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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Dead Men's Money, by J. S. Fletcher
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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
+
+
+Title: Dead Men's Money
+
+Author: J. S. Fletcher
+
+Release Date: May 3, 2004 [EBook #12239]
+[Date last updated: March 5, 2005]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEAD MEN'S MONEY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                             DEAD MEN'S MONEY
+
+                             BY J.S. FLETCHER
+
+                                   1920
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+       I THE ONE-EYED MAN
+
+      II THE MIDNIGHT MISSION
+
+     III THE RED STAIN
+
+      IV THE MURDERED MAN
+
+       V THE BRASS-BOUND CHEST
+
+      VI MR. JOHN PHILLIPS
+
+     VII THE INQUEST ON JOHN PHILLIPS
+
+    VIII THE PARISH REGISTERS
+
+      IX THE MARINE-STORE DEALER
+
+       X THE OTHER WITNESS
+
+      XI SIGNATURES TO THE WILL
+
+     XII THE SALMON GAFF
+
+    XIII SIR GILBERT CARSTAIRS
+
+     XIV DEAD MAN'S MONEY
+
+      XV FIVE HUNDRED A YEAR
+
+     XVI THE MAN IN THE CELL
+
+    XVII THE IRISH HOUSEKEEPER
+
+   XVIII THE ICE AX
+
+     XIX MY TURN
+
+      XX THE SAMARITAN SKIPPER
+
+     XXI MR. GAVIN SMEATON
+
+    XXII I READ MY OWN OBITUARY
+
+   XXIII FAMILY HISTORY
+
+    XXIV THE SUIT OF CLOTHES
+
+     XXV THE SECOND DISAPPEARANCE
+
+    XXVI MRS. RALSTON OF CRAIG
+
+   XXVII THE BANK BALANCE
+
+  XXVIII THE HATHERCLEUGH BUTLER
+
+    XXIX ALL IN ORDER
+
+     XXX THE CARSTAIRS MOTTO
+
+    XXXI NO TRACE
+
+   XXXII THE LINK
+
+  XXXIII THE OLD TOWER
+
+   XXXIV THE BARGAIN
+
+    XXXV THE SWAG
+
+   XXXVI GOLD
+
+  XXXVII THE DARK POOL
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE ONE-EYED MAN
+
+
+The very beginning of this affair, which involved me, before I was aware
+of it, in as much villainy and wickedness as ever man heard of, was, of
+course, that spring evening, now ten years ago, whereon I looked out of
+my mother's front parlour window in the main street of Berwick-upon-Tweed
+and saw, standing right before the house, a man who had a black patch
+over his left eye, an old plaid thrown loosely round his shoulders, and
+in his right hand a stout stick and an old-fashioned carpet-bag. He
+caught sight of me as I caught sight of him, and he stirred, and made at
+once for our door. If I had possessed the power of seeing more than the
+obvious, I should have seen robbery, and murder, and the very devil
+himself coming in close attendance upon him as he crossed the pavement.
+But as it was, I saw nothing but a stranger, and I threw open the window
+and asked the man what he might be wanting.
+
+"Lodgings!" he answered, jerking a thickly made thumb at a paper which my
+mother had that day set in the transom above the door. "Lodgings! You've
+lodgings to let for a single gentleman. I'm a single gentleman, and I
+want lodgings. For a month--maybe more. Money no object. Thorough
+respectability--on my part. Few needs and modest requirements. Not likely
+to give trouble. Open the door!"
+
+I went into the passage and opened the door to him. He strode in without
+as much as a word, and, not waiting for my invitation, lurched
+heavily--he was a big, heavy-moving fellow--into the parlour, where he
+set down his bag, his plaid, and his stick, and dropping into an easy
+chair, gave a sort of groan as he looked at me.
+
+"And what's your name?" he demanded, as if he had all the right in the
+world to walk into folks' houses and ask his questions. "Whatever it is,
+you're a likely-looking youngster!"
+
+"My name's Hugh Moneylaws," I answered, thinking it no harm to humour
+him. "If you want to know about lodgings you must wait till my mother
+comes in. Just now she's away up the street--she'll be back presently."
+
+"No hurry, my lad," he replied. "None whatever. This is a comfortable
+anchorage. Quiet. Your mother'll be a widow woman, now?"
+
+"Yes," said I shortly.
+
+"Any more of you--brothers and sisters?" he asked. "Any--aye, of
+course!--any young children in the house? Because young children is what
+I cannot abide--except at a distance."
+
+"There's nobody but me and my mother, and a servant lass," I said. "This
+is a quiet enough house, if that's what you mean."
+
+"Quiet is the word," said he. "Nice, quiet, respectable lodgings. In
+this town of Berwick. For a month. If not more. As I say, a comfortable
+anchorage. And time, too!--when you've seen as many queer places as I
+have in my day, young fellow, you'll know that peace and quiet is meat
+and drink to an ageing man."
+
+It struck me as I looked at him that he was just the sort of man that you
+would expect to hear of as having been in queer places--a sort of gnarled
+and stubbly man, with a wealth of seams and wrinkles about his face and
+what could be seen of his neck, and much grizzled hair, and an eye--only
+one being visible--that looked as if it had been on the watch ever since
+he was born. He was a fellow of evident great strength and stout muscle,
+and his hands, which he had clasped in front of him as he sat talking to
+me, were big enough to go round another man's throat, or to fell a
+bullock. And as for the rest of his appearance, he had gold rings in his
+ears, and he wore a great, heavy gold chain across his waistcoat, and was
+dressed in a new suit of blue serge, somewhat large for him, that he had
+evidently purchased at a ready-made-clothing shop, not so long before.
+
+My mother came quietly in upon us before I could reply to the stranger's
+last remark, and I saw at once that he was a man of some politeness and
+manners, for he got himself up out of his chair and made her a sort of
+bow, in an old-fashioned way. And without waiting for me, he let his
+tongue loose on her.
+
+"Servant, ma'am," said he. "You'll be the lady of the house--Mrs.
+Moneylaws. I'm seeking lodgings, Mrs. Moneylaws, and seeing your paper
+at the door-light, and your son's face at the window, I came in. Nice,
+quiet lodgings for a few weeks is what I'm wanting--a bit of plain
+cooking--no fal-lals. And as for money--no object! Charge me what you
+like, and I'll pay beforehand, any hand, whatever's convenient."
+
+My mother, a shrewd little woman, who had had a good deal to do since my
+father died, smiled at the corners of her mouth as she looked the
+would-be lodger up and down.
+
+"Why, sir," said she. "I like to know who I'm taking in. You're a
+stranger in the place, I'm thinking."
+
+"Fifty years since I last clapped eyes on it, ma'am," he answered. "And I
+was then a youngster of no more than twelve years or so. But as to who
+and what I am--name of James Gilverthwaite. Late master of as good a ship
+as ever a man sailed. A quiet, respectable man. No swearer. No
+drinker--saving in reason and sobriety. And as I say--money no object,
+and cash down whenever it's wanted. Look here!"
+
+He plunged one of the big hands into a trousers' pocket, and pulled it
+out again running over with gold. And opening his fingers he extended
+the gold-laden palm towards us. We were poor folk at that time, and it
+was a strange sight to us, all that money lying in the man's hand, and
+he apparently thinking no more of it than if it had been a heap of
+six-penny pieces.
+
+"Help yourself to whatever'll pay you for a month," he exclaimed. "And
+don't be afraid--there's a lot more where that came from."
+
+But my mother laughed, and motioned him to put up his money.
+
+"Nay, nay, sir!" said she. "There's no need. And all I'm asking at you is
+just to know who it is I'm taking in. You'll be having business in the
+town for a while?"
+
+"Not business in the ordinary sense, ma'am," he answered. "But there's
+kin of mine lying in more than one graveyard just by, and it's a fancy of
+my own to take a look at their resting-places, d'ye see, and to wander
+round the old quarters where they lived. And while I'm doing that, it's a
+quiet, and respectable, and a comfortable lodging I'm wanting."
+
+I could see that the sentiment in his speech touched my mother, who was
+fond of visiting graveyards herself, and she turned to Mr. James
+Gilverthwaite with a nod of acquiescence.
+
+"Well, now, what might you be wanting in the way of accommodation?" she
+asked, and she began to tell him that he could have that parlour in which
+they were talking, and the bedchamber immediately above it. I left them
+arranging their affairs, and went into another room to attend to some of
+my own, and after a while my mother came there to me. "I've let him the
+rooms, Hugh," she said, with a note of satisfaction in her voice which
+told me that the big man was going to pay well for them. "He's a great
+bear of a man to look at," she went on, "but he seems quiet and
+civil-spoken. And here's a ticket for a chest of his that he's left up at
+the railway station, and as he's tired, maybe you'll get somebody
+yourself to fetch it down for him?"
+
+I went out to a man who lived close by and had a light cart, and sent him
+up to the station with the ticket for the chest; he was back with it
+before long, and I had to help him carry it up to Mr. Gilverthwaite's
+room. And never had I felt or seen a chest like that before, nor had the
+man who had fetched it, either. It was made of some very hard and dark
+wood, and clamped at all the corners with brass, and underneath it there
+were a couple of bars of iron, and though it was no more than two and a
+half feet square, it took us all our time to lift it. And when, under Mr.
+Gilverthwaite's orders, we set it down on a stout stand at the side of
+his bed, there it remained until--but to say until when would be
+anticipating.
+
+Now that he was established in our house, the new lodger proved himself
+all that he had said. He was a quiet, respectable, sober sort of man,
+giving no trouble and paying down his money without question or murmur
+every Saturday morning at his breakfast-time. All his days were passed in
+pretty much the same fashion. After breakfast he would go out--you might
+see him on the pier, or on the old town walls, or taking a walk across
+the Border Bridge; now and then we heard of his longer excursions into
+the country, one side or other of the Tweed. He took his dinner in the
+evenings, having made a special arrangement with my mother to that
+effect, and a very hearty eater he was, and fond of good things, which
+he provided generously for himself; and when that episode of the day's
+events was over, he would spend an hour or two over the newspapers, of
+which he was a great reader, in company with his cigar and his glass. And
+I'll say for him that from first to last he never put anything out, and
+was always civil and polite, and there was never a Saturday that he did
+not give the servant-maid a half-crown to buy herself a present.
+
+All the same--we said it to ourselves afterwards, though not at the
+time--there was an atmosphere of mystery about Mr. Gilverthwaite. He made
+no acquaintance in the town. He was never seen in even brief conversation
+with any of the men that hung about the pier, on the walls, or by the
+shipping. He never visited the inns, nor brought anybody in to drink and
+smoke with him. And until the last days of his lodging with us he never
+received a letter.
+
+A letter and the end of things came all at once. His stay had lengthened
+beyond the month he had first spoken of. It was in the seventh week of
+his coming that he came home to his dinner one June evening, complaining
+to my mother of having got a great wetting in a sudden storm that had
+come on that afternoon while he was away out in the country, and next
+morning he was in bed with a bad pain in his chest, and not over well
+able to talk. My mother kept him in his bed and began to doctor him; that
+day, about noon, came for him the first and only letter he ever had while
+he was with us--a letter that came in a registered envelope. The
+servant-maid took it up to him when it was delivered, and she said later
+that he started a bit when he saw it. But he said nothing about it to my
+mother during that afternoon, nor indeed to me, specifically, when, later
+on, he sent for me to go up to his room. All the same, having heard of
+what he had got, I felt sure that it was because of it that, when I went
+in to him, he beckoned me first to close the door on us and then to come
+close to his side as he lay propped on his pillow.
+
+"Private, my lad!" he whispered hoarsely. "There's a word I have for you
+in private!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE MIDNIGHT MISSION
+
+
+Before he said a word more, I knew that Mr. Gilverthwaite was very
+ill--much worse, I fancied, than my mother had any notion of. It was
+evidently hard work for him to get his breath, and the veins in his
+temples and forehead swelled out, big and black, with the effort of
+talking. He motioned to me to hand him a bottle of some stuff which he
+had sent for from the chemist, and he took a swig of its contents from
+the bottle neck before he spoke again. Then he pointed to a chair at the
+bed-head, close to his pillow.
+
+"My lungs!" he said, a bit more easily. "Mortal bad! Queer thing, a great
+man like me, but I was always delicate in that way, ever since I was a
+nipper--strong as a bull in all else. But this word is private. Look
+here, you're a lawyer's clerk?"
+
+He had known that, of course, for some time--known that I was clerk to a
+solicitor of the town, and hoping to get my articles, and in due course
+become a solicitor myself. So there was no need for me to do more than
+nod in silence.
+
+"And being so," he went on, "you'll be a good hand at keeping a secret
+very well. Can you keep one for me, now?"
+
+He had put out one of his big hands as he spoke, and had gripped my
+wrist with it--ill as he was, the grip of his fingers was like steel, and
+yet I could see that he had no idea that he was doing more than laying
+his hand on me with the appeal of a sick man.
+
+"It depends what it is, Mr. Gilverthwaite," I answered. "I should like to
+do anything I can for you."
+
+"You wouldn't do it for nothing," he put in sharply. "I'll make it well
+worth your while. See here!"
+
+He took his hand away from my wrist, put it under his pillow, and drew
+out a bank-note, which he unfolded before me.
+
+"Ten pound!" he said. "It's yours, if you'll do a bit of a job for me--in
+private. Ten pound'll be useful to you. What do you say, now?"
+
+"That it depends on what it is," said I. "I'd be as glad of ten pounds as
+anybody, but I must know first what I'm expected to do for it."
+
+"It's an easy enough thing to do," he replied. "Only it's got to be done
+this very night, and I'm laid here, and can't do it. You can do it,
+without danger, and at little trouble--only--it must be done private."
+
+"You want me to do something that nobody's to know about?" I asked.
+
+"Precisely!" said he. "Nobody! Not even your mother--for even the best of
+women have tongues."
+
+I hesitated a little--something warned me that there was more in all this
+than I saw or understood at the moment.
+
+"I'll promise this, Mr. Gilverthwaite," I said presently. "If you'll
+tell me now what it is you want, I'll keep that a dead secret from
+anybody for ever. Whether I'll do it or not'll depend on the nature of
+your communication."
+
+"Well spoken, lad!" he answered, with a feeble laugh. "You've the makings
+of a good lawyer, anyway. Well, now, it's this--do you know this
+neighbourhood well?"
+
+"I've never known any other," said I.
+
+"Do you know where Till meets Tweed?" he asked.
+
+"As well as I know my own mother's door!" I answered.
+
+"You know where that old--what do they call it?--chapel, cell, something
+of that nature, is?" he asked again.
+
+"Aye!--well enough, Mr. Gilverthwaite," I answered him. "Ever since I was
+in breeches!"
+
+"Well," said he, "if I was my own man, I ought to meet another man near
+there this very night. And--here I am!"
+
+"You want me to meet this other man?" I asked.
+
+"I'm offering you ten pound if you will," he answered, with a quick look.
+"Aye, that is what I'm wanting!"
+
+"To do--what?" I inquired.
+
+"Simple enough," he said. "Nothing to do but to meet him, to give him a
+word that'll establish what they term your bony fides, and a message from
+me that I'll have you learn by heart before you go. No more!"
+
+"There's no danger in it?" I asked.
+
+"Not a spice of danger!" he asserted. "Not half as much as you'd find in
+serving a writ."
+
+"You seem inclined to pay very handsomely for it, all the same," I
+remarked, still feeling a bit suspicious.
+
+"And for a simple reason," he retorted. "I must have some one to do
+the job--aye, if it costs twenty pound! Somebody must meet this
+friend o' mine, and tonight--and why shouldn't you have ten pound as
+well as another?"
+
+"There's nothing to do but what you say?" I asked.
+
+"Nothing--not a thing!" he affirmed.
+
+"And the time?" I said. "And the word--for surety?"
+
+"Eleven o'clock is the time," he answered. "Eleven--an hour before
+midnight. And as for the word--get you to the place and wait about a bit,
+and if you see nobody there, say out loud, 'From James Gilverthwaite as
+is sick and can't come himself'; and when the man appears, as he will,
+say--aye!--say 'Panama,' my lad, and he'll understand in a jiffy!"
+
+"Eleven o'clock--Panama," said I. "And--the message?"
+
+"Aye!" he answered, "the message. Just this, then: 'James Gilverthwaite
+is laid by for a day or two, and you'll bide quiet in the place you know
+of till you hear from him.' That's all. And--how will you get out there,
+now?--it's a goodish way."
+
+"I have a bicycle," I answered, and at his question a thought struck me.
+"How did you intend to get out there yourself, Mr. Gilverthwaite?" I
+asked. "That far--and at that time of night?"
+
+"Aye!" he said. "Just so--but I'd ha' done it easy enough, my lad--if I
+hadn't been laid here. I'd ha' gone out by the last train to the nighest
+station, and it being summer I'd ha' shifted for myself somehow during
+the rest of the night--I'm used to night work. But--that's neither here
+nor there. You'll go? And--private?"
+
+"I'll go--and privately," I answered him. "Make yourself easy."
+
+"And not a word to your mother?" he asked anxiously.
+
+"Just so," I replied. "Leave it to me."
+
+He looked vastly relieved at that, and after assuring him that I had the
+message by heart I left his chamber and went downstairs. After all, it
+was no great task that he had put on me. I had often stayed until very
+late at the office, where I had the privilege of reading law-books at
+nights, and it was an easy business to mention to my mother that I
+wouldn't be in that night so very early. That part of my contract with
+the sick man upstairs I could keep well enough, in letter and spirit--all
+the same, I was not going out along Tweed-side at that hour of the night
+without some safeguard, and though I would tell no one of what my
+business for Mr. Gilverthwaite precisely amounted to, I would tell one
+person where it would take me, in case anything untoward happened and I
+had to be looked for. That person was the proper one for a lad to go to
+under the circumstances--my sweetheart, Maisie Dunlop.
+
+And here I'll take you into confidence and say that at that time Maisie
+and I had been sweethearting a good two years, and were as certain of
+each other as if the two had been twelve. I doubt if there was such
+another old-fashioned couple as we were anywhere else in the British
+Islands, for already we were as much bound up in each other as if we had
+been married half a lifetime, and there was not an affair of mine that I
+did not tell her of, nor had she a secret that she did not share with me.
+But then, to be sure, we had been neighbours all our lives, for her
+father, Andrew Dunlop, kept a grocer's shop not fifty yards from our
+house, and she and I had been playmates ever since our school-days, and
+had fallen to sober and serious love as soon as we arrived at what we at
+any rate called years of discretion--which means that I was nineteen, and
+she seventeen, when we first spoke definitely about getting married. And
+two years had gone by since then, and one reason why I had no objection
+to earning Mr. Gilverthwaite's ten pounds was that Maisie and I meant to
+wed as soon as my salary was lifted to three pounds a week, as it soon
+was to be, and we were saving money for our furnishing--and ten pounds,
+of course, would be a nice help.
+
+So presently I went along the street to Dunlop's and called Maisie out,
+and we went down to the walls by the river mouth, which was a regular
+evening performance of ours. And in a quiet corner, where there was a
+seat on which we often sat whispering together of our future, I told
+her that I had to do a piece of business for our lodger that night and
+that the precise nature of it was a secret which I must not let out
+even to her.
+
+"But here's this much in it, Maisie," I went on, taking care that there
+was no one near us that could catch a word of what I was saying; "I can
+tell you where the spot is that I'm to do the business at, for a fine
+lonely spot it is to be in at the time of night I'm to be there--an hour
+before midnight, and the place is that old ruin that's close by where
+Till meets Tweed--you know it well enough yourself."
+
+I felt her shiver a bit at that, and I knew what it was that was in her
+mind, for Maisie was a girl of imagination, and the mention of a lonely
+place like that, to be visited at such an hour, set it working.
+
+"Yon's a queer man, that lodger of your mother's, Hughie," she said. "And
+it's a strange time and place you're talking of. I hope nothing'll come
+to you in the way of mischance."
+
+"Oh, it's nothing, nothing at all!" I hastened to say. "If you knew it
+all, you'd see it's a very ordinary business that this man can't do
+himself, being kept to his bed. But all the same, there's naught like
+taking precautions beforehand, and so I'll tell you what we'll do. I
+should be back in town soon after twelve, and I'll give a tap at your
+window as I pass it, and then you'll know all's right."
+
+That would be an easy enough thing to manage, for Maisie's room, where
+she slept with a younger sister, was on the ground floor of her father's
+house in a wing that butted on to the street, and I could knock at the
+pane as I passed by. Yet still she seemed uneasy, and I hastened to say
+what--not even then knowing her quite as well as I did later--I thought
+would comfort her in any fears she had. "It's a very easy job, Maisie," I
+said; "and the ten pounds'll go a long way in buying that furniture we're
+always talking about."
+
+She started worse than before when I said that and gripped the hand that
+I had round her waist.
+
+"Hughie!" she exclaimed. "He'll not be giving you ten pounds for a bit of
+a ride like that! Oh, now I'm sure there's danger in it! What would a man
+be paying ten pounds for to anybody just to take a message? Don't go,
+Hughie! What do you know of yon man except that he's a stranger that
+never speaks to a soul in the place, and wanders about like he was spying
+things? And I would liefer go without chair or table, pot or pan, than
+that you should be running risks in a lonesome place like that, and at
+that time, with nobody near if you should be needing help. Don't go!"
+
+"You're misunderstanding," said I. "It's a plain and easy thing--I've
+nothing to do but ride there and back. And as for the ten pounds, it's
+just this way: yon Mr. Gilverthwaite has more money than he knows what to
+do with. He carries sovereigns in his pockets like they were sixpenny
+pieces! Ten pounds is no more to him that ten pennies to us. And we've
+had the man in our house seven weeks now, and there's nobody could say an
+ill word of him."
+
+"It's not so much him," she answered. "It's what you may meet--there!
+For you've got to meet--somebody. You're going, then?"
+
+"I've given my word, Maisie," I said. "And you'll see there'll be no
+harm, and I'll give you a tap at the window as I pass your house coming
+back. And we'll do grand things with that ten pounds, too."
+
+"I'll never close my eyes till I hear you, then," she replied. "And I'll
+not be satisfied with any tap, neither. If you give one, I'll draw the
+blind an inch, and make sure it's yourself, Hughie."
+
+We settled it at that, with a kiss that was meant on my part to be one of
+reassurance, and presently we parted, and I went off to get my bicycle in
+readiness for the ride.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE RED STAIN
+
+
+It was just half-past nine by the town clocks when I rode out across the
+old Border Bridge and turned up the first climb of the road that runs
+alongside the railway in the direction of Tillmouth Park, which was, of
+course, my first objective. A hot, close night it was--there had been
+thunder hanging about all day, and folk had expected it to break at any
+minute, but up to this it had not come, and the air was thick and
+oppressive. I was running with sweat before I had ridden two miles along
+the road, and my head ached with the heaviness of the air, that seemed to
+press on me till I was like to be stifled. Under ordinary circumstances
+nothing would have taken me out on such a night. But the circumstances
+were not ordinary, for it was the first time I had ever had the chance of
+earning ten pounds by doing what appeared to be a very simple errand; and
+though I was well enough inclined to be neighbourly to Mr. Gilverthwaite,
+it was certainly his money that was my chief inducement in going on his
+business at a time when all decent folk should be in their beds. And for
+this first part of my journey my thoughts ran on that money, and on what
+Maisie and I would do with it when it was safely in my pocket. We had
+already bought the beginnings of our furnishing, and had them stored in
+an unused warehouse at the back of her father's premises; with Mr.
+Gilverthwaite's bank-note, lying there snugly in waiting for me, we
+should be able to make considerable additions to our stock, and the
+wedding-day would come nearer.
+
+But from these anticipations I presently began to think about the
+undertaking on which I was now fairly engaged. When I came to consider
+it, it seemed a queer affair. As I understood it, it amounted to
+this:--Here was Mr. Gilverthwaite, a man that was a stranger in Berwick,
+and who appeared to have plenty of money and no business, suddenly
+getting a letter which asked him to meet a man, near midnight, and in
+about as lonely a spot as you could select out of the whole district. Why
+at such a place, and at such an hour? And why was this meeting of so much
+importance that Mr. Gilverthwaite, being unable to keep the appointment
+himself, must pay as much as ten pounds to another person to keep it for
+him? What I had said to Maisie about Mr. Gilverthwaite having so much
+money that ten pounds was no more to him than ten pence to me was, of
+course, all nonsense, said just to quieten her fears and suspicions--I
+knew well enough, having seen a bit of the world in a solicitor's office
+for the past six years, that even millionaires don't throw their money
+about as if pounds were empty peascods. No! Mr. Gilverthwaite was giving
+me that money because he thought that I, as a lawyer's clerk, would see
+the thing in its right light as a secret and an important business, and
+hold my tongue about it. And see it as a secret business I did--for what
+else could it be that would make two men meet near an old ruin at
+midnight, when in a town where, at any rate, one of them was a stranger,
+and the other probably just as much so, they could have met by broad day
+at a more convenient trysting-place without anybody having the least
+concern in their doings? There was strange and subtle mystery in all
+this, and the thinking and pondering it over led me before long to
+wondering about its first natural consequence--who and what was the man I
+was now on my way to meet, and where on earth could he be coming from to
+keep a tryst at a place like that, and at that hour?
+
+However, before I had covered three parts of that outward journey, I was
+to meet another man who, all unknown to me, was to come into this truly
+extraordinary series of events in which I, with no will of my own, was
+just beginning--all unawares--to be mixed up. Taking it roughly, and as
+the crow flies, it is a distance of some nine or ten miles from Berwick
+town to Twizel Bridge on the Till, whereat I was to turn off from the
+main road and take another, a by-lane, that would lead me down by the old
+ruin, close by which Till and Tweed meet. Hot as the night was, and
+unpleasant for riding, I had plenty and to spare of time in hand, and
+when I came to the cross-ways between Norham and Grindon, I got off my
+machine and sat down on the bank at the roadside to rest a bit before
+going further. It was a quiet and a very lonely spot that; for three
+miles or more I had not met a soul along the road, and there being next
+to nothing in the way of village or farmstead between me and Cornhill, I
+did not expect to meet one in the next stages of my journey. But as I sat
+there on the bank, under a thick hedge, my bicycle lying at my side, I
+heard steps coming along the road in the gloom--swift, sure steps, as of
+a man who walks fast, and puts his feet firmly down as with determination
+to get somewhere as soon as he may. And hearing that--and to this day I
+have often wondered what made me do it--I off with my cap, and laid it
+over the bicycle-lamp, and myself sat as still as any of the wee
+creatures that were doubtless lying behind me in the hedge.
+
+The steps came from the direction in which I was bound. There was a bit
+of a dip in the road just there: they came steadily, strongly, up it. And
+presently--for this was the height of June, when the nights are never
+really dark--the figure of a man came over the ridge of the dip, and
+showed itself plain against a piece of grey sky that was framed by the
+fingers of the pines and firs on either side of the way. A strongly-built
+figure it was, and, as I said before, the man put his feet, evidently
+well shod, firmly and swiftly down, and with this alternate sound came
+the steady and equally swift tapping of an iron-shod stick. Whoever this
+night-traveller was, it was certain he was making his way somewhere
+without losing any time in the business.
+
+The man came close by me and my cover, seeing nothing, and at a few
+yards' distance stopped dead. I knew why. He had come to the
+cross-roads, and it was evident from his movements that he was puzzled
+and uncertain. He went to the corners of each way: it seemed to me that
+he was seeking for a guide-post. But, as I knew very well, there was no
+guide-post at any corner, and presently he came to the middle of the
+roads again and stood, looking this way and that, as if still in a
+dubious mood. And then I heard a crackling and rustling as of stiff
+paper--he was never more than a dozen yards from me all the time,--and in
+another minute there was a spurt up of bluish flame, and I saw that the
+man had turned on the light of an electric pocket-torch and was shining
+it on a map which he had unfolded and shaken out, and was holding in his
+right hand.
+
+At this point I profited by a lesson which had been dinned into my ears
+a good many times since boyhood. Andrew Dunlop, Maisie's father, was one
+of those men who are uncommonly fond of lecturing young folk in season
+and out of season. He would get a lot of us, boys and girls, together in
+his parlour at such times as he was not behind the counter and give us
+admonitions on what he called the practical things of life. And one of
+his favourite precepts--especially addressed to us boys--was "Cultivate
+your powers of observation." This advice fitted in very well with the
+affairs of the career I had mapped out for myself--a solicitor should
+naturally be an observant man, and I had made steady effort to do as
+Andrew Dunlop counselled. Therefore it was with a keenly observant eye
+that I, all unseen, watched the man with his electric torch and his
+map, and it did not escape my notice that the hand which held the map
+was short of the two middle fingers. But of the rest of him, except that
+he was a tallish, well-made man, dressed in--as far as I could see
+things--a gentlemanlike fashion in grey tweeds, I could see nothing. I
+never caught one glimpse of his face, for all the time that he stood
+there it was in shadow.
+
+He did not stay there long either. The light of the electric torch was
+suddenly switched off; I heard the crackling of the map again as he
+folded it up and pocketed it. And just as suddenly he was once more on
+the move, taking the by-way up to the north, which, as I knew well, led
+to Norham, and--if he was going far--over the Tweed to Ladykirk. He went
+away at the same quick pace; but the surface in that by-way was not as
+hard and ringing as that of the main road, and before long the sound of
+his steps died away into silence, and the hot, oppressive night became as
+still as ever.
+
+I presently mounted my bicycle again and rode forward on my last stage,
+and having crossed Twizel Bridge, turned down the lane to the old ruin
+close by where Till runs into Tweed. It was now as dark as ever it would
+be that night, and the thunderclouds which hung all over the valley
+deepened the gloom. Gloomy and dark the spot indeed was where I was to
+meet the man of whom Mr. Gilverthwaite had spoken. By the light of my
+bicycle lamp I saw that it was just turned eleven when I reached the
+spot; but so far as I could judge there was no man there to meet
+anybody. And remembering what I had been bidden to do, I spoke out loud.
+
+"From James Gilverthwaite, who is sick, and can't come himself," I
+repeated. And then, getting no immediate response, I spoke the password
+in just as loud a voice. But there was no response to that either, and
+for the instant I thought how ridiculous it was to stand there and say
+Panama to nobody.
+
+I made it out that the man had not yet come, and I was wheeling my
+bicycle to the side of the lane, there to place it against the hedge and
+to sit down myself, when the glancing light of the lamp fell on a great
+red stain that had spread itself, and was still spreading, over the sandy
+ground in front of me. And I knew on the instant that this was the stain
+of blood, and I do not think I was surprised when, advancing a step or
+two further, I saw, lying in the roadside grass at my feet, the still
+figure and white face of a man who, I knew with a sure and certain
+instinct, was not only dead but had been cruelly murdered.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE MURDERED MAN
+
+
+There may be folk in the world to whom the finding of a dead man, lying
+grim and stark by the roadside, with the blood freshly run from it and
+making ugly patches of crimson on the grass and the gravel, would be an
+ordinary thing; but to me that had never seen blood let in violence,
+except in such matters as a bout of fisticuffs at school, it was the
+biggest thing that had ever happened, and I stood staring down at the
+white face as if I should never look at anything else as long as I lived.
+I remember all about that scene and that moment as freshly now as if the
+affair had happened last night. The dead man lying in the crushed
+grass--his arms thrown out helplessly on either side of him--the gloom of
+the trees all around--the murmuring of the waters, where Till was pouring
+its sluggish flood into the more active swirl and rush of the Tweed--the
+hot, oppressive air of the night--and the blood on the dry road--all that
+was what, at Mr. Gilverthwaite's bidding, I had ridden out from Berwick
+to find in that lonely spot.
+
+But I knew, of course, that James Gilverthwaite himself had not foreseen
+this affair, nor thought that I should find a murdered man. And as I at
+last drew breath, and lifted myself up a little from staring at the
+corpse, a great many thoughts rushed into my head, and began to tumble
+about over each other. Was this the man Mr. Gilverthwaite meant me to
+meet? Would Mr. Gilverthwaite have been murdered, too, if he had come
+there in person? And had the man been murdered for the sake of robbery?
+But I answered that last question as soon as I asked it, and in the
+negative, for the light of my lamp showed a fine, heavy gold watch-chain
+festooned across the man's waistcoat--if murderously inclined thieves had
+been at him, they were not like to have left that. Then I wondered if I
+had disturbed the murderers--it was fixed in me from the beginning that
+there must have been more than one in at this dreadful game--and if they
+were still lurking about and watching me from the brushwood; and I made
+an effort, and bent down and touched one of the nerveless hands. It was
+stiffened already, and I knew then that the man had been dead some time.
+
+And I knew another thing in that moment: poor Maisie, lying awake to
+listen for the tap at her window, so that she might get up and peep round
+the corner of her blind to assure herself that her Hughie was alive and
+safe, would have to lie quaking and speculating through the dark hours of
+that night, for here was work that was going to keep me busied till day
+broke. I set to it there and then, leaving the man just as I had found
+him, and hastening back in the direction of the main road. As luck would
+have it, I heard voices of men on Twizel Bridge, and ran right on the
+local police-sergeant and a constable, who had met there in the course of
+their night rounds. I knew them both, the sergeant being one Chisholm,
+and the constable a man named Turndale, and they knew me well enough from
+having seen me in the court at Berwick; and it was with open-mouthed
+surprise that they listened to what I had to tell them. Presently we were
+all three round the dead man, and this time there was the light of three
+lamps on his face and on the gouts of blood that were all about him, and
+Chisholm clicked his tongue sharply at what he saw.
+
+"Here's a sore sight for honest folk!" he said in a low voice, as he bent
+down and touched one of the hands. "Aye, and he's been dead a good hour,
+I should say, by the feel of him! You heard nothing as you came down yon
+lane, Mr. Hugh?"
+
+"Not a sound!" I answered.
+
+"And saw nothing?" he questioned.
+
+"Nothing and nobody!" I said.
+
+"Well," said he, "we'll have to get him away from this. You'll have to
+get help," he went on, turning to the constable. "Fetch some men to help
+us carry him. He'll have to be taken to the nearest inn for the
+inquest--that's how the law is. I wasn't going to ask it while yon man
+was about, Mr. Hugh," he continued, when Turndale had gone hurrying
+towards the village; "but you'll not mind me asking it now--what were you
+doing here yourself, at this hour?"
+
+"You've a good right, Chisholm," said I; "and I'll tell you, for by all I
+can see, there'll be no way of keeping it back, and it's no concern of
+mine to keep it back, and I don't care who knows all about it--not me!
+The truth is, we've a lodger at our house, one Mr. James Gilverthwaite,
+that's a mysterious sort of man, and he's at present in his bed with a
+chill or something that's like to keep him there; and tonight he got me
+to ride out here to meet a man whom he ought to have met himself--and
+that's why I'm here and all that I have to do with it."
+
+"You don't mean to say that--that!" he exclaimed, jerking his thumb at
+the dead man; "that--that's the man you were to meet?"
+
+"Who else?" said I. "Can you think of any other that it would be? And I'm
+wondering if whoever killed this fellow, whoever he may be, wouldn't have
+killed Mr. Gilverthwaite, too, if he'd come? This is no by-chance murder,
+Chisholm, as you'll be finding out."
+
+"Well, well, I never knew its like!" he remarked, staring from me to the
+body, and from it to me. "You saw nobody about close by--nor in the
+neighbourhood--no strangers on the road?"
+
+I was ready for that question. Ever since finding the body, I had been
+wondering what I should say when authority, either in the shape of a
+coroner or a policeman, asked me about my own adventures that night. To
+be sure, I had seen a stranger, and I had observed that he had lost a
+couple of fingers, the first and second, of his right hand; and it was
+certainly a queer thing that he should be in that immediate neighbourhood
+about the time when this unfortunate man met his death. But it had been
+borne in on my mind pretty strongly that the man I had seen looking at
+his map was some gentleman-tourist who was walking the district, and had
+as like as not been tramping it over Plodden Field and that historic
+corner of the country, and had become benighted ere he could reach
+wherever his headquarters were. And I was not going to bring suspicion on
+what was in all probability an innocent stranger, so I answered
+Chisholm's question as I meant to answer any similar one--unless, indeed,
+I had reason to alter my mind.
+
+"I saw nobody and heard nothing--about here," said I. "It's not likely
+there'd be strangers in this spot at midnight."
+
+"For that matter, the poor fellow is a stranger himself," said he, once
+more turning his lamp on the dead face. "Anyway, he's not known to me,
+and I've been in these parts twenty years. And altogether it's a fine
+mystery you've hit on, Mr. Hugh, and there'll be strange doings before
+we're at the bottom of it, I'm thinking."
+
+That there was mystery in this affair was surer than ever when, having
+got the man to the nearest inn, and brought more help, including a
+doctor, they began to examine him and his clothing. And now that I saw
+him in a stronger light, I found that he was a strongly built, well-made
+man of about Mr. Gilverthwaite's age--say, just over sixty years or
+so,--dressed in a gentlemanlike fashion, and wearing good boots and linen
+and a tweed suit of the sort affected by tourists. There was a good deal
+of money in his pockets--bank-notes, gold, and silver--and an expensive
+watch and chain, and other such things that a gentleman would carry; and
+it seemed very evident that robbery had not been the motive of the
+murderers. But of papers that could identify the man there was
+nothing--in the shape of paper or its like there was not one scrap in all
+the clothing, except the return half of a railway ticket between Peebles
+and Coldstream, and a bit of a torn bill-head giving the name and address
+of a tradesman in Dundee.
+
+"There's something to go on, anyway," remarked Chisholm, as he carefully
+put these things aside after pointing out to us that the ticket was
+dated on what was now the previous day (for it was already well past
+midnight, and the time was creeping on to morning), and that the dead
+man must accordingly have come to Coldstream not many hours before his
+death; "and we'll likely find something about him from either Dundee or
+Peebles. But I'm inclined to think, Mr. Hugh," he continued, drawing me
+aside, "that even though they didn't rob the man of his money and
+valuables, they took something else from him that may have been of much
+more value than either."
+
+"What?" I asked.
+
+"Papers!" said he. "Look at the general appearance of the man! He's no
+common or ordinary sort. Is it likely, now, such a man would be without
+letters and that sort of thing in his pockets? Like as not he'd carry his
+pocket-book, and it may have been this pocket-book with what was in it
+they were after, and not troubling about his purse at all."
+
+"They made sure of him, anyway," said I, and went out of the room where
+they had laid the body, not caring to stay longer. For I had heard what
+the doctor said--that the man had been killed on the spot by a single
+blow from a knife or dagger which had been thrust into his heart from
+behind with tremendous force, and the thought of it was sickening me.
+"What are you going to do now?" I asked of Chisholm, who had followed me.
+"And do you want me any more, sergeant?--for, if not, I'm anxious to get
+back to Berwick."
+
+"That's just where I'm coming with you," he answered. "I've my bicycle
+close by, and we'll ride into the town together at once. For, do you see,
+Mr. Hugh, there's just one man hereabouts that can give us some light on
+this affair straightaway--if he will--and that the lodger you were
+telling me of. And I must get in and see the superintendent, and we must
+get speech with this Mr. Gilverthwaite of yours--for, if he knows no
+more, he'll know who yon man is!"
+
+I made no answer to that. I had no certain answer to make. I was already
+wondering about a lot of conjectures. Would Mr. Gilverthwaite know who
+the man was? Was he the man I ought to have met? Or had that man been
+there, witnessed the murder, and gone away, frightened to stop where the
+murder had been done? Or--yet again--was this some man who had come upon
+Mr. Gilverthwaite's correspondent, and, for some reason, been murdered
+by him? It was, however, all beyond me just then, and presently the
+sergeant and I were on our machines and making for Berwick. But we had
+not been set out half an hour, and were only just where we could see
+the town's lights before us in the night, when two folk came riding
+bicycles through the mist that lay thick in a dip of the road, and,
+calling to me, let me know that they were Maisie Dunlop and her brother
+Tom that she had made to come with her, and in another minute Maisie and
+I were whispering together.
+
+"It's all right now that I know you're safe, Hugh," she said
+breathlessly. "But you must get back with me quickly. Yon lodger of yours
+is dead, and your mother in a fine way, wondering where you are!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE BRASS-BOUND CHEST
+
+
+The police-sergeant had got off his bicycle at the same time that I
+jumped from mine, and he was close behind me when Maisie and I met, and I
+heard him give a sharp whistle at her news. And as for me, I was
+dumbfounded, for though I had seen well enough that Mr. Gilverthwaite was
+very ill when I left him, I was certainly a long way from thinking him
+like to die. Indeed, I was so astonished that all I could do was to stand
+staring at Maisie in the grey light which was just coming between the
+midnight and the morning. But the sergeant found his tongue more readily.
+
+"I suppose he died in his bed, miss?" he asked softly. "Mr. Hugh here
+said he was ill; it would be a turn for the worse, no doubt, after Mr.
+Hugh left him?"
+
+"He died suddenly just after eleven o'clock," answered Maisie; "and your
+mother sought you at Mr. Lindsey's office, Hugh, and when she found you
+weren't there, she came down to our house, and I had to tell her that
+you'd come out this way on an errand for Mr. Gilverthwaite. And I told
+her, too, what I wasn't so sure of myself, that there'd no harm come to
+you of it, and that you'd be back soon after twelve, and I went down to
+your house and waited with her; and when you didn't come, and didn't
+come, why, I got Tom here to get our bicycles out and we came to seek
+you. And let's be getting back, for your mother's anxious about you, and
+the man's death has upset her--he went all at once, she said, while she
+was with him."
+
+We all got on our bicycles again and set off homewards, and Chisholm
+wheeled alongside me and we dropped behind a little.
+
+"This is a strange affair," said he, in a low voice; "and it's like to be
+made stranger by this man's sudden death. I'd been looking to him to get
+news of this other man. What do you know of Mr. Gilverthwaite, now?"
+
+"Nothing!" said I.
+
+"But he's lodged with you seven weeks?" said he.
+
+"If you'd known him, sergeant," I answered, "you'd know that he was this
+sort of man--you'd know no more of him at the end of seven months than
+you would at the end of seven weeks, and no more at the end of seven
+years than at the end of seven months. We knew nothing, my mother and I,
+except that he was a decent, well-spoken man, free with his money and
+having plenty of it, and that his name was what he called it, and that he
+said he'd been a master mariner. But who he was, or where he came from, I
+know no more than you do."
+
+"Well, he'll have papers, letters, something or other that'll throw some
+light on matters, no doubt?" he suggested. "Can you say as to that?"
+
+"I can tell you that he's got a chest in his chamber that's nigh as heavy
+as if it were made of solid lead," I answered. "And doubtless he'll have
+a key on him or about him that'll unlock it. But what might be in it, I
+can't say, never having seen him open it at any time."
+
+"Well," he said, "I'll have to bring the superintendent down, and we must
+trouble your mother to let us take a look at this Mr. Gilverthwaite's
+effects. Had he a doctor to him since he was taken ill?"
+
+"Dr. Watson--this--I mean yesterday--afternoon," I answered.
+
+"Then there'll be no inquest in his case," said the sergeant, "for the
+doctor'll be able to certify. But there'll be a searching inquiry in this
+murder affair, and as Gilverthwaite sent you to meet the man that's been
+murdered--"
+
+"Wait a bit!" said I. "You don't know, and I don't, that the man who's
+been murdered is the man I was sent to meet. The man I was to meet may
+have been the murderer; you don't know who the murdered man is. So you'd
+better put it this way: since Gilverthwaite sent me to meet some man at
+the place where this murder's been committed--well?"
+
+"That'll be one of your lawyer's quibbles," said he calmly. "My meaning's
+plain enough--we'll want to find out, if we can, who it was that
+Gilverthwaite sent you to meet. And--for what reason? And--where it was
+that the man was to wait for him? And I'll get the superintendent to
+come down presently."
+
+"Make it in, say, half an hour," said I. "This is a queer business
+altogether, sergeant, and I'm so much in it that I'm not going to do
+things on my own responsibility. I'll call Mr. Lindsey up from his bed,
+and get him to come down to talk over what's to be done."
+
+"Aye, you're in the right of it there," he said. "Mr. Lindsey'll know all
+the law on such matters. Half an hour or so, then."
+
+He made off to the county police-station, and Maisie and Tom and I went
+on to our house, and were presently inside. My mother was so relieved at
+the sight of me that she forbore to scold me at that time for going off
+on such an errand without telling her of my business; but she grew white
+as her cap when I told her of what I had chanced on, and she glanced at
+the stair and shook her head.
+
+"And indeed I wish that poor man had never come here, if it's this sort
+of dreadfulness follows him!" she said. "And though I was slow to say
+it, Hugh, I always had a feeling of mystery about him. However, he's
+gone now--and died that suddenly and quietly!--and we've laid him out in
+his bed; and--and--what's to be done now?" she exclaimed. "We don't know
+who he is!"
+
+"Don't trouble yourself, mother," said I. "You've done your duty by him.
+And now that you've seen I'm safe, I'm away to bring Mr. Lindsey down and
+he'll tell us all that should be done."
+
+I left Maisie and Tom Dunlop keeping my mother company and made haste to
+Mr. Lindsey's house, and after a little trouble roused him out of his bed
+and got him down to me. It was nearly daylight by that time, and the grey
+morning was breaking over the sea and the river as he and I walked back
+through the empty streets--I telling him of all the events of the night,
+and he listening with an occasional word of surprise. He was not a native
+of our parts, but a Yorkshireman that had bought a practice in the town
+some years before, and had gained a great character for shrewdness and
+ability, and I knew that he was the very man to turn to in an affair of
+this sort.
+
+"There's a lot more in this than's on the surface, Hugh, my lad," he
+remarked when I had made an end of my tale. "And it'll be a nice job
+to find out all the meaning of it, and if the man that's been murdered
+was the man Gilverthwaite sent you to meet, or if he's some other that
+got there before you, and was got rid of for some extraordinary reason
+that we know nothing about. But one thing's certain: we've got to get
+some light on your late lodger. That's step number one--and a most
+important one."
+
+The superintendent of police, Mr. Murray, a big, bustling man, was
+outside our house with Chisholm when we got there, and after a word or
+two between us, we went in, and were presently upstairs in
+Gilverthwaite's room. He lay there in his bed, the sheet drawn about him
+and a napkin over his face; and though the police took a look at him, I
+kept away, being too much upset by the doings of the night to stand any
+more just then. What I was anxious about was to get some inkling of what
+all this meant, and I waited impatiently to see what Mr. Lindsey would
+do. He was looking about the room, and when the others turned away from
+the dead man he pointed to Gilverthwaite's clothes, that were laid tidily
+folded on a chair.
+
+"The first thing to do is to search for his papers and his keys," he
+said. "Go carefully through his pockets, sergeant, and let's see what
+there is."
+
+But there was as little in the way of papers there, as there had been in
+the case of the murdered man. There were no letters. There was a map of
+the district, and under the names of several of the villages and places
+on either side of the Tweed, between Berwick and Kelso, heavy marks in
+blue pencil had been made. I, who knew something of Gilverthwaite's
+habits, took it that these were the places he had visited during his
+seven weeks' stay with us. And folded in the map were scraps of newspaper
+cuttings, every one of them about some antiquity or other in the
+neighbourhood, as if such things had an interest for him. And in another
+pocket was a guide-book, much thumbed, and between two of the leaves,
+slipped as if to mark a place, was a registered envelope.
+
+"That'll be what he got yesterday afternoon!" I exclaimed. "I'm certain
+it was whatever there was in it that made him send me out last night, and
+maybe the letter in it'll tell us something."
+
+However, there was no letter in the envelope--there was nothing. But on
+the envelope itself was a postmark, at which Chisholm instantly pointed.
+
+"Peebles!" said he. "Yon man that you found murdered--his half-ticket's
+for Peebles. There's something of a clue, anyway."
+
+They went on searching the clothing, only to find money--plenty of it,
+notes in an old pocket-book, and gold in a wash-leather bag--and the
+man's watch and chain, and his pocket-knife and the like, and a bunch of
+keys. And with the keys in his hand Mr. Lindsey turned to the chest.
+
+"If we're going to find anything that'll throw any light on the question
+of this man's identity, it'll be in this box," he said. "I'll take the
+responsibility of opening it, in Mrs. Moneylaws' interest, anyway. Lift
+it on to that table, and let's see if one of these keys'll fit the lock."
+
+There was no difficulty about finding the key--there were but a few on
+the bunch, and he hit on the right one straightaway, and we all crowded
+round him as he threw back the heavy lid. There was a curious aromatic
+smell came from within, a sort of mingling of cedar and camphor and
+spices--a smell that made you think of foreign parts and queer, far-off
+places. And it was indeed a strange collection of things and objects that
+Mr. Lindsey took out of the chest and set down on the table. There was an
+old cigar-box, tied about with twine, full to the brim with money--over
+two thousand pounds in bank-notes and gold, as we found on counting it up
+later on,--and there were others filled with cigars, and yet others in
+which the man had packed all manner of curiosities such as three of us at
+any rate had never seen in our lives before. But Mr. Lindsey, who was
+something of a curiosity collector himself, nodded his head at the sight
+of some of them.
+
+"Wherever else this man may have been in his roving life," he said,
+"here's one thing certain--he's spent a lot of time in Mexico and Central
+America. And--what was the name he told you to use as a password once you
+met his man, Hugh--wasn't it Panama?"
+
+"Panama!" I answered. "Just that--Panama."
+
+"Well, and he's picked up lots of these things in those parts--Panama,
+Nicaragua, Mexico," he said. "And very interesting matters they are.
+But--you see, superintendent?--there's not a paper nor anything in this
+chest to tell us who this man is, nor where he came from when he came
+here, nor where his relations are to be found, if he has any. There's
+literally nothing whatever of that sort."
+
+The police officials nodded in silence.
+
+"And so--there's where things are," concluded Mr. Lindsey. "You've
+two dead men on your hands, and you know nothing whatever about
+either of them!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+MR. JOHN PHILLIPS
+
+
+He began to put back the various boxes and parcels into the chest as he
+spoke, and we all looked at each other as men might look who, taking a
+way unknown to them, come up against a blank wall. But Chisholm, who was
+a sharp fellow, with a good headpiece on him, suddenly spoke.
+
+"There's the fact that the murdered man sent that letter from Peebles,"
+said he, "and that he himself appears to have travelled from Peebles but
+yesterday. We might be hearing something of him at Peebles, and from what
+we might hear, there or elsewhere, we might get some connection between
+the two of them."
+
+"You're right in all that, sergeant," said Mr. Lindsey, "and it's to
+Peebles some of you'll have to go. For the thing's plain--that man has
+been murdered by somebody, and the first way to get at the somebody is to
+find out who the murdered man is, and why he came into these parts. As
+for him," he continued, pointing significantly to the bed, "his
+secret--whatever it is--has gone with him. And our question now is, Can
+we get at it in any other way?"
+
+We had more talk downstairs, and it was settled that Chisholm and I
+should go on to Peebles by the first train that morning, find out what
+we could there, and work back to the Cornhill station, where, according
+to the half-ticket which had been found on him, the murdered man
+appeared to have come on the evening of his death. Meanwhile, Murray
+would have the scene of the murder thoroughly and strictly searched--the
+daylight might reveal things which we had not been able to discover by
+the light of the lamps.
+
+"And there's another thing you can do," suggested Lindsey. "That scrap of
+a bill-head with a name and address in Dundee on it, that you found on
+him, you might wire there and see if anything is known of the man. Any
+bit of information you can get in that way--"
+
+"You're forgetting, Mr. Lindsey, that we don't know any name by which we
+can call the man," objected Chisholm. "We'll have to find a name for him
+before we can wire to Dundee or anywhere else. But if we can trace a name
+to him in Peebles--"
+
+"Aye, that'll be the way of it," said Murray. "Let's be getting all the
+information we can during the day, and I'll settle with the coroner's
+officer for the inquest at yon inn where you've taken him--it can't be
+held before tomorrow morning. Mr. Lindsey," he went on, "what are you
+going to do as regards this man that's lying dead upstairs? Mrs.
+Moneylaws says the doctor had been twice with him, and'll be able to give
+a certificate, so there'll be no inquest about him; but what's to be done
+about his friends and relations? It's likely there'll be somebody,
+somewhere. And--all that money on him and in his chest?"
+
+Mr. Lindsey shook his head and smiled.
+
+"If you think all this'll be done in hole-and-corner fashion,
+superintendent," he said, "you're not the wise man I take you for. Lord
+bless you, man, the news'll be all over the country within forty-eight
+hours! If this Gilverthwaite has folk of his own, they'll be here fast as
+crows hurry to a new-sown field! Let the news of it once out, and you'll
+wish that such men as newspaper reporters had never been born. You can't
+keep these things quiet; and if we're going to get to the bottom of all
+this, then publicity's the very thing that's needed."
+
+All this was said in the presence of my mother, who, being by nature as
+quiet a body as ever lived, was by no means pleased to know that her
+house was, as it were, to be made a centre of attraction. And when Mr.
+Lindsey and the police had gone away, and she began getting some
+breakfast ready for me before my going to meet Chisholm at the station,
+she set on to bewail our misfortune in ever taking Gilverthwaite into the
+house, and so getting mixed up with such awful things as murder. She
+should have had references with the man, she said, before taking him in,
+and so have known who she was dealing with. And nothing that either I or
+Maisie--who was still there, staying to be of help, Tom Dunlop having
+gone home to tell his father the great news--could say would drive out of
+her head the idea that Gilverthwaite, somehow or other, had something to
+do with the killing of the strange man. And, womanlike, and not being
+over-amenable to reason, she saw no cause for a great fuss about the
+affair in her own house, at any rate. The man was dead, she said, and let
+them get him put decently away, and hold his money till somebody came
+forward to claim it--all quietly and without the pieces in the paper that
+Mr. Lindsey talked about.
+
+"And how are we to let people know anything about him if there isn't news
+in the papers?" I asked. "It's only that way that we can let his
+relatives know he's dead, mother. You're forgetting that we don't even
+know where the man's from!"
+
+"Maybe I've a better idea of where he was from, when he came here, than
+any lawyer-folk or police-folk either, my man!" she retorted, giving me
+and Maisie a sharp look. "I've eyes in my head, anyway, and it doesn't
+take me long to see a thing that's put plain before them."
+
+"Well?" said I, seeing quick enough that she'd some notion in her mind.
+"You've found something out?"
+
+Without answering the question in words she went out of the kitchen and
+up the stairs, and presently came back to us, carrying in one hand a
+man's collar and in the other Gilverthwaite's blue serge jacket. And she
+turned the inside of the collar to us, pointing her finger to some words
+stamped in black on the linen.
+
+"Take heed of that!" she said. "He'd a dozen of those collars,
+brand-new, when he came, and this, you see, is where he bought them; and
+where he bought them, there, too, he bought his ready-made suit of
+clothes--that was brand-new as well,--here's the name on a tab inside the
+coat: Brown Brothers, Gentlemen's Outfitters, Exchange Street, Liverpool.
+What does all that prove but that it was from Liverpool he came?"
+
+"Aye!" I said. "And it proves, too, that he was wanting an outfit when he
+came to Liverpool from--where? A long way further afield, I'm thinking!
+But it's something to know as much as that, and you've no doubt hit on a
+clue that might be useful, mother. And if we can find out that the other
+man came from Liverpool, too, why then--"
+
+But I stopped short there, having a sudden vision of a very wide world of
+which Liverpool was but an outlet. Where had Gilverthwaite last come from
+when he struck Liverpool, and set himself up with new clothes and linen?
+And had this mysterious man who had met such a terrible fate come also
+from some far-off part, to join him in whatever it was that had brought
+Gilverthwaite to Berwick? And--a far more important thing,--mysterious as
+these two men were, what about the equally mysterious man that was
+somewhere in the background--the murderer?
+
+Chisholm and I had no great difficulty--indeed, we had nothing that you
+might call a difficulty--in finding out something about the murdered man
+at Peebles. We had the half-ticket with us, and we soon got hold of the
+booking-clerk who had issued it on the previous afternoon. He remembered
+the looks of the man to whom he had sold it, and described him to us well
+enough. Moreover, he found us a ticket-collector who remembered that same
+man arriving in Peebles two days before, and giving up a ticket from
+Glasgow. He had a reason for remembering him, for the man had asked him
+to recommend him to a good hotel, and had given him a two-shilling piece
+for his trouble. So far, then, we had plain sailing, and it continued
+plain and easy during the short time we stayed in Peebles. And it came to
+this: the man we were asking about came to the town early in the
+afternoon of the day before the murder; he put himself up at the best
+hotel in the place; he was in and out of it all the afternoon and
+evening; he stayed there until the middle of the afternoon of the next
+day, when he paid his bill and left. And there was the name he had
+written in the register book--Mr. John Phillips, Glasgow.
+
+Chisholm drew me out of the hotel where we had heard all this and pulled
+the scrap of bill-head from his pocket-book.
+
+"Now that we've got the name to go on," said he, "we'll send a wire to
+this address in Dundee asking if anything's known there of Mr. John
+Phillips. And we'll have the reply sent to Berwick--it'll be waiting us
+when we get back this morning."
+
+The name and address in Dundee was of one Gavin Smeaton, Agent, 131A Bank
+Street. And the question which Chisholm sent him over the wire was plain
+and direct enough: Could he give the Berwick police any information about
+a man named John Phillips, found dead, on whose body Mr. Smeaton's name
+and address had been discovered?
+
+"We may get something out of that," said Chisholm, as we left the
+post-office, "and we may get nothing. And now that we do know that this
+man left here for Coldstream, let's get back there, and go on with our
+tracing of his movements last night."
+
+But when we had got back to our own district we were quickly at a dead
+loss. The folk at Cornhill station remembered the man well enough. He had
+arrived there about half-past eight the previous evening. He had been
+seen to go down the road to the bridge which leads over the Tweed to
+Coldstream. We could not find out that he had asked the way of
+anybody--he appeared to have just walked that way as if he were well
+acquainted with the place. But we got news of him at an inn just across
+the bridge. Such a man--a gentleman, the inn folk called him--had walked
+in there, asked for a glass of whisky, lingered for a few minutes while
+he drank it, and had gone out again. And from that point we lost all
+trace of him. We were now, of course, within a few miles of the place
+where the man had been murdered, and the people on both sides of the
+river were all in a high state of excitement about it; but we could learn
+nothing more. From the moment of the man's leaving the inn on the
+Coldstream side of the bridge, nobody seemed to have seen him until I
+myself found his body.
+
+There was another back-set for us when we reached Berwick--in the reply
+from Dundee. It was brief and decisive enough. "Have no knowledge
+whatever of any person named John Phillips--Gavin Smeaton." So, for the
+moment, there was nothing to be gained from that quarter.
+
+Mr. Lindsey and I were at the inn where the body had been taken, and
+where the inquest was to be held, early next morning, in company with
+the police, and amidst a crowd that had gathered from all parts of
+the country. As we hung about, waiting the coroner's arrival, a
+gentleman rode up on a fine bay horse--a good-looking elderly man,
+whose coming attracted much attention. He dismounted and came towards
+the inn door, and as he drew the glove off his right hand I saw that
+the first and second fingers of that hand were missing. Here, without
+doubt, was the man whom I had seen at the cross-roads just before my
+discovery of the murder!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE INQUEST ON JOHN PHILLIPS
+
+
+Several of the notabilities of the neighbourhood had ridden or driven to
+the inn, attracted, of course, by curiosity, and the man with the maimed
+hand immediately joined them as they stood talking apart from the rest of
+us. Now, I knew all such people of our parts well enough by sight, but I
+did not know this man, who certainly belonged to their class, and I
+turned to Mr. Lindsey, asking him who was this gentleman that had just
+ridden up. He glanced at me with evident surprise at my question.
+
+"What?" said he. "You don't know him? That's the man there's been so much
+talk about lately--Sir Gilbert Carstairs of Hathercleugh House, the new
+successor to the old baronetcy."
+
+I knew at once what he meant. Between Norham and Berwick, overlooking the
+Tweed, and on the English side of the river, stood an ancient,
+picturesque, romantic old place, half-mansion, half-castle, set in its
+own grounds, and shut off from the rest of the world by high walls and
+groves of pine and fir, which had belonged for many a generation to the
+old family of Carstairs. Its last proprietor, Sir Alexander Carstairs,
+sixth baronet, had been a good deal of a recluse, and I never remember
+seeing him but once, when I caught sight of him driving in the town--a
+very, very old man who looked like what he really was, a hermit. He had
+been a widower for many long years, and though he had three children, it
+was little company that he seemed to have ever got out of them, for his
+elder son, Mr. Michael Carstairs, had long since gone away to foreign
+parts, and had died there; his younger son, Mr. Gilbert, was, it was
+understood, a doctor in London, and never came near the old place; and
+his one daughter, Mrs. Ralston, though she lived within ten miles of her
+father, was not on good terms with him. It was said that the old
+gentleman was queer and eccentric, and hard to please or manage; however
+that may be, it is certain that he lived a lonely life till he was well
+over eighty years of age. And he had died suddenly, not so very long
+before James Gilverthwaite came to lodge with us; and Mr. Michael being
+dead, unmarried, and therefore without family, the title and estate had
+passed to Mr. Gilbert, who had recently come down to Hathercleugh House
+and taken possession, bringing with him--though he himself was getting on
+in years, being certainly over fifty--a beautiful young wife whom, they
+said, he had recently married, and was, according to various accounts
+which had crept out, a very wealthy woman in her own right.
+
+So here was Sir Gilbert Carstairs, seventh baronet, before me, chatting
+away to some of the other gentlemen of the neighbourhood, and there was
+not a doubt in my mind that he was the man whom I had seen on the road
+the night of the murder. I was close enough to him now to look more
+particularly at his hand, and I saw that the two first fingers had
+completely disappeared, and that the rest of it was no more than a claw.
+It was not likely there could be two men in our neighbourhood thus
+disfigured. Moreover, the general build of the man, the tweed suit of
+grey that he was wearing, the attitude in which he stood, all convinced
+me that this was the person I had seen at the cross-roads, holding his
+electric torch to the face of his map. And I made up my mind there and
+then to say nothing in my evidence about that meeting, for I had no
+reason to connect such a great gentleman as Sir Gilbert Carstairs with
+the murder, and it seemed to me that his presence at those cross-roads
+was easily enough explained. He was a big, athletic man and was likely
+fond of a walk, and had been taking one that evening, and, not as yet
+being over-familiar with the neighbourhood--having lived so long away
+from it,--had got somewhat out of his way in returning home. No, I would
+say nothing. I had been brought up to have a firm belief in the old
+proverb which tells you that the least said is soonest mended. We were
+all packed pretty tightly in the big room of the inn when the coroner
+opened his inquiry. And at the very onset of the proceedings he made a
+remark which was expected by all of us that knew how these things are
+done and are likely to go. We could not do much that day; there would
+have to be an adjournment, after taking what he might call the surface
+evidence. He understood, he remarked, with a significant glance at the
+police officials and at one or two solicitors that were there, that there
+was some extraordinary mystery at the back of this matter, and that a
+good many things would have to be brought to light before the jury could
+get even an idea as to who it was that had killed the man whose body had
+been found, and as to the reason for his murder. And all they could do
+that day, he went on, was to hear such evidence--not much--as had already
+been collected, and then to adjourn.
+
+Mr. Lindsey had said to me as we drove along to the inn that I should
+find myself the principal witness, and that Gilverthwaite would come into
+the matter more prominently than anybody fancied. And this, of course,
+was soon made evident. What there was to tell of the dead man, up to that
+time, was little. There was the medical evidence that he had been stabbed
+to death by a blow from a very formidable knife or dagger, which had been
+driven into his heart from behind. There was the evidence which Chisholm
+and I had collected in Peebles and at Cornhill station, and at the inn
+across the Coldstream Bridge. There was the telegram which had been sent
+by Mr. Gavin Smeaton--whoever he might be--from Dundee. And that was
+about all, and it came to this: that here was a man who, in registering
+at a Peebles hotel, called himself John Phillips and wrote down that he
+came from Glasgow, where, up to that moment, the police had failed to
+trace anything relating to such a person; and this man had travelled to
+Cornhill station from Peebles, been seen in an adjacent inn, had then
+disappeared, and had been found, about two hours later, murdered in a
+lonely place.
+
+"And the question comes to this," observed the coroner, "what was this
+man doing at that place, and who was he likely to meet there? We have
+some evidence on that point, and," he added, with one shrewd glance at
+the legal folk in front of him and another at the jurymen at his side,
+"I think you'll find, gentlemen of the jury, that it's just enough to
+whet your appetite for more."
+
+They had kept my evidence to the last, and if there had been a good deal
+of suppressed excitement in the crowded room while Chisholm and the
+doctor and the landlord of the inn on the other side of Coldstream Bridge
+gave their testimonies, there was much more when I got up to tell my
+tale, and to answer any questions that anybody liked to put to me. Mine,
+of course, was a straight enough story, told in a few sentences, and I
+did not see what great amount of questioning could arise out of it. But
+whether it was that he fancied I was keeping something back, or that he
+wanted, even at that initial stage of the proceedings, to make matters as
+plain as possible, a solicitor that was representing the county police
+began to ask me questions.
+
+"There was no one else with you in the room when this man Gilverthwaite
+gave you his orders?" he asked.
+
+"No one," I answered.
+
+"And you've told me everything that he said to you?"
+
+"As near as I can recollect it, every word."
+
+"He didn't describe the man you were to meet?"
+
+"He didn't--in any way."
+
+"Nor tell you his name?"
+
+"Nor tell me his name."
+
+"So that you'd no idea whatever as to who it was that you were to meet,
+nor for what purpose he was coming to meet Gilverthwaite, if
+Gilverthwaite had been able to meet him?"
+
+"I'd no idea," said I. "I knew nothing but that I was to meet a man and
+give him a message."
+
+He seemed to consider matters a little, keeping silence, and then he went
+off on another tack.
+
+"What do you know of the movements of this man Gilverthwaite while he was
+lodging with your mother?" he asked.
+
+"Next to nothing," I replied.
+
+"But how much?" he inquired. "You'd know something."
+
+"Of my own knowledge, next to nothing," I repeated. "I've seen him in the
+streets, and on the pier, and taking his walks on the walls and over the
+Border Bridge; and I've heard him say that he'd been out in the country.
+And that's all."
+
+"Was he always alone?" he asked.
+
+"I never saw him with anybody, never heard of his talking to anybody, nor
+of his going to see a soul in the place," I answered; "and first and
+last, he never brought any one into our house, nor had anybody asked at
+the door for him."
+
+"And with the exception of that registered letter we've heard of, he
+never had a letter delivered to him all the time he lodged with
+you?" he said.
+
+"Not one," said I. "From first to last, not one."
+
+He was silent again for a time, and all the folk staring at him and me;
+and for the life of me I could not think what other questions he could
+get out of his brain to throw at me. But he found one, and put it with a
+sharp cast of his eye.
+
+"Now, did this man ever give you, while he was in your house, any reason
+at all for his coming to Berwick?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," I answered; "he did that when he came asking for lodgings. He said
+he had folk of his own buried in the neighbourhood, and he was minded to
+take a look at their graves and at the old places where they'd lived."
+
+"Giving you, in fact, an impression that he was either a native of
+these parts, or had lived here at some time, or had kindred that
+had?" he asked.
+
+"Just that," I replied.
+
+"Did he tell you the names of such folk, or where they were buried, or
+anything of that sort?" he suggested.
+
+"No--never," said I. "He never mentioned the matter again."
+
+"And you don't know that he ever went to any particular place to look at
+any particular grave or house?" he inquired.
+
+"No," I replied; "but we knew that he took his walks into the country on
+both sides Tweed."
+
+He hesitated a bit, looked at me and back at his papers, and then, with a
+glance at the coroner, sat down. And the coroner, nodding at him as if
+there was some understanding between them, turned to the jury.
+
+"It may seem without the scope of this inquiry, gentlemen," he said,
+"but the presence of this man Gilverthwaite in the neighbourhood has
+evidently so much to do with the death of the other man, whom we know as
+John Phillips, that we must not neglect any pertinent evidence. There is
+a gentleman present that can tell us something. Call the Reverend
+Septimus Ridley."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE PARISH REGISTERS
+
+
+I had noticed the Reverend Mr. Ridley sitting in the room with some other
+gentlemen of the neighbourhood, and had wondered what had brought him, a
+clergyman, there. I knew him well enough by sight. He was a vicar of a
+lonely parish away up in the hills--a tall, thin, student-looking man
+that you might occasionally see in the Berwick streets, walking very fast
+with his eyes on the ground, as if, as the youngsters say, he was seeking
+sixpences; and I should not have thought him likely to be attracted to an
+affair of that sort by mere curiosity. And, whatever he might be in his
+pulpit, he looked very nervous and shy as he stood up between the coroner
+and the jury to give his evidence.
+
+"Whatever are we going to hear now?" whispered Mr. Lindsey in my ear.
+"Didn't I tell you there'd be revelations about Gilverthwaite, Hugh, my
+lad? Well, there's something coming out! But what can this parson know?"
+
+As it soon appeared, Mr. Ridley knew a good deal. After a bit of
+preliminary questioning, making things right in the proper legal fashion
+as to who he was, and so on, the coroner put a plain inquiry to him. "Mr.
+Ridley, you have had some recent dealings with this man James
+Gilverthwaite, who has just been mentioned in connection with this
+inquiry?" he asked.
+
+"Some dealings recently--yes," answered the clergyman.
+
+"Just tell us, in your own way, what they were," said the coroner. "And,
+of course, when they took place."
+
+"Gilverthwaite," said Mr. Ridley, "came to me, at my vicarage, about a
+month or five weeks ago. I had previously seen him about the church and
+churchyard. He told me he was interested in parish registers, and in
+antiquities generally, and asked if he could see our registers, offering
+to pay whatever fee was charged. I allowed him to look at the registers,
+but I soon discovered that his interest was confined to a particular
+period. The fact was, he wished to examine the various entries made
+between 1870 and 1880. That became very plain; but as he did not express
+his wish in so many words, I humoured him. Still, as I was with him
+during the whole of the time he was looking at the books, I saw what it
+was that he examined."
+
+Here Mr. Ridley paused, glancing at the coroner.
+
+"That is really about all that I can tell," he said. "He only came to me
+on that one occasion."
+
+"Perhaps I can get a little more out of you, Mr. Ridley," remarked the
+coroner with a smile. "A question or two, now. What particular registers
+did this man examine? Births, deaths, marriages--which?"
+
+"All three, between the dates I have mentioned--1870 to 1880," replied
+Mr. Ridley.
+
+"Did you think that he was searching for some particular entry?"
+
+"I certainly did think so."
+
+"Did he seem to find it?" asked the coroner, with a shrewd glance.
+
+"If he did find such an entry," replied Mr. Ridley slowly, "he gave no
+sign of it; he did not copy or make a note of it, and he did not ask any
+copy of it from me. My impression--whatever it is worth--is that he did
+not find what he wanted in our registers. I am all the more convinced of
+that because--"
+
+Here Mr. Ridley paused, as if uncertain whether to proceed or not; but at
+an encouraging nod from the coroner he went on.
+
+"I was merely going to say--and I don't suppose it is evidence--" he
+added, "that I understand this man visited several of my brother
+clergymen in the neighbourhood on the same errand. It was talked of at
+the last meeting of our rural deanery."
+
+"Ah!" remarked the coroner significantly. "He appears, then, to have been
+going round examining the parish registers--we must get more evidence of
+that later, for I'm convinced it has a bearing on the subject of this
+present inquiry. But a question or two more, Mr. Ridley. There are
+stipulated fees for searching the registers, I believe. Did Gilverthwaite
+pay them in your case?"
+
+Mr. Ridley smiled.
+
+"He not only paid the fees," he answered, "but he forced me to accept
+something for the poor box. He struck me as being a man who was inclined
+to be free with his money."
+
+The coroner looked at the solicitor who was representing the police.
+
+"I don't know if you want to ask this witness any questions?" he
+inquired.
+
+"Yes," said the solicitor. He turned to Mr. Ridley. "You heard what the
+witness Hugh Moneylaws said?--that Gilverthwaite mentioned on his coming
+to Berwick that he had kinsfolk buried in the neighbourhood? You did?
+Well, Mr. Ridley, do you know if there are people of that name buried in
+your churchyard?"
+
+"There are not," replied Mr. Ridley promptly. "What is more, the name
+Gilverthwaite does not occur in our parish registers. I have a complete
+index of the registers from 1580, when they began to be kept, and there
+is no such name in it. I can also tell you this," he added, "I am, I
+think I may say, something of an authority on the parish registers of
+this district--I have prepared and edited several of them for
+publication, and I am familiar with most of them. I do not think that
+name, Gilverthwaite, occurs in any of them."
+
+"What do you deduce from that, now?" asked the solicitor.
+
+"That whatever it was that the man was searching for--and I am sure he
+was searching--it was not for particulars of his father's family,"
+answered Mr. Ridley. "That is, of course, if his name really was what he
+gave it out to be--Gilverthwaite."
+
+"Precisely!" said the coroner. "It may have been an assumed name."
+
+"The man may have been searching for particulars of his mother's family,"
+remarked the solicitor.
+
+"That line of thought would carry us too far afield just now," said the
+coroner. He turned to the jury. "I've allowed this evidence about the man
+Gilverthwaite, gentlemen," he said, "because it's very evident that
+Gilverthwaite came to this neighbourhood for some special purpose and
+wanted to get some particular information; and it's more than probable
+that the man into the circumstances of whose death we're inquiring was
+concerned with him in his purpose. But we cannot go any further today,"
+he concluded, "and I shall adjourn the inquiry for a fortnight, when, no
+doubt, there'll be more evidence to put before you."
+
+I think that the folk who had crowded into that room, all agog to hear
+whatever could be told, went out of it more puzzled than when they came
+in. They split up into groups outside the inn, and began to discuss
+matters amongst themselves. And presently two sharp-looking young
+fellows, whom I had seen taking notes at the end of the big table
+whereat the coroner and the officials sat, came up to me, and telling me
+that they were reporters, specially sent over, one from Edinburgh, the
+other from Newcastle, begged me to give them a faithful and detailed
+account of my doings and experiences on the night of the murder--there
+was already vast interest in this affair all over the country, they
+affirmed, and whatever I could or would tell them would make splendid
+reading and be printed in big type in their journals. But Mr. Lindsey,
+who was close by, seized my arm and steered me away from these
+persistent seekers after copy.
+
+"Not just now, my lads!" said he good-humouredly. "You've got plenty
+enough to go on with--you've heard plenty in there this morning to keep
+your readers going for a bit. Not a word, Hugh! And as for you,
+gentlemen, if you want to do something towards clearing up this mystery,
+and assisting justice, there's something you can do--and nobody can do
+it better."
+
+"What's that?" asked one of them eagerly.
+
+"Ask through your columns for the relations, friends, acquaintances,
+anybody who knows them or aught about them, of these two men, James
+Gilverthwaite and John Phillips," replied Mr. Lindsey. "Noise it abroad
+as much as you like and can! If they've folk belonging to them, let them
+come forward. For," he went on, giving them a knowing look, "there's a
+bigger mystery in this affair than any one of us has any conception of,
+and the more we can find out the sooner it'll be solved. And I'll say
+this to you young fellows: the press can do more than the police. There's
+a hint for you!"
+
+Then he led me off, and we got into the trap in which he and I had driven
+out from Berwick, and as soon as we had started homeward he fell into a
+brown study and continued in it until we were in sight of the town.
+
+"Hugh, my lad!" he suddenly exclaimed, at last starting out of his
+reverie. "I'd give a good deal if I could see daylight in this affair!
+I've had two-and-twenty years' experience of the law, and I've known some
+queer matters, and some dark matters, and some ugly matters in my time;
+but hang me if I ever knew one that promises to be as ugly and as dark
+and as queer as this does--that's a fact!"
+
+"You're thinking it's all that, Mr. Lindsey?" I asked, knowing him as I
+did to be an uncommonly sharp man.
+
+"I'm thinking there's more than meets the eye," he answered. "Bloody
+murder we know there is--maybe there'll be more, or maybe there has been
+more already. What was that deep old fish Gilverthwaite after? What took
+place between Phillips's walking out of that inn at Coldstream Bridge and
+your finding of his body? Who met Phillips? Who did him to his death? And
+what were the two of 'em after in this corner of the country? Black
+mystery, my lad, on all hands!"
+
+I made no answer just then. I was thinking, wondering if I should tell
+him about my meeting with Sir Gilbert Carstairs at the cross-roads. Mr.
+Lindsey was just the man you could and would tell anything to, and it
+would maybe have been best if I had told him of that matter there and
+then. But there's a curious run of caution and reserve in our family. I
+got it from both father and mother, and deepened it on my own account,
+and I could not bring myself to be incriminating and suspicioning a man
+whose presence so near the place of the murder might be innocent enough.
+So I held my tongue.
+
+"I wonder will all the stuff in the newspapers bring any one forward?" he
+said, presently. "It ought to!--if there is anybody."
+
+Nothing, however, was heard by the police or by ourselves for the next
+three or four days; and then--I think it was the fourth day after the
+inquest--I looked up from my desk in Mr. Lindsey's outer office one
+afternoon to see Maisie Dunlop coming in at the door, followed by an
+elderly woman, poorly but respectably dressed, a stranger.
+
+"Hugh," said Maisie, coming up to my side, "your mother asked me to bring
+this woman up to see Mr. Lindsey. She's just come in from the south, and
+she says she's yon James Gilverthwaite's sister."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE MARINE-STORE DEALER
+
+
+Mr. Lindsey was standing just within his own room when Maisie and the
+strange woman came into the office, and hearing what was said, he called
+us all three to go into him. And, like myself, he looked at the woman
+with a good deal of curiosity, wanting--as I did--to see some likeness to
+the dead man. But there was no likeness to be seen, for whereas
+Gilverthwaite was a big and stalwart fellow, this was a small and spare
+woman, whose rusty black clothes made her look thinner and more meagre
+than she really was. All the same, when she spoke I knew there was a
+likeness between them, for her speech was like his, different altogether
+from ours of the Border.
+
+"So you believe you're the sister of this man James Gilverthwaite,
+ma'am?" began Mr. Lindsey, motioning the visitor to sit down, and
+beckoning Maisie to stop with us. "What might your name be, now?"
+
+"I believe this man that's talked about in the newspapers is my brother,
+sir," answered the woman. "Else I shouldn't have taken the trouble to
+come all this way. My name's Hanson--Mrs. Hanson. I come from Garston,
+near Liverpool."
+
+"Aye--just so--a Lancashire woman," said Mr. Lindsey, nodding. "Your
+name would be Gilverthwaite, then, before you were married?"
+
+"To be sure, sir--same as James's," she replied. "Him and me was the
+only two there was. I've brought papers with me that'll prove what I
+say. I went to a lawyer before ever I came, and he told me to come at
+once, and to bring my marriage lines, and a copy of James's birth
+certificate, and one or two other things of that sort. There's no doubt
+that this man we've read about in the newspapers was my brother, and of
+course I would like to put in my claim to what he's left--if he's left
+it to nobody else."
+
+"Just so," agreed Mr. Lindsey. "Aye--and how long is it since you last
+saw your brother, now?"
+
+The woman shook her head as if this question presented difficulties.
+
+"I couldn't rightly say to a year or two, no, not even to a few years,"
+she answered. "And to the best of my belief, sir, it'll be a good thirty
+years, at the least. It was just after I was married to Hanson, and that
+was when I was about three-and-twenty, and I was fifty-six last
+birthday. James came--once--to see me and Hanson soon after we was
+settled down, and I've never set eyes on him from that day to this.
+But--I should know him now."
+
+"He was buried yesterday," remarked Mr. Lindsey. "It's a pity you didn't
+telegraph to some of us."
+
+"The lawyer I went to, sir, said, 'Go yourself!'" replied Mrs. Hanson.
+"So I set off--first thing this morning."
+
+"Let me have a look at those papers," said Mr. Lindsey.
+
+He motioned me to his side, and together we looked through two or three
+documents which the woman produced.
+
+The most important was a certified copy of James Gilverthwaite's birth
+certificate, which went to prove that this man had been born in Liverpool
+about sixty-two years previously; that, as Mr. Lindsey was quick to point
+out, fitted in with what Gilverthwaite had told my mother and myself
+about his age.
+
+"Well," he said, turning to Mrs. Hanson, "you can answer some questions,
+no doubt, about your brother, and about matters in relation to him. First
+of all, do you know if any of your folks hailed from this part?"
+
+"Not that I ever heard of, sir," she replied. "No, I'm sure they
+wouldn't. They were all Lancashire folks, on both sides. I know all about
+them as far back as my great-grandfather's and great-grandmother's."
+
+"Do you know if your brother ever came to Berwick as a lad?" asked Mr.
+Lindsey, with a glance at me.
+
+"He might ha' done that, sir," said Mrs. Hanson. "He was a great,
+masterful, strong lad, and he'd run off to sea by the time he was ten
+years old--there'd been no doing aught with him for a couple of years
+before that. I knew that when he was about twelve or thirteen he was on a
+coasting steamer that used to go in and out of Sunderland and Newcastle,
+and he might have put in here."
+
+"To be sure," said Mr. Lindsey. "But what's more important is to get on
+to his later history. You say you've never seen him for thirty years, or
+more? But have you never heard of him?"
+
+She nodded her head with decision at that question.
+
+"Yes," she replied, "I have heard of him--just once. There was a man, a
+neighbour of ours, came home from Central America, maybe five years ago,
+and he told us he'd seen our James out there, and that he was working as
+a sub-contractor, or something of that sort, on that Panama Canal there
+was so much talk about in them days."
+
+Mr. Lindsey and I looked at each other. Panama!--that was the password
+which James Gilverthwaite had given me. So--here, at any rate, was
+something, however little, that had the makings of a clue in it.
+
+"Aye!" he said, "Panama, now? He was there? And that's the last you
+ever heard?"
+
+"That's the very last we ever heard, sir," she answered. "Till, of
+course, we saw these pieces in the papers this last day or two."
+
+Mr. Lindsey twisted round on her with a sharp look.
+
+"Do you know aught of that man, John Phillips, whose name's in the papers
+too?" he asked.
+
+"No, sir, nothing!" she replied promptly. "Never heard tell of him!"
+
+"And you've never heard of your brother's having been seen in Liverpool
+of late?" he went on. "Never heard that he called to see any old friends
+at all? For we know, as you have seen in the papers, Mrs. Hanson, that he
+was certainly in Liverpool, and bought clothes and linen there, within
+this last three months."
+
+"He never came near me, sir," she said. "And I never heard word of his
+being there from anybody."
+
+There was a bit of a silence then, and at last the woman put the question
+which, it was evident, she was anxious to have answered definitely.
+
+"Do you think there's a will, mister?" she asked. "For, if not, the
+lawyer I went to said what there was would come to me--and I could
+do with it."
+
+"We've seen nothing of any will," answered Mr. Lindsey. "And I should say
+there is none, and on satisfactory proof of your being next-of-kin,
+you'll get all he left. I've no doubt you're his sister, and I'll take
+the responsibility of going through his effects with you. You'll be
+stopping in the town a day or two? Maybe your mother, Hugh, can find Mrs.
+Hanson a lodging?"
+
+I answered that my mother would no doubt do what she could to look after
+Mrs. Hanson; and presently the woman went away with Maisie, leaving her
+papers with Mr. Lindsey. He turned to me when we were alone.
+
+"Some folks would think that was a bit of help to me in solving the
+mystery, Hugh," said he; "but hang me if I don't think it makes the whole
+thing more mysterious than ever! And do you know, my lad, where, in my
+opinion, the very beginning of it may have to be sought for?"
+
+"I can't put a word to that, Mr. Lindsey," I answered. "Where, sir?"
+
+"Panama!" he exclaimed, with a jerk of his head. "Panama! just that! It
+began a long way off--Panama, as far as I see it. And what did begin, and
+what was going on? The two men that knew, and could have told, are dead
+as door-nails--and both buried, for that matter."
+
+So, in spite of Mrs. Hanson's coming and her revelations as to some, at
+any rate, of James Gilverthwaite's history, we were just as wise as ever
+at the end of the first week after the murder of John Phillips. And it
+was just the eighth night after my finding of the body that I got into
+the hands of Abel Crone.
+
+Abel Crone was a man that had come to Berwick about three years before
+this, from heaven only knows where, and had set himself up in business as
+a marine-store dealer, in a back street which ran down to the shore of
+the Tweed. He was a little red-haired, pale-eyed rat of a man, with
+ferrety eyes and a goatee beard, quiet and peaceable in his ways and
+inoffensive enough, but a rare hand at gossiping about the beach and the
+walls--you might find him at all odd hours either in these public places
+or in the door of his shop, talking away with any idler like himself. And
+how I came to get into talk with him on that particular night was here:
+Tom Dunlop, Maisie's young brother, was for keeping tame rabbits just
+then, and I was helping him to build hutches for the beasts in his
+father's back-yard, and we were wanting some bits of stuff, iron and wire
+and the like, and knowing I would pick it up for a few pence at Crone's
+shop, I went round there alone. Before I knew how it came about, Crone
+was deep into the murder business.
+
+"They'll not have found much out by this time, yon police fellows, no
+doubt, Mr. Moneylaws?" he said, eyeing me inquisitively in the light of
+the one naphtha lamp that was spurting and jumping in his untidy shop.
+"They're a slow unoriginal lot, the police--there's no imagination in
+their brains and no ingenuity in their minds. What's wanted in an affair
+like this is one of those geniuses you read about in the storybooks--the
+men that can trace a murder from the way a man turns out his toes, or by
+the fashion he's bitten into a bit of bread that he's left on his plate,
+or the like of that--something more than by ordinary, you'll understand
+me to mean, Mr. Moneylaws?"
+
+"Maybe you'll be for taking a hand in this game yourself, Mr. Crone?"
+said I, thinking to joke with him. "You seem to have the right instinct
+for it, anyway."
+
+"Aye, well," he answered, "and I might be doing as well as anybody else,
+and no worse. You haven't thought of following anything up yourself, Mr.
+Moneylaws, I suppose?"
+
+"Me!" I exclaimed. "What should I be following up, man? I know no more
+than the mere surface facts of the affair."
+
+He gave a sharp glance at his open door when I thus answered him, and
+the next instant he was close to me in the gloom and looking sharply
+in my face.
+
+"Are you so sure of that, now?" he whispered cunningly. "Come now, I'll
+put a question to yourself, Mr. Moneylaws. What for did you not let on in
+your evidence that you saw Sir Gilbert Carstairs at yon cross-roads just
+before you found the dead man? Come!"
+
+You could have knocked me down with a feather, as the saying is, when he
+said that. And before I could recover from the surprise of it, he had a
+hand on my arm.
+
+"Come this way," he said. "I'll have a word with you in private."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE OTHER WITNESS
+
+
+It was with a thumping heart and nerves all a-tingle that I followed Abel
+Crone out of his front shop into a sort of office that he had at the back
+of it--a little, dirty hole of a place, in which there was a ramshackle
+table, a chair or two, a stand-up desk, a cupboard, and a variety of odds
+and ends that he had picked up in his trade. The man's sudden revelation
+of knowledge had knocked all the confidence out of me. It had never
+crossed my mind that any living soul had a notion of my secret--for
+secret, of course, it was, and one that I would not have trusted to
+Crone, of all men in the world, knowing him as I did to be such a one for
+gossip. And he had let this challenge out on me so sharply, catching me
+unawares that I was alone with him, and, as it were, at his mercy, before
+I could pull my wits together. Everything in me was confused. I was
+thinking several things all at a time. How did he come to know? Had I
+been watched? Had some person followed me out of Berwick that night? Was
+this part of the general mystery? And what was going to come of it, now
+that Abel Crone was aware that I knew something which, up to then, I had
+kept back?
+
+I stood helplessly staring at him as he turned up the wick of an oil
+lamp that stood on a mantelpiece littered with a mess of small things,
+and he caught a sight of my face when there was more light, and as he
+shut the door on us he laughed--laughed as if he knew that he had me in a
+trap. And before he spoke again he went over to the cupboard and took out
+a bottle and glasses.
+
+"Will you taste?" he asked, leering at me. "A wee drop, now? It'll do
+you good."
+
+"No!" said I.
+
+"Then I'll drink for the two of us," he responded, and poured out a
+half-tumblerful of whisky, to which he added precious little water.
+"Here's to you, my lad; and may you have grace to take advantage of
+your chances!"
+
+He winked over the rim of his glass as he took a big pull at its
+contents, and there was something so villainous in the look of him that
+it did me good in the way of steeling my nerves again. For I now saw
+that here was an uncommonly bad man to deal with, and that I had best be
+on my guard.
+
+"Mr. Crone," said I, gazing straight at him, "what's this you have to
+say to me?"
+
+"Sit you down," he answered, pointing at a chair that was shoved under
+one side of the little table. "Pull that out and sit you down. What we
+shall have to say to each other'll not be said in five minutes. Let's
+confer in the proper and comfortable fashion."
+
+I did what he asked, and he took another chair himself and sat down
+opposite me, propping his elbow on the table and leaning across it, so
+that, the table being but narrow, his sharp eyes and questioning lips
+were closer to mine than I cared for. And while he leaned forward in his
+chair I sat back in mine, keeping as far from him as I could, and just
+staring at him--perhaps as if I had been some trapped animal that
+couldn't get itself away from the eyes of another that meant presently to
+kill it. Once again I asked him what he wanted.
+
+"You didn't answer my question," he said. "I'll put it again, and you
+needn't be afraid that anybody'll overhear us in this place, it's safe! I
+say once more, what for did you not tell in your evidence at that inquest
+that you saw Sir Gilbert Carstairs at the cross-roads on the night of the
+murder! Um?"
+
+"That's my business!" said I
+
+"Just so," said he. "And I'll agree with you in that. It is your
+business. But if by that you mean that it's yours alone, and nobody
+else's, then I don't agree. Neither would the police."
+
+We stared at each other across the table for a minute of silence, and
+then I put the question directly to him that I had been wanting to put
+ever since he had first spoken. And I put it crudely enough.
+
+"How did you know?" I asked.
+
+He laughed at that--sneeringly, of course.
+
+"Aye, that's plain enough," said he. "No fencing about that! How did I
+know? Because when you saw Sir Gilbert I wasn't five feet away from you,
+and what you saw, I saw. I saw you both!"
+
+"You were there?" I exclaimed.
+
+"Snug behind the hedge in front of which you planted yourself," he
+answered. "And if you want to know what I was doing there, I'll tell you.
+I was doing--or had been doing--a bit of poaching. And, as I say, what
+you saw, I saw!"
+
+"Then I'll ask you a question, Mr. Crone," I said. "Why haven't you told,
+yourself?"
+
+"Aye!" he said. "You may well ask me that. But I wasn't called as a
+witness at yon inquest."
+
+"You could have come forward," I suggested.
+
+"I didn't choose," he retorted.
+
+We both looked at each other again, and while we looked he swigged off
+his drink and helped himself, just as generously, to more. And, as I was
+getting bolder by that time, I set to work at questioning him.
+
+"You'll be attaching some importance to what you saw?" said I.
+
+"Well," he replied slowly, "it's not a pleasant thing--for a man's
+safety--to be as near as what he was to a place where another man's just
+been done to his death."
+
+"You and I were near enough, anyway," I remarked.
+
+"We know what we were there for," he flung back at me. "We don't know
+what he was there for."
+
+"Put your tongue to it, Mr. Crone," I said boldly. "The fact is, you
+suspicion him?"
+
+"I suspicion a good deal, maybe," he admitted. "After all, even a man of
+that degree's only a man, when all's said and done, and there might be
+reasons that you and me knows nothing about. Let me ask you a question,"
+he went on, edging nearer at me across the table. "Have you mentioned it
+to a soul?"
+
+I made a mistake at that, but he was on me so sharp, and his manner was
+so insistent, that I had the word out of my lips before I thought.
+
+"No!" I replied. "I haven't."
+
+"Nor me," he said. "Nor me. So--you and me are the only two folk
+that know."
+
+"Well?" I asked.
+
+He took another pull at his liquor and for a moment or two sat silent,
+tapping his finger-nails against the rim of the glass.
+
+"It's a queer business, Moneylaws," he said at last. "Look at it anyway
+you like, it's a queer business! Here's one man, yon lodger of your
+mother's, comes into the town and goes round the neighbourhood reading
+the old parish registers and asking questions at the parson's--aye,
+and he was at it both sides of the Tweed--I've found that much out
+for myself! For what purpose? Is there money at the back of
+it--property--something of that sort, dependent on this Gilverthwaite
+unearthing some facts or other out of those old books? And then comes
+another man, a stranger, that's as mysterious in his movements as
+Gilverthwaite was, and he's to meet Gilverthwaite at a certain lonely
+spot, and at a very strange hour, and Gilverthwaite can't go, and he gets
+you to go, and you find the man--murdered! And--close by--you've seen
+this other man, who, between you and me--though it's no secret--is as
+much a stranger to the neighbourhood as ever Gilverthwaite was or
+Phillips was!"
+
+"I don't follow you at that," I said.
+
+"No?" said he. "Then I'll make it plainer to you. Do you know that until
+yon Sir Gilbert Carstairs came here, not so long since, to take up his
+title and his house and the estate, he'd never set foot in the place,
+never been near the place, this thirty year? Man! his own father, old
+Sir Alec, and his own sister, Mrs. Ralston of Craig, had never clapped
+eyes on him since he went away from Hathercleugh a youngster of
+one-and-twenty!"
+
+"Do you tell me that, Mr. Crone?" I exclaimed, much surprised at his
+words. "I didn't know so much. Where had he been, then?"
+
+"God knows!" said he. "And himself. It was said he was a doctor in
+London, and in foreign parts. Him and his brother--elder brother, you're
+aware, Mr. Michael--they both quarrelled with the old baronet when they
+were little more than lads, and out they cleared, going their own ways.
+And news of Michael's death, and the proofs of it, came home not so long
+before old Sir Alec died, and as Michael had never married, of course the
+younger brother succeeded when his father came to his end last winter.
+And, as I say, who knows anything about his past doings when he was away
+more than thirty years, nor what company he kept, nor what secrets he
+has? Do you follow me?"
+
+"Aye, I'm following you, Mr. Crone," I answered. "It comes to this--you
+suspect Sir Gilbert?"
+
+"What I say," he answered, "is this: he may have had something to do
+with the affair. You cannot tell. But you and me knows he was near the
+place--coming from its direction--at the time the murder would be in the
+doing. And--there is nobody knows but you--and me!"
+
+"What are you going to do about it?" I asked.
+
+He had another period of reflection before he replied, and when he spoke
+it was to the accompaniment of a warning look.
+
+"It's an ill-advised thing to talk about rich men," said he. "Yon man not
+only has money of his own, in what you might call considerable quantity,
+but his wife he brought with him is a woman of vast wealth, they tell me.
+It would be no very wise action on your part to set rumours going,
+Moneylaws, unless you could substantiate them."
+
+"What about yourself?" I asked. "You know as much as I do."
+
+"Aye, and there's one word that sums all up," said he. "And it's a short
+one. Wait! There'll be more coming out. Keep your counsel a bit. And when
+the moment comes, and if the moment comes--why, you know there's me
+behind you to corroborate. And--that's all!"
+
+He got up then, with a nod, as if to show that the interview was over,
+and I was that glad to get away from him that I walked off without
+another word.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+SIGNATURES TO THE WILL
+
+
+I was so knocked out of the usual run of things by this conversation with
+Crone that I went away forgetting the bits of stuff I had bought for Tom
+Dunlop's rabbit-hutches and Tom himself, and, for that matter, Maisie as
+well; and, instead of going back to Dunlop's, I turned down the
+riverside, thinking. It was beyond me at that moment to get a clear
+understanding of the new situation. I could not make out what Crone was
+at. Clearly, he had strong suspicions that Sir Gilbert Carstairs had
+something to do with, or some knowledge of, the murder of Phillips, and
+he knew now that there were two of us to bear out each other's testimony
+that Sir Gilbert was near the scene of the murder at the time it was
+committed. Why, then, should he counsel waiting? Why should not the two
+of us go to the police and tell what we knew? What was it that Crone
+advised we should wait for? Was something going on, some inquiry being
+made in the background of things, of which he knew and would not tell me?
+And--this, I think, was what was chiefly in my thoughts--was Crone
+playing some game of his own and designing to use me as a puppet in it?
+For there was a general atmosphere of subtlety and slyness about the man
+that forced itself upon me, young as I was; and the way he kept eyeing me
+as we talked made me feel that I had to do with one that would be hard to
+circumvent if it came to a matter of craftiness. And at last, after a lot
+of thinking, as I walked about in the dusk, it struck me that Crone might
+be for taking a hand in the game of which I had heard, but had never seen
+played--blackmail.
+
+The more I thought over that idea, the more I felt certain of it. His
+hints about Sir Gilbert's money and his wealthy wife, his advice to wait
+until we knew more, all seemed to point to this--that evidence might
+come out which would but require our joint testimony, Crone's and mine,
+to make it complete. If that were so, then, of course, Crone or I,
+or--as he probably designed--the two of us, would be in a position to go
+to Sir Gilbert Carstairs and tell him what we knew, and ask him how much
+he would give us to hold our tongues. I saw all the theory of it at
+last, clear enough, and it was just what I would have expected of Abel
+Crone, knowing him even as little as I did. Wait until we were sure--and
+then strike! That was his game. And I was not going to have anything to
+do with it.
+
+I went home to my bed resolved on that. I had heard of blackmailing, and
+had a good notion of its wickedness--and of its danger--and I was not
+taking shares with Crone in any venture of that sort. But there Crone
+was, an actual, concrete fact that I had got to deal with, and to come to
+some terms with, simply because he knew that I was in possession of
+knowledge which, to be sure, I ought to have communicated to the police
+at once. And I was awake much during the night, thinking matters over,
+and by the time I rose in the morning I had come to a decision. I would
+see Crone at once, and give him a sort of an ultimatum. Let him come,
+there and then, with me to Mr. Murray, and let the two of us tell what we
+knew and be done with it: if not, then I myself would go straight to Mr.
+Lindsey and tell him.
+
+I set out for the office earlier than usual that morning, and went round
+by way of the back street at the bottom of which Crone's store stood
+facing the river. I sometimes walked round that way of a morning, and I
+knew that Crone was as a rule at his place very early, amongst his old
+rubbish, or at his favourite game of gossiping with the fishermen that
+had their boats drawn up there. But when I reached it, the shop was still
+shut, and though I waited as long as I could, Crone did not come. I knew
+where he lived, at the top end of the town, and I thought to meet him as
+I walked up to Mr. Lindsey's; but I had seen nothing of him by the time I
+reached our office door, so I laid the matter aside until noon, meaning
+to get a word with him when I went home to my dinner. And though I could
+have done so there and then, I determined not to say anything to Mr.
+Lindsey until I had given Crone the chance of saying it with me--to him,
+or to the police. I expected, of course, that Crone would fly into a rage
+at my suggestion--if so, then I would tell him, straight out, that I
+would just take my own way, and take it at once.
+
+But before noon there was another development in this affair. In the
+course of the morning Mr. Lindsey bade me go with him down to my
+mother's house, where Mrs. Hanson had been lodged for the night--we
+would go through Gilverthwaite's effects with her, he said, with a view
+to doing what we could to put her in possession. It might--probably
+would--be a lengthy and a difficult business that, he remarked, seeing
+that there was so much that was dark about her brother's recent
+movements; and as the woman was obviously poor, we had best be stirring
+on her behalf. So down we went, and in my mother's front parlour, the
+same that Gilverthwaite had taken as his sitting-room, Mr. Lindsey
+opened the heavy box for the second time, in Mrs. Hanson's presence, and
+I began to make a list of its contents. At the sight of the money it
+contained, the woman began to tremble.
+
+"Eh, mister!" she exclaimed, almost tearfully, "but that's a sight of
+money to be lying there, doing naught! I hope there'll be some way of
+bringing it to me and mine--we could do with it, I promise you!"
+
+"We'll do our best, ma'am," said Mr. Lindsey. "As you're next of kin
+there oughtn't to be much difficulty, and I'll hurry matters up for you
+as quickly as possible. What I want this morning is for you to see all
+there is in this chest; he seems to have had no other belongings than
+this and his clothes--here at Mrs. Moneylaws', at any rate. And as you
+see, beyond the money, there's little else in the chest but cigars, and
+box after box of curiosities that he's evidently picked up in his
+travels--coins, shells, ornaments, all sorts of queer things--some of 'em
+no doubt of value. But no papers--no letters--no documents of any sort."
+
+A notion suddenly occurred to me.
+
+"Mr. Lindsey," said I, "you never turned out the contents of any of
+these smaller boxes the other night. There might be papers in one or
+other of them."
+
+"Good notion, Hugh, my lad!" he exclaimed. "True--there might. Here goes,
+then--we'll look through them systematically."
+
+In addition to the half-dozen boxes full of prime Havana cigars, which
+lay at the top of the chest, there were quite a dozen of similar boxes,
+emptied of cigars and literally packed full of the curiosities of which
+Mr. Lindsey had just spoken. He had turned out, and carefully replaced,
+the contents of three or four of these, when, at the bottom of one,
+filled with old coins, which, he said, were Mexican and Peruvian, and
+probably of great interest to collectors, he came across a paper, folded
+and endorsed in bold letters. And he let out an exclamation as he took
+this paper out and pointed us to the endorsement.
+
+"Do you see that?" said he. "It's the man's will!"
+
+The endorsement was plain enough--My will: _James Gilverthwaite_. And
+beneath it was a date, 27-8-1904.
+
+There was a dead silence amongst the four of us--my mother had been with
+us all the time--as Mr. Lindsey unfolded the paper--a thick, half-sheet
+of foolscap, and read what was written on it.
+
+"This is the last will and testament of me, James Gilverthwaite, a
+British subject, born at Liverpool, and formerly of Garston, in
+Lancashire, England, now residing temporarily at Colon, in the Republic
+of Panama. I devise and bequeath all my estate and effects, real and
+personal, which I may be possessed of or entitled to, unto my sister,
+Sarah Ellen Hanson, the wife of Matthew Hanson, of 37 Preston Street,
+Garston, Lancashire, England, absolutely, and failing her to any children
+she may have had by her marriage with Matthew Hanson, in equal shares.
+And I appoint the said Sarah Ellen Hanson, or in the case of her death,
+her eldest child, the executor of this my will; and I revoke all former
+wills. Dated this twenty-seventh day of August, 1904. _James
+Gilverthwaite_. Signed by the testator in the presence of us--"
+
+Mr. Lindsey suddenly broke off. And I, looking at him, saw his eyes screw
+themselves up with sheer wonder at something he saw. Without another word
+he folded up the paper, put it in his pocket, and turning to Mrs. Hanson,
+clapped her on the shoulder.
+
+"That's all right, ma'am!" he said heartily. "That's a good will, duly
+signed and attested, and there'll be no difficulty about getting it
+admitted to probate; leave it to me, and I'll see to it, and get it
+through for you as soon as ever I can. And we must do what's possible to
+find out if this brother of yours has left any other property; and
+meanwhile we'll just lock everything up again that we've taken out of
+this chest."
+
+It was close on my dinner hour when we had finished, but Mr. Lindsey, at
+his going, motioned me out into the street with him. In a quiet corner,
+he turned to me and pulled the will from his pocket.
+
+"Hugh!" he said. "Do you know who's one of the witnesses to this will?
+Aye, who are the two witnesses? Man!--you could have knocked me down with
+a feather when I saw the names! Look for yourself!"
+
+He handed me the paper and pointed to the attestation clause with which
+it ended. And I saw the two names at once--John Phillips, Michael
+Carstairs--and I let out a cry of astonishment.
+
+"Aye, you may well exclaim!" said he, taking the will back. "John
+Phillips!--that's the man was murdered the other night! Michael
+Carstairs--that's the elder brother of Sir Gilbert yonder at
+Hathercleugh, the man that would have succeeded to the title and estates
+if he hadn't predeceased old Sir Alexander. What would he be doing now, a
+friend of Gilverthwaite's?"
+
+"I've heard that this Mr. Michael Carstairs went abroad as a young man,
+Mr. Lindsey, and never came home again," I remarked. "Likely he
+foregathered with Gilverthwaite out yonder."
+
+"Just that," he agreed. "That would be the way of it, no doubt. To be
+sure! He's set down in this attestation clause as Michael Carstairs,
+engineer, American Quarter, Colon; and John Phillips is described as
+sub-contractor, of the same address. The three of 'em'll have been
+working in connection with the Panama Canal. But--God bless us!--there's
+some queer facts coming out, my lad! Michael Carstairs knows
+Gilverthwaite and Phillips in yon corner of the world--Phillips and
+Gilverthwaite, when Michael Carstairs is dead, come home to the corner of
+the world that Michael Carstairs sprang from. And Phillips is murdered as
+soon as he gets here--and Gilverthwaite dies that suddenly that he can't
+tell us a word of what it's all about! What is it all about--and who's
+going to piece it all together? Man!--there's more than murder at the
+bottom of all this!"
+
+It's a wonder that I didn't let out everything that I knew at that
+minute. And it may have been on the tip of my tongue, but just then he
+gave me a push towards our door.
+
+"I heard your mother say your dinner was waiting you," he said. "Go in,
+now; we'll talk more this afternoon."
+
+He strode off up the street, and I turned back and made haste with my
+dinner. I wanted to drop in at Crone's before I went again to the office:
+what had just happened, had made me resolved that Crone and I should
+speak out; and if he wouldn't, then I would. And presently I was hurrying
+away to his place, and as I turned into the back lane that led to it I
+ran up against Sergeant Chisholm.
+
+"Here's another fine to-do, Mr. Moneylaws!" said he. "You'll know yon
+Abel Crone, the marine-store dealer? Aye, well, he's been found drowned,
+not an hour ago, and by this and that, there's queer marks, that looks
+like violence, on him!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE SALMON GAFF
+
+
+I gave such a jump on hearing this that Chisholm himself started, and
+he stared at me with a question in his eyes. But I was quick enough to
+let him know that he was giving me news that I hadn't heard until he
+opened his lips.
+
+"You don't tell me that!" I exclaimed. "What!--more of it?"
+
+"Aye!" he said. "You'll be thinking that this is all of a piece with the
+other affair. And to be sure, they found Crone's body close by where you
+found yon other man--Phillips."
+
+"Where, then?" I asked. "And when?"
+
+"I tell you, not an hour ago," he replied. "The news just came in. I was
+going down here to see if any of the neighbours at the shop saw Crone in
+any strange company last night."
+
+I hesitated for a second or two, and then spoke out.
+
+"I saw him myself last night," said I. "I went to his shop--maybe it was
+nine o'clock--to buy some bits of stuff to make Tom Dunlop a door to his
+rabbit-hutch, and I was there talking to him ten minutes or so. He was
+all right then--and I saw nobody else with him."
+
+"Aye, well, he never went home to his house last night," observed
+Chisholm. "I called in there on my way down--he lived, you know, in a
+cottage by the police-station, and I dropped in and asked the woman that
+keeps house for him had she seen him this morning, and she said he never
+came home last night at all. And no wonder--as things are!"
+
+"But you were saying where it happened," I said.
+
+"Where he was found?" said he. "Well, and it was where Till runs into
+Tweed--leastways, a bit up the Till. Do you know John McIlwraith's
+lad--yon youngster that they've had such a bother with about the
+school--always running away to his play, and stopping out at nights, and
+the like--there was the question of sending him to a reformatory, you'll
+remember? Aye, well, it turns out the young waster was out last night in
+those woods below Twizel, and early this morning--though he didn't let on
+at it till some time after--he saw the body of a man lying in one of them
+deep pools in Till. And when he himself was caught by Turndale, who was
+on the look out for him, he told of what he'd seen, and Turndale and some
+other men went there, and they found--Crone!"
+
+"You were saying there were marks of violence," said I.
+
+"I haven't seen them myself," he answered. "But by Turndale's account--it
+was him brought in the news--there is queer marks on the body. Like as
+if--as near as Turndale could describe it--as if the man had been struck
+down before he was drowned. Bruises, you understand."
+
+"Where is he?" I asked.
+
+"He's where they took Phillips," replied Chisholm. "Dod!--that's two of
+'em that's been taken there within--aye, nearly within the week!"
+
+"What are you going to do, now?" I inquired.
+
+"I was just going, as I said, to ask a question or two down here--did
+anybody hear Crone say anything last night about going out that way?" he
+answered. "But, there, I don't see the good of it. Between you and me,
+Crone was a bit of a night-bird--I've suspected him of poaching, time and
+again. Well, he'll do no more of that! You'll be on your way to the
+office, likely?"
+
+"Straight there," said I. "I'll tell Mr. Lindsey of this."
+
+But when I reached the office, Mr. Lindsey, who had been out to get his
+lunch, knew all about it. He was standing outside the door, talking to
+Mr. Murray, and as I went up the superintendent turned away to the police
+station, and Mr. Lindsey took a step or two towards me.
+
+"Have you heard this about that man Crone?" he asked.
+
+"I've heard just now," I answered. "Chisholm told me."
+
+He looked at me, and I at him; there were questions in the eyes of both
+of us. But between parting from the police-sergeant and meeting Mr.
+Lindsey, I had made up my mind, by a bit of sharp thinking and
+reflection, on what my own plan of action was going to be about all this,
+once and for all, and I spoke before he could ask anything.
+
+"Chisholm," said I, "was down that way, wondering could he hear word of
+Crone's being seen with anybody last night. I saw Crone last night. I
+went to his shop, buying some bits of old stuff. He was all right then--I
+saw nothing. Chisholm--he says Crone was a poacher. That would account,
+likely, for his being out there."
+
+"Aye!" said Mr. Lindsey. "But--they say there's marks of violence on the
+body. And--the long and short of it is, my lad!" he went on, first
+interrupting himself, and then giving me an odd look; "the long and short
+of it is, it's a queer thing that Crone should have come by his death
+close to the spot where you found yon man Phillips! There may be nothing
+but coincidence in it--but there's no denying it's a queer thing. Go and
+order a conveyance, and we'll drive out yonder."
+
+In pursuance of the determination I had come to, I said no more about
+Crone to Mr. Lindsey. I had made up my mind on a certain course, and
+until it was taken I could not let out a word of what was by that time
+nobody's secret but mine to him, nor to any one--not even to Maisie
+Dunlop, to whom, purposely, I had not as yet said anything about my
+seeing Sir Gilbert Carstairs on the night of Phillips's murder. And all
+the way out to the inn there was silence between Mr. Lindsey and me, and
+the event of the morning, about Gilverthwaite's will, and the odd
+circumstance of its attestation by Michael Carstairs, was not once
+mentioned. We kept silence, indeed, until we were in the place to which
+they had carried Crone's dead body. Mr. Murray and Sergeant Chisholm had
+got there before us, and with them was a doctor--the same that had been
+fetched to Phillips--and they were all talking together quietly when we
+went in. The superintendent came up to Mr. Lindsey.
+
+"According to what the doctor here says," he whispered, jerking his head
+at the body, which lay on a table with a sheet thrown over it, "there's a
+question as to whether the man met his death by drowning. Look here!"
+
+He led us up to the table, drew back the sheet from the head and face,
+and motioning the doctor to come up, pointed to a mark that was just
+between the left temple and the top of the ear, where the hair was
+wearing thin.
+
+"D'ye see that, now?" he murmured. "You'll notice there's some sort of a
+weapon penetrated there--penetrated! But the doctor can say more than I
+can on that point."
+
+"The man was struck--felled--by some sort of a weapon," said the doctor.
+"It's penetrated, I should say from mere superficial examination, to the
+brain. You'll observe there's a bruise outwardly--aye, but this has been
+a sharp weapon as well, something with a point, and there's the
+puncture--how far it may extend I can't tell yet. But on the surface of
+things, Mr. Lindsey, I should incline to the opinion that the poor
+fellow was dead, or dying, when he was thrown into yon pool. Anyway,
+after a blow like that, he'd be unconscious. But I'm thinking he was dead
+before the water closed on him."
+
+Mr. Lindsey looked closer at the mark, and at the hole in the
+centre of it.
+
+"Has it struck any of you how that could be caused?" he asked suddenly.
+"It hasn't? Then I'll suggest something to you. There's an implement in
+pretty constant use hereabouts that would do just that--a salmon gaff!"
+
+The two police officials started--the doctor nodded his head.
+
+"Aye, and that's a sensible remark," said he. "A salmon gaff would just
+do it." He turned to Chisholm with a sharp look. "You were saying this
+man was suspected of poaching?" he asked. "Likely it'll have been some
+poaching affair he was after last night--him and others. And they may
+have quarrelled and come to blows--and there you are!"
+
+"Were there any signs of an affray close by--or near, on the bank?" asked
+Mr. Lindsey.
+
+"We're going down there now ourselves to have a look round," answered Mr.
+Murray. "But according to Turndale, the body was lying in a deep pool in
+the Till, under the trees on the bank--it might have lain there for many
+a month if it hadn't been for yon young McIlwraith that has a turn for
+prying into dark and out-of-the-way corners. Well, here's more matter for
+the coroner."
+
+Mr. Lindsey and I went back to Berwick after that. And, once more, he
+said little on the journey, except that it would be well if it came out
+that this was but a poaching affair in which Crone had got across with
+some companion of his; and for the rest of the afternoon he made no
+further remark to me about the matter, nor about the discovery of the
+morning. But as I was leaving the office at night, he gave me a word.
+
+"Say nothing about that will, to anybody," said he. "I'll think that
+matter over to-night, and see what'll come of my thinking. It's as I said
+before, Hugh--to get at the bottom of all this, we'll have to go
+back--maybe a far way."
+
+I said nothing and went home. For now I had work of my own--I was going
+to what I had resolved on after Chisholm told me the news about Crone. I
+would not tell my secret to Mr. Lindsey, nor to the police, nor even to
+Maisie. I would go straight and tell it to the one man whom it
+concerned--Sir Gilbert Carstairs. I would speak plainly to him, and be
+done with it. And as soon as I had eaten my supper, I mounted my bicycle,
+and, as the dusk was coming on, rode off to Hathercleugh House.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+SIR GILBERT CARSTAIRS
+
+
+It was probably with a notion of justifying my present course of
+procedure to myself that during that ride I went over the reasons which
+had kept my tongue quiet up to that time, and now led me to go to Sir
+Gilbert Carstairs. Why I had not told the police nor Mr. Lindsey of what
+I had seen, I have already explained--my own natural caution and reserve
+made me afraid of saying anything that might cast suspicion on an
+innocent man; and also I wanted to await developments. I was not
+concerned much with that feature of the matter. But I had undergone some
+qualms because I had not told Maisie Dunlop, for ever since the time at
+which she and I had come to a serious and sober understanding, it had
+been a settled thing between us that we would never have any secrets from
+each other. Why, then, had I not told her of this? That took a lot of
+explaining afterwards, when things so turned out that it would have been
+the best thing ever I did in my life if I only had confided in her; but
+this explanation was, after all, to my credit--I did not tell Maisie
+because I knew that, taking all the circumstances into consideration, she
+would fill herself with doubts and fears for me, and would for ever be
+living in an atmosphere of dread lest I, like Phillips, should be found
+with a knife-thrust in me. So much for that--it was in Maisie's own
+interest. And why, after keeping silence to everybody, did I decide to
+break it to Sir Gilbert Carstairs? There, Andrew Dunlop came in--of
+course, unawares to himself. For in those lecturings that he was so fond
+of giving us young folk, there was a moral precept of his kept cropping
+up which he seemed to set great store by--"If you've anything against a
+man, or reason to mistrust him," he would say, "don't keep it to
+yourself, or hint it to other people behind his back, but go straight to
+him and tell him to his face, and have it out with him." He was a wise
+man, Andrew Dunlop, as all his acquaintance knew, and I felt that I could
+do no better than take a lesson from him in this matter. So I would go
+straight to Sir Gilbert Carstairs, and tell him what was in my mind--let
+the consequences be what they might.
+
+It was well after sunset, and the gloaming was over the hills and the
+river, when I turned into the grounds of Hathercleugh and looked round me
+at a place which, though I had lived close to it ever since I was born, I
+had never set foot in before. The house stood on a plateau of ground high
+above Tweed, with a deep shawl of wood behind it and a fringe of
+plantations on either side; house and pleasure-grounds were enclosed by a
+high ivied wall on all sides--you could see little of either until you
+were within the gates. It looked, in that evening light, a romantic and
+picturesque old spot and one in which you might well expect to see
+ghosts, or fairies, or the like. The house itself was something between
+an eighteenth-century mansion and an old Border fortress; its centre part
+was very high in the roof, and had turrets, with outer stairs to them, at
+the corners; the parapets were embattled, and in the turrets were
+arrow-slits. But romantic as the place was, there was nothing gloomy
+about it, and as I passed to the front, between the grey walls and a sunk
+balustered garden that lay at the foot of a terrace, I heard through the
+open windows of one brilliantly lighted room the click of billiard balls
+and the sound of men's light-hearted laughter, and through another the
+notes of a piano.
+
+There was a grand butler man met me at the hall door, and looked sourly
+at me as I leaned my bicycle against one of the pillars and made up to
+him. He was sourer still when I asked to see his master, and he shook his
+head at me, looking me up and down as if I were some undesirable.
+
+"You can't see Sir Gilbert at this time of the evening," said he. "What
+do you want?"
+
+"Will you tell Sir Gilbert that Mr. Moneylaws, clerk to Mr. Lindsey,
+solicitor, wishes to see him on important business?" I answered, looking
+him hard in the face. "I think he'll be quick to see me when you give him
+that message."
+
+He stared and growled at me a second or two before he went off with an
+ill grace, leaving me on the steps. But, as I had expected, he was back
+almost at once, and beckoning me to enter and follow him. And follow him
+I did, past more flunkeys who stared at me as if I had come to steal the
+silver, and through soft-carpeted passages, to a room into which he led
+me with small politeness.
+
+"You're to sit down and wait," he said gruffly. "Sir Gilbert will attend
+to you presently."
+
+He closed the door on me, and I sat down and looked around. I was in a
+small room that was filled with books from floor to ceiling--big books
+and little, in fine leather bindings, and the gilt of their letterings
+and labels shining in the rays of a tall lamp that stood on a big desk in
+the centre. It was a fine room that, with everything luxurious in the way
+of furnishing and appointments; you could have sunk your feet in the
+warmth of the carpets and rugs, and there were things in it for comfort
+and convenience that I had never heard tell of. I had never been in a
+rich man's house before, and the grandeur of it, and the idea that it
+gave one of wealth, made me feel that there's a vast gulf fixed between
+them that have and them that have not. And in the middle of these
+philosophies the door suddenly opened, and in walked Sir Gilbert
+Carstairs, and I stood up and made my politest bow to him. He nodded
+affably enough, and he laughed as he nodded.
+
+"Oh!" said he. "Mr. Moneylaws! I've seen you before--at that inquest the
+other day, I think. Didn't I?"
+
+"That is so, Sir Gilbert," I answered. "I was there, with Mr. Lindsey."
+
+"Why, of course, and you gave evidence," he said. "I remember. Well, and
+what did you want to see me about, Mr. Moneylaws? Will you smoke a
+cigar?" he went on, picking up a box from the table and holding it out to
+me. "Help yourself."
+
+"Thank you, Sir Gilbert," I answered, "but I haven't started that yet."
+
+"Well, then, I will," he laughed, and he picked out a cigar, lighted it,
+and flinging himself into an easy chair, motioned me to take another
+exactly opposite to him. "Now, then, fire away!" he said. "Nobody'll
+interrupt us, and my time's yours. You've some message for me?"
+
+I took a good look at him before I spoke. He was a big, fine, handsome
+man, some five-and-fifty years of age, I should have said, but uncommonly
+well preserved--a clean-shaven, powerful-faced man, with quick eyes and a
+very alert glance; maybe, if there was anything struck me particularly
+about him, it was the rapidity and watchfulness of his glances, the
+determination in his square jaw, and the extraordinary strength and
+whiteness of his teeth. He was quick at smiling, and quick, too, in the
+use of his hands, which were always moving as he spoke, as if to
+emphasize whatever he said. And he made a very fine and elegant figure as
+he sat there in his grand evening clothes, and I was puzzled to know
+which struck me most--the fact that he was what he was, the seventh
+baronet and head of an old family, or the familiar, easy, good-natured
+fashion which he treated me, and talked to me, as if I had been a man of
+his own rank.
+
+I had determined what to do as I sat waiting him; and now that he had
+bidden me to speak, I told him the whole story from start to finish,
+beginning with Gilverthwaite and ending with Crone, and sparing no detail
+or explanation of my own conduct. He listened in silence, and with more
+intentness and watchfulness than I had ever seen a man show in my life,
+and now and then he nodded and sometimes smiled; and when I had made an
+end he put a sharp question.
+
+"So--beyond Crone--who, I hear, is dead--you've never told a living soul
+of this?" he asked, eyeing me closely.
+
+"Not one, Sir Gilbert," I assured him. "Not even--"
+
+"Not even--who?" he inquired quickly.
+
+"Not even my own sweetheart," I said. "And it's the first secret ever I
+kept from her."
+
+He smiled at that, and gave me a quick look as if he were trying to get a
+fuller idea of me.
+
+"Well," he said, "and you did right. Not that I should care two pins, Mr.
+Moneylaws, if you'd told all this out at the inquest. But suspicion is
+easily aroused, and it spreads--aye, like wildfire! And I'm a stranger,
+as it were, in this country, so far, and there's people might think
+things that I wouldn't have them think, and--in short, I'm much obliged
+to you. And I'll tell you frankly, as you've been frank with me, how I
+came to be at those cross-roads at that particular time and on that
+particular night. It's a simple explanation, and could be easily
+corroborated, if need be. I suffer from a disturbing form of
+insomnia--sleeplessness--it's a custom of mine to go long walks late at
+night. Since I came here, I've been out that way almost every night, as
+my servants could assure you. I walk, as a rule, from nine o'clock to
+twelve--to induce sleep. And on that night I'd been miles and miles out
+towards Yetholm, and back; and when you saw me with my map and electric
+torch, I was looking for the nearest turn home--I'm not too well
+acquainted with the Border yet," he concluded, with a flash of his white
+teeth, "and I have to carry a map with me. And--that's how it was; and
+that's all."
+
+I rose out of my chair at that. He spoke so readily and ingenuously that
+I had no more doubt of the truth of what he was saying than I had of my
+own existence.
+
+"Then it's all for me, too, Sir Gilbert," said I. "I shan't say a word
+more of the matter to anybody. It's--as if it never existed. I was
+thinking all the time there'd be an explanation of it. So I'll be bidding
+you good-night."
+
+"Sit you down again a minute," said he, pointing to the easy-chair. "No
+need for hurry. You're a clerk to Mr. Lindsey, the solicitor?"
+
+"I am that," I answered.
+
+"Are you articled to him?" he asked.
+
+"No," said I. "I'm an ordinary clerk--of seven years' standing."
+
+"Plenty of experience of office work and routine?" he inquired.
+
+"Aye!" I replied. "No end of that, Sir Gilbert!"
+
+"Are you good at figures and accounts?" he asked.
+
+"I've kept all Mr. Lindsey's--and a good many trust accounts--for the
+last five years," I answered, wondering what all this was about.
+
+"In fact, you're thoroughly well up in all clerical matters?" he
+suggested. "Keeping books, writing letters, all that sort of thing?"
+
+"I can honestly say I'm a past master in everything of that sort,"
+I affirmed.
+
+He gave me a quick glance, as if he were sizing me up altogether.
+
+"Well, I'll tell you what, Mr. Moneylaws," he said. "The fact is, I'm
+wanting a sort of steward, and it strikes me that you're just the man I'm
+looking for!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+DEAD MAN'S MONEY
+
+
+I was so much amazed by this extraordinary suggestion, that for the
+moment I could only stand staring at him, and before I could find my
+tongue he threw a quick question at me.
+
+"Lindsey wouldn't stand in your way, would he?" he asked. "Such jobs
+don't go begging, you know."
+
+"Mr. Lindsey wouldn't stand in my way, Sir Gilbert," I answered. "But--"
+
+"But what?" said he, seeing me hesitate. "Is it a post you wouldn't care
+about, then? There's five hundred a year with it--and a permanency."
+
+Strange as it may seem, considering all the circumstances, it never
+occurred to me for one moment that the man was buying my silence, buying
+me. There wasn't the ghost of such a thought in my head--I let out what
+was there in my next words.
+
+"I'd like such a post fine, Sir Gilbert," I said. "What I'm thinking
+of--could I give satisfaction?"
+
+He laughed at that, as if my answer amused him.
+
+"Well, there's nothing like a spice of modesty, Moneylaws," said he. "If
+you can do all we've just talked of, you'll satisfy me well enough. I
+like the looks of you, and I'm sure you're the sort that'll do the thing
+thoroughly. The post's at your disposal, if you like to take it."
+
+I was still struggling with my amazement. Five hundred pounds a
+year!--and a permanency! It seemed a fortune to a lad of my age. And I
+was trying to find the right words in which to say all that I felt, when
+he spoke again.
+
+"Look here!" he said. "Don't let us arrange this as if we'd done it
+behind your present employer's back--I wouldn't like Mr. Lindsey to think
+I'd gone behind him to get you. Let it be done this way: I'll call on Mr.
+Lindsey myself, and tell him I'm wanting a steward for the property, and
+that I've heard good reports of his clerk, and that I'll engage you on
+his recommendation. He's the sort that would give you a strong word by
+way of reference, eh?"
+
+"Oh, he'll do that, Sir Gilbert!" I exclaimed. "Anything that'll
+help me on--"
+
+"Then let's leave it at that," said he. "I'll drop in on him at his
+office--perhaps to-morrow. In the meantime, keep your own counsel.
+But--you'll take my offer?"
+
+"I'd be proud and glad to, Sir Gilbert," said I. "And if you'll make
+allowance for a bit of inexperience--"
+
+"You'll do your best, eh?" he laughed. "That's all right, Moneylaws."
+
+He walked out with me to the door, and on to the terrace. And as I
+wheeled my bicycle away from the porch, he took a step or two alongside
+me, his hands in his pockets, his lips humming a careless tune. And
+suddenly he turned on me.
+
+"Have you heard any more about that affair last night?" he asked. "I mean
+about Crone?"
+
+"Nothing, Sir Gilbert," I answered.
+
+"I hear that the opinion is that the man was struck down by a gaff," he
+remarked. "And perhaps killed before he was thrown into the Till."
+
+"So the doctor seemed to think," I said. "And the police, too, I
+believe."
+
+"Aye, well," said he, "I don't know if the police are aware of it, but
+I'm very sure there's night-poaching of salmon going on hereabouts,
+Moneylaws. I've fancied it for some time, and I've had thoughts of
+talking to the police about it. But you see, my land doesn't touch either
+Till or Tweed, so I haven't cared to interfere. But I'm sure that it is
+so, and it wouldn't surprise me if both these men, Crone and Phillips,
+met their deaths at the hands of the gang I'm thinking of. It's a notion
+that's worth following up, anyway, and I'll have a word with Murray about
+it when I'm in the town tomorrow."
+
+Then, with a brief good night, he left me and went into the house, and I
+got outside Hathercleugh and rode home in a whirl of thoughts. And I'll
+confess readily that those thoughts had little to do with what Sir
+Gilbert Carstairs had last talked about--they were not so much of
+Phillips, nor of Crone, nor of his suggestion of a possible gang of
+night-poachers, as about myself and this sudden chance of a great change
+in my fortunes. For, when all is said and done, we must needs look after
+ourselves, and when a young man of the age I was then arrived at is asked
+if he would like to exchange a clerkship of a hundred and twenty a year
+for a stewardship at more than four times as much--as a permanency--you
+must agree that his mind will fix itself on what such an exchange means
+to him, to the exclusion of all other affairs. Five hundred a year to me
+meant all sorts of fine things--independence, and a house of my own, and,
+not least by a long way, marriage with Maisie Dunlop. And it was a wonder
+that I managed to keep cool, and to hold my tongue when I got home--but
+hold it I did, and to some purpose, and more than once. During the half
+hour which I managed to get with Maisie last thing that night, she asked
+me why I was so silent, and, hard though it was to keep from doing so, I
+let nothing out.
+
+The truth was, Sir Gilbert Carstairs had fascinated me, not only with his
+grand offer, but with his pleasant, off-hand, companionable manners. He
+had put me at my ease at once; he had spoken so frankly and with such
+evident sincerity about his doings on that eventful night, that I
+accepted every word he said. And--in the little that I had thought of
+it--I was very ready to accept his theory as to how those two men had
+come by their deaths--and it was one that was certainly feasible, and
+worth following up. Some years before, I remembered, something of the
+same sort had gone on, and had resulted in an affray between
+salmon-poachers and river-watchers--why should it not have cropped up
+again? The more I thought of it, the more I felt Sir Gilbert's
+suggestion to have reason in it. And in that case all the mystery would
+be knocked clean out of these affairs--the murder of Phillips, the death
+of Crone, might prove to be the outcome of some vulgar encounter between
+them and desperadoes who had subsequently scuttled to safety and were
+doubtless quaking near at hand, in fear of their misdeeds coming to
+light; what appeared to be a perfect tangle might be the simplest matter
+in the world. So I judged--and next morning there came news that seemed
+to indicate that matters were going to be explained on the lines which
+Sir Gilbert had suggested.
+
+Chisholm brought that news to our office, just after Mr. Lindsey had come
+in. He told it to both of us; and from his manner of telling it, we both
+saw--I, perhaps, not so clearly as Mr. Lindsey--that the police were
+already at their favourite trick of going for what seemed to them the
+obvious line of pursuit.
+
+"I'm thinking we've got on the right clue at last, as regards the murder
+of yon man Phillips," announced Chisholm, with an air of satisfaction.
+"And if it is the right clue, as it seems to be, Mr. Lindsey, there'll be
+no great mystery in the matter, after all. Just a plain case of murder
+for the sake of robbery--that's it!"
+
+"What's your clue?" asked Mr. Lindsey quietly.
+
+"Well," answered Chisholm, with a sort of sly wink, "you'll understand,
+Mr. Lindsey, that we haven't been doing nothing these last few days,
+since yon inquest on Phillips, you know. As a matter of fact, we've
+been making inquiries wherever there seemed a chance of finding
+anything out. And we've found something out--through one of the banks
+yonder at Peebles."
+
+He looked at us as if to see if we were impressed; seeing, at any rate,
+that we were deeply interested, he went on.
+
+"It appears--I'll tell you the story in order, as it were," he said--"it
+appears that about eight months ago the agent of the British Linen Bank
+at Peebles got a letter from one John Phillips, written from a place
+called Colon, in Panama--that's Central America, as you'll be
+aware--enclosing a draft for three thousand pounds on the International
+Banking Corporation of New York. The letter instructed the Peebles agent
+to collect this sum and to place it in his bank to the writer's credit.
+Furthermore, it stated that the money was to be there until Phillips came
+home to Scotland, in a few months' time from the date of writing. This,
+of course, was all done in due course--there was the three thousand
+pounds in Phillips's name. There was a bit of correspondence between him
+at Colon and the bank at Peebles--then, at last, he wrote that he was
+leaving Panama for Scotland, and would call on the bank soon after his
+arrival. And on the morning of the day on which he was murdered, Phillips
+did call at the bank and established his identity, and so on, and he then
+drew out five hundred pounds of his money--two hundred pounds in gold,
+and the rest in small notes; and, Mr. Lindsey, he carried that sum away
+with him in a little handbag that he had with him."
+
+Mr. Lindsey, who had been listening with great attention, nodded.
+
+"Aye!" he said. "Carried five hundred pounds away with him. Go on, then."
+
+"Now," continued Chisholm, evidently very well satisfied with himself for
+the way he was marshalling his facts, "we--that is, to put it plainly, I
+myself--have been making more searching inquiries about Cornhill and
+Coldstream. There's two of the men at Cornhill station will swear that
+when Phillips got out of the train there, that evening of the murder, he
+was carrying a little handbag such as the bank cashier remembers--a
+small, new, brown leather bag. They're certain of it--the
+ticket-collector remembers him putting it under his arm while he searched
+his pocket for his ticket. And what's more, the landlord of the inn
+across the bridge there at Coldstream he remembers the bag, clearly
+enough, and that Phillips never had his hand off it while he was in his
+house. And of course, Mr. Lindsey, the probability is that in that bag
+was the money--just as he had drawn it out of the bank."
+
+"You've more to tell," remarked Mr. Lindsey.
+
+"Just so," replied Chisholm. "And there's two items. First of all--we've
+found that bag! Empty, you may be sure. In the woods near that old ruin
+on Till side. Thrown away under a lot of stuff--dead stuff, you'll
+understand, where it might have lain till Doomsday if I hadn't had a
+most particular search made. But--that's not all. The second item is
+here--the railway folk at Cornhill are unanimous in declaring that by
+that same train which brought Phillips there, two men, strangers, that
+looked like tourist gentlemen, came as well, whose tickets were
+from--where d'ye think, then, Mr. Lindsey?"
+
+"Peebles, of course," answered Mr. Lindsey.
+
+"And you've guessed right!" exclaimed Chisholm, triumphantly; "Peebles it
+was--and now, how do you think this affair looks? There's so many
+tourists on Tweedside this time of the year that nobody paid any great
+attention that night to these men, nor where they went. But what could be
+plainer, d'ye think?--of course, those two had tracked Phillips from the
+bank, and they followed him till they had him in yon place where he was
+found, and they murdered him--to rob him!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+FIVE HUNDRED A YEAR
+
+
+It was very evident that Chisholm was in a state of gleeful assurance
+about his theory, and I don't think he was very well pleased when Mr.
+Lindsey, instead of enthusiastically acclaiming it as a promising one,
+began to ask him questions.
+
+"You found a pretty considerable sum on Phillips as it was when you
+searched his body, didn't you?" he asked.
+
+"Aye--a good lot!" assented Chisholm. "But it was in a pocket-book in an
+inner pocket of his coat, and in his purse."
+
+"If it was robbery, why didn't they take everything?" inquired Mr.
+Lindsey.
+
+"Aye, I knew you'd ask that," replied Chisholm. "But the thing is that
+they were interrupted. The bag they could carry off--but it's probable
+that they heard Mr. Moneylaws here coming down the lane before they could
+search the man's pockets."
+
+"Umph!" said Mr. Lindsey. "And how do you account for two men getting
+away from the neighbourhood without attracting attention?"
+
+"Easy enough," declared Chisholm. "As I said just now, there's numbers of
+strangers comes about Tweedside at this time of the year, and who'd
+think anything of seeing them? What was easier than for these two to
+separate, to keep close during the rest of the night, and to get away by
+train from some wayside station or other next morning? They could manage
+it easily--and we're making inquiries at all the stations in the district
+on both sides the Tweed, with that idea."
+
+"Well--you'll have a lot of people to follow up, then," remarked Mr.
+Lindsey drily. "If you're going to follow every tourist that got on a
+train next morning between Berwick and Wooler, and Berwick and Kelso, and
+Berwick and Burnmouth, and Berwick and Blyth, you'll have your work set,
+I'm thinking!"
+
+"All the same," said Chisholm doggedly, "that's how it's been. And the
+bank at Peebles has the numbers of the notes that Phillips carried off in
+his little bag--and I'll trace those fellows yet, Mr. Lindsey."
+
+"Good luck to you, sergeant!" answered Mr. Lindsey. He turned to me when
+Chisholm had gone. "That's the police all over, Hugh," he remarked. "And
+you might talk till you were black in the face to yon man, and he'd stick
+to his story."
+
+"You don't believe it, then?" I asked him, somewhat surprised.
+
+"He may be right," he replied. "I'm not saying. Let him attend to his
+business--and now we'll be seeing to ours."
+
+It was a busy day with us in the office that, being the day before court
+day, and we had no time to talk of anything but our own affairs. But
+during the afternoon, at a time when I had left the office for an hour
+or two on business, Sir Gilbert Carstairs called, and he was closeted
+with Mr. Lindsey when I returned. And after they had been together some
+time Mr. Lindsey came out to me and beckoned me into a little
+waiting-room that we had and shut the door on us, and I saw at once from
+the expression on his face that he had no idea that Sir Gilbert and I
+had met the night before, or that I had any notion of what he was going
+to say to me.
+
+"Hugh, my lad!" said he, clapping me on the shoulder; "you're evidently
+one of those that are born lucky. What's the old saying--'Some achieve
+greatness, some have greatness thrust upon them!'--eh? Here's
+greatness--in a degree--thrusting itself on you!"
+
+"What's this you're talking about, Mr. Lindsey?" I asked. "There's not
+much greatness about me, I'm thinking!"
+
+"Well, it's not what you're thinking in this case," he answered; "it's
+what other folks are thinking of you. Here's Sir Gilbert Carstairs in my
+room yonder. He's wanting a steward--somebody that can keep accounts, and
+letters, and look after the estate, and he's been looking round for a
+likely man, and he's heard that Lindsey's clerk, Hugh Moneylaws, is just
+the sort he wants--and, in short, the job's yours, if you like to take
+it. And, my lad, it's worth five hundred a year--and a permanency, too! A
+fine chance for a young fellow of your age!"
+
+"Do you advise me to take it, Mr. Lindsey?" I asked, endeavouring to
+combine surprise with a proper respect for the value of his counsel.
+"It's a serious job that for, as you say, a young fellow."
+
+"Not if he's got your headpiece on him," he replied, giving me another
+clap on the shoulder. "I do advise you to take it. I've given you the
+strongest recommendations to him. Go into my office now and talk it over
+with Sir Gilbert by yourself. But when it comes to settling details, call
+me in--I'll see you're done right to."
+
+I thanked him warmly, and went into his room, where Sir Gilbert was
+sitting in an easy-chair. He motioned me to shut the door, and, once that
+was done, he gave a quick, inquiring look.
+
+"You didn't let him know that you and I had talked last night?" he
+asked at once.
+
+"No," said I.
+
+"That's right--and I didn't either," he went on. "I don't want him to
+know I spoke to you before speaking to him--it would look as if I were
+trying to get his clerk away from him. Well, it's settled, then,
+Moneylaws? You'll take the post?"
+
+"I shall be very glad to, Sir Gilbert," said I. "And I'll serve you to
+the best of my ability, if you'll have a bit of patience with me at the
+beginning. There'll be some difference between my present job and this
+you're giving me, but I'm a quick learner, and--"
+
+"Oh, that's all right, man!" he interrupted carelessly. "You'll do all
+that I want. I hate accounts, and letter-writing, and all that sort
+of thing--take all that off my hands, and you'll do. Of course,
+whenever you're in a fix about anything, come to me--but I can explain
+all there is to do in an hour's talk with you at the beginning. All
+right!--ask Mr. Lindsey to step in to me, and we'll put the matter on
+a business footing."
+
+Mr. Lindsey came in and took over the job of settling matters on my
+behalf. And the affair was quickly arranged. I was to stay with Mr.
+Lindsey another month, so as to give him the opportunity of getting a new
+head clerk, then I was to enter on my new duties at Hathercleugh. I was
+to have five hundred pounds a year salary, with six months' notice on
+either side; at the end of five years, if I was still in the situation,
+the terms were to be revised with a view to an increase--and all this was
+to be duly set down in black and white. These propositions, of course,
+were Mr. Lindsey's, and Sir Gilbert assented to all of them readily and
+promptly. He appeared to be the sort of man who is inclined to accept
+anything put before him rather than have a lot of talk about it. And
+presently, remarking that that was all right, and he'd leave Mr. Lindsey
+to see to it, he rose to go, but at the door paused and came back.
+
+"I'm thinking of dropping in at the police-station and telling Murray my
+ideas about that Crone affair," he remarked. "It's my opinion, Mr.
+Lindsey, that there's salmon-poaching going on hereabouts, and if my land
+adjoined either Tweed or Till I'd have spoken about it before. There are
+queer characters about along both rivers at nights--I know, because I go
+out a good deal, very late, walking, to try and cure myself of insomnia;
+and I know what I've seen. It's my impression that Crone was probably
+mixed up with some gang, and that his death arose out of an affray
+between them."
+
+"That's probable," answered Mr. Lindsey. "There was trouble of that sort
+some years ago, but I haven't heard of it lately. Certainly, it would be
+a good thing to start the idea in Murray's mind; he might follow it up
+and find something out."
+
+"That other business--the Phillips murder--might have sprung out of the
+same cause," suggested Sir Gilbert. "If those chaps caught a stranger in
+a lonely place--"
+
+"The police have a theory already about Phillips," remarked Mr. Lindsey.
+"They think he was followed from Peebles, and murdered for the sake of
+money that he was carrying in a bag he had with him. And my experience,"
+he added with a laugh, "is that if the police once get a theory of their
+own, it's no use suggesting any other to them--they'll ride theirs,
+either till it drops or they get home with it."
+
+Sir Gilbert nodded his head, as if he agreed with that, and he suddenly
+gave Mr. Lindsey an inquiring look.
+
+"What's your own opinion?" he asked.
+
+But Mr. Lindsey was not to be drawn. He laughed and shrugged his
+shoulders, as if to indicate that the affair was none of his.
+
+"I wouldn't say that I have an opinion, Sir Gilbert," he answered.
+"It's much too soon to form one, and I haven't the details, and I'm not
+a detective. But all these matters are very simple--when you get to the
+bottom of them. The police think this is going to be a very simple
+affair--mere vulgar murder for the sake of mere vulgar robbery. We
+shall see!"
+
+Then Sir Gilbert went away, and Mr. Lindsey looked at me, who stood a
+little apart, and he saw that I was thinking.
+
+"Well, my lad," he said; "a bit dazed by your new opening? It's a fine
+chance for you, too! Now, I suppose, you'll be wanting to get married. Is
+it that you're thinking about?"
+
+"Well, I was not, Mr. Lindsey," said I. "I was just wondering--if you
+must know--how it was that, as he was here, you didn't tell Sir
+Gilbert about that signature of his brother's that you found on
+Gilverthwaite's will."
+
+He shared a sharp look between me and the door--but the door was
+safely shut.
+
+"No!" he said. "Neither to him nor to anybody, yet a while! And don't
+you mention that, my lad. Keep it dark till I give the word. I'll
+find out about that in my own way. You understand--on that point,
+absolute silence."
+
+I replied that, of course, I would not say a word; and presently I
+went into the office to resume my duties. But I had not been long at
+that before the door opened, and Chisholm put his face within and
+looked at me.
+
+"I'm wanting you, Mr. Moneylaws," he said. "You said you were with
+Crone, buying something, that night before his body was found. You'd be
+paying him money--and he might be giving you change. Did you happen to
+see his purse, now?"
+
+"Aye!" answered I. "What for do you ask that?"
+
+"Because," said he, "we've taken a fellow at one of those riverside
+publics that's been drinking heavily, and, of course, spending money
+freely. And he has a queer-looking purse on him, and one or two men
+that's seen it vows and declares it was Abel Crone's."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE MAN IN THE CELL
+
+
+Before I could reply to Chisholm's inquiry, Mr. Lindsey put his head out
+of his door and seeing the police-sergeant there asked what he was after.
+And when Chisholm had repeated his inquiry, both looked at me.
+
+"I did see Crone's purse that night," I answered, "an old thing that he
+kept tied up with a boot-lace. And he'd a lot of money in it, too."
+
+"Come round, then, and see if you can identify this that we found on the
+man," requested Chisholm. "And," he added, turning to Mr. Lindsey,
+"there's another thing. The man's sober enough, now that we've got
+him--it's given him a bit of a pull-together, being arrested. And he's
+demanding a lawyer. Perhaps you'll come to him, Mr. Lindsey."
+
+"Who is he?" asked Mr. Lindsey. "A Berwick man?"
+
+"He isn't," replied Chisholm. "He's a stranger--a fellow that says he was
+seeking work, and had been stopping at a common lodging-house in the
+town. He vows and declares that he'd nothing to do with killing Crone,
+and he's shouting for a lawyer."
+
+Mr. Lindsey put on his hat, and he and I went off with Chisholm to the
+police-station. And as we got in sight of it, we became aware that there
+was a fine to-do in the street before its door. The news of the arrest
+had spread quickly, and folk had come running to get more particulars.
+And amongst the women and children and loafers that were crowding around
+was Crone's housekeeper, a great, heavy, rough-haired Irishwoman called
+Nance Maguire, and she was waving her big arms and shaking her fists at a
+couple of policemen, whom she was adjuring to bring out the murderer, so
+that she might do justice on him then and there--all this being mingled
+with encomiums on the victim.
+
+"The best man that ever lived!" she was screaming at the top of her
+voice. "The best and kindest creature ever set foot in your murdering
+town! And didn't I know he was to be done to death by some of ye? Didn't
+he tell me himself that there was one would give his two eyes to be
+seeing his corpse? And if ye've laid hands on him that did it, bring him
+out to me, so, and I'll--"
+
+Mr. Lindsey laid a quiet hand on the woman's arm and twisted her round in
+the direction of her cottage.
+
+"Hold your wisht, good wife, and go home!" he whispered to her. "And if
+you know anything, keep your tongue still till I come to see you. Be
+away, now, and leave it to me."
+
+I don't know how it was, but Nance Maguire, after a sharp look at Mr.
+Lindsey, turned away as meekly as a lamb, and went off, tearful enough,
+but quiet, down the street, followed by half the rabble, while Mr.
+Lindsey, Chisholm, and myself turned into the police-station. And there
+we met Mr. Murray, who wagged his head at us as if he were very well
+satisfied with something.
+
+"Not much doubt about this last affair, anyhow," said he, as he took us
+into his office. "You might say the man was caught red-handed! All the
+same, Mr. Lindsey, he's in his rights to ask for a lawyer, and you can
+see him whenever you like."
+
+"What are the facts?" asked Mr. Lindsey. "Let me know that much first."
+
+Mr. Murray jerked his thumb at Chisholm.
+
+"The sergeant there knows them," he answered. "He took the man."
+
+"It was this way, d'ye see, Mr. Lindsey," said Chisholm, who was becoming
+an adept at putting statements before people. "You know that bit of a
+public there is along the river yonder, outside the wall--the Cod and
+Lobster? Well, James Macfarlane, that keeps it, he came to me, maybe an
+hour or so ago, and said there was a fellow, a stranger, had been in and
+out there all day since morning, drinking; and though he wouldn't say the
+man was what you'd rightly call drunk, still he'd had a skinful, and he
+was in there again, and they wouldn't serve him, and he was getting
+quarrelsome and abusive, and in the middle of it had pulled out a purse
+that another man who was in there vowed and declared, aside, to
+Macfarlane, was Abel Crone's. So I got a couple of constables and went
+back with Macfarlane, and there was the man vowing he'd be served, and
+with a handful of money to prove that he could pay for whatever he
+called for. And as he began to turn ugly, and show fight, we just clapped
+the bracelets on him and brought him along, and there he is in the
+cells--and, of course, it's sobered him down, and he's demanding his
+rights to see a lawyer."
+
+"Who is he?" asked Mr. Lindsey.
+
+"A stranger to the town," replied Chisholm. "And he'll neither give name
+nor address but to a lawyer, he declares. But we know he was staying at
+one of the common lodging-houses--Watson's--three nights ago, and that
+the last two nights he wasn't in there at all."
+
+"Well--where's that purse?" demanded Mr. Lindsey. "Mr. Moneylaws here
+says he can identify it, if it's Crone's."
+
+Chisholm opened a drawer and took out what I at once knew to be Abel
+Crone's purse--which was in reality a sort of old pocket-book or wallet,
+of some sort of skin, with a good deal of the original hair left on it,
+and tied about with a bit of old bootlace. There were both gold and
+silver in it--just as I had seen when Crone pulled it out to find me some
+change for a five-shilling piece I had given him--and more by token,
+there was the five-shilling piece itself!
+
+"That's Crone's purse!" I exclaimed. "I've no doubt about that. And
+that's a crown piece I gave him myself; I've no doubt about that either!"
+
+"Let us see the man," said Mr. Lindsey.
+
+Chisholm led us down a corridor to the cells, and unlocked a door. He
+stepped within the cell behind it, motioning us to follow. And there, on
+the one stool which the place contained, sat a big, hulking fellow that
+looked like a navvy, whose rough clothes bore evidence of his having
+slept out in them, and whose boots were stained with the mud and clay
+which they would be likely to collect along the riverside. He was sitting
+nursing his head in his hands, growling to himself, and he looked up at
+us as I have seen wild beasts look out through the bars of cages. And
+somehow, there was that in the man's eyes which made me think, there and
+then, that he was not reflecting on any murder that he had done, but was
+sullenly and stupidly angry with himself.
+
+"Now, then, here's a lawyer for you," said Chisholm. "Mr. Lindsey,
+solicitor."
+
+"Well, my man!" began Mr. Lindsey, taking a careful look at this queer
+client. "What have you got to say to me?"
+
+The prisoner gave Chisholm a disapproving look.
+
+"Not going to say a word before the likes of him!" he growled. "I know my
+rights, guv'nor! What I say, I'll say private to you."
+
+"Better leave us, sergeant," said Mr. Lindsey. He waited till Chisholm, a
+bit unwilling, had left the cell and closed the door, and then he turned
+to the man. "Now, then," he continued, "you know what they charge you
+with? You've been drinking hard--are you sober enough to talk sense? Very
+well, then--what's this you want me for?"
+
+"To defend me, of course!" growled the prisoner. He twisted a hand round
+to the back of his trousers as if to find something. "I've money of my
+own--a bit put away in a belt," he said; "I'll pay you."
+
+"Never mind that now," answered Mr. Lindsey. "Who are you?--and what do
+you want to say?"
+
+"Name of John Carter," replied the man. "General labourer--navvy
+work--anything of that sort. On tramp--seeking a job. Came here, going
+north, night before last. And--no more to do with the murder of yon man
+than you have!"
+
+"They found his purse on you, anyway," remarked Mr. Lindsey bluntly.
+"What have you got to say to that?"
+
+"What I say is that I'm a damned fool!" answered Carter surlily. "It's
+all against me, I know, but I'll tell you--you can tell lawyers anything.
+Who's that young fellow?" he demanded suddenly, glaring at me. "I'm not
+going to talk before no detectives."
+
+"My clerk," replied Mr. Lindsey. "Now, then--tell your tale. And just
+remember what a dangerous position you're in."
+
+"Know that as well as you do," muttered the prisoner. "But I'm sober
+enough, now! It's this way--I stopped here in the town three nights
+since, and looked about for a job next day, and then I heard of something
+likely up the river and went after it and didn't get it, so I started
+back here--late at night it was. And after crossing that bridge at a
+place called Twizel, I turned down to the river-bank, thinking to take a
+short cut. And--it was well after dark, then, mind you, guv'nor--in
+coming along through the woods, just before where the little river runs
+into the big one, I come across this man's body--stumbled on it. That's
+the truth!"
+
+"Well!" said Mr. Lindsey.
+
+"He was lying--I could show you the place, easy--between the edge of the
+wood and the river-bank," continued Carter. "And though he was dead
+enough when I found him, guv'nor, he hadn't been dead so long. But dead
+he was--and not from aught of my doing."
+
+"What time was this?" asked Mr. Lindsey.
+
+"It would be past eleven o'clock," replied Carter. "It was ten when I
+called by Cornhill station. I went the way I did--down through the woods
+to the river-bank--because I'd noticed a hut there in the morning that I
+could sleep in--I was making for that when I found the body."
+
+"Well--about the purse?" demanded Mr. Lindsey shortly. "No lies, now!"
+
+The prisoner shook his head at that, and growled--but it was evident he
+was growling at himself.
+
+"That's right enough," he confessed. "I felt in his pockets, and I did
+take the purse. But--I didn't put him in the water. True as I'm here,
+guv'nor. I did no more than take the purse! I left him there--just as he
+was--and the next day I got drinking, and last night I stopped in that
+hut again, and today I was drinking, pretty heavy--and I sort of lost my
+head and pulled the purse out, and--that's the truth, anyway, whether you
+believe it or not. But I didn't kill yon man, though I'll admit I robbed
+his body--like the fool I am!"
+
+"Well, you see where it's landed you," remarked Mr. Lindsey. "All
+right--hold your tongue now, and I'll see what I can do. I'll appear for
+you when you come before the magistrate tomorrow."
+
+He tapped at the door of the cell, and Chisholm, who had evidently waited
+in the corridor, let us out. Mr. Lindsey said nothing to him, nor to the
+superintendent--he led me away into the street. And there he clapped me
+on the arm.
+
+"I believe every word that man said!" he murmured. "Come on, now--we'll
+see this Nance Maguire."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE IRISH HOUSEKEEPER
+
+
+I was a good deal surprised that Mr. Lindsey should be--apparently--so
+anxious to interview Crone's housekeeper, and I said as much. He turned
+on me sharply, with a knowing look.
+
+"Didn't you hear what the woman was saying when we came across her there
+outside the police-station?" he exclaimed. "She was saying that Crone had
+said to her that there was some man who would give his two eyes to be
+seeing his corpse! Crone's been telling her something. And I'm so
+convinced that that man in the cells yonder has told us the truth, as
+regards himself, that I'm going to find out what Crone did tell her. Who
+is there--who could there be that wanted to see Crone's dead body? Let's
+try to find that out."
+
+I made no answer--but I was beginning to think; and to wonder, too, in a
+vague, not very pleasant fashion. Was this--was Crone's death, murder,
+whatever it was--at all connected with the previous affair of Phillips?
+Had Crone told me the truth that night I went to buy the stuff for Tom
+Dunlop's rabbit-hutches? or had he kept something back? And while I was
+reflecting on these points, Mr. Lindsey began talking again.
+
+"I watched that man closely when he was giving me his account of what
+happened," he said, "and, as I said just now, I believe he told us the
+truth. Whoever it was that did Crone to death, he's not in that cell,
+Hugh, my lad; and, unless I'm much mistaken, all this is of a piece with
+Phillips's murder. But let's hear what this Irishwoman has to say."
+
+Crone's cottage was a mean, miserable shanty sort of place down a narrow
+alley in a poor part of the town. When we reached its door there was a
+group of women and children round it, all agog with excitement. But the
+door itself was closed, and it was not opened to us until Nance Maguire's
+face had appeared at the bit of a window, and Nance had assured herself
+of the identity of her visitors. And when she had let us in, she shut the
+door once more and slipped a bolt into its socket.
+
+"I an't said a word, your honour," said she, "since your honour told me
+not to, though them outside is sharp on me to tell 'em this and that. And
+I wouldn't have said what I did up yonder had I known your honour would
+be for supporting me. I was feeling there wasn't a soul in the place
+would see justice done for him that's gone--the poor, good man!"
+
+"If you want justice, my good woman," remarked Mr. Lindsey, "keep your
+tongue quiet, and don't talk to your neighbours, nor to the police--just
+keep anything you know till I tell you to let it out. Now, then, what's
+this you were saying?--that Crone told you there was a man in the place
+would give his two eyes to see him a corpse?"
+
+"Them very words, your honour; and not once nor twice, but a good many
+times did he say it," replied the woman. "It was a sort of hint he was
+giving me, your honour--he had that way of speaking."
+
+"Since when did he give you such hints?" asked Mr. Lindsey. "Was it
+only lately?"
+
+"It was since that other bloody murder, your honour," said Nance Maguire.
+"Only since then. He would talk of it as we sat over the fire there at
+nights. 'There's murder in the air,' says he. 'Bloody murder is all
+around us!' he says. 'And it's myself will have to pick my steps
+careful,' he says, 'for there's him about would give his two eyes to see
+me a stark and staring corpse,' he says. 'Me knowing,' he says, 'more
+than you'd give me credit for,' says he. And not another word than them
+could I get out of him, your honour."
+
+"He never told you who the man was that he had his fears of?" inquired
+Mr. Lindsey.
+
+"He did not, then, your honour," replied Nance. "He was a close man, and
+you wouldn't be getting more out of him than he liked to tell."
+
+"Now, then, just tell me the truth about a thing or two," said Mr.
+Lindsey. "Crone used to be out at nights now and then, didn't he?"
+
+"Indeed, then, he did so, your honour," she answered readily. "'Tis true,
+he would be out at nights, now and again."
+
+"Poaching, as a matter of fact," suggested Mr. Lindsey.
+
+"And that's the truth, your honour," she assented. "He was a clever hand
+with the rabbits."
+
+"Aye; but did he never bring home a salmon, now?" asked Mr. Lindsey.
+"Come, out with it."
+
+"I'll not deny that, neither, your honour," admitted the woman. "He was
+clever at that too."
+
+"Well, now, about that night when he was supposed to be killed,"
+continued Mr. Lindsey; "that's Tuesday last--this being Thursday. Did he
+ever come home that evening from his shop?"
+
+I had been listening silently all this time, and I listened with
+redoubled attention for the woman's answer to the last question. It was
+on the Tuesday evening, about nine o'clock, that I had had my talk with
+Crone, and I was anxious to know what happened after that. And Nance
+Maguire replied readily enough--it was evident her memory was clear on
+these events.
+
+"He did not, then," she said. "He was in here having his tea at six
+o'clock that evening, and he went away to the shop when he'd had it, and
+I never put my eyes on him again, alive, your honour. He was never home
+that night, and he didn't come to his breakfast next morning, and he
+wasn't at the shop--and I never heard this or that of him till they come
+and tell me the bad news."
+
+I knew then what must have happened. After I had left him, Crone had gone
+away up the river towards Tillmouth--he had a crazy old bicycle that he
+rode about on. And most people, having heard Nance Maguire's admissions,
+would have said that he had gone poaching. But I was not so sure of that.
+I was beginning to suspect that Crone had played some game with me, and
+had not told me anything like the truth during our conversation. There
+had been more within his knowledge than he had let out--but what was it?
+And I could not help feeling that his object in setting off in that
+direction, immediately after I had left him, might have been, not
+poaching, but somebody to whom he wished to communicate the result of his
+talk with me. And, in that case, who was the somebody?
+
+But just then I had to leave my own thoughts and speculations alone, and
+to attend to what was going on between my principal and Nance Maguire.
+Mr. Lindsey, however, appeared to be satisfied with what he had heard. He
+gave the woman some further advice about keeping her tongue still, told
+her what to do as regards Crone's effects, and left the cottage. And when
+we were out in the main street again on our way back to the office he
+turned to me with a look of decision.
+
+"I've come to a definite theory about this affair, Hugh," he said. "And
+I'll lay a fiver to a farthing that it's the right one!"
+
+"Yes, Mr. Lindsey?" said I, keenly interested at hearing that.
+
+"Crone knew who killed Phillips," he said. "And the man who killed
+Phillips killed Crone, too, because Crone knew! That's been the way of
+it, my lad! And now, then, who's the man?"
+
+I could make no reply to such a question, and presently he went
+on--talking as much to himself, I think, as to me.
+
+"I wish I knew certain things!" he muttered. "I wish I knew what Phillips
+and Gilverthwaite came here for. I wish I knew if Gilverthwaite ever had
+any secret dealings with Crone. I wish--I do wish!--I knew if there has
+been--if there is--a third man in this Phillips-Gilverthwaite affair who
+has managed, and is managing, to keep himself in the background.
+But--I'll stake my professional reputation on one thing--whoever killed
+Phillips, killed Abel Crone! It's all of a piece."
+
+Now, of course I know now--have known for many a year--that it was at
+this exact juncture that I made a fatal, a reprehensible mistake in my
+share of all this business. It was there, at that exact point, that I
+ought to have made a clean breast to Mr. Lindsey of everything that I
+knew. I ought to have told him, there and then, of what I had seen at the
+cross-roads that night of the murder of Phillips; and of my conversation
+about that with Abel Crone at his shop; and of my visit to Sir Gilbert
+Carstairs at Hathercleugh House. Had I done so, matters would have become
+simplified, and much more horror and trouble avoided, for Mr. Lindsey was
+just then at the beginning of a straight track and my silence turned him
+away from it, to get into more twisted and obscure ones. But--I said
+nothing. And why? The answer is simple, and there's the excuse of human
+nature in it--I was so much filled with the grand prospects of my
+stewardship, and of all it would bring me, and was so highly pleased with
+Sir Gilbert Carstairs for his advancement of my fortunes, that--here's
+the plain truth--I could not bring myself to think of, or bother with,
+anything else. Up to then, of course, I had not said a word to my mother
+or to Maisie Dunlop of the stewardship--I was impatient to tell both. So
+I held my peace and said nothing to Mr. Lindsey--and presently the office
+work for the day was over and I was free to race home with my grand news.
+Is it likely that with such news as that I would be troubling my head any
+longer about other folks' lives and deaths?
+
+That, I suppose, was the most important evening I had ever spent in my
+life. To begin with, I felt as if I had suddenly become older, and
+bigger, and much more important. I became inclined to adopt magisterial
+airs to my mother and my sweetheart, laying down the law to them as to
+the future in a fashion which made Maisie poke fun at me for a crowing
+cockerel. It was only natural that I should suffer a little from swelled
+head that night--I should not have been human otherwise. But Andrew
+Dunlop took the conceit out of me with a vengeance when Maisie and I told
+him the news, and I explained everything to him in his back-parlour. He
+was at times a man of many words, and at times a man of few words--and
+when he said little, he meant most.
+
+"Aye!" said he. "Well, that's a fine prospect, Hugh, my man, and I wish
+you well in it. But there'll be no talk of any wedding for two years--so
+get that notion out of your heads, both of you! In two years you'll just
+have got settled to your new job, and you'll be finding out how you suit
+your master and how he suits you--we'll get the preliminaries over, and
+see how things promise in that time. And we'll see, too, how much money
+you've saved out of your salary, my man--so you'll just not hear the
+wedding-bells calling for a couple of twelvemonths, and'll behave
+yourselves like good children in the meanwhile. There's a deal of things
+may happen in two years, I'm thinking."
+
+He might have added that a deal of things may happen in two weeks--and,
+indeed, he would have had good reason for adding it, could he have looked
+a few days ahead.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE ICE AX
+
+
+The police put Carter in the dock before a full bench of magistrates next
+morning, and the court was so crowded that it was all Mr. Lindsey and I
+could do to force our way to the solicitors' table. Several minor cases
+came on before Carter was brought up from the cells, and during this
+hearing I had leisure to look round the court and see who was there. And
+almost at once I saw Sir Gilbert Carstairs, who, though not yet a justice
+of the peace--his commission to that honourable office arrived a few days
+later, oddly enough,--had been given a seat on the bench, in company with
+one or two other local dignitaries, one of whom, I observed with some
+curiosity, was that Reverend Mr. Ridley who had given evidence at the
+inquest on Phillips. All these folk, it was easy to see, were in a high
+state of inquisitiveness about Crone's murder; and from certain whispers
+that I overheard, I gathered that the chief cause of this interest lay in
+a generally accepted opinion that it was, as Mr. Lindsey had declared to
+me more than once, all of a piece with the crime of the previous week.
+And it was very easy to observe that they were not so curious to see
+Carter as to hear what might be alleged against him.
+
+There appeared to be some general surprise when Mr. Lindsey quietly
+announced that he was there on behalf of the prisoner. You would have
+thought from the demeanour of the police that, in their opinion, there
+was nothing for the bench to do but hear a bit of evidence and commit
+Carter straight away to the Assizes to take his trial for wilful murder.
+What evidence they did bring forward was, of course, plain and
+straightforward enough. Crone had been found lying in a deep pool in the
+River Till; but the medical testimony showed that he had met his fate by
+a blow from some sharp instrument, the point of which had penetrated the
+skull and the frontal part of the brain in such a fashion as to cause
+instantaneous death. The man in the dock had been apprehended with
+Crone's purse in his possession--therefore, said the police, he had
+murdered and robbed Crone. As I say, Mr. Murray and all of them--as you
+could see--were quite of the opinion that this was sufficient; and I am
+pretty sure that the magistrates were of the same way of thinking. And
+the police were not over well pleased, and the rest of the folk in court
+were, to say the least, a little mystified, when Mr. Lindsey asked a few
+questions of two witnesses--of whom Chisholm was one, and the doctor who
+had been fetched to Crone's body the other. And before setting down what
+questions they were that Mr. Lindsey asked, I will remark here that there
+was a certain something, a sort of mysterious hinting in his manner of
+asking them, that suggested a lot more than the mere questions
+themselves, and made people begin to whisper amongst each other that
+Lawyer Lindsey knew things that he was not just then minded to let out.
+
+It was to Chisholm that he put his first questions--casually, as if they
+were very ordinary ones, and yet with an atmosphere of meaning behind
+them that excited curiosity.
+
+"You made a very exhaustive search of the neighbourhood of the spot where
+Crone's body was found, didn't you?" he inquired.
+
+"A thorough search," answered Chisholm.
+
+"You found the exact spot where the man had been struck down?"
+
+"Judging by the marks of blood--yes."
+
+"On the river-bank--between the river and a coppice, wasn't it?"
+
+"Just so--between the bank and the coppice."
+
+"How far had the body been dragged before it was thrown into the river?"
+
+"Ten yards," replied Chisholm promptly.
+
+"Did you notice any footprints?" asked Mr. Lindsey.
+
+"It would be difficult to trace any," explained Chisholm. "The grass is
+very thick in some places, and where it isn't thick it's that close and
+wiry in texture that a boot wouldn't make any impression."
+
+"One more question," said Mr. Lindsey, leaning forward and looking
+Chisholm full in the face. "When you charged the man there in the dock
+with the murder of Abel Crone, didn't he at once--instantly!--show the
+greatest surprise? Come, now, on your oath--yes or no?"
+
+"Yes!" admitted Chisholm; "he did."
+
+"But he just as readily admitted he was in possession of Crone's purse?
+Again--yes or no?"
+
+"Yes," said Chisholm. "Yes--that's so."
+
+That was all Mr. Lindsey asked Chisholm. It was not much more that he
+asked the doctor. But there was more excitement about what he did ask
+him--arising out of something that he did in asking it.
+
+"There's been talk, doctor, as to what the precise weapon was which
+caused the fatal injury to this man Crone," he said. "It's been suggested
+that the wound which occasioned his death might have been--and probably
+was--caused by a blow from a salmon gaff. What is your opinion?"
+
+"It might have been," said the doctor cautiously.
+
+"It was certainly caused by a pointed weapon--some sort of a spiked
+weapon?" suggested Mr. Lindsey.
+
+"A sharp, pointed weapon, most certainly," affirmed the doctor.
+
+"There are other things than a salmon gaff that, in your opinion, could
+have caused it?"
+
+"Oh, of course!" said the doctor.
+
+Mr. Lindsey paused a moment, and looked round the court as if he were
+thinking over his next question. Then he suddenly plunged his hand under
+the table at which he was standing, and amidst a dead silence drew out a
+long, narrow brown-paper parcel which I had seen him bring to the office
+that morning. Quietly, while the silence grew deeper and the interest
+stronger, he produced from this an object such as I had never seen
+before--an implement or weapon about three feet in length, its shaft made
+of some tough but evidently elastic wood, furnished at one end with a
+strong iron ferrule, and at the other with a steel head, one extremity of
+which was shaped like a carpenter's adze, while the other tapered off to
+a fine point. He balanced this across his open palms for a moment, so
+that the court might see it--then he passed it over to the witness-box.
+
+"Now, doctor," he said, "look at that--which is one of the latest forms
+of the ice-ax. Could that wound have been caused by that--or something
+very similar to it?"
+
+The witness put a forefinger on the sharp point of the head.
+
+"Certainly!" he answered. "It is much more likely to have been caused by
+such an implement as this than by a salmon gaff."
+
+Mr. Lindsey reached out his hand for the ice-ax, and, repossessing
+himself of it, passed it and its brown-paper wrapping to me.
+
+"Thank you, doctor," he said; "that's all I wanted to know." He turned to
+the bench. "I wish to ask your worships, if it is your intention, on the
+evidence you have heard, to commit the prisoner on the capital charge
+today?" he asked. "If it is, I shall oppose such a course. What I do ask,
+knowing what I do, is that you should adjourn this case for a week--when
+I shall have some evidence to put before you which, I think, will prove
+that this man did not kill Abel Crone."
+
+There was some discussion. I paid little attention to it, being
+considerably amazed at the sudden turn which things had taken, and
+astonished altogether by Mr. Lindsey's production of the ice-ax. But the
+discussion ended in Mr. Lindsey having his own way, and Carter was
+remanded in custody, to be brought up again a week later; and presently
+we were all out in the streets, in groups, everybody talking excitedly
+about what had just taken place, and speculating on what it was that
+Lawyer Lindsey was after. Mr. Lindsey himself, however, was more
+imperturbable and, if anything, cooler than usual. He tapped me on the
+arm as we went out of court, and at the same time took the parcel
+containing the ice-ax from me.
+
+"Hugh," he said; "there's nothing more to do today, and I'm going out of
+town at once, until tomorrow. You can lock up the office now, and you
+and the other two can take a holiday. I'm going straight home and then
+to the station."
+
+He turned hurriedly away in the direction of his house, and I went off to
+the office to carry out his instructions. There was nothing strange in
+his giving us a holiday--it was a thing he often did in summer, on fine
+days when we had nothing much to do, and this was a gloriously fine day
+and the proceedings in court had been so short that it was not yet noon.
+So I packed off the two junior clerks and the office lad, and locked up,
+and went away myself--and in the street outside I met Sir Gilbert
+Carstairs. He was coming along in our direction, evidently deep in
+thought, and he started a little as he looked up and saw me.
+
+"Hullo, Moneylaws!" he said in his off-hand fashion. "I was just wanting
+to see you. I say!" he went on, laying a hand on my arm, "you're dead
+certain that you've never mentioned to a soul but myself anything about
+that affair of yours and Crone's--you know what I mean?"
+
+"Absolutely certain, Sir Gilbert!" I answered. "There's no living being
+knows--but yourself."
+
+"That's all right," he said, and I could see he was relieved. "I don't
+want mixing up with these matters--I should very much dislike it. What's
+Lindsey trying to get at in his defence of this man Carter?"
+
+"I can't think," I replied. "Unless it is that he's now inclining to the
+theory of the police that Phillips was murdered by some man or men who
+followed him from Peebles, and that the same man or men murdered Crone. I
+think that must be it: there were some men--tourists--about, who haven't
+been found yet."
+
+He hesitated a moment, and then glanced at our office door.
+
+"Lindsey in?" he asked.
+
+"No, Sir Gilbert," I replied. "He's gone out of town and given us
+a holiday."
+
+"Oh!" he said, looking at me with a sudden smile. "You've got a holiday,
+have you, Moneylaws? Look here--I'm going for a run in my bit of a
+yacht--come with me! How soon can you be ready?"
+
+"As soon as I've taken my dinner, Sir Gilbert," I answered, pleased
+enough at the invitation. "Would an hour do?"
+
+"You needn't bother about your dinner," he said. "I'm having a lunch
+basket packed now at the hotel, and I'll step in and tell them to put in
+enough for two. Go and get a good thick coat, and meet me down at the
+front in half an hour."
+
+I ran off home, told my mother where I was going, and hurried away to the
+river-side. The Tweed was like a mirror flashing back the sunlight that
+day, and out beyond its mouth the open sea was bright and blue as the sky
+above. How could I foresee that out there, in those far-off dancing
+waters, there was that awaiting me of which I can only think now, when it
+is long past, with fear and horror?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+MY TURN
+
+
+I had known for some time that Sir Gilbert Carstairs had a small yacht
+lying at one of the boathouses on the riverside; indeed, I had seen her
+before ever I saw him. She was a trim, graceful thing, with all the
+appearance of an excellent sea-boat, and though she looked like a craft
+that could stand a lot of heavy weather, she had the advantage of being
+so light in draught--something under three feet--that it was possible for
+her to enter the shallowest harbour. I had heard that Sir Gilbert was
+constantly sailing her up and down the coast, and sometimes going well
+out to sea in her. On these occasions he was usually accompanied by a
+fisherlad whom he had picked up somehow or other: this lad, Wattie Mason,
+was down by the yacht when I reached her, and he gave me a glowering look
+when he found that I was to put his nose out for this time at any rate.
+He hung around us until we got off, as a hungry dog hangs around a table
+on the chance of a bone being thrown to him; but he got no recognition
+from Sir Gilbert, who, though the lad had been useful enough to him
+before, took no more notice of him that day than of one of the pebbles on
+the beach. And if I had been more of a student of human nature, I should
+have gained some idea of my future employer's character from that small
+circumstance, and have seen that he had no feeling or consideration for
+anybody unless it happened to be serving and suiting his purpose.
+
+But at that moment I was thinking of nothing but the pleasure of taking a
+cruise in the yacht, in the company of a man in whom I was naturally
+interested. I was passionately fond of the sea, and had already learned
+from the Berwick sea-going folk how to handle small craft, and the
+management of a three-oar vessel like this was an easy matter to me, as I
+soon let Sir Gilbert know. Once outside the river mouth, with a nice
+light breeze blowing off the land, we set squaresail, mainsail, and
+foresail and stood directly out to sea on as grand a day and under as
+fair conditions as a yachtsman could desire; and when we were gaily
+bowling along Sir Gilbert bade me unpack the basket which had been put
+aboard from the hotel--it was a long time, he said, since his breakfast,
+and we would eat and drink at the outset of things. If I had not been
+hungry myself, the sight of the provisions in that basket would have made
+me so--there was everything in there that a man could desire, from cold
+salmon and cold chicken to solid roast beef, and there was plenty of
+claret and whisky to wash it down with. And, considering how readily and
+healthily Sir Gilbert Carstairs ate and drank, and how he talked and
+laughed while we lunched side by side under that glorious sky, gliding
+away over a smooth, innocent-looking sea, I have often wondered since if
+what was to come before nightfall came of deliberate intention on his
+part, or from a sudden yielding to temptation when the chance of it
+arose--and for the life of me I cannot decide! But if the man had murder
+in his heart, while he sat there at my side, eating his good food and
+drinking his fine liquor, and sharing both with me and pressing me to
+help myself to his generous provision--if it was so, I say, then he was
+of an indescribable cruelty which it makes me cringe to think of, and I
+would prefer to believe that the impulse to bring about my death came
+from a sudden temptation springing from a sudden chance. And yet--God
+knows it is a difficult problem to settle!
+
+For this was what it came to, and before sunset was reddening the western
+skies behind the Cheviots. We went a long, long way out--far beyond the
+thirty-fathom line, which is, as all sailors acquainted with those waters
+know, a good seven miles from shore; indeed, as I afterwards reckoned, we
+were more than twice that distance from Berwick pier-end when the affair
+happened--perhaps still further. We had been tacking about all the
+afternoon, first south, then north, not with any particular purpose, but
+aimlessly. We scarcely set eyes on another sail, and at a little after
+seven o'clock in the evening, when there was some talk of going about and
+catching the wind, which had changed a good deal since noon and was now
+coming more from the southeast, we were in the midst of a great waste of
+sea in which I could not make out a sign of any craft but ours--not even
+a trail of smoke on the horizon. The flat of the land had long since
+disappeared: the upper slopes of the Cheviots on one side of Tweed and
+of the Lammermoor Hills on the other, only just showed above the line of
+the sea. There was, I say, nothing visible on all that level of scarcely
+stirred water but our own sails, set to catch whatever breeze there was,
+when that happened which not only brought me to the very gates of death,
+but, in the mere doing of it, gave me the greatest horror of any that I
+have ever known.
+
+I was standing up at the moment, one foot on the gunwale, the other on
+the planking behind me, carelessly balancing myself while I stared across
+the sea in search of some object which he--this man that I trusted so
+thoroughly and in whose company I had spent so many pleasant hours that
+afternoon, and who was standing behind me at the moment--professed to see
+in the distance, when he suddenly lurched against me, as if he had
+slipped and lost his footing. That was what I believed in that startling
+moment--but as I went head first overboard I was aware that his fall was
+confined to a sprawl into the scuppers. Overboard I went!--but he
+remained where he was. And my weight--I was weighing a good thirteen
+stone at that time, being a big and hefty youngster--carried me down and
+down into the green water, for I had been shot over the side with
+considerable impetus. And when I came up, a couple of boat's-lengths from
+the yacht, expecting to find that he was bringing her up so that I could
+scramble aboard, I saw with amazed and incredulous affright that he was
+doing nothing of the sort; instead, working at it as hard as he could
+go, he was letting out a couple of reefs which he had taken up in the
+mainsail an hour before--in another minute they were out, the yacht moved
+more swiftly, and, springing to the tiller, he deliberately steered her
+clear away from me.
+
+I suppose I saw his purpose all at once. Perhaps it drove me wild, mad,
+frenzied. The yacht was going away from me fast--faster; good swimmer
+though I was, it was impossible for me to catch up to her--she was making
+her own length to every stroke I took, and as she drew away he stood
+there, one hand on the tiller, the other in his pocket (I have often
+wondered if it was fingering a revolver in there!), his eyes turned
+steadily on me. And I began first to beg and entreat him to save me, and
+then to shout out and curse him--and at that, and seeing that we were
+becoming further and further separated, he deliberately put the yacht
+still more before the freshening wind, and went swiftly away, and looked
+at me no more.
+
+So he left me to drown.
+
+We had been talking a lot about swimming during the afternoon, and I had
+told him that though I had been a swimmer ever since boyhood, I had never
+done more than a mile at a stretch, and then only in the river. He knew,
+therefore, that he was leaving me a good fourteen miles from land with
+not a sail in sight, not a chance of being picked up. Was it likely that
+I could make land?--was there ever a probability of anything coming along
+that would sight me? There was small likelihood, anyway; the likelihood
+was that long before the darkness had come on I should be exhausted,
+give up, and go down.
+
+You may conceive with what anger, and with what fierce resentment, I
+watched this man and his yacht going fast away from me--and with what
+despair too. But even in that moment I was conscious of two facts--I now
+knew that yonder was the probable murderer of both Phillips and Crone,
+and that he was leaving me to die because I was the one person living who
+could throw some light on those matters, and, though I had kept silence
+up to then, might be tempted, or induced, or obliged to do so--he would
+silence me while he had so good a chance. And the other was, that
+although there seemed about as much likelihood of my ever seeing Berwick
+again as of being made King of England, I must do my utmost to save my
+strength and my life. I had a wealth of incentives--Maisie, my mother,
+Mr. Lindsey, youth, the desire to live; and now there was another added
+to them--the desire to circumvent that cold-hearted, cruel devil, who, I
+was now sure, had all along been up to some desperate game, and to have
+my revenge and see justice done on him. I was not going to give in
+without making a fight for it.
+
+But it was a poor chance that I had--and I was well aware of it. There
+was small prospect of fishing boats or the like coming out that evening;
+small likelihood of any coasting steamer sighting a bit of a speck like
+me. All the same, I was going to keep my chin up as long as possible, and
+the first thing to do was to take care of my strength. I made shift to
+divest myself of a heavy pea-jacket that I was wearing and of the
+unnecessary clothing beneath it; I got rid, too, of my boots. And after
+resting a bit on my back and considering matters, I decided to make a try
+for land--I might perhaps meet some boat coming out. I lifted my head
+well up and took a glance at what I could see--and my heart sank at what
+I did see! The yacht was a speck in the distance by that time, and far
+beyond it the Cheviots and the Lammermoors were mere bits of grey outline
+against the gold and crimson of the sky. One thought instantly filled and
+depressed me--I was further from land than I had believed.
+
+At this distance from it I have but confused and vague recollections of
+that night. Sometimes I dream of it--even now--and wake sweating with
+fear. In those dreams I am toiling and toiling through a smooth sea--it
+is always a smooth, oily, slippery sea--towards something to which I make
+no great headway. Sometimes I give up toiling through sheer and desperate
+aching of body and limbs, and let myself lie drifting into helplessness
+and a growing sleep. And then--in my dream--I start to find myself going
+down into strange cavernous depths of shining green, and I wake--in my
+dream--to begin fighting and toiling again against my compelling desire
+to give up.
+
+I do not know how long I made a fight of it in reality; it must have been
+for hours--alternately swimming, alternately resting myself by floating.
+I had queer thoughts. It was then about the time that some men were
+attempting to swim the Channel. I remember laughing grimly, wishing them
+joy of their job--they were welcome to mine! I remember, too, that at
+last in the darkness I felt that I must give up, and said my prayers; and
+it was about that time, when I was beginning to feel a certain numbness
+of mind as well as weariness of body, that as I struck out in the
+mechanical and weakening fashion which I kept up from what little
+determination I had left, I came across my salvation--in the shape of a
+piece of wreckage that shoved itself against me in the blackness, as if
+it had been some faithful dog, pushing its nose into my hand to let me
+know it was there. It was no more than a square of grating, but it was
+heavy and substantial; and as I clung to and climbed on to it, I knew
+that it made all the difference to me between life and death.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE SAMARITAN SKIPPER
+
+
+I clung to that heaven-sent bit of wreckage, exhausted and weary, until
+the light began to break in the east. I was numbed and shivering with
+cold--but I was alive and safe. That square yard of good and solid wood
+was as much to me as if it had been a floating island. And as the light
+grew and grew, and the sun at last came up, a ball of fire out of the far
+horizon, I looked across the sea on all sides, hoping to catch sight of a
+sail, or of a wisp of smoke--of anything that would tell me of the near
+presence of human beings. And one fact I realized at once--I was further
+away from land than when I had begun my battle with death. There was no
+sign of land in the west. The sky was now clear and bright on all sides,
+but there was nothing to break the line where it met the sea. Before the
+fading of the light on the previous evening, I had easily made out the
+well-known outlines of the Cheviots on one hand and of Says Law on the
+other--now there was not a vestige of either. I knew from that fact that
+I had somehow drifted further and further away from the coast. There was
+accordingly nothing to do but wait the chance of being sighted and picked
+up, and I set to work, as well as I could on my tiny raft, to chafe my
+limbs and get some warmth into my body. And never in my life did I bless
+the sun as I did that morning, for when he sprang out of bed in the
+northeast skies, it was with his full and hearty vigour of high
+springtide, and his heat warmed my chilled blood and sent a new glow of
+hope to my heart. But that heat was not an unmixed blessing--and I was
+already parched with thirst; and as the sun mounted higher and higher,
+pouring his rays full upon me, the thirst became almost intolerable, and
+my tongue felt as if my mouth could no longer contain it.
+
+It was, perhaps, one hour after sunrise, when my agony was becoming
+almost insupportable, that I first noticed a wisp of smoke on the
+southern rim of the circle of sea which just then was all my world. I
+never strained my eyes for anything as I did for that patch of grey
+against the cloudless blue! It grew bigger and bigger--I knew, of course,
+that it was some steamer, gradually approaching. But it seemed ages
+before I could make out her funnels; ages before I saw the first bit of
+her black bulk show up above the level of the dancing waves. Yet there
+she was at last--coming bows on, straight in my direction. My nerves must
+have given out at the sight--I remember the tears rolling down my cheeks;
+I remember hearing myself make strange sounds, which I suppose were those
+of relief and thankfulness. And then the horror of being unseen, of being
+left to endure more tortures of thirst, of the steamer changing her
+course, fell on me, and long before she was anywhere near me I was
+trying to balance myself on the grating, so that I could stand erect and
+attract her attention.
+
+She was a very slow-going craft that--not able to do more than nine or
+ten knots at best--and another hour passed before she was anywhere near
+me. But, thank God! she came within a mile of me, and I made shift to
+stand up on my raft and to wave to her. And thereon she altered her
+course and lumbered over in my direction. She was one of the ugliest
+vessels that ever left a shipyard, but I thought I had never seen
+anything so beautiful in my life as she looked in those moments, and I
+had certainly never been so thankful for anything as for her solid and
+dirty deck when willing and kindly hands helped me up on it.
+
+Half an hour after that, with dry clothes on me, and hot coffee and rum
+inside me, I was closeted with the skipper in his cabin, telling him,
+under a strict pledge of secrecy, as much of my tale as I felt inclined
+to share with him. He was a sympathetic and an understanding man, and he
+swore warmly and plentifully when he heard how treacherously I had been
+treated, intimating it as the--just then--dearest wish of his heart to
+have the handling of the man who had played me the trick.
+
+"But you'll be dealing with him yourself!" said he. "Man!--you'll not
+spare him--promise me you'll not spare him! And you'll send me a
+newspaper with the full account of all that's done to him when you've set
+the law to work--dod! I hope they'll quarter him! Them was grand days
+when there was more licence and liberty in punishing malefactors--oh! I'd
+like fine to see this man put into boiling oil, or something of that
+sort, the cold-hearted, murdering villain! You'll be sure to send me the
+newspaper?"
+
+I laughed--for the first time since--when? It seemed years since I had
+laughed--and yet it was only a few hours, after all.
+
+"Before I can set the law to work on him, I must get on dry land,
+captain," I answered. "Where are you going?"
+
+"Dundee," he replied. "Dundee--and we're just between sixty and seventy
+miles away now, and it's near seven o'clock. We'll be in Dundee early in
+the afternoon, anyway. And what'll you do there? You'll be for getting
+the next train to Berwick?"
+
+"I'm not so sure, captain," I answered. "I don't want that man to know
+I'm alive--yet. It'll be a nice surprise for him--later. But there are
+those that I must let know as soon as possible--so the first thing I'll
+do, I'll wire. And in the meantime, let me have a sleep."
+
+The steamer that had picked me up was nothing but a tramp, plodding along
+with a general cargo from London to Dundee, and its accommodation was as
+rough as its skipper was homely. But it was a veritable palace of delight
+and luxury to me after that terrible night, and I was soon hard and fast
+asleep in the skipper's own bunk--and was still asleep when he laid a
+hand on me at three o'clock that afternoon.
+
+"We're in the Tay," he said, "and we'll dock in half an hour. And
+now--you can't go ashore in your underclothing, man! And where's
+your purse?"
+
+He had rightly sized up the situation. I had got rid of everything but
+my singlet and drawers in the attempt to keep going; as for my purse,
+that was where the rest of my possessions were--sunk or floating.
+
+"You and me's about of a build," he remarked. "I'll fit you up with a
+good suit that I have, and lend you what money you want. But what is it
+you're going to do?"
+
+"How long are you going to stop here in Dundee, captain?" I asked.
+
+"Four days," he answered. "I'll be discharging tomorrow, and loading the
+next two days, and then I'll be away again."
+
+"Lend me the clothes and a sovereign," said I. "I'll wire to my
+principal, the gentleman I told you about, to come here at once with
+clothes and money, so I'll repay you and hand your suit back first thing
+tomorrow morning, when I'll bring him to see you."
+
+He immediately pulled a sovereign out of his pocket, and, turning to a
+locker, produced a new suit of blue serge and some necessary linen.
+
+"Aye?" he remarked, a bit wonderingly. "You'll be for fetching him along
+here, then? And for what purpose?"
+
+"I want him to take your evidence about picking me up," I answered.
+"That's one thing--and--there's other reasons that we'll tell you about
+afterwards. And--don't tell anybody here of what's happened, and pass the
+word for silence to your crew. It'll be something in their pockets when
+my friend comes along."
+
+He was a cute man, and he understood that my object was to keep the news
+of my escape from Sir Gilbert Carstairs, and he promised to do what I
+asked. And before long--he and I being, as he had observed, very much of
+a size, and the serge suit fitting me very well--I was in the streets of
+Dundee, where I had never been before, seeking out a telegraph office,
+and twiddling the skipper's sovereign between thumb and finger while I
+worked out a problem that needed some little thought.
+
+I must let my mother and Maisie know of my safety--at once. I must let
+Mr. Lindsey know, too. I knew what must have happened there at Berwick.
+That monstrous villain would sneak home and say that a sad accident had
+happened me. It made me grind my teeth and long to get my hands at his
+lying tongue when I thought of what Maisie and my mother must have
+suffered after hearing his tales and excuses. But I did not want him to
+know I was safe--I did not want the town to know. Should I telephone to
+Mr. Lindsey's office, it was almost certain one of my fellow-clerks there
+would answer the ring, and recognize my voice. Then everything would be
+noised around. And after thinking it all over I sent Mr. Lindsey a
+telegram in the following words, hoping that he would fully understand:--
+
+"Keep this secret from everybody. Bring suit of clothes, linen, money,
+mother, and Maisie by next train to Dundee. Give post-office people
+orders not to let this out, most important. H.M."
+
+I read that over half a dozen times before I finally dispatched it. It
+seemed all wrong, somehow--and all right in another way. And, however
+badly put it was, it expressed my meaning. So I handed it in, and my
+borrowed sovereign with it, and jingling the change which was given back
+to me, I went out of the telegraph office to stare around me.
+
+It was a queer thing, but I was now as light-hearted as could be--I
+caught myself laughing from a curious feeling of pleasure. The truth
+was--if you want to analyse the sources--I was vastly relieved to be able
+to get in touch with my own people. Within an hour, perhaps sooner, they
+would have the news, and I knew well that they would lose no time in
+setting off to me. And finding myself just then in the neighbourhood of
+the North British Railway Station, I went in and managed to make out that
+if Mr. Lindsey was at the office when my wire arrived, and acted promptly
+in accordance with it, he and they could reach Dundee by a late train
+that evening. That knowledge, of course, made me in a still more
+light-hearted mood. But there was another source of my satisfaction and
+complaisance: things were in a grand way now for my revenge on Sir
+Gilbert Carstairs, and what had been a mystery was one no longer.
+
+I went back to the dock where I had left the tramp-steamer, and told its
+good-natured skipper what I had done, for he was as much interested in
+the affair as if he had been my own brother. And that accomplished, I
+left him again and went sight-seeing, having been wonderfully freshened
+up and restored by my good sleep of the morning. I wandered up and down
+and about Dundee till I was leg-weary, and it was nearly six o'clock of
+the afternoon. And at that time, being in Bank Street, and looking about
+me for some place where I could get a cup of tea and a bite of food, I
+chanced by sheer accident to see a name on a brass plate, fixed amongst
+more of the same sort, on the outer door of a suite of offices. That name
+was Gavin Smeaton. I recalled it at once--and, moved by a sudden impulse,
+I went climbing up a lot of steps to Mr. Gavin Smeaton's office.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+MR. GAVIN SMEATON
+
+
+I walked into a room right at the top of the building, wherein a young
+man of thirty or thereabouts was sitting at a desk, putting together a
+quantity of letters which a lad, standing at his side, was evidently
+about to carry to the post. He was a good-looking, alert, businesslike
+sort of young man this, of a superior type of countenance, very well
+dressed, and altogether a noticeable person. What first struck me about
+him was, that though he gave me a quick glance when, having first tapped
+at his door and walked inside his office, I stood there confronting him,
+he finished his immediate concern before giving me any further attention.
+It was not until he had given all the letters to the lad and bade him
+hurry off to the post, that he turned to me with another sharp look and
+one word of interrogation.
+
+"Yes?" he said.
+
+"Mr. Gavin Smeaton?" asked I.
+
+"That's my name," he answered. "What can I do for you?"
+
+Up to that moment I had not the least idea as to the exact reasons which
+had led me to climb those stairs. The truth was I had acted on impulse.
+And now that I was actually in the presence of a man who was obviously a
+very businesslike and matter-of-fact sort of person, I felt awkward and
+tongue-tied. He was looking me over all the time as if there was a wonder
+in his mind about me, and when I was slow in answering he stirred a bit
+impatiently in his chair.
+
+"My business hours are over for the day," he said. "If it's business--"
+
+"It's not business in the ordinary sense, Mr. Smeaton," I made shift to
+get out. "But it is business for all that. The fact is--you'll remember
+that the Berwick police sent you a telegram some days ago asking did you
+know anything about a man named John Phillips?"
+
+He showed a sudden interest at that, and he regarded me with a
+slight smile.
+
+"You aren't a detective?" he inquired.
+
+"No--I'm a solicitor's clerk," I replied. "From Berwick--my principal,
+Mr. Lindsey, has to do with that case."
+
+He nodded at a pile of newspapers, which stood, with a heavy book on top
+of it, on a side table near his desk.
+
+"So I see from these papers," he remarked. "I've read all I could about
+the affairs of both Phillips and Crone, ever since I heard that my name
+and address had been found on Phillips. Has any further light been
+thrown on that? Of course, there was nothing much in my name and address
+being found on the man, nor would there be if they were found on any
+man. As you see, I'm a general agent for various sorts of foreign
+merchandise, and this man had likely been recommended to me--especially
+if he was from America."
+
+"There's been no further light on that matter, Mr. Smeaton," I
+answered. He had pointed me to a chair at his desk side by that time,
+and we were mutually inspecting each other. "Nothing more has been
+heard on that point."
+
+"Then--have you come purposely to see me about it?" he asked.
+
+"Not at all!" said I. "I was passing along this street below, and I saw
+your name on the door, and I remembered it--and so I just came up."
+
+"Oh!" he said, looking at me rather blankly. "You're staying in
+Dundee--taking a holiday?"
+
+"I came to Dundee in a fashion I'd not like to follow on any other
+occasion!" said I. "If a man hadn't lent me this suit of clothes and a
+sovereign, I'd have come ashore in my undergarments and without a penny."
+
+He stared at me more blankly than ever when I let this out on him, and
+suddenly he laughed.
+
+"What riddle's all this?" he asked. "It sounds like a piece out of a
+story-book--one of those tales of adventure."
+
+"Aye, does it?" said I. "Only, in my case, Mr. Smeaton, fact's been a lot
+stranger than fiction! You've read all about this Berwick mystery in the
+newspapers?"
+
+"Every word--seeing that I was mentioned," he answered.
+
+"Then I'll give you the latest chapter," I continued. "You'll know my
+name when you hear it--Hugh Moneylaws. It was I discovered Phillips's
+dead body."
+
+I saw that he had been getting more and more interested as we
+talked--at the mention of my name his interest obviously increased. And
+suddenly he pulled a box of cigars towards him, took one out, and
+pushed the box to me.
+
+"Help yourself, Mr. Moneylaws--and go ahead," he said. "I'm willing to
+hear as many chapters as you like of this story."
+
+I shook my head at the cigars and went on to tell him of all that had
+happened since the murder of Crone. He was a good listener--he took in
+every detail, every point, quietly smoking while I talked, and never
+interrupting me. And when I had made an end, he threw up his head with a
+significant gesture that implied much.
+
+"That beats all the story-books!" he exclaimed. "I'm glad to see you're
+safe, anyway, Mr. Moneylaws--and your mother and your young lady'll be
+glad too."
+
+"They will that, Mr. Smeaton," I said. "I'm much obliged to you."
+
+"You think that man really meant you to drown?" he asked.
+
+"What would you think yourself, Mr. Smeaton?" I replied. "Besides--didn't
+I see his face as he got himself and his yacht away from me? Yon man is a
+murderer!"
+
+"It's a queer, strange business," he remarked, nodding his head. "You'll
+be thinking now, of course, that it was he murdered both Phillips and
+Crone--eh?"
+
+"Aye, I do think that!" said I. "What else? And he wanted to silence me
+because I'm the only living person that could let out about seeing him at
+the cross-roads that night and could prove that Crone saw him too. My own
+impression is that Crone went straight to him after his talk with me--and
+paid the penalty."
+
+"That's likely," he assented. "But what do you think made him turn on you
+so suddenly, yesterday, when things looked like going smoothly about
+everything, and he'd given you that stewardship--which was, of course, to
+stop your mouth?"
+
+"I'll tell you," I said. "It was Mr. Lindsey's fault--he let out too much
+at the police-court. Carstairs was there--he'd a seat on the bench--and
+Mr. Lindsey frightened him. Maybe it was yon ice-ax. Mr. Lindsey's got
+some powerful card up his sleeve about that--what it is I don't know. But
+I'm certain now--now!--that Carstairs took a fear into his head at those
+proceedings yesterday morning, and he thought he'd settle me once and for
+all before I could be drawn into it and forced to say things that would
+be against him."
+
+"I daresay you're right," he agreed. "Well!--it is indeed a strange
+affair, and there'll be some stranger revelations yet. I'd like to see
+this Mr. Lindsey--you're sure he'll come to you here?"
+
+"Aye!--unless there's been an earthquake between here and Tweed!" I
+declared. "He'll be here, right enough, Mr. Smeaton, before many hours
+are over. And he'll like to see you. You can't think, now, of how, or
+why, yon Phillips man could have got that bit of letter paper of yours
+on him? It was like that," I added, pointing to a block of memorandum
+forms that stood in his stationery case at the desk before him. "Just
+the same!"
+
+"I can't," said he. "But--there's nothing unusual in that; some
+correspondent of mine might have handed it to him--torn it off one of my
+letters, do you see? I've correspondents in a great many seaports and
+mercantile centres--both here and in America."
+
+"These men will appear to have come from Central America," I remarked.
+"They'd seem to have been employed, one way or another, on that Panama
+Canal affair that there's been so much in the papers about these last few
+years. You'd notice that in the accounts, Mr. Smeaton?"
+
+"I did," he replied. "And it interested me, because I'm from those parts
+myself--I was born there."
+
+He said that as if this fact was of no significance. But the news made me
+prick up my ears.
+
+"Do you tell me that!" said I. "Where, now, if it's a fair question?"
+
+"New Orleans--near enough, anyway, to those parts," he answered. "But I
+was sent across here when I was ten years old, to be educated and brought
+up, and here I've been ever since."
+
+"But--you're a Scotsman?" I made bold to ask him.
+
+"Aye--on both sides--though I was born out of Scotland," he answered with
+a laugh. And then he got out of his chair. "It's mighty interesting, all
+this," he went on. "But I'm a married man, and my wife'll be wanting
+dinner for me. Now, will you bring Mr. Lindsey to see me in the
+morning--if he comes?"
+
+"He'll come--and I'll bring him," I answered. "He'll be right glad to see
+you, too--for it may be, Mr. Smeaton, that there is something to be
+traced out of that bit of letter paper of yours, yet."
+
+"It may be," he agreed. "And if there's any help I can give, it's at your
+disposal. But you'll be finding this--you're in a dark lane, with some
+queer turnings in it, before you come to the plain outcome of all this
+business!"
+
+We went down into the street together, and after he had asked if there
+was anything he could do for me that night, and I had assured him there
+was not, we parted with an agreement that Mr. Lindsey and I should call
+at his office early next morning. When he had left me, I sought out a
+place where I could get some supper, and, that over, I idled about the
+town until it was time for the train from the south to get in. And I was
+on the platform when it came, and there was my mother and Maisie and Mr.
+Lindsey, and I saw at a glance that all that was filling each was sheer
+and infinite surprise. My mother gripped me on the instant.
+
+"Hugh!" she exclaimed. "What are you doing here, and what does all this
+mean? Such a fright as you've given us! What's the meaning of it?"
+
+I was so taken aback, having been certain that Carstairs would have gone
+home and told them I was accidentally drowned, that all I could do was to
+stare from one to the other. As for Maisie, she only looked wonderingly
+at me; as for Mr. Lindsey, he gazed at me as scrutinizingly as my mother
+was doing.
+
+"Aye!" said he, "what's the meaning of it, young man? We've done your
+bidding and more--but--why?"
+
+I found my tongue at that.
+
+"What!" I exclaimed. "Haven't you seen Sir Gilbert Carstairs? Didn't you
+hear from him that--"
+
+"We know nothing about Sir Gilbert Carstairs," he interrupted. "The fact
+is, my lad, that until your wire arrived this afternoon, nobody had even
+heard of you and Sir Gilbert Carstairs since you went off in his yacht
+yesterday. Neither he nor the yacht have ever returned to Berwick. Where
+are they?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+I READ MY OWN OBITUARY
+
+
+It was my turn to stare again--and stare I did, from one to the other in
+silence, and being far too much amazed to find ready speech. And before I
+could get my tongue once more, my mother, who was always remarkably sharp
+of eye, got her word in.
+
+"What're you doing in that new suit of clothes?" she demanded. "And
+where's your own good clothes that you went away in yesterday noon? I
+misdoubt this stewardship's leading you into some strange ways!"
+
+"My own good clothes, mother, are somewhere in the North Sea," retorted
+I. "Top or bottom, sunk or afloat, it's there you'll find them, if you're
+more anxious about them than me! Do you tell me that Carstairs has never
+been home?" I went on, turning to Mr. Lindsey, "Then I don't know where
+he is, nor his yacht either. All I know is that he left me to drown last
+night, a good twenty miles from land, and that it's only by a special
+mercy of Providence that I'm here. Wherever he is, yon man's a
+murderer--I've settled that, Mr. Lindsey!"
+
+The women began to tremble and to exclaim at this news, and to ask one
+question after another, and Mr. Lindsey shook his head impatiently.
+
+"We can't stand talking our affairs in the station all night," said he.
+"Let's get to an hotel, my lad--we're all wanting our suppers. You don't
+seem as if you were in very bad spirits, yourself."
+
+"I'm all right, Mr. Lindsey," I answered cheerfully. "I've been down to
+Jericho, it's true, and to worse, but I chanced across a good Samaritan
+or two. And I've looked out a clean and comfortable hotel for you, and
+we'll go there now."
+
+I led them away to a good hotel that I had noticed in my walks, and while
+they took their suppers I sat by and told them all my adventure, to the
+accompaniment of many exclamations from my mother and Maisie. But Mr.
+Lindsey made none, and I was quick to notice that what most interested
+him was that I had been to see Mr. Gavin Smeaton.
+
+"But what for did you not come straight home when you were safely on
+shore again?" asked my mother, who was thinking of the expense I was
+putting her to. "What's the reason of fetching us all this way when
+you're alive and well?"
+
+I looked at Mr. Lindsey--knowingly, I suppose.
+
+"Because, mother," I answered her, "I believed yon Carstairs would go
+back to Berwick and tell that there'd been a sad accident, and I was
+dead--drowned--and I wanted to let him go on thinking that I was
+dead--and so I decided to keep away. And if he is alive, it'll be the
+best thing to let the man still go on thinking I was drowned--as I'll
+prove to Mr. Lindsey there. If Carstairs is alive, I say, it's the right
+policy for me to keep out of his sight and our neighbourhood."
+
+"Aye!" agreed Mr. Lindsey, who was a quick hand at taking up things.
+"There's something in that, Hugh."
+
+"Well, it's beyond me, all this," observed my mother, "and it all comes
+of me taking yon Gilverthwaite into the house! But me and Maisie'll away
+to our beds, and maybe you and Mr. Lindsey'll get more light out of the
+matter than I can, and glad I'll be when all this mystery's cleared up
+and we'll be able to live as honest folk should, without all this flying
+about the country and spending good money."
+
+I contrived to get a few minutes with Maisie, however, before she and my
+mother retired, and I found then that, had I known it, I need not have
+been so anxious and disturbed. For they had attached no particular
+importance to the fact that I had not returned the night before; they had
+thought that Sir Gilbert had sailed his yacht in elsewhere, and that I
+would be turning up later, and there had been no great to-do after me
+until my own telegram had arrived, when, of course, there was
+consternation and alarm, and nothing but hurry to catch the next train
+north. But Mr. Lindsey had contrived to find out that nothing had been
+seen of Sir Gilbert Carstairs and his yacht at Berwick; and to that point
+he and I at once turned when the women had gone to bed and I went with
+him into the smoking-room while he had his pipe and his drop of whisky.
+By that time I had told him of the secret about the meeting at the
+cross-roads, and about my interview with Crone at his shop, and Sir
+Gilbert Carstairs at Hathercleugh, when he offered me the stewardship;
+and I was greatly relieved when Mr. Lindsey let me down lightly and said
+no more than that if I'd told him these things, at first, there might
+have been a great difference.
+
+"But we're on the beginning of something," he concluded. "That Sir
+Gilbert Carstairs has some connection with these murders, I'm now
+convinced--but what it is, I'm not yet certain. What I am certain about
+is that he took fright yesterday morning in our court, when I produced
+that ice-ax and asked the doctor those questions about it."
+
+"And I'm sure of that, too, Mr. Lindsey," said I. "And I've been
+wondering what there was about yon ice-ax that frightened him. You'll
+know that yourself, of course?"
+
+"Aye, but I'm not going to tell you!" he answered. "You'll have to await
+developments on that point, my man. And now we'll be getting to bed, and
+in the morning we'll see this Mr. Gavin Smeaton. It would be a queer
+thing now, wouldn't it, if we got some clue to all this through him? But
+I'm keenly interested in hearing that he comes from the other side of the
+Atlantic, Hugh, for I've been of opinion that it's across there that the
+secret of the whole thing will be found."
+
+They had brought me a supply of clothes and money with them, and first
+thing in the morning I went off to the docks and found my Samaritan
+skipper, and gave him back his sovereign and his blue serge suit, with
+my heartiest thanks and a promise to keep him fully posted up in the
+development of what he called the case. And then I went back to
+breakfast with the rest of them, and at once there was the question of
+what was to be done. My mother was all for going homeward as quickly as
+possible, and it ended up in our seeing her and Maisie away by the next
+train; Mr. Lindsey having made both swear solemnly that they would not
+divulge one word of what had happened, nor reveal the fact that I was
+alive, to any living soul but Andrew Dunlop, who, of course, could be
+trusted. And my mother agreed, though the proposal was anything but
+pleasant or proper to her.
+
+"You're putting on me more than any woman ought to be asked to bear, Mr.
+Lindsey," said she, as we saw them into the train. "You're asking me to
+go home and behave as if we didn't know whether the lad was alive or
+dead. I'm not good at the playacting, and I'm far from sure that it's
+either truthful or honest to be professing things that isn't so. And I'll
+be much obliged to you if you'll get all this cleared up, and let Hugh
+there settle down to his work in the proper way, instead of wandering
+about on business that's no concern of his."
+
+We shook our heads at each other as the train went off, Maisie waving
+good-bye to us, and my mother sitting very stiff and stern and
+disapproving in her corner of the compartment.
+
+"No concern of yours, d'ye hear, my lad?" laughed Mr. Lindsey. "Aye, but
+your mother forgets that in affairs of this sort a lot of people are
+drawn in where they aren't concerned! It's like being on the edge of a
+whirlpool--you're dragged into it before you're aware. And now we'll go
+and see this Mr. Smeaton; but first, where's the telegraph office in this
+station? I want to wire to Murray, to ask him to keep me posted up during
+today if any news comes in about the yacht."
+
+When Mr. Lindsey was in the telegraph office, I bought that morning's
+_Dundee Advertiser_, more to fill up a few spare moments than from any
+particular desire to get the news, for I was not a great newspaper
+reader. I had scarcely opened it when I saw my own name. And there I
+stood, in the middle of the bustling railway station, enjoying the
+sensation of reading my own obituary notice.
+
+"Our Berwick-on-Tweed correspondent, telegraphing late last night,
+says:--Considerable anxiety is being felt in the town respecting the fate
+of Sir Gilbert Carstairs, Bart., of Hathercleugh House, and Mr. Hugh
+Moneylaws, who are feared to have suffered a disaster at sea. At noon
+yesterday, Sir Gilbert, accompanied by Mr. Moneylaws, went out in the
+former's yacht (a small vessel of light weight) for a sail which,
+according to certain fishermen who were about when the yacht left, was to
+be one of a few hours only. The yacht had not returned last night, nor
+has it been seen or heard of since its departure. Various Berwick
+fishing craft have been out well off the coast during today, but no
+tidings of the missing gentlemen have come to hand. Nothing has been
+heard of, or from, Sir Gilbert at Hathercleugh up to nine o'clock this
+evening, and the only ray of hope lies in the fact that Mr. Moneylaws'
+mother left the town hurriedly this afternoon--possibly having received
+some news of her son. It is believed here, however, that the light vessel
+was capsized in a sudden squall, and that both occupants have lost their
+lives. Sir Gilbert Carstairs, who was the seventh baronet, had only
+recently come to the neighbourhood on succeeding to the title and
+estates. Mr. Moneylaws, who was senior clerk to Mr. Lindsey, solicitor,
+of Berwick, was a very promising young man of great ability, and had
+recently been much before the public eye as a witness in connection with
+the mysterious murders of John Phillips and Abel Crone, which are still
+attracting so much attention."
+
+I shoved the newspaper into Mr. Lindsey's hand as he came out of the
+telegraph office. He read the paragraph in silence, smiling as he read.
+
+"Aye!" he said at last, "you have to leave home to get the home news.
+Well--they're welcome to be thinking that for the present. I've just
+wired Murray that I'll be here till at any rate this evening, and that
+he's to telegraph at once if there's tidings of that yacht or of
+Carstairs. Meanwhile, well go and see this Mr. Smeaton."
+
+Mr. Smeaton was expecting us--he, too, was reading about me in the
+_Advertiser_ when we entered, and he made some joking remark about it
+only being great men that were sometimes treated to death-notices before
+they were dead. And then he turned to Mr. Lindsey, who I noticed had been
+taking close stock of him.
+
+"I've been thinking out things since Mr. Moneylaws was in here last
+night," he remarked. "Bringing my mind to bear, do you see, on certain
+points that I hadn't thought of before. And maybe there's something more
+than appears at first sight in yon man John Phillips having my name and
+address on him."
+
+"Aye?" asked Mr. Lindsey, quietly. "How, now?"
+
+"Well," replied Mr. Smeaton, "there may be something in it, and there may
+be nothing--just nothing at all. But it's the fact that my father hailed
+from Tweedside--and from some place not so far from Berwick."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+FAMILY HISTORY
+
+
+I was watching Mr. Lindsey pretty closely, being desirous of seeing how
+he took to Mr. Gavin Smeaton, and what he made of him, and I saw him
+prick his ears at this announcement; clearly, it seemed to suggest
+something of interest to him.
+
+"Aye?" he exclaimed. "Your father hailed from Berwick, or thereabouts?
+You don't know exactly from where, Mr. Smeaton?"
+
+"No, I don't," replied Smeaton, promptly. "The truth is, strange as it
+may seem, Mr. Lindsey, I know precious little about my father, and what I
+do know is mostly from hearsay. I've no recollection of having ever seen
+him. And--more wondrous still, you'll say--I don't know whether he's
+alive or dead!"
+
+Here, indeed, was something that bordered on the mysterious; and Mr.
+Lindsey and myself, who had been dealing in that commodity to some
+considerable degree of late, exchanged glances. And Smeaton saw us look
+at each other, and he smiled and went on.
+
+"I was thinking all this out last night," he said, "and it came to me--I
+wonder if that man, John Phillips, who had, as I hear, my name and
+address in his pocket, could have been some man who was coming to see
+me on my father's behalf, or--it's an odd thing to fancy, and,
+considering what's happened him, not a pleasant one!--could have been my
+father himself?"
+
+There was silence amongst us for a moment. This was a new vista down
+which we were looking, and it was full of thick shadow. As for me, I
+began to recollect things. According to the evidence which Chisholm had
+got from the British Linen Bank at Peebles, John Phillips had certainly
+come from Panama. Just as certainly he had made for Tweedside. And--with
+equal certainty--nobody at all had come forward to claim him, to assert
+kinship with him, though there had been the widest publicity given to the
+circumstances of his murder. In Gilverthwaite's instance, his sister had
+quickly turned up--to see what there was for her. Phillips had been just
+as freely mentioned in the newspapers as Gilverthwaite; but no one had
+made inquiries after him, though there was a tidy sum of money of his in
+the Peebles bank for his next-of-kin to claim. Who was he, then?
+
+Mr. Lindsey was evidently deep in thought, or, I should perhaps say, in
+surmise. And he seemed to arrive where I did--at a question; which was,
+of course, just that which Smeaton had suggested.
+
+"I might answer that better if I knew what you could tell me about your
+father, Mr. Smeaton," he said. "And--about yourself."
+
+"I'll tell you all I can, with pleasure," answered Smeaton. "To tell you
+the truth, I never attached much importance to this matter, in spite of
+my name and address being found on Phillips, until Mr. Moneylaws there
+came in last night--and then, after what he told me, I did begin to think
+pretty deeply over it, and I'm coming to the opinion that there's a lot
+more in all this than appears on the surface."
+
+"You can affirm that with confidence!" remarked Mr. Lindsey, drily.
+"There is!"
+
+"Well--about my father," continued Smeaton. "All I know is this--and I
+got it from hearsay: His name--the name given to me, anyway--was Martin
+Smeaton. He hailed from somewhere about Berwick. Whether it was on the
+English side or the Scottish side of the Tweed I don't know. But he
+went to America as a young man, with a young wife, and they were in New
+Orleans when I was born. And when I was born, my mother died. So I
+never saw her."
+
+"Do you know her maiden name?" asked Mr. Lindsey.
+
+"No more than that her Christian name was Mary," replied Smeaton.
+"You'll find out as I go on that it's very little I do know of
+anything--definitely. Well, when my mother died, my father evidently left
+New Orleans and went off travelling. I've made out that he must have been
+a regular rolling stone at all times--a man that couldn't rest long in
+one place. But he didn't take me with him. There was a Scotsman and his
+wife in New Orleans that my father had forgathered with--some people of
+the name of Watson,--and he left me with them, and in their care in New
+Orleans I remained till I was ten years old. From my recollection he
+evidently paid them well for looking after me--there was never, at any
+time, any need of money on my account. And of course, never having known
+any other, I came to look on the Watsons as father and mother. When I was
+ten years old they returned to Scotland--here to Dundee, and I came with
+them. I have a letter or two that my father wrote at that time giving
+instructions as to what was to be done with me. I was to have the best
+education--as much as I liked and was capable of--and, though I didn't
+then, and don't now, know all the details, it's evident he furnished
+Watson with plenty of funds on my behalf. We came here to Dundee, and I
+was put to the High School, and there I stopped till I was eighteen, and
+then I had two years at University College. Now, the odd thing was that
+all that time, though I knew that regular and handsome remittances came
+to the Watsons on my behalf from my father, he never expressed any
+wishes, or made any suggestions, as to what I should do with myself. But
+I was all for commercial life; and when I left college, I went into an
+office here in the town and began to study the ins and outs of foreign
+trade. Then, when I was just twenty-one, my father sent me a considerable
+sum--two thousand pounds, as a matter of fact--saying it was for me to
+start business with. And, do you know, Mr. Lindsey, from that day--now
+ten years ago--to this, I've never heard a word of him."
+
+Mr. Lindsey was always an attentive man in a business interview, but I
+had never seen him listen to anybody so closely as he listened to Mr.
+Smeaton. And after his usual fashion, he at once began to ask questions.
+
+"Those Watsons, now," he said. "They're living?"
+
+"No," replied Smeaton. "Both dead--a few years ago."
+
+"That's a pity," remarked Mr. Lindsey. "But you'll have recollections of
+what they told you about your father from their own remembrance of him?"
+
+"They'd little to tell," said Smeaton. "I made out they knew very little
+indeed of him, except that he was a tall, fine-looking fellow, evidently
+of a superior class and education. Of my mother they knew less."
+
+"You'll have letters of your father's?" suggested Mr. Lindsey.
+
+"Just a few mere scraps--he was never a man who did more than write down
+what he wanted doing, and as briefly as possible," replied Smeaton. "In
+fact," he added, with a laugh, "his letters to me were what you might
+call odd. When the money came that I mentioned just now, he wrote me the
+shortest note--I can repeat every word of it: 'I've sent Watson two
+thousand pounds for you,' he wrote. 'You can start yourself in business
+with it, as I hear you're inclined that way, and some day I'll come over
+and see how you're getting along.' That was all!"
+
+"And you've never heard of or from him since?" exclaimed Mr. Lindsey.
+"That's a strange thing, now. But--where was he then? Where did he send
+the money from?"
+
+"New York," replied Smeaton. "The other letters I have from him are from
+places in both North and South America. It always seemed to me and the
+Watsons that he was never in any place for long--always going about."
+
+"I should like to see those letters, Mr. Smeaton," said Mr. Lindsey.
+"Especially the last one."
+
+"They're at my house," answered Smeaton. "I'll bring them down here this
+afternoon, and show them to you if you'll call in. But now--do you think
+this man Phillips may have been my father?"
+
+"Well," replied Mr. Lindsey, reflectively, "it's an odd thing that
+Phillips, whoever he was, drew five hundred pounds in cash out of the
+British Linen Bank at Peebles, and carried it straight away to
+Tweedside--where you believe your father came from. It looks as if
+Phillips had meant to do something with that cash--to give it to
+somebody, you know."
+
+"I read the description of Phillips in the newspapers," remarked Smeaton.
+"But, of course, it conveyed nothing to me."
+
+"You've no photograph of your father?" asked Mr. Lindsey.
+
+"No--none--never had," answered Smeaton. "Nor any papers of his--except
+those bits of letters."
+
+Mr. Lindsey sat in silence for a time, tapping the point of his stick on
+the floor and staring at the carpet.
+
+"I wish we knew what that man Gilverthwaite was wanting at Berwick and in
+the district!" he said at last.
+
+"But isn't that evident?" suggested Smeaton. "He was looking in the
+parish registers. I've a good mind to have a search made in those
+quarters for particulars of my father."
+
+Mr. Lindsey gave him a sharp look.
+
+"Aye!" he said, in a rather sly fashion. "But--you don't know if your
+father's real name was Smeaton!"
+
+Both Smeaton and myself started at that--it was a new idea. And I saw
+that it struck Smeaton with great force.
+
+"True!" he replied, after a pause. "I don't! It might have been. And in
+that case--how could one find out what it was?"
+
+Mr. Lindsey got up, shaking his head.
+
+"A big job!" he answered. "A stiff job! You'd have to work back a long
+way. But--it could be done. What time can I look in this afternoon, Mr.
+Smeaton, to get a glance at those letters?"
+
+"Three o'clock," replied Smeaton. He walked to the door of his office
+with us, and he gave me a smile. "You're none the worse for your
+adventure, I see," he remarked. "Well, what about this man
+Carstairs--what news of him?"
+
+"We'll maybe be able to tell you some later in the day," replied Mr.
+Lindsey. "There'll be lots of news about him, one way or another, before
+we're through with all this."
+
+We went out into the street then, and at his request I took Mr. Lindsey
+to the docks, to see the friendly skipper, who was greatly delighted to
+tell the story of my rescue. We stopped on his ship talking with him
+for a good part of the morning, and it was well past noon when we went
+back to the hotel for lunch. And the first thing we saw there was a
+telegram for Mr. Lindsey. He tore the envelope open as we stood in the
+hall, and I made no apology for looking over his shoulder and reading
+the message with him.
+
+"Just heard by wire from Largo police that small yacht answering
+description of Carstairs' has been brought in there by fishermen who
+found it early this morning in Largo Bay, empty."
+
+We looked at each other. And Mr. Lindsey suddenly laughed.
+
+"Empty!" he exclaimed. "Aye!--but that doesn't prove that the
+man's dead!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+THE SUIT OF CLOTHES
+
+
+Mr. Lindsey made no further remark until we were half through our
+lunch--and it was not to me that he then spoke, but to a waiter who was
+just at his elbow.
+
+"There's three things you can get me," he said. "Our bill--a railway
+guide--a map of Scotland. Bring the map first."
+
+The man went away, and Mr. Lindsey bent across the table.
+
+"Largo is in Fife," said he. "We'll go there. I'm going to see that
+yacht with my own eyes, and hear with my own ears what the man who found
+it has got to say. For, as I remarked just now, my lad, the mere fact
+that the yacht was found empty doesn't prove that Carstairs has been
+drowned! And we'll just settle up here, and go round and see Smeaton to
+get a look at those letters, and then we'll take train to Largo and make
+a bit of inquiry."
+
+Mr. Smeaton had the letters spread out on his desk when we went in, and
+Mr. Lindsey looked them over. There were not more than half a dozen
+altogether, and they were mere scraps, as he had said--usually a few
+lines on half-sheets of paper. Mr. Lindsey appeared to take no great
+notice of any of them but the last--the one that Smeaton had quoted to us
+in the morning. But over that he bent for some time, examining it
+closely, in silence.
+
+"I wish you'd lend me this for a day or two," he said at last. "I'll take
+the greatest care of it; it shan't go out of my own personal possession,
+and I'll return it by registered post. The fact is, Mr. Smeaton, I want
+to compare that writing with some other writing."
+
+"Certainly," agreed Smeaton, handing the letter over. "I'll do anything I
+can to help. I'm beginning, you know, Mr. Lindsey, to fear I'm mixed up
+in this. You'll keep me informed?"
+
+"I can give you some information now," answered Mr. Lindsey, pulling out
+the telegram. "There's more mystery, do you see? And Moneylaws and I are
+off to Largo now--we'll take it on our way home. For by this and that,
+I'm going to know what's become of Sir Gilbert Carstairs!"
+
+We presently left Mr. Gavin Smeaton, with a promise to keep him posted
+up, and a promise on his part that he'd come to Berwick, if that seemed
+necessary; and then we set out on our journey. It was not such an easy
+business to get quickly to Largo, and the afternoon was wearing well into
+evening when we reached it, and found the police official who had wired
+to Berwick. There was not much that he could tell us, of his own
+knowledge. The yacht, he said, was now lying in the harbour at Lower
+Largo, where it had been brought in by a fisherman named Andrew
+Robertson, to whom he offered to take us. Him we found at a little inn,
+near the harbour--a taciturn, somewhat sour-faced fellow who showed no
+great desire to talk, and would probably have given us scant information
+if we had not been accompanied by the police official, though he
+brightened up when Mr. Lindsey hinted at the possibility of reward.
+
+"When did you come across this yacht?" asked Mr. Lindsey.
+
+"Between eight and nine o'clock this morning," replied Robertson.
+
+"And where?"
+
+"About seven miles out--a bit outside the bay."
+
+"Empty?" demanded Mr. Lindsey, looking keenly at the man. "Not a
+soul in her?"
+
+"Not a soul!" answered Robertson. "Neither alive nor dead!"
+
+"Were her sails set at all?" asked Mr. Lindsey.
+
+"They were not. She was just drifting--anywhere," replied the man. "And I
+put a line to her and brought her in."
+
+"Any other craft than yours about at the time?" inquired Mr. Lindsey.
+
+"Not within a few miles," said Robertson.
+
+We went off to the yacht then. She had been towed into a quiet corner of
+the harbour, and an old fellow who was keeping guard over her assured us
+that nobody but the police had been aboard her since Robertson brought
+her in. We, of course, went aboard, Mr. Lindsey, after being assured by
+me that this really was Sir Gilbert Carstairs' yacht, remarking that he
+didn't know we could do much good by doing so. But I speedily made a
+discovery of singular and significant importance. Small as she was, the
+yacht possessed a cabin--there was no great amount of head-room in it,
+it's true, and a tall man could not stand upright in it, but it was
+spacious for a craft of that size, and amply furnished with shelving and
+lockers. And on these lockers lay the clothes--a Norfolk suit of grey
+tweed--in which Sir Gilbert Carstairs had set out with me from Berwick.
+
+I let out a fine exclamation when I saw that, and the other three turned
+and stared at me.
+
+"Mr. Lindsey!" said I, "look here! Those are the clothes he was wearing
+when I saw the last of him. And there's the shirt he had on, too, and the
+shoes. Wherever he is, and whatever happened to him, he made a complete
+change of linen and clothing before he quitted the yacht! That's a plain
+fact, Mr. Lindsey!"
+
+A fact it was--and one that made me think, however it affected the
+others. It disposed, for instance, of any notion or theory of suicide. A
+man doesn't change his clothes if he's going to drown himself. And it
+looked as if this had been part of some premeditated plan: at the very
+least of it, it was a curious thing.
+
+"You're sure of that?" inquired Mr. Lindsey, eyeing the things that had
+been thrown aside.
+
+"Dead sure of it!" said I. "I couldn't be mistaken."
+
+"Did he bring a portmanteau or anything aboard with him, then?" asked
+he.
+
+"He didn't; but he could have kept clothes and linen and the like in
+these lockers," I pointed out, beginning to lift the lids. "See
+here!--here's brushes and combs and the like. I tell you before ever
+he left this yacht, or fell out of it, or whatever's happened him,
+he'd changed everything from his toe to his top--there's the very cap
+he was wearing."
+
+They all looked at each other, and Mr. Lindsey's gaze finally fastened
+itself on Andrew Robertson.
+
+"I suppose you don't know anything about this, my friend?" he asked.
+
+"What should I know?" answered Robertson, a bit surlily. "The yacht's
+just as I found it--not a thing's been touched."
+
+There was the luncheon basket lying on the cabin table--just as I had
+last seen it, except that Carstairs had evidently finished the provisions
+which he and I had left. And I think the same thought occurred to Mr.
+Lindsey and myself at the same moment--how long had he stopped on board
+that yacht after his cruel abandoning of me? For forty-eight hours had
+elapsed since that episode, and in forty-eight hours a man may do a great
+deal in the way of making himself scarce--which now seemed to me to be
+precisely what Sir Gilbert Carstairs had done, though in what particular
+fashion, and exactly why, it was beyond either of us to surmise.
+
+"I suppose no one has heard anything of this yacht having been seen
+drifting about yesterday, or during last night?" asked Mr. Lindsey,
+putting his question to both men. "No talk of it hereabouts?"
+
+But neither the police nor Andrew Robertson had heard a murmur of that
+nature, and there was evidently nothing to be got out of them more than
+we had already got. Nor had the police heard of any stranger being seen
+about there--though, as the man who was with us observed, there was no
+great likelihood of anybody noticing a stranger, for Largo was nowadays a
+somewhat popular seaside resort, and down there on the beach there were
+many strangers, it being summer, and holiday time, so that a strange man
+more or less would pass unobserved.
+
+"Supposing a man landed about the coast, here," asked Mr. Lindsey--"I'm
+just putting a case to you--and didn't go into the town, but walked along
+the beach--where would he strike a railway station, now?"
+
+The police official replied that there were railway stations to the
+right and left of the bay--a man could easily make Edinburgh in one
+direction, and St. Andrews in the other; and then, not unnaturally, he
+was wanting to know if Mr. Lindsey was suggesting that Sir Gilbert
+Carstairs had sailed his yacht ashore, left it, and that it had drifted
+out to sea again?
+
+"I'm not suggesting anything," answered Mr. Lindsey. "I'm only
+speculating on possibilities. And that's about as idle work as
+standing here talking. What will be practical will be to arrange
+about this yacht being locked up in some boat-house, and we'd best
+see to that at once."
+
+We made arrangements with the owner of a boat-house to pull the yacht in
+there, and to keep her under lock and key, and, after settling matters
+with the police to have an eye on her, and see that her contents were
+untouched until further instructions reached them from Berwick, we went
+off to continue our journey. But we had stayed so long in Largo that when
+we got to Edinburgh the last train for Berwick had gone, and we were
+obliged to turn into an hotel for the night. Naturally, all our talk was
+of what had just transpired--the events of the last two days, said Mr.
+Lindsey, only made these mysteries deeper than they were before, and why
+Sir Gilbert Carstairs should have abandoned his yacht, as he doubtless
+had, was a still further addition to the growing problem.
+
+"And I'm not certain, my lad, that I believe yon man Robertson's tale,"
+he remarked, as we were discussing matters from every imaginable point of
+view just before going to bed. "He may have brought the yacht in, but we
+don't know that he didn't bring Carstairs aboard her. Why was that change
+of clothes made? Probably because he knew that he'd be described as
+wearing certain things, and he wanted to come ashore in other things. For
+aught we know, he came safely ashore, boarded a train somewhere in the
+neighbourhood, or at Largo itself--why not?--and went off, likely here,
+to Edinburgh--where he'd mingle with a few thousand of folk,
+unnoticed."
+
+"Then--in that case, you think he's--what, Mr. Lindsey?" I asked. "Do you
+mean he's running away?"
+
+"Between you and me, that's not far from what I do think," he replied.
+"And I think I know what he's running away from, too! But we'll hear a
+lot more before many hours are over, or I'm mistaken."
+
+We were in Berwick at an early hour next morning, and we went straight to
+the police station and into the superintendent's office. Chisholm was
+with Mr. Murray when we walked in, and both men turned to us with
+eagerness.
+
+"Here's more mystery about this affair, Mr. Lindsey!" exclaimed Murray.
+"It's enough to make a man's wits go wool-gathering. There's no news of
+Sir Gilbert, and Lady Carstairs has been missing since twelve o'clock
+noon yesterday!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+THE SECOND DISAPPEARANCE
+
+
+Mr. Lindsey was always one of the coolest of hands at receiving news of a
+startling nature, and now, instead of breaking out into exclamations, he
+just nodded his head, and dropped into the nearest chair.
+
+"Aye?" he remarked quietly. "So her ladyship's disappeared, too, has she?
+And when did you get to hear that, now?"
+
+"Half an hour ago," replied Murray. "The butler at Hathercleugh House
+has just been in--driven over in a hurry--to tell us. What do you make
+of it at all?"
+
+"Before I answer that, I want to know what's been happening here while
+I've been away," replied Mr. Lindsey. "What's happened within your own
+province--officially, I mean?"
+
+"Not much," answered Murray. "There began to be talk evening before last,
+amongst the fishermen, about Sir Gilbert's yacht. He'd been seen, of
+course, to go out with Moneylaws there, two days ago, at noon. And--there
+is Moneylaws! Doesn't he know anything? Where's Sir Gilbert, Moneylaws?"
+
+"He'll tell all that--when I tell him to," said Mr. Lindsey, with a
+glance at me. "Go on with your story, first."
+
+The superintendent shook his head, as if all these things were beyond his
+comprehension.
+
+"Oh, well!" he continued. "I tell you there was talk--you know how they
+gossip down yonder on the beach. It was said the yacht had never come in,
+and, though many of them had been out, they'd never set eyes on her, and
+rumours of her soon began to spread. So I sent Chisholm there out to
+Hathercleugh to make some inquiry--tell Mr. Lindsey what you heard," he
+went on, turning to the sergeant. "Not much, I think."
+
+"Next to nothing," replied Chisholm. "I saw Lady Carstairs. She laughed
+at me. She said Sir Gilbert was not likely to come to harm--he'd been
+sailing yachts, big and little, for many a year, and he'd no doubt gone
+further on this occasion than he'd first intended. I pointed out that
+he'd Mr. Moneylaws with him, and that he'd been due at his business early
+that morning. She laughed again at that, and said she'd no doubt Sir
+Gilbert and Mr. Moneylaws had settled that matter between them, and that,
+as she'd no anxieties, she was sure Berwick folk needn't have any. And so
+I came away."
+
+"And we heard no more until we got your wire yesterday from Dundee, Mr.
+Lindsey," said Murray; "and that was followed not so very long after by
+one from the police at Largo, which I reported to you."
+
+"Now, here's an important question," put in Mr. Lindsey, a bit
+hurriedly, as if something had just struck him. "Did you communicate the
+news from Largo to Hathercleugh?"
+
+"We did, at once," answered Murray. "I telephoned immediately to Lady
+Carstairs--I spoke to her over the wire myself, telling her what the
+Largo police reported."
+
+"What time would that be?" asked Mr. Lindsey, sharply.
+
+"Half-past eleven," replied Murray.
+
+"Then, according to what you tell me, she left Hathercleugh soon after
+you telephoned to her?" said Mr. Lindsey.
+
+"According to what the butler told us this morning," answered Murray,
+"Lady Carstairs went out on her bicycle at exactly noon yesterday--and
+she's never been seen or heard of since."
+
+"She left no message at the house?" asked Mr. Lindsey.
+
+"None! And," added the superintendent, significantly, "she didn't mention
+to the butler that I'd just telephoned to her. It's a queer business,
+this, I'm thinking, Mr. Lindsey. But--what's your own news?--and what's
+Moneylaws got to tell about Sir Gilbert?"
+
+Mr. Lindsey took no notice of the last question. He sat in silence for a
+while, evidently thinking. And in the end he pointed to some telegram
+forms that lay on the superintendent's desk.
+
+"There's one thing must be done at once, Murray," he said; "and I'll
+take the responsibility of doing it myself. We must communicate with the
+Carstairs family solicitors."
+
+"I'd have done it, as soon as the butler brought me the news about Lady
+Carstairs," remarked Murray, "but I don't know who they are."
+
+"I do!" answered Mr. Lindsey. "Holmshaw and Portlethorpe of Newcastle.
+Here," he went on, passing a telegram form to me. "Write out this
+message: 'Sir Gilbert and Lady Carstairs are both missing from
+Hathercleugh under strange circumstances please send some authorized
+person here at once.' Sign that with my name, Hugh--and take it to the
+post-office, and come back here."
+
+When I got back, Mr. Lindsey had evidently told Murray and Chisholm all
+about my adventures with Sir Gilbert, and the two men regarded me with a
+new interest as if I had suddenly become a person of the first
+importance. And the superintendent at once fell upon me for my reticence.
+
+"You made a bad mistake, young man, in keeping back what you ought to
+have told at the inquest on Phillips!" he said, reprovingly. "Indeed, you
+ought to have told it before that--you should have told us."
+
+"Aye!--if I'd only known as much as that," began Chisholm, "I'd have--"
+
+"You'd probably have done just what he did!" broke in Mr. Lindsey--"held
+your tongue till you knew more!--so let that pass--the lad did what he
+thought was for the best. You never suspected Sir Gilbert of any share
+in these affairs, either of you--so come, now!"
+
+"Why, as to that, Mr. Lindsey," remarked Murray, who looked somewhat
+nettled by this last passage, "you didn't suspect him yourself--or, if
+you did, you kept it uncommonly quiet!"
+
+"Does Mr. Lindsey suspect him now?" asked Chisholm, a bit maliciously.
+"For if he does, maybe he'll give us a hand."
+
+Mr. Lindsey looked at both of them in a way that he had of looking at
+people of whose abilities he had no very great idea--but there was some
+indulgence in the look on this occasion.
+
+"Well, now that things have come to this pass," he said, "and after Sir
+Gilbert's deliberate attempt to get rid of Moneylaws--to murder him, in
+fact--I don't mind telling you the truth. I do suspect Sir Gilbert of the
+murder of Crone--and that's why I produced that ice-ax in court the other
+day. And--when he saw that ice-ax, he knew that I suspected him, and
+that's why he took Moneylaws out with him, intending to rid himself of a
+man that could give evidence against him. If I'd known that Moneylaws was
+going with him, I'd have likely charged Sir Gilbert there and
+then!--anyway, I wouldn't have let Moneylaws go."
+
+"Aye!--you know something, then?" exclaimed Murray. "You're in possession
+of some evidence that we know nothing about?"
+
+"I know this--and I'll make you a present of it, now," answered Mr.
+Lindsey. "As you're aware, I'm a bit of a mountaineer--you know that
+I've spent a good many of my holidays in Switzerland, climbing.
+Consequently, I know what alpenstocks and ice-axes are. And when I came
+to reflect on the circumstances of Crone's murder, I remember that not so
+long since, happening to be out along the riverside, I chanced across Sir
+Gilbert Carstairs using a very late type of ice-ax as a walking-stick--as
+he well could do, and might have picked up in his hall as some men'll
+pick up a golf-stick to go walking with, and I've done that myself,
+hundred of times. And I knew that I had an ice-ax of that very pattern at
+home--and so I just shoved it under the doctor's nose in court, and asked
+him if that hole in Crone's head couldn't have been made by the spike of
+it. Why? Because I knew that Carstairs would be present in court, and I
+wanted to see if he would catch what I was after!"
+
+"And--you think he did?" asked the superintendent, eagerly.
+
+"I kept the corner of an eye on him," answered Mr. Lindsey, knowingly.
+"He saw what I was after! He's a clever fellow, that--but he took the
+mask off his face for the thousandth part of a second. I saw!"
+
+The two listeners were so amazed by this that they sat in silence for a
+while, staring at Mr. Lindsey with open-mouthed amazement.
+
+"It's a dark, dark business!" sighed Murray at last. "What's the true
+meaning of it, do you think, Mr. Lindsey?"
+
+"Some secret that's being gradually got at," replied Mr. Lindsey,
+promptly. "That's what it is. And there's nothing to do, just now, but
+wait until somebody comes from Holmshaw and Portlethorpe's. Holmshaw is
+an old man--probably Portlethorpe himself will come along. He may know
+something--they've been family solicitors to the Carstairs lot for many a
+year. But it's my impression that Sir Gilbert Carstairs is away!--and
+that his wife's after him. And if you want to be doing something, try to
+find out where she went on her bicycle yesterday--likely, she rode to
+some station in the neighbourhood, and then took train."
+
+Mr. Lindsey and I then went to the office, and we had not been there long
+when a telegram arrived from Newcastle. Mr. Portlethorpe himself was
+coming on to Berwick immediately. And in the middle of the afternoon he
+arrived--a middle-aged, somewhat nervous-mannered man, whom I had seen
+two or three times when we had business at the Assizes, and whom Mr.
+Lindsey evidently knew pretty well, judging by their familiar manner of
+greeting each other.
+
+"What's all this, Lindsey?" asked Mr. Portlethorpe, as soon as he walked
+in, and without any preliminaries. "Your wire says Sir Gilbert and Lady
+Carstairs have disappeared. Does that mean--"
+
+"Did you read your newspaper yesterday?" interrupted Mr. Lindsey, who
+knew that what we had read in the _Dundee Advertiser_ had also appeared
+in the _Newcastle Daily Chronicle_. "Evidently not, Portlethorpe, or
+you'd have known, in part at any rate, what my wire meant. But I'll tell
+you in a hundred words--and then I'll ask you a couple of questions
+before we go any further."
+
+He gave Mr. Portlethorpe an epitomized account of the situation, and Mr.
+Portlethorpe listened attentively to the end. And without making any
+comment he said three words:
+
+"Well--your questions?"
+
+"The first," answered Mr. Lindsey, "is this--How long is it since you saw
+or heard from Sir Gilbert Carstairs?"
+
+"A week--by letter," replied Mr. Portlethorpe.
+
+"The second," continued Mr. Lindsey, "is much more important--much! What,
+Portlethorpe, do you know of Sir Gilbert Carstairs?"
+
+Mr. Portlethorpe hesitated a moment. Then he replied, frankly and with
+evident candour.
+
+"To tell you the truth, Lindsey," he said, "beyond knowing that he is Sir
+Gilbert Carstairs--nothing!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+MRS. RALSTON OF CRAIG
+
+
+Mr. Lindsey made no remark on this answer, and for a minute or two he and
+Mr. Portlethorpe sat looking at each other. Then Mr. Portlethorpe bent
+forward a little, his hands on his knees, and gave Mr. Lindsey a sort of
+quizzical but earnest glance.
+
+"Now, why do you ask that last question?" he said quietly. "You've
+some object?"
+
+"It's like this," answered Mr. Lindsey. "Here's a man comes into these
+parts to take up a title and estates, who certainly had been out of
+them for thirty years. His recent conduct is something more than
+suspicious--no one can deny that he left my clerk there to drown, without
+possibility of help! That's intended murder! And so I ask, What do you,
+his solicitor, know of him--his character, his doings during the thirty
+years he was away? And you answer--nothing!"
+
+"Just so!" assented Mr. Portlethorpe. "And nobody does hereabouts. Except
+that he is Sir Gilbert Carstairs, nobody in these parts knows anything
+about him--how should they? We, I suppose, know more than anybody--and we
+know just a few bare facts."
+
+"I think you'll have to let me know what these bare facts are," remarked
+Mr. Lindsey. "And Moneylaws, too. Moneylaws has a definite charge to
+bring against this man--and he'll bring it, if I've anything to do with
+it! He shall press it!--if he can find Carstairs. And I think you'd
+better tell us what you know, Portlethorpe. Things have got to come out."
+
+"I've no objection to telling you and Mr. Moneylaws what we know,"
+answered Mr. Portlethorpe. "After all, it is, in a way, common
+knowledge--to some people, at any rate. And to begin with, you are
+probably aware that the recent history of this Carstairs family is a
+queer one. You know that old Sir Alexander had two sons and one
+daughter--the daughter being very much younger than her brothers. When
+the two sons, Michael and Gilbert, were about from twenty-one to
+twenty-three, both quarrelled with their father, and cleared out of this
+neighbourhood altogether; it's always believed that Sir Alexander gave
+Michael a fair lot of money to go and do for himself, each hating the
+other's society, and that Michael went off to America. As to Gilbert, he
+got money at that time, too, and went south, and was understood to be
+first a medical student and then a doctor, in London and abroad. There
+is no doubt at all that both sons did get money--considerable
+amounts,--because from the time they went away, no allowance was ever
+paid to them, nor did Sir Alexander ever have any relations with them.
+What the cause of the quarrel was, nobody knows; but the quarrel itself,
+and the ensuing separation, were final--father and sons never resumed
+relations. And when the daughter, now Mrs. Ralston of Craig, near here,
+grew up and married, old Sir Alexander pursued a similar money policy
+towards her--he presented her with thirty thousand pounds the day she was
+married, and told her she'd never have another penny from him. I tell
+you, he was a queer man."
+
+"Queer lot altogether!" muttered Mr. Lindsey. "And interesting!"
+
+"Oh, it's interesting enough!" agreed Mr. Portlethorpe, with a chuckle.
+"Deeply so. Well, that's how things were until about a year before old
+Sir Alexander died--which, as you know, is fourteen months since. As I
+say, about six years before his death, formal notice came of the death of
+Michael Carstairs, who, of course, was next in succession to the title.
+It came from a solicitor in Havana, where Michael had died--there were
+all the formal proofs. He had died unmarried and intestate, and his
+estate amounted to about a thousand pounds. Sir Alexander put the affair
+in our hands; and of course, as he was next-of-kin to his eldest son,
+what there was came to him. And we then pointed out to him that now that
+Mr. Michael Carstairs was dead, Mr. Gilbert came next--he would get the
+title, in any case--and we earnestly pressed Sir Alexander to make a
+will. And he was always going to, and he never did--and he died
+intestate, as you know. And at that, of course, Sir Gilbert Carstairs
+came forward, and--"
+
+"A moment," interrupted Mr. Lindsey. "Did anybody know where he was at
+the time of his father's death?"
+
+"Nobody hereabouts, at any rate," replied Mr. Portlethorpe. "Neither
+his father, nor his sister, nor ourselves had heard of him for many a
+long year. But he called on us within twenty-four hours of his
+father's death."
+
+"With proof, of course, that he was the man he represented himself to
+be?" asked Mr. Lindsey.
+
+"Oh, of course--full proof!" answered Mr. Portlethorpe. "Papers, letters,
+all that sort of thing--all in order. He had been living in London for a
+year or two at that time; but, according to his own account, he had gone
+pretty well all over the world during the thirty years' absence. He'd
+been a ship's surgeon--he'd been attached to the medical staff of more
+than one foreign army, and had seen service--he'd been on one or two
+voyages of discovery--he'd lived in every continent--in fact, he'd had a
+very adventurous life, and lately he'd married a rich American heiress."
+
+"Oh, Lady Carstairs is an American, is she?" remarked Mr. Lindsey.
+
+"Just so--haven't you met her?" asked Mr. Portlethorpe.
+
+"Never set eyes on her that I know of," replied Mr. Lindsey. "But go on."
+
+"Well, of course, there was no doubt of Sir Gilbert's identity,"
+continued Mr. Portlethorpe; "and as there was also no doubt that Sir
+Alexander had died intestate, we at once began to put matters right.
+Sir Gilbert, of course, came into the whole of the real estate, and he
+and Mrs. Ralston shared the personalty--which, by-the-by, was
+considerable: they both got nearly a hundred thousand each, in cash.
+And--there you are!"
+
+"That all?" asked Mr. Lindsey.
+
+Mr. Portlethorpe hesitated a moment--then he glanced at me.
+
+"Moneylaws is safe at a secret," said Mr. Lindsey. "If it is a secret."
+
+"Well, then," answered Mr. Portlethorpe, "it's not quite all. There is a
+circumstance which has--I can't exactly say bothered--but has somewhat
+disturbed me. Sir Gilbert Carstairs has now been in possession of his
+estates for a little over a year, and during that time he has sold nearly
+every yard of them except Hathercleugh!"
+
+Mr. Lindsey whistled. It was the first symptom of astonishment that he
+had manifested, and I glanced quickly at him and saw a look of
+indescribable intelligence and almost undeniable cunning cross his
+face. But it went as swiftly as it came, and he merely nodded, as if
+in surprise.
+
+"Aye!" he exclaimed. "Quick work, Portlethorpe."
+
+"Oh, he gave good reasons!" answered Mr. Portlethorpe. "He said, from the
+first, that he meant to do it--he wanted, and his wife wanted too, to get
+rid of these small and detached Northern properties, and buy a really
+fine one in the South of England, keeping Hathercleugh as a sort of
+holiday seat. He'd no intention of selling that, at any time.
+But--there's the fact!--he's sold pretty nearly everything else."
+
+"I never heard of these sales of land," remarked Mr. Lindsey.
+
+"Oh, they've all been sold by private treaty," replied Mr. Portlethorpe.
+"The Carstairs property was in parcels, here and there--the last two
+baronets before this one had bought considerably in other parts. It was
+all valuable--there was no difficulty in selling to adjacent owners."
+
+"Then, if he's been selling to that extent, Sir Gilbert must have large
+sums of money at command--unless he's bought that new estate you're
+talking of," said Mr. Lindsey.
+
+"He has not bought anything--that I know of," answered Mr. Portlethorpe.
+"And he must have a considerable--a very large--sum of money at his
+bankers'. All of which," he continued, looking keenly at Mr. Lindsey,
+"makes me absolutely amazed to hear what you've just told me. It's very
+serious, this charge you're implying against him, Lindsey! Why should he
+want to take men's lives in this fashion! A man of his position, his
+great wealth--"
+
+"Portlethorpe!" broke in Mr. Lindsey, "didn't you tell me just now that
+this man, according to his own account, has lived a most adventurous
+life, in all parts of the world? What more likely than that in the
+course of such a life he made acquaintance with queer characters,
+and--possibly--did some queer things himself? Isn't it a significant
+thing that, within a year of his coming into the title and estates,
+two highly mysterious individuals turn up here, and that all this foul
+play ensues? It's impossible, now, to doubt that Gilverthwaite and
+Phillips came into these parts because this man was already here! If
+you've read all the stuff that's been in the papers, and add to it just
+what we've told you about this last adventure with the yacht, you can't
+doubt it, either."
+
+"It's very, very strange--all of it," agreed Mr. Portlethorpe. "Have you
+no theory, Lindsey?"
+
+"I've a sort of one," answered Mr. Lindsey. "I think Gilverthwaite and
+Phillips probably were in possession of some secret about Sir Gilbert
+Carstairs, and that Crone may have somehow got an inkling of it. Now, as
+we know, Gilverthwaite died, suddenly--and it's possible that Carstairs
+killed both Phillips and Crone, as he certainly meant to kill this lad.
+And what does it all look like?"
+
+Before Mr. Portlethorpe could reply to that last question, and while he
+was shaking his head over it, one of our junior clerks brought in Mrs.
+Ralston of Craig, at the mention of whose name Mr. Lindsey immediately
+bustled forward. She was a shrewd, clever-looking woman, well under
+middle age, who had been a widow for the last four or five years, and
+was celebrated in our parts for being a very managing and interfering
+sort of body who chiefly occupied herself with works of charity and
+philanthropy and was prominent on committees and boards. And she looked
+over the two solicitors as if they were candidates for examination, and
+she the examiner.
+
+"I have been to the police, to find out what all this talk is about Sir
+Gilbert Carstairs," she began at once. "They tell me you know more than
+they do, Mr. Lindsey. Well, what have you to say? And what have you to
+say, Mr. Portlethorpe? You ought to know more than anybody. What does it
+all amount to!"
+
+Mr. Portlethorpe, whose face had become very dismal at the sight of
+Mrs. Ralston, turned, as if seeking help, to Mr. Lindsey. He was
+obviously taken aback by Mrs. Ralston's questions, and a little afraid
+of her; but Mr. Lindsey was never afraid of anybody, and he at once
+turned on his visitor.
+
+"Before we answer your questions, Mrs. Ralston," he said, "there's one
+I'll take leave to ask you. When Sir Gilbert came back at your father's
+death, did you recognize him?"
+
+Mrs. Ralston tossed her head with obvious impatience.
+
+"Now, what ridiculous nonsense, Mr. Lindsey!" she exclaimed. "How on
+earth do you suppose that I could recognize a man whom I hadn't seen
+since I was a child of seven--and certainly not for at least thirty
+years? Of course I didn't!--impossible!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+THE BANK BALANCE
+
+
+It was now Mr. Portlethorpe and I who looked at each other--with a mutual
+questioning. What was Mr. Lindsey hinting, suggesting? And Mr.
+Portlethorpe suddenly turned on him with a direct inquiry.
+
+"What is it you are after, Lindsey?" he asked. "There's something in
+your mind."
+
+"A lot," answered Mr. Lindsey. "And before I let it out, I think we'd
+better fully inform Mrs. Ralston of everything that's happened, and of
+how things stand, up to and including this moment. This is the position,
+Mrs. Ralston, and the facts"--and he went on to give his caller a brief
+but complete summary of all that he and Mr. Portlethorpe had just talked
+over. "You now see how matters are," he concluded, at the end of his
+epitome, during his delivery of which the lady had gradually grown more
+and more portentous of countenance. "Now,--what do you say?"
+
+Mrs. Ralston spoke sharply and decisively.
+
+"Precisely what I have felt inclined to say more than once of late!" she
+answered. "I'm beginning to suspect that the man who calls himself Sir
+Gilbert Carstairs is not Sir Gilbert Carstairs at all! He's an
+impostor!"
+
+In spite of my subordinate position as a privileged but inferior member
+of the conference, I could not help letting out a hasty exclamation of
+astonishment at that. I was thoroughly and genuinely astounded--such a
+notion as that had never once occurred to me. An impostor!--not the real
+man? The idea was amazing--and Mr. Portlethorpe found it amazing, too,
+and he seconded my exclamation with another, and emphasized it with an
+incredulous laugh.
+
+"My dear madam!" he said deprecatingly. "Really! That's impossible!"
+
+But Mr. Lindsey, calmer than ever, nodded his head confidently.
+
+"I'm absolutely of Mrs. Ralston's opinion," he declared. "What she
+suggests I believe to be true. An impostor!"
+
+Mr. Portlethorpe flushed and began to look very uneasy.
+
+"Really!" he repeated. "Really, Lindsey!--you forget that I examined into
+the whole thing! I saw all the papers--letters, documents--Oh, the
+suggestion is--you'll pardon me, Mrs. Ralston--ridiculous! No man could
+have been in possession of those documents unless he'd been the real
+man--the absolute Simon Pure! Why, my dear lady, he produced letters
+written by yourself, when you were a little girl--and--and all sorts of
+little private matters. It's impossible that there has been any
+imposture--a--a reflection on me!"
+
+"Cleverer men than you have been taken in, Portlethorpe," remarked Mr.
+Lindsey. "And the matters you speak of might have been stolen. But let
+Mrs. Ralston give us her reasons for suspecting this man--she has some
+strong ones, I'll be bound."
+
+Mr. Portlethorpe showed signs of irritation, but Mrs. Ralston promptly
+took up Mr. Lindsey's challenge.
+
+"Sufficiently strong to have made me very uneasy of late, at any rate,"
+she answered. She turned to Mr. Portlethorpe. "You remember," she went
+on, "that my first meeting with this man, when he came to claim the title
+and estates, was at your office in Newcastle, a few days after he first
+presented himself to you. He said then that he had not yet been down to
+Hathercleugh; but I have since found out that he had--or, rather, that he
+had been in the neighbourhood, incognito. That's a suspicious
+circumstance, Mr. Portlethorpe."
+
+"Excuse me, ma'am--I don't see it," retorted Mr. Portlethorpe. "I don't
+see it at all."
+
+"I do, then!" said Mrs. Ralston. "Suspicious, because I, his sister, and
+only living relation, was close by. Why didn't he come straight to me? He
+was here--he took a quiet look around before he let any one know who he
+was. That's one thing I have against him--whatever you say, it was very
+suspicious conduct; and he lied about it, in saying he had not been here,
+when he certainly had been here! But that's far from all. The real
+Gilbert Carstairs, Mr. Lindsey, as Mr. Portlethorpe knows, lived at
+Hathercleugh House until he was twenty-two years old. He was always at
+Hathercleugh, except when he was at Edinburgh University studying
+medicine. He knew the whole of the district thoroughly. But, as I have
+found out for myself, this man does not know the district! I have
+discovered, on visiting him--though I have not gone there much, as I
+don't like either him or his wife--that this is a strange country to him.
+He knows next to nothing--though he has done his best to learn--of its
+features, its history, its people. Is it likely that a man who had lived
+on the Border until he was two-and-twenty could forget all about it,
+simply because he was away from it for thirty years? Although I was only
+seven or eight when my brother Gilbert left home, I was then a very sharp
+child, and I remember that he knew every mile of the country round
+Hathercleugh. But--this man doesn't."
+
+Mr. Portlethorpe muttered something about it being very possible for a
+man to forget a tremendous lot in thirty years, but Mrs. Ralston and Mr.
+Lindsey shook their heads at his dissent from their opinion. As for me,
+I was thinking of the undoubted fact that the supposed Sir Gilbert
+Carstairs had been obliged in my presence to use a map in order to find
+his exact whereabouts when he was, literally, within two miles of his
+own house.
+
+"Another thing," continued Mrs. Ralston: "in my few visits to
+Hathercleugh since he came, I have found out that while he is very well
+posted up in certain details of our family history, he is unaccountably
+ignorant of others with which he ought to have been perfectly
+familiar. I found out, too, that he is exceedingly clever in avoiding
+subjects in which his ignorance might be detected. But, clever as he
+is, he has more than once given me grounds for suspicion. And I tell
+you plainly, Mr. Portlethorpe, that since he has been selling property
+to the extent you report, you ought, at this juncture, and as things
+are, to find out how money matters stand. He must have realized vast
+amounts in cash! Where is it!"
+
+"At his bankers'--in Newcastle, my dear madam!" replied Mr. Portlethorpe.
+"Where else should it be? He has not yet made the purchase he
+contemplated, so of course the necessary funds are waiting until he does.
+I cannot but think that you and Mr. Lindsey are mistaken, and that there
+will be some proper and adequate explanation of all this, and--"
+
+"Portlethorpe!" exclaimed Mr. Lindsey, "that's no good. Things have gone
+too far. Whether this man's Sir Gilbert Carstairs or an impostor, he did
+his best to murder my clerk, and we suspect him of the murder of Crone,
+and he's going to be brought to justice--that's flat! And your duty at
+present is to fall in with us to this extent--you must adopt Mrs.
+Ralston's suggestion, and ascertain how money matters stand. As Mrs.
+Ralston rightly says, by the sale of these properties a vast amount of
+ready money must have been accumulated, and at this man's disposal,
+Portlethorpe!--we must know if it's true!"
+
+"How can I tell you that?" demanded Mr. Portlethorpe, who was growing
+more and more nervous and peevish. "I've nothing to do with Sir Gilbert
+Carstairs' private banking account. I can't go and ask, point blank, of
+his bankers how much money he has in their hands!"
+
+"Then I will!" exclaimed Mr. Lindsey. "I know where he banks in
+Newcastle, and I know the manager. I shall go this very night to the
+manager's private house, and tell him exactly everything that's
+transpired--I shall tell him Mrs. Ralston's and my own suspicions, and I
+shall ask him where the money is. Do you understand that?"
+
+"The proper course to adopt!" said Mrs. Ralston. "The one thing to do. It
+must be done!"
+
+"Oh, very well--then in that case I suppose I'd better go with you," said
+Mr. Portlethorpe. "Of course, it's no use going to the bank--they'll be
+closed; but we can, as you say, go privately to the manager. And we shall
+be placed in a very unenviable position if Sir Gilbert Carstairs turns up
+with a perfectly good explanation of all this mystery."
+
+Mr. Lindsey pointed a finger at me.
+
+"He can't explain that!" he exclaimed. "He left that lad to drown! Is
+that attempted murder, or isn't it? I tell you, I'll have that man in the
+dock--never mind who he is! Hugh, pass me the railway guide."
+
+It was presently settled that Mr. Portlethorpe and Mr. Lindsey should go
+off to Newcastle by the next train to see the bank manager. Mr. Lindsey
+insisted that I should go with them--he would have no hole-and-corner
+work, he said, and I should tell my own story to the man we were going
+to see, so that he would know some of the ground of our suspicion. Mrs.
+Ralston supported that; and when Mr. Portlethorpe remarked that we were
+going too fast, and were working up all the elements of a fine scandal,
+she tartly remarked that if more care had been taken at the beginning,
+all this would not have happened.
+
+We found the bank manager at his private house, outside Newcastle, that
+evening. He knew both my companions personally, and he listened with
+great attention to all that Mr. Lindsey, as spokesman, had to tell; he
+also heard my story of the yacht affair. He was an astute, elderly man,
+evidently quick at sizing things up, and I knew by the way he turned to
+Mr. Portlethorpe and by the glance he gave him, after hearing everything,
+that his conclusions were those of Mr. Lindsey and Mrs. Ralston.
+
+"I'm afraid there's something wrong, Portlethorpe," he remarked quietly.
+"The truth is, I've had suspicions myself lately."
+
+"Good God! you don't mean it!" exclaimed Mr. Portlethorpe. "How, then?"
+
+"Since Sir Gilbert began selling property," continued the bank manager,
+"very large sums have been paid in to his credit at our bank, where,
+previous to that, he already had a very considerable balance. But at
+the present moment we hold very little--that is, comparatively
+little--money of his."
+
+"What?" said Mr. Portlethorpe. "What? You don't mean that?"
+
+"During the past three or four months," said the bank manager, "Sir
+Gilbert has regularly drawn very large cheques in favour of a Mr. John
+Paley. They have been presented to us through the Scottish-American Bank
+at Edinburgh. And," he added, with a significant look at Mr. Lindsey, "I
+think you'd better go to Edinburgh--and find out who Mr. John Paley is."
+
+Mr. Portlethorpe got up, looking very white and frightened.
+
+"How much of all that money is there left in your hands?" he
+asked, hoarsely.
+
+"Not more than a couple of thousand," answered the bank manager with
+promptitude.
+
+"Then he's paid out--in the way you state--what?" demanded Mr.
+Portlethorpe.
+
+"Quite two hundred thousand pounds! And," concluded our informant, with
+another knowing look, "now that I'm in possession of the facts you've
+just put before me, I should advise you to go and find out if Sir Gilbert
+Carstairs and John Paley are not one and the same person!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+THE HATHERCLEUGH BUTLER
+
+
+The three of us went away from the bank manager's house struggling with
+the various moods peculiar to our individual characters--Mr.
+Portlethorpe, being naturally a nervous man, given to despondency, was
+greatly upset, and manifested his emotions in sundry ejaculations of a
+dark nature; I, being young, was full of amazement at the news just given
+us and of the excitement of hunting down the man we knew as Sir Gilbert
+Carstairs. But I am not sure that Mr. Lindsey struggled much with
+anything--he was cool and phlegmatic as usual, and immediately began to
+think of practical measures.
+
+"Look here, Portlethorpe," he said, as soon as we were in the motor car
+which we had chartered from Newcastle station, "we've got to get going in
+this matter at once--straight away! We must be in Edinburgh as early as
+possible in the morning. Be guided by me--come straight back to Berwick,
+stop the night with me at my house, and we'll be on our way to Edinburgh
+by the very first train--we can get there early, by the time the banks
+are open. There's another reason why I want you to come--I've some
+documents that I wish you to see--documents that may have a very
+important bearing on this affair. There's one in my pocket-book now, and
+you'll be astonished when you hear how it came into my possession. But
+it's not one-half so astonishing as another that I've got at my house."
+
+I remembered then that we had been so busily engaged since our return
+from the North that morning that we had had no time to go into the
+matter of the letter which Mr. Gavin Smeaton had entrusted to Mr.
+Lindsey--here, again, was going to be more work of the ferreting-out
+sort. But Mr. Portlethorpe, it was clear, had no taste for mysteries,
+and no great desire to forsake his own bed, even for Mr. Lindsey's
+hospitality, and it needed insistence before he consented to go back to
+Berwick with us. Go back, however, he did; and before midnight we were
+in our own town again, and passing the deserted streets towards Mr.
+Lindsey's home, I going with the others because Mr. Lindsey insisted
+that it was now too late for me to go home, and I should be nearer the
+station if I slept at his place. And just before we got to the house,
+which was a quiet villa standing in its own grounds, a little north of
+the top end of the town, a man who was sauntering ahead of us, suddenly
+turned and came up to Mr. Lindsey, and in the light of a street lamp I
+recognized in him the Hathercleugh butler.
+
+Mr. Lindsey recognized the man, too--so also did Mr. Portlethorpe; and
+they both came to a dead halt, staring. And both rapped out the same
+inquiry, in identical words:
+
+"Some news?"
+
+I looked as eagerly at the butler as they did. He had been sour enough
+and pompous enough in his manner and attitude to me that night of my call
+on his master, and it surprised me now to see how polite and suave
+and--in a fashion--insinuating he was in his behaviour to the two
+solicitors. He was a big, fleshy, strongly-built fellow, with a rather
+flabby, deeply-lined face and a pallid complexion, rendered all the paler
+by his black overcoat and top hat; and as he stood there, rubbing his
+hands, glancing from Mr. Lindsey to Mr. Portlethorpe, and speaking in
+soft, oily, suggestive accents, I felt that I disliked him even more than
+when he had addressed me in such supercilious accents at the doors of
+Hathercleugh.
+
+"Well--er--not precisely news, gentlemen," he replied. "The fact is, I
+wanted to see you privately, Mr. Lindsey, sir--but, of course, I've no
+objections to speaking before Mr. Portlethorpe, as he's Sir Gilbert's
+solicitor. Perhaps I can come in with you, Mr. Lindsey?--the truth is,
+I've been waiting about, sir--they said you'd gone to Newcastle, and
+might be coming back by this last train. And--it's--possibly--of
+importance."
+
+"Come in," said Mr. Lindsey. He let us all into his house with his
+latch-key, and led us to his study, where he closed the door. "Now," he
+went on, turning to the butler. "What is it? You can speak freely--we are
+all three--Mr. Portlethorpe, Mr. Moneylaws, and myself--pretty well
+acquainted with all that is going on, by this time. And--I'm perhaps not
+far wrong when I suggest that you know something?"
+
+The butler, who had taken the chair which Mr. Lindsey had pointed out,
+rubbed his hands, and looked at us with an undeniable expression of
+cunning and slyness.
+
+"Well, sir!" he said in a low, suggesting tone of voice. "A man in my
+position naturally gets to know things--whether he wants to or not,
+sometimes. I have had ideas, gentlemen, for some time."
+
+"That something was wrong?" asked Mr. Portlethorpe.
+
+"Approaching to something of that nature, sir," replied the butler. "Of
+course, you will bear in mind that I am, as it were, a stranger--I have
+only been in Sir Gilbert's Carstairs' employ nine months. But--I have
+eyes. And ears. And the long and short of it is, gentlemen, I believe Sir
+Gilbert--and Lady Carstairs--have gone!"
+
+"Absolutely gone?" exclaimed Mr. Portlethorpe. "Good gracious,
+Hollins!--you don't mean that!"
+
+"I shall be much surprised if it is not found to be the case, sir,"
+answered Hollins, whose name I now heard for the first time.
+"And--incidentally, as it were--I may mention that I think it will be
+discovered that a good deal has gone with them!"
+
+"What--property?" demanded Mr. Portlethorpe. "Impossible!--they couldn't
+carry property away--going as they seem to have done--or are said to
+have done!"
+
+Hollins coughed behind one of his big, fat hands, and glanced knowingly
+at Mr. Lindsey, who was listening silently but with deep attention.
+
+"I'm not so sure about that, sir," he said. "You're aware that there were
+certain small matters at Hathercleugh of what we may term the heirloom
+nature, though whether they were heirlooms or not I can't say--the
+miniature of himself set in diamonds, given by George the Third to the
+second baronet; the necklace, also diamonds, which belonged to a Queen of
+Spain; the small picture, priceless, given to the fifth baronet by a Czar
+of Russia; and similar things, Mr. Portlethorpe. And, gentlemen, the
+family jewels!--all of which had been reset. They've got all those!"
+
+"You mean to say--of your own knowledge--they're not at Hathercleugh?"
+suddenly inquired Mr. Lindsey.
+
+"I mean to say they positively are not, sir," replied the butler. "They
+were kept in a certain safe in a small room used by Lady Carstairs as her
+boudoir. Her ladyship left very hastily and secretly yesterday, as I
+understand the police have told you, and, in her haste, she forgot to
+lock up that safe--which she had no doubt unlocked before her departure.
+That safe, sir, is empty--of those things, at any rate."
+
+"God bless my soul!" exclaimed Mr. Portlethorpe, greatly agitated. "This
+is really terrible!"
+
+"Could she carry those things--all of them--on her bicycle--by which I
+hear she left?" asked Mr. Lindsey.
+
+"Easily, sir," replied Hollins. "She had a small luggage-carrier on her
+bicycle--it would hold all those things. They were not bulky, of course."
+
+"You've no idea where she went on that bicycle?" inquired Mr. Lindsey.
+
+Hollins smiled cunningly, and drew his chair a little nearer to us.
+
+"I hadn't--when I went to Mr. Murray, at the police-station, this
+morning," he answered. "But--I've an idea, now. That's precisely why I
+came in to see you, Mr. Lindsey."
+
+He put his hand inside his overcoat and produced a pocket-book, from
+which he presently drew out a scrap of paper.
+
+"After I'd seen Mr. Murray this morning," he continued, "I went back to
+Hathercleugh, and took it upon myself to have a look round. I didn't find
+anything of a remarkably suspicious nature until this afternoon, pretty
+late, when I made the discovery about the safe in the boudoir--that all
+the articles I'd mentioned had disappeared. Then I began to examine a
+waste-paper basket in the boudoir--I'd personally seen Lady Carstairs
+tear up some letters which she received yesterday morning by the first
+post, and throw the scraps into that basket, which hadn't been emptied
+since. And I found this, gentlemen--and you can, perhaps, draw some
+conclusion from it--I've had no difficulty in drawing one myself."
+
+He laid on the table a torn scrap of paper, over which all three of us at
+once bent. There was no more on it than the terminations of lines--but
+the wording was certainly suggestive:--
+
+".... at once, quietly
+.... best time would be before lunch
+.... at Kelso
+.... usual place in Glasgow."
+
+Mr. Portlethorpe started at sight of the handwriting.
+
+"That's Sir Gilbert's!" he exclaimed. "No doubt of that. What are we to
+understand by it, Lindsey?"
+
+"What do you make of this?" asked Mr. Lindsey, turning to Hollins. "You
+say you've drawn a deduction?"
+
+"I make this out, sir," answered the butler, quietly. "Yesterday morning
+there were only four letters for Lady Carstairs. Two were from
+London--in the handwriting of ladies. One was a tradesman's letter--from
+Newcastle. The fourth was in a registered envelope--and the address was
+typewritten--and the post-mark Edinburgh. I'm convinced, Mr. Lindsey,
+that the registered one contained--that! A letter, you understand, from
+Sir Gilbert--I found other scraps of it, but so small that it's
+impossible to piece them together, though I have them here. And I
+conclude that he gave Lady Carstairs orders to cycle to Kelso--an easy
+ride for her,--and to take the train to Glasgow, where he'd meet her.
+Glasgow, sir, is a highly convenient city, I believe, for people who
+wish to disappear. And--I should suggest that Glasgow should be
+communicated with."
+
+"Have you ever known Sir Gilbert Carstairs visit Glasgow recently?" asked
+Mr. Lindsey, who had listened attentively to all this.
+
+"He was there three weeks ago," replied Hollins.
+
+"And--Edinburgh?" suggested Mr. Lindsey.
+
+"He went regularly to Edinburgh--at one time--twice a week," said the
+butler. And then, Mr. Lindsey not making any further remark, he glanced
+at him and at Mr. Portlethorpe. "Of course, gentlemen," he continued,
+"this is all between ourselves. I feel it my duty, you know."
+
+Mr. Lindsey answered that we all understood the situation, and presently
+he let the man out, after a whispered sentence or two between them in the
+hall. Then he came back to us, and without a word as to what had just
+transpired, drew the Smeaton letter from his pocket.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+ALL IN ORDER
+
+
+So that we might have it to ourselves, we had returned from Newcastle to
+Berwick in a first-class compartment, and in its privacy Mr. Lindsey had
+told Mr. Portlethorpe the whole of the Smeaton story. Mr. Portlethorpe
+had listened--so it seemed to me--with a good deal of irritation and
+impatience; he was clearly one of those people who do not like
+interference with what they regard as an established order of things, and
+it evidently irked him to have any questions raised as to the Carstairs
+affairs--which, of course, he himself had done much to settle when Sir
+Gilbert succeeded to the title. In his opinion, the whole thing was cut,
+dried, and done with, and he was still impatient and restive when Mr.
+Lindsey laid before him the letter which Mr. Gavin Smeaton had lent us,
+and invited him to look carefully at the handwriting. He made no proper
+response to that invitation; what he did was to give a peevish glance at
+the letter, and then push it aside, with an equally peevish exclamation.
+
+"What of it?" he said. "It conveys nothing to me!"
+
+"Take your time, Portlethorpe," remonstrated Mr. Lindsey, who was
+unlocking a drawer in his desk. "It'll perhaps convey something to you
+when you compare that writing with a certain signature which I shall now
+show you. This," he continued, as he produced Gilverthwaite's will, and
+laid it before his visitor, "is the will of the man whose coming to
+Berwick ushered in all these mysteries. Now, then--do you see who was one
+of the witnesses to the will? Look, man!"
+
+Mr. Portlethorpe looked--and was startled out of his peevishness.
+
+"God bless me!" he exclaimed. "Michael Carstairs!"
+
+"Just that," said Mr. Lindsey. "Now then, compare Michael Carstairs'
+handwriting with the handwriting of that letter. Come here, Hugh!--you,
+too, have a look. And--there's no need for any very close or careful
+looking, either!--no need for expert calligraphic evidence, or for the
+use of microscopes. I'll stake all I'm worth that that signature and that
+letter are the work of the same hand!"
+
+Now that I saw the Smeaton letter and the signature of the first witness
+to Gilverthwaite's will, side by side, I had no hesitation in thinking
+as Mr. Lindsey did. It was an exceptionally curious, not to say
+eccentric, handwriting--some of the letters were oddly formed, other
+letters were indicated rather than formed at all. It seemed impossible
+that two different individuals could write in that style; it was rather
+the style developed for himself by a man who scorned all conventional
+matters, and was as self-distinct in his penmanship as he probably was
+in his life and thoughts. Anyway, there was an undeniable, an
+extraordinary similarity, and even Mr. Portlethorpe had to admit that it
+was--undoubtedly--there. He threw off his impatience and irritability,
+and became interested--and grave.
+
+"That's very strange, and uncommonly important, Lindsey!" he said.
+"I--yes, I am certainly inclined to agree with you. Now, what do you
+make of it?"
+
+"If you want to know my precise idea," replied Mr. Lindsey, "it's just
+this--Michael Carstairs and Martin Smeaton are one and the same man--or,
+I should say, were! That's about it, Portlethorpe."
+
+"Then in that case--that young fellow at Dundee is Michael Carstairs'
+son?" exclaimed Mr. Portlethorpe.
+
+"And, in my opinion, that's not far off the truth," said Mr. Lindsey.
+"You've hit it!"
+
+"But--Michael Carstairs was never married!" declared Mr. Portlethorpe.
+
+Mr. Lindsey picked up Gilverthwaite's will and the Smeaton letter, and
+carefully locked them away in his drawer.
+
+"I'm not so sure about that," he remarked, drily. "Michael Carstairs was
+very evidently a queer man who did a lot of things in a peculiar fashion
+of his own, and--"
+
+"The solicitor who sent us formal proof of his death, from Havana,
+previous to Sir Alexander's death, said distinctly that Michael had never
+been married," interrupted Mr. Portlethorpe. "And surely he would know!"
+
+"And I say just as surely that from all I've heard of Michael Carstairs
+there'd be a lot of things that no solicitor would know, even if he sat
+at Michael's dying bed!" retorted Mr. Lindsey. "But we'll see. And
+talking of beds, it's time I was showing you to yours, and that we were
+all between the sheets, for it's one o'clock in the morning, and we'll
+have to be stirring again at six sharp. And I'll tell you what we'll do,
+Portlethorpe, to save time--we'll just take a mere cup of coffee and a
+mouthful of bread here, and we'll breakfast in Edinburgh--we'll be there
+by eight-thirty. So now come to your beds."
+
+He marshalled us upstairs--he and Mr. Portlethorpe had already taken
+their night-caps while they talked,--and when he had bestowed the senior
+visitor in his room, he came to me in mine, carrying an alarm clock which
+he set down at my bed-head.
+
+"Hugh, my man!" he said, "you'll have to stir yourself an hour before
+Mr. Portlethorpe and me. I've set that implement for five o'clock. Get
+yourself up when it rings, and make yourself ready and go round to
+Murray at the police-station--rouse him out of his bed. Tell him what we
+heard from that man Hollins tonight, and bid him communicate with the
+Glasgow police to look out for Sir Gilbert Carstairs. Tell him, too,
+that we're going on to Edinburgh, and why, and that, if need be, I'll
+ring him up from the Station Hotel during the morning with any news we
+have, and I'll ask for his at the same time. Insist on his getting in
+touch with Glasgow--it's there, without doubt, that Lady Carstairs went
+off, and where Sir Gilbert would meet her; let him start inquiries
+about the shipping offices and the like. And that's all--and get your
+bit of sleep."
+
+I had Murray out of his bed before half-past five that morning, and I
+laid it on him heavily about the Glasgow affair, which, as we came to
+know later, was the biggest mistake we made, and one that involved us in
+no end of sore trouble; and at a quarter-past six Mr. Lindsey and Mr.
+Portlethorpe and I were drinking our coffee and blinking at each other
+over the rims of the cups. But Mr. Lindsey was sharp enough of his wits
+even at that hour, and before we set off from Berwick he wrote out a
+telegram to Mr. Gavin Smeaton, asking him to meet us in Edinburgh during
+the day, so that Mr. Portlethorpe might make his acquaintance. This
+telegram he left with his housekeeper--to be dispatched as soon as the
+post-office was open. And then we were off, and by half-past eight were
+at breakfast in the Waverley Station; and as the last stroke of ten was
+sounding from the Edinburgh clocks we were walking into the premises of
+the Scottish-American Bank.
+
+The manager, who presently received us in his private rooms, looked at
+Mr. Lindsey and Mr. Portlethorpe with evident surprise--it may have been
+that there was mystery in their countenances. I know that I, on my part,
+felt as if a purblind man might have seen that I was clothed about with
+mystery from the crown of my head to the sole of my foot! And he appeared
+still more surprised when Mr. Lindsey, briefly, but fully, explained why
+we had called upon him.
+
+"Of course, I've read the newspapers about your strange doings at
+Berwick," he observed, when Mr. Lindsey--aided by some remarks from Mr.
+Portlethorpe--had come to the end of his explanation. "And I gather that
+you now want to know what we, here, know of Sir Gilbert Carstairs and Mr.
+John Paley. I can reply to that in a sentence--nothing that is to their
+discredit! They are two thoroughly estimable and trustworthy gentlemen,
+so far as we are aware."
+
+"Then there _is_ a Mr. John Paley?" demanded Mr. Lindsey, who was
+obviously surprised.
+
+The manager, evidently, was also surprised--by the signs of Mr.
+Lindsey's surprise.
+
+"Mr. John Paley is a stockbroker in this city," he replied. "Quite well
+known! The fact is, we--that is, I--introduced Sir Gilbert Carstairs to
+him. Perhaps," he continued, glancing from one gentleman to the other, "I
+had better tell you all the facts. They're very simple, and quite of an
+ordinary nature. Sir Gilbert Carstairs came in here, introducing himself,
+some months ago. He told me that he was intending to sell off a good deal
+of the Carstairs property, and that he wanted to reinvest his proceeds in
+the very best American securities. I gathered that he had spent a lot of
+time in America, that he preferred America to England, and, in short,
+that he had a decided intention of going back to the States, keeping
+Hathercleugh as a place to come to occasionally. He asked me if I could
+recommend him a broker here in Edinburgh who was thoroughly well
+acquainted with the very best class of American investments, and I at
+once recommended Mr. John Paley. And--that's all I know, gentlemen."
+
+"Except," remarked Mr. Lindsey, "that you know that considerable
+transactions have taken place between Mr. Paley and Sir Gilbert
+Carstairs. We know that, from what we heard last night in Newcastle."
+
+"Precisely!--then you know as much as I can tell you," replied the
+manager. "But I have no objection to saying that large sums of money,
+coming from Sir Gilbert Carstairs, have certainly been passed through Mr.
+Paley's banking account here, and I suppose Mr. Paley has made the
+investments which Sir Gilbert desired--in fact, I know he has. And--I
+should suggest you call on Mr. Paley himself."
+
+We went away upon that, and it seemed to me that Mr. Lindsey was somewhat
+taken aback. And we were no sooner clear of the bank than Mr.
+Portlethorpe, a little triumphantly, a little maliciously, turned on him.
+
+"There! what did I say?" he exclaimed. "Everything is in order, you see,
+Lindsey! I confess I'm surprised to hear about those American
+investments; but, after all, Sir Gilbert has a right to do what he likes
+with his own. I told you we were running our heads against the
+wall--personally, I don't see what use there is in seeing this Mr. Paley.
+We're only interfering with other people's business. As I say, Sir
+Gilbert can make what disposal he pleases of his own property."
+
+"And what I say, Portlethorpe," retorted Mr. Lindsey, "is that I'm going
+to be convinced that it is his own property! I'm going to see Paley
+whether you do or not--and you'll be a fool if you don't come."
+
+Mr. Portlethorpe protested--but he accompanied us. And we were very soon
+in Mr. John Paley's office--a quiet, self-possessed sort of man who
+showed no surprise at our appearance; indeed, he at once remarked that
+the bank manager had just telephoned that we were on the way, and why.
+
+"Then I'll ask you a question at once," said Mr. Lindsey. "And I'm sure
+you'll be good enough to answer it. When did you last see Sir Gilbert
+Carstairs?"
+
+Mr. Paley immediately turned to a diary which lay on his desk, and
+gave one glance at it. "Three days ago," he answered promptly.
+"Wednesday--eleven o'clock."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+THE CARSTAIRS MOTTO
+
+
+Mr. Lindsey reflected a moment after getting that precise answer, and he
+glanced at me as if trying to recollect something.
+
+"That would be the very morning after the affair of the yacht?" he
+asked of me.
+
+But before I could speak, Mr. Paley took the words out of my mouth.
+
+"Quite right." he said quietly. "I knew nothing of it at the time, of
+course, but I have read a good deal in the newspapers since. It was the
+morning after Sir Gilbert left Berwick in his yacht."
+
+"Did he mention anything about the yacht to you?" inquired Mr. Lindsey.
+
+"Not a word! I took it that he had come in to see me in the ordinary
+way," replied the stockbroker. "He wasn't here ten minutes. I had no idea
+whatever that anything had happened."
+
+"Before we go any further," said Mr. Lindsey, "may I ask you to tell us
+what he came for? You know that Mr. Portlethorpe is his solicitor?--I am
+asking the question on his behalf as well as my own."
+
+"I don't know why I shouldn't tell you," answered Mr. Paley. "He came on
+perfectly legitimate business. It was to call for some scrip which I
+held--scrip of his own, of course."
+
+"Which he took away with him?" suggested Mr. Lindsey.
+
+"Naturally!" replied the stockbroker. "That was what he came for."
+
+"Did he give you any hint as to where he was going?" asked Mr.
+Lindsey. "Did he, for instance, happen to mention that he was leaving
+home for a time?"
+
+"Not at all," answered Mr. Paley. "He spoke of nothing but the business
+that had brought him. As I said just now, he wasn't here ten minutes."
+
+It was evident to me that Mr. Lindsey was still more taken aback. What we
+had learned during the last half-hour seemed to surprise him. And Mr.
+Portlethorpe, who was sharp enough of observation, saw this, and made
+haste to step into the arena.
+
+"Mr. Lindsey," he said, "has been much upset by the apparently
+extraordinary circumstances of Sir Gilbert Carstairs' disappearance--and
+so, I may say, has Sir Gilbert's sister, Mrs. Ralston. I have pointed out
+that Sir Gilbert himself may have--probably has--a quite proper
+explanation of his movements. Wait a minute, Lindsey!" he went on, as Mr.
+Lindsey showed signs of restiveness. "It's my turn, I think." He looked
+at Mr. Paley again. "Your transactions with Sir Gilbert have been quite
+in order, all through, I suppose--and quite ordinary?"
+
+"Quite in order, and quite ordinary," answered the stockbroker readily.
+"He was sent to me by the manager of the Scottish-American Bank, who
+knows that I do a considerable business in first-class American
+securities and investments. Sir Gilbert told me that he was disposing of
+a great deal of his property in England and wished to re-invest the
+proceeds in American stock. He gave me to understand that he wished to
+spend most of his time over there in future, as neither he nor his wife
+cared about Hathercleugh, though they meant to keep it up as the family
+estate and headquarters. He placed considerable sums of money in my hands
+from time to time, and I invested them in accordance with his
+instructions, handing him the securities as each transaction was
+concluded. And--that's really all I know."
+
+Mr. Lindsey got in his word before Mr. Portlethorpe could speak again.
+
+"There are just two questions I should like to ask--to which nobody can
+take exception, I think," he said. "One is--I gather that you've invested
+all the money which Sir Gilbert placed in your hands?"
+
+"Yes--about all," replied Mr. Paley. "I have a balance--a small balance."
+
+"And the other is this," continued Mr. Lindsey: "I suppose all these
+American securities which he now has are of such a nature that they could
+be turned into cash at any time, on any market?"
+
+"That is so--certainly," assented Mr. Paley. "Yes, certainly so."
+
+"Then that's enough for me!" exclaimed Mr. Lindsey, rising and beckoning
+me to follow. "Much obliged to you, sir."
+
+Without further ceremony he stumped out into the street, with me at his
+heels, to be followed a few minutes later by Mr. Portlethorpe. And
+thereupon began a warm altercation between them which continued until all
+three of us were stowed away in a quiet corner of the smoking-room in the
+hotel at which it had been arranged Mr. Gavin Smeaton was to seek us on
+his arrival--and there it was renewed with equal vigour; at least, with
+equal vigour on Mr. Lindsey's part. As for me, I sat before the two
+disputants, my hands in my pockets, listening, as if I were judge and
+jury all in one, to what each had to urge.
+
+They were, of course, at absolutely opposite poles of thought. One man
+was approaching the matter from one standpoint; the other from one
+diametrically opposed to it. Mr. Portlethorpe was all for minimizing
+things, Mr. Lindsey all for taking the maximum attitude. Mr. Portlethorpe
+said that even if we had not come to Edinburgh on a fool's errand--which
+appeared to be his secret and private notion--we had at any rate got the
+information which Mr. Lindsey wanted, and had far better go home now and
+attend to our proper business, which, he added, was not to pry and peep
+into other folks' affairs. He was convinced that Sir Gilbert Carstairs
+was Sir Gilbert Carstairs, and that Mrs. Ralston's and Mr. Lindsey's
+suspicions were all wrong. He failed to see any connection between Sir
+Gilbert and the Berwick mysteries and murders; it was ridiculous to
+suppose it. As for the yacht incident, he admitted it looked at least
+strange; but, he added, with a half-apologetic glance at me, he would
+like to hear Sir Gilbert's version of that affair before he himself made
+up his mind about it.
+
+"If we can lay hands on him, you'll be hearing his version from the
+dock!" retorted Mr. Lindsey. "Your natural love of letting things go
+smoothly, Portlethorpe, is leading you into strange courses! Man
+alive!--take a look at the whole thing from a dispassionate attitude!
+Since the fellow got hold of the Hathercleugh property, he's sold
+everything, practically, but Hathercleugh itself; he's lost no time in
+converting the proceeds--a couple of hundred thousand pounds!--into
+foreign securities, which, says yon man Paley, are convertible into cash
+at any moment in any market! Something occurs--we don't know what,
+yet--to make him insecure in his position; without doubt, it's mixed
+up with Phillips and Gilverthwaite, and no doubt, afterwards, with
+Crone. This lad here accidentally knows something which might be
+fatal--Carstairs tries, having, as I believe, murdered Crone, to drown
+Moneylaws! And what then? It's every evident that, after leaving
+Moneylaws, he ran his yacht in somewhere on the Scottish coast, and
+turned her adrift; or, which is more likely, fell in with that
+fisher-fellow Robertson at Largo, and bribed him to tell a cock-and-bull
+tale about the whole thing--made his way to Edinburgh next morning, and
+possessed himself of the rest of his securities, after which, he clears
+out, to be joined somewhere by his wife, who, if what Hollins told us
+last night is true--and it no doubt is,--carried certain valuables off
+with her! What does it look like but that he's an impostor, who's just
+made all he can out of the property while he'd the chance, and is now
+away to enjoy his ill-gotten gains? That's what I'm saying,
+Portlethorpe--and I insist on my common-sense view of it!"
+
+"And I say it's just as common-sense to insist, as I do, that it's all
+capable of proper and reasonable explanation!" retorted Mr. Portlethorpe.
+"You're a good hand at drawing deductions, Lindsey, but you're bad in
+your premises! You start off by asking me to take something for granted,
+and I'm not fond of mental gymnastics. If you'd be strictly logical--"
+
+They went on arguing like that, one against the other, for a good hour,
+and it seemed to me that the talk they were having would have gone on for
+ever, indefinitely, if, on the stroke of noon, Mr. Gavin Smeaton had not
+walked in on us. At sight of him they stopped, and presently they were
+deep in the matter of the similarity of the handwritings, Mr. Lindsey
+having brought the letter and the will with him. Deep, at any rate, Mr.
+Lindsey and Mr. Portlethorpe were; as for Mr. Gavin Smeaton, he appeared
+to be utterly amazed at the suggestion which Mr. Lindsey threw out to
+him--that the father of whom he knew so little was, in reality, Michael
+Carstairs.
+
+"Do you know what it is you're suggesting, Lindsey?" demanded Mr.
+Portlethorpe, suddenly. "You've got the idea into your head now that this
+young man's father, whom he's always heard of as one Martin Smeaton, was
+in strict truth the late Michael Carstairs, elder son of the late Sir
+Alexander--in fact, being the wilful and headstrong man that you are,
+you're already positive of it?"
+
+"I am so!" declared Mr. Lindsey. "That's a fact, Portlethorpe."
+
+"Then what follows?" asked Mr. Portlethorpe. "If Mr. Smeaton there is the
+true and lawful son of the late Michael Carstairs, his name is not
+Smeaton at all, but Carstairs, and he's the true holder of the baronetcy,
+and, as his grandfather died intestate, the legal owner of the property!
+D'you follow that?"
+
+"I should be a fool if I didn't!" retorted Mr. Lindsey. "I've been
+thinking of it for thirty-six hours."
+
+"Well--it'll have to be proved," muttered Mr. Portlethorpe. He had been
+staring hard at Mr. Gavin Smeaton ever since he came in, and suddenly he
+let out a frank exclamation. "There's no denying you've a strong
+Carstairs look on you!" said he. "Bless and save me!--this is the
+strangest affair!"
+
+Smeaton put his hand into his pocket, and drew out a little package which
+he began to unwrap.
+
+"I wonder if this has anything to do with it," he said. "I remembered,
+thinking things over last night, that I had something which, so the
+Watsons used to tell me, was round my neck when I first came to them.
+It's a bit of gold ornament, with a motto on it. I've had it carefully
+locked away for many a long year!"
+
+He took out of his package a heart-shaped pendant, with a much-worn gold
+chain attached to it, and turned it over to show an engraved inscription
+on the reverse side.
+
+"There's the motto," he said. "You see--_Who Will, Shall_. Whose is it?"
+
+"God bless us!" exclaimed Mr. Portlethorpe. "The Carstairs motto!
+Aye!--their motto for many a hundred years! Lindsey, this is an
+extraordinary thing!--I'm inclined to think you may have some right in
+your notions. We must--"
+
+But before Mr. Portlethorpe could say what they must do, there was a
+diversion in our proceedings which took all interest in them clean away
+from me, and made me forget whatever mystery there was about Carstairs,
+Smeaton, or anybody else. A page lad came along with a telegram in his
+hand asking was there any gentleman there of the name of Moneylaws? I
+took the envelope from him in a whirl of wonder, and tore it open,
+feeling an unaccountable sense of coming trouble. And in another minute
+the room was spinning round me; but the wording of the telegram was
+clear enough:
+
+"Come home first train Maisie Dunlop been unaccountably missing since
+last evening and no trace of her. Murray."
+
+I flung the bit of paper on the table before the other three, and,
+feeling like my head was on fire, was out of the room and the hotel, and
+in the street and racing into the station, before one of them could find
+a word to put on his tongue.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+NO TRACE
+
+
+That telegram had swept all the doings of the morning clear away from me.
+Little I cared about the Carstairs affairs and all the mystery that was
+wrapping round them in comparison with the news which Murray had sent
+along in that peculiarly distressing fashion! I would cheerfully have
+given all I ever hoped to be worth if he had only added more news; but he
+had just said enough to make me feel as if I should go mad unless I could
+get home there and then. I had not seen Maisie since she and my mother
+had left Mr. Lindsey and me at Dundee--I had been so fully engaged since
+then, what with the police, and Mrs. Ralston, and Mr. Portlethorpe, and
+the hurried journeys, first to Newcastle and then to Edinburgh, that I
+had never had a minute to run down and see how things were going on.
+What, of course, drove me into an agony of apprehension was Murray's use
+of that one word "unaccountably." Why should Maisie be "unaccountably"
+missing? What had happened to take her out of her father's house?--where
+had she gone, that no trace of her could be got?--what had led to this
+utterly startling development?--what--
+
+But it was no use speculating on these things--the need was for action.
+And I had seized on the first porter I met, and was asking him for the
+next train to Berwick, when Mr. Gavin Smeaton gripped my arm.
+
+"There's a train in ten minutes, Moneylaws," said he quietly. "Come away
+to it--I'll go with you--we're all going. Mr. Lindsey thinks we'll do as
+much there as here, now."
+
+Looking round I saw the two solicitors hurrying in our direction, Mr.
+Lindsey carrying Murray's telegram in his hand. He pulled me aside as we
+all walked towards the train.
+
+"What do you make of this, Hugh?" he asked. "Can you account for any
+reason why the girl should be missing?"
+
+"I haven't an idea," said I. "But if it's anything to do with all the
+rest of this business, Mr. Lindsey, let somebody look out! I'll have no
+mercy on anybody that's interfered with her--and what else can it be? I
+wish I'd never left the town!"
+
+"Aye, well, we'll soon be back in it," he said, consolingly. "And we'll
+hope to find better news. I wish Murray had said more; it's a mistake to
+frighten folk in that way--he's said just too much and just too little."
+
+It was a fast express that we caught for Berwick, and we were not long in
+covering the distance, but it seemed like ages to me, and the rest of
+them failed to get a word out of my lips during the whole time. And my
+heart was in my mouth when, as we ran into Berwick station, I saw
+Chisholm and Andrew Dunlop on the platform waiting us. Folk that have
+had bad news are always in a state of fearing to receive worse, and I
+dreaded what they might have come to the station to tell us. And Mr.
+Lindsey saw how I was feeling, and he was on the two of them with an
+instant question.
+
+"Do you know any more about the girl than was in Murray's wire?" he
+demanded. "If so, what? The lad here's mad for news!"
+
+Chisholm shook his head, and Andrew Dunlop looked searchingly at me.
+
+"We know nothing more," he answered. "You don't know anything yourself,
+my lad?" he went on, staring at me still harder.
+
+"I, Mr. Dunlop!" I exclaimed. "What do you think, now, asking me a
+question like yon! What should I know?"
+
+"How should I know that?" said he. "You dragged your mother and my lass
+all the way to Dundee for nothing--so far as I could learn; and--"
+
+"He'd good reason," interrupted Mr. Lindsey. "He did quite right. Now
+what is this about your daughter, Mr. Dunlop? Just let's have the plain
+tale of it, and then we'll know where we are."
+
+I had already seen that Andrew Dunlop was not over well pleased with
+me--and now I saw why. He was a terrible hand at economy, saving every
+penny he could lay hands on, and as nothing particular seemed to have
+come of it, and--so far as he could see--there had been no great reason
+for it, he was sore at my sending for his daughter to Dundee, and all the
+sorer because--though I, of course, was utterly innocent of it--Maisie
+had gone off on that journey without as much as a by-your-leave to him.
+And he was not over ready or over civil to Mr. Lindsey.
+
+"Aye, well!" said he. "There's strange doings afoot, and it's not my will
+that my lass should be at all mixed up in them, Mr. Lindsey! All this
+running up and down, hither and thither, on business that doesn't
+concern--"
+
+Mr. Lindsey had the shortest of tempers on occasion, and I saw that he
+was already impatient. He suddenly turned away with a growl and
+collared Chisholm.
+
+"You're a fool, Dunlop," he exclaimed over his shoulder; "it's your
+tongue that wants to go running! Now then, sergeant!--what is all this
+about Miss Dunlop? Come on!"
+
+My future father-in-law drew off in high displeasure, but Chisholm
+hurriedly explained matters.
+
+"He's in a huffy state, Mr. Lindsey," he said, nodding at Andrew's
+retreating figure. "Until you came in, he was under the firm belief that
+you and Mr. Hugh had got the young lady away again on some of this
+mystery business--he wouldn't have it any other way. And truth to tell, I
+was wondering if you had, myself! But since you haven't, it's here--and I
+hope nothing's befallen the poor young thing, for--"
+
+"For God's sake, man, get it out!" said I. "We've had preface
+enough--come to your tale!"
+
+"I'm only explaining to you, Mr. Hugh," he answered, calmly. "And I
+understand your impatience. It's like this, d'ye see?--Andrew Dunlop
+yonder has a sister that's married to a man, a sheep-farmer, whose place
+is near Coldsmouth Hill, between Mindrum and Kirk Yetholm--"
+
+"I know!" I said. "You mean Mrs. Heselton. Well, man?"
+
+"Mrs. Heselton, of course," said he. "You're right there. And last
+night--about seven or so in the evening--a telegram came to the Dunlops
+saying Mrs. Heselton was taken very ill, and would Miss Dunlop go over?
+And away she went there and then, on her bicycle, and alone--and she
+never reached the place!"
+
+"How do you know that?" demanded Mr. Lindsey.
+
+"Because," answered Chisholm, "about nine o'clock this morning in comes
+one of the Heselton lads to Dunlop to tell him his mother had died during
+the night; and then, of course, they asked did Miss Dunlop get there in
+time, and the lad said they'd never set eyes on her. And--that's all
+there is to tell, Mr. Lindsey."
+
+I was for starting off, with, I think, the idea of instantly mounting
+my bicycle and setting out for Heselton's farm, when Mr. Lindsey
+seized my elbow.
+
+"Take your time, lad," said he. "Let's think what we're doing. Now then,
+how far is it to this place where the girl was going?"
+
+"Seventeen miles," said I, promptly.
+
+"You know it?" he asked. "And the road?"
+
+"I've been there with her--many a time, Mr. Lindsey," I answered. "I
+know every inch of the road."
+
+"Now then!" he said, "get the best motor car there is in the town, and be
+off! Make inquiries all the way along; it'll be a queer thing if you
+can't trace something--it would be broad daylight all the time she'd be
+on her journey. Make a thorough search and full inquiry--she must have
+been seen." He turned to Mr. Smeaton, who had stood near, listening. "Go
+with him!" he said. "It'll be a good turn to do him--he wants company."
+
+Mr. Smeaton and I hurried outside the station--a car or two stood in the
+yard, and we picked out the best. As we got in, Chisholm came up to us.
+
+"You'd better have a word or two with our men along the road, Mr. Hugh,"
+said he. "There's not many between here and the part you're going to, but
+you'd do no harm to give them an idea of what it is you're after, and
+tell them to keep their eyes open--and their ears, for that matter."
+
+"Aye, we'll do that, Chisholm," I answered. "And do you keep eyes and
+ears open here in Berwick! I'll give ten pounds, and cash in his hand, to
+the first man that gives me news; and you can let that be known as much
+as you like, and at once--whether Andrew Dunlop thinks it's throwing
+money away or not!"
+
+And then we were off; and maybe that he might draw me away from over much
+apprehension, Mr. Smeaton began to ask me about the road which Maisie
+would take to get to the Heseltons' farm--the road which we, of course,
+were taking ourselves. And I explained to him that it was just the
+ordinary high-road that ran between Berwick and Kelso that Maisie would
+follow, until she came to Cornhill, where she would turn south by way of
+Mindrum Mill, where--if that fact had anything to do with her
+disappearance--she would come into a wildish stretch of country at the
+northern edge of the Cheviots.
+
+"There'll be places--villages and the like--all along, I expect?" he
+asked.
+
+"It's a lonely road, Mr. Smeaton," I answered. "I know it well--what
+places there are, are more off than on it, but there's no stretch of it
+that's out of what you might term human reach. And how anybody could
+happen aught along it of a summer's evening is beyond me!--unless indeed
+we're going back to the old kidnapping times. And if you knew Maisie
+Dunlop, you'd know that she's the sort that would put up a fight if she
+was interfered with! I'm wondering if this has aught to do with all yon
+Carstairs affair? There's been such blackness about that, and such
+villainy, that I wish I'd never heard the name!"
+
+"Aye!" he answered. "I understand you. But--it's coming to an end. And in
+queer ways--queer ways, indeed!"
+
+I made no reply to him--and I was sick of the Carstairs matters; it
+seemed to me I had been eating and drinking and living and sleeping with
+murder and fraud till I was choked with the thought of them. Let me only
+find Maisie, said I to myself, and I would wash my hands of any further
+to-do with the whole vile business.
+
+But we were not to find Maisie during the long hours of that weary
+afternoon and the evening that followed it. Mr. Lindsey had bade me keep
+the car and spare no expense, and we journeyed hither and thither all
+round the district, seeking news and getting none. She had been seen just
+once, at East Ord, just outside Berwick, by a man that was working in his
+cottage garden by the roadside--no other tidings could we get. We
+searched all along the road that runs by the side of Bowmont Water,
+between Mindrum and the Yetholms, devoting ourselves particularly to that
+stretch as being the loneliest, and without result. And as the twilight
+came on, and both of us were dead weary, we turned homeward, myself
+feeling much more desperate than even I did when I was swimming for my
+very life in the North Sea.
+
+"And I'm pretty well sure of what it is, now, Mr. Smeaton!" I exclaimed
+as we gave up the search for that time. "There's been foul play! And I'll
+have all the police in Northumberland on this business, or--"
+
+"Aye!" he said, "it's a police matter, this, without doubt, Moneylaws.
+We'd best get back to Berwick, and insist on Murray setting his men
+thoroughly to work."
+
+We went first to Mr. Lindsey's when we got back, his house being on our
+way. And at sight of us he hurried out and had us in his study. There was
+a gentleman with him there--Mr. Ridley, the clergyman who had given
+evidence about Gilverthwaite at the opening of the inquest on Phillips.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+THE LINK
+
+
+I knew by one glance at Mr. Lindsey's face that he had news for us; but
+there was only one sort of news I was wanting at that moment, and I was
+just as quick to see that, whatever news he had, it was not for me. And
+as soon as I heard him say that nothing had been heard of Maisie Dunlop
+during our absence, I was for going away, meaning to start inquiries of
+my own in the town, there and then, dead-beat though I was. But before I
+could reach the door he had a hand on me.
+
+"You'll just come in, my lad, and sit you down to a hot supper that's
+waiting you and Mr. Smeaton there," he said, in that masterful way he
+had which took no denial from anybody. "You can do no more good just
+now--I've made every arrangement possible with the police, and they're
+scouring the countryside. So into that chair with you, and eat and
+drink--you'll be all the better for it. Mr. Smeaton," he went on, as he
+had us both to the supper-table and began to help us to food, "here's
+news for you--for such news as it is affects you, I'm thinking, more
+than any man that it has to do with. Mr. Ridley here has found out
+something relating to Michael Carstairs that'll change the whole course
+of events!--especially if we prove, as I've no doubt we shall, that
+Michael Carstairs was no other than your father, whom you knew as
+Martin Smeaton."
+
+Smeaton turned in his chair and looked at Mr. Ridley, who--he and Mr.
+Lindsey having taken their supper before we got in--was sitting in a
+corner by the fire, eyeing the stranger from Dundee with evident and
+curious interest.
+
+"I've heard of you, sir," said he. "You gave some evidence at the inquest
+on Phillips about Gilverthwaite's searching of your registers, I think?"
+
+"Aye; and it's a fortunate thing--and shows how one thing leads to
+another--that Gilverthwaite did go to Mr. Ridley!" explained Mr.
+Lindsey. "It set Mr. Ridley on a track, and he's been following it up,
+and--to cut matters short--he's found particulars of the marriage of
+Michael Carstairs, who was said to have died unmarried. And I wish
+Portlethorpe hadn't gone home to Newcastle before Mr. Ridley came to me
+with the news."
+
+Tired as I was, and utterly heart-sick about Maisie, I pricked up my ears
+at that. For at intervals Mr. Lindsey and I had discussed the
+probabilities of this affair, and I knew that there was a strong
+likelihood of its being found out that the mysterious Martin Smeaton was
+no other than the Michael Carstairs who had left Hathercleugh for good as
+a young man. And if it were established that he was married, and that
+Gavin Smeaton was his lawful son, why, then--but Mr. Ridley was speaking,
+and I broke off my own speculations to listen to him.
+
+"You've scarcely got me to thank for this, Mr. Smeaton," he said. "There
+was naturally a good deal of talk in the neighbourhood after that inquest
+on Phillips--people began wondering what that man Gilverthwaite wanted to
+find in the parish registers, of which, I now know, he examined a good
+many, on both sides the Tweed. And in the ordinary course of things--and
+if some one had made a definite search with a definite object--what has
+been found now could have been found at once. But I'll tell you how it
+was. Up to some thirty years ago there was an old parish church away in
+the loneliest part of the Cheviots which had served a village that
+gradually went out of existence--though it's still got a name, Walholm,
+there's but a house or two in it now; and as there was next to no
+congregation, and the church itself was becoming ruinous, the old parish
+was abolished, and merged in the neighbouring parish of Felside, whose
+rector, my friend Mr. Longfield, has the old Walholm registers in his
+possession. When he read of the Phillips inquest, and what I'd said then,
+he thought of those registers and turned them up, out of a chest where
+they'd lain for thirty years anyway; and he at once found the entry of
+the marriage of one Michael Carstairs with a Mary Smeaton, which was by
+licence, and performed by the last vicar of Walholm--it was, as a matter
+of fact, the very last marriage which ever took place in the old church.
+And I should say," concluded Mr. Ridley, "that it was what one would call
+a secret wedding--secret, at any rate, in so far as this: as it was by
+licence, and as the old church was a most lonely and isolated place, far
+away from anywhere, even then there'd be no one to know of it beyond the
+officiating clergyman and the witnesses, who could, of course, be asked
+to hold their tongues about the matter, as they probably were. But
+there's the copy of the entry in the old register."
+
+Smeaton and I looked eagerly over the slip of paper which Mr. Ridley
+handed across. And he, to whom it meant such a vast deal, asked but
+one question:
+
+"I wonder if I can find out anything about Mary Smeaton!"
+
+"Mr. Longfield has already made some quiet inquiries amongst two or three
+old people of the neighbourhood on that point," remarked Mr. Ridley. "The
+two witnesses to the marriage are both dead--years ago. But there are
+folk living in the neighbourhood who remember Mary Smeaton. The facts are
+these: she was a very handsome young woman, not a native of the district,
+who came in service to one of the farms on the Cheviots, and who, by a
+comparison of dates, left her place somewhat suddenly very soon after
+that marriage."
+
+Smeaton turned to Mr. Lindsey in the same quiet fashion.
+
+"What do you make of all this?" he asked.
+
+"Plain as a pikestaff," answered Mr. Lindsey in his most confident
+manner. "Michael Carstairs fell in love with this girl and married her,
+quietly--as Mr. Ridley says, seeing that the marriage was by licence,
+it's probable, nay, certain, that nobody but the parson and the witnesses
+ever knew anything about it. I take it that immediately after the
+marriage Michael Carstairs and his wife went off to America, and that he,
+for reasons of his own, dropped his own proper patronymic and adopted
+hers. And," he ended, slapping his knee, "I've no doubt that you're the
+child of that marriage, that your real name is Gavin Carstairs, and that
+you're the successor to the baronetcy, and--the real owner of
+Hathercleugh,--as I shall have pleasure in proving."
+
+"We shall see," said Smeaton, quietly as ever. "But--there's a good deal
+to do before we get to that, Mr. Lindsey! The present holder, or
+claimant, for example? What of him?"
+
+"I've insisted on the police setting every bit of available machinery to
+work in an effort to lay hands on him," replied Mr. Lindsey. "Murray not
+only communicated all that Hollins told us last night to the Glasgow
+police this morning, first thing, but he's sent a man over there with
+the fullest news; he's wired the London authorities, and he's asked
+for special detective help. He's got a couple of detectives from
+Newcastle--all's being done that can be done. And for you too, Hugh, my
+lad!" he added, turning suddenly to me. "Whatever the police are doing in
+the other direction, they're doing in yours. For, ugly as it may sound
+and seem, there's nothing like facing facts, and I'm afraid, I'm very
+much afraid, that this disappearance of Maisie Dunlop is all of a piece
+with the rest of the villainy that's been going on--I am indeed!"
+
+I pushed my plate away at that, and got on my feet. I had been dreading
+as much myself, all day, but I had never dared put it into words.
+
+"You mean, Mr. Lindsey, that she's somehow got into the hands
+of--what?--who?" I asked him.
+
+"Something and somebody that's at the bottom of all this!" he answered,
+shaking his head. "I'm afraid, lad, I'm afraid!"
+
+I went away from all of them then, and nobody made any attempt to stop
+me, that time--maybe they saw in my face that it was useless. I left the
+house, and went--unconsciously, I think--away through the town to my
+mother's, driving my nails into the palms of my hands, and cursing Sir
+Gilbert Carstairs--if that was the devil's name!--between my teeth. And
+from cursing him, I fell to cursing myself, that I hadn't told at once of
+my seeing him at those crossroads on the night I went the errand for
+Gilverthwaite.
+
+It had been late when Smeaton and I had got to Mr. Lindsey's, and the
+night was now fallen on the town--a black, sultry night, with great
+clouds overhead that threatened a thunderstorm. Our house was in a
+badly-lighted part of the street, and it was gloomy enough about it as I
+drew near, debating in myself what further I could do--sleep I knew I
+should not until I had news of Maisie. And in the middle of my
+speculations a man came out of the corner of a narrow lane that ran from
+the angle of our house, and touched me on the elbow. There was a shaft of
+light just there from a neighbour's window; in it I recognized the man as
+a fellow named Scott that did odd gardening jobs here and there in the
+neighbourhood.
+
+"Wisht, Mr. Hugh!" said he, drawing me into the shadows of the lane;
+"I've been waiting your coming; there's a word I have for you--between
+ourselves."
+
+"Well?" said I.
+
+"I hear you're promising ten pounds--cash on the spot--to the man that
+can give you some news of your young lady?" he went on eagerly. "Is it
+right, now?"
+
+"Can you?" I asked. "For if you can, you'll soon see that it's right."
+
+"You'd be reasonable about it?" he urged, again taking the liberty to
+grip my arm. "If I couldn't just exactly give what you'd call exact and
+definite news, you'd consider it the same thing if I made a suggestion,
+wouldn't you, now, Mr. Hugh?--a suggestion that would lead to something?"
+
+"Aye, would I!" I exclaimed. "And if you've got any suggestions, Scott,
+out with them, and don't beat about! Tell me anything that'll lead to
+discovery, and you'll see your ten pound quickly."
+
+"Well," he answered, "I have to be certain, for I'm a poor man, as you
+know, with a young family, and it would be a poor thing for me to hint at
+aught that would take the bread out of their mouths--and my own. And I
+have the chance of a fine, regular job now at Hathercleugh yonder, and I
+wouldn't like to be putting it in peril."
+
+"It's Hathercleugh you're talking of, then?" I asked him eagerly. "For
+God's sake, man, out with it! What is it you can tell me?"
+
+"Not a word to a soul of what I say, then, at any time, present or
+future, Mr. Hugh?" he urged.
+
+"Oh, man, not a word!" I cried impatiently. "I'll never let on that I had
+speech of you in the matter!"
+
+"Well, then," he whispered, getting himself still closer: "mind you, I
+can't say anything for certain--it's only a hint I'm giving you; but if I
+were in your shoes, I'd take a quiet look round yon old part of
+Hathercleugh House--I would so! It's never used, as you'll know--nobody
+ever goes near it; but, Mr. Hugh, whoever and however it is, there's
+somebody in it now!"
+
+"The old part!" I exclaimed. "The Tower part?"
+
+"Aye, surely!" he answered. "If you could get quietly to it--"
+
+I gave his arm a grip that might have told him volumes.
+
+"I'll see you privately tomorrow, Scott," I said. "And if your news is
+any good--man! there'll be your ten pound in your hand as soon as I set
+eyes on you!"
+
+And therewith I darted away from him and headlong into our house doorway.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+THE OLD TOWER
+
+
+My mother was at her knitting, in her easy-chair, in her own particular
+corner of the living-room when I rushed in, and though she started at the
+sight of me, she went on knitting as methodically as if all the world was
+regular as her own stitches.
+
+"So you've come to your own roof at last, my man!" she said, with a touch
+of the sharpness that she could put into her tongue on occasion. "There's
+them would say you'd forgotten the way to it, judging by experience--why
+did you not let me know you were not coming home last night, and you in
+the town, as I hear from other folks?"
+
+"Oh, mother!" I exclaimed. "How can you ask such questions when you know
+how things are!--it was midnight when Mr. Lindsey and I got in from
+Newcastle, and he would make me stop with him--and we were away again to
+Edinburgh first thing in the morning."
+
+"Aye, well, if Mr. Lindsey likes to spend his money flying about the
+country, he's welcome!" she retorted. "But I'll be thankful when you
+settle down to peaceful ways again. Where are you going now?" she
+demanded. "There's a warm supper for you in the oven!"
+
+"I've had my supper at Mr. Lindsey's, mother," I said, as I dragged my
+bicycle out of the back-place. "I've just got to go out, whether I will
+or no, and I don't know when I'll be in, either--do you think I can sleep
+in my bed when I don't know where Maisie is?"
+
+"You'll not do much good, Hugh, where the police have failed," she
+answered. "There's yon man Chisholm been here during the evening, and he
+tells me they haven't come across a trace of her, so far."
+
+"Chisholm's been here, then?" I exclaimed. "For no more than that?"
+
+"Aye, for no more than that," she replied. "And then this very noon
+there was that Irishwoman that kept house for Crone, asking at the
+door for you."
+
+"What, Nance Maguire!" I said. "What did she want?"
+
+"You!" retorted my mother. "Nice sort of people we have coming to our
+door in these times! Police, and murderers, and Irish--"
+
+"Did she say why she wanted me?" I interrupted her.
+
+"I gave her no chance," said my mother. "Do you think I was going to hold
+talk with a creature like that at my steps?"
+
+"I'd hold talk with the devil himself, mother, if I could get some
+news of Maisie!" I flung back at her as I made off. "You're as bad as
+Andrew Dunlop!"
+
+There was the house door between her and me before she could reply to
+that, and the next instant I had my bicycle on the road and my leg over
+the saddle, and was hesitating before I put my foot to the pedal. What
+did Nance Maguire want of me? Had she any news of Maisie? It was odd that
+she should come down--had I better not ride up the town and see her? But
+I reflected that if she had any news--which was highly improbable--she
+would give it to the police; and so anxious was I to test what Scott had
+hinted at, that I swung on to my machine without further delay or
+reflection and went off towards Hathercleugh.
+
+And as I crossed the old bridge, in the opening murmur of a coming storm,
+I had an illumination which came as suddenly as the first flash of
+lightning that followed just afterwards. It had been a matter of
+astonishment to me all day long that nobody, with the exception of the
+one man at East Ord, had noticed Maisie as she went along the road
+between Berwick and Mindrum on the previous evening--now I remembered,
+blaming myself for not having remembered it before, that there was a
+short cut, over a certain right-of-way, through the grounds of
+Hathercleugh House, which would save her a good three miles in her
+journey. She would naturally be anxious to get to her aunt as quickly as
+possible; she would think of the nearest way--she would take it. And now
+I began to understand the whole thing: Maisie had gone into the grounds
+of Hathercleugh, and--she had never left them!
+
+The realization made me sick with fear. The idea of my girl being trapped
+by such a villain as I firmly believed the man whom we knew as Sir
+Gilbert Carstairs to be was enough to shake every nerve in my body; but
+to think that she had been in his power for twenty-four hours, alone,
+defenceless, brought on me a faintness that was almost beyond sustaining.
+I felt physically and mentally ill--weak. And yet, God knows! there never
+was so much as a thought of defeat in me. What I felt was that I must get
+there, and make some effort that would bring the suspense to an end for
+both of us. I was beginning to see how things might be--passing through
+those grounds she might have chanced on something, or somebody, or Sir
+Gilbert himself, who, naturally, would not let anybody escape him that
+could tell anything of his whereabouts. But if he was at Hathercleugh,
+what of the tale which Hollins had told us the night before?--nay, that
+very morning, for it was after midnight when he sat there in Mr.
+Lindsey's parlour. And, suddenly, another idea flashed across me--Was
+that tale true, or was the man telling us a pack of lies, all for some
+end? Against that last notion there was, of course, the torn scrap of
+letter to be set; but--but supposing that was all part of a plot, meant
+to deceive us while these villains--taking Hollins to be in at the other
+man's game--got clear away in some totally different direction? If it
+was, then it had been successful, for we had taken the bait, and all
+attention was being directed on Glasgow, and none elsewhere, and--as far
+as I knew--certainly none at Hathercleugh itself, whither nobody expected
+Sir Gilbert to come back.
+
+But these were all speculations--the main thing was to get to
+Hathercleugh, acting on the hint I had just got from Scott, and to take
+a look round the old part of the big house, as far as I could. There was
+no difficulty about getting there--although I had small acquaintance with
+the house and grounds, never having been in them till the night of my
+visit to Sir Gilbert Carstairs. I knew the surroundings well enough to
+know how to get in amongst the shrubberies and coppices--I could have got
+in there unobserved in the daytime, and it was now black night. I had
+taken care to extinguish my lamp as soon as I got clear of the Border
+Bridge, and now, riding along in the darkness, I was secure from the
+observation of any possible enemy. And before I got to the actual
+boundaries of Hathercleugh, I was off the bicycle, and had hidden it in
+the undergrowth at the roadside; and instead of going into the grounds by
+the right-of-way which I was convinced Maisie must have taken, I climbed
+a fence and went forward through a spinny of young pine in the direction
+of the house. Presently I had a fine bit of chance guidance to it--as I
+parted the last of the feathery branches through which I had quietly made
+my way, and came out on the edge of the open park, a vivid flash of
+lightning showed me the great building standing on its plateau right
+before me, a quarter of a mile off, its turrets and gables vividly
+illuminated in the glare. And when that glare passed, as quickly as it
+had come, and the heavy blackness fell again, there was a gleam of light,
+coming from some window or other, and I made for that, going swiftly and
+silently over the intervening space, not without a fear that if anybody
+should chance to be on the watch another lightning flash might reveal my
+advancing figure.
+
+But there had been no more lightning by the time I reached the plateau on
+which Hathercleugh was built; then, however, came a flash that was more
+blinding than the last, followed by an immediate crash of thunder right
+overhead. In that flash I saw that I was now close to the exact spot I
+wanted--the ancient part of the house. I saw, too, that between where I
+stood and the actual walls there was no cover of shrubbery or coppice or
+spinny--there was nothing but a closely cropped lawn to cross. And in the
+darkness I crossed it, there and then, hastening forward with
+outstretched hands which presently came against the masonry. In the same
+moment came the rain in torrents. In the same moment, too, came something
+else that damped my spirits more than any rains, however fierce and
+heavy, could damp my skin--the sense of my own utter helplessness. There
+I was--having acted on impulse--at the foot of a mass of grey stone which
+had once been impregnable, and was still formidable! I neither knew how
+to get in, nor how to look in, if that had been possible; and I now saw
+that in coming at all I ought to have come accompanied by a squad of
+police with authority to search the whole place, from end to end and top
+to bottom. And I reflected, with a grim sense of the irony of it, that to
+do that would have been a fine long job for a dozen men--what, then, was
+it that I had undertaken single-handed?
+
+It was at this moment, as I clung against the wall, sheltering myself as
+well as I could from the pouring rain, that I heard through its steady
+beating an equally steady throb as of some sort of machine. It was a very
+subdued, scarcely apparent sound, but it was there--it was unmistakable.
+And suddenly--though in those days we were only just becoming familiar
+with them--I knew what it was--the engine of some sort of automobile; but
+not in action; the sound came from the boilers or condensers, or whatever
+the things were called which they used in the steam-driven cars. And it
+was near by--near at my right hand, farther along the line of the wall
+beneath which I was cowering. There was something to set all my curiosity
+aflame!--what should an automobile be doing there, at that hour--for it
+was now nearing well on to midnight--and in such close proximity to a
+half-ruinous place like that? And now, caring no more for the rain than
+if it had been a springtide shower, I slowly began to creep along the
+wall in the direction of the sound.
+
+And here you will understand the situation of things better, if I say
+that the habitable part of Hathercleugh was a long way from the old part
+to which I had come. The entire mass of building, old and new, was of
+vast extent, and the old was separated from the new by a broken and
+utterly ruinous wing, long since covered over with ivy. As for the old
+itself, there was a great square tower at one corner of it, with walls
+extending from its two angles; it was along one of these walls that I was
+now creeping. And presently--the sound of the gentle throbbing growing
+slightly louder as I made my way along--I came to the tower, and to the
+deep-set gateway in it, and I knew at once that in that gateway there was
+an automobile drawn up, all ready for being driven out and away.
+
+Feeling quietly for the corner of the gateway, I looked round,
+cautiously, lest a headlight on the car should betray my presence. But
+there was no headlight, and there was no sound beyond the steady throb of
+the steam and the ceaseless pouring of the rain behind me. And then, as I
+looked, came a third flash of lightning, and the entire scene was lighted
+up for me--the deep-set gateway with its groined and arched roof, the
+grim walls at each side, the dark massive masonry beyond it, and there,
+within the shelter, a small, brand-new car, evidently of fine and
+powerful make, which even my inexperienced eyes knew to be ready for
+departure from that place at any moment. And I saw something more during
+that flash--a half-open door in the wall to the left of the car, and the
+first steps of a winding stair.
+
+As the darkness fell again, blacker than ever, and the thunder crashed
+out above the old tower, I stole along the wall to that door, intending
+to listen if aught were stirring within, or on the stairs, or in the
+rooms above. And I had just got my fingers on the rounded pillar of the
+doorway, and the thunder was just dying to a grumble, when a hand seized
+the back of my neck as in a vice, and something hard, and round, and cold
+pressed itself insistingly into my right temple. It was all done in the
+half of a second; but I knew, just as clearly as if I could see it, that
+a man of no ordinary strength had gripped me by the neck with one hand,
+and was holding a revolver to my head with the other.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+THE BARGAIN
+
+
+It may be that when one is placed in such a predicament as that in which
+I then found myself, one's wits are suddenly sharpened, and a new sense
+is given to one. Whether that is so or not, I was as certain as if I
+actually saw him that my assailant was the butler, Hollins. And I should
+have been infinitely surprised if any other voice than his had spoken--as
+he did speak when the last grumble of the thunder died out in a sulky,
+reluctant murmur.
+
+"In at that door, and straight up the stairs, Moneylaws!" he commanded.
+"And quick, if you don't want your brains scattering. Lively, now!"
+
+He trailed the muzzle of the revolver round from my temple to the back of
+my head as he spoke, pressing it into my hair in its course in a fashion
+that was anything but reassuring. I have often thought since of how I
+expected the thing to go off at any second, and how I was--for it's a
+fact--more curious than frightened about it. But the sense of
+self-preservation was on me, self-assertive enough, and I obliged him,
+stumbling in at the door under the pressure of his strong arm and of the
+revolver, and beginning to boggle at the first steps--old and much worn
+ones, which were deeply hollowed in the middle. He shoved me forward.
+
+"Up you go," he said, "straight ahead! Put your arms up and out--in front
+of you till you feel a door--push it open."
+
+He kept one hand on the scruff of my neck--too tightly for comfort--and
+with the other pressed the revolver into the cavity just above it, and in
+this fashion we went up. And even in that predicament I must have had my
+wits about me, for I counted two-and-twenty steps. Then came the door--a
+heavy, iron-studded piece of strong oak, and it was slightly open, and as
+I pushed it wider in the darkness, a musty, close smell came from
+whatever was within.
+
+"No steps," said he, "straight on! Now then, halt--and keep halting! If
+you move one finger, Moneylaws, out fly your brains! No great loss to the
+community, my lad--but I've some use for them yet."
+
+He took his hand away from my neck, but the revolver was still pressed
+into my hair, and the pressure never relaxed. And suddenly I heard a snap
+behind me, and the place in which we stood was lighted up--feebly, but
+enough to show me a cell-like sort of room, stone-walled, of course, and
+destitute of everything in the furnishing way but a bit of a cranky old
+table and a couple of three-legged stools on either side of it. With the
+released hand he had snapped the catch of an electric pocket-lamp, and in
+its blue glare he drew the revolver away from my head, and stepping
+aside, but always covering me with his weapon, motioned me to the further
+stool. I obeyed him mechanically, and he pulled the table a little
+towards him, sat down on the other stool, and, resting his elbow on the
+table ledge, poked the revolver within a few inches of my nose.
+
+"Now, we'll talk for a few minutes, Moneylaws," he said quietly, "Storm
+or no storm, I'm bound to be away on my business, and I'd have been off
+now if it hadn't been for your cursed peeping and prying. But I don't
+want to kill you, unless I'm obliged to, so you'll just serve your own
+interests best if you answer a question or two and tell no lies. Are
+there more of you outside or about?"
+
+"Not to my knowledge!" said I.
+
+"You came alone?" he asked.
+
+"Absolutely alone," I replied.
+
+"And why?" he demanded.
+
+"To see if I could get any news of Miss Dunlop," I answered.
+
+"Why should you think to find Miss Dunlop here--in this old ruin?" he
+argued; and I could see he was genuinely curious. "Come now--straight
+talk, Moneylaws!--and it'll be all the better for you."
+
+"She's missing since last night," I replied. "It came to me that she
+likely took a short cut across these grounds, and that in doing so she
+fell in with Sir Gilbert--or with you--and was kept, lest she should let
+out what she'd seen. That's the plain truth, Mr. Hollins."
+
+He was keeping his eyes on me just as steadily as he kept the revolver,
+and I saw from the look in them that he believed me.
+
+"Aye!" he said. "I see you can draw conclusions, if it comes to it.
+But--did you keep that idea of yours strictly to yourself, now?"
+
+"Absolutely!" I repeated.
+
+"You didn't mention it to a soul?" he asked searchingly.
+
+"Not to a soul!" said I. "There isn't man, woman, or child knows
+I'm here."
+
+I thought he might have dropped the muzzle of the revolver at that, but
+he still kept it in a line with my nose and made no sign of relaxing
+his vigilance. But, as he was silent for the moment, I let out a
+question at him.
+
+"It'll do you no harm to tell me the truth, Mr. Hollins," I said. "Do you
+know anything about Miss Dunlop? Is she safe? You've maybe had a young
+lady yourself one time or another--you'll understand what I'm feeling
+about it?"
+
+He nodded solemnly at that and in quite a friendly way.
+
+"Aye!" he answered. "I understand your feelings well enough,
+Moneylaws--and I'm a man of sentiment, so I'll tell you at once that the
+lass is safe enough, and there's not as much harm come to her as you
+could put on a sixpence--so there! But--I'm not sure yet that you're safe
+yourself," he went on, still eyeing me consideringly. "I'm a soft-hearted
+man, Moneylaws--or else you wouldn't have your brains in their place at
+this present minute!"
+
+"There's a mighty lot of chance of my harming you, anyway!" said I, with
+a laugh that surprised myself. "Not so much as a penknife on me, and you
+with that thing at my head."
+
+"Aye!--but you've got a tongue in that head," said he. "And you might be
+using it! But come, now--I'm loth to harm you, and you'd best tell me a
+bit more. What's the police doing?"
+
+"What police do you mean?" I inquired.
+
+"Here, there, everywhere, anywhere!" he exclaimed. "No quibbles,
+now!--you'll have had plenty of information."
+
+"They're acting on yours," I retorted. "Searching about Glasgow for Sir
+Gilbert and Lady Carstairs--you put us on to that, Mr. Hollins."
+
+"I had to," he answered. "Aye, I put Lindsey on to it, to be sure--and he
+took it all in like it was gospel, and so did all of you! It gained time,
+do you see, Moneylaws--it had to be done."
+
+"Then--they aren't in Glasgow?" I asked.
+
+He shook his big head solemnly at that, and something like a smile came
+about the corners of his lips.
+
+"They're not in Glasgow, nor near it," he answered readily, "but where
+all the police in England--and in Scotland, too, for that matter--'ll
+find it hard to get speech with them. Out of hand, Moneylaws!--out of
+hand, d'ye see--for the police!"
+
+He gave a sort of chuckle when he said this, and it emboldened me to come
+to grips with him--as far as words went.
+
+"Then what harm can I do you, Mr. Hollins?" I asked. "You're not in any
+danger that I know of."
+
+He looked at me as if wondering whether I wasn't trying a joke on him,
+and after staring a while he shook his head.
+
+"I'm leaving this part--finally," he answered. "That's Sir Gilbert's
+brand-new car that's all ready for me down the stairs; and as I say,
+whether it's storm or no storm, I must be away. And there's just two
+things I can do, Moneylaws--I can lay you out on the floor here, with
+your brains running over your face, or I can--trust to your honour!"
+
+We looked at each other for a full minute in silence--our eyes meeting in
+the queer, bluish light of the electric pocket-lamp which he had set on
+the table before us. Between us, too, was that revolver--always pointing
+at me out of its one black eye.
+
+"If it's all the same to you, Mr. Hollins," said I at length, "I'd prefer
+you to trust to my honour. Whatever quality my brains may have, I'd
+rather they were used than misused in the way you're suggesting! If it's
+just this--that you want me to hold my tongue--"
+
+"I'll make a bargain with you," he broke in on me. "You'd be fine and
+glad to see your sweetheart, Moneylaws, and assure yourself that she's
+come to no harm, and is safe and well?"
+
+"Aye! I would that!" I exclaimed. "Give me the chance, Mr. Hollins!"
+
+"Then give me your word that whatever happens, whatever comes, you'll
+not mention to the police that you've seen me tonight, and that whenever
+you're questioned you'll know nothing about me!" he said eagerly.
+"Twelve hours' start--aye, six!--means safety to me, Moneylaws. Will
+you keep silence?"
+
+"Where's Miss Dunlop?" asked I.
+
+"You can be with her in three minutes," he answered, "if you'll give me
+your word--and you're a truthful lad, I think--that you'll both bide
+where you are till morning, and that after that you'll keep your tongue
+quiet. Will you do that?"
+
+"She's close by?" I demanded.
+
+"Over our heads," he said calmly. "And you've only to say the word--"
+
+"It's said, Mr. Hollins!" I exclaimed. "Go your ways! I'll never breathe
+a syllable of it to a soul! Neither in six, nor twelve, nor a thousand
+hours!--your secret's safe enough with me--so long as you keep your word
+about her--and just now!"
+
+He drew his free hand off the table, still watching me, and still keeping
+up the revolver, and from a drawer in the table between us pulled out a
+key and pushed it over.
+
+"There's a door behind you in yon corner," he said. "And you'll find a
+lantern at its foot--you've matches on you, no doubt. And beyond the door
+there's another stair that leads up to the turret, and you'll find her
+there--and safe--and so--go your ways, now, Moneylaws, and I'll go mine!"
+
+He dropped the revolver into a side pocket of his waterproof coat as he
+spoke, and, pointing me to the door in the corner, turned to that by
+which he had entered. And as he turned he snapped off the light of his
+electric lamp, while I myself, having fumbled for a box of matches,
+struck one and looked around me for this lantern he had mentioned. In
+its spluttering light I saw his big figure round the corner--then, just
+as I made for the lantern, the match went out and all was darkness again.
+As I felt for another match, I heard him pounding the stair--and suddenly
+there was a sort of scuffle and he cried out loudly once, and there was
+the sound of a fall, and then of lighter steps hurrying away, and then a
+heavy, rattling groan. And with my heart in my mouth and fingers
+trembling so that I could scarcely hold the match, I made shift to light
+the candle in the lantern, and went fearfully after him. There, in an
+angle of the stairway, he was lying, with the blood running in dark
+streams from a gap in his throat; while his hands, which he had
+instinctively put up to it, were feebly dropping away and relaxing on his
+broad chest. And as I put the lantern closer to him he looked up at me in
+a queer, puzzled fashion, and died before my very eyes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+THE SWAG
+
+
+I shrank back against the mouldy wall of that old stairway shivering as
+if I had been suddenly stricken with the ague. I had trembled in every
+limb before ever I heard the sound of the sudden scuffle, and from a
+variety of reasons--the relief of having Hollins's revolver withdrawn
+from my nose; the knowledge that Maisie was close by; the gradual
+wearing-down of my nerves during a whole day of heart-sickening
+suspense,--but now the trembling had deepened into utter shaking: I heard
+my own teeth chattering, and my heart going like a pump, as I stood
+there, staring at the man's face, over which a grey pallor was quickly
+spreading itself. And though I knew that he was as dead as ever a man can
+be, I called to him, and the sound of my own voice frightened me.
+
+"Mr. Hollins!" I cried. "Mr. Hollins!"
+
+And then I was frightened still more, for, as if in answer to my summons,
+but, of course, because of some muscular contraction following on death,
+the dead lips slightly parted, and they looked as if they were grinning
+at me. At that I lost what nerve I had left, and let out a cry, and
+turned to run back into the room where we had talked. But as I turned
+there were sounds at the foot of the stair, and the flash of a bull's-eye
+lamp, and I heard Chisholm's voice down in the gateway below.
+
+"Hullo, up there!" he was demanding. "Is there anybody above?"
+
+It seemed as if I was bursting my chest when I got an answer out to him.
+
+"Oh, man!" I shouted, "come up! There's me here--and there's murder!"
+
+I heard him exclaim in a dismayed and surprised fashion, and mutter some
+words to somebody that was evidently with him, and then there was heavy
+tramping below, and presently Chisholm's face appeared round the corner;
+and as he held his bull's-eye before him, its light fell full on Hollins,
+and he jumped back a step or two.
+
+"Mercy on us!" he let out. "What's all this? The man's lying dead!"
+
+"Dead enough, Chisholm!" said I, gradually getting the better of my
+fright. "And murdered, too! But who murdered him, God knows--I don't! He
+trapped me in here, not ten minutes ago, and had me at the end of a
+revolver, and we came to terms, and he left me--and he was no sooner down
+the stairs here than I heard a bit of a scuffle, and him fall and groan,
+and I ran out to find--that! And somebody was off and away--have you seen
+nobody outside there?"
+
+"You can't see an inch before your eyes--the night's that black," he
+answered, bending over the dead man. "We've only just come--round from
+the house. But whatever were you doing here, yourself?"
+
+"I came to see if I could find any trace of Miss Dunlop in this old
+part," I answered, "and he told me--just before this happened--she's in
+the tower above, and safe. And I'll go up there now, Chisholm; for if
+she's heard aught of all this--"
+
+There was another policeman with him, and they stepped past the body and
+followed me into the little room and looked round curiously. I left them
+whispering, and opened the door that Hollins had pointed out. There was a
+stair there, as he had said, set deep in the thick wall, and I went a
+long way up it before I came to another door, in which there was a key
+set in the lock. And in a moment I had it turned, and there was Maisie,
+and I had her in my arms and was flooding her with questions and holding
+the light to her face to see if she was safe, all at once.
+
+"You've come to no harm?--you're all right?--you've not been frightened
+out of your senses?--how did it all come about?" I rapped out at her.
+"Oh, Maisie, I've been seeking for you all day long, and--"
+
+And then, being utterly overwrought, I was giving out, and I suddenly
+felt a queer giddiness coming over me; and if it had not been for her, I
+should have fallen and maybe fainted, and she saw it, and got me to a
+couch from which she had started when I turned the key, and was holding a
+glass of water to my lips that she snatched up from a table, and
+encouraging me, who should have been consoling her--all within the
+minute of my setting eyes on her, and me so weak, as it seemed, that I
+could only cling on to her hand, making sure that I had really got her.
+
+"There, there, it's all right, Hugh!" she murmured, patting my arm as if
+I had been some child that had just started awake from a bad dream.
+"There's no harm come to me at all, barring the weary waiting in this
+black hole of a place!--I've had food and drink and a light, as you
+see--they promised me I should have no harm when they locked me in. But
+oh, it's seemed like it was ages since then!"
+
+"They? Who?" I demanded. "Who locked you in?"
+
+"Sir Gilbert and that butler of his--Hollins," she answered. "I took the
+short cut through the grounds here last night, and I ran upon the two of
+them at the corner of the ruins, and they stopped me, and wouldn't let me
+go, and locked me up here, promising I'd be let out later on."
+
+"Sir Gilbert!" I exclaimed. "You're sure it was Sir Gilbert?"
+
+"Of course I'm sure!" she replied. "Who else? And I made out they were
+afraid of my letting out that I'd seen them--it was Sir Gilbert himself
+said they could run no risks."
+
+"You've seen him since?" I asked. "He's been in here?"
+
+"No--not since last night," she answered. "And Hollins not since this
+morning when he brought me some food--I've not wanted for that," she went
+on, with a laugh, pointing to things that had been set on the table.
+"And he said, then, that about midnight, tonight, I'd hear the key
+turned, and after that I was free to go, but I'd have to make my way home
+on foot, for he wasn't wanting me to be in Berwick again too soon."
+
+"Aye!" I said, shaking my head. "I'm beginning to see through some of it!
+But, Maisie, you'll be a good girl, and just do what I tell you?--and
+that's to stay where you are until I fetch you down. For there's more
+dreadfulness below--where Sir Gilbert may be, Heaven knows, but Hollins
+is lying murdered on the stair; and if I didn't see him murdered, I saw
+him take his last breath!"
+
+She, too, shook a bit at that, and she gripped me tighter.
+
+"You're not by yourself, Hugh?" she asked anxiously. "You're in no
+danger?"
+
+But just then Chisholm called up the stair of the turret, asking was Miss
+Dunlop safe, and I bade Maisie speak to him.
+
+"That's good news!" said he. "But will you tell Mr. Hugh to come down to
+us?--and you'd best stop where you are yourself, Miss Dunlop--there's no
+very pleasant sight down this way. Have you no idea at all who did this?"
+he asked, as I went down to him. "You were with him?"
+
+"Man alive, I've no more idea than you have!" I exclaimed. "He was making
+off somewhere in yon car that's below--he threatened me with the loss of
+my life if I didn't agree to let him get away in peace, and he was going
+down the stairs to the car when it happened. But I'll tell you this:
+Miss Dunlop says Sir Gilbert was here last night!--and it was he and
+Hollins imprisoned her above there--frightened she'd let out on them if
+she got away."
+
+"Then the Glasgow tale was all lies?" he exclaimed. "It came from
+this man, too, that's lying dead--it's been a put-up thing, d'ye
+think, Mr. Hugh?"
+
+"It's all part of a put-up thing, Chisholm," said I. "Hadn't we better
+get the man in here, and see what's on him? And what made you come here
+yourselves?--and are there any more of you about?"
+
+"We came asking some information at the house," he answered, "and we were
+passing round here, under the wall, on our way to the road, when we heard
+that car throbbing, and then saw your bit of a light. And that's a good
+idea of yours, and we'll bring him into this place and see if there's
+aught to give us a clue. Slip down," he went on, turning to the other
+man, "and bring the headlights off the car, so that we can see what we're
+doing. Do you think this is some of Sir Gilbert's work, Mr. Hugh?" he
+whispered when we were alone. "If he was about here, and this Hollins was
+in some of his secrets--?"
+
+"Oh, don't ask me!" I exclaimed. "It seems like there was nothing but
+murder on every hand of us! And whoever did this can't be far away--only
+the night's that black, and there's so many holes and corners hereabouts
+that it would be like searching a rabbit-warren--you'll have to get help
+from the town."
+
+"Aye, to be sure!" he agreed. "But we'll take a view of things
+ourselves, first. There may be effects on him that'll suggest
+something."
+
+We carried the body into the room when the policeman came up with the
+lamps from the car, and stretched it out on the table at which Hollins
+and I had sat not so long before; though that time, indeed, now seemed to
+me to belong to some other life! And Chisholm made a hasty examination of
+what there was in the man's pockets, and there was little that had any
+significance, except that in a purse which he carried in an inner pocket
+of his waistcoat there was a considerable sum of money in notes and gold.
+
+The other policeman, who held one of the lamps over the table while
+Chisholm was making this search, waited silently until it was over, and
+then he nodded his head at the stair.
+
+"There's some boxes, or cases, down in yon car," he remarked. "All
+fastened up and labelled--it might be worth while to take a look into
+them, sergeant. What's more, there's tools lying in the car that looks
+like they'd been used to fasten them up."
+
+"We'll have them up here, then," said Chisholm. "Stop you here, Mr. Hugh,
+while we fetch them--and don't let your young lady come down while that's
+lying here. You might cover him up," he went on, with a significant nod.
+"It's an ill sight for even a man's eyes, that!"
+
+There were some old, moth-eaten hangings about the walls here and there,
+and I took one down and laid it over Hollins, wondering while I did this
+office for him what strange secret it was that he had carried away into
+death, and why that queer and puzzled expression had crossed his face in
+death's very moment. And that done, I ran up to Maisie again, bidding her
+be patient awhile, and we talked quietly a bit until Chisholm called me
+down to look at the boxes. There were four of them--stout, new-made
+wooden cases, clamped with iron at the corners, and securely screwed
+down; and when the policemen invited me to feel the weight, I was put in
+mind, in a lesser degree, of Gilverthwaite's oak-chest.
+
+"What do you think's like to be in there, now, Mr. Hugh?" asked Chisholm.
+"Do you know what I think? There's various heavy metals in the
+world--aye, and isn't gold one of the heaviest?--it'll not be lead that's
+in here! And look you at that!"
+
+He pointed to some neatly addressed labels tacked strongly to each
+lid--the writing done in firm, bold, print-like characters:
+
+_John Harrison, passenger, by S.S. Aerolite.
+Newcastle to Hamburg_.
+
+I was looking from one label to the other and finding them all alike,
+when we heard voices at the foot of the stair, and from out of them came
+Superintendent Murray's, demanding loudly who was above.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+GOLD
+
+
+There was quite a company of men came up the stair with Murray, crowding,
+all of them, into the room, with eyes full of astonishment at what they
+saw: Mr. Lindsey and Mr. Gavin Smeaton, and a policeman or two, and--what
+was of more interest to me--a couple of strangers. But looking at these
+more closely, I saw that I had seen one of them before--an elderly man,
+whom I recognized as having been present in court when Carter was brought
+up before the magistrates; a quiet, noticing sort of man whom I
+remembered as appearing to take great and intelligent interest in the
+proceedings. And he and the other man now with him seemed to take just as
+keen an interest in what Chisholm and I had to tell; but while Murray was
+full of questions to both of us, they asked none. Only--during that
+questioning--the man whom I had never seen before quietly lifted the
+hanging which I had spread over Hollins's dead body, and took a searching
+look at his face.
+
+Mr. Lindsey drew me aside and pointed at the elderly man whom I
+remembered seeing in the police court.
+
+"You see yon gentleman?" he whispered. "That's a Mr. Elphinstone,
+that was formerly steward to old Sir Alexander Carstairs. He's
+retired--a good many years, now, and lives the other side of Alnwick,
+in a place of his own. But this affair's fetched him into the light
+again--to some purpose!"
+
+"I saw him in the court when Carter was before the bench, Mr. Lindsey,"
+I remarked.
+
+"Aye!--and I wish he'd told me that day what he could have told!"
+exclaimed Mr. Lindsey under his breath. "But he's a cautious, a very
+cautious man, and he preferred to work quietly, and it wasn't until very
+late tonight that he came to Murray and sent for me--an hour, it was,
+after you'd gone home. The other man with him is a London detective. Man!
+there's nice revelations come out!--and pretty much on the lines I was
+suspecting. We'd have been up here an hour ago if it hadn't been for yon
+storm. And--but now that the storm's over, Hugh, we must get Maisie
+Dunlop out of this; come up, now, and show me where she is--that first,
+and the rest after."
+
+We left the others still grouped around the dead man and the boxes which
+had been brought up from the car, and I took Mr. Lindsey up the stairs to
+the room in the turret which had served Maisie for a prison all that
+weary time. And after a word or two with her about her sore adventures,
+Mr. Lindsey told her she must be away, and he would get Murray to send
+one of the policemen with her to see her safe home--I myself being still
+wanted down below. But at that Maisie began to show signs of distinct
+dislike and disapproval.
+
+"I'll not go a yard, Mr. Lindsey," she declared, "unless you'll give me
+your word that you'll not let Hugh out of your sight again till all this
+is settled and done with! Twice within this last few days the lad's been
+within an inch of his life, and they say the third time pays for all--and
+how do I know there mightn't be a third time in his case? And I'd rather
+stay by him, and we'll take our chances together--"
+
+"Now, now!" broke in Mr. Lindsey, patting her arm. "There's a good
+half-dozen of us with him now, and we'll take good care no harm comes to
+him or any of us; so be a good lass and get you home to Andrew--and tell
+him all about it, for the worthy man's got a bee in his bonnet that we've
+been in some way responsible for your absence, my girl. You're sure you
+never set eyes on Sir Gilbert again after he and Hollins stopped you?" he
+asked suddenly, as we went down the stair. "Nor heard his voice down
+here--or anywhere?"
+
+"I never saw him again, nor heard him," answered Maisie. "And till Hugh
+came just now, I'd never seen Hollins himself since morning and--Oh!"
+
+She had caught sight of the still figure stretched out in the lower room,
+and she shrank to me as we hurried her past it and down to the gateway
+below. Thither Murray followed us, and after a bit more questioning he
+put her in a car in which he and some of the others had come up, and sent
+one of his men off with her; but before this Maisie pulled me away into
+the darkness and gripped me tight by the arm.
+
+"You'll promise me, Hugh, before ever I go, that you'll not run yourself
+into any more dangers?" she asked earnestly. "We've been through enough
+of that, and I'm just more than satisfied with it, and it's like as if
+there was something lurking about--"
+
+She began to shiver as she looked into the black night about us--and it
+was indeed, although in summer time, as black a night as ever I saw--and
+her hand got a tighter grip on mine.
+
+"How do you know yon bad man isn't still about?" she whispered. "It was
+he killed Hollins, of course!--and if he wanted to kill you yon time in
+the yacht, he'll want again!"
+
+"It's small chance he'll get, then, now!" I said. "There's no fear of
+that, Maisie--amongst all yon lot of men above. Away you go, now, and get
+to your bed, and as sure as sure I'll be home to eat my breakfast with
+you. It's my opinion all this is at an end."
+
+"Not while yon man's alive!" she answered. "And I'd have far rather
+stayed with you--till it's daylight, anyway."
+
+However, she let me put her into the car; and when I had charged the
+policeman who went with her not to take his eyes off her until she was
+safe in Andrew Dunlop's house, they went off, and Mr. Lindsey and I
+turned up the stair again. Murray had preceded us, and under his
+superintendence Chisholm was beginning to open the screwed-up boxes. The
+rest of us stood round while this job was going on, waiting in silence.
+It was no easy or quick job, for the screws had been fastened in after a
+thoroughly workmanlike fashion, and when he got the first lid off we saw
+that the boxes themselves had been evidently specially made for this
+purpose. They were of some very strong, well-seasoned wood, and they were
+lined, first with zinc, and then with thick felt. And--as we were soon
+aware--they were filled to the brim with gold. There it lay--roll upon
+roll, all carefully packed--gold! It shone red and fiery in the light of
+our lamps, and it seemed to me that in every gleam of it I saw devils'
+eyes, full of malice, and mockery, and murder.
+
+But there was one box, lighter than the rest, in which, instead of gold,
+we found the valuable things of which Hollins had told Mr. Lindsey and
+Mr. Portlethorpe and myself when he came to us on his lying mission, only
+the previous midnight. There they all were--the presents that had been
+given to various of the Carstairs baronets by royal donors--carefully
+packed and bestowed. And at sight of them, Mr. Lindsey looked
+significantly at me, and then at Murray.
+
+"He was a wily and a clever man, this fellow that's lying behind us," he
+muttered. "He pulled our hair over our eyes to some purpose with his tale
+of Lady Carstairs and her bicycle--but I'm forgetting," he broke off, and
+drew me aside. "There's another thing come out since you left me and
+Smeaton tonight," he whispered. "The police have found out something for
+themselves--I'll give them that credit. That was all lies--lies, nothing
+but lies!--that Hollins told us,--all done to throw us off the scent. You
+remember the tale of the registered letter from Edinburgh?--the police
+found out last evening from the post folks that there never was any
+registered letter. You remember Hollins said Lady Carstairs went off on
+her bicycle? The police have found out she never went off on any
+bicycle--she wasn't there to go off. She was away early that morning; she
+took a train south from Beal station before breakfast--at least, a veiled
+woman answering her description did,--and she's safe hidden in London, or
+elsewhere, by now, my lad!"
+
+"But him--the man--Sir Gilbert, or whoever he is?" I whispered. "What of
+him, Mr. Lindsey?"
+
+"Aye, just so!" he said. "I'm gradually piecing it together, as we go on.
+It would seem to me that he made his way to Edinburgh after getting rid
+of you, as he thought and hoped--probably got there the very next
+morning, through the help of yon fisherman at Largo, Robertson, who, of
+course, told us and the police a pack of lies!--and when he'd got the
+last of these securities from Paley, he worked back here, secretly, and
+with the help of Hollins, and has no doubt kept quiet in this old tower
+until they could get away with that gold! Of course, Hollins has been in
+at all this--but now--who's killed Hollins? And where's the chief
+party--the other man?"
+
+"What?" I exclaimed. "You don't think he killed Hollins, then?"
+
+"I should be a fool if I did, my lad," he answered. "Bethink
+yourself!--when all was cut and dried for their getting off, do you
+think he'd stick a knife in his confederate's throat? No!--I can see
+their plan, and it was a good one. Hollins would have run those cases
+down to Newcastle in a couple of hours; there'd have been no suspicion
+about them, and no questions which he couldn't answer--he'd have gone
+across to Hamburg with them himself. As for the man we know as Sir
+Gilbert, you'll be hearing something presently from Mr. Elphinstone
+yonder; but my impression is, as Maisie never saw or heard of him during
+the night and day, that he got away after his wife last night--and with
+those securities on him!"
+
+"Then--who killed Hollins?" I said in sheer amazement. "Are there others
+in at all this?"
+
+"You may well ask that, lad," he responded, shaking his head. "Indeed,
+though we're nearing it, I think we're not quite at the end of the lane,
+and there'll be a queer turning or two in it, yet, before we get out. But
+here's Murray come to an end of the present business."
+
+Murray had finished his inspection of the cases and was helping Chisholm
+to replace the lids. He, Chisholm, and the detective were exchanging
+whispered remarks over this job; Mr. Elphinstone and Mr. Gavin Smeaton
+were talking together in low voices near the door. Presently Murray
+turned to us.
+
+"We can do no more here, now, Mr. Lindsey," he said, "and I'm going to
+lock this place up until daylight and leave a man in the gateway below,
+on guard. But as to the next step--you haven't the least idea in your
+head, Moneylaws, about Hollins's assailant?" he went on, turning to me.
+"You heard and saw--nothing?"
+
+"I've told you what I heard, Mr. Murray," I answered. "As to seeing
+anything, how could I? The thing happened on the stair there, and I was
+in this corner unlocking the inner door."
+
+"It's as big a mystery as all the rest of it!" he muttered. "And it's
+just convincing me there's more behind all this than we think for. And
+one thing's certain--we can't search these grounds or the neighbourhood
+until the light comes. But we can go round to the house."
+
+He marched us all out at that, and himself locked up the room, leaving
+the dead man with the chests of gold; and having stationed a constable in
+the gateway of the old tower, he led us off in a body to the habited part
+of the house. There were lights there in plenty, and a couple of
+policemen at the door, and behind them a whole troop of servants in the
+hall, half dressed, and open-mouthed with fright and curiosity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+THE DARK POOL
+
+
+As I went into that house with the rest of them, I had two sudden
+impressions. One was that here at my side, in the person of Mr. Gavin
+Smeaton, was, in all probability, its real owner, the real holder of the
+ancient title, who was coming to his lawful rights in this strange
+fashion. The other was of the contrast between my own coming at that
+moment and the visit which I had paid there, only a few evenings
+previously, when Hollins had regarded me with some disfavour and the
+usurper had been so friendly. Now Hollins was lying dead in the old ruin,
+and the other man was a fugitive--and where was he?
+
+Murray had brought us there to do something towards settling that point,
+and he began his work at once by assembling every Jack and Jill in the
+house and, with the help of the London detective, subjecting them to a
+searching examination as to the recent doings of their master and
+mistress and the butler. But Mr. Lindsey motioned Mr. Elphinstone, and
+Mr. Gavin Smeaton, and myself into a side-room and shut the door on us.
+
+"We can leave the police to do their own work," he remarked, motioning
+us to be seated at a convenient table. "My impression is that they'll
+find little out from the servants. And while that's afoot, I'd like to
+have that promised story of yours, Mr. Elphinstone--I only got an idea of
+it, you know, when you and Murray came to my house. And these two would
+like to hear it--one of them, at any rate, is more interested in this
+affair than you'd think or than he knew of himself until recently."
+
+Now that we were in a properly lighted room, I took a more careful look
+at the former steward of Hathercleugh. He was a well-preserved,
+shrewd-looking man of between sixty and seventy: quiet and observant, the
+sort of man that you could see would think a lot without saying much. He
+smiled a little as he put his hands together on the table and glanced at
+our expectant faces--it was just the smile of a man who knows what he is
+talking about.
+
+"Aye, well, Mr. Lindsey," he responded, "maybe there's not so much
+mystery in this affair as there seems to be once you've got at an idea.
+I'll tell you how I got at mine and what's come of it. Of course, you'll
+not know, for I think you didn't come to Berwick yourself until after I'd
+left the neighbourhood--but I was connected with the Hathercleugh estate
+from the time I was a lad until fifteen years ago, when I gave up the
+steward's job and went to live on a bit of property of my own, near
+Alnwick. Of course, I knew the two sons--Michael and Gilbert; and I
+remember well enough when, owing to perpetual quarrelling with their
+father, he gave them both a good lot of money and they went their
+several ways. And after that, neither ever came back that I heard of, nor
+did I ever come across either, except on one occasion--to which I'll
+refer in due course. In time, as I've just said, I retired; in time, too,
+Sir Alexander died, and I heard that, Mr. Michael being dead in the West
+Indies, Sir Gilbert had come into the title and estates. I did think,
+once or twice, of coming over to see him; but the older a man gets, the
+fonder he is of his own fireside--and I didn't come here, nor did I ever
+hear much of him; he certainly made no attempt to see me. And so we come
+to the beginning of what we'll call the present crisis. That beginning
+came with the man who turned up in Berwick this spring."
+
+"You mean Gilverthwaite?" asked Mr. Lindsey.
+
+"Aye--but I didn't know him by that name!" assented Mr. Elphinstone, with
+a sly smile. "I didn't know him by any name. What I know is this. It must
+have been about a week--certainly not more--before Gilverthwaite's death
+that he--I'm sure of his identity, because of his description--called on
+me at my house, and with a good deal of hinting and such-like told me
+that he was a private inquiry agent, and could I tell him something about
+the late Michael Carstairs?--and that, it turned out, was: Did I know if
+Michael was married before he left England, and if so, where, and to
+whom? Of course, I knew nothing about it, and as the man wouldn't give me
+the least information I packed him off pretty sharply. And the next thing
+I heard was of the murder of John Phillips. I didn't connect that with
+the visit of the mysterious man at first; but of course I read the
+account of the inquest, and Mr. Ridley's evidence, and then I began to
+see there was some strange business going on, though I couldn't even
+guess at what it could be. And I did nothing, and said nothing--there
+seemed nothing, then, that I could do or say, though I meant to come
+forward later--until I saw the affair of Crone in the newspapers, and I
+knew then that there was more in the matter than was on the surface. So,
+when I learnt that a man named Carter had been arrested on the charge of
+murdering Crone, I came to Berwick, and went to the court to hear what
+was said when Carter was put before the magistrates. I got a quiet seat
+in the court--and maybe you didn't see me."
+
+"I did!" I exclaimed. "I remember you perfectly, Mr. Elphinstone."
+
+"Aye!" he said with an amused smile. "You're the lad that's had his
+finger in the pie pretty deep--you're well out of it, my man! Well--there
+I was, and a man sitting by me that knew everybody, and before ever the
+case was called this man pointed out Sir Gilbert Carstairs coming in and
+being given a seat on the bench. And I knew that there was a fine to-do,
+and perhaps nobody but myself knowing of it, for the man pointed out to
+me was no Sir Gilbert Carstairs, nor any Carstairs at all--not he! But--I
+knew him!"
+
+"You knew him!" exclaimed Mr. Lindsey. "Man!--that's the first direct bit
+of real illumination we've had! And--who is he, then, Mr. Elphinstone?"
+
+"Take your time!" answered Mr. Elphinstone. "We'll have to go back a bit:
+you'll put the police court out of your mind a while. It's about--I
+forget rightly how long since, but it was just after I gave up the
+stewardship that I had occasion to go up to London on business of my own.
+And there, one morning, as I was sauntering down the lower end of Regent
+Street, I met Gilbert Carstairs, whom I'd never seen since he left home.
+He'd his arm in mine in a minute, and he would have me go with him to his
+rooms in Jermyn Street, close by--there was no denying him. I went, and
+found his rooms full of trunks, and cases, and the like--he and a friend
+of his, he said, were just off on a sort of hunting-exploration trip to
+some part of Central America; I don't know what they weren't going to do,
+but it was to be a big affair, and they were to come back loaded up with
+natural-history specimens and to make a pile of money out of the venture,
+too. And he was telling me all about it in his eager, excitable way when
+the other man came in, and I was introduced to him. And, gentlemen,
+that's the man I saw--under the name of Sir Gilbert Carstairs--on the
+bench at Berwick only the other day! He's changed, of course--more than I
+should have thought he would have done in fifteen years, for that's about
+the time since I saw him and Gilbert together there in Jermyn
+Street,--but I knew him as soon as I clapped eyes on him, and whatever
+doubt I had went as soon as I saw him lift his right hand to his
+moustache, for there are two fingers missing on that hand--the middle
+ones--and I remembered that fact about the man Gilbert Carstairs had
+introduced to me. I knew, I tell you, as I sat in that court, that the
+fellow there on the bench, listening, was an impostor!"
+
+We were all bending forward across the table, listening
+eagerly--and there was a question in all our thoughts, which Mr.
+Lindsey put into words.
+
+"The man's name?"
+
+"It was given to me, in Jermyn Street that morning, as Meekin--Dr.
+Meekin," answered Mr. Elphinstone. "Gilbert Carstairs, as you're aware,
+was a medical man himself--he'd qualified, anyway--and this was a friend
+of his. But that was all I gathered then--they were both up to the eyes
+in their preparations, for they were off for Southampton that night,
+and I left them to it--and, of course, never heard of them again. But
+now to come back to the police court the other day: I tell you, I
+was--purposely--in a quiet corner, and there I kept till the case was
+over; but just when everybody was getting away, the man on the bench
+caught sight of me--"
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed Mr. Lindsey, looking across at me. "Ah! that's another
+reason--that supplements the ice-ax one! Aye!--he caught sight of you,
+Mr. Elphinstone--"
+
+"And," continued Mr. Elphinstone, "I saw a queer, puzzled look come into
+his face. He looked again--looked hard. I took no notice of his look,
+though I continued to watch him, and presently he turned away and went
+out. But I knew he had recognized me as a man he had seen somewhere. Now
+remember, when Gilbert Carstairs introduced me to this man, Gilbert did
+not mention any connection of mine with Hathercleugh--he merely spoke
+of me as an old friend; so Meekin, when he came into these parts, would
+have no idea of finding me here. But I saw he was afraid--badly
+afraid--because of his recognition and doubt about me. And the next
+question was--what was I to do? I'm not the man to do things in haste,
+and I could see this was a black, deep business, with maybe two murders
+in it. I went off and got my lunch--and thought. At the end of it, rather
+than go to the police, I went to your office, Mr. Lindsey. And your
+office was locked up, and you were all away for the day. And then an idea
+struck me: I have a relative--the man outside with Murray--who's a
+high-placed officer in the Criminal Investigation Department at New
+Scotland Yard--I would go to him. So--I went straight off to London by
+the very next South express. Why? To see if he could trace anything about
+this Meekin."
+
+"Aye!" nodded Mr. Lindsey admiringly. "You were in the right of it,
+there--that was a good notion. And--you did?"
+
+"Not since the Jermyn Street affair," answered Mr. Elphinstone. "We
+traced him in the medical register all right up to that point. His name
+is Francis Meekin--he's various medical letters to it. He was in one of
+the London hospitals with Gilbert Carstairs--he shared those rooms in
+Jermyn Street with Gilbert Carstairs. We found--easily--a man who'd
+been their valet, and who remembered their setting off on the hunting
+expedition. They never came back--to Jermyn Street, anyway. Nothing was
+ever heard or seen of them in their old haunts about that quarter from
+that time. And when we'd found all that out, we came straight down,
+last evening, to the police--and that's all, Mr. Lindsey. And, of
+course, the thing is plain to me--Gilbert probably died while in this
+man's company; this man possessed himself of his letters and papers and
+so on; and in time, hearing how things were, and when the chance came,
+he presented himself to the family solicitors as Gilbert Carstairs.
+Could anything be plainer?"
+
+"Nothing!" exclaimed Mr. Lindsey. "It's a sure case--and simple when you
+see it in the light of your knowledge; a case of common personation. But
+I'm wondering what the connection between the Gilverthwaite and Phillips
+affair and this Meekin has been--if we could get at it?"
+
+"Shall I give you my theory?" suggested Mr. Elphinstone. "Of course, I've
+read all there's been in the newspapers, and Murray told me a lot last
+night before we came to you, and you mentioned Mr. Ridley's
+discovery,--well, then, I've no doubt whatever that this young gentleman
+is Michael Carstairs' son, and therefore the real owner of the title and
+estates! And I'll tell you how I explain the whole thing. Michael
+Carstairs, as I remember him--and I saw plenty of him as a lad and a
+young man--was what you'd call violently radical in his ideas. He was a
+queer, eccentric, dour chap in some ways--kindly enough in others. He'd a
+most extraordinary objection to titles, for one thing; another, he
+thought that, given a chance, every man ought to make himself. Now, my
+opinion is that when he secretly married a girl who was much below him in
+station, he went off to America, intending to put his principles in
+practice. He evidently wanted his son to owe nothing to his birth; and
+though he certainly made ample and generous provision for him, and gave
+him a fine start, he wanted him to make his own life and fortune. That
+accounts for Mr. Gavin Smeaton's bringing-up. But now as regards the
+secret. Michael Carstairs was evidently a rolling stone who came up
+against some queer characters--Gilverthwaite was one, Phillips--whoever
+he may have been--another. It's very evident, from what I've heard from
+you, that the three men were associates at one time. And it may be--it's
+probably the case--that in some moment of confidence, Michael let out his
+secret to these two, and that when he was dead they decided to make more
+inquiries into it--possibly to blackmail the man who had stepped in, and
+whom they most likely believed to be the genuine Sir Gilbert Carstairs.
+Put it this way: once they'd found the documentary evidence they wanted,
+the particulars of Michael's marriage, and so on, what had they to do but
+go to Sir Gilbert--as they thought him to be--and put it to him that, if
+he didn't square them to keep silence, they'd reveal the truth to his
+nephew, whom, it's evident, they'd already got to know of as Mr. Gavin
+Smeaton. But as regards the actual murder of Phillips--ah, that's a
+mystery that, in my opinion, is not like to be solved! The probability is
+that a meeting had been arranged with Sir Gilbert--which means, of
+course, Meekin--that night, and that Phillips was killed by him. As to
+Crone--it's my opinion that Crone's murder came out of Crone's own greed
+and foolishness; he probably caught Meekin unawares, told what he knew,
+and paid the penalty."
+
+"There's another possible theory about the Phillips murder," remarked Mr.
+Gavin Smeaton. "According to what you know, Mr. Elphinstone, this Meekin
+is a man who has travelled much abroad--so had Phillips. How do we know
+that when Meekin and Phillips met that night, Meekin wasn't recognized by
+Phillips as Meekin--and that Meekin accordingly had a double incentive to
+kill him?"
+
+"Good!" exclaimed Mr. Lindsey. "Capital theory!--and probably the right
+one. But," he continued, rising and making for the door, "all the
+theories in the world won't help us to lay hands on Meekin, and I'm going
+to see if Murray has made out anything from his search and his
+questioning."
+
+Murray had made out nothing. There was nothing whatever in the private
+rooms of the supposed Sir Gilbert Carstairs and his wife to suggest any
+clue to their whereabouts: the servants could tell nothing of their
+movements beyond what the police already knew. Sir Gilbert had never been
+seen by any of them since the morning on which he went into Berwick to
+hear the case against Carter: Lady Carstairs had not been seen since her
+departure from the house secretly, two mornings later. Not one of all the
+many servants, men or women, could tell anything of their master or
+mistress, nor of any suspicious doings on the part of Hollins during the
+past two days, except that he had been away from the house a good deal.
+Whatever share the butler had taken in these recent events, he had played
+his part skilfully.
+
+So--as it seemed--there was nothing for it but to look further away, the
+impression of the police being that Meekin had escaped in one direction
+and his wife in another, and that it had been their plan that Hollins
+should foregather with them somewhere on the Continent; and presently we
+all left Hathercleugh House to go back to Berwick. As we crossed the
+threshold, Mr. Lindsey turned to Mr. Gavin Smeaton with a shrewd smile.
+
+"The next time you step across here, sir, it'll be as Sir Gavin
+Carstairs!" he said. "And we'll hope that'll not long be delayed!"
+
+"I'm afraid there's a good deal to do before you'll be seeing that, Mr.
+Lindsey," answered the prospective owner. "We're not out of the wood yet,
+you know."
+
+We certainly were not out of the wood--so far as I was concerned, those
+last words might have been prophetic, as, a little later, I was inclined
+to think Maisie's had been before she went off in the car. The rest of
+them, Mr. Lindsey and his group, Murray and his, had driven up from
+Berwick in the first conveyances they could get at that time of night,
+and they now went off to where they had been waiting in a neighbouring
+shed. They wanted me to go with them--but I was anxious about my bicycle,
+a nearly new machine. I had stowed it away as securely as I could under
+some thick undergrowth on the edge of the woods, but the downpour of rain
+had been so heavy that I knew it must have soaked through the foliage,
+and that I should have a nice lot of rust to face, let alone a saturated
+saddle. So I went away across the park to where I had left it, and the
+others drove off to Berwick--and so both Mr. Lindsey and myself broke our
+solemn words to Maisie. For now I was alone--and I certainly did not
+anticipate more danger.
+
+But not only danger, but the very threatening of death was on me as I
+went my way. We had stayed some time in Hathercleugh House, and the dawn
+had broken before we left. The morning came clear and bright after the
+storm, and the newly-risen sun--it was just four o'clock, and he was
+nicely above the horizon--was transforming the clustering raindrops on
+the firs and pines into glistening diamonds as I plunged into the thick
+of the woods. I had no other thought at that moment but of getting home
+and changing my clothes before going to Andrew Dunlop's to tell the
+news--when, as I crossed a narrow cut in the undergrowth, I saw, some
+distance away, a man's head slowly look out from the trees. I drew back
+on the instant, watching. Fortunately--or unfortunately--he was not
+looking in my direction, and did not catch even a momentary glance of me,
+and when he twisted his neck in my direction I saw that he was the man
+we had been talking of, and whom I now knew to be Dr. Meekin. And it
+flashed on me at once that he was hanging about for Hollins--all
+unconscious that Hollins was lying dead there in the old tower.
+
+So--it was not he who had driven that murderous knife into
+Hollins's throat!
+
+I watched him--myself securely hidden. He came out of his shelter,
+crossed the cut, went through the belt of wood which I had just passed,
+and looked out across the park to the house--all this I saw by cautiously
+edging through the trees and bushes behind me. He was a good forty yards
+away from me at that time, but I could see the strained, anxious
+expression on his face. Things had gone wrong--Hollins and the car had
+not met him where he had expected them--and he was trying to find out
+what had happened. And once he made a movement as if he would skirt the
+coppices and make for the tower, which lay right opposite, but with an
+open space between it and us--and then he as suddenly drew back, and
+began to go away among the trees.
+
+I followed him, cautiously. I had always been a bit proud of what I
+called my woodcraft, having played much at Red Indians as a youngster,
+and I took care to walk lightly as I stalked him from one brake to
+another. He went on and on--a long way, right away from Hathercleugh, and
+in the direction of where Till meets Tweed. And at last he was out of the
+Hathercleugh grounds, and close to the Till, and in the end he took to a
+thin belt of trees that ran down the side of the Till, close by the place
+where Crone's body had been found, and almost opposite the very spot, on
+the other bank, where I had come across Phillips lying dead; and suddenly
+I saw what he was after. There, right ahead, was an old boat, tied up to
+the bank--he was making for it, intending doubtless to put himself across
+the two rivers, to get the north bank of the Tweed, and so to make for
+safety in other quarters.
+
+It was there that things went wrong. I was following cautiously, from
+tree to tree, close to the river-bank, when my foot caught in a trail of
+ground bramble, and I went headlong into the brushwood. Before I was well
+on my feet, he had turned and was running back at me, his face white with
+rage and alarm, and a revolver in his hand. And when he saw who it was,
+he had the revolver at the full length of his arm, covering me.
+
+"Go back!" he said, stopping and steadying himself.
+
+"No!" said I.
+
+"If you come a yard further, Moneylaws, I'll shoot you dead!" he
+declared. "I mean it! Go back!"
+
+"I'm not coming a foot nearer," I retorted, keeping where I was. "But I'm
+not going back. And whenever you move forward, I'm following. I'm not
+losing sight of you again, Mr. Meekin!"
+
+He fairly started at that--and then he began looking on all sides of me,
+as if to find out if I was accompanied. And all of a sudden he plumped
+me with a question.
+
+"Where is Hollins?" he asked. "I'll be bound you know!"
+
+"Dead!" I answered him. "Dead, Mr. Meekin! As dead as Phillips, or as
+Abel Crone. And the police are after you--all round--and you'd better
+fling that thing into the Till there and come with me. You'll not get
+away from me as easily now as you did yon time in your yacht."
+
+It was then that he fired at me--from some twelve or fifteen yards'
+distance. And whether he meant to kill me, or only to cripple me, I don't
+know; but the bullet went through my left knee, at the lower edge of the
+knee-cap, and the next thing I knew I was sprawling on all-fours on the
+earth, and the next--and it was in the succeeding second, before even I
+felt a smart--I was staring up from that position to see the vengeance
+that fell on my would-be murderer in the very instant of his attempt on
+me. For as he fired and I fell, a woman sprang out of the bushes at his
+side, and a knife flashed, and then he too fell with a cry that was
+something between a groan and a scream--and I saw that his assailant was
+the Irishwoman Nance Maguire, and I knew at once who it was that had
+killed Hollins.
+
+But she had not killed Meekin. He rose like a badly wounded thing--half
+rose, that is, as I have seen crippled animals rise, and he cried like a
+beast in a trap, fighting with his hands. And the woman struck again
+with the knife--and again he sank back, and again he rose, and ... I
+shut my eyes, sick with horror, as she drove the knife into him for the
+third time.
+
+But that was nothing to the horror to come. When I looked again, he was
+still writhing and crying, and fighting blindly for his life, and I cried
+out on her to leave him alone, for I saw that in a few minutes he would
+be dead. I even made an effort to crawl to them, that I might drag her
+away from him, but my knee gave at the movement and I fell back
+half-fainting. And taking no more notice of me than if I had been one of
+the stocks and stones close by, she suddenly gripped him, writhing as he
+was, by the throat, and drawing him over the bank as easily as if he had
+been a child in her grasp, she plunged knee-deep into the Till and held
+him down under the water until he was drowned.
+
+There was a most extraordinary horror came over me as I lay there,
+powerless to move, propped up on my elbow, watching. The purposeful
+deliberation with which the woman finished her work; the dead silence
+about us, broken only by an occasional faint lapping of the river against
+its bank; the knowledge that this was a deed of revenge--all these things
+produced a mental state in me which was as near to the awful as ever I
+approached it. I could only lie and watch--fascinated. But it was over at
+last, and she let the body go, and stood watching for a moment as it
+floated into a dark pool beneath the alders; and then, shaking herself
+like a dog, she came up the bank and looked at me, in silence.
+
+"That was--in revenge for Crone," I managed to get out.
+
+"It was them killed Crone," she answered in a queer dry voice. "Let the
+pollis find this one where they found Crone! You're not greatly hurt
+yourself--and there's somebody at hand."
+
+Then she suddenly turned and vanished amongst the trees, and, twisting
+myself round in the direction to which she had pointed, I saw a
+gamekeeper coming along. His gun was thrown carelessly in the crook of
+his arm, and he was whistling, gaily and unconcernedly.
+
+I have a perpetual memento of that morning in my somewhat crippled knee.
+And once, two years ago, when I was on business in a certain English
+town, and in a quarter of it into which few but its own denizens
+penetrate, I met for one moment, at a slum corner, a great raw-boned
+Irishwoman who noticed my bit of a limp, and turned her eyes for an
+instant to give me a sharp look that won as sharp an answer. And there
+may have been mutual understanding and sympathy in the glance we thus
+exchanged--certainly, when it had passed between us, we continued on our
+separate ways, silent.
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Dead Men's Money, by J. S. Fletcher
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+An alternative method of locating eBooks:
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL
+
+
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