“If you’re ever hard up, Fairmile, you’ll do a lot of things you wouldn’t think of in your present state. I reckoned it out this way. The Talisman is the big Dangerfield asset. So long as they have it, they’re all right. Their credit’s good. But money’s more use to them than jewels just now. I have ways of finding out things like that, and I banked on it. My offer would have been a better spec. for them than the Talisman itself, from the credit point of view. I offered far more than the thing’s worth in the open market—twenty-five per cent. more. But it seems this family pride comes in. They won’t part with the thing. I was struck by that. I haven’t met that so strong before.”
“Perhaps your information’s wrong about their finances. One would need to be in the last ditch before one would think of selling a thing like the Talisman. And I doubt if the Dangerfields are anywhere near the last ditch.”
“That’s where you’re mistaken, Westenhanger. That’s what made me so sure I was going to get the thing. They’re right in that ditch now.”
Chapter XIII
Conway Westenhanger had never pretended, even to himself, that he had a natural gift for detective work. He had quite frankly recognised that only good luck could bring him to success in his search for the taker of the Talisman; and a retrospect over the events of the week served merely to confirm the idea. None the less, the history of the case caused him to feel a touch of chagrin. While he had been following out erroneous inductions, the two Dangerfields had gone straight to the mark; and if he had actually beaten them by a short head in the end, it was by good luck and nothing else. In fact, he had profited by their manœuvres in the matter of the Talisman’s return. Without that incident, he would have been unable to discover anything at all.
Now, so far as he was concerned, the episode seemed to have reached its end, but when he thought over the whole affair, one point still remained a mystery to him. Why had old Rollo shown that touch of dismay at a reference to the Dangerfield Secret? The thing had been only momentary, but it had been unmistakable, and Westenhanger had seen it twice over within a very short period. The first time, he recalled, was when he had hinted to Rollo that he had stumbled on the Secret; the second occasion was when he had shown signs of asking questions which, possibly, might touch the same subject.
“Is this Secret of theirs merely the use of the replica as a stalking-horse, to mask the real Talisman?” Westenhanger asked himself.
But a moment’s reflection showed him that this explanation would not cover the facts.
“No, it isn’t that. Old Rollo knew I’d tumbled to their use of the replica. That was what startled him the first time. But it was some time after that, when I began asking questions to clear the affair up, that he got really worried. He couldn’t have been troubled about his stalking-horse then, because obviously I knew all about it already. But he was quite evidently afraid I was getting near something. Ergo, the replica affair isn’t the real Dangerfield Secret at all. There’s something further, behind all this. And it must be something pretty big, too; for Rollo Dangerfield isn’t a person one could easily jar off the rails.”
Westenhanger hated to be puzzled. A problem worried him, until he could get at its solution. And this affair at Friocksheim had given him more anxiety than he had expected, when he had first gone light-heartedly to Freddie Stickney’s inquiry. Then, he had been in a completely detached position, the one person who could not come under suspicion. But the outcome of Freddie’s operations had been to drag Westenhanger into the business on behalf of Eileen Cressage; and from that he had gone further in his attempt to clear up the whole affair and fix the blame on the right shoulders. And now, something seemed to lead him another step on the road; a fresh mystery confronted him, obscure and tantalising by its very vagueness.