I said to myself that this came of mixing in other folks’ business and I took an oath never to do it again—I didn’t know I was only at the beginning of things.
Murchison was the agent I determined to employ to finish up the affair. Murchison is less a detective than an inquiry agent, his game is to find out facts relative to people, he lives in Old Serjeants’ Inn, and knowing him to be secrecy itself and not caring to employ my lawyer, I determined to go to him next day and place the matter in his hands, telling him to do what he could with the business, but to keep my name out of it. He need mention nothing about the finding of the message, but he could give it as coming from some unknown source—the message was the main thing, anyhow.
I called at his office next morning. Murchison is a thin old chap, dry as a stick. I told him the whole story and it made no more impression on him than if I’d been telling it to a pump. He made a note or two, and when I had finished, he told me in effect that he wasn’t a District Messenger, but an inquiry agent, and that I had better take the thing to my lawyer. He seemed put out; I had evidently raised his tracking instincts by my story and ended simply by asking him to take a message.
I apologised, told him the truth, that my lawyer was an old-fashioned family solicitor, gone in years, touchy as Lucifer, the last man in London to set hinting of possible fortunes to beggars in slums. “If you won’t do it yourself,” I finished, “tell me of a man who will.”
“I can tell you of plenty,” he replied, “but if you take my advice you will let me make an inquiry into the business before you move further in the matter; there’s more in it than meets the eye and you may be doing injury to other parties by stirring up the mud, for this man you tell me of seems mud.”
“A jolly good name for him,” said I. “Well, go ahead and make your inquiries; it’s only a few pounds more thrown after the rest, and it will be interesting to hear the result.” Then I left him.
A month later I got a letter asking me to call upon him, and I went.
When I took my seat he sent the clerk for the Abbott documents, and the clerk brought a sheaf of all sorts of papers, laid them on the table and went out. Murchison put on his glasses, took a glance through the papers and started his yarn.
Beautifully concise it was, and I’ll give you it almost in his own words.
V