to me to have much to do with Kershaw. And it was Kershaw whom you told me to watch.”

“Yes,” said Wilson. “I hope you did, by the way. But Kershaw didn’t commit the murder.”

“Then who did?”

As Wilson opened his mouth to reply, there was a knock on his sitting-room door, and a bland, cherubic face looked in.

“May I have a look at the exhibits, please, Mr. Wilson?” Brandreth asked. “I believe that’s the proper name for them. I’ve just been up in the loft, and I noticed——”

“Mr. Brandreth,” said Wilson, “will you kindly clear out? I’m busy.”

“I’m so sorry,” the lawyer replied. “If I’m intruding I’ll come another time. But I really thought you’d like to know——” He paused expectantly.

“Like to know what?” Wilson asked. If there was no other way of ridding himself of this pestilential lawyer, he supposed he would have to hear him out.

“Why, whose bootprints they are that your man’s drawing so patiently up in the loft,” said Brandreth. “I’ve just been to have a look.”

“Then you will kindly not go again!” said Wilson, still with asperity. “Nobody is to go up there. Well, whose are they?”

“You don’t know?” said Brandreth, with a look of beautiful innocence. “Come—I give you three guesses.”

“Mr. Brandreth, will you kindly stop being a buffoon, and tell us what you know?”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” said the lawyer. “But, you see, I have a personal interest. The bootprints happen to be mine.”

This time there was no doubt. Wilson was genuinely startled. “Yours?” he said incredulously. “Mr. Brandreth, are you making me a confession, or is this another of your extremely ill-timed jokes?”

“Oh dear, no,” said the lawyer. “I’m not a murderer. I’m not even an accomplice. I’m only a member of the inquiring British public. You see, I happened to go up into the loft after lunch——”

“What, again?”

“No, before. When you chased all those people off the bridge, I met the boots, and asked him where the trunk had come from. I was standing on the bridge when you hauled it up, you see. He said it came out of the loft, so I went up to have a look. I came down before you went up there; but when I went up again just now, and saw Linton earnestly making sketches of my bootprints, I thought perhaps I’d better let you know.” He held up a foot for inspection. “Would you like to draw them? or shall I send a boot round to you? I give you my word they’re the same.”

“Mr. Brandreth,” said Wilson, “some people would call you the most impudent person they had ever met.”

The lawyer sighed. “You misinterpret my motives, Mr. Wilson. You don’t allow enough for intelligent curiosity, really you don’t. I beg your pardon for interrupting. Afternoon, Lockwood!” And with a comprehensive smile he was gone.

“Really!” said Michael. “What confounded cheek! I shouldn’t wonder if he really was the murderer.”

“Nonsense!” said Wilson. “Of course he wasn’t. Don’t be an ass, Michael. That kind of chap doesn’t commit murder, except in novels that must have ‘unexpected’ endings. He’s a buffoon and a busybody, and that’s all about it. Actually, I’m grateful to him for clearing up one difficulty.”

“Then who was?” the Colonel asked. For answer Wilson drew from his pocket the envelope in which lay the little emerald.

“John Loring!” Michael cried. “But I thought——”

“John!” gasped the Colonel. “But I’ve just given leave for Sylvia to see him! Really, Wilson, I think you might have——”

“Not John Loring, Colonel,” said Wilson, who was not always above creating a sensation. “Godfrey.”

“Godfrey! The Squire! It’s impossible! What do you mean?” The Colonel stared in horror.

“But,” said Michael, “Wason said the emerald was John Loring’s.”

“Wason was wrong. John Loring’s isn’t the only emerald tie-pin. The Squire also has one—they’re family twins, I believe—and I noticed when I met him that one of the stones was missing. John Loring’s, I think, is complete.”

“But what an appalling thing! Are you sure?” said the Colonel.

“I should not have mentioned it if I were not,” said Wilson, who disliked having his statements doubted. “If you ask Godfrey Loring to provide you with an alibi for Friday night of last week, I think you will find that you have put him in rather a difficulty. Of course we shall be able to be quite sure when we have compared the footprints in the loft.”

“I thought Brandreth said those were his?” Michael said.

“One set was,” said Wilson. “But there were three sets. That was one thing which puzzled me, especially as one set looked much fresher than the others. Those must have been Brandreth’s.”

“But the Squire?” The Colonel was still gasping like a fish. “You can’t mean it? Are you accusing Godfrey Loring of murder?”

“Of being concerned,” said Wilson in his grimmest voice, “in the murder of William Meston on the night of ninth August, by hanging him from a pulley in that gable. And I am prepared to swear an information to that effect against him and his accomplice.”

“His accomplice?”

“Potts—the footman. Of course, you must have seen this wasn’t a one-man job. And, from what you’ve just told me, it’s evident that Potts was the other criminal.”

“Why?”

“My dear Colonel, who was it ordered the pulley? More than that, who was it found the rope by the alder stump—the rope which was to send John Loring to the gallows for his brother’s crime—the rope which was not there a week after the crime was committed, and which only appeared when you had told Godfrey Loring that the evidence against his brother was not complete enough to take before a jury? Potts! And when I questioned him yesterday, he stuck firmly to his story, which, as I happened to know, was a lie. He is certainly a faithful servant.”

“But,” Michael said, “aren’t you forgetting Kershaw? And Hanborough? A little while ago you seemed sure that Kershaw and Hanborough had done it together.”

“Hanborough, as you so pertinently observed, my dear Michael, is off the map. The connection between him and Kershaw is very interesting, but has nothing directly to do with the murder. As to Kershaw, I shan’t know for certain till I’ve had an opportunity of questioning him freely. But I fancy he saw the crime.”

“Saw the crime?”

“Yes, from the tow-path opposite, on his way to Billings’s cottage. You remember he started to go there, but never arrived. Something occurred to delay him, and if that something was a man being hanged from the Malting House windows, it might well have given him something to think about. You remember Warden, who saw him coming back across the bridge, thought he looked as if he’d seen a ghost.”

“But why did he come back at all?”

“Well, most people, seeing a murder committed before their eyes, would at least stop to inquire, wouldn’t they? I imagine Kershaw, not knowing whom he’d seen, went round to the Old Malting House, and met them coming out.”

“And then?”

“Well, have you forgotten Kershaw’s financial position? And the bills that were paid?”

“I see!” Michael said. “You mean blackmail. But—that was before the body came up out of the water. Do you mean Kershaw undertook to hit it over the head when it did?”

“No, of course not. It wasn’t intended ever to be seen again. The pier—and your untimely appearance, Michael—are responsible for that unlucky blow. Unlucky, I mean, from Kershaw’s point of view.”

“Because it directed suspicion to him?”

“And because it dried up his milch-cow. That, I fancy, is where our friend tripped himself up. Five hundred pounds in one lump is a pretty good catch, and everybody knows how rich Loring is. Kershaw, I surmise, saw himself in clover for the rest of his life, and when the body turned up again, either in order to secure his income, or to prevent the crime being discovered—in which case Loring was pretty sure to give him away—took the insane step of faking that blow. Either way he did himself in. We intercepted a note at his house, Michael, giving Loring’s views on the matter, and I rather think the conversation whose tail we heard this morning was Kershaw’s last throw. Of course, by faking the blow, he at once made it impossible for himself to blackmail anybody. But this is rather idle conjecture. It’s what I think happened; but we shall get it all out of Kershaw. He’ll speak fast enough when you have him under lock and key, and kept without his drugs.”

“Drugs? Blackmail?” said the bewildered Colonel. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. But if you really mean me to take up this charge, you’ve got to tell me why. What conceivable motive had Godfrey——?”

“Motive?” Wilson cried. “You’ve been meeting the man almost every day, and you talk to me of motive! Man alive! where are your eyes? Haven’t you seen Loring with Mrs. Meston? Why, the man’s eaten up with passion for her, and has been, I should say, for years—long before he saw the bank manager walk off with her under his very nose. I shouldn’t be surprised to learn that he had something to do with John Loring’s sudden departure for China.” At this a sudden look of horrified illumination came into the Colonel’s face. “And then—she ran away from Meston to the Grange. And Meston followed her there, and was thrown out, if you’ll remember, by Potts, acting on his master’s instructions. And he saw his chance. Do you really believe, knowing him as you do, that he’s not the sort of man to take his chance when he got it—not to mention that he’s been moving heaven and earth to get you to arrest his brother and to make sure of his conviction?”

“I remember,” the Colonel said slowly, “that he did get John to go to China. He found him the post, and got him to accept—he asked my advice about it. But I can’t think——”

“If we waste much time thinking,” Wilson interrupted, “it’ll be too late to act. May I remind you that these two are still at large—and news travels fast in this gossip-hive of yours!”

“I suppose,” said the Colonel reluctantly, “I’ve got to arrest him.”

“And quickly, I should say,” said Wilson, “or he won’t be there to arrest. In fact, I shouldn’t wait for the warrant. I should go straight up to the Grange and detain him pending inquiries. I’ll get the warrant, if you like. And, by the way, make for Potts first. He’s nearly as guilty, but we want his evidence to catch Loring. Don’t let him get away. And, if I may, I’ll see that your people make sure of Kershaw. Only, for God’s sake, Colonel, be careful. The man’s absolutely desperate, and he’ll stick at nothing. I’ll go in a minute, as soon as I’ve got my evidence into order.”

Only half convinced, but completely browbeaten, the Colonel got to his feet, and slowly disappeared. For a few minutes after he had gone, Wilson wrote rapidly, transferring hieroglyphic notes out of his pocket-book.

“That ought to do the trick,” he said at last. “Now for convincing Loring’s fellow-magistrates.” He led the way to the door. On the threshold he hesitated. “You know,” he said, “I’m not sure that I oughtn’t to have gone to the Grange myself. It’s a very ticklish business, and Lockwood’s such an infernal blunderer. I’m half afraid he’ll let the man get away. I wonder if I ought to go.”

“They’ll be nearly there by now,” said Michael, looking at his watch.

As he spoke, a car came tearing down the High Street, jammed on its brakes with an excruciating scream, and shot out Mark Warden, white-faced and anxious-eyed, on the pavement beside them.

“Mr. Wilson,” he said, without any preliminary, “is it true there’s a row at the Grange, and Lockwood’s gone off to arrest—the Squire?”

“It is true,” said Wilson shortly, trying to silence the young man, as a number of heads appeared at surrounding windows.

“And Edna’s there alone! Why didn’t you tell me? What’s it about?” Warden said. “I shall go up there now,” he added defiantly.

“You can go if you like,” said Wilson, making a sudden decision, “if you take me with you. You can come, if you like, Michael.”

“Mind if I let her out a bit?” the young man asked, having packed them in.

“Not when you’ve got past the corner,” was the reply. “I want to speak to the constable on duty there.” In a moment, it seemed, they were at the corner, and Wilson, summoning the constable, instructed him to leave his post and go and fetch Dr. Kershaw to the police-station immediately, there to await further orders. “Now you can step on it,” he said to Warden, as the man turned away.

CHAPTER XXXV

“What’s it all about, Mr. Wilson?” Warden asked in the intervals of “stepping on it,” while Wilson and Michael held on to their hats. “Or is it still a secret?”

Wilson gave a brief outline of the story, and he set his teeth and drove, if possible, more violently. “The swine!” he said. “I knew he was no good; but he was Edna’s brother, and she would stick up for him. God, I hope he’s not done anything to her! You might have given me a hint.”

“I would, as soon as I’d been at all sure,” Wilson said. “But until this afternoon I had only the barest of conjectures to go on. I am ashamed to say that I forgot Miss Loring at the moment; but I am quite certain she’s in no danger. What I’m afraid of is that Lockwood may bungle it somehow, and let Loring get away.”

“Well, he hasn’t got away, yet—not along this road,” said Warden, as the lodge gates of the Grange appeared in sight.

“Nor have the police come back,” said Wilson, who was keeping an anxious look-out.

They swung round the corner on two wheels, and shot along the curves of the drive. “We’ll be there in a minute,” Warden said, as they reached the narrow part. Suddenly they heard, not far ahead of them, the sound of a Klaxon pressed furiously and continuously.

“God!” said Warden, slowing slightly in his dismay. “That’s Loring’s horn! He’s off!”

“Stop the car!” Michael cried, taking in the danger all at once. “The curve—look!—and cars from the Grange have the road! He’ll smash us.” They could hear the engine now as well as the horn.

“Turn her into the hedge, quick,” Wilson ordered. “As far as you can, and jump out.” With a grinding of brakes, Warden obeyed. Michael had just got the door open, when the two-seater flashed round the bend, not twenty yards ahead.

What happened then, Michael was never quite certain. The two-seater hesitated for a second, seeing them, then made a frantic effort to swerve past. But the space, even with Warden’s car in the hedge, was insufficient; the two-seater caught the mud-guard, slewed round, and plunged its nose into the fence on the far side. There was a crash, a rearing-up of the car, and the man in it was flung violently backwards into the drive, where he lay still. Wilson and Michael, who had got out at the back of their own car, were pinned by it against the hedge and unable for a minute to extricate themselves; but Warden, who had been standing by the bonnet, after a second’s shocked immobility, ran forward. As he came up, the figure on the ground stirred slightly.

“Look out!” Wilson shouted; but the warning came too late. Even as Warden bent to touch him, Godfrey Loring leaped to his feet, threw him aside, and sprang for the fence. Warden followed; but Loring, with his hands on the fence, dealt him a furious kick in the body, vaulted over, and shot away across the grass. Warden staggered back, then, recovering, made a desperate shot at the fence, and cleared it, but on the other side dropped, writhing and clutching his stomach, just as Wilson and Michael, at last free of the encumbering wreckage, reached the fence.

“Got me—where I strained myself,” he gasped. “All—right. Catch him—brute!”

Michael, with his teeth set, started in pursuit of the flying figure.

“Careful, Michael, he’s probably armed,” said Wilson, who, knowing himself to be no match for his friend as a runner, was contenting himself with bearing to the left so as to cut off Loring’s retreat to the park gates.

Michael heard, but barely took in the warning as he ran. He was measuring with his eye the distance between Loring and a little copse of trees for which he was obviously making. He did not think that the murderer would risk stopping to fire until he had reached that shelter. Once there, of course, he could, if he were a good shot, pick off both Wilson and himself with comparative ease. The thing to do, therefore, was to catch him before he got there, and this Michael, proud of his running powers, did not think ought to be difficult, particularly when pitted against a man who had just had such a violent fall. Besides, wasn’t that blood on that tuft of grass? If he were bleeding he could not last long.

These reflections very nearly proved his undoing; for in his excitement about the tuft he forgot to look to his own ground, stumbled, and put his foot into a rabbit-hole, wrenching his ankle so violently that he nearly fell; and when he recovered himself, Loring, whose powers of endurance seemed remarkable, was barely ten yards from the copse. Michael put on a hopeless spurt, but only to see his enemy reach the trees, whip round, and pull something from his pocket. Instinctively he swerved, and felt the bullet whizz past his cheek. But before Loring could fire again, something sprang on him from behind. There was a sound of cursing, a struggle, a couple of quick reports, and a fall. Michael ran up as fast as he could, to find Loring lying on the ground, a smoking revolver by his hand, and blood pouring from his side; while, above him, Brian Mackenzie, with a face like an avenging fury, was shaking and throttling him as if he meant nothing less than murder.

“Here, stop that!” Michael, seeing Godfrey’s face turn purple, shouted to the explorer. “Can’t you see the man’s shot? You’ll kill him!”

With a gasp of astonishment, Mackenzie let go suddenly, and the Squire gave his head a jerk. “Hell—take—you!” he gasped; and with an expiring flicker of energy made a grab for his revolver. But just as he touched it his fingers collapsed, his eyes glazed, and he lay in a limp heap on the turf. Michael, his professional instincts getting the better of his astonishment, knelt down to examine him.

“Well?” said Wilson, coming up at a leisurely trot. “What about it? Is he dead? And what are you doing, sir?” to Mackenzie.

“No; he’s not dead,” said Michael, looking up. “Only fainted from loss of blood. He cut his head, apparently, when he fell out of the car. And he’s got a wound in the side—only a flesh wound, though it’s bleeding nastily, and a broken leg. Lend me your handkerchief, will you?”

“Good,” said Wilson. “I should have been sorry if he’d cheated the gallows. Did you shoot him?”

“I’m not armed,” said Mackenzie, extending his hands. “Shooting’s too good for him. Strangling’s what he needs.” His fingers twitched suggestively.

“He’d have been strangled,” Michael remarked, “if I hadn’t come up.”

“Of course he would,” said Mackenzie. “That’s what I stayed for, to get my hands on him—the brute! I was coming down to cut him off in the road.”

“Oh! As Mrs. Meston’s champion, I presume,” said Wilson dryly. “What excited you so?”

“He wouldn’t keep his filthy paws off her,” the man said. “He said he’d got her now, and could make her marry him—him! I swore I’d kill him first.”

“Oh!” said Wilson again. “Well, you may thank your stars you were prevented. Murder—or even manslaughter—is not a nice charge. Now, you might as well help to patch your friend up for us. And when you’ve done, Michael, you’d better go and have a look at Warden. That was a nasty kick. Will you stay with me, Mr. Mackenzie?”

Michael finished his extempore bandaging, and went down to look at Warden, whom he found lying by the fence, very white and sick, but not apparently badly damaged. While he was attending to him there was again the hoot of a car. “Good lord!” said Michael, “there’ll be another smash!” and ran to the bend, to find the police car proceeding at a somewhat less dangerous pace towards him.

“What’s this?” Colonel Lockwood asked, surveying the wreckage. “Why, it’s the Squire’s car! Where is he?”

“Over there,” said Michael, pointing. “Wilson’s with him. He’s a bit damaged; you’ll have to bring a stretcher or something. You’ve got Potts, I see?” The footman was sitting sullenly in the back of the car between two policemen, one of whom was nursing a damaged hand.

“Fought like a wild beast, sir,” Sergeant Linton explained. “He’s bitten Williamson’s hand near to the bone. And while we were getting hold of him the Squire slipped away.”

“Well, he can’t slip much farther,” said Michael.

It took some little time to clear away the débris and sort out the prisoners. Eventually Warden, leaning heavily on a stick, but professing himself all right, was allowed to go up to the Grange to look after Edna, whose behaviour had earned golden opinions from Colonel Lockwood’s staff; Linton and the two policemen departed with the prisoners; while Wilson, Michael, and Colonel Lockwood returned to the station in the police car. Mackenzie, who had apparently undergone some plain speaking from Wilson on the subject of taking the law into his own hands, accompanied them to have his statement taken down. At the station they were met with the news that Kershaw had fled, but would probably be recaptured in an hour or so.

“Somebody’s tipped him the wink, sir,” the constable said in an injured tone; “can’t think who it can have been.”

“I fancy I’ve an idea,” Wilson said grimly.

“What next?” Colonel Lockwood asked him, with a childlike faith in his face.

“I should think,” the latter said, “we might perhaps release John Loring. You transferred him here this morning, I understand.”

CHAPTER XXXVI

“Begging your pardon, Colonel,” the constable said, “but they’ve been ringing up from your house continuous to say Mrs. Meston’s there and won’t go away again till she’s seen young Mr. Loring. She was here earlier, saying you said she was to see him; but not ’aving your instructions, of course, we couldn’t do anything. Now she’s in your drawing-room, your ’ousekeeper says—been there over a hower making a great to-do.”

“Good Lord!” the Colonel said. “I quite forgot—I did tell her she might see him.”

“Well, hadn’t she better?” Wilson suggested. “You could send for her—or, perhaps better, take the young man over to your house. You might even lend them a room for an hour or two.” He smiled. “If you’ll allow me, I’ll take him over myself. There’s one little bit of information I want from Mrs. Meston, and I think she’s perhaps more likely to give it me if I come with an olive-branch.”

The Colonel was only too willing to oblige, and in a very few minutes Wilson, with a rather dazed young man packed unostentatiously by his side, drove off for the Colonel’s house. John Loring was too bewildered by the sudden turn of events to make many comments; in fact, it was the almost irrelevant feature of Hanborough’s behaviour that appeared to interest him most.

“I’d never have thought it of Nick,” he said. “The chap would have made a damned good poker-player, keeping his face like that. Of course, everybody knew Kershaw was a rotter—he lost his first job through killing a girl he’d got into a mess. Illegal operation, you know.”

“Was that it? I wondered what had happened; but nobody seemed to know.”

“I don’t think anybody hereabouts did,” said John, “except Godfrey. Godfrey always knows everything of that sort. He chucked it at Kershaw one evening when they were having a row, and I was there, and Kershaw went green as grass. He made me swear not to tell, though—Godfrey did, I mean. I suppose he wanted to keep it up his own sleeve. Anyway, I didn’t want to split on the poor devil; it was all over and done with. I suppose that he’ll get it in the neck now?”

“I trust they all will,” said Wilson grimly, as they pulled up at Colonel Lockwood’s door. He entered the drawing-room, with John behind him, and faced a figure of blazing reproach.

“What do you mean by promising——” Sylvia began, and then caught sight of the other intruder. “Oh!” she said. “John!” And suddenly her lip quivered, and Wilson saw tears in her eyes for the first time.

In two strides, John Loring had crossed the room and taken her in his arms. There was a long silence.

“I thought,” John said triumphantly, “you wanted me to go back to China.”

“I thought you’d gone,” said Sylvia. “You do jump to conclusions, don’t you?”

“If you’ll excuse me,” Wilson said tactfully, “I think I’d better go and tidy up some of my notes.”

Half an hour later he returned, having actually finished working up the full notes of the case, and having learned from the police-station that neither Kershaw nor Hanborough had yet been caught. He found two happy sinners engaged in a sort of friendly recrimination on the couch, one of them with his arm unashamedly round the other’s waist. As he entered they looked up with radiant faces.

“Well, how goes it?” Wilson asked.

“Quite up to sample,” Sylvia said. “John’s been telling me you’ve released him, and I’ve been telling him you’d have released him long ago if he hadn’t been such a fool as not to say where he was.”

“What would have been the good if I had?” John inquired. “You could only have sworn I didn’t touch him. And who’s going to believe a little liar like you? You’ll have to mend your ways now, my girl.”

“Don’t you wish you could make me?” Sylvia said. “Did we mention we were thinking of getting married, Mr. Wilson?”

“My heartiest congratulations,” Wilson said. “I think it will do you both a world of good.”

“That, darling,” said Sylvia, “is meant as a nasty one for me. Mr. Wilson doesn’t think I’m reliable.”

“Well, good God, who wants you to be?” said John Loring, kissing her with a sudden fierce movement. “Do you suppose I want to marry a reliable person? Don’t you agree, Mr. Wilson?”

“My wife,” said Wilson, with a sudden descent into sententiousness, “says that the most reliable-looking people are often those you can’t depend on.”

“Oh dear!” said Sylvia, “is there a Mrs. Wilson? If so, I’ve been wasting a lot on you. You look to me an incurably faithful man.”

“Hopeless, I’m afraid,” said Wilson. “But why not try Dr. Prendergast? He’s not married.”

“Dr. Prendergast!” Sylvia said. “Why don’t you say the inkstand?”

“Oh, leave the man alone, you she-devil,” her lover interrupted. “You haven’t yet thanked him for bringing you back a husband from the foot of the gallows. He did it all, you know. I suppose it is all right?” he added to Wilson.

“As far as you’re concerned, perfectly,” was the reply. “There’s only one bit of information I’m lacking, apart from what I hope to get from Potts and Kershaw. Could you tell me, Mrs. Meston, whether at any time, after Mr. Loring’s departure for China, Mr. Godfrey Loring ever asked you to marry him?”

“He didn’t ask me,” Sylvia said. “He took it for granted I would. That’s partly why I married William—to get away from him. Ugh!” She gave a shiver.

“The beast!” John Loring cried, with an irrepressible movement of his fist. “If I get my hands on him——”

“For mercy’s sake, John, don’t murder anybody else!” Sylvia said.

“Anybody else! You talk as if I had murdered Meston. Blowed if I don’t believe you thought I did.”

“Well, how was I to know?” Sylvia asked, reasonably. “I’m very glad you didn’t, but you can’t say you wouldn’t have if you’d thought of it. That’s why I went away. I didn’t want Mr. Wilson asking me questions about your sweet temper.”

“D’you really think I’d go and hang a man in cold blood?”

“You’re very particular,” said Sylvia. “If you were going to kill me, I shouldn’t very much mind how you did it.”

“I’ll remember that,” John promised, “when I do.”

“Are you going to catch Kershaw?” John asked, after an interlude.

“I think so,” Wilson assured him.

“I wonder what gave him the tip to clear out. You didn’t tell any one you were going up to the Grange, did you?”

“No,” said Wilson, who was looking out of the window. “But I fancy I know the answer to your question, for all that. In fact, I believe I see the answer coming. Wait a minute; I want to surprise him.” He went out into the hall, and had a brief conversation with the maid. Immediately afterwards the front door opened, there was a sound of voices, and the maid threw open the drawing-room door.

“Mr. Brandreth, sir,” she announced.

For once in his life the little lawyer seemed disconcerted. Obviously, he had not expected to find the group in the drawing-room. He looked round a little nervously, licked his lips, and backed towards the door. “I beg your pardon,” he said. “I thought Colonel Lockwood——”

“Would provide you with a little more exclusive information.” Wilson finished the sentence grimly. “Just so. But, you know, I think it’s your turn. Mr. Brandreth, what exactly have you been up to?”

“I? Nothing,” said the lawyer.

“Perhaps if I made my question a little more specific—What exactly did you tell Kershaw?”

“Why, that you’d been looking in the loft. Plenty of people could have told him that, as a matter of fact. But I just happened to be passing.”

“Oh, you did, did you? When? How long after you had that conversation with Lockwood and myself about your boots?”

“Oh, five or ten minutes, perhaps,” said Brandreth airily.

“In fact, you went immediately and warned him to clear out. Do you know that there are legal penalties for aiding a murderer to escape, Mr. Brandreth?”

“Dear, dear,” said the lawyer. “Is Kershaw a murderer? You really do surprise me. I should have thought him incapable of it. But, Mr. Wilson, you policemen should take the public into your confidence a little more, you know. Why, any one of us may be helping a murderer to escape, quite innocently, if you won’t tell us who he is. You bring it on yourselves, really you do; and you might so easily have let me get myself into serious trouble. As it happens, of course, I didn’t assist him. I merely passed on a piece of common news. In fact, I fear I even hindered his flight, by refusing to lend him money. I’ve had to give up the pleasure of lending Kershaw money for some time past. His requirements are too comprehensive.”

Wilson bit his lip. “I see. And then you went on and warned the Squire?”

“Indeed I did not,” said Brandreth virtuously. “I have not been near the Grange. I assure you, I had not the least idea——”

“Or you would have gone there too. It would not surprise me greatly, Mr. Brandreth, if you found yourself in jail one of these days.”

The lawyer laughed. “And the worst of it is,” he said, “that when I am caught, the bootprint department will instantly recognise me as an old offender.”

CHAPTER XXXVII

“At last!” Michael said, as Wilson entered their sitting-room at the Old Malting House very late for dinner next day. “We were just going to begin without you. Any news?” He was sitting with Edna Loring and Mark Warden, who had been invited to celebrate Wilson’s last evening in Essex.

“Potts has decided to confess,” Wilson replied. “That’s what kept me. But that, coupled with Kershaw’s statement, gives the Crown a very easy job.”

“Then may we hear what really happened?” Warden begged. “There are so many red herrings flying about, that one doesn’t know what to believe.”

“Oh, Mark!” Edna reproached him. “Do let Mr. Wilson get something to eat first. He looks absolutely worn out. And besides—I want to know how he did it.”

“Beer,” said Wilson. “Lots of beer. Then I’ll tell you.”

It was not, however, until the meal was finished, and they were leaning back comfortably in their chairs, that he began his story.

“The real trouble about this case was that it was not one, but two—the misappropriation of your funds, Warden, and the murder of Meston. Kershaw was the only link between them, and he was practically an accidental link—except that his moral habits and the financial difficulties which in part arose out of them no doubt helped him to fall an easier prey to Loring.

“At first sight, Hanborough, I’ll admit, appeared to me much the likeliest culprit, after my first meeting with you, Warden. It was too much to believe that the senior partner had not been able to find out in several months who was tampering with his funds, and it was pretty clear that all his efforts had been directed to keeping you and Meston off the trail. The obvious conclusion was that Meston had found out more than he should, and had to be killed. But then—how did Kershaw come in? From the moment we discovered the cause of death, and still more from the date of the inquest, it became clear that Kershaw could not conceivably be innocent—no innocent man could have been so careless. And the murderer, further, seemed to require an accomplice. But what had Kershaw to do with Hanborough? I could find no connection—nor any motive for Kershaw to act on his own.

“I hadn’t, naturally, lost sight of the other possible motive—which, of the two, was most likely, on the face of it, to lead to murder, since nothing but Meston’s death would suffice to set his wife free. The difficulty there was that there seemed to be such an embarrassment of persons to choose from, and, until we heard of John Loring’s return, no reason to pick one rather than another. There was for a start, Burden, Mackenzie, Leslie Buckton—and Godfrey Loring.”

“What? You suspected Godfrey—then!” The question came from Edna.

“No; I certainly couldn’t say that,” said Wilson, searching for phrases in which to clothe his opinions of Godfrey without too much hurting Godfrey’s sister. “I had merely noticed him when he came to pick up Mrs. Meston, and again at the inquest, and had observed that he was obviously in love with her, and that he would be a dangerous man to cross. I wondered for how long his affections had been directed to that quarter—whether possibly it was before his brother departed for China——”

“I think it was,” Edna said. “I wondered once or twice—but I wasn’t paying much attention. And Godfrey never said a word. But do you mean—did you think he would have killed John?”

“No. I only thought that possibly he might have had something to do with his sudden flight, which appeared to have taken every one by surprise. And I also thought it odd that in all this hive of gossip nobody seemed to have coupled his name with Mrs. Meston’s. This seemed to suggest he was keeping his feelings very dark, which, with a man of his type, is apt to lead to an explosion. That was all.

“Then came Machin’s story, Mrs. Meston’s flight, and all the other evidence against John Loring. Mrs. Meston, of course, had clearly run away either to avoid questioning or to warn her lover—both, as it turned out; and it looked as though things were going to arrange themselves very blackly for him. You will remember that it was on the same day that we discovered—or thought we discovered,” he smiled at Edna, “that Hanborough had an alibi for the critical period.

“Well, it began to work out very neatly, for a time. But somehow I didn’t quite trust it. The crime, you see, was so premeditated that it was rather difficult to fit John Loring, from what people said of him, into the part, even with Kershaw to help him. I couldn’t convince myself; and, when I actually saw the young man, I was less convinced than ever. I saw, not the callous, clever young desperado who would have been necessary, but a hot-headed, indiscreet youth who was obviously in despair of the world, but who was yet determined to keep silence on some vital point. I deduced a final quarrel with his young woman and a determination to keep her name out of it; and eventually Sylvia Meston kindly told me I was right. But it didn’t add up to a murderer.

“Then I began to notice one or two other things. I noticed, first, that Godfrey Loring had been very anxious to inform the police of his brother’s whereabouts; then—from his correspondence with Kershaw—that he had some close and unpleasant connection with the latter. When Mrs. Meston turned up again, she further informed me that Godfrey was very anxious to ‘protect’ her, and—which was more important—that he had deliberately advised her to leave the place, to write a very stupid, incriminating letter to Brandreth, and sent her very carefully to an address where he knew John Loring could not possibly be. Of course, at this stage I’d nothing like proof against him, and really very little general grounds of suspicion.

“Then came something more concrete. Lockwood, you know, was in the habit of discussing the case regularly with the Squire as chairman of the bench, and one of my great difficulties at that stage was that I dared not breathe a whisper of my suspicions to the Chief Constable. In one of these conversations, Lockwood let out that I was unsatisfied with the evidence against John, chiefly because there was nothing, at the place where he met Mrs. Meston, to indicate that it was the scene of the crime. At this point, I fear, we must say definitely that Godfrey Loring had decided to fix the crime on his brother—whose return, of course, had made Meston’s murder quite useless to him. He then hit on the idea of a duplicate rope, which Potts was instructed to ‘find’ and bring in. We have the name of the man who sold Potts the rope. Potts, however, who acted throughout with a loyalty worthy of a better cause, unfortunately chose to hide the rope in a spot which I happened to have actually searched myself; so that, as soon as I came to think things over, I realised that whether or not the rope were the rope we were looking for, its finding by the alder stump was a plant. This, of course, implicated Potts, and probably Potts’s master, and I began to ask myself, as I ought to have done long ago, why, if the murder had been committed up at the boathouse, nobody had noticed the body on its way down-stream. At this point, I was able to evolve a fair idea of how the crime might have been committed, though I could not get anything in the way of proof until I found it in the loft.”

“And how was it committed?” Michael asked.

“Pretty much as I suggested yesterday. According to Potts, the plot was laid as soon as it was known that Meston had taken up his quarters at the Old Malting House. Potts was brought in, by the way, because he was known to have himself a deep-seated private grievance against Meston, who had interfered a long time before in one of his village amours.”

“Meston’s crusades on behalf of public morals seem to have served him singularly ill,” Michael observed. “Didn’t he win Kershaw’s ill-will by somewhat the same means?”

“He did. He was one of those unfortunate people, poor fellow, who gain nothing but unpopularity for themselves. And Potts never forgot—he has that patient vindictiveness which is so often the other side of animal loyalty.

“Well, the pulley was purchased and got into place some days beforehand, and the date of the murder fixed to coincide with that of the party, when it was hoped that nobody’s absence for an hour or two would be noticed. Some time between midnight and one o’clock, the murderers got into the inn, and Potts woke up Meston with the story that his wife was injured at the Grange and asking for him. Meston (who must have packed his bag over-night, though where he was going we shall never know) got up and dressed; and when they thought they’d given him long enough, they let down that chestnut which puzzled you so, Michael, and tapped on his window with it. He looked out; they called him from above; and Loring, who is a good hand with a lasso, dropped the rope over his head. When he was dead they tied the trunk to him, and let him down, as they thought, to everlasting oblivion in the river. But they forgot the pier.”

“And Godfrey—Godfrey did all this? And then tried to get John hanged for it!” Edna whispered.

“I’m afraid,” said Wilson, with deeper sympathy in his tone than in his words, “that he did. You must remember that one crime is almost bound to lead to another, by the mere efforts of the criminal to extricate himself. And I feel, though I don’t know the facts, that the Squire’s past cannot but have led up directly to his attack on Meston.”

“Yes, I—I think it did,” Edna said, very low. It was obvious that she had had few illusions about her brother, though their sudden final shattering could not but have been a heavy blow. Warden put his arm round her without speaking, and Michael, to ease the tension, asked, “But how about Kershaw? How did he come in?”

“He was the witness. That is to say, he was coming from his house to Billings’s cottage, along the tow-path, when he looked up at Meston’s lighted window, and saw the owner looking out. Then he saw the lasso come down, and catch the man and draw him up—in fact, he saw the whole thing, though, of course, it was too dark to recognise the actors. He went round to the Old Malting House, intending, possibly, to give the alarm, and on the way met Warden. No wonder he was looking shaken when you saw him, Warden, after assisting at such a show! But when he got to the inn, he saw Potts and the Squire creeping out by the side-door, and it was pretty obvious they’d been up to something. So he tackled Loring at once, and Loring, not having had any idea, of course, that he had been observed, was for once in his life at a loss. Eventually he offered Kershaw five hundred pounds to hold his tongue—I can’t tell you at the moment which side that suggestion came from, and quite possibly we shall never know. He had Kershaw half under his thumb already, you see, because of that incident of which John Loring told us.

“The blackmail was duly paid, and Kershaw began to think himself in clover. He knew how wealthy Godfrey Loring was, and he had visions of milking him until he had not merely cleared his debts, but made enough to set him on his feet somewhere else. Then, however, came the news of the finding of the body by the Old Malting House. Kershaw was in a panic, knowing perfectly well that Loring, if brought to trial, would not hesitate a moment to give him away. And when he got to the river, and found an inquisitive fellow-practitioner fiddling about with the corpse, he absolutely lost his head, and faked a blow, trusting to Lockwood’s obtuseness to enable him to carry it through. Then, on the strength of having made assurance doubly sure, he tried to get more money out of Loring, who obligingly pointed out that he had merely put his own head also in the noose. The rest I think you know.”

“Then my partner had nothing to do with it?” Warden asked.

“Nothing whatever, beyond acting as a red herring.”

“Will they catch him?”

“Personally, I doubt it. Your partner’s a very clever man, Warden—clever, I mean, not merely ingenious. He all but succeeded in putting your firm on its feet again, and he must have had plans all ready laid to disappear in case of necessity. Inspector Bille delayed his blow just twenty-four hours too long. I’m afraid that’s very hard on you.”

“Not quite as bad as I expected,” Warden said. “You see, as a matter of fact, Nick had put some things right before he went. It wasn’t the funds, but finding out that people were on his trail about the other thing, that made him levant. He was really going to have straightened up, I’m sure—and some of it had been straightened already. And, since it all came out, people have been frightfully decent—I’m sure I don’t know why. Coxwell, for instance, is giving me another chance, and so on. You know, I suppose it’s awfully wrong of me, but I can’t help hoping Nick won’t be caught. I’m afraid I liked him—there’s something sporting about him, and I should just hate to have to go and give evidence against him.”

“But surely,” Michael said hastily, to avoid a discussion on the ethics of this view, “you’ll be a bit put to it for cash, won’t you?”

“Well, as to that,” Warden looked at Edna and blushed very pink, “I am marrying what they call an heiress, aren’t I, darling? And John, who’ll—who’ll come into a lot more money—is being frightfully generous. Of course, I should be quite in the soup if it wasn’t for them.”

“It’s a mercy the money will be some use to somebody at last,” said Edna. “It never has been yet. And if it hadn’t been for Mr. Wilson, it wouldn’t be now. I do think you’re perfectly marvellous, Mr. Wilson. I can’t imagine how you did it.”

“I very nearly didn’t do it, Miss Loring,” Wilson said. “Another hour or so, and I should have been too late. And there’s one thing that riles me still.”

“What’s that?” Michael asked curiously.

“Brandreth! I never got even with that old devil. He had the laugh right up to the end.”

“Do you think he was mixed up in it?” Warden asked.

“In the murder—no. But he was a fairly close friend of your Hanborough’s, and I’m pretty certain he knew a lot more than he ever told about his affairs. I shouldn’t be really surprised, you know, if he had actually assisted in concealing Hanborough—perhaps on that occasion when he bolted from you, Michael, to keep a caller out of his house. But that’s all guesswork. There’s not a thing on him; and unless Hanborough is caught and explains fully—two very unlikely contingencies—there isn’t going to be. I’m afraid Brandreth has given us best.”

“Well,” said Michael, “each to his trade. You’ve got the glory, and he’s had his joke. What more do you want?”

“Immediately,” said Wilson, stretching himself, “a whisky. Then, I think, another holiday. But not with you, Michael. Holidays with you are too much like work.”

Transcriber’s Notes

Obvious punctuation errors have been silently corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences in this work. Some hyphens in words have been silently removed and some silently added when a predominant preference was found in the original work. Except for those changes noted below, original spellings in the text and inconsistent or archaic usage have been retained.

Page 14: “tell Doctor Kershaw’s” replaced by “tell Doctor Kershaw”.

Page 238: “clientele hearabouts” replaced by “clientele hereabouts”.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAN FROM THE RIVER ***

Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will be renamed.

Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark license, especially commercial redistribution.

START: FULL LICENSE

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE

PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work (or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project Gutenberg License available with this file or online at www.gutenberg.org/license.

Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg electronic works

1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property (trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg electronic works in your possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project Gutenberg electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.

1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg electronic works even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project Gutenberg electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.

1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project Gutenberg electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the United States and you are located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project Gutenberg mission of promoting free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg name associated with the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg License when you share it without charge with others.

1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project Gutenberg work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any country other than the United States.

1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg License must appear prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg work (any work on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, copied or distributed:

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg™ License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg electronic work is derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg electronic work is posted with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked to the Project Gutenberg License for all works posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.

1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg.

1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project Gutenberg License.

1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg work in a format other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official version posted on the official Project Gutenberg website (www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg works unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing access to or distributing Project Gutenberg electronic works provided that:

- • You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from the use of Project Gutenberg works calculated using the method you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg trademark, but he has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.”

- • You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™ License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™ works.

- • You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of receipt of the work.

- • You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.

1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.

1.F.

1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.

1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further opportunities to fix the problem.

1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.

1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg work, and (c) any Defect you cause.

Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg is synonymous with the free distribution of electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg’s goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg collection will remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure and permanent future for Project Gutenberg and future generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org.

Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit 501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws.

The Foundation’s business office is located at 41 Watchung Plaza #516, Montclair NJ 07042, USA, +1 (862) 621-9288. Email contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact

Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission of increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations ($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate.

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate.

Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg electronic works

Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and distributed Project Gutenberg eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.

Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.

Most people start at our website which has the main PG search facility: www.gutenberg.org.

This website includes information about Project Gutenberg, including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.

Table of Contents

- THE MAN FROM THE RIVER

- CHAPTER I

- FOOTNOTES:

- CHAPTER II
- CHAPTER III
- CHAPTER IV
- CHAPTER V
- CHAPTER VI
- CHAPTER VII
- CHAPTER VIII
- CHAPTER IX
- CHAPTER X
- CHAPTER XI
- CHAPTER XII
- CHAPTER XIII
- CHAPTER XIV
- CHAPTER XV
- CHAPTER XVI
- CHAPTER XVII
- CHAPTER XVIII
- CHAPTER XIX
- CHAPTER XX
- CHAPTER XXI
- CHAPTER XXII
- CHAPTER XXIII
- CHAPTER XXIV
- CHAPTER XXV
- CHAPTER XXVI
- CHAPTER XXVII
- CHAPTER XXVIII
- CHAPTER XXIX
- CHAPTER XXX

- CHAPTER XXXI

- FOOTNOTES:

- CHAPTER XXXII
- CHAPTER XXXIII
- CHAPTER XXXIV
- CHAPTER XXXV
- CHAPTER XXXVI
- CHAPTER XXXVII
- Transcriber’s Notes
- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE